>> voya. like that for unusual activity as well, brian. >> guys, real pleasure. big hour. thank you for taking it easy and making it easy for me. "power lunch" begins right now. here is what's on the menu. man of steel, president trump meeting with the ceos of the nation's stop steel manufacturers and calling for an investigation into whether imports of foreign-made steel are hurting national security. speaking of trade and trump, finance leaders of the imf and world bank meeting in d.c. right now. we have a major interview with germany's finance minister. she'll be joining us shortly. and the president's winter white house creating a big chill for home prices in and around mar a lago. "power lunch" starts right now. surprise. welcome to "power lunch." stocks are in rally mode big time today.

triple-digit gains for the dow, the s&p and nasdaq are surging as well. financials, industrials and the semis are among the best performing sections today. check out the big movers at this hour. footlocker is up more than 5% near session highs. that's a big reversal from its premarket declines after the retailer warned. then it got an upgrade. it's a very strange story, but the stock is up sharply today. verizon under pressure after missing profit estimates this morning and snap-on is rallying another 5% on its earnings beat today. here is what's else happening at this hour, activists investor is turning up the heat in its fight with buffalo wild wings. calling on that restaurant and chain to replace its ceo. the stock up over 5% right now as a result. and a day after being removed at fox news, our julia is reporting that bill o'reilly is going to receive a maximum of one year salary as part of his exit. that salary has been reported somewhere between 20 and $25 million annually.

and this is real and it's spectacular. a fake architect named newman charged by new york attorney general eric sneiderman with nearly 60 counts of larceny and fraud in a true seinfeld-ina sting. they're calling it operation and have lay industries. anyone? anyone? >> remember that well, bilge. we begin with a busy day in washington. president trump meeting with ceos from the steel industry and signing executive order on steel imports. we are live in washington with the very latest. >> the president called it a historic day for american steel here at the white house today. surrounded by executives from the steel industry. he signed a memorandum. the idea here is that his ordering the commerce department to speed up a study of whether or not imports of steel into the united states are bad for the national defense. the concern here is that if the united states depends too much on foreign steel in any emergency situation those foreign countries if they're

hostile to the united states could ended up turning off the speck et of steal. one of the interesting things that happened in this event, the president made an unscripted sideline into canada and nafta. here is what he had to say on that. >> we can't let canada or anybody else take advantage and do what they did to our workers and to our farmers. and again, i want to also just mention included in there is lumber, timber and energy. so we have to get to the negotiating table with canada very, very quickly. >> so the country not being emphasized today by the white house is china, but of course that is the sub text of all of this. a lot of steel imports are coming from the country of china. the president very much telegraphing that he is not willing to call china a currency manipulator. he said in a tweet he wasn't doing that at a time that the united states is depending on china for negotiations over north korea, but obviously the president is willing to take

this action today, which could be viewed as a bit of a finger wag toward the country of china. he is willing to give them something but not everything, guys. >> thank you. president trump's relationship with china is a tough one to figure out. on the one hand, he's bashing china about trade and picking fights like we're seeing today over steel dumping. on the other hand, he's touting his budding relationship with president xi and the need for cooperation on north korea. can trump play both good cop and bad cop? let's bring in john rut lij. john, it's always great to see you. >> thanks, melissa. >> do you think the chinese will buy this act that trump is putting on? >> i think it's a load of baloney, melissa. you know what, in february the ugs imported $2 billion worth of steel. $72 million or 3.7% of it came from china. china is not where the u.s. gets its steel import. they're not even in the top ten. so this is politics. this is not economics that's

happening today. but steel is excellent ground for politics because you can impose duties on specific products which appeal to specific industries which turn them into political donors. plat rolled, coil, tubing, bar products, rebar all have different tariffs attached to them. >> but let me back it up just a little bit here, john, and look at not only the trade picture but the military issue as well regarding north korea, especially. who needs who more here? who has the lench? does china need us more or do we need them more, do you think? >> the only solution to korea is going to come from china, and not from the u.s. china could take out that government any time it wanted to and it could do it through internal people. so, the u.s. has big interests there, as to our allies in the pacific. but this is not going to be a u.s.-operation here. trump is touting national security interests for the steel

tariffs today. national security interests have nothing to do with steel imports here. we have plenty of steel for national security. it's a trade he's making for other things he's getting out of china. and it's a fair question how much is north korea and how much its other economic interests. >> he's calling for an investigation, though, into the impacts, john. what's wrong with that? isn't it possible that like with other materials, technology for instance, that we want to be a little bit protectionist on this particular front? >> well, this has nothing to do with technology. this has to do with steel showing up on ships -- >> but like any import, input into data center, ship or car isn't it all the same? >> it's all the same. in fact, it's all exactly the same as the steel that's already made here. steel is steel. like motor oil is motor oil. there are rare earth issues in china. they have supplies of rare earth that are very important to the

electronics and tech industry. but this is politics. what do you see? you see a photo op. there are tech issues, intellectual property and other things that are very important and not there at the table today. >> we see the steel stocks all charging today. we just had the ceo of u.s. steel on up 7.5% for that stock. clearly wall street thinks that this is going to be good for the steel companies. do you think it will be? >> i do. but you know this is not the only event going on in steel right now. last week the eu imposed duties on foreign steel. two weeks ago the u.s. did for a list of countries. so, the steel import tariffs are alive and well and really not a chinese issue. it's an issue regarding mostly europe, india, korea, japan and brazil. but everywhere in the world now there's a glut of steel capacity. steel prices are down. and the companies are after

someone to help protect them from it. the solution to this, bill, is really more demand that uses more steel and buys more steel to build capital goods. that's what we need, not protectionist measures. >> john rutledge, also good to see you. thanks for joining us today. >> nice to see you, bill. as we established, trade is topic one for u.s. auto makers. we are live from the a cadillac plant in shanghai, china, getting a chance to peer into the future. it's 1:00 a.m. friday morning there. good morning, phil. >> reporter: good morning, bill. and the cadillacs are still rolling off the line at 1:00 a.m. the reason we come to china every year is because this auto market gives us a real glimpse of what's happening in not only the biggest auto market in the world but one that is maturing. some brand are seeing their's slow down and others like cadillac are still posting impressive gains. we went to a cadillac dealership

today, fairly crowded. look at their sales in the first quarter, up 90% and they are expanding not only their dealerships but also manufacturing in china. here is the reason why -- take a look at the largest auto luxury brand i should say here in china. cadillac 12 years ago wasn't here, now it's number four in the market. and as opposed to the one, two and three brands which are all german auto makers, cadillac can sell the fact that it has american styling and american heritage. >> america has lot of positive con notation for chinese. it's the country of optimism. it's the country of opportunities. and i think cadillac is reflecting those values. it's bold. it's sophisticated. it's something that stands out of the crowd. >> let's talk about the trade element here. a lot of people believe that china is going to be mass producing vehicles and then exporting them to the u.s. that's not what's happening right now. in fact, in china, they receive 10% -- ten times more vehicles

built in the u.s. and then shipped over here than are build in china and then shipped over to the u.s. and remember, there's a 25% tariff on all vehicles that are imported into china. and still there are more that are built in the u.s. and shipped here as opposed to those built here and then shipped over to the u.s. general motors reports earnings next friday. it will be interesting to see what they have to say about the chinese market because this market, while it is starting to mature and you're seeing overall sales start to slow down, cadillac remains one of the strongest performers here. guys, back to you. >> when i went to a cadillac showroom in china, maybe the same one you were at, they were saying a lot of buyers came into the showroom were looking at a specific model that had additional inches in the backseat because they're buying the vehicles because a driver will be driving them and they would be driven. is that still the dynamic? or is it now finally you know what, we're going to go buy my own cadillac that i am going to

drive? >> reporter: we talked with somebody who was going to be buying one for themselves, but a lot of people here still have drivers. that's why long-wheeled base vehicles remain incredibly popular in china. it's still a mix there but we did talk to a few people who are buying their own vehicle. >> all right, bill. thank you. >> interesting to see what gm says about venezuelaen market. retail stocks are on the move right now. let's get the market flash. >> bill, retail stocks having a great week, it could be the best week of the year. the best week since december 9th last year. one of the big reasons let's keep with the auto theme here. auto dealers in america, check out shares of lithium motors, auto nation, sonic, penske a big part of the story. the bullishness lithia boosted their dividend and four-year earnings stock. the big bounces are helping the overall retail industry, guys, as well. back other to you, bill. >> thanks very much.

