There. So much more to talk about, but i hope to check in with you over time. I hope so, too. David, appreciate your time. Bob bakish, ceo of viacom. Carl, back to you for the start of squawk alley. Good stuff, david. Thank you so much, david faber. Its 8 00 a. M. At twitter headquarters in san francisco, 11 00 a. M. On wall street, and squawk alley is live. Good thursday morning. Welcome to squawk alley. Jon fortt, sara eisen and myself at post 9. Dows up 101. Record highs for the dow, the s p and the nasdaq, as yields and retailers are climbing. Weve got this meeting between the president and key Airline Executives in washington, d. C. For that well go to phil lebeau. Hi, phil. Reporter hi, guys. I want to bring in gary kelly, ceo of Southwest Airlines. Thank you for joining us after coming out of a meeting with the president. Give us a summary of what you talked about. This meeting went on longer than you expected. It went on it was a very good meeting. We talked to the president and his staff. It was a very engaging dialogue. It was very much focused on tax reform, regulatory reform, but primarily infrastructure investment, both for air Traffic Control and the airports. So, it was very dprks very exci excited about the prospects to improve support for aviation going forward. Reporter lets talk about that because we heard some of his comments at the beginning of the meeting. He basically said you have old equipment, airports that are outdated, need to be updated. How quickly do you honestly believe that he can free up the funds on a federal level so that we actually see the Airport Infrastructure projects begin . I have no idea. You know, at this point, what is exciting is that aviation has the attention of the administration, i think more than any that ive worked with, and thats very exciting. Were just getting started. Im hopeful that over the next 60 to 90 days that working with this staff we can come up with some actionable items. But today was a very general discussion and nothing very specific. Again, the encouraging thing is that the interest is there, and well be looking for opportunities to get some things done. Reporter with the discussion, did it ever come around to talking about the growth of the gulf airlines, the persian gulf airlines, and the concern that a lot of domestic carriers have about that traffic and what it might be doing to Domestic Airlines . Well, the focus was solely on tax reform, regulatory reform, and infrastructure investment. Reporter did he give you a homework assignment . All the ceos. Did he say, i want to meet again, lets say in 60 days, and talk a little bit more and you tell me what you need specifically . Yes. And mainly, he turned to gary kohn to lead that effort. And so, among the trade association that southwest is a member, im sure well have some Committee Assignments and get to work on that punch list. Reporter a lot of people are concerned that you have passenger facility charge. All airports have it now. And a lot of airports are saying, look, this is a burdensome tax, and it hurts traffic, it hurts the consumer. Airlines, on the other hand, say look, youve got to pay for the infrastructure here. Could it be that someone will be paying more in the pnc charge in the future . Oh, no, i think the airlines are pretty well aligned with the consumers. The industry is heavily taxed, overtaxed. 21 of every ticket goes to taxes and fees. So, theres plenty of money out there. We just need to make sure that the money is directed to aviation and spent wisely. So, no, we dont want more taxes. If anything, we want less. And im hopeful that that will be a part of the discussion of overall tax reform. Reporter there are a lot of people who say, if youre going to fix the airports, it will take years for this to happen. How quickly do you think we actually see some of this money plowing into airports . And some of these projects actually seeing some shovels go into the ground . You know, there are billions of dollars already being spent at airports around the country. Southwest alone is involved with projects at l. A. X. , new orleans. Reporter right. We just completed a new terminal in houston, dallas love field. Weve got a ft. Lauderdale project under way. So, the good news is that were not at a standstill. We are making progress. And the opportunity to actually speed that up in the future i think would be very welcome. So, i think the biggest opportunity, though, is to speed up the modernization of the air Traffic Control system. Reporter which you talked about. We believe there is about 25 billion of waste annually with the system thats currently being used. So, thats where our focus is. Thats where the airlines for americas focus, is and thats where i think you can get the biggest bang for the buck. Reporter does that mean you scrap the current nextgen systems that have been implemented over the last several years and start from scratch with a new system or do you think you can build off whats there now, just fix it . Absolutely build off of what we had in place. I think there is near unanimous agreement that we need to modernize the air Traffic Control system, and thats step number one. We need to convert from the old groundbased radar Navigation System to satellitedelivered gps and get back to the days where we have shorter trip times. Its less Greenhouse Gas emissions, its less gas being burned, and its just a more efficient use of everybodys time. Reporter less congestion. Absolutely. Reporter will you be back here again . Absolutely reporter all right. If im invited, ill come. Reporter but nothings set right now . Nothings set right now, but i would be surprised if were not back in about 90 days. Reporter gary kelly, ceo of Southwest Airlines joining us after meeting with President Trump, for what, more than an hour . More than an hour. Reporter talking about airlines, Airport