Disney CEO Strategy and Reorganization

AI involves a new kind of leadership. Trace the through lines from across episodes to understand how technology leadership is being redefined for the age of AI. Learn more on the season one finale of Techfaluential, a podcast from Deloitte and Custom Content from WSJ The Supreme Court says President Trump can't fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook, a crucial ruling for the central bank's independence. Kevin Warsh is Trump's own pick. He became Fed chair in May. and this ruling actually helps him. But a separate Supreme Court decision expands presidential authority to fire officials at other government agencies Comcast is breaking up. Where we've previously believed that scale and the diversification benefits warranted operating these businesses as one company, we've now simply changed our mind about that. It's Monday, june twenty ninth. I'm Alex Oslev for the Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today Today, the Supreme Court rejected President Trump's bid to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, at least for now Trump has wanted to fire her as part of his mission to remake the Fed Joining us now to discuss what the court's decision means for the central bank's independence is WSJ Chief Economics correspondent, Nick Timos Nick, let's go back for a second and remind us why Trump wanted to fire Cook in the first place. The stated reason was alleged mortgage fraud. a top housing official Bill Polty claimed Last summer that Cook had misrepresented which of two homes was her primary residence on mortgage paperwork Trump moved to fire her last August. saying he had lost confidence in her integrity A lot of people saw this as a pretext Cook had never been charged with a crime Trump had been frustrated that he couldn't get lower interest rates from the Fed. And so critics saw this less as a fraud case and more as a way to remove a governor who wasn't cooperating with what Trump wanted and What we see today in this five four decision authored by Chief Justice Roberts was a nod. Fed independence, he wrote that the due process here matters, that Cook never had a chance to explain what had happened. And so if the president can really just invent or cite any reason, if you try to get around this for cause standard just any single thing you'll cite, you're turning these officials and people who serve at the president's will, and that is not the standard that we have for the Federal Reserve We also have a new Fed chairman, Kevin Warsh. How does this decision affect how he does his job Kevin Warsh is Trump's own pick. He became Fed Chair in May and This ruling actually helps him It forecloses One of the most direct ways president could pressure a chair up by packing the board with loyalists who would outvote him. by threatening the governors around him. So Worsh now has more room to operate independently. Right. And Lisa Cook, the plaintiff in this case, said in a statement that the decision was a vindication of Fed independence There was also a separate decision out today involving Rebecca Slaughter, a Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission Trump fired her last year, and the Supreme Court today gave the presresident free reign to fire officials at other independent agencies for any reason So does this mean the Fed is different from other government agencies That's exactly what it means The whole legal argument for Fed independence had always rested on this ninety year old case Humphrey's executor that was essentially gutted in the slaughter decision. I would say both of these rulings were people had expected It is showing that the bar for the Fed, the protection for the Fed is greater now than other independent regulatory bodies. You mentioned that this was a five to four decision from the Supreme Court. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the opinion with Sotomayor, Kagan, Kavanaugh, and Jackson concurring. Is that a surprising alliance of judges? Well, yes, you do have appointees of Democratic and Republican presidents joining together in the majority. there was any surprise here. It was actually that it was five four and not six three. There were some court watchers who thought that Justice Amy, Cony Barrett might join with the majority on this And you know, this issue is not fully resolved. This is being reported as a big win for the Fed and that's true in a narrow sense, but t today said, you know, Lisa Cook can stay on the board while she fights her case through the courts. and she will still have to do that. That was WSJ Chief Economics correspondent, Nick Timoros. Thank you, Nick Thanks for having me. In a separate ruling today, the Supreme Court upheld state laws that count mailed ballots if they were sent by election day, but arrive after The F four decision ruled against the Republican Party, which had challenged Mississippi's grace period of five business days The Trump administration supported the Republican National commommittee at the court, and the decision is the latest of the administration's legal losses on elections And the Supreme Court declined to take up President Trump's appeal of a jury verdict, finding that he sexually abused and defamed writer Egene Carroll. The High Court didn't elaborate on its reasons for not hearing the case, but the move leaves intact a five million dollars judgment against him T Stocks rallied today. Last week's route in tech stocks went on pause, with the NASDAQ jumping more than two percent. The S and P five hundred added one point two percent. It and the NASDAQ both broke five session losing streaks And the DAO, which added Google Parent alphabet as one of its thirty stocks today, rose zero point six percent and closed above fifty two thousand for the first time. It's the DAO's eighteenth record close this year Moving now to international news. As we mentioned on this morning show, the U.S and Iran have agreed to end days of back and forth fighting around the Strait of Hormuz. Trump said today that the two countries will resume peace talks tomorrow in Qatar White House press Secretary Caroline Levitt told Fox News that Steve Witcooff and Jared Kushner will attend the talks Iran's deputy foreign mininister said Tehran hadn't decided on the timing of the discussions. And France has passed a new law imposing fines on quote, ultra fast fashion It sets the criteria for fines for companies