MARIA-02
Markets Waiting on Federal Reserve; Two More of the 17 Prisoners Released
from Guantanamo Bay Have Returned to Fighting for Terrorism Organizations;
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Moving All Of Its Small Vehicle Production to Mexico - Part 1>
Alan Dershowitz, Dave Calhoun>
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MARIA BARTIROMO, FBN: In Europe meanwhile, next hour we are hearing from the Bank of England. No action on interest rates expected and that's what you're seeing, really flat showings in the European market. The FT 100 off a third of a percent right now. The CAC 40 fractionally negative in Paris.
In Asia overnight, a couple of holidays for the Shanghai and the Kospi but the Nikkei average was down one and a quarter percent and the Hang Seng was up two-thirds of one percent.
A girl sues her parents because of Facebook. Why she's pushing back on her parents posts on the social media giant. Can't make this stuff up.
All those stories coming up this morning.
And joining me to break it all down: former Chrysler CEO and former Home Depot CEO Bob Nardelli with us this morning; Rosecliff Ventures CEO Mike Murphy and pollster Lee Carter joining us.
Thanks so much for joining us everybody.
MIKE MURPHY, ROSECLIFF VENTURES: Good morning.
LEE CARTER, POLLSTER: Nice to be here.
BARTIROMO: Bob -- good to see you.
BOB NARDELLI, FORMER CHRYSLER AND HOME DEPOT CEO: Thank you. It's always good to be back.
BARTIROMO: As a business guy, what do you want to hear from Trump today -- real quick?
NARDELLI: What I want to hear from him is what is he going to do to help get the economy going? What's he going to do for national security? And what is he going to do to rebuild our military?
We'll talk about that later in the show.
BARTIROMO: We sure will and that is what he's expected to talk. He's going to make it on his speech plan. We're going through it, tell you what to expect.
We've got a can't-miss lineup this morning. The Institute of World Politics professor of strategy and irregular warfare and the author of "Defeating Jihad" Dr. Sebastian Gorka is with us; LifeZette editor-in-chief and Fox News contributor Laura Ingraham will join us; and Republican vice presidential candidate and Indiana Governor Mike Pence will join us. We will get the preview from Governor Pence and find out how he's preparing for his upcoming debate when he joins us here in studio.
First though our top story this hour. A busy day on the trail for both candidates. Donald Trump scheduled to deliver his speech on economic policy in front of the New York Economic Club later today. While Hillary Clinton returns to the campaign trail in North Carolina.
Her husband, President Clinton, (inaudible) for her at a campaign rally in Las Vegas but Bill had a different diagnosis for Hillary's illness than her doctor did.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm glad to have a chance to stand in for Hillary today. She did for me for a long time. It's about time I showed up and did it for her.
It's a crazy time we live, you know, when people think there's something unusual about getting the flu. Last time I checked, millions of people were getting it every year.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: And of course, we know that Hillary Clinton in fact was diagnosed with pneumonia. Is the former president turning into a liability for Hillary?
Joining us right now is Harvard law professor and author of the new book "Electile Dysfunction: A Guide for Unaroused Voters", Alan Dershowitz here to tell us what's up. Good to see you.
ALAN DERSHOWITZ, HARVARD LAW PROFESSOR: Thank you.
BARTIROMO: Thank you so much for joining us.
DERSHOWITZ: Thank you. Nice to see you.
BARTIROMO: What do you think? Bill Clinton on the stump for Hillary?
DERSHOWITZ: Well, you know --
BARTIROMO: How's he doing?
DERSHOWITZ: I think that in America, tragically, we have a double standard that applies to women and that she, Hillary Clinton, is being blamed for her husband's -- look at the headline in today's "New York Post", "Bimbo Eruptions" -- all of that.
If Bill Clinton were running today, I think he will win overwhelmingly. But because she's running, all of his sins are attributable to her and then on top of that her missteps and, you know, in my book I have a whole chapter on populism because that's what this election is about. All over the world, we're seeing the growth of populism --
BARTIROMO: Yes, look at Brexit.
DERSHOWITZ: -- extremism, Brexit. We're seeing Sanders. And you can't be a populist candidate if you're a woman. It's for men only.
I'll give you an example. A guy named Edwin Edwards ran for governor of Louisiana against the head of the Ku Klux Klan. And he said the only thing I have in common with the head of the Ku Klux Klan is we're both wizards under the sheets. Can you imagine a woman boasting about her sexual exploits? That's what populist candidates do.
