Biden Drops Out Of 2024 Race, Stocks Seek Bounce, IT Outage Fallout 7/22/24

Jim Cramer (0:00)

It's Jim Cramer here. You're listening to the opening bell of CNBC's Squawk on the Street. Don't miss a minute of the action.

Carl Quintanilla (0:07)

Good Monday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with Jim Cramer here at Post Night of the New York Stock Exchange. David Faber has the morning off. Pre-market is taking in stride. The president passing on the Democratic nomination. It's an important week as well with a third of the S&P reporting earnings. We'll get our first look at Q2 GDP, as Becky said, PCE on Friday. Our roadmap begins with this political history. The president withdrawing from the race, throwing his support behind the vice president, Kamala Harris. Futures are ticking higher. S&P is eyeing some gains after the worst week since April.

And the ongoing fallout from last week's global IT outage. CrowdStrike shares are set to extend their decline.

Delta among the airlines being hard hit again yesterday.

Let's begin, though, with the president announcing he is ending his reelection bid and endorsing the vice president to lead the Democratic ticket. Although we'll see what we get in a few weeks here, Jim.

Jim Cramer (1:00)

These are very different people.

Biden has been and remains unsophisticated about the way business works. Unsophisticated about the stock market by nature.

Picks people who have been historically bad for Wall Street. Lena Kahn, John F. Kanner, anti-trust. That is entirely. You've got a person who's from California. I'm regarding this actually as mega versus mega. Megatech does better with someone who's sophisticated, who understands California, who is not against tech. Biden has done everything in these agencies that he can to annoy, to go after tech. Let's not forget her brother-in-law is Tony West, who is a former general counsel of PepsiCo, then was with the Justice Department, is now the general counsel of Uber. And you tell me if there's someone who's more sophisticated and knows more about business and the West Coast than her brother-in-law, who would be an amazing advisor, they're close. And I just keep thinking this is going to be a globalist versus nativist, not nationalist, nativist, populist in terms of the Republican Party versus pro-business versus the Democrat, international business. These are very big differences, and I have followed her career and followed Biden's career. And if anybody, Biden didn't hurt the stock market at all.

It is pretty amazing how well the Biden administration is done. But this whole idea that she's a clone of his is completely wrong. She was much more moderate than he was.

Carl Quintanilla (2:38)

So you think it's a net positive for the markets? Absolutely. And for American business?

Jim Cramer (2:45)

There's no doubt about it. She's moved to the center.

A person who, if she comes out hard on crime, I mean, I'm sure that there are problems to try to say she's soft on crime when she was the district attorney for San Francisco. And I come back and say, look, she can come out hard on crime. There was nothing in her record that indicates that she was soft on crime. Nothing.

Carl Quintanilla (3:01)

Well, people are pouring through her record as AG, where she did probe ExxonMobil and she did look at pipelines.

Jim Cramer (3:08)

Well, look, I think that there's an environmental component to what she's done all her life.

Carl Quintanilla (3:14)

Yep.

Jim Cramer (3:16)

But I think that the Republicans are uniquely bad for oil because in 2016, they were so positive on drilling that our American oil companies lost discipline and they lowered the price of oil by their output. What matters is whether you can have enough pipeline out of the Permian. And that's different. I thought that when the tillering got a bid today.

Carl Quintanilla (3:35)

Yes.

Jim Cramer (3:36)

And that is one of these companies that is banking on the, that Biden's 2028 pause goes away. What's that?

Carl Quintanilla (3:45)

On LNG.

Jim Cramer (3:46)

Yeah. So, I mean, look, I think that everybody, I urge people to study her work and urge her to, urge people to look at her campaign. She was a moderate. Take a look at the people in the FT, FT has a good story about who was in favor of her.

All the moderates.

Carl Quintanilla (4:01)

Yes.

Well, it raises the broader question, Jim, about whether or not she is going to try to offer consistency or some new signature policy. In other words, how much delta does she try to put between her and Biden?

Jim Cramer (4:15)

Well, look, I think that you can be pro-American technology and be a harder line than she has been. I mean, a little more defined line on immigration. But if she comes up with a defined line on immigration, meaning that she can say, listen, we do have teeth here, and she comes out strong on crime, which she's able to do because she did, she was a district attorney, attorney general, and people will say, listen, maybe she, she's in California, a little tougher, but she can be strong on crime. But what she offers is a level of understanding about the greatness of the mega caps that Biden wanted no part of. I mean, look, Biden's attorney general, their attorney general was antagonistic to the point of like making fun of Apple, saying, look, their phone is so good, we got to stop that.