The flat line. Dow futures up by 9 points s p futures down by 1 point. Nasdaq up by 5 1 2 nasdaq up for two out of the last three sessions as Technology Stocks continue to defy odds. Oil prices dragging things down yesterday. You can see in asia, the nikkei down slightly. Hang seng was weaker shanghai was down by a third of a percent. In europe, in the early trading, already seeing some modest declines the cac is the biggest decliner, its down by a half percentage point. The ftse off by 0. 4 crowd oil prices sitting at a tenmonth low. 42. 80. Still below 43. The big stories were watching today anything that happens at uber is big. Its another departure it took a day, but its front page on all the papers today about travis so late it missed the papers. Even now, if youre interested, some guy named bill gurley, who you may or may not know, a venture canpitalist at benchmark who was behind the push to get ckalanick out, now e stepped down from his role at company. Gurley served as a board member. Hell be replaced by a colleague from his Investment Firm thats the latest on whats happening at uber. We keep saying Travis Kalanick is out, hes on the board still and owns a major stake of the Voting Rights of that company you can see you can think maybe the boardroom would have been complicated if gurley stayed on. All the postmortems, i have not delved into it im interested ive taken an uber the other day i think we gave i wasnt there, but we gave the guy a bat rad rating i think they responded you mean the family gave a bad rating picked the family up. Only so much time to make a train. The guy says i have to stop for gas. We canhave to get a train, you cant stop for gas he said then well get stuck on the highway, everyone will run into us and well die in a flaming wreck. Its not a good situation. So theyre on the edge of their seat went on fumes, it said 20 miles left. So there are things. I all thought that about uber, anybody can be an uber driver . Thats part of the appeal they do check people out theres been incidents around the world. Ill say. Theres been times when ive seen a cab, its like i go into the safety of the cab. Probably more expensive its not always more expensive. But the uber comes sometimes the cars are more luxurious than a taxi if you have hundreds of accords converging on you, me, me no no hundreds of honda accords what is so interesting about the story is not just the new economy, the sharing economy that it created and helped play on whats interesting is the changing dynamic of the boys club in Silicon Valley, and how venture capitalists will go along weith it as they get bigger and bigger valuations, you have to look at this in a whole new way. This is no longer startup city. I think Silicon Valley is the most politically correct wall street is an old boy out there you have Cheryl Sandberg you have people who look at these issues youre talking about places who are run by young men, a lot of engineers out there are men. You tend to have a bit of a different culture. In the case of uber, they didnt really have an Hr Department when people did report to hr for some reason i think of Silicon Valley open to everybody. Doesnt mean theres not bad things happening behind the doors. Nothing bad happening here. Not between the two of us cant speak for turnow. Are you a good person . Pretty good. Well be the judge of that. Shares of staples hes on the edge of his seat now. Are you married i am, indeed. Im not sure thats a good source she has anything on you, thats where you go for the source shares of staples are surging on reports that the Office Supply chain is in talk with Sycamore Partners to go private a deal could be reportedly be worth more than 6 billion it could come a year after the judge blocked the merger between staples and office depot reports say sycamore won staples in an auction. Oracle shares are popping after earnings were much better than wall street estimates total cloud revenue, i like saying that, total cloud revenue soaring more than 58 during the latest period. The Company Offering an upbeat forecast for the Current Quarter. Nice move in the stock just take a quick look has it traded here before this this market cap has to be in some serious territory i think thats probably an alltime high. Closing in on 200 billion. That was before the move. I think it is 200 at this point. Up 10 . I dont think its ever been this is rarefied air for oracle. Dont miss oracle coceo mark hurd on squawk alley. Thats at 11 00 a. M. Eastern this morning on cnbc we have breaking news for you. Haines celestial releasing Financial Results for the first time in over a year. Sara eisen has the details good morning. This was highly anticipated since the company said last august there were accounting issues now a year later the company has gone through a strategic and substantial review the biggest headline this morning is that no restatement of earnings or material changes to the Balance Sheet is it looks like theyve done a comprehensive review hain concluded no evidence of intentional wrong doing in connection with the companys Financial Statements thats the big headline and question for inves tors going into this. They have got their backing from ernst and young auditors all of that would come as good news its the first time were getting Financial Results from the company in about a year. Let me go through some highlights of that for you i mentioned the good news. That could be why shares are up 2. 7 on the idea theres no restatement or any major changes. Heres the numbers to know for the fourth quarter, they came in a bit light. 715 million in revenues versus 724 estimated. 40 cents to 43 cents was the eps. The estimate was more like 54. Fullyear 2017 numbers a bit below expectations for wall street 2. 84 to 2. 86 billion in revenues verse the 2. 9 expected on eps, 1. 19 to 1. 22 this tells us business has slowed for a time we havent seen hain. Sells a lot to to whowhole food. Thats their biggest customer. Business has slowed. Still growing sales about 4 or so the biggest headline today is theres no restatement attorney numbers. Irwin simon, the founder and ceo of this company who remains ceo and founder remains on squawk alley. The only other piece of news, they have appointed a new cfo along with the changes back to you. Thank you the senate expected to release a discussion draft of its Healthcare Plan at 9 po a30m eastern time Kayla Tausche has a look at what to expect. One of the lead stories in the journal. Now were up to six. Even ron onson, who i dont think of as either a firebrand like rand paul or ted cruz, he says he has problems because he has not seen it. Wont have time. Right this rollout, i dont know. How will it go there are a handful we reported six yesterday on cnbc of republican senators who have concerns about the bill they are hearing is being put together. That number seems to have climbed by a couple in the last few hours. Because many of the Senate Republicans wont be seeing this draft bill until at or around the same time of the general public so yesterday evening i was on capitol hill to try to glean what i could from the Senate Republicans who were Walking Around after votes and i want to share with you what i learned i spoke to senator pat toomey of pennsylvania, who is on the working group, the small group drafting this. He said on tax credits that you will find in our bill versus the house bill the tax credits are more targeted towards people who need them most expect those to be income based. Senator ron johnson from wisconsin on the cbo score, he needs time to review the bill but said its a modifications of the house bill, so i would expect the cbo to do it fairly quick. Spoke to senator john thune about medicaid and change, is that would come. He got a question on whether it would be a three or sevenyear phase out. He said i think closer to the latter but nothing settled until tomorrow and mike rounds was asked about whether insurers will be participating in the plan, whether they have spoken to the industry thats one of the ecriticiskri m of the Affordable Care act its in a death spiral they cant turn a profit he said i have concerns about how the whole thing is built because i want it to work longterm. Reportedly there are some payments that are expected to keep the Insurance Market stabilized in the shortterm politico and others are reporting that the senate bill includes funding for cost sharing reductions that offset the plans under the Affordable Care act for at least two years. But theres dueling priorities, they wont have seen it until this morning and theres still north of a half dozen senators who say they need time or they have concerns about the contents okay. They put this together pretty quick. But i dont know when you have guys the moderates are not happy, conservatives are not happy. Its a microcosm of what we saw in the house you think eventually something gets voted on, dont you think mcconnell says lease bringing it with or without voted on, back to the house i dont know we talk about the republican senators who are on the fence about this, but theres been notedible turnovers, like richard burr who told a North Carolina reporter that he felt it would be hard to do this year he didnt see a path to get it done he said i came back, they ripped the bandaid, so it looks like well get it so theres new optimism but also new concerns people are frustrated and just want to get their hands on the legislation, they want to talk to their constituents and talk about whats in it and not just talk about it but point to specifics. Okay. Kayla, thank you well check back what time today . Can the 30 a. M. Easte9 30 a. The cbo score as early as friday, as late as monday. When do you think theyll vote aiming for next thursday, a tight timeline if they can get a vote in the senate, the budget process is when you could see the amendments introduced. This has to go through reconciliation, and it has to go back to the house, too, which is another wrinkle that will add to this saga. Thank you to the markets now joining us is jim tierny our guest host is richard turnow when you look at the markets today, a lot of things are concerning jim, you say one big issue is the dichotomy between the bond market and equity market how are you playing that out investors are doing two things in the equity market, alltime highs, in the bond market, down to 2. 15 on the tenyear treasury its saying the economy is in a different shape. I think the two markets have to sort out which is right. My guess is that the economy will come through and that Interest Rates will go up, but thats a question. Traditionally we thought that the bond market would be the leading indicator. That it knew something that maybe equities didnt. This time may be different i think it is you look at Consumer Confidence, while it dipped, Consumer Confidence is high the biggest thing we need is housing to rebound the starts numbers over the last couple of months have been disappointing. If they come back and people point towards labor shortages, if you get those starts back up, thats going to drive the economy. We have been puzzling this through for a couple months at this point trying to figure out whats going on. Is there a chance both markets could be right because theres Something Else at play, its not just a sign of the economy the low level of bond yields now is one of the key factors which is supporting the equity markets. I hear equity markets are expensive, stretched valuations are high. When you take into account the bond yield is close to record levels, of course valuations are high and well supported by the low level of bond yields theres nowhere els to put your money nowhere else to put your money and the Economic Data is still robust we moved from the reflation phase of last year into a period of sustained Global Economic expansion. This is not just about a u. S. Growth story, but a European Growth story even though you might not agree on how you read these things, it sounds like you are both getting to the same conclusion that you like equities at this price i think you need to be more selective at alltime highs. I dont think you oent whole ow whole market, you own sectors. As this noise passes, i think healthcare continues to do well. Tech earnings are coming through solidly. We would agree equities are the right place to be, not just in the shortterm b run, but fo long run attractive dividends, Earnings GrowthGoing Forwards, equities look to be the place to be we look outside the u. S. More than inside the u. S. Actually when you look at europe youre seeing more attractive valuations, european recovery story, almost a renaissance story starting to unfold, and looking at emerging markets, seeing sustained growth. Do valuations continue to stretch for equities or is this a situation where the companys Earnings Growth picks up, and they grow into the things. How does that shake out . If you look at earnings this year, theyre supposed to be up 10 15 , the market is up at 10 i think stocks are following earn ng ings now so much of the returns youve seen over the last year or so have been driven by a rerating of the stock market, as we moved out of fears of deflation in the first half of last year. Rightly markets repriced as a result when we look forward we should expect lower returns in coming years and high returns the last couple of years, the low returns are driven by a much greater extent from earnings Going