Friday in DC: Kevin Warsh, Prediction Markets, & OpenAI’s IPO 5/22/26

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**SPEAKER_2** (0:27)
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**Andrew Ross Sorkin** (0:57)
Bring in show music, please.

**Cameron Costa** (1:00)
This is Squawk Pod. I'm CNBC producer, Cameron Costa. And on today's episode, we are heading to Washington, DC, where President Trump has postponed his executive order on AI. The reason, he doesn't want to block innovation.

**Andrew Ross Sorkin** (1:16)
There really wasn't an FDA for AI.

**Joe Kernen** (1:19)
No. Is it just the wild, wild west, and it could come back and haunt us? I think it's going to be tough.

**Cameron Costa** (1:25)
Then a lawmaker putting prediction markets in the hot seat. Kentucky Republican Representative James Comer's plan for Polymarket and for Kalshi.

**James Comer** (1:35)
There's overwhelming agreement in Congress that there needs to be regulatory framework. There's just not agreement on as it.

**Cameron Costa** (1:42)
And Democratic Whip Representative Katherine Clark, how her side of the aisle is prepping for the midterms.

**Katherine Clark** (1:49)
The fastest thing we can do to lower costs for Americans right now is end this war.

**Cameron Costa** (1:56)
It is Friday, May 22nd, and Squawk Pod begins right now.

**Andrew Ross Sorkin** (2:01)
Stand Becky by in three, two, one, cue please.

**Becky Quick** (2:06)
Good morning and welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. I'm Becky Quick, along with Joe Kernen. We are in Washington, DC this morning. Andrew Ross Sorkin is back at headquarters at the NASDAQ Market site in Times Square. We are in our nation's capital, where later today at the White House, President Trump will swear in Kevin Warsh as the next chair of the Federal Reserve. Andrew?

**Andrew Ross Sorkin** (2:27)
Thanks, Becky. Me time. President Trump saying he postponed a signing ceremony for his much anticipated executive order on artificial intelligence because he didn't like certain aspects of it. The event was scheduled for yesterday afternoon, but the president telling reporters the US is ahead of China and the rest of the world on AI, but he didn't want to do anything that's going to get in the way of that lead. He said he was concerned the executive order could have been a blocker. Reports say the order could have empowered the US government to pre-evaluate AI models, to identify security vulnerabilities. And Joe and Becky, we've been talking about just the debate and battle even inside the AI industry over what those kind of regulations could look like, what David Sachs was looking for, what some others were looking for, what people in the industry were looking for. There was also apparently just an optics issue, I don't know if you had heard, about getting all of those executives there for the actual signing ceremony itself and all of the photog sprays that go on.

**Joe Kernen** (3:30)
It's a prelude, don't you think, too?
If we're going to err on something, I think we're going to err on not being maybe as careful as some people would like to maintain. And I'm not saying I disagree with that, because I think we do want to stay in the lead and take social media, but any technology, biotechnology, we kind of plunge headlong into it because of competitive concerns. We got to try and stay ahead, and especially with this race, with China, do you see any guardrails and is it just the wild, wild west and it could come back to haunt us? I think it's going to be tough.

**Becky Quick** (4:08)
I think there are a lot of questions swirling about that, especially because there are states that have already moved to put some restrictions on some of these things, specifically New York and California. And any legislation that comes through or in the executive order would potentially preempt those states' rights to do those things.

**Joe Kernen** (4:26)
Well, what do you think? Andrew, I'm kind of with...

**Andrew Ross Sorkin** (4:31)