Israel has built one of the worlds great civilizations, a strong resilient, determined and prosperous nation. It is also a nation forged in the commitment that we will never allow the horrors and atrocities of the last century to be repeated. Now, we must Work Together to build a future where the nations of the region are at peace. And all of our children can grow and grow up strong and grow up free from terrorism and violence. During my travels in recent days, i have found new reasons for hope. I have just concluded a visit to saudi arabia, where yesterday i met with king salman and with the leaders from across the muslim and arab world. And that visit we reached historic agreements to pursue greater and greater cooperation in the fight against terrorism and its evil ideology. My future travels will take me to visit pope francis at the vatican. And then our nato and european allies. We have before us a rare opportunity to bring security and stability and peace to this region. And to its people, defeating terrorism and creating a future of harmony, problesperity and peace. But we can only get there working together. There is no other way. Mr. President , mr. Prime minister, i look forward to working closely with both of you during my stay. We love israel. We respect israel. And i send your people the warmest greetings from your friend and ally. All of the people in the United States of america, we are with you. Thank you and god bless you, thank you. [ applause ] that was President Trump speaking in tel aviv, israel. As you can see, hes shaking hands with both the Prime Minister and the president of israel. We will have much more on the president s trip in a moment. In the meantime, lets get a check of the markets. Take a look at whats happening with u. S. Equity markets slightly higher. There are things from the bulls and bears to be seeing this morning. You can take a look at whats been happening. Right now, we are looking at the dow could potentially post its longest winning streak since the end of february with the gain today. But its coming off its second straight losing week. The nasdaq is coming off its first losing week in five. Dow futures up by 7 points. S p up by 1. 2. Nasdaq close to 2. Overnight in asia, there were gains when it came to the nikkei up by half a percentage point. Hang seng up higher 0. 8 . In europe, this morning with some of the earlier trading, were going to see that the dax is off by 0. 3 point. And if you take a look at crude oil prices which had pushed above 50 a barrel on expectations of potential of future cut from opec later this week, you can see right now, wti up by 41 cents to 50. 74. Ford Motor Company has reportedly fired ceo mark fields. Phil lal bow joins us with the developing story. Not officially, he has been fired. Jim hackett will be replacing fields as ceo of the ford Motor Company. That announcement coming up later today. Mark fields, hes not even making it three years as ceo. He took over in july 2014. Well explain to you why hes being replaced by this man, jim hackett. A onetime member of the ford board of directors. Its all about the stock price. If you looked at shares of ford since mark fields took over in july 2014, its down 36 , that, despite the fact that the company had its second most profitable year ever last year. And its going to have a fairly profitable year this year. Albeit lower than it was last year. And thats part of the pressure that was building on mark fields when announced earlier this year that theyll have lower profitable for 2017. The other issue for ford and the ford board of directors, is how to convince directors and wall street that its vision for the future of the Auto Industry is one that will help the bottom line. Ford is investing heavily when it comes to autonomous drive vehicle. Electric vehicles, Smart Mobility systems. Nobody doubts that the company is making these investments and that they some day will pay off. But to what degree and how much will they pay off and when will they pay off. The benchmarks that have been laid out under mark fields have been extremely vague to the point that many on wall street are saying that this move to replace him with jim hackett to bring in a new ceo may get a bit of a bounce today, guys. But as you take a look at shares of ford versus tesla or really a number of automakers, that split at the end says it all. What will it take for investors to get excited about ford again. A lot are saying its going to take more than a new ceo. Its going to take clear benchmarks on how investors plan to bring in 2018, 2019. It cant be just that were having a new vehicle coming in 2020 or 2021. Just to understand theres microsoft and they didnt get into search. But then theres search and they didnt get into its always a new company that sort of takes over. But in the Auto Industry, i would have thought that the established guys would have had the capital, the technology, the innovation to do what youre seeing tesla. Its weird that a new upstart had the wherewithal to be able to become the you would have thought they would say, bmw, mercedes, gm, ford but theyre getting left in the dust just Like Technology companies because they havent innovated. I think its that insular detroit culture or something. Right. The problem is its not clearly articulated. And i hear this a lot not just from people in detroit but automakers as well. They kind of scoff when elon musk says, hey, check out this new video of a new autonomous drive system from tesla. A lot of people with tesla when it first came out with this autopilot system. People were saying, that guy is crazy because theres going to be an accident. Something is going to go wrong. Its going to blow up in their face. To the contrary, it has shown investors thats where the country is going. When you mention autonomous companies, i guarantee you very few people are going to say ford is work on one. You hear about tesla. Its like a 25yearold. Really are, the millenniali iase along in technology. Its irritating where are the wise, pros, the experienced why doesnt that