>> announcer: live from new york where business never sleeps this is "squawk box". good morning. welcome to "squawk box" right here on cnbc. i'm sore along with joe kernen and kayla tausche. samsung after weeks of reports that the galaxy note 7 phone can spontaneously catch fire the korean smartphone maker now officially telling consumers to stop using note 7 all together whether it's original or replacements device. company halting the production and distribution of the phone and firm is asking all telecom carriers and retailers to stop selling and replacing the device pending an investigation. major carriers like at&t and verizon already made that move on their own. federal aviation administration has also wideened its guidance on the use of samsung phones in flight. officials say flyers should not use any galaxy note 7 phones on flight even if they are replacement models. we talk about getting on the

plane when attendants get on and tell everyone to turn off their phones. samsung shares in asian trading, let's take a quick look, down about 8% at the moment. samsung strugsles have helped shares of apple we should note because the stock jumped hitting its highest levels since december. so we'll see if really all those folks that were getting samsung -- >> you running to the apple store. >> because we actually had at&t mobility ceo on "squawk alley" yesterday and i asked him are people actually getting, you know, sort of shuffled into other devices and he said no they are likely to get an earlier samsung device than switch to another carrier. they like the eco system and like it and stick with something they know. >> were you able to see what we showed the picture? >> i did. charred. >> you're not surfing the web

any more. no phone calls or anything. right? wow. >> talk about a phone named brick. there it is. >> it's not funny. but wow. that would be frightening in your pocket. >> that's what they say. >> in your purse. in a bag. anywhere. >> then they say turn off your phone. what if that's your phone. >> that is airplane mode right there. >> they are saying if you got one what if it's your own phone. turn it off until you replace it, obviously. >> got to go the store. >> i've been where mine is -- then couple of hours later i see all the emails. i missed -- >> not like a tablet or a hover board. >> i can go a day without my phone. when i turn it back on i see what i'm missing. then like nothing.

>> your saying we should e-mail you more. >> no. just that -- there's the feeflg anxiety and you're not online. >> they say it's like a drug. >> the world used to be -- >> social media is like a drug. some kind of stimulus thing. >> long term effect. my kids are very rarely not -- i mean my son has an iphone and ipad. why do you need two at all times? i don't know what the long term is. >> if you get them galaxy note 7 they will have zero. other news late yesterday we heard from verizon ceo on samsung's phone debacle. here's what he said. >> this is by far the biggest concern i've seen in cell phones during my tenure. i think they are a little surprised that the fix didn't

fix things. so it's a major black eye for them but at the end of the day they will recover. >> verizon, of course, set to acquire yahoo! and mcadam commented on yahoo!'s recent data breach where the information from 500 million users was stolen. >> not that shocked. i think we all, you all live in the internet world. it's not a question of if you're going to get hacked it's a question when you'll get hacked. >> he gave some insight into the investigation of yahoo! and that hack attack saying the firm is about 50% to 60% done with the probe of the issue but you guys have had conversations on this show about whether it works in fact, halt the deal, whether they would use it as an opportunity to walk away from a deal, tim armstrong on the set said it was something that has to be investigated. maybe they are looking for a discount. >> you've seen the stories.

>> i think -- >> but everyone is getting hacked these days. everyone is doing it. >> then the question is how do you decide how much that is worth? >> yeah. >> hundred million $billion dollars. >> get the old spokesperson back, sprint. that guy that -- >> for sprint it's brilliant. they were very, when i said you lost him but yeah we got a better one jamie foxx. jamie visited venezuela and said he's 100% behind the revolution. 100% behind the socialist revolution. not sure whether he's cashing his checks any more from verizon. that's not the first thing you want your new long term spokesperson -- i wouldn't. >> i'm not sure the jamie foxx topic came up in the conversation. >> i would have brought it up in

terms of marketing. you know who i'm talking about. >> she's so nice and helps and funny and innocuous. not visiting socialist countries where people are wading through trash cans and say i approve of it. >> what if you had a noncompete on the prior spokesman or do you think -- >> that guy was just -- >> or never imagined someone else would use him. >> that's probably it. >> you think you have to put a noncompete. >> over the years kion is so recognizable. a spokesperson for wall street firms. you were prudential. >> still prudential. >> but you've gotten big promotions because now you're across asset classes. the if someone dime you look fork a solution to a thematic

issue, we have somebody who specializes in themati krrc equ solutions we have steven parker here. >> before we get to that other corporate news. new development in twitter's search for its next step ceo jack dorsey send an internal memo to twitter employees defining the company as a quote peoples news network. the firm has struggled to define its core purpose, recently made a push no news and sports. the memo didn't address the sales process but dorsey called on employees to help the firm strive to be first place people check to see what's happening. release of that memo did give a little bit of a boost to the stock but still down pretty sharply in the last week, down 23% after southeast reports that bidders wouldn't be making bids has surfaced.

people's news network. have you heard that? >> i just like the role or what i use twitter for as a news feed. i don't like some of the other aspects. i wonder if they can elevate that out. i guess it's difficult. separate out the average tropical that's out there just being obnoxious and anonymous and able to just -- it's online graffiti about whatever subject. then there's the bona fide news organization. >> it requires anonymity. >> i don't need to see and cramer lately i seen has been talking about -- >> you is to be a masochist. >> you can keep him on but, i don't know how to do it. >> is there a good word for the anonymous people that you like not trolls but angels. >> just the overall word i use

is cess pool. u.s. equity futures at this hour have been weak for most session after a pretty good day yesterday. we didn't hold the highs yesterday but did close hire. today we're indicated down 20 on the dow jones, down three or so on the s&p, down three and a half on the nasdaq. overnight in asia, shanghai has been slowly creeping higher. almost hitting 3100. i remember when that was the reason the fed wasn't going to do anything for a while. then when that was down in the mid-2000s and we didn't know what was happening that's actually performed pretty well recently. take a look at european equities which were mixed this morning but mostly, you know, sort of right around the flat line and then crude prices, which we're pulling back in a new report today, the international energy agency says that the oil market may rebalance faster if opec sticks to its target but what

iaea note it's hard to tell when this might happen until more details emerge and then finally currency, still the pound near multi-year loss and euro, 1.11. might be a good time to visit. the bond market will resume trading today, earnings season kicks off at the end of the week. for more ed kion is big picture ed portfolio manager. $113 billion in assets under management hence the circles under his eyes and weight on his shoulder a lot of responsibility. and then, then -- who came up with this. steven parker you're not working for somebody at the thematic equity solution. you're the head. what does that, i want to know who came with it, what the hell

does it mean, and do people, are suddenly all of our viewers are saying i need some solutions in my thematic equity? >> he might. >> there's themes in the market of ideas how they play out. >> these are solutions? >> everything is a solution. >> you take a theme and come up with a solution. >> no kidding. >> sounds so simple. >> how many different themes are you working on at any given time? usually four, five themes going on at any given time. >> i don't know we have time foreall five. give us a couple of the major ones. >> one of the big things we're looking sat a shift back into emerging markets. there's a lot of focus on what's going on here in the u.s. and what people have lost sight of is what's happening in some of the emerging markets. it's one of the worst performing places to be in the last five years.

because of that you've seen people exiting pretty much wholesale as we've seen stabilization in commodity markets and the dollar that sets you up for a much more productive outlook for emerging market growth and earnings. >> i think one of the things that you mentioned was looking beyond the election looking beyond the fed, looking beyond all these things to figure out where we'll be once these sort of, you know, these aren't the major -- eventually these things will fade hopefully. >> this is what markets will focus on in the next couple of months but the reality is politic, geopolitics rarely have -- >> even the fed eventually? we got to get out from under that -- >> i think we will. reality even if the fed moves in december or whenever they move they won't move that quickly. >> you do emerging but that doesn't mean you ignore domestic. >> no.

absolutely not. in fact to your point on the election one of the things we're doing, we don't believe in investing based on trying predict an outcome of the election. what i'm looking for is opportunities where markets are getting oversold because of concerns around the election and policy. rarely does actual policy match the rhetoric during election. so right now a place that's getting interesting for us is hearth. a darling sector for a number of years that's come under scrutiny. long term story from an earnings perspective from a demographic perspective is still strong but the shares is one of the worst performing sector. that's where we're ramping up our exposure. >> if hillary clinton were to win there's a view that it could be much worse for the health care sector than it already is. >> there's a view and that's why we've seen how stocks underperform the way they have. if you look historically the reality of what any politician, any president is going to be able to implement particularly because, you know, in all

likelihood you're look at a divided government, i don't think you're going to see a massive change that's going to be commensurate of the under performance of companies you've seen. >> you won haves much time but what stuff you do is not nearly as complex. >> we try look longer term about what things we think will influence returns across asset classes. of course what happens in the election and fed move will matter but in the long run we're looking at what sort of growth rates do we expect. i think we'll have slower growth and lower rates than we used to think of is normal for many years in the future. what does that mean for value versus growth. what does that mean for returns of stocks which is bonds, commodities. >> what does it snaen >> i think we'll see somewhat lower returns in the future than we have in the past. that's pretty much a consensus

call now. also within markets you might find some things that have worked for long periods of time may not be quite as effective in the future. i think you have rich bernstein my old colleague and friend on the show, one thing rich has said for years when growth is scarce, growth stocks do better. if we have a prolonged period of slow growth the old tradeoff might be more in favor of growth. >> we all have conversations every day about how returns are going to be lower going forward because growth is so hard to come by. do clients understand that? when they see their returns at the end of the year is that something you're able to convince them is okay. >> ironically this year is turning out to be pretty good year. over 7% on the s&p and still a couple of months to go nuclear program has bean good year. we haven't seen that down shift. >> if you were invested in the s&p. >> that's right. barclays ag is up 5% to 7%. clients have yet experienced what we think will be a down

shift in returns. so it's going to be tricky especially for institutions which are counting on higher returns or individuals who are counting on higher returns to fund their retirement. if we're right that's more challenging and more difficult to eke returns for the market. more fork tactical. >> 1.75 gdp growth. awesome. 7% growth. that's great. i remember 30 years at 30%. 4%, 5% gdp growth. this is not great. we can do better. >> we can do better than what we're doing but going to be tough. >> we were at 18,000 two and a half years ago. we've gotten nowhere. with zero interest rates. >> we can do better. it's not realistic to get back to 4% growth with much slower -- >> we talked yesterday, you're looking across asset classes.

