target because it is being called the opium of the mind in an article over there. a closer look at the return to work for major companies as covid cases surge in the u.s it is tuesday, august 3rd, 2021. "squawk box" begins right now. good morning welcome to "squawk box" here on cnbc i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. joe, you are right positive territory yesterday at this time. the dow actually set an all-time high early in the session before giving it all back and closing down 100 points. s&p was down this is four of five sessions that dow and s&p were down

nasdaq eeked out a gain of a point. to put it in perspective, the s&p and dow were 1% from an all-time high. we should check out treasury markets at this point. the yields continue to be under the extreme pressure yield for the 10-year right now below 1.2% 1.159% the "squawk stack" with the other indices. within a spitting distance of all-time high. i feel i say that every day. and right now the dow transports are 11% from the all-time high you are talking about correction territory for one of the big indices. russell index is down from the all-time high. energy was weaker. down 3.6%. big drop for wti

energy is down energy is 11% from the all-time high the s&p health care index at the all-time high yesterday. those are the ones that we are watching and continue to plow ahead. andrew becky, this story may explain a lot. disturbing numbers from the cdc. seven-day average of daily covid cases surpassing the peak from last summer. the agency said the peak of 73,000 was hit on friday the daily numbers pulled back on saturday and sunday. the white house saying one-third of the covid cases occurred in florida, texas over the last week the briefing wasn't all bad news the daily death rate of 300 per day is well below the last summer peak of 1,100 daily deaths monday's cdc data showed 70%of u.s. adults had at least one

shot of a covid vaccine. nonetheless, you see how you this is weighing on markets and potentially we will see if it changes people's behavior. joe. thanks, andrew i saw 49 that must be both shots. not surprising if you got less than 50% vaccinated. the other 50% can catch it there are breakthrough cases we will talk about it in a second you know, half the country is still theoretically infectible easily >> easily infect ible >> easily. you look at sporting events and lollapalooza is that why you were out, andrew >> i took a day off.

i had one of the kids. >> you are going to the wedding? not wedding, but birthday party? a puddlejumper up there? >> which birthday party? oh, the obama birthday party at martha stewart no, not martha stewart martha's vineyard. i go to the mailbox every day and the invitation has not arrived yet. do i you need to send my regrets? how do i feel about 400 people >> funny, watching the cable universe the right-wingers are insisting it is fine for the president to do that. it is weird. so many strange things they are saying don't worry about it you should be able to have maskless parties now the left is saying what is

he doing i don't know i need an explainer. a flow chart >> now we're into gossip i don't know the rules i think they are running p protocol with the vaccine and testing. i don't know >> they are. when i hit 60, it will be a major celebration. >> i'll be waiting for that invitation, too. i'll wait even longer. >> when you turn 60? >> it might not be snail mail, sorkin have you checked the filters >> i'll check the spam. >> maybe you have been blocked. i want to talk about general

electric i'll talk about other things they had the reverse split i don't know what is happening with ge. it never works it gives people the opportunity to get out and sell or short immediately, it went down $3 the way i saw it, i wish i could do a reverse split for my weight it was a $9 stock -- oh, look. >> not a reverse split. >> i know. ge is $100 again they are doing a heck of a job that guy's a genius. it's a $100 stock. i want to do that. i want to do something to fanaggle and you weigh 15 pounds less can you do that? >> sure. adjust the scale slightly. twist it >> remember the split and see where it goes from here. maybe it goes up in the past, just like stocks that split and see it go up, stocks with a reverse split

gives people the opportunity to maybe -- i'm not saying that will happen to general electric. more governments requiring masks indoors this week. andrew, i liked your tweet about the teachers. >> i did, too. >> i don't follow you. i'm glad you. >> i do. >> i don't follow you. someone retweeted it to me i'm glad you are consistent with your criticism of things like that i thought the teachers might get a pass it was not shocking to me. they didn't show up to the classrooms >> explain the background for people who are not following. >> why did you tweet they decided not to mandate. >> to be clear new york state union teachers organization and to my understanding, by the way, the american teachers federation, which oversees them, may be in a different place. i have gotten a lot of responses since i sent out the tweet

that particular group said no vaccines not know vaccines, but no mandate for teachers to me, as you know, we had lots of conversations about mandating vaccines in the workplace. not only that, but the fact that the teachers union or a lot of teachers unions, plural, sought to get the vaccines first and sought not to put teachers in the classroom over the last year it seems crazy to me to think that now they're saying they don't want to mandate it they want the option. >> i need a flow chart to see how i'm supposed to think about it everything is bass-akwards now you are trashing teachers unions >> he is trashing the inconsistency. i agree with you 100%, andrew.

>> strange bed fellows >> to be clear, i will get in more trouble i always had questions about the teachers unions more broadly my consistency is -- there's more to it you and i and becky talked about cha charter schools and success academy. that is something i always -- >> charter school proponent? i didn't know that >> i am. >> you are >> i will be on record to say it. >> all right i don't know you, i don't think. maybe i have this version in my mind this straw man. >> thank you >> far be it from me to set up a straw man. louisiana and several san francisco bay areas are resuming mask mandates and new york city officials are recommending

masks. republican senator lindsey graham tested positive for covid after a party with several senators he tweeted he is glad he is vaccinated without the vaccination, he believes the symptoms would be far worse. we glossed over this was a party. this was on the "uss manchin." >> manchin's boat. >> thune was manning the grill or whatever they were serving. maybe it was beyond meat who knows. one of the bipartisan parties that manchin tries to set up to bring together about the bipartisan infrastructure deal >> the question that comes in, if this is a situation where other people get it on the boat, all of the senators. >> they tested negative so far. >> they are hoping to push the

passage of the bill. the senate, unlike the house, you are not allowed to vote in be ab stensia they are looking to do that by friday there is a situation where many are leaving for the former republican senator who passed away they are going to his funeral after this week. just a lot of questions about whether this can get passed in this timeline. >> once again, we're struck with it is not the vaccine. it is the immune system of the person lindsey, i have no idea about his underlying health conditions he is over 70. you cannot guarantee when you get a vaccine that -- my point is it is not the vaccine's problem. you need an immune system response to prevent you from

attracting covid it is not a vaccine to kill the virus. it gives you the ability to kill it >> it is not perfect the other issue yis the declinig immunity over time that brings in question the booster shots. my question is lindsey graham and other senators got it early. that brings up the question if you need a third shot at this poi point. coming up, futures i felt frustrated we check futures every five minutes they were up 150 and closed down 9 90 futures pointing to gains. we will look at what is working currently at 6:12.23 this morning. and this is a look at simon properties it bounced back to the

pre-pandemic levels in june. it is hopeful to sign new leases, but that was in june it's august. who knows? we'll be right back. >> announcer: this cnbc program is sponsored by truist securities go aflac!!! what the heck, troy - that's not your kid! the aflac duck is just covering for sophie. same way he got me money to help cover her hospital bill when my health insurance didn't pay for all of it. but this isn't fair! that's exactly what i said! but then i learned health insurance isn't even supposed to cover everything. wait...for real? for real real. luckily i had aflac. aflac!!! get help with expenses health insurance doesn't cover. go aflac! !mm-hm! get to know us at aflac.com. competition beat us again. how? they have a better finance system than we do. i feel like they might have a better finance system than we do. workday. how do they make better decisions faster? workday. it's got to be something workday. i think i got something. work...

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pepsico set to sell tropicana to a private firm pia partners for $3.3 billion to retain a stake in a new venture. a joint venture with the two companies. the report comes amid the market decline in fruit drink sales joe, i grew up drinking tropicana orange juice from concentrate. then in the milk jugs of sorts, if you will. i like to have the bits in t. >> i was a non-pulp person >> i don't drink much orange juice because of the sugar >> the calories. sugar for you. calories for me. >> same. same >> you drink a glass of orange juice and you assigned yourself 20 minutes on the treadmill. i don't know if that is enough. >> importantly, i don't give it to my kids

we would have the frozen concentrate orange juice, andrew i don't give it to my kids because of the high sugar content. i like it. >> you get the jolt instantaneously. i guess that's sugar do you ever do that 5-hour energy stuff >> no. >> i saw an ad >> i drink decaf coffee. >> i saw that commercial and he is getting ramped up to go fishing. should i do that in the morning? >> i've never done that lots of ice coal fee icoffe in the morning >> the doughnuts. >> and when i first actually -- ten years ago when i started on the show i used to drink sugarless red bull it was so early in the morning i have adjusted. >> sugarless red bull.

