Transcripts For CNBC Squawk Alley 20240713

Good thursday morning. Welcome to squawk alley. Im Carl Quintanilla with jon fortt at post nine of the new york stock exchange. Morgan brennan with us from hq were going to continue to bring you nonstop market coverage from separate locations for a while as we reduce travel for employees as a precaution due to the spread of the virus. For the markets volatile this morning where we will start. Major averages deep in the red, had a circuit breaker. The president did institute the 30day travel ban for europe excluding the uk in an effort to curb the spread of the virus ali and brian both here on set thank you for coming in. Good to see you. Brian, what do we say . We know youve liked opportunities in this market do you still think theyre here . Its an honor to be here today on days like this, and when youre a strategist and portfolio manager, because we do both, we are defaulting to terms of i call it the three ps of investment management, perspective, poise and process okay the perspective is, that this, too, shall pass. We dont know, by the way, nobody knows when this is going to end the only guide that we can say is that when we start to see a quote unquote log of die mminisn returns into the news, facts, this has been a marketplace and society that has been feeding on fear since 9 11, exacerbated and accelerated in 08 and 09, those events we knew we were going to come to an end to those, right when the fed came in and injected capital into the system, that helped create a bottom march 9th of 2009 right. Right. A lot of people didnt believe it were looking for things, were trying to find a template and playbook, we dont have one. This is fear and emotion through that you must employ your poise what does poise mean do not make binary decisions talk with your financial adviser, revisit your financial allocation and focus on the process. Whats the process the best companies in the world in the United States best companies in the world, most stable, with the best products, best management, best services period. So thats why i believe that we will come out of this faster and stronger than everybody else and not going to change our yearend target the internal parts of our discussion are under review and will have a report out shortly. Some would say best companies for sure best corporate debt relative to gdp. So this is different, right so now youre talking to your financial adviser, what i have been doing, speaking with individuals day in and day out you have to have perspective and stay away from your screens and you have to make sure you have the liquidity that you need to get you through this with opportunities. You have to use this for two right now and only two things, the first is to harvest in areas where not that you want to get out in the market and sell at the bottom where you want to trade into something that you are more comfortable with at these levels and where you think there is more upside its not too early for that only if youre switching like for like in a way where you feel, for whatever reason, that theres more upside where youre going than where youre coming from the second is, if you have been understand risked and if you have a longterm perspective and lived through september 11th and if you have lived through the financial crisis, which many and i think part of this issue is not all of us have, this is a longterm opportunity but were not there yet so use option strategies to get in at below market level dont fully fund it going yet. Brian, how do you know as an investor when its time to buy in its not binary, not going to take all the cash you had and buy in at one individual level often, i feel like you want to start buying in when the headlines are uncomfortable and not clear you should be. Today the market is low again. Thats where faith comes in i listen to songs before i jump on the train or walk to the office in toronto, let it be done, and the first list, its going to get better. Why focus on the Company Companies here, i push back with respect to debt Small Cap Companies have debt, and one of the best performing sectors utilities has among the highest debt level be careful on jumping to that conclusion but in america we have the stable earnings, strongest cash flow and if you liked a company x days ago, you like it more now. If you own a 4 position in apple and now 2. 5 , bring it back up to 4 . Some of what ali talked about in tax law selling but sticking with the companies you believe in terms of conviction and process. Let me add to that. Think about a lot of the secular themes that are going to be important in the next years. So think about climate change, clean water, clean energy, aging technology think about all these things that people were happily buying at, you know, on february 19 and think about the ability that you have in what is two transient events, arguably at whether you call it the pinnacle or nader of the fear process right now, some of that is legitimate market and response, some of that is the fact that i mean we have very thinly staffed Trading Floors right now. My team is working from four different places our traders are working from three different places right. This is the human effect and creeping into the economic effect of the coronavirus. So there are a lot of things when you talk about liquidity, the credit market, should you buy and the one last thing i would like to say, just remember, a vix above 50, what does the vix measure the vix measures our anticipation of what volatility looks like over the next 30 days a vix over 50, a fear gauge over 50, means that we expect plus minus 3 moves for the next 30 days. That is not a screaming buy sell. When you see a vix at these types of parabolic levels, 6 to 12 months out, we have massive recovery in returns, 18 to 20 on average theres no template or book, but what i would say from a fundamental perspective the strength of the American Economy is the consumer. What are we buying buying things on our phone, content, technology, Communication Services and themes, lifestyle themes within Consumer Discretionary is where we believe people will continue to own yeah. And i think it is a very key point that ali made in terms of what all of this trading dispersion and Trading Floor dispersion means to the liquidity picture as well, but brian, i want to go back to your yearend target and the fact that youre sticking with that remind us what is it and how do we get there i get at some point or another coronavirus is going to pass, but when the earnings picture is so