welcome back to "squawk on the street." tech is standing out as the worst performing s&p 500 sector. semiconductors the big laggers

now they're back downtown for the start of "squawk alley." hi, karm >> all right seem yashgs thank you very much. good morning it is 8:00 a.m. in newport, oregon the first north american city in the path to have day's total eclipse. it's 11:00 a.m. on wall street "squawk alley" is live. good mo. welcome to "squawk alley." we're at post 9 on the new york stock exchange jon fortt has the morning off. the dow is down off the lows we did see some pressure this morning, particularly on stocks in the nasdaq continuing to underperform that index coming off a four

week losing streak mid morning here, sarah, we won wondered whether we would test the lows the vix didn't manage to spike. >> that made somebody moderate selling pressure after two weeks of decline a lot of people also talking about the rustle 2000 index of small caps underforemaning down four straight weeks in a row. now also for the year, a lot of people saw that as the trump trade. the smaller companies that would really benefit from lower corporate taxes, for instance. as it relates to technology, it is still the winningest group for the s&p 500 for the year up 20% as a sector in terms of information technology and it's been an interesting story here that we've covered on "squawk alley. best performing stocks so far of the year, best performing earnings, no question about it something we saw during the obama era as well. the mood in washington is changed a little bit towards these tech companies and it's unclear whether you're starting to see it reflected in the stocks right now you're seeing a

broader market pullback and theret big winners. >> let's bring in bob macknamee. >> how are you, carl >> not bad. >> happy solar eclipse day >> i'm excited about it. you know, it doesn't happen every day. >> only 71% here. >> you're right about that quarter to date, roger, facebook is up 10 netflix is up 10 amazon and google down 1 to 2. what is happening here in this environment, there is so much uncertainty about just politics, trade that for me it's really hard to tell. i think in the case of google, obviously there have been internal company dynamic that's have been a challenge w amazon, the stock had a monster run. so to me, the notion that investors would take a pause on any of these stocks makes a lot of sense you know my position i like the stocks better than anything else in the market. but i'm very cautious about the

market and so none of this catches me by surprise. i just think that we're in one of those environments where uncertainty should be causing the market to be cautious. it hasn't been until the last couple weeks i think if investors take a serious pause here across this group and across others that is no surprise at all >> is it, i mean, it's kind of hard to argue, isn't it roger that there are fundamental businesses are the trajectory is changing meaningfully? at least across the board. i can understand if you're nervous about geopolitics and maybe you raise some cash. but does it reflect something inside of the companies that's different? >> i don't see it, carl. i mean, i look inside amazon in particular and i see a company that's hitting on every cylinder i look inside google and, you know, it's a little harder to tell what's going on there because they have so much money going into these new initiatives. i look inside whether it's apple, facebook, you know, you see very, very positive

dynamics at least relative to the economy as a whole inside all of the stocks so the fact that they led the market over the last couple of years strikes me as being, you know, exactly what you would expect and i don't see any fundamental shift in any of them again, as you point out a moment ago, the question we're dealing with is overall market sentiment. >> i wonder though, the google dismissal of that software engineer, that wrote that controversial memo on female equality, the fact they jumped on them as they suppress free speech and the fact that big tech has now taken a stance against the president's response to charlottesville did it that already when it came to the travel ban on immigration. important issues that it feels like tech has been a little bit more vocal on. you said that's not necessarily a threat to the stock price or in terms of policy do you still feel that way as these cases and instances pile

up >> i do, sarah the reason i do is because these are global stocks. they're owned by people all around the world i think the number of people who feel like defending the president is something that they would apply to their stock portfolio is not large enough to move these stocks more foreign a few minutes at a time. i think people will make lots of noise. i do think that when trump come out and says something awful about amazon, i understand why the stock moves for a day. but i don't think over time that fear will overcome greed the way i think about this is fear is transitory and greed is permanent. as a consequence in, the long run, stocks will come back again, day to day, week to week, who knows? but, you know, over the long run, the fundamentals are going to work out and drive the stocks i think on all of these the fund ammals are significantly better than the economy as a whole. >> can the president paint himself as pro business? and the republican party for

