irregular and i get that, too. >> do you ever get a call from the president of the united states saying interest rates are too high or something like that? >> ever? no. i would say that meetings with the president are -- are rare and appropriately so. >> so you are -- you were mentioning a point to president obama and reappointed by president biden and your term as chair goes through may of 2026. so any thought about staying through may 2026. are you going to do that? >> yes. >> okay. >> if some president came along and said you did a great job, i would like to reappoint you, would you consider that? >> i have nothing for you on that today. >> okay. [ applause ]

and is being chair of a fed an enjoyable job or not so much? >> it is, actually. i think i enjoy it. i enjoy it quite a bit. i do. first of all, it's a great honor and incredibly interesting. i love the people we work with. i love the institution. at this time in my life it's just been a great thing. i'm in my 13th year there now. it's been -- it's been really challenging and all of that, but what else would you want? i'm very happy doing the job. >> so you're obviously in pretty good shape. how do you stay in shape? do you walk a lot, ride bikes, what do you do? >> i do those things, i swim, ride my bike and try to go to the gym as you remember from our days together. >> say you're riding a bike, do people get out of the way or do you have -- >> nobody knows you with a bike helmet and goggles. you're just another person on the road. >> so i think you have said somewhere that when the fed does

lower interest rates and if the fed does lower interest rates at some point you didn't think it was ever going to go back to the free money, practically of years ago when the interest rates were almost zero. is that a fair statement that you think it's a good idea to go back as interest rates as low as they once were. in the period between the global financial crisis and the pandemic was historically unusual from the standpoint that we had ever lowered interest rates through that era including part of the era where, for example, sovereign debt was trading at a significant negative rate. >> that was quite unusual and still, even with rates that low inflation was very low, below target and so the question is what caused that and are the forces that caused that gone for now? >> i think most people attribute the low inflation era to slow-moving forces like

demographics, globalization, technological evolution and things like that, and those may or may not have changed, but nonetheless, i look at where we are now. our funds rate is 5.3%, roughly, give or take, and it feels like it's restrictive, but not, you know, severely restrictive. it tells me that rates, at least for now or the neutral rate must have risen and probably has risen from where it was in the intercrisis period. instinctively, i can't prove this and we'll learn about this empirically, but it seems to me that the neutral rate is probably higher than it was during the intercrisis period so rates will be higher. >> so the federal reserve, without saying that you'll lower interest rates at this point, if you did lower interest rates at some time. i thought you said you didn't want to lower interest rates and say maybe you made a mistake and we want to increase them again. you want a policy that's fairly

consistent for a while, in other words, lower interest rates and not bounce back and forth at every fomc meeting. is that a fair summary? >> we don't want to be too risk averse and we know it is inpredictable and inflation is moving to 2% and we're seeing weakening of the labor market or some combination of those two. when we see that and the data really show that and that's reflected in our confidence and our understanding, then it will be time for us to move. of course, it wouldn't be great if you were moving up and down quite a bit and that wouldn't be ideal. >> some of your predecessors used to speak in what i call fed speak which is incom prehinsible to the average purpose. you try to actually explain things. is that because you're not an economist or you just like to explain things better, because you sort of explain what you're likely to do at the fed and then

afterwards. does that upset a lot of people that you try to put it in english? >> no, i don't think so. no, as you know, i enjoy communicating with people, and i don't -- i didn't have a career as an academic economist. i'm not a trained economist, so i don't speak like one and that seems to to -- i do hear a lot from people capitol hill that they appreciate that they can understand what i'm saying. >> so today, the ecb lowered their interest rates recently. so why do you think the ecb lowered interest rates before the federal reserve? are their economies weaker than ours or what? >> so there are differences if you look around the world and the big difference between the united states and many other nations is just that our economy has been so much stronger. europe went through the european union went through significant

eurozone -- a significant period of very, very low growth while we were growing 3%+ last year so we were in a different place. actually, what's more remarkable about the current situation is how much there is in common between what happened. the inflation break out everywhere. central banks did kind of very similar things. there are little differences in timing in terms of starting to loosen policy, but really theieral theieralieral be known for commonalities. >> when the fed makes a decision to increase rate or lower rates and they finish their final meeting, you are authorized to go out and explain what it is. how long after the meeting ends before you go out to explain it? it's 20 minutes or so? >> three or four hours,iblely. the meeting might end, and i'm

