Transcripts For FBC Varney Company 20171226 : comparemela.c

big news out of the united nations, nikki haley announcing a cut in next year's budget after the un voted to call for donald trump to withdraw his plans -- israeli embassy to jerusalem. "varney and company" starts right now. ♪ charles: let's look at futures, under pressure all morning, fractionally better. let's bring in zach hour. everybody wants to know 205k in 2017. >> in 2017, i don't see why not, certainly let's call it by valentine's day a couple points, next year will be a strong year for the stock market, the first half of next year especially. i am worried about a blow off topic for the market sometime next year but that is all the more reason. charles: you could argue this year, last year, the year before, pretty long market, people are calling for it. >> prices are not crazy, prices are okay, we are introducing new money into this economy with conditions tight. what i worry about is a faster rise in interest rate than we expect giving more competition. the cd rates, why am i taking this risk in the stock market. >> what i saw in the last two weeks were utility stocks so seems to me confidence the market will outperform yield, utilities, the utility sector came on strong the last couple weeks. >> you get this well the fact that is self-sustaining for a while. people feel wealthy because of the stock market and the housing market and economic numbers support the market but at some point it doesn't last forever and valuations get stretched. charles: they are reasonable but above historic averages. and holiday shopping excluding automobiles from november 1st, e-commerce does phenomenal driving those gains rising 18.1% so this gets to your point success begat success, the virtuous cycle the fed couldn't manufacture coming on by itself. >> people are feeling well with rising share prices, full employment, one thing you don't want to be is a retail value investor. if you share store chains in your portfolio and they are not doing great but will turn things around. charles: coming back app stores up huge from this 2017 low, may seize up, are these the bounces you would sell into and lick your wounds? >> remember the conditions are perfect right now so operations should be perfect. gap and maisie turn things around for the long term, they have deep challenges. charles: consumer income and spending through the roof at the expense of savings, yellow flag, red flag anything for you at this point? >> i am not just personal by the way, we might run the trillion dollar deficit. i am a believer in making a when the sun is shining and times are good, we ought to be saving more money, they spend when times are flush like this. charles: relatively low. wall street journal reporting corporations could repatriate as much as $400 billion in cash, want to bring in peter morici, economics professor at the university of maryland, talking capital spending, minimum wage, when is it going to work out? >> the tax bill requires investment but a lot of that goes into the stock buybacks. that is not the evil thing liberals would have us believe. giving the money back to the stockholders is where it belongs, they will spend or invest it someplace where cash is needed. a lot will get recycled into the market but stocks where the tax is needed. this is fine. we ought to pay people for holding stocks, dividends are not great for folks because they pay higher taxes than capital gains. stock buybacks are where you want to see it. charles: fedex reported their earnings, i thought the thing that stood out, the ceo saying, and the pension fund. this is what you don't hear from the mainstream media, people are going to benefit this. and the windfall of companies that take money fund them for so many people. >> recycling, if they put it into their pension fund they don't just put cash into the pension fund, they buy stocks and bonds. that is a good thing that will be good for the market. it will be good for keeping the price of capital low so the firms that need cash can get it and use it and grow and expand, start up and the rest. it is not a bad thing when a company that is doing well gives money to the shareholders because they are investors. charles: we should begin with the premise that it is their money. this whole idea that money is transferred from the poor to the rich with his tax bill with a big headline over the christmas holiday was so despicable and dishonest, let me ask you the $400 billion number, i studied the bush tax cuts, it was like $340 billion two decades ago. it seems low to me. >> i think it is low. people are underestimating what is going to happen but won't come in a rush. they have money to pay the taxes, that goes into the federal treasury but federal treasury is using that money for the tax-cut, comes back to all of us. it is freed up, and putatively taxed, that will come back over a number of years. i am not looking for a huge rush, a sensational article where problems the tax cuts, driving the dollar up and the alarmist piece, won't do that. $400 billion is not that much money in the foreign exchange market over the course of the year and a lot will come back over time. yields invested over affair, and securities of some kind. charles: new york governor andrew cuomo, allowing taxpayers to postpone the pain of the new federal tax overhaul by paying next year's local property taxes before january 1st. and take advantage of it because those taxes will be deductible this year but not next year but the irs could reverse that. the irs doesn't like people on their taxes paying multiple years, paying expenses that cover multiple years. and subscription and have it count that year. it would be interesting to see if this is wildly done, if the irs starts to push back. it charles: if you have a chance to look at the tax bill, and what profession is, it went through, historic, to what degree should help the economy and the stock market? >> it should boost investment by 15%. and a percentage point. each 10th of a percentage point, even without the tax-cut we were looking at profits the next year, there were 10% higher. the s&p is not overvalued unless you go to the shiller index which is subscribed. if you look at a 25 year average it is 25 profit to earnings ratio. that is where we were a year ago. you put on top of that a tax-cut and you have a hot market. my feeling is the market will do well next year unless there is some unseen event uri and no one else can see. but looks like a strong growth year for the economy and a strong stock market. charles: thank you, appreciate your time this morning. a jetblue plane skidded off the taxiway in boston. >> a flight from savannah, georgia to boston logan airport. when it hit the runway it skidded off the runway, did a 180, it's fun 180 °, came to rest in between two runways, passengers all evacuated safely, went to the terminal, judges give a perfect 10. charles: too bad. speaking of planes, a passenger on a united airlines flight says the flight crew kicked her out of her first-class seat to give it to democratic congresswoman sheila jackson lee. that woman is demanding an apology. more details coming up. big cuts to the united nations, ambassador nikki haley living up to her promise slashing next year's budget by $285 million. she called it a step in the right direction. more varney right after this. see that's funny, i thought you traded options. i'm not really a wall street guy. what's the hesitation? eh, it just feels too complicated, you know? well sure, at first, but jj can help you with that. jj, will you break it down for this gentleman? hey, ian. you know, at td ameritrade, we can walk you through your options trades step by step until you're comfortable. i could be up for that. that's taking options trading from wall st. to main st. hey guys, wanna play some pool? eh, i'm not really a pool guy. what's the hesitation? it's just complicated. step-by-step options trading support from td ameritrade i just finished months of chemo. but i don't want to talk about months. i want to talk about years. treatments have gotten better, so... i'm hoping for good years ahead. that's thanks to research funded by the american cancer society. the same folks giving me free rides to treatments, insurance advice,and a place to stay during chemo. i need that stuff like you don't know. and now that you do, please give. call 1-800-416-4357 today. your contributions to the american cancer society fund valuable research but that's just the beginning. a cancer diagnosis can kick off years of challenge. and that's where your donation truly shines. you help us fund free rides to treatment. a live 24/7 help line, free lodging near treatment centers, and even efforts to expand access to insurance. so, please - donate today at cancer.org and help attack cancer from every angle. charles: quick look at apple shares. and billion dollar market have, negative articles, we will talk about that later, at&t announcing thousands of layoffs, mostly landline and a little older legacy service sector jobs but that stock is under criticism with a little pressure and united apologizing to a passenger that says a us representative got her seat. >> the passenger's name is jean marie simon, she claims she was bumped from her first-class sees, given a voucher, put into coach with extra -- sheila jackson lee got the first-class seat. united says miss simon canceled her flight on december 18th because of a weather delay and when she canceled her seat, jackson lee who was on the upgrade list and first on it got bumped up. they apologize to miss simon, gave her a $500 travel voucher, she took to twitter on the 23rd and is complaining she talked about low-level united employee didn't do the right thing, hasn't apologized. charles: a lot of traction over the weekends on twitter, congress men and women have a lot of perks. they get to park in other places, we will see. >> that is nothing worse than being booked in first class and getting kicked out of it. >> i didn't know that happened. charles: donald trump cutting funding to the united nations after the is really vote. come on in, pete, living up to the promise. i find it amazing. i thought not only nikki haley's dance but a lot of countries in the world stepping up in their own way, some just didn't vote, this was a longtime coming. >> he puts his money where his mouth is, does what he said he was going to do, the moving of the capital to the -- and snubbed. and he tweeted a year ago today a social club, and bending sovereignty and pulling money away the pursestrings, and less and less relevant and passes resolutions for international, leftist and globalists feel good about themselves. the charles: a way to make it relevant. >> and two world wars, we should talk before we shoot at each other. and set up by winners of that war, and they team up against the freedom loving democracies, and form our league of democracies, work together and fund our own interests as opposed to giving into third world dictator -- and anti-american, anti-israeli and anti-semitic, we should not give in to that. charles: paid 22% of the budget, >> 100% of enforcement effectively on full faith and credit. charles: no gorilla outfit, powder blue, i hate to say it. they never pushed back anywhere they had been, genocide and atrocities continued, everybody take them seriously. >> send them to iraq and syria to take on isis. charles: you an army vet. talked about fighting isis. and esprit they corps. and understand the mission, what would you grade him? >> morning in the military and the biggest thing you want to have is understanding your commander in chief has your back, appreciates what you're doing and your mission is not politics or posturing but american security and national interests and this president has refocused on that at every turn and his critics say it is america alone, my phone is ringing onset like an amateur, but he is saying it is america first and american leadership. that happened on the battlefield, no one can take credit for that other than untying the hand of our operators. charles: and the general, letting generals fight the war. and call into dc because approval -- >> 12 fighters on the ground, can the white house approve an airstrike. that is a decision that should be made by a captain or kernel or general, not a 25-year-old at the national security council at the white house. when you change the dynamic you can fight and win wars which is why the caliphate is no more. how we follow through in syria is another question. until you defeat the caliphate you don't get that next chapter in the president of theirs credit for that. charles: merry christmas. we have a big name, out with a warning on bit coin. charlie monger, warren buffett's right-hand man says he is not touching it and is telling investors to, quote, avoid it like the plague. more varney after this. charles: a quick look at futures, equity futures under pressure, s&p has waffled in and out of positive territory. warren buffett's right-hand man charlie monger says avoid bit coin, quote, like the plague. do you agree? >> you should avoid the plague more but you should avoid bit coin too. there is no underlying fundamental value, it is your speculative fervor but going higher and much higher, i have seen crazy before but it can get crazier. charles: a painting sold for $450 million, ingredients cost $2. where is the intrinsic value. where does they go up? where does the intrinsic value for gold, dollar, other than full faith and credit? >> i know why it exists. it is not a currency, because you can't have something change ten times in the course of a year and call that something for spending and something that will take over for the dollar, when the end times come and currency go bust you are not going to want a currency that requires a fast internet connection, i don't quite know what bit coin is others in whipping around, it is working out well. my sense is it will end badly. charles: square talked about overstocked for a couple years. trading on futures trading, goldman sachs setting up a trading floor so wall street is taking this seriously and so are major retailers, we are taking it seriously as well. >> wall street taking a piece coming and going. >> that is