that matter if increasingly there are tweets and jabs against amazon and some of the other companies for their size and their influence? >> i mean, to be clear, i don't know how this guy paints himself as pro anything other than, you know, essentially white nationalism. you know, he has been really disruptive to our trading relationships in mexico, our trading relationships in canada. he's also made lots of bad noise about trading relationships with china. you know, he has pretended like he's contributed a lot to job growth when, in fact, he has not. you know, i think he threatened a lot of people. i don't see how any of that is pro business at all. and to me, businesses need stability. they need the rule of law. and as long as we have a president of the united states who flouts the rule of law, i think that's a tremendous threat to financial assets of all kinds. frankly, to all kinds of assets. the rule of law is essential to property

i mean, you can't have property without a rule of law. >> that's funny you mention it >> i don't think he'll get away with it. he talks that game and that's bad. >> as we're talking, they posted a piece on linkedin. not addressing this president's specifically but writes i'm concerned about growing internal and external conflict leading to impaired government efficiency he says i'm watching how conflict is handled as a guide and i'm not encouraged it sounds sort of like what you've been saying for a while >> welcome to the party. no, i mean, look, ray is an incredibly smart man he's been doing this for a very long time. and an extraordinarily high level. and, you know, i think we're at this point now where if you are -- if your job is to manage a business or your job is to manage a portfolio and you see what is clearly chaos going on in the white house, there's no way to spin that i mean, there's no good way to spin it. you can spin it until you're blue in the face none of it makes any sense i mean what would be really nice

is could we just have one calm, quiet week and then after that a second calm, quiet week? i mean nobody believes that's going to happen. and, you know, until we finally put an end to this, i think the markets are essentially going to be riding on a knife edge of fear that could translate into lower stock prices and that makes me incredibly nervous. >> what about the private market we talk a lot about faang and the impact on the public companies. is the shifting mood in washington toward technology and the other factors the points about division influencing anything you're seeing in the valley when it comes to fund-raising and start-up, innovation, activity >> it's a great question the problem in at least with respect to the venture capital industry right now is they got all wound up around the unicorns and they thought that the traditional rules of finance were suspended and they could keep the companies private essentially for ever and mark them up as though they were as valuable as companies in

the dow jones industrial average. that did not work. it turned out the companies they were doing that were in fact not as advance the as they thought they were. the valuations were wildly too high the other problem you have in the venture capital industry is that google and facebook in particular are essentially choking off the oxygen for startups because they control access to new customers. so the whole classes of start-up opportunities that are not going to be fulfilled because there's no way to grow your audience and for me, that's a very, very significant problem for entrepreneurship in the technology industry. you know, i think there will be sectors in which people can move around, facebook and around google but right now the things that people have put a lot of energy into are being blocked by them and you see this every day in snap i mean if a company at snap scale is getting crushed by facebook, you know, it's going to be super, super hard for the little start-ups to get any

traction >> finally, roger, elan musk is joining 100 leading ai experts calling on the un to prevent the development and use of killer robots "once developed, lethal autonomous weapons will permit armed conflict to be fought at a scale greater than ever. we do not have long to act once this pandora's box is opened, it will be hard to close. what is he talking about, roger? >> well, you know, so, carl, i think that the significance of the statement, you know, look, i don't know that much about, you know, where warfare is going but i do know this we have in this country had at least for the last ten or 15 years an almost irrational belief that technology always winds up doing good. it's a lot easier to do good things in technology to do good takes tremendous discipline and effort over long periods of time. can you do bad more or less overnight.

i think what elan is talking about here is that once you start applying automated technology to weaponry, horrific things are likely. i suspect that is true the point i would make is that i think bad things are already happening. i think we've talked about this once before. the issue of facebook and google has artificial intelligence and the fact that companies in many ways have lost control and that a lot of really difficult, bad things are going on in terms of addiction, in terms of what happens in our election and brexit and you look at these things and you say to yourself, it's really time for the country to step back and have a conversation about what is the appropriate role of technology what are the limits to what we're going to allow foam do and how are we going to make sure that society jobs, people, and livelihoods are protected. >> if they develop robots with lethal capabilities, what -- you could argue that would reduce

human casualties and that would be a good thing. >> well, it would be if all they did is aim at the other robots but if those things are applied to populations, you know, think about this with automobiles. right? we never thought of automobiles as terrorist weapons once you start applying them that way they're really terrifying that's the issue it's going to be super hard to control how bad people use that technology once it's developed that bad people are unlikely to observe the rules. and, you know, that -- there's a lot of history suggesting that that fear is legitimate. and my one observation to elan musk and others is, hey, i'm with you on the robot thing. let's now also apply to the things that are here and now >> roger, good to see you. we'll see you next time. roger mcnamee joining us now to our solar eclipse jane wells are where they're nearing the start of the eclipse. what's the update, jane? >> sarah, we're 53 minutes away