all right. august we're in august. it came quickly. last august, they canceled it. august can be a rough month for the markets. joining us to talk about it is paul hickey and sylvia i'll start this with a blanket comment to both of you thanks for joining us. paul, you look for the markets to be up 5% at the end of the year sylvia, i don't see you running and hiding from delta either both of you think we should still be business as usual in terms of finding earnings and stories that make sense and ignore sort of the disturbing back drop. sylvia, i'll start with you. >> yes, good morning, joe. if we look at earnings, so far, we have 88% of the names beating

to the tune of 50% or so the market has not favored or benefits the top line earnings repor reporters this season so far that will play out in the next year the variant is a risk to the market we know what we're dealing with now. i think that will see more people get vaccinated. in the meantime, there is a big demand to get back to life and back to traveling and back to the workplace and things like that i think this is going to push the economy forward. trillions of dollars in the market the companies out there are laden with cash. billions of dollars of revenue i think we go up from here i think there are a lot of opportunities in the market to really give portfolios and investors some access to gauge for the rest of the year >> paul, your comments i guess that means the reopening stocks names that pulled back a little is it time to revisit those and

take new positions >> joe, one of the factors of the market since the lows last year that has impressed us is the ability of the market to rotate smoothly without causing big hiccups in the market. last september, we saw tech peak on a relative basis. consolidate for six months what happened? energy and financials and instrumentals and materials picked up the slack. the first quarter of this year, interest rates were rising and peaked the first quarter then those reopening and cyclicals took a pause the faang stocks and growth stocks started to out perform. as interest rates have come down so far and we got to 1.17 yesterday. we start to see rates rise which we expect to see here a bit, i think some of the sectors that have been consolidating for almost six months will start to pick up momentum and take the

baton back from tech and growth rate you look at the small caps they never quite hit 10% correction on the closing basis. just about a week ago, they got there are an intraday basis. that is the longest correction without a 10% rally. this is the seventh longest in the history of the russell we had the sideways trading action when you look within the russell, we talk about valuation in the market being high profitable companies in the russell with 17 times earnings versus 25 times the s&p 500. >> sylvia, we heard paul and we had the rotations and described a lot of things went up. it sounded like a description of what easy money does you can still feel you can find more attractive names that will be selectively do better than

others with all of the easy money? everything's going up. nfts are going up. everything is going up it makes we wonder if it is fed. >> we have a broad based market rally for sure that's partially because of the fed and liquidity in the markets. consumer spending. multitrillions of dollars in savings accounts to benefit the market and infrastructure spending i like sectors over others and stocks over others i love the 5g trade. the 70% there. president biden to spend in rural and urban area stocks like nvidia from $36 billion to $486 billion in market value you amd with 100% conductors will ge

that is the machine learning the cloud. and faang. they gave weaker forward looking guidance with apple, if you look at revenue growth, google with 50% plus and microsoft 25% plus plus i think those kcompanies are lok nath looking into the future. amd and tesla with the full info-tainment. the tech sector and the 5g >> paul, you like the 5g >> long term, that is great. sylvia is talking about the great long term. short-term, cyclical reopening trade trade. >> thank you, paul hickey and

sy sylvia thank you. good morning to sleep in that didn't happen. no, no good morning to be up. you never know with the futures, joe. when we come back, we talk about the approach to back-to-school season and an important report for parents of college students. this one on tuition insurance. that story is next. as we head to break, check out the cryptocurrency the sector seeing outflows for the fourth week in a row shares hit $19.5 million ending on friday. that came from bitcoin and related products bioitcn down this morning about 1.8% we'll be right back. >> announcer: what's working is sponsored by comcast business. bounce forward at comcastbusiness.com. f thought ls offers investors a broader view. ♪♪

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eli lilly. i don't think that's a real trade there. we'll see. just reported adjusted earnings. two cents shy. $1.87. revenue above the company reported $6.74 billion versus $6.619 billion kind of interesting that the $1.87 the company earned versus $1.89 last year. the company is comfortable with adjusted earning per share year view of $7.80 to $8.

the street is $7.90. that is three cents shy of last year drug companies have a lot they deal within terms of things going off patent and new medicines and everything else. it is not unusual to see a flat year or even a down year that's what we're looking at for this fiscal year the company also said that its covid therapy, the 2021 estimate of what it would get from covid-19 therapy, they are cutting that revenue from $1 million to $1.1 million. we will talk to david ricks of eli lilly. he joins us in the next hour in the first interview. we will look at where the stock is indicated the ask is down 10 cents from where it closed.

becky. thanks, joe. back to school season starts this month as we all found out last year, there are certain circumstances, including covid, that can really derail a student's semester. sharon epperson has one way where families can protect their investment good morning, sharon >> good morning, becky here is what families and students need to know. most colleges won't refund tuition if a student has to leave school >> only 6% of universities and most graduate schools, provide a refund if a student has to withdraw a death of a parent or concussion or mono or covid or if you become seriously ill with anxiety or depression. universities are not in the position to provide refunds. >> that is where tuition insurance comes in covering tuition and housing and

fees in some cases for legitimate medical or psychological reasons for withdrawal >> which tuition insurance you buy will dictate how much it reimburses you and which costs i have seen some of them that will reimburse up to 100%. >> many schools offer tuition insurance to a third party like gradguard or dewar you will pay one-third for the partner schools or $106 for a $10 t 10,000 of coverage grad guard will allow you to buy on your own if your school doesn't offer it tricia thought it was worth the investment for her stepdaughter, a rising junior. >> we have challenges from covid. all of the stresses that students have when they first go away to school and potential for getting sick

it seemed like something that made sense >> now with covid cases on the rise again and mental health concerns at the forefront for families, gradguard has more than doubled the insurance polic policys it sold this fall come pardon to last year. >> sharon, the person gets to college and the courses will be remote because of covid. if the student decides they withdraw because they don't want to do remote, would they be covered by the tuition insurance polic policy >> no, gradguard, says this coverage is not about dropout insurance. it is not coverage for the change in the way schools deliver their education. it is designed for those unexpected events of medical or mental health conditions and if you ystart attending a universiy and it is not for you and you choose to leave early, most of

the time that is not covered or called a covered event or reason tuition insurance most likely will not reimburse you if it was a personal decision, but it is really there to help protect against unforeseen events like illness or injury. gradguard ceo says most of the time as long as you have a legitimate physician withdrawal, you will not have difficulty getting a claim paid and it pys quickly. >> sharon, thank you good to see you. >> sure. see you, too. coming up on the other side of the break a closer look at the return to work for major companies as covid numbers in the united states continues to surge. we'll talk about it next as we head to break. a look at yesterday's s&p 500 winners and losers

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good morning welcome back to "squawk box" this morning futures right now. dow up 162 points.

s&p 500 up 72 points nasdaq looking to open higher, be becky. andrew, thanks according to data out from p paychex. joining us rights now to talk about it is marty musey. paychex ceo. ma marty, these are strong numbers. what is driving it >> becky, leisure and hospitality driving it you are seeing it up 12% growth over last year up over 10%. you are seeing more hours and higher wages and hearing bonuses are being paid to leisure. that is double companies giving bonuses to new hires

you are seeing growth and construction slowing down a little bit it slowed down leisure and hospitality which is strong on the job growth. >> you point out these are year over year numbers. la last year, people are on tight lockdowns. where are we versus two years ago? >> you are still seeing growth and in the last quarter, solid growth in leisure and hospi hospitality. this is the highest overall small business job growth since the summer of 2018 we had a very strong bounce back this month. >> i know geographically this was strong in all regions. the northeast was particularly strong what happened there? >> that is coming back from what you said they had a low rate last year at this time. they are off the low base last year the south is the strongest consistently you are seeing it pick up in the states of arizona and texas and florida and georgia. those are the strong states that

we're seeing north carolina where there are people taking the jobs the big challenge is for small businesses is finding people and retaining them right now in the job force. >> in that's what i was going to ask. we hear from businesses that they can't get people in the door a small business or restaurant trying to reopen how does that match up with what you see in the numbers >> i think there is a lag effect meaning we're seeing strong growth in leisure and hospitality in june. people will say they are finding some people now. there is still a lot of jobs open, but they are starting to really pick up and fill those jobs it could be people taking advantage of the higher wage rates and bonuses. we certainly can't get by in sep september as bonuses are coming down they have more people get back to work and take advantage of

it, the higher labor rates >> marty, the situation is changing with the delta variant spreading. i know in new jersey, you went from 14 counties with not having problems with spread to 13 of the 14 counties with moderate spread in the matter of a week. how can you dig through these numbers and seewhat was happening at the end of the month versus the beginning how worried should we be about this >> it seems in june toward the end of the month, it was going strong i think we're expecting the big bump will come in the september t timeframe as schools get back in as we expect right now, it is still looking like job growth is really rebounding strongly for small businesses we expect that to continue and especially in the fall >> what do you hear from small businesses when you talk to them about vaccine requirements we heard from governor cuomo yesterday in new york.

he said he would like businesses to start requiring vaccines to come back to work. could that add a hiccup? >> i think so, becky right now, most are taking a wait and see with mandates they are awaiting approvals. the formal approvals to come out and then make their decision they are going back to masks we have heard that in the last week or so as you heard as well. i think that is a precaution they want to keep employees safe and customers safe right now, still mostly a wait and see. >> you say waiting for approvals. fda full approval versus the emergency use authorization for the covid vaccine? >> correct that's correct that's right sdp >> marty, this is a quickly changing picture good to hear from you. >> thank, becky. coming up, reese

witherspoon's company selling a stake of $9 million five years after its launch "big little lies" and "the morning show" and a couple of guys named kevin meyer and tom staggs contestnt is still king. eli lilly reporting moments ago. we will have the ceo we can ask him about the stock we showed it up 70 cents that made no sense it is down 1.5%. almost $4. w43 weill have the first on nbc i interview when we come back. that's why i have my finance team, randomly hurl things at me. it's also why we use workday. it gives us insights, so we quickly pivot our strategy, people, planning, you name it. sorry, sir. i will aim straight at your next step. see that you do. would you like some coffee?

