kicking things off at 7:00 eastern time, we've got home depot chairman and ceo frank blake. then we will be talking to the ceos of masco and mohawk. then andrew will be grilling with frank webber. >> has anyone spoken to him yet? >> who frank blake? >> no, andrew. is he on a roof, on a mattress? is he in a refrigerator lost where he -- >> no. maybe we should send someone to take some photos. >> this is vegas and this is andrew. has anyone heard from him at all? >> what is it, it's had o'clock on in the morning there right now, right? >> yeah. >> there he is. there he is. >> okay. yeah, you had that ready? am i that predictable? that is the guy he interviewed yesterday with the baby, right? >> that's andrew's face. >> that's andrew's face and gal gallaphanakas's -- too bad it's not "hangover 2." andrew was -- >> they have it. >> yes, you are that predictable. >> i'm not going to try anything. who did that? >> rob? who was it? >> that's really bad. >> he did it. who came up with all that? who knew he was going to go there? >> that really was not -- that is -- no, but in reality

kicking things off at 7:00 eastern time, we've got home depot chairman and ceo frank blake. talking to the ceos of masco and mohawk. then andrew will be grilling with frank webber. >> has anyone spoken to him yet? >> who frank blake? >> no, andrew. is he on a roof, on a mattress? is he in a refrigerator lost where he -- >> no. maybe we should send someone to take some photos. >> this is vegas and this is andrew. has anyone heard from him at all? >> what is it, it's had o'clock on in the morning there right now, right? >> yeah. >> there he is. there he is. >> okay. yeah, you had that ready? i

frank blake and his team at home depot, best numbers in 14 years last year.s interesting that saw a stock, it' spiked because one analyst said, we see the beginning of a turnaround. do you agree with parts of that? >> too early to tell. pennies is selling way too much private labels. coles is coming back. it will be a big price for the season. whoever has the best brands at the best rices. hopefully jcpenney will be ok. it's too early to tell. >> the only piece we don't have is retailers for january. what are companies telling you about their stocks? did they clear everything out in ?hristmas o echo >> >> the stocks were not cleared out in christmas or january or february. thefirst winter storm in last 19 weeks, people will not be buying the cold weather apparel. spring is starting late. we are still going to have colder winter weather and flooding in some parts of the country. that will hurt shoppers. the inventory build aside. we will continue to remain high. >> not necessarily a sunny outlook for retail. we will be on the markets again in 30 minutes. stree

frank blake and his team at home depot, best numbers in 14 years last year.t was interesting about jcpenney, is all quite a bit of a stock spike earlier this week because when citigroup analyst had come out and said, look, we see the beginnings of a decent turnaround. do you agree with parts of that? >> it is too early to tell. the customer counts are down significantly in malls for tivoli coanchored by jcpenney's and sears. kohl's is coming back, so it will be a big price war. hopefully, penney will be ok. it is too early to tell. >> i want to ask about inventories. the 10:00 we get the business inventory number in the input to gdp is very important. we don't have retailers for january. what are the companies telling you about their stocks on and? today clear everything out at christmas? >> inventory is the issue. stocks were not cleared out a inistmas, not cleared out january and february. the issue is, moving out that inventory. as we go through the 21st winter storm in the last 19 weeks, people will not be buying the cold-weather apparel they haven't purc

we had frank blake on "squawk box" this morning with andrew ross sorkin talking about to what degreeaffected sales and how important that spring selling season is, too. take a listen. >> for our fourth quarter we said that definitely had an impact on us. it's not, like, we just were indifferent to it. it hit us by about $100 million. we had our earnings call just a couple weeks ago, and we also called out about $100 million up until that point in february, so definitely the cold weather has an impact on us. we need spring to come. but we think about our spring business in terms of a half a year not a quarter of a year. >> we need spring to come, jim. all retail could be encapsulated in that line. >> they have a big window that shrinks by the week if they don't get that, because planting season is so important. it was a great interview, by the way. you had the masco ceo on and credit suisse downgrades toll, pulte and you need housing to stay strong in order to get to the next leg. you have to. >> others, the big bulls on real estate say there will be a squeeze on supply when the warme

. >> and when you talk to frank blake yesterday, he's not building new stores. >> that's really interesting. >> stores aren't coming in. that whole building sector, this is really a segment by segment economy. if you're in oil and you're serving the bargain, you can't get your stuff up there fast enough. if you're surveying a warehousing business, you're doing pretty well, too. if you're doing retail building, and a lot of stuff happening. >> that is an excellent point. i find myself, i don't go to the malls anymore. i buy online, too. >> getting squeezed. >> when you have dual income families, everybody's working you don't have time to get there either. >> i love jack, where can i cash in my optimism for money? you can't, can you? >> you can buy stocks. >> that's it. >> market is up year over year. it's been an attractive place to have your money. >> wells fargo has been a place to have your money, too. >> we've been up 36% year over year. >> the stock has done incredibly well. you've raised your dividends. was it up by 31%? >> this year you have to ask permission from regulators to raise

frank church from idaho. and it was being televised blake on c-span if i'm not mistaken. i was watching this, and i knew nothing about the cia. knew no one in the cia in those days the cia had no visibility at all. but it just occurred to me as i'm watching all these tales of cia adventures, that if cia didn't have lawyers, had no idea whether they did or not, it occurred to me they night need some now. so i applied as a shot in the dark. >> host: or might need some new ones because of wrongdoing. >> guest: whenever they found this -- this pattern repeated throughout my career. whenever cia would get in a pickle or flap, the cry would go out and cia needs more lawyers. so i was actually -- i didn't know at the time about i was hired in the first wave of new lawyers. >> host: so, believe it or not, people still are confused about why the cia is different than any other agency of the u.s. government. so, just, if you could, summarize why do we need a cia and whose control is the cia under? >> guest: well, of course, the cia is a secret intelligence organization, been in exi