Power lunch. A uva calf lien and a hokie anchoring together. In peace and brotherhood. Anything is possible in this world, folks. The talk here should be donald trump tonight. Governor mike pences speech last night as he accepted the nomination by Vice President , which by most accounts was well received by the conservatee audience. Instead everyone is still talking about senator cruz after he got booed off the stage for not endorsen donald trump and he doubled down this morning going even forward openly criticizing donald trump. Ill just give you this response. I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father. Lets bring in john harwood. Hes in the middle of it all here. This story just doesnt go away, john. Reporter it doesnt, michelle. You know, the first task of a Political Convention is to unify a party. Then you reach out to people who may not be part of your coalition. They havent done the first part yet. Thats what ted cruzs speech last night underscored. Thats what the boos on the floor at of rules vote showed, and so this is not southbound successful. The good news for donald trump is the most important part of the Convention Comes tonight. Hes got a shot to reach unfiltered tens of millions of people and makes the case which hasnt been made so far with any persuasiveness of why he should be president and could serve as president. Most of the discussion so far has been about how bad Hillary Clinton is, but i was talking to one former republican member of Congress Today who said we have not made the case for trump. Donald trump has a chance to do that tonight, and of course his data ivanka will also be speaking about him and trying to flesh out the personal side. Were going to bring in sarah fagan as well. The cruz thing doesnt go away. Yeah. Can we get the shift to donald trump tonight . If he gives the speech of his lifetime, yes. Ted cruzs speech last night was interesting for a couple reasons. Both team cruz and team trump really kind of bungled it. At this stage of the convention, in this stage of the election cycle we should be marching in unity. In fact, it got worse, not better. If he lost a very close election in november, ted cruz would be blamed primarily, but theres a logic to what ted cruz did. It hurts him in the short term, no doubt. But either donald trump wins, and you may think he governs as a liberal and you want to challenge him in a primary and you drew your distinction last night, or he loses im sorry, he loses and mike pence is the potential frontrunner, and then youve drawn a contrast with mike pence as well. The other big headline, john, is donald trump gives an interview and sets conditions for defending a nato ally, estonia latvia, lithuania, who are very concerned about Vladimir Putin rolling right over them as they are on the border. He says they would only defend them only if they had contributed enough to nato. The full faith and credit financially of the United States is a critical element of what american exceptionalism is, and so is the military obligation and meeting those obligations of the United States to its treaty allies, including nato allies. Michelle, wrerp talking before the show about questions about exactly what nato would do if the baltics were overrun. Nevertheless for a potential president of the United States to cast doubt on the response of nato and the United States to russian aggression . That is something that we simply havent seen before. Its got a lot of Foreign Policy hands, veterans in the Republican Party shakeses their heads and provides an opening for Hillary Clinton to say im the candidate of stability. I would stand up to russia. Thats an opening that Hillary Clinton will be delighted to exploit. I think he was thinking about money, which is the theme weve heard before. All of western europe, almost none of them commit to the 2 gdp like were supposed to, they ought to be paying up instead of us footing the bill, about you it came out as a Foreign Policy snafu. Go ahead, john. Reporter i understand the financial argument, but the bottom line argument nevertheless is National Security and the willings in of the United States to follow through on its commitments. The fact that someone hasnt paid their bill is not something that the most powerful country in the world traditionally has allowed to stand in the way of meeting that obligation. That was the point of my question with sara. Hes also thinking is the broader electorate, which is tired of defending all these conflicts around the world, no doubt about it. However, as we head into the Democratic National convention, this was a huge error by him. You will see, i think, unlikely people come out publicly for Hillary Clinton as a result of this if he doesnt walk it back seriously. You mean members of the republican establishment, that will say donald trump is unfit if thats his position. Bipartisan president s have always supported nato. That will happen, and clinton but this election is so weird, sara. If elites come out and say that, does it hurt