good morning stocks under pressure again after friday's 622-point slide for the dow and crude is dropping sharply again overnight. new tensions between washington and beijing amid the fallout from the pandemic. that's hurting things globally, equities president trump reportedly weighing new tariffs but before we get to those stories, berkshire hathaway ceo can warren buffett making a lot of news over the weekend >> i will be an american the rest of my life. i hope my successors at berkshire do it. we have all the highlights of buffett's message to investors on this special

edition of "squawk box," which is starting right now. good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box" on cnbc. i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. we've been watching with the u.s. equity market and things are under pressure dow was down by 600 points on friday and adding to those losses today dow futures right now down by 273 points earlier this morning we were down by 350, so this is some improvement from a half an hour ago. the s&p is down by 28 points the nasdaq off by 61 let's get rightto our big stor of the morning that is, of course, the berkshire hathaway meeting that was health over the weekend. warren buffett speaking out about the global pandemic and his recent investment moves. this was a little different this year no crowds. usually there's 40,000 people there. this time it was just buffett and berkshire hathaway vice president on stable but his message was still received loud and clear.

buffett made the case that you should never bet against america, but he also admitted he doesn't know how all of this economic ripples will play out from this pandemic and that he has readjusted his own thinking about what will work he dropped a bit of a bombshell on the market, saying he sold the huge stakes in the four major airlines those were 10% stakes he held in american, delta, united and southwest. here's his explanation as to why. >> the airline business and i -- i may be wrong, i hope i'm wrong, but i think it changed in a very major way and it's obviously changed in the fact that the four companies are each going to borrow, perhaps, an average of at least $10 or $12 billion you have to pay that back out of earnings over some period of time you're $10 or $12 billion worse off if that happens. in some cases they have to sell stock or right to buy stock at

these prices that takes away from the upside. i don't know whether two or three years from now that as many people will fly as many passenger miles as they did last year they may and they may not. it's -- but the future is much less clear to me, how the business will turn out through absolutely no fault of the airlines themselves. >> now, buffett made a big point of trying to explain this was, again, no fault of the airlines themselves and no fault of the ceos he said, all four of the ceos who run those companies are excellent ceos he said those are all well-managed companies he just said the equation has changed and he has big concerns about what happens from here guys, terms of what he's been doing, his cash pile built up over the first quarter, it went from $127 billion that he had at the end of the year to $137

billion. so, instead of deploying that capital when the markets went down so significantly in february and march, he was continued to build up. he did say he spent about $1.8 billion on stocks in the first quarter. he spent $1.7 billion on buying back berkshire shares. that was for the first quarter he also talked about what he's been doing in april. the pattern has not changed in april. i think he spent $427 million on equities in the month of april that tells you a little about his broader concerns his huge thing is wanting to make sure that he's managing for any crisis >> who knows how long he'll be in that position, defensive. any indication -- he could have -- is he there today thinking i'll do something today now that identify said i haven't done anything yet? in the next quarter do you expect him - >> he said that if there was a big deal that came along, a right deal that came along, that he would be more than willing to

deploy that cash said they spent a big chunk of it if they got the right opportunity. he talked about how they haven't stepped into the market like they did back in 2008 and 2009 when things were in real problems there had been eight companies they stepped in to finance during the great recession they haven't done that this time he said part of the reason is because the fed and the treasury did the right thing. they went out of their way to stabilize markets. as a result, these companies, he said, got better deals in the open moshgt place and from the fed and treasury than they would have gotten from berkshire hathaway >> to me, i thought this was the most cautious i'd ever seen warren and i wrote about it actually yesterday. the idea that he did walk -- he at up with point said, i don't want to walk through the worst case scenarios and then in proceeded in certain cases to sort of walk through some of them talked about that $137 billion and said, you know, in a worst case scenario, that actually

isn't a huge amount of money it was a sobering comment because, you know, you look at where we are and i think there's a lot of people that are very hopeful and optimistic we put this either behind us or we're about to move forward. and he clearly talked about his company as wanting to be ft. knox in a way that's very different, as becky said, than the way i think he was thinking back in 208 or even, by the way, in 2016 when he wrote in his annual letter about the need, the once a decade opportunities that come when it looks like there are dark clouds and you run outside with the wash tub rather than the teaspoon to collect as much gold as you humanly can. i think a lot of people watching those comments he's not doing it. >> that's why a said, what do we know about the next quarter? i'm not saying he would be trying to hide his intention but he does things -- but with the great, like, flagship properties

right now that are 30% less than they were and him still not using $137 billion to try to, as you say, collect those things, that's probably notable. but, you know, he's like the rest of us he doesn't know whether a vaccine is possible at the end of the year. he doesn't know whether a therapeutic is going to work he doesn't know whether herd immunity is coming he's warren buffett but he's not nostradam nostradamus. >> he went out of his way to say he doesn't know anything else on the medical front. he's been listening to dr. fauci and bill gates that's where he gets his information from he doesn't know anything else on that front he said he doesn't want to answer questions because he's not an expert in something like that again, he did say he would be there to take big deals if the terms were right i don't think he things the terms are right. in some instances, his entire view of industries has changed i don't think this is

necessarily any different than what he was doing during the great recession because he wasn't talking all the time. people keep sending in these questions. why has he been that silent? he didn't talk that much during 2008 either. it was months between when he came on. i think he's looking to see how this plays on you the in the market and just waiting to see like you said, the fed and the treasury did the right thing these businesses have gotten better deals in the open marketplace than they would get from berkshire hathaway. >> what he did then is get a 10% convert iblg from a company. it wasn't nearly as important about the -- whether he got the convert to work out properly he was going to get 10% to 11% to weight and do you know if you're going to get 10% or 11% when the businesses you're buying - >> not right now. >> there are no customers. >> what did the royal caribbean -- or princess cruise line, one of the cruise lines

got a huge amount of money at way lower than you would have anticipated given what's been happening. there's been more people who have been willing to weigh into the markets because the market was stabilized by the actions the government took. >> you can get that -- >> i mean, they're giving away cars right now >> the only thing i would say is, yes, the big opportunities were -- were missed or didn't exist because the fed came in, but because the fed came in, as you said, there are other people coming in now thinking this is still a good opportunity at least my perspective just listening to him is he was still planning to weight when he talked even about the airlines, it wasn't simply a call straight up on the airlines it was a call that that there may be less passengers on these planes two and three years from now and the knock-on -- the demonstrable economic effects of that to sobering to

hear it from someone who has had so much certainty over the years. that's how i felt about it by the way, i thought it was humbling, human and i admired all of it. it definitely made me sit down >> let's talk about some - >> i think he was hoping with your position you've been saying all along, yes, buffett is agreeing with me, therefore -- that's what it looks like to me. i don't know if that's necessarily true or not. i don't know if you can say because he doesn't like the airlines you paint that with a broad brush of the entire reopening of the economy. you're talking your book because you're doughnuts that's fine. you're looking good on the doughnuts so far you're down -- >> see, now -- >> you're down about 80 or 90 s&p points. >> you bait me into taking this ridiculous bet, which i didn't want to take. >> you're going to with in. >> now you're going to use it every day against me. >> i'm not using it against you. i'm wondering, are you going to

share? will you share >> i'm sitting pretty. i get a puppy. >> who buys you that >> you >> we're -- becky took it with me follow the videotape. >> who cut your hair, sorkin >> you owe me a puppy. >> i'm coming out to your house. do you have someone knowing what they're doing. who cut it >> i did myself. >> with a flowabout. ee >> no, with a scissor. we have a lot of emails -- i have gotten a lot of emails and tweets about this. next time i do it, i'll do it for a couple minutes on the show and i'll show you how to do it, joe. i learned myself i literally take a scissor, i'm doing this with my scissor >> if i just send this to you, can you cut it and send it back? >> piece of cardboard?

>> yeah. let's get -- >> back to becky >> i had -- becky, i had people write in, see, buffett buys buybacks i'm like, shut up. >> buffett talked about a corporate practice that's controversial, stock buybacks. he defended the practice that so many, especially in washington, are attacking right now. >> we've distributed some of the capital we don't need for growth now, whether the company should buy it depends on a couple of things one is they ought to retain the money they need for intelgts growth prospects that's fine. and, secondly, this is a point that's never mentioned, they should be buying it back below what they think it's worth now, they'll make mistakes in that, but you make mistakes in a lot of businesses. but over that should be the guiding principle. and, to my knowledge, jpmorgan,

jamie dimon said it once, we've said it various times, we retain -- we will repurchase shares when it's to the advantage of the continuing shareholder to have us do so but you read about all these buyback programs we're going to spend $5 billion buying it back or10 billion that's like saying i'm going to buy a business for $5 billion without knowing what you're going to get for the money it should be price sensitive, obviously. it should be need sensitive, obviously. but when the continues are right, it should also be right to repurchase shares and there shouldn't be the slightest taint to it any more so than dividends and people have taken up the cries how terrible it was that companies bought -- well, you can say it was terrible to pay dif ends, too. they were doing what was intelligent at the time. i hope they continue to do what is intelligent as they go forward. >> this is a practice he's

defended in the past he did it more vigorously this time because that practice is more under attack. his point all along, if you've been listening to him for years about this, look, if a partner wants out of the business and the other partners in the business want to buy that partner out, that should happen. you should have a way out. companies, when they do buyback shares, just increase the percentage of the business that the existing shareholders have, therefore, making every share more valuable. >> right if you buy stuff -- i mean, boeing, you know -- when you're buying things at 400 and it's going 100, obviously, it just looks like you're an idiot eastman kodak -- over the years we've seen it. that's what he's saying. the mindless -- when ceos -- remember the financial crisis, don't give them cash, give them performance-based compensation, so if they can shrink the float,

they get -- just so the mindless robot buying back stock is probably not great because look what happened. we've discussed, where does that money go again when you buy it at 300 and the stock goes to 100? where is it? it's not -- >> money heaven. >> it's money heaven. >> goes to money heaven. >> could have been better spent probably sometimes if you're apple and you don't know what else to buy and you think your shares are -- remember how undervalued apple was? that would have been a good move to buy that back, right, at that point? you can't just paint it with the same brush where are you, sorkin? i don't know where you are on any given day. you take these - >> i can tell you exactly where i am i'm exactly where warren is. i'm exactly where warren is. there's nothing immoral at all about buying back shares but something very wrong about the system with which we have today for the most part, which is that as you said, a lot of these

