outside? >> not the fried turkey. >> a whole turkey? >> we do the whole thing, of course. >> doing a breast and ham, both. >> breast and ham both. >> your favorite stuffing? >> yes, by far >> i like desserts too. >> pumpkin pie. >> apple pie, it's all good. join us and make sure -- i'm not thinking about food at all "squawk on the street" is next >> this defies logic and it is unprecedented. i've done a lot of deals in my career but i've never done one where we have disdisagreed with the department of justice so much on even the most basic of facts. >> at&t's randall steven son responding to the doj suit to block the bid for time warner. welcome to "squawk on the street."

david faber at the new york stock change we'll talk about the move and impact on tech, media and m&a. feet futures are up we'll get housing data in an hour and yellen speaks tonight the justice department sues to block the merger with time warner saying it would hurt competition and result in higher prices for consumers at&t says it is breaking with decades of antitrust precedent by blocking a merger of companies that don't directly compete with each other. we'll talk to the lead attorney in just a few moments. as you heard stevenson say, the suit defies logic and erat cal departure from decades of antitrust precedent. >> it is surprising even now, that we have seen the lawsuit and weeks leading up to the possibility of it. remember when the wall street journal first reported the possibility it could be blocked. many people were like, what, really when this deal was announced

frankly, action on the antitrust front was way down the list of potential risks and yet here we are with a case coming in the not to distant future in which the government is going to argue and has the burden of proof to argue that this will harm competition. that simply stated, at&t and directv's use of time warner's popular programming is a weapon that will harm competition that seems to be the central argument a lot of different ways around that using statements the companies made, some of them very old in what is a greatly changed landscape since those statements were made by the likes of directv or time warner even or fox if you want to go back but they are going to make that argument in court and it is going to be up to them to prove what many people do not believe is the case. citing yet again time and again a vertical merger of this type does not take out a competitor

and will not harm the consumer, particularly in light of the changes we talk about every single morning here for the last few years, which is a landscape ruled many would argue by amazon, google, netflix and facebook, even when it comes to content and distribution >> look, if the networks hadn't locked up these sports contracts for many years, and kind of a vision narryes, what you would see is facebook would be in these. and then it would be in our face that we realized that facebook is very much a network it is driving me crazy to think the justice department is looking at this in a static and not dynamic way. because the companies i deal with -- everyone of the guys afraid of amazon except for the justice department wake up. >> or netflix, which is in some ways runningthe table to a certain extent

i mean, has direct relationships with producers of content that are making it more and more expensive and has their distribution globally. >> versus hbo which is domestic, thank you for that interview with malone. >> to a certain extent of course could argue there is great value in hbo, no one would argue differently u you have to make a argument that the government is making here, that turner's content and hbo's content is must have in this world. and that the ability to withhold that content would raise prices for consumers or have the effect of moving them to at&t service and therefore harming other distributors. >> it begs the question, did the justice department really hate the comcast deal and felt like they did a bad job that's what happened with the ftc with rite-aid. >> what's clear this administration is not having someone call a regulatory state where they are in charge of

supervising certain kinds of behavior this administration wants no part of that. >> what's interesting in comcast, you had the fcc ruling on comcast and nbc and in this case they have no role they can hold companies accountable over time when it comes to behavioral remedy with the doj and -- >> it's one and done. >> no need for them to rule here they can only come up with something and they don't have that ability to necessarily continue to monitor it because they are not a regulator the way the fcc is. >> which by the way will also unveil new ules, net neutrality, remember that? >> yeah, that's coming back. >> this also has broader implications for the m&a landscape. we've seen a bubbling up lately of merger and acquisition activity and talks about it. but i'd refer even to greg, ceo of liberty media talking about

the possibility of this deal being blocked and what it would means for those thinksing about consolidation in the media industry and even in other industries >> participants and observers have to watch and say what are the rules of the road. this is out of left field. yes, the president had tweeted some things but the head of the antitrust division had suggested there were no problems i think this is kinds of a surprise to a lot of people. >> who does it hurt? the cord cutting alone should make them feel like maybe this isn't a good idea. cord cutting. >> they make the argument at doj the proliferation of the over the top compilations we talked to sof ten about, they can withhold content from them and make them less -- >> like a sling, for example. >> and therefore that would be anti-competitive so they can hurt the creation of that new eco system. >> can time warner -- so that

let's say at&t walks away. barclay's is talking about that. let's say they walk away and then tomorrow alg if a bet says, we'll buy time warner, is that okay? >> that's a great question >> that's what's going to happen. >> we'll talk to dan in a few moments about this is this about m&a at large companies look at oncoming threats and try to couple up. >> the vertical integration of any kind now, i would assume that the ceos beyond a potential deal will think long and hard. you can't get complete comfort but you would have never thought that could be a real problem because it hasn't been so often we talked about deals stopped or gone all the way through the court process, '77 was the last time hammermill

paper -- >> remember tellcar, ip hammermill biggest commodity on earth. >> doj lost that case. >> of course, it was uncoded free sheet the whole logic was so stupid. oh, my god i remember that case. >> that is insane. >> why >> well, what's insane about it? >> so many things. so many things >> when we come back, at&t's lead outside attorney, dan petrocelli on challenging the suit to block the at&t time warner merger. we might get first back to back gains in two weeks and dow needs only 170 points for a fresh record we're back in a minute [ keyboard clacking ]

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the department is justice is suing to block the merger of at&t and time warner on basis the merger would harm

competition and result in higher prices for you, the person at home watching right now. at&t's outside counsel is daniel petrocelli, here at post nine. >> nice to be here. >> in the 23-page complaint the government makes a number of key assertions and after the merger this company will have the power to make its video distributor rivals less competitive resulting in higher monthly bills for american family that would also enable the merge firm to hinder the growth of online distributors that if used as a threat to traditional paid tv model. why is that not the case >> the good news is that the government will have to prove all of that in the court of law. they have the burden of proof. this is a burden they have not been able to prove in a half a century. the last time they won richard nixon was president. before he was nominate to lead the antitrust division, makie d

him publicly commented and said it should not pose a major antitrust problem and the reality is he was absolutely right. it doesn't pose any problem whatsoever the government is relying on some computer models to try to simulate what will happen but the facts are that you could not have a more vibrant competitive landscape then we have today if anything, this merger is going to cause people's cable bills or their tv bills to go down, not up and so they can say it in the lawsuit but proving it is a different thing. i've had the benefit of representing both at&t and time warner over the last year. i've seen 25 million pages of documents --

