President Donald Trump speaks with new Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh after the swearing-in ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, May 22, 2026.
Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images
Hello, my name is Hui Jie from Singapore. Welcome to another edition of CNBC’s Daily Open.
The Trump administration yesterday saw two conflicted officials fend off criticism as President Donald Trump tries to lower prices and tout growth as war in the Middle East flares up again.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also defended the decision to increase bond purchases early last month after investor Stanley Druckenmiller criticized the move.
If you were working in Asia late last night, you may not have noticed this, simply because Microsoft Outlook and ChatGPT Work were down. I know quite a few office workers who were secretly grateful for that.
What you need to know today
US President Donald Trump has announced a cunning plan to counter soaring pump prices for Americans who claim he controls Venezuela’s 65 billion barrels of oil reserves.
White House officials said he will meet with U.S. refiners and fuel marketers to explore ways to expand domestic refining capacity and lower gasoline prices.
U.S. pump prices on Monday averaged $4.08 per gallon nationally, nearly 30% higher than at the same time last year, according to AAA data.
However, there’s just one problem. Experts told CNBC that the deal with Venezuela won’t lower gasoline prices for the time being.
Venezuela’s oil infrastructure is in disrepair and will require about $180 billion in investment by 2040 to return the country to peak production, according to Rystad Energy.
The South American country currently produces about 1.2 million barrels per day, down from a peak of 3.5 million barrels per day in the late 1990s.
President Trump has also turned his attention to the Middle East, vowing to attack Iran “sternly” after the Islamic Republic announced it had launched attacks on two US military bases in Jordan.
Iran’s military reportedly said the airstrikes “destroyed technical and repair infrastructure, as well as enemy fighter aircraft deployment sites” and caused “significant damage,” but vowed to respond increasingly forcefully.
Growth and the Fed
President Trump also continued to call on the Fed to cut rates, arguing that the U.S. could grow at interest rates of up to 20% (yes, that’s not a typo) and that such rapid growth should not prompt central banks to raise rates.
“Successful growth does not lead to inflation,” the president said. But with the exception of a 34.9% jump in 2020 related to the coronavirus pandemic, growth has never come close to what President Trump has claimed, especially following a 28% contraction in the previous quarter.
However, the latest GDP figures are far from the touted 20% annual growth rate. According to BEA’s latest estimates, real GDP will grow at an annual rate of 1.5% in the second quarter of 2026, slowing from 2.1% in the first quarter.
The president’s stance would then put him at odds with Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh, who markets expect to raise interest rates at the September Fed meeting.
The probability of action at the Sept. 15-16 meeting rose to 66.1% on Monday, nearly twice as high as it was before Warsh’s speech in Jackson Hole over the weekend, according to CME Group’s FedWatch tool.
Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent defended his department’s decision to double the size of its long-term Treasury repurchase program.
Mr. Bessent’s former mentor, investor Stanley Druckenmiller, argued that the policy amounted to “price control” rather than an attempt to improve market liquidity and risked undermining the Treasury’s credibility.
Stopping Outlook and ChatGPT
But perhaps the most important news for American office workers on Monday was a rare exemption from some work due to the outage of Microsoft Outlook and OpenAI’s ChatGPT Work.
While users reported issues with Outlook, OpenAI said users may experience problems starting or continuing tasks in ChatGPT Work, which may temporarily disable two methods of assigning work that are common in modern offices.
Anyone who failed to send an email and couldn’t ask an AI to write an excuse for not sending that email will finally be able to legally say, “Honestly, I couldn’t!”
— Lim Huijie
And finally…
FTC sues Amazon for misleading advertisers
The Federal Trade Commission sued Amazon on Monday, accusing the e-commerce giant of manipulating its pricing and auction systems to “secretly and systematically overcharge” advertisers on its platform.
The lawsuit, joined by 22 state attorneys general, alleges that Amazon may have taken more than $20 billion from advertisers through “hidden surcharges” dating back to auction rule changes that took effect in 2019.
But the company claims its auction system saved advertisers $8 billion between 2021 and 2025 at no extra cost.
— Annie Palmer
