i'd like to see that. "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ live from new york where business never sleeps, this is "squawk box." good morning. welcome to "squawk box" on cnbc. i andrew, we have a steady stream of georgia-themed songs on our play list for all of our commercial breaks. what do you have going on in a state where the polls have been tightening, but trump still have a slight lead. >> thank you for all the rant recommendations, we'll try to get to them later. yo self, we'll try to get in on the action on the housewives of atlanta. that's something we all want to participate in. we're at the okay cafe in atlanta. trump is up about 3 points here.

we will see whether hillary clinton can close that gap or not in what now is coming up on less than two weeks. here we are. we should say ivanka trump was here yesterday campaigning hard. it's an interesting place to be, in part because this really is all about the presidential election. this is not a down ballot state. that's not the topic of conversation. we have a number of big guests on the show that will talk about all of this today, including the senator, senator purdue, a number of students, journalists that will join us in a bit. we wanted to get our pulse own what's going on around the country. here we are. >> georgia is a special place for me, too, as you know. the great thing about squawking the vote, i know you're going down there to get a feel for how you can help us understand more about the election, for me, when you go to ohio, my homestate or when you go to georgia, i just -- the education that

you're getting about the heartland, i think your eyes look wide open down there. i think this is really good for you, for the show, for our relationship, and everything else. the one thing i will say, andrew, you know the nate silver, which everybody follows, on the overall election, it's 85% hillary clinton. the media puts that in the books as done. 85%, she'll win. she only has a 29% chance of winning, hillary clinton, georgia at this point. if we're going to assume the 85 is correct, i don't know -- >> fair enough. >> kayla wouldn't go on the record. i go down there every year. i have property in georgia. >> i will go on the record that i spent 15 years of my life there. >> but you won't say that georgia is safe -- i don't think georgia is in play. i think georgia is not -- i don't think that's going that

way, andrew. >> we'll see whether it's in play. by the way, even if it's not in play, there's an important question. front page of "usa today" said that many trump backers, 4 out of 10 trump backers say they will not recognize the win of hillary clinton if she were to win. that's another question we'll raise here this morning if you -- if we think that hillary clinton may win nationally, but maybe not here. lots of interesting issues. >> we referenced not that, but we referenced in this divided electorate that we have, that either side, depending on who wins, is going to look at horror on who is moving into the white house. if trump were to pull this out and win, the people who don't like him will be -- maybe there will be a mass exodus to canada and singapore or something. but you look at some of the poll numbers, certain demos, certain

voters about hillary clinton, the negatives are so high she's not necessarily going to be considered that legitimate as being able to unite us. right? all right. >> we're in agreement. >> where i go, to get to atlanta is a four, five-hour drive. it's a billg state. >> if i were to take tomorrow off and go to sea island, would be okay with that? >> i would let you go nearby. i would appreciate if you wouldn't go exactly where i go. go to st. simons, look at the island -- don't cross on to the island. is that okay? you're welcome to. >> i'll take a gander me. >> see the cloister and look at

all the trees that the presidents -- each one is bigger. they go back to eisenhower. >> churchill's daughter got married there. >> the g-7 met there. go ahead. you have my blessing. check out my property down there. there was a -- >> small storm. u.s. equity futures at this hour indicating flat. up six on the dow. down less than a half point on the s&p. down 1.5% on the nasdaq. we'll talk about that. we're right in the middle of earnings. it occurred to me, i'm not like forrest gump, i'm not a smart man, we had five straight quarters of down earnings, it's like the market knew, how does it know? hot, cold. we'll have this conversation. >> we will. >> earnings so far this quarter

up about 1.5%, 1.7%. get your party hat out. >> matching our average gdp growth over the past eight years. crude, 49.39. below 50 again. i saw that the -- i don't know if we'll show the ten-year. i don't think we are 1.81 this morning. >> soaring. >> well, the yield -- people said 1.7 -- 1.77 was important. >> the ceiling. >> that's the one -- i would like to know -- if i could see in the future, i would like to know if that goes to 2 1/2 or 1 1/4. >> because you will potentially refinance your mortgage again? >> no, it would tell me a lot about the state of the world, about the fed. i could get a good look -- it would be significant if it finally goes back to 2 1/2, 3. that would be significant. >> the problem is you have people making both calls. it's so hard to invest.

>> i wish i knew. tesla posting a surprise $22 million profit after the bell yesterday. it comes after 12 quarters of losses for the company. it's the second time that tesla has posted a quarterly profit. the company was helped by record sales of the model s and model x cars. stock is up 4%. people are listening, joe, for comments about solarcity, whether the company would need to raise capital. the fact they posted such a big beat alone was enough for the stock to rally. >> it was a small number, but a big beat. >> they were expecting to post a big loss. >> right. >> it's -- they have some help, when they do post a profit. bob lutz was on yesterday. people look at him as an old sort of -- like an establishment card guy, they say look what happens when you were running things, but he has pointed

criticisms of tesla and whether it ends up being the fifth carmaker. >> it's production and its deliveries are low compared to what gm, ford and chrysler push out. has a long way to go. >> the state of the car market, another piece in the journal today about used car values, a huge deal for anybody who leases or has a loan. if the residual value is not what you think, it screws everything up. >> and it deprecates as soon as you drive it off the lot. day zero, it's already a used car. >> ten-point, that's on the front -- right? it's called a ten point. >> i didn't know that. >> what was your major? >> journalism. >> i have an excuse at least. western digital swinging to a loss in the first quarter, hit by charges related to its

acquisition of sandisk. the disk drivemaker's and earnings beat forecasts. buffalo wild wings reporting same-store sales fell for the third straight quarter, offset by a rise in total sales that were boosted by the openings of new locations. the restaurant chain expecting full-year earnings at the low end of its previous range. shares of cheesecake factory are spiking today with better than expected third quarter results. sales rose 2%. texas instruments third quarter results beat forecasts on strong demand from the auto and industrial sectors. the chipmaker issuing guidance in line with analyst estimates and hiked its quarterly dividend by 32%. today is the busiest day of earnings season. more than 50 companies in the s&p 500 set to report. before the bell, numbers from bristol-myers, conocophillips, ford, u.p.s. and twitter which

was supposed to report after the close. we'll get alphabet and amazon as well. as for week economic data, weekly jobless claims and september durable goods are out at 8:30 a.m. eastern time. that's followed by september pending home sales at 10:00 a.m. for more on the markets, we are joined by michael tyler from eastern bank wealth management. jonathan goll from rbc capital markets. does it make sense to look at it that way, the market has been flat for two years, basically, and earnings have gone nowhere in two years in terms of growth. my question is what if the fed wasn't at zero and priming the pump. has that held us even or wo vul we have gone down? >> i don't think so. i think the fed and central banks are part of the problem. when you have interest rates this low, it's hugely damaging for the banking sectors. people are forced to save more money because they can't afford

to retire because they won't get a return on capital. i'd love to see a renormalization of interest rate policy. >> people who want the fed to stand pat, when you -- we have lots of guests on. they say the notion that somehow low interest rates are a negative for economic growth, it's preposterous to say that. no way that low interest rates don't help on the mar kgins somehow. >> there's a report we put out, it's a chart that shows how much people save when interest rates fall. when interest rates go from 10, 9, 8, they leverage their property, refinance, when you get interest rates below 4%, people save more money, they look at their retirement prospects and realize they have

a problem. corporations do the same thing. they look at an environment where they see no growth forever. that's why all the durable goods orders are just a dog. there's no confidence. the fed is telling people not to be confident. >> this is a one-year, michael tyler. you look at a two-year, we're basically around where we are now two years ago. is that because of the fed? if the fed wasn't in, would we be -- maybe we wouldn't have held above 2,000 on the s&p. >> clearly earnings have been sluggish. largely because of a strong dollar and weak oil. those factors are turning around. oil is a positive tailwind for earnings over the next six months from now. i think you can see earnings beginning to improve. this quarter will be a positive quarter for the first time in a year and a half.

that's why the market has been sluggish. no earnings. the fed is ham strung by what's happening on central banks everywhere else because the aggressive easing everywhere else kept long rates down. and with long rates down, the fed won't risk inverting the yield kcurve. >> what will change this picture for demand from consumers and companies. all these companies using the fed's free money to buy back stock and boost dividend, they say even if we put this back into the business, there's not enough business to use that. do you buy that? >> i see money as a product like books, cars. if you mark it down a bit, people say, it's on sale. i will go for it. if you mark it down a lot, people say it's junk. like the 1.98 books at the

discount table at barnes & no e noble. so peoples attitudes towards money have changed over the last several years. we're stuck in a period where we're not used to rising rates. if you all of a sudden see central banks raising rates or threatening to raise rates, people will think about when do i refinance my mortgage? when do i invest in my business? that spurs demand. in the meantime there's no reason for people to be investing their businesses. the durable goods number will tell that you this morning. it won't be a good number. then we'll see what will drive that. what will spur people to action if not the fear of higher prices. >> i don't envy the fed's position because they're in a pickle here. they want to hike, they better hope that the dollar has already discounted their december move. the dollar has -- you can see the spike. it has -- it's where it was when the headwinds for exports were

worrying us like a year ago. it's back there. they don't want to hurt the economic recovery. they could hurt it. if exports are weak, based on a stronger dollar and they hike, they're in a pickle. this is the nightmare scenario everyone was talking about. >> the tone, it's no different if i'm talking to big institutions, it's so negative. let's talk about what we're seeing. the unemployment rate is 5%. core inflation 2.2. >> then don't raise. >> or, for that matter -- how do you have 37 basis points of short-term interest rates when you're at full employment. i think the fed beginning the ro social security of renormalizing rates -- >> you saw uk gdp. 0.5%. so far about what anyone's estimate was because of where the pound is. it matters. the competitive nature of your

currency matters. the dollar is strong again. if they raise, it could get stronger. >> you were asking the question what gets us there faster. we're in a 1.5% world because of demographics, because of overhang from china. what you will get, in the next -- this is the big story after the election, are we going to see fiscal stimulus, which is an attempt to juice this thing. >> china is growing at 7% in a 1.5% world. >> the u.s. isn't. >> we have always grown -- >> i'm six feet tall. >> europe was a 1.5% gdp for the last 30 years, we were three. we don't always have to do what the world does. we used to be better, we used to be great. >> that's partly productivity but also population growth. >> you guys have more excuses. demos, has nothing to do with overregulation or high taxes. it's all demos, people not having kids. it easy.

thank you. thank you, jonathan, mr. tyler. it's like two first names. it's confusing. >> bill george. george bill. >> use both, just to be safe. coming up, the state of georgia only voted for one democrat president in the last 32 years, that was bill clinton. the state could be in play this year. andrew ross sorkin is there. he'll join us with two veteran political reporters up next. coming up at the top of the hour, twitter due for a rare pre-particular k pre-market earnings release. we'll talk about the company's options now that major potential bidders have dropped out. "squawk box" will be right back.