>> i assume you haven't read all of them. >> i've read not all of them but nouf enough of them and sat through days and days of testimony explaining in detail to the department of justice every aspect of this merger and i can tell you, there is no credible evidence that this merger is going to harm consumers or harm competition. >> when the doj cites documents along the lines they say from the turner ceo, turner has leverage over dish, of course, the other satellite direct broadcast satellite company who has sling tv an they say, sling tv would be quote -- and i don't know, can we -- let's just go with crap without turner what do you say? >> the doj has picked out a handful of e-mails from 25 million pages of documents the reality is in these negotiations between programmers and affiliates, there's a lot of posturing but the proof is in the pudding, there are very few

blackouts in this business when they do occur, they occur for a very, very short time. and today's world, consumers have so much options if they don't like somebody's program, they can go over the top and go to all of these new services through the internet a perfect example for example, that puts a real bullet in the government's theory is what happened with google and youtube. they launched a new live channel service and they didn't include any of the turner networks in that service. >> well, to the extent that the key point in the argument on both sides comes back to sort of providing economic support for the thesis that says the loss of licensing revenues on the content side would be offset from revenues from some of the least -- some of the competitors subscriber switching to at&t can you make that argument i guess you have to respond to

the government's argument, the counter argument >> i mean, it's frankly foolishness. >> what's foolishness though >> because people have so many options with respect to their television server. we're no longer couch potatoes, we're not longer glued to the tv. >> what if i want to watch my ncaa game and can't get my turner >> go to cbs access if you want but there are a lot of options to get all kinds of programming these days and here's the thing, the goal in entertainment, the goal of this show, the goal of any show is to maximize viewership and distribution why in the world would at&t purchase time warner to restrict viewership, to restrict distribution >> only if this thought it could get more people to subscribe to at&t wireless. >> the problem with that theory, it does not work you would have to lose so many subscribers and they would all

have to go to one service, ie directv in order to make up for the immediate and substantial loss of a revenues and of advertising revenues, the whole theory makes no sense. that's -- this is a classic vertical merger. these are efficient transactions no competitor is being eliminated that's why dellrahim, commented before he got into this job -- >> that was a canadian business network broadcast since 2016 he said it was taken out of context, we didn't all include sentences that came later -- >> did make allowances for special deals. >> nothing has changed in this deal from the time he made those remarks until today. >> when youalphabet. they are watching this and at&t walks away google has youtube, now they have this and all sorts of sports locked up justice department fine with it?

>> that's an important point a transaction like this allows the combined company to compete with internet giants who are dominating the world of digital advertising and now moving into tv programming and tv videos as well with their advertising and the enormous data that they have this allows time warner to hook up with the data that at&t has and to use all of that information to give consumers a better product, one that is more innovative and one that's more customized and that's the world today. >> let's talk about whether or not you think this is politically motivated. stevenson was asked about it yesterday, about cnn, frankly, i don't know, nobody should be surprised that the question keeps coming up. what do you think and do you think discovery will bring us communication between the white house and doj that bears that out? >> here's the deal on that we simply don't know

we don't know what was said by whom to whom when. and in my experience things have a way of coming out in the course of litigation so if there's anything there, it will probably unfold and probably won't bode well for the government's case. >> will you go down that road? >> don't know yet. we'll have to see how the events unfold. >> what makes -- how do you come to a decision whether to pursue that as a line >> we don't have to pursue this. okay the government has the burden. we don't have to put on a defense. but if when we start getting into discovery, if we see an signs or indications that something was awry, we may have to pursue it but right now -- i haven't even had a chance to completely study the complaint so -- early stages, we'll figure it out sooner than later. >> can you help viewers understand what awry would mean? >> if there was any kind of inappropriate motivation on the part of the department of

justice in bringing this case, like, for example, there was the comcast nbcu merger which posed way more difficult challenges than this merger that was cleared with conditions, conditions that the company has had no problem agreeing to. but for whatever reason, inexplicably in my view, all suggestions have been rejected. >> we should add the doj officials say there was absolutely no contact whatsoever with the white house, no influence on their decision to bring this case. >> right now, we don't know otherwise. >> could this be -- you hear about fake news, this fake doctrine >> well, someone might call it fake antitrust >> yes, i'll call it that. you afraid to? >> no, i mean, look, we feel extremely strong about our position in this case. the facts support it, the evidence supports it, the law supports it. we don't understand why this

enormously helpful transaction to consumers is being denied by the government and forcing us to go into court to vindicate our position. >> for all we know, time warner left by its own devices could very quickly devolve you need to have huge scale. i worry about cbs all the time, 22 billion they don't have the scale. >> we talked a lot about scale we only have you for another minute a few quick questions here any chance this gets moved from d.c. to texas? >> i don't think so. i mean, we want to go to court as soon as possible. >> that was my other question, time line. >> early trial date on this should take no more than about 60 days. the government has been looking at this deal for over a year they filed a lawsuit and now they have to be ready to prove that lawsuit. >> and no idea which judge you're going to get yet. when do we find that out >> does it even matter

there isn't -- i mean, honest to god, i don't know a doctrine that supports that. >> finally, settlement is always a possibility, i would assume. >> the company has been open since day one. day one including conditions that were agreed to on the comcast nbcu merger. we don't know why we're in this position but here we are and all we can say is that we're going to defend this case and we expect to win it >> daniel petrocelli, thank you. >> look forward to staying in touch. >> yeah. >> sure you do >> got to throw more bombs we need a guy who's like, come on -- >> you do a good job of that. >> yeah, it does. >> happy to join you >> when we come back, we'll get cramer's mad dash and count down to the opening bell. don't go away.

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>> it's been a couple of weeks since we had back to back gains on the dow and s&p and couple of weeks since we saw interday highs, we might get close with futures up triple digits back in a minute

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line and what can i tell you, center of the store is still awful. and campbell's soup is mmm bad. >> that has not been different from the past. >> no. >> i even feel like i remember a carrot problem one other time. >> they cited a weak carrot business since september of last year. >> you have to understand this is a company stock was going up, why? because of your friends at kraft heinz. >> right, the bid that everybody assumes is there for every single company in the food group from kraft heinz which was suffering from the same problems but needs to do a deal. >> what they need to do, buy the soup category to offload the bad cheese whiz category it is really is incredible this is a terrible report. i don't know what to say also said there was a key customer that was promotional. the fact is that canned soup -- just not -- they won't eat it.

i like it. >> i'm the worst demographic the fact i like it is the kiss of death. >> the core business that where soup is down 9 very tough there's the opening bell and s&p at the bottom of the screen on the big board it's amg, an asset management company celebrating its 20th listing anniversary and axeo gen, nerve regeneration and repair campbell's will be worth watching and a lot of other consumer product names and restaurants, jim. >> other than dollar tree, this is a funny day every day the quarters have been really great every day. and today the futures are up so the market goes up even though -- i can name a huge number of companies that disappointed cigna, no one is going to jarrett. the sell saying they don't

understand the upbeat pitch, why isn't he more down beat and more depressed? >> this is like base he cically saying, get off your merchandise and come back to earth. >> and it's not really -- they question the reset year. this is basically a piece which says dream on, flannery, the company was destroyed by the previous guy. >> worst performer on the dow. >> power. >> i was watching yesterday on halftime, talking about more or less a bottom -- >> i think there's some value here it's worth something power is bad okay okay, i stipulate that power is bad. i think this guy is saying that 2019 is a dollar 2018 is just a total wow if you're work being in ge and read this piece, your resume is in the mail. you do not want to -- or e-mail, you're on linked in saying get

me out of here, you know >> does 15 sound more reasonable than 17? >> no, i think it could still hang there but it does read like the overlook hotel red room red room, man honestly good to be back, lloyd this thing reads like you're in the overlook >> in the what >> all work and no play makes jack a very dull boy ain't you ever seen the shining? >> yes. >> red rum >> i stayed at that hotel once in colorado. >> this reads like the overlook, trapped in the overlook, very negative piece by the way, he really does question like flannery, like flannery, what's with the upbeat and you know when i think he's going to -- this guy a $50 target i'll bet he comes in with a $14 target, a race to bottom

