different economies that participate in the construction of these value chains. the iphone you guys are holding is shipped out of china but very little of it, less than 10% of it is actually made in china so, you know, these are trends that will span the gamut of global supply chains and the idea that we can surgically excise and focus on one is absolutely ludicrous >> we appreciate your straight talk, as always. thanks for being patient, listening and weighing in. see you soon >> thanks, carl. i'll take a pill it is 11:00 a.m. on the east coast. the news of the morning in washington on wall street, larry kudlow appointed director of the national economic council, replacing gary cohn. rick santelli just talked to national trade council director navarro, widely perceived as the most hawkish voice in the administration a few moments ago. take a listen. >> let's talk about larry. this is our -- i think this is

probably our 15-year reunion here because he and i go back to your network, cnbc, i was on his show frequently. i worked at cnbc for many years. i find him to be a smart and warm individual. he's going to come here and be a team player and it's going to be great. the president, president trump, in order to make the best decisions possible, i have seen this in the oval, i have seen it in the roosevelt room, he needs diverse opinions i think it's a great choice and everybody here is going to welcome him with open arms and we are looking forward, not backward >> let's get to rick at the cme group this morning here we are, talking about very deep economic theory, really, and how it affects us, not to mention the elements of implementation and whether or not the government can do this efficiently. >> see, that's my problem. i listened to steve roach and everybody is entitled to their opinion but i don't know anything 300 years ago that i'm going to carve in stone and do

exactly the same today doesn't make any sense with regard to the long-term vision that global trade, you can't tinker with it, you can't rearrange it, and i understand that if the world is supposed to be 100% efficient deployment of capital, maybe we are doing something wrong. but you know what? what about the labor side of this equation? mr. roach brought that up. that is what we try to avoid that's less efficient. i get it but we're not the president and the people didn't put us here so considering the situation as it is, i think the biggest thing i worry about is exactly that. it's going to be very hard to implement. it's not like you can say gee, i'm on the phone, why don't we do this, okay, you agree with that number and it's done. it's going to be a process and it's going to be cumbersome. the uncertainty within that period is what i'm concerned about. >> we have kayla tausche in

washington to rick's point, kayla, it will be about increasingly process if the policy holds firm. >> it depends on which views the president is getting this is an administration that has its own way of slicing the data that is convenient for the policy that it's pushing at any given moment we just heard peter navarro talk about trade deficits with every trading partner but this administration largely left the services sector out of the debate the president is tweeting this morning about a trade deficit with canada that we definitely have, even though in the last two years, because of the services trade that we have with canada, we had a surplus with canada that's not what the president wants to focus on here i thought it was interesting peter navarro seems to be talking about the potential for a trade war as something that is basically not going to happen. he makes a calculation that only history can prove that our allies and adversaries will prepare, study, crunch the numbers, dust off lists of potential sectors they can

retaliate in, but in the end they can't afford to go through with that. it's unclear whether that's even true and how that will play out but that seems to be the view peter navarro has and that he's sharing with the president, who has actually tweeted that trade wars are good and easy to win. so i'm not sure what we can really make of this threat that's coming from outside the u.s., given the u.s. actions in the last couple months >> easy to win is certainly not what the markets are thinking. mike, this notion of a trade war is interesting because in the market's view it may not necessarily manifest itself as an official trade war. it could be small, retaliatory tit for tats that happen in the market i'm not sure the sectors have digested the full impact yesterday we saw the action in consumer staples, finally. i was wondering when that would happen we haven't really gone through this >> no. i think the whole debate, the whole fact it's risen to the top of the economic conversation is something that no ceo really

would think should be priority number one and money managers feel as if this should be kind of a side show therefore, it's more seen i think policy right now on the trade front as a risk than an opportunity and if it gets to be a battle of which country has a higher pain threshold for one of these skirmishes, i don't think that's one you want to win i don't think we kind of constructed this consumer abundance and value economy, where you import chief stuff from overseas, i don't think everywhere is prepared for that fight or the implications of what it might mean >> you have seen a few of these cycles in the past there was a lot of consternation about what this trade talk was going to mean a week and a half, two weeks ago. it's moderated quite a bit now we have kudlow going to the white house. is this something the market's going to put aside at this point? >> i think less than put aside, they will do a wait and see. when it looked like you were going to do a $60 billion tariff

