Transcripts For CNBC Squawk Box 20160527

Well. Crude Oil Yesterday you saw wti back up 50 dollars for the First Time Since october. Now you see wti is down close to 1 . 49. 04. Couple big stories. The news just breaking in the last half hour. Eight auto makers issuing 12 million rerecalls. And more recalls are expected to be announced in the coming days. That is one of those stories that just continues. Also g7 leaders issues a warning overnight. Saying a british vote to leave the eu would seriously threaten the world economy. In a statement the leader said a brexit would reverse the trend towards greater global trend and investment and the ensuing job creation. And that back and forth between paypal founder peter thiele and gawker ceo nick denton continuing last night with denton writing an open letter. Thiele launched a decade Long Campaign against gawker after the blog outed the founder as gay. Denton called thiele thin skinned and challenged him to a role about the denton has begun solicits bids for the sale of gawker. Looking apparently over gawkers books for the possible acquisition and were going to have the opportunity to talk all about this with the man himself nick denton at 7 30 a. M. Eastern. Give him kudos for coming in. Really good letter. Compelling. Fascinating letter. Convinced me in this sense that given the coverage that you usually do get of Silicon Valley. The absolute glowing i dont to use any untoward words but what normally an interview is in silk there is a line though. Outing someone as being gay and showing pornographic tapes. If you are going to have an organization that does things like this there are going to be times where they go too far. Shouldnt there be that is the question too. He was given the nobel prize yesterday to now im giving a pulitzer to denton. And there are you know. Im taking a hard line no i [inaudible]. Since it is going to be a subjective decision as to whether you cover it or not. You hope that the person that is in charge has is somewhat reasonable about how far to push it. You cant guarantee it but you cant game the system where you are not able to go far at certain times against people in power. You would rather instead of pulling your punches sometimes you are going to punch too hard. Other cases there are people who wouldnt have the funds toe stand occupy a gawker to take on the fight. Your position of power very smart there is a high electrophi level of snark. Tattler is a damn good name for a magazine. And remember he ends up doing gown naflaming in. Wheelchair. They feed on scavengers but by cleaning all the rotting flesh it helps with the decomposition. And it is not a pleasant thing to watch or to do. I dont know where im but i will because [ inaudible ]. Arent we . You have got to leave it alone. You may go too far but it is better than not going far enough. I do think when and if something goes too far there is potential redress in courts. I dont think there is something wrong with that. The question is well healed and how that how would work but were going talk to nick denton about in in little over an hour. Snarky. A skill weve developed well around here too. Yeah. Donald trump marked the moment by offering to debate not Hillary Clinton but rather her primary opponent Bernie Sanders. As long as she can get 10 million to go to charity. And ive head one of our guys wrote a good piece why trump would do this. If you have a huge media event and not i also heard him relishing the idea saying he would love to take on Bernie Sanders. And you could see him being kind of sympathetic and saying you have made a lot of good points on hiry. And where does hillary does [inaudible]. Why do if it if hes not going attack her . And then for me, im not going to endorse a candidate, ever. But when i saw him celebrating with mcdonalds fries and a diet coke i came very close to say im throwing my weight behind this guy. True american. All he needed was hes got the coke. Hes got the mcdonalds. Just finish it off with an apple pie and a hot dog. Those people were fired up. That is one of his states i think. Energy rich north dakota. Did you watch any . People are fired up. He gets people going and he is pretty funny about some of his enemies. Hes pretty funny. Thats what i said earlier. We still need to be politically correct but there are a few openings here and there now yeah, right. Outlining his planzs for Energy Industry he said he would approve the keystone xl pipeline reverse obamas decision. And said he would cut regulations to make oil and comments are in sharp contrast with Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders both support a return towards Renewable Energy sources. Its both. Well they switched to Climate Change. I think Climate Change is better. You know, certainly not falsif falsifiab falsifiable. And democratic Hillary Clinton is responded to a government watchdogs finding that she broke government rules when she used a private email server. This is what she said to a press Pool Reporter yesterday. This report makes clear that personal email use was the practice for other secretaries of state. And i know that because it is well known. It is pointed out in the report. But it was still a mistake. And as ive said many times if i could go back i would do it differently. I know people have concerns about this. I understand that. But i think voters are going to be looking at the full picture of what i have to offer. My life and my service and the full threat that donald trump offers our country. Clinton said that the fbi even at this point has not scheduled an interview with her and shes hopeful that the investigation will soon be concluded. And finally martin shkreli. Is making it known who he plans to vote for in november. Throwing his support behind donald trump. You might think trump would go no no. But some would say bring it on. In a tweet last night shkreli says i havent been called by the trump camp but i support him versus hillary. Adding that he should pick an experienced oh good here is some advice in martin. No response from trump yet who has previously called shkreli a spoiled brat. Im not sure that trump would embrace this endorsement. Someone has a poll of whos going to be Vice President and i looked to see whether they had any inside knowledge and they dont. They are talking to expert about who and they rank them as if they know something. Foggy follow yeah. Who was your pick . I dont know. Kind of boring but ohio is a good state. He wants somebody who does understand washington. But partman said he wont. Corker. Knows his way around. He would look really short next to donald. We would. I think donald is like 63. The irony is donald would actually think about that as an issue. Hes smart enough to think about. This day and age things like that dont matter. No i think they do. I think donald trump would think about that. And i think others might not. Does it apply with a man against woman. There is historic precedent for height and. Height and height and width. Height. Height. Height, hiekt. The futures are looking up this morning. Dow futures up 0. Lets look at whats been happening with the 10 years because of course all these questions circulating about what the fed will do. We saw those data numbers that came out at 8 30 yesterday that were pretty decent numbers and all of a sudden people were thinking maybe it was more likely once again that june is in play. You can see the 10 year note is yielding 1. 825 percent. In terms of the dollar lets check out currencies and you will see the dollars up against the euro. Dollars down against the yen at 109. 66 and gold prices down slightly by less than 2. Crude oil back below 50 a barrel this morning. We had another analyst on we dont go right to 60 at this point. Do we think we test 40 and even below that. Were at the critical junction right now. The high back in october was 50 minneso 50. 92. So if we get a failure here we would have a double top on the chart from a long distance. Like i said were at a critical juncture. So technically yeah i think we could go back down. Cologne, sneezing i dont have any cologne. Do you use soap . Yeah. Wait a minute. Youre complaining he uses soap. No joe namath stuff. Brut joemt so the funds have moved up with the move back to 50. The drop in u. S. Production, were down 800,000 barrels now from last year. Its been a heck of a fall and theres been heck of an aband abandonment of shale plays in the u. S. There were counts that have zero. And you have done good jobs f covering things that have brought this down. I think some of the excitement around the rally recently has been some of the trouble in nigeria in particular which is curious to me. Because the market didnt even need those barrels am times last year. There were scores of their tankers sitting on the open seas going nowhere because there were no no buyers for it and the other thing i worry about is the asian economy because they are key to the demand argument you hear about. And china is in the process of doing to the global arefining industry what they have done to the steel. They ever producing 150 of their daily needs. And they are a net exporter. A net exporter of diesel fuel in particular that has also been causing a glut in the asian markets. Yesterday you mentioned north dakota. New york times take is more drilling in few rules. He disappointed me though. I thought he was going to promise to get saudi arabia to pay us to take their oil. You know . Negative Interest Rate environment, maybe they should. When everything is upside down. With the wall. And there is appeal to the notion of the United States being Energy Independent and not shipping billions of dollars to the middle east year after year after year. Is that possible . Id argue that from a north American Perspective we are Energy Independent. Would be. Not at all. But as far as opening up new federal lands i dont know if the obama industry didnt do a favor by holding back some production. Prices have gone even lower if we had more production online from federal lands. Administration gets criticism for not having Energy Policy it. Did produce 26 oil a few mon moments there. It is the industry. They repurpose technology to do a wondrous thing. And the other thing you will hear talk now in the political season from both sides how we havent built a new refinery in decades. The fact of the matter is weve expanded the ones weve had tremendously over the past several years so another reason why at times we get oversupplied and why gasoline inventories are highest levels in years. Crude oil still 80 year high inventories and and diesel fuel a enough of a cushion right now that nothing bad should happen and of course too we are exporting more and more amount os of fuel. Whether crude oil nor or more and more national gas. We are the Number One Oil producer in the world now. More than saudi arabia. More than russia. We have a lot going for us in this sector. 50 or that area holds in terms of crude what mahas the industry been doing . Has it given a real reprieve to the industry . Obviously market has celebrated this idea that no one is any longer on death row in terms of bankruptcy. Weve already seen hedging in the market back when we crossed to about 40. And i hope they will be taking advantage of this new price level and i hope it will save the bacon of a tear of companies that would have gone under for sure, mike. I think the other thing is it is not like when these companies go bankrupt the stuff is still there. The infrastructure is still there it is just someone is going to pick it up on pennies on the dollar and still be able to use would th. Would that be the way to do it is this. You dont want to lose the wildcat spirit. We need that money. We need that capital and we need those jobs to be created so you wouldnt want to ruin a thing like we saw in 199 when i was in this business and those are the more traditional wells that got capped, filled with cement, never to return again. That is different celtal of fish. Next Going Forward with the highers price is weve talked about the drilled uncompleted wells that tlz there are several hundred thousand barrels of the production just sitting and waiting. Does the weekly numbers out of the government show an up tick in production back over say 8 Million Barrels a day as we go forward here. Does this price recovery regenerate that. But for sure the industry was facing ruin below 26. Also that was scaring the daylights out of the fed this low price. I would argue it was good and low gas we were laughing to the pump. This is going to stabilize things and hopefully get them back on track. Have a great weekend. Have a great weekend and rest of the summer. Were not well im just so excited that its here. G7 leaders gathered in japan. President obama making an historic visit to hiroshima. Akiko fujita has more on the story and joins us. Good morning to you. Well this was certainly an emotional moment for the 180,000 atomic bomb survivors who are still alive. Seeing a sitting u. S. President visit that very site where the u. S. Dropped an atomic bomb 71 years ago killing 141,000 people. He didnt offer an apology but he did talk about the larger vision for a Nuclear Free World saying specifically we have a shared responsibility to look directly into the eye of history. In the image of a Mushroom Cloud that rose into these skies, we are most starkly reminded of humanitys core contradiction, how the very spark that maps us as a species, our thought, imagination, language, tool making, our ability to set ourselves apart from nature and bend it to our will. Those very things also give us the capacity for unmatched destruction. The president spoke with some atomic bomb survivors shortly after the speech. This was a speech carried out live across all networks here in japan. It wasnt without controversy. Japans neighbors, china and south korea criticizing Prime Minister abe for politicizing this visit, as they have failed to confront according to china and south korea, as japan has failed to confront their own atrocities committed during the war. This also