Transcripts For CNBC Power Lunch 20240713

And that, weve taken 40 seconds out of the next show, but since i cohost the next show, i took it from myself, contessa its paying peter, robbing peter to pay paul. Whats new at 2 00 stocks sitting just below record highs. Bank of america says theres no euphoria in this market. Thats a good thing. Plus boeing soaring on reports that Warren Buffett is jumping into the game, but theres one bearish analyst who says sell this stock hell be here to make this case. Later, Oil Prices Rising as tensions in the middle east ratchet up are higher prices here to stay well hear from the ceo of marathon oil power lunch starts right now the dow off the lows of the day but still down b about. 40 . The s p in the red as well down a quarter of a percent look at the north ameriasdaq in stocks check out micron and western digital. Theyre surging after cowen says both of these stocks as a buy. Micron up almost 8 , tyler the markets largely shaking off concerns about iran instead focusing on hopes for earnings season but are those expectations too high bob pisani has more. Hi, bob. Happy new year hi, tyler this is a very different market from this period last year last january, there were low expectations for stocks in 2019 and the market was cheap the s p was at 13. 9. Thats below the historic norm fast forward now, 2020, the its the opposite theres High Expectations for 2020 stocks are expensive though. About 18 times forward earnings. Apple is trading towards the higher end of its historic pe range. Other companies seeing their pe ratios creep up lately include microsoft, alphabet, even jpmorgan and bank of america as well so what should investors do now . Thats the big debate. Should they go all in on the recovery theory . Its betting that a combination of a trade war truce, a neutral fed, a strong u. S. Consumer and globaling bottom in the World Economy is going to come together and the markets are going to move to new highs or should we hold back until the Global Economic situation is clearer and i want to just take a look here and show you the j and k. Heres a good example of a lot of going to be a slowdown because that is essentially a bet on an economic slowdown. Back to you. All right, bob, thank you for that and as stocks sit here just about a percent below the record highs, a new bank of america note out says despite the rally in the past year, euphoria remains absent in this market which could mean these bulls have more room to run. Lets bring in jack avalon the president and chief Investment Officer i want to begin with you what do you make of b of as note when they see fund flows yeah, its hard for me to because for every seller, it comes down to price. So i dont think you can make too much, too many conclusions in terms of fund flows being an indicato indicator. However, i would agree that i dont think were going a euphoric atmosphere. I think theres still a lot to worry about and thats a good thing because durable markets often dont last if a euphoric atmosphere doesnt exist but you can see why people would ask the question afterall, there seems to be a polly anna move when you have serious warnings coming and just keeps edging higher. The path of least resistance is higher. I would agree sentiment is important. Its one of the metrics that we track. Although ill call it more of a spice than ingredient because really, its only meaningful at extremes i look for example at the American Association of individual investors they do a weekly poll. I can look at poll bulls divided by bulls plus bears and i find that yeah, theyre above average but theyre not at an extreme. So for me, its sort of flashing yellow its really not something that i would say is a bullish signal. In fact, i would argue i would wait for widespread bearishness to say okay, expectations now are very low and the opportunity to beat them much high er in th market were not there yet. Doug, to pick up on contessas point, how much more risky did the eck with wquity me last thursday on news of f the killing of events like that are very binary but predicting what will or will not happen is very difficult youve got a fed on hold theyve been emphatic about that which takes away a lot of the sb Interest Rate risks. Theres always noise in the market last year about this time in december, people were saying that was the worst market in decades for december a year later, people are saying last december was the best both are factual, but question is you know, is it really all that news worthy i think investors can only get the longterm returns that seem so easy if they tend to ignore the noise. Not to diminish that, but we just dont know. Jack is the market riskier today than it was a year ago if it is, how do you quantify it and secondly, what do you do about it i cant quantify it because volatility is still low, tyler this market has been driven by liquidity. Two major factors are bond market volatility and stock market volatility. Both of which were in the lowest of their historical range. My sense is we are likely to see a pick up in volatility of both stocks and bonds if we get some headline events global either from iran or china or where ever else, the election. So i do think you know in many respect, liquidity is at the north pole which ever step we take is going to be to the south and thats not necessarily great for the stock market what companies are you look ing at, doug, who can continue to show their earnings to improve their revenues, their margins, no matter what comes down the pipe . Yeah, i think thats where you have to stay focused and it all comes down to companies that can