you're missing bonds. it's hard to do what you do when you can't -- oh, yeah. we decide, you know, asset allocation. only one game in town. >> bonds are up 5% this year. >> how about another five? >> in my portfolio mostly using bonds as a hedge because bonds have been very effective. >> hedge to making money. >> 5% return isn't anything to sneeze at. >> actually lasts about five years. bond return each year at the beginning of the year has been called impossible. >> my colleagues in prudential and fixed income looked for spread and opportunities twin bond market and been able to do so. with the bottom up quite credit base. >> if i'm at a cocktail party and somebody says the one thing i can't find is a thematic solution to my equity. not as interesting.

all right. >> millennials are happy. >> less experienced. >> we are experienced. >> coming up when we return we'll talk politics opinion friday's lewd audio reporting of donald trump hurting him in the polls and facing high republican defections. john harwood will join us and talk more about that story in just a moment.

is >> welcome back to "squawk box" this morning. hillary clinton taking an 11-point lead in the latest nbc news "wall street journal" poll after friday's audio recording of that lewd comment that trump made and before it came out, but the poll took place before the second debate. now john harwood joins us with more to break it all down. good morning to you, john. >> reporter: good morning, andrew. the republican party sane full blown cries because of the remarks and the direction that the trump campaign is heading. let's go over numbers. in september in a four way race including gary johnson and jill

stein the libertarian and green party candidates hillary clinton was ahead by six points, 43-37. now this poll taken saturday and sunday, after the news broke before the debate, she's up by 11 points in a four way race, 6 46-35. in a two way contest with trump, third-party vote shrinks as you get closer to the election. you had a seven-point lead in september for hillary clinton, 48-41. now a 14-point lead. 52-38 over donald trump. that's gigantic. and then the reason you saw so much panic by republicans over the weekend look at these numbers who do you want to control the congress after the election, democrats had a three-point lead in september that quickly shot up to seven points. now that's a generic ballot question. you don't know how that will translate into individual races. we don't know whether the house is truly in jeopardy or not but

many recognizes apublicans are it's moving in that direction. that's why you have so many people moving away from donald trump. donald trump by rallying the base at the debate on sunday might may have raised the cost of repudiating him moving away. but these poll numbers add new pressure. now for hillary clinton's part she's trying to balance between explicitly taking advantage of trump's problems and talking about things that have come out about him and her own positive agenda and just this morning she's announcing a new middle class tax cut sway doubling of the child tax credit and making it refundable for more families. she's trying to balance a little bit the negative on trump and the positive for her own agenda, see how that works for her in the next few days and we're going to update this poll because we're adding new interviews in a release that will come out later today because that will take account

of what happened in the debate on sunday night which this poll did not. >> how different do you think this will be because when you think about -- it was very interesting. those comments last friday dominated the news over the weekend and in the midst of it all i could see where this poll would land and yet before this poll came out yesterday morning and before paul ryan, word leaked about his new position relative to trump it seemed that there was a feeling that somehow that trump had perhaps won the debate on sunday night and actually rallied back to some degree. >> reporter: well, there are different ways of deciphering or describing what's a victory. donald trump unquestionably succeeded at the debate in thrilling, rallying his core support. but that's only about 40% of the electorate. that's the problem.

in terms of the broader electorate what he needs do is add votes to win. the reaction of republicans we're seeing reflects their increasing conviction that key not win and so they are trying from text themselves and that's what paul ryan's mess satisfaction on this conference call. i'm not going defend him, i'm going cuss the house and leave to it members to take the position that they think will help them win re-election. they have a 30 seat advantage in the house. that's pretty big. there haven't been many more than 30 seats even competitive. so the democratic chance until the last few days has rested on threading the needle and basically winning all the close ones that republicans now hold. the potential is that what's happening now and, you know, you saw donald trump go after some of those members yesterday, calling them hypocrites and saying paul ryan should focus on other things. the playing field could expand.

>> the wikileaks, all of these emails that have been disclosed relating to hillary clinton, how damaging is it? is there a smoke gun in there and how is that changing the discussion or is it not? >> reporter: you know, i think all of the emails that have come out by this wikileaks dump and previous one from the state department have all tended to reinfor the same idea that hillary clinton and the team around here very cautious, very calculating, playing the political angles, trying to figure out what will fly and what isn't, what could be embarrassing and what's not. it is politician behavior. so it confirms the idea that she's a calculating politician. there's no question about that. however, i think after being in politics for 25 years that is a fact that people know about her

and her husband. so i'm not sure that other than like her i don't see how this is new information about hillary clinton that changes these long settled views. it deepens the long settled views and some people are troubled by that but i don't think it's game changing information. >> thank you, john. great to see you. we're continuing our series on the impact of the election on small businesses. kate rogers joins us now to talk wages. >> good morning. wages have bean hot topic on main street over the past two years. four state ballot initiatives to hike wages and presidential candidates are pushing higher pay. hillary clinton wants the federal minimum wage from 7:12 to $12 hour while donald trump supports an $10 hour wage hike. but own of st. joseph equipment in lacrosse, wisconsin said she

disagrees federal increase. she pace her workers between $14 and $15 an hour but says a federal hike would cause her to have to scale up even more. >> living here in western wisconsin and in the midwest our cost living is much lower, house cigarette lower, education is lower, gas is lower, child care is lower, education, all these things are lower. so we're not on par with the different coasts we have on the west and east. we're middle america. >> meanwhile denver's judy disagrees. paying workers $12 an hour is good for her business. >> we found that all of a sudden people could get their car fixed when it broke down. they could get to work better. they could get daycare when their kid was sick. so we had employees who were a lot more productive and our turn over pretty much disappeared. >> no matter which side you're on this wage issue matters to main street. data from paychecks found on a

scale of 2001 five, 47% of small business workers rank wage increase as very important or important for their businesses. that data also found -- now granted before this hot mike week from last friday, but that 51% of small business owners said they were still in support of donald trump, 25% they were vote forge hillary clinton. rest were undecided. we've seen over and over again small business owners to be more in support of donald trump. >> i'm gload see you have places from different cities. the cost living is so different across this country. wages and what a living wage is so different across the country. >> absolutely. like we said in wisconsin she's starting her workers between $14 and $15 which is an excellent living wage. she says if the federal minimum hiked she has to scale up. on top of that she's getting hit with obamacare. she said 30% last year. those are things that really impact small businesses and makes it tough for them to grow.

>> coming up former senator bob kerry sounding alarm warning social security is one of the biggest problems we face and neither candidate is talk about it. senator kerr injury will join us next. as we head to break take a look at s&p 500 winners and losers. guess what guys, i switched to sprint.

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♪ seen it goes we found ♪ a sweet answer ♪ in a river of champagne welcome back. u.s. equity futures at this hour are indicateed a little bit lower. they pare their loss. do 20 earlier. nasdaq indicated in positive territory, in green half a point. s&p down too. >> race for the white house entering the homestretch and one issue that some are calling on the candidates to address and that's social security. the clock is tick with the social securitys is trust fund estimated to run out in less than 20 years and joining to us talk about it is bob kerry who served as senator of nebraska and author of a recent op-ed can someone please make the candidates talk about social security. it is true. nobody is talking about entitlements this time around. what happened. >> in part because they

understand that seniors vote, and they basically pander to seniors and tell them something other than what's the truth. >> all of the presidential elections i remember over the last, i don't know how many years entitlements come in invariably because somebody wants to cut them. >> chris christie started to talk about them and got beat to death and shut up about it after the first or second debate. >> when were you in the senate. >> 2001. >> w. -- designee came in afterward. >> w. said in his second term said i have earned political capital and i intend to spend that political capital on social security and no one did anything. >> bill clinton did the same thing. >> it's been bipartisan rejection. >> the problem is the president is term limited to two terms. for somebody who says i can't run again easy to take this issue on. my view sue have to assume that there's a plan in place and called the do nothing plan.

right now almost every be of congress and both presidential candidates support the do nothing plan. what that plan does according to the trustees is it cuts benefits in 18 years. in 18 years benefits get cut. if you're under the age of 40, they get cut a lot. >> next president will only be in office for max eight years. how do you engender a sense of urgency. >> up can't let people who support the do nothing plan to get away from the program do you support cuts in program. you have to say to secretary clinton and donald trump do you support cuts in the program. for anybody that is not going to be eligible for another 18 years those individuals are going to have big cuts in the program. you have to start asking them why do you supersnort anybody who comes up with a solution are going to either raise taxes or make adjustments in the benefits and they get the crap kicked out of them for proposing something. you have to go after people who

support do nothing and say why? >> you know what actual answer is. where do you come down. >> up have to do two things. you cans transfer your way out of this program. this is a transfer program. one of the i think bad things we say about social security all you're doing is getting out what you paid in. there's no trust fund. so you can't transfer your way out of the program. you have to have a parallel program that helps people of median income accumulate enough and convert their savings into income to supplement social security and then with social security itself it's the same old thing. first of all you need more growth. more growth you got easier to solve the problem. whatever the growth plan sue have to make some adjustments in benefits and have to make adjustments in the revenues. >> would you mean test? >> we already means test. i don't object to a means test because we have it in place. we're tracking social security benefits over certain income threshold. we have progress income tax.

you are already taxing it. if you look at most people say over $250,000 a year of income it's likely they are paying in a lot more -- >> you just suggested a private-sector complimentary account is that what you're talking about? >> one of the things you say -- >> you want to do that? >> that's what we're doing now. >> aren't you a democrat? what happened to you. >> who knows. that's a slippery slope. >> are you a democrat in today's world? >> in what? >> in today's world your a democrat? >> i was -- >> are you a socialist. >> no. no. >> you don't sign on to the current -- >> my own view is if members of congress knew how to allocate capital they wouldn't be in congress. >> when you talk about social security your specifically talking about just social security or entitlements more broadly because that's the other piece it that's not talked about

at all. >> i'm talking about entitlements as the whole. >> if you take the retirement entitlement the ones you get as a consequence of reaching an old age which both hillary and donald trump have reached, and they ought to be talking about it and feel guilty because they have income to supplement social security and very often young people don't. yes i'm talking about the larger problem and andrew, if you take the current spending just on social security long term care for medicaid and medicaid take that total spending and divide it by the number of employees by private-sector employees almost $20,000 a year. young people are getting doubly screwed. >> why saint higher priority for voters. >> you don't vote. i vote. you don't. i know how important these programs are. in large numbers old people vote. in low numbers young people vote. two kind of people in politics. there's people who can count and people who lose. when we start to count we count up the voters and look at the

elderly and know they are going to go vote. donald trump says i'm not going to make any changes and hillary wants to expand the program. relatively easy to make a promise to people who are going to vote in large numbers and then not disclose people will vote in relatively not small numbers that they are going get screwed. >> so many debates and public forums have been town hall formats. why haven't people been asking about it. >> part of it is people in the press have got to say that there is a plan. it's called the do nothing plan. hillary supports it. trump supports it. almost all 535 members of congress are original co-sponsors of the do nothing plan pup have to say okay what does that plan entail. what it entails is that in 18 years there will being significant cuts. with the average age of congress being over 60 it won't have an impact on them. won't affect hillary or trump. not going to affect congress very much because they have a retirement program as well. they have a revolving door that

jacks up their net worth. won't have an impact on people who support the do nothing plan. until the press puts pressure on these guys you're supporting a plan, here's what the do nothing plan does. >> there will be a lot of millennials voting this year. >> i hope there is. i hope it's approaching -- >> maybe they will think about the experience and qualify for something. may trite once you know what i mean. >> i'm not trying to whack millennials. if i'm organizing a campaign and you're the cain and you're a millennial. >> i am. >> if i'm running your campaign i'll tell you be careful about social security and medicare. don't tell the truth about social security and medicare because you're apt to lose. >> we'll ask the questions. >> thank you for being here. >> she wouldn't be younger than millennial. she might be older than a millennial. him not to sure -- meanwhile you are a dinosaur.

