to this one? ashley: i'm a bit of a sloth expert, the four toed sloth can do two miles in a day. i will go with 80 feet, number 2. stuart: you don't know anything about the 4 toed sloth. stuart: i do not. >> one less to can't make a difference, 125 feet. stuart: i'm told the sloths absolutely smell awful. that is why they don't travel very far in any one day, their opponents have plenty of time to get out of the way. i will choose 60 feet. the answer please. got it right. 125 feet, the 3 toed sloth is one of the slowest animals in the world, it crawls around at a pace of one ft. /m. the fastest animal is the cheetah. thanks for being with us for the day. ashley, i am guaranteed to see you to lou -- varney is back

tomorrow. neil: if you are into stocks, a rally shows no signs of stopping, slowing a tad but certainly not stopping. say you are not that into stocks. may be more into your home or looking to purchase a home. may be your real estate ship has come in. i want you to look at something, this is a 10 year note was the interest rate of this puppy is collapsing, now at 3.95%. north of 5% and since a lot of mortgages and home refinancing loans, guess what is happening, bingo go down and down low. you to do the honors on that, lauren simonetti. lauren: santa claus came early and keeps on giving and a lot of folks are saying yeah, the santa claus rally will continue into the new year. the reason why, the fed pivot, rate cuts next year but the

market 6. talking about the 10 year, the 30 year fixed mortgage rate drops 6. 95%, the first print under 7% since august. freddie maxes the housing market's freeze is a flying. great news for the buyer who can't afford a home and the builder who wants to get them out and more of them. there' is growing confidence or we can call it holiday cheer. case in point, glove retail sales for november rose 0.3% from october. nice rebound. what do we think? everything from sporting goods and stuff for our hobbies to furniture once again. big receipts at bars and restaurants up 1.6%. that's the holiday spirit. apple shares, do they have 200 yet? that's what they are looking for, $1.99 and change.

apple is still a growth stock and most say it is a must owning your portfolio. iphone sales might be slowing but services are booming. catalysts are coming ik i, iphone, take a look at apple year to date, 52%. many investors say big tech is worth it even withholding it is expected to. neil: they added $3 of market value this past year. lauren: $3.8 trillion is the latest valuation. only going up. lauren: thank you for that. the impact on real estate and mortgages. a lot of people more inclined to think of their home than stocks, the dallas fed president, great to see you. what do you think is going on? >> reporter: even before this

magnificent rally we saw week over week mortgage applications for refinancing increased 19. 4%. and they are reacting to this decline in rates and taking cash out of their homes and we forget unlike the last time there was a big boom in housing, this time americans have to medicine amount of home equity built up in their homes. they have the ability to extract that and we see that manifest. lauren: 1 interesting problem. the rising rate environment, that could add new light to a new push to spending. >> reporter: it adds to consumption when we are seeing inflation come under control. the flip side, wage not growing at the same pace. to your point households will

be very excited to monetize, turn into cash what they built in their homes. neil: the inflection point when it comes to mortgages, 107%, 6.5, people say do something and sell it, now put a house on the market. >> the last few months alone we've seen sellers wake up from hibernation just in the move we have seen. forget what has happened since yesterday. we are seeing more inventory come into the market. this is charles: some homebuilders buying down the mortgage rate to convince people to get into a new home, this is getting inventory moving, fabulous news for buyers who have been shut out of this market for a long time. neil: a lot of home stocks but let me get your take on what jerome powell did yesterday. you follow more closely than i do and understand what he says

more than i do but he seemed to sort of typically comes in when he says something, he goes before a microphone, stocks crash because he wants to dampen the enthusiasm. this time he added to it. what is the strategy here? >> few people appreciate how arepolitical, as he is supposed to be, how apolitical jerome powell is. the fed will be meeting until the last day of january so i think to me at least powell is getting ahead of the iowa caucuses. in mid january, he's trying to not do politics itself in an election year. neil: he had to know the kind of comments he made would be favorable to the president in the white house. >> he does. by the same token he's pretty

resolute about saying i will continue shrinking the federal reserve balance sheet and taking liquidity out of a financial system that is still starved for liquidity, still seeing -- neil: a limit to how much rates come down. that keeps rates from plummeting. >> when you adjust rates for inflation, just a few months ago we were talking about real rates, inflation-adjusted interest rates being positive but lower inflation goes the more positive they are and therefore, companies in the market to borrow it makes it more onerous. neil: i know he was seemingly talking about three rate cuts but markets need to anticipate close to double fat. where are you? >> we might go somewhere in the middle. people need to study the fed calendar. the november meeting is two days after election day.