Forward. But that still leaves equities looking like the attractive place to be over the medium term i will call you out, you used the term stretch we dont see evaluations in the equity markets being stretched theyre getting higher. Valuations look higher than they had historically higher than they. Were that is true. Our viewers, when you take into account how robust the economy is, the sustained its justified. Those valuations are justified. Jim can i ask one yesterday it was weird, did you see it the dow was down the nasdaq really surged. Yeah. All those f. A. N. G. Stocks again. Why . Biotech was incredible. So oil driven selloff for the dow, but they all came back after recent weakness. Think about the last couple of weeks retail is in the ddoldrums energy going down. F. A. N. G. Is back or not f. A. N. G. Is up they were up a lot. When you think about the underlying secular growth of these companies, its fantastic. Thats what investor also focus on theyll have real growth as growth slows down. We are settle nothing this period of sustained expansion. Investors are looking for where you will get the Earnings GrowthGoing Forward. I think its worth highlighting, when you look at global stock market, this is far from a narrowly led stock market. You are seeing markets rise in all Major Regions at the same time, seeing extraordinary breadth in terms of market leadership the vast majority of stocks doing well this is a broad led recovery that gives us confidence this can be sustained jum, thank you very muim, th joining us. Coming up, our Small Business city series continues with kate rogers in charlotte, North Carolina squawk box will be right back. The power of a low volatility investing approach. The power of smart beta. Power your clients portfolio with powershares. Before investing, consider the Funds Investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. Call 8009830903 for the prospectus containing this information. Read it carefully. Distributed by invesco distributors inc. Main street hungry for tax reform while the Trump Administration has come out with a bare bones plan for tax reform, the Small Business community was happy to see the parity in the proposal kate rogers has more from North Carolina on Small Business and tacks. Good morning reporter good morning to you, joe Small Businesses like journeys way Point Solutions group say their frustrated with the tax code he is an llc and says he hopes for a lower rate under the new administration if we have a profitable year we pay taxes on all of the profits. Doesnt matter if were reinvesting the profits back into the business or putting it in our pockets, were taxed on the whole thing. In North Carolina the state overhauled its tax code in 2013 giving some what of a break to Small Companies like this one, melt in your mouth cupcakes which fooil files at the frahedl level. They hope trump keeps good on his promises were hoping to ep open up t new stores paying the taxes on this one is taking capital away that we could be spending on Something Else its very important for us to get the tax burden off of our backs. Both Small Businesses say they liked the parity in the trump proposal, the 15 rate for corporations and Small Businesses they say theres turmoil in washington going on, theyre not sure he has the Political Capital to get this done back over to you thank you bring back cupcakes thank you when we come back, the gop leadership laying out their tax plan over the next two days. We will talk taxes with steve forbes next. And later the man in charge of crafting the tax reform bill. How ways and means chairman kevin brady will join us at 8 30 a. M. Hell give us a peek in how things are happening and shaping up and what he anticipating what theyll do after the senate gets ahold of this stuff. As we head to break, a look at yesterdays winners and losers hey, ive got the trend analysis. Hey. Hi. Hi. You guys going to the Company Picnic this weekend . Picnics are delightful. Oh, wish we could. But were stuck here catching up on claims. But we just compared historical claims to coverages. But we have those new audits. My natural language api can help us score those by noon. Great. See you guys there. We would not miss it. Watson, you gotta learn how to take a hint. I love to learn. Welcome back youre watching squawk box live from the Nasdaq Market site in times square. Good morning again welcome back lets look at the u. S. Equity futures. After mixed day yesterday for the markets, you can see things have pushed higher for these markets. The dow futures are indicated up by close to 20 points. Nasdaq by 8. S p futures fractionally higher. Alt teegsice usa raising 1 9 billion in its offering last night. It is the second largest u. S. Ipo this year. Altice usa is the uniformed by alt teeice when it bought cable vision and it will trade under the stock ticker atus. The ceo will be on at 10 00 a. M. Today. President trump is hosting another tech summit. Investors from about 25 company also attend along with the president s chief mick advied adviser, gary cohn theyre expected to discuss the impact of emerging technologies on Industrial Workers as well. Before he meets with President Trump today, Randall Stephenson will join us at 7 00 a. M. Eastern. Gop leadership making the argument for tax reform right here on cnbc over the past couple of days House Majority leader Kevin Mccarthy linking whats possible on taxes to the gop push to pass a new healthcare law if healthcare moves the end of next month, then you have repealed a trillion worth of taxes there. So youre actually starting with a corporate rate down at 25 to start out with you can broaden the amount of tax reform you can get done. Were working through that now well go into tax next and well do as much as possibility because growth will actually solve the majority of our problems that were headed into the next decade. We want to get the rates as low as we can. Get to a territorial system. Theyre the base ekics we all a on we do believe you cant get to 3 Growth Without this joining now is steve forbes, steve is the chairman and editor and chief of forbes media. What could have been what could have been just wasnt the right time for you. You would have made a great ambassador to the quarter st. James. Think about that. Youre a business guy, publisher, conservative, outsider trying to come to drain the swamp in washington. You were just before your time, then it happened can you believe that any recriminations that you didnt wait a couple of cycles you do it when you can. You cant always time these things the time was right, wasnt it, for this populist sort of throw the bums out candidacy when you have ten years of subpar economic growth, starting with the previous Bush Administration and going through the obama administration, people want a radical change. The other 16 republican candidates who were running in 2016 didnt offer that up in a convincing way trump did and he won youre a good person to talk to about all this. The republicans are in position to govern now. They caught the bus, the dog chasing the bus. Now they caught t theyre lishgk what are we supposed to do with this bus are you frustrated governing may not seem to be, not yet, maybe the forte not doing being the party of resistance theyre great at, now theyre governing. You didnt do well in french. Its forte. I like forte. Forte is the musical term the real problem has been on the congressional side more than the white house side but you see it first going with the healthcare bill which was very foolish, complicated subject. They should have gone with tax cuts first they boun themselvd themselves e idea that they must have revenue neutrality, so they get caught up in cbo. They want to make it permanent. Theres nothing permanent in washington the 86 tax cuts changed in three years. Just get the thing done, then you can do expiration dates later. They got a little too wonky and idealistic they got caught up in process instead of policy. You see it with paul ryan. Youll have kevin brady on theyre obsessed with this 20 border tax they seem to be stepping back from that. Well hear paul ryan has indicated he has, even though he didnt mention it in his speech he said we must do it, its the only way we can do it. White house is not in favor of it why do you not like it . A lot of smart guys think a phasein border tax would be a great deal phasein poison or poison all at once, its all poison its a mini v. A. T. , it hits the people who elected donald trump, working families the price of a vehicle because of the parts we import, up 2500. Tell me what we should do on healthcare theres a promise how many time dts republics did the repu introduce an Obamacare Repeal that they couldnt get signed. How do you do it a couple things theyre hung up on, one is medicaid medicaid they equate more spending with more humanity. Medicaid, the more you spend the worse outcome forpatients. People not on medicaid have no worse outcomes than people who are on medicaid. Its a disaster. The key thing there is get over the charges. The democrats will always say youre inhumane, you want to throw everyone on the street allow states to have the flexibility to design their own plame programs its not just the democrats, the republicans are saying the house is a little mean what he wants in terms of the medicaid side, start to mick th make that thing work states like rhode island, indiana and others had real medicaid reform. They found in a state like rhode island that with more flexibility patients are happier. You get better outcomes. You spend less money it works free markets work if you allow it richard had an interesting point about the stock market, what weve seen in the russell 2000 youve seen the small caps underperforming significantly. Ive been seeing investors over the past few weeks in the states, most have effectively given up on the hopes that theyll see significant tax reform this year, at best it will be smaller, come later, it wont be fully funded. The question is is that the right expectation for the market is there scope for positive surprise this is where the republicans starting with the house of representatives have to deliver. They should make clear up front any tax bill passed this year will be made ret proactive, that way if they dont get it to the fall it will be there. Right after the elections, russell 2000 did well because of tax relief, having deregulation and the like the big one on the tax side looks iffy they have to get a tax cut through. The heck with the Congressional Budget Office estimates. Do the thing, get it down to 15215 20, have the pass through provision. Go big and say well worry about all of it later. Get this economy growing if you get this economy growing at 3 , 4 , mccarthy, the majority leader is right, solves a lot of problems. It does feel like with the markets, the small caps have come off the sugar high from last year and there may be scope for positive surprise if you get material tax cuts coming through. Particularly if theyre re retroactive. Thats the key thing. Make it big and make it retroactive. The prospect of a hanging focuses the mind hanging the prospect of a political hanging focuses these guys theyre beginning to realize, if they dont perform theyre going out next year. About 20, 30 republicans are in vulnerable seats they have to get this economy moving or theyll be looking for new job opportunities. Funny how squacared they are getting criticism from the left after this may get voted out by their own people they are conscious to criticism. They seem to listen to everything the left says they have no counter talking points yesterday if they got a big tax cut through, they could say look at your next paycheck which is why i think theyll double the standard exemptions so you have more none in your paycheck you think things will happen. Youre optimistic. You think they have to do something and things will happen are you just hope springs eternal or you just believe it its not so much optimistic, politics dont like to lose elections. If they go too far taking away entitlements from obamacare, theyre afraid of losing the election. The nice thing is, rhode island and other states have shown, you do things right on medicaid you get the best of both worlds. Were giving patients more control, youre running it into the ground, were dealing with this thing effectively steve forbes, thank you thank you when we return, more from richard turnow at 7 00 a. M. Eastern time, Randall Stephenson will be joining us then at 7 30, blackstones ceo Steve Schwarzman at 8 00, steny hoyer at 8 30, kevin bdyra squawk box will be right back. But theres no business track record. Well, have you seen her work . No. Is it good . Good . At cognizant, were helping todays leading banks make better lending decisions with new sources of data so, multiply that by her followers, speaking engagements, work experience. Credit history. That more accurately assess a business chances of success. This is a good investment. Shes a good investment. Get ready, because were helping leading Companies Lead with digital. At crowne plaza we know Business Travel isnt just business. Theres this. a bit of this. Why not . Your hotel should make it easy to do all the things you do. Which is what we do. Crowne plaza. Were all business, mostly. Welcome back millionaires are more politically divided than ever but are not mixing politics with investi investing. Robert frank is