in the coming weeks. he would make a public opening statement, but then testify privately. house judiciary committee chairman jerry nadler said that mueller wanted to remain above the political spectacle, above the political fray we'll see if he can accomplish that during his statement here right now, washington has been caught off guard by this announcement most lawmakers are at home in their districts traveling overseas we are expecting to hear from house speaker nancy pelosi later on this afternoon so we'll see if what he says in the coming minutes moves the needle at all and what the democrats' response will be to that in. >> i wonder in terms of the chairs of various committees, whether it's government oversight or judiciary or intelligence, i assume they, too, have little advance knowledge of what the special counsel is about to say. actually let's get to the podium here's robert mueller. >> thank you for being here. two years ago the acting attorney general asked me to serve as special counsel and he

created the special counsel's office the appointment order directed the office to investigate russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. this included investigating any links or coordination between the russian government and individuals associated with the trump campaign now i have not spoken publicly during our investigation i am speaking out today because our investigation is complete and the attorney general has made the report on our investigation largely public we are formally closing the special counsel's office and as well, i'm resigning from the department of justice to return to private life. i'll make a few remarks about the results of our work, but beyond these remarks it's important that office's written work speak for itself. let me begin where the

appointment order begins and that is, interference in the 2016 presidential election as alleged by the grand jury in an indictment, russian intelligence officers who are part of the russian military, launched a concerted attack on our political system the indictment alleges that they used sophisticated cyber techniques to hack into computers and networks used by the clinton campaign they stole private information and then released that information through fake on-line identities and through the organization wikileaks the releases were designed and timed to interfere with our election and to damage a presidential candidate at the same time as the grand jury alleged in a separate indictment, a private russian entity engaged in a social media operation where russian citizens posed as americans in order to

influence an election. these indictments contain allegations and we are not commenting on the guilt or the innocence of any specific defendant. every defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty the indictments allege and the other activities in our report describe efforts to interfere in our political system they needed to be investigated and understood and that is among the reasons why the department of justice established our office that is also a reason we investigated efforts to obstruct the investigation. the manners we investigated were of paramount importance and it was critical for us to obtain full and accurate information from every person we questioned. when a subject of an investigation obstructs that investigation, or lies to investigators, it strikes at the

core of the government's effort to find the truth and hold wrong doers accountable. let me say a word about the report the report has two parts, addressing the two main issues we were asked to investigate the first volume of the report details numerous efforts emanating from russia to influence the election this volume includes a discussion of the trump campaign's response to this activity as well as our conclusion that there was insufficient evidence to charge a broader conspiracy in the second volume the report describes the results and analysis of our obstruction of justice investigation involving the president. the order appointing me special counsel authorized us to investigate actions that could obstruct the investigation we conducted that investigation

and kept the office of the acting attorney general apprised of the progress of our work. as set forth in the report, after that investigation, if we had had confidence that president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so we did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime the introduction to the volume two of our report explains that decision it explains that under long-standing department policy, a present president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. that is unconstitutional even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view, that, too, is prohibited the special counsel's office is part of the department of justice and by regulation, it was bound by that department policy charging the president with a crime was, therefore, not an

option we could consider the department's written opinion explaining the policy makes several important points that further informed our handling of the obstruction investigation. those points are summarized in our report and i will describe two of them for you. first, the opinion explicitly permits the investigation of a sitting president because it is important to preserve evidence while memories are fresh and documents available. among other things, that evidence could be used if there were co-conspirators who could be charged now second, the opinion said that the constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing beyond department policy, we were guided by principles of fairness it would be unfair to

potentially -- it would be unfair to potentially accuse somebody of a crime when there can be no court resolution of the actual charge. so that was justice department policy those were the principles under which we operated and from them we concluded we would not reach a determination one way or the other about whether the president committed a crime. that is the office's final position and we will not comment on any other conclusions or hypotheticals about the president. we conducted an independent criminal investigation and reported the results to the attorney general, as required by department regulations the attorney general then concluded that it was appropriate to provide our report to congress and to the american people. at one point the time, i requested that certain portions of the report be released.

