tv Squawk Alley CNBC November 20, 2019 11:00am-12:00pm EST
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♪ good wednesday morning, i'm carl quintanilla with morgan brennan and jon fortt. the president this morning set to tour the mac pro assembly plant with apple ceo tim cook. eamon javers will raise the curtain on that this morning. >> reporter: you're playing "just the two of us" and it is going to be about just the two of them. the unlikely relationship between donald trump, the president of the united states, and tim cook, the ceo of apple cook has spent the past several months cultivating a relationship with donald trump largely, i'm told, by going through the trump family having conversations about technology with melania trump at dinner at the white house. talking with ivanka trump about workforce issues he's cultivated that phone call
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relationship with the president. i asked the president why he seems to have such a good conversational ability with tim cook the president told me a couple of weeks ago, the reason is because cook is the one ceo in incorporate america who actually picks up the phone and calls him when he has something to talk about. today he is going to have something to talk about. it's those looming december 15th tariffs that could affect apple products that are made in china and sold in the united states. that's a big problem potentially for apple. tim cook is going to want to take the opportunity here to tell the president to hold off on doing anything that might damage apple in that round of tariffs. the president, meanwhile, has got a lot at stake on his own. he is going to want to tell the country that his tariff program is working apple is able to produce the mac pro here in austin, texas, because it got some exemptions to tariffs and, therefore, the tariff program is enabling american manufacturers to produce and sell products here in the united states
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that's the message you're going to hear from the president we'll see the two of them together here in austin later this afternoon, guys. >> all right, eamon, stick with us here. we also wanting to bring in josh lipton on this one josh, the optics here are a bit strange because the mac pro for those who aren't familiar is a $6,000 computer. the manufacturing process in austin does not require a lot of people it's highly automated. even that apple is saying they were going to have to move to china under these tariffs. so is this really providing the sort of backdrop the president wants to get his message across? >> yeah. so a couple points i think you're dead on, jon, the mac pro is not going to be some type of high volume product, a $6,000 product it carries higher margins. you could argue at a time when other products are seeing slowing sales, every product maybe counts a bit more. but i think it is a chance for apple also in addition to sort
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of emphasize some broader themes it can emphasize, listen, we're an american company, american brand, a big american employer remember, tim cook does employ roughly 137,000 people he can point to austin where he has 7,000 employees now. apple says that's up 50% over the next five years. i thought it's interesting the company did emphasize too we're on track for that big bogey of this $350 billion contribution to the u.s. economy by 2023. those are all values that are important to this president, that are important to this administration, which is going to make a decision about whether companies do or don't earn those exemptions with those new levies potentially coming next month, guys. >> eamon, so the president and s tim cook are going to be touring this facility, this final assembly for the computers but there's also this ground-breaking happening in austin as well
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so both of these things are happening simultaneously >> reporter: apple has announced they have already done the ground-breaking of the separate facility so there's a bunch of different apple buildings in town. the place where we'll see the president and tim cook is actually not owned by apple, it's owned by a contractor called flex and that's where they assemble the mac pro computers you guys have been talking about. they have been very tight-lipped about this whole thing we don't know exactly what we're going to see other than a factory tour we don't know if we'll see remarks by the president and by tim cook here in austin, texas we don't know what the messaging is going to be from the president exactly. and we don't know whether we're going to hear specifically from tim cook or any of the workers at this facility it's apparently a nondescript facility, a suburban office park type vibe. inside we might see some of the assembly that manufacture some of these components. >> hey, josh, some of our viewers might remember a few years ago when the president said that tim cook had promised him three big plants in the united states.
