About the demise of the Business Leader panels the president put together with so much fanfare. Did he disband them . Who knows . Youve got ceos openly castigating the president for his off the wall remarks and the president calling them infants pure chaos in washington, with some of trumps most important allies unable to hide their contempt for the president s statements which they see as providing aid and comfort to White Supremacists but the dow gained 26 points, the s p inched up, and the nasdaq advanced 0. 19 . Why isnt this market plummeting simple the stock market is not, and has never been a referendum on washington they know nothing sure, some president s are more stock market than others. Regardless, whatever else you may say about this administration, and you may be saying it, trumps as pro stock market as it gets. He believes that the market is a referendum on his president. They cant hurt. Nevertheless, lets not forget that the market did well under president obama, too he just never claimed ownership. But lets step away from politics, because while i do believe the stock market could be lower if Hillary Clinton had won, as democrats tend to be less business friendly than republicans. What matters even more to the direction of the stock market is the growth of sales and profits at the individual companies, actual companies and how those should be valued when you think in terms of sales and earnings, the truth is these Business Councils havent mattered at all. Washington isnt as important as we like to pretend to the stock market what matters is that sales and profits have been excellent this year, particularly for everything but select retailers in the oil and gas industry. On top of that, low Interest Rates and slow inflation have combined to make those sales and profits worth more than most investors expected by this point this year. The fed released minutes today showing fear of inflation is heating up some dont, though i dont think the fed wants to raise rates that takes the september hike off the table either way, its not a major part of the calculus unless youre running a business that has had labor costs jacked up by government mandated minimum wage increases. First, i hate talking politics this is a terrible time. Its outside my wheel house. My views should be of no interest to you. I do like talking stocks i like talking about your portfolio and help you make money. And the chaos in the capital makes washington more relevant to the market than its been in ages even though theres chaos, its republican chaos, so it wont be antibusiness chaos. Remember, the current chaos revolving around some incredibly important civil rights issues that are fundamental to our nation, but they have very little to do with the stock market listen, last wednesday, the cash revolved around income and icbms and the war of words between trump and kim jongun. There is an existential dilemma, and if things went wrong, it could have meant the death of 10 million south koreans. Now were dealing with issues, Trump Defends very fine people at nazi rally. Problematic. Suboptimal has nothing to do with the stock market but its not it just doesnt impact what i said matters the sales, the earnings, and how we value them. Whereas if we get tax reform, something that the president s people are promising by thanksgiving, whatever then when the companies have bigger profits, come on, i mean, lets be candid. Congress has yet to raise the Debt Ceiling Congress wants another shot at repeal and replace more importantly, congress only works three days a week when its in session. Right now theyre all on vacation for the summer. I should run for office. Any way, i like to work hard, though that means not much can get done, even lets say if there were some sort of unanimity, which there is none. So what do we do until it looks like our legislature has its act together, we can forget about washington as long as they stay out of the way of american companies. Right now, American Business is making money hand over fist. You should cash in on it, not to be concerned about this stuff other than in your heart the reason, listen, you need to understand that the Business World is made up of ycles. There are all sorts of cycles. Theres the housing cycle, the Consumer Spend cycle, auto cycle, nonresidential construction cycle, the oil and gas cycle, the aircraft cycle. A lot of cycles. And other than autos and the ois, all of these other cycles are in the sweet spot. Why . Some have to do with demand. Theres more demand for homes than there are homes think about everything that goes into your house. Housing is 10 of the economy. Plus all the legal ramification of buying a home, it punches way above its weight autos are real important, but they arent growing. But theyre peaking at a high level. Aerospace, insane demand, one of the great exports of our country. Some would say its in secular growth mode. We have secular demand in lots of tech. Remember, if something is a cycle, it booms and busts. If its secular, its a sustained boom if you think of the growth of cell phones and Artificial Intelligence are secular, as i do, there are a ton of stocks worth buying the disbanding of trumps Manufacturing Council doesnt mean a thig to any of those cycles if the president hadnt spent his political capital, he might have built more manufacturing facilities in the United States rather than cheaper foreign companies. Good for jobs, bad for earnings. But when you see his moral authority draining away in tweets and shouting matches, that means ceos can move their businesses offshore without worrying about the impact of getting hit with an angry tweet. Now, i know that detail has been tough because of whats called price transparency, thats what amazon really stands for its about pricing conspiracy. You cant full a consumer anymore about price. I know there are too many cars being built. Making up for that is a weaker dollar, which means our International Companies are more competitive