good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" on cnbc. we are live from the nasdaq market site in times square. i'm becky quick, along with andrew ross sorkin. the sop &p is down about 4. the dow jones off about 26. the nasdaq down about 7. when the news first crossed the wires last night, we were down about 100 points. let's also look at what happened overnight in asia. this news coming just about 9:30 p.m. last night. the nikkei ended up closing up by a third of a percentage point. the hang seng was flat. shanghai was up, only 0.2%. in europe this morning in the early trading there, you can see markets are reacting with rather muted reactions as well.

the ftse is flat. cac is down by 0.16. the dax is off by a half percent. looking at the treasury market. the ten-year yield is still deld below 2.4%. now at 2.35%. crude oil, syria is not a major oil producer. it produces the 66th market in the entire world for oil production. any time there are bombs in the middle east, as pointed out, you see a reaction in crude oil. >> it used to be you sthuthoughe arab states would immediately look at us as on the other side. >> jordan is dealing with such a mass influx of people who have been left behind. >> the knee jerk reaction was the straits of hormuz -- i can remember in previous -- the

beginning of things. this was a targeted strike. it's not like 1991 or the shock and awe, but oil would go up 10%. go up like $8. '91 it went up $8. >> syria has been a problem for all the middle east neighbors. >> but at this point, even the oil reaction is muted. 100 point drop in futures is like half a percent at this point. even that wasn't big. you figure in the old days, middle east conflict, look at the oil markets, what happens. even that's muted. >> now you look at the relationship with china and north korea and the relationship with russia. that's what this ultimately turns into in terms of gaming out what's next. in addition to focusing on what's going on in syria, the other number we'll get in the united states that folks are looking for is the march employment report. that will come out at 8:30 a.m. eastern time. forecasters expect 175,000 jobs

added. the unemployment rate holding steady at 4.7%. our top story this morning, the u.s. military attacking a syrian government airfield. 59 tomahawk missiles last night. the strike was in response to a chemical weapons attack on tuesday. here's president trump from last night. >> on tuesday, syrian dictator bashar al assad launched a horrible chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians. using a deadly nerve agent, assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women and children. it was a slow and brutal death for so many. even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack.

no child of god should ever suffer such horror. >> for more on the air strikes, matt bradley joins us now from beirut. good morning, matt. >> good morning, joe. as you mentioned, this was a -- a lot of markets don't seem to be roiled by this news. while it is true donald trump and this new administration are wade nothing a shark tank, it's a an extremely complicated situation on the ground. it's not surprising that markets have not stood up and taken notice. a lot of people in the middle east and the reaction so far has shown people don't necessarily believe this will be a decisive attack, that will be sustained. they see this in the same way that so many in america see this that donald trump painted himself into a corner abowith

bellicose language about the assad regime and his predecessor. that's what they're seeing. this is little more than a warning shot or a shot across the bow of the syrian regime. recently we have had fresh news that the "wall street journal" is reporting that the russian defense ministry says only 23 of the 59 tomahawks launched against the syrian regime base actually hit their target. now, this again from the russiarussian s who have an interest in saying the missiles have not hit their targets. nbc will check with the pentagon to see if that's the case. that would be startling if true, that less than half the missiles were able to hit the targets. again, reaction is still pouring in. it's coming from the same corners that you would expect, saudi arabia, turkey, israel are

praising this move. saying this is a decisive action against the horror of chemical weapons. iran, the syrian regime and russia have come out saying this is just going to be emboldening al qaeda, isis, and other jihadi elements that donald trump actually ran on trying to subdue in the middle east. it's a very confusing situation, but so far the reaction has more or less fallen along the usual lines you would expect. the fault lines dividing the i ry i iranian interests and other interests. for more, michelle caruso-cabrera joins us from cnbc headquarters. good morning. >> good morning. we'll run through seven charts here that will show you what the impact was on the markets when we learned the news last night. roughly 9:00 p.m.

look at wti, you guys have already talked about this. 1.5% move. as you mentioned, syria is not a big producer of oil. they haven't been allowed to export since 2011 when sanctions went into place. that doesn't mean they don't sell it illegally. there's been evidence of that. but perhaps this leads to a wider conflict within the middle east. you can see that knee jerk reaction of 74 cents on wti. that's off the highs we saw in the immediate response to the attack. safe haven moves were predictable. gold moved to the highest level since november 10th. you will see that on the intraday chart. that's the highest level since two days after we lrn edlearned results of the election. the two-year treasury hit a low of 1.202, left level since february 28th. you can see the intraday move last night as well as safe haven buying led to a decline across the yield curve. it was most notable in the

two-year. the dollar initially sold off and then rallied as we saw safe haven trade there. you can see that move. let's show you specifically against the ruble. when we show you this chart, you'll see at the bottom the dollar. so that's the dollar strengthening dramatically against the ruble. you will now get five more rubles per dollar than you would have gotten before the strike. so 56 rubles per dollar. definitely weakening there. south korea, we saw a reaction in all the asian markets which were open at time. a lot of them recovered with the notable exception of south korea. if you are watching president xi in mar-a-lago with president trump right now, this attack happens, and it makes very clear that president trump is going to act decisively when he wants to. he's not going to consult with the international community first. if you're wondering what his reaction is going to be to north korea, maybe this emboldens your brief when he says we'll work

alone if we have to if the chinese don't help us out when it comes to north korea, perhaps that's why you see such a weak response in south korea. as becky noted at the top of the show, markets have come back from the lows but immediate reaction was negative. back to you. >> thank you for that. we'll talk to you a lot more today. for more reaction on the military action taken in syria and the next possible steps for the u.s., let's bring in retired colonel jack jacobs. good morning to you. >> good morning. >> help us try to play out the next permutation, if you will. what comes next in terms of military action and just as importantly what comes next in terms of our relations with others, including the chinese. president trump meeting with the president of china today and last night. >> may very well be there isn't anything.

marco rubio said overnight this was a strategic strike, and it wasn't, it is just a tactical strike. very limited strike on one site to achieve a small number of very limited objectives. one of which was to convince the assad regime not to use chemical weapons again. and to that extent it's probably been successful. it's unlikely he will use them again. don't forget also that the president was playing to a domestic audience. he had castigated the previous president for drawing a line in the sand and not doing anything about it. so he actually had to act. because it was a punishment strike, he to act very, very quickly. he had to do it last night or tonight or tomorrow night. the sooner the better, if you try to get international support for it and go around everybody and say, are you in this with us? will you support this? you're not launching this

punitive strike until, like, two weeks from now. and you can't do that. whatever the punitive strike is, it has to be in close temporal conjunction with the act you're trying to dissuade. >> so many people pointed out the chinese delegation is only here for 24 hours. some say beijing might be embarrassed by this because it looks like it's a shot across the bow when it comes to north korea. do you think that's the case? is the administration here making a point that we will act when we choose to do so? or was this something that maybe they could have waited 24 hours? >> no, i think there was some -- i'm not a fan of single factor analysis, there's lots of reasons why it was launched just when it was. i think one of them is because xi is here. it was important to send a message to china, who has been obstructionist in trying to get

the north koreans to abate what they're doing, it was time to send a message to china that they need to be involved with the united states in stopping what's going on in the korean peninsula. didn't want to wait until x wi t went home. >> we talk about this being a tactical attack. you saw comments from mccain and others suggesteding that we should have taken out even more. >> interesting question. at the end of the day almost anything you do in business and government and your personal life really has to be objective oriented. what is it that we were trying to do? if what we were trying to do is stop assad, convince him not to use kchemical weapons again, we probably did what we needed to do. if you want to do more, the objective is to take out the assad regime, you're talking about a long, drawn out exercise. you have to get the russians involved in it.

you have to get 200,000 american troops, a multinational force. we're not doing that. >> and we've destabilized a region by getting rid of a dictator before. we tried that before. >> it never works. we tried it several times, hasn't worked a sing the time. single time. we did it last time because of weapons of mass destruction. supposedly this guy doesn't have more. we a we crossed the red line, hothey were supposed to get rid of the chemical weapons. that didn't happen. the same rational that got us into the last war could be use r raised again. this guy has chemical weapons that isis could eventually have.

it is a direct threat to the united states at this point. >> except once bitten, twice shy. at the end of the day it's always easier to take an objective than hold on to it. we discovered that in iraq. we will no problem taking iraq, but holding on to it required many more resources. >> i thought they got rid of all of them. this is seniis sarin, this is p the worse. >> you believed the secretary of state, ymaybe you shouldn't hav done that. >> and susan rice. i believe everything she says there. the last thing we want to do is politicize this at this point, but i wonder how much he has. supposedly they got rid of 99% of the chemical weapons. >> the law of large numbers says he still has more. i don't think we'll bother with that now. we think that we made a point and he's not going to use

them again. at the end of the day, like i said, this is a tactical strike, it is not going to change the long arc of the war inside that country. it will take political solution, not a military solution because we're not -- nobody is willing to expend the resources to go there and stay there a long period of time. >> colonel jacobs, thanks for joining us. the other major geopolitical story we're covering, president trump meeting with president xi at mar-a-lago . kayla tausche joins us now. this military strike is overshadowing this, how is it all playing out? >> overshadowing is the perfect word. it was a relatively friendly interaction the two presidents had during dinner, but immediately afterward, according to nbc news, the president and his cabinet members went to a secure location to address the syria situation, then you saw

all the statements from the cabinet and president after that. interesting to see the comments that the administration provided. one that secretary tillerson specifically offered. there's been questions about how this changes the u.s.'s strategy towards syria and the middle east. the secretary of state last night said i would not in any way attempt to extrapolate to a change in our policy or posture relative to military activities in syria today. there has been no change in that status. but there is a question, as you were just discussing, of how strategic the timing of that strike, happening last night, while the chinese delegation is here for 24 hours, whether that was strategic or just symbolic. either way, marco rubio told nbc news last night that it's a sign that president trump is acting more presidential. it's one thing to be a presidential candidate, it's another thing to be president

and confronted with that reality. tonight was a part of that. >> there's a saying actions speak louder than words. china has come to doubt many of the words that the president has said because they lack certain credibilities. but you can't deny actions. it is the approach now of the administration to approach the discussions today, bilateral meeting, working lunch, from a position of military strength from a prior position of coming off legislative setbacks. >> kayla, i guess i wonder how this changes the calculus for what we expect to happen in the meeting. we had some high expectations coming into this. perhaps progress made on north korea and trade what is the new sort of bar that's been set to see that this is a successful meeting? >> the administration cautioned against wanting to see specific deliverables, specific results noting that it's just a one-day meeting, and that the two leaders and two sides are just

meeting for the first time. that being said, the north korea situation is an urgent one. as much as china doesn't want north korea to collapse, because they are an ally, they fear a unified south korea and north korea alliance even more. it will be interesting to see whether this changes the calculus of how the talks provide, whether, in fact, china now believes that the u.s. would be willing to take military action from south korea because the feathers have been ruffled, so to speak. and perhaps this does change the conversation. >> kayla, thank you very much. coming up, much more on the reaction in the markets to last night's air strikes in syria. plus we'll get you ready for today's jobs report. employment predictions straight ahead. and later, neel kashkari taking on jamie dimon over too big to fail banks. kashkari will join us at 7:30 a.m. eastern in a first on cnbc interview. "squawk box" will be right back.