unclear right now, the economic picture is so unclear right now, how do you actually get there . Sorry so i hear nothing. Oh. You were unable to hear morgan. Morgan was asking about your yearend target and the idea that you havent moved that. How do you get there given everything going on . Its a great question and sorry i didnt hear. If you take a look at how we over the last 30 years have projected the stock market, we run three models, a regress macro regress model which has been wrong 15 years because its too negative, a p e regress model, historical p es and earnings and the discount model which has been accurate. How we look at that is, we have a we have a risk premium and a risk free rate clearly the riskfree rate is tied to where bonds are and have cratered that means you can enjoy a higher risk premium. What does this mean . It means that from a valuation perspective and earnings perspective we can afford a higher valuation at depressed earnings but from an Interest Rate perspective we are going to be in this lower for longer environment. Do not think for one second that markets cannot and will not rebound. This has been an unbelievable pullback on the downside we will have a pullback on the upside of Epic Proportions that people are not prepared for if they become too negative and make too many binary decisions. There are probably some areas where we wont see that, so are there certain sectors or industries where youre advising clients stay away, whether its energy, airlines, maybe the fundamentals in those areas, even if you like i cant buy there now, we cant buy there now. I think that look, what you have to do at this point or what my job is to do, is to expect and plan for the worst and really hope for the best. And thats what the markets are doing right now. So i cant buy hotels or cruise lines, i cant buy energy. I can have discussions about what to do if you already own them and the risk reward tradeups might be. Back to the earlier point, if there are certain stocks or units within that, that can be better, but after a 31 year, and experiencing what were experiencing, a recession, although still not our base case, a recession, not our base case, it is part of human behavior, economics, and psychology if we have one its going to be to brians point, short lived, nominal in nature, and the u. S. And china are going to lead us back out of it that is what i am investing for, but im still protecting my clients, whether im doing it through structured notes, entering buy puts or buying things that are longterm secular themes and or defensive stocks that wont play in this cyclical environment. Guys, thank you good reason and discussion where we are and headed. Dow is down 1936 lets get to morgan. Thanks, carl. Meantime the nba suspended its season until further notice after a player tested positive for the coronavirus. Eric has the latest and joins me now. Thats right. Last night the nba suspending its season effective today after one jazz player tested positive last night, although minutes ago reports of a second jazz player testing positive, that just came out ten minutes ago. Technically these Upcoming Games theyve been postponed, they have not been canceled thats a big difference because the league, they could still make up those games later this spring or summer and that decision could amount to billions of dollars either being lost or not lost it would also mean ticket sellers as of right now dont have to issue refunds because they havent been canceled yet team staffer, players, stadium contractors could get paid if the games get made up. Thats the difficult situation the nba is in right now the league is using the hiatus to Gather Research and information to figure out next steps as we head into april. The league makes about 9 billion a year about 3 billion a year comes from the national tv contract with espn and turner every team has their own local h media deal thats more money the players make 4 billion in team salaries. The pga tour and nhl will have update the players championship started in florida the nhl told all teams to cancel practice and activities for today. Were seeing worldwide effects basketball player in spains top league tested positive as well as an employee from the mcclaren formula 1 team putting both of those series at risks of cancellations. There was a big conference, sports conference, at love nba people were in boston, friday and saturday last week the jazz played at the celtics and concern. I was there and team owners were there, scary teams. An evolving situation for sure eric chemi, thank you Julia Boorstin has more on what the suspended season means for media partners. The nba suspending until further notice will have ripple effects across media and advertising. Loss for disney whose espn and abc airs games and at t whose tnt airs other games its not just about lost revenue from in game advertising but also about the lost ability to promote the rest of those networks lineups to nba viewers. Nba games are rare Live Programming that gets people to watch in real time this value is why at ts turner and disney spent a reported 24 billion in a deal for those rights back in 2014. It was a nineyear deal that extends through the 2024 25 season now without those games ratings could decline at espn, abc and tnt at a time when people will be at home and will have a range of streaming video options that are addfree to choose from. Now laura martin notes this would be a negative for the paid tv providers since live sports is a key reason families pay for the tv bundle. This deals a blow to the advertising conglomerates down double digits about concerns from an advertising pullback the question is whether the nba playoffs happen. Rich greenfield saying the overwhelming majority of nba revenues comes from the playoffs where ratings soar the loss of regular season games while painful will be meaningfully amplified if the playoffs do not happen and well also have to see what happens with the nhl it is holding a Conference Call with the board of governors this afternoon and well be waiting to see if they decide to follow the nbas lead ahead of the playoffs next month. Back over to you. Julia boorstin, thank you our next guest runs a number of hospitals here in new jersey including morristown medical, a top 30 hospital in the country he also chairs the American Hospital association brian, ceo of the Atlantic Health system joins us now thanks for being with us thank you obviously this is a big situation thats getting bigger and evolving right now what are the steps that your