MARIA-00
Push for Unity; Global Markets Rallying After Initial Shock; Transition of
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Did Not Vote - Part 6>
Stuart Varney, Jared Max >
Markets; Sports; Economy; Law Enforcement; Obamacare; Business; Government;
Donald Trump; Barack Obama>
I'm convinced of that. And but I think it's OK for some of our adversaries to be a little nervous about what's happening.
BARTIROMO: Right. You want that? YOu want to project strength.
KEANE: Yes.
BARTIROMO: All right. So in an effort to ensure a smooth transition into the White House, President-elect Trump will now be receiving the same intelligence briefings as President Obama.
What are your thoughts about this? what -- what does this look like in terms of these intelligence briefings that he's going to be getting, same as President Obama?
KEANE: Well, these are presidential daily briefings that top leaders in the national security apparatus of a government all get the same briefing.
BARTIROMO: What will he learn?
KEANE: And what -- he's been getting briefings as has Secretary Clinton. But they're of a general nature, classified to be sure.
But now, he's going to be exposed to all of the covert operations that we are doing and what -- and what we are accomplishing with those, what the risks are in those as well. So the briefings will be very detailed by comparison to what he's been getting in the -- in the past.
And he'll be able to ask lots of questions. And I'm -- I'm confident he'll bring one or two of his advisers with him, probably General Mike Flynn, who ran an intelligence agency in this government, you know, to help him through that process.
BARTIROMO: He's going to need a lot of help. I mean, do you think he's been reaching out to the right people? Who would you like to see on that defense team?
KEANE: Oh, I don't want to get into the names of that (ph).
BARTIROMO: OK, OK.
KEANE: But I mean, Maria, listen, there's plenty of people that are willing to help a new president. The best of our presidents, when you look back on them, they surround themselves with very talented people who have a depth of experience and a portfolio of good judgment in making decisions about policy.
The clear thing in national security. The sooner we get the national security team established, the better because it takes forever to get clearances.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
KEANE: Secretary Rumsfeld, when the president was sworn in, he walked into the Pentagon that same day, having gone through the whole security clearance thing and that (ph) -- and I was there. And that was very helpful.
BARTIROMO: Wow.
KEANE: .to have him on board, day one, as a policymaker. Now, in all of these government agencies, there is no reason for the American people to be concerned.
There are career forces in all these agencies operating these agencies, to include the Pentagon, and to include the national security council in the White House. There's a career force there.
But we need the policymakers to come because they are the decision-makers.
BARTIROMO: So these -- these discussions are going on now?
KEANE: Oh, yes.
BARTIROMO: This soon (ph)?
KEANE: Absolutely.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
KEANE: And the transition teams are -- are crucial. There'll be a transition team for the National Security Council and the White House.
There'd be a transition team for the Pentagon, for the Department of State and lots of discussions. And hopefully, the Obama team will do as good a job as George Bush's team did, which they get considerable amount of credit for having done the best in class at a presidential transition.
BARTIROMO: That was a perfect transition.
KEANE: Yes.
BARTIROMO: .from Bush to Obama. Great to see you, General. Thank you so much.
KEANE: Good talking to you, Maria.
BARTIROMO: Really interesting insights and now (ph) valuable for our audience. General Jack Keane there.
Coming up, Yahoo! tries to get to the bottom of a massive hack attack that compromised 500 million user accounts. We've got the details.
Airlines are looking to take off with Trump's victory, how the travel industry could be looking for a presidential boost, that's next. Back in a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Welcome back. The economic growth story continues to boost markets. Take a look, Dow Industrial is expected to open up another hundred 25 points, extending yesterday's big rally.
This morning, we are expecting firmer stock prices across the world. Take a look at a couple of names. We're watching Viacom, a company reporting profits fell 71 percent during the fiscal fourth quarter.
Results were hurt by weakening ad revenue as well as declining revenue from the box office. Viacom is currently exploring the merger with CBS, which the chairman wants it to happen, Shari Redstone.
Also keeping an eye on Twitter, COO, Adam Bain, announcing he is leaving the company effective immediately. Bain tweeted that he is ready to do something totally different than outside the company, new.
Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey, saying it was heartbreaking to say goodbye to Adam, and that he's a mentor, a partner and a family forever. That massive hack attack that Yahoo!, meanwhile, back in the news, Cheryl Casone with the details there.
Cheryl, good morning to you.
CHERYL CASONE, FBN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, Maria. Well, Yahoo! is investigating whether an unidentified hacker has access to its user account data. This development follows the 2014 hack, which took information, which included names, e-mail addresses, dates of birth for more than 500 million accounts.
Well, now, according to a new regulatory filing, Yahoo! says authorities have begun sharing certain data that they say was provided by a hacker who claims that the information was Yahoo! user account data. We'll keep you posted on that story.