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i wonder if they'll try to frame this as a step in the direction of fulfilling that promise >> yeah, three big plants. so, carl, listen, if you talk about the supply chain, apple designs and engineers all its products here. so in cities like cupertino and austin but most of those products are assembled in china it is hard to see how you're going to see those basic assembly line jobs come back here for any american executive, that would be a challenge obviously your costs would surge. you would have to take a hit to your bottom line, eat that or maybe you'd try to raise the price on your products and risk denting demand it's not to say that apple and other companies don't prioritize manufacturing jobs in fact you've seen apple do just that with its advanced manufacturing jobs, so making these investments in corning and finasar. but different jobs make different sense here in 2019. >> just to make sure everybody
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understands the framing, the mac pro is being built here already. this isn't some brand new trump era thing happening. it was being built here already and they were going to have to move it to china because of tariffs. also interesting in tim cook's strategy in engaging the president, eamon, i don't know if you've taken note of this as well at dreamforce just yesterday, i believe, he was on stage with mark benioff, he's vocal with how he disagrees with the administration issues like dreamers, he talked about hundreds of dreamers employed by apple. many in retail who he's personally spoken with and they're pushing hard against the administration there, but they're going to take a nice walk today, eamon. >> reporter: that's right, jon tim cook is caught between two very hard rocks here, right? on the one hand he's got his employees in liberal silicon valley and a lot of the apple fan base, which are on the liberal side of the political spectrum, don't like this
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president very much. on the other hand, the other rock is this enormous financial interest that apple has in avoiding these tariffs on december 15th. if he can provide a platform for the president that the president is pleased by today, really give the president politically something to crow about, stroke the president's ego a little bit, if that's what it comes to, then tim cook will be putting his company in a better position financially. but the politics and the economics of this might be on opposite pages for tim cook today. >> josh, how important is austin to apple >> i'm sorry, i missed that, morgan >> how important is austin and putting additional investment dollars into austin. why is that so important to apple? >> well, it's important that they're committing a billion dollars to build out this campus they did reiterate they have 7,000 people there, that's a jump of 50%. like i said, this is -- they do assemble their products overseas, but it's in places
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like austin where they design and engineer them. so it is critical, morgan, to that company >> all right bear in mind apple is having its best outperformance against the s&p this year in about a decade, going back to 2009, so the stock has just been a monster. guys, thanks >> you bet meantime, the biggest names in travel are in hollywood, florida, this morning for this year's focus right conference. seema mody is there and joins us with a special guest. >> thank you joined by glenn fogle, ceo of booking holdings thank you for joining us here on "squawk alley. >> thanks for having me. >> let's talk about some of the disruptors in travel the industry has long known about the ambitions of google in the travel industry but this quarter we really got to see the pain that google is starting to inflict. booking fared better than some of the others, but still your stock is down 10% in the month of november. expedia is down 30%. what's happening here?
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>> well, look, we are very happy with our third quarter numbers we came in 11% up year over year, better than the street expected earnings per share 20% adjusted eps. that's really good numbers we're happy with what's going on we like what we're doing some of our competitors may have had a little of a hiccup certainly they may depend more on google than we do one of the things that's very important to us is getting people to come to us direct, by providing a better service, something that customers want. we're able to have them come direct and people depending on google or anything else, that could be their issue. >> let's address the role google is playing given the emergence of this big technology player in travel, is more consolidation like ly in th travel space >> we built our company by doing acquisitions we're always looking for what may fit and what may be good the truth of the matter is, though, whether you're a big player or small player, you've got to provide a great service
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if you can do it by buying another company, that's great. we're doing things organically that's putting together the connected trip, providing all the services, not just hotels anymore for us we have flights going, we have our open table doing restaurants, we've got attractio attractions, rental cars we're putting together something that's so much better that people say, hey, i'm going to booking.com. >> the decline you've seen in room rates, does that suggest softness in the consumer, the consumer pulling back on travel? >> well, our numbers we don't see as being very soft 11% year over year is pretty good at our size we are the biggest player in the travel industry in terms of room nights so we're pleased with that number. there are some areas of softness and i talked about that. you see things happen between the u.s. and china that impacts china's economy, that impacts china travel. china outbound from the u.s. is actually down year over year that's a surprise. look on tv and you see things happening in hong kong not a lot of people are going to hong kong. germany, soft economy there.