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goldman is forecasting 175,000, but says that number could have been higher from 30,000 to 60,000 if not for a winter storm during the payroll survey week. other firms lowered their forecast. ubs at 155. jpmorgan at 140. joining us is michelle girard and jim o'sullivan, and boris schlossberg. thank you all for joining us. we got excited on that adp number, didn't we? >> jim and i got nervous on the adp number. >> 170,000, 140,000, 150,000. >> 160,000. i think we all had the same idea. it's a question of the weather. we enjoyed such unseasonably mild winter conditions in january and february.

february produconstruction prin storm. we had winter storm stel la hla in the middle of the survey. so that swing up 60 to down 10,000 or 20,000 may account for the slowdown. we'll have a way to gauge that looking at the household survey and giving us a clue of how many people were impacted by the weather. i don't believe any of us believe the labor market deteriorated as dramatically as numbers would look. >> stella? stella was four inches. it has a name? stella? stella disappointed. didn't live up to the hype. what's your problem? why are you down? >> it's weather. the trend looks strong. you look at claims, they were low again yesterday. high for two weeks in march, coincident with stella. you look at previous two months, payroll gains averaged 187,000 a month in 2016 which is strong. the first two months of this year, 237.

an extra 100,000 jobs. to some extent they borrowed from march and april. on top of that, you have the weather effects in mid-march. obviously the adp number raises the possibility that the trend is picking up more than we think. it is making for an interesting report. >> boris, that storm yesterday was big. some airports had problems. >> it was bigger than stella for us. two in >> the more important number is wages. if the wages show an upward tilt, at least for the currency market and for the bond market it will be a much more important number. it's wage growth that the market is looking for to see final demand. at this point we're convinced that jobs are organically growing. it's a matter of creating better wage growth for the consumer. you could see potentially a dip lower. but if wages are good, we could have a big recovery at the end of the day. >> when something like that, as a currency guy, when something like that happens overnight,

where is the first place you look? >> dollar/yen. >> dollar/yen. >> the dollar/yen was the primary proxy or reaction there. it was interesting. it came all the way down to this very, very critical one-time level which has been tested four or five times over the last several weeks. but held. because the market basically understood this is a one-off event for now. it wasn't a situation where we will get involved in a long-term protracted military campaign. at least for now. that's how the market looked at it. they sold it off and bought it back up. >> when you're on, i like to keep you focussed. you're a currency guy. you talk global warming, now you're talking how many jobs are coming. >> that's all part of it to me. we have strong wages, yields go up, currencies go up. >> final thoughts for today? >> no matter what this report, i think shows, as we've said, the underlying job conditions are quite solid.

the economy is on solid footing. i don't think this -- the worst it will be is a one-month head fake. the truth is that if it comes in stronger, i think it will confirm that we're doing very well. >> the ten-year was at 2.25 again. testing the lows again. is inflation coming back or not? will we get a read on that? >> it was 180 or so before the election. but the wage numbers, right now it's 2.8% year over year. i think it holds to that level after today. there is acceleration, the unemployment rate is still coming down. we haven't talked about that at all. probably comes down again today picking up. >> thank you one and all. we have other stuff to talk about. we have to talk about gorsuch,

too. >> we'll talk about that and the reaction to the u.s. air strike in syria. we'll talk to the former ambassador to syria after this break. and later we will be joined by admiral robert stavridis, former supreme allied commander at nato. "squawk box" will be right back. yes? pleaseepeathe obive. ♪ thvent mutual funds. managed humans, not robots. fore investing, carefully read andonsider fund objectives, risks, charges and expenses in the prospectus at thrintfunds.co

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but "yes" is here. thelp om hpewe canfinally work . will glive mony?! wi the right mix obrid welcome back. you're watching "squawk box," live from the nasdaq market site in times square. good morning. today's top story, you probably heard -- i found out this morning. and i -- >> i saw last night. >> i immediately sent it off to

the kids. they probably saw it. it was like 9:30 or something. u.s. warships in the mediterranean fired 59 cruise missiles targeting a syrian air base. officials say the bates wse was one used to launch tuesday's chemical attack that killed syrian civilians. sear yap officials say the missiles caused material damage to the air base. you are looking at images now from that airfields. six other airfields were not struck yesterday. this was very targeted. you read a lot of different things about whether there are questions of where this sarin gas came from, and now that we know a lot more about the cia and the nsa, and the intelligence we gather, they knew which aircraft, they knew which fixed wing aircraft, they knew where it took off.

they know how it dropped it. i think our intelligence agencies know exactly who is responsibility. i think that, you know, anyone who says it's a -- people are calling it a black flag yesterday. >> a what? >> it's not real. it's used by someone -- >> used to draw the u.s. in? >> that the rebels actually did it. >> there are going to be investigations that continue. but as you mentioned, we know where the planes took off from. we know what happened. we know the reaction and response. >> i've got -- nobody wants to get involved in something again like this but i started thinking about it yesterday. you cannot use chemical weapons on civilians. you just can't. and i was -- i was thinking if you had an auditorium with 50 children, they're fine, they're playing, you could do something to prevent this from happening, it's almost like you have to do something -- >> the problem is what -- what

the question is will assad back down? >> people bring up other things. >> let them -- they've been starved and bombed for years. >> what about the ones that explode from shrapnel from 100 feet. that's okay? >> there's been videos of children torn apart by those things. >> have you been thinking about this? >> you don't want my thought. it's going to be political. >> no, no. >> we have a moral obligation. i think we were boxed into a corner. someone was suggesting that trump boxed himself into a corner. i'm not sure that's the case. we were boxed into a corner by assad, i think you have to do these things. the sad part is this is where the political part comes in, i think that president trump had told people during the campaign that he didn't want to be the wo world's policeman, he wasn't going to get involved in these

things, and that buzz a hawas a thing to make that promise and pledge to avoid the rest of the word. >> but when you're in the white house, you have reality -- >> you have the geopolitical nature of protecting us and the importance of being a policeman to the world because the policeman to the world is beneficial to us ultimately. he may be realizing that now. unfortunately -- well, there were different politics then. >> it also -- >> trying to be polite about it. >> that's -- that's ludicrous. when it comes your responsibility it's different than when it wasn't your responsibility. you know, to say back in 2013 in -- at the height of still dealing with the mess in iraq to say we should be very loathe to engage in things like this, that was not a stretch to say that. a targeted strike is not necessarily -- >> though we have now taken -- it is not solely our decision as to whether this continues or escalates from here.

this will also be decided by the kremlin and how engaged they get and what their reaction is. >> also how many -- if it were to extend yobeyond this, how ma other countries go along with this. >> for more on the air strike, let's bring in theodore kartouf, currently the president and ceo of amideast. thank you for joining us. what's your reaction to the strike last night? >> i appreciated all your comments. i think you got it exactly right. iny t nthink the u.s. had to do after the president indicated this is a game changer. i'm flexible, i changed my mind. assad has to understand he doesn't have a completely free hand just because he has iran and russia backing him. at same time it's a dangerous situation for all concerned and

certainly for u.s. interests. so a tr gargeted strike on the airfield used to hit the town that -- with chemical weapons was just the right message. rex tillerson and his remarks made it clear that this is, for now -- for now a one-off but didn't take options off the table. >> so how will russia respond? >> they'll bluster, they'll be angry. they already said we will not go along with deconliction of your planes and our planes. but they have egg on their face. they guaranteed in 2013 that all the chemical weapons and chemical weapons facilities would be destroyed, or shipped out of syria and destroyed, and that did not happen 100%.

>> the spin from the kremlin is that these are not chemical weapons launched by the air sss regime, they were chemical weapons being stockpiled there, and the strike just happened to hit it what is the voracity of those claims? >> this is putin and his people talking, and bashar al assad. their track record is the truth is not very good. i trust our intelligence agencies. it's amazing how well they do in terms of collecting this information. >> what -- what happens next? what sort of signal does this seem to other potential conflicts? i'm thinking north korea in particular. is there a broader message that will be received from this? >> yes. here we have the president of china just sitting down to dinner with trump and his people, and this air strike is

announced, cruise missiles strike, excuse me. it shows we can act unilaterally. we don't have to go to the u.n. when we feel vital u.s. national interests have been crossed. so it has direct implications for what we've said about about north korea, clearly there's no comparison with a one-off strike against an airfield in syria and trying to take on north korea's nuclear arsenal and its missile capabilities. >> ambassador kattouf, thank you very much for being with us. >> my pleasure. lots of news today. history will be made in the political world. the senate expected to confirm neil gorsuch as the next supreme court justice. yesterday the senate voted to scrap the filibuster on supreme court nominees, that removes the 60-vote threshold. the confirmation will only require a simple majority. it is making cysthistory today.

lots of questions about the long-term conditions of that decision. >> weird, 2013, everybody else now they do it that way. that's all -- that was the last man standing, was the supreme court nomination. >> right. >> the big question is does it go to -- mcconnell said it will never happen as long as he's majority leader, where it would go to legislation and you wouldn't need -- you would get rid of filibuster for legislation. not much choice. you could have never fill this o filled this one. >> we were talking about the dynamic, and i'm surprised that the democrats went as far as they did -- >> it was payback for merrick garland. someone said if ruth bader

ginsburg was 50 years old and nominated by trump, they would have turned her down. >> that's the concerning thing, how far we have come with the two sides not willing to ever work together or see any places where they can say, okay, you get your time. if you look back. we had supreme court justices who did not receive 60 votes, got 52 votes, the up and down vote was still allowed to go. >> if you need 60, there's got to be a couple other people from the other side who are with you. the senate thinks it's the most mobile, deliberative body on the planet. nothing is working. for a while it's almost like it's been a negative for trying to get things done, that filibuster. a busy morning still to come. at 7:30, a first on cnbc interview with minneapolis fed president neel kashkari, he's

taking on jamt ie dimon on too g to fail banks. a letter on tuesday? >> i recommended our viewers read it. it's one of the most fascinating letters in american business. you know the masters is this week. >> i'm not comparing it to sports. >> all right. maybe i'll read it. >> if you're a business nerd, you happen to watch "squawk box," you probably want to read the letter, too. >> all right. maybe. i don't know. then admiral jameses stavridis weighs in on the american air strike in syria. it's jobs friday. unbelievab unbelievable. we should save some of this news for when there isn't any. march unemployment report at 8:30 a.m. eastern, market reaction and instant analysis. you're watching "squawk box."

welcome back to "squawk box." time for today's executive edge. president trump meeting with chinese president xi in florida. for more reaction on what's going on in china, we want to get over to eunice yoon in beijing, try to understand how people are feeling there given the news about the meeting and, of course, this air strike on

syria. >> thank you very much, andrew. what's surprising is how little chinese reaction there actually is. when president xi travels normally, you see a full-court press. because he's in the united states, one would expect there to be greater coverage. however what we're seeing is not the case. when the two presidents met earlier this morning in china, there was almost no reporting at all. no photos of xi, and the discussions about the events were either blocked or censored. only in the last couple of hours we have been seeing articles in the strait presate press, but tt been substantive, they talk about how president trump agreed to visit china, and how beautiful the chinese first lady is. i've spoke ton a couple of different chinese political analysts about why we're seeing this near radio silence, they

say it's because the government is concerned about the outcome of this meeting and what that means for xi's image. as you know, the chinese don't like it when things are unscripted. but president trump is not really a sick to the script kind of guy. so there's concern here among some of the analysts and they believe that the government is worried that because trump is so unpredictable, that that could potentially diminish president xi. separately, i want to talk a bit about the discussion here that we are hearing about how the u.s. air strike on syria could potentially influence the discussion between president xi and president trump. the foreign ministry did have some comment on this, calling for all sides to be calm and to handle -- go back to their political settlements. i'll read it in full. they're calling for calm and for all sides to stick to their political settlements. guys? >> real quick.

