good morning futures pointing to a higher open this morning as another drug maker reports news on a vaccine breakthrough. in washington headlines, president-elect biden set to name some cabinet picks while president trump continues his election legal challenges. and it's thanksgiving week traditionally a time for travel and shopping, but things are expected to be a bit different this year. we'll talk about the businesses most impacted. it's monday, november 23rd, 2020, and "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ ♪ go big or go home ♪ go, go, go big or go home good monday morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box."

this is cnbc i'm becky quick along with andrew ross sorkin and brian sullivan who ran to a different studio from just three minutes ago. good to see you, brian welcome. great to have everybody here with us this morning joe is out today we have been watching the u.s. equity futures it's a monday and a monday in november and that means we have great news on the vaccine front and that means we are looking at a higher open for the markets right now. dow futures indicated up by 214 points and again this came on some good news from astrazeneca we'll tell you about in just a moment s&p futures are up by 22 and the nasdaq is indicated up by 44 last week both the dow and the s&p 500 were down. the nasdaq ended higher. if you're looking at performance again because of the good news that we've been getting on the vaccine front for the last three mondays in a row now, because of all of that, you are looking at the best performance that the dow and the s&p have put in since all the way back to april. and again, we're seeing some big gains this morning let's take a look at what's been happening in treasury market right now. you'll see that at this point it looks like the ten-year is yielding right at about 0.855%

but, guys, obviously it's the big news this morning that we have to tell everybody about right now. >> yeah, certainly is, becky good morning great to be with you especially when we have such good news. and among that top story is late-stage trials showing the astrazeneca/oxford covid vaccine can be up to 90% effective meg terrel with the full details. good morning good to see you. >> good morning, guys. another vaccine monday here. astrazeneca reporting results from pooled countries. when you look at the data you're seeing more than 90% efficacy. it's confusing result. one dosing regimen showed high and another showed 62% together it's 70.4% effective when you combine the two dosing regimens now the difference was where you got the 90% number, that's when they gave a half dose on the first dose and full one on the

second one together they are saying these are very positive data and they do plan to start submissions where they can around the world. now they also say there was a large safety data base from more than 24,000 volunteers, uk, brazil and south africa. another thing that differentiates this vaccine they can be stored at fridge temperature. and distributed using existing logistics. they also have tremendous manufacturing capacity they made a lot of different partnerships this vaccine could really add to supply we are still digging through those data and understanding exactly how the different dosing ridge mines led to such different efficacy results and we'll talk with experts and bring that to you this morning but the headline, one of these dosing regimens more than 90% effective. 70% when you put both of them together, guys back over to you. >> meg, i have so many questions for you. i realize it's early and you're going through all of this, too you may not have the answers to any of this yet.

90% efficacy, that's really great too. doesn't match up to quite as well as we have seen with both pfizer and moderna with the 95% effective efficacy but 90% that's really good 62, not so great do you have any idea if it had anything to do with where it took place just geographically in terms of these phase 3 trial results? if it was different in south afri africa, different in brazil, different in the uk or if it was age groups that were different that also played into that as well or was it simply the level of dosing? >> what identify seen so far in the data and these i really woke up to. they did release them over night, but we did not find out about them on embargo in advance and we sometimes do and gives us time to dig into the headlines, it really does seem like a dosing difference for some reason, giving the half dose on the first dose and full dose on the second led to the much higher efficacy and so it's something i really

want to understand and i've already been reaching out to vaccine experts this morning to try to get a sense for does that line up with what would make sense about how a vaccine works and is there good explanation for that so we can really understand why the difference. certainly there's a huge difference between 62 and 90 between 90 and 95, you know, that's pretty good >> meg, when people talk about efficacy, one of the things i've been wondering about is the numbers that you're getting out of these type of studies versus what you get out of what's called a challenge study a challenge study i should note is considered unethical. the equivalent of you take 100 people you give them vaccine and you put them in a room and expose them to covid. it's considered unethical because of course there's not a treatment or therapy on the other end yet. maybe they will do challenge studies like this in the future. but the kind of efficacy numbers that we're hearing about, would they be similar ostensibly if they were to be conducted in a

challenge study kind of environment? >> it's a good question, andrew. often what you do with a challenge study in animals and monkeys, for example they expose them directly to the virus. then you're testing to see if the vaccine has protected against infection completely versus just showing disease. so we don't know those answers about whether these vaccines, any of them from pfizer or moderna or astrazeneca prevent infection. whether you would see the same results if people were walking around in a room with somebody with covid, we don't know either this was a very large study of thousands of participants and the way you do these ethically is folks go about their natural lives and try to protect themselves against getting the disease as well as they can. but, if you enroll people who are at risk of getting the disease because of their jobs, for example, which is what they tried to do in these studies, people will still get sick so then you measure how many got sick and the placebo group and how many got sickin the vaccin group to find the efficacy >> what we don't know, still, is

the level of antibodies, meg, that would actually make somebody have some level of immunity or if not immunity at least some resistance to maybe a worse form of covid when it comes up are they looking at the antibody levels in i of these patients at this point >> yes that a tremendously important and these phase 3 results will start giving us those answers. it's known as core lets of protection we knew from the earlier studies how much of an antibody response and how much of a t cell response these vaccines generate interesting astrazeneca generated the lowest antibodies if you compare across them we were look at the moderna and astrazeneca one trying to gain where they would come in not knowing they would come so soon. the fact that a vaccine generates lower antibodies still could potentially give you 90% protection is extremely good news so what they're going to try to figure out is what level is

needed for vaccines and that will inform how they look at future vaccines, whether you need to test them in people the same way we're doing or if you could approve them based on what antibodies they generate >> you know, and, meg, people hear 62%, to your point, think think, that doesn't sound very good but i think you nailed at the end and that's what's key for people to know looking at this, is that the 62% was a half dose of the vaccine so if you can get to a 60% threshold with a half dose and then a full dose later, you take production numbers you might even be able to reduce the production numbers by half to double the distribution effectively and get people, by the way, across a wide range of geographies and ethnicities according to astrazeneca and oxford and get them at least if not fully immune partially immune i think the headline is better than the 62% number might suggest. >> well, actually, brian, what's

a little confounding about it is that the 90% efficacy was achieved with the half dose first. and so you would think, woild follow that if you gave the full dose and then another full dose you would have higher efficacy, that isn't the situation i just checked back to make sure i'm interpreting that right. the higher efficacy used half first dose and standard second dose that's the regimen they saw 90% the other they saw 62% then when you combine it's 70.4%. but you're right, the fact that you would need only half dose presumably for the first one will increase supply and that is great news >> and then, meg, the other thing we want to always talk about is safety. given the way this is built, the technology it's built on which is different than the moderna drug or the pfizer drug, given that's an rmna -- mrna approach,

yes, are you of the view that this should be considered just off the bat i don't want to say safer but given that we have taken vaccines like this, it will be considered ifferently? >> well, there's actually only one vaccine that's approved based on the similar technology and it's johnson & johnson ebola vaccine that recently got clearance in europe. astrazeneca uses a chimpanzee virus to deliver the spike protein. astrazeneca had the two safety events in its trial, one of which led to that almost seven-week pause here in the united states. and actually, guys, that's going to create a very interesting regulatory situation here in the u.s. where we have these data from pulled trials outside the united states we might not get the u.s. data for another month or almost two months possibly. so, what the fda will do with these data and whether it will consider approving based on these data and perhaps other data i talked with operation

warp speed about the hypothetical possibility, what will they need to bridge other countries to the u.s. in order for the fda to consider this for approval before they get the u.s. data. >> meg, add this to the list of dumb questions i'm going to ask this morning but when we say 70% efficacy or 62% efficacy or 90% efficacy, that means it works in 90% of the population that has taken in it, it doesn't work in 10% or doesn't work drk not that you have 90% immunity. you have immunity or you don't have immunity, right >> well, there are actually a couple different ways of looking at that. and so the way you get that figure is you have the total number of cases in the trial and then the 90% is the difference between the number in the placebo group and the number in the vaccine group, but there are some vaccines like the flu vaccine that might not prevent you from getting the disease completely but if you do get the disease, it's much milder. and so, vaccines can have all different sort of forms of

efficacy and it's not always buy nar, necessarily. >> but the efficacy numbers we don't really know other than it breaks down on the population you're that much less likely to get it because it's been effective in that portion of the people right now, right? >> yes exactly. and i need to dig through but if it's the same as the other vaccines, then it would be the likelihood of you getting a symptomatic case and then we just don't know about the likelihood of you getting infected but not having symptoms >> okay. meg, thank you i know that this is fast and furious and so much information coming your way. again, waking up to it is always fun. we will see much more of you today because i know we have more news we want to dig through. thank you. it's great to see you. >> thanks. you too. as covid cases continue to rise, washington continues to debate the need for a new round of stimulus. ylan has the latest on that

front. 'lan, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, becky. a group of 125 economists are calling for another round of direct checks to american households, arguing they would provide immediate and much-needed injection of stimulus into the economy. now, some of the people signing on to this new open letter include jason furman, president obama's former economic adviser and regular guest and the former vice chairman of the federal reserve. this letter calls on policymakers to use all the tools at their disposal but singles out direct cash payments as one of the quickest, most equitable and most effective ways to get families and the economy back on track. the letter sites work that another round of 1,200 checks that goes out to both adults and kids would keep 8.3 million people from falling below the poverty line by the end of the year that is more than double the number of low income workers they say who would benefit in the same way from extending those enhanced unemployment

benefits so, these checks are controversial within both parties. the bill the democrats passed back in the spring started phasing out these cash payments for people who make $75,000 or more and some economists say that that design means that it's a blunt instrument that could benefit many people who may not need it. still, the fact that the economists are setting out this letter shows they are getting more worried about the strength of the economic recovery and they're trying to ramp up the pressure on washington to do something about it guys >> ylan, i'll take it from there. thank you very much. keeping us up to date on the stimulus fight. on deck, do you keep buying the lockdown stocks on weakness, or do you drop some coin into the goat, the get out and travel names? we'll hit the great money debate coming up. but there is money going into the get out stocks as well this morning as we head to break. let's check some of the s&p premarket gainers. regeneral gone, the good antibody news. look at that the cruise lines popping on the

vaccine news as well dow futures up 208.we're back on "squawk box" right after this. >"

this morning take a look at futures right now. they are pointing to a higher open right now and while many predict there may

be a bit of volatility in the cards for investors over the next few weeks, there is still perhaps some money to be made. joining us right now to give us his squawk picks is managing partner of douglas and cnbc contributor. great to see you this morning. let's go through some of the picks, see where you stand i'm curious if any of them will be beneficiaries of what's now used to be monday was considered merger monday. now it's vaccine monday. so i'm curious if there's anything on your list that would match that >> sure. so you know one of the things, andrew, we're looking at is high quality reopening stocks now, i'm not just looking at value cyclical companies that are going to benefit from the on going reopening of the economy that have strong balance sheets and have great operating leverage i think one of the things investors need to understand is some of the companies like a diagio, delta, disney three ds

and financials morgan stanley, they have been cutting costs, improving their bottom line all through revenue coming down. and once we get partial -- through this reopening, they're going to get huge operating leverage on the upside they are the highest quality players in their area. that's a focus we're looking at. one of the things we're also looking at is look at growth at a reasonable price it's not to say you need to be values and cyclicals look at companies with secular growth in that area you have the 5 g players. but you also have electronic arts gaming is not going to go away and you also have other areas like godaddy which is people using the web. all of these things are going to have increased growth. we don't see those areas as pull-ins so you get a combination of a diversified portfolio this barbell approach that i've been talking about and then you look at the reopening i know a lot of people are

