tv Power Lunch CNBC June 8, 2017 1:00pm-3:01pm EDT
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do i think russians are running america, no, i don't think that either. so the vxx tells me what i need to know. the market doesn't care. i got nothing back for it. there's no volatility here. and it's starting to get boring because i can't find anybody watching it anymore and i have 7,000 invest rs here in boston. >> well, we are certainly watching what the market is doing today in the context of what just happened on capitol hill. thanks to all of you for watching. i'll send it over to "power lunch" for now. fireworks on capitol hill as comey comes out swinging. taking aggressive memos of conversations with trump because he was afraid the president would lie about what they talked about. it is a bomb shell. but did anything come out of that hearing that could lead to further investigation and possibly a charge of obstruction of justice against the president? hello, everybody, i'm brian sullivan. it's a very important news day for america, for the world and for the markets. the comey hearing, though, not the only news topping your cnbc headlines. uk election a major retailer potentially being taken private.
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and big bets against one of the most well-known tech companies out all also all matter to you and your money and we hit it all as "power lunch" begins right now. ♪ welcome to "power lunch," i'm melissa lee. let's look at the markets right now. dow and nasdaq hitting all-time highs during the comey testimony. take a look at the vxx right now. take a look at that below 10, 9.93. financials leaving the markets today this on the back of the house vote of overhaul of dodd-frank. jp morgan, bank of america, goldman sachs among the top performers. and take a look at some of the names hitting all-time highs today, netflix, united health, fed ex, ebay. >> thank you. well, we begin where else with the political drama in washington, d.c. aimen jaifrs like millions of others listening on every single word of the fascinating comey hearing and he joins us with reaction and an update.
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>> that's right. there were a number of astonishing moments. let me bring you two of those. one was when the former fbi director used the l word which you rarely hear in plit washington discourse about the president of the united states. he said the president might lie. here is what the former director of the fbi had to say -- >> i was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting, so i thought it really important to document. that combination of things i never experienced before, but it led me to believe i got to write it down and got to write it down in a very detailed way. >> comey there saying because he left the meeting with the president feeling concerned about the meeting, concerned the president might lie about it, that's when he began his process of memorializing every single interaction he had with the president whether it was on the phone or in person. comey also saying here is something else i never really heard any washington official do admitting that he orchestrated a leak through a third party to the media. here is what comey had to say about how he got a copy of his
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memo out to the media. >> president tweeted on friday after i got fired that i better hope there's not tapes. i woke up in the middle of night on monday night because it didn't dawn on me originally that there might be corroboration for our conversation, there might be a tape. and my judgment was, i needed to get that out into the public square. so i asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with the reporter. didn't do it myself for a variety of reasons, but i asked him to because i thought that might prompt the appointment of a special council. >> so, that admission there comey saying he deliberately orchestrated the leak in order to prompt the appointment of a special council and it was all in response to the president's tweet about potentially having tapes of comey. comey saying in the hearing today that he hopes there are tapes and he hopes that those will be released. he says his feelings won't be hurt if he feels the president was secretly taping him. we'll see how the white house responds to that if they do admit there is a tapings system
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of some kind or they were recorded in some way. until now, they haven't been willing to acknowledge one way or the other anything about that tweet that the president made which now turns out to have been very consequential because it prompted comey to initiate the leak which ultimately as we know led to appointment of a special council. >> we now know that that leak was done to daniel richman a special adviser to comey. he admitted that when he was approached. yes, i was the one who leaked it to "the new york times." but let's not forget, there is another hearing. there's a 1:00 p.m. right now a closed door hearing in a specially toward the end of the comey public hearing comey said a number of times, these are not things he could discuss in an open forrum. what, if anything, do we know about what will be discussed in the closed door session? >> reporter: well, comey gave us a couple of bread crumbs to follow throughout the course of the hearing. on one occasion he said he knew something classified about attorney general jeff sessions he couldn't reveal in open session but that classified information led him to believe
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that the attorney general was not going to continue on as part of the russia investigation and, in fact, we know that the attorney general later recused himself. i imagine that would come up along with a whole series of other conversations about what exactly comey knew about this russia situation and when he knew it. >> all this seems to point to the notion that perhaps there is not an obstruction of justice case to even be made. if comey is releasing the memo to get to the press because he wants a prompt the appointment of a special council, then it seems like if he thought there were charges of obstruction of justice that could be brought he would have gone that route. >> reporter: well, i don't know. i mean, he might not have been finished with his investigation. he certainly felt after he was fired that the firing itself could play a role in this and whether the president's state of mind as he fired comey, why did he do it? did he do it to shut down the russian investigation? could that be part of a broader case a prosecutor might make of obstruction of justice. what comey said in the hearing today was the question of
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whether this was a obstruction of justice, whether it was a crime for the president to do this will be up to the special counsel. we'll see where that lands as well. >> thank you. now let's go to capitol hill following the aftermath of comey's testimony. ylan? >> reporter: guys, we just saw comey leave the hearing room right over my shoulder here and make his way toward that second closed door session that he'll be having with lawmakers in just a few minutes. now, this was a packed hearing where people waited for hours to get in. one of the people attending was preet ba har ra. and i spoke with him very briefly about why he is. he told me that it is, quote, a matter of great public interest. and of course he had been live tweeting portions of that hearing saying that some of the president's decisions sounded wrong and that they were not the right thing to do. now, certainly comey received praise from both republicans and democrats during the hearing for
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his integrity and for his service, but republicans did press him, john mccain brought up the hillary clinton e-mail investigation saying that perhaps there's a double standard in how the fbi conducts these investigations separately, how speaker paul ryan appeared to defend the trump administration by saying that the president is, quote, new at this and that he is not familiar with the protocols of washington. we'll bring you more as we have it from the lawmakers, guys. ylan in washington, thank you very much. we are also waiting for a statement from president trump's personal attorney. as soon as that comes out, we will take it live the moment that it begins. let's bring in now chris sweker, former fbi assistant direct r and john carlin, former attorney general for the u.s. department of justices national security division. john, many headlines coming out of the comey hearing but perhaps only one thing ultimately matters. in your opinion, did the former fbi director say anything that could imply the president might be investigated or even indicted
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for obstruction of justice into an fbi investigation? >> so i think what you have to realize is what obstruction mean. so the definition of obstruction of justice is that someone with corrupt intent decides to interfere or impede an election. and what we have here is testimony that the president of the united states had a private meeting with the director of the fbi and that in the private meeting with the director of the fbi he pressured him to drop the investigation of michael flynn. then there's testimony about a lot of other surrounding circumstances. so at the end of day, this isn't probably going to be a decision that's ever decided by a criminal prosecutor because there's -- department of justice guidance that says you can't indict a sitting president. that means it's going to go back to congress. if they believe that the director of the fbi was fired
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because the president didn't like and wanted to influence the way he was doing an investigation into russia and you have certain statements to that effect and the flynn conversation, then that could rise to the level of an impeachable offense and that will be up to the members of congress ultimately to determine. >> yeah. because there's a couple applicable statutes here, seems to apply the most and that is based the outlines objection threats against agencies or departments. there's a key here, don't want to go too far into the legal weeds here, the key is whether somebody corruptly or any threatening or letter or communication influences obstructs or impedes or endeavors to influence any kind of an investigation may be subject. here is the key, if i say to you, john, with regards to the flynn investigation, let it go. if i say to you, let it go. the same words different mental purpose. if we don't get any of those alleged trump tapes, do you believe we will ever know how
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this was actually said? because that could go directly to intent and purpose for the conversation. >> i think you need to look more broadly than just that conversation, right? so as a prosecutor what you would look at is all the surrounding circumstances. in that sense, the private meeting that was had inside the white house, the one on one meeting with the loyalty request. then the meeting where his superior was ordered out of the room f there's corroboration that event took place and one on one meeting between the president and the director of the fbi that's contemporaneously recorded. then you have the fact that there are at least two other occasions where the president requests to remove the clouds surrounding the russian investigation and ultimately the director of the fbi is fired and after he's fired the president says that one of the reasons for firing him was because of the russia thing, when you put that all together, that will be the type of total facts that you
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look at. and the question will be for congress to decide was -- and what do the american people think, did the president fire director comey because he wasn't happy with the way the russia investigation was going. if that's the case, that's the definition of obstruction. >> and chris, we'll get to you in just a moment. john, just to go down this legal route, who else could be called in order to establish corrupt intent in all the circumstances that you described are very interesting and could add the context to it, but they are circumstances. how do we actually prove that there was corrupt intent on the part of the president? who else could be called? >> you would have to look at what other -- you do a full investigation and see if there are other conversations that either the president had with his sub ord nants he made clear what his intent was and whether or not he did or didn't want to interfere with this -- with this investigation. you have the president's own statements because he's tweeted about it that that was -- sorry he said -- both tweeted about it and said it in a live interview.