at 2:30 p.m. usually the meeting is over by 11. and you don't worry that chips will leak out in that time? >> no, i don't. people know better than that, i think. >> people are making decisions based on something called artificial intelligence, ai. have you thought about calling up scchatgpt and here's the dat what do you think about that? >> we haven't done that. we've done little things like we've asked chatgpt to generate questions for the press conference, and i'm happy to report for any journalists who are here that the questions are not as good as we get from real journalists. >> what about my questions? how do they compare against my questions? so they weren't that great. okay. [ laughter ] today at the federal reserve

board you are not involved in picking anybody that's on the federal reserve board. the president makes those decisions and do they ever call you for advice on who you might pick or who they might pick? it has happened, but it is not the norm now. the reserve bank presidents are different and we play a role from the reserve banks on that. so every summer there is a meeting of the federal reserve people out in jackson hole. what do you all do out there? you ride horses and wear cowboy boots? >> cowboy boots are worn by some, but not all. i don't wear them myself. it's an academic conference so the kansas city fed will pick a topic and then they'll find really top economists to write papers about that topic or more than one topic. you come to jackson hole, they

pre present their paper and they critique it and that's the mornings and people go take a hike and let me be clear, it is not a rate hike, it is an actual, physical hike. >> you make a speech there. >> yes. traditionally, i've done this every year, but not every year. i give the opening speech and it doesn't have to have anything to do with the topic and i give a speech. >> is it worked on by the staff and you say something and it sounds interesting and you don't make any news? >> i try to do -- typically, what i do is i try to -- it's focused on the economic outlook at any given time. at jackson hole, i tried to take a step back and move to a higher level and say things that have more generality about them. >> the federal reserve is over 100 years old and created under woodrow wilson.

if you were around then, what would you have suggested better than what they did in creating the system and you wouldn't change it very much. >> i'm giving myself perfect hindsight here. i would do what congress did in 1933. so the original fed didn't have an fomc, and it really didn't function very well during the early parts of the depression. in 1933 the current structure was put in place and that's with the fomc with the number of governors and the voting arrange ams, and i think that arrangement is fine and it works very well in the '70s when the dual mandate was added and we're not look at any change and we think that the law is in just a fine place. >> so basically, you think the system works reasonably well as it is today. >> i do. >> and today, what is the

biggest economic challenge, you think, facing the country? is it growth? is it inflation? hard landing potentially? what are you most worrieded about? >> what keeps you up, if anything, about the economy? >> in the short term, literally, the thing i'm thinking about in the middle of the night is always the balance we have between if we ease too early we can undermine the progress on inflation and if we wait too late, we can undermine the economic activity and undermine the expansion. we want to get this right and getting it where it is incredibly important for the people we serve and that's what i spend my thinking time on and longer term there are other things to think about. >> most people have dinner with friends sometimes. how can you have dinner with friends without hinting what you're thinking about and do you ever get suggestions from your friends at dinner this is what you should do and how do you respond when you say you should

lower interest rates? do you keep eating? >> you might define friend that doesn't ask you about interest rates. >> people don't do that. somebody will say to me, hey, cut rates. someone said that to me in the elevator this morning. >> did that influence you or no? >> i said thank you, sir. people say things, but it's fine. >> today for someone who would like to be chairman of the federal reserve board in the future is this a job that you would recommend to your best friend or your best enemy? >> i think it's a great job. the last thing chairman bernanke said to me -- that day, i went to see him that last day at the fed. he said you learn so much at the fed. ben bernanke was one of the top five economists in the world when he arrived at the fed. can you imagine how much i've

