good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc we are live from the nasdaq market site in times square. i'm becky quick along with melissa lee and "shark tank's" kevin o'leary. >> good to be here >> and you'll see it's off to a rough start if you're a bull looks like the dow futures down 125 points s&p off by 13 pop nasdaq down by 81 the dow last week off by 1.5%. nasdaq offer by 1% let's take a look at what happened overnight in asia you'll see in japan, the nikkei was also down. close to 1%. close to 0.9%. stocks in beijing flat the shanghai composite up by .030 and then in europe, where trading is under way, you'll see

relatively the same to what you're seeing here with the futures picture this morning declines across the board. biggest declines coming in london with the ftse 100 down by 1% finally, take a look at treasury yields you're going to see that the ten-year which last week was yielding right about 2.85% is right about the same level right now, 2.861 we do have the fed foc meeting this week. breaking news overnight, parts of austin, texas on lockdown, this happened after a bomb exploded injuring two mens. their injuries are said to be nonlife-threatening. residents west of the city have been ordered to stay in their homes and follow police instruction. we'll bring you more information as we get it bitcoin climbing back above 8,000 this morning it fell 7% yesterday following reports that twitter will follow google and facebook's lead in banning cryptocurrency ads

bitcoin prices recovered last night, rallying by $700 in less than three hours traders were unsure what is behind the late comeback kevin, you've been skeptical of cryptocurrencies for good reason >> i'm a big believer that eventually asset-based coins will replace small cap stocks. the s.e.c. has allowed and a big deal coming in new york, $400 million coin issuance for a real estate asset you've heard of >> what? >> yes >> tell me what you can. >> so, the idea is that an owner of a very prestigious brand hotel in the city is going to internationally issue an asset-based coin for ownership. and you'll participate in distribution of a smart contract for the blockchain you'll be an owner in the third

of this hotel. in this works it's the first of its kind and they're excited about it it's fcc approved. this is issuance, instead of a stock, it's a coin i'm excited about it i'm involved in it i hope it works. that's where we're going with this coin-based stuff. >> what is it a more securitized way of looking at it >> it's completely that you can sell it to somebody. the blockchain contract. >> this puts on its head the notion of going public instead of going public on the know, or he new york stock exchange or public, you can do this. and they're giving investors assets opposed to an initial coin offering, it's more like a donation to the company. >> sure. and the issuers instead of paying 5% to 7% commission, they

may get millions of people buying $20 or $50 worth of this asset. so the cost of the issuance is very low if it works. i'm excited. let's wait and see >> if it works, you're going to see tremors across wall street >> it's $400 million it's a big number. it's enough to say this works. >> can we book you right now >> i will come back -- i just -- you know, i'm really excited about it i've been working on it for two months >> the details that you've given us are exciting enough >> they're exciting. i think there are a lot of others looking at this the key is to go to regulators and say i want to work with you. i don't want to tear the world apart. i want to be regulated i want to do this by the rules i've done crypto conferences where peoplen anarchists, i want to destroy the government and that i don't want to destroy the government i want to make money >> how much is this? >> the issuance is $400 million.

>> it might be one of the biggest offerings to date. >> it's s.e.c. approved. >> difference is s.e.c.s are against icos >> all in line with an asset based join >> in terms what we saw with bitcoin, it's in part because g 20 has come out to not issue any new rules. there was this worry that the g20 would go in and want to regulate cryptocurrencies as they do currencies and that would turn bitcoin on its head, but they've sort of backed off of that. >> i season in bitcoin i'm down big time. >> i guess you but is back up where -- >> no, i was mid-range i own a lot of bitcoin just to stay involved but the volatility tells you. china's president xi is kicking offer with a new economic team yi gang was maded

vice chair of the new bank educated in minnesota got his ph.d. of the university of illinois president xi jinping also a new vice president and russian officials say putin took more than 75% of the vote the big win extends his rule over russia for another six years. again no surprise about any of this the real question was going to be how many people turned out. they were looking for 70% of the population to turn out >> he did get 76% of the vote. >> well, that was breathing room yeah >> that's interesting. >> that's what i was thinking. >> was it really -- >> his jacket -- just trying to promote the brand. let's get to washington, eamon javers joins us to wrap up the busy weekend for the white house. good morning, eamon.

>> good morning, melissa it was a busy weekend for the white house. the president venting anger on twitter throughout the weekend, directed at the mueller investigation. it all began on friday night when the president through his attorney general fired andrew mccabe mccabe was the number two man at the fbi. he was set to retire in two days but there's an ig report that was to come out. that suggests that mccabe was disingenuous perhaps it in leaking material about his role to reporters the president takes to twitter says andrew mccabe fired a great day for the hard working men and women of the fbi a great day for the fbi. james comey was his boss and made mccabe look like a choirboy he knew all about the lies and corruption going on at the highest levels of the fbi. and the president later turned his anger to the mueller investigation more specifically naming roberts mueller by name

in a tweet which is something which he has not done before directly saying why does the mooul team have 13 hardened big democrats, zero republicans does anyone think this is fair? and get there is no collusion. the president there ignoring the fact that mb cake is a republican, comey is a republican, and roberts mueller himself is a republican. those are the three men that the president criticizes the most in relation to this fbi/mueller investigation. all of them are republicans. the president, his tweets over the weekend, there were a lot of them set off speculation in washington that he was getting set to fire robert mueller by requesting somebody at the department of justice to do that some republicans appeared on television yesterday to urge the president not to pursue that course of action all of them ended up with a statement from the trump team last night suggesting that he's not going to fire robert mueller, despite the venting of

anger over twitter over the weekend. the statement from ty cobb, the president's attorney on the special kourns saying, in response to media speculation and related questions being posed to the administration the white house yet again confirms that the president is not considering or discussing the firingof the special counsel roberts mueller. all of that also happening at the same time, "the new york times" and other media are breaking a major story over the weekend over facebook sand cambridge analytica. that's the trump-connected data analytics firm that helped in the 2016 election. helped the trump campaign win election in that surprise victory what facebook is -- facebook's role here, according could to "the new york times," is that the data firm, cambridge analytica harvested private information from facebook profiles, captured more than 50 million users without their permission, says "the new york times. the data was used to develop techniques that were used in president trump's campaign and facebook vice president says simply this was a scam

and a fraud. the question is, and one of the disputes over the weekend is whether or not it was actually a data breach. because of the way that the information was gathered facebook's is suggesting it's simply a disingenuous use of its own official processes by an outside person working for cambridge analytica who got this information understand false pretenses but it doesn't count as a data breach because there's no hacking involved. all of it sets up a vehicle of intense scrutiny on capitol hill and with facebook and cambridge analytica. we'll see where it goes. >> it seems like semantics, eamon, whether or not a hacker was involved but is there an appetite on capitol hill at this point to use this as a reason to get involved in regulating data privacy? if there was ever an instance where facebook is inviting regulation to come in, this is probably it. i mean, the massachusetts a.g.

already tweeted over the weekend that that office will launch an investigation into this. >> well, we saw democrats calling for more regulation we also saw democrat amy klobuchar from minnesota calling for mark zuckerberg be forced to testify on capitol hill about what he knows about this "the new york times" story was fairly damning because it made it clear that facebook was refusing to acknowledge that this happened until the night before "the new york times" was set to publish the story then issued that statement calling if a scam but before that, had been very reluctant to engage with the "times" reporters on what exactly happened here. there will be some frustration among democrats, the democrats don't control anything in washington >> i don't think it's just democrats. this is not simply who was using this data. who was using it is kind of irrelevant at that point, whether trump or anybody else. the idea that 50 million users' data was used. and given away, again to melissa's point if you left your

door unlocked. it was still data used and the users didn't know about that and that violates potentially several rules there britain and potentially in several u.s. states i don't think this is a democrat/republican issue. i think this means regulation is coming to silicon valley, not just facebook. >> i think you're right, politically. the question gets to a metaphysical question, right at what point is this part of facebook's underlying business proposition, right, which is sells to advertisers and other customers, the access to this kind of data they have an enormous trove of data, hundreds of millions of people on planet earth all of their likes, relationships >> right they've skated along, gotten away with that but regulators are going to come looking at that and their entire business model is going to get potentially turned on its head aaron leavy, the box ceo tweeted over the weekend, well, looks like regulators are coming,

perhaps for it's better. look out >> that's right, if you're in silicon valley, you got to look at this is a watershed moment, what is the regulatory regime going to be moving forward and how does washington even unpack this? washington, you know, senators on capitol hill are not exactly known for their tech savvy, tech-media savvy how are they going to move forward on this without crushing the industry these are huge questions >> facebook shares down by 2.7% or so. eamon thank you. in other washington news, the countdown is on. congress has until midnight friday to pass a spending bill to prevent a government shutdown leaders will post a bill today and pass it by tense and senate would need to pass it by friday. the big question is president trump who then has to sign off

on that bill has threatened to veto to any funding that would include a tunnel from new jersey to manhattan he's also pushing for greater tariff authority democrats hold a ten-point lead over republicans on which party should control congress. this according to the latest nbc news/"wall street journal" poll. that same poll, president trump's approval rating climbed to 43% let's get to the broader markets. and the economy ahead of this week's big fed meeting joining us is julian emanuel, the chief strategist at beig and steven rizzuto, chief economist, you say just about everything is riding on this fboc meeting what we see from them is how it's going to market >> the currency market is critical at this jiuncture, because it's been imported prices that have been holds down it's inflation rate.

i think so when you get into an environment where the fed disappoints and the moving lower. >> you mean by not raising rates? >> not only not raising rates but talking a more hawkish game going forward. the big question is do they settle at 3 or move towards 4. i think the dots show it's 4 if it doesn't find its floor here and it keeps on moving then you're going to wind up with the push-up at 3% on the curve >> how much of the currency act difficult with dovishness at the fed and how much is more hawkish boj and bco bchl ochlobco >> you saw what happened with davos with mnuchin the treasury is backing up from the strong dollarpolicy. trump has his america first program which includes tariffs involved all of those combinations together are pitting the dollar

under pressure the only thing that can keep the dollar from getting further under pressure is what happens on the interest rate side. it's going to be critical to see what happens there >> not all bad news if i'm an investors with 47% of their sales overseas, i'm starting to feel more competitive with the lower dollar what's wrong with that >> again, i don't think it's a problem for the equity market. we're talking bond market. >> i always talk equitiese >> the biggest rick could end back it's in equities market if they keep keep thinking their discount formula >> where do you put the trigger? 3.5% where does the havoc reign? >> anything over 3%. depending on the way the mortgage coupons are stacked you get a big length in the duration that's going to require selloff on the treasuries. with the duration maxed. that becomes a real, real problem as we go forward here.

