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tv   Squawk Alley  CNBC  June 5, 2017 11:00am-12:01pm EDT

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welcome back to "squawk" on street. financials are seen as the best performing sector now let's sends it back to nyc to the "squawk alley" crew guys. >> it's monday morning. calm to "squawk alley". record high for the nasdaq although a tight range. the uk prime minister theresa may vowing to donor fight
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extremism. the city's third terror attack in as many months. president sending a message of his own. john harwood is back in washington watching that. >> reporter: it's a message that gives you a glimpse into this president's state of mind and does not appear to be particularly calm this morning. he started tweeting in the 6:00 a.m. hour saying that contrary to what his aides and lawyers have said as they try to advance his travel ban he put in all caps that it's a travel ban and said that's what his strategy ought to be. he criticized his own justice department for watering down the initial travel ban. he said the courts are slow and political. and then finally later in the morning he tweeted that the london mayor had made a pathetic excuse for his statement that londoners should not be alarmed which, of course, the mayor said in the context of noting the heightened police presence on the street. this agitated president clearly
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off his balance in the wake of this terrorist attack led kellyanne conway who is on the "today" show today to say all of us in the press should not pay so much attention to the president's tweets. >> this obsession with covering everything he says on twitter and very little of what he does. >> that's his preferred method of communication. >> that's not true. >> reporter: the week is only going to get worse for the president even though he's attempting to lay out his infrastructure plan this week, james comey, the fired fbi director will be testifying on the hill and going to be reiterating from everything that we know his assertion that the president asked him to pull back on the russia investigation. the president is agitate this morning and promises to be more so later in the week. >> john, thank you for setting up the week from washington. john harwood. meantime stocks continue to shrug off these geopolitical red
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flags. nasdaq hits another record high. google finally breaks above 1,000 or all if a bet we should say joining the likes of amazon.com. joining us to talk markets. steve, you've been cautious on the markets. i remember last time you were on a few weeks ago you said time to take some profits. in the meantime stocks have made new record highs. do you still have confidence in that call? >> i think so. when we take a broader, longer term perspective and looking globally as well in a multi-asset space and not just the u.s. when we look at valuations in this range they are something that give us a pause. and i think these valuations given where we are with the fundamentals the economy is showing softness. we call it mediocrity. we think there will be two rate hikes this year. with the fundamentals being good and slightly improving, these valuations getting more and more
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stretched provides an opportunity for an investor to be disciplined, to be balanced, multi-asset and global and rebalance globally and if you do that over extended periods of time you tend to provide to portfolio. >> what a volatile morning on twitter. markets used to be more sensitive to tweets and political risks. can you talk about how investors view these type of statements. they are not directly related to the economy. everybody is watching that comey testimony on thursday. >> sure. that's one part of the equation whether it's the tweets or political developments. the other part of it is what's going on in the economy and that's where we continues to see signs, if we smooth out kind of the monovolatility, if you look at the trend we saw nonmanufacturing this morning, again some of these numbers are missing consensus expectations so you see some of the supplies indices tick down. if you look at them year-over-year they are almost all showing steady improvement.
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if you got an economy that's improving, profit growth reasserting itself, q1 was a pretty good quarter. a lot of people are focusing on those fundamentals. >> i hear you say rebalance globally. for an investor that had his or her retirement portfolio up 17.5%. pretty good. where do you put it? europe. pacific rim. precious metal? >> you have the kwekt markets and the bond market. when in doubt pay more attention to the bond market. if you look at what's been happening in europe over the last couple of quarters the improvement there has been marked relative the u.s. markets. right now the year ozone not the eu but the year ozone is growing faster than the united states. coupled that with more attractive valuations, more accommodating europe smank. so five years down the line
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that's an opportunity, i would look also emerging asia, japan, also looking at emerging markets not just in equity space but looking in the debt space. doing a lot of hard work in credit space really running the numbers, being very methodical and i think looking for a more diverse portfolio. this has been an eight plus year strong run in the u.s. nothing to sneeze at. use it as an opportunity to do the basics. >> all good points steve makes. on the other hand, we'll see whether the ecb remains as accommodating starting on thursday. we had economists come on in the last couple of days and say the bond market is actually forecasting low inflation which historically is good for equities coupled with earnings you talk about. i wonder whether steve's argument that valuations is feeling rich is early. >> valuation is a very blunt instrument. if you're looking at five or ten years valuation can play an important role in terms of
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trying to time the allocations. you're looking at a shorter time frame you have to keep it much more in perspective. valuations relative to what? we're used to a ten year treasury that yields something above the rate of inflation. inflation is high ones and low twos. you're not getting paid in the bond market either. again keep valuations in perspective. they are all relative. if you look at the s&p, a yield very similar to ten year. we think it's a good time to be invested but don't ignore the equity allocation. >> talk about relative valuation, got to talk tech. it's a driver of this market. best performing sector again today. how are you looking at tech? you value it against the 2000. that's what the research notes are doing. seems like a very different time with different leadership. >> we would agree. the only thing that gives us some pause is how big a part of the index it is.