>> how low can you go? >> stop at zero. it's incredible. this is not going to zero. the fact that flannery is upbeat, frankly that's okay to me 2 and 14 team to 14 and 2. he was upbeat. >> they looked bad this weekend. what happened to hunt? this is a very big piece i'm glad i don't work there. you'd be down and depressed. >> you could be. >> urges you to be depressed be very afraid it's unbelievable. >> although we do have a nasdaq record today, dollar tree leading that charge. bunch of chinese, jd.com and ten cent has surpassed facebook in market cap. >> unbelievable, qd, q dan some check cashing -- i don't want to go into it other than fact it's down a lot we did a profile of all of the chinese companies and the ones they got excited about, the online education companies, how do you do research in these

things >> i don't know. >> i don't know either. >> all of of the companies that would benefit from time warner being shut down are going higher >> they are? >> yeah, because they got the leg -- >> they are. >> the administration has blessed them. >> netflix is up >> yeah. >> as is google, amazon. >> yeah, here's -- chinese payday loan lender -- i'm sorry, i just think facebook has the opening here they can go by time warner and be fabulous. >> i have a hard time managing that they -- why would they bother paying for content when they get it for trfree. >> snap could do it. i created a firestorm over the weekend, all i was saying, snap is the way the kids get news they can merge -- snap can merge with time warner. >> snap is a lot smaller than time warner. >> they can raise money in a second in this market, tesla could merge, doesn't even matter. >> snap could raise money in a

second to buy time warner, come on >> because it would change the whole profile. apple could guy them with two weeks worth -- >> yes, that's -- >> why not apple could buy cbs and them. >> apple did consider it at one point, at least eddie q had some interest i'm not sure tim did. >> spotify could buy it? >> could buy time warner >> have a $40 billion valuation when they open. >> it will but time warner will have a larger valuation than that. >> bark clay's is going to go to 77 if there's no deal. >> it's up today it's not down, it's up. >> that's because of you. >> maybe because of petrocelli. >> very compelling >> strong words. >> going up against the government is never easy i don't care -- >> unlimited fire power. unlimited fire power but at&t is unlimited fire power. palo alto up 13, big numbers, a

lot of good, not so good. a lot of battlegrounds, coming out from jp morgan saying it was good. burlington not as good this is a day of -- apple is up because of you >> apple is up because of me. >> because you -- >> what? >> apple can buy people like that. >> people like that apple can buy time warner? >> really. positive. >> i thought snap chat was buying them. >> they can do anything they want because that's how people get news they switched over from reddit five things -- you ever looked at redditd you know who told me about reddit brian krzanich. >> be careful where you go, scary pages. >> the stock is up -- it's not why the stock went from 35 to 44 he was more in tune to younger people than i was.

>> by the way, urban beats by 8 cents, comes up, estimates down, double digit growth in direct. >> anthropology was good and when it gets rolling, it's hard to stop. >> lowe's beats, comes up, got hurricane benefit. >> they were downbeat. they were downbeat in what they think is going to happen next. i thought they were ridiculously down beat. they also have -- but john says that flannery is so upbeat, i think the lowe's people are too downbeat these people need -- they need something -- >> are they under promising and overdelivering though? >> i think they are practicing -- >> which i know is your mantra. >> it is my mantra you follow it closely and know when simon comes on a lot. yesterday i think it was the journal or maybe it was bloomberg, nestle has some interest, stock went up. i don't know, i talked to a bunch of bankers or number of them who sort of try to see if

they can find a home for that thing and come up empty. do you think nestle has real interest here? >> you know, i like -- i think they are doing good business with whole foods but i think if you wanted to buy it, you would have bought it before. i also think that nestle doesn't really need -- i haen can be replicated, because it's not a mow sayic of brands. >> meaning it's not going to get sold >> i don't think it gets sold. do i think that it could help campbell's or general mills? i said yesterday that general mills should buy them. general mills is struggling for relevance. irwin simon has relevance. >> i got a kosher turkey from thanksgiving. >> from hain >> they sell turkeys >> the empire, the best. >> that's theirs >> what are you using? >> my wife is making -- we're not cooking this year. >> sunday was hell and tomorrow will be miserable because of thanksgiving

she doesn't watch, she's home, doesn't watch. i'll be slicing and dicing all tomorrow and then they eat it in an hour and a half and it's gone and you really have a lot of regret. >> what you have is a lot dishes and that where i come in and that's brutal too. >> why do i always have to do the clean sng. >> i don't know, jim. >> do the cooking instead. >> the wife does the cooking i burn the turkey -- i fried it and it's like it got incinerated. >> got to be careful with those fried turkeys, they are a fire hazard. >> probably far afield from where they were. >> we watch volume as the market takes on a holiday tone. dow is up 119. >> a positive close today, would give the dow and s&p their first back to back gains in two weeks. the dow already up triple digits and nasdaq up another record setting day and see saw factors could be part of the discussion. the s&p 500's meeting return from the close on november 20th,

yesterday, through december 4th over the last ten years has been a gain of 1.4% positive returns for ten straight years meantime, check out the session in asia overnight. new data shows hedge fund capital invested in emerging markets rose to a record at the start of the fourth quarter with the primary contribution coming from chinese hedge funds that political noise in europe still a big part of the story. chancellor angela merkel's failure to get a coalition together does raise the potential for a snap election in germany. media of course big talker in something we will keep an eye on november m&a is at a record high, something to keep into account as we discuss the media sector let's turn our focus to retail, a mixed day of trade falling earnings, dsw the big loser following an unexpected decline in comp sales. shares down 13% here in early trade. chinese ipos, take a look at the board here, u.s. law firm launching an investigation into

chinese lender gudian, down as you can see around 12% here. and talking about volatility, check out the price of bitcoin, dropped 5% overnight on news of a $31 million hack that involved another coin, tether but those security concerns were quickly dismissed. bitcoin is back above $8200 here, new record we are seeing a number of new coins that have come to market, all kind of touting slightly different technology some experts say this proliferation of new currencies that could potentially put a lid on bitcoin's rise which by the way has a market cap of $136 billion. david, back over to you. >> thank you very much seema, the implications of the doj's decision to move against at&t and time warner are far ranging. wanted to come back to a deal i talked about many times over the weeks, namely the efforts under

way by both comcast and disney to acquire the entertainment distribution assets international distribution assets of fox. one would think given this complaint that that effort would be in jeopardy and that might not be too much of a reach that said, unclear exactly at this point where those talks would stand but you have to believe at least based on the conversations i've had previously with the possibility of antitrust action on at&t time warner, that fox would take a wait and see approach or more of a wait and see approach or perhaps have some sort of an agreement outlined but not announce anything until it knew the outcome of this trial, which of course could be months from now. and so we'll have to wait and see but the prospect of more content assets whether it be with comcast, which is still operating under a consent decree, not for that much longer, that it signed when it bought nbc universal, or even

the prospect of disney owning a lot more content assets given the government's position in at&t time warner, it could be problematic. >> i did want to share one thing a number of people have been asking about, which is structure, how would this work what about the enormous tax leakage, in other words the value of fox's assets, potential of the sale or being treated as a sale and the fact they had a big tax bill, here's what i can tell you about the potential structure for any deal based on conversations with people close to the conversations themselves. if you were a current fox holder what you would get is one share of remainco, that is what would stay behind, which is fox broadcast network. fox news, fox business the affiliates and fox sports, not the regional sports networks, remember those would be jettisoned, but that's what you would have, a share of that. similar to what cbs is right now and get a ratio of disney shares