focussed on those. and then when i talk about morgan stanley, you have other companies in financial services as well that are going to do well the question and the key is the bridge to the reopening. and that's why i want high quality companies because we're not sure >> i want to talk how much does the timeline in this case matter at all and the reason i ask is depending who you talk to, cnbc interviewed the head of operation warp speed, he made an argument last week that he thought it's possible, not even possible, probable that you could get to a herd immunity level of the vaccine, if you will, as early as may. i think that's a very optimistic approach we've had other people, health experts and the like, come on this program and elsewhere and talk about that being a fall of 2021 exercise, if you will and some that would push that date out to 2022 >> right and that's why the stocks that

when we talk about the reopening stocks, these are ones that have good balance sheets and good management that's what i'm looking for because there's going to be uncertainty through this a we're going through the political noise, we're going through the fiscal stimulus noise. some of this is going to affect stocks that don't have the best balance sheets and if they don't get the necessary capital, it doesn't matter how good they are. they're just not going to survive. so i want high quality companies that will have the operating leverage and on the other side is, if you don't get that, you also want some of the growth companies because they're going to do well and then you can kind of invest in those as well so, it's not all or nothing. i think we're very much closer to the end and andrew, as you said, whether it's the spring or the fall, markets will start discounting that they already have for some of these stocks but the key is to stay invested in companies that are not going to get hurt by something nonfundamental because when things do get back to normal -- and some of these companies like a disney and even morgan stanley are taking market share as we go

through this, that is not really been incorporated into their earnings i think that's where investors get rewarded but you have to stick through it it will be volatile and if you get bad news, the stay at home stocks definitely will do better but that's another opportunity to buy some of the ones that have been hurt >> sarat, great to see you, my friend, on this i guess we'll start calling it vaccine mondays. i hope i don't have to use it for that much longer great to see you. >> it's positive news, andrew. vaccine monday is positive news. we'll take those as we get them. >> we'll take what we can get. it's 2020. thanks >> thank you becky? >> thanks andrew when we come back, tis the season for shopping and shipping what consumers and businesses can expect this year we have that when "squawk box" returns. ♪

♪ everyone wakes up every morning to a world that must keep turning. moving. going. the world can't stop, so neither can we. because the things we make, help make the world go round. we are builders, constantly creating things that make our world cleaner, healthier, and more connected. so that the small moments that help define who we are, and the big plans that make life wonderful can keep on rolling. because while gravity may keep our planet on its axis,

it's what we build that keeps things moving forward. so with every turn, we'll keep building a world that works.

the stockings were hung by the chimney with care as everyone hoped the gifts would get there. in time for christmas. tis the season when packages get delayed. this year the problem could be really bad frank holland taking a look at the shipping nightmare before christmas. good morning, frank. >> hey, good morning to you, brian. i appreciate the christmas-themed introthere. here is the bad news more than $10 million will be spent shopping online this black friday, more than 39% increase year over year but still only the beginning of an extended holiday peak and extended shipping log jam

cyber monday all expected to see huge sale spikes of 35% or more and that's only going to add to the strain on capacity for carriers like fedex, ups, amazon and the postal service shopping right now >> the industry overall will have a little bit more delays. we've also seen coming in from overseas that there is some inventory constraint so if you see that special gift you know you need under that tree, i would definitely purchase it now. >> and right now forecast for 86 million packages to be shipped each day, but u.s. networks, they only have capacity for around 79 million. that leaves as many as 7 million a day that could be delayed. and globally forecast have as many as 700 million gifts just not arriving by christmas. back over to you >> all right frank. hold on. can we do something we never do,

the post office. they get crushed the butt of jokes. last night a postal worker delivered a box to my house at 7:00 p.m. on a sunday night. so a shoutout to the post office for doing that how much is sort of fedex, ups, and even the post office going to be able to pick up some of this slack >> you know, that's the question right now, brian but with the rising covid cases, i don't think anybody knows just how much online shopping will increase so there's a lot of variables here the cases keep spiking and people concerned about shopping in store, there's no way that anybody will be able to handle it people feel more comfortable going for the door busters, may not be as much volume and they'll have beater chance at handling it. all of us wearing masks and everything else, we're the variables. >> yeah. an easy way to solve this problem, frank, you did not hit in your excellent report which is don't buy anybody anything. if you don't buy anybody anything, play the grinch, then

you don't have to worry about it frank holland, thank you >> thank you, brian. okay coming up, when we return, a lot more on "squawk" ahead dr. scott gottlieb will join us on the rise of covid cases we'll discuss that as well as astrazeneca vaccine news the fda okay on the regeneron treatment and so much more that's all taking place over the weekend. stay tuned you're watching "squawk box" right here on cnbc i made a business out of my passion. i mean, who doesn't love obsessing over network security? all our techs are pros. they know exactly which parking lots have the strongest signal. i just don't have the bandwidth for more business. seriously, i don't have the bandwidth. glitchy video calls with regional offices? yeah, that's my thing.

with at&t business, you do the things you love. our people and network will help do the things you don't. let's take care of business. at&t.

♪ good morning welcome back to "squawk box" right here on cnbc markets look like they're going to open higher this morning. among the stories front and center right now, late stage trials showing the astrazeneca/oxford covid vaccine could be up to 90% effective meantime, the fda granting emergency use authorization over the weekend for regeneron's covid antibody treatment, the

experimental therapy that president trump received when he contracted the coronavirus back in october we'll talk to regeneron ceo live at 7:00 a.m. eastern time. the backdrop for this vaccine and treatment news arises in virus cases unfortunately more than 3 million new cases in the u.s. in november last week's case numbers were up 25% compared to just the prior week and 44 states have a test positive rate above 5% on the back of all of that news, as i mentioned, it does look like the market is going to open higher this morning in large part off of that astrazeneca news perhaps regeneron news as well we'll see. dow up 163 points. becky? >> andrew, thanks. joining us is dr. scott gottlieb a former fda commissioner and cnbc contributor and also sits on the boards of ill lumina and pfizer. we'll ask him about all of those

latest news that we have this morning. his latest "wall street journal" op-ed, though, talks about why you should consider upgrading your mask to protect against covid-19 dr. scott loeb, we'll start with your op-ed today this is important as we have a lot of people traveling, getting back out there not all masks are created equal. lots of people go around wearing these cloth masks. what level of protection does that give them >> right a good cloth mask maybe gives you about 30% protection a bandanna or hang kerr chiker . if you can get a real level surgical procedure mask, that will be about 60% protective and n95 mask or equivalent, the european designation which is ffp 2 about 95% protective when we first asked people to start wearing masks last spring, the notion was that there were a lot of people who were asymptomatic and they could spread the infection and so we knew that if everyone

wore a mask it would sharply reduce their likelihood of spreading covid. but that's evolved people want to derive protection from the mask they're wearing. they don't want to protect others from themselves they want to derive protection for themselves in the event they come in into contact with someone who is infected. if you want the mask to protect you, you need a wear a higher quality mask a good quality mask, thick cotton polyester is 35% protective that isn't trivial you really want to be protective, someone with covid, you need a mask that's higher quality. remember, the prevalence of covid infection is 1.5% of the population that means that if you're in a restaurant with 50%, that's about a 50% chance nationally that someone has covid in that restaurant if you look at states like north dakota, in a group of 10 people, there's about a 50% chance someone has covid. so the risk could be quite high depending on where you are that

you'll come into contact with someone with the infection >> let's talk about the astrazeneca news this morning. it's great news the oxford astrazeneca vaccine can be 90% effective. first up, the 90% effectiveness came when they gave a half dose for the first dosing and the full dose later which kind of goes against common sense and what you would think would be logical. the idea you get two full doses you would think would work better do you have any idea how or why that would be the case or how vaccines work? >> this started out as a single dose trial i'm on the board of pfizer and moderna vaccine are two doses. you have to get the koes and case of pfizer three weeks a second dose and case of moderna four weeks astrazeneca thought they could formulate a vaccine that would be a single dose so they started a clinical trial with just one dose they were finding that it wasn't effectiveness so then they

pivoted to do a two dose trial what they announced today what appears to me is they announced all the dataing a gated together they combined the data from those two different dosing regimens but it is the case that the two-dose regimen is much more effective, the 90% effective. so that's probably the dose that they're going to take forward. i suspect they combine the two different dosing schedules to try to get the in your opinions up in terms of number of people they were looking at for safety reasons. but as they go forward i suspect they'll take that two-dose regimen forward where they give a smaller dose to start and another dose after that. >> and doctor, wanted to ask you about a story that ran over the weekend in the washington post, an elaborate study that looked at a traveler who had tested negative for covid-19 before a flight they actually been doing tests before people were going on flights. this was a flight from dubai to new zealand. it just so happened that the test at the time was negative. got on the flight and some time

on that flight clearly really was positive, ended up giving it to four other people on the flight now interestingly, everybody on the flight was supposed to be masked now i know people take their masks off for food here and there and you're talking about the various kinds of masks you can wear, four people on the flight get it. once they land, clearly they spread it to others. do you have any anxiety, especially as we get into this travel season and you now have the cdc telling people frankly not to travel, what kind of risk is actually presented on an airplane >> yeah. look there's been a lot of research looking at this. we're not going to fully quantify it. i've done work with one of the airlines there's not risk free. you're in a confined space in the right circumstances, someone might be infected right around you you're passing things back and forth. it's not going to be risk free in a confined space especially on a long flight where you're going to the bathroom, taking

things from the flight attendant. i think in a shorter flight where you can control your own behavior bet e not get up out of your seat, keep a mask on, it's easier to reduce your risk a long flight it gets incrementally much more difficult. >> are you a believer, i know you said you traveled last week, that -- this goes back to the column you wrote, if everybody on that flight was wearing an n95 mask and didn't take it off, are you pretty convinced you wouldn't have a problem. >> i think if everyone on the flight was wearing a high quality mask and wearing it well, yeah, the risk would be sharply reduced. look, we know we protect ourselves in the health care setting. you see a lot of doctors and nurses getting sick. i don't want to trivialize the risk of healthcare providers, they take steps to protect themselves in that setting the problem is in daily life, routine activities it's very hard to practice really good respiratory precautions consistently without having a break in your regimen. it's when you let your guard down that you become at risk

>> yeah, doctor, hey, it's brian sullivan good morning listen, i know the u.s. media tends to be u.s. centric as you look around the world, as i'm sure you do, you can see it's not just us, belgium, italy, france, germany, spain, parts of sweden are having not only outbreaks but hospitalizations are also on the rise pretty much all these countries by the way have the same fatality per capita rate which is .07%. i went through the data yesterday prepping for this interview and i was shocked at how similar the data was the point i'm trying to make is we're all northern hemisphere. how much of what you've seen truly on the spread is weather related? >> well, look, there's more variability i think around the world in terms of deaths per infection, deaths per capita, but you're right europe is having a very dense epidemic right now really the only part of the world that is having -- is a colder climate right now and is being spared on a relative basis

is a lot of parts of asia. but there's a seasonality to this vaccine and this virus and as we get into next year, as we get out of sort of the pandemic phase, we're going to see that seasonality become more prominent, that this will be largely a respiratory pathogen that circulates in the fall and winter and i suspect we'll fall into some kind of predictable schedule around a vaccination as well like we do with the flu vaccine. the only reason we saw this spread in the springtime and summertime there was pandemic phase no cross immunity among the population, everyone was very susceptible so it spread aggressively even in months you wouldn't see a coronavirus spreading. typically in the wintertime when people congregate indoors and the conditions, the air-conditions, the low humidity are more conducive to the spread of a respiratory pathogen. >> well, more than 2 million people getting on an airplane this weekend, andrew's point we'll find out in a couple weeks. dr. scott gottlieb, see you

tomorrow. >> thanks a lot. regeneron ceo on his company's latest treatment it is good news for us all that stock is responding it is up this morning in stock futures they're responding as well you have the positive vaccine news out of astrazeneca/oxford the regeneron news as well dow futures up 167 you're watching "squawk box. good monday morning. we're back right after this. this holiday at t-mobile,

it's not about how far apart we are, it's about how close we can be. so we're bringing out our best deal on the new iphone 12 with 5g, on every plan. right now, get the iphone 12 on us on every single plan. switch now and save 20% on your bill versus the other guys. that's the best value in wireless. that's right. the iphone 12 on us. on america's largest 5g network. and save 20% per month. it's time to holiday on. it's time for t-mobile.