the attorney general preferred to make that -- preferred to make the entire report public all at once, and we appreciate that the attorney general made the report largely public and i certainly do not question the attorney general's good faith in that decision. now i hope and expect this to be the only time that i will speak to you in this manner. i am making that decision myself, no one has told me whether i can or should testify or speak further about this matter there has been discussion about an appearance before congress. any testimony from this office would not go beyond our report it contains our findings and analysis and the reasons for the decisions we made. we chose those words carefully and the work speaks for itself the report is my testimony i would not provide information beyond that which is already public in any appearance before

congress in addition, access to our underlying work product is being decided in a process that does not involve our office so beyond what i have said here today, and what is contained in our written work, i do not believe it is appropriate for me to speak further about the investigation or to comment on the actions of the justice department or congress it's for that reason i will not be taking questions today as well now before i step away, i want to thank the attorneys, the fbi agents, the analysts, the professional staff who helped us conduct this investigation in a fair and independent manner. these individuals who spent nearly two years with the special counsel's office were of the highest integrity. i will close by reiterating the central allegation of our

indictments that there were multiple, systemic efforts to interfere in our election. and that allegation deserves the attention of every american. thank you, thank you for being here today >> if you're subpoenaed -- >> no questions. >> that is special counsel robert mueller obviously recapping the report itself, announcing that he's formally closing the special counsel's office, resigning to return to private life, but obviously the meat of his statement is that the notion that if they had confidence that the president did not commit a crime, we would have said so saying a sitting president cannot be indicted and finishing up saying if he is to testify at any point in the future it will not go beyond the report amon javers with us. is this a hard push against what the president said when he said no obstruction, no collusion, no

nothing, it's a beautiful report >> i think, carl, what robert mueller wanted the american people to be left with was exactly the last sentence of his remarks there. he's emphasizing again that there were multiple efforts by the russians to interfere in the 2016 election and that should be concerning to every american that's the point largely that robert mueller wanted to make. the point that white house will take from this is that he stands on the finding of the report itself which they have said proclaims that president has been exonerated here the white house will be pleased with that. democrats will focus on the issue, though, that you highlight, mueller seems to be leaning very heavily on this argument that because of department of justice policy, the president could never have been indicted by the department of justice therefore, they could never consider charging him with a crime and they were silent on that issue that leaves it really up to congress to decide whether or not the president committed a crime or an impeachable offense and that leaves nancy pelosi in

the same position that she's been in to date. she has been resisting the call for impeachment until now, despite some real intense interest in that among her political base and many members of congress in her party now, though, will this change that calculus? i think some democrats will take heart in that argument the question is whether it will be enough to change nancy pelosi's mind. >> right to elon on that point does it decrease the likelihood he's called to testify >> i don't think it's decreasing the likelihood he's called to testify. i think democrats want to make sure they get him before the committee and, you know, ply him with tough questions i think nancy pelosi has been trying to thread his needle for several months now, and it's going to become increasingly difficult for her to hold some of the more activist members of the party at bay just before they left for recess, democrats held a caucus meeting which they discussed this very issue. it's these kinds of discussions that led to the blowup last week

between democratic leadership and president at the white house. democrats decided to settle on ramping up their language, using the term cover-up instead of impeachment, perhaps i think many members will be looking at this statement from robert mueller and saying, if he would have decided that the president did not commit a crime, he would have said so why did he not say that? i think that's going to be increasing the push for the total unredacted mueller report, as well as potentially calls for impeachment. the other important thing to remember is that pelosi has also said she would not move forward with impeachment unless she felt it was bipartisan. we have heard from representative justin amash, a conservative from michigan, he has been very vocal now about his desire to see the president impeached, received a standing ovation during a town hall in michigan over the long weekend, and so now we're hearing both sides of the aisle perhaps get behind this new effort

does that then tip the scale for nancy pelosi there has been a steady drip of information when do the floodgates break >> yeah. jimmy, certainly the comments on obstruction raising eyebrows but very similar to what we heard in the past in the report you got the dow close to session lows again, down 216 points right now. i guess how would you expect this to play out in congress and what is the read through for investors in the markets >> yeah. i think if i were a democrat who thought that the house should begin these impeachment proceedings, i would take a little bit of comfort from what mueller just said. he made it very clear that charging the president, that was not his job. that was never going to go -- that was never going to happen that is the job of congress. so he made it clear that if you think the president did something wrong, and he did not the president, that is a job of

congress i think reinforcing among democrats this was sort of our job all along and we had better take it seriously. >> that we'll keep it short. thank you, once again. jimmy, elon, and eamon javers. after the break, mcdonald's latest innovations in tech an exclusive with steve easterbrook as the market not really swayed by the mueller statement. down close to session lows dow is down 236. we're the slowskys.

