and i think you could see back pressure on the curve when we can figure out when the pipeline will go into operation. but we're dealing with still more and more oil, and i would look for prices to i think break down at the end of the day. and i still see us heading down to $42 a barrel. >> all right, from just under $48 where we sit this morning. john, thank you. john kilduff. >> what a morning. if you're just joining us, welcome to "squawk alley." jon fortt's here with us along with kelly evans on this friday morning at post 9. dow is slowly adding to its gains, up 58 points right now. as you might know, the house delaying that key vote to repeal and replace obamacare until later today, debating the issue on the floor at this hour. of course, we're watching lawmakers as we keep a camera shot on the house floor. we're going to be talking about that. we've got keystone going on. the president, of course, delivering his own ultimatum. the cover of the "new york post," guys, is "my way or the highway," as he announces -- >> couldn't resist using that. >> as he announces that to house leadership. our kayla tausche's in d.c. with

the latest on all this. >> reporter: hey, carl. if a few hours ago, it was the calm before the storm, it now feels like the storm is approaching with members of the house scurrying back and forth, a flurry of activity as people are taking meetings and going back and forth from the floor as we build up to that vote this afternoon. of course, this comes in the wake of what you mentioned, that ultimatum coming from the white house delivered by budget director mick mulvaney, although this morning on "squawk box," he did now say it's up to republicans to reach a consensus among their own party. here's what he said. >> as to whether or not negotiations are ceased, i think we made it very clear last night that if the republicans need to work amongst themselves on the hill in order to tweak the bill a little bit here or there, in order to get the necessary votes to pass, that's fine with the president, as long as it doesn't change the underlying bill, and i doubt that it would at this point. >> reporter: there are some reports, though, that the white house has been holding back-channel communications with some members that they are still trying to sway, not the president himself, but some of his advisers. but senior gop aides say that, basically, all negotiations have

ceased, that at this point, no substance of the bill can change but that there is still a question over where exactly the freedom caucus, that conservative wing of the republican party, stands at this hour. perhaps that's why this morning we saw the president himself from the official potus account target the freedom caucus specifically, tweeting, "the irony is that the freedom caucus, which is very pro-life and against planned parenthood, allows the institution to continue if they stop this plan." so, interesting to see the president taking direct aim as he seeks to close this deal, despite the fact that negotiation with the white house is apparently over. finally, there is this sense that the white house wants to move on to something else. but i talked to aides here who say that's a little bit premature for this reason in particular. despite the fact that republicans generally espouse tax reform, it's something that hasn't been done in several decades, and health care has been top of the agenda, to the point where house and senate leadership are actually relatively aligned on their health care plan. they haven't been talking about

tax reform and they don't have alignment there, and that's what aides are telling me here, that we can't get ahead of ourselves about tax reform because that hasn't been something that's been discussed at a granular level between leadership. what's been discussed is this bill that we have hitting the floor today. guys? >> that is a key point for stocks, kayla, no doubt about that. thanks to you. talk to you in a bit. kayla tausche in washington. it's not just health care regarding markets today, the president giving the green light to keystone pipeline this morning. take a listen. >> today i'm pleased to announce the official approval of the presidential permit for the keystone xl pipeline. transcanada will finally be allowed to complete this long-overdue project with efficiency and with speed. we're working out the final details as we speak. it's going to be an incredible pipeline, greatest technology known to man or woman. and frankly, we're very proud of it.

>> to break down the market impact and how investors should be positioning today, let's bring in jeff sout with raymond james. we're seeing drama coming off the hill, but is passage of this health care bill bullish or bearish? >> i think it would be bullish, at least in the near term. and i lived in d.c. for a long time. i still have a pretty good network on capitol hill. and typically, they don't bring a bill up for a vote unless they're pretty sure that they can pass it but things are not typical in d.c. anymore. >> all right, jeff, in the meantime, what about the keystone act and the fact that oil prices, which are now below 48 bucks, have been a risk for the market? our last guest said it could go down to $43. >> well, there's a meeting over the weekend among four big oil producers, including russia, i might add, and that's been kind of keeping oil under $50 a barrel. i think the keystone pipeline should have been built years ago. it's the best technology. and you know, there's already a

bunch of pipelines that run over the aquifer, which is what a lot of the environmentalists are worried about. >> the health care bill passing would be bullish, and it looks more uncertain than ever, but how do you read the markets and what they're doing this morning? all the major indices look to me to be higher, but for all that we know, later this afternoon when this comes to a vote, they're not going to get the result that they thought they were going to get yesterday. does this not put the rest of trump and the gop's agenda in jeopardy? >> i think it does. i think you have to solve the health care issue first because there's a bunch of embedded taxes in that, before you can attack the corporate tax schedules. so i think it's important that it gets passed today. you know it's going to be completely rejiggered in the senate, but i think it's important that it passes. and my contacts on the hill suggest to me that they're still one or two votes short. >> and so, if it doesn't, what does that mean for next week?