hit on ostensibly across a whole group of chinese products, there was almost an instant reaction they said okay, we are talking billions, that's big numbers, how can they respond adequately, they have to go after something that's expensive like airplanes. they started hitting on boeing boeing accounted for over 100 points of the sell-off the other day. you will get this reaction as things heat up and cool down right now, they are in the wait and see attitude interestingly, as we are talking, we have rallied back to the day's highs. they have pulled back from that a couple times today it will be important to see if they can punch through here and maybe get a rally that holds for the whole day. >> to your point, as roach just said, boeing is down for a reason worst week in two years. you think that's true? it is down for a reason? >> oh, yeah. i think so there are not a lot of other

people who can run the risk of stepping out of the waiting line on airplanes, but china can. they can shoot over to airbus. everyone else is afraid of losing a year or two in the waiting line i don't think that's as big a problem for china. that's why it made boeing as vulnerable as it was >> the context is also that for a lot of year to date performers, those are the ones who could be squarely hit. boeing had been up -- >> 80% over 12 months. >> so if there's ever an excuse to take profits on a market leader, maybe tariffs is it >> stocks that went up on the promise of this magic global recovery that's going to come to the benefit of dominant u.s. manufacturers in high valuated goods is going to be sacrificed for let's preserve some weaker position in steel when china itself is trying to get off dependence from steel.

>> we are going to hear from the president making some comments about russian sanctions and some other things >> i may never get to see it again. i will tell. >> you play golf >> i do play golf. you play golf, right >> i don't, but i'm always willing to learn you can take me for a few rounds >> that's an interesting border. we have two interesting borders. one happens to be where are you, right? it will be interesting to see what happens it's my great honor to have the very popular prime minister of ireland with us. we are having some good talks about trade and about military and about cyber, and all of the other things that we're talking about, the relationship is outstanding and only getting better, and it really is a very special group of people. a tremendous number of irish are living in new york, where i grew up, and they are living in the united states, and these are

truly wonderful people we love them and mr. prime minister, great to have you thank you. >> my pleasure thanks for the invitation to be here so i'm going to be in new york on saturday. >> oh, good. wow. that's good. >> marching on fifth avenue. >> i would like to do it with you. i don't know >> does it pass trump tower? >> it does goes right by trump tower. i used to watch it all the time. i would watch it all the time. so you will be there on saturday >> yeah. lot of the american side of my family came through new york they are all in new jersey and florida now. >> that makes sense. this is the first time in the oval office. >> i can tell you, president trump, i was here before as a congressional intern back in 2000 but they didn't let me into the oval office. >> now we do you have made great progress thank you for being with us. >> look forward -- >> reporter: any comment on the russian sanctions, mr.

president? >> reporter: do you think mr. putin was behind this, mr. president? >> it looks like it. i spoke with the prime minister and we are in deep discussions a very sad situation it certainly looks like the russians were behind it. something that should never, ever happen, and we are taking it very seriously, as i think are many others. >> reporter: any more staff changes coming, sir? >> well, the story was very false. i mean, they wrote a story about staff changes today that was very false we made a wonderful change i think mike pompeo will be an incredible secretary of state. we have some wonderful ideas i have gotten to know a lot of people over the last year. i have been in washington for a little bit more than a year, where some people have been here for 30, 40 years i have gotten to know great people so there will always be change but very little. it was a very false story. it was a very exaggerated and false story. but there will always be change. i think you want to see change i want to also see different ideas.