at a time when there is increasing unease here in japan about the direction that the Abe Administration is going in. Specifically pushing aggressively to roll back that pacifist clause in the constitution to the Japanese Military can take a more active role. Akiko, thank you. Coming up a new government report linking cell phones to cons ner lab rats. Plus a tie at the National Spelling bee. Well show you the winning words after the break. Skons business. G big for small youll never get charged data overages, ever. Get your own 24 7 dedicated business account team. And with double the lte coverage in the last year you can get more done in more places. Right now get 2 lines with 10 gigs each for just a 100 bucks. And for a limited time get a hot spot free, yeah free. Switch your business to tmobile work today. Welcome back to squawk box. Were in the chairs for a closer rook at some of the buzz stories of the morning joseph. No. Were not . I want to talk about santoli. Hes over there. He hears you. The three of us. Hes listening. The keeps i love mike. I do too. Were on tv. Its okay. And mikes right over there. But we cant go to the chairs. We only have three chairs. Im leashed rights here. This is unbelievable i looked at him. He was like this. Like watching us. Put us back in split screen so mike can play. There. Mike i apologize. And if you have any comments on anything we want to hear what you have to say on this stuff, okay . There is not a fourth chair. Join the conversation. You can come over and you can sit right here. Not like least not camera friendly. Look at that guy. Im tett erred here. Sorry. At the time this is the spelling bee. 11yearold and a 13yearold outspelled field to win. The Third Straight year cochampions have been declared. The winning words. Here we go. Feldenkrais. And the next word. Gesellschaft. And the other word. Type of social relationship in this new world. Gue guess. Do you want to throw in a challenge . Spell albuquerque. Ooh that is tough. Albuquerqlbuquerqu albuquerque. Where are the sounds effects . We need a ding ding. Why is it a tie . Do they run out of words . You go through so many words. The kids are that smart. You cant stump them. They gave them hearter words trying to make them a single winner because its been double winners three times in a row. I agree keep going until someone drew screws up. But a tie. 11yearold and a 13yearold spelled words we never heard of. Like meet the parents. Remember ben stillers trophies. Hes 13th. 9th place finish here and they got them all. These kids deserve it. Oh youre so nice. One kid. Id give it to both. Why cut it off at two. Alarming news to report at super bugs. Doctors say they have found evidence of a bacteria that is resistant to the type of antibiotics used as the last resort. Researchers have been keeping watch for these type of bacteria by analyzing samples found in patients. They found an resistant strain of e. Coli. It is resistant to the drug colistin. Now the centers for Disease Control is investigating how the woman may have contracting the bacteria in the United States. Antibiotic resistance has been blamed for at least 2 million illnesses and 23,000 deaths annually. I guarantee we can find another way to kill bacteria, but then you got to make it. This is we got to start. And need to stop using antibiotics on such regular scoreses. And me and my zpack addiction. Im not addicted but maybe once or twice a year ill take the zpack. Invariably you get a infection of some sort. I know everybody is taking them for cold body naturally gets over it. Couldnt have been Washington State or something . It was pennsylvania . Right here. I believe and prove me wrong. I believe that borders new jersey in certain parts. Im not going say for sure. No it does. Did you know that . You probably didnt know that . I didnt. You i did know than. A major study on rats. Fascinating. Found a link between cell phones and cancer. The multi year Peer Reviewed study found low incidences of two types of tumors in raths that are exposed to the type frequencies commonly emitted by cell phones. And gliomas and schwann cells. The study is one of the biggest and most comprehensive in experiments on cell phones. I think they were using at much higher levels. When you do any testing you look for increased incidence. How many people in the world are using cell phones. I does take time. Lung cancer 20 years, 30 years to get a series of mutations but by now you might have an inkling given how many brain cancers you are seeing around the world. You would see some type of. And anecdotally i dont know if you are seeing the does make you think twice about sleeping with the phone next to your bed or having the kids its my alarm. Its my alarm too. Thats my im less worried about that. When its off. The real high power to the phone is if you are physically. The head you know. Richard branson one of the first people with vishlgen mobile giving out headsets with the phone telling people to use the head tett sets and he actually had a view about that. And why not. Why hold, you know, get radiation next to your brain. There have been people who got tumor on the side of the brain where that is not enough to say where it happens. You would see some increased overall frequency. Because literally billions of people. Do the math. If it increases it by a tenth oar hundredth of a percent you would see that. When we come back, memorial is prime time for road trips and that means restaurants are getting ready for a big weekend. And right now as we head to a break take a look at s p 500s winners and losers. [crowd cheering] i could get used to this. Now you can. When you lease the 2016 es 350 for 329 a month for 36 months. See your lexus dealer. I have an orcogram we for an owen. E. Thats me. You should hire stacy drew. She wants to change the world with you. She can program jet engines to talk and such. Her biggest weakness is she cares too much. Thank you. My friend really wants a job at ge. Mine too. Im a wise elf from a far off shire. And sanjay patel is who you should hire. Thank you. Seriously though, stacy went to a great school and shes really loyal. You should give her a shot. Sanjays a team player and uh. Because you cant beat zero heartburn i take prilosec otc each morning for my frequent heartburn ahhh the sweet taste of victory prilosec otc. One pill each morning. 24 hours. Zero heartburn. More than 38 million drivers are expected to take road trip this is memorial day weekend and that means big business for fast food. Susan li joins us from the Vince Lombard turnpike on the new jersey turnpike and im assuming the travelers are already lining up. About 6 00 a. M. And the plaza and the parking lot is pretty full. I had to wait 15 minutes for my latte. I still havent gotten it yet. If you are stopping in one of those fast food restaurants, 35 of americans when they step in, they are going for the combo deals. The likes of mcpic two for two. Burger kings five for 4. Wendys four for 4. And because of those promotions they have sold a hundred million extra meals so far this year and it is only end of may and that is up 20 from last year and also helping drive same store sales up from last year. Mcdonalds up 5. 5 . Burger king also put in numbers of 4. 5 . Same store sales, comps just in the first three months of this year. Some say if you are a Fast Food Company ashs a food company and you dont have these bundle proposals what does that say for you . Starbucks, is now offering a the power lunch, 8 people. And also dine and menu coming in from tgif. A 12 special with an entree an a salad. Also says something to a lot of these companies that says something about the wealth and their spendi inin ining wallets is that more retlex flexion of people want needing a value or people drawn to those deals . I think it is a combination of a lot of that. When you talk about endless or bottomless fries. And i think people are also billing the ante. It is fife for at burger king and also makes you think about margin. Bring in the volume and you will be able to profit. Susan thank you very much. Thank you. When we return, hailed as the possible cure for hundreds of diseases and joining us next is a pioneer at the forefront. And a quick check at whats happening in european markets right now. Squawk returns in just a moment. In a world held back by compromise, businesses need the agility to do one thing another. Only at t has the network, people, and partners to help companies be. Local global. Open secure. Because no one knows like at t. Crisper is a tool that lets scienti scientis scientists edit genes with relative ease. We know a lot of diseases are driven by genetic abnormalities and as we learn more about the genetic drivers of disease scientists are trying to develop new tools of fixing those genetic abnormalities and one of those things as joe mentioned is crispe crisper. This is a way of editing genes. And listen to how she describes it. It is a simple system. It allows pregnan s pregnanc pre ma made. And in the lab setting people expect this may win the nobel prize. In vitro. Crisper is a new technique for editing genes. It sounds complicate bud scientists are actually so excited for it for its explicit. Think of it as the search and rescue mission. Crisper uses guide rna as a homing device. It is priecisionprecision. This enzyme cas 9 act likes scissors. Scientists hope to use crisper to treat diseases like Cystic Fibrosis to rare forms of blindness and more. Several Bio Tech Companies have been formed around these technologies. Two went public this year. Editas and i think its almost doubled since it went public in february. And many others wanting to work in this technology as well. It is not yet in human testing. Somatic tissue and germ cell tissue. So if you change it in a couple of cells. And delivery, getting to it a enough cells where it makes a difference. And. Weve had people on in the past that were changing somatic by somatic i just mean a few of the cells in your body. You can change and in cases you can deliver enough of the protein that whatever deficiency it was it actually worked. It is hard to believe. That is the hard thing you are not going change the genes in all the cells of your body. You only change a few of them. Changing essentially the entire genetic line is where this technology is incredibly controversial right now. Molecular biology was so cool because of the way it works. The complementary sequences the way it replicates. A is always with t and c is always with g and rna is always complementary. So there is all these really knead neat things you can do. And doing the jumble helps. And palindromes. But all the loop and structures in the dan are formed by this complementary. Speaking of jumble. You have jumbled up my head already. Which is actually kind of crazy when you think about it. It is incredibly simple. And this is also very cheap. People can order crisper kits online. I wouldnt recommend it. Dont go crazy but. Actually about the tools and just Getting Better at the engineering side of things. Definitely. Some say this is obvious already incredibly useful tool. Doing research to find out more. Because not a lot of diseases or mutations are single base pair mutation. Multiple mutations. That is what cease cool. Just learning what is actually a gene based on the dna because introns and exons what . Sometimes we do news alert at the bottom. I think we should do nerd it a letter at the bottom here for certain segment. Theres crispy. Original recipe and crisper recipe fried chicken. Meg, thank you. Thanks guys. When we come back. Apple is reportedly interested in buying content company likes netflix or time warner. Well talk about the business implications for the tech giant. Stick around. Jake reese, day to feel alive jake reese, day to feel alive jake reese, day to feel alive incredible bladder prthat lets from always discreeyou move like you mean it now comes with an incredible promise. The always discreet double your money back guarantee. Always discreet is for bladder leaks and its drier than poise. Try it. Were so confident youll love it, well give you double your money back if you dont. Incredible bladder protection. Double your money back guarantee. Thats always discreet. Theres no one no one surface. E. No one speed. No one way of driving on each and every road. But there is one car that can conquer them all. The mercedesbenz cclass. Five driving modes let you customize the steering, shift points, and suspension to fit the mood youre in. And the road youre on. The 2016 cclass. Lease the c300 for 359 a month at your local mercedesbenz dealer. Apples winning streak stands at five Straight Days and the stock is up over 6 . The surge comes as the tech giant is making waves in the media space with reports it is potentially interested in buying Companies Like time warner and netflix. Joining us to talk more about this, re codes managing editor ed lee. You missed the conversation from the commercial so ill cede my time to the gentleman from new jersey. Youre joking, right . Didnt someone try this, to convert an internet or a Newtech Company into they needed content at aol and time warner shareholders got the shaft and 80 billion was probably thrown away by the combine this with adding apple to the dow and its over for apple. Whats note worthy about the aol deal is jeff bukkas who was not in charge at the time. He was one of the few executives at time warner. He was take, this makes no sense to me. He is now in charge of time warner. Making it less likely as well. 160 billion. Supposedly aol was worth 80. 