from the startst eclipse which will begin here in oregon. you can see the campers here there is a long line to the portable toilets people get ready here at solar town, a cam ground 20,000 people camped here last night. they'll start to gather in this field here to watch the eclipse. if you look at the nasa map, it starts in oregon it will take four hours for the whole eclipse to get across the country. totality, the total eclipse will last about 90 minutes inside that period. so there's been this whole migration of people trying to be in the zone of totality. in fact, here yesterday in madris, it took four hours to drive the last two miles into this campground. this is the first coast to coast eclipse we had in a century. the first only u.s. eclipse we had since 1778, two years after our own brexit, and some people are saying that they're willing to do anything to say i was there. no matter what the cost. >> how long you have been planning to come here? >> well, for me, it's ten years.

>> i went from british virgin islands to the uk and then i flew to l.a. and to las vegas, seattle, here. >> we all have matching goody bags and they're all customized. we were walking around the fest today looking like a bunch of high schoolers on their field trip. >> how much money you have spent to be here >> i don't really know i don't really want to know to be fair. >> probably $500 >> worth it? >> totally worth it. >> all right now america being the capital of capitalism, everyone trying to capitalize on this event we have the krispy kreme donuts that are special, the plane flight for the eclipse, the mitsubishi eclipse ads this one is my favorite. >> on august 21st, kri keeta will move the moon in frontst sun to create an enormous fiery yellow banana in the sky

chaquita banana. >> all right, i don't know if it's all bananas but it's funny. challenger gray and christmas predicts productivity in the u.s. will drop $750 million. if they have these, they'll want to go outside and look at the eclipse. back to you. >> that's a good one with the banana they should have just made it a holiday. >> hostess snacks sent the efficiently snack of the eclipse. everyone is trying to get in on this, jane >> they sure are including the pot industry, i might add. they have a special type of bud they are selling here and special bongs which have all the phases of the eclipse on it. $60. it's a steal >> we'll be watching your hits later in the day to see whether that -- never mind we'll see you soon when we come back, steve bannon's white house exit and it's impact on the markets in the president's agenda then new reports on who can possibly take the reigns at uber kara swisher is coming up.

dow made its way back to the fl le. ba in a moment

more reshuffling in the white house inner circle after steve bannon's ousting, carl icahn stepping down and treasury secretary steve mnuchin respond to critics he defended the president. joining us to talk about this more and the whole agenda is terry hanes, head of political analysis and ed mills, senior

financial policy analyst ed, feels like for the markets the next biggy, september 29th do we really have to worry about the treasury defaulting on its debt when republicans control three houses of government >> well, you still need 60 votes in the senate. and that's what's going to make this a fight we always have brinkmanship around debt ceiling fights we always have brinkmanship around government funding fights what makes this difficult is democrats look at republicans and see that they're a bit on the ropes politically. and they're not necessarily going to want to give them the easy vote out of this. there's a lot of republicans who also want to have spending cuts as part of the government funding who might want to have additional things added on to the debt limit vote. and democrats, that's a nonstarter so the votes are there but it's always going to happen right at the end >> teary, has the president's willingness to attack various senators by name engafrdangered

that >> i don't think so at all senators by now certainly take this as par for the course and, you know, more importantly, i mean they're not going to decide to do something different on the debt ceiling or on spending based on what some trump tweet is bottom line is spending gets done, the debt ceiling gets done and the way they always get done there is -- you know, republicans, of course, are the divisions are well reported upon democratic divisions are also very real and have been there since before the 2016 elections made them obvious. what you got is a coalition of centrists essentially who want things to move forward that's the way it's going to go. in that context, general kelly ousting bannon on friday is a positive because it moves things back towards the establishment towards trump accomplishments and towards in getting things moving again so all that's to the good. >> a positive towards what you're talking the legislative

agenda being able to raise the debt ceiling, keep the government open and maybe even get some tax reform done before the end of the year? how optimistic are you >> i'm very optimistic that we get spending done. i'm very optimistic that we get debt ceiling done. what you have there is a clear alignment of congressional leaders on both sides. wanting to get things done combined with the president now but more firmly in the establishment cam weapon general kelly wanting to puch things and treasury secretary mnuchin wanting to make sure the debt ceiling gets done. that is very positive. the strategies and tactics today are not known. fwhaut always the case that is always the case to the last minute. that makes some good points about the tactics there. on tax reform, we still remain at 50% we're still -- and that's a two part call. we remain positive that the fiscal 2018 budget gets done and that's purely up to congress it has nothing to do with trump. they then instruct tax writers