welcome back to "squawk box. we have some breaking news for you right this moment from merck and want to get straight over to meg terrel for that. >> good morning, andrew. merck is acquiring a small privately held company for $425 million. this company has a drug for covid-19 that's proven to be strikingly effective in helping people who are hospitalized with the disease and requiring oxygen it's a drug called cd24fc. and these results were actually presented at the end of september and really flew under the radar. but they show that they cut the risk of death or people proceeding to respiratory failure and needing a ventilator by more than 50% versus placebo in this trial and compared to standard of care

they're seeing benefit on top of drugs including remdesivir they also said there was a 60% higher probability of improvement in clinical status among people who took the drug i talked with merck's research chief about these data and the acquisition he said the results were remarkable. nobody would believe it would have this kind of effect guys the problem though is the drug is in short supply. they're a small company. merck is acquiring them to try to ramp up supply of this drug joining us now to discuss this news is founder and ceo dr. yang lu thank you for being with us this morning. tell us about the effects that your drug appears to have in helping these very sick patients with covid-19. >> ms. terrel, my pleasure thank you for having me here yes, the drug was effectively matched by two ways as i mentioned. one to see the probability of patient improving the clinical status, which we showed compare

with patient who receive extended care, those received extended care are seeing 60% better chance of clinical recovery on the other hand, if you look at the disease progression measured by patients who will need intubation or patient who may die, the chances are cut by more than half so this is quite remarkable, you know in our observation >> it certainly is a lot of folks i've spoken with operation speed and merck calling these remarkable could you tell us a little bit about how the drug works and why you think it works so well in doing this it's sort of similar i think to steroids it tamps down the immune response that can take over in the severe forms of the disease? >> yes the drug was based on many years of research. in fact, my colleague and i have been working on a new pathway

for last 20 plus years this is a pathway that control information triggered by cell deaths as you know, the covid -- the virus itself get out of the cell by killing the cells therefore in the critical organ, such as lung, there's a massive cell desk of the infection so when the cell die, they trigger inflammation that is controlled what this drug does is avenues to attempt that information that's triggered by cell deaths. so this information itself evolved several different aspects that affects, as you know, that cause a lot of cell infiltration around tissue and also we saw some observation that in covid-19 patient they say thrombosis so there's also loss of immune

cell function. those can be corrected in a sense by this drug so this drug is unique in that it has a general effect on several different aspects that other more therapeutics may not be able to them at the same time we think that's what explains a better effect than we expected. >> it's certainly a remarkable result tell us about the supply of this drug, how much is available now, and, you know, how long it will take to make enough, you know, to be able to apply for fda emergency use authorization and for it to help people? >> yes, right now, production as we speak at two different sites, and we are putting all of our resources on it, so we expect by the end of the year or early next year, we'll have some drug being supplied to patients.

>> and why do you think the results did not garner more attention -- you posted them on your web site at the end of september. i heard about them a few weeks ago from moncef slaoui, and i thought these are remarkable results, they're out there, why haven't we heard of them why do you think they flew under the radar? >> we are cautious in the sense that we are just, we haven't made major effort about contacting news organization, but going through the parties to report our data, to regulatory bodies, the fda, and also we are talking to grand finding agencies, and then through there, we get attention from w.o.s. that's how we work through the system we felt that we need to make enough drug before we make it more public. >> well, that makes sense.

dr. liu, we appreciate you being with us this morning we know this is culmination of decades of work, and we're excited to see where it goes from here. thank you for being with us. >> thank you for having me bye bye. >> all right bye bye. >> meg, everybody, back over to you. >> there's so much good news that continues to come out, not just on the vaccine front but on the treatment front, too and i think that that is something that is really showing us significant, if we can just get through the next few months, i mean, things are going to get much better. >> yeah, we are -- i was talking to dr. mike osterholm on friday, in some ways we are in the worst of this pandemic with hospitalizations and deaths increasing but we're also in the best of times, the vaccines are proving to work. this drug looks incredibly effective for people who are so sick they require oxygen, but we do need to get through the next few months, and dr. gottlieb has

pointed out we need -- we have to get through this winter first. andrew. >> hey, meg, this is a behavioral science question, you know, obviously there are lots of young people who go out and take risks right now that you wouldn't want them necessarily to take but they do so thinking if they get it they're going to be okay. my question is do you think, and we talked about what kind of herd immunity you need to get to ve for a vaccine. you get enough therapeutics, but the therapeutics are on the hospital end, meaning you have to be willing to potentially risk yourself going to the hospital do you think that will unto itself, will change behavior >> it's a good question. by the time you get so sick you would need a drug like this, you're on oxygen in the hospital and it cut the risk of death by hat, or proceeding to need a ventilator but there's another half you're not doing so wechll

that's still a risk. you think something with a pill, if you get a diagnosis of covid or have been exposed to covid, you could be prescribed that pill and get it shipped to you in the mail, and you could start taking it preventatively or take it soon after getting diagnosed, that could be, you know, a real game changer in the meantime we're making progress with things like antibody drugs too hey, meg, thank you. again, lots of news out this morning, and we'll check in with you again just a little bit later. when we come back, we'll have much more on the global market reaction to the vaccine and treatment news the dow is up by 170 176 as a result of this. s&p futures up by 18 the nasdaq up by 42,nd y aou are watching "squawk box" on cnbc. we'll be right back. at fidelity, you'll work with an advisor

to help you build a flexible wealth plan. you'll have access to tax-smart investing strategies, and with brokerage accounts online trades are commission free. personalized advice. unmatched value. at fidelity, you can have both. this was the theater i came to quite often. the support we've had over the last few months has been amazing. it's not just a work environment.

everyone here is family. if you are ready to open your heart and your home, check us out. we thought for sure that we were done. and this town said: not today. ♪

coming up, when we return, regeneron ceo on emergency use authorization of its covid

antibody treatment. plus, a top astrazeneca exec on that company's vaccine. stay tuned for all of it as two big hours of "squawk" start in just a moment. no one likes to choose between safe or sporty. modern or reliable. we want both - we want a hybrid. so do banks. that's why they're going hybrid with ibm. a hybrid cloud approach helps them personalize experiences with watson ai while helping keep data secure. ♪ ♪ from banking to manufacturing,

businesses are going with a smarter hybrid cloud, using the tools, platform and expertise of ibm. ♪ ♪

more good news on the vaccine front on this monday morning. stocks on the rise as markets look past rising cases now to a way out of the pandemic. we'll break it all down and find out what it means for your portfolio. the georgia senate runoff

race is heating up and could have big implications in washington we take a look at the big name donors and what the race could mean for the nation. congressional oversight member, senator pat toomey on the need for stimulus, the transfer of power in the white house, and much more the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now good morning, and welcome to "squawk box" right here on cnbc. i'm andrew ross sorkin, along with becky quick, brian sullivan is with us today joe's got the day off. take a quick look at u.s. equity futures at this hour on the back of some of the good news we have been hearing from astrazeneca, and of course the republican gener - regeneron news the dow opening about 177 points higher right now, s&p 500 up

about 18 1/2 points, you've got the nasdaq looking to open about 42 points higher brian? >> yeah, certainly starting to become a trend, andrew thank you very much. but of course all the talk about vaccines, remember, folks, it's not just about preventing the virus, it's about treating the virus as well, and we've got breaking news out of regeneron as they get good news out of their treatment. meg tirrell had 10 minutes to revamp, joining us with the ceo of regeneron everything is very fast moving, megan, we appreciate it. >> thank you, brian. doctor, thank you for being with us you have emergency authorization for kwicovid-19, and the pace o development was astounding tell us how you're looking at how this drug will be yoousused help in this pandemic. >> we're excited the fda has granted the emergency use authorization. it's intended to be used for mild to moderate patients who

have definite covid, who are not on oxygen and are at high risk, and that's a large group of patients, and it has to be given by an infusion so people have to get to a place where you can get an intravenous drug. it takes about an hour to get it, and you have to be watched for about an hour. i expect it will be deployed our first doses were contracted by the federal government. 300,000 doses, and they will be allocating it to the various state in proportion to the need and the amount of covid in each state, and the state health departments will dispense it to our distributors to places of administration so it's a bit of a complicated process. but i think it will be worth it because the data are encouraging. >> so let's talk through how patients actually get this drug, as you were just saying, it's an iv infusion. you have to go to a place where you can get the infusion, and you're supposed to get it as soon as possible after your diagnosis. so if you are a high risk patient, if you're over 65

if you have a bmi over 35 or you have one of the conditions laid out here in the authorization, what is that going to be like for patients and what have you observed in the process for eli lilly whose antibody got emergency use authorization a couple of weeks ago. >> the way we expect it's going to work is if you get a diagnosis, you will ask your doctor how can i get let's say the regeneron cocktail infusion, the two antibodies, which, by the way, must be given together. we think a cocktail is very important for reasons related to potential resistance, and you will ask your doctor where can i get this cocktail, and he or she will prescribe this cocktail for you if you're a patient who meets the criteria, and you'll go to one of your local infusion centers where this will be administered i suspect it will be different, meg, in each state, where, depending upon the logistics from each state, but the easiest thing is the doctor will be able to contact their health department or web site that the

health department puts up and say where can i send my patient. i think it will get going pretty streamlined once some of the difficulties are ironed out. >> hey, lynn, it's becky quick that's for being with us today. there were some questions raised in the past about this and similar treatment, just in terms of where it has happen if you have to go to a hospital, there hasn't been home use that's been described but dr. scott gottlieb said it would be great if you could have home use prescribed to have a nurse come to you, rather than bringing more covid patients into the hospital at a time when they're going to be tightly stretched anyway, is that in the works down the road, do you think? >> i do, becky it's a great question, and i think the government and others are exploring different ways i think cvs, for example, is trying to figure out whether they can do this with their clinics in their stores, whether or not home infusion is

appropriate. i think all of these things have to be figured out, and i think as we get more experience, we'll have a more efficient administration supply chain. >> i'd love to see it more easy for patients to get access to this the idea of bringing a bunch of covid patients into a cvs where people are shopping for totally paper and tissue right around the corner. >> i'm not sure it will be bring to the cvs, but a home infusion company, in a tent, in a parking lot, these things have to be figured out. you're right we don't want to comingle with somebody who's infected but we want to treat these people you can reduce the risk of hospitalizations we're sensitive to doing the right thing for patients, and the first thing we wanted to do, we thought, was bringing a cocktail together. the second thing is we thought that, you know, sometimes it's hard for even experts to know

which things are actually working and which things aren't working. you hear about one treatment is approved in one jurisdiction, and another jurisdiction says don't use it we wanted to bring forth really strong data, the best data we could, and we felt the first point to make was you had to be able to reduce the viral load. if you're going to affect this virus, you have to be able to do that, and i think our cocktail is the first drug of any kind that has convincely, robustly, shown that you can reduce the viral load that's not enough but now we can have this as a foundation where we also show you can reduce these medical related visits such as hospitalizations, e.r. visits, et cetera. >> first, congratulations, we are all rooting for you, the whole world is rooting for you and the success you're having with this. we want you to be able to make as many doses of this as humanly

possible as you look out over the next six months, and i know we showed what your expectations were for doses, how do you really want it to be distributed? i know you said if you get covid, you should ask your doctor, if you can get access to it, but there's going to be a big debate about who's supposed to get it, and who's supposed to get it first given the number of cases that we're seeing, and given that you want to take it early, actually. >> yeah. >> so you don't really frankly want to take it on the late side there was a big debate even over the weekend, ben carson, god bless him, is now better, but, you know, he came out and said he was given experimental cocktails, and people said, look, he's now going to be considered a special case, if somebody's wealthy, and they can somehow get access to this what's your prescription for how this should work >> i think this is a very important moment, and we've got to do it right let's start with facts let's start with what's our

