MARIA-02
Targets Trump; Anti-Trump Protests Planned; Anti-Trump Protests Planned;
Time to Get Behind Trump?; Citi's New Work Perk; Citi: Take a Year Off;
Honeywell CEO on Growth - Part 2>
Cheryl Casone, Jo Ling Kent>
Cote >
Trump; Politics; Bowe Bergdahl; JP Morgan; Citigroup; Nike; Donald Trump;
Anonymous; Stock Markets; Business >
Key figures in the Black Lives Matter movement, ramping up their anti-Trump rhetoric saying if Donald Trump wins the nomination, expect riots, quote, "everywhere." Pro-Bernie Sanders group moveon.org also threatened the largest civil disobedience action of the century against the Republican frontrunner. On the other side, Donald Trump is warning that his supporters would respond with their own riots if he's not nominated.
Joining us now is former Republican presidential candidate and Fox News contributor Herman Cain.
Sir, good to see you. Thanks so much for joining us.
HERMAN CAIN (R), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Hello, Maria. Thank you.
BARTIROMO: What's your take on all this violence and expectations of violence?
CAIN: Let me get this straight. Anonymous and "Black Lives Matter" want to determine the Republican nominee. I don't think so. Especially, if it's Donald Trump. Secondly, he hasn't sewn up the nomination yet, but I happen to believe that he'll go into convention with 1,237 delegates in order to secure the nomination.
Now, one other quick point about "Black Lives Matter," it is a non-movement that has two objectives: destruction and distraction. They don't really have a mission. And because all lives matter, so it's a threat that I believe that the Trump Organization is going to ignore.
BARTIROMO: Yes, you know, it's amazing. And I think you said it really well when you said, "I don't think so." They want to determine what's going on, but clearly, however this plays out, we're going to see upset. Is there anything to do to get ahead of that? I mean, should Donald Trump be doing something? How do you deal with this?
CAIN: Here's what needs to happen. This establishment Republican group that's trying to stop Trump, they ought to stop trying to stop Trump. And because what's happening, this group at "Black Lives Matter" and all these other groups, they see a crack in the Republican party, and it's real.
If the Republican party comes together and just simply say, whoever gets the most number delegates win --
BARTIROMO: Yes.
CAIN: -- and we will support the nominee. I believe that that will make the threat of riots and violence by these other group minimal rather than being something --
BARTIROMO: That's a really good point.
CAIN: -- that's a big story --
BARTIROMO: Yes.
CAIN: -- that's a big story in mainstream media.
BARTIROMO: That's such a good -- that's an important point, Dagen. I don't know if you agree if that. But if the Republican party got together and got behind Donald Trump, maybe that would put a lid on some of this is what Herman is saying.
DAGEN MCDOWELL, CONTRIBUTOR, FOX BUSINESS NETWORK: Right, and people who are anti-Trump, listen, these people have gone out and voted. I know that he doesn't have a majority of the delegates yet. But they're fighting people who are for him, and they're getting in bed indirectly with likes of George Soros.
George Soros has funded a lot of these organizations that are behind this act of civil disobedience that we were talking. It's called Democracy Spring. The AFL-CIO has signed off on it. Hey, guess what? A lot of union members don't like what you have been doing for them --
BARTIROMO: Yes.
MCDOWELL: -- and representing them. They're getting behind Donald Trump, and they're anti -- and they're anti-billionaires. Well, these very groups are funded by billionaires, namely George Soros.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
MCDOWELL: That's what I don't --
BARTIROMO: Yes, exactly.
MCDOWELL: -- again, there's so much hypocrisy.
CAIN: Yes.
BARTIROMO: And there really is.
MCDOWELL: And protestors are (inaudible).
(CROSSTALK)
STEVE CORTES, SENIOR STRATEGIST, BGC PARTNERS: Herman, Steve Cortez here. I'd be curios to hear your take. I think that largely what we're seeing here in terms of the divisions within our country, this is the bitter harvest that we are reaping from Identity politics. And the Democrats have been exploiting identity politics to win, unfortunately, fairly successfully, at least at the ballot box.
