Incoming PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp: Fans want to see the best golfers play more often
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New York Post
an hour ago
- New York Post
Jeff Bezos has been weighing a possible acquisition of CNBC: sources
Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos has been weighing a possible acquisition of CNBC, The Post has learned. The 61-year-old e-commerce magnate has signaled interest to business associates in buying the cable network — home to 'Squawk Box' and 'Mad Money with Jim Cramer' — after it is spun off by NBCUniversal parent Comcast later this year, according to a person familiar with Bezos' thinking. CNBC would 'align well with his interests,' said another source close to Bezos, who noted that the network could serve as a credible 'neutral voice' in his media portfolio — a major plus following Bezos's headaches as owner of the left-leaning Washington Post. Advertisement 5 Jeff Bezos is interested in buying CNBC after it is spun off from Comcast and is part of the publicly-traded Versant, sources said. Getty Images for The New York Times The Amazon founder has weathered months of headline-grabbing chaos at the iconic newspaper, which has been mired in losses, layoffs and staff protests over his moves to shift the paper's coverage in a more centrist, pro-capitalist direction. A rep for Bezos declined to comment. Advertisement Comcast, meanwhile, plans to spin off its struggling cable assets — which also include MSNBC, USA Network and E! — by the end of the year. CNBC will become part of a publicly-traded company called Versant, which will be run by a handful of NBCUniversal execs led by Chief Executive Mark Lazarus. Sources close to Comcast told The Post that Bezos has not approached the cable giant headed by CEO Brian Roberts. Another source close the situation said Versant plans to grow CNBC, not sell it. 5 CNBC is known for business programs such as 'Sqwak Box' co-hosted by Andrew Ross Sorken (L), Becky Quick (center) and Joe Kernen (right). Stefanie Smith/CNBC Advertisement Versant declined to comment. It is unclear how much Bezos — currently ranked as the fourth richest person in the world with a net worth of $241 billion, according to Forbes — would be willing to pony up for CNBC. Comcast does not break out financials for its cable assets but recently said the soon-to-be spun-off Versant generated about $7 billion in revenue last year. Buying CNBC would be tricky. There is a two-year period in which Versant could not engage in selling major assets like CNBC or even the entire company without major tax implications, sources told The Post. Advertisement 5 Jeff Bezos and his wife Lauren Sanchez were seen relaxing at Club 55 on Pampelonne Beach in Saint‑Tropez. Best Image / BACKGRID A source close to the situation said the company won't likely jeopardize the tax-free nature of the spinoff. Late last year, Comcast announced it would hive off its cable assets and keep NBCUniversal's NBC broadcast TV network, 'Real Housewives' home Bravo, its film and TV studios and theme parks, as well streaming service Peacock. Bezos bought the Washington Post from Warren Buffett in 2013 for $250 million, but the paper since has been dogged by steep losses as subscribers have fled. 5 Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos leaving Le Club 55 in Saint Tropez. Spread Pictures / MEGA The Amazon founder has been vacationing with his new bride Lauren Sanchez in the South of France. They were spotted Tuesday leaving glitzy beach club Le Club 55, not far from where the mogul's mega-yacht, Koru, dropped anchor. Bezos' desire to expand his media empire follows a flurry of headlines in recent weeks that he was interested in buying Vogue magazine for Sanchez, a former TV reporter — or even the fashion glossy's parent company Condé Nast. Over the past year, Bezos and Washington Post CEO Will Lewis have tried to move the Beltway broadsheet more to the center — to the dismay of staffers. Advertisement 5 Bezos' changes at The Washington Post have sparked anger from staffers and readers alike. More than 300,000 readers have canceled their subscriptions to the left-leaning paper last year. REUTERS Bezos' decision to kill the newspaper's endorsement of Kamala Harris for president shortly before the election in November sparked a revolving door of high-profile departures. More than 300,000 readers canceled their subscriptions. The uproar continued after Bezos ordered the outlet's opinion section to focus on 'personal liberties and free markets' — a more neutral topic — rather than weighing in on politics and other issues. The directive led to the resignation of Opinion Editor David Shipley, followed by the departure of longtime columnist Ruth Marcus. On Monday, Pulitzer Prize-winning opinion writer Jonathan Capehart announced he accepted a buyout.