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so that would go to intent as well. and there may be other circumstances that have to do with who was under investigation at the time and how the president was informed about those. that will come out through the special council investigation. >> chris, you can probably imagine what it might be like to be in comey's shoes. given what we've heard from the testimony, the sorts of meetings and things that were said to him and the things he said to the president, what what's your interpretation of these events? >> yeah, the thing that disturbs me the most is that the head of the fbi, a guy who essentially has spent at least half his career in prosecutions and with the fbi did -- if he felt like some type of predication existed to open an investigation for obstruction, either he or his executives that were aware of these interactions should have made a referral, the head of the criminal division position i once held of the fbi or over to the department of justice albeit
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not the attorney general who they felt like was about to recuse himself any way, but there's a process in place for this under the attorney general guidelines that he knows, former director comey knows and agents know and justice department attorneys know. if there's sufficient facts of predications to open an investigation, you make a referral and you open up at least a prelim narp inquiry, which is a very lobar. a full investigation takes a little more. >> comey, though, chris admitted basically. he said that he was not strong enough. that effectively implied that he was afraid because it was the president. >> yeah. unfortunately -- i mean, i know former director comey. he is absolutely 100% honest. he's candid. he is speaking from the heart. but what i saw through all those interactions that he documented was a man who wanted to keep his job. we see it in corporate america, something wrong is happening, people inside the corporation want to blow the whistle or do something about it, but they're overwhelmed by the power of the ceo. and in this case, i feel like he
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sort of fell in line and documented it as sort of a cya exercise. i admire former director comey, worked with him over the years, but i just think he had a human weakness here that he was a man that really wanted to keep his job. >> and i'm sure -- >> one thing that did come out -- >> many people in his pox would want to keep their job as well. but at this point, that doesn't change the fact or the facts, the interactions and obstruction of justice case could still be brought regardless of whether or not he wanted to fall in line at the moment and regardless of why he's bringing up at this point. what's your opinion on that given the interactions that you've read about? >> i think one of the revelations from his testimony, which i had a question mark about, was whether the special council was going to look at this, or whether he was going to stay within the parameters of the russian collusion investigation. that question was answered today. the special council former director mueller is looking at this issue.
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yes, it could lead to a potential obstruction charge or investigation any way as it was just pointed out the president may have some type of immunity. but, you know, even impeachment has to be based on high crimes or misdemeanors, so there has to be some kind of violation here. i've worked with that obstruction statute over the years as head of the criminal division. it's a very difficult statute to work with. >> it is very vague, very sort of broad. there's actually 1503, 1505 and 1515 -- >> 1512. >> and 15112. i want to go back to something else, chris, that probably won't get the attention because the attention will be on the sitting president which is james comey also admitted that acting attorney general or then attorney general loretta lynch pressured him to change his language when he called the e-mail investigation for hillary clinton an investigation and that lynch asked him to change the word to a matter rather than an investigation. comey admitted that, quote, made him queasy. in your experience of the fbi,
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how common is it that high level politicians, whether it be president trump or an attorney general of the united states is having these kinds of conversations with the nation's highest law enforcement official? >> well, more so the attorney general than the president of the united states because technically the fbi director reports to the deputy attorney general, so there's a line of report -- or authority there that we always respect when i was with the bureau. he clearly stepped outside his boundaries when he made a prosecutive decision in essence and then talked about it publicly. so, you know, there's a lot of things -- you can quibble about a lot of things, but his judgment was off in several different parts of that investigation of clinton -- the clinton e-mails. and then subsequently he got stuck with his own -- you know, with his own -- the things that he had already laid in place which was i'll confirm some investigations but i won't confirm others.
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and it looked like he was being very selective about that. >> chris, appreciate your time. we'll leave it there. up next with the market is making of all the fireworks on the hill nmplt. as voters in the uk head to the polls what impact will this election have on markets around the world. could this be the start of a wave of retailers leaving the stock market? "power lunch" will be back in two.
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on a normal day, the election in england would top your headlines, but today anything from normal. still, don't lose sight of the big vote for the prime minister of the uk. the future of england ultimately leaving the eu may just be in question. willford frost is london as the uk heads to the ballot box. will fred? >> thanks, brian. yes, indeed the story of this election has really been one of a disappointing campaign by the prime minister theresa may. her poll lead when she announced the election a couple of months ago was as much as 20 points. it has slimmed. the ft poll of polls average now stands at an 8-point lead. but, even at eight points that is a pretty big lead on polling day itself by uk political standards. and should be enough for her to increase her working majority of 17.
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but, what if we got a surprise? what if she failed to do that? this is gold man sack's take. they say, either a tiny and hence politically compromised conservative majority or a hung parliament or a labour-led coalition would increase uncertainty, policy risk and most likely push down sterling. that view certainly tallies with what the pound has been doing this week. it has been rising as may as finally stopped the rot and seen her average poll lead increase in the last two days from six points to eight points. the exit polls, guys, out at 5:00 p.m. eastern time, all eyes on sterling at that point. >> absolutely. thank you so much, wilfred frost from london. any fears about the uk election has not stopped investors from investing in the region. they are out we are forming the s&p 500. so is your better money off overseas or in the u.s.? let's bring in jack and anastasia amaroso.