you jould -- should be injur in "jurassic world". >> don't change. coming. up, talk about tech, health care and media. linked in unveiling its next wave of list. dan roth shares the top name list. here's a quick check on what's happening in the european markets right now. >> announcer: coming up hedge fund titan leon cooperman gearing up for a big fight with regulators. the sec has charged him and his firm with insider trading. he'll tell us his side of the story at the top of the hour when he joins us right here on the set. it's an interview you don't want to miss. right here on "squawk box".

what's critical thinking like? a basketball costs $14. what's team spirit worth? (cheers) what's it worth to talk to your mom? what's the value of a walk in the woods? the value of capital is to create, not just wealth, but things that matter.

morgan stanley what's going on here? i'm val, the orange money retirement squirrel from voya. we're putting away acorns. you know, to show the importance of saving for the future. so you're sort of like a spokes person? more of a spokes metaphor. get organized at voya.com.

time now for the executive edge linkedin out with it's annual next wave list which features young professionals making waves in industries like tech media and health care. to break it down, dan roth executive editor at linked in. you guys have 450 million users.

>> that's right. >> how do you finds 100 or so? >> we use a lot of data to boil it down to 100. we're looking for things like what industries, who people in certain industries looking at most often. who are getting mentioned in the news. then we ask, we have an editorial overlay on dope of the data that ask ininfluenfluencer. one of the interesting things we found out people who made this list have 25 times the. a connections that most members have. these highly connected people who are clearly spending a lot of their time going out meeting other folks and because of that their profiles are getting noticed and making things happen. >> quick study of the list will make anyone feel unproductive just with their accomplishments, but these are people we've heard of before.

founder of impossible foods, people who are venture capital partners who sold companies to you per. were you trying to find people who would have some sort of headline value or trying to find people that were lesser known? >> exactly the opposite. most people on the list are not that well-known. there are a lot of people on here who are definitely under the radar. if you look at some of the industries. one example -- if you look at the larger trends one of the interesting parts is that there are a number of people who are in very unsexy markets, taking consumer tech and applying it. so a woman who is remaking the entire scrubs market and using fast fashion as a way to go after nurses and bring scrubs to them, her company is doing phenomenally well. this guy-upas clevela, jonas cls walking through halls of walmart at night and looking at inventory. these are behind the scene kind of things happening that are using the tech that we've seen

in our every day life and applying it way down the value chain. >> in five years from now is there like a next elon musk on the list? is there one person you want to highlight. >> i'm not sure who that person would be. there's a number of people all of us will end up working for at some point. there's a woman at google, very interesting who is work on things like how to use a.i. to take on tropical comments. and she's also looking at ways to use isis recruitment techniques and reverse them. basically when people come on to tube and seeking isis recruitment they find google produced anti-isis videos. so she's using marketing, a.i., youtube as a way to reverse it. >> can i ask you what's a linkedin still question. in term of the metrics, how connected are people, how much they are using the system. there are these people who are

like professional social networkers you know what i mean. they seem to spend all their day, i don't know how they have the time to do whatever their technical job is. they used to have a great title. you know what i'm talk about. you with me? how does that happen. >> first of all we did look how connected people are. that's not one of the things we were measuring. it turned out to be important. what we were looking at much more if you're in an industry whose profiles are you looking at. basically if you're in the automotive industry who are the people in the automotive industry who other people are looking for. who are the recruiters are trying to chase. >> i'm not sure about that google thing with isis. what if somebody searches republican principles and then immediately directed to -- google already does this. here's a better way. or if you search trump and it comes up let's talk about hillary. this might be a better thing.

google -- they already do that. they aggregate things that -- facebook too that shows their political leanings. >> the question is who is going to become the next elon musk. >> who will get the biggest govs for their company? >> that's not what i meant. >> why is 35 the age cutoff for this? we just heard from bob that millennials aren't voting and don't care about the important issues. >> he didn't even tell us the way he really feels. >> to find people who will be the next elon musk. who are going to lead big movements. we want to try to identify them now before they become these leaders. this isn't a way to say these are incredibly successful people. what we want are these are people to keep an eye on if you're hiring, if you want to work for someone. if you want to have someone in your company leading some big thing going on. check out these names.

>> where can people find the next wave list? >> go to linkedin. you'll see it in your feed. and we are -- search for the #linkedinnetwave. >> thank you for coming in. coming up when we return, my favorite food. lobster. prices hitting an 11-year high. and we will tell you why when we return. mary buys a little lamb. one of millions of orders on this company's servers. accessible by thousands of suppliers and employees globally. but with cyber threats on the rise, mary's data could be under attack. with the help of at&t,

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welcome back to "squawk box." lobster prices hitting an 11-year high all thanks to the lobster roll phenomenon. the growing popularity burger and lobster chain is driving the demand. according to earner barry, the wholesale price of lobster is at $6 a pound and that's up 3 -- from $3.70 back in 2009 which is not that much, is it? sorkin? $6 a pound? >> they put so much lobser in the rolls.

couldn't they put a little less lobster in the rolls? >> more butter, less lobster. >> they're charging you also for the shell too. >> sometimes the meat isn't as good. sometimes it can be tougher. so you kind of don't want a massive lobster. >> i'm just saying the weight of the average loxer. >> solving the important issues of our time. >> like a steak nowadays is really expensive. >> you like it precracked or not? >> oh, yeah. i'd rather have it ready to go. just there. taken out. you like taking it out of the claws and stuff. >> i don't. >> you like it done. >> yeah. coming up, cooperman fighting with regulators. he'll join us later on. switch. sprint? i'm hearing good things about the network. all the networks are great now. we're talking within a 1% difference in reliability of each other. and, sprint saves you 50% on most current national carrier rates.

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live from the beating heart of business, new york city, this is "squawk box." welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc. i'm joe kernen along with andrew ross sorkin and kayla tausche. the dow is now down a little over seven. and the nasdaq is going back and forth. as you can see unless you are on sirius. but it was just down a couple of ticks. now up a couple of ticks. there's crude which is still above 50 but down almost 1% today for west texas. here's what's making headlines in the business world this morning. samsung has halted production of its troubled galaxy note 7 smartphone. we're hearing the halt is

permanent. the massive recall of the phones could cost the company as much as $17 billion. small business optimism declined slightly in september. the monthly index fell to 94.1 in september from 94.4 in august. however, there was a surge in the number of business owners who expect better conditions in the next six months. and we're expecting alcoa to report earnings later this hour. should show profit of 35 cents per share on revenue of $5.3 billion. that's according to consensus. it will be alcoa's last quarterly report before it splits into two companies which is still on track. yesterday we heard from verizon ceo on the samsung phone debacle. here's what he said. >> this is by far the biggest concern i've seen in cell phones during my tenure. they're a little surprised that

the fix didn't fix things. so it's a major black eye for them. but at the end of the day, they'll recover. from samsung to yahoo, mcadam also commenting on the recent data breach where the information from 500 million yahoo users was stolen. >> not that shocked. i think we all -- you all live in the internet world. it's not a question of if you're going to get hacked. it's when you're going to get hacked. >> verizon's chief also gained insight into the investigation of the hack saying the firm is 50% to 60% done with a probe of the issue. in another corporate news, a twitter search for its next step, jack dorsey sending an internal memo to twitter employees defining the company as a people's news network. the firm has struggled to define its core purpose and has made

more of a push into news and sports. the memo didn't address the sales process, but dorsey called on employees to help the firm strive to be the first place people check to see what's happening. and i don't know. people's -- when you start anything with people's, it sounds like -- >> china? >> yeah. it sounds communistic to me. like workers unite. >> one of the only countries where they are not. >> right. and so i don't know how that applies to the twitter or not. so there's a way for me just to get a news feed. >> no, no. you can get a news feed of verified users. so you're only looking at people who have the little blue check mark next to them and the likelihood of them being trolls, if you will, is much less. >> and it's an art to actually send out tweets too. that's just, like, a huge -- as we know. we've seen so many instances. i watched you do it. you barely retweet something once in awhile.

you never do any of the -- you know, you're not there every waking thought putting out there. that's dangerous. you're asking for trouble. >> why would you do that? >> right. plus you can get a twi. tweeting while intoxicated. that can also happen on a friday or your case, any day of the week, maybe. right? you're out developing sources going to dinner and stuff like that. you might have a glass of wine. >> we have not talked about this. because of this show actually during the weekday virtually never. it's too hard. >> people still say that to me. you know, my job really isn't -- you're not really conducive to drinking on a weekday. >> when you start drinking at 10: 10:00. >> i get off early. as long as i stop before 3:00 in the afternoon. >> your bedtime. >> exactly. we got some news on the soap opera that is theranos this morning. a hedge fund is suing theranos

accusing the blood testing company of using fraudulent methods to attract millions of dollars in investments. it says theranos lied about its work concealing the truth about its commercial viability. the company says they will fight it vigorously. last week theranos announced it would close its labs and wellness centers and cut 40% of its workforce. les moonves planning to seek autonomy from the redstone family. the redstones are the broadcasters' controlling shareholder. but a potential merger between cbs and viacom, moonves is seeking to gain as much power as possible. i'm sure he's in the driver's seat on this too. the term they are negotiating with national amusements which is the redstone family's holding company are not clear yet. as i said, he's -- i think they need him more than he needs them, probably.

he's never really had a hiccup. he's got this rep as being really good. >> although interestingly the two executives of viacom and cbs were oftentimes at the top of all the ceo pay scales. so is he going to be making double if he runs both companies? >> well, maybe. i don't know. >> he'll be up there. >> he'll be up there. >> he will be. >> he does pretty well for himself. >> was it either bill carter's or the other guy, either one you read about moonves and he does seem to have like a midas -- >> no, he has magic hands. >> william peterson who was the big -- i'm dating myself. was he csi originally? so had him for like five years paying him not to do something else because he knew something else was going to come along. then that comes along and it was a huge show for ten years or whatever. can spot talent and concepts.