stocks in rally mode. we are on the floor of the new york stock exchange. we've seen this movie before. other rallies faded into the afternoon. this feels real, though. >> it does and there are a couple reasons for that. earnings are the principle one. let's look at the s&m 500. why the rally? it's simple. we started moving up at the european close. buying yields did not fall apart there. they held up near the highs. i think that's the major factor for the market. a lot of people talking about the health care. i would say possibly but that's a small part of it. volume is just average. it's not huge people -- people coming into buy but stocks are up. i want to show you the sectors here because banks are back. this is the reflation trade. banks are back. healthy round of earning season. industrials are strong because the transports are strong. materials are strong. you heard about what's going on in steel stocks. we have earnings out as well. the reflation trade son. gold is down. buying yields, they're moving to the upside and the dollar index

is to the downside. that's the reverse you see usually. it's about earnings today. they're almost all positive. kwaul come really good. csx helping the. dover beat one of the first industrials. ge is tomorrow. steel dynamics great numbers overall. you heard what's going on with the steel stocks. sher win-williams, do it yourself paint business fantastic, sales up 7.5%. great numbers this morning here. let's not overanalyze it, a positive european close buying yields holding up over there, talk on compromised bill on health care. back to you. >> not necessarily in that order too. i'll see you later down at the big board there. thanks. our big exclusive with germany's finance chief, his take on trump, protectionism and the state of the global economy. but first, brexit, european elections, the list of geo

political flash points the list keeps getting bigger. the opportunities for you in this environment next. hey you've gotta see this. c'mon.

no. alright, see you down there. 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. ♪ welcome back to "power lunch." we want to call your attention right now to what's happening with shares of tesla. as you can see, they are currently down by just about a percent or so, but a real chart move in the last couple minutes or so. the reason why, tesla is issuing

a voluntary recall, 53,000 of its model s and model x vehicles. the reason why they're doing this is because there could be an issue with the electric parking brake on the vehicles. tesla does say that there have been no accidents and no incidents related to this recall. just the fact that they're being proactive about it. guys, as we talk about tesla, a stock that's hovering near record highs right now, it just goes to show you this is not a massive move down but it is one where we do see any bit of news sending tesla shares lower, guys. back over to you. >> all right, don. thank you very much. we'll send it down to michelle in washington. michelle? >> hey, there, melissa. i just sat down with cnbc exclusive with the germany finance chief. why causes have had so much success in recent elections. >> the reason why we have -- is some complexity of european

decision making process. some discussions on -- >> did you hear that heavy sigh. it's a reflection of a lot of the establishment parties in europe have yiegt now as they see the rise of marine le pen. is she going to win? that's a very big concern for many people in europe and wonder if it poses a threat to the euro. i asked him those questions. we'll have a lot more from that exclusive interview with german finance minister straight ahead on "power lunch." >> before we move on, you know, he mentioned the complexity of the problems. the way that the opposition parties that are gaining favor these days, they portray these problems as very simple. they're oversimplifying these problems in many cases, aren't they? >> yeah. i think both sides agree that trying to get to any kind of agreement among 26 countries is

nearly, as we discovered, impossible in some cases. >> right. >> so you heard that sigh. that's his frustration and yet he is committed to that's what they have to do. where as the euro skeptics say, no, it should be country by country. let us control all our rules. but he is convinced that when it comes to the health of the eurozone, they are better together. >> yeah. stay there. anti-eu sentiment is also of the mind of the imf director who spoke with our own sara eisen just a short while ago. we have some of the headlines from that conversation. >> absolutely, bill. and that anti-eu sentiment goes hand in hand with rising protectionism. and that's the topic du jour here. they have gotten more vocal warning about the risks of rising tariffs and protectionist sentiment. now that's prompted a response from wilbur ross, the commerce secretary just on our air. called the imf warnings rubbish.

says other countries are much more protectionist than we are. so this was christine lagarde's first chance to respond to that. listen. >> you know, when i hear that, i'm delighted because it means that the concern of all our members is to make sure that we protect free, fair and global trade and that we all work at eliminating the distortion, at eliminating what could constitute and a playing field that is not level and accessible to all. so, we're on the same page. >> madame le guard playing down any friction between the imf and the u.s. administration saying great to hear. we all want fair trade, level the playing field and open it up to help economic growth. of course i had to ask her about

the french election. she used to be the french finance minister. i did ask if marine le pen won and she went forward on her campaign promises to take france out of the euro, would that trigger a financial crisis. here is what the managing director of the imf said. >> it would certainly entail major disorder and a risk of dislocation. let's see what happens on sunday. >> so clearly that is just one of the risks from what guys was overall a better more up beat tone as the imf did just upgrade its forecast for warning of protectionism and policy risks. back to you. >> sara eisen thank you. >>reporter: much. lot of big interviews on cnbc today. investors just being bombarded right now with some rather scary headlines from around the world. tension with north korea, strained relationships with russia, trade spats with china and that french election this weekend. what impact might this have on the markets going forward, we

say global strategies because you just got back from a month worth of traveling in mexico and latin america, i think parts of europe as well. why are the markets -- the dow is up pretty nicely in the past year, but we're actually one of the worst performing major markets. everything is up despite everything we just said. why? >> i think partly, brian, you saw a lot of yufism, optimism that came in the market following the donald trump election. the promise of more stimulus. the promise of -- i think they were a big factor in terms of the u.s. market doing well. and that also helped a lot of other markets except for the emerging markets initially which were worried about trade restrictions. now that you have come into 2017, the emerging markets are feeling more confident about a slower increase in fed rate increases. not so much in terms of trade restrictions because the president has made peace both with china as well as with

mexico. and i think despite the negatives that are taking place with russia on the political side, i this i the market outlook looks very good. >> we'll get to russia in a moment because you said something important. when trump came out, when he was elected, it was a rattling around mexico. people were -- oh, you better not invest in mexico, bill. mexican markets are up triple what the united states -- >> peso has come back. the markets have come back. why are investors overreacting to these -- or seemingly overreacting to these types of headlines? >> they are overreacting because there's a lot of uncertainty on what the next step may be. for instance, if president trump had gone on and talked about cancellation of nafta, for instance, then you would have seen the peso go beyond 25 or worse. today it's at 18.5 to the dollar. there are so many uncertainties that the markets go up and go down very sharply. for instance, take the case of the french situation.

earlier this week the french, italians with respect to germany shot up. but as of today, the later polls are suggesting emmanuel, one of the mainstream candidates may actually be the victor on sunday and the spreads have come back. so, monday it all depends on what happens. i think the election is still a tossup. and so you are going to see more volatility, i think, in the weeks to come. >> and we have seen that in terms of the euro stocks. volatility there, volatility in that part of the world has been elevated especially compared to the u.s. sri, when you take a look at what's going on with the ten-year yield, is the push lower in yields that we seen recently because of positioning related to the french elections? in other words, if you have major banks like a deutsche bank, jp morgan saying sell french debt into the first round of elections and presumably investors are selling that debt do they then reposition into u.s. debt and creates a false warning sign from the bond market? >> i think the monday market is

reacting, melissa, to a whole lot of different influences. first, i think the economic growth to what a 3% figure that the president had talked about is just not going to happen in 2017, maybe not in 2018. and that's what we are hearing from secretary mnuchin as well. i've been a big forecaster saying inflation is not going to shoot up. the latest consumer price inflation, the cold figure was actually negative. now add on to it you have all the global uncertainties, i think then the ten-year yield is going to go down further. what is helping very much is that the french yield, the german yield, the uk yield all still remain low with respect to the united states and europeans are also investing -- coming here. and that also is keeping our yield low. >> you don't think we see a snap-back in yields after he clinches that first round? >> you might well see it going back from today for instance you

saw the yield rise 4, 5 percentage basis points so you could go from 224 to 230, but then u.s. takes over. the u.s. uncertainties make it go once again to 2% or lower. so i think if the yield rises it's going to be a stop before it goes down much, much further. >> okay. sri, great to see you in person. >> thank you. coming up, why this year could be the year of the hackers when it comes to cyber crime. we will explain next.

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welcome back. continuing our on going look at how technology is shaking up a range of industries. today we're examining how new tech tools are transforming crime fighting. we are in san francisco with a look at the latest tools to battle cyber attacks. julia? >> hey, bill. well cyber crime costs the global economy over $450 billion last year, with 2 billion personal records stolen. but this may be the year that hackers help turn that around by helping discover and patch vulnerabilities. a range of companies from mastercard to at&t as well as government agencies host bug bounty programs, paying hackers for finding vulnerabilities. they employee hackers from all over the world to find bugs for the department of defense, irs and fortune 500 companies everything from financial

services to health care. >> once they start to recognize the vetting that we have in place and the controls that we have in place to ensure that these people are both trusted and that we have visibility into what they're actually doing while they're engaged with our customers, they feel a lot more comfortable with the whole concept of crowdsourcing security. >> along with cylance, rather than hackers it uses artificial intelligence to identify and prevent hacks. >> it takes an alga rhythmic approach to determine whether something is good or bad based on the features or elements of the past. so it's akin to trying to predict when somebody that's balking up to your front porch is going to burglar your house that day. >> he says his algorithms can prevent 99.9 prts of future attacks. we'll tell you which cyber security companies will make this year's fifth annual disrupter 50 list when we reveal

that list coming up in may. bill? >> julia bore stin in san francisco. thanks very much. >> and thank you very much. >> thank you, bill, for putting up with brian and me. >> you're a tolerant person. i don't understand why you're not that much taller in person. >> it's a small cap desk. it's a tv thing. >> it was fun being here for this. >> you launched this show. >> you sure you don't want to stay. you can stay if grow want. >> i have closing bell coming up later. today, thank you for asking. we have the president's news conference with the italian prime minister and david rosenberg, that man, one of the great chief economists and value investors out there says this market is too expensive right now and he'll tell us some of the metrics he's watching right now. that's coming up. >> surprise he's a bear. >> i was not going to watch, but now i will in your honor. >> i certainly hope you do. >> come back any time. >> is this how tv people do it, tapping papers. coming up, more frr

michelle's interview with germa germany's finance minister. >> a lot of people the french election may pose a existential threat to the euro. we'll tell you coming up on "power lunch." don't move. say hello to the new unlimited data plans from at&t and never pay overages again. so now the whole family can binge,... ...surf, shop, navigate, listen, game, stream and more.