innovate to repeat of the last several years, Global Growth maybe gets a lift a little bit because of the phase one trade agreements, but who knows where phase one a goes, right . So you have to focus on those companies that can grow in spite of it all and i think thats still Tech Companies i think health care started to come alive a little bit. Its got political risks, but its also an area thats still right for innovation and potential. Communications services. So theres always a bull market somewhere. And my b objective is to try to find and our investors have been well rewarded for the that doug, thank you very much jack, good to see you. Thank you both President Trump is expected to meet this hour with the Prime Minister of greece and well watch for any comments from the president regarding the situation with iran. Eamon javers is at the white house for us and it is often at these sort of informal moments that the president makes news. Yeah, thats right. Two things were watching at this minute which are both about to get started one is as you mentioned, the president of the United States in the oval office with the greek Prime Minister he could address this iranian issue if he so chooses reporters will be in there with cameras as well. Then weve got mark esper at the pentagon e expected to brief resourcers momentarily, so two opportunities to get new information on exactly going on in terms of the u. S. Perspective on iran. Esper was on cnn earlier today make k a number of points including clearing up the fact that the United States is not going to be leaving iraq anytime soon esper also saying hes confident that President Trump will only give him legal orders in regard to iran. Thats on this question of whether or not the u. S. Would attack cultural sites. The president has suggested that e he might do that the u. S. Officials have suggested that the United States might not actually want to do that in any armed confrontation with the iranian they say she was meeting in background at the time the u. S. Struck him last week, so giving more detail on what she was doig in background. Well see what esper says. The president as i say meet ng the oval office. Well get news there the sec tech also gave a news briefing today and said that the United States stands ready to conduct similar strikes in the future if the iranian respond. Heres what he said. In the even the iranian make another bad choice, the president will respond in the way he did last week decisive, serious about message to iran about the constraints we are going to place on that regime so it doesnt continue to put american lives at risk so well stand by and wait to hear what the president has to say. Well bring that to you as soon as we can. Thank you very much and coming up, everyone you talk to has a favorite podcast it seems. Got to listen to this. Its becoming a big business and you might be surprised about how is leading the charge. Plus well talk to an analyst who just got bearish on boeing the only one on wall street. The only one with a sell rating. Is the street being too e 7 x . Stic about the return ayith us73ma soft music when i see obstacles, i create opportunities. When i see adversity, i find a way. When i hear never, i say now. [announcer] Southern New Hampshire university is education made to fit your goals with over 200 degree programs, flexible class schedules, and some of the lowest online tuition rates in the nation. cheering so when i face barriers, i can break through. [announcer] breakthrough at snhu. Edu. Moments ago, boeing announced it will recommend Simulator Training for 737 max pilots and that could further delay getting these planes back into service boeing actually hired today however following rumors that Warren Buffett Berkshire Hathaway way is buying shares of boeing berkshire refusing to confirm or deny, but longbo is out with a bearish call on the stock initiating boeing at an underperform with a price target of 300 according to fact set, that company is the only sell on the street along with 12 holds and ten count them buys. Here to discuss is the analyst behind the call, chris olin. Nice to have you with us thank you, tyler. Sfwl do you feel a little bit out on a limb considering that none of your fellow analysts have taken the brave step that you have yeah, i think whats important here is weve been trying to do Something Different and take a bottoms up look at boeing through serving work and discussions with a network of suppliers so instead of trying to guess whats going to happen and project the whole max situation, we talk to suppliers. We find out that they have very little visibility and if these guys are basically getting Little Information in boeing, investors are essentially flying blind so we think its best to assume the worst Case Scenario in terms of earnings and Free Cash Flow and thats been our concern the whole time theres still more negative news to come out on the story and wed prefer to wait until that does show itself i read in my notes that boeing has earmarked more than 6 billion to pay its customer, name ly airlines, for the disruptions they have incured as a result of the grounding of the max plane. And with each passing day, those costs i presume go up. Now the pilots for those airl e airlines are going to be to be diverted to take Simulator Training for x number of days. How much when all is said and done, chris, do you estimate this and i dont think im overstating it, this debacle is going to cost boeing obviously you put numbers on it, but obviously the human cost is incal clabl. If we use a base Case Scenario that boeing could get approved by the faa and