>> if it doesn't, i think the market takes a hit here. you've already broken below the range it's been in, between and moving day average which has acted as a buy spot. so you've broken down a lot of technical indicators here as of late tuesday. >> so you're not a buyer of the narrative that for the markets, at least, health care was like a vegetable -- a meal -- part of the meal they were not interested in. they really wanted the sweet stuff in taxes, and that setting it aside allows them to move on to just that? >> i think president trump will move on to that, if the health care bill goes down, and the market was also looking for less regulation. i think they've done a pretty good job on tweaking some of that stuff already. so, but i do think the vote today is very crucial in terms of the near-term directionality of the s&p. >> jeff, meanwhile, technology has been one of the best

performing sectors. i guess earlier suggested that as we kind of move through this political, you know, this series of political events, fundamental strength needs to come back to the floor. what would you be a buyer of here? >> i still like technology. believe it or not, i like energy. i think oil prices are not going to stay down here forever. our oil team in houston has done a very good job on calling the price of oil, both on the down side and the up side, and they think prices are going to firm from here. >> all right. jeff, thank you for joining us this morning. jeff saut there from raymond james. >> always a pleasure. sticking with the theme this morning, it's health care, of course. let's get out to the cme group where rick santelli has "the santelli exchange" and a special guest. good morning, rick. >> good morning, kelly. indeed i do. former president of lily usa, alex azar. mr. azar, thank you for taking the time this morning. >> well, thanks. i'm glad to be with you. >> all right, you've been listening to the ongoing conversations pretty much all coming to very similar conclusions.

it's not exactly the perfect plan. if you're a pragmatist, you say, well, this is the best we can do for now. if you're a purist, you want to do more. how do you weigh in, just superficially, on the issue of passage of the bill? >> well, i think that's really well said. it's important to remember, there has been such a vitriol, even within the republican party about this piece of legislation right now, but the amazing thing is the freedom caucus and house senate and white house leadership, there's really ideological agreement about the end outcome, which is obamacare made the hhs secretary and the national government the insurance commissar for the united states, and they want to get rid of that. it's now a question of tactics. and the simple fact is republicans do not have 60 votes in the united states senate. when democrats passed obamacare, they had 60 votes. they could pass regular legislation regulating insurance.

this legislation is what's called reconciliation. it's a budget vehicle to basically adjust taxes and adjust spending to hit budget targets. and if you throw something into that legislation in the senate that's just purely regulatory, you may get it kicked out and be subject to democratic filibuster. so, the fight's really about tactics right now between the freedom caucus and leadership. the freedom caucus wants to try to gut a lot of those insurance commissar regulations from the center, but leadership is saying we're going to send this over to mitch mcconnell, and he's going to have a problem, because this may subject this to democratic filibuster. so, it's unfortunate it's gotten so darn heated, because everybody pretty much agrees on where they want to get to. it's just about tactics. >> well, now, let's dig into some of the changes that have been made to put this over the goal line. now, some of the changes are to what they call the essential

health benefits. that seems to be something that the freedom caucus wanted. you hit on it. more states -- the states now get to make more decisions, and more funding for the issues they're in -- maternity, mental health, substance abuse. that will go into patient state and state stability fund, of billions more dollars. and of course, the cbo weighed in again. there's less savings and there's subtle changes. i'm paraphrasing, subtle changes in the numbers of uninsured. finish us up with will those changes be enough, in your opinion? >> i think they will pass this, whether it's today or over the weekend or early next week. i think they're going to end up passing this, because they will have put the changes to essential health benefits that the freedom caucus wants into the legislative package. i think it will get across the goal line. i do have a lot of trouble imagining that after probably one of the clearest legislative mandates in election history to get rid of obamacare, members

are going to go back this fall and say, yeah, we decided we're going to keep obamacare forever because we couldn't get everything exactly the way we wanted in this legislative package. so, i think it's going to get over in the house. that's the easy part. now the hard part begins is going to be in the united states senate getting to 50 votes, because you've got a more liberal caucus there, you've got cuts to medicaid that a lot of members are upset about. you have concerns about whether there's adequate substance tiesation for buying access for insurance for people. you have questions of whether the new penalty for staying enrolled in health insurance in order to avoid a pre-existing conditions ban, if that's enough of a hammer there to keep people in. there are some really big issues coming in the senate now. like i say, the house part, this is the easy part today. >> well, mr. azar, we appreciate your opinions. everything you said seems logical, but the asterisk is, we're talking about politics

here. logic sometimes don't figure in. thank you for your time today. carl, back to you, sir. >> good interview, rick. thank you very much. when we come back, twitter reportedly hatching this new plan to raise some revenue. we'll talk about that. let the bidding begin. the nfl selling streaming rights to next season's thursday night football and at least four tech names you know are interested. and of course, all morning long we have our eye on washington as we await more details on the health care vote and events at the white house, when "squawk alley" comes back. post 9 is sponsored by fidelity investments. innovative ideas for serious investors. we cut the price of trades to give investors even more value. and at $4.95, you can trade with a clear advantage. fidelity, where smarter investors will always be.

