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Erin Burnett Outfront
Dimon On Big City Bet, Democratic Socialist As NYC Mayor; Huffington On Being A Disruptor In A Male-Dominated Industry; Schwarzenegger On Giving Former Prisoners Second Chances. Aired 7-8p ET
Aired November 28, 2025 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[19:00:24]
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next:
An OUTFRONT exclusive. I'll speak to the CEO of America's biggest bank, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan. He talks about his relationship with the new Democratic socialist mayor of New York City, whether he thinks the U.S. is already in recession and how he personally uses A.I.
Plus, Arianna Huffington, founder of "The Huffington Post", and now CEO of Thrive Global, here to talk about being a woman leading in a male-dominated industry.
And Arnold Schwarzenegger opening up to CNN about a project close to his heart.
Let's go OUTFRONT.
(MUSIC)
BURNETT: And welcome to a special edition of OUTFRONT.
Tonight, our exclusive interview the CEO of America's biggest bank, Jamie Dimon. I met him in Detroit, where JPMorgan has invested big. One of the key businesses that helped revitalize America's once bankrupt midwestern city.
But the big question is, what sort of relationship will business have with the new Democratic socialist mayor of the biggest city in America, New York? Zohran Mamdani is the mayor now. And I asked Jamie Dimon about his personal relationship with Mamdani and the conversation they had.
Here is our exclusive interview.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BURNETT: So, Jamie, we're sitting here in a partially finished new office space in Detroit that you're building, happens to be the day after a Democratic socialist just won the mayoral office in the city of New York, which is home for you. Are you going to increase investment outside New York? JAMIE DIMON, CEO, JPMORGAN CHASE: I'm not going to make quick
decisions about New York, not New York right now. New York has some great things going for it, as you know, like the human capital, the brainpower, the financial industry. So, it's a center for us.
But I -- my question really saying is New York has to compete. No city has divine right to success. There are great cities everywhere. We now have more people in Texas than we have in New York. That didn't have to be that way.
And so, if I was any mayor of any city, I'd be thinking about what do I need to do to build a great city to help all my citizens and, you know, all the things that create good competition.
BURNETT: You talk about more people in Texas.
All right. Zohran Mamdani recently in a conversation I had with him, he said something that I wanted to play for you. Here he is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Do you like capitalism?
MAYOR-ELECT ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D), NEW YORK CITY: No, I -- I have many critiques of capitalism.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: You had recently referred, Jamie, to his platform such that you understood it as Marxist was a word you used at a recent conference. Now, I know you just built that skyscraper in New York, right? You're $3 billion in. You know, you can't just walk away from that even if you wanted to, you have 24,000 employees, I believe, in New York altogether.
I guess this is a very basic question because, you know, during this whole mayoral election, there was a lot of talk of this. Do you think any of those employees are actually going to get up and leave New York City because Zohran Mamdani is mayor?
DIMON: So, first of all, people have left New York City. You've seen hedge funds and certain banks and Ken Griffin and I think it's a bad idea. I mean, you want to have a very competitive city, and I don't want to use labels. The important thing to me is policies that actually work.
Do you make crime better? Do you make the schools better? Do you make the health system better?
I want to lift up all citizens to. I've seen a lot of mayors and governors say things like that, and they fail to do it because their policies may not be so bad, but the implementation stinks. So, to me is get this stuff right. Go learn.
He's a young man, you know. Will he get good at it? I see a lot of people in big jobs, including political jobs, they grow into it. They're learning. They're trusting people. They're figuring it out. They make mistakes. They adjust.
I've seen a lot of people. They kind of swell into the job. They get worse. They, you know, all becomes about them or something like that.
BURNETT: Ego.
DIMON: I'm hoping he's the good one and that will be important for the future of New York. You know --
BURNETT: So, so, so, he did talk about you specifically today, actually, at his first press conference, our Gloria Pazmino asked him about you. And I will play for you what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAMDANI: I look forward to meeting with Jamie Dimon and meeting with anyone who is concerned about the future of our city and is invested in the vitality of that same city. I think it is critically important that we start to embody a style of leadership that does not demand agreement across every single issue in order to even have a conversation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: You've been doing this job a long time, okay? But this is a new challenge, right? When he says, you know, he wants a leadership that doesn't demand agreement across every single issue in order to have a conversation. That's one thing. But back to what he said a moment ago.
Can you agree to disagree on something as fundamental as capitalism?
DIMON: Look, I don't know what he means by capitalism. And when I read a lot of people, they say that these flaws are -- capitalism flaws, they're not. Public policy works.
[19:05:01]
You know, there's income problems in communist countries and socialist countries, health care problems.
And there are bad policies that cause those outcomes. It's not necessarily capitalism. So, when you say, what is your goal? Look, I want to lift up all citizens, too.
BURNETT: Well, you've talked about income inequality.
DIMON: Of course. I think we have a problem. I think we have not lifted up the bottom 20 percent of society because their schools aren't working. You know, we got to acknowledge that. How do you fix the schools? You got to acknowledge the problem. Their incomes didn't go up enough.
