overweight from e evaluation. the etf is up 3% this week. pest week of the year so far. keep an eye on that and all the other retail stocks. for that we'll send it over to the team at "squawk alley." >> good morning. "squawk alley" is live. ♪ good thursday morning. welcome to "squawk alley."

markets up 87. the dow and s&p shooting for their first gain in three days. forbes is out with their mitous list ranking the top 100vcs in the world. our nest guest is number five. he even replaced peter teal. joining us is brian singerman, who is behind deals like facebook's purchase of oculus, the acquisition of stem centrics. brian, welcome and congratulations. you go from number 37 to number 5. it's the biggest move. how do you explain it people how you did it? >> thanks for having me on the show. it was a fantastic outcome for us. it's focused on finding cures for several indications of cancer. the team and the data were fantastic and e we had a great outcome there. >> some of the notable investments is facebook, spotify, spacex and lyft. we're talking to you on a week of f8.

facebook is pennies away from an all-time high. investors are having to absorb long-term business models and ideas. what did you make of facebook? >> i have loved facebook for a lock time. we were a very early investor there. similar to all of our other investments, the investment was made because the management team there is just so fantastic. so the leadership and the direction they push there were much in support of it. >> brian, i wonder how you think of facebook in terms of its evolution and its strategy relative to google. basically one decade before google l came public facebook did. you got the central dominant network that really is a tremendous cash generator. they do a lot of things alongside it to get traction and newly growing areas. is it a similar model? is it the approach going to be similar? where is it different? >> both companies are run by fantastic founders, which is critical to us.

i spent a lot of time at google as an employee as well. and again, larry page, one of the best ceos ever. and mark zuckerberg, again, fantastic. so those are the main core similarityties of why those companies are so valuable. >> what makes larry page fantastic ceo in your opinion? >> he can think, very, very long-term. and has great strategy of getting to where he wants to go. >> interesting because they are allowed to think long-term. they control the company as does zuckerberg. when you advise some of these younger entrepreneurs who are having great success as private companies, but thinking about entering the public markets, is that the way to go? it seems to be these days. make sure you maintain voting control for the rest of your life? >> all companies are really different. in venture capital, these things

come down to the individual microcompany and there's not one right answer for each company. so some companies that makes sense and some something different will make a lot of sense. for those companies, it made a lot of sense and it's shown in the market caps. >> some of your ideas are positions and investments center around some of the hottest debates in the market right now. i'm thinking lyft as it relates to mobility and uber. as the market makes sense of what exactly musk is ab, is he a true visionary? how do you describe to those what musk has up here? >> the thing about elon is he is an absolute visionary, but he also gets it done. so the kbi thags of vision plus ability to execute is always what we are looking for in a founder. those are in my mind the top two traits of a fantastic founding ceo. visionary and execution ability to get it done. >> how do you think about the go

public or not go public decision right now? obviously, the market is allowing these big companies to stay private for a long period of time. what are the costs and benefits run across different companies, not just on an individual case by case basis? >> the thing is the macroenvironment is not that relevant to companies. what's relevant is what stage the company is out and what makes sense tr it when it comes to fundraising or liquidity. and these are definitely conversation cans that we have at the board level, but they are very unique to the individual companies. they are not macrolevel conversations we're having usually. >> we just put up a group of the companies that you're involved with. we don't talk about palentier. they don't make themselves publicly available all that often. it's become a huge company in terms of where they have raised money. what is the strategy when it comes to the public markets for

palantir? is that something we're going to be discussing is looking for a listing? >> that's a great question. i think the company has said that it has done what it can to be a public company, but it's taking the time and making the right decision for that company. it's putting itself in a great position to have the option when it time comes. >> as more lyft, obviously, we talk a lot about uber and lyft, the race for that business. kkr jumping sbo lyft the last few days. what is the future tr that? should we think of them in a pepsi and coke kind of way? >> i would love it if lyft was eventually worth as much as pepsi or coke for sure. these are both fantastic companies. the space is huge. the space is extremely important to get right for the future. and again, the lyft management team has done a phenomenal job this executing on their strategic vision of what they