But for our country, what we end up with is instead of being united Americans, we end up being disparate identity groups with self-interests. I mean, don't you think that that's part of what's going on here?
CAIN: It is a big part, Steve, and I agree with you. Identity politics in terms of pandering, this is what the Democrats are good at, pandering to different groups with -- you know, to attract Democrat votes, and particularly the black voters, and then identity politics, in terms of, you know, trying to divide us, with violence.
I didn't hear any outrage when Bernie Sanders said, I quote, "We're in midst of a political revolution." Now, did he mean that figuratively, or did he mean that non-figuratively?
Now all of the sudden, Donald Trump uses the word "riots," and it's a big uproar. It is hypocrisy, as Dagen said, and I don't believe that it's going to work with Donald Trump. The establishment Republicans ought to take this as a warning. Get over it, and get behind whoever gets --
CORTES: Right.
CAIN: -- the delegates, the way that it is unfolding.
MICHAEL BLOCK, CHIEF STRATEGIST, RHINO TRADING PARTNERS: So, Mr. Cain, you know, the establishment has to get with Trump here. Who has to leads that? Do Ted Cruz and John Kasich have to lead that charge here?
Kasich has said he doesn't want to work with Trump. Cruz is obviously butting heads with him. Are they going to turn around? Do they have to turn around, or is it somebody else here?
CAIN: The money people that fund the super PACS behind those two candidates, they need to take the lead. Go to their respective candidates and say, I think we need a new strategy. That's where it begins.
Now, Kasich and Cruz, they could take the lead in terms of the face of trying to build unity, but we know they have a lot of big money people behind them. And the other disturbing thing with the clips that we've seen on FOX and on FOX Business about these group of bigwigs sitting around trying to figure out how they're going to stop Trump, that is destructive, and it's given rise to Anonymous as well as groups like "Black Lives Matter" --
BARTIROMO: Yes.
CAIN: -- to try and keep people distracted.
BARTIROMO: Do you think the President should get involved? Should President Obama come out as a -- as a way to -- for unity to say, look, this is not the way the system should work? People have a right to move forward and have rallies, and stop threatening riots. I mean, wouldn't that do a lot if the President got involved?
CAIN: I believe so. He has the bully pulpit, and he can say --
BARTIROMO: Right.
CAIN: -- we don't need violence or the threat of violence in this presidential election. He can underscore the fact the principal of, let the people decide the process work out, he can say something. But I doubt if he's going to say something.
But as soon as one incident broke out at a Donald Trump rally, he had something to say. Now that we have two threats, I doubt if we hear a word from him.
BARTIROMO: Right.
CAIN: He can say some words that would basically encourage unity, but I doubt if we're going to hear them.
BARTIROMO: Somebody's got to take the lead here. We need leadership.
CAIN: Yes. Yes.
DAGEN: And well -- and -- but that goes to Donald Trump's whole a platform of if he -- is he a leader, and --
CAIN: Right.
MCDOWELL: -- does he look like a leader?
CAIN: Yes.
BARTIROMO: But somebody needs to step in and say, no, you're not going to just decide to go have riots, because you don't like front-runner.
CAIN: Yes.
MCDOWELL: He's -- but the President --
CAIN: Maria, let me -- let me weigh --
MCDOWELL: -- would never, ever -- never, ever do that.
BARTIROMO: Yes, he won't.
CAIN: No.
BARTIROMO: Go ahead, Herman.
CAIN: He will never, ever do that. Let me just weigh in on this leader thing, because that's exactly what's happening. Donald Trump is viewed by his supporters as being a leader, a fighter and a winner. That's what they see.
They are Ignoring all of the political noise of all of these groups of people that are trying to bring him down. And now that these other threats are coming out, that's going to embolden his supporters even more. And Trump isn't going to encourage violence. He even said he doesn't mean physical riots.