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welcome back to "squawk box" this morning we have media news venture backed by the blackstone group has agreed to buy majority stake in reese witherspoon's company worth $900 million witherspoon found hello sunshine the production include "big little lies" and "the morning show." witherspoon and the ceo sarah harden will continue day-to-day operations and combine the

board. they will appear together on "tech check" at 11:00 a.m. eastern time an interview you don't want to miss. when we come back, a key regulatory decision on the first bitcoin etf. we'll bring you that story after this >> announcer: executive edge is sponsored by at&t business our people and network will help keep you connected let's take care of business. met. oh, we can help with that. okay, imagine this... your mover, rob, he's on the scene and needs a plan with a mobile hotspot. we cut to downtown, your sales rep lisa has to send some files, asap! so basically i can pick the right plan for each employee... yeah i should've just led with that... with at&t business... you can pick the best plan for each employee and only pay for the features they need.

welcome back to "squawk box. investors are waiting for the s.e.c. to approve an application for what would be the country's first bitcoin etf.

there's been talk for years about a bitcoin etf. here we are. we'll see. joining us now is kristin smith. director of the block chain. good morning to you. >> good morning to you. >> we've been waiting for years for a bitcoin etf to get approved what do you think is going to be different this time, if at all >> well, listen, crypto etf would be the jewel in crypto's crown but i don't think we'll see an approval of an etf any time soon. later today, chairman barry gunzler will give a speech at the security forum where he has indicated he will lay out his plan for regulating crypto i think that he is very passionate about consumer protection and wants to see more robust regulation of the underlying spot market for crypto and i don't imagine that he's going to approve an etf

until we see some sort of regulatory regime in place i could be wrong, but that my guess. >> kristen, what do you think that regulatory regime looks like perhaps most importantly, is there a regulatory regime that you could put in place that doesn't undermine the very premise, if you will, of some of these crypto occucurrencies ande anonymity? >> it takes bits and pieces and concepts from securities laws, commodities laws and pieces it together in a way that makes sense for crypto blockchain association, i think we care about the same common goals that barry gunzler has we want strong markets built with integrity, good investor and consumer protection. we care deeply about these things we have met with the chairman

and are in the process of compiling ideas for him and working very hard with our memb membership we think if we have the right kind of regulation, that's going to be best for the long term and the marketplace here in the united states. we think there's a way to get it right. and we're very excited that, you know, chairman genzler is open to engaging with us and having a dialogue. >> kristen, one of the issues is that you could -- the way we regulate a lot of securities in the united states -- there's two issues there's the security, if you get to the etf part but then there's the actual crypto currencies themselves i think wanting to take on the securities piece of it until the underlying issues are resolved, i get that when you're living in a world where you have a private wallet different than using coin base or something else, does that make this almost impossible? >> no, i don't think so.

no i think there's separate issues. issues around money laundering policy where you know your customer or client is the purview of the treasury department s.e.c. cares about disclosure of information to investors i think those are two separate issues you know, when it comes to the money laundering policy, it's really important we give the regulatory technology time to develop because i do think there are some innovative ways where you can know you're transacting with a worthy party that isn't on any of the lists without having to know necessarily all the details of who you're transacting with there are a lot of great technologies under development over time we will find a solution that meets law enforcement needs. >> let me throw out a thought to you. it's the thing i grapple with. for example, the amount of

leverage that's available outside of the united states, mostly in asia, you could go 50-1, 100-1. and to some degree it's what has created volatility in these securities these are trading in one place but have an impact on the price ing here and so how do you actually square those two things when the rules are going to be so very different? >> yeah. listen, i think global crypto exchanges around the world are getting the message that they need to tighten up their practices. we saw last week that the leverage for finance was reduced to finance from their previously higher levels. i think that the united states has traditionally been a leader on the regulatory front. if the u.s. can find a right way to regulate the ecosystem, i think countries around the world will follow in that path and it's going to take some time but it always takes time for

lawmakers, regulators to respond to these things. i think u.s. leadership is key to getting the world to follow. >> kristen, we appreciate it we'll see what barry genzler says later today i should mention that he will be on with us tomorrow in an exclusive interview. you can see him 8:00 a.m. eastern time we'll talk about all the issues we just raised now, and so much more, becky. >> looking forward to it thanks, andrew. when we come back, a big lineup still on the way this morning. ceos of eli lily, bp and delta airlines all joining us in the next two hours plus senator rob portman brings us an update on the bipartisan infrastructure bill. check out the futures ahead of the second trading day of august dow futures indicated up by about 160 points nasdaq up by 19. you're watching "squawk box" and this icns bc

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futures rising this morning after monday's late-day fade we'll get you caught up. earning in focus

we'll be hearing from the ceos of eli lily and bp this hour plus we'll talk quarterly results. and the spread of the delta variant remains a focus, keeping investors on edge after the daily cases in the united states surpasses the peak seen last summer the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now good morning welcome back to "squawk box" right here on cnbc i'm andrew ross sorkin along with becky quick and joe kernin. dow 166 points higher, s&p 500 looking to open 16 points higher and nasdaq, joe, looking to open about 20 points higher this morning. >> yep so far, so good. here is what's amaking headlines in addition to that. the fed could -- could is the

operative term -- taper bond purchases as early as october. that's according to fed governor christopher wahler if you're not familiar with mr. wahler, he's a board governor. he was sworn in, in december and, as you might imagine, video conference yep. he's a pandemic appointee of actually the former president trump. and maybe he's a little more hawkish. i don't know he told cnbc he would be in favor to tighten policy if employment reports for august and september remain strong. consumers are returning in growing numbers to the nation's shopping mall, simon property group. the nation's biggest says sales at its shopping centers rebounded to prepandemic levels in june. david simon says he's hoping the jump in business will encourage retailers to sign new leases and pepsico talked about selling its tropicana juice brand, 3.3

billion for a controlling stake in a new venture in pepsico will retain a 39% stake says you oh, yeah, says it right there. >> it does. >> andre w. >> andre w >> andre the giant but i don't look like him. >> this is andre the w stocks taking in china after online gaming spiritual opium, liked it to a drug, called for further restrictions to prevent what they're calling addiction and other negative impacts on children the article by the state-run economic information daily was deleted a few hours after publication. shares of ten cent, which makes the high-profile game fell by 10%. that before repairing some of the losses

it curbs minors' access to that game and industry ban on gaming for children under 12 years old. u.s. video game stocks are also trading lower. my children are all under 12 years old. if i could ban video games, i would. i've been unsuccessful thus far. >> take two interactive is down, the biggest of the decliners in the u.s. game makers because they talked a little bit they beat expectations but said with people getting back out there, you might not see gaming quite as strong as it had been during the height of the pand pandemic. >> remember prohibition, sorkin, don't ban things. >> i was up late last night playing subway surfers with my son. >> do what i say, not what i do? you would like to ban it >> i would like to ban it. let's get the results of the

latest cnbc all-american economic survey. they're in at this point and shows that the honeymoon could be over for president biden. steve liesman joins us now with more what did you learn >> the latest all america survey finds president joe biden holding on to his overall approval rating but took hits on his handle ing of the coronavirs and the economy. the poll of 802 adults finds his disapproval rose four points the trouble for president biden comes in a four-point drop in his handling of the economy and a nine-point drop in how he's dealing with the coronavirus polls show concern about inflation and delta variant weighing on overall sentiment. six months into his presidency, our polls say president biden owns the results now of the virus and the economy, and the honeymoon could be over. asked to name the top two issues

out there, americans say the coronavirus is their top area of concern, followed between a tie between immigration and inflation. climate change, infrastructure, an area the president has championed, seen as the least important issue. you could pick up to two issues. data shows democrats, republicans and independents, not surprisingly, they have a separate list of priorities. democrats, coronavirus, climate change sbun employment top the list republicans, immigration, crime and inflation, in that order independents, they prioritize the virus, tie to crime and immigration and then list inflation. americans say because of the delta variant, they are concerned the nation could implement restrictions that were in place before in the springtime 70% say they're concerned there could be new lockdowns 58% worry about new deaths and operations 55% worry about mask mandates

and 50% say it could delay the return of workers to their offices. survey suggests that the key for president biden is getting the virus under control and maybe has to turn his attention to inflation, which is souring the public's mood, becky, on the economy zblfr time we do this, it always seems like the biggest concerns run neck and neck, that there's not something that stands out it's been a long time that i've seen something like covid having twice as much as the next runner-up. 25% is pretty significant. >> it is true. and that has been pretty sustained throughout the pandemic what is interesting, though, becky, is the overall numbers mask when you get down into the party level. republicans don't prioritize the issue with the virus at all. it's not a main area of concern for them those areas of concern were, you know, inflation, crime, immigration. those are the biggest issue for republicans.

you look at that top issue there and say what does the public think? then you break it down by party and there are very different ans answers, which shows how difficult it is to govern this country. >> although the independents also listed it as their top concern, which i guess that gives you something to push it up over the top on that. >> not a bad way to think about it that's why you get to the point where it's 25% and double the next one, is because independents and democrats agree the virus is the number one issue. >> steve, thank you. we'll talk to you soon okay >> pleasure. yep. yes. coming up, eli lily reporting a short time ago shares of the drugmaker have recovered a little bit, down 1.25%. ceo david ricks will join us in a bit. shares of underarmour are jumping in premarket, beating estimates on the top and bottom line in its latest quarter "squawk box" is coming right back i need indeed. indeed you do.

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eli lily reporting a short time ago, adjusted earnings came in a couple pennies shy of estimates. you can see the stock down about 1.7% or so

chairman and ceo david ricks joins us now great to see you this morning. and i would be looking at the reaction and some of your comments it seems like the wild card in the results really was based on the variant and based on covid-19 and delta, and how it affected some of your drug -- your therapeutics, your monocl monoclonal antibodies for treatments. >> great to be on. really strong quarter for the company and our core business. we beat revenue expectations for the street but also for ourselves with an accelerating core business in diabetes, psychology, immunology, main things that we do. it's a good sign that the economy is recovering and our brands are in good shape lot of readouts we can touch on

as well in the last quarter. there was a disconnect on revenue with the covid antibodies we got into this at the beginning to try to be helpful two things happened in q2 that were probably -- would have been hard to predict standing here in january. one was that for some time in the quarter, the u.s., in particular, stopped distributing our antibodies because not of the delta variant oddly, but remember back a few weeks ago when we were worried about gamma and p-1 variant from brazil where our antibody does not retain its full efficacy actually, antibodies do retain full efficacy against delta but that affected the full quarter we wrote downsome material we made going back to the first half of 2020 before we knew the dose, before we knew we had a successful vaccine, et cetera, and everyone was telling us make as much as you can

we did some of that material will expire or won't be consumed. so we're taking the writedown in q2 to normalize that as the right thing to do at this point. the core business is super healthy. and i think these results show that. >> the antibody treatments, two we're talking about, in a prior quarter was 810 million and 848 million. it's interesting it went down, because of the vaccine, obviously. it wasn't delta, but the other variants, one of them had -- the u.s. health regularitier revoked the loan use of that one for covid-19 because it didn't work on the gamma variant, is that what you're saying >> connect that was always the plan, that we would come with a combo in the sense of speed and urgency, time is moving at a different pace than we're used to last november, it was the only