I would double the earned income tax credit. They're -- the crime is worse than those neighborhoods. So, while they're being lectured to by other people, they're the ones who go to crime ridden neighborhoods. Their schools don't teach them job skills.
So, yeah, we need to fix those things. Those things, in my opinion, are not Democrat. They're not Republican.
They're not flaws of capitalism. They're not flaws of socialism. They are bad policy, badly executed.
And you know, so anyone who wants to fix those things, I'm all in. You know, this mayor here, that was all he cared about. I want to fix the potholes. I would reduce crime. I want schools to work. I want to bring new jobs.
And you know what? Unemployment here, 23 percent to 7 percent. And this city had gone bankrupt.
BURNETT: Right.
DIMON: And now, it's investment grade, you know?
BURNETT: And they did it, as you point out, right? One of the first calls that Mayor Duggan here in Detroit made was to you. And there were --
DIMON: I called him.
BURNETT: You called him. I'm sorry. And you talked. He rolled out the red carpet. He wanted you here. He wanted other big business here.
He did things like tax incentives. Obviously, what we've heard from on policy in New York has been something different. An increased corporate tax rate, increased individual taxes at the high end.
But in the context of what you've done here in Detroit, right, $2 billion that you've invested over the past dozen years, Mamdani said something else last night that hits right here in this room where we're sitting. And I'll play that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAMDANI: We will prove that there is no problem too large for government to solve.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Okay, so obviously I picked that for specific reason. Detroit came back from bankruptcy and has passed, what, 11 consecutive balanced budgets under -- under Mayor Duggan here. The population here is growing for the first time in nearly 60 years.
But the reason for all that, I would imagine you believe, is because the problem was too big for government to solve alone, right?
DIMON: Yeah. I think first of all, the government and business have to collaborate. If you just think one alone is going to fix the problem, you're probably not going to succeed. And government and I'm not talking about the city government. The government has to -- they take your money. They say what they took it for, what was the outcome.
So we don't acknowledge that the inner city schools in New York aren't doing a good job for those kids. That's number one. I don't care if you're a union member, a parent, a -- someone like me. We have a problem.
Then you decide how to attack that problem. How do you get them the job skills? And there are things that work. We learn things that work in Paris, we things that work in Dallas, we things that work in the aviation high school near Jackson Heights, where I grew up.
That's what I care about, is getting the policy right that actually matters. And that can help a city. Getting the policy wrong will be a disaster. So, you know, government -- the heavy hand of government has failed in so many things. And, you know, and we should acknowledge that.
So, you know, when you look at America and they look at, you know what I'm talking about D.C., the swamp of D.C., they want to know what happened to their money. How can the FAA is antiquated? How come the Veterans Affair doesn't do a better job for its citizens?
How come affordable housing is not affordable? How come we can't build pipelines that create cheap, good, low CO2 gas in New York City? How come we can't build new schools? How come we can't? We already spend like $800 billion in K-12 and then we complain about it.
And I can go on and on and on where, you know, other than maybe the military. The governments got a lot of speaking up about what they're doing with your money. Is it efficient, is it effective? Is it -- how is it being used?
And sometimes, you know, as a businessperson, I always ask first, am I already spending what I'm doing well, before I ask for more?
BURNETT: But can the solution be I guess? Are you open to the solution being higher taxes, both personally for you? Obviously, you're in that category, but also for JPMorgan and for other big companies.
DIMON: I think the first thing you should ask is, do I spend the money I spend wisely today? I doubt the answer to that is yes. If you're going to ask the population for more money, whether it's higher taxes or me or someone else, you should say, because it's going to accomplish these things.
And, you know, my guess is, in general, if you told the American public, were going to tax you $1 trillion more, we're going to send it to D.C., I doubt there's any citizen in the country other than the few people who thinks that make the country better off, that that money will be used for -- not great purposes, not well spent. And so, I just question the efficiency of just throwing more money at problems.
BURNETT: So, President --
DIMON: And I could point out good policy is free, good regulations which make things safer and better, is free. I would focus a little bit more on those things -- pro-business, pro-growth, pro-good regulations. It's free.
BURNETT: So --
DIMON: Redirecting the amount of money you spend in K-12 to do things that create kids who have jobs making $60,000 is free.
BURNETT: So, I want to ask you something about the timeline of what happened here in Detroit.
[19:10:00]
But to that point, I know you had a brief conversation with Zohran Mamdani, or at least he told me that you did, and I got the impression it was pretty recently.
DIMON: I called him -- but it was a long time ago because I had not gone to a meeting. I was just telling him I didn't go -- not go to avoid him. I was out of the country and I said, feel free to call me. And we have not spoken since. I left a message today.
BURNETT: You left a message today?
DIMON: Yeah.
BURNETT: Okay. So obviously, you're willing to meet with him any time.
DIMON: If I find -- I will. And if I find it productive, I'll continue to do it.