But one these mainstream media stations that you all reported on earlier, they have already painted a picture, in the context of that one word, "riot" and those two incidents at two Trump rallies. And we know that that's going to be their narrative. Trump is not going to condone violence. In fact, he's already alluded to the fact that he didn't mean actual violence. But they didn't get all outraged when Bernie Sanders talked about a political revolution.
BARTIROMO: That's right.
CAIN: It's a double standard hypocrisy, as Dagen said earlier.
BARTIROMO: Sure feels that way, Herman. Thanks so much for joining us.
CAIN: Yes.
BARTIROMO: We appreciate it, sir.
CAIN: Thank you. I've enjoyed it.
BARTIROMO: We'll see you soon. Herman Caine there.
Coming up next, C is for cookie, and that's good enough for Apple. Why the company is having Siri and the Cookie Monster team up. We'll tell you about it.
Don't forget to tune into Wall Street week this Friday night hosted by Anthony Scaramucci and Gary Kaminsky. The first episode premiering tomorrow night, 8:00 pm Eastern right here on the FOX Business Network. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Welcome back. The U.S. now banning Imports of hoverboards. Cheryl Casone with the details and the morning's headlines. Cheryl.
CHERYL CASONE, REPORTER, FOX BUSINESS REPORTER: And it has nothing to do with them exploding or catching fire in homes, believe it or not. The International Trade Commission announcing a ban on all hoverboard imports coming after Segway filed a complaint saying that hoverboards infringed on some of its patents and copyrights. Segway's patents cover a wide range of balance-oriented personal transporters. That includes hoverboards. There you go.
Well, Apple is turning to a familiar characteristic from "Sesame Street" for its latest iPhone commercial. Yes, that's Cookie Monster promoting how the personal voice assistant can help you do everyday things like, well, bake cookies. Apple has been trying to play up Siri's hands-free capabilities lately in a series of short ads.
And finally, this. Let's just watch a few million bucks go up in smoke. This is a private luxury yacht that went up in flames in the U.S. Virgin Islands yesterday. It sent thick plumes of smoke up into the sky. That yacht, by the way, reportedly sold for more than $2 million back in 2014. There were no injuries. Hope they had insurance. Back to you.
BARTIROMO: Oh, god. Wow, what pictures. Cheryl, thank you.
CASONE: You bet.
BARTIROMO: Junior investment bankers often use the phrase, "selling your soul" when describing their work-life balance. Now Citi Group wants to change the game with a new work perk for millennials in the banking industry to try to keep them happier.
The bank's new program will allow for an entire year off, and as an alternative, will allow incoming analysts to focus on charity work, giving them the opportunity to participate in a four-week long finance program in Kenya. This is coming as banks have tried instructing employees not to sleep at the office.
Steve, what do you think about this?
CORTES: Right. Well, look. It's probably smart, but this is interesting, right? It used to be when I was in college -- and I'm old. I'm not a millennial. When I was in college, everyone wanted to go to Wall Street.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
CORTES: The smartest people at school all ended up going to Wall Street.
That's not the case anymore. They want to go to Silicon Valley. And by the way, I think for the country, for the economy as a whole, that's probably a good thing to go in more creative places and not just financial engineering, which is what Wall Street does.
But it's interesting, and it poses an interesting challenge for these companies. How do they attract these millennials? And clearly, to them, it's much more important, this work-life balance stuff.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
CORTES: These aren't just buzzwords. It's a reality for millennials.
BARTIROMO: And they want to have a purpose when they work. You know, they don't want to feel like they're just going to work at company just to make money. They -- so that's -- hence the charity.
MCDOWELL: Yes, ask Mike, who looks like he has an abacus in his pocket.
BLOCK: That's a shift. There's so much I want to say right here.
So actually, I was an investment banker at DLJ. Like Steve, I'm not a millennial. I will say that, you know, if I was coming out of school now, would I want to work at a company like DLJ, one of the greatest companies that ever was --
BARTIROMO: Yes.