overseas and of course, almost everyone is a winner from Lower Energy Costs except the oil and gas companies, and they only make up 6 of the s p. Heres the bottom line if you want to evaluate the stock market, you need to hook at businesses as the sum total of the prospects of their sales and earnings, and look at them through the lens of what you pay for those numbers, based on the price of money, Interest Rates, and inflation. Beyond that, we can get all geopolitical we can get mired down by the mad house in washington, but never forget that the four walls s of the spread sheet are far more powerful in this room than the four walls of the white house. Chuck in florida, chuck. Caller hello, mr. Cramer Booyah Booyah back. Caller hey, how are you . My daughter joanne is in pennsylvania i have a question for you about mmp. Okay. Its always been a good this is a Master Limited partnership. Etp yesterday did a huge equity of 50 million shares it drove down the whole group. Even though it reported a great quarter, it doesnt matter thats what ive been telling people its a lets just say captured by the etfs rodney in california, rodney caller hey, jim, big Southern California booyah to ya wish i were there whats going on . Caller big thank you back in february, you featured take two interactive, ttwo and i took a position in it and its up over 56 since then and looking at their fiveyear chart, its almost 800 growth i wanted to see how you felt about them going forward, buy more, sell some, hold on no one ever got hurt taking a profit but theyve got a juggernaut here in grand theft auto mafia three was huge hes got great intellectual property no need to sell that stock erin, oh, man, in hawaii Southern California now to hawaii caller aloha, mr. Cramer, from bright and sunny hawaii the stock i wanted to ask about is ktos. I know its been on your show a lot. Just wondering if its still a buy at this level. We liked it at 8. It went to 7 and i got hammered on twitter theres another guy that hammers other people on twitter that is irrelevant then up to 12, and i think it goes higher. I like the defense stocks. Lockheed martin numb one today is more proof that the market is not, is not a referendum about washington. These why we look at individual stocks for opportunity, because you see ts mad money. Im here to show you how what else is on mad money tonight . Theres no stock more familiar than vrx tonight, im sitting down with the ceo to find out if itstim to eye the company, maybe buy the stock. Then with amazon seemingly taking over the retail space, how are Companies Like etsy and shopify competing . And with so much uncertainty in the market, where could gold be heading . So stick with cramer dont miss a second of mad money. Follow jimcramer at twitter have a question . Tweet cramer at madtweets send jim an email to madmoney cnbc. Com or give us a call at 1800743cnbc miss something head to madmoney. Cnbc. Com. She cant become a guitar legend just by playing air guitar. The babys room wont build itself. And her paw wont heal on its own. Were all working forward to something. Synchrony financial can help your customers make it happen sooner. So she can plug into her dreams. And theyll have a new addition for their new addition. Whatever youre working forward to, even if its chasing squirrels, Synchrony Financial can help you get there. Looking for a hotel that fits. Even if itswhoooo. G squirrels,. Your budget . Tripadvisor now searches over. 200 sites to find you the. Hotel you want at the lowest price. Grazi, gino find a price that fits. Tripadvisor. They save us from getting lost, getting hungry, and getting tired of places like this. Phones changed everything shouldnt the way pay for them change too . Introducing xfinity mobile. Where you can pay for data by the gig, and share it across all of your lines. No one else lets you do that. See how much you can save when you pay by the gig. Xfinity mobile. Its a new kind of network designed to save you money. Call, visit, or go to xfinitymobile. Com. At what point can we safely stop worrying about the stock of pharmaceuticals, the company specializing in dermatology, ophthalmology, thats been in the news for the past couple of years, as the stock plummeted from 262 down to 9 were 14 and change today valeant has had 30 billion in debt, the hedge fund led by bill akman, which sold its share in the company. But i have to wonder if the new ceo is getting it under control. He sold off underperforming assets, focused on research and development, and paid down the companys heavy debt load. To me, a critic of the company, i feel that he has indeed started to turn it down. The company did lower its revenue outlook, which caused the stock to pull back, but what are we supposed to make of the company here lets check in with the ceo and get a better sense of whats happening. Welcome back to mad money. Good to see you, joe good to be here joe, i was critical you were on last, i was concerned because of the big debt load. There were a lot of things that were wrong, and i wanted to know if you were up to the task i have to tell you, performance speaks louder than words youve been doing exactly what you said when you came on the show and congratulations. Thank you, jim. Thank you. Its been, i will say first and foremost, its been a challenging 15 months, but weve made great progress. We brought in a great new team, new cfo, we got them from people that i really felt i had known in my past that were going to be good people to join the team we have some great people already with the company, so that helped, as ell. But weve been dealing with all the issues last year when i was here, you talked about our debt. In the time period since last First Quarter of 2016 to now, we will have reduced our debt as of today or yesterday, we paid back 500 million more towards 4. 