you never see the fed move beyond september in an election year so for the 6 rate cuts the market has priced in, they would have to go every single meeting beginning in january. neil: you are the best. i understood that. talking about whether all this time, we like in environments with the markets going up. the numbers are strong, that is exactly how the administration is trying to play it. let's go to hillary vaughan, looking at the screen, what is this we are looking at? why don't we have it, that was the impeachment vote to call for a special procedure going where they can now invite guests to come on and subpoena, that was last night. hillary vaughan on this other

aspects going on, the economic numbers helping the president, to you. >> reporter: the white house wants to focus on the economy, a winning thing headed into 2024 but still a big looming problem for them in 2024 is going to be this formal impeachment inquiry because the house last night voted to move forward with a formal impeachment inquiry which means the new year is going to bring a lot of new problems for the president because there will be a lot of closed-door depositions happening, house republicans hoping this impeachment inquiry being formalized will give their subpoenas more teeth to convince a lot more people to talk to them behind closed doors but before they do that, they are expected to do the depositions over winter break and while they are doing that the house left town for the

holidays, the majority of interviews happening in january after the new year. >> the depositions behind closed doors, there's a transcript and at some point you release the transcript and do a report on an impeachment inquiry that will be a report someplace if we decide to move to articles of impeachment. >> reporter: also in the new year hunter biden facing potential contempt of congress. house oversight began the process. democrats today largely backing biden for ditching the deposition at a protest, wasn't getting the public hearing he demanded. >> they said multiple times he testified publicly or privately and said he wanted to testify publicly. >> reporter: he didn't answer any of our questions. he said he wanted to be in public with cameras there but we tried to ask him questions. what do you think he is afraid of or hiding?

>> don't know, he said hunter could testify publicly, hunter showed up publicly and they no longer wanted him publicly. >> reporter: the timeline is looking like january will be of a lot of closed-door interviews which would put a final decision on whether or not they would move forward with articles of impeachment to sometime in the early next year time frame. neil: that is the battle today, the news, the strong market, what is going on, last night, the impeachment, the backdrop that could hurt going forward but the white house is hanging its hopes on this trend that will be their friend and continued market rally that speaks of lower mortgage rates than potential homebuyers and everything would look fine 11 months from now. what do you think of that? >> they are betting people will

say things are looking good and they will think house republicans are playing politics with an impeachment inquiry that's not going to go anywhere in terms of removing biden. not like the democratic senate is going to convict him. also, democrats could say why don't house republicans focus on issues like immigration, china, school system, making it better instead of chasing the white whale of taking down hunter biden and joe biden? neil: what is your sense when the wind is at its back, we have been steadily strong jobs numbers month over month. the administration is yet to see any benefit of that in the polls. who is to say even with strong record-setting market pace, if it were to continue the new year, it's going to help.

>> they would hope voters and swing voters can appreciate inflation is way down and by next november inflation will be a distant memory. this is a first impression world where for the first year the biden administration is bad in terms of rising prices. people who are struggling, sometimes their wages have not caught up and even if they have, they feel everything is expensive and their lives have not been transformed by the chips act or infrastructure. you can't pay your mortgage with semiconductors and we don't live in a totalitarian system where biden has a magic wand and says everyone wages go up, we live in a capitalist economy. there are downsides to that. neil: i wonder what will decide this. it too early to say if it will

be president biden and donald trump facing against each other though that is what appears right now but the bedding seems to be this economic turnaround isn't going to be felt and isn't going to help president biden and that depends on the polls you look at and all that and where this goes. ultimately. many second term presidents staked his fate on how the markets have done and most of those who have gotten reelected got reelected with markets doing well in their final year, not all the time but a good many times. i am wondering now if it doesn't pan out that way. >> because of his old age that is a wildcard. you can have all the numbers in terms of unemployment being pretty low. the economy continuing to grow and people could say he's too old, don't know if he can

survive another four years and he's not looking that great. what democrats are hoping is if you have 91 felony charges, trump will get convicted of a number of them and that will peel off enough republicans and swing voters who will say i know biden is old and the economy isn't doing that great but i don't want a felon, a convicted felon in the oval office. it looks bad for america. neil: thank you very much. you have heard a move afoot by some republican congressman to go after colleges that refuse to leave their embattled presidents in place at a time when they are saying given the anti-semitism at ivy league colleges, is that there call? mitch daniels pursuing that. after this.

