10AM Hour: U.S.-Canada Trade War, Webull U.S. CEO & Paramount-Warner Brothers Latest 8/24/26

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Did you know that Neuro-Symbolic AI can help your business find new ways to make money? EY Parthenon is the only one offering this groundbreaking growth platform. Neuro-Symbolic AI analyzes hundreds of millions of data points to reveal new growth strategies. EY Parthenon teams deploy this innovation so you can uncover hidden value and scale beyond existing boundaries. Want to know what Neuro-Symbolic AI can do for your business? Contact EY Parthenon today. Solutions that work in practice, not just on paper.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:30)
Courage. I learned it from my adoptive mom. Hold my hand.

**Brandon Gomez** (0:33)
You hold my hand.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:36)
Learn about adopting a team from foster care at adoptuskids.org. You can't imagine the reward. Brought to you by AdoptUSkids, the US. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council.

**David Faber** (0:51)
Good Monday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm David Faber with Leslie Picker and Mike Santoli. We are live from Post 9 at the New York Stock Exchange. Carl and Sara both have the day off. Coming up this hour, we're going to talk with Ed Yardeni, the man who coined the phrase bond vigilantes as yields this morning move a bit lower. We have a CNBC report about how the Treasury Department could fund its bond buyback program. Plus NVIDIA reportedly looking to hike prices for some of its largest customers. This is the company gets ready for earnings a bit later in the week. We're going to talk about what that could mean for some of the big players in AI.
And President Trump slamming Canada over trade while Treasury Secretary Besant threatens Iran with quote, the single greatest financial offensive ever. We'll discuss all of that with Atlantic Council's Fred Kempe.

**Leslie Picker** (1:42)
It's a big show, but let's begin with the action in the bond market and that CNBC headline that is moving yields this morning. Steve Leesman broke this story, joins us now with the details. Hey, Steve.

**Steve Leesman** (1:54)
Hey, Lesley. CNBC has learned that the Treasury could use this near $1 trillion general account to help fund its recently announced plans to increase purchases of government bonds. That's according to senior Treasury officials we've talked to. Using the Treasury general account, the TGA, essentially its rainy day fund, would provide the Treasury with considerable firepower to influence long-term bond yields. The 30-year falling by about 4.5 basis points at this time. In the wake of our report this morning, the 10-year yield down about 3.5 basis points here. Market participants assume the Treasury would sell short-term bills to buy the long-term debt. That could still be the case. But the TGA provides funds that won't pressure the short end either, at least initially. Besant has built up the TGA to around $950 billion, compared to around $550 to $600 billion under the Biden administration. Treasury officials also counter-criticized that the surprise announcement last week was a departure from the practice of being regular and predictable with bond auctions. They said, no change had actually been made to the regular auction schedule, and markets have been given three weeks until the first enhanced buyback operation on September 9th. Plenty of time to prepare. One downside of using the TGA, there would be somewhat less cash in the event of a new debt-sealing battle, but that won't be a potential problem until sometime in the first half of next year. Meanwhile, a small amount of TGA or even just the threat they may use it could end up going a long way, Leslie.
Yeah.

**Leslie Picker** (3:17)
We're already seeing the impact of your reporting this morning on the potential to use it. How did he kind of build that program up in such a short period of time? Where did that money come from?

**Steve Leesman** (3:30)
Well, that's just tax money. I mean, he takes a little bit of tax money, puts it over into the TGA. The TGA is essentially a bank account held at the Federal Reserve, and he's taken time. I think we have a chart showing the movement of the TGA over the last couple years, guys. That should be... I think we used it just a minute ago. If you could show that, you can see it builds up, and you take a few bucks every week or every month or every day and put it over to the TGA. It's just an idea of sort of prudent financial management that Scott Besson has brought to the Treasury, having it a little bit bigger, having a little bit bigger war chest in case of a debt ceiling problem, and that's what he's done. This is something that he could use 20, 50, 100, 200 billion, and that'd be down to 800 or 750, and that's not the end of the world. It's entirely discretionary what level the Treasury wants to run it at.