BLOCK: -- but the point is, if you can go work at Google or some start-up, wouldn't you want to do that.
Knowing me, you know, as a -- as a -- that's not an abacus. You know -- you know, there's -- you know, guys like me are always going to go work there --
BARTIROMO: Yes.
BLOCK: -- but there's a balance. The question is --
BARTIROMO: In other words, you're a geek.
BLOCK: -- are things going to get done?
Yes, and I'm proud --
BARTIROMO: You're admitting it?
BLOCK: I'm proud of that.
BARTIROMO: And you're proud of it?
BLOCK: I'm proud of that. I read textbooks for fun.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
BLOCK: I get that the rest of the world is not like me. But the point is, you know, how do you get this -- how do you get this balance? How do you make better people?
BARTIROMO: You probably wouldn't even take the whole year off.
BLOCK: No, I you have trouble taking vacations, although I'm taking a few days off next month.
BARTIROMO: Because would you take a whole year off?
MCDOWELL: Oh, yes.
BARTIROMO: You would?
MCDOWELL: Absolutely, yes. I'd be gone. Yes, I would definitely take a whole year off.
CORTES: After this, I'm taking today off. It's St. Patrick's day. The NCAA tournament is kicking off. This is not going to be a heavy workday for Steve Cortes.
BLOCK: I'll be at work.
BARTIROMO: There you go.
BLOCK: I'll be at work.
MCDOWELL: Yes, of course you will. Your Twitter profile is you with your little daughter sitting on your lap in front of a trading terminal.
BARTIROMO: Let me ask --
BLOCK: That's right. Gigi's (ph) the next generation. She would not take a year off. She's going to be working hard. Here we go, Gige (ph). We got this.
MCDOWELL: My problem is that my parents worked seven days a week their entire lif, and we never took a family vacation, ever. We maybe went away for a weekend --
BARTIROMO: Yes.
MCDOWELL: -- every couple of years. And that's actually my problem is I don't know how to take a vacation.
BARTIROMO: But you would go somewhere and find it --
MCDOWELL: For a year off --
BARTIROMO: -- for a year?
MCDOWELL: -- I'm out.
BARTIROMO: See you later. Bye-bye. Right.
Coming up next, low oil prices sparking a lot of merger activity in the energy sector. Honeywell chairman and CEO David Cote will join me next with his take. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Forty-billion-dollar global equipment manager Honeywell seems to have an understanding of the world economy. Despite market volatility, the company is seeing profits rise better than 25.5 percent over the past five years on average. The company has been an out-performer, outperforming the S&P 500 and industry peers like General Electric and United Technologies for an entire decade.
Joining us right now in a FOX Business exclusive is the chairman and CEO of Honeywell, David Cote. David, good to see you.
DAVID COTE, CHAIRMAN AND CEO, HONEYWELL INTERNATIONAL INC.: Nice to be back here.
BARTIROMO: Thank you so much for joining.
COTE: Although it's still a good time to apply.
BARTIROMO: Wow. Buy your stock. Look at your performance. Twenty-six percent in terms of gains in earnings, 26.5 percent rather, over the last five years on average. Congratulations.
COTE: Well, thank you.
BARTIROMO: To what do you attribute that?
COTE: We've done a lot over the last 14 years to transform the company on portfolio, the work we do on process, and importantly, the work we've done to improve the culture. And we've done a lot of seed planting over this period of time.
I've often said you do you well this year not because of what you're doing this year but because of what you did in the previous five years.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
COTE: But we do a pretty good job of that have seed planting on products, geographies, process. I mean, we really work on it.
BARTIROMO: And all the while, you have been accumulating cash, so much so that the analysts were coming to you and saying, look, you know, how are you going to allocate that cash. So you did a lot of deals --
COTE: Yes.
BARTIROMO: -- $6 billion worth of deals last year.
COTE: Yes, last year.
BARTIROMO: Yes, so I want to ask you --
COTE: Who would have thought having money was a problem?