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welcome back to "squawk alley. we have the dow down 233 points. weighed down most by nike, bank of america, health technology stocks overall in the index, weighing this down as well as consumer non-durables. s&p also down almost 1%. we'll see where things go from here. >> we had a chance to catch up with the ceo of mcdonald's this week, steve easterbrook, last night in an exclusive interview at the company's new flagship times square location and asked him about the new digital ordering kiosks you're going to see the company is rolling out, how they change the business and how uber delivery and amazon, believe it or not, have changed mcdonald's style >> we look to design the restaurants to accommodate each and every need i think one of the things we tried to do the last three or four years because maybe just four years ago, you could only

really order, line up at the front counter or go traditionally through the drive-through. now we have self-order kiosks, mobile order pay, home delivery and the evolution -- >> and delivery is now $3 billion business. >> yeah. 2018 we built it to a $3 billion business it's going to be close to a $4 billion plus by the end of 2019. >> more than half of your global stores. >> more than half of the restaurants now. we're still continuing to expand the number of restaurants that offer it, but now because we've been in this for two years now, we're looking to see the light for sales for those restaurants that are13 months and older, w begin to see us grow the life as well as expand the footprint as well. >> i want to ask you about the economics of this kiosk. it's immediately obvious how much more you can customize your experience. >> right. >> and that all makes sense. but when you're dealing with pressures to raise wages, isn't

this, i don't know, is there some liability in the optics of this. >> i think people will ask that question but if you look, when we visit the restaurant upstairs, for example, when this restaurant is full, effectively the ordering process is more in the customer's hands but we're now offering table service to customers in a way we never did before we need less people behind the front counter and can put more people in front of the front counter, interacting with customers in a much more meaningful way actually. i think those are different jobs customers prefer to order -- many customers prefer to order through the self-order kiosk because they can take their time. >> do you think the appeal of this is generational, meaning young people are used to not talking human to human, but whereas an older customer might have trouble seeing? >> we learn everything from font size to layouts and we have our guest experience leaders, which are front of house hospitality stuff, they'realways prepared to be here to help guide people through who are a little more

nervous. some will walk straight up and it's so instinctive. that's how you operate at hotels and airports these days and many other places we're no different in young people's lives really than many of the other businesses they interact with. >> you're right. when is the last time we checked into a flight? you go right to the kiosk. >> when the airlines transitioned everybody is saying hold on a minute, i like to stand there and queue up it's instinct now. >> i have to imagine, one last thing on this, i mean a burger, just the ways you can have fries with salt, without salt. >> right. >> i mean all that data you have, right, and you can manage that in a way you couldn't before. >> absolutely right. you can see how customers' behavior, ultimately take it to the next level, we're not at yet, the personalization at the moment customers come up and we don't know who she or he is as time moves or make a more personalized connection to

customers. come up and scan your phone, you've saved that favorites where you like the salt and no sodium, big mac no pickles this is where we can take this to the next level to take a smoother, easier experience too a more personalized smoother, easier experience. that's part of the technology infrastructure we're building. over the last three or four years with the global mobile app with the self-order kiosk, with mobile order pay, we invest a lot of money to put infrastructure in place an ecos in place, beginning to link it together with things like the acquisition of dynamic and crm, customer relationship management, that ability to personalize the experience for those that opt in and those that choose to have it that way. >> if i'm willing to identify myself to you, next time i can say in the future, give me my lunch the thing i always get tore lunch. >> it could be voice activated, scan a phone or i'm not sure we go down facial recognition, but

