and albertsons faced tough questioning from senators amy klobuchar and mike lee kroger's ceo rodney mcmullen joins us now on a first cnbc interview. great to see you. >> great to see you, michael. >> first of the quarter, certainly we'll get to talk about the albertsons deal as well you did beat in terms of fop and bottom line performance and raise guideness coming at a time, i know you mentioned on the call, that consumers seem they're a little more careful, value focused. how are those things fitting together are you seeing a little more con cautious yet consumer-raising guidance. >> when you look at the fundamental approach to the customer as supposed to our brands and fresh products all those things together with a great value, it's really connecting with our customers well, and we would expect it to continue to connect well, and we're trying to make sure we do everything we can to minimize the impact of inflation, so it's really all of those pieces working together. >> and i think -- i know you said private labels may be a bigger part of the mix, so that would make sense we're seeing, y

my name is rodney mcmullen. i am chair and ceo of kroger.hank you for your time today and i appreciate the opportunity to be here alongside the ceo of albertsons to discuss the compelling benefits of our proposed merger. we know you have questions about the merger's impact. today we will share our strong conviction that this merger will enhance competition, lower prices and prove the customer experience and create investments in our associates while securing the long term future of union jobs. i thought i would share a little bit about me before i talk a little bit more about some of the kroger insights. i grew up in a union household. my parents bought a small farm. i began my career as the senator shared earlier stocking shelves at a kroger in lexington, kentucky in 1978. i would've never imagined to have the job i have today. the grocery industry has changed significantly throughout my career and kroger continues to evolve. when i joined kroger the average family bought most of their groceries during a weekly trip to their neighborhood st

rodney mcmullen intends to put a lot of money into a new deal to create a new competitor.tor at justice, doesn't matter, doesn't work now, as you've always told me, jim, you seem to forget the fact that you can appeal their rulings. you can take them to court. >> yeah. obviously, you can just defend yourself in court if they bring, as we know, right? at&t successfully defended itself, completed the time warner merger. that said -- >> that could happen. >> it happened a year later than they wanted it to and that was very detrimental. >> and that's what hurt kroger, i think. the idea that this is going to drag on. you may think it's going to be done quickly, and it's not our same-store sales may not mean anything to you at this point next year. >> can become a real distraction for management and shareholders. let's get over to bob pisani and check on the broader market after the big rally yesterday. >> the dow is down on salesforce the s&p is up. inflation moving in the right direction. that's why we're up. risk-on up here, if you want to look at ark, metals and mining stuff

the ceo rodney mcmullen was accused of silencing his christian employees and refused to wear a gay pridebol. he was more from senator cotton and why so important for republicans to hold woke ceos accountable. speak with a large public corporations have in fact become an arm of the democratic party. in this case kroger didn't just refusing to wear what they perceived as a gay pride symbol and being sued by the trump equal opportunity commission and settling it. you also have them forcing employees to go through things like critical race theory training or gender ideology based training. we have seen this in georgia where brian kemp stood up the delta, coca-cola for falsely defending the law that they passed last year and made it easier to vote in order to achieve. we sell that ron desantis standing up to disney world. corporations for a long time have come to republican politicians and expected us to stand up for them. traditionally, more friendly towards the enterprise system to say for democrats. >> carley: thank you, todd. you can't say it better than tom cotton. he blurted without so

in fact, earlier this year, kroger ceo, rodney mcmullen confessed that, quote, a little bit of inflation is always good in our business, closed quote. well, it must have been very good this year. kroger has now amassed enough to spend 24.6 billion dollars to buy up one of its largest competitors, albertsons. if this feels like dÉjÀ vu all over again, that's because it is. back in 2015, albertsons acquired safeway for 9.2 billion dollars. as a condition of approving that particular merger, the ftc required albertsons to divest 168 of its stores. when the largest buyer of the divested stores went bankrupt in just nine months later, not even a full year, albertsons brought back some of the same stores it had been required to give up and worked to avoid violating the antitrust laws, in order to allow the merger to go through. then the ftc official who had signed off on the divestiture now runs the antitrust practice at the law firm representing kroger and its purchase of albertsons. hollywood could not write a more cynical plot, not if it tried. yet the companies assure us that this is the m

that is one to watch it's a very good stock >> how much of that is pegged to, for example, what rodney mcmullenoger said last week, and that is inflation's going to moderate, and some of those margins at grocers, for example, are going to soften >> well, i do know that you still everything that goes into pepsico, every aspect of it's come down. but they only replace once a year, so if you're going to think about what to be in, in 2023, don't give up the ship pepsico. i think -- of course, headwinds turn to tailwinds in 2023 for them for coca-cola too. there's a lot of companies that did very good numbers next year. people don't understand what went into a product has all come down everything >> we have a couple of conferences. uvs has their annual media conference going on. our boss making comments on the ad market that may be worth sharing. ad market's gotten worse over the last month or so, hard to figure out if that's because of macroconditions or because people are just uncertain. he says he thinks it's more uncertainty, and basically said fourth quarter is where we're seeing some weakness,