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sluggishness there, that impacts. but overall travel is healthy and we're pleased with what's happening. >> jon fortt has a question back in studio. >> hi, glenn i just heard you mention hong kong and i believe you mentioned before when talking about room rates being a bit soft that hong kong was an area i'm hoping you can give us some sense what's happening there are hotels discounting in hong kong to try to drive people back there? how's traffic? and is that affecting the rest of asia? >> yeah. seeing what's happening in hong kong, you have a lot of people saying, gee, i'm not sure i want to travel to hong kong right now. when you have occupancy rates of a hotel go down, one of the first things they'll do is start cutting rates. as those rates go down, some people may say it's a good time to travel. other people say i just don't know if i want to go there or not. certainly that's a way hotels will always try to get demand by dropping rates. >> airbnb gearing up to go public next year
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how does that affect the way you try to gain market share in the short-term market space? >> our first apartments was more than 15 years ago so we've been in this business some time we have 6.2 million listings in what we all the alternative accommodations, which is what goes against airbnb. i'm pleased with the way we do the business be able to hshow a home, apartment and a villa on the same search result most times you don't know where you want to stay, you've got to look at the different options, look at the prices, look at the reviews. we offer all of that in one place. what's really important, we don't at the ending of the funnel where you're ready to check out, we don't hit you with a traveler's fee that's something our competitors do we don't do that also instant confirmation. nothing more annoying than if you go to a site and you have to go back and forth with the host and then the person says to you, oh, i don't want to renting ito you. booking.com, every single property instant confirmation. you press go and you're done.
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>> morgan has a question back in studio. >> i do, thanks, seema glenn, hi. sticking with this part of the business, we've seen a reining in, in some cases a crackdown on a regulatory standpoint on home sharing. jersey city here being probably the most high-profile recent example of it. how are you navigating that? >> yeah, no, that is an important issue. we always believed that proper regulation is the way to go. you have a lot of stakeholders it's not just the host, not just the traveler and not just us, it's also the communities and taxes. you want people playing appropriate taxes for any type of accommodation so it's definitely something we work with those regulators. we want to come up with something that is fair and equal for everybody. as long as there's a playing field that is level for everyone, we're all in favor of it. >> you're one of the more disruptor -- disruptive players in the online travel space, glenn. you're not only an online travel company, the largest of them all, but you have investments in china. you also were one of the initial
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backers of facebook's libra, its stable coin. three weeks ago you pulled out why? >> well, look, we always say that we want to be involved in things that we think can be better for our industry. one of the things is lower the cost of transferring money around we have a lot of payments that are going around between a customer who wants to stay somewhere and then there's a host who has to get paid there are lots of different ways to get that money from one place to the other we are definitely interested in looking at that so we said, sure, we'll look at it having looked at it a bit, we decided maybe for us we'll just pull back and wait and see what happens because most important is that the regulators have to be comfortable with whatever comes up is good for everyone. so if the regulators approve that libra stable coin, we'd be in favor of being part of it, or something else one of the things you probably saw is china is developing their own stable coin coming from the government under the people's bank of china, they're developing that. there's an announcement in europe a few days ago where they
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say they should come up with their own stable coin too. i believe in the future using some type of blockchain way to transfer money around is going to be a better, more efficient, easier way to do it. we need to come up with something that is good, that is safe, we can deal with the privacy issues all the things you want to do. >> so you could support faceboo or another company >> if the regulators approve it, we'll be a participant any way to do any type of financial conditions. >> jon back in studio. >> glenn, i want to understand your digital advertising strategy in q2 brand marketing for you guys was up 41%. you said that was to drive direct traffic, which is important to you in the most recent quarter it was down 23% so i know that you're saying that direct traffic is important. do you no longer need that brand marketing to drive that traffic? are you just managing the comps
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year over year what's going on? >> look, brand marketing is an important leg of any marketing table, you want to have that year over year for 2019 over 2018, we are up. now, you're right, in the last quarter we were a little lower than we were the year before and i made that point both in the current call and the call before while we had new campaigns out that i thought were doing well, there were some areas i wasn't pleased with and overall it was okay we have a new cmo at booking.com. i'm very pleased that he's come in only for a few months we're going to work with new things, see if we can come back with things that are even better we are not stopping brand marketing. but our company was built on experimentation. if things don't work, we're more than willing to pull back, go back to the drawing board, come up with something better and go back at it. >> morgan. >> glenn, a lot of focus on the state of the consumer, health of the consumer this week, especially as investors digest retail earnings that have been a mixed bag. how would you describe the health of the consumer right