technology is evolving so much and consumers in general are getting more familiar and comfortable with it. it will always be opt in we will never invade anyone's privacy. the idea to be able to save your favorites or call up your last three orders so it makes that ordering, hit, pay, go it just makes that experience so much more convenient, so much more easier, and means we get the accuracy right and the customer doesn't have to dwell too long going through this is part of the evolution of life generally, is what used to be straightforward now appears slightly complex the advent of amazon or uber has redefined convenience to consumers and, therefore, we have to respond to that and make sure we can keep redefining convenience in mcdonald's style to our customers >> i thought that was an interesting point. how you watch a movie on netflix, how you book a car, how you shop for something on-line, really didn't fit with the way you order food at a fast food

restaurant, and this is a large attempt, very expensive attempt to catch up with the way we live. >> i will say, though, mcdonald's kiosks not easy to operate. i know because i'm somewhat of an expert at mcdonald's kiosks having gone to barcelona every year for the past five or six and they've been there almost all those years, some people are really bad at those and at a busy time like at a convention that can be a problem. panera is way better the idea about being able to set your order on your phone and then get it in there, i hope they'll move to that. >> yeah. are you like a sweet and sour with your french fries that's my go to. >> you know, my dad is a burger king franchisee. my first job as a teenager was working in the back of that restaurant those restaurants. it's interesting to hear him talk about this idea of customization because when you roll out technology to the consumers, then that also to ensure you have that experience, there aren't mistakes your cut down on costs and time, that technology needs to roll out to the back of the house too. how is they thinking about that?

>> a lot of those, the thing about the cashier that you used to talk to and order, that position is largely gone not entirely, but somewhat gone. which means they can redeploy labor to table service upstairs, something like that. one point on the kiosk, they've been doing kiosks in france for almost ten years. >> wow. >> they were very primitive back then they've had a fair amount of time to refine the layout. obviously there's going to be some catch-up with some consumers who are not used to it, but in the end they would not be doing -- 18 kiosks in this new times square location. >> and they will need somebody whose full-time job is cleaning the kiosks i use my knuckles, not your fingertips >> pur rel. >> i've also seen in spain how the restaurants themselves have changed design as the kiosks have become more influential you do have more people who are back doing prep who are bussing tables, who are keeping the place clean. it changes the whole tenor of the restaurant. >> yeah. it's going to be interesting to

watch. fascinating effort they've been in as we hit new session lows, down 277. >> a great interview by you, carl let's get to sue herera who has a news update. >> i do. thank you, jon here's what's happening. iranian president rouhani says the road is not closed if the u.s. wants negotiations with iran and a return to the nuclear deal between tehran and world powers he spoke during a cabinet meeting today. government air strikes battering the last rebel stronghold in syria after an earlier warning from the u.n. that further military operations in the idlib province would overwhelm aid efforts. rescue workers struggled to respond to the intense bombings that began just before dawn in which they say 14 people were killed a tornado tore through a town just west of kansas city on tuesday, causing widespread damage and injuring at least a dozen people it is the latest barrage of severe weather that saw tornado warnings as far east as new york

city and a ceremony was held today at arlington national cemetery marking the 102nd anniversary of the birth of john f. kennedy an honor guard placing a wreath at his grave site. you are up to date that's the news update this hour i'll send it back downtown to you. morguen. >> >> sue herera, thank you. session lows for stocks here we have the dow down 278 points. meantime european markets are set to close momentarily seema moody has a breakdown of the action there. >> start of an ugly session across europe. france is leading us lower by around 1.8%. with today's losses germany down nearly 10% from its recent highs in june of last year and italy is already in correction territory. european stocks over the past two months are fairing worse than in the u.s. while the cracks are starting to appear in the u.s. economy and europe, they've been well telegraphed just today german jobless claims rising unexpectedly this month. remember, data earlier showed

that business confidence hit its weakest level in more than four years. so that is certainly a story that we're watching play out over there this rally in rates we've been discussing in the u.s. certainly playing out in europe as well. the search for yield continues a german bund yields trading at its lowest levels since july of 2016 one stock in focus today highlighting the impact of tariffs and weakening demand across china is the world's largest producer of steel announcing it will further slash steel production across its european plants. the second output cut this month. the stock is down 4%, lowest levels since 2016 and it's certainly a big player that we've been seeing getting caught up in the ongoing trade dis putt lastly, guys, just want to mention this news this morning that softbank has selected europe's nokia and ericsson to lead its 5g deployment, rather than going with china's huawei