share buyback problems are relatively mindless. meaning a robot is doing them. they make these grand proclamations and announcements and do them. they're done in certain cases, as you know, probably immorally which is to say, to help prop up the stock price and push up executive compensation the process is not to eliminate p buyback but to make it more mindful. look, people will get them wrong. we will back back -- you look at boeing and say, oh, that -- what a mistake that was i think the question is, how do you get the system to a place where it's -- the default is not to approach it in the mindless way that much of the corporate america is doing it today. i think that's where i land. >> okay. >> guys, let mel tell you about one more headline coming out of the meeting. there were a lot of them there was a shareholder

question, a lot of shareholder questions about berkshire's performance versus the s&p 500 that was a question brought by several hareholders. here's his response. >> i have a number of variations on this next question. some more polite than others this one is right down the middle this is from mark blakley who writes in from tulsa, oklahoma, and he says, like many, i'm a proud berkshire hathaway with shareholder. comparing the berkshire with the spd s&p over the last 5, 10, 15 years identify been -- berkshire is trailing the s&p 500 by 8%. to what would you attribute berkshire's underperformance while i can't imagine ever selling my berkshire stock, at some point money is money. >> well, i agree with everything that -- i forget his name, but what was said. the truth is, i recommend the

s9500 to people and i happen to believe berkshire is about as sound as any single investment can be in terms of earning reasonable returns over time. but i would not want to bet my life on whether we beat the s&p 500 over the next ten years. i think there's -- you know, obviously i think there's a reasonable chance of doing it, but -- and we've had periods -- i don't know how many out of the 50 -- 55 years we've been doing it i don't know how many we've beaten or not. i mentioned earlier that 1954 was my best year, but i was working with absolutely peanuts, unfortunately. and i think if you work with small sums of money, i think there is some chances, some chance of a few people that

really do bring something to the game but i think it's very, very hard for anybody to identify them and i think when they work with large funds, it gets tougher and it's certainly gotten tougher for us with larger funds. i would make no promise to anybody we'll do better than the s&p 500. what i will promise them is that i've got 99% of my money in berkshire and most members of my family are -- may not be quite that extreme but they're close to it. and i do care about what happens to berkshire over the long period about as much as anybody could care about it. but, you know, caring doesn't guarantee results. it does guarantee attention. >> you know, it's harder and harder for a big pile of money to outperform like that. that's the point he's made frequently i think a lot of people have questions because they've

invested in berkshire because they think it will outperform in down times that's not been the case here to date i wonder what will happen in the next two, three years. that will play out there were some shareholders pushing back about that. >> all right andrew, i still need to -- we still got these delays and they told me they were done i thought you were going to take it they told me you didn't know whether to take it some day we'll all be back here together we couldn't come back here - >> i'll take it away. >> do you have any idea when it will be a three-way thing here we can't do masks and we would have to because we would be next to. >> we could be in different parts of the building. we could do that. >> we've done that before. do we have a third spot? >> we've done that before. >> we could find a third spot. >> that may not happy us either. i don't know

to be continued. when we return, a lot more on "squawk box" ahead. we've got to talk about the futures because they're under pressure this morning. we're going to talk about the new tensions taking place between washington and beijing we'll do that next next, mohamed el erian will join us on his reactions to warren he was tweeting saturday the slide for stocks in the month of may so far. right back after this. these days staying connected is more important than ever.

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welcome back to "squawk box. let's get to the latest headlines from the pandemic this morning. global cases have now topped 3.5 million, more than 1.1 million of those are in the united states in new york, confirmed cases rose to 316,000 and the death toll hit 24,000. new york's death and case numbers have been slowly and steadily declining that's the good news, since reaching peaks in early april. meantime, the death toll in the uk expected to overtake that italy to become the worst hit country in europe in terms of fatalities nearly 29,000 people have died in each country, but the uk seemed to be a week or two behind italy in its stage of the outbreak. new tensions now between

washington and beijing part of the reason that we're seeing some weakness a white house is reportedly weighing action to move u.s. production and supply chain dependence away from china the president also promising, in his words, very conclusive, a very conclusive report on how the outbreak started in china. the ap is reporting that a u.s. intel report is accusing china of covering up the severity of the virus in order to buy time and hoard medical supplies nbc news, meanwhile, has not reviewed this report coming up, we'll talk about the impact of the pandemic on the insurance industry, comments -- more comments, obviously, all morning from warren buffett straight ahead. as we head to break, here are images of the pandemic from yesterday from all across america. these days, it's anything but business as usual.

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welcome back, everybody. at saturday's virtual berkshire

hathaway annual shareholder meeting, warren buffett talked about a lot of things. he addressed the pandemic and what might be to come with the insurance business as a result >> if we had some company we were selling auto parts to and they had a strike, our business would be interrupted, but it's not covered by it. that is not part of the coverage, unless you specifically really buy it so, there's -- there's some claims that are going to be very valid related to this -- the present situation. there will be an awful lot that will be litigation on that won't be valid there's no question that some insurance companies -- i know one particular that will pay a lot of money relative to their size in terms of policies that they have written and i think we have reserved, and our history shows we have generally reserved

on the conservative side adequately at least. that's certainly our intent. we tell no managers of any of our insurance operations what numbers we expect from them or any of that. they evaluate their losses and they build in something for social inflation, they build in things for -- all kinds of things and generally speaking, berkshire's been pretty accurate in its reserving i have no reason to think we're otherwise than that. >> joining us right now with reaction to buffett's company, eric denalo. the former new york state insurance commissioner regulator. eric, let's talk a little about what buffet said with these things you've been warning us for a while there are all these issues building up about who's responsible for business interruption and how the state legislature, not to mention congress, are going to play this

out. what's happening right now what's the state of things >> i think the state of affairs are somewhat exactly as warren buffett just said. there's going to be a looming battle over whether there is business interruption, coverage and whether there is what's called civil authority coverage which some experts are talking about this being a version of that but the first hurdle that has to be overcome, that's why there will be litigation, requests for class-actions, is whether there's physical property damage once you get over that hump, if you can, there's going to be a lot of exclusions, which something he alluded to there, and will be exclusions around pandemic and viral and many companies will have explicitly avoided this exposure through their contractual provisions as he said, some may not some may not have exclusions and some may have wording to make them more likely to be property damage than not.

>> going forward, eric, my big question is will insurance companies write for this type of thing. i asked buffett that during the meeting. he said, look, if the price is right, they will, but he said they would have written that insurance a few months ago and it would have have been woefully underpriced. >> i think he also maybe alluded to the possibility that congress has within it right now a draft bill which would be sort of the equivalent of terrorism-risk insurance act. it's called pandemic risk insurance act, and it would put into place backstops and ceilings and deductibles that would encourage the industry to write. to me it's certain to me that the industry will retract from this the pricing will be very hard to wanted, very hard to get their arms around. whether you have pria in place, then you get to the question

whether the pricing is good enough for the companies i think he talked about that when you were asking him questions and enter vowi terviem that's where you could get some price certainty if you know where that long, long tail >> this isn't an easy fix or a solution that's going to come any time soon. how do you think this plays out over the next six months when we don't even know if the pandemic will come go away in the summertime, comes back in the fall >> the first thing is on the litigation important there will be complaints filed there's already been complaints filed. courts will begin to judge is whether this is property damage or not it will be state by state. there will be some differences there, although most people think you need bread and butter physical alteration of the premises to have either business interruption or civil authority. then there are legislatures

still threatening to undo those exclusions i thought that was unfair and incensible because the industry specifically avoided this. you could bankrupt the industry given they never collected premiums, many, many of the companies for this kind of exposure and congress will, you know, wind its way it could be several months, it could be fast, if they want to basically show that the industry should come back and get some strength but i agree with you that if you look at the history of the spanish flu and what's being warned here, the fall could be bad. the spanish flu had three waves, obviously. and i think it's going to be tough for insurers to kind of price this until we get through this pandemic and then probably with some kind of pria like statute in place, some are against it, some are for it. i think sure it will be voluntary, not mandatory, and then you'll see pricing come back you also heard him, he's very

long on the industry the industry is well reserved, it's solvent it's in, generally, a very good place on life and property again, the thing we have to watch out for is the interest rate environment both sides of the house, property and life, really, really, it's hard to do well enough when the interest rates stay super low for a super long time because they have to put the premiums they collect from you have to go in relatively safe, interest-rate sensitive assets >> eric, good to see you this morning. thank you for joining us. >> good to see you >> take care andrew >> thanks, becky. coming up when we return, the fight against coronavirus. gilead donating its supply of the drug remdesivir. we'll talk all about it next. as we head to a break, take a look at the biggest premarket decliners in the s&p 500

right back after a short break

good morning u.s. equity futures holding back in premarket trade the dow down 244 points. s&p 500 down 23 and change nasdaq off 51. the energy complex is weak after -- actually, rebounding last week almost back to 20 on wti. this morning back down almost 8%, to $18.23. >> meantime, just days after the fda approved emergency use of gilead's use of remdesivir, the company says it's donating the

entire supply to the government. let's get to meg with more on that story meg? >> good morning, andrew. they say that the distribution of that drug will begin as soon as this week we also learned, though, in the fda's letter to gilead granting that emergency thoeshgs use for remdesivir, the government said it would control the distribution of the drug in is surprising a lot of people in the biotechnology world an analyst who has covered the industry for a long time saying, quote, the aggressive stabs taken by the federal government controlling the supply and distribution of this medicine is unprecedented in our history of the industry, citing tamiflu, hiv vaccines, never before have they seen control. the issue is the supply of the drug it's a complex drug to manufacture and there is limited supply right now gilead has 1.5 million vials, which is 500,000 treatment

courses, or 250,000 for five-day course this is how they see ramping it up throughout the year right now supply is constrained. that's a question for what happens to other countries as they start to approve the drug the drug might be approved in japan as soon as this week there are questions about whether the drug will be available outside the u.s. as the u.s. controls the supply i talked with mike osterhlm from the university of minnesota and he said it could be a problem down the line. he said however we handle our own drugs and vaccines will in part determine how the rest of the world supports us with whatever drugs or vaccines they develop. analysts are modeling this to show with the u.s. supply, only u.s. patients will be able to be covered. it's one of the geopolitical arguments around access to these drugs. >> meg, i have two questions