why goldman is going to trade on it but you would be a fool to by anyone, it goes up and down, you're paying too much, why would you use it is currently? >> that is the only reason it may not be a currency now but ultimately people bought things, you always hear about dirty things and bad things you can do with it but one of these things where enough people believe so much distrust, government and fiat currency printing dollars, fandom dollars, we can have an emergency and the fed could print fresh dollars, where is the value there? >> technology underlying this has durable value. going down the road, how we handle currencies, to look at the dollar figure on bit coin now, no cash flow, no dividends, to say this is the right number is twice this, there is no way to come up with that value or what we have with currency. charles: that went home and kicked my coin, we will be right back, more varney next. charles: opening bell in less than one minute. equity futures across major indices, not major pressure, the post anti-climactic bill, and obviously a little more volatility, i think not a lot of folks in there, the pending who gets a hold of this market, in a similar direction, don't be surprised if buyers show up if the market is a little wobbly but it is not going to be that bad. the s&p might be higher. let's go, the bill is ringing, let's check big board and populate the dow 30. a little mix, caterpillar has been a monster stock, dupont, industrial names, on the opposite end the biggest loser, apple, report out of taiwan less than expected, the s&p, let's get a check on that, the s&p was up and down, back and forth all morning, down very fractionally. we will see what happens, it is up from the initial opening, let's check nasdaq, a lot of rotation in the last months out of the big tech names, nasdaq has been wobbly. elite over the dow, just about gone and that sending more pressure than other indexes. it is all about retail, a lot of good stories about retail, a pretty good shopping season, walmart, macy's, clinking to life, sears $3.75, not sure what will happen at best buy under fair amount of pressure. the online version, amazon, ebay, overstock, the bit coin play, two days of pressure, one of my favorite names getting hammered because amazon selling furniture online and the stock has been very resilient in the last week. the wall street journal reporting corporations, from abroad because of this tax bill, adam shapiro, mike murphy, $400 billion, where is that money going to go? capital spending, buybacks, dividends, anything to the employees? >> yes yes yes. you will the stock buybacks, dividends increased which is good for the part of the country that owns stocks but you have already seen it where certain companies announce money going back to their workers. and you have $400 billion to the us, it is a positive across-the-board. charles: i think the number is low. don't know where they came up with $400 billion because $340 billion came back under bush so seems like a relatively low number which might not be bad to have lower expectations but donald trump said $4 trillion. >> president bush was 300 some billion dollars that came back so so much money overseas is a bigger number. charles: let's look at the big board, the dow 25,000. bring it on. charles: that is one big session. >> you know this, the trend is your friend, any selloffs being but you mentioned in the opening you have seen rotation from one sector to another, we don't see money out of the market so 20,000 will come. charles: we have codelco, one of my big bets for next year is crude oil particularly the permian basin, in the last couple weeks crude oil stocks have done better than crude oil but they were behind from the massive rebound earlier. if we continue what are the sectors you are looking at? >> one thing i like to see is a big bust because these guys are terrible at spending money when prices are riding high. >> we had the oil price a few years ago, how they locate capital making smarter decisions, i would not be surprised to see a leg up for energy, sticking with technology, look to bail out these retail names that had a bounce back with pristine conditions. charles: shaping up strong year for retail in general and recently today we got numbers from mastercard on holiday sales, up 5%, 4.9 from november 1st, christmas eve, e-commerce driving again up 18% so everybody, shop online, and i still had a different phone. >> everything i purchased for the holidays with online, amazon, 20% of holiday gifts were purchased online and most through amazon. jeff bezos will be the wealthiest man in the universe. charles: no doubt about that the competition is catching up. walmart said their online sales do more, that stock took off and you feel more companies will catch up. can amazon continue to dominate the way they are? if you look at last quarter, all their profits came from the cloud business, not other stuff. >> because they are willing to use the online shopping, if anyone can compete with amazon it is walmart. their purchase, their way to get in and compete, they are competing but talking about online shopping, six children, no reason to get off the couch. you can order gifts late at night or early in the morning, online shopping is here to stay and it is amazon and walmart neck and neck. charles: anybody catching up? everyone is trying to spruce up their online offerings, offering major discounts at a loss. >> what the retailers are going to do is stay in the game long enough and make the experience in their stores good enough to drive you out of your house, off your couch and into the store. charles: the mall near me had opera singers but they would not let me buy more than a few gift cards unless i filled out a form and talk to the manager so i left, give me a break, that is so dumb. i went to a gas station and bought the gift cards. the big board, we have been open for a few moments, talked about this market and resiliency. dow down 50, 60 in the premarket. take a look at gold, everyone talking about bit coin, trading in this range so long, a key resistance point. at&t announcing thousands of layoffs, mostly landline and other legacy service sectors, mainstream media connecting this to the tax bill. i do want to take a look at this, the world's largest ever vessel being built by shell. next year it will start extracting and processing natural gas at the. these projects on the drawing board for years take years to build, natural gas prices seems so expensive to do it at the. is this going to be viable? >> to do it at the is viable and natural gas prices are low here. in other countries they are quite a bit higher so companies are trying to figure out how to extract it and ship it to different places where they can make more. charles: it could be a huge plan donald trump will play ball but that is a huge investment. donald trump to propose rolling back offshore safety measures. is that a good deal? >> it feels a little early. the argument is the industry is better positioned than regulators to come up with these rules and weigh in and if we got away with one another disaster offshore than it is a good thing but stands to reason -- charles: there will be an accident no matter how great technology becomes, when talking about massive projects. >> there is always a trade-off between safety, cost and the speed with which you can drill oil, we are at an all-time record in the amount of oil we are producing. we can afford the utmost in safety for these operations. >> i was on the gulf coast in 2010 during the deep the water horizons below the people in louisiana would like safety measures in place to protect not only the oyster industry, but the oil jobs have not been there in several years but i would speak to those people. charles: the oil jobs are vital to that economy and there is no guarantee and the oil industry would not want to have an accident, they will do their best to police themselves i suspect. >> remember in 2010 there were regulations in place and oil companies were filling out those forms about did you inspect this and they were lying on those forms so i am not going to get involved with self-regulation. the people on the gulf coast can answer this question whether it is good or bad, better than those of us in new york. charles: by the way the dow is up, opened under pressure, buyers are out there, folks understand this may be the end of the year but doesn't have to be the end of the rally. some analysts are cutting iphone 10 shipment forecasts for the first quarter next year citing lackluster demand on the holiday shopping season. you have some problems with this, you say hang on no matter what. >> unit forecast for iphone falling for a few months, this will not be a huge supercycle but a good year, earnings estimates are on the rise because pricing is strong and services are going crazy right now. iphone users are buying more services, there is a medicine room for growth, what this is doing is changing the earnings profile of apple. it is becoming almost a consumer stable company and that merits higher valuation, stock goes higher ultimately. charles: $30 million is huge. that is a major significant -- >> if those numbers are accurate. i purchased new iphone x for christmas and the stores were packed, new york city, different across the country but stores were packed and people were loving the new phones, there is enough difference in the phone to make people go out and buy it. charles: the original source is the economic daily out of taiwan. these stories come up all the time when it involves apple. >> apple has 85% retention rate this year and next year. charles: thank you very much, appreciate it. let's get another quick check of the dow, we are up slightly but we were down 60 in the premarket so -- baltimore ravens president richard k send a letter to fans admitting he is having a tough time filling seats in the stadium it is blaming it on the end them protests, you are going to hear it right after this. life happens. that's why feeling safe is priceless. with adt, you can feel safe with an adt starter kit professionally installed for only $49.00. call today, and install an adt starter kit that includes security panel, keypad, key fob, entry and motion sensors and for a limited time, get a camera included and installed at no additional cost. that's a $449.00 value, installed, for just $49.00. adt has over 140 years of security experience, with our commitment to customer service, and round-the- clock professional monitoring, you have the comfort of knowing that adt is helping to protect what matters most. call today, or visit adt.com to get your adt starter kit installed for just $49.00. adt. we help keep you safe, so you can feel secure. call 1-888-337-safe or visit adt.com and get your adt starter kit for just $49.00. charles: a little bit of a pedestrian start of the session but we are off the lows in "the opening bell". apple on schedule to hit $1 trillion market value next year. let's go to the floor of the exchange. nicole: we see apple down slightly, concerns about the shipments, the big picture is apple is still are up 50% in 2017, the cover of barons talks about the goal of $1 trillion mark, the first time ever for any company in the us to have that trillion dollar market and the feeling is it can be done. with the stellar earnings we have seen from their $230 million, the idea they had smooth earnings-per-share growth and it is more predictable and that in itself, growing service revenue and the entire smartphone market, the idea this could be the company to move to that trillion dollar mark big time. charles: thank you very much, hope you had a great christmas. the baltimore ravens president sent a letter to fans about not showing up for home games. in light of recent eventss we are reminded winning alone is not enough to make the ravens the unifying force we want to be, we don't take your support for granted and we know we must continue to invest in us. come on in lawrence jones. last week the ceo of not domino's, papa john's was forced out in part because of his outspokenness on this problem but many companies including sanders and farm saying the same thing, the end them protests hurt the business. >> just a fact, no matter where you stand on the issue of kneeling you can't deny it hurts not only the ravens but the participation, as said from the beginning if the owners have given the players the right to neil that is perfectly fine but had to realize shareholders, customers, that being fans of the great games weren't happy with this. a lot of change such as the cowboys owner gerri jones made it a mandatory thing to stand for the and not because he doesn't see eye to eye with the players on justice issues, gerri jones typically supports the players even with sexual allegations supported the players but goes to the bottom of the line, turns $140 million investment, the cowboys don't work that much because of their winning, because of the brand, can't have america kneeling, and they made a mistake. charles: speaking of brands, when brands get tarnished it is hard to bring them back, when you lose that luster it is hard to get it back, how does the nfl come out of that, it feels like a lot of people are used to not watching games and 2 different things and every day lives. >> they are forgiving, there is a combination of things that need to happen. i always advocated to meet in the white house and talk about issues that are going on. that is a step in the right direction. the nfl is doing focusing on the military. and reconciliation could happen right there, but there is a long road to be genuine as well. charles: the bottom line, as long as any of them neil, the league will be under pressure. >> they will be under pressure. they can't neil. no matter where you stand on this debate the fans have said we won't watch if you neil and that is the bottom line. charles: the nba's ratings are right there with the nfl. a lot of folks saying some fan reaction to the kneeling was racist, the same racists watch basketball. i will talk to you later, nice seeing you this morning. a man says he was the one who delivered that menorah to steve mnuchin's los angeles home, why did he do it? >> he put a note on this package that said