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MARIA BARTIROMO, FBN ANCHOR: (HEADLINES) (MARKET HEADLINES). All those stories coming up this morning.
Joining me to talk about it, FOX Business Network's Dagen McDowell; Recon Capital CIO, Kevin Kelly and "Heat Street" Editor, Louise Mensch. Great to see you.
LOUISE MENSCH, EDITOR, "HEAT STREET": Hey, great to be back.
KEVIN KELLY, CIO, RECON CAPITAL PARTNERS: Good morning. You know who's bummed about the James Bond thing? You; you had a front-runner.
DAGEN MCDOWELL, FBN CORRESPONDENT: I think that Daniel Craig, I saw him on stage here in New York, and he looked like old cheese.
BARTIROMO: Oh, gosh.
MCDOWELL: I know. So I can't imagine -- I can't imagine the price tag that they come up with because I know what they're offering him. He's an idiot if he doesn't take it.
BARTIROMO: It's big. He turned down the first offer, so we'll see if he takes it.
KELLY: So it worked out for him. I'm always for a blonde Bond.
[Laughter]
BARTIROMO: I bet.
MCDOWELL: I bet you are.
BARTIROMO: We've got a lot of stories coming up. It is a busy morning. Join us for the President and CEO of the NAACP, Cornell William Brooks is joining us this morning. We will talk about what the African-American community thinks of Donald Trump; Trump Campaign National Spokesperson, Katrina Pearson is with us; Institute of World Politics Professor of Strategy, Dr. Sebastian Gorka joins us; and, billionaire investor and Paul Mitchell Co-Founder and Chairman, John Paul DeJoria with us. Also, former UBS Paine Webber Chairman and CEO, Joe Brannan. You don't want to miss a moment of it.
We've got a big show right now, and we kick it off with our top story and that is the race for the White House. A new battleground poll from George Washington University this morning shows Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in a statistical tie: Hillary Clinton with a 42-percent support to Donald Trump's 40-percent; Libertarian Candidate Gary Johnson with 10-percent support and the Green Party's Jill Stein has 3-percent.
I want to bring in the man behind this poll Ed Goeas. He has served as a Senior Advisor to Governor Scott Walker and Mitt Romney presidential campaigns. Good to see you, Ed. Thanks so much for joining us.
ED GOEAS, SENIOR ADVISOR, GOVERNORS SCOTT WALKER AND MITT ROMNEY: Thank you Maria. Good to see you.
BARTIROMO: So you revealed these hot new polls this morning. What does it tell you?
GOEAS: Well I think one of the things we are saying is a tightening of the polls, especially on the four-way. The FOX poll showed Hillary, last week, with a six-point lead, but only a two-point lead, same as we do, on the four-way ballot.
What's not changing is the favorable-unfavorable ratings of either of these two candidates. We had Hillary at 55-percent; Trump was at 58-percent. So the closing is coming in large part from two things: one is that Hillary bleeds more to the other third-party candidates when you go to the four-way ballot. The other is that Trump in recent weeks has gotten back up to an equal support level from Republican voters to where Hillary is with Democratic voters and that has closed the race.
BARTIROMO: Yes, I mean, he certainly has had a better two weeks, Dagen, relative to what we saw right after the convention.
GOEAS: Right -
MCDOWELL: She - go ahead, Ed. - and she's been in hiding, essentially, during nothing but fundraising during the month of August.
GOEAS: I think -- I wouldn't put too much credit of that. I think it's a combination of fundraising and planning for the debates, which are going to be very important.
I think what we saw from Trump in the last two weeks is less of the rallies, less of the, kind of, brash, aggressive Donald Trump, which gives an opportunity for those Republicans to kind of fall in line. One of the things I've been saying for some time is him leading with his personality, he doesn't need to do that anymore. He's the nominee.
