In a defiling that it now owns 7. 5 of the food giant which makes oreos, ritz crackers and wellknown brands. Whats unclear is what the investor wants to do with the company. Ackman wanted the snack maker to grow revenue or cut costs or sell itself. Mondelez, for its part says they will welcome them as investors in the company. Ackman joins nelson peltz. His firm holds a 3 stake in mondelez. Well show you whats going on now in the premarket trading as a result of this and you wouldnt be surprised to see that they are sharply higher. What does he want to do with the company . He wants the stock to go up so he can sell the stock for more than he paid for. We were having a conversation off camera. Okay. Maybe he sees something thats not being optimized at mondelez the way that management is running things but what he really knows is i have enough money, 5 billion. I can make a splash and in all likelihood the stock will start going up just on that and then you agitate, you mess around, you do some stuff. Is any any different than greenmail . I think of it like bankers, right . Because you remember kraft used to be with mondelez. So now hes talking that mondelez should rejoin kraft along with heinz. Wait, you need to vertically integrate and get bigger. No, no. If youre going to maximize the values and the multiples you have to split up. This is just greenmail. If you give me 5 billion let me look through the s p 500 and ill pick a company. I will make a splash when i saw i bought 5 billion worth i bet i can make money on that. Its not Rocket Science once you have the money. I was just going to say scott is working the phones right now. Hes going to join us on set. Hes supposed to be anchoring but hes busy reporting. Theyre called activists but at another period and time they were called two bit pilots and greenmailers. Did you see that . Nothing but a two bit pirate and greenmailer and youd sell your mother out. Do you decline the existence of activists all together . Sometimes they help. Its a spectrum that runs the whole gamet im sure. That there are really smart guys that can look and see operationally whether theres a lot of flak and whether they can cause something to be done. But i dont know if theyre able to pick them better than anyone else. Once you have 5 billion you have enough money makes money. We shouldnt ignore the existence of 3g. The Brazilian Private Equity Firm so involved with warren buffet and theyre really being incredible cost cutters and forcing everybody else in the business to be much leaner and meaner for sure and he he knows them a long time before they became public with this investment in burger king a long time ago. He probably has a lot of insights he wouldnt have before. Strategically i dont know what you would do. They already made double oreos. And chocolate covered oreos. Where do you go after that. Mint oreos. Have you gone to the oreo section of the supermarket. There are so many choices and then they do seasonal versions. St. Patricks day you can get green ones. I eat sour patch all the time. Thats my biggest problem. They dont make you pucker . I do. I like them when they get stale too. I ate some yesterday. Keurig was one i always thought that was a fad. I have it every morning. It still has Green Mountain symbol. Which is weird. Anyway, tesla hitting a speed bump. Better than expected profit and revenue but lowering its full year forecast to 50,000 cars from 55,000. Well talk more about tesla in a few minutes. The stock taking a hit on the news down sharply. We said many times that unlike the prius or unlike hybrids most tesla buyers dont buy that model s because theyre environmentalists. No they like the car. Its a beautiful car. Maybe 44 oil doesnt really explain it but we are seeing pressure across the board in anything thats sold as sort of a green alternative to suvs and suvs are back and mike jackson told us that. I think you get confused on who you have to interview. You know you have this one right . Yes, i do. His name sal lex hamilton. Alexander hamilton. You noticed. I did. Alex hamilton. We have an analyst coming up named alex hamilton. You have to get up pretty early to get past you on Something Like that. Alex hamilton sounded familiar. It did. I read the book. Have you seen the musical . No did you. It is fantastic. It is the greatest thing since the chorus line. Are they singing . Theyre rapping. Theyre rapping during the yeah. It is so fantastic. If our forefathers only knew. You are going to love it. You will cry. You are so proud to be an american when you see hamilton. Until jack lew decides to leave Andrew Jackson on and take dont get me started. Dont get me started. And put Britney Spears on oh, no, you have to be dead. We should do rosa parks. On the 20. On the 20. Exactly. But we digress. Fitbit stumbling after its first Earnings Report as a publicly traded company. The maker of the fitness tracking devices had big beats top and bottom lines. Margins fell and the company doesnt expect that to improve for the rest of the year. The initial numbers came out and skyrocketed. Very violent trading in the post market and then dropping in late trading lower by more than 11 at this hour. Lets check on the market. Well talk more about this. This stock is so interesting and faces so many issues right now. Futures right now higher across the board but not by much. Lets call it flat at this point. Whats going on in europe so far this morning . Greece is higher. I just read theres no bids for banks over there. They go down a limit every day. Right. But this was earlier in the session. Higher by 3 . They are going to begin the process now of examining the banks in greece to see how much of a recapitalization theyre going to need. For the rest of europe, kale that flat. Wouldnt you call that flat. Europe is flat. Shanghai was down a percentage. Looking flat all over the world here. Shanghai slightly lower. Lets show you whats going on with oil. 44. Below 45 barrel when it comes to wti. Brent is back below 50 and the ten year note yielding 2. 