there's been sort of two views here in the united states. at least questions about the timing of the strike last evening and how it might impacts the conversations on a relationship with china. i'm curious, on the negative side, there's a view maybe this embarrasses the chinese. should they have waited? should they have had a discussion with them first? those conversations which are happening here are not happening there? >> those discussions are definitely happening over here. i spoke to one analyst who had that same line of thinking, that his reasoning for all the censorship we're seeing is he believed perhaps the chinese are worried that president trump is going to come down hard on president xi, and it could embarrass president xi to the public here. so, that is one concern. the other discussion that people are having is whether or not china's going to come to the table and try to offer something up to come down harder on north korea. those are some of the

conversations that we've been hearing over here, just like you. >> eunice, thank you very much. before we head to break, a look at u.s. equity futures. they just turned positive. at least the dow and nasdaq have. the dow was down about 100 points after the news hit about the strike last night. this morning, up by 6 points. the nasdaq up about 1.52. >> coming up, okta is launching its ipo today and will be worth $1.5 billion. ceo todd mckinnon will join us next. ray's always been different. last year, he said he was going to dig a hole to china. at&t is working with farmers to improve irrigation techniques. remote moisture sensors use a reliable network

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"squawk box," tech unicorn okta set to make its public debut in the nasdaq today pricing at $17 a share. joining us is todd mckinnon, the ceo and co-founder of okta. congratulations. big morning for you. >> it's exciting. thanks for having me. great to be here. >> was this always a goal for you? >> we started out to build a large, important technology company. and this is inevitably a step along the way for companies that have that goal. so yeah, it's exciting. big milestone. >> the reason i ask is so many unicorns have remained private unicorns and the sort of decision to extend that out as

long as humanly possible. i want to try to understand your thinking. >> there's lots of factors that go into it. and i think the first time you take venture funding, going public is inevitable. >> right. >> and we felt the timing was right, and this was a good riern. >> when you announced that you're pursuing an ipo how many calls do you get from other companies who say maybe they'll progress in terms of actually fail, meaning to acquire you? >> i think there's nothing specific around the ipo. >> right. >> i think mostly it was people congratulating us. saying nice work. the hard work's paid off. exciting. >> how do you think about your product versus all the competition out there? i'm thinking microsoft getting into this space. sales force is now in the cloud security space as well. >> yeah. our platform does a lot of different things. in fact, our platform is called the identity cloud and there's six individual products on that that address specific use cases. one of the really unique things about okta is we take a lot of complex technology and make it

very simple in one integrated cloud. and we built it from the ground up as a cloud service where a lot of our competitors started by building software and poured it into the cloud. >> we should try to explain to the audience exactly what okta is. the 20 second version? >> absolutely. we securely connect all the people that a company interacts with, whether they're customers or partners or suppliers or employees. and we connect those people securely to all the technology they need to work. whether it's e-mail application they need to send e-mail. or whether it's customer portal. we make it very easy. so it's secure -- >> your relationship is like your dumbest employee who's dealing with this stuff? >> that's not our marketing -- >> but if i open something on outlook, i open an e-mail that's got a virus in it, there's nothing you can do to stop me from myself, right? >> well, we can make sure only the right people open outlook, right? making sure it's really easy to open outlook so you don't use a pass word so easy to guess someone else can open it. there's a lot of security that's simple maintenance and

housekeeping. we do that very well. besides some very advanced features that are not intuitive but also very secure. >> you hire a bunch of genius code writers for this? what do you know about this? did you write any of the code? >> i did in the early days. >> oh, my god. you did? >> my background is in engineering. before i started okta i ran engineering and learned a lot better about how to build a scalable cloud service and wrote some code. engineers tell me it wasn't very good so they retired it and debugged it. >> do you worry, though, about some of the big cloud providers, like an aws, google, i'm thinking microsoft, as they build up the stack, effectively providing these types of services, either for free or complements on top and they compete with you? >> yeah. one of the key insights we had is it's really about connecting these hubs together. so it's connecting amazon to microsoft to sales force to workday and our value proposition really is that we

sit in the middle of it all. and we know about all the applications and we can securely connect our customers and the users to any cloud, no matter what. whatever is best for them and their business. not what might be best for one provider. >> congratulations to you. wish you lots of luck. you have a security tip for everybody here? practical thing besides double authentication? >> two-factor authentication. >> we preach that a lot. >> text is good or no? >> texting is good. >> what about the little chip? >> no hardwa token. soft token. >> code for some scalable web services. i have an iphone. could you back my stuff up on the cloud? i doengt know how to back it up on the cloud. help me? >> next report for joe kernen in just a little bit. >> i'll write it for you right now. >> i don't know how to get the gigabytes. >> we'll be talking jobs when "squawk" returns. es. sixty to seventy million people are moving to cities every year. at pgim we help investors see the implications of long term megatrends

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>> >> breaking overnight. the united states launches dozens of cruise missiles at a syrian airfield. we have the latest straight ahead. market alert. geopolitical concerns in the jobs report will be the focus of today's trading session. a roundup of the global trading picture minutes away. also president trump meeting with his chinese counterpart today. we will bring you a live report from palm beach, florida. the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now. live from the beating heart of business, new york city, this is "squawk box." good morning, welcome back to "squawk box" right here on cnbc. we're live at the nasdaq marketsite in times square i'm andrew ross sorkin along with becky quick and joe kernen. breaking this morning the united states launching dozens of cruise missiles last night at

syrian airfield in response to what it believes is syria's use of banned chemical weapons that killed at least 100 people. two u.s. warships launched the missiles from the eastern mediterranean sea. 59 tomahawk missiles were fired. we want to talk about the implications of it, and the implications on investors this morning and futures have reacted in a very muted way. in fact the dow is now up after having dipped overnight. now up about two points. nasdaq also looking up, as well. the s&p 500, we'll call it off marginally. might as well be called unch. check out all this morning. oftentimes when there's issues in the middle east we immediately look to the oil markets. this a little bit of a different story. wti crude trading at 52.14. syria not a huge oil producers. and of course has not exported oil in quite some time. european markets, as well. you're looking at relatively

mixed picture. again the reaction across the globe relatively muted. we will bring you updates, of course, on any developments throughout the morning and telling you what all of this developing story could mean for your money. gabrielle desantos at jpmorgan fund is going to join us. and then in 30 minutes minneapolis fed president neel kashkari is going to be joining us to talk about banks. and admiral james stavridis, former nato commander and nbc diplomacy analyst is going to join us as well. >> as for the broader markets, take a look at what happens with the treasury market. the yields there continue to be under pressure. 2.32% is the latest for the ten-year note. dollar strengthened against many currencies after the strike. you can see right now that the dollar is up against the euro at 1:02628. up against the pound at 1.2423. and perhaps the sharpest reaction is when you look at the ruble. the dollar up by about 1% against the ruble. just as news came out last night

you can see that spike as the news was hitting. joe? >> for the latest on what we know, chief international correspondent michelle caruso-cabrera joins us once again from cnbc headquarters. michelle. >> good morning, joe. u.s. government says it launched 59 tomahawk missiles last night from two u.s. warships in the eastern mediterranean. the pentagon released this video. the target of these missiles, an airfield the u.s. government believes was used by the syrian government of bashar al assad to launch a chemical weapons attack earlier this week in the now 6-year-old syrian civil war. the horrific images of that chemical attack, which killed more than 100 people, were seen across the world. and widely condemned by the international community. the airfield is one of six in the country used by the assad regime in their war against the insurgency trying to oust him. it is in homs province in

western syria. syrian tv is showing video of what they say is the aftermath of the air attack on the airfield. this was the first direct american assault on the syrian government. we have attacked al qaeda positions before in parts of syria. russia, which supports bashar al assad, was unsurprisingly negative about the missile attack. foreign minister lavrov calling the attacks an act of aggression that violates international law. >> all right, michelle, thank you very much. the other story the markets are watching is the meeting between prime minister and chinese president xi jinping taking place in florida. kayla tausche joins us right now from palm beach. kayla? >> becky, as military strikes unfolded, donald trump was playing diplomat in chief. hosting the same type of dinner for china's first family that he had criticized the obama administration for doing. he joked to attendees at the dinner that he hadn't budged, he hadn't made any progress in his talks with xi so far.

but that a friendship was afoot. but very quickly the conversation turned from friendly dinner banter to those u.s. strikes on syria. and the agenda for the bilateral meetings taking place today in the working lunch, or at the very least the tenor of those meetings will likely have changed after those strike. here's what the president then later said last night. >> years of previous attempts at changing assad's behavior have all failed, and failed very dramatically. as a result, a refugee crisis continues to deepen and the region continues to destabilize. threatening the united states, and its allies. >> the secretary of state rex tillerson told reporters not to read too much into the set of strikes. that it didn't necessarily signal a wholesale change in the u.s.' middle east policy. he said i would not in any way attempt to extrapolate the change in our policy or posture

relative to our military activities in syria today. there has been no change in that status. secretary tillerson, though, did take an opportunity to criticize russia, calling them either complicit, or incompetent in their dealings with syria. but the focus here in palm beach is what message this sends to china. and how this does change the meetings today. and whether it does put pressure on china to resolve the situation in north korea. an economic conversation that was purported to happen today may take a back seat to the north korea discussion in light of this. and that might be a good thing. i'll just give you a few reasons why. the narrative on china's economy has changed dramatically since trump on the campaign trail had a very clear message that they were weakening the currency to increase -- improve their trade, and hurt the u.s. trade deficit, and that u.s. companies were moving their jobs there. well, in reality, in the last few months, the currency has actually strengthened, and there's been more investment from china into the u.s. than the other way around.

so perhaps these strikes have a twofold effect, guys, of not only ramping up the pressure, and putting forward a signal of strength on north korea, but also perhaps buying some time to deal with some of these economic issues. >> all right. kayla, thank you very much. again, kayla tausche. we'll be checking in throughout the morning. >> with more on syria and china, we're joined by former deputy treasury secretary robert kimate. we were initially, mr. secretary, mr. ambassador, ambassador to germany, as well, originally going to talk mostly about china. obviously this -- this influences that, as well. but let's just talk about the action yesterday. i was just thinking about it last night, mr. ambassador. it's a -- it's a small step, you know, cruise missiles, one airstrike. and yet it's really a large statement it seems like that the u.s. might be back in the business of policing parts of the world again.

so it's hard to understate it but i -- it's hard to overstate it, as well. >> joe, i agree. i think you have to be careful what you say as the united states. but you have to mean what you say. i think the message that is taken away, including by the chinese leader, is that when the u.s. says it's going to take action, it will take action. i think that's an important point, not just again for the chinese leader, but for leaders around the world, to know. >> it -- we do have proof from there. we do have the possibility of some russians getting, you know, getting caught up in this, which hopefully, you know, we heard that not all the missiles hit their -- their designated target. it seems like it could exacerbate, you know, relations with russia. but then again, should russia be that surprised that something was done? when, you know, supposedly the chemical weapons were destroyed. it was civilians again.

i mean, they've got to understand that you can't necessarily sit idly by with this. >> they shouldn't have been surprised at all. we've actually followed a fairly traditional track here. we tried diplomacy first. then economic sanctions. and now, we've taken military action. and the hope will be that that military action is energizing to the diplomatic process. because at the end of the day, the president said we were not going to allow this action by the syrians to go unchallenged. he has lived up to what he has said. but i think as both he and secretary tillerson said, let's pivot now back to the diplomacy. that will be centered in the security council. yes, russia is there, but also the chinese. and that's why some of these discussions today with china will have to be about syria, but i do hope there are broader discussions also with the chinese in this first face-to-face meeting. >> we'll get to that. i've seen some people say that the biggest fear for the trump

administration is that assad would again use chemical weapons, and we'd have to do something again and russia just said that they're -- that whatever it's called -- >> deconflicting. >> the deconflicting of their air power over there, that's not going to happen next time. so if we went in next time, then we -- are they going to reciprocate in some way? >> hard to tell. i would say that the next military steps become trickier. more difficult, they'll have to be very close consultation with the congress on this. but again, the joint chiefs have given the president an array of options. my understanding is there were four. he narrowed it down to two. chose one. i think he proceeded carefully. this was a measured incremental military response. important, but incremental. i think the further steps do become more difficult. and we're going to have to continue conversations also with the russians on important issues like deconflicting aircraft flying over the same space.