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a lot of what goes on on college campuses today is deplorable. neil: you would not endorse that financially or otherwise? >> when i was very young, up the road from stanford university we had formal policy against stanford grands. i've never been in favor of that. i have always been in favor of moving through hard in dealing with tough knocks and people who worked their way through school. i always shied away from fancy school, always. neil: politicians are aiming to force the issue because harvard is standing by its president, mit as well. there has been little bit of excitement, they ignored the behavior on campus.

the former university president, let let's look at this raging debate because i wonder whether politicians should be pushing that or the university boards, to pressure those boards. >> the latter. i think it is fine to draw attention and it is legit to comment on the disgraceful behavior we have seen lately but i'm not a fan of the federal government throwing its weight around. i didn't support it. i don't support it when the government is threatening to withhold money over the sexual harassment policies, they don't think are strict enough. i don't think it is the right answer. you put your finger on it. this problem arose when boards of trustees and the presidents they selected didn't do their

job and didn't enforce reasonable standards, set standards for free speech and conduct and that's where the answer has to come from. neil: donors like harvard pooling get back promised funds or reneging on promises of future funds, the university policies not only tolerating but often times encouraging anti-semitic protests but not the other way around. that is pressure of one kind but at least it's not coming from washington. >> right. it is entirely there right and many of them have given the institutions before but let's just notice the schools in question here are the exceptions. they can do anything they want as harvard showed. what they have done has further discredited the sector and that's a bad thing.

public confidence in higher ed has been plummeting. employers are no longer recognizing degrees as essential reaven important. attendance and enrollment is down. this really unfortunate recent set of circumstances on the cast further doubt on a sector that was already struggling. of the 20 being fiscally one of the most adept leaders of a public or private institution anywhere, you didn't seem to gravitate to these controversies whether it was anti-semitism or others or speakers who were like or weren't like the. you seemed to avoid that and i think you avoided it by preaching. you didn't preach. >> we preached and practiced a policy of free inquiry and free debate.

students occasionally faculty expressed their points of view. we made that more possible than it had been previously. we also made clear we had high expectations for the conduct of people, would not tolerate disruption of work, of study. one thing i think will be important in the aftermath of what we have just seen is whether schools, where we have seen actual conduct that is unacceptable. physical assault of jewish students, in some cases. those should be grounds for suspension or expulsion. at our school it was pretty clear that would be the consequence of going beyond free-speech into behavior that trespasses on the boundaries. neil: would you say if they

come from an ivy league school, think twice about having them. >> repeat that. neil: can fisher says a fancy school, ivy league school like stanford, not any of this, he wouldn't have them as students. what do you think? >> i was proud to survey land-grant school. not a school where children of privilege had gone, the school we tried to maintain rigor and standards, not easy to get in a. they are highly sought after in the marketplace and i'm afraid too many schools, we considered our finest achieve their currency by academic standards

and their approach to issues like the ones we just saw. neil: a political question. look like donald trump is a front runner for the nomination. it is still early. served and administration, you know how washington works. if he returned to the white house are you okay with that? >> many americans feel for the moment they don't see two thirds of them don't see an appealing choice which i have confidence in the resilience of this country, we've lived through good and bad presidents, good and bad times which i have confidence we would again. neil: would be okay with donald trump? >> i'm not expressing any personal opinion. you and i have been around this before. i've been in the bleachers for these conversation. i will give you a clinical answer.

i understand why people are uncomfortable with the choices they appear to be looking forward to but at the same time, this country has been through difficulties and disagreements before. i think we will make it through. neil: good chatting with you even when i try to get you to say something to embarrass yourself. it never works that i thank you again. mitch daniels. of the more after this including kelly o'grady, what elon musk is looking at and something else that is picking people's interests, it shows he's looking at a new direction after this. ♪ ♪