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
PGA Tour golfer, Stark County native Justin Lower partnering with Society Brands
CANTON − Society Brands has announced a partnership with PGA Tour golfer and Stark County native Justin Lower, who is wearing hats promoting the Canton-based company and its products during tournaments. Society Brands acquires e-commerce brands and incorporates them into a growing portfolio, offering founders an opportunity to stay involved in operations and equity in the company. The portfolio consists of 12 brands, primarily in the health and personal care sectors. 'This partnership is the first step in a strategic initiative to partner our brands with athletes and celebrities," Michael Sirpilla, co-founder and CEO of Society Brands, said in a prepared statement on July 22. "Through these partnerships, we will be able to drive awareness for our portfolio brands on a national scale. Simply put, this was the perfect deal for Society Brands as it reinforces our mission to support our local community, while driving success for our brands on a national level.' Lower played golf for Northwest High School and Malone University before earning a PGA Tour card in late 2021. He's had 12 Top 10 finishes on tour and tied for third place in January at The American Express golf tournament in La Quinta, California. That was the first week Lower wore a hat featuring Society Brands and brands Vitality Now and EarlyBird. 'I am thrilled to work with the Society team and help promote a company based in my hometown of Canton, Ohio,' Lower said in a prepared statement. 'Michael and his team have done an incredible job of building great brands and bringing jobs to the local community. Together, I'm looking forward to being part of the company's success.' Society Brands is exploring opportunities for paid marketing and additional partnership opportunities with Lower this year and in the future. The company reported its annual revenue as more than $100 million. Reach Kelly at 330-580-8323 or This article originally appeared on The Repository: Society Brands partners with PGA Tour golfer Justin Lower
CNBC
4 hours ago
- CNBC
CNBC Transcript: U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Speaks with CNBC's 'Squawk Box' Today
WHEN: Today, Monday, July 21, 2025 WHERE: CNBC's "Squawk Box" Following is the unofficial transcript of a CNBC interview with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on CNBC's "Squawk Box" (M-F, 6AM-9AM ET) today, Monday, July 21. Following are links to video on and All references must be sourced to CNBC. JOE KERNEN: Joining us now, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Mr. Secretary, it's great to have you on, as it always is. Good to see you. U.S. TREASURY SECRETARY SCOTT BESSENT: Good morning, Joe. KERNEN: Lead story, economy showing swagger as tariff fears ebb. This is the "Wall Street Journal" pointing out that there was quite a bit of angst and hand wringing back in April. A lot of forecasts at the bottom was going to drop out. And just flatly stated here, I know it might not be the favorite paper around the White House at this point, but they say -- but that did not happen. And the economy is showing swagger now. But Mr. Secretary, August 1st is a week from -- is a week from Friday, I think. And I think that's on everyone's mind. Any progress that you can report on some of our big trading partners? BESSENT: Look, Joe, talks are moving along. But the important thing here is the quality of the deal, not the timing of the deals. And President Trump has created maximum leverage, as only he can do. And what we are seeing is these imbalances built up over 20, 30, 40 years. And we are more concerned with high quality deals than getting these deals done by August 1st. Our trading partners were told that the rates could boomerang back toward the April 2nd levels. We can continue talking then. But again, we're proceeding apace with the negotiations, but we're not going to rush for the sake of doing deals. KERNEN: We talked specifically about a couple of the countries we're talking about, and I'll start with the Euro block. There was reportedly some messages sent to the E.U. that tariffs, the president's going to want more. He's going to want more than what the Euros had thought, maybe a 10%, and maybe 15% or higher. There's word that they are preparing to retaliate or taking some tough action. But then Commerce Secretary Lutnick yesterday said he still thinks that there's room to maneuver and that there will be a deal. What are you feeling? 50% likely that there will be? I know you don't want to necessarily show the United States is him, but do you expect the deal to be done before August 1st with the Euros, or could it get ugly? BESSENT: Well, Joe, it doesn't have to get ugly. It's the nature of a negotiation. There's a lot of back and forth. But I will tell you, you know, I'm not an economist, I'm an economic historian, and the nature of deals like this is that the -- we are the deficit country, so the surplus country will always feel it more. We have a gigantic trade deficit with the E.U., and so with the level of tariffs, it will affect them more. So, I would imagine that they would want to negotiate faster. They got out of the box in a slow pace. They become more engaged. But as I've said many times, it's 27 different countries, and then you have the E.U. sitting up on top. So, you have this supernatural -- national organization negotiating, and I do think that some of the underlying national governments are frustrated by the pace, but again, it's an E.U. negotiation, not a country-by-country negotiation. KERNEN: Trying to handicap Japan, too, after the election over the weekend, Mr. Secretary. On the one hand, some people thought that he was the gentleman that has less, I guess, power at this point, that he was sort of a difficult person to deal with. I thought that might make it more likely that a deal could be done with Japan. But there are others that say that the United States shouldn't be too tough on Japan because we need a stable partner, and they've got plenty of internal issues right now. What can you, what's your feeling on the developments of the weekend, how it affects negotiations with Japan? BESSENT: Joe, I arrived back from Osaka late last night, and I saw Prime Minister Ishiba, I saw the Trade Negotiator Akazawa. We didn't talk about trade. I was there to represent the United States at the International Expo, and I can tell you the U.S. pavilion there is fantastic. So, anyone who wants to go over and see it, it's what we used to call the world's fair. And our priorities are not the internal workings of the Japanese government. Our priorities are getting the best deal for the American people. KERNEN: I've known the president a long time, and he always asks people for their opinion on things. I admit, I don't think it -- I don't think that it would be criticism if he were to acknowledge that there would be criticism if he were to acknowledge that he asked you, what about firing Jay Powell, and you gave him your comments. And how much of this story is real, is it in between? And I'm talking about the notion that you urged him not to fire Jay Powell, and he actually is obviously he's the president, he can do what he wants. But did you have a conversation? BESSENT: Well, you know, Joe, I think the problem with stories like this is, I'm not sure who the leaker was, but the problem with leakers is they only have partial information. And I think the other problem, too, is that newspapers like "The Wall Street Journal" are not used to a high-functioning executive president. They are used to, you know, perhaps President Biden, perhaps President Obama, who was not as economically sophisticated as President Trump. President Trump solicits a whole range of opinions and then makes a decision. So, he takes a lot of inputs, and at the end of the day, it's his decision, just as it was his decision on Iran. And look at the tremendous success there. Look at the tremendous success at the border. And that is what a great executive looks like. KERNEN: Would you just offer up what your opinion would be on firing Jay Powell, if the president were to do that? Do you think that would be a good idea, or would you dissuade him from that? BESSENT: Look, Joe, I think that what we need to do is examine the entire Federal Reserve Institution and whether they have been successful. I'm speaking -- actually, I'm going to be in the building this evening. There is a regulatory conference that begins tomorrow. I'm the keynote speaker tonight talking about regulation. The Fed, as well, deals with monetary policy, regulations, financial stability. And again, I think that we should think, has the organization succeeded in its mission? You know, if this were the FAA and we were having this many mistakes, we would go back and look at, why has this happened? I mean, look at the -- as you said, at the top of the -- at the top of this broadcast, there were, there was fear-mongering over tariffs. And thus far, we have seen very little, if any, inflation. We've had great inflation numbers. So, you know, I think this idea of them not being able to break out of a certain mindset, you know, all these PhDs over there, I don't know what they do. I don't know what they do. This is like universal basic income for academic economists. ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: Mr. Secretary, we had Elizabeth Warren on last week, and we asked her point-blank what she thought would happen to the market if, in fact, Jay Powell was somehow ousted or pushed out or fired or something like that. She said she thought that the market would crash. What do you think? BESSENT: I think Elizabeth Warren -- Senator Warren is entitled to her position -- is entitled to her opinion. And I think that we -- I -- you know, I'm not going to deal in hypotheticals. And, you know, the Chair Powell's term ends in May. There's also another seat coming up in January. So, we'll see. And by the way, Senator Warren at times has been one of Chair Powell's harshest critics. So, you know, it kind of amuses me that now she's taken the other side, of the other side of the argument here. BECKY QUICK: Mr. Secretary, a couple of quick questions. First of all, I realize this is entirely up to the president to decide this, but do you think it's possible that the deadline for tariffs could be extended for countries where you feel like there are productive talks? BESSENT: Again, Becky, we'll see what the president wants to do. But again, if we somehow boomerang back to the August 1st tariffs, I would think that a higher tariff level will put more pressure on those countries to come with better agreements. We just reached an agreement with Indonesia, and I saw five turns of their offers. And this started several months ago. I thought their first offer was very good. They came back. The offer kept getting better and better. And we ended up with a fantastic trade agreement. I think there was something -- and don't quote me here, but I think there were 11,000 lines of tariffs that got taken out, including non-tariff barriers. We have a 19% tariff on them. They have zero tariffs on us, and they are going to do a massive purchase of agriculture