have had for a very long time. we're very excited about the future of lyft. >> of the two, what about them pushed you in their direction opposed to others? >> i like travis. i love the lyft founders as well. we had had a chance to spend more time with the lyft founders ask they were the founders that had the tragic vision to get it done to make the investment. it was pure ly a pro we just really loved the lyft guys. >> you say that it's an enormous space that's important to get right. how do you define what that space is? it seems a as if just the ride hailing business on its own, that business model doesn't necessarily seem like it's proven. >> i think transportation in general is a huge industry. that's how we look at this. as a transportation industry, for founders, we look at it as

an earth transportation business at least. >> finally, we mentioned you coordinated the oculus deal. after watching zuckerberg and his lieutenant this is week show us these goggles and convince us that we're going to be living in these vr worlds with avatars. how much of that is real is ist over five or ten years and how much is being sold? >> ten years it's extremely realistic. i grew up as a gamer and certainly in the games area, this will be adopted relatively quickly. on the mainstream, over the next ten years or so you'll see mainstream option of vr and ar technolo technology. >> quite a week for anyone into tech and dreaming about the future. you have to come back. we appreciate it so much. >> any time. thanks so much. >> brian singerman, partner at the founders firm. also a busy morning down in our nation's capital. the number of events on the

president's schedule. standing be by in d.c. with the latest. >> we're going to see a steel e ceos coming to the white house today to meet with the president who is taking action related to the united states steel industry today. take a look here at some of the names. executives that will be at the white house in just a little while. the big name there is march row longhi has been a regular at the white house over the past several months. he's somebody who has got a company in u.s. deal that has a complaint pending even toe at the itc in regards to china steel dumping. but here's what the president is going to be doing today in terms of taking action on steel. he's going to be signing a memorandum and it's related to section 232 of the trade expansion act of 1962. it's going to ask for ab expedited review of the national security implications on steel imports. the president can't simply order an investigation here, but he can order them to speed up an

existing investigation and that's what they are going to do here. the idea is that relying too much on foreign imports of steel from hostile countries could undermine the u.s. defense industry at a time if there was an emergency, a foreign competitor could turn off the spigt. they are not going to mention china here, lu that's clearly the sub text of all of this. it is not directed at any one particular country. but all of this comes as a time when the president is negotiating with china in terms of the north korea situation. he's held off on name iing them currency manipulator, but he's going ahead with this today. there's a little bit of horse trading, but the president is not willing to give uptaking a hard line on china across the board. >> we'll be coming back to you on that. when we come back, what's next for fox following the departure of bill o'reilly. we talked to one of the journalists who broke the story next. what's at risk of a trade war with china does ensue.

a live report from the auto show and later a lot more on the meeting of the executives at the white house. we'll talk to the chairman and ceo when "squawk alley" comes back.

news. what does that mean for the media giant's bottom line? julia is in san francisco watching that. >> this morning cnn reporting that bill o'reilly will be paid

tens of millions of dollars on his way out. no comment from it fox as it looks at the next chapter for its cable news network and those executives head into a regularly scheduled board meeting which is happening today. last night fox news anchor in bill o'reilly's slot called this the end of an era. >> he's an incredibly talented broadcaster who raised the bar. he's also held his staff to exacting standards in it his quest to put the best program on the air and they are great. >> bill o'reilly's show has been the number one cable news program for more than 15 years and generated more revenue than any other show on fox news or msnbc. but analysts aren't too concerned about this hitting fox's bottom line. david joyce writing he expects minimal impact based on tucker carlson replacing megyn kelly and the cable news viewing up 31% year to date. more than makes up for the loss

of bill o'reilly. the big question is whether his ouster helps fox with the fit and proper test with which britt herb authorities are evaluating the purchase of the rest of sky. which is far more important than bill o'reilly to the bottom line. back to you. >> thank you. let's bring in "the new york times" reporter who along with his colleague led the investigation into fox's $13 million of payouts to cover up harassment charges against bill o'reilly. and then resulted in his dismissal. michael smith is that reporter and joins us now. michael, it's not as though there weren't reports about bill o'reilly years past and some of his behavior. yet there was a very different reaction this time to your excellent reporting, by the way. in terms of the details. but why do you think that was? why was it so different now than opposed to five or ten years ago when we heard any number of

