good morning no declared winner, the presidential contest too close to call with tight races in multiple states. votes still being counted. we'll bring you the latest and wall street is watching, futures slipping a bit down over 270 points given the week we had, a little bit of a pullback at this point. stocks looking to finish this has been their best week since april. and yes, this still happens. it is jobs friday. doesn't seem quite as important, but it is because it tells us the state of the economy, the

october employment report due at 8:30 eastern it is 5:00 a.m. again on november 6, 2020 and this special edition of "squawk box" begins right now. good morning, everybody. i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. and we are all glad to be with you at this extra early hour because there is a lot to talk with this morning. let's start with the u.s. equity futures. major averages are on four day winning streaks and this is a pretty big deal because if you look at the dow and s&p 500, it is the first time that they have seen greater than a 1% gain for four days in a row since back to 1982 here is where we stand week to date dow and s&p 500 are up more than

7% nasdaq has gained nearly 9%. and we are seeing a bit of pressure on the futures this morning. dow implied down by about 270 points but again when you look at what we've gained this week, yesterday alone a gain of 543 points, so not a surprise to see some of this give back as you see the election counts continue treasury yields, the ten year yielding 0 ppts ining 0.765% but obviously a lot of focus on the election >> it is true, we have news this morning, we'll talk a lot about the markets in a minute, but something that may move the markets, first to the latest on the presidential election and some of that breaking news that is coming out of georgia just in the past hour now. contessa brewer is joining us. >> good morning. joe biden now leads by 917

votes. joe biden has taken the lead in georgia. the key boost came from clayton county, a democratic county represented by john lewis. and 85% of the votes that have come in from clayton county have gone to vice president joe biden. so now clayton county finished going through with absentee ballots. we're still waiting to hear from gwinnett county, another one of the suburban counties outside of atlanta. and as you can see, those counties have been trending toward joe biden there is an estimated 4,000 votes or so to be counted in qui gwinnett county. and there are still some red counties with maybe 1,000 votes or something like that that are left to be counted and so we're waiting to see whether president trump can

possibly regain his lead but gwinnett county right now holds the largest concentration of unprocessed ballots one more point to make, we were told yesterday by the secretary of state's office they had ten days from election day to process all the ballots. and remember those overseas and military ballots had a later deadline for arrival than normal absentee mail-in ballots so that possibly could swing this race in a different direction. but now joe biden in the lead. it is really a remarkable reversal, something like the tortoise and hare where you saw the president jumping out to that huge lead on election night and by thursday, joe biden has whittled it down to almost nothing. and kayla, i believe the way this stands, if president trump loses georgia, there is no path left for a second term for him

>> well, certainly not without arizona and pennsylvania two other states that are still too close to call. of course the georgia reversal at this hour, the big news overnight. and because of that trend that you mentioned of some of those late coming ballots taking multiple days to be counted, the nbc news decision desk says that might not be responsible to make an official call on georgia for weeks. so we'll continue watching that. the official electoral count according to nbc news still he remains unchanged for the last 36 hours it currently has joe biden with 253 electoral votes, president trump with 214 on the race to 270 to win the white house north carolina is another state that is currently too close to call, about 95% of the vote is in donald trump has a lead by about 76,000 vote, but votes will be counted until november 13 theth. so it could be until next week or at least several days before

we get an official result from north carolina the remainder of the outcome in pennsylvania hinges on the counting of roughly 52,000 mail-in ballots, that is expected to be concluded by the end of today pennsylvania is going by roughly a pace of about 13,000 votes an hour it is also currently too close to call. donald trump has a lead of about 18,000 votes and frank holland will have more from pennsylvania. finally arizona and nevada, also both too close to call they will resume counting today. the trump campaign alleged voter fraud in clark county, nevada, that is home to the heavily democratic las vegas the secretary of state for nevada never later said that there was no evidenced of that and finally, president trump last night stepping up to the podium in the briefing room making his first public comments to the press since late on election night and his tone and his message was of the same. if legal votes were counted, then he would be the winner. he has sued to stop counting in some states and pushed to

continue counting in other states certainly his message was met with resistance by many fact checkers at news networks who cut away from those remarks. at this point there is no evidence that he would be the winner and we're still awaiting on nbc news to make an official call . >> let's talk about the timing of what we may learn later today out of arizona and nevada because clearly if one or both of those were to be officially called, and some networks have already called arizona, you might have a winner. having said that, clearly the president plans to be going to court. how long do you think that would play out >> well, it really depends in many of these instances, georgia for instance, you had really a same day opinion from a judge you striking down the president's challenge in chatham county to halt vote counting in georgia. so it depends on how quickly we

can get some opinions in some of these cases. certainly youmentioned arizona there have been calls that pushed that in the favor of joe biden, but as we have seen the vote come in, roughly two-thirds of the votes have been for trump in the last 24 hours that underscores a message that the trump campaign has been communicating since election night. and so i think that there is an abundance of caution here where you don't want to make an official call until every single vote has been counted and perhaps depending on what the campaign says and what the courts uphold perhaps even recounted. so we'll see certainly there could be a result from arizona and nevada and pennsylvania as i mentioned, the deadline is end of day today for those mail-in ballots to be counted, 52,000 left likely we could have a result today from pennsylvania as well. >> did i hear you correctly, it could be weeks before we have

results in georgia >> that is what the head of the nbc news decision desk said overnight. because of the possible trickle in of some of the military ballots and ballots from overseas that have a later deadline there is an abundance of caution. of course every single network wants to count every single vote everyone has an interest in doing that so i think managing of expectations is important here especially as there are a lot of americans anxious for results here >> contessa, do you have any color on the ground from that? >> part of the reason why it could also take weeks is because by georgia law, if the race ends less than half a percent between these candidate, they can redemand a recount and that looks all but inevitable if joe biden can secure 270 electoral votes without georgia, perhaps he doesn't request a

recount. but if trump loses georgia, i don't see how he doesn't ask for the recount. and as you can see, that could take a while 917 votes is what we have right now, biden in the lead by 917 votes. m >> kayla, florida ways a mess in the year 2000. that was one state i mean, this boggles the mind. doochbt you ha don't you have ties for georgia? i'm pointing at you for a lot of these problems that is one of your home states, isn't it amazing. >> i love that you say one of my home states. >> i'm thinking of becky she's got half the states. >> i did grow up in georgia and i recall you and i having a similar conversation back in the 2016 election when andrew was down in georgia broadcasting

and you said georgia is not a swing state at least this time around you acknowledged that the develop graphics were shifting, but it wouldn't swing. of course all it took was a matter of years. and a lot of voters coming of age and a lot of people moving to the area from other states to change some of those demographics so the mayor of atlanta keisha lance bottoms said it was a matter of when and not if georgia would swing, so the democratic party was raising money for and pushing for for quite some time. but i think that there are a lot in the democratic party who would say this would be some sweet irony if it was the district of civil rights icon john lewis that helped tip the state in the favor of joe biden. you position have now the likelihood of two senate runoffs in georgia come january. and the races that we've seen in georgia as you know have been

the most expensive in the country. and so there is already an expectation that there would be hundreds of millions of dollars raised in just a matter of mont months on both sides for what could become the most expensive senate races in history in a year when we've seen incredibly expensive senate races >> i've spent time in glynn county, which is so cosmo, saints simons, places like that, and then savannah and everything else kayla, i have a quick question about pennsylvania and whether there has been any resolution about trying to get the new supreme court with the new composition to weigh in on that state law that says you couldn't do anything after november 3 but then a court in pennsylvania said you can and then the supreme court decided not to weigh in on it.

but now they are being asked to again. i can't imagine they want it weigh in on that is that still pending, and if it doesn't switch to biden, maybe it doesn't matter, but it looks like it is headed that way >> i believe it is still pending. certainly it is the trump campaign's hope that they would take another look at that and intervene there. certainly the trump campaign has targeted the philly area, they have deployed hundreds if not thousands of pro be knono lawyeo that area looking for possible instances of stroevoter fraud or challenging some of the timing of the vote counting so i'll check back in on that. >> contessa, one more question about georgia. if neither candidate gets 50%, you have to do this runoff, but how do you not get numbers that

don't add up to 100% are those people who wrote in somebodyelse for senate? >> exactly there was another on that race who garnered just a percent or less than 2% that was enough to peel off some of the support things like that can bring that in and on the other race that we know now is pending for a runoff, there were multiple candidates in that race because it was a special senate race and the interesting thing about these senate races that both with warnock and leffler and also purdue, these may be keys to the control of the senate we've seen perdue's lead go back

just a little bit. you make you see the senate races january 5th which would be the special runoff election in georgia and you already have the new congress seated. so we may not know who gains control of the senate until after the new congress is sworn in remarkable >> yeah, it is kind of crazy contes contessa, we'll talk about you later this morning kayla, we'll be seeing you in about an hour too. when we come back, we have this morning's stocks to watch including uber and peloton right now as we head to a break, check out some of the biggest pre-market winners and losers.

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welcome back in addition to the election returns, we are also tracking the spread of the coronavirus. nbc news confirming 120,048 new covid cases in the united states yesterday, that passes the single day record set just the day before here. we'll talk more about this with dr. scott gottlieb at 6:30 eastern time now let's talk about some stocks to watch this morning shares of uber are trading

lower, this after bouncing around in volatility post market trading yesterday. the company posting a smaller than expected quarterly loss, but revenue fell short the covid pandemic continuing to hit uber's ridesharing unit though it says the business is picking back up and of course then there was the big ruling -- or i should say vote in california which will protect some of their business in terms of contract drivers versus turning them into labor. we'll be talking to uber's ceo live this morning at 8:45 eastern. something you don't want to miss and peloton shares are dropping. shares grew 232% during the latest quarter earningstopping estimates, but the bike maker cautions it is continuing to struggle to keep up with demand and it expects to be operating under supply constraints for what they are saying for the foreseeable future the sorkin family helping their

quarter. we ght a speot a peloton tread and injury begin virgin galacti received more goodeposits towar space flight tickets they are refunds only, so i think all three of us should pony up. >> i'm going to an imax. you know, the seats actually move and i'll have the same experience as but, you know, i'm not going to need like an adult diaper on my way up. you know what i'm saying you're afraid to fly, how are you going into space you're afraid to get on a commercial jet >> will you do the zero gravity plane together >> carl's done that.

the plane where you go up and down and it creates zero gravity in flight. there are those places that you can pretend like it is zero gravity. carl's done it no thanks. what are they called, ifly or something? >> i've done that. >> well, check it off your bucket list. >> you know what, maybe i'll get a prize and be the 10 millionth passenger on the virgin galactic flight of course just my lukck, you knw what i mean? i love life. don't you love life? >> i do. i like being alive >> that is why i want to do it, to experience life. >> about the imax with the surrounds sound and everything, just pretend coming up, it is jobs friday we'll talk expectations and how much the report could matter to the markets.

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current economic town turn oig is the most severe this our lifetimes. it will take a while to get back to the levels of economic activity and employment that prevailed at the beginning of the year as with overall economic activity, the pace of improvement has moderated. the unemployment rate declined

but remained elevated at 7.9% as of september although we welcome this progress, we will not lose sites of t sight of the millions who remain out of work. the economic downturn has not fallen equally on all americans and those least able to shoulder the burden have been hardest hit. >> that of course fed chairman jay powell yesterday following the central bank's latest policy announcement joining us know, ian shepherdson. we lose sight sometimes of just important things like today's jobs report is jay powell back front and center in our minds but it really never left us, did it because even this election many times is viewed from the view point of what it means for stimulus after the election. which is amazing that the market sometimes moving not necessarily

on who won the election but what the procespects for stimulus wee so do we need stimulus jay powell is begging for it >> he is begging i think the reason for that is he can probably see in some of the very short term almost realtime data that we get now on employment especially in the services sector which is where the real covid hit is most severe that things are going backwards now. we won't see that in the report today because these are october names and they will probably be like 300,000, 400,000 net payroll gains. and the realtime data since the october survey has really tanked so i think that he is probably he looking ahead and saying if we don't get action here, we could see negative payroll numbers november, december, january. the covid cases are rising very

rapidly, and so people are scared and they are retreating from services, they are not going out so much and that then leads to layoffs so a deteriorating labor market picture on top of the fact that we've only recovered half of the jobs that we lost in the spring. so i can understand why mr. powell is begging for more action >> and thousanow we need to dete what some of the things mean in the political arena. we don't know how georgia finally plays out, but what would -- if it was a lame duck president trump or even if he were to win re-election somehow still at this point, with the senate now where we're not really sure how that will play out, although, you know, it still looks perhaps like it is either a tie or republicans take control. then you've got the house, i don't know whether you would say that speaker pelosi was

repudiated necessarily, but it wasn't a great showing for the house and that may have something to do with the stance on stimulus. does this make it more likely that near term we could get stimulus >> i think it probably does actually because the gee dooror radetearh covid cases is really alarming hospital numbers will get back to peak and keep rising. so i think that this will focus on the minds in the lame duck session and as you said, the house elections for the democrats were really way worse than expected and i think that may well be because some people took the view that she was being offered stimulus and she didn't like this, but she turned it down at a time when the economy i think really needs it. and it was becoming more clear that it needs it so i think that everyone's incentives have changed a littl bit because we have to think about where we end up in

january, but between now and january, the lame duck session i think is more incentivized to act than it was before the election so still hawks on the republican side, but i think from mitch mcconnell's perspective being seen do nothing while the covid situation spirals out of control is more risky now for him. and i think that applies to nancy pelosi as well so i'm hoping that they can get together and do something substantial because the need is becoming quite severe i think. >> fingers and toes or just -- i was trying to figure that out. people can't cross their toes, really which toe would you use? i don't know if that really works. the big toe, the main toe from stripes. i was thinking about something else on this oh, yeah, so what we're seeing in the uk and europe, what you describe for covid here, does

thathe tipping point where the new lockdowns is considered because i don't know if it is considered -- if it is being considered yet in the united states versus what we're seeing in europe. >> yeah. >> and then that would be even more -- that would make it even worse. >> yeah, and unfortunately, i think that is exactly what is coming i think the u.s. is maybe like six weeks behind france where cases were rising steadily and then suddenly exponentially and the policy response followed you've seen in the uk a new lockdown started yesterday across the whole country restrictions in germany, belgium, everywhere. and they are a few weeks ahead of the u.s so i don't expect any nationwide federal lockdown, that is not

really a thing in the u.s. but i do expect the hardest hit states, cities, local authorities to take action fairly quickly because we'll get to the point where the hospital picture becomes really arm harm i alarming and you have to look ahead if covid cases are rising exponentially, then hospitalizations are only a few weeks behind so by the start of the new year, you could be looking at a hospital picture the likes of what we never saw even at the worst of the first wave. and so pressure from the public and pressure from the public health officials in the hardest hit states and cities will change things. i think that we'll see a rolling restrictions on people but people will take action themselves we are seeing it in things like the restaurant numbers, hotel data, airline data especially he middle age people and older are saying i don't want to do this, it is too ri y risky. so even without action from the authorities, people's own

decisions are impacting the economy already. and i think that is only going to get worse so this is the time to put the fiscal support in because it makes it easier for state and local authorities to take the action that they nooed tneed to. >> all right and the jobs report coming up. and if you call me francis, i'll kill you any way, that is from the movie, stripes. tossing it back to becky now sometimes bill watches, you know and i know -- i guess i look like a fan boy half the time i don't think anybody will yell at me, do you think? >> i can cross my toes what do you have big fat toes -- >> you can't cross them. >> i'm doing it right there.