>> okay. so mr. secretary, they're sitting down to dinner with the chinese president. there have been some say that this could embarrass the chinese president, that it was done while he was here. others are talking about what it means for how we approach north carolina -- north korea, with chinese president. you think it embarrassed china that it happened on the same day as the meeting? >> i don't think it was embarrassing. my expectation is that the decision was made based on what the team felt was the militarily optimal point to move. we've had situations in the past where summits of world leaders are interrupted by other events. you may recall when president bush 41 met with gorbachev for the first time after the fall of the berlin wall in malta, right in the middle of that there was a coup attempt against cory

aquino, we had u.s. jets flying over manila. these things happen. and so i think that the more important thing that happened last night is that these two leaders met face-to-face for the first time, and the record on the chinese/american relationship is it starts at the top. it has to begin with eye-to-eye, direct contact between the two leaders. that is reagan and deng xiaoping, it has now happened between president trump and president xi. >> so one of the things that we had talked to you about before this latest news last night was that the investment that china is making in either germany, or the united states, is getting tougher, and as a result they may -- they may recoil a little bit from making it easier for us to invest over there. so is that still your view? that doesn't sound like progress, that sounds like going

backwards. >> well, what i would say is it sounds to me like an issue, joe, that needs to be discussed face-to-face. in the past, most of the discussions between china and the united states have been around trade and currency. 22 but the flow of capital dwarfs the flow of goods. and i have a concern that we're seeing growing investment protectionism, which i don't want to turn into investment wars like trade wars. we're seeing those developments both in the united states, and i would say in europe, with the germans calling for the europeans to put in a european-wide investment review law like we have, our commitmy on foreign investments in the united states. both in the u.s., where new legislation is pending, and in europe, that is animated by chinese investment, but those laws will not hit the chinese only. they hit all investment. i think the chinese need to recognize that the more they open their economy, particularly those sectors from whence their

investors come the more opportunities they're going to have abroad, and by the way, the more beneficial it will be to their economy. i think investment has supplanted trade as the potential flashpoint in the relationship. >> you think they'll have a chance in the time allotted to talk a lot about that? or is it going to be about north korea in light of a more activist united states? i mean, it's -- you need more than 24 hours i think. >> sure. listen, the chinese relationship is a 360-degree relationship. there are political, military, economic and financial dimensions. i think the goal today, joe, is to set a framework for further discussions. by the way the two leaders will meet again exactly three months from today on the margins of the g20 summit meeting in hamburg. i think that's going to be an opportunity to see whether the framework that they established today is beginning to show progress. >> ambassador, real quick, how

do you think this changes the dynamics within washington? in terms of how polarized things have been, and all the conversations. you talk about all the policies that we expect to impact the domestic economy here. do you think this changes that dynamic in any way? >> i think that it shows the seriousness of purpose on the part of the administration. i think the administration needs quickly to engage the congress on both sides of the aisle. and again, i think it's important for everybody, whether it's an international affairs or domestic affairs, to be careful what they say, but to mean what they say. >> mr. ambassador, mr. secretary, thank you. >> thank you. >> we appreciate you coming. and shifting gears, to talk about all the new stuff. coming up market reaction to the strike on syria. plus the jobs report. investors will have a lot on their plate in the coming weeks. we'll break it down after the break. the few urs right now are positive across the board, but now the s&p is slightly lower.

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airstrike in syria. the president meeting with his chinese counterpart and a jobs report. a lot of different things to the markets to be reacting to and digesting this morning. we've been watching the futures and they're flat. they've turned slightly positive. joining us right now is gabriela santos, jpmorgan funds global market strategist. michelle myer is bank of america merrill live's cheap economist. welcome to boast of you. gabriela why don't we just start off with the market reaction. this is not what people may have expected last night. the knee jerk reaction was futures sold off by 100 points. but now we've seen dow futures positive this morning. what does this indicate? >> i think it indicates that the market is really paying attention to what secretary of state tillerson said which is this does not indicate a change in posture from the u.s. this is seen by the market it seems like a discreet event. and as with any geopolitical action the market focuses on the impact to the economy and if it is a discrete option then it doesn't have an impact on the u.s. and global economy. >> it may be a one-time action.

but, as joe was pointing out before it certainly does send a much larger signal these days. this is a different way of viewing the world and dealing with the world, correct? >> it may be. i think it's still too early to tell. and that's why the market is paying so much attention, as well, to the meeting with president xi jinping, and the attitude towards north korea. which is really the big focus here. >> seeing green arrows this morning. is that brushing off the airstrike? kind of giving credence to what they think may be positive talks with the chinese president? and also, thinking has the jobs number may be positive? how do you get to the positive numbers? >> i add it all up based on the data we've seen this weak. the most important number to me, to us, is really the global manufacturing cmi, which reads 53. it's a high for six years. that means that the u.s. economy is picking up. but it also means the world economy is picking up. it's a synchronized improvement that we haven't seen in six years and i think that's what's underpinning the market. it's not washington.

it's the actual improvement in economic growth. >> if we are looking at economic growth improving how come we're looking at the ten-year note today yielding the lowest levels that we've seen since november. >> the ten-year has been talking a pause this year after having rallied so far the last two months of last year. we think this is just a temporary pause, exactly. there's a lot that's being overshadowed by politics. once the market focuses that, 9 fixed income market focuses on inflation growth that ten-year number should be much closer to 3, 3.5. >> let's just talk about where you see growth right now in the united states. this has been a -- it was a very weak first quarter. where are we now in the second quarter? >> i think, as you said q1 was weak, but it's probably partly residual seasonality we like to talk about. it's happened the past several years. we should see growth rebound into the second quarter and confidence surveys are indicative of that. i think we should take these surveys with a bit of a grain of salt. they go up sharply, they come right back down. they're kind of fickle.

you don't want to fade it entirely. taking some positive signal from the strong survey data. the idea that you're going to have some rebound after residual seasonality hurts q1 gdp growth i think we'll be heading into the second quarter, into the third quarter, with a little bit more momentum. that said, i do worry that optimism was just too high heading into the year on the basis that we'd see some significant policy changes. >> where do you think we'll see the jobs report today? >> we're looking for 200,000. which is a little bit above the consensus. and pretty comfortable with that number. you had the ism manufacturing surveys. shows strong employment series. manufacturing job growth to pick up. the housing numbers are still strong, which support construction. although the weather does play a role for construction. >> the actual number, because steve liesman is here. and your work has been so amazing lately on the numbers. >> what? >> 209. 208. >> oh, 20le 8. >> steve, if you were watching the show, you would think that steve was like on the other side

of a thing, not physically right here. >> look. >> you were looking for him. there he is. >> he's such a fan. he stands there the entire show. the whole show. >> hand signals. >> 208 was a hand signal. that's right about in line with what michelle said. >> i do see it. i think that's about right. i'm getting big thumbs up right now. >> did you raise your number after the adp report? >> we didn't change it. so we had been at 200 and adp came out and left us feeling comfortable. and then the consumer confidence labor differential number was strong. so there's a number of things that are kind of working in favor of a preseason number. it's not going to be as strong as the last few months but still pretty decent. >> michelle, gab he wiriela, thu both for being here. >> the storm? >> continue talking about the implications of syria on the market. we have the jobs report coming up. we have steve liesman. we'll get him a microphone. try to get him some lighting as well and maybe a little bit of makeup. minneapolis fed president neel

kashkari taking on jpmorgan chase ceo jamie dimon in his annual letter dimon says too big to fail fierce have been eradicated. nash cari disagrees. kind out why when he joins us on "squawk box." >> tonight i call on all civilized nations to join us in seeking to end the slaughter, and bloodshed in syria. kevin kevin kevin kevin kevin kevin kevin kevin kevin kevin trusted advice for life. kevin, how's your mom? life well planned. see what a raymond james financial advisor can do for you. over hereno!ver here! (dog barking) whoever threw it has to go get it. not me! somebody will get it...

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comcast business is different. ♪ ♪ we deliver super-fast internet with speeds of 250 megabits per second across our entire network, to more companies, in more locations, than centurylink. we do business where you do business. ♪ ♪ u.s. military attacking a syrian government air field with 59, 59 tomahawk missiles last night. the strike was in response to a chemical weapons attack on tuesday. nbc's joe neile joins us live from moscow with the russian reaction. hi, bill. >> yes, good morning, joe. good morning, everyone. russia taking a couple of swipes at the u.s. this morning. within the last few minutes, russia's defense ministry claiming that only 23 of those

59 cruise missiles actually struck the base. that the main runway at the base was not hit by a single shell. that's according to the russians. and that no aircraft were hit. russia's defense ministry saying the combat effectiveness of this massive attack was just very low. russia's response from the kremlin was also strong, but predictable. claiming that this was an act of aggression against a sovereign country and a violation of international law. also, asserting that syria does not have chemical weapons, as russia has done in the past, and therefore that this air strike was unjustified. so all of that kind of wholly predictable. russia also said it was suspending its agreement with the u.s. on deconfliction. in other words, an agreement that prevents u.s. and russian aircraft colliding in the skies over syria. but again, russia only suspending that agreement. not pulling out altogether. the kremlin spokesman also conceded that russia had been

warned in advance about these air strikes, and significantly, and in another sign of russia's muted response to these u.s. air strikes, the russian foreign minister sergey lavrov said this morning, i don't think any of this will lead to an irreversible situation. so limited airstrikes, limited condemnation from moscow. at the moment, president putin is meeting with his national security advisers. they will want to discuss what next. they'll be watching president trump very carefully for what he will do next. was this a 30-minute air strike or is there more to come? will he want to impose no-fly zones? will he want to impose a more aggressive pursuit of regime change against president assad? one thing that will not change for now is russia's support for president assad. but i'll leave you just with one quote again from the kremlin spokesman dimitry peskov yesterday before these air

strike happened dimitry peskov said russia's support for president assad is not unconditional. so russia sending out another signal there principally to the u.s. >> i saw that yesterday, bill. that stuck out. the russians say something like that and you wonder. and anyway, we've got to run. we've got other stuff to do. we appreciate your time and an anal sis this morning, thank you. >> in his annual letter to investors jamie dimon stated that our financial system is unquestionably stronger today and too big to fail has essentially been solved. outspoken discenter, though, neel kashkari, president of the federal reserve bank of minneapolis says that jamie dimon is wrong. good morning to you, neel? >> good morning, andrew. good to see you. >> let's walk through this. jamie dimon effectively saying that he feels there's higher capital, more disclosure transparency, he says, stress testing, corporate recovery