come in with autos . Because, joe, theyre making huge investments there this. And its how much will ford have to spend in toward keep up with tesla. Are they better served not investing. And the leeds that tesla has, just by virtue of the miles driven on autonomous system, phil, thats worth the money. You cannot buy that sort of data that puts them ahead. Youre correct. Everybody realizes thats where the Auto Industry is headed. Now it may not be there until 2021, 2025. But its going there. The days of us saying how much are the automakers making by manufacturing a vehicle, selling it through a Dealership Network and being worldwide, thats still important. And it still brings in billions of dollars. But investors are saying eventually, thats going to change. And when it does, whos best position. Phil, is this a situation, though, where you can understand them wanting to potentially make a change. But is this a thoughtout change . Is this a planned one. Thats the criticism. This bill ford who is making the decision . Well, bill ford plays a big role as the chairman of the company. Remember, he was ceo at one time prior to alan mulally. He understands the pressures of running the auto maker day to day. He also understands hes got to position this company for the future. Look, bill ford is still relatively young. But hes also somebody who has said at some point im going to have to move on and the next generation of fords are going to have to take over. Not in the next coming of years but somewhere down the road. And he real iizes he has to position the company in that fashion. Look, its clear under mark fields that the company didnt have a clear enough articulation, i should say, for where it was going to be profiting when it comes to autonomous drive electric vehicles mobility systems. This new guy hasnt been at ford for very long, right . He was the ceo over at steelcase at 2014. His background is Office Furniture. Seeing the change of the open layout. Its a very different industry from the Auto Industry which is basically a Technology Industry right now . I think if you look at this, you dont look at jim hackett as a longterm ceo. You look at him saying heres the guy who is going to be at this company for seven or eight years. You look at him as somebody who realizes i have to get us moving in the direction of convincing wall street thatted for will profit in the future when autonomous drive vehicles become much more important than they are right now. And then you have to look at the next tour of executives who will take on a bigger role, bill hen hen henrichs out of ford north america. And running ford of europe, its now slightly profitable after years of losses. Those are the people, two, three, four years down the road are go to be running the company. Phil, thank you. In political news, President Trump arriving as you saw, if you were watching at the top of the show, arriving in tel aviv. Eamon javers joins us now. Good morning, you saw the president painting a picture of peace in the region. Saying we can only get there by Work Together. Take a look at the schedule in terms of president s visit to israel. Hes running 15 minutes ahead of time. Expected 7 15 in the morning. Hes going to meet with president rivlin of israel. Hes going to the western wall. And having a meeting with Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu. Coming directly from saudi arabia where he addressed the leaders of the muslim world. He presented a different vision in terms of islam than he presented on the campaign trail. Urged those nations to Work Together in partnership with the United States. Heres what he said. America is prepared to stand with you in pursuit of shared interest and common security. But the nations of the middle east cannot wait for the American Power to crush this element. The nations of the middle east will have to decide what kind of future they want for themselves, for their countries. And, frankly, for our families and for their children. The president , though, still dogged by some of the scandals back here at home. H. R. Mcmaster, the National Security adviser was on abc over the weekend, explaining some of the president s comments. The president was reported by the New York Times to have said he fired james comey the fbi director because he was a nutjob. And to have told the russians this took some of the pressure of the Russian Investigation offer the president. Heres what mcmaster said over the weekend. The New York Times as you know, reporting heres what the president said in the meeting. I just fired the head of the fbi. He was crazy, a real nutjob. I face great pressure because of russia. Thats taken off. Is that what the president said . Well, i dont remember exact with what the president said. And the notes that they apparently have i do not think are a direct transcript. But the gist of the conversation was that the president feel its as if hes hamstrung in his ability to work with russia to find areas of cooperation. Because this has been, obviously, so much in the news. So, these are going to be the two stories that we see going forward. The president operating on the world stage, trying to do something that no president has been able to do before him, bring peace to the middle east. And at the same time, fighting the scandals back at home. Hes going to have to do that while traveling overseas. Its a very difficult and challenging political thing to do. At the same time, youre doing a high wire act in some of the most difficult politics in the world in terms of the middle east, joe. Yep. Pretty good start, though. Yeah. You would think in saudi arabia, in the coverage. I was thinking about, you know, whats happening in congress. I mean, did they send over the obama care yet . Did it clear the senate . Are these guys theyre kind of irritating. You know what i mean . I know theres stuff going on, all right . Yeah. But they dont have to sit around wringing their hands. Oh, my god, whats happening . What about 2018 . Its like they got a president right now. If they do something and give