company has been taking to prepare . Well, this is something that hospitals and Health Systems across the country are prepared for because this is what we do is serve our communities this is a pretty special time, though, because of the unknown the unknown right now is really how big is the spread of this virus and how quickly is it going to move forward . Thats really why testing is so important. And thats, quite frankly, a very big frustration that we have. We dont have enough tests . Well, you know, this test, we can do a flu test. Okay. In 45 to 60 minutes and have an answer for our doctors and clinicians and the patients. This test right now, on average, takes three to five days from the time its requested to the time the result is delivered thats just unacceptable my colleague jon has a question. Brian, how far do we have to go before we get to the point where you think we need to be to get this contained and by that i mean, get the tests at the level where we have enough of them, get the results back, quickly enough, that people are able to take the right kind of action quickly enough to prevent the spread so today, i believe that the spread is way understa reported because of the inability to get the tests. We have to make progress as quickly as possible. So, you know, this past weekend, two commercial labs started to provide these tests and thats been helpful and its addressed things and maybe knocked off a day, but weve got to work very hard to get these right at the bedside, right at that site of care, so that we can get the same level of result that we get with a normal flu screening. Thats going to be the turning point for us we hear that that is several months away, but we need to push and push and push on this issue. Several months away what are some of the stops that could be pulled to actually make that process happen more quickly . Yeah. You know, one of the things that American Hospital association did over the past couple days is send a letter to the white house and have conversations with the white house about actually declaring a National Emergency the Public Health emergency has been declared. That has helped move things along. But what a National Emergency does is it clears the decks often takes away a lot of the red tape and bureaucracy associated with things how to get these tests produced more quickly so that we can bring them to the bedside and thats an example of something very tangible that can be done. I think there have been an expectation that President Trump might announce a National Emergency last night in his address. The fact that he didnt, did that surprise you . As i said, we had requested that. Yeah. We werent sure what was going to happen and we are still pressing on that issue we think its very important i think jon has a question. So brian, what are you telling the staff of the hospitals to do differently as a result of the new data weve seen come out, the new numbers come out, i think there are a lot of questions about whats going to happen with things like School Closures over the next few days are there scenarios in particular that the staff is preparing for . First thing is, we prepare for this every day we are there to serve our communities both at times of calm and times of panic. So what were doing is following the plans that we have in place. Yesterday i rounded in many of our clinical areas and talked to staff who are directly caring for patients and we have had an individual who was diagnosed with this and cared for in our organization and i talked with the team up there. One of the most poignant things she said to me, how you doing, to the nurse caring for him, i live to do this, this is why were health care providers. We have the spirit, the talent what were working on are the logistics. We need enough protective equipment so when this escalates our team members will be protected. We have to get this testing back i hate to keep banging on that that is an important piece we have to know what were dealing with then weve got to have plans and we do, to increase the capacity as we see this disease emerge and go through a cycle that it will go through. Were working on all of that but the key thing that has to happen and the president stated this at the end of his message last night, is this is about how we Work Together weve got to work with the Public Health side at the state level, the federal government level, weve got to work with Community Resources to do this and the only way you can do that if you have information thats available, its transparent, and its accessible and again, thats why we are really pressing on a full team effort here. Yeah. Such a key point the other piece of this equation and certainly maybe not one that, you know, really folks want to talk about right now, but it is actually factoring into potentially whether people are going to go to a Health Care Facility and get tested and assess their own personal risk, is the cost piece of this equation i know one of the steps taken this week was that Insurance Companies said they were going to waive copays and the costs associated with treating coronavirus and cover telemedicine how does that change the dynamic for a system, a health care system, like yours given the fact that i would imagine its going to add more uncertainty and bureaucratic red tape or maybe not. On the ground we care for everybody regardless of their ability to pay. Yeah. So it doesnt really change what we do ultimately theres going to have to be a financial reconciliation on that. We were encouraged that the Insurance Companies have taken that step and encourage that president discussed that last night. All right brian, thank you for joining us here thank you and thank you for highlighting this important effort. Jon were getting headlines from the president whom we expect to see on tape a little bit later this hour. Few things, one is that he exempted the uk from the travel restrictions because in his words theyre doing a good job at controlling the coronavirus he says he did not have time to consult with eu leaders because time was of the essence and did comment briefly on the markets as the market will bounce back and added he is not concerned that brazilian president bolsonaro is being monitored for coronavirus. He had dinner at maralago a few days ago hopefully we get a look at what he told reporters in a few minutes. From politics, back to business, many shorter tenured Technology Ceos out in Silicon Valley might not be prepared to deal with the spread of the coronavirus what needs to be done to contain it, the