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Published January 26, 2017
This is a rush transcript from "Sunday Morning Futures," March 29, 2015. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
MARIA BARTIROMO, HOST: Good morning. A unified call for peace in Yemen. Hi, everyone. I'm Maria Bartiromo. Welcome to "Sunday Morning Futures."
Leaders in the Middle East agreeing to create a joint army, calling for Iranian-backed rebels to put down their weapons and leave the country. A four-star general on our involvement in the fight and its impact on new talks with Iran.
Plus, Ohio Governor John Kasich fighting for Congress to balance its books while facing questions about a run for the White House. We will talk with him, get his thoughts on a potential stake in the 2016 race.
And coding creating some of the most sought-after jobs in the country right now. The CEO of industry leader Codecademy will be with me, explaining why it's become so popular, as we look ahead on "Sunday Morning Futures."
Arab leaders in the Middle East declaring that air strikes in the war- torn country of Yemen will continue until the rebels are rooted out for good. The Saudi-led effort began earlier this week after Iranian-backed Houthi rebels who already controlled the capital started advancing south near a strategic waterway.
Here's a look at the countries now joining the force against those rebels, up to eight Arab states now involved in this effort to fight back. General Jack Keane is a retired four-star general. He is chairman of the Institute for the Study of War, former vice chief of staff of the Army, and a Fox News military analyst.
Good to see you, sir. Thanks so much for joining us.
GEN. JACK KEANE, FOX NEWS MILITARY ANALYST: Glad to be here, Maria.
BARTIROMO: How would you observe what's taken place in the last 24 hours in Yemen?
KEANE: Well, it's pretty significant. There's a strategic shift in the balance of power in the Middle East taking place, certainly, by Iran and also by the radical Islamists. And the Saudis and others in the region have had great concern about this from 2006 in Lebanon to 2009 when we began disengaging from Iraq politically, then militarily in 2011. In 2012, when the Iranians propped up the Assad regime when they were losing to the moderate rebels, and now here we are in Yemen. The Saudis and others have decided to stop it right here. They have crossed -- they have drawn a line and said no more. So this is very significant.
BARTIROMO: So -- so what should the U.S.'s response be right now?
KEANE: Well, frankly, Maria, the U.S. has contributed to this. Because we, as an unstated policy, began disengaging from the Middle East almost at the inception of President Obama's administration back in 2009. And one policy decision after another has really encouraged the Iranians and certainly encouraged the radical Islamists to fill a vacuum.
Our security is actually threatened by this situation in Yemen. Because AQAP, which is the Al Qaida affiliate who has been designed to conduct out-of-region operations against the United States and the West -- they succeeded in Paris. They failed in the United States. This chaos contributes to their growth and development. And we're doing nothing to stop them.
BARTIROMO: General, a lot to talk about with you this morning, in particular Iran, as well, as we approach that Tuesday deadline for the nuclear talks. So stay with us. We've got to get to that. But first, we want to bring you these new details about that Arab-led effort against that rebellion backed by Iran in Yemen.
Fox News senior correspondent Eric Shawn with that angle. Good morning to you, Eric.
ERIC SHAWN, FOX NEWS: Good morning, Maria.
And good morning, everyone. The Iranians boast they have already won at the nuclear negotiations. But on other fronts, they are besieged. Some worry the expanding military operations in the Middle East could eventually lead to an Iranian Shiite versus Arab Sunni war. It is a religious split in Islam that dates back centuries, Shiite versus Sunni. And now, with Iranian-backed Shiite militias and militant groups gaining ground, Arab nations are fighting back against a mixture of complicated interests.
You know, after Jordan, Egypt and the UAE bombed ISIS training camps and fighters in Syria and Libya, Arab attention is turning to the Iranian- backed threat, and Yemen, Egypt, teaming up with Saudi Arabia in the kingdom's air strikes and pending ground troop invasion against those Iranian-backed Houthis who are trying to take over that country.
At this weekend's Arab League meeting, Arab states proposed to go much further, creating that unified Arab military force of hundreds of thousands of troops to potentially face Islamic extremist threats throughout the Mideast.
Tehran's opponents say it's about time. The leader of the largest opposition group, Maryam Rajavi of the National Council of Resistance of Iran said, quote, "This legitimate and just defense should be expanded throughout the region to Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere. The religious dictatorship ruling Iran and its mercenaries should be evicted from these countries."
But others are not so sure.
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SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, R-S.C.: One of my biggest concerns about leading from behind is coming true, that the vacuum created by America's failure to lead in the Mideast is setting in motion a calamity that could result in a blood-letting between Sunnis and Shias that we haven't seen in 1,000 years.