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it's not that expensive. trades close to market multiples. so, again, we're not so much worried about valuations we're worried most people if you're buying the s&p 500 you already own a lot of tech. we like the drivers going on within this space. a lot of industries are turning to technology to crank out profitability at the margin. >> given that, steve, what in particular in tech represents value. is it software platforms? is it companies that have a big advantage in advertising? >> well, i think right now -- i don't do a lot of sector work per se but you're looking at valuations. and the way i would interpret that question is the construction of u.s. earnings and s&p 500 earnings being led by technology. when you back out a couple dozen companies you really are getting earns there. then also if i go back to the international argument if i may you're looking at the international constituent elements of earnings really
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acdriver as well. i think, again, this is not a short u.s. call, not a bearish call in the u.s. just a really great opportunity to look at the composition of earnings, the drivers of earnings married with valuations and when you look over medium period of time, global rebalancing we think is in order. that includes tech. >> thank you for joining us on this market. when we come back apple holding its worldwide developing conference. we'll get a live report. president kicks off infrastructure week with an event at the white house. we'll bring that to you live when "squawk alley" continues. f any company. but "yes" is here. you're saying the new app will go live monday? yeah. with help from hpe, we can finally work the way we want to. with the right mix of hybrid it, everything computes.
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and add phone and tv for only $34.90 more a month. call today. comcast business. built for business. apple is kicking off its worldwide developers conference. josh lipton is covering it all. >> reporter: when apple ceo tim cook takes the stage here in just about two hours he'll be looking to excite more than 5,000 developers who are going to be right behind me here today. cook wants those programmers creating apps for his products and services not the competition so he's likely today to unveil new versions of i had operating systems including a new version for ios. that mobile operating system is a distant second to android when it comes to market share. but developers care about the money they can make. apple said developers have
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earned more than $70 billion since the app store launch in 2008 and downloads have grown over 70 administers. gene munster is looking about the new iphone, signs of new features. excitement about that new iphone is what's helped drive apple stock up almost 30% this year. there are skeptics. apple was just downgraded arguing upside for iphone 8 is priced in. in terms of software we'll look for hardware updates, updates to that laptop lineup as well as a smart speaker. apple will take on amazon and google. apple would bring advantages to that fight including a huge global installed base nearly 500 retail stores all around the world and of course one big marketing budget. guys, back to you.
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>> absolutely. josh, thank you for that. for more on this let's bring in executive editor karen swisher and an early apple employee. guys, good morning to you. we're going into this conference, coming out of the code conference last week. i wonder if you feel that apple was not the talk of code the way it has been in years past and whether or not this conference might change that? >> well, you know, they were not the talk. we did invite them. the problem they have is timing. a lot of their stuff is being kmunsed the week after code. we're hoping to get them back next year but it's always an issue because wwc is a week after code. it was interesting that not a lot of people did mention them on the stage. it wasn't part of the topic. more political. had some other stuff going on. i think it will be exciting the stuff they are announcing, software updates getting ready for the new iphone will be interesting whether they come
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out with a new assistant, you know, to compete with amazon, alexa and google device. there will be a lot of meat to chew on. >> bruce, i'm of the opinion that this is the most important day of the year for apple investors especially as apple pivots towards focusing on growth in services. that's a lot of what this conference is going to be about. what is your take particularly on this area of voice and voice assistance where apple is perceived to be behind or i shoult point out nobody's voice assistant is making them any per septemb -- amount of money at this point. >> what investors need to understand about apple's strategy there's an easy way and difficult way to do ai. others have done the easy way. that's to amazz personal identifiable information centrally that their computer can crunch on. apple is doing a much more
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difficult route which is to not have personally identifiable information. this technology came later. apple has been snapping up the leading companies in the world on this. so i think you're going to see a real growth curve in series capabilities, but it's probably not going to happen today, it's going to happen over the next year or so. but it will change things remarkably. >> carra, do you think it's important for apple to introduce new hardware today or more important for them to make the case versus the likes of google and amazon that have been pushing so hard on this artificial intelligence. >> a lot of people in the market feel they are late. if they come within a fantastic device that's better than anybody else great that's terrific. there's the perception siri has