♪jake reese, "day to feel alive"♪ ♪jake reese, "day to feel alive"♪ ♪jake reese, "day to feel alive"♪

welcome back to "squawk box." get back down to andrew. he's squawk the vote for y'all down in georgia. it pains me, andrew, someone like you at the gray lady. the most prestigious print publication on the planet. when you start citing "usa today," i feel it's beneath you. it's all right. my question -- >> thank you. >> where were you in the year 2000? 16 years ago. were you in college or -- just getting -- >> no, i graduated from college. i was working for the gray lady. living in london. why do you ask? >> what percentage of democrats

accepted the election of george w. bush in the year 2000? >> that's an interesting question. >> more or less than what is cited in "usa today"? like 80%, i think. >> they're saying 4 out of 10. >> i think 8 out of 10. >> they were still looking at the hanging thing. they went to two heavily democratic -- >> hanging chads. >> two heavily democratic counties down there. they were meticulously -- if the supreme court had not stopped that, they would have harvested the votes in those two democratic counties to make al gore president, we would all be washingtoni i walking places had that had high pressured. be happy, andrew. >> fair enough. we're down here at okay caffey. there is passion here. this is colleen, who just walked in. come over here. sorry. come closer so they can see.

>> you have your signs -- she walks in with the signs. i'm not joking. this is not a setup. she walks in with the signs this morning. we were with ivanka trump yesterday at a rally. this is what's going on. we have some serious passion, if you will, in this campaign. we should say with two weeks until the election, we are here in georgia, as you can see here, relatively new toss-up state. we will debate that in a second. sitting down with voters, local business leaders on some of the big economic issues in this state. >> georgia is joining the list of typically conservative states that turned into battlegrounds in 2016 election. the peach state voted republican in the past five presidential races. trump is leading, changing demographics and a skeptical republican base have helped move the needle to the left in recent polls. agriculture is a top campaign issue. the state's known for cotton, soybeans and georgia peaches. but the top exports are

aircrafts and engine parts. georgia's home to multiple shipping ports. meaning trade and the transpacific partnership are top of mind. the poultry industry continues to dominate the north part of the state. atlanta is a major hub for employment. it's home to fortune 500 companies like delta, home depot and u.p.s. early voting started last week but has been complicated by hurricane matthew. the top election official refusing to extend voting deadlines due to the storm. prompting criticism from activists. >> now for a local look into the election, i'm joined by atlanta based political reporters, bill b barrow of the associated press, and the "atlanta journal constitution," under the fold.

you've been on the front page almost every day recently. >> this is our super bowl. >> this is your super bowl. we talked about this being a battleground state. is that really the case? my friends back in new york made the case it is not. >> i think it's going to be a competitive state. don't know if it's in the ranks of the battlegrounds yet. history is on the republicans side. there's a huge block of hard core dedicated republican voters who will come out to the polls. trump has a lock on the 65 and older set. >> what has happened here in terms of the ground game? ivanka was here yesterday. trump has been here repeatedly. hillary clinton has not been here for quite some time. >> she's not. that's sort of what sets georgia apart. it's not quite in the same category yet as north carolina and some other states. the clinton campaign recently put a new focus on arizona. one gap here is that -- i think you talked about this earlier today, it's not a down ballot

state. there's not a competitive senate race here. no competitive congressional races. so when the clinton camp looks at it, they would rather go to arizona. >> to the extent it tightened up post-billy bush tape, is that when the numbers moved that way? >> the "atlanta journal constitution" poll showed clinton ahead by four points in august. that was after the really rough wreak for trump's campaign. but it's been close throughout. i think it will be a close elek shuchb but we might be talking three, four points rather than a swing the other way. >> people talk about the infrastructure in terms of the get out the vote campaign. people have long talked about hillary clinton's campaign being more organized. is that the case here or not so much? >> republicans here are relying on the rnc and local offices here. they have a vast network of offices in pretty much every county here. there's a very being republican turnout effort. clinton is starting to pour

money into georgia, the fact she put six figures into georgia made front page news here, but that's still a drop in the bucket. >> they do have more here in terms of infrastructure than previous presidential cycles. up to about a dozen field offices, about 40 staffers. >> biggest economic issue here? >> immigration. they go hand in hand. every voter, every rally i attend, i talk about their number one concern, they bring up immigration. >> right. we also talked about this "usa today" story, joe was giving me a hard time about this idea that trump has talked about the election being rigged. some of the trump supporter the said if he doesn't win, we won't accept that win. have you heard that here in atlanta? >> you hear that all the time. >> you hear that on the ground at any trump event or mike pence event. >> the "atlanta journal constitution" poll that came out friday say 80% of his voters dismiss concerns about a rigged election, but one fifth of voters think there is a rigged

election. >> if there is one surprise that could happen in the next two weeks, what are you looking for? >> i'm looking for hillary clinton to ratchet up her campaign in georgia. if she visits -- she hasn't visited since february. if she visits, ams up her attention here, there could be a late push. >> or maybe a top surrogate, would we see the first lady here? michelle obama is probably her biggest draw. could you send someone like that to metro atlanta to drive millennium vote, african-american vote and appeal to some of the skeptical white moderate in the suburbs who may like her. >> thank you for joining us. >> all right. >> congratulations on the front-page article. let's send it back to the guys in new york. >> we'll see you again soon, andrew. in other political news, a new e-mail memo published by wikileaks details lucrative arrangements for bill clinton made by the clinton foundation.

the e-mail comes from douglas band. band and an associate introduced clinton to top corporate executives and asked them to contribute mochb to the foundation and urged them to invite the president to give paid speeches. the e-mail memo was a response from lawyers between the connection between clinton and band. band said he frequently negotiated personal income for bill clinton at the same time as he served as a primary fund-raiser for the clinton foundation. but the existence of those e-mails -- you -- you're laughing. >> here's why i'm laughing. we had peter switzer on, who wrote clinton cash. it's all in tthere. one time i was kidding him.

i met carl bernstein. i asked schweitzer, where are the woodward and bernstein at any of these major media outlets on the story, he goes there's the story. then i got written up. here they are. they needed -- for the mainstream media to get involved in the story, they needed it in black and white from wikileaks word for word what was going on. that's all the leg work they were willing to do. i just think it's representative of the way the mainstream media approached a lot of this. they needed it in black and white on a silver platter. now here it is. even the "new york times" has it on the kcover. >> it's not necessarily foiaible. >> if you go and leave the white house with zero and suddenly you have a quarter billion dollars, there's something that should be looked at by the guardian press

of the united states. >> true. >> that's not what golf 79 official government officials are supposed to do. >> that same conversation i asked what the culpability of the u.s. officials were, because they were supposed to approve all the outside moppings that the clint moneys that the clintons were receiving. >> how many different government agencies do you need to see that it may not all be conducted in the most ethical and honest fashion? i don't know. any way -- groupon announcing plans to acquire its rival, living social. the company did not disclose the value of the deal saying the amount is not material. in 2011 at its prime, living social was valued at 6 billion in a funding round. the transaction should close next month. groupon reported a loss after the close of a penny a share, beating estimates. revenue of 720 million was above

consensus. shares of groupon slid on the news. apple announcing it's wireless air pod headphones will be delayed. they were supposed to hit the market this month. the company didn't specify the reason for the delay, but said that apple doesn't believe in shipping a product before it's ready. 159 bucks a pop if you're still interested. >> i'm worried about those, too. they're separate, right? not even connected? >> mm-hmm. >> you could lose one. >> they're weighted, so they're supposed to -- >> can't you misplace them? you have to keep track of two things? >> i have a big long wire i can always find. >> right. >> aren't these hard to put back in the case? >> you should ideally. >> i just don't -- i'm resistant to change. will these work on a walkman? that's what i still use. do you still have a walkman? >> i think they work with vinyl. >> coming up -- vinyl's back.

it is. people buy records again. it's back. the united states -- did you know that? it is. we have a phonograph -- >> i've been to brooklyn. >> the united states ranks 45th in the world in economic parody for men and women. that's according to new data from the world economic forum. it makes me nervous to say that. that means it's coming up in davos again. details straight ahead. so what's your news? i got a job! i'll be programming at ge. oh i got a job too, at zazzies. (friends gasp) the app where you put fruit hats on animals?

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>> no. i did like it, though. he plays much better fiddle than the devil in the end. the devil just gives up. >> now you just ruined the whole plot. >> i did. >> welcome back to "squawk box." the devil says, wow, that was incredible. u.s. equity futures at this hour -- look at that. what happened? they're up. they were mixed earlier. up 32 points. yesterday weak for most of the morning, then up strong, closed up 30. today another 30. tough to make headway on the overall averages. here's some breaking news. ca qualcomm announced a deal to buy rival nxp for $110 a share. they have been in negotiations for several weeks. you can see that, the deal announced. it's made a big move. up 3% today. closed at 98.66 a share.

qualcomm's ceo will join squawk on the street at 10:00 a.m. >> that deal will not close until potentially the end of the next calendar year. they have to go to china, europe, the u.s. they'll have do a trip around the world and make sure everybody is okay with this. >> that's a -- did we mention what the total value of this deal was? really big, isn't it? >> very big. >> really big. it's north of $40 billion? >> nxp's market cap is up there. >> 34. it's -- actually since it's note -- it's already run up on, it's around that. doesn't reach 40. >> there's a conference call that the companies will be hosting at 8:00 a.m. eastern. if there are headlines from that, we'll get them to you.