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SHAWN: Well, despite the unified opposition to Iran's moves, one of Iran's top strategists told the New York Times, quote, "We are at the peak of power."
Tehran surely intends to maintain that, even in the face of a potential of new and large Arab force meant to blunt the growing and troubling Iranian influence. Maria?
BARTIROMO: All right, Eric. Thanks very much. Eric Shawn with the latest there.
We are back with General Jack Keane this morning
And, General, you heard Eric's report. There's all of that right now in addition to the uncertainty around Afghanistan. I know you met with the president of Afghanistan in your own meeting last week, the president deciding to leave or extend some of our troops there but continues to say he's pulling all the troops out of Afghanistan by the end of 2016. What went on? And what did you learn from the president of Afghanistan this week?
KEANE: Well, certainly, Ashraf Ghani is a transformational reform leader that we have not seen in Afghanistan since the -- we deposed the Taliban and Karzai has been the leader all this time. He's pro-West, pro- American and truly wants to govern the entire nation and be politically inclusive. That's a good thing.
So, politically, Afghanistan is making the most progress it has ever made. However, as you pointed out, from a security situation, it is still a fragile situation at best. And we could still lose Afghanistan. We cannot pull all of our troops out after 2016 and make the same mistake that we did in Iraq. And we cannot stop funding the Afghan security forces after 2017, which makes no sense. They don't have the money themselves. They're not like Iraqis. We have to help them with that.
And we should continue that at least to 2020. But we've got to keep our troops there, even though it's a small number, to be able to go after the Taliban leadership and have political leverage as a result of that after 2016.
BARTIROMO: I mean, can the president say that, then, that he's going to pull everybody out by the end of 2016?
KEANE: He has not changed his policy. He's permitting 5,000 more troops to stay at the end of this year, into 2016. And the policy to pull all of the troops out is still there. I'm convinced Ashraf Ghani will reengage with the president some time later this year, I would suspect, and make a plea with him to keep those troops there post-2016. It's absolutely essential that -- that we do this. We cannot make an arbitrary withdrawal date like we did in Iraq and just dismiss the conditions on the ground.
BARTIROMO: And of course, we all know and talk about it everyday, what has happened since those Iraqi forces were removed, the U.S. forces were removed from Iraq, and of course enabling ISIS to get as strong as it has.
Let me ask you about this complicated situation we find ourselves in where we are talking with Iran over the nuclear ambitions. That deadline is this Tuesday. We're supposed to see a preliminary framework of a deal between Iran and America and the other five countries, while the fighting is going on in Yemen, where the Iranians say, if the Saudi effort continues, there will be more bloodshed.
KEANE: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this is the major foreign policy initiative of the administration. And that is some rapprochement with the Iranians. The nuclear discussions and potential deal is certainly the centerpiece of that.
And because that is such a major initiative for the administration and for the president personally, it has trumped everything else. It has trumped our relationship with our Sunni Arab friends in the region; it has trumped our behavior in Syria, not assisting the rebels. It has trumped the fact that we -- we waited eight months before we assisted the Iraqis while the Iranians began assisting them on day one, when ISIS invaded Iraq in January 2014.
So this initiative has clearly enabled some of the chaos and upheaval we see in the Middle East. And I'm afraid, as everyone is reporting who has insight, we're heading to a lousy deal on top of it all. BARTIROMO: Well, do you think we'll get a deal, a framework, in place by Tuesday?
KEANE: I doubt if we'll have something by Tuesday. The deadline actually -- the final deadline is 30 June. So I think we may have some general framework but without all the specifics, and then kick this can down the road, which Iran wants to do. Listen, as long as we're negotiating with Iran, nobody is ever going to conduct a military strike against them. And they also -- because they were willing to negotiate, guess what we did? We rolled back some of the sanctions before we ever made a deal.
BARTIROMO: Right.
KEANE: So this is all to their advantage.
BARTIROMO: Right, exactly. They'd like the sanctions lifted, obviously, as soon as possible.
General, good to have you on the program. Thanks so much.
KEANE: Good talking, as always, Maria.
BARTIROMO: General Jack Keane, there.
The governor of Ohio closing a massive budget shortfall in his state and now he's asking Washington to do the same. Just ahead, John Kasich is with me on balancing budgets and his thoughts on a run for the White House. I hope you'll follow me on Twitter @MariaBartiromo, @SundayFutures.
Stay with us as we look ahead on "Sunday Morning Futures" today.
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BARTIROMO: Ohio governor taking his message of fiscal responsibility on the road this past week. Potential 2016 candidate John Kasich telling voters in New Hampshire he's just a regular guy with a big job. Governor Kasich already closing an $8 billion budget shortfall in Ohio now pushing for fiscal responsibility in Washington.