26 . The dollar moved around a lot yesterday. It is stronger against the euro, weaker against the yen. 1. 08. Almost 1. 09 for the euro. We are just hours away from the first republican president ial debate of the 2016 election cycle. Chief washington correspondent. Its not big enough john for the prompter to have correspondence so it always says correspond and theres a t on the next line. Sounds like something you can handle joe. T. John harwood joins us from cleveland with more. Im going to set this up a certain way john. We keep going back and forth criminal not criminal, criminal not criminal for the hilary probe for the emails. Now theyre saying its absolutely criminal. They dont understand why the doj and others are not saying it because its similar to the sandy burger deal. In what way is that a toss to the republican debate. Because im going to tell you, you ready . These 17 guys, at this point im wondering the inevidentability of Hillary Clinton becoming the first woman president , im starting to question that. I always thought maybe the republicans stay winning the house and doing well in congress but maybe they never win another National Election because theyre stuck in the mud on social issues but if she becomes the nominee and if she is so damaged and her negative ratings so high suddenly this debate, one of those 17 guys might be the next president. Thats why. Thats why i brought it up that way, john. Do you understand my thinking now. If every Major League Pitcher had a wind up that long, every base would be stolen. All right. Instead of talking about the actual mechanics, do you think that this, number one, she has a negative rating of 50 at this point. She probably will be the nominee, right . You said bidens not running. You said that. I believe she will be the nominee. Okay. At this point, if this continues, criminal probe, whatever, doesnt it make it very, very possible that one of these guys tonight could be the next president . Well, of course its very possible. Look Hillary Clinton has to be regarded as a slight favorite in the general election. Thats absolutely false. Why . She has her negative ratings going up. Okay. I dont see how you can watch now sooner or later there might be sympathy backlash. The email, is it that big of a deal . Now its criminal. Where they start to say this is theyre piling on and thats what worries me is that that could eventually be the case. Well, look, well see if thats the case but tonight is the night the republican side of the race kicks into a different and higher gear. We have two debates tonight. One for an hour at 5 00 p. M. Dont underestimate that one because theres a chance for one of those 7 candidates which includes sitting governor and u. S. Senator, corporate executive. Theyre going to have a chance to break out to get them some attention and rise into the top ten. Then youll have a 2 hour debate with the top ten candidates and all of the Attention Centers around the role being played by the outrageous antipolitician donald trump along with the guys supposed to be leading this fight. Jeb bush, scott walker, marco rubio. You have the home state Governor John Kasich getting in the fight at the last minute just barely making the top ten. I sat down with former twotime republican president ial candidate, veteran debater to talk about what each candidate needs to do. Heres what Pat Buchanans advice was to the big players. If i were trump, hes a counterpuncher, hes going to have to take each of these things where he has been hit and have a short substantive answer. If i were bush i would challenge trump directly and politely. I would certainly be ready for the sucker punch coming. He has communication skills in a debate. Trump is the uber tough guy. Rand paul might come out as an antiinterventionist in the middle east. I would try to get back into the mix. The perception of him is a certain callowness and youthfulness. He has to deal with his own problems rather than the trump problem. Ted cruz, what does he do . Ted cruz. He goes after the senate majority. No, i do think thats him. I think cruz is one guy that does have potential. And dont forget you have also got ben carson, the former euro surgeon on stage. Only African American candidate and hes somebody that had a tremendous amount of appeal to the Republican Base ahead of some people like Chris Christie and john kasich in the polls. Going to be a crazy night and this is kicking off the debate season. Ours comes in october in boulder, colorado, guys. Stick around. Lets add to the conversation ben white is chief economic correspondent and cnbc contributor. Good morning. Good morning. In your view, at this point in time and its early, its not even november is it . Its august last time i checked. Its a year to the olympics. There you go. Were a long way from voting here. At this point in time would you characterize Hillary Clinton as a slight favorite over the republican. Youre not going to like my answer. You think so. Just on demographics and the economics shes a narrow favorite. You back that out, the scandal stuff but on the numbers, on the states, on the Electoral College and trends of the economy she would be a narrow favorite. Have you followed this criminal or not criminal situation. Ive tried to follow it. It seems to bounce around from daytoday. And we dont know whether its whereby the act of calling it criminal all of a sudden you call doj and say can you change. Who knows if theres pressure to pull back on what had previously been but theres word that if the fbi is involved. Thats what they investigate is criminal activity. And remember he was like impressing sharing confirmation that was classified and thats the question for Hillary Clinton and if it does become a criminal investigation thats going to make her negatives go higher. We just dont know what this email scandal is going to bring to her. Its not helpful. Is it going to be a campaign and cause biden to get in and shake things up . I dont know, suddenly this debate