one, geopolitical, one very domestic, which is to say, if we have, i think right now on average about 2,000 deaths a day still, and scott gottlieb talked about that yesterday on "face the nation" and he'll be on our broadcast later to talk about this, but how much does putting remdesivir in the hands of these hospitals, how much do you think that's going to change that number in terms of turning that dial >> we have to hope it will in the results we saw from the nih study, there was a trend towards a mortality benefit but it wasn't statistically beneficial yet in that trial of 1,000 patients, those getting remdesivir, 8% passed away versus 11% getting the placebo. it didn't reach that statistical cutoff so we have to determine from the data whether it does have an impact on mortality. >> my geopolitical question is, it was my understanding there

are certain drugs, i don't know if it's true of remdesivir, but other vaccines, when we do need to manufacture this and manufacture it scale and capacity, we can't just do it in the united states. we're going to need to use the facilities of places like india elsewhere. how does this decision change, you think, that dynamic? even just the ability to manufacture some of these drugs. are there other drugs out there we'll want that are in development right now that could be at risk or jeopardy in terms of at risk to our ability to get access to them in the future >> well, that's a key question and something we're already seeing play out because so much of the raw materials that go into our medicines come from india and china. i believe the supply chain from remdesivir is pretty complex and probably goes through several countries already so it's not encapsulated in the united states it's going through multiple countries already to get finished while it may be finished here, at some point it will be finished in multiple places in

the world and that's when we'll have more supply right now the supplies are constrained to those questions you're asking are important not just for this drug but the rest of the world that depend on the supply chain as well. >> it's always good to see you it's a good story to hear that this is going to be getting to people obviously, it's a little more xlin complicated with the geopolitical issues we'll be facing joe, over to you. coming up, much more on the markets. hong kong's hang seng plunging more than 4% overnight finally reopened after friday's labor day holiday. the shanghai composite is closed until wednesday for public holidays japan is closed until thursday and kim jong-un is alive a reminder, you can watch or listen to us live any time on the cnbc app as we head to break, here's a look at some scenes from yesterday from states that are reopening. at least to some extent, business across america. stay tuned need help like never before

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welcome back, everybody. this weekend the berkshire hathaway annual meeting took place. a little different this year this time there were no crowds perhaps the biggest news coming from the virtual berkshire hathaway annual shareholder meeting was the news that warren buffett actually sold his entire stake in all four of the airlines here's how he explained that decision >> i just decided i'd made a mistake. in the valuing, an understandable mistake it was a probability weighted decision when we bought that we were getting an attractive amount for our money when investing across the airlines

business, so we bought roughly 10% of the four largest airlines we felt for that we were getting $1 billion, roughly, of earnings now, we weren't getting $1 billion of the dividends but we felt our share of the underlying earnings was $1 billion. we felt that would go up rather than down over time. it would be cyclical, obviously. but it was as if we bought the whole company but we bought it through the new york stock exchange and we can only effectively buy 10%, roughly, of the four and we treated mentally it exactly as if we were buying a business and it turned out i was wrong about that business because of something that was not in anyway the fault of four excellent

ceos believe me, no joy being the ceo of an airline. but the companies we bought are well managed they did a lot of things right it's a very, very difficult business because you're dealing with millions of people every day. and if something goes wrong for 1% of them, they're very unhappy. so, i don't envy anybody the job of being ceo of an airline, but i particularly don't enjoy them being in a period like this where essentially nobody -- people have been basically -- i've been told not to fly. but the airline business and i have -- i may be wrong, and i hope i'm wrong, but i think it changed in a very major way and it's obviously changed in the fact that the four companies are each going to borrow, you know, perhaps an average of at least

$10 or $12 billion each. well, you have to pay that back out of earnings. >> let's bring in a long-time industry watcher, participant, for his thoughts joining cranda. bob, you wanted us to know that you actually warned warren years ago, don't do it don't do it. you said that he bought some u.s. air, lost money and then he finally succumb to the popular notion that consolidation had made the industry a great business and you still didn't think so. but it wasn't -- wasn't it a pretty good business or a much better business until coronavirus? >> of course it was, joe absolutely i mean, this is not about the airline business, this is about the capacity of the u.s. government to plan and implement

a pandemic plan, which they haven't been able to do and the consequences of the economy shut down of course the airline business is shut down it's going to stay shut down effectively until people feel safe gathering in small groups again. >> what are you talking about, they haven't been able to put in a pandemic plan which would have allowed us to stay open, like what >> like, for example, the plan -- it was for many years, there was a pandemic planning on the national security council. that's been eliminated the cdc in atlanta. >> what would we have done tell me how you would have handled it >> we would have had an adequate supply of masks. we would have had an adequate supply of equipment. the impact would have been a whole lot less than it has been. >> we'll see

obviously we're looking in hindsight at this. you know, you can go to the u.k. or visit italy, france, wherever you want to visit and the mortality rates per capita are much higher. this is a global phenomenon and to point to a cdc plan that would have stopped this, i don't know, that doesn't ring true to me >> it just put it in the category of things you and i disagree on, joe >> okay. all right. we could have had zero cases here, bob. from here on out, did you sell all of your airline stock? >> i haven't owned any airline stocks for many, many years. i owned some stocks when i ran american and i thought then and told my employees, i think this is a great business, makes a great contribution to the world but i don't think it's an investable business. >> should it be a utility? how would you satisfy the demand

that may come back -- may or may not, but let's say before the coronavirus, people want to fly constantly, how do you keep a viable airline industry operating because it's for the public good and obviously people love flying all over when you have leisure time, that's what you want to do, people want to travel. >> you're absolutely right, and i do think the airline business is, in fact, a utility it's really the only major transportation and inner city transportation system we have in the united states. it needs to be run like and regulated and insured like a utility. it's something we have to have and the consequences -- we need to deal with the reality that when we have something like this or when we have something like 9/11 and people are unwilling to travel -- not unwilling, unable to travel. it will have a profoundly severe

implication on society we need to shelter aviation so when the public wants to come back they are able to use it. >> how would you go about doing that given that there are arguments made, i think quite successfully over the years, that actually the deregulation effort has hept keep prices down and it's democratized airline travel despite debates whether there's been too much consolidation over the past couple of years if you were to regulate it and turned it into a utility, what do you think would happen? >> i'm not sure as a utility one of the things you do as a utility is you'd say, wait a minute, shutting this thing down absolutely is an insurable risk. the question is, who's going to be the insurer it seems to me, society as a whole. if we only have one

transportation system, we have to collectively ensurethe notion that we're going to ensure that risk now in effect we have because as the congress has passed various pieces of legislation, effectively we have provided the resources to keep the industry viable you see acres and acres and hundreds and husbands of people but they're waiting for the time when the public can come back. we have in effect done what i've talked about the fact is society has chosen to ensure to take the financial responsibility or a big piece of the financial responsibility for shutting the industry down the question is when we come back, is private enterprise going to once again continue to invest in this business or are we going to have to formalize the insurability of the continued operation of the airline industry >> bob, we appreciate it

thank you. we'll see you again. >> okay, guys. talk to you. >> andrew? thank you, joe coming up when we return, we're going to talk about the markets because futures are under pressure after friday's 622 point selloff for the dow. we're going to get some reaction from mohamed el erian straight ahead to some of the comments of warren buffet over the weekend and how to set up your investments this morning with futures moving lower we're back right after this.

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never bet against america. warren buffet's comments are straight ahead investors on edge when it comes to reopening america the ceo of restaurant brands which owns names like popeyes and burger king joins us to talk about getting things up and running. president trump talks tougher on china's role in covering up the outbreak futures are lower as investors worried about a brewing battle the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now

futures are lower. good morning welcome back to "squawk box" rate here. i'm andrew ross sorkin along with becky quick and joe kernen. the futures, we look like we're going to be in the red down 271 points on the dow s&p 500 looking to open down 27 points off nasdaq looking to open off 59 poingts. becky, big week end. >> yeah. warren buffet speaking to shareholders over the weekend at a virtual berkshire hathaway meeting. nobody there not the 40,000 people that are usually there. he still got his thoughts out. he says he remains convinced that nothing can stop america. buffet warrant investors not to get into a position where market disruptions affect them citing many historical examples, everything from the civil war to the great depression

he spoke about america's willingness to stand up against adversity. >> nothing can stop america when you get right down to it true all along, they've been interrupted, one of the scariest of scenarios is one group of states fighting another group of states it may have been tested again in the great depression and it may be tested now to some degree, but in the end the answer is never bet against america. now buffet didn't say whether he thought the stock market would improve over the next month, the next year, the next two years, but he did say over the long haul he knows that america will come back and be very strong. in terms of his own cash pile he is building that up.

he has $137 billion in cash up from $127 billion at the end of the year that's because they run an insurance company. they want to make sure they never have to ask anybody for any help and they can withstand everything >> we haven't seen anything attractive and, frankly, it wasn't predicated on this. the federal reserve did the right thing, and they did it very promptly which they should have and i salute them for it but that means that a lot of companies that needed money and probably should have done their financing a little earlier, but they're perfectly decent companies, got the chance to finance in huge ways in the last five weeks or thereabouts. i mean, it set records some companies have come back

twice. a number of very big companies that didn't bother to extend out their borrowings came a couple times. berkshire actually raised more money. we don't need it i think it's a good idea overtime and then there are some pretty marginal companies that have also had access to money so there is no shortage of funds at a pace with which we would not invest at. we don't see anything because we don't see anything that attractive to do that could change very quickly or it may not change, but in 2008 and nine, the truth is we weren't -- we weren't buying those things to make a statement to the world they may have made a statement to the world and i'm glad they did if they did, but we made

them because they seemed intelligent things to do and markets were such that we didn't really have much competition >> now the fed has promised to use a full range of tools to try and prop up the economy. buffet said he doesn't know the consequences of the fed's balance sheet expansion but he knows the consequences of doing nothing. >> i'd love to be secretary of treasury if i knew i could keep raising money and keep interest rates up that makes life pretty simple. we're doing things we really don't know the ultimate outcome. in general, i think the right things but i don't think they're without consequences i think they could be extreme consequences if pushed far enough, but the extreme consequences if we didn't do it as well. someone has to balance those

