MARIA-02
Cabinet Picks; Trump Meets with Tech; Dems in Disarray; Trust & the
Economy; Daley on Improving Economy; Daley on Trump Cabinet; A Warning from
NASA; Uber Self-Driving Slowdown. - Part 2>
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But there's an entire transition team primarily in Washington, D.C. that is talking to individuals who think they will prevent Mr. Trump and people who would represent him well both here in America and overseas in key diplomatic posts.
BARTIROMO: Sean -- we're going to be watching the developments. We hope we see you as press secretary. Thank you so much, sir.
SPICER: Thank you -- Maria.
BARTIROMO: Sean Spicer joining us.
And the Fox Business Network will take you live on the next leg of President-Elect Donald Trump's thank-you tour tonight. Watch a special edition of Lou Dobbs. It is from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. Eastern tonight. We are live in Pennsylvania with the continuation of that thank-you tour.
We will take a short break.
When we come back President-Elect Trump zeroes in on his economic agenda. Why the American people think businesses and markets can take matters into their own hands.
Plus paradise at the blink of an eye -- the pop-up hotel that could turn your dream vacation into a reality.
Back in a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Good Thursday morning, everybody. Thanks so much for being with us. Welcome back. I'm Maria Bartiromo and it is Thursday, December 15. Your top stories right now 7:30 A.M. on the East Coast.
As president-elect Donald Trump continues his "Thank You" tour, there were new Fox polls out this morning that show the country is focused on the economy. Why Americans trust the private sector over the government when it comes to their hard-earned cash.
Meanwhile, Trump meets with top technology leaders. Senior advisor Kellyanne Conway said that the meeting was much more than business.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KELLYANNE CONWAY, SENIOR ADVISOR TO PRESIDENT-ELECT TRUMP: I thought today's meeting was fantastic. Not just because they were his quote, "political opponents," that doesn't matter in this regard. It matters that you're talking to people along with the president, the vice president of the United States, Megyn, who actually can make a difference. And increase vocational, educational opportunities. Really get serious about cybersecurity.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: The very latest as the president-elect plans meetings with more high-profile names today.
Democrats in disarray. The big decisions that have the party scrambling to keep their own from crossing over to team Trump.
And China under fire. As satellite imagery shows that military movement is disputed in -- is happening in disputed waters. The fallout after the country installs weapons in the South China Sea.
Self-driving Ubers get the red light in California. Why the state hit the brakes on the project immediately, after the launch of the self-driving Uber cars.
Luxury anywhere in any way you want it. Company that's helping make your dream vacation a reality by bringing the hotel to you.
And markets this morning looks like this. Futures indicating a muted opening this morning. We're off of the earlier highs. Having said that, the Dow industrials is poised to open higher this morning once again after pulling back yesterday on a selloff over the Federal Reserve raising interest rates.
In Europe, markets have turned higher. Check out the numbers here. You've got the CAC quarante in Paris. And the DAX index in Germany off that half of a percent apiece.
In Asia overnight, markets were broadly lower with the exception of the Nikkei average in Japan. That's squeaking out a gain.
When it comes to the economy, Americans have more faith than business than they have in government. According to the latest Fox News poll, more than half of voters say that they trust market forces and private businesses to do a better job to improve the economy. Well, just 24 percent believed politicians will do the same.
I want to bring in former chief of staff under President Obama and secretary of commerce under President Clinton, Bill Daley. Bill, good to see you.
BILL DALEY, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: Thanks, Maria.
BARTIROMO: Well, you've been in business and you've been in government. So you're the perfect person to address this poll. What do you think about that?
DALEY: I think it's pretty obvious. That's the way the American people have always felt. There is a problem for politicians and government. People will always pick the private sector over the politicians.
They believe that it is the private sector and their own activities. Whether they're working numerous hours, two jobs, going back to school to get retrained.
They believe the success in the economy is about the private sector not the government. The government give these tiny things. They can encourage growth as I think president-elect Trump was trying to say he wants to do.
But the people will not give politicians credit for a success in the marketplace.
BARTIROMO: It seems to me that not all businesses are in alignment with the interests of the country, right? So, what do you think about all these business guys in the Trump cabinet? I raise this because like for example the other day, Boeing, the top story in the Wall Street Journal, having done that big deal with Iran.
Now, obviously Boeing was encouraged to do that by the Obama administration. But sometimes a big deal for Boeing to sell all of those planes to Iran may not be in the interest of America.
So, what do you think for example of billionaire investor Wilbur Ross as incoming commerce secretary? Or Steven Mnuchin as treasury?
DALEY: Well, certain offices have a pattern of having business people in them, whether they'd be commerce, treasury, state department, is a rare exception to take someone right out of business and put him in there.
