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MARIA BARTIROMO, FBN ANCHOR: Good Wednesday morning everybody. Welcome back. I'm Maria Bartiromo. Thanks so much for joining us this morning. It is Wednesday December 7.
Your top stories at 7:00 a.m. on the East Coast.
Here come the jobs. President-Elect Donald Trump announcing a massive $50 billion job/50,000 job investment in the United States by Japan's SoftBank. He was with the CEO there yesterday.
That's not all. New reports suggest top Apple supplier Foxconn is planning expansion in the U.S. Despite the positive moves, President Obama is continuing to lash out at the President-Elect.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're a nation that believes freedom can never be taken for granted, that each of us has a responsibility to sustain it.
The universal right to speak your mind in the protest against authority, to live in a society that is open and free, that can criticize a president without retribution.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: The very latest this morning as the Trump cabinet continues to take shape.
North Dakota's protesters battling more than the Trump administration. Mother nature also on the attack. Take a look at these pictures. The major winter storm closing airports and roads in the state. We'll take you there.
New reports draining on Apple and why the problems with the company's iPhone 6S battery may actually be worse than first though.
Apple not alone with battery issues meanwhile. Tesla issuing a recall over 7,000 adapters used to charge its cars. We'll tell you the details.
And markets continuing in its rally mode. Take a look. Dow Industrials, S&P 500 and the Nasdaq all showing gains this morning even if just fractional. The Dow Industrials yesterday closed at a record level, get this, for the 20th time this year. We are in record-setting motion once again this morning.
In Europe, markets are rallying across the board. The DAX index in Germany continues its recent strength, up 1.5 percent on the DAX, the FT in London up one and two thirds percent.
And in Asia overnight, the major indices wear in the green, best performance were in Japan and in China. Shanghai composite and the Nikkei up three-quarters of 1 person.
Got to catch a cup -- we are taking a look at Starbucks' latest marketing ploy to target millennials including Pokemon.
All that coming up this morning. And joining me to talk about it Fox Business Network's Dagen McDowell; Recon Capital CIO Kevin Kelly and pollster Lee Carter. Great stories today.
LEE CARTER, POLLSTER: So much fun.
DAGEN MCDOWELL, FBN HOST: Got to catch your cup. I thought it was like they throw a hot cup of coffee at you and then you catch it.
BARTIROMO: Pokemon.
CARTER: Pokemon and millennials. Pokemon used to be for kids.
BARTIROMO: I know.
CARTER: Crazy -- right?
KEVIN KELLY, RECON CAPITAL: Yes. I don't -- I haven't heard anybody talk about Pokemon Go since the --
MCDOWELL: I told it peaked about two weeks in.
KELLY: Yes.
CARTER: Yes.
KELLY: Totally.
BARTIROMO: Well, Starbucks has new plans for it.
KELLY: Yes.
BARTIROMO: We've got that this morning.
And joining us this morning the CEO of ING is with us, Ralph Hamers. We'll talk to him about the new Trump economic policy and what it means for business. Plus former MLF and U.S. men's national team player Alexi Lalas is here. And deputy executive director for Trump transition team David Bossie is with us. Don't miss a moment of it. Stay with us.
We kick it off this hour right now with the President-Elect on his thank you tour. He was in North Carolina on that thank you tour last night comparing fighting for jobs to war.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT: We will defeat the enemy on jobs and we will defend American jobs. We're going to defend American jobs and we have to look at it almost as a war because that is what has happened to us. This is what happened to our workers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: This after Japan CEO -- Japan's SoftBank CEO rather said that the company will invest $50 billion in the U.S. And he's looking at startups.
Joining us right now, the "Washington Examiner" chief political correspondent Byron York. Good to see you Byron.
BYRON YORK, "WASHINGTON EXAMINER": Good morning -- Maria.
BARTIROMO: So Trump said that this SoftBank deal is going to bring an estimated 50,000 jobs to the U.S. What is your reaction? I mean a $50 billion investment and we have the CEO of Softbank on record on tape, Blake Berman spoke with him, that he's doing this because he likes the president's economic plan -- Trump's economic plan.
YORK: That's right. You're saying that because some critics have said that no this was already in the works.
BARTIROMO: The media -- yes.
YORK: It was already going to happen.
But you're right. The CEO did say that. And you know, if a mayor had gotten this or if a governor had gotten this they would hold a big press conference and say well, how great it was that, you know, Hyundai was going to build cars in Alabama or something like that.