learned? it's never felt like work. it is so interesting all the time and also the dedication of the people who work there, 90 -- and the staff, and these are people who have chosen a life of not being in the public spotlight. they just want to do their work and serve the public. it's a wonderful place, and i would recommend the job. >> the fed is also responsible, the way the fed set up, you have a stable currency. global prices. >> inflation. >> yeah. >> and you're worried about unemployment, but you don't make any decisions about what the impact will be on the currency of the dollar. the impact of what you decide to do on the dollar is not something that you are mandated to worry about. is that right? >> that's right. the administration has that portfolio and the management of the dollar for what that is and it used to be something different than what it is now and for us, the effects are just

another financial variable like equity prices. >> if you worry about inflation, we have $25 trillion of outstanding government debt and we're adding $1.6 to 2 trillion and don't you worry about that on the impact on inflation? >> so, i am very -- we don't give congressman advice and it doesn't mean the level of debt that we have is sustainable, and the deficits at a time of full employment and healthy growth is not sustainable over time and we really ned to get to work on that. i would hope this is a top line issue for elected people whose job it is and it is not my job. i believe that i do talk to quite a few elected officials in congress and there is a rising sense that they started to do

something about that. it will take bipartisan action to address. >> you testified at least twice a year before members of congress and you did the house side and the senate side and you don't have to say the same thing twice and they don't like that. >> this isn't the law. it's twice in february and twice in july. so it's four times a year. this is humphrey-hawkins, and it's a tradition and the senate went first last week. the house went first this march and they alternate. they got a lot of questions from members that you think are adding a lot of good advice to you. i think the members asked excel not questions and i'm generally very much pleased. you spent a lot of time with them compared to predecessors and is that because you think it added a lot of value or is it a

courtesy to do that? >> it is the legislature that are has oversight over the fed and it's not the executive branch and they're one in the same and it's the two committees, and i spent a great deal of time talking to people in both political party, the house and the senate, just finding out what's on their mind and trying to take onboard their thoughts on the economy and what we're doing and i think they appreciate that, and that to me, is a big part of this job. >> the fed depends on data, but how good is the fed data collection efforts. in other words, are you using the same data method collection you did 20 or 30 years ago and are you convinced you have data and it's as good as the private sector has. most of the date is the same and the inflation data not collected by the fed. we do some data collection and we've actually been dabbling in big data.

efforts for more than a decade. i think we're very focused on the quality of data and collecting different kinds of economic data and during the pandemic, of course, necessary to do all kinds of finals that are different sorts of data to reflect what was going on in the economy. we did a lot of that, too. >> when you became chair of the fed what was the best advice somebody gave you that was a previous chair of the fed? >> i can't think of one thing. chairman greenspan said was get a set of earmuffs. >> and when you are eventually not the chair of the fed and someone succeeds you, what would be the advice that you would give about how to be a good chair of the fed? >> you know, to me, i think it's a very special american institution, and it's one that works to serve all americans and absolutely critical to that is staying in our lane, sticking to

our knitting and not running to reach out to the big, hot political issues of the day. i think that's critical because once you do that, if that's going to be what you do, what's the case for your independence? congress has given us these powers and they've left us alone to do it and really, we need to do those things and resist the temptation to expand that mandate and that's what i would say to my successor. >> when you want to go out to say dinner and a restaurant do you worry that people are listening and you don't say anything that you don't have to worry about? >> that is exactly what i worried about. i have found that i get recognized now and people at the next table are lissing so wily don't go to restaurant. if you're in a strawn the people -- if someone at the table were to be well served and start to speak loudly, everyone is hearing that, too.

so we just don't do that for now. we go to, you know, we eat home a lot. >> your wife is here. where is she? right there. [ applause ] how long have you been married? >> 39 years. >> you had to add that up? >> doing the arithmetic. >> you have how many children? >> three children. >> how many grandchildren. >> three grandchildren. three little boys and the oldest of whom is 3 and all in the same family and this is going to be quite a little place to visit. >> okay. well, look, we've known each other a long time and i congratulate you for doing what you do at the fed and thanks for telling me when you will lower interest rates in our private meeting and i now know when interest rates will go down. >> that's not true. you wouldn't tell anyone. >> thanks for the great job you're doing for the country. >> thank you, david. [ applause ]