questions. >> again, that's warren buffet and you saw on stage with him greg able, vice chairman joining us is momt el erian. he is the chief economic advisor at allianz and, mohamed, great to see you this morning. >> thank you, becky. thank you for a great q&a with warren buffet on saturday. >> thanks, mohamed i know you were watching to see what he had to say about the markets. what did you think about his assertion with what the fed is doing and what the potential consequences are >> you know, becky, he put perfectly this debate, and it's not an either/or but it's a question of balance. it's a question for the marketplace. would you rather have the blanket support of the fed as we did this time around or would you rather have warren buffet's

rescue financing in 2008 people would argue either side of this. he pointed out on the one hand you get the fed normalizing markets quickly but on the ore hand you get people who shouldn't be borrowing raising money. that's the issue for capitalism. what's better? my own sense is the fed went too far in going to the high yield market, but i understand why they did it and time will tell what the consequences are >> mohamed, this time is a little different than 2008 back then it was bad actions and bad behaviors that led to the financial crisis it was activity at the banks and other places, consumers jumping in warren said this time is different. as we all know it, this was nobody's fault none of these companies did neck wrong, first they got slapped by the pandemic and then the shutdown of the economy. in a situation like that, should

the government be more responsive we're not talking about the moral response to just shut the economy down >> first it should be which part of government? should it be the fed or should it be the treasury second, what rules should govern this should there be certain terms in terms of behaviors of what you expect these companies to do and, finally, and i think warren buffet put it really clearly, you know, you and andrew and joe have pointed out, he was more cautious it was a very sobering tone because he kept saying we don't know what's ahead. he kept talking about whole scenarios of possibilities, not baseline which is very different from 2008 and nine he talked about tail risk on and on again he talked about balance sheet strength this notion of we don't know what's ahead, and he warned us not all the problems emerge on

the first day. so, you know, there's also an issue of how quickly should we step in with these blanket support from the fed look, if you are talking about the treasury and there were principles governing bailouts, i would be with you, but the fed opened up the high yield market for almost everybody and that raises the spec tore of zombie companies and we've got to be careful about this that eats away at what makes america special. >> mohamed, buffet said there are worst case scenarios that he could imagine that he didn't want to talk about worst case scenarios that's what he wants to make sure happens and what do you

want to make sure happens in terms of the economy reacting? >> he gave us an example airlines are an example. behaviors have changed this is a completely different sector coming out of the crisis. it will not be at full capacity. you talk about all those planes. he also spoke about some of his companies having a permanent loss in sales. he gave the example of easter for his candy and he talked about a lot of companies that are weak and not coming out. the notion that's coming out and when we reset, which we will, we will reset differently economists call it the 90% global economy what invest horse have to figure out is if you start to see

states open up again, if you start to see countries kind of open up again, if the virus dies down in the summer and doesn't come back in the fall, then what if we are dealing with the best case scenario or if there's some miracle vaccination or miracle treatment that comes up between now and the next fall, what then do you think how does it play out >> so the very best scenario is a vaccine or community immunity now. that would allow us to bounce back and forget this nightmare relatively quickly not completely but forget most of it. the more realistic best scenario is that we learn from the listing of the log bounds three things one is we can live with the virus. the spread of the infection is very low we can cope with those who have

fallen. >> people are not resizing which you keep on hearing over and over and over again. my hope is as we go through this lockdown and we lift it, we see all three things it is a white tail it is not the baseline, but it is a white tail and we should monitor it and hope it materialize zblz mohamed, thank you. it is great to see you again we will talk to you very soon. mohamed el erian >> thank you, becky. >> andrew? that was a great conversation, becky. when we return, we'll talk about tim cook delivering the ohio state commencement address he did it virtually, of course we're going to show you his memorable advice to graduates.

first they looked like they were going to open down dow down 286 points. s&p down 29 points, sdnaaq 70 points down. watching "squawk box" on cnbc. t so you can always say "yes" to putting your true colors on display. say "yes" to allegra-d.

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i did see at one point during the night it was 200 last night it was 300 and change boeing is "the biggest loser." this morning we'll take a look and it's adding to the 5%. boeing adding quite a bit to that drop and disney is down 3% after moffitt downgraded it from neutral to buy. there are some people who think disney did a pretty good job, at least down in florida with the theme parks if you read the front page of the wall street journal. two weeks before anyone else closed down down there, guys, and florida somehow has managed to avoid the worth case

scenarios. maybe it's partly because of the u.v. light, warmer weather, focusing on nursing homes early and shutting down disneyland and disney world certainly the theme parks if you're worried about airlines, there will be a lot of changes i don't know what the gate looks like do you have an i.d. that says you're antibody positive what makes it -- because no matter what, you've seen those lines. even when you have one of the passes you're -- it's crowded, right? i don't know how you -- >> not to mention if you are trying to clean down the rides after every time somebody is on it and if you're a family who decides to go to one of the theme parks, they're checking temperatures and one of your kids has a fever and you can't get in it's kind of complicated not to mention the number of people who don't show any

symptoms we don't understand what that is either. >> andrew? >> whole new world >> yeah. >> whole new world we've got some other headlines to bring you one of which may help this very situation. gilead ceo says remdesivir will get in the hands of doctors and patients and it will happen this week daniel o'day said his company has donated its entire supply of the drug roche says it's aiming to double the production of its coronavirus antibody testing to more than 100 million a year they tauted it while speaking to cnbc this morning. >> what's so special about the test, it's highly reliable, highly precise test. indeed, that has been an issue with the first generation of tests. now patients and societies can

rely on a highly, highly precise test. >> we're going to talk more about these stories in the next hour we've got dr. scott gottleib who's going to be joining us next retail, here's bad news on the other end of it all. we knew this was coming. apparel retailer, j. crew, miss the suits. they filed for bankruptcy protection and reached an agreement to restructure its debt like so many of its peers, the company was already struggling before the kroft spread but then the virus came becky? thanks, andrew in the meantime apple ceo tim cook delivered a virtual commencement address to ohio state's 2020 graduates he struck an optimistic tone. >> it can be difficult to see the whole picture when you're still inside the frame, but i hope you wear these uncommon circumstances as a badge of honor. those who meet times of

historical challenge with their eyes and hearts open forever restless and forever striving are also those who lead the greatest impact on the lives of others you are promised this day. many of you had to fight hard to earn it. now it's yours think anew act anew build a better future than the one you thought was certain and in a fearful time, call us once again to hope. congratulations to you all be great be well. thank you very much. >> guys, i teerd up a little bit reading his speech over the weekend. you start thinking about the 13,000 graduates from ohio state who have been waiting for this day. while it might be a small thing in terms of everything else that we've lost during this, you see the economy shutting down, people not being able to work and it just added to the list of things that we have lost because

of this pandemic and the shutdown i thought tim's message was the right one, kind of inspiring these kids, teaching them it's okay in times of adversity you stand up to it i just thought he did a great job. >> tough for college kids. be glad you're a sophomore she can't imagine being a senior right now where it's -- >> right. >> -- you didn't see any of your friends since three months ago you're not going to see. you're not going to have a graduation that's unprecedented then i always try to -- there's always someone who's doing so much worse then with your life >> it reminds me of the 1 percenter complaints >> right you're echoing -- you can't get rid of it. >> we have nothing to complain about compared to a lot of

people >> someone sent me a cartoon of marty mcfwlly and doc and they'e sitting in the delorean. doc says, definitely do not set it to 2020 definitely do not -- whatever you do >> i saw somebody on twitter yesterday who mentioned can i please go back to 2019 just so i can fly somewhere, anywhere? >> anywhere. >> could have, would have, should have. >> have you thought about davos? >> i have. >> you remember how great it was? i mean, the optimism it was like, we've got this licked the entire planet has it licked. >> contrarian indicator always always >> we have economies licked. business cycles licked we can focus now on carbon because everything else, we've just got it in the bag

not to worry then look what happened. we're back in 1917, '18. >> '18 >> yeah. >> who's going to davos this year not it when we come back, hear what warren buffet has to say about oil prices and the impact on the global markets and the economy eck it out wti down by 4.8%

welcome back to "squawk box," everybody. watching the markets this morning. wti prices down as well. right now it looks like crude oil prices are down 5 1/4% $18.75 still a huge improvement from

the last several weeks people are following it to see what the fallout will be of oil companies as a result of the lower oil prices here's what warren buffet told shareholders about oil prices this weekend >> you don't know where you're going to store the incremental barrel of oil. oil demand is down dramatically. the russians in the southeast were trying to out do each other and how much oil they could produce. when you get too much in storage, it doesn't work its way off very fast. you will have production of oil go down in the united states significant significantly. there are all kinds of formations that paid before and it doesn't pay to -- it doesn't pay the price that oil was trading at in the ground a year or two ago to that extent, if you're an oxy

shareholder or any shareholder in any oil-producing company, you join me in having made a mistake so far in terms of where oil prices went and who knows where they're going in the future. >> he was also asked whether he thought some of these oil companies could go to zero, whether bankruptcy proceedings could come he says, sure, it could happen he doesn't know how it all plays out. he has his own exposure through occidental. >> we'll talk about all of this, as we do restaurants, ceo of restaurant brands owner of burger king, timm hortons. pop eyes business pandemic and what's happening with these places right now. what happens with the full reopening? will there ever be such a thing as a full reopening? hopefully some day futures indicated down to 62