BARTIROMO: Yes. But you're missing the specific story around Hillary Clinton. I mean Hillary was granted a two-week extension to answer questions about her personal e-mail server in a Judicial Watch lawsuit. Despite the ongoing case the former president dismissed the e-mail investigation as a closed case. But people are still focused on this.
Listen to what Bill Clinton said. I want to get your reaction.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
B. CLINTON: Now we know after all the hullabaloo over this e-mail deal, you know, for a year we were told this is the biggest problem since the end of World War II. Finally the "Washington Post" (inaudible) say I think we've had about enough of this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: So I mean the Clinton campaign brushing off this e-mail investigation, or whatever he just said, the truth is the e-mails are indicating that there was some pay to play going on at the Clinton Foundation. That she was in fact, giving access to those who donated to the foundation. Is that not resonating, you're saying.
DERSHOWITZ: No, it does resonate. And it plays into general narrative about the Clintons. Look, pay for play is a terrible thing. It's pervasive all through American politics and Hillary Clinton wants to overrule Citizens United and end pay for play and I think she would probably move closer in that direction than her opponent.
But this is a more general problem in America. I think it's fair to look at the e-mails and to hold that against Hillary Clinton. I think that's fair. I think it's fair to look at the tax returns and failure to disclose and hold that against Trump. I think both candidates have to be much more transparent.
Look, an athlete who is trying to get a job with the NBA or the NFL has to subject himself or herself to major medical and forensic examinations. Don't we expect as much from presidents?
MURPHY: Alan, if I could ask a question here about President Obama. To me watching former President Clinton up speaking for Hillary it seems like he has lost, he's aged a lot, he's lost a lot of his charisma.
But when you see President Obama out, you know, he is a great campaigner.
DERSHOWITZ: I agree.
MURPHY: He's phenomenal but is he helping Hillary Clinton's cause or is he hurting it. And shouldn't he be focusing on his full-time job?
DERSHOWITZ: Well, it's interesting. When you have somebody as charismatic as President Obama and he gets out there for her some people say oh my God, I wish Hillary Clinton were as charismatic and as good.
And, you know, Bill Clinton, it's always a double-edged sword when he is the surrogate for her. He has some negatives. The negatives are both on her.
But look, I've known Hillary Clinton now for many, many years and she is so experienced, so smart. I'm always amazed why people have such negatives about her. I know her well. I just don't have those views and many of her friends who know her well don't understand why she doesn't project in public what she projects in private.
NARDELLI: Isn't it true that part of the genesis for your book is this whole negativity? I don't I have ever seen an election where it will be determined more about a vote against the other candidate than a vote for. I mean is that -- have you ever seen this before?
DERSHOWITZ: I haven't. And I start my book that way. The electile dysfunction that I'm talking about is the fact that in this election more people will be pulling the ballot against the candidate than in favor of a candidate. The negatives are very, very high on both sides. And that's a danger to democracy. It also may result in people staying home or voting for third party candidates.
NARDELLI: Yes.
DERSHOWITZ: And the worst thing is democracy by default.
NARDELLI: Yes.
DERSHOWITZ: You know, that happened in Brexit. Young people stayed home and then they were shocked the next day when Brexit succeeded. If they had voted in the same numbers as older people, Brexit probably would have been defeated.
BARTIROMO: Well, actually when you look at the enthusiasm on the Democratic side and on the Republican side, there seems to be a lot more enthusiasm on the Republican side.
CARTER: That's absolutely right.
BARTIROMO: So maybe that's what you're talking about in the no arousal.
DERSHOWITZ: There is no question about that. That is populist candidates in gender enthusiasm but they're very dangerous. Populism can result in the election of extremes. We're seeing extremes now all over the world. All over eastern Europe, the right is rising in England, the left is taking over the British Labour Party -- the extreme left.
And that's why I think we need a centrist, stable, predictable, experienced president in White House to offset what is going on in the rest of the world in terms of instability.
MURPHY: Do you know any?
DERSHOWITZ: I do and she's running for president. And you know, I hope she will win although I understand she has been an imperfect candidate in many ways.
CARTER: So one of the things that I'm seen with voters is this idea of people looking down at populism -- this idea of looking at Trump supporters with disdain --
DERSHOWITZ: Agree.
CARTER: -- and average American, it is really backfiring. It's not galvanizing people to say I want to support somebody else. It's actually saying, you know what, I knew that you didn't like me. I knew you'll lead us there, you're not out to fight for me.
DERSHOWITZ: It was a terrible mistake.
CARTER: I don't think that has to do with gender. What is that?
DERSHOWITZ: No, I agree with you. I think it was a terrible mistake. Look, Romney made a similar mistake when he talked about 48 percent or whatever.