stories about what might have been termed even back then abusive behavior. >> so in 2004 there was this public dispute in which bill o'reilly was accused by this woman of sexual harassment. that ended with a zit settlement and both saying nothing had gone on here and bill o'reilly paying her millions of dollars. it seems like a one-off and the company could look at it that way and spin it that way. they just sort of moved on. the difference in our reporting was the totality of what we showed. e we showed there had been five women over his time at fox news that had received payouts including two women in the six months after mr. ails left the company. and also in that period of time, 21st century fox, the parent company, found out there had been a secret deal bill o'reilly had cut with a woman in 2011. along with present iing that information to the reader, we had two women accusing bill o'reilly of sexual harassment who were not suing him.

that brought the number to se n seven. so i believe the totality of that really brought a spotlight on to this issue in a way it hadn't before in a way that foxen couldn't ignore. what happens from there was basically mercedes-benz was the first advertiser to pull their ads. within the span of more than a week, 60 advertisers had left the show. >> which may have been a very different response now perhaps as more reflective of the current environment than it might have been in years past. this also follows roger ails departure. given your reporting when the board sits down and talks about the allture of the company and what they have seen there, what would you share with them or what should we expect? is this kind of over and done with? is that culture going to change or does your reporting lead to a different conclusion?

>> the real question here is that the murdochs said last summer when ails was leave iing that they were cleaning things up. women would feel comfortable working there and these issues were being put behind them. but what our reporting shows is that in the months after ailes left, they continued to support bill o'reilly and cut deals for him and continued to standby him. it was only when the spotlight was put on them that they felt uncomfortable and they actually launched an investigation and have taken these allegations more seriously. so what is it now? why should the company be be taken seriously now that they are actually cleaning things up when they said they were going to do that six months ago. what's going to change. fox has never answered that question. they have never explained that and exlained whoi they continued to standby bill o'reilly in all these months since roger ailes

left. >> reported yesterday that there's fear within fox that more disclosures could come. does your reporting reflect that? >> yeah, one of the things that happened was about ten days ago, fox announced they were going to use a law firm to look into these accusations that have been raised by women about bill o'reilly. what we have learned is that since then other women have come forward. women who have not gone public. so paul wies is locking at new accusations from women and this weighed on fox. we don't know the totality of it. this is not necessarily the most transparent process. you have a company that's hired a private law firm that's doing an internal investigation. who knows what we'll ever know, but that's what's going on right now. >> they had hired paul wies to investigate the charges against mr. ailes but that was done in a siloed fashion.

correct? >> correct. our understanding was that investigation was focused on ailes and wasn't supposed to look at the broader culture. that brings us back to the things murdochs said which is they are cleaning things up. why didn't they want there to be a full investigation. why didn't they want to look at other accusations that had come forward and other things they did. why is it when they learned about allowed bill o'reilly to cut two deals it went tr 2011 didn't they continue to dig and standby him when our story came out. it was only after 60 advertisers left that they actually began to think about parting ways with him. >> all interesting questions. i'm sure some of them being entertained at the board meeting today. michael, thank you. let's get over to sara, who has had a couple big interviews in washington. still has another on the way. >> just wrapped up an interview

with the managing director of the imf. s. her first chance to respond to comments from commerce secretary wilbur ross that the imf warning of protectionism from the united states was, quote, rubbish. here's how she responded. found this surprising. >> when i hear that, i'm delighted because it means that the concern of all our members is to make sure that we protect e free, fair and global trade and that we all work at eliminating the distortion, a at eliminating what would constitute and a playing field that is not levelled and accessible to all. so we're ob the same page. >> you heard there is the imf really playing down this friction between the imf and only of the more protectionist talk you're hearing from the president trump administration

saying there can be fair trade and also be free trade. that's one of the hot button issues here. when i come back on "squawk alley," i'll be talking to another top central banker, who just stepped off as the governor of the reserve bank of india. always a frequent voice at these conferences. we'll hear what he thinks about the global economy, global central banking, trade and a lot more, when we come back. looking for balance in your digestive system?