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been left behind, left behind with these devices both google and amazon are advertising heavily, getting people used to the devices. might be harder to get into the market. if they come out with an astonishing amazing leap that's the story but in this area both google, amend and facebook are investing heavily in ai. so it's a really competitive area. not something that necessarily apple can come and sweep up the way they have in the past on other things. we'll see. we'll have to see. i think most people are anticipating a device or some sort of device and because it's apple it's got to be a device that fits in with their eco system. we'll see what they turn out and then they will obviously do updates of all the various operating systems that they are working on and that will be interesting to see how they will iterate the app based interface that they've had for so many years. >> it's also a good time just to
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take stock of apple's winning ways. it's been one of the best performers on the dow so far this year. there's always a bears case and bull case. most analysts are bullish. where do you fall down? there was a lot of talk that $250 billion in cash would be good if we get repatriation. buying back stock and they still are dominating the premium smartphone category ahead of the big 8 launch and then the bears saying it's priced in, expectations are too high. you know the argument. their ai and chasing amazon. where do you fall down. >> apple is clearly the world leader in making beautiful products that people want to buy. where they have slipped since the death of steve jobs is in making products that are beautiful to use and that are efficient and powerful.
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we've seen tim cook wake up to this and start talking about turning out a mac prothat's useful. they have consistently been stripping important capabilities out of their operating system to make i want appear simpler. they've gotten the feedback on the mac prothat pros want, profeatures not cutesy features. they've gone to making everything so openly thin you have one port and you walk around with a satchel of hubs and wires and when the whole thing is set up it looks completely ugly not like that beautiful thing they bought in the showroom. i'm going to be watching to see whether apple has caught on to this, going back to the twin focus of both beautiful to sell as well as beautiful to use.
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>> an excellent point. finally on the phone, you know, we did have a discussion, john and i myself with some guests about essential, and what it says that someone can come within a couple hundred engineers, create this phone, if the u.s. is in for our own, if that's what the layer of innovation can come on top of apple's bed of innovation if that's true what does it say about apple? >> i think they are talking about the creator of android so he does have a little leg up on these kinds of things. he does have a reputation and history. not everybody is a creator of android. yeah. of course. it will be interesting to see where phones go if they become these disposable devices or if anybody can just get into it and create one. you know it's going to be an interesting time for phones because you wonder and i think several people discuss this if that's the interface the next 20 years and you can think of all kinds of interfaces going forward in glasses, in all kinds
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of ways and we'll see where it heads. but the phones are probably peak phone right now and then we'll wonder what the device likes as you move forward whether it's in the ear or eye or whatever. >> just a few hours until some of these headlines start popping. guys thanks for helping us set it up. good to see you as always. >> straight ahead we're awaiting president trump's comments from the white house on his $1 trillion investment plan. we'll bring that to you live. "squawk alley" will be back in a moment.
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dow has been in a 10 point range really for about an hour. we'll see if that changes. >> down day for europe in stocks. but we are kicking off a very busy week on the other side of the atlantic. a number of smashts are closed today for a public holiday including germany which hit a record closing high on friday. keep in mind blackrock put out a
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very interesting note saying going along european stocks has quickly become a consensus trade but they still see there being more room to run for european equities. the firm expecting a dovish tone at thursday's europe's smacentr bank. morgan stanley calling the bank to go higher by 2019 what it calls political stability. staying on top of the currencies uk pound up 1.29 recouping losses in the wake of the london terror attacks and with parliament elections just three days away. lastly here's the stock on our radar. the spanish bank, banco popular
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stocks continue to tumble. down 16% today. down almost 50% over the past one week. >> ouch. a reminder there are still some problems. thank you. let's sends it out to sue herrera. >> reporter: here's what's happening. five people have been killed following a work lays shooting this morning in an industrial area near orlando, florida. the gunman then killed himself. the orlando sheriff says the gunman was a disgruntsled former employee of an rv accessory company. there's no indication he had any terror ties. british prime minister theresa may discussing the london attack today after chairing a special cabinet emergency meeting. >> the police have identified all three of the attackers and when progress in the investigation end we'll release the names. 11 individuals are being held in police custody.
