Dimon, Cook, Bezos: Wall Street's biggest names attend WH dinner

The Biden administration held a state dinner at the White House on Wednesday, hosting a powerhouse list of guests including JPMorgan Chase (JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon, Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos (AMZN), and Apple CEO Tim Cook (AAPL). The event honored Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his wife while showcasing some of the top executives across the country.

Senior Columnist Rick Newman joins Yahoo Finance to break down the powerful guest list at the White House State Dinner and what it means for the Biden administration.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Yahoo Finance.

This post was written by Nicholas Jacobino

Transcripción del vídeo

[AUDIO LOGO]

MADISON MILLS: Last night, the White House welcomed Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for the fifth state dinner of the Biden administration. While policy substance of the evening might have been on the lighter side, the guest list did include some heavy hitters, including Jerome Powell, Jamie Dimon, Jeff Bezos, and Tim Cook. We're bringing in our very own special guest Rick Newman to discuss the evening. Rick, I can't--

RICK NEWMAN: Sorry I didn't wear my tuxedo.

SEANA SMITH: I was going to say, Were you on the guest list?

MADISON MILLS: Why weren't you included?

RICK NEWMAN: I mean, I was. I was busy, though.

MADISON MILLS: Absolutely.

RICK NEWMAN: I had something else to do, so I couldn't go.

MADISON MILLS: You were upstate.

RICK NEWMAN: I couldn't go to that state dinner, sorry.

MADISON MILLS: Yeah. There you go.

RICK NEWMAN: I mean, you know, it's a state dinner. It's not-- you're not there to raise campaign donations. I mean, you do that all the rest of the time. A state dinner is something that doesn't happen very often. And, you know, if you're the president, you basically want to show off the best your country has. And I think, you know, by my count, there were four prominent CEOs there or business leaders, Jeff Bezos, no longer the CEO, but obviously founder of Amazon, Jamie Dimon of JP JPMorgan Chase, Tim Cook of Apple, and Larry Fink of BlackRock. You know, those are some of the most prominent business leaders in the world. So Biden wants to show them off. There is always I'm sure a little bit of business happening on the sidelines.

Japan is kind of a stealth ally. Japan is a very important ally for a number of reasons that don't come up a lot. But first of all, as a counterweight to China.

MADISON MILLS: Right.

RICK NEWMAN: And this is only going to get more important in the future as the United States, whether it's President Biden or President Trump, try to figure out how to rein in China's economic power and if necessary, its military power. I mean, Japan is really important in that. Japan, for what it's worth, got right on board with sanctions against Russia when they invaded Ukraine in 2022. And it's a very stalwart ally. I mean, you know, we still have military troops based in Japan. North Korea is another important issue. This is the problem child of Asia. If something does go south with North Korea, I mean, Japan is going to be a very important ally there. So, you know, very important for everybody to get together and get to know each other.

SEANA SMITH: And certainly a critical ally, like you were saying. But the guest list was very impressive, obviously, and I think got a lot of people's attention just seeing who exactly was included. And like you said, it makes a heck of a lot of sense when you're trying to put on the best presence there in front of a very critical ally.

RICK NEWMAN: Right. Another interesting person there, Shawn Fain the UAW leader, where Biden has kind of made this alliance with the union going back to the strike last fall. So that's a little bit of a plum for the union leader there.

SEANA SMITH: Yeah. That's interesting. All right. Rick, as always, thanks so much.

RICK NEWMAN: Yep.

MADISON MILLS: I wish we had more time.