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good to see you both. jack, i'll kick it off with you. if you had to put money to work at this moment, and you had to choose, would it be europe or the u.s.? >> i would say europe. really just for a number of reasons fundamentally, europe is moving higher than the u.s. the purchasing manager's index pretty much across the board is higher than it is here at home. the currencies, euro and pound most notably are trading between 7 and 10% cheaper to the u.s. dollars. so you've got a currency benefit, but most importantly equity valuation, probably trading around 15, 1-5% discount to the u.s. and given the fact that the u.s. is pushing all-time highs and that europe is still more than 20% below it's all-time high suggests at least there's a little more room to run on the upside there. >> anastasia, would you also vote for europe in -- you're nodding your head yes, i guess
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so. >> i would indeed. but i would take it slightly different spin on the story and that is one of the things that jack mentioned is the currency benefit. but i would actually say the currency benefit has already sort of played out and the expointing sector of europe and the stocks have done very well from the earnings perspective. but what i look to capitalize on in europe is actually recovery in the domestic economy and recovery in the infrastructure and the cap x sector of the economy. that is something we have not seen for quite some time. u.s. has underinvested massively, but so has europe. you think of the environment today, you have earnings strongest in seven years and you have credit costs that are the lowest as many years at least. so that creates a very attractive environment for corporations to actually start investing some of that money and i think cap x and infrastructure names will be the beneficiaries of that. >> jack, what's your take on what's going on in the u.s. markets right now, the dow, the nasdaq hitting records highs in
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the today's, the vxx is below 10. seems like nothing d rattle this market. it's harder for the average investor to hear you say europe is the better place when they're seeing the markets domestically hit highs a after highs. >> true. so i think that this is -- it's a great story. in fact, i would argue that if i felt that the u.s. would decline, say, 5 or 10%, i'm not so sure i would be as big a fan of europe because they are closely linked. i believe my base case is that we get, you know, single digit gains out of the u.s. between now and the end of the year, but we get double digit gains overseas. so it is predicated on the direction of the u.s. we do need to continue to make incremental progress here at home. there are some concerns. the fact is that economic surprises right now are
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disappointing when you look at the economic data coming in based on where economists had forecast. >> anastasia, quickly do you think u.s. stocks are overvalued right now? >> i don't think they're overvalued, but earnings will need to continue to deliver. and i think for now we are still in a sweet spot for earnings -- for -- >> all right. i think we had a problem with the shot obviously, but our thanks to anastasia and jack. >> we say keep an answer short, that's what we mean, folks. that's what you get. >> she was short, concise. the bears are circling the snap stock. the lockup expiration nears down 16% over the past three months. a new note highlighting the companies slowing daily average growth, average user growth and saying they don't expect it to pick back up. let's bring in anthony, senior analyst. great to have you with us. >> hey, thanks for having me, me slay. >> the lockup is something we highlighted on fast money for
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weeks now. >> yeah. >> but now it's coming closer to the time and up to i believe it's 80% of the shares outstanding are eligible for sale or so. what do you think is going to happen? >> you know, it's interesting that the lockup comes before the quarter, so i think that there's going to be a lot of attention on the last data points and what's likely going to happen in the second quarter. and so, you know, we only have these app down load data points we track and according to our analysis we they the competition facebook and instagram are starting to really take share in terms of those new users. we think that snapchat is having a problem attracting and retaining new users. and so there may be a number of reasons for that, which we've talked about in our research and our report. look, i have a reduced rating on the stock. i think it's overvalued. i think it's a risky and speculative stock and the data is starting to bare that out and revenue is also at the same time for a number of reasons decelerating dramatically. i think there will be pressure
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on the stock to answer your question ahead and through the lockup, yes. >> how much pressure makes snap a buying opportunity? >> it's dramatically overvalued when you look at twitter which trades at roughly four times next year's sales and snap in at least closer to 12, right? my target price is 14. and i think that in order for me to buy the stock, you know, i would want it to be substantial discount to the 14. so, it's possible that there could be furts downside to this stock. >> it could be a single digit stock? >> i think it could be. on reasonable sort of -- >> just quickly, as a parent i'm going to ask this as well. what does snap offer that instagram and facebook don't besides sort of the veil of teenage anonymity? anything it values as a business proposition? >> the competitive eng in term of the product set the innovation the features whether it's lenses and filters and such was greater six months ago. i think that some of those product sets are being replicated by instagram and by
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facebook aggressively. and so if you're a teenager, if you're someone who is using social media, the difference between the two apps is getting sort of narrower and narrower, right? so that's the issue because you're starting to see distribution all your friends, all your contacts were already on instagram and so if the product is not much different to move off of facebook or instagram, there's less of a reason. there's less of sort of competitive mode for snapchat. >> i'm still thinking about the single digit stock notion. anthony, good to see you. thanks. even on a day like today we are not losing sight of the big-money stories that impact you. coming up, nordstrom may be going private. could this be the start of a new trend in retail as they try to stop the retail bleeding from their stock prices. we're still awaiting a statement from mark cass wits, the moment that begins we will bring it live. "power lunch" back in two minutes.
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♪ hi there, i have your cnbc news update. here is what's happening right now. ukrainian police say someone hurled an explosive device on the grounds of the u.s. embassy in kiev. no one got hurt. in a statement the embassy confirmed the exemployees and does not consider this a terrorist act. polling stations are open across britain today.
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british prime minister theresa may and opposition leader jeremy corbin cast their vote this morning. energy secretary rick perry is in beijing. he met with china's vice premier and other chinese officials. it's the first official meeting between china and the trump administration since trump's decision to pull the u.s. out of the paris climate accord. some new jersey police officers could get fired for the way they responded after a chase that ended in this fiery crash. an innocent victim sunday emerged with his clothes on fire, dropped to the ground, police converged on him and one kicked him. then they dragged him to the flames as you can see in the video. that man is in the hospital with severe injuries. prosecutors are looking into it. that's the cnbc news update at this hour. brian, back to you. >> thank you very much. straight ahead, more on the hearing that captured america's attention, including how some restaurant entrepreneurs are looking to capitalize. stick around. but first, get to the bond
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market and rick san telly who is tracking a bit of move in the bonds on the back of this hearing. rick? >> yeah, you know, it's really fascinating, brian, because when yields are moving down it was hard to peg anything to the story. and usually when there's a high drama you don't have to have a translator tell you what the high drama was. we all watch. make your own decisions. but rates did float up a bit, which is really fascinating. the market certainly has an opinion. you can see the intraday of tens. you can see it. look at intraday, they pretty much moved the same way. right around the beginning of that hearing was the high yield. look at it intraday dollar index, same pattern. we want to watch that and we're going to break. stay tuned as brian pointed out, president trump's personal lawyers going to be making a statement and we will bring it to you live when it happens. so don't touch that dial.
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with congressional staffers today. of course, watching the comey hearings like a senatorial super bowl. diana is looking at how washington's eateries are cashing in. hi, diana. >> hey, look, this is jaw's tavern near capitol hill, a residential neighborhood. earlier this week they posted on facebook that they would be opening two hours early and would have screens throughout the restaurant showing the testimony. well, over 600 people on facebook said they would attend. over 4,000 said they were interested. by 9:30 a.m. this morning they were lined up. the place was packed. now, you think about why people gather at a restaurant or a bar to watch an event, usually it's a big sporting event or it's election night. there's a lot of cheering. there are different teams. this was not the case. i have covered those events. this was absolute serious silence for the first hour of the testimony. people were wrapped. they were not talking to each other. they were watching. when we asked them why they chose to come here, they said that they saw this as a national
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historic event, and they simply didn't want to watch it alone. >> i just think this is a really unique moment to be in d.c. i definitely want to take advantage of the fact that i'm here sort of in the center of all of this craziness and enjoy it while doing so. >> i feel like this is history in the making. this is one of the most exciting things we've seen in politics, and i just did not want to miss it. >> because it's kind of like watching the world cup or something. it's more fun to watch it with a group of people better on the same team as you are than at home. >> and the restaurant did very well. they said over 500 people were served here this morning and two hours that they normally wouldn't be open. some other restaurants and bars did the same thing. there was a little fun. there was another restaurant that was saying that they would do free vodka shots for every trump tweet. i guess they didn't have to do any of that. here they did have the fbi burger that is fried chicken, bacon and iceberg lettuce.
