." >> susie: joining us now with more, brian white, tech analyst at topeka capital markets. so brian, a lot going on in this battle. what's your take. i know you were talking to some people at green light today. what's your take on david ianhorn's strategy, and does it make sense in. >> well, i think it makes a lot of sense. and a lot of investors are frustrated about the lack of crash distribution from apple. and i think the argument really reached in deflection point today. so i think we'll see some activity from the board in the coming months. >> well, apple said that it is going to consider all options. what do you think it's going to do? what do you recommend it to do? >> what we have recommended, you know, just a few weeks ago a head of earnings was increasing the dividend to about 375 to $5 per share from 265 per share a quarter. and also increasing the stock buyback to 100 billion over five years. if they did both of these initiatives, they would only eat into about 60 to 70% of their annual free cash flow. apple generates 50 billion of free cash flow every year. >> s

brian white is with us, an analyst with topeka capital markets in new york. brian, this case of technically about bundling these votes into one vote but it's really about apple dividends, isn't it? >> exactly right. so, you know, they had a couple-- they had three different proposals and within was a check box for proxy, one was blank check preferred. he got them on a technicality. he won. the bigger picture is david einhorn wants to see apple cash with shareholders in a much bigger way and i think that's what we're going to see. >> tom: does it ultimately result, give him more credence to go to apexpel say return some of that stash of cash to shareholders? >> you know, david put together a very powerful conference call with a slide presentation yesterday. they really outlined what apple needs to do with its cash balance, and he said apple is very innovative in a lot of different areas. one area they're not innovating is with their balance sheet, and with their cash balance. he came up with a new instrument, a new idea called perpetual preferred stock, which h

topeka capital markets analyst brian white joining me on the phone.end of the day was this the best option for dell, clearly falling behind in the pc market and pc market itself always has been on the decline for a number of years now. was this the only and best option? >> i think it is the best option of the investors gave dell evaluation of three times earnings ex their cash in november after the earnings report. it would have been farfetched to get this type of evaluation in such a short period of time. i think it is a good deal. ashley: now, what about the share price. 13.65? michael dell will be the majority owner. you have got private equity firm silver lake. there are those who say it is a steal. bar ron's magazine says the company is worth as much as 25 bucks a share. >> what i find humerous about all the concerns this is undervalued. i go back to november when the stock is at 8.60, people were paying three times ex cash. this is valuation is five times ex cash, people are crying over it. this is fair valuation. people didn't want to give it a

. >> where is brian white? >> right. that almost -- i don't want to say it topped the stock.you start to get the really far out there price targets on apple, that's when the cracks in the story started to really -- >> look, here's capital oil and gas. one of the best performing stocks of the last few years. what's it doing? it's up five on a good quarter. the marcellus is good. you go back to the gardner denver. many things are happening that are positive that are away from apple. but if you just are apple centric, google centric, you keep people out of the oil patch. you've got to be responsible. you've got to be responsible and talk about things that are working. >> right. all right. >> oil patches, one of the best performances of a lifetime. do you care? >> i do. so does bob pisani. he's on the floor with more on what's moving. >> a nice move to the upside today. scott, did you notice, i'm sure you're watching jim bullard on our air this morning, saying the fed is going to stay easy for a long time. i got a lot of e-mails for that. bullard's considered a moderate. i though

white house with more, a very view of the state of the union. good morning to you, molly. >> good morning, gretchen, steve and brian. ight will lay out his plan to create jobs and grow the middle class. we're likely to hear him make the case to congress that more tax increases and fewer spending cuts will help generate those jobs. new fox poll suggests americans' top issue right now is the economy, but they aren't too thrilled with the president's handling of it so far. let's take a look at the first poll. the poll was taken last week over 1,000 registered voters and the issue they say they are most concerned about, the economy. 89% say they were extremely or very concerned about the economy. now, look down that list a little bit. tied for fourth on the list at 84%, government spending, and the job market. in the next poll, if you look at the president's job approval numbers, on specific issues, job creation, 43% approve. 52% disapprove. and on the economy, 42% approve. 55% disapprove. the president is expected to call for more money or investment, in infrastructure building projects and clean energy technology and t