time for the executive edge. the united states ranks 45th globally when it comes to the economic parody for men and women. globally the gender gap in economic participation could take about 170 years to narrow. that's part of the world economic forum's global gender gap report. the head of education, gender and work initiative from the forum joins us. scandinavian countries take the cake top four, rwanda is number five. u.s. is number 45. >> we're looking at gender gaps, purely gaps, not necessarily levels. on education, health, economic participation, political empowerment, what is the gap between women and men. when you look at it that way, it doesn't matter if it's a rich country or poor country. we're looking at highway well are they distributing resources, opportunities between women and men. >> this is how many days per year they're working, how much

money they're making, how many opportunities they're afforded? >> on the economic parody, we're looking at labor force participation. how many women and men are making it in there. second what are they getting paid for that work. looking at what's happening in the same jobs and also what's happening to earnings overall in the country. the last thing is are they getting the opportunity to make it into skilled positions to make it into leadership positions. when you combine that and what's happening the last 11 years, it might be 170 years before the world reaches economic gender parody. >> a large part of that, the participation rate, only 54% of women participating in the global work force compared to 81% for men. that's a huge gap. >> that's a huge gap and something stalling around the world. that's why that projection is getting longer and longer about how long it will take us to get to parody. one thing is the financial crisis, just the general sl

slowdown. that means less women moving into positions, that gap correcting overtime. the second thing we're at the start of the industrial revolution, those technological changes and what they're doing in the labor markets, they automated blue collar jobs, but also a lot of white collar jobs, sales functions, administrative functions. we're seeing that change happen, too. >> what is the biggest potential catalyst to change the rankings? >> a lot of advanced economies have been riding the wave of all of the education investment that's been for women around the world. that means a lot of them entered the labor force. if they want that next change f we want economic parody, it will require investing in a care

group. >> child care? >> child care, elder care, a lot of that falls on women, particularly in developing countries and in advanced countries as well. >> who ends up paying for that? >> different countries tried different approaches. some countries made that part of their public infrastructure. they see that as a public investment that will unleash a lot of innovation and talent into the economy. that's what has kept the scandinavian countries afloat. it added to their growth. other countries try the more commercial approaches, providing regulation, the regulatory framework but allowing for commercial private activity in the care space. as advanced economies age, there will be a lot of commercial opportunity in the space. >> it's an eye-opening report. the global economic gender gap. >> was that a year ago when you

were on approximately? >> yeah, about a year ago. >> i asked you to get me a better hotel in davos back then, too. what happened? i'm in the same place. did you -- did you ask? did you look into it for me at all? >> we're aiming for gender eq equality for hotel room distribution. >> we do three great shows from there. publicize davos, i don't know. what do i need to do? i need to get andrew. i need to get davos man involved. >> maybe you need a better coat. >> great stuff. thank you. >> saadia, thank you. coming up, several major earnings reports at the top of the hour including ford and twitter. we'll bring you the numbers and reaction from wall street. i tried, andrew. i tried. we have a restaurant now at our place.

i just tried. >> joe, you will love this. i want you to know how much you will love this next segment. i'm loving it already. we're sitting down with bruce labell, executive director of the national diversity coalition for donald trump. and he's got a lot to say. we're back with him in just a minute after the break. this car is traveling over 200 miles per hour. to win, every millisecond matters. 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. understood, brake bias back 2 clicks. giving them the agility to have speed & precision. because no one knows & like at&t.

welcome back to "squawk box." the demographic breakdown of the vote will be important for the election. our next guest is trying to showcase diversity among donald trump supporters. we're joined by bruce labell. your coalition is unaffiliated with the trump campaign. you are a supporter. thank s for waking up early. this is super early. >> you're a businessman,

entrepreneur, how did you determine that donald trump was your man? >> the excitement, the fact he was not beholden to any special interest group. living in atlanta, i know what happened in the bank situation with vegas, and atlanta had the rough -- the hardest -- hit hardest housing markets in the country. as well as real estate. to have a candidate that's not tied to any wall street special interest groups that a lot of those things hurt a lot of us business people because of elected officials and other folks in elected office tied to that. that was one of many reasons, you know. >> the -- the black demographic has been -- there's been a lot of negativity. people called donald trump a racist. >> right. >> you think what? >> i think -- i've been on hundreds of shows, i've always asked this question. name one racial derogatory

comment you ever heard come out of donald trump's mouth about african-americans. name one. cricket, cricket, exactly. there isn't any. the answer is there isn't any. period. so where can it come from? we're on the black talk. >> right. >> where can it come from. >> so your friends in the community, what do they say? >> you know -- let me give you an example. the reason why we formed this, this was formed by michael cohen, executive vice president for donald trump, good friend of mine. a jewish americans for trump. he's jewish. his parents were holocaust survivors. we saw this last year, they knew they couldn't challenge him on his leadership and his business background, so we knew they would try to come out and try to put him into a box as being racist. we were like, you know what? we run all across these people,

big voting blocs in florida, it's like wait a minute, like my grandmother said, everybody can't be lying. let's put this diversity group together. we grew. what about the comments when he was in detroit, about the black community. about the argument that he -- he stereotyped to some degree, everybody being poor, inner city. that whole thing? >> you know, obviously they try to put a broad brush and say -- it goes like this. no republican candidate has spoke so strong and that elephant in the room has never been discussed in the african-american community. the bottom line is if this is applicable to you, and you're going through this, it applies to you. if it doesn't, it doesn't. at the end of the day, these municipalities, cities, counties under the democratic rule of the iron claw, they're being

challenged. that's very uncomfortable for that particular voting bloc to keep control and keep a lot of these inner cities and churches and a lot of the civic leaders in bondage by don't you dare take to those guys over there. we wentpoint, we went to flint. with the water situation going on. the mayor of flint, the only thing she could do send out a press release, we don't want donald trump here because that's distracting. really? your water is poison and you have the next president of the united states coming to your city when you have flint neighboring -- that's in dire need and you don't want him there? and they put so much pressure -- i remember i talked to bishop harry jackson. great guy. he was very catalyst in letting him come in. he was like, this is what we got going on. most of the black leaders -- watch this -- are fearful every time a republican candidate or especially mr. trump wants to come in that city. don't you dare, blah blah blah. and they put so much pressure on

these pastors and civic groups where they don't want any confrontation. that's why there's a huge silent majority of african-americans that will vote for donald trump. >> he spoke yesterday about the new deal for black americans. what does that mean? you also said to me this is not a battleground state. >> no. >> you said this is going to be a blowout. >> exactly. two things here. well, let me put it to you like this. the new deal -- the education, the local control, the right to choose. that is tremendous. case in point, here in atlanta, you heard about the atlanta public school scandal. it was worldwide, actually. democrat rule. many decades and decades. the city council. the school board. decades and decades. dekalb county, second largest in the country. so the bottom line is that, you

know, black folk, we're waking up and saying, look. you know, you guys have had it this way. and the deal is, yes, what do we have to lose? and i always make the sale, like, you know, if we don't do the good job, get us out in four years. just give us a shot. look what you have. i mean, it's all real. >> bruce levell, thank you. >> thanks. >> for coming and waking up early with us. i appreciate it. "squawk box" is going to be right back from atlanta we got a lot more coming up after this short break. where, in all of this, is the stuff that matters? the stakes are so high, your finances, your future. how do you solve this? you don't. you partner with a firm that advises governments and the fortune 500, and, can deliver insight person to person, on what matters to you. morgan stanley.

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earnings coming fast and furious. ford and bristol-myers hitting the tape. the numbers and reaction straight ahead.

time to squawk the vote. andrew's in the peach state with a look at what matters most to voters. a live report from georgia minutes away. plus cnbc's exclusive all-america survey is out. what it says about the state of the economy as the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now. 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 kayla tausche and joining us for the next two hours suzy welch. it's great to have you. >> glad to be here. >> big day. a lot of stuff happening. >> i'll say. >> this is about jack, but it's okay. just to mention. i'm at my son's middle school last night, so they have this thing, peer group. all these kids get inducted into peer leaders. so they each got their chance

talking. one got up and said the great entrepreneur and business leader jack welch and talked. my wife said you've got to tell suzy about that. >> i love that. and i love him being called an entrepreneur. he would describe himself as one now as he started the school. so he is an entrepreneur. >> the theme of the whole thing at the school was that leadership for these kids is a verb. leadership is a verb. it's not a verb. but they -- >> that's an interesting -- just introducing the concept of leading to children at that age -- >> what's leading? >> no, it's a verb. to lead. that's a verb. >> what's a gerund? i don't think i ever knew. >> i don't know. and as an editor should know. >> so it is a gerund. high five. >> that's very grown up, joe. very, very grown up. >> i did it to kayla.

andrew, i did it to kayla and she was going to high five me and i fixed my hair. >> i've seen you do this. i've seen you do this before. >> i didn't know he was going to use that move after eighth grade. >> i was with all eighth graders last night. >> that's the excuse. >> andrew, you were right. that guy was -- bruce had answers to your questions, dude. you were perfect for him. to just set him up and let him hit it out of the park. yeah. >> he's awesome. we had a lot of fun with him. and we have a lot more coming up. we are -- we should say, we're in kayla's state. this is georgia. we're here in atlanta this morning. and we're talking about the election. whether this is a battleground state or not. we're about three points away. technically trump country. we're going to talk to a democrat, though, this hour. we've got stacy abrams, georgia house minority leader. and some students from embry university. we have a big show coming up

right here from the ok cafe. >> and we got twitter now. i'm sorry you're missing this. because we could talk about that. you know what? next time we get back to you, you can do, you know, the political thing but we'll also maybe get your thoughts on what we're seeing here. adjusted loss of 13 cents. what was the estimate? >> i'm looking at the board of directors approved a restructuring, reduction in workforce up to 9% of the positions globally. all of which severance cost. julia boorstin a following all the details of twitter's earnings. better than expected quarterly results. julia, what are you seeing? >> that's right, kayla. as well as announcing layoffs of 9% of the company's employees. that's about 350 people. the company beating on the top and bottom lines. you see the stock up 6% in premarket trading with $616 million in revenue.

that's $10 million more than expected. also reporting earnings of 13 cents per share. that's 4 cents higher than analyst consensus projections. added 4 million monthly active users. and started breaking out daily user growth. the company says that number is accelerating growing 7% this quarter up from 5% growth in q2 and 3% in q1. now, i spoke on the phone to jack dorsey who says this acceleration of user engagement is thanks to the impact of product changes. dorsey's saying in in addition to growing core use for news, he's also focused on its safety as well as live video to broaden twitter's appeal. i also spoke to the cfo who explained the layoffs to me that are core and cutting into other areas. he says they're driving through

a new objective of profitability in year 2017. also said that on the call which is coming up in an hour that they'll talk about video streaming and video advertising saying they're pleased with results so far. >> yeah. i guess it was the gap number was a loss of 15. but the -- so if you back out certain items, i guess, then it's 13 cents. and revenue is also above by a little bit, right? >> by $10 million. a little bit more by $10 million for the beat on the aud justed earnings we talked about. >> and advertising revenue. do we know whether there was an estimate for that? is that metric actually -- >> the vast majority of twitter's revenue is from advertising. so advertising revenue is up 6% year over year totaling $545 million and mobile is now 90% of total advertising revenue. the rest is data licensing and other fees. >> there is an estimate that

would be a slight beat compared to that estimate. >> all right. well, we'll have more on twitter in just a minute. let's get to phil lebeau because ford results just crossed the swiers. >> hey, joe. you got ford beating on the bottom line. but take this result and don't expect a whole lot of reaction from investors. remember, last month ford guided wall street lower to expect lower profitability in the second half of this year. earning 26 cents a share. 6 cents better than estimate. revenue well below expectations coming in at $30.3 billion. that's well below the $33.1 billion wall street was expecting. the cut production by 93,000 vehicles in the third quarter. also what we're noticing is the impact of lower expectations for the second half of this year. overall ford making $1.4 billion -- about $1.2 billion less than what the company made in the third quarter last year.

