live from new york, where business never sleeps, this is "squawk box." good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc. i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. the main event this morning is the ecb, which is meeting in frankfurt. policy decision is expected around 7:45 a.m. eastern time, and economists are looking for a possible cut in rates again. even below the negative rates that already exist with the european central bank widely expected to roll out more stimulus. we'll be hearing from ecb president mario draghi. that's coming up at 8:30 a.m. eastern time. ahead of the decision, the u.s. futures are sliektly positive. remember yesterday we did see some modest advances for the markets. six out of seven days in a row of gains for both the s&p 500 and the dow. this morning, the dow futures are up by about 23 points. s&p futures up by 3 1/2. the nasdaq up by six. let's take a look at the early trading in europe. again, big decision that's

coming out of europe. right now the markets are relatively flat. dax is flat. the cac is essentially flat. the ftse down by half a percent. the currency markets, which are going to key off this as well, if there is additional stimulus, it could very well weaken the euro and strengthen the dollar. right now the dollar is up against the euro at 1.0978. dollar versus the yen is at 113.46. let's tell you about other storying we're watching this morning. square posting better than expected results in its first quarterly results since going public. square ceo jack dorsey sitting down on "closing bell," responding to investors betting against the company. >> i think we need to constantly show that we're focused on the right things. we're focused on building great tools for sellers and that they value them. we continue to see that growth. i think we're not only a first mover in a lot of areas, an innovator in a lot of areas, but

also we have the best experience. we certainly compete with a lot, but what we find is that our competitors are only going after one part of the equation, whereas we're looking at a cohesive end-to-end of what a seller truly needs. >> jack dorsey is of course running twitter as well. an article in "the wall street journal" this morning reporting that the social need ya company has been offering additional restricted stock and cash flow to retain twitter talent. also, twitter co-founder biz stone is going to be one of our very special guests during the 8:00 a.m. hour. you don't want to miss that. we should tell you this morning, the cloud storage company box posting smaller than expected loss. it saw subscribers increase, helping its bottom line. that stock still trading under its ipo price of $14 a share. joe? >> andrew, welcome back. while you were gone, did you see this stuff about twitter supposedly like being accused of defending hillary? have you seen that? >> i have seen that.

>> you're leading that. >> i will do that, absolutely. >> okay. his name is biz stone. >> biz stone. >> when i was in san francisco, i don't know whether you can see this, but i bought a stone. it's got some chinese writing on it. it's just what i need every once in a while, especially in this political environment and on this show and stuff. it says tranquility. >> it says tranquility in english. what do you think is really says? >> i googled it. both of those symbols do say tranquility. you're back and everything. when i was there, i actually thought of looking at all of them. i thought about buying you some stones. i said, you need to pick out your own. >> right. >> what do you think you'd get? serenity? the deal with -- >> oh. >> serenity might be good.

>> peace. >> tranquility does mean peace and repose. >> repose. i'd take repose today. >> if you see me like this today -- >> it's just a stone you're rubbing. >> the nation's top chief financial officers are coming around to the prospectins of donald trump getting the gop nomination. when asked the question, regardless of your personal political affiliation, who do you think will win the nomination for the republican nomination for president, from 4 respondents, the answer in august was zero. by december it rose to 15 for donald trump. at that point, senator marco rubio had close to 60% as he was the designated recipient of all the establishment's love. that didn't work out. when asked earlier again this month, trump's numbers jumped to 66.7. rubio now around 17%. and cruz at 12%. donald trump will be checking with us ahead of latest gop

debate. we're going to talk to him live at 8:00 a.m. eastern time, then at 8:45 a.m., carly fiorina will join us to talk about throwing her support to texas senator ted cruz. i saw a bunch of editorials on the last show that they had found. anti-trump editorials. there were some that said beware -- did you see the journal today? beware trumpophobia. elite op-ed in the journal. >> grudging. >> they seem to start facing the reality of that possibility. at the same time, can you believe this? people say trump is not a conservative because he's not a free trader. suddenly another thing he started saying. now free trade loses political favor in both parties. it's weird. it's weird to be able to tap

into, you know, some sentiment. i don't know. do conservatives now -- is free trade a slam dunk for conservatives anymore? >> not in the republican party. not the leadership of the democratic party anymore. >> so does that litmus test suddenly start fading from whether you're a true conservative or not? >> yeah, makeup of the party. >> you're coming back into this. you've been out there talking technology or something, right? >> i like tpp, as you know. i was a tpp fan. >> most people do. >> apparently not. >> maybe it's true that you need to be more -- >> you told me that supporting tpp made me a capitalist. >> and i think that in general, that's true, but maybe there's something to the notion that we've given away too much in the past. maybe there's something to that you can negotiate better deals that the american worker does better with. >> and there are wide swaths of the population who lost out under these trade deals and who are the ones who are very

vociferous. >> i need this now. tranquility stone. >> you know he's sick. >> shoot. >> are you? >> no, i'm getting over a cold. >> can you wash my stone? >> here. >> oh, thank you. thank you. >> better. >> there you go. this is like a republican debate all the sudden. >> let's talk about the democratic candidates facing off last night. hillary clinton and bernie sanders trading blows at the univision cnn debate. sanders defending himself and his record when it came to the crisis in the auto industry. >> no, i did not oppose the bailout for the support of the automobile industry. no, i do not support vigilantes. that is a horrific statement, an unfair statement to make. [ cheers and applause ] the purpose of my political career, fighting for workers,

fighting for the poorest people in this country. madam secretary, i will match my record against yours any day of the week. >> clinton was also asked if she would drop out of the campaign if indicted over her handling of e-mails on a private server while she was serving as secretary of the state. this was her response. >> if you get indicted, would you drop out? >> oh, for goodness. that's not going to happen. i'm not even answering that question. [ cheers and applause ] >> the debate drama continues tonight as gop candidates face off again this evening. okay. let's tell you about some other news this morning. chipotle receiving praise for its handling of its most recent health issue. the food chain closed a boston area restaurant to clean up after a norovirus scare. it will reopen today. also, moody's will be paying calpers $130 million to settle a lawsuit over grades the rating agency gave residential mortgage securities. they reached a similar

settlement with moody's last year. also, valeant and rno have settled a series of lawsuits. making a payment of an undisclosed amount to valeant. all right. another check on the markets this morning. as we showed you, the futures are slightly positive ahead of that decision from the ecb. the dow futures up by about 21 points. s&p futures up by 3.5. the that's dnasdaq up by about . when things closed yesterday, the dow closed higher, as did the s&p 500. take a look quickly in europe. again, this is ahead of that ecb decision coming at 7:45. the question is, will there be additional stimulus added? right now markets are relatively flat ahead of that with the dax and cac sitting just below -- trading just below the flat line. the ftse down by about half a percent.

in asia overnight, we saw that the nikkei ended up by 1.25%. the shanghai composite was down by 2%. we took a look at oil prices. this was the big story yesterday. energy led all sectors in the stock market. it was boosted by a nearly 5% gain for wti. giving back just a little bit of that today, down 30 cents to . 37.99. the ten-year note looks to be yielding 1.86%. the dollar is a little stronger against other currencies as we head into this rate decision. it's up against the euro at 1.0971. gold prices yesterday slumped a little, hit their lowest level in about a week. this morning they're down another $9 to 1,248 an ounce. let's get back to today's big main event, the european central bank is meeting. joining us now is ian shepherdson. we are expecting, at least the market is expecting, some additional stimulus from the ecb

today. what's the risk of negative interest rates? >> well, banks don't like it, that's for sure. unfortunately, i think they're going to get one. probably not a big one. maybe ten basis points. more qe. probably an extension of the qe, pushing out the end date, maybe through the summer of next year. unfortunately, the recent record of the ecb is they tend to pick themselves up then not deliver. >> so it could disappoint the market if it's not as much as we thought? >> betting on disappointment has been a winning trade with the ecb for a while. i'm not expecting them to do anything that stops everyone in their tracks. more likely they'll underdeliver a bit. >> meaning the stock market will have a luke warm reaction at best, and the euro won't necessarily weaken the way they

potentially hope. >> they definitely want it to weaken. you could argue this whole objective and they've been unsuccessful at that. what i think will happen is they'll disappoint a bit and markets will say, what's next? when are they going to do some more. rather than blowing everyone out of the water and making it clear this is it. they continually disappoint. >> their markets should go down. ours shouldn't go down. we're worried we're going to diverge too much. we've had good economic data over the last couple weeks, especially with jobs. now it's back on the table, another rate increase. >> but we still don't think it's coming in march. >> it was zero and it's back to 100% for this year. so it would help if they didn't diverge too much by getting -- you know, by weakening their currency. this should help us because it shouldn't cause the dollar to surge. >> no, it certainly shouldn't. that makes things a bit easier. >> they love easy money wherever it is. >> absolutely. free money is a great thing. >> so they always buy the market on more and sell it on less, but

they shouldn't. they're not thinking it through. >> they're not thinking it through. ultimately, as we've seen here, endless free money isn't necessarily going to give you the outcomes in the economy you actually want. >> you're smart. you agreed with me totally. >> did i? that's surprising. >> actually, i felt smart because -- >> because he agreed with you. >> because he didn't say i was an idiot. >> free money for a very long time. the outcome in the textbook says the economy should get better, better, better, and it hasn't. something is wrong somewhere. we had fed governors back in september saying the earlier rate hikes might spur rather than restrain growth. in other words, we've gone too far and we're distorting capital allocation decisions. the fed is telling everyone that everything stinks, so everyone acts accordingly. >> do you think draghi at this point is saying i'm not worried about, you know, shock and awe? i want our currency weaker to help us. or has he looked at negative interest rates and that it's been ineffective in japan anne

saying maybe we don't want to go down this path. >> he really wants the weaker currency. his objective, without a doubt, is to pump up the european economy so when the next downturn comes, we don't get immediately flung into another sovereign debt crisis. the problem is that the mechanism to weak than currency substantially, cutting rates further and further, is now damaging because it's hurting the banks. he's in a difficult position. >> hurting the banks because they need additional lending. >> they can't pass on negative rates to their retail customers. it's a margin squeeze. what they need to do, i think, is to do bigger, bigger qe. if you want shock and awe, you can't do it through interest rates anymore. the objective that he wants, he doesn't really -- using interest rates isn't the tool that's going to give it to you anymore. the banks are clearly suffering. >> is the fed doing the right thing by holding off? i know you had concerns last week. they could be getting behind the ball. >> they are. you know, core inflation on their target measure is 1.7, which is below the target of 2. janet yellen said in december,

the factors are depressing between a quarter and a half. the underlying rate is already above their target. she keeps telling us monetary policy works with a long lag. given that core rate is rising, they're already behind the game. not behind the market, because the market doesn't even believe their own forecast. but they are now getting whine the real economy. >> okay. ian, thank you. >> thanks, ian. sad news to pass on today. john gutfreund has died. under his leadership, solomon went public, played a key role in creating mortgage-backed securities, and so many other things. he was dubbed the king of wall street by "business week" in 1985 and was immortalized in the michael lewis book "liars poker." he was a frequent guest host on squawk walk as well in the early years. he was 86 years old. coming up, what the cnbc global cfo council is saying about the security feud between

apple and the fbi. you were out in tech land. you on the right side of things yet? >> i am on the right side of things. >> you're with me? >> no, no. >> do you know that song "find the cost of freedom"? do you need to go back to the '60s to get into this? >> start rubbing the stone. >> if one person is not free, though one is free. i got a lot of sayings for you. and we're going to talk cybersecurity and making deals with cysco cfo kelly kramer. first, this day in history.

