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JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon Weighs In On SVB's Collapse; Unemployment Rate Drops To 3.5 percent, Still Historic Low; Jeremy Renner Speaks About Horror Of Snowplow Accident. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired April 07, 2023 - 08:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[08:30:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMIE DIMON, CEO, JPMORGAN CHASE: I believe the regulators could have forced it. If my regulators called me up and said we do not like X and you have to change it, I would change it.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: You would. There's a-

DIMON: There was no law change that made that not possible.

HARLOW: There's a 2021 regulation change that that would said that this was just guidance. So you're saying it should be forced.

DIMON: No, it wasn't just guidance.

HARLOW: OK.

DIMON: I have this guidance too. But when they told me I have to do it, I'm going to do it.

HARLOW: You do it. You do it.

DIMON: I'm going to do it, yes.

HARLOW: So let's talk about regulation, you say better regulation would not have prevented?

DIMON: No, no, it would have.

HARLOW: It would have so what's better?

DIMON: Oh I think, again, we have liquidity, discount windows, we have mortgage laws, we've got capital laws, we've got TLAC laws, we've got how you can use the discount window. There are 100 rules. I'm saying thoughtfully adjust the mix of how you do those, make a bit of changes. If you have uninsured deposits with that means held to maturity, should you have debt issued? Should the supervisors for something to not statutorily, not voluntarily.

HARLOW: Yes. DIMON: And yes, I think you can make a lot of changes or improve the system. But that's always true in any system. I've never seen them not be true.

HARLOW: You write in your annual letter about what you call your word, Whack-a-mole, you seem to like that word and politically motivated responses to the banking crisis? Like what?

DIMON: Like no, I think very often, when it comes to regulations, you have, this is the problem, they try to fix that, but it often has unintended consequences. If you want healthy regional banks, community banks, you should also listen to them about what excess cost does to their ability to compete.

You know, what extra high court debt does to it, and have a thoughtful conversation about what are the things we can do to make it easier for you and make the system safer? I believe that that's doable. It's not doable without the conversation. And without the analysis.

HARLOW: I was reading back some things you said in 2008. And this was in the middle of the crisis, you just acquired Bear Stearns in a fire sale, trying to stabilize banking system. And then you said, if you don't worry in this business, you're crazy. What are you most worried about right now?

DIMON: Two things? Well, I think (inaudible) quantitative tightening, the effect that has on long term rates, inflation higher for longer, that's kind of the tide going out. So even when Bear Stearns went down, you think other people have seen that and said, I have too much leverage, too much mortgage debt, too much this and made some changes.

Lehman went down six months later, I think they might have been able to fix that in the meantime. So that's a little bit of a warning to people like, but I think this war in Ukraine, or I think that is changing everything we think about the world, how we should think about safety and security, even around food, energy, it's changing economic relationships.

(inaudible) in the relationship with us and China. That is the most important thing. I mean, if you want to have a free and democratic Western world, and an American Century in the next 100 century, that's what we got to focus on.

HARLOW: You said last year on that front, the autocratic world thinks that the western world is a little lazy, and incompetent. And there's a little bit of truth to that. Is that still how you see it?

DIMON: Yes, I think you know, I think we do a lot of things that - we're in great position. So for the American public, we have food, water, energy, we're the most prosperous nation the world's ever seen, that's still true, the most innovative.

Just go to Atlanta, go to - not some people just in Silicon Valley, but towards Atlanta, towards New York, towards Brooklyn. You know, it's all over the place, we have the high - GDP per person is $70,000, plus, China's is $15,000. They import 10 million barrels of oil a day. They don't have the Atlantic in the Pacific, they have a very complicated neighborhood. They're, you know, they're aiming their neighbors, they're all starting to rearm.

We've got a great hand. On the other hand, we haven't done a pretty good job taking care of our lower paid citizens or inner-city schools, immigration, taxation and I think people should pay their taxes, litigation, which you know, it costs 1 percent of GDP. And if it was, if it created more fairness in life, I'd say that was good, but it's capricious, arbitrary, slow, you know.