>> and that's fed chair jay powell wrapping up a q and a session at the economic global washington. welcome to "the exchange," by the way. i'm kelly evans. powell saying more progress on inflation is needed, but if it waits to get to 2% to cut it's too late. that's probably the key headline from the interview. the dow and the s&p all hitting new all-time highs on the back of those remarks and that and the nasdaq on track for a positive session and the russell 2000 is also participating up nearly 2% and leading the way, in fact. they're at the highest level since jan of '22. let's get a quick check on yields and the shorter benchmarks like the two years and 4.45 is the level there, and the ten-year -- you can see it there. disinverted with the twos today, 4.45 for the long end. jefferies chief market strategist david zervos is standing by in the wake of powell's comments. he joins me now. anything else jump out at you?

>> you know, i liked the conversation, kelly, on the neutral rate being higher. we know that's been a big topic and it's been coming through in the sep, so i think that was a nice, forceful kind of -- it's going way down with interest rates and i think that helps, you know, give us the contour of where they're heading which is nice. i thought it was a pretty all-in, wonderful speech. i liked the ending with the family stuff and he approached the the discussion of the past and if i had to do anything again, i would not to do anything different and did we did more, or less qe, but at the end of the day it was a victory lap speech, and a deserved victory lap speech, and i think that's how david saw it, as well. >> i am so glad -- i was going to ask you this question and you're not going to like it. you shake your head and i can't

help myself, and will we look at this and say yep, that was the moment they should have been cutting vigorously and everyone was declaring to some extent mission accomplished and it is not the likely scenario, which is something like what the fed would say yeah, we've done the job. >> i think there's always a risk of that and it could come, kelly, as a shock and like what happened with the pandemic, but add to that, he has a good case and there are a lot of people who have been calling for that for many, many quarters and many, many years. we've had a lot of guests on and it's been a tough slog for those bears, and i think he hasn't really gutted the bears in a lot of speeches. i don't think he gutted them here, and he took the appropriate measured response to that question and said, look, we have sort of nailed this, guys.

we got a lot of crap during the run-up in inflation from a lot of prominent economists who have been very quiet, kelly. a lot of guys that really pushed on the fed two years ago told us he was the reincarnation of arthur burns or we were going back to the '70s and this was the worst fed in modern or all history. they just kind of either disappeared or changed their tunes significantly. so i think it's a job well done. it's not that surprising what he said, and it didn't really move markets that much. we had a pretty good pop in s&ps to start the day much more on the idea that trump's odds are going up and that may be seen as a positive for the equity market and the stronger dollar and steeper yield curve all that they would expect on the trump critic. >> one more on powell and then i want to dive into that, but just for the market implications. you did see the rate cut in september the markets had been almost fully pricing and go to

100% probability and december '99 and it looked like a quarter-point cut is now the baked in, most likely sure thing scenario. what does that tell you? and should july be a live meeting or not now? >> i think july is really not a live meeting and i think it could be a soft rhetoric meeting and the market will like that, but the idea that they go in is far-fetched. some of our competitors are talking about why july is better and it would seem political and i find it a disingenuous, and the lengthy policy operation and september would have very little impact immediately before the election. that said, i also don't see the rationale for doing anything political before the november 5th election. why be seen as having any

influence whatsoever and he made a great set of comments and the independence and not seen engaged in anything political. there's no real difference between september and november to me, and i would lean more november and to be honest i don't think it would make much difference to the economy and it would make differences in the political perception, and i think that's why i would almost favor the odds of november being higher than september. significant. >> just to not -- to make sure it's not political or something like that. >> totally. in the way the markets have the moved since the events of the weekend, what do you see in terms of an expectation of a trump victory. what opportunity would there be of furthering the narrative if that's what you think will happen at this point or pushing against it if you think, vents would change in the next couple of months and what we're learning about the fed today. what are the moves that you're