So I think this is very similar to those things and it fit in perfectly with what Trump was saying last night in North Carolina. A very comprehensive speech he gave last night about jobs, about businesses, about taxes, about infrastructure -- all sorts of stuff. And this, you know, part of this sense of momentum that he is trying to build that things are already happening even before he takes office.
BARTIROMO: And they are. I mean it's amazing to me to watch liberal media, mainstream media is trying so hard to come up with this being a negative story. Well, all of it was in place already.
Same thing with the Carrier deal -- they went out of their way to try to paint it as a negative story. This is a positive, Lee Carter.
CARTER: It is such a positive and we are even seeing -- I mean we're seeing Trump's approval rating soar. People are loving to see the jobs come back. And they will find anything they can to criticize.
And one other thing I'm really curious about is they're even looking at this as we're working with Japan now, another snub to China. This is going to hurt or relationships with China. (inaudible) but what do you say to that -- Byron?
YORK: Oh, I'm sorry. You are seeing just immense public approval for what Trump is doing. We had a Politico poll yesterday that showed I think 74 percent of people supported what he did Carrier. They liked it. They want to see more of it.
And we have another poll out today from Bloomberg saying I think 69 percent of people do not think that Trump would have to sell all of his businesses and his family's businesses. They actually don't really want to see him, they don't think it's required for him to do all that to be president.
So right now he's getting a very, very positive position as far as his business and his early administration plans or concerns.
MCDOWELL: Byron when Trump tweeted yesterday though about Boeing. We want Boeing -- talking about Air Force One --
YORK: Yes.
MCDOWELL: -- we want Boeing to make a lot of money but not that much money. That the cost of the new planes and the new Air Force Ones, there are two of them, was more than $4 billion and that's in dispute because it's really too early to identify the total cost of them. But at what point would a president interfering, personally interfering with business decision-making that would, at some point, make people nervous.
YORK: Yes. And I don't think you would've seen this had you not had a CEO now become president and feel like he could kind of say this stuff about another business.
I was a little surprised that he did that especially, you're right, because the Air Force One thing is such in the early stages of development. But remember there was a big cost over run problem with the Marine One, the fleet of helicopters that takes the President around mostly here in the Washington area.
And I will say that as far as popular opinion is concerned the idea that companies are charging the Defense Department too much, the sort of you know, the $10,000 ranch that sort of thing it's fairly popular with voters. So I can understand concerns about a president seeming to target an individual business or some sort of harassment or criticism.
On the other hand, the idea of protecting the taxpayers is probably going to be a positive for Trump.
KELLY: Do you think one of the biggest arguments that's going to come from other side of the aisle is that Donald Trump is probably going to be labeled as a crony capitalist just like he was trying to label Hillary Clinton given the fact that the CEO of a SoftBank owns Sprint? He wanted to buy T-Mobile. Should deals T-Mobile and Sprint happen, you know, or start to come back. You're starting to see the AT&T deal be in the headlines.
If these start coming through, is this going to be how the other side of the aisle tries to hold up some of his policies and some of the things he's trying to do?
YORK: I think that's a good point. I think it's a real danger for Trump. And I think what you will probably see is that he will be very critical of some business, some proposed deal or some of this or some of that to kind of give the sense of him being balanced and presenting himself as a neutral arbiter on behalf of the American people because you're right.
If he seen as kind of constantly enabling billionaires to maker more billions, I think that would look bad because remember, he has made his political fortunes as the blue-collar billionaire. I think you'll have to maintain that point of view.
MCDOWELL: I want to bring up something and I'm curious what Byron thinks about it. Do you know who has to be shaken in their boots? All the leaders out in Silicon Valley who are very progressive and very left wing and got incredible favor in the Obama White House.
And the "Wall Street Journal" has an editorial today about Google has put out a help wanted ad essentially looking for a manager for quote, "conservative outreach". So Donald Trump is going to be meeting with Silicon Valley executives next week.
YORK: Yes.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
MCDOWELL: They've had -- this has been the golden road to prosperity for these companies under the Obama administration and they're going to have -- maybe have a really hard time in terms of dealing with the Trump White House.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
YORK: Well, the one thing about Trump is he remembers who supported him and who didn't support him.
MCDOWELL: Yes, he does.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
YORK: He does not forget that kind of stuff. And obviously if he goes to Silicon Valley or they come to the White House, he meets with a bunch of them, he knows that these were very, very big Hillary Clinton supporters and not just passive ones either. They gave a lot of money, did a lot of activities -- and the whole idea of conservative outreach at Silicon Valley has been something we have seen quite a bit.
