Sliding along with the u. S. Dollar. The u. S. Dollar is at a fivemonth low because of the interview President Trump gave setting the dollar is getting too strong, and i like low Interest Rates. Well talk much more about this. The dollar is stronger now against the euro. 1. 06 against the euro. Weaker against the yen. 108 yen for the dollar. On todays mick ageeconomic, look for reports on weekly jobless claims Producer Prices and consumer sentiment. Markets are closed tomorrow for good friday. But its not a federal holiday. So the government will release data on retail sales, Consumer Prices and business inventories. Ill roll up to my office in my house, report the news on my video camera. The banks will officially kick off earnings season this morning with results from jpmorgan, citi group, wells fargo, and pnc financial. Wi Berkshire Hathaway is selling 9 million shares from its stake in wells fargo. Berkshire says the sale is not tied to the banks sales scandal. It is selling the shares to keep its stake at 10 to avoid additional oversight by the fed. It will keep selling to stay below that threshold. This has been a longrunning issue for berkshire, as it has stakes in certain businesses, especially banks. Gets over 10 , then theres potential for more oversight of your own institution. But its special in the banks. Yes. Because they will then become under fed oversight. I will speak with michelle who has to bristle at this notion of government oversight Berkshire Hathaway would face more regulation from banking regulators, simply by owning more than 10 of the bank. Bingo. This goes back to the whole idea that an industrial should be separated by a financial stug. T institution but this is not a 2008 law. Its older. So at 9. 8 theyre not covered, 10 they are . Regulators have to draw the line somewhere. A little bit of tech news this morning. A secret apple operation has been revealed, not so secret anymore. Sources telling cnbc the company has hired a small team of biomedical engineers to work as part of a secret initiative to develop sensors to monitor blood sugar levels to monitor diabetes. The efforts have been going on for the last five years. Tim cook has not made reference to this group but has talked about some of the biotech stuff that hes always thought the watch and other devices could do. Accurately measure glucose levels without piercing the skin is considered the holy grail of life sciences. An update on the pr crisis at United Airlines. Lawyers for the passenger who was drawing dragged off that fl sunday have filed an emergency request to preserve video recordings and other things related to the incident. United said yesterday it would issue refunds to all the passengers on that flagt. President trump commenting yesterday in an interview with the wall street journal saying it was horrible that the passenger was dragged off the flight. He said there should be no upper limit to incentives that carriers can offer passengers in exchange for the seats on overbooked flights. Two mentions. David serroto from International Business times. He has done some work over the past two days looking at all the money that United Airlines has spent over the years lobbying and campaign contributions, effectively to block state and federal rules aimed at protecting passengers. So united has a long history of trying to prevent new rules going into effect that would prevent things like this. Regulatory capture. I know this is yesterdays news. Have we figured out is it really a maximum they were offering or were they free to offer more . My legal read, counselor sorkin, suggests it is a minimum. My legal read or corporate read is thats their excuse to say this is the maximum. But its not really a maximum. Its not even relevant in the story, they never got there. They never got there. The question is why not . Could they have solved this by saying heres another 50067. Heres another 500. Yes. Gordon bethune said youre not allowed to. Youre not permitted. We have mr. Crandall on from american. I want to talk about the interview yesterday in the wall street journal. Before i do that, i want to remind everybody that what is normal here. A quick reality check here. President s rarely if ever talk about Interest Rate levels or the level of the dollar. And then theres donald trump. In an interview just released yesterday, the journal he told the journal the u. S. Dollar is getting too strong and its hard to compete when the dollar is strong. The dollar immediately fell on the news. The decline not that big. 100. 75 down to 100. 25. Definitive. It was sharp enough. Didnt everybody know this was always his policy . Hold on a second. Lets get to the rest of it well come back to the totality of what was said. The president also said he would not label china a currency manipulator. That report is supposed to come out this week. That reverses a significant campaign promise. President trump acknowledged what many have been saying for a long time that china has not recently been manipulating suei currency. He added labeling china a currency manipulator would be a setback. Chuck schumer, according to reuters, responded saying a lack of real tough action on trade with china is what she shows. Trump says he is undecided on renominating fed chair janet yellen. Trump says he likes and respects yellen and its too early to decide. He said shes not toast. Now, lets play for you what the president said on cnbc about janet yellen in september o of 2016. Shes keeping them artificially low to get obama retired. Watch what will happen afterwards, its a serious problem. I think its political. I think shes very political. And to a certain extent i think she should be ashamed of herself. The president said he likes low Interest Rates as well. The tenyear yield fell. Thats a decent move, six basis points. To me the broader story is this broader reversal of Campaign Promises from the president. Yes. Let me finish