>> manually? >> no, just my big toe over my -- do you have hobbit toes over there >> when we come back, we're getting more ballots counting in georgia and in the last hour, jeffrey epstein taking a slight lead there the race still too close to call we'll talk about the latest headlines with walter isaacson, everything we just heard from ian, what is happening with the election, what might happen with stimulus and how you mix it all together i feel like we're forgetting something.

let me check.

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welcome back we continue to watch the 2020 election results come into the nbc decision desk. and in the last hour, joe biden taking a slight lead in georgia, but the race still too close to call here is a list of the states that are still to be decided, including pennsylvania that is where we find frank holland this morning he joining us live from philadelphia good morning, frank. >> you know, the race for battleground pennsylvania and its 20 lector yam voelectriorao down to under 20,000 votes joe biden is really catching up to president trump, president trump now with a lead by the slimmest of margins. at one point he had a double digit lead here in the keystone state. the state of pennsylvania has counted 95% of its mail-in

ballots received by 8:00 p.m. on election day they are now less than 163,000 left to count statewide. this philadelphia where we are, the mail-in ballots are expected to be largely for joe biden. they have counted 83% of the mail-in ballots and now have less than 58,000 left to count the president urged his supporters to vote on election day in person and discouraged mail-in voting and now his campaign is taking legal action to disqualify mail-in ballots received after election day and trying to get more observance of the counting both campaigns will be now allowed to have up to 60 observers in the room where the ballots are opened and counted here in philadelphia here is the time line. first and foremost, ballots received by election day, they will be counted first.

any ballots received after election day, after 8:00 p.m. election day and by 5:00 p.m. friday, they will be kept separate and counted second. we have a long day ahead of us, we're expecting more results we'll keep a close eye on these numbers all day. >> frank, thank you. in addition to watching the presidential contest, there are a couple key senate races in georgia that we've been keeping a close eye on too joining us is walter isaacson, an advisory partner, professor at tulane university and distinguished fellow of the aspen institute. he is also a cnbc contributor. walter, great to see you >> great to be back with you >> there is a lot to talk about. where do you want to start with this maybe look at the senate the idea that the house lost for the democrats, democrats lost ground in the house. but with this potential runoff

in georgia, i guess there is the potential for the senate to potentially go a little more blue and we did see the futures take a leg lower on the news earlier this morning that it was so close. what do you think of this? >> i think it is probable that the senate will remain republican those runoffs in georgia i think, you know, will go republican and that will be an interesting test case for us because we'll have a joe biden who in the old days worked quite well with mitch mcconnell even during the obama administration getting things done and it will make it clear that joe biden has got to be able to win some republican votes in the senate to get anything passed and people confirmed. and that might help bring things back to a more centrist position which i think both the markets would like, but especially even

in terms of regulation, of technology, of everything else, there won't be able to be any sweeping things even in terms of the cabinet. you are less likely to have an elizabeth warren and bernie sanders going into the cabinets. mitch mcconnell has already said that he would work with joe biden to confirm cabinet members who are moderates. and so that is sort of both an offer and a warning shot, don't try to push people in who are too far to the left. so we'll see how this plays out. in some ways those of us who believe that the country is best goof governed when governed from the center, maybe we'll get a look at that. >> and you start looking at all of the challenges that are coming, the rhetoric that goes with that, and if things were to work out that way where biden was declared the winner, made it through any challenges out there in the courts, if the senate

were to break republican and mitch mcconnell and biden started working together, i can see all of that, but you still have half the country who voted for someone that they think potentially had the election stolen from them i just wonder how that sort of backgrou background, a that hthat shadow playing out will affect it all >> if an evil and perversion organization were running a perversion simulation on us, to say how can we make the year gone as b 2020 as bad as possible, this notion that you don't have a clear cut election, you don't really have a clear cut senate, you have half the people thinking that this could have been stolen. either way, whoever wins, half the people think it was stolen this is all very bad for this country. it has been a year that is just so strange, almost makes you want to conjure up medieval explanations, five hurricanes, a

covid virus that doesn't seem to be able to be contained. i do think perhaps because i'm an optimist that ian was a little too mess mipessimistic oe coronavirus. i think that there will be layered ways to contain it soon. and i know this for a fact, 2020 will actually end in six or seven weeks. so hopefully we'll have a better 2021 >> i hope for that too you think ian was too pessimistic on the covid outlook because you think authorities will step in and do lockdowns and require things or you think that his point about how some people are already doing it themselves particularly middle age and older people who are at at higher risk just saying for on get it? >> i actually have more optimism in the science part of it. i think that you will have a three layered covid defense by the beginning of next year, meaning i think that there will be three vaccines, maybe four that will get emergency

authorization use either late november this month at a scientific advisory meeting or in december. that won't quickly solve everything, but it will mean some people will be able to start getting vaccines likewise, we have much better treatments, mono cloin naturdayl anti-bodies, that will be helpful. and i think that we'll have rapid testing machines that detect the genetic material of the coronavirus so it can be done almost with pure accuracy in 15 minutes. and those will be somewhat u ubiquito ubiquitous they will be at airports, restaurants, you might even be able to have a home testing kit by february or march i think all of these things means that in the next few months, we won't just see one silver bullet, but three or four layers of defense that will help

this recede. >> walter, i love your optimism about what the world might look like being governed from the middle, but you one of the questions is whether it really can be governed from the middle at this time and whether testimony be governed fr testimony be governed from the middle the markets have often liked the idea of a divided washington because of the idea of gridlock. so do you think actually things get done and while that maybe worked for the last 20 or 30 years, this gridlock, at some point there are some structure all things that need to happen in this country. you can look at the debt problems we're having, you can look at the response to covid, you can look at so many different issues that are on the table even on the ballot if you will and is there a moment at which there is a tipping moment where actual dividing government doesn't help you >> i do think that you will get a stimulus package pretty quickly once the dust all

settles. i think that you can remember that even when we had a divided government during parts of the obama years, there was an ability of joe biden to work with republican senators i think that you will be able to see an infrastructure bill and i think jay powell reminded us how calming he can be on things i'm trying to be optimistic here because we've had a horrible year, but i don't think it is hopeless for the american people to say we've gone through such divisive 34rievisivisive politis try to have sensible people try to get stimulus, a budget that is somewhat controllable, let the fed havehe instruments jay powell called for. just trying to help you be a little optimistic.

>> we need that. you are like that guy you wrote about. a renaissance man. did you know that you would ever talk about crisper s reason i bring up crisper, is it okay to do that diagnostically i saw there was a bit of a setback in a therapeutic setting. and you would think you would be considering that you are actually changing the nucleic acid but diagnostically, there is no problem? >> that is a very good question, joe. because when we're using to cure con genital blindness, to fix that gene, you had off target effect which often happens on things like that when you are using gene editing tools for sickle cell disease, it is working incredibly well. but when it comes to covid, it is simpler you are just using the crisper

tool to say is there this genetic sequence in this person's body. does this person have the rna of the coronavirus. and that tells you better than an antibody test or antigen test so yeah, i'm optimistic that kri crisper based tests that are being done -- yeah, this will b the most important business breakthrough of this decade. >> i don't know if you are more like da vinci or ben franklin. >> dr. franklin. i'd love to hang with dr. franklin and by the way -- you say it then >> what's that >> you are about to say he is

the one person we could use most now. >> no kidding. all right, we have to go or becky, you can thank walter we all thank you >> we do >> what about andrew >> we thank him for getting up early for us tulane's uniforms are ugly coming up, this morning's biggest market movers and reminder you can watch or listen to us live anytime on the cnbc app.

#. coming up, we're in the red this morning here are the pre-market losers right now. ll'll talk a when we come back. #

. we're witness beiing the pan of the torch sure you only need to get rich once, but if you want to stay rich, old notions won't work anymore. the truth is for many companies that we follow, equity side is a much better safer side, much better repository of wealth for you the individual than the credit side. not all, but a surprising number that was jim cramer last night on "mad money.

he went on to highlight microsoft, apple, facebook and alphabet as being a wiser choice joining us know, victoria hernandez. do you agree with jim, is there a place for bonds in your portfolio anymore? >> well, as someone that serves as portfolio manager for fixed income product, i'll say yes, there is always a place for bonds. but you have to be cognizant of what you are using them for. for clients at cross mark using fixed income right now, balanced portfolios are the largest komg poe nents of the newest assets that we see coming in where they are combining a large cap and fixed income portfolio you are using it for f. diversification and using to match your assets and liabilities. you won't get that same benefit out of the equity market now saying that, i do think that you have to be careful you don't go into the fixed

income market and use that as your risky assets where you are trying to really take that risk with high yield. we don't recommend doing that. we like the investment grade, the more core components that you would use. so there is a place for fixed income, but i think you have to be very cognizant of what you are using it for and don't get stretched too much where you could get caught >> and in it erm in terms of thd market right now, what is the best rate that you could get on a tax free muni if ythat you thk isn't going to have a problem? >> we buy only "a" or better municipalities because we're concerned with the quaulity of the high portfolio so it will be less than the s&p yields and so for a lot of people going into the equity market makes more sense.

but again, it comes down to your tax bracket, are you trying to match liabilities and assets or are you trying to generate yield. so you really have it look at what your goal is to determine where you will be best suited. but again, we're looking at a ten year that is at a 0 ppts 0.7 >> and we have to leave the conversation there appreciate you waking up early during what has been quite a week investors will be watching all of it. thanks so many and when we come back, we'll talk more about how wall street is closely following that votes count out of multiple states the latest developments. hey, dad! hey, son! no dad, it's a video call. you got to move the phone in front of you like... like it's a mirror, dad. you know? alright, okay. how's that? is that how you hold a mirror?

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joe biden taking the lead in georgia, but that statistill to close to call. and markets pulling back after gains of more than 7% this week pollster frank luntz will tell us why the georgia senate race may be to be blame and it is jobs friday, the october employment report due at 8:30 eastern time. it is november 6, 2020 and this special edition of "squawk box" begins right now. good morning welcome to "squawk box" on this

jobs friday. i'm like repressing some of the other stuff because it is just -- i'm becky -- no, i'm not becky quick. was i supposed to read this? >> i'm ron burgundy. >> i'm ron burgundy along with joe kernen and -- no, i'm joe kernen, becky and andrew is here u.s. equity futures have paired their losses to some extent. but it has been a big week let's get to the state of georgia where joe biden took the lead early this morning and i guess that is one of the advantages of being here it would have happened in the middle of the night, but it happened as we were sitting here contessa brewer is joining us with more. >> joe biden now leads by 917 votes. let's show you the state map at this point, the counties that have come in red and those that are coming in blue

we guilot a big boost from clay county last night. there you see how close the race remains in georgia but now with yb in the lejoe bie lead clayton county had been represented by icon john lewis and 85% of the voters there went blue we have seen that where these rural counties like the one that i'm in now went for trump with these large majorities but biden wins the urban developers and of course there are more people living and voting there biden preached patience and certainly it looks like he has had a slow and steady approach to the ballot count. we're still waiting on a big batch to come in from gwinnett county and also we're waiting for overseas and military ballots to be processed as well the state has by law ten days

from election day to finish the count. but if the race ends within half a percent margin, a recount can be requested so that could certainly lengthen the waiting time for the official results and one more note here the the president grumbled about control of the election process, but the top laeblgtsed leelecten georgia are all republican including the secretary of state. the president needs this state for the path to 270. >> but the counties, some are democrat, right? do the counties control it or is it controlled by the state >> county supervisors are in charge of the county sorting process, so that depends on which county is icharge but the secretary of state has the overall process. >> i know those places there, those blue places.