here with more. Reporter more than age, gender, geography your political level shapes your thoughts about the economy. More than half of millionaires believe the economy will be stronger than year most millionaires expect the s p to be up 5 or more this year. Democratic millionaires more pessimi pessimistic. More than a third say the economy will be weaker, more than half flat 38 of republican millionaires expect the s p to go up double digits this year thats twice the number that we have for the democratic millionaires you would think given all that that the democrats would be spending and investing much more cautiously well, theyre not. When you look at where they plan to put their money in the next 12 months, democrats and republicans are investing the same nearly half put their money in equities, 20 in bonds, 15 in cash both groups in terms of sectors favor healthcare, finance, energy and industrials even the spending plans, when you look at democrats and republicans, about the same. Three quarters will spend the same as they did last year 15 spending more. You have a big diechotom democratic millionaires and republican millionaires spending usually we follow the money, right . Thats right. If you have a conviction that the markets and the economy will go to hell, you will you pull your money out but theyre not what shocks me about the survey, despite the positive tone of t boshgs it, both groupg 30 into cash, despite how low the yields are to me, thats not a signal of optimism thats right. But they do when they look at s p for this year, almost all of them, three quarters above 5 , many of them above 10 theyre expecting a small market but also diversified all right thank you. Thank you coming up, more from our guest host, and later oak marks david herro named morningstars International Stock fund manager of 2016. Hes betting big on europe as we head to break a quick check on whats happening in the european markets now rays always been different. Last year, he said he was going to dig a hole to china. At t is working with farmers to improve irrigation techniques. Remote moisture sensors use a Reliable Network to tell them when and where to water. So that farmers like ray can compete in big ways. China. Oh. He got there. Thats the power of and. George clooney cashing in on a Tequila Company he and a friend started on a whim diageo is buying casamigo at a deal valued at up to 1 partne get 700 million initially casamigos naemeans with friends they plan to expand the brand to europe i dont know i just saw the picture i see they have silver too i had some of the, i guess the gold i feel like im back in college when we used to be in college. Its very strong i guess im used to silver in margaritas this one is worth a billion dollars. How much is pedron worth casamigos ships 1. 5 million a year pedron is 2. 5 million a year im not used to drinking the gold stuff any more. Silver is i like it better than vodka vodka margarita. Get some final thoughts from our guest. Is that your thinking . Do you like the silver do you drink anything at all or scotch a glass of wine nice glass of wine. So i harken back to when Interest Rates were much higher, 13 tax. People were able to get those. They wanted floating rate. They floated all the way down. People do the wrong thing. Why do people want to buy 2 paper in bonds because they need that part . Will they be right you have a huge number of investors who need income. You have insurance companies, Pension Funds they need to buy income many people are ingrained in yields decline 35 year bull market for bonds starting with paul volcker where youre used to getting bonds Going Forward going to get coupon minus return over time. Weve seen huge amounts of money in perceived safehaven assets and we see flows at the beginning of this year huge flows in fixed income every time yields rise more money comes in. That money will start to move over time. Weve seen it and that will continue i didntask, but did they think 5 total were already up double that this year. I was assuming that was from here but maybe i didnt these markets have surprised many people in how strong theyve been we saw a very strong market. Many people assume there will be a pull back during the course of the year a number of risks. The market continues to climb a wall of worry. Not just the Political Risk we saw last year but actually this year managed to dont climb despite the Political Risk in europe and now focused on Political Risk well see potentially in the u. S. In the second half of this year the market is resilient. What that tells you is the market is able to look through some of these short term risks and if you take the long term view investors see you have a choice between cash where youre guaranteed a negative return after inflation, bonds after youre gruaranteed zero whats the goal i dont think the woes of worry is whether things are done is very positive. If they do get done you sell that news. The u. S. Market, the burden has shifted to a degree where most investors are expecting very little in terms of tax reform and very little this year still going up there. What that tells you this market isnt predicated on tax reform if you get any good news its a short term boost to the market you dont need that. What you need is the market to stay resilient you said that you like u. S. Equities over the medium term not just the short term. What is the medium term . If you invested over a five year horizon what you see in history is that 90 of the time youll make money investing in a five year horizon. You invest in a 10 year horizon 90 of the time youll make money. If you look at those periods when you lose money its associated with the financial crisis most investors should take a longer term view and by doing that actually compound your returns and opportunity to build your wealth. Richard, thank you for being here today my pleasure we were going to talk about downtown abby. They changed my teleprompter theres going to be a movie. Officially in works. Wow will the countess be in that has she signed on . We dont know. The president of Nbc UniversalInternational Studios saying he hopes to get 20 returning cast members for the film they need her they need her. All right. When we come back this morning at ts chairman and ceo Randall Stephenson will join us. Hes meeting with President Trump today. Steve schwartzman is here to talk economy, politics a hndis scholarship program. Squawk box will be right back. On the caribbean seas its a champagne and models potpourri on my yacht made of cuban mahogany gany, gany, gany watch this. Better than a manual, and my hygienist says it does. But. Theyre not all the same. Turns out, theyre really. Different. Who knew . I had no idea. So, she said look for. One thats shaped like a dental tool with a round. Brush head. Go pro with oralb. Oralbs rounded brush head surrounds each tooth to. Gently remove more plaque and. Oralb crossaction is clinically proven to. Remove more plaque than sonicare diamondclean. My mouth feels so clean. Ill only use an oralb the 1 brand used by dentists worldwide. Oralb. Brush like a pro. Ceos gathering at the white house to talk tech, infrastructure and the future of america with President Trump at t ceo Randall Stephenson will be there but first we joins us on squawk box. Plus he has built blackstone into an empire of investing and has the ear of the president on jobs and economy Steve Schwartzman to talk about washington investing and philanthropy oil prices creeping slightly higher the seconds hour of squawk box begins right now announcer live from the beating heart of business, new york city, this is squawk box. Good morning and welcome back to squawk box here on cnbc live from the Nasdaq Market site in times square im joe kernen along with becky quick. Futures are taking a quick look. That average although the nasdaq was very strong and indicated to add to those gains yesterday, up nine bank stocks were very strong biotech was as well. S p basically unchanged this morning. Heres the headlines at this hour Senate Republicans are going unveil their version of a Health Care Reform bill this morning. The details expected to be released at 9 30 tiernl. A vote could come as early as next week. Venture capital bill gurley stepped down from the board of uber hes led that effort that out offed Travis Kalanick. Gurley has an Investment Firm called benchmark and hell retain the board position with gurley being benchmark will hell be replaced by his colleague. And were watching shares of Office Supply retailer staples this morning reuters reporting private equity firm is in advance talks to buy staples and a deal could be worth more than 6 billion staples attempted to merge with office depot a few stocks on the move four star group amended with Capital Group increasing the merger price to 15. 50 per share in cash. It would be acquiring all of the outstanding shares starwood would of four star common stock for 14. 25 in cash all other terms and conditions under the starwood merger agreement remain unchanged a u. S. Jury has order ed tev to pay clieng clieng 235 Mi Glaxosmithkline 235 Million White House tech week continues with another meeting with industry leaders. The president is expected to make remarks on emerging technology as well as new demonstrations of drones and universal broadband. Eamon javers joins us now from the white house. Good morning reporter yeah, good morning. Were expecting some kind of drone demonstration here at the south lawn of the white house later today. Were outside of the Southwest Gate where were waiting for some of the arrivals of some of those ceos who are expected here we dont cho what will happen with this drone demonstration. They havent given us any details. Let me tell you whats officially on the agenda here including drones at the top of the conversation, they are also going to be talking about tropical depressions, the technology, the safety surrounding the Drone Industry which they say is growing. They will talk about digital wireless and future of connected devices, the internet of things and financing startups look at how to expand geographical diversity get that start up bubble outside of Silicon Valley. Here are some of the big names who will be here steve case of revolution also ceo of sprint, the outgoing ceo of ge will be here, randall ste sfoen of at t, ceos of honeywell, century link and the president of verizon all at the white house. A big day of ceos. Well wait for some of those arrivals and bring him to when we have them all right, thank you for that a lot of tech. A lot of ceos make being their way to the white house seems like its every week Randall Stephenson, ceo of at t, what happens at these things, randall . I know theres a lot of listening and a lot of listening on both sides would you say, it is pretty much equal do good thing happen is it productive it will be interesting to see. You get a call from the administration asking if you would come talk about where technology and Infrastructure Investment is going, and what can you do to accelerate and create more opportunities for Investment Trust me i want to show. Yeah. Do you think they will go around the table obviously at t has different concerns than other groups what will you be saying . Actually, we were asked to bring a demonstration that we have done around the world on what fifth Generation Wireless Technology means, what does it took like as you deploy it in cities and residential neighborhoods, the opportunities to create a home solution for broadband that has speeds superior to cable modems what does it mean in inner cities as you create the ability for Autonomous Cars to become reality. What does fifth generation wireless mean. So, our view is without fifth generation wireless internet of things doesnt scale, Autonomous Cars doesnt scale, competitive alternatives to scale doesnt happen were happy to have this conversation with the administration will you bring up anything specific like Net Neutrality, time warner, anything like that or not the time and place for that well follow their lead when the question is asked what can we do to stimulate investment in these areas its push play. We know what the answer is lets start with tax reform. Lets move to getting regulations sensible, predictable, where we know how to invest. If you take care of those two things in this industry theres never been a watch for more investment investment queues up how do you judge where we are in those two areas right now, two very different areas tax reform has been very public. Regulatory not as transparent to those who arent in the industry where do we stand . Ill start with regulatory because its fascinating to see what happened in a very short period of time under this administration in the last couple of years there were some rules put on our industry that basically said were growing late wireless and the internet like it was a 1930s monopoly already the fcc has come out with a noticed proposed rulemaking where they intend to rule those regulations back call Net Neutrality a ar and operating systems cant block applications, cant throttle and so forth, protect those things which are critical to an open and vibrant internet but remove these burdensome regulations theres been a number of re regulatory actions some pricing initiatives to regulate pricing which creates more uncertainty start with regulation. Its been dizzying the pace that the regulatory Playing