or comcast shares for the jettison businesses and businesses that are being or would be sold to either comcast or disney under these potential deals. so it would not be the effect i described yesterday and talked to jim about where fox would sell them and take in a huge stake in disney or comcast which would sit on its balance sheet that is not the case those shares would be distributed to existing holders. certainly something for people to think about again as we kind of focus to a certain extent on the potential for this deal, which one has to believe has at least been dealt if nothing more than a timing blow but certainly a blow not to mention at time warner were to be independent again, would they ever consider going back and saying, you know what, now we have the opportunity to get the scale but we don't think we can to compete with google and facebook and amazon and googles of the world there's the assets and how they would be split i love that look back there. whether it comes to at&t time

warner we have a judge in the case, carl, that's been appointed. >> cooper, an obama appointee from 2014 according to wikipedia. >> total heavyweight, stanford law, yale. total heavyweight. >> don't believe he ruled on antitrust deals in the past. amy jackson, baets and kul telly as the five in the court that had dealt with horizontal mergers. i did not see his name given when he was appointed, very likely not overseen. >> was in justice for a couple of years this guy clerked for abener, perhaps the most liberal on the bench at the time when he was on the bench, abner mickville. >> how old is this guy >> i'm looking at wikipedia. that could be wrong.

>> could be. >> could be wrong. it's been wrong. >> let's get to rick santelli and check out what's going on in the bond pits. >> good morning, david there's a lot of reasons why many investors are buying long data maturities domestically and globally but the effects are pretty clear the yield curve in every combination continues to flatten, look at a one week of twos, yes, we clicked off another yield that we haven't seen since 2008, 176 and the drift higher continues every combination, tens minus twos, one week chart, 58 30s minus 5s at 65 tens minus 5s at 25. even 30s minus 10s and trading 40 basis points, 30s minus 10s 10s minus 5s, all comping back basically ten years. the 30s minus 10s comping back

to 2008, very similar to two-year note yields in june of '08 we traded 3%. '08 will be the historic comp that sticks. we'll debate whether it's october or september or august or july at some point as these yields continue to climb finally let's look what's going on with 10-year bunds. this chart starts in the beginning of september and the point is that in june, you remember when we shot up because it was -- basically the european version of a taper tantrum now we're back in the mid-30s, 30 to 31 basis point, last significant high volume bottoms, many traders will pay very close attention to that technical level. will it hold well, it certainly seems as though we're very comfortable here but it is something traders are looking at, along with the weakness that developed in the euro, although not extensive, politically motivated in parlt by merkel's issues we see that the dollar index is

back up to the technically significant 94 area. carol, david, jim, back to you. >> thank you very much still to come this morning, as we count down to black friday, we'll talk with a ceo of williams sonoma, and dow is up almost 150 here as we're within reach, striking distance of some fresh interday highs, already got one on the nasdaq. back after a break every day, on every street, in every town, across america. small businesses show their love to you. with some friendly advice, a genuine smile and a warm welcome they make your town... well, your town. that's why american express is proud to be the founding partner of small business saturday. a day where you get to return that love,

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♪ what we do every night is like something out of a strange dream. except that the next morning it all makes sense. to power global e-commerce fedex networks are massive, far-reaching and, yes... a little magical. fedex.com slash dream well, it'sonce again.eason >>yeah. lot of tech companies are reporting today. and, how's it looking? >>i don't know. there's so many opinions out there, it's hard to make sense of it all. well, victor, do you have something for him?

>>check this out. td ameritrade aggregates thousands of earnings estimates into a single data point. that way you can keep your eyes on the big picture. >>huh. feel better? >>much better. yeah, me too. wow, you really did a number on this thing. >>sorry about that. that's alright. i got a box of 'em. thousands of opinions. one estimate. the earnings tool from td ameritrade.

let's get to jim and "stop trading. >> might be random, but it's very rare you have $100 billion company, goes up 5%, and nobody

really cares this is kind of what's been happening in the market. you'll have a stock like medtronnic, and it will soar because they report better than expected and we don't talk about it because there are so many companies that reported better than expected. and i find that we hear so often that the market is overvalued. tell that to the people who are short medtronic. but they're boring who cares? pacemakers, you care about medtronic? the only time i thought about them was the episode of homeland >> marvell tonight >> marvell, and brunswick. unsinkable we have tried it unsinkable and you know, good company, but nothing like having a major semi-conductor company merger. they're so busy looking at jeff

zucker he's involved. >> yes, he is. he is. >> will he be deposed? >> i don't know. >> me either >> why wouldn't you? >> i don't know. i don't know anything. >> they have already deposed plenty of witnesses. >> we missed a lot because this is a market where a lot of stocks are going up and people are yawning. who cares? paypal up again. who cares? up $2. geez, i care i care >> vix is back below 10. less than a point away from a record on the s&p. >> i got to do all the cleaning and all the cooking. and it's just a nightmare. just a nightmare let's get this day over with, get the leftovers. >> this is the best holiday there is come on. >> the best unless you have to cook i want to eat. i don't want to cook >> all right >> the best holiday and the best pie is - >> pumpkin pie >> of course >> made with libby's hey, by the way. she says to me, should we make the cranberry?

no, we get the canned cranberry. we slice orange. remember your roots. remember your roots. and with the onions, the dried onions for the string bean ca cassero casserole. remember your roots. and none of that crazy stuff like oysters in the stuffing i'm talking stovetop >> love stuffing >> have a great thanksgiving, jim. >> have a great thanksgiving a great national holiday lincoln, total game. game one and i still have to do a little cleaning >> you'll be fine. you'll be okay >> okay, thank you >> when we come back, more reaction to the doj suing to block at&t/time warner we're back in a moment [ click ] [ keyboard clacking ] [ clacking continues ] good questions lead to good answers. our advisors can help you find both. talk to one today and see why we're bullish on the future.

yours.

the street." i'm diana olick with breaking news from the nlsh association of realtors. existing home sales in october up 2% even to a seasonably adjusted rate to 5.48 million units. that's slightly better than the street was expected, but septembers numbers were revised down october's read still down 0.9% compared to october of last year what's the problem nothing for sale 1.8 million homes for sale in october. that's down 10.4% year over year to a 3.9 month supply. lowest ever on the realtors

record dating back to 1999 that's why prices are up the median existing home price, $247,000 that's up 5.5% year over year, and that is 68 straight months of home prices rising. so five straight years days on market down to just 34 days to sell a house, down from 41 a year ago. also, all cash at 20%, still very high. investors in the market. first time home buyers did step in at 32%. again, sales rebounding. realtors saying in houston and florida, sales came back a lot quicker than they expected that could account for some of the jump, but again, a nice read on october sales supplies still very low. back to you guys >> diana, thank you very much. good tuesday morning, everyone welcome back to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with sara eisen and david faber at post nine of the new york stock exchange a record high on the nasdaq. s&p is just about a point below its own record high. a lot to watch including

at&t/time warner light volume in retail earnings. >> our road map for the hour starts with the department of justice suing to block the merger between at&t and time warner the government says it is illegal and harmful to consumers. at&t's ceo fights back we've got the latest straight ahead. >>ry tail earnings leading the charge lowe's, dsw, dollar tree reporting. we'll dig through those numbers. >> and going after google. he discussed his antitrust investigation into the giant and his run for senate and more. >> first up, the justice department officially filing its lawsuit to challenge at&t's purchase of time warner, and its complaint, the doj arguing the deal would hinder rivals by forcing them to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for the right to distribute time warner's networks. that's additional dollars. speaking at a press conference yesterday, at&t's ceo addressed what he called the elephant in the room >> there's been a lot of