you've got three things hurting the company in the third quarter. superduty launch. f-series as the stock change compared to where they were last year when they were ramping up production. then the big hit, $640 million hit on the increased warranty cost. that's due to a huge recall when it comes to door latches. again, ford beating the street on the bottom line earning 26 cents a share versus the estimate at 20 cents. as you're seeing, not much reaction is coming to the stock. they guided lower and they have had fairly cautious comments regarding the second half of this year in terms of what to expect in the auto industry. guys, back to you. >> thanks, phil. did you look at tesla, phil? >> yeah. i was here. i was on the conference call. had a chance to talk with eli. >> so you heard bob lutz's comments yesterday. >> yes. >> is any of that -- so is it really a profit? if you take out all the

government's -- all the help? >> you have the $139 million in credits which got a fair amount of attention last night. because it was much higher than what the credits were in the third quarter of last year. last year $39 million, i think, but much higher. on a non-gap basis, it was the second time that tesla has reported a profit. now, you will have some people say you've got those credits in here. you know, we're not real comfortable with that. having said that, elon musk said during the conference call that we had some of his sound on earlier today that they believe that there is a slight outside chance that they might be profitable. again, given some parameters in there in the fourth quarter as well. >> okay, phil. all right. thank you. and bristol-myers, the big pharmaceutical company also revealing results. meg tirrell has those. i like to do this.

i wish e with didn't have to do any here. we've got our experts doing it. >> big beat in the third quarter, joe. earnings per share coming in at 77 cents. company also raising 2016 guidance by 25 cents. adjusted eps now expected at $2.90 a share. now issuing new 2017 guidance. very important because there's a lot of uncertainty around the business after the lung cancer trial over the summer. new 2017 guidance coming in $2.85 a share to $3.05. also issuing buyback and operate the model hinting towards more streamline -- we'll talk about this and more with the ceo today on "power lunch" in an exclusive interview. back to you. >> thanks so much. we know you'll keep an eye on

that. for more on twitter, ed lee joins us. julia boorstin i believe is still with us. ed, we'll start with you. we didn't get a deal. >> no deal. >> but we got a restructuring. does that mean a deal is not happening or this is what the company is doing first? >> i think this is what they're doing first. they're taking a hard look at -- you know what? we have a lot of things here. we have a lot of departments. we have a lot of areas we're pursuing. not all of them are working. i would argue most of them aren't working. so you got to cut staff. >> they also did not only maintain but increase some of their guidance. their ebida margin is expected to be -- >> this is a slow growth company. that's not great. they beat on expectations because expectations were relatively modest, relatively low in terms of what this company can do. i think if you -- the promise -- the early promise of twitter just isn't there right now.

that's what we're seeing in a lot of these numbers. >> julia, the company has said -- it put out a tweet this morning through its ir twitter feed asking people to tweet in questions for the conference call. so we might get an early look at what they'll cover if you're following that feed in some of the replies. but what do you expect the company to answer to when investors get on the phone? >> i think there's certainly going to be questions about m&a. obviously there was some expectation that twitter could be purchased by now. we'd be hearing an announcement by now that twitter was going to be bought by salesforce. but mark said last week his shareholders did not want him to buy twitter. . but this is not a fast growing company. and that's one of the reasons that companies like salesforce are staying away from it. i think that they're going to be asked questions about m&a and also about just how well jack

dorsey's strategy which is very much focused on video is working. i think it's notable they started breaking out the daily active user growth. i think it'll be asked exactly how many people are really using the service every day on a pure numbers basis rather than a percentage growth basis. because i think people really want to see evidence that investing in content, stuff like the nfl deal is really paying off. >> how much of the activity of twitter do you have percentage is election related? do you know? >> i don't know -- i'm not sure what percentage is election related. >> 40%? >> i can't tell you the breakdown but it would be a good question to ask on the call. >> also tells you that 4 million -- you know, the added 4 million users. it's like the video stuff they're doing with the nfl, all the chatter around the election and everything else hasn't really added -- >> what happens when the election's gone? do they have an increase in ad revenue? >> there's always something to

talk about. >> sports. final four? not like this. >> award shows. oscars. >> one of the questions, i think, when the call comes on. jack dorsey, he's still got two jobs. i think that is a huge factor in terms of why the product hasn't really evolved beyond what we're seeing now. all the trolling, all the sort of -- >> the product is irreplaceable though. it's funny it gets -- it is an irreplaceable product. there's a vacuum if it's not there. we talk about what's on twitter all the time. it drove the election. >> the question is whose job it is to keep it alive. ed? >> whose job it is to keep it alive and i think that's a great point. i think on the internet structurally, it's unique. it also attracts trolls and abuse for that reason. but it's a great broadcast medium. >> julia, final thoughts? >> it's an invaluable platform for about 315 million people and that number has stayed fairly

solid and fairly stable and hasn't really budged all that dramatically. i think the question is whether they can get it to be invaluable for another reason like it's the place you go to stream nfl games for dramatically more people or if it's going to be really limited in its potential in terms of the core user base. >> meanwhile a billion people use facebook each day. 150 million people use snapchat each day. so until we get -- >> those users aren't going away. that's true. but they need to add more. >> ed, thank you. always good to see you. julia, we'll see you later on. let's check out what futures are doing this hour. of course we have a lot of earnings coming out. we had seen futures in positive territory. they still are. the s&p would open by six. the nasdaq would open by 12. we have corporate stories making headlines this hour. two notable economic reports hit at 8:30 eastern time. we'll get the report on initial jobless claims and september durable goods orders. the flood of earnings continues

into the afternoon. latest numbers from google and amazon reporting after the bell. it is the busiest week of earnings with about a third of the s&p 500 reporting. and qualcomm is buying nxp semiconductor for about $38 billion. the two companies look to close the all-cash deal by the end of next year. qualcomm ceo steve mollenkopf will be on at 9:00 a.m. eastern. >> that was the enterprise values. >> includes debt. >> but if you just do the math, it was about -- it was at a hundred so it's 10% more of the market cap. >> but the deal values the companies at 38 it's currently trading around 34. >> that's how i figured it out, actually. >> look at you. >> yeah. coming up -- i used a

calculator on my phone. the results from the latest cnbc all-america survey. that's today. up next, though, our squawk the vote series continues. today andrew is in atlanta, georgia, at the ok cafe. he'll be speaking with students from emory university about the upcoming election. "squawk box" will be right back. 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

welcome back to "squawk box." we are in atlanta, georgia, this morning. we're at the ok cafe. we're about to talk to some students. a lot of people have been coming by this morning just to say hello. we've been meeting all sorts of interesting people. we just ran into some people who kayla are you there with us? >> i am. >> guess who just ran in -- come over here. >> i'm afraid i know some people in atlanta. >> do you know these people? >> you know -- >> your parents. say hello. >> hi, guys. i know i should call more often. i know. i'm sorry. >> they don't have ifbs but it was exciting to meet them. we're thrilled to have you here. thank you for saying hello. we love your daughter. >> we do too. >> he has to say that.

so thank you. >> appreciate it. we'll organize a call after. in the meantime, we should tell you joining us now for some insight into the youth vote for this election right here in atlanta, madeline brown is a senior at emory university here in atlanta. also a hillary clinton supporter. christian zimm is vice president of the emory college republicans. he is backing donald trump. i will start with you because we've said thus far that we're in trump country at the moment. make the case. tell me why you and your friends and the folks that you talked to want to support donald trump. >> well, it's simple. he's not bought and paid for by these special interests. he funded his entire primary campaign by himself. he's doing it now because he has other races he's got to take care with the party. but you have the ultimate insider versus the ultimate outsider. the is is an election we've never seen before. right now with all of the

problems our country faces, i think the worst thing we could do is go with the status quo, somebody who has gotten us into these problems we have right now. what we need is an outsider like donald trump to fix these problems. i can't think of anything -- anybody else to fix those problems. >> what's the prevailing view on campus? sit more clinton? is it more trump? >> i think on campus it's more clinton. just based on people that i know and the general buzz. i would say it's clinton. >> and have you had heated arguments with people like this? >> i haven't had too many heated arguments. a few. i do a lot of voter registration and i'm part of the coalition of doing voter registration on campus. we registered 460 students. but we register regardless of political affiliation. when people ask me who they should vote for, if they're split, i will get into conversations. i try not to instigate.

>> it's true universities are more liberal these days did. do you agree? >> absolutely. yesterday we had an event. it's called wonderful wednesday where students have a table and they talk about their clubs and they get people involved. and it really is unfortunately. i can't tell you how many people walk by and ridicule us and take pictures and create memes and put it on social media. it's unfortunate this is happening and all we're doing is supporting our candidate for president. we're not doing that to the democrats or anything like that. it's just one of those things where apparently it goes along with being a republican on a college campus these days. >> are you part of that? >> no, i haven't seen her. >> no. i'm usually registering voters. >> what is your issue in this election as a millennial? >> a few issues. i agree with hillary on her gun control issues, i agree with her on immigration reform, i agree

with her on women's rights and equal pay issues. i also just believe that she's the only fit and justifiable candidate in this race. >> what about the economy? when you think about the economy with these two candidates? >> i've got to tell you right now what's going on is you have all of these companies that are leaving. right now you have a $20 trillion debt and it's not as if we just woke up and we have this $20 trillion debt overnight. it's accumulation of politicians making decisions that have forced these companies to go overseas and therefore the jobs are going overseas as well. so what we need is a businessman to come in and to fix that. >> right. you said you think that donald trump is unfit to be president. does that mean you're voting affirmatively because you like hillary clinton or because you dislike donald trump? >> well, i said i think hillary is the most fit to be president. it's certainly an affirmative vote for hillary. >> when you think about the economic issues, you think about them how? >> hillary's tax plan is going to tax the wealthy.

it's going to grow the middle class. and trump's tax plan might decrease taxes on everybody, but certainly half of all those decreases are going to be for the top 1%. and further more, it's going to grow our debt and deficit exponenti exponentially. i think that would be catastrophic to us. >> okay. we've got to leave the conversation there. we appreciate you both coming in this morning. >> thank you. >> thank you so much. >> and the tausche coming in this morning. as we throw it back to kayla. >> be careful what you tell your parents. never too old to learn that lesson. >> i've learned a lot already. so we'll talk about that later. >> well, i'm jealous you get to hang out with them. we'll see you in a second. coming up on "squawk," an earnings for tesla. the company posting its second-ever quarterly profit. details straight ahead. a quick look at the futures this hour. off slightly but still set to open in the green. we'll be right back. how can good paying jobs disappear?