But the challenge for each of these people will be to make that transition from their individual focus which was as CEO to a broader interest, not just the United States of America, but the free world in which we lead. Especially Mr. Tillerson who is very bright, very successful, obviously, has a wealth of knowledge.
But to make that transition that he doesn't just speak for a company obviously he speaks for the United States of America but also on behalf of their free world when people talk about us and Russia or us and China. The U.S. is a point person basically, point government for those positions that the rest of the free world who stands with us especially our allies feel uncertain --
BARTIROMO: And of course Wilbur Ross will be very much in charge of trade and trade issues. I spoke with him the day of the announcement.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVEN MNUCHIN, FORMER INVESTMENT BANKER: Our number one priority is sustain three to four percent GDP and I think it's very achievable. This has been an administration for the last eight years where we haven't had enough growth.
Our number one priority is going to be tax reform. We think that by lowering of the corporate tax rate, we're going to make U.S. corporations incredibly competitive and create enormous amounts of money that comes back on shore and creates jobs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: And of course that was Steven Mnuchin, the incoming treasury secretary sitting with Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary.
You served as U.S. secretary of commerce under President Clinton. What are your thoughts on Wilbur Ross' role had?
DALEY: Well, he's been very strong and the need for reform in trade policies, as the president-elect. So to see they had implemented, it is -- it is easy to say and difficult to do without having an impact not only on us but also with our allies.
So the commerce secretary is about trying to build exports to the rest of the world of U.S. products and help our economy. I think Mr. Ross has spent his life very successful and has been very aggressive against trade violations that he believes his company has been affected by.
Now, he's got to switch to a certain degree and represent the entire United States government and the policies of the president elect will put forward. They are in his individual policies.
BARTIROMO: Do you think he's the kind of guy to institute tariffs?
DALEY: Well, I think that's a serious question not only --
BARTIROMO: Do you think that's a threat?
DALEY: Well, it's a threat, but one learns in business, as Mr. Ross would know, you never threaten unless you're really willing to implement those directs. Because if someone calls your bluff, you better be willing to act.
And implementing tariffs is a major potential problem for our economy not just to punish someone else. So it's a threat but you better not make it unless you're willing to do it.
BARTIROMO: Give us the worst-case scenario. What if the U.S. puts a tariff, not 35 percent, some tariff on Chinese goods coming into the U.S.? What happens?
DALEY: It cost the American consumers more in the products. Over the long term, the theory is you will build up demand and you will build up production in the U.S. That's meanwhile your near-term it hurts. It hurts our government.
And we are in a global world and many of our companies the most successful and the largest and some of the largest employers are dependent upon that ability to make their product around the world and ship it not only to the U.S. but to other places.
And you can be assure if we do take those actions, other countries will do that --
BARTIROMO: And that's going to be trade war and that's the problem. Bill, let me turn to the democrats. We have a senior senate democrat source saying that the party is scrambling to prevent two of their members from taking a post in the Trump administration.
They've launched, "a full court press," to retain senators Joe Manchin and Heidi Heitkamp.
What does this say about the current state of democrat that these two actually are willing to give up their seat to join the Trump Train?
DALEY: Look, every administration tries to show bipartisanship by getting a member of the opposite party to be in the administration, whether it's President Obama with Ray LaHood's quit the congress to go in. Whether it was George Bush 43 with Norman Mineta at transportation. So that's an obvious thing that the vice presidents will do.
I think this belief that the Democratic Party is in somewhat chaos and remember four years ago after Mitt Romney won, people said the Republican Party was finished and had to do a whole redo. And every recommendation that Reince Priebus put forward basically Donald Trump didn't follow and he won the presidency.
BARTIROMO: But let me ask you, Bill. When you look at the fact that Ford is considering doing more jobs in the U.S. and doing the plant here as opposed to taking as many jobs to Mexico. Same thing with Carrier. Then you've got SoftBank investing $50 billion in the U.S. Then you've got more talk of companies trying to do -- IBM yesterday saying were going to invest in the U.S. 25,000 jobs.
People are scratching their heads and saying, how come Obama didn't pick up the phone and call Carrier? How come Obama didn't do all of these things?
DALEY: Well, first of all a new admission gets a lot of leeway coming in. OK. And some people would interpret and it remains to be seen how far the president-elect goes with this when he's president.
Some people will view that as a trap. OK. Now, Carrier which is owned by -- is part of a company that has large defense contracts. Some people thought that you get to the gray area where there's a bit of a trap by the president of the United States.
Now -- right now, everybody is enthusiastic about it. And it's good. But if a company honestly believes that in their interest, they should do manufacturing somewhere else because of their needs around the world. And you have a managed economy. That's what the Chinese do. We've never had that.