welcome back to "squawk box." while march madness is getting ready to dominate the sports headlines, in the meantime we have to get these conference tournaments out of the way. but some more contracts are being signed in the nfl. the houston texans, this was interesting, reportedly signing quarterback brock osweiler for four years and $72 million. he took over for peyton for a while. then peyton came back in. he was the heir apparent at denver. i don't think they came up with $72 million though. something happened. he'll instead be a texan next season. i haven't heard yet what

happened to the jets guy. they're far apart. yeah, we may lose -- >> fitzpatrick? >> we may lose him because they're millions apart supposedly. >> wow. >> and he did pretty -- you know -- >> quarterback problems that are well documented. that wasn't the main problem. oh, really? i'm told rg3 could end up in denver. that's deep too. it's that oblong thing. >> how many innings? >> four innings. two halves. >> how many quarters? >> usually in any whole, there's four. >> are there hoops? okay. i don't know what he's talking about. some sport. the results of cnbc's global cfo council survey are in. some people think i don't know. it asks members to weigh in on the ongoing confrontation between the apple and the fbi.

nearly 69% of respondents agree that korcorporations have responsibility to fight terrorism. however, 85% believe the corporations have a responsibility to protect consumer data and keep it private. trying to square that circle. those results may help explain why cfos were split on saying whether apple should comply with the fbi. 22.9% believe they should not. what about the rest of them? >> 40% like, uh, what? >> i don't want to respond. i don't know if you want to put your name on that. >> i don't even know what you're talking about. >> sort of like me with the sports. apple's encryption debate clearly front and center for many in the tech space. kelly cramer joins us with a business update. she's the cfo of cisco. also a member of cnbc's global cfo counsel. shares have now risen 20% since

bottoming back in january. >> there you go. good job. >> thank you. >> before we get into it, you were asked this question. >> yes. >> how did you respond? >> i am -- i will say cisco has signed with other tech companies supporting apple's position. >> yay, good. that's why your stock is up. you're doing the right thing. >> it may not be that. i think that's more performance. but yeah, i think in this world of cybersecurity hacks and everything, i think encryption is more important versus less. we've had a long standing position of opposing back doors. >> is this about wanting the government to come and set some sort of standard so it's not a case-by-case basis? >> yeah, i think the precedent is very important. i think, you know, the government and private sector need to figure out some way to have some open standards on these kind of situations. but again -- >> so hold on. that means you're backing off a little bit. open standard, what does that mean? >> well, i think, again, we at

cisco oppose and have long opposed back doors. i think there's a balance between privacy and security. i don't think there's an easy answer, but i think companies and governments need to work through situations without setting a precedent that would -- >> that's based on a law from 1789. >> which we don't agree with. >> everyone agrees it's more about the precedentprecedent. let me ask you a different question. if you were doing business in china, which you do, and one of the government officials secretly come s to you and says we have this problem with this terrorist attack. what would you do? >> we don't provide back doors for any government. >> you won't do anything about it? you would fight it? >> we will not weaken our products. >> not weaken the product. weaken a specific individual product to get it a specific individual thing. >> nuance. >> nuance matters. >> nuances are well documented. you know it's not a clear

answer. when you get someone to admit maybe they'd like to help with security, you're like -- that's not true. we know it's not a black-and-white issue. encryption is something the whole world is going to need in the future. such a simple -- you make it so complicated. >> nobody is asking for a back door, by the way. that's the distinction. it's a distinction as to what you think -- i'm happy to hang my hat there. >> then apple is lying. if you want to call tim cook a liar, then continue to do that. >> would you like to do that? >> no, i'm not, but you're saying it's not about -- it's just one case and they can do one case without it hurting anybody else. >> both sides have tried to take advantage, unfortunately, of a terrible moment. that's what i would say. actually, both sides have done it. >> i'm under the impression if they do it once, there could be a risk to the whole encryption. if they're lying, they're lying. if they're not, then i don't want them to do it. simple. >> i agree.

>> just to clarify one point, and we should really talk about cisco, but the reason why i would argue it's not a back door anymore now that i've spent time with tech people is it doesn't matter after this phone. all of the new phones have a completely different technology. so the whole thing is irrelevant. >> you can always pose the bigger question. if it comes to the point where there's no -- if there isn't anything left for a back door, something that goes away totally, is the government going to come in and say, no, you can't do that, you need to save this stuff so we can look at it? that's what you would do. >> that's so far from how that's written. >> then they're going to be able to use that system. >> always. >> then you're not going to stop terrorism. >> let's talk about cisco. let's talk about what's happening in the landscape right now. where do you see things? we had jack welch here yesterday. he said in december things looked like they were starting

to slow down significantly. what do you see? >> we saw the same thing. our quarter ended in january. january was very tough for us. we still executed great through the quarter, had growth, grew top line 2%, bottom line 8%. we saw a weakening in january. i think a lot of that was driven by the equity markets, volatility. i think we saw enterprising pulling back. >> people stopp eped spending. >> exactly. so not commenting on our current quarter, with the equity markets being more stable, it does look brighter. we definitely saw it in january. >> another question i wanted to try to get to was china broadly, meaning how slow has the market gotten there? >> for us in china the last two quarters, we've been doing great. >> you've been doing great, but is that operational to you? >> i think -- well, i think it is. we had a couple years of very, very tough situations. we stayed in china. we invested, stayed close to the

governments. we expanded our go to market. i think we're finally seeing it pay off. the last two quarters we've had every product line be up over 20%. it's pretty broad based. we're bullish. i think our relationship is pretty strong. >> in the grand debate around buy backs and dividends, you guys have increased both. what does that say about your ability to find things you'd otherwise want to buy or use that cash to develop? that's the great debate in this country about companies across the board. >> exactly. the beauty of cisco is we're doing both. we announced a 24% increase in our dividend, which is great. we increased our authorization of our buy back. the strength is there. we're continuing to buy acquisitions. we announced a couple just last week. it's a combination of all that. we're blessed with fantastic cash flow. we're sitting with 60 billion in cash. >> real quick, in the buy back debate, do you look at the stock and say, it's cheap, that's why i want to buy it back, or do you say i have too much cash?

how much of is it is about being opportunistic? >> we're extremely opportunistic. we've been modestly bringing it down. when the stock was very depressed like in january, we were very active. again, the reason we increased our dividend as well is we want to, you know, continue to give consistently that back to our shareholders. again, attract some people into the stock. i think we're undervalued. >> there you have it. kelly cramer, thank you. great to see you. when we return -- >> keep up the fight. >> thanks, joe. >> you're welcome. when we come back, we'll talk about the whacky world of small business regulation. how about getting arrested for selling cookies or a 200-question test just to become a tour guide. plus, mcdonald's expaending the breakfast table after hearing from its customers and getting a boost in sales. right now as we head to a break, take a look at yesterday's s&p 500 winners and losers.

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to benefit from different points of view. and by consistently breaking apart risk to focus on long-term value. we actively manage with expertise and conviction. so you can invest with more certainty. mfs. that's the power of active management. welcome back to "squawk box," everyone. it's time for the executive edge. it's no secret that small businesses struggle with government regulations. kate rodgers is in charleston, where one would-be business owner is fighting back. kate, good morning. >> reporter: hi, becky.

ghood morning. we are here in beautiful charleston, south carolina, at the battery where would-be guides face a 200-question test based on a nearly 490-page book. after you pass that, you move on to an oral exam. but kimberly billups says she failed that test, and it's keeping her back from launching her business despite her studying for three months. now, the nonprofit law firm the institute for justice is taking on the city of charleston's tour guide licensing laws on behalf of billups and two other would-be guides, saying they're in violation of their free speech rights. >> you know, right here in our own very backyard, the fathers, authors, and signers of the declaration of independence and the constitution are buried here in our backyard. the hypocrisy of all of this, you know. i know they're rolling over in their grave. >> reporter: now, the city of charleston says these regulations have been in place

for decades and that millions of people visit this metro area annually and that it's their responsibility to protect tourists from being swindled out of money by unreputable guides. sounds like it's a tough test because the city did tell me in 2015, the pass rate was just over 50%, meaning the fail rate was just about 50% as well. back over to you. >> wow. just one example of heavy regulations. kate, i know you've been looking at other situations too. what are some of the other issues that jump out when you start looking at small business regulation? >> reporter: yeah, absolutely, becky. we have a whole lineup of stories today. another one we're looking at is what they call a cookie ban in wisconsin. you're not allowed to sell any home baked baked goods if they're not made in a commercial licensed kitchen. if you're caught doing that illegally, you could go to jail. in iowa, we're looking at regulations for african hair braiding. you have to get a full cosmetology license. there's a bill right now that's being looked at in the state

legislature that would exempt african hair braiding from the traditional definition of cosmetology in that state. certainly big hurdles for would-be entrepreneurs and important issues to keep looking at. back over to you. >> kate, thank you. we'll be watching throughout the day. >> and if it works for you, i guess keep doing it and doing it more. mcdonald's is expanding its all-day breakfast menu after customers took to social media to express their frustration that their favorite breakfast choices had been cut. most mcdonald's serve a limited all-day breakfast menu. certain locations are now serving the entire breakfast menu all day. >> what were they not serving? >> let's see. it launched in october. we need to know that. helped boost mcdonald's same-store sales by more than 5% in the u.s. i do know that chipotle, you can get that norovirus any time of day. you can get it for breakfast. i'm sorry. i apologize to chipotle shareholders.

but another one. >> this time it was just employees. >> yesterday. it's on the menu. do they have breakfast burr ree o -- burritos? >> no. >> no breakfast at chipotle? >> not yet. they should. opportunity for the stock. >> real mexican food. >> a couple of them might do it. not across the board. coming up, the battle for florida. winner take all state with 99 delegates is up for grabs. governor rick scott will come on. he hasn't endorsed anyone. we'll talk about the rifts in the gop. and later, donald trump will be checking into the show at 8:00 a.m. eastern time. as we head to break, here's a quick check on what's happening.

