plants and lots of new jobs, and you know what, they're going to be building them in this country, not some other country. we're meeting with unions, meeting with law enforcement, and we're meeting with leaders from all around the world. where the white house doors used to be totally closed -- they were closed, folks. you don't realize that. they were closed. they're now wide open. and they're open for people doing business for our country and putting people to work. and when they come into the white house, we're translating these meetings into action. one by one, we're checking off the promises we made to the peeyt united stat people of the united states, one by one. a lot of promises. and we will not stop until the job is done.

we will reduce your taxes. we will cut your regulations. we will support our police. we will defend our flag. we will rebuild our military. we will take care of our great, great veterans. we're taking care of our veterans. [ applause ] we will fix our broken and embarrassing trade deals that are no good, none of them.

you wonder, where did the people come from that negotiated these deals? where did they come from? well, they came also from campaign contributions, i must be honest with you. they're not as stupid as you think. we will cut wasteful spending. we will promote our values. we will rebuild our inner cities. we will bring back our jobs and our dreams. so true. so true. and by the way, we will protect our second amendment. [ cheers and applause ]

you know, wayne and chris are here from the nra, and they didn't have that on the list. it's lucky i thought about it. but we will, indeed. and they're great people. and by the way, they love our country. they love our country. the nra has been a great supporter. they love our country. the forgotten men and women of america will be forgotten no longer. that is the heart of this new movement and the future of the republican party. people came to vote, and these people, the media, they said, where are they coming from? what's going on here? these are hard-working, great, great americans. these are unbelievable people who have not been treated fairly. hillary called them deplorable. they're not deplorable.

[ crowd booing ] [ crowd chanting "lock her up" ] who would have thought that a word was going to play so badly? that's the problem in politics, one wrong word, and it's over. she also said irredeemable, but we won't mention that. the gop will be from now on the party also of the american worker. you know, we haven't been as a group given credit for this, but if you look at how much bigger our party has gotten during this cycle, during the early days

when we had 17 people running the primaries. millions and millions of people were joining. now, i won't say it was because of me, but it was, okay? and we have an amazing, strong, powerful party that truly does want to see america be great again, and it will see it, and it's going to see it a lot sooner than you think, believe me, a lot sooner than you think. we will not answer to donors or lobbyists or special interests, but we will serve the citizens of the united states of america, believe me. global cooperation, dealing with other countries, getting along with other countries, is good. it's very important. but there is no such thing as a global anthem, a global

currency, or a global flag. this is the united states of america that i'm representing. i'm not representing the globe. i'm representing your country. [ cheers and applause ] there is one allegiance that unites us all, and that is to america. america. the allegiance to america. no matter our background or income or geography, we're all citizens of this blessed land. and no matter our color or the blood, the color of the blood we

bleed, it's the same red blood of great, great patriots. remember, great patriots. we all salute with pride the same american flag, and we all are equal, totally equal in the eyes of almighty god. we're equal. thank you. and i want to thank, by the way, the evangelical community, the christian community. communities of faith. rabbis and priests and pastors,

ministers. because the support for me was a record, as you know, not only in terms of numbers of people, but percentages of those numbers that voted for trump. so, i want to thank you folks. that was amazing. an amazing outpouring. and i will not disappoint you. as long as we have faith in each other and trust in god, then there is no goal at all beyond our reach. there is no dream too large, no task too great. we are americans, and the future belongs to us. the future belongs to all of you. and america is coming about and it's coming back, and it's roaring, and you can hear it. it's going to be bigger and better. it is going to be -- it is going

to be -- remember -- and it's roaring -- it's going to be bigger and better and stronger than ever before. i want to thank you and madam mercedes, i want to thank the two of you and all the supporters i have. they are all over the place. you are really great people. i want to thank you. and i want to say to you, god bless you and god bless the united states of america. thank you, folks. thank you. thank you. ♪ [ cheers and applause ]