dear mister mnuchin and donald trump, we the american people are turning the gift of the christmas tax bill because it is complete and other -- i can't say the next word but it starts with horse and ends with a four letter word. they decided to do this. i just lost it, he is a psychologist in los angeles with the hospital system. called the lapd bomb squad to the house where this was delivered, they delivered it to the wrong address, put it on the neighbor app store step. the man saying that is i won't say his name on it but he is from eagle rock and is making headlines. charles: he did a pretty good job on this role but some of his movies -- weight -- >> the guy who did this. >> you owe me $12 is all i am saying. >> have you met him or us personally? i had the privilege of covering washington and i met the secretary of the treasury, you can disagree with his policies but when you meet this man he believed wholeheartedly that this is the best thing for the country. this is -- charles: thank you very much. one more check of the big board, the dow, hanging in, a post christmas, a lot of people aren't trading but we are not down, this seems to be enduring for the moment and a shocking report in the wall street journal, the price of a life-saving cancer drug spiking by 1400%. it is not getting any competition from generic versions. doctor mark siegel on that next. but through good times and bad... ...at 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(snap) (snap) achoo! achoo! feel a cold coming on? zicam cold remedy nasal swabs shorten colds with a snap, and reduce symptom severity by 45%. shorten your cold with a snap, with zicam. charles: the wall street journal reporting one cancer drug price rose 1400% because there was no generic challenge. you write prescriptions all the time. does this surprise you? it seems egregious by any standard i ever read. >> outrageous price gouging. the company doing this is in miami. that is a coincidence but bristol-myers squibb sold this product of the company in 2013. the price per pill at that point was $13 a pill, now it is $768 a pill and medicaid part d is especially getting hit with this, $600,000 a year being spent on this and the reason this bill has gotten some interests is a crosses into the brain. it is an old chemotherapy from the 1970s but they are using it for brain cancers like what john mccain has. a recent study last month in the new england journal of medicine does not show that it works or anything to lifespan. it may all the hype. there is no competitors. the fda is trying to bring in competitors and encourage generic competitors by making it easier for approvals. it hasn't hit yet in a case like this. charles: we have seen this, mylan with epipen, they had no product pipeline. in new york we have seen even more examples of this, companies by these drugs, i don't know they are called orphan drugs or not but when they reprice them there is nothing illegal about it. >> there is nothing illegal about it. in order for a generic to get approval previously they had to redo research that had already been done. the fda has identified a list of 319 products that are like this. one of them is sugar water that you give intravenously. only one company making that. they want to encourage more generic companies to get approvals so they can compete and drive the prices down. this should be illegal and should be a blowback on the manufacturer that sells this to the company that run price gouges. charles: pharmaceuticals, the biggest generic company is in trouble, they can't make money. that is the problem, they need a blockbuster drug and there have been no blockbuster drugs recently. >> fair enough. your other point this is like an orphan drug because only a small population, great point. if you are a poor cancer patient. charles: i got to let you know, thank you very much, "varney and company" will be right back. i just finished months of chemo. but i don't want to talk about months. i want to talk about years. treatments have gotten better, so... i'm hoping for good years ahead. that's thanks to research funded by the american cancer society. the same folks giving me free rides to treatment, insurance advice,and a place to stay during chemo. i need that stuff like you don't know. and now that you do, please give at cancer.org charles: here is the big story. i'm charles payne in for stuart. here are the headlines. less than one week left in the 2017 trading year. dow 25-k is big focus for us. we're one really good rally day away. this is the best year for the dow jones industrial average. if you're shopper, holiday shop something phenomenal. also could be one for the record books. retailers reporting some of the best sales in decades. how about this for a christmas present? a $284 billion power bill? that is lot of power. that may be bitcoin mining. also that story for you. california governor jerry brown firing ashot across the bow at president trump, pardoning, 100 of low level non-violent offenders. second hour of "varney" starts right now. ♪my charles: first a check of the big board. dow into the positive. we're down about 50 points. happening in there. lackluster pedestrian action but to the upside. look at big tech. coming under pressure last month or so. certainly three weeks the same this morning. all the big names driven the market for most of the year under pressure, particularly apple this morning. there is crude oil, happening tough between 55 and 59. they may want to break out sometime real soon. been real resilient more often or not last few days. looking like a real strong year for retail. bert flickenger, resource group managing director. he joins us. bert, how do these big retailers maintain that going into the next year? >> they maintain it using new tax bill to reinvest in the store. london stores like harvey nichols, so successful like the korean and asia pac stores will invest digital. walmart has done successfully, with clickç and collect on lan, online. amazon has new challenges ahead as retail starts to rebound. charles: these other guys are learning how to play the game as well. they don't have deep pockets of amazon. amazon has the ability to price something so low that you know that is where the ad is, isn't it? >> it is low pricing. people are worried about amazon. fox's own team member, don maloney, with her book the sand castle can sell successfully through barnesandnoble.com, because a lot of authors and other people whether it is books and other items are looking to sell through other means and bypass amazon because amazon really has some brutal buying practices. they had six of their warehouses go on strike in europe during the holiday period. charles: we're talking on-line, brick-and-mortar, most people still shop. some day that changes. we had at least 20 bankruptcies this year. how do they compete? some of these stocks have come off the lows dramatically. gap stores, macy's, is that just oversold bounce in the stock market? is the stock market saying that the brick-and-mortar survivors will do very well? >> stock market is sayingç bot, as you reference, charles. as 7,000 go out and 20 go bankrupt, charming charles live's, bon-ton, not making bond payment on friday, you have more volume moving over to jcpenney where joe mcfarland are doing heroic job reviving -- charles: they're racing the against the clock. they have been on death watch for six years. it is a tough store. you walk in there and -- >> bill ackman and steve roth, pershing square trashed the company, left it on death's door stop. they are bringing disney and expanding relationship with is safora. bon-ton loses several other stores and other stores start to slide, sears holding you reported about for a long time that benefits penny. penny is not doing everything right but doing a lot more right with real merchants running the company. charles: you're a believer, out of the when the dust settles there will be brick-and-mortar winners to go along with the online winners? >> myç belief for 2018, you wat tiffany, tractor supply, tjx and walmart. charles: i want to put up track sore supply. you were talking about that at low 60s. i was watching the show. this stock is up almost 20% since you started telling people to buy it on the dip. do you still like it here? >> still like it. i called amazon at 500 on fox business. so that is up 100%. i would be more likely to your point, charles, to be in tractor supply in 2018. hold amazon, buy tractor supply, by tiffany, walmart. charles: bert, you're the best. trump critic and jeff flake issued this warning telling president trump and abc, that if he continues on the path he is on that will leave a huge swath of voters looking for someone else. he is probably inviting a republican challenger. fox news contributor, former trump 2016 campaign operative steve cortes joins us now. all right, steve, even before that folk a lot of foals thought jeff flake was setting himself up. he wrote a book here recently to be alternative between the worlds, the new gop, the trump gop and theç democratic party. >> well, charles, i would say to senator flake, please bring it on if you think you can challenge us in 2020. i'm visiting new orleans, right now, and there is not a swamp in hat can hold a candle to the swamp in washington, d.c. a lot of republicans are bad as swamp creatures and senator flake embodies that all too much. when he talks about the path that trump is on as though things are not going well, i'm puzzled by that, when i look at path of 2017, i see the border largely uncontrol, an economy accelerating gorsuch on the court, isis all but eliminate, this is path of victory. if we continue the path and accentuate it in 2018, we will do great in the midterms and crews to 2020 re-election of president trump. charles: how do you reconcile that, never-trumpers and democrats, that president trump's tweets counter actual success? >> right. charles: three consecutive quarters of gdp growth, border being secure, isis eliminated those kind of things are good but a tweet negates that. politicized world on the acela corridor, between newsrooms of new york and k street lobbying office of washington, d.c., and don't realize for most people who are not hyper political, most people lived experience matters. prosperous and answers of macro questions, certainly in 2016 the answer is yes. things are improving. we had a fantastic christmas shopping season for example. charles: right. >> so the proof is in the pudding. look, are there times when i wish the president would be a bit more careful what he says? of course. but on the flip side, that is the fighter he is. he could never be president if he was not that kind of fighter. charles: lowest ratings and poll numbers. we all know, everyone doesn't trust polls as much as they did before the election. nevertheless they're persistently low. some are pointing that to the evidence his rhetoric is out, has done him in? >> look i will concede that certainly he is not as popular as i would like him to be. you know what? ronald reagan at this point of his presidency roughly was very unpopular as well. once the economy started to accelerate near the end of his first term he absolutely rocked inç the 1984 election winning 9 states. i'm confident of a similar trend. there is wood to chop. he was, work to do in terms of popularity. most voters who are not part of the k street cabal, not part of the mainstream media, their experience will compel them. charles: dow hitting 25,000 early maybe thisser, or maybe early next year. if this continues, and if it does what does it mean for the president? >> charles i really think it can. the main reason i say that. the stork market did well under president obama but main street did not. divergence things are good for financial markets, owners of assets but not wage earners. we're seeing rising tide lifting all boats. we'll see incomes rise, what i am concerned about, economic stats, productivity is rising. after decade of languishing, productivity races 3% two quarters in a row. haven't seen that for a decade, i think it will because of cap-ex. the companies have confidence to invest in more workers in technology, software, plants, et cetera. if productivity continues it rise, we'llee economy continue to lift, stocks along with it. charles: real quick, less than a minute but i want to ask about the tax bill. tax cuts start to show up in people's checks in february. will it be enough? i hate when people try to downplay hey, it is only 40 bucks a week, that kind of stuff. >> right. charles: people in manhattan come on the networks understand the average family out there, who bucks a week is a lot of money. >> there is such arrogance, i heard people talking about the bonuses and only $1000. $1000 is heck of a lot of money to most of america and can make a difference in their lives. i think yes it is enough. most of the tax plan is immediate expensing of businesses for small business. i think that will unleash massive amounts of capital expenditures, it will be exciting what happens in 2018. charles: steve, appreciate it. now there is this. saudi arabia demanding a lot of money for release of one of those princes. adam, what is a hot of money. >> $6 billion. when you're worth it at 18 billion -- you've seen the investor sold his shares in twenty-first century fox a whilç back. $6 billion. imprisoned in the ritz-carlton in riyadh. for 6 billion he could have the freedom. he doesn't have that cash. he has a deal he will transfer some of kingdom holdings to the fund he manages. charles: that is a big investor in american corporations. >> oh, yes. charles: will that impact the market? because i know he is close to certain boards and thinks like that or not necessarily? >> i don't know what the actual impact is running of companies which he sits on the boards. again with us, he is part of our company, 11% share at one point. it has since been sold. but this 6 billion-dollar transfer of stock would then be in the hands of the man running saudi arabia. what he would do with it. if you're on one of those boards, get ready. charles: king salman. a heck of a move. it is all about money. >> i wish i would have the problem coming up with 6 billion and have 12 billion afterwards,. charles: or being in