choice we had. we made enough to serve the entirety of the u.s., saved thousands of lives we always planned to pair that with the combo that's still approved in the u.s. right now and retains its efficacy against delta. >> did the pandemic affect the sales, damp en the sales of your other products in your view in a lot of companies, pfizer, moderna, it's been a boone for you was there a negative effect on other drugs? >> across the country there was a suppression in doctor's visits during the lockdowns and toughest parts of the pandemic in some settings, like infused oncology, pretty significant reduction that we reported in prior quarters reporting in q2 is a lot of that came back in a big way and another important health outcome of vaccination, right, is that people can go to their doctor safely and be treated for

other chronic conditions and that shows up in our business with treatment increases in diabetes, in oncology, immunology, and other chronic diseases people need cared for. that's good news in the quarter. i also had a number of important drug readouts and very new in cycle with a lot of new medicines in those important diseases that are growing rapidly. revenue up 23% in the quarter is a big number. >> in terms of the businesses that went down, the areas where doctor's offices were closed and people weren't seeking that care, did it come back in a way that was equal to what you had seen before or was it even stronger just trying to figure out if those care visits were lost, if it's something that's cumulative and makes up over time. >> yeah, that's a good question, becky. i think we're still learning about that i don't think we can say yeah, in q2 there was some catch-up in those visits but it takes time to schedule

appointments sbr got health care system to catch up of course, if you have cancer and you missed chemotherapy infusions, you'll never get those back it's part of the extra burden on the health care system of the pandemic that has been reported in cdc death rates and so forth. it's something that, you know, probably will be a more permanent impact a more chronic disease like diabetes, it may be possible to catch up with better care. we're not seeing that yet. more or less in europe, u.s. health care systems have normalized in japan, not so much yet. they're still facing pretty severe situation so, we're still catching up globally but in the western markets, it was more back to normal in q2. >> is trulicity your biggest seller now what was the sales game? >> yes, trulicity, used by

diabetes patients, and is up 12%. strong quarter globally for that we've seen this class of medicines which help your body i use its metabolism nor naturally. people lose a bit of weight and it has persistent control of your blood sugar, a desirable profile for most people. >> lily is not a neuroscience pharmaceutical as much as it once was where would you characterize >> diabetes is our biggest area followed by oncology and immunology we have a pain business, important medication for migraine prevention, which had a strong quarter as well a lot of talk about neuro de

we started in q2 we're going to submit that this year for approval at the fda and look forward to get that out to patients in a huge area. >> i hear a lot of mabs. are most of your new drugs and a lot of the drugs based on that technology, on monochoenales, antibodies >> yeah, monoclonal antibodies is half of our pipeline. we continue to use the tried and true small molecules, organic chemicals are important, especially in oncology and emerging in other areas. and then there's new platforms we invest ed in. we signed a deal with a company called mina we invested in rna therapeutics, not vaccines, but therapeutics, and have a new entrance into the clinic in q2, a new modality that can be exciting for chronic disease and

oth others we're investing in. it's a golden age for new methods to conquer disease lily is at the front of that. >> have you got any money for acquisitions, david? are you going to go it alone with messenger rna technology? there's a lot of start-ups and good science being done out there by companies that wouldn't be that hard to buy, i wouldn't think. >> and that's the mina collaboration. we're more interest ed in short interfering rna and chronic disease. messenger rna has been used successful for vaccines. we don't have a vaccine business our strategy on rna is one where we want to add to the pipeline, acquire or partner with early-stage companies in core therapy areas we're focused on and build new medicines for patients and add a lot of value through that process we've been doing that for some time we allocate a good portion of our capital to future growth,

income statement in r & d line, which is growing pretty dr dramatically last quarter, about 25% of our revenue goes back in r & d and a good portion of allocation goes back string of pearls deals that build long-term pipeline for the company and for our investors. >> regulatory issues seem like they've kind of been -- guess that happens when you need the drug companies to save the world from a pandemic, but it seems like it's been put on the back burner a little bit. i haven't heard anything out of d.c., any big pharma bashing recently. >> that's welcome. i hear some of it, joe. >> you do? >> sure. >> from people who have gotten double vaccinated. >> yeah. >> that's why they're here to complain about the drug companies. >> most everyone realizes the value of our health, number one. number two, the importance of this industry, which is an american industry, as you know

70% of research in the world happens here in the u.s. and what more important time to have that than during this pandemic you look at countries that develop their own vaccine but it wasn't very effective or didn't really have a way to mount a response medically to this boy, we would be in horrible shape without u.s. biopharmaceutical companies and i'm proud of myself, my team but also my peers. to solve the toughest problem we've seen and we can do that on other diseases, too. that's what we're focused on. >> our parents and grandparents, and their lives as well. i agree wholeheartedly thanks, david. appreciate you coming on and discussing all things eli lily this morning. >> thanks. good to be with you. take care. >> okay. meantime on the other side of this break, discovery set to report this morning. we'll break down the latest news in media land with rich

greenfield we'll do that straight ahead. new numbers from the cdc on the spread of the delta variant. det details, next. "squawk box" returns after this. this is lisa. she's a posh virtual receptionist. when you're busy, she'll answer your calls and assist your clients. you can't be in two places at once, let posh answer. posh virtual receptionists.

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some disturbing numbers coming out from the cdc, we have an emergency use just not fully approved. the white house said a third of the covid cases occurred in a couple of state. florida, texas over last week. the briefing was not all bad the daily death rate of 300 per day is still well below last summer's peak of 11 hyundaily deaths monday's cdc data shows 70% of u.s. adults have had at least one shot of a covid vaccine. >> meantime, facebook is going to be requiring all employees to wear a mask on its u.s. campuses, regardless of their vaccination status new policy going into effect tomorrow and remaining until further notice, the company saying, as several local governments in the san francisco bay area are reinstating those

mask mandates amid the spread of the delta variant. retailers are strongly recommending customers and staff wear masks in areas with higher substantial risk of transmission, including target, walmart, kroger, home depot and mcdonald's though it's not a mandate unto itself, becky. >> that's right. we have a big lineup ahead this morning. bp ceo bernard looney will talk about the quarterly results that were out this morning. the stock is up. plus senator rob portman, delta airlines ceo ed bastian will be joining us as well. dow futures are still up by 155 points after a down day yesterday. dow was down by almost 100 points yesterday s&p futures indicated up by 14, nasdaq up by 13. you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc ♪ ♪

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let's get a look at what's moving in the premarket. dom chi joins us now.

>> i try to give you news you can use. we all know that the news becomes fluid especially as conference calls come out from these earnings reports couple of things we're keeping a close eye on things are predominantly positive we hit record highs at some point yesterday. one thing traders are watching right now is the dieynamic betwn the dow jones industrial average, a larger index like that, verse what's happening with the dow transportation index. you can see there the particular line, white line there is the dow yoens transportation etf it seems to be lagging it seems to be falling off a little bit versus the overall market to maybe suggest we're due for a pause. it's certainly something we can keep a close eye on. like we said, a couple of news items to bring you so far. we've got a big move in shares in underarmour right now, up

5.5% for the class a voting shares, roughly 190,000 shares of volume so far after the athletic retailer came back and reported profits and revenues that both topped estimates they also gave a more robust outlook for the revenue, saying it's going to grow in the low 20 percentage type range versus the high teens percentage growth rate they forecasted a little ways back. so those shares getting a huge bid there. r revenue picking up at underarmour, laggered behind nike in certain ways also on the other side of the coin, shares of clorox, because this is a company that has been a huge focus during the pandemic shares are down big right now, 9%, 100 shares of volume premarket. this is after the maker of bleach and namesake wipes and cleaning and disinfectant products both fell shy of analyst's expectations they blamed a lot of that on the cost surge we've seen, also a

bit of a drop-off in the health and wellness business as well compared to last year. very tough comps in terms of the spend we go saw on disinfecting products as the virus peaked last year verse now. shares down big. underarmour up big transportation stocks something to watch there a lot of movers in the premarket tr trade. >> dom, thank you for that meantime, we'll talk a little media right now with rich greenfield beating analysts' estimates on both lines also the tokyo olympics. joining us now on this and so much more, we're going to talk reese witherspoon in a second, rich greenfield. he is here co-founder and want to talk a little twitter as well let's talk about these earnings. the reason you care about this is in the context of what you think it will long term mean to the warner media transaction what's your view >> you know, the reality is discovery, i think, very

correctly recognized that they weren't big enough they needed more scale that's why they're doing the warner media transaction to create essentially what will be called warner bros discovery the direct to consumer is scaling but certainly not scaling exponentially. they were at 13 million subs last quarter, finished this quarter at 17. a lot of that is probably overseas i think when you look at this stage of the life cycle of the platform, it should be vertical if this was going to be something that would look like netflix but it was never going to be. it was never planned discovery's content is too limited. when you put it together with warner media, that's how you try to attack the netflixes, hulu, disney pluses of the world all the reason why you merge these companies make a ton of sense. it's unfortunate we have to wait another year for this to finally

close. scale is what's important. i think we keep hearing that term over and over again, andrew everybody needs more scale, more content. you mentioned the tease r, reese witherspoon. everybody is looking for how do they get more content to fight the increasing battle in the streaming wars, which is just, look, people are using content as that sort of, you know, way to get in the door to get consumers to sign up you need lots of content and you need a lot more -- you need a cadence that is much more rapid. it's not like you can have one show a month, the way you might have been able to survive in the old cable ecosystem. you need new content every single day, every single week. >> one more discovery question then i want to get into the content story. tokyo olympics in the context of the discovery earnings report. there's been a lot of questions about what ratings look like, not just here in the united states on nbc universal, our parent company, of course, owned

