Free Republic

On Wednesday’s broadcast of CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) said that he thinks it’s sensible for 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris to argue for “fairer tax rates” but “I don’t know what the right number is” for what would be a fair tax rate. Co-host Joe Kernen asked, “So, Governor, just, if we went on a checklist, you like all the things that — you like Kamala Harris, not just against. So, what are — let me ask you, do you believe we should abolish the filibuster? … How about getting rid of...

Billionaire Mark Cuban acknowledged that Vice President Kamala Harris' plan to tax unrealized capital gains would "kill the stock market," while insisting that she won't go through with it as dubious CNBC hosts pushed back in a contentious interview Thursday. Cuban joined CNBC's "Squawk Box" on the phone to discuss his support for Harris, revealing that he regularly communicates with her campaign to advise on economic issues. The interview took a turn when Cuban was asked about the Biden administration’s proposal – which the Harris campaign has indicated it supports – to tax investment returns that have not yet been...

Anti-Trump billionaire businessman and investor Mark Cuban unwittingly criticized Kamala Harris’s plan to tax unrealized gains, admitting it would tank the stock market. During an interview with CNBC, Cuban suddenly became flustered when the hosts pointed out that Harris’ plan was not only a bad idea but that the Vice President had not been clear about her policies. Realizing that he had just told the truth on national TV, Cuban tried to walk back his criticism and defend Harris, which only made things worse. Cuban became increasingly agitated, stuttering and repeatedly saying “no.” During a speech in New Hampshire this...

Billionaire investor Mark Cuban warned Thursday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that Vice President Kamala Harris’ capital gains tax plan would “kill the stock market.” Cuban said, “What I told them is if you tax unrealized gains, you’re going to kill the stock market, and it’s going to be the ultimate employment plan for private equity because companies are not going to go public because you can get whipsawed.” He added, “Based off the unrealized gains, I would have had to borrow money and I effectively would have been in hawk just to pay my tax bill instead of trying to...

Former Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) said Tuesday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that he did not believe Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris had suddenly become a “centrist.” Toomey said, “We need Republican control of the Senate and that is absolutely essential. If the other side runs the table, then Katie bar the door, they they will repeal the filibuster and they will be dragged by their left wing, which is clearly in charge now. I think Kamala Harris proved that with her vice presidential selection. It is huge tax increases, it’s probably some version of Medicare for all and...

Former Sen. Pat Toomey (R), who represented the key state of Pennsylvania for 12 years in the Senate, says he won’t vote for former President Trump or Vice President Harris in November’s election. Toomey noted during an interview on CNBC that he voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020 but can’t bring himself to support Trump again because of his efforts to overturn the results of the last presidential election. “When you lose an election and you try to overturn the results so that you can stay in power, you lose me. You lose me at that point,” Toomey said...

CNBC anchor Joe Kernen was fed up with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s (D-RI) attempts to shift blame for the ongoing debt ceiling debacle in Congress. Whitehouse tried to put the onus on House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) despite Congressional Republicans’ passage of a $1.5 trillion debt ceiling increase coupled with $131 billion in spending cuts. Whitehouse — who erroneously dubbed the bill a piece of “MAGA” legislation in a recent press release — accused McCarthy of “trying to avoid blame and responsibility but he is the only person in that meeting who is insisting that default remain a threat on the...

CNBC anchor Joe Kernen ripped the meaningless political theater by woke CEOs who pontificate about renewable energy to fight climate change but have no real sense as to how to fully transition away from fossil fuels. United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby joined the Feb. 21 edition of CNBC's Squawk Box to cast himself as a patron saint of the growing ESG standards-obsessed movement through his new $100 million sustainable flight fund that seeks to supposedly “decarboniz[e] air travel.” “It’s a first of its kind,” Kirby propagandized. “We’re not just buying sustainable aviation fuel [SAF]. We’re really investing in the technology,...