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now, especially given the fact that there had been some he headwinds in terms of global travel this year >> again, i'll divide between global and u.s. domestic globally it's healthy with some pockets of problems. the u.s. is a little bit better right now. the way i look at these things is look at occupancy rates in hotels, they're up look at load factors on planes planes are filled. look at what airlines are putting out in terms of what they're filling on their planes, those are good numbers so i think it's pretty healthy. >> the travel industry is weathering many storms, but right now as we head into a new year or close out 2019, what's the biggest risk you see right now? >> well, look, there are so many risks. i go to sleep thinking about all of them all the time one of the benefits no matter what the risk is, your point about long term, we've been through a lot. i've been in this business now 20 years we've had horrific problems from 2000 on yet travel continues in the long run to grow we're the biggest player in the
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industry, so we can afford, any time there's a dip we can invest, come up with new things. we're able to spread our expenses across a much larger base and therefore we have an advantage over almost anybody in the space. >> glenn, we appreciate you making time for us today. >> thank you. >> glenn fogle, ceo of booking holdings jon, coming up on "the exchange" i'll speak to the founder of hotels coming up at 1:40 p.m. eastern. >> absolutely. you took the words right out of my mouth i've got a lot more from you coming up, looking forward to it everybody else, a lot more "squawk alley" still ahead stay with us - [spokesman] if you've tried college but never finished, (group cheering)
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cannabis stocks recovering a bit this morning after a losing streak regular risks, profit struggles weighing on sentiment. the nation's largest cannabis retailer had a narrower than expected quarterly loss. joining us now boris jordan is here at post 9 good to have you back. >> good to be here. >> talk about what's happened fundamentally and why you think sentiment has turned so weak. >> i think the fundamentals in the industry in the united states are only improving quarter on quarter we're seeing substantial growth in all the major companies some companies are a little further behind their development so they're still losing money.
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curaleaf has turned the corner so we think you'll see in the fourth and first quarter a move towards positive net income as well and we're growing at 300% a year so seeing substantial growth as far as the strong prices, i think what you're seeing is that canada has not performed as well we're seeing -- but i think there's structural problems in the canadian market which need to be resolved because cannabis stocks are much wider invested in, it has a wider audience because it's legal federally so anybody can invest in cannabis stocks. we've seen u.s. stocks go along with canadian stocks even though u.s. results are far better. >> when you talk about the structural problems in canada, how much of that is regulatory and if so, what does that mean in many terms of lessons that can be learned as we see it legalized by states here in the u.s. >> it is regulatory for the most
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part in canada, you have two problems the first problem is that you have had federal government controls the sales points for cannabis they actually do the ordering of cannabis into their stores and because they didn't roll out the stores fast enough, you don't have the high demand coming into the stores as you would. secondly, you don't have the products so if in the united states we basically have all products from a flower in its natural form all the way to edibles, vapes, different kinds of lotions and things like that, so you have a very different product mix canada doesn't have the products and has a government that's controlling the distribution. >> what should investors know about florida as a market that's important for your space you've got more than a quarter million registered patients, i believe, there you had a bit of a supply shortage in october, but things are looking better there you're really building up a big presence in that market. how much is it a bellwether? >> florida and california are
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definitely the two biggest markets. new york if it changes some of its rules will be the third biggest state. florida is a big important part of our business. number two, we are behind in florida. we're the number two operator there. not only is there 250,000 patients, but there's a backlog of 120,000 that are trying to get their cards. the state just can't move fast enough to register so it's a very important state we expect it to be over 400,000 patients at the endi of next year and there's five of the top companies presenting there so i think you'll see more and more companies doing well on the back of florida. >> meantime, curaleaf is he headquartered in massachusetts you have lawmakers voting today on a ban of flavored tobacco that has extended to a certain extent to medical marijuana, vaping too how has that affected the company and how do you expect that to play out >> i think you have to