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welcome back to "squawk

box." among the stories front and center, blackstone among the companies reporting quarterly numbers this morning. earned net income which is the metric private companies use comes to 9 cents above estimates. revenue also above forecasts. smartphone shipments were up 1% in the third quarter compared to a year ago. that's according to new figures from idc. the increase came despite the massive recall of samsung's galaxy note 7. and china-based package delivery company zto debuts on the new york stock exchange. it's the biggest u.s. ipo so far this year raising $1.4 billion. tesla shares soaring after the bell. the company posted its second profitable quarter. second profitable quarter in history. the company earned 71 cents a share on an adjusted basis in the third quarter on $2.3 billion in revenue. during the conference call elon

musk said the company currently believes that the fourth quarter will be profitable as well. excluding non-cash stock based expenses. he also added that there's a chance that tesla will be profitable even taking those into account. new product launches increased store efficiency and openings at some of the major factors that drove results. speaking of results, it's that time for the latest cnbc all-america economic survey. and steve leisman joins us with the results. it's -- you know, i always want to say all-american. but that's why it's hard. >> it's all-america. we do a lot of surveying of rich people and finance people. this is all america. this is a pollinationwide of 804 americans. all people all colors, races,

genders, income groups, everything. >> reflecting the whole -- >> reflecting the whole thing. it's a regular national poll done in a smarter way. i want to give you the results. it shows hillary clinton with a commanding nine-point lead in the two-way race. there you can see how it's changed since our last survey in june. the decided have fallen by eight points. and they've broken 6-2 for hillary clinton. go to the next screen, i want to show you this. that shows you there's that 25 that got smaller. that 17 is interesting. and it's interesting for those who think trump could potentially make this race somewhat more competitive. that's because 31% of that 17% are republicans. 22% are democrats. and 36% are independents. we had v a pollster who helped with this poll here.

can close the gap. he didn't think that trump can overcome this gap, but that certainly it's more likely that republicans come through -- i want to talk about this here. i want to talk about donald trump's problems not necessarily with the full electorate but his problem with republicans. let me show you this other screen here. this is the who do you love chart here. 51% of clinton voters are voting for her because they're voting for the candidate. 39% are voting against the other candidate. less love internally for donald trump. 40% voting for him. 48% voting against the other candidate. now let's take a look at how republicans view trump and how democrats view clinton. you can see here more democrats support clinton for president than republicans support trump. that's 84% democrats for clinton, but only 78% for trump. now, both of these guys have

problems with their parties. more democrats than clinton dealing with foreign leaders than republicans think trump is dealing with foreign leaders. then again, another problem that sort of speaks of the problem that trump has with republicans is look at those far income groups. those are groups that should be going for trump. they're not. and then of course clinton has the bottom ones. but it's the middle ones where trump is competitive right there. he needs to be doing much, much better. so that's really where we find a problem. it would be a very different race if trump had brought the republicans home. >> what is the age group for the respondents? >> all age groups. >> because there's a question of how you reflect millennials in the electorate. because 3-1 they support clinton by the national polls. but so many of them are first-time voters. and i'm wondering how much they got captured there. >> well, they're captured in the proportion they are to the electorate. parts of polling are science and part are art. the part that's art is waiting

the turnout. and you will not talk to a pollster who is not nervous about his or her decisions when it comes to figure out who's coming to the poll. donald trump is relying on uneducated white people as a big part of his support. those people typically do not vote in as large numbers as he's going to need to win. i did some work on this yesterday. this is inexact. two places where hillary clinton seems to be trailing is support from non-whites compared to what happened in 2012 and her support from young people. maybe as much as 10 to 20 points. >> in the fox poll among white voters, trump was 50-35. so got some educates and some uneducated. >> that's fine. now tell me how many of those are going to the polls. >> right. >> now also tell me about hillary clinton's ground game of getting out the vote and donald trump's ground game of getting out the vote. >> and think of 35 white voters, what are women?

80/20 against? with white men it must be 75/25? >> the women thing is off the charts. this was done 21 through 24. friday through monday. >> is it your perception that trump is popular with the wealthy? if you look at that chart, doesn't it show hillary is leading with the wealthy. >> no. he's lot college educated republicans. not lost, but not doing as well. >> no, no. that's never been the perception. it's been the angry, displaced white voter in the belt that lost his job because of globalization. >> thought of the fat cat republican who is want their taxes not -- >> that was romney. >> i don't think it's huge news, but it's amazing to look at this poll and see how donald trump could be either way more competitive and/or in front. the economic landscape that we register is a sort of sour and middling as it's ever been. the populous was right for his message. but the failure to consolidate

and failure to push the economic message on all of those things, there are place where is we have registered the anger in the country. we just don't see the anger breaking enough for donald trump to put him over the top in this poll. we're coming back, 8:30 we have the two pollsters. and we're going to get more into the economics of this. i think we do the most detailed job of looking at people's views on the economy and how they translate into the election and what you'll see is that -- and i'll give you this quote here from the democratic pollster. he says trump has basically squandered every advantage he had as a business person. because the thing where is he led on the economic issues, clinton is now tied or in front on. >> are there still business people, suzy, who haven't made up their mind though? >> i think so. i think you could make the case that everyone saying they're undecided in this poll is going to go for trump because it's just so difficult in social settings to say you support trump that they'd rather say they're undecided.

i think there is still support for him. and nobody wants to admit it. >> 12 days. steve, we'll see you in a few minutes. coming up, more on twitter's latest quarter and what's next for the social media company. but first back to atlanta where andrew is squawking the vote. what's on tap, andrew? >> well, your parents i think are still here. but separately, when we return, the state of georgia has gone to the republicans over the past six election cycles. but the state's house minority leader stacey abrams is pushing to change that. we're going to sit down with her live from the ok cafe right here in atlanta right after the break.

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♪ welcome back to "squawk box." we are squawking the vote in atlanta this morning. a number of states in play this season. the georgia state hasn't voted

for a democrat since clinton. but now the peach state could be changing its hue. we'll see. we're going to bring in a woman leading the charge to turn georgia blue. stacey abrams joins us. she is the house majority leader representing the 89th district. she is also the founder of the new georgia project devoted to registering minority voters. we thank you for joining us this morning. >> thanks for having me. >> there is a three-point spread at the moment or so we hear. >> yes. >> what are you going to do to change that? >> to close the gap we have folks on the ground. we have 13 field offices across the state. we're running competitive state senate races. and we're knocking the doors. we are getting all of the field done we can. >> what do you make of what seems like an enthusiasm gap in the state? >> i don't think it's an enthusiasm gap. i think people are misremembering our history. barack obama was a singular phenomenon.

but you've got enthusiasm. democrats in georgia are excited about the opportunity and we're working hard. >> what would you say if i said she's already given up on this state? she hasn't been here since february. >> i don't think she has. i think until you win an election, you haven't won an election. so for georgia to even be receiving investment from the top of the ticket is huge. we've gotten seven figures from her super pac. that's the important piece. we aren't quite at the tipping point stage because we haven't won yet. >> i don't know if you saw new e-mails from wikileaks that came out last night. there was a suggestion in those e-mails about the pay for play that was going on between her and her husband and some of these other firms. does any of that disturb you? >> i think pay for play is really strong and inaccurate

language. people ask for access and they didn't get it. but more importantly what's happening in georgia is we understand there's a distinction between hillary clinton and donald trump. donald trump has spent the entire campaign disparaging every major constituency in georgia. hillary clinton by contrast has spent her entire life serving the people of georgia. so we believe and trust in her values. we trust who she's going to be as a leader and want her to be the next president. >> we had bruce levell here earlier. i said do you think that donald trump is a racist. he said no. what do you think? >> i think he is a racist. racism is about using your power to denigrate and disparage others to deny them access. we know that both in his business dealings and in his personal discussions about people of color, donald trump has shown absolutely nothing short of bigotry towards people. and that has been consistent through this entire campaign. he began disparaging mexican

americans. >> if it goes to trump we may still have a national election where hillary clinton may win. four out of ten trump supporters would not recognize such a win if that were the case. what does that mean for a state like this? >> i think what it signals is a shifting of politics that we're going to have to shift back. the rancor that has pervaded this campaign is disturbing and distressing but also a fixable problem. the enthusiasm we saw for sarah palin was similar. but we eventually saw our way back. >> is there a distinction between the people in the city and the farther you go out for who everyone is voting for as well as the ground game? >> i think that atlanta is certainly ground zero for democratic activity. but part of my responsibility as minority leader so to spend our

time outside of atlanta. i'm seeing enthusiasm as far south as valdosta. we know this is a win that is possible. we have an opportunity to pick up a few seats in the house. and i think all of those things especially with the 13 field offices that we have compared to the one field office that the trump campaign has signals that georgia is in play. >> well, we will see whether it's in play or not. we appreciate your time this morning. >> thank you verying if me. >> back to you guys in new york this morning. >> we'll see you soon. when we return on "squawk," we will look at twitter and what jack dorsey will need to do to jump growth. it came off a little bit. still around 4% this hour. and look at u.p.s. revenue also beating street forecasts. "squawk" will be right back. bend me shape me, any way you want me

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welcome back to "squawk box." groupon plans to acquire livingsocial. 2011 at its prime livingsocial was valued at $11 billion. groupon also reported a loss after the close of a penny a share. meeting estimates while revenue was slightly above consensus. >> amazing a company once worth $6 billion would not be a material acquisition to a

company now worth -- >> how the mighty has fallen. >> yes. very interesting. well, apple announcing that its wireless air pod headphones will be delayed. the company didn't specify the reason for the delay, but a spokeswoman says apple doesn't believe in shipping a product before it's ready and it will take more time before the air pods are ready for customers. and twitter reports better than expected earning results. adding 4 million monthly active users in the quarter to end with 317 million. that was slightly above what the street was expecting. conference call about to get underway. joining us is senior tech reporter at buzzfeed. did anything in the report surprise you? >> not really. i think that what we can read from this report is basically twitter's basically found the place it's out. 317 million active users. that's where twitter has hovered for awhile now. anybody expecting to have this hit 400 million active users,

that's a stretch. we can say this is where twitter's going to be for awhile. >> what about the fourth quarter? they do have this nfl deal on thursday nights. a lot of people are watching it. we don't have much to parse on that, but do you think that there is anything if not the election, if not the nfl that could give twitter that big bump? >> no, i do not. and remember, this is a 10-year-old company. and i think basically what we've seen is twitter go through the various stages of grieving for its business. first we had denial when there was the ipo and twitter told us there could be this really big business. didn't believe that it was sort of capped. and then there was anger. people saying where are the user numbers. then it went into bargaining and it said maybe with moments or other live streams it can get this bump. but still, the nfl's been going for a few weeks. periscope has been live for over a year and it remains where it is. so i think we're headed towards acceptance where we say, look, twitter's going to be a company with 300 million monthly active

users. makes a couple beillion dollarsa year and maybe that's not bad. >> but how do you value it, then, alex? it's been valued as a function of cash before it's been valued as a function of its earnings. but that depends on whether you're using adjusted or gap. and now people are thinking about whether you value as a takeout target. how do you look at it? >> good question. i think that this is going to be something investors need to really come to grips with. there must be some investors that think there's a bump waiting for it. but for those who have accepted it, there isn't going to be that bump. you have to really decide what you believe twitter can be. now, look. i think they're making some good moves. they're laying off 9% of their workforce today or about 350 people. that's going to cut costs. they can still do very well as a business. but is it going to be a huge business? i think you have to be skeptical

about that. >> what if you're one of the employees who is not getting laid off. the future for the company when it says it's refocused, realigning its priorities, realigning its business structure. and it's going to be basically a leaner and better performing company. still paying about $150 million in stock. >> remember, we heard this last year. they laid off about the same number of people a year ago. a year ago they said we're going to readjust and refocus and make sure our core product is good. has been the same great experience. it's the beating heart of the internet. you see what's happening right now as the ceo jack dorsey is fond of saying. so that stream hasn't changed. and basically it shouldn't. it serves a very important purpose on the internet. the company is trying to figure out how to make money off of that. i would ask what's happened until now.