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welcome back. twitter is considering a premium version of its tweet deck unit designed fof power users. they're conducting a survey about whether or not to collect subscription fees for the first time. the popular move away from ad dollars comes amongst online problems for ads. jpmorgan spending running ads on youtube for fear of being associated with offensive or extremist videos. business ceo henry blodget joins us at post 9. good morning, henry. i want to tackle this youtube thing first. why now? i mean, there have been crazy videos on youtube for a long time. google has not exercised granular control over where things appear. this seems kind of coordinated. >> yes. >> i know it started in europe, but have the ad agencies finally had enough? sir martin sorrell has been

speaking out on this over at wpp. >> well, when you get called out by name on the front page of a newspaper with a massive headline saying, what a scandal, you're supporting extremist content, brands are going to say, hey, wait a minute, no way. so, this has been simmering for a long time, something that actually i don't think is that hard to deal with. in fact, it's time that youtube and google dealt with this. television forever has been very careful about promising advertisers the environment that they deserve. >> wait, wait, wait, that hard to deal -- they are uploading 600,000 hours of video -- >> all they need to do is create different tiers and promise certain advertisers, you want safety? great, you're going to pay more for it because we know it's going to be safe, and we are also going to license content that is very appropriate, that you'll be proud of supporting, and you'll know that and it will cost more. what you can't have, and what everybody seems to want to have is we want to pay nothing for everything, and there are not too many areas of society when you can actually do that. >> so you don't think it's colored by "t" and verizon

getting into businesses that would compete more directly with things like youtube? >> i think that the whole industry is going from the wild west era where it was just huge tonnage, dogs on skateboards, anybody upload anything to getting more and more professionalized. and with the amount of money that's being spent on it by brands that justifiably care a great deal about their image and what they're supporting, they're now going to demand more. and google's in a great place to provide that as are lots of other premium publishers. >> do advertisers want guarantees we won't be up against xyz? >> absolutely, and they certainly deserve to have that. and advertisers always have -- again, going back to television, when you sell the super bowl, it is very clear what they are buying. and when you have scandals around that, they're justifiably very angry. so, now google and facebook and others have to move into this world, and that's okay. it's just more professionalization. it will happen. it's not a mystery. >> are we crossing into a new era? tech has traditionally been allergic to paying for content.

the whole idea behind user-generated content was supposed to be, well, we won't have to pay for this. but then the buying stars and youtube stars eventually once they became stars want to get paid. i mean, now, is the whole ecosystem moving to a model where you don't get quality that you can run ads against and run a business against unless you pay for content? >> it turns out that producing compelling, great content is actually difficult. and some people are better at it than others, and they do need to eat. >> well, thank you. >> yes, exactly. ultimately, folks deserve to be paid for that. and we've definitely been moving in that direction for a long time with netflix, and youtube has been buying a lot of time. >> this dovetails into twitter, the ultimate example of user-generated content. everybody's putting it out there and viewing it for free, but that may change if they charge a subscription model for some of the services. will that work for twitter. >> based on what i'm seeing, it's just initial market research. people are like, hey, could we charge for this?

let's ask our folks and we'll see. i think what they've described, charging news organizations for distribution or distribution power, it's a pretty small opportunity, i would say. and i think they would have real trouble having normal people pay for news. >> really? >> oh, absolutely. >> why is that? >> why? because you can get news everywhere. and twitter does have a very dedicated news addict community. that's the strongest thing about it -- >> wait, wait, wait, we have an expert sitting right here, carl. if they charged you -- >> i had this debate with darren rovell on twitter all the time. i'd pay a lot of money for tweet deck. >> oh, it's a lot of money. >> i don't know, $100 a month? >> you would pay $100 -- >> probably practice i'm paying for cable. >> the problem is -- that's amazing, first of all. that is a lot. but secondly, if had they charg $100 a month, all the people you like interacting with would disappear because most people wouldn't pay that, i don't think. >> i am not paying for any tool that only works on twitter. i've got so many social networks to feed and pay attention to, it's got to work across all of them. this nfl news about thursday

night football with twitter possibly competing up against youtube, facebook and others for thursday night football, does that fit into this narrative for you? >> absolutely. this is where everything is going. and i hope -- i enjoy watching football -- that every game is on multiple services very soon. it's annoying that it's just thursday night. it'd be great to get all the sunday games on there, too. >> those are kind of the crummy games and there's debate whether they should even exists because it robs from better lineups on sundays and mondays. >> i'm sure there's a secret money reason in there. i'm not sure what it happens to be, but i'm looking forward to being able to watch football on all platforms. and yes, this is where the platforms are going to have to step up and pay big money for content that we know millions of people want to watch. >> we're going to be hearing from the president in a moment, meeting with charter's tom rutledge, which, setting aside health care and keystone, sort of brings to mind the isp story earlier in the week and all the media deals that are still on the runway, awaiting take-offs of various kinds in front of the