♪ >> that is the president at cpac. an enthusiastic crowd, obviously. a muscular speech. the room to capacity, hitting all the notes we're familiar with -- criticism of the media, legislative priorities, including tax cuts, deregulation, the repeal of obamacare, military build-up, in the president's words, the era of empty talk is over. market largely unchanged since he began speaking, slightly off the lows. bond yields have lowered a little bit, although within some sectors perking up on mentions of the border wall, which the president said was way, way, way ahead of schedule. a lot to unpack here. kayla tausche's at cpac. kayla? >> reporter: well, carl it was an incredibly loud room, on their feet most of the time the

president was talking. two particular moments that the crowd leapt up, and the first was when he started talking about tax reform, the second when he started talking about deregulation. those are two linchpins for this conservative movement that started this conference so many years ago. he did hit all of those familiar refrains that you mentioned -- criticism of the media, saying that anonymous sources should not be used in journalism, despite the fact that his white house has just given a background briefing with no attribution there. so an interesting note that some people here were scratching their head about, but he did get some cheers from the audience here. he talked about trade. he talked about the fact that they're not going to do these what he called quagmire deals anymore, where the united states is part of a dozen or so countries that all enter into the same deal. he said the deals are going to be one on one, and if the other country goes against the terms that it will give the u.s. the ability to pull out of that deal. he did say that the wall is going to happen. people were chanting "build the

wall." people were chanting "lock her up" at various moments. people were chanting "usa." and he did say that that was on schedule and said that he has completed the most actions before taking office of any preside president, that he has been a president of action, but certainly a lot of talk today, carl, about obamacare repeal and replace, about this massive tax reform that is at some point going to come down the pike, and about all of the deregulation that is coming to business. >> kayla, of course, he put a coda to some of the meetings that we've seen earlier in the week. he at one point discussed the strategy and the intent behind that meeting with manufacturing ceos. take a quick listen to what the president said. >> in anticipation of these and other changes, jobs are already starting to pour back into our country. you see that. in fact, i think i did more than any other prepresident. they say president-elect.

president-elect is meeting with ford, he's meeting with chrysler, he's meeting with general motors! i just wanted to save a little time. >> pumlitzer-prize winning columnist is joining us along with jon fortt. jim, convincing? >> well, he's certainly in his element in this environment. at the same time, if you want an illustration of a divided america, well, you just saw one half of that divide. i couldn't help but think that he immediately hits on the wall, on the immigration, probably the single most divisive issue on the entire plank. that's number one, and he hammers away on that. number two, the media's the enemy. very striking to me. he barely mentioned the democrats. it used to be the republicans and democrats were the ones, you know, combating, and the media was kind of in the middle. no, it's now the media is the enemy. that's, again, that is a very controversial notion. it's also very divisive. so, he was clearly whipping up

the base here, and they were responding fervently. i mean, you can recognize the passion in that crowd, but there is a whole other side of the population that i think would be, to put it mildly, cool to much of what he said. >> you know, and to your point, jim, about mentioning the wall, mentioning getting tough on immigration and getting, you know, criminal aliens out of the country. if you look down at the list of policy notes that he struck, taxes pretty far down there. it really was about trade agreements. it's the campaign themes of getting our fair share on the trade front, getting jobs back here, deregulation, a little bit on infrastructure, but not as much about a tax break, which would normally be kind of the standard line i think for this crowd in past years. so i don't know if we want to infer too much about that, along with steve bannon's comments yesterday to the same group that basically were all about economic nationalism and about trade relationships. >> well, and to read his quote -- "i'm not representing the globe, i'm representing your country. there's one allegiance that

unites us all. that is allegiance to america." you could almost hear bannon's presentation from yesterday as he referred to economic nationalism, john. >> yeah, absolutely. and jim, i'm wondering your thoughts. there was a narrative in the past around american exceptionalism that everybody in the world wants to be an american deep down. we are leading the globe as america into democracy, into free-market capitalism, and eventually, everybody's going to want to come along. the narrative seems to have shifted somewhat, or maybe dramatically, in this trump era, where he's saying we don't have good deals. we're going to have good deals. we're going to win. it's more of a zero sum game. we're going get certain people out of the country. you talked about the divisiveness that you heard in tone, but is there something else happening here just around american exceptionalism and how that's changing and implications for business? >> well, i totally agree. i mean, i think the whole notion

