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Stocks Mixed as Inflation Gauge Unexpectedly Cools; Kamala Harris Writes in Her New Book, Reckless to Let Bidens Make Reelection Decision Alone; Last Day to Bid on $100 Million Mega Yacht for Sale by U.S. Government. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired September 10, 2025 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

VLAD TENEV, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, ROBINHOOD: -- are several hundred, close to a thousand of our active traders. So these are sophisticated customers. They've been investing for a while. And they're exposed to frontier innovation companies like artificial intelligence, electric vehicles. And so, I think within that group in particular, there's a lot of optimism. We see certainly some macro headwinds lurking in the background, but there's optimism because the big super cycles of cryptocurrency and A.I. are just getting started.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Yeah. I know that part of your goal with Robinhood is to democratize finance and to allow everyday people to invest and to try their hand with markets. By some measures though, markets have gotten significantly more expensive to trade in than ever before. I wonder if you're weary at all that potential investors may soon find themselves priced out.

TENEV: Well, the thing that I worry about most, honestly, is that we have a lot of disruptive forces that could fundamentally change how people earn and earn a living. So, A.I., there's fear and concern among many that that could change the way that labor markets function. And particularly if we see some of the advances in robotics making its way into real everyday life, it could have a transformative effect.

I mean, now, if you're in industries like telemarketing or customer support, you're seeing it firsthand, but I think it could permeate much bigger. And I think what that means is two things. One, we really need to get customers and retail in particular exposed to private companies, but two, we need to make sure people are invested because as labor gets displaced more and more, investing and capital become even more important.

So, we're working on a number of initiatives to encourage this, ranging from Invest America, which I was at the White House talking about a few months back, which will give every newborn child a $1,000 kickstarted by the federal government, all the way through to can we give people brokerage accounts that they contribute to throughout their lives and retirement accounts which were giving people industry- leading match to encourage as well. So, we're very motivated to make sure people are investing younger, they invest more, and I think that that's going to be the best way to navigate the turbulent times. SANCHEZ: Yeah. It's really fascinating given the uncertainties around technologies like A.I. I know that part of your summit, you mentioned the rollout of, of new features and new offerings. Robinhood Social is fascinating. It's a place for users to connect and follow traders, even if they're not on Robinhood. I wonder who this platform is actually designed to compete with, what the market for it is?

TENEV: Yeah. I think we see an opportunity and a niche to differentiate. So one great thing about Robinhood is increasingly, there's a lot of assets available for our traders to trade. It started out as equities, but now there's crypto, there's futures, there's prediction markets including sports contracts. And so, when these traders are trading these assets, a great source of information is what other traders are doing, how they're performing. And so, this is really intended to help traders get an additional signal and actually get feedback from their peers.

The other thing is if you're actually comparing to social media platforms, people have been sharing financial news and trades on social media platforms for some time. We knew, for example, Wall Street Bets is one of the largest subreddits on Reddit. X has become a big source of financial commentary. But the one problem is when you see screenshots or trades, a lot of them are doctored and unverified. And because we have the trading and the social network under one roof, we can make sure that the signal is verified and you're seeing real performance, real money, real trades with people that have skin in the game. And I think that's something that we can uniquely do with our offering.

SANCHEZ: And Vlad, I hope you don't mind me asking because I noticed that as part of Robinhood Social, you can track trades that politicians are making. And here in the nation's capital, there's been a lot of controversy over whether lawmakers who have access to information that a lot of other folks don't should even be trading stocks.

[13:35:00]

What do you say to the criticism from folks who argue that if you serve for the American people on Capitol Hill, you should not be investing in public stocks?

TENEV: Yeah, so we did announce a feature that we called 'whale tracking' as part of Robinhood Social. So it's not just other traders on the platform, but we're supplementing with publicly available data like Nancy Pelosi's trades, for instance. And that was surprisingly popular. I mean, crowd on that one. Yeah, my point of view is I don't have a deep perspective one way or another on whether politicians should be allowed to trade, but as long as they are, I think it's a valuable signal in the markets and customers should be aware of it, and they should be able to incorporate that into their trading strategies. And clearly, there's demand for such a service.

SANCHEZ: Yeah. A valuable signal indeed. Vlad Tenev, thank you so much for sharing your time and your perspective.

TENEV: Thanks for having me.

SANCHEZ: Of course. Still ahead, excerpts have been released from former Vice President Kamala Harris' new book where she gets candid about President Biden's decision to run for reelection. We're going to bring you those excerpts next.

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": In her upcoming memoir, former Vice President Kamala Harris says the Bidens deciding on their own and that being perpetuated by those around them about whether he would serve a second term was recklessness. She also describes being undercut by the administration and officials failing to come to her defense in the White House.