anything over 3% can trigger that kind of duration extension. and if that occurs, then we move up in ten-year notes will be rather rapid >> what's the biggest out of this fed meeting? >> the dots moving to 4. absolutely look, there's a lot of uncertainty in the markets right now, whether it's technology breaches that we've seen over the weekend. whether it's trade policy, et cetera and this correction that started in january has more to run and if we look at the flow data last week, investors bought stocks heavily the same way in january. for us the thought that rates could move higher than equity investors expect is something that could compress multiples. >> would you do anything ahead of the meeting? >> well, long-term investors really need to sit tight and see

what happens we think that protection in the technology sector makes a little more sense for those a little more active simply because there's a lot of reasons for technology if you look at it at the top, it was more than 50% over the year to date return that's usually been a sign for breather in the tech sector. >> you mentioned the inflows last week, the data showing $44 billion flowed into equitiy fund last week when we saw shaektrar? or that it's still strong in the market >> in the aggregate, money coming to the market is a good thing. when you're in the middle of the corrective phase, when you're buying on the top end of the range, the new money tends to be not quite as steadfast as money that's been there before >> thank you both for coming in

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all right. yeah, if you are watching march madness, guess what, i bet your bracket has already been busted just like everybody else in the free world but it's been one of the most entertaining tournaments in history. sweet 16 field is set which the games are going to be resuming on thursday. and there were some big surprise contenders left in the tournament they include syracuse who upset michigan state florida state who took down xavier who i had going all the way. loyola, chicago upset tennessee, not to mention the first time ever you've seen a number one seed lose to a number 16 seed university of maryland baltimore county upset virginia. big game a shutout to dominic chu he's currently leading in the tv bracket. he has villanova winning it all.

terrill mathis is in second place. virginia has been eliminated >> virginia his alma mater, he's been upset with the upset. >> stay true to your school. i'm down with that >> the buzzer shots show you how well disbursed the talent is across the platforms it's never been this close the system is working. you're getting great talent in pretty good every jurisdiction >> the seeding sim ining syste working. >> bought dout dom, how did he ? that's crazy dating app tinder is suing bumble for patent infringement the lawsuit claims bumble copies tinder's entire design bumble was created by ex-tinder executives match group unsuccessfully tried

to buy bumble last year for a reported $450 million. >> i forgot the connection the women who created it did start out in tinder. >> when in doubt, litigate that's what you do when you come back, a roundup of the geopolitical headlines starting with vladimir putin's electoral victory. we'll speak to evelyn farkas next as we head to break, take a look at s&p's last week's winners and losers ♪ ♪ can i get some help. watch his head. ♪ i'm so happy. ♪

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♪ >> announcer: welcome back you're watching "squawk box," live from the nasdaq market site in times square. ♪ good morning, everybody. happy monday morning unless you look at the u.s. equity futures then maybe you want to go back to bed dow futures down 121 points below fair value s&p looks like it would open down by 13 points, nasdaq looks like down by 93. a week down last week, nasdaq off by 1.5%. individual stocks to watch let's tell you about google it's reportedly teaming up with a slew of retailers. reuters says the company is linking up with target, walmart, home depot and ulta beauty for a new program. it allows retailers to list

their products on google platforms including search, shopping and google assistant. retailers will pay google a piece for each purchase. it's a little different than people purchasing ads on google because they're paying based on the sales they have. take a look at alphabet shares, they're down by 1% this could be that talk about facebook and potential regulation coming to silicon valley we'll talk more about that but in the meantime, check out shares of samsung and sharp both of them coming under pressure in area today this comes from reports that apple is now producing a limited amount of its own screens for testing purposes that would be bad news for samsung and sharp. sharp down by 1.4% samsung electronics in korea down by 1.25%. caci international making a $7.2 billion unsolicited bid to buy cici caci has offered $44 a share in

cash and stocks. more stocks to watch this morning, alibaba will invest in e-commerce from lazada group the company is tapping one of its own top executives to run run that business. shares down. hyundai shares slipping this morning. this following a u.s. probe as to why air bags failed to deploy in son nata sedans four people were killed. and we're watching shares of grubhub, from a buy at stiefel not yet much impact on the stock. vladimir putin winning another six-year term in this weekend's russian presidential election that's an outcome that was never seriously in doubt with other candidates garning a fraction of his support. the key number that many are watching was the turnout which may give clues about russia in the next several years joining us now, evelyn farkas,

the secretary of defense for russia ukraine and eurasia evelyn, good morning >> good morning. >> he got 7.1% of the vote does that reflect the percentage of the vote that turned out? >> they think the turnout was around 64%, 65%. which is lower than what they had been pushing for the russian government had, according to reports they did not deny they had a goal of 70% of the vote, which they got it looks like but they wanted 70% turnout. and they didn't get that and that's despite the fact that they tried really hard they had things like food sales. apparently, a lot of employers were telling their employees you have to go out and vote, and we want proof so people were taking selfies of themselves at polling stations because the russian government knew this was going to be a boring election for the russians all the candidates running against putin, seven of them

were preapproved the guy not approved was callin for boycott so they knew some people would be paying attention to him on balance, it's good for putin. >> what does it allow him to do with this election >> it allows him to clamp down on russia internally from the perspective of your business folks, what are they looking at, in terms of russia the government has been slowly clamping down on privacy, internet privacy and the television is completely under russian control. he'll continue to consolidate domestically i think he'll be worried because the turnout demonstrates some apathy and that could easily turn to opposition unfortunately for us, i think, he's going to be pretty aggressive he's going to to be aggressive as he has internationally.

>> domestically, how does putin come back, it's a dictatorship >> yeah, well what he does is he shows there's an external force that needs to be combatted he needs to defend the russian people against the west. while we see very clearly that putin is actually attacking us attacking our elections, spreading fake news to facebook and other vehicles actually attacked some of our military personnel in syria. he tells the people, it's the other way around he believes that we want to change the regime. we want to push him out of power in moscow. all of this aggression is aimed at keeping us out and keeping us weak >> are you worried, perhaps, this may make putin a little more aggressive or belligerent when he had low poll numbers i believe the last election, that was before ukraine and then ukraine really pushed him over the edge in terms of popularity could you see a scenario like that unfolding again

>> yeah, so, they actually timed the elections with the anniversary of taking over crimea again that big military effort that caused his popularity to soar up to 80% and more. i think from the perspective of the markets what your people should be thinking about, your viewers, things are not going to get better between u.s. and russia in the near term. we're going to continue to have as much tension as we've had i think we need to be firm so that putin doesn't continue to be as aggressive as he's been. but, you know, as far as sanctions are concerned, i would expect them to be ratcheted up they're pretty light if you compare them to the sanctions we had on north korea or iran i think they'll continue to ratchet it up. congress are looking at this, you know theresa may, when she gave her statement last week saying they were going to expel the 23 russian glow the madiplo.

she said there's more to come and i think he's talking to the u.s. and other allies on what it is to come >> it's interesting in these large jurisdictions like china and russia, the thing that's starting to happen is the elimination of term limits that's something that i've noticed in the last decade i wonder if that's something we'll see happen domestically, what do you think? that's really the big change over there and china, too? >> yes, your analysis is spot on she when she said, we're getting rid of term limits in china, the world got nervous. by and large, he'll be fine. he's not going to suffer any pushback and i'm sure the russian president noticed that, while they have tried to hew closely to the constitution. they have hewed to it more or less even though it was a turnover between medved, the current prime minister, but putin asked directly by the president yesterday, will you

eliminate the term limits, he said not yet, yet. yet is the operative word. >> evelyn, thank you for your time great to speak with you. >> thanks for having me. also some news just coming out from consumer products company newell brands, newell announcing an agreement with carl icahn who owns 6.9% of newell's shares. in return, iconahn agreed to voe for the projector slate at the upcoming meeting you can see the stock is up by 2.5% on this news. when we come back at the top of the hour, former house majority leader eric cantor is here to talk tariffs, white house cabinet shake-ups and a possible government shutdown this week. also, later, corporate culture problems we'll talk about united's crisis aynagement with eric dezzenhall.

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welcome back to "squawk box," everybody. we're watching u.s. equity futures on this monday morning and so far, it looks like there are some pretty steep declines dow futures indicated triple digits open down by 125 points if we were to open right here. looks like the s&p would open down 14 points nasdaq off about 96. this follows two weeks in a row where all three major averages ended down for those two weeks in fact, the dow is down about 0.3% for the month of march, although the s&p 500 and nasdaq at least at this point still holding ton gains for the month of march >> we were just commenting how facebook and social media stocks are under pressure today so that could carry over into the weakness side that we're seeing on the nasdaq and s&p. >> particularly since leaders for so long. >> exactly market leadership is very narrow. so you attack those outside and you get that >> facebook has been rolling for five weeks against the s&p 500

and against the bank obviously, the market sniffed out the concerns it's been compressing its pe cash was spectacular, engagement, spectacular, just the political issue. >> political issue that could potentially lead to regulation i think it could lead to regulation not just for facebook but a lot of social mediale companies. >> what i find extraordinary every company with investment number one is facebook that some of the time, all of the time >> because it's incredibly effective. i have a hard time thinking it's going to change anytime soon you'd have to destroy its business model for it not work anymore. it's too effective media i think the company lass to get different messaging on this. cheryl is pretty good at this. i bet she hits washington explaining how this worths >> he's going to have to it's not whether she wants to.

mark zuckerberg is being asked to appear on capitol hill. and the uk economy looking into media and social media has requested zuckerberg appear to testify about brexit and how social media may have impacted it as well >> this is in the financial times. >> yet as an investor in american business, i'd want this platform this is the best advertising platform i've ever seen. >> as a user, do you get concerned? >> you know what i find amazing, if you take a poll, because we've actually done this and asked people, how many are concerned about the way your data is used you'd be amaze how few people care >> this will change that number. >> maybe maybe. >> people didn't know what their information is being used for. and now it turns out, neither did facebook >> yeah, i wonder, though, if you're going to see politics go to their constituents seeing that nobody cares and maybe their enthusiasm for going after this company changes i'll be amaze.

i understand your point of view as a journalist -- but as a user of this -- >> i'm speaking as a user. >> as an ininvests ininvestse e >> i love this platform. >> do you think they're going to have a dividend? >> apple, microsoft, facebook, they can all do it >> you're talk hard ware company, microsoft, facebook, social media, new technology, it's already going to fall into that category of being a dividends payer? >> over the last 100 years 70% with capital appreciation, i rest my case, your honor i want companies to understand that dynamic i'm calling out right now, facebook start paying to kevin a dividend >> last time we talked to warren buffett and he said a dividend

is not possible for berkshire hathaway >> he keeps all his dividends. he's the original dividend dude. we'll just see time for executive edge. saudi arabia's crown prince muhammad bin salman will visited united states it comes just months after he arrested princes and ministers, in what he called a corruption crackdown >> was it a power grab >> translator: if i have the power and the king has the power to take action against enthusiastical influential people then you're already fundamentally strong these are naive accusations. >> how much money did you get back >> translator: the amount exceeds $100 billion but the real objective was not this amount or any other amount the idea is not to get money but to punish the corrupt and send a clear signal who whoever engages in corrupt deals will face the law. >> he will visit the white house tomorrow and stop in other u.s.