making? >> i'm not in the business of predicting and there's a lot better people that will get the polls and i will get the odds and i talked to polsters who i think are good at, and there was the terrible effects that happened in bethel, pennsylvania, and the market did what you would expect it to do. it's rallying equities and it's taking a stronger dollar and steepened the rate curves and the rate was smaller all in all than many would have got and that's the weak link in the trump trade. i don't think rates go up as much as people think. i just don't see his fiscal prophecy. i think they're pretty similar on that front so it's not a big change. the big change has always been on the regulation side and that's where the s&p wins on a trump trade. >> bingo. >> the work in '17, '18 and '19 when trump was in office

pre-covid. so i always have to say follow the money. the money told you what a trump win is likely to do which is good for equities, a little bit steeper curve and a little bit stronger dollar. that's what the market just told you and i think that's pretty valuable information. >> a couple of quick more tactical questions. do you think a trump victory would be a strong dollar or a weak dollar? i'm looking at the administration in 2016 and '22 it traded in the 90s versus in the hundreds today, so not a massively different move. >> i think the knee-jerk for the market will be to take the dollar a little bit higher. i don't think that that and the rate side going a little bit higher will be hand in hand with the support mechanism and they'll not move nearly as much as what comes from a trump

potential win. so i think if you don't get extraordinarily large dollar, and on trade and that's different between a biden and trump trade story and biden has kept the tariffs alive and if we go back and look at what happened during the trump's tariff movement in '17, '18 and '19 and we really didn't get inflation out of them and we didn't get that significant a move in the dollar and i would say the academics are going to come out and say a lot about this. so we'll have 25 and the high-end economists and trump will create lots of inflation and just beware and you can make the economic data sing and dance the way you like and good economists are good at telling either side of that story. i'll sort of save the rate and dollar moves at least in the beginning. until i see what the policies -- >> i think you're absolutely

right and the single biggest difference between the two administrations and even when we heard about the google news this morning and we'll dive into that another time. thanks very much. you played the s&p 500 for that anyhow. david zervos joining us. we're days away from the official start of the rnc in milwaukee. after the break we'll get the latest from the rnc and the implications with the election with the university center for pol six larry sabato. the dow and s&p hitting new all-time highs and the russell 2000 is hitting a new 52-week high and the nasdaq less than 1% from its own record high and i'll mention maybe the dow 100,000 component later on and the exchange is back after this. this is "the exchange" on cnbc.

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welcome back to the exchange. the republican national convention is officially kicking off in just a few minutes and former president trump arriving in milwaukee just days after surviving an a sassssassination attempt. eamon jaf sers live. what can you tell us. >> you guys have been talking about jay powell back in new jersey. they've been talking about jay powell here in milwaukee, wisconsin and the consensus

among people here, that if donald trump wins re-election he should feel free to fire jay powell and replace him with somebody who is more to his liking in terms of lower interest rates sooner than maybe jay powell would like to see them. i talked to jason smith who is the chairman of the house, ways and means committee a short time ago, and i asked him what he thought the former president should do if he's re-elected when it comes to the fed chair. here's what he had to say. >> i think the commander in chief has the duty, an opportunity to have his people in office and so whoever president trump believes should be there, i think that's who he should have. >> but that's for next year. the question for today is who will be donald trump's vice president? that pick, we don't know the answer to yet. we are expecting that it will come today and they've got the role call vote here inside the hall a short time from now. we do expect that at some point this afternoon we know the former president has been keeping this pick very close to

the vest, though. there are three leading candidates, but we don't necessarily have any indication of who is ahead although there is a lot of speculation here that j.d. vance, the senator of ohio may have the inside track. that's just based on rumor and scuttlebutt at this point. no official indications from the trump campaign. i am told all three men are on the premises and all are available to speak to the public when and if they are selected. it's a bit of an apprentice-style moment for the campaign as they get ready to roll out their vice presidential pick. back over to you. >> he said they would pick someone who we weren't expecting and i'm not sure if that person would have to be there. >> is it true that nikki haley was invited back to speak after she was not going to be present, but after everything that happened this weekend. >> yeah. look, it seems that nikki haley was back within the fold of the republican party which is