BURNETT: Okay. President Trump said that his efforts to turn -- or that the efforts your efforts wasn't talking about you specifically, but your yours and others here have not been what succeeded, right? He looked at Detroit and he said, a year ago yesterday he said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I've been hearing about Detroit for a long time. They've been talking about that miracle in Detroit. Well, I mean, look, we got to be honest, it hasn't happened. But it's going to happen now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: So, he was saying, you know, now that he was in office, it was going to happen. So, does he deserve the credit for what you've done over the past 12 years?
DIMON: No., I don't -- I'm not saying -- I think he was saying that.
Look, I would tell him if I was with him, you know, Mr. President, go with me to Detroit. Did you know their unemployment went from 23 percent to 7 percent? Do you know their population is going up?
Did you know this plant is -- just like you want is building a big new plant here? You have 25,000 jobs. It's not even in the numbers yet. Did you know the crime is going down? Do you know that during -- BURNETT: That doesn't sound like he did.
DIMON: Yeah. So, I say come here. You know, and you know, he's pretty good. Let him come and learn, and he might change his mind. So -- and I don't know what time period he's referring to. And --
BURNETT: But he said that a year --
DIMON: They did a great job. This city was in deep trouble.
BURNETT: Uh-huh.
DIMON: This city was in deep trouble. This wasn't like New York, which was.
BURNETT: No.
DIMON: It was kind of healthy, yeah.
BURNETT: I saw a recent thing, 60 percent of college graduates from last spring, college graduates still don't have jobs. You know, Chipotle, I'm sure you saw, right? They said young people can't afford eating out. Stock got crushed. And they're not alone. Right? McDonalds other companies are in a similar situation.
Are we in a recession as far as the actual real world that we all live in, every day we walk around in, as opposed to the intangible world? Are we in a recession right now?
DIMON: So, first of all, both Democrats and Republicans say that affordability is the issue.
BURNETT: Yeah.
DIMON: I don't think saying that is a policy. And I think there's truth to it. You can say as inflation, as jobs, wages aren't keeping up. It's kind of all those things. And I think -- I've already mentioned there is truth to that. The lower income wages haven't gone up for a long period of time.
There's a -- there's weakening in the job market. There's no question, it's not recessionary. It's just weakening. But it'll continue to weaken. I don't know.
But it goes back to this thing about you got it. When you graduate, whether it's high school or community college or college, the skills and you need the skills to get the job. It's not enough anymore to say I can work hard.
You know, in the old days, you know, if you can, you can be in 10th grade, go get a factory in Detroit. And if you worked hard, eventually you could afford a family home, a car. And you know, that may not be true anymore, but the skills that we know we need, the jobs, A.I., coding, advanced.
BURNETT: Yeah. DIMON: Matter of fact, I went to visit focus hope here years ago. You
know, they teach kids, you know, younger kids who didn't finish high school, you know, ex-cons how to maintain this machinery. And it would be hard for you and I to learn, people -- 85 percent finish like 12 weeks of training, you know, $55,000 a year job.
BURNETT: Yeah.
DIMON: And it works. Those things work. And you just have to get people to, you know, to invest in them.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BURNETT: All right. Next, the CEO of the most valuable company in the world, Nvidia. He says that China is on track to win the A.I. race. So how does Jamie Dimon see it? And what about the whole bubble question? Does he even personally use A.I.?
More of my conversation with the JPMorgan Chase CEO, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:18:10]
BURNETT: A major warning tonight from the CEO of the most valuable company in the world. Nvidia's chief, Jensen Huang, telling "The Financial Times", and I quote, "China is going to win the A.I. race."
And I asked Jamie Dimon, the CEO of America's biggest bank about Nvidia, and his personal use of A.I.
Here's more of our exclusive conversation.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BURNETT: There's one company that sort of says it all about the zeitgeist right now. I think it's the leather jacket-wearing CEO of Nvidia, right? He walks around. He's always got that, right. It's like a brand now.
Nvidia -- I mean, he even heard of such an odd thing just a few years ago. Right now, I believe that the market cap of Nvidia is larger than all but two economies on this planet. The market cap of one company, Jamie.
DIMON: Yeah.
BURNETT: Okay. That -- that sounds crazy. That sounds like the biggest bubble that some people have ever heard. Is it? Or do you think that that is a legitimate sign of where we're going?
DIMON: Look, when you talk about the economy, okay, there are we still have the most prosperous economy the world has ever seen, the best capital markets. I'm talking about venture capital. I include private credit and banks and hedge funds and private equity.
It's enormous. It allocates capital. It creates this innovation. And we still have that.
And the economy is still chugging along. You know, it's -- it may have gone a little bit weaker, but right now, it's still kind of in that soft landing.
There are a lot of factors affecting the economy, and people are looking for that. One thing that's going to change the economy, but we have huge deficits. The remilitarization of the world, the risk of geopolitics, which may or may not, you know, determine the course. The economy is inflation get worse or not worse, you know, the restructuring of trade, some of which is completely necessary.