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a lot of people ordered it. so that's everyone's gone now, though, and it was really quite an ent to watch these people so wrapped in attention. back to you guys. >> did all the drinks glasses come with a leak? >> reporter: i'm voir. we had an ambulance go by. >> not worth repeating. thank you very much. cue the ambulance. perfect. >> i thought it was funny. >> let's talk more about the comey testimony. former george w. bush aide and founder and editor of the weekly standard. bill, first to you. you noted today -- you tweeted this out -- there's a big difference between naive or foolish conduct by the president and criminal obstruction. from what you heard, is there anything that comey said that would take this matter from simply being a series of bad decisions by the president to one that could lead to an indictment. >> first of all, brian, that really was a bad joke i got to say. it's too bad -- but that's okay if that's what the cnbc audience likes. you have to give them mid-daybreak there of levity.
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>> it's been a serious day, bill. >> that's a good point. it's a serious moment. it was a very bad day with donald trump. i don't agree with his defenders who are heaving sighs of relief. we don't know there's a crime commit ord impeachable defense. we will know when robert mueller finishes his investigation. what we do know the incoming president of the united states behaved in a way that is not suitable for a president to behave. and it's pretty hard to have an innocent explanation of why he cared so much to have jim comey hurry over for a one on one dinner and why he kicked everyone out of the oval office to have a one on one meeting with james comey. so i think -- you don't know that there's a crime or impeachable offense. it makes it hard to have an innocent view of donald trump's voters here. >> i don't know if anybody does. i would agree with everything you said. even a lot of trump supporters would say, man, those are foolish things to do in getting everybody out of the room, but i would argue this, if we don't
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get any more information and absent any of these tapes that trump has famously tweeted an eluded to, do you think this goes any further? >> well, it may not go any further for quite a while, but bill is right. there is a special prosecutor now looking at this. one of the challenges and one of the things i think wasn't covered today was senator rich from idaho very effectively made the point that donald trump said he hoped the fbi director would stop the flynn investigation. and that was a good moment for trump. the problem is earlier in the testimony he said that he thought that bob mueller was, in fact, looking at obstruction of justice as a possibility. and so, what happens in these investigations is they have many tentacles and they often uncover other things. and that's the challenge for trump right now is that had he not engaged in this, this probably would have gone away. but now there's an independent
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investigator looking at all, you know, matters of this russian issue, including the flynn issue. >> bill, i know there's a lot we don't know yet and you acknowledge that as well, but what's your initial gut feel after this testimony that you've heard in the q&a session. does your view of the trump administration, the longevity, the effectiveness of the trump administration, has that changed based on what we heard today? >> i mean, it confirms my inclination to believe -- i don't know, who knows. my inclination is that he will not be a very effective president. any normal congressman watching this thought, whoa, i can have confidence as donald trump's judgment as president. let's just sign on to his agenda and defend him full throatedly. i don't think we're going to see that. longevity is another story. then you're talking impeachment and very high bar and very hard thing to impeach and convict. the overall narrative of the trump administration, guy who had trouble in the first five months, popularity, approval
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rating is high 30s, very low 40s, not getting legislation through. i think this was a damaging day. he is a guy who does not seem to understand what the office of the presidency is about. >> there's been some commentary that trump -- this was a good day for trump or that he came out ahead. there's no good day for trump. there's no good day for america, sara, would you agree when you have a live hearing from the former fbi director effectively saying he was so afraid the president was going to lie to him that he rushed out to his car. in no way is this any kind of a good day for anybody particularly the united states of america. but we have to move on. what do you think happens in the next weeks and months? does this heat up? or does this kind of fade away? >> well, i think a little bit of both, brian. i think it both heats up. you'll start to see white house staffers be interviewed. they'll have to lawyer up. there's possibility for subpoenas of records. that having worked in a white house where that happens, it has a detrimental effect on the day
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to day functioning of the building. and even the best administrations that are mostly organized and contain these things are impacted by them. this one is not as well organized. it seems to be consuming them at the moment. i think, though, bob mueller may take a long time for this investigation. we may get back to some normalcy on capitol hill. what trump really needs to do is turn his focus exclusively to tax reform, to health care reform and really stop tweeting, top causing these distractions in many ways we are sitting here today talking because he could not let this go with comey and thus a special prosecutor was appointed. >> sara, bill's point was that there's so much damage to this administration at this point that people aren't going to sign on the agenda. you saying you believe that could still work out? >> it's much harder. it's certainly much harder, but
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republicans do control it and it's in the republican party's interest -- control the congress and it's in the party's interest to get things done. there are other people on the ballot in 2018, the president isn't. so, it's in paul ryan's interest and mitch mcconnell's interest to make sure some things get done on capitol hill. and trump may be able to benefit from that politically a bit as time goes by, but it is. it's very tough to recover from these investigations. they typically don't happen this early in administration. >> yeah, bill f you're a 2018, your seat is up for grabs in 2018 as a republican, do you double down on the president or do you step away? >> i mean, i personally would step away just because i would like to see a republican party that isn't wed at the hips or joined at the hip to donald trump and republican party whose views and principals aren't trumpist, you know. that's my personal view. so i would be happy if more people distanced themselves from trump. having said that, i can't say that that would necessarily save the house or that would help them electorally. they're in a tough bind.
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they have trump supporters in the primaries who may not turn out, who may go against them. the primaries may not turn out in general election if they go away from trump, embrace trump, plenty of independents who would like a check on trump in congress. if i were a republican, i would say i'm going to vote my conscious, vote for republican and conservative principle. i'm not a rubber stamp for donald trump and i'm not going to turn a blind eye to things he may have done that are wrong. i think voters want to see a congress that is serious about its oversight. i thought that was good about you mentioned earlier as an american it was a tough day. i thought actually the senators conducted themselves pretty well, though, and i think you felt like the system work. we have a constitutional system, separation of powers, independent fbi that is sort of independent and with the special counsel who will have a serious investigation and republican controlled senate that put together a pretty good hearing today. >> i would a i agree with that. thank you both very much. important day for america. >> thanks. nordstrom shares are spiking. retailer exploring going private. is this a trend we might start seeing in the struggling retail
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space. and we're still waiting a statement from president trump's attorney. we'll bring that to you live as soon as it begins. "power lunch" is back in two. ...it starts a chain reaction... ...that's heard throughout the connected business world. at&t network security helps protect business, from the largest financial markets to the smallest transactions, by sensing cyber-attacks in near real time and automatically deploying countermeasures. keeping the world of business connected and protected. that's the power of and.
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liberty stands with you™ liberty mutual insurance. ♪ welcome back to "power lunch." breaking news on the u.s. banking front. matt xames the coo of jp morgan chase and company is leaving. the comment from jamie diamond while i'm sad to see him leave, i respect his decision and all he has done at jp morgan chase. mr. zames himself says he's proud of his work. jamie has been a true mentor, it's been a privilege to be a member of his team. it's being framed in the press release as a friendly departure. we don't have the reasons for it, yet, but this is a significant departure. he was seen as, if not the heir apparent, one or two parents. he is the coo, oversees lots of different parts of the business and along with the head of the consumer bank gordon smith and the head of the asset management
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firm probably one of three leading contenders to take over from jamie diamond one day. we don't know the reason for his departure. we'll be digging into that for more information from the company any minute now. guys? >> that breaking news on j.p. on wilford pros with that breaking news. much more the comey hearings and new highs for the markets. how could they happen at the same time? we'll talk about that with "street talk" coming up. "power lunch" is back in two minutes. so you can own the road. track-tuned handling, so you can conquer corners. aggressive-styling, so you can break away from everyone else. experience the exhilaration of the bold lexus is. experience amazing.