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♪ hi, everybody, i'm sue herrera, here is your cnbc news update for this hour. rex tillerson meeting at the state department with the vietnamese counterpart. looking to strengthen ties under a trump administration. bill de blasio is proposing legislation to raise the price of cigarettes from 10.50 to $13 which would be the highest in the nation. it's designed to cut tobacco use by 12% or 160,000 smokers by the year 2020. >> i know that when we pass these bills they will reduce smoking marketedly and save thousands of lives.

>> a california gas station is going out of business sale drew a very big crowd on wednesday. they only charged 1.75 a gallon. a full dollar less than other stations in the area. people waited in line for an hour, but they say it was well worth the wait. california has some of the highehigh est gas prices in the nation. >> thank you. we have a nice rally on the strait right now the dow is up triple digits 196 points to be exact, one full percentage point. s&p 500 seeing a gain of .9%. united health, walmart mcdonald's leading the way. mcdonald's actually new 52-week highs. we have several sectors very strong today including financials up 1.4% and industrials up 1.3%. >> so this is trading with with regard to auk win financial group a small cap mortgage

services company. the shares are currently down about 40%. and this after some separate news here from both the consumer financial protection bureau and also the state banking regulators in the state of north carolina along with 20 other state regulators. basically making probes and inquiries into the fees that are charged for certain escrow accounts by customers. this is not their first brush with regulators. they are currently also dealing with issues with regard to regulatory scrutiny over their fee practices and other parts of their business as well. so aukwin financials again in the headlines. shares down by 40% and we'll bring you more as we know more. that's the reason why the shares are down, guys. back over to you. >> big company. company claims to modified over 700,000 different mortgages based in atlanta, georgia. we'll watch that story. thank you very much. let's go back to michelle in d.c. for more on her interview with the german finance minister. michelle? >> one of the key questions facing europe right now as you

know, brian, the french election. what's going to happen this weekend? is someone going to come to power in france that does not believe in the existence of the euro? here is what german finance minister wolfgang schauble told me about the election. huge event this coming weekend, the french election. can the euro survive the french election? >> i'm quite optimistic, and i think the french people will take reasonable decision. that means a decision that allows the euro can survive. >> when you have more than 40% of the electorate at this point saying they support someone who is absolutely a euro skeptic like marine le pen or second candidate who says his support for the euro is only conditional as long as he gets to spend the money he wants or violate a lot of the things that require membership in the euro. how can you be optimistic when such a large population -- percentage of the population doesn't seem to support that?

>> 40% is not the majority of a population. >> no. what do you make of the rise of euro skepticism across europe? what's gone wrong? is it not working the way it's supposed to. >> i think it's not a matter of the euro. it's a lot of problems. i think some problems are similar to the reasons for electorate decisions in uk in the brexit and in the united states and the presidential elections. there is some uncertainty and the change of -- the speed of change. >> a lot of people say the euro is about maintaining peace, but you know what marine le pen says? she says the euro did not bring peace. peace brought the euro, that it exists because of the peace. and that is the peace falls apart, the euro will fall apart. >> i do not agree with madame le pen with all due respect. by the way, she is using a lot

of arguments in the way that other people are responsible for my problems. that is always the message in which demagogues have been very successful, blame the others for their own problems. it may be lovely to listen for to constituencies but it can't be trusted. everyone has problems. every state has problems, but you have to solve it yourself and you can ask for solidarity. we prevent a lot of solidarity in europe. but of course solidarity must not be misunderstood not to do what you have to do. in your own interests. only in your own interests. >> what about the german elections? any worries? >> of course. elections in a democracy are a risk. it's fine. but we are quite optistic that we have the better chancellor and best chancellor in the room, but we know it will be a

difficult fight democracy and we enjoy it. i'm optimistic. >> the decision to allow so many migrants into europe, people hold that, the fate of angela merkel and say it was a terrible decision and may be is leading to the rise of euro skepticism on the far right. >> may be. may be. on the other hand, it's a matter of european proud. >> so we'll have more with wolfgang schauble coming up, more about what he has to say about the situation with greece and also what he says about president trump complaining about the lack of nato spending, guys. there's a lot that he doesn't agree with, i think, with this u.s. administration, but on one particular thing he did. also, something that actually led him to udder a word of profanity. >> oh, i thought you were going to tell us what word. >> oh, no. >> we're going to bleep it out. >> sounds good. michelle, thank you. >> was it in german or english?

just roll it out there, michelle. >> it was in english. it was in english. >> oh, okay. dang. that's not cursing. >> thank you. 300 miles per hour train to get you from d.c. to new york in one hour. we speak with the ceo of the company with a big, bold plan. you got to see this. but first let's get to the bond market. rick? >> well, is this small correction over? some would say it's not small but it is definitely a correction. twos are up two. tens are up four. you look at euro twos, they're a lotless negative. their rates have been coming up as well, but let's leave everyone with a vick's chart for one year. why? the lead into the november election in this country was all the horsepower. you saw it in november. this thing was 22 days before the election occurred on november 8th. after the election, it dropped rather markedly into the 14 area. the reason i bring it up is populist movements have done

rather well in the polls. are we underestimating, at least based on the vic's what's going on with le pen in france? only time will tell. but one thing i can tell you for sure at about two minutes time "power lunch" will return. >> announcer: "the bond report" is sponsored by pimco. you too, unnecessary er visits. and hey, unmanaged depression, don't get too comfortable. we're talking to you, cost inefficiencies and data without insights. and fragmented care- stop getting in the way of patient recovery and pay attention. every single one of you is on our list. for those who won't rest until the world is healthier, neither will we. optum. how well gets done. [vo] quickbooks introduces he teaches lessons to stanley... and that's kind of it right now. but rodney knew just what to do...he got quickbooks.

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pretty nice market rally on our hands. the dow touching 20,603, nearly every dow stock is up led by american express led by 5%. cat pill laer, goldman sachs, ge, apple all up more than 1%. more in the markets in a bit. right now let's get down to d.c. with breaking news. secretary of the treasury steven mnuchin making comments here in washington. he outlined three principles for tax reform. he said that their priorities

are simplifying the personal tax code, providing tax relief to the middle class and also ensuring that businesses get a competitive tax rate. asked about the timing of any tax reform plan. here is what he had to say -- >> soon, very soon. very soon. and just to be clear, we hope this won't take to the end of the year. >> okay. >> so, we're very focussed on it. big priority for the president. we will get tax reform done. it will be sweeping. it will be significant. and it will create a lot of economic growth. >> reporter: and mnuchin emphasizing that this deal will pay for itself. he said the administration is doubling down on the idea of dynamic scoring and that could create as much as 2 trillion dollars in revenue that they have to play with in order to provide those tax cuts to the american people. he also made comments about the border adjustment taxes once again raising concerns about the potential impact on currency.

