, that's at 8:30 eastern time >> randall stephenson.t can grow out of control, disrupting business and taking on a life of its own. its multi-cloud complexity creating friction... and slowing innovation. with software-defined solutions, like hpe oneview, you can tame the it monster. hewlett packard enterprise. less complexity. more visibility. ♪ >>> all right. welcome back to "squawk box. mcdonald's announcing today they will start testing alternatives to plastic straws at some locations in the u.s. this year. it's also switching to paper straws at all of its restaurants in the uk and ireland. mcdonald's has come under pressure from environmentalists who say plastic straws are not biodegradable and necessary. >> have they nailed a way to make the paper straw -- >> i don't know, but this is one of the worst things for the environment. >> when the paper one gets too soggy at the end -- >> you have to go with just drinking it at the end >> it's not that hard to -- >> drink like a normal person. >> yeah. >> but if you have the lid off in th

we'll hear more about this mega deal coming up later when randall stephenson will sit down with "squawkox" today, 8:30 a.m. eastern time. do not miss that >>> let's turn back now to the markets. futures pointing to a lower open the nasdaq sticking around an all-time high. big technology stocks continue to climb let's dig in more with eric ross from casend securities i believe it was the last time or one of the last times that you were here you talked up twitter. >> absolutely. >> you had a bullish call on twitter. >> not popular >> it was on the facebook anniversary. >> you were right twitter was up 41% since that call. >> yes >> great call on twitter >> appreciate it >> are you sticking with it now? the gain has already been made >> we had some short-term gains, but twitter is a profoundly different company than last year they figured out they are a content delivery system rather than a social media company like facebook that makes it easier to sell ads, to attract videos, deliver videos people are excited >> twitter did something this week that didn't get a lot of attention because of

the toughest jobs prior to yesterday were randall stephenson and mcadam, who had a competition,ly, no woke up one morning and everyone was competing on price. is going downn the 5g route and concentrating on distribution. who is to say that is not a good idea when everyone is trying to grab as much content as possible? no one is quite sure how watching will be done. leo: the pipes business is an agnostic business. brian roberts is going down the 5g world at comcast and rutledge is going down the 5g world at specumnd so will randall stephenson. 5g is frosting on everyone's cake. it does not cause me to predict a verizon subscription ov a&t s. what i seepening is competition on price. i think randall will not compete -- will compete on quality and content. verizon and owns -- and there isnd aol not a man or woman in this building who knows who yahoo! a nd aol are today. vonnie: that is leo hickey, -- leo hindery, managing partner. caroline: apple ceo tim cook speaks to bloomberg's david rubenstein. meanwhile, short seller carson block joins us to reveal his latest. this is bloomberg. ♪

it is not been in the trial, but at&t's ceo randall stephenson calls trump the elephant in the room because donald trump on the campaign trail said he was opposed to the merger. but the subtext is that he is unhappy with cnn and he would ofe to use this deal as kind revenge against cnn-type of coverage. they actually presented that before the trial started. i should say at&t and time warner as a possible line of argument. but the judge rejected that. i think judge leon was very concerned if he allowed them to kind of pursuit that line of extend thisey would case will into the future. you have to realize that the lawsuit the doj filed to block this deal was in november him and the trial started four months later. it is an incredible short timeframe. trump is already on record saying he does not like this deal. he thinks -- he said he thinks there's too much media concentration. but there is this counter argument, is he trying to get some kind of revenge or richer vision against at&t because of cnn? host: our first call is from new york, independent color. first time caller. i'm no expert on

david: i think randall stephenson is an extra ordinary leader, a great executive. ping for the industry it does because i think it should and i hope it does because i think it is important for the industry and we will see what happens in june. vonnie: who wins, comcast or disney? think with that transactions says is international assets are critical. , wee is a battle over sky are bigger than sky on the content side in italy. when you look at all of europe, we have a bigger business and when you see someone paying -- and saying i will pay 17 times for european assets and a clever and smart executive, we take a look at what we have, we are the leader in europe in sport, we have huge assets in latin america and asia and we think we've become a much better company. in some ways ws you that the traditional platforms are still outdoing the newer tech. -- 55 markeround the world with oernational media team. if you look at international composition, you look at the stars we have today, more and more international stars and you think of plugging into discoveries network, t