Those factors will determine the future. And it's a confluence of those factors. It's not one thing. Stock prices being high and credit spreads being low is another. I would put the risk factor category.
[19:20:00]
There's a lot of good assumptions embedded in that which may not turn out to be true, but we'll get through that. The economy will still be the --
BURNETT: Do you buy Nvidia right now?
DIMON: I can't make stuff --
BURNETT: I know you can't. But I mean --
DIMON: Look, it's an unbelievable company. And the way I look at A.I. a little bit is it is real. You know, we've been doing it for, you know, for since 2012.
BURNETT: Yeah.
DIMON: It's hugely productive. It's almost at the beginning. I agree with that concept too. And of all the companies in it, you know, it's like the Internet. They may not all pay off, but you did get Google, you know, Facebook, YouTube, you know, part of Microsoft, Amazon, Salesforce.
So, people have to -- yeah. There was a little bit of a bubble in there. But the benefit of the Internet --
BURNETT: So, both things could be true a bubble and it's real.
DIMON: And I think your kids, there may -- they may avoid half the cancers that afflicted us. So, let's be --
BURNETT: Yeah.
DIMON: There are composites for airplanes and cars, and new materials and new drug inventions may be enormous. And so, mankind should benefit. And yeah, the valuations today may be too high for some of these folks.
BURNETT: And do you use A.I. -- DIMON: Yeah.
BURNETT: -- yourself?
DIMON: Yeah.
BURNETT: What for?
DIMON: Well, we have -- I usually do research, you know.
BURNETT: Oh, really? I mean, like the Google search kind of research or something?
(CROSSTALK)
DIMON: My chairman's letter, I actually asked questions which population does this and do research and stuff like that. So, we use it for very specific stuff, fraud, marketing, risk, design. We can measure in some of those cases exactly what we get, how much cost we saved, how much productivity, you know, speed to answer customer satisfaction.
Some we don't. We have LLMs on internal data. So, you can go -- if we have --
BURNETT: Your own large -- whatever -- large language model.
DIMON: But it's only on internal. So, you could ask, you know, how many companies have these triggers in contracts.
[19:40:02]
How many -- you know I want to know companies. You know, we have I assume you might ask about the -- and resiliency initiative. How many companies are building drones that we invest in, in Texas. And it will give you answers you can ask to do analytics. You know, how many companies have, you know, EBITDA has changed like this rate. And so -- and it's just starting and some you can measure and some you can't.
And so, you -- you -- like you could have done research and said, hey, what would the population, the public and CNN want to hear about from Mayor Duggan and Jamie Dimon if I'm interviewing them? And they'll come up with a list for you.
BURNETT: So replaces our brains, essentially.
DIMON: It's not going to replace thinking.
BURNETT: It won't, yeah.
DIMON: It's going to do a lot of work for you.
BURNETT: Okay. But so, you know, Tom Lee, widely respected financial researcher. You know, he's on CNBC a lot.
He said that JPMorgan right now, you've got 330,000 employees. So, you just were talking about all that research. I mean, I started my career out doing that sort of work, basically saying, you don't need me anymore. He was saying it could go down to 20,000 employees.
I mean, that's a 94 percent drop. I know that's not where you are right now, but I mean, okay, but is that a world you could see? Is that where this is going, do you think?
DIMON: I think the much wiser way to look at it is that there will be jobs that are eliminated, 10 percent, 10 percent, 50 percent, 80 percent by A.I. It will also create jobs, just like when people had the car, you know the horses, but they car created mechanic jobs, tractors eliminated and fertilizer eliminated. You know, 39 million jobs in farms. You get better food, better farm and all that brain power and human capital went to do other things over time.
The only real risk for society -- forget military and nuclear proliferation, which I worry about -- is all things get used by bad guys. That's true for almost anything. So, we need to think that through and regulate it and proper regulation, not overregulation.
And if somehow it's too fast for society. So, I do a thought exercise. If I think there are 2 million commercial truckers in the United States, if it eliminate two million jobs tomorrow, and it was safer for the streets, less CO2, better time delivery, no complaints, happier customers, would you push that button and put two million people out of jobs? You know, making good paying jobs that support families where the next job they have may be, you know, maybe stocking shelves somewhere at $25,000 a year?
Well, if you want a revolution, that's a good way to do it. So if that happens, we civic society and government and business should say, hey, let's be thoughtful. Income assistance adjustment, you know, slower retirement, phasing in overtime, retraining, relocation. So, society benefits and you don't have two million people who suffer terribly.
And, you know, that's kind of the same mistake we made with trade. You know, that there are huge benefits. But, you know, certain towns got wiped out.
And so, we would we need to be very thoughtful how to handle that if it happens too fast. In the meantime, for JPMorgan, we always redeploy. We've been -- we take all these jobs and we always retrain, redeploy.
You know, we have in Detroit, there's a virtual call center. An unbelievable thing, 100 percent at home, you know, we're in this community, I think with 80 people, we're going to double it now to like 150 or 160.
