Transcripts For CNBC Squawk Alley 20160830

Us this morning is jon fortt and good morning to both of you. Regulators are ordering apple to pay back taxes to ireland. Lets get to Julia Charter will i in brussels with the latest. Julia . Thanks, kate. As you quite rightly said, apple has been ordered to pay over 14. 5 billion, the irony is ireland doesnt want the money as the irish finance minister, they say they believe apple owes nothing and they want to protect the relationship they have with Companies Like apple and other u. S. Firms apple has hate back, saying they ultimately believe this ruling will be overruled, but i think the statement cuts to a bigger issue, which is what does this mean for other companies trying to invest in europe . Their statement says it will have a profound and harmful effect on sleismt and job creation in europe and apple follows the law and pays all the of the taxes we owe wherever we operate. This is a point i think the competition commissioner made to me, that this is not really about the tax rate that apple is paying here, less than 1 in this case, but actually about the deals that countries like ireland are cutting with countries that means its unfair on others. This is a company who makes lots of properties by selling wonderful products to european customers. Apple has set in ways themselves are completely in their good right to do, but ireland is not in that good right to give them tax benefit which has elected only to this company. So one body that isnt buying this is the u. S. Treasury. They have also come out and said this is going to have a negative impact on investment in europe and negative impact on the relationship between the u. S. And europe as they try and tackle global tax avoidance. This is a critical issue, guys, but there is one body that might be cheering this, and this is the uk government. There are reports already that the uk government is saying to apple here, you know what . If brussels doesnt want you, youre welcome to come to the uk. So there to be some benefits to brexit here. Julia, thank you. Were joined from pal eight by Elevation Partners cofounder roger mcnammy, and tony sacconaghi. Roger, we ask your opinion on apple quite often. Does this look like a simple revenue share, or does apple have a target on its back in europe . I think what were looking at is potentially a major, major shift in how governments in view the ability to grow their economies. For 35 years weve had an environment where theres been a genuine effort to grow the pie using tax incentives to lure companies, lure jobs, get lots of growth. Thats been generally accepted around the world. To me this is like brexit in the sense that what the European Competition committee is doing is not arguing over how to expand the pie, but rather saying the pie is really big, and you should be taking a larger share of it. You know, this is a political problem. Its not going to resolve itself in the stock market. The stock market will just have to react to whatever the outcome in, but it does strike me that we are going into a period of time where the rules are changing. When the rules are changing, thats bad for valuation. To toni, you know, perhaps this is an exemplary type of case. Analysts had expected from anywhere from 200 million fine to a 19 billion fine. Does the number we got today look like an opening salvo . It looks like about the right number. I think if you go back and say, look, if apple had to pay full irish tax, which is about 12. 5 invite of the 0 to 3 tax it paid throughout that period, you would come up with a number around 15 billion, so i think the number is certainly based on tax law, and one can compute it. That said, this will inevitably be a negotiation between companies, a political negotiation, as roger alluded to. Its going to take a long time to play out in the courts. I think the market is largely saying that they believe it will take a long time, because the stock is only down about half a percent today, because there is uncertainly about really what that number might be, and more importantly uncertainly about whether there will be ongoing tax legislation that may maybe apple future tax rates higher going forward. Toni, apple has used very strong and direct language about how it feels when european regulators are trying to do here, calling the number that they computed as far as the tax percentage a made up number saying it strikes at the industry issue of sovereignty for the countries to determine their tax rates. It doesnt sound like theyre gearing up for some kind of negotiation about how much theyre going to pay up. It certainly sounds like theyre either going to completely fight this or wait for the eu to figure out with the countries involved, new rules, new law that is will not be applied retroactively. Do you get a different sense . No, i dont. Sorry, i referenced the negotiation really being the European Commission setting a number that might be negotiated president i think historically apple has been unwilling to negotiate historically on many different fronts, whether it be with the suppliers, rather the privacy issue we experienced arier in the u. S. Apple is pretty steadfast in its principles. Quite frankly i agree. They basically said, look, we were given tax incentives to bring people to ireland. We have several those people in ireland. We create millions of jobs in the eu. Were playing by the rules, and then a body is superseding those rules saying, hey, there are different rules, you werent supposed to be able to play by these rules, and i think thats very difficult for a company to accept, and apple historically has been quite strident in both its principles and its determination to fight things. My guess is it will be the same this time around as