>>brian: like the mayans. >>steve: the white house is caught in a couple of lies. arne duncan, secretary of education, on face the nation on sunday said pink slips are coming out. >>brian: 40,000. where? >>steve: a place in west virginia. there are pink slips coming out but it has to do with state law and is unrelated. yesterday duncan doubled down and said a lot of poor kids and a lot of challenged kids are going to wind up with less care. as it turns out, the funding for those programs are forward funded. in other words, all that stuff actually would happen next year. so the white house has been caught in some lies because they have really over the last couple of weeks scared the living daylights out of people. listen to this. >> into few days congress might allow a series of immediate painful arbitrary budget cuts to take place. known in washington as the sequester. if congress allows this meat-cleaver approach to take place, it will skwrepdz -- jeopardize our military readiness, eviscerate jobs in medical research. early education like head start and early start

the white house says it's a back up plan in case congress's efforts stumble. brian mooar has more. >> reporter: immigration is one of the issues that sparks democrats and republicans. while eight senators are finishing a bipartisan bill, "usa today" reveals the white house has been working on a backup plan if the current efforts fall apart. >> if those do not work out, then we'll have an option this will be ready to put out there. >> reporter: president obama's chief of staff says the white house proposal would bolster border security and include a path to citizenship for this nation's 11 million undocumented immigrant. republicans say any plan with the president's name on it is bound to fail. >> of course it will. and that's why we are working together, republicans and democrats. by the way, he's had no communications with republicans on the issue, unlike the previous four presidents that i've dealt with. >> reporter: senator john mccain is one of the so-called gang of eight lawmakers working on the bipartisan bill. so is florida republican marco rubio who says the

brian: good point. glad we stopped there. go to whitewant the president to address this. >> dana: i don't want the president dealing with this. >> brian: i want him to help out. >> dana: no! >> bob: good idea. >> brian: thank you. >> dana: bad idea. >> brian: now talk about billion-dollar industry. since 1997 had its own gig, "sports illustrated" swimsuit modle in that issue have been run away best seller. everyone loves them. now they claim racist and say it's racism. and bias in these ads. >> andrea: crazy. they are saying this because the beautiful bikini-clad women are in pictures with traditional chinese farmers. there is another huntsnan the media. they say this is unfair and racist because while these lovely white women are opposing, the matadors have to work. >> brian: why are they being used as props? kate up top was in w penguins. >> andrea: modeling is hardwork. if you've ever tried to model. i'm not a model. i could never be a model. it's hard work. this is from the jezebel website. there are angry feminists that get mad at b

white house we go. nbc's peter alexander standing by there. peter, good evening. >> reporter: brian, good evening to you. there is bipartisan agreement on one thing, that those sequester cuts will likely go ahead as planned at the end of this week. the white house in congressional republicans have made no progress toward a deal. while there was plenty of talking today, almost all of it was critical of the other side. the latest in the parade of public aofficials issuing dire warnings, homeland security secretary janet napolitano asked if the cuts would increase the likelihood of a terrorist attack. >> we're going to do everything we can to minimize that risk but the sequester makes it awfully, awfully tough. >> reporter: house speaker john boehner. >> if the president was serious, he would sit down with harry reid and begin to address our problems. >> reporter: trying to capi capitalize on the visit by governors. in california, 9,600 low-income students could lose financial aid. in texas, nearly $68 million for teachers and schools could be slashed. and in virginia, 90,000 civilian

>>steve: if i was a white house -- >>brian: ali, play along.>steve: we've been talking about how transparent this administration is not even though we heard the president so many times say this: >> let me say it as simply as i can. transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency. if taxpayer money is involved, i've got a responsibility to insure some transparency and accountability. i think we've provided much greater transparency than existed prior to our administration coming in. as long as there's transparency and accountability, this is the most transparent administration in history. >>steve: the press should be embarrassed. >>brian: straight ahead, do you remember her? she's the girl who decided it was a good idea to flip off the judge. hear why she's now getting a round of applause. >>alisyn: vice president joe biden says americans, they're not worried about europe impacting our economy. we've got news, joe. europe is tanking our economy. stu varney has all the stu varney has all the details. [ female announcer

white house. it's going to be a wild week. >> it is, brian.ross the board budget cuts make that difficult. the friday deadline for work out either $1.2 trilli in deficit reduction or a smaller deal to buy more time to avoid the spending cuts pretty much everyone says he'll want. a dinner for the governors last night, the president touched briefly on the effort to find bipartisan solutions. >> the task before us is to find smart, common sense solutions to each these challenges that we can move forward on. i'm looking for good partners because while nobody in this room sees eye to eye on everything, we know that when we work together, democrats and republicans, north, south, east and west, we can accomplish so much more than we can on our own. >> officials say the sequester's cuts will impact everything from air travel to meat inspections, from national parks to the f.b.i. to head start. democrats will propose a tax hike on the wealthy and a cut in farm subsidies as an alternative. republicans may suggest cutting the federal work force across th