The governor joins me now to tell us how he did it.
Governor, good to have you on the show.
GOV. JOHN KASICH, R-OHIO: You know, you're a big star, Maria. I love being with you here.
BARTIROMO: Thank you. Thank you so much.
So let's talk about how you closed that budget shortfall in Ohio and why it seems so tough to do on a national level.
KASICH: The first thing is, why don't we stop playing politics and taking polls and just go and reinvent government. And that's what we really ought to do at the federal level.
We used to have these things called the little Hoover commissions where they got business people, they got paid a dollar a year to go and work with government people, to grind out waste and reinvent the government. I think we need to do it again more than ever.
What we did is we forgot politics and we fixed things and now running a $2 billion surplus, but we didn't let politics get in the way. As a result of that, not only are we balanced in eliminating that $8 billion hole, we're also $2 billion in the black and we've cut taxes by $3 billion, the largest tax cuts in America. Tax cuts are important because if you have a restaurant that's losing money, if you can lower your prices, you can get more customers. And that's the way we think about it.
BARTIROMO: Tell me about that. Because that's always the fight. The Republicans do not want to raise taxes. And it seems that the president wants to continue looking at that as a way to raise revenue.
KASICH: Well, in '97 I was chairman of the Budget Committee when we balanced the budget the first time man since walked on the moon. And we had a capital gains tax cut. What we found is when we cut capital gains it produced more revenue.
That's how we got to the balanced budget sooner. When I left Washington after 2000, we had a $5 trillion surplus. And then you can't believe who blew it: the Republicans, House and Senate and the president. And they blew a $5 trillion surplus.
That's why I'm pushing a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. We're now up to 27 states. There's been three that have signed on since I've been on my little tour.
Maria, presidents come and go and the debt gets higher and higher and higher. I know we can change the culture of Washington if we can lock them into a balanced budget. Exceptions in time of war and economic calamity. We can make exceptions, we can do this over time. But it will impose a discipline on Congress.
If I didn't have a balanced budget requirement in Ohio, my budget wouldn't be balanced.
I'm telling you the politicians would evade and avoid making decisions because the interest groups would pressure them into this program and that program. That's what happens in Washington. They're not frankly putting the country first. There's lots of excuses as to why we can't do this or change that.
But at the end of the day, our kids are going to pay the price for this debt. This debt is eating away the fabric of America.
BARTIROMO: So let me ask you what you would do in the face of what we're talking about with Iran.
What would a deal look like that's appropriate in your mind?
KASICH: First of all, what I hope -- a given is any agreement with Iran should be taken to Congress, should be closely reviewed. I'm not so much into trusting them. So I would have to look at exactly what the agreement is.
The idea though that the president may go to the United Nations and skirt Congress, that's really a bad, bad idea. In terms of the centrifuges and all that, I don't want to get into all the details of that. We don't want to be in a position where they're in a position to start something within a year. I think it 's a bad idea and I'll tell you why: I worry about proliferation, of weapons of mass destruction, I worry about the proliferation of this nuclear material that can be sent to non-state actors like Al Qaeda, like ISIS, like any of these radicals out there.
So we've got to be careful that we don't march down a road where they acquire a nuclear weapon or where this material is available. These are tough negotiations. We have to keep the sanctions on.
I think Netanyahu said it best. Iran needs to change their attitude, they have to stop talking about destroying Israel and that we're the great Satan in the world.
How do you do a deal with somebody that says I want to wipe out one of your friends?
So this has to be slowed down, it has to be given to the Congress. And we'll see where we are. Maybe they won't reach an agreement. We'll have to see.
BARTIROMO: And yet the president has gone around Congress in terms of Iran and ObamaCare, Cuba.
Tell me about the governors taking control of their state. You've done it in Ohio, even with this brushstroke attitude when it comes to health care, immigration and so many other issues that the president has gone it alone.
KASICH: Well, I have to work with the legislature. In most cases, I have to be -- and I can do executive orders once in a while. But you have to be careful that you are running around the legislature because that's your board of directors and you have to work with them. Doesn't mean you cave into them. But it means there's compromise. It means you have to have a vision.
BARTIROMO: A lot of speculation around you.
What are you going to do?
And you going to throw your hat in the ring for 2016?
KASICH: I haven't been wearing a hat lately. I don't really know. All options are on the table. Running for president -- I've been around for a long time -- is a sobering thought. The question is, in many ways, my family, my friends.
In a funny sort of way, not funny but real, what does the Lord want me to do with my life?