supply situation the governor contracted for 300,000 doses. we've got about 80,000 on hand ready to go, and we'll have that full 300,000 by sometime in early january, we expect thereafter, we expect to be able to deliver about 100,000 doses every month. now, we're also looking at cutting the dose in half those experiments are actually ongoing, and that would double, if we were successful at that, and that would get to 200,000 a month, plus, we have a great partnership with roche and they have already been doing the technology transfer from regeneron to roche, they know how to make this stuff, they're very sophisticated, making this ready for use in the first quarter. we hope to have millions of doses available. still, that might not be enough. look, i'm hopeful, we have seen nice vaccine data from three different vaccine makers now, and i'm hopeful that will really bring down the number of cases and that those people that still get it because they didn't

either respond to the vaccine or they didn't access the vaccine or didn't want the vaccine that there will be this monoclonal cocktail available for treatment. we have to make sure this is done in a fair way i can tell you even before approval, we had a compassionate use program, and it had nothing to do with who you were in society, so to speak, or whether you're rich or what have you, we did it on a principled basis, and i think that's how it has to be done, on a principled basis, and i think there are sophisticated people, and medical experts in health departments who can direct it to the people who need it the most and who will benefit them the most we can't have a market for rich people or something like that. this has got to go to where it needs to go to people who best benefit from it. >> you know, doctor, you're not just a doctor and a ceo. you're probably a dad, you're a friend when your friends say to you, when are we going to be out out

of this, and we all know what i mean, how do you answer them when >> yeah, so i get that question a lot. i also get the question of whether or not they can get on the list, to which i frequently say to my golfing friends, if they get that putt, maybe they can get on the list, but i really think that we're all frustrated we all want to get out of this my belief is that and i'm not the world's expert on vaccines but when i look at all the data, and i look at what's going on, and i see the amazing things, call them miracles from vaccines to therapeutics to monoclonals call them miracles that our industry has brought forth, i think we get out of this and back to normal, certainly late next year, and i'm hoping sooner than that as we roll out the vaccine program. >> len, it's meg tirrell again

before we let you go, we have to ask, you're testing as a prevention, which is a lower dose among people who live with somebody diagnosed with covid. when are you expecting we'll get to see those results >> we're accumulating that data now, and as soon as we have enough information perhaps this year, we'll be able to take a look at this data. what you're referring to is we're trying to treat people who aren't infected, give them a substitute immune response remember, if your brother, mother, sister, whatever, is affected and you're at risk to get it because you live them, a vaccine won't help you if you haven't been vaccinated because the vaccine is going to take weeks if not months to be effective. our drug could be instantaneously effective, if you will, to protect you, and that's what we're testing and we hope to get the data in the not too distant future, which could be good for people at high risk, think of a nursing home,

doctors, people living with people, but it also could prevent the ongoing spread, the downstream spread through contact tracing, and aggressive treatment of people who are at risk to get it, and then spread it >> well, we really look forward to seeing those data, and for now, you know, big news this morning with the emergency use authorization, len, thanks for being with us. >> good to be here thank you, meg. >> all right, guys back over to you. >> hey, meg, i think this is such great news, and there's so much hope that we're seeing now not just on vaccines that are incredibly effective but all of these treatments for if you actually get it. i think what len was just talking about, this idea that, okay, it's going to be great news because it could mean even if you're exposed we could nip it in the bud before it takes off. that gets back to andrew's question, this idea that you've got to have a lot more of it before you can start dolling it out to people that haven't even tested positive for it, and how you figure out who's at highest

risk when you have to give this drug before people get really sick still seems really tricky we're not going to be great about taking the doses we have now and making sure that it hits everybody. we really have to have lots and lots of this treatment out there until you can kind of cross spread and make sure anybody who needs it can get it. >> yeah, you know, it was really interesting getting to hear from the doctor about what the supply is going to be, 100,000 doses every month, and roche coming on board in the first quarter, hoping to get to a million doses available. until we get to the point where there's ample supply, there's going to be an ethical question and tactical question about how to deploy the doses we have. we have heard people say the prevention could be incredibly effective at doing ring vaccination, an idea where you actually encircle an infection or outbreak, and protect

everyone around the infection and stop it in its tracks. the ethical question is would you use the doses that way or on people who are sick and at risk of getting severe disease. we're going to switch directions and bring in the head of astrazeneca's u.s. business and executive vice president of pharmaceuticals, to talk about astrazeneca, dr. dobber, thank you for being with us, and help us understand these data on the one hand you've got 90% efficacy in one dosing regimen, on the other, 62% efficacy, can you organize it so the 90% regimen will be the one distributed out to the world >> thank you so much for having me, and we are very excited about the data we released this morning. first of all, the study is shoug th showing that when you use half dose and high dose, the efficacy is 90% equally, even if you use high

dose, it's ventilatry strong ree 62%. we believe, and we think that the regulators will focus on this half dose, full dose regimen, but of course that's in the hands of the regulators, but overall, it's a very strong set of data. equally, i think it's very important to remember that's all vaccinated participants didn't develop the disease, so no hospitalization or any severe disease characteristics caused by covid-19, so all in all, i think a very strong set of data. as we all know, the world needs effective vaccines, and astrazeneca, and oxford are very pleased. >> well, there's one point i really want to ask you about because i was mistaken about it earlier as i was going through the data so quickly. you say there is an early indication that the vaccine could reduce virus transmission in asymptomatic infections tell us about that finding

i mean, are you actually finding that this vaccine could produce what's known as sterilizing immunity, keeping people from getting infected at all with the virus? >> that's an excellent question. there are many questions, one question clearly is the duration of protection and the other question is the question you're asking now about the transmission we have only seen the data over the weekend, it's very early days, but what we have seen so far is a belief that we can also reduce the transmission of vaccinated people including asymptomatic, participants so once again, it's still very early days, with what we have seen, and we will see more in the course of this week, when the investigators, the clinical trialists will write their story in a high profile journal. we are pleased to see what we have seen so far it's a little bit too early to be definite about that piece >> so can you explain just the why on a couple of those issues?

i mean, first of all, if people are much less likely to transmit it, even if they're asymptomatic having it, is that because it's a lower viral load they would walk around with even if they did get it and in terms of the 90% efficacy that comes with a half dose and the full dose that comes after that, why? you would think logically if you're getting a full dose and a full dose, you're getting more of the vaccine and therefore you would have a bigger response is it that you get too much of a response with the first one, why do you think it's more effective when you get less of it. >> let me first try to address the first question about the transmission the thinking here is that if you vaccinate, in this case, participants, volunteers, you hope to release neutralizing antibodies, and as a result of the neutralizing antibodies, the virus is no longer effective in order to cause harm in the body. equally, there are mechanisms of the immune system to get rid of

the virus. that's one of the mechanisms, which is important in order to reduce transmissions, also in asymptomatic patients. then your second question about the half dose, full dose, it's very speculative, and of course we are in close contact with the researchers of the oxford university, it's a little bit too early, but one of the potential hiypotheses is that you're priming the immune system with a relatively low dose, as a consequence, the immune system is firing against this virus, but equally, i also need to admit that it was a little bit of a surprise to all of us to see this difference. we really expected to have a high dose, high dose, very effective. it is very effective but the half dose full dose clearly has a better efficacy, and we will

do more research in the weeks to come in order to better understand the mechanism here. >> and dr. dobber, listen, it's great news, congratulations. it looks like we're going to have a couple of hopefully working vaccines very soon take us through the next step. i'm sure you and your team are hopefully working with governments, state and local officials for a global coordinated response to getting it out take us through the thought process, first responders get it first, hopefully then teachers we have to get the kids back into school. irreparable damage is being done to millions of families around the world, obviously then the most vulnerable outside of that, who will make the decision about how these vaccines are distributed because you know as, by the way, the regeneron ceo sort of joked in the previous interview, rich people are probably going to be like how can i get on the list how can we make sure there's an equitable and ethical distribution of these vaccines

>> and thank you so much for this very fair and good question first of all, let me go back to the first step we need to make, and the first step we need to make clearly is to go now to the regulators during the course of this week, we will show the data to the u.k. regulator, the european regulator, and also to the fda in the united states so that's a very important first proof point. the second part is of course that we need to do the filing, and the regulator needs to have an independent assessment of the data we are showing them coming back to your point about who's going to get the vaccine, astrazeneca made a huge commitment to provide the vaccine at no profit in an equitable way. we have supply chains in the unite, in t united states, in the u.k. and developing country in the world that's an important part of our strategy to make the vaccine available to all the people around the world and this is not reserved only to the rich

countries or the rich people >> dr. dobber, i know you've struck a number of manufacturing partnerships in order to have monumental supply of this vaccine. i want to ask you, just about these data again to try to understand it better you nenmentioned one hypothesis why this dosing regimen produced this efficacy. and there might have been different manufacturing processes for the different doses you used so there could have been different quality in terms of the antigen you were showing immune systems with the vaccine, and that may have led to the better efficacy in one regimen versus the other i wonder whether you can tell me if that was likely if there were different processes as you were moving so fast, and also how the situation looks in the united states with the fda given that you were on pause for seven weeks, and the u.s. data could some so much later. >> yes, there were different

processes but at this stage, we don't have any evidence in order to say that that's causing the difference we stick to the data of course we will do everything in order to get more clarity about the processes we have seen in the last few months once again, the scientists are quite bullish that they have seen it in the past, also in laboratory trials, so we just need to be a bit patient in order to really see the full data set and of course when the data set is available, we will clearly publish that in international journals regarding your second question about the fda, the we are running a very large u.s. specific study as we speak we have already included more than ten thousand volunteers in those studies, but equallying of course -- equally, we will engage with the fda and depending on that guidance, we will define the next steps of our strategy here.

>> before we let you go, i wanted to just ask you about the time line for what some people are talking about a return to normal, a world in which we're not wearing masks and social distancing the way so many of us are right now. the head of operation warp speed in the united states said that he believed it was possible that we could get to a quote unquote herd immunity by vaccination, if you will, by may of 2021 do you agree with that >> i think it's optimistic we need to realize that the challenge is enormous. we are talking here about a world population of 7 billion people but it is good at the moment, we have the first doses available, of course we are starting to create the herd immunity specialists, experts are saying you need to vaccinate 70% o. population in order to achieve that

so we can only hope together with pfizer, moderna, and astrazeneca, we will manufacture enough doses to achieve that sooner than later. all in all, it's incredibly positive that three companies are showing strong results, including astrazeneca, and before i leave you, i think there's also one very important advantage of the astrazeneca oxford vaccine, the ease to use it at refrigerated temperature i think is a very important element of our vaccine so that also patients and people in low income countries and middle income countries can benefit from it. all in all, i think a very exciting day, and let's hope that also the next steps will go well >> real quick, just if i could follow up, you said that may was optimistic what is -- let's do the united states and the globe or you can break down the globe what do you think is realistic >> i think in the united states,

i think a time frame of may to july can be realistic, depending on the manufacturing capacity. i think if you talk about the globe, i think we will face still a roller coaster time in in 2021. i don't believe i can be wrong i hope i am wrong, but i don't believe that before the summer, next summer, we will be out of it completely but we are going to make massive progress as we move forward >> dr. dobber, thanks for being with us, and a good reminder, it's going to be a task to get this out to everybody in the world. we appreciate you being here this morning >> thank you. >> becky, back over to you. hey, meg, and thank you because folks if you're just waking up, listen to this. this morning, there are three major breaking news stories on the coronavirus vaccine front and treatment front. you have astrazeneca, which we just heard about, astrazeneca and oxford's vaccine, 90% effective depending on how the doses work, and regeneron

received fda approval for antibody treatment for covid, and you have merck buying another company that has a treatment for covid as well, it's buying that meg has brought us three guests on each of those three big stories just in the last half hour because she's a rock star and sthoohe's all over it if you didn't see it, you should get up earlier next time meg, we appreciate it, and we'll check in with you again soon. >> thanks, becky. in the meantime, when we come back, we're going to talk about big money that's been pouring into state elections in georgia ahead of a senate runoff there. robert frank is taking a look at who's giving. and frank luntz will talk about that re,ac a lot on the line "squawk box" has it all covered for you, we'll be right back ♪ you can go your own way

it's time you make the rules. so join the 2 million people who have switched to xfinity mobile. you can choose from the latest phones or bring your own device and choose the amount of data that's right for you to save even more. and you'll get 5g at no extra cost. all on the most reliable network. so choose a data option that's right for you. get 5g included and save up to $400 dollars a year on the network rated #1 in customer satisfaction. it's your wireless. your rules. only with xfinity mobile.