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mmm, fine. okay, what do we got? okay, watch this. do the thing we talked about. what do we say? it's going to be great. watch. remember what we were just saying? go irish! see that? yes! i'm gonna just go back to doing what i was doing. find your awesome with the xfinity x1 voice remote. let's second it over do dominic choo with a market fl h flash. >> hospital stocks are falling after the reports that republicans are trying to dismantle the affordable care act. also known as obamacare. shares of hca holdings, all of them down as much as 4%. hospital stocks have been pressured by those republican efforts to roll back obamacare, which benefitted a lot of these companies by expanding insurance coverage. also the idea that hca earlier r

this week offered more down beat forecasts. all these things weighing on hospital stocks. back over to you. >> investors thought they would be on this. we'll keep watching those. tough talks continues between president trump and china over trade and a possible currency warn war. let's get over to phil lebeau with more. >> it's almost midnight and the cadillacs are still rolling off the line at this plant. the reason we're here is because this plant is emblem attic to continue to see in china. take a look at the chart. cadillac wasn't even sold in china. today it is the fourth most popular luxury brand. sales jumping 45%. they are expanding and adding more dealerships. we'll talk about the trade implications in a bit. when we had a chance to talk earlier today, he said being ab american brand is actually an asset in this market. >> for those people who want to have something different than the european luxury, the traditional european luxury, the

american luxury is really the alternative. that's why cadillac is the only source for those. >> let's talk about the trade implications of awe e toes built in china versus the yoits. a lot of people think they are going to flood the u.s. with vehicles built in china. the reality is there are ten times more vehicles exports from the u.s. over to china than exported from china to the u.s. some of those that are exported from china are built at this plant. the cadillac plug-in high braid, the reason they are built here and sent to the u.s. is this is a larger market when it comes to hybrid vehicles. as you look at shares, they will be reporting earnings next week and last year china generate d 2 billion in profits for general motors. so this is the crucial market. they are watching some of the trade talk closely. they do not believe we will see a trade war that could hurt their sales here in china. back to you.

>> always interesting. thank you louisianaebeau in chi. getting late there as they keep turning the cadillacs off the line. the president is going to sit down with executives from the steel manufacturers. we're going to speak with the former chairman of nucor. plus a a busy hour coming up. longhi from u.s. steel and a lot more.

good morning, here is your cnbc news update. you united nations envoy describing the syrian attack on e evacuees being trial timed outside aleppo last week as horrific. >> one of the main issues which was raised was this horrific atok on the 15th of april, that explosion that came up to 130 people killed. among which 57 children, perhaps 200 wounded. >> a joint training exercise was held today. 100 aircraft can including war planes and south korean jets took part. the exercise is run until april 28th. hotels group which includes

the holiday inn says more than 1200 hotels were intected with a debit or credit card breach. it had originally said it thought only a dozen properties were infected. that's the news update this hour. back down to "squawk alley." >> sue, thank you very much. markets close iing in the u and across europe just now. let's get back to hq. >> stocks ob track for their second straight day of gains. that includes a pair of two consumer giants. nestle and each posting modest sales growth in the first quarter thanks to strength in emerging markets. both were tempered by weaker demand in north america. it was the first quarterly report since a $143 billion takeover bid. both stocks higher in today's trade. politics front and center. with only three days to go until

the french presidential election, a new poll out from harris interactive shows the centralist candidate loading at 25%. 3 points ahead of marine lepen. and left wing candidate tied for third at 19%. the election could be viewed positively in economic term that's why we're so focused on this election. take a look at the french equity market brushing off concerns around the election. you can see shares up nearly 1.7% on the day. the french and german tenure bond yield spread narrowing to the tightest range in three weeks. so investors not as concerned. still three days to go until that vote. >> president trump is meeting

with steel manufacturers at the white house this morning to discuss china's steel trade practices. the president is expect ed to sign ab executive order at the top of the hour that would direct the commerce department to investigate whether steel imports into the u.s. should be blocked on national security grounds. tr more we are joined by the former chairman and ceo of nucor and the company's current chirm emeritus and an adviser on trade to the trump campaign. dan, good to have you. commerce secretary ross is saying that china has increased its steel exports to the u.s. and commenced 26% of the market. but then i'm looking at other reports that indicate our major foreign suppliers are khan darks south korea, mexico, japan and chi china's down the list because we already have a lot of dumping provisions. where do things stand with china? >> it's ab interesting and the point you make is a good one.