and Boeing airplanes. So, that's what a good trade deal looks like. But there must have been five iterations of that. QUICK: We had the Ryanair CFO on today speaking of Boeing airplanes, and he suggested that they're very hopeful on both sides that airplanes will get an exemption. Do you think that's likely? BESSENT: Traditionally, there has been. So, we'll see what happens there. KERNEN: We -- a lot of what we're doing, I guess, revolves around China on the trade front. We haven't heard anything new there. We have seen some rare earth exports pick up. Obviously, there was -- I would say it's an olive branch that -- that we gave to Nvidia in terms of allowing China access to some of those chips. That would seem like that might induce China to maybe enter more seriously in the talks. What's the latest on China? BESSENT: Joe, we're going to be engaging in talks in the very near future, and the talks are in a very good place. We had a meeting in Geneva, a meeting in London, and I think trade is in a good place. And I think now we can start talking about other things. The Chinese, unfortunately, are very large purchases -- or are very large purchasers of sanctioned Iranian oil, sanctioned Russian oil. So, you know, we could start discussing that. We could also discuss the elephant in the room, which is this great rebalancing that the Chinese need to do. They have 30% of the world's export manufacturing, and that can't get any bigger, and it should probably shrink. And what our -- what the rest of the world is seeing is, now that we put up this tariff wall around China, China is not manufacturing any less. So, those goods are going to Europe, Canada, Australia, into the global south, and flooding those markets. KERNEN: The president has seemed to take a dim view of the prospects for any progress with Russia and Ukraine. Are we now in the position to actually -- is there a plan for sanctions against Russia? When would that happen? Is it -- would that be near-term, and are you involved with that? BESSENT: Well, Treasury leads the financial sanctions. Our OFAC division does that. But Joe, in my mind, what's groundbreaking here is that the Senate -- and I think would have -- I think there would be 80 or 90 senators who want to pass a sanctions bill, and President Trump has single-handedly changed the paradigm here, because included in that bill is a -- we don't know what the -- the deadline will be, whether it's 10, 30, 50 days, but any country who buys sanctioned Russian oil is going to be subject to up to 100% secondary tariffs. So, now the United States Senate agrees with President Trump that tariffs are a means to political ends. And this is revolutionary. President Trump has changed the conversation here. And I would urge our European allies, who have talked a big game, to follow us if we implement these secondary tariffs. KERNEN: Let's just sort of end, and I know you've got to run. We made the point with Speaker Johnson that in an economy that's doing very well, it's not typically thought that you should cut interest rates. So, the more that the Trump administration points out how strong the economy is kind of undercuts the argument that lower rates are needed. I will put the caveat in that we're going to have Judy Shelton on, the economist, a little later. She takes issue with the notion that a, you know, that prosperity causes inflation, and she doesn't think it's a demand problem. She thinks it's a supply problem. Is that your take, too, that a strong economy doesn't necessarily cause inflation? BESSENT: Joe, you know, I think you and I can look back to the 90s, and I think that's what the paradigm or the middle model for everyone should be here, because, you know, in the 90s we finally had the productivity growth kick in from the I.T. revolution, and I would say that we are on the cusp of that right now. I was out in Sun Valley last week for a day, met with a lot of the tech leaders, and they think that the AI revolution is coming much faster than they thought, could start kicking in as soon as the first, second quarter of '26. So, we could go back to non-inflationary growth, and if the inflation numbers are low, then we should be cutting rates. And also think about the distributional impact here, because the housing market, which affects the majority of American households, American households are locked out of owning homes, so a substantial decrease in rates would unlock the mortgage market. KERNEN: Yeah. Did you see Kevin Warsh last week? You probably, you know, you've got a real job, but he made some similar comments about AI maybe being the power of it for productivity, not necessarily realized yet. Did you see that? Do you think he'd make a good Fed chair? BESSENT: Well, I didn't see what Kevin Warsh said, but I do -- I'm in regular touch with a lot of the Silicon Valley leaders, I am in regular touch with a lot of the business leaders, and I think this is going from concept to reality, and I think we are on the cusp of a productivity boom like we haven't seen that can really drive the economy. So, the economy is very strong, is accelerating, the "One Big, Beautiful Bill" is going to lead to a CapEx boom, which I think has been held back, I think companies necessarily had to wait until the bill was passed, so I would think in the third, fourth quarters we're going to see that, and, you know, there is a chance that we could have this golden age of high growth, low inflation. KERNEN: Wouldn't it be nice. All right, Mr. Secretary, thanks for all your time this morning, we appreciate it, hope to see you again in the near future. Thanks. BESSENT: Good to see you.