CNBC Squawk Box co-anchor Joe Kernen completely tore into the White House’s over-expansive usage of the term “infrastructure” to spend trillions of dollars on leftist wish list items. Kernen grilled Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg during the May 13 edition of Squawk Box. “We’re proposing a usage for the term ‘infrastructure’ that Republicans would say includes every wish list from the Democratic Party going back 50 years.” Kernen questioned Buttigieg on why he wouldn’t demand that a smaller amount of funding be engineered more narrowly toward clear infrastructure items like “roads, bridges, airports — throw in, you know, some internet and...

Leftist Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) avoided answering tough questions from CNBC that underscored the nonsense behind her wealth tax proposal. CNBC Squawk Box co-anchor Joe Kernen played devil’s advocate in an attempt to expose the lack of logic behind Warren’s tax proposal. Kernen said to Warren during the March 2 edition of Squawk Box: “If you’re going to do two percent [tax] on 50 million [dollars], and then when you get up to a billion [dollars] and you’re going to three percent [tax], if we’ve made, if we’ve crossed the rubicon … why not make it truly progressive and do...

It’s not often when you see a Democratic presidential donor actually concede on live television that America really doesn’t want anything to do with leftist politics. During the November 4 edition of CNBC’s Squawk Box, CNBC co-anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin questioned Starwood Capital Group Chairman and CEO Barry Sternlicht regarding exit polls allegedly showing that Americans favored leftist policies: “[A]re you surprised that some of the polls on the way out — when they asked Americans about things like, you know, a government-controlled healthcare — that a majority of Americans said they were in favor of things like that?” Sorkin...

The CEO of growing social media platform Parler warned Americans on CNBC about Big Tech’s Orwellian censorship against President Donald Trump that will continue right into election night. During the November 2, edition of CNBC’s Squawk Box, co-anchor Joe Kernen asked Parler CEO John Matze about what Twitter will potentially do if Trump speculates an election win. Kernen asked: “If President Trump were to say something that Twitter didn’t like about the results” of “the election and whether he was winning or not, do you think Twitter, at that point, would decide ‘Okay, we’re finally going to censor?’” After Kernen...

President Donald Trump told CNBC on Wednesday that Elon Musk is one of the world’s “great geniuses,” he likened the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX to Thomas Edison. Musk is “one of our great geniuses, and we have to protect our genius,” Trump said in an interview with “Squawk Box” co-host Joe Kernen from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “You know, we have to protect Thomas Edison and we have to protect all of these people that came up with originally the light bulb and the wheel and all of these things. And he’s one of our very...

CNBC displayed the wrong photos Monday of 2020 Democratic presidential candidates Andrew Yang and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) on its "Squawk Box" program. The error came as the show was discussing fourth quarter fundraising numbers. Redpoint Ventures founding partner Geoff Yang was shown in place of Andrew Yang, while Gabbard's photo was that of former 2020 presidential candidate Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), which quickly got the attention of Yang supporters on social media. SNIP

Steve Guest Twitter Video at link. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) faced some tougher talk from media hosts, for once, regarding the government shutdown that has lasted 20+ days now. President Trump promised border security during the 2016 campaign. He promised to build a wall. He has to follow through on it. It was one of his signature issues. He’s only asking $5 billion for part of his wall. The Democrats are not willing to play ball after reclaiming the House. Last week, Trump offered to re-open the government in exchange for some of the funding. Democrats rejected...

CNBC host Joe Kernen took House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) to task Friday over the Republican Party's opposition to same-sex marriage. In a rare discussion of social issues on the financial news program "Squawkbox," Kernen argued that the GOP has squandered its appeal with fiscally conservative voters by virtue of its opposition to gay nuptials. Cantor said some people, himself included, have legitimate religious objections to same-sex marriage. “There are those of us who have personal religious convictions about the issue," Cantor said. "And I think that we as a country need to respect people about their opinion, not...

This morning on Squawk Box, Joe Kernen played contrarian to the New York Times' David Brooks. Brooks' column today, titled "The Wizard of Beck," is "the story of media mavens who claim to represent a hidden majority but who in fact represent a mere niche - even in the Republican Party." Brooks writes: Just months after the election and the humiliation, everyone is again convinced that Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity and the rest possess real power. And the saddest thing is that even Republican politicians come to believe it. They mistake media for reality. They pre-emptively surrender to armies that don't...