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i provide for my family. i will use my education to help my community. i will inspire our next generation of leaders. i am a college student, but i am only 1%. only 1% of college students are american indian. donate now, and help our numbers grow. ♪ welcome back. it's time for the squawk planner. markets are going to be watching closely at 7:45 eastern time when the european central bank reveals its latest interest rate decision. at 8:30, we have the ecb president mario draghi. he will begin a news conference. we'll bring you the ecb news as it happens. back here in the u.s., we'll get the closely watched jobless claims data at 8:30 a.m. on the earnings front, dollar

general expected to report around 7:00 a.m. that is today's squawk planner. joe? >> florida is one of the big contests in next week's super tuesday with 99 delegates up for grabs in a winner take all contest. the gop candidates are spending million on attack ads in an effort to win those delegates. joining us with more on the battle in the sunshine state, florida governor rick scott. good morning, governor. >> not only are the billionaires moving here, they're spending all their money in our great state. i love everybody spending their money here. >> governor, you have your finger in the air. you've got your ear on the ground. i'm trying to think, maybe i'm mixing metaphors. but do you know anything about -- first you can tell me who's going to win at this point, in your view. second, do you know anything about jeb bush and what he's trying to accomplish by meeting with the three other candidates

and not donald trump? is he trying to ask the other two to get out and throw their weight behind cruz? where's it stand right now? >> i'm not sure exactly what governor bush is doing with regards to those meetings. the biggest issue in this state, clearly, and probably nationally, is jobs. i've said all along that the biggest thing we've got to do is elect somebody that's going to do what we've done in florida. cut taxes, reduce regulations, and do what we've done. we've added 1.25 million jobs. i think the election is clearly about jobs. >> okay. and you have been hesitant to throw your weight behind anyone yet. there was a rumor you were going to follow chris christie's lead and throw your support behind donald trump. was that just a rumor? >> well, as you know, i haven't endorsed. i don't -- i've said i'm not going to do an endorsement before our primary. if you remember back to my race

in 2010, everybody had endorsed my opponent. people called me from washington, d.c., asking me to get out of the race. i relied on the voters. i trusted the voters. i believe in the voters. and i won. i believe that's the same way today. i believe florida voters are going to elect somebody, and i still believe it's going to be who's got the best plan for jobs, who's going to turn the economy around, similar to what we've done in florida. >> you have had your own run-ins with mainstream media, governor. do you have some empathy for the approach that most media take to donald trump? you're both sort of outliers, or at least in the view of certain entities. you're both outliers, are you not? do you sympathize with him? >> well, look, i think any time you run for office, it's not an easy endeavor. i think it's important to have a message. my message was how we got, you know, turned our state around

and got jobs. i think whoever has the right message, whether you're an outsider, whether you've been in office, if you have a plan that people believe in for jobs, you're going to win. >> okay. out of the four guys that are left, do you have preference for any of their jobs generating plans that you've seen that they've put forth? are they all fine? would you support -- will you support the republican nominee down the road, whoever he? >> i will absolutely support the republican nominee. we can't have four more years of barack obama. that's what we'll get out of hillary clinton or bernie sanders. it's going to be the same old thing. you believe our nominee, the republican nominee, will focus on cutting taxes like we've done, reduce regulation, like we've done, and turn this national economy around like florida has done. florida is the winner right now. we're beating texas and the other states for job creation. it's the biggest issue in the country. >> yeah, and i know you're going to get in your licks on talking

up florida for sure, but let's -- you're an experienced guy in both the private sector, and you're the hard knocks from politics now too. when you watch the behavior of certain, what we're now calling republican establishment, as they try to figure out how to deal with this fractured party and the 35% or 40% of the populist republicans that are backing donald trump, what would you do if you were a party elder right now? how would you handle that so that you don't, you know, cut off your nose in spite of your face? >> well, what i've done is i've said, let's trust the voters. we have plenty of debates. we're going to have a great debate tonight in miami. let's make sure that they're talking about issues. let's make sure they're talking about the most important issues, which is in our state jobs, it's education, it's public safety. but let's make sure they're talking about what's important

to the citizens of our states. then let's get out there and support the candidate that's going to do that. you know, i tell everybody, get involved in politics. it impacts your life. i know in my case growing up in public housing, the most important thing to me was a job. that's why i got into this. i think everybody ought to get involved in this race but rely on the voters. >> you know florida politics pretty well by now, i would say. after a glimmer of hope, it seemed like senator rubio was closing the gap in florida a little bit. now it looks bleak again. i know there's a few days left, obviously. but there's talk a big loss in florida could damage his political career, even as a florida senator. ing you comment on that? would you urge him maybe it's cut your losses now and if

there's people you think you should throw your lot in, maybe you should do that now? >> marco is a good friend. i know he's worked hard in his political career. he's worked hard as a u.s. senator. he'll make the best decision for himself long term. i'm just glad that, you know, it's what i believed all along. it's going to come down to florida. the debate tonight is going to be important. i believe hopefully all of them are going to talk about their plans for jobs. >> you know, part of trump's appeal is he just says exactly what's on his mind at any time. you didn't tell me anything that was totally out of control. you didn't give me one answer. like, you didn't say, oh, yeah, rubio should get out, he's going to get toasted down here. you didn't say any of that. maybe you ought to try it. is there anything you'd like to close with that's out of control? give me something. >> move to florida. move to florida, spend all your money in florida. we love everybody coming down

here. >> that will never be the lead on drudge. >> always on message. >> have a great day. >> thanks, governor. we'll be joined by the president of focus brands. she'll give us an update on her sweet and savory business model. as we head to break, look at where the u.s. equity futures are. dow futures up by 40. the nasdaq up by 11. we have the ecb decision less than an hour away. "squawk box" will be right back. ♪jake reese, "day to feel alive"♪ ♪jake reese, "day to feel alive"♪ ♪jake reese, "day to feel alive"♪

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joining us live this morning from the young president's organization's edge conference in dubai, is the annual gathering of thousands of ceos from around the globe, focus brands group president pat cole is here with cnbc's exclusive partners. cinnabon is the brand we all know. when you think of u.s. brands, given what's going on in politics and elsewhere, what do you see going on? >> reporter: the reality is that consumers that fall in love with brands around the world whether it's cinnamon or annie ann's

pretzels it takes politics to start to get involved to disrupt their love for brands. right now we're seeing relatively consistent brand love and franchise go and markets are volatile where it affects the business climate. from a consumer perspective they are still buying their delicious treats. >> jim cramer last week was talking about donald trump and worried about the impact that donald trump would have on companies like starbucks and other american companies trying to do business elsewhere. does that make sense to you or not? >> reporter: well, certainly any type of american politics that gets sensationalized will become the front of every newspaper in most countries around the world but i really am not seeing a connection to what's going on

with the u.s. presidential election and how a food or beverage brand is being perceived in other countries. not yet. >> can we talk about the supply chain for food these days given what happened at chipotle. you also own a mexican chain as well. have you seen any impact good or bad as a result? >> reporter: the positive impact is that mo, the brand that we have, one of the fastest growing restaurants in the country capitalized on everything happening by reinforcing our food safety and taking the opportunity to reinforce with our franchisees and consumers that food safety is of the utmost importance because of the risk. it's tougher when you're going from farm to table, using smaller local farmers to ensure that security. it's not impossible just tougher. so we put in systems in place to make sure we have stronger, more

consistent programs. >> one of the big debates of the political season has been minimum wage and what it would mean. some people calling for an increase up to $15. what would that mean to your company? >> certainly the discussion around elevating minimum wage will upset the business but the challenge is not what it will be or when it will be. it's difficult for our franchise owners and business partners to plan. so whatever it ends up being, we want a seat at the table so it can be pro business as much as possible. as long as we have a consistent view where it will be ahead and plan appropriately for the business. but it will have implications. >> there's that mcdonald's movie. i would like to try to subsist only on cinnabuns.

would that be harmful? anything in moderation, but i'm willing to volunteer to do that. yeah. >> reporter: to live on cinnabuns. we say our brands are an indulgence. if you eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner you might have a tummy ache. everything in moderation. i eat my green salads and lean chicken breast and then my cinnabun. >> let me know if you need a volunteer. >> we should plug the other -- >> all right. got about two or three episodes. >> of this season? >> of last season. >> it's so good. >> what's that? >> there's the song.

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. countdown to the ecb's big announcement on interest rates. mario draghi and company expected to launch new stimulus measures. markets on edge. paul mcculley straight ahead. >> sanders keeps swinging. >> madam serks i'll match my record against yours any day of

the week. >> both candidates making big promises on immigration and taking the opportunity to attack donald trump. >> i called him out when he was calling mexicans rapists. >> i think the american people are never going to elect a president who insults mexicans. >> debate reaction and the road ahead is minutes away. >> and the business of toys and paying for them. the cfos of toys "r" us and paypal for what's driving business as the second hour of "squawk box" begins right new. . >> announcer: live from the beating heart of business, new york city, this is "squawk box". welcome back to "squawk box," everybody this is cnbc, first in business worldwide. i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. it is decision day at the ecb.

the markets are in wait and see mode. we're 45 minutes from that decision. the futures ahead of all of that have been slightly higher this morning. kind of waiting to see what the ecb does. expectation is they are going to provide more stimulus, potentially for qe and lower interest rates. further below zero. dow futures up 50 points. nasdaq futures were higher as well. in europe things have turned positive for many markets. dax superby a quarter of a percent. the cac is up over a tenth of a percent. the ftse is a little bit negative. >> did you see? >> yes, i did. >> you are the dude. you are the dude. do you mind if i call you the dude -- >> the fed of bod.

>> if it works for you, joe. >> you got the same hairdo. >> not the eagles. >> we stopped saying that for little while. >> eagles were okay. we digress. andrew try to get out of that. >> i'll try. let's tell you about some of the stories investors will be talking about. labor department is set to report on first time jobless claims coming up at 8:30. economists looking for a slight drop. amazon drying to cut shipping costs. now will lease as many as 20 boeing 767 jets. they want to reduce its. dependence on outside carriers. a deal between two well-known exchanges, nasdaq purchase d deutsche boss.

new york stock exchange owner intercontinental exchange said it may make a rival offer. we're less than 45 minutes away from the european central bank's decision on interest rates. they expect interest rates to be cut further into negative territory. good morning, sir. >> good morning to you. we got three main tools that mario draghi can use. one is cutting rates we're at minus 1.3%. consensus is we wekt it to go to 1.4. he can extend the length of the qe program that mends in march 2017. looking for three to six months increase. if he increases the size of the bund buying. with that if he increases the size does he change the size of which bonds he's buying. does he throw risky assets in there. that could be the thing that if he does, that would be a

positive surprise for markets. consensus looking at a 10 million crease. if he changed the makeup. what market expects. i'll bring up the chart for the last month of the euro. we're expecting more easing, we've seen the euro weaken in the last 30 days. in the last ten days the euro has bounced back a little bit. investors are sitting on the sideline. they are reticent a little bit to aspect too much from mario draghi but a little bit of a change in the bond-buying is what's expected. >> we had an analyst who mentioned every time you count on something from the ebc you get disappointed. there's this expectation they are going to do more but probably the germans end up holding them back. >> until december -- mario draghi was the one to make a promise and stoic his word. december was a big negative surprise because he didn't step up to the plate.

i disagree always is the case. certainly more political issues that mario draghi has had to deal with. >> different constituencies. >> exactly. on the flip side, the chair n of the bund back is more on this side, not in december there's a change in the short term but a year ago german is more on side. they know europe is week especially with the brexit coming up. >> you did not bring the -- you say the ch because i fought it was pronounced with a j. >> not terms i use regularly. >> oh, please when you're at dinner you call by the first name because it's more familiar now. >> right. i don't think that's a very common title anyway across the

board. i wish it was. i love you when you call me. >> you will always be that for me. >> fantastic, joe. >> thanks. >> let's say hi to the market. our guest host for the next two hours is paul mcculley newly named ceo in macroeconomics at cornell university and former chief economist at pimco. >> good to be here. >> let's talk about this ecb decision today. what do you think of negative interest rates? >> i'm not a big fan of negative interest rates. i look at them as an indictment of something else wrong in the policy mix. if you have to go to negative interest rates, and even more negative and it's not having a particularly positive effect, then it tells you that there are other tools that need to be used, and both in europe as well

as in japan. the big tool that needs to be used is fiscal policy and in an aggressive sort of way. that's been the case for a language period of time. >> they tried it in japan? >> yes they have. i give japan more credit for trying. japan needs to try some other things. but in europe it's simply a matter that you've got fiscal austerity in various form. you keep reducing interest rates. and the only real positive effect from that effect is to grab up asset prices but draw down the currency. that's the issue. which on a global basis is a zero sum game but to the extent it's effective it drives down the currency. >> hasn't been so effective, the euro bottomed last august when you were looking when we were moving in different directs. i guess that's because our fed has slowed down versus what the ecb has done.