Remember Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook had some conservative leaders over when it appeared that Facebook was sort of putting a thumb on the scale of its news stories. So this is something where I think Trump will have the advantage in meeting with these people. They're all going to know that they did not support him and they're all going to know that he is now the President of the United States. But bottom line I think they'll do just fine.
(CROSSTALK)
BARTIROMO: Somebody was speculating that's one of the reasons that technology has not participated in the big Trump rallies that we've seen. That maybe the policies as it relates to technology, you know, will change and won't be as positive.
But of course, Peter Thiel is the person that is on the invitation that invited all those technology companies to meet with Trump next Wednesday. Peter Thiel has been very supportive. He's one of the leading investors within technology. So he is on the Trump side.
And then there's Taiwan's technology giant Foxconn -- right. They confirmed that they are in preliminary discussions over investing in United States. They released this statement -- Byron. What's your reaction here?
"We will announce the details of any plans following the completion of direct discussions between our leadership and the relevant U.S. officials. Those plans would be based on mutually agreed terms."
Now Foxconn's the world's largest contract electronics maker.
YORK: Yes.
BARTIROMO: Could this mean even more jobs coming to Americans? Do you see this as technology beginning to get in line with Trump?
YORK: Yes, it could be a pretty exciting development. I believe the SoftBank CEO yesterday showed a piece of paper at Trump Tower to reporters and it has the Foxconn logo on it there. We're not exactly sure what that means as far as their participation in this deal.
But we went to a lot of Trump rallies where he would say, you know, they're going to start making iPhones here in the United States. Wouldn't it be great if they started making iPhones here in the United States? There's now speculation that that could be perhaps what this Foxconn thing is about.
But here again this whole Trump idea -- we want people bringing their jobs here not sending jobs away. And this is one more thing that he can do to point to this action. You are right. It's already happening well before he becomes president.
BARTIROMO: Yes. The phones always say "Made in China; designed in California." But made in China.
We will see if that changes.
MCDOWELL: There is some of the MACs though are made here in the United States already. There is some manufacturing that happens by Apple here in the U.S.
KELLY: One quick point, SoftBank has $100 billion that they've got at joint venture with the country of Saudi Arabia that put to work. That deal came out in October. So they do have to deploy capital but it's with Saudi Arabia so we need to be careful about that.
BARTIROMO: Yes. That's a good point to make.
Byron -- good to see you. Thanks so much.
YORK: Thank you -- Maria. Great to be here.
BARTIROMO: We'll see you soon. Byron York there.
Coming up next, eyeing European markets -- what Italy's no vote and the prime minister's resignation means for the Euro and the banks. We are watching markets this morning which are rallying by the way. DAX index and the FT up 1.5 percent.
And got to catch your cup -- Starbucks brewing up a new Pokemon promotion that is sure to perk your interest.
Back in a minute.
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BARTIROMO: North Dakota hit by a powerful blizzard.
Here's Cheryl with all the details -- Cheryl.
CHERYL CASONE, FBN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Maria -- good morning.
Well this blizzard shut down a section of Interstate-94 in North Dakota. Snow and wind gusts of up to 50 miles an hour created near zero visibility on many of the roads there. Schools, government offices and some airports closed in the region. The blizzard also brought wind chills as low as minus 15 degrees in some areas. Oh, boy.
Well, Apple's battery problem of the iPhone 6S may be bigger than first thought. The "Wall Street Journal" says a consumer group in China has received eight reports from users claiming that the devices spontaneously caught fire. This marks the third battery-related complaint against Apple from Chinese consumer groups over the past month. Apple said it's going to issue a software fix and investigate.
Back in September Samsung, the rival of Apple, recalled millions of Galaxy Note 7s on reports those phones were catching fire and exploding.
Well Tesla is recalling charging adapters after two reports of overheating. The two incidents involved adapters that are used to charge Tesla vehicles from a clothing dryer. No injuries or damages reported but the owners of the 1430 adapters will receive a free replacement within the next couple of weeks. The company sold about 2,000 of those adapters.
And Starbucks is making a bet that millennials are willing to pay $10 for cup of coffee. They have to have a job but maybe they'll pay for it, I don't know. They plan to build near reserve bars that sell and serve exotic coffees that can cost $100 a pound. Starbucks expect customers to stay longer, spend more, hopefully double sales at their stores. Starbucks is also going to launch a promotion to capitalize on the Pokemon go craze.