get production restarted by march or april, thats your base Case Scenario the question becomes will the Airlines Accept these aircraft especially during the seasonal slow period of demand. Then on top of that, will passengers still ride on the max . These are questions you brought up earlier so if i have a 16 per share base Case Scenario, it looks like that number could fall down to 10, 11 per share therefore, instead of people talking about 15 billion of Free Cash Flow, this company has 4, 5, billion of Free Cash Flow and theyre going to have to look to raise money. How do you factor in theyre settling with the airlines we had the news yesterday b about american airlines. Theyre b looking at these 2019 charges and trying to put that to o bed thatven the surrender to supporting pilots taking Simulator Training moves forward on okay, whats next how do you put that all into perspective about whats ahead for boeing i think what you can do is say everything is a guess other than what boeing is telling the suppliers and boeing is basically told their suppliers to shut down were willing to destabilize the marketplace so theyre preparing people for a period of kind of zero production. Communications at the bottom level rather than whats coming from Airline Discussions what about the suppliers sm are these names you covered . Are you downgrading any of those companies as well . Yeah, actually to maybe downgraded hwith a 66 price target we have an underperform recommendation on ati and our concern would be the slier of these materials that could go to Spirit Aerosystems or boeing, theyre going to feel some type of bull whip effect and those would be a void for us as well until the whole station stabilizes itself. How does the removal of the ceo affect anything at all on the stock . Could you say that again . The removal of Dennis Muhlenberg wheffect if any has it had the new ceo david calhoun, he has been a catalyst of change at his past places of employment. Hes pretty familiar with turn around stories so we think he will bring about some positive inflection to the story. The problem is he comes out this Fourth Quarter update, wec feel theres a kitchen sink type of scenario where hes going to have to put out all the bad news and thats going to force people to rethink earnings. Youre starting on a much lower point today. Chris, thank you very much. Appreciate it. After initial pop after the u. S. Killed an iranian general, oil prices have settled back down to 62 bucks a barrel. Should oil traders be more worried about escalation well have the ceo of marathon oil, lee tillman, his first cnbc interview in more than 50five year, but first is the world big enough for two payments providers . Paypal versus square which one will pay off for you power lunch will be right back , and tie it all together with a worldclass software experience. We ended up creating, as you all know, so much more. Peloton is truly a category of one and were just getting started. Now, lets do this. Together, we are going further than we ever thought possible. The unparalleled landscape of park city, or the famed peaks of whistler, youve faced the hassle of lugging your gear through the airport. With ship skis, youre just a few clicks away from having your skis, snowboard and luggage shipped from your doorstep to your destination. With unrivaled pricing, real time tracking ship skis delivers, hassle free. Ship ahead and go catch those first tracks on fresh snow. Ship skis. Your skis. Delivered. Paypal and square getting upgrades today paypal to outperform and square to buy at bank of america. Racing ahead of the Broader Market battle of payment stocks, which one will pay off more than the other . Lets bring in the trading nation team. Its obviously been a very, very busy part of the market. Payments has lot of different ways to play it. How do these stack up . Thin tech mobile payments, one of our top industries, really like how broadbased it is visa, mastercard, Global Payments in terms of paypal and square, paypal is really the standout here of these two. The december rally above 108, that completed the reversal in trend. We are buyers of this stock with a stock placed at 108. And i think on the terms of upside, i think the stock rallies back to where it started to break down in july at around 119. Looks good. And quinn, slightly different orientations here with these two stocks paypal is much more pure kind of digital and mobile square more of a smaller business focus and in its strategy how would you evaluate them . Yeah, i like both of them, mike, but i will tell you, i agree with ari that i think paypal is the winner fundamental hi speaking, tstock is trading 40 times forward earnings but set to grow around 65 this year. In addition, the Balance Sheet is better and we think that the adoption of the venmo Payment System is really moouing beyond just the younger generation. Side note, i set my mother up with it. She loves it so there you go. Yeah, i can also vouch for the fact that its not just the very younger people like me. Not crazy about that social aspect of venmo thing. Put this on private thank you. For more, head to our website or follow us on twitter. Tyler, back to you im with you on that, michael. The social media part of it i dont love and the fees arent that low either. Ahead on power lunch, oil front and center as tensions are iran continue to heat up after the break, well head live to miami with an exclusive interview with the ceoof marathon oil plus, 2019 saw a large number of tech founders and ceos step away from their companies or get pushed out will 2020 be a year of second Second Chances and pod bless