tonight is important. The next president could be no question about it. Whoever the republican nominee is is going to be close. Its going to be a close race whoever the nominee is. John harwood thinks its a stretch. John, you work overtime, boy. I hope you do. You have to get broader to carry so much water but go ahead. Joe, its a stretch to say suddenly to say that suddenly the debate matters. It always mattered. This was always going to be a close race. Whether there was an email scandal or not, Hillary Clinton is going to have a very tough time winning the presidency. Its not because of that. Maybe i just, that was why the wind up was so long. With the changing demographics and you go back. You have to work on your mechanics. No, w would have lost. The recent wins by the republicans would not have turned out that way given the current demographic picture of the country. So its getting harder and harder, especially when youve got the haves and the have notes. This is the romney point. Youre guarenteed 45 . Its that percent. Joe, hold on. Look, the 2012 election was pretty closed election. Obama won and won decisively but it was pretty close. The country is pretty evenly divid divided. Its very hard for a party to win three president ial elections in a row. All of those things plus the fact that you have very good republican candidates this time mean that we were always going to have a tough election. We are going to have a tough election. Its not going to be a blowout. These stories about Hillary Clinton do not help her. They hurt her. I dont think they fundamentally at this point change the race as our nbc wall street journal pollster said the other day this is a battleship that it is going to take multiple torpedos to take this battleship down and were not there yet. That speaks to something and we talked about this before that really said something. After all the email stuff is coming out and has the numbers and the tweet says, you know, Hillary Clinton i think could go on television and probably kill puppies lying on National Television and democrats would still vote for her. That was the tweet. Like theres just nothing shaking them from supporting her. Thats less true than it used to be. Her numbers are a little down. Among democrats her numbers are down. Among women theyre down. Her numbers are falling and she is only a couple of points up on Bernie Sanders in new hampshire. Nationally in a much bigger margin but people are worried about her candidacy and not sold on it entirely. Particularly with the left. They dont trust hilary on wall street and other issues. If she gets the nominee, Bernie Sanders voter isnt voting for the right, right . No, but do they show up . Its not an absolute certainty that they do. Particularly if she keeps getting blown up by these scandals. So the idea that every democrat is going to get psyched up and turn out for her is not accurate particularly if she is scandalized the whole time. She needs the Obama Coalition to show up and she does not excite people like obama did. Its amazing. It is a point blank guys it is a point blank lebron james slam dunk that who ever is the republican and democratic nominee, 80 , at least 80 , probably more of the people identified with that party are going to vote for the candidate. Thats true both sides. Its a done deal. Hilary is not a great campaigner. Doesnt look real comfortable. Theres a lot of criticism about total lack of answering questions. The line share went to the Clinton Foundation that allows them to fly around and, i mean, one thing after another. All of that stuff has come out and her poll numbers have only fallen a little among democrats. Thats what amazes me. To the point of she can do almost anything and theyll still vote for her. Im still thinking the first bush has a chance against the first clinton. Doyle was a shoe in. Romney was going to win. So im not the person to ask on this but i at this point think her chances i cant believe you could get together a majority unless you got a Third Party Candidate running where someone without a majority wins. That could happen too. Like donald trump perhaps as a Third Party Candidate. Hes not ruled it out. Right. A third party would be i dont think democrats are debating tonight. Thats what tomorrow is for. React to it. I wanted to talk about the donald strategy in this debate. Does he go on the attacks . Thats the question. He says hes going to talk issues, right . He is but if he gets attacked he goes nuts. If somebody comes after him, somebody else on the fringe is he going to blow his top and start saying crazy stuff . I hope so. Thats what i want to see. I dont want to see donald trump making nice. Theyre all going to try to make a splash right . You dont want to hear a donald trump 10 point plan. I want to hear a 5 point plan and why everybody else is stupid and knows nothing and jeb bush is not going to go very crazy. Hell try to be president ial and adult in the room. I think i saw him characterize trump as a reality show host. He is that. Leaving out thats one of the things he has done but im excited to see what he does. Good tv. President obama is a community organizer. Pick the one thing you can use. Hes seemingly good at it. Thanks guys. Thank you. Coming up, tesla going around, the tough part of the track. Stocks sinking at this hour. Were going to check out the speed bumps for elon musk the ceo and early numbers on apple music. How many people are signing up for the streaming service . Will it move the stock . First as we head to break, check out this day in history. Can a business have a mind . A subconscious. A knack for predicting the future. Reflexes faster than the speed of thought. Can a business have a spirit . Can a business have a soul . Can a business be. Alive . Cf industries will become the largest publicly traded nitrogen producer. Its inversion in which it will become a subsidiary of the company domiciled in europe. Second one of the week that we see this shift that has this incredible tax advantage because of o