you can figure it out, i think i figure savannah is probably there too. fulton >> yeah, that is chatham >> okay. thank you. the chance of it going the other way at this point are slim i guess? >> no, i mean i wouldn't say slim there are outstanding votes in some of these counties that go red, some of the rural counties. there is just not as many voters there. so even if they overwhelmingly go to trump, trump needs a big push at this point and we've seen the margins narrowing and narrowing. >> all right thanks andrew meantime we want to get over to kayla tausche with the latest on the vote count. >> and despite some of the

overnight moves, the official lector yam vote tally has not changed according to nbc news, still joe biden at 253 electoral votes, president trump at 214. president trump took the podium last night for the first time since election night alleging without evidence that he would win if all legal votes were kourn counted. his campaign sued to stop counting in four states. a judge in pennsylvania has allowed campaign observers to more closely stand near where the ballots are being counted. in nevada which is currently awaiting results from clark county, the campaign sued yesterday to demand every mail-in ballot signature be verified by hand, not machine. biden currently leads trump by just 11,000 votes. and we're expecting another

update at 12:00 p.m. eastern time and arizona also too close to call, by deb leb call and in pennsylvania, the secretary of state says that the overwhelming majority of ballots will be counted by the end of the day friday and joe, you asked about whether the supreme court was planning to intervene in the trump campaign's request that mail-in wa ballots that arrive after election day not be counted. this is something that the four conservative justices had suggested that they might be willing to entertain after election day and the trump campaign had been seeking to join a pennsylvania gop. and so far, there has been no response from the high court but certainly we'll wait to see what happens there >> kayla, just i guess a

journalistic question. whenever i hear you say arizona too close to call, a lot of them were too close to call and it may eventually -- that other network, actually -- i thinks a.p. did it too, but that other network that did call it, tuesday night i hink even if it turns out to be right, can they fall back and say we were right or can we say with certainty that that was a bad move to do it at that point since we're still struggling with it and a lot of other states weren't called? what would fox say about that at this point >> the "wall street journal" and others also made the same call, so there are -- >> "wall street journal" said arizona? i thought it was just the a.p. and -- >> yeah. and maybe the "journal" is using a.p. data. but there are certainly more outlets that just fox that decided to make that call. certainly it was not a call that the trump campaign liked

it changed the mood at the election party at the east room and sources say that the president and his advisers were fuming that they decided to make that call. at this point, it is a binary outcome. if the outcome ask go one way, a 50% chance of it happening, certainly people who called it early can claim victory. but with so much attention on the vote counting process and the specific data at a began gr began uhe began uhe lar level, these data dumps are sometimes 10,000 votes from different demographics, because they are such large dumps of data, that it is really too hard it make that call even if you believe that you know the demographics of those areas for instance, joe, one of the challenges of the trump campaign on election night as the state was being called for biden was that they believed that two-thirds of the outstanding

votes so far would go to donald trump. and lo and behold when we got a data dump from maricopa county wednesday night, 59% of the votes were for donald trump. so certainly there was a lot of data to support what the campaign was arguing at that time and so at that point, who can really be comfortablemaking that call with different data coming in at different hours >> seems like it was applied selectively. other states could have been called too that weren't. at the 70% mark. and turns out a lot were too close to call. i don't know i don't know how you make a decision like that but election night is tough. >> i'm just happy to be here and report what the decision desks are doing and not having to be the one who make those decisions because they are painstaking and thus far, we've all been preaching patience and calm. there have been a number of protests around some of these

voting locations and i'm just curious what is expected for today people of course worried we haven't seen it yet about civil unrest but as these counts continue to take longer, as there are allegations of fraud and the like, what that ultimately looks like >> i think that is one of the reasons why you are seeing so many of these secretaries of state, county registrars and local officials doing these press conferences. in some cases, they are doing them on the hour every hour because they want to put the data out there publicly. they want to be able to knock down some of this speculation and unfounded suggestion in some of these areas that there has been voter fwraud there. so you are seeing officials at all levels in these states coming out to try to tamp down on some of that frustration and to provide answers where they can while acknowledging that the big answers that everyone wants which is the final vote tally

and the final calls for some of these candidates, we simply won't have in some cases for days and as we discussed last hour perhaps even weeks. >> okay. kayla, we'll be talking to you of course all day. and when we come back, we'll talk about what is ahead for the american economy, from the impact of the election to today's jobs report. that's right, it is jobs friday. right now though as we head to break, take a look at shares peloton, sales up 232% and earnings beating estimates, but the bike maker cautions that it is continuing to struggle to keep up with demand and that it expects to be operating under supply constraints for the foresee onable future. at calvert, we know responsible investing is hard.

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that's simple, easy, awesome. visit your local xfinity store today to ask, shop, discover the latest on xfinity mobile. the pace of improvement in the labor market has moderated the unemployment rate declined over the past five months but remained elevated at 7.9 administers as of september.

all we will not lose sight of the millions of americans who remain out of work the economic downturn has not fallen equally on all americans and those least annual able to e burden have been hardest hit >> that was jay powell yesterday. let's take a closer look at how the fed and election could ha impact the jobs and the economy. michelle, let's start with you the jobs report kind of comes out of nowhere when we've all been caught up in the election but this is important this time around because it will give us a look at where the real issue is with jobs right now. what do you anticipate >> i think that it is important even though it continues to be backward looking as the situation with the virus has continued to deteriorate but we have an expectation for a

job gain, 400,000off al overall you do have a big drag of rolloff of census workers, so government employment will hold down the overall number so the private number is what i think people will focus on and we have a 600,000 increase there, which would be another step down so we continue to see some loss of momentum and of course as you look ahead to what the november and december results might show, with the evidence that we're losing some momentum, of course as the virus numbers tick up, i think that that is going to be -- that is clearly going to be a worry as we move forward of how overall the fourth quarter gdp numbers and levels of activity will look >> professor spriggs, i know

people are trying to figure out how local and state governments are dealing with the funds that they may not be getting at this point for covid, but i forgot about the census workers rolling off. how do you sift through the mud? >> the census will show us up with the federal government. state and local government numbers have been weak we've lost more state and local jobs already than we did during the great recession. a lot of state and local governments are cutting pay or giving workers furlough days that is going to be a bench presser. we saw personal income drop during the third quarter and so going into the fourth quarter, that drop in pay in the public sector will be another drag >> what other numbers do you watch to track this? because as michelle points out, these are backwards looking numbers. what do you tell what is

happening realtime on the ground >> a lot of the state and local county national associations have been monitoring their response so it gives updates on what some counties are doing to try to balance their budgets. and so i look at that to see what are their mechanisms for covid. >> michelle, we spoke with walter isaacson earlier. and he laid out the case that once we get through the election, there likely quick stimulus package that comes. do you think that is the case? >> well, so much when we think about the procespects for additional fiscal stimulus, i think it comes down to the senate because ultimately all roads have to go through mitch

mcconnell. and while we've had a lot of conversations about the work that pelosi has done of course with treachery secretary muchl, mnuchin, in the end it has to get through the senate and that seems to be the most amount of hesitancy to bring forward another big stimulus plan. and as everybody is watching, the senate is likely to remain in republican control though we may not know that until january. i'm not sure how that then plays out in terms of the desire for mitch mcconnell to bring forward a big stimulus plan potentially as a welcoming gift, if you will, for a new president biden. so i'm still skeptical about the odds of another big stimulus plan coming sooner rather than later. and i think the markets are looking at the plorospect for

continued divided government to signal that we may not get big stimulus plans that we may have seen during a blue sweep >> and professor, one thing that we've been trying to figure out is when the real crunch time hits we know there are a lot of americans that are really suffering. people who have been hit by covid. we know the cases are climbing we know the economic numbers that have been coming in haven't been as bad as you might have anticipated or as bad as they could have been. we know some additional measures will expire soon when do you think that there is a breaking point that says okay, this is as long as we can go without a stimulus package >> i think we've kind of passed it

stress on the household sector is huge now and the pressure on the commercial side is getting bigger because a lot of states gave are moratoriums on evictions, people are getting behind on debt there could be a lot of landlords being stressed by this and so far people have been able to manage on the tail wind of the c.a.r.e.s. initiative where they got a stimulus check and where they were also able to get extra money from unemployment insurance. when we get to the end of december, a lot of people will lose their pua unemployment insurance, it will expire. we have people now who need extended unemployment insurance because it has been over six months since they started losing their jobs back in march january will be a real crunch time because a larger spectrum

of the economy will feel households not having the money. >> professor, michelle, good having you both here today appreciate it. we have a lot more coming up we'll talk about of course the election and the lead change in georgia and how that make change the game we'll talk to frank luntz at the bottom of the hour about all of it but first, we actually have news outside of the election to tell you about, uber stock is on the move this morning and we'll show you what the company reported about its comebakcome back fromd next 45.mwe'll talk to the ceo at 8: a ok, just keep coloring there...

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welcome back it is time now for the executive edge and uber shares are falling after third quarter revenue fell short of wall street expectations, a loss of 62 cents per share. on the earnings call, ceo said that there were signs that the core mobility business would fully recover. we'll ask the ceo about all of that and more and the big ballot win in california at 8:45 a.m. so much to talk to him about as

an indicator perhaps of where we are in the economy and this pandemic meantime zillow shares are sharply higher they reported third quarter earnings of 37 cents per share, beat estimates of 11 cents revenue also beat. and an upbeat fourth quarter guidance citing record low mortgage rates and pandemic related churn in the housing market, the stock up thousand about 8% in the pre-market and coming up, dr. scott gottlieb will join us and frank luntz will tell us why uncertainty in one georgia senate race may be dragging down the futures this morning as business moves forward,

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i decided that i wanted to go for electrical engineering and you need to go to college for that. if i didn't have internet in the home i would have to give up more time with my kids. which is the main reason i left the military. everybody wants more for their kids, but i feel like with my kids,

they measurably get more than i ever got. and i get to do that. i get to provide that for them. u.s. equity futures as you see on the dow have paired their losses to some extent, but still

down 147 points after we were up sharply almost every day this week today obviously friday and we're down on the nasdaq 114 points and s&p down about 25. if you are just waking up, here is how the vote count stands in the presidential race. big news this morning, joe biden taking the lead in georgia earlier this morning we'll talk to frank luntz about that new development and other developments in a couple of minutes. meanwhile, andrew. >> we have an update on the pandemic to talk about the u.s. reported 120,000 new covid cases yesterday, eclipsed the previous day's record of 104,000. we want to get to dr. scott gottlieb, he of course sits on the boards of pfizer and great to see you as the election count has gone on, the conversation and

headlines around covid have receded, but the cases have not. how concerned are you? you've talked about this potential, is this better or worse than where you thought we'd be right now? >> probably a little worse and i think that it is really concerning, we're right at a tipping point. it is not just the number of cases that are being diagnosed, but we need to look at hospitalizations which are growing. 53,000 patients currently hospitalized 10,500 in the icu. we talk about the elderly being the basis for the entire federal strategy 20,000 people in the nursing homes were infected last week and 2,000 died so we're not doing that either so this is deeply concerning in my home state yesterday, they are closing restaurants at 9:30, they will suspend high school sports and take other targeted steps to try to keep schools open and get a back drop against

the spread in connecticut, we're doing better than most states. if you look at north and south dakota, they are in a gym situati -- grim situation right now >> and i want to ask you about the impact of election day itself and those who voted in person, there have been sporadic report, one actually in the hamptons recently, suggesting that there was an outbreak in one of the voting locations there. clearly that took place on tuesday. you often don't see the impact of these things for several days if not longer. are you expecting anything in terms of an increase in covid cases as a result of voting? >> potentially i mean, we brought a lot of people together for an in-door activity there was a report of someone working at a poll, a poll worker at a location in the midwest who was infected while they were working in the poll. so you can see some sporadic reports like that. but i don't think that the

voting was a super spreading event, if you will, simply because we were taking a lot of precautions. there was a lot of things going on inside those polling stations, people were being sequenced, they were wearing masks, cleaning down surfaces. so i think the risk was lower just because we were aware of the risks and taking a lot of precautions inside these polling stations >> we keep having conversations about the potential for lockdowns, we're watching what is happening in europe but then there is the conversation about just the psych along cal impaological ime consumer and whether you think the consumer i don't know if we should call them just citizens deciding on their own to stay home as the cases rise have we seen any discernible effect there or no in. >> we have and that is what will happen we won't see broad based stay-at-home orders. mind you,we had stay-at-home orders, we won't revisit that in part because we have good

testing in place so we can target our measures much more precisely. so i think that you will see some cities, some states adopt more restrictive measures, but it will be on a rolling basis as the epidemic gets denies in tho dense in those regions and you can starting to see the moenlts tren moenlts tren mobility trends decline nationally and what happens is the consumer really leads the policy action you will see people pull back and policymakers will try to fit a framework around that. >> doctor, how concerned are you that the president as this election count continues on and whether we get an answer about a count soon are eer or later thae president decides to fire or push out dr. fauci in terms of the credibility of where we are

in the government during this period in. >> yeah, i don't think that they will fire dr. fauci. first of all, he has civil service protections. i don't think that anyone will gee there. what i would like to see regardless of the outcome of the election is the coronavirus task force and the president get more engaged in trying to coordinate national policy. and i think that there is an opportunity to do that win or lose if the administration does lose the election, i think the vice president could get more engaged and trying to lead a national strategy around mitigation now that the election is over. i do think that there is an opportunity to do that if they do lose, they will be handing over power against the back drop of really a raging epidemic we'll be hitting the peak as the inauguration happens and that won't be a good backdrop win or lose >> but can you imagine this administration during a transition of power, if if youl

and we hope that there is a peaceful transition, would be actively and aggressively dealing with covid in a way that they haven't thus far before >> well, the vice president is head of the task force i think he has a real opportunity to try to lead a more aggressive effort there is two months to go, he can start pulling in advisers who can lead a more coordinated strategy their legacy will turn on what they do right now and again if the backdrop of the changeover in power is a national crisis of significant proportion, because this will get worse before it gets better, i don't think that anyone wants to be handing over power against that backdrop. so i would hope that they get more engaged in the national strategy >> all right, appreciate your important perspective. thank you.

when we come back, the balance of the senate may come down to runoffs in two georgia races. frank luntz will tell us why that is having an impact on the futures this morning we're down by about 150 points and remember, it has been a huge week for the futures sgla plus plus, we are expect goiin plus, werexpt iin a eecgo te october jobs report at 8:30 a.m. e environment and climate change, how do you find companies that are driving the right outcomes? if you care about economic equality and social justice, which firms are addressing it in their workplaces and their communities? for nearly 40 years, calvert has delivered competitive returns by investing in companies making a difference because we see value in doing good. talk to your financial advisor about investing responsibly with calvert.

coming up, vice president joe biden taking the lead in georgia overnight, but pollster frank luntz says it is the georgia senate race that may be taking a toll on the futures this morning he will join us next

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news breaking earlier this morning, joe biden taking the lead in the vote count in georgia. and there is a chance that both of the state's senate races could be headed for a runoff flank luntz, we've been implying you think that might be one of the make yrkets for being done before we get in to that -- i don't know why you are not on camera maybe you didn't -- you are on a phone. all those nice shots from your house. but with the gains we saw monday, tuesday, wednesday and thursday, i mean really big gains, 500 points or more most of those days, and with the

contentious tone that the presidential election has taken, 150 points doesn't need to be ascribed to anything so i'm not sure this has to do with the senate in georgia and down in georgia, georgia may be going for biden, but it is not massachusetts. and if the onus of where the senate goes is left in the hands of the people of georgia, i think that they might actually -- the importance of that might fall upon them and they may realize that divided government is up to them so now you can talk. >> well, and i'm on amtrak, so i'm channeling joe biden and you may hear the announcer behind me i'm not on camera because the shot is really ugly as i pull out of philadelphia. there are two races here and we have to mention to viewers that north carolina still up for grabs as well.