prison at the ritz-carlton. >> i would not be in prison anywhere. charles: get this, 400 billion could come back to america from overseas because of president trump's taxç bill. here is the question. that money will it help us keep the rally going? we have only a few days left to find out after 2017. we'll be right back. ♪ charles: getting traction. we were up four but now we're up 12. remember we opened down do you 50 points. top 30 stocks led by ge, walmart, ibm, caterpillar. apple under pressure, because of reports of less iphone x demand. that takes some suppliers like cirrus logic and crrvel down. we have ceo of westgate resources has invested by expanding the company and giving out bonuses. david, tell us more, specifically how yourç recent actions vis-a-vis your company and employees relate, were triggered by the tax bill. >> first of all westgate resorts. we're the largest developer of time-share resorts in the world. and, as far as the tax bill we're excited. we gave out raises to all of our employees. we gave out huge bonuses to all our executives as a result of it. we're expanding. we've got over $300 million in new construction going on right now around the country. we have 30 resorts in 11 different states. so, you know, when i hear the democrats complain about a tax cut for the rich, the rich are the ones that create all the jobs and, that's what we're doing now. that's, our employees, are motivated. everybody is excited. i feel like president trump just, when he says christmas present, i feel like he just gave the whole country a freeç time-share week because they take that tax cut and they will use that to purchase time-share from us and make us grow even faster. charles: obviously 300 million in new construction, that is a huge investment on your part. you got to believe this is not a one-time blip, that we're seeing almost instantaneous after november election, what we call wall street soft data, the surveys, the polls, the optimism, you think that not only will continue but morph into people taking action and spending that money? >> as i said, i can only eat one steak at a time. the money that we're going to make will be reinvested in the company to build more resorts to expand in other areas. we're not presently there. we're very optimistic. we've been since the election with the tax cut and even more optimistic than ever. charles: what are some other things you would like to be done with president trump's economic agenda? they took out the individual mandate. that is how they pass a tax bill but like to get rid of the whole thing and do it every. there is huge burden on small businesses. they're talking ynimqiuquij4(p&% and other things. will those also help the overall economy? >> everything helps. every little bit. you know, building the wall will help. increasing any, decreasing any regulations that are hamper business will help. his ol' -- whole agenda will help business. even though it's a battle, we're happy to see a lot of it coming to fruition. charles: david siegel, westgate resources founder and ceo, we appreciate it. >> appreciate being here. charles: a pennsylvania woman wassed after after checking her monthly electric bill. adam, why? >> the bill came in for $284,460,000,000. here is what mary 58 years old from eerie, pennsylvania thought we put up the christmas lights, i wonder if we put them up wrong. so her son got involved. by the way you got to thank the electric company here, the first payment due in december is only $28,176. her son calledç penalac, that t was in the wrong place. that decimal point was in home in bed in the wrong place. they corrected the bill. it was $284. that is kind of high because they have electric heat. charles: look at christmas lights, they have a show on tv where they battle, go across the country. >> yeah. charles: they're huge. people spending lots of money on christmas lights. >> $284 billion. that is the makeup budget here at fox. that is a lot of money. charles: that is just for me. appreciate it. market rally, dow up 14 points, 15. the question though is the next step. by the way, how about taking on the fbi or rebuilding the country's highways. all of these things on president trump's 2018 agenda. you have more "varney" after this. charles: all righty. checking on big board. dow up 17 points. this might be the high of the day. dow 30 led by ge, walmart, verizon, ibm on the downside. apple is reporting less demand for iphone 6, iphone x, rather. all suppliers on the board under considerable pressure because of that news. by the way those suppliers down, they're all under significant pressure. this is about a report of 10 demand in the first quarter. may not be right but that is morning. 2018 less than a week away, the big question is what is next for president trump in 2018? want to bring in blake burman. blake? >> charles, they have tax reform in the rear view mirror in theç white house. looking ahead to 2018. the next item they want to get into is a big infrastructure package. head of legislative affairs at white house, mark short, the president has plans to take paul ryan and mitch mcconnell over to camp david in january, hash out final details. then put their infrastructure package forward next month. as you know, when -- charles: all right. i think our feed went down with blake burman. we'll bring i am back as soon as we can. this was a big year for president trump, particularly ending it with the tax bills, the tax bill being signed. want to bring blake back in. we're reconnected. blake, someone kicked out the extension chord. >> i'm only person at white house. maybe that was my photographer, like no one here, charles. i don't know how that happened. look, bottom line they want to get infrastructure done next year. the reality they will have to do something about health care too. the president acknowledged that earlier this morning. here is the tweet he sent out. i quote, based on fact, very unfair and unpopular individual mandate has been terminated as part of our tax cut bill which essentially repeals overtime obamacare. democrats and republicans will eventually come together and develop a great, new, health careplan. now even though they talked about repealing obamacare, they will have to look into shoring this up at some point next year. but the other reality, looking forward, charles, are the president wants to see funding for his wall along the southern border. that is just one thing that they have to get into. they have to fund the government by january 19th. even though they talk about infrastructure and thenyou to the the tweet from the president about today some sort of health care compromise, there is a whole slew of issues ahead for the administration before they get back here in january. charles: there's a chance infrastructure like a lot of other products is bipartisan. there has been tremendous support. on tv, debbie dingell said she would work with president trump. she is democrat from michigan. feels like this should get done. >> this is part of the argument they made on taxes. keep in mind they thought they could get democrats on board. infrastructure is a different beast here. there is divide how this could potentially shake out, talking about a trillion dollar price tag. $200 billion from the federal government, give or ache take, 800 billion in public/private partnerships but the democratsç want a trillion dollars total from the federal government. you have a $800 billion gap that might need to be worked out. charles: blake burman. thank you very much. of course big year for president trump. with three more years in office, agenda remains full. a lot of other boxes need to be rechecked. not before republicans may want their say. remember not just democrats. they have their own wing in the executive mansion. the republicans also pushing back as well. more "varney" after this. seminole ♪. charles: quick check on the big board. we're in the holding pattern. dow up 13 points. we always check big tech names for you. a lot of rotation out of those names, under pressure here again this morning. want to get back to politics. jeff flake giving this warning to president trump on abc's "this week." if he continues on the path he is now, that will leave a huge swath of voters looking for something else. he is probably inviting a republican challenger. bod matson joins us. what is your reaction? seems like jeff flake is throwing his hat in the ring. >> i think he started throwing the hat in the ring on the floor of the senate. there will be likely a challenge, there usually is in the first go round, i think bigger challenge for the president is not his policy strategy, it is the communications strategy and can mitch mcconnell in the senate really lead out even with the great win on tax reform? they have not sold that message to the american people. and while people will start to see that benefit in february like you described, every dollar makes a difference for hard-working american families. if we don't sell thp message around this, if it still appears that the republicans are just about the rich and big business, that is going to be a problem for the president going into 2020. charles: so how do they sell it then? president trump has twitter. he has enormous force that gets him around the mainstream media? does he wield that differently? we heard about the gop, poor messaging, they have gone hand in hand for so long. you wonder if they fix that overnight? >> i think you're right, charles. i think that bad messaging on republican party is one and the same, if you look that up in the dictionary. the challenge for the president is to continue to go straight to the american people. he needs to make sure he is going with the policy pieces of program. not just taking shots at folks. he needs to start showing this is how the policies are benefiting you. whether that is the things happening in terms of regulatory reform again are resulting in lower prices and costs and services for hard-working americans. so he is going to have to keep driving that because mitch mcconnell doesn't seem capable of it. republican party seems too distracted with a lot of other things. so the president will have to do this the white house will have to really amp it up and go straight to the american people. charles: of course itç is difficult. i think yesterday some well-known actress tweeted out a tweet that school teachers have to buy their own supplies. that was in initial versions of the tax bill, that was exited out of the final version. foes out there in the twitter sphere. people that have animosity towards donald trump that, is another reason, my son's school teacher, my daughter's school teacher has to buy her own supplies. the misinformation campaign is enormous. >> it really is. incumbent on sit phones to be fully engaged. not accept the news when it comes across and be careful of our own confirmation bias. people will read the headline and never read anything else. we have to dig deeper as citizens to engage in the process. the president has to continue to many ap things up a little bit. they have to bring people in. the distrust of washington has never been greater. it has always been there. it has never been greater. up to the president to start connecting the dots for folks. look, this is how it impacts your daily life. this is how you impact your pocketbook. here is how it impacts your communities. charles: i love how he brought real life families across different spectrums of america, that will be effective, good news, as far as popularity is concerned, mainstream media not very popular either. >> thanks, charles. charles: to the fbi, corey lewandoski and steve bannon will testify to the house intel committee. close to retirement, tennessee congressman marcia blackburn joins us now. congressman, what is the next step with respect to where we are with the fbi investigation? it feels like a rudderless ship right now? >> well it does feel like a rudderless ship. i think what we know both the house and senate intel committees and the house government oversight committee are investigating. i know chairman gowdy and chairman nunes are going to do their job and work through this process. i think the american people, charles, really feel like there is so much political bias in the fbi, that emails and texts and the comments that are coming out, looking for a quote, unquote, insurance policy, just in case trump won. using their positions to support hillary clinton. those are the things that concern my constittq'ts here in tennessee. and they want to get to the bottom of this they do not want the fbi to be a political agency. charles: there were red flags with mccabe when his wife was run for a virginia state senate seat and got $500,000 in campaign contributions from mcauliffe. he has very close connections to -- >> from the pac. that is correct and that is something that is of tremendous concern, that there would be that political tie. and, people are saying well look, if you're going to have an investigation on russia, then why are you not looking at the clinton foundation in uranium one? why are are you not looking at the dnc and tied to the dossier? the dossier to about in and get the fisa warrant. people want this to be done properly. they want confidence that political bias is not being used for or against an individual. and this is something that robert mueller should take very carefully. he is trying to protect his repetition. i think that reputation is somewhat on the line.