Field has been cleared and made more clear for companies that invest like ours now moving to tax reform, im actually still optimistic that something gets done this year. It will be a 15 rate or 25 rate we all look at a move to get to 25 . We can see line of sight how congress could do that if you want to go lower, you have to begin to do some things like count on economic stimulation to get the rate lower. But, obviously, were advocates of moving this rate lower. If you want to stimulate investment in new technologies and innovation theres nothing that will drive it faster and more broadly than tax reform what about Capital Expenditures and investments i know we talk about this every time because its a huge number for at t on an annual swriized s what would it mean if tax reform passes how much would that increase were on pace to invest around 22 billion in capital in the United States this year. Which is that is undoubtedly will be the largest of any company in the United States once again if we were to have some form of tax reform, see that rate move down or some type of preference on Capital Investment would you see us step that up. We actually would anticipate stepping up our Capital Investment if you get lower rates. By the way, i dont think were unique would you see this happen across all industries and with every player in our industry randall, still the elephant in the room. This time warner thing it looks like its going through normal channels, going through the way you would normally consider anything like this. Do you hear things that you can comment on about how the process is going would you characterize it as different than election season and the rhetoric around the deal at that time does it seem now that its going in a sort of an orderly way and is not going to be sort of used as a political football to make a statement about companies being too big . What are the chances now that it happens, do you think, better than during the campaign well, u. S. Is following a normal course. I would suggest to you this one is not normal in that this one is on a single track approval process. Going through the department of justice review only. Typically major things like this have to go through to fcc and doj. Its hard to plan around timing. Now were on a single track. Working with the department of justice only on this the department of justice has a very simplistic approach to how they review this thing is it anticompetitive will this transaction reduce competition. If they judge it does there will be conditions. Can we satisfy those concerns they have with conditions. Or will they have to sue the block. Were in negotiations and the negotiations, theres nothing surprising but, joe, its early. Early in the process but were optimistic if its viewed under the rules of anticompetitive behavior this thing ought to pass its vertical. Vertical merger. The competitive environment will look the same the day after the transaction closes as it did the day before you got some democrats led by alling franken, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders that are against the deal now, not everything is the enemy of my enemy but is the president going to come down at this point with those three versus, you know, maybe a more republican Oriented Approach to antitrust issues can you imagine . I have no idea where the president will come down on it his Justice Department has a mechanical review process, is this transaction anticompetitive and if they view areas where it is can they be remedied with conditions. Its a fairly straightforward via. In terms of the political process, the political process is less relevant than a typical merger senators that joe mentioned are looking at it from that exact viewpoint and they say should you determine theres substantial harm to competition you should project the proposed acquisition they think the merge certificate about giving consumers less choice. What do you say back to them its the opposite if you look as to what happened as we move more and more in the world of delivering media over the wireless environment, the wireless networks, choice has done nothing but explode since acquiring directv and gaining the rights to distribute all that content over mobile devices you can now if youre an at t subscriber get for 10 a full compliment, 60 channels of direct tv content delivered to your mobile device 10. To suggest thats less choice doesnt make sense in my mind and in fact if you look at whats happened since we announced the roll out of this product, youtube announced i can go through a lit any of players saying they want to participate in this streaming mobile content its opened up new opportunities of competition for the consumer at lower prices and Higher Quality. Now allow time warner in the equation where we can think about delivering content integrating social and doing new ad platforms will that create more opportunity for consumers . Is that less competition or more we actually think were about to initiate another round so its opposite as opposed to what senator franken and others are saying the other day a guy thats widely followed in this business said that the whole cord cutting fears which had been so prominent a year, year and a half ago, that now people, its almost the opposite they downgraded had buys for a long time on some of the major Cable Operators and he actually downgrade and saying now people are too complacent about, you know, the risks of that becoming more pronounced cord cutting what do you think at this point . Look, weve had a strong view that over time consumers will move, a lot of consumers will optout of what we tall the traditional tv, cable tv or satellite tv were seeing that. Particularly Young Millennials what has happened the cost of contend and media costs have continued to escalate so the cable bill, the cable bundle bill has seconded to escalate and a lot of people have said for 100 a month were opting out. Theres netflix or other alternatives thats why this directv product, 10 a month with your wireless plan on at t, were seeing some really significant uptake of these kind of plans. So its going to be a mix, Joe Millennials will do a lot of cord cutting or if you will offers integrate wireless with streaming capability to their tv and home but more over the top in nature than traditional linear stream. The rest we believe will be a slorks we call it a melting ice cube over time so you get these new models delivering to wireless and what were seeing the ability to do exactly that were optimistic its a growth industry no less demand for premium content like cnbc than there was last year. In fact theres more of it being consumed just being consumed differently. They are consuming it on mobile device and tablets thats another thing. Youve always loved cnbc pup told me that your favorite network. Best business channel in america, joe what about cnn thing . Whats your feeling if you finally own them will be yesterdays news are you going to be i mean do you like cnn will you spin them off so you can focus on cnbc. Do you have any comments on those . Dont even answer because i know you dont want to answer that. I probably wont, joe thank you for the out. You got a watch i hope you have this on tape look at that shot. I mean i cant help but think that some day theres more for you than just running a company. Just looking at how you look look at that shot. Very president ial instead of a chicken in every pot, you can promise 5g in every house. Do you have a Campaign Speech ready to go, president stephenson no, i do not. Senator stephenson. Congressman. Ceo as a politician, im impressed by President Trump that hes made that transition i think a ceo going topolitics would be the most frustrating experience known to mankind. I know. I agree. Thats a Beautiful Day today and beautiful shot its hot. Its actually quite hot. I feel im in dallas, texas and not washington you feel right at home. Randall real quickly, when do you expect to see, whats the timeline for some sort of decision from the Justice Department on time warner. We continue to say by end of year we see no reason why this cant come to completion by year end Randall Stephenson, thank you. Speak your mind today. Dont be shy theres a lot of guys there. A lot of big eegos in that room. Blackstone Group Chairman and ceo Steve Schwartzman will join us as a special guest well talk markets, deals, washington politics and much more check out the futures at this hour, a focus on oil is coming up next. S p is now negative but the dow and nasdaq are up. 666 on the nasdaq. 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Crude oil has dropped 20 since peaking in late february with only brief rallies, crude has erased the gains from the end of 2016 in the wake of that initial opec led production cut. Jackie joins us more with where prices could be heading pinpoint something crazy. Below 35 its possible at this point look we tested 42 a barrel yesterday. Its clear the market is pricing in an extended period of oversupply here. Could mean more pain is ahead. There could be more risks hide when oil is near 26 in february of last year the concern was the impact on the credit market. Im starting to hear that conversation again and its important. Analysts and traders are checking high yields energy spread to determine if more danger is looming. Take a look at this chart from S P Dow Jones indices. Look at the dip in february in if index in 2016 it doesnt look like were in the danger zone just yet but oil is holding over 40 a barrel while many producers used technology to bring down the break even cost a three handle will squeeze if we see a two handle down the line maybe in the fall, risks of defaults increase and back in a position where the Energy Sector becomes troubling some for the market. The other earnings, shell producers can with stand lowers prices but that doesnt mean profits will be robust theres a lag effect s p 500 Energy Sector down 15 yeartodate since that crude price is down 20 in the same time wow all right. Interesting every day. Every day i never thought we would be talking 20s again. I know. Demand isnt even a factor demand isnt picking up and the supply keeps going up and up you guys have had the conversation with me about opec producers. Nobody has confidence in this cut extension. At this point they are very good job at toeng market. Dont count them out the conversations im hearing is different than what i was expecting in mid2016. Keeps Getting Better and better lower and lower cost of production thats what we were talking about yesterday. When we return, Steve Schwartzman of blackstone on the economy, the markets and much, much more including a preview Avenue Program coming to cnbc, a billionaires bet. The show follows a group of young superachievers from around the world. Coming up at 8 00 a. M. Well talk tax reform with steny hoyer. Squawk box will be right back. Announcer time now for todays aflac trivia question. Which retailer entered the internet marketplace by joining forces with aol in 1977 . The answer when cnbcs squawk box continues dont you mean dad kind of ruined our hawaii fund . I thud go to the thothpital. There goes the airfair. I dont think Health Insurance will cover all. Of that. Buth my fathe without that cash from aflac we might have to choose between hawaii or your face. Hawaii what . Haha. 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Hain gave Earnings Guidance for the currents quarter but still that stock was up by 2. 