welcome back to "squawk box" this morning big money is pouring into two senate elections in georgia. megadonors are backing their candidates in what's likely to be a record breaking runoff. i want to get to robert frank who joins us with more on that story. >> we still have six weeks to go before the runoff elections, and super pacs have put up more than $215 million on ad buys. two republican super pacs bought $80 million in ads on top of the

135 million that has been spent by all groups combined republicans so far out spending the democrats, but billionaire, haim saban say i stand ready jeff catsenberg, and byron allen holding fundraisers for those candidates sheldon adeleson gave $50 million. and steve schwarzman gave $20 million, expected to add to the totals in january. some democratic donors, complaining of donor fatigue after some rather disappointing results in congress relative to what they expected and guys, michael bloomberg's team when asked if he's going to give in the runoff said he already gave $5 million to the get out the vote campaign in georgia earlier this year and andrew, just for some back of the envelope math, this runoff could cost over $400 million

which would work out to over $100 per vote cast back to you. >> okay. robert appreciate it. we should have a longer conversation at some point about how we can get money out of plipli politics i want to bring in pollster and political strategist frank luntz to our discussion this morning you have been looking at this runoff in georgia, and talking to lots of people, and polling where do you think things stand right now? >> i'm trying to understand specifically who's got the turnout advantage because in the end, no one is going to change their votes, maybe 1 tor 2% but you got to figure out who's going to vote. after watching the last two weeks where so many trump people have been disillusioned because their candidate lost for president, and we find that 55% of trump voters in georgia, 55% believe donald trump was elected

president and so they're mad despite that, the republicans have a slight advantage. first, by 46 to 42%, they would rather see a republican at this time represent the state in washington the key that i'm looking at are the 12% that would rather have one of each party. the democrats have to win both seats for them to gain control of the senate so a split vote will not help them the other they think i'm watching is the turnout interest 80% of republicans are definitely going to vote, only 70% of democrats so that can give you a 1 or 2% advantage for the republicans, but, and this is a message for the president of the united states, if he continues to disillusion voters, you've got the numbers up right there, actually, that's coronavirus we're getting to that in one second if you continue to disillusion voters by saying that the elections were rigged and that

your vote doesn't matter, this could have severe consequences for the administration in trying to keep those two seats republican i would argue that what donald trump says and does over the next six weeks is going to determine the outcome of the georgia senate race, and well may determine the outcome of our country overall. >> before we get to the covid polling that you have done which is fascinating, it really crosses political lines to some degree or really is directed to political lines, my question to you is how rational do you think voters are in georgia or around the country when they think about the implication, if you will of their vote the reason i ask is i have talked to what might be described as center left voters who actually would like the senate to be republican, really to act as simply a break on the whole system they like gridlock they would say that they're

democrats but they actually like the idea of gridlock there are others who obviously very much would like to turn the senate d, and there are others who would like it to be republican for policy reasons and otherwise. how do you think that actually works in reality >> in reality is that nobody likes gridlock, but nobody likes extremism or radical policies either, and that's the key issue here is this the joe biden who ran for president or is this the joe biden of elizabeth warren and bernie sanders and aoc and voters still don't know that so while they don't want gridlock, they want to prevent the more extreme elements, the repeal of the tax cuts, creating two new states, packing the supreme court, and the only way that they can do that is by voting republican. >> let's talk about covid because you have polled on this as well, and i was trying to use the word break

it breaks along political lines, which i find so fascinating and still don't understand, maybe you can explain why. >> what's even more important is the language behind this, and andrew, if you'll allow me, this was done with the cooperation of the debeaumont foundation, let me get that straight because they're responsible for creating a lexicon, which our government, our mayors, white house leaders should be using right now. the fact is that more democrats -- democrats are more afraid of testing positive for covid than they are of being audited by the irs among republicans it's much closer that is always the level that i use, always the statistic that i use to figure out how concerned people are because an irs audit frightens people more than anything else, and the fact is republicans are equally frightened by an irs audit and testing positive for covid-19,

and that is not the case an irs won't kill you. it will make you sick economically, but it won't kill you, and covid can andrew, i want to focus also on the fact that a lot more democrats are nervous, have an extreme concern about the virus. in fact, it's 2 to 1 almost 2/3 of democrats are extremely concerned. only 1/3 of republicans. that's a challenge for communicators to speak specifically to trump voters to say to them, hey, wake up, and i've got that language for you we all want to return to normal. we all believe the economy and our schools should open as quickly as possible. but we want to protect our families, friends and neighbors from the virus here's the key you had on the ceo from astrazeneca, what you should have had is the chief researcher from astrazeneca, the chief researcher from pfizer people are much more likely to trust the chief researcher than they are the ceo, and you need to speak about consequences if

you don't behave in a correct way. that's what debeaumont is trying to figure out, how to get our scientists, i promise i'll stop, how to get our scientists, how to get our country to follow the right policies and procedures and the language that's being used that is coming out of our leaders right now is not effective. go ahead. >> i have to say, the partisan break down about democrats and republicans and who's worried about covid probably has a lot to do with there being a lot of democrats or more democrats in the cities or urban areas where this is a bigger problem because that's where if you're taking public transportation, if you're crowded in a tight apartment space with lots of other people, if you can't get space on the streets even when you're walking, i think it's probably just based on experience from where they have had real problems, not to say that it's not a problem all over the country at this point, but the very first hard hit areas were the cities, and that's where there are more democrats

maybe this fixes itself as it spreads everywhere. >> but the problem is you've got 30% of democrats who actually know someone who has died of covid, and 18% of republicans. what the public is looking for is a fact-based approach, not science based or evidence-based, fact-based and that is going to be critical to getting the public to behave properly, not only in the hours up to thanksgiving but what we do now to christmas, to new year's, and the coming year ahead, and the key is to talk about the consequences of failure if we don't get this right, and for republicans, because they're as interested in opening the economy as they are in fighting the virus, for them, you have to communicate that it's all about we can get it open safely and sooner if we do the right thing todayme today. that's the key safer and sooner >> frank luntz, we want to thank you as always for bringing us these numbers, which was a

fascinating education this morning. we look forward to seeing you again very very soon "squawk box" returns right after th is 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? [ding] power e*trade gives you an award-winning mobile app with powerful, easy-to-use tools and interactive charts to give you an edge, 24/7 support when you need it the most plus $0 commissions for online u.s. listed stocks. don't get mad. get e*trade and start trading today.

not because i didn't want it. i worried it was too expensive, and i was having a hard time paying our other bills. but now, for the first time in our lives, i can do both. covered california was made by californians for californians. and it makes health insurance more affordable, with financial help for people who need it. covered california. this way to health insurance. enroll by december 15th. welcome back, and good morning. if you are just waking up or

just joining us, there's more good news on monday morning in the fight against covid. regeneron getting emergency use authorization for its treatment. joining us to talk about this and the markets is mohammed, and president of queens college cambridge and for some reason a jets fan we're going to move on from the jets i want to ask you this, are you the believer in the concept of the a vaccine high in the markets. everybody is bullish, cash levels at 4.1%, pre-covid levels and you have all this money, 27 billion coming into equity funds last week alone. do you think markets have peaked in the short-term? >> so, i understand why people are excited and i am too, and every vaccine monday, the news has gotten better in the sense that not only are we getting more vaccines, but the logistics

are getting better, and that's really important when you think of herd immunity i don't think the market is paying sufficient attention to the journey there. jp morgan just revised down q1 gdp to minus, we may have a w, and certain companies that are going to have difficulties that's what the market is missing, the element of the journey. i understand the destination part being priced as it is now >> do you think that there will be a stimulus plan do you think the markets have maybe over estimated the likelihood of one? >> i think so, you know, i'm very very influenced by what has been happening in europe i think europe is two for three, maybe four weeks ahead of us we have seen that in terms of cases, of hospitalization. look at their pmis today, brian, very sharp contraction on 50 to

45.1 right? these things matter, and if we don't get a significant fiscal package, which i don't think we will between now and january we may get something small, but nothing significant, then we are also going to see the journey get a lot bumpier to this ultimate destination, where the light is shining a lot brighter. >> do you think we're headed for another credit crisis in 2021, mohammed >> i think we're heading to higher bankrupt sicies, not a credit crisis, higher bankruptcies, and whether the fed's emergency powers are restored or not, the truth is the fedcannot protect you against bankruptcies, and, bankruptcies means capital impairment, so what i tell people is you're right to be optimistic but be very selective in the names you choose because it's like taking your kids to disneyland in the old days you could be really excited but if the journey gets more

difficult, the car changes in terms of tone, and the state you get in when you finally get to your destination is very different. so just pay attention to the journey and be careful of names that don't have this financial resilience >> good advice there by the way, growing up in southern california, i was more of a knots berry, fan that than disney, but your point is well taken. have a good day. >> thank you, brian. >> when we come back, we are going to speak with senator pat toomey when we come back dow futures are up 207 lots of positive vaccine and treatment news out today as well a lot to discuss wh itthe senator, and we're back right after this

♪ everyone wakes up every morning to a world that must keep turning. moving. going. the world can't stop, so neither can we. because the things we make, help make the world go round. we are builders, constantly creating things that make our world cleaner, healthier, and more connected. so that the small moments that help define who we are, and the big plans that make life wonderful can keep on rolling.

because while gravity may keep our planet on its axis, it's what we build that keeps things moving forward. so with every turn, we'll keep building a world that works. so, what sho♪ d we do today? so with every turn, wow. can we get some sun? ♪ uh, mom? can we go to the beach? (beep beep beep) should we just go see a movie? yes! i'm always up for a good movie. go rogue in the all-new, fiercely reimagined nissan rogue. labradoodles, cronuts, skorts. (it's a skirt... and shorts) the world loves a hybrid. so do businesses. so, today they're going hybrid with ibm. a hybrid cloud approach lets them use watson ai

to modernize without rebuilding, and bring all their partners and customers together in one place. that's why businesses from retail to banking are going with a smarter hybrid cloud using the tools, platform and expertise of ibm. coming up, when we return, the latest on the presidential election battle. senator pat toomey is going to join us, making news over the weekend, coming out and suggesting that president trump needs to concede we'll talk about that and so much more. the futures look higher, on the back of the astrazeneca news,

and so much more we'll talk all about it when we return this is decision tech.

find a stock based on your interests or what's trending. get real-time insights in your customized view of the market. it's smarter trading technology for smarter trading decisions. fidelity. it's time you make the rules. so join the 2 million people who have switched to xfinity mobile. you can choose from the latest phones or bring your own device and choose the amount of data that's right for you to save even more. and you'll get 5g at no extra cost. all on the most reliable network. so choose a data option that's right for you. get 5g included and save up to $400 dollars a year on the network rated #1 in customer satisfaction. it's your wireless. your rules. only with xfinity mobile.