saying the currency adjusts it could impact imports e exports and it could affect the consumers. a train with a top speed of well over 300 miles an hour to get you from d.c. to new york in one hour. morgan brennan is here with all the details to what seems like a fantasy, morgan. how could this be? >> it does, doesn't it seem a bit like a dream. this is the superconducting. world's fastest train topping 370 miles an hour. the japanese want to build this here, privately held northeast maglev, new rail line through the busy northeast corridor to get passengers from new york to d.c. in an hour. they do it in just under three. so if green lit, the company says it could start construction as soon as 2019, the cost more than 100 billion bucks. so how does this work? well, as you can see here on the test track in japan, trains literally lev tate a couple

inches above the track. thanks to a magnetic force. this would be mostly undergrounds. japan said it would help pay for this. japan's prime minister abe discussed this with trump when they met recently. the big question here, it certainly sounds like a really nice vision, but can it actually bm become reality? we are joined now by wayne rogers. the chairman and ceo of the company behind this plan. wayne, thanks for joining us today. we've been hearing about high speed rail for decades now in the u.s. everybody is really interested in it until it's time to dig it up in their backyard. what is it about your company and your train plan that could actually succeed where so many others have so far been failing? >> well, we know in the northeast corridor our infrastructure is way behind where it should be. and so what we're looking at doing is a totally new concept, taking mature technology that's from japan, the world's fastest

train, and bringing it here. and connecting city centers and airports with a 311 miles an hour train and much of it, as you said, would be under ground or elevated, so nothing would be at grade. >> 220 mile line, a lot under ground, that will be a lot of blasting. what are you looking at in terms of regulatory hurdles for that? and how do you actually think you can make money in light of that $100 billion price tag? >> well, if you look first breaking the project down into smaller bites. our first leg is going to be baltimore, bwi airport and d.c. so we're going to take it from d.c. to new york. so first leg is that. when you talk about blasting, there's lots of technologies on doing tunnels. most of it the digging and the d.c. area would be done by a tunnel boring machine that's underneath the ground 100 feet. you're not blasting as you go through. a tunnel boring machine goes through the urban area and comes above the ground and elevated train and goes down below that. if we look at the northeast

corridor, it's over 50 million people in the northeast corridor, most congested area. it's more than 20% of gdp in our area, so we think of anywhere in the world this is where we can do it. and other countries have proven it works in their works -- >> our high-speed rail is slower than most country's slow-speed rail, by the way. you're being generous. but what i hear is taxpayers across the country is say, why should i -- all of those washington-to-d.c. types, d.c.-to-washington types, they want to take all of our money, we're not going to benefit. how do you make the argument that this money should be spent in a corridor that already gets a lot of money? >> a lot of it -- if you say, it's only going to be spent part of it. part of our plan is a new paradigm for how you do infrastructure in the united states. first, it's a praifivate-led venture instead of all being public. also japan, as you alluded to earlier in the program, japan

has said they would help financing significantly, the first leg. so you're going to marry some government money to some money investment from overseas, to the private sector money, and put it altogether in order to get this done. >> how much is a ticket per passenger going to cost? >> right now our plan shows it will be a little bit more than what we're paying for an acela right now, but it would be three times as fast. >> when you do you start making money? >> right away, we hope. you go to penn station, it's at capacity. today, if we only took 11% of the people that go in their cars today, the train would be completely full. >> wayne rogers, it sounds like a very exciting project. i'm curious to see how it all shakes out and the timeline and whether you can stay on budget, on-schedule, and potentially break ground by 2019. thank you for joining us. wayne rogers, the ceo and chairman of northeast maglev. >> let's hope it happens. i've heard it's smooth unlike the northeast corridor. for three hours.

president trump's frequent visits to mar-a-lago may be good for the club, but it's turning into a big financial headache for some of his neighbors. we'll tell you why when "power lunch," always smooth, back after this.

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and the rally on wall street seems to be picking up. we have the dow up now by 210 points, a gain of more than 1%. picking up steam on the back of treasury secretary steven mnuchin's comments about tax reform, indicating that revenue neutrality is not necessarily a prerequisite of any tax reform plan that he says will be sweeping. he says the majority of revenue lost from lower tax rates would be made up by extra growth and dynamic scoring. we're seeing a pickup there in the markets. and we can see financials really liking those comments. so they are up at the highs of the session. well, he loves going there, but the president's frequent visits to mar-a-lago is starting to weigh on the real estate market there. wealth editor arobert frank is here with more. there's no halo effect? >> in fact, quite the opposite. we know that palm beach is one of the richest, most expensive markets in the country. but it turns out the traffic jams and armed military personnel not the best for mansion sales. average sale prices per home in palm beach falling 15% in the

first quarter. the total number of sales falling 8% over the last year. homes are now sitting on the market for an average of six months and there is now a two-year supply. this is in stark contrast to the rest of southern florida, where prices and sales were actually stable or rising in the first quarter. palm beach brokers telling me all those road closures and security caused by his seven visits to mar-a-lago since he took office are turning away a lot of buyers. palm beach is still one of the most expensive markets in the country with an average sale price of $6.7 million in the quarter. but brokers telling me that mansion hunters just don't want to battle all of those problems for the next four to eight years and all of that uncertainty. many buyers are actually going south south. this home owned by ed brown just sold for $40 million. that's more like a palm beach price. the good news for these palm beachers is trump is moving the weekend place to bedminster, new jersey. the bad news is that the season is now over for palm beach for

many of those places. >> and get right turn, bedminster, new jersey -- >> if you're trying to sell your house in bedminster, sell it now. >> to be fair, there's not much around his house in bedminster. a lot less disruptive and a lot cheaper for the taxpayer for that visit than the 747 down to palm beach international. >> that's the good news. >> robert, see you in a bit. >> exactly. here is a new staggering stat. more than 18 to 34-year-olds now live with their parents than with a spouse. i don't know if that's staggering if you're 18, but 34? big implications for jobs, housing, retirement, and the overall economy. plus, texting whale dri ini. we'll speak with the young ceo of a start-up with really cool technology to try to eliminate this growing and deadly problem. and he's only 22. so he's not in that former group. we're back after this. that she's a very nice girl... you never got the brakes looked at? oh yeah. no.

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moved stocks up. and our interview with germany's finance minister. his take on the president's stance on nato. and salesman has invented a device that could cut down on texting while driving. we'll show it to you and meet its 22-year-old inventor. >> is he the inventor of the off button. the dow soaring triple digits. we're now up by more than 200 points. 213, to be exact. just at session highs. these gains being fueled partly from comments by steven mnuchin, saying we'll see a tax plan very soon. today's big gains helping the dow to wipe away the losses for the week. again, they are now up 1%. all right, let's get straight to bob pisani on the floor of the new york stock exchange. bob, nice little rally on our hands. >> indeed. and there are several events before mr. mnuchin made comments that helped this out. first, we had better earnings numbers and we've had a whole

bunch of companies reporting today that had positive comments overall. that's the most important thing i think early on. then we had a very strong europe close. that was number two. bond yields went up going into the european close as opposed to the last few days. that really helped. we also had some talk about a house compromise on health care. i think sthathat was a little bn the mix. and a half an hour ago, steve mnuchin, treasury secretary, seemed pretty close to bringing forward major tax reform. and that was a little icing on the take. we were up 175 and we just moved forward right from there. sectors today, banks were up, right at the open. we had a great bank reporting season. for the most part, goldman a bit of an exception. industrials were strong. csx helped all the railroads. materials were strong, steel stocks were strong. steel dynamics helping on the earnings sector. dow leaders, for once this week, the dow represents what's going on in the market. we saw financials like american express with good earnings. goldman sachs, recovering a little bit. united health was strong, as well.

good earnings earlier in the week. caterpillar and the industrials, remember, general electric will be reporting tomorrow. that will be a big one. not much in the way of new highs, because the market's been trending slightly down in the last couple of weeks. we have a few in the tech sector, overall. facebook, another new high there. guys? back to you. >> all right, bob. see you again soon. let's bring in now timothy ang and karen cavanaugh, market strategist with voiya investment management. karen and timothy, welcome. i know you're not a day-to-day investor, karen, but you've got to be happy with the action that we've seen, given all the g geopolitical stuff going on, the dow still up 14%, despite up since the election, despite the saber rattling and the french election. does that give you more longer-term optimism? >> absolutely. i think in between earnings season, there's always a little bit of a lull. and that's when we tend to see geopolitics kind of distract investors. it's more of a distraction. but now that we're getting deeper into the earnings season,

we see that things are good. things are moving ahead. the economic data is actually very good. we're seeing good numbers from overseas. we're seeing good china gdp, japan has had good trade numbers. europe, lowest unemployment in the last eight years. these are all good things that can help earnings. >> i hear you and we like to hear it, but who are the buyers? where's this money coming? is it overseas? just the retail investor getting back into the action? where's it coming from? >> karen, then tim can follow up, if you like. >> i'm sorry -- >> karen that was -- >> okay, sorry. >> let's try this again. i love live television. karen, first to you, and then we'll call on you, tim. karen, first to you. thank you. >> well, i think it's a lot of people that have been pulling back over the last months, just because they are worried about all these geopolitics and they're worried about whether the trump rally is going to continue, whether we're going to see some policy changes. yeah, we are going to see some policy changes.