planning. far higher liquidity requirements. you say what? >> i say the banks don't have nearly enough capital. the core argument that mr. dimon repeatedly makes in his letter, and by the way i like jamie dimon, i think he's a good person so this is nothing personal, is he keeps pointing to this notion that we're going to convert debt into equity in a crisis. he calls it bail-in debt or total loss absorption capital. it's a great theory. it just almost never actually works in a crisis. this is what was so hard for us to arrest in 2008 that you know so well, andrew, from your book. it's the dominoes falling. one bank bringing down another bank. brings down another bank. it's this contagion risk. the core is that in a crisis, government officials do not want to haircut debt. they don't want to impose losses on bond holders because it can create that domino effect. and that's the fundamental flaw in mr. dimon's analysis. that's why our analysis says the biggest banks need twice as much

equity capital as they have today. if we made the big banks fund themselves with twice as much equity capital we could more or less address too big to fail. we haven't done it yet. >> let's just break a couple things down for a second because the markets, as you've seen in terms of what the anticipation expectation is for the banking industry has been relatively positive in part because there's an expectation, at least for the smaller banks, that we might loosen up capital. just to put a fine point on it. when you talk about higher capitals are you talking about the nine largest banks in the united states or across the board? >> no, just our plan that we release a draft in november, it calls for substantially higher capital requirements for banks, $250 billion in assets and up. that's about a dozen banks in america. that we think should be more -- those are the too big to fail banks as we see it and we would want to relax regulations as you said on small banks, on community banks, because they're not systemically risky for the economy. >> weigh in, if you will, or weigh out the implications for the economy in that there's long

been an argument made that, of course, the higher capital requirements you have the less lending that some of the biggest banks can and credits that they can put forth into the economy and therefore the extent that you're trying to juice the economy, and president trump, of course, has ran on a campaign of bettering the economy, and growing gdp, that it makes it that much tougher. how do you weigh that versus the risk on the other end? >> so, you're exactly right. and so this is about analyzing cost and benefits. the benefits of higher capital are we avoid these disastrous financial crises that brought down the u.s. economy and almost put us into the great depression. but it's not free. safety is not free and so there are costs and benefits. the analysis that we've done looks at the cost of higher capital in terms of what lower lending from the biggest institutions. and the benefits of higher safety. and our analysis says if we double the equity capital requirements on the biggest banks and only on the biggest banks, society is better off. the benefits outweigh the cost. but you're right there are

costs, safety isn't free. >> and, neel, christopher whalen, i don't know if you noticed this on twitter, sent out a tweet said yo "squawk box" ask neel kashkari why more bank capital would have prevented the 2008 crisis which he says came from securities fraud. somebody saying more capital would have allowed more fraud and forestalled the crisis until we could have had a grander one. what do you make of that? >> i don't understand that. if banks were buying securities or had loans, let's say there was fraud, they didn't understand what they were buying, they didn't know what was on their books, if they have a higher capital cushion that's protection against all of those mistakes. whether they're caused by fraud or stupidity or just by bad judgment, capital protects them against those mistakes. you know, this is just like when we get a mortgage, i got a mortgage a year ago, the bank made me put 20% down to buy my house. that 20% down is designed to protect the bank in case i run into economic hardship. it's pretty simple. if we make the big banks put 20% down on their investments, we

can protect the taxpayers. and that's what my interest is here. >> there was a report out just two days ago that gary cohn, formerly goldman kachs of course, talking about potentially supporting the idea of bringing back gas spiegel. where do you stand on that and do you find it surprising? >> i found it somewhat surprising given some of the other comments that we've heard. i think during the campaign president trump or president-elect trump at the time, candidate trump was also proposing reinstatement of glass spiegel. i'm not opposed to that but it will not solve too big to fail. lehman brothers and bear stearns are great examples of too big to fail banks that were pure play investment banks, that were not the supermarket banks, and they were systemically risky. you also had pure commercial banks running to trouble and posed systemic risk. it's not simply the merger of these two activities that creates the risk. it's the scale, it's the interconnectedness, and the lack of capitalization.

>> are you a lone voice within the fed complex if you will on this issue at this point in terms of what kind of support privately are you getting or not getting, given the politics of the moment? >> you know, privately i have a number of people reaching out to me saying thank you for speaking out. we're glad somebody's speaking up about this. we have not talked too big to fail. but i think there are a range of views on this. the most important thing from my perspective is i don't want to give the public a false sense of security that dodd-frank has solved too big to fail. the biggest banks are still too big to fail and i think policymakers, whether it's congress or the executive branch or regulators need to take that on. need to present options to the american people, and they immediate to tell us how much safety they want. >> and before we let you go, go to ask about jeff lacker. what your thought is on that? but also, do you get lots of calls from analysts and journalists, and market participants, and do you take those calls? >> i do get calls from journalists occasionally. sometimes i take them if i have

a message that i want to deliver. i'm shocked by the jeff lacker situation. people inside the fed care deeply about ethics and integrity. it's a very ethical institution. and we all need to work extra hard to make sure we maintain the public's trust. so we're all shocked by it. but i think appropriate action was taken. >> okay. neel kashkari, thank you. appreciate your time. >> still to come on "squawk box," reaction to the air strikes in syria from nbc diplomacy analyst and former supreme allied nato commander james stavridis. implications with russia and beyond right after this break. at the top of the hour we're going to kick off the final countdown to the jobs report. we have the numbers and the market reaction at 8:30 a.m. this morning. it's big screen entertainment, right in your hadnds. buy a samsung galaxy s8 and get one free when you have direct tv and add a line.

may not always be clear. but at t. rowe price, we can help guide your retirement savings. so wherever your retirement journey takes you, we can help you reach your goals. call us or your advisor t. rowe price. invest with confidence. president trump decides to strike back at syria following the recent chemical weapons attack. joining us to talk about the military action and what could be next retired admiral james stavridis. professor at tufts university, also the former supreme allied commander at nato. admiral, you've been in this business and making decisions. or at least advising people on

decisions like this. at first blush, what do you have to say? >> this is a good decision. a good call. this is legal proportional strike. it's not particularly tactically significant. but it sends a pretty important strategic message that the united states is unafraid to use force. will continue to be in the game in the middle east. and let's face it, part of the audience here is not just russia, iran, and syria. part of the audience is president xi. and as we used to say with the soviet union, perhaps it is no coincidence, comrade, that the strike get launched while president xi is down in mar-a-lago. pretty good signal that the united states intends to play hard with north korea, as well. over all good call. >> could have been serendipitous, though, if it happened on tuesday. and we were under the impression, there was no chemical weapons left, and suddenly president xi is here. it almost -- it's almost -- i

don't fortuitous is one way to say it, certain dip dus is another way. it does show how serious this administration, north korea, and how -- i've still got march madness on my mind. and how serious this administration is about maybe being more activist in the world. >> that's exactly right. and it also let's face it, there's a domestic component to this. here in the united states. versus the trump administration. we have a president who has talked about his desire to move quickly, to act. this is a pretty good example of that. and i think it also reflects a very professional national security team around president trump. particularly the consolidation of lieutenant general h.r. mcmaster as national security adviser. this has his fingerprints all over it. it's measured. it's sensible. and then the professional execution by the u.s. navy under general jim mattis. it's a very professional move, well executed.

>> admiral we know for sure it was sarin gas, and we know for sure it was the assad regime? that's a given would you say? >> it's absolutely a given. we have the video. we have reports from the turks, who took in a bunch of the victims and are doing medical exams of them. i think it is incontrovertible at this point >> so putin -- you think putin got advance -- number one, they don't even acknowledge that this happened. because they say there are no -- there are no chemical weapons left there. but you figure, so he knows. do you think he had advance notice on, with assad whether this was something that they planned to try to test trump? or -- i mean, what do you think? >> i think that's unlikely. i would guess that the russians were woke up, and were unpleasantly surprised at this. >> but they know. >> for assad -- yes, they know

it happened. oh, absolutely. but i think they were unpleasantly surprised to discover this. >> then that explains the, that it's not unconal. probably explains why putin saw this, is going to say it's aggression and the united states has no right, it's a violation of this, violation of that, but they shouldn't be surprised by it. and they probably, deep down, know that it is something that trump had to do. and therefore they have this muted resprons. maybe they don't, you know, unconditionally back this guy. >> yeah, that would be my guess. is that at this moment in the kremlin, there's a little bit of reconsideration going on about how long they want to stand with this particular client, who just is difficult to control. does not seem to have a winning hand himself. is a weak leader. and now has managed to provoke significant military response from the united states. i think what will be interesting to watch will be secretary tillerson's visit to moscow

later this week. see what the tone of that comes across. i wouldn't be surprised to see the u.s. and russia bury the hatchet right in the back of assad bch this is all over. >> although no question, putin has taken a step back with this too, correct? this is the first time that he has been stopped in quite some time. does he respond to what he might be seeing as the success? >> this is always the question with putin, and if you have to bet one way on a putin response, bet that he's going to puff up, show a lot of arrogance about him. he's not one to look for the subtle way out. and again, he's playing, putin is playing to a domestic audience which has been fed a diet of continuous winning. syria is doing wonderfully. we're fabulous with our ally assad. those videos are in russia, as well. and i think there is going to be some reconsideration. but i would bet for the moment

he'll stand fast with assad. >> admiral, of course, president trump with president xi from china. let's talk about the implications in terms of the chinese relationship. could it be had a conversation with the president, president xi before doing this? there's going to be -- there's lots of speculation about whether this embarrasses him and how it changes the dynamic in terms of their conversation. >> yeah, andrew, i think it's a terrific question. my guess is president trump probably said something to president xi like, you know, we've got something that's going to happen here fairly dramatically. this is not something we staged. it's just the timing of what's happened here. but again, as joe and i were talking about up front, the timing of this does appear to really send a dramatic signal to president xi, and as you know, andrew, the chinese hate surprises. more than probably any other country. they're very protocol driven. so, i think this will have an unsettling effect on the talks.

on the other hand, long-term, i think it shows president trump is willing to take tough measures against north korea. that's a good signal to send to china at the end of the day. >> admiral, for the anti-neoconwing of the republican party, they're up in arms right now. can the case be made that if chemical weapons are used, that we have to be the policeman for the world? i mean, do they not see that? they probably say, you know, civilians die a lot of different ways, and admittedly this is a horrific way, but there's things happening all around the world that we can't control, and here we are getting into what could be another sticky, you know, drawn out situation. is there merit in that argument? or do you have to just say, children, and sarin gas, and if i'm not going to do it, who's going to do it? i'm going to do it. and you know, damn the

torpedoes, you know, to use a military term. i mean, is that, what's your view? >> i think you've got it about right. which is to say, none of us want to get drawn back in to another long, drawn out misadventure in the middle east. but i think answer to the proposition you posed is, look, we're taking this one step at a time. we do need to respond to this, as a civilized nation, and particularly as a leader in the world. and we shouldn't back up from that responsibility, and under international law, this is an appropriate, proportional response. >> right. and maybe it was too soon after iraq for president obama to consider something like this, but a tactical, small strike, i mean, it might, you know, it might be beneficial to our interests, i guess. admiral. thank you, appreciate your time this morning. >> thank you. up next, the military action in syria, and your portfolio. we'll tell you a look at the defense stocks and to show you how they are reacting to last

night's strike. "squawk box" will be right back. still to come, jobs in america. our panel of experts standing by. payroll predictions and instant reaction. the countdown is on only on "squawk box." did you know slow internet