And I've got to figure that out. I don't know it yet. I haven't figured it out. But I'm traveling all over the place, actually having some fun doing it. It's a lot different, Maria. Let me tell you, back in -- 16 years ago I went to New Hampshire and I thought I could be president. And I was standing in this kitchen with this lady and we're carrying on this great conversation.
Then she looks at her watch and she says, "When is the candidate going to get here?"
I went to New Hampshire this week and it was completely different. So it's interesting.
BARTIROMO: You feel you're ready now?
You weren't ready then?
KASICH: I probably wasn't ready back then. But I think being a governor, meeting all the challenges and growing the economy and helping Ohio get on its feet and helping people who live in the shadows and giving people sense they can all be included it's something that people need to look at because I think it's good for America whether I run or not.
BARTIROMO: Governor, we'll be watching your developments. Thank you so much for joining us.
KASICH: Thanks. Thank you.
BARTIROMO: Appreciate it. Governor John Kasich, there.
Coming up, are salaries going up? Retail giants Wal-Mart and Target raising the minimum wage. But are they also raising the bar for other industries? Why other employers will have to keep up, as we look ahead on "Sunday Morning Futures."
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BARTIROMO: Welcome back. More than 2,000 workers getting laid off as U.S. Steel gets ready to shut down one of its Illinois plants temporarily. The steel giant says it's cutting back because demand is going down. But that's a lot of jobs in a state with a 6 percent unemployment rate already.
Joining me right now is Philip Jennings. He is general secretary for UNI Global Union. And you have been called a global warrior when it comes to the worker today.
Good to see you, Philip.
PHILIP JENNINGS, UNI GLOBAL UNION: Hi. Thank you.
BARTIROMO: Thank you so much for joining us.
So let's talk about this because U.S. steel is an industry that is obviously suffering because commodities prices are plummeting. We just had a strike, the Steelworkers union striking because oil prices have plummeted and they have to cut back on CAPEX. What is the average worker today feeling in terms of seeing the new normal of -- of work?
JENNINGS: The average worker feels that the economy is not working for them. The average worker believes that the political system is not working for them. And they feel like they're getting the shaft. If we look at one of the issues that faces all of the major G-20 economies is still a lack of demand.
Why is there a lack of demand? Why is there a lack of investment? Because there's not enough money going into workers's pockets. The share of wages that's going to working people is at a post-War low. This is not sustainable. And this means that we have to find ways of putting consumption back into worker's pockets to tilt the balance.
I have to say the world of business has done remarkably well in recent times. The leaders of business have done remarkably well in -- over these last three decades. America is paying a price for the assault on unions and the assault on workers' rights in this country.
BARTIROMO: There has been...
JENNINGS: And that's why they're angry and frustrated.
BARTIROMO: There has been this shift to shareholders. In other words, large shareholders want change at companies. They want more efficiencies; they want cutbacks in CAPEX. They want cutbacks in jobs. Are you aware that the people who are running the pension funds, the largest pension funds in the world, are the ones calling for job cuts? These are your pensions that you're going to be retiring on. Those are the managers of those monies calling for the cuts in jobs?
JENNINGS: When we're talking with our pensions and pension funds monies, we tell them about the need for long-term investment, to look at infrastructure and not to follow the example of others of just being -- not just short-term, nanosecond short-term. We need to rethink this business model of ours. We have huge issues in front of us, a technological revolution, a climate change revolution. And that model of shareholder activism and being a business which is only in the interest of business is not sustainable and it won't work.
The working people of those businesses have not been rewarded for their efforts. They've been -- the reward that they've received has stayed stagnant since 1979.
BARTIROMO: But, Philip...
JENNINGS: This is the land of the American dream, Maria, and it's not working.
BARTIROMO: It's the land of American dream, but it's also a new normal. You've got robotics taking over jobs. You've got technology virtually changing every industry. We're about to sit down with...
JENNINGS: Why do I have to accept this new normal?
Should American working people...
BARTIROMO: Because it's reality.
JENNINGS: No, no...
BARTIROMO: Zach Sims is about to come on set to sit where you are. He's going to tell us about his Codecademy where they're teaching students the skill sets that they need for the jobs that are available in technology.
JENNINGS: Excellent. That's what we need to do more of.
We -- governments are spending less than 1 percent of their income on active labor market policies. Governments and business are doing a poor job preparing future generations for that new world of work out there.
Maria, don't accept this new normal. That is a choice and a judgment being made. The new normal should be where working people feel the benefits, that they are contributing to a business, that they have a living wage.
What's the new normal? What's the acceptability of a new normal when one in four of Americans are living below the poverty level? That's not a new normal. That's an unacceptable normal. And it's got to change.
BARTIROMO: What kind of...