80 and 80 equals 160. Aol went to zero. The technology was very different at the time. Right . Delivering video time warner is a Video Company ultimately. That was a big part of their asset. Aol, when you dialed into the internet at the time, you really could not watch video in any serious way. Nowadays were online. And its saemless. We were getting charged on a usage basis. It was a different time. It was on the backs of the poor shareholders who were duped into it. What does it say to me what it says we can discount this as a real possibility for all the reasons that have been stated. But what does it say about apple and its difficulty in trying to figure out what it wants to do in television . Thats a great question. Weve always been intrigued by apples potential as a media business. Its such a big, big company and everyone has iphones or some kind of apple product. For apple, their philosophy has long been, if it helps us sell more devices, well do it. If downloading a track by itself helps us sell more well do that. Even if they lose or make barely any money on each download. Now the thinking has shifted. Now our iphone sales are down. Everything is down. The only thing thats up is the search services. The same company that ruined it the last time around . Couldnt they do disney . First of all these discussions about possibly its happening at the upper level. It didnt get up to tim cook. How about tesla . That makes more sense. Doesnt it. Apple is such a big company they have to think it many different ways. For the media side, something thats not for sure but something theyre looking at is ramping up the original content play. Amazon and netflix. Doesnt it make harder for them to strike deals with others. To the extent that all of a sudden they own hbo, right, then does showtime, all the other companies out there they dont want to deal with apple. It becomes a weird walled garden. Its like switzerland. Comcast is a producer and distributor. Amazon. Apple is in a better spot, probably. Long term some of that will break down. You see netflix. Some dont want to sell to netfl netflix. Viacom, with nickelodeon, it ultimately ate into their audience and they didnt want to sell to them anymore. I think hbo is a great asset. If you want to buy something, thats the thing you want to buy. Youll never be able to buy just that. Well, i dont know. Bukas is a seller, he is not a buyer. He is good at selling things off. Hbo maybe, in a different environment, could better take on netflix in a lot of ways. With the Big Technology backing. You might want to be unleashed in that kind of way. It might be a possibility. Discussions anyway. Appreciate it. Joseph. Man, i dont know. Bad enough going into the dow. That was one pop. This is another. Mike santoli. Sorry, dude. Next time. Next time. He wasnt supposed to be here anyway. I know. Vacation. I was going to say i feel like the fourth wheel but the fourth wheel actually helps. And you did too long tsa security lines are expected to impact one out of five flyers this summer. Next well talk to roger doud, ceo of the u. S. Travel association. Get ready for the rio Olympic Games by switching to xfinity x1. Show me gymnastics. X1 lets you search by sport, watch nbcs highlights and catch every live event on your tv with nbc sports live extra. Im getting ready. Are you . X1 will change the way you experience nbcuniversals coverage of the rio Olympic Games. Call or go online today to switch to x1. Time to hit the holiday road. [ honking ] that means traffic. Tsa lines, packed planes and travel night marries. I know you, dont i . You stole my cab. There is a silver lining. Find out why you could be saving more this summer. [ crash ] a squawk exclusive. Gawker media firing back at Silicon Valley billionaire peter thiel as the Company Fights for survival. Founder nick denton joins us with his side of this epic battle. A friday car flashback. The collectible market now seeing big returns from those cars made so famous back in the 80s. Yikes time to buckle up. The second hour of squawk box begins right now. Live from the beating heart of business, new york city, this is squawk box. Welcome back to squawk box, here on cnbc. See, i would rather have this than that other ominous music. I thought you meant rather than holiday roll. No. Rather than look whats going down. Things are very scary. You need to watch today. Joe is really cool im joe kernen along with Rebecca Quick and andrew ross sorkin. Lets check the futures right now. Quick look. Up 34 points. Yesterday was great durable goods number. As a result the market cannot get out of its own way. Could mean more likelihood of a rate hike in june, up all the way up to half a point. 5 to. 75. Oil prices retreating from the 50 level this morning. And we dont i dont know how that correlates to to equity prices anymore. I dont know how a good economy correlates. I dont know if anyone knows. Were in this people are trying to find footing one way or another in a lot of the markets. G7 leaders issued a warning overnight saying a british vote to leave the eu would threaten the world economy. In a statement the leader said a brexit would reverse the trend toward greater global trade and investment and the ensuing job creation of the brexit vote is set for june 23rd. In the headlines, about 12 million vehicles added to the recalls related to the defective takata air bag inflaters. Earlier this month takata agreed to declare up to 40 million defective. Bank of america was engaged as an advisor for the bid for the core internet business. Bank of america. President obama has become the first sitting u. S. President to visit hiroshima. The president calling for a World Without nuclear arms, and the two sides are hoping that the visit will promote a tighter alliance between the two countries. Viacoms ceo asked a Massachusetts Court to expedite a legal challenge to his removal from a trust. That trust will determine viacoms future as the Controlling Shareholder Sumner Redstone dies or is deemed incapacitated. Viacom is one of the big stock stories well talk about this morning with mariel gabelli. Hell join us to guest host starting at 8 00 a. M. Eastern time. Well get his take on this and many other stories. In political News Donald Trump has hit the magic number of delegates that he needed to clinch the gop nomination. He marked the moment by offering to debate not Hillary Clinton but, rather, her primariy opponent, Bernie Sanders. Jimmy kimmel asked him would you debate Bernie Sanders and sanders said yes. He said ill do it if 10 million could be raised to go to charity. Gawker founder and ceo nick denton firing back at peter thiel writing an open letter a day after thiel explained why he had given nearly 10 million to fight lawsuits against gawker. Denton calling thiel thin skinned and challenging him to a public debate about the role of journalism in society. Thiel launched what seemed like a severalyears campaign against gawker after its blog outed the paypal founders sexuality and other stories about his friends and others that he found appalling. Denton soliciting bids for the sale of gawker stemming in part from the fact that its been demanded to pay 140 million. We have a programming note in the meantime. Well have nick denton on the set joining us live for an exclusive interview at 7 30 a. M. Eastern time where we can talk all about this. Memorial day weekend is upon us. That means the Summer Travel season is taking off. Phil lebeau joins us with what travelers can expect when they get to the airport. He joins us live this morning from Ohare International in chicago. The scene of the very extended delays recently. Good morning. You word that so delicately. They were extended delays a couple weeks ago. We havent seen that this weekend. This morning traffic is moving well in terms of people going through security. Look. I have not seen the security line this short at this time of the morning in a long time here. It helps that theyve increased staffing, that the airlines, in this case american, is adding more contract workers to help the tsa. What can you expect this memorial day weekend when it comes to travel . Well, its going to be busy. 38 Million People will be traveling. Thats up about 700,000 compared to last year. 2. 6 million of those people will be flying. For the tsa, that means more long lines. And yes, it will be a very busy memorial day weekend. The busiest since 2011. As i mentioned, theyre staffing up in major airports. And a lot of people are watching closely to see how they handle this weekend crush. If the tsa isnt able to get its act together for the summer, i think its the shorter flights that will suffer the most. You will see people turn either to their cars because gas is still relatively cheap, or theyll explore other forms of transportation. Speaking of people turning to their cars, most people who will be traveling this weekend will be doing so by hopping in a car. About 34 Million People will be doing that. Again, this is the busiest memorial day since 2005. You see the National Average for a gallon of gas still well below 3 a gallon. The bottom line is this, guys. People will be watching the tsa very closely. They know that the airlines do not want this to become of a mess of a weekend. The good news is, doesnt look like there are major storm systems moving through parts of the country. Looks like a relatively clear weekend. It looks like, at least here, the start is getting off to a smooth start. Guys, back to you. All right, phil, thank you. We know youll be standing by throughout the day. Our next guest says the long lines at tsa checkpoints will ground one in five flyers this summer and by the time labor day rolls around hes estimating it will cost the economy more than 4 billion. Roger dow the president and ceo of the u. S. Travel association. He joins us this morning. Roger, thank you for being here today. Yes, becky. So one in five travelers deciding not to go. You think it will add up to 4 billion. Where do you get the numbers . We did survey of 2500 air travelers. 60 said theyre going to get to the airport earlier, which means a lot of standing around. 22 said they will either find another means or not take the trip. And when you take that across the two and a half Million People who will be traveling, thats a big number. And if 20 dont take the trip or drive, thats another 500,000 people on the road. You think that really stands up, or was that kind of frustration when we were seeing the height of the lines at three hours plus in some of these places . Becky, were hoping that that does not become the fact. That was taken right at the time when that tsa lines were very long. Tsa is doing a lot of things, but the airlines are helping. We have to get more people in our trusted traveller programs, precheck. You and i are not going to blow up a plane. We should be able to get through the airport very rapidly because they know who we are. Roger, the tsa said its trying to take steps for that and get back some of the funds already paid into the precheck lines and use it to enhance the program. This is almost like one of the situations you think of yogi berra. Its so crowded no one goes there anymore. You still predict 231 Million People will be flying over the holidays. It will be a large number. You take those numbers over the holidays, and the other thing that complicates it is its not the business travelers. Its the families, people who dont travel as much. So they move through lines much slower than a Business Traveller would. What would you do to try to expedite things and fix things if you were the travel czar . Number one, i would reduce the price to get in tsa precheck. Its 85 for five years. Not that much. For a family of four thats 340. I would get companies to sign up their people and get them in precheck. I would take nonessential jobs such as moving bins and watching people not go into the exit the wrong way, have other people do that. I would get automated bin machines like you see in europe that bring the bin back to you. Its silly to have someone with a cart take it. I would have more screeners and more technology. Roger, thank you for joining us. Thank you. Always a pleasure, becky. Coming up, what the markets could hold for investors after the threeday memorial day weekend. Gawker media founder nick denton follows up on his open letter to Silicon Valley billionaire peter thiel. Denton firing back as his Company Fights for survival. He joins us at 7 30 eastern time to talk about it. And an 80s flashback. Think miami vice and magnum p. I. The cars giving the market a boost. Squawk box back in a moment. When it sold for a record price of just under 30 million. And now, another mercedesbenz makes history selling at just over 30,000. And to think this one actually has a surroundsound stereo. The 2016 cla. Lease the cla250 for 299 a month at your local mercedesbenz dealer. Mercedesbenz. The best or nothing. Looktry align probiotic. Our digestive system . For a nonstop, sweet treat goodness, hold on to your tiara kind of day. Live 24 7. With 24 7 digestive support. Try align, the 1 ge recommended probiotic. Welco back to squawk box, everyone. On this last trading day ahead of the memorial day weekend. Dow futures up about 32 point. S p up by 4. Nasdaq up 13. Stocks making up a little bit for the slow start to may with their biggest weekly gains of the month. I think anything any gain would be the biggest, i think, because its been three or four weeks down. Joining us darrell cronk, president of wells fargo investment institute. Mike ryan, chief investment strategist at ubs also here. You guys have seen the reports, the calls from either goldman for gundlach saying, look, rates headed up, stocks dead money for the next year. Is that true . No. Actually, i think towards the second half of the year you have a number of probably headwinds turning to tailwinds. Obviously three. I dont think youll see the dollar give a little bit of tail wind back from the strength of the first half. Crude prices, we dont need to talk about that. 50. Energy wont be a drag on earnings like it was. And actually we think more importantly, joe, the consumer will actually kick in in the second half. You saw a strong retail sales number. A lot of ammunition. Savings rates hit a multiyear high last month. Home prices exceeded the 2005 peak. Youll see the consumer feel better into the second half. Mike, keep it simple. The fed orchestrated a big rally in Financial Assets by using qe. The whole world has been doing it. Assets get marked up because there is nowhere else to go. Now