Starting tomorrow, many of the cafes are going to become, Maria, designated locations of Pokemon Go -- that's going to be fun. This is one of the brainchilds, we should say of Reserve Coffee of departing leader Howard Schultz, Maria. He wants to build a thousand of these brand stores, 30 tasting rooms as well. Maybe make some money as well.
BARTIROMO: Well, we'll see. I mean do you think this is actually going to bring people in?
KELLY: I don't know. You know, Starbucks has had a bunch of these initiatives in the past. They've been starting to serve alcohol in some of their locations --
BARTIROMO: Right.
KELLY: -- in the Pacific Northwest. They haven't rolled it out everywhere. They're having a hard time with sales. They've said their biggest push now is in the international market.
Howard Schultz has been in China, China, China. we haven't seen the growth. It hasn't come through on the share price. He is leaving the company now, and going to leave it to the incoming CEO Johnson. So we've got to see -- they're looking anywhere for growth, they haven't got it.
BARTIROMO: Well maybe it's because the coffee is like $10 for a cup.
KELLY: Yes.
CARTER: And one of the things I've seen right now -- overall, all the food industry there is a trend towards craft and towards flavors and to taste and all of that. So it could be an interesting move to have tasting rooms and create this like new -- like your more sophisticated, to understand the different flavors of coffee. So it will be interesting to see if it plays out and if it's going to be worth it to folks to pay $10 a cup.
KELLY: Well, they have consistently raised the price of coffee over the past few years. It's been -- pun intended -- a slow drip for them.
BARTIROMO: So do you it's worth it? I mean I'm a Dunkin' girl, so I mean is it worth it?
KELLY: No, of course it's not worth it. This isn't going to move the needle. The millennials they're targeting are going elsewhere for their coffee so you can see that Starbucks is trying to address them. But they can't get them and Pokemon is not going to do it. They should do it with pogs. That's what millennials like.
CARTER: But you don't know. I mean tasting rooms are an experience, right. And we know that millennials are more likely to spend money on experiences in food than they are a lot of other things. So maybe this becomes an experience - right.
BARTIROMO: Ok. Probably what they're thinking -- you're right, that it has been an experience at Starbucks. Going there to just relax and read.
We'll take a short break.
When we come back Pfizer gets fined -- why Britain's National Health Service wants the U.S. drug giant to fork over $107 million.
Then investors are eyeing European markets. Will Italy's no vote and the resignation of their prime minister lead to a European crisis? We are checking the international markets next.
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BARTIROMO: Welcome back.
We're watching European markets this morning in the aftermath of Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's resignation. Take a look at what's happening this morning -- rallies across the board.
This week Italy voted no on a reform proposal that the premier had supported. The government is reportedly preparing for a taxpayer-funded bailout of Monte dei Paschi, that is Italy's third largest bank.
Joining us right now is the CEO of ING Group Ralph Hamers joining us right now. Ralph -- good to see you. Thank you so much for joining us.
How would you characterize the Italian banks situation right now? The possible economic implications of this recent vote and the fact that these Italian banks have been loaded with debt even going into this disruption in Italy?
RALPH HAMMERS, ING GROUP CEO: Well, the situation is very clear. They have a lot of non-performing loans on their balance sheet that hasn't been cleaned up. For that they need capital. Capital needs to be raised (inaudible) either through doing capital issues or through a bailing or a bailout.
The bailout is very restricted by the European rules at this moment -- taxpayer bailout. So the first scenario to consider is a partial bailing of junior (ph) bondholders. But in the Italian situation, the issue there is that most of the junior bonds are held by private individuals. And that's the real sensitive part here.
BARTIROMO: So what is the Italian government bailing out? It would be taxpayers at the end of the day bailing out the Italian banks or do you think the ECB steps in?
HAMERS: I think it will be a combination of many different elements. So it could be some bailout from the government. It could be new fresh money coming in from outside investors that have been working on this restructuring for quite a while really. And they're also talking about a bail in of junior debt, of senior debt, bond holders really but with other deposit guarantees, so up to 100,000 euros.
So then, you know, up 100,000 euros -- private individuals would be treated like they were holding a deposit rather than a bond.
BARTIROMO: So the bottom line is these banks are not going under. Regulators will not allow it or --
HAMERS: No. Banks generally are, you know, not going in there. They could be put in run off or they have to be saved one way or the other. So there is no immediate threat there, no.