welcome back, everybody. today, michigan and pennsylvania will start certifying election results. president trump sued in both states and lost in both states the campaign has appealed that decision asking to reframe its argument on saturday senator pat toomey says, though, that it is time for the president to accept the loss and preserve his legacy. senator toomey, who is a republican from pennsylvania

joins us right now on the phone. and senator, you've been one of the first republican senators to really kind of speak out on this and the framing that you use for this was pretty harsh language you said that this is an apparent attempt to thwart the will of michigan voters and select an illegitimate slate of college electors, what got you to that conclusion >> i voted for donald trump, i endorsed donald trump, and i campaigned for donald trump, so i was disappointed with the outcome of the election, but among the most fundamental aspects of our republic and a democratic system is to accept the outcome of elections so i have fully supported the president's pursuing every plausible strategy, recounts, and litigating irregular lay to - but at some point you exhaust those possibilities. i think the president has

reached that point in pennsylvania he appears to have reached that point in georgia michigan wasn't even close, and so now the idea that a sitting president would try to, i don't know, pressure, cajole, persuade state legislators to dismiss the will of their voters and select their own group of electors and send them to the electoral college is completely inconsistent with any kind of truly democratic society so that shouldn't be going on in my view. >> have you spoken with other senators about this? have you spoken with anyone at the white house about it >> so i have spoken with a number of my colleagues about this, and i'm certainly not going to get into private conversations that i've had, and i have reached out to the white house. >> i guess my question would be is do you think that you are a voice that is a lone voice or a

voice that has a lot of support, particularly when it comes to the senate >> well, i don't like to characterize how my colleagues feel about these things, but i can assure you i am not alone in this view among republican senators >> senator, i know you've supported the president over these years, i'm curious, given this situation and clearly your questioning of his judgment, whether you have any misgivings about his judgment in other cases now? >> well, andrew, i've disagreed with the president, and i've been very open about that. i've probably been, in fact, i'm pretty sure i have been the president's toughest critic on trade policy i've criticized his other decisions as well, including some truth reduction levels, and when he was in my view using

inappropriate source of funds for border wall construction, so i have been open and critical when i have disagreed with the president. i think that's part of my role, but, you know, during this election in my view, we were faced with the possibility of a really radical shift to the left if the democrats were to sweep the elective offices, and frankly, we're still at that risk because if they could win two seats in georgia, i think we will see a very very scary and radical shift to the left because that's where the energy of the democratic party is that's where the passion is on their side of the aisle. so i think there's a tremendous amount at stake. i don't have any regrets about having supported donald trump for reelection. >> senator, toomey, very quickly, you sat on the oversight committee that acts as an oversight watchdog for the c.a.r.e.s act money. we have been watching what happened between the fed and the treasury, the treasury, steven mnuchin, the secretary there, asking for those programs to end at the end of this year. that came as a bit of a surprise

to some on the fed what's your understanding of what the intent from congress was? should those programs unwind at the end of the year even if we have not gotten through the crisis >> it's not just the intent. this was always intended, 13-3 lending facilities, exthe rec d extraordinary facilities, intended as a mechanism to revive the capital markets that had come to a close. you remember in march, the markets were frozen. you couldn't issue debt. you couldn't issue commercial paper. if you held paper, you couldn't sell it because there was no bed. that problem was solved spectacularly, and the statute says that this program is supposed to end by end of the year secretary mnuchin was exactly right that the intent of the statute and the letters of the statute say that these programs need to wind down. we shouldn't be giving the fed a permanent or even quasi

permanent multitrillion dollar opportunity to engage in fiscal policy these facilities did their job it's time to put them away >> senator, toomey, i want to thank you for your time today. it's always great talking to you. we'll hopefully have you back on soon thanks, ckbey. stay tuned folks, thanks, senator, and we have another big hour of "squawk box" straight ahead. (vo) i'm a verizon engineer and today, we're turning on 5g across the country. with the coverage of 5g nationwide. and, in more and more cities, the unprecedented performance of ultra wideband. the fastest 5g in the world. it will change your phone and how businesses do everything. i'm proud, because we didn't build it the easy way, we built it right. this is the 5g america's been waiting for.

only from verizon.

good morning, it is another monday rally under way in the premarket, futures are positive on the first day of the workweek it is the third week in a row that we have had positive vaccine news, and that's a big part of the story. getting some positive news on a vaccine from astrazeneca, and oxford university. there's also good news on the antibody treatment front out of regeneron as well. all of that, triple play news, sending futures up 200 points. by the way, pay pal bullish on bitcoin or is pay pal the reason bitcoin has been hot the crypto rising over the last couple of weeks. we'll speak live with ceo dan schulman as the final hour of

"squawk box" begins right now. >> good morning, everybody welcome back to "squawk box" here on cnbc i'm becky quick along with andrew ross sorkin, and brian sullivan joe is out today, but we've got you covered today. we have been watching what's happening with the markets and on this monday that is not a merger monday but a medical monday, you're seeing all kinds of things happening. dow futures indicated up by 186 points, based on good news we have gotten on the vaccine and treatment on the covid front nasdaq down by 46. nasdaq was up last week. both the dow and s&p were down however, if you're looking at this month, it's been very strong the dow and s&p are looking at their best performance for a month since april. take a look at what's happening in the treasury markets. you're going to see that right now at least you've got a 0.855%

yield on the ten-year. that's been straeady we have a final hour of the show with three big guests. we've got "the new york times" foreign affairs columnist, tom friedman, dan schulman and texas governor greg abbott a lot to get to with all three of them. let's bring the big headlines moving the markets this morning becky called it a medical monday, a vaccine monday, a bunch of coronavirus related developments coming in all this morning. but first, astrazeneca saying its covid-19 vaccine being developed in conjunction with oxford university was 90% effective with no serious safety events in a clinical trial data showing that occurred when the vaccine was given as a half dose followed by a full dose, at least a month later. two full doses showed an efficacy rate of 62%, which has some people scratching their head the president of astrazeneca's biopharmaceutical's business unit joined us earlier on today's "squawk box.

>> we believe and we think that the regulators will focus on this half dose, full dose regimen, but of course that's in the hands of the regulators, but overall, it's a very strong set of data. >> more hopeful news about astrazeneca's vaccine, it costs less than those from pfizer and moderna, and can also be stored, this is important, at normal refrigerated temperatures. the company says it can manufacture as many as 2 million doses by the end of the year regeneron has received emergency use authorization from the fda for its covid-19 antibody cocktail, and regeneron ceo joined us as well earlier. >> we think a cocktail is important for reasons related to potential resistance, and you will ask your doctor where can i get this cocktail, and he or she will prescribe this cocktail for you if you're a patient that meets the criteria, and you'll go to one of your local infusion

centers where this will be administered >> regeneron's coronavirus drug is meant for patients who are not hospitalized but are at risk of developing serious illnesses, and there's going to be lots of questions about how those decisions are going to be made about who gets access to that first. and merck is buying privately held drug maker oncoimmune for $425 million in cash the company's developer of drugs designed to treat covid-19, cancer and other diseases, and its vaccine candidate has shown promising results as well in a late stage study all of this news, though, coming as the u.s. passed 12 million covid cases over the weekend, and we could be in for another surge. this as millions travel for the thanksgiving holiday despite a cdc recommendation not to do so. brian, and my greatest concern right now is the cdc was too late in terms of making that call public given what they knew

about where things were just a week or two ago. people made plans and even when they get this advice, it's hard to undo some of those plans. >> 2 million people went through a tsa check point either on friday or saturday alone, so 2 million people that are flying, andrew, theoretically will have to return at some point as well, and you've got millions more, i think 35% of people said they're basically going to spend thanksgiving normally or with families as they would so i think it's going to be a very interesting next couple of weeks. we have got an interesting market monday, medical monday, whatever you want to call it dow futures up 200 points right now, it's the third straight monday we have had positive news by the way, no one is complaining. keep the good news coming. cnbc markets commentator, mark santoli will join us here's the difference, as human beings, this information and

news is fantastic for the world. from a markets perspective, are you a buyer at all of the concept of maybe a vaccine high that the market's bidding itself up and that now that this is all starting to roll out, people may start to roll out of equities they have made major gains in? >> i don't know if it's going to be the big shift, completely ironic where you sell on the vaccine top but what's been clear is there's been diminishing returns to each one of these monday vaccine announcements, it's like a xerox of a xerox, the year to date of the s&p, that was the first vaccine monday a couple of weeks ago. we have traded since then within the range of that high, that morning high, 36, 34, something like that, and the previous low, so it's been in this range since then, so i think you really have to say that it's lost its power as an immediate positive catalyst i think the imminence of a vaccine is basically the premise right now for why we're trading where we are at this moment.

the dow futures opened 6:00 p.m. last night it's not as if it's all about the vaccine news this morning. take a look at a couple of divergences that are probably going to be relevant here, stocks versus bonds this quarter. stocks have had this nice run, the s&p versus long-term strategies a lot of people looking for need for pension funds to rebalance from stocks to bonds because of the spread to get the mix back to what they need for their discipline, and that could be at least a theoretical head wind, and small caps versus momentum, really big, huge stumble by momentum stocks recently that's in kwhiwhite. on a long-term basis, that's a little bit of catch up by small caps, and this looks like it's stark going into the end of the month. that's why we might see a little bit of nipping and tucking and trimming of positions. we'll see how that plays out, becky. >> mike, thank you a great explainer.

it kind of plays into what we're talking about with steve here. forecasters predicting a roller coaster ride for the u.s. economy as it weathers the storm of the virus surge and hopefully enjoys the tail winds of a vaccine led recovery steve liesman joins us right now. he's got fresh numbers from the street, and steve, good morning. >> good morning, becky, yeah, another vaccine monday with two weeks now of positive vaccine news, and equally grim virus news wall street economists predicting a dark and challenging winner but a strong rebound coming in the spring so far our latest cnbc rapid update sees the economy hanging in there in this quarter kind of interesting, the incoming data suggests 4 1/2% growth, with the major risk being the extent of the lock downs we're going to see, and the strength of consumer spending for the holidays. we'll be talking about that this week the worst economic effects of the current virus surge are expected to hit in the first quarter, average forecast is 2

pn2.7% inside that, jp morgan sees a 1% contraction, and barclays at 0 and the vaccine positive economic effects begin to kick in with above trend growth predicted for both of those quarters just how quickly the vaccine begins to have that positive effect that's a matter of debate. victor, senior analyst at international investment firm at exante writes, to start, that due to the vaccination the population has herd immunity that's one of the side story he worries many won't take the vaccine in the u.s., and those without health insurance won't be able to afford it if it's not free on the other side, morgan stanley are bullish, above consensus bullish. they believe positive vaccine effects could be felt soon day wrote over the weekend, quote the news on a vaccine will help to bolster private sector confidence that we can avoid further lock downs beyond this

year's winter, and a full reopening of the economy can be a mid-2021 event they see those effects happening soon, so here's the full year, gdp forecast drop by 3.3% this year, and now we have our first look at 2021, shows growth pretty well above potential at 4.2% not a bad number if it happens stocks, they have generally put on blinders to the near term challenges and looked to the recovery part as long as it's within some sort of six-month horizon, and the fed, as expected, andrew, stays easy >> steve, real quickly. >> back to becky, i guess. >> well, you put it all in great perspective, this idea that it's going to be very important for the economy. we have these vaccines, people have to take them. that means if you can't afford to pay for it, it should be made available for free we should be smart enough to figure that out. and if you don't want it, i'll take yours thank you very much. >> that's right. just one other thing i want to remind people about the

reporting we did last week, becky, it naematters how bad th situation is going into the vaccine distribution is. the worse the virus situation, the more work the vaccine going to have to do. that's going to also play with the timing of when we get back to full recovery in a normal operating economy. >> steve, thank you. we'll talk to you soon. >> pleasure. >> andrew. sorry. we've got a lot more coming up in this final hour of "squawk box" on the coronavirus, its economic impact and how it's continue to go change the world of commerce. "new york times" columnist tom friedman is going to be with us, as well as pay pal ceo dan schulman, and texas governor tom abbot. check out shares of boeing the company's 737 max is safe to fly and could return to service ay january st tuned, you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc some hot cocoa?

