maria: welcome back. good tuesday morning, ever. thanks very much for joining us this morning. i'm maria bartiromo. i hope you're having a good tuesday morning, it's 7:00 a.m.

on the east coast. we're coming to you from the milken institute global conference in los angeles. it's time for the hot topic of the hour. former president trump's so called you hush money trial is resuming this morning. here's president trump yesterday. >> this is just a political witch hunt. it's election interfering. this is really, truly election interference and it's a disgrace. the other thing that maybe is even more disgraceful is the gag order where i can't basically -- i have to watch every word i tell you people. you ask me a simple question, i can't talk about it. because this judge has given me a gag order and says you'll go to jail if you violate it. and frankly, you know what, our constitution is much more important than jail. it's not even close.

maria: oh, my god. this is incredible. the witness yesterday said that trump did not personally direct a trump organization executive to set up reimbursement payments to ex lawyer michael cohen. i want to get your take on this. at the same time the judge is saying he will consider a jail sentence for trump if trump continues to violate the gag order. your thoughts, thomas. >> you know, i am kind of loving this. i know they really wanted this to destroy him, destroy his campaign. it's been fantastic for him. he's visiting bodegas, taking pizza to the fire department. i think they should send him to jail. he needs to show that this is such a corrupt thing that is happening in this country, i think it would be great for the campaign. he would love it. it would be great. so it's really backfired. maria: come on, thomas. he's going to love it? he's going to love a week in jail, thomas?

come on. >> he would be fine. they would take care of him. maria: i understand what you're saying. you think they'll take care of him? >> it would be good for the campaign. it would show how corrupt this is. maria: president biden is slamming trump and now biden claims that trump wants to cut social security and medicare. watch this. >> my predecessor when he was in office he enacted a $2 trillion tax cut that benefited the super wealthy and biggest corporations and ex of exploded the debt. he wants to cut social security and medicaid. he says there's a lot we can do in terms of cutting. i've got one idea how to cut. the candidate. anyway. >> he'll say anything to get elected, right? at this point in time -- maria: i don't know what he's saying. >> he'll say anything to get elected. we all know, the only number you need to know is $1 trillion every 100 days being spent now

at this point. he's the biggest spender and sugar giver out there at this point. i come back to 1971. we got off the gold standard. we started to give out the sugar in the 1970s. 1973, that's where i think we're kind of at right now, before inflation jumped a couple percent, before the gdp went down to negative and a unemployment jumped a couple percent. i think we're back to 1973 when we started giving out out the sugar. take the sugar away. what trump wants to do is beneficial for long-term organic growth of the economy. maria: you know, it's interesting that you say that. the 1970 ofs. you know what else is like the 1970s. inflation. okay. look at where we are with inflation elevated, a lot of people say it feels like the '70s. that's what jamie dimon has been saying for months. >> it does. it does. that's why i go back to 1973, before inflation rebounded. the federal reserve lowered

rates to essentially a couple percent lower once they found inflation was beating the 1970s. we're not going to make that mistake this time around. we may not get any rate cuts. we may get a rate hike. your interview earlier you were talking about rate heights, rate cuts. -- rate hikes, rate cuts. i think it's possible we'll get a rate hike. in the 1970s we saw a rebound in inflation. the federal reserve would rather break the economy, have unemployment jump to put inflation under. maria: yeah. thomas, what do you think? look, if this administration understood all of the money they've been spending has led to inflation, maybe they would stop. i don't know if they understand and they're connecting the dots because he's still forgiving student loan debt, he still wants to spend, thomas. >> they have no idea. i would love to know where is the guy that came up with

bidenomics. why would you brand the worst thing that's in this country as a biden thing. he's hiding in an office somewhere, saying it wasn't him. they have no idea. they're just getting so desperate. they realize they're losing, the campaign is not going well, they've got a bad candidate. all they can do is throw money at the problem and give away. you see the issues that are affecting people in this country. they're not dealing with any of them. they're not dealing with the top issues. what they're trying to do is appeal to crazy leftists in the hope they'll maybe win the election but most americans are not happy with the situation. maria: yeah. i mean, look, if you -- let me end where we started and that is you said trump should go to jail because it's a good message to send. if that were to happen, i think that people would look at this country as a banana republic, honestly. you've got one political candidate trying to create all of this on another political candidate. am i wrong? >> no, you're exactly right. when this happens in a foreign