ç and it is up to him to exercise that leadership that is going to be necessary for the american people to have the confidence that a fair and honest job has been done. charles: is it too late? you know, of course, america has special investigation fatigue at this point, right? >> indeed. charles: is it too late to go back to make sure this is fair. it just has been some mistakes, so many gaffs and so many negative coincidences that it is hard for the average american not to believe there was some sort of a politically-motivation animus toward president trump with this whole thing? >> well, you're right about that. i hear it every day from constituents. they're very concerned about what they see happening in washington, d.c. that concerns tennesseans. they're saying look, if, if i were in charge, this is what i would do. they want to see leadership exercised. and they want it to be fair and honest and open. charles: right. >> that is what tennesseans are looking for. charles: congressman blackburn, speaking of leadership on net neutrality, you have taken the bull by the horns, you introduced a bill to prohibitç internet providers blocking, throttling content. seems like a fair deal but knee-jerk pushback. what are you trying to achieve here? >> what we're doing having congress do its job. when you talk to individuals who work in the virtual marketplace in this space, they want the ping-ponging between different fcc, federal communications commission, commissions to stop and the rules change every time you have a change in leadership at the commission. it is up to congress to say, this is what is free and open internet. the internet was not broken in 2015 when the fcc put it in place their version of the net neutrality rules which was government takeover of the internet. so what we're doing is saying very simply, we all agree you can't block, you can't throttle, you disclose your rules, and let's exercise preemption. the and that is a very simple bill. it will allow congress to codify those principles of a free and open internet to make certain that everyone has access. charles: right. >> and knows what the rules of the road are. charles: so if i were2to equate it with analogy to a highway, you have a fast lane, but you would have other lanes. everyone has access to them. would that put to rest the notion somehow the internet will be locked up, only handful of players dominate? no small person or business could ever have a chance? >> well, you're exactly right. and what people were very frustrated with was government, the fcc, coming in and putting themselves ahead of internet service providers and saying, we're going to be the ones to, to exercise this. the other thing, charles, when you look at what was the placement of the internet under the old ma bell rules, that allows for rate regulation. it allows for content prioritization. what we're saying is look, the internet is a information service, it goes under title one for service providers don't block, don't throttle and make certain that innovators know what the rules are going to be. we don't know what will be the next great invention for the internet but we do know thatç broadband, infrastructure funding and expansion slowed down. charles: right. >> after 2015. and part of the president's infrastructure package is broadband. that is the legislation i'm working on next. we look forward to getting that out there. charles: congressman blackburn, always a pleasure. thank you very much. >> so good to be with you, thank you. charles: now this, a gift wrapped package just for treasury secretary steve mnuchin. adam. adam: this was a package that was left for mnuchin that contained horse manure. the man who is taking responsibility or claiming the one delivered this, said he was sitting around with some friends. they were drinking, quote, let's do this, man. they included a note which was derogatory about president trump, mr. mnuchin, and secretary mnuchin and tax bill and equated the tax bill with horse -- lapd was brought in because they thought it might be a bomb. he mate be in a little bit of trouble, call it a prank. county hospital of los angelesgi charles: because mr. mnuchin is government employee -- adam: up to authorities to determine if it was intended as a threat. it's a prank and inappropriate and vulgar. charles: it went to the wrong house. adam: it went to the wrong house. looked up the wrong address in bel-air, mind you. not a horse in the bed from "the godfather." charles: not quite there yet. president trump make good on promise, we will move america's israeli embassy to jerusalem. the world objects. what do we do, we live up to another promise. we cut off the money. that's next. ♪ charles: the ink is barely dry. yes, 400 million couldç come fm overseas. here is what peter morici had to say. >> some will pay the tax the tax bill requires. some will be in investment and a lot would go into stock buybacks. that is the not evil thing liberals have us believe. if a company has cash on hands and now has more, giving it up to the stockholders is where it belongs. they will spend it someplace elsewhere cash is needed. a lot will get recycled back into the market, into stocks where the cash is needed so that's a good thing. i think this is fine. we ought to be paying people for holding stocks. the other thing to remember is, dividend are not great for folks because they have to pay higher taxes on them than they do capital gains. charles: quick check of the big board. the dow hanging on to gains. a little slow, but to the upside rightç now. there is this. u.n. ambassador to the united nations nikki haley announced spending cuts to the u.n. kaley mack men any joins us right now. what is your reaction? not only nikki haley is fiery and strong, determined but now her and president trump following up the on the words. >> they are unstoppable together. the ambassador is doing phenomenal job. president trump is pointing out why are we contributing to multilateral agencies, the u.n. being one of them and getting very little in return? the united states, 22% of the u.n.'s budget is done by the united states. 8% by china. we're disproportionately paying to this organization, by the way just condemned us a few days ago, 128 countries voted against the united states for moving its embassy to jerusalem in israel. why are we paying an organization to condemn us? it is pretty remarkable. charles: some critics say it's a global organization. we should be involved in it because it has influence and we shouldn't, we shouldn't decide how we use the money based on whether or not like us or whether or not they agree with us on all the issues? that it is not, it is notç a mature way to look at this? >> well the problem is the united nations is bloated. there is a lot of money being poured in. we see very few results coming out, some entities are good as ambassador bolton pointed out but some are really bad. the u.n.'s five social and regional councils have basically zero accomplishments. i would ask you, look back at 2016 where israel was condemned more times than north korea and syria combined. they have a bias and undeniable bias. an organization with few accomplishments and a lot of bias is one that the united states should withdraw at least some funding from. charles: an organization where you have so many dictators come to new york city and preach and diss america and israel of course. what do you make though, of the europeans, that continue to vote against israel and continue to heap this negativity on israel? what is going on there? feels to me there should be a sea change with these nations experiencing new problems of their own? >> that's right. you're incredibly right to point out the european allies, the ones who celebrate democracy, who celebrate free market systems but yet they're condemning one of the only thriving democracies, if the only one in the middle east, that being israel. you know, the united states isç playing a huge role by standing up and saying we stand with israel, unmistakably. we will not let other countries, you know, dismiss the importance of israel. and us standing with israel we hope will go to the european allies doing the same. but instead we're seeing many of them voting against the united states for standing with our allies. charles: next one, kayleigh. president trump could face a challenge within the party 2020. you're deeply involved with the rnc. is there a shot any republican outside of jeff flake may decide to throw their hat in the ring? >> i certainly hope not. we need to stand behind this president. i will tell you this, any republican who does decide to throw their hat in the ring they will not have much success. this party stand behind president trump. the rnc in particular. we've seen record fund-raising numbers because of president trump. there is enthusiasm among the base and party because of president. any republican who decides to throw their hat in i would question if they're truly a republican. charles: there is a fight going on beneath the surface, they say. a whole swath of so-called never-trumpers, many who have not changed their tune since the election. they think they can perhaps wrestle the party back, back to the establishment, back to theç elites. so you know, how do you get them aboard? i know, you're like, i call you the diplomat. you must talk to them all the time. how do they get back to being on the team, not having to always agree with everything that trump does? >> i think by realizing first of all this president achieved more than i think any republican president really in the last few decades. this is reaganesque president who implemented conservative principles and policies like tax cuts we've seen. get on board with the agenda. it is republican one. it is conservative one at heart. i think the establishment voices need to realize they're out of step with the people that make up our party, who disproportionately voted for trump. same numbers they turned out for mitt romney and mccain and george w. bush. the republican voters are with president trump, not with the so-called never-trumpers who only exist among punditry and select political class. charles: i think they made a huge mistake that the party was hijacked. dismisses folks in the voting booth and made the decision on their own. that is huge miss cake. kayleigh, thank you very much. >> thanks, charles. charles: united apologizing to a passenger that u.s. representative got her seat. adam: jean marieç simon was supposed to fly to washington december 18th. united said they canceled her ticket. first person on upgrade list was representative from texas, excuse me, jackson. so they put her into the first class seat. ms. simon says that is not what happened. i'm all choking up about the story. it wasn't her seat to take. that they, what simon is claiming she got bumped for the representative from texas. and, so, she got no apology she said. united pointed out she did get a $500 travel voucher. this story depend how believe but upset customer is little bit upset tweeting she did not even get an apology from united. charles: congresswoman sat in coach if didn't get upgrade? >> yep. a lot of representatives fly coach. there was a question whether congressperson was bumped by united. representative lee's office -- charles: didn't throw her weight around. adam: that's what they're saying. charles: thank you so much, adam. it was the year of the national anthem protest and nfl brand, they got hit pretty hard, trying to fix it for the average every day span. they make billions. the ratingsç are starting to fall. one own are recognizing this and apologizing. ♪ adam: lawrence jones, the blaze host joined us earlier. the issue? can the nfl rebuild its brand after the year of the anthem protest? charles: you know it is interesting last week the ceo of, not domino's, the, papa his outspokenness on this problem but we've had many companies, including sander der son farms, ceo of ravens saying the same thing. the anthem protest hurt the business. >> it is just a fact, no matter kneeling, you can't deny not only hurt the ratings but the participation in the nfl and i said from the very beginning if the owners have given the players the right to kneel, then that is perfectly fine but they got to realize the shareholders, the customers, that being the fans of this great game weren't happy with that. that is why a lot of teams like such as the cowboys owner jerry jones made it a mandatory thing to stand for the anthem, not because he doesn't see eye-to-eye with the players on just these issues, jerry jones typically supports players, even when there have been sexual allegations he support the players. this goes to the boat line. that man turned a 140 million-dollar investment into a 4 billion-dollar companies. the companies are not worth that much because of their winning. they're worth that much because of the brand. you can't have america's teamç kneeling. so what baltimore is realizing is that, they made a mistake. charles: i'm charles payne in for stuart all week. we are following markets, back open today after the christmas holiday, and we're still on dow 25k watch. a little pressure right now, but the question is, will we hit it? stay tuned. also more wild swings on the way for bitcoin coming off that huge punch last week, and now warren buffett's right-hand man is warning people to stay away. and the trump administration reportedly wants to roll back safety measures instilled after deepwater horizon's oil spill back this 2010. and yes, ofç course, there's infrastructure, but it begs the question how much will it cost. and rosie o'donnell is on a twitter tirade, this -- why she went after house speaker paul ryan, this on christmas day. and u.s. home sales are at their highest level in nearly 11 years, but what happens those changes in the tax law, boom or bust? third hour of "varney & company" starts right now. ♪ ♪ charles: first, a check of the big board. we opened down 50, we were up 19, now we're down 7 points. of course, we're still eyeing that 25,000 level. john lonski joining us and the chief global strategist for -- how do i pronounce this? >> [inaudible] >> jim, john, thank you both. i'll ask you first, john, 25k this year? >> i think it's within reach. it's less than 1% away, it can be done. if it's not done this year -- charles: right, there would be no obvious catalyst this week. it's sort of a thin week. >> yeah, very thin, quiet trading. charles: right. but next year you're pretty certain, january, 25k. >> yeah, i think for theç yeare should be up 7%, maybe finish the year at 26,500. >> what's interesting, charles, they've got the hats out, but they're less as a percentage move, they get less and less. this is just a couple percentage points. stock market's probably going to be down by the end of 2018. we're probably heading into a slowdown or recession probably because of china, fed tightening. charles: we say they're underestimating impact to the economy or underestimating the fact they only have to hike three