of what are these american values -- he said we're going to bring back american values, but exactly what values is he talking about? take the america first idea. yes, i think, yes, everybody who's an american wants to do what's best for america, but does that mean you turn your back on the globe? can you represent america effectively, in fact, maybe most effectively while also recognizing that we are part of a global community, and in fact, the economy is more global today than it ever has been in america's history? i think the symbolism of the wall that we can somehow, you know, build this, exclude everyone, turn our backs on this, and that america will be greater as a result of that is a theme that runs through all of this. i think that's highly questionable. i don't know that that's realistic. by the way, again, it strikes me, it's almost amusing to some extent, that almost everything he says is an exaggeration. it's bigger, it's better, it's going to be better, it's kind of exciting to hear that somewhat, but i don't think it is really realistic. >> on deregulation, for the

market's purposes, he did try to point to regulations that he's in favor of. >> yes. >> tried to argue that he's in favor of protecting the environment and american workers. this is what he said on regs. >> we're going to put the regulation industry out of work and out of business. and by the way, i want regulation. i want to protect our environment. i want regulations for safety. i want all of the regulations that we need, and i want them to be so strong and so tough. but we don't need 75% of the repetitive, horrible regulations that hurt companies, hurt jobs. >> kayla tausche, you can draw a line from that comment to what mnuchin said a couple of days ago, specifically to the "journal," that getting to 3% growth could be a function of doing away with some of those

obama-era policies. >> reporter: it could be, but carl, there is also a sense that deregulation is perhaps the carrot, tax reform is the carrot, and then the pressure to move these jobs back or to use american materials is the stick in this scenario. the president talked about in this speech about meeting with executives about the keystone xl pipeline, and when he heard the steel for that was coming from all over, he said nope, that's not going to happen. he talked about the republican party becoming the party of the american worker, about those manufacturing ceos bringing jobs back to the u.s., but there is a lingering question from attendees this morning about what sort of incentives government is going to have to offer all these companies on the back end to actually follow through and comply with some of these requests. >> you know, one last thing, jim. one thing we didn't hear as much was discussion of innovation, research, education, for sure, right, of the american worker, preparing us for future eras. did you notice that at all?

>> i don't think there was a word about education in there. and in terms of certainly technology innovation, jon, you might want to comment on this, but you know, silicon valley is not the audience here, and they are not on board with this let's turn our back on the rest of the world. i mean, they are very successful because they have innovated, they have led the world, and they are selling their products globally, and they are hiring highly qualified workers from the rest of the world. they are adamantly opposed to this closing ourselves off agenda. >> technology ceos, as we heard from satya nadella yesterday, actually have sort of a counter narrative, saying something different, trying not to contradict the president, but talking about the entire globe being important, american values spread, a little bit more of the perhaps older message of exceptionalism we were talking about. >> yeah, i think part of that was america wanted to lead by example and we wanted to export our values, our economic model, democracy and capitalism, throughout the world and that we would prosper as a result of

that. and i find it hard to believe that trump really wants to turn his back on that. >> jim, thank you for coming in. >> sure. >> we normally talk about your column, but it was good to have you here to wrap around the president's speech. jim stewart of "the new york times." dow's still down 48. s&p down about 4. clearly off the lows of earlier in the morning. we'll talk about what the afternoon may bring after a break. ♪ when you have $7.95 online u.s. equity trades, you realize the smartest investing idea isn't just what you invest in, but who you invest with. ♪ isn't just what you invest in, but who you invest with. if only the signs were as obvious when you trade. fidelity's active trader pro can help you find smarter entry and exit points and can help protect your potential profits. fidelity -- where smarter investors will always be.