>> does it all. >> you know, i've -- i yank his chain. "survivor" really? who's watching that? "survivor 38." >> it's working. >> that's a sad commentary. another "big brother"? how crazy do you have to find people to stick in that house now to find another "big brother." those walls are closing in. >> thursday night football. >> i'm not talking about that. we have thursday night football, by the way. >> with cbs. >> i don't like to think about them. okay. onto another business topic this morning. coca-cola buying stake in africa's largest coke bottler. that's following inbev -- coke will negotiate terms of the deal in the coming months. >> like jeff probst is making $20 million. >> this did --

>> areally? >> god bless america. >> so if it's entertainment, you're okay with that money. it's ceos you don't like it. >> the marketplace. >> all right. and marathon petroleum is suing bp for breach of contract in sale of a texas refinery. marathon took over in 2013 and claims it immediately began finding problems in violation. yum brands meeting with investors as it gets ready to split off. susan, good morning. >> good morning to you. you know, yum has had a long presence in china being the first restaurant to open up in china back in 1987 with its first store front. and just for historical context,

you know, yum is to china what mcdonald's was to the soviet union in the 1980s. that is giving a communist country a taste of capitalism. you want to fast forward 29 years and yum china still has dominant market share at over 23%. that market share continues to shrink each and every year. and the china business, well, it's volatile. you saw in the recent earnings report missing badly to what they're calling negative sentiment stemming from the ruling of the south china sea against china. and also past food safety concerns has also hurt yum sales as well. that's kind of the reason why activist investors in yum are looking for this spinoff. they want to isolate the volatile, unpredictable from the rest of yum. so investors and analysts want some clarity on the china business. they want clarity on financials. they want to talk about strategy going forward especially if same store sales haven't recovered.

we are expecting the spinoff to take place on november the 1st on the new york stock exchange. analysts i spoke to, they also want some clarity on pricing. expects yum china to be priced at $33. that represents maybe 21 so it's not cheap. also looking at yum itself to be priced at $64 and change. programming note for you, you're going to get more clarity on cnbc with an exclusive with yum china ceo micky pant. >> all right. when we return on "squawk box," oil and earnings set to take center stage on wall street. we'll talk with drew mattis. the dow has made its way into the green. "squawk" will be right back.

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welcome back to "squawk box" this morning. oil prices close to a one-year high on an expected outlook guidance. steve sedgwick is at a conference in istanbul and joins us with more. steve? >> reporter: yeah, good morning to you. very interesting you should say rather than at the high. they hit the high yesterday on the back of comment from the saudi oil minister. then later on really accelerated with brent above 53 bucks on the back of comments from mr. putin. mr. putin the russian president

said russia could join in any output freeze if, indeed, opec were to get its act together. that was a big if. perhaps now maybe the second most powerful man in russia, that's igor sechin on the front says we're not getting involved in this. why should we? we're not going to join any freeze. actually going to cut as well. what has that done to markets? it's taken a little bit of the froth out of the market. of course if igor is saying one thing ear vladimir putin is saying another, what is the russian policy if opec is to act? of course opec's pretty much now on countdown to the key meeting on the 30th of november to see whether they are going to cut at all. i also spoke to the vp of look oil. another massive producer in russia as well. i said look, sechin's saying one thing and mr. putin is saying

another. he said if mr. putin is saying we will freeze and cut, we will freeze and cut. so the water being very muddy. i'm going to speak to the panel and try to get to the bottom of this as well. but the truth is we're not going to see balance in this market unless we see some form of aggressive action from the opec group. and he was telling me that the fact of the matter is you've got 3 billion barrels of stockpiles out there. they came up just a little bit in the most recent monthly report. but stockpiles are huge and it would take a shift in production from someone, from somewhere in order to get those stockpiles down. and find some form of equilibrium. it's great hearing what they have to say. great for oil traders too. back to you. >> what a delicious mix. thank you, steve. delicious. i like that. oil and earnings taking center stage on wall street.

we'll hear from alcoa in a few minutes. a lot of times that's the beginning of the trade. out of all the things we talk about, drew, which do you think starts taking precedence? will it be earnings? that sort of micro. will it be macro gdp data or the fed? >> well, i mean, i think the market's pretty short-term focus. so i think it'll be earnings for now. well, they'll try to look at the election. i don't think anyone understands how they'll look at it. i think the earnings numbers are important because everyone's looking at it and obviously, you know, as multiples go up and up and up and there's an earnings miss, you have a bigger multiple to miss off of. so you get a little bit more there. i think at the end of the month, we'll shift back to the macro. people will start focusing on the fed report. the beginning of the next month. the fed meeting beginning of next month. and then think about rate hikes again.

>> yeah. and, you know, we're diverging from the rest of the world obviously. but it feels they're coming along a little bit with us. i think germany is positive now. and maybe nirp starts to fade a little bit or are they still full bore over there? and if they're full bore, it ties up the feds' hands. >> it's been a positive development to see people try things and have in it not work. right? >> you're talking about the fed? >> the fed, other central banks. >> you were talking about that. >> i think what you're finding is people are beginning to question the efficacy of zero rate policies. i think that's healthy. because we've been sitting here for years waiting for it to work and it hasn't. and it took a long time for anyone to actually raise -- >> people think it has worked. >> you know, if this is working, then we have to reset the definition of what doesn't work. >> people almost view that in a political prism now too. 15 million jobs, blah blah.

>> two years ago we wrote the zero rates are holding back the u.s. economy. i still think the zero rates are holding back the u.s. economy. low rates are not helpful. when you look at a low rate environment, it goes up doesn't go down. if you want to lower savings and boost growth, you actually raise interest rates a little bit. >> you're not a stock market guy, but we hit 18,000 a couple years ago. you know, we're a little bit above it right now. is it on an upward some day before we go down? we don't go down after the fed gets out, we don't all of a sudden give back recent gains, do we? and head back down? we go above 20,000 in the next five years. >> so, i'll twist it to this. there's no reason for this cycle to be ending. there's no time clock on the cycle. so we can have a very long cycle. and that's probably the number one question we get asked by clients is where in the economic cycle are we? where in the cycle? how close are we to a recession? and the answer is we've got low

growth but it's stable growth. so we're nowhere close to a recession at this point. >> is the recession that came when inflation was so low and rates were -- economic activity was so tepid? don't they usually get overheated -- >> we usually do get overheated. that's interesting. if you look at the last couple of recessions we've had, the number of things that had to go wrong simultaneously to push us into recession. 2001 was a terror attack and a stock market crash. 2008 was the near collapse of the financial system. so it's taking more and more to push us into a recession. because we're not a manufacturing economy anymore. we don't have the inventory booms and bust cycles. >> vl it a situation to go in -- >> this time is different for real? >> no, no. this time it's like recent times than it was like the far past which is when all the textbooks were written. >> probably coming next month.

>> but is it a recession or is it something deeper? i mean, is there a true crisis? that we're looking at? >> i don't think we're looking at a true crisis. i mean, the problem with what we're in now is that zero rates create all kinds of reasons to defer decision making. and to defer creative destruction. and so we're not seeing bad firms fail. we're not seeing people feel like they have to make the investment now or some other company will make it. there's no pressure on anyone to do anything because interest rates are the value of time. >> i don't know if you saw this interview. because i want to talk about the pound. pound trading near recent lows at the moment. here's how larry summers sees the currency right now. >> i think it's like a fever. it's a sign of serious problems associated with the brexit

strategy. but given the brexit strategy and the new reality, the pound will do a useful thing by stimulating british exports and encouraging some substitution from foreign producers to british producers in terms of imports. >> that was at the conference yesterday. i apologize for that. but what do you make thoof? >> i think it's interesting everyone's focused on how you can get something else from some other country which is what currency appreciation is all about. and it's actually what negative rates are all about. if you want to think about negative rates. the best way i feel to think of negative rates is to think of them as tariffs. so everyone tries to kind of get their rates lower so you increase your difference. you might keep it where it is and put up a tariff. i think you'll end up with the same result. >> but not going to go negative. he wants to preserve bank profits. and the ftse is up 14%.

it's the best developed market stock index in the world. >> yes, because you're not going to make the mistake of going into negative rates. i think negative rates are seen as not being good for an economy. and once you get, it's difficult to get off of zero. and one of the things that i think, you know, the bank did well during the crisis was they started quantitative easing before rates got too low. if you think about the velocity of money, right? velocity is a function of interest rates. if interest rates are higher, the velocity of money are higher. if we take interest rates to zero and pump all the money into the banking system, that money effectively has no velocity to it and is less powerful than money that would have tran mitt. >> all right, drew. thanks. >> thank you. coming up, the presidential candidates are back on the campaign trail after a bruising battle on sunday night. we're going to hear from a trump supporter in just a bit about

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welcome back to "squawk box" on cnbc. google is hiring writers to be part of their digital assistant. to differentiate the products from rivals like amazon's echo. the writers will be creating dialogue to make it friendlier and funnier. at least that's the hope. the device goes on sale november 4th. tiger woods is delaying his come back to the pga tour once again. he is pulling out of this weekend's safeway open. woods says his health is good but his game isn't where it needs to be. and lobster prices hitting an 11-year high all thanks to the lobster roll phenomenon. the growing popularity of burg enand lobster surf and turf chains are creating the demand. the wholesale price of lobster is at $6 a pound. that's up from $3.70 back in 2009.

coming up on "squawk box," the unofficial start to earnings season. alcoa will kick things off. results expected in just minutes. stock up about 6% year to date. will the company's plan to split pay off for investors? we'll discuss. we'll be right back. one of millions of orders on this company's servers. accessible by thousands of suppliers and employees globally. but with cyber threats on the rise, mary's data could be under attack. with the help of at&t, and security that senses and mitigates cyber threats, their critical data is safer than ever. giving them the agility to be open & secure. because no one knows & like at&t.