white house with a preview. chuck, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. you know, as you know, historically, second-term and second-term presidents, their domestic goals have a shelf life of about 18 months. the white house is well aware of this and they want to use this state of the union tonight to not just talk about those goals but to try to convince congress to do big things and to do them now. >> mr. president, what's the theme? >> we will find out tonight. >> reporter: the president tight-lipped today but the lion's share of tonight's state of the union address will focus on the economy and job creation, echoing themes from the campaign. >> this is a real, achievable plan that will lead to new jobs and more opportunity and rebuild this economy on a stronger foundation. >> reporter: and while he will unveil new proposals, aides say he intends to stay with this familiar message that won him a second term. >> this president has had a consistent economic theory about how we improve our economy. it's by growing the middle class and strengthening the midd

it's the second deadly incident there in just the last month. >> brian: great white shark shot in newttacked and killed a man of the witnesses say he was swimming when he spotted the shark then like a scene from the movie. he shouted a warning and then quickly was pulled under. at first he fought off 129-foot beast, but then it came back again. >> first time it was like one, but six minutes after that, we saw three sharks. >> brian: by the time life guards reached him in a boat, it was too late. the coast guard had to shoot the shark in order to remove the victim's body from the ocean. >> steve: meanwhile, remember this woman, the tan mom? well, her saga may be over for now. endangermentin new jersey has charges against patricia. she ran into trouble last year after she was accused of taking her five-year-old daughter tanning. she took her frustrations out on reporters. >> my daughter never tans! are you square? i like your tan. i don't think that's a crumb and i'm still going to tan. >> steve: that's good for her. her next move, she wants to start her own line of tanning lotion. she

white house correspondent chuck todd. chuck, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. you know, we have a new poll out, and it has a simple and clear message -- the american public's patience is wearing thin with washington as it stumbles into yet another manufactured budget crisis. as republicans continue to say he's playing politics, the president was in newport news, virginia, today, a shipbuilding town heavily dependent on military spending. >> these cuts are wrong. they're not smart, they're not fair. >> reporter: the virginia economy and newport news in particular would be among the hardest hit in the country if the automatic cuts to defense kick in. those fears have workers at the naval shipyard on edge about themselves and washington. >> i'm worried, but i'm hopeful thinking it's going to be averted. >> if they don't vote to stop the sequester, then a lot of people are going home without a paycheck. >> we did not elect them to go up there to point fingers. we elected them to be responsible. >> reporter: the president has used every political weapon in his arsen

brian. the president's downtime is very special time. the white house also has made a commitment to have a small group of reporters following him everywhere he goes. all that blew up this weekend in florida when white house reporters were locked out of an exclusive golf club and only found out that the world's most powerful man was playing a round with the world's most famous golfer on twitter from the golf channel. when fdr died in warm springs, georgia in 1945, white house reporters were in washington. when president eisenhower had his first heart attack after playing 27 holes of golf outside denver in 1955, the press corps was first told it was indigestion. ronald reagan rode horseback at his ranch without any press coverage. in the modern era, president clinton had to be carried to air force one after tearing his achilles tendon at greg norman's house in florida. the traveling press corps, miles away. most americans understand, the presidency is 24/7. presidents deserve time off beyond weekends at camp david. there is also something else at wo

found 87% of the snapper they tested wasn't actually snapper. >> brian: tastes like carp. >> gretchen: the most frequently faked fish? whiteealed the reason why women talk so much. researchers at the university of maryland found females are the more talkative sex because of a special, quote, language protein in the brain. women are said to have 30% more of the langtry enthan men. women speak 20,000 words a day. that is 13,000 more than the average man. >> steve: men only speak 7,000 words a day? unless they do a talk show. >> brian: absolutely. >> gretchen: i would be interested in knowing what janis dean thinks with that since she's the other woman with me today. what do you think about that? >> i know i have a quick minute for this weather hit. so it won't be as many words. but after the show, brian, call me. i'll take your call. i know that nicole said don't call me, but i'll take your call. >> brian: never been rejected like that before. of course i have. >> let's look at the weather map so we can get all of the weather in in a quick minute. your satellite radar imry, we have a huge storm across the central u.s. we cou