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we are going to massively lower taxes on the middle class, reduce taxes on american business, and make our tax code more simple and much more fair for everyone, including the people and the business. >> president trump speaking about tax and regulatory reform. markets, of course, a big topic this week with secretary mnuchin talking to us yesterday on where he sees policy going and the president's comments to reuters last night. christian rometti joins us, oppenheimer funds chief investment officer, james paulsen also. good morning to you. >> good morning. >> jim, you heard the president's speech, i'm assuming, a few moments ago. anything to strengthen the pro growth argument we've gotten from the white house? >> well, i always think the two biggest pieces for wall street, at least, carl, is just the show

of less regulations and ultimately some form of a tax cut. i think the rest of it becomes more problematic for wall street. i think, for example, a massive infrastructure spending program could be looked at as inflationary, at a full employed economy, and getting into health care seems like could be gridlock and a whole lot of other things. i think the two most important things for wall street is less regulation, which we're seeing some show of, and a tax cut, hopefully some time this year. >> christian, it's always hard to try to attribute what the moves are based on, what the motivation of investors is in terms of taking stocks, for example, up to this level. but i wonder if kind of you had the economic story line perfectly cooperating with, you know, a rally in stocks, and then seeing policy as a potential benefit down the road, or if there was policy uncertainty, most of the uncertainty's skewed in a positive direction. where are we at now in the

equation at these levels? >> i think the markets are very much discounting the synchronized global recovery that we are seeing. in addition, the markets are also discounting the uplift in earnings that we are getting off of that. what we need for the markets to get to the next level is real, solid policy. and trump and his colleagues are talking about it, but we haven't really seen anything. and the likelihood of that is going down by the day based on the ka calfny of all of the things you hear from the policymakers. and i think for the markets, that's really the biggest risk. and let me kind take the other side of the argument that the gentleman was making, which is, in my book, what we really need is an increase in business investment for this recovery cycle to go to the next level. and without an expansion of the fiscal base, that is, unless we see significantly higher level of deficit, the likelihood that that happens is pretty small. so, that's really in my mind the acid test. even if you get tax reform and

the fed tightens and the dollar goes up, the impact of that on earnings and growth is actually not going to be that significant. what we need is a fiscal expansion. what we need is deficit spending. and it doesn't look like we are going to get it today. >> well, james, we don't talk so much about deficits anymore, it seems. at least we don't hear as much about it out of meetings like cpac, but what we're talking about, reducing revenues by cutting taxes, we're talking about spending more, infrastructure spending, and there's the expectation that growth will come up and sort of cover a multitude of sins. what if that doesn't happen on the schedule that's expected? what do you expect the market fallout to be and how soon? >> i really think that the market is much, much less dependent upon trump policies than people have made it out to be. i really think this is more about the synchronization of

global economic growth, the broadest evidence of recovery hitting more corners of the globe than ever before, a pickup in u.s. and foreign growth, a pickup in recharge of the earnings cycle, a show of world, being able to create inflation, moving away from global deflation risk, a normalization of economic policy in the united states. there is a cocktail of really wonderful stuff that i think is what's driving this market. and to tell you the truth, whether trump gets anything done or not, as long as that economic and earnings momentum keeps up, that's the air under trump's magic carpet. and as long as that keeps up, i think trump can be teflon. he can say and do what he wants or not do, and as long as there's those other factors at play, i think the market's going to continue to go up. and i think that's why the confusion is, with all the washington volatility, why hasn't it affected wall street? >> right. >> i think because the economic and earnings momentum is just

too darn good. >> all right. guys, we've got to cut it short to get to europe's close. krishna, thank you for coming in. james, always good to see you. when we come back, a rough week for uber, as you probably know. alphabet suing the ride-hailing giant. one week until snap goes public. loop venture's gene munster's going to join us. and we'll talk about president, trade, and the business of nascar with racing legend roger penske. what's going on here? you know how ge technology allows us to fix problems before they... they slow production, yeah. well, no more catchy business acronyms. wait, we don't need to smooch? i'm sure we can smooch a solution! we just need to "hover" over the candice, problem until... just let it go... hey, sorry i'm late for team building. smoooooooch! that felt right. what's wrong with you!? he's so trusting... i've got a nice long life ahead. big plans. so when i found out medicare doesn't pay all my medical expenses, i looked at my options.