among the stories front and center, samsung has permanently halted production of its troubled galaxy note 7 smartphone. a massive recall and attempt at a replacement program could cost the company as much as $17 billion. rome drops its bid to host the 2024 olympic games. it comes after they voted last month to withdraw support. the remaining cities in contention? los angeles, paris, and budapest. ratings fell off from the first debate to the second

debate. the third debate is set for october 19th. twitter dropping more than 11% on monday as investors question whether the social networking company will receive any takeover bids at all. late in the day reuters reported that salesforce may be interested in buying the company. maybe that makes it more likely. joining us now to talk more twitter is ellie wheeler. good morning to you. >> good morning. >> what do you think? >> it's interesting times. i mean, it seems they aren't getting a lot of bidders at $15 billion. >> the more the price comes down, is there a better chance something happening? >> sure, but do you think both the company as well as the shareholders' expectation for price just change that quickly? i don't think it is. >> what does the ipo price mean? $26 a share, it's well below that. does that mean anything to the shareholder? >> i mean, they can try to get there, but i think that will be a long road. it's just a different time.

company's in a different place. there were expectations set out then that i think you could have a nice argument as to whether they've been achieved. >> okay so was it a mistake to start the process? clearly they get an income probably from mark benneoff first. who lost out on linkedin. as a result of that, other calls go out. google shows up on the scene. i don't know if you think the disney meetings were a courtesy or whether they were really interested. and now this whole expectation is set and how do you then reset -- if the company doesn't get sold -- >> right. that's the tricky part. >> not just for the consumer because the consumer may not care on a day-to-day basis. >> most don't. >> but it's an employee story. it's a story for advertisers. it's a story for the client. everybody else around it. >> uh-huh. was it a mistake to go out? probably not.

you've got a fiduciary duty to do it. they've already been getting a bunch of inbound pressure from shareholders. there's been a lot of discuss there. i think you have to do that. clearly they decided that there was merit to it. and then on the second part, what happens when they don't get bids? that sent to employees i think it was last week. you're going to need a strong and compelling strategy. you can't go out again in three months. so this is a -- we're going to build this. >> what could it be -- >> it's a major milestone. they're going to have to have a plan for something more interesting for two years. or longer, hopefully. but it can't be small things. and there might be some leadership shakeup. who knows. >> can it exist as an independent company? >> well it's existing as an independent company. >> but look at the money burn.

this is a company burning a lot of money. >> yep. and part of the story is how do they do something meaningful productwise and strategywise and also get to profitability? if investors believe that straty, it's different. >> do you have a strategy you want to tell him about. you know, obviously it's not a simple fixture. they would have done it. >> the occasion for the memo, though, was one year, or the one-year anniversary since dorsey fushlly became ceo. the product has had some new additions but it hasn't really changed at all. he was supposed to be the product visionary that was going to come in with a clear head and a clear vision and completely clean up the twitter we use. why didn't that happen? >> i think that's right and perhaps what it is is they need fresh flood. in terms of just a totally different take. you know, such a cliche, but there are no sacred cows in that kind of blow things up that were potentially -- in the mantra of

what twitter is. maybe that's what twitter is to a smaller group of people. perhaps it needs to be something else. you've got to address how new users can get on the platform, stay on the platform, and engage in the platform in the same way that the early adopters set who's been doing it from day one is able to do. it's just two different worlds right now. >> maybe you don't need -- i don't know. maybe it's never going to be a moneymaker. i don't know. >> i think there's really an asset there. >> an asset or something that needs monetized? >> will it ultimately be a more valuable asset under somebody else's banner? maybe. >> do you agree the idea of broad band bringing in nfl licensing for example. some of the other tv networks? try to use it in that way? >> i think they should be thinking like that. i think it's smart. i think they should be pushing on things like that. >> we're talking about employees before and managing not just for the outside but for the inside. this from a "new york times"

story, this little nugget says that certain twitter employees are not showing up for work. rank and file staff members are frustrated about being in the dark and a handful of employees have stopped showing up for work entirely. >> that sounds like entitled crazy. you're a rank and file employee and you're expecting to be party to what's going on in the board room? no. i don't make much of that. that's probably -- i don't think it's probably anything. >> how do you fix morale? is there a point of no return? >> that's the trickiest part of going out in a public process and having that not be something. that's why there needs to be something to rally around. and that it's going to take 18 months to get there. >> are they going to have to pay out more stock to employees. they can't possibly afford that. >> different question. given that one of the things you

do is oftentimes find ceos to run companies. if you felt like you had to replace jack dorsey, who would you put in that spot? >> that's a good question. i don't have a list for you. but i mean, i don't think it's a twitter alumni. that's my point. i think you need somebody outside. it's a tricky one which you saw when they talked about the last transition. you know, someone who was a little bit more focused on monetization versus the visionary. are you talking -- is it fanciful to think you can find somebody who has both? i don't know. i think that probably exists. i don't know exactly how. >> do you use that word? >> what's that? >> has a hankering to -- i looked it up. it's not a hill billy word. but you were in ohio. >> right. columbus, yes. >> have you used hankering before? just when you said it i thought wow, he was in ohio.

would you say i'm fixing to go do something? >> no. >> would you say i reckon -- >> i might. >> well, you're from georgia. >> i don't know. >> but the whole ohio thing, i think you're kind of wrong. what was it like in a flyover state? was it like what you thought it would be? >> i've been there before. so it's not a flyover state for me. >> that benneoff guy's got a hankering for twitter. i was like, andrew? i don't think it is -- >> the term flyover state is not a compliment. that's not a word people in the states like to use. >> i'm channelling him. >> he thinks that basically i'm here and then los angeles or san francisco. >> what else is there? >> the service on united is all i know about. the mint service on jetblue. >> i was so happy you were in ohio for awhile. i noticed a difference. i do. more earthy. >> i'm trying to -- nice to see you. >> yeah. >> forget apparently i don't

even use commercial flights so i shouldn't talk about that. >> we're fixing to go to break. >> ellie, thank you. always good to see you. >> hankering to get money in here. when we're fixing to return, we hit the campaign trail with a ceo who has given more than $2 million to republican candidates this election cycle alone. his thoughts on donald trump and the run for the white house. and later, leon cooperman joins us to talk markets, politics, and his battle with the government over insider trading charges. "squawk box" will be right back. a basketball costs $14. what's team spirit worth? (cheers) what's it worth to talk to your mom? what's the value of a walk in the woods? the value of capital is to create, not just wealth, but things that matter. morgan stanley

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♪ welcome back to "squawk box." we got a hankering for news. let's tell you about the futures right now. we've got a market that looks like it's in the red but just marginally. dow would open off three points. s&p about 2.50 points. and if you're a tech-heavy guy, the nasdaq four points out. both candidates hit the campaign trail again after sunday's bruising debate targeting two crucial swing states. hillary clinton rallied in michigan and donald trump stumped in pennsylvania.

let's bring in salab kumar, a supporter of donald trump. mr. kumar, thanks so much for being here. >> nice to be here. thank you. >> what is the -- either the candidate or and what the candidate expresses his policies makes you a supporter? >> he is a businessman. >> yes. >> and it makes a lot of sense when he talks business. for example, fiscal discipline. everybody talks about reducing debt. $20 trillion debt. talk about cutting spending. they mean something else. you know, you couldn't project it could be 6% and you cut it by 2%.

increasing spending by 4% and you call it savings that you are cutting down debt. as a businessman, what businessman is there on the face of this earth who in crisis cannot cut 10%? in spending. so budget deficit or deficit spending which in a normal europe also, 2% of gdp is considered to be okay. >> i don't know if andrew will have this question. i'll ask it not for him. but the response would be that you compare the two plans. and donald trump would be combining the tax cuts with the military spending and some of the other things. and you actually end up adding more to the deficit than the way hillary clinton's plan is scored. >> not talking about cutting spending.

>> no. i see he's talking about making government efficient. >> well, that's -- so you would have faith a business manman businessman knows -- >> this is just -- the politicians just talk about shifting from this bucket to this bucket. and spending so much in revenue to be so much but they don't understand -- >> where have you read that or heard him say that he plans to cut spending? >> he is said to me that he's going to make the government efficient. >> maybe not overall spending but he's talking about looking for waste. >> a trillion dollars over a decade would come from cuts in spending. this is according to the plan he released a few weeks ago. but about $6 trillion in additional revenues would come from energy companies that would grow more quickly. and pay more taxes. do you worry that's a chicken and egg problem?

that if you pay for things based on growth, that those aren't sure revenues for the government? >> look, the growth in revenue is going to come from growth in the economy. so if you grow the economy. because everybody is going to do better. >> there are some other issues. you had initially, i'm sure -- i'm reading here that there were, the immigration issue. you were board in india, i believe. to support donald trump or he allayed your fears about, you know, there's a picture painted by obviously his opponents that maybe conflate immigration and illegal immigration many times with donald trump. you're comfortable with him as a candidate on that issue? >> at this point, i am.

there was a point in time initially a lot of businessmen from the indian american, hindu american community, they liked what he had to say and just basically believed he would be better off running the country at least for four years or eight years. and maybe he needs to set an example and get out. but there was a question in our minds because from some of the talk and the way the media talks that perhaps he may be tough on any immigrant. that was the first question i asked. for illegal immigration. and there is no concern about that. that is he really wants over the past weekend. >> politicians. >> one word. that would be a pretty good answer. >> fair enough.

he has a view and i wanted to hear it. >> have you had pushback from any of the friends, associates that they say how can you be like this. you know, what's the response? or is everybody saying i'm with you, i agree with you on this. he's got a tough sell for certain demos, i would think, right? >> yeah. it's not you would be embarrassed like if you -- if i did something like that. this is embarrassment. he said that he's embarrassed. >> yeah, the tape. >> that's what i'm talking about. i assumed that's what you were talking about. but, you know, that's just talk. and -- >> so your industrialist roots are probably -- you know,

there's a lot of single issue voters around. take your pick on whatever the issue. but your industrialist background is probably the most important factor you're considering here on how you think he'd be a better guy running the country for you. >> not just the industrial, not just the business side. also his stand on a firm foreign policy. his stand is more like reagan. you know, reagan in the early 80s, from that time frame, everybody talked that he is a crazy actor. and he's going to destroy the world. >> i remember it well. yeah. >> what about the comments about putin, his relationship with putin, his relationship with russia? support for russia? >> it's not support for russia. i mean, he has said that he doesn't really know the inside of how it functions, how inside russia functions. i mean, he's just assuming and she's saying that, hey, i want

an open mind. i want to see what can be done. >> i've seen it written, wow, why don't we get along with the other major nuclear superpower. why don't we try to get along? what a concept? >> no, no -- >> it might make sense to work together on things rather than -- but -- >> if you thought it was possible, it would be great. >> it's something to explore. maybe right now the -- a war has been declared on us. that's isis. >> you're proposing a reset. what a concept? i think we tried that with hillary clinton. anyway, mr. kumar, thank you. we appreciate you coming in and sharing this with us. >> thanks. coming up when we return, the doctor is in. a health care start-up wants to take an unsick day. we'll talk about that. and take a look at alcoa. missed estimates by 3 cents. we're going to talk about that

when "squawk" returns in just a moment. coming up, hedge fund tighten leon cooperman gearing up for a big fight with regulators. the s.e.c. has charged him and his firm with insider trading. he'll tell us his side of the story at the top of the hour when he joins us here on the set. it's an interview you don't want to miss. right here on "squawk box." all the networks are great now. we're talking within a 1% difference in reliability of each other. and, sprint saves you 50% on most current national carrier rates. save money on your phone bill, invest it in your small business. wouldn't you love more customers? i would definitely love some new customers. sprint will help you add customers and cut your costs. switch your business to sprint and save 50% on most current verizon, at&t and t-mobile rates. don't let a 1% difference cost you twice as much. whoooo! for people with hearing loss, visit sprintrelay.com.