by comcast but similarly in europe and elsewhere, where discovery -- where those rights matter to them do you think there's going to be make goods that will be required what do you think when we look back at this a month or two from now and look at all the numbers, what is it going to look like? >> i think discovery is in a pretty different position than nbc. it's not like it's spread. the rights, yes, in europe you have local broadcasters that by law have to have actcess to some of the top events in their country. but the reality is euro sport, part of discovery plus in europe, is a destination for everything like every single olympic event is available on discovery plus/euro sport players. they're in a better position in terms of consumer offering on the flip side interest in europe is a little less than it is in the u.s. the larger problem, andrew, tv ratings are collapsing the story that's not being told in all these earnings reports, this is not just discovery, warner media

it's across the whole spectrum advertising revenues are actually lower in 2021, despite this massive surge, they're lower than they were in 2019 huge rebound but the reality is the ratings problems the departure of eyeballs is something every company is dealing with, including the olympics we've seen it with sports. you and i have talked about this on air. >> right. >> this is not just the olympics consumers are spending a lot less time watch ing tv domestically and around the world. that's the real challenge all these companies are facing that's why they're all pushing so hard into streaming will there be make goods i don't know it's likely there will be some probably less so an issue for discovery than it is nbc what do you pay for these sports if eyeballs keeps going down and down and down? that's the question everybody needs to be thinking about. >> good news is that more people are watching us on "squawk." we can be happy about that this morning. let me ask you separately about

this reese witherspoon transaction with blackstone, with kevin mayor, and what you think that means it's the idea of effectively creating an independent studio all over again at a time when everybody wants content. if you could take reese w witherspoon and bundle up a bunch of other stars into a new, independent studio system, do you think the netflixes of the world and warner medias decide they have to do business with them is that the model? >> they were already doing business look at the bidding war for the morning show that apple ended up winning. you look at a lot of the content that hello sunshine -- they make content essentially for everyone sh shows on netflix, amazon obviously you know some of the shows they have on hbo i mean, there's a tremendous amount of content spread across many platforms i want to focus, it's not just a video company. they've been able to -- reese,

with her book club, being able to drive books, select books, create awareness and turn those books into movie or tv producs, there's an omni channel approach where you're trying to have content everywhere and have it work all together. that concept and then trying to say, okay, all of these studios are vertically incitegrating. disney is only trying to buy from disney. can we be sort of an arms dealer and serve everybody? there's a global thirst for content. and i think there's still -- if you think about how many people are creating content and how aggressive the streaming wars are developing, amazon just paid $1 billion a year for the next 11 years for -- sorry for thursday night football. when you think about how much money is flowing into this content ecosystem, a roll-up makes a tremendous amount of se sense, greater scale, greater power, greater leverage with distributors it makes a tremendous amount of sense. my guess is kevin mayer and tom

staggs, have you to believe they understand the importance of scale. obviously they both launched streaming services they understand the streaming services world i think there's a really -- you know, there's a really interesting play here. >> one last question for you, which is margin, though. it seems to me that as all of these streamers compete with each other, margin for even the biggest stars is going to ultimately have to come down the cost of a content has to come down because they need so much more of it. >> well, look, i think in some ways that probably plays into what scarlett johansson is not so happy about fwh this lawsuit with disney. disney is trying to push things on to the streaming service and not pay talent warner brothers had a big kerfuffle when they tried to move moivs date on date to hbo max. what they did to fix the problem, essentially, they paid

people they paid people a lot of money, talent a lot of money. disney is sort of -- disney is walking this very fine line of how important is the talent versus how important is disney's ip is disney's ip more important than the talent? that's what makes this lawsuit that you're seeing play out interest, how important is that talent in the equation versus the underlying ip? we're going to find out, i think. >> rich we will find out we appreciate you helping us through it this morning. great to see you. >> great to see you. >> thanks. when we come back, bp ceo bernard looney on the latest quarter. raising dividend and buying back shares as it posts better than expected results. tomorrow gm ceo mary barra will join us after reporting quarterly results at gm. as we head to a break, let's take a look at the winners and losers in s&p this morning

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welcome back to "squawk box" this morning new development in the story we've been telling you about all morning, china has tanked gaming stocks eunice yoon joins us good morning, eunice. >> good morning, andrew. much softer language the journal that's linked to this state-run news agency xinhua now has a headline that reads online gaming grows into industry worth hundreds of billions of yuan much more toned down, much more plain vanilla compared to the harsh, inflammatory language the journal used earlier today when they called video games opium of the mind as well as electronic drugs for kids shall which triggered a sell-off in ten cent as well as other game ing stocks

that particular journal also singled out ten cent, which derives a third of its revenue from gaming and has a popular title called honor of the kings. but now because of this much softer tone, it's really raising expectations here that beijing is really trying to send a message that it's sensitive about the fact that this is having an impact on investors, especially after the securities regulator mentioned it hopes to improve communication around these type of policy decisions for different industries in order to provide greater predictability for investors guys >> okay. eunice, we'll keep our eyes on it we'll see what happens with some of the game stocks even in the united states as a result of these reports. thanks becky? >> thanks, andrew. when we come back, we'll talk oil prices, the state of the industry and much more with bp ceo bernard looney, raising

the dividend and announcing a bigger buyback. next hour senator rob portman with the latest on the bipartisan infrastructure bill we'll get the update from him. plus ed bastian, delta airlines ceo and john bryant. your shipping manager left to “find themself.” leaving you lost. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates

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welcome back, everybody.

oil and gas giant bp releasing second quarter results earlier this morning those shares are in the green after the company beat analyst estimates and also expanded its dividend and share buyback program. joining us right now is bernard looney do you think that's more a situation of supply at this point? >> first of all, it's been a strong set of results this morning, becky and we're very grateful to the bp team around the world for delivering them. i think there are three things happening. the environment, or what we would call the environment, outlook for the oil price, gas price is one of them i think we have more confidence in the outlook for oil and gas prices over the medium term. it's not just that it is the fact that the

underlying performance of the business is strong and we have increasing confidence in the balance sheet coming down for the fifth quarter in a row to your question specifically on oil and gas prices, look, i think, you know, anybody who spends their time trying to predict these things usually ends up getting it wrong we do see robust demand vaccines are working in the main oil consuming regions of the world, china, eu and u.s gdp globally is back to prepandemic levels and opec plus discipline is strong and in the u.s., becky, where you are, discipline in the shale business model is quite strong, all of which says that prices are strong and are likely to remain strong over the medium term in fact, we've said today in a $60 world, bp will be buying back about $1 billion a share per quarter, which is about 5% of the market cap of bp.

and additionally, we would have the capacity to decrease our dividend annually by about 4%. >> you know, that dividend buyback, the dividend increase in the share buyback was stronger than the street is expecting, the stock is up better than 5.5% this morning. it also talks about the recovery in asia, economic recovery slowing somewhat and some concerns about hina, other countries in southeast asia, where the pandemic requirements that have come back, things like masking and slowing of factory workers, that's had an impact when it comes to productivity. and what we're seeing in manufacturing. does that concern you? >> look, there are always uncertainties. and we have to be very cognizant of downside risks. downside risks in our world right now for the global economy, particularly for oil prices, would have to be around things like will the vaccines be

resistant to the delta variant, for example, in the united states, and in asia? so far the data looks reasonably good on that we are seeing a slight muting of oil demand because of that but i wouldn't say it's material yet, becky so i think as we look forward, we see oil demand returning to prepandemic levels in 2022 so there are uncertainties out there. it has to be said people are getting back to driving in north america where you are, domestic flights are pretty much back to normal international aviation is obviously down transportation in asia and europe seems strong. there are uncertaintyies that remain on the balance of all of that, opec plus is disciplined and their desire and their capacity to keep prices in the range where we see them today is quite strong and, as i said at the beginning, the u.s. shale is not responding

in the way that it did prepandemic. all of that bodes well. >> don't you think that's because a lot of big majors, almost every one, has cut back their outlooks and what they're spending on cap-ex to take it back out of the ground do you think that's why these prices are higher? >> over the medium term you'll see some of that the big change is in north america the shale business we were running 750 rigs on oil in 2019. at the bottom, at the trough really in the pandemic, we were down at 175. that number has doubled since then we're at about 350, 375. but that still is less than half of what oil rigs are running just two years ago prepandemic i think what that says is that as the cost of capital has risen in that business and as

financial discipline takes hold and people focus on cash rather than production growth you're seeing a more sensible response. that's been a dampening effect on supply really, coupled with the opec plus discipline are the reasons why prices are where they are today and quite frankly why we think and less, fossil f for energy and things like that. that gets to the strategy of what you're doing right now. raising your dividend significantly even though your stock already has a dividend yield of 5.2%. you're buying back a huge amount of shares. as you mentioned about 5% of your shares outstanding on an annualized basis is that because you won't be using as much money and capital expenditure to go into looking for new production you're going to be cutting back

on production and need to find something else to do with that cash >> this is entirely consistent with our framework we laid out august 4th last year it has five elements to it one thing we said we would do there, becky, we would distribute excess free cash to our consumers and cost savings have come in six months ahead of schedule our convenience business had its best quarter on record as the business performs better, as the balance sheet gets stronger and the environment strengthens, investors will reap the benefit of that. basically, we're paying a dividend of about $4.4 billion per annum. we'll increase that by 4% and have the capacity to increase in per annum at $60 on top of that at $60, we can do about a billion dollars on average of buyback

you're talking about cash returns well in excess of billion dollars per annum. we are absolutely investing into the transition we are absolutely invest ing ino our core hydrocarbons business, but we are doing what we said we would do, which is return 60% of excess free cash to our shareholders and paying a resilient dividend that we now think we can grow. >> market seems to like it the stock is up 6% bernard, thank you for your time today. good to see you. >> thanks so much. thanks for having me on. a lot coming up. senator rob portman gives us the latest on washington in the bipartisan infrastructure package. and delta airlines, in this case, ceo ed bastian is going to join us. with john hope bryant, operation hope founder, to talk about their initiative to improve financial literacy "squawk box" will be right bk.ac