well. Well, there have been discussions on either side of the atlantic for years about apples taxes and the rate that it pays. In fact here is ceo tim cook on capitol hill just a few years ago. Take a listen. We pay all the taxes we owe, every single dollar. We not only comply with the laws, but we comply with the spirit of the laws. We dont depend on tax gimmicks. We dont move intellectual property offshore and use it to sell our products back to the United States to avoid taxes. We dont stash money on some caribbean island. We dont move our moan from our foreign subsidiaries to fund our u. S. Business in order to skirt the repatriation tax. In a sharply worded letter to customers, cook, david faber, said they have 6,000 employees across ireland. This is not like the conversation we have about inversions, but you asked the irish finance minister last hour, if they had cut a sweetheart deal, and he said we dont do that. That testimony was when the senates perme subcommittee on permanent was the first they talked about they had cut a special deal or a quietly negotiated 2 rate when, as toni pointed out, its usually a 12 rate. The irish finance minister said no, thats not the case and went on to say he believes he used breach of International Tax practice where Tax Liability follows Economic Activity, and the Economic Activity on which theyre raising a tax assessment in ireland didnt occur in ireland. Roger, the tax law pieces of this can make your head spin. What it comes down to for me is this 200 billionplus sitting in overseas cuts. When apple is asked about it in the u. S. , the response sounds like thats money that apple made on products sold overseas. It doesnt make sense to tax it here. When its challenged by european regulators about that money, apple is saying, well, it belongs to the jurisdiction where the intellectual property was created. Thats in cupertino. Basically the money is earmarked to be repatriated to the u. S. , because they dont want to repatriate it at 40 . They want a lower tax rate. When it comes down to it, is there something that apple needs to clarify here . Do you think theyre completely in the clear . Is it just the way it works . I think thats a lovely question. At the end of the day what youre pointing out is that the global tax infrastructure is crazy, right . Its really hard to explain it in ways that a make sense to everyone in the pie. I think it exists because we had a political culture that favored growth, and was willing to give tax benefits in order to cause that. It was willing to give them in convoluted ways, as you just pointed out. Whats going on in europe right now is politically that the temperature has shifted. People are less willing to subsidize those who can contribute to their growth and much more focused on maximizing the share of the pie they get from taxes. I look at this and go, thats a different environment from the one weve been in. Brexit is part of the same trend. I think it causes me as an investor to look at the world differently. I look at apple and go the irony is the numbers at apple are such that it really doesnt make any difference, but as toni said by the time its gone, the numbers arent going to matter that much, but oddly i think it matters for the market as a whole, because apple is an honorable really hardworking company, does great stuff and is amazingly profitable. But if you look around some of those things wont happen because of the change in politics. Bake. It looks its going to be years before we get a resolution to any of this, or how it may play on you. For now, roger and toni, or thanks to both of you. News alert. Twitter announcing big changes for some of its content creators. Julia boorstin has the details. Hey, david. Twitter has a new way of trying to boost by luring content creators to post videos on twitter by giving them an easy way to earn money. Twitter is expanding the amplified Publisher Program beyond companies to allow individual content creators to check a box to have preroll ads run before their videos. A source tells me that creators will get 70 of the ad revenue better than youtubes split with creators. Twitter says its targeting the 35,000 content creators who are part of niche, the start upbrought last year which connects influencer on, with brands. This shows that theyre trying to compete with youtube as well as facebook for start content creators. Facebook takes it a step further in addition to that revenue split. It pays more than 50 million in total to 140 million companies, and influencers to lure them to experiment on the platform. Twitter announcing this move to catch up with its rivals amid concerns about disappointing revenue guidance stagnating user growth and harassment. Well have to see if getting more content creators to publish on twitter even if the content is not exclusive, draws more ad dollars and users. Thank you very much, julia. Youre going toss in just a moment that the s p is down about a quarter of 1 , the nasdaq comp also in the red along with, of course, as you might expect, the dow. Watching shares of mondelez and hershey, as mondelez said they were done negotiating after months of on and off again talks between the two. Hershey is down, one of the its worth performances in a have i long time, mondelez getting a bit of a boost, proves that it was not willing to go to numbers that and give the it shares of abercrombie fitch, talking about another big loser this morning, down as you see almost 20 , they posted a 14 consecutive quarter of falling sales. Thats not the way its supposed to work. They want it to go way. All right. When we come back on squawk alley a shakeup at uber. While one longtime investor is leaving. And while some are calling colorado home despite some red tape. Eu, as you