what is disney's next move randall stephenson speaking on cnbc earlier today hey, julia >> good afternooneven s stevenson talking about what is next >> we will run these businesses fairly independently, but there are things we need to do where we create value together as i mentioned, the advertising, making sure that where we're beginning to think about creating content that is curated and formatted for the mobile environment as well. and actually the creative talent within time warner is excited about that >> when asked about disney and comcast battle, he says he is ambivalent as to which way to goes but he said both of the potential buyers are in line with his strategic approach. >> what they are doing and what they are pursuing reinforces the play that we're running. we want to get there first >> he also warned just because his deal was approved doesn't mean regulatory approval is necessarily transferable to his rivals as for what is next for fox? still no word back from disney on whether it plans to top comcast's offer. no word on from fox to delay or adjourn the july 10 special meeti

>> if the conditions are mild, it's a huge win for at&t and huge win for randall stephenson.omorrow starts the bidding war for 21st century fox. if it's a clean approval and we have to see how clean it is, they may put their bid in tonight for our entertainment assets that are slated to be sold to disney. from what i hear from bankers, there could be others involved. the devil is in the detail of those conditions if there are conditions. those conditions, neil, could make an approved deal be in reality an unapproved deal. what do i mean by that? if the judge applies enough conditions to make this very onerous on at&t to leverage the time-warner assets so they can't make money, well, that's not good for this deal. you'll see it in the stock price. if the deal gets approved -- for the average person, if you own stocks, yes, that i go up. changes the way you consume news and entertainment. there will be two major companies out there. comcast and at&t controlling much -- most of the content out there that you get on cable. it's going to be amazing. do they have the ability to jac

i'm sure they can't think randall stephenson has his you know what up there >> i'm not quite certaine didn't rehearse this. you can tell we don't rehearse a lot of things. it's pretty clear. but i'm with pete. disney wins. disney needs these assets more than comcast does. i think we've seen that for awhile i also think this is going north of $80 billion comcast will come back their game all along is to get disney to pay up with that said, lions gate we didn't rehearse this thing. it's not the deal nearly of the magnitude, but it's a nice deal that probably makes sense. >> do you think there's a lot of tuck ins that would happen >> that would make more sense to me, don't you think? than these huge monstrous giants >> history has shown they actually don't work. >> wait a second that's not always true >> big media match -- >> the big ones don't work >> tuck ins work really well >> oh, i didn't know -- i thought you were making fun of me again i'm always on the defensive with you. >> i know. okay >>> our next guest disagrees with the traders on the desk and believes that comcast will win

the ruling that came down from the judge with r t the business, i have enormous confidence in randall stephenson and the management team of at&t. you wouldn't enternto this transaction if you didn't feel it would help the franchise and be good for the shareholders and stakterm, so i don't know what the analysts are saying right now i think it's a bit premature, but i have enormous confidence in the fact that this is a good decision m management to pursue the right decision, in my opinion, came down from judge leon, and we'll have to see what the future entails, but we have a darn good management team in that company >> all right, richard, thanks so much for youtime we always appreciate speaking with you richard fisher >> thanks so >> former dallas fed president >> just quickly, let's tie up the markets and then maybe pivlt lisa, what do you think ultimately for the fed and how should investors position themselves here? >> so look, our ew is that, you know, the fed is definitely going to hike today. they're probably going to hike two more times at least. and so i think we're going to see septembe

and then to tout at&t i'm really happy for randall stephenson and this would be a great merger. it will create competition. this is going to be fine. you don't want to see some bids for the likes of apple, amazon, google. we will talk all about this morning. the air force attorney general along with john garamendi here. retired navy commander. national security adviser to george w. bush, stephen hadley joins us. johnny carter of the crunch franchise is with us as well. big show had. don't miss a moment of it. the president touching down in washington following his birthday with a great leader kim jong un in singapore. the two leaders signed off on working toward the nuclear station of the korean peninsula. the president treated this this morning. just landed a long trip that everyone can feel much safer than the day i took office. no longer a nuclear threat from north korea. meeting with kim jong un was an interesting and positive x. the white house now says the u.s. military will continue to train with his south korean counterpart and conduct military drills, but not large-scal