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>> reporter: the supreme court agreeing to hear a major case on privacy rights in the digital age. it will determine whether police officers need warrants to access past cell phone location information kept by the wireless carriers. that's the news update at this hour. back downtown to you, sara. >> one to watch. straight ahead, we're awaiting comments from president trump at the white house. this week he's unveiling a new trillion dollar infrastructure campaign. he is set to talk about air traffic control. we'll take you there live when "squawk alley" returns. [vo] when it comes to investing,
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live pictures here. the president expected to begin unveiling the contours of his infrastructure plan this week beginning with air traffic control as we wait that joining us on phone former american airlines ceo bob crandall joins us along with eamon javers and phil lebeau to talk infrastructure and transportation. guys good morning to all of you. bob we've had you on the phone in the past few months talking about this prospect. are you a fan? >> absolutely. this is something most of the other advanced countries in the world have done long since. we are lagging badly behind. and i really do hope the president is going to come out and endorse the bill which will create an air aviation service
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provider nonprofit independent activity that will actually manage the air traffic control system. and it will finance itself by charging fees to the airplanes that fly around in the country. and at the same time we'll be able to sell bonds so it will be able to finance itself long term. a huge improvement and accelerate the introduction avenue air traffic control system vastly over what has been able to happen up to now. so i'm very hopeful. >> so, phil, can you just lay out what we are expecting the privatization of air traffic control functions of the faa. what it means for ordinary travellers, what does it mean for the airlines to back this kind of proposal before? >> right. bob laid it out pretty well. bob you can join me after i finish it. let me set it up in a general sense. what you're looking for, you'll have the air traffic control responsibilities which is part of the faa right now pulled out
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of the faa, it will be a separate -- it will be a private entity so to speak but you'll have a 13 member board that will oversee all of the air traffic control operations. they will be able to be in charge of manage what the equipment is that needs be put into not only different airports but the airlines as well. a number of these aircraft already have the updated equipment. but that's the key here and for the flying public the idea is that you should have a more efficient operation not only in terms of adding technology but easing congestion and ultimately that would, should in theory mean you'll have fewer delays, especially in your bigger congested areas like new york, los angeles, dallas at times, chicago, and ultimately the system will run smoother. bob, would you agree? >> yes, absolutely. i think all of those things are
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true. i would emphasize this will be a nonprofit thing. nobody is going to make any money on it. thus, the improved performance that will flow from this will directly benefit the public as he says. we're going to get a lot more capacity in the air traffic control system, there will be fewer delays, more flights. it's going to be -- i mean this change will make some very, very profound and favorable improvements in the air traffic control system and the airline system. that's what the public cares about is more seats and more on time and cheaper. >> eamon javers, infrastructure is one of the big bipartisan items on the president's agenda, everybody seems to agree that we need infrastructure in problems. but given the president's low approval ratings of late and the contentious relationship with
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democrats how does this look? >> reporter: not clear the president will have the votes to pass all of this or any of this. one is a sense of what we'll see over the next few minutes and privately a sense of the legislative strategy of this white house over the next couple of months. over the next couple of minutes the white house has just given us a scheduling hiccup. we planned on seeing the president at 11:30 east coast time in to announce this piece. they changed that up. we'll see a signing ceremony in the oval office, the president will sign a letter to congress laying out his idea here on air traffic control. then he's going to go over to the east room and then he'll do the public event. that's why you're seeing a little bit of a delay. now over the next couple of months in terms of the strategy going forward white house officials just briefing us including one of the top officials inside the white house on this effort say that they are breaking out this air traffic control piece as a separate rifle shot proposal that they
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think can move on a separate track legislatively. then they say there will be a larger infrastructure package the package the trump white house has been talking about all year long. they still hope to have that piece done by the end of the year and they think only the air traffic control piece will be broken out as a separate item the rest of all of the ideas they come up with are going to be in that package later on this year. i asked them so why is the white house doing infrastructure week this week if it doesn't have an infrastructure bill or plan to sell up on capitol hill with some specifics in it. they said this is all part of drumming up attention for this issue, gathering ideas for what they want to do on infrastructure, making sure they have as much sort of bipartisan buy in as they can get before they move that larger package later in the year. we don't know what's in it or what direction the administration will take overall in the larger package. >> we're used to getting some headlines and than fill