reporting and speculation whether this is all about cnn. and frankly, i don't know. but nobody should be surprised that the question keeps coming up because we have witnessed such an abrupt change in the application of antitrust law here but the bottom line is that we cannot and we will not be party to any agreement that would even give the perception of compromising the first amendment protections of the press >> joining us now to discuss, ethan glass. a partner at quinn emanuel and a former assistant chief for the doj's antitrust decision and seth bloom he's a former general counsel of the u.s. senate antitrust subcommittee thanks to you both ethan, let me start with you does the government have a good case here? >> good morning. i'm concerned about the government's case. you know, there's a thought exercise that we should all take who is concerned about the

merger that's a thought exercise. we have undertaken in every merger analysis. is it mrs. smith who buys at&t, verizon, comcast content or is it one of at&t's competitors? if the answer is one of at&t's competitors is really who's concerned, that's a tough case for the government because that tells me that it's more about restricting competition than enhancing competition. so the question i have is, what is the government's evidence that this is not about protecting a verizon, a comcast, or any of at&t's competitors but instead about protecting mrs. smith and from my review of the complaint, i don't see what evidence they have >> you know, it's interesting. the complaints seem to be thin on source material, ethan, on all of those things. compare it to other complaints if you can for us. give us historical context in terms of other actions the

government has brought, not necessarily similar, because typically, they're for horizontal deals, but nonetheless, this complaint versus other ones. >> absolutely. as you know, the government has a process called the hart scott ridino process, which requires mergers such as this to be filed with the federal trade commission and department of justice. then the government has an opportunity to choose whether it wants to investigate those mergers or not in this case, the government chose to investigate the merger. and that investigation has been pending for over a year. the question is, what did that investigation show normally, what you would do in a complaint is you would provide public notice, both to at&t, directv, and time warner, but also to those of us who are reading the complaint of what evidence the government has collected during its time of investigating this merger. and my review, it's pretty scant. in fact, i notice that there's a couple of footnotes in there a footnote about a consumer protection complaint there's a footnote about some

congressional statements about vertical mergers those aren't evidence about this merger and in fact, the bulk of the quotes, as i read it, come from statements that at&t or directv made about a different merger, the comcast/nbc merger as we all know, antitrust analysis is about taking the merger before us, the facts before us, and the circumstances before us. and so i think that the government is going to have a tough time showing that that previous merger has anything to do with this merger. >> seth, let's get to you. burden of proof is on the government please give me your take as well >> i agree with a lot of what ethan said what struck me about the complaint is it rested on the idea that time warner had must-have programming that it could strategically deny to its distribution competitors and other pay tv companies and therefore either cause consumers to switch to other companies or pay higher prices if it raised the price. the question here really is in

today's modern video age, does time warner really have this must-have programming? with consumers having so many sources of programming, particularly online, everything from netflix to hulu to amazon prime, and i just named a few, is it really possible for in today's world, for at&t to deploy the strategy once it acquires time warner assets? that's a highly questionable proposition and the government is going to have the burden of proof on this issue. in addition to that, you know, this is a vertical merger. that is, these two companies, at&t and time warner, are not direct competitors at&t does not own programming. time warner doesn't own distribution assets like directv. so now, while it is possible to bring a vertical merger case, and i'm not one of those who say it's impossible. in fact, it's recognized in the clayton act and in 1950 amendment to the clayton act one hasn't been brought in nearly 40 years by the government in fact, the last time the supreme court endorsed bringing

a vertical merger case was 60 years ago in 1957. so the government's really going to have to have its burden in convincing a federal judge today in 2017 that this really still is a viable theory on which to bring a merger challenge >> ethan, do you believe that we're wiblszing some kind of shift in antitrust overall and do you think that will hamper interest of would-be buyers now or do we have to wait until we get a decision or some of both? >> you know, i think part of it is that i'm confused, and i would guess the business community is confused as well. the fundamental question here in a vertical case is whether or not there are other options for at&t's competitors and you know, i'm not an expert in entertainment, but i watch a lot of tv. i watch a lot of movies. and there's a lot out there. and i find it very hard to believe that, one, at&t would have the incentive to cut off

the access to one of its most valuable assets should this merger go through. i mean, it seems inconceivable to me that at&t would all of a sudden say, i don't want people to watch harry potter. i don't want people to watch hbo. and so if at&t still has the incentive to get those products out there, i just don't understand what the government is going at here and so i do wonder whether or not as we watch this proceed along, whether the government has some evidence that it hasn't yet shared with us, which will provide the business community with more guidance on where the government is standing or whether or not we're going to end up in front of a judge where they're basically going to take the position that too big is enough and i think that's a very difficult position for the government to take and it will be very difficult for the business community to assess >> i think we have to talk about the trump factor here. we started the segment off with at&t's ceo randall stevenson preempting questions yesterday in that news conference, talking about what he called the elephant in the room, which is

trump bashing cnn. just last week, the president tweeted while in the philippines i was forced to watch cnn which i have not done in months and again realized how bad and fake it is. loser, exclamation point can they use that in court >> seth. >> here's what i could say about this the judge is there to examine the antitrust case whether or not the government has alleged a substantial injury to competition, and has proved it, has the burden of proof to prove it the judge is not there to examine the political motivations for bringing this case i don't think that really fundamentally will affect the case judges are human beings. if a judge is suspicious of trump, that might influence his or her thinking, but i don't think that will be decisive. i'll say on the point that randall stevenson has raised and many people have raised, where don't believe the justice department brought the case because the president ordered them to. if you notice, the complaint is signed by nearly 30 career staff attorneys at the justice

department >> not one a.g not one state a.g. >> not one one wonders about that state a.g.s that tend to be active in antitrust cases tend to be democrats and they're probably not sympathetic to the trump justice department that might explain it. they also had concerns about whether or not they would prevail in court if you look at the complaint and the number of staff attorneys that signed it, i think for years. people at the justice department career staff have been wanting to bring a vertical merger case. so i think that's the -- i think this complanltd was definitely the product of those folks obviously, approved by the assistant attorney general, but i wouldn't say that this was caused by president trump. >> although mr. dell rahim may have moved them toward that given they seemed close to a behavioral remedy prior to his arrival. we'll leave it there but we have plenty to talk about in the weeks and months ahead when we come back, a lot more on the doj suing to block at&t's merger with time warner we'll talk to missouri's

attorney general, josh hawley as he opened an antitrust investigation into google. >> plus, why amazon's pharmacy play may not be as big an opportunity as we expected >> dow is up 136, and we're back in a moment.