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distinguish between tobacco-flavored vaping and cannabis vaping. tobacco, our teenagers are getting hooked on that with medical cannabis you don't have the same flavor problem the problem in thc cannabis was the vitamin e. i think we've now seen even the cdc came out and said that was a vitamin e problem. if you look at most of the tests that were done, none of the regulated stores and regulated product had vitamin e in them, so it really is a black market issue. we actually see that as a positive what will happen is people will start to migrate from the black market to the regulated market in order to get safe products. >> will that happen on its own or do regulators need to press on the black market even more? >> our opinion is regulators need to press on the black market the whole idea between legalization is move the product out of the black market. you probably remember during the prohibition period when people
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were going blindi this is the same thing people are buying them thinking they're regulated and they're not. if you buy from a regulated store in the state, you're not going to get that kind of a product. >> see if behavior changes given the news of the past few months. we'll watch it you've got support from b of a today so it's good to see you. getting a check on where we standing across the major averages this morning, it's a mixed picture. the dow and the s&p both slipping further from their recent record highs. the dow is down 67 points. the nasdaq is in positive rror jt rely we're back in a moment it was sophie's big day. by the way, she's the next mozart. as usual we were behind schedule. but sophie's enthusiasm cannot be dampened.
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the need to protect resources from what he says is chinese aggression. >> combined with reclamation and militarization of outposts in the south china sea, china's unilateral efforts to assert illegitimate maritime claims threaten other nations' access to vital resources, undermine the stability of regional energy markets and increase the risk of conflict iranian president rouhani telling his cabinet the days of protests in iran were the result of a conspiracy involving regional actors as well as the united states. the unrest over rising fuel prices has killed at least 106 people across the country and that's according to amnesty international. pope francis arriving in bangkok for the beginning of his three-day visit to thailand. he will meet with the country's supreme buddhist leader as well as all of the catholic bishops of asia. you are up to date that's the news update at this hour
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back downtown to you on "squawk alley. we continue to monitor the impeachment hearings with republicans doing theylan mui h >> reporter: gordon sondland has been trying to draw a distinction between the conditions laid out for a white house meetings to the ukrainians and the conditions that were laid out for aid republicans are very likely to seize on the fact that sondland explicitly said that neither president trump nor rudy giuliani ever made a connection between the investigations and aid. >> president trump never told me directly that the aid was conditioned on the meetings. the only thing we got directly from guiliani was that the burisma and 2016 elections were conditioned on the white house meeting. >> reporter: but democrats were able to press sondland to acknowledge that he eventually came to presume that the reason why security aid had been
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withheld was because there was yet to be a public commitment to the investigations >> is this kind of a two plus two equals four conclusion that you reached? >> pretty much. >> is the only logical conclusion to you that given all of these factors, that the aid was also a part of this quid pro quo? >> yep >> reporter: now, guys, the white house has said that president trump would be watching parts of the hearing this morning so far, carl, we have seen the white house official twitter account post a message that said new hopes, same swamp. back over to you. >> yeah. some reporters saying leaving the white house to get to austin we'll watch the president's schedule today, ylan, thank you very much. earnings mover of the morning is target, hitting an all-time high earlier, surging after a big beat across the board, raising its outlook comps up 4.5%, stocks up 12. best day since august really about eight bucks away from doubling for the year. we're back in a minute
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the amount of student loan debt i have, i'm embarrassed to even say. we just decided we didn't want debt any longer. ♪ i didn't realize how easy investing could be. i'm picking companies that i believe in. ♪ i think sofi money is amazing. ♪ thank you sofi. sofi thank you, we love you. ♪ welcome back to "squawk alley. the president set to meet with apple ceo tim cook in austin, texas, just a few hours from now where the two will tour the manufacturing plant where the mac pro is assembled cook has gained more ground than other tech executives with the president with trump referring to the apple ceo as a friend of mine weighing in on this somewhat budding bromance is tech investor bradley tusk who joins
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us here as well as the former chief digital officer. bradley, i'll start with you what kl other companies, entrepreneurs, executives, learn from the way tim cook has been interacting with the president >> apple is an iconic, unique company so it's hard for anyone to put themselves in apple's shoes. but they have done a few things right. one is they recognized that they have customers with different political views and a business to run and have not conflated the two things you've seen uber conflate the two and make everybody mad and lose on all fronts tim cook says here's where my personal views are, here's my company's needs and wants and i'll focus on that that's one two, trump read this somewhere this morning, cook calls him directly and gets him on the phone. presumably every ceo can't just call the white house and get the president on the phone but maybe more can than you think.