cities for trade and finance talks. >> i don't know if you saw that interview last night, the next follow-up to ask about that was how much do you think was missing? i think he said $10 billion a year they assumed was being skimmed off the top of these things which is why they wanted to crack down on it. >> i don't understand the crackdown, it was more a shakedown. he gave up a lot of money. either you're involved in corruption or you're not either you broke the law or you didn't just giving away money and walking away, doesn't mean you're an investor either these people were corrupt and they abide through the law and be processed through that or not. do you think you feel better the fact that -- >> i still don't understand exactly what happened. north that, norah o'donnell pushed him on the idea he's got a lot of money and spending it freely on a yacht and chateau in pair rif paris. >> i don't know if that

interview made me feel better about allocation to saudi with capital. >> it seems to be more freedoms coming to women which is interesting. yeah, if i was looking at this as an investor, you don't know what happened. >> i'd take some guys put them in the ritz and shake them down. i don't know what purpose that serves rich guys don't -- >> as a rich guy you're going to think twice? >> i'm just saying maybe i don't stay at the ritz >> he's going to be here this week macy's announcing it's rolling out mobile checkout to all of its stores by the end of this year. the new service is going to be powered by the macy's mobile app. shoppers scan bar codes in the store with their phones stand at the checkouts and associates will remove the security tags. this is macy's answer to amazon in amazon stores macy's is adding an augmented

furniture service for furniture to allow you to view macy's furniture and see how it looks in your home coming, at&t headed to court to propose its acquisition of time warner. we'll have that next rk> and the check of universieun maets. ftse down by 1.28. cac down 0.30% k "squawk box" right back. when this bell rings... ...it starts a chain reaction... ...that's heard throughout the connected business world. at&t network security helps protect business, from the largest financial markets to the smallest transactions, by sensing cyber-attacks in near real time and automatically deploying countermeasures. keeping the world of business connected and protected.

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pnc. make today the day.

welcome back, everybody. department of justice filed a lawsuit back in november to try and stop at&t from buying time warner for $85 billion this week a federal judge will hear at&t's case and decide on the fate of one of the biggest antitrust issues of modern times. this deal's been pending for more than 17 months. joining us right now to talk more about it is jennifer fritsche thank you for being here today. >> thanks, becky. >> jennifer, you say you think the law is on at&t's side, but your risk guard guy said the market's only pricing in at 35 to 40% chance that this deal actually happens why do you think that is >> the spreads have improved in the past i'd say five days or

so, but if you look at case law, it really is on their side i'm sure you know the stats. there's really been no vertical integration or merger shot down since the nixon administration at the heart of it, that's what this is, purely a vertical integration. >> you've spent the last week talking to legal experts, people in the industry. what's your take away? market may be thinking there's a 35, 40% chance, little better than that, what are your thoughts that the deal will get done >> we're over 50% in at&t's favor. it looks like based on the briefings that both companies have followed the doj's case is going to be really centered around the fact that prices will rise following the deal. but if you look at the facts that really hasn't been the case in fact, in their own briefing they argue that some of the pricing will go up by about 45 cents per bill but -- >> the government's briefing. >> the government -- excuse me, the government's briefing which is less than .5% increase, and

at&t has signed an arbitration with other competitors essentially agreeing not to raise prices on any of the time warner content, which is really the heart of the matter as well. >> if investors are looking at this trying to figure out what to do ahead of this, you would tell them to do what, buy at&t shares, buy time warner shares >> i follow at&t that's the one i can speak to. either way, frankly, the to being is trading at ten times earnings, an attractive dividend yield which is very safe, very solid balance sheet. this is the one i'd buy frankly in either outcome. we need this overhang removed and this trial will be expediated so i think we'll know something either way by probably early -- early to mid may and then we really can move forward with either path but at this point if you look at the valuation, it's extremely attractive. >> i own this stock, and i'll tell you what's worrying me a lot. why would the government bring a

case like this i know nothing since nixon's days has been stopped, but they don't bring frivolous cases. and a lot of us that own this stock are concerned that they see something the rest of us don't. they're not bringing this to lose why would they bring it if it didn't have meat on the bone if this thing doesn't work out, i think there's down side on the stock. what do you think happens to at&t if this deal gets busted? >> i think if this deal gets busted up i think certainly that's a curveball and some call a sucker punch, but i think we have to look at the heart of it. this is a company with 60 million broadband customers, a national video distribution and 110 million wireless customers if you look at how content is being monetized, it's really through wireless and broadband and at&t has avery, very large stake in both of those distribution platforms so certainly i would agree with you that the d.o.j.'s history is

more on their side in fighting deals, but i think we have to look at what the heart of the case is and, again, the factual daze case law is still very much in my view and the attorneys i speak to's side. >> jennifer, having said that though, if at&t itself has said that this is a very important deal for their future because they're competing with a lot more than just other carriers or other cable companies down the road you're now talking about technology at large. >> right i mean, i think that is where the world is going at&t's view of the world is that the video consumption is changing to an intensely competitive internet based one i think any of us who have children and watch how they are consuming content would very much agree with that they have a stake hand in hand in each of the honey pots in how this content is being consumed with or without time warner.

>> let's say, jennifer, this deal does get struck down. what are the deals you take a look at that are either proposed or have been done. this notion that distribution and content can't live in the same hands, you have to re-evaluate a lot of the deals that have been proposed or have been done. >> absolutely. i think the bigger statement also is the ones watching the outcome of this certainly are at&t but it should be a lot of other providers as well. mainly the other providers because if this vertical deal is shot down, that has implications for others. >> jennifer, thanks for your time today. >> thank you. coming up, former house majority leader eric cantor will be our guest host for the next hour we'll talk about the psityosbili of government shutdown next on "squawk box. hi, i'm bob harper,

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market alert wall street points to a lower open as investors gear up for a new week what you need to watch from washington to wall street is straight ahead. facebook under fire. the company taking heat for what some are calling the biggest data breech in social media history. details and the fallout coming up. countdown to shut down former congressman eric cantor joins us for the second hour the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now live from the beating heart of business, new york city this is "squawk box. good morning, everybody. welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc

we are live from the nasdaq market site in times square. i'm becky quick along with melissa lee and kevin o'leary who's the chairman of o shares and also the co-host of shark tank both of them with us this morning. u.s. equities have been under some pressure. as you see, the dow futures are down by 132 points right now the s&p 500 looks like it would open down by about 14 points nasdaq is also down by 92 points this comes after a down week for the last two weeks for all three of the major averages. let's get you caught up on some of the news for the hour facebook is trying to determine if a consulting firm had data it claimed to destroy lawmakers are asking how they got that in the first place. facebook is under fire for not providing more information for how cambridge analytica got information about 50 million users without their explicit permission lawmakers in the u.k. and u.s.

are asking plenty of questions it's raising some issues you can see facebook shares are down by 3 1/3%. investors focusing on this weekend's meeting of fed investment partners. another interest rate hike is considered a near certainty by fed watchers after the meeting jay powell will be holding his first post meeting news conference. and then investor carl icahn has struck an agreement with consumer products company newell brands they have agreed to appoint four new board members including his son brett. icahn owns about 6.9% of newell's outstanding shares. quick stock to watch google is teaming up with a slew of retailers for a new program this new setup allows the retailers to list their products on google platforms.

retailers will pay google a piece of each purchase this is different than companies paying to place ads on google. take a look at bitcoin tracking back above $8,000 this morning. it fell nearly 7% yesterday following reports that twitter will follow google and facebook's lead from cryptocurrency ads the financial stability board issuing a letter to the g-20 saying bitcoin does not show any risk from the global system and they'll back away from enacting new rules against bit cohn that's why we saw the bounce. trade and tariffs front and center in washington that and much, much more kayla tausche joins us with that and much more. we're talking about how much news is out there. >> there's a laundry list of things that you could talk about on any given day that's coming out of the white house it's causing consternation among the business community and

members of congress. you had 45 trade groups sending a letter to the white house advising the president against imposing these tariffs on intellectual property that he is planning to put in place in the coming weeks the letter says, quote, sweeping tariffs would trigger a chain reaction of negative consequences for the u.s. economy, provoking retaliation, goods and services exports and raising costs for businesses and consumers. white house officials say the president's latest package of trade remedies could be unveiled in the coming weeks although they caution that no final decision has been made this business president is distancing himself from big business on these issues and in the process with republican members of congress on trade it's worth noting there's general agreement that something should be done about china but how to remedy that is where they disagree congress is trying to tie the president's hands on trade as he is trying to free them further just one example, trump wants reciprocal trade barriers on other countries which does not have gop support

meanwhile, senator orrin hatch has suggested passing veto prove legislation barring trump from withdrawing from nafta trump's top trade officials are being called to the hill to testify. bob lighthizer will be there and wilbur ross and one is larry kudlow he's pro nafta, pro tpp and anti-tariffs he agrees it could be a good negotiating tool it's unclear how powerful one voice within a ka calf foe any of voices could be >> we have ian shepherd. he says this is not something we need to worry about, a trade war. this is unfinished products, aluminum and steam now you have the e.u. coming up with a list of $2.8 billion worth of goods, blue jeans, kentucky bourbon that they're targeting. where does this play out >> you have two different arguments. the white house says the actual

value of goods that europe would retaliate is pennies on the other hand, you have peter navarro saying i don't think our allies can launch a trade war. the u.s. is too valuable we couldndon't think they'll go through with it. they're fighting the idea that retaliation will happen or if it happens that it will actually hurt the economy. >> kayla, stay here. we are lucky enough for the next hour to have a guest host with us who knows all the ins and outs about this. eric cantor is here. former congressman, former house majority leader. right now vice chairman and managing director of mullis an company. what do you think of this? how does this play out what will the republicans do in the house and senate >> kayla is right, there is so much noise down there. i think that although our economics and the fundamentals are doing well, that doesn't