but i believe in the end that thom tillis will narrowly survive there. and that means that the georgia races as long as the republicans win one of the two, they are still in control and what it means for viewers, it is a completely different biden administration if he wins, he can't repeal the trump tax cuts, he can't add two states to the union, it means he can't create the energy new deal it means that all that legislation that will affect the markets will not happen. and that is a big deal this morning. and that is why investors should pay attention to what happens here because this will be night and day for washington and for policy depending on those two georgia senate seats >> right yeah, we'll see. you never know obviously but we'll see -- we'll know soon enough well, actually, not that soon

with that runoff let me ask you, frank, something about this since you are a pollster and i'm not using that as a pejorative, not yet did you hear the president talking about suppression polls and that is popular to talk about, that people are actually trying to use to influence the outcome. and i'm not sure that that is a real thing but i'm in tnot sure what happed to explain those numbers do you think that while someone might not intentionally do that, do you think that there could be some type of, i don't know, some type of bias that causes them to pre-dispose them to asking questions from certain people? do you buy the suppression poll idea or what would cause such a mess in terms of being so far off? >> i don't buy it at all not at all there are issues with the polling profession that we'll have to talk about in the days that come forward because

virtually every pollster did get it wrong but in a turnout where every human being voted, i believe a lot of that is because everyone is at home everyone is watching tv, everyone is getting information about this presidential race, the whole focus on trump and people have nothing better to do than focus on politics right now and that we had a turnout that in every place was at or near all-time modern day records. that the polling had no impact, zero impact at all i can accept some of what the president says about the problems particularly in philadelphia, particularly in pennsylvania but i do not accept in any way at all that polling encouraged people not to work there is no evidence of that whatsoever any human being who has any knowledge about washington and

electoral process voted. >> and a lot of races still out there. it already been not what people were expecting and quite a few pickups by the gop. how many more will there bebe, d what will the makeup look like finally in your view >> the final outcome is that republicans will be at a minimum of 210 seats, and a maximum of about 214, which puts them in striking distance of taking control of the house nobody saw this. i'm glad you raised it because no one has been talking about this what that means is the problem solvers caucus could be the deciding factor. there are enough voters in that group, 25 or 30 republicans, and the same on the democratic side, that they actually can go to nancy pelosi and kevin mccarthy and tell them that we're going to have a constructive successful house of

representatives for the first time in two years, and we're not going to just be partisan about it once again, the congressional situation could dominate the white house. and all the legislation that matters, the legislation that has the greatest impact on investors and the financial community cannot be done by the voter. it has to happen through legislation, and with the house so narrow, it is possible that even pelosi herself could lose her seat because of this shift towards the republicans and towards a much more moderate congressional caucus, that she could actually lose her speakership. >> frank, question to you about some comments that were made by the president's son and others close to the administration that have complained bitterly that members of the gop, the leaders of the gop have not come out strongly to back the president

and in particular, his claims of fraud and other issues around this vote, and i'm curious why you think that hasn't happened in terms of, and based on so much of the polling that you have done and the president's base and those voters in relation to some of the leadership of the gop? >> there's a big difference between the house and the senate the house leadership has come out strongly in favor of the president. the senate leadership has been much quieter the senate leadership is responsible for the country. the house leadership, i think, sees itself as being more responsible to the party, and so we have to distinguish which side of capitol hill we are talking about. and in the end, this is not just an election for the white house. this really is a congressional election and it's a long-term election it's not just for what happens right now in november, we have

to be looking at what is the right thing to be doing for the long-term health and respect and credibility of our electoral system >> frank, we heard that even if georgia, you know, if they finish counting and it's a 1/2% or less, you don't even have a call theoretically for days or even longer. what is your prognosis for when you can, you know, where you will see the election called, the presidential election actually called, when is that? >> i think the presidential election is going to be called in the next 24 hours 36 hours there are enough states and enough electoral votes it can be called, and it's going to be very tough for the president, but then we're going to have a period where he has every right to challenge in these various precincts and these districts, every right to challenge the validity of the vote, for a

while. and in terms of the senate, we may have to wait if those two georgia senate seats go into runoff the runoff doesn't happen immediately. the runoff doesn't happen until january, so the senate will be seated without knowing who those two senate seats will go to, and i have seen elections like this before voters tend to choose kin cincus in a situation like this you're going to be-tsee the most amount of money spent on senate seats because it's really going to determine the legislative future of this country >> and that might be -- we don't need to start 2021 like we're ending 2020, but that's what that would mean, doesn't it. it's not going to be over. make it stop i see those signs everywhere for 2020 make it stop it's going at least into january now, right

>> by the way, joe, it means that people like you and i are not going to have a great thanksgiving or a great holiday season it means that we're going to be talking about politics, about the elections because we are right at razor's edge. i cannot emphasize enough just how impactful this is going to be on economic policy for the country. the fact that the gop will be so close in the house and could actually tip the balance in a number of major pieces of legislation, and the fact that the senate will actually be able to stand up and say enough, if the president and white house shift too far to the left. this is really bad news for the progressives and really good news for the centrists in the u.s. congress right now. >> frank, so you didn't have a bad view, you weren't saying you had a bad view on the amtrak because you were in philadelphia, were you you just meant on the amtrak wc fields used to say that i spent a week in philadelphia one afternoon.

that's not nice. you didn't mean that, right? >> no, i love philadelphia i went to school in pennsylvania >> because cramer will be irate if he hears you're trashing his hometown it is a great city >> joe, i just wanted to channel my inner joe biden this morning and the only way to do that is get on an amtrak train >> and are you coming north, because you might go right through delaware or you already did? >> i already did i'm headed to new york i'm heading up to see you guys we can hang out this weekend. >> we got to socially distance, though, i hope you brought a mask. >> that's okay thanks, frank. >> thanks, joe there is some news on cbs this morning. we have been letting you know that the company came out to beat earnings expectations, raise guidance, stock is up by 3 3 1/3% executive vice president karen lynch is going to become the ceo

on february 1st, succeeding larry murlo who's retiring he came from 40 years ago being a community pharmacist he has been heading up the company as the ceo for over a decade at this point, and of course oversaw the transition for cvs taking over etna lynch currently comes from the etna side of things, the president there and executive vice president at the overall company, and he's going to be taking a look at what goes on through some of these things, but very interesting thing to kind of pay attention to because we have watched in company transition itself. that stock right now, up almost 5% "squawk box" will be right back.

your money, your vote. vice president biden pulling ahead in georgia the latest details on the counting process and the president's legal challenges straight ahead plus, stocks on a four-day winning streak, but this morning, futures are slipping. what's driving that move we're going to find out as the third hour of this very special edition of "squawk box" begins right now.

good morning, and welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc it's 7:00. been here a while. i'm joe kernen, along with becky quick, and andrew ross sorkin. u.s. equities futures at this hour are indicated down 129 points or so is this -- you think this 5:00 a.m. start has to do -- do we need an election outcome, are we going to be here every day for that, have you weighed in on this >> you could be looking for weeks. >> and would it be a 5:00 a.m. thing? is that what we're thinking? >> i think we should move it to 3:00 a.m we should start earlier. i mean, the whole issue is if the president actually is named at that hour, don't we want to be on the air? i think we should, you know, just go around the clock. >> we could play some tape of the person who does that when it

happens, sorkin, you toss to sound all the time we don't need to be there for every development. there's 24 hours around the world when things are happening. >> we do >> you do it then. i'll be here next week i'm fine i'm good i'm happy. i love our job >> we all are. yes, that's right. let's turn our attention to the election in the battleground state of georgia, vice president joe biden has pulled ahead, but we are talking about a razor thin margin contessa brewer joins us she has the latest tally and more on the road to the white house. contessa. >> reporter: joe biden's lead has now increased in the last hour he leads by 1,096 votes with 99% of the vote in now this latest batch of ballots were posted from clayton county. 85% of votes there went to biden. it's a heavily democratic county that has been represented by civil rights icon john lewis and as you can see it just

overwhelmingly went for biden. we have seen that across the state. you have these rural counties like the one where i'm standing, macon county, overwhelmingly for trump, and then those metropolitan counties going for biden. he just wins over the urban dwellers by equally large margins, and of course there's more voters there. gwinett county election workers went home overnight. they resumed counting this morning. gwinett now holds the biggest cache of unsorted ballots. and georgia is also sorting provisional, overseas and military ballots which could arrive even today and still be counted. the state has ten days from the election day to complete the count. but here's the thing, if this race ends within a half percent margin, which it's looking that way now, a recount can be requested, so that could lengthen this waiting game for official results 16 crucial electoral votes and

the president really needs georgia to reach 270 if he's going to get there, becky. >> yeah, so much attention on georgia, and it's not just the presidential election, it's also the senate race. how likely do you think it is we'll have two runoffs for the senate when it comes to georgia? >> it's heading that way, and in fact in the first race, you have seen david perdue, his lead slip by a tenth of a percent and this state holds the key to the senate, to control of the senate candidates here need to get to 50% of the vote or they have to face off in a runoff well, we already know that will happen in one race where rafael warknock will battle kelly loeffler now there's an increase possibility of the other two candidates, david perdue and john ossoff. those elections would be held on january 5th, and frank luntz was

pointing this out. we may not know who gets control of the senate until the new congress is sworn in, and already the fundraising has started. he was talking about how this could be the most important senate race. the e-mails started coming in yesterday. becky. >> contessa, thank you obviously we will continue to check in with you as you get more of the vote count but joe,s this is that interesn part of all of it where the senate is one thing, but the house is going to feel a little differently because they each represent their own districts and those districts tend to be more uniform as contessa was pointing out. >> you could see if she becomes vice president, you could see vice president, senator harris holding a lot of sway. >> tie breaker. >> if it was a 50/50 speaking of fundraising, i can't think about we could never, obviously, we can't ever give money to anyone, which that works for me, but the -- i'm currently getting fundraising

requests for the legal funds of both donald trump and vice president joe biden, so i got to get through those before i can start considering the fundraising requests from the senate race. >> just one point of clarification in case my math is wrong, because contessa said that vice president biden would have to win to georgia to win, my understanding is if biden wins arizona. >> i think it's nevada and arizona. >> then it's 270 and that takes out, you don't have to think about pennsylvania or the like. so as i was listening to that. >> i think she said donald trump would have to win georgia, she didn't say biden would have to win. >> she said donald trump would have to win georgia. i think if georgia's gone, then it's done, right, contessa she's still with us, i can see that i've got a spy cam here.

earlier i thought someone said that trump could get there some other way. what would he have to do that? could he get there without georgia, i don't think he can, can he i think he needs that. >> he can get to 269 >> 22 and 20 >> 269 >> so there's still a way here the way that these outstanding states are shaping up that you get two candidates with 269 votes, and then i don't want to contemplate how long that takes us in the wild slog there, but to get to 270, the president needs georgia. >> yeah, that's what i thought that's what i thought. okay >> co-counsels, did that work in rome, that may not, no, probably not. let's get a check on the markets. mike santoli joins us now. i don't know, mike, you know, seeing what's happening in the

presidential election, do we really need to try and explain why the stock market is down 105 points after going up 1,900 points i'm not grasping for a reason there, are you >> no. well, the s&p is up over 7%, week to date it's been on this upward sprint. no surprise, it would be a breather if you look at the overnight futures action, we did see this twitch lower when joe biden did pull ahead by the count in georgia. you've recovered some of that. it's not necessarily surprising but we do have a little bit of heightened sensitivity programmed into these markets. all of a sudden the story line turned to actually divided government is the case, not blue wave or fiscal stimulus, so take a look at the year-to-date chart of the s&p 500 it gives a little bit of a frame for what we have seen right here so this run right here from just over 3,200 to here above 3,500 is roughly the same distance we traveled in three weeks and we have done it in a week this time it's running a little bit hot

coming into today. we have to see how this settled out. thach that was the october 9th high. we'll see if thatn continues the bond market has been sensitive, driving a lot of action this week you did see the run up coming into the week. .9% in a ten-year note back down to 77 basis points however, it doesn't really look like it's changed overall the idea of an upward trend. maybe that's not necessarily giving up of the idea of a better economy or stimulus, it's a little more neutral than we were coming into the week which seemed like more of a one-way trade, joe. >> mike san ttoli, thanks. our next guest called for market bottom four days before the market did in fact bottom in the u.s. out with a new call, 38 hunt on s&p 500 raising from 3,100, and this would happen by spring of next year. divided government could be half

a low for investors. joining us is barry banister, stifel's head of strategy. you sure it's going to be a divided government, can we count on that. >> certainly the market wants it i covered the flow company, if you think of it as a pipe, what happens is some of the affluent coming out of the house gets blocked by the senate before it gets to the white house, and i think the market liked that. that was the epiphany we had on election night at 3:00 a.m., and wrote that note at 4:00 a.m. that was calling for 3,800 by april, led by growth stocks initially. we might include value as the new year goes, but we need a steeper curve for that to occur. >> this is a spring call, obviously. do you see any long-term negative effects of a biden

administration, or do you think that with the senate, if the senate is retained by the gop, you don't think that any type of executive orders or regulation that he can do by himself, you don't think that could have negative effects for the stock market or multiples, you know, contracting, profit margins shrinking, none of that will happen, we'll fine. >> well, clearly having the executive branch has that power on the pronouncement side. legislation is more important. you know, laws are like government agencies. they're somewhat permanent, hard to repeal, and so what i thought was that the divided government keeps some of the most destructive thing, tax increases when trying to fill out put gap it keeps them at bay the half loaf analogy, i have

been positive on that. the thing getting all the attention is the white house but we really should pay attention to the fact that the house was a big disappointment for democrats. the more radical element needs to be sidelined. it's good for motivating the base but shouldn't be mainstream policy, and so the house and the senate as well look like they might be a real rebuke for that kind of policy we'll go forward with this, and we'll do our homework, but right now, divided government is what the market wanted to see, and anything that upsets that, i think, would be a negative for the market. >> what would a -- assume if it were to be a biden administration, what would the justice department look like in terms of big tech? >> well, i think that, you know, clearly the senate has advice and consent role into who goes into the cabinet, as well as judges and so the senate will have a very powerful role in any

regulatory changes affecting technology you know, the hit to tech earnings would have been north of 10% had the tax bill that biden proposed gone forward, so that's why having this valve in the pipe is so important with the senate control, and that's why these three races, two in georgia, one in north carolina are so important to the market right now. >> unbelievable, when you futput that way, you're right any of the cabinet, any of the appointments need to go through the senate it's unbelievable how important those seats are becoming down there, it really is. it's mind boggling barry, 3,800, spring on the s&p, and you had that call, did you question it at all when you were four days early in march or you felt good the whole time when you heard we're going into hell in a hand basket, did you question your call or you bought more

>> we bottomed in march around 2250 and our call caught the thousand points through august, a, i thought we'd have a correction we had a 10% correction but it wasn't the close to 15% i expected so i reversed course on election night >> oh, you did all right. >> not good to marry your positions, right, you got to be flexible in this business or you've got some serious issues you'll be stuck negative forever. anyway, thanks, barry. >> thanks. >> andrew. thanks, joe. coming up in just a moment, we're going to give you a preview of the jobs report, given everything else that's going on in the world, we've still got the jobs report. plus, harvard professor, beth selling author, and columnist at the atlantic, arthur brooks is going to be our guest. we'll talk to him in just a moment before we head to that break, take a look at the markets right now. dow looks like it will open down about 125 points off, nasdaq inching down as well, about 103 points down. the s&p 500 looking like it would open down about 23 points

off and we'll talk a lot more about all of that and that jobs number in just a moment. "squawk" returns after this. how do you find companies that are driving the right outcomes? if you care about economic equality and social justice, which firms are addressing it in their workplaces and their communities? for nearly 40 years, calvert has delivered competitive returns by investing in companies making a difference because we see value in doing good. talk to your financial advisor about investing responsibly with calvert.