america. Morgan stanley out with a note on the booming podcasting business why spotify is dominating an even outshining apple. All this when power lunch returns. Let me tell you somethi, i wouldnt be here if i thought reverse mortgages took advantage of any american senior, or worse, that it was some way to take your home. Learn how homeowners are strategically using a reverse Mortgage Loan to cover expenses, pay for healthcare, preserve your portfolio and so much more. A reverse Mortgage Loan isnt some kind of trick to take your home. Its a loan, like any other. Big difference is how you pay it back. Find out how reverse mortgages really work with aags free, noobligation reverse mortgage guide. With a reverse mortgage, you can pay whatever you can, when it works for you, or, you can wait, and pay it off in one lump sum when you leave your home. Discover the option thats best for you. Call today and find out more. Im proud to be a part of aag, i trust em, i think you can too. Welcome back, im sue herera heres your cnbc news update federal prosecutors asking a court to sentence former National Security adviser Michael Flynn to up to six months in prison a reversal of their request for leniency a year ago. This after flynn backed off of a cooperation deal a multicar pile up close in the northbound lanes of i95 near bangor mane about 30 vehicles were involved with several injuries. Slick conditions were reported at the time of the accident along with strong sun glare. Food Delivery Service door dash teaming up with chase chase card holders will now have a complimentary dash pass. A Subscription Service that eliminates delivery fees the offer is available until the end of 2021. And in sports news, the new york giants are working on a deal to hire new England Patriots assistant joe judge as their next head coach. Judge was part of three super bowl wins with new england in eight years as an assistant coach. He is current ly the patriots wide receiver coach and special teams coordinator. Up to date ty, back to you. Thank you very much the markets now, lets take a look at how the dow stands down 107 points. B about a third of a percent s p 500 off about a quarter of a percent, but the nasdaq composite is in the green by. 6 of 1 . Time now for todays power movers apatch, the stock having its best day in 50 years micron tech higher after cowen upgrades that stock to outperform and raises its price target to 70 a share. Micron up more than 8 cowen says it expects fundamentals to improve earlier than expecteded and finally, apellis, a drug to treat a rare drug disease, outperformed a a similar drug up about 22 and a quarter percent. Wow with the oil market closing for the day, lets go to eric. Hi, eric thats right. You can see the red here oil prices snapping a threeta win streak with their first session lower in the new year. Prices had surged over the past few days amid concerns over rising tensions in iraq and iran with wti hitting its highest levels since april losing around 60 cents today, just a day after it reached its highest level since the drone strikes in september investors maybe taking a wait and see approach on iran knowing they may focus more narrowly on u. S. Military targets rath eer than energy targets. Back to you. Thank you very much as eric just mentioned, the price of oil jumping about 2. 5 in the week as tensions with iran flared up heres what the ceo of chevron told Brian Sullivan about the impact these tensions will have on the price of oil. We saw the attack last year on Critical Infrastructure in saudi arabia and pretty quickly, the market reverted to areas you know, a price range where it had been before we continue to be in a pretty well supplied market and this event, while certain ly news worthy, didnt fundamentally Strike Energy infrastructure or change the simply and demand dynamics in the market all right, meanwhile, back to brian at the Goldman Sachs Energy Conference in miami beach for another big interview. Hi, brian. Thank you very much and it is kind of a big interview because your next guest has not done a Television Interview in what, five and a half years five and a half years so i dont know where youve been, lee tillman. President and ceo. Good to be here i think it is good timing you start to feel like the Energy Markets are turning around we heard from Michael Werth earlier. Are you surprised that the price of oil did not spike 10 on the news what would have happened if that happened a decade ago . I think we would have seen a much broaderer response. I think the damping effect is really the impact of the u. S. Energy renaissance we make up about 8 of the Global Supply today and those are reliable, highly secure barrels that the market is counting on and i do believe thats reduced this risk premium from returning back into the market heres what i think a lot of people probably struggle to understand which is that the u. S. Is as you noted, about 8 of the goldman market. We have more than doubled our production u weve got relatively risk free oil in other words, not going to have these geo political violent conflicts, hopefully not, but yet investors dont seem to care i know the stocks have done well the last couple of weeks, but the last couple of years has been brutal. I think youve seen in the decade that the sector has done a poor job b of generating true corporate returns, sustainable Free Cash Flow and get iting th back to shareholders and i think you know you look at the waiting of the Energy Sector today and the s p 500. Its at historical lows. 15 and the way we reverse that is byi getting back to a foundation of judging ourselves on the