know by now ordering apple to pay up. How this could impact other u. S. Tech companies. Well be right back. Guys, whats happening here . Hey nicole, this is my new alert system for whenever anything happens in the market. Kids a natural. But thinkorswim already lets you create custom alerts for all the things that are important to you. Shhh. Alerts on anything at all . Not only that, you can act on that opportunity with just one tap right from the alert. Wow, i guess we dont need the kid anymore. Custom alerts on thinkorswim. Only at td ameritrade. A shakeup. Drummed leaves Corporate Development at alphabet and heads the investment arm gv. Joining us is vanity fair special consultant who said ubers very existence is talk to us about the conflict. Isnt there a chinese wall between going the alphabet and Google Ventures . There is and there isnt. There probably certainty Many Companies that hes not competing with. This is very reminiscent with what happened with apple and google when eric schmidt was on apples board, and then it started getting into mobile phones and so on. I think youre starting to see the same thing where its a bit of the opposite where, you know google was working in Driverless Cars and now uber is doing that. I just dont think it makes sense for drummed to be on the board, especially as uber is also working on mapping solutions, and theres lots of Different Things where theyre competing, and i think it only will become large as they move forward. Cant they only help each other, google, uber and ford all launched a coalition together to develop selfdriving cars, so it appears they want each others help. I think they want each others help right now, but not in the future. I think that, you know once they start to make these Driverless Cars that are truly autonomous, which its up to debate when that will happen, these companies will all be competing with each other. Its not just uber and google and forte. Its startups. Its every car company. Theyre not going to kind of say were going to give uber or revenue if someone calls a car service. I think whats really interesting is how it plays out in the short term. We know whats going to happen in the long term. In the short term, you go to google maps, you can order an uber. Are they going to remove that now . I think its interesting that you say the existence is at risk because of Driverless Cars. If and when we reach that future in our lifetimes, isnt it going to be competition based on an operating system for logistics knowing who needs a ride, where theyre likely to need a right, what the most efficient route is . There will still by the capital involve in buying that car or deploying it, and the companies ability to do that efficiently will be at an enormous advantage. Wouldnt that be their argument . First of all theres no if, but a matter of when. Its not in our lifetime. I truly do believe the next five to ten years where these things will be on city streets en masse. In addition, you are completely right. One of the most different parts will be who owns the infrastructure, who says when does this car come to this person . And if a ford car or tesla or uber or google . Uber could say, you know, thats the business were going to go after, but i dont think its big enough to uber when you call for a taxi, what if there was an app. Its not connecting people and cars, and people its connecting people in drivers. What does uber do . It connects you with a driverless car. Well, youre right thats not going to happen for another five years, so it sounds like they have time to figure it out. Its a compelling read. Coming up, united poaching a Top Executive from rival american airlines, the details are next. But first phil lebeau is in. Jon, were talking about the dream chaser, this prototype build be sierra Space Systems division, but where would it land . Well talk about that when squawk alley returns. The next frontier might be in a small city just outside denver, colorado. Thats where we find phil lebeau, who gets to do all the cool stuff. Back here is what they call the dream chaser, a prototype for a spaceship that eventually will be able to take cargo, even people up to the space station and quickly come back to earth, where would it large . Po temple at a spaceport like here. Get ready for space ports, where spacecraft will be able to take over perhaps even horrid zonely and land just like airplanes at a regular airport. What were looking for is a location where these activities can be safely conducted and at the same time are responsive to the neither of the users. The faa has approved ten space ports in the u. S. Most near coasts and away from cities where rocket launches are safer, still the folks at front range near denver say they have a perfect space. We can provide a way to space for Companies Operating in the colorado area. Thats a real plus not only for the state of colorado, but also for the country. Spaceport launches are farley infrequent, but the head of the f. A a sees it changing. I think its exciting. Were very close to seeings exactly what youre talking about. This becoming a much more routine and i wont say everyday, but certainly not infrequent occurrence around the country. Reporter well see over the next several months if colorado does get that state port designation. Phil, also want to get your take, of course, on another story youre following closely. Scott kirby, america telling me they terminated him, and then the next day he shows up at united. Reporter amazing how that happens. Nobody wants to say this, but it was clear that united was recruiting scott kirby to come over. Basically hell be reporting to oscar immune i dont see the ceo. United has been improving its performance. David, you know this, they have lagged the rest