6 this morning. Hain ceo will be joining squawk on the street at 11 00 a. M. Eastern time were an hour away from the labor departments report on jobless claims a Record Number of motorists are expected to hit the roads for the july 4th holiday aaa are expect iing a record hi. Thats squawk alley, isnt it, 11 00 a. M. It is squawk alley. A squawk franchise yes, it is. Its been ten years and one day since blackstone listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Today the private equity firm is nearly 400 billion in assets under management Steve Schwartzman is our guest for the rest of the hour and its great to have you and thanks for all of your time and joining us this morning. Glad i could be here again. So many things to talk about. When is the last time you spoke to President Trump whats your current you head up a lot of the liaison between Corporate America and the president , right you still doing that yeah. It takes a bunch of time, as you might imagine. People show up and would like to get some things done or not happen. And, you know, theres a lot of interaction with people in the administration and the president. And its very interesting thing to be doing. A lot of tech leaders there again today. We just had Randall Stephenson talking about what to expect when you sit in the same room. Everybody probably has things they would like to get on the table that pertain to their own company. But then theres tax reform and regulation and things that affect everyone, i guess theres a big agenda to do, and, you know, it hasnt happened yet i think everybody is hopeful and some optimistic that thats going to happen. And the question is whats the magnitude of change, you know, tax reform can come in a lot of different packages, if you will, a lot of major issues. And, you know, it involves tradeoffs. The more you want to trade to get rid of the lower you can drive rates and its, unfortunately a republicans game and they only have majority of two in the senate and so these are not the easiest things to do. Steve, there was a survey out and the media loves to jump on the survey where ceos say trump is getting a deal i dont know what it was and i think it might have been anonymous all i know that the market the ceos are benefiting from higher stock prices at this point. We read about Small Business confidence and that seems to be increasing even consumers view of the u. S. Economy is the highest its been in years so where does that is it snarkiness where does it come from, do you think . How would you grade for the Business World how is trump doing for the Business World what grade would you give him . Im not in the grading business, but the reason i think that theres this dichotomy thats going on is some of the, sort of regular way stuff is not so regular way and, you know, sort of disconcerting and jarring. The reason, i think, that we have Consumer Confidence at record levels and markets at record levels and Business Confidence at record levels is because the basic program that the administration has is really excellent. Its pro growth. Deregulation infrastructure all kinds of things that the country needs. All,000 point to the controversy. Youve had some ceos dropout Travis Kalanick has his own issues with uber elon musk and some others pulling back after the paris accord i think some of the decisions were controversial and the people who dropped out were pretty much californian liberal democrats so if you were going to have people dropping out, that would be the group because these individuals are under pressure they are all good people elon musk might have an invested interest in whether we move and subsidize renewable type energy. If anybody in the whole world has a horse in that race its elon musk, right well hes a really fascinating guy, as you know from interviewing him and hes got a lot of different interests, and, you know, hes a good person. And so well miss him. But i understand reactions to political events life tends to be longer than one issue and its important, i think, to be involved for the long term to impact a variety of issues if you lose on one the way elon did, you know, you could react to that. Its an important issue. Right and then we see the grades for trump. Im wondering who gets if things dont move forward, if we get bogged down and i dont know what the chances are i dont know about this Health Care Bill thats coming out at 9 30 i dont know what the chances are. I dont know how we do tax reform if we dont get savings from obamacare, you dont do dynamic scoring and they things arent paid for but none of these are better than i dont know what the orders that wouldnt be all trumps fault. What grade should congress get from the ceos . At the end of the day it is about performance and, you know, the administration has got to get things done. They want to get things done the country wants them to get things done. Its really the political process that is not, as they say, snappy. And so, you know, theres actually a lot of work occurring behindthescenes on all of these things and they all will be faced and they are either going to go or wont. I think a number of them will go, and, you know, whether its taxes its really just a question of what the rate will be theres, you know, on the high side if a lot of these other major issues they need to trade off dont trade, youll probably get down to 28 . If you can, you know, make a number of these trades work to get lower rates, you can get much lower rates so its really in the political calculus, but i believe if you can get 15, and the torpedos well pay for it later see if the growth comes. Would you do it as someone in the Business World do you think 15 would be really, really helpful 28 is like if we can do 15 or 20 it would be that much better than 25 or 28, would it not or no lower is better but there are always offsets, and you have to look at the whole package, joe, to see might not be a package, might be a tax cut, not tax reform thats what would take you down to 28 if you get 28 or 25 , lets say somewhere between 25 to 28 what would that mean for the Business World wouldnt be as good but better than where you are. Youre a big philanthropist you have all kinds of stuff in china, yale. Now all this stuff with the president. You still making decisions at blackstone do you decide whether to buy or sell you still talk to all your minions. Is it a good time to buy or a good time to sell. First of all, on a personal basis, it involves a lot less sleep. We know about that. What, youre up at 3 00 3 30. Its a big difference what happens you keep eating your day when you have more and more responsibilities. So the firm is obviously doing exceptionally well got to turn to business, its a great business to be in. You know, this is where the high returns are, and, you know, over the years, you know, our High Performance products are sort of performing around double the stock market and, you know, with whats been very low, down side. So, the Money Management business is evolving into sort of a bar bell shape where you have the etfs and the index funds and on the other side of the bar bell you get the alternative Asset Investments which are very high return but leslie quid and then in the center you have margin compression and, you know, redemptions going into these other two areas. So fortunately for us were in the highest performing, very high growing area, and almost well, in fact, every fund we offer sells out and we have to limit the amount of money were taking in. Your assets under management have increased over time and i cant believe its been ten years since you took blackstone public the stock prices stubbornly hung in there why do you think that is its sort of interesting. We went public, almost at the start of the credit crisis so Financial Institution stocks went down 85 . People forget how awful the crisis was and most Financial Institutions are smaller today than they were were up four times in terms of size we pay out a lot of money in dividends and so people have gotten 7 return which is sort of an s p return the reason the stock hasnt done better, i think, is one, our legal form being in a limited Partnership Allows you to pass through the dividends, but in fact, some people cant own us, so we have fewer people who can own us and we also generate a bunch of profit in terms of sort of one time gains that are called carried interest and those tend to be recurring, of course, but at Different Levels because you dont always sell things on a regular basis, you sell them when you think its a good time to sell. So, we get a relatively low pe because of that. For those of us who have been doing this 30 years, we look over that cycle and see very strong cash flow that we return to our shareholders. Would you ever consider changing the structure so that more institutions and places put on you you have to look at those things over time were in the middle of a big potential tax reform, and you cant really look at much of anything until you see what the rules of the road are. But thats a good point structured that way because of the way taxes are set up if taxes were reformed and you didnt have the carried interest and Different Things like that, would you consider changing the structure . I think everything is on the table to see whats a good thing. When you convert, you lose current income to shareholders so, what do they care more about . Exact money they have in their pocket river year from us or would they rather, you know, get 80 of that or some other number in exchange for what might be the analysts all say is a higher stock price. So its a bit of a complex trade off, but whats most important from my perspective is that the business itself is unbelievably robust you know, we lead our field with our market cap the size of just about the next five companies combined, and, you know, the people at the firm are remarkable its fun for me, gee whiz we started this with 400,000 we got a 40 billion market cap now and if you adjusted it to s p dividends like 2 , ours is somewhere in the 7 to 8 range. If you look at where our stock price is and were growing if you just adjusted it to average s p yield, because we grow faster than the average s p company, would you have dramatically different you friends with fink yes blackstone 1985, 1988, trying to come up with a name comes up with blackrock. Does that irritate you or is it flattery to me its always been larry im blackstone and i got this great going. You got to name your company blackrock after i named mine back stone did that ever irritate you its a wonderful story. We started in business together. We put up the initial capital. I would be irritated, copycat. No, we love it. Imtation is the highest form of flattery its a wonderful story. We started the business together around 1988, 89 and they wanted to sell it four or five years later and so we had to figure out when we were separated because they used to be called blackstone financial and needed a new name and we each had advice jobs so larry and i were talking what the outside advisers saying make sure you dont have a name thats similar, it will completely confuse people. It still does and thats purposeful larry and i were sitting down and he said what do you think sort of about having a family name withblack in it and i said thats, i think thats a good idea i think it was he put on the table either black pebble or blackrock, and so he said, you know if we do Something Like this, all of our people will kill us. And i said yeah, i got the same you did it anyway but they said well theres risk if we do this that if one of the two companies is successful, and the other one isnt it could hurt the other company. And i said im not worried about you being successful i think youre remarkable. I think they were a little more concerned that we would be successful so imagine, you know, sort of what is this 20 years later Something Like that. Were basically two most profitable Money Managers in the world credit to larry and terrific group of people that he hired and the blackstone people are remarkable and amazing and there is a little confusion. Every time that happens i just really get a real chuckle. Really black pebble thats why he went with blackrock. I know larry thinks size matters. It was a lot smaller company. Thats why i think, initially named blackrock. Okay thank you for answering that it was fascinating larry told me that story a while ago. Were going to continue this conversation with Steve Schwartzman. Hes rolling the dice in a one year all expenses paid program in china for a grouch extraordinary young people who he hopes will change the world in fact its the subject avenue documentary thats airing on cnbc this weekend. Well ask steve about it and give you a preview right after the brk. Ea squawk box will be right back. Looking from a fresh perspective can make all the difference. It can provide what we call an unlock a realization that often reveals a better path forward. At wells fargo, its our expertise in finding this kind of insight that has lead us to become one of the largest investment and Wealth Management firms in the country. Discover how we can help find your unlock. Imagine the worlds best anticipate brightest coming together in a foreign country to be groomed for a new program imagine a group formed by Steve Schwartzman as they converge on china. Check it out first class of schwartzman scholars arrived in august for the all expenses paid program. The students come from more than 30 countries 15 are from Mainland China 52 are from the u. S. All of them are in a hurry it sounds very arrogant to say i always wanted to be president of the United States every little kid says that when they grow up but it never left me i want to be the president of the United States. I sense that the greatest challenge that i could do is to do something radically different and to go to a new place and develop new skills and try a version of leadership that i have developed in a new place. We first met daniel glen in virginia his daily activities involved life threatening risks im a disposal officer in the u. S. Navy. Its also called special operations thats just one example of the many scholars involved Steve Schwartzman is with us to talk about this program right now. Weve talked about this program when you were launchingit, whe you were kind of going through and picking the first crop of students who were going into this program now that youre on the other side of this, what can you tell us about where things stand . This has worked out in a remarkable way as you can see from somebody like danny glen who is sort of a main character from the hurt locker, that type of thing that he was doing before he got here we assembled 110 kids the first year we did it out of 3,000 applications so we had about 3. 7 acceptance and then 95 of the people we offered accepted if you put that anybody who has been looking at college you know about the acceptance rate 3. 