thesis of our next guest who led cisco through many crises, the chairman emeritus and former ceo joins us now good morning good morning, carl. Good morning, jon. Good morning, morgan. John, what is the playbook that you think is different, perhaps, from other stress situations that leaders need to follow right now well, i think thats the right question to ask. I was thinking about it in preparation for today. Ive been through five major financial crises ive been through five health care crises and three supply chain situations the basic rules are remarkably similar, but as one of your prior guests said, the current generation of leadership has only watched this from a disney. Very few of us who have managed through the financial crises and made the mistakes and successes. Rule number one, dont hide. Be very transparent. Know what you know and know what you dont and dont be afraid to say i dont know secondly, outline crisply what youre going to do how much was internal inflicted and how much external. This was external. What are your three, five, seven action plans that are going to be able to turn your company, whether a small or big company, and what whether youre a state or a country the third thing you do is paint the picture for what you look like a year from now and two years from now you basically if youre going into this with good momentum and execute right youll come out with good momentum if you do it well you will gain market share in the process. You are very open with all your constituencies, your customers, employees, shareholders and partners and media give them quarterly updates and move one time aggressively, whether in head count realignment or key programs and thats how you deal with it. Amazing when you go back and watch the crisis in 1997 with the Asian Financial crisis where we dealt with it quickly and doubled down at a time when everybody was with pulling out of asia, one year later we had number one market share in each location 2001, we got surprised outlined a plan in 51 days and implemented it, day 52 we started to gain market share 2008, the Great Recession, we saw it coming and said it was coming in 2007 during the middle of the Great Recession we were loaning money to the Automotive Companies to use our equipment and build trust with them. You outline the playbook and execute well off of it and its something i enjoy coaching Young Companies on or other organizations. Its an interesting repeatable innovation approach. Takes a lot of discipline to follows the playbook when the opportunities arise. John, i want to dig in on that in a moment. The headlines from the hill, continue to come out fast. To elon. Carl, House Speaker nancy pelosi said she still plans to hold a vote today on the democrats bill that would provide aid to workers impacted by the coronavirus now this comes despite some very sharp criticism from both republicans in the house and the senate who have called the bill disaponting and a partisan messaging document pelosi says she continues to negotiate with the administration and shes been open to some ideas from the treasury secretary we are negotiating with them. Secretary mnuchin had suggestions, all reasonable, none would prevent us from moving forward with the bill, we have to in the world that we live in, have language so that we can go to the floor. Pelosi hopes that republicans do not move the goal posts so for now, the house still stands in recess. Guys, we will let you know if and when that changes. Jon . Elon, thank you and john chambers, kind of jumping off of what elon just reported, what was your take on the government response so far what would you say they need to do to improve it over the next coming days . Well, i think it follows a playbook for Big Companies theyve been very transparent and i think its important to become even more transparent and im talking around the world whether its asia or europe or here i think they need to outlines the five things that are going to move, share the data, move fast, because were having all these hit us and this is whats different, jon, and carl, and morgan than before the speed of the change and governments must Work Together with business and with their citizens to move at a much faster pace. Then you got to lead by example. If i were to use an example and you might have pictures on it, a week and a half ago i did almost 80 of my meetings physical. I would have 25 visitors from comcast outlining with 16 of my startups at my home what we were going to do in terms of innovation together and it was effective. We had the same meeting two days ago, we did it virtually with verizon, all the people remote and made it happen we did our board meetings by startups virtually. Last night we were scheduled to do a meeting in new york with a number of industry analysts, enterprise companies, media people, and we were going to bring in shake shack to use innovation and talk about the trends, we ended up in four days doing it virtually used zoom. Had a twohour meeting last night, the milk shakes and shakes delivered to their houses what is it i just do i outlined how you stay calm during a crisis. I outlined dont get concerned about the move this week or next week what are we going to look like a year out what are the three to five things you will do differently leadership must lead you walk by example and tell the stories and walk people through. Ive been through zika concern, which ended up not being as big as we thought and i went to the olympics down in brazil. I got bit. I was in mexico during the bird flu when it hit and all of a sudden the government leaders did not show up at the meeting that evening i knew that was a problem. We used telepress, the first real cisco video capability in 2006 with president bush and governor schwarzenegger to show whats possible. Leadership now, whether its at the government, the state, the business level, plan for the future, well get through this you usually have the problems, they usually end up being longer than you think im thinking three to five quarters i have my startups thinking what do they want to look like at the end of the year. Were going to evolve the budget based on circumstances in front of us. Certainly youve had a lot of time in leadership positions through quite a number of crises over the last couple decades im curious, how you would assess the health of the Startup Community more broadly right now and also the vc dollars weve seen flowing into it do you expect to see a halt or at least some sort of slowdown in that right now for example, is it changing