s&p. 2597.02 was the record before. just a touch above that. keep that in mind. meanwhile, amazon's pharmacy opportunity may not necessarily be a game changer. that's according to a new note out today. joining us to talk about it is john blacklidge. good morning to you. >> thanks for having me. >> one of your peers on the sell side did a report yesterday about amazon's disruption in pharma they said the title was alexa, how much of this is going to hurt your answer appears to be not much >> yeah. when we looked at it, we identified about a $200 billion opportunity for amazon in 2018 in the retail and mail segment that's only 43% of total u.s. pharma revenue that's only 62% of actually the segments that are going to enter retail and mail because they're not going to do specialty drugs just given issues around reimbursement, small patient

cohort, and they're also not going to get into hospital and clinical prescription sales. it's not quite as big. when we stacked it up against the other potential verticals for amazon, it's the sixth largest b to c vertical, x auto, and despite we have proprietary data saying high demand for prime subs great purchasing synergies, but it wasn't quite as big as we thought it would be. and other verticals that we looked at. for instance, we said that apparel, cumables and food and beverage grocery are 12, 8, and 5 times bigger than pharmacy, our bull case estimates on their pharmacy business. >> does that include acquisitions they would have to make or something they could do from here? >> yeah, that excludes acquisitions in the report, we disdiscuss the rationale for potentially amazon buying rite aid. it's about a $5 billion enterprise value right now, and it would be helpful from a lot

of respects, it would give them the licenses it would give them the pharmacists. it would give them $13 billion in drug spend. some scale there it would give them a small pbm we highlighted that as a possibility. and you know, we'll see how it shakes out >> i know you're sort of playing down the threat to the overall industry, but just in terms of this long supply chain that could be disrupted if amazon does go in and say buy a rite aid as you suggest there's insurers, pharmacy benefit managers distributors for drugs, drug companies themselves and pharmacies who should be most worried >> i mean, our team, our health care distribution team didn't think -- you would think distribution for amazon, that's would be a likely path but our pharma team did not think that that would be -- because it's being consolidated over the last several decades, that that would be a path. so really, they're going to get into pharmacy, retail pharmacy

and mail pharmacy. there's a bit of a threat to the existing players and the grocers, but that's kind of how we shook out >> so finally, john, for all the other companies, whether it's a cvs or aetna, how much -- are they overreacting to the potential threat or not? >> i think it's -- that's where we came out. we thing it's a little bit -- a little too much hype versus what the actual opportunity is. and then layering in when they actually do it we have not seen amazon get a pharmacy license yet there's no -- they're not hiring any pharmacists at this point. not saying they're not going to do it, because the one thing we called out on the report is 67% of prime subs said they would buy prescription drugs from amazon if they offer it. there's 55 million prime members in the u.s., and great purchasing synergies three of the top five categories for prime subs are personal care, household goods, and vitamins those are all front of the house

brick and mortar pharmacy staples. you marry that with the demand from prime subs for prescription drugs, it makes total sense for them to do it. our whole thing is, there's other areas, to us, that are bigger it will be good. but it's not going to be, you know, kind of there's other areas that are bigger. >> yeah, interesting perspective. good report, john. thanks for sharing it with us. john blacklidge, senior internet an list at cowen >> coming up, antitrust in focus today. the doj going after the at&t/time warner merger. plus, the a.g. of missouri kicking off an investigation into google. he will join us to discuss that one and more just taking a quick look at stocks at this hour. another broadbased rally, nearly all sectors in the s&p 500 are green except telecom we'll be rig bk.htac

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to help you keep rolling with confidence. go long™. ♪ by the way, record highs right now for the s&p, the nasdaq tech is leading. russell 2,000, and almost for the dow. broad based rally going on lowe's among the big retail

names reporting earnings beating the street, getting a boost from hurricane related sales. our courtney reagan has been digging through the report along with dsw and dollar tree and she joins us with more morning, courtney. >> good morning to you, sara lowe's beating the street's expectations comp store sales up 5.7% ahead of estimates, and the strongest rate in about six quarters there was a $200 million sales benefit from hurricane related shopper purchases. lowe's comp sales estimate for the current quarter is in line with analysts consensus. shares are a little lower. both home depot and lowe's reporting two strong quarters, both last two quarters but it hasn't been enough, really, for investors that are used to strong outperformance from these two very high expectations pushing the stock lower. in the u.s., lowe's says all product categories and regions improved year over year. lumber building materials saw the strongest quarter, driven by a combination of pro demand,

hurricane prep and cleanup, and price inflation. lowe's outperforming so notable the home improvement retailer saw the best appliance comp in seven quarters also notable we know players are changing that space amazon is ramping up its appliances jcpenny works to jab share why sears is shrinking a couple other movers to watch this morning shares sharply lower for dsw, down 11% here, after missing on profit by a wide margin, also light revenues and disappointing comparable sales those are forecast to be up 0.8% they fell 0.4% dollar tree, shares higher as earnings beat by a wide margin on stronger revenue. comp sales stronger than expected comps a little lighter at family dollar dollar tree owns both of those

back over to you >> i was looking at the u.s. comps for lowe's better, 5% home depot, this quarter, was 7.7% in the u.s. is this still considered an area that is amazon proof or online proof when it comes to spending on home appliances or not? there seems to be a lot of confusion. >> what i think is really interesting is when you look at the numbers for buy online and pick up in store but for home depot, 45% of the purchases that are made online are picked up in store for lowe's, 60% of purchases bought online are picked up in store. it is still an area across the board, not just for appliances, i think, where consumers really do want to have that final check in the store or it's maybe some advice they need they want to see it, touch it, feel it, make sure it fits with the rest of the decor. that does seem to be an area of differentiation between both of the home improvement players when you look at amazon, but you

know amazon shakes things up for all of us, so who's to say it's going to stay that way for the long run >> courtney, thank you courtney reagan on retail. >> campbells the other big story. slumping this morning. the food company reported quarterly profit that missed expectations said higher cost for logistics, tran transportation, and gescarrots, impacted its bottom line we talked about it with jim, and the core soup business, difficult. >> they combine the weather excuse and the carrot excuse unfavorable weather resulted in higher carrot costs. yes, they had higher costs and some inflation >> they used carrots before, carl reminded us >> in terms of an excuse >> yes >> not the first time they went to the carrot excuse >> they have a lot of carrots in their process, but they said the operating environment continues to remain challenging. and will do so 9% decline in sales for the

meals segment, which is largely soups. at the beginning of what is the soup season, the cold season this just gets back to the fact that these packaged good companies continue to underperform on sales. whenever they have a good quarter, it's either driven by cost cuts or just better than worse expectations and lowered expectations that's been the story. it's been general mills, kellogg, and it brings us to hanes celestial, which has driven us to talks again the stock has gone up basically since our interview, and then bloomberg reported that nestle and others would be interested i don't think that was a surprise to anyone one of the last remaining independent organic and natural players that is seeing growth on the supermarket shelves and benefitting from the amazon/whole foods deal. >> in speaking to people who try to sell companies for a business, they didn't necessarily think hain was a good fit for a lot of companies. >> they could sell pieces of the

business >> they could. >> erwin simon is a builder and he's built a number of brands. everything from the protein business to the snack business so he's got a lot potentially. >> kosher turkeys, apparently. >> empire turkeys. >> yes >> kosher business has done well >> the markets here, we did get a record on the s&p, the nasdaq, the russell. dow needs about 21 more points to get one of its own. did you know the period from november 20th to december 4th on the s&p has been positive for ten straight years >> huh >> thanks to bespoken vests. but seasonally, we're in the sweet spot a lot of cross currents are at work, but the time of the year where the markets works. >> sort of the advanced santa claus volume earnings have slowed down. >> vix back below ten, and russell out performed the past few days some are reading as a sign that the tax bill is

progressing with some alacrity >> not enough people are talking about the fed. we did learn janet yellen is going to step off the fed. four vaekacies on the federal reserve board which is made out of seven >> wow >> president trump is going to totally reshape the federal reserve, and the question is what kind of policy consistency can we expect given that most of the board members are out? >> yeah, policy consistency is a topic all over the place this week >> he's going to like people who tweet. could you imagine. >> central bankers who tweet >> kind of a joke, a little bit. >> but maybe not >> maybe not >> when we come back, a lot more on the doj suing to block at&t/time warner we'll talk with columnist for "the new york times," jim stewart. >> tonight is the premiere of the prophet. a sneak peek >> i definitely get choked up when i talk about this business. not because of the money that we're going to make. i think what's crazier for me is

they want to take that money and start an adoption foundation and for them, they tell me every single day, every day, and this is not an exaggeration, i get a text from gio, i just want you to know how grateful >> you have no idea how much this helped our family >> you know, that's a big deal for me >> that is the profit with marcus lemonis airing tonight, 10:00 p.m. eastern time and pacific. "squawk on the street" is back in a moment.