financial metrics that matter what are wa wha corporate returns first, modest oil pricing and getting that cash flow back to shareholders in the most efficient way possible. Scotts one of the smarter guys out there he said theres too many oil companies. Too many Service Companies we need consolidation. You guys have been pretty quiet with the exception of a couple of bolt on deals do you see a wide range of m and ark comeing for you or other players . Ipg the issue is that when you look at optically the oil and gas spice today, there are a lot of players out there doing the same things in the same locations. Its a xhcommodity and somewhato a range bound commodity, but the issue is some strong barrier consolidation. You have to have natural industrial logic synergies then finally, you have to overcome social issues as well you do. Esg. Environmental. You look at whats happening in australia. Theres fires. Climate change how does the ceo of an oil and gas company, by the way, people could say oil and gas needs to go aaway the iea is predicting decades more assume theyre correct how do you manage through that as the ceo of an oil and gas company under this kind of institutional and environmental pressure i think you have to reground everyone back to the dual challenges that we have the e me worlds growing energy needs and address the e in esg, which is Climate Change the way we do that is through an all or above Energy Strategy where oil and gas has to play a role in an Energy Transition we still have a billion people in the world today without electricity. 3 billion in the world that are living in basically energy poverty. So our work is not done yet. Okay. Final question is if you had to bet, i dont know if youre a betting map, lee, we just got to know each other, will oil prices a year from today be higher or lower than they are now . I think that today, we certainly are in a much more constructive market. I think the geo political tepgss were seeing today are likely going to persist for some time in the middle east i do think that creates a bit of a floor under oil and gas. Sounds like youre in a very gentlemenly way saying likely higher but were not going to plan on that basis. Were going to take a conservative approach to planning make sure we can operate over a wide range of pricing. Dont let it be another five and a half years president and ceo of marathon contessa, i think if i heard one word so far this conference more than any other word today, it is the word conservative. Not from a political perspective, but from a Balance Sheet perspective and these companies realizing hey, oil may not dpo higher and if it doesnt, we need to be prepared for any scenario and your guests have been so insightful in add iing their perspective to the days news. Thank you for that to the bond market now hi, rick hi. Indeed, theres interesting action today look at various parts of the curve. The two year note. Notice on this two day chart how u todays range is confined inside but still on the firm side especially considering that outside of nonmanufacturing, the data was squishy now lets move out the curve much different look. Were moving up to the upside. Were starting to resteepen the curve just a bit after the flattening on the iranian story on thursday as you see on the one month of tens minus twos and even the dollar indeck this is after the chinese currency moved to the best levels since august but the dollar index moving higher above 97 best close in about a week and a half tyler, back to you rick, thank you very much p and we have a news alert from washington elon has it. Senate majority lead eer mith mcconnell saying he has the vote to set the rules for an impeachment trial. He said hes ready to move forward without support from democrats and he envisions the trial would have two phases. The first would allow the house managers to make their case, allow senators to ask questions, but not include any witnesses as democrats had requested. He said hes ready to do that and move forward does this mean that potentially in a second phase, there would be a second vote where they would allow witnesses to come forward beyond those who were interviewed during the house inquiry . Quite possibly, there were a number of republican senators who said they feel that they may decide to hear from witnesses later, but they need to hear the case from the house in its entirety first so theyre sort of hunting on that decision but say iing they want to get startd they want to agree on the guidelines for how this b will be presented before the senate so mcconnell saying that he can move now on phase one and sort of punt the question on witnesses until later but democrats have wanted that to come at the beginning. My question then the natural one is is this going to be enough to pry those impeachment kls out of the house and from Speaker Pelosi that is a very good question. We dont know the answer to that yes. Pelosi had said she did not want to turn over the articles until she had an idea of o what the senate trial would look like if its where the terms of at least the beginning of the senate trial is now set, what type of leverage does she have over the second part of a trial. Thats a big question. Certainly seems mcconnell is willing to move forward on partisan basis he said hes willing to depart from what happened durlg the clinton impeachment where there were 100 r senators who voted on the guidelines he says he can do it and this whole process has been moved forward and party lines. Thank you very much. Coming up, after spending about 170 million on ads, Michael Bloomberg going on a super bowl blitz. Weve got