Now, I'm not saying that the president-elect wants to manage the economy, but he sure wants to be much more aggressive which most conservatives and most conservative economist would have said historically, that's not the right thing to do, as managing the economy. And that's a small example Carrier. It's only 800 jobs, which obviously if you are one of -- or I were one of the 800 that's important to be saved.
But if you take that pattern and you take it to every industry, that's a very different sort of world economically that we're getting into and I would prefer that most conservatives historically would not be for that sort of aggressiveness.
BARTIROMO: Well, he did. He did put out the tweets to Boeing and Lockheed Martin saying that their programs were too expensive. Is that a threat? Do you think he's threatening these companies?
DALEY: Behind that is obviously he's upset about the cost. Whether the $4 billion for airplane was the -- OK. If that's what the president's going to do as opposed to saying to the Pentagon to his new defense secretary, I want you to cut cost. We need to cut more cost out of not just those two programs but others. But he has to go to the hill then, where of these programs are funded by and deal with them.
BARTIROMO: Real quick before we go. They're going to cut taxes, corporate taxes to 15 percent. Is that going to work do you think?
DALEY: Well, it remains to be seen. And we'll see whether or not the deficit skyrockets which many people would be concerned about. I think it's good --
BARTIROMO: If it does work the questions are going to come out again. How come Obama didn't do it?
DALEY: Well, he didn't have a congress that would deal with them in many ways at all. It's a given fact as you know that the leadership eight years ago said our game plan is to do nothing so we can beat them in 12. And they thought --
BARTIROMO: Because he wanted to raise taxes though. Obama wanted to raise taxes.
DALEY: Well, remember -- one of the things the president-elect has right now going for him is a very strong economy coming into this. President Obama came in --
BARTIROMO: Well, we just got numbers yesterday that were very weak, retail sales were very weak. Wages haven't moved in 20 years.
DALEY: Maria, when President Obama came in office, there sales were 750,000 people losing their jobs a month.
BARTIROMO: Ten years later. Here we are 10 years later.
DALEY: Eight years later and it's very strong. And you've growth, you've got unemployment down to 4.6.
All I'm saying is when the president-elect is coming into office, he has a much different situation than what President Obama faced.
BARTIROMO: Bill, good to see you.
DALEY: Thank you. Bye-bye.
BARTIROMO: Thank you so much. Bill Daley. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Welcome back. We have breaking news. Our parent company 21st Century Fox announcing that it has reached a deal to acquire Sky for $14.6 billion. There is 21st Century Fox shares up three and two-thirds percent, 2802. We'll bring any new developments. We get them as the press release comes out.
New satellite imagery shows China is putting weapons on the controversial that it's built in the South China Sea. Cheryl Casone with the story now. Cheryl.
CASONE: Yes, Maria. So U.S. think tank says that satellite image shows anti-aircraft and ET missile systems on all seven of these artificial islands. You're looking at the images now. The findings contradict China's vow not to put any military equipment in the South China Sea.
The U.S. and its Asian allies are worried that Beijing plans to use the Island to take control of a shipping route that carries more than $5 trillion of world trade annually.
Well, do you remember that massive asteroid that was heading towards Earth from the movie Armageddon? Great movie, right? Well, NASA is now out with its own morning saying that if that were an actual threat, we would not be able to handle it.
A prominent researcher says it's only a matter of time before an asteroid or comet will bring major devastation to Earth. There was a close encounter back in '96 when a comet flew into Jupiter. And then again two years ago when another comet had a brush with Mars.
Well, Amazon's Prime Video is now expanding to more than 200 countries and territories for example, Canada, France and India. This comes after Netflix had its global launch back in January.
But China is still a challenge for both Amazon and Netflix, because the country has very strict policies and regulations on censorship. Monday, Amazon secured 11 Golden Globe nominations. We should say, including The Transparent and Mozart in the Jungle, as well its first movie. Manchester by the Sea, they're some big news for those companies today.
Well yesterday, Uber rolled out self-driving cars in San Francisco but the California DMV says the cars are illegal and they're threatening to sue Uber. The DMV says that Uber needs a special permit for the cars. But Uber says that since these self-driving cars are monitored, you've got a driver and an engineer in the front seat.
The cars are not full autonomous. Uber says about five of these vehicles are roaming San Francisco and it will add more in the coming weeks. We shall see if that argument continues between California and with Uber. And obviously, they're not perfect. Back to you.
BARTIROMO: NO, they're not and we've pointed that out many times. Cheryl, thank you.
Coming up next, turning anywhere into a vacation of your dreams. The pop- up hotels that could change the way you travel the world. That's next.