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welcome back to "squawk box," everybody. been watching the futures this morning and they are under a little bit of pressure dow down 260 points. that comes after a 600 point decline. nasdaq down 61 treasury yields, again, always keep an eye on the 10-year yielding at 0.6% andrew >> thanks, becky some new tensions between washington and beijing to tell you about this morning

the white house now reportedly weighing actions to move u.s. production and supply chain dependence away from china the president promising, quote, a very conclusive report on how the outbreak started in china. the a.p. reporting the u.s. intel is accusing china of covering up the severity of this virus. joe? >> thanks, andrew. meanwhile, america is reopening in certain areas more than half of all states are moving ahead with plans to partially reopen businesses. restaurant owners are faced with the task of working out a safe, profitable plan. restaurant brands operates 26,000 restaurants in more than 1,000 countries. it's the parent company of burger king, tim hort tons and popeyes. jose sill, ceo, of restaurant

brands you've either started reopening in the asia pacific region or mostly stayed open with a different format even in the u.s. and canada at this point. is that about right? are you 85, 90% reopened for takeout? >> good morning, joe we're closer to 95 plus% open in the u.s. and across our brands as well as in canada we're 85% open with tim hortons. in asia, we're closer to 80% europe, we still have countries shut down and in complete lockdown although it's starting to open up we're seeing spain, france, u.k., italy, markets completely shut down beginning to open up there's been tremendous pent up demand there are images as you've seen with long cues at the drive throughs in europe we're seeing the beginning of the opening of the dining rooms

here in the u.s. >> jose, it's obvious, i guess, that it's a microcosm what you're saying of what we're looking at as a country. not all of your areas are the same it's not a monolith in the united states. some areas you must like to open the dining room but that's not the case yet >> yeah. it's actually quite a challenge for our teams. we're working closely with local municipalities because each municipality in the u.s. as an example is looking at this with a lens towards their communities, towards their public and their constituents. so we're working closely to try to figure out is it going to be 25% dining room open in terms of occupancy, 50%, what's the timing of that in any case, we've been open in north america since the beginning of the crisis in march. we've been working hard with our team members and franchise owners to ensure our teams are

safe we've ruled out ppe across north america as well as internationally. we've got contactless procedures that we put in place for drive throughs as well as for pickup and delivery those are going to be really helpful steps in order to open dining rooms we're also looking at changes in the dining rooms to ensure we can stay socially distanced. we've added acrylic screens in many markets to ensure the front counter remains safe and ultimately the goal is to give people the confidence that they can enjoy a meal at burger king, popeyes, tim hortons safely and that our team members are being treated safely we've seen that continue to be evolved and made that happen through the time that we've had drive throughs even. and we plan to reopen our dining rooms as we have

>> trying to get people to patronize drive throughs, takeouts, everything else. you wouldn't know if an asymptomatic employee had been at one of your sites and do you feel confident that there's enough that you can do in terms of keeping the facility clean and testing employees and the ppe that you talk about, do you feel 100% sure that consumers can go in and get a takeout or get a delivery or order online and that what they get, the bags are going to be safe the containers that the food is in, there won't be any contamination anywhere do you feel confident it can be done >> joe, we've been running these brands for decades, right? burger king has been around since 1954 tim's since 1954 and popeyes

since 1970 we wouldn't move forward without the confidence of our ability to deliver safely we work closely with federal and state health agencies to ensure that the procedures we have are the best that we could have in terms of ensuring the safety and well-being of our team members as well as all of our guests we put in place temperature checks for quite some time we're one of the first in north america to do that we've put in place, as i mentioned, ppe, contactless procedures if you visit one of our drive throughs, we'll ensure that the transaction is going to be as contactless as possible to ensure minimum human contact to minimize any additional exposure here

we're confident in the process we're putting in place to be quite frank, the entire qsr industry has done an amazing job during the crisis to deliver consistently and safely. i'm super proud of our franchise owners to take this as serious as it is you are feeding america in as difficult a time >> you've got compensation for everyone which they obviously deserve. business has to be down a little we go and when i'm going i think, in addition to me wanting to get something from the place, i want to try to support it. i want to try and do anything we can to minimize this, but with the $3 increase, margins must be hurt and business must be down a little you're going to coast -- not coast but you're going to be able to navigate through these difficult times and come out the other side in your view? >> yeah, absolutely.

we have an incredibly resilient business, both at the company level and importantly at the restaurant level with our franchise owners it's been very difficult you don't see these types of situations ever. this is the first any of us have gone through anything of this magnitude in terms of impact across the country and the globe. our owners have been spectacular in terms of safety and well-bei well-being we've worked with them to ensure we've addressed all issues forly quit at this to sure that the owners have liquidity to weather this storm the c.a.r.e.s. act and the ppe loans, in addition to some of the work being done in canada, all of that has helped ensure that small business owners,

including franchisees, can weather this storm it doesn't mean it's not really difficult but our teams have done a spectacular job of dealing with circumstances and we've tried with a focus on the guest and ultimately doing our job well during a difficult time. >> great feel better about all of this, jo jose talk again let's talk again in six months and hopefully we'll be a lot closer to 100% across the board for your company thank you. >> thanks so much, joe appreciate it. have a great day. >> andrew. thanks, joe. coming up this morning, stocks to watch. check out today's biggest dow winners and losers at least pre-market that is. stay tuned, you're watching "squawk box" right here on cnbc.

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welcome back to "squawk box. let's take a look at futures we look like the dow will open down 222 points right now. the s&p 500 if we opened up would be off by 20 points. nasdaq would be off by 41 points want to bring you some headlines. this one is going to have a lot of people talking in hollywood and wall street. elliott management now reportedly financing a patent lawsuit against quibby "the wall street journal" reporting that the hedge fund will fund a lawsuit brought by interactive video company echo which is accusing quibi of

violating patents and i don't know if you've downloaded quibi to check it out but one of the technical features, which i've thought is one of the best features of the whole thing and may become the standard, we'll see. if you have your screen this way and then turn it this way, the image changes. so it's a closeup when you have it this way and -- this would be landscape mode portrait or -- >> it flips with the show and can actually change. some of the film makers are using it in a unique way the issue is there's another company, not quibi, saying they own that technology. >> echo. >> and now elliott management which has been one of the most aggressive activists out there effectively going up and funding that lawsuit against jeffrey

katzenberg and singer has been the activist against at&t and it will be a battle of the ages to think of jeffrey katzenberg and paul singer going at it. >> i don't see katzenberg shy away from litigation he went after disney. >> famously with disney. >> for "beauty and the beast" and "little mermaids." he settled that for $280 million in 1989. i don't think he's going to scare easily >> i think they're going to push back on this we'll see what happens paul singer is taking a stake in this other country they have been out there with this lawsuit for a while and quibi who raised a small fortune has launched in the midst of this pandemic

the issue is this was a product that was built to be mobile, built for people to be commuting in the morning, watching what they were calling quibis that's harder in this environment. we'll see what happens >> when we come back, from congress to the fed. hear what warren buffet thinks about watching top's response to the pandemic. check out this morning's pre-market winners and losers. stay tuned you are watching "squawk box" on cnbc flexshares may look simple on the outside. but inside every etf... there are untold hours of careful construction... infinite "what ifs?" and contingency plans. creating funds that help target gaps in client portfolios. tap untapped potential. and strengthen confidence in you. flexshares.

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tyson foods is out with quarterly numbers. profit came to an adjusted 77 cents a share in the latest quarter. the consensus was for $1.04. the beef and poultry revenue was also below forecast. the company is experiencing multiple challenges related to the covid-19 pandemic. can't say how long it's expected to last. stock's down 4% today. becky? >> joe, thank you. the second round of the paycheck protection program was launched a week ago today. and has so far provided more than 2 million loans worth more

than $175 billion. this followed the $349 billion for the ppp which was exhausted in just days here's what warren buffet had to say, what he told shareholders this weekend about the gov's response. >> i am 100% for taking care of the people that really get hurt by something that had nothing to do with. who knows how long it lasts. you've got millions and millions of people that are worrying about something that they weren't worried about a few months ago, and they didn't do anything they showed up for work on time and they pleased the people they dealt with and whatever it may have been. and now they don't have a job. they've been furloughed or whatever i'm totally for the basic idea and i think it's difficult

you can't worry. you carry on your best i give real credit to both congress for acting promptly they sort of caught on from what they learned in 2008 and '09, i think, and i give credit to trying to do what i think is very much the right thing. i don't sit around and think about how i could do it better >> buffet also talked about the fed's response to the pandemic >> jay powell, in my view, and the fed board belong up there on that pedestal with them because they acted in the middle of march probably somewhat instructed by what they had seen in 2008 and '09. they acted in a huge way and

essentially allowed what's happened since that time to play out the way it has march with the market essentially frozen ended up because the fed took these actions in march 23rd, ended up being the largest month for corporate debt issuance. april was even a larger month. you saw companies grabbing everything and spreads actually narrowed and every one of those people that issued bonds in late march and april sent a thank you letter to the fed because it would not have happened if they hadn't operated with really unprecedented speed and determination.

>> joining us now is leo tillman. he's the co-author of "agility." leo, it's great to see you specifically to talk to you about warren's comments because he's trying to assess risk and, i'll tell you, there was one moment during that virtual meeting that had on hand and he said it isn't that huge when you think about worst case possibilities. as somebody who spends their life thinking about risk, what did you think of his assessment? >> look, i think he's right on he's acknowledging a huge uncertainty that's facing investors, companies, government what he's thinking about is a range of outcomes that can come

out of this andemic. as a matter of fact, i think he's doing a much better job than a lot of the companies and investors that we have spoken to who tend to be quite optimistic following the fed actions, following the stimulus they believe that any kind of global financial crisis will be averted so they're not necessarily thinking about the range of services and the way buffet has been handling it. >> well, when we speak with investors and companies, we tend to classify the risks and uncertainties that they face in three buckets. one has to do with the path of the recession and the upcoming recovery in our mind they are not considering as wide of a range of these possibilities there is a narrative going on in financial markets that this is

going to be deep but short following by a v-shaped recovery we think it is going to be incredibly difficult to orchestrate given what is going on we have been working with decision makers on envisioning a wide range this enormous printing of money by global banks. all the way to the credit to consumers, emerging markets, defaulting on their obligations. then you have the set of uncertainties and buffet talked about that specifically, about fundamental change in behalf yorgs often that part. >> so that's the down side, and

i appreciate that you don't think that that component is being appreciated as much as it should is there an up side version that you think is even better that what's out there on the marketplace either >> it's very difficult for me to imagine that in finance there's the term tied to perfection where everything has to work out just perfectly in order for the current valuations to realize. when you think about the likelihood of different events, especially having to do with restarting economic activity in the middle of the pandemic when we still don't have initial testing system, we still don't have a vaccine, it seems quite a daunting task with lots of fits and starts when i think about the future, it's very difficult to imagine that you would have dramatic up side from where we are today

>> so what are you advising your clients, both in the investing world and also the ceos who are watching our program this morning in terms of how they run their business >> in periods of uncertainty like these, one of the things not to do, base it on one of the worst case scenarios we're thinking about this is more of an exercise of dealing with uncertainty whether you're an investor or a company, you have to envision a wide range of outcomes geopolitics. you need to fully understand how exposed you are to these scenarios. >> the information you need to search for the information that is relevant.

you can see what's happening you can map it on to your scenarios and then you act decisively, whether it's mitigating stress or capturing opportunities when you see relevant information emerging. >> right leo, but in that analysis, we have to run, but in that analysis, how do you think about the discovery and break through of a drug? it is possible but we will get news on a vaccine or on some other kind of therapeutic. for those who are out of the market, shorting the market, thinking about these down side scenarios, you can get caught way off guard if something great happens and it's obviously something we all want to happen. i'm not saying we shouldn't be realistic, but how do you factor that into your thinking? >> this is part of penetrating this as it was described we have uncertainty with respect to a number of factors, so the more proactive you are as an

entire organization in watching for this data, the more adaptive, the more agile you will be in reacting to whether it's negative news or positive news. >> okay. leo, thank you the book is "agility." we appreciate it great to see you >> great to see you. >> senator ben cardin on getting small businesses the money they need and getting ari bmecaack to work stay tuned, you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc at leaf blowers.