here. Hes reversing course, as i said, like a captain running from a squall line. As fast as that. But also tacking back to the center on nato, on xm bank, on china being a currency manipulator. How concerned should we be that hes changing course . I dont really care what he says . Syria . Syria reversing course, back to where the establishment really was and what was considered to be the better option here. How much do you care, andrew . I always thought okay. I think this is a president who is learning good. For better or worse what the realities of the world are. That theres one thing you can say on a campaign trail that you may think are possibility. Maybe he genuinely believed those things. The only difference is, every president comes in and reverses course. Very few have such extreme comments in the campaign. So the tact to the center is looks extreme. Much more extreme. The question is, heres the thing that matters for other viewers. Does it matter for tax cuts, does it matter for business deregulation . I would argue that the business groups like him tacking to the center. But what does it say about the future of some of these other things that matter more. You tell me if you think the Freedom Caucus or the altright theyll be upset about the xm bank. Making life that much more difficult. Thats not a huge deal. In the grand scheme of things. It is for the hardcore base. It is absolutely. And if you keep steve bannon in the white house. Keep your enemies close is he an enemy now . If steve bannon gets booted. If hes on your wrong side . If you dont think if he gets booted, then the game becomes much more complicated for you. Are these reversals a sign that bannon is on the wane . Thats the tea leaf reading going on here on squawk box and the newspaper. I think we have somebody who may be able to talk to us. We have somebody who can talk about that. The president also said that nato no longer is obsolete after saying it was obsolete. Welcome kayla tausche, our tea leaf reading expert in washington. We expected the president would express some sort of public support for nato after privately saying to allies that he does support nato. Hes committed to it. Yesterday he made a public aboutface on it. The secretarygeneral and i had a productive discussion about what more nato with do in the fight against terrorism. I complained about that a long time ago. They made a change. Now they do fight terrorism. I said it was obsolete. Its no longer obsolete. Perhaps the clearest and most succinct of trumps recent moves to the center and rebukes of Campaign Promises in order to appease businesses and the International Community, as you guys were just discussing, his 100 day plan says in writing he will lablt label china a currency manipulator, and now wont do that. For the second time this week, hes backing away from steve bannon in that wall street journal interview calling him a guy who works for me. Markets have been focusing on geopolitics. Rex tillerson was in russia this week. Congress has a budget deadline of april 28th. They have to decide to keep paying obamacare subsidies to insurers. Those run out at the end of may. Trump suggested to democrats he could end them to get to the negotiating table that could change where we are in the healthcare discussion. And the Administration Says that will have to combefore tax e be reform. P kayla, what about the idea that democrats actually struggle to criticize the president now along some of the flipflops, meaning they can criticize him on the flipflop itself, but they cant actually criticize him on the merits of the flip. The policy. Because its where they wanted him to go. Right. One of the hardest things both for members of congress and the ceos is the president is far from an ideal loog. You dont know which is right for discussion or which stuff he feels strongly about. It appears everything in tax reform and healthcare is up for discussion. Thats why its been so give cult to get a read on how some of this policy will shake out and why democrats cant necessarily criticize him. Because they support a lot of positions hescally supporting. Can you give a tea leaf insight into bannon. He has had a huge influence over President Trump and the white house, especially when it came to how they approached healthcare policy. There is a view that if he were to leave the white house on friendly terms, that might make the president s life more complicated, in part because i think bannon convinced the president that it was the bannonright, if you will, that helped get him elected. But its causes trouble for him within the west wing. Even though he 5 nol less that acknowledges some of those policies helped him win, he wants to have more wins than just getting neil gorsuch appointed to the supreme court. He doesnt have much to go on right now, though some recent wins geopolitically he could put in his pocket. Theres been a lot of coverage about his frustration that bannon was called president bannon or the mastermind behind his campaign. He wants to own some of that stuff. After this ceo meeting on tuesday, i asked Steve Schwarzman what was bannons role in that discussion. He said it wasnt really about economic nationalism. It was about how companies can run Large Businesses and do so well. Andrew your conversation with kayla helped me answer the question earlier, that is what does this all mean for tax reform and deregulation. The only thing that matters is the power of the president. Right now in terms of polling, the president seems to be weak. Amongst democrats. Over a third of the country is independent. Hes not strong among independents. In terms of the half of the country or twothirds of the country thats democrats and independents, hes weak in that regard. He also is not strong, i dont think, in washington right now as evidenced by the house Freedom Caucuss actions on aca. He is not able to twist arms. When i look at the reversals, my