mean that bad policy can't upset that this is the number one policy threat i think is on the table is where do we go in terms of trade negotiations we've seen this president be extremely aggressive in terms of positioning. remember, he was elected as a negotiator so he is just prone to go out there with an extreme position, dollar back and just sort of navigate the waters once they get a little choppy this is a prime example. i'm worried because you've already seen now our european allies now begin to list the kinds of things that they would go ahead and go and impose tariffs and duties on and, frankly, it's not like -- if mr. navarro says, well, they can't afford in their economies to reciprocate in terms of tariffs and duties, the problem is, it's politics it's not just this sort of running a business the governments in our allies in europe and else are with are going to have to go and sense where their people are. >> but it is true that there are

countries for decades that put tariffs on what should be granular automoti automotive american cars going into asian countries have tariffs and not reciprocated in the u.s. that is not right, is it >> no, listen, the plea for reciprocity that we continue to hear president trump talk about is a very attractive concept the problem is, you've got this -- this whole framework of the wto and most favored nations. >> and nafta and nafta. >> sure, and nafta but, again, these things have been set in place. and when he says, well, i want to have reciprocal trade agreements with countries bilaterally, essentially, and just to up end the entire multi-lateral government to framework, that's what you're sort of talking about here. >> there is a way to navigatea deal that makes sense for both sides. a lot of the market thinks that, i'm one of those people. i see it as a negotiating tactic i don't care about the noise. >> i agree with you. >> i think this is the beginning

of kudlow, someone else, wilbur russ can go and say, let's talk granular let's go on cars let's work that out. come back to the deal. >> the problem is it's a multi-lateral agreement. there are processes in place under the wto for all this to take place. >> would republicans in congress vote to allow the president to do this, to go after reciprocity? that's what it would require. >> right this is a real test. kayla, this is where all the consternation stands in addition to the fact you are operating in an election year >> right >> so this is where it all comes into the clash. >> potentially, yes, because it's a hard sell to say, no, we should only have tariffs of 2.5%. >> let's remember. the republican party is the trump party now. donald trump is the republican party. so he has a lot of sway. >> but he doesn't always see eye to eye with the leaders of the house and senate. >> and trade happens to be the one thing that the clash is most pronounced you've already heard orrin hatch go in and say, we want to go in

and stop the president from up ending nafta again, it's all negotiating. now we have to remember -- >> which is why the market hasn't had a major correction. we all get it. >> it's interesting. this is the singular issue that has caused so much divide between either end of pennsylvania avenue, but ironically i think that republicans are very thankful for this issue and that it came up at a time when it did because they haven't had to respond to questions about stormy daniels, they haven't until this weekend been asked questions about the president's position on the russia investigation and the mueller probe, which they spent the entire, you know -- >> kayla, we've got to put a tariff on stormy, that's it. >> they feel so strongly about this issue and they care so deeply about the policy that gets written this is what all the press releases are about this is what all the sound bites are on this is what all the press avails -- this is the topic they are talking on they are very thankful to have this topic to be able to talk about. >> but if you recall -- if you recall the sort of admonition that republicans once they passed a tremendous tax bill, i

think we can all agree it's been a huge boost i think in optimism and reality and they're not able to go in and stress the tax reform and the benefits because as we saw last week in pennsylvania, there are headwinds out there. my party's got to go and step up and people have to get to work in their districts when they're running. the best thing to run on is this tax bill it makes it very difficult. >> what do you think happened in the special election in pennsylvania >> well, i mean, listen, number one, we know historically in the mid-term elections the out party is going to pick up some seats so the question is how many and does it get to a point where the house flips? and i think there was some extenuating circumstances in pennsylvania '18 -- >> in terms of lamb or in terms of -- >> both. the candidate himself. a social conservative. i'm not sure you're going to see a lot of social conservatives, cultural conservatives on guns he was against pelosi.

i think there is a unique quality to mr. lamb that i'm not sure is going to be replicated in the democratic primaries across the country come these elections and the democratic party probably will not elect and nominate someone like him so that's number one. number two, it was an open seat and it -- you know, you tend to have some benefits still, even in this day of anti-status quo, incumbents have an advantage, and you will see out of the 23 seats that are still the swing seats where hillary clinton won the election and the -- and the republican sitting in the seat, out of those 23, 17 incumbents are running again. so i do think there is some -- there are some factors to distinguish that race on but, listen, they're head winds doesn't mean they can't be overcome, but i believe that, you know, having had public office experience at the state level and the federal level, you've got to go to work they've got to go to work and they've got to talk about their

districts, they've got to localize this race or there are going to be some angry consequences. >> eric cantor is going to be with us for the rest of the hour much more to talk about. kayla, thanks for being here. >> good to see you. >> you, too. meantime, let's get a check on futures right now all morning long we've been indicating a lower open. we are picking up a little steam to the down side the nasdaq is indicated to be down by 100 points facebook down by 3%. s&p looking to open down 16 and dow 140. later, australia's former prime minister will join us, kevin rudd he said the president's move may causal lies collateral damage. stay tuned you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc who's the new guy? they call him the whisperer. the whisperer? why do they call him the whisperer? he talks to planes.

he talks to planes. watch this. hey watson, what's avionics telling you? maintenance records and performance data suggest replacing capacitor c4. not bad. what's with the coffee maker? sorry. we are not on speaking terms. at crowne plaza, we know business travel isn't just business. there's this. a bit of this. why not? your hotel should make it easy to do all the things you do. which is what we do. crowne plaza. we're all business, mostly.

"black panther" continues to dominate at the box office it's taken the top spot in the fifth weekend in a row it's the second ever to cross the $600 million mark in north america. really drawing people in got my son running around with the "black panther" doll and mask. >> is it good? >> really pretty good. >> i have yet to see it.

well, a lot of anticipation ahead of the big fmoc meeting. joining us is richard weis at american century investments and matthew is a senior economist at deutsche bank. i'll start it off with you what are we expecting from powell a lot was expected in terms of him being a continuation of yellen will he be more hawkish? >> yeah, we expect as the market does with almost certainty for them to raise rates. then the real question will be the tone above that. focus on the dots. we expect the dots to move up slightly that's supported by the fact that there are a lot more beat on the economy especially with the inflation. we have a pretty massive stimulus it's pointing at 4.1% and we've

seen from a number of fed officials a little bitmore of hawkish tone in their recent comment. >> richard, you know when powell testified and markets interpreted it as more hawkish, we had a little bit of a tantrum. if the fed indicates this time around that they're 4 this year, what do you think the reaction would be >> negative is the bottom line we're concerned with the stock market for the foreseeable future for that reason valuation metrics are not compelling with rates raising at the short and long end of the curve it makes it even more problematic that pe ratio is compressing more importantly fundamentally, economically, the shot in the arm that the tax reform package represented for corporate america we just don't see yet the halo effect on the consumer. we tail sales, housing starts, building permits and without the consumer, without the retail economy, this economy is just

not going to grow by more than 2 1/2, 2 3/4% this year, not enough to make stocks go. >> is there a disconnect, matt, in terms of what we're seeing when it comes to optimism surveys and what we're actually seeing in the data i mean, loan growth, you know, business demand for loans is pretty low nfib is record highs retail sales are low, consumer confidence is high why aren't we seeing this manifest itself in the data? >> this is what we've seen over the -- >> just a first quarter anomaly? >> it has been so far. you've seen the hard data. retail sales and a lot of other things coming in a lot softer. surveys have been stronger if you look at the surveys broadly speaking today, they're pointing to 3.6% growth from the first quarter which is incredibly strong. that's disconnected from some of the hard data. i think the fed will look through some of the weakness that we've seen in that data they'll certainly keep an eye on it but where the labor market is, where inflation is has been

turning up and the fiscal stimulus that we're seeing, we expect them to be a little bit more hawkish it is absolutely a close call. >> four rate hikes in nine months, 25 basis points each that's a full percent. that -- i'm just looking at the yield curve. that's a flat yield curve. it's all on the short end. that ain't my good, friend. >> depends what happens with the long end there. >> you're anticipating it moves up past 3? >> yes, we are. >> to where? >> 3 1/4. >> you're comfortable with 1/4 keeping you out of a recession >> yes the long end has been laid down by weak inflation that we've seen, qe across the globe we're seeing not only from the fed, ecb and doj which is distorting the typical signal we see from the yield curve. i wouldn't look at the flattening of the yield curve as i would have prepricing.

today there are a lot of other factors that are distorting it. >> you're making me nervous. you're making me nervous 4, that's a lot. >> it is certainly from a post crisis perspective i think the fed and we view the economy as getting back to normal from a pre-crisis perspective and in that world you have the fed going, you know, eight times a year and so with the economy, you know, getting back to normal, four rate hikes is actually still quite a gradual pace you heard bill dudley mention that, john weinan say that. >> let's say he's right, 3 1/4% a year do you say if they signal 4 that would be disastrous for the markets or negative to the markets? are the arisks to the down side here >> to the down side. >> what do you do on that? where are you on cash? where are you on equities?

>> maybe some cover overseas possibly, but we're moving to cash short-term bonds especially for the investors too risk averse to tolerate the down side for retirees, near retirees, target day funds for example we're definitely moving away from equities towards cash. >> got to leave it there thank you, matt and rich. >> thank you. when we come back, macy's rolling out mobile checkout as the nation's largest department store company looks to keep up with amazon and online retailers. we have the details right after the break. then will tariffs force retaliation from china the world's largest producer of steel and aluminum is already considering restricting shipments of soy beans we'll hear from australia's prime minister "squawk box" will be back after a quick break. ♪

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welcome back, everybody. macy's announcing that it will roll out mobile checkout to all of its stores by the end of this year the new service will be powered by the macy's mobile app shoppers will be able to scan bar codes on items in the store with their phones then at the checkout an associate will remove the security tags and make sure the number of items

matches the receipt on the app they're adding an augmented reality on furniture kevin, i like the idea of the augmented reality. it would be great to see what it looks like the idea of this checkout makes me think they're going to have fewer employees. >> anything that speeds up the process. i can't tell you how many sofas and big things that my wife has ordered from the reality experience and then shipped back so -- >> so you're saying -- >> shipped the sofa back >> you have to sit on a sofa before you buy a sofa. >> i'd like to sit on it and have somebody show me what it -- >> i'm not going to order it online >> what i've learned those big items, mattresses, sofas, a bar from miami are going back. you have to stop you have to go shop for this stuff and look at it first >> i'm thinking in the store

if i go in the store, i sit on it, i like it, you can show me what it looks like in my house. >> maybe maybe. >> you have to have exact measurements of your room, which is a pain. >> maybe coming up, we're going to talk china, trade with our guest host, eric cantor. plus, facebook under fire for what some are calling the biggest data breach in social media history. facebook is disputing that but we have the details straight ahead.

good morning welcome back to "squawk box. among the stories front and center this morning, a takeover battle is developing between several defense contractors. csra has gotten a buyout from caci csra has already agreed to be bought by general dynamics for