BURNETT: In Detroit?
DIMON: In Detroit. Some of those people, I met them last time I was here have been promoted out of the virtual call centers. It's hugely efficient and we need people to handle that.
They will get more and more A.I. to help them do a job we still need. We're still going to have branches. I always say people --
[19:25:00]
BURNETT: You're still going to have branches?
DIMON: People like to visit their money, you know? And when it comes to technology, I always say, what's not going to change? You're going to hold money, you're going to move money, you're going to raise money, you're going to invest money.
But the technology, how those things happen, will be different. So, if we do a good job, we'll probably have the same headcount and more headcount down the road.
BURNETT: Okay, so you're renovating and building this new office space in Detroit, much smaller scale than what's happening in Washington, right where the east wing has been demolished for what's going to be a very, very large ballroom that the president is building. Now, a lot of CEOs have rushed to donate to this, right? And it matters to him, right?
So, he looks at the list on that list. You got Amazon, Coinbase, Google. You got a whole lot of others, Comcast, tons of companies on there. I didn't see JPMorgan Chase on that list.
Did you think about it? Is there any chance you're going to do it?
DIMON: You have to look at JP -- we have an issue, okay? Which is anything we do since we do a lot of contracts with governments here and around the world, we have to be very careful how anything is perceived. And also, how the next DOJ is going to deal with it.
So, we're quite conscious of the risk we bear by doing anything, it looks like, you know, buying favors or anything like that.
So, you know, do we do things like that? And -- but we also have policies. We don't do certain things --
BURNETT: Right.
DIMON: -- because it just makes it easier for us. We have helped the inaugurations. That was a normal thing that a lot of companies did. So, we'll see.
BURNETT: This the concern of buying favors.
DIMON: Yeah.
BURNETT: I want to ask you about one other thing before you go. Another big story, which of course, is the Epstein files. Jeffrey Epstein banked at JPMorgan Chase. You know, you've talked about that many times.
One of the leading congressmen who is pushing for release of the Epstein files, right, which is at the FBI, the president and the speaker have resisted that. He asked for you and other bank CEOs to testify. He said this on our show on Friday, and I wanted to play for you.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): We are demanding that JPMorgan and others come before the Oversight Committee.
Why is he getting hundreds of millions of dollars? What is all this money going for? What is he doing when we know he's running a sex trafficking ring? Why? Why are such powerful people involved with him?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Now, I know you said you regret JPMorgan ever doing business with that individual with Jeffrey Epstein, but what do you think should happen with those Epstein files?
DIMON: First of all, we were in litigation this and a lot has already been made public.
BURNETT: Yeah.
DIMON: All of my emails, I had tons of stuff.
BURNETT: It's all out there. Yeah.
DIMON: I have no problem with any transparency. Zero.
BURNETT: Well, you said you would testify --
DIMON: No. There's nothing that they're going to learn from me that's important. We kicked him out in 2013.
You should know this is important to me. And I think our government should listen closely, we have been finding these suspicious activity reports which we're not allowed to disclose, but it came out in the courts recently, I think as early as 2002 and 2004 and 2008, the government knew a lot more than we did.
So, all that time, I wish we hadn't done anything with him. I never personally knew him or anything like that. But what we knew, we could have known, we should have known. And then we get punished and, you know, and that's why we debunked people, which I also don't like.
And we have to kick people out, and we make -- we can make their lives horrible because were afraid of DOJ or regulators coming after us. And they knew a lot. The government already knew a lot. They knew -- they knew in '07, '08, '09, 2010, a lot more than JPMorgan.
BURNETT: Uh-huh.
DIMON: And so, if I were Ro Khanna, I'd be asking, what did the government know? What did they do?
BURNETT: Why didn't they do something?
DIMON: And they allowed it to go. And after we kicked down 2013, a lot of the really bad stuff happened after that. So that happened under their watch. And then now, you've seen that tons of other people bank them after that, not JPMorgan.
So yes, we regret it. You can say we were late, that we could have should have maybe kind of know, but boy, but we -- I wouldn't do -- no one in our company would do anything to aid and abet a beast like that.
BURNETT: All right. Jamie Dimon, thanks so much. I very much appreciate your time.
DIMON: Erin, thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BURNETT: All right. Then, Jamie Dimon talked about why he doesn't carry a cell phone with him during the day.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DIMON: If you send me a text during the day, I probably do not read it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:33:34]
BURNETT: And we're back tonight with more of our exclusive conversation with Jamie Dimon.
As we're finishing our conversation, Dimon told me why he does not normally carry his cell phone. And whether -- and this is a question that comes up again and again -- but now, we're down to the wire. Is he going to run for president? Here he is.
(BEGIN VDIEOTAPE)
BURNETT: Okay, we got this new office space.
DIMON: Yeah.
BURNETT: Everyone's going to be here five days a week.
DIMON: Absolutely. Collaboration. People working together, sharing ideas.
BURNETT: Has anybody quit because you put them back five days a week?