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bounce forward with comcast business. get started with a powerful internet and voice solution for just $64.90 a month. plus, for a limited time, ask how to get a $300 prepaid card. call or go online today. welcome back to "squawk box" this morning, along with the election investors are going to be watching today's jobs report, and we join with steve liesman right now, he's got a preview of today's numbers, of course coming out at 8:30 a.m. eastern

time steve. >> good morning, andrew, yeah, two normally big stories, the job support and fed meeting, taking a backseat on wall street to the election count. they could come into sharper focus, once the political story, i say, optimistically moves aside. nonfarm payrolls estimated up 530,000, i have seen estimates as low as 300,000, and estimates over a million we'll talk about the variability in a second. unemployment estimated 7.7, down two ticks and a positive movement, average hourly wages spi wages .2, and adp up 365,000 some of the high frequency jobs data, that's been positive a seasonal adjustment issue, of course the spread of the coronavirus are among the factors making this number difficult for economists to forecast fetch yofed chair said still recovering but moderating.

>> we have been concerned that the downside risks, though, are prevalent now, which are really the risk of the further spread of the disease and also the risk that households will run through the savings they have managed to accumulate on their balance sheet and that that could weigh in on activity what we see up to the present really is continued growth, continued expansion, but at gradually moderating pace. >> powell once again called for more fiscal aid and said the fed yesterday discussed options at their meetings for more quantitative easing or asset purchase the fed is right now content with this level of $120 billion in monthly purchases, but that could change maybe as soon as december it depends on the economic impact of the virus, and how it shows up in the economy, including in today's jobs report at 8:30 a.m. those other networks, they cover politics, we do the politics and our normal job of the economics

here >> what do you think, given the way you see the market moving this morning, and we think that that may be based on what's happening in georgia right now, maybe around the senate, what's a gold goldilocks situation thi morning? >> i think getting the uncertainty out of the way is what you're looking for. i had this discussion with joe yesterday. i thought joe made some excellent points but i would just say, i think the market wants certainty. it wants to know what's coming it can adjust within reason to a different tax regime, a different regulatory regime. one of the downsides of the trump administration from a business standpoint was the chaotic way that policy was heard. they liked a lot of policies, the low tax rates, less regulation but they didn't like the way policy was made. so if we can get out of the way of the uncertainty over the

election, business can begin to plan, and really, andrew, as you know, having talked with scott gottlieb, the coronavirus and the pandemic in front of us is the biggest economic challenge in front of us right now the election is not an economic challenge at this moment. >> steve, though, don't you think -- well, but the election, it almost at this point feels like between what could happen on the senatorial race in georgia, and how far that could get pushed out, plus whatever litigation you think is going to be on tap, irrespective of wher things go, we could be in the uncertainty stage for a good month if not longer, walking into 2021 with the uncertainty, and you throw on the overhang of covid, do you see a scenario where there's actual certainty anytime sooner >> i don't i think it's going to be out there for a while, but i think that also it depends on the level of the votes and what happens inside the republican

party. and to an extent inside the democratic party and by the way, i think it depends a lot on what the networks do. we don't want to talk too much about that, but whether or not there's a sort of facts on the ground, calls by networks, that changes the reality that's out there. it's something that we've dealt with before, andrew, we came through it, and i'm optimistic we'll come through it again, and i'm also optimistic that we turn to the real issues of, you know, jobs and how to put people back to work and resolving the coronavirus pandemic relatively soon because those are the pressing issues. when we did our fed survey, many of the people responded, coronavirus policy is economic policy >> steve, are you really saying that you don't think the senate matters in terms of the market will adjust to whatever happens with tax i have had big money people medicationing me th messaging me that weren't fans of donald trump that took solace in the senate not flipping if the democrats control the

senate, we've got, you know, court packing, we got god knows what, you don't think that matters, you don't think the market adjusts to anything you don't think the market likes divided government >> i'm not saying that, joe. i would come from a different principled standpoint than you joe. >> i know. i've seen it >> compromise and good legislation is better than gridlock that's the first thing i would say. gridlock is better than bad legislation but not better than compromise and good legislation. >> that's in the eye of the beholder, good legislation from a democratic president and a democratic congress wouldn't necessarily thought of as good legislation. >> i don't spin those nightmare scenarios that you do from that result, joe. >> i know you don't. i think you should there's a lot of things that can happen from a democratic senate

that are pro business like, for example, you know, child care that comes, help from the federal government, those are pro business health care, that could be pro business, joe. there's a lot of positive things that can happen and a lot of negative things too. a lot of negative things too, but not necessarily all the nightmare scenarios you're spinning. >> the 52 states will have to decide, we'll just have to see thanks, steve. >> becky >> god >> when he come back, author, professor podcaster, and columnist, arthur brooks will b join us for the latest on the election and what it means for business in america. plus check out shares of uber, they are trading lower this morning, posting a smaller than expected quarterly loss the big issue is what happened with prop 22 in california we're going to be speaking with uber ceo, dara khosrowshahi, that's coming up live at 8:45 eastern time "squawk box" will be right back.

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welcome back to "squawk box" this morning, for president trump one of the last remaining paths to reelection is through the courts and that's iffy at best he has already had cases thrown out in michigan and georgia, but his campaign is promising more suits to come. but what's the strategy and is there one? scott cohn is in raleigh, north carolina, with some possible clues about what comes next, scott. >> reporter: yeah, andrew, even here in north carolina where the counting doesn't pick up again until next week of as many as 150 absentee and provisional ballot, they seem to be laying the groundwork for a lawsuit the head of state gop coming out yesterday and accusing the bipartisan state board of elections of not being transparent enough about the vote counting here, but again, that does not pick up until next week, and a lot would have to happen for north carolina to be a factor, so a lot of the

efforts right now are focusing on places where the counting is going on, like nevada, where with great fanfare yesterday, the trump campaign unveiled this lawsuit that was alleging that they were counting votes that had been sent to dead people and nonresidents the suit finally filed several hours later not exactly as advertised it was not filed by the trump campaign but instead by a handful of voters who said that they were being disenfranchised and then alleging without a shred of evidence that there were 3,000 votes like that it is not clear whether that suit or any of the lawsuits would change the overall outcome, which is of course going to be a key factor in whether any courts would consider it. that may not be the immediate strategy for the trump campaign. remember back to 2000, bush v. gore, i was covering the gore campaign in nashville for cnbc that year, and i remember how the air just went out of everything when the networks called the election for george

w. bush and that changes the entire dynamic so one thing that the trump campaign may very well need to do is trying to stave off that kind of a situation, that change in dynamics, but it's really not clear what strategy is beyond that it may help explain some of the efforts in pennsylvania, where they did manage to pause the counting for a while in this issue about whether observers were being allowed into the room, and they are from both parties, but also whether they are being allowed to get close enough to the counting and it seems like that has been resolved to symptom degree, although the trump campaign was back in court yesterday. the other thing that goes on, the more that they delay is that the court of public opinion gets more raucous, and gets louder. we have seen the protests that are happening just about every place that they are counting votes. those are getting more contentious, nastier, and the

longer this goes on, the worse that could get one thing that we know for certain, if you're wondering whether any of this is real, as joe mentioned earlier, both campaigns now have launched fundraising efforts to pay for this legal battle. andrew >> let's just talk about some of the timing and the strategy to potentially slow down things through the courts there's still the slow down just of the vote counting unto itself we were talking about, george. we ha -- georgia, and states like arizona, that have been called by some networks, how long that will ultimately take as you look around the various states, heard from pennsylvania maybe today. i don't know, what are you hearing? >> reporter: in terms of the legal challenges, the only ones that are really active right now are pennsylvania and, again, that seems to be working its way through without a lot of change. they delayed the count briefly, but the counting continues and we've seen those results

change, and continue to go in joe biden's direction. and then the situation in nevada which was only just filed last night, other cases in michigan and georgia as you mentioned, have been thrown out, so it's not really clear that there's anything that they can do to delay it in any really appreciable way, and again, what they may want to do is delay the election being called. the legal experts are saying, and it really is hard to see what overall strategy is beyond that, and if they can't allege, number one, that there is concrete evidence of this fraud and specific ballots that were counted that shouldn't have been counted and enough ballots to actually alter the outcome, which is what a court is going to look at, it's hard to see how these things go forward, and how it's not just sort of a delaying tactic that is to no real end. >> but scott, isn't the idea, if you can delay it long enough to the point where effectively you

can start to really mount recount efforts in a number of states, you can prolong this potentially long enough to keep the networks, if you will, stave off the networks and media and others from calling it don't you think that's part of the strategy, and the other question is once the quote unquote networks call it, that's not going to stop some of the recounts and continued counting efforts as well, and potentially some of the court challenges are we convince that the american psyche, the american public will accept what is described? i'm not so sure. >> well, yeah, i mean, just think back to 2000 i mean, as i said, the air went out of everything in nashville that night but it was, what, 39 days or whatever until the election actually was settled, ultimately by the supreme court so, yes, it doesn't mean that it's over yet. it just changes the dynamic, but then you look at the situations

where there are recounts it certainly seems like in georgia, you know, if it remains in the neighborhood of a thousand votes or something like that, and we don't know that that's going to be the case, there may be something that can be done with a recount but look at wisconsin where we're talking about 20,000 votes, and the trump campaign has said that they're going to file for a recount, but in previous recounts in wisconsin, it's changed the outcome by maybe a few hundred votes. so that's an iffy strategy as well it's really hard to see where this goes. >> okay. scott cohn in raleigh this morning. always great to see you. we'll be spending a lot more time with you over the next coming days and weeks. >> scott, great, especially you say nevada with so much conviction because you're the guy that does all the states you know how to say it you don't do the, you know, half nevada, you do it. and it's because you know, and i've just given you kudos for

that, because people care in nevada. >> i do. and i have researched that i'm saying it right. nevada. >> i know you are. and i am giving you genuine kudos. i sent steve sedgwick an e-mail yesterday correcting him he better get it right from now on he will. he's over in the u.k it's not his fault. >> reporter: he says everything wrong. >> let's welcome arthur brooks, president emeritus with the american enterprise institute, a contributing writer for the atlantic, hosts a podcast, the art of happiness with robert brooks i know what you're going to tell me, you have found some silver lining in the divided cantankerous mess the whole country has found itself in, and you have found a way for us to love each other, even though we're ready to kill each other before we do that. >> a broken record you host the most entrepreneurial show on television, and the one thing we know, every single person watching us, look, some of us

are going to be disappointed, some of us are going to be thrilled, i get t but the truth of the matter is anytime there is something like this going on in the country, just like anytime there's something like this going on in a business, this is an opportunity this is an opportunity and let me tell you, let me talk to the people who are listening to the last fantastic segment, really well reported, who are about to get really disappointed i don't know who it's going to be, i can't call that. i'm a pundit half of the country is going to be bitter about this, and the other half is going to be really happy. that's an opportunity to show grace and start to bring this country back together again. here's the call, because we're coming to thanksgiving if you're happy about what's about to happen in this election, and i very much hope that donald trump doesn't take this to these court, you know, challenges in such a way that it drags on forever, and it becomes this mess that is notwithstanding, we have to deal with this another month, that's the wrong thing to do, but no

matter what happens, if you're thrilled about what happens in this election, this is your opportunity to think of the person in your life who disagrees with you politically and that you love, and you're supposed to call that person and make amends with that person, and this is the month that we can actually do it because of this bitterly divided election this is an opportunity an opportunity that's entrepreneurial for all of us to mend our nation. >> geez. >> what do you think of that, joe? >> i think it sounds like a 12-step program and making amends and stuff i could never get through that if i had to. making amends with everyone. >> yes, you can, and maybe you're going to be the one who's disappointed and somebody in your family needs to make amends with you you're loveable enough, it's not that hard. >> but i will tell you one thing, and this is true, that we've had people on that i have tried to tell them, and like barry diller, he says that he understands now that maybe he

was too strident or maybe they thought that, you know, he wanted everyone in the country to agree with his -- we're going to have someone else later on today that's going to preach to us about how his values forced him to abandon his republican principles because of his values, but that makes 70 million people feel like they're either stupid or feel like they are, you know, completely amoral or have horrible values. we need to understand that people, you know, look at elections and look at what they want for this country in different ways, and it doesn't make one person a really bad person if they have an opposing viewpoint. we may come to that because now we know how evenly divided. >> absolutely. >> barry diller said it was a fluke four years ago and to see trump get almost reelected made him very disappointed, about half the country, and that's the kind of thing withe need to get away from. >> black and white thinking is a big problem. we have a basically two party

system and you get one choice or the other unless you want to not vote or you want to vote for a third party candidate, effectively throwing your vote away i get it that means you make compromises. we're grown up, i make compromises all the time i don't go to the supermarket, and say i want food with every profile i want, and to say i'm voting for somebody i'm morally reprobate, means this guy is somewhat better than that guy. that's adult thinking and the black and kwhwhite morality, to disenfranchise the morality of 70 million people is a mistake we have different ways to try to get around the same basic mission in this country. we want to lift each other up. we want the country to come together, 93% of americans hate how divided we have become as a country. it's time for us to strike back against the outrage industrial complex that 7% is getting rich and powerful and famous by