theyre heading in the other direction. Inflexion point has been reached. In a tightening cycle. Why isnt as simple as the market goes back down or goes to where it should be. I think what the fed helped the economy heal. Thats an important issue here. Were starting to see, again, as darrell mentioned, the consumer reengaged. Consumer Balance Sheets in better shape. In the second half of the year well start to see earnings recovery. This has been probably the two toughest quarters in terms of corporate profits. Were seeing earning revisions trending positive right now. What youll see for the balance of the year is that the economy will do solid enough in terms of the growth prospects, i think corporate Earnings Growth will be good as well. The other issue, too, joe, while the fed is beginning the process of normizatialization we cant process this. Were going away from extraordinary policy measures. I know its on an absolute level still low. But every time you go up a quarter point there are supposedly people that a quarter point can wreak havoc if you are over leveraged. Supposedly a lot of markets unravelled at the last quarter point increase. Its not that were low. Its that were headed in the opposite direction. In terms of are there certain markets, certain investments, that are highly vulnerable to fed tightening and a stronger dollar . Yes. I dont think this will wreak havoc across the financial markets. The markets have been repricing by the gradual reengagement by the fed. I dont think this will be the disruptive affair of what we saw the taper tantrum or in december. Youll hear millennials say risk on and risk off. Catching a bid and all these never been in the business but they love to say stuff like that. It doesnt matter which market. Its risk on and risk off. Dont you know . If its risk off, its risk off. Stay out. I dont think its necessarily polarized in that degree. But i do think, obviously, as the recovery cycle ages and deepens, which it has, you have to be more tactical, right . To your point about, if rates go higher that will be overwhelmingly good for financials. Right . We have had financials with a big head wind lately. Not a lot, though. Some. You need you need a steepening of that yield curve. You cant buy exxon anymore, can you . You missed that. So when energy comes back i think energy is a range bound here based on oil. You need energy to stop being the head wind its been. Its been a massive head wind of earnings going down 70, 80, 90 quarter over quarter. If you can get it to stabilize and not be the head wind and get a little bit of Earnings Growth out of consumer discretionary, financials. To mikes point it will create a better environment, create better confidence. Were still in the bull market, supposedly. This has been the most boring bull market in history for the last year. When does it start . What are you guys looking for 6 this year, you add in the dividends and you get 8 . Thats it . Theres nothing wrong with that, by the way. In so much 3 . Three years at 30 in the 90s. What happened . You had it a couple years ago. I think those days are behind us. In a slow growth, low inflation environment youll see mid to high single digit returns. There is nothing wrong with boring. In fact, the kind of markets where you see it built on fundamentals and you also see not in the tv business. There is something wrong with boring. Were in the investment business. If you look at the recovery 2009 to 14. There was a raging bull. S p averaged 21 . Its averaged 2. 5 , the dividend. You will get better than that. I agree with mike. 6 , 7 , 8 , well take that in this type of Interest Rate environment and the commodity environment were experiencing. You hear whats coming up soon . All the satanists, and the dark side coming up soon . I have not been an zero heads recently. Si6 6 16 coming up next mont. 6 6 16 theyre planning for it. Maybe its a stretch, but theyre planning for it. Act accordingly. Yeah. The black yeah thats cheating. The masses and all. Theyre back. A lot of satanists. You dont read drudge . Satanists all over the place. Who did donald trump call satan . Youre insulting satanists by calling someone i forget what that was. I dont know you guys. You talk to the consumers. Great. Theyre back. Theyve been saving. Slow growth. Why is it slow growth . Why cant we have fast growth . We still have to have the rest of the world go through their eight years . The rest of the world has to go through their recovery process, joe. Eight years . Were still healing . The rest of the world . You have to have Earnings Growth. Were going to start to get it, right . Thats the point. Its a relative conversation, right . Thats what the markets will price themselves off of is relative expectations, not necessarily the absolute that you want to make it. Lets also already about the environment we lived through. You had a financial crisis and economic shock that really shook the foundation. It takes a while for the healing process to continue to progress. Why cant we go back to the stock market of the 90s. Why isnt there someone that can make America Great again or make the american markets great again. Give us 3 to 4 gdp growth, joe. That would be a Good Campaign slogan. Make american markets great again. It was boehner who called cruz like working with satan. Thats right. You want to go back to the clinton days, right. I said the 80s. I said the 80s and 90s. 80s and 90s. Joe is ready for memorial day. The 90s were a direct result you know that. Gingrich in 94, the pact with america. You think he wanted to reform welfare . His wife is running from everything he did, anyway. From the crime bill, from the just saying from nafta. You know what political affiliations have been associated with the booms in the market youve talked about. Compared to your party nowadays, clinton was a republican. I dont have a party. Thank you for coming in today, gentlemen. When we come back, a cnbc exclusive with gawker founder nick denton. First a big night for the nations biggest spellers and the words that these two kids had to spell to win. Good luck with it. You wont get them right. Thats next on squawk box. Fell ges. Welcome back to squawk box, everybody. It is official. We have a tie at the National Spelling bee once again. 11yearold nihar janga of texas and 13yearold Jairam Hathwar of new york outspelled the field to win the scripps National Spelling bee. This is the third year in a row that cochampions were declared. They take home 40,000 in cash, trophies and other prizes each. In case you were wondering, the winning words, feldenkrais, a method of education and gesellschaft, a type of social relationship. A german word meaning an affiliation. These kids are pretty smart. A relationship . Its like an affiliation where i dont understand it. It could be like a professional relationship. I dated her for a while but then she gave me the gesellschaft . Huh . Like a society of journalists or something. Oh thought it was a relationship thing. I think its more of an association. Just, you know german words. Thats new. They can spell all the english words. Wow. Okay. When we come back, gawker media is in the fight of its life. Founder nick denton firing back at peter thiel calling the Silicon Valley billionaire a comic book villain. We have the man himself. Nick denton joins us right here after the break to make his case against thiel as the company starts to explore strategic options. Well talk to him about that and so much more when squawk returns. charge music you wouldnt hire an organist without hearing them first. Charge so why would you invest without checking brokercheck . Check your broker with brokercheck. The first stock index was created over 100 years ago as a benchmark for average. Yet many people still build portfolios with strategies that just track the benchmarks. But investing isnt about achieving average. Its about achieving goals. And invesco believes doing that today requires the art and expertise of highconviction investing. Translation . Its time to bench the benchmarks. Welcome back to squawk box, everybody. Among the stories that are front and center today, the discounter continue to be a standout in the retail category. Big lots reporting quarterly profit of 82 cents a share, 12 cents better than the street was expecting. The stock is up about 8. 6 . Samestore sales came in better than expected. Big lots is now raising its fullyear forecast. Shares of Valeant Pharmaceuticals on the rise this morning after multiple reports saying the drug maker turned down a joint takeover bid from japans takeda. Takeda . Takata. Thats the air bag company. Takeda pharmaceuticals and tpg capital. Bid said to come a few weeks before the new ceo joseph pap a took over in april. Stock up close to 5 . Thermo Fisher Scientific is buying fei for 4. 2 billion in cash. 7. 50 a share, a 13. 6 premium over yesterdays close. The battling deepening between cofounder of Paypal Peter Thiel and nick denton. Thiel explained to me why he had given and spent 10 million so far to fund multiple lawsuits, not just the one against hulk hogan. Thiel telling me he was backing the suit and it was, quote, less about revenge and more about specific deterrence. It launched after gawker outed the paypal founder as gay. Denton biting back in his open letter writing peter thiel is twisted. Even were you to succeed in bankrupting gawker media, the writers you dislike and me just think what it will mean. Joining us for a squawk exclusive to talk all about this and more is nick denton gawkers media president. Appreciate you coming in this morning to talk about it. Hey, andrew. This has been a whirlwind of a week. You had suspicions and speculation that something was amiss in this case and there was a secret backer. Then it actually emerged that peter thiel was the secret backer and then it emerged that it wasnt just about the hulk hogan case but that hes been doing this secretly almost in a systematic way. The responsive seen thus far is either peter thiel is robin hood in going after you or the opposite side would say and i think you might say the ol oligarchs are taking over the system and free press. Whats the goal for you . Survival of gawker or about the way we should think of freedom of speech . What is the goal line . The goal is the same goal weve pursued all along, which is to bring facts to light. We have had, in the shadows, behind these various lawsuits that have been designed to drain the company, weve had a billionaire, behind the curtain, pulling strings, hiring law firms, pursuing a decadelong decadelong strategy. Its kind of extraordinary. I mean, i am slightly impressed. This is like a count of monte cristo revenge strategy. Would you feel differently had it been exposed . Would it have changed your thinking about it, and do you think it should change the way courts perhaps think about it . I think im just glad. Im just glad that he is kind of finally out in the open. The best regulator for speech is actually more speech. Criticism. If we write something that you dont like, take us to task. If you are a billionaire, fund some organization to watch us. Some kind of watch club or Something Like that. Thats where i come down on it. I can understand the idea that a billionaire is jumping in and funding these suits. That seems unfair because it pits you as the david versus goliath. If you are not a billionaire and youre unhappy with something thats been written you dont have the same resources. It would be a great idea, for instance, for him to set up a Legal Defense fund for people who really consider themselves to be victims of media coverage. But the cases that his lawyer has pursued against us i mean, im just going to mention one. Its pretty much an indicator. Some guy who claims he invented email, a decade after email was invented. Al gore . That was the internet. Im sorry. I was confused. Look, take go search it. Take a look at the story. Say whether you find it so unreasonable what we wrote. There is nothing really different than what the Washington Post wrote on the same subject. If youre going to fund cases against us, choose better cases. To the disclosure issue and out in the open issue. Do you think that this, his involvement, changes the dynamic around your appeal and around the hulk hogan verdict which of course is the big question mark and cloud over the company . I think it changes the public debate because now its clear what the agenda is and who is behind it. And i think that debate now becomes about something more than just a story about the inventor of email or a story about a pro wrestler. It becomes a story about the power of the billionaire class. Particularly the billionaire class in Silicon Valley. They have money, wealth, anonymity, special purpose vehicles, offshore accounts. They are exercising their power from behind the scenes. I think its more important than ever that there be an independent media to hold them to account. In a lot of court cases historically the backers of these cases, whether theyre advocacy organizations on the plaintiffs or defense side. You could look at the Innocence Project which will defend people. Where the money comes from historically is not something judges have allowed into the case, especially in front of juries. I wont comment on what this means in terms of our legal strategy. I think it gives us the opportunity and gives everyone else the opportunity to see what the interests of the true interests are of the people behind these cases. Right. And maybe to discover, you know, more connections between peter thiel and this friend who had suggested to him that he pursue this kind of thing. You think there were other things going on. Youre right. He did mention this friend. I dont know who it is. You think its sean parker who said if you dont do something nobody will. I asked the question in the open letter whether its sean parker. I should tell you he cited when i spoke with him he talked about some of the stories you wrote about sean parker. We wrote a story about how the tenth street in manhattan where he lived had been dug up because