but in the meantime, they realize that the economic data is better and they don't want to miss out. it's like leaving before you get the main course. leaving right after the appetizer. earnings are coming in. that's what's going to be driving markets. and i think that realization that geopolitics are always here, they're always with us, but that's just a distraction and it's really fundamentals that drive markets. >> we get that, karen, but tim, how do you factor in what we're seeing in terms of valuation with the concerns about geopolitics into how you allocate your money? i think what's interesting, in a recent bank of america/merrill lynch fund manager survey, they found that the allocation to u.s. equities is the lowest since january of '08 and a record number of fund managers, 83%, think u.s. stocks right now are overvalued. and yet there is this rally, like we're seeing today, sort of a fomo rally, fear of missing out. >> i think a lot of the fund flo flows that are driving u.s. market tend to be more

ephemeral. a lot of the constitutions we are advising, we would agree with the statement that you've made, is that a lot of fund flows that we are seeing are actually negative into u.s. equitiy ies at this point in ti. and there's quite a bit of money flows going into european markets, despite the political uncertainty in france and also very much into the emerging markets right now. on a forward basis, the u.s. market is still trading about 18 times earnings on a comparable basis, you're looking at the euro stock trading at 15 times earnings and even cheaper. the emerging markets index the trading at 12 times earnings. we're seeing amount more value overseas. >> and karen, you see value overseas. where specifically, and how are you transitioning into the french elections? are you hedging your positions at all because of the potential volatility that could come through the election? >> no. because i think the risk is making investors shy away from really potentially good markets. so this is an opportunity to get

in. we do see better valuations in efa and even better me merging markets. so this risk, unless it materially affects earnings, it really is an opportunity for investors to get in and to take advantage of the good valuations. so i would not be hedging that. i would be using the risk as a chance to get in. >> tim, if you wanted to stay in the u.s., which sectors are you finding value? some might say financials are in a longer trajectory of growth, and they like them. you have that immediate headwinds of a yield curve that doesn't seem to be cooperating, it's flattening, and you had what could arguably be a pretty good financial section and we haven't had the stock reaction that would reflect those strong earnings. >> yeah, i think a lot of the sell-off recently is due to real profit-taking after the tremendous rise we saw in the fourth quarter of last year. but we would agree that financials pretty much overall from now until the end of the year look pretty attractive.

you're seeing is a lot of the underwriting business, a lot of the trading business increase with the morgan stanleys and the others, as well. and we think eventually the yield curve will steepen as the fed is putting in rate hikes for both june and september at this point in time. eventually, you will see rates and net interest margins for financials will come up. and overall, we're looking probably on our side, about a 14% growth rate in earnings for the year, thus far, from financials, which is pretty positive. >> all right, guys. we're beginning to leave it there. thank you, tim and karen. we appreciate it. >> thank you. now to one of the big single stock stories in the past hour. tesla shares have been under some pressure. the electric carmaker recalling 53,000 vehicles. that is more than half the cars produced last year in total. joining us on the cnbc newsline is james albertine with consumer edge research. good to have you with us. the stock reaction is telling us it's not a big deal. yet if you ask anybody on the

street, if a car manufacturer recalled 63% of the cars it made in a single year, would you buy that car? i think that there would be a lot of skepticism. >> yeah, and first of all, thanks for having me. we do have a note. and i think i'll tell you why i think it's a bit of a nonevent. pre-recession, we saw eight to nine millions million units recalled. since the recession, we saw closer to 40 to 50 million units recalled. it's a balancing act. you don't want to risk consumer perception of your vehicles as low-quality, but you don't want to end up in front of congress talking about why your ignition switches led to accidents, right? so i think what oems have found is that there's limited resale whiplash from recalling vehicles. there's much bigger implications for settlements and regulatory scrutiny, if they don't recall. so when in doubt, recall has become an automotive theme. sure, tesla's much smaller and they're a budding automotive manufacturer, but this also isn't their first recall and they've handled themselves very,

very well in the past, with even more significant recalls having to relate to their drive-in. this is not an in-motion recall, it's a parking brake issue. and really the only issue that could happen is the vehicle can't move. it's not like it's happening in motion and can lead to fatalities in that way. it's also relatively benign as you think about the list of things that can be recalled. >> so there is no concern? because, as we mentioned, they produced around 84,000 vehicles in calendar year 2016. is there any concern whatsoever that as they are adding the model 3 and possibly adding a pickup truck and a semitruck that they're adding complications to the assembly line when they don't necessarily have it down right, so to speak, with the two vehicles they already have on the market? >> yeah, well, i wouldn't look at recalls as having it down right or not, right? gm has had it down right for a hundred years and they had a massive recall in 2014, i guess

it was, with the ignition switches and they went and recalled everything under the sun. and they actually gained retail share that year. so it's not about having it or not having it. clearly, there's third parties that contribute to the manufacturing process at tesla wi. but yet, they're still more vertically integrated and do more outsourcing than the average oef as well. so there's some trade-offs there. how they handle themselves is critical -- yeah? >> do you have any work into who the tesla buyer is? i get the impression of the people i know that own teslas, they're a different breed. they're willing to have these glitches and problems because they know they're buying what they view as the future of automotive. >> yeah, it's -- i don't think you could paint it with a broad brush and say everyone's the same that buys a tesla. i think there's early adopters of evs and hybrids in general that have more of a view on the environment and sort of conspicuously trying to do what they can to, you know, save the climate -- i'm sorry, save us

from a global warming perspective. there are others that are, i think, fed up with this traditional retail process. see an attitude to buying and servicing and owning a vehicle that's vastly different than what they've been familiar with historically. clearly, i think there's a higher income component, given the model s, msrp is north of $100,000 in many cases. so we'll see, i think, a more -- a broader demographic coming with the model 3. but at this point, it's a combination of kind of the constituencies i mentioned. >> james, thank you. appreciate it. james albertine, consumer edge research. well, when it comes to markets, the economy and your money, confidence may be everything. but a new number from the census department does not inspire a lot of confidence for the future of the american economy. steve liesman joining us now with the "still in mom's basement" story. >> new data from the census tells us that a third of millennials are living with their parents and a substantial chunk of this are neither working nor enrolled in school.

take a look at our nice little graphic we created for you here. 26% in 2005 are living with their parents. that's up, call it eight points. 34% now living with their parents. 51% were living independently, which is defined as living with a spouse or alone. that's down to 41%. and about the same are living with roommates, brian. 23% versus 25%. let's go -- see that part on the left there, living with their parents, 34%? let's look at that. about a quarter of those are neither working nor enrolled in school. but i want to show you why that is. of this group, 21% have a child, 28% are on disability, and 65% have a high school degree or less, which doesn't necessarily mean you should be out of the workforce or otherwise living with your parents, but it seems to be -- >> harder to get a job. >> harder to get out of the house with just a high school degree, which tells you something about what farthe pars are telling their kids when they're in high school, pay

attention, g on to college, and you won't have to live -- >> unfortunately, there is a dark side to the story, as well. it's not just lack of confidence on the disability side. many reports -- you're encouraged to be at home. everybody -- you want to have as many people in the same house, because it contributes to the income of the family. >> right. >> so there's an economic incentive, in some cases, to remain home, especially if you're in the lower pe eer end. >> check out this milestone we have. in 1975, 45% of those aged 25 to 34 hit all the following milestones. they were out of their parent's house, they were married, they were living with a child, and they were considered part of the labor force. that 45% today, well, just about half of it, 24% right now have met those four milestones. >> wow. um, confidence about how you feel, confidence in the markets? we need to feel confident about the administration? about trump? >> forget what's in your wallet. forget everything else. forget if you have a job. it's all about politics. we compared in our all-american

polling data from before and after the election. we found the confidence surge tied to the election outcome and a lot of it, exclusive just to republicans. this is not outlook. this is the assessment of the current state of the economy. just 11% of republicans rated the economy as good or excellent in october. that number, 45%, even while it appears the economy weakened from one quarter to the next. democrats and independents, they hardly change third views. now look at the outlook. economic optimism for the next year, surging among republicans and to a lesser extent, independence, while it plunged among democrats here. and check this out. this is a spike in optimism over the stock market. looking at the net percent of respondents saying this is a good time to invest, there's been a massive increase in the love of stocks among the gop and somewhat for independents, while there's been little change for democrats. one more, guys, economic views are tied to political beliefs. and that makes it unclear how much market should we rely on this sentiment data to show the i what on the economy? by the way, it raises the stakes

in my opinion for the trump administration to deliver to these people, who are so optimistic about the policies they believe are coming. >> at some point, the baton has to be passed between hope and reality. >> good point, melissa. >> steve, thank you. >> thanks. >> michelle? >> hey, there, guys. here's what's coming up on "power lunch." part two of our exclusive interview with germany's finance minister, wolfgang shoibla. and maybe you don't care who becomes the next president of france. but you will if the euro crumbles as a result. why that election matters so much to the united states. plus, general motors walked through a bad neighborhood at night and got mugged, kind of. we'll explain that analogy and much more coming up on "power lunch." ♪ ♪ i'm dr. kelsey mcneely and some day you might be