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jcpenney reporting earnings this morning. our courtney reagan spoke with the company's ceo moments ago, joins us now to share some of that conversation. hi, courtney. >> good morning to you, mike. marvin ellison was one of the retail ceos that met with president trump and members of congress to discuss tax reform, specifically the border tax, last week, and ellison told me that president trump "listened, he asked questions, we posed questions back to him, but he didn't give us any indication about where he stood on the proposals." the retail ceos also included members of congress, including representative kevin brady. and ellison said when it comes

to them and where they stood "there is no straw poll that has been done, but we're pleased with the questions being asked and the high degree of concern about the impact on consumers." ellison said in all the meetings, questions were asked, and he believes there are still lots of options on the table. this is not a foregone conclusion that this legislation will be passed." now, when it comes to closing up to 14% of its stores, ellison explained that the timing was based on several factors. "we had a very underdeveloped omnichannel strategy" when i came in. "it was hard for me to understand how many stores we needed until we began to roll out buy online, pick up in store. it would be reckless to close stores without that in place first." ellison also said he purposefully lined up the timing of the closures with the voluntary early retirement plan across the company, which he anticipates even after those store closures will result in jcpenney hiring more for the positions of those that take that retirement package. back over to you. >> all right. thank you very much, courtney

reagan. what a story today. let's get to contessa brewer for a news update. >> carl, this is what's happening right now. turkish media report the car bomb north of town just captured from isis by turkish forces killed at least 35 people, including civilians and syrian opposition fighters. the syrians put the death toll at 45. the car bomb hit outside a security office. malaysian police are investigating how two women received a nerve agent which was then allegedly smeared on the face of the half brother of north korean leader kim jong-un. the investigators surmise it was a massive amount because small amounts of the chemical are difficult to detect. supreme court justice ruth bader ginsburg says she doesn't plan to retire from the court any time soon. she appeared on a bbc broadcast last night, saying she plans to serve as long as she can. and this may be the biggest welcome mat ever and the most personalized. colorado rancher plowed 800-foot-long letters reading "trump" in his land. he says he was frustrated by all

the negativity coming from the president's opponents. he also said if trump happens to see that sign while flying overhead, well, come on down! stop by the ranch. that's our "cnbc news update" for this hour. won't he be surprised if that happens? jon. >> yeah, it's one way to get your message across. thanks, contessa. still to come on "squawk alley," we talk trump, trade, and the business of nascar with racing legend roger penske. we'll be right back. what's the value of capital? 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. a rough week for uber. alphabet's self-driving car unit wamo accusing it of stealing lidar technology. this is after uber's ceo, travis kalanick, said he's launching an urgent investigation into allegations of harassment and gender bias, hiring eric holder to lead the probe. arianna huffington, the board member, in on that as well. mike isaac, "the new york times" tech reporter, and gene munster, founder of loop ventures. good morning to both of you. mike, you wrote a story earlier this week about uber's culture that was really pretty unsparing in some of the detail. and since then, buzzfeed got some audio of about 100 female engineers really taking travis kalanick to task over the culture at the company. how serious is this for uber's quick expansion?

because they've been very much about grow at all costs, protect the people inside who are aggressive, even if they break a few eggs along the way. >> i think this is probably one of the most brutal periods for the company that i've ever seen, just according to people that i'm talking to inside. if you'll remember, a few weeks ago they had a real backlash where people were deleting the app. hundreds of thousands of people where deleting the app en masse. but this is a little bit different because it's really a crisis of conscience internally for people that they have never had to go through. i think a lot of the employees that i spoke to, part of them thought, okay, yeah, this is the uber i know very well, and then many of them were aghast that sexual harassment or claims of a guy threatening to get his head beat in with a baseball bat from his manager, that kind of shocked a lot of people. so, i think they are in this sort of existential moment where they're asking themselves, is our culture too crazy, and do we need to find another way to grow

without, you know, looking insane in the meantime? >> gene, you are an investor at this point and you've certainly looked at things from the perspective of public-market investors. how much should investors, both present and future, worry about these kinds of reports about a company's culture? >> investors probably shouldn't worry. these are unfortunate and really inexcusable things that are going on. but at the end of the day, is that uber's culture is not going to change. and the reason is that culture is dangerous to change. it can be changed, but it is dangerous. what got uber to where they're at today is this intense culture, and their vision is to have transportation is as accessible as running water. and to continue that vision, you'd have to -- and to impact the culture is something that's dangerous. so, as an investor, i would like to see the people that actually did this being held accountable, but i wouldn't want to see the