to move forward. and then we're still at 70% the tax reform gets done so today followed by positive on tax reform, yes. >> ed, if terry is right, it sounds like people might be overestimating bannon's external influence by way of breitbart. do you agree >> well, yeah. i think that at a certain point breitbart could help, you know, if they attack too much, it starts marginalizing them. then you see the middle come together a lot of times what you need out of congress is to kind of look at the extremes, push them aside and have the middle legislate. certainly for some members of congress breitbart is going to be really important. they're going to be really concerned about primaries and they're not going to be on the wrong side of breitbart. but the vast majority house and senate, democrat, republican are outside the breitbart caucus >> since we're talking about breitbart and bannon, do you expect president trump to tone down the rhetoric around china and trade now that bannon and

his desired economic war on china are out of the oval? >> what i expect is two things the first thing is a continuation of a trade strategy that's been very well telegraphed by the administration and it has three parts the first part is either going to bilateral and multilaterals, renegotiating things like nafta where they can and here we are with mexico and canada at the table. the second thing, ramping up enforcement as secretary ross talks b thirdly, getting wto to reinterpret agreements more in line with market based economies. all three of those things i think continue what has diminished is the tail risk that you get some sort of america first very disruptive trade policy the second thing i expect to continue is pressure on china as long as north korea's situation remains a flash point. and the administration's action on friday beginning the

investigation on intellectual property is another sign of that >> so just to be clear because you're very optimistic, terry, you don't think any events of last week, the fact that almost all of the ceo advisors abandoned president trump and the fact that he refused to forcibly condemn these neonazis and white nationalists i mean did he condemn them but clearly in a controversial way that sparked a lot of outcry you don't think that cost him any political capital as it relates to passing items in the agenda this fall >> well, let's be clear here i don't think it cost a lot of political capital in congress. understand what's going on here. the ceos, they dissociate themselves from the white house with these advisory panels the advisory panels never amount to much anyway you can look at past administrations for. that but more importantly, they're not going to stop pushing and working with congress to get the very same

agenda items done. that's actually where the action is now it's actually where the action was all along. does this cost president some political capital? sure but i think what is underestimated is that congress for its on reasons, for its own desires has tax reform and economic growth at the top of the agenda and they're going to continue to push forward on that basis. >> we will see thank you for joining us, guys terry hanes and ed mills >> thank you still to come, we'll go live to columbia, south carolina, where the crowds are gathering for the solar eclipse as we're getting closer and closer to that first lunar shadow on west w dn ret. doisowthe. back after this. because, when you really, really want to be there, but you can't. at cognizant, we're helping today's leading media companies create more immersive ways to experience entertainment with new digital systems and technologies.

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duck: quack! call to request your free decision guide now. because the time to think about tomorrow is today. good morning, everyone i'm sue her air yachlt here is your c cnbc news update the main suspect in the barcelona van attack has been detained police have declined to confirm the report on 22-year-old younes

abouyaaqoub but a person wearing an explosive belt was killed a ohio judge was shot in an ambush style attack as he arrived at the courthouse in steubenville both the judge and probation officer returned fire killing one suspect. a second suspect was taken into custody. the judge was conscious as he was airlifted to a hospital. >> apparently was a basic ambush on our judge for what reason we don't know. we're trying to put all the pieces together. currently bci is en route. we have some on station now. they'll handle the investigation. we have witnesses that we have identified they have already talked to the police so again, we're starting to put this whole picture together. more kids and teens will be diagnosed with high blood pressure due to new guidelines from pediatricians the recommendations including updated blood pure tables based on normal weight children and that means that more kids may be classified as needing treatment. you're up to date.