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breaking news. stocks set to pick up where they left off last week in the red. futures pointing lower at the start of another big week for earnings and jobs numbers. is america ready to get back

to work? some states are reopening and more doses of potential treatment are about to be sent out. we're going to talk with former fda commissioner dr. scott gottleib on all the fast-moving kroft developments. beck sure hathaway ceo warren buffet making a lot of news over the weekend. >> i will bet on america the rest of my life and i want my successors to. >> we have all of the highlights of buffet's message to investors as the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now. good morning, i'm joe kernen along with andrew ross sorkin and becky quick. hard to do that, isn't it? because it's not a mirror. >> to say that >> what's that >> no, he was pointing >> so like -- see, you're -- so

becky's this way you went the wrong way, too. >> becky's this way. >> who's that way? nobody >> is there? just your coach. >> it's brady bunch. >> this way? your life coach? >> it's the closs scity closet. >> u.s. equity futures, they're really not worth talking about after 600 points on friday, down another 250 points those aren't the worst numbers s&p is down 24, 23 and change. the nasdaq is indicated down 51.5 points. it's may, i think. >> i guess cinco de mayo is depressing i can guarantee you margaritas might make sense i will tell you one thing i did learn. real lime juice, which is harder

than hell to get, you have to squeeze so many limes. you don't need good tequila if you use real lime juice. >> i thought you were going to say -- >> if you don't use real lime juice -- >> one thing you learned, sunscreen. >> sunscreen >> you know what, makeup doesn't help so i don't even put it on if you get too much sun, it's just like there's nothing that can be done, which i like because the feeling of makeup is suffocating. you know what it's like. >> nasty >> it is it is. it's nasty >> then the jobs number. oil prices >> what day is it today? the 4th? >> friday was the 1st. >> does it matter? >> i think we're all living interrupted by brief naps and it's the same day. >> ground hog's day.

>> there's the alarm it's 3:50. i get up to go see andrew and becky. >> i got you babe. ♪ i got you, babe >> we're going to start this hour with the slow road back to coronavirus and america. as some states begin to reopen, there is a handful of what we might call alternative measures. our cnbc senior economics reporter steve liesman has been all over this. he's joining us with more. steve, good morning. >> good morning, becky we want to introduce at cnbc the road back thermometer which looks at three gauges which looks at the extent to which the economy is on the way to the road back. it's not the top of the third inning the first thing we're looking at is yelp store closings this is an average of the nation compared to a week ago

you can see it's still up 14% compared with a week ago the change is not really altered very much. second thing we're looking at is new infections as a percent of the average. it is as scott gottleib said this morning, pretty much running at the same 30 thousand paces where it's been. the next one is the. >> tom: traffic report we're looking at cities that are opening partially. you can see traffic congestion running 22% of normal. that's from tom tom. take a look at the map of states and their reopenings we tried to look at -- trying to find any change at all in either business closings and in traffic, and we couldn't really find it. one of the things that we're concerned about right now is that we may be seeing a second wave of store closings in here in part because of economics

some of the states hit by oil and a general downturn you can have stores closing because of the covid problem and are closing in part because of economic issues. three key issues we're watching. the first is by this map that you are seeing states, governments lifting restrictions the second thing is do businesses actually open the third element is do customers actually go but now we can follow this day to day and look at a variety of barometers to see if the economy is reopening. so far very little data to see if that's the ka is. >> steve, the big question is if you open it, will they come? it's kind of like if you build it they will come. >> right. >> is that the case here it's all just anecdotal but trying to read as much as i can to read from the big companies

that are opening it's anecdotal but that's the huge question we have to have answered >> for sure. think about it from a business stand point. if you're a business owner, do you have feel like you have the systems in place, the ppe for your employees can you make your employees safe that's one two is once the customers come in, can you make them safe i was trying to get to home depot yesterday. there was a very long line left in the sun to wait to get in that's what home depot is doing. we're also going to watch this yelp data to see if businesses are open or do you have additional closers you have a senator coming on to talk about small business aid. >> that's exactly right. thanks, steve and becky. that's exactly right

for more on the nation's economy and how we get back to some semblance of normal as well as the latest on the government's paycheck protection program, we are joined by senator ben car d cardin good morning to you. we've been talking about the idea of reopening and so many small businesses that i think ideally would like to do it but there is this question of demand and whether it's really going to happen and what happens. so before we can get into the loan program and everything else that's happening rate now, i'm curious what you think and what you're hearing is happening from your constituents? >> well, there's no question that all businesses, particularly small businesses, are having a real challenge. many are not able to open. they're having difficulty on so many different fronts. the paycheck protection program helps for eight weeks, but what happens after eight weeks? so clearly we are looking at how

we can help those that are in need we have to give special attention, we already have, to help our small businesses. >> do you think there's going to be a big second round of stimulus you talk to a lot of these small business owners, look, maybe we can get through eight weeks, maybe we can get through a little longer. at some point we need help if we are going to stay open in some cases social distancing requirements will only allow a few people in. >> clearly the first efforts on stimulus was to try to get money out as quickly as possible i think we were successful in doing that with the is checks, with the ppp program, with the unemployment insurance we did get money out the second round, this next

round we'll try to be much more targeted particularly for small businesses those with significant revenue losses, the smaller of the small businesses to try to target the program to the traditionally underserved communities. that needs to be our focus i do think there's bipartisan suppo support. >> one of the things i hear are the goalposts have changed the administration, congress said we're just trying to throw money at the problem if you are a small business, ask for the money, go get it, we want you to have access to the money. a week later we heard of small businesses but small businesses that might have had some money in the bank get named and shamed and all of a sudden there was a question mark about should you give the money back? how are they going to look at this later what's going to happen in some cases there were clearly

egregious examples of others getting the money. there are other smaller businesses getting it, who are off the radar, who wouldn't know, they are a little anxious now about even using it. >> well, you're correct in that we wanted to get the money out quickly. so we made it easy for the banks to do the underwriting 100% guarantee by the federal government, with you we did put a requirement on the small businesses to make a self-certification of need so there was a requirement that you had been adversely impacted by covid-19 and you needed some help so if you falsified that certification, that's not right. that's what secretary mnuchin is talking about, particularly with the larger small businesses. we wanted the money to get out quickly. >> do you blame the banks at all in terms of how this money got out? >> certainly and initially the

banks were showing favoritism towards their priority customers so the larger small businesses were able to get loans, whereas, the underserved communities, particularly those that under banked, were not able to get their loans. we did correct that in the second round, but at least initially, yes, the banks showed little willingness to try to reach out to the small businesses in greatest need. >> then my final question for you is -- and we're going to talk to dr. scott gottleib in just a moment, but with 2000 deaths a day still taking place and hospitalizations especially if you take the new york and tri-state area out of the picture, actual hospitalizations going up, is this a new normal that you imagine the u.s. is going to have to live with are the steps that we've taken thus far not working in terms of social distancing and in terms

of the stay at home orders >> i think we have to follow the public health experts recommendations. we believe there will be a significant slowing down of the serious cases. we are identifying more people and doing a test we hope the spreading is slowing down considerably and we hope you can get it under control clearly until we have effective therapeutics and have a vaccine, there's going to be a lot of anxiousness out in the public about this disease being severe and very deadly. >> senator, before i go, we had robert crandall going on earlier talking about the airline industry big former airline industry ceo. he said airlines should be regulated like utilities he said at this point given that we've decided that we are ensuring these companies as a country, we need to rethink how these companies are funded and what the role of the u.s. government is in them. how do you feel about that

nkts i think in the united states we're fortunate that we do have a significant number of airlines competition is good. we can get reasonably priced tickets usually. i like the idea that they're privately held i do think that you have to work under government regulation as they do today. i'd prefer them to remain pretty much private entities. >> okay. senator cardin, we appreciate it good luck and thanks for all the good work you're working on. appreciate it. >> thank you >> joe >> interesting senator's way to the right of old bob. anyway, coming up. warren buffet on the banks we'll talk to a top analyst about what the oracle of onmaha had to say about the airline shares, the afore mentioned topic closely after warren buffet said over the weekend that he sold out of the four largest carriers completely. u'ay tuned yore watching "squawk box" on cnbc these days staying connected is more important than ever.