the way youre investing so in the sequence you raised the questions, first is as weve discussed in a couple earlier sessions there are not enough startups going on in the u. S. And not across enough states to generate the 25 to 30 million jobs in the next decade. They will be the innovation engine for this country. Already half of what we needed in terms of the venture capitalists ive talked to many of my friends. Theyre going it pause here and watch to see where they invest and dont. Theres plenty in the market but the problems will be those companies that were marginal before will have a lot of trouble getting funding. So this is where if a company was as a startup only focused on growth and did not have a clear plan to profitability and a clear plan to Free Cash Flow they will have trouble raising funds. One of the messages i liked out of the president s message last night for Small Business we have to free up this money. The venture capitalists will fund those in good shape and stick within their portfolio i think a little caution is going to occur here. Myself, i gained market share during the downturns 1997 the Asian Financial crisis as painful as 2001 was for us and i made mistakes, we made our changes in 51 days, day 52 gaining market shares before our peers moved. 2008 we saw it coming and extended credit. And we built relationships which lasted for life. This is when leadership has a chance to really lead. I was so sorry about his passing called me up after 2001 and kidded me about just having a good company and you final have a Great Company and i said jack, i dont. Im getting killed by my investors and let people down and had to do layoffs. He said no, this was your best year i said youre going to be the only one to tell me and he was shimon perez leadership is during challenges. The value of experience indeed john chambers, great to have you with us. Its a pleasure thank you for having me on. Time for an update. Sue has that for us at hq. I do. Thank you very much. Heres whats happening at this hour italian newspaper headlines are declaring italy closed new restrictions have now gone into effect shuttering all stores except food shops and pharmacies in rome streets are nearly deserted with a few people wearing masks. India has now temporarily suspended visas for all nonefeshl travel to that country in a bid to halt the spread of the coronavirus. So far india has reported just 73 confirmed cases no deaths from the virus china says its coronavirus epidemic has passed its peak the country reported only 15 new cases and 11 deaths today, another 1,318 people have recovered from their infections. Tours at the white house and capitol hill have been suspended due to the growing spread of the coronavirus. Access to house and Senate Offices will be restricted thats the news update at this hour carl, back downtown to you all right sue, thank you very much a lot of more live events are getting canceled event organizers and now insurance giants are pouring over the policies to fig figure out which costs are covered and which ones are not Contessa Brewer joins us with some answers its remarkable when he says we looked at it and our insurance doesnt cover whats happened with games. Washington state, ohio, San Francisco have banned large gathering, massive conferences canceling. Austin, texas, declared a disaster, south by southwest got called off just you one week before it was supposed to take place. The festival will be on the hook for tens of millions because its insurance policy does not cover that in fact, Washington States insurance commissioner warns on the website event cancellation insurance does not kick in unless the organizers bought a rider that covers Communicable Diseases the Insurance Broker and consultant tells me companies will find if they canceled proactively, out of fear of coronavirus, the policy likely would exclude that cancellation. The designation of pandemic doesnt change anything except where it will motivate the civil authorities to ban large gatherings those orders coming down from city governments or the state are what initiates the coverage. Want to drill down more here if you need to examine your insurance policy details now and look at whether you took out the rider, act fast. Mitigate the losses and file your slamsclaims asap. Your insurer will expect you to minimize your losses by acting sooner rather than later also, do the right thing alex from laytherupp tells me, do not let your Insurance Coverage dictate how you act if you fail to act prudently you could find yourself liable for additional costs down the road your company could be sued if someone contracts coronavirus at an event they argue that event should have been canceled if shareholders file a lawsuit claiming that directors and officers failed in their fiduciary responsibility, we could see dno insurance coming into play there as well. But look, in las vegas this week, one of the biggest conferences that they have kept going. Con ag is on and only 1 to 2 of vendors or exhibiters pull in this case, so you still have a lot of people mingling in large places. If youre a Ticket Holder whats your recourse if an event is canceled. Pretty much nothing. Refund policy not existent. Not a lot of appetite for refunds. South by southwest said were on the hook for tens of millions of dollars. Some events saying were going to look at that policy we care about your partnership they may say were not going to give you a refund but well pay your membership for next years conference and try to work it out that way the venues are largely protected because they get the deposits. The cancellation fees usually equal what they expected for profit revenues, so a Convention Center is not going to be on the hook for this. Its going to be the event organizers and then, you know,s the suppliers and vendors and exhibiters will not get their badge fees back, the exhibiter fees back, and whatever they paid to truck out signage and equipment and whatever, out of luck contessa, i mean the losses could be stunning here and i know were talking about events right now but you can talk about Business Interruption with some of the impact from supply chains or if a company has to close down temporarily because of Coronavirus Travel insurance, it could go down the list its Pretty Amazing and i think a lot harks back to sars, the fact that the insurers are not offering this type of coverage it almost reminds me of Flood Insurance or hurricanes. I wonder if there are already starting to be conversations about some sort of coverage now moving forward