BARTIROMO: What was the mistake, the deplorable comment you're saying was the big mistake?
DERSHOWITZ: Yes. The 50 percent, the deplorable comment. You don't generalize. There are very decent people who are going to be voting for Donald Trump. I won't be among them. But I'm not going to demean the people. I have friends who are going to vote for Trump or against Clinton and we have to respond to their needs on the merits instead of calling them names.
That was a very bad mistake. You never, ever say anything negative about whole bunches of the people. Look, it was Trump's mistake. He said it about Mexican's. He said it about Muslims.
She was winning the high ground and then she fell into the same trap. She apologized. He didn't. But I think it's going to hurt her.
BARTIROMO: What do you make about former President Bill Clinton? I mean apparently no longer the closer, right. Do you think he can still be the strong surrogate? There's an article in Politico that says he's no longer the closer.
You know, he used to be the guy who just, you know, rallied everybody and it doesn't feel like that same impact is happening. Can he still be the strong surrogate that he was for Hillary?
DERSHOWITZ: I think it's a two-edged sword when he's a surrogate for Hillary. I think she has to win this election by herself. She can hope that people like President Obama will support. People, when they get into that voting booth they see her image, they want to know whether she will be in the Oval Office for four years or eight years.
They want to know who she is going to appoint to the Supreme Court. That's a really important issue. The next president if they serve eight years gets to reshape the entire Supreme Court which means a woman's right to choose, gay marriage, money in elections, separation of church and state, criminal justice -- a whole range of issues.
And Trump has said he wants nine Scalias. Look I like Scalia. He was a friend. Even Justice Scalia wouldn't nine Scalias. He might want five or six but the idea of nine Scalias on the Supreme Court should be enough to frighten a lot of people.
BARTIROMO: All right. We will leave it there.
Alan Dershowitz -- the book, "Electile Dysfunction".
(CROSSTALK)
DERSHOWITZ: It's an e-book, by the way. You can get it on kindle. Thank you.
BARTIROMO: Ok. They'll do that. Thank you so much -- Alan. Good to see you.
CARTER: Great to see you.
DERSHOWITZ: Thank you.
BARTIROMO: Still to come, Congress is set to take shots at the Mylan Labs. The details as the EpiPen controversy heads to Capitol Hill next week.
Then Ford shifting jobs to Mexico -- the backlash over the automaker's plans to move small car manufacturing to Mexico.
Back in a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Welcome back.
The CEO of Mylan Labs, the company that sharply increased the cost of the EpiPen will testify before Congress next week.
Here's Cheryl with that story and the headlines right now -- Cheryl.
CHERYL CASONE, FBN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Maria.
So Heather Bresch's appearance before a House Committee follows public outrage after the price for the EpiPen soared more than 500 percent since 2007 to more than $600. At the same time Bresch's salary jumped to nearly $19 million just last year. Leaders of the House panel said they will also look at ways to encourage greater competition in the EpiPen market. The device is used to treat life-threatening allergic reactions; most of the time that is for children.
Well, Lyft is the perfect designated driver and the company has formed a partnership with Budweiser, yes the beer maker. The purpose: to try and reduce fatalities from drunk driving while also celebrating beer drinkers. Lyft says it's starting tomorrow through the end of this year. Budweiser's providing up to 80,000 free rides on weekends between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m. but the free rides will only be available in New York State, Colorado, Illinois and Florida.
Here's how this works because I know you want to know. After you find a code you're going to be directed to the site where you can claim it. From there it will be automatically dropped into your account, you will have that credit to use. So party on.
And finally this. Parents and teens don't always get along, we know that. But this story out of Austria takes things to a different level. A local Austrian paper reports an 18-year-old girl is suing her parents for posting more than 500 embarrassing pictures of her on Facebook since 2009 without her permission. Some of those pictures are said to include potty training, diaper changes.
The daughter says she asked her parents to take the photos off of Facebook. Her father refused. He claims that since he took the photos he has the right to publish the images to all his 700 Facebook friends. Maria -- a court date has been set for November. There's Facebook's value in the pre- market, by the way, a little bit of an edge up.
BARTIROMO: So how old is she?
CASONE: 18.
BARTIROMO: 18.
CASONE: And she's like look take the potty shots off of Facebook, it's embarrassing Dad. And he was like no.
BARTIROMO: So I'm suing you.
CASONE: There's got to be bigger issues in that family.
BARTIROMO: Wow. Thank you -- Cheryl.
MURPHY: Let her parents just move on.