JENNINGS: You'll face problems of social cohesion and social unrest.
BARTIROMO: And it's getting worse.
JENNINGS: Even people out there in the hedge funds and the private equity world -- they talk about pitchforks; they talk about social unrest. This new normal has seeds of destruction within it. Things have to change.
BARTIROMO: What -- how should they change? What can policy change? How should policy change in order to do this?
I mean, the unions got around President Obama and got him in office. Did he let you down?
JENNINGS: We wanted the chance to breathe. We need the chance to breathe. American labor needs a chance to breathe. And I know from the work that we do day in, day out, when I go into workplaces and organizers go into workplaces and American citizens stand up and declare their right to join a union, or want to join a union, they are faced with an avalanche of protests, an avalanche of unfairness, victimization and vilification.
If you give us the chance to breathe -- and it's our appeal to President Obama -- I think he sees it -- we came close on the Employee Free Choice Act, which would have been able to...
BARTIROMO: But it didn't move?
JENNINGS: It didn't work out because the balance of power didn't help us at that particular time. The American labor movement needs to breathe once again.
Policymakers are waking up to this. It's not just me. The IMF, the World Bank, the OECD, the World Economic Forum and others are saying that we have to rethink the role of labor once again. We have to rethink the role that minimum wages play, rethink what a living wage is and give unions the right to negotiate to give workers a voice on the job, a seat at the place of work, to try and get a fairer deal at the place of work. That would be a good new normal.
BARTIROMO: All right. We'll be watching that.
Philip, good to have you on the program today. Thank you so much.
JENNINGS: Thank you.
BARTIROMO: Philip Jennings, joining us there, UNI Global.
So where are the jobs? One area that is rich in jobs is called coding. What is it? How do you position yourself in this economy for that new normal? We will talk with the CEO of a major technology company, the founder of Codecademy, when we look ahead, next, on "Sunday Morning Futures."
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SHAWN: From "America's News Headquarters," I'm Eric Shawn. Here are some of the other stories that are making headlines at this hour. A frightening, hard crash landing for passengers on an Air Canada airbus, 25 passengers sustaining minor injuries after that airliner made a, quote, "abrupt" landing in Halifax. Apparently the aircraft touched down hard in stormy weather and then skidded off the runway. The airport is tweeting that it's thankful there were no serious injuries.
Tunisia's prime minister saying the leading suspect in this month's deadly museum terrorist attack there has been killed. The suspect apparently targeted overnight in an operation near Tunisia's border with Algeria. Twenty-two people, mainly foreign tourists, and two gunmen died in the March 18th attack that occurred at the National Bardo Museum. Today's news of that suspect's death comes as tens of thousands of people and several world leaders are gathering in Tunisia's capital to denounce extremist violence.
And I'll be back with Arthel Neville at noon Eastern with more news. Then the doctors will be in. Doctors Siegel and Samadi, as always, join us for "Sunday Housecall" at 12:30 Eastern, two hours from now. For now, I'm Eric Shawn, and back to "Sunday Morning Futures" and Maria.
BARTIROMO: Thank you, Eric. It is the one skill that many educators say today's students will need to make it in tomorrow's economy. It's called coding. The so-called backbone of the technology industry, coding, or computer programming, is now one of the most coveted skills by employers and in some cases has even become a government mandate.
Zach Sims is the co-founder and CEO of Codecademy, a company whose business model is based on that idea that everybody can and should learn how to code.
Zach, it's great to have you on the show today.
ZACH SIMS, CODEACADEMY: Thank you for having me.
BARTIROMO: Thank you so much for joining us.
So, first, explain what coding is and why it's so popular.
SIMS: So programming is the art of instructing a computer to do something. And so what we see in the modern world is that everything we do is starting to be powered more and more by technology. And so coding is a way of creating the programs that help to build many of the things in our lives.
BARTIROMO: It makes perfect sense. Because we've got this explosion in data. It needs to be organized. It needs to be mined. And, increasingly, companies are seeing their industries change as a result of technology.
SIMS: Exactly. I think we like to believe that every industry is being underpinned more and more by software, whether it's journalism, whether it's law, whether it's farming. And so more and more people will need to understand how these industries work and are being disrupted.
BARTIROMO: Explain to us Codecademy. What exactly are you doing?
SIMS: So Codecademy teaches anyone, anywhere in the world, online, basics of programming and then the skills they need to find jobs with programming. So all interactive, in a really fun and engaging way, where you're building something that actually connects to what will help you find a job.
BARTIROMO: How tough is it to learn how to code?
SIMS: So I think starting to learn to program is very simple. Especially on Codecademy, it's super-simple to sign up. And you're building things interactively. So it's project-based and it's a lot of fun.