Volvo recalling more than 70,000 of its newest vehicles due to a potential probably with the seatbelt. There is a part in the belt that could cause it not to work if the vehicle were to crash.
That recall affects Volvo S60, S90, B60, XC60 and the XC90 vehicles that were made between 2016 and 2017 -- the years anyway, the model years. Of course, the `17 is already made.
It's still 2016, I know that. All right, Volvo says no incidents have been reported. And it should only take dealers just a couple of minutes to make sure that the belt is safe to use.
All right, we have a winner in the New Hampshire Senate race. Governor Maggie Hassan takes the seat, defeating Republican incumbent, Kelly Ayotte.
It was an extremely close race. Hassan edged out Ayotte by just 1,023 votes. With that win, the Democrats gained two seats this election.
The last remaining race is now in Louisiana, which will be decided at a December runoff. But again, this does not affect the balance of power in Washington.
Republicans still control the Senate. All right, Spirit Airlines offering a new a flight deal to Canada, following the U.S. presidential election.
In these 75-percent-off deals, Spirit says it will fly customers into Plattsburgh, New York or Niagara Falls, New York so they can drive to major Canadian cities for a lot lower price. The company also saying it's more convenient than people (ph) flying directly into Canada.
But remember, we talked about this yesterday, that Google search term that was so popular, how to move to Canada, that spiked after the election, so I'm thinking all those protesters, if you want to go to Canada.
BARTIROMO: Exactly.
CASONE: .go right ahead. Remember, the website was crashed because so many people were Googling it. Bye, see you.
BARTIROMO: Bye. Yes, see you later.
CASONE: I'll buy your apartment here in New York. See you.
BARTIROMO: Thanks, Cheryl.
Coming up, a sweet turnaround for hostess, how to make their own Twinkies (ph), went from bankruptcy to trading on the NASDAQ. That's coming up. Back in a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Back one sweet stock -- Hostess, maker of the iconic brands, Twinkies, Ho Hos and Ding Dongs started trading on the NASDAQ this week after bought out -- brought out of bankruptcy, rather, nearly four years ago.
We want to bring in the Hostess Brands CEO, Bill Toler with us right now.
Bill, good to see you.
BILL TOLER, CEO, HOSTESS BRANDS: Thank you. Great to be here.
BARTIROMO: Congratulations to you, listing on the NASDAQ, ringing the opening bell. This has to be very exciting after the -- the road that you just came from -- bankruptcy.
TOLER: Right. I mean, just about four years exactly, Hostess went away, chapter seven, off the shelves, closed the plants, no employees. And less than four years later, we're back now as a very strong brand in the category, growing, doing great.
BARTIROMO: Wow.
TOLER: And people love their Twinkies.
(CROSSTALK)
BARTIROMO: How did you do it? How did you do it, though?
TOLER: Well, we brought it back with this idea that we could take the product through the warehouse and not go on the direct store delivery trucks, right? Traditional sweet-baked goods go in individual trucks or go to individual stores.
Our model, with some product technology and a different distribution system, actually takes it through the retailers' warehouse. So we go to Progress (ph) warehouse, and Dollar General's warehouse, and Wal-Mart's warehouses and go out with their other grocery products there -- a much more efficient system for us and frankly, a better system for them.
KEVIN KELLY, CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER, RECON CAPITAL PARTNERS: Yes, I -- the capital markets have been humming. It's been a great past couple of months.
And you're a testament to that because you came out through being a SPAC (ph), right, a special purpose acquisition company. So we've seen mergers, acquisitions are up.
IPOs are up. Can you talk about the tone and tenor that's happening in the market out there? I mean, we haven't seen a lot of SPACs especially because they were popular before 2007 and not now.
So can you talk about that, the environment?
TOLER: Well, as you know, the year got off to a very slow start in IPOs. And it's kind of built some momentum in the second and third quarter.
And we've partnered with the Gores Groups (ph) who have been friends with our group for about 10 years. And they were a very efficient and effective way to get out to market.
But really, what drove the success of our deal is the quality of the brand. Hostess is an incredible brand.
We've been talking about here at the table that everybody has a connection back to that original Hostess product that they enjoyed as a child or they give their kids today. And so as the power of the brand put together with the power of the business model, put together in a SPAC vehicle that has allowed us to get to market so efficiently and so effectively.
DAGEN MCDOWELL, FBN CORRESPONDENT: Did the bankruptcy and liquidation hurt the brand, though?
TOLER: So.
MCDOWELL: Because there was a -- it was in the news and people were nostalgic about it. But I -- I wonder if it -- it damaged it in any way.
TOLER: You know, we weren't sure when we brought it back. And frankly, I was part of the risk that we took in bringing it up.
But we've always found that the -- the problem with Hostess in the old days was never with the consumer. The demand was always there.
It was the --it was the distribution system, the manufacturing.
MCDOWELL: The burdensome union contract?