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afterwards. we're watching some pictures on the left side of your screen, east room as people begin filing in. you mentioned the nonprofit of all of this. larry summers, frequent critic of this white house earlier today said that structure, the causy public structure reminds him of the post office or reminds him of amtrak, institutions that he argues are not popular with americans. are you worried about atc falling into a similar bucket? >> i don't know. larry, i suppose, has a negative for everything. if you look for the down side you can find them. the reality is some 55 or 56 other countries have done this. kentucky just to our north has an air traffic control system that's so much ahead of ours that our pilots often comment on it when they move frus air space to canadian air space. >> is that true >> yes. that's absolutely true. i think the reality is that
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other countries have shown us how to do this. this is something we absolutely have to do. unless we simply want to let the air traffic system fall even further behind world standards. we got to have a system that's self-financing. we got to have a system that can govern itself, that is govern with the users of the system, the airlines private aviation everybody have an input and we have to have a system that's capable of hiring people that will put in place the new technologies way faster than the faa has been able to do. so this is an important step forward. a very important step. >> carl, can i give you another update on the schedule. >> yeah, go ahead. >> reporter: just as i was giving you that plan for the president to do the signing in to value office and then move to the east room the white house has told the press pool that they are changing up that plan and the president will go the east room directly sign his the
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letter and then participate in the rest of the event here. so some fluid dynamics here in term of the schedule and the plan on the part of the white house but nonetheless they view this as the beginning of the process for the rest week where they highlight infrastructure more broadly. travel the country. talk about waterway, roads, bridges. this one they say was low-hanging fruit. that's why they wanted to do that first. >> good thing we have that shot. we're glued to it. phil, where is the airline industry on all of this and what are their expectations in terms of changes they would make and infrastructure package in general from this trump administration? >> in terms of -- >> go ahead, phil. that was phil lebeau, bob. >> sorry. >> the industry is very much in favor of this. now delta did express some concerns and reservations a couple of months ago. i got a call in to see if they
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still have those reservations regarding the upgrade of the air traffic control system. generally speaking they believe this will make for a much more efficient movement of aircraft in the united states. if you talk with the airlines, the number one issue that they have in terms of taking that next step, in terms of providing service, expanding service, it is congestion. it is how do we move our aircraft as efficiently as possible not only in the air but also on the ground when they are at airports. some they can control at the airports by working with individual airports but in terms of in the air a lot of that has to go back to the air traffic control system. so they are in favor of this. where you might see some resistance is from general aviation who says look we don't have many of our owners of private aircraft may not have the updated equipment. it's going a cost to them. the administration in a briefing that we were on twin last hour said look we're going to be
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working with general aviation to make sure that they can upgrade their equipment as well and not just flipping a switch. it will take several years for this implementation of privatizing or making a nonprofit entity in charge of air traffic control. it will take at least three years for this to happen. >> you see jared kushner on the left-hand side of your screen as people filter in. improving on time performance. has work been done on percentage improvement of on time arrivals or departures or what it would do to a slot at an airport. how many more planes you could squeeze into a landing strip over a certain amount of time? >> there has been some work done. the foundation has published a number of papers on this subject. i can't quote you from memory the percentage improvements but they are substantial and when you compare what happens in canada with what happens in the
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united states the results are dramatic with that. >> i hope you'll stick around bob. we'll take a short break and hope to see the president on the other side. stick with us. we're back in a moment. kept my phone everything on it , oh, they even paid it off! wow! yeah, it's nice that every bad decision doesn't have to be permanent! now you can ditch verizon but keep your phone. we'll even pay it off when you switch to t-mobile. i've got a nice long life ahead. big plans. so when i found out medicare doesn't pay all my medical expenses, i looked at my options. then i got a medicare supplement insurance plan. [ male announcer ] if you're eligible for medicare, you may know it only covers about 80%
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phil lebeau and eamon javers. for a long time since the inauguration infrastructure has been considered a truly bipartisan issue if we have any at all. and i wonder if that's still true. >> reporter: i don't know if there are any bipartisan issues left in washington, carl. this town is so divided it reflects the country that's bitterly divided. if you're a democratic on capitol hill you have incentive to drag your feet and not let this administration get any wind. on infrastructure they say they will have it done by the end of the year but not clear whether that is doable in term of the legislative calendar because there's so few legislative days left in the year. you just saw a picture of jared kushner shaking hands with bill shutter, congressman from pennsylvania, chairman of the house transportation committee and the white house cites him as one of their key influences in terms of breaking out this air