mom, look! are you okay? head home this holiday with the one you love.

visit your local mercedes-benz dealer today for exceptional lease and financing offers at the mercedes-benz winter event.

coronavirus restrictions are coming back as the virus spreads essentially unchecked throughout the country. los angeles county is shutting down in-person dining for at least three weeks, including outside dining with the state of california

still under a nighttime curfew, and nevada is set to tighten its rules for casinos, restaurants, and private gatherings, including thanksgiving dinners all of this coming with the stimulus package that's stalled in washington and concerning recent government economic data. joining us to talk about this, the presidential transition and much more it tom friedman, "new york times" foreign affairs columnist and the author of "thank you for being late" an optimist's guide to thriving in the age of accelerations on this monday morning, given what i have listed off, give us the optimist's guide of how we should be looking at this coronavirus pandemic >> becky, i didn't take my drugs this morning, so i'm not sure. i think if you look at it from the -- i'm going to give you two things that give me hope, becky, one political one, viral, basically. i have been watching the show all morning. it's really amazing what big

fa pharma has done to produce a vaccine for this virus in record time, and as someone pointed out to me the other day, three of the biggest companies involved in this are all led by new immigrants and so that to me is a source of optimism for the future. for all the reasons you guys have discussed the second source of optimism for me, becky, and it's still just a sliver but it's important was your previous guest, senator toomey, because i thought he framed where we are right now very clearly he said this is not about recounting anymore this is not trump versus biden on recount this is ntrump versus the constitution he's trying to enlist state legislators to dismiss the vote and give their electoral college votes to him that's not a recount that's trump versus the constitution and what's been inspiring to me is to see the number of republican and democrats at the

state level, judges, vote, you know, agency certifiers people who went and served as poll workers, lining up and doing the right thing, republicans and democrats, and coming out for the constitution versus trump. and that's a source of optimism for me unfortunately it hasn't happened at the national level beyond the likes of mitt romney and pat toomey when you see the number of people who said no, no, the constitution comes first, it's constitution before party, that gives me some hope. >> for those of you who are just joining us, maybe just waking up let me explain a little bit about what senator toomey told us he's a republican senator from pennsylvania he supported donald trump, he voted for him. he campaigned for him. he said he was disappointed with the election outcome on this but he also was the one who supported the judge, the pennsylvania judge who dismissed the trump campaign's latest

actions that went against this that judge was appointed by president barack obama but he was sponsored by senator pat toomey that judge is a republican, a member of the federalist society, and what toomey was saying at this point, he wanted to see all the legal means of going about looking at recounts, looking at ways to challenge this in the court but that time has passed and the idea of putting pressure on the michigan electors or the republicans who would certify the electors, slate of electors from michigan, he thinks, in his words was an apparent attempt to thwart the will of the voters, and those are strong words from someone who has been a supporter tom, i think you are starting to see people like this speak up a little bit more, i think of the maryland governor who's a republican who also said it's time to kind of move on on these points, and i think everyone wants to make sure that the votes are counted, counted accurately, that things are all by the straight and narrow, but

there are more and more republicans who are coming to that consensusat this point, and i guess the question becomes how long does the white house run this out >> you know, that we really don't know president trump has been a norm breaker from the very beginning. he could take this all the way to election day, and to do that in the middle of a pandemic when we need coordination between the incoming administration and the outgoing administration would be unconscionable, i would make no predictions. i think it's very disturbing that we're even at this point, but it's really heartening to see at least some courageous republican senators, chris christie stepped up yesterday. and i think we'll see more in the next few days for the sake of the country. >> tom, it's brian sullivan. i saw ron klain on a weekend show saying they're going to do a scaled down inauguration given what we know about the

virus, given the fact you can't go to a rock concert, really you can't go to a sporting event inside, i know a lot of people want to celebrate. in your opinion, should there be an in-person inauguration, i don't mean with the actual people like president-elect biden, with supporters, fans, whatever you want to call them, should there be an inauguration? >> you know, i don't know what they're planning, but when you think of the kind of campaign biden ran, the fact that in his aspiration to become president, he was super careful, you know, spending so much time at home. i can't imagine he's going to be reckless about the inauguration. and i would suggest by the time we hit january 20th, i live in d.c. the situation's going to be far more perilous, so they're not going to take a chance, and even if they wanted to and they're not going to want to, who is going to dare come out and risk

their lives. i think they'll err on the side of cautions. >> there will be hundreds of thousands of people that will come out. >> again, if you look at how biden's run his campaign, i don't think there's any reason to believe, having run that kind of campaign, that when the virus reaches its apex, he's going to have a reckless inauguration i'm personally not too worried about that >> hey, tom wanted to get your thoughts on tony blinken as secretary of state, given the fact that we have business leaders who watch us and investors, trying to think through the implications of trade, and how you think we're going to be handling china and others >> you know, tony was deputy secretary of state i described him as, you know, really mainstream, extremely bright, capable, a lot of experience i think that andrew, the big question is president trump has

actually left joe biden a lot of leverage on the table in probably the two most important foreign policy theaters, china and iran, and you can agree or disagree with his tariff policy on china i tended to agree with that more or his decision to scrap the iran nuclear deal and impose sanctions on iran, which i frankly haven't had a lot of problem with either. where president trump was weak was going from creating that leverage to actually engaging in a negotiation that uses that leverage, you know, to lock in the gains. so now that he's leaving office, though, he's leaving on the table, andrew, tremendous leverage for biden in both of these theaters, and i can't tell you how they're going to use it. but he's really got the potential and the tools to reforge a new nuclear deal with iran that will be improved over the other. and maybe take the kind of trade

deal that trump was aspiring to and negotiate it, you know, to the conclusion that we'll have long-term benefit as well. so the president has left the biden team with a lot of leverage on the table that they can use, and i have a lot of confidence in people like blinken will use it well. >> thanks for your time this morning. good to see you. >> you too, becky. thank you. coming up on "squawk box," why paypal is bullish on bitcoin or rather maybe bitcoin is bullish because of paypal, we'll explain. plus, is texas going to be the next state to relock down its population we'll ask the governor coming up ♪ everyone wakes up every morning to a world that must keep turning. moving. going. the world can't stop, so neither can we.

because the things we make, help make the world go round. we are builders, constantly creating things that make our world cleaner, healthier, and more connected. so that the small moments that help define who we are, and the big plans that make life wonderful can keep on rolling. because while gravity may keep our planet on its axis, it's what we build that keeps things moving forward. so with every turn, we'll keep building a world that works. so with every turn, ♪

♪ adapting. innovating. lsetting the course. but new ways of working demand a new type of network. one that's more than just fast. you need flexibility- to work from anywhere. and manage from everywhere. advanced technology. with serious security. and reliable coverage, nationwide. forward-thinking enterprises, deserve forward-thinking solutions. and that's what we deliver. so bounce forward, with comcast business.

coming up on the other side of this break, pay pal ceo dan schulman is going to join us on bitcoin as the cryptocurrency builds on its all time high from three years ago. check out where it's trading right now, $18,487 stay tuned, you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc let's get checked for a full range of conditions.

let's get fast, accurate results. introducing letsgetchecked health testing you do at home. know your health. know yourself. now, get 40% off at letsgetchecked dot com

bitcoin prices spiking, in fact, up 17% just last week. this moving coming as two big players push into the cryptocurrency market, paypal, and square kate rooney has more on this front. good morning >> good morning, becky

good to see you. square and paypal users are adding to recent demand for bitcoin. the payment companies let users buy and sell cryptocurrencys, with paypal's product launching a couple of weeks ago. according to some estimates, those companies are soaking up all of the new bitcoin coming on to the market each day paypal partnered with a accompanied called paxos the exchange had seen steady volumes. take a look, volume skyrocketed, according to crypto hedge fen pantera capital, paypal users are buying up about 70% of new bitcoin coming on to the market. pantera estimates that square had been buying up more than 40% of new bitcoin jack dorsey's company added $50 million worth of bitcoin to its balance sheet this year. the surge in demand from fintech players, offering it on more mainstream apps, the companies

are taking friction out of buying becky, back to you >> you know, kate, it's been almost three years since bitcoin hit the all time high around 20,000, and we saw the huge decline, the huge drop, and now we are seeing it run back up the volatility concerns a lot of investors out there, makes them wonder about how this works, what it means. what's changed since then? what might keep it from dropping again now that it's run up so much >> these players getting in, that's been one of the biggest changes. it used to be the crypto exchanges like coin base, you had to take a picture of yourself with your passport to prove it was you it would take as much as a week to sign up some of the barriers are now gone, and you see a shift in the buyers it was three years ago, very much a retail buyer. you heard stories of people talking about bitcoin over thanksgiving it's institutional buyers, paul tudor jones, and people like that you hear some of the people are taking the bitcoin that they buy

and actually moving it off of exchanges into things like cold storage for security reasons, and i'm also hearing there's some numbers that show that is actually taking some of the bitcoin supply out of the market, because they take it out of the exchanges and move to cold storage interesting to watch, but slightly different volatility with bitcoin. >> great to see you. thank you for that we're going to continue this conversation because some of the biggest investors have been sounding off recently on the utility of bitcoin >> i'm a bit of a dinosaur, but i have warmed up to the fact that bitcoin could be an asset class but has a lot of attraction to both millennials and the new west coast money, and as you know, they've got a lot of it. >> i invest, i think, a couple of hundred million, 200 million, something, that is like 1% of my

asset at that time my mind share is somewhat affected, you know, i'm looking at five minutes a day, you know, how the price was, and i said, this is distracting my focus on my own business, which i don't understand. >> it's hard to say is it worth the price it's trading at today, do i think it's a durable mechanism that i think will take the place of gold to some extent, i do, because it's so much more functional than passing a bar of gold around. >> all of this commentary is worth noting, following paypal's announcement that it would allow users to buy, sell, and hold cryptocurrency on its platform joining us is the man behind that decision, paypal ceo, dan schulman great to see you this morning. we have watched the run up to value of bitcoin since you made that announcement, the idea of it being adopted more globally,

and the view, i think, that other rivals of yours, and others in the financial community are going to be coming in at some point behind you. we'll see whether day do let me ask you straight up about the value proposition of bitcoin because a lot of people say what is its true value, what is the inherent value of bitcoin, how do you value it? i know you own some yourself how do you value it? >> yeah, well, i think all forms of money are based on trust and set values that come from that trust. i think if you take a step back, andrew, especially with the pandemic, you've seen the use of cash decline precipitously something like 40 to 70% of consumers no longer want to handle cash. and just like every industry is digitizing right now, that is also happening in the financial

services world there is no question that people are flocking to digital payments and digital forms of currency. and one of the things that we looked at and we talked to regulators around the world. central banks around the world, and it became clear to me that it's a matter of, you know, not if, but when and how you'll start to see more and more central banks issue forms of digital currencies, and i think you'll have more and more utility happen with cryptocurrencys, one of the things that we allowed not just making it easy to buy, sell, and hold crypto current scurrencys y importantly, early next year, we're going to allow cryptocurrencys to be a funding source for any transaction happening on all 28 million of our merchants, and that will

significantly bolster the utility of cryptocurrencys. >> dan, but just to put a fine point on that, because then you start to talk about bitcoin not as an asset or commodity, but as a true currency, if you will, however, i think it's worth explaining to the audience that you don't intend for, for example, if i had bitcoin and i was going to buy a pizza, to use my bitcoin to pay the merchant, and them to receive bitcoin, my understanding is that i would pay in bitcoin and you would immediately transact into u.s. dollars. is that correct? >> yeah, that's correct, andrew. so what would happen is you would buy say bitcoin on our platform, and you would hold, and that bitcoin would have a certain amount of value. and say you wanted to make a transaction at any of our merchants, we would tell you exactly how much of that bitcoin