of a fios connection going to his house, his neighbors complained. Was that the piece that pushed him over the edge . We ran stories about his wedding. The damage to the red woods, the fine he got for damage to the redwoo redwoods. Was that the piece that pushed him over the edge . How about the parties in davos . Are you on your own jihad to any extent against him, which is to say he has connections to facebook. Gawker has a relationship with facebook. Everybody has a relationship with facebook. You are one of a handful of media organizations involved with the Facebook Live where theyre paying gawker. Peter thiel does not believe gawker is a legitimate media organization. But the company, the giant company that controls pretty much distribution of news in the modern world actually does include several of our properties as being kind of preferred sources. In your letter you made the point that maybe sometimes i go too far maybe. Im wondering if its if its i could almost argue that its black and white. The lowest common denominator will be reached by somebody and it will be consumed by the public because thats what they want. Then again, i could argue its a gray area, where there are times where you have something that the public wont benefit from knowing about and all it does is hurt the person you know it about. Then we have to trust you, nick denton, to be a guy who subjectively comes up with the right decision. What if youre a really bad guy and, no matter what it is, youre going to publish it. I hope that youll be here now, any forum like this, able to criticize and to show chapter and verse, here is what you got wrong, dont do this again. Should we let me ask, though. The last time you were here you said maybe you had some regrets about the hulk hogan situation, if you could undo it, maybe you would do that. Would you undo outing peter thiel as being gay . Actually the biggest regret i have is actually its actually a business regret. That we believe that so much of the press and especially in a place like Silicon Valley is acquiescent to the power and the money. They ask deferential questions, they wait for the embargoes. And we have absolutely pushed the boundaries. I agree. But i think youre conflating two issues. I dont think outing someones sexual preferences is fair game. I would actually i am a gay man. The author of that doesnt mean you need to tell everybody the author of the story on peter thiel was a gay man. Did you read the story . No. I have not. But tell me is it okay to out somebody elses sexual preferences whether youre gay or not . The story was actually saying Silicon Valley is a largely straight, white male preserve. Here is a figure who is known widely in Silicon Valley to be gay, an extremely successful, talented venture capitalist. We should be we should be celebrating on the full diversity thats his choice, not yours. Tim cook had all the time he needed. He said, okay, now but he came out. Again five, six years later. How many people how many people need to know in a city or in a society or a community . Before you publish. Hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands that need to know before you can actually say, well is it is it so much of a different thing to publish i think you being gay doesnt matter. It doesnt give you the right to say that. If it doesnt matter, then, then why maintain this cone of silence around a gay public figures personal life in a way you would never do about a straight person . There are certain things that we feel like are offlimits if youre straight or gay. I agree with a lot of your arguments but i think youre conflating the issue. I think its prejudice. I said straight or gay. I think its prejudice that one would ask certain questions of a straight public figure im not differentiating between gay or straight. But in the past journalists did. The new york times, when susan sontag died, did not even mention the fact of her relationship with annie lebowitz. Because somehow it was like it was going to be an infringement. It was a fact that was widely known. It was an important feature of her life. And for us as journalists to pretend that that does not exist i think is kind of shameful. There was a time when the press protected jfk from heterosexual stuff. I see what youre saying. Let me ask you a question. Do you think peter thiel has already won . I ask it to you in this way. You made a decision, i believe, after the story relating to Tim Geithners brother, that you were going to fundamentally change the way you thought about gawker. And i wonder how much of that was you thinking that and how much of that were the business considerations of what had already taken place given all of the settlements that it sounds like have been going on, which i want to talk to you about. Have there been a series of other settlements that we dont know about . We have been subject to relatively little litigation until this peter thiel our sto stories actually tend to be true. They tend to be unpopular because they are true. We dont get sued that much. Even with peter thiels involvement we have fewer ongoing cases now. One of the questions i wanted to ask, are there lots of other cases that either havent come to light or that you settled in other ways that we dont know about . The only current cases are charles hader, thiels lawyer is involved with, the Ashley Terrell case versus a journalist who was a source on a story about a dispute between the founders of bumble and twitter sorry, bumble and tinder. She was a source she had a dirt file. She didnt like the fact that she became part of the story. And the man who claims he invented email when he didnt. I dont want to say soften yourself, but you did come out about a year ago. I am different than i used to be. And i think our writers and editors have also grown up. We have four Million People who come to our properties each weekday in the United States, so we have to act with a greater degree of responsibility you dont think thats a function, though, of, to the extent that peter thiel has been behind the scenes trying to put pressure on the company . I think its part of a broader fo broad broader foim phenomenon. When you go into twitter and look at the mentions you see a tidal wave of obnoxious. Its fine to be critical or rude and make an argument. But when everything becomes a giant, internet flame war, i think were all sick of that. I think gawker has adjusted to that too. Whats the state of the auctioner o sa auction or exploration of Strategic Alternatives at this point . We are in a position where we have a i dont know an evil mastermind of a billionaire pulling strings and trying actually he says pretty much outright what was the strongest word he used, was he trying to end gawker, destroy gawker . Something to that effect. He either wants gawker itself to go away or it to significantly change. Thats why i said maybe he won in the way that it has changed already, whether it was his doing or your own. Anyway, we have to look at all options. We have recently retained an advisor. What are the options . Youre just now getting into the process of checking into it . Everybody in Digital Media is talking to everybody else. Thats a phenomenon thats quite independent of this. How has this experience impacted your ability to sell advertising . Or to attract readers to the site . What are numbers like across the board . I think after the hogan verdict there was we had one client who got a little apprehensive. We have always been at the heart of controversy. Thats why millions of people, millions of people come to us each weekday. Now, we plunge straight into it. We push the story of Hillary Clintons secret email, the revelation about the mayor of toronto smoking crack. The recent story is on facebook and the trending news module. And the opaque process behind that. We are no strangers to controversy. Thats why people come. And the advertisers come for that audience. Do you have a problem, by the way, with peter thiel being on the board of facebook. I think thats for the board of facebook and for Mark Zuckerberg to decide. I think Silicon Valley needs to watch out. Silicon valley needs to watch out because they have more money and more power than god. You know, some of them actually want to be gods. Peter thiel is pursuing research into immortality. That might make him one. Its fine i i actually dont have such a the power should be out in the open. Curswell works at google, doesnt he . He does. The hulk hogan, the whole thing, im kind of glad gawker was there. I used to read i used to think things like that didnt really happen. You read penthouse letters and think, do people really do this stuff . Then you read it. His wife invites you needed gawker. I couldnt believe the story when i read it. I cant say that i dont enjoy the lowest common denominator either. It also andrew, if you can say hulk hogan instead of hulk wholegan. Every time we say it you could get better at all the it always comes out hulk wholegan. If you can say hulk hogan. Its an exercise. Try it. Its different. I dont really ever want to say that word again. Its two words. But the whole thing. The wrestling would transparency be enough, if you knew where the money was coming from, would that have changed everything . I would like to know more than that. I would like to know, peter thiel, if you end up owning gawker at the end of this process, if he is the funder, acting as a litigation funder, a scenario in which he ends up owning gawker, what will you do . Will you come down to the office and manage things yourself . You going to shut down gawker. Com . What are you trying to do . Why are you going up against individual writers . Is this a personal vendetta against sam bittle, the man who wrote some of the stories about your friends . Is that what youre trying to do . You are a billionaire, dude. Dont pick on individual writers like that. Is do you look at gawker and think to yourself two or three years from now that it will be an independent company and youll be involved with it . What do you think will happen . Right now its up in the air. Its been a whirlwind this week, as you have said. After this tenyearlong plot, we finally have seen what was whats going on. I think were going to need to wait and see a little bit. And, you know, maybe a debate this is what ive challenged peter thiel to yesterday. I think a debate could actually have its our chance of actually turning this from something which is kind of purely destructive and conflict ridden and adversarial into at least an exchange that might help to educate people a little bit better about the issues. And its not like there is all right on one side and all right on the other side. I do agree it is worthy of public discourse. Can you provide just to me i dont care just a list of things you havent published that you decided this is just too much . Have you got some things that you decided not to . The story about the the Media Company executive that you alluded to earlier. How many you got . That was a story that i actually ordered taken down. Do you have ten, 20, 50 . I have probably in my head, i probably have ten stories that i have can you give them to me . Right now . Not on camera. Its a black box. That shows you why there is a market for this. I am interested we want to thank nick denton. Well take you up on your offer and make the invitation right now, peter thiel, who we hope is watching as we speak. To have the debate. I would enjoy that. Hulk hogan. Hulk hogan. Try it. Youll get it. Cue up the mime vice music. Cars from the 1980s have become one of the strongest parts of the collectible car market. Well show you some of the most expensive 30yearold beaut isfrom thi beauties from that time period. Choose to smooth. Choose blades that bend from end to end, that understand legs. Choose beauty and brains. Choose venus swirl. Our most advanced blades, with six times the flexibility. For flawless skin, choose to smooth. Venus swirl. The collectible car market may have slowed but one particular moment in time is starting to surge. Robert frank turns back the clock to the 80s. Your favorite time, joe. The 1980s. Reagan was president and these cars were the biggest thing going. Some more than quintupling in value. Joining us is the ceo of haggerty, the great collectible Car Insurance and research company. Thank you for joining us. Start with the ferrari. 1986 ferrari. Testarossa, famous from miami vice. Why are they so hot right now . Whats quietly happened is the next generation has come along and said, you know what, these things have been under appreciated. These were on the cars that were on the posters on our wall. Guys like us who were teenagers in the 80s now have money, some of them do, and want what they loved as teenagers. Lets go to this car. It was on the poster of every teenaged boys wall, a lamborghini countach, 1988, 89. Famous from the canon ball run. These are over 600,000. Its a staggering value increase. They were 130. Now 630. What are the best examples of this car going for new . Well, the best examples were the earliest ones from the 70s. Those are million, million and a half dollars easily. This is 25th anniversary. These are amazing cars. Even though they just look like a space ship, this is what People Like Us are snatching up. This is almost 30 years old and still looks modern. Thats the beauty of this car. Again, from the cannon ball run. Not great cars. One of the reasons they were valued so little is mechanically theyre not great. They were finicky cars. They took a lot of maintenance to keep going. The next generation doesnt care. Not an easy car to get in and out of. I dont think of bmws as collectible cars. Whats this one worth. The bmw m 3s were an incredibly successful sports car in racing. They won more races than 911s. It had a bad yuppie vibe in the 80s, but these are the Younger Generation whats cool about these, these are millennials are buying these cars as a cool, collectible car. They were 15,000 and are now 70,000 and above that. They all have the cassette decks, bringing us back in time. Back to you. Dr. Love, legendary Value Investor Mario Gabelli will be our guest host. He is a big viacom investor. Well get some of the names he is watching right now. Squawk box returns with mr. Mario in a moment. You wont see these folks at the post office. They have businesses to run. They have passions to pursue. How do they avoid trips to the post office . Stamps. Com mail letters, ship packages, all the services of the post office right on your computer. Get a 4 week trial, plus 100 in extras including postage and a digital scale. Go to stamps. Com tv and never go to the post office again. Plumping surface cells for a dramatic transformation without the need for fillers. Your concert tee might show your age. Your skin never will. Olay regenerist, olay. Ageless. And try the microsculpting cream you love now with lightweight spf 30. A corporate game of thrones unfolding at viacom. Legendary Value Investor Mario Gabelli is the companys second largest shareholder. Well ask him whats next for the media giant. If youre planning to get away this weekend, brace yourself. What airports are doing to ease the pain straight ahead. Birds of a feather control pests together. Why one vineyard is putting 1,000 ducks to work. The final hour of squawk box begins right now. [ game of thrones music ] live from the most powerful city in the world. New york. This is squawk box. Joe. Yeah . Welcome back to squawk box here on cnbc. First in Business Worldwide. Im joe kernen along with Rebecca Quick and andrew ross sorkin. Were less than 90 minutes away from the opening bell on wall street. We have been right there most of the morning up 32, 33 on the dow jones. S p indicate up 4. 