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traffic control piece. they say that because chairman shutter did such a good job of putting together this proposal they are willing to move this on a separate track and that might be sort of more of what we see from the trump administration going forward is breaking out these smaller and smaller pieces rather than the massive trillion dollar idea you heard them talking about at the beginning of the year, you might see them shift to these more doable pebss that might have more support although not necessarily clear air traffic control piece has bipartisan support that can pass on capitol hill. >> we are told the president will come in to the east room momentarily. this infrastructure week, is the white house counter programming the comey testimony on thursday? >> reporter: they are going to see these duelling headlines all week. white house wants to talk about infrastructure, wants to talk about something that's bipartisan. you'll see james comey former fbi director fired by fortunate testifying on thursday up on capitol hill. that is going to be among the
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most watched spectacles we've seen in american politics for a long time because he'll be able to tell very personal stories about what happened in conversations between him and the president of the united states and whether the president of the united states in james comey's view was trying to slow down or block the investigation into russian interference in the 2016 election. that's going some intense stuff and will produce a lot of headlines. the white house wants to talk about infrastructure, they want to dominate the agenda with this piece. not clear they can do it towards the end of the week, though. >> we are expecting the president any moment but keep us honest here. why does it seem that this white house is ready, fire aim when it comes to these proposals whether it's the travel ban or tax reform. is this similar to what we've seen in the past or are they giving less detail up front? >> reporter: they are just not following standard political practice and that's a good thing or a bad thing depending on your perspective. certainly what the president's voter voted for.
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that he wanted disrupt engineer and somebody come in here and shake this town up. president trump has done that. but he's doing things that political advisers would tell you not to do. so if today monday is your day to focus on infrastructure and faa and air traffic control don't go out and tweet about the travel ban first thing in the morning and shift attention towards the travel ban issue. stay on message is what the political class would tell this white house but this is a president who very much wants to do his own thing. he says what he thinks and he says it when he thinks it and we get a strands parent insight into what's on the president's mind. it's not necessarily the same message of the day that the professional white house staff is trying to push in terms of infrastructure. so you got this push-pull going on between the president and his own staff here who are trying to set up some momentum here for a legislative push that they expect to do later in the year.
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>> bob, as someone who has been waiting for an issue like this to get any president's attention for a while your disappointed in the timing. is it like a long time to host a party and when it finally comes it rains? >> i'm just happy to see it happen. we've been working on this since al gore's time and there's a lot of years in between. so the fact of the matter is if he's willing to do this, chooses to endorse this plan, then shutter's plan has some reasonable levels of bipartisan support on both sides of the aisle in congress. if the president endorses it my guess is we can get it done. >> what's the argument against it, phil? >> the argument against it? >> yeah. >> you say you'll be able to lower the cost but can you because you'll have user fees and if you have this nonprivate or nonprofit entity running this
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will they truly -- will the cost actually come down ultimately for the traveller which is one of the arguments you hear from the white house and supporters of this and you also hear from general aviation manufacturers as well as operators saying if we have to upgrade our equipment then our costs aren't coming down. those are the two primary arguments that are out there. in terms of the actual system out there there's nobody out there that believes our currents air traffic control is an efficient model. >> i would say so. the last several people that have run the existing system, the lafst administrator are all in favor of that. >> they will be there today. they are bringing out former faa operating officers, chief operating officers to say yes it needs to be replaced. >> that's right. >> bob, go ahead.
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>> i say that's right. the fact is we directed everybody, the controllers are in favor of this. i mean everybody says we want fewer federal employees. okay. pass this bill and you got fewer frl federal flows because now, they're working for a non-profit private enterprise. >> as we zoom in on the faces of ivanka trump, of course, daughter of president trump and son-in-law, jared kushner, again, we're talk about this plan where president trump, we are awaiting him to address the east room of the white house imminently. plans to privatize the air traffic control function of the faa. part of the whole infrastructure spending push. eamon still with us on the phone. is is infrastructure something that republicans can all get around? is this one of those issues where there are intraparty splits or are they banking on
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democrats? >> absolutely, republicans can get involved in infrastructure. where you're going to see them breaking off though is on the issue of deficit spepding. they're weary of big government, of debt and deficit, so if you're fpsing a trillion dollar infrastructure package by running up the definite, that's not going to fly among conservatives on capitol hill. one of the things the administration is using as a sell for this idea, they say there are going to be no tax dollars involved in making this transition. they say that is one of the reasons why republicans in particular up on capitol hill can get behind this idea because it won't be big government. it will be b eliminated, taking those folks out of the government. also no taxpayer dollars involved, no big federal spending. that will appeal to republicans. >> yeah, it's a good point, eamon and it's been written about a lot over the weekend. gary kohn dringing this template to the white house in the early days. one of the reasons he ended up getting the job he has right now.