And so I can go on and on about mortgages, affordable, you worry about affordable housing. You know, we all agree with that. But very often the problem with affordable housing isn't capital, it's local zoning laws. So if America just got up its own way, I think we can grow at 3 percent a year.

HARLOW: Are you worried about how close Iran, Russia and China are to one another right now and are getting to one another? Do you think about that? You're a student of history?

DIMON: I mean, if you were going to ally with the Western world, America and Europe, Western World War or you're going to ally with Iran and Russia? I mean, please, am I worried? Not really.

HARLOW: That doesn't worry?

DIMON: No.

HARLOW: That worries some of our top generals.

DIMON: OK. You said military? Yes, you should worry about geopolitics. But I just told you what a great hand America has. Same with kind of Europe, what we should be doing is allies - making sure we're the allies, not just militarily, but economically, strategically, diplomacy, development, finance, you know, have the rest of the world want to join us.

So if you're India, would you rather be part of that group, or part of the Western world?

HARLOW: Are we doing enough to entice.

DIMON: No, not enough no. I think, you know, Bob Gates in his book, it's probably called The Symphony of Powers, something like that said, the symphony includes diplomacy, development, finance, you're having business involved in helping develop, you know, Africa, Latin America, parts of Asia.

I think we could do a far better job coordinating that as a policy. I think, by the way, the administration thinks that too. And the other thing, but you can't take trade off the table.

[08:35:00]

So the first thing we do is we take trade off the table right from the start. You know, trade may be the most important thing for these countries and while there are legitimate complaints about trade, we can do it better, we can do it right and we should be very thoughtful about it.

HARLOW: Should the FDIC insure more than $250,000? Because I think a lot of people feel right now after what we've seen that every deposit is just insured with no ceiling.

DIMON: You know, I think probably, but it goes back to my thing about regulations. If you do this, you don't need to do that. If you do this, you don't need to do that. If you do them both, you can hurt. So just be very thoughtful. Probably we should raise the deposit.

HARLOW: To what?

DIMON: I don't know yet. I mean, again, you got to do the analysis in that.

HARLOW: What about--

DIMON: But I think that would help community banks.

HARLOW: It would help raise it? OK. So final question on that. Should the - should banks like yours, the big guys with the most assets that have an implicit guarantee that you're essentially not going to fail pay a higher percentage into deposit insurance?

DIMON: Oh, God, I don't know. I'll leave that to people.

HARLOW: You have no opinion on that?

DIMON: No.

HARLOW: If you guys should pay more or not.

DIMON: Well, if we were too big to fail, by the way, our bonds wouldn't trade the way they trade just so you know, and you were in the markets and so.

HARLOW: Fair. OK, talk about the economy. You wrote a lot about this in your annual letter. Has this banking crisis, even though you think it's almost over which I'm really glad to hear, though increased chances of a recession here?

DIMON: Yes. But I look at it like it's not definitive. It's just like another weight on the scale. And think of it as you know, people who says like raising rates of 50 basis points or something like that. We are seeing people reduce lending a little bit, cut back a little bit, pull back a little bit. It won't necessarily force recession, but it is recessionary.

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HARLOW: Recession more likely, because of this banking crisis from Jamie Dimon.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Not definitive but another weight on the scale.

HARLOW: Yes.

COLLINS: Interesting way of how he's looking at it.

HARLOW: Yes. Yes.

DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: Over time now to talk about the monthly job numbers. Monthly job report to CNN. CNN's business correspondent, Rahel Solomon is here. Good morning to you. Coming out of Jamie Dimon now, what are you seeing?

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so this was a cooling job report, but very much in line with expectations. So let's get to the numbers. So we added 236,000 jobs in the month of March, the expectation was 240,000. The unemployment rate ticking down from 3.6 percent to 3.5 percent. Guys, we're back at that fresh 50-year low for unemployment. We saw people come off the sidelines.