7 is tougher than stanford and stanford is the toughest to get into its amazing. We had an Extraordinary Group of people apply and we take about 10 of them when we give them interviews in four different places in the world. It was bangkok, beijing and new york we were helped by the people at the Rhodes Scholarship and we use an Interview Panel method where we have five or six interviewers interview one student. They are there for most of the day. We do other types of things with them lunches and get to know the students and you know the talent that these people have, it makes me feel like, you know, on a scale of one to ten im a solid seven. And, you know, they are nine and a half to tens these are remarkable students. Whats your goal . Why are you doing . Im doing this because starting around 2010, 11 i identified populism as one of the driving forces in the country. And i could see that with populism, no matter who you attack your own circumstance doesnt really change. So you keep looking for new targets. My instinct was at some point Different Countries in the world were going to find china why . Because china was growing much faster it was creating a lot of jobs. It was in, effect, growing at three to four times the rate of the United States, and that creates anger and frustration and anxiety and my concern was that this would lead to like tensions and potential, you know, sort of conflagation wars between countries. A book was just published a few weeks ago, which basically says in the last 500 years you had 16 times where a challengercountr in this case china was challenging an incumbent which in this case is the United States and in 12 of those 16 times 75 have been wars over the last 500 years so i was looking at a way to get in the way of sort of attacks on china or china overreacting to something and i thought if we could assemble a group of remarkable people which would end up being 10,000 people over a 50 year time frame and he av them go back into their own places of smart beta. Power your clients portfolio with powershares. Before investing, consider the Funds Investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. Call 8009830903 for the prospectus containing this information. Read it carefully. Distributed by invesco distributors inc. Containing this information. Read it carefully. At crowne plaza we know Business Travel isnt just business. Theres this. a bit of this. Why not . Your hotel should make it easy to do all the things you do. Which is what we do. Crowne plaza. Were all business, mostly. Yogigspeed internet. Me . You know whats not awesome . When only certain people can get it. Lets fix that. Lets give this guy gig really . And these kids. And these guys. Him. Ah. Oh hello that lady. These houses yes, yes and yes. And dont forget about them. Uh huh. Sure. Still yes you can get it too. Welcome to the party. Introducing gigspeed internet from xfinity. Finally, gig for your neighborhood too. Tax reform game plan, the timeline, the fate of the border tax and what it means for business the man leading the kay, congressman kevin brady joins. Drones the cloud and the economy. Our view is without fifth generation wireless internest things dont scale, Autonomous Cars dont scale, alternative to cable doesnt scale. Ceos head to the white house today. Well tell you whats on the agenda plus trade, talks and were not talking about politics its nba draft day, Duke Universitys coach k. Is here. The top players to watch as the final hour of squawk box begins right now announcer live from the most powerful city in the world, new york this is squawk box good morning and welcome back to squawk box here on cnbc live from the Nasdaq Market site in times square im joe kernen along with becky quick. Andrew is off. Futures have been up around 20 or so on the dow, almost exactly 20 s p is flat. Nasdaq indicated up eight after the nasdaq did very well yesterday, closed sharply higher in a down market partly because of oil related issues take a quick look at oil stocks. Wti and the Energy Complex this morning up a little bit. Up by half a percent but 42. 76 which is close to the yearly lows that weve seen since we have kind of a rally in october, i guess. And treasury yields quickly have been somewhere between 2. 10, 2. 20 ten year at 2. 15 among todays top stories check out shares of hain celestial. Its delayed Financial Results after following review of accounting procedures. No material changes and no indication of any wrongdoing hain gave Earnings Guidance for the Current Quarter that was below what the street was expected but what stock superby 5 dont miss with an exclusive interview with hain on squawk alley shares of staple are soaring after a reported merger with sycamore a u. S. Judge blocked a merger between stam and offiple and oft snap acquiring mapping start up zenly the french backed zenly is an app to allow users to let them see where their frernds. The snapchat parent has turned zenly as a feature on the app. Another executive leaving, bill gurley a venture capitalist is behind the push to get uber ceo travis cal noik resign hes also stepped down from his role at the company. Served as a board member be replaced from a colleague from his Investment Firm after kalanick resigned gurley tweeted there will be many pages in the history books devoted to kalanick President Trump is kick off part two of the white house tech summit today well take a quick look at a live picture as the executives prepare to go through security among those expected to attend executives from Companies Working on 5g wireless, also Drone Technology so places like sprint, verizon, honeywell, at t, the group will discuss the impact of emerging technology on Industrial Workers as well. And the senate will unveil its version of the Health Care Bill today joining us right now is congressman stenyhour he is the House Minority whip. Congressman thanks for being with us this morning thank you weve been hearing reports about what might be in this new legislation, and so far at least from what weve heard it sounds like its maybe a gentler version of the house bill. A lot of the things are the same but maybe some of these wind douns for the ramp up for medicaid is stretched out for a longer period of time. Have you heard anything different ive heard what you heard i dont know i would characterize it as gentler it apparently stretched out. They felt politically the further you stretch us out the less immediate adverse consequences it will have. Only about 35 of americans support the house bill this is in some ways deeper cuts in medicaid. Deeper cuts in tax cuts for the wealthy coming down the line we still probably going to see 23 or 24 Million People cut off from Health Care Insurance we dont have any score from cbo yet. This has all been done in secret i havent seen the bill. Senator johnson, a republican from wisconsin was on television this morning saying he hasnt seen the bill. So he has concerns about it. Wants his constituents to review it thats a reasonable request. We have a lot of hearings and we were very criticized over a year and a half consideration of the Affordable Care act. Now theyve run it through secretly both in the house and senate, no hearings, no committees, markup, no opportunities for amendments so its a process thats terrible but more importantly i think the product will be perceived by public aster bill and harmful to them and to their families and to their opportunities to get Affordable Quality Health care. You mentioned senator johnson a republican who has already issued his concerns with how the whole thing has taken place at this point it fair to assume that this bill, regardless of whats in it since we havent seen it hard to imagine it would get a single democratic vote . I think thats accurate i dont think either in the senate or the house, but well see whether it gets through the senate because there are at least seven or eight recognizes who kpresd serious reservations. Interesting whether senator mcconnell can get them to rationalize a bad process and many think its a bad bill to vote for having said that the republicans are under some pressure to deliver. This has been a campaign promise. Something they have been running on for a long time p. M. Ultimately why we saw a bill that did pass the house. I think thats right, becky they want to make some changes. I think youre correct on that its sad that what we had was a lot of rhetoric for six or seven years about repealing the Affordable Care act and when we got to actually having a republican majority so that they could do it they had no alternative, they had no alternative that had a consensus no, alternative that did what the president of the United States donald trump said during the campaign he wants to do and still says he wants to do. Make sure everybody has insurance at lower cost and better quality the house bill certainly didnt do that. Cbo pointed out that 24 Million People lost their insurance. And the senate bill clearly is not going to do that so they simply have no alternative and scrambling around to get something that looks like they are meeting their political promise. It will not. Congressman, i have to say this is where washington falls out of step with the rest of america and you guys can complain about the process but health care is comply kbiechtd not seen two sides Work Together theres got to be some common sense ground that would be a sensible solution, something that people can agree with i think thats accurate there need to be bipartisan compromise and working together. We can make the Affordable Care act work much better we democrats have said that continuously but, frankly, when you look at the two processes, i understand the americans are not focused on process, they are correctly focused on product and policy and what affects them and their families, thats what they ought to be focused on the fact is in the Affordable Care act senator baucus worked closely with senator grassley for months to see if senator grassley would participate we had hearings. We had committee markups republicans were able to offer amendments in committee in the house of representatives so there was a bipartisan process it was simply that the republicans refused to participate. Maybe i guess the two views of how you go about tackling this what the end result is. Were prepared theres many different views within each of the parties no doubt. The idea you can find one direct and convince the other side to sign off on it is too much to ask. There seems there are real fix, Real Solutions but each side has opposed positions on how they think this process should take place. You can say that and i think certainly there are strong views on both sides of this question, but the president of the United States, if he sends down a bill that does what he says he wants to do, that is everybody has insurance, lower cost, better quality. Ive said he sends that kind of bill down and he accomplishes those objectives im going to be for it he hasnt done that, of course the republicans havent put anything on the floor. Yes we ought to work in a bipartisan basis we dont think the aca was a perfect bill and needs to be fixed, obviously Small Businesses, small market itself is too expensive for people. We can fix that if we Work Together to do it but we wont destroy americans ability to have Affordable Quality Health care in the process. Thats when cbo says 24 Million People are going to be knocked off their insurance under the house bill and the president of the United States says people leaving. Some choosing to leave some lotion. Some not getting it some are not on it now there are future ads no, no, thats not true thats 24 million that have insurance wore have insurance by ten years from now would lose that ability to get insurance. Thats what the cbo said but a lot of it, because they dont theres no longer a mandate so they dont stay in the program. Well, you say theres no long ear mandate. What happens when you lose the mandate and people dropout of the market, what you have is much more expensive premiums and or premiums go down but preexisting conditions kick in, as you know. And no Community Ratings so a lot of people cant get Health Insurance. We have some breaking news check out American Airlines news thats pushing up the shares in aol. American said it received notice from qatar air weighs and it plans to acquire 10 stake in american in the open market. Any stake over 3. 4 requires approval of the board of directors. A rule thats contained in american certificate of incorporation. The proposed investment in qatar airway, by Qatar Airways wouldnt change the boards composition, governance, management or strategic direction, and i guess the Qatar Airways submited a filing and thats why we know about this from both american and from the filing under the hrs act this is the country that recently has come on the radar screen in not a completely positive way in terms of funding terrorism. About saudi arabia and even though the president just met with the leader of qatar, so this is pretty interesting largest u. S. Military base in the middle east is in qatar which complicates the situation even further if you look at who owns these airline stocks, Berkshire Hathaway is one of the largest own of American Airlines, several of these airline stocks. They just told bus this earlier this year. But, yeah, its going to be interesting to watch that stock up 5. 