Leading with his personality stirs up those negatives. It's like a boxer with a glass jaw leading with his chin. He needs to talk about issues, which he's doing; and the more he talks about issues and connects that with the Republican position on the issues, which is stronger than he is on the economy, --
BARTIROMO: Yes.
GOEAS: -- on jobs and even foreign affairs, the better he's going to do in the poll.
BARTIROMO: Let me get to the next poll you want to look at because heading into the election, your poll also shows the top issue for voters, walk us through that and what's changed?
GOEAS: Well, you are seeing a little bit of emphasis on terrorism than what we saw earlier in the summer and mid-summer, more of an emphasis on the economy, on jobs, on taxes. So, again, I think the more he has an opportunity -- and one of the things we saw in the survey is that Republicans versus Democrats score higher on these measurements than he does versus Clinton. So I think kind of falling in and falling back on those positions that Republicans have been fighting, quite frankly, for quite sometimes the better he'll solidify that Republican vote and be in a position to win in November.
BARTIROMO: We keep seeing, Louise, people feel that Donald Trump is better equipped to create jobs.
MENSCH: I guess so.
BARTIROMO: Based on polls.
MENSCH: I'm interested -- that number for the economy is actually quite low, 21-percent. I think that's because the economy is doing okay, but what we are just hearing from the pollster here is the more Donald Trump acts like the despised establishment that he's been running against for so long, the better he does in the polls; less Trump and more GOP.
Hillary Clinton was absent for the month of August, but she's been absent for the whole campaign because she's allowed Trump to run against himself. if he can get out of his own way and act like a real Republican, then he has a chance to win.
MCDOWELL: But I will - go ahead, Ed.
GOEAS: Really what I'm saying is if you look at the survey, and you look at Republicans versus Democrats on the issues, it's coming out on the policies rather than leading with his personality because those policies, whether he wants to call it anti-establishment, we have been fighting those battles for the last decade, or last eight years, and that's where the Republicans would gravitate to, who perhaps are negative about -- unfavorable about his favorability but could be very positive about his positioning on the issues.
So it's not all of a sudden becoming the establishment. it's setting that establishment argument aside and focusing on the issues, which is what we are seeing him do a little bit more. We saw it on immigration. We can see him do it on taxes, on the economy and on jobs where, quite frankly, the Republican Party has a stronger standing with the broader electorate.
MENSCH: But down ballot, for example, Marco Rubio in Florida is outpolling his opponent there and doing far better in Florida than Donald Trump in the swing states that he has to win. So despite the establishment Republicans that are more conventional, that are pro-free trade and pro-capitalism, they're doing better.
BARTIROMO: Interesting.
KELLY: One of the interesting aspects that we're not talking about in the poll is that the third-parties are garnering 13-percent, and leading up to this time in the election cycle that tends to come back a little bit as people state to actually pick one of the two main candidates. So I think that's something we are losing out on, and it's because Hillary Clinton's narrative keeps crisscrossing. She's, like, I'm a qualified statesman. No, well, you're a liar; right? She's, like, I'm dumb. I'm blaming everybody else. Then Donald Trump comes out and no one can really figure out where he is on immigration.
So you're seeing the third-parties actually being stable here -
MENSCH: That's right.
KELLY: -- in the polling numbers.
[Cross Talk]
BARTIROMO: Yeah.
GOEAS: And I think the key on that, traditionally, what we would do, from a polling standpoint, is understand that shrinkage that happens as people focus more on the top two candidates, but because the negatives of the top two candidates, or the two major parties, are so high, that is forcing them to stay longer with third-party candidates. I think the more we can stop stirring the pot -
BARTIROMO: Yes.
GOEAS: -- on the negatives, the more that they will look at the candidate for what he stands for and what he is going to do as oppose to the negatives, which is the personality part of the --
BARTIROMO: Go ahead, Dagen.
