at&t ceo randall stephenson will join us at 8:15 a.m.tern >>> and a missouri jury ordering johnson & johnson to pay a record $4.7 billion over allegations that its baby powder causes cancer. the company's lead attorney will join us at 8:30 a.m. in a cnbc exclusive. i know it sounds like baby powder but, honestly, 20 years ago, i started reading about things like that. you can get baby powder that has talc and baby powder that has cornstarch i like baby powder but i made sure that i haven't used any talc in 20 years and here's why we will have the lead attorney on a lot of ways you can disrupt the normal genetic structure and it could be radiation and carcinogens and also the way something is shaped. and i'm not conflating baby powder with asbestos but we know it was the shape of that molecule goes into the double helix and disrupts the normal shape. and there are some people who thought talc had that characteristic it seems like you should be able to do some very strictry controlled studies to see if this actually happens. i don't know i

eastern ti time we have randall stephenson among other things thanks for joining us.is next ♪ ♪ and prove that the real world beats a post. ♪ ♪ ambitions live everywhere. synchrony helps make them happen with customized rewards and financing available at over 350,000 locations. synchrony. what are you working forward to? are you ready to take your then you need xfinity xfi.? a more powerful way to stay connected. it gives you super fast speeds for all your devices, provides the most wifi coverage for your home, and lets you control your network with the xfi app. it's the ultimate wifi experience. xfinity xfi, simple, easy, awesome. >>> good morning we're saying this. theresa may caught between trump and a hard brexit. the embattled prime minister will give a crucial news conference that is being described as a no-win scenario take you live to london straight ahead. >>> deal appeal. the doj challenging at&t $85 billion merger with time warner. i thought it was already done. anyway, we'll see. we'll talk to at&t ceo randall stephenson in the 8:00 hour. >>> earning seaso

take a listen to ceo randall stephenson >> we've now assembled the key elements of a modern media company it all begins with owning a wide array of premium content because we are absolutely convinced that there is nothing that drives customer engagement like high-quality premium content and whether it's netflix, amazon, google, disney or comcast, everybody is now pursuing the same thing. in an unusual move, stephenson was joined by all of the division heads including john thanky he said they want to invest in more original premium content for hbo. stephenson and stanky talked about how they can have global capability ands how those different investments will enable them to have a valuable, direct relationship with consumers. >> you take these three elements, premium content, 170 million direct to consumer relationships and great ad technology and then combine those with the high-speed networks and we think all of this is a game changer bringing these four elements together has changed the way we think about the value proposition. we spend our time now thinking how to combine these element

liz: you have to love randall stephenson, rock solid, calm as a cucumber always said i'm going to fightis till the end. charlie just touched at jfk in new york. joining us now on the phone. no rest for the weary i'm sure charlie. huge story. you have the ratings agencies looking at this closely, fitch is saying they are a little worried, three district court judges there on the circuit and they might have been a little more left-leaning because they were appointed by president obama. and so fitch says we still think that the merger will go through, but it is an overhang because these things take months. >> listen, there is more than a theoretical possibility this is not going through. i think, you know, i like randall a lot. he's a straight shooter. but i think he's overestimating -- or underestimating the political dynamic here. dc circuit court of appeals is where this is going. it's going to be a panel, not to, you know, a district court, federal district court judge. that circuit court was packed with liberal more consumerist judges by president obama in his two terms in office. it

. >> still have much more on this story as it develops throughout the hour and at&t ceo randall stephenson will join us at 8:15 a.m. on "squawk box". >> mcdonald's is falling in after hours of a food borne illness and it's judgment day for the beaten down bank stocks. with earnings picking up tomorrow, technicians think this could be the perfect buying opportunity and plus this investor is so bullish he said he'd put his mother's money on bitcoin. what does he tell his mom now about the bitcoin bear market. we are live from times square in new york city. much more "fast money" coming up after this need a change of scenery? the kayak explore tool shows you the places you can fly on your budget. so you can be confident you're getting the most bang for your buck. alo-ha. kayak. search one and done. we all want to know you know, the new, new thing. with xfinity's retail stores, you can now see the latest. want to test drive the latest devices? be our guest. want to save on mobile? just ask. want to demo the latest innovations and technology? do it here. come see how we're making things simple,