white house. >> yes, and there still is an element of unpredictability, because with regard to everything else, the president is stepping back, saying hey, there should be less regulation. and then he said some of the things about some of the media transactions where he says he's going to get involved and try to block that because somebody's made him angry with the way they're covering him. so, lots of questions around that. >> here is the president. >> thank you very much. we greatly appreciate your being here. i'm delighted to welcome tom rutledge, chairman and ceo of charter communications, a great company, to the white house. i'm also very honored that my friend, texas governor greg abbott, my good friend and

supporter -- i love you -- is here with us today. very appropriate. he's done a fantastic job in texas, and we have a previous governor that did a very good job, right? >> right. >> where is he? he's here someplace. he's standing right over there. i'm very excited about the announcement we are about to make. first, some background. five years ago, charter communications was a struggling company that had slowly emerged from bankruptcy. today, thanks to hard work and unbelievable leadership, truly great leadership, it's the fastest growing television, internet, and voice company in the nation. i would say that's a good job, what do you think? >> it's a good job. >> not bad! very impressive. bring him into government. tom rutledge and his team turned the company around, and they did it very quickly. they created a culture of customer service and excellence. and most importantly, they brought back many jobs that had been shipped overseas, something that's happening far too often, but we're changing that.

that has been good for certain businesses but not good for the united states, not good for america, not good for our people. when american workers win, america as a country wins. we want companies that thrive and hire and grow right here in america, and we want them to use american workers and american citizens. today, i am thrilled to announce that charter communications has just committed to investing $25 billion with a "b," $25 billion -- are you sure that's right? right? not with an "m"? with a "b," right? >> with a "b." >> $25 billion here in the united states, and has committed further to hiring 20,000 american workers over the next four years. charter is also committed to completely end its offshore call centers. that is such a big deal. and to base 100% of its call centers here in the united states. all american jobs.

this is great for their workers. it's great for the customers. and it's certainly great for the united states. and you watch, it will be one of your really fantastic decisions. tom will be opening a brand-new, beautiful call center in mcallen, texas. you know mcallen well, right? >> i love it. >> great place? >> great place. >> i knew you were going to say that. where they will create 600 new american jobs. charter's announcement follows a number of american businesses, from exxon to intel to lockheed to boeing, to many others, that have recently announced billions of dollars in investment and thousands of jobs coming into the united states following my election victory. we are embracing -- and by the way, thank you for your support. the governor was a great supporter, wilbur and reed. a great supporter. i want to thank you. you've done a fantastic job. we're embracing a new economic model, the american model. we're going to massively eliminate job-killing

regulations. that has started already, big league. reduce government burdens and lower taxes that are crushing american businesses and american workers all over this country, and we are really in the process of announcements. and you're going to see thousands and thousands and thousands of jobs, companies, and everything coming back into our country, and they're coming in far faster than even i had projected. so, we're honored. i'd like to have tom rutledge say a few words about what he's doing and about his great company. and after that, you guys can go back to health care. [ laughter ] >> thank you, mr. president. you know, it's a great pleasure to announce these jobs. and you know, charter has been insourcing jobs for the last five years. and as a result of that, our company's performed tremendously, using high-skilled, high-quality workers actually saves money. and it saves money, as you know

as a builder, if you do the job right the first time, it's a lot less expensive than redoing it. and we've found that in the service business, and we've found that we can actually do better with high-quality, high-skilled, american workers. and so, we've been doing that, and our company was so successful that we were able to recently do a huge transaction with time warner cable and bright house networks and put together this tremendous company. and as part of that, we're going to insource all the calls that time warner cable outsourced. 50% of their calls are leaving the country. so, we're going to bring all that back and create 20,000 new jobs, and we're very excited about that. and we're also excited about the opportunity in the right regulatory climate and the right tax climate, to make major infrastructure investments. we're going to spend $25 billion. we're committed to spending that, predicated on the kind of regulatory consistency and efficiency that we expect as a country. and so, we're looking forward to

the opportunity to create these jobs and to build this infrastructure. and kipp mayo, who manages our call centers, would like to tell you what we're going to do in mcallen specifically. go ahead. >> okay. so, with the opening of the mcallen center, it gives us the capacity to be able to create over 600 good-paying jobs. that allows us to insource work that is currently performed through third parties. the mcallen center will be our first fully bi-lingual call center. it will allow customers who prefer to communicate with us in spanish to do so, and we will provide them with service and technical support. we have already hired a general manag manager, very qualified, woman who is bi-lingual and is also, coincidentally, a native of mcallen. we expect to open the call center next month, and we've