>> it has. therefore i think the return to going even deeper negative is not very high. actually if mr. dramario draghi an incredibly surprise rather than drive down the currency just sell the currency. that would be a shock. again not a forecast. but that's the objective function is to drive down the currency. that's trying to steal aggregate demand from the rest of the world which basically what the world needs is a big fiscal expansion to expand everybody's aggregate demands. not a good policy mix. >> what do you think happens in terms of what the fed does next? we're watching this so closely because we figure that the fed is kind of hamstrung by what the ecb is doing. is that fair to think? is it the right way for our central bank to be reacting? >> i think it's fair but push

back on the word hamstrung. i don't think the fed is hell bent on raising interest rates. >> a lot easier if we weren't worried about the dollar rising so dramatically and that in turn impacting our economy. >> i think that's true. i think that's one ambiguously true. i think the fed wanted to get off of zero. that was a big important issue. when i was here with you last summer i called it the coming valecdorian of getting off zero. they did it. once they got off zero they western on a pre-determined path to drive up interest rates and to the extent global influence slowed the projected trajectory that's totally fine because we actually want inflation to go up. so they are not behind any inflation curve it's a policy thing if inflation overshot 2%. >> we're looking potentially in the next couple of months of

being at the fed's inflation targets for tend of the year because things have been starting to climb, oil prices and chods pick up. you could see that move quickly. >> that would be a cool thing. 2% is not a ceiling. 2% is the target. logically you should be on both sides of it through time and we've been on the south side of it for a long terrifiperiod of . if we've been on the north side of it for a period of time it's a good thing. it's not a ceiling. it's supposed to be a mean not a ceiling. >> we'll talk a lot more about this. paul is with us for the rest of the program. >> big banks rolling out online payment services. should paypal be worried. the cfo on the online global payment system joins us after this break. at 8:00 a.m. eastern time, donald trump the candidate will join us. futures at this hour continues to show some positive gains.

that would be seven out of eight. >> for the dow.

welcome back to box. more results from global's cfo council survey and asked members where they believe the idea range for price of crude is. most cfos say the price is too low and believe the ideal price is above $40 per barrel. a third of the respondents saying the tweet spot is between 50 and $59. e-bay is separating into a separate company. they've seen $280 billion for 2015 and 17 million new customer accounts. can the company continue its tremendous growth and what are they doing combat tremendous competition. much more on this topic, paypal's cfo and former united airlines cfo, might have an idea

on what's going on at united as well. good morning. you want to talk payments or craziness over at your former employer. >> let's talk payments. >> let's start with payments but i do want to get there and would love your view on crude. >> the united story is gordon e bethune and oscar coming back after heart transpant. >> i knew oscar well and gordon too. >> would you like gordon back as chairman? >> i can't comment. >> you're at a different company now. >> for that reason. >> does it need shaking pup >> they are on the right track. they are making a lot of progress. >> i just got in trouble yesterday for saying that sometimes flight attendants are in a bad mood and people who were telling me that was sexist. flight attendants are not all

women. i was not talk about one sex or another being in a bad mood. they don't give you peanuts any more. they never give me a can any more. >> they do if you ask. >> if you ask. >> let's talk payments if we could. which is how does -- this is something i think about a lot now. in an age when everybody has tried to do some form of electronic payment, everybody is trying to get into this game, how does pay pail differentiate itself from those other players without owning the hardware or operating system. >> we're different from everybody else. is that we're technology and platform die agnostics. we have a peer to peer application. we have huge growth. we grew over 200% last year and

had a billion dollars in payment value in january. so because we participate across so many different aspects of that system we have a lot of different ways we make money and it makes us unique versus some of our competitors that focus on one thing. >> then if that's the case look out 12 months, 24 months, in terms of the mix is payments still going to be the biggest part of the business? >> it will be. >> does dynamic change -- >> they all work together. where we do back in processing it allows us to have the presentment of paypal or credit. payments are still our bread and butter. >> when you look at apple pay are you surprised it hasn't had the uptick i think early on at least the hype suggested? >> in some ways no, andrew. what apple pay does is it's a different way to pay at point of sell. it's a form factor change. doesn't change the value proposition of customers. when you think about your top

ten paying points pulling out a credit card isn't that difficult. we're following the customer with the mobil device. that's where everybody is going to. black friday for the first time saw more sales online than off line. mobil is about 30% of our business right now and grew at 45% last year nuclear program >> not just phones, it's in pads. >> in terms of the margin, one of the other thing march beginnings coming down on these products when people talk about the block chain, bit coin, long term, just straight payments what do you think will happen to margins? >> margins are coming down. we seen compression. part of that is because of a deliberate strategy we have to expand to larger merchants. think about the history of paypal, it cut its teeth in the business on e-bay and smaller merchants. as we try to increase this we're

moving to larger merchants which will benefit from volume based pricing. the challenges i have as cfo to make sure we're off setting that decline and making sure other costs don't go up. >> how big a business does the credit piece have to become? >> not very big at all. we use credit because of the fly wheel effect. when we issue credit to a customer, we see that customer will spend 25% to 30% more. but we're not in credit for credit sake. >> john, thank you. >> you want to ask him any more questions? >> he's 26 years old and cfo. >> i wish i was 26. add 20 years to that. >> when you took that survey what did you say for crude? >> it's something that in my former job i followed every day perhaps more so than the stock price. it's interesting you tended to see airlines trade exact italy

opposite of oil until it got below $40 then as you saw it come down more, oil stroocks traded down more. >> now that you don't work on airline do you think babies should be allowed in first class? >> i'm not touching that. >> were you the person who refused to lower ticket prices by the same amount oil prices coming down. >> that was not me. >> come on back. >> thank you. coming up, sad news for one of my icons. the most interesting man in the world becoming a little less interesting or maybe he just only interesting for so long. they may get rid of that but we're not. we'll have the details after the break. but this man, a new man might be able to take his place. we're 30 minutes away from --

this man very interesting and we'll hear from him at 8:00 a.m. the most interesting man in the republican party donald trump. we'll hear from him at 8:00 a.m. >> announcer: time now for today's aflac trivia question. which american city famously dyes its river green for saint patrick's day.

your hands on the controller. look out!! ohhhhhhhhhh... you know what, i'm just gonna email it to you. yeah that's probably safer. ok, cool.

>> announcer: now the answer to today's aflac trivia question. which american city famously dies its river green for saint patrick's day? the answer, chicago. >> his personality is so magnetic he's unable to carry credit cards. his enemies list him as their emergency contact number. he never says something tastes like chicken not even chicken. he's the most interesting man in the world. >> i don't always watch cnbc but when i do i prefer stocks to watch and the animal orchestra. keep watching my friends.

after roughly nine years, the brewer of dos enuis beer has decided the man isn't that interested. the tan, suave, bearded most interesting man will be fading into the sunset of advertising icons. dos equis is dropping the most famous man in the world. but they plan on replacing him with an equally interesting but hipper interesting man. heineken, the number of cases of beer shipped grew by 35%.

thank you. thanks to that ad campaign. it was a great ad campaign. i don't know if it's geico like. >> when we come back we're awaiting the ecb's decision on interest rates. we'll bring the breaking news when it happens. up next how are the nation's top cfos feeling about donald trump as president. we'll take a look at the trump economic plan. keep it locked right here. donald trump will join us the man himself, 8:00 a.m. eastern time. >> take a look at u.s. equity futures. they are trending higher. dow futures up by 63 points. s&p up by eight and nasdaq up close 20. tomorrow starts today.tate, we e all across the state, the economy is growing, with creative new business incentives, and the lowest taxes in decades, attracting the talent and companies of tomorrow. like in buffalo, where the largest solar gigafactory in the

western hemisphere will soon energize the world. and in syracuse, where imagination is in production. let us help grow your company's tomorrow - today - at business.ny.gov

welcome back to "squawk box". among the stories front and center we're a couple minutes away from the ecb's latest policy statement. the bank expected to cut its key rate and announcing new stimulus

measures. >> twitter's has some oil controversy. several users tweeted out its weekly data on oil vince without its permission. it's available to users by subscription. deleted the post after receiving complaints. >> is that before it was released on the wires. because once we talk about it you imagine it's public information. >> we don't know. check out shares of $general. beating estimates by four cents with quarterly earnings of $1.30. the company raised it's quarterly dividend to 25 cents per share from 22 cents. "squawk" sports news there's nothing steph curry that do. last night he added another feather to his cap, warriors taking on the utah jazz. with time running out, curry a shot out from beyond half-court and of course that went in.

it was estimated to be from 55 feet. the warriors won 115-94. but, you know he probably likes to switch everything. so it was a little hard. who cares. who is counting. it still went in. i was shooting some baskets the other day to try to do some cardio stuff with my trainer. >> it was nothing there. i can barely throw it that far. from the three-point -- the pro three-pointer, not from the college three-inter. >> that's a hard-line. >> you should hit something. >> you had the hoop lower down. >> no. i can't palm the ball because my hands are small. >> the nation's top financial officer has prospects of donald trump getting the nomination.

according to the latest results when we asked the question regardless of your personal political affiliation who do you think will win the nomination for president of united states by december it rose to 15% and at that point senator marco rubio had close to 60%. and then, again, we asked earlier this month, at that point trump's number jumped to 66.7%. rubio has about 17% and cruz came in at 12%. donald trump will be checking in with us ahead of the latest gop debate. we'll talk to him live at 8:00 a.m. eastern time. at 8:45, carly fiorina will join us to talk about throwing her support to texas senator ted cruz. >> bowling, bowling is another thing. and we were talking, that explains his sort of obsession

with the dude. if you take those glasses off -- i mean take the glasses off and say nice marmaut man. but the fact is you told us off camera one of your friends is in that scene, bowling behind the dude when he's with sam elliott. >> the bowling adviser on that film was a hall of fame bowler named barry asher who is the pro at my home bowling alley in fountain valley, california. and the quid pro quo for him being an adviser they gave him a cameo at the very end. he's the solo guy bowling in that very last scene. he's a fantastic guy.