>> maybe it's not a grand strategy shift, but what strategy shifts do you foresee for the company? we had a board member on my show yesterday and he said without a doubt twitter needs to clean up some of the language and some of the bullying and abuse on the platform. but even that has been something that's been hard to come by for the company. what can they actually get done? >> right. that's another good question. i think that they definitely need to put some stuff into place to curb harassment. one potential thing that's been floated and talked about actually being under development there is a keyword filter where i can basically say i don't want to see words "a," "b," "c" so don't show me. it may make twitter a more friendly place. but can this company do anything to make more people want to key into that stream? they've tried it all. the thing that i thought was something that could really make a difference was the moments temporary follow where you could follow things like the election

or the super bowl and twitter will pop tweets into your timeline. so you don't need to put all that effort into a follow list. but that's been out for a long time now as well. and it hasn't made a huge difference in terms of user numbers. by the way, let's take a step back. there's been a lot of panic about twitter's business the last few years. you can read stories about how twitter is dead. while the business isn't having great success, but product might be its most vital in its history. think how it's played out in the presidential election. after the trump tape with billy bush, that entire weekend was a weekend where twitter was indispensable. everyone who had the app couldn't put it down. you saw trump firing back at people like paul ryan. it's become this very important part of our culture. its influence extends far beyond its walls. so i think people have been saying, oh, twitter is in bad shape. what can twitter do to grow?

you're looking at something that's deeply influential. >> we know you have a conference call to get on, alex. it's not even 5:00 a.m. there. we appreciate you joining us. >> my pleasure. coming up, senator david perdue, member of the senate antitrust subcommittee that will hold a hearing on the at&t and time warner deal will join us. check out the futures. up 44 on the dow. 6.5 almost 7 on the s&p. ite! ooh! elmo likes songs! puzzles! me love puzzles. well..puzzles are a great memorization too- dinosaurs! yess!!!! puppies! ooh! i love puppies! so do, i. actually...pets can teach important lessons abou- dancing! elmo loves to dance. okay then, let's dance. (everybody cheers) yeah baby!

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earnings alert in the twitterverse. the platform rolling out quarterly results. we'll have the numbers plus what jack dorsey says is next for the company. the results are in. we'll get a read on the election's impact on the economy from cnbc's all-america survey straight ahead. plus i'm in atlanta. squawking the vote with senator david perdue. he's going to weigh in on the race for the white house and we're going to get his take on the at&t/time warner megamerger. the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now. ♪

from the beating heart of business, new york city, this is "squawk box." >> welcome back to "squawk box." i'm joe kernen along with kayla tausche. andrew ross sorkin is live in atlanta squawking the vote. more from him in a minute. but first the futures this morning. we're up about 40 on the dow. and then the s&p is up six. and the nasdaq 14. the 10-year saw earlier was over 1.8%. you can see that that is a three or four month high in yield. we'll see whether that continues. it'll be interesting to see. if we finally get above 2% at some point. >> it was the breakout of oil yesterday that helped the market into positive territory. today i think it's probably all going to be about earnings. which is our top story this morning. ford profit dropping 56% from a year earlier. that still beat estimates.

results improved in china and europe. but business was softer in north america. shares down 1%. blackstone earnings and revenues coming in stronger than expected. the results were helped by solid stock market performance and rebounding oil prices. blackstone up 2.25%. and bristol-myers beating on the top and bottom lines. also raising its full-year forecast and announcing a $3 billion share buyback. bristol's ceo will join "power lunch" this afternoon. conoco phillips revenues falling a bit short as has been the case for a lot of these companies. cutting its capex forecast. u.p.s. matching forecasts with profits of $1.44 a share. revenue beat the street. and beyond the earnings if you can imagine that, deal news. nxp semiconductors is being bought by qualcomm for $110 per share in cash or about $38

billion. nxp is number one maker of automotive chips. qualcomm ceo steve mollenkopf will be on "squawk on the street" at 10:00 a.m. eastern time. and twitter shares rising this morning following its quarterly results. julia boorstin has the highlights on that report. julia, as the stock keeps moving around premarket. >> stock up now 5% as they beat on the top and bottom line. laying off 9% of its employees. the company reporting $616 million in revenue. that's $10 million more than analysts expected. also reporting earnings of 13 cents per share. that's 4 cents higher than analyst projections. twitter added 4 million monthly active users. they did start breaking out daily user growth. saying that it's accelerating growing 7% this quarter up from

5% quarter in q2. i spoke to ceo jack dorsey who attributed this acceleration to the company's product changes. dorsey telling me he's working on refining twitter's core use for news. he's also working to improve safety on the platform as well as to add more live video to grow twitter's appeal to users as well as its revenue. i also spoke to cfo anthony noto who said the layoffs were streamlining areas. as they target a new initiative of gap profitability in 2017. the call is just getting under way. i'm about to jump on. now over to andrew in atlanta. thank you for that. this twitter news is fascinating this morning. however, we're squawking the vote in atlanta this morning. we have a guest now who's a huge supporter of donald trump and his run for the white house. joining us now senator david perdue. also a member of the senate antitrust subcommittee who will

be meeting on the deal between at&t and time warner. i want to start here. we talked about this being a battleground state given there's only a three-point spread. when you sat down, you said this is not a battleground state at this point. >> well, there really is no evidence of that. you've got a couple of polls that say it's close. we've had four terms of republican governors here. they're 10 of 14 congressional districts here that are republican. every constitutional office is republican. we have two republican senators. in my race, for example, they had me down seven points. we won by more than eight points. there's no evidence that this state is a battleground state. >> when you think of the things that have taken place over the past couple of weeks that have really shifted the polls nationally, you don't think that's had any impact here? >> i won't say it has no impact. but i think people in georgia are focused on the debt and the economy and jobs. which is what trump talks about. >> you care about brands.

when you heard the comments that donald trump made on that hot mike with billy bush a couple of weeks ago, what did you think? >> well, look. this guy's no choir boy. but, you know, winston churchill was no choir boy. i think it's time we have somebody come to washington to break some eggs to break through the establishment. real change is going to have to come from the administration. hillary is basically promising a third term of barack obama. so regardless of what this guy says, i think he'll come to washington and affect change which is really the reason i went there. >> when we were talking before going on camera we were talking about the polls and your experience here with the polls. do you think you can extrapolate out and suggest there's something else going on with the polls in this country? >> i have to tell you, i'm not sure about that. but i've traveled extensively here in the last few months. i was in wisconsin, iowa, and missouri in the last ten days. there's something going on out there. i don't know if he'll out-perform the polls in every state. but in some places i've been he will. >> how do you feel about his

comments that the election is rigged? >> we know we have a liberal media in many respects. really concerned about. the media is focused on the topic of the day. i think that's what he's talking about. >> i mentioned it a couple of times in the past two hours. front page of usa today this morning talks about how 51% of voters in america think there might be violence on election day. and four out of ten trump supporters said they won't recognize the vote if hillary clinton were to win. what do you think of that? >> i'm disturbed by both of those. this is our democracy. we've only had one republican in our histo-- i'm not sure i agreh those polls. i also am concerned thabout tha. but i think at the end of the day republicans will realize the outcome of the race. i don't think this race is done

yet. >> if in fact hillary clinton were to win and we have a divided government, do you think there's any chance that things can actually get done? >> well, the united states senate, the democrats have a new leader come january. chuck schumer is known to be able to make a deal. we've got to find a way to break through the gridlock there. i'm hopeful whoever is in the white house we'll be able to attack the major crises we've got. >> we mentioned here on this antitrust committee, donald trump did come out against the at&t time warner deal before. frankly was actually even officially announced. before we even get into details of the transaction itself, what do you think of his position in the midst of this election coming out so directly. hillary clinton is concerned she's going to watch it. but didn't take a position. >> well, i think -- first of all, she's running for president. i expect her to take a position. well, i hope she will. at this point she needs to have people looking at it and give an opinion. you're asking me my opinion this morning.

we're going to look at it in detail. look at this thing. what i'm concerned about is make sure consumers are protected and we have a level playing field and we have competitive market places. that's what this is all about. mergers don't scare me. i've been involved in those before. but at the same time there's a role that we maintain a level. >> your gut reaction, you see the headline, you say to yourself, this is good for competition, bad for competition. >> when you see big names like that together, it raises the question about are you going to have competitive market places? america was built by small companies. then you compete with the big behemoths. >> isn't it interesting? typically republicans have been on the side of less regulation. right? allowing more deals to go through. it's interesting to see donald trump take the position he has anything and to some degree the position you're taking. or no? >> it's consistent with what he said all along. he's talking about a level

playing field. he just wants to make sure that these guys don't come in and disturb that marketplace where everybody can compete. >> final question from me. i don't know if joe back in the studio has got one for you. but tpp has been a singular issue in all of this. where do you stand ultimately given your history working for companies that succeeded in part because we had open trade? >> well, you have to have open trade. america's always had open trade. what we haven't had is fair trade. what donald trump is talking about is creating a level playing field. we've taken poverty down the world -- what i hear donald trump talking about is we can compete internationally. but we need access. and that's what this is all about. >> senator, we want to thank you. we want to thank you for hosting us here in your great state. >> welcome to atlanta. >> and we appreciate it very much. >> thank you. >> guys, i will send it back to you. actually, i won't send it back to you. i'm told i'm sending to

commercial and then back to you. when we come back, we'll talk about why inflation may be in the eye of the beholder. blackrock's jeff rosenberg is going to join the gang in new york after this short break. you're watching "squawk box" here on cnbc.