him . Im note convinced it does emplgts it probably wont hurt him with the sort of swing voters, but with the cocktail crowd, the collegeeducated white voters who hes underperforming with right now, theyre going to hear message after message at the Dnc Convention and in the debates that this person is unfit to be commander in chief. Reporter michelle . And that accrues to his negatives in a huge way at some point. Reporter reporter , donald trump like every other recent republican nominee needs 90 plus support from his party to win. So you dont have to alienate a vast bloc of rankandfile voters to be in deep trouble in the election. In fact, some of the Convention Speakers here, who are going along with donald trump, embracing donald trump even if a little cooley, are uncomfortable by his relationship with russia. I talked to tom cotton, the senator from arkansas, rising star, may run for president himself in a few years. I asked him before the nato interview, about concerns that donald trump has been too cozy with Vladimir Putin. Take a listen. Is he more friendly with russia than is in americas best interests . Putin was a kgb spy, and he never got over that. He doesnt have any american interests at heart. I suspect after this week, when donald trump is the nominee and he begins to receive classified briefings, similar to what i receive in the committee, he may have a different perspective and what russia is doing to americas allies and interesting in europe and asia. So you have a future republican candidate, potentially, expressing the hope that donald trump, once he gets classified intelligence, will have a different attitude toward russia and Vladimir Putin than he has now. That is not a confidenceinspiring message for the broader at the one sense, what does he have to say to bridge that gap . Hes got to lay out a positive, hopeful vision, both on Economic Policy for the country and Foreign Policy for the world. Sarah fagen, thank you, and john harwood, thank you. Tune into our special report tonight, 10 00 p. M. Eastern time right here on cnbc. Tyler . Michelle, thank you very much. Last summer a group of wellknown ceos held a secret meeting to discuss the state of publicly traded companies and to go about making the Public Market more attractive for privately held companies. Today the group has released a public letter with what it calls commonsense principles that suggest how current executives should lead their businesses. Warren buffett was one of the leading executives in this group. Hes what he had to say earlier this morning about going bub. I originally would have preferred Berkshire Hathaway to be a private company. Over the years, my view on that has changed. I enjoy having berkshire being a public company. I dont know if we have a million shareholders or even more, but i like the fact that people put their trust in us, and that we tree them like partners. Lets bring in eric scherrenberg, editor in chief, and herb greenberg. Guys, welcome. Eric, youve got your finger on the pulse of private companies, many which stayed private. Why do you think more and more Companies Want to stay private . Tyler, going public has always been a tradeoff. You had to give up a lot of privacy, the ability to make decisions in private with your closest advisers, and instead go public where every decision you made is in a fishbowl,ened a spotlight. The tradeoff is its easier to raise capital, but today theres a lot of capital in the private market. The up side isnt quite as necessary as it used to be. One of the points, herb, made in this open letter and is part of the discussion, is an aversion sort of systemically to the idea of earnings guidance, Quarterly Earnings guidance. Should we begiving Quarterly Earnings guidance . Semiannual . Should there be no guidance at all . Im in the no guidance at all, camp, but at the very least antly. It creates not just schotttermism, that people would define it, but it it and they get into the whole stock market thing, which is important, because theyre, you know, their investors, the reason theyre public is for investors, but i think thats a great idea. I dont think it would ever happen. They can talk about it as much as they want. In principle it sound great. Very few companies will go that way. Eric, one of the few things i can only imagine that a lot of executives spend a fair amount of time is one, meeting with investors, and two getting ready with the Earnings Call and getting the messaging exactly right every quarter, so the market doesnt react poorly to whatever the results are or whatever the company says. That feels like a waste of time. I think a lot of investors would agree with you. Michael dell complained about 20 of his time was spent just on reassuring investors and giving them information, money that might have been spent innovating or strategically thinking about the future of dell. Hes a lot happier as a private ceo. Herb, what about the idea of splitting the role of chairman and ceo. Mr. Dimon oof chase didnt initially like