BARTIROMO: What is your sense of Germany? The German market keeps rallying. Do you expect banks to be moving their locations, headquarters out of Britain after Britain voted to leave the EU and after Italy now and finding a home in Germany? Is that one of the optimistic features of this rally?
HAMERS: Yes. Well, I think the current rally is a combination of many things, honestly. The first one is that the expectation in the market is that Draghi it will extend the program, you know, the quantitative easing program and will not start tapering, will not even mention tapering because that's too sensitive.
That will then also -- that extension will also give time to bridge some of the elections that are coming up. There is general positivism now around what Draghi may do tomorrow, basically in order to bridge the next nine months of uncertainty in European politics.
Having said that, you know, the direct link with the Brexit and financial institutions or companies moving from the U.K. to continent -- clearly Germany is an interesting place to base your bank. Frankfurt is one of the capitals -- one of the banking capitals --
BARTIROMO: Right. That makes sense.
HAMERS: -- being there so the talent is already. Not all of the talent but quite some talent is there. So it's an attractive place. So is Amsterdam.
BARTIROMO: Now, you are opening a new office in New York City.
HAMERS: We're moving offices in New York City.
BARTIROMO: Tell us about that.
HAMERS: So, we have been in the U.S. actually -- this goes back 200 years ago when one of our predecessors, Barings (ph) was active in the U.S. But, you know, in the current shape of form we've been active in the last 30 years. We are growing our activities in the U.S. and we thought it was time to move offices. So we're moving offices, new offices here in New York City in order to have room to grow.
BARTIROMO: Congratulations on that.
Tell us your sense of the Trump economic plan and whether or not this is going encourage actually more investment in the U.S.
HAMERS: Well, we don't know the total plan yet, right. And we don't know whatever has been set will become a plan.
BARTIROMO: Right. He says he wants to lower taxes and roll back regulations.
HAMERS: Exactly.
So a couple of things -- so regulations will, you know, basically decrease of regulation and easing of regulation is always good in order to support the economy. A decrease of taxes could be a one-time effect, really. I think some of the infrastructure plans that he's talking about are very interesting because they provide jobs on the short-term but also improve productivity on the long term. I think that's a more structural change there.
That is interesting also for banks to play a role in. We have been active in the infrastructure finance here in the U.S. for the last 15 to 20 years. There's many stuff we're doing here. And either, you know, the government can move on privatization of some of the infrastructure whether it's the ports or the harbors or the airports, railroads, further privatization or toll roads.
All of those could also be financed by private sources.
BARTIROMO: Right. And that's what they're hoping -- these public-private financial agreements.
Real quick, how would you characterize business at ING right now? The health of the consumer -- what are you seeing?
HAMERS: Actually it is improving. A lot of the consumer clients on our side are in Europe really. There we see the housing market picking up, consumer confidence picking up, economic growth picking up. So the undercurrent is positive, so generally positive signals. We expect GDP growth to accelerate for Europe. Not for some countries like Italy; we actually expect the GDP to slow down a little bit. GDP growth to slow down a little bit but overall positive.
The global economy we expect to continue to grow. And, you know, we're exposed to the global economy through our host of banking business which is exactly what we do here in the U.S. We have been growing three or four or five percent over the last couple of years and we think that will continue.
BARTIROMO: Well, it's nice to see a breather in Europe -- that's for sure, despite what you're seeing with the referendum in Italy and continued troubled banking system in Europe.
HAMERS: Well, specifically in Italy and then some may be also in Germany. I think that's part of the rally as well -- right.
Ralph -- good to see you. Thanks so much for joining us.
HAMERS: Thank you.
BARTIROMO: Ralph Hamers is the CEO of ING Group.
Coming up, more bias in the media -- the misleading mainstream coverage that you're seeing on Donald Trump's thank you tour.
And then want to take a selfie with Santa? Google's annual countdown to the holidays will let you do that and more. We will tell you about it.
Back in a minute.
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BARTIROMO: Welcome back. Happy Wednesday, everybody. I'm Maria Bartiromo. Thanks so much for being with us. It is Wednesday, December 7. Seventy-five years to the date that Pearl Harbor was attacked. Your top stories right now 7:30 A.M. on East Coast.
President-elect Trump defending the stars and stripes while on his thanking tour last night. Trump promised consequences for anyone who burns the American flag. The warning coming as the president-elect makes another cabinet post official nominating General James Mattis for secretary of defense.