dominated by donald trump and that's pretty standard in presidential politics, the people run a tough, presidential primary and reconcile in time for the general election and this one is more eye-brow raising and so many of the nikki haley supporters inside the republican party were never trump, they did not want to see trump get the nomination. she has capitulated on that, and we expect to see her here this week. we'll see what she has to say before she takes the stage and this is a very, very pro-trump audience in the room and donald trump controls this party totally now and there's really no doubt for this political party who the nominee is going to be going into the call, kelly. >> for now, eamon, thanks very much. we appreciate it, eamon javers. >> so what does the political road look like for former president trump and president biden now? let's bring in larry sabato with

the university of virginia center for politics. we checked in with you a couple of times during the previous selection events about president biden's ability to hold the office or at least debate his opponent. now after the assassination attempt, are you with those who say this just the end of it and is this a shoo-in for a landslide or do we need to pause more deeply with this? >> so many things can happen between now and november. we all know that, and so much happens in a day anymore, so i think that's very foolish if people are actually saying that. i would say trump was essentially tied before the debate and the debate was such a disaster for biden that it pushed trump up a couple of points and then we came to the disaster on saturday. i don't have any fresh polling data that shows that donald trump benefitted from it, but i think he probably would.

it played out in his fife are though i'm sure he would have preferred not to have had it happen. then he's got a convention that is completely unified behind him. i don't think there will be a peep of opposition, and he's going to unveil a vice president that most people won't know well. i guess they'll know rubio to a certain degree if it's rubio. they won't know much of anything about either vance or burgum, and that generally, if the attention holds on that person, generally can add a point or two. so i expect there will be a bounce and it may not be enormous, but it's going to be real, and we've had recent elections where there's been no convention bounce at all. so let's talk about the vice presidential selection and the fact that as i understand it, re-wrote the speech he was going to give to tone it down and make

it more of a unity building kind of thing, nikki haley is now at the convention. they've responded very quickly to change what they're going to emphasize this week and that will contribute to what people will feel about several weeks and we're waiting at the same time to see if there are more developments on the biden side. . yes, look, i don't think any political convention nominee for president will be full of rainbows and unicorns, and that's not what people expect, but what they expect now may be a lessening of the language that has become so standard in american politics and it's not healthy for society and you have to ask the question, how long will it last, and i would just urge people that it won't last the whole campaign, but anything

will help. anything will help. so i think that's a plus for the republicans. on the democratic side. what happened to former president trump on saturday seeps to have quieted some of the opposition to president biden moving on for another tomorrow as the nominee. but i have to tell you, suppose those bounces that i mentioned from the events that have happened, the debate, the assassination attempt and a good convention of the vice president. suppose they add up to four, five additional points for trump, and it will advance the talk that biden has to step aside and someone with more oomph has on run. >> my guess is no one wants to step in against an opponent that is formidable and i was going to say waste their bullet, but you know what i mean. >> remember, every single one of them gets up in the morning and

looks in the mirror and sees a president. you're not going to turn down an opportunity to make that come real and also, look at donald trump. this is his third consecutive nomination and it's not like you lose once and do better than the incumbent would have done. you can't run again. >> that's an interesting take on it and the final question to ask if it's too soon to tell and do other historical examples come to mind as to how this plays out and the precedencethat you might want to think about over the next couple of weeks and months' time? >> there's nothing quite like this. we've worn out the road on precedent in the past eight or nine years, and yept i don't wa use that again, but i would think once the race is over and we see the results we could see some parallels and joe biden, by the way, the parallel he's got to hope for is that he can run a

harry truman-style campaign because it will be tough for him to be re-elected. >> what exactly for harry truman's campaign. truman fsz picked as the loser by just about everybody, galloped stop holding and then in october because it was a waste of money. now we need to do better because biden will have to revive his candidacy and i don't know if you can do it if you'val read picked your vp and your convention is at the end of august when lots and lots of peopler vacation. this is not ideal for biden, but he's going to have to make the best of it. >> very interesting points as always. >> larry, thanks for your time today. we appreciate you join us. uva's larry sabato and don't fo forget lester holt will be