larry kudlow just came in a little while ago, and i think larry is going to be outstanding as economic adviser. so we look forward to it but we will talk to you about it later. thank you very much, everybody thank you. >> thank you, mr. president. >> reporter: were you truthful with mr. trudeau >> thank you, everybody. i look forward to being there. it's a great country i would go to the border thank you all very much. thank you. say hello to the people. say hello. great people >> that is the president with the prime minister of ireland ahead of st. patrick's day this weekend. you hear him say probably his most substantive comments to date about the poisoning of that

former spy in britain, said it does look like it was the russians who are responsible comes after a joint statement from leaders of countries like germany, the u.s. and uk condemning russia for that attack back to the discussion of the morning regarding tariffs and trade deficits joining us on the cnbc newsline, former council of economic advisers chairman ed lazier, fellow at the hoover institute, stanford university professor. good morning >> how are you >> good. we need your help. trying to figure out how much of this trade deficit situation needs to be remedied and how painless those remedies can be >> all right well, first of all, the trade deficit, this is basic accounting this is not fundamental economic theory this is not anything that requires a great deal of sophistication it's always the case that if we invest more than we save, we've got to borrow to make that up. when we borrow to make that up,

we sell assets when we sell assets we need to get something in return, and what we get in return is goods so the trade deficit is fundamentally a function of how much we invest relative to how much we save has very little to do with tariffs. nothing, actually, to do with tariffs except to the extent that we can depress our investment or increase our savings. we're not likely to do that. so i think the basic issue, i have been listening to the show for the past half hour, the basic issue i think infuses politics with economics. the politics i think we all appreciate we understand not all the players have been completely fair in their dealings, but fundamentally, what's going to happen is we are not going to change our overall trade deficit unless we change the relationship between investment and savings. that's basically it. that's not economic theory that's pure accounting >> having lived with trade

deficits for so long, is it just a matter of having reached a point where the water's gotten too hot over time, and if so, why is now the moment to deal with it? >> well, again, i think that the issue that the president is dealing with, i have heard mr. navarro talk about it as well, is not so much how much we are in the hole relative to other countries. it's rather the distribution of that trade i would say the most positive interpretation of what the president's trying to do is to change the nature of trading relationships with other countries. he feels there are some countries that are good traders, some countries that are not so good traders he would like to address that balance. i don't think this particular policy is going to be effective in doing that, but that's kind of the direction in which he's going. the one thing i would say is that i do think there's been a bit of an overstatement of the

consequences of the trade policies that we have enacted. unless they are the canary in the coal mine and more will be coming down the road, these are not fundamental changes in the way we are deal with the rest of the world. there has been precedent for that the guy i served back in the early 2000s implemented steel tariffs, early 2000s, he removed them quickly thereafter, but there were no major consequences of that, no major trade wars, and hopefully the same will be true right now >> you don't believe, by the way, as we watch boeing try to shave some losses here, bringing the dow up to 229 in the green, you don't believe the chinese are likely to, tariffs aside, use their leverage and holdings of u.s. treasuries as a stick against us >> i don't think so. actually, i'm glad you asked that question, because when i

was chair of the council of economic advisers, we actually studied that carefully and said what would happen if the chinese were to dump all of their u.s. securities suppose they were to dump them all at once. the answer is actually very little, surprisingly little, and the reason is that the market for our securities is very sick so they are not really in a position of strength in terms of doing that obviously they would be cutting off their nose to spite their face they own the assets and they don't want to harm the value of those assets even if they did, even if they decided for political reasons that they were going to do that, our estimate was it would not have a major impact on interest rates or our ability to borrow >> you just weighed in on the potential effectiveness of the steel tariffs. i want to understand that a little better. there are headlines from the "wall street journal" saying the u.s. is trying to use the potential of tariffs to get allies to tackle overcapacity.