MCDOWELL: Hillary Clinton's public image is at a record low for her, in at least the ABC Poll, number one. Have her ads done anything to sell her to the American people versus attacking Donald Trump with tens of millions of dollars being spent since May? The answer is, quite frankly, no. Doug Shone has an editorial in "The Wall Street Journal" today where she said, "Mrs. Clinton has not offered any defining vision for why she should be elected."
Remember change-maker; we talked about it at the DNC -
BARTIROMO: Yes.
MCDOWELL: -- Democratic National Convention? We thought change-maker? She's running on President Obama's record, and that's all she's got. she's not defined what her presidency would look like.
BARTIROMO: How are you going to be a change-maker when you're just going to build on what we've seen for the last 7.5 years?
MCDOWELL: Right.
BARTIROMO: How is that a change-maker?
MCDOWELL: Other than corruption --
BARTIROMO: Right.
MCDOWELL: -- which kind of -
BARTIROMO: And the corruption continues, Ed. I mean, Hillary Clinton's email server is not -- the issue is not going away despite the FBI's release of their investigation notes on Friday. Trump and Clinton are both discussing the issue on the campaign trail as Congress is now considering a new hearing on the matter. Listen to this, Ed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON (D) PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I take classification very seriously and what I want people to understand is really two things: I take responsibility. I have learned that trying to explain what happened made it sound to some people like I was trying to excuse it. There are no excuses.
DONALD TRUMP (R) PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: 13 phones, iPhones, whatever they were, just banging the heck out of them. How about the acid wash of the emails that didn't mean anything? How about the 33,000 missing emails that were acid-washed? Acid washed.
We do have subpoena authority. We are going to have a series of hearings based on the information that we have learned and gleaned since the FBI investigation concluded, and we have a duty and responsibility to do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: Ed, those soundbites are all in the last 12 to 14 hours or so.
GOEAS: Right.
BARTIROMO: I mean, what is the impact of the fact that the Clinton campaign literally used a hammer, or Hillary Clinton, her folks, used a hammer to destroy one of - or two of her devices, and she had 13 Blackberries and iPhones? Do you think that's resonating with people?
GOEAS: It's part of the whole mix. I mean, it's very interesting when you compare Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump, in terms of honesty and trust, Trump only has a 4-point lead. They are both about even in terms of that. I think what you saw there, with Trump, is his tone was much better; but more importantly allowing surrogates, like Rudy Giuliani, to go out there and drive the message.
What we have right now is 20-percent of the electorate dislike both of these candidates. You have to let the dislike for Hillary surface without stirring up the dislike for Donald Trump. You do that through surrogates, not by leading with your principle.
BARTIROMO: I mean how do you explain that? What was the point of using bleach to get rid of emails and what was the point of using a hammer to destroy the device? How do you explain --
KELLY: Well if we go back to her last press conference that she actually held, you had a reporter who asked her, they go, did you clean your server? She goes, oh, like what, with a cloth. It was a big talking point. That's the last time she did it, but she also said, and I think this is a very crucial, important; she said, "I'm certainly well aware of the classification requirements and did not send classified material."
MENSCH: Look, is she incompetent or is she corrupt, because neither one of those choices are particularly attractive? I think the hammer really does matter, Maria, because people are bored by the idea of wiping servers. When you say somebody smashes something in the hammer, you can see it in your mind. It's a story. It's a political story. It has an emotional component. She's bashing them with a hammer. I think that's going to hurt her.
BARTIROMO: I agree with you. I don't know how it can't. It's extraordinary -
[Cross Talk]
BARTIROMO: -- and she was a government employee. So I wonder if this is like obstruction of evidence in some way. Do you think there's going to be investigation launched because of that?
GOEAS: This -- again, I mean, this is not a good story for Hillary Clinton. We need to kind of get out of the way and let the story come out as oppose to looking like it's partisan politics, or looking like it's Donald Trump issue (inaudible).
This story is what it is and let it play, let it dig in and let it have an impact on stirring the negatives that are out there for Hillary Clinton, which is 55-percent.