. >> he uses a much higher debt level than randall stephenson uses. >> yeah. randall was on tv and he was very happy. >> yes. >> did you miss that >> i read the transcript. >> that's ic. >> on my vacation. i enjoyed it, too. >>> cramer's mad dash and the count down to the opening bell in a minute. more "squawk on the street" in a moment arnings season once again. >>yeah. lot of tech companies are reporting today. and, how's it looking? >>i don't know. there's so many opinions out there, it's hard to make sense of it all. well, victor, do you have something for him? >>check this out. td ameritrade aggratthsandofnis estimates into a single data point. that way you can keep your eyes on the big picture. >>huh. feel better? >>much better. yeah, me too. wow, you really did a number on this thing. >>sorry about that. that's alright. i got a boof 'em. thousands of opinions. one estimate. the earnings tool from td ameritrade. with the new chase ink business unlimited card i get unlimited 1.5% cash back. it's so simple, i don't even have to think about it. so i think ab

. >> plus, at&t's randall stephenson spoke exclusively with cnbc as the time warner deal closes. >> the they did not like the deal we got our day in court and as much as we criticize the system, the system worked. >> we'll have morerom at fth exclusive interview right after the break on "the closing bell." alerts -- wouldn't you like one from the market when it might be time to buy or sell? with fidelity's real-time analytics, you'll get clear, actionable alerts about potential investment opportunities in real time. fidelity. open an account today. a hotel can make or break a trip. and at expedia, we don't think you should be rushed into booking one. that's why we created expedia's add-on advantage. now after booking your flight, you unlock discounts on select hotels right until the day you leave. ♪ add-on advantage. discounted hotel rates when you add on to your trip. only when you book with expedia. >>> welcome back to "the closing bell." half a percent of the dow a and 2/10 of a percent of the nasdaq >> does it matter if spain or portugal won this game got everything its got some gre

walter, your take on what this randall stephenson has to go to hollywood.at&t handle that? >> this has been a long time waiting and this was a big waste of time for the government to drive through this process. they have been moving on with their pay-tv business, they wanted to get this content to try to learn more about the types of content that customers want. i think they are ready to move forward and have an l.a. presents. presence. this is more of a diversification deal but there will be benefits. they are ready to deal with their new emploes and try to make better content for consumers. alix: are they ready to hit the debt market? they were the biggest corporate issuer last year. >> they were, and they had to return a lot of that money because the deal was supposed to close by april 22. they did take out a term loan of about $16 billion, so they probably have a bit of time, they don't have to ise that. we think they will probably come in. they will have to come in parts to finance the deal but will they also build out their five g network? dove to acc

$20 million stephenson must be feeling great today other than the fact that moffit said -- >> randall stephenson? >> yes. >> other than fox disney is going down comcast is going down. at&t is going down faang is working out well. >> time warner is up. >> a little bit. owes delrahim an apology. >> when we come back, an exclusive with uk prime minister theresa may days after the contentious g7 meeting between the u.s. and the european allies >>> we'll talk to alan greenspan. sara eisen has that live in washington, d.c. nasdaq coming off a record high. big morning, as we said earlier. mo sawreq"squawk on the street" minute experience lexus safety system+ standard in the 2018 lexus es and es hybrid. lease the 2018 es 350 r $339 a month for months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. when it might be time to buy or sell? with fidelity's real-time analytics, you'll get clear, actionable alerts about potential investment opportunities in real time. fidelity. open an account today. release the latest decision at 2:00 p.m. eastern time followed by chairman powell's news conference. the fed is widely

about an hour ago on squawk, randall stephenson talked about capitalizing on content. >> at&t has 170 million direct to consumer relationships. people with screens where they're going to be consuming this media and entertainment and content and bringing it together comprehensively, i think, is an exciting thing. >> said we got our day in court. system worked. debt load should return to normal within a year or so answering concerns of moodies and others. >> i think andrew ross sorkin made a great point does time warner have the time to make movies like netflix. i thought randall, who is a good friend to come on today, really did make some points and say that's not really the worry. they're fine i am worried i'm worried about the cash flow. i'm worried about what happens with direct tv. >> dividend two? >> i think that yeah yeah i just -- i do worry about the dividend because i thought that -- the cash flow is falling off as badly. obviously, this is a great american company at&t. but they took down a lot of debt they don't really -- i think the cash flow is not as robust i don't want t