ever avoided scheduling a

doctor's appointment because of work commitments? you're not alone. new data from zocdock. the company has now offered its employees one additional unsick day. a day off to attend to preventive medical care. oliver curaz is the ceo of zocdock. didn't we used to just call these personal days? >> we used to. but the problem with that is we end up not taking them for preventive care. we need dedicated time off when we go to the doctor before we get sick to stay healthy. >> the hard thing, though, is in addition to your annual physical, there's so many things to keep up with me whether it's a dermatologist or a sexual health appointment. there's so many things to schedule you can rarely get them on the same day. does having just one day actually help? had. >> so, what we target with unsick day is much more the

cultural awareness. there's a conflict between work and health going on. people don't feel comfortable to see the doctor, get those annual checkups to find high cholesterol, high blood pressure, take care of it before you get sick. that's what we're tackling. >> i had this issue but i'm in the news business. you can't predict when news comes up. when i started in television that i couldn't take a dentist appointment i could keep. my dentist i said eventually i need to be able to do this in a more last-minute way. do workers at handy, do they need something formal like this to actually go out and do it? >> i think a lot of it is cultural. we've got a young employee base. the average age at handy is 29. we've got a responsibility on how to set a cultural awareness for this so it's easy for people to have those conversations with their boss. i need to take time off for it to be okay.

for our contractors, it's a harder problem to solve. >> how much does it cost a company, a company that isn't majority independent contract s contractors. >> i think it's a net positive for the company. you can see the companies already value their employees' health. all insurance plans have the preventive for free. because there's this cultural barrier that keeps people from taking advantage of it. so this is where the leadership task comes in. to actually send the signal there's permission to use these programs and take time off. >> there have been other companies, though, like concierge medical service that popped up to give people more realtime last-minute health care services. is this a way for zocdoc to get

in there? >> what we realize actually look at our own day da ta is only one of three of our employees took care. >> have either of you guys taken your unsick day? >> i have skenled it. >> how many times a year do you get sick? >> i'm sure my employees are going to be happy i'm out of the office that day. >> thanks, guys. >> appreciate it. >> thank you. coming up, leon cooperman joins us to talk politics and his battle with the government over insider trading charges. "squawk box" continues a after a break. digital innovations; from self-monitoring devices that can interpret personal data and enable targeted care, to cloud platforms that invite providers to collaborate with the patients they serve. that's why over 90% of the top 25 global pharmaceutical companies are turning to cognizant. our domain experts, technologists, digital and data specialists,

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face-to-face with hedge fund manager and billionaire leon cooperman. we'll talk market moves, the election, and his battle over insider trading charges. he'll join us for the entire hour. >> your money, your vote. a new poll giving hillary clinton a double digit lead. one of the biggest donors will tell us why he's doubling down on the candidates. plus galaxy gone bad. samsung halting the production of the phone. what it could mean for apple

coming up. the final hour of "squawk box" next. ♪ live from the most powerful city in the world, new york, this is "squawk box." >> welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc. i'm joe kernen along with andrew ross sorkin and kayla tausche in for becky. you're here all week? >> no. >> but friday. >> yeah. >> and maybe next week. maybe the week after that. the futures -- we're all benefitting from that. glad to have you. the futures indicated down. they were up briefly. alcoa's not a dow component, but with aluminum prices turning higher, they haven't posted earnings above the year ago quarter for five straight quarters? finally i think 32 cents is the real number. they were looking for 35 and i think the stock might be down. >> but then the question is of

the analyst are they right? they met their own guidance. >> first quarter in five quarters that they posted more than a year ago. >> a guide who has discounted. >> what a change. good to have you. we'll talk to you in a second. there's alcoa. down $1.86. that is not why the dow is down. because they finally got that thing out of the dow. didn't he? they did, yeah. finally. >> before that. >> anyway, look at the european equity markets right now which has been sort of flat for most of the session. and then we'll move on to some of the other headlines. okay. let's tell you about some of the big headlines this morning. samsung permanently halting production of its galaxy note 7 smartphone. the massive recall could cost the company as much as $17 billion. you're looking at that stock now

down about 8% this morning. also yum shares trading higher right now. following details on how to drive growth following the spinoff of yum china. take a look at that stock right now. our special guest for the next hour is leon cooperman. last month the s.e.c. announced charges of insider trading against him and his firm. the agency is looking at trading dating back to 2010 and atlas pipeline partners and lee who has said this is bogus, right? that's, i believe -- >> totally unjustified. >> totally unjustified. he joins us right now and we understand that you have a statement about all of this. i have to say, first of all, thank you for coming in. >> my pleasure. thanks for the opportunity to be here. >> and the reason i say that is because most people who are under -- who have been charged with something like this don't come on television. i'm happy to talk to you about

this. >> good. very limited amount that i could say under wraps by the attorneys. probably not happy that i'm here now. but this is my personality. i'm not a reader, but i like to just kind of make a brief statement which is less than what i would have liked to have made. i'm here to discuss my views on the market and related topics and not my legal trials. but i appreciate the opportunity you give me to make the statement. omega and i have always followed the law. anyone who understands the law would know it was built on complying with the law. we could have settled with the s.e.c. for the amount that is far less than i donate to charity on an annual basis but i refuse to do so because i know we acted appropriately. not one penny for tribute. very dangerous statement to make to your lawyers, by the way.

i found that to be the case. it took me 50 years of hard work, very long hours. playing by the rules to get where i am professionally. and i'm not going to let them unfairly destroy my legacy. the money is not an issue. we've discussed this in the past. as you might know, i've taken the buffett/gates giving pledge. i intend to contribute all my net worth back to society. i was impressed by the words of picasso saying the meaning of life is to find your gift and the purpose of life is to give it away. this kid in my first generation to get a college degree. got lucky, worked hard. was rewarded beyond anything that's reasonable. and i want to give it back. and the damage this has done has dramatically. affected my firm. i feel sorry for them. i'm a big boy. i can handle myself. i've been very much a gratified

by the outpouring of support i've gotten. a couple hundred e-mails. some of which i'll give you at the end of the show. i don't read them here because we don't have the time. job one and most important is i have to perform appropriately for my investors. and thankfully despite this mild distraction, we're doing well. omega credit funds up 13%, 14% this year. our equity only funds up 7% this year. and job number two is basically convince a injury of my peers there is no case here. >> can you walk us through the process in deciding to fight the government? who do you talk to about this? >> well, you know, you have your own genetic makeup. a guy i have enormous respect for who is or your show a lot. he's a man so i respect him.

ken langone. and ken called me up two and a half mornts ago when this broke and said i've known you for 40 years. i've been an investor with you for over a decade. i know what you stand for. alls i can tell you, the best $30 million i ever spent was the $30 million i spent defending myself against eliot spitzer. if you've done nothing wrong, don't give these guys a dime. that's my philosophy. and it's going to cost my substantially more. i could have settled with them for about less than half of what i give to charity annually. what gets me the most about the whole thing is my family has created this cooperman come scholars. if you have financial need unmet by government, i'll get you through a college degree. we have 500 kids we want to send to college. i'm prepared to boost it if it works. the problem with the statistics are i think roughly a third of

35% of newer high school graduate gos to college, only 5% graduate. this is life changing. what i'm spending on this legal thing, i could triple the number spent to college. >> how is the cooperman dynamic right now? >> no, no, look. the press has been crazy. i don't want to talk about the case specifics because you don't want to give me three or four hours. there's no case here. i am the largest investor with my son's fund. i have respect for him. he's extremely talented. he was short the stock. i'm his largest investor. he complained because there was unusual activity in options and he thought somebody knew something and he complained. he didn't throw me under the bus or do anything. we love each other. but basically i'm his largest investor. okay? if i have inside information, why is he possibly short the stock.

we covered our short options. we never went long. but i don't want to go there. i don't want to piss off my attorneys. >> let me ask one question. >> you have more than one. >> i'll keep it broad. when an investor is in contact with management of any sort, should that make the investor effectively restricted? to the extent the investor is -- >> well, now you're altering your question. you're altering your question. i'm going to read you something. like i said, i got 200 e-mails. i didn't skbend to go here but i want to defend myself. i have got an e-mail from a man with no business connection. he said upsetting to see our tax dollars at work in nonsense cases like this. i'm not just saying that. i read the complaint. if there's a case against you, every analyst in this business may have to lock themselves in a

windowless room, never take a management meeting again, never override a position, never share views in stock with another investor. i'm glad you're defending yourself so vigorously. not just to protect your legacy but also in a way to represent any diligent fund manager can face. it's scary. information is not a crime. it's incumbent upon the company. when i visit a company, i say listen don't disenfranchise me, if i ask you a question that is sharper than anybody's question. give me an answer. but if it was a question you don't want to answer to anybody, don't give me the answer. what i look for is insight. not inside information. period, paf graph. the whole world is turned upside down. there was an editorial that said information is not a crime. we deal in information. we call on companies.

market shear, profit margins, or manager. you look management in the eye and ask them questions. >> here's the complicated part in terms of the public perception. the perception is my mother who's at home, if she wants to trade in the stock market, she should have the same information that's available to somebody like you. but you would get to meet with management. my mother wouldn't get to meet with management. >> she's probably better off. then the question becomes what's material and what's not? >> if we always were under instructions that if management gave us material nonpublic information we'd ask them to make a press release. you know? so the management, it's incumbent upon them to use confidential information.

i had a 16-year history involved with this company. they never gave me confidential nflgs. i think the majority of the people at the company would say that. >> but just to understand, the allegation that they provided you with material non-public information. >> it's not true. >> that piece is not true? that the information wasn't material or that the information wasn't public? >> the information wasn't material, it wasn't acted upon. but again, you've got to respect -- if you want to give me three hours, we'll present our case. you don't want to give me three hours. i don't want to take your three hours. okay? i will put it this way. we have cracker jack attorneys representing us. they study the record great deal two years ago. they said, quote, we know inside trading. there's no inside trading here. end of statement. that's it. >> i think he tweeted out something complimentary,

positive. he -- actually, we spoke. if you know the specifics in this case, anyone who steps out and says something nice about me, they're just being nice. they don't know the facts. i think when one becomes in possession of the facts, it'll be clear there was no inside trading here. >> do you think the markets are fundamentally fair? do you think you have the same opportunity that essentially the person on the street who may be watching this show who doesn't necessarily have access to management? because that's sort of the larger overlay taken outside of this. >> but that's not a question of inside trader. i get paid a fee to manage money. your mother is managing her own money for free. in theory i get paid a fee to manage money because i'm better than somebody else who doesn't have an education, doesn't have access to management. but the government has no desire to stop the flow of information. it just wants to have a fair

disclosure 37. >> you've been helping your mother manage her money? >> i have not. >> is that what this is about? >> no, no. >> she hasn't taken any of yours -- >> happily she has not. better off without my advice. we have a lot more to talk to him about this case. >> it was just an example. >> i was just using her as an example. hi, mom. nice to see you. hope she's watching. >> if she watches she hears your opinions and might act on those. >> she usually calls me to tell me it's wrong. coming up, this morning's biggest movers. stay tuned. you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc. both on the track and thousands of miles away. with the help of at&t, red bull racing can share critical information about every inch of the car from virtually anywhere. brakes are getting warm. confirmed, daniel you need to cool your brakes.

