Did J.D. Vance Just Make His 2028 Pitch?

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Luke Vargas (0:33)

Did JD. Vance just test the waters for a 2028 campaign? Plus, investors hold their breath before today's pivotal US inflation report.

We'll look back on 25 years of global war on terror.

Michael R. Gordon (0:47)

The US was better at eradicating groups around the world than it was at destabilizing the environments in which these groups took root.

Luke Vargas (0:56)

It's Friday, September 11th. I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal. And here is the AM Edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. Does JD. Vance want to be president?

SPEAKER_4 (1:14)

I gotta say, it's pretty cool to hear a crowd that is this fired up chant your name. So go ahead and do it again.

Luke Vargas (1:21)

The vice president delivered a primetime speech at Republicans' midterm convention last night and met with chants of 48, a reference to a potential campaign to succeed Donald Trump. He tried to change the topic, but didn't put those rumors to bed.

SPEAKER_4 (1:36)

Can we please, we gotta take care of business this November, then we'll worry about what comes next.

Luke Vargas (1:41)

Vance is a leading presidential contender according to early polls, as is Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is notably absent from the GOP convention, as he wraps up a diplomatic tour of South America. Pressed by reporters, Rubio said he doesn't know what the future holds, and has quote, no plans at this time.

In California, Governor Gavin Newsom has signed over a dozen bills regulating addictive social media features and AI-driven chatbots used by kids.

SPEAKER_5 (2:08)

This is about actually addressing the problem, the scrolling, the algorithms. This is about addressing the substantive issue around the engineering. And that's what makes this truly a significant and consequential bill, and truly something we're proud to claim is a nation-leading bill in terms of addressing social media harms to our kids 16 and younger.

Luke Vargas (2:30)

The legislation targets features such as autoplay and technology that relies on user information to decide which content to show. California is also leading the charge on regulating AI chatbots with a new law requiring parental controls and suicide-crisis protocols, expanding child-privacy protections, and targeting AI-generated sexual depictions of minors. The push follows Meta's recent $18 billion legal settlement over its platform's impact on teenagers, though tech companies maintain that delivering a tailored experience is part of what makes the platforms valuable for teens.

It's CPI Day with US consumer inflation data due out at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. It's a final key data point ahead of next week's closely watched Fed meeting, the outcome of which remains uncertain. Analysts say that any indication that inflation has accelerated could be a green light for a rate hike. Global markets are largely in a holding pattern ahead of that report, with all eyes on the 10-year treasury yield and whether it breaches 5%. Keep your eyes on wsj.com throughout the day for our analysis on what the bond route means for the US economy and stock market.

Prediction Markets platform, Kalshi, is looking to expand its push into perpetual futures. Known as PERPs, those contracts let traders bet around the clock and mass leverage on certain positions. Leverage that's heightened given their lack of an expiration date. Kalshi and Coinbase this year won approval to launch PERPs tied to cryptocurrencies, but Kalshi is going beyond that, launching futures tied to gold and silver yesterday. And as we report, eyeing PERPs tied to 60 popular ETFs and stocks. Journal reporter Alexander Osipovich has more.

Alexander Osipovich (4:21)

The idea is that you will be able to bet on stocks going up or down. And in contrast to actually just holding the stock, you would be able to use these products to get leverage. So putting down a small amount of money and potentially amplifying your profits or losses if the stocks move in the direction that you're betting on. So for example, you can get a leveraged ETF on a particular stock that will allow you to get 2X or 3X leverage. So the fans of these products are people who want to have new ways of trading things, people who have gotten accustomed to the crypto world and the sort of things you can do there, would like to do them in stocks. The disadvantage and what the critics say is that these are very risky products, and you will have a lot of people blown out of the water faster than they can blink, essentially if there's a sharp move in the market.