that rush out products at much lower prices than it costs to repair clothes and shoes and other merchandise The law also bans advertising and influencer promotions by ultra fast fashion companies France wants to rein in Chinese e commerce giants like Xian and Temu that have gained ground in Europe, saying they're bad for the environment Shean has said it's not an ultra fast fashion retailer, and today said it was reviewing the legislation Coming up, in this moment of media consolidation, why is Comcast spinning off NBC Universal? That's after the break All wealth managers are the same? Fisher Investments is clearly different. As a fiduciary, Fisher always does what's best for its clients. They don't sell commission based investment products or make commissions on trades. Their fees are structured so they do better when clients do better. That might be why many of their clients come from other wealth managers. Visit fisherinvestments dot com for more Investing in securities involves the risk of loss Comcast said today that it plans to separate its media and connectivity businesses into two publicly traded companies The standalone NBC Universal will include the company's film and television studios, its theme parks division, and its European media business The remaining Ccast business will consist of the company's broadband, wireless, and cable TV operations. WSJ Dputy mediaeditor Jessica Tunkel joins me now with more Jessica Comcast only finished its acquisition of NBC Universal in twenty thirteen, really not that long ago in the scheme of things What kinds of competitive pressures is it facing now to cause it to undo that merger? These two businesses, we're talking about the cable connectivity business and the median entertainment business, these are not getting easier. On the connectivity side, you have Elon Musk getting into the business, Amazon said they're working on something. And obviously on the mediaian entertainment side, you're seeing more and more consolidation. So they needed to do something and they felt this was the right time Yeah, here's what Comcast co CEO Mike Kavanaugh had to say about that where we previously believed that scale and the diversification benefits warranted operating these businesses as one company, We've now simply changed our mind about that. Like you said, there's been all this consolidation in media. justust look at Paramount's acquisition of Warner. So what could happen with NBC Universal? I mean, could we see this big feeding frenzy of people trying to acquire it? You would have to think there would be a lot of interest in this. You have Bravo, Real Housewives, Satur Live, but you also have the movie studio that is behind all these huge hits. We're going to have the Odyssey coming out in a couple of weeks. So It's going to be really interesting to see what happens a year from now And what about the broadband business? Yeah, I mean, what's interesting about Comcast connectivity business is that they could continue to invest in content for MBCU because broadband is doing so well. That has not been the case with all these new entrants and the increasing competition. And one question a lot of folks are asking is could they combine with John Malone's charter Joh Malone controls Chargter. He's made it clear he'd be interested in such a deal. So we'll have to see what happens That was WSJ Deputy media editor, Jessica Tungol. Thanks Jessica. Thanks for having me Turning now to another TV provider, we're exclusively reporting that the satellite TV company DishDBS, is preparing to file for Chapter eleven bankruptcy could come as soon as tomorrow Echoostar, which owns DishDBS, has been struggling for years with heavy debt and subscriber losses, and it's also facing regulatory scrutiny over the progress made in its five G network buildout. spokespeople for Echoostar and Dish didn't respond to requests for comment It's been about one hundred days since Josh Demarrow took over as CEO of Disney. The company's stock price is about where it was a decade ago, and DMarrow is on a mission to reorganize the company and make it more profitable For more, I'm joined by WSJ Enterertainment reporter, Ben Fritz. Ben, what have we seen from toomorrow so far? Tomarow has made several big moves. He's been trying to make big changes to the company's digital strategy And he consolidated all of Disney's marketing operations from film, TV, streaming, parks, consumer products into one. And in doing that They laid off about a thousand people, which is pretty significant. Disney in the past has operated somewhat like fieifdoms, Businesses each kind of did things their way. He wants everybody to be focused as much as possible on a digital strategy and think of themselves as a digital company. And what would that look like for Disney? So Domrow wants the company to be focused a lot more on Disney pllus. Domorrow wants Disney pllus to be kind of people's gateway to everything Disney. So one major push is getting ESPN on there So that sports And family movies and adult content and everything are all unified together into one app And he also wants to became possible for people to see theme park promotions and buy their theme park tickets, perhaps on that app. What basically Demorrow said was that If you look at what Netflix and other kind of digital native companies are trying to do, they're trying to get the kind of assets Disney has, They're trying to buy sports rights. They're trying to valuable IP. That's why Netflix went after Warner Brrosers. Disney already has that stuff. So the question is Can it then more effectively use it online And in that sense it might finally be ahead of competitors like Netflix instead of behind them. That was Journal Entertainment repeporter, Ben Fritz. Thanks, Ben. Sure, my pleasure. And that's what's news for this Monday afternoon. Today's show is produced by Alexis Moore with supervising producer Tolly Arbell. I'm Alex Osaov for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening If your organization isn't managing its data with Epure, then it's likely scattered all over the place Aon For three days have I ridden to bring thee warning. The records thy great AI machine requires are strewn across five kingdoms The Everpure Data Management platform unifies data so you can always find it. No messenger needed. No more running around. Get out of the data Dark agges with Everpure, a new era in data management