BARTIROMO: Ok. Coming up, more former Gitmo detainees returning to terror -- the latest controversy surrounding prisoner releases from the detention center.
Then big names yawning at recent volatility on Wall Street. But is the market still the safest place for your money? We're going to check it out ahead of a Federal Reserve meeting next week.
Back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Welcome back.
A volatile couple of weeks for the market as investors are waiting for next week's Federal Reserve meeting.
My next guest says a quarter-point move should not be a problem regardless and he helps oversee Blackstone's $100 billion private equity portfolio.
Joining the conversation right now is the head of private equity portfolio operations at Blackstone Group, Dave Calhoun. Dave -- good to see you. Thanks so much for joining us.
DAVE CALHOUN, BLACKSTONE GROUP: Yes.
BARTIROMO: Talk about what you're doing in terms of private equity and how you're allocating capital right now -- really an interesting sector.
CALHOUN: It is a popular sector and I think it's popular for very sound reasons. As an operator, in the life of an operator, having a single shareowner with a long view at maybe illiquid if you're an investor you may think about it that way. On the other hand the opportunity to create value inside that company is significantly greater.
And I think institutional money is understanding that more and more and more and beginning to characterize us as a yes, illiquid but much higher return. For me, I just don't think this train ends. I just think it keeps rolling.
BARTIROMO: And Bob, you deal with small and mid cap companies. That is where the job creation is.
NARDELLI: It really is. As Dave -- good to see you, my friend and congratulations in all you're doing there. But I think exactly what Dave said, these mid cap, small cap -- we're seeing some in traditional business, landing gear business. We're seeing some high tech energy stuff.
But you know, Dave, the one thing I want to ask you is private equity gets a broad brush of negativity about eliminating jobs but you and I both know over the course of many you have saved thousands of jobs and helped companies survive through some downturns by infusing growth capital and so forth.
Tell us about your view on that.
CALHOUN: Yes. Saved and added -- we are investors. The private equity world is they are investors at nature. They want to put more in. They don't want to take it out. And so when we go into a company, we're always thinking about how we sort of improve it, move it into the modern times.
My personal experience with the Nielsen Company under a private equity ownership, we basically had a challenge in moving from an analog measurement world to a digital one. It took some time, it took some patience, it took lots of money and it's a much bigger improved company with more jobs and exciting skills to bring to bear on that company.
And that's what we do in every one of our company. It is an offensive play. It is not a defensive play. And that old adage about taking out and skinnying (ph) down -- I've never seen that, you know. So I hope the world is beginning to understand that.
BARTIROMO: Well, that's the thing. I mean, look, Steve Schwarzman CEO of Blackstone has been on this program to basically say we're not in to buy a company and then fire everybody, flip it, change it and then take it public and then get out. You guys are in companies for the long-term.
CALHOUN: Yes, we really are. And that's extending and extending. So personally I'd like to keep them forever, you know. And almost all of these companies that we are in and we're operating we continue to see improvement opportunities. We like to make those investments. And when the public markets get a little shaky almost all the competitors we face run. In other words they start to skinny down because they have to. That quarter matters so much to them, we can prowl right through and invest.
MURPHY: We run an early stage venture fund. And we're seeing some very great opportunities in start-up companies. But we -- I don't mind announcing -- we don't have a $100 billion AUM. Can you look at start-up companies? Can you get in, in an early stage if you see some amazing technology.
CALHOUN: We can.
BARTIROMO: Good question.
CALHOUN: We can. And I suspect as we move forward -- technologies, 3D printing, robotics -- all those things that are now being sort of built in startup fashion, small entrepreneurs doing what they're doing. Our job is actually to get involved in those early, think about it more in terms of growth capital. But most importantly bring what they do to this other big portfolio of companies that we have and bring it aggressively to bear on those companies.
And that's when we can build markets and we can build values.
BARTIROMO: What I want to know is we talk every morning about, you know, a lack of growth in the economy, that we're sort of in this slow crawl right now. You're seeing everything. I know you did a deal on energy recently. I know you're involved in industrial.
Tell us from your standpoint where is the growth in the economy right now. You mentioned 3D technology.
CALHOUN: It is a slow-growth economy. I would love for all the policymakers to sort of get on the growth bandwagon. I don't see that in all the debates today. But I have never been more optimistic about what technology will do for industry in general, synchronizing things that are not synchronized today. The productivity opportunities are huge. They're huge.
And it's mostly done around data analytics and what it does for all forms of industry, both those that serve consumers and all of the business interests and industrial interests. All of them benefit from data analytics.
