. >>> let's bring in jim stewart who's able to join us on the phone he knows disney through and through. jim, what do you make of this news does it come as much of a surprise to you as it does to us >> total surprise. his recent contract was extended to 2021. he was starting to slightly worrisome signs of not naming an heir apparent, and now suddenly he's announced he's leaving sooner than expected that is a big shock to me. that said, he's leaving at a peak you know, the launch of disney plus, which was just a massive gamble i still don't think people appreciate what it must have taken to get that aircraft carrier to shift its force that way. and, you know, in a way it's a great time for him to leave. nevertheless, i'm really shocked by it. >> i mean, there's a few ceos where it's a really wow headline where he's known much more outside of wall street, you know, bob iger is a huge name. so it's a surprise they're going to hold this investor webcast today, what do they need to tell investors? what do they need to hear? >> whether there's a new strategic direction or more of a change thi

>> i'm in the jim stewart school the judge wood analysis.erious dues paying so i don't mind that he was pardoned. there are few white collar guys that have ever gone to jail. this guy did i think there are a lot of people in 2007-2009 deserved to have his punishment and didn't get it and at amazes me. i disagree with jim, i think the guy has done a lot of genuine good since then. i think -- so he's done more good he certainly spent more time so i don't know. i mean if the people -- i know at one point jim said well mark rich got a pardon. what did mark rich do? did he ever do seminars to try to make the country better did he ever pay the price? so i don't mind miliken, i think it's fun the guy really suffered. he really did pay the price. what's the matter? dave is giving me some heat. oh, david's talking about some other guy. >> we will watch you and david and carl and the rest of the gang in just a minute. >> happy birthday! >> thank you >> this is a big day, andrew >> i'm eating the "r" in andrew. >> he wasn't kidding how many doughnuts h

and underwear happy to weigh in. >> jim, thanks for bringing the story as well. >> thank you >> jim stewartak take a look at the top stock leading the dow rally. dow is up 337. nike is way on top today up 4.25%. got some double action by south side raised to a buy from neutral at ubs added to a focus list at jpmorgan helping propel the stock. most stocks are higher except exxon, verizon, and chevron. you can always watch us live on the go on the cnbc app down load it today "squawk on the street" will be right back our retirement plan with voya gives us confidence. they help us with achievable steps along the way... so we can spend a bit today, knowing we're prepared for tomorrow. wow dad, do you think you overdid it maybe? i don't think so... what do you think, peanut? nope! honey, do you think we overdid it? overdid what? see? we don't think so, son. technically, grandparents can't overdo it. it's impossible. well planned, well invested, well protected. voya. be confident to and through retirement. and when you open a new brokerage account, your cash is automatically invested at a great ra

joining us at post 9 is the "new york times" prize winning columnist jim stewart. u. >> great to be here. >> big news yesterday not the least of which is the implied valuation of what we thought was a pretty storied brand in vs >> well, right i think this shift is coming out a moment too soon. a couple -- i looked at the numbers from last quarter on victoria's secret performance and there is a down ward spiral even worse than i think i realized, the deterioration there. you've got a big consumer brand like that. they've got to stop that quickly. beyond that as we wrote in the piece in "the times" the culture here needs a complete revamping. considering it is a company that is -- the customers are overwhelmingly female women -- the way women executives and workers were treated over the years is pretty appalling. by the way, we heard from board members who put out a statement for the article and i believe them i think they really are committed to trying to do something dramatic there they -- one step which we saw this week is they've gotten rid of the wexner cronies o

coronavirus remains a big concern for shanghai disney land which remains closed let's bring in jim stewart"new york times" and larry halverty from ljh investment advisers thanks for joining us. i want to kick off with the disney plus subscriber numbers better than the market expected. 26.5 million plus i think we're hearing about 1.5 since the end of the quarter how impressed are you by those numbers? >> i'm very impressed by those in your opini numbers. everybody got excited when they said we were going to get ten million and now they've doubled that they're roughly 38 million households in the u.s. with children 18 and under. they've gotten already a very impressive chunk of those and extremely short period of time so i think their excuse on this has been phenomenal. after a few minor glitches in the beginning, the people are apparently very happy with the performance of the thing, so i'm very impressed by that, i'm surprised that the market has been as tepid in its reaction, but i do think some people, i'm hearing from people that are looking at the matthewihematicsd it is sobering they

for the 2020 election we are joined now by the "new york times" pulitzer prize winning columnist jim stewarten back in the news hasn't gone away but certainly is let's start with the campaign. curious to get your thoughts in terms of the roles, corporations, and ceos in particular, play here. >> obviously they are a small graup b group but very influential because they control a lot of spending power it is very interesting what is happening here i know many ceos and it is no surprise they tilt republican overall but i think the one thing you can say to a near certainty is that few if any of socialists and as you see somebody like bernie sanders rising to the top of the democratic field, they are going to be opening their wallets probably for republican congressional candidates i think we'll see more of that a lot of the contributions we've just seen i think to the democratic congressional candidates both in the house and the senate has less to do with the individual ideological leanings of the donors and more of a desire to keep a divided government i think, again, to generalize, ceos like a