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shares at sfrod strum spiking today after announcing it's going private. let's bring in david, the adviser group and research officer. dana great to have you with us. >> thank you for having me. >> the nordstrom family owns 21% of the company in terms of the stock do you think this is something that could happen? >> i think so. the stock has been under a tremendous amount of pressure. and they want to continue to make i want investments, and with not being paid and being
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penalized and some instances for being forward thinking, i think they are reevaluating what it's going to take to move the stock to higher level in this current environment. >> right. in terms of thinking of what other company could be next nordstrom is an interesting company because the family owns some of the stocks in the company. i think it's got $2.7 billion in debt or so compared to its equity which is $6.6 billion. do any other companies fit the bill in terms of candidates for going private in your view? >> when you think of other companies who have family ownership who could have something like this it could be a dillards. another store where the family owns a significant chunk. it doesn't seem out of the question. >> you know dana you do this because you don't believe the public equity markets are accurately reflecting the
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underlying value. the nordstrom families obviously believe that tchl do you think there's anyone out there that has one family that may decide the same? >> that's why i mentioned dillards because the family stake is like that too. this aren't many like a nordstrom and a dillards and some of it depends at the point and time where the companies are in the investment cycles. >> in terms of going private, you don't necessarily need a family stake in it you need a significant shareholder to lead the way and an equity partner. getting back to the debt loans, the private equity don't want a balance on the debt sheet. are there any other companies that fit that slice of the view? >> look what you have lately, you have chatter about acrow com me and the position that will come there, there's another where the discussion is going on. in the past there's been a
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discussion with gap separate their businesses but it doesn't seem like that's in the cards right now. >> dana we're going to leave it there. thanks for phoning in appreciate it. >> i realize i largely asked the same question you just asked. the viewers wonder how could that happen, it's not that we're not listening people are talking in this ear so i can't always hear what's happening in the other ear. coming up tomorrow we're getting into the delivery business, place your stock on the stock you'd like. e-mail us at power lunch cnbc.com. our panelist will answer questions and tell us if you should buy, sell or place a stock. pick a stock, mail, tweet us, overnight us. you could mail us we'll use it for -- >> we'll get it for next year. >> you just did the same thing for me. >> i don't like being on the same wave length. moving on. james comey isn't the only
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i'm plishls lee. -- director james comey grilled on the hill. deregulation nation congress working on a plan to roll back the big banks. what it'll mean for them. forget -- this stock's outperforming all this year almost up 60%. "power lunch" starts right now. investors are shrugging off the comey hearing requesting continuing to buy stocks. the dow hitting another high. earlier as the sclould fear gauge falls. it's not about all comey for your money. you play election, stabilizing also playing a role on the mark. banks doing well. we'll get more on the financials
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coming up. utilities are the worst performers of the day. eamon javers in washington with the latest on comey's testimony. >> we are awaiting a statement from the president's personal attorney, that will happen over at the national press club across town from where i'm standing on capitol hill. i want to bring you two key pieces of that testimony here. there's a couple issues that will be chewed apart for days and days. one is an issue of what the president meant when he said to at the time fbi director he hopes he can see his way clear to letting the michael flynn investigation go. there was an exchange about what the idea of i hope means. here's how that went down. >> i took it as a direction. it's the president of the united states with me alone saying i hope this. i took it as this is what he wants me to do.
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i didn't obey that but that's the way i took it. >> you may have taken his direction but that's not what he said. >> correct. >> he said i hope. >> those are the exact words correct. >> you done know anybody who is ever been charged for hopping something is that a fair statement? >> i don't as i sit here. >> that'll be a question debated for several days, weeks to come. you can see the outline of what the senator was saying of a potential trump defense here, he was just expressing a desire to move past this, not issuing a direction. comey saying he felt he had been directed by the president. we also say james comey who was reflective of his own role and was asked at one point, why didn't you confront the president one on one, behind closed doors and tell him his behavior here was in appropriate and wrong. and comey was reflective on his own role. here's what he said. >> i was a bit stunned and
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didn't have the presence of mind. and i don't know, you know i don't want to make you sound like i'm captain kraj just. i don't know if i had the presence of mind i would have said sir, that's wrong. it didn't come to my mind, what came to my mind is be careful what you said and i said i agree flynn is a good guy. >> what we learned is quite a bit how this unfolded including the fact it was the president's tweets about the fact that he might have tapes of comey, that prompted comey to go out and leak the memo he created documenting his interactions with the president. he made that memo a non-classified memo, clearly thinking it might be in his best interest to put that out publicly later and it will be difficult to do that if it was a classified memo. the president tweets, that promises comey to leak and that leads to a special counsel. comey saying it will be up to
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the special counsel, robert mueller to determine whether or not the president obstructed justice. >> eamon i know you're there but we just got marc kasowitz that's trump's attorney's statement. i'm going to give you guys the relevant information out of this. kasowitz begin by saying the president did not wrong and comey confirmed that by stating that there was never real pressure to end the investigation. the most interesting part of this, the fire if you will comes at the very end. and this is what trump's personal attorney is going to say, talking about james comey's leaks to the press. although mr. comey testified he only leaked the memos in response to a tweet, the public record reveals the "new york times" is reporting from these memos, the day before the reference tweet occurred. which belies mr. comey's excuse for this unauthorized disclosure of privileged information and
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appearance to be retaliatory. we'll leave it to the appropriate authorities to determine whether he's leaks should be investigated along with all others being investigated as well. melissa, marc kasowitz and the president coming out hard against comey implying that comey's leaks themselves become a massive investigation at some point. >> director comey say he didn't personally leak them to the press he asked a close adviser of his to go to the press. remember the "new york times" reported -- who he told to say -- >> it is james comey through dan rich mono. >> exactly. the other thing that's interesting is the president is directly disputed something mr. comey said during testimony. this reads, the president also never told mr. comey i need loyal, i expect loyalty in
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former stan former substance. so he's saying mr. comey got it wrong when it comes to demanding loyalty and that was an interesting upon in the testimony. >> and the word getting all the attention in mr. comey's testimony today, the trump team is calling comey a lie here today. >> mischaracterizing the testimony. >> i'm reading from marc kasowitz's statement, he's trump's personal attorney, quote although mr. comey testified he only leaked the memos in response to a tweet, the public record reveals that the "new york times" was quoting from these memos the day before the referenced tweet. so the trump team is saying comey says he responded to a tweet, the tweet was a day after he had apparently leaked information to the "new york times" that reference this as well. >> right. let's bring in jeff land sa.
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jeffrey friend kel. jacob i will start it off with you. learning from this statement that mr. kasowitz recently we leased, it sounds as if he believes there are grounds for mr. comey himself to be investigated for leaking the contents of that memo to the media. do you believe that is the case? >> the best defense is a strong offensive. i actually ascribe to that approach in practice too. director comey was very specific in terms of how he enabled that information to become available particularly, in the non- -- you know the non-privileged, nonconfidence shl nature. what was more striking was the candor that comey brought to this.