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welcome back to "squawk box." shares of st. jude medical are under pressure this morning following a report by short seller muddy waters. the firm posted an alleged medical advisory on premature battery depletion in several st. jude devices and the report has knocked the stock off 3.3%. coming up on "squawk," the greenspan effect. a new book asked if alan greenspan could have done more to avert the financial crisis. the author of "the man who knew"

will join us. we'll be right back. s

. new biography released today takes a dive into alan greenspan's life and tenure. joins us is sebastian mallaby, author of "the man who knew." he spent years researching

spending time with the man himself. you said that alan greenspan, people talk about his role in the crisis. he gets a lot of credit prior to the crisis and a lot of credit for the crisis. you said he pressed for greater regulation over the years and got nowhere. to argue that he didn't know the risks in a rational market is to miss the point. he knew more than almost anyone. the question is why he didn't act and whether anyone could or would have. what do you mean by that? >> one of the big discovers in my five years of research is i was visiting alan greenspan in his office. and his eyes would do this. he would look up at the shelf. i realized that must be the missing ph.d. piece which nobody had been able to find. when he gave it to me, it was about financial ib stability. he wrote an article in 1959 about how it would drive the economic psych. the idea that he wasn't chairman of the fed, it's all there.

it's all in his thesis that nobody found before. >> so what do you think prevented him, then, from avoiding the crisis? >> i think there were two things. first of all, his personality. he didn't really have a stomach for confrontation one-on-one. you know? he was somebody that was extremely shy. he fought through that. he'd been raised by a -- he lived in his own head. although he was very smart, he didn't like fighting people openly. so when it came to confronting a bubble, that would be unpopular. >> but who was pressing against him? >> well, everybody had a stake in the housing bubble. all americans were happy that their real estate prices were going up. congress was encouraging fannie mae and freddie mac for more. >> how do you think of the issue of regulating the banks though? the regulatory component of his job? >> right. so the standard narrative i

think of greenspan after the crisis when he went from hero to zero was that this guy got interest rates correct because inflation was about right. but the regulation blew up. what i discovered from that is that the fed did more on finance than we think. in 2001 it passed a whole new set of regulations on what kind of subprime mortgages would be allowed. . people don't know this. so it was amazing to see read greenspan debating this, the staff is excited. then the industry just roots around it. >> so when you think about how this -- how history will ultimately look upon alan greenspan, is he -- what'd you call him? hero to zero? or is he going to have a more nuanced -- >> i think he'll go from zero to ten.

maybe eight, nine. he made one huge mistake at the end of his tenure. he did not raise interest rates fast enough. i'm talking 2004 and 2005. he was obsessed with targeting inflation. we learned inflation is not the biggest threat to economic growth. you want to target financial bubbles too. that's a relative debate for today. but i think that for most of his tenure and this is a man who was in the public eye for, you know, more than 20 years if you count the white house in the '70s but the fed for 18.5 years. so the world's most powerful economist and i think he made many more things he got right than mistakes he got wrong. >> the narrative of the fannie, freddie and government officials keeping the party going and trying to raise homeownership and it was a, you know, lowering the standards you need to try to get more people involved in home ownership. that narrative is just about gone replaced by greedy bankers pushing mortgages out to people.

>> we should remember, it's an amazing story. greenspan at one point makes an alliance with the bush white house to go after fannie and freddie. >> and barney frank made sure that didn't happen? >> what happened was thirst they got a bit of traction and then had ads that if they were on the side of reform, they would be nailed with these tv ads. >> i think basically "the wall street journal" ran an editorial probably every six months about fannie and freddie. politicians didn't care. they wanted everybody to own a home whether they could own it or not. >> and bush tax cuts caused it. that's what hillary said. >> it's hard to calculate for crises that were nearly averted. we focus on the financial crisis, but do you think there are aversions he's not getting credit for?

>> he did get some credit, actually, because 1987 he propped up the derivatives markets in chicago. longtime capital management, the hedge fund, you know, the feds stepped in. he did a bunch of things and did get credit. in some ways he got too much credit. because then his reputation became so exalted that he markets were too relaxed and they thought uncle alan had our back. his reputation was to -- >> how much does this weigh on him now? >> you know, he is a remarkable forward looking person. he's 90 years old now. i see him in his office and he wants to talk about, you know, what's going on in britain with brexit, what's going on with the election campaign. he'll talk about the past if i force him to do it, but he's not -- >> if you had to write an insta book on yellen -- >> continuity chair, not enough

innovation. >> how about bernanke? >> we had a series of fed chars. volcker was in one way. greenspan was great in ways. bernanke innovated. i think yellen has continued the qe. >> innovated herself into sub-2% growth forever though. unfortunately. >> sebastian mallaby, the book "the man who knew." >> like stimulus or tax cuts? >> how about bringing back all these millions of dollars from overseas. >> that's not what people think about. coming up, this morning's top stories. that's a great idea, but why don't you just go to thinkorswim's chat rooms where you can share strategies, ideas, even actual trades with market professionals and thousands of other traders? i know. your brain told my brain before you told my face. mmm, blueberry?

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♪ welcome back to "squawk box" on this tuesday morning. here's what's making headlines this morning. small business sentiment fell slightly last month. the nfib's small business index fell to 94.1 from 94.4 in august. however, business owners also expressed significantly more optimism about the prospects for 2017. check out shares of gene

sequencing company illumina. company stock down 26% in premarket trading. . and altria has taken a 9.6% stake in inbev. it's part of the transaction in which anheuser-busch bought s.a.b. miller. the miller brand was part of the portfolio two 2002. the company formerly known of philip morris. but both are marginally higher today. let's talk with our special guest and so much to figure out here, lee, in your viewpoint on it. not just the markets but the global economy. we've had a lot of discussions in the last couple of weeks about the word i just mentioned. that's kind of malaise, new normal, secular stagnation, supply glut. however you want to characterize it. but is 2% our maximum?

that's the best we can hope for in this country? >> it's probably trend growth. i think the world's turned upside down. president obama successfully made romney's wealth a liability. now we have a candidate who gets up there and says i'm richer than you think and the public is eating it up. my own view, he's not richer than we think and i have issues with him. so i'm trying to figure out, you know, what's normal. what are examples of the world turned upside down? a few months ago switzerland borrowed at negative interest rate. just repeat to yourself what that means. somebody said give me back less than i'm giving you today 50 years from now and i'm happy. japan has negative interest rates. germany has negative interest rates. $13 trillion of dollars with a negative interest rate. gets a home for living in the home. negative interest rate on their

mortgage. so the world is upsidedown. during the financial crisis, jamie dimon, jpmorgan step up to take over washington mutual and bear stearns and then get fined billions of dollars. the things they didn't do that were done before they owned em the. so the world's crazy. i ask myself what's abnormal, what's normal. so to me normal in this focus on the u.s. particularly is grows half a percent once a year. tack on another 2% for inflation. that gives you nominal gdp growth at 4%. and at 4% nominal environment, i think the feds fund rate ought to be 2%. and ought to be 4% not 1.6% whatever it is this morning. it may take two or three years

to get there, but it'll get there. 2% fed funds, 4% 10-year government. we could argue but i think the multiple in the market would be about 17. we happen to have 127 earnings estimate next year. and that's about where the market is. i think the market is fully valued. not exploited. not overvalued, but fully valued. because of the money that's flowing into the market is largely going into these index products. i think there are many companies that are cheap relative to the index. i think the s&p is fully valued. not exploited, not overvalued. i find a lot of stocks that are attractively priced. >> that's the world as you see it. you got a reason for what's happening? europe and japan? that causes the negative interest rates? there's two views. one is they decided to do it. the other is they're responding to no inflation, responding to slow growth. are there structural problems

with their economies that make it impossible for them? >> i'm more expert in the u.s. i think that the problem in the u.s. is we've not had the right mix of policies. >> but you've got to have some viewpoint on what's going on in europe and japan? that's why we can't raise our rates here. >> that's because of the dollar consideration. we can't raise rates. global economic growth is sluggish. >> why? >> why? >> demographics? structural? >> i think the demographics in japan are faster. i think their financial system in europe is under strains. i think we're coming out of it. we're coming out of it. and i think the world is not going into recession. i think the world is coming out of recession. the united states have been at recession for eight years. and i think we're seeing all the classical signs. you know, employment is picking up. wages are starting to pick up. i think you'll have higher inflation next year, higher interest rates. that's part of the picture.

i think the problem that we've had is a lack of proper fiscal policy. the entire burden to deal with the recession has fallen on monetary policy. bernanke figured out he had to get the economy to do better. he figured out the best way to get the economy up is to create wealth. trouble is that is it just a portion of that created and people like me. so now we're in a situation where there is financial repression. we created a lot of wealth for you guys, now no return on your wealth. the problem for that is i feel sorry for the man on the street. you work your entire lifetime. you accumulate $2 million, you go to financial planner and say i want to retire. what can i assume on my savings. they say go back to work. you can't retire. then the feedback on the kmum. excuse me. the young people have less opportunity because they're staying in the labor force longer because they can't

retire. i'm in favor of more intelligent fiscal policy. tie it to job creation. have more intelligence policies and get interest rates to a point where they belong. stop confiscating the wealth of wealthy people that have savings. >> there was information out there, blackrock does a survey fairly often who's actually invested in the stock market. it was largely institutional following the fed crisis. should the fed have been clear that main street was safe to put it back in stocks? >> the public is more intelligent than we give them credit for. the public was terrorized by 2008. they're slow in coming back. that's probably positive in a sense. i wish i coined the phrase, but i didn't. john templeton shows they grow in skepticism, mature in optimism, and die in euphoria. pessimism started in 2010.

i think skepticism is under way. but i see few signs of euphoria. the market as an entirety to reflect. >> we're going to continue this conversation. leon cooperman is our guest for the hour. when we return, a new poll giving hillary clinton a double digit lead in the race for the white house. one of donald trump's biggest donors will tell us why he's doubling down on the gop can the. we'll talk about it knicks.