that's the news update this hour back downtown to you, sarah. >> thank you we'll send it back out to hq seema mody with the european close. another strong euro day. >> true. european stocks as a whole beginning the week in the red. and we're paying close attention to developments in spain you heard about that with sue her air yachlt we saw volatile moves today and we'll continue to monitor the situation closely. down just about .2%. moving on to m & a france's total agreeing to buy ap muller maris oil and gas business it's a $7.5 billion deal total says that the acquisition will strengthen the north sea operations as well as boost earnings in cash flow. they say the deal will allow the danish shipping company to focus on the core business both stocks are higher fiat chrysler switching to auto. sharply higher denying a report that they're drawing buyout interest in china's great wall motor. shares of fiat have been on a

terror since a report last week saying an unidentified well known chinese automaker made an offer earlier this month that stock up p 7% keep in mind, china's m & a already down 40% this year compared to last year. and beijing state council just announced that it is restricting chinese companies investments into property and entertainment and sports chinese companies have been investing heavily in european soccer teams over the past five years from a.c. milan and cloud athletico. but experts say the latest move by the chinese government suggests we'll see less deal making with european soccer teams. on that note, shares of manchester united up about 15% so far this year carl >> all right seema, thank you very much seema mody when we come back, kara swisher on the latest that search for a new ceo at uber dow is almost perfectly flat quk le ctiesn a moment

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current chairman jeff em eliminate emerging as the front running candidate to be ceo of uber kara swisher joins us. good morning good to see you. >> good morning. how you doing? >> you're reporting --

good your reporting says this might be wrapped up maybe sooner rather than later. >> we'll see it still hasn't been voted on. there could be changes at any time as you know, this has gone through a lot of different it ragss. meg whitman was very interested and then not there is a lot of people they talked to there are a lot of candidates in the mix i don't expect it for a couple weeks. but it's sooner than later which is a good thing for uber. >> how would you characterize the overlap between what uber would require of immelt and what he already done in his career at ge >> well, i think they require an experienced executive. they require someone who is unflappable i think who isn't going to have a problem with a board that is highly dysfunctional and not get ago lovenlgt they'll have smub who is going to have to know how to recruit people they have to have someone who knows a little bit about tech and how to manage tech and they've got to have someone that wall street investors are going to like. and he certainly fits the bill and i don't know who the other two executives are they're both men i've been trying to find out

i called every ceo i know. and that's a lot of them that could change. i think one of the things that some of the people in the board like about him is he's quite unflappable about a lot of the issues and isn't bothered by the drama and probably could handle the former ceo travis kalanick >> one point is someone that wall street investors could like interesting timing for uber as we anticipate whether they're going to go public and what happened to the valuation as a result of all of this mess i just wonder if that opens immelt up to criticism when he took over ge, stock was over $40 it's now below $25 yes, the company paid dividends. he has a great reputation as a manager. i wonder on that specific wall street point given what is ahead of uber. >> well, uber is kind of -- they've already done that already. the value of uber declined among investors. that's been widely reported. so it's not as if he's coming into a great situation

i think theish sue can issue i public or sell they need an executive capable of managing uncertainty easily i think getting to how much it's worth and how rich everybody is going to get is the secondary question at this point it's getting it stabilized, getting the executive group in there and bringing it to become the kind of company it's fully capable of being given how great the product is and getting it into a financially healthy situation at the same time. >> right does -- the choice of immelt suggest that they are more interested in eventually having an ipo than not? >> no. i don't think so i think if he could do anything, he's certainly an experienced executive. now again, there are other two other candidates and that could certainly change what they got to do, the critical thing is they have to land someone one of these people. so they can get forward and stop, you know, doing this -- you know, the board is still fighting over everything i literally spent yesterday checking out three more rumors that were untrue with board

members disagreeing on certain things and so, you know, they really have to move on and actually do the business of uber rather than these things that go on among and in between all the people on the board. it's not go od for employees >> as for the other candidates, imselt not immelt is not a woman and also not a tech bro that could be helpful. do the other candidates as far as you know fit that profile as well >> i think they're apparently ceo people they have tech backgrounds they're well known, i understand although i literally, i called -- i literally called people at home and are like are you the ceo? and i feel like it's cinderella at this point. i'm trying shoes on everybody. but, you know, again, so are other reporters. so i tried a bunch of people there was a rumor that meg whitman was back this weekend. not so you know, i just -- you just have to spend a lot of time. it's like whack a mole at this point. benchmark is getting used to the

idea you know, there is holdouts around immelt. not everybody has decided by any means on the board but they've got to coalesce around one of the three candidates and it seems as if he has the most support among everybody it's not -- it may not be a unanimous decision at the same time which i don't think he cares about either that's another issue >> and then finally, does the future for travis and his involvement, how serious does it get? >> i don't know. that's a good quechlt i think someone like imselt willing to have him around. it's not -- he certainly is experienced. look, no matter what you think about travis kalanick, he's a brilliant guy. he certainly has -- and the things he's done he has not managed this company very well, obviously on lots of levels. not just the culture levels but all the employee morale, everything else. and, you know, the selection of people around him. all kinds of stuff so i think it's someone who can utilize his best qualities, let's just say we'll see who that's going to