thdeilrit teth quick break hey, saved you a seat. This rounds on me. Hey, can you spot me . Come on in. Find your place today, with silversneakers. Included in most Medicare Advantage plans. Enroll today by calling the number on your screen or visit getsilversneakers. Com google getting sued by sonos today. Saying google enfringed on its pat ebts whats going on, diedra. So, according to filings, sonos is is seeking financial damages and a ban on the sell of google speakers, smart phones and laptops here in the United States Patrick Spence says that google is an important partner, but it has been quote blatantly and knowingly copying our technology in their audio products. They say they have no choice but to litigate now. Google says theyre disappoin d disappointed theyre going to dispute the claims and defend them vigorously this is part of a bigger backlash against big tech. Of google and amazon moving to new products like home speakers. Theyre stepping on the toes of their partners according to the new york times, sonos says amazon is stealing it technology but they couldnt risk battling both tech giants at once and spencer has on these issues sonos would not comment further. Back to you. Heres a taste of some other stories were following Mike Bloomberg will invest millions into a Super Bowl Ad that will take direct aim at President Trump. The ad could cost him at least 10 million fox executives have said 30 second ads will cost north of 5 million. A spokesperson for bloombergs team confirmed the ad buy. For more on the story, go to cn cnbc. Com he can spend whatever he wants and he is hes far outspentdi inoutspendie other democratic competitors and maybe he has to because since hes not doing any fund raising, the rules of these debates so far have prohibited him from being on stage so this is his way to get some Media Exposure outside of metropolitian. New york and some of the coastal cities where he is known he is not that wellknown in other parts of the country and he had a late start in the contest. Starbucks seems to believe oat milk is more than a fad. About 1300 starbucks in the midwest are serving oat milk honey latties. They can also sub in oat milk in other drink orders the plant based milk business is rough worthly worlt 2 billion. I find this odd they decide to launch this in the heart of dairy and yet at the same time, they would go for oat mitt k because weve seen almond milk, soy milk, coconut milk, starting to take more and more market share away from dairy. My son, 14, had oat milk this morning. Chocolate. I can tell you hes watching about the new coach of the giants he does not know he had oat milk this morning it was pretty good its still just a tiny slice though of those plant based milks, but its growing. Wow. You know if your dad has cash, spend it yeah. All right. Speaking of plant based businesses, six days after opening their doors, many illinois cannabis shops are out of weed. What . Yes up in smoke. Customers bought almost 11 million worth of Recreational Marijuana in the first days of the new year legal sales perhaps higher than some expected many shops are closed though e now waiting for new deliveries some of the Major Cannabis Companies we are watching they are all, well, theyre not higher theyre down today you know whats interesting about this is that because its still not legal federally, whats grown in one state cant cross state lines. So for instance, oregon and colorado growers had a surplus theyve got more on hand than they can get rid of. They cant send it to illinois by the way, theyre not going to be growing much in illinois in the middle of winter those hot houses dont grow that much weve all heard about the streaming wars what about the podcast battle . We have an analyst who e tells us which Company Apple fears the most stick around for more power lunch. Days and nights out of , keeping me from the things i love to do. Talk to your doctor, and call 8442142424. [spokesman] if youve tried colleg group cheering shed, snhu lets you transfer up to 90 credits toward you bachelors degree. [woman] it doesnt matter how old you are, you can do it, you can finish. [spokesman] finish your degree at snhu. Edu apple is fights a twoside war. Engaged in combat in the much publicized streaming wars. On the other side here, it faces stiff competition in the world of podcasting. According to the latest Morgan Stanley survey, apples losing about a quarter of users choose spotify to listen to their favorite podcasts, edging above apples 21 share, adding insult to injury, more and more ios users are choosing to lynn to spoke i fit premium instead of apple music. Joining us is the analyst behind the survey, the managing director at Morgan Stanley well, yeah, i think the story is audio entertainment is a growth category, as you laid out. I think its a good story overall, but youre right. Spotify has been investing significantly in podcasting. That has shown up in our survey ben, i got to interrupt you we are now getting tape playback with the president grappling with withdrawn lets listen to what he has to say. Reporter a lot of questions are asked about what evidence you had that soleimani was planning attacks what can you tell us about what you knew prior to ordering the attack number one, i knew the past his past was horrible, a terrorist, so designated by president obama, as you know he wasnt even supposed to be outside of his own country he was so right there but thats in a way the least of it we had an attack very recently he was in charge of where we had people horribly wounded, one dead in fact the number now of this morning i believe is two dead, and that