times? >> underestimating the impact of the economy. this has never been done before. this is a completely unprecedented experiment, they've never had to normalize the balance sheet. it's a little speculative, but if you do that plus three real ones, that's a huge increase this rates. charles: john, what do you think? you know, we hadn't heard about the fed in a while. we were warned when they announced the end of qe, the market was going to crash, and it really didn't. we were warned when they started to roll back quantitative easing, the market would crash, and it didn't. and we were warned the first time they hiked rates, there have been a few and it hasn't stopped the rally. >> and iç think jerome powell s been warned by donald trump to keep a close eye on the economy and the financial markets as far as the speed with which the fed proceeds with -- charles: but to jim's point, we've never been here before, so it's a hard road map if it never existed. everything they do is trial and error. >> but the fed still has it within it power not to be too aggressive with downsizing its balance sheet. not tool anything too manyish -- not to do anything foolish. charles let me shift gears because bitcoin is all the rage, and now warren buff met's right-hand man charlie munger says avoid it, quote, like the plague. jim, do you agree with it? >> yeah. i think bitcoin's on its way back to the 20,000 because of the manipulation of minors and the whales. the minors and the whales are in a position to manipulate the market through wash sales, so they've got to get new suckers into the game. it's definitely a ponzi or a fraud, depending how you want to describe it. get new suckers in the game, and they short futures and then dump the bitcoin on the exchanges, tank the price. whatever they lose here, they make up on the futures. charles: so wall street's involvement with the cme and chicago board, that's actually going toç make it -- that's making it more of a risk. >> correct. when cme and cboe announced the futures, all the bitcoin groupies did, said it was respect. be careful what you wish for -- charles: goldman setting up a trading desk, that doesn't help the little guys. >> probably an indicator at the top. charles: john, the greater fool theory is always applied to everything whether it's stocks, gold, no matter what someone's going to be left holding the bag. >> realize it's really not an investment, it's a form of speculation. what you're betting on is that somebody's willing to pay a higher price for bitcoin after you purchase it. that's not always going to be the case, and when it's not, you could be facing sudden losses as deep as 25%, 50%. charles: gentlemen, what about the notion not new people who are hearing about bitcoin on the job, like i've got cousins i haven't heard from in ten years since the real estate boom. [laughter] you only hear from them when there's a periodic boom. but the folks who believe in it say, hey, fiat currencies are worthless, right? we're talking about the fed, the unprecedented action they had to the take. that's manipulation. fiat currencies are manipulatedç they don't like the idea of major governments being able to be involved. this takes out the middleman. there are true believers in bitcoin beyond this period of hype right now. >> well, very few people have criticized the fed and fiat currencies more than i have over the last ten years. i've written four books on it. bitcoin, yuan, euro, dollars, whatever, they're all based on confidence. confidence is easily lost and hard to regain, and i agree with john's analysis. once this thing breaks, the confidence will be gone forever in bitcoin. charles: want to switch to taxes because the wall street saying $400 billion in corporate cash set to come back home. john, what's your take on that? >> it's going to be good for shareholder ors -- charles: before i -- let me just ask, 400 billion seems like a low number to me. >> overall we have about $1.3w trillion in cash held overseas by u.s. companies, so it probably will be greater over time. but it's definitely a positive for shareholders, and i guess one of the arguments here, of course, is that when the dollars are brought back into the united states, this will put upward pressure on the dollar exchange rate and perhaps negate some of the boost the u.s. economy's getting from tax cut stimulus.ç charles: jim? >> this whole thing about dollars coming back, this is the greatest urban legend sinc alligators in the suers of new york. the money's -- sewers of new york. the money's always been here. you can invest freely in u.s. markets, it's called the non-atb, engaged in trader business. there's no tax on that. sure, you're going to reduce the capital of the subsidiary, do a wire transfer, but the money's already in treasuries and stocks -- charles: what about the confidence to use the money, to deploy the money? >> do you think anyone who wanted to build a factory in the last ten years at zero interest rates couldn't do it? charles: no, no, the confidence to say, hey, i will build the factory now because i see greater demand coming on. >> no. look, they got a green light to bring it back with low taxes, this is corporate america. i agree with john, it's good for dividends and stock buybacks, it's not going to be used to build anything. if you had the ability to build something productively, you could have done that all along. charles: remember, the regulations were a huge hindrance also -- >> i agree trump's regulatory thing is bigger than the tax thing. charles: a new report from mastercard, this is their spending splurge gauge, says consumersç spending almost 5% r the holiday season, e-commerce up even more, 18%. john, your thoughts on that and you couple with the retail report we got recently, and the consumer spending up six-tenths of a percent. looks like people are spending money. >> very good for fourth quarter gdp. the only problem is spending is growing more rapidly than incomes. i think the rate of growth for income is around 4%, spending growing at 5%. that difference is not sustainable, so there might be some payback involved at some point in 2018. charles: right. the savings number down to 2.9%, we get nervous when we hear that, jim. but by the same time, it's also a de facto sign of confidence, that people are confident enough to go out and spend. what do you think? >> i agree with john. yeah, they are spending more, the data -- whatever it is, that's nonsustainable. consumer confidence is highly correlated to the stock market, so you get -- charles: even people who claim they have no money in the market, you go to the mall and you see them returning stuff and buying new things. they're still influenced by the market? >> yeah. they come home, they see stocks are up, household savings -- savings are not up, but householdç net worth is up because of stocks. charles: prince harry's fiancee, megan markel, making her first appearance with queen elizabeth, attended a church service with the rest of the british family. this marks the first time a royal fiance has attended the church service before officially marrying into the family. more struggling malls turning to entertainment options to fill vacant spaces. we're going to look into that trend and see if it's enough to keep malls from closing their doors. and also, the trump administration reportedly wants to roll back offshore drilling safety measures. the changes could save the industry hundreds of millions of dollars, but would it hurt us somewhere else? we're all over it next. ♪ charles: the bureau of safety and environmental enforcement reportedly wants to roll back offshore drilling safety measures. joining us now, zane tankel. your thoughts? >> i'm not sure why it went through. we have so much oil onshore, we're pumping out more oil than we ever did with not even half the rigs up and operating. there's all these other rigs that were laid down, i'm not sure. charles: what about the notion that we still import a lot of oil from countries that aren't necessarily our friends? maybe it creates domestic jobs and, beyond the economic security, maybe some physical security as well? >> well, not really, because there's different grades of oil, and we with only have one basic kind of oil. the refineries are built to refine certain types of oil, and oil's fungible, right? so if the saudis decide to go back down to $10 a bsrrel, i think they can do that. their infrastructure's in place and what have you, and as you well know, they want to take aramco public, and they're trying to raise those prices. but if they change their mind? charles: how about -- i saw when the price of crude went from 120 and saudi arabia turned the spig got cans on and drove it down -- spigots on and drove it down. i think they lost. >> absolutely. charles: we see them struggling. they are taking their national oil company public. they've shaken up the country, and, you know, they're fighting a war in yemen that costs them a lot of money. they're not necessarily in a position to push us around like they were in the 1970s and 1980s, and that has to be a great thing, no? >> it's a great thing. and back to my point, we have so much oil onshore, producing more -- i think we're up to nine million barrels a day, something close to that. charles: right. a record amount -- >> record amount with not even half rigs operating, all those other rigs have been laid down, could always come back. we have workout rigs that can still be put back to use. be -- so work overrigs, rather. like the environmental potential impact when we don't need it. charles: well, you know, it's one of these things, obviously though, where if the economic impact, i mean, those are are very good paying jobs. >> yes, they are. charles charles there are a lot of folks in those areas. we know, for instance, with anwr the tax bill wouldn't have gotten done -- >> no doubt. charles: that's an area where folks have wanted to drill for oil for a long time. there's no way of truly preventing a periodic accident. i mean, that's just, you know, when you're dealing with something like these big, giant oil rigs, that comes with the territory. >> to my point, but an on-land accident doesn't nearly have the environment am impact -- charles: you wouldn't take advantage of -- >> there's a lot of offshore drilling still this place. close to west africa, a really good friend of mine runs the biggest offshore drilling company in the world. charles: but how does that help the oil rig worker in new orleans, though who may want a gig? >> we're having problems getting oil field workers back in because they've all just disappeared two or three years ago. they're, by and large, employed. charles: want toç go to the net one on tax reform. new york governor andrew cuomo, he's giving local property owners the option to prepay taxes by december 31st. now, you're a new york guy. what do you think this is all about? by the way, my accountant called me two weeks ago and told me to pay my my new jersey taxes ahead of time also. >> right. he signed an executive order because up until this new tax bill, you weren't allowed to do that in new york, number one. number two, once again, i think, just a sham of some degree. i don't want to go all the way to say fraud, but to some degree it is because here's an interesting fact, charles. in new york city approximately 75% of the housing stock is condo and co-op. you can't prepay those taxes because they have to be filed jointly by all the ownership in the condo or the co-op. charles: right. >> in four days or five days, the accountants aren't able to -- charles: right. >> as far as the state is concerned, he's taxed the heck out of the state. so if i charge you $100 every year and i say, you know what? i'm going to let you have a penny of it back, charles, but for one year, here's the penny. is there a relationship there? charles: whatç do you make of e idea that these blue states, you know, a lot of people are saying my taxes are going up. i think in new york city, for instance, your average s.a.l.t. deduction was $60,000. >> right. charles: those folks are getting hosed, but the rest of the country is saying, hey, that's your fault. could that maybe make us have an epiphany and say the people we've been electing are the real culprits here? >> absolutely. and i would guess that in committee when they were formulating, this was all taken into consideration, the final tax code. and somebody has to get reality because we can't just -- you know, i think wfs winston churchill who said socialism is really great until the people charging it run out of money. charles: or margaret thatcher. >> right. charles: one last one. mall owners are reportedly spending billions of dollars making upscale restaurants, bowling alleys to sort of facilitate foot traffic into malls. listen, you operate in malls, what do you think? >> i think this is a sucker born every minute. [laughter] charles: what does that mean? >> that means that it used to be the banks will pay anything, but now they only need a kiosk with an atm. and then it was that drugstores will pay you anything, andç now that's saturated. they're looking at restaurant guys because of free cash flow. i think if they're going to go in and pay these rents -- here's the deal, we go into malls because there's a mall there. we're interdependent on to each other. you need to have shopping cause to go to the mall, and you need to have value-added dining. to have, take either one away from the other you're out there in -- charles: but do you have more leverage because the upscale mall near me, it's almost empty except for the restaurants. >> do i have more -- no, you don't, because people come to that mall for the mall. that's why -- restaurant came later. they didn't fill the restaurant -- charles: so you don't go the mall owner and say, listen, if it wasn't for applebee's, no one would be in this mall, give me a lower rate? >> oh, i'm sorry, in terms of -- charles: right. you have leverage over the malls. >> we haven't had that yet because, i can say in all honesty, the top malls have not faced this. charles: i got you. zane, it's great to have you on. >> thank you, charles. charles charles california governor jerry brown issuing dozens of pardons on christmas day including for