and i see him quite regularly. the last time i was hanging out with bill gross, bill and i were bowling with barry asher. >> have you ever said -- anyway they are telling us we got to go. we got to talk about john torturo. can't say his name. polishing up the ball. let's talk about the race for the white house. we're joined by maybe, if he stuck around, peter navarro. eaves from the left coast. you would like him in certain ways. our guest host continue, paul mcculley. there's no really explaining or predicting any time this around in the 2016 race and i'm talking about on both sides, peter. really. aren't you still -- aren't we all scratching our heads but entertaining. >> entertaining, but i think

good for the markets at least if mr. trump gets in there for one simple reason. you know, back in the '80ss reagan had this supply side revolution, cut taxes, cut regulation, the economy boomed. trump has the same epiphany about the trade deficit. the trade deficit and associated offshoring of production costs this country a percentage and a half of gdp points a year. in other words, it's a difference between 2% gdp growth versus 3.5. what does that translate into? that translates into over 100,000 new jobs created a month that we would have if we were able to simultaneously crack down on unfair trade practices and balance our trade and on the other hand eliminate the push of our corporations offshore because of the highest corporate tax rate in the world and donald trump wants to reduce that tax rate, of course, to 16%.

so in terms of just pure economics with all the rhetoric, it's a good deal for america and i'm sure sitting there on "squawk" if you have a jobs report coming out every month that had more than 100,000 additional new jobs on top of what we're doing we would have a bull market. >> i wasn't expecting that from a california academic but irvine is in orange county so i sort of get that a little bit, peter. >> i don't bowl but i do shoot hoops, joe. we are on the left coast. >> we did say earlier, we did a report on how certain business leaders have grudgingly sort of come around to at least the idea that donald trump could be the nominee. you're actually taking it -- not everybody is in your camp yet that it might be a positive for the u.s. economy, still fairley, you know -- of course mainstream

media generate ad lot of the -- they fill a vacuum with their own narrative. >> let's do the einstein thing in terms of relativelity. if you look at the other candidates. bernie sanders has it right in terms of his trade rhetoric but a disaster on taxes including corporate taxes. we're not getting growth out of here and he's not beating hillary unless that benghazi thing blows up. hillary has been behind every trade deal going back to nafta. her husband was the guy that brought china into the wto and handed over our markets. she's been sort of flirting with the transpacific partnership, although sanders has backed her off of that. on the right side, cruz talks a good game on taxes, of course. but on trade issue he has no credibility because of his previous issues with china. and here's a prediction four all. i would love to short marco

rubio, no pun intended because on tuesday he's going down. he'll be about out of the race by tend of next week. the reason is, florida. he has no chance at all of winning florida. people who don't know florida say that's his home state. guess what? he got elected with tea party support and as soon as he got into office he backed off of that. they don't like marco rubio there. plus, florida has this early voting there and people have already voted. a lot of people have already voted. so he's done. >> california colleges, i wasn't at uc irvine that's a possibility. >> this is orange county, joe. >> i know. >> come on. do your geography. >> uc irvine -- >> we bowl out here, joe. >> just avoiding princeton. okay. for a lot of reasons, paul. anyway, thank you peter.

we're counting down to our interview of the morning, republican front-runner donald trump will be joining us at the top of the 8:00. maybe we should cut a sound bite from that. he would love to hear that. be sure to stick around for that interview. >> after watching ford mustang gallop behind the chevy -- the camaro in sales last year and dodge challenger coming up fast. gm is intent on making sure the redesigned camaro re-establishes itself as the country's leading muscle car. phil lebeau joins us with more from las vegas. good early morning. >> reporter: good morning, becky. couple of new versions of the camaro in 2016 that will be rolling into show rooms starting this month, including this convertible version we had a chance to drive over the last couple of days. what stands out about these two new version.

first they are adding a four cylinder turbo model and it does have plenty of giddy up and go. a conversion model going into show rooms in the next couple of days. here's the goal for chevy. they need to catch up to mustang. the previous generation of camaro was leading in sales until the last year where the mustang out gamed them. the head of product development for general motors said this muscle car is a little bit different than camaros of the past. >> instead of a muscle car we have a sports car. you know, the cars we're driving today are all about, you know, handling and precise steering and brakes and that's a different formula than what the muscle car is known for. >> guys, real quick. sales up 44% this year even though they dropped 10% last year and yes you still have that camaro sound. take a look at shares of gm struggling over the last year like so many auto stocks.

guys, i'll send it back to you. >> phil, thank you. when we come back the ecb's decision on interest rates. we'll have that decision and the reaction out in a few minutes. check out the european markets ahead of this. the dax superby 1%. if you look here at the united states our futures have been picking up through most of the morning too. there we go. dow futures up by 67, s&p by 9 and nasdaq up by 21. "squawk box" will be right back.

welcome back to box, everyone. we're awaiting the ecb's decision interest rates. in the meantime steve liesman and our guest host paul mcculley are both here to talk us through a lot of this. steve we haven't heard from you this morning but, again, expectation is that there will be additional stimulus added. >> yeah, i think we just have a headline crossing, becky, that the ecb did take additional action. we're waiting to see what is that. what we're waiting for is expectation european central bank goes further or more deeply into negative interest rates and also announced additional qe and

on the third front liquidity problems that they have over in europe right now. >> real quickly to tell you about the refi rate the ecb is cutting it from 0% to 0.5%. >> should also be a deposit rate. >> it's not out yet. the euro is already falling on the ecb decision. futures picking up a little bit. dow futures up by 90 points. s&p futures up by 11. the euro you'll see quickly the whole intent of this we expected was grab the euro lower and it's at 1.0916. >> i'm fascinated in paul's -- if negative interest rates were a broadway play i believe it would be closed down already because the reviews have been so bad. there's a lot of concern that really negative interest rates work against the intent that they have, which is really to

provide liquidity and to boost lending and the concern is the pressure that they put on the banks and one interesting commentary i saw was that if you increase quantitative easing you increase excess reserves. what do you do? you end up charging the banks through negative interest rates for greater excess reserves creating this velocity and volatility in excess reserves. overall, while fed officials have talked less negatively about negative interest rates, they are waiting for additional announcements. i don't think they are nye in the united states. paul, i'm not hearing -- >> the deposit rate is also down cut to 0.4% from 0.3% and that's what the market had. >> that was the one everybody was focused on. that negative -- >> three things in play, the stat rate, the size of the qe program and the longevity. what's the score on the second

two fronts. >> i don't think -- >> we'll get those at 8:30. only the policy rates come out at 7:45. at the beginning of mario draghi's press conference at 8:30 we listen to that and the outlook we expect a downgrade of the inflation outlook. >> paul, to steve's point you talked about this earlier this idea of negative interest rates are almost universally hated by economists and a lot of people we talking to on a daily basis. >> i think that's very reason scrabble. negative interest rates is watering your potted plants with a fire hose. you'll get them wet but there's a lot of collateral damage that's not positive and i think that's particularly the case in the current environment in a euro land -- >>s on intensib s on stenwith n rates. >> but at the same time you have a regulatory push that's against

bank lending. so this all come down to does he or does he not drive down the currency which is stealing aggregate demand from somebody else. i'm not again him doing that. but that's the only reason to do it is to hope your currency falls a lot. >> and sure enough we can see that the euro is down by 1.2% this morning on this news. steve? >> becky, we did get the qe announcement at 7:45. it's been expanded to 80 billion from 60 billion. that's pretty much in line. so on the two important fronts here it looks like mario draghi has delivered or met market connectation and we're creating a contrast when mario draghi disappointed in december. he got his committee in line. got enough votes to cut the deposit rate and additional quantitative easing. >> so we got ian shepherdson to

kind of agree that it would be nice that we didn't diverge too much from what we were doing here and now that it looks like we're doing well enough to have another rate increase maybe shock and awe wasn't what we were looking for because we don't want the dollar to strengthen or hurt our exports but these guys just care about keeping the punch bowl full with meth and crack and any free money around the world they will buy the markets. >> joe, it would be one thing to do this, these additional measures that came along with strong structural reforms aimed at the weakness in the european banking system, including attacking some of the bad loans on their books, including raising additional capital, including greater super vision of capital rules. but that's really not the case. paul is right and your question, joe, is exactly right. that it seems like we're playing

a global zero sum game of the only way for countries to strength their economies is by essentially exporting their deflation or borrowing demand from other countries. that's problematic at best. >> i figure your stocks should go but our stocks shouldn't go up. we like free money. we don't care where it is. we'll buy it. >> it hampers the fed's ability to raise rates here too. >> the other thing that happens, though, the fed looks at this as a tightening. if paul were in his right place which is a member of the board of governors there at the fed, you know, i think this would be something that would have to give him pause about additional rates, watching the world going the other way and see the u.s. become relatively tighter in this world. >> he would be the scalia of the board of governors but on the other side. he would be like the -- >> the ruth baden ginsburg.

>> don't you think the dude should be on the fed. that would be a cool thing. i did. >> the dude on the fed. that's way to go. >> we said the fed seems stoned most of the time. they don't need mcculley bringing his stash in there, i don't think. >> i agree with steve if you're sitting at the fed and see the dollar go up which is a deflation engineer ary inpulse interest rates go down and our stock market falls in love with that. the lankages here are not difficult, not strange, not weird at all. so, basically when you look at what's happening with the ecb, the two results should be the dollar goes up and u.s. stocks go up. >> although -- >> that's what should happen. >> four them to go up.

>> oil goes down and the dollar goes up. >> to say the euro should go down, u.s. stocks should go up and commodity prices effectively are the tiebreaker. steve, thank you for joining us today. paul will be with us throughout the rest of the morning. coming up more on the ecb rate decision and then news maker of the morning, we got donald trump. he's going call in at the top of the hour. we're back in a moment.

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coming up, huge hour that will make "squawk box" great again. republican front-runner donald trump will be our guest after the break. we'll hear his plans for the economy and obviously we'll talk florida, ohio, last tuesday, next tuesday and tonight. plus former presidential candidate carly fiorina tells us why she said that ted cruz, in her view, is the right man for the job. "squawk box" is coming right back.

news makers and news breakers. first up, donald trump ahead of tonight's gop debate. the presidential front-runner joins us live. plus former white house hopeful carly fiorina throwing her support behind senator ted cruz. she will be here to tell us why. >> super mario to the rescue. ecb president mario draghi ready to answer tough questions as the central bank rolls out more stimulus indianapolis and global market reactions straight ahead. business leaders, celebrities and philanthropist

teaming up for a big education push. ♪ >> announcer: live from the most powerful city in the world, new york. this is "squawk box". >> welcome back to "squawk box" right here on cnbc, first in business worldwide. i'm andrew ross sorkin with becky quick and concern. we ready to talk with donald trump but first the day's top market story. >> after the latest policy moves by the ecb, cutting their main financing rate to zero. it pushes its deposit rate into negative territory to 0.4 from 0.3 and expanding the asset purchase program. stocks reacting in a huge way.

dax is up by 2.5. cac is up by 3.25. italy that market up by 4%. in spain markets are up 3.4%. it's put additional pressure on the euro. now at 1.0835. here in the united states our futures and traders here like what they hear. dow futures up by 161 points. track drag will be holding a news conference on those policy decisions coming at 8:30 eastern. >> donald trump taking his grip on the gop rays for the white house and getting ready for two big primaries next tuesday. the battleground states of florida and ohio. those are both winner take all contests. ahead of tonight's debate republican front-runner donald trump chairman and president of trump organization. mr. trump, good morning. great to have you on.