why couldn't that work, might that be effective not so much at the tariff itself but trying to use a bit of a stick to get our allies to cooperate on overcapacity >> yeah. i guess the way i would put it is this. there are two reasons for using tariffs as a tool. one is essentially a bargaining tool given the president's background, that's probably the way he's thinking about this go in and use tariffs and essentially threaten our trading partners and say if you don't behave more appropriately, we are going to impose these. that will get them to do the right thing. there's a second way to think about this that has more to do with again, the simple accounting that is that what happens when you impose tariffs is that while you don't affect the difference between exports and imports, you don't affect the actual trade deficit, you surely do affect the levels what happens is if you impose

tariffs, what you end up doing is impressing exports and depressing imports both of them at the same time. neither of which is necessarily good for the economy so i think that's probably the thing that i would be most concerned about, again, because the action is relatively limited as long as it is not an indicator of where we are going in the future. because this action is relatively limited, i think the effects are going to b relatively limited larry's coming in, larry kudlow's coming in i actually talked with lihim abu this on saturday i think he has similar views on that i think he's actually going to be a balancing force within the white house. i don't see major implications for trade wars or additional trade barriers that we are going to impose. >> we will continue to have you on, take your temperature on the situation. thanks for coming to the phone

>> thank you >> before we go to break, want to -- >> we are at market highs with the dow closing in on a 1% gain thanks mostly because of the reversal we are seeing in shares of boeing. it had been down by as much as 1.5%, now moving to the flat line here. a real reversal here in the day. art, what do you make of this action early on in session >> i think again, the market is assessing as it goes along you are getting -- boeing got hit three days earlier in the week because people felt that that was the way the chinese and others could reach in. now that it looks like that $60 billion tariff package is not teed up and ready to go, people are stepping back and saying wait a minute, maybe boeing is not going to be the victim you will get that kind of ebb and flow i would continue to keep my eye on boeing. i think it will be a critical factor in the dow. >> all right guys, thank you.

>> still ahead, how much more or i should say, much more on how larry kudlow's white house appointment might just impact your money plus, never before seen numbers out of amazon. the data investors have been hoping to hear about prime and stocks seeing a big bounce more on what's driving it when "squawk alley" comes back. ♪ "glorious" by (speaking in french)

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three down days, markets digesting economic signals coming from the white hous larry kudlow joins the administration let's bring in hans olson and jpmorgan's chief u.s. economist, michael farolli. hans, what do you make of this turnaround are we digesting the possibility of tariffs or saying that's not a possibility at this point? >> within the larger context, what the market's trying to do is figure out is the implied policy, the volatility going to be higher or lower than the realized policy volatility we won't know that for awhile. in this environment, having the right questions is as important as getting the answers because the answers will be slow in coming out >> so in terms of the volatility question, what we are seeing or what we have seen in the past three down days is the market leaders happen to be the ones that might be hit the most by tariffs, technology, boeing,

industrials. are those the place is you want to take profits, believing there is not an answer to your question about volatility and trade volatility >> i think it's really tough you keep coming back to the fundamentals if the order book at boeing is looking good, you have to anchor that first a lot of this noise we are seeing in the policy arena, it's new, first of all. we have a chief executive in the oval office who is used to negotiating things you your opening salvo is perhaps more extreme than you intend it to be but that's not where you're going to land and you use that as a way to get your counterparty to get back to where you want them to be. i wouldn't be trading on that yet. this is one of those things where you have to buckle up and ride through it. >> michael, does the fed next week take into consideration the implied volatility, the unknown volatility in the markets here because of trade

does jay powell -- what do you think the question would be? >> he will definitely get asked about this i don't think it will be a first order of consideration in terms of their views on the economy. what's going on in the labor market and inflation will be much more preeminent also what's going on with fiscal policy will be driving that decision he probably will get asked about trade in the press conference. it is a politically touchy issue. i think he will probably try and avoid really digging into the details. we tend to see to the extent trade frictions increase, it may push up prices a bit and hit growth a bit again, this is only if it increases, what we have seen so far is pretty modest in nature i think the fed in the face of an adverse supply shock like that should generally sit on their hands unless you see inflation expectations move higher all that said, i think he probably will be rather reticent on what they actually think about all these trade frictions. he will probably say that so