So the Fed certainly wants to see that. We want to see more workers entering the workforce, because we still have so many jobs. Let's take a look at wages. So wages increased 0.3 percent - 0.3 percent on a monthly basis, 4.2 percent on an annual basis. Where we saw job gains, some of what we've been seeing, right, a continued trend, leisure and hospitality continuing to add jobs there.

Government jobs continuing to add jobs there. So this is something that is certainly a cooling. I should say that we haven't seen job growth in this range really in the last few years. So certainly a cooling but I would argue a welcome cooling, certainly for the Fed.

HARLOW: Is it enough?

SOLOMON: Will it be enough to tame inflation? I mean, I think that's a really tough question to ask. I mean, we'll see. Right? I mean, I think it's--

LEMON: It has to continue.

SOLOMON: I mean, I think it's a long road ahead.

LEMON: And the markets are reacting well to this, right?

SOLOMON: The markets are actually closed today for the holiday. So I can't tell you about market reaction.

LEMON: Oh stocks, I thought stocks were down. But anyways, I didn't know that.

SOLOMON: Yes, the markets are actually closed. But they do reopen Monday. But what I can tell you is that I would expect that this would be the type of report that investors would like to see, right, because let's put this in context. After the Fed has done so much, right?

We've seen nine interest rate hikes since last March. That's a lot. We've hiked rates from about 0 percent to 5 percent in almost a year in just about a year. So investors are looking for and I would argue many consumers are looking for the Fed to stop with the rate hikes, right? I mean, it has sent credit card rates higher, it has sent mortgage rates higher. And so we're hoping for a bit of a break in terms of the rate hikes, will this be enough to get the Fed to cool down?

Maybe I mean, Citibank put out a note this morning saying it still expects another rate hike of 25 basis points. Oxford Economics says the same so will it be enough it remains to be seen.

LEMON: I forgot it was Good Friday.

HARLOW: See you on May 3rd.

LEMON: I forgot it was Good Friday.

HARLOW: Yes. We'll see what they do.

LEMON: Thank you Rahel.

HARLOW: Thank you Rahel.

LEMON: Appreciate that.

COLLINS: All right. Hours of hidden camera footage now appears to show a dermatologist poisoning her husband, with Drano in his lemonade stunning allegations with the details ahead.

HARLOW: Plus horrifying new details surrounding the stabbing death of tech executive Bob Lee. These new images from the moment after his attack.

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[08:40:00]

COLLINS: California, California grand jury has just indicted a dermatologist on charges of repeatedly trying to poison her husband with liquid drain cleaner. The attorney for Emily Yu says it was her husband who quote engineered the events during a contentious divorce. The husband says he installed cameras allegedly catching her in the Act.

CNN's Camila Bernal is joining us live from Los Angeles Camilla in this case. I know it first came to light last year but we're learning so many details about it. What's the latest?

CAMILA BERNAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so Yu's husband Jack Chan what he's saying is that he was drinking this lemonade and started noticing a chemical taste in his mouth. So after he started feeling like something was off, he installed all of those cameras so we read all these court documents and in them he says that in these videos he sees his wife going into or under the kitchen sink, getting that Drano and then putting it into his hot lemonade.

He says he has at least three videos that show her doing this. The videos have not been put out to the public but we do have these screen grabs and he says he had to go to the doctor and was diagnosed with stomach ulcers because of all of this. So she is now charged with three counts of poisoning and one count of domestic abuse.

Now her defense attorney says she will plead not guilty he says this was all orchestrated because of their divorce. He says that everyone knew that the family had an ant problem and so they were using this lemonade with the Drano to bait and kill the ants.

[08:45:00]

Now what he or she is alleging through her attorney is that essentially instead of calling 911, he went to his divorce lawyer and that he also is just using this because this is a very complicated divorce between two successful physicians. He says that she or that he would have noticed, having drink that Drano because it is just so poisonous and so horrible that he should have known what he was drinking, Kaitlan.