hired over 100 employees already, and they will be trained and they will be ready to assist our customers in just a few short weeks. so, this is a very big step for us in our strategy, in our plans over the course of the next few years to create jobs and to bring work in from overseas and back to the united states. >> and they're good jobs, too. and they're high-paid jobs. they have pensions, they have health care. they're the kind of jobs people want. they're good, solid, middle-class jobs, and we're proud to make them available. >> that's great. thank you very much, tom. fantastic job with the company. unbelievable job. i'd like to just close it out by asking my friend, governor greg abbott, to say a few words, and he'll talk about the company, but he's very proud of what they've been doing in texas. so am i. so, greg? >> sure. well, first, i'm proud of you. we have a president who is living up to his campaign promise, and that is to create more jobs, but also to create more jobs by returning jobs from

overseas back to the united states. i want to thank charter communications for the great job you're doing, but also for expanding in the great state of texas. we are happy that this first tranche of your expansion is in the rio grande valley, in mcallen, texas. you talked about the texan environment, the regulatory environment. texas is number one in the nation for job creation because of the pro business climate that we have, because we have the right workforce to take care of the needs of companies like charter communications. so, this is a win-win. it's a win for the president, it's a win for charter, it's a win for the great state of texas. the country is better today because of the jobs that will be created tomorrow in mcallen, texas. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. >> thank you. congratulations. >> thank you. >> congratulations. >> thank you. >> okay. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> with that, the presidents' day continues. tom rutledge of charter there, along with governor greg abbott of texas.

the headline appears to be, once again, a company coming to the white house to express a commitment to create jobs in this country. this one appears to be something they talked about prior to the closing of time warner cable. >> yes. there seems to be a running stream of that, but that's it. come on, let's celebrate it. it is good. these are good-paying jobs. like to see them in the united states. that's great. it's a great media day for the president, who is changing the subject from the train wreck that's happening across town, and that's good. >> i also wonder, we've got tom rutledge there. david faber had to say that these verizon/charter talks were not moving forward a couple months ago, after they bought time warner cable, and as those in new york city now call it spectrum, the service. >> this reminds me of a time we took a gift that we -- okay, well, we'll talk about that, but it's kind of a little bit of regifting to the american people when it comes to jobs. >> let's get to eamon javers. he joins us from the white house with more reaction.

eamon? >> reporter: yeah, hi, kelly. i don't think they would call it regifting here at the white house. this is the sweet spot of this presidency. this is what donald trump likes to do as president of the united states, sit there in the oval office with ceos and make big, splashy announcements. $25 billion is certainly a big, splashy number. 20,000 americans getting jobs inside the united states, that's a number they like here at the white house. so, this is the kind of thing that this president wants to be doing maybe more so than dealing with the headaches of health care up on capitol hill, which is turning into a very sticky wicket for this administration. so, expect to see more of this over time. whether it's regifting or not, they clearly like doing these events here at the white house, and they like spotlighting american companies that are bringing jobs home, not just because of the company itself and this particular announcement, but they feel that the pressure that they put on other companies by shining positive spotlights on those that are doing it will encourage other companies to bring jobs home as well in the hopes of

getting their own oval office announcement, guys. >> all right, thank you, eamon. >> good point, eamon. and whether it's about a commitment made fresh today, whether it's a regift -- i love that phrase. >> that matters, though. >> there is something ethereal, though, right, about companies thinking about domestic production, repatriation of employment, right? >> it's good! absolutely! and the idea that we're working with companies to do it, it's just not scaleable is the problem. we're talking about 600 jobs here. we need millions, so -- >> and context matters. this is something charter said they were going to do in the context of this merger, arguing for why this merger was going to be good for america, right? so, to then take that, repackage it and regift it to the american people as if it's something that newly elected president trump did, eh. >> kind of good politics. >> it is good politics. >> one thing of many. very clear, very consistent with him is you do him a favor, he's going to do you a favor, and this could come in handy later. >> interestingly this morning steven mnuchin talked about

evaluating the border adjustment tax, things that could affect the dollar, hurt exporters but they don't want to hurt walmart shoppers. there are a lot of pieces to the puzzle of creating jobs in the country while creating a more pro business agenda. we're going to take a break. henry, thank you for being with us. henry blodget from business insider. we'll come right back with the dow up 26. at fidelity, trades are now just $4.95. we cut the price of trades to give investors even more value. and at $4.95, you can trade with a clear advantage. fidelity, where smarter investors will always be. and at $4.95, you can trade with a clear advantage. i love the smell of napalm in the morning. no, this is double espresso. hodor! hodor! ehhh, hodor. you guys watch game of thrones, right? inconceivable! surely, you can't be serious. i am serious. and don't call me shirley? stream all your entertainment. introducing at&t's new unlimited data plans.