40.75. the company behind brands like north face, timberland and wrangler is selling one of its brands they've struck a deal to sell naut particul nautica. sherborne has a 5.2% stake in barclays. saudi arabia's crown prince will be visiting the white house this week. his trip to the united states comes just months after he arrested princes and ministers in what he calls a corruption crackdown. here he is right now on "60 minutes" last night. >> was it a power grab >> translator: if i have the power and the king has the power to take action against influential people, then you are already fundamentally strong these are naive accusations. >> how much money did you get back

>> translator: the amount exceeds 100 billion, but the real objective was not this amount or any other amount the idea is not to get money but to punish the corrupt and send a clear signal that whoever engages in corrupt deals will face the law. >> mbs will be visiting the white house and visit other areas. our guest host is eric cantor who joins us with a little bit more from the washington perspective on this. kevin brought up a great point in the last hour just talking about how he would feel as an investor in all of this. >> you obviously have been very close to the situation the way i looked at it as an inve investor, should i feel more confident or less to allocate capital to saudi after watching this particular leader take a bunch of very wealthy men and women, i guess, a couple of women in that mix, throw them into the ritz, shake them down for $100 billion and let them all go free. that doesn't look like justice

to me. it doesn't make me more excited ipo if it ever comes to market or not it doesn't sound like a transparent outcome. >> so, first of all, i spent a lot of time in the region and, you know, i'm very bullish about what's going on in the gulf right now. you can look at sort of the demographics, the geo politics everything that's sort of pointing to reform and the crown prince in this country is trying to begin -- continue to sort of nurture these relationships and do attract investment into the region remember, first of all, their system is not our system their system is one that has been stressed to the point where he's come in and he says, look, i'm not only going to go in and diversify the country and try and wean it off of oil, but i'm going to do some really tough things and tough things socially, culturally to us to have women drive is no big deal, but to the saudis it

is a huge step towards entering the modern era when you look at the things that he's doing in terms of he's taken the religious beliefs off the streets, he's begun to allow for mixing the sexes at sporting events he's going to have cinemas now these are not little things. if you spend time in the region, i think the bent is towards reform their laws, their processes are not ours. >> to your point, that may be the message to investors there was a lot of investor excitement at the end of last year. >> at the conference. >> two weeks before all of this happened and what you just said was a big reminder to investors. their system is not ours maybe that gives investors a little pause. >> i would tell you in terms of -- because many of us watched sort of what was going on. there was a lot of opacity we didn't understand what was going on at the ritz carlton and radisson. >> i would say we still don't. >> if you listen to the crown prince in his interview, look, all of this was done according

to our laws. all of this was published in terms of what the standard procedure was and, again, i think in any way when investors are looking at allocating capital into emerging markets or into other places that aren't necessarily aever zonie ever -- jeffersonian fraud. >> accuse me of fraud and put me up. >> with all of the signals that are being sent by the capitals in the gulf, i do think that they want to integrate more fully into the global economy. >> what do you think mbs's game plan is he did this on "60 minutes," he's going to dc, going to visit a lot of cities what's the end game? >> they want to attract capital. they're in the game like anybody else >> are they doing more business? >> we don't talk about all that we do for the clients there. yeah, we have had an office -- mu mullis has had an office in

dubai since 2009 after the collapse we do a lot of business in the region we see a lot of activity there is a lot of foreign activity the saudi government as well as the emirates, they're looking to partner and create strategic relationships with other countries. china, russia, the united states so, again, i'm very, very bullish to see that they're -- that region wants to integrate and those countries want to integrate in the global economic system. >> we'll talk more about this later. tracking headlines about how a data firm tied to president trump got access to the facebook data about 50 million users putting facebook under even more scrutiny and raising more calls for testimony and potential regulation julia boorstin joins us with more julia, kind of a shocking turn of events. >> reporter: yes pretty shocking over this weekend now. facebook has suspended u.k. based data firm cambridge analytica that worked with the trump campaign

the firm harvested information from more than 50 million facebook profiles without their permission here's what happened, 270,000 facebook users downloaded a personality app. they could access demographic data from friends who had downloaded their app facebook blocked the developer's access to the data in 2015 how does it get to 50 million? that's the number of all of the friends tho downloaded the app facebook says because of the policies at the time everything was legal until the app developer broke the rules by selling that data to cambridge analytica. they failed to delete it in 2015 as they promised facebook says, quote, we are in the process of conducting a comprehensive internal and external review as we work to examine the claims facebook analytica denies that

they did anything wrong. cambridge analytica says they didn't use any of the information in service of president trump's campaign now british and american lawmakers are calling forex pla nations of how all of this happened and why facebook didn't disclose to users that their data was harvested indicating that a regulation could be in the works. certainly a hot topic to watch and i think the story is only beginning. >> julia, thank you. in los angeles for us. we should note that facebook shares are down 4% in the premarket. let's bring eric back in here. you have some thoughts on this if you're back up on the hill, is this an issue that would sort of be fleeting or would this be the time where regulators, congress, people step in >> i think the real problem is that facebook's got and others in the social media realm, people are being able to continue to exploit it in ways

that could sway elections, undermine democracy, and now can access personal tahta that was allowed to happen. this ability to exploit facebook and access the data that we all are knowingly giving to facebook and other social media is a real problem. i think we are only beginning in terms of the process that you're going to see congress and others take a look at these companies >> you said the key word there was knowing. you are actually opting in to the platform can i speak on behalf of the platform and hundreds of thousands of businesses in america that use this advertising vehicle to be successful in their business because all of mine do i don't want to see this go away this is a great american company. look at it the other way yes, i think, but what all of this does is it begins to allow folks to understand what they're doing by giving up this data. >> you're okay if you opt in

you agree to do this. >> we didn't know what we were opting in for. >> that's the point. i think that there's going to be increased transparency as to actually what it means when you opt in you know, it's interesting to see the policy discussion in washington because when the government -- remember, we've had -- we've seen congress, i know when i was there we had all of these debates continuing over national security and the patriot act and the necessary information, the meta data collection that our law enforcement officers and agencies needed to go after the terrorists and our military and intel community needed to go after the terrorists there is a huge human cry on the part of privacy advocates to say, hey, wait a minute, we don't want government accessing it when you look around and you see what is going on, you're right we're clearly saying here, take it >> i would never give that

>> the politician and go back to the constituency >> and that's a question do they do it. melissa and i were talking >> if they begin to get out there and say, look, washington is going to start taking control of it. >> if you can self-regulate it. >> the market and the pressure will force it. we do not have the ability to monetize our data. >> and, again, then you say what about blockchain

>> that could up end their models as well. >> here's technology self-correcting. >> right >> let the market be the market, it will solve for itself. >> very interesting. >> that promises to up end a lot of businesses that store anything, whether it be photos in a single server so think about not just facebook, the likes of a drop box. all of these business models built around storing your data or information on a centralized server that gets blown up. >> some haven't figured out how to make money. facebook is incredible it's the number one draw how many of these companies have this. >> if you let the market be the market, it always self-corrects. when you interfere with it, bad things happen. unintended consequences. >> right this is the thing, policy makers are always behind. washington is always behind in terms of where the marketplace and technology is. >> always. every turn eric is going to hang out with us for the rest of the

hour when we come back, former prime minister of australia kevin rudd will join us to talk tariffs, trade, china and much more also a programming note for you, make sure to tune in to "fast money" today to catch marc lryas of avenue capital "squawk box" will be right back. , but there's no business track record. well, have you seen her work? no. is it good? good? at cognizant, we're helping today's leading banks make better lending decisions with new sources of data- so, multiply that by her followers, speaking engagements, work experience... credit history. that more accurately assess a business' chances of success. this is a good investment. she's a good investment. get ready, because we're helping leading companies see it- and see it through-with digital. like you do sometimes, grandpa? and puffed... well, when you have copd, it can be hard to breathe. it can be hard to get air out,

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welcome back, everybody. tensions between the united states and china are rising over trade and tariffs and all kind of talk that's been coming out of washington. joining us to break down those recent developments is kevin rudd he is asia society's policy institute president. also the australian prime minister thanks for being with us. >> good to be here. >> we've been talking all morning about the trade and the tariffs and about how people are looking at this a little differently this time around a lot of people not understanding the ins and outs and realizing the high tariffs put on many different items. what do you think about where we stand and what the future holds? >> i think america's big problem with china is actually market access which means there aren't

sufficiently a large number of chinese domestic products open to american products and services that's the key issue if you look at the complaints by united states trade associations, there are lots of them they're saying, mr. president, work with the chinese to get us better market access rather than going down the route of imposing unilateral tariffs against chinese goods. >> do you think it's working without threats actually works >> i understand the president's negotiating tactics. knowing the chinese reasonably well and having spoken with them in the last several days and i'm off to beijing tomorrow, let me tell you, the president has them foxed in terms of where he's actually going to go but there's a crossover point between having them, as it were, anxious about what the next move is going to be and having a productive resolution point. and i would think the productive resolution point here does not lie down the tariff road because

that can trigger a whole big trade war, not just with china but globally because of the unintended consequences as opposed to, frankly, using your negotiating leverage with the chinese, which president trump has to be fair to him, and crack open market access with firms which you don't have a presence. >> basically china is signaling that it would be more open potentially to open new markets which has been a huge sticking point? >> this is where president trump has succeeded. he's caught their attention. my concern isn't so much about the tactics, my concern is about the concluding point of the tactics. and if this is heading in the direction to a new markets access regime in the services sector, financial services institutions in new york, for example, who don't have proper access to the chinese domestic funds management industry, american movies from hollywood, you get 12 titles in a year. why isn't that 50 apart from propaganda reasons that's the way you go and that's the way you structurally grow

the trade in the future. >> prime minister, what do you say about the theft of intellectual property by the chinese? if there were to be increased access on the part of china to allow more of our companies to access their markets, what about the moves that they make in terms of requiring all of the disclosure, the codes and everything else? >> i think in terms of chinese i.p. theft, the evidence is clear. it happens and it happens on a significant scale. it's not just u.s. firms that have this problem. european firms, everyone has this problem secondly, however, this other regime which is, as it were not just theft but forced transfer, that should be the second element of president trump's, shall i say, hard-edged trade negotiation with the chinese if you can remove that from the contract requirements of american firms going into the country and fair and accurately on access on the one hand removing this requirement in some cases to forcibly transfer