culture changed, as crazy as that might sound. >> what about the wamo lawsuit, though, when it goes to intellectual property? how important is that the piece for their future? >> i don't know the details of the lawsuit. i know that there is a history of these relationships. if you look at google and oracle over java, apple and samsung, this seems to be along the same thread. it is safe to say is that autonomy is this next incredible wave that's going to come over transportation. my guess is it probably sets auto, which is uber's self-driving, back a year. >> mike, that would be quite a response to all of this, quite a rebuttal, if what gene said, if uber were to say this is an isolated incident, we're taking care of it, but we remain committed to the aggressive culture we have. >> yeah, i mean, i actually do agree with gene in that it's very difficult to change culture in a company, especially when the founder, travis kalanick, has really espoused a lot of

this hobbsian environment of kill or be killed internally, a lot of competition. so it's hard to change that dna from the top. that said, obviously, you can't have hr ignoring claims of sexual harassment, and you know, crazy stuff like that, so they're going to have to make some crackdowns in that sense. i do think that the wamo stuff is pretty existential as well because these are pretty serious ip claims. and you know, uber has not responded yet. but the stuff in there is -- it says anthony levin dowsky, auto ceo, went through outright theft. so, i'm curious to how uber responds when they lobby something back. >> yeah, i believe the claim is that on a company laptop, he downloaded special software, downloaded 9.7 gigabytes worth of wamo's trade secrets and then attached a hard drive. so, we'll see how that plays out in court.

gene, mike, thanks for joining us today. >> thank you. >> thanks for having me. when we come back, more on the pause in the rally we're seeing this morning. dow's down about 60 points. coming up next week, of course, we'll be all over snap's ipo plans, talk about the preps that the nyse's doing this weekend, when "squawk alley" continues.

i'm scott wapner. today on "the halftime report," one of our traders thinks a correction to the trump rally could hit the markets next week.

how he's getting ready today. plus, noted short seller andrew left making moves today. he'll join us to tell us what they are. and the call on goldman sachs that may shake up the financials trade. "halftime report" top of the hour. carl, see you at noon eastern. thanks, scott. let's get to rick santelli and get "the santelli exchange" at the cme. rick? >> thanks, carl. i'd like to rem my guest, rob nichols. rob, thanks for taking the time today. >> rick, thanks for including me! i'm excited to be here. >> all right, listen, you know, many might not know that the federal reserve is owned by private investors, and those private investors are in the form of banks, and they get shares, they can never sell them. but there is a dividend that's been associated with them for over 100 years, 6% dividend. but that all changed. it's a weird story with transportation and all the changes kicked in january 1st of this year. tell us about it and tell us what you think about it. >> well, rick, i'll tell you. so, about a year ago, congress,

to pay for roads and bridges -- and mind you, infrastructure's very important in the united states, we need to improve it, so we're not anti-infrastructure -- but they took, rick, $17 billion from 72 banks in the united states of america in the form of that big haircut to pay for roads and bridges in the form of the fast act about one year ago. we tried, rick, to get a legislative remedy. we tried to reverse it in congress. we were unable to. so, the fact that we're pursuing a lawsuit against the united states of america, it's something we do very soberly. this is not something that we would leap to, but it's an important principle, and every other recourse, sadly, was unavailable, so we pursued litigation, rick, about a week and a half ago in the u.s. court of federal claims to attempt to reverse this. we think it's illegal, and we're very excited about the prospect ahead. it's an important principle, because we think it was an illegal taking. >> yes, and i believe if you're

now a bank the size of $10 billion or larger, and you're a member of this quote/unquote club, you now get the smallest of two rates. you either get 6% or the auction rate of a 10-year note, is that not correct, rob? >> that's right. and we think that the act that congress pursued, rick, was illegal. we're pursuing a couple of different claims, and we're looking to the courts to sort that out. again, infrastructure is critically important. we all know that. you know that. your viewers know that. but having one specific small sector within one private industry group to pay for roads and bridges we, frankly, just think is illegal. >> all right, listen, we have to be on time here. in 30 seconds, you know, big banks versus little banks, barrier to entry, all the compliance. as that gets rolled back, i'm hearing more of the biggest banks in the country say, hey, we don't really have that many problems with dodd/frank. is it because they're a little nervous about the competition of the smaller banks? quickly your answer, sir. >> here's what i think.