driving us a i parpart, that's say because you wanted one candidate or another you're morally reprobate, that's a mistake. >> question, but two things, one is, i just called joe, while we were on the show, you said i was supposed to call somebody because i disagree and i love. i got on the telephone, it was the middle of the interview. >> i thought you butt dialled. he didn't pick up the phone. i didn't understand why he wasn't picking up the phone. >> you know what i was going to say, i'm not calling, the person has to call me. >> you figured out you're going to be on the losing side probably. >> you need to be the gracious one this time, sorkin. >> oh, goodness, see these moral arguments are being made, my question to you, though, is in a world that may be divided, if in fact, and it could be a small -- i don't know if it's going to turn into a small blue wave,

especially if the senate were to turn blue, if you are a vice president biden and you become the president, how do you think this world should be governed, meaning right now if it's a divided government, by default, it comes to the middle if it isn't, how do you handle it, what's the moral thing to do >> yeah, okay. so and again, you know, democrats are not saying i wonder what arthur brooks thinks, i get that, but let's point something out here, if you looked at how people were talking about the presidency of donald trump, it was relatively unpopular. even among people who were republicans. they didn't like the way that he was governing, that was issue number two or something with the quality of governance. i get that okay, and yet, it was an incredibly close election. the reason for that is because the democrats were giving this black and white thinking that joe was talking about a minute ago, that if you supported donald trump, voted for republicans, it means you were

bad morally, it means that you had no moral standards, that turned off so many people that the democrats almost have been able to manage losing this election that should be a big wake up call in and of itself, if the democrats squeak this out, and they have the presidency, maybe not the senate, and even if they have the senate, it's time to bring the country together it's time to be normal it's time to behave the same way that you would if you came into a fractured company. we've got a lot of ceos and a lot of senior managers watching us on this show which is great and i have been the ceo of a company, too, and let me tell wr you when you go into a company where people don't get along, the first thing you don't do is choose sides that's a mistake that's horrible leadership joe biden has the opportunity to be a popular, unifying successful president if he's elected today or tomorrow, whenever we decide a winner. >> i don't disagree with you at all, my concern is the democrats

look at the republicans and say that that hasn't been the case for a very very very long time, in terms of how they have behaved and so you have bad behavior teaching over people bad behavior, and we can decide where the bad behavior started but it's a long time ago at this point. >> it is a long time ago but revenge is not the right answer at this point. >> i've got five seconds, we got to get out thank you, arthur brooks, thank you. andrew, thank you. we'll be right back. are drivin? if you care about economic equality and social justice, which firms are addressing it in their workplaces and their communities? for nearly 40 years, calvert has delivered competitive returns by investing in companies making a difference because we see value in doing good. talk to your financial advisor about investing responsibly with calvert.

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the 2020 election race set to go down as the most expensive in history, was all that billionaire spend ago waste, that's the question of the morning. robert joins us with the answer. >> america's billionaires spending a half billion dollars this election cycle. that's more than ten times what they spent a decade ago. michael bloomberg spent 115 million on biden, 100 million in florida, the rest in ohio and texas. bloomberg spent in a lot of local races including

2.6 million for the railroad commissioner in texas, his candidate there losing bloomberg's team telling me in a statement that being in florida allowed democrats to free up necessary resources to win other key battleground states in the midwest and pennsylvania and their get out the vote efforts and anti-gun candidates all succeeded. on the gop side, sheldon adelson spent about $180 million 80 of that on the super pac opposing joe biden, another 60 million to help senate republicans, and about 40 for republicans in the house now, other big spenders for biden include former facebook cofounder, dustin moskovitz, and reed hastings of netflix one billionaire who does not appear to have spent any of his own money in this race, that was president donald trump back to you. >> the irony >> thank you, for a closer look at the issue of campaign finance reform, let's welcome lauren

lessick found over equal citizens, on reform ing election laws and other issues. and center for constitutional studies, his new book is supreme disorder, judicial nominations and the politics of america's highest courts professor, let's start with you. you ran for president on one platform, and that was to make sure you kind of came up with campaign reform. does money matter in these elections? >> money absolutely matters in the elections for congress you know, members of congress and candidates for congress spend anywhere between 30 and 70% of their time raising money. and they're raising money not from the average american. they're raising money from the tiniest fraction of the 1%, and you know, members of congress are musehuman. there's no way in which that behavior doesn't make them extremely sensitive to the needs of that tiny fraction of the 1%. there's no doubt they become

corrupted through this dependency on this tiny fraction of america's wealth, and so i think in that context, there can be no doubt that this constrains what congress can do and makes it possible to address really important fundamental issues that america needs to address. >> you said congress, i take it you don't think it matters as much in the presidential election because we saw a lot of money put into play in a lot of places that it didn't seem to have an impact. >> i would love to see it not be in the presidential election either but my point is we've got to focus on where it actually has its corrupting effect. i think presidential candidates can run, they can take small contributions, you know, what bernie did, this big race had a lot of big contributors, but i think the real place you see the corrupting effect ishow it con trains what congress can do. >> ilya, you agree with that, are you in favor of changes along these lines or even, you know, term limits? >> well, those are several

different types of questions i have constitutional issues with a lot of the kinds of so called reforms of campaign finance that larry and others might propose, but fundamentally, money matters less and less in our internet age. candidates for public office certainly do need a certain threshold of funding to be competitive. obviously more if you're running for president. less for city council but beyond that, money doesn't matter very much things like incumbency, celebrity, party polarization matter much more than money. there's not any amount of tv ads that could convince most people to change their votes for president or for their senator in their state this cycle. four years ago, hillary clinton significantly outraised and outspent donald trump, and this year just in the races against majority leader mitch mcconnell and senator lindsey graham, i think 200 million was spent, and they won by more than they had in the past, so there are a lot of complicated dynamics going on here, but it's not simply a

matter of raising money or somehow candidates being corrupt bid increments of 2,800, i think, dollars now at the federal level you can donate to a candidate each election. >> professor, the supreme court has ruled pretty clearly on this matter what are your thoughts about what it would take to even change it? >> well, i agree, the supreme court constrains what can be done i'm not talking about any of the things that ilya has just mentioned. i'm talking about changes the supreme court has indicated are constitutional take an idea that many conservatives are supporting, the idea of vouchers give every citizen vouchers and with those vouchers, they can choose which candidates they want to support. the point is if you do that, the business model of fundraising changes. >> we give them vouchers for where, public money that's going to be spent to this, taxpayer dollars? >> you have to embrace your inner tea party. the public money is our money we

sent to washington they're going to send it back in the form of washington, and that voucher is something -- >> to be spent on campaign ads >> so they can use it to make themselves less dependent on private special interest money there's money in here regardless the question is whose money is it, he who pays the piper calls the tune, and right now it's absurd to suggest that people who spend half their time raising money from a tiny fraction of people aren't listening to the tune that those people are calling. >> i don't want my taxpayer money going even to candidates i might support. i think let the market operate and fund people and sure, have transparency, but i'd say that the problem why candidates spend 70% of their time fundraising is because of limits on contributioning contributions. know which billionaires are donating directly. i'm not talking about super pacs. >> i want to read you r, look,

there are other countries use taxpayer funding for this and do it quite credibly. from faried sa c he says the american tax code is one of the world's longest for a reason the thousands of amendments to it are what politicians sell when they raise campaign money what do you think of that? >> i'm not a tax expert. i'm a simple constitutional lawyer, but yeah, we should simplify our tax code, absolutely, for a flat and simple straightforward tax without all of these loopholes and benefits and subsidies. >> there's so much moneyed interest that we don't because of it. >> reduce the size and scope of government and the regulatory state and you'll reduce the money that's chasing it. >> you can't shrink the size of government until you get rid of the money. the money is driving this policy in government. that's the way special interest works in washington. >> money chases politicians that

it supports. it's not a grand corruption scheme that we have here yeah, you should look more closely, constitutional lawyer, because it is deeply corrupting according to the values madison articulated of a democracy dependent on the people alone. they're not dependent on the people they're dependent on a tiny fraction of funders. >> coming up, leon cooperman, "sawbo wl rht back. ♪

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hello, good morning, welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc it's the last hour did it occur to either of you that today is friday >> it did, and i'm in love >> i looked at that 8:00 thing, i went, wait a minute, the only reason i'm bringing it up is because it's jobs friday i'm not thinking about leaving or going home or the weekend or anything else. it's jobs friday i'm joe kernen along with becky quick and andrew ross sorkin jobs friday, half hour, u.s. equity futures, ahead of that. down 250 we had been up about 1,800

already this week. we are seeing a pull back, take your pick, i mean, who wouldn't sell stocks with the environment, all of the uncertainty, i mean, don't sell, i'm not saying to, but you can understand that there would be a little uncertainty, trepidation about so many things happening in the country that's why friday is being so welcomed, after we do see those numbers. the dow and s&p 500 saw gains of more than 1% yesterday, and that's significant because they have done that all week four straight days. the last time they had a streak like that that was that long, 1982 and all of the major indexes are on pace for their best week since april. you can't get much bigger than our final hour, today, though. we'll be talking markets with billionaire investor, leon cooperman, and later, this is cool, inside uber's third quarter results with ceo dara khosrowshahi, given what happened during the election maybe we don't even have to talk

about the political aspects. we can just talk about what happened with uber i would almost welcome that. and then of course we have that october jobs report coming up in less than 30 minutes in the meantime, though, andrew, back to the election >> let's get back to the election, get an update on the vote counting and the presidential election was taking place overnight. margins in a number of critical states so extremely tight, but there's still normal ballot processing going on. it's just proceeding a bit slowly contessa brewer joins us with the latest on joe biden's razor thin lead overtaking president trump overnight in georgia contessa >> reporter: andrew, i would like somebody to go through and just count up how many times we have said razor thin because it's just, it's so close and now we've seen joe biden taking the lead in georgia. that happened early this morning. he now leads by 1,096 votes with

99% of the vote in we have seen across georgia the rural counties swinging for trump with large majorities. but then biden wins over urban dwellers by equally large margins and the urban areas have more voters. the latest batch of ballots posted from clay coiunty, 85% of voters which chosen biden. gwinett workers will resume counting this morning. this county holds the biggest cache of unsorted ballots, part of the reason is because they had a software glitch on election day, and they had to readjudicate some of these ballots. gwinett county tells me this morning, the remaining votes, absentee by mail, provisional ballots, overseas and military ballots, these will not be added until sometime after the deadline now, i'm talking about the

provisional, military, and overseas ballots, they have until 5:00 p.m. to arrive today. so those vote counts will be added later. the state actually has until next friday to complete the count, and the count has been kind of a tortoise and a haire race the president drove out to an early lead, driven in person by election day results, especially as i mentioned in the small rural counties, but then workers started sorting through the absentee ballots and those tend to favor joe biden that's the way it's been across the country, and especially those from the metropolitan counties in georgia, so at some point, we saw trump's lead, you know, in about 24 hours, shrink by about $350,000. and then in a little more than 48 hours, biden took the lead. if this race ends within a half percent margin, a recount can be requested. that could certainly lengthen the waiting time for official results.

16 crucial electoral votes mere, and as i've mentioned earlier this morning, the president needs these 16 votes in order to reach 270. andrew >> can we once again talk just about the timing we were talking to scott cohn earlier in the last hour, just about the timing of when some of the count is going to come in, versus some of these lawsuits and litigation that's takes place because clearly the strategy, it appears from the trump administration is to try to push out a decision by the networks as long as possible what do we know about what we're going to be hearing more about the count and at least what we might be hearing from the courts s >> i believe there's seven counties in georgia working through their ballots. then you've got the military, the provisional and overseas ballots coming in. that deadline for those to arrive, they had to be postmarked by election day, but the deadline for those to arrive

is 5:00 p.m. tonight so that could change the count as well. then the state has until next friday to count all of these ballots and remember, they're going through the signature curious if there were ballots that had issues with signatures, there's an opportunity to go back to the voters and cure those ballots, so the state has been working on that there's a deadline for that. this all could change this race in georgia but by next friday, we shoul have a final and official count but when that happens, you could have potentially president trump or former vice president joe biden asking for a recount and then they would go back and do this all again. presumably, it would be faster because you wouldn't have the hand sorting it would already be in the machine. but it could be some time. >> fair enough unfortunately fair enough. great reporting, contessa, we'll continue to be following this with you throughout the day, and it sounds like potentially for

another week, if not nor in the meantime, i'm going to throw it over to becky >> thanks, andrew. let's get to the markets now as we told you at the top of the hour, the dow, s&p 500, and the nasdaq are on track for their best week since april. joining us now is billionaire investor, lee cooperman, chairman and ceo of o mega family office, and if you look at what happened last week, the dow was down by 1,800 points, this week gained it back in the first four sessions, what is the market telling us about what we're seeing play out through the election >> i think the market is largely reflecting the fed's policy, which is free money. people don't know what to do with money, and i think the fed is pushing people ouch tt of the risk curve you can't survive on basis points, industrial credits are 2 or 3%. structural credit 8 or 9%.