CNN's Edward-Isaac Dovere is here with excerpts from the book. And Isaac, it's fascinating. Tell us what you're learning.

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yeah. Like this is a very different approach to talking about Joe Biden than Kamala Harris had for her four years as vice president and on the campaign trail last year when she took over as the nominee. She gets into these real questions about whether Biden should have run? What kind of capacity was there for Joe Biden? And let me just read to you -- that you referenced it, this question about recklessness.

She writes, it's Joe and Jill's decision. We all said that like a mantra as if we'd all been hypnotized. Was it grace, or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think it was recklessness. The stakes were simply too high. This wasn't a choice that should have been left to an individual's ego, an individual's ambition. It should have been more than a personal decision.

Now, of course, this isn't a book that is going to be published in two weeks. The excerpts published today, the one chapter of it. But we are seeing Harris show a little bit more about her reflection of what happened there. What is not, at least in this excerpt, is much of a reflection of what she did wrong and how she may have stumbled along the way.

KEILAR: She seems to pre-butt that a little bit because she sort of says she was in a very poor role.

DOVERE: Yeah.

KEILAR: And it would've been seen as naked ambition to suggest that he shouldn't run. That was sort of interesting that she said that. I wonder how the Biden camp is reacting to all of this. Because what she says that is critical of Biden goes beyond just the decision, a lot of it has to do with how the Biden camp just dealt with her as vice president.

DOVERE: Yeah. Look, one of the big questions I can tell you from reporting that I'd done before this excerpt account (ph) that she was facing is, what she was going to write about Joe Biden's physical and mental state. And she addressed it in the book again, and there's another passage from it. It says, on his worst day, he was more deeply knowledgeable, more capable of exercising judgment, and far more compassionate than Donald Trump on his best. But at 81, Joe got tired. That's when his age showed in physical and verbal stumbles.

But then she says -- she writes there, I don't believe it was incapacity. If I believe that, I would've said so. As loyal as I am to President Biden, I'm more loyal to my country. So she could have taken more of a swipe at him. She didn't. She feels like that's an honest account of it. Nonetheless, this whole accounting that she has given of what it was like being vice president and the presidential reelection decision is one that has really frustrated a bunch of Biden people that I've spoken to since this excerpt published this morning.

KEILAR: Well, she's very displeased with them.

DOVERE: Yes.

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KEILAR: The apparatus around him.

DOVERE: It's a mutual feeling at the moment.

KEILAR: So, I'm not surprised they're displeased with her on this. Fascinating stuff, Edward-Isaac Dovere. Thank you so much. And coming up, want to own this? See this tiny S.S. Minnow? No, this is a giant yacht. This is a mega yacht and time is running out to bid on it.

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[13:48:06]

SANCHEZ: Welcome to the lifestyles of the rich and the infamous. If you've ever wanted a 348-foot mega yacht, then you've come to the right place. Let me introduce you to the Amadea. This yacht has everything, six decks, eight state rooms, an infinity pool, helipad, private movie theater, a grand salon with a marble fireplace and piano, a gym and health center. You must be wondering right now, how much does this thing cost? It was once valued at $350 million, but the ship has come under some rough seas after a legal fight over who really owns the ship, that's dragged out for years. So now the vessel is taking a steep discount.

Researchers now estimate the current value of the Amadea to be between $80 million and $120 million. It was up for auction. And it is a sealed auction that closes today. There is one small caveat to all of this and it's about who is selling it, the U.S. government. For more on that, let's bring in CNN's Kara Scannell. And Kara, it's important to point out, and we say the rich and the infamous, we're talking about who previously owned this mega yacht.

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Boris. This yacht was owned by a Russian oligarch, a man Suleiman Kerimov, who made his fortune in gold. And the U.S. government acquired it because they seized it. He was on the U.S. sanctions list, and they say that he violated the U.S. laws. So this ship was picked up in 2022 off the coast of Fiji and has been docked in San Diego as this court battle has played out, because another Russian businessman, another oligarch, who was formerly the head of Rosneft, Eduard Khudainatov. He has laid claim to this.

And so this battle has played out within the courts until earlier this year. A judge said the U.S. was right, the ownership is with the man who made his fortune in gold and so gave the U.S. custody of the yacht.

[13:50:00]

Officially, the U.S. is now trying to raise money for it -- from it. And what's a wrinkle in this, this is all done as part of the KleptoCapture Task Force at the Department of Justice. And so, the money that they receive from the sale of this yacht can go toward benefiting Ukraine. That will be up to the current Justice Department to decide how they want to use the money. Looking at all these glamorous photos of it, this price tag, estimates are it could go for $80 million to $120 million, but analysts I've talked to you say that there's only really about 50 to a hundred ultra wealthy people in the world who can afford this.