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portfolio. morgan brennan joins us to break it down. >> defense stocks haven't moved notably overnight. and the question for investors now is what does this aggressive response signify in terms of president trump's, and congress' commitment to building up our military. now in particular, for a sector that has rallied sharply since the election, that said, take a look at raytheon. raytheon is higher premarket, up about 2%. raytheon makes the tomahawk missiles that were used to carry out the u.s. strike in syria last night. the tom hawk is a long range subsonic cruise missile launched from navy ships or subs from up to 1,000 miles away from the intended target. it can fly at low altitudes up to 550 miles per hour dodging threats and it is highly accurate. its battle tested, reliable weapon of choice for a strike like this, dating back to the desert storm in the early '90s. they were used in 2011 to oust libyan leader gadhafi's government and more recently in the fight against isis. now conflicting numbers are out

there right now about the price. multiple experts telling me it's upwards of $1 million per missile. meaning from a weapons standpoint the cost last night was upwards of $59 million. the navy has a stockpile of about 3,000 of the most advanced tom hawks. the attack represents according to an analyst about three months of defense department production and replenishment which is likely to be considered now in the budget process. becky? >> all right, morgan, thank you very much. when we return, the countdown to the jobs report is on. our panel is standing by with predictions and market reaction. in the meantime take a look at the futures, they've turned around, s&p is flat right now, dow futures up by 5, the nasdaq up by 1.5. tools, right at your fingertips, you have access to in-depth analysis, level 2 data, and a team of experienced traders ready to help you if you need it. ♪ ♪ it's like having the power of a trading floor, wherever you are.

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making news this hour. jobs in america. the march employment report is just minutes away. our panel of experts are standing by with everything you need to know. the numbers, lightning fast analysis, and the instant market reaction. a special hour of "squawk box" begins right now. live from the most powerful city in the world, new york. this is "squawk box."

good morning. welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc, live from the nasdaq marketsite. i'm joe kernen, along with becky quick and andrew ross sorkin. it's jobs friday. we're just 30 minutes away from the march employment report. forecast expect the economy added 175,000 jobs last month. the unemployment rate is expected to hold steady at 4.7%. we've had some people say it's going to keep coming down. i don't know. if the workforce keeps -- participation rate continues to go up a little, then you maybe don't get the employment rate going down. >> right. you could actually say -- >> which is a good thing even if it rises. >> get a check on the markets this morning. even after all the news the market has absorbed all of it. looks like the dow futures are indicated to open up about 7 points. s&p futures just turned positive. nasdaq up by about 1.5. we've also been watching treasury yields. this has been an interesting story to watch once again.

the ten-year yield moving to its lowest position since november 22nd. this morning it's yielding 2.318%. >> before we -- let's go to michelle and then we'll come back to this. today's top story the u.s. military attacking a syrian government air field with 59 tomahawk missiles last night. michelle caruso-cabrera joins us to break it all down. >> the 59 missiles from launched from two u.s. warships in the eastern mediterranean. overnight the pentagon released this video. the target of these missiles, an airfield the u.s. government believes was used by the syrian government of bashar al assad to launch a chemical weapons attack earlier this week in the now 6-year-old syrian civil war. chemical weapons are banned by international law and this attack is thought to have killed more than 100, many of them civilians including young children. the air field al shayrat is used

by the assad regime. it is in homs province. assad's defense ministry released this drone video last hour of what they say is the aftermath of the air field attack. they claim the attack's effectiveness was low. that it destroyed six mig 23s in a repair hangar, a warehouse,fa room as well as radar. you say the runways, taxriways, aircraft parking areas of the syrian air force were not damaged. that is, of course, according to the russian defense ministry. >> michelle, thank you for that. market reactions to the air strike on crude prices this morning. they are higher this morning marginally. 52.12 a barrel of wti crude right now. want to get to jackie deangelis. >> good morning, andrew. after a knee jerk reaction last night to the news of the air strike in syria, crude did move up to just under $53 a barrel. the highest level that we've seen since early march. this morning, coming off a

little bit still supported. so far this year, of course, the oil conversation has tend to be around supply, demand dynamics, and there's been less focus on geopolitical risk than we've seen potentially in the past. but, military action in the middle east has a way of heightening concerns about supply disruptions. remember, in this case, the concern is less about syria directly, not an oil producer, but more about disruption potentially in the region. it's also about what the russian response will be longer-term. oil prices were already on the rise ahead of the events last night. seasonal trends taking the market back over $50 a barrel. but this is exactly the kind of issue that not only leads to support to that momentum, it also could move prices very high and quite quickly. right now, though, the markets seeming measured. >> thank you, jackie. we're going to talk more about former defense secretary william cohen at 8:45. but the point i was going to make, when you know, there's -- i don't know if it's an unconventional view but in terms

of why the market is actually up, the idea that this politically in washington could actually act as a reset for so much of the policy conversation to bring certain people together that may not have been together. having said that we talked about the criticism from the right. >> flanks of the republican party or republicans and democrats? >> republicans and democrats who look at this, and also think that maybe the conversations we've been having about russian interference and all these other things, at least get pushed off the table briefly, and might offer sort of a respite for some of these kind of other conversations to take place. >> already, we had i guess he's a colleague, but chris matthews went from comparing a ivanka and i guess some of the other children to saddam hussein's children, uday and -- he was comparing trump's children to them. >> what? >> he went now to say this is a wag the dog, whatever it is, that this would be the version. from the other problems, and this missile strike was used to

just to divert -- and also to point out oh, yeah we're really good friends with the russians. does this look like we're good friends with the russians? immediately politicized. >> political perspective to the extend we've been talking about whether you can get tax reform or any of these others is back on the table and get away from some of these other things. there are people in the investment community who think that maybe this might just -- >> that implies -- >> i would think you'd think that was a positive. >> no, i would say that implies a certain degree of cynicism that even i'm uncomfortable with. that you would use tuesday's attack on children to reset your own political -- >> no, i don't think they're -- >> as a result -- >> as a result -- >> i'm not suggesting it was strategic in that regard. though it may very well have also come in to play. but i think the question is whether it does something else. anyway, wanted to put it out there. >> serendipitous. >> let's get to our jobs panel this morning. on top of all of this other news we're counting down to the march employment report which is less than 25 minutes away. joining us right now is barbara

reinhart, head of asset allocation at voya investment management. jeff rosenberg blackrock's chief income strategist. doug holtz-eakin who is american action forum president and austan goolsbee who is professor of economics at chicago school of business. welcome to all of you. jeff, before we jump into the jobs number today i'd really like to know about your reaction to the ten-year. we've been pointing this out this morning. lowest level since november 22nd. why? why? lowest yield i should say. >> yeah, you have a number of things going on. you know, certainly this morning you saw big spike, and that's a risk off environment. but before that you had a number of concerns developing. as andrew was just talking about, concerns around the policy side that the market had heightened expectations for a degree of momentum, and success. and some of that clearly came off with the failure of the health care vote. and that had been weighing on the market. the other thing is positioning and technicals.

most of the market, ourselves included, everyone had this expectation for higher rates. so you had positioning towards higher rates. and you had the momentum going in the opposite direction. so you had some technical short covering going on into that environment. >> just because it was such a crowded trade at that point? >> very crowded. very consensus positioning around the expectations for higher rates. you have this development that point to the other direction people have to get on the right side of that. >> all right, barbara, let's talk about the stock market's reaction to all of this news overnight. what andrew was just talking about, how do you at it all up? >> there's a couple things. any time that you have military strike it always causes some indigestion in the equity market. i think this is going to be seen -- >> but there's not really. >> it's going to be seen as relatively limited i think at this point. i think he's done enough in terms of some of the survey data that had been really propping up the equity markets. some of the hard data is coming up to meet it at this point. you saw 118,000 jobs added in march in small businesses that was consistent with what we saw

in february. >> so backing up the confidence numbers we've seen for both consumers and businesses? >> yeah. and first quarter earnings, should be relatively good as well. enough of them to hold it all together. and you're also starting to see there's a big divergence and i think you're starting to see it come up at this point. it may be that the soft data or the survey data is already pass its peak. but it doesn't necessarily mean bad news until you're getting into contraction territory. >> austan how would you set things up? we have seen a lot of strong numbers come in including the adp report yesterday. >> look i hope that we get some strong numbers. i think we've got this weird weather related -- we had a huge snowstorm right during the reference week. so i actually think the number might not be the head line number might not be as good as what our expectations are. but overall the economy still continues to plug along pretty decent, and as you'd say, becky, we've got -- we've been getting a lot of information. which says the economy just keeps on chugging. i think the military action, if

it's just a one-off symbolic gesture, i don't think will have very much impact. if this drew the iranians in to do something else, if this escalates, it's sort of a second or a third strike, then i think there would probably be a lot of fear that they're not going to get the corporate tax reform any time soon. if we're in an environment where we've got an escalating military cost. because the two things that would blow the budget up, i don't think they could do at the same time. >> doug your thoughts on everything happening overnight? >> i'm pretty much with austan on the economy. it's chugging along pretty well. i think the weather is going to affect the number, if only because the february number was a bit higher because of the unusually warm weather. i think the military action is a very important step for the trump administration, in establishing how it's going to handle itself in international relations. i don't think it's a signal of broader intervention in the middle east, or military conflict. and so, i don't expect big

fallout from it. i think that's right. and certainly worth watching. probably a bigger deal in terms of what's going on overnight is the meetings with xi down in florida, and just what u.s./china relations will look like going forward. that's a significant relationship. has big economic implications and ought to be watched carefully. >> doug, we've had people tell us this morning that it was just a coincidence that these strikes happened now. it was the most important time militarily for that to happen. we've had other people say no, no, this was very clearly a signal to the chinese regime about north korea. what do you think? >> i think it's a signal no question about it. but the timing was dictated by the chemical attacks. i don't think there's any mistake that they saw those attacks, that they thought back to the performance of the obama administration in similar circumstances, but they cannot fail to react. and they took their time and took the right action. >> austan, just in terms of what doug was talking about, if this was a one-off, that's one thing. there are a lot of different issues out there that are kind

of jockeying for the president's attention at this point. what would be best? >> i think you're absolutely right. there are a lot of things clamoring for attention. and you've got investigations. intrigue type stories going on. so it's a very full plate for the president. as it almost always is. so we're going to get -- we're going to get an observation of how does president trump do as a multitasker. which we sort of haven't seen. we've kind of mostly teed up so far in the administration one issue then the next issue. this is more normal. that a lot of things will be going on. and hopefully this does not escalate into something bigger in the middle east, and hopefully the chinese do not take this as a slap in the face that you invited me to mar-a-lago, and then you launched an attack while i'm here without telling me. >> all right, folks. stick around. we're going to talk a lot more about what to expect as we count

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welcome back to "squawk box." we've got a few stocks to watch on top of everything else. check out the shares of some gold mining stocks like barrick gold, ram gold and gold fields all rallying this morning as the syrian air strikes prompted some safe haven buying. healthy advisory group upgrading walmart, saying the retail giant appears to be regaining dominance in the physical retail market. >> a couple stocks to watch amid all this geopolitical news. yum brands saying its kfc unit has given its suppliers until

the end of next year to stop the use of antibiotics in chickens. kfc is the last of the three large chains to sell chickens that do so. also are twilio was upgraded. now a good value after tumbling from the september highs and notes that amazon's web services unit is using twilio technology to power a number of its new products. and southwest airlines says revenue passenger miles increased by 3.9% in march kard to a year ago and says that bookings -- brookings on the mind but bookings and overall trends remain high. >> always be a place for you over there. >> at brookings? >> oh, yeah. >> i'll have to book my ticket at brookings. i could go and butt heads that way. >> much more fun when you're doing it right here on set. >> with you in the middle. >> coming up the final countdown to the march employment report. we will get the payroll predictions from our jobs panel next. and later the world reacting to

the u.s. missile launch in syria. we will talk to former defense secretary william cohen. that is coming up at 8:45 a.m. eastern time.