you'd need to make that transaction. we would then immediately translate that amount of bitcoin into fiat currency, and so the volatility goes away you know exactly how much you need for that transaction. it would be converted into fiat, and then we would use that fee at currency, u.s. dollar, for instance, to make the transaction at the retailer. so the retailer doesn't have to accept a new form of currency, like crypto. they're basically doing this in fiat currency. they don't have to worry about volatility anymore but the consumer now has another funding instrument, just like cash or a debit card or whatever it may be in their paypal wallet to be able to use to make a transaction. so we're making it very simple and easy for people to utilize crypto as a funding source. >> dan, i appreciate the bull

case in that scenario. i also appreciate there's a bear case in the scenario it suggests that fiat currency is here to stay in a meaningful way, and i want to ask about a comment that jamie diamond made. jp morgan has been supportive of crypto, and increasingly bitcoin itself his concern, i think longer term, andi don't want to speak for him is this idea that if it ever gets to a quote unquote escape velocity of sorts that regulators could come in, given that they have their own interest in a fiat currency as you might imagine. >> well, i think it's foundational that we work hand in hand with regulators, i mean, our move into the crypto space happened because we worked hand in hand with new york department of financial services, received the first conditional bit license to go and do this. i don't think you can manage and move money without working hard

in hand with regulators whether that be regulators or central banks. >> i think the question is whether central banks around the world at some point may say, you know what, we're not doing it this way, or may seek to effectively crowd out a bit bitcoin, if you will, by making their own currencies digital and what you think that does for the value of something like a bony, and then of course all of the customers that seem to be on paypal now using it to buy up bitcoins. >> yeah, well, i do think as paper money slowly dissipates, and disappears from how people are using transactions, central banks, especially on the retail side, will need to replace paper money with forms of digital fiat currency let's be clear, these are both crypto, and cbdcs or central

bank digital currencies, are digital currencies but very different forms of digital currency central bank digital currencies are fiat currency that's digitized. cryptocurrencys aren't backed by a central bank or a government by the way, both may play important roles going forward. some of the underlying infrastructure, more modern infrastructure that backs some of these cryptocurrencys, the ability to do smart contracts, may enhance some transactions, the ability to digitize assets may more democratize the ability to buy different assets for more and more people. it may be more inclusive, bringing people in, who are outside the financial system today. so i think there's a lot of potential benefits as we move more and more to digital

currencies, but i will say foundationally, this needs to be done hand in hand with regulators and governments. >> dan, before i let you gor, back to the question of value, people will tell you each bitcoin will be worth a million dollars, and others will tell me every bitcoin in the end, you know, could be worth $10, a hundred dollars, a thousand dollars. what do you think? >> well, you know, that's so hard to predict the future here's what i do think, i think that there will be more and more use cases for cryptocurrencys. i think if they're just an asset class, then the volatility of that investment can go up or down but as they become more and more utilized in every day commerce, you know, and this is the promise of what we're doing on

the paypal platform, i think they start to move from being less of just an asset class and more into a currency and when you start to move crypto as a potential funding instrument, i think that bolsters its utility, and stabilizes it as well. becomes less volatile because it can be used every day in your purchases. and so i think as that begins to happen, we'll still be more stable, and perhaps, i don't know, maybe not have these sudden swings up and down, but i think in general, it probably becomes more valuable than less over time, but again, it's an investment investments go up and investments go down. >> dan schulman, it's always great to see you >> thank you, andrew >> you bet all right. coming up, we are going to get jim's first take on the markets on this holiday shortened week

as well, remember there's this thing called thanksgiving on thursday. >> and texas governor greg abbott, i'm ing goto ask straight up is he going to relock down the state. we'll find out dow is up after this with a mission to provide fun for all through strong assortments, value, & experience over the years, we've given customers not just great products, but outstanding experiences. we can't wait to have customers nationwide have fun out there.

welcome back to "squawk box," and good monday morning. futures are up triple digits, indicating this red hot month for stocks certainly might continue at they have come off their high dow futures up 156 this is something i'll dare call

random but interesting 68 s&p 500 stocks have gained 25% just this month. that is hot. and by the way, there is news outside of vaccines and bitcoin. tesla shares on the rise right now. guys, a very bullish call from web bush analyst dan ives about an hour ago, his price for tesla, 560, the ultimate bull target is a thousand dollars per share. the average analyst target 385 as electric vehicles becoming 10% of global auto sales by 2025 tesla is up 2% right now what would that make elon musk richer than bezos or at least close. >> it would get very very close. we'd have to do the math it would get very very close. meantime, when we come back on the other side of the break, texas governor greg abbott is

going to tell us what he needs to hear from washington to bridge the gap from today to the day when a coronavirus vaccine becomes widely available ay'll talk to him. st tuned "squawk box" returns right after this congratulations! welcome to the aflac program. aflac! now tell me, what does aflac do?

aflac pays you money directly to help with unexpected medical bills. and is aflac health insurance? no, but it can help with expenses health insurance doesn't cover! that's right. are there any questions? -coach! -yes? can i get one of those cool blue blazers? you know i can't play favorites. alright let's talk coverage. it's go time! get help with expenses health insurance doesn't cover. mmm hmm! get to know us at aflac.com

let's get over to cnbc headquarters and check in with jim cramer who is standing why to get ready to take over for us really decent news and a vaccine that has 90% efficacy in some cases. that's the third candidate and this one does have some advantages like it doesn't have to be kept at the super cold levels this is really good news to see all of these things out there. i know it's not here and not ready to go, but the market is up today you think that's worthy? >> yeah, i think that anything that makes us feel like all these vaccines seem to work. i think if you go back eight months it would have been absurd to think that three for three got a couple more out there and we have that news about merck buying a little company and we also have len talking about regeneron thaurputing. everything seems to be working that people are trying i would say now we have to figure out how the government can distribute it to us and the

questions involving the cvs issue is very potent really no plan at all about what happens once it gets to the drugstore level. there's bipartis there's been multiple plans on where it goes and favors states and the states don't really have the ability to figure this out so, i mean, i just don't want people to get ahead of themselves i think the bottle neck of distribution is going to be painful. >> i think that's a fair point jim, thank you we'll see you in just a few minutes. >> thank you all right. meantime texas is getting hit hard by the current wave of the coronavirus. daily cases hitting a new high over the weekend and as of friday, texas had more than 8,000 covid patients hospitalized the first time that happened since the summer joining us now to talk more about the fight against the virus and what the states need to do to make it through until we get that vaccine that we just talked about is texas governor greg abbot good to see you, again i look forward to seeing you again in person in your great

state before we talk about the economy, i'm sure you're hearing from all the hospitals around the state what is the state of hospitals in texas right now as far as capacity and beds >> wel llisten, we constantly wi collaboration with those hospitals to make sure their capacity needs are met and surge medical personnel to the hospitals that need it the most. you all probably have spoken about the status of el paso maybe for several weeks now. the good news is this and that is for the past several days in a row, hospitalizations have gone down in el paso, as well as the number of people testing positive the same thing is true with regard to a decrease in hospitalizations in lubbock, texas. those were the two hottest of the hot spots and then as we onboard these anti-body therapeutics fist, the eli lilly that we begin distributing this past week what that will do to decrease the number of people going into hospitals in the future and

costs with the onboarding of the regeneron drug that should arrive shortly we are working our way through and managing the hospitalization proswhile al process while also working to contain the spread of covid-19 >> i'm going to shift back to business i know you said it recently, but i'm going to ask you, again, governor given the surge, are you going to relockdown or tighten controls on the lone star state? >> first, no more lockdowns in texas. second, we had a plan in place before this most recent outbreak and what that plan entailed was that if one of our 22 hospital regions in the state of texas has a hospitalization rate of 15% total beds occupied by covid patients that leads to openings of 50% across the board, as well as closing down bars and those regions.

so, we planned this out in advance about what would happen if there was an increase and it has led, for example, to that decrease in spread in el paso and i think the decrease in spread in lubbock causing those locations to get better already. >> governor, governor abbott, i wanted to ask you about this election and the transition. a number of business leaders increasingly republican politicians have come out publicly and not just congratulated president-elect biden, but called for president trump to finally concede chris christie his adviser called the legal efforts at this point a national embarrassment where do you stand >> i stand in the position of always wanting to see what the numbers look like in each individual state as they move towards the electoral college. remember this, a presidential election is different than any

other election it doesn't matter what a media outlet says or what i say or anybody else says about calling the election the election for president is not called until the electoral college vote counts. and along those lines, you see that there is going to be an additional recount in georgia. you see that there is ongoing litigation in pennsylvania and we need to wait and see how all these issues filter out. the good thing is there is a timeline in effect for all these processes to come to an end and that timeline is coming up very quickly. >> governor, though, just to follow up. given the pandemic and this crisis that we're living through, do you believe it is incumbent upon the trump administration to begin at least provisionally working with the transition team that president-elect biden has put together >> for one, i wouldn't be surprised if they are. but for another you all need to understand this and it's not as if the trump administration has stopped working on this.

and is incapable of providing a handoff as one quick example the governors have been meeting with the white house coronavirus team on a constant basis our next meeting is this afternoon where we're going to be talking about the distribution both of these antibody therapeutics, as well as the vaccines coming down the pike in just a couple weeks. so, we continue this ongoing process with federal agencies, secretary azar is going to be the leader of this today talking about how we will be distributing this. and think about this, there will be a month of distribution of vaccines before the inauguration even takes place >> hey, governor, we just heard from jim cramer who raised concerns of the states distributing this. what is your plan and will you be ready to go and how will you decide who gets it and who doesn't? >> not so much each state has their own plan the states begin working with the coronavirus vaccination plan

with the white house coronavirus team several months ago. we finalized those plans and first a strategy about who receives the vaccines first and that is those who are most vulnerable, as well as the front line health care workers and then internally within the states, we have our own distribution networks already set up we have known months in advance that the vials of the vaccine are already in place that was part of our operation warp speed. and those vials are ready to be sent to us the day after the emergency use authorization is provided we are expecting to be able to begin the distribution process as early as december the 12th. >> you know, excuse me, governor, what all the schools are like in texas. i know andrew, becky and myself we can speak to the state of schools in new york and new jersey, as well. some are open, but many more are closed we also know this, if you're a service worker, nurse, firefighter, first responder,

restaurant worker you can't zoom to work. you leave young children at home alone or you tell your employer i can't come in or maybe have to quit your job. what is the state of schools in texas and how hard are you guys working to make sure schools remain open safely, of course, because it's an economic tragedy for many and also an inequality issue for many >> right and i'll add to that we are seeing in texas, as well as across the entire country that there are learning challenges and learning set backs fback for the students not in school it's important for those children and it's important for our society that we get those children educated and also everything i heard and from every doctor i heard talk about this the potential for spread in schools is far less minuscule because of the, you know, the youth. simply do not contract covid at the same rate and spread at the same rate. what we're doing in the state of

texas, we're working to maintain the opening of schools as much as possible. we're putting on the front lines of the early recipients of both the vaccine as well as the antibody therapeutics and the teachers and the educators to make the school setting even safer. >> governor, thank you very much, governor abbott. appreciate it. have to leave it there thank you. >> my pleasure thank you. >> and thank you, brian, for sitting in for joe today great to see you make sure you join all of us tomorrow "squawk on the street" begins right now. good morning and welcome to 'crosswalk "squawk on the street. carl has the moweek off we have a big holiday towards the end of it. there you see we're going to look up this morning and, why, well, it starts with the beginning of our road map which begins with that