of their competitors when it comes to things like revenue, all of those things that they need to improve. Theyre starting to do that better. With scott kirby, now that they have brought him in as president , they they think they can do much better in that regard. Phil lebeau in lewisville, colorado today. Meanwhile, were just about to get the close, hey, kayla, markets mostly higher with i hadly leading the pack. Its u. S. Oneday performance in almost a week. Interesting enough, european banks. Rising on the prospect of a hike, keep in mind, though the european stock 600 index still done about 30 below its 52week high. But again, in todays session they are higher. Switching over to miners, the possibility of a rate hike, the possibility that mining stocks are taking a hit. Thats one of the london ftse ended lower. Analysts believe the fall in the pound has been overextended, down about 25 this year. The other Major Political risks are the Upcoming Elections in germany and france. According to report, Emanuel Mac Ron is resigning as he prepares to potential run for president and challenge the current lead er francois hollande, and nick lard sarkozy. Were sending a message to any taxpayer in europe, be multinational, standalone companies, big or small companies, european or foreign that this is a wonderful place to do business and to invest. But you have to play by the rules and not to rely on unfair tax benefits. Obviously a big story at the u. S. Investors in washington, keep in apple is just one of the tech giants using ireland as a tax haven. Other companies could potential be at risk as well. Thank you very much, seema mody. Coming up well take more about the eus 14. 5 billion tax bill it wants to send to apple. Jeff richards is next. There are many things you dont want in industrial strength smash like an administrative assistant. Your 3 oclock is here. But theres one thing you do. Its called predix from ge. The cloudbased Development Platform thats industrialstrength strength heres your cnbc news update. Comey is warning about the inability to he said the default encryption is making more and more of the room that we are charged to investigate dark. A car bomb claimed by al shabaab militants claimed five shoulders outside the president s, witnesses said gunfire could be heard after the explosion. At least 38 Libyan Forces were killed as isis dispatched a dozens suicide bombers to stop the final push to expel them from sirte. And in memphis, tennessee, a Jewelry Store was robbed, all caught on video. An employee told police foremen used hammers to smash display cases, taking several rolex watches before getting away, but we see you. For now lets get back to squawk alley. And europe meanwhile, hitting apple with a record 14. 5 billion tax bill. The ruling is the biggest eu has made for a single company, but ireland says no taxes are due. We think theyre in breach of International Tax practice, where Tax Liability follows Economic Activity, and the Economic Activity on which they are raising a tax assessment in ireland, did not occur in ireland. He was speaking about the European Commission, regulators being in breach. For more lets bring in jeff richard, managing partner. Good morning, jeff. Good morning, extremely profitability. How much does this embarked the this kind of intensifies, honestly directly probably mott much. I think the longerterm implications are as companies try to expand globally, with International Tax is something thats pretty complex. Personally i would love to see the u. S. Deal with the tax law and see some of those trillions come back. Thats a broader business issue and maybe this will shine light on that topic as well. Lets talk about tech investment, the environment for startups. Confide a few startups tightening belts. Hotel tonight is one, i know you have a close eye on lately. Laying off some folks, even though its growing strongly. What is it about the environment thats causes startups that are growing pretty strongly to not investment as much. Well, about a year ago we started seeing a slowdown in the private financing market here in the u. S. , and we started talking to or portfolio companies, as did many others saying hey, guys, theres a shift coming, and you need to get smarter. The company you mentioned Hotel Tonight is a mobile app for booking travel, and sam shank i think is early on this trend. He got ahead of it, he dealt with it, grabbed the bull by the horns went from a company burning 2. 5 million a month to profitable this year, still growing at over 100 , so there is light at the end of the tunnel for these companies, but it is causing big changes and a causing a lot of pain at the same time, i think we would all argue theres never a better time to be a entrepreneur. When is the last time it was bad to be a entrepreneur. Every time we have a vc on, they always say no matter how bad it looks, theres never been a better time. The market is down, this is when the Good Companies thrive. The market is up, this is when all the companies thrive. Were paid to be optimists, and i think we are long term bullish on tech. You had mark yesterday talking about netflix and the opportunity they have had with the global audience. I think with facebook, netflix, even Companies Like alibaba, didi out of china. You have massive tectonic shifts happening, entrepreneurs are licking their chops at the opportunities. What about the cycle where its hard to live there . When people are getting cut at a place like hotel night, while the rest of the valley is booming, maybe its people in markets, p. R. , who is getting cut and feeling the pain during this belt tightening out there . Affordability is probably the number one issue facing silicon valley. You have folks that make 100,000 a year trying