good morning we are looking at green across the board on this second trading day of august. the dow and s&p couldn't hold early gains yesterday. can they turn it around today? ten cent is the latest corporate juggernaut to fall victim to anti-tech sentiment to china. the comments that sent that stock plunging this morning. we're learning more about the trillion dollar infrastructure deal reached by a key group of senators. in just moments we'll speak to the lead senator rob portman the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now good morning and welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc i'm joe kernin along with becky quick and andrew ross sorkin nasdaq is up 24, dow up 164, s&p

up 16 after not holding yest yesterday's gains. some of the indices saw records close there. not much to speak of in treasuries but 1.189 on the ten-year bitcoin and crypto is pulling back after trading pretty well at the beginning of the weekend. it's been down a couple of days. shares of chinese ten cent are down an article in the state-run publication blasted online video games and called for restrictions on the gaming industry to prevent addiction, it says, among children. the article was delete aid few hours after it was posted, but it has since reappeared with much softer language before it called games opium of

the mind not religion in this case. but the games themselves and now there's a headline that actually praises the field, which reads, in their words, online gaming grows into an industry worth hundreds of billions of yuan ten cent is saying it will reduce the amount of time those under 18 years of age can a actually play the games. the company's games specifically sticking with chinese tech, rising retail competition hit ing alibaba, shares trading lower. pepsi scaling back on some of its beverages, the company selling a controlling stake in tropicana, naked and other juice brands becky looked up on that. it's a brand, becky. you think i threw that in there? >> i did. >> selling controlling stakes in

tropicana, naked apparently that's a brand but i saw you on the monitor look up not sure why. >> what? >> other juice brands in north america to private equity firm pia partners for $3.3 billion. pepsico ceo says sales will allow his company to focus on growing its healthier snacks, drinks portfolio becky, my twitter feed is one after another comments about skinny jeans and that cute little -- what is that looks like an english bulldog with the skinny legs so many comments i said i was going to sue for -- that i resemble that remark, i'm going to sue for defamation of character. a lot of people are calling in and saying let's do a class action suit. a lot of men have problem with skinny jeans. >> i did have some people accuse me of sexism yesterday, which is probably fair. >> reverse -- >> well -- >> for men >> nobody over 30 looks good in skinny jeans let's face it.

>> they've got to lighten up i think we got more hits on that than the business news. >> your last read was the most interesting thing you said all morning. >> when i said "naked. >> that speak volumes about you, beck. >> i thought it spoke volumes about you. anyway, chuck schumer is looking to speed up debate on that j just-released bipartisan infrastructure package it's now known as the infrastructure and investment in jo jobs act the proposal could be voted on as early as the end of the week. while tax hikes were left out of this bill, it is possible that the crypto currency industry could still get hit. joining us now is ohio senator rob portman, who played a lead role in reaching the bipartisan deal and wrote an op-ed in the wall street journal titled "an infrastructure bill that works." first of all, congratulations on getting to this point. there had been a lot of doubters

about whether you all could get a deal that you could get enough people to agree on congratulations on that. what do you think happens next >> thanks, becky well, we have more amendments, which is great we're encouraging members of both sides of the aisle to come forward and debate the issues. we had some amendments last night. we have more scheduled this morning. hopefully by the end of the week we can have plenty of amendments and have a vote on this. it's great for the country, becky. this is about fixing up our infrastructure, which has fallen behind every economic analysis we've seen said the same thing if we do this over the next 20, 30, 40 years it will help our economy in significant ways, making the economy more efficient, more productive as a country, helps our economic growth every president in modern times has tried to do this, as you know, including donald trump, who had a $1.5 trillion package. ours is 538 billion, not quite as ambitious as he was he deserves credit for stirring up the debate on the republican side and getting people to think about the importance of

infrastructure my hope is that we can get this done on a bipartisan basis. >> mitch mcconnell said every senator kind of wants to get their hands on this and see what it means for their state are most of the amendments that are coming things that are going to make sure that every senator has some sort of pet project in their state? >> no. there are no emarks in this. i think that was very important. a lot of members are interested in it. they have specific issues. one that will come up today, as an example, is giving states and localities the ability to use their covid funds for infrastructure right now they can use it for broad band and water infrastructure but not roads and bridges, as an example my state of ohio would like to do that. we weren't able to get that done in the bipartisan package because the white house and democrats were opposed to that we accepted a couple of amendments last night. my hope is that we'll be able to move forward as you know, becky, this is a response to president biden putting out a $2.65 trillion infrastructure plan that had a

lot more than core infrastructure in it and was paid for with a huge tax increase in fact, the biggest tax increase in american history it would have been primarily hamp hampering our competitiveness. let's not do it with taxes let's use other ways to pay for it that's where we are right now. >> rob, there was a lot of concern after lindsey graham said he came down with covid, tested positive for it even after he had been vaccinated especially because he was on senator manchin's houseboat over the weekend. and i think a lot of senators were there were you there for that? >> i was invited, but i couldn't go lucky for me, i guess. no, i was working on the bipartisan package, trying to finalize it. so i was not there i did call senator graham yesterday. my sense is that he's doing fine his symptoms are not severe. but, yeah, i think there were a number of members there. a number were tested i got tested yesterday, too,

because senator graham is a friend and i had been around him the past week some so, i came back negative i think other members did, too but anyway, we wish lindsey the best. >> you were washing your hair that night >> i don't have much hair left to wash, joe. >> that includes 250 plus billion for unspent covid funds that were never paid for in the first place? they were deficit spending so now you're going to use those? so you call that paid for? >> well, to the extent we're pulling back money that we have already appropriated for something else. >> it wasn't paid for. >> it wasn't used for this purpose. it will be paid for by covid. >> that's not the -- >> i know but -- >> well, this is money that we

appropriated but has not been spent yet. that's the point joe, that's actually a relatively good paid for compared to some of them. >> i know. but you're saying no earmarks but west virginia senator has a billion dollars in the billion that his wife co-chairs the appalachian regional commission and a billion dollars goes to that everybody has something in this. >> that's not an earmark that goes through 13 different states believe me, we looked into that one just to be sure it wasn't. that goes to 13 states and never has been carried as an earmark. >> if it quacks like a duck -- >> completion of the appalachian high hey system from mississippi to new york. that's what we learned about that we ran it through the committee. it's a formula program >> the new york post stole my

trojan horse. >> $550 billion. >> i know. >> 50%. >> just greases the skids to that next 3.5. >> no, just the opposite just the opposite. joe, what would have happened, as you know, $2.65 trillion one with huge increases in tacks, including getting rid of all the competitiveness stuff we did in 2016 to make our companies more competitive globally, that would have been done by reconciliation two things, one twice as much infrastructure done by reconciliation with no republican input and you would have had, obviously, big increases in taxes and even the democrats on our group, who are not wild about taxes and therefore willing to do this with us, including senator manchin, has said he could support somewhat higher taxes on the business side, which was in that first package. no question in my mind if we don't get this done it's going to be put in reconciliation at higher numbers this is a way to move forward. i think we're able to do it, in

part, because president biden wants a bipartisan success so do a lot of republicans this is one area we've always been bipartisan. it's never been a partisan issue to help fix up our bridges, roads, tracks and ports and broadband. we had so many areas in the country, including eastern ohio and not too far where you grew up where people don't have access to wifi, high or low speed. that's what's important. that's the digital infrastructure of the future. >> senator, let's talk a little bit about what happens next. even if this is passed, even if all the amendments go through, you vote on it, it looks like you do have the votes in the senate for this. the house speaker, who said she's not going to pick this up unless and until the bigger portion of the other infrastructure, the soft infrastructure that the democrats want to pass, is taken care of first. what does that mean? >> well, it runs counter to everything we've been talking about, including commitments

from the white house and president biden. these are totally separate packages they are running on totally separate tracks. if we can pass this in the senate here in the next week, which i believe we can -- we have a lot of support for it, then we hope the house would take it up immediately my hope is that the white house will help us ensure this happens. it's good for the country, it's bipartisan it's something that everybody is committed to it shouldn't get caught up in the politics of reconciliation. >> i know you're not the whip in charge of looking for democratic votes for what would happen with that secondary package, but you are close to senator manchin you mow him well you spent a lot of time with him. do you think senator manchin, senator sinema will hold out and say they won't go along with that >> well, that's up to them i think in terms of what you're talking about in the house, becky, you raise a good point. house democrats support this bipartisan infrastructure package. in fact, there are 29 of them in the problem solvers caucus, 29 democrats, 29 republicans and

they support our package as you know, the speaker has a four or five-vote margin i think she has to listen to those members on the democratic side who would say we like this infrastructure package we may not be wild about the other one. let's go ahead and get this done. >> she only has a three-vote margin at this point after that last election from last week. >> okay. >> but she also has progressives on the far left who are saying that they won't go along with this because they think it will -- unless they get the promises of the secondary one, which has the packages that they would really like to see happen, that they won't vote for this without it. >> well, again, that's exactly counter to what president biden has said these are on separate tracks one does not relate to the other. he supports both of them, as you know i support the infrastructure package strongly i do not support the $3.5 trillion reconciliation package. and i don't support it because it's terrible for the country. it will raise taxes at a time when our economy is getting on its feet

it will add more to inflation, which is what the infrastructure package does not do. it's actually adding to the supply side of the economy, as you know, it's about long-term spending for capital assets, but the $3.5 trillion one is really a bad, bad idea. both in terms of the spending and the taxes. they're on separate tracks we ought to treat them separately the american people deserve that and deserve the treatment to be done in a very, you know, separate way we're voting on the infrastructure package now if senator schumer and others want to bring up the $3.5 trillion package they have a right to do that that doesn't mean they're connected in any way most of us on the republican side share our belief, we kind of like this one, we don't like that one at all. >> senator portman, it was something a lot of people have been trying to do for a very long time. congratulations on getting this far with it. we appreciate the update and we will talk to you again soon. >> great thanks, becky. thanks, joe. thanks, andrew

talk to you soon i'm glad you can't see my skinny jeans. >> thank you and thank you for that, senator. when we come back, we'll bring you quarterly numbers from a pair of automakers reporting this morning a well-established one, the other an upstart dealing with a pr nightmare thanks to its founder. we'll talk about both of them. plus, the importance of having a financially lit rate workforce, ed bastian and hope ceo john hope bryant will be our guests for a conversation you don't want to miss in just a moment you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc the interest is even stron. ♪♪ one of the big trends in sustainable investing is data, and the ability to understand how sustainable your investments are. by taking that information into account, investors can make better decisions for the long term. sustainability is not about one number. it's about variables like water usage, data privacy,