BARTIROMO: Yes; that's a great point. Ed, great to see you. Thanks so much.
GOEAS: Good seeing you.
BARTIROMO: Releasing those polls right here, Ed Goeas joining us. Coming up, the Senate failing to pass funding to fight Zika virus on its first day back on Capitol Hill. What it means in the fight to contain this spread of the virus, next. Then, Starbucks looking to jump on the brunch bandwagon. The coffee chain going beyond pumpkin spice latte to test a weekend brunch menu. We will tell you all about it; next. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Welcome back. We have breaking news: Japan waking up to an earthquake this morning. Here's Cheryl Casone with the details and headlines now; Cheryl?
CHERYL CASONE, FBN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Maria; good morning. Well, the 4.9 magnitude earthquake shook buildings in Tokyo this morning. No immediate reports of damage or injuries thus far, and no tsunami warning yet has been issued. Remember, Japan accounts for about 20-percent of earthquakes in the world, measuring a magnitude of 6 or greater. This makes it one of the world's most seismically active areas. We'll get more details as they come in this morning for you.
(HEADLINES) And finally, when you think Starbucks, do you think brunch? Well, get ready. The company confirming it's going to be conducting a weekend-only test of its new brunch menu, 78 Oregon locations. It says it's another way to evolve beyond being a coffee house.
Starbucks has recently tried to sell wine and beer in the evening hours to try and bring in new customers during the less busy time at Starbucks locations. Here is what's on the menu, you guys: baked French toast, quiche, Belgium waffles. Of course, there's a catch though, because there's no chef at a Starbucks: all the food arrives premade each morning and then it gets warmed up before serving, Maria. So --
BARTIROMO: I like it, it looks good. Dagen, what do you think?
MCDOWELL: I can heat up Eggo waffles at home, number one. By the way, when you go to Starbucks and you ask for anything other than a drink, it always takes forever for them to assemble it even though it's premade. They've got to keep growing business somehow -
BARTIROMO: Yes.
MCDOWELL: -- and keep people coming in the door.
[Laughter]
KELLY: They haven't rolled out the drinks in New York yet. I can't go into a Starbucks here and get drinks in the afternoon. So I think they -
BARTIROMO: Alcohol.
KELLY: Yes. Yes; exactly. I meant libations.
MCDOWELL: Because there aren't enough bars in New York City, Kevin. There's one, like, every third door on every street.
[Cross Talk]
BARTIROMO: We've got a big show ahead. Coming up, Mark Cuban's latest bet is on the White House. What he says will happen to markets if Donald Trump wins with presidency. You've got to hear this. He was with Neil yesterday.
Then, Daniel Craig called it quits as James Bond; right? But Sony may not be done with him just yet. The staggering amount of money that the studio is reportedly offering him to return as 007; back in a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Welcome back. Billionaire backlash; Mark Cuban stepping up his attack on Donald Trump with Neil Cavuto yesterday. He issued this warning for investors:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK CUBAN, OWNER, DALLAS MAVERICKS: I have my Trump hedge on. In the event Donald wins, I have no doubt in my mind the market tanks. And so I literally have put on more than 100-percent hedge that I will put on stronger if it looks like there's a better chance as we go forward.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: But what about other investors? Let's talk about that. Joining us right now is Jason Trennert. He is Strategas, Chief Investment Strategist. Good to see you, Jason.
JASON TRENNERT, CHIEF INVESTMENT STRATEGIST, STRATEGAS: Good to see you.
BARTIROMO: Do you agree with that, markets tank if Donald Trump gets in?
TRENNERT: No; I mean, I think there may be an initial reaction in that regard because it's fear of the unknown. By the same token, if markets were to sell off, I would be a buyer.