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heavy day of news in

washington. we've got keystone going on, charter, of course, just now, and then there's the vote coming on health care at some point today, which will influence the agenda for the next few months. joining us, lanhee chen, former policy adviser to mitt romney and ma. good to see you both. >> good morning. >> maya, taking your temperature right now on the health care issue as it stands on the hill, where is your head on it? >> well, i don't know what i expect to happen for the rest of the day, but i do think that no matter what, we still need more time to get both the objectives of what we're trying to get done in health care reform done and have more political buy-in, obviously. and i would just point out that we've never really laid out what the major goals of repealing and replacing obamacare are. and from my perspective, one of the things i think is most important and that hasn't gotten enough attention is controlling overall health care costs. the biggest policy growth in our budget, of course, is health care, and we need reforms that

will help bring those costs down a lot more than what i think have been added to the bill so far. so, i hope that's something the focus will include going forward. >> yeah. as someone who knows how this gets done, i wonder whether it's policy or process, are we looking at rookie mistakes here, or are there things on the hill that were out of the white house's control? >> well, sometimes process and policy blend and they become one. i think that's kind of what you're seeing here. i don't think it's so much rookie mistakes as just this is a very complex area, there are winners and losers any time you tear apart a large piece of reform like obamacare. i agree with maya, health care costs are absolutely the first and foremost issue that any reform has to tackle. i would take slight issue with the notion that this bill doesn't do that. obviously, i think reforming medicaid is a huge imperative for states. it's a huge imperative for the federal budget going forward as well. so, i think this bill accomplishes some of that, but certainly, the process was not ideal. and as a result, i think you're

seeing policy that nobody's really super happy about, although there are elements here that i think are important and important to move ahead with. >> and we're looking at the hospital stocks up again today. lahnee, what about after this? the president's made it pretty clear, he wants the vote now. if it goes down, they're going to move on. and in that case, it sounds like the biggest worry on wall street, which is that the whole trump agenda might be stalled maybe doesn't hinge on passage of this act. do you buy that? >> yeah, i don't think the trump agenda hinges on it. i think the challenge we have going forward is if you don't do something definitive about the health care system now, you're leaving health care providers, you're leaving payers with a lot of uncertainty. and we know that business does not like uncertainty, and that's going to be a significant issue. obamacare is having some serious issues in some states, some parts of the country. that needs to be addressed. and so, i worry if we just move on, we're not getting to the fundamental issue here, which is what we're going to do with obamacare going forward. >> and maya, some could argue, critics could argue that the gop

kind of spat in the water here, promised the people soda, and now if we don't get the soda, they're saying, well, okay, you can drink the water. the obamacare exchanges are kind of a mess. people haven't been sure whether they should sign up for this, whether it will be there. what is the impact on the budget that you see if we end up kind of having to kick the can down the road, which seems to be a term that we only use for congress these days, when it comes to health care? >> yeah, great question, because i think there's two big issues here. there is the uncertainty of not resolving these situations and putting these fixes in place that lahnee was just talking about, and we know changes are going to have to be made. and the longer that we wait -- and listen, this is really complicated. it takes time to put a bill together. but if this stretches out for another year or two, there's a whole lot of uncertainty, both for consumers and in the markets and for providers that makes the situation more challenging than it's already been. but at the same time, its effect on the budget is very profound. and let me just point out that

republicans' budgets in the past assumed very large savings from health care reform, from repealing aca, to the tune of $2 trillion. and what we've seen is the score of this bill would save -- the first score would have saved about $337 billion. the next score is less than that. we've seen a watering down of all these savings. so, as we look beyond the health care horizon and think about things like tax reform and the overall budget, one of the big questions is how you're going to square the circle of all these numbers. omb director mulvaney has talked about getting balance within a decade. that's a very aggressive goal. but if they're going to try to do anything close that that, we are going to need to see savings from health care and other areas of the budget. we'll have to move into the big picture of how this fits into everything else on the fiscal side. >> lahnee, implications for future legislation? some argue that if this goes down today, other things on the agenda, like taxes, will need to be chopped up into easily digestible portions with maybe a

different calculus of support. do you think that's true? >> i think what we're seeing here is that any time you try to put a large piece of legislation together, and you've got many different parts trying to move at once, it is very complicated, which is why at one point republicans had talked about repealing obamacare and dealing with replace in pieces. obviously, they went with this approach. i think on tax reform, it's going to be a little bit more challenging to chop that up because the individual and the corporate tax systems are interrelated. so we'll have to see what happens. but there's no question, the further you go into this, the longer you wait, the more difficult it becomes politically, and i think that's a challenge they're going to be facing going forward. >> maya, lahnee, we still have to get through today. appreciate your insight. thanks. >> thank you. >> watching markets at this hour. seeing pretty good breadth, at least. index action is not heavey. dow's up 29. another ipo at the nyse this morning. we'll talk to the ceo in a first on cnbc interview. ♪(music plays)