-week low and this comes as the government challenges at&t's acquisition of time warner ceo randall stephenson had this to say about the appeal on our network earlier today. >> we think the likelihood of this thing being reversed and overturned is really remote. it's a very narrow path that would have to be traveled to get this thing in reversed in any way. the merger is closed. we own time warner. >> and the options market seemed to agree with that assessment and calls outpaced puts two to one in the series of paces that garnered the amount of attention. there were big buyers of the strike call. 19,000 of them traded hands. what do you think? >> i don't think the worst is over. closed down 1 3/4% today. the stock traded lower when the deal is finalized and it traded lower when they're trying to break up this deal. what is the catalyst to get it higher. you don't really have any earnings growth. you have a lousy balance sheet and greg moffity talks about that all of the time and you have the directv deal years ago that doesn't seem to be paying any real dividend so they seem to be in no-man's-

is ceo randall stephenson worried? >> we think the likelihood of this being reversed and overturned is really remote. >> we'll hear much more from stephenson coming up, and we'll also hear from the head of an iconic british brand of what business leaders in the uk think of president trump you always pay your insurance on time. tap one little bumper and up go your rates. what good is your insurance if you get punished for using it? news flash: nobody's perfect. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise your rates due to your first accident. switch and you could save $782 on home and auto insurance. call for a free quote today. liberty mutual insurance. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ >>> i'll be right with you the government once again challenging at&t's acquisition of time warner, announcing that it's going to appeal that ruling that allowed the deal to go through. at&t ceo randall stephenson spoke earlier today with our julia boorstin in sun valley, idaho. >> reporter: randall stephenso

at&t ceo randall stephenson reacted to the news.s what he told fox business network senior correspondent charlie gasparino last night. let's listen. >> we've broke it yesterday that they were thinking of doing this, meaning they will try to break up the company and the breakup of merger. what's your thoughts? >> i don't think people are surprised by filed an appeal to the loser has an opportunity, right to appeal. that's what they've chosen to do. the judge wrote a very thoughtful, reasoned, thorough order and so we feel good about the appeal. no surprise. >> if you're a shareholder, how should you feel about this? it's technically two different companies anyways. the merger as it is. >> the merger is closed. we're executing right now. >> would you take this to the supreme court if that's where it goes? >> of course, but we don't anticipate that. >> there's a lot or consumer left-leaning judges. could you have a difficult time there? >> no, we don't angst filled. it is based on a long and we've been to the court wants and we've got

it's been a lineup julia boors sten in sun valley she has an interview with randall stephenson tomorrowning as well. >>> so dry always love hearing from barry diller fantastic. >>> moving on to broadcom, this is the tech story of the day broadcom making this $44 and 50% share in cash per bid for ca technology got a lot of analysts shrugging going, what are they doing here? the reason is broadcom is a chip company, all kinds of chip they made this unsuccessful bid for qualcomm that made a lot of sense to a lot of people. aside from qualcomm and the u.s. government trying to become this mega chip player but now ca, very different here is a player where more than half of its revenue in the last fiscal year was in the mainframe business the lion's share of its profit also in the mainframe business if you're reinventing itself for the cloud era, trying to take this mission critical enterprise software play and help customers migrate from mainframes to the cloud with the same level arguably of security of accuracy insight into their data. they've been pushing this hybrid cloud idea so what is

this is despite the judge's ruling as randall stephenson pointed out in definitive ruling that the mergere consumer, that this might mean lower price notice future as well. look at stock, inherent regulatory risk, down 2%. we got approval for the fox-comcast, excuse me, fox 21st century disney dial. that is not getting impacted. sends a message to the market, any further vertical integration, media stocks and deals will be taken a closer look at. as for the broader markets, we've broken through technical levels today, 25,000 for the dow. 28,000 for the s&p. people thinking we'll see a leg up from here. one. other drags besides at&t's stock are some banks as well. we're in thick of it, when it comes to earnings season. that was kicked off by the big lenders like citi and wells fargo and jpmorgan. jpm, the best of the bunch at this point. another record in the second quarter, beating quite easily when it comes to revenue and even trading revenue in the quarter. they have beaten for 14 straight quarters. but on the other side, citi, they did beat on the bottom line. looking ahead, this was n

it seems to be somewhat unexpected >> i have to say this is one area where i agree with what randall stephensond you earlier this morning, and that is given that this is the unusual kind of vertical case i talked about, i'm not sure it has much predicted value for other deals. everyone will be looking at the strength of the t mobile deal, a straight horizontal one. plenty of law and precedent, so that's not going to be effected i think by this outcome. >> jeffrey, thank you for your time appreciate it. >> thank you, david. thank you, julia >>> when we come back, president trump in the uk as protesters gather in the heart of london. we'll get inside the protests with a live report "squawk alley" will be right ba ck ♪ this is a story about mail and packages. and it's also a story about people. people who rely on us every day to deliver their dreams they're handing us more than mail they're handing us their business and while we make more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country, we never forget... that your business is our business the united states postal service. priority:

at&t ceo randall stephenson's is the five this week and says this is a done deal.out execution. however, the company has left the window open in case there is an appeal. turner broadcasting and put it to the side. they can offer a separate company for year just in case government comes back and went on appeal. they are moving ahead but yes they are pretty much aware that is a possibility the government might when an appeal. matt: what is the significance for vertical mergers in general? >> it sets a huge precedent. it's been decades since we've seen a deal of this size and magnitude. we have other vertical mergers that are basically underway. blocked, it's can have an influence on how those are made. not,e looking at cvs, and two different companies and two different business lines coming together. we have a comcast deal were looking at frost. that's in a set a precedent for what is to calm. the justice department faced an uphill battle this appeal that at&t's vauxhall in after-hours trading. is the market going to be concerned with all these other related deals? >

in terms of what this does to the company, we got to see what randall stephenson, apparently here aty says about this, he is the ceo of at&t and jeff bezos, how do you unscramble an egg being put together is pretty amazing. that is where we are. i will tell you this, guys, i've been saying this a the looks if you notice brian roberts, we were among the first to report, focusing less on fox assets that would need regulatory approval than sky which needs european approval, not doj approval. i think why he is focusing back on that, at least sky more, not because of fox assets, a doj that hates these big deals as you see in this case. this is a warning shot by doj. we don't like big media conglomerates. we're going to oppose them. we think they are too powerful. they do not reflect diversity of viewpoints. we'll use the long arm of the justice department to stop them from happening. that is one story. the other story what happens with at&t and time warner. how do shareholders and investors deal with this. that i can not tell you on the fly. melissa: if they're successful, if they're succ

randall stephenson i believe will get here tomorrow. brian roberts, the ceo of comcast is here, bob iger, the ceo of disney, here's one thing that is interesting, charles, if government shows opposition to at&t-time warner which is a conglomerate like comcast looking to buy us, there is a lot of thinking like okay, d.o.j. might oppose comcast's bid for us if they should go there. people think that bid is imminent even after today's sky bid that brian roberts might come after the entertainment assets slated to be sold to disney. this is an interesting, complicated situation. the scuttlebutt of this place, they're all here, i'll keep reporting until they throw me out, charles. charles: i remember the last time. be safe, my man. >> by the way that guy is still here, and he's talking about me. [laughter] >> brian coughlin is his name. charles: we'll keep tabs on you. highest retail gas prices in years concerning people. some think could this be the biggest threat to the u.s. economic growth. we've got jeff flock in chicago with the latest.

randall stephenson knows something about big media moguls this is at 8:40 a.m.w eastern time you don't want to miss that. >>> the price of soybeans is falling more than 20% in the past three months. the president saying he's protecting soybean farmers, but is he actually doing more harm than good? we'll hear from the head of the industry's crate association >>> and victoria secret's was once a big brand name, but some say the brand is broken. we'll tell you what they are doing to combat the sagging sales. that's next on "power lunch. >>> i'm sue herrera with your cnbc news update secretary of treasury steve mnuchin says the u.s. could reopen trade talks with china. but only if beijing is willing to make significant changes. >> i would say to the extent that the chi these want to make series efforts to changes, i am available at any time to discuss those. >> the white house releasing a week-old letter from kim jong-un to president trump in which he says his efforts to improve relations will succeed, but it comes on the day that north korean officials did not show

this is really the first time for randall stephenson, the ceo, to lay out his strategic vision.t transaction, i think that's what investors are going to be looking to hear. more about what they plan to do with the time warner assets. what can they do with hbo from my perspective to dove tail with over the top investments they've made in directv now. and of course he's been a big advocate with the digital advertising. >> when you touched on hbo there, one of the big question marks is how much money at&t plans to invest in that business whether it comes to content. i think hbo right now has about $2 billion what number do you want to hear? >> i think there's an opportunity to enhance that. i don't expect them to go to $8 billion. for netflix, that's the pl number the actual number is probably closer to $13 billion. as they've proven over time, they've been able to deliver great content. could that number go to $3 billion, $4 billion, that's probably more in the neighborhood of what i'd look for to further enhance that and still be, you know, competitive. but still be able to drive

on the bottom line the company raised its full-year adjusted earnings guidance on the call randall stephensonut emphases on at&t's content now that it owns time warner >> we now assembled the key elements of a modern media company. it begins with owning a wide array of premium content we are absolutely convinced that there's nothing that drives customer engagement like high quality premium content. whether it's netflix, amazon, google, disney, comcast, everybody is pursuing the same thing. >> joining us is john hudlick from ubs he just lowered his price target from $37 to $33. good morning >> thanks for having me. >> what happened >> i would say that the quarter was largely as expected, but showed accelerating revenue declines, ebita was down 6%, just for the communications business earnings were light. the time warner business was solid. but, you know, as we lock ahead we're looking at more spending on content, higher integration expenses, and we thought staying on the sidelines makes sense >> when you math out the additional expense of the investment that needs to be made on the time -- in