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because this president doesn't listen to his advisers and changes his mind all the time, he's the ear you need to be in you can hire great lobbyists and they can talk to the staffers, but the staffers have limited influence. even if they get a yes in one meeting, it could be a no in the next. >> is it a budding bromance or good business? >> it is good business we heard this morning that president trump doesn't take the phone calls sometimes of his own staff and own ambassadors so here he is taking calls from tim cook i think that tim -- mr. cook has done a really good job in really complicated waters he and apple are pro environment and pro immigration and those are things that are directly in competition with some of the goals of the trump administration but he has done a great job in navigating that. >> bradley, you seem to imply i'm not sure the tim cook playbook is one that a lot of other ceos could follow. apple is most of the time the most valuable company in the world. it's an iconic brand people seem to love their
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products the president can't say tim cook, whoever that is. >> he can. but i was thinking about that. here are a few ways i think you could learn from tim cook and from apple >> okay. >> for example, later today apple is creating 20,000 new jobs in austin, texas. when amazon wanted to come here to new york city, they were only willing to do so for $3 billion in tax credits they got run out of town apple has created lots of jobs in new york and austin and other places they seem to just do what they need to do without having their hand out all the time. so that's one. two, tim cook, you can agree or disagree with him on things, but it feels like he takes principled stands. whether it's on privacy or lgbt issues or immigration. if you believe that he's doing what he thinks is right, it's a lot easier to say i can disagree with him on this and agree with him on that. so you're right, you're average ceo is never going to be apple, but i think apple has handled it
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well when other companies nearly as big like amazon or facebook really have not. >> i was surprised, sree, to see tim cook with benioff at dreamforce saying, yeah, we're vocal with the administration when we disagree with them when it comes to dreamers or immigration. right before you see the president you're openly talking about your disagreements not a lot of ceos would have those -- well, would have the guts. >> guts is a good word for that. i'd also say look at companies like foxconn and the entire narrative around jobs in america and how many jobs ivanka trump has created in america and compare that with apple and a couple of other companies that are really investing and making real jobs for real people. those are things that resonate not just with the white house but with america at large. that's what we're seeing happening here >> bradley, how important is austin to apple? i mean they're making this big investment they're breaking ground on this
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new facility down there. that's certainly in focus as well today, in addition to the assembly facility. are we going to see more of that, especially in lower cost states like texas? >> i think you will. so number one, california has been very tough politically on tech companies in the last couple of years. one company saw costs go up 10% to 20% so i think they want alternatives with less regulation number two, it is so expensive to live anywhere near the valley that cost living is lower and it's easier to attract engineers, easier to attract employees. austin is a great city that produces engineers right out of u.t. in their hometown they have talent, better regulatory climate, better tax climate, better weather sometimes, and lower cost of living >> all right bradley, sree, thanks for joining us today we'll keep our eyes on this one as the day unfolds. >> thanks. still to come, the co-founder of lyft, what he told
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we believe in education built for all people., - [woman] snhu was the best experience of my life. - [man] without snhu, i wouldn't be the leader i am today. - [woman] i graduated high school 19 years ago. i still finished. - [man] in the military, you feel that sense of accomplishment. that's what snhu is. - you will march from this arena and say to the world.. i did it. - [woman] you did it. i love you. - [graduate] i love you too. here's what's coming up at the top of the hour. with target soaring, we'll ask pete najarian what he's doing with shares as they hit a new record high. plus the 2020 playbook with our investment committee and a top strategist from ubs wealth management. and we'll have three big energy names one firm says that are a buy right now. it's our call of the day we'll do that and more at noon
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morgan, we'll see you in just a few. >> looking forward to it, scott, thank you. wilfred frost sitting down with john zimmer just moments ago he joins us from new york with more from that interview wilf. >> good morning, morgan. indeed as you said just sat down with john zimmer the stock is down around 40% since the recent ipo i asked him whether he was feeling guilty about that fall and whether they priced the ipo too richly >> over our course of history, we've made a lot of our investors a lot of money i care about our employees, that have jobs from us, that have in some cases equity from us, so i feel a deep amount of responsibility i feel like the stock is undervalued and that we've had three quarters of beating expectations and that, yeah, over time people will see us put up more numbers and it will -- it will solve itself
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>> a lot more coming up in that interview, morgan, including competition with uber, potential international expansion, what it would take for lyft to buy a company like grubhub and also california's a.b. 5 law and whether that law was short-sighted or not coming up on "closing bell" at 3:00 p.m. also another interview with rich barton, the co-fournnder and ceo of zillow. >> thank you. when we return, luxury auto brands in focus as the auto show kicks off this week. the ceo of mercedes-benz usa is with us right after this break we're back in two. as usual we were behind schedule. but sophie's enthusiasm cannot be dampened. not even by a run-away donut. we powered through it in our toyota prius.