i.p. or technology, i think you then structurally are a long way ahead of where you are now that's where i'd be going. >> can we go back a few weeks ago that got all of this started was a wednesday afternoon, i think, when we talked about steel. now the chinese have used steel for over a decade to change from an agrarian society to a manufacturing one. millions of jobs they make this stuff for free. i totally get that why would they change that and how could they change that what other commodity could they make to provide jobs for the agrarian move into the cities? >> let me go to it parts of that one is, how would you cause china to stop dumping steel on global markets not by unilateral action by the united states because china currently, frankly, represents about, what, 1% of total steel imports with this country. in fact, i think we australians almost sell as much steel into this country as the chinese. the question is china's over

capacity domestically floods out to all global markets and depresses the price of steel which makes it, frankly, harder for american firms and others to compete. what you need, therefore, is a combined anti-dumping action by all trading partners to stop dumping of steel on the other part of your question, which is what happens domestically, yeah, the chinese economy is in this extraordinary transformation all the jobs created last year, new jobs in china's economy, came from private firms usually in the servicing sector. it's about 20 million new chinese jobs every year just to keep pace with those coming out into the work force. so what we're seeing is this big transformation already occurring. the chinese actually do see already steel for them domestically as a sunset industry like it's actually sliding. their politics at the moment is how to frankly transition it so that you don't have millions of

people unemployed, particularly in the northeast of the country because that creates a political problem. >> mr. prime minister, i want to thank you for being with us today. hope you'll come back again soon. >> look forward to t assuming i get back from china in one piece. when we come back, we'll wrap up the hour with our guest host eric cantor the european markets have been open for an hour the ftse is down by 1.%.27 major decliner stick around, "squawk box" will be right back. most etfs only track a benchmark. flexshares etfs are built around the way investors think. with objectives like building capital for the future, managing portfolio risk and liquidity and generating income. that's real etf innovation. flexshares. built by investors, for investors. before investing consider the fund's investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. go to flexshares.com for a prospectus containing this information. read it carefully.

all right. welcome back, everybody. let's turn to our guest host for the hour, eric cantor. he's vice chairman and managing director at mullis and company you've been with us for almost an hour. we haven't mentioned russia and putin's victory overnight. hard to believe how much is going on that we haven't gotten to yet. >> it's an amazing thing russia has had an out sized presence in washington since the trump campaign started and certainly since the administration was sworn into office i happen to think that, you know, russia, you know, compared to china, i believe it's best that we continue to focus on a competitive sort of arena that we're in in china. russia is a concern. it's flexing its muscle. you've got mr. -- the new ruler of russia now is going to be there for some time to come.

you've got -- >> at least six years. >> yeah. you've got issues certainly in europe, ukraine. you know, he's getting pretty bold in terms of what we saw happening in the u.k. last week. >> i thought that was "dancing with the stars" i was watching. >> the production guy? >> the production guy, he really gets it. >> yeah, listen. you know, you've got north korea, you've got other issues where he's trying to play as well and he's always got the energy card so i think increasingly we're going to be focused, like it or not, on what to do with russia. >> where are you at with the russia probe it's getting a little boring as a consumer we just can't get anywhere with this thing collusion, yes/no, let's get it over with. >> listen, there's a show on capitol hill, right, in the house committee on intelligence ended its probe last week saying that there was no one side -- you know, there was no commitment to support one

candidate or another just to sort of up end our democratic process. you've got the senate committee that's yet to reveal what its findings are but the real action is with mr. mueller. and as you've seen, it's increased now in terms of where he's going so we'll have to see. you know, it's -- but it will be an impact -- impacting factor on the mid-term elections. >> eric, thanks so much. great to see you. >> nice to see you. coming up, markets and your money. wel nd o'lfiut what investors need to watch and apple closing in on the $1 trillion mark

a developing story the third party access to its data room to run. why stocks have another 9% to go before the market hit the ceiling. >> returns will slow you down. shattering records the final hour of "squawk box" continues right now. live from the most powerful city in the world, new york. this is "squawk box.

good morning, everybody. welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc we are live from the nasdaq market site in times square. i'm becky quick along with melissa lee and kevin o'leary. joe and andrew are off today let's check out the futures this morning. i love this music. dow futures down by 129 points triple digit decline s&p futures off by 14. nasdaq down by 91. all three of the major averages were down not only last week but the week before as well. we'll see where things head on this monday morning. where you start the day isn't always where you end it as you know especially late take a look at what's been happening with treasuries. right now it looks like the ten year note is yielding 2.82%. that's a bit higher than last week. facebook says it is conducting a comprehensive review to determine if a political consulting firm had data it claimed to have destroyed. they're asking how that firm got that info in the first

facebook is under fire for not providing more information about how cambridge analytica obtained information about millions of users without their explicit permission shares are down 6.3%. the doj trial set to begin this week. the court will hear the arguments this week. the trial is set on wednesday. the fed new chair jay powell will oversee its first meeting tomorrow decision on rates and powell news conference will be on wednesday. stocks have been moving sideways mike santoli takes a closer look at how long stocks might be stuck in the nervous neutral state. >> yes, i will literation helps when trying to figure out markets. i think we have a picture of just exactly how much this range has narrowed we're 9% off the lows from early february the upper and lower horizontal lines pretty much show you this

range from 2500 to 2900 on the s&p. you see this sort of series of narrower moves pointing to some things which way does it break from here what does it actually tell us? one thing it tells us is we're caught in a macro story between the expectations of possible overheating coming into february, inflation going up, rates going higher, economic acceleration and this idea of a soft patch typical first quarter growth those things have kept the market i think stuck in this spot right now what would it take, i think, to move this out of here? credit markets have to give us the signal that there's nothing macro going on they've softened up. faang could fang could be a key. facebook hitting it today. not only fang. time is something that could help everyone says whenever we get into one of these corrective periods, corrections are a process. they play out over a course of months it gets choppy that's what this looks like. even if the february lows were

the lows, it's going to take a while. once we get towards looking at earnings estimates, the market looks less expensive >> the market is really waiting to take cues from the fed, that that might be the biggest issue? >> right all of the things that are inputs into what the fed is going to do is exactly what the market is fixated on. >> they will get a little insight. >> hopefully so. >> maybe on wednesday. >> maybe. >> thinking right now. >> right now also, actually. good segue. >> let's take a look at the broader markets and the fed decision just days away. joining us is jonathan golub ian shepard son, founder and chief u.s. economist at pantheon economics. i'll start it off with you since we were talking about the fed. what do you think powell will signal it's interesting because he gave testimony to congress. he did appear a little bit hawkish but we know that a lot of the first quarter data, they're anomalies simply because they're happening in the first quarter. will we see much of a departure from what they've said >> he's bullish on growth.

he's right to be bullish on growth despite the soft numbers. what happened was the softening of the recent data is a correction from the surge that we saw in the third quarter last year quite a lot of that was after the hurricanes last year a lot of people lost a lot of stuff. we had a shopping binge, import binge which you've seen in the numbers. now that is reversing. once that works through the fundamentals are strong. i don't think he's too hawkish on inflation he made the right noises in the testimony. he pointed out there are up side risks. he didn't sound like a guy who's beginning to get nervous about the short term outlook he's watching and waiting to see how things play out and willing to give it a bit of time everyone knows the next few months we have some adverse numerical effects in the data which make it look like inflation is moving higher he knows that's something of a head fake. he knows that the underlying trends are not too scary he can afford to buy this time

he'll mention it he won't sound too aggressive. >> the fact that this is the first fmoc meeting, does that factor into how he might be not as hawkish as we think doesn't that serve him well not to come out and royal the markets the first go out >> he'll want to find his feet and play the room carefully. he'll not want to make any mistakes he doesn't want to answer an open question he knows how to get around he wants to exude calm and efficiency and make it clear to everyone that he's fully on top of this situation, he's not panicking. he'll use the gradual word again and make it pretty clear that the fed thinks they've got this under control. >> what are your concerns about the fed meeting this week? >> i don't have huge concerns. i think we're in the same place. he has no incentive to give the market a punch in the nose right out of the gate. the economy is in good shape but that last jobs report said that the inflation picture might be a little bit less frothy and it

gives him a little bit of space to tell you the economy is good, exactly as you said. inflation is out there as a concern but not a concern that right now is playing out in a way that is going to force the feds in. the market will continue pushing higher as we move through that report >> kevin, that's exactly what you want to hear as an investor, right? >> i was going to try and quantify it for both of you, put you on the spot. give me your call on how many hikes this year at 25 basis point per hike >> i think you're going to see four this year, but i think the fed doesn't have to convince you they're going there until they get into the back end. >> we haven't seen four hikes in nine months in decades >> but we're at the level of interest rates on the short end of the curve are so low, they're so out of sync with where the economy is i think the market will simply realize what we already know

that the economy isn't in good enough shape to handle this. as long as they tell the market that we're not beating up on the economy because we have an inflation problem but we're healthy enough to get back to normal the market should take that. >> i'm wondering why the dollar isn't signaling that and the financial services sector isn't signaling that if there were four hikes i'd want to be in banks and long dollar. >> if you look at the last 18 months where you've had a doubling of the ten-year treasury, the banks have been other than tech have been, you know, the sector to be in. >> they're rolling over, too, as if this is not going to happen i think that's the ying and the yang of the market. >> the ten year, we've seen that rise it's flattening. yield curve is flattening. >> and the elephant in the room on four hikes is that flat as a yield curve, that looks like a recession. >> it flattens the short end of the yield curve. >> it's 100 basis points. >> right that's 100 basis points on the very, very short end of the

curve. if you look between the 2 and 10 year the market is expecting a little under 20 basis points of flattening which will leave you 45 basis points deep which is flatter but for an equity guy, that's not enough to say that the party's over no question flatter, but i don't think it's a big problem. >> i'm an equity guy and i don't want to hear about four hikes in nine months. that's not exciting. >> they were doing it in 2005 every meeting. >> yes >> 2006. >> and then we had 2008. >> that wasn't good. >> it took a while 17 hikes so i think we've got four this year as well, but i think the saving grace for the equity market, i'm way more bullish on earnings and consensus i think we're going to get 30% growth. >> that's out there. you're at the top of the range. >> that's fine i'm pretty bullish on growth and i'm pretty confident that wage growth isn't going to go crazy and i'm very bullish on productivity will squeeze costs down and allow that to feed through. >> ian, why?