in the future given what were seeing play out with coronavirus the interesting part of this, morgan, you know this as well as i do, again, with business disruption insurance, youre only going to see thats going to examine into play if theres a covered event. If you have a coronavirus in your workplace, and then you have to close down your workplace, so your customers no longer have access to your workplace, you may see your business disruption insurance coming into play then. You can claim the costs of disinfecting your workplace after a coronavirus case, but can you claim those to your insurance protectively maybe not. A lot is a casebycase basis. You will see and weve talked about this before, a spike in lawsuits that result from an insurer saying we dont cover that and the policy holder saying yes, you do. Theres going to be a demand for lawyers. The president s on the tape now saying maybe the olympics should be postponed for one year. Hard to imagine holding them without spectators which would be the mother of all cancellations. Not happening yet. There are so many people who will be on the hook for the olympics and we know that, for instance, the broadcasters have plans in place for something that would happen that would take the olympics off the air for a long time but how the policies come into play because of the Communicable Disease its interesting. Interesting story thank you, Contessa Brewer markets close to session lows down 2,000 points we did trigger the First Circuit breaker after the open we are waiting for the president s playback tape. Eamon javers monitoring the headlines. Weve gotten over the past few minutes, gas prices, the market, the saudi prince and more. Yeah. Carl, thats absolutely right. The president is talking about the olympics here suggesting that if they do cancel the olympics maybe they should just be postponed and played one year later. The president also sort of talking with the irish Prime Minister here about the feeling that we all have as we go about our daily lives and shaking hands, saying that he did not shake hands with the irish Prime Minister and he did not shake hands on his visit to india recently although he has been shaking hands in public and on camera recently. He said, you know, its this strange feeling of do you shake somebodys hand . Is that rude to shake somebodys hand right now the Vice President said earlier this week he and the president are going to continue to shake hands even with this outbreak of the virus in the United States because theyre politicians and thats what politicians do the president clearly personally grapping with this as the administration grapples with it. The Washington Post reported a brazilian official photographed standing near the president and Vice President in maralago has now tested positive for covid19 that brings it one circle of connection closer to the president of the United States himself. This week we were told that president has had not been tested for coronavirus we dont know if that has changed in recent days over the past 48 hours or so. This is a president who is grappling with the impact of this on himself in terms of the superficial social interactions and then also the impact on the nation itself. Carl he did talk about his motivations behind the travel ban that he announced last night. He does add that Domestic Travel restrictions not beings discussed, but could be possible if there are hot spots around the country. Yeah. The president has resisted any idea of Domestic Travel restrictions he has viewed this as he said last night as a foreign virus, something thats coming into the country from the outside, so hes been amenable to the idea of closing off certain travel from china closing off certain travel from europe as he did last night. But he views this as a failure of foreign leaders to fully address this issue and he wants to address it that way the question is, will he pivot on that and start to respond in terms of travel inside the United States. No indication thats happening yet. The president has not yet declared a National Disaster or National Emergency and according to what were seeing out of the meeting well see it on tape in a few minutes says he doesnt see a need for that yet. This is a president toggling back and forth from a need to sort of min my niz this to not indicate to the American People theres any need for panic or fear and also reaching for dramatic, big gestures like proposing this payroll tax cut of a trillion dollars and then saying hes going to have dramatic and Major Economic stimulus ideas early in the week, not late in the week in last nights speech we saw Small Business association loans and Small Business administration loans and Treasury Department actions, that sort of thing as opposed to sort of massive economy shifting policies coming from this white house. The president has sort of toggled back and forth on how he wants to handle this and how big does he want to go and seems a moment of uncertainty at the white house. Eman, has the white house made any effort to reconcile the different messages that have come out over the past several days about this virus . On the one hand, comparing it to the flu implying its not that serious, saying that its not a financial crisis but then saying that theyre contemplating measures one would take, fiscal measures, to combat a financial crisis and talking about this as a serious disease. In two different breaths, two widely different messages. Has the white house made effort to reconcile that . No. I mean the white house is sending multiple messages at the same time through sometimes the same officials and theres no effort to reconcile that at this point. The messaging has been all over the map here ive been trying to get details, a small thing, detail through the morning of the details of the Small Business Administration Proposal and the Treasury Department actions the president laid out folks at the white house just have not been able to offer that have not offered that to us. Lloyd blankfein, with a good tweet, good Risk Management at this point go all in on social separation and allin on Financial Relief to the vulnerable. Save the second guessing for later. I would welcome if we look back from three months from now and think we overreacted Lloyd Blankfein weighing in. To the president youre losing all of the revenue would alter the entire economy. The only thing worse can be that you lose thousands and thousands of people more than you would have lost if you did it the way were doing it. It certainly has an impact again, were