far, they are not really a first order of consideration in policy making >> do you think there's more safety in the russell where there's less exposure o, say, global megacap >> the russell has been acting better lately, hasn't it it's actually a better connection to the organic growth going on in the economy. that's an area we like, small and midcap companies >> we have a couple interesting tech earnings coming up after the bell bro broadcom, after getting slapped back in its attempt to go after qualcomm is there anything in particular investors who are trying to get a sense of the markets overall might need to look for in those earnings >> i think if you open the lens of it, what you are finding is the arc we are moving along here, revenue growth looks really good right across the board. when you look at small business numbers, surveys, whether it be

the center for middle market research, they are all pointing to a very robust commercial environment. i think that's what people should be anchoring to that's going to cascade down into all different sectors of the market which makes it a good opportunity for investors, not to be reacting to the headline yet. sort of take a step back, let things digest and focus on the fundamentals >> if you were on the fed and you thought that maybe tariffs were coming down the pike, would you be more inclined to do three or four? rate hikes >> i'm not sure that -- even if i thought tariffs were going to increase, i'm not sure that would be a factor that would push me either to three or four. because as i said, it pushes in opposite directions when you think about the fed's mandate. it pushes up inflation but may push down growth that kind of leaves you in limbo in terms of policy making. even if we had more assurance,

more confidence that tariffs were coming, i don't think that necessarily changes the policy direction in an obvious way up or down. >> got it. thank you both still ahead, more on the markets as stocks try to stage a rally on wall street dow's up 280 boeing trying to trim its losses also, zuckerberg, musk and bezos throwing their money behind our next guest

will the rise of artificial intelligence and robots take jobs tech titans macrk zuckerberg, jeff bezos and elon musk all invested in a company vicarus whose ceo joins us now good morning >> thanks for having me.

>> you have been working in this space a long time. one of the things you said raises my eyebrow. you said true artificial intelligence will be the last thing that human civilization will create because the robots will be able to create everything after better, smarter and more efficient that sounds like what the robot overlord might say before exterminating the human race aren't there two sides to this >> i think there's a big difference between what the robots are going to do and what a.i. will do in some science fiction distant future what they are going to do in the next ten years for the practical economy. the quote you have of me is talking about that long-term future that i really hope we get to but right now, that's a lot more science fiction than science >> so what are the areas that we should be thinking about for efficiency, where a.i. will really help and are there areas where you would say a.i. should be walled off as it gets closer to human intelligence, we shouldn't let it have thoughts or make decisions about a certain group of things. >> yeah.

i think the current boom in a.i., you can really reason about as a decrease in the price of prediction. a.i. is a tool that's made prediction a lot cheaper and you can use all your practice ditra tools of economic naanalysis to think about that people, because the price is lower, people will use prediction in places where they didn't used to you can now afford to put a speech predictor on your phone that guesses what you are saying so siri can listen to you. that's the current era of a.i., the decrease in the price of prediction the future of a.i. is about robots and decrease in the price of labor, specifically dangerous labor. that sort of factory work and packaging, that kind of stuff. that's really where we live. we are focused on building robots that can do jobs in factories that are too dangerous

or expensive to have robots do the last part of your question, what should we wall off, i really think autonomous weapons are among the world's worst ideas, dumbest ideas the problem with them is if you have an autonomous drone army, your army becomes my army if i find a single bug in your code somewhere. if there's one thing we know about software, there's no such thing as bug-free software it's a super dumb idea i don't think people should be building it. >> we will trust you not to do that thanks, scott. time for a news update with sue herera >> good morning, everyone. here's what's happening at this hour british prime minister theresa may visiting salisbury, the scene of the recent nerve agent attack on the former russian spy and his daughter london has blamed moscow for that attack and as a result, expelled 23 russian diplomats as a result

syrian tv broadcasting footage of thousands of civilians evacuating rebel-held eastern ghouta more than 1200 civilians have been killed in syria and in russian air strikes in the region the sister of the charleston church shooter, dylann roof, is free on bond after being arrested for bringing weapons and drugs to school. 18-year-old morgan roof was released on a $5,000 bond but is not allowed to return to the high school in south carolina. on a lighter note, march madness is in full force today with 16 games on tap according to a new survey by office team, 62% of workers say they will check scores while on the job. last year, some 70 million brackets were filled out ahead of the tournament. good luck. none of us would ever check the scores during the day. that's the news update this hour i will send it back to you >> sue, thank you.