but the problem with global trade of steel is while we have won many case cans against china, what they do is they end up shipping it to other countries to get to us either direct shipments of the steel or through steel that is transformed slightly into another product. the other problem is that while china is not exporting a as it once was, at least legally, they are exporting to all the other country who is have to find a home for the steel that they work. the fact they have capacity in the nonmarket economy government owned as a major impact around the world and the profitability and the viability of the industries. >> that's interesting. but how in the u.s. do you wall yourself off from the global market if everybody else is

unwilling to sort of treat china's behavior the same way. >> as long as you let china get away with what they are doing, everybody else in the world is going to say, well, they are letting china do it, we are going to do it. until you stop china from doing it, you're not going to get the rest of the world to stand up to it. it's just the way the world is and the way markets sometimes can be distorted. >> as we mentioned, this new effort of the executive order is going to look at this issue based on b whether it's a threat to national security to have the u.s. steel industry, i suppose, be sbha unable to serve national security needs or make the u.s. too dependent on foreign steel. on what basis must the administration make that determination. this is a very rarely used provision as we understand it. >> it is rarely used once for steel in 2001 and used for oil

at another time. it can be used on any product, not just steel, where they think there's a national security implication. and in a case of steel, there's absolutely no doubt that one of the criteria that is required to be met is at the industry has suffered greatly under the imports and it's affected the ability of the industry to grow and maintain itself in a health ri, profitability state over time to be able to be there if a national security issue arises. that's one of the criteria. the other thing that's great about this 232 is that you don't have to have harm today. it's a proactive approach to the issue. it says if we believe that what's going on b will harm the issue going forward to the point where it will affect our national security and our ability to procure the products we need to maintain the national defense, we can find in the favor of the industry and put terrorists or whatever else, penalties on the offending party

separate of any other cases that may be in place. the other thing to keep in mind on this, david, is that it not only covers the steel, but it covers the derivatives made from steel. so it's the steel that we make in our steel plants, but also the products that are made from steel that can influence the national defense and influence the decision of the department of commerce and the. president. >> i just final point. do we need the cooperation of other nations in order to confine the chinese or prevent what you would argue is their bad behavior or do you think the policies you're outlining would be enough to have the market operate on a more fair way. >> the pressure has been to be on china. which it has. they just haven't bye-bye the

willingness to do the things necessary and keep setting records in production. so it's just a matter of creating the penalties that are such that force them to do it and the rest of the world is in the same boat. the united states is not the only country in the world that files trade cases against china. just the opposite. maybe we file about 30 to 40% of them but the rest come from europe, southeast asia, india, you name it. they come from all over the world. >> it's a topic to be continued. we saw some of the executives as you were speaking. we saw tape from earlier of them walking into the white house, the meeting going on and we'll be getting your insights as we move along. i appreciate it. >> my pleasure. thank you. when we come back, former governor of the reserve bank of india and former chief economist joins us live from the imf world bank meetings in washington. when "squawk alley" returns.

on your list today, activist mcguire stepping up his campaign against buffalo wild wings. the stock is up big. making another big deal for himself and his company toda he will join us live and exclusively. that's not all. the german finance minister also here as is commerce secretary wilbur ross.

all of those big names in one hour. starting at noon. we'll see you there. a lot to come. let's get back town down to sara eisen to the meeting in washington where she has a special gis. >> we have our own big names here on "squawk alley." good to see you. i am here where the buzz is about the improved tone in the global economy. the imf taking up its growth forecast for the world economy this year. here's what the managing director just said about that. >> we are seeing positive developments either as a result of manufacturing ask trade pscye that is up or because of good policies that have been implemented in many economies. so from 3.1 last year, we're moving to 3.b 5 this year, which is clearly a good improvement. >> i haven't is heard that update in years.