the financial times reporting that it was actually testing huawei's products but ended up going with these european players. certainly an interesting development. morgan, back to you. >> it is thank you. coming up, cable's answer to cord cutters your cell phone bill while al tease is joining comcast and charter in offering you wireless the founder of boost mobile joins us next, the latest on t mobile's merger with sprint, the 5g fight and more. back after this ea brk. (indistinguishable muttering) that was awful. why are you so good at this? had a coach in high school. really helped me up my game. i had a coach. math. ooh. so, why don't traders have coaches? who says they don't? coach mcadoo! you know, at td ameritrade, we offer free access to coaches and a full education curriculum- just to help you improve your skills. boom! mad skills. education to take your trading to the next level. only with td ameritrade.

the flexible class schedules d me tremendously. allowed me to go to work full time, run my catering business and be a mom and parent. when i reached this accomplishment, it was like, it's here, it's happening, it's now. we at southern new hampshire university are the ones who succeed. we are the ones who break through.

welcome back t mobile and sprint moving forward with their deal after winning approval from the federal trade commission ahead of the deal a group of bidders are lining up to buy boost mobile for up to $3 billion. one bidder peter adderton with us here at post nine to discuss the sale of boost mobile, u.s., and whether he will actually be joining that bidding war we know you will be, how much would you pay? >> that's interesting because we really need to see what the business looks like now, what kind of health it's in boost has been going for a little while now i think it started about 18 years ago. it's going to be interesting i think the most important thing is the wholesale deal. looking back at the business, you can look at the value of it, but what's the new wholesale deal that t mobile is proposing. that's the critical part of the is whole equation, what does that look like, what are the rates going to look like, will it be able to compete against metro pcs? those details need to be worked out now. we shouldn't be waiting for the close of the transaction

we should be doing those now calling on the doj and the department of justice to make that a condition if they approve the merger they negotiate that deal now that's the stick you need to make sure t mobile gives you the best possible deal without that it doesn't matter what you pay for it. it's only what value is going to be going snoords yeah. we are waiting for the doj anti-trust division to sign off and give the green light on this how important is spectrum to this when talking about anti-trust and competition. >> i've been calling for the vesty tour of spectrum whoever buys spectrum -- t mobile doesn't need everything they've got. we've been calling for 60 megahertzes to come out to build a low-income broadband network think about it in the city areas we have to create a large wi-fi experience and offer great pricing. i'm hoping there are structural em remedies from the doj chairman pile made the right decision we'll see what those conditions

are and the urban build out. part would be really important to the consumers. >> is that spectrum make or break for you? >> it doesn't make it or break it for us. it would be good to create the fourth network what it does is creates like the fourth virtual network and i think we need that i don't know whether you necessarily need four networks, sprint in play, but we need to make sure that fourth player which is going to be this divested business, has the capacity to be able to compete i think the building it out in low-income areas and offer broadband to consumers who necessarily couldn't get it, this belief that 5g is going to be cheaper, i don't buy that the reason i don't buy that is, to build a network like 5g to buy the spectrum and then say i'm going to charge the same as 4g, i just don't think that's the case it might be in the interim. >> is that what t-mobile is saying >> i think there's going to be a speed based pricing. the faster you get the more you pay. t-mobile is saying they're going to fix pricing for three years i don't know about you guys. i plan to live longer than three

years, and i want to know what fourth year and fifth year looks like that's why i was excited that the fcc put the six-year hold on the wholesale deal that's a significant amount of time. >> you think the early days of this generation will be highly promotional but won't last >> and on 5g, one thing they claim is the autonomous car. that's the first thing you ever hear the average median income for an american household is $60,000. the cost for an autonomous car they're saying is 70 to $150,000 i'm pretty sure the average american is not going down to the car lot putting their name down to for an autonomous car. when you look at 5g and think ate the value that brings, it brings a value to search group but not to the mass consumers here in america. i talked about this before 5g works for devices outside of the smartphone what more do you want from your phone than better coverage and cheaper pricing. and i think that that's what it works. if this concept you will be able to download 30 movies in three