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i'm gonna just go back to doing what i was doing. find your awesome with the xfinity x1 voice remote. welcome back to "power lunch." i'm michelle caruso-cabrera in washington, d.c. where i sat down earlier with the finance minister of germany. the trump administration has been very critical on germany. president trump has threatened tariffs on german cars and he's expressed great frustration that countries like german don't meet their financial obligations to nato, the north atlantic treaty organization, a european alliance meant to protect the continent. well, the german finance minister told me today all of that is finally toi lly going t. a big frustration of the president is nato spending by european countries. the u.s. is very committed to levels of defense spending, as required by nato. nato requires one of the obligations is to spend the equivalent of 2% of your gdp on

your defense. germany hasn't done that for decades, if ever. why not? >> for decades is a little bit long, because we haven't a fairly specific situation. we have been a divided country after world war ii, and so on. but having said this, the leaders, the heads of states and governments of nato have taken a common position that the nato summit, in ways, i think in 2014, to move in ten years into the direction of 2% spending for defense in the direction of 2% of gdp. and german defense budget is morphing since 2016. we started already in 2016, to increase our defense budget. we do it much more in this year, and we will continue to do so. we have some in political debate in germany. we will have a discussion, during campaign. but the position of chancellor, the position of her party, is

clearly we have to increase our defense spending, continually. >> are you doing that because of president trump? because of what he said? >> no, he's right! >> he's right, he said. well, the trump administration has also been critical of germany's trade circlist and its current account circlists, peter navarro in particular. but the u.s. isn't alone in this criticism. across europe, there's this increasing belief that germany is the cause of large and potentially dangerous imbalances in the world economy. i don't know if you've seen some of the commentary when your current account surplus came out last month. one columnist in the uk called you a rogue economy. that you were one of the greatest potential causes of instability in the global economy. >> some writers, even in the uk write bull [ bleep ] with all due respect. >> did you say bull [ bleep ]? >> yes. >> nothing like a current

account surplus to really get a finance minister upset. if you missed it earlier, minister schauble says he is optimistic that france will choose a president who is supportive of the euro currency. that's available on cnbc.com. i'm also going to post it on my facebook page. but let's talk more about the french election, germany's neighbor, holding this big election on sunday. and there's a lot of concern, because far-right candidate marine le pen has a chance to become president. she's in a tight race with a centrist, but it's marine le pen who could cause potential existential threat to the euro itself. how concerned should americans be about this election? let's bring in peter bookforar, cnbc contributor. peter, am i overstating it? is the euro at risk in this election? >> well, it's interesting. because more than half the french want to keep the euro, but le pen is polling well and wants to get rid of the euro. now, a couple weeks ago, i would say she had no chance, but now

she all of a sudden has a chance. so it's a big deal. france is the sixth largest economy from a growth perspective, growth has been anemic for a long time. france is the poster boy for a social welfare system that has totally created essentially a zombie state with a lot of debt and too many people on the welfare rolls. so, getting rid of the euro, i'm not sure what her economic strategy is behind that, but i'm still having my fingers crossed that it's macron that will end up winning and cooler heads will prevail. >> what's one of the logistics of that? if you decide -- if france decides that suddenly they don't want to be a part of the euro, all of these contracts across the european continent have been written in euros. what's it like to unwind that? i assume that's what the market would be worried about, of course? >> right, it's a great question. my guess is, is that over a multi-year period, they'll have almost a parallel currency and tell everybody over the next five years, we're going to shift

back to the french franc, and make your adjustments over the next five years. >> a pegged currency? a currency pegged to the euro? >> for a period of time, to allow that adjustment. >> and then you free float it, eventually? >> exactly. >> it's not something you can just rip a band aid off, because that would be a disaster. >> it would be decades. years and years and years. >> and you have french debt that's about 90% of gdp, denominated in euros, and all of a sudden, you have a drop in your currency. you will essentially almost double the size of that debt on a nominal basis. >> i do wonder if this is one of the -- we forget that the euro was rolled out ten years after it was announced. i wonder fif we're a little panc in the short-term, given that whatever le pen, even if she wins, wants to do is a, maybe not possible, and b, years or decades out, because of various treaties. but is it overly simplistic, peter, to say this. and for viewers at home, we like the french election. they don't know what's going on.

macron and fillon, good. le pen, probably not good, and melange, terrible, from a market perspective. >> le pen would create some chaos. so hollande passed a 75% tax. melancian wants to pass 100% tax. so the 1% in france would go to zero or start to decline. le pen is the scary thing. melancian is the same to the nth degree, where we can swrcelebraa fillon or macron victory. >> peter? it's michelle here again. if greece left the euro, it wouldn't matter, right? but if france decide it's going to leave the iuoryou euro, the

euro's ore squm >> it would be a very chaotic situation. >> thanks so much for joining us. texting while driving. we'll talk to the ceo of a start-up out with some really cool technology out to tackle that growing problem. that's next. hey, the future, what's her problem? apparently, i kept her up all night. she said the future freaks her out. how come no one likes me, jim? intel does! just think of everything intel's doing right now with artificial intelligence. and pretty soon ai is going to help executives like her see trends to stay ahead of her competition. no more sleepless nights. - we're going to be friends! - i'm sorry about this. don't be embarrassed of me, jim. i'm getting excited about this! we know the future. we're going to be friends! because we're building it.

welcome back to "power lunch." we are still seeing some pretty strong gains across the board here. you can see the nasdaq up by more than 1%. the dow is higher than 202 points or about 1%. the s&p losing a little bit of height here, but we're still up by nine tenths of a percent. it is worth noting that small caps on the s&p as well as financials, we are sitting at session highs for these two particular subsectors. s&p winners, we're taking a look at alliance's status, snap-on tools and csx. turning now to the dangerous and growing epidemic of distracted driving. according to the national safety council, one in four car wrecks usually involves the use of a cell phone. cell phone is also a factor in more than 1.6 million crashes every year. even more alarming is that texting while driving is now the single biggest cause of death for teens in america.

nobody seems to have a plan, except for your next guest. he has a possible solution to this problem. tyler nathan is the founder and ceo of rive. he joins us for his cnbc debut. yes, he is 22 years old. are you still in school at emory or did you graduate? >> neither, actually. i took a leave of absence -- >> so you're a dropout? you dropped out. >> leave of absence. >> like zuckerberg? >> i was a thiel fellowship finalist. >> and all you're trying to do is save lives. talk about your product. please show it. hold it up. it plugs into the phone. >> yep. >> it plugs into, i assume, the car. what is it? how will it stop -- because literally, you know, melissa, i'm reasonably tall and i have a car, it's kind of jacked up. 100% of people i pass are texting. every single person. they're watching shows. it's unbelievable. >> it's frightening. i mean, distracted driving is an epidemic. like you said, one in four accidents are caused by cell phones. it's the leading cause of -- >> how does that work?

>> so this rive, you plug it into your car, just like a car charger. and that's really how the foundation of the design started. >> hold it up. let the world see it. >> right here. you plug it in, just like your car charger, automatically, it starts charging your phone and starts launches our app. you don't have to do anything. >> what does the app do? >> it holds incoming messages and notifications, so you are not aware while driving that anything is coming to your phone. >> why people don't just turn their phones off? why are they more likely to put their phone in that contraption and plug it in and download your app and use your app than they are to just turn the phone off. >> what if you want to take a call? >> exactly. >> i'm on the phone con estimate. >> so -- >> but it's hands-free, america. >> it's just so you can make phone calls, essentially, and not see your messages? >> exactly. and if someone were to text you while you're using rive, you won't become aware of it, but there's a customizable auto

response that says, hey, i'm driving right now, if you need me, call me, because we provide blue tooth phone calling through rive. >> listen, it sounds good. the only hurdle i see is getting people to plug it in. to melissa's point, you could just turn off the phone. >> if you're that concerned, just don't look. >> it's a -- ding, ding, ding. what's that? it's a pull. it is -- you have more self- -- you went to harvard. >> it had nothing to do with that. >> similar to a seat belt, if you have this in your car and you are moving, it will continuously buzz to remind you to use it, as well as for concerned parents to make sure their kids are using it, we have recordkeeping of when and for how long you are using it while driving, as well as when you're not using rive while driving. so if a concerned parent wants to see their kids is using it, they can. >> can insurance companies access that data and use it against the driver? >> yeah, we think insurance companies would be open to working with us to provide discounts to our safe drivers.

everyone wants fewer accidents. insurance companies and consumers alike. >> if they can prove that's plugged in, then it could be good for your insurance rates. >> absolutely. and we receive that information when you're driving using rive and when you're driving without using rive. >> so you know? >> yes. >> parents can know, we know. >> parents can know? >> yes. >> so literally, i can say to my daughter when she gets her driver's license, which if she's watching, is when you're 30, honey. hey, you drove and didn't plug the device in. i can see -- >> yes. >> big brother, big daddy is watching you and do not do that. >> absolutely. through the app, you have a family account setup, and you can see all of your family members, click your daughter's name and you can see, you know, she drove for 20 miles with using rive and five miles without. and if you wanted to, you could ask -- >> keep track of brian. >> keep track of my habits. you got a kick starter campaign? >> we do. we launch tuesday night. we have a goal of $25,000, we're

trying to raise money for our first batch of inventory scaled so we can get the price down and be affordable for everyone. because we want everyone to be safe while driving behind the wheel. >> cool stuff. tyler, thank you so much. >> thank you. it's april 20th. it's 4/20, which -- it's not just a date. it's the black friday for the marijuana -- >> i didn't know what 4/20 was at all until today. >> 4/20 is sort of the -- not to code. it means pot. we'll talk about how one pot delivery service is handling its busiest day of the year. as we head out, a nice little rally on the street. the dow is high, up 200 points. american express, cart pillar, and goldman sachs leading the way. market's up at 420. we're not going to break, because gary cohn of the national economic council speaking right now. >> the missions are similar. the private sector is trying to serve its clients and trying to achieve its objective and its

goal and the public sector is doing the same thing. we're trying to achieve our mission, understood where our objective is and under our goal. it's just a lot more difficult to get there. and the process is a lot slower. and i'm adapting to the slower process. >> i always knew you were someone who liked to execute and execute very quickly and very well. let's start at the 100,000 foot level. that is your policy agenda, lots of questions about your priorities, what you want to achieve, your close to your 100-day mark. lots of expectations, but in some way, you're getting a bit of a bad rep. it's hard to get things done quickly. what's your agenda and what do you see that the next few months holds for you? >> our agenda hasn't changed. when we came in day one, we talked about an agenda that revolved around jobs, job creation, employment, full employment, making the lives of citizens of this country better. that's our number one objective.