>> success might be that they throw s much crap at this deal, the justice department, that randall stephenson to be in court for the rest of my life. that may be what the ending is. for all i know malcom dellerim says we have b fish fry. senior people in the d.o.j., it's more than a theoretical possibility, i would say it's 50-50. neil: thank you very much, charlie gasparino. sean spicer on all of the developments. this all started with the president not really keen on cnn and time warner, of course, includes cnn in list of offerings. so that wasesisor all of this. if you think about it, there are others since the course came up and supposedly argued. spicer on that and so, so much more. stay with us. six in the morning. she thought it was a fire. it was worse. a sinkhole opened up under our museum. eight priceless corvettes had plunged into it. chubb was there within hours. ke sure it was safe. we had everyone we needed to get our museum back up and running, and we opened the next day. a trip back to the dthe doctor's office, mean just for a shot. but why go back there, when you can stay hom

. >> we don't know who's going to buy out whom -- neil: wasn't that randall stephenson's argument atund, judge. >> yes. it's fascinating to me. it's the intersection of law, economics and then a little bit of politics. neil: yeah. and a little bit of drama. >> and they need to get -- it keeps us busy. neil: when he's not at a restaurant. >> he knows good restaurants. neil: he does really. he ph-poohed my olive garden idea. [laughter] >> i'm with him on that. neil: yeah, yeah, you're both very sophisticated. they only go to astronauts with tassels -- to restaurants with tassels on the menu. [laughter] a lot of people are watching it including folks, for some reason, in this building. i'm trying to understand why. after this. how do you win at business? stay at la quinta. where we're changing with stylish make-overs. then at your next meeting, set your seat height to its maximum level. bravo, tall meeting man. start winning today. book now at lq.com when it might be time to buy or sell? with fidelity's real-time analytics, you'll get clear, actionable alerts about potential investment

reporting that there was a meeting between shar i ai redste and randall stephenson not much to make ofything, you know, that i've heard has indicated at least thus far it's no -- not the intention to sell either one of those companies separately but bring them together and perhaps at some point selling them together because the view has been to receive a higher price for those if you decided nobody has to potentially sell them has there been interest in at&t? of course. they were looking a lot of different things they got time warner verizon seems to be moving in a different direction now. it had expressed interest in trying to engage in a dialogue with cbs previously. really, the question on cbs and viacom and that fight that we were talking about every hour for some time is now put off to the courts in delaware until potentially october, which is a long time to wait when you have the desire to put the two companies together given how quickly things are changing in the world with whether it's the fight over the fox assets between our parent company and disney whether it's the time war

and it's, listen, i mean, you can argue to a certain extent randall stephenson has been running awayrom their core business for years. >> that's where i'm going. >> and making decisions based on maintaining the dividend and what he believed to be fair as a potential growth opportunities for at&t different than what mcadam will see and potentially mr. vestberg will see. 5g is the key for them they made no secret of that. the man who sat at the top of eriksson will fully capable of that but mcadam said, listen, it's a turbulent world now. it is always, of course. and, you know, you need somebody who is going to be seen as innovative with that fresh set of eyes. and i did ask, i'm like, well, the tenure at eriksson is tumultuous he said our board did a lot of due diligence. he thought he would bring him in as a cto but the more he saw him, again, he said this is a guy that should be considered for the top job. >> here is what i'm struggling with yesterday steve when i interviewed him 5g, 5g, 5g david, how is 5g going to change my life? >> in so many ways you haven't thought about. >> gi