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we are now just four weeks away from the election. oh, it's 27 days. 27.5 days. a little bit more than that. joining us now, one of donald trump's supporter foster friess founder of friess associates. and trying to think foster, you must have been on "squawk box" 20 years ago. >> my gosh. it seems like just yesterday. nice to see you again, joe. >> good to see you. so not many ceos, not many, i guess, business people that have customers at this point are really backing donald trump. that's a point that "the wall street journal" has pointed out, andrew has pointed out. you're still active. why are you different in terms of being willing to go out there

and support mr. trump? >> well, i think i come from perspective of our nation's christian heritage where when a guy's down, you don't stomp on him. you try to give him a hand and pick him back up. i'm not here to defend donald trump. i don't think his actions are defensible, but i'm here to forgive him. i think it's sad that our society has drifted so far away from the christian values where we would take a video of 11 years ago and have that relevant in terms of who we're going to vote for. what i'm trying to encourage my friends to do is take a column on the left-hand side and write all the things important to you. tax rate, immigration, health care. and then on the next column put donald trump's positions and in the third column put hillary clinton's positions. if we do that and we vote on the issues in our personal best interests, i think it becomes irrelevant who is the less flawed. i think the mainstream media has said they have tied for 79% negatives which is an all-time

historic figure. so let's not focus on that but focus on what will our future look like. i've been blessed with success because i didn't look at people where they were at or where they've been. but what they can become. i'm excited to see donald trump expressing regret for his comments and it's a real sign of growth and i'm excited what he can become. and also why success came from harnessing people's strengths. when you do that, i think it's pretty obvious who's going to be best for our country. that's why i'm voting. and supporting. >> wall streeters or people i hear around here, that's hillary clinton is going to keep the status quo. you know, it's not going to be that bad. we kind of know what she's going to do. we know about her temperament. she's been around for 30 years. donald trump, they say, at this point is aspousing republican policies.

they would say he gave to both parties. and they would say his temperament combining with not knowing whether he truly believes with these things on the paper if he's going to change those once elected, he would say maybe i'll just go with hillary because it's easier and it represents the status quo and stability. that's what i hear even from republicans. >> well, i think what's tragic about that is people had to listen to a fellow named slikter. he named all the things he likes and doesn't like things with donald trump but then said but i'm going to vow for him. because if we don't have a return to rule of law, there's no idea what's going to happen in the future. could you imagine in the debate she has confronted on the fact she destroyed 30,000 e-mails after getting a subpoena from congress. who among us would not go to jail for that? her reaction was yeah but i gave you 35,000 others. so i think the return of law, the rule of law is so important to so many people.

and how did they get $200 million of net worth after being broke in '99? and was it from saudi arabia? i think the people that are flocking to donald trump, the plumbers, lelectricians, everydy americans, they're disgusted with this. and the other thing, everybody's very uptight about the supreme court justice appointment. there's going to be three or four. scalia was appointed in 1985. this isn't just a four-year thing and maybe a better republican candidate will show up four years from now. huh-uh. this will change our country for the next 20 years. talk about the business aspect. look at obamacare. she's all in favor of that. i talked to a young fellow the other day who said 50 employees and 60% tax rate. she wants to raise taxes. and i believe donald trump's going the opposite direction. what's best for business? reducing taxes, reducing regulation, and replacing the

obamacare disaster with something that people can afford. >> logical, intelligent, but my view frankly is that he is -- i signed off on him very early in the game when he found it appropriate to mock a reporter with cerebral palsy. not presidential. basically. when he said john mccain wasn't a hero and kept on repeating it, i wrote him off. you know, it's -- i think the people that are in favor of donald trump are basically saying i know what i get when i get hillary clinton. i don't want that. i'm not sure what i get when i get donald trump, i'll take my chances. and i am reminded of a joke i heard awhile ago where a rabbi is prosiding over a funeral and he says that a jewish addition cannot bury the deceased and the other guy in the back jumped up

and said his brother was worse. we've got two candidates highly flawed. >> are you voting for hillary? >> i'm writing in probably somebody. i'm not going to vote -- >> okay. >> donald trump could -- he could take harman cain's 999 and put a lot of money in my pocket and i still wouldn't vote for him. he's not presidential. it's a shame for the country. the most qualified guy to run in the last 50 years was mitt romney in my opinion. he did a poor job running his campaign. but quality of an individual, what he stood for as an individual, his brain power. >> he's not running, though, lee. go ahead, foster. >> i really appreciate your observations you made. you sound like a savvy guy. i'm impressed with your assessment. >> thank you. >> but i would like you to go home tonight and write down on a piece of paper and vote your

personal interests. if donald trump is able to symptom isis and clear out all these beheadings and all these nasty things, you know, the other day the baghdadi made a comment that they're going to kill all down syndrome children. and you know the atrocities in place. hillary clinton says we have a plan to deal with that. well, they've been in power for eight years, for god's sake, why hasn't it been dealt with? i sat next to brad mcgirg. but he's stuck in a position where i personally went to camp black tiger, the peshmerga camp and talked to the vice commander. we are not arming them properly and hillary clinton says we should arm them. if that's the case, why hasn't it been done? they don't have night goggles. the vice commander says they're coming up at night throwing grenades into the bunkers. it's atrocious how we have not supported the kurds.

joe, how motivated would you be to fight the enemy if they were 35 miles from your front door? that's what these people are dealing with and we've left them out there dangling when they should be our surrogate boots on the ground. so i think that alone, the ability that donald trump will deal with the global jihad threat. isis is just one little tributary of a huge river that's sweeping our country. and obamacare, for heaven's sakes, if we don't come up with a safe plan. everybody talks about single payer. that's a code word for taking a private sector health care which is the best in the world and morphing it over to the government controlled system which is defined by all the choice you get in the military, all the accessibility you get from the veterans administration in phoenix, and the quality from the union health care system. >> our time is up, foster. appreciate having you on today. and hopefully we'll see you again. >> okay. >> long time friend of the show. and thank you.

>> you're one of my heroes, joe. keep up the good work. you're quite a guy. thanks. >> appreciate that. all right. when we come back, jim cramer joins us live from the new york stock exchange on the first unofficial day of earnings season. stay tuned. you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc. i am benedict arnold, the infamous traitor. and i know a thing or two about trading. so i trade with e*trade, where true traders trade on a trademarked trade platform that has all the... get off the computer traitor! i won't. (cannon sound)

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welcome back to "squawk box." our good friend, jim cramer, joins us now. we can go a couple of places. i want to figure out what you're supposed to do with twitter, down now again another 8%. >> alcoa, it's very difficult. their segments, they are saying met their third quarter external guidance. they are saying that the segments beat the external guidance. it is not clear to me. aerospace was a problem obviously. aerospace has been a problem this quarter so far. but there is a breakup analysis that i think is worth more. there are many moving parts here that are not understandable, but there are many lien items in the deck, page 43 actually in the deck, that seem suboptimal so we have to do more work on it. >> and what do you do with twitter real quick? >> twitter is -- twitter is a deep analysis has to do far more with price than it has to do with anything else and with

fidelity and t. roe. if benioff would find a deep-pocketed supporter, then i think a deal gets done at 24 but that is not the price i believe that the board wants. so right now this stock is back to no man's land until -- i know you talked about this with david -- until the board of twitter, which he knows more about, gets off of this schnide of this $29 price target. if it does, i think something will happen. coming up, we have our guest host, lee cooperman. he'll speak out finally. we'll get a little bit more. at the top of the hour, you don't want to miss the ceo of alcoa, klaus kleinfeld will join the team. always obvious. sometimes they just drop in. cme group can help you navigate risks and capture opportunities.

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our special guest this morning has been lee cooperman. we have a couple of minutes left with him. during the commercial break we were talking about taxes and also warren buffett came out yesterday attacking donald trump's comments attacking him. >> i have enormous respect for warren. a number of years ago i gave a speech on a subject. he wrote me a letter praising

the speech. in his closing sentence was i believe in praising by name and criticizing by category, which i thought was a great comment. i sent it to my kids to give them an idea of how to live their life. in all the years i followed buffett, i've been following him 50 years, i've never seen him be critical of one individual. i don't like investment bankers. i called warren and was getting a lot of publicity on the wealthy should pay more. i believe in progressive income tax structure. i believe in giving back. i asked him what does he have in mind. if you make a million dollars a year, 35%, over that, 40%. we're already past that. so obama is 39.6 but 3.8 obamacare tax plus other stuff so clinton says raise the tax on the wealthy. they have already raised it.

if you live in new york, your marginal tax ralt is probably 55%. what we have to do as a nation, coalesce around the question what should the maximum tax rate be on wealthy people because they provide most of the revenues to the government. >> it should be fair. it should be fair. ask andrew, it should be fair. >> 40% is fine. >> it's too low, it's not fair, right? it's not fair. >> if you're bernie sanders, you probably get 90%. i think 40% sounds about right. >> i know you're not going to vote for donald trump. >> joe is working me over. >> you don't want to vote for hillary clinton. what are you going to do? >> i don't know. >> i said homer simpson. >> you're not a believer that the write-in is a throwaway? >> it is a throwaway. i guess you can vote for libertarians. i don't know, i'm confused. i'm confused. donald trump's economic plans are better for me, but he has a nasty streak to him and he's not

presidential. and i think we as a nation are a laughingstock of the world today given what's going on with the debates and the things that are being talked about and what have you. it's not substantive and it's confusing. >> they're pretty funny too, the rest of the world. >> we've got to say thank you. it has been terrific to have you. thank you for your candor talking about these other issues. we hope to have you back. >> alfred e. newman. "squawk on the street" is next. good tuesday morning, welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm ca the unofficial start of earnings season is upon us. alcoa reports this morning, along with headlines on oil, upgrades for cat, twitter and more.