raytheon is under some pressure given a big competition called the patriot. so we're getting into details there, but the stock has come under pressure, but i think big picture win like the raytheon/utx merger. >> and of course, they're cutting its stake in that company and we had reports from our own leslie picker that pershing square, another major shareholder in united tech exited it so seems like less hurdles to that potential merger happening. shelia, thank you. >> thanks, morgan. >>> got some more news to get to out of washington. we're going to go back to eamon javers once again. >> a source familiar is now confirming the treasury secretary steven mnuchin did participate in a call with the chinese delegation today and that is the first u.s. confirmation that we've gotten of the chinese ministry of commerce announcement a short time ago, in which they said that the call did take place earlier today between mnuchin, lighthizer and chinese negotiators. that's an important aspect as we try to build a picture here of what exactly took place between the unite

it decided to sell its united look into thethan takeover by raytheon.g it lacked strategic sense. apollo is taking on wall street with a massive newspaper loan deal. the private equity firm has agreed to provide debt financing. todayal would bring usa and over 200 other publications under the same roof. it is one of the biggest ever arranged outside of wall street. airport staff has suspended its strike after a new pay offer. the union represents thousands of ground staff. the united labor group will take the new and improved offer and will hold off on plans for a walk out. is jumping into the all-inclusive resort business. the world largest hotel company announced plans of to new destinations that will cost more than $800 million to build. the projects are in the dominican republic and mexico and are designed to help keep marriott competitive. that is your bloomberg business flash. manus: thank you. for the roundup. the latest escalation in the earlier, wear -- talked about the 10-year gilts. donald trump and his election victory in 2016. some ofs have

he served as vice president of raytheon., mark earned a master's degree at harvard's john f. kennedy school of government and a phd at george washington university. in 2017, mark was sworn in as secretary of the united states army, a position in which he earned universal admiration and respect. tremendous respect. at the department of defense, secretary esper will work with more than 2 million service members and hundreds of thousands of civilian employees all dedicated to one critical mission: the defense of the nation and of this great nation's people. i have absolute confidence that mark will ensure that our incredible military is fully prepared to deter conflict and to defeat any foe. no enemy can match the awesome might of the american army, navy, air force, coast guard, and the united states marines. we had a budget approved when i first came in. billions and billions of dollars more than it was previously, in the previous administration, $700 billion. then i went to $716 billion. and i won't even tell you what this on

responsible for the morale and discipline of 500 personnel he retired from the air force in 2005 to join raytheonnager senior program manager of business development manager one of the notable projects was used aboard the aircraft carriers that we still use from this day just this past march after spending 13 years with the company he retired this past month that remains incredibly busy with his initiative across the southern california area please welcome colonel stewart and colonel scott. [applause] and now that was appropriate. [laughter] with my 29 years in the air force i was routinely told and taught we stand on the shoulders of giants rephrase that we are the greatest air force in the world because of those who went before us and the standards that they set the courage that they display and i am honored to sit here tonight with one of those giants. [applause] >> i have the opportunity to read this cover to cover it is absolutely fascinating there are questions to discuss with colonel stewart we could talk for two hours obviously we will not do that but i want to take out a couple of incide

they were both essentially the same box by raytheon but what was in the box were a series of rogues but it was a bunch of magnetic core donuts interlaced with wires in certain directions that made ones and zeros. those programs were made up at m.i.t. and they had to be separate programs or you had a program for landing radar, rendezvous radar, the descent if they took ae, star trek to locate where you were, and each one of those called by a master program called an executive. that executive was designed by a fellow at m.i.t. his name was herb fanning. it's great feature was that it would keep running even if one of the other programs had a and also had a feature that allowed for interrupts. number,z would put in a it was asking for something that constituted an interrupt. that interrupt took a little bit of time. that one or two or three of the alarms was he put in a d68 request. so he stopped doing that. wasother program alarm because of the way that -- i think the rendezvous radar had been set up and it was trying to attract the command module, that was the whole purpose of it. doing,