randall stephenson had talked about this during her testimony during a court proceeding which is a verym package as stations, watch alone and you won't have to take everything for one price. the problem with all this is how do you make money on it. at&t, right now people delivering we get paid, fox got our parent company gets paid for every subscriber to the channel distribution system. at&t is going to pay for the what's up skinny deal that subscriber might include. for the unlimited, no. it depends how much time they actually watch. neil: does it affect those who have directv? >> no, they will remove directv. they will get a discount, but you wanted the satellite. it's going to be delivered acrossnternet. they are moving upward to the internet. neil: i'm thoroughly confused. i want to bring guilt for bolton into this. this is a request to get 21st century fox and the back-and-forth here about streaming and leveraging of content. >> exactly appear to pick up on something that interested in you could've had a drinking game if you listen to bob eiger when he was talking in december. i'm

i interviewed randall stephenson a few weeks ago and he said that neither time warner as a creative companywe will allow them to do what they do best, not try to micromanage them. temptation for any company that buys another company is to micromanage it. you just want to spend $85 billion on that asset. host: reading your piece from yesterday, the subhead says no conditions, no restraints, a victor former germania and a loss for the trump adniration. why is that? guest: donald trump, as i'm s that your audience knows, campaign for president in part against cnn and said specifically that he would try to stop the time warner at&t deal. there has been an ongoing question for many months now as to whether or not or his office had anything to do with the department of justice seeking to stop this deal. the doj and the white house of say for the record that that's not the case. a lot of folks look at this and go -- the only reason the doj would have brought this case with low odds of success was at the president possibly hast. it's an open question. host: we look forward to your reporting on this

the paper reporting that at&t ceo randall stephenson met withe she said she was not interested in the this is quite uncertain. comcast is in a bidding war for fox's asset and the entire world is watching. joining us now is a media analyst. good morning to you. >> good morning. >> help us how you think this is going to play out. >>well, as you said, disney is in there with a $38 bid for the required assets for fox. we think comcast is putting together a counter bid. >> what's the number let's do it this way, what's the number which it's too painful for everybody? >> the winner becomes the loser. comcast said they're doing a all cash bid the investment rating they have is key based on s&p, it's about $45 for those assets it's a substantially higher bid. >> $45 per share in cash all cash. >> yes. >> after that, that's when you get upset? >> i think i get upset before that that's the highest number. that's about a 17 times multiple in 2019. that's a big number. >> that preserves their investment credit rating lu shareholders could revolt before that. >> if you've seen comcast shares there

we had randall stephenson on the show when the deal closed. how has your life changed?> it changed when i came to at&t about nine months ago i worked for wpp for 12 years. that was a great thing i ran group m prior. i was a big media buyer. i came to at&t because at&t has great assets to build a significant advertising business then we got sued by the government, so we've been doing planning in the background for how we can expand the business last week when we received the judgment from the court, that was good news. now we can get to work >> one thing you talked about is taking the ad load, the number of ads in a given hour down across the board of all the programming on time warner >> yeah. >> and make them higher margin for the ads you are showing by targeting them in a more prog m programatic way. >> yes we are in sort of a time where there's more content than ever there's more great content than there's ever been across more devices and channels but everybody still hates advertising when it interrupts con t content. it's our job to make it a better experience ther

you know, i think i've heard randall stephenson say on your show it's almost a nonsensical argument they'red more with more eye balls. i think something with the content being distributed and who can watch that could be a condition. i think that's a condition that at&t would gladly embrace, frankly. >> all right what time today, do you think? >> 4:00 but i heard no one can bring a phone or any device in the courtroom and the full opinion has to be read before anyone can leave the courtroom so, you know, who knows. li30 eastern time probably is >> does that mean anything does it mean it's going to be a complex ruling or you're good or not good we don't know? >> we don't know and there's been a lot of surprises in telecom lately. who knows. >> the government sector they don't know so we don't know anyway anyway, thank you, jennifer. >> thank you. >> if you hear anything, call us back or message me, if they leak to you now. >> okay. >>> coming up some parting shots. parting shots -- nice. fred kemp on the historic final thoughts anyway we'll get it from fred. president trump and kim jong-un. o