very much working with the states. The states are a smaller form of government they can control individual arenas and individual things better its different for different areas. Some areas have no problem whatsoever in our country and others do. So were working with the governors of the various states. I think its working very well i think the relationship has been very good with california and others that in particular have been hit. Mr. President looks like you will be facing joe biden in the president runoff are you happy that he yeah, im happy whoever it is. I hope they make their choice soon i thought it was going to be everybody thought it was going to be bernie ive said elizabeth warren, if she waited for, you know, she waited that extra three days, four days, and super tuesday was a disaster he would have won every one or almost every one of those states maine, massachusetts, texas. You take a look the a the states that were very close and many of her most of her, i would say almost all of her votes would have gone to him had she left prior to super tuesday with just a few days, he would have right now declared virtually the winner now we have joe and im very happy to run against joe mr. President , you had your chiefs of staff one of the reasons i ran for president is because of joe and the job they did its one of the reasons. So in a way its, you know, its maybe the way it should be looks to me like it would be biden would win. Travel restrictions within the United States such as to Washington State or california. We havent discussed that yet. Is it a possibility yes . If somebody gets a little out of control, the area gets too hot you see what theyre doing in new rochelle which is good, frankly. Its the right thing its not enforced or very strong but people know theyre being watched, new rochelle, a hot spot. A separate topic you spoke to the Saudi Crown Prince the other day, what did you tell him about the oil market i asked him whats going on and theyre having a dispute with russia. This is something that drove oil prices down and one thing i can tell you oil prices are at a point now that i would have dreamed about because the gasoline prices are going to be coming way down. Coming way down. So with gasoline prices coming down, thats like a tax cut. Frankly thats like a big tax cut, not a little tax cut for the consumer so theres something about that that i like. Thank you very much. [ talking at the same time ] all right that is the president. Obviously comments there about gas prices, Domestic Travel, explanations for the move last night regarding the travel ban from europe. In his words saying he didnt have time to consult with eu officials and exempted the uk because in his words theyre doing a good job controlling the virus. The eu had a Statement Last night and morning, the eu was disappointed about the decision taken unilaterally and without consultation the coronavirus is a Global Crisis that requires competition rather than unilateral action. So with all of those comments and also commenting about his own Campaign Scheduling plans which to varying degrees appear to be on track yeah. Thats right the president has canceled trips to denver and las vegas i believe over coming days here, but hi wants to be on the campaign trail and continues to hold those rallies those are important parts of his effort to rally his base into november and build that broader base of support to win the reelection. They will have to take into account the spread of the virus. The president suggesting he does want to leave it up to the states being the appropriate place to handle this because there are different hot spots in different areas, although he said in response to that question, that, you know, he could consider some Domestic Travel restrictions if things get too hot. No indication of when that would be coming or on what basis that decision would be made the president seeming to open the door there, carl, for some Domestic Travel restrictions as well as international. All right for now, thank you lets bring in samantha, jpmorgan global straj gist with john stolts, chief investment strategist at oppenheimer. Good to have you. Good to be here. John, the president just made some comments about oil, talking to mbs, the Saudi Crown Prince, and just talking about oil from the standpoint of low gasoline prices being like a tax cut. There are a number of people weve had on our air who expect the president , the white house, to push some sort of fiscal stimulus to boost the oil markets and to perhaps end up getting prices higher. Does this perhaps pull the rug out from under those hopes not necessarily just based on the unconventional style of the president , this looks like a decision in flux, maybe some of his advisors giving him other opinions that are flowing through the administration i dont think anything is in stone right now. Everything is in a state of flux. So, i wonder if that means we can expect the same style of communication weve been getting out of this Administration Just talking to eamon javers about the wildly different commentary on the virus weve gotten on the one hand like the flu, on the other hand its serious. This is not a financial crisis, on the other hand were going to respond to it as though it is. Is that where investors are stuck . Its very clear that Market Participants are fearful right now. Look at the are 10year yield. We always look to the vix, but i actually think the 10year yield is a much better representation of how people are feeling and theyre not feeling very good. I do think when we look at the administration right, what we need is we need organization and we need coordination so we know we need fiscal stimulus and we would argue tax cuts, great in the long run, but right here right now we need something more immediate in tha in terms of relief to settle things down and make people feel like theyre support for markets and those impacted by the virus. Wa specifhat specifically what comes to mind is paid time leave for those that are service workers. What comes to mind is backstops on the side for Small Businesses i would argue more coordination around just messaging to the public yeah, i was actually going to pick up on that same exact thread with you, john, how much from a market perspective hinges on Robust Details around possible stimulus especially given what were seeing play out and the fact lawmakers are still, as of right now, poised to go on recess next week. To us the market is very much protesting the lack of anything specific coming out of washington