>> capex it's not a forecast anymore to be talking about stronger capex. >> it's in the data, exactly credit conditions are easy people are hard to find. you want to expand, you can't go hire anybody else, you have to spend money. tech spendsing is rising equipment spending is rising it's all pushing through it tends to hit productivity pretty heavily. >> we haven't seen the tail wind theoretically of tax reform on capex. >> the risk is to the up side. >> are you more bullish on the russell 2000 that the s&p? >> yes. >> i like you more now. >> thank you it's a smaller company kind of story. the small business sector is the engine of everything it's the source of apparel demand,capex story >> it hasn't played out in the indexes. >> no, it's early days the tax bill, after all, passed in december. it's early march it's not long.

there's a long way to go for this to work through yet but this is going to happen. >> 3.5% doesn't worry you in tenure >> no. >> that's the -- that's the internal struggle investors have you want to see the fed raise rates because the economy is healthy but yet you're worried equities will be pinned. >> there is a point where rates become a problem the market is way more focused on the long end of the curve your point about 3 1/2 is where we have this tipping point between higher rates saying everything is great and higher rates squeezing things out but we're 70 basis points away from 3.5, so if we edge toward -- if we ended the year at 3%, stocks are -- i think stocks are doing pretty well. and i agree with your point. big companies have such access but a small company, these tax things really matter so i think from an economic point of view we're going to see a lot of

capex. in the big names that people are following it will be legs of a story. >> you said three hikes this year. >> four. >> four. so is there a risk that they might signal 2019 there's four instead of three >> oh, yeah, but they're not going to say that until september or december. >> don't have to worry about it? >> no need to scare people yet plenty of time. >> to get scared >> to get scared. >> need to worry basis. >> gentlemen, thank you. ian, jonathan and our own mike santel santelli. venture capitalest anku ankur jain will join us in the studio we'll see how he's trying to revolutionize how millennials rent or buy their homes. stay tuned, you are watching "squawk box" right here on cnbc. today, smart planning is helping the new new york rise higher than ever. as the world leader in unmanned aerial systems, we're attracting the world's best talent to central new york. and turning the airport into a first-class transportation hub.

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the nasdaq is lower by 77 points dow looking to lose 99 by the open s&p is looking to lose 11.5. former qualcomm chairman paul

jacobs will not be nominated he's putting together a buyout of the company his father founded. >> a firm kairos has a new initiative they're trying to replace one-time security deposits with monthly fees joining us is ankur jain this is the first rollout. >> if you remember, becky, a few months ago we came together in a group of ceos and world leaders to say how do we get more people in silicon valley to focus on solving problems that affect everyday people. issues like student loans, cost of rent, elderly care, et cetera so this week we actually are launching our first major solution to the high, high cost of rent. if you guys have rented in new york or any city, you know that it's not just putting up your

first month rent when you put into a place you're talking about thousands of dollars in first month's rent, last month's rent, security deposit. >> broker's fees. >> it can be $10,000 for a modest apartment. >> in a time when americans don't have $400. you're talking about putting $10,000 plus up. i think of it as a security deposit, almost like an adult tax. you become an adult, you have 2 to $3,000 that just locks away. >> you get all of this money back. >> but you don't. >> you get your security deposit back. >> from the next apartment to the next apartment it's almost lost money the other challenge is it's not in your control as a renter. >> how do you solve the problem? >> what we're launching is an insurance company. for 10 to $20 a month for the first year you can actually get your security deposit back from your landlord or if you're renting a new place, never put it up in the first place if you think about it, this week 23,000 apartments in new york to start, people are actually

getting checks for 2 to $3,000 back think about that. >> the landlord's okay with this i can understand why the renter would be great in this but as the landlord i'm losing out. >> it's interesting. landlords, not only do they have to lock away the money in escrow so they can't touch it or generate interest on it. with rhino insurance, they' protected for double they make a claim, we pay it out. >> how do you make money >> i'm paying you $20 in perpetuity. >> then it drops just a few dollars a month. you can make more money putting your deposit in the market than you could having to lock it away. >> what's the yield for the investor i want to give you $1 million towards this. >> it's not an -- it's an insurance company and it's backing, underwriting the risk. >> they want a return on capital. >> that's what's amazing, in aggregate, the actual amount of money kept by security deposits is fairly low, but to an

individual the risk of losing thousands of dollars, a, is quite high b, more importantly, i think is putting up that kind of money up front at a time when we don't have that liquidity is a huge barrier. >> i like that concept what's the return? that's a very valid question. >> sure. the investor on the startup is buying in -- rhino itself is managing it. we're able to offer these policies, assess the risk and cover both the landlord and the tenant so for us we basically are making a return both on the up front and the back. >> you need a capital. you come to my fund and say lend me 100 million -- >> that's what i'm saying, the capital is underwritten by a big insurancecompany that underwrites over $10 billion of coverage today >> you're not going to tell me what the return is right >> the return is start -- >> if i'm lending you money. >> you're not lending us money. >> what am i doing >> we have a technology company that assesses the risk and issues coverage. the coverage is underwritten by

an insurance company. >> oh, i see. >> if you're a renter, you're paying 10 to $20 a month, that supposedly covers your security deposit which you would have given your landlord up front. >> yes. >> at the end of that lease i get it back. at the end of the lease do you get it back? >> the challenge is you don't actually really get your money back ever because until you buy a home, that money is rolling over. >> do you ever stop -- >> by the way, even at a high -- if you have a lot of disposable income, the kind of money that you're putting up for security deposit, you can generate higher returns in the market. >> you're saying take the $10,000 invest it in the market. >> invest it in the market, pay down your student loeps, right so right now the challenge is financially you're locking away money for 8 to 10 years. >> buy the insurance instead. >> yeah. >> question number two i ask every ff intech. >> please. >> if you look at eight out of ten, i've done plenty of investments, they fail after 36

months because they never get their customer acquisition costs below the lifetime value what's the cost? >> yeah, so what's great, our customer acquisition costs today is actually close to zero. because the landlords are the ones offering this to tenants. so the landlords we partner with these large real estate groups across the country who actually prefer having this kind of coverage it's twice the coverage. right now if you decide to stop paying rent, they have typically one month worth of protection. with whine know they now have two months and they don't have to deal with small claims courts or tenants issues. >> how many customers do you have >> this week we're launching, we have 23,000 units in new york. we have the next six months to be rolling out tens of thousands more around new york. >> i was going to tear you to shreds but i like your answers. >> thanks. >> this is pretty good. >> if you're a renter do you continuously pay 10 to $20 a month? >> no. for the first year it's 10 to $20 a month, again, compare that

to $3,000 to cash up front a tiny fraction. after the first year we will know if you're a good renter or not. if you've shown to be a good renter, you pay a few dollars to keep it alive. >> you're rating these individuals for the landlord >> it's a risk assessment. >> i like this deal. >> you are paying more over the course of renting for eight to ten years than you would putting the one security deposit >> even over ten years you would never pay close. >> you're paying the opportunity cost. >> even just no interest you're paying substantially -- >> rolling out beyond new york >> yes we will be launching nationwide over the next six months. >> good deal. >> thanks. >> ankur, thanks for coming in. >> thanks for having me. a feel good story that will give us motivation to keep running this morning stay tuned, you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc

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welcome back to "squawk box," everybody. we've been watching the futures this morning across all three major averages they have been under pressure today. dow futures down by triple digits decline by 110 points below fair value. it's the nasdaq that would really open under pressure down by 77 points. that's a bigger percentage though the s&p futures down by 12.5 we'll see how things go as we get closer to the opening bell. after you hear this next story, you'll have no excuses whatsoever at the gym today.

102-year-old woman and a 100-year-old man both set new world records for running over the weekend. check out the video there. julia hurricane hawkins ran the 100 dash in just over 24 seconds. meantime, 100-year-old orville rodgers set a new report in the men's 60 meter dash running the race in 19.1 seconds >> look at them. man. >> like lightning. >> we don't hear anybody called orville anymore. >> no. >> you kind of have to be 100 years old. >> i can think of two of them. >> redden backer and this 100-year-old guy. >> orville should make a comeback. >> way to go >> by the way, that's why we were playing chair yots of fire. get us into the whole thing. when we come back this morning, facebook's biggest test yesterday, a crisis management expert will join us with advice for mark zuckerberg right after this stay tuned

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good morning, everybody. welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc we are live from the nasdaq market site in times square. et cetera will' take a look at a few stocks to watch ahead of the monday trading session mall operator ggp has received a revised takeover bid from brookfield property partners ggp is rejecting a $14.8 billion cash and stock offer from brookfield that happened late last year the new offer is said to contain more cash and a new security that would trade as a real estate investment trust. okay alphabet soup. get ready. defense contractor csra has received a takeover bid from caci international worth $44 a share in cash and stock. csra had already agreed to be bought by general dynamics for $40.75 a share all in cash it says its board will review the new offer.

also, shares of touch stream technology company synaptics is under pressure they're currently a supplier of screens to apple and just announced deal in the semiconductor industry kla-tencor is buying rifle orbotech for $3.4 billion. total value of the deal is $3.4 billion. i get it, r-o-c-k in the u.s.a. >> i get it. in wall street news today, we are learning a high departure from steve cohen. >> .72's president doug haynes is resigning it's a move that comes as the firm closed a $3 billion round of fundraising and notably a little more than three weeks after haynes was named as a defendant in a gender discrimination lawsuit

steve cohen sent a letter announcing haynes was leaving. that's according to a person who reviewed the memo that spoke to cnbc the billionaire tauted haines investment was an appropriate time that was filed a little more than four weeks ago by an employee they created a culture of discrimination against women haynes specifically was alleged to have written a derogatory word on the white board of his office leaving it there for weeks and the lawsuit says that women would discuss that as long as haynes is president, they would not -- they would be paid less than their male peers when i asked a representative for point72 whether haynes' resignation was in connection to the lawsuit specifically, she said that, quote, the firm's view remains that the lawsuit is without merit.

she said she said -- leslie, thank you very much. let's get back to today's top core rate story. facebook under fire amid questions of third party access to its data. the stock is under some pressure this morning julia boorstin joins us from l.a. julia, good morning. >> reporter: becky, good morning again to you a report that cambridge analytica harvested information from 50 million people without permission, facebook has suspended their access they harvested data from people who downloaded the app and their friends. this prompted growing criticism from lawmakers senator amy kolbochar wants mark zuckerberg to testify. i've called for more transparency and accountability. senator ed mark key tweeting facebook and cambridge analytics

should be made to testify before the senate commerce committee. and senator mark warner said it's clear that left unregulated, this market will continue to be prone to deception and lacking in it transparency u.k. lawmakers are calling on zuckerberg to appear before parliament this looks like the beginning of a long story here for facebook the company is conducting a comprehensive deal >> julia, thank you very much. facebook joins united airlines and nike as the most recent companies to make headlines and not in a good way. the ceo of des zen hall resources. it's the age of instant scandal. facebook has come under pressure

in the last few months because of issues around the election. i think what we're learning right now is a little bit more concerning just because, look, this is a question of what data is being given away or sold and what we can do with these things we sign up and offer to opt into these policies but do people actually know what they're opting into? >> the problem with managing cases like this is the hardest ones to manage is the ones where you just don't know that much. and right now there is so much fast breaking news on this issue that the whole cliche that when you have a crisis you have to respond immediately, it becomes a hard thing to do you know, right now what we are hearing, so much news about the russia investigation that all you really can do in a case like this is investigate and change your policy afterwards i mean, while nobody has ever accused me of being a trump

supporter, what's interesting to me is back during the obama days when the obama campaign was openly touting how they were using social media -- >> right. >> -- to target and profile, this was considered innovative now with trump it has the wiff of criminality at this before you understand how to manage something like this, why is one criminal and one innovative >> that's why i think you've got to step aside from the politics though if you get into the idea of facebook not even knowing what was being done with some of these issues -- what was being done with some of this data and not notifying their users. >> but the assumption here is that everybody knew and they knew and did nothing, which is not the assumption i always make i've spent 35 years inside cases like this, and one of the things you see is the misassumption that the company in question has absolute perfect information and then chooses not to disclose it. >> sure.