When I look at the policy mix that we have right now, we have easy monetary policy but we have tight fiscal policy, tight regulatory policy and trade I would say is probably a push. We get Donald Trump, you're going to have easier fiscal and easier regulatory policy along with easier monetary policy. So that is going to be very good for the economy.
Trade, I would say, is the big question mark but I have to say both candidates right now are being pushed into being somewhat more hawkish on trade. So I'm not so sure there's a big difference. Frankly, anything that's stimulates capital investment, capital formation, in my opinion, is exactly what the economy needs right now. I don't think you're going to get that with essentially a third Obama term.
BARTIROMO: I think this is a great point because the fact is Donald Trump is talk about 15-percent corporate tax rate. I mean, if you've got a -- he's talking about companies bringing money back from overseas. You have to believe that's going to spur investments.
TRENNERT: Listen, the U.S. Tax Code is 3.5 million words. The entire - the New Testament and Old Testament together are about 800,000 words. This, as a businessman myself, I can tell you anything that simplifies the tax code, that makes it easier to do business, is going to result in more investment. It's just -- the lower prices are the more you get of something and that's, -- I think, I feel very strong that that would be helpful.
KELLY: And you look at Donald Trump's economic plan, which he laid out in Michigan, was a very solid one. He talks about taxes and he talks about bringing that down to around 15-percent, as well as when you look at overseas we have Great Britain going to 17-percent, possibly 15-percent. We are just not competitive globally in the G-20 on our corporate tax rate, which is a shame right now.
So for him to talk about that, you're seeing the market really give into the fact this whether Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton wins, it's going to be a stable market. There's not going to be huge sell --
BARTIROMO: Well Hillary wants to raise taxes.
KELLY: She does.
BARTIROMO: She's raising taxes, Dagen, on the highest earners. That's going to hit small businesses. So how does that grow the economy?
MCDOWELL: Right, and she also wants to raise capital gains taxes in a way - she wants to complicate the Tax Code, particularly with capital gains taxes, and mid-term capital tax rates go back to the level they were during the Jimmy Carter administration. That's never good for investment; but do you worry we've gone so long without a recession, we have valuations that - do you kind of have to hold your nose depending on -
TRENNERT: I think that's fair. I think there is also certain element of truth in the idea that this is somewhat manipulated the economy, there's no two ways about it.
BARTIROMO: Because of the Fed.
TRENNERT: Because of the Fed. You have the zero-percent interest rates and there's no --
KELLY: And other central banks around the globe, too; right? I mean, we have $12.7 trillion on balance sheets of the G-7 economies.
TRENNERT: It's - well, listen, I think you're providing all the wrong incentives for companies really; right? If you can borrow money at virtually zero and just buy back stocks without investments, that's exactly what companies are going - that's what they're doing and that's why this is, in some ways, a very hallow recovery.
So, Dagen, to your point, I am somewhat worried. By the same token, I don't think it changes until inflation becomes a problem. Inflation stays low and interest rates can stay low, stocks can grow. Stocks can - and I think what's going to happen, what is happening is that the valuations of the very best companies, the strongest companies are going to go -- they're not quite at nose-bleed levels now. They're high levels now. I have a feeling before this is all over, it's not going to feel that strange to pay 25, 26 times earnings for Coca-Cola.
[Cross Talk]
KELLY: Those earnings are worth more in a negative interest rate environment.
BARTIROMO: Sure.
KELLY: That's why you're seeing companies, like Clorox, trading at 26 times multiple -
BARTIROMO: Yes.
KELLY: -- but they are growing in this environment.
BARTIROMO: I want to get Louise in here because, you know, Brexit, I like to look at Brexit as it relates to U.S. election.
MENSCH: Mm-hmm.
BARTIROMO: You said, -- you know, you made great point, in terms of policies coming out of two candidates, as a way to push back on Mark Cuban's ideas that the market tanks if Donald Trump gets in, but, I mean, everybody missed Brexit, Louise; right?
MENSCH: Yes.