TOLER: Well, it was all those things that just created extra costs that really created the problems for Hostess. And so when we came back, there was actually incredibly pent-up demand for the business.
And we think the brand is actually stronger today as we moved into more categories and have this preferred business model that enables us to get to market very efficiently.
BARTIROMO: So how do you keep this going?
TOLER: It's innovation. You know, the lifeblood of most businesses is innovation. You see some of our fun holiday products here.
We're going into new areas. We're going into peanut butter. We've gone into brownies.
We're going into white chocolate. We're going into the freezer. You can now get deep-fried Twinkies in the freezer, which are now (ph).
(CROSSTALK)
BARTIROMO: What? Deep-fried Twinkies in the freezer?
GILLIAN TURNER, FORMER STAFF MEMBER, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL, SECURITY COUNCIL: We're all available -- I don't want to speak for everyone but we're all available for taste-testing.
TOLER: Well, we could put you on the list. We can put more products in your -- in your green room.
And you can imagine.
BARTIROMO: White peppermint Twinkies.
TOLER: Yes.
BARTIROMO: That's a new innovation, right?
TOLER: Yes.
BARTIROMO: What.
KELLY: Are you looking at international expansion? We're seeing that be a big push by some of these other consumer brands that that's the next leg of growth.
Are you guys addressing that?
TOLER: We are. We're -- we're right now staying primarily in North America, moving into Canada, moving into Mexico, doing very well there. The Hostess Brand and our high-quality markets do well in those markets.
The brand is somewhat known around the world. We're in Western Europe with Twinkie now.
And it's done pretty well over there. So you know, Hostess has this cachet far beyond its -- its U.S. routes that we're excited about.
BARTIROMO: But how -- how does a Trump administration change things for you? I mean, we -- we had the CEO of Ford on recently.
And we were talking about the fact that Donald Trump is going to make it more expensive, if you put factories in Mexico.
TOLER: Yes.
BARTIROMO: Donald Trump is going to try to encourage CEOs to keep the business in America, to keep jobs in America. Does anything change for you with the Trump administration?
TOLER: Not really. In that regard, all of our products are made here. So everything here would be made with U.S. jobs and made in the U.S.
And so it'd be exporting out, which are probably a positive in that sense. And so we think it's going to be largely neutral in that sense to perhaps positive because the jobs are here.
MCDOWELL: Well, some snobs, certainly in places like New York, are worried about their health. You eat.
BARTIROMO: Oh, wow, look at you.
MCDOWELL: .Kevin's eating. And they -- they glare at you like you're smoking cigarette, quite frankly.
KELLY: Well, this is the white peppermint. It's delicious.
TURNER: Pass those along in here.
BARTIROMO: It's good?
KELLY: Yes.
BARTIROMO: A hundred 16 calories and what, say, five grams of fat.
KELLY: I'm not worried about that.
BARTIROMO: I'm just saying.
MCDOWELL: No, but do you worry -- you're kind of biting the headwind (ph) in terms of health commentators (ph).
TOLER: Yes, there -- there are certainly the macro global trends around better for you and healthy. We're doing some things there, right?
We've taken out partially hydrogenated oils. We've taken out trans fats.
We -- we are working on and taking out our artificial flavors and colors and high fructose -- other things that are concerning to some consumers.
MCDOWELL (?): All the big stuff?
TOLER: Well, it's (ph).
MCDOWELL: Or some of the big stuff, yes.
TOLER: .yes. Well, and -- and we're trying to make sure that we hold taste as the number one, you know, that we've tried and held up to because this is a (ph).
(CROSSTALK)
KELLY: Kudos to you, sir. You did that.
BARTIROMO: And wow.
KELLY: You all need this comfort food especially with the last couple of days so.
TOLER: Well, that -- that's exactly -- exactly right. At the end of the day, we are a treat.
We're not the center of the plate food. We're an indulgence and a treat.
TURNER (?): Thank you.
TOLER: And people still indulge and enjoy treats. And that's where our products fit into the overall healthy lifestyle.
BARTIROMO: Yes, and -- and you did -- you did make them healthier.
TOLER: They are. They're -- they're better. And they're are a hundred and 20 to a hundred and 40 calories, as you've been saying, for each one.
You know, some other candy bars are 280, 300 and other things.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
TOLER: You know, the mix of fat and calories is different in some of that. But these are very indulgent treats (ph).
And we like to say we're good for your mental health, to make your body happy.
(LAUGHTER)
BARTIROMO (?): Yes, baby. Bill, good to see you.
TOLER: Nice seeing you. Thank you.
BARTIROMO: Thank you so much. Bill Toler of Twinkies (ph) is here.
Coming up, America's favorite honors our heroes. We're going to tell you what IHOP is doing to raise money for veterans. Back in a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Good Thursday morning, everybody. Welcome back. I'm Maria Bartiromo. And it is Thursday, November 10.
Your top stories right now at 7 a.m. on the East Coast.
END
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