25. Nasdaq up just under 13. Check out the price of oil, which was back below 50 and back below 49 now. Down about 1 so far this morning. News breaking this morning that eight automakers are issuing recalls for more than 12 million vehicles because of the takata air bags. Recalls from honda and Fiat Chrysler account for nearly 9 million of the total. More are expected to be announced in coming days. Shares of Valeant Pharmaceuticals on the move today. Multiple reports saying the drug maker turned down a joint takeover bid from japans takeda and tpg capital. The bid coming a few weeks before the new ceo took over in april. Stock up 8 at this point. News of other suitors really has things on the move. President obama has become the first sitting u. S. President to visit hiroshima, the site of the worlds first atomic bombing in 1945. The president called for a World Without nuclear arms, and the two sides are hoping the visit promotes a tighter alliance between the two companies. Back and forth between peter thiel and nick denton continued with thiel writing denton an open letter than thiel explained why he had given 10 million to fund multiple lawsuits. Thiel launched the decade Long Campaign gens gawker after the blog outed the paypal founder as being gay and wrote a series of stories about his friends and other stores about people he did not agree with. Nick denton joined us to talk about it in the last hour. The biggest regret i have is its actually business regret, that we believe that so much of the press and especially in a place like Silicon Valley is acquiescent to the power and the money. They ask deferential questions. They wait for the embargoes. And weve absolutely pushed the boundaries. Its an interesting story to figure out whats going to happen next with this whole thing and whats going to happen specifically to this suit and the appeal process. And going to the issue of whether hulk hogan or any of these other victims were compensated by peter thiel. Who . Hogan. Its a good exercise. I am telling you. Hulk hogan. It comes out hulk wholegan. Whats the other one where you say the s word. My sister susie sells sea shells by the sea shore. She sells sea shells by the sea shore. Viacom ceo has asked a Massachusetts Court massachusetts is hard to say. I never said it right as a kid. Spell it. We were doing that earlier with albuquerque. We spelled that. Is asking a court to expedite a legal challenge to his removal from a trust that will determine viacoms future after the Controlling Shareholder Sumner Redstone happy birthday dies or is deemed incapacitated. Is he 93 . Sorkin . Guest host this morning, legendary Value Investor Mario Gabelli. He is the second largest shareholder of viacom. I am just going to just go off. Thats on the voting stock, joe. 400 million shares its his birthday. Happy birthday, sumner. Thats fantastic. Thats great. Up in beverly park. 400 million shares. 50 million are the voting stock. The the National Amusements owns 40 million. Our clients own 5 of the 10. Thats what we own much its a big economic interest. But the whole entertainment echo syste ecosystem, whether i buy fox, comcast or the company that i happen to like as well, which is sony theres a lot going on. You are asking about viacom. Mmhmm. I am. Joe, i think you go back to the time last week when i was on a beach, and i walked along and found a bottle and opened it. The genie pops out and i look up at the genie. She says to me, hey, i have been in this for 500 years. Solve my problem. I am out. What can i grant you as a wish . I say id like to solve the problems of the middle east. The genie looks at me and says, give me a second request. I said, i would like to solve the problems with viacom and National Amusements and sumner and felipe and cherry. Genie looks at me and says, give me the first request again. The family owns 80 . The lawyers will do anything, as salacious as the as the previous one was, this one brings in the kids and the grandkids into litigation. Thats kind of just too much. And so 80 of the vote will eventually control the company and determine the future. The fundamentals, weve solved the problem shortterm with dish. That was a major hurdle. The next one is get some financing, get some content back into paramount. Get some content in tv series and then get digital distribution. And thats work in progress. Give me the math. 4 billion in ebitda. Capex is 100 million, joe. They have good resources. The question is growth, the question is valuation. And thats what the market will and should and will focus on. And plus cbs. All right. Content in just deciding, okay, we have to get much better content. Are there people to hire who can deliver that guaranteed . Yes, they can hire the three of you and have three amigos on cnbc and change it to money monsters. Money monsters this is the second time were talking about genie in the bottle. Lightning. One has to have aspirations but one also has to look at fundamentals. We should talk to andrew on this. Can they find content for viacom . They can. Shouldnt be hard. Look, you can create viacom. The walking dead, mad men, breaking bad. Thats not viacom. I understand that. But josh sapan is the creator of that. Look what happened with katzenberg. Somebody found animation. Now do you create it . How do you create series for the new over the top . They have the right Management Team in place. Which is to say are you a supporter of flphilippe. Hes not going to pick scripts and green like product. He hasnt done that. He is basically what you found back in the 60s and 70s with the movie moguls. Sumner was one of those that bought viacom in the mid 80s. Paramount as a shareholder do you want him in that role or not . As ceo . As ceo. I think there is time to wait for this to occur. The answer is what wait for what to occur . Andrew, its simple. 80 vote. Right . Okay. Thats going to determine it. Ask sherry. Does she want it. Sherry doesnt want him. I am asking you what you want. I want whatever is good for the company within the context of content you dont like my answer. Thats okay. You dont have to accept it. You can say i think hes the right person or i dont think hes the right person. You can say that. Thats your premise. Thats not mine. I dont own the stock. I would think if you own the stock you would have a view. No. I disagree with you. Move on. Why dont we talk about sony . Okay. Lets talk about sony. You can. I think they had too many products. I know. Isnt it theyve not virtual reality. On the electronic games coming up on june 14th or 15th, youre going to have a simple thing. E3 is out. Do you think philippe should run sony . You know, think about andrew, im trying to help. Steve burke. You want steve burke to move over . Wait a second. I have an active view. I do not. Do you think no, hes better than that. He is extraordinal doing a terri would like him to continue. Suppose a headhunter comes along and says to viacom, get steve burke. Hell go to disney. We want him here. I agree with that. We all agree. In any event, comcast and disney no, cant do it. They tried. The next part is the following. When you look at the world, 350 Million People in the United States. There are 7. 5 billion in the words. Mermaids in china did so well at the box office. Who will run paramount is an interesting question. How will they create series and how will they greenlight new product and how do they take risk out of the product . Can you do that by buying lionsgate, can you do it by doing something with amc or by jumpstarting it . There are a lot of options. But sony, joe, music. Entertainment. Play station. Content. Egames. Theres 1. 3 billion shares at 28. Its a misunderstood company because the guys in my firm that follow technology dont talk to the guys that follow entertainment, and they both have different points of view on the company. Think about fox corp. At 28. Its a really Interesting Company with the cap shrink theyve gone through. Cbs and what theyre doing within the context of content and distribution. So there is a lot going on. You own all those. Yes. And i think they are interesting stocks. I would never think about, you know, watching the thunder in okc, watching the cavs play, watching the hockey teams. You dont think about kriket, but cricket is popular. Theres more filipe dumond. Andrew is good because hes persistent. I like that. Were no longer politically correct on this show anymore. We have time during the break to figure it out. This man will be here for a while. I have a lot of stories. A lot of stock. Coming up, Memorial Day Travel expected to hit a tenyear peak. Could be bad news for the already long lines to the airports across the country. Im headed to the airport in just a bit. Worried about it. Laguardia. A live look from Chicago Ohare Airport when squawk returns. What are you doing right now . Making a cake ayla reminds me of like a master chef and emiana reminds me of like a monster chef. Uh oh. I dont see cake, i just see mess. Its like awful. It feels like i am not actually cleaning it up whats that make mommy do . doorbell whats that . Swiffer wetjet. So much stuff coming up. This is amazing woah. Wow. Now i feel more like making a mess is part of growing up. Stop cleaning. Start swiffering. [crowd cheering] i could get used to this. Now you can. When you lease the 2016 es 350 for 329 a month for 36 months. See your lexus dealer. Welcome back to squawk box. Flyers across the u. S. Experienced lengthy lines to get through airport security. It may be getting worse. Aaa estimating more than 2 million americans will take to the skies to travel this memorial day weekend. I will be part of that group, getting on that line. Phil lebeau joins us live from Chicago Ohare Airport. Good morning. What are the lines like . Theyre winding down a little bit, andrew. Weve gone through the morning rush. The line behind me right now looks like it is about 20 minutes. It looks long but its moving at a pretty good clip relative to what we saw a couple of weeks ago where people were waiting an hour or two hours. We havent seen that this morning at ohare and i havent heard of it anywhere else in the country. The numbers for memorial day weekend travel. We are seeing the biggest weekend in terms of travel since 2005. The majority of people going out of town this weekend, theyre going to do it by car. 34 million. You mentioned how many people are flying. More than 2. 5 million. The rest of the people, whether by bus or train, 1. 6 Million People. For the airports, that will be the main focus this weekend. Really, for the summer as well. It will be such a busy summer. The tsa is adding 750 agents mainly at the larger airports through july. Still, theyre warning people to expect long lines. American airlines, this is an amazing stat. Yesterday American Airlines said that 70,000 people 70,000 have missed flights this year in the u. S. Because they have been stuck in security and havent been able to get through in time. For the tsa, they believe that theyre able to shorten lines in part because the airlines are assisting them by hiring contract workers and theyre also warning travelers to arrive early. Also earlier this week we saw the beginning of a test in atlanta with an automated screening station. Well see how it does over the next few weeks as people get used to the new process for going through one of of the areas down in atlanta. Looking at the shares of the airline index. A lot of people are wondering if the short haul routes for the airlines will be impacted because of these delays, that eventually people maybe who are going from say philadelphia to somewhere in North Carolina might say, you know what, im not going to wait in line to go on that kind of a trip. Ill drive instead. That will be something to watch over the next couple weeks. The airlines are feeling pressure too, i guess, if theyre the ones stepping up and hiring contractors on this . Right. Right. Weve seen that with almost every airline, whether its american, unatnited. All adding 4 million to 5 million worth of contract workers to help get people up to the point so that the tsa agents are strictly focused on screening bags and passengers. Why dont the airlines help out by starting to charge people for the bags they want to take on flights as carryon baggage and give back the fees for the stuff that you check down below . Everybody who brings that up, i also say check out whats happening at the airports where southwest is the predominant airline. Southwest does not charge for the first two bags you check. Southwest is still dealing with long lines, just like the other airlines. So for the people who sit there and say this is all because everybody is bringing on carryon bags, that is certainly a component of this, but it will not be alleviated by strictly waiving the bag fees so that everybody checks bags. A lot of people do not want to wait for their bag to come off a plane. If you add up the lane you wait in tsa and the 45 minutes you have to wait for your bag at newark. Thats why it makes more sense to drive if its a 12hour radius. The broader issue is this. A hundred million more people flying in the United States this year than you had five years ago. And youve got fewer tsa agents. You do the math there. At the end of the day thats the problem. More people, fewer people to screen them. Yeah. So crowded anybody will go there anymore. Thank you, phil. You bet. When we come back, how Mario Gabelli is putting money to work in this election year. Well get his stock picks right after this. First, a quick check on the futures this morning. A little bit higher with the dow futures indicate thed up 30 poi above fair value. Nasdaq up by 12. S p up by 4. Theres a lot of places you never want to see 7. 