i'm sue herera here's your cnbc news update charlie rose has been suspended by three networks following accusations by eight women that he sexually harassed them. rose apologized in a statement while saying some charges are inaccurate cbs colleague gail king addressed the issue today on cbs this morning >> what do you say when someone

that you deeply care about has done something that is so horrible how do you wrap your brain around that? i'm really grappling with that that said, charlie does not get a pass here. >> federal prosecutors are charging an iranian nafl in the hbo hacking case the u.s. attorney's office in new york says the man allegedly tried to extort hbo for $6 million in bitcoin after obtaining unreleased information, including skriments for the hit series "game of thrones. >> an explosion at a new york state cosmetics factory has killed one worker and injured 33 more, including seven firefighters who responded to that blaze smoke could be seen billowing from the structure there is still no word on the cause. and that is the news update this hour you're up to date. sara, i'll send it back downtown to you >> see you next hour thank you. injustice department officially filing its first major antitrust action under the

trump administration moving to block at&t's proposed $85 billion bid for time warner. at&t ceo randall stevenson addressing the decision at a press conference yesterday listen >> this lawsuit has the whole world questioning what they will, can, and cannot do this throws a huge degree of uncertainty to anybody contemplating joint ventures anybody contemplating m & a. that's one of the key concerns about this, to take suddenly without any notice and just upturn 50 years of precedent on a transaction like this can have nothing but a freezing effect on commerce in general. >> joining us here at post nine, pulitzer prize winning "new york times" columnist jim stewart welcome back you were here last week, this was going to be an epic antitrust case it appears to be so. which is your position do you agree with mr

mr. stephenson, or do you think the government has a case? >> i totally agree with the case he made there, what does it say about the rule of law. it is up ending many years of antitrust policy practice and rules. typically, the antitrust division, if they wanted to change their policy, would put people on notice, would call in experts. would consider this and then issue new guidelines, all of which would then be applied. here, major guidelines have simply been thrown out, and there are no new ones in place like what are the rules that are being applied to at&t/time warner here? is it that they're too big is it that they're a media company? is it that we don't like them because they have cnn? nobody knows so i think he's absolutely right. there's confusion in that. now, on the actual merits of the case, i think i also tend to agree that he's right. there are some, you know, antitrust experts with these alternative theories that are quite interesting, but still, i would say kind of out there on the fringe and yes, he's right. the president is going to be on the side of at&t and time

warner >> the government would argue they're concerned the new company would charge competitors big fees to distribute some of time warner's precious content, including hbo. that would give directv an unfair advantage >> let's look at that. let's say okay, you're going to charge comcast, take one example, some exorbitant price to run "game of thrones" which you could argue is must-see tv first, that in and of itself is an antitrust violation or if at&t said we won't let you run it at all at any price, that's an antitrust violation. you can't discriminate on the basis of price you can't withhold from competitors in order to extend a monopoly there are already remedies for that, and you could have a behavioral remedy where they agree we won't charge different prices to competitors for the same product it fails under all those accounts second, the idea of higher

prices for consumers, time warner is already charging as much as it can to maximize its profits. at&t, what are they going to do? sacrifice all the profits by not selling it i just don't see -- and how are they going to squeeze more money out of it than time warner can i don't get that at all. >> to your point, the reason we have the proliferation of all these over the top services is in part because of the price you're mentioning. people don't want to pay for these very things and therefore they don't seem to be as must-have as the government seems to be arguing. >> absolutely. you see cord cutting people like refining what they want, tailoring it to their own needs. you know, the content argument, we have never had better content. it's proliferating it's exploding it's everywhere. the broadband issue i think is a little more interesting. if there's any concentration in any of these markets, that, like directv is not the issue satellite is in decline. cable is in decline. over the top broadband distribution is rising

how many broadband providers do we have? it's not a monopoly, not a duopoly. it's reasonably concentrated and they're worried about at&t's market power there, but there's no doctrine that says it's so concentrated and such a monopoly already that you can block it. >> why do we think they're doing this if the merits are so weak >> well, i assume, you know, a lot of people in the division signed on. i assume there's a cadre in there that have kind of bought into what some people are calling this hipster antitrust theory which is very suspicious of bigness, particularly in the media area i would say it's almost an anxiety that there's too much power in the hands of too few. i don't think it is trump interference, certainly not at the staff level. >> but there's where the google, amazon, netflix argument comes in about at&t can make about how

big they have grown and how much market they control. >> absolutely. that's why when you look at, is at&t too big look at how big the big rivals are getting and getting bigger every day. again, i don't wiquite get it, u there is that theory out there i give them the benefit of the doubt that it's a legitimate concern. go ahead >> i wanted to get your reaction to something because we spoke to the lead counsel for at&t earlier on the program we asked what high thinks about the doj's claims this marger would harm competition, increase prices for the consumer. take a listen. >> the facts are that you could not have a more vibrant, competitive landscape than we have today and if anything, this merger is going to cause people's cable bills or their tv bills to go down, not up and so they can say it in the lawsuit, but proving it is a different thing. >> you have been saying very much the same thing as they're going to argue that said, it is the u.s.

government, nothing says with certainly that they're not going to be able to prove their case >> a challenge for at&t here is, not only to explain that it's not anticompetitive, but it is pro-competitive. they keep saying there are benefits to the consumer here. let's be more specific here. what are the benefits? are you going to actually cut prices in some cases, which would be a benefit to the consumer it's not so evident to me that it's a huge home run for consumers. by the way, the same reasons it's not anti-competitive also means i don't think it's a fabulous deal, you know. this is a vertical merger. i think it will provide some efficiencies, but it's not going to cause at&t's stock to go crazy. >> so what percentage would you give right now of this deal getting done >> i'll go out on a limb and say 80/20 in favor of it getting approved >> jim stewart, always good to tox to you, especially about this media stuff >> thank you >> of "the new york times." >> when we come back, missouri's attorney general, josh hawley, is going to join us to talk about his fight against google

the doj going after at/te &tim warner, his senate run and a lot more he joins us next don't go away. [ keyboard clacking ] [ click ] [ keyboard clacking ] [ clacking continues ] good questions lead to good answers. our advisors can help you find both. talk to one today and see why we're bullish on the future. yours.