be i think you can't turn your back on him for sure. >> not exactly like replacing jack we will welch, but it seems like you see parallels and similarities as far as his status in the company. >> hero and not hero that's the problem there is controversy about him even within the company. and so you know, nobody likes the situation. it needs to be changed and this board has got to get bigger and more functional. it is ridiculous on some level given the opportunity they have and the competition that they're facing so it seems like that's enough, you know, kind of enough let's move on to the next challenge that they have >> all right for the moment, we're going to lean heavily on your report. getting a good piece in recode thanks, kara kara swisher up next, reviews are in for the amazon backed essential phone. that's what it's called. one reviewer called it bold and beautiful. could it actually compete with apple and samsung? "squawk alley" will be right

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a regular is more negative than he's been in a year on the market one analyst so confident in a popular retail stock he upgraded it from sell all way to buy. it is our stock of the day we're also watching the first

stages of the solar eclipse live halftime report is at noon eastern. sarah, we'll see you in just a few. >> you should go outside or something. scott, thank you we'll see you then a new player is entering the smart phone wars amazon backed essential unveiling the new phone equipped with the world's smallest 360-degree 4-k camera. the phone sells for around $700. joining us at post 9 is the company president, almost. >> thank you. >> you got our attention you have a few high profile backers, amazon, tencent, foxcon and andy rubin who co-created android is the money behiplan bs company. isn't it late to enter the smart phone wars with such dominant players? >> andy and i tlik say that every duopoly needs to be disrupted. one thing that we all noticed is in the last few years consumer choice has actually decreased at the same time it was apple and sam sung have been focusing on short term profitability and

becoming the most profitable companies of all time. we're a pro consumer grand you notice there is no logo on the back of our phone. there is not the biggest screen in the smallest form factor on the market and there's a number of other unique innovations about this product. so we have a magnetic accessory port on the back it allows you to snap on as you said the world's smallest 4k camera just like that light goes on and all of a sudden, you can record video as if i'm sitting right here so when you push that button, you can get a vr experience as if you're sitting right where i am it is the only way to do that in the world. can you put goggled on and see a whole vr experience. but the great part is you don't have to have goggles can you look at 360 video on a phone, a tablet, a laptop. >> snapchat talks about the camera being everything, that's what you're leveraging >> i think the social media has gone from pictures to photos to

text to disappearing video if i told you four years ago disappearing video was the future of social media, nobody would have believed me, right? so we think 360 video is very much the next phase of social media. we're the only camera in the world that lets you effectively use it the same way you use it on your phone. so it's spontaneous. you pull it out of your pocket the same way you use your camera on your phone. a couple other things i highlight, we have 128 gigs of storage on here. we have no bloat ware. there is no preloads from carriers or preloads from us it's about being your phone. and the accessory port lets you snap on a range of new accessories we'll come out with over time. so the phone is effectively evolving with you and many years into the future. this is not a limited product. it's a future proof product. >> it's a great innovation my question is what prevents a larger competitor from easily adapting it? >> sure. it's a competitive market. andy got incredible track record

at starting businesses from scratch, taking on the incumbents, disrupting them. we like to say that we're going to be nimble and faster than others because we have such a small team there are only 100 of us full time, believe it or not. there are probably 1200 outsourced, the manufacturing line but we're a tiny team. that means we can bring innovation faster than someone like an apple or samsung we'll have to rack and stack hundreds of millions of units to get a fully fledged launch we're going to do the same thing. so we'll use the latest and greatest materials we'll innovate faster than anybody in the brand >> i mean you're doing this going into what is expected to be a new beautiful iphone, the decade old eye phone are you trying to take apple customers, samsung >> that's a good question. so what is interesting is on our website which is already actually shipping units this week, we have found that about a third of our customers are ordering on an ios device. about a third are ordering on a

samsung device so we take that as an incredibly good sign that there is a lot of pent up demand for this frankly, when you maximize short term profitability, you tend to do that at the detriment of innovation. we're doing the opposite of that so andy said, you know, at the recode conference, you had kara on before, we're not focused on short term profitability >> but is it true can you only get it on sprint >> no, not at all. can you get it on essential.com, our website. that ships to all four carriers. can you get it on amazon, bestbuy. >> you thought you had a deal. >> there is a sprint deal for sprint carriers. but all the channels are open market >> we'll watch essential, when we come back, one of the most iconic cars getting an electrical update phil lebeau well an update when we return. the dow up is nine