BARTIROMO: Now, what I find mostly, is when I speak with managers of businesses, CEOs, they always say "We have jobs to offer. We have a lot of openings, but we cannot find the people that actually have those skill sets that we need. Because we're not learning how to do things like coding enough."
SIMS: It's definitely one of the biggest problems, I think, that the economy is facing now, is this huge mismatch between labor and education. And the problem is not getting any better.
BARTIROMO: So -- so what do you think needs to be done, other than going to Codecademy, obviously? How do we get this kind of skill set more prevalent out there?
SIMS: So I think a decreased reliance on credentials and formal educational institutions. So we're not the only resource that's out there that people can go to, to learn skills for jobs. But the problem is that a lot of employers aren't looking in the right places for those people. They're looking exclusively at universities.
BARTIROMO: So what happened to you? You were at Columbia and you left?
SIMS: So I was at Columbia and I left after my junior year and started the company.
BARTIROMO: You dropped out?
SIMS: Yes.
BARTIROMO: And so why did you feel that you wanted to drop out? You weren't getting enough from an education at Columbia?
SIMS: So what I was realizing was I was spending the nights and weekends working on projects that were just very different from what I was learning while I was in college. And the mismatch between those two things was -- gave rise to a lot of dissonance and I decided that, really, in order to help other people learn skills, we need to create a newer kind of educational institution.
BARTIROMO: Where are the jobs, and in what industries, right now, where employers are in fact looking for this kind of skill set?
SIMS: So I think I'm a little biased, obviously, but by 2020, in the U.S., there will be 1 million open job positions that we won't be able to fill with the amount of programmers that we're graduating today.
BARTIROMO: I read that, that 1 million jobs will go unfulfilled.
SIMS: Correct -- in this country alone, and we're just not graduating enough people with the skill set. And it's not just people that work in technology companies but it's people that work at retailers like Target. It's people that work all -- you know, in different industries that are being affected by technology.
BARTIROMO: Because, when you think about what has gone on, I mean, Target had a -- a breach. JPMorgan had a breach. So there's the whole cyber threat that's also involved here...
SIMS: Exactly.
BARTIROMO: ... that companies are scared that they need to be protected and have the people who understand the technology in order to fight back.
SIMS: Exactly. And I think that's why almost every company is looking to hire people with a skill set like this.
BARTIROMO: Is this a higher-paying job? Once you know how to code, are you getting higher salaries?
SIMS: Absolutely. I think one of the things that we try to aspire to do is give everyone the ability to raise their salary by learning to program. And pretty much any industry will pay you more if you have a skill like this one. BARTIROMO: And you've got how many members -- or how many users right now?
SIMS: I think more than 25 million people around the world have taken courses on Codecademy.
BARTIROMO: That is fantastic. Zach, good to have you on the show today.
SIMS: Thank you.
BARTIROMO: We'll be watching. Thanks so much. Codecademy -- Zach Sims is the co-founder and CEO.
Let's get a look at what's coming up at the top of the hour on "Media Buzz." Howard Kurtz is joining me now. Howie, good morning to you.
KURTZ: Hi, Maria. Well, Ted Cruz says the media are portraying him as crazy. We'll look at whether the coverage of his presidential campaign kickoff has been fair. We're also going to examine the reporting on the Bowe Bergdahl case. And Jon Stewart finally says Fox News was right about something. But he still manages to make fun of Megyn Kelly and me. I'm going to have a little response for Mr. Stewart.
BARTIROMO: Oh, I want to hear your response on that one.
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All right, Howie. We'll see you in about 20 minutes. Thank you.
A framework nuke deal with Iran could be less than 72 hours away. Will we actually see something by Tuesday? Nothing is done yet, as world leaders try to work out the final details. Our panel is next. We're looking ahead on "Sunday Morning Futures." Stay with us on 2016 from the panel.
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BARTIROMO: Welcome back.
We have new information just crossing the wires on Iran.
The U.S. may accept pushing back the uranium enrichment standards for Iran. But the U.S. is also pushing back on the idea of technology that Iran uses to in fact produce uranium. We're going to talk about the breaking news in a second because new compromises have been announced in the Iran nuclear talks.
We are just two days from the U.S. deadline for a preliminary deal. We're expected to have some kind of a framework on Tuesday. But now Iran is apparently agreeing to accept fewer than 6,000 nuclear centrifuges and send most of its enriched uranium to be stored in Russia. Now the West could let Iran enrich limited amounts of uranium for medical purposes. The U.S. is saying.
We want to bring in our panel on this, Ed Rollins is former principle White House advisor to President Reagan. He has been a long-time strategist to business and political leaders. He is a FOX News political analyst.