was his he was traveling with the head of hezbollah they werent there to discuss a vacation there were the they werent there to go to a nice place in baghdad. They were there to discuss bad business we saved a lot of lives by terminating his life youll be hearing about it, or at least various people in congress will be hearing about it tomorrow. Our secretary of state covered it well. I saw his news conference, mike, if you want to mention a couple things innish to what i have just said, we had tremendous information. Weve been following him for a long time. We followed his path for those three days they were not good stops we didnt like where he was stopping we saved a lot of lives. Mike we had deep intelligence indicating there was active plotting putting american lives at risk. Im confident, that the president as action saved lives. It was the right thing to do our department has done an excellent job executing the mission. As you know, he killed at least 608 americans, but the number is much higher than that. Hes very much roadside bombs, the horrible explosives, he was a big believer, and sent them everywhere he was somebody that we did ourselves, and we did a lot of countries a big favor. Ive been hearing from countries. They were extremely happy with what we did. If you look inside iran itself, there were plenlt of those leaders that were happy. They feared him, and didnt like him in many cases. Reporter could you also clear up, mr. President , where whether the iranian cultural sites would be on target as i said yesterday, it was very interesting theyre allowed to kill our people theyre allowed to maim our people theyre allowed to blow up everything that we have, and theres nothing that stops them. And we are, according to various laws, supposed to be very careful with their Cultural Heritage you know what . If that is what the law is, i like to obey the law, but think of it. They kill our people, and we have dont very gentle with their cultural institutions. But im okay with it its okay with me. I will say this, if iran does anything that they shouldnt be doing, theyre going tore suffering the consequences, and very strongly. All right. Steve . [ inaudible question ] well, dont forget, in our case it was retaliation. They were there first. Look, i dont have to talk about him for 18 to 20 years he was a monster but just in a very short period of time, two people dead, people badly injured, and then before that there were other attacks. Look at what he was planning so that will be discussed tomorrow morning right now its classified. That would be discussed tomorrow with mike pompeo and the joint chiefs of staff. Reporter diagnose prepared for an attack . Were totally prepared, and prepared for an attack if we have to, as retribution. Reporter irans leader sell any response would be, quote, proportional what would the United States do in the event of any iranian [ inaudible question ] so, again, john, if you look at whats going on ours was an attack based on what they did we werent the first one out he killed an american, now two people are dead from the same attack, and some people very badly wounded. That was one of the his smaller endeavors. You look over his past, his past hes been called a monster, and he was a monster. Hes no longer a monster hes dead. Thats a good thing for a lot of countries. He was planning a very big attack, and a very bad attack for us and other people. We stopped him i dont think anybody can complain about it. I dont hear too many people other than politicians who are trying to win the presidency, those are the ones that are complaining. I dont hear anybody else complaining. Go ahead reporter your friend well, everybody, to each his own. I disagree im sure he does, too, but he has a public to take care of i guess thats for his own reason im surprised to hear that, but thats okay. Reporter are you willing to make an effort say it . Reporter greece the effort we have a whole group of people, and you see they brought a lot of graet representatives from greece that we have been dealing with we have a tremendous greek population, over 3 Million People thats fan tastic. I really feel i know most of them, but its a great population in the United States. Were going to be meeting, were going to be talking, were going to be negotiating, and making a lot of deals let me add something to that. Greece is interested in participating in the f35 program. As you know, we are already upgrading our f16s. That programs will be completed in 20232024 so were very much interested in participating after that, and im sure the u. S. Will take into consideration the fact that this country is coming out of an economic crisis in terms of structuring a program in the best possible way for my country. Thats true you know, they just im a very big renovation of existing aircraft they have great aircraft, but its gotten a bit tired. They have made a renovation that will bring it up to brand new. A couple of our Great Companies are doing it reporter how do you feel about the withdrawalfrom iraq and the possibility thats something that soleimani wanted . Well, its something that i want, too. Eventually they have to be able to defend themselves and take care of themselves ultimately its something i want to see i didnt want to be there in the first place to be honest everything knows that. Thats when i was a civilian, i said it. We were there, they made a decision i disagreed with that decision very strongly, but were there now, we have done a great job. We have gottenry of 100 of the caliphate, which is gone, which is isis. We have thousands of isis prisoners were keeping under lock