how you do that, that's what we're working on. so we're going to do it in a bunch of different ways. number one, we're trying to improve health care in this country, because we think that's a staple of quality of life. number two, we're trying to change taxes and tax reform. number three, you just had a panel talking about infrastructure. the way we live our lives. the way we get to school and to and from work is really important. and we have a sub-optimal infrastructure in this country. those are three cores that we're working on, we do that in terms hoff h of how you live your life and how you create jobs. on top of that, simultaneous though those, we're thinking about the regulatory environment. and it cuts across all of that. i was listening to the panel, and one of the guests in the end, the last comment said, approval processes. the approval process and the regulatory process and the infrastructure is probably the most costly part of regulation.

in slowing down -- in slowing down the approvals, it just adds and adds and adds to the cost of infrastructure. we have to understood the cost of regulation and slowing things down. and so we are simultaneously looking at all of the different regulatory environments that we have. not just financial services, and i know this crowd is very concerned about financial regulation, but we've got regulatory burden if almost everything we do and we're spending a lot of time looking at the regulatory burdens as well. >> on our first panel this morning, we had a number of economists who said the deregulation piece is an important thought. maybe it get overseas shadowed by the tax discussion or health care. it's something that you can get your cabinet secretaries and sub-cabinet once they're in place to really move quickly on the deregulatory piece? >> a lot of it is personnel. you know, a lot of it is interpretive personnel, getting our personnel into position will help user. the regulatory, de-regulatory

agenda. the example i like to use is, you know, we in the united states have a stress test for our banks. europe has a stress test for their banks. the dialogue or the description stress test, it's different, but not that much different. the interpretation of the regulators that interpret the stress test is so different that a bank in europe with 3% tier one capital passes their stress test with flying colors. banks in the united states with 10% tier one capital barely pass. so personnel is policy. and changing the personnel will change the policy, will change the interpretation and we think that is very important. so you're right. changing the personnel will have a big affect on a lot of the regulation that we have in the system. even when you look at infrastructure, go back to infrastructure. you look at the epa, look at bureau of land management, look at fish and wildlife, look at all of these organizations and how they're running approvals through their processes. how they look at the approval process, how they schedule the hearings, getting those things

done and feeling a necessity, that's all personnel. so we've instructed our people, we've got to get these things through the system. we're going to try to force a very quick deadline system into place so we can make sure we get things through the system as quickly as we can. >> it's a lot to do on your own, but you still rely on our friends at the other end of pennsylvania avenue. article one of the constitution puts congress squarely in charge of taxes and appropriations. so, tax policy, how are you approaching it? i know you're developing your own set of proposals. you have one in the house now with speaker ryan and chair brady. how do you assess that particular proposal and do you have principles you're guiding by and can you talk a little bit about timetable? >> i know that secretary mnuchin was here a speaker or two ago, and he spent a lot of time talking about taxes. he and i are spending a lot of time working together on tax policy. so we are going to come out with a unified, united tax proposal

from the white house. >> that includes the individual as well as corporate? >> that includes individual as well as corporate. some of the basic core principles are exactly what the president ran own. you know, people say we're difficult to figure out what we're doing. we're actually the complete opposite. if you want to understand what the white house is doing, go back and listen to what the president said on the campaign trail. he talked about low rates. guess what? we care about low rates. he talked about simplicity. guess what, we care about simplicity. he talked about using the tax code to make america more competitive. guess what, we want to figure out how to use the tax code to make america more competitive. he talked about reciprocal taxes and reciprocity and making our taxes in line with the rest of the world and making us more equal. he talked about using taxes to make sure we're globally competitive in bring industry and jobs back to the united states. those are the core principles. that's what we're trying to do.

we're trying to do it in the corporate tax code as well as the individual tax code. >> one of the proposals in the ryan/brady plan is to eliminate the deduction of interest expense for corporates, leveling the playing field between debt and equity. how big of an issue is that for markets, maybe wearing your old hat a little bit, too. how do you think of that wra? is that a live proposal? >> as secretary mnuchin said, we've got a lot of things on the table, we're working with all of the different levers and as you know, depending on where you end up in the rate spectrum depends on how valuable or how unvaluable a certain deduction is or isn't. so we're continuously playing with the levers that we have. and we're working on coming up with a policy. >> we'll have director mulvaney here later today, but let me just ask about deficits. dick cheney once famously quoted ronald reagan as saying deficits don't matter politically. we're running a $500 million per

year deficit. how important is it to have revenue neutrality? >> as you said, director mulvaney will be here later and he'll have his very strong views on deficits. so a big deficit question for him. that said we have a legislative process to go through on tax reform. you pointed that out. we would like to have permits to tax. when corporates are making long-term capex decisions and people are deciding to move businesses to the united states and open factories and make big capital investments, they need some permanence of the tax code. the more permanent we can make the tax code, the more it makes sense to us. running a big deficit in the tax code would potentially make it not permanent. that said, as secretary mnuchin said and i said it, using dynamic scoring may allow us to get to a permanent solution.

we would like a permanent solution, but again, we have to do what we need to do to drive job creation and drive the economy. and we're committed to driving the economy. >> we were talking about infrastructure backstage, as the panel was discussing. i know it's an important issue for you. i was making a joke this morning, every time i go to new york on the acela, on amtrak, it's a harrowing experience. tell me a little bit about your plans for infrastructure and how are you going to divide it between tax credits versus direct appropriations and spending? >> well, as you know, we talked a lot about infrastructure. >> yeah. >> our core, basic plans when we started, you know, we talking about health care, taxes, infrastructure, in that order. you know, part of our tax plan may be to use some of the repatriated money into an infrastructure fund or an infrastructure bill. so we know that we're going to fund some of the infrastructure. director mulvaney will tell you in his budget, he has fairly

substantial allocations in for infrastructure. so the government is going to have to be involved in the infrastructure. that said, you know, we think bringing private capital in alongside with the government or even privatizing some of the infrastructure makes enormous amount of sense. just building up the government's balance sheet for the sake of building up the government's balance sheet doesn't make the most sense. if we got existing infrastructure that has direct revenues attached to it, we think there may be very interesting ideas in the for-profit or in the not-for-profit world to take that infrastructure and put it into corporations and use more of the capital markets to pay for that instead of putting it on the government's balance sheet. we know that will create efficiencies. we know it will create long-term better management. it will create a maintenance program. and it will do the things that we need to do for an efficient, long-term infrastructure management program. so, we do not want to sit here as the federal government and just be a piggy bank doling out

money here, there, and somewhere else. we want to be a partner with governors, with mayors, with municipalities, to help them and coinvest along with them on projects they want to put capital into. >> there's a state and local competitive to this, as well? >> as you know, i think as most of you know, there's a huge state and local component to this. the great irony in infrastructure is that the federal government owns very little infrastructure. but we control almost all of the infrastructure. and we control almost all the of the permitting process for infrastructure. >> so how do you ensure it's spent in the right place? i use an example, i'm from rural kentucky. hal rogers, the chairs of the appropriations committee on the house, is from southwestern, middle south southern kentucky, most beautiful highways in the world. unfortunately, there are no people. so how do you ensure that you're not building bridges to nowhere, that you're actually putting asphalt and bridges where the population is? >> that's exactly what i was alluding to. we don't want to be in the business of just doling out

money to dole out money. we want to be in the business of investing in infrastructure where other people, meaning the states, the cities, the municipalities, the authorities are going to put their money with us. knowing that they're goinged to need to get a return on their investment. they're going to need to get a return on their capital. hopefully it would make sense to bring in other partners, because we don't want to build a bridge to nowhere to say we just built it in appropriations. we want to build a smart infrastructure, where we're going to change people's lives. where we're going to make getting to work easier, getting to school easier, getting around the city easier. flying across the country easier. those are the places where we want to have the impact. >> you talk about privatization. does that include the air traffic control system? do you have a list, or is that something we'll see coming out soon? >> we have a list, but it's not a complete list. it's not a complete list. i have talked fairly openly about the atc system. i think the atc system is sort of a bellwether example of something that can be done and