when we come back, what will larry kudlow's stance on tariffs mean for the economy we discuss with someone who held his newly appointed position under clinton and obama. you know what they say about the early bird...

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china has not played by the rules for a long time. i've talked about that, intellectual property rights,

corporate technologies, other barriers, trans shipments to get around things. a thought that i have is that the united states could lead a coalition of large trading partners and allies against china or to let china know that they are breaking the rules left and right. that's the way i would like to see. >> that's newly appointed national economic council director larry kudlow on "closing bell" last night. for more on what his appointment means, we are joined by gene spurling and doug hoelltz-egan good morning good to see you both gene, how is he going to do? >> well, first of all, i want to make clear i have known and debated larry kudlow for over 25 years now. i do want to say we don't agree on virtually anything, but he's always been decent and civil and

it's something i appreciate and i wish him well personally i think the biggest problem for larry or anyone is whether or not anyone can succeed as the national economic council director with this president the national economic council director, the job i have held twice, is one in which you are supposed to have the authority to coordinate your economic cabinet, to bring honest debate fairly presented to the president. right now, you have a president who, by all accounts, internal accounts as well, makes decisions based on impulse, narcissism and who whispered in his ear last and when you see somebody trying to really do process like the national security adviser mcmaster, they seem to be discredited for doing it so you know, larry's going to have his own issues but i think the larger issue is whether this president has the patience and seriousness to allow virtually any national economic council

directors to succeed in that kind of honest broker coordinating role. >> doug, that's kind of a bleak outlook for larry there. do you agree, and what do you see as the first big game for him? tariffs, they are already out there. we pretty much know how that is shaping up what's the next thing that's going to test whether larry kudlow really gets to make an impact there >> i think gene's right about the traditional structure of the national economic council but this does not appear to be the structure the president wants, and a president is entitled to the structure that they desire i think the role has turned into less of a coordinating role and more of a let's talk to the president and advise him on the best way forward i think larry's big hurdle in that regard will be the 301 decision about intellectual property theft by china. we know that the cabinet advisers and the west wing advisers, peter navarro, wilbur ross,came in with advice for something that looks on the

order of $30 billion in tariffs and the president rejected it as too small. this is not an instance of the staff pushing the president to be protectionist it's one where the president is pushing the other direction. that's the environment he will walk into. what you heard larry talking about on that clip was a strategy of using a coalition to get china to obey its international obligations. the president thinks he can do it unilaterally. that's a huge difference and it will be an interesting thing to see how it plays out >> that's one difference larry, yesterday in his "closing bell" appearance mentioned tax cuts, too. the notion the tax cuts would be made permanent at this jiuncture, is that a goo issue, a good cause to hang your hat on going in as a new person? >> well, listen, i think one of the things i would advocate for larry or anybody going in is that when you are on the outside it's much easier and maybe appropriate to just be a pure advocate i think when you are on the

inside holding these jobs, you have to be more evidence-based the fact is that this tax cut is going to increase the deficit $1.5 trillion, i think probably at least, and i think when you take out all the gimmicks, it could be more. i personally even if i was going to support increasing the deficit, would have only done so for things that were absolutely clearly job creating, infrastructure type of things. i think he's going to be looking at over $1 trillion in deficits, 5.5% the question is, is larry and the president, most importantly, going to be willing to actually look at the actual priorities there. i think what you have seen from democrats is that they are saying you want to do something on taxes, let's take back some of the most excessive tax cuts for the most well-off and then let's use that money to plow it into an infrastructure program i think that's something that