8 billion of Debt Reduction in less than a year ahead of what you said. We said we would do it by february of 2018, were well ahead of schedule in the actual quantity, but also the amount of time so were making good process there. The other important question you raised is where are you going to grow we have a pipeline that were proud of we launched a product called relastor, up 33 this year versus last year good news for us we launched a product, salik, a product for psoriasis. Were delighted to have it in the marketplace. It has some of the best efficacy in terms of the eradication of the plaque for psoriasis i was questioning short term, how were you going to pay down that huge amount of debt that was coming due but i know from my friends at s p, youve been able to do that handily. We worked very hard at this it was one of the key priorities for this reduce the debt, but we paid down by selling some assets. We made now 12 different asset divestitu divestitures i have two more that will close the second half of the year, generating another 1. 2 billion of proceeds to help us pay down more debt. These are not things that have hurt the earnings profile, i can tell what weve been able to do, the first thing is what is core to our future . I said dermatology business, core, thats now 56 of our business is in the ophthalmolo y ophthalmology. So weve focused around the core, we invested in that, and now what were doing is paying down the debt with some of these, what i call noncore assets when you reported last week, the stock got hit. The analysts, some cut numbers but what i thought was interesting, the bonds went up, your Interest Rate went down so the equity guys, sometimes they know a lot, but its the fixed income guys that seem to have been making the right calls here we think they do a great job. They follow how our cash what is the cash generation of our business theyve been following that. Importantly, yes, we did reduce revenue slightly but we also did not reduce our earnings before tax depreciation its all about generating the cash you also talked about the idea that perhaps the company had been, previous to you, a leader in price increases. A lot of people felt they were taking advantage of the system you said you would look at the pricing and change that. Where are you there on that issue . Within the first two weeks i joined the company, we started what i would refer to is a Patient Access and Pricing Committee that looked at making sure that patients have access to our products. Weve done that. Thats well under way. We also said that we would limit our pricing to a single digit price increase on any of our products taking a pledge on that we did say thats what we would look at relative to future pricing. So weve taken the steps, we think, to address some of these issues we had a few legacy issues you had some legal issues, and you had bill ackman who seemed to be indecisive about his position, but he has since left do you have any interaction with him . I talk to him occasionally. Hes been helpful to me. Weve made great progress. One of the things that happened last week, we unfortunately got a complete response letter on one of our products awaiting fda action, and kacandidly, it was because one of our sites we had a communication with fda just this morning, and we believe now that the fda is going to upgrade that manufacturing site to a voluntary action indicated, which is an important step for all of our future innovation and all the products that we make at that site. Thats near term. Very near term. I know the drug industry is a bit of a club when it comes to the ceos one of the club was a fine man, ken frazier, was attacked by president trump. It seemed to me unfair i wanted to know your view ken frazier is a phenomenal individual he was like a role model for all of us. Hes a great individual ken had a position on this i think the most important comment i can say on this is that at our company, racism and discrimination, theres no place for that in our company. What were doing is trying to make sure we have Quality Health care outcomes for patients all over the world last question, you have, as always, you are a very transparent person you put out a fantastic deck, and you talked about 2018 and years for growth are you feeling as confident or more confident about the years for growth after all that youve been through since we saw each other . I believe that the new products we have are going to generate the returns for our shareholders that we need to generate we had products that were losing exclusivity there was nothing we could do about that we realized very early, we made it as transparent as possible, but if you think about whats growing in our business, the different businesses you dont have to sell any of them we have zero debt maturities between now and 2020 so that gives you a real chance to invest in the business. And the latest results on the earnings id that we talked about was that baush lam was up 6 those on an organic basis, those businesses were up 8 . Thats really important in terms of Revenue Growth. I could not agree more. Youre a man of your word and then some. I was tough on you you exceed everything that i thought was possible, joe. Thats joe papa, chairman and ceo of vrx, who has done a remarkable job turn Thing Company around mad money is back after the break. So new touch screens. And biometrics. In 574 branches. All done by. Yesterday. Banks arent just undergoing a face lift. Theyre undergoing a transformation. A data fueled, security driven shift in applications and customer experience. Which is why comcast business delivers Consistent Network Performance and speed across all your locations. Hello, mr. Deets. Every Branch Running like headquarters. Thats how you outmaneuver. If you didnt know it already, yesterdays action reminded us just how hard it is to invest in retail these days when a retailer miss the numbers, like dicks, it just gets pulverized. Dive witness home depot. Although it did have a nice bounce today so what do you do . You can just buy the stock of the company that everyone says is eating their lunch, amazon. I