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welcome back to "squawk box." making headlines, zto express has become the biggest u.s. ipo this year. also the biggest chinese company to go public since alibaba in 2014. it's a package delivery company and priced its shares at $19.50 each. that was above the expected rain and values zto at more than $12 billion. share wills trade today under zto ticker. ginni rometty says the watson will reach more than 1 billion consumers by the end of 2015. rometty speaking to cnbc last night stressing that watson will influence business in many ways. >> there'll be different parts of ai. i believe very much watson is the ai platform for business. because you understand what matters so much to business.

and we've talked about the goal is different and that matters for business. how we treat data is different. how we treat the ecosystems is different. then the industry clouds for watson. there's regulatory environments. there's privacy, security environments. and so these are things that i think are really important. and i believe that you need a cloud that will be ubiquitous to get et everywhere. >> to help physicians bring precision cancer treatments to patient through watson powered sequencing. more of that interview is available now on cnbc.com. now to the broader markets. today's focus may be on earnings. but the fed never far from the discussion. joining us now is jeffrey rosenberg. fixed income strategist at blackrock. people in the past, jeff, have said they missed the chance to do it when it would have been easier. and aye always wanted them to go up. but now i'm starting to actually

think -- i almost hear that there's no big rush. inflation staying relatively low. the dollar is already really strong. we're just now -- we're only at 2% or below. and it almost makes sense to me that they shouldn't do it in december. but now i think they have to. because they've painted themselves into the corner. >> they've certainly set market expectations for december. that's a bit of the good news from a market perspective that bond markets right now priced over a 70% probability that they're going to go in december. so if they go, it's not a huge surprise. really the big event was around the taper tantrum. and you had a major market event from that pullback from accommodation. since then the fed has been clear they want to avoid that by making sure the markets know exactly what they're going through. >> is it in the dollar? >> we've had a big run-up in the dollar. it's in front of the curve. when you talked about what's going on the back end of the curve. that's much more about what's happening globally and global

monetary policy expectations rather than what's going on for the fed. >> at this point, though, i mean -- i think they could have gone through a half or three-quarters two years ago. i think they could have done that because we didn't need emergency conditions. so my point is if there was no rush back then, maybe this is the wrong time. it seems there's some troubling signs elsewhere about maybe recession on the horizon globally. now's the time they decide to do it. maybe they never do it. if we get one bad number, they're not going to do it in december. >> they've certainly been very sensitive to market conditions and near term data. this is different than two years ago. the global conditions were very different. they might have been able to normalize. now that's the past. what the fed is saying, they're going to do one in december. but unlike when we first had

liftoff of 25 basis points, they signalled a fast pace of normalization. this time they've learned the lesso lessons. they can't stomach raising rates four times a year. they're going to raise at a much slower rate. it's raising rates very begrudgingly and slowly because they're worried about the financial market responses to that. >> what's your forecast for either japan or the ecb? when do we start not going -- when do we get in sync? how long for now? >> we all right started to see a bit of movement around this i did jer jens theme. the fed is normalizing and they are getting more accommodative. a little bit less accommodation. we pulled back from interest rate policy. we got that with curve control.

expecting something similar in terms of pulling back from the degree of most importantly resulting in a big flattening from the curve. that that pullback means higher longer term interest rates. >> if the fed raises in december, how much more expensive does interest get for the u.s.? how do we afford that? >> we're still in a very low interest rate environment. we're talking about coming off of zero and negative rates. we're only talking about 25 or 50 basis points of increase off of what are already very low rates. a lot of people get worried about what about 100 or 150 basis points. the truth is it would be very hard for the economy to withstand that kind of increase in interest rates over a short period of time. which is what the fed is

basically saying. that any kind of normalization has to occur very, very slowly. and so it's slow so that the economy's growth is at a pace that it can offset the burden and the concerns that you're talking about in terms of higher interest rates. and even though we're talking about some degree of the fed raising rates, it's still a low interest rate outlook. >> if you wonder as amf political as the fed is supposed to be, they're waiting until they can afford it. with growth. >> they're certainly waiting on the growth side. there's no rush and there's not a huge pressure in terms of inflation that we see inflation rising that's pushing the fed to go at a faster pace. the fed's been very clear. they want to wait to see inflation and inflation expectations rise before needing to accelerate their pace. >> can you bring up the rosenberg picture? i just want to see this. can you do that? do we still have that? the one we had when -- we're going to lock at this right now. take care of this right now.

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procter & gamble ceo taking the helm near a a year ago. sara eisen sat down with p&g's chief in an exclusive interview. she joins us now with the highlights. pretty smooth. pretty savvy, sara. >> reporter: yes, joe. good morning. from your hometown, my hometown, and the hometown of procter & gamble. you mentioned david taylor took over one year ago. the stock is out performing the market and the entire consumer staple's industry. they have seen marked improvement over the last few quarters. topped off by this recent quarter 3% organic growth was the best in years. but overall sales are flat due in part to macroeconomic headwinds and what the ceo calls a flattish u.s. consumer. i asked him what is holding the u.s. consumer back right now. listen.

>> i think there's a lot of things. i think there's concerns. there's uncertainty. the economy is growing but not growing fast or slow. i think we're in a relative ly flat period of time time now some stimulus will hopefully drive better growth. relatively consistent modest growth u.s. >> reporter: he also dismissed analysts that it would be a price war in the package industry because of that slower growth. is fighting for a piece of that. he said it's going to come from integration to growing the categories. you also heard the word uncertainty and stick lmulus. the most important policies in the campaign. listen. >> free trade is important for any company to have access to other markets.

and a tax code that allows us to compete effectively with many of our foreign domicile competitors. >> which tax code does that? >> we'll see after the election. we hope the government will try to do what's right for the country. >> reporter: so wouldn't go there on which candidate, joe. but clearly that is top of mind here with the politics average showing trump up by one. we're going to talk a bit later about some of the dynamics in play. tim kaine is in columbus today. donald trump is in springfield. just about an hour and a half north of here. but for cincinnati's p&g, he is focus of getting this back to growth. they are now down to 60 brands and are still the world's largest personal care and household products maker. sorry i can't bring you

something. >> i went to school with john's uncle. he's the first democrat in the family. believe it or not. honest to god. like the black sheep. but i like hip. bring me some skylon. >> reporter: i can bring you that. i was going to say he hosted clinton at his house for a fund raiser. >> i know. i was with him that weekend throwing out the -- when i threw out the pitch. i saw john and mayor. anyway, some cans. i'll even take cans. not the frozen. >>. >> reporter: okay. coming up, breaking economic news. ♪ something new has arrived. ♪ uniquely designed for the driven.

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welcome back to "squawk box." breaking news. preliminary read on durable goods down 0.1%. we were expecting a number closer to unchanged. if we strip out transportation was up 0.2% exactly as expected. the proxy for business spending, capital goods, got walloped. we were looking for down 0.1%. down 1.2%. and if looking at jobless claims, 258,000. so that is a decrease of 3,000 from a slightly revised 261,000. now, let's go back and look at some revisions on those durables numbers. the headline last look was

up 0.1%. even though down this time, we gained 0.2% on the revision up to 0.3%. if you look at ex-transportation, it's down. our last look a lot better than 1.2% this time was up 0.9%. but no matter how you slice it, no matter how you look at it, no matter how many different months you add together. it is definitely on the deficient side. by the way continuing claims back from 2.05 million. here's the lay of the land, folks. a very aggressive way. but home base used to be 150. now 170 now we moved into the 180s. and bund yields are back to what we haven't seen in awhile. and the 10 year guild jumped.

we need to pay attention to the yields not because of the reflecting strength although data have been better. i think their reflecting central bankers and that's something to pay attention to. back to you. >> thank you so much. rick santelli in chicago. steve leisman is here going through the data. >> none of it is ever easy. good on the claims. under 260 suggesting that hiring continues. but again, what's happening in business investment remains one of the keys of the economy. as rick said, use the technical term walloped for what happened to business investment. down 1.2%. after rising 1.2%. this is a very volatile number, but it seems like we can't make any headway. we had a good number back in august. and now again it comes right back to pretty much where it was. on the top line, a little bit better. we were looking for 0.6% down. looks like we were done just 0.1%. here's the story.

the bottom line i think on this is i was doing about 3% on the expectation for third quarter gdp. it's a nice number. it's a nice rebound. i don't think it continues that way because it's going to be by exports. we had that fabulous discussion yesterday of soybeans. you remember that great the way soybeans might be impacting it. we do not want to go there again the. let's say trade helped it. i still think we keep coming back to this economy with unusually strong job growth in there. let's go from economics to politics and economics. results of our new all america survey. let me remind you what they are. leading by nine points. this is the registers voters in a two-way race. it's very similar if you go a four-way race. in fact, it's higher. joining us here on set, one of our pollster jeff campbell he's from the democratic side.

and our republican pollster i guess mike is good. is that right? there he is. mike is vice president of strategies. with this 17% who are undecided and one of the questions around the table and a big question in the back room there, is there a way for trump to make this happen. this 17%. can he pull it out from the undecideds breaking his way? >> good morning, steve. good morning. that group has certainly got a bit of a republican flavor to it. it's most ingent but you have some leaning towards republican. i think mostly what that group can do is hold down ballot. to retain their seat or to grab a new seat maybe in one or two districts. that's a big gap. that donald trump is dealing

with. he's underperforming with some of his natural base including republicans. i think he's got a real strug toll try to make up that whole gap. but i think it does help republicans down ballot. >> you sort of didn't answer the question, micah. and maybe there's a reason for that. can he overcome the deficit? i know you said he has a long way to go spp it just closing the gap so it's a closer election? or is it possible to get over the top? >> well, i think that he can close the gap. do i think that on an election night exit poll we're going to have a minus nine presidential ballot? no. i think it will close. >> okay. >> do i think that he can do everything to get over hillary clinton? i look at the base -- i'm sorry, the base republican number at 77. that's a very -- >> that's what we pointed out in the last report was looking at how republicans are going to

their own candidate. i want to do new information now. i think we do the best at asking economic issues. we ask about a series of issues here when it comes to economics. what we find compared to the last but what you're looking at here, folks, is the change in the lead by the candidate here. what you see here is that overall economy, this is clinton's lead. she had a one-point lead in june. now it's a five-point lead. on trade, nine point lead remains. on business regulation, she's in front. on the budget deficit, she's in front. even on best on the stock market, trump had a 16-point lead. you marked he had these advantages going nn being a businessman. and americans seemed to really give him points for that. and now it doesn't seem to be. >> any advantage he had before was squandered. he really has. he has rested on his laurels as

being the guy who can fix things, make things better, the guy who can help you with your economic situation. but to go from this big lead he had on improving the stock market to now being tied with hillary clinton, at the end of the day, any currency if you will, he got out of being a businessman he's just frittered away. >> during the break i asked you what was the chance that these numbers are not correct and that these people are not saying they're for trump. your answer surprised me. >> i mean, it's a made up number. but i said 20% chance. at the end of the day, i think that i know that our numbers are right. from where the race is now. i think the question you asked can all these undecided voters which is a big block number, swing trump's way? i think it's highly unlikely.