Infrastructure and a bunch of other things. Back to you. Great stuff from you, phil. Thank you so much. Phil lebeau. The wires reporting the president will sign three executive actions today, one targeting drug cartels, one targeting crimes against law enforcement, saying that its a signal to gang members and drug dealers. Meanwhile, we had amazon announce more than 2,000 new fulltime jobs in california. Earlier this week, intels Brian Krzanich was at the white house, announcing plans to invest 7 billion at an arizona fan. Henry blodgett is here at post 9. Henry, you put that all together, plus a dovish fed, plus maybe some harmful tax policy not happening. Is this the perfect storm . Well, this is what a lot of folks who are not strong on social thats not why theyre voting for trump are excited for trump. He is actually listening to the business community, does have some good ideas, if theyre executed. So, i think Infrastructure Spending in particular, thats got to be exciting to pretty much every american, if we can figure that out, figure out how to help planes and flights shorter, so thats good. A lot of folks are watching trez trump, saying i wish he would focus on this and stop with the tweeting and other things. And if youre talking about american manufacturing, these jobs at intel are exactly the kinds of jobs you want. Robots are not going to completely take over the operation of a factory. I think its important to point out, though a number of people in the United States as well. So, youve got to view these things in context. Its not necessary ily just tha. Also on amazon, some of those costs were what hit them in the quarter. So yes, theyre expanding, but also not quite necessarily as good as intel jobs, qualitywise, at their distributions center. Theres a reason why intel encourages people to continue their education and do what you really love, if its not working in the Distribution Center . And yet, amazon spends all of its excess profit on hiring people. That is great, and building infrastructure. Maximizing profitability in other companies means laying off as many people as possible. So, i think both of these are good. Both companies are taking advantage of positive advancements like this to say them right in front of President Trump, which seems to work. Youre either on his side or against him. You dont want him attacking you, so its smart. But does it move the needle on jobs . We get the jobs report every month and whether its 100,000 or 200,000, thats net job creation. This economy creates more than 5 million jobs per month and loses a little less than 5 million jobs per month. How many of these happy press conferences and announcements can there be to actually get real job creation . From the big picture, theyre irrelevant. On the other hand, were at least focused on this issue. We actually dont have a jobs problem in this country. The Unemployment Rate is where it should be. Were almost at full employment. The problem is a pay problem. We have too many jobs that dont pay enough, and that is another thing that President Trump has talked about. We havent seen a lot of action there. But ultimately, what we need to do is actually take, get some companies to reinvest some of their profits in paying people more, investing for the long term. That is what will fix the economy. Your point about the social discussion versus the market discussion, it could not be more disparate right now. Thats right. And again, i think theres a lot of noise around the presidency created often by President Trump himself, and i think his approval rating, or rather, his disapproval rating, would be much better for him if, in fact, he were to rein in the social stuff and the tweeting. Do you think theres a strategy right now on the tweets and the white house visits for investors . Im looking at the s p industries, airlines are doing the best, up a little more than 2 if we watch the ceos parade in front of the white house. Yesterday with nordstrom, initial tick down, then finished, what, higher by a few percentage points. Whats the strategy for a tweet or a visit to the white house or an announcement on jobs . I think on tweeting, weve been talking about this for a couple of months. One thing weve learned over the past couple years is we can get used to pretty much anything. And there have been so many statements that if we didnt have this long transition period of getting used to them, you would just be absolutely floored by them, but people are beginning to tune them out and take them in stride and, okay, well, dont Pay Attention to everything he says and dont take the pronouncements, in fact, seriously, necessarily. Im not sure thats good for the presidency, but it is happening. At the same time, he is listening to a lot of business leaders, even behind closed doors ceos will say the same thing we sat around the table for an hour. Mitt romney didnt do that with me. Thats one of the things i heard recently. So sitting around a table hes hearing. Whether hes listening or not, well see in the policy. Fair enough. Come down to the policy. These are live pictures here of the white house. Of course, you see now attorney general Jeff Sessions to the president s left, along with the vice president. Sessions, of course, sworn in. And along with that, some of these executive orders the president is signing tied to drug cartels, crimes against law enforcement. Take a listen. Very important. Theyre all important. Thank you all very much. Jeff, i know youre going to do a fantastic job. Good luck. [ applause ] on the wires, sessions says a rise in crime in the United States is a dangerous, permanent trend, says we have a crime problem in the United States. Well keep our eye on all of that. We were mentioning the president s tweets. Speaking of twitter, shares taking a hit today. The Company Beats estimates on the bottom line, but sales fall short, the