BARTIROMO: Yes, well at some point, I guess, when there's all that cash on balance sheet, investors want to know --
COTE: What are you going to do?
BARTIROMO: -- how am I getting paid.
COTE: Yes.
BARTIROMO: Right? So before we go into some of the deals and what you're looking at next, let me ask you about the environment, broadly speaking.
COTE: Yes.
BARTIROMO: Caterpillar this morning lowered its guidance for the first quarter. Actually, it was pretty dramatic. They're now looking at earnings per share of 65 to 70 cents versus an estimate of 97 cents. Stock is looking down this morning. They're talking about weak demand.
COTE: Yes.
BARTIROMO: What are you seeing in the first quarter?
COTE: It kind of varies by sector, but I'd end up -- I guess the way I'd describe it overall is it's still pretty much a slow growth global environment. It just is. It's been like that for, well, this is the sixth year in a row.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
COTE: And I don't think it's going to be any different for the next couple of years. It's just that way. And some sectors will be up, some down. But on balance, it's slow growth, and that's what we're seeing.
BARTIROMO: Which is why we saw the worst beginning of 2016, worst beginning of the year for the stock market anybody has ever seen. But feels like now, recession fears have begun to fade.
COTE: Yes.
BARTIROMO: Is that a fair statement?
COTE: Yes, I would say in general, there is less recession fear than there was, say, three months ago or six months ago, because it used to be, there's a global recession coming, no, there is a U.S. recession, no, it's an industrial recession. And I think each of those is kind of moderated over these last three to six months.
That being said, there are some sectors that are really struggling, like the one that Caterpillar is in. And Doug's a good guy, and that's just a - - he's just got a tough time to deal with here.
BARTIROMO: One of the big issues has been the price of oil dropping as much as it has. What's been the impact that you've seen from oil where it is? And even today, when you look at it close to $40 a barrel you're thinking, OK, well, this is good news.
COTE: Yes.
BARTIROMO: Let's go all the way down to 20.
COTE: Yes, this is going to be -- I've been actually a little surprised at how some of this has developed, because the oil value chain comprises two pieces: the exploration side that's driven by commodity price; and then the mid and downstream side, which should really be driven more by end demand.
And for the -- this is the first time that I can ever remember where people are talking about low oil prices being a problem. Because in general, low oil prices cause consumers to -- they get more money in their pocket, they spend it. And up to this point, they're only spending about half of it. The rest of it, they've been saving, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
BARTIROMO: Right.
COTE: But we've got this odd dynamic going on right now, and that exploration side is really hurt -- that demand falloff has hurt a lot of companies.
BARTIROMO: And we've seen bankruptcies in the shale business.
COTE: Yes.
BARTIROMO: We've seen job cuts in energy sector. Do you think it gets worse?
COTE: Oh, it's tough to see it get much worse. I mean, drill rigs are down to 4, 500 now, down from a peak of about 2,000 I think it was.
BARTIROMO: Right.
COTE: So it doesn't have a lot further to go.
BARTIROMO: Let me ask you about your own plans. I mean, for a while you were looking at smaller, private companies in terms of where you were doing acquisitions. But you've obviously changed the strategy a bit, acquiring larger companies. Does growth in the next three years come from more deals or organic?
Well, we're going to do both. And I always have plan A, which is just driven by what we do organically, because I like to know that no matter what happens, we're going to be fine.
And the last thing I want is people in the company starting to feel like got to get a deal done, because if we don't, then we're not going to do well. So I've always looked at it as organic growth plus whatever you can do. So that's why I never feel compelled to do deals just for the sake of doing deals. Unless it makes sense, we don't do it.
And as you know, I was getting a fair amount of grief from analysts for a while about when are you going to deploy the cash.
BARTIROMO: Right.
COTE: And I kept saying, well, I've got to wait for good deals --
BARTIROMO: Something that --
COTE: -- and when they come up, then we'll do it.