question to kayla is does reversing on nato, on china, have any bearing at all on his ability to put through domestic policy . Steve, on those two issues that you named, theres a collective sigh of relief. Because there was a fear of the unknown. How does the International Community react if, in fact, the president did deliver on those. But i think the Freedom Caucus, the chair has been saying for a few weeks he stel believe he sty can get something negotiated. But the president is identifying those obama care subsidies that would run out on the 22nd, and they would stop making payments to Insurance Companies saying if were going to participate on these exchanges, we need some money back. If that machine runs out, that would be a gut check and a way to get some votes that they say they want. The Freedom Caucus has made it clear they could get a deal done. Kayla, thank you very much. Lets check on the broader markets. Joining us now karen cavanaugh, Senior Market strategist from voya. And also on the dollar, Boris Schlossberg from bk asset management. Boris, im the first go to throw out convention if it looks like a good thing to do. Is there a reason that makes sense as to why a president should not be commenting on the dollar or interest better for the markets or is it okay for the president to make these comments . Convention goes out the window period for a trump presidency. Its always been its always been history that the president is supposed to stay above the fray of the markets what is interesting about donald trump, because hes a businessman hes more in tune with all the markets than the prior president s before him. My question is right. Should we not be talking about it . Is it okay to be talking about it . In the end, i dont think it matters. We had a bump in the dollar, but ultimately its not what he says, its what he does that matters. He acknowledged that in his own trumpian way saying the dollar is stronger. I will tell you one fascinating thing about this. Man, did he clamp down on the japanese. The japanese the dollar yen is below 1. 10. At that level the japanese usually comment its too volatile, but not a peep so far. Everybody is on their tippy toes as far as the rest of the world. Thats very interesting. Karen, what about you and your view about how those comments yesterday affect the outlook. Does the idea of potentially reappointing chair yellen, does the idea that the president says he likes low Interest Rates change your outlook at all . Not really. If anything, i think him meanting about the dollar was just showing that he knows that some of the companies and internationals are struggling and they dont want a strong dollar. I dont think it means anything. I dont think it means anything for earnings or the or if he does reappoint janet yellen, thats good. But i think the economy will move on based whether he does actual policy changes, like tax cuts. Earnings are moving ahead because companies are just moving ahead. I dont think it was that significant. I think it did show he was thinking about what businessmen are thinking about, and there is the fear that the strong dollar will derail earnings. We have not seen that so far, but it shows hes a businessman. Youre okay with him making comments on Interest Rates and the dollar . I am. I think it shows hes thinking about everybody out there doing business internationally. I think that little movement, i think it will be negated. I dont think it will be longterm. It was a kneejerk reaction. He should look more, instead of the dollar, he should be looking at the yields. He should say i want a higher yield. Thats a proxy for growth. Boris guys, if you could go to the intraday on the dollar. Is that a big move . Is that a move that doesnt register . No. When it first happened bring up the twoday or the 24hour chart. Put this in context. The market reacted. Guys, all in all, it was a 1 move. Okay. Its not a huge move. Much more important point, its not a continuous move. The euro coming back. There are factors at work outside of donald trump that make the dollar strong. Namely the French Election. Everybody is on egg shells with the French Election. Its hard to see the dollar really webbingakening against t euro before the French Election. Aside from that, the dollar is actually coming down because of yields. He wants to have low clevelands, its goiyields, its going to be hard. He can influence policy by deciding who will end up in that position. Thank you. Thanks, karen. Thank you, boris. Coming up, how companies ensure theyre providing excellent customer service. An insidelook at secret shoppers. Is that person really a customer or someone spying on you to make sure youre doing a good job . Later, jpmorgan expected to kick off earnings season. Well bring you the results and reaction on wall street when squawk box comes right back. Think again. This is the new new york. We are building new airports all across the state. New roads and bridges. New mass transit. New business friendly environment. New lower taxes. And new University Partnerships to grow the businesses of tomorrow today. Learn more at esd. Ny. Gov [ [ screams ] ] [ shouting ] brace yourself this is crazy [ tires screeching ] whoo boom baby rated pg13. [ screams ] were playing that song for a reason. Welcome back to squawk box. Time for the executive edge. How do major brands like the four seasons and Kimpton Hotels make sure people are getting topnotch service . Secret shoppers. Kate rogers has more. Secret shopping is big business for jim coyle who has been running coyle hos pi ppita group since 1996. They have 30,000 secret shoppers reviewing everything from highend dinners to stays at Kimpton Hotels and celebrity cruises. Heres what hes looking for. Salesmanship, the quality of the welcome, the quality of the goodbye. Did you really feel like you were sincerely thanked for your business. Thats the difference between a really good new york city