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welcome back to "squawk box. coronavirus has spotlighted the need for financial literacy, something our next guests partnered on months ago. doing business as the delta variant surges, delta airlines ed bastian and john hope bryant. i know you've been working on this midst the pandemic. john, i'll go to you first since it was your brain child. >> it was really dr. martin luther king jr.'s brain child the last time we had a big, sighs milk shift in society, i call at the reconstruction known as the civil rights movement he focused on poverty. unfortunately he was

assassinated before he got a chance to really do anything about it we're at this inflection point now where the color really, andrew, is green it's not black, white, red, or blue it's green we need to all come together for this moment where we need a rainbow after the storm. we're asking ceos and the government to treat this like they did health wellness ten years ago or health care 20 years ago, or the right to vote even 70 years ago. as a must to do. embed this in your business plan, start at the ceo level, financial literacy for all, embed this in your business plan agree to do it for ten years, as ed bastian has agreed to do, resource it appropriately. make it part of your culture we're not be prescriptive. we've found incredible relevance with this. i bugged you, tony wrestler. tony wrestler sort of bugged me on this topic. and nice to have a billionaire obsessed with the struggles of the poor and underserved and i

called doug mcmillan at christmas, ceo of walmart. and he was like, john, absolutely we have 1.5 million employees that need this he called the ceo of disney. he said john, you've got my creative team. whatever you need from us. disney institute i called ed bastian. he was like, you had me at hello. and now we're financial coaching his 80,000 employees while he's providing an opportunity in good times for them to share in the prosperity, we're also putting a safety net underneath him in tough times, as in right now nfl commissioner, andrew, nba commissioner, ceo of walgreens, b of a ceo dan schulman at paypal just joined, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. >> and in terms of putting this

into practice, what does this actually mean? >> well, andrew, we know at delta, you know at delta taking care of our people is job one. tea always job one and it's never been more important than over the course of these last 18 months in addressing the pandemic we also know it's never been greater, to continue to battle and protect each other from. mental, emotional well-being of our people have been challenged and we're adding resources of support there. but also their financial health and well-being, which is an insecurity that many people had, not just in our company, but broad communities well before the start of the pandemic. but the pandemic has accelerated and amplified the impact, nervousness about losing jobs, losing pay, losing opportunities with a lot of uncertainty out there. so, we've worked together, john and i, for a number of years

athe delta we've done some good things. earlier in the pandemic i called john and said our people are struggling there's a lot of uncertainty we need help we brought people in from operation hope worked with our team counseled people people are starting to regain home and confidence that they can handle, when addressing their credit score, taking on debt levels to pay down, ensuring that they have a future had an they can plan on better with the coach that's nonjudgmental and skilled in helping them through this. >> john, it's fabulous that so many companies are stepping up to do this one of the things i think about a lot is whether this is a failure of the education system in america so that by the time you're getting a job, you're trying -- people who are not financially literate yet isn't this something that should be taught in fifth grade, sixth grade, seventh grade and high school >> yeah. the fact that one of our co-founders -- by the way, doug mcmillan and i are co-chairing

this, walmart. the fact that khan academy has tens of millions of viewers on videos in the education system outside of the education system suggests he's helping us to make this issue sort of approachable. suggests that there's a blind spot in the education system as you know, andrew, i got a financial literacy course that changed my life. it wasn't offered in the school. i asked this banker, what do you do for a living? how did you get rich legally i was dead serious no one ever taught me at financial literacy or money. i said i don't know what an entrepreneur is but it's legal and you're financing it, i'm going to be one. it changed my life that program has gone away home economics doesn't exist anymore. how are you supposed to learn how to manage your finances, raise a household? too 70% of this country is consumer spending of gdp and 70% of

americans are living paycheck to paycheck, irrespective of race it should be k through college required that's one of our goals for financial literacy for all, to get the congress, senate and our president to take this up and make it part of our system as a software grade for education this is essential. >> ed, the other leaders out there, thinking about something similar, what does it actually cost you annually to do something like this? >> it's not a cost issue, andrew it's nominal this is an investment in our people we are announcing this month we're bringing in ten full-time counselors from operation hope they're going to be living with our people, sitting within the operations, continuing to bring changes to their life. so, this is not a dollars and cents issue. this is caring about your people. >> so, just to put numbers on it, because there are going to be business leaders who are going to say to themselves, this costs me 1 million a year, $10

million a year, $500,000 a year? can you put any kind of number on it so people understand what it takes in terms of the workforce? and also in terms of how many people, those ten people ultimately serve, if you will. >> well, for -- we've been partners with operation hope for some time. we make investments with operation hope as part of our phil philanthropic responsibilities here it's a portion of that i won't give you a specific number it's a relatively modest amount of money when you think about the good it can do this is life changing for people who are running out of hope. their opportunity to reclaim control over their financial foundation there's no price tag you can put on this, andrew. >> andrew, financial coach from my perspective, it costs me, as a nonprofit about $100,000, a little under $100,000 a year for full investment of a coach in a typical environment, whether that's in a bank broanch,

employer or community. we get the support from that from a range of different sources. when the employer can do it all they do it all when they can't, we augment it from funds from other places. >> john, while we have you here, i know that you've been working on another project related in some ways today. >> yeah. you've been reporting on the eviction moratorium that just got lifted there's a bunch of money, billions of dollars that people who are facing eviction can access they don't know they can access it it's another thing of financial literacy for all people don't know what they don't know what they don't know is killing them they don't know these resources are all in these bills they don't know how to unpack it they don't have a private banker i decided to do something about it today, i decided last night along with the board and operation hope for which ed is a member, we're going to commit half a million dollars as a nonprofit to help with a helping

hand fund for those facing evi eviction, for those dealing with an unavoidable eviction. we'll give between $500 and $2,5 h $2,500 as a grant as long as they download that hope app, deal with one of our coaches the coach something free we'll get the budget together, stress rung out of your life and insert cash to deal with a landlord that may not have the patience or the ability to wait. to allow you to get a bridge over troubled water. that's a commitment as of today, right now. >> john, congratulations on that and congratulations as well. before we let you both go, ed, i do need to ask, given that we've been talking about covid all morning and the new delta variant about the idea of vaccine mandates not just for employees, and i know we've had that conversation before, but potentially customers. will you consider that given that -- you're doing a lot of mis mission-driven stuff when it comes to society, would

you ever consider requiring it >> well, it's required now to travel internationally to most markets around the world, andrew you need to be vaccinated to get into an international border and i expect as those borders continue to open, you'll see more and more of those requirements here in the u.s., i don't think it's necessary we carry -- at delta, we carry millions of people a week safely people are vaccinated, the vast majority of our customers are vaccinated they're in a clean environment, they're fully masked our people, over 73% of our staff are fully vaccinated that number is growing by the day. i don't think putting that requirement into domestic travel is going to change much. we're full, by the way i know everyone is worried about looking over their shoulder as to what the variant is going to do here. this past weekend, system-wide, we were over 90% full in terms of our plane people are traveling people are learning how to manage and live with this. >> the reason i ask is less

about the business impact and actually more about the impact on society, especially if so many of our passengers are already vaccinated there's a real question about what's going to be the nudge, the forcing mechanism to get more of the country vaccinated if more people felt they needed to get vaccinated to do certain things, to get on an airplane, to go to a stadium, to do things like that, that the private sector can do in a way that potentially right now the private sector can't or is unwilling to, that you would actually be able to save lives and create significant change. >> well, i think the level, the magnitude of who we carry dom ev esdomestically, to mandate a vaccine that isn't approved yet,

the final. the numbers are picking up we've seen a pretty nice spike here in the last few days as the variant has started to get attention. and we'll do our best to encourage people to stay safe. >> okay. ed and john, thank you congratulations on financial literacy program appreciate it. >> thanks to "squawk box" for encouraging this from the beginning. >> thank you beck >> thanks, andrew. when we come back, the very latest on the spread of the coronavirus as we get more word of masks and vaccine mandates from some of america's leading companies. we told you about sotyn foods mo moments ago. stay tuned "squawk box" will be right back.

