SOTS 2nd Hour: RFK Jr. & Miran Hearings, Jobs Data Takeaways, & Best Buy + Baker Hughes CEOs 9/4/25

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Sara Eisen (0:54)

Good Thursday morning. Welcome to Squawk on the Street. I'm Sara Eisen with Carl Quintanilla. We are live as always from Post 9 of the New York Stock Exchange. David Faber has the morning off this hour. Two huge events kicking off right now on Capitol Hill. Stephen Miran in the hot seat before the Senate Banking Committee for his confirmation hearing to be Federal Reserve Governor, while Health Secretary RFK Jr. takes questions from the Senate Finance Committee on the President's 2026 health agenda. We'll bring you key headlines from both of those hearings as we get them. And we've got two big interviews as well. Well, Best Buy CEO will join us here at Post9 in a rare exclusive interview to talk about her business, what she's seeing from the consumer right now, tariffs and more. Also, the CEO of Oil Services, Giant Baker Hughes, with his outlook for the energy space and his new almost $10 billion deal.

Carl Quintanilla (1:39)

It's been a busy morning for Economic Data. Let's get some more with Rick Santelli. Hi again, Rick.

Rick Santelli (1:44)

Hi. Well, this is good day to watch yields climb up a little bit. I wouldn't be surprised to see stocks do a little better as well.

ISM, first time look at the August read on the service sector, the important swath of the US economy. And the numbers are good. 52 on the services index, better than expected, sequentially higher than 50.1 in the rear view mirror. That would be the best since Feb of 25 when it was at 53.5. So this is definitely a solid number. And if we look at prices paid, it's still too high, but we're making some progress. 69.2, a bit lower than expected, definitely lower than the rear view mirror at 69.9. However, taken together, there's still the two highest reads going back to the fall of 22 So we are making progress, but very slowly on prices paid. New orders, nice jump from 50.3 final, 51 and change expected, all the way up to 56 That's the best read on new orders since October of last year. And finally, on the employment side, after a weak ADP report and in front of the big August job jobs jobs report, comes in at 46.5, a whisker above the 46.4 in the rear view mirror. And it does underscore that this is now back to back sub 50 reads on the employment front, which is something the Fed ought to pay attention to. However, even though the employment is weak and the only variable here in shrink territory, contraction under 50, all of the numbers we like are sequentially higher. The price is paid is seven tenths lower, so we are making some progress. We moved up to 419, almost 420 from the 418 level, and we settled yesterday at 422 in tenths. Sara, back to you.

Sara Eisen (3:38)

Okay, Rick, thank you. At the same time, Stephen Miran's confirmation hearing to become a Federal Reserve Governor, just about to kick off here, Steve Leesman, with what to expect. What will you be listening for, Steve?

Steve Liesman (3:49)

Well, Sara, the President's effort to gain sway over the Federal Reserve, already a subject of a major court battle, heads to the Senate today with the confirmation hearing of the CEH Chair, Stephen Miran. It's the first Trump Fed nominee of his second term. Miran addressed head on this important issue of Fed independence in his prepared testimony. He will tell Senate banking, quote, In my view, the most important job of the central bank is to prevent depressions and hyperinflations, because independence of monetary policy is a critical element for its success. But according to a 2024 tweet before he was in office, Miran seemed less a fan of Fed independence. He said, I can't think of anything more deep state and corrosive of our democracy than democratically unremovable officials at the Federal Reserve tacitly accepting permanently higher inflation in spite of Congress's delegated instructions for stable prices. The Wall Street Journal says he now calls that tweet hyperbolic. But Miran is currently advocating rate cuts, even though inflation then was lower than it is now. He's an economist with a PhD from Harvard study under Marty Feldstein and currently serves as the chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, perhaps best known as the principal author of Mar-a-Lago, which called for using tariffs and a weaker dollar from his time at the Manhattan Institute. He also served as in Trump 1 as an advisor at Treasury. So citing the ongoing ongoing court case surrounding the firing of Fed Governor Lisa Cook, all Senate Democrats on the Bank Committee have asked that the hearing be postponed. The White House hoping the nomination can be fast-tracked so that Miran can sit for the September 16th Fed meeting. Not impossible, Sara, but it could well happen.