seconds, the biggest problem you have with the low-income market is they don't have cloud storage, right, so they have to store those on their phones because they don't have the capacity to buy cloud storage. i'm going, they have a bigger problem with their memory now. people don't realize this, the low-income consumers, are using up the memory on their handsets to supply -- have their photos and everything else. >> you make it sound like 5g will widen the digital divide rather than smooth it out. >> in my opinion 4g is plenty enough for the consumers in the marketplace and i believe 5g will have a role but not in the next three to four years and average consumer. >> when you talk about 5g front and center in terms of the conversations right now is huawei and the ban that's in place in the u.s a lot of people don't realize australia was one of the first countries to actually put a ban in place on huawei you operate in australia and have been a businessman in australia. how has that played out there and are there lessons to be learned here >> there is. one of the mergers from 4 to 3 with tbg to vodafone and they

pulled out because they're claiming that huawei was their supplier and they couldn't get anybody cheap enough to build it i think it had an impact down there. it actually eliminated the fourth wireless provider down there coming into the marketplace. so you know, i look at that and, obviously, political ramifications there. huawei does have some incredibly good handsets and technology in handset development and building and i hope they sort that out quickly for the interest of the consumer because i think the consumer is losing a lot they providea very low-income smartphone so i think that, you know, as they work through that and they fix that problem, i'm hoping that will bear fruit for everyone. >> what does working it out mean increasely what we're hearing from the trump administration is that china is just so naturally a threat, that we can't trust any company we view as being close to them? it doesn't matter what the facts are. we're not talking about a test for security just no. do there have to be facts and a

test for security that huawei has the opportunity to pass? >> this is way above my pay grade. from my perspective when you look at china and you look at america and you look at the relationships between the two in telecom, there are strained relationships. a lot of information flowing through these devices. i can absolutely understand why governments of australia and the u.s. are concerned about that information. until you can 100% secure that's the case that they are being secured, i think they made the right approach and taper right approach. >> just want to get your thoughts on what seems to be increasing competition when you have cable tv communications like charter communications and our parent company comcast getting into wireless as well. >> i think they just want to keep their cable providers you i think if they were truly serious about it they would take a different approach i think that when you look at the amount of money they're spending i think it's more as a protection strategy to give the street something so ta we're in wireless, but whether that is a long-term strategy i'm highly doubtful. >> thanks for joining us at post nine today.

>> thank you very much >> up next, take another thing off your list of chores. irobot announcing a new robotic vacuum, we knew about that, and mop, though, this morning. they work together to clean your house. the ceo is going to sit down with us at post nine with both of those new products next don't go anywhere. -driverless cars... -all ground personnel... ...or trips to mars. $4.95. delivery drones or the latest phones. $4.95. no matter what you trade, at fidelity it's just $4.95 per online u.s. equity trade.

the trade war proving to be a risk for robotic vacuum giant

irobot, shares falling 29% in the past three months alone. nearly 50% of the company's revenues come from international markets a growing chunk from china. they manufacture its robots at a chinese facility and the company is experiencing a tariff impact raising prices on some premium products joining us first on cnbc co-founder chairman and ceo colin angle. the company today releasing two new robots which we'll discuss in just a moment they communicate with each other, vacuum and mop. we haven't off thought of that as being artificial intelligence, but you are clearly moving in that direction. first let's talk about china and the impact there how much is it squeezing you how quickly are you able to adjust >> so the consumer robot industry is growing very rapidly, but the tariffs are absolutely having an impact. slowing down the adoption by making the robots more expensive. what could have been a spectacular growth has been

moderated. >> now, tell me about the robots themselves, what the advancements are that you've been building into them. you've got, let's seers the s-9 plus and the m-6 the s-9 plus is the roomba, the vacuum the m-6 is the robot mop. >> yeah. >> how do you manage to get them to communicate with each other how does smarts help them to clean better >> so when you're -- the promise of a robot in your home is that you buy it and put it in your home and that task disappears from your daily to-do list so with the s-9 plus, it empties itself, it builds a map of your home, so it knows what rooms are. you can come home every day and just have your room automatically vacuumed better yet if you make a mess in the kitchen while you're cooking you can just say, roomba, clean the kitchen and the right thing will happen.