♪ heigh ho heigh ho ♪ ♪ heigh ho heigh ho it's off to work we go here's to all of you early risers, what's up man? go-getters, and should-be sleepers. from all of us at delta, because the ones who truly change the world, are the ones who can't wait to get out in it. i'm brian sullivan. today on "the halftime report," whether congress approves or rejects the health care vote, our question is how much of an impact will tv on the rest of the trump agenda, including tax reform, and what stocks and sectors might be most impacted. plus, the catalyst and headwinds you need to watch out for that are not coming from washington. believe it or not, things outside washington are actually happening. and just when some investors thought it was safe to get back into the retail space, a new

threat emerges, threatening to force those beaten-down stocks even lower. we'll tell you what that is. "the halftime report" kicks off at noon eastern. >> all right, sounds good. thank you very much, brian. let's get to the cme group in the meantime, check in with rick santelli, get "the santelli exchange." busy day, rick. >> it is a busy day, but it's not a day where you're going to use the benchmark for bids for how big the ranges are. and that's kind of the point here. if you look at ranges, whether today it's the s&p, the nasdaq, the dow, ten-year note yields, dollar index or yesterday, what you'll find is that there's not much that separates the high trades and the low trades from an intraday basis, especially when you go close to close to close. now, i'm going to make a statement, and i don't mean it to be derogatory in any way, but it seems to me that the adults in the room most likely are the markets. not to say that politics isn't crouched in emotion,

uncertainty, ill logic, and it usually makes markets get a bit crazy. i harken back to the crisis with the t.a.r.p. vote. but it's hard to argue with the notion, at this point in time, based on what we know, in a quantitative, hard data fashion, here's what we do know, that if you just look at the data and forget everything else, really, prenovember to now, that the base line of data relative to what we would like it to be is still light. we're still data-light. durable goods number wasn't bad. but when you looked at the proxy for capital spending, it was negative, and it's been running at a much-reduced clip for quite a while. productivity, same issue. yes, we have enough jobs. but like anybody in the world, you know, if your bills are $60,000 and you make $20,000, your boss doubles your salary to $40,000, that's wonderful, but you're still not paying the bills, okay? so, there's something missing. now, the markets have been very kind, as you see on all these charts starting before the

election, with respect to what it somehow thinks is going to come down the pike. but it doesn't seem to be flustered by the fact that the base line of data hasn't changed much. it doesn't seem to be flustered that it's messy making sausages in washington. i think that's a good thing, and i really think that if you had to break it all down, the fixed income markets, taking into account a lot of global channels, central banks, growth in europe, what's going on in japan, the foreign exchange side of this is an extension of that line of thinking. so, those two markets -- listen, i'm not surprised that 263's the high yield close for the year, no matter what, if we were still in a previous term of the previous president, i think the resistance levels would be about the same. so that leaves the equity markets. now, does that mean that if this passes or doesn't pass, there's not going to be a response that's much more aggressive than we're seeing right now? no. because we all know if you're a trader, past performance might not be indicative of future results.

kelly, back to you. >> all right, rick. fired up. thank you so much, rick santelli this morning. alteryx, the latest company right here to make its market debut on the new york stock exchange. shares are up nearly 11%. we're going to speak to the ceo in a first on cnbc interview right after this. oh...not the smooch method! come on... 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...

house intelligence committee ranking member adam schiff responding to the chairman devon nunes's call for a closed session briefing with the fbi

and nsa directors. here's what he said. >> he wants to bring back directors comey and rogers for a closed session. we welcome at any time bringing the former directors back in closed session. we don't welcome cutting off the public access to information when we have witnesses as these three very important witnesses who are willing and scheduled to testify in open session. >> meanwhile, enterprise data analytics software company, alteryx began trading. the ceo is here at post nine. why put the "y" in if it's "all trex trex." this is a very important day for you. talk about the importance of this capital for your growth plans. >> it's strategic capital, so we'll have the opportunity to

perhaps make acquisitions in the future, continue to grow the business like we've been growing it for the last few years. and it's just a day in the beginning of the next chapter. >> you're a young company, relatively small. we haven't seen that many of those come public. often, investors have to wait. but i'm also looking at some of your financials. it appears that marketing, sales and marketing costs are growing almost as fast as revenue. that's often an argument for consolidation in this space. how long before, kind of, the ballot shifts when it comes to that kind of metric? >> so, we have $86 million in revenue last year, 59% growth. eclipsed only by 57% growth in our net new customers. our customer acquisitions costs continues to come down. the payback period is now under 20 months, which is pretty top pixel for the sass world. and we haven't seen an analytics company go out publicly in a very, very long time. we believe that the market is