i do want to raise another thing of local concern, brian, the mayor called somebody at the highest level of the white house, not the president. they asked him to make one brief mere mention of budget autonomy and once again, d.c. got stiffed. the mayor, the president made no elusion to d.c., even when he talked about democracy in berma. >> they are asking me to wrap it up, marco rubio, what did you see tonight? there are people making fun of him online for having to reach for that glass of water. he's relatively new, i think. >> no, look, he's not a performer. he needed a drink of water. i'm glad he had it rather than gag up and not being able to speak. the point with him was he is 41 years old. he is the darling of the republican party. for the first time ever, he prerecorded the speech in spanish and what he is saying to the rest of the country is, the republican party is not hostile to hispanic people and i got elected and i have a political future and we're not going to exclude hispanics. that was his purpose. it was a combattic speech, but i thought he put himself very well. >> mark tonight. >>>

brian and david are kidnapped. over on nbc it is back to back episodes of betty white's "off their rockers." >>> still to come righte have more exclusive vanity fair oscar secrets. >> halle berry, michael and catherine. new shots from the party everyone is talking about. >>> then hollywood's jennifer lawrence obsession. from her first trip to the oscars to being hit on by jack nicholson sunday night. >> announcer: that's coming up when "e.t." with nancy and rob returns. closed captioning provided by -- >>> "entertainment tonight" breaks down the jennifer lawrence factor. because she absolutely owned the oscars. >> she did. earlier we showed you j. law's quick hair change right after the show. >> even that is big news because america can't seem to get enough of jennifer. >> how did she become hollywood's new it girl? we have the answer revealed by our "e.t." cameras as jennifer shot to the top. the "hunger games" premiere a year ago. >> jennifer! >> flustered by the paparazzi. >> i thought, like, oprah was behind or something. i was like, yes! >> her first time to the oscars in 2011. >> that quote that kate moss quo

. >> reporter: the white house is ready to press ahead with immigration reform if congress can't or won't act. brian mooar, nbc news, washington. >>> president obama's nominee to run the pentagon will have to wait at least another week for an up or down vote in the senate. it now appears chuck hagel will get the vote when senators return. two top republicans say they will stop efforts to stall his confirmation. that filibuster came a day after hagel was approved by the armed services by a party-line vote. one of his most vocal opponents says while he doesn't believe hague sell qualified, he won't hold up the process. >> i thought we had an agreement to wait a week so the remaining questions would be answered, but i understand the white house wanted a vote. they got a vote. we will have a vote when we get back. i'm confident that senator hagel will probably have the votes necessary to be confirmed as the secretary of defense. >> the gop it says blocked hagel's nomination in an effort to further examine his record and views on israel and iran. senate majority leader harry reid hopes to bring a final v

heading back to the white house as reaction pours in following his state of the union address. nbc's brian williams will join us in a few minutes with a live report. >> the body of christopher dorner, recovered from inside a burned out cabin in the mountains east of l.a. and with it the end of a wild and dangerous manhunt for an ex-cop. anything but a quiet ending. gunfire. flames, and another law enforcement officer killed. >> we have team coverage of all developments today. first, to the news 4 live desk. >> minutes ago a source inside the mayor's office in l.a. told nbc news police do believe the body found in that burned out cabin is indeed christopher dorner. this news after a dramatic and deadly day in this manhunt. here is how law enforcement says this all went down. s.w.a.t. teams shot out the windows to the cabin. then fired tear gas inside. brought in a special piece of heavy equipment to begin tearing down the walls one by one. no one escaped from that cabin, after the fire began. and again, christopher dorner was believed to be, what is believed christopher dorner's body, prett

. >> reporter: the white house is ready to press ahead with immigration reform if congress can't or won't act. brian mooar, nbc news, washington. >>> president obama's nominee to run the pentagon will have to wait at least another week for an up or down vote in the senate. but it now appears chuck hagel will get that vote when senators return. at least two top republicans say they will stop efforts to stall his confirmation. that filibuster came a day after hagel was approved by the armed services by a party-line vote. one of his most vocal opponents says while he doesn't believe hagel is qualified, he won't hold up the process. >> i thought we had an agreement to wait a week so the remaining questions would be answered, but i understand the white house wanted a vote. they got a vote. we will have a vote when we get back. i'm confident that senator hagel will probably have the votes necessary to be confirmed as the secretary of defense. >> the gop it says blocked hagel's nomination in an effort to further examine his record and views on israel and iran. senate majority leader harry reid hopes to bri