8 everybody up but jetblue major carriers that have been mentioned again and again. Started with bill miller years ago saying airlines were a place to invest again. One of the guys coming up stock picks from a top rated money manager. Hell tell us where hes looking overseas for opportunity plus a timeline, House Speaker paul ryan says well get tax reform by the end of the year well talk to kevin brady who joins us at 8 30 a. M. Eastern time we gotta go. Where . San francisco. When . Friday. We gotta go. [ tires screech ] any airline. Any hotel. Any time. Go where you want, when you want with no blackout dates. [ muffled music coming from club. Blue monday by new order. Cheers. ] how does it feel the travel rewards credit card from bank of america. Its travel, better connected. Time to find out whats working in the markets right now lets turn to david for more on where investors can find value david is a partner Portfolio Manager and chief Investment Officer at Harris Associates which focuses on International Equity and, david, weve heard time and time again from people who come in, market advisors who come in and say look weve seen significant gains in the United States we think its time to turn the focus to europe. You seem to agree with that thesis i think thats generally a true statement now, of course, we can find individual opportunity in any market, given our value criteria but europe when you look at price and when you look at what you are getting for that price, quality, the Value Proposition in european stocks seems to be superior than other places around the world and as a result you are overweight on the european banks right now. Which ones in particular do you like well, actually if you look at european financials names such as loyd, a uk based bank, a High Quality Bank that got tossed around literally a year ago post the brexit fallout, Companies LikeCredit Suisse which is going through a bit of a recovery and they are just about there in repositioning their business more towards Wealth Management from their Investment Bank and then other financials b and p, the big french bank, the german insurer, all these names were clobbered in the last five or six years as a result of the greek crisis and which no one wanted to invest now as these factors are starting to dissipate, we can see a clear runway to good earnings and Profit Growth and they are trading at very low valuations its not just the banks you like some of the industrial names too like glenn corp and daimler. What is it about daimler that peaks your interest. They are a commercial truck and large cars business. In this business anything with auto manufacturing has done quite poorly unless its tesla tesla, of course, has a huge market cap and makes known Companies Like daimler have relatively small market caps and make a lot of money. And third truck business alone they are the largest truck maker in the world, pushing 7 , 8 margins, cutting costs hopefully towards the bottom of a truck cycle. Meanwhile their premium cars, mercedes seems to be going screen strength to strength not justin United States but emerging world, china spefrl when you look at all this, youre not paying much more than seven, eight times earnings. The stock is a safe yield of almost a 6 and its a substantial amount of net cash on the Balance Sheet so thats the Value Proposition. Good quality business selling at a very low price, low valuations with good strong Balance Sheet this to us one of the great ovals in the marketplace today david, thanks for your time today. Thank you when we come back, breaking news out of the travel industry. Qatar Airlines Says that it isnt it in buying a stake in american air and not a small stake. Were talking a significant stake. Plus a programming note for you. A new cnbc documentary that you dont want to miss it follows a group of studio audience in china handpicked by billionaire Steve Schwartzman. It premiers this sunday at 10 00 p. M. Eastern and pacific so we need tablets installed. With the menu app ready to roll. In 12 weeks. Yeah. The world of fast food is being changed by faster networks. Data, applications, customer experience. Which is why comcast business delivers Consistent Network Performance and speed across all your locations. Fast connections everywhere. Thats how you outmaneuver. Better than a manual, and my hygienist says it does. But. Theyre not all the same. Turns out, theyre really. Different. Who knew . I had no idea. So, she said look for. One thats shaped like a dental tool with a round. Brush head. Go pro with oralb. Oralbs rounded brush head surrounds each tooth to. Gently remove more plaque and. Oralb crossaction is clinically proven to. Remove more plaque than sonicare diamondclean. My mouth feels so clean. Ill only use an oralb the 1 brand used by dentists worldwide. Oralb. Brush like a pro. Breaking news this hour. Qatar airlines disclosing an intention to acquire 10 stake in American Airlines phil lebeau joins us in chicago, from chicago total surprise to you, phil, something thats in the works. Does it make sense no it does not make sense and were waiting response from American Airlines. Weve gotten a filing from them saying that they understand that qatar is intending to buy this stake of up 120 otherwise were not expecting to hear anything else from american thats the indication so far from the companys Public Relations staff. Keep in mind doug parker the chairman and ceo of American Airlines has been extremely vocal, extremely vocal blasting both carriers like qatar, em ira tes saying they are hurting carriers doing flights from europe into u. S. Hes no fan of these guys. Interesting move by qatar saying we want to take a 10 stake in American Airlines. Keep in mind that foreign entities are not allowed to buy more than 24. 9 of any u. S. Airlines its not like this is a threat that american can some day be taken over by qatar. That cant happen. Legally thats prohibited. We havent heard a response from americaner and i would be cures to see what doug parker has to say. An interesting move by qatar who is not shy when it comes to taking bold steps and this is certainly a bold one so where would regulators get involved could american stop them could american say, i mean if they buy on the open market what can they do. I dont think they can stop them im not sure what they can do. If its bought on the open market as long as they dont pass over the threshold of 24. 9 they can do that we do know from the filing from american theres been a conversation between the two ceos, basically saying that al bake terrify ceo of qatar said he would like to buy potentially up to 10 of the stock thats on the open market of American Airlines why would they signal this instead of buying up to that point. They have 4. 7 and they want to buy an additional. Correct we got to go. But a lot of times even when companies have an activist buyer they say hey the activist thinks its a great buy, so do we i wonder if thats what you get from american on this. I would be surprised. Look, i have done interviews with doug parker i have talked with him off camera hes extremely a agitated as to whats going on with gulf carriers he doesnt think these guys are allowed to do some of the flights they do from europe and subsidized by their governments and ill be real surprised is that a way to silence a critic we got data coming up, phil. We also have congressman kevin foany on tax, health care and if rerm c get done. Hell join us at 8 30 eastern time the power of 100 of the worlds top companies. The power of a proven 15year track record. The power of an etf. The power of qqq. The thinking we put in, clients get out. Power your clients portfolio at powershares. Com qqq. Before investing, consider the Funds Investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. Call 8009830903 for the prospectus containing this information. Read it carefully. Distributed by invesco distributors inc. We are just a few seconds away from weekly jobless claims. The numbers are expected to be a slight uptick from where we were last week, i think 240,000 is the estimate take a look at whats been happening with nashts. Yesterday both the dow and s p 500 were weaker but what nasdaq was stronger now up two out of the last three trading sessions this morning it looks like the futures have the dow up by 15 points the nasdaq indicated up by six and a half s p futures are flat at least at this point Rick Santelli is standing by at the cme in chicago rick, the numbers, please. Reporter youre looking for a number around 240,000, the survey says 241,000. Perfect call, becky. And that comes against a revised 238,000. So call it up three. How about a little history here. Now if we look at what the extreme is here were basically comp to march of 1973. Theres one month that stands out its this year in february i believe it was third week in february we had 227,000. Thats your benchmark. So you can clearly see were not that far way we all know if you follow the metrics it looks like a tight labor market if you follow the growth or wage pressure not so much Interest Rates havent moved on that number. Were hovering literally three basis points above the low yield close of the year, 2. 12, 2. 13 and dollar index unchanged leading Economic Indicators but not that leading according to traders. Sooil big dynamic. Back to you. Lets bring in steve liesman. Its down 1. 4 . This is an all time low. My data goes back to 1970 and we have never been this low consistently been this low the number of claims a very strong job market. Speaking of strength whats happening with the economy President Trump said he thinks well get good numbers in the Second Quarter i suggest hes right running at 2. 9 . Take a look. This is down, almost a point from where we started. A couple of disappointments but still running very strong. You see a nice bounce back from 1. 2 in the first quarter. But very quickly on the fly, average the two together 1. 2, 2. 9 and you get back to 2 thats a wide range you still have a lot of data to cover what were doing here, what makes it so great were averaging all the models some guys with models of 2. 4, some 3. 7 we get a three print i cant wait for that tweet. What does it say . Im not going america is back i hope it happens winning in made a rule, i am not blaming or praising donald trump for anything to do with the economy until at least after the Second Quarter i think what you have in the Second Quarter here is a bounce back from the weak first quarter. His economy is a little bit further down the road, its not this economy right now it would be i mean it will drive certain contingents crazy if we get a three. Absolutely. Then if theres another three. What about you it wont drive me crazy if we get a 3 why would i be driven would you be very happy i would or crazy in a negative way. I cant wait for him to, when we get a couple of threes. A lot of fun. Its going to be a lot of fun. Must see tv youll have people contending that the growth rate of the economy is 2 . Youre not going above, not going below. What we found, joe wait until zandi comes on and finds 15 ways to leave your lover. Making new plans, stan. Were dating ourselves have more excuses than get to kevin brady and ask him. Republicans vow a tax reform will come before the year is out. Our next zbeft kevin brady republican of texas, chairman of the house ways and means committee. I know what youre saying from my lips to gods ears. Can you imagine, congressman brady, if we start with the three and then get a couple more threes certain people that will drive them crazy they rather have a recession than have this work, a lot of people theres been this new normal here over the last number of years of a sub 2 economy. I think were starting to see theres a chance for blue skies and we can in washington help in that area both on the regulatory side, health care side and especially for us on the tax reform side. Since the last time you were on and i said youre very optimistic all the time, and no matter how this conflict may be even a realistmaybe you always seem to think something good is ready to happen. But a lot has changed. Now im hearing border adjustment theres no way. Ive also hearing that maybe Obamacare Repeal doesnt have to happen maybe the tax cuts or tax reform dont need to be paid for, do it dynamically. What do you think is doable and when so the white house, the house senate will meet again today on tax reform were making good steady progress theres a lot of big issues here as you know and still a lot of work to do ill tell you were still on time on the timetable for delivery in 2017 to the president s desk we do have work to do. Clearly whether its how low we can get these rates, how do we stop businesses from continuing to leave the u. S. And more importantly how do we bring them back, who do we deal with changes with limiting expensing, thats part of the discussion. But, again, there seems to be a consensus we need to go bold needs to be permanent. Were going to make the argument it needs to be balanced within the budget counting on the right economic growth. All right so, if you had to bet, you would bet which comes first . Tax reform or obamacare . Im hopeful Obamacare Repeal and replacement comes first. I think today is important with the senate laying out their plan i know they will still have more work to do before it passes out of the senate. But this is an important step in the process. I really commend them for getting this in this form and starting the work to move it to the floor. I think this is important not just because of we need to make Health Care Affordable but theres trillion dollars of taxes we want out of this economy. And the red tape r we find local businesses, very important as well would you settle for 28 on the Corporate Tax . Theres some people that, you know, they is a 15 is not even in the cards 20 is unlikely would that