This morning, well break it all down the president s response, the economic fallout and the latest efforts to control the pandemic. Our guests, the nations top expert on infectious diseases, dr. Anthony fauci and treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin. The pointman on the economic response. Plus, the powerhouse roundtable on the political fallout. Announcer from abc news, its this week. Here now, chief white house correspondent, jonathan karl. Good morning and welcome to this week. We want to get right to the latest developments on the coronavirus pandemic. There are now over 156,000 cases confirmed across the globe. And more than 5800 deaths. Spain is now in lockdown. France and israel are closing restaurants and other nonessential businesses. And here at home, the numbers continue to climb. Take a look at this map from last week, and now there are more than 2900 known cases in 49 states and washington, d. C. Thats every state except west virginia. At least 59 deaths have been reported. Our
Im ending my campaign. Im suspending my campaign. The viable path just no longer existed. Now a twoman race. If you want to nominate a life long democrat, join us. We have different records. We have a different vision. The American People will hear about it. Six more states vote tuesday. Is michigan now make or break for Bernie Sanders . He joins us this morning. Plus, rahm emanuel and Chris Christie on our powerhouse roundtable. Well break down the politics, smoke out the spin, the in facte announcer from abc news, its this week. Here now, chief anchor george stephanopoulos. Good morning, and welcome to this week. Well have all the latest on the race to the white house coming up but we begin with the coronavirus crisis. Heres what we know right now, the number of cases has climbed passed 100,000. And more 100 countries. Italy announced overnight that the Northern Region of that country is now on lockdown. Affecting a quarter of the population. The virus is spreading coast to coast her
It was being called the christmas protest. Three big hours for you. Buckle in. Merry christmas. Varney company about to start right now. Charles huge gains for the markets this year. The calendar year, in fact, has wall street looking extraordinarily well. Want to bring in market watcher Rebecca Walser on these gains and of course, at this point in time, we always look ahead. What do you make overall of this market, considering all the negative headlines, all the negative speculation . First to have this kind of market is really remarkable. Charles, it is. Merry christmas. Im having such a great retail season high. I dont care what the retail experts, you know, were expecting. We got 3. 4 growth and Super Saturday, charles, the biggest shopping day ever. 3. 4 billion on Super Saturday. Thats what happens when you have a short Christmas Shopping season, right, from thanksgiving to christmas. Charles yeah, no doubt about it. And i got to tell you, its anecdotal but as i looked around at
Cheryl veronica . I hosted so im ready to be done. We have a lot of news coming up this morning. Our top story this hour was, well, it was christmas, americans spending more money online for the Holiday Season, ecommerce sales jumped more than 18 compared to last year overall. Holiday retail sales excluding cars rising more than 3 . Thanksgiving did fall later this year which pushed a lot of retailers to start sales earlier. President trump touted the news, heres what he tweeted. 2019 Holiday Retail sales were up 3. 4 from last year. Biggest number in u. S. History, congratulations, america. Veronica, your reaction in the middle of all this political abusinesabyss thats happening , you have an economy and consumer thats on fire and we have numbers to prove it. It sounds like youre trying to get away from washington but this is great for the party of washington, for republicans, for the president. This is a great economy for him to be going into 2020 with. Theres a ton of devi divisiven
Playbooks. And jon najarian is tracking the market for opportunity Halftime Report starts right now. Good to have you with us on this thursday. Your Investment Committee on boxing day no sparring. I know, a different thing. Lets begin with that market milestone, the nasdaq hitting 9,000 for the first time ever. He joe, i local feel like this is the fomo rally, feerp of m ff missing out. Is it sustainable when i the calendar flips over . I think it is for the month of january why not wait and see what earnings will look like before we moderate the rate of appreciation as you move into february and march and the reality of a looming election maybe takes the market and presents it as a pause but you mentioned boxing day remember, this all began one day ago on boxing day, you had the dow jones up over 1,000, you had the nasdaq up over 5. 5 . It began there it followed into the january 2019 with the tremendous pivot from the Federal Reserve and i think that that has been the story that has