Judith Miller is adjunct fellow at The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. She's a Pulitzer Prize winning author and journalist and a FOX News contributor.
Fred Lane is the founder and managing partner of Lane Generational.
We are talking about the impact on the country as well as our money.
Ed, good to talk with you, let me kick off with you and ask your thoughts on this latest headline out of Iran.
ED ROLLINS, POLITICAL CAMPAIGN STRATEGIST: Well, the bottom line is these are bad guys. Every trouble spot in the world in that Middle East, they're behind the scenes. Why we're going in and basically saying to them, you can have a nuclear weapon. May take you a little longer to get it on our terms, they're not agreeing to anything; they're not giving up anything. And I think it's a very, very bad deal.
BARTIROMO: But it looks like this most recent development says, Judy, that the U.S. is saying, OK, you will continue your enrichment of uranium. But -- and we'll accept that as part of the agreement to lift the sanctions.
I mean, this is --
JUDITH MILLER, AUTHOR AND JOURNALIST: Well, Maria, we've accepted that principle before. And that's one of the problems that Bibi Netanyahu and Israel has had with our negotiating position.
We still don't know how this is going to come out. But right now it looks like it's Iran that's having second thoughts because they don't want a written agreement this time. They want kind of vague statement of principles; we want something on paper that's agreed to before Tuesday. I'm not sure we're going to get there.
BARTIROMO: Yes, it doesn't look like a deal is going to happen by Tuesday.
How could it, Fred Lane?
FRED LANE, RAYMOND JAMES: Well, I don't -- it could happen because as usual have a nice compromise. We'll be kicking the can down the road. To me, it's just emboldening Iran to take more and more extreme positions and also to basically not live up to these agreements anyway.
BARTIROMO: And the situation the in Yemen is quite complicated because Iran has said there will be more bloodshed if the Saudi-led efforts continue.
ROLLINS: There's just absolute chaos everywhere. When you get to the bottom line, they're behind all of this. It's like negotiating -- they don't rob the city bank but you can rob all the neighbors in between. They're just bad guys. We need to treat them as bad guys.
MILLER: Now I think Iran is separating out its nuclear talks from its broader interests. For them, the nuclear piece is just one part of their effort to expand their influence in the region.
The question for me is, will this agreement enable them to advance that goal or will it set them back? In other words, will this nuclear agreement, if it's reached, delay Iran's bomb program or will it pave the way to the bombs program?
But Iran plays chess on a lot of different levels. This is just one area they're operating.
ROLLINS: But as you know, this war is going to go on for 10, 20, 30 years. You're giving them the option of getting the most important weapon in the world.
MILLER: What's the alternative, Ed?
ROLLINS: The alternative is to keep putting pressures on them and make them behave a little bit. If they don't behave, then obviously they could face consequences.
MILLER: But if our allies like this deal --
ROLLINS: -- allies. The allies that are in the Middle east, the Saudis, the Egyptians, our friends there, are the ones who basically have to live with it.
Letting the Russians guard the nuclear --
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BARTIROMO: That sounds really scary to me. Having the Russians to guard --
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MILLER: Getting the nuclear material out of Iran is a very good thing. It would be a very important step if we could do it.
BARTIROMO: This has certainly put a fire on the oil market certainly. Then the whole idea that we could see any disruption coming out of the Middle East has sent oil prices back up.
LANE: It's playing right into the hands of the oil bowls. I think I was on this show. I was on a FOX Business News show with you about two months ago. I made the comment that I thought there were factions, there are groups who wanted the oil higher again, Russia being prime. And that Putin, thug that he is -- I think I used that term -- was going to create unrest.
I think it's going to happen anyway. There's so much sectarian difference and conflict in the Middle East that I think, as Ed said, this is not a 10-month or two-year situation. This is a maybe multigenerational as it has been. And I think will continue to be. These national borders mean nothing.
BARTIROMO: Meanwhile we have breaking news on Hillary Clinton's email story. We'll take a short break. We want to talk about Senator Ted Cruz announcing his plans for president last week, making him the first Republican inn the field. But a whole slew of 2016 hopefuls appear to be prepping their speeches. Our panel on that as well as the latest on the email scandal around Hillary Clinton.
That's next as we look ahead on "Sunday Morning Futures".
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BARTIROMO: Back with our panel. Ed Rollins, Judy Miller, Fred Lane. This morning, Judy, let's talk about Hillary Clinton and what we've learned this last couple of days what we've learned on the e-mail scandal. What have you got?