micah and i agree on that point. this is a group that they are a little bit more -- in addition to being a little bit more republican, they're economically down scale. they're a little bit more pessimistic about the state of the economy which should all work in trump's favor. but at the end of the day, they're also a little bit more young which works in hillary clinton's favor certainly. and they're not angry. they're not happy, but they're not angry. i think what you said in your previous segment, steve, is trump's getting the angry vote. the angry vote is just not big enough for him to win. >> micah, you wanted to weigh in on that. >> i would say, look. what jay was saying, i think, is generally correct. and gosh, i forgot the point that he was making. lost the train there a little bit. but clearly the voter is struggling.

this is a dead even race on those issues. you've got a candidate with a nine-point advantage but she's pulling even on some of these major issues like the economy. she should be blowing him out of the water on everything if she's got a nine-point advantage. so clearly voters are making the choice between the lesser of two evils and you do have a big chunk of people sitting out on the survey and they're doing that for a reason. you know, they're not comfortable with either one of these candidates yet. and they're going to make a decision or they won't vote. and i think what jay has said about the flavor of that group down scale, a little bit more republican, that does work in trump's favor. we're just going to have to see what happens on election day and how those people break. >> right. >> it used to be, was it october surprises or november surprises? >> october surprises. >> we're all -- it's october but we're all, like, desensitized. this is not in your -- that's a great one. the e-mail thing. >> i think that's a good question. >> but it won't matter. even "the new york times,"

donations to foundations vexed clinton -- i mean, you follow the money here. it's amazing. if it's not pay for play, what do you call it? >> could it still make a difference the e-mails coming out? >> no. because a porn star came out and said trump wanted to date her. >> for every surprise for clinton, there will be five for trump. >> and one will get a lot of attention and not the other. >> because trump talks about it. >> if you say so. coming up, a look at the top stories. and andrew has a special guest who i hope is not related to me. andrew? >> he is not. we're going to talk about workers, real people here in atlanta. when we come back, talking about the election as we squawk the vote. we're back in just a moment.

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welcome back to "squawk box." we are squawking the vote and wrapping up our squawk the vote series today with one of atlanta's most prominent business leaders. joining us right now in halperin. he also serves as a chairman of the atlanta housing authority. and he is a cornellian. did i get something wrong there? >> i'm not the southeast campaign manager. >> i'm not. >> oh. that's what they said.

>> no. i'm a volunteer leader. >> so we're here at the ok cafe and here for a reason. you're here for a reason because you started your company here. >> 1994. >> sitting in a booth back there. >> yes. with jackson. we started our company march 16th of 1994 in this restaurant. >> 3500 employees now. >> almost a couple hundred million dollars in revenue. >> we talk about a lot of small business owners. i don't know if we're putting you in the small business category. you may be bigger than that. but invariably a lot of them are voting for donald trump. you're on the other end of this. >> i'm shocked. >> why? >> i think in our country right now, we have a lot of crises in front of this. 70% of americans don't have a thousand dollars. in a country where 70% of the company is driven by consumer spending, i need more customers. there's a difference between mr. trump and mrs. clinton on who will build the working class.

>> we're talking about taxes a little bit. >> correct. >> i thought you would want lower taxes. >> probably personally in my dreams i would want lower taxes but for our economy and country i think we need a sensible tax policy. i find grow revenue, invest capital. the country needs to do the same things. the capital that we need to invest is in our tax base. >> where do you stand on the minimum wage? >> i am one of the few restaurateurs that believes minimum wage should be raised. >> to what? >> between $11 and $12. $11 gets us back to the inflationary status and maybe an extra dollar for the productivity piece that will come with it. >> what do you see happening? you have your pulse on the consumer in a meaningful way. you own a number of tgifridays. you're all the way up in philly and down in florida. >> that is correct. >> so what are you seeing? what does the economy feel like to you? >> i feel people are nervous,

people are scared. for once people are starting to look at the future wondering how they're going to pay their rent. housing costs are growing much more than wages are. i think people are scared. >> is that having a meaningful impact on your business? >> it's having an effect on my business. sales are down this year. >> and is that a function of the category, the price point, the what? >> i think it's a function of all of those. obviously the category price points, look at more value, more items we can offer. we can't build revenue anymore through raising prices. we've got to build by getting more guests in the restaurants. >> and if you look at donald trump as a businessman, you view him how? >> out of touch with middle market, small business people like myself. i think once again i come back to the same argument. i need more customers, not fewer. if most of the money on the well side is going to rich people, and it's not being reinvested back into the economy, i think that stifles small business and middle america. >> let me ask you the flip side. i don't know if you saw some of the wikileaks stories that came

out overnight talking about the money relationship between hillary clinton and her husband and what was going on during with the foundation and all of that. does that worry you at all? >> it doesn't. i've been a big supporter of the noun dags. if people look at the work that's been done worldwide, they've done amazing things. rated as one of the top foundations in the country. i have no problem with that issue. >> and the other question i was going to have is in this state and it looks like donald trump is going to win by about three points. >> i think people will be shocked on election day. i think mrs. clinton will be well in georgia. but you think it will be in mr. trump's favor. it is a red state. but i don't think he has the ground operation everybody thinks he has in georgia or elsewhere. >> okay. well, we will see. we appreciate your time this morning. and as i said, you're a cornellian. so go big red. >> go big red. thank you so many up. >> appreciate it. when we return, we're going to head down to see our friend jim cramer. he's going to join us from the

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welcome back to "squawk box." stocks to watch, blackstone beat estimates on top and bottom

lines helped by strong stock market and increase in the value of real estate holdings among some other factors. it follows upbeat results earlier this week from private equity rivals like carlyle. aetna reported quarterly profit four cents above estimates with revenue also scoring a beat. the health insurer did say however that it is still dealing with profit pressure related to the affordable care act. and we're watching shares of tesla, which reported a rare profit 71 cents a share compared to expectations for a loss there. tesla also saw record sales during the quarter. let's get down to the new york stock exchange. jim cramer joins us now. and the two ts, twitter and tesla, jim. take your pick. >> well, both are better than expected on different kinds of metrics. i know that the anti-tesla people say wait a second, this was all aided by credits. but tesla the conference call was one i have to regard as positive. i think the people who hate tesla will hate it even more

because it was positive. i think the big overhang will be solarcity. if you look at tesla plain, it was definitely better than expected. when i look at twitter, again, you've got very low comparisons, but they were beaten. i don't think people are going to be all gaga for twitter, but the daily average user number from quarter to quarter in terms of the year over year how it's done was better. i think they're getting some pretty good numbers from nba, getting some good numbers from the debates. now obviously that's one off. good numbers from thursday night football, but it just seems like they've got programming people are watching. the layoffs i think will actually boost the bottom line, just seems like rationalization of the sales force in light of the fact there's just changing business conditions. so i don't know, i mean, i can see why someone would want to buy it. but i don't think it's going to be for sale. >> another big deal. that's pretty big deal, isn't it? for qualcomm. >> yeah. you know, this is one where, look, nxpi been a fantastic stock. the internet of things and auto

company, they are really the semiconductor company for autos, even driverless, so merge with qualcomm largely cell phone and you have a company soup to nuts in the fastest growing areas. a brilliant acquisition because qualcomm can use overseas cash because nxpi is a dominant company in the netherlands, they financed with cash from overseas. that was the big problem. qualcomm had money overseas, they can buy, additive deal, $47 billion, makes a lot of sense. qualcomm is not done going higher even at 70. >> all right, jim, thanks. you've got stephen coming up on "squawk on the street," don't miss qualcomm ceo. at 10:00. yeah, but the show starts at 9:00. he'll be live at 10:00. you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc. these goofy glasses.

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welcome back to "squawk box." we've been talking to andrew in atlanta all morning. a final word from the south, andrew, before you head back up here? >> if i brought your parents back on the show right now, kayla, how would you feel? >> not good. i don't think. you said they told you all about my teenage years, which is risky. i will say -- >> i learned a lot. we'll keep it off the air for now. but we can talk about it later. but it was great to meet them.

they were spectacular. we actually had a lot of people come over and say hello and some really terrific people here in atlanta. so we've had a lot of fun here this morning. i would say the big takeaway is despite a little bit of our setup as this being a battleground state, we'll see whether it is or not. it was a bit of a disagreement over that. obviously the polls show trump is up plus three points. we have the senator suggest actually that that is low based on the polls and based on his own polling experience. and then we had a number of other people tell us that actually they think it's much, much closer. so i think this is one to say stay tuned for. and we will stay tuned for that. but it's been a fun morning here at the o.k. cafe. and a quick thank you to everybody. i don't know if you guys with the cameras -- i don't know if they can see. an amazing team that's put this all together for us this morning. so thank you for that. back to you. >> all right, andrew, hope some of that southern charm and hospitality stays with you. >> yes. >> when you come back. >> i'm headed to sea island,

joseph. i'm going to take off the next week, is that okay between now and the election? >> are you going golfing? >> music to his ears. >> you know who could show you around? senator perdue, did he mention that? he didn't. >> maybe we'll go over there for dinner. unfortunately, i'm not going to be able too to do that. i'll see you tomorrow morning. >> you know what else goes on, the zombie school for "walking dead". >> right, yes. >> down near atlanta. you can go out and check that out. >> a lot of production there. that's why they call it yollywood. >> you have to go to school to learn to be a zombie? that does not come naturally to some people? >> some zombies move really quick. walkers move very slow. and our guest host this morning, covered a lot of issues. didn't know we'd get to zombies. >> and i do not know anything about zombies. >> but you know coming in here you'll get the entire --

>> everything under the sun. >> if hillary clinton becomes our next president, do you think she'll be more private sector friendly or more of the same? >> she certainly knows a lot more and has had more dealings with the private sector, but you know there are reports it's going to be the elizabeth warren party and that she will move left and that her long time experience and her husband bill's friendliness towards the private sector will evaporate. no knowing. >> we didn't get to talk much about what we talked about earlier, that is trying to instill leadership qualities in our kids to get them to, you know, become great citizens and great entrepreneurs and work for success. and things like that. >> sounds like your kids are being taught about leadership in school. it's certainly nothing i learned about. maybe when you were growing up in georgia they talk about leadership when you were in -- it was stuff actually that doesn't really matter which is how to find the volume of a cylinder. >> circumference, formulas. >> joe, you used that when you went onto your high brained

education. >> i think it's neat to see efforts of you and jack in this regard permeates all the way down to elementary school. >> that is exciting. it's good to have kids talking about it as young as possible. >> only more kids go into politics. we need more of them people. >> exactly. if they're going to succeed. anyway, great having you. >> thank you for having me. >> well, this is me, make sure you join us tomorrow. "squawk on the street" is coming up next. ♪ good thursday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla, jim cramer, david faber at the new york stock exchange. this is it, the single busiest day of the earnings season arriving along with the biggest ipo of the year. europe is mixed, uk gdp comes in up 0.5. deutsche bank ekes out a profit. durables a slight miss, but