actually even trump voters would support more than the current tax bill so i think going further as opposed to correcting what's in the current bill is, you know, much more the right approach >> finally, doug, to gene's first point, about how the director of this council operates within the white house, earlier today, david rosenberg said the last white house economic official to truly spin the dial on policy was ruben under clinton. everybody since then really has had minimal impact on the economy or the markets how fair is that >> i don't think that's entirely fair ruben was quite visible in his impact on policy president clinton gave him credit for that. presidents since have taken the credit, taken the responsibility, owned everything on the economy i'm not sure that's always wise. but it's something that began with bush, continuing under obama and under president trump. so the impact of those advisers is harder to see now it's just less visible

>> we will definitely get a taste of how larry handles it. it will be interesting to watch. we can't ask for better insight than from you two. thanks, guys talk to you soon over to dominic chu for a market flash as we watch the index, boeing going higher >> markets going higher but monsanto taking a dip on the heels of bloomberg headlines saying that baier is set to face hurdles. more "squawk alley" afr is eak.teth

we are live today in fort lauderdale, florida for "the halftime report" and we have a great lineup set to talk about the markets, the appointment of larry kudlow as director of the national economic council, possible trade wars, so much to discuss with the founder of virtu financial. he is live with us can't wait to catch up with him. glenn hutchins is with us as well, talking the state of the markets, why he likes bitcoin and all things technology. has tech become too powerful we will ask the co-founder of silver lake partners it starts top of the hour. we have a very special guest as well joining us later, the

gener general. can't wait to catch up with the former heisman trophy winner, distinguished military career and truly an american hero looking very much forward to that >> that's a show see you in a few minutes scott wapner joining us. take a look at the major averages dow up 250, close to session highs. easing off just a touch. s&p up almost eight. we have reclaimed 25k. two,that was awful. why are you so good at this? had a coach in high school. really helped me up my game. i had a coach. math. ooh. so, why don't traders have coaches? who says they don't? coach mcadoo! you know, at td ameritrade, we offer free access to coaches and a full education curriculum -- just to help you improve your skills. boom! that's lesson one. education to take your trading to the next level. only with td ameritrade.

we're im if you have a realk down battle with china, that could have ramifications on so many levels. >> president trump close to naming cnbc's larr

telemundo preparing for the 2018 world cup, just 85 days away for more on the media landscape, cesar conde is the chair of telemundo, which is owned by our parent company, comcast. full disclosure, we're partners, we work together but the strides you've made, we'll get to the world cup in a second, against your competitors has been nothing short of remarkable, really >> at all. it's been a wonderful few years of great growth and momentum for us at telemundo. to put it a little in context, you know the hispanic consumer opportunity in the united states is a great opportunity for any industry to see this story go from a

demographic to economic story, the purchasing power of latinos is now exploding over the last several years, $1.7 trillion if it was its own country, latinos would be the seventh largest gdp in the world, ahead of into. that's allowed telemundo to surge and part of the secret of how we've changed hispanic media is by investing in and creatin high diversity content for this incredible demodemographic >> tell us about the technology side of what you're doing. this is the digital era. everybody is talking about how 18 to 34-year-olds aren't watching tv anymore. how are you using technology to capture and engage that audience >> first and foremost, you know the hispanic demographic is extraordinarily young, mobile, social this plays to our strength second is we're creating content across all platforms that speaks in a culturally relevant way

and ensuring our content is available to the exploding demographic across all platforms in ways they want to see it. >> and soccer, it's not just a big part, it might be the big part in terms of live sports >> look, for us at tale teelemu we're proud to be the home of the fifa cup for many fans, soccer is like a religion and the world cup is its cathedral. no world event brings together so much passion and people around these 30 days for us this is coming at a fantastic time in the growth and momentum of telemundo. >> some news, uk prime minister say she may not send some representatives to moscow. >> the world cup is a wonderful platform we really bring people together