brian. so far this storm has been responsible for five deaths here in kansas city. a wall of white rolled through this morning, dumping snow, as much as 3 inches an hour, shutting down the airport and causing a state of emergency. that scene was repeated across many cities and areas of the midwest. armed with snowplows and shovels, the midwest today tried its best to fight back against a wicked winter storm that brought strong winds. near whiteout conditions. even thundersnow. as the deadly system that brought record snow to arizona, oklahoma and texas swept into the great plains today, schools and businesses were closed, and transportation in several states nearly ground to a halt. in kansas, authorities closed dozens of roads and highways, including a 90-mile stretch of interstate 70. parts of the state were buried under more than 14 inches of snow today. it fell so fast in wichita, the city was forced to hire 20 additional snowplows. blizzard conditions were a challenge, even for them. the roads were so bad in illinois, this minivan lost control, taking out a traffic light. a st

let's start with the white stuff and get to our toyota snow report. brian hager joins us on the phone from squaw valley from tahoe with a look at the conditions on the slopes. it's cold enough out there for some of that recent snow to stick around, huh? >> it is. walking in this morning there's light snow falling. we have hopes for a good day today. >> we have an inside slider as we like to call it in the went department coming through. it will break apart over the bay area. it will bring you more snowfall today. what's going on for the next couple days? what are the attractions right now that are hot for visitors at squaw and alpine. >> we still have our big truck and climb on the fire trucks and snow cats and loaders and that fun stuff kids love to do. we yoga and fun activities for the weekend. >> outstanding. it's ski week in the bay area. a lot of kids will be up there enjoying that fresh powder just spectacular shots that we show you right now. let's talk about conditions. the snow will stick around. you'll get full sunshine later on today. like we sa

and of course, brian, the immediate problem is nobody really knows the impact of this sequester. you only have the word of the white house or the word of congress on exactly what the impact is going to be, but i can tell you, it feels a lot like political posturing, because they have that big budget showdown at the end of march where all these things could get wrapped up. >> chuck todd across town from us at the white house. chuck, thanks. >>> and after a bruising confirmation fight and some ugly hearings on the hill, the president's choice for defense, chuck hagel, was confirmed today by a 58-41 vote in the senate. he's a former republican senator from nebraska, though some of his roughest treatment was at the hands of fellow republicans. when he walks into the pentagon as the new secretary of defense, he will be the first vietnam veteran to have that job. he still carries shrapnel with him from combat, where he earned two purple hearts. >>> now to the weather, as another big storm pounds the plains and the midwest. you can see it is a huge system, as it sweeps across the country now from west to east. it has dump

brian. a day after new evidence that china's military is the source of thousands of cyber attacks against american business, the white house launched a new effort to protect trade secrets. cyber spying and other forms of economic espionage are a growing national security threat, much of it from china. according to a white house report released today. >> the hacker in china can acquire source code from a software company in virginia, without leaving his or her desk. >> reporter: a few keystrokes can result in the theft of designs worth billions. while china denies it engages in cyber war or other thefts of trade secrets, 16 of the 19 cases of economic espionage cited today involve china. victims included big corporate names like ford, dupont, general motors, cargo, dow chemical, boeing and motorola. and when it comes to cyber attacks, this week's revelation about unit 61398 of china's army, located in this nondescript building in shanghai, is only one example. >> this is just one part of what is a very robust military and intelligence chinese government effort to conduct espionage through the web, stealing intellectua

brian: that means my turn to read. controversy and hypocrisy. where else do you find that? washington, d.c the whiteying to explain a secretive program to target and kill americans. we've killed three. they're all terrorists. we don't miss them. it doesn't stop the controversy. hey, peter. >> hey, brian. we learned yesterday that if someone in the u.s. government decides that a u.s. citizen abroad is associated with al-qaeda and if posing an imminent threat of attack against america but cannot be captured, then it's okay with the justice department o order a drone strike against that person. this new information is from a secret memo first obtained by nbc news and some republicans are already saying they're concerned that decisions about killing u.s. citizens are being made in secret. >> here you have a senior unaccountable doj official who makes the determination that recent activities lead him to conclude he's an imminent threat and you can send a drone to kill him. not to torture him, but to kill him. so i am troubled any time government is as nontransparent as this. >> tomorrow mr. john brennan