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adam: the house joins the senate in that spending bill,

certainly for president zelenskyy in ukraine against more ukrainian aid. former national security advisor on the significance of that. what do you think? >> we've not been great fans of the heritage foundation because there's a lot of stuff that has nothing to do with supplying the military. this would be an appropriate vehicle for that kind of assistance, unlike the emergency supplemental to the budgeting process. stuart: for president zelenskyy, saying vladimir putin has already taken high fives about more money should be provided. where is this going? >> what we are seeing is the breakdown in the lack of

strategy from the biden administration. all americans were impressed by the bravery of president zelenskyy and the ukrainians fighting up against the russian aggression but what we never heard from president biden or his administration is a clear strategy about why the united states should be the lead donor to the european war and how to get more assistance out of our european allies, germany might double its military aid to ukraine next year which would bring it to something like 9 million out of the largest economy in the eu. that's unacceptable and what you are seeing now is the american people ask when we have pressing problems like the southern border as we discussed why are we being asked to foot the bill for this? neil: talking about what's going to happen now as far as continued support in the war, we are told things got icy,

like when antony blinken was in tel aviv a couple weeks ago but the us administration urging them not to overdo it. where do you think things stand? >> hard for me to see how you can overdo it in response to the atrocities of october 7th, learning about these things in detail but we've seen a distinct shift from the impressive rhetoric the president led with after the attacks to what we've seen in the past couple days, the president is espousing world condemnation of israel, antony blinken and jake sullivan are urging restraint. the first tweets out of the white house and state department, that is where the hearts are, but caving to it

and unfortunately israel realizes the administration isn't in their corner they will have to do this that way. stuart: thank you. good catching up with you. appreciate it. keeping up with elon musk. it is his investments in education getting people's attention right now. what is going on here? >> reporter: the billionaire is planning to launch a school in austin, texas, the charity is applied for tax-exempt status for the new education venture beginning with a $100 million donation, the charity plans to create a stem purpose school for grades 8 through 12 which is scholarship fund. there's a moment of 50 students but plans to launch university dedicated to education at the highest level, revealing a mix

of classroom instruction and hands-on experience with math and science and engineering and physics that employees would need. schools being denied to meet educational needs of academic and scientific potential, schools have project-based curriculums. this is not musk's first foray into education. the millionaire pools kids from la private, it has been rebranded as online school that teaches students to make ethical decisions. new universities, musk's latest attempt to make a mark on central texas, building a town with everything from schools to subsidized housing, the new school has been in the works for a year, it is coming to light as musk has been vocal about education. neil: they never signed a

bigger deal, and likely not since but what he wants to do with that money at the message for his kids, not getting any of it. ♪

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>> my dad says when i got you can expect you will be paying for the funeral. i told my boys none of this that i have been building are you going to get unless you come and take it from me. neil: and who contract with the

food network but he's not sharing it with his sons apparently. i don't know how they are responding to that. we are keeping what is left over. georgia campbell is with us. i imagine a guy like george advising people about money would embrace oppose addition like that. >> the sentiment is great. he saying i want my kids to be self-sufficient and won't want them to clouds the trips of entitlement and not work hard so it is all about work ethic and and self-sufficiency which i love. does that mean he will leave them with 0? don't know about all that. she's 3.5 months old and that's what the bible says. whoever can be trusted with very little can be trusted with much.

>> a lot of people spending at the holidays. what do you tell them? >> all of the time it is all about instant gratification. you have to move to delay gratification and avoid the traps of the debt which is what a lot of kids are falling for as we see it hit a record high, one way is to have delayed gratification and say mommy and daddy won't by that unless we have the money to do it in full today. neil: don't you carry bags of cash around, don't like credit cards. where are you on that? >> psychologically, swiping any card will remove friction and

cause you to spend more. we don't have bags of cash. neil: i do see that. i am kidding but this is all very good advice and best of luck for the beautiful child. i am sure she will be raised financially. >> i talk about all this in my new book to help students, you can give this to your kids and go you don't have to be broke. mom and dad will take care of you, you got to figure out how to do it for yourself. neil: a different version of tough love. thank you so much. have a merry christmas. something that just went down in the tri-state area, this was storming through newark's pen station. to get to new york city, was later, i think they caught them. everything is fine. do we know?