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that, and i am better looking. i heard that. when it's time to get organized for retirement, it's time to get voya. welcome back to "squawk box." it is jobs friday. time to find out where the jobs are this month. we're looking to the sky right now. kate live in dallas. >> hey, andrew.

good morning. well the airline industry is growing rapidly both in the u.s. and globalry. some 3.8 billion passengers travelled in 2016. that will hit 7.2 billion a year by 2035 according to the international air transport association. to meet that demand, air passenger services are on the rise and that means one thing. the need for more manpower. the airline industry employs some 700,000 people in the u.s. alone. a number that stands to grow according to experts. >> based on all trends, the next few years look to have more hiring in the airline industry. and that's important, because the more we hire, the more actual jobs we create and that ripple effect throughout the country. >> reporter: carriers like southwest airlines are expanding in nearly every part of their business to meet demand. >> pilots, flight attendants, administrative staff, finance positions, marketing positions, and probably the biggest position is operations.

>> reporter: now with president trump in office the industry is hoping for deregulation, lower taxes and modernization of air traffic control systems to continue growth. >> we're looking at current regulations that don't make any sense and eliminating those. those savings, those efficiencies, will make us better able to continue to invest in our employees, and in our product. >> the industry's also investing in its employees with u.s. passengers, airline spending about $3.6 billion per month on their workforce. that's up 42% over the past six years. and coming up later in squawk ally we're going to tell you how southwest airlines, we're live from their big hub in dallas today, they're hire people for their attitude and training them for skills. andrew, back over to you. >> kate rogers on the tarmac. always appreciate it. thank you for that report. and, if you're taking southwest you've got to pay extra a little bit to get on the plane early. that has some value. coming up when we return, just minutes away from the big payrolls release.

first final predictions from our panel. then we're going to bring you those jobs numbers and market reaction. stay tuned you're watching "squawk box" right here on cnbc. i think that she's a very nice girl... you never got the brakes looked at? oh yeah. no. at cognizant, we're helping today's leading manufacturers make things that think and do automatically. imagine that, a world of new digital products and services all working together for you. can i borrow the car when it's back? get ready, because we're helping leading companies lead with digital.

good morning, and welcome back to "squawk box" here at cnbc. live from the marks today. top story u.s. warships in the mediterranean fired 59 cruise missiles targeting a syrian air base overnight. here's president trump speaking last night. >> tonight i ordered a targeted military strike on the air field in syria from where the chemical attack was launched. it is in this vital, national security interest of the united states to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons. there can be no dispute that syria used banned chemical weapons. violated its obligations, under

the chemical weapons convention, and ignored the urgen of the u.n. security council. le. >> a syrian official said that u.s. missiles did cause damage, and you can see that looking at images of that air field from syrian television. global markets reacted, and then sort of didn't react. dow futures initially fell sharply on the news. but have recovered, and now positive for awhile. they're now down a little bit as you can see down nine points. crude, as i mentioned earlier, crude did move, as i mentioned earlier, there were times back in the '90s, and 2000 where when you got a move in crude it could be like 10%, 12%. it would really knock your socks off. that was with the first invasion, remember with kuwait. >> you were talking about countries that produce much more oil at that point. >> it had to do with whether the

straits of hormuz, whether it was disrupted. but it used to be more of a -- and we also have a lot more. >> we're now the largest producer give and take with saudi arabia. >> right. >> it is jobs friday. right now it's time to get final predictions from our panel. jeff, why don't we start with you? >> so there's a big weather story. i think you're going to hear a number of people talk about that. consensus around 175. i'm on the low side of that at 140. >> 140? >> don't take it the wrong way. it's not a bearish statement. it's more that you've had a lot of weather effect in this report. it may show up. >> so you think if it's a one-off you think it comes back the other side of that? >> it definitely would come back on the other side of that. and even if it's a one-off i think it's important, market expectations have some expectation for the weather effect. it wouldn't have as big of a story than a -- >> jeff is at blackrock. you're factoring in 60,000 robots got hired so it's really 200,000. so you're really -- it's really 200,000. >> robots, yeah. >> no. >> yes? >> no, not happening.

>> how long you going to survive -- >> it's man, and machine. >> oh, yeah, yeah. that's what they told john conner at sky net. don't worry. then they haste hasta la vista, baby. >> we think it's probably going to be close to consensus around 180. what we're focusing on also is the potential for labor market shortages in the u.s. it's starting to really leak into the, you know, pervasiveness of what people are talking about, and investors in the market that you're running out of workers. >> okay. great. we're going to have to move, because we're coming up on the jobs report in about an hour and 45 -- 1 minute 45 seconds. doug, what's your guess? >> i'm putting it right where we were last month. weather would knock it down. but all the high frequent data pushes it up. i'd just call it a wash and i'm at 235. >> austan, how about you? >> i'm at 165. i think this weather thing is going to confuse it. >> all right. steve? >> 208. i don't have any weather adjustment in my model. it just does what it does.

and if the weather affects it, we'll come back next month and get it righter. >> wages? >> i don't do wages. >> you don't do wages? >> let me just say the wages also has a weather effect potential in there as well because it shortens the work week. you can get an artificial. >> rick santelli. your number? >> 267,000. you know, i was thinking weather. weather is going to weather the storm of the number but i don't know. winter tends to be winter, and 94 million people out of work is a good pool not to overlook in terms of shortages. i really think we're going to be sailing ahead one of these months with a big number and maybe this is it. >> coming up on that number, joe. just a few seconds away. >> we are just right now about 30 seconds away from the jobs report. let's check out the futures. wow. you want to say something's flat. down a little over a point on the s&p. >> flat as it gets. >> dawn now over a point on the dow and the nasdaq down a half a point. see what the other ten-year

which has got all the way to 2.25 at one point. back to 2.31. all right now. hampton pearson, i sometimes worry about him. it's a lot of pressure. he's standing by at the labor department. he may already know the numbers. but you can't tell from his expression. what are they, hampton? >> 98,000. march nonfarm payrolls increased by just 98,000 jobs. the unemployment rate dipped to 4.5%. average hourly earnings up, way below the consensus forecast for 175,000 new jobs and 4.7% unemployment rate. we also had significant downward revisions for january and february. basically lower by 38,000 for the two months than what had previously been reported. private sector new hires in march, 89,000 new jobs. that 4% $4.5% unemployment rate, we got there from the household survey by a decline.

326,000, and the number of unemployed, 472,000 new hires. job sector growth, business professional services, plus 56,000. mining up 11,000. health care up 14,000. job losses, a big head line here, the retail sector, lose pg 30,000 jobs in the month of march. the so-called real unemployment rate, down to 8.9%. down 0.3 from the previous month. now, with those revisions, and the very low head line job growth number today, the revised average for the first three months of this year is 178,000 jobs per month. back to you. >> wow. >> that's a -- >> wow. >> wow. >> not even triple digits. thanks, hampton. let's get reaction from our panel. barbara reinhard, jeff rosen

gerg, douglases holtz-eakin, and austan goolsbee. you were closest. >> as i mentioned in the expectation, there may be a weather effect. i don't have the construction number in front of me, i'll look at that in a second. that may have pulled stuff back. you had about 60,000 boost in 16 so construction was -- >> 6,000. >> oh, even weaker. that's a huge number that's clearly a weather effect. so that's going to help a bit take off some of the edge of what seems like a bad head line number. and the participation right, a little bit of a positive story there, ticking upward. so a bit of a mixed bag. >> liesman i said you never miss. you're always right on. you got the best system around. and i ruined it for you. >> yeah,ing there's no -- there's no weather effect that i can -- what's interesting is -- >> 211 is. it's 98 you missed by a country mile this time right after i said you get it exactly right all the time. why? >> well, what i'm looking at here is, is the weakness in the

service sector. that's really the story here. i think construction, you know, 59 last month, 6,000 this month. take a wash. it's 33,000 average last two months, okay. manufacturing doing pretty good. 26,000 last month. 11,000 this month. that's not where the weakness is. you don't get a whole lot of jobs producing. service sector, just where did it go here? just 61,000. doing 125, 130. by the way i would point out you have to take a nod towards taking a look at what's going on on the household side. huge decline in unemployment. increase in the workforce, and increase in jobs there that sort of is off the charts there. so what's interesting what didn't show up in the employment survey did show up in household -- >> some interesting stuff happening in the markets. austan, do you still dabble in economic stuff? i see you on fox almost every night, and they have you on -- >> i still do economics. what are you talking about, joe? >> they have you talking

about -- >> with steve's revisions -- >> they have you on to talk about devin nunes resigned as chairman of the -- and you opine on the whole russian scandal. why do they have you on -- >> they make me do that. >> you're just a generic democrat now? you're just a generic democrat? you're on every night. >> you ask them why they ask me. >> what do you make of the syrian thing, austan? >> i'm just waiting for accusation of a deep state at the bureau of labor statistics. they revised down the last two months. you realize what that means. job performance under president trump is not too good now. >> there might be something to that. there's still some holdovers, dead enders from the obama administration skewing the numbers down now. >> thanks, austan. >> oh, here we go. >> my model number is up. i skewed them up for a reason. because it was wonderful, they have such a nice stretch of jobs under the last administration. but i said a lot of times, if you get a raise from 50 to 100

grand but your bills are still 200 grand, still you did better but it's not time to celebrate. we need growth and productivity. that's the issue. granted this isn't good the markets bear that out. we came right down to the 227, 228 issue. i've talked ad infinitum about how important 2015's ten-year settlement is. took us all of eleven months to overtake it in 2016. that's where the market needs to hold. overseas rates are drifting. whether it's the gild, the boone, all of those seem to be breaking this pattern a bit. this is really a significant level for the weekly close for ten-year note yields. >> i'm getting emotional. that almost sounded like rick santelli said something nice about the obama administration. did i miss that? i did! it was a nice thing. but it's too bad it wasn't nice enough! that's all i'm saying. >> i think -- >> you can't be happy -- >> that was like a christmas --