join iing e me now, dr. rajon w just stepped off as the reserve bank of india governor. overall celebrity macroeconomist. nice to see you. >> thank you for having me. >> as you as optimistic as the managing director? >> i think, yes. this is the first time we have seen all the big engines firing at the same time including the e emerging markets. we have seen trade picking up. we are seeing early signs of investment in tensions. there are always clouds. >> want to pick up on emerging markets. you can't talk about india, but the fear after the u.s. election was that emerging markets would be a bad bet on rising protectionism, a stronger dollar, resurgent u.s. that seems to have reversed. >> the good news is some of the fears about the administration that it would move immediately to a more protectionist stance haven't played out.

there's been noises, u be the instruction action that some feared against mexico and china hasn't materialized. that's been good news. i think the other side of it, the bad news has been some of the measures the administration proposed such as tax reform. such as big infrastructure spending looks further out in the distance. with the u.s. economy as strong as it is, perhaps we don't need that as quickly. >> is it strong? we're not seeing much in the hard data. certainly the first quarter was weak. >> not growth numbers, but employment numbers. this is an economy which is as close to full employment as the past would suggest. so how much more room is there for additional stimulus? so when i say strong, it's relative to potential. would we want potential to be much higher, of course. but we are pretty close to where potential is. >> when you say there are clouds, people pay attention. especially from you.

your famous speech in 2005 in jackson hole warning financial risks in the system. where do you see the risks right now? >> the most immediate is as monetary policy normal loizs. we'll see more stress on heavily entities. if you look across the world, you see some countries with very, very buoyant housing markets. which haven't really stopped since the crisis. so the worry is that as interest rates move up, do we see some kind of housing impact in those countries. also even in the united states, you have spots of extreme leverage. we saw that with the energy companies ask the shale drillers. there are also places where you see a high level of defaults. could those get worse if interest rates move up. that's a big question. >> what about overall market complacency? the fact that volatility is so low in the face of geopolitical

risks and economic risks around the globe. even if things are getting better. >> absolutely, that's another risk. there's a lot of policy uncertainty right now because of the madministration is going to do and how much it can achieve. but also there's geopolitical risk. we have a bunch of strong leaders around the world who are already well entrenched in their strength. we have a bunch of new meter who is need to prove themselves that they are strong. in that kind of environment, who has room to back off if there's a confrontation. >> why do you think the market is not afraid of that? >> i do worry that the market seems extremely confident. >> what would you tell a u.s. audience, u.s. investors about the french election this weekend with potentially two extreme candidates emerging as front

runners. >> we certainly know on sunday. there's a huge amount of uncertainty since our polls on how people behave in this new normal don't seem to be accurate. so what emerges certainly could be very different from what people think. >> risk to the u.s. stock market as well. >> risk to europe, risk to the u.s. as a result. >> we have a lot in that short period. the former reserve bank of india, back to you, david for more "squawk alley." >> thank you, great job. when we come back, we are awaiting the president's meeting with steel executives. that will be about ten minutes from now. they will be talking trade, china, executive orders, also dominating that conversation. rick, what do you got that you're working on today? >> i'm look thinking about all the conversations with mr. reuben and the clinton administration. housing and the crisis, we have

swapped housing and loans and bad loans for student loans. what's the aftermath of that going to be? we'll talk about that after the break. it's your tv, take it with you. with directv now and at&t, get the ultimate in entertainment plus unlimited data. get directv now for $10 a month when you have the new at&t unlimited plus plan.

welcome back. let's get right out to the cme group in shichlt richicago. rick santelli is there. >> thanks, mike. i'd like to welcome our guest. he's the guy i want to go to when i want to talk about student debt. daniel, thanks for taking the

time today. >> pleasure, rick. >> listen, when we talk about taxes or bad tax, the big deal is where are we going to find this trillion dollars so we can accomplish what he want on the tax side. or we talk with infrastructure and talk about a trillion dollars. we have student debt and don't hear much talk about it. but i don't want to talk about it in terms of how we can fix it, i want to talk about how little is discussed regarding the damage. you know, the birth/death model about businesses being born or dying with every employment report hasn't been stellar for years now. what's the collateral damage of those who didn't even get a degree, they hold the bulk of the debt that's incomebencumber not being paid back. what are we going to do about this? >> that's probably one of the biggest questions facing america. what we've seen happen the last ten years is the amount of debt for housing has gone down by a