to live in San Francisco, and after taxes they can barely afford a onebedroom apartment. Its what happens when you go through a sevenyear boom cycle. I think its outside of tech you see the issues, with teachers, firefighters, folks that are trying to live in these communities and arent in tech, and so were probably due for a bit of a pullback. It just isnt sustainable. We probably will see people going out of San Francisco and back into the suburbs. Its definitely a big issue, something that i think politicians in california are grappling with and trying to figure out the right answers, as well as leaders leer mark conway and rob benioff. She companieses obvious use that cash for acquisition. Im wondering if you think this heavier scrutiny on that crash abroad, whether it is this opinion by the European Union today or just it is pop ulitch here in the u. S. About bringing some of that cash home, do you think that stifle acquisition in my way . I would love to see that cash put to work here in the u. S. In europe youre essentially buying companies at a 30 discount because youre not paying the u. S. Tax. I would love to see the politicians and the white house deal with this issue. Nobody has come up with a great answer. I would love for it to be something that the next president of our country tackles and congress and senate. I do think thats capital we would love to see invested here not just in silicon valley, paying taxes, have been that capital put to work, acquiring businesses, investing in hiring new talent here in the u. S. , i think its something that should be a top priority for whoever is in the white house next. Lots of people after those dollars jeff richards, thanks for joining us. Coming up, rick santelli, rick, whats on your radar today . You know, just in general after listening to the irish finance minister, thinking about rules, breaking rules, and the behavior that happens, you know, the japanese have negative rates because they have consumption. They ended up with hoarding and safe purchases. How do they things happen . By dissecting the comments, maybe well learn more, all after the break. Coming up, andrew left accused of being reckless and spreading lies. In an exclusive interview, he defends himself. While the ipo market may be about ready to take off, providing new opportunities for investors and finding high yield in three letters which once brought the u. S. Economy to its knees. Mbs. All at the top of the hour on halftime report. David well see you in about 15. Thanks, scott. We do want to follow up on some news. Agrium to confirming its in talks with a possible merger. He says no decision has been made whether to proceed with such a combination. No agreement has been reached, and there can be no assurance they will get to a transaction. Earlier bloomberg had reported that talks between the two, and indicated a deal could be fairly close. Both stocks had moved up on that. You can see they are still halted for news pending, even though we have now received that news. We would expect to see both of them move up. Theyre both canadian countries, agrium, a provider of fertilizer, and they also have wholesale nutrient capacity, and used to have a lot of stuff, and wholesale operations, but certainly would be a large deal in canada if these two do manage to form a merger of equals. They are of similar size. Potash has seen its decline, while agrium has been hung in there. Consolidation has been rumored for years. There was a potential deal a while back, but the canadian government quashed it, but in this case you have two champions. Rick santelli and the santelli exchange. Hi, rick. Hi, sara. Thank you. Never before have i seen 20 seconds of tv that made things so crystal clear. Im referring to 21 seconds youll see in a moment with the irish finance machines terr Michael Noonan on our own channel cnbc this morning. Lets roll the tape. The irish revenue dont do deals. They issue opinions to verify a tax situation for individual companies, but we never do deals. They have to apply the tax law which is passed by parliament. They have to do so without fear or favor across all companies. Now, whats interesting here is lets dissect this in two parts. The first part is basically hes talking about duly legislated laws. The Irish Parliament makes laws regarding taxes to implement those laws theres always the notion of clarification and interpretation, which was all done, according to the rules, but you have brussels, who has their own set of rules that dont necessarily jibe. Weve talked many times, the rules of the road. The reason why many economies have done so well like the u. S. And for a significant period of time make even the eurozone, you make rules and every follows them for the most part. Investors feel confident to make investments. Lets get to the second part of what he said. He said without fear or favor. Thats the money phrase, because in the end, if every entity, whether personal or fusional like apple has a pile of money in the world with nothing but policy and indebtedness, and the policy seems to go against all the rules in the road that got us here, the behavior or outcomes is highly suspect. Whether its jack lew on inversions, whether its brussels on this particular case and apple, what you end up with is a fort branch or army of regulators or unelected bureaucrats that end up basically tearing up the rule book, and then theyre surprised at outcomes. Ill give you another example, okay . We talked yesterday, yesterday we talked about this on the exchange, that the problem with janet yellen and company hinting that they potential would follow draghi and kuroda and purchasing that they may go into corporate securities. Think about what the finance minister said without fear or favor, and