>> when that's not often what happens, i think what we have to get to the bottom of here is, look, if there is an issue of foreign intervention, that is a very different variable but what we know for sure right now is if russian players spent $100,000, frankly that does not overwhelm me in suggesting that the election was manipulated with nickels and dimes. >> me, too what bothers me more from this perspective is the company's instant reaction there was an executive who went out on twitter and said, this isn't a breach f. this isn't a data breach, i don't know what it is. they had data from 50 million users that first of all they didn't know was being used differently and second of all they never told or alerted anyone else once they found out about it that to me seems like a bad initial reaction. >> i think what's going to happen now is you're going to see an aggressive investigation and then you're going to see policy changes as a result of

it i mean, facebook has been, you know, again, over 35 year career in the old days what people did is they stone walled they did nothing they buried. they hid now what you're seeing, especially with these tech companies, is unusually fast reactions, not just because of the moral implications but because the world is moving so fast that you have to respond quickly in order to keep hold of that credibility. >> let me ask you about that the news cycle is so fast now. if you're talking with a ceo about a cries sisis like this. when amazon bought whole foods, it was the end of the grocer everybody was going to go to zero and politicians were talking about investigations and stopping amazon from eating every single retail business 48 hours later that wasn't the story anymore. i'm wondering, do you ever give advice to ceos saying, sit back -- >> yes. >> -- chill and let's see what happens in 48 hours?

this world changes so much >> absolutely. if you take an mba class in crisis management, and i teach one, a lot of what these students are taught is you must respond immediately and must respond to everything. that is absolutely the most idiotic notion you can imagine just simply because it sounds open minded. i cannot tell you how many cases i have where i have told a client to duck duck and do nothing until you know more. one of the reasons why crisis management consulting firms often don't advise it is because they don't make money telling someone to duck, they make their money by telling a client, you must respond to your stakeholders immediately at the beginning of my career we had a nightly news cycle where the news went to bed at 6:30 that was the '80s. in the '90s it was an hourly news cycle now you don't have a news cycle, and i cannot tell you how many

situations you think are the worst crisis in the world and then nothing happens look, when trump took office, when he tweeted against a company their stock price dropped. now you don't see that happening as much. >> right. >> because the climate changed so your advice has to change. >> with the rise of facebook, facebook must respond, or doesn't it it's not just the user data from the 50 plus million americans but it's also their credibility of their advertisements. >> they are responding over the weekend -- >> do they need to apologize >> well, but you don't apologize until you know what you did. you bring up a key issue which is the issue of apologies. i see that the pr industry loves the apology. if you just apologize, the problem goes away. absolutely not true. first of all, if you begin apologizing for things you didn't do or you didn't know that you did, what ends up

happening is you create a legal problem and a worse pr problem the second thing is, and this comes to the issue of united and losing the dogs, for which they have apologized and certainly should, the question is is be whenever somebody apologizes they dive into front of cameras and say it was too little too late you didn't apologize correctly if you only apologize three more times, touch your nose and shout dock a doodle do, that will be a good apology. >> i wonder if facebook announces getting out of selling political ads, what percentage of their revenue will that be. how many politicians that are barking at them like dogs say, wait a minute, i geo lock my constituencies, i pitch my policies it's a tool i have to have to get back to my voters. this is not an easy situation. facebook is a wildly successful political tool because of its ability to geo lock right down

to the city level. that's not going to go away. these politicians that are going against need the product, let's face t is that not true? >> not only that, but i come back to what i said at the beginning. why when the obama campaign won in 2008 and 2012 and they openly said it was part of it being innovative when the obama campaign did it and sleazy when the trump campaign did it? notwithstanding the possible things we might learn about foreign intervention but you have an issue of social bias here. what they're wrestling with is why the use of social media by one political thought process is noble and another is somehow corrupt. and that has to be debated here. >> you're right. it's an issue that needs to be addressed. eric, i want to thank you for joining us this morning. just to your point about this 24/7 news cycle, we booked you last week to talk about united

and never got a chance to do it because things are moving so quickly. >> thank you i was happy to talk to you about the other stuff. >> we appreciate it. >> by the way, there are some headlines crossing dow jones from the european commissioner for yus cities, consumers and gender equality saying that she welcomes the investigation by the u.k. ready to help concerning facebook she expects companies to take more responsibility when handling personal data when we were talking about regulators, not just in the u.s. but particularly in the e.u. which has been more inclined to take a harder stand in europe. >> the little dog, we haven't talked about that at all that's 24 hours ago now that we talked about that. >> the dog >> the little guy. >> yeah. >> it's -- he's a dog. this story in 48 hours

just sit back, take a chill pill and wait >> let it all wash over. >> exactly coming up, much more on this morning's top corporate story. facebook under fire. market trivia question for you name the big cap tech company that on this day in 2012 announced plans to initiate a dividend and a share repurchase program. the answer when "squawk box" comes righbat ck but so is my lawn. it's been worn down to ugly thin grass! now there's new scotts thick 'r lawn, the revolutionary 3-in-1 solution for weak lawns. with a soil improver to strengthen roots! seed to fill in gaps! and fertilizer to feed! the result, up to a 50% thicker lawn after just one application. ♪ ♪ now yard time is our time. this is a scotts yard. now yard time is our time. we've been preparing for this day.

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welcome back to "squawk box. the futures this morning have been in the red all morning long and all that time we have been looking at the dow futures with the triple digit loss of the day. s&p future down by 13 and nasdaq is off by 78 opening bell is 45 minutes away. >> before we went to break we asked you this question, the answer is apple. the company started in 1995. since march 2012, shares were up more than 110% speaking of the tech giant, samsung sharpens some other suppliers coming under today apple have been watching march to be the first trillion dollar

company. joining us is will powell. >> it is great to have you with us >> good morning. >> thank you for having me >> this is different, more advance from the oled screens that exist how much credence do you put in this report? >> i give a lot of credit. apple has been the integration of hardware and software and they brought in other features i think it is probably likely that they have done research there and looking at it whether something coming to tuition is another question >> should apple supplier be scared, in general and apple does want to further integrate of its own supply chain? >> yes, and no it is always a mix blessing when

you are a supplier and working with apple given the scale and the benefits they have and the price apple can put on you as a supplier if you are a apple, it is a commitment to that particular technology so wait for suppliers to work around that and add their own innovation and some respects it helps the whole ecosystem continue to innovate if you look at led, as i understand it, it took to create smaller pixels and color and screen size and etcetera, that's something that can be used across many of the different devices. >> i am curious of what do you think the next catalyst will be. there as been some talks based in asia saying that at least in asia, he saw that sales were slowing because there is this notion that there is going to be a discounted or cheaper iphone 10 to be released this year.

what would we expect from apple of different hardware? >> the growing expectations is you will have two different devices along with one of the space on the iphone 8, i think that'll help remember you went back to iphone 4. one of the things of buoy results was the bigger screens we think that helps. the smart phone market overall has slowed with that said, in their own survey work and our latest survey a couple of weeks ago, apple shares continue to be very good when investors lose sight of it. this is the top line double digits while shipments may be growing mid to low single digits, their asp is remarkable and growing double digits. you will have the next quarterly update in april, that should

address the capital return program and that's a big opportunity. any of those can provide a catalyst >> last big question, will, is apple investor under estimating that apple will be caught in the cross hairs of a trade war >> well, that's a good question. to a degree that china becomes the center friction in trade with the u.s., sure, that's a risk, right? china is more of 20% revenue i mean a lot of the production for devices and they have a lot of folks that feed into that ecosystem. that's a risk factor that investors have to be awear of. >> will, great to speak with you. thank you. >> thanks for having me. >> when we return, jim cramer live from the stock market exchange >> s&p 500 is off by 13 and

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all right everybody, let's get down to the new york stocks

exchange, jim cramer is joining us here. >> good morning, how are you >> i am good, i am dying to get your take about all this what do you think of this and what does it means >> it does not matter. the headline risk is so great, people are exhausted by owning the stock. they continue to think when does this the these guys are going to recognize front and center and you have the interesting guest from glass door talking about the idea that this new cycle is so short it is exhausting if you own it, that's part of the reason people dump it even though it is expensive stuff >> it is kind of watching and waiting for the next thing that happens. if facebook shares are under pressure and if it continues, what does it mean for market leadership or what does this

mean for facebook? >> i think the messages that these companies are all trying to figure out how to stop being regulated but they're not going about it in a way where they feel, i feel confident that these guys have my data and i am not worried. they are tone deaf no one has gotten ahead of it. >> maybe the fang splits up. people that are involve inside the political russia story, the russia story seems to be the problem with facebook for weeks. >> that's so funny >> you are so right. if this were just a straight out story, it would not have legs. i keep on hoping exactly what you say happens. there is no political risk of apple and they're so powerful.npowerful people don't like powerful, successful companies that's just, you know, kind of

like the nature of the agenda. which is rich and powerful we don't like them and i think it is a shame. >> jim, thank you, we'll see you in a few minutes in a few minutes >> oh, emerging markets obsolet? at pgim, we see alpa in the trends, xavie. later this afternoon, don't miss marc lasry, we'll be right back. g and e-commerce. trade and travel surge between emerging markets. everyday our 1,100 investment professionals around the world search out opportunities for alpha. partner with pgim, the global investment management businesses of prudential. we cut the price of trades to give investors even more value. and at $4.95, you can trade with a clear advantage. fidelity, where smarter investors will always be.

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already, we want to thank kevin o'leary for spending the morning with you it is wonderful. >> wonderful to be here. >> that does it for us, and melissa, right now it is time for "squawk on the street. ♪ good morning, a warm welcome on "squawk on the street," i am with jim cramer, carl and david is off today >> good morning wolf >> thanks for having me here >> the futures is down the nasdaq has more naive daega days the dow is down 1.5%