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and now get $250 off google pixel 4 during xfinity mobile beyond black friday. that's simple. easy. awesome. click, call or visit a store today. we take you to the south lawn president talking to reporters on his way to austin, texas. >> so thank you very much. we're going to austin, texas appear 'em is opening up a fantastic facility they're spending a tremendous amount of money. i've been asking tim cook from the day i got elected from the campaign i've been asking tim cook to, if they would, we want to see apple build here. that way you have no tariffs there's no tariffs when companies come to our country and they build, there's no tariffs the economy is doing unbelievably well. we continue to talk to china china wants to make a deal the question is do i want to make a deal because i like what's happening right now we're taking in billions and
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billions of dollars. i'm going to go very quickly, just a quick comment on what's going on in terms of testimony with ambassador sondland i just noticed one thing, and i would say that means it's all over what do you want from ukraine, he asks me, screaming. what do you want from ukraine? i keep hearing all these different ideas and theories this is ambassador sondland speaking to me just happened. to which i turned off the television what do you want from ukraine? i keep hearing all these different ideas and theories what do you want, what do you want it was a very short and and abrt conversation that he had with me he said i was not in a good mood i'm always in a good mood. i don't know what that is. i just said -- now he's talking about what my response is. so he is going what do you want,
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what do you want, i hear all these theories, what do you want and now here is my response that he gave. just gave. ready? do you have the cameras rolling? i want nothing that is what i want from ukraine. that is what i said. i want nothing i said it twice. so he goes -- he asked me the question what do you want, i keep hearing all these things. what do you want i don't know him very well i have not spoken to him much. this is not a man i know well. seems like a nice guy though but i don't know him well. he was with other candidates he actually supported other candidates not me came in late but here is my response. now, if you weren't fake new, you'd cover it properly. i say to the ambassador in response, i want nothing, i want
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nothing, i want no quid pro quo. tell zelensky, president zelensky, to do the right thing. so here is my answer i want nothing i want nothing i want no quid pro quo tell zelensky to do the right thing. then he says this is the final word from the president of the united states. i want nothing thank you, folks have a good time >> is that that is the presidene way to austin. some comments in there on china trade and continuing to talk to them about a phase one deal which was originally floated as a deal on october 11th >> yes, and we should note what the president said there about apple's facility in austin is
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not true maybe he misspoke. it is not a new manufacturing facility they have been manufacturing the mac pro there. they will continue manufacturing the mac pro there. the components that they need have a tariff exemption. so not as if apple is coming something new there. >> and they have been doing it with a company called flex which is also publicly traded. and i man j and i man jeamon javers, let'su >> reporter: and he didn't take any questions from reporters those reporters at the white house south lawn today were loaded for bear with questions from the sondland testimony which was relatively damaging for this president this morning. so the president not offering them the opportunity to get in with questions on that simply asserting his innocence and you can see his frustration what he has been seeing in the impeachment hearing. meanwhile he is getting on the airplane coming here to austin
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as you have been talking about to visit this flex facility where apple manufactures the ma pro computers. and we'll watch the dynamic between president trump and tim cook both men want something from each other, both men are a little bit you would imagine wary of each other tim cook was not necessarily a supporter of the president's nonetheless today they both need each other the president wants validation for his tariff program he says on the south lawn just there that ultimately he's been asking tim cook to build plants in the united states since his election tim cook needs the president to hold offer on some of the tariffs. he wants apple to escape scot-free december 15th if the president moves forward with any tariff increases so you can see that the president is coming into it with intense frustration about what is going on in washington.