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bob, you haven't been necessarily a cheerleader for this white house, but does this plan and maybe kohn specifically or some combination of both make you hearten you in some way? >> of course, no, i'm not a cheerlead er for this white house. i'm way left of where the p president is. where most of the congress is at the moment. but that's neither then. this is a good idea, so whether you're left, this hasn't got tiger nig to do with the left or right. this is a matter of make iing t united states air traffic control system worldwide competitive. and you proimprove ining the aim of the united states, both of which republicans an democrats can agree, this is a very important part of the u.s. economy. it's literally does support jobs. if we can get a better system, it will allow the airlines to operate more flights and do so more on time and save money and
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reduce the number of federal employees. that sounds to me like a no brainer of all time. >> as we await the president, john harwood with us now to join the conversation. you've been looking at the agenda and context of everything going on in washington. if the president wanted to shift the message this week to infrastructure and starting with this announcement on the faa, at least we are talking about it. do you think it will work. >> no. i think the president can have a modest effect on drawing attention to this issue. but especially just like he doesn't have a tax plan, the senate doesn't have a health plan, as eamon pointed out, james comey is going to testify on an issue of grave importance to the future of his presidency. that on top of the fact that the
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president himself sees the attention this morning by saying some shocking things, really. in the wake of the terror attack in london. attacking the mayor of london. attacking his own justice department. attacking the courts. this is a president who is not showing command of the situation. i think everybody needs to wake up to the possibility that there is a chance we will get to the end of 2017. we will not have a health plan. we will not have a tax plan or an infrastructure plan enacted into law. i'm not predicting that, but there's a decent chance that will be the result giffin all that's going on, the looming debt crisis, budget problems, et cetera. >> there is a lot going on. john harwood, thank you. bob crandell, phil lebeau, as we await these remark frs the president. also point out what's happen ng the markets.
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seeing a minor fractional decline. major averaging pulling back from record highs where they lapded on friday. again, the nasdaq has turned negative. down less than two tenths of a point. we'll be right back and take you live to the white house. 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.
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we are taking the president in a couple of minutes. he'll talk infrastructure and more specifically, air traffic control. gary kohn walking in the room. >> there's mike pence. >> vice president, yes. elaine chow with him of course, the transportation secretary, who made some comments in the past couple of days about traffic control being literally used with vacuum tubes ch here's the vice president. >> mccarthy. chairman bill shooser. senator ted cruz, distinguished members of congress, honored guests. on behalf of the first family, welcome to the white house. and thanks to the leadership of president donald trump, welcome to the beginning of a new era for american infrastructure.
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you know, since the first day of this administration, worked tirelessly to keep the promises he made to the xhern people. our president's been putting jobs first. rolling back excess ive regulations, unleashing energy, ending unfair trade practices an working on repealing and replacing obamacare and thanks to donald trump, america is back. american businesses are growing and investing in america. more than 600,000 private sector jobs have been created under this president's leadership and unemployment hasn't been this low for 16 years. but if you haven't noticed -- >> we will continue to monitor the vice president along with the transportation secretary as we await president trump set to
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make some announcements here on infrastructure. specifically related to the faa. privatizing some parts of it if for air traffic control to try to make it work better. more of a non-profit type system like other countries have. we'll continue to monitor the headlines if for you and that does it for us here. we'll turn it over to the halftime report and scott wapner as we watch the white house. >> all right, thank you very much. that is vice president pence speaking of course with elaine chow. the transportation secretary there as well. as this usually goes, it will be b the vice president we would expect to introduce president trump. we expect to appear in the east room of the white house, sign a letter to congress about the privatization of air traffic control, then make some comments regarding that and probably more broadly, on his infrastructure plans, eamon is in the room i believe

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