that we were able to get that passed in the house of representatives. the senate has not done their job. they have not taken care of what needed to be taken care of until we get to the cliff. we re outside of the process and we have another omnibus bill. julie: all right. congress woman diane black, nobody likes to feel bloated. that s for sure. thank you. thank you. julie: jon? jon: the battle between the government and at&t over a megamerger is now playing out in a courtroom. both side deliver their opening remarks in a federal case. the justice department is suing to block a deal worth billions that would allow at&t to absorb time-warner. fox business networks, lauren simonetti is up to date on that. she joins us live with more. lauren? we still have the contentious opening argues yesterday in a trial that could last two months and determine how much you pay to watch your favorite shows. at&t wants to buy time-warner. $85 billion.
proceed. he can report to the american people what happened. robert mueller was widely respected by republicans and democrats before he got this appointment. he s a lifetime republican. and chris, as you know, this entire criminal investigation on all sides is being led by republicans. and yet donald trump continues to try to undermine it. and there s one thing for you to work on for the american people. right now, as i understand it, the mandate to mueller is that he gives a report to rosenstein at the ag, not to the american people. as it stands right now, there s no responsibility for the american people to know what this investigation yields mo. hopefully you guys will help. hakim jeffries, thank you very much. appreciate it. so a megamerger. the plan of two companies to deal with the threats posed by online giants. that s next.
it does and doesn t. it will make it bigger, maybe not better. $230 million domestically, it s $450 million worldwide. i want to talk about something that was worked out yesterday. they looked at the weekend and between last jedi and other films that are out, right now, fox and disney control 90% of the box office this weekend. you plan that forward to when they merge and that s the death star that is about to become fully operational. in terms of the merger, there s got to be concern for the thousands of employees in limbo. do you know about that? look, consolidation means job losses. we were estimating a deadline. we are estimating 10,000 people out of 220,000 people working for combined disney and fox. remember, usually in a megamerger, the other issue is regulatory. that s not going to happen. donald trump gave his pal,
billion megamerger. and russian president putin is praising donald trump this morning insisting all claims that russia colluded with the trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election are, quote, invented. nbc s keir simmons is in moscow, where putin wrapped his annual end of year news conference before more than 1,000 journalists. a marathon news conference from president putin answering mountains of questions from journalists. that is what he traditionally does at this annual fuse conference that he holds every year. this one more important because he is aiming for re-election next year. an election he is widely expected to win. he still is widely supported here in russia, even with questions over the legitimacy of that vote. today, president putin asked directly about allegations that russia interfered in the american elections, again, he
getting this right or not it remains to be seen. we do know that the markets are being driven to a certain degree, maybe not all, by what s happening with tax reform. it s been a huge positive. you have to pay attention to who s leading the effort. garin cohen and steve mnuchin, these are deal guys. their background is get that deal done. the question is, what s the fallout. in the world of trading and investing, once you rip an investor s eyeballs out, you can walk away. i want to ask about cvs. buying aetna, $16 billion deal. this megamerger is going to be good for people who go to the pharmacy. you are combining your health care provider, the whole you re going to this is going to help you get cheaper drug prices. what s going to stand in the way of getting this deal done? here s the interesting part. because like any other deal there is out there, there s a debate about it, right, stephanie. both of these companies, cvs health and aetna are saying this will be a deal that h