apply it to the purchases that are being made. Who decides . The more you go down there arent any rules set in stone, the more investors will go down in the basement and the growth youll see in every country will be cannibalizing every other one. You need growth. You dont need a pit cut into 50 pieces, you need a pisa 50 times bigger. Thank you, rick. When we come back, from pizza to chocolate. Hershey on face for its worth day in nearly 14 year, more on the failed attempted merger with mondalez. Ly a hug. This toy is a reminder that someone cares. These are a chance to be part of a team. And this is the chance to succeed. Female announcer with your support, everyone at sleep train proudly dedicates their time, hearts, and resources to giving local foster children one important thing hope. Hope. Hope. Not everyone can be a foster parent. But anyone can help a foster child. Sleep train your ticket to a better nights sleep walking away from a proposed takeover bid for hershey. The combination could wo have created the Worlds Largest candymaker. Hershey down sharply. Of course, sometimes wondering why companies when engaging in merger talks dont deal with price first as opposed to leaving it on the back burner nap is often the way these things go. Lots of potential obstacles to a deal getting done here. Not least of which is, of course, the hershey trust, controls more than 80 of the vote, controls the company and 34 of the economics of hershey. You need to deal with the trust if you have any hope of buying hershey. In this case, there was a miscommunication perhaps from early on or a lack thereof, even though talks went on the ceo of mondelez and billbri, ceo of hershey some months but didnt get to a price, in a meaningful way. Finally talked price last week after 107 share bid made by mondalez soundly rejected by hervey a couple months back, maybe 115 go to . Mr. Billbri says, 125 where you got to start. They knew, no hope. And decided to walk away from this potential deal. Again, a deal that was a difficult one at the least to get done, giving the unwillingness to engages past, a lack of communication between the board of hershey and trust in the past. That doesnt appear to have been as much the case as simply from the people ive spoken with, the inability of mondalez to get a straight answer from the trust what the number might be. Saying 125 to even start a negotiation. Thats not a number mondalez was willing to go with. Pointed out time and again the fact that any deal would actually see the kit kat license go back to nestle, 10 of ept ta by hershey and wouldnt paper the price perhaps hershey would have wanted to really be willing to sell. Interesting to see the trust. In the midst of trfrtransformat. The former a. G. Found guilty, chased a composition a few members of the trust off. They have to think of their all mig objective when it comes to owning and having significant position in a most significant asset being a domestic chocolatemaker is a world some say is more global. 125 a number proxy advisers drummed up from shareholders what theyd be willing to sell at, and something you think was equivalent to a heisman . Yeah. I dont know. At 125, not a number i heard from a lot of hershey investors out there, but they dont matter. The only investor that matters is the trust. Apparently it was not a number they didnt really fully ever engage what im told. Certainly that was one way to say to your point just not going to happen. Interesting. No sweets for you. And coming up, president obama taking commander in chief and adding editorinchief. The details in just a moment. Ng] the highly advanced audi a4. Breaking news out of d. C. Get to Hampton Pierson with that. Hampton . Kayla, the white house come out with a vigorous defense of apple in its dispute over the billions of dollars of taxes that the eu wants to collect. White house spokesman josh earnest saying among other things we are concerned about the unilateral approach, the threat to under mine the progress with the overall taxes would be fair and benefits the economies and countries on both sides of the atlantic to have a fair system and specifically, there are concerns the europeans basically, they are very much posed to what they see as a unilateral approach and also makes an interesting statement that it views the possible kinds of payments contemplated by the eu at the end of the day could be a transfer of revenue from u. S. Taxpayers to the eu. He said thats the crux of the white house concern at this point about the fairness of that eu decision to tax apple to the tune of somes 14 billion euros. Back to you. All right. Thanks, hampton. First, sharp words from treasury, jon and now the white house weighs in. Yeah. Really fascinating there. Enormous pile of cash and lots of Different Countries have arguing why they should get a piece of it. The white house stopping short of taking a specific side but at least laying out stakes. Certainly get more developments on that throughout the afternoon. Thanks to david faber for sticking around. Great to be here. Approaching news. Back to the headquarters, scott wapner and the halftime report. Guys thanks so much. Welcome to the halftime report. Im scott wapner. We begin with a cnbc exclusive today. A short seller under fire and fighting back this hour against allegations of market misconduct. Citrons andrew left, accused by regulators in hong kong of spreading false and misleading rumors a about a leading Property Developer in that country. Left now facing a possibility of a trading ban there, and even having to surrender more than 1 million in profits made from the 2012 investment. Andrew left is with us today live from l. A. Andrew, welcome back. Hi. How are you . Good, thanks. To make sure viewers are clear