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nos comprometemos a mantenerte conectado. we're committed to keeping you connected. for more information on how you can stay connected, visit xfinity.com/prepare. welcome back to "squawk box. the futures are at the best levels we've seen. now down 208 points. the s&p indicated down 19 or so and the nasdaq indicated down about 43 points. oil is weak this morning we've seen anywhere from 350, nearly 400 points down to it got under 200 at one point in the pre-market session down 216 right now becky. joe, thanks. one of the big differences in the current economic downturn and the one we faced during the financial crisis is the health of america's big banks that's something warren buffet

commented on at this week's annual shareholder meeting he spoke about the situation that the federal reserve faced then and the one that it faces now. >> i would say that the one thing that made chairman powell's job a little easier this time than it was in 2008, '09, is the banks were in far better shape in terms of thinking about what was good for the economy, he was at the same time worrying about what he was going to do with bank a or bank b to merge them with somebody else or put -- add strains on the system or anything the banks -- banks were very involved with the problem in 2008 and nine. they had done some things they shouldn't have done in some of them and they were certainly in far different financial condition than now so that the banking system is

not the problem. >> joining us now to talk more about the big banks and the midst of this pandemic is jeff hart he is the person that we've been waiting to talk to about some of these issues and get some of his response to this he's a principal at piper sandler. thank you for being here hearing everything that buffet had to say about this, he's a big owner in a lot of different banks. what's your take about how are banks prepared for it from this time around? >> warren made two very important and accurate points. the first one being this crisis is not a financial crisis. the last time the banks were the root causes. here they're more of the victims. secondly i think just as importantly, banks have to rememb -- people have to remember banks are very linked. they'll have problems in energy and consumer lending

i don't think you look at the bank universe and say, boy, they've got it made because they're in such a better position the bank stocks could struggle we're certainly not going to see the declines we saw last time and the worries about solvency i think this is a good time to be looking at banks to be kind of selective, right? if you can have a longer term investment horizon, you want to be looking at things that really beat out, something like a citigroup or banks that are getting no credit. if you look at the near term, you look at jpmorgan but clearly this -- economic crises are not good for banks banks are looking as good in this one, at least coming into it, as i can ever remember seeing them look before. >> all of the big banks took some pretty major writeoffs for losses that they expected to come as a result of this you think that was them being conservative you think that's them sizing

things up saying realistically this is what we're going to see we expect? >> i think it's a little bit of both one thing that stood out is the banks don't have a whole lot more insight than we do. that's different than usual. i'm used to looking at the jpmorgans, bank of americas saying they touch so many different parts of the economy, they have a much better feel with the economy largely shut down, they're playing it day by day. that's kind of the interesting oddness here, i guess. nobody knows what the future will hold. i think they've been very conservative in their reserve bills. as we've seen, the economic outlook changes week by week they're more conservative in 2 q and 3 q. if the economy gets better, we can release reserves that's the $64,000 question is

how quickly is the economy back -- come back and start using these reserves that they're kind of front end loading. >> you know, the banks were pretty bad behavior. it seems like senator cardin said the big banks put the biggest, best customers at pt front of the line and that wasn't right how much do you worry about political backlash and the flak that could come when people say, hey, wait a second, you didn't deal with us correctly you didn't do ppp the way it was intended >> you know, it's always an issue, especially when there's any kind of financial crisis going on, right? you would look for scapegoats and banks are kind of easy targets historically i think we're coming in with the banks in the best shape they've been in, not just from a capital

liquidity standpoint but also i don't see a lot of lending excess as you typically see coming into a situation like this, kind of the bubble waiting to burst so that bodes well for the banks as far as not being too much in the cross hairs. they'll come in the cross hairs and specifically from a political sense, you know, someone making a political case against, you know, the quote, unquote, fat cat bankers, they'll still go out and do that i don't think from what i've seen so far the ppe stuff has been terribly surprising given the way the rules were written, you have to expect the banks would take care of clients that would cost them the most and get them squared away first. by the time we get done with the second round it seems like there's a pretty deep, broad based spreading out of the ppm and small business loans the banks are doing the best they can in a tough environment, but make no mistake when you

have gdp going from growth expectations to very significant declines over a four to six-week period, there's going to be economic pain and no amount of federal programs or anything are going to eliminate a lot of that or all of that at least. >> jeff, thank you good to see you today. thanks for your time. >> good to be on thank you. >> andrew? okay when we come back, a lot more on "squawk box. former fda commissioner dr. scott gottleib is going to be joining us about how states are opening up there is a certain type of coronavirus test speaking of the fda, that agency granting approval to gilead sciences to release remdesivir we'll talk about that and what's happening. stay tuned you're watching "squawk" on cnbc every financial plan needs a cfp® professional --

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zbroogle technology painting a picture of the extent to which people are staying home. more people are heading to workplaces for example, april 10th traffic was down 56% compared to last levels by last friday it was down 48 4. on april 12th, retail and recreation sites was down 63%. by the end of the month it was down just 42%. have you ventured out, becky >> i rode a bike three or four blocks from here yesterday >> it's getting nice outside. >> yup. >> are you feeling the -- >> it is it's getting harder. >> it is getting harder. >> especially with the kids, yeah >> and it's like -- we can't -- i mean, it really is different,

our mindset. i saw a replay on nbc of the -- part of it, of the kentucky derek by from american pharoah year, and it was so crowded there. they had an overall shot it was so crowded i felt anxious just looking at the crowd now. before it would have been there's everybody, but now it's actually like what are you people -- even now i think no matter what i look at you now, andrew, you look like a walking germ carrier to me everybody -- we're never going to get back to -- you know what i mean though? how are we ever going to get back to a semblance -- >> you know, i never liked to shake hands to begin with. you knew that. >> you have to have a treatment. you have to have a treatment and/or a vaccination for people to feel comfortable. >> where i was getting, it was so gorgeous a couple of times over the weekend outside that i'm out there and i just -- it's not there.

it's only on people. it's like the world is still the same except for these people that are carrying around potentially a deadly disease it's very strange. surreal now with the weather getting so nice. >> it is. >> on a rainy, crappy day i wouldn't be out anyway >> yeah, but when everything is nice and the neighbors are out on the streets and you're saying, hi, stay away. nice to see you from over there. >> yes i've seen other neighbors where it looks like they're enterta entertaining a little. >> no. >> we don't do that. >> wait, are you -- andrew who's in your bubble >> we have one -- we have one friend in our friend bubble. >> and -- >> i don't know. i don't know. >> weakest link. >> you don't want the bubble to expand you have to keep the bubble in

the bubble. >> you don't know what the friend bubble -- >> you don't know -- it's the weakest link. >> you don't know where your friend bubble -- >> then you have to have trusted friend bubbles this is going to become the issue. >> circle of trust almost. >> right >> in the bubble all right. it's complicated you know, will this pass this will pass the magic of america. >> yes, it will. it will. i don'tknow when, but it will. when we come back, are the states making the right call by starting to reopen we're going to ask former fda commissioner dr. scott gottleib. meantime, here are some of the biggest premarket laggards in the s&p 500. you have an insurance company and four airlines. h'm. wonder why stay tuned you are watching "squawk box" ghhe ocnrit ren bc ♪ ♪

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virtual shareholder meeting, he didn't want to ask questions about the coronavirus. he went out of his way to say he is not an expert but he did single out dr. anthony fauci for praise >> i feel extraordinarily good about being able to listen to dr. fauci who i never heard of a year ago but i think we're very, very fortunate as a country to have somebody at 79 years of age who appears to be able to work 24 hours a day and keep a good humor about him and communicate in a very, very straightforward manner about fairly complex subjects and tell you when he knows something and doesn't know something. so i'm not going to talk about any political figures at all or politics generally this afternoon, but i do feel that i

owe a huge debt of gratitude to dr. fauci for educating and informing me, along with my friend bill gates, too, as to what's going on and i know i get it from a straight shooter when i get it from either one of those so, thank you, dr. fauci one of the latest coronavirus developments as well as what you saw this weekend with some states starting to reopen former fda commissioner dr. scott gottleib cnbc contributor and serves on the boards of illumina and pfizer dr. gottleib calls for scaling up rapid coronavirus ain't at this antigen tests similar to those for the flu or strep throat one of the things you said over the weekend was the stay in place orders that we put in here didn't work, or at least didn't work as well as had hoped.

what did you mean by that? tell us what you mean by that and how did we do it wrong >> well, look, they did work mitigation was intended to prevent a huge spike in the number of cases that would overwhelm the health care system we've clearly done that. we've flattened the curve. the health care system didn't become overwhelmed as we all feared cities like detroit, chicago, new orleans, that didn't come to pass i think a lot of us thought though that those measures would decrease the number of daily cases more rapidly and to a lower level and what we've seen is sort of a persistent plateau for around 30 days as we start to reopen aspects of the economy, it's unlikely those cases are going to start to come down even more more likely they'll creep up a little bit the only thing that could change perhaps this summer is the warm weather that it does provide a back stop. so maybe it cancels it out maybe the warm weather is a back stop and we get a bump in cases

and we plateau around the levels that's unclear now but i think a lot of us thought mitigation would have an effect on reducing the number of cases more sharply than has happened right now. finally i'll say we always knew that when we put in places mitigation steps what you do is you flatten the curve and you extend the length of the epidemic. it may be that it's still going to come down, we haven't seen it yet. >> the united states is so big europe you saw it move across europe here it's like our states are a flal gous to some of the countries as it moves across, you know, from where it wasn't before, it goes there and we're sort of seeing that, too can you explain what happened in florida? did you see "the wall street journal" piece there i saw them grill the governor for not doing what he was supposed to do the worst case scenario did not happen why?

>> unclear in florida the epidemic really stayed around miami. the cases do appear to be coming down in florida. hospitalizations are starting to plateau there, too they're not testing as much so i don't think i would sound an all clear on florida or georgia where they saw a bump up in cases. there could be a weather effect in florida we don't understand why some parts of the country seem more affected than others florida's skaecary scenarios ha not come to pass i think the challenge now is we're having 30,000 cases a day, 2,000 deaths a day hopefully that comes down from here we may have to grapple with the persistent level of spread we need to understand what that looks like what happens as we sort of plateau at 20,000 cases a day that we diagnose that means really 200,000 of cases a day, diagnosing one in ten. we sustain 1,000 deaths a day. how does that look

what do we need to do differently? one of the things we need to do is protect the vulnerable communities. they're more vulnerable to spread than others we need to focus resources into those areas. >> what kind of test are you advocating is it the typical positive antibody test? which one do you want? >> no, it's like a swabable stick. it's what we have for flu. sensitivity goes down when you use those tests. they're not as sensitive but they allow you to move testing into the community more easily, maybe even into pharmacies where you swab someone with a stick that has antibodies on it. you get a readable result right in a doctor's office that's going to allow testing to be ubiquitous. the box of tests for strep throat is 100 bucks, maybe a little bit more. it's cheap, easy, you can move it into the community. >> i see what you're saying. in terms of vaccines, we heard

the president, and just like everything, he's going to get -- if he says we can have it by the end of the year as far as a vaccine, people are going to immediately say it's a false hope, but you have said it's possible that there's something in the fall, at least we might identify something that seems to work maybe we can't scale it up to hundreds of millions of doses, but it's possible in the fall that j&j and pfizer or oxford or moderna could have something maybe we'd have more than one that worked? >> yeah. look, i think we need multiple companies to be successful the more that we reopen against the backdrop of spread when we know there's persistent spread, the more dependent we are. i think by the fall we can have millions of doses. maybe low tens of millions of doses. we can deploy a vaccine and in a protocol if we have an outbreak, deploy

it to bring the infection and use it therapeutically potentially and learn whether it's fully safe and effective. that's how these vaccines are likely to be used in a settings of outbreaks in the fall >> we will maybe see remdesivir used now that they're trying to give it out freely we don't know mortality wise whether there's improvement, but we kind of might extrapolate to that if you get out of the hospital quicker do you expect to see that help and are people still prescribing hydroxychloroquine in certain settings do you know at this point? they're still doing that, aren't they >> well, with remdesivir there's a trend towards improved mortality. the trial isn't done we'll continue to follow the patients i suspect the drug is shortening hospitalizations and it's reducing viral load. it will have an impact on

mortality when the trials run to completion it's certainly providing benefit. as we've said all along, it's not a home run it's a first generation drug with respect to hydroxychloroquine, the doctors have pulled away from it when you talk to the doctors in new york city, those are primarily who i talk to, they have pulled away from it there are still clinical trials underway we'll have an answer on whether or not it's providing a benefit, but if it is, it's probably pretty modest or we would have seen a more robust treatment. >> you remember ebola, remdesivir, that was supplanted or at least there was an additive antibody treatment, i think. when do you expect that? is that possible by fall to have another therapeutic to use with remdesivir to have an even more powerful effect? is that possible by fall >> absolutely. there's four companies working on it.