that idea, but this is one of the things thats part of . Sort of manifesto, if i can call it that. Or if you dont do that, forever a very strong independent lead director. A very strong independent lead director is a good idea, and so is replying it. When the ceo graduates to the board, does he just remain chairman . Then when hes there, is it really independent . These are all great concepts, but again once theyre on the stock market treadmill, its just so hard to get off. Herb, thank you very much. Thanks, herb. Thanks, eric. A butte shot of lake tahoe, where today bigmoney athletes and bigmoney managers are getting together for golf, gab and probably a few more cocktails. Two of them will join us, including Charles Barkley. Hes got a lot to say on a lot of things. Power lunch is back in two. Its here, but its going by fast. The opportity of the year is back the mercedbenz summer event. Get to your dealer today for incredible onceasean offers, and start firing up those grilles. Lease the c300 for 3 a month at your local mercedesenz dealer. Mercedesbenz. The best or nothing. Welcome back to power lunch. We find susan lee in tahoe, shes there with the ceo of American Century, jonathan thomas. Susan . Reporter hi, brian 27th addition of the American Century championships, and our host, jonathan thompson. Great to see you. Great to be here. Youre paired with stef curry. Yes i am. Are you ready . I think anybody could play with him. Hes a phenomenal athlete. Its hard to believe golf is the second hobby for him, given the way he plays. Lets get to business. I want to talk about the 40 Stock Ownership that belongs to a nonprofit, medical research company. Given that it looks like the department of justice wants to block these big Health Insurer tieups, does it have an impact on you . It doesnt have much of an impact. Weve a privately held company, the 40 is owned by a medical research organization, actually the result of a flan tlopg cal gift of our founders that drives us to fund medical research and find cures for genebased we do some collaboration. One of the other top stories is Warren Buffett talking about changing the govern yang structure within boards, maybe for companies not to provide guidance in the future. Youre a big institutional investor. How do you feel about that . The thing that warren and those guys got together and talk about is what we would refer to as good esg practices. Increasingly over the last years, Good Governance comes into vogue in terms of invests, both for Institutional Investors and retail, because the statistics show that organizations with Good Governance practice, whether its diversion boards or, you know, better disclosure actually perform better over the lost teng. Say hi to my colleague brian sullivan. How are you . Not as good as you guys out there, but a serious question. Is Corporate America broken . Yes, sir. You think Corporate America is broken . Not at all. I dont think that. I think its doing quite well. You know, i do think the Public Companies are until a level of pressure that makes it increasingly difficult for them to compete and its one of the reasons you see fewer and fewer Companies Going public over the years, and more and more companies staying private. A lot of them come out as megacaps because they stay private so long. Im going to jump in, because were running out of time, and susan has a question, but i want to follow up on a story that im working on in a couple weeks, what is the risk or reward that the fact that to your point fewer and fewer companies are going public . Number of ipos is way down, so the pool of available stock to buy is down. Seven kind of in some way a good thing . Fewer shares means more money goes to it and stocks go up. Thats a great question. Yeah, i mean, fewer shares are available through both ipos, but also fewers shares available because of massive amounts of buybacks. I think thats had a bump effect in the market, but the ipo market, when they do come out, come out so large, these making up for lost time ultimately. One more question for you. You said theres a lot of cash on the sidelines. Are these stock market levels justified . For the last year or so, youve seen a lot of folks putting money into the markets. In june there was a pretty being reversal. You see a bit of nervouses in and some of the only Asset Classes gaining posit flowing in the month of junes were safe places, municipals. Alternatives and target date funds. I think sblz some unsecurity. Record levels then, if thats the case . I think were fully valued, probably. Sitting right near to times p. E. Values, but i dont think were heading towards a crash. Were in a good spot. Jonathan thomas, thank you, the ceo of American Century. Thank you. You can catch all the tournament action on nbc sports tomorrow at 6 00 p. M. Eastern, and on nbc saturday at 3 00 p. M. It is fun to watch. 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Heres a quick recap of some of the heady stats that weve had with the rally even with todays slight dr