outlook below estimates. They saw their slowest quarterly Revenue Growth since going public, ad sales down year on year. This is jack dorsey on the Conference Call this morning. The whole world is watching twitter. While we may not be meeting everyones growth expectations, theres one thing that continues to grow and outdates our peers, twitters influence and impact. Its been hard. It will continue to be hard, and its all worth it. Twitter changed the way the world communicates, and well do it again. Henry, our friend, josh brown, this morning said if you cant grow advertising in an election year, you dont have an advertising business. Is that too harsh . Look, the problem for twitter since they have come public is people assumed that they will be the next facebook, and anything less is a disappointment. And i think what weve learned over the past couple years is twitters actually much more of a niche than facebook, but it is doing something that no other network is doing. Facebook, because its a little bit more focused on features and its slower to deliver, twitter is the realtime news network. They ought to be able to build a Good Business around that. Its a question of how big the business is. One of the things thats going on in advertising is they are transitioning away from an early product to what looks more like a tv advertising product. Henry its good, but its going to take this transition. Youre being really nice. I mean, this quarters a train wreck i mean, if you are a news network, i mean, there are News Networks that are actually making money and growing revenue, traditional news. This is awful. Yes, daily active User Engagement was up, but monthly active users domestically flat, revenue down. Adam bain, who had a lot of credibility with wall street for growing revenue, is now gone. I mean, this is really bad. The whole idea when the president of the United States, the most powerful person in the world, is using your platform as his primary Communications Tool and hes controversial and people have to keep looking at it every day, youre in the headlines every single day, and you cant grow revenue, thats a broken model, isnt it . It is certainly not a good quarter, as we have seen in the stock price. What i am saying is the process is that twitter is finally recognizing what it is, and ultimately, what it is has value. We dont know exactly how much yet, who will they can develop it as a news platform, but i think there is a potential for them to transition from buy button, which is crazy on twitter doesnt make sense to tv advertising, people checking to see whats going on, seeing a clip of the game or news or what have you. We need Something Like that. Can we go back to speculation of whos going to take it out . It has value there, cant monetize thats the price, clearly. It is the hope that someone will come along and take it out. But stepping back from that, unless you think their revenue will collapse from here its about a 3 billion business, a 12 billion market cap. 12 times value. Its not growing, but finally when they get the excess cost out that went to were going to be the next facebook, they ought to have a pretty decent profit margin. They dont have any content costs, unless they want to move into the nfl, which they did last fall. As recode argues today, they have survived. Theyve survived for a decade or more and as a user, nobody offers what they offer. You want to figure out whats going on, what people are saying about if . Why dont advertisers increase their spending on it . They do. The problem for twitter has been expectations from the beginning. Do a search replace for this conversation, swap out twitter for yahoo and it still makes sense. Yeah, one of our folks at business insider, one of our commentaries have branded twitter the new yahoo several years ago. Its not a good thing. Thanks for the reminder. Henry, good to see you. Henry blodget. When we come back, well get a live report from the heart of todays noreaster in a moment. The nba making a big bet on esports, teaming one one of the biggest video gamemakers. Well talk to commissioner adam silver and more later on. Much more on twitter as the stock is down. Squawk alley continues in a moment. Ni. Y lle alout ucinglen ons sttegies. Optiontrade. T lp otrtring with onlyri wont replace the full value of your totaled new car. The guy says you picked the wrong insurance plan. No, i picked the wrong Insurance Company. With Liberty Mutual new car replacement™, you wont have to worry about replacing your car because youll get the full value back including depreciation. And if you have more than one Liberty Mutual policy, you qualify for a multipolicy discount, saving you money on your car and home coverage. Call for a free quote today. Liberty stands with you™. Liberty mutual insurance. Welcome back to squawk alley. Check out the markets, triple record highs right now for the dow, the s p 500 and the nasdaq. And we are at session highs right now. All three are up a little more than 0. 5 . Theres some talk that Corporate Tax reform could come soon from the trump administration. The dollars up. And treasury yields are higher as well. So is oil, all contributing to this rally. Meantime, forecasters are expecting as much as 10 inches of snow in some parts of the northeast. Thousands of flights have already been canceled. Hundreds more have been delayed. And the snow continues to fall. The weather channels jim cantores in plymouth, massachuset massachusetts, with latest. Jim, looks windy there. Dont see a lot of snow. Reporter yeah. Were just getting into the wet snow. Remember, we started our day yesterday at 52 degrees, like new york city 62 degrees, so incredible warmth. Theyve crashed down. Theyve already got 9 inches on the ground. Its still coming down. Were obviously still cooling down here on the massachusetts coastline. But look at plymouth