BARTIROMO: You're talking about Cloud businesses. You're talking about organizing data, lining it.
CALHOUN: Organizing, using data and then synchronizing your relationship with your customer in ways that others can't. And it is a race to do that. But that creates productivity. Lower cost ways to serve, better ways to understand demand -- it's really fascinating but I have never seen it. I've never been more optimistic about it.
NARDELLI: I think the big thing here Dave too, is technology is really supporting productivity improvements as you say. Technology as an industry is not creating the same amount of jobs that it might be displacing. So that's to your point where we need to get an administration that is going to support a three and half percent GDP. Not talk about it but have the underpinning for it.
CALHOUN: Absolutely. There has to be -- I mean education, training, all the different ways that you can train people in the workforce to do these different kinds of roles, these different kinds of jobs. We should be doubling down on that and there should be a soft landing for those who can't make that transition.
BARTIROMO: So how long of a runway at does tax reform give you? Let's talk about this idea of a 15 percent corporate tax rate and small business seeing regulation unwind because isn't that the two big hammers on these companies.
CALHOUN: It's real. We feel it every day. It's not getting any better. It's difficult to articulate each little item that sort of gets in your way. But it is slowing everybody down and it's difficult.
BARTIROMO: The bureaucracy, regulation.
CALHOUN: It's amazing bureaucracy.
MURPHY: We cut through the red tape with even more amazing companies started.
CALHOUN: Absolutely. There is just no doubt in my mind. I just look at governance in general as -- it just slows down everything about a company's performance, both in the public and in some cases the private markets. It's just not helpful.
BARTIROMO: So you do think then lower taxes on the corporate side and unwinding of some of these rules. I mean Obama put in how many new rules just this year. It's 6,000 pages of new rules. You think that's going to unleash new economic growth.
CALHOUN: There's no doubt in my mind. A comprehensive tax reform is the opportunity right in front of us. It's on the table and we need to solve for it as soon as possible.
NARDELLI: As I said earlier, let's not criticize Ford. I mean they're doing what they have to do to compete globally, right. Big car demands are up so they realigning their production facilities. Fix that corporate tax rate so companies can complete globally.
Dave, you have said all the time in our careers.
CALHOUN: Yes, Bob and I we have had the battles. When you're operating a company you are simply focused on beating the other guy. And if the other is from somewhere else and they've got advantages, you have to take them on.
MURPHY: And Maria -- to your point, I think, both of these guys have experienced boots on the ground doing this so you taking advice from someone like these gentlemen would be very helpful to whoever is in charge of the country.
BARTIROMO: Sure. And not only that but you must be seeing more interest in private equity as hedge funds fall back, right. A lot of people are cutting their exposure to hedge funds because these hedge funds are not performing and they're adding more money to private equity.
CALHOUN: There's no doubt and -- hedge funds are a bit of a derivative of the public market. It's sort of -- my novice view is that it's a math game against the public markets. We are at a very different world. We are there to fund and build companies from the start and we hold on to them for long periods of time.
NARDELLI: As Dave said, in some cases they have to get out. They've got tripwires in there. So when it reaches a certain point, they have to sell. And that's opportunity for us to jump in and take these companies over.
CALHOUN: No question.
BARTIROMO: Would you say right now (inaudible) that you are selling more or investing more?
CALHOUN: I think we're taking advantage of what we think is a very high- priced market. That is another opportunity we have to -- if we see markets, we think they're very highly valued and we have companies where we have seen most of the operating improvements, we should move in -- we should begin to liquidate and that's what we do.
BARTIROMO: It's time for an exit strategy.
Dave -- good to see you.
CALHOUN: Yes, great to see you.
BARTIROMO: Thank you so much for joining us. Dave Calhoun.
NARDELLI: Thank you -- Dave. Good seeing you.
BARTIROMO: Works at private equity at the Blackstone Group.
Still to come as U.S. travel to Cuba returns, safety concerns are growing. The dire warning from the TSA coming next.
Then problems for Samsung, the new possible safety concerns surrounding a second device now.
We're back in a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Welcome back. Good Thursday morning, everybody. Thanks for joining us. I'm Maria Bartiromo; it is Thursday, September 15th. Here are the top stories, 7:30 a.m. on the East Coast: (HEADLINES).
BARTIROMO: On to the war on terrorism we go. Two more of the 17 prisoners who were released from Guantanamo Bay, well they have returned to fighting for terrorism organizations. This brings the total to nine detainees now who were released from Gitmo and they joined terror groups since the beginning of the Obama Administration. It comes as Obama is now calling for the closing of Gitmo altogether.