nation, this what is the united states condemns, when russia does this to political opponents, or north korea, the united states is usually out there condemning it. what is happening? it really is crazy they won't p let him talk, he's in the courthouse every day, the whole point of this is to drain his money which is -- he spent millions of dollars on this and it's to stop him campaigning, he's stuck in a new york courtroom every day in the middle of the biggest campaign of our lifetimes. it's outrageous. maria: of course -- he's winning in seven swing states right now so there you go. that's what that has done. >> it's backfired. maria: let's take a short break. we are just getting started. it's a busy week of first quarter earnings. we'll get into it when we come back. disney is down almost 5%. it reported mixed results earlier this morning. we're going to take a look at the stock this morning. i'll talk with dan niles, who is now niles investment management founder and manager, dan niles is here live on the other side

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maria: welcome back. it is time for the word on wall street, top investors watching your money. joining me is niles investment management founder and portfolio manager, dan niles. dan, it's great to see you. thanks very much for being here this morning and congrats to you on the firm. i want to get your take on the market here. let me look at futures here because i know that you believe we could see some outperformance for this market this year. markets are up this morning and of course it's been a pretty good beginning of the year, except for the second quarter. disney second quarter earnings out this morning. they beat on earnings per share but missed on revenue, dan. disney plus of course subscribers increasing by more than 6 million in the quarter while sports operating income

declined, slightly from last year. the stock is down about 5% this morning in a market that is mixed. your reaction, there, and assessment of markets today. >> well, i think when you look at disney and how it's reacting, it's sort of emblemattic of the market. the stock is up 29% this year, trading at a 27 multiple. the s&p is trading at 21 times. the expectations are high. but they came out and they missed the top line. whenever a company misses the top line, beat on the bottom line, that makes me nervous. you can't continue to do that. also, they're in a tough spot. media is being replaced by people spending a lot more time online and so they're in a competition for time that people spend and that's not going in their favor so i think with all companies, now with the stocks up to much since october of last

year, you'll have to start to put up the number. i think that's why you'll see increasing differentiation amongst the biggest name with apple and tesla that are down for the year and nvidia and meta or amazon that are up between 20 to 80% for the year. i think that's going to continue through the rest of this year. maria: well, i want to ask you about apple be. you've studied this company for so long and know it so well. the company reported earnings last week. iphone sales falling for the quarter with revenue down as well. we've got competition coming out of china, huawei and their phone. the company y announced it's developing a.i. chips for data center servers, a move that may have the potential to give the company an advantage in the a.i. arms race. what's your take on apple? i know on the longer term apple you're not so convinced but short-term you see some performance here. tell me how you view apple? >> well, you've got to remember, the very short term stock prices

have nothing to do with -- this has to do with perception, what people want to believe. with apple, people just want to believe that they're going to somehow fix their lack of no growth because if you look at the top line, their revenues are down 4% year over year. if you say well, that's just this year. you go back three years, their revenues were 1% over three years from the march quarter three years ago to now. to put it in perspective, magnificent seven as a whole, revenues are up 86%. if you take nvidia out, they're up 45%. so people want to desperately believe that this is going to work because apple also we talked about disney earlier and a its high pe, apple be trades at a 27pe. so that i think a.i. is obviously the hot topic. your prior segment was on that. everybody wants to talk about it, it's going to change the world and i think people want to believe that with apple, that it's going to drive an upgrade cycle. once you get past june 10, the

worldwide developers conference, they have to show they can sell phones and that's a different issue which is why long-term we're more concerned about it but short-term the a.i. optimism i think will help the stock outperform at least between now and the worldwide developers conference. maria: so the worldwide developers conference june 10th you said, going into that conference maybe we see some strength here for apple but longer term do you want to sell into this? you want to sell into any rallies? >> absolutely. my thought right now is that barring something miraculous object june 10 -- on june june 10th. t at that point my point is we go back to being negative on the stock. you go back and analyze apple, it always goes into product launches. go back to the vision pro, at 3,500 bucks, who would imagine that would sell well? and it isn't. but the stock still went up 9% in the month of before the launch. if you can believe that about the investigation pro, at least