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silicon valley facing continued backlash from lawmakers around the world, only months after european leaders levied that fine on google missouri's attorney general announcing an investigation into the giants, citing concerns over the mishanding of consumer data. josh hawley joins us, attorney general of missouri. good to have you with us thanks for joining us. >> good to be with you >> be more specific about your concerns regarding google. what are they? >> well, here's what i want to know

i want to know what information from consumers google is collecting when they visit google search or google mail or google flights or google shopping i want to know what they're doing with that information. how are they collecting it, to whom are they selling it, what are they using it for, and are they disclosing to consumers exactly what it is they're collecting, and exactly what it is they're doing with it so in short, what i want are the facts. and that's why we have issued a subpoena to google to get at the facts. i also want to know, are they manipulating the results of their search engine algorithm in order to benefit their own companies. and google affiliated websites and i want to know if they're taking data from competitors and using it, misappropriating it in order to benefit google platforms. i have issued a subpoena asking for the facts. >> what's been the response to the subpoena, and have you gotten anything that you wanted to know out of their recent appearance on capitol hill >> well, google has a few days to respond to the subpoena

they have about 60 days in particular and i hope that they will be forthcoming. they have said that they have a privacy policy, that was their initial response well, i have read their privacy policy, and my concern is it's very vague it's not specific at all we need to know, what is the information they're collecting from us when we use their products, and do we have a meaningful option to opt out of their data collection? so those are the facts that we are after. i look forward to getting those facts from google. >> it's interesting, you're also running for senate as a republican, and all morning long, we have been talking about the trump administration moving to block the at&t/time warner deal is the republican party becoming the party of antitrust and regulation >> well, hopefully, we're becoming the party of consumers. i can only speak for myself. my job as attorney general of missouri is to protect the consumers of my state. to protect the people of my state. i took an oath to do that, and that's what i'm doing. google has collected and is collecting more information about us than any other company

in the history of the world. and i would like to know exactly what it is they're collecting. i would like to know exactly what it is they're doing with it, because here's why in this information age, there's nothing that's more important, more valuable to us than our personal private confidential information. google has access to it in a huge way, and where want to know what they're doing with it >> you could make an argument that facebook and amazon both also collect an enormous amount of information i mean, people put these alexas in their homes, and it's kind of listening. why not expand your investigation to include those two internet giants as well? >> well, one step at a time. one step at a time our focus at present is on a search engine that has over two thirds of the traffic, i think, of all searches worldwide, maybe more 70% of all credit card transactions involve google in some way that's according to google

by the way so google is an incredibly powerful company with incredible market power, incredible market concentration. and it's a company and a series of platforms that almost every consumer comes into contact with at some point. so what are they collecting? what are they doing with it? do we have an opportunity to opt out? and are they going after competitors? are they taking competitors' proprietary information? those are the things i want answers to >> any interest into signing on the justice department's complaint regarding at&t >> we'll have to review it, and we will review the complaint carefully to see what the allegations are. i can tell you this, i am committed to protecting the consumers of my state, making sure that ordinary average folks who don't have market power themselves, who aren't wealthy and well connected, that they have a say that their voice and their interests are protected. that's my job. that's what i'm doing in this google investigation and that's what i'm going to keep doing >> part of what you're

investigating in google is actually the exact same thing that the european union antitrust regulator went after google and levied a $2.8 billion fine for that was prioritizing its own search results and its own businesses is that the basis of your investigation? was that -- is that case something you're looking at as a guide post in helping you? do you think you can really do this without getting other state a.g.s to sign on with you? >> well, we certainly are looking at the european allegations, and we have issued a subpoena that covers three different grounds. one of them is this antitrust concern about altering the search algorithm to privilege google's own websites, its own affiliated companies we're also concerned separately about the collection of personal private confidential information, as i have been saying all or not google has adequately disclosed what they're collecting and giving consumers an adequate option to opt out. and we're concerned, number three, about the potential misappropriation of competitors'

data what's called scraping, taking the data from other competitive websites and putting it on google's sites to benefit google i want to know, and all three of these areas, what is it that google is doing, what are the facts. we're going to get the facts and go from doing, what is the facts, and we'll go from there. >> josh holly, attorney general from missouri, thanks so much for your time, please, come back >> thanks for having me. let's get over to john fortt and get a look at what's coming up on "squawk alley. john >> william sonoma's ceo is going to join us not just to talk about retail, also to talk about augmented reality. they just bought a company to dive into the space in an environment where their gross margins are under pressure ghte be the answer we'll find out coming up on "squawk alley" staff meeting. noon? eating. 3:45? uh, compliance training. 6:30? sam's baseball practice. 8:30? tai chi. yeah, so sounds relaxing. alright, 9:53? i usually make their lunches then, and i have a little vegan so

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let's get over to the cme group in chicago rick santelli with the santelli exchange good morning, rick >> good morning. thank you, sara. i'd like to welcome my in-person guest, dr. casey mulligan, professor, ph.d, and one of the co-authors of a turn around on corporate taxes that appeared in the wall street journal. i'll tell you what i liked about your story it's like a time machine

we have larry summers, pro corporate tax reform, senator schumer, pro corporate tax reform well, that was 2012, 2013. now they are not we understand politics, but in the end, casey, is it a good thing? >> yes the corporate tax rate is quite high by, say, european standards, and as a result we've had investment and investing activity going in places other than america and what that means is we're less productive. we always have to remember the reason why you and i earned so much more than our grandfathers and great grandfathers, the reason why you and i can come to chicago without dying from disease is because we informs. investment is occurred over the years and raises our productivity and living standards and makes life better. and cutting the corporate tax is going to bring some more investment, and it's badly needed to, again, keep our progress going, keep our productivity going

>> let's go for some of the big naysayer examples. but the effective rate is much lower than the advertised rate with respect to corporate taxes, so it's not going to make that big a difference your answer to that? >> that's actually backwards, i'm sorry to tell you. the low effective rate is really a symptom of the very problem that we're trying to fix, which is there's ways to escape the tax, and so businesses are pushed into low productivity activities, low value activities, because they want to avoid the tax and don't create the value and productivity >> instead of paying the 35% or whatever high percent, say company xyz pays 16% explain in the terms you were just speaking to why that's such a negative thing for the economy. >> what they did is went into, say, ireland, where they didn't have business to be in ireland, but do it for the taxes, but it's not a great value that's why they didn't have value being there. when we don't have value, we

can't have wages and incomes, so if we can get the rate down so businesses can make decisions based on creating value in the marketplace instead of based on taxes, that will raise our productivity and that will raise our income >> you're not a big believer, i've had a lot of discussions regarding what is wrong with productivity and many have arrived at the conclusion, well, we're probably not calculating it correctly your final answer to that notion >> been a lack of investment in the last 20, 25 years, which happens to coincide with this era when our corporate tax was very high by world standards >> excellent casey, it's been a pleasure. i hope you come back to talk to us as this legislation gets morphed into an ultimate bill. thank you. carl, back to you. >> all right, rick, thank you very much. when we return this morning, the ceo of williams sonoma is with us. "squawk alley" conties inun just a moment dow's up 166 she's nationally recognized

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2000 indexes all notching record intraday highs tech is the best performing sector in the s&p, up over a percent. paypal also a big winner the payments company expanding its partnership with facebook. that does it for this hour of "squawk on the street. let's send it downtown for the start of "squawk alley," guys, back over to you >> thanks, dom good morning, it's 10:00 a.m. at at&t headquarters in dallas, texas, 11:00 a.m. on wall street, and "squawk alley" is live ♪ ♪