from all countries and focus on the incredible athletics we're very, very excited about all the different elements the world cup is going to bring. >> talk to me about the business of world cup compared to the olympics or to the nfl, which we tend to talk a little bit more about perhaps on this network. but to engage that younger audience across multiple platforms, what does an event like the world cup give you? >> look, i would say a few things the interest of soccer here in the united states has exploded over the last few years across all ages, demographics, nationalities and the like part of our objective is to make this as accessible and relevant for audiences. from an accessibility perspective, you'll see the most comprehensive coverage from telemundo that you've ever seen across all platforms we're trying to do innovative things in our coverage we'll be featuring for the first time a woman calling world cup games and in-game commentary, the first time that will happen in the u.s. world cup. we're proudly of that and that

will help us connect to these audiences. >> is your mission to grow domestically or internationally? what's more important? >> i think our mission is both we for the first time in an an incredible milestone at telemundo, based on the investment and support of our company, to be able to become the first number one spanish language network in prime time during the week last year, that was a big milestone for us second is our content for telemundo and our network exists in 40 countries. we distribute our content in 120 countries. so we want to make sure that that is a global brand around the world. >> what's the role of news with this young consumer today who is consuming across multiple platforms, some people might remember nbc universal has this relationship with snapchat, i don't know if that factors in for you. but how is news moving the needle both from a business perspective and an overall engagement perspective >> news is the most sacred responsibility that we have as a media company and journalistic

organization the issues being talked about and debated in our country right now are the issues that matter most to hispanics. the economy, immigration, health care, and safety and so for us, and i'm so proud of the incorrectly work that our telemundo news team is doing, we need to be able to provide all aspects, all angles of these issues so that our community is being educated and they can make informed decisions for themselves and their families. >> we talk all the time about the influence of streaming services, netflix, amazon, on legacy media is the product offering as competitive, would you argue, in spanish language or not? >> i would tell you what we're seeing is all sort of ages, not only here in the united states but across the world, that are connecting with spanish language content. high, premium quality content that speaks in a unique way. all the emerging platforms are providing us an opportunity to innovate in the content we're doing and also diversify the offerings we have for our audiences. >> certainly crazy times in

media. but congratulations on all the success. can't wait for the soccer to begin. >> thank you we're looking forward to hosting everyone for telemundo at the world cup. >> please come back soon good to see you, cesar conde, thanks for joining us. telemundo is owned by our parent company comcast. we have some numbers on amazon's prime video service internal documents with viewer metrics were released by reuters and they are big total audience was about 26 million customers as of early 2017 ceo jeff bezos has openly talked about the importanceof using video to convert viewers into shoppers it's really interesting, amazon has these metrics showing how they account for which shows brought users into the prime family it's not clear exactly how they attribute that >> it's all within amazon, though

if they believe their numbers are good, they're pretty good. >> although given the opacity of their metrics, it was a big deal for reuters to even get a glimpse of some of these documents and glean something out of them. by the way, rare to see amazon down on a good day, overall markets are holding in but amazon is down to 1580 or so >> hard to worry too much about amazon given the run they've had, you can look at the chart there year to date, quite an amazing run. as we're looking, the dow is holding on to gains up more than 200 points but off the highs the s&p also fractionally higher >> watching the mlps today ferc did vote to bar some mlps from recovering income tax allowances, that's a headline out of bloomberg and shares of william, wmb, saw a quick move down we'll keep an eye on that. overall the conversation is being steered by worries about trade once again we should keep in mind,

quadruple witching exploration tomorrow sort of leads to a lot of artificial volume, kind of hard to get true signals about what investors may be thinking because of all these expirations that may happen. >> and turning to earnings after the bell, adobe reporting, the ceo will be with us here on "squawk alley" tomorrow. >> a huge night between that, broadcomm, and alta after the bell let's get to the judge and welcome to "the halftime report." i'm scott wapner we're live today at the conrad ft. lauderdale beach hotel for t virtu's name vincent viola is with us today, as i