The Fed Holds Interest Rates Steady & Dr. Fauci Pleads the Fifth 7/30/26

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**SPEAKER_2** (0:27)
This episode is brought to you by Schwab Market Update, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Join host Keith Lansford for this information-packed daily market preview delivered in 10 minutes or less, including projected stock updates, monetary policy decisions, and key results and statistics that may impact your trading. Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com/marketupdatepodcast or find Schwab Market Update wherever you get your podcasts.

**Roger Ferguson** (0:57)
Bring in show music, please.

**Katie Kramer** (1:00)
Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod.
Don't fight the Fed, new chair Kevin Warsh stands pat on interest rates for his second meeting. Will that be enough? There was dissension in the ranks and the markets didn't love the lack of clarity. Former Federal Reserve vice chairman Roger Ferguson joins us.

**Roger Ferguson** (1:19)
To keep saying you're resolute and then to not act, causing the question exactly how resolute you are.

**Katie Kramer** (1:25)
And former infectious disease chief Dr. Anthony Fauci's Senate committee hearing on the COVID pandemic.

**Anthony Fauci** (1:30)
On the advice of council, I respectfully declined to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.

**Katie Kramer** (1:37)
Rand Paul is ready to hold him in contempt.

**Rand Paul** (1:40)
We think he destroyed records, but all he would have said yesterday was, I deleted records maybe I shouldn't have. That would be the truth.

**Katie Kramer** (1:49)
Plus, the president said he wanted to hit Iran hard.

**Rand Paul** (1:52)
They know it's coming.

**Katie Kramer** (1:53)
Our Dan Murphy on the night of strikes.

**Dan Murphy** (1:56)
CENTCOM calling it a powerful response to Tuesday's attempted Iranian attacks.

**Katie Kramer** (2:02)
We hear from a key energy voice in the last administration.

**Amos Hochstein** (2:05)
This was never going to be four to six weeks.

**Katie Kramer** (2:07)
Biden, White House advisor, Amos Hochstein on stability of global energy prices.

**Amos Hochstein** (2:13)
For the first time, the Russia-Ukraine front and the Iranian front are coalescing in the worst way for the economy.

**Katie Kramer** (2:20)
It's Thursday, July 30th, 2026 Squawk Pod begins right now.

**Roger Ferguson** (2:27)
Stand Becky by in three, two, one. Cue, please.

**Becky Quick** (2:32)
Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Squawk Box right here on CNBC. We are live from the NASDAQ market site in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick along with Joe Kernen. Andrew is out today. We did see the Dow yesterday with its worst performance since April of 2025 Watch that very closely. It was a decline of more than 1,100 points and it really accelerated in the 3 p.m. hour after you were hearing from Kevin Warsh. We're going to talk a lot more about what all of that means. You can see the Dow now, though, down by about 3% from its all-time high.
S&P is indicated up by about 4 points. It is now 4% from its all-time high. And the NASDAQ closing and correction territory yesterday now indicated up by about 57 points. If you've been watching Energy Prices, as we all have for quite some time now, you'll see that it's continuing to pick up. WTI now above $84 a barrel at $84.52. And then Brent is sitting above $91 a barrel, $91.40. Joe mentioned Treasury yields spiking. We actually saw the 30-year yield move to its highest level in 19 years. You can see right now the yield on the 30 years at $4.23.
The 10 years sitting at 4.7% and the 2 years at $4.27.

**Kevin Warsh** (3:48)
My second FOMC committee meeting as chairman has come quickly. Today, as you know, our committee decided to vote by a 9-3 vote to maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 3.5% to 3.75%.

**Joe Kernen** (4:04)
And we'll never know what would have happened if they'd gone up a quarter point yesterday. And I think what happened yesterday was more a confluence of things and mostly the attacks from the night before that were going to be answered very strongly by President Trump. And just the, you know, as the reality sets in that whenever we think about diplomacy, how long-lasting is it as Iran really is going to live up to any side of its bargains if we ever do get anywhere? We're just in this terrible trap almost over there. And if he had raised or if the Fed had raised, I think, we might have been down 3,000 points on the Dow. There are also some individual stocks in the Dow. At this point, they're so high priced, the Dow, but the S&P by the end of the session. You know, after the decision initially, I think the S&P was unchanged or up a little bit.