COLLINS: And so pungent What a bizarre case Camila Bernal, thank you for the latest on that.

HARLOW: It really is. All right, new details also emerging this morning after the fatal stabbing of Cash App founder Bob Lee. The San Francisco standard is reporting surveillance video and police records indicate that Lee had stab wounds to the chest. They also show that he called 911 for help and tried to flag down a car.

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JONAH OWEN LAMB, REPORTER, SAN FRANCISCO STANDARD: He seems to lift his shirt up as he approaches a car that is stopped in the corner with its flashers on. The car then drives away he falls to the ground. He gets up again and then walks back on main the way he came but on the other side of the street and falls down.

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HARLOW: The surveillance photo obtained by The Daily Mail captures some of Bob Lee's final moments as he staggered toward an apartment building with blood on his hands. Police are still trying to identify a suspect in this tragic attack.

LEMON: Oh boy. Well, the White House giving a sneak peek at its decorations for this weekend's Easter festivities. How's the rest of the country celebrating Easter and Passover and Passover, Harry Enten is here with this morning's number surrounded by butterflies and an invitation.

HARLOW: Has anyone ever been to the Easter Egg World?

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[08:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) LEMON: So a look at the Vatican, this Good Friday morning. Pope Francis set to lead prayer in Rome today after his recent stint in the hospital. And that brings us to our CNN's data reporter Harry Enten.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Obviously.

LEMON: Looking at this morning's number. Holy Week, so what is happening this morning? We have Easter and we have Passover.

ENTEN: Right. So this morning's number is one why because Google searches for Easter this April ranked number one ahead of every other month since 2004. My goodness gracious, I think, probably we're coming out of COVID, right? And the idea is, hey, maybe we can go out there. And we can celebrate with our family.

We can go to church, we can have people over for Easter lunch, and, you know, maybe roll some eggs with the kids. Who knows? But it's also Passover. And I heard you were very interested in this, Don.

LEMON: Yes.

ENTEN: And I think you know, we'd spoken about Hanukkah before, right?

LEMON: Yes, I know about Passover. I just think that we explained to people it's always good to people, to give people knowledge about - about things, right?

ENTEN: Right. So you know, Passover is right now two. And it's for either seven or eight days and nights depending on who you ask, where you are. A lot of Jews in Israel actually only celebrate for seven days. But here in the States, we celebrate it for eight because we're trying to buffer it because we're not exactly sure when it occurred. It honors the Jews escaping slavery in Egypt.

The Jews were freed after Egypt was hit with plagues and the tenth plague was God kills the firstborn sons of Egypt. But he passes over or passed over the Jewish home so thereby is the name of Passover is that God passed over the Jewish homes and spared the firstborn son.

LEMON: It is celebrated nightly with Seders.

ENTEN: It's celebrated the first two nights. Reformed Jews some will even do it the last two nights as well as Seder. You read a Haggadah, you learn about the escape from - from Egypt, from the bondage in Egypt. It was something I really enjoyed doing as a kid, Don.

LEMON: OK, so let's get to Easter, now. What are the favorite things candy, but is it eggs? What is it?

ENTEN: Yes, so the most popular Easter candies, take a look here. Reese's peanut butter eggs number one. The Kinder chocolate candy eggs. I think we're sensing a theme here, right with chocolate eggs. How about some jelly beans? Right? That's number three. Again, chocolate eggs number four and the Cadbury Easter cream eggs, number five.

So I think, I think we have a pretty good scheme going on here. Eggs are pretty big. That's what I have.

LEMON: They're weighing in over that. Does anyone remember my favorite Easter commercial? Remember the kid. Thanks, bunny.

ENTEN: I love - I loved those eggs. But I'll also just note, it's also a good time to give a greeting card, right?

LEMON: Oh my gosh, Easter is number five.

ENTEN: Easter's number five, Christmas is number one. But look number five is not bad at all. So maybe I'll send you an Easter card if you send me a Passover card. How about that?