there are a handful of the large banks who are not seeking regulatory reform. you've heard them on your own air. however, there's 5,900 other banks where the policy's trickling downhill and getting in the way of serving their clients and communities. in particular for the 5,900 community banks in the nation, there are a number of changes, regulatory changes and some legislative changes in the form of modifications to dodd/frank that we think are critically important to help this economy grow at a greater clip. >> rob, thank you very much. great answer. and now we're going to go back to carl quintanilla. thank you, sir. >> thanks, rick. rick santelli. thank you so much. good to see you, rob. 2017 nascar cup series kicks off sunday with the famed daytona 500. as the new season kicks off, the popularity of the sport in question as viewership and admissions on the decline. joining us to talk about the state of the big race and the state of stock car racing is racing legend roger penske, the chairman of the penske corporation. roger, it's good to have you

back. welcome. >> well, carl, thank you. it's great to be here. we've got great weather here down in florida for the big race coming on sunday. >> it's going to be a big one. i was curious. we mentioned the popularity of motorsports. the "journal" this week tried to argue that nascar's seeing some decline. i'm assuming you don't buy that. >> well, i'll tell you, carl, i was the chairman of the super bowl in 2006 in detroit, and we had 70,000 people. and you think about nascar, every weekend we have more than the super bowl brings every single weekend 38 times. and i would say when you pack and load the social media around this sport and the connection to the drivers and the teams and the activation we have, i think we're in the best shape ever. we just announced a new seven-year partnership with shell pennzoil today and joe gibbs announced fedex yesterday. so, companies that scrutinize the marketing aspects of this and the returns are saying this is a great place to be. >> so, mr. penske, looking at

what brian france was saying about the state of nascar, he argues that streaming technology, the fact that people are consuming so much on mobile, the demand for people's time is part of the reason for these declines in in attendance. is there something that you think needs to happen maybe with technology in nascar that could boost the numbers even beyond what you're talking about? >> well, i think that, you know, they've really had some ground breaking decisions. i think this year with the new format with the call it quarters in football where we'll have a yellow and the drivers get points for competing up to those particular time frames within the race will make a big difference. but the connection that nascar has done with the fan into the car, sitting behind the wheel with the driver and things like that are making a big difference. reh remember, there are so many options of the young people today of the sport. to me when i think of nfl and i listen to the numbers they might be down in attendance but the overall impact of the sport is

still there. i think you've got two sides of that. we see the sport stronger than it's ever been from a competitive standpoint. there are more sponsors knocking on our desk and i see the same thing. the problem is we built these big tracks with 160 or 170,000 seats and ability to bring fans in i think there's a downsizing going there and i think people are taking that the wrong way. >> roger, got to get your take on politics and trade. we just heard from the president a few moments ago at cpac. are you loving this pro growth policy? how is it changing the way you do business? >> i would say, you know, we're in the transportation business, as you know, in the automotive business. we operate in the uk and brexit, quite honestly right now has not impacted us yet. we're watching that. western europe seems to be good. united states, 17 million vehicles. border taxes, we really don't know how that's going to impact was because you've got to think about what's going to be the

depreciation, what's going to be the individual income tax, corporate taxes, and things like that. i think there's a myriad of things that will make a difference as we go forward. but to me our business is good. we had a record year last year. $21 billion in our automobile business. we see another great year coming at us. and there's no question with a new models coming out it's going to be key. but i think that we're certainly behind pro-growth. our stock is at all-time highs over the last three or four months. so from a business perspective, i see it very positive. now, you know, obviously we live in a world of risk and uncertainty and i think that's one of the things that we always have to consider as we make decisions. not personally but also in our business. >> what do you make of people who are predicting the rise of the machines, automation, completely revolutionizing at least commercial trucks? >> i love it because, as you know we have 244,000 trucks running on the highway. and if we get more utilization