this is around a.i., i think investors will do the same thing and it's just pattern recognition at this point. maria: really important points you're making. what about the rest of the magnificent seven? nvidia obviously has been the star, you just mentioned the incredible outperformance there. talk to us about envied ya. meta, which is one of the names you like and microsoft as well. this conference in la much about artificial intelligence, dan. >> yeah. i think there are a lot of really great artificial intelligence investments over the longer term. you named the names we like on the longer term. obviously, nvidia, they're going ahead and providing the chips that are making a.i. possible and you're getting it at a 40 pe, 100% revenue growth and you're very early on in the brought of the a.i. infrastructure. you look at meta, they're probably the best at using a.i. to drive their business and so you're talking about a company that's growing revenues in the high teens. you still can get it at a

mid-20s multiple and they use a.i. to help recommend what videos you watch as well as monetizing the ads. with am a son, it's the biggest -- amazon, it's the biggest public cloud vendor in the world. if you want to run a.i. applications, you can run it on amazon and they put up record operating margins, driven by retail business. we think eps can double from calendar '23 to '25 a. with microsoft, open a.i., chatgpt, that got this whole thing started back in november of 2022. and microsoft gets 50% of the profits from there. they've got a close cooperation with that company. and so they're really going to been fit especially when you think about in search, google's got over 90% market share. microsoft's bing has less than 5%. i think you'll start to see microsoft continue to pick be up share there. those are the four names we feel

very good about looking forward. maria: and i know that you look at google, this is the name you debate the most, google, alphabet. >> yeah. i mean, really when you look at google, you have to think about if -- if you think about it very simply, do you believe a.i. is going to be real? if it is, do you believe google can maintain 93% search market share? that's kind of hard to believe as people change the way they interact when looking for information versus clicking on 10 blue links, they have a conversation with an a.i. engine and that's a very different prospect. with google i think over a very long period of time you're going to see that market share start to erode and for youtube, you talked about disney earlier and subscribers, you also got amazon that just started launching ads on prime video and so you've got more ad dollars flowing to other things than youtube and so between that, that's why over a

longer period of time we have concerns. maria: yeah. i mean, dan, i wonder how much you're focused on the ge geopolitical backdrop because 90% of these advanced semiconductor chips used for artificial intelligence are produced in taiwan. we've got two wars already. i don't -- you know, i don't know or expect to know china's plans but if the ccp goes into taiwan and overtakes taiwan and then is in charge of that semiconductor production, 90% of these advanced chips are made there. do you worry about the geopolitical backdrop here in the middle of these two wars? and how do you invest around that? > >> i absolutely worry. i said many times and i still believe this, you don't have to guess what china's intentions are. xi jinping told you. he considers taiwan an integral

part of china and at some point i'm sure that they will go ahead and reunify taiwan with china. now, the good news to some degree is because russia is having such an awful time in the ukraine, that's put off any timeline they had as they watched this and say oh, god, that's going way worse than anybody could imagine so that will delay it. for us, we're looking at chip companies, texas instruments for example was a name we liked coming into this year that are trying to build up domestic semiconductor manufacturing so eventually when we have to deal with this situation and who knows, maybe it's tomorrow, maybe it's five years from now, but at some point this is going become a thing and you're going to need to have those advanced products being produced in the united states and you want to invest around that. maria: for sure. so dan, the rest of the year,

what's your sense? i know we're talking about individual stocks right now. but do you think we'll see a good year for stocks, 2024? >> i think we're going to see very volatile year for stocks. i think the spread between stocks is going to be enormous and we've already seen that. tesla's down over 25% this year. apple's down about 6% or so this year. and then you've got an nvidia that's up 80 and the market is up in the single digits. both nasdaq and s&p. so i think between oil, interest rates, the geopolitical environment, the elections in the united states, you're going to have to know your fundamentals incredibly well because a good story isn't going to get it done. you're going to have to put up the numbers. maria: great analysis, dan, as always. love talking with you. thanks so much. >> my pleasure, maria. maria: all right. dan niles joining us. we'll take a break. when we come back, john kirby refusing to confirm or deny whether the united states is delaying ammunition shipments to israel. as the idf takes over parts of

rafah overnight. the tanks winning yesterday. virginia congressman rob whitman is here to tell us more. you're watching "mornings with maria" live on fox business from the milken institute global conference in loss los angeles,y with us.