trillion dollars but student debt has gone up by a trillion dollars. the net result of that is graduates, our most productive citizens, are not taking the jobs that they should be taking. recent m.i.t. studies showed students with a lot of debt are not taking the jobs they should be taking. homeownership is adversely affected. perhaps as you indicated, the bulk of jobs are coming from graduates who are starting new companies. who's going to start a new company when you've got the overhang of this debt crushing you. >> now, daniel, i know that these things are tough and especially in the u.s., but some people are taking notes and very different people, i would suspect, new york fed president bill dudley recently made a comment that the rise in student debt and the defaults on those loans will be a headwind to economic activity. you know, this is a bit of a shot across the bow because mr. dudley doesn't usually bring up issues like that.

can we read more into this? >> well, look, right now about half of the federal balance sheet are these student loans that are -- most of them are probably going to end up defaulting because what we have is about two-thirds of borrowers where the taxpayer will have to write it off either way, because two-thirds of borrowers are having negative amortization on their loans because they're not paying enough to bring their loan balances down. the answer here is we need college costs to come down so we can -- but still provide the job and economic engine that we need. we need shorter opportunities for higher education that are more closely tied to jobs. rick, if you want to know the biggest shift in what's happening in higher education that impacts what dudley is talking about, about 10, 15 years ago if you went to college, about 50% of students say i'm going to college to get a better job. today 92% of people going to college are saying they want to go to college to get a better job. we need to do a better job as a country, giving those students

the opportunity to have a shorter course of study, closer tied to jobs, so we can bring down this debt load so we're not crushing the next generation of entrepreneurs and workers from moving to a new city to get a new job. >> daniel, we're going to have to leave it there. thank you for bringing that up. you know, all this talk about autonomous cars, all the money, the apples, googles and i.t. and tech companies have, why don't they make better education online. the savings might actually play for some of the defaulting loans in the student programs of the past, daniel, thank you for taking the time. mike, back to you. >> big opportunity there. meantime dow up 132, regaining all of yesterday's losses. "squawk alley" back after this.

brian, i just need to know if the customer app will be live monday. can we at least analyze customer traffic? can we push the offer online? brian, i just had a quick question. brian? brian... legacy technology can handcuff any company. but "yes" is here. you're saying the new app will go live monday?! yeah. with help from hpe, we can finally work the way we want to. with the right mix of hybrid it, everything computes.

the white house considering an elimination of -- the honeymoon is over on tax cuts

and infrastructure spending. the president said he was working on tax cuts yesterday. the market ignored him. >> there is just general confusion in this country about taxes. general confusion in this country about what's going to happen. >> there's nothing in that executive order that prohibits people from -- or companies from bringing in people under the h-1 program, they just have to answer more questions. send it over to dom chu now. >> we're watching tassaro shares and those shares are down by 10% on relatively heavy volume. there's a number of factors affecting it. they're releasing the pricing data associated with one of their ovarian cancer drugs that meets the definition of perhaps a little bit of sticker shock.

it could be anywhere from $119,000 a year to $177,000 a year. also saying this product launch moving forward implies the company may not be sold any time soon, which may be depressing the shares, and also any data they have about the drug in combination with america's ketruda drug won't be presented so a number of different factors weighing on tesaro shares. >> i've been watching that, dom. thanks for sharing those various reasons for that decline. we're awaiting the president's meeting with steel executives of course at the white house. the president expected to sign an executive order that would direct the commerce department to investigate whether steel imports into the u.s. should be blocked on national security grounds. u.s. steel ceo mario longe will join "the halftime report." wilbur ross making headlines earlier with a number of things they may undertake.

we look at a broader market, not a bad day thus far. >> treasury yields are up, that means stocks have a little runway to go higher. those steel stocks like this executive order. u.s. steel up 4%, new core up 2%. >> hospital stocks not so much on this perhaps new effort in terms of repealing and replacing obamacare. that's it for "squawk alley." let's send it over to "the halftime report." mike and david, thank you. and welcome to "the halftime report." scott is off today. i am brian sullivan. buckle up. we have a big hour for you. on your guest list, mick mcguire. doug sefu. we also speak with wolfgang schauble, wilbur ross and mario longhi. your lucky traders today, we're going to hear from all of them in