MILLER: Right, well, Pro Publica had a story by Jeff Girth (ph) that basically said that Tyler Drumheller, who was a covert CIA guy, was kind of running a little operation in Libya, and that Sydney Blumenthal, who is her long-term aide, was reporting back on that private email to her, about what was going on in Libya.
Now, I don't know whether or not Trey Gowdy's committee has those e- mails, but this is part of what we were worried about when we were looking at Hillary Clinton doing government business on a private e-mail. This story just popped up.
BARTIROMO: And now apparently the server they're saying has been wiped clean. Ed, how is it possible that she's actually not just disqualified herself? I wiped my server clean, I deleted all these e- mails. I'm using a different system than everybody else in government. So you know--
ROLLINS: The Clintons have never wanted to play by anybody else's rules and they've gotten away with it for a long time. They may not get away with this, because this is very, very serious, and just as we found at the IRS, there is a way of going back and getting everything. It's kind of an amateur operation, how they put these emails together, and my sense with all the subpoena power that the Congress has, and the guy who may be the big guy to go and get this is Grassley, the chairman of Judiciary Committee in the Senate. It may be more him chasing after it. He's got the State Department first, and my sense is he's a big player and he's respected.
BARTIROMO: From an investment standpoint, markets have not begun to focus on 2016.
LANE: No.
BARTIROMO: Is that going to be a theme this year for investing?
LANE: When there is more clarity, there could be. I think the desire will be to have someone if -- we need someone elected who is a centrist. We need a centrist. Frankly having a Democrat who is a centrist wouldn't be all bad, because it does perpetuate a logjam, which you know, frankly, I think if you're in favor of a small government, a Democratic president would be a good thing. As opposed to be a bad thing.
BARTIROMO: Who is that?
LANE: Well, it looks like right now Hillary Clinton or maybe Ed was talking about off camera, maybe John Kerry steps into the breach. I don't see either one of them being elected.
BARTIROMO: What do you think?
LANE: I think Hillary gets elected personally.
ROLLINS: I don't think she gets elected. I think she may still be strong for the nomination, but I think a lot of Democrats are having second thoughts about this. They are wondering where this goes. It's sort of unraveling, and at the end of the day here, Kerry is talking to people, Biden obviously has always been prepared in case something happened there. So you could end up with a Biden/Kerry game plan, which would be the best news for Republicans.
BARTIROMO: And how would you navigate or assess the current field on the Republican side? Now obviously Ted Cruz is the only one who's in officially, but we know Jeb Bush is out there. Marco Rubio may be announcing tomorrow.
ROLLINS: There's going to be a number of candidates, and the gentleman you just had on your air, John Kasich, is a very important player if he chooses to get in. He's taking his time to get in, and if he gets in now. The critical thing, not these early states, not the Iowas, the New Hampshires, as they traditionally have been. March 1 is Texas. March 15th, 99 delegates winner-take-all. 130 delegates in those first four states and 99 is either Jeb or Rubio. And however wins that -- if Jeb loses Florida, his home state, he gets really diminished.
BARTIROMO: Florida is critical. Let's take a short break and get to the one thing to watch for the week ahead on Sunday Morning Futures. Our panel with what's most important to them, next.
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BARTIROMO: We're back with our panel with a busy week ahead. The one big thing to watch in the week ahead. Ed Rollins.
ROLLINS: I'm watching mainstream media to see if they follow up on this email Hillary crisis. Certainly two weeks now, Congress is back, they will start picking it up. But next two weeks, a lot of stories out there, a lot of reporters looking at it.
BARTIROMO: It is pretty extraordinary that we have not seen it. It's only on Fox. Unbelievable, what a disgrace. What do you think, Judy?
MILLER: What a disgrace. Where are the mainstream media? I of course am watching Iran for two reasons. One, not only the nuclear agreement, will there be one, or will they kick the can down the road until the end of June, but also I am watching see whether or not the Iranians respond to the Saudi overture on Yemen, the Saudi determination to do whatever it takes to keep Yemen out of their hands.
BARTIROMO: Fred Lane, we got the jobs number next week. Important for the markets?
LANE: Important for the market, I think wage growth is more important for the markets. As Phil Jennings was speaking passionately about earlier in this show with you, I think it's really important that we start to focus on the disproportionate sharing of the largess of corporate profitability between the worker and top management. There is too much of a gulf, too much of a guide. And we're killing the golden goose of capitalism.
BARTIROMO: And by the way, want to tell you that on Tuesday, the quarter ends. So we'll start getting earnings from the corporate sector in a couple of weeks. That will do it for Sunday Morning Futures. I'm Maria Bartiromo. I'll see you tomorrow on "Opening Bell" on the Fox Business. Have a great Sunday, everyone. Thanks to our panel.
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