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maria: welcome back.

israeli officials confirming they have taken over hamas controlled areas of the rafah region after launching a ground counter terrorism operation yesterday. the idf says troops continue to operate against hamas terrorists on the ground in rafah as they say hamas is far from meeting demands in a potential cease fire agreement. president biden spoke to israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu yesterday and once again he told him he does not want israel to invade rafah. here's white house national security communications advisor john kirby. watch. >> we made clear our views about operations in rafah that could put more than a million innocent people at greater risk. during this call with prime minister netanyahu the president made it clear. the president was consistent this morning that we don't support ground operations in rafah that would put the majority even any of the civilians there in any greater risk. we want to see their safety and security allowed for, factored

in. maria: well, how many citizens were ayou e affected by hamas' invasion. joining us now, virginia congressman rob wittman. he's a member of the china select and natural resources committees. congress ma nan, man you for -- congressman, thank you for being here. what is your reaction to president biden continuing pre pressure netanyahu not to respond. >> israel has the right to defend themselves. they need to keep in mind innocent civilians of. hamas embed themselves in civilian populations to avoid israel coming after they'll but israel has to be able to destroy hamas. hamas is a continued threat to israel. they've seen in the past where they allowed hamas to survive, it reemerges and threatens israel. maria: yes. of course. but the white house is being quite vocal about this, continuing to reiterate what

they're telling benjamin netanyahu. i'm wondering how you view this in terms of the united states getting involved in israel's response to terrorists. >> well, israel has the right to defend itself. israel is in the best interest to determine how they prosecute this. maria: right. you said that. >> i want to make sure we are supporting israel. i think we have an obligation to do that. israel is fighting for its very existence. they're doing the things that are necessary. it's not our place to second guess them and to direct how they protect themselves in a very dangerous neighborhood. maria: yeah. meanwhile, i mean, this white house is also being coy on this, tjohn kirby refusing to either confirm or deny these reports that president biden has placed a hold on a shipment of u.s. made ammunition to israel. watch this response. >> our support for israel's security remains ironclad. i'm not going to get into the

specifics of one shipment over another. maria: so the question was very specific. are you holding back shipments of ammunition. and he comes up with this ironclad statement again. is it really ironclad, congressman? >> well, if there's any interruption in sending arms to israel, it must not be ironclad. i have deep concerns about delays. delays place israel at risk. we are a friend of israel. we have committed to help them. congress passed supplemental to provide resources to help israel. the president's obligation is to do what congress has directed him to do and continue our help to israel. they need it more than ever. time is of he's owns here. you -- essence here. you cannot delay. delay places israel at risk. maria: but apparently they are, congressman. so what i'm asking is what is your reaction to this heavy hand of the white house when it comes to israel? >> my response is it's unacceptable and the executive branch has an obligation to

carry out the directives from the legislative branch. we were very clear in passing the supplemental for israel that the resources are there for the administration t execute this delivery of arms to israel. maria: yeah. exactly. i want to get your take on the happenings within the congress and the house. house speaker mike johnson will meet with georgia congresswoman marjorie taylor greene again and he said that they had a productive meeting yesterday. what is your take on this motion to vacate that mtg keeps threatening? >> listen, i don't think it's productive whatsoever. i think it's problematic. i think it weakens our conference, i think it weakens speaker johnson, i think it empowers the democrats. why would we do this. this is counter productive, especially with a narrow of majority. we need to be united, not divided, not fighting amongst

ourselves, it just doesn't make sense. maria: well, i mean, especially since you've got the minority leader hakim jeffries going on 60 minutes and saying this, let's watch this clip. >> we're in the minority, we effectively have been governing as if we were in the majority because we continue to provide a majority of the votes necessary to get things done. those are just the facts. maria: it sounds like hakim jeffries thinks that the democrats are in charge in the house. >> well, they're certainly not but a narrow majority makes it very, very difficult for us and that's why it's critical for us to remain united. the only way we're going to get the things done that this nation needs to get done is for us to be united. anything that divides us or anything where we have instances where we're fighting amongst ourselves doesn't help that situation and as i've said, it empowers the democrats. we cannot do that.