>> good morning. >> we're going to get right to politics and polls and primaries but you just heard the news that we're reporting here, and we've said it. what we're really talking about with the ecb, mr. trump, is they want their currency down and you've bean person that talks about other countries taking their currency lower to take advantage of, you know, of trade and we see it almost every where. i mean how would this be something that the united states would respond to under your administration? >> well, you see it almost every where except the united states and what's happening in the united states is we're losing a lot of jobs, our good jobs, not the jobs you report about with the 5% number which s-obviousis obviously not a real number. we're losing our good jobs and it's a sad situation. everybody is doing what i just heard your report and everybody is doing that except us.

and manufacturing is going elsewhere. and lots of other things are going elsewhere. and we still do nothing about it. >> and we've even had almost universal agreement that when you have a bigger thy neighbor and when everybody races to the bottom, it doesn't help anyone and takes away from real structural things that need to be done in these countries. that's another thing that's resonated the public. >> we do nothing about it. everybody does it. we don't do it. we do nothing about it. we sit back and let everybody do it. that's getting to be very dangerous as far as i'm concerned. you look at the jobs that we're losing. look at the companies we're losing. we're losing companies. we're losing large amounts of, did you know when you see pfizer and these companies leaving the country, there are thing that are very structurally wrong with what we're doing.

>> i wonder what we do and what kind of action makes sense that -- you know, you talk about mario draghi, you talk about china, you talk about connectiono, there's days r basement currency every where. how should the united states respond. should we take the same route or stop these other people -- >> there's only one thing you can do. you can do devalue but you can do something else which is much better, you can charge a surtax or a tax for products that they sell in the united states. they are taking advantage of our country. we don't have strong leadership. i don't think we have strong economic leadership at all. you look what's going on with the world. and you look what other people are doing to us and what other countries are doing to us. i mean china is the grand master of all. my relationships with china are fantastic. i have great relationships and business relationships with china. and even those people say they

can't believe what they are getting away with. >> mr. trump, you haven't had all good days in the media, in the press, not even at the "journal". today you had a good day on the editorial page suffering from trum trumpophobia. get over it. even on the front. the lead story. free trade loses political favor. a lot of republicans that say you are not a republican because or not a conservative because of your anti-free trade or what they see as anti-free trade suddenly that seems to be coming in vogue too now in both parties. >> well, joe i ham a free trader but to be a good free trader you have to have smart people on our side also. we're being out negotiated at every corner. so i like free trade but you have to be represented by very, very good and smart and cunning

people and we are not. other countries are. and that's why they are all taking advantage. the concept of free trade, i love it. i love it. i think that's great. the bad news is it's not good when you don't that have right people representing you. >> it's not all good news. there's some poll that came out and a lot of positive poll. one came out yesterday polling everyone about what percentage could eventual support you and it's still not a majority. just a plurality. i know polls change. i'm not sure -- i'm not sure whether that couldn't change in the future but why do you think that is you're a lightning rod and you do conjure up some strong feelings in people that are anti-trump. can you bring these people into the fold somehow if you become the nominee so you can beat hillary clinton and how would you do that? >> well, i think so, joe. it's very interesting, the whole thing with the polls, when i

started out in june, a long time ago now it seems but when i started out it seems there were 17 people. a lot of people. obviously i started very strong in terms of polls and i went to the top and almost have been at the top from the beginning, just about from the beginning. i've been in the center of the stage from the beginning. and, you know, i've taken a lot of incoming as they like to say, a tremendous amount. and i've had to give it back. when you give it back and i gave it back harder. i won't mention names because they are gone. but when you look at all of the people, all of whom have been on your show many times in many cases, you know they were very tough on me and i was tough on them and they got down to zero or 1% and i'm now at 49%. the last poll, cnn poll i was at 49 and number two is at 15. so that's a big difference. to do that you're not necessarily as politically

correct or as nice as you would like to be or as you are as a person. i think what it gets down, it's ending fairley soon i think and u see very much different. i've taken my positives up a lot. but it's hard when you're in a battle like this because you want to win the battle and you have to win the battle. so that's the way it is. i will say this. the biggest story in all of politics worldwide is the amount, for the massive amount of voters going out to the primaries and voting, there's never been anything like this in the history of politics in this country. and you see what's happening. they are up 65% from four years ago when you had a very failed candidate named mitt romney who is a failed, horrible failed candidate and should have won the election and didn't and what happens we're up now 65%. people that never voted before are going. many people who never voted, 50-year-old people, 60-year-old

people never voted before and voting enthusiastically. people that are democrats and republicans. massive turn outs in every state. now the democrats are down 35%. there's no enthusiasm. so i think i'm doing okay. >> mr. trump, you pointed out that you've had to get tougher than you might have otherwise in the primary up to this point just because it has bean very difficult race, a lot of tough things, things have been thrown around by a lot of the candidates. you said you like to take it more positive, you have been bringing up your positives. once you get to the general election, let's assume you'll go up against hillary clinton will it be a positive campaign or again drags down into some of the mostly clear? -- muck? >> i can't say. you don't know until the moment. i get a kick out of these guys.

at this state we'll do that. it doesn't work that way, in my opinion in real life. you have to see where you are at the moment. that's how i've been running it. that's the way it's been working. some people that are down now are establishment people and i wouldn't say they are exactly thrilled with donald trump but tend result has been a very positive result and, you know, my whole theme is make america great again. when i hear your report just before i got on and i've been watching it during the morning, i watch you folks all the time, but you see so many reports. a lot of these reports, these things are done to take advantage of the united states. and we're like the money supply. we're the one that gives them the money and gives them so much. we have so much power we don't use it. but when you look at komatsu tractor and how well they are doing. japanese use numbers on the end

in terms of devaluation so it's hard to compete. very difficult situation. we have to be stronger as a country and have to get better people in that know what they are doing. we can't let the world take advantage from us from an economic standpoint. >> just staying on trade message we did have larry kudlow here this week and he mentioned he endorsed your tax plan. one issue he disagrees with you is on the trade situation. he seems to think you can be a little mallable. some of this is talk but when you get out there you'll reach out on both sides and negotiate. >> larry is terrific guy and he's given me great marks on my tax plan. larry is free trader. so am i. but it has to be fair trade. it has to be good for us. it can't be fair trade where we lose 100% and they gain 100%. it has to be fair. even if it wasn't 100% fair it

has to be reasonably fair. take china as an example. the numbers they have in terms of trade imbalances is astronom astronomical. if you want to do business in china it's very hard. i have friends that are manufacturers. very hard time getting their product into china and if they do get it in it gets taxed. now china on the other hand has a very easy time getting its product into the united states and there's never even a talk of a tax because they are free traders. but china is not a free trader because china taxes its products. i know of examples that are horrible what china has done and the amount of the taxes astronomical. i'm talking about taxes so high you wouldn't believe it on the show. nobody ever talks about that. as much as i watch your show i never see you talking about that. you should do an investigation of how much china is taxing

product going into china. well free trade means we're not taxing each other. you can't have one nation being taxed and the other nation not being taxed. so, you know, a lot of things wrong and i believe i will be able to straighten it out. >> donald can we talk sacks for just a second. everybody wants lower taxes. but there are two analysis done suggesting that wean dynamic scores, forget about stat i can scoring that your plan adds $10 trillion to the deficit. >> yeah, but they haven't seen the caught. they haven't stein waste, the waste in this country, the tremendous fraud in this country, the tremendous amounts of money that will be cut and they don't look at that. nor have i necessarily spent a lot of time on doing that because you'll see that as you get in and as you get there. but there's tremendous amount of

waste, fraud and abuse that we'll be able to cut in addition to the fab that the economy will become dynamic. right now you look at gdp for last quarter it was essentially zero. okay. if that ever happened to china it would be a depression, the likes of which nobody has ever seen. china is open and it's massive disruption. we're at zero. we're actually at zero. and slightly above. but whoever heard of a thing like that. it's not even a big story. so we need -- we need to do things to -- number one we have to do things to keep countri countries -- companies in this country. it's far worse than what you report. pfizer to me is incredible that pfizer is moving. they are moving for a number of reasons. they are moving because taxes are too high. but it's corporation inversion and they are moving for something else. they can't get their money back. i know companies that are

thinking about moving because they can't get their money into this country. the amazing thing is the democrats and the republicans agree we should all let -- there's $2.5 trillion outside, i think it's $5 trillion. i don't think our country has any idea what it is. i think it's more than $2.5 trillion. stale lot of money. $2.5 trillion should come back in and easily. the democrats and republicans agree. everybody agrees for three years they've agreed. they can't make a deal because they don't have leadership. i could make a deal in 15 minutes by getting people in a room, 15 minutes. everybody wants that money to come in to the united states. we cannot get a deal. it would be so easy because we don't have leadership. >> mr. trump, you've heard about these p.a.c.s standing together. we use this word republican establishment and republican elders and the secret meetings supposedly in a private island off georgia which, donald, that

was sea island they were talking about, that's not like a private island down there. but my question is, you know, you had to sign the deal that you'll support the nominee and i figured they all signed it so now to a lot of them it's not going the way they wanted it and it's almost like they are reneging on their pledge to support the nominee and you said if you're not treated fairley it's not going to be pretty. who is it? is are you being treated fairley? >> i'm being treated fairley by is voters. so the voters get it. the voters are smart. they hear me. they hear me speak. i have the largest rally. i had 25,000 people the other day in orlando. we have rallies the likes of which nobody has ever seen. it's the biggest story.

the likes of which nobody has seen. what should happen the establishment whatever that is because i don't know what the establishment s-i was probably a member of the establishment in may and then in june when i decided to run i probably became no longer a member of the establishment. i was a member of the establishment in very, very good standing, i could tell you that. whatever the establishment is, they should embrace what i've done because i've brought -- look at the ratings. look at your ratings. look at the ratings of the debates. the debates used to be throwaway. they never got ratings. now they get 24, 25 million people watching them. it's the biggest thing. teen other night where i won so much, i won the three big states. the ratings, the viewing was tremendous of the votes coming in. you know, the establishment or whoever, whatever name you want to call it, some people call them the elites which would

indicate i'm not elite, which is fine. but whoever these people are, they should embrace what has taken place, and, you know, i will say this. if, for some reason, i don't make it or i don't -- you know, if it ends, i don't get there, they are going to have millions and millions of people that will walk away from the polls and never vote and the democrats are assured a victory. if the democrats win they will pick four or five supreme court justice and the country will never recover from that. you'll never have scalias. you'll have people that are extremely liberal on every issue so when they start talking about third-party, they are talking about an absolute guaranteed victory for demonstrate and if they do that you'll have four or five judges. i pick very conservative judges, the kind of judges you would be very proud of, frankly. but it is a very strange thing.