LEMON: All right, that's cool. That's cool. What's your favorite Easter candy?

ENTEN: Peeps?

HARLOW: Candy? Uh-huh.

LEMON: No peeps.

COLLINS: Oh, peanut butter eggs, hello.

HARLOW: No Cadbury eggs with the yolk.

COLLINS: Reese's Peanut butter eggs, number one baby.

ENTEN: Number one there you go. So Kaitlan roots for one of the best teams in college football and roots for one of the best Easter candy.

COLLINS: I've got good taste. What can I say?

LEMON: Oh boy. Oh boy.

COLLINS: Thanks, that wasn't like me, not very much.

HARLOW: Now I'm reading the golf thing that I know nothing about. An amateur making history at the Masters, his inspiring story. This is - I know about this story. And this is a great one. That's next.

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[08:55:00]

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HARLOW: Looking at that. Avenger star Jeremy Renner is speaking out about the terrifying snowplow accident that he suffered on New Year's Day. The 52-year-old actor broke more than thirty bones when he tried to stop the vehicle from trampling his nephew. He spent several months in the hospital recovering from his injuries and he's given his first interview to Diane Sawyer and he says he remains haunted by the memory.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JEREMY RENNER, ACTOR: If I was there on my own, that would have been a horrible way to die and surely I would have, surely.

DIANE SAWYER: Do you remember the pain?

RENNER: Oh, all of it. Yes, I was awake through every moment and it's - it's exactly like you imagined it would feel like. If you - it's hard to imagine what that feels like. But when you look the machine and you look at and I was on asphalt and ice. I wish I was on snow. It felt like someone took the wind out of you. Too many things are going on the body to feel pain is everything. So if your soul could have pain.

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HARLOW: Your soul could have pain. Renner says he has residual pain, and there's rehabilitation but he has no regrets, he says, right? He was stepping in front rescue his nephew. That has got to be a bit of the Bourne Legacy. Aaron Cross in him, right guys?

LEMON: Glad he's OK. glad he's OK. Yes.

COLLINS: Amazing to hear him talk about that. Also today, the Masters happening in Augusta. It's the second day. One young golfer though has added something special to his swing. It's Sam Bennett's first time actually competing in the tournament. Nearly two years ago, Bennett lost his father after he suffered from early onset Alzheimer's.

The golfer says he will never forget though the one piece of advice that his father gave him before he died. Don't wait to do something. Bennett got his dad's words in his own handwriting tattooed on his forearm. You can see it here on his left forearm in this photo.

Bennett is certainly doing something he is now tied for sixth place in the tournament, shooting the lowest score by an amateur in 22 years. And on that note -

HARLOW: On that note.

LEMON: We know you hate this. Happy Birthday.

COLLINS: Thank you.

HARLOW: We love you.

COLLINS: Thank you.

LEMON: Do not open this because it's something that you wanted but you cannot open it.

COLLINS: It's the greatest gift.

HARLOW: So Kaitlan, Kaitlan.

COLLINS: Thanks everyone in the control room.

HARLOW: Kaitlan put the kibosh on the rest of this celebration. It's going to start at nine but you'll have to look at our Instagram story.

LEMON: You're going to love this. You're going to--

HARLOW: It's amazing.

LEMON: And also, I was going to wear a 10-10, got this by the way, but I was going to wear an Alabama jersey under my - we went all around, we could not find it in Manhattan yesterday. I was in the barbershop. Tim was like walking around trying to find an Alabama jersey and we never found it.

COLLINS: You guys are the best. Thank you very much. Thank you to everyone else.

HARLOW: We love you.

COLLINS: Thank you for not doing anything more because I would have hated it.

HARLOW: Oh, that's coming now. CNN News Central is now.

LEMON: Have a great weekend.

COLLINS: Thanks everyone. Have a good weekend.

LEMON: OK, now you got - now you got to open it.

HARLOW: You got to open it.