In the last year, we did $6 billion, because a bunch of things came together. So who knows what happens this year, but last year was a very good year for deploying cash.
BARTIROMO: And you were very clear that one positive would have been, for shareholders, a deal with United Technologies.
COTE: Yes, it would have been good for both.
BARTIROMO: And so what happened? You finally decided after lots of pushback to walk away.
COTE: Yes.
BARTIROMO: United Technologies didn't want to do it.
COTE: I would say definitely didn't want to do it. I mean, they --
BARTIROMO: The understatement.
COTE: I met with them on Friday. They leaked the story on Monday and were very aggressive in talking about all the problems with it, none of which they felt were problems when they were trying to go the other way and acquire us.
And I just said, oh, OK, it's not worth it. This is a chance to make a lot of money. I made a good offer. And I had some analysts saying, you know, 120, this deal gets done. And I would say at 120, this deal does not get done, because I'm not going to spend -- I'm not going to pay for privilege of making everybody a lot of money. This is -- just doesn't make sense, so we walked away.
BARTIROMO: Sometimes it feels like deals don't happen just because of egos. You know, the CEO is afraid that you're going to just run the whole company --
COTE: Yes.
BARTIROMO: -- and he's going to be out of a job. Does that play into this stuff?
COTE: Oh, I'd say, yes, absolutely, you know, it makes a difference.
BARTIROMO: Right. Yes.
COTE: There's no doubt about It.
BARTIROMO: So, I mean, I remember years ago we used to talk when people speculated that Honeywell should merge with General Electric. I mean, we've been talking about a mega deal for Honeywell for a long time.
COTE: Yes.
BARTIROMO: Do you need a mega deal? Do you need that kind of scale to see the success that could happen?
COTE: No, because if you take a look at what's happened to us over the last 14 years, our market cap has gone from 20 billion to 83 billion. We've become a big company during this time.
Our organic prospects, because of the seed planting we've done, are extremely good. I viewed this purely as a way to make even more money for our share owners. But if people don't want to do it, they don't want to do it, so move on.
BARTIROMO: Which industries do you Identify as the big drivers of growth in the coming years?
COTE: Oh, for us?
BARTIROMO: Yes.
COTE: It'll be all four of the kind of major business areas we're in, so, controls, turbo chargers, what were doing on the performance materials side and aerospace. Every single one of them is going to do well.
BARTIROMO: Aerospace. I mean, this is our -- what is it -- one of our most important exports obviously, airplanes. How's that going, given this constant talk of trade and issues over trade in the election certainly.
COTE: Well, I think the big dynamic to look at, kind of the overall what's the indicator you want to watch in aerospace, is just flight hours. Are people around the world flying more this year than they did last year?
And if you look at that, that trend is pretty consistent. It's always up three or four percent a year. When you get to a recession like '09, it's down one year. 9/11, those two years, it was down two years in a row, which is the first time ever.
But if you look at that 60-year trend, it just keeps on going. That's going to keep happening. Now, they'll be some bouncing around with OEM production, for example, and they'll be other dynamics people have to deal with. But that trend is real, and that's not going to disappear.
BARTIROMO: Dave, real quick, what does business want in the new President? I mean, here we are talking about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton every day. Your thoughts?
COTE: Economic growth.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
COTE: We need a -- we need a fiscal policy and a regulatory policy to be consistent with what companies need for economic growth. That's what's going to drive employment. That's what's going to drive wages, because at two percent economic growth, most of us can just be productive enough every year to not really have to hire as many people.
BARTIROMO: Dave, it's great to see.
COTE: Yes, nice to see you, too.
BARTIROMO: Thanks so much for joining us, Dave.
COTE: Happy St. Patty's day.
BARTIROMO: And to you. Nice talk. Dave Cote, chairman and CEO at Honeywell.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Good Thursday morning, everybody. Welcome back. I'm Maria Bartiromo. It is Thursday, March 17th. Your top stories right now at 8:00 on the East Coast.
The GOP race down to three.
END
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