being united is key for us moving forward. maria: yeah. and then there's more suggestions that perhaps the white house is getting political on just about everything. even this steel deal. nipon steel is delaying its $14.1 billion acquisition of u.s. steel because the department of justice is requesting more documentation. nipon steel says they'll fully cooperate with authorities and they're denying the delay could push the deal past the election and denying this has any correlation to the election. does it have any correlation to the election? is that why joe biden's doj is pressuring nipon steel so it doesn't happen before an a election? >> i think it certainly is a question that needs to be answered. listen, japan is our friend. but we also need to make sure that we have that sort of critical mineral production here at home. and i do think this administration now at the last minute is trying to make this

political. it shouldn't be. this should be about what's in the best interest of the united states. and remember, japan is our friend. maria: yeah. well, they may be our friend. i spoke with former president trump about this merger back in february of this year and he was against it then. watch this. >> i want to get along with china. but they've really taken advantage of our country and we turned it around. we put big tariffs on steel. i saved the steel companies and now japan is buying u.s. steel. u.s. steel. you know what a name that is? that's the most important name, 50 years ago there was no company like u.s. steel. now japan is buying it. i don't think i'd let that deal go through, by the way. maria: so what are your thoughts on this deal? >> well, listen, i think the president has some very, very valid points there. we need that critical mineral production here in the united states, producing steel is critical for us. i want to make sure that we keep that capacity here. maria: yeah. congressman, it's good to see you this morning. thank you, sir.

rob wittedman in d.c. this -- wittman in d.c. this morning. >> thanks, maria. maria: all right. we'll see you soon. we'll be right back.

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maria: welcome back. exxon mobil is trying to stop a planned merger between chevron and hess. the deal expected to close within the next year. i spoke with c chevron chairman and ceo, mike wirth at the conference. >> it's a good deal for the companies, it's a good he deal r the industry, we're confident the deal will close. we're working through the ftc process. shareholder vote at the end of the month and we've got a contract issue with one of the other partners that will be resolved through ash a station. that will take -- arbitration.

that will take a little longer. maria: i want to get your take on what hess brings you. guyana is the superstar of the deal. tell me what else hess brings to the table for chevron. >> i'll start with the people, really good quality people and a culture that alliance with our culture -- a aligns with our culture. it's a tribute to the family that created such a commitment to safety, to integrity, to protecting the environment and doing the right thing so great people. they've got a great portfolio of businesses. we've got complementary businesses in the gulf of mexico. they've got a strong position in north dakota where we don't have anything and guyana is a tremendous asset. it's people, technology, these great assets. the combination will create a premier energy company that will be good for our country. maria: it sure would. i want to get your take on what exxon is saying about it. they claim they have the first right of refew sal.

-- refuseal, they want to start the deal. a what's your take? >> we worked and hess worked to try to understand exxon's concerns and address them for a long period of time before this went to arbitration. and we thought we were making progress and being responsive to their concerns. they concluded it was better to put this through the arbitration process and so those discussions have come to an end and we're really now headed towards resolution through arbitration. maria: because of that arbitration case on friday, hess said this deal is likely delayed until after least 2025. is that what you're expecting? >> it's hard to know exactly what the timeline will be. that's set by the arbitration panel and the arbitration process. we're hopeful that it's faster than that. but ultimately, that's something we have some measured input to but certainly not control of. maria: tell me what drove the