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i think a lot of this discussion and ultimately this is off your question, comes back you're talking violations and earlier with comment tarts about obstruction of justice, i don't think, i'll go on record, i don't think this sties the definition of obstruction of justice. even though some of the elements are met, but the unique point that we haven't talked about is that there is a pending proceeding. an fbi investigation does not meet that elementary element, the pending proceeding. you don't see cases, jeff will probably confirm this, where there's one against the other you're not usually charging these questions. >> jeff you want to come in. >> in terms of the leaking the memo charges you're not going to get that because it was his personal writing. if it had have been a document or -- >> i agree to that, sorry to jump in but you have to agree
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what the trump team is trying to do is discredit jaime comey. >> that's correct. as you said the best defense is a best offensive and that's exactly what's going on with this memo. >> the president was not being in verdicted for concluding with or obstruction the investigation, they said it numerous times throughout this written statement, jacob, does that change anything? the fact that they are highlighting it so much? >> no, they're highlighting what is really self-serving and any good defense lawyer does that. i would go back -- and the other thing probably great to engage, is this whole concept which really instruct me what director comey said early on. that he felt he had a need to memorialize his conversation with the president. you know, we -- we only investigative side, when i was there, and jeff will confirm
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this, you take those kinds of notes, you make those notes when you have an expectation or belief that this is going to become part of a permanent record. and for him to say this is the first time he had to memorialized his conversation with a president of the united states because he expected the president to lie, that to me was as astounding, that was striking and somewhat frightening. >> jeff, have you taken count them rains notes before? >> absolutely. >> and what was the circumstances of that? >> well, the notes that you take that are going to be used in a criminal prosecution, you take those notes and those become part of the evidence. they're almost better in many cases than the written document that derive from those notes because you take those. and that's an important thing. if i ever thought someone was going to use what i said or a conferring between me and another person in a future setting yes, i'd write thing
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down right away and make sure they were documented so they at the closest point and time to that conversation. so it can never be a claim that time had passed and i forgot the context of the conversation -- >> jacob -- >> brian one quick point. that also goes to the whole issue of director -- everybody else being keysexcused from them and director comey being alone. jeff will share with you on every case he did he was never alone on interviewing witnesses. when i'm interviewing witnesses as a defense lawyer i'm never alone there's someone else there. you always want to prepare that someone else being a witness so you yourself don't have to testify. that makes it as we've heard today director comey's word. and that is enough for a prosecutor to decide not to bring a case. that was a have strategic move on the president's part and it's
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obvious why attorney general session was uncomfortable about that, but nevertheless director comey recognized he need to memorialized. >> jeff, and that's a separate issue. what this was, attorney general sessions may have known that comey did not feel that he could speak about it in a public form. jacob, i'm going back to that maneuver. when it comes to an obstruction charge, i'm not a practicing attorney by any means but i do understand the purpose, the intent of the threat goes into whether you can charge somebody. do you think asking others to leave the room would hurt or help any president against the president? >> it comes back to the element of the defense. is that the state of mind that goes to corruptly intending or endeavoring to influence or impede or obstruct. it's part of that circumstantial evidence that you would -- that ultimately you'd make.
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even director comey didn't come out and say i was instructed, you know with an immediate direct consequence. i come back to what i said earlier about the absence of their being a proceeding. this is an investigation, you can argue there's knowledge of the investigation going on but i believe in the entire history of the statute that investigation itself is qualified as a proceeding. >> sorry to move it along so much, we are akuwaiting marc kasowitz so we may have to jump out in any moment. jeff, again, as you said it's a he said, he said any of this point absent any of these tapes that the president has eluded to in tweets, does anything further become of this for the president of the united states? >> i personally don't believe so. with just that conversation and that's the only thing they have i don't think it goes anywhere. that's for robert mueller to decide based on other evidence
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that they gather and present to impanel grand jury if it ever gets to that situation and that point. >> jacob, it also sounded like you don't believe there could be any charges brought in terms of obstruction of justice. is there other witnesses to be called in order to finance more details surrounding what is happening? >> absolutely. i think one other critical point, you know the standard for impeachment is different. high crimes and misdemeanors and that is defined by the aadjudicate of body, the senate itself. so, there's a lot of uncertainty here and we go back to richard nixon, back to bill clinton, you know those were obstruction of justice allegations. so everything is beginning to turn on the bob mueller investigation and i think you know, there's going to be a long period -- i think you were talking about this before -- there's begun to be a long
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period of quiet because one thing you're going to be certain of is bob mueller will conduct a extremely thorough investigation. director comey regarded the trust of his agents, he was highly regarded in the bureau. you're going to have career-bureau l agents conducting this investigation. thai going to be aggressive and push this to see if there are violations. >> thanks jacob and jeff we appreciate it. >> we're waiting on marc kasowitz in just a moment. something else in kasowitz expected text is they deny the president ever told comey to let flynn go. remember, james comey testifies under oath today. we are awaiting trump's personal attorney's comments. you see a look at the white house press briefing room. back with more after this.
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i love to see businesses that just started from ground up grow into further success. it just feels good to know that i'm helping someone else. my first goal is to learn about their business, what they're currently doing in their advertising. pull some research, create a great story. trying to figure out some way of building
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some kind of trust in a very quick moment. you have to love to work with people. our goal, without a doubt, is that all customers are satisfied before they leave. ♪ while we are waiting president trump's personal attorney to make a statement for the national press club, there's another story happening on capitol hill that could impact your money. house the voting on a bill that could scale back much of the
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dodd frank legislation. before we get to dodd frank i got to and you what did you make of today's hearing? do you think this will progress any further with an investigation of the president, mr. cuss stauf? >> i haven't followed any of the testimony today i haven't watched it. i have been working on the annual choice bill that we're going to vote on this afternoon. i haven't watched or read thinking so anything you tell me is going to be news to me. >> representative kelli? >> i read the written testimony yesterday i have been following just on social media what's going on today. it's troubling but i think the most important thing is we get the facts and not rush to any kind of judgment. the american have the right to know the answers to all the questions that have been posed and congress should act after all those facts have been gathered. >> okay. despite everything else that's going on, we have two of our
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elective represents still working. you guys do disagree about the choice act. representative kel b i'll start with you. what is the argument against it? >> first of all to be clear, i acknowledge it and i know a lot of democrats do that there are changes we should make to dodd frank emphasis as its relates to smaller institutions. there is too much in this bill that goes too far. returning us to a time where we don't have the vocal rule in place for example, which would allow financial institutions simply a good afternoamble with benefit. a complaint database which forms customers about what those institutions are up to. there's just too much that takes
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us back to the regulatory environment that was many place before the big crash that led to the great recession, it's too much for us to take? >> is everything though, representative kildee is everything bad in this business doesn't this allow community bank to do more, allow more businesses on main street to get loans and expand the businesses higher? >> in any bill there's 600 pamgs i'm likely to find things i like, and there are 600 pages that were included that were bipartisan. but where we go too far is going back to the regulatory entiermt in place prior to crash. taking away the consumer financial bowureau to -- could there be changes that we'd accept, absolutely. this bill was not a bipartisan product, it could have been but it was not.