be even worth going through what youre going to have to get this done, 28 is that possible . Not acceptable to me. I dont think its acceptable to the house or anyone else for that matter. Look that wont make us competitive. We get one shot in 30 years to do this. Our goal as you des moines house, i probably talked too much about this, we want to leaping from from 31st in the world in competitive tax rates into the top three and keep us there. We need to redesign the code so our companies can compete and win anywhere in the world especially here at home. 28 rate doesnt get us there frankly or in the neighborhood do you hear any serious rumblings about changing the filibuster in the senate i know youre in the house but, youre part of the washington in crowd. Is that on the table or is that no way ever . Well, i wish it were from the standpoint, i just think there are certain Constitutional Responsibilities of congress, including delivering the budget and the spending bills, National Security issues that i think ought to have a simple majority in the senate. Obviously, were in the house so they are going to have to address that issue Going Forward. But still at the end of the day i think the next key step on tax reform really will be passing the budget, the house and senate that gives us the vehicle to move tax reform without a filibuster in the senate so thats going to be a very critical step Going Forward. Congressman, youve said that you wouldnt be happy with 28 , the house wouldnt be happy with 28 but if you dont have Something Like the border adjustment tax included in it, how do you get to those numbers. Where is the wiggle room where do you come up with the dollars to make that happen . Clearly you got a couple of big consequences without border adjustment which is what all of our competitors use to give themselves an advantage over us. Obviously it makes it tough to get to those lower rates i think as important maybe more importa importantly thats the best solution for businesses locating overseas and the best opportunity to move those supply chains where effective back home and so we have to solve the problem of that location where companies go and rates alone wont do it. Frankly because our competitors have redesigned their tax code to be so much more efficient ill make this point rates, low rates is like putting super charged fuel in an old clunker of a tax car no question it will go faster. Cant keep up with the newer models on the road that in tax reform we got to go over a competitive design. Thats where, you want to stick with car analogies, thats where the rubber meets the road and thats where youre getting so much push back. You talk to anybody outside of you and congressman ryan you hear the border adjustment tax is dead, they want to do something simple, its got to happen before 2018 because everybody is up for reelection. I think the key thing here is both speaker and i are going to stay at the table but to find a common solution with President Trump and with the Senate Republicans because we got to stay not just bold but on this timetable as well. If one has to give being bold or being on time which one gives . Lets continueto shoot for both and by the way put permanent in there as well because the changes we make whether its for families and simplification or how we desig it for businesses you got to count on these changes for long term mr. Chairman, if you believe polls, if you were to believe polls or cnn or others you would think 2018 is already lost in terms of republican and you would think that most people are really not behind whats happening with trumps initiatives. We had another special election and, again, when people vote it seems like, just seems different than the polls and what i watch on cable every day im glad theres elections every once in a while. The one in november was a good one or at least was not good but an appropriate one to actually measure to actually take a poll that counts instead of one all right so they are saying that special election will boost the agenda, the trump agenda because it shows that all you guys dont have to run for the hills because trump is supposedly unpopular. Is there any truth to that what i think it was, it demonstrates the disconnect between all the pundits in washington, d. C. And the political world and the real world, which is i know back home look our people are hungry for tax reform. They want us to deliver on our campaign promises. They are optimistic about where the economy can go again and, look, even though they may disagree with key parts of President Trumps policies, they want us to Work Together back to president , lets get the country moving i think these elections actually show what the real world is thinking right now its other party, but the lead story on drudge, nudge out pelosi, end of her reign question marks is that something you are hearing bandied about from the other side, do you know . Im mott privy to what democrats are thinking in the house. I know theres discontent. Maybe you dont have this addition additional tidbit to cher. Cher is pulling her support from nancy pelosi i dont know how you recover from something to that i dont know how to respond to that. I want to give you that into your quiver. When youre trying to figure this stuff out just note cher is not pleased. All right mr. Chairman, thanks we always leave you something where you just go why i do this. Anyway we hope to see you again, mr. Chairman when we come back well get you caught up on todays top stories. Right now as we head to a break. A programming note dont misan exclusive interview with Goldman Sachs president harvey schwartz. Hell be on osg clinbell at 3 00 p. M. Eastern time today. [ indistinct chatter ] [ intense music playing ] its here, but its going by fast. The opportunity of the year is back the mercedesbenz summer event. Get to your dealer today for incredible onceaseason offers, and start firing up those grilles. Lease the gle350 for 579 a month at your local mercedesbenz dealer. Mercedesbenz. The best or nothing. baby crying fly me to the moon elegant music and let me play bell rings jim cramer live from the New York Stock Exchange. Take a look fiecat the futures s p futures turned positive again. Dow up by 18 nasdaq up by 13. Stick around well be right back. Hmark. Flexshares etfs are built around the Way Investors think. With objectives like building capital for the future, managing Portfolio Risk and liquidity and generating income. Thats real etf innovation. Flexshares. Built by investors, for investors. Before investing consider the Funds Investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. Go to flexshares. Com for a prospectus containing this information. Read it carefully. Looking from a fresh perspective can make all the difference. It can provide what we call an unlock a realization that often reveals a better path forward. At wells fargo, its our expertise in finding this kind of insight that has lead us to become one of the largest investment and Wealth Management firms in the country. Discover how we can help find your unlock. Welcome back, everybody. Ceos are at the white house today for part two of President Trumps technology summit. We go washington and tracking all the arrivals who have you seen so far reporter weve seen several executives and investors come in right here to the Southwest Gate of the white house and they say even though theres been tension between tech and the Trump Administration they are to concussion on areas of agreement like innovation and funding new technology also on mind tax reform and deregulation were in big favor of deregulation i want to provide great communication. Important to provide regional entrepreneurship support entrepreneurs not just e have a lot of suggestions, and they have to do a tax policy and immigration among other things. Reporter what do you believe will come out of the this administrations efforts to reform the tax code . That remains to be seen. Reporter can you tell you what you hope to accomplish this morning . Im looking forward to a good meeting. There were so many arriving there was a backup, you cant see them reviewing their notes as they headed into the meeting. Well be talking to them after the meeting isover back to you guys. Ylan, great, thank you so much. Jim cramer joins us now. Phil lebeau had interesting comments about no love lost between doug parker and qatar. Whats going on, jim its a cheap stock, maybe they just want to own 10 our airlines trade basically on revenue per seat mile, not on their actual value, which is stunning, given the money that they throw off and Warren Buffett knows that. He hated the airlines for a long time, but theyre cash generators nothing wrong with making money away from oil and natural gas. You think thats all it is, or theres been as i said, doug parker has been outspoken about some of the benefits that the carriers in the middle east have, and somehow they say, all right, keep it up. You notice arab emirates, that airline, do they play fair . I dont know, but do you want to fly them yes. I think thats what doug is about. They want a level Playing Field. Just like with china and steel, we dont have a level playing theyre dead right. Doug parker is dead right. Can he say that and be as outspoken a trash a 10 owner of his company. Does this buy his silence . I mean, its pretty amazing. Do you think that anything could buy dougs silence dont you love that about doug the airlines guys say stuff that nothi nothing. Hes a continual man. Im sure he says, hey, welcome aboard hes not going to bump him from the plane. I just dont see that happening. Its a different airline, or at least thanks, jim. See you at the top of the hour. Up next on squawk box, coach k is in the house. Were going to talk basketball and business, right after the break. No splashing wait, so you got rid of verizon, just like that . Uh huh. I switched to tmobile, kept my phone everything on it oh, they even paid it off wow yeah, its nice that every bad decision doesnt have to be permanent now you can ditch verizon but keep your phone. Well even pay it off when you switch to tmobile. At where instead of payinging a befor middlemen,em. We work directly with family farms to deliver Higher Quality ingredients for less than you pay at the store. Get 30 off at blueapron. Com cook its nba draft day, coach k, in honor of the emily kay center and education nonprofit he founded in memory of his late mother lets bring in coach k she was mrs. K . She was emily, and only an eighth gradestudent, and was a cleaning lady in the chicago athletic club. We grew up in inner city chicago, but she believed in education. The center is in its 11th year, and its for pretty much most liters firth Generational College students, low income only one in five lowincome kids gets a chance to go to college every kid taz come through our center has had a chance. We,s graduated 30. They received 11 million so its doing wondrous things its really a treasure thats not tapped in our country. You know, kids from, you know, have it a bit tougher, and then they bring good qualities to school we have two of the 30 going to duke, one going to penn, one to southern cal, five to university of North Carolina. So were very proud of whats going on. How are you feeling youre good . I feel good better the more good players i could recruit. I dont want to bring up lets just not even talk about it the yeah, final four, mar. No, its okay. Youre okay are you seeing a therapist or something . No, i i like it when honestly you can only win a certain amount only one team wins. Its killing you to say this. No, its ed them, too. I thought they had a chance i dont try to beat one team i try to beat everybody. Please. If they have blue uniforming stop being so nice. We want to beat them, but we dont want the championship, we would rather it be the whole championship. Is it draft day . This is a great day we could have as many four of our kids in the first round. Were hoping that out of the six that are draftable, all six get drafted. We were just with lukes parents and theyre so proud they never knew at the end of the sophomore year he could be a lottery pick. How much of your job is just the recruitment process . How much of this time does it peck up . Is it the worst part of your job . Sometimes the worst and sometimes the best when i recruited shane battier, recruited two years, you get four years return. Now shane would go after one year, so thats two years of recruiting so to get four years of return now is about eight years of recruiting its kind of crazy im not complaining. We have 30 seconds. Can you figure out what we should do about that yeah, one, i think the college should work close with adam silver and the nba and figure out i think to let High School Kids go into the draft if theyre ready if not have them be in school for two years, so we legitimize both ends of the process i think it would help the educational universities to have a kid there for at least two years and be halfway towards graduation. Well, thanks for that. Thank you for having me. Good luck right at 9 30, okay, eastern time dont get nervous, youre going to be great. A little bit nervous, sweaty palms. Thanks so much. We appreciate it. Folks, right now its time for mosquito for squawk on the street. Good morning welcome to squawk on the street. Im david faber along with jim cramer were live at the New York Stock Exchange we set you