sitting down with president biden and catch it at 6:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. eastern. one money manager says expect more volatility ahead, and he has ways you can protect your portfolio next. as we go to break, super micro set to join the nasdaq 100 next week replacing walgreens. shares of the chipmaker has more than tripled since the start of the year while walgreens has lost more than half its value and jim cramer will sidot wn with the ceo of super micro and that is on "mad money." that is on "mad money." stay with us. -you the man! -actually, he's a box. cologuard is a one-of-a-kind way to screen for colon cancer that's effective and non-invasive. it's for people 45+ at average risk, not high risk. false positive and negative results may occur. ask your provider for cologuard. ♪ i did it my way ♪

welcome back. let's get a check on markets right now. as mentioned the dow and s&p are hitting new all-time highs and it is russell 2000s are at a 52-week high within 1% of its all one-time record highs and here are the individual names we're watching including dell components, apple, j.p. morgan and goldman sachs. it reported this morning and it's up 1.5% and it's boosting all of the banks with the xlf financials etf hits a new all-time high and it's been the highest since 2023 and the presidential odds are a factor and the regional banking etf

trading at its highest since december and on pace for the sixth straight positive day. macy's is plunging after its board of directors decided to end negotiations with the activist investor group that's been trying to take it private since december and this despite raising its offer to nearly $7 billion. macy's middle the proposal lacks certainty of financing and does not deliver compelling value. shares are down 11% under sfan a share and the worst day since august. the invesco solar etf having its worst day, and sun run, solar edge down to 19% and you can perhaps read the worst biden presidential odds although solar is done poorly. let's get to contessa brewer now for the cnbc news update. hello. the department of homeland security is reviewing robert f. kennedy's secret service protection. trump posted on truth social given the events saturday

kennedy should be given protection immediately. homeland security says the evaluation has to be reviewed before a recommendation can be made to a congressional committee and signed off by secretary alejandro mayorkas. friday confirmed a data breach in june that compromised some of its customers' information. it included customers' names, addresses, dates of birth and driver's license numbers. it is unclear how many were affected. with amazon prime day, sales could reach $14 billion according to adobe analytics and that's 10.5% higher than last year. the data firm anticipates shoppers will use it as a back-to-school shopping opportunity to go hunting for bargains. i would like to have this all sort of speed dial throughout the year we know which bargains are coming up and we'll just wait for prime day. >> contessa, thank you very much. conte contessa brewer.

forget dow 40,000, ladies and gentlemen we have 100,000. topping 1,188 today. we'll be against the current politicabadr nt.l ckopex

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' welcome back to "the exchange." the dow and s&p hitting record highs but in the aftermath of the attempted assassination attempt on donald trump, how should ceos position themselves? jamie cox is managing partner of harris financial group. michael, i'll begin with you. you know, markets at all-time highs seem to be pricing in odds of what his administration would mean economically speaking. do you think that's appropriate? >> yes, i think it's been happening for a while as the polls have been showing that donald trump looked like he would win over a biden match-up. and i think, yes, a lot of those stocks have been pricing that in. i think you know as your earlier guests have said, kelly, particularly the political professors, anything can change in politics. and one of the biggest mistakes you can make in washington, i'm

a lifelong washingtonian is to project too far from today. overall, yes, it certainly looks like those stocks and the financials and other areas, i think health care, other areas, are poised to continue to strengthen from a trump victory. >> you say health care would have strength in that case? >> yes, i actually do. i don't think you'll see an overregulated environment. i think you could see fairness, but you'll see pro-business and lower regulation and i don't think health care is going to take the drubbing others think they do. >> i like the way you're coming at that. we've seen the biden administration go quite strongly against the health care stocks and they would argue maybe cushing their future profitability and so forth. jamie, what about you? >> well, i think it's pretty obvious you'll see a lot of defense spending. you want to own stocks that have

large dollar-based revenues like look heed martin or aerospace. that will be a big focus of the administration. i think from the political standpoint, the jury is still out whether or not you get a republican sweep. i mean, there's definitely some trouble with some house republicans, the math is not perfect for them. i think the senate definitely goes republican, seems like the white house is going to go. unless you get a republican sweep, it's going to be very difficult to get tax policy in its current form passed. you'll need to do it through reconciliation and on that back drop there will be a completely different set of circumstances. people need to be careful not to conflate what's happening with the dollar and issues with the bonds and things like that, don't forget, it is a very, very long way before any of these policies can be enacted. also, it's also important to think about what people are talking about with inflation. it's not like the biden administration hasn't had its own bout with inflation to deal