two men who were about to be deported for crimes committed while in the united states. we're all over that. and also one chinese city wantsmy to stop people from movg there. we'll tell you why shanghai says it needs to slow down its growth. we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ they appear out of nowhere. my secret visitors. appearing next to me in plain sight. hallucinations and delusions. these are the unknown parts of living with parkinson's disease. what stories they tell. but for my ears only. what plots they unfold. but only in my mind. over 50% of people with parkinson's will experience hallucinations or delusions during the course of their disease. and these can worsen over time, making things even more challenging. but there are advances that have led to treatment options that can help. if someone you love has parkinson's and is experiencing hallucinations or delusions, talk to your parkinson's specialist. because there's more to parkinson's. my visitors should be the ones i want to see. learn more at moretoparkinsons.com or a little internet machine? it makes you wonder: shouldn't we get our phones and internet from the same company? that's why xfinity mobile comes with your internet. you get up to 5 lines of talk and text at no extra cost. so all you pay for is data. see how much you can save. choose by the gig or unlimited. xfinity mobile. a new kind of network designed to save you money. call, visit, or go to xfinitymobile.com. retail. under pressure like never before. and it's connected technology that's moving companies forward fast. e-commerce. real time inventory. virtual changing rooms. that's why retailers rely on comcast business to deliver consistent network speed across multiple locations. every corporate office, warehouse and store near or far covered. leaving every competitor, threat and challenge outmaneuvered. comcast business outmaneuver. charles: "star wars": the last are jedi, still atop the box office. since its release, it's now made nearly $400 milíion. back to this weekend, jumanji, welcome to the jungle, came in second, and pitch perfect 3 came in third bringing in $25.6 million. and now let's look at some of the other headlines from today. the state of idaho has earned the title of the fastest growing state this past year. according to the u.s. census bureau, the state's population grew 2.2% from july 2016 to july 2017 which brought the state a total of 1.7 million residents. and take a look at this, this asteroid on your screen is known as the halloween asteroid because it first passed by the earth on october 31, 2015, and because it resemibls a skull. it's set to pass again november 2018. and an australian navy submarine was found off the coast of new guinea. the sub has been missing since world war i and was found by a search vessel. by the way, shanghai wants to cap its population. they say, you know, 25 million by 2035, that's enough. the city says it needs to control its growth as part of a plan to manage environmental pollution, traffic congestion and a shortage of public services. and then there's this. roz city o'donnellç slams house speaker paul ryan on twitter on christmas day telling him he's going straight to hell. turning point usa founder charlie kirk is going to weigh in on that tirade. also some experts warning there will be are an exodus of homeowners from blue states following the passage of that tax plan. property man bob massi eye goes doing here to tell us whether he believes that prediction. ♪ attention homeowners age sixty-two and older. one reverse mortgage has a great way for you to live a better retirement... it's called a reverse mortgage. call right now to receive your free information kit with no obligation. it answers questions like... how a reverse mortgage works, how much you qualify for, the ways to receive your money and more. plus, when you call now, you'll get this magnifier with led light absolutely free! when you call the experts at one reverse mortgage today you'll learn the benefits of a government-insured reverse mortgage. it will eliminate your monthly mortgage payments and give you tax-free cash from the equity in your home... and here's the best part... you still own yohome. call now! take control of your retirement today! charles: let's check on the big board, relatively flat. you can see more stocks on the dow are hire, but being weighed down by apple. some reports on less than expected demand for the iphone x. big tech names we check every day on "varney & company," relatively unchanged. actually coming off the lows earlier this morning. again, apple your main loser standing out there. now, many people moving out of these high-taxed blue states into low tax states like nevada. joining us now is the property man himself, host and fox legal analyst bob massi. are you seeing signs that now in addition to these trends that were already in place we could actually see it sped up because of taxes and the way it hits these blue states? >> yeah, charles, i, first of all, nice working with you again. i think there's two different schools of thought. one is that those people that are very successful and have very, you know, beautiful homes in excess of $1 million, $2 million, $3 million, they will go to their tax people and work things out in such a way that get whatever benefit they can. the second one is, yes, you're going to seeç an exodus from, r example, california which is the obvious result over to las vegas, and as you know better than anybody because you visit here quite a bit and study our economy, it's booming now more than ever with the raiders and the hockey team and everything else. so i think there's going to be, take some time to see how much of an exodus. but is there an incentive to do it? absolutely. newcharles: yeah. and new jersey, state i live in, there's a report that says two million people left. and when they left, they took $18 billion in net gross income with them. so it's -- i understand, rich people aren't going to go anywhere, because they can afford all the changes. but those folks who don't necessarily go to the nutcracker at, you know, lincoln center probably will have to find a way to adjust. of want to ask you about, bob, because the national association of realtors reported last week existing home sales surged 5.6%. what are your thoughts? >> well, again, las vegas, for example, and florida and the states that were hit before, we don't have a lot of inventory, charles. i think we maybe have -- now, there's a range here. we're talking about homes between $200,000 and 250, 300. which in las vegas, for example, or the state of nevada, buys you one heck of a hoóe, okay? there's no inventory there. and as a result of no inventory, the demand's there, the supply's low, prices go up. pretty basic formula. now, the deregulation that the president did, obviously, has helped. so we do have a construction boom. as you know, mr. wynn last week announced he brought the old frontier property, there's going to be an announcement, i'm sure, coming there. from the strip perspective, it's going to be growing. but from the housing perspective because there's not a lot of inventory, there's going to be these prices. the question's going to be when you start building again -- charles: right. >> -- and people are going to be able to get into the place, is it going to level those prices out, and i suspect it will. there'll be some correction this. charles: now, is it an issue in vegas because i know a lot of other places, and it's so interesting, we just had zane tankel saying a whole lot of folks who worked on oil rigs, when the crude oil went down, they found other jobs and haven't come back. i know that's been a dilemma for the construction industry as well. >> bigtime. we have major, major labor problems, charles. not just here, but different or parts of the country. we also have the cost of materials very high. so you have the construction area, even though there's been deregulation and the permits, there's still a delay on issuinç permits, by way. it's better than it was, what the president did was great, but there's still a delay in permits for construction. but when you have a labor issue, they're recruiting people from all over the country, literally all over the world to do labor in las vegas right now, and the materials are going up. that's going to slow things down. that that's going to have to be greatsed and, obviously, they'll sit down, figure it out because they've got to build these homes and casinos they want to do again. charles: bob, prices have gone up at least on an average basis, median prices have gone up in part because of the imbalance between supply and demand. do we get to a point where that actually starts to hurt the housing recovery? >> i think so. you know, i -- i mean, really, a lot of the things you've talked about over the years has really come to be, and that's the fact that you're going to see at some point, i think, that the correction will be there. i am concerned to some extent that we get into that mode of people wanting to own again, people will do what they have to do to own again because their credit has come back, they recover it, you know, from the short sales, they recovered from the foreclosures, from the bankruptcies, and now they have the ability to buy again. the question's going to be with all this going on, is there going to be a wall that's going to beç hit. will there be another bubble. and time's going to tell. honestly, you have to listen to the professionals that are in the marketplace every day. i have people all the time saying is this a good time to buy. you and i know it's always in the buy. charles: right. >> but if the supply comes back up, you have to be careful. charles: bob massi, thank you very much. watch the property man fridays at 8:30 p.m. eastern right here on fox business. president trump is praising next guest on twitter in response to something charlie kirk said about the president. here's the tweet. the president has accomplished some absolutely historic things during this past year. thank you, charlie kirk, of turning point usa's, sadly, the mainstream media will never talk about our accomplishments in their end-of-year reviews. we are compiling a long and beautiful list. here's the man himself, turning point usa's founder, charlie kirk. president trump giving you props on twitter. how does it feel? >> it's pretty cool. i got a couple of retweets and mentions after that. what i said, i think, remains true. you look at what this president has accomplished over the last year especially with this tax reform and the biggest tax cut of my generation, but not just that, you look atç his leadershp internationally -- isis is totally on the run, how he's remaking the courts domestically, and you see manufacturing confidence at its highest level in nearly 50 years, and the president, you turn on, you know, some of these other networks and you see nothing but negative coverage and all this russia nonsense. i think it remains true that what this president has done is truly historic. and if a democrat president achieved one-tenth of what president trump has done, they would say it would be one of the most amazing first years of a presidency we've ever seen is. charles: charlie, of course, you've always dealt with bringing millennials onboard the republican party because it faces lots of obstacles, including the mainstream media. how do you think president trump should articulate his message around younger voters who may naturally gravitate to democrats? >> this is extremely important. he has opponents both in the democratic and republican party. and young people in particular are look for leaders such as the president that are willing to take decisive stands that might not be, you know, 100% republican, 100% democrat. we just held a conference last 50 states , and i can tell you one of the most resounding messages of our attendees was that they want politicians and leaders that represent them, not just a political party. but look, the explosion of economic growth that is going to come because of this tax cut is going to benefit our generation most. you know, baby boomers that are going to be retiring in the next 5-10 years, they're going to see some benefits in their 401(k) or boost in retirement savings, our generation are going to see higher wages and better jobs. charles: one frequent trump critic, outgoing arizona senator jeff flake who's now suggesting, you know, there could be a challenger to president trump in 2020, perhaps even jeff flake. what's your take on that? >> it's all a bunch of noise. this is a guy that ran as a tea party conservative last time and doesn't have enough high approval rating to run for re-election time. what a terrible disappointment he's been. look, there's not going to be a primary changer against the president. -- challenger against the president. you know he's doing well when the huffington post comes out, sadly, the president is winning. whether it be in the embassy in jerusalem, getting out of tpp, the deregulateç aring the enery industry, fighting for coal, for american manufacturing, he's done nothing but kept his promises. of but you know when the media's pushing those kind of trial balloons, that's when you see a president doing what he said he was going to do. and that's not always been the case in the last 20, 30 years. charles: or republican congress at that. >> that's right. charles: rosie o'donnell sending a very angry tweet to house speaker paul ryan over the tax plan. this is what it read. paul ryan, don't talk about jesus after what you just did to our nation. you will go straight to hell. you screwed up. fake altar boy, view das much. your thoughts on that. >> so she blocks me on twitter, so i'm not able to see all that. [laughter] rosie and i don't always go along. she better be suring a good lawyer because she was tweeting out last week i will give a million or dollars cash to any gop senator that does not vote for this bill. well, that's a felony. that is offering cash to a congressperson for bribery, so she better have a really good -- charles: she's become completely unhinged. twitter had to take down some of her tweets over the weekend. >> that's right. this is the spokesperson that they have chosen, and is she's screaming at the sky like all theç rest of the leftists. you know, all kidding aside, what she has done is actually a crime. she was offering cold, hard cash to gop senators to not vote for the tax bill. so i hope she has a good attorney and that criminal charges are filed against her. if a republican had even dared said that, you better believe there would be authorities put after them. she's a total joke, and the president made himself wonderfully famous in that first presidential debate. she's not exactly wildly popular with the american people. charles: all right. charlie kirk, congratulations on the great work. appreciate it. >> thank you, charles. charles: the u.s. is announcing funding cuts to the united nations. ambassador nikki haley says the plan calls for $285 billion in cuts for the 2018-19 fiscal year. the move comes just after more than 100 nations supported a measure calling for america to withdraw its choice to recognize jerusalem as israel's capital. president trump threatened to cut off aid to those countries who voted against that decision. and now this, thousands of at&t employees will be looking for for new jobs in the new year. the company announcing it's laying off staffers starting at 2018, early 2018. at&t says though most of these workers affected areç from ther landline and other legacy service sectors. this comes just after the company says it would give $200 million worth of bonuses to employees in celebration of the gop's new tax plan. all right. california governor jerry brown defying the trump administration once again. he pardoned two immigrants who were about to be deported after committing crimes in the united states. antonio sabato jr. is going to weigh in on that when we come back. also more of us are flying the friendly skies this holiday season, but airlines are struggling with fuel costs and labor costs. we've got all those details in just 90 seconds. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> i'm nicole petallides with your fox business brief. a close look at theç airlines which are doing well today and have gaped year to date. -- gained year to date. they've seen profits, more employees, but they've also seen more costs; costs for fuel, labor, maintenance. and that's cutting into the margins. we can see also that overall you see a gain of 8.1%. that's how the expenses rose in the first nine months of this year compared with prior year that we saw. and big picture though, is that really inflation clearly, and the costs that have been on the rise for the labor have also seen the full-time equivalent employees averaging $424,000. that is the highest level for these airlines since 2004. when you take a look at names such as delta, jetblue, southwest, they are all higher year to date. but they do have to manage costs. ♪ ♪ ♪ [vo] progress is an unstoppable force. the season of audi sales event is here. audi will cover your first month's lease payment on select models during the season of audi sales event. charles: california's governor jerry brog mo$ than a hundred pardons on christmas. two of these, in fact, were to immigrants who were about to be deported for crimes in the united states. joining us now is actor and california congressional candidate antonio sabato jr. what are your thoughts on this? a lot of people think it's a direct thumbing of nose from jerry brown to donald trump. >> good morning. merry christmas to everyone, happy new year. it's going to be an amazing 2018 thanks to our president and all the hard work he's been putting into fixing our country. but going back to our question, jerry brown, i mean, listen, he needs to step down. he's been in government for way too long. and right now he needs to start acting like the state of california is part of the rest of the country. all he does is complain about our president all day long, and then he pushes for something like this, and, you know, these are illegal immigrants who have come here. and not only that, but they're criminals. they need to be deported as soon as possible, and he's not doing that. so i think it's time he steps down and, you know, we start putting officials and taking care of our state of california. and i'm definitely one of them, because i'm going to fight to get my seat red again and my county.ç district 26, ventura county, make sure i get in congress in 2018. you know, we need to have the american people behind me. go to voteantonio.com and make it happen. charles: of course, california well known for its income inequality, and now the spike in homelessness is outrageous. it's just crazy. it's these policies that you just have to wonder, okay, hollywood and silicon valley you can deal with it, but there are millions of people in your state, antonio, who are suffering. >> they're suffering, and we're paying $23 billion on immigration alone every single year, and like you said, you know, homelessness. we have the opioid epidemic, you know, addiction mt. state of california is cover whenning. that's why i started a nonprofit to help anyone in need. we need to step up and start putting the american people first. our country is first. making america great again, that's my whole thing. we make our county of ventura county red again, it's a good -- we're doing the right thing. charles: aye got another one for you on president trump's accomplishments, and this is the "wall street journal" speaking about this new tax plan. says it opens up the door bigtime for companies to bring at least $400 ball back from overseas into ourç country. what's your take on that? >> it's amazing, it's beautiful, what the president is trying to do and actually accomplishing something like this. having more jobs come into america, you know, having stuff made in the usa, made in america, that's going to be great. i think 2018's going to be one of our best years in america, and i'm looking forward to it. and this tax reform, tax cut is -- we're heading in the right direction, and we're putting the american people first. and i'm excited about that. charles: so having said that, that was the key, one of the key components of the trump agenda. next, infrastructure, building the wall, you know, removing more of obamacare, fixing that. you confident that he can get those things done? >> right. yeah, i think so. if there's one man who can actually get the job done, it's president trump. he's making some amazing moves, and 2018 is just the beginning. i mean, look what he's done in about 12 months. charles: right. >> i give him a lot of credit. charles: all right. i've got to ask you about this because les a story unions are looking to organize be potential workers as recreational marijuana becomes legal in your state of california. >> right. charles: what are your thoughts? unionized pot workers. >> oh, i think we need to do that. i think we need to regulate is selling the marijuana all over the country and especially in california.ç so we need to start regulating and putting the american people first, and we need to protect the american people. so it's already legal, so let's just, you know, put our efforts together and make sure that we can, we can accomplish this and regulate it. charles: are you concerned about the idea of unions being involved in this, or would you like to see more of a free market where small businesses and those kind of folks get involved to try to grow businesses? >> well, i like..,"+ the small business growing, that's my philosophy. i think that's the backbone of this country. so i think we need to support that. but at the same time, we need to regulate and make sure that the american people are are safe. and especially children. charles: antonio, thank you very much. and good luck with the campaign. >> my pleasure. thank you very much. charles: millions of americans enjoyed a white christmas, and more snow could actually be on the way for a large part of the country. we're heading to the fox news weather center for an update on who could be affected during this very busy travel week. ♪ ♪ i used to have more hair. i used to have more color. and... i used to have cancer. i beat it. i did. not alone. i used to have no idea what the american cancer society did. research? yeah. but also free rides to chemo and free lodging near hospitals. i used to maybe give a little. then i got so much back. i used to have cancer. please give at cancer.org. when it comes to travel, i sweat the details. late checkout... ...down-alternative pillows... ...and of course, price. tripadvisor helps you book a... ...hotel without breaking a sweat. because we now instantly... ...search over 200 booking sites ...to find you the lowest price... ...on the hotel you want. don't sweat your booking. tripadvisor. the latest reviews. the lowest prices. well, it'sonce again.eason >>yeah. lot of tech companies are reporting today. and, how's it looking? >>i don't know. there's so many opinions out there, it's hard to make sense of it all. well, victor, do you have something for him? >>check this out. td ameritrade aggregates thousands of earnings estimates into a single data point. that way you can keep your eyes on the big picture. >>huh. feel better? >>much better. yeah, me too. wow, you really did a number on this thing. >>sorry about that. that's alright. i got a box of 'em. thousands of opinions. one estimate. the earnings tool from td ameritrade. charles: all right, folks, let's check on the big board. now we're startinghto really pull back a little bit, dow off 17 points. it's a very small fractional move, but you can see we have a few more in the red here. apple, work -- of course, the big laggard. then, of course, there's more of an update on apple, the suppliers all getting hit pretty good. this after reports out of taiwan saying that there will be weaker than expected iphone x shipments in the first quarter, perhaps 30 million instead of 50 million. and for the first time in four years, the nfl regular season will end without a prime time broadcast. adam, what's going on? >> well, the latest really aren't that great. they're kind of like the record of the cleveland browns. so the nfl decided instead of having a new year's eve game, the official statement is it will be better from a competitive standpoint and from a fan perspective to move all of those games to either 4:00 in the afternoon, 4:25 or 1:00. finish in the afternoon. so there'll be no competition. the ratings for the last new year's eve game were pretty bad too, kind of like last year's cleveland browns' record. that's where it stands, no new year's eve game. charles: i never knew they could making that adjustment that quickly. a game that was going to be scheduled, theyç changed it? >> apparently, they're going to move everything to 4:25. charles: we all know it's a real problem, but anyway, maybe that's a step in the right direction. i don't know what to say for cleveland. [laughter] >> prayers. charles: one of the busiest travel weeks of the year, and parts of the country are dealing with snow and brutally cold temperatures. adam klotz, fox news meteorologist, is at the weather center with more details. adam, i'm seeing some ugly numbers behind you, my man. >> yeah, the temperatures, the bottom fell out the last couple of days. this is all through portions of qanta, but this is settling down into the continental united states. areas seeing really cold weather. 14 degrees below zero in chicago, that's your feels-like temperature, 8 below in kansas city. that cold air mass really centering in the northern portions of the plains states. this is wind chill -- no longer wind chill, actual temperatures at noon, at this point 11:00 over there, all of these numbers hanging in the below zero range. and even in the heat of the day, a lot of these spots are going to struggle to eventually climb out of that basement. you're looking at a daytime high of 1ç degree in minneapolis, 12 degrees in chicago, 15 over in cleveland. that cold air has really funneled in and it's going to be sticking with us throughout the entire week that's coming. that arctic blast besides that, i know you want to know what's going to be happening on new year's eve. actually not a lot in the next couple of days, but if we look farther into the forecast, we eventually begin to see this line of snow and rain begin to form by the time we get into the weekend. so this is now sunday taking you into new year's eve, this is only going to spread more and more up the coast new year's eve running into new year's day. really think those overnight hours when a lot of folks are wanting to get outside. unfortunately, yes, it could be a wintry mix, some snow on the way, charles. again, we'll be paying attention to it the next couple of days. charles: adam, thank you very much. it's balmy and 4 degrees in parts of the country. more "varney" after this. ♪ ♪ pier. . . charles: a woman shocked after checking her monthly electric bill. adam you have the details. >> because the bill was for $284 billion. i need to sound like dr. evil. $284 billion. now clearly there was a mistake made but this woman, she lives in erie, pennsylvania. she thought they might have done something wrong hanging their christmas lights. the son called the electric company. they figured it out. the decimal point was in the wrong place. charles: so itç was 284 bucks? >> frankly that is kind of high unless she has electric heat i pet it. charles: you ever see the tv shows bit with the lights. >> i like it simple. spray spray paint noel on windows. charles: david asman is next. >> you only pay after half this in jersey, after the tax hikes come in jersey tax hikes. welcome to cavuto "coast to coast." i'm david asman in for neil today. president trump is in florida putting d.c. on notice to get more done. next on the agenda, one trillion dollar infrastructure plan. blake burman at the white house with the very latest on this i'm sure they're adding up figures saying all the possible tish shuns how can you get it done? >> this is the next top of the again today item, david at least when they get into 2018. president trump continuing to enjoy down time in florida. the white house continuing to signal that infrastructure is their next big item. over the weekend the white house

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