people are buying stocks, and it's understandable, but i think it's not going to end well, but it's understandable. >> you think that this is just a redo basically we're back to where we were two weeks ago, and forget the election? >> no, i think the election, all we know for sure is it's going to be challenged it will probably be many weeks before you know the final result but i think the most significant thing that came out of the election cwas i think the repudiation of the left. i have publicly stated i voted for vice president biden i think we needed a change and but i think that the election, as close as it is, people's happiness with law and order, the violence we have seen in the streets and the fear of the socialist coopting vice president biden and i think those are legitimate concerns,

but i think the overwhelming reality is the fed is creating this environment of free money, and you have to kind of make a judgment whether that's justified, how long it's going to last, and what exact this has on the longer term outlook i think right now we're in an environment where stocks have clearly the only viable asset class that make sense, and the volatility stems from the fact that the machines dominate the market you know, i get a call from one of my brokers last week when the market was heading down, and they say at 32 something or other, these machines come into sell they were buying at 35.50, now they're selling at 3,200 it's a different world than i have grown up in but i would say that i think the near term outlook is favorable because of fed policy, because of the apparent election outcome, and i think that we

will get, if necessary, we will get a stimulus bill and i think we'll get good news on the vaccine for the virus. i've had that view for a while longer term, i probably have a dissenting view than wall street because i'm of the concern as to who pays the party when the party is over. this nation was founded 244 years ago, took 244 years to go from no national debt to 21 trillion that number is going up 3 or $4 trillion a year i think it's necessary given the virus situation. there's a long-term consequence to what's going on, and there's just too much debt in the system, and i think ultimately there will be a problem. so i'm watching closely. >> what's the longer term, lee >> the longer term, let me say this, i went back and i looked whenever you bought into the s&p 500, 22 times earnings or more,

your five year return forward was near 0 i think i would not be surprised if the market averages hit very little i harken back, you know, you kind of personalize your experiences, i got my mba from columbia business school on january 31st of 1967 at that time, i had a defense education, had no money in the bank, a six-month old trial, i went to work the next day. i went to work at goldman sacks and started my 25 year run on february 1st of '67. the dow on february 1st was roughly a thousand 14 years later was a thousand, and i made my money picking stocks that's the environment i think we're going to be in, a market of stocks rather than the stock market, i think the averages are adequately priced, being whipped around by the machines but by and large, i think the market is

adequately priced and that's kind of my view. and i enjoy the party, i would stay away, if i was a viewer, i would stay away from government bonds and high grade corporate bonds. the fed is pushing down the risk they do what they got to do, but that ultimately will -- the people that come in on the risk curve, you watch fed speak, you watch overall economic activity, you watch inflation, but i'm assuming in the next 12, 18 months, something will happen to change the environment, and force to hand in the fed might be the dollar going to new lows and inflation picking up. i can find plenty of things to do in the market in all honesty. >> lee, one of the things that's been so interesting is watching what's happening to technology stocks that's a place where people say,

look, they will defy all of the other things that could be pressuring the major averages. do you buy into any of the growth prospects for the technology stocks that have seen big runups, knanasdaq up 9% thi week. >> i would say if you look at interest rates and you look at the growth rates of these companies, they're not irrationally priced. they're not cheap, but they're not irrationally priced. google 35 times earnings, msi, 21 times earnings, facebook, 32 times earnings let me just give you a statistic. if you go back to 1972, nifty, 50, ten year government bond with 6 1/2% on average for the year, 1972 ten-year government is 70, 80 basis points, so if you apply today's interest rates against these companies growth rates, they're not expensive. you go back in 1972.

sears r sears, polaroid, 90 times earnings we don't have that today they're not cheap but they're not really expensive against interest rates that exist. so you could come up with any valuation you want to come up with and justify it analytically i have big positions in google, microsoft, msi, facebook, amazon, i'm not a buyer at these prices but i tend to buy things that are lower i'm not selling them i think these are better than gold, in my opinion. i have said that they were in three markets, the second is the one that i have zero to do with. i call that the robinhood market, a fabulous charity, which i'm a big supporter of the robin hood brokerage firm, these are 30-year-olds taking government refund checks and playing the market because of zero commissions and zero interest rates, and i think without being pejorative, they

demonstrate they don't know what they're doing. carl icahn is a sharp cookie, you make no decisionin, you're a liar this business is prone to errors sells hertz at $0.72 a share three weeks later, robinhood crowd is pricing at $5 the enterprise value of some of the airlines today is higher than it was pre-covid. it makes no sense. i dismiss the robin hood market, and the third market, here's value, you can find plenty of things to do six, seven, eight multiple stocks with good stories >> like what >> well, cigna, which had a big run the last three days, eleven times earnings, one of our favorites, mr. cooper, the mortgage broker, you know, this company earned in the second

quarter $500 million in cash which was 50% of the market capital of the company they could earn as much as $9 a share this year, okay, the stock is trading at 22, $23. you end the year with a book value of over 24, $25. you end the year with $14 a share in cash. normalized earnings are maybe $4, and stock is trading at six times normalized earnings. they gave a statistic, on the recent earnings call, and i'm approximating. don't take to the bank they had a million and a half mortgages on the books where people refinancing, they save $200 a month in mortgage payments so they have a long runway ahead of them very smart management, buying back stock, you know, that's one. -and-a-half -- naviant, my

favorite is a bond, i have a very big position called lagato, which owns 40 megahertz of spectrum, controversial because of bogus claims by the department of defense, the fcc spent ten years studying this thing, and by a vote of 5 to 0, bipartisan fcc democrats, and republicans, approved the spectrum, the department of defense makes a lot of noise, ks bs they just issued a first lean bond in the amount of $3 billion with a point of 15 1/2%. provision that a three year noncall, so you'll get 150 for that bond and so the accreted value of the first lien notes is 4 1/2 billion. there's nobody that knows anything about this country that thinks spectrum is worth less than 8 or $10 billion more you have tremendous asset coverage, and i can make 50% or

more in three years. i have a position in general motors, very cheap stock doing the right kind of things mary barra is doing an excellent job running the company. i have a controversial position on something i like a lot, and i have been wrong, a manmcx, the a company. everybody is negative because of covid, which is truly taking place. the company bought 25% of the company excess cash, and the dolan family, i pay a lot of attention when somebody owns 20% of a company and is buying back stock because unless they're foolish, they understand if they're buying back stock at inappropriate prices they're major losers because their ownership is going up at inappropriate prices i made a lot of money and reputation on betting of dr. henry singleton, refertired0

percent of his stock i pay attention to cap pital management overall, i would say that i'm worried longer term who pays the bill when the party is over. there's too much debt being created out there, i think, and that concerns me and as i said, if you do the historical analysis, the forward returns when you buy into the market at these levels of valuation are not particularly attractive i would say i don't see the alternative given what the fed has done. >> leo, i want to thank you for making "squawk box" actually live up to its name this morning, because we were named obviously after the box that traders would gather around on the trading floor and listen to, and i feel like that's the call we kind of just walked through with you, so thank you for your time thank you for the comprehensive walk through, and we will talk to you again soon. >> my pleasure, good luck, stay healthy and let's hope the election results come out the

way they're looking. personal opinion of course. >> thanks, lee joe. much more to come on a big final hour of "squawk box. we're counting down to the october jobs report. that's just a couple of minutes away at 8:30, and then after that, uber ceo, dara khosrowshahi, joins us talking third quarter results. the big election day win for uber's business model. thanks to california verots. stay tuned, "squawk box" will be right back this is decision tech. find a stock based on your interests or what's trending. get real-time insights

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welcome back to "squawk box," i'm dominic chu, a big jobs day today, how have markets got to where we sit right now. over the course of the past month, we have seen a general positivity in the markets capped off by election week the s&p doubling that performance, and the nasdaq tripling that. the nasdaq really the stand out as it has been for a while if you take a look at the s&p 500 over the course of the past month, we have seen these moves higher, and then we're kind of at these levels that we have topped out in the past we're watching to see if there's a break out that could happen with the markets here given an election outcome the jobs number will be a big one for that as well

sector wise, these have been the ones that have led it. technology, health care and communications services. tech and kom services, these are the big ones because they have been the trend much of the big megacap technology and communications stocks have been the ones that have gone really to the momentum of the upside and downside epn e tt wparticular ones. ke aeyonhaase head to the big jobs number "squawk box" will be back right after this keep it here we'll see you back in a couple of minutes at calvert, we know responsible investing is hard. if you're concerned about the environment and climate change, how do you find companies that are driving the right outcomes?

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we are just minutes away from the october jobs report, full coverage continues in just 30 seconds, stick around and watch the little clock it's going to be there on the commercial welcome back to "squawk box" on cnbc, we are just a few

minutes away from the october jobs data. the report ahead of that, we want to bring in our jobs panel, kate moore, head of thematic strategy. nada isa, assistant secretary for economic policy under president george w. bush and a georgetown professor i'm glad we're going this way. it's easier for me austin goldsby, former council of economic advisers, chairman under president obama, university of chicago booth school of business professor we're going over here. not purely clock wise. going to you, next, steve, so we're reading across, and then finally rick santelli, but it's easiest for me if i do it in order, kate, what are you expecting at this point? >> yeah, so i'm looking at 720,000 for the month of october. but i think there's going to be a lot of noise, and after we get the headline, we have to separate out private from government, given the fact that

we're going to have a decline in government workers from the finishes of the census i think we'll have good numbers from the private side. >> nada, it's kind of an important number because we had the great snap back, and now a lot of concern that we might be petering out a little bit. what are you looking for >> i expect actually a decline from where we were in september, down to closer to 500,000. but i'll also be looking at the unemployment rate in the labor force. i think that's going to tell us a lot about how people are feeling about their opportunities in the labor market >> austin, the election is over, we can be friends again, i mean, we don't know exactly how it's going to turn out. what are you looking for numbers today? >> we got such a huge -- we get huge revision, uncertainty, i'll say 600,000, which seems like a strong number, but it continues this trend of the growth rate is slowing each month

you call it great snack back i call it the great snap boot because it started coming back and now it's stalling. >> rick, quickly. >> 800,000, 7.5 on unemployment. >> great, time for the october jobs report. steve liesman has the number steve. >> do i have the number? it's come across 638,000. unemployment rate declining to it said 7.9 in the headline, 6.9% there's the correct number, 638,000. let's see, economic activity curtailed due to the coronavirus, notable gains in leisure and hospitality, that's good, professional business services, retail trade and construction, employment in government declined and i think if i go over here, more

headlines, goods producing jobs, up 123,000 that's good. construction up 84,000 private service jobs up, i got to double check these things, 783,000. these are big numbers. rick my favorite unemployment rate, 12.1%, still high but come down private workers up 0.1 private workweek, 34.8 i'll look a little bit more at the numbers. looks pretty good, joe. >> i'll say. rick, i want to set you off against austin i don't think austin never got it to 6.9, did he? this is unbelievable it took like eight years, am i wrong about that why don't you start on him, rick >> i thought you were going to say praise me joe, we're friends today, i got the number right. i was within 30,000. >> you were, but i'm talking about the 6.9%

did he ever get it there, rick, after eight years, i guess maybe they finally did, didn't they? >> i remember when ben bernanke was looking at full employment not being far from there after the great recession when we were in the 6s and of course they thought the economy was going to do great, and unemployment not so much. unemployment eventually went to what, 3 1/2% they were never quite right on the growth ended up with one and two handles, this is a spectacular number in so many ways it's like a pro athlete, if you keep them off the field, the stats don't increase the covid scenario, my analogy the economy is the pro athlete, and there's parts of it that can't perform, considering all of that, the back and forth between states like illinois, people are starting to fight back they don't think the governor should have closed things he closed he was pointing in the wrong direction, 638 is not bad. private payroll at 900,000 is really good. under 7%, truly goes against many of the issues that we have

been hearing about we know there's pain and suffering out there, steve i completely agree, but what we don't necessarily agree on is people are going back to work. now it's also possible, i have combed through the numbers, some people are dropping out. austin should be an expert on that he had more people dropped out when his unemployment rate was moving down, but ultimately we haven't created this almost jobs category, i do believe we did create the great recession jobs that may happen, not necessarily have this is a very very solid report i guess you need a chance. >> people came into the work force. >> we were plus 725, which is important, and government suggested, 268,000 jobs. >> kuwait, austin, c-- can you , austin. >> i know rick is upset, he's in mourning and that's okay. >> no, but it is morning here. >> kate, that's, i'm not sure whether this is the bump in the

road yet, that's pretty good, and maybe next month >> i think this was an unequivocally good report. i mean, really solid numbers across the board you know, i will say the one thing i'm watching for in the november and december numbers are going to be kind of a slow down in the seasonal hiring which you would expect with nor people buying online, andless brick and mortar hiring. and then also whether or not this uptick in virus cases slows down the pace a little further but this is like another strong data point in the continuing recovery healing of the u.s. economy, combined with what was a very solid third quarter earnings season, especially relative to expectations i mean, people have to feel pretty good about where we are gwynn t given the fact that we're living in a pandemic. it's one of the reasons the equity market is going to continue to grow higher, and the strong secular growth stories will continue to catch in the continuing days. i feel good this morning, ending what has been a very exhausting

week. >> year. year >> nada, what do you think >> i agree it's a solid and strong report i would say it feels a bit like where we were back this summer when we started a recovery and then had the on set of a second wave that slowed things down we are now at over 100,000 cases per day with the winter coming on, so i do expect the slow down because of that, but also because of all the uncertainty, even when we get the results of the election, i think we're looking at a very different policy environment in the future, so employers are going to wait to see how things play out before they start hiring again. >> so austin, it is a pretty solid in your opinion. do you think that we have stayed too open, do you think what we're seeing in the covid cases, has it been the right balance or do you accept less economic

growth i mean, it's tough >> i think it is tough as you know, i'm not a fan of viewing it as have direct tradeoff between the virus and the economy because when you start looking at the data, the places that have the worst impact of the virus also end up having the worst economy i don't see why we don't put a much stronger emphasis on public health and getting everyone to wear masks so we can get on kind of an australia, korea, new zealand, type trajectory if you look in those places, in korea, the unemployment rate is lower than it was before coronavirus came in. in this case, we're still millions of jobs below where we even were before coronavirus, much less the growth, so we need -- this is a solid report, and we need bigger than this, and we need it repeated for many months, just to get out of the hole that we were in >> rick, austin, i'm sorry,

rick, the director did not have our zoom, i don't know, maybe we're worried about zoom meetings now, that was a whole new concept for me, but we didn't have you on just then, and you were -- he was mugging and making -- shaking his head, austin, so i got to go to him. >> of course >> just to see austin seemed reasonable, what problem do you have with what austin just said >> because i don't necessarily think it is reasonable i think there's a lot of issues that go back and forth between how we're trying to deal with covid, and how we're trying to view the economy, and there's many different tangents to do that i just think that austin and i and probably austin, we have a philosophical difference here. we really do, i think living with something and making people ultra afraid of something. i'll give you one example, i'm no expert. talk to meg, talk to gottlieb, when you start to take nursing

homes out of the equation, things change, when you look at how much higher positives are, multiples of three or four testing is multiples of 5, 6, 7, 8 higher we just don't necessarily get the entire true story. >> i know what it's like to lose a close election i know it's upsetting. >> the hackness is coming out. i asked not for that we don't need that what do you think? >> i'm being sympathetic i'm not criticizing. keep it in the lane. >> oh, orry. go ahead. >> nada. >> no, no, i was going to say, it's important not to mix the testing with the infection rate. i do think there is a bit of a tradeoff in the short-term just to respond to austin's point we do have to pay a price on economic output in the short run in order to get control of the