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♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ welcome back to "squawk box" on cnbc. new covid cases in the u.s. are still heading in the wrong direction, but we did just hit a vaccination milestone. meg t meg tirrell joins us now with a covid update. >> right now the delta variant

is making this the topic in terms of transmission. you're seeing 80% of all counties in high or moderate transmissions, the red on this portion of the map cdc recommending everybody wear masks indoors, delta variant spreading very quickly cdc director yesterday noting there's a direct correlation between vaccine coverage and case rates and they show this graphic that essentially shows in the states with the lowest vaccination rates you are seeing the highest caseloads, missouri and alabama, for example, on the upper left there and going down to the yellow you're seeing maine and vermont. vaccines are making a difference in this delta wave but some states in real trouble here. florida in terms of hospitalizations, in the worst state it's been since the beginning of the pandemic, comparing hospital iations in 2020 and 2021. this year now they've surpassed

last year's peak you're starting to hear warnings that florida will exceed its bed capacity potentially in early september. you did mention we hit a milestone in terms of vaccinations 70% of u.s. adults having one dose that had been the biden administration's goal for july 4th. you are seeing an uptick in vaccinations, particularly in the hardest-hit states, showing the states with the biggest per capita bumps, alabama, florida, and texas, and overall you can see first doses have started to tick up as people are worried about the spread of the delta variant, allowing us to hit that goal even if it was a month behind guys >> meg, i'm hoping it's a three steps forward, one step back at most at this point i'm still going to hang my hopes on that, that 70% first shots protects a lot of people, you

would think. the one real concern i would have is the ability for the virus to continue to have variants based on the unvaccinated part of the population and i took a lot of virology but i'm not a virologist i just wonder more transmissible is one thing more lethal is another i'm just hoping that that's not something that could be on the horizon. >> absolutely. the future of it will depend on whatever variants emerge, outcompeting the current variants delta is so contagious it's outcompeted everything else, including more troublesome variants like beta and gamma, which can invade vaccines more than delta can it's not just the united states we need to worry about in terms of the unvaccinated population propagating variants it is the entire world

the biden administration is talking about donating 110 million vaccines globally. it's still not enough for all the countries that need vaccine doses and so that's a major concern, that a lot of the world is still unprotected. >> all right, meg. thanks for keeping us updated. thank you. andrew a lot more coming up on the markets, another busy day. as we head to break, programming note don't miss the interview with gary gwensler tomorrow, s.e.c. chair, 8:00 a.m. easte te.rnim stay tuned, though you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc sito] ♪ try to be best 'cause you're only a man ♪ ♪ and a man's gotta learn to take it ♪ ♪ try to believe though the going gets rough ♪ ♪ that you gotta hang tough to make it ♪ ♪ you're the best! around! ♪ ♪ nothing's gonna ever keep you down ♪ [triumphantly yells] ♪ you're the best! around! ♪ [ding] don't get mad.

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big day. big morning for corporate earnings we had underarmour and bp, both with better than expected results. mixed quarter from eli lily and m marriott and big miss from clorox in summary, i'm going to summarize before you even talk you're not bearish, but you think that things will be hard to get better in terms of earnings and going to be tough to make head way in the markets overall? but one of the things that i thought was interesting about some of your comments, jason, you're more worryied about the response to the delta variant in terms of lockdown, potential lockdowns and policy mistakes than you are from the variant

itself did i get that right >> yeah, joe from an economics perspective and earnings perspective, i guess some people could be worried about the second derivider derivetive on that score it's hard to get really worried you're always -- there's always a possibility that you'll get tagged for something but generally speaking, the fundamentals, whether it's interest rates earnings or the breadth of the market is quite good what i'm worried about is you're heading into the fall where you'll have an infrastructure package, which we discussed earlier, largely tied to a big reconciliation bill which, by any standard, enormous you have debt ceiling debate and then also i think as you mentioned, there will be real concerns, hand wringing and

gnashing of teeth about the delta variant. i know this is controversial i personally thought the entire lockdown for such a long time last year was a policy error in and of itself. i think the costs outweighed the bene benefits and i'm worried there may be similarly an overreaction this time. and i'm very sensitive to the health issues in this. but again as an economist, you're trained to look at both the benefits and the costs to me, the costs in terms of society, were enormous so not only am i worried about a policy error in terms of maybe higher tack taxes and other thin that reconciliation bill, i am worried about our response as a country to new strains of the virus. >> so, jason, if you were in the room with the bipartisan group

of republicans that we're talking about, would you be urging them to walk away and not do the stand-alone infrastructure if it was not tied to the $3.5 trillion, would you be in favor of it? republicans, for years, have talked about infrastructure. is there any way -- i have the same -- i don't know my knee-jerk sort of reaction is that you're just headed down not a great path when you're playing into what might be $3.5 trillion. >> yeah. >> i might be one of those republicans that's standing on the side, saying i don't know what's with you. mitt romney. i'm not sure is there a way a republican can say yeah, this is a great bill i want to do infrastructure because it's needed? or is it just head down this slippery slope to $5 trillion? >> joe, my own visceral reaction, and we have experts in

our shop. >> you're kidding. >> the team in d.c., that are largely of the view that this say slippery slope, that the administration is largely going to get what it wants, an infrastructure bill that will be about $500 billion, but -- and that will be the bipartisan bill but you're also going to get a 51-50 vote on infrastructure in the neighborhood of $3.5 trillion gdp of the u.s., it's a big number, over a number of years, but once thesethings are

endemic to the system to get rid of them presents problems later on. >> how would you fix infrastructure, jason? what would you do? >> you know, i have a very counter cultural view. i would tend to think that the keystone pipeline is part of infrastructure personally. i think the nice thing about infrastructure as opposed to payments in my opinion is that you get something for it that's lasting. you get productivity. >> keystone pipeline you need to be on a different network, jason that's your infrastructure the keystone pipeline? >> why not oil prices are 70 bucks. people spend money on -- >> i know. you know what i mean. >> it's not a distraction.

>> how do you pay for roads? how do you do roads and bridges in a way that's what these moderate republicans are thinking it's been ten years of talk. and they're saying even if we have to make a deal with the devil, we're going to do it, just to get some of this stuff done that's what they're thinking. >> listen, i hate to cast dispen the man or women in the arena, at everyone knows. infrastructure is politically popular for both republicans and democrats, and i'm not sure -- there's often a lot of thought i'm not saying that's the case this time, but more people are likely to say, like, listen. it's just -- it's branded infrastructure therefore, it must be good. and i would be a little bit more circumspect given the amount of debt that we have, and actually looking at the kind of return that we're going to get from it. ultimately in terms of what actually

improves people's lives. listen, i'm not against infrastructure at all. i think there's still a lot of people that are out of work. it would put a lot of people to work again, you'd get productivity for it, but if you're linking it to $4 trillion of extra spending, it may be, the cost may be too high. >> you can say it's not, but -- i mean, every time we hear either speaker pelosi or that part of the party that's aoc out there, all saying, don't -- it is linked -- you're crazy if you think it's not one side tells us it isn't one side of that party tells us it isn't the other side tells us it is. i'm with you just wanted to play around with you a little bit. >> i think the party that tells you that it is linked is in power. so -- to me that's -- >> right. >> -- that's what you need to know. >> all right all right. well, that is -- so that's your biggest risk to the market is policy risk not covid? okay where we started this whole

conversation. >> a risk, too, but i think at this point, mercifully i think more people are getting vaccinated i think we're making a lot of progress probably going to be a tough couple of weeks here, but i also think that should end as we get into the fall, if you look at the uk data and so on. >> yeah. >> but the longer-lasting issues the structure changes we make in the economy. >> okay. all right. we need clifton. get your buddy one of those experts, i think you were talking about. >> he's an expert. truly an expert. expert. >> okay. you are, too we all are okay in our own way >> thank you. >> i'm an expert on jeans. >> skinny jeans. >> going to milk this. >> skinny jeans, not -- >> dad jeans i want those they're comfy. >> works too. down to the new york stock exchange jim cramer joins us. what do you want to talk about this morning earnings out, bp, eli lilly,

under armour and david faber on "jeopardy" last night. >> i'm so star struck. i don't think i can really do my typical cross-talk, because david was extraordinary, as if he's been doing it for years unflappable. i mean, even to the point where he knows that there's a person who's won, but he doesn't let up there's still a lot of -- >> i heard you badgering trying to find out what happens good for him for keeping it sealed. >> ah. and one of the things very difficult. i was watching with some friends. the final "jeopardy" was the hardest i can recall no one had it. including the contestants, but the greatest moment was when one of the contestants said, i have no idea -- no clue right jt they had no clue. anyway, i have no clue why clorox why it was as ba as it

was, nos clue why under armour was as good as it was, and if final "jeopardy" would be even another day of a stock going higher it was square the only thing i think david and i left out was the term "spiritual opium." >> what comes from china. >> what's gaming from china? spiritual opium tick that tonight, right >> reminded me of karl marx. opioid of the masses in terms of the cpp? >> a jiaoching moment. in the gaming business i think you're just shaking. kim out hard, walk it back a little but if you're in that business you realize that you're a part of spiritual opium no one's taking that back.

10%. >> now down by about 6%. jim, we will see you and the fab lick david faber -- >> can't recommend these very much like some of the final numbers in final "jeopardy" we saw. >> excellent nus.you guys coming up in a few mite and watch faber tonight, too. "squawk box" will be right back.

xs xshgs. back to "squawk box" this morning. news from two automaker. phil lebeau joins us with more >> about drew start with nikola, pre-revenue but the q2 loss 20 cents a share better than street expecting a loss of 29 cents a share. one item in terms what to hang your hat on, if you're hoping these guys can make it and turn it into the black at some point, on target to open their first commercial hydrogen station. that's one piece of good news from nikola. pivot quick and talk about the first half results better than expected stellantis emerging 11.4% the reason the stock is up higher the operating profit margin full

year now expected to be 10%. most expected it to be about 5.7%, 5.8% look at stellantis, in the midst of pouring 35.5 billion dollars into ev development between now and 2025 the thing to focus on, ram pick-up trucks electric ram trucks coming in 2024, what a lot of people are watching speaking of electric pick-up trucks, tomorrow morning, q2 results from general motors and then a first on cnbc interview with gm chair and ceo marybarra. head over to dominic chu with today's market movers. >> check things with shares of ralph lauren right now higher. comes out with earnings better than expected, sales better than expected a big rebound in luxury spending's shares up 7% in pre-market trade also watching what's happening with the crypto universe, you can see right now. bitcoin prices touching about a one-week low

38,412 roughly now the 200-day average price and end custom merrily do top ticker searches on cnbc from yesterday. ten-year note yield up on top of the list ge shares, apple, tesla, robinhood among the top ten as well, guys back over to you. >> all right we got to go no final check "squawk on the street"'s up right now. this is "squawk on the street." let's meet today's contestants. a television anchor and music and film aficionado from denver, colorado, carl quintanilla a restaurateur from philadelphia, pennsylvania, jim cramer. and, our returning champion, and award-winning journalist from queens, new york, david faber. and now, here is your opening bell countdown on cnbc.