95. [ beep ] but youll be glad to see it here. Fidelity where smarter investors will always be. If only the signs were as obvious when you trade. Fidelitys active trader pro can help you find smarter entry and exit points and can help protect your potential profits. Fidelity where smarter investors will always be. Oa skin transformation that rivals the leading Department Store moisturizer. Revives skin to fight 7 signs of aging. With olay, you age less, so you can be ageless. Olay. Ageless. Welcome back to squawk box this morning. Gawker ceo nick denton firing back at peter thiel after he admitted he funded hulk hogans lawsuit against the media site. Here is what he said here on squawk box in the last hour. Peter thiel, if you end up owning gawker at the end of this process, if he is the funder, he is acting as a litigation funder, as a scenario in which he ends up owning gawker, what will you do . Will you come down to the office and actually manage things yourself . Are you going to shut down gawker. Com . What are you trying to do . Why are you going up against individual writers . Is this a personal vendetta against sam biffle, the man who wrote some of the stories about your friends . Is that what youre trying to do . You are a billionaire, dude. Dont pick on individual writers like that. Right now its time to get specific names that our guest host Mario Gabelli is focused on right now. You always come with a lot of names and things that youre watching. One in particular that you have talked about a little bit ahead of time was yahoo. You own shares of yahoo. Our team does. Yahoo is at 36. 950 million shares. What youre trying to figure out is how do they get out of this tax mess. Thats the amount of the yahoo japan, about 20 billion. Alibaba, which is probably 30 billion. They have a low tax basis. You know, thats one of the challenges of companies trying to pursue other alternatives with their capital. I dont have a solution to that. Obviously youve got the best minds in the tax world working at it. Thats the problem. Best minds in the tax world are working on that rather than solving productivities, solve the National Debt issue, fixing the Global Competitiveness of the United States. Sto stockholm. If they were incorporated there, there would be no tax. Clearly the issue went up and down the other day with ali baba going up and down. You work through the math. What do you think about the bid kind of whisper numbers that we have heard, that the bids for yahoos main internet business. Its irrelevant. Assume 2 billion or 5 billion. Its either dollar or two. They need to focus on the tax leakage. Alibaba. 300 million shares. Same thing with yahoo japan. How does it work out . From my point of view we have a core competency in the firm. We wrote a book on deals, deals and more deals. We are writing an update. We like the subject of financial engineering. Like what meg whitman is doing in terms of hpe. She split the company. Financial engineering. Brilliant deal with csc. You have to allow capital to go to the highest form of return. If they make mistakes thats part of the process of creative destruction. You liked what you heard from meg whitman earlier this week when dave faber interviewed here. Do you own shares of hpe . We own some. The reason is theres 1. 7 billion shares. Stock is around 17. And you are getting 3 or 4 of cse and cash. They have a great ebitda. Shell do something. Were trying to figure out where she goes next. We own a little bit. We dont. Since she took over the Company Started around 19. Down 12. We havent bought any recently. Thats not a big position for us. Our big positions are clearly, you know, companies that we make. The new positions were buying are defense spending. Why is that . The u. S. Is underspent significantly in the last eight years. You have the south china sea, russia in that part of the world. So were going to have to put money back into defense spending. Harris corp. Text tron. The lock heeds of the world. Thats an area that at the margin were buying every day and adding to positions. Whoever is president will spend the money. You cannot starve that part of the world. So thats what were doing, in addition to what were doing in the Housing Market. Lennar. Is that a new purchase . I feel like ive heard you talk about lennar in the past. In terms of the Housing Market there are many ways to participate. One is obviously the builders. One are the companies that supply equipment. For me i buy furniture if i move into a house. What will the millennials doing . Will they be in the rental world, shared ownership world, the airbnb world or go back and own homes. There are a lot of ways to participate in the Housing Market. Lennar, we happen to own voting stock, much the way we own viacom voting stock. In a case of viacom stock its trading as a premium. Lennar is selling at a 10point discount. Why . I dont know. Probably partly due to the fact, if somebody wants to buy lennar it goes into an index. They dont want lenb. This is terrific. He as you learn with other individuals in the entertainment business and new york and denver. They get a premium for the voting stock. Thats important. Thats an example. In addition to that, these companies in the infrastructure area, roads, bridges, the efficiency of driving on i95 going north and seeing that pothole every day getting bigger and bigger between greenwich and new york state. Back in a moment with breaking Economic News right after the break. Every year, the amount of data your enterprise uses goes up. Smart devices are up. Cloud is up. Analytics is up. Seems like everything is up except your budget. Introducing comcast Business Enterprise solutions. With a different kind of network that delivers the bandwidth you need without the high cost. Because you cant build the business of tomorrow on the network of yesterday. Digital digital colis. Breaking news. Our Second Time Around the block on First Quarter gdp. First release, up. 5 . We boosted it by. 3. Now up. 8 . A little shy of what some were looking for. Some were hoping for one hand. Its an improvement. Its not a very good number. But we know the Second Quarter it will average out a bit. Getting closer. 2. 9 was last atlanta gdp now. Lets go to the internals. Consumption 1. 9. Thats also shy. But it equals the last look. No change. Looking for definitely 2 handle there. If you look at the gdp pricing index. Up. 6. A little cooler by a tenth on expectations and last look at. 7. A drum roll. The pce quarter over quarter core. Many paid close attention to it. Running on the hot side of 2 had the 2. 1 and remains there. How far back do you have to go to find a higher core pce than 2. 1 . March of 2012. First quarter, when it was 2. 3. These are pretty solid reads. And even though i said its the same as last look, last look at the First Quarter number, its still, when you get down to it, the highest read since the First Quarter 2012. Corporate profits. Profits do matter they were up. 6 versus minus 8. 4. Thats a big swing. Big swing. Its a small number, but its not negative. What are markets doing . I wish i could tell you they were doing more, but theyre not. In the low 80s on tens after terrific two, five, sevenyear options. 80 in supply. Investors dont think janet yellen will follow through. They dont. I cant imagine they would be so aggressive. You two understand the twoyear. Fives and sevens are long to hold. Dollar index up an eighth of a cent. Thats pretty much it. Becky, back to you. Hope everybody at the desk has a nice, solemn memorial day. Agree, rick. Same back to you. Yes. Thank you. Our fallen and our lost. Rick, that thank you very much. Lets get to Steve Liesman for more on the data. The numbers coming in. More of the same from yesterday. Its a weak revision to a weak number. Its sad when the best you can hope for is an upward revision to 1 , which was the estimate and we only about 0. 8. I can tell you where the economists will feel disappointed, is in consumer spending. We thought it would be revised up to 2. 2 because of the stronger retail sales number. Instead, unchanged at 1. 9 as rick said. Then the persistent problem we talked about yesterday which is businesses are not investing. Theyre investing less than we thought they were. Down 6. 2 from 5. 9. Equipment down. Housing, a little better. Housing has been doing quite well, up 17. 1 from original of 14. 8. No change on government. This really will continue the debate we have been having about jobs versus growth. And jay powell, fed governor, friend of squawk box, been on the set here. Talked about this yesterday. He believes the jobs number more than the gdp number. Put together a chart this morning that says, well, if jobs are here, where typically on average should gdp be. What the chart shows is that, if you were down in the 130 to 180 range, you would be about 1. 5 to 2 growth. Where we are now in the 190 to 200,000 average range, should be 3 , 3. 5 growth. What the heck is going on. We are not seeing the growth relative to the jobs. The other thing thats very weird. Maybe mario wants to comment on this. How is it possible that businesses are cutting back on their spending and not cutting back on adding workers . Usually the two go together. Labor or capital inputs. And theyre not bringing on the capital but they are bringing on the workers. Sounds like a judgment call on the part of management to add variable costs, not fixed costs, because of uncertainty over what tax rates will be, what regulation will be, what happens in january of 2017, and that uncertainty im just joining, steve, the echo the chorus of everyone else in the Business World saying the same thing. So thats the dilemma thats interesting to observe. On the other side of the coin, why are millennials so disenchanted with whats going on in the world . Its student debt. 400 billion ten years ago. 1. 4 trillion today. If you went through the cycle in the last ten years, what are you thinking about . We have got to solve that problem. Its part of the political debate right now with one guy wants to do it for free, right, wants to well, education Going Forward has to become more efficient and have a better payback. If you went for a forprofit school, how do you get a return on investment . Should you be allowed to break the contract that caused you to i want you to be able to deduct from your pretax dollars your student loans. I went to state school, took out loans to pay for most of it with help from my dad and paid it all off. For the record. Want to get to fed news. English major. Yes. Said without comment. But a smirk. [ laughing ] a little fed news. Jim bullard, who has been out talking a lot but hasnt been asked or talked about his opinion about the june rate hike said that the markets are reading the april minutes correctly. And that would be translation meaning the idea that there is a possibility of a june hike. He is now on board with. Now, we have a speech today at an event today at 1 15. Janet yellen will sit for a conversation with gregory manke. I dont know how much news will be made. We will obviously cover this, cover this closely. Janet yellen has a speech june 6th in philadelphia. Thats a speech. Thats a windup, think about what youre going to say, make policy speech. Im not sure today is the day when is the june meeting . June 15th is the meeting. June 6th also youll know from your calendar, becky, as organized as you are, after the isms and the jobs report comes out. If i were going to be making a policy statement about the possibility of a june statement, june 6th would be the day. Its also the last day before the socalled blackout where fed officials stop talking. They do indeed stop talking ahead of the meeting. That would be the time. Its satanic cult day too. Oh, 6 6. When was the last time they changed rates subsequent to a meeting in between scheduled meetings. During the financial crisis. People were asking whether or not they would do it in july when there is no conference. And post brexit. I dont want to rack my brain over june or july. A lot of guys on the desks will make money if its in june or july, if they make the call right. When i think about a fiveyear or tenyear investment horizon, the idea that rates went up a quarter point june versus july will not equal the Humphrey Bogart measure of a hill of beans. I wont spend time worrying about that. Could be july, could be june. If youre investing for the long term, i dont think it matters that much. Steve, thank you. Has an impact on multiples, but thats true. Present value of the future stream of earnings if everything is constant. Eventually inflation will pick up. Isnt it. 00001 on the model . Yes. That is the psychological impact. When we come back, Yosemite Park sponsored by starbucks. That might be possible. National Parks Service set to expand corporate branding to federal areas across the country. Will it tarnish the experience for tourists . That debate when we return. 