DIMON: I don't think so. There were some complaints, which, of course, the press made a big deal about, but it was very few. Most people understand why it's important and I have nothing wrong with people don't want to do it.
BURNETT: Yeah. DIMON: But I tell them is I understand you don't. But you're not going
to tell the company what to do. And then, like I said, we have a virtual call center here. We have one in Baltimore. We have 10 percent of the population who is always work from home.
BURNETT: And the virtual calls virtual.
DIMON: We said, is these jobs not work from home predominantly. And we make exceptions for flexibility, for women, for care. We do make proper exceptions where appropriate.
BURNETT: So, we're standing here and we don't have phones. Well, I'm checking, I -- nope, I don't have it. Okay.
But when the world changed, sometime in our lives where all of a sudden, when you don't have it, you feel naked, you feel afraid, you feel anxious, you recently said --
DIMON: I don't carry with me.
BURNETT: You don't carry it?
DIMON: No, I do, but I don't have it in front of me all the time. Like if you send me a text during the day, I probably do not read it.
BURNETT: Really?
DIMON: Yeah.
[19:35:01]
BURNETT: So how do you do? I mean, is it just as simple as you don't have your notifications on? Or how do you --
DIMON: No, I don't have -- I don't have notifications. The only notifications I get is my kids. That's it. Like when they -- when they text me, I get that and when the phone vibrates.
But people don't call me on the phone that much. They tend to call my office, and I don't always take it with me when I'm walking around the thing and going to meetings, I don't have it on me.
BURNETT: You don't?
DIMON: It's in my office. If you need me, it's important. You have to call my office and she'll come get me.
BURNETT: So you said you don't want when people are on their iPad, you get mad in a meeting.
DIMON: But when I go to my meetings, I'm a -- I literally, I'm 100. I did the pre-reads and I'm 100 percent focused on us. What are you talking about? Why are you talking about it as opposed to I'm distracted and thinking about other things and --
BURNETT: So, what makes you still love it? I have known you for almost 20 years, and you are still the CEO of JPMorgan Chase.
DIMON: Yeah.
BURNETT: What makes you do the same job and still do it with the intensity that you do it?
DIMON: It gives me purpose in life to -- when I grew up as a kid, you know, I'm grandson of Greek immigrants, out of Jackson Heights, Queens, by the way, where AOC is from. You know, the goal was to have a purpose in life.
Your purpose could be reporter, art, science. My older brother, the physicist. It could be doctor. It could be businessman. And also make the world a better place. Treat them with respect.
And I enjoy that. I enjoy -- I get the thrill of traveling around the world and seeing people in action. And I get tired there. There are days it's like -- I'm like, leave me -- just leave me alone.
BURNETT: Yeah.
DIMON: Yeah.
BURNETT: But they say, you know. Jamie Dimon, treasury secretary, now, Jamie Dimon, is he going to run for president?
DIMON: Neither.
BURNETT: Do you still think of a future like that?
DIMON: No. No, this is my perch. I think I could do this and do it well and help make -- help make the world a better place. And all these policy issues and help lift up cities and clients and we -- I work with people I adore. I mean, literally, I do, even though I could be tough on them sometimes.
I tell them my -- my respect and for you folks is way up here. And so, I feel an obligation, like when I go to all these places around the world, I don't go like, big CEO, I kind of walk away saying, God, I got to do a better job for them. And so --
BURNETT: Jamie, thanks.
DIMON: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BURNETT: OUTFRONT next, Arianna Huffington here, and she's not holding back on leadership, women and finding clarity in the current chaos.
And Arnold Schwarzenegger giving some people the keys to do something incredible. We'll tell you what it is.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:42:11] BURNETT: Tonight, she's nicknamed the anti-Trump. We're talking about the former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who became an instant global phenomenon when she took office in 2017. That happened to be the same year that Donald Trump, for the first time, took the presidency, and they both took the world by storm in such very different ways.
Ardern was elected at only 37 years old. She was pregnant at the time. She then led her country through COVID as the youngest female leader on the planet.
Now, Ardern is the focus of a new CNN film, "PRIME MINISTER".
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JACINDA ARDERN, FORMER NEW ZEALAND PRIME MINISTER: I think I have natural levels of anxiety for someone who's 37 years old and who's also pregnant.
Oh, well, this is normal.
We only have six cases at the moment.
This can only be described as a terrorist attack.
Crises make governments and they break governments.
It's hard to switch on the news some days and just think, the world is a dumpster fire. How do we shine a light on the humanity I know is still there?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: OUTFRONT now, Arianna Huffington, author, founder and CEO of Thrive Global. And of course, you may know her also as the co-founder of "The Huffington Post".
Now, Arianna, you know, that you and I have spoken a lot lately. And one thing that Jacinda just said there stood out to me. She said it's hard to switch on the news some days and just think, the world is a dumpster fire. How do we shine a light on the humanity? Which I think so many people can relate to.
And you right now at Thrive Global, all of your focus has been on enabling people to live better and more fulfilled lives. But do you ever just want to throw your hands up in the air and say, this is a dumpster fire? What do I do?