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>> you know, i think a lot of what this highlights also is just how tricky some of these tariffs have been to the supply chains and to what it has meant to manufacture in the u.s. as well and in addition to apple, i think about companies like polaris that have final assembly plants here too, they import products and put it all together into their vehicles state side for consumers here how does this reflect back on what it has meant for apple to be able to make products like the mac pro here in the u.s. and how do you think that will prevail in the conversation or in the tour that we get between these would men today? >> reporter: in some ways apple is the poster child for the thing donald trump is trying to undo, which is globalization a lot of apple products are made in china iphone is the most important seller for apple, a global supply chain, a lot of the parts manufactured and assembled in china. apple is saying here that they
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will assemble these mac pros, this is a $6,000 very high end computer here in austin, texas but that is a relatively small portion of their overall manufacture. and apple a is globalized company and donald trump is an anti globalization president ultimately >> if they were to shift phone manufacturing, that would be a big story. >> it would indeed they can't do it now because expertise doesn't exist here >> and so we'll watch that as the president aboards air force one. meantime the l.a. auto show is kicking of and phil lebeau is joining us with a special guest. >> thank you nick speaks, the her smercedes- first electric goes on sale next spring >> yeah. >> you think the tipping point is close >> we will have to see
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don't put words in my mouth. we will have ten electric cars by 2022. this car will come next year as you say and then followed by two compact suv electric cars in '21. and then we will see how we can bring the american public to love it as much as they love our cars already >> i know it is a which i cchic, but how do you get americans to say now i can believe in the electric vehicle >> i think it is getting cars on the road and having people speak of their experience positively and also a question of a little bit of pull from the electric standpoint, locally city access, someincentive is important but they are great cars and they happen to be electric. so you have the yourself in
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terms of performance and also in ben giting tefiting the environ. >> and you have run the operations in china for a number of years and you know the market well we're seeing a slowdown. 16 straight months ever slower sales for the industry should we can be concerned >> i think that we like many other people have a significant footprint in china on any slowdown is a concern. i think that we've done a lot of work over the past years to bring the plan to a very positive level amongst chinese consumers. we have great partners in china, a great product lineup, a lot to make sure that our cars for china -- >> i understand. but you spend time there >> i don't see perhaps the same risks that i would see generally. but obviously any slowdown in
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china which is 24 million people buying cars every year is going to have some effect. but i'm confident that we still have potential for growth in china. >> one last question this electric suv comes to market at a time when we're seeing more and more ise in-send stiffs for luxury vehicles are you worried. >> >> there is a book i'm reading that it says i have a very bad habit and it is difficult to play. -- it is difficult to break. i think that we have to look at the prices in the u.s. and we are significantly better than others but nevertheless it is something that is of concern going forward for sure >> nick speak, did a nice job, first time talking with us here. from the l.a. auto show. back to you. >> come down and see us.
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>> don't need to ask us twice. great stuff as we continue to watch what has been happening at global autos we'll get fed minutes this afternoon and the president is now on his way to austin a big story both for the white house and for apple. for now let's get to the judge i'm scott wapner this hour, on target a blowout quarter, is this the best retail stock to own it is 12 noon and this is the "halftime report." target hitting all-time highs on the back of strong earnings we go shopping for other retail winners. energy the worst performing sector this year, but a number of stocks in the group getting hit with a buy call. we'll break them down. and betting on growth. we'll tell you which stocks will lied the way in this market. the investment committee is ready to go. "halft
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