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Real is an animal rescue. Amazing is over twentyseven thousand of them. There is only one place where real and amazing live. Seaworld. Real. Amazing welcome back to squawk box. If you could only see what goes on during the commercial breaks. The back and forth between paypal founder peter thiel and gawker ceo nick denton continuing today with dentin writingtial an open letter. There are reports denton has begun soliciting bids for the sale of gawker. Something he told us about when he weighed in in the last hour on squawk box. We have to look at all the option. Weve retained Lamar Patrick to advise us. Do you expect what are the options . Youre just now getting into the process of checking . Everybody in Digital Media is talking to everybody else. Thats a phenomenon thats kind of quite independent of this. It is the unofficial kickoff to Summer Travel season. Our National Parks are expected to attract their share fair of tourists. Pretty soon the crowds could be looking at corporate logos and sponsorships in addition to the majestic vistas as cashstrapped parks look to plug the holes in their funding. Critics fear that this once the Program Actually starts it could end up ending badly. One of them asking if at some point well end up with old f faithful brought to you by viagra. Here with us a representative from the watch dog group that opposes the plan. I have nothing to add. Old faithful. Do you want to explain where you came up with this . Thats good, jeff. Maybe. It was better than the Lincoln Memorial brought to you by hemorrhoid cream. But the whole George Washington monument brought to you by viagra might be better. No. Good. The idea of Civil Servants negotiating marketing deals with corporate pros shows you how nuts this is. Why is it that you are so opposed to the corporate sponsorship when it gets in . For the very first time the Parks Service will depend upon private gifts for its operating bud budget. Under this proposal donor needs are the guiding principle that park superintenden are used with a whole host of promotional activities that have no place in the National Parks. The money will not even go where the parks need it. The Parks Service has a huge backlog of maintenance, but corporate donors will not sponsor yellowstones crumbling sewage system or the leaky pipes at grand canyon. They want trophy projects that actually add to the deficit because they have to be maintained. I guess part of the problem, though, is that backlog you mentioned. There is an 11 billion backlog of projects needed. Billion. 11 billion backlog. How do we come up with that money if not through help from corporate sponsors . Understanding that money is fungible. If corporations are paying for one thing and maybe if money is spent there the money can go to the other projects you mentioned . Thats the part of congress. The backlog has been growing without any kind of management or priority system. Like a home owner, you prioritize what you need. The Parks Service has not done that. Relatively speaking, when you look at National Forests and refuges, the Parks Service is the best funded of all. For every dollar spent in the National Park a National Forest gets 33 cents. Refuge gets 17 cents. Federal range lands get 7 cents. Its not clear why the Parks Service is portraying itself as a bureaucratic bangladesh. My guess would be part of what the Parks Service is dealing with is a new generation that maybe is not as actively taking to the parks as some of those before . Actually their visitation visitation is through the roof. 2015 set records. 2016 is expected to be even more. So you think this is just them completely misusing the funds . Is that the Parks Service is der ric leadership has not been their strong suit. Theyre doing this under the cover of philanthropy. Its really mer chan diesing. Whatever is not nailed down will be offered for sale. We think thats illadvised. I understand its a slippery slopes and a lot of things you wouldnt want to things. Its more of a bungee jump than a slippery slope. Its a radical shift. Is there no room for some of this . I think about David Rubenstein and the money hes given to some of the memorials including the Washington Monument to make sure its rebuilt properly . Absolutely. Philanthropy has been central to the parks system before there was a Parks Service. A number the major parks are a result of gifts. Its a big part of even what happens today. Whats being talked about now is not philanthropy. Its merchandising, marketing, cobranding and selling things. And thats something thats weve never seen before. Having Civil Servants work as fundraisers and using tax money that would otherwise go for Park Maintenance going to donor maintenance, we think should be rethought. Weve reached out to the national Parks Service, they did provide a statement saying basically some of the things they have been thinking about is allowing rooms inside some of the park buildings to be sponsored for a limit of five years. When you make a donation for Something Like that. Does that sound reasonable to you . Those sort of things are allowed now. Theyre proposing something different. The fact that theyre not coming on the show is an indication they dont want to defend the proposal. Theyre talking about a display of corporate logos on everything from park benches to fixtures, equipment, vehicles, even to the paving stones underneath visitors feet. Billboards that can last up to five years. And the idea that anything that happens in one park under this proposal will presumptively be allowed in every park. So you will soon get particularly with the parks dependent upon corporate gifts for their base budget, you will soon end up with every developed area being a gigantic exercise in product placement. Jeff, on my own experiences in moose, wyoming, where the local community has been generous in supporting the wildlife museums and so on. I dont see the problems that you are creating. I think youre going to have business guys who are great at logo and merchandising like disney do it pro bono like you would have somebody else. I would rethink your position. Thats my point of view. Think about this. Theyre having park superintendents spend a significant amount of time on fundraising activities. It becomes a core competency thats the basis for selecting superintendants. Thats not necessarily how you do it. Thats what theyre proprosing. Were talking about a plan that the Parks Service wont even come on the show to defend. You make your point well. Thank you. Sir, thank you for your time. We appreciate it, jeff. Good morning. When we return. Jim cramer live from the new york stock exchange. Look at the price of crude. Went on so long we didnt talk about how ducks love to eat snails. Damn, we missed that the allnew audi a4, with available virtual cockpit. From bank of america to buy a new gym bag. Before earning 1 cash back everywhere, every time and 2 back at the grocery store. Even before he got 3 back on gas. Kenny used his bankamericard cash rewards credit card to join the wednesday night league. Because he loves to play hoops. Not jump through them. Thats the excitement of rewarding connections. Apply online or at a bank of america near you. Igoing to clean betteran electthan a manual. Was he said sure. But dont get just any one. Get one inspired by dentists, with a round brush head. Go pro with oralb. Oralbs rounded brush head cups your teeth to break up plaque and rotates to sweep it away. And oralb delivers a clinically proven superior clean versus sonicare diamondclean. My mouth feels super clean oralb. Know youre getting a superior clean. Im never going back to a manual brush. Technology moves faster than ever. The allnew audi a4, with apple carplay integration. Welcome back to squawk box this morning. Check this out, a vineyard in south africa has created ways to combat pests. Its using an army of mighty ducks to find snails destroying grapes on the estate. Weve seen a group of 1,000 birds twice a day. The vineyard says the duck haves greatly reduced its use of pesticides. They do like snails. And they like slugs. Isnt that great . Imagine when they start liking grapes. Yeah, that would be a problem. Yes. Lets get down to the new york stock exchange. Jim cramer joins us right now. And, jim, a lot of talk today about what to expect from the fed, liesman was just laying out janet yellen has a big speech on june 6th. How do you see this all playing out . Well, i think they have ample room to move. I think that housing is doing well, as steve mentioned. Retail and aggregate is okay. I think theyre itching to make a move. The clock is ticking if they want to do a couple this year. So i expect one unless the employment number is really weak and then they will certainly look awry. I know this speech today at radcliff is not key, but i believe all the people come on our network are saying one thing, i just dont think theyll go the other way. Does the market handle it . Yes. Are traders okay with it . Yeah. I mean, i think so. Theyre not necessarily okay with two or three, but i think about all the quarters that weve heard. If the dollar is in check, if the dollar doesnt soar, i think were going to be fine. I look at the roving bull markets weve had in the last couple weeks and its centered on technology, which is very dollar sensitive and banks, which is less dollar sensitive, but theyve been strong. Banks are strong as i think the feds going to move and the International Companies are still hopeful that the dollar doesnt soar. Thats the key thing for me when it comes to earnings for the next quarter. Yeah, and i guess with Oil Prices Back around 50, that takes away one more concern the fed had heading into this too . James bullard was very worried about a complete collapse oil off the table at 50, we dont have a bad price for consumers and takes the pressure off the large banks that were really kind of underreserved if oil went down to 20. So i like this. Its going to make it so the banks arent going to have as many criticized loans, which is good. Because we need the bank group to work well. Its been the laggard, the last laggard now is transports. And ive been working on them. The numbers arent coming through there. That is going to be a problem. Thanks, jim. Okay, thank you guys. Coming up, some final thoughts youre okay, arent you . Im fine. Not my final all right. All right. Well get some final thoughts for today from mario. Well get his take on the economy and more. Squawk box will be right back. Theres a lot of places you never want to see 7. 95. [ beep ] but youll be glad to see it here. Fidelity where smarter investors will always be. If only the signs were as obvious when you trade. Fidelitys active trader pro can help you find smarter entry and exit points and can help protect your potential profits. Fidelity where smarter investors will always be. My m. About my toothpasteice. She eveand mouthwash. Ice. But shes a dentist so. I kind of have to listen. She said jen, go pro with crest prohealth advanced. Advance to healthier gums. And stronger teeth from day one. Using crest toothpaste and mouthwash makes my. Whole mouth feel awesome. And my teeth are stronger too. Crestpro health advanced. Is superior to colgate total. In these 5 areas dentists check. This check up . So good. Go pro with crest prohealth advanced. Moms right. Again welcome back everybody. Buzz is building around jeopardy newest champion. Won more than 130,000 over the course of the last week, but the Music Executive isnt quietly continuing down his path of victory. Cohen has been having fun with host alex tribek playing final jeopardy with who is, you arent rid of my yet, trebek, and who is see you tomorrow, trebek. I dont understand this. Does he lose i dont know. You are a smug and sufferable game show host, alex oh. You have not been invited on celebrity jeopardy just yet. No. But that invitation is coming. You dont need to be a celebrity. Ive seen some of the people i love watching wolf on there. What was that joke the comedian the white house correspondents the real winners are the people that didnt have to watch the situation. I think there are very little upside in doing it. Yes, i agree. Though you would actually do very well. Si nap s si. You would do extremely well, however theres a downside to it unless its a roast. Were going to get some final thoughts for today. Well, not forever. Yeah. But just today. Mr. Gabelli is here. Thank you. Last shot on viacom dauman, you want him to stay or go . I basically think there are a lot of companies its sharis decision. And she has 80 of the vote and that will work out. Look, you want to buy merges, you want to be ahead of the game. We have three or four Companies Announced selling probably the rest of their african assets except tanzania, bought by malone, you have a Convenience Store business and then you have mergers in the energy business, oil and gas. So utilities, Public Service into mexico, el paso electric, everyone is consolidating in that business allowed to do that. So, you know, stay tuned in terms of broadcasting. Stay tuned in terms of small regional banks. A lot more love making whos going to buy all the spectrum on monday . Or tuesday rather. Well, the spectrum on monday is being auctioned off the broadcasters have a reverse auction. And theyre all buyers. Have a great weekend. You too. Enjoy nashville knoxville. Thats it for us. Make sure you join us on tuesday. Its time for squawk on the street. Good friday morning. Welcome to squawk on the street. Im Carl Quintanilla with jim cramer and david faber at the new york stock exchange. Ahead of a long weekend, we are watching a pretty steady premarket. Yellens speech this afternoon. Pretty solid revision to q1 gdp as well, a mixed picture in europe, oil settling back after crossing 50 as you know earlier this week. We are going to start with gdp revision to