BARTIROMO: And now look at the U.K. economy.
MENSCH: Exactly.
BARTIROMO: Everybody told us how everything was going to fall out and -
MENSCH: I was involved in the campaign and I knew that it would not. I remember going on FOX the day afterwards, when the markets were panicking and crashing, and I said, buy on the dip. I may not be a financial professional but I knew perfectly well the markets were going to come right back up and indeed they did. Part of that is free trade. Britain is now free to conclude its own trade deal. The City, for example, can conclude a trade deal with Singapore.
I think Donald Trump really wants to solidify his financial advantage. He needs to get off this pro-Putin, anti-free trade. What is anti-globalism? You know, Republicans are in favor of free trade. He has to be a pro- business president. He's halfway there on the taxes. He has to get rid of this anti-globalist stuff. Republicans believe in free trade.
BARTIROMO: Which is why you said trade is one of the more important -
TRENNERT: I think part of this election, this gets into some of my (inaudible), social science, but I think a lot of regular people are questioning what the intellectual elite have been telling them is good for them and whether that's free trade or open borders -
BARTIROMO: The elites; yes.
TRENNERT: The elites, and its negative interest rates is the latest - I would say is the latest thing that elites are telling them are going to be good for them, and it's not working out.
BARTIROMO: You're absolutely right.
MCDOWELL: Where I come from, they don't call them elites, they have other words.
[Laughter]
KELLY: Hillary Clinton has been the queen of crony capitalism and (inaudible) Foundation as well, so that trickles through the economy.
BARTIROMO: Real quick while we have you, yesterday amazon at an all-time high; NASDAQ at an all-time high. Would you buy technology right here, Jason?
TENNERT: I would. I would. We talked about it before. I mean, we talked about the companies. Some of the companies don't have dividend.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
TRENNERT: There's a lot of old tech, the Cisco's of the world, the Microsoft's of the world, which have remarkably just, given my career, become yield plays. I mean, I remember when Cisco was trading 100 times earnings in '99 and the concept of them paying a dividend would be seen as absurd.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
KELLY: Apple is a yield play.
TRENNERT: Apple is a yield play.
BARTIROMO: Microsoft.
TRENNERT: In a world of negative interest rates those dividends become very -
BARTIROMO: Jason, great to see you.
KELLY: And the tech sector yields more than the Ten Year Treasury.
BARTIROMO: Thank you so much, Jason.
TRENNER: Thank you.
BARTIROMO: Jason Trennert, Strategas there. Straight ahead, Chicago struggles as the city sees its 500th murder this year, already surpassing the total from all of last year. The outrage over the failing measure to control deadly violence there. And then, the new iPhone getting ready to take center stage at the launch today at Apple, but a new headphone jack could steal the spotlight; back in a minute
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Welcome back, everybody. Good Wednesday morning to you. I'm Maria Bartiromo. It is Wednesday, September 7th. Thanks for joining us. Here are your top stories 6:30 a.m. on the east coast.
Targeting the minority vote, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton looking to appeal to African-Americans and Hispanics in the final countdown to Election Day. Trump is touting his efforts with recent trip to Detroit.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I mean, look, I went to Detroit, we had -- it was like a love fest. We had just a great, great time. I was there for a long time. Again, the bishop and his wife and the whole congregation. These are fantastic people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: The latest in the race for the White House coming up.
Apple's big day, the technology giant set to unveil its newest phone, but one major change could fall on deaf ears, we will tell you about it.
Futures hovering around the flat line today after we saw some record highs yesterday. Nasdaq hitting an all-time high and it is building on that. This morning, the markets are looking mixed right around the spotlight right now.
In Europe, stocks are moving between gains and losses, investors on edge. A bit ahead of tomorrow's European Central Bank decision. We will see if Mario Draghi and company come out with new stimulus.
In Asia overnight, markets little change. As you will there, quiet day and quiet week, holiday shortened week.