no idea. thank you for that. charlie gasparino is happy to hear the rules are back. charles: on mine tonight. neil: this blue me away. charles: there is a transition to the markets. neil: i see what you did, a bullish tone to these markets. charles: i was out here and dan ives, richly, a broker. neil: you hang out with rich people. a little defensive about it. charles: the exuberance. it might be air rational. this is what they are saying, yesterday's market moves,

almost 200 today. inflation, soft landing is baked in. the markets have would cut upside, small caps, you name it, they are going to go. the whole s&p is undervalued if you look at certain metrics. neil: this was not an anomaly. when they see it. neil: the fly in the ointment is interesting. i was at a restaurant in the upper eastside. the place is going nuts. that is the difference. it is a speculator's happen where heaven where the wall street guys have it. the real economy is people who can't afford going to the diner. i went to my buddy's diner and there was avocado toast.

it was $35 for avocados. neil: i have sworn off avocados. neil: charles: mcdonald's is expensive. there are two economies and this is why president biden is in the soup so much with middle america. his poll numbers are so bad and trump is rising, because you can see two economies. you can see the wall street speculative economy and sometimes you hear biden doing well, that should be down to poor people because they have 401(k)s, you can't touch a 401(k). i think this, what you are seeing on the screen which is wonderful for me, for you, is different from what the average american -- neil: lower interest rates too which help more people

thankfully. you are right but we are down to the first time, 7% mortgages. you are right. don't know if it continues but the backdrop, this trend will be our friend. rising tide lifts all boats. neil: charles: you are old enough to remember the history of paul volcker's rate increases to stamp out inflation in the 70s and 80s. not like he raised rates once and got to 20% and the economy shutdown and it was smooth sailing. he thought he had inflation beat, stopped raising rates, paused. then it came back. inflation -- neil: had to really hike. any of these wall street pals of yours saying we are getting ahead when the fed chairman is hinting at a few more cuts?

charles: i'm not in the business of selling. one thing about wall street that fascinating. i'm writing a book about corporate woke but that's a little different but it is not. why did esg take off so much? wall street is a selling machine. it sold esg. esg funds have 34 times higher fees than regular funds so all the guys i talked to are all about selling stuff. if you had to sell a product you don't want to say buy my product and watch it go down in price. wall street when we see them. neil: talking book. charles: they are either talking about or they are trained to talk a book. it is part -- the optimism is in their dna. neil: i thank you, the bull thanks you. neil: don't think that i was in this. for a few minutes.

neil: charlie gasparino on that. i don't want to rain on the parade but a lot of rain will be hitting the east coast of the united states. that is what i do for a living.

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adam: neil: just when we go over some nasty weather, a storm system developing in florida could affect the entire east coast of the united states later this week and into next week. what could we be looking at? >> a few minutes back i heard the brilliant transition, rain on your parade, doesn't matter where the parade is up and down the east coast, we've got some issues moving through the weekend into the early part of next week. we've been watching the storm system developing across the southern plains. it merges with the moisture in florida, missy weekend across the southeast, that's locked

in. now this developed into a coastal storm and heads up the eastern seaboard in the early part of next week. here's what it looks like with our forecast model. future radar sunday evening. you see the size of the storm system after it soaked florida, moves up through the carolinas to the mid-atlantic in the early part of monday and through the day monday we have rain, wind, frisky country in the northeast we are coming up on the big holiday week for christmas into new year's. this is rain all the way to québec city. a storm system that brings its own mild air with it and wrapped up as a little bit of snow. this is not a good look for northeast skiing get. . once again it is a lot of water. all of this yellow, mid-atlantic into new england, 1 to 2 inches of rain, some spots do better than that. down in florida, it is a different story. tampa bay has been in severe

drought, their deficit for the year is in excess of a foot. in south florida they don't need another drop of rain. miami-dade, broward county to palm beach, these areas have been in a huge surplus. fort lauderdale because of the big flood event in april, they are 50 inches above average for 2023. the year finishes like most of it soggy. next week, there you go developing storm system in the eastern gulf soaks florida, then moved all the way up, some snow on the backside but if you are a skier in the northeast and have plans for christmas week, you're headed up north, this is not a great look. neil: looking more snow for christmas. thank you very much. we are getting news that president zelenskyy, aid coming to him, the president expected to sign off on that but ukraine closer to european union

membership. the eu will step it up. it could be a one-2 hit for president zelenskyy. more after this.

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neil: a company announces major layoffs, jettisoning 24% of its workforce, stock is up 5%. they like the savings. now to brian brenberg.