Because one thing, it's not just the purchase price, but the U.S. government has already spent $30 million over the past few years paying to keep it up. So Boris, you've got about 10 minutes to place your bid.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, that's not going to happen. Kara Scannell, thank you so much for the reporting. Brianna?

KEILAR: All right, let's talk about this now with an expert in managing high-end personal assets like a mega yacht. We have Brendan Pomeroy, who is a yacht captain and the founder and operations consultant of the Aeolis Group. All right, Brendan, like Kara was saying there, owning this isn't as easy as just dishing out $100 million. Talk to us a little bit about the upkeep. Why is it so expensive?

BRENDAN POMEROY, YACHT CAPTAIN/OPERATIONS CONSULTANT, AEOLIS GROUP: Yeah, I think what Kara was gleaming at there at the end is that the purchase price is one thing, it's the cost to operate annually. That doesn't change. You could get a yacht at a discount like someone likely will in this auction, but it's still going to cost the same to operate. And that operational cost increases with time as the vessel ages and requires more maintenance and upkeep.

The sort of rule of thumb is it could cost 10 -- anywhere between 10 to 20 percent of the replacement value cost of the boat. That's not purchase price, that's not what it cost to be built. That's what it would cost to build it today. So for a boat of this magnitude, today's build price somewhere in the $300 million to $500 million range, you're looking at anywhere between $300 million and upwards of $700 million, $800 million a year to operate.

KEILAR: That is crazy. And if you were just putting gas in the tank of this thing, what are you looking at?

POMEROY: Well, I think you're looking at that, this vessel I think has about 100,000 gallons that it'll hold. And it depends on where it's fueling, cheaper fuel in the $3 a gallon range, you're going to cost about $300,000 to fuel this up.

KEILAR: OK. That's also wild. So my executive producer, I will tell you, Brendan, is obsessed with how difficult it must be to parallel park this thing or any kind of park this thing. You need experienced staff, right? If you have a yacht like this, how much are we talking about? What are we talking about in terms of staff?

POMEROY: Yeah. Well, this -- fully operational, this yacht would have anywhere between 30 to 35 crew on board. But I think to take a step back and get a better understanding of how complex these assets are, you need to understand that there's a lot of compliance and regulation similar to commercial vessel on here. So they're required, by their flag state, their registry, where they -- what crew they have and what the capacity of the crew are and their qualifications and training. Crew salaries and crew costs usually on these boats represent about 50 percent of the total operational costs.

KEILAR: So you are a consultant, as I mentioned, to yacht owners and many people who own these huge yachts may find that they need to hire someone like you to orchestrate the finances of a yacht. That's how intricate it is. Add to that, the legal process surrounding this particular vessel, how much would that deter someone from wanting to buy it? And how much does that have the yacht community kind of looking at this particular case?

POMEROY: Yeah, the industry's watching this case very carefully for a number of reasons. Initially for what the -- what the price of the -- what it sells for, but also what does it look like to operate this vessel internationally. I mean, these boats are designed to travel globally. And that's what it should and will do. And when it leaves the United States, there's questions of whether rightful ownership is going to be upheld or possibly challenged in international courts.

KEILAR: So just from a business perspective on this, for a government to seize a yacht like this, the upkeep is so much, right? I mean, they kind of are taking on a huge investment when they are seizing something like this.

POMEROY: They are, yeah. I misspoke earlier. So, operational costs 10 to 20 percent. I believe I said I was caught up on the hundred millions. So the -- you're looking at, I think a fair estimate for this boat would be about $7 million a year.

[13:55:00]

The U.S. government I suspect feels, at this point, like they're sitting on a three-day-old fish. Funny analogy for something this luxurious and opulent. But it's costing them a lot of money and they haven't done it before and it wasn't planned. So those operational costs are going through the roof. A simple thing of finding a berth in San Diego is very difficult for any yacht, let alone one that is coming in with no notice like this did. So, I think they're running into those operational costs. I also think that there are milestones for maintenance and upkeep, like five-year annual surveys where the vessel had to be hauled out. That happened under U.S. ownership. It will happen in another five years. And these costs go up and up.

KEILAR: Yeah, it's a mega yacht for a reason and it's mega costs. And Brendan Pomeroy, thank you so much for taking us through them. We appreciate it.

POMEROY: Thank you.

KEILAR: Still ahead, Poland says it has shot down multiple Russian drones and accuses Moscow of an act of aggression. President Trump's response to the incident, "Here we go." We'll talk about the global implications next on "CNN News Central."

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