>> -- either something like that from him. >> you know, like -- >> that's as good as it's going to get. >> it's nice to be objective. >> i think it just goes to show that the market sensitivity and sentiment sensitivity is going to be very high to the labor market. this is going to be big rally in bonds today. sell-off probably drop in inflation expectations, it may cause credit spreads to widen a little bit because inflation expectation -- >> barbara, just because they do it, does that make it right? is it really time, given the streak in the run of jobs we've had, to change your view of what's going on on the jobs market? >> no. >> especially if jeff and the other economists are right that this is a weather related weakness? >> it's weather related. and the bond market peaked at 260 on the day the fed raised rates in december. it peaked at 260 on the day that the fed raised rates in march and it rolled over. the date stay should be strong enough, earnings should be strong enough, there should be enough ceo confidence that this is going to be a blip that's going to get reversed. >> i do have an issue and a question, which is we haven't seen the hard data to support or to really become in line with

the jobs data that's been out there. doing these 200 pluses, what i've not seen in general since the crisis, i've not seen employers take on workers in expectation of demand to come. they've only done it essentially in response to it. >> there's a lot of shifting things going on here. corporate america doesn't want to do much because they don't know what the policy is going to be on tax reform just yet. so there's a little bit of a holding pattern there. it also bleeds through to cap-ex. but it goes to something that we're positioning our portfolios on, there's more slack in the labor markets in europe and outside of the u.s. so we're looking towards europe to maybe take some from the u.s. at this point. >> all right. austan you've got to run. i know you're taping tucker carlson about the gorsuch nomination, right? you've got -- >> i'm going to talk about you, joe. >> you've got to get over there quickly. that's coming up. i love that -- >> i'm going to right a new report, joe kernen wrong again. >> you know you're pretty good on those generals.

i mean you may know nothing but you're never in doubt on that stuff. it's awesome. anyway, thank you. >> he's been hanging out getting on your bad side. >> i know. i know. we got to -- just pretend we know. anyway, jeff rosenberg, you will be replaced -- is there a date? >> no. not yet. >> you know what larry did? larry did say 30 billion dollars out of 5 trillion will be, you know, computer aided. >> and you know who we didn't talk to and need to thank, doug. >> doug? >> douglas holtz-eakin. >> thank you. >> his name -- >> douglas, thank you. >> he's trying to stay under the radar so we don't call him out for -- >> doug's the man! >> all right. >> thanks. >> i'm just going to stay out of the food fight today. >> yeah, exactly. >> thanks. >> when we come back this morning the global reaction to today's top stories. the u.s. airstrikes in syria, former defense secretary william cohen will join us.

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welcome back to "squawk box," everybody. just eleven minutes ago we got the jobs number. they were quite a bit weaker than had been anticipated. you're looking at the nonfarm pay roms up by 98,000. the consensus estimate was for 175,000. as a result take a look at what happened to the futures. we'd been looking at futures flat. right now looks like dow futures down 54 points.

s&p futures down by 6.5, the nasdaq down by 12.5. if you take a look at the ten-year yield this has been the other major market story. yields put under more pressure falling below 2.3%. in fact this is the lowest level at 2.289% that we have seen for the ten-year since november 22nd when it was 2.287%. before that it tfs 2.1845% back on november 17th. we'll keep a close eye on this today. president trump has launched the first direct military action against the syrian government. the u.s. air strike was prompted by a chemical weapons attack that killed syrian civilians earlier this week. joining us right now to talk about it and break it down, former secretary of defense william cohen. good morning to you. >> good morning to you. >> mr. secretary, help us understand whether you would have made the same decision, and what comes next. >> well, i would have made the same decision. i think something had to be done. particularly after president trump very emotionally described the reaction that he felt, and

had when he saw those children. and so, something was required. i think the something that he exercised was the minimum option. says, okay, you're going to pay a penalty here. it's going to be fairly prudent strike. and not a massive strike. because we have other interests involved, namely the iranians, the russians, hezbollah, and other actors in the region. so i think it was the right thing to do. the question is, is it pursuant to an overall strategy? just launching one strike doesn't make a strategy. it's a tactic. so hopefully there's a comprehensive strategy being developed. one of the things that's been missing is the state department, mr. tillerson, doesn't have a deputy, doesn't have a full-blown staff. we need to get the state department really beefed up so that secretary tillerson can have his full team to give all of the options to the president as he moves forward. it won't be just military.

it has to be diplomatic, it has to be economic. and to bring pressure upon russia and syria in order to ultimately have a regime change. >> secretary tillerson's going to be in russia next week. how do you think this changes the dynamic between those conversations? >> well i think it sets the tone. saying, life between us is going to be somewhat different, perhaps, to what mr. putin, you had looked forward to a good relationship, but you have taken actions which undermine that relationship. not only intervening in our own political system, but continuing to support a country and a leader who has engaged in war crimes. and so i think it sets the tone for mr. tillerson, who knows president putin. he has dealt with him. i have enormous respect for rex tillerson. i think he'll be very direct with president putin. we want a good relationship with you. but not on your terms. you have to get back to staying out of our system. we intend to fully explore that.

and secondly, you have to get better control of your client state which is engaged in war crimes and by association, so have you. >> is there a response, is there some kind of response that you could imagine putin taking? >> i can -- there are multiple responses. you could have the iranians targeting our forces that are on the ground in the region. you could have syria doing more extensive, nonchemical attacks upon our forces in the region. you could have putin start to shake and rattle and roll up in the baltics again. buzzing our ships in the sea. you could see him doing a number of things. but what has to be made clear to him is that we are not going to have a good relationship. you are not going to get the respect that you are eager to have, as long as you act in a way that disrespects the rules of law that have been established, and that you're contravening those by annexing

crimea, by destabilizing ukraine, by now a desire to destabilize the baltic region. this is not going to get you what you want and that is for you to be a respected leader on the world scene. that's not respect you're going to get, it's condemnation. >> do you ever remember anyone in the -- at the kremlin saying that assad's -- our support for him is not unconal? is that the first time they've said that do you think, secretary cohen? >> i don't recall him saying that in the past. but, i think -- >> does it mean anything? >> well i think it does. if putin is saying our support is not unconditional, means we are not going to indicate our -- our support for a heinous act, which has been committed, something that hasn't been done -- well had not been done until recently, since world war i. and so you have the condemnation, the world condemning this action, while president putin was supposed to have removed them, and secondly, the only reason that assad is

still in power is because of president putin. so there's a -- a responsibility, and an agency relationship by the -- by russia with syria that i think puts putin in the -- in the blame, as well. >> mr. secretary, what does this do in terms of signaling the chinese as to what we may or may not do with north korea? >> well, it shows that the president is eager to keep his word, that if he's talking about drawing red lines that he'll back them up. with respect to north korea, it's a much more complicated situation even than that in syria. because north korea does have nuclear weapons. an attack about the north koreans could unleash even a conventional attack upon seoul, killing millions of people. so, it's a much more complicated situation, because you now have to take into account the chinese

military, and their alliance, sponsorship, or support for the north korean dictatorship. >> and just to understand the other piece of this is in terms of the relationship with the chinese, there's been some conversation, speculation, about what kind of conversation may have or not have happened between president xi and president trump last night before the airstrike. do you think the timing made sense? >> well, i don't think he had much choice. i think it was -- it made sense because you have the president of the second most powerful nation, certainly economically, sitting next to you. and conveying to that president that you're a man of action. i have just returned from china. i spent ten days over there and frankly they were looking forward to this meeting. publicly, i said that the united states was not prepared for such a summit meeting. because we don't have our full team in place. and when you have a summit

meeting, a lot of work has to go in to refining the details to make sure that there's something that comes out that's positive on both sides. but what i did say is, i thought the symbolism of the two men shaking hands, and saying we're going to work together, the symbolism was the substance. >> right. >> and i believe that to be the case. i think important signals to send to all of our allies in the region and to the chinese people. >> and finally, mr. secretary, does this change the dynamic in washington at all? we've been talking to some investors this morning who suggest that perhaps, maybe not a reset but maybe a soft reset in terms of some of the policy issues that appeared to be going by the wayside that maybe this will give the president some strength in terms of bringing some people together on other issues outside of these geopolitical ones. >> i would say it depends how the president goes forward. he demonstrated that he was going to act, and he did act as commander in chief last night. the problem that, at least i have seen, is the -- that

president trump is he's president but he hasn't been acting presidential by engaging in so much of the tweeting, and getting involved in side issues, and accusations. i think the american people want him to act as he did last night. meet with powerful leaders. set parameters on what the nature of our relationship should be. read the documentation. you have got real adifficulults the national security field. do not cut the state department's budget. give a full panoply of staff to the secretary of state. combine the military with the diplomacy and i think you'll find congress and those who have been criticizing the president to be very eager to support him. >> okay. mr. secretary, we appreciate your time and of course your perspective this morning. thank you so very much. >> a pleasure. when we return, jim cramer joins us live from the north korea a-- from the new york stok exchange, around he'll talk about the jobs report.

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raytheon. makes the tomahawk missiles that were used to carry out the u.s. strike in syria last night. pretty nice gain. i guess we have got to buy another 59, at least. at this point, i was interested to see if they didn't work as well, only 23 hit the site -- that's according to the russians. let's get to the new york stock exchange. i was kidding around with austin goa goals by, he'll opine on different things. i can ask you about syria and china and the jobs report. heck, i'd throw in a gorsuch question. i mean, we try to only do things that affect business news, but it all affect us at this point, right? >> yeah, because last night the s&p futures dropped dramatically when we had the news of this strike and then they came back as people realized perhaps this was a limited option. then they went down again obviously on employment.

because the ten year is what everybody is keying off of. i think the ten year is signaling -- ten year was right all along. the ten year was saying that march is -- it was a weak month in the country. and maybe exactly what you're saying, joe, because washington wasn't able to do repeat a-- repeal and replace. >> pretty amazing, jim. i was scratching my head about the ten year saying oh, it's because of the global blah blah blah. you know, still over there. but maybe it was saying something about, you know, domestic, economic momentum. >> yeah. this was the month where we had double digit declines in the mall. so you had to start closing stores and these people just go right on the rolls. i mean they're closing the stores. they close them immediately now. they used to stage them. but not anymore. i think that retail is just really amazoned. this is the quarter that amazon really kind of struck and people recognized you know what? ain't coming back. holiday season wasn't so great. i think that's weakness.

i know storm or no storm we can opine on the weather, on syria and china. but the most important thing is that retail is terrible because of amazon. >> amazon. all right, jim. thanks. see you in a couple of minutes at the top of the hour. "squawk box" will be right back. 'e university counts on centurylink to keep their global campus connected. and why a pro football team chose us to deliver fiber-enabled broadband to more than 65,000 fans. and why a leading car brand counts on us to keep their dealer network streamlined and nimble. businesses count on communication, and communication counts on centurylink. with e*trade you see things your way. ♪ ♪ you have access to the right information at the right moment. ♪ ♪ and when you filter out the noise, it's easy to turn your vision into action.

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all right. folks, let's take a final check on the markets. the markets had stabilized after dropping. we saw the futures down about a hundred points on news of the syrian air strikes. now you're xoing going to see t stabilize until we got the job reports. it came in at 98,000 and the dow futures are down about 34 points and the s&p is down by three. the as in dock is down by 4 1/2. the ten year is under pressure -- it's actually picked up a bit. looking at the lowest level since mid november right now. oil prices also under a little bit of pressure -- actually, adding to their gains. those have come off too. we were up by $1.50 earlier. >> devin nunes left yesterday. i mean --

>> well, recused himself from this. >> it's amazing -- >> a lot of other things going on. >> there's a priority of ten. >> maybe you get certain issues off the table. >> the whole russia thing is -- we talk about russia all day. had nothing to do with whether there was any contact during the transition or before. it was totally different subject. >> i'll make you a promise. the issueb wi will be back. >> well, maybe you'll find something some day. join us on monday. "squawk on the street" is up next. ♪ good friday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer, and dave faber of the new york stock exchange. three big stories to watch, syria, the president's meeting with china and now the miss on march jobs. 98,000 is well below estimates of nearly down that. we have you covered on how the market responds. futures are down a bit. mild losses in europe. the yields briefly dipped below 2.3 to