so taking the next step forward was, well what if i wanted to mop after i vacuum the kitchen so that the new m-6 robot also has a map and because they have a common understanding of the home, they can start working together >> i want to go back to the comments you made about what could have been spectacular growth is now moderated. what do you mean financials, consumer demand or something else >> the industry growth for robot vacuuming. so about 25% of all money spent today on vacuum cleaners is now spent on robot vacuum cleaners. >> 25% >> 25% a real disruption as people realizing these things are for real and the industry is taking off. with the increase in prices due to tariffs, some of that growth has been dampened. >> it is a tariff issue? can you quantify what pricing has had to do in response? >> 25% tariff certainly has a very significant impact on

pricing. last year the industry grew by over 35% so far this year we don't have exact numbers but it seems to have slowed somewhat. >> you've said you are shifting some of your supply chain out of china. what does that look like how long does it take? >> moving something that's complicated as a robot manufacturing operation takes time by the end of the year we will have some operations operating and producing robots in malaysia. >> are you really looking at those typical spots, malaysia, perhaps vietnam, when you're looking at places that have the sort of manufacturing infrastructure to pick up the slack? what are some of the other issues that you end up with as you make those adjustments >> well, the challenge that these robots have more technology than you would find in many cell phones, and so tens of millions of lines of code and sensors and motors and large batteries and so the

infrastructure to create something of this complexity is difficult to just pick up and move, and so that we're investing in getting the lineup in malaysia where we can still create a competitively priced robot and then watching the infrastructure work to catch up as we develop and scale. >> what do you expect this to go technology that detects spills so that these robots can focus on specific areas or more voice command? what are the sort of things you think will make this robot better in the future >> the s-9, this new robot we're launching today is a munster and not only can you direct it and have it operate automatically, it's also 40 times the vacuum power of our entry robots and it's shaped so they can go into the edges. if you're an allergy sufferer we designed it so 99% of the allergens and pollens picked up by the vacuum end up in the bag at the home base

that's a big innovation. we're trying to go raise the bar on the efficacy of these robots while making them easier to use. we were promised rosy from the jetsons way back in 1962 these two new robots are launching today are really trying to go and deliver on that promise. >> all right exciting stuff looking to see those in action colin angle, ceo, at irobot. >> thank you obviously a bit of a trap door just now. down 360, we dropped below the 200 day on the s&p along with the dow. so we're down to 2770. chips on pace for their worst month in over a decade some of the names to add and avoid next as we said stocks at session lows we're back in a moment t was my'. don't worry, ma'am. all of your stuff is in ok hands. just ok? they don't give two and a half stars to just anybody. here you go. what's this? it's your piano. hold this for a sec. we don't have a piano.

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yuck, that's gross. you got to get that under control. [ dogs howling ] seriously? embrace the mischief. say "get pets tickets" into your x1 voice remote to see it in theaters. dow falls below 25,000 for the first time since, got to go all the way back to february 8th to see a 24 handle on the dow. mark said to watch out with this along with some technical levels on the s&p right now, 2,771 chips on pace for the worst month in 11 years. meantime, huawei asking a judge to rule quickly in its legal challenge to reverse a law restricting huawei's business here in the u.s., saying american officials have yet to provide any evidence that the company poses a security threat. joining us this morning to discuss, bernstein's analyst stacy rasgon

what are we owed in terms of evidence on huawei what do you think we deserve >> well, i think it's going to be a long process. i don't know if we'll ever get real evidence. i mean, there's been a lot of speculation as to code violations, ip theft, et cetera, but we're never going to get real conclusion on what happened there are some licensing or temporary adjustments that the component companies can file for and we'll see how that process goes but in general it's going to be a complicated process, it's going to take time and what i like is a lot of the component companies that i follow, at least, are starting to derisk the estimates that we have in our models by either their forward guidance or talking about their exposure to huawei and what that would mean so you know, as you said, we've seen a lot of downside to the semiconductor stocks over the last month since the may highs i think that's reflecting kind of a worst case outcome for huawei >> stacy, one of the things we

saw when everyone was expecting tariffs on certain imported goods from china to rise to 25% at the end of the year was a cold forward in terms of inventories and imports. do you think we're going to see something similar play out here with semiconductors ahead of that august deadline >> it's possible but you have to remember the direct impact of tariffs on semiconductor industry is very small because the direct trade of raw semiconductors between the u.s. and china is low, it's $10 billion in each direction and in the context of a $475 billion industry it's not that much. what makes this hard to decide is that most semiconductors travel between china and the u.s. inside other things smart phones, pcs and networking equipment, appliances and automobiles and what have you. by and large, so far, most of the primary categories that drive a lot of that