with and there probably isn't going to be a lot of difference with trump. if you're selling off the long end of the curve thinking that, you know, inflation is going to run away and maybe you're thinking about it in sort of black and white terms, it's way more nuanced than that. i think there's a little bit of that going on. i like health care, too. i like the health insurers best. i think the regulatory environment under trump will be better for the medicare focused insurers. if you're thinking about what a trump administration would look like in those sectors. >> i want to highlight fed chair powell in the interview he was giving an hour ago talked about the ability to -- he also talked about his concerns about the deficit. he mentioned this before, high def sit, high level of debt. both of you are highlighting this as well. because we're talking about what potentially a continuation of those tax cuts or whatnot would mean in that case, michael, i don't know if there's any way to directly draw a line between those concerns and what that would mean for markets. you think on the margin it might be good for stocks because it means more inflationary pressures?

you can kind of get to a place where we have nominal gains but maybe not real ones. anyway, what do you think about it all? >> you know, i think that's such an excellent point, kelly. the nominal gains versus the real ones is a really important point. a lot of what we're hearing sounds inflationary. and, look, mr. president, whoever you happen to be, the independence of the fed has to be sacrosanct. we cannot make the interest rate monetary policy in this country political. you've got to stay out of it. you've got to let jay powell do what jay powell is doing. and as david rubenstein did earlier, cnbc did a good job, he has done a good job getting to this soft landing. inflation has to stay under control. those who are most vulnerable suffer most from inflation. so, leave the fed alone and if you leave the fed alone, i think

this inflationary environment and low interest rate environment stays with us for a long time. i do worry about the long-term debt. that has to be addressed in congress and we have to have responsible curbs on spending. we can't keep kdoing what we're doing. >> if you think short rates are going to drop and long rates stay where they are, then, you know, or go up a little bit, i think that's still a really good recipe for stocks. you get a steepening yield curve. that's why you see banks doing very well. stocks are going to like this back drop. lower taxes, lower regulation, you know, the prospects of, you know, the spending continuing. i think that's, you know, where it's at. i think it's not just going to be your top seven, you know, tech stocks. this is going to help broaden out the base a little bit where you can have the other 493 components of the s&p 500 participate. with pe at 493, that's positive, very positive. >> quick last question. is it worth trying to think through -- would you really recommend anyone make any

investing changes in anticipation of the administration, even if they knew the add today? again, there were a lot of things in the last trump administration or the biden one. look at the solar stocks that didn't pan out the way people expected. >> you need to look at your probability of what the earnings will be when your making your portfolio decisions. presidents come and go, administrations come and go. but these companies are here to stay. if you think about corporate management and trying to, you know, pick out stocks for the long term, which is what most people should do, the administration is a point in time. i say no. >> gentlemen, thank you both for your time today. really appreciate it. jamie cox and michael farr. as the first day of the rnc kicks off in milwaukee, we're expected to get a vp pick soon, maybe within a couple hours' time. reuters is reporting sources tell them marco rubio has been informed he will not be former president trump's running mate. perhaps that narrows the field. perhaps not.

that does fitor "the exchange." "power lunch" is next after this quick break. investment opportunities are everywhere you turn. but at t. rowe price, we're letting curiosity light the way. asking smart questions about opportunities like advances in healthcare. and how these innovations will create a healthier world tomorrow. better questions. better outcomes.

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(♪♪) ♪ well i was raised by careful hands ♪ ♪ yeah, they made me who i am ♪ ♪ so i'm off to see... ♪ we invent them. we design them. we build them. and one day, we have to let them soar. ♪ i'm always coming home ♪ hello and welcome to "power lunch." i'm kelly evans and joining me is joe kernen. >> is there food? >> it is "power lunch," after all. come hungry. >> i'm not eating. >> welcome. >> thank you for inviting me. >> standing invitation. >> these