♪ ♪ ♪ the classic volkswagen bus making a come back with some new technology under the hood. our phil lebeau is in chicago looking at that. >> carl, this is the kind of vehicle you and i would drive up in boulder check out the new i.d. bug

it's not coming out until 2022 it's supposed to look like the vw microbus, because that's basically the dna behind it. although it's all electric and will be packed with the latest technology, volkswagen makes no bones about the introduction of this vehicle being tied to the rich legacy and the history of the microbus the microbus, as many people know, if you lived in california in the '60s and '70s, or really if you lived the anywhere around the country, it was extremely popular, both with surfer dudes as well as hippies, as well as other people who still drive them today you can still find them out on the road in a few spots. the head of volkswagen america is hoping the i.d. buzz can generate the assignment kind of buzz that volkswagen experienced with the microbus. >> this car is, for us, a rebirth of a great heritage, but it also carries into the future the mobility with all the electrification and to the censors, which will make the car fully connected and autonomous

>> the question is, how much will this help sales of volkswagen they're still down compared to where they were two years ago when the diesel candle erupted and it hurt their sales dramatically we'll find out over the next couple of years. the i.d. buzz, guys, is one of the new vehicles that volkswagen is churning out as quickly as possible as it tries to regain the momentum it's lost over the last couple of years >> does it come with peace signs painted on the side or flowers are they going after the grown-up hippie here >> i don't think their going after grown-up hippie. i think they believe that there is a market that is looking for this type of utility in a different package. there's no doubt that they're playing off of the legacy and the heritage of the microbus, but let's be honest. most people who were driving those back in the '60s and ea'7s they're not in the market for a new vehicle right now or if they are, there are not many of them right now. so i think they're looking for something that is clearly different.

>> people love your shout-out, phil thank you very much. our phil lebeau in chicago when we come back, we'll go live to south carolina. crowds are anxiously awaiting the total eclipse of the sun when qua"squawk alley" returns i was wondering if an electric toothbrush really cleans...

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♪ >> an uncertain forecast is clouding eclipse excitement in columbia, south carolina our contessa brewer is live in columbia contessa, what's going on? i know a lot of people have gone down there to see this >> reporter: yeah, this place is packed they're calling this event a total eclipse of the park. get it ballpark maybe i should have said that, ♪ a total eclipse of the park so they think this is going to be record-breaking ticket sales. the place holds 10,000 people. they said by this morning, they were at, oh, roughly 9,300 ticket sales so now we're talking about not counting even the people who are walking up this place is going to be jamming. and we're not just talking about the fact that ticket sales are

skyrocketing, merchandise sales are skyrocketing, as well. take, for instance this jersey these are being auctioned off, the top bid right now, $1,500. it's a lot of money for a jersey cory, it's a lot of money, right? >> yeah. >> reporter: and it turns out that the whole state as well, is sold out we're talking about air b&b saying its biggest weekend ever here all 27 state campgrounds within the path of totality are fully booked hotel occupancy at 100%. in fact, so many people, a million people expected in the state of south carolina, that the university of south carolina said, we better postpone student move-in today to avoid this crush of eclipsenistas one more note, we're taking a look at the sky. look at the clouds rolling in. fingers crossed that we'll be clear for the eclipse at 2:41. and emergency management has warned about lizardmen they say there's no way

scientifically to predict supernatural dealings, so if you see something, say something sarah, carl, a warning, officially >> thank you, contessa by the way, we're getting reports from nbc news that the president will be looking at the eclipse with the first lady on the truman balcony this afternoon. >> they're going -- they have a better view in washington, d.c.. >> i bet you they have goggles >> they need goggles if you're going to look at it. >> let's get to the half there it is. welcome to the "halftime report." i'm scott wapner the great american eclipse, just moments away for the first time in nearly a century, a total solar eclipse will cross the entire united states we'll brick it to you live beautiful picture already. first, though, better picture for the markets this hour. and that's our top trade the recent pullback in stocks, which are mixed right now, with us for the hour, to discuss all of that, joe