even democrats have told me i can't believe that the republicans could be so stupid as to not embrace the millions of people that are coming in. we're taking people out of the democrats, we're taking out of the democratic party, we're taking millions of people and it's hard to believe. i mean so many people as an example, democrats a man comes up to me the other day mr. trump i've bean democrat all my life. i just joined the republican party because of you. hundreds of thousands and millions of people like that and that includes independents. you would think this movement which is a movement. it's benton cover of "time" magazine now four times. you would think that the republicans would say wow we have hit pay dirt. this is incredible, let's embrace trump and let's win election and let's get the judges we want, let's get these assets. instead they are, i guess they are upset because maybe i don't want money. i'm self-funding my campaign and

they want to put money into people so they control them and they feel maybe i'll do the right thing for the country but i'm not going help them. i'm going to help everybody because you have to help everybody to turn the country around. >> mr. trump, you just pointed you you have drawn from former democrats, drawn from independents. one of the things that ted cruz has said about you is you're not a true conservative. he says he's the one who would be appointing incredibly conservative justice. would you have a litmus test a fiscal judge-like litmus test for anybody you put on the supreme court? >> i would. i want conservative but extremely competent. the problem with ted is that he'll never get anything done. bigger problem it's impossible for him to get elected. he's very strident. he'll never win states that you have to win. he can't. because of his views on things. and i actually happen to be very

conservative except some people say on trade i'm not because i'm not a free trader but as i told you before i am a free trader but fair trade now. smart trade. it's not going to be stupid trade. what we have in our country now is stupid trade and all you have to do is look at what they are doing to us with your previous report. just take a look at that and you'll understand exactly because that's all about how do we get more business, how do we suck more blood out of the united states. >> donald, i know you want to bring people together but i wonder if you can react to this quote from mayor bloomberg. you had him on "the apprentice" twice. he said you have run the most divisive and demagogue presidential campaign playing on people's prejudice and fears. you said obama and others have been divisive. how do you bring people together? >> well i've always been a unifier. i've always been someone that's

been able to bring people together. we're in the midst of a very tough campaign, very harsh campaign. they say one of the harshest. i've even been able to get along with joe for many years. if you can do that you can do anything. joe is a friend of mine. i've always been able to bring people together. we have an african-american president. and i thought one thing, i was not thinking he was going to be a great president because i disagreed with a lot of his views but i thought he would be a great unifier but he turn out to be great divider. there's a great division in this country. and interestingly, as an african-american, look how poor a job he's done for african-americans and it's incredible to me. african-american youth is 59% unemployed. the even african-american people in the age of 30 to 50, very

prime ages has a very high rate of unemployment. he's done very, very poorly for african-americans and they should be insulted and they should be angry about it. but they don't seem to be which to me is amazing. so i am a unifier. i am not a divider. i think when things settle down and when this very vicious event that's going on right now is over, i think that people will see that. >> do you think that if you were to just take senator rubio aside as, i don't know, some day your friends, at this point do you think you'll win, you're back up 20 points in florida. do you think he should not go through with his political career with the vote next tuesday he should come out -- there's been some scuttlebutt that maybe some of his advisors are thinking that. should he go forward and let

florida perhaps hand him a what would be a humiliating loss or should he hang in there? >> i think if he does lose -- who knows what will happen. maybe he'll have a great come back but he has to do it quickly. i think it will be very bad for him. i can't advise him. he has to -- >> can you win ohio, mr. trump? kasich is ahead there? >> i think i can win ohio. i'm very close. you know you're going against sitting governor. they have a lot of problems in ohio. i think that i request win in ohio, yes. we're working on that right now. five days is an eternity for me. for the life of trump, five days is an eternity. so we have five days. we'll see what happens. i think i have a good shot in ohio and i think i have a much better than good shot in florida and the polls are, you know, have 20-point lead in the florida. i'm in florida now. i own a lot of property in florida. built a lot of jobs in the

florida. with that being said, these stupid people like club for growth, these are stupid people, they come to my office ask for $1 million and i say for what. they said we're the club for growth we would like to you give us $1 million for club of growth. what is the club for growth. they said it's this and that and they gave me an explanation that didn't make any sense. they wrote me a letter and asked for a million dollars. i very nicely said no. then all of a sudden they became hostile and doing ads all over the place. they are they are extortionists. they are terrible people. i have a lot of ads in florida and elsewhere from the club for growth which is a phoney organization and from other people that aren't necessarily phoney that don't know me and

i've taken tremendous incoming in the last week. that's why i'm so surprised i won michigan and, you know, i won in hawaii, i won michigan. i won mississippi in a landslide. mississippi almost 50%. >> that was supposed to be cruz territory. >> it was supposed to be his win and i won in a loaned slide. >> westchestlch was on yesterda whether an indictment would be a good or bad thing for republicans. if hillary clinton was indicted they would bring out joe biden and then elizabeth warren would be riding in the carriage with him and that would be a much more formidable team to take on the republicans. some doesn't want an indictment. do you think it would be a positive or negative or either or neither, it wouldn't matter for your campaign. >> i don't think it will matter.

i think you have to do what's right and what's right is -- it's very unfair to a lot of people that have done far less than her and ended up going you know where. it's been a -- it's a very, very unfair situation. and i think she's being totally protected. they wouldn't let it go this long. certainly if they would do something they wouldn't let it go this long. i think she's being protected by the democrats. how could they let her go this far out and without knowing something. everybody knows what the situation is. every time you turn on television or pick up a paper you read a legal analysis of what she did. and almost without exception she's guilty. now i don't know that she's guilty but any time i read a top lawyer talking about what she did they say she's guilty of some pretty serious things. so you say why are they allowing it to go this long. it's very interesting. i imagine she's being protected and therefore will be the nominee. >> mr. trump you must be

thinking about potential running mates. is chris christie on your short list? >> well, did you say chris christie? >> yes, that's right. >> well, chris endorsed me and i was very appreciative. he sees what's happening. he called me up a couple of weeks ago and said it's amazing what's going on and i would love to endorse you and i took his endorsement with gratitude. he's a terrific guy, did a terrific guy in a couple of debates especially with marco where marco just melted down. i've never seen anything like that. it was rather incredible to watch. but, you know, chris is a good man and chris is somebody that i very much appreciate. but he did not suggest anything for that. nor would i listen to that. it's too early. it's too early for me to be thinking about that. i'm somebody that likes to get the deal closed and i know how to close deals and sort of like we have to know how to win. the country doesn't win any

more. our country doesn't win any more. we don't win at trade. we can't beat at isis. we don't win at health care. we don't win at anything. that's the problem. that's where this movement is such a strong movement. at the right time i'll pick somebody that will be very good. >> if it comes down to a two man trump versus cruz situation will you be -- will it be scorched heard will we hear lying ted or some day a trump/cruz ticket. i guess that's not happening any time soon. but anyone that went up against you could any of them serve as your vice president after, you know, what you need to do to win the nomination? >> without mentioning names there were 17 people total when we started and we're down to four and down fewer than that pretty soon. we're down to four. over the course period of time yes i respect a number of those people. not all of them, to be honest. but i do have a great respect for a number of those people

that were up there fighting and some of whom are not fighting for this. but i do respect some of the people i competed against yes. >> there are some signs when you do head-to-head with cruz it's very close between 2000. so that's why i asked. >> and there are some studies when i go against cruz head-to-head that have me absolutely killing them a lot. >> do you think it will come down to that? kasich and rub jobs i don't know the path seems difficult unless they alban together knock you off in those winner take all states. >> you know what i do? i just do my thing. focus on what i have to do. it's been working really well. it may be against cruz or may be against somebody, who knows. who knows what happens. it's politics. crazier than business. crazier than business.

and, you know, whatever happens i'm totally prepared that i can tell pup >> thanks for all your time, mr. trump. we appreciate it. don't be a stranger. we'll see you again -- you know we're very close, if you're in new york we're right -- i'm sure you have a building around here somewhere. >> on 6th avenue. >> we have the ground floor studio. never been in here. over in new jersey like there's something wrong with new jersey. but now we're close enough where you can come in here, all right? >> i will get there. believe me i'll get there i promise and this has been a lot of fun pup have a great show and a lot of people watch it. great influence and very important show. it really is. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. >> much more still ahead this hour. up next twitter's co-founder biz stone is leading the charge of 50 business leaders, philanthropist and entrepreneurs called the best school day.

then mario draghi speaks out on his country's biggest move. we've been watching shares and stocks up sharply. and carly fiorina will join us. we'll get her thoughts on donald trump and the race ahead. right now as we head to the break take a look at the u.s. equity futures. the futures skyrocketing. dow up by 140 points. s&p 500 up by 17 and nasdaq up by 45. you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc, first in business worldwide.

professor richard thaler. you are called the father of behavioral economics. i've been called a lot of things. i have read all of your books. did you learn anything? i learned that humans are complicated. we're emotional. absent-minded. and we make some really bad decisions. my trade-off analytics can help companies make better decisions, but i am still learning what makes people tick. what makes you tick watson? natural language processing, reasoning algorithms, statistical parsing. now you are just showing off.

big news of the morning, ecb president mario draghi just started speaking. he's holding that news conference in frankfurt. we're monitoring his comments and bring the headlines as they happen. the markets are up on that ecb action we heard just over about 35 minutes ago. first though, if you take a look at the futures, dow futures are up about 147 points. s&p up by 18. nasdaq up by 47 on all this additional stimulus coming from the ebc. we'll get to in this a moment. in the meantime another great news maker on set. >> twitter co-founder biz stone is here. we call it #bestschoolday. more than 50 business leaders, celebrities and philanthropist are teaming up to flash fund

donors in their respect home towns. that means teacher request for supplies, field trips and books and more entirely being funded today. biz stone is co-founder of jelly and most importantly is your birthday, sir. >> oh, yeah. i forgot. >> 43 years young. >> don't say. >> i'm in my 40s. i'm in my 40s now. >> it's the new 27. >> yeah. that's right. >> happy birthday. >> this is basically my birthday present. >> tell us what this birthday present is. what is best school day. >> it's flash funding. that's when you seek and plan to fund an entire geographic location and you fund all the classroom projects. and it's a huge surprise to all of the teachers. >> so they are just finding out

about it for the first time. >> they are like oh, my god every project i have is funded. teachers make about $50,000 a year. do you know how much money out of their own money they use to buy school supplies? $1.6 billion annually. that's what teachers out of pocket. the projects on here, anyone can donate five bucks. you can be a philanthropist for five bucks. that can be the five bucks that tips over this classroom project. some of these things are 19th century stuff. my wife and i recently funded a classroom that needed chairs. a classroom that needed sweat shirts because the kids were cold. a class roomg that need pencils. this is the future of our nation and we're asking the teachers to groom them without books. >> so who is getting the stuff? how much all in? >> so, all in? i think it's about $14 million.

and we're covering i think 46 states. >> these are all requests or wish list stuff that's put on your site. >> it's all classroom project, like we want 25 copies of this book or whatever. they are all going to get funded. 46 states. and then there's $3.2 million that very generous people have put up to match, match any citizen donations for the states that weren't covered. >> so we should be pushing for more donations today. >> yes. everyone should get involved. everybody should put in five, ten, 25 bucks towards any project they are passionate about. i started with 25 bucks. i was hooked. it's amazing. >> i'm more than happy to be in for 25 bucks. tell me how this process works. >> we have one of the best

feedback loops ever. i've dealt with a lot of charities. they nail it. first charles best is a wonderful human being. and he's just so grateful, he'll thank you over and over again just for giving ten bucks which makes you feel good because then you want to give morgan. he's so grateful. all the kids draw and write you thank you letters and mail them to your house and they are like heart melting. they are amazing. we just had a number one thing kids say, why would somebody do this for us? we don't understand why somebody would give us sweat shirts. it's like unbelievable. >> you've made the sale.