should be done. we're not cutting -- we're not on leading emotion to do this. we're following what a bunch of other countries have done. canada, for example. over 50 countries have done what i'm proposing we do. there's a direct attributable revenue stream already, dedicated to air traffic controllers. if you put the atc component into a private business, whether it be for-profit or not-for-profit, hive it off, build the technology, modernize the system, the revenue is there, the technology is there, the opportunity is there and it will change everyone's life. we will speed up times, you won't sit on tarmacs as long, you won't -- your flight time will go down. the descent apparepatterns will down. you'll have direct descent into

airports. there are certain parairports t have built that technology. you won't go from way point to way point, direct from point to point. you'll safe jet fuel in the process. saving jet fuel is cost efficient and it means we'll consume less energy in this country and it's environmentally very, very friendly. it makes an enormous amount of sense. that's why so many countries have done it. >> the last time i flew laguardia, we were number 37 in line to take off. we sat there for three hours. >> i won't even guess the amount of jet fuel you used sitting on the ground. every time you start and stop to get that hunk of steel moving again, takes a lot of jet fuel. >> and is that something you hope to get done in the second half of this year? 2018, 2019? >> what is "get done" mean? >> it is washington, after all. >> we're moving that one through the system. we've been working with

secretary chao. the good news here is the house membersbeen working with many o the house members that this is a bill they've had on the floor for a long time. so we're working with a house that wants to work with us. there's very little opposition to what we want to do. that said, this is going to take years, not months, to get done. >> and secretary chao certainly has good connections on the senate side, as well. >> that's what i hear. >> you mentioned energy policy. can you tell me a little bit about how you see the mix going forward, nuclear, coal. obviously, the president has spoken affectionately about coal. there's buoyancy we haven't seen in that state. so are you changing the mix, and what are you doing about climate? >> so, look, we are supportive of jobs again. we know that coal is a big job creator in the united states.

but we have to allow coal to compete. we're also a big supporter of natural gas. we're a supporter of fracking. we're supportive of energy independence. we're supportive of the free market. those things have to work together. together, and zimpbt stocks have different economics to them, and we allow the free markets to be the free market. the biggest issue for us is in the administration is energy independence making sure we can control our own destiny. >> the u.s. and north america? >> north america. >> okay. >> the u.s. for sure. look, we're most concerned about the u.s., but then we care about north america, imported oil, you know, we are exporting these things that are good. building up more and more lng terminals in the united states and supporting more and more, and happen to have a btu component that the rest of the world needs. you know, more and more is needed, and we have a huge excess supply of gas, and so we're going to permit more and

more of these plants. we're going to let these different feed stocks compete in the united states here, and we're going to be supportive of them. part of creating jobs and manufacturing in the united states is what is your competitive advantage? we have a big competitive advantage. we have cheap energy. we need to keep and promote our cheap energy. >> we're still relying on oil for the transportation system. how do you think about weaning the transportation system, oil -- it, you know, there's been changes to the cafe standard, some relaxing from the previous administration. looking at that as well in. >> look, oil is a major component of everything we go. it's a major component of the transportation industry. we're not saying it should be. it should be. it's going to be. when you displace it into the energy sector and power sector, you know, it's marginal barrel of oil that sets the price of the entire oil stack every day. so every marginal barrel not

consumed is another barrel of supply in the system affecting the price of the system, which we find good for the u.s. consumer, good for manufacturing in the united states, and makes us more and more competitive. we -- in that -- that said, we do very much care about the environment. we want to do this all in a very environment environmentally creepy way. >> he and a number of other luminaries proposed one, the carbon tax, i presume that's not in the mix or nol something you think that congress is willing to take on? >> it's not in the mix, yeah. >> so trade policy. mentioning exports, segue into that. there's a lot in the trade policy. there's the administration. tell us how you approach trade policy? what's essentially -- >> free, open, fair trade. free, open, fair. >> what's fair mean? >> fair means we treat our

trading partners the way they treat us. the president calls it reciprocal. we should be reciprocal in the way we treat each other. we prefer no one has tariffs, that it's free and open trading borders, but if you insist on a tariff on a product, which we prefer you not, the president believes we should treat you in a reciprocal fashion and we should tax your product coming into the united states. that is free. that is open. that is fair. that would be a definite of fair. the example he will use, and it's a good example because it is going on in the world. we manufacture a car in the united states and ship to certain countries, there's a long tariff on that car. if they manufacture a car, they send to the united states for a small tariff. that's not fair. >> where do you think you make the greatest gains of owna fore

market? are there places low and free that you can make immediate gains? >> on exports? >> yes. >> we can increase exports everywhere. we are becoming a better and better manufacturer, like we said, we got cheap energy. we've got better technology. as we continue to improve our infrastructure we'll improve our availability to get to market and leverage upon assets of our economy, and we'll be a better and better exporter, but it has to be done on a level playing field. >> all for manufacturing jobs, relatives on assembly lines, but it's 10% of the economy, 8% of the work force, they run a trade surplus in services, and huge in financial services. they are good at it. why don't we hear more from the administration about services and financial services comparative advantage for the u.s.? >> maybe we're just not talking about it enough, but we are talking about it. i mean, when we were in florida

two weeks ago talking about the marketsin markets, we talked a lot about them opening up more to the service industry, giving our u.s. companies broader access, allowing u.s. companies to own 100% of the chinese joint ventures, many companies have been there ten-plus years, the original rule that you have to be a joint partner for ten years, many there for more than ten years. we talked about the ability for full ownership, the ain't to run bigger businesses, which is more and more services. we are talking about it. we're talking about it quite a bit. maybe we need to do a better job of making sure everyone hears us. >> i heard the reagan administration is aggressive with respect to import policies, tariffs on steel, textiles, motorcycles, autos, on sugar. milt friedman in the reagan administration said it was

benign. given that we often put reagan administration on a ped stool, is that the right baseline to judge? are you getting a bad rep because we judge you against the world, theoretical world of free trade? >> look, i don't know what the right baseline is. the right baseline to judge us against is, do we grow the economy? do we create a better environment for u.s. citizens? do we put more people to work? do we give them better jobs? does their life get better? do more people end up getting a job that they want? do more people have a quality of life they want? do more kids end up going into places they want to go into? do people live where they want to live? at the end of our administration, do people feel like their life and their quality of life, their standard of life and their future is better than it was the day we got here? if we did that, that's what we should be comparing against. >> what do you think is the most

important fool for you doing that. >> i mean, again taking you back to kentucky. i grew up in a town where fisher-price had a toy factory. shut down, moved to mexico, 1200 people out of work, the city never recovered. there's a small college there that helped. what can you do to bring or deep those jobs back in murray, kentucky? >> we have to provide, a, the tax rates that make corporates competitive in the company. that's the first place to start. 35% corporate tax rate. you know, the rate is 23, you know, and if you look at 23 versus 35, we're not competitive. there's taxes, substantially lower than 23. the president's been constantly talking about rate manage, rate manage. start with tax rate. companies, you know, they are looking to make, look, building a business, i'm successful, what part do i keep, what goes to the shareholders, what goes to the government?

start with that. then we have to have a labor force that is compatible to what we need to hire. you have heard us talk a lot about retooling of the labor force, reeducating of the labor force. we're spending time on apprenticeship programs, in voi kagsal education, tooling the labor force to the labor force we're going to need in the 21st and 22nd century. we have to provide the labor force we're going to need. you know, there's hundreds of weltding jobs out there in the world today. no welders. we want to build big pipelines in the country. how? you have to weld them. welding jobs start at really decent income levels and grow from there. we got to create an environment where kids coming out of high school are willing to go into a program where they become a welder. >> yeah. >> they start -- >> my father was a welder. >> my father was an electrician. that's how he started. this is -- >> so disappointed i went to college and was not a welder.

>> okay. we got to get the narrative to back to what it means to be successful in the country, and how we're going to grow our economy, and how we're going to create an environment that's good for all. i think we can do it. there's an awful lot of opportunity here. as i was talking about before, the lng opportunity is enormous here. you know, you look at what they need in japan, what they need in china, what they need in germany to feed their environment. you know, japan and germany gave up on nuclear power. >> exactly. >> they need to replace that power with lng. we could be and should be the largest exporter in the world. we have the molecules. we have not permitted the exporting. we personality the exporting. those are huge construction sites, and then huge operate in once built.

>> it's a great market for you. >> the first thing to do is permit export facility in the northwest. think of the transport time from the northwest to japan sprer sus anywhere else. we got to put facilities on the east coast to get from the east coast to germany. >> a simple permits process. >> the one police to permit in the northwest is turned down twice already. >> all right. the second international, topic of international engagement, traveling with the president to the g7, g20. how are you thinking about the engagements and the message when you sit down with the -- the president sitting down with the counter parts in italy or germany this summer? >> the message is simple. we care about the united states of america. we care about economic prosperity. we care about economic growth. we care about trade. we care about being treated fairly. we want to be part of the global economy. we want to be part of the global