in terms of dealing with this. Its also very quickly to respond in showing by its actions of how it feels about it when you consider what it did after Jerome Powell cut Interest Rates, it showed it didnt like that yesterday after the president was speaking from the oval office, the feeling was very clear that the market was unhappy with it. I think its a matter of getting their hands around this thing and coming to an agreement we need one of those moments where somebody says the only thing to fear is fear itself and behind it theres a plan that is outlined, i think very specifically it takes time, regrettably this is an occasion we havent seen this. We have seen a lot of vie ruses but not one to this extent thats spread this much and quickly. The good news is, usually these things do come to pass and thats what were looking for here indeed. To that very point, here is the president once again moments ago. Well be talking about the virus. Cancelled the big soccer game, the championship games and a lot of other games this is a big world problem. We have taken some bold steps. We took the boldest step of all when we closed early with china. That helped us save thousands of lives. We went very early with europe and i think it will like wise be is very good and hopefully we can get it back quickly in terms of reestablishing with china. Thats on track because they made a lot of progress over the last three or four weeks certainly with europe, we think we can go quickly to have some hot spots that are really bad but theyll get them better. Germany has some problems now. France has some problems, pretty big problems italy is probably record setting in terms of what they have gone through. Italy is having a very hard time we think well reestablish quickly once this ends its a question of time and i think it will go pretty quickly. Stay away from people and wash your hands and do all the things were supposed to be doing it will go very quickly. I know that we were just talking to ireland closed their schools. Maybe id ask the Prime Minister to say about what youre doing in ireland having to do with what were going through thank you for having us here again today. Just another opportunity sthoe how close we are with america. How were going to continue to stay close into the future the big concern in ireland and europe is covid19 we have acted just as you acted, decisively in the last couple of days we have restrictions on travel as of tomorrow our schools will close. This is all based on the health. We need to do this for a couple of weeks to make sure the virus doesnt spread were trying to protect older people got about 13 or 14 cases so far. As you know, its a virus thats gone pandemic. Its all over the world. It knows no borders or nationalities. I think we need to Work Together with this. America is the richest country in the world youve got great scientist, company, universities. Were making great progress, ill say mr. President , can you confirm that ireland will be from your european travel ban . They know i think it was made clear last night who is and who isnt well be discussing that well be discussing some other moves well be making. I think it will work out very well for everybody its a world problem you do need separation in some cases. You have some areas that are heavily infected and some areas that arent. We do need separation for a little period of time in some cases. The president had excluded ir ireland from the travel ban. We have american Border Security i went through it myself yesterday. They are asking whether people have been to china and things like that. One of the reasons uk has been its got to border theyre doing a very good job. Hopefully theyll keep it that way. Mr. President , there are many european leaders that are upset that they werent con sulsulted about the travel ban the you explain your rationale we get along well with the european leaders i didnt want to take time it takes a long time to make the individual calls we have spoken to some of them prior to we had to move quickly when they raised taxes on us, they dont consult us. I think thats probably one in the same its done some tax races over the years. Not so much with me but they havent consulted us in the case of European Union consults people do you have any idea of the Economic Impact . Its a bigger impact and its a human impact which is more important than the financial when you lose thousands of lives. I took a lot of heat, include fr they called me a racist. Most of them said why did he close with china that turned out to be a great move this was the time. A lot of people went from china into europe and europe suffered tremendously you see whats going on. I just wanted that to stop as it pertained to the United States thats what we have done mr. President , what are you plans about campaign rallies, about travel outside the white house . You had some travel. We had some big rallies we cancelled one that we were thinking about doing in las vegas and one in reno, nevada. We had one we had about three of them in nevada. We had four or five of them that we were thinking about we have a big one in tampa we had over 100,000 requests for tickets but i think well probably not do it because people would say its better to not do we need a little separation until such time as this goes away its going to go away. I was watching scott this morning and he was saying within two months in the meantime, we want to lose as few people as possible. So important what is the number this morning. Is it 32 is it 32 deaths . Think of it, the United States because of what i did and what the administration did with china, we have 32 deaths at this point. Other countries, smaller countries have many, many deaths 3 32 is a lot. Its too many. When you look at the numbers coming out of other countries, its pretty az maimazing are you going to invoke declaring we have things that i can do. We have very strong Emergency Powers under the stafford act. I have it memorized as to the powers in that act if i need to do something, im do it i have the right to do a lot of things that people dont even know about it may be some of the more minor things at this point but were in great shape compared to other places, we are in really good shape. We want to keep it that way. Thats why i did the ban with respect to europe. I have a lot of emergency actions that i can take. Are you looking at American Workers . Were looking a t a lot of things were looking at paid leave. We have other workers too. Those are people that work for tips and nobody thinks about