because we don't have to have drivers in the mobility comes in to play a factor there, we have the relationship with technicians. we have some 3,000 locations that we can mobilize. so to me it's right in to our sweet spot in our business. i think you're going to see a lot of things happening in the trucking business. you know, where maybe the front truck has a driver the last two has been falling that because of technology. and to me that's where we need to go. this is a ground breaking time for us in the industry. we need to utilize our trucks 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. quite honestly with labor laws the driver can only drive so many hours. that's going to make a big difference. with our foot print we think we're in a perfect position to take advantage of it. this mobility i think is terrific. >> roger, i wish we had half an hour or more with you but we will be watching on sunday. it's good to see you again. thanks. >> yeah, watch 22 and 2.

>> roger penske of automotive and of course the daytona 500 is sunday on fox. mike? >> well, up next, amazon and the osz ke oscars. a look at content spending wars, coming up after this. ♪ why do so many businesses rely on the u.s. postal service? because when they ship with us, their business becomes our business. ♪ that's why we make more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country. ♪ here, there, everywhere. united states postal service priority : you uh, yeah. what is?r, larry. the whole wheelie thing. what do you mean? i just got this baby to get around the plant floor. right, but now ge technology monitors every machine. yeah, it brings massive amounts of information right to you. so you don't need that.

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oscaring are coming up on sunday night. it's not just hollywood movie studios getting ready, it's also a potential landmark night for amazon. julia boorstin is on the red carpet. julia? >> hey, carl, we found a piece of red carpet here. the best picture win would be the biggest hollywood honor and amazon is the first ever streaming video company to be nominated, giving it more street cred. in addition to best picture "manchester by the sea" has five other nominations includesing best director, best actor, best screenplay. amazon bought the film for $10 million at last year's sundance film festival. now grossed $60 million. oscar nods have catapulted it past netflix, 13th, was nominated for best documentary. one of five best doc nominations

for netflix over the past three years. amazon is a threat not just the netflix but the hollywood system. raising the bar of how much both netflix and traditional studios have to pay for films and tv series. last month amazon out bid them on number of sundance films writing them the biggest checks in the festival's history, $12 million. amazon spending on movies is minute compared to the total $6 billion jeffries projects amazon will spend on content this year. e-tailor isn't so focused on box office returns but on drawing subscribers to its prime service. guys, back over to you. >> we're going to see what happens on sunday, julia. thank you very much. meanwhile, we're just about a week from snap's ipo. nyse plans to test its systems this weekend to avoid glitches similar to that. shock's facebook's ipo on the nas in 2012. i remember that day sitting in facebook's parking lot. hopefully nothing like that happens this time. >> i'm going to try to tie it together.

the importance of l.a. and content to silicon valley right now. snap of course is based in l.a. it's duncan tent arguably better than anybody else over the past couple of years. facebook has been chasing them with whatsapp and with instagram. and then amazon spending all this money on content. i remember when silicon valley was allergic to content after microsoft and nbc got together with something that different look so great at first. >> everyone is drawing the comparison between facebook and twitter and their idea user generated content, all free. you don't have to worry about that professional produced stuff. is not enough. it's interesting. i wonder where snap is in economic life cycle. facebook waited too long. it was already very strong financially. going for $100 billion market cap. twitter may be too i'm what sure. i don't know about this one. >> we're going to find out a lot more how the market receives it coming up next week. the ten-year, five-week low,

mike, got down to 31 i think -- i looked back. the s&p was about 2300 last time, ten year was here. not a lockstep relationship but sending you a signal maybe there's at least a pause in the cyclical trade. >> good weekend, everybody. let's get over to the judge and "the half." ♪ >> carl, thanks. welcome to the "halftime report." i'm scott wapner. top trade this hour. markets big moent. stocks up 3% in february. with the dow setting a record close for the tenth straight day. longest streak since 1987. so why then is one of our experts saying a correction could be in the cards as early as next week? with us for the hour today stephanie link, jim lebenthal and the brothers najarian and kate morris at blackrock. let's begin with stocks. they are pulling back today. prediction of what might happen next. i don't know, doc, you're the one who think