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>> representative cuss that you have in terms of a consumer financial -- is there anything you'd be willing to bargain on in order to achieve more bipartisan support? >> i like the way the bill is written now, the cfvp has gone too far, too many rules and leglations -- regulations. if you talk to the banks that have been created by cvpp it's like they create the rules out of thin air. how do you reform and get out of the dog house, there's no instructions. so i'd like to proposal to change it to consumer law enforcement agency to have a director whose appointed by the president, whose regulated by congress and whose money's appropriate by congress. because that is part of the reason we've seen in my opinion,
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anemic growth over the last six, seven year couples. the banking system which we're going to vote on, tax reform which i hope we vote on later this year to reform or tax system, and healthcare cost which we all know have been out of control, especially which obamacare which we've voted to repeal and replace a month or so ago. >> i'm going to ask this last question here, because this is a day where we have been transfixed by capitol hill. representative cuss stauf do you have any reluctance or the way you go about your business is that impacted at all by the of what's going on on capitol hill? we had so many strategist say it's going to be duffel for trump to get his agenda through because republicans won't necessarily want to be on the
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trump train fully. what's your view? >> my opinion is we can walk and chew gum at the same time. we're capable of passing laws, in fact we have passed for laws in these first x number of days in the trump administration than we have -- or bills rather going all the way back 30 years to george w. bush. and the trump administration has signed more bills into law, if you look at the period into the early part of june going back to judge picture bush, we're getting our work done and that's demonstrated we're going to pass the demonstration act this afternoon. >> all right gentlemen thank you we'll leave it. we're seeing tremendous strength from the recently banks today up 3.5%. >> we are waiting still for trump's personal attorney to speak at the national press club. that was expected to begin around 1340 eastern -- 1:30
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eastern time. we're just under an hour late for this event. cnbc did obtain a statement, there are key parts where he says the president denies ever requesting james comey to let the flynn investigation go. james comey testified under oath to the opposite today. trump's attorney will be going after james comey's honesty or time line in recollecting when he responded to a tweet by leaking a memo to a friend who then leaked it to the "new york times." we'll take a short break, we'll be back hopefully with the trump-attorney comment after this. we're about to reveal our mystery chart had a great run this year. we'll explain next on power luch
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denies that president trump denied that he ever quote, let flynn go. denying at any time did president trump request, order or threaten in any way james comey to let the flynn investigation go. he also questions james comey's time line. james comey of course admitting today he was a leaker through the "new york times" to a friend in law school and he said he did it only a tweet appeared. we'll hear right now, he will refute that let's listen in. >> this is marc kasowitz, president donald trump's personal attorney, he'll make a short statement and we will not be taking questions. this is also michael bow with the kasowitz law enforcement. ladies and gentlemen i'm marc kasowitz president trump's personal lawyer. prior to numerous false accounts
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leading up to today's hearing, mr. comey has confirmed what he told president trump privately. that is that the president was not under investigation as part of any probe into russian interference. the president -- he -- mr. comey also admitted that there is no evidence that a single vote changed as a result of any russian interference. mr. comey's testimony also makes clear that the president never sought to impede the investigation into attempted russian interference in the tex2016 election. in fact according mr. comey the president cold mr. comey, quote, it will be good to find out close quote. in that investigation if there was quote, some satellite associates of his that did
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something wrong, close quote. and he, president trump did not exclude anyone from that statement. consistent with that statement, the president never informed or substance, directed or suggested that mr. comey stop investigating anyone, including the president never suggested that mr. comey quote, let flynn go, close quote. as the president publicly stated the next day, he did say to mr. comey, quote, general flynn is a good guy, he has been through a lot, close quote. and also quote, asked how general flynn is doing, close quote. admiral rogers testified today that the president never, quote, directed him to do anything illegal, immorale, unethical or
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anyone appropriate, close quote, and never never quote, pressured him to do so, close quote. director koets, coates said the same thing. the president likewise never pressured mr. comey. the president also never told mr. comey, quote i need loyalty, i expect loyalty, close quote. he never said it in forum and he never said it in substance. of course, the office of the president is entitled to expect loyalty from those who are serving the administration, and from before this president -- and from before this president took office to this day, it is overwhelmingly clear that there have been and continued to be those in government who are actively attempting to undermined this administration
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with selective and illegal leaks of classified information and privileged communications. mr. comey has now admitted that he is one of these leakers. today, mr. comey admitted that he unijune laterally and serp tissuesly made disclosures to the press. the leaks of this privileged information begin no later than march 2017 when friends of mr. comey have stated that he disclosed to them the conversations that he had with the president during their january 27th, 2017 dinner, and february 14th, 2017 white house meeting. today, mr. comey admitted that he leaked to friends of his,
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purported memos of those privileged communications. one of which he testified was classified. mr. comey also testified that immediately after he was terminated, he authorized his friends to leak the contents of those memos to the press in order to, in mr. comey's words, quote, prompt the appointment of a special counsel, close quote. although mr. roe my testified that he only leaked the memos in response to a tweet, the public record reveals that the "new york times" was quoting from those memos the day before the referenced tweet which belyles mr. comey's excuse from this unauthorized disclosure and appears to be retaliatory. we will leave it to the appropriate authorities to
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determine whether these leaks should be investigated along with all the others that are being investigated. in sum, it is now established that the president was not being investigated for conclude co-lewding with or attempting obstruct an investigation. as the committee pointed out today, these important facts for the country to know are the only fact that have been been leaked during the course of these events. as he said yesterday, the president feels completely vindicated and is eager to accou continuing moving toward with his agenda, with the business of this country and his public cloud removed. thank you. >> that was president trump's personal attorney marc kasowitz responding to jaime comey's testimony. a lot was said there. let's bring in kayla at the
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white house. >> hey brian, marc kasowitz said at the outset he would not be taking questions, first he said the president did have a discussion with the former fbi director about the former fbi director mike flynn but that conversation was limed to a few remarks. which he said flynn has been through a lot, he asked how he was doing and that he was a good guy. the statement went further denying that the president asked to drop the flynn investigation or sought to impede the current investigati investigation john going. he didn't just say that on his statement he went to on the record, under oath commentary in his prepared statement to actually lean on, but the line share of that statement as you just heard actually considered the leaking that former fbi director comey acknowledged in
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his testimony earlier this morning. saying that he did alert a close colleague and a member of the colombia law school staff who's been a character witness of his in the past to share the contents of that memo with the "new york times." despite the fact it was comey's believe and certain believes of certain members that the contend of those memos were unclassified and written and a classified way. you just heard the president's attorney describe them as privileged information. his attorney trying to pin the wrong doing on the leakers and sharing of this perhaps not classified by privileged information with the public. >> kayla thank you. >> lets us bring in andy card former white house chief of staff under president bush. andy, kayla brought up -- i want
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to ask you about that final point she was mentioning, the idea of prinked communicating. you worked in the white house every day for a long time, is all communication with a president one on one quote, privileged communication or is there some sort of difference? >> you know, i don't think the statute -- may not even be a statute that addresses that so, i think it's subject to a debate. obviously, the president should have privilege communications with his staffers. i'm not sure that that relates to, you know the advice and counsel he might be giving to somebody who's working at the fbi. so, to me it's hard -- >> let me -- >> i would protect the right of president to get unvarnished counsel and advice. >> and it is important here andy i think because it goes to obviously trump's offensive play which looks like part of that could include going after comey
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legally for these leaks. so, i think that's why it's relevant here. and i wonder -- let me and it a different way. in your years at the white house, if somebody were to come in who's not a white house staffer, either fbi or department of defense, would that assume that any conversation with the president would be privileged? >> i think they probably would assume that or they would -- lets put it this way. they should assume it's not something they should talk about without kind of permission. first of all, i don't think there would be a time where i would recommend the president meet alone with somebody. so it would have been kind of a rare thing. you usually want to have another witness in the room because it does turn down he said he said. those are never good debates to have. >> if you're in a position to have advised president trump
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would you have advised him to have his personal lawyer make a statement after the comey testimony? it seems sort of an interesting move to make considering it's still under investigation right now. >> well, this is something that's not in the white house, this is his private attorney. i think it's appropriate that the so-called war room and the private counsel are now handling any responses because this is really not a white house problem, it's a white house concern. the problem rest to what happened before the election and maybe what is happening as a result of what happened before the election is now being investigated. i don't like the idea of getting the white house itself all wrapped around the axle of the russian investigation when they have a big job to do of protecting the united states and offering advice and counsel to other countries around the world and diplomacy and getting legislation so i do think the
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tunnel vision -- >> and there's a distinction that you make but it is a white house problem with the perception the agenda's going to be difficult because of what's beginning on on capitol hill and because of an ongoing investigation. if you were the chief of staff how do you make that recede into the background in order to make the investigation specifically? >> you don't have a way of -- you have to keep your head down and do your job. i would be compartmentalizing the investigation and what they're doing, i would say don't be involved in that, we'll cooperate when it's appropriate. if you have a concern go to the white house counsel, he'll tell you how you should act but do your job. i was chief of staff when there was an investigation at the white house over the valley plain situation. i tried to have compartmentalize
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that so it didn't engage and interrupt the work that had to be done at the white house while this important special counsel was doing his work -- >> i'll say this, the trump administration has been criticized for not being able to fill important slots. i have reported we have reported that a lot of people are unwilling to work in administration because they don't know where it's going to end up. there's no way an administration that is already by many accounts short staffed that this is a positive-filling those important jobs. >> it is not a positive, it is a real challenge and reince priebus and the team at the white house has a significant challenge to overcome. the president should be working to help them meet this challenge. i hope the president cuts back on the tweets, does taste his words before he spits them out, bring some dismeant, if you don't have discipline in the oval office it's hard to invite
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it into the rest of the warehouse. >> andy carr thank you. >> thank you. >> more "power lunch" ahead. stick around. at fidelity, trades are now just $4.95. we cut the price of trades to give investors even more value. and at $4.95, you can trade with a clear advantage. fidelity, where smarter investors will always be.