most recent quarter. >> we had really strong performance operationally, largest production in the history of our company and in the u.s., 35% year on year. which led to strong financial performance. our eighth quarter in a row over $5 billion in earnings and distributed over $5 billion to shareholders for the ninth consecutive quarter so strong operational performance, financial performance and strong returns to shareholders. maria: and shareholders want to know that the dividend and the buybacks will continue. what are your expectations? >> dividend was increased 8% earlier this year, making 37 consecutive years of dividend increases over the last two years we've distributed 17% of our market cap back to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases and we have a history of prioritizing those and i think shareholders expect that to continue. maria: let's talk about the growth away from this deal. i know you've got your enormous

project in kazhakstan. that expiration is coming up, right? you have to renew it? >> concession runs for another almost 10 years, it expires in 2033. we've got a large project underway to take production from 650 or 700,000 barrels a day to a million barrels a day. we've begun the startup of that with some significant news this last quarter about compression and conversion of the fields to operate at lower pressure on our way to a full startup of the incremental capacity in 2025 so it's an important part of our business and an important supply to europe and to the world. maria: what's plan b if the hess deal does not happen for you? >> we have a really strong portfolio ex-hess so the hess deal makes us even stronger but we're delivering 10% compound annual growth, free cash flow over the next several years, 3% compound annual growth in

production driven by the permian, driven by other shale assets in our portfolio, projects in the deep water gulf of mexico, one scheduled to start up the myc middle of this year, several will follow that, big position in the eastern mediterranean, offshore israel so we've got a number of other assets that are delivering growth and the combination with hess only strengthens our cash flow long into the future, not only the end of this decade but well into the next. maria: i'm glad you mentioned israel. we've got two wars underway, israel and iran are this close to a wider conflict. how do you view that in terms of the potential for upsetting production? >> well, we didn't see some impact on our supply of natural gas into israel during the early days of the conflict. we now have both platforms online and are meeting all the needs not only for israel's domestic market but he egypt as

well. we're operating well. we've seen disruptions to shipping in the red sea. we've had some disruptions last year in the arabian gulf. so the risks in a situation like this are that through some sort of escalation, miscalculation, that you could see impacts on physical supply in an area that supplies so much of the world's oil and that's a real concern. maria: it's a real concern and i think it's the reason that many people expect oil prices to stay elevated. what's your expectation? >> it's really hard to he predict oil prices. we prepare for volatility. we've got a balance sheet that allows us to withstand a period of low prices for a long period of time. right now we're seeing prices that have been in the 80 to $90 range for quite some time. markets are relatively balanced, demand growth is strong. last year was a all-time record demand. we'll see demand grow again this

year. the end of the oil age is not yet upon us. in fact, it's important that we continue to meet that with new production which is certainly what we've been doing. and the short term these risks due to geopolitical events are things to pay attention to because they could impact markets. maria: how would you characterize demand globally right now? >> continuing to grow. we're seeing demand growth in the us. we're seeing demand growth in asia. europe, less so. but the u.s. and asia are really the two big drivers of global oil demand and demand growth and the u.s. may not be growing as fast as it was a year ago but it's still growing. china has recovered from where it was a year ago and it looks to have stabilized and so global demand was up about 2 million barrels a day last year, year on year. this year we think it will be up about a billion and-a-half so still strong growth in the oil demand. maria: we'll have a lot more with mike wirth. we'll have part two of my interview with the chairman and

ceo of chevron tomorrow right here, join us for his commentary on u.s. policy and oil prices longer term. that's tomorrow right here on "mornings with maria." quick break and then commercial real estate foreclosures spiking more than 117%. just since march of last year. cane international ceo jonathan goldstein is with me to discuss the latest real estate trends. he's next. you're watching "mornings with maria" live from the milken global conference in la.