>> go to donorshoes.com. >> five grand right now. >> pick something you're interested in and fund it. anything you want. >> tweet it out which is my segue to this. you have to give us your analysis of what's going on at twitter. i know you're an adviser at this point. >> i'm very much removed because i'm working on jelly. jack has taken back over. the guy who i started twitter with, the man with the vision, and this is something -- this is a big ship that he's trying to in the air round. it won't happen overnight. you have to think in term of years not quarters. and he's got the right vision and he's the man to turn it around. he's going to get this boat headed around. >> people talk about him having two jobs. is that too much? >> not for jack.

he's got two jobs and still manages to make time every wednesday for lunch with me. it likes he was in a chamber and aged 40 years and came back out in two minutes. he's this amazingly smart confident guy. >> we have to go. he cares about the product but i imagine you care about the product but also the stock price because you own some still. >> i do care about the stock. >> i think it's going to go way up. just going to take time. i've always loved amazon and love the way they operate and jeff bezos says don't love how we do it don't invest in it. >> you love the jelly of the month club. >> that's not what it is.

>> jelly.com. >> it's askjelly.com. >> it's a search engine. >> my bad. that's the gift that keeps on giving all year round. you got to come back. we'll talk more about jelly and thank you, donorschoose.org. >> happy birthday. >> you graduated from high school. now back -- oh, well. now back to the market except -- now back to the market story of the morning. the ex, steve liesman is monitoring mario draghi's news conference. minor coming out? i love the market reaction. just so classic, isn't it? >> we're getting a kind of a super mario. and the sense i'm getting from economists, joe, is that he is over delivering here. let me give you the bullet points. $20 billion increase in qe.

four ltros that were out there. bringing in corporate investment grade debt, nonbank debt, investment grade into the qe purchase. and he just said that the ecb expects that interest rates will remain at the current level lower throughout -- through the qe purchase horizon. what is that? he just moved that out as well. he had been in september 2016 now saying we'll continue this qe through march 2017. so the ecb presenting -- joe the idea here is mario draghi wants to step forward and say a couple of things. one is here's more what we can do and yet more we can do. trying to fight against this notion in the markets that a, what the central bank is doing is ineffective and b, they are running out of bullets. mario draghi saying we have a lot of bullets now and we're

using them here now. >> all right, steve liesman. i always complain about their market reaction, but okay. i'll take it. i'm happy. >> certainly, joe, more than was expected. very forceful words from the central banker here. >> excellent. thank you, steve. when we return we'll have much more on the ebc and the big market moves but first a rival no more. former presidential candidate carly fiorina throwing her support behind ted cruz. she will join us live when "squawk box" comes right back. pm aggregates all the options data you need in one place and lets you visualize that information for any options series. okay, cool. hang on a second. you can even see the anticipated range of a stock expecting earnings. impressive... what's up, tim. td ameritrade.

gop front-runner donald trump not holding back this morning on box. we asked him about carly fiorina's endorsement of his competitor, senator ted cruz. >> the problem with ted is that he'll never get anything done and the bigger problem is it's impossible for him to get elected. he's very strident. he'll never be able to get elected. he has no chance. and he'll never win states that you have to win. you can't. because of his views on things >> joining us right now is former gop presidential candidate and former hewlett-packard ceo, carly

fiorina. tell us what was behind your decision to decide to endorse truz? -- ted cruz >> i ran for president because i think we need someone who will challenge the system, challenge the status quo and we need a conservative in the white house because we have too much political and economic power concentrated into the hands of too few. donald trump's sound bite that you played is very revealing. spoken like a guy who is not a conservative. he's not. spoken like a guy who has no intention ever challenging the system. he is the system. he'll cut deals all day long. only trouble is those deals benefit him and they will harm the people who are voting for him. so i think ted cruz is the principle conservative we need. i think he will challenge the status quo and he has beaten donald trump and the only way to beat donald trump he is ballot box and that's what ted cruz will do. >> he's still running behind in some of the polls we've seen and

states coming up and what people said of ted cruz he's had the easy part of the map behind him, he has a tougher road ahead of him. what do you say to that? what's the campaign strategy to increase his odds in the states to come? >> well, first i do think this needs to get down to a two man race. it's a whole different ball game when donald trump has to go as he would say mano-a-mano. the republican marital has to unify behind a conservative that can beat donald trump. that's why i endorsed him yesterday and i hope it's a signal to others, it's time now. we need to get behind ted cruz and beat donald trump. it's also fair to say that people have been progress no, sir -- prognisticting this race. i'm going to work hard just as i did as a president wral candidate, i'm going to work

hard and talk to people about why ted cruz is the right guy to get behind now so that we can beat donald trump and go on the beat hillary clinton because she's as much a part of the system as donald trump is. >> a question about the super p.a.c.news. you've seen the headlines about it. ted cruz's super pac paid your -- gave a donation to you earlier in the campaign, $500,000. what was that about? >> i have no idea, frankly. that was as big a surprise to me as i think it was to the ted cruz people. look, let me tell you something, we had a virginia primary, and i had to vote in that primary. and i saw my own name on the ballot. that was kind of thrilling, but i ended up voting for ted cruz for all the reasons we're discussing here. the reason i tell you that is because i voted for ted cruz long before he and i ever had a conversation about an endorsement. so, this isn't about anything other than i think he's the guy we need to unify behind now to

beat donald trump, i think he is the conservative leader who can challenge the system in washington, and that system desperately needs challenged. >> i'm calling everyone ms. fiorina, even though we've known each other so long. i don't know, maybe we just need to do it. so, ms. fiorina, i thought it was rich. you've got to admit, remember what harry reid did to mitt romney, and then mitt romney, same deal. i mean, that's immediately what i thought of, there's something in this tax return, after it burned him so badly, and it was such a low blow from harry reid, because it probably wasn't true. so, it's weird the way things change. now they're going after trump on his business career. and i think about what the mainstream media, how it characterized your business career, which i thought was stellar for you to rise to the ranks of ceo of hewlett-packard or any fortune 500 company from a secretary, and i thought it was unfair the way that it was characterized, basically to impune your ability to be a good

manager. i don't know what you could have done because of part of what you said, but they're doing the same thing to donald trump right now. he's had a pretty successful business career, and if you listen to the mainstream media at this point, you know, it's just bankruptcies left and right, trump university, trump steak, you know, the casinos, blah, blah, blah. do you feel any empathy at all for him that he's suffering those slings and arrows now? >> well, you know, first of all, i wouldn't compare my business career to donald trump's in any way. i started out as a secretary. he started out with a big inheritance. and it's a fact that many of his businesses have failed. it's a fact that he's declared bankruptcy. it's also a fact that he's a highly successful businessman. but look, it's fair game in politics to vet someone's record. donald trump hasn't been vetted yet. the mainstream media, all of

them, all the media outlets are sort of in the tank for him. it's kind of surprising to me. they give him just unlimited air time. wow. we had a super tuesday election on tuesday. every single network cut to his press conference live for a solid hour and failed to mention that ted cruz beat john kasich for second place in michigan and won idaho. those are pretty big news items. no, the media didn't talk about it at all. they just cut live to donald trump. yes, he's entertaining, absolutely right, but his business record is absolutely fair game to be vetted. more importantly, his views are fair game to be vetted. so, guess what, i can't support anyone who has supported partial birth abortion, i can't support anyone who believes it's okay to buy people like hillary clinton off so that his business prospers, i can't support anyone who asks his supporters to

pledge a loyalty oath to him. listen, the president of the united states pledges a loyalty oath to the constitution and to the voters of this country. it shouldn't be the other way around. >> ms. fiorina, i want to thank you very much for your time today. we appreciate it and it's great to see you. >> thanks. nice to be with you. >> all right, let's see what is coming up. the ecb president, we'll talk about him some more, mario draghi answering some tough questions in frankfurt right now. we're going to look at the global market reaction when "squawk box" comes right back. ♪ vo: know you have a dedicated

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u.s. futures posting a big advance on the ecb position. the nasdaq is up by 34. joining us is greg epp, chief economics commentator at the "wall street journal." the ecb delivered, didn't fall short like back in december. what does this mean? >> i think there were two market reactions important to watch. one is the euro, because so much of the ecb's chore of getting inflation back, getting the exchange rate down. the euro fell today. that's good. the fed looks to resume its rate

campaign, that's also good. divergence is positive in terms of getting the euro down and inflation back up. the second positive thing was the rally in european bank stocks. the european central bank has been working at cross purposes with regulators in europe. it's been trying to get banks to lend more while the regulators are forcing them to raise capital, bailing in their bondholders. bank stocks tanked earlier this year. that's probably taken away more stimulative firepower from the ecb than it's added. we have to turn that around. >> why are the bank stocks up with negative interest rates? the interest rate declined to 0.4% from 0.3%, bad news for the financials. >> there have been a lot of negativity built into the bank stocks in here as well, by the way, the united states, over all the time about negative interest rates. there has been talk to be getting more negative than minus 0.4 basis points. i think the fact that they're extending their quantitative easing of corporate bonds is positive and will loosen credit overall and adds a positive risk-on sentiment to all the markets. >> what could the ecb do in

interactions with the regulators to say quit raining on our parade? >> well, i think that they have emphasized that they were very unhappy, or that they were not actually party to some of the bailouts which really hurt bank sentiment out there. i think they would like emphasis on capital raising instead of banks being shrunk. but the problem europeans are having is that they took, you know, here in the united states we did the stress test, we rebuilt the capital in banks back in 2009. it has taken the europeans two, three, four, five years to get to the same point. >> very quickly, you mentioned that the regulators are working across purposes. that was happening here in the united states for a while, too. it was actually the same officials who were basically speaking out of both sides of their mouth. >> sure, yeah, raise your capital, don't make risky loans, all those sorts of things. i think that probably hurt the recovery here, but most of the capital raising done in the united states was actually issuing new capital, so we're sitting here with banks that have all sorts of means to lend. even bigger problems, fannie mae and freddie mac, nobody wanted

them to lend any longer, so that was a big problem, but again, those problems are behind us. europe's still working through them. >> greg, thanks, great to have you with us. and paul, thanks for spending the morning with us, and congratulations on the new job. >> professor, right here. >> see you, dude. >> thank you, everybody. make sure you join us tomorrow. "squawk on the street" begins right now. good thursday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm karl quintanilla with jim cramer at the new york stock exchange. draghi surprises the market with rate cuts, expanded q nenk both size and breadth. euro's at a six-week low and futures are higher. europe's gains in the 2% range. watch the bond market. jobless claims hit the lowest level since october. even china cpi overnight surprised on the up side. our roadmap begins with the ecb cutting rates, sending ripple effects throughout the global markets. draghi speaking now and we'll brick you the latest. >> presidential candidates not in