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON, FOUNDER & CEO OF THRIVE GLOBAL: I don't, because I feel that in the middle of all the breakdowns and all the dumpster fires, I can see all the breakthroughs. I can see all the new things happening. I can see amazing things beginning to emerge.
I always take just great solace in unexpected things. Erika Kirk forgiving the murderer of her husband. James Talarico, a Democratic candidate for Senate in Texas, talking about the need to come together and talking about his faith and loving our enemies.
And the shift that's happening, away from cancel culture towards forgiveness and redemption is not at all mainstream yet, but it's happening in many important areas. And that's what I focus on.
BURNETT: So, you -- and I always find you positive. Sometimes I would call Arianna and I will say, because you will uplift me.
HUFFINGTON: I agree.
BURNETT: When you launched "The Huffington Post" in 2005, right -- I mean, you were then an entrepreneur, a disruptor, new thing, male dominated world.
[19:45:04]
All of a sudden, it takes off. It does well.
And then people start scrutinizing you. So, among the things they called you, Arianna -- ruthless, unscrupulous and ambitious, as if that goes along with being unscrupulous. And perhaps in some people it does, but not in you.
I'm just thinking about those words in the context of Jacinda Ardern and what she went through as prime minister of New Zealand.
Have things changed enough yet for women that such descriptors would not be put on a woman doing what you have done?
HUFFINGTON: Well, there are many words like ambitious, driven that when applied to men, would be called bold and resilient. That happens.
But I also think what's happening, Erin, is that we tend to suffer from misplaced perfectionism. We tend to suffer from overjudging ourselves. I call this voice the obnoxious roommate living in my head that can judge me much more than anyone can judge me from the outside.
And so, I think we also have a lot of work to do when it comes to things that are in our control. The obnoxious roommate, the voice of rumination, and being able to be much more in the present and bringing more joy into everything we're doing.
BURNETT: Right. And women are -- women, of course. I think when you say we, I mean women, I think any woman watching this can recognize.
HUFFINGTON: Also, you have children. I have children and two grandchildren.
BURNETT: Yeah.
HUFFINGTON: And I say that they take the baby out and they put the guilt in. That's the other thing. You have three children. You have a six-year-old.
I'm sure there are days when you say, I should be now at home putting him to sleep. And so, we also go through a lot of those guilt cycles that drain an enormous amount of energy.
BURNETT: They do. And they're very negative.
I remember actually. And I remember saying this to you recently, I don't know if you remember, but you and I, one time when I came down to meet you at thrive, when you were launching thrive, because I was so exhausted and I didn't know what to do, and I was looking, maybe I'm going to reach out to Arianna. I'm just going to get to know her, to ask her what to do.
And I was that desperate that I called you up out of the blue, and you gave me a little bed for my phone to sleep on at night.
HUFFINGTON: But phone sleeping with you.
BURNETT: My phone it -- yes, it does sleep with me. It does, in fact, in the night.
HUFFINGTON: A very important little micro step we can offer your viewers.
Separate yourself from your phone at night. Because your phone is really the repository of every problem and every project, and you need to separate yourself from that to be able to really surrender to sleep and wake up ready to take on the world.
BURNETT: And you learned this the hard way. And there are so many people watching, I think recent poll, 62 percent of Americans feel stressed or nervous. They feel anxious. You know, Pete Hegseth recently talking about how it feels like 1939. People are afraid.
And I -- 2007, you collapsed from exhaustion.
HUFFINGTON: Yes.
BURNETT: That's why I reached out to you because you've been there. You woke up in a pool of blood, and you said to yourself your cheekbone was broken, right? You said, something's got to change here. Something's got to change.
So, what do you say to Americans who are feeling, whether physically or just, you know, palpably, this sense of anxiety and fear and that something really bad is going to happen?
HUFFINGTON: I say, let's look at the things we can control and the things we can control. Start with our own daily habits, like about sleep, about food, about movement, about stress management, and about connection to others. And then let's look at the things we can influence outside the things we care about, the things that involve helping others because, you know, service and caring for others is also incredible for our own well-being.
You know, when we are all completely wrapped up in ourselves, that's draining as well.
BURNETT: And do you think then, that there will be more people like Jacinda Ardern? I mean, obviously in the U.S., this still has not happened. And, you know, you don't just vote for someone because of their gender, but is it -- is America ready?
HUFFINGTON: Oh, absolutely, America is ready. But also, I think what was interesting about her is stepping down.
BURNETT: Yes.
HUFFINGTON: I think that women are more likely to step down from big jobs. Look at Emma Walmsley, you know, who was the only woman of a leader of a major pharma company and stepped down as CEO.
And I think sometimes men feel confined by their jobs. They feel their entire identity is wrapped up in their jobs.
I was talking to a girlfriend of mine married to a very successful man. She said to me, you know, he's beginning to be miserable in his job. It's affecting his health. He can't sleep.