they all have antibodies they've identified they'll be in the clinic the challenge will be manufacturing it to a scale. we could be investing in that. that's where the government needs to focus attention, trying to free up manufacturing space domestically we could have more of these available in the fall. if you have a therapeutic antibody with remdesivir, that's a pretty good toolbox. combine that with massive screening which we'll have in the fall and you're starting to have a technological toolbox and we can return more aspects of the american economy back with the semblance of normalcy. we're dependent on technology. flatten the curve. it hasn't snuffed out the virus. it will probably flare-up in the fall these tools should really help us >> dr. gottleib, you mentioned the antibody tests they can quickly in the doctor's office tell you if you have the

antibody you can get them for $100. are they readily available if they're not, when would they be >> anti-body tests and antiagain tests. the antibody tests on the market tests for antibodies to see if you've been tested the antigen test has an antibody on the stick and it's testing for the antigen, the particles that the virus produces in the blood. the two bind together. they can be used for rapid diagnostic when you get a rapid flu test, someone swabs you or strep test, it's an antigen test they're under development. i don't know where they are. they give false negative results. they're not as sensitive as a pch. >> referee: based test but they are so cheap and easy to use, we should be making an effort to get these onto the market pretty soon i know we're going to have them,

it's just a question of when >> doctor, i've got two questions. one, a medical one i know a lot of business executives have been reaching out to try to get the antibody test, specifically from lab corp and a couple of other places are you recommending that? do you think that makes sense? if you get the antibody test and you find out you have the antibody, how should you change your behavior? >> i don't think those antibody tests are useful for individual decision making around patients. they're useful for figuring out how much of the overall population have been exposed in different settings, different workplaces if you do go out and get an antibody test and you get a positive result, i would suggest you repeat it because there's such a high false/positive rate to say you have antibodies that i wouldn't put any stock in any single result. if you repeat the test and you get a second positive test, the positive predicted value of that test goes up you can have a little more

confidence if it was me, i would repeat it three times. i know they're expensive i wouldn't put confidence in any one test. >> and then if you had it and you felt like you were positive, and you did it two or three times, would you take off your mask i mean, i'm trying to understand what the true implication is here >> i'd have a little more confidence i'm speaking personally right now. if i truly had the infection, i've cleared the infection, have evidence of it on antibody tests and i've been diagnosed and you've gotten it and are better, you can reasonably be confident you have immunity. how long that lasts, it might be months it might be a year or more for the next six months you can be confident you won't get reinfected i wouldn't go out and do crazy things i'd feel more confident if it was me. >> can you weigh in this issue that meg tirrell brought us, that because the federal government is taking over the

gilead remdesivir drug, it's unlikely to be available at least in the immediate term to other countries and the implication of that in the geopolitical perspective, our inability to access vaccines and other things that need to be manufactured outside of our country. >> the idea that the american government is going to try to control the supply and stockpile this doesn't supply me i think we should have assumed they were going to do that i think there's going to be an effort made by the government to allocate drugs to other countries. i think they need to do that part of the gilead supply chain, as i understand it, coarses through other countries. you can't cut them off if you are dependent for aspects of ingredients that go into the drug there will need to be difficult decisions made about allocating a certain amount of that supply to countries europe will improve it soon. europe will want a commercial supply the american companies will have

to approve it. they're working on the allocation decisions, they don't have to be made. i think that's going to happen we'll have hopefully millions of doses by the fall. the fact that the fda a proppro the supply chain, that doubles the supply chain. >> you can't just get an antibody test, right you said it's expensive. what would you do? if you wanted one, how do you do it >> well, you can just get them now. quest is offering them a lot of the commercial labs are. there's a test that -- you can go to a doctor's office, some are even advertising. >> go to a doctor's office >> yeah, i think they're around $100 i wouldn't go online >> okay. all right. doctor, thank you. appreciate it. andrew. >> thanks a lot. okay you know, i've heard about a lot of people who have been trying to do it even in the past 72 hours, a big move afoot to try

to buy those, get access to those tests. meantime, when we come back we're going to check in with jim cramer as we make our way towards the monday morning opening bell we are in the red. 233 points down on the dow we'll talk about it all with jim in just a moment as a reminder, you can watch or listen to us live on the cnbc app. stay tedun, you're watching "squawk box" on krooing r cnbc and the simple joy of washing your hands, without ever touching a faucet. and we know you do too. stay tuned, you're watching

welcome back share buybacks were a topic of the conversation at the berkshire hathaway annual meeting. warren buffett said companies should buy back stock only when shares are at a substantial discount to their value. he shared his thoughts on the practice >> it was very, very short period where they were 30% or less, but we -- i don't think

berkshire shares relative to present value are at a -- at a significantly discount than they were when we were paying somewhat higher prices it's like if the facts change, i change my mind, what do you do, sir? so, it's -- we all think about it but i don't feel it's far more compelling to buy berkshire shares now than three months, six months, nine months ago. it's always a possibility. we'll see what happens >> for more on the broader markets, we want to bring in liz young from bny mellon.

you heard what warren had to sa over the weekend did it impact your thinking on how you're advising clients? >> it didn't impact the thinking, because i agreed with a lot of the things he said. he was positive on the u.s. economy long term, but in the short term acknowledged we have low visibility into this environment. leading up to this point or the last couple days of last week the market was priced for a perfect recovery the chances of that happening still exist but a lot of things have to go right at the right time in order to come to fruition >> therefore what are you doing? we're looking at markets down -- it's gotten better than its worst point this morning the dow off about 211 points this morning >> what i've been telling clients last week and the week before is i would welcome a little bit of a pullback here. i would like to see the market get more rational about the fact we don't know how this will impact companies, we don't know

that it's going to be a clean recovery so i constantly keep telling them stay cautious but present this isn't time to run for the hills, it's time to be in the market but be careful where you're taking that risk. it's not time to be a hero i agree with warren, i wouldn't be going after that deep value stuff that's been beaten down. i think it will take a while for consumer behavior to get back to normal or we have a widely available vaccine, which doesn't seem like it's happening for another year or so so you have to be careful not to take too much risk in the near-term, the risk probably outweighs the reward. beyond that point, you see more reward for that risk taking. >> liz, thank you for your insights as always great to see you look forward to seeing you again very soon. >> thank you >> becky, over to you. >> all right

let's get to cnbc headquarters and check in with jim cramer i know you were watching buffett over the weekend what's your take >> i think short-term, yeah, very negative in the sense he didn't do any reassurance, which is greatthat he didn't, there' nothing to reassure about. long term it made me feel good i always try to figure out what to do with my i.r.a. and with my self employment, i felt like what he's saying to me is there's no reason to put more money to work and the market go down but for my kids, don't do anything he was point blank saying i'm not putting money to work. so why put money to work i thought the airline analysis was so great he said listen, we don't like them anymore, we're going to go. he was fabulous. and you were fabulous.

i thought the q & a was so pertinent for the time talked about commissions versus s&p, but he didn't talk about the makeup of the s&p and whether that will hurt therm during a pandemic. two-thirds of the s&p is really bad during a pandemic. >> i was thinking about you when i asked that question. you made the valid point that the market will not treat all of these things equally there will be sectors that don't bounce back in the same way. i think his concern is for people who don't do this for a living don't worry about it bet long in america, don't bet against them, at least not in the long haul. >> when you're my age, i'm not betting against america, i don't have the long haul i think my kids have the long haul, but i don't. when you listen to him, he's fortunate enough to live a very long life and still enjoys things when i listened to him i said,

gee, i feel less certain i want to go a long time, too but i didn't feel reassured. i think he's saying don't commit a lot of money to the decline. it may not be an easy decline, but don't change your long-term view >> jim, you're not that old, you have long term -- >> but when you listen to him, i'm thinking about not putting more money in, not taking money out. timing is something he believes that most people can't do. when i listen short term, what it said to me is, wow, maybe this is the tsunami, and maybe you can get out and get back in even if you're an index fund guy. i felt that way. it was very unsettling, becky. it was a very unsettling annual

meeting. maybe because there's no people there. you asked your questions, it was like wow, there's just things wrong. at any given time, his whole defense of why he had to sell the airlines, he was couching how great they are, but it made me feel like he doesn't think they can ride it out as well as he thought you talked about the billion dollars and thought they could make more. that was the greatest exercise in money management i've heard in years it made me feel like, wait a second, this time is different >> i have to say the questions that came in this time were much smarter, much more relevant questions, and we got thousands and thousands and thousands of them >> you did such a great job. >> thank you >> i loved it. >> you're sweet. >> my wife said what are you doing? i said i'm watching one of the more entertaining things i've had since covid. i said it's great. you can't get it on netflix. you did a great job. >> thank you it was great going back and forth with you this weekend.

>> absolutely. >> we'll see you in a few minutes. don't missar mc benioff, he will be on "mad money" tonight. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ find a stock basedtech. on your interests ♪ or what's trending. get real-time insights in your customized view of the market. it's smarter trading technology

for smarter trading decisions. fidelity.

good monday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer and david faber live from separate locations as we kick off another busy week of earnings and a jobs number on friday dow futures down about 200 reflecting in some part warren buffett's comments over the weekend about not seeing anything attractive in stocks and the president's comments on china last night oil is slightly red despite indications that gasoline demand ticked up this weekend, jim, as some states continue to get that