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maria: welcome back. we are zeroing in on real estate. the wall street journal out with a piece titled properties waiting game is getting harder. writing this, last year's motto in real estate circles was to, quote, survive until '25, property owners thought the fed would cut interest rates throughout 2024. if borrowers could sit tight it would be easier to refinance troubled loans, right? well, over the past three weeks borrowers and lenders have realized this is probably a fantasy, writing the wall street journal. joining me is cane international ceo, jonathan goldstein. jonathan, it's great to see you. >> good morning. maria: thank you so much for being here. i want to get your take on commercial real estate right

now. you know the worries out there. assess the market for us. >> i think there's no doubt as we turned into 2024 there was a hope, an expectation even that the fed and around the world in europe and in the u.k. rates would start to come down but clearly they've been stickier than everybody expected. i think the good news is that every signal we're getting from the organizations is we are past the peak and the expectation of interest rate rises is low but as you said in your introduction, the longer it takes for interest rates to come down, the more the interest carry that the borrowers have and the more they're looking a lot of office blocks around the country particularly in the united states and saying i can't see where i'm going to get my money back. if i'm not going to get my money back, there's no point in me putting more money in and as a result i'll leave it for the banks to sort out. maria: is this going to create a bust? are we going to see defaults? i'm wondering if this is within of those situations where it has an effect across the board in business and markets.

>> i think there is a danger in looking at real estate as a hoe homogenous class. if you're in multifamily, condos in a long market like south florida, you're still seeing strength. you're still seeing growth. the problem is in the office class market, particularly secondary offices, where people, the pandemic, desire to work from home giving people the freedom to stay home had a big impact on office usage and the more this carries on, the more offices become obsolete, people don't see the purpose of putting more money in and i'm afraid it's a growing problem and it's a problem that's going to ultimately rest with the banks. maria: i don't know that that's changing any time soon. i think people have changed their approach to work. >> the world has changed. we're not going back to

pre-2020. people need to build buildings bearing that in mind, creating flexibility for people to come into work, make it more attractive for them to be there and that's when you come to a secondary office class which doesn't support that type of operation and doesn't merit that type of investment. maria: so you're saying you've got to -- if you're a quality building, high quality, like obviously many of your buildings, then you feel you could actually be okay even if we see a big string of defaults. >> we're signing off this week a building in miami. we're fully leased with great names coming into our building. south florida is a strong market. mid-town new york you're seeing an upsurge in rental rates because you've had less development over the course of the last few years so it is market by market, there is strength in certain marketplaces. in the office market where you've got secondary offices it's very challenged. i'd look around you, where we're sitting today in beverly hills,

we started our development next door and we're seeing great demand from luxury department for great, great quality properties situated within the best localities so i do think it's important to look across the class and not just focus on one aspect of it. maria: how are you changing the building of today, given what you've just said in terms of we're not going back to before 2020. what's different about new buildings today. >> first, it's the space. you provide amenities to attract people into your office, to ensure they want to be there. it's not just a commodity the. commodity office space is finished. you do not want to be building that. you won't find occupier fs for . maria: fast companies is reporting march commercial real estate, maybe you've seen the piece, the foreclosures hit the highest level since 2015. up 117% from last year. the states hit the hardest were

california, new york, florida and texas. you said south florida where your buildings are is doing well. walk us through the country, where the weak spots and the strength is. >> i'm from england. i'm not going to be competing with americans on geography. we're seeing around the miami area, we think in my miami thet is yet to come. in south florida the best is yet to comment we're seeing people wishing to migrate businesses to florida, lower tax regime, the environment. we adopted miami as a base for investment in 2016, 2017 and we've seen huge growth during that time. maria: huge. >> hospitality in 2023, miami had its greatest ever year. miami is seeing this 12 months a year, hospitality destination in a way it wasn't seeing before the pandemic so i think it is important to look at where you wish to be investing. you really need to invest your money where you see things being strong. pockets of nashville, austin,

you're seeing great strength. you need to go to marketplaces where young people wish to live, companies wish to locate and you can still prosper and thrive. maria: you're basically following the trend of the migration move, people are moving to florida, moving to texas because of what you just said, tax rates, better environment. >> surely you want to be investing in localities where talent wishes to live. ultimately we're people based businesses. we're looking to attract people to live and to work and to play. and that is -- it has to do with the environment that people want to move to and migrate to. maria: sounds like a bifurcated market right now. >> i think that's 100% right. 100% right.maria: it's great t. thank you so much. jonathan goldstein from cane. we'll be right back. stay with us.