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the comey testimony dominated the headlines but there's another major mark story we're following closely, the uk elections polls closing in two hours. joining us from london is daniel booth. with us also is sandy vilry. d danelle i'll kick it off with you. you're front row to what elections going on and also front row to the ecb. is there anything that can includes the fed thinking in terms of the statement? >> no if anything -- being front and center here in london, especially since i was here on saturday night when the terrorist attack occurred it really is all eyes on the uk election switch, obviously that's not the case in the united states given the comey testimony today. >> sandy, what's so striking is we had the comey testimony and
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we had the vix go down below ten. we had the markets and nasdaq as well as the dow hitting record high today. what's happening here? how do you get your head around where evaluations are right now and the in action of where the margts which seem to be market-moving events? >> you look at what -- you couple that with next week we're probably going to have our fed moved up 20 basis points, that's probably a 90% plus probability. so when you see the action and financials moving higher it's telling you interest rates might be going up domestically. so we're focused on smaller cap domestic securities as oppose to the largely multi nationals and investigating overseas. >> are you investored in financial specifically sandy, because it seems the house vote on the torchoice act which woule
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the replacement for dodd frank? >> we have smaller bank regionals that we think are going to do well in this environment. if we get more deregulation coming from this trump administration or the other it's going to be more of a tail end i guess. >> last we're talked danielle weave getting more data points in regards to the jobbed today. do you think that's going to influence what's said about future rate hikes and also the course of the balance sheet? >> i think that right now that the fed and members of the federal committee are taking a step back. they're not going to disappoint the markets next week giving the 90% probability for the next rate hike but we've seen upside surprises on this national claim aside from -- i think beneficials are going to be looking for lee way to step back
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and sown for dub ish in the weeks to come. >> you know danielle on a separate note we did a story about people in washington, d.c. and new york sitting outside at bars. you're in london it's 7:48 there watching the comey testimony, how much interest are you seeing if the comey testimony on the treats of london? >> oh, i was amazed. i got into the car to come over to the cnbc studios here in london and the minute i stepped in the car that there was the testimony live. there's a lot of focus on the trump administration, there's curiosity with londoners here but everyone is waiting for the polls to close. just in two hours, i think that what we saw with the pound and the footsy being as flat as it was there's a growing nudge that
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teresa theresa may in her heart aligned, it's in distinctive -- it was bizarre listening to comey testify live today. >> thank guys good to see you. in the markets, one aspect doing well, the banks theorizing especially but the kb index dowr the year, the banks, as we continue the market coverage in the wake of the comey testimony coming up. i put everything into my business. and i had all these points from my chase ink card. so i bought ingredients, utensils, even made custom donut cutters. wow! all with points. that's how i created the ripple: the doughnut in a doughnut in a doughnut.
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time for trading nation, let's look at the bank stocks. gina, there's a lot going on, but inside the markets, beneath the regional bank stocks, a great day, despite the ten year up a little bit. what do you think of the move? >> well, i think that the bank stocks have been rallying because of what's happening with dodd-frank today regarding the vote. and if this vote went through, you would see compliance costs for banks cut in half. it would be benefit the large banks as well as the small bank, so i think this would be considered a benefit certainly for banks, and that that has been a big component, banks have been under pressure because we've seen a bear flattening of
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the yield curve for the several months now, the short end going up, while the long end is going down. there's not good for banks. banks need a big spread. today, we have not seen that spread moving in any direction. in fact, the markets have just been moving in parallel up on the yield curve, but i think this is all about dodd-frank and compliance costs and what it means for bank earnings. >> okay. there you go. bill, you heard the fundamental perspective, what's the bank stocks, more to go? >> you know, the fund. ales and technicals working well together here today. obviously, the dodd-frank vote, but there's soothing in the markets, this dark cloud that everybody was waiting for with this comey testimony, but the technical difficulties are doing work, but there's 2% to the market to move. on top of that with the fed meeting next week, once you get
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past this gauntlet of activity here, at the end of the week, then i think the treasury yields bump up a little bit into the fed meeting, and that should be supportive to banks next week as well. >> don't forget the fed meeting. we talked about that with another big week next week. gina, bill, thank you very much. reminder for more trading nation, go to the website at tradingnation.cnbc.com. >> check, please is next.
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tomorrow, we are delivering buy, sell, or hold recommendations. place your order now. e-mail us at powerlunch@cnbc.com or tweet us. by the way, be nice, and we'll respond. by the way, dom is here giving out recommendations on the panel. my buddy from "fast money." >> i'll be hosting the show. individual stocks, shares of alibaba surging, investor day, revenue growth numbers, saying growth for the year would be
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45 45-49% in 2018 topping expectations. gross merchandise of volume could reach $1 trillion by 2020. keep in mind, this is a stock that year to date has done better than facebook as well as amazon, in fact, a lot of the chinese internet stocks, brian, have done extremely well, beating faang. tonight, we talk about alternative faang in terms of chinese internet. that's a tease. >> sounds dangerous. on a serious note, if the story could not get more complicated, it just did. president trump's personal attorney came out saying the "new york times" ran a story about leaks before comey leaked it, suggesting that comey may have either misrecollected or lied about the timeline of when he leaked information to the press. moments ago, the times said, nope, our story ran after comey sent us the adodocuments, so th
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"new york times" counters trump's attorney countering comey. if you make sense of this, america, you are smarter than we are. a complicated story just got more complicated. >> interesting final hour, a point off the session lows and s&p 500. watching that closely. thank you so much for watching "power lunch." >> "closing bell" to wrap this all up begins now. i took it as a direction, they took it as this is what they want me to do. i didn't obey that, but that's how i took it. >> taken as direction, but that's not what he said? >> correct. >> he said, i hope? >> exact words, correct. >> you don't know of anyone that's been charged for hoping something, is that a fair statement? >> i don't, as i sit here. >> why didn't you stop and say, mr. president, this is wrong? i can't discuss this with you? >> great question. maybe if i were
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