>> jonathan daniel, raytheon company. on thepact the you see u.s. defense industry to provide defense articles or transfer to south korea following the gsomia pullout? >> i am not aware of any direct implications. i would maybe have to look into that further. have a very robust alliance with the r.o.k. that has been in place for decades. even with r.o.k. in japan we depend on sustaining and the dancing that and improving that and security cooperation is part of that. they have made substantial investments in u.s. equipment and we are happy to see that. it is good for industry and it helps with interoperability and it helps the capability of the alliance. we do hope to work through seeing the sides work through these tensions. certainly our respective bilateral relations will continue -- we will attend to them and keep them as strong as possible. this will probably be the rest question -- last question. >> was their advice to president trump to try to create a triangular relationship at the g20 and was there any reaction nothe fact that japan did wan

they were both essentially the same box built by raytheon, but what were in the box was a series of cards that had what they called rogues, but it was a bunch of magnetic core donuts interlaced with wires and certain directions that made ones and zeros. but those programs were made up at m.i.t. and they had to be separate programs for -- you had a program for landing radar, rendezvous radar, programs for guidance. programs for -- if they took a star trek to locate where you are. and each one of those programs was called by a master program called an executive. that executive was designed by a fellow up at m.i.t. i think his name was herb fanning. it's an interesting read if you're in that area or interested in that kind of thing. but its great feature was that it would keep running, even if one of the other programs had a problem. it also had a feature that allowed for what they called interrupts. so when buzz would put in a number like p-68 or something like that, he was asking for something. that constituted an interrupt. that interrupt took a little bit of time. and it was -- buzz kind

he advised republican senators such as chuck hagel and bill frist on the hill and lobbied for raytheon before being chosen to serve as secretary of the army with president trump. i asked him if the u.s. was heading for a cold war with china and if isis resurged because the u.s. pulled out of syria. will the u.s. seize the iranian oil tanker headed to syria? will it respond to iranian backed rebels shooting down a $62 million u.s. drone? whether north korea has miniaturized a nuke. i asked him what russia hiding in the wake of that cruise missile accident and how much radiation was released. will the u.s. put cruise missiles in asia. these are all questions that we brought to him and we'll have many answers tonight on special report with bret baier at 6:00 p.m. eastern around more on fox news at night with shannon bream. trace? >> trace: rebels in yemen have blown up a u.s. drone. you reported a senior u.s. defense official confirmed that to fox news. the iranian backed rebels say they shoot it down with a missile. defense officials say it went down southwest of the country's capitol ci

doing well are interesting stocks among the names are things like general motors, kohl's, darden, raytheon, caterpillar. >> a couple of them are in the direct cross hairs of this trade war. >> deep cyclicals. i think as much as it's tough to do, you might be running into the epicenter if jim is right and this is just rhetoric and nothing to follow through. >> it better be rhetoric by the way, i like those calls general motors down 3% today i'm an owner of it as we have been talking about, they have joint ventures in china, so they're not importing autos subject to tariffs that's not why it's down 3%. it's down 3% as a barometer of what's going to happen to global gdp if we continue hurdling down this path. >> five points off the session lows right now the s&p 500. here's what's coming up on "the halftime report. >>> just buy it. guggenheim name nike its best stock idea in retail but is it a good play for your portfolio? that's our call of the day >>> plus, the investment committee is ready to answer your questions to reach us, go to cnbc.com/halftime. or tweet us using the hashtag #askhalf

we have learned the investor decided to sell his stake rather than fight its takeover of raytheon.e -- he had vowed to oppose the deal in june. saying it lacked strategic cents. the private equity firm has agreed to provide 1.8 billion of debt financing to support new media investments. the deal would bring usa today and over 200 other publications under the same roof. we have learned the loan is one of the biggest ever arranged outside of wall street. that is your bloomberg business flash. much, in london with your business flash. deutsche post is lifting the lower end of its profit forecast seeing earnings before interest and taxes between 4.3 billion euros and four billion euros despite slowing growth in tariffs between the u.s. and china. joining us is the cfo, melanie christ. theme ask you how much trade war is affecting your business. certainly did not stop you from tightening your expected profit range to the upside. melanie: good morning. obviously, we are not immune to what is happening around us. the good thing is we have a very broad and diversified portfolio. the -- the

s&p, but if you look at the more pure play defense names, you mentioned northrop grummant, also raytheonlockheed martin if you're looking for an area not exposed to china, it's names like this. we see china as a strategic competitor, a peer to peer threat you also have that two-year budget deal that just passed the president just signed into law. defense spending once again poised to increase this year and into next. and so if you're looking for areas where there's cash, where there's certainty in the coming years with revenue and order books, then you're looking at defense stocks >> that explains northrop in particular also, boeing is one of the most prominent names mentioned in the cross hairs when it's a china trade issue. what do you see playing out there today? >> boeing is down, really down at their lowest level in seven months but let's first look at the airline stocks all of them are down right now you look at the big international names, whether it's delta, united, american, that have exposure with routes to china, they're lower, not just because of what's going on with china sp