semiconductor demand have been mostly spared. there's been pcs a little bit and networking equipment and appliances and everything. smartphones and the like, which is actually a lot of this, so far have been spared now, if we get the additional leg of tariffs and the additional $300 billion is basically everything else that's made in china that wasn't on the first tariff list, that could start impacting things and it has wide implications across the industry and then obviously there's just the general impact on the macro environment which can influence semis, probably a much bigger impact than just any sort of direct impact from tariffs. >> do want to mention we're still at session lows, down continuing to drop, now down 394 points ruben, i wonder if there's a new risk with the way this huawei thing is developing. you mentioned you expected to take a long time and that is that china itself also gets more brazen perhaps in targeting big u.s. companies interests,

perhaps even in tech and saying, you know what? if the u.s. is going to target huawei, we're going to target -- could be apple >> absolutely. so, apple has quite a bit of exposure to china so what happens with apple the way we're trying to play this, at least for now, is stay cautious and look at some of the providers into maybe infrastructure equipment whether or not we have huawei and what happens with huawei, i think the 5g network buildout will continue. we heard today you guys talked about soft bank looking at nokia and ericsson for equipment and so the component companies that i think sell into a broad diversified base of manufacturers could benefit. so for right now, we're looking at valuations, and we're looking at estimates that have been resized for the huawei impact and what to do next, but certainly, if this continues, you know, this could affect white goods that get sold into china. there's a lot of component companies that sell into all of these different markets that, you know, in general, are going to face some issues. really quickly, the consumer and the behavior of the customers that are buying these components is uncertain

microchips of broad based manufacturer and semiconductor components, they thought we would see a bottom and now they're starting to see cautious behavior and basically guided below seasonal so we're seeing that already >> and to reuben's point, stacy, we did have some players in the quarter print argue that we had reached or were approaching cycle lows do you think that gets updated if this trade war continues for some undetermined amount of time >> look, i think it's going to have to and broadly some of the weakness we've seen over the last month, i don't think is just huawei. you have to remember these stocks ripped off the january earnings cycle on all of these companies suggesting that they saw a significant second half pickup and i always have to explain to people that, like, whatever these companies are saying about visibility, they have not their visibility into what actual customer demand is doing is precisely zero. so i've been -- and i think that's what's going on we're already talking to steve --

>> i think we lost stacy but our thanks to him. and reuben, thank you very much as well. >> appreciate it obviously keeping an eye on this down 400 or so. down to 24,900 and the s&p 2,766. by the way, watching the yield curve as well, the tee yhrear now below 2% we're back in less than three minutes. lower carbs. ♪ lower calories. ♪ higher expectations. the light beer you've been waiting for has arrived. corona premier.

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obviously a lot to watch today, the pain in retail didn't help obviously the china rhetoric on trade didn't help. we broke 2,800 at the open and thought we would hold at the 200 day. didn't happen so we're sitting at levels just below that. but dow's awfully close to moving in on an almost exactly a four-month low >> yeah, one little spot of good news to mention, just because it's a tech company, roku is higher by almost 4% on a needham upgrade with a price target of $120 that would be the high on the steet b street but that's not doing anything for the s&p overall >> we also got those comments from special counsel robert mueller earlier in the hour as well every sector in the s&p 500 is negative right now commodities with the exception

maybe of grains have also continued to sell off. small caps, transports, and semiconductor stocks, keep an eye on those given their economic exposure and sort of history as early indicators of broader market action. >> yep we'll look to see if we find some support here in the last part of the session. let's get to the judge is "the half." >> carl, thanks, i'm scott wapner, stocks at critical levels, bond yields falling, global glorowth concerns are roiling the markets today. is this december off over again? it is 12:00 noon, this is "the halftime report." >> announcer: global growth fears, stocks dropping, yields falling, but bright spots remain wall street targets for the s&p remain above today's levels. unemployment is low. consumer confidence is high. should you get defensive or is opportunity beginning to pop up in growth areas like tech? the halftime investment committee is ready to weigh in