ready for a powerful platform like ours in the line of business, and we're going to drive it forward. >> i see here, data cleansing, data blending, faster data preparation. do you consider yourself big data? what is the niche in the market that makes your company and your services so essential? >> so, alteryx is a platform that allows an analyst to prepare and blend and then most importantly, analyze any kind of data. big, little, structured, unstructured, data in the cloud, on the ground. you can consume any content, apply any analytic process, from basic arithmetic to algorithmic to statistic and share the data with people who matter most in metaphors they can understand, whether it's to a spreadsheet, a word document, to a dashboard, to salesforce in a next best action model. we make it really easy for analysts around the world, the citizen data scientists to become productive in their work. >> i like that, the citizen data scientists. you were making the point earlier off-camera, when you

started the company, analytics weren't happening the way you liked it, like you thought it should be happening. and that's why you went out on your own. >> so the analytic process of yester year is completely broken. today, if you didn't have the alteryx platform, an analyst would go to i.t. and there would be a statement of work, a requirements document, technical specification, waterfall development. and you would get the answer in six months to -- and you would have forgotten why you needed the answer. and today, we turn every data worker into a discoverer of marginal profitability for the enterprise. they love their jobs now, they've become very productive, and they're answering really hard questions for the business. >> well, it's making my head hurt, so i'm glad there's always these people doing it. dean, thank you so much for joining us. congratulations. >> thank you for having me. >> happening on a day where the markets are hanging in there, as we await mar procedural votes and final votes on health care. dow is up 32 points. back in a minute. it was always a dream of mine to become a professional soccer player, but i never imagined that i'd be playing in kansas city.

when i was first elected mayor, they would talk about kansas city, kansas like... i can't wait to get out of here. through the years we lost over 30,000 people. we turned that obstacle into an opportunity. the speedway was the catalyst... and because of the speedway we now have a shopping area and a wonderful soccer stadium. and now we're starting to grow in population. it's extremely important to have financial partners such as citi® who believe in that same vision. this area is now a destination. there's people that come out here for entertainment. there's people that come out here to work...to raise families. and before the stadium was built it wasn't like that at all. i wouldn't trade playing in my hometown for anything.

adios, honey, hasta la vista, baby. (sing-songy) i'm a fat guy in a little coat. fat guy in a little coat.

that rug really tied the room together. any questions? bueller? bueller? stream all your entertainment. introducing at&t's new unlimited data plans. plus, get the amazing new iphone 7 on us. welcome back. silicon valley is known for innovation. and some of the skills necessary for success in that region are being taught to prison inmates. jane wells, who else, is live from san quentin with more. jane? >> hey, kelly. you know, one of the greatest

returns on investment in silicon valley is here at san quentin. check it out. tucked inside here is a prison education program with zero percent recidivism among graduates who leave the facility. and it doesn't cost taxpayers a dime. it's called the last mile. >> so this is the dashboard. it's pulling in the page likes and the follower counts from the various social media sites. >> chris schumacher is in for murder, but he will soon be paroled. he has new job skills. coding, learned in san quentin, even though there's no internet inside. the last mile started by venture capitalist chris redlitz and his wife created mock servers to teach inmates software development. companies like slack and air bnb are using them. 20 inmates have graduated, left san quentin and all had jobs. mark zuckerberg visited, they awe newel who he was, even though they had never been on facebook. but why should anyone help these people? >> this is a population that is

forgotten. and the truth is that 95% of the people who are incarcerated in our facilities in the united states are coming home. so i ask, who do you want them to be? >> i never really thought about, about my impact on the world. i didn't think i had a responsibility. the only responsibility i felt like i had was to me. and now i realize that i have a responsibility to how the condition of our world is. and if i don't do some things to try to give back, then i'm not doing my part. >> 17 years feels like a lifetime. and it's amazing to think that, in a few short weeks, i'll be walking out of the gates as a free man. >> it was very moving, yesterday, as the latest group of coders graduated. last mile has paid for privately and also with prison revenues from sales things like license plates, no taxpayer money. it's very difficult to get in this program. hundreds apply, only 30 are chosen per class. the goal or one of the goals,

guys, is to reduce recidivism and that will save taxpayers a lot of money. back to you. >> that's that great story, jane. good to see you on camera gen. jane wells at san quentin today. really quickly, microron, never mentioned it, hugely it's the third biggest gainer on the s&p. >> amazing. wonderful story. those it's going to be a problem for apple. >> behind nvidia and amd. let's get to sully and the half. carl, kelly, john, thank you. welcome to the "halftime report." i'm brian sullivan in for scott wapner today. your top trade at this hour, waiting on washington. the health care vote about to take place. it may determine whether the trump rally will advance or turn into a trump slump. joining us now for the hour, josh brown, jim leventhal, and pete najarian, and head of u.s. equities strategy, also with us. everybody, stick around. we'll get to everybody on this imrt