virus. i think you're right in the long run it's not a tradeoff. as long as the virus is in control, we're not going to have a full recovery until we can come to terms with that, i think we're going to be in this up and down situation with jobs as well as growth. >> steve, you had -- oh, sorry and we'll get to you, kate >> just real quick austin has it right, and rick has it right you brought back 9.3 million jobs, you're still down 10 million jobs, i think there's a point of view from both of them. let me say one other thing is that you might make an argument that the report was even better than it looked, in part because it looks to me on the fly here, calculating that the seasonals lobbed about half a million jobs off. we done know with these massive swings we have if the seasonal adjustments are right. it could be there's better underlying growth here i give a point to rick, to

austin, and let's go back to control the virus, and everybody get back to work here. >> you saw the arthur brooks segment, steve, that was really nice kate, how about you? >> we keep on talking about getting back to where we were pre-covid, but i think we have to understand that the shape of the economy and the shape of the labor force is going to look different even after we have a vaccine, and even after we can kind of return to more normal activities this is critically important we're hearing this from companies, we have been hearing it for months, but they reinforce this as they were reporting third quarter earnings many companies talked about how strong of a focus they had on cost control we know this is going to remain in place it's one of the reasons the earnings were better than consensus expectations and that cost control is also about labor, and so let's just, like, think long and hard about what the shape of the labor force might look like in a post covid world once we have a vaccine we may not recover all of the jobs we lost because companies can be just as productive with

lower work force it's good for margins, not great for the consumer this is something i'm watching very closely >> what do you all think about next month is this going to continue or this is not a mirage, this is going to continue, who should i start with, rick, do you think that this is -- when do we see the catch up for the second wave, whatever you want to call it or is there going to be one? >> i think we're going to see it definitely towards the very beginning of 2021. i think we're going to see a really robust, robust come back on every level, whether it's jobs, continued drops in the unemployment rate and more people trying to deal with what will be probably a therapeutic, a medical community that's going to have a much higher presence in the first quarter and we have to get these states to work better together on travel. so many people would like to travel they don't want to quarantine when they're down for two weeks.

all of this has to be addressed and i think it will look markedly different in january, february and march of 2021 >> austin are you doing any in class teaching at this point >> i'm all remote. i do agree with rick that if we can get this therapeutics, if we can get some control on let's call it the downside of the virus and if we could get some control in the public health, by early 2021, i think we could be in a strong comeback type position if we can't do that, i'm nervous that we get to that snap where we're partway back and then we stall out. >> people are like adjusting your set every time you do that, austin, you're breaking up don't do that. you're doing that on person. it looks like it's our audio feed nada, what do you think? >> i think that's a big if i think there's a lot of uncertainty around how the virus will evolve and how much we get control of it. i agree, if we get the virus

under control, and if we have some form of a vaccine in the works, we are looking at a very strong recovery possibly in the beginning of the year. but there's a lot of uncertainty around that. >> kalt kate we got to go, we almost made it through the segment without talking about any state and where the vote count was, which i don't know, it's making me feel a little more relaxed kate, what do you think? >> it's a little refreshing not to be going state by state, and race by race i do think this economic ro recovery will continue november, december, payrolls, growth may slow a little bit because of the seasonality, you know, you have fewer people bringing back traditional retail services that you would get around the holidays but, you know, i am, like constructive on the path of this recovery, and i am super constructive on how well companies have handled this virus, the resiliency in terms

of business models and earnings and stocks are the only place to be, and we'll see a markedly higher market over the next three months. >> end with you, steve, we got a new 5:00 a.m. start, can we come to you whenever we need to on economic issues, and i'm going to assume that's a yes. >> as long as i can use the rotating background, joe, but real quick, i want to echo what kate said which is that -- just real quick, when companies reduce work force at the beginning of a downturn, that's bad for the downturn it accelerates it, then the companies have to right size and get their models right, and now we might be in that process, and that's a positive. >> the reason i'm rushing, that was not the normal producer. that was the supervising producer just in my ear. let's get out quickly. let's get out quickly. mad max, thanks to our jobs panel, kate, nada, austin, rick and steve. becky. let's jump over to jim cramer standing by headquarters, and we want his hot tick on jobs report, what do you think, jim

>> these are the things that make you feel like it's right that stocks go up. things are getting better. we don't have better numbers in covid, but we do have better numbers in terms of fatalities we have a situation where there's hope that washington goes back to a much lesser role in our lives the companies that report earnings today, i don't have one that disappointed. these are the things that make it for opportunity, if the futures stay down theory i would have expressed this at 3:00 a.m this is the first chance i get to talk, but the numbers are good >> next time we'll call you early. next time we will call you early. you can come to us from the workout room. >> i often bring you guys summit diner, egg and cheese, in order to be able to get you on so early. >> i don't eat anything until after the show. >> be careful what you wish for, cramer, we'll put a camera on your tread nil. >> you can put them in my jammys, i sleep in my suit

these are gootd numbed numbers. i'm not a believer that the lawsuits are going to end up taking forever i don't think they're going to take forever because at a certain point you have to say, and maybe it's not as close or alternatively, i think the president might just say this is not what i want to continue to do if you keep losing look, some of these judges are not owned by any party they're actually like doing their job. >> we have dara coming up. >> tell him i said hi. tell him i said uber eats is killing it post mates deal was fantastic. tony best we tony west is doing a great job give him everything you got. >> i think he hears you right now. >> he knows how i feel about him. >> thanks, jim. >> andrew. >> okay. thanks, we are going to get to dara right now uber missing wall street revenue estimates in the third quarter, reporting an 18% drop in sales year over year but on the, call, ceo dara khosrowshahi said the company is seeing early signs

that its core ride share business woefully recovery from the coronavirus pandemic so much to talk to the ceo of uber about sdwroi joining us right now is dara khosrowshahi, uber ceo, thanks for joining us good to see you. jim loves you, i hope you heard. he's a fan. >> i did hear. i did hear i'll take any fans i can get, especially jim. >> now quickly do you think the mobility business can come back? because we have even looked at the employment numbers, for example, as one indicator. >> it really is impossible to tell, and it's entirely dependent on the health situation on the ground. but what we're seeing is with markets opening up faster, one way or the other because of the health situation or the society, things are coming back for example, we looked in new york city. new york city has done a phenomenal job of keeping counts down relative to the rest of the

country, and in just october, for example, our volumes in new york city were 63% of pre-pandemic levels which is materially higher than they were in the rest of the nation. and you got use cases such as weekday use cases of the service outside of commute that are back to actually pre-pandemic levels or higher. the engagement level of user back at the site is actually higher than it was last year, so as cities open up, uber opens up as well. we think that actually we can be a beneficiary of certain trends that we're seeing, but again, it's predicted as a fool's errand at this point. >> speak to the issue, though, of market share because one of the things that investors and analysts have been looking at is the idea that in cities that have been decimated by the virus that potentially competition may get better for you and that you're going to gain share

ultimately >> you know, right now, so i think that could well be a hi hypothesis for the leader around the world, i think we have invested in safety as far as like digital mask verification, the campaign out there, so i think people are feeling safer using uber, reliability, and predictability is absolutely unrivalled i will tell you that while we look at share, and we always want to make sure that we're competitive with share, really what we focus on is a reliability of the service, safety of our drivers, and hopefully coming back as a health situation improves. on the uber eats side, it's an entirely different story where the business continues to grow at unprecedented rates and revenues almost tripled career on year, and that business continues to accelerate. >> dara, when you look at a time

line the next 12 month, both on the mobility side, and i assume you guys are having meetings factoring in what happens if and when there's a vaccine, therapeutics, different forms of new testing, what the mobility side of the business looks like but also on the other looks liky how sustainable that growth is -- growth may or may not be in hopefully a world where people do go back to work full time >> we do look at it and what we do see and this is one of the benefits we're having a truly global business, we have got businesses not just the u.s., in europe, latin america, et cetera, there is a pretty consistent improvement in terms of the mobility business as you go month to month to month, within that steady improvement, there are all sorts of kind of ups and downs, hong kong has had some openings and closings europe is now going through another shutdown

u.s. case counts move up the individual curves are not smooth but when you look at our global portfolio, it smooths out and we're seeing month to month improvements if you look at our last quarter, overall mobility gross bookings were down 50%. in september, the last month, they're down only 44%. you just see this kind of consistent improvement, we think the consistent improvement will continue to next year. and we think a vaccine could radically improve the slope of that improvement >> all right >> when we look at eats, we're seeing some great trends, right. the trips, the monthly actives on eats are up 70% on year on year basis trips are up 110% on year on year basis new orders, basket sizes, all these trends are up double digits we have looked at each

performance in markets that are opening up relative to markets that are not opening up, new york city, again, is an example, and we haven't seen any kind of performance degradation in markets that are opening up. what that suggests is there is a whole new class of consumer that is experiencing the delight of being able to pick anything, have it delivered within 25, 30 minutes and eat what you want, how you want it, so it looks like the eats business is sticky i wouldn't count on the growth rates we're having now post pandemic, but i think you're going to have big growth rates off a much larger base as a result of everything that has happened. >> we are -- we are looking at a dow that is now positive excuse me for one second in addition to that jobs report, we're hearing the update on pennsylvania, vote counting, joe biden now ahead. so that state has now flipped after a double digit lead early on, now the vice president is

ahead by 5,587 earlier, georgia moved into vice president biden's favor, right when we began, right before we began at 5:00 a.m. that's happening now just want to bring everyoneup to date on that. andrew >> that's big news and while i wanted to drill in on some of the business issues with uber, dara, let me ask you a election-related question given the conversation we have been having for the last four hours about prop 22 in california. you succeeded there in terms of this very big issue about whether you were going to have to turn your workers into employees, not contractors a state that was long considered liberal and quite progressive, sided with you on this issue what do you think this says, not just about your business, but about the country? >> well, the largest state of the country and i think the

state is quite progressive, remains quite progressive, i think what it says is that voters care about what drivers want and throughout this battle, you know, people kind of had all kinds of messaging out there, our messaging was consistent, that the vast majority of our drivers, three-quarter plus of our drivers value the flexibility that our kind of work proffers now. and that came, again, people, some people want full time jobs, but for some people, if you have a cared one who is sick, et cetera, you can't have the kind of structured work you see elsewhere, you need the flexibility our platforms offer. instead of taking that flexibility away to get benefits, why not just get benefits i think logic was on our side, drivers were on our side i think voters recognize that. and it was a resounding victory for us, in a very big state, and we are hoping that it provides

us with a platform to take these kinds of benefits and flexibility elsewhere in our country. >> let me ask you, though, as we're looking at joe biden taking this lead in pennsylvania, do you think it says anything -- >> andrew, an drdrew, andrew -- >> breaking news now, sorry. >> biden now president elect for nbc news we wait -- that's the way we do things at this company and at this point, president-elect biden per nbc news okay, andrew, back to you. sorry. >> dara, i hate to say you're being upstaged by news this morning. >> i'm happy to be upstaged. >> that's very, very big news. >> yes, that's amazing >> what did you say? let me ask you, though, about that, about a president biden, if that's where we are, and

that's how nbc is now calling it, but it speaks again back to this issue in california, are you concerned, given the prop -- given what happened with prop 22, i assume you're less concerned, but do you think the country is in a different place? that's the broader question just about regulations and the like across the business sphere and we don't know whether we're going to have what -- maybe a small blue wave, we'll see what happens in the senate, in terms of what you think the agenda will be. >> you know, andrew, i think that the vote in california, hopefully, shows even in a very, very progressive state what people want, what actual voters want on the ground and usually politicians, usually government folks, et cetera, they listen to their voters as we will listen to our voters now. listen, i'm happy we have got clarity on leadership in the united states. i think we need it most important thing is for us to get this health crisis behind

us, and the business will take care of itself these issues are much bigger than one business or another >> despite this network calling this election as you might imagine, there is going to be litigation, potentially recounts, and the like, and potentially uncertainty for another month. what do you think that could do to the business environment, to your business? >> i think uncertainty generally is just not good for business. so, for example, we observed during these couple of days where there was a lack of clarity around elections, our mobility business was a little weak in the u.s. compared to what it would have been, compared to the graphs that we have seen. so, uncertainty, i think, in a business environment, personal environment is negative. the faster we can get certainty and clarity of direction going forward, the better. now, all that said, we have an

incredible balance sheet, we have really innovated and building up eats business to be true global leader in not just food delivery, but going into commerce and other delivery. we'll be fine. we'll find our way through. >> separately on the margin business, the issue of margins and profitability, when you look at -- on a per ride basis on the mobility side or eats business, how much do you think you're going to have to discount or use promotions to try to increase the business and how competitive it is ultimately going to be over the next 12 months? >> i think all these businesses will be hugely competitive, you're dealing with total addressable markets over a trillion dollars for transportation, same thing on the food business. our rides business is already profitable now we had ebitda margins, 18%, and a quarter when volumes were down 50%. so from that standpoint, we have

made the kinds of adjustments we need to on the cost side in order to get to profitability, but healthy profitability as well and on the eats side, what we announced this last quarter is that ten of the countries in which we operate are now at break even or profitable we are discounting, we are promoting the business, we're marketing very heavily, but the scale of the business is at a level where we can do so and be profitable so we think we're going to see growth, customers will see great deals, drivers and couriers will make good flexible money and we can make money there can be multiple winners here in this business. >> okay, dara, we appreciate you joining us, especially as this news in pennsylvania was crossing we look forward to having a larger conversation with you very, very soon. but, again, thank you. meantime, that wraps it up for us on this special edition, early edition of "squawk box." we look at the markets now at 32

points higher, looking like on the dow, nasdaq looking to open down about 45 points, s&p 500 off about2 points. have a great weekend, everybody. if you can in the meantime, "squawk on the street" begins right now good friday morning, welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer and david faber futures close to flat as the vote count continues in pennsylvania arizona, nevada, and georgia the senate now becomes a bit more complicated for investors october jobs come in 638,000, the fifth month of the declining gains. and covid cases, jim, once again, at a record we hope to learn a lot more specifically from the vote count in pennsylvania and georgia. but we're now playing -- these are grown-up trades now in the market, jim. >> it is interesting if you look at the actual breakdown, employment surve