Plus, we've got Peter Kiernan and Governor Huckabee and Dagen McDowell right here on set. You don't want to miss a moment. Back in a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Blink and you might miss it. That's what the new service of Blink is saying about its pop-up hotels. Blink is making it possible to vacation anywhere in the world.
Joining us right now is Tom Marchant. He is the co-founder of Black Tomato. The company behind the Blink service.
Tom, good to you. Thanks so much for joining us.
TOM MARCHANT, CO-FOUNDER, BLACK TOMATO: Thanks for having me.
BARTIROMO: We've been talking about this, you know, creating your own vacation anywhere you want all over this morning, throughout the program. So explain how a pop-up hotel works.
MARCHANT: How does it work? It's our expert working with our clients to basically put together that dream hotel so can get (INAUDIBLE) we listen to some of our clients what they'd like to have in there. Everything from the bath products to the beddings, the layouts. And then most exciting maybe they decide where they want to put it around the world in somebody's most remote magical locations that people have been to if any before. So everything about the experience is totally personalized to the customer.
BARTIROMO: So for example, Blank is a temporary luxury accommodation service for outdoor enthusiast.
MARCHANT: Absolutely. It's some -- everyone needs it. It's unique when they're taking a vacation. So we thought a lot about this. What is really is unique. Everyone is looking for those moments, like, could I have my own private sunrise that no one else's have before. Or could I have that sunset or could I take a journey then it was done.
So if you can get people into their location in these beautiful (INAUDIBLE) structures that they've also had and say in how they're constructed, for us, it's really a true moment only that customer can own. So for us, that's what (INAUDIBLE) to produce blankets.
BARTIROMO: So you will be putting all of this up. Let's say, look, I want to go to the hills of wherever to go hiking, you will just take the whole hotel, pop-up hotel to where I want to be.
MARCHANT: We go to everything. That's the whole sort of aim of our (INAUDIBLE) and we do everything for the customers. So it starts from the saying, this is what I want to do or this is how I want to create the experience and then we get everyone working on it, putting everything together, putting in this locations and giving some of that remarkable experience.
BARTIROMO: That's pretty incredible. How expensive is it?
MARCHANT: It's not cheap. But great quality experiences don't come cheap sadly. So it's all about value then. So you can start from sort of $10,000 for great trips in the Sahara Desert in Northern Africa. See it's more expensive. It really depends on how (INAUDIBLE) you want to make it. But our big belief is if it's valued, and people really believe what they're getting from it then you can justify a more expensive price.
BARTIROMO: How are you putting a popup for example over the bathroom and kitchen areas? How do you --
MARCHANT: It's funny because I think sometimes people just forget how flexible and how innovative some of these structures are these days and how far they've come from the structures of old. So, yes, you can set up temporary showers, temporary bathrooms, temporary kitchens. The beauty of it is it is temporary. So we're not making any permanent imprint on the environment. There's no damage that environment (INAUDIBLE)
BARTIROMO: But you have to get deals done like with the countries that you're dealing with? I mean, Indonesia, Morocco, Canada, Bolivia, these are all some of the places that you've done pop-up hotels.
MARCHANT: Yes. And all of this needs to be worked with the local authorities (INAUDIBLE) it certainly not the kind of just pick a place and you'll stick (INAUDIBLE) but it's not working to be local supplies and local authorities (INAUDIBLE) what you can do and where you can go. Unfortunately for us there are many, many places you can take these places (INAUDIBLE) a few people have done before and it gives someone that a perfect experience.
BARTIROMO: Very cool stuff. Black Tomato is the name of the company. Check it out. Tom, good to see you.
MARCHANT: Thanks so much.
BARTIROMO: Thank you so much for joining us. Tom Marchant joining us there.
Coming up next, the European vacation that won't cost you a fortune. How Norwegian Air Shuttle gets you to Europe for just $69? That's in the next hour Mornings with Maria. Back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Good Thursday morning, everybody. Thanks so much for being with us. Welcome back. I'm Maria Bartiromo. And it is Thursday December 15. Your top stories 8:00 A.M. on the East Coast right now.
A meeting of the minds. President-elect Donald Trump sat down with the country's leadership in technology with jobs, among the top issue on the agenda.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT: I want to add that I'm here to help you folks do well. And you're doing well right now. And I'm very honored by the bounce. They're all talking about the bounce. So right now everybody in this room has to like me at least a little bit. We're going to make fair trade deals we would make it a lot easier for you to trade.
GOV. MIKE PENCE (R-IN), VICE PRESIDENT-ELECT: The momentum and the pace of this transition will continue forward all the way into the holidays as we assemble a team that will make America again starting January 20th.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: We are taking a closer look at that meeting coming up.
A deep freeze sets in across the country. Dangerously cold temperatures affecting 100 million Americans, from the Pacific Northwest all the way to New England. The forecast coming up right now.
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