it to him, he wont sign it. For eight years we did this, we did that, we werent government. They werent government. They were doing all of this stuffer, sending stuff. Never got signed. Theyre like patting themselves on the back. Now, if they send something to this guy, i dont care whats going on with all of this other stuff, he will sign it. Whats the problem, eamon . Well, i will tell you what the problem is, joe. Congressmen are reelection machines. Exactly. Great way to run a democracy. They have to run every two years for reelection. Theyre terrified of doing anything that might challenge em. That, despite the fact that gerrymandering of redistricting have made it that a huge majority of these congressmen are very, very safe in their districts. They dont face significant threats. What theyre worried about is a challenge from a primary opponent in their own party who accuses them of not being pure enough. And that is a very challenging dynamic for them. They want to stay in power and they want to fend off that power from the right and left. Good piece in the journal over the weekend, you probably owe dont read editorials, you guys will get reelected if you just move forward. If you sit here sand worry and grouse whatever they do, then they wont get reelected. Thats the president ial leadership, right . President ial leadership is about getting everybody to hold hands and walk forward together. At some point, you have to sacrifice a few of those congressmen. Look like president obama, there wasnt a single guy left. They lost all of those guys, all of those guys were shackled. They lost them all, almost. Thanks, eamon. All right. We have news crossing the wires here, an iraq official saying iraq has agreed to a sixmonth extension of the cuts. Iran is opecs third biggest member. Weve seen this gain all morning. Brents is higher by 0. 8 . Wti above 50 bucks as well. A big question is not if theyre going to extend the cuts as they stand right now, or whether theyll increase those cuts. Thats something that mark grant believes they absolutely need to do. Hes going to join us this morning. Lets get back to the market, join us it allison deans, deans. Alison, why dont we pick up where we left off with eamon. The idea that congress is not moving on some of the things the president had hoped for. You are saying you wish they would have started with tax reform instead of repealing b i obamacare . Yeah, obamacare is something that republicans very negative about. But if they really want to impact the economy and actually make more citizens happen i think they should have approached tax reform which is something they promised as well. It would help the economy and jobs. One is pretty kashlolitical and is economic and drive something change in a market that needs something. When you ask the legislates, theyll say theyre doing it this way because they need the savings that they essentially can get from obamacare. Paying the taxes as you go. There have been people who said they wish they would have done it the other way. I know, part of it is, it allows them, dont they hit a limit on refuse flevenue reduct. My view is 33 would have worked around that easily. Lets see if they end up changing their plans at this point or not. James, theres a piece out from parthenon fromle Ian Shepherdson saying hes concerned because he thinks the ned is going to continue to raise rates longer than the market expects it could be enough to push us into a recession in 2019. What do you think about that theory . We do think that the fed is going to keep the rates in june. The big question for the fed are the things happening in washington or the scandals there, is that crippling enough to derail the market which is the market has which the fed has taken generally a negative signal as to whether they should act. Now, we dont really think thats going to happen if you look at cases where you have impeachments or resignations in washington. There are really only two to speak of. The nixon resignation in 74 that derailed the markets. But the markets were down already because of opec oil prices. And with clinton, in 98, the markets were down then because of the russian ruble crisis. In this case, the fundamentals are still very strong. You hear that refrain all the time across wall street all the time. We feel that does support the markets here and the fed will probably continue along this track. To alisons point, how important is tax reform . And how much does is that matter in terms what youre predicting thing s are going to head. Tax reform is critical from a perspective of supporting 3 gdp growth. But is the legislative agenda going to be crippled and hobbled by whats happened . If they can push through tax reform, we hurt before, within the first 100 days then all this, maybe next year. If they cant get it done in the next 12 months, regardiless of what happens with the rest of the washington story, i think that would be positive. Alison, are you positive right now . I think youre better valuations are investing in europe right now. Why do you think the market didnt sell off when it had the opportunity i mean it sold off and bounced back and down for a fraction of a percent. Because the fed is going to be raising rates. The problem we have now the other options outside there arent very attractive and people have a u. S. Bias towards equities. Alison and james, thank you for coming in. Coming up, the Biggest Issue in the uk for brexit . Well talk to the ceo of invest Northern Ireland next. Squawk box will be right back. Its been over 100 years since the first stock index was created, as a benchmark for average. Yet a lot of people still build portfolios with strategies that just track the benchmarks. But investing isnt about achieving average. Its about achieving goals. And invesco believes doing that today requires the art and expertise of highconviction investing. Translation . Why invest in average . The uk holds a general election next month with potentially huge consequences for brexit negotiations but even with additional uncertainty since