SOTS 2nd Hour: Key Earnings Movers, NYC Comptroller Brad Lander, Plus: Paramount’s New Chairman & CEO 8/8/25

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Carl Quintanilla (0:39)

Good Friday morning, welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Carl Quintanilla with Leslie Picker and David Faber, live at Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. Sarah Eisen has the morning off. Got some risk on this morning as all sectors are green. S&P and NASDAQ up better than half a percent. We're watching obviously the VIX back to 16 Treasury's also a little elevated here as the tenure gets closer back to 4-3. Coming up on today's show, a can't miss exclusive interview with David Ellison, Chairman and CEO of Paramount Skydance, fresh off the closure of that long-awaited Skydance deal. New York City Comptroller and former mayoral candidate Brad Lander is with us. Talk about the city's pension fund holdings and the latest on the Mamdani campaign.

David Faber (1:18)

First, though, President Trump officially announcing a new pick to fill Adriana Kugler's spot on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. Steve Leesman's here and he has that story for us. Steve.

Steve Leesman (1:29)

Hey, good morning, David. Yeah, the CEA chair Stephen Miran has been a stalwart defender of the president's economic policies and an architect of those key policies. But the appointment by the president to the Fed to be a Fed governor sounds initially temporary. The president writing in a tweet, It is my great honor to announce that I have chosen Dr. Stephen Miran, current chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, to serve in the just vacated seat on the Federal Reserve Board until January 31st, 2026 In the meantime, we will continue to search for a permanent replacement. Evercore ISI writing, given his support of Trump's policies, we think Miran would likely continue to act as a Trump loyalist once on the Fed board, calling for lower rates and voting for rate cuts in FOMC meetings. More on that in a second. Miran, though, has become known as a principal author of the controversial Mar-a-Lago Accords. What do they call for? Weakening the US dollar, boosting US manufacturing, reducing the trade deficit and using tariffs. Sound familiar? Miran is an economist with a Ph.D. from Harvard, has also called for reform at the Fed, including eight-year terms instead of 14, and governors serving at the pleasure of the president. Well, Miran's appointment would make four of seven governors Trump appointees, including Waller, Bowman, and you may want to, I don't know if you want to count, Fed Chair Jay Powell would be the fourth. How much of a difference all this makes? Well, that's the big question.

Unclear to me, it would be difficult for the Senate to approve him before the September 17th meeting where markets already expect a cut and Fed futures are showing pretty much toying with the idea of three cuts this year. So may not make much of a change this year. Question is whether or not next year in the 2026, depending on if Miran is there, if it does make a big deal. Guys?

Leslie Picker (3:14)

Steve, that Fed reform that he's talking about, how would that even work? How likely is that as a possibility?

Steve Leesman (3:23)

Sorry, you asked about the accord?

Leslie Picker (3:25)

The reforming of the Fed, making it perhaps less independent?

Steve Leesman (3:33)

It would all pretty much have to go through Congress. Somewhat complicated by a strange Supreme Court, not quite ruling but comment when the president went to go fire one of the heads of the NLRB, the Supreme Court kind of went out of its way to say the Fed is different here. So a bunch of that would have to go through Congress. Not a lot of that is really radical, but some of the ideas are potentially radical from the Mar-a-Lago Accords, more so like taxing foreign ownership of US bonds. He also, by the way, on the Fed reform thing, wants the Fed budget to go through or approved by Congress. So some of that's a little more controversial.

Last year, he was calling for tighter monetary policy, but most observers don't think he would do that now. And I guess that's the question, right? Is whether or not you have somebody who goes in there, who's more loyal to the administration at the expense of the Fed's ultimate goal or its mandate of low inflation and low unemployment. So all of that becomes a question, how he would vote. And ultimately, I guess the results would tell us if it's the right thing to do or not.