they decided to sell united rather than fight the takeover of raytheon. saying it lacked strategic sense. he also has dropped paper will processor adp because low hanging fruit has been plucked. shery: amazon is letting alexa users opt out of human reviews of the voice recordings, saying it violates privacy. now customers can remove the recordings from a tool that can be analyzed by in-laws -- by amazon workers. there was a team of thousands listening from alexa audio requests. some of the viewers had access to certain personal data. billionaire isan expanding into tech and will take on amazon. reliance industries is buying a startup funded by google that will pay $42 million for a controlling stake. they operate the find platform and he plans to transform it from a grocery store and neighborhood store environment into an online retail powerhouse. shery: let's look at the futures trading, u.s. futures are slumping down 1.2%. the u.s.fter designated china a currency manipulator pre-we will see taiex futures down 2%. this is have chinese futures closed for

he decided to sell his united states rather than fight the takeover of raytheon.n june, he vowed to oppose the deal. a massive new deal taking on wall street. the private equity firm agreed to provide $1.8 billion of debt financing to support new media investments. the deal would bring usa today and more than 200 other publications under the same roof. the loan by apollo is one of the biggest ever arranged outside of wall street. new payoff prompting heathrow airport staff to suspend their strike. unionoposal was made to a representing thousands of ground staff. the labor group will have a vote and hold off on plans for a walk out. jumping into the resort business. than $800cost more million to build. the projects in the dominican republic and mexico are designed to help marriott stay competitive. francine: four former federal reserve chiefs are making a plea for fed independence. they commented on trump's recent attacks on the central banks. guests onback to our the trade war. in ada and rupert, are we currency war globally? the sense that everyone wants a weaker

lockheed martin, raytheon, harris holding up right now. why are we seeing this defense stocks are defensive little to no exposure. strong cash flow big order backlogs that provide some longer term sales guidance and for many names, valuations look reasonable if not even cheap relative to the s&p now. the exceptions, contractors with other businesses that are exposed to trade, also the global economy, like united technologies, boeing, dealing with the own company specific issues as well, even general dynam dynamics, half the revenue coming from the it services is and business jets is seen as more cyclical. i think the trend here looking at defense more broadly, sara, is that the dollars are continuing to increase for now and the next several years that's a secular story not tied to economic growth. >> morgan, thank you >>> baidu and kohl's, two stocks part of cnbc's china trade index. both with exposure to china. baidu on pace for the worst day since may year to date down 35% kohl's down 27% year to date they get a lot of wholesale. they ha

i'm talking about raytheon, general dynamics, boeing, northrop grumman. these are all contributors to what we are seeing today. that is basically what i have to say. c-span could help by getting these people on the airwaves and letting us openly dialogue with them so we have a better understanding of what is actually going on. thank you for letting me have this time. host: thank you. let's hear from tom in hollywood, florida. caller: good morning. thank you for having me. i'm very tired appearing the same rhetoric every time something happens and we bring up gun control. all we have is a lot of talk by politicians and no action. everybody complains they will take away all of our guns. they have been complaining about that since the 1960 when they started having to register handguns. just because we have gun control does not mean they will take away all the guns. i am a gun owner but i have no reason to have a weapon of war. he is to be illegal to purchase weapons of war. we need a complete ban on automatic and semiautomatic weapons of war that we don't ne

raytheon and a lot of experts in israel.ways as well as the fact that they are a democracy in that has our back and provide the point that they made there exposes their agenda. only democracy in the middle east surrounded by countries that want to kill them. the organization we are going to get to in a second that was going to sponsor this trip is supposed to be in charge of palestinian democracy. 97% of palestinians live under the palestinian authority. has not held an election in a decade. if they held an election, hamas would win. just like they did in the gaza strip. hamas is a dedicated terrorist organization that seeks the destruction of israel. these two congresswomen talk about in coded language like the occupation and liberation using the palestinian narrative it. is anti-israeli it. is anti-semitic. it's the only view they have of that region and that's why they say the things they say. ainsley: you talk to evangelicals many of them went to the polls and voted for the conservative donald trump in the last election

stuart: one more you like will buy raytheon. explain your case, please. >> absolutely.ith all of china, with all of the defense contracts, the defense industry itself is growing. that is an unfortunate thing. i never thought personally i would raise my boys in a world where that kind of priority would be assigned. but from investment standpoint, i don't think you will find a better alternative. stuart: i just don't know how traders play this market. you could have a trump tweet any moment which would throw you off course. you have a news conference coming up in just a few minutes we believe. that could throw you off course. ordinary people like myself, and our viewers, how on earth are we supposed to trade this? the word is, you don't, do you? >> here's the thing. you actually, individual investors stuart, this is the beauty of this market, individual investors have the advantage because professional traders have to move money no matter what. as a individual i want to buy a quality company with quality products with real earnings and real executives and you can intellig