[19:50:00]
I said, why doesn't he give it up? They have plenty of money. She said, I told him that. And he said, who would I be without my job?
So, I think women tend to have a more diversified identity portfolio.
BURNETT: Yeah.
HUFFINGTON: I mean, I've never felt fully identified by my job. I'm sure I know you and I have talked. You are not fully identified by your job, and that's incredibly liberating.
BURNETT: It is. It is. And you know what? And that is empowering. And I think something so many can hear as well.
Arianna, it is wonderful to see you.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (R), FORMER CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR: When you said, I'll be back, you meant it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: See how Arnold Schwarzenegger and the folks behind MTV's "Pimp My Ride" are doing something totally different.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:56:03]
BURNETT: Tonight, Arnold Schwarzenegger teaming up with the auto repair shop behind MTV's "Pimp My Ride" to give former prisoners a second chance.
Elex Michaelson is OUTFRONT. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SCHWARZENEGGER: When you said I'll be back, you meant it.
ELEX MICHAELSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Arnold Schwarzenegger is celebrating the crew that turned his car from this to this.
SCHWARZENEGGER: Thank you very much. Thank you.
MICHAELSON (voice-over): Many here served time behind bars before this life-changing opportunity at West Coast Customs.
SCHWARZENEGGER: They get a second chance.
MICHAELSON (voice-over): Leti Dominguez got involved with gangs and drugs at just 11 years old.
She spent a decade behind bars before starting this job.
LETICIA DOMINGUEZ, WEST COAST CUSTOMS ACADEMY: I have a reason why I wake up every morning that isn't negative.
MICHAELSON (voice-over): She's also now a full time college student.
DOMINGUEZ: I feel like I'm a good person today because I have a job.
RYAN FRIEDLINGHAUS, CEO OF WEST COAST CUSTOMS: I feel like I found my purpose give back.
MICHAELSON (voice-over): Ryan Friedlinghaus founded West Coast Customs in 1993.
JUSTIN BIEBER, SINGER: How many cars have we done?
FRIEDLINGHAUS: It's about eight.
MICHAELSON (voice-over): His work customizing cars featured on all these TV shows, including MTV's "Pimp My Ride".
His clients include Shaquille O'Neal, Justin Bieber, Bad Bunny and Paris Hilton.
FRIEDLINGHAUS: We build everything and anything people dream of.
MICHAELSON (voice-over): Growing up with dyslexia, Ryan says he was good with his hands, but not with his textbooks. He started West Coast Customs Academy about three years ago for people like him.
FRIEDLINGHAUS: The industry is lacking good people to work with their hands.
MICHAELSON (voice-over): They partnered with an L.A. County organization called JCOD to start a free job training program for former prisoners.
MICHAELSON: You've got all this really expensive stuff around there. Do you trust all these people?
FRIEDLINGHAUS: That's something that that was a challenge for me, so I gave it a chance.
MICHAELSON (voice-over): Ryan says he's been blown away by the results. Ryan told his longtime client, Arnold Schwarzenegger, about the academy.
SCHWARZENEGGER: So, Elex, they do everything themselves here.
MICHAELSON (voice-over): Schwarzenegger invited us for an exclusive tour of West Coast Custom's 60,000 square foot headquarters in Burbank, California.
In 12 weeks, the students here work on interior fabrication, paint, rap and audio all in one place. On this day, they're doing the finishing touches on Schwarzenegger's Excalibur, which was first built in the 1970s.
SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, I tell you that as soon as it is totally finished, you and I will be going on a ride through Beverly Hills with a stogie in our hands.
MICHAELSON: Let's do it, baby.
SCHWARZENEGGER: Exactly. Yeah.
MICHAELSON: Arnold Schwarzenegger's focus on second chances started long before his first visit here.
MICHAELSON (voice-over): This nearly 50-year-old video from Schwarzenegger's archive shows the former Mr. Olympia hosting a workout for inmates.
SCHWARZENEGGER: What do you guys want to see? Some posing?
MICHAELSON (voice-over): Schwarzenegger says he's visited nearly every jail and prison in California.
MICHAELSON: What did you learn from the inmates?
SCHWARZENEGGER: You know how to be tough and how to endure. We don't learn from winning. We learn from mistakes that we make.
MICHAELSON: There are some people that are like, lock people up, throw away the key. Why is it important to go the opposite route?
SCHWARZENEGGER: I mean, it's always easy to say, yeah, lock them up. Let's be tough on crime, and it always sounds good.
But I mean, when someone has served their time and has understood that they made a mistake, you must make sure that they have a chance to come back.
That's why I said earlier, you know, they say, "I'll be back." It's not just the Terminator that says it. You know, people want to come back.
MICHAELSON: And they are now putting the finishing touches on this car that's ready to be delivered. Ryan, by the way, hopes that this becomes a national model for second chances.
Elex Michaelson, CNN, Burbank, California.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BURNETT: Thank you, Elex, for that report.
And thanks so much to all of you for joining us.
"AC360" starts now.
