vaccine approved in the uk and rollout set for next week. and why joe biden says he will not immediately remove the trump era tariffs on china and find out what walmart is doing to take its battle with amazon to the next level it is wednesday, december 2, and "squawk box" begins right now. ♪ good morning, everybody. welcome to "squawk box." i'm becky quick along with joe kernen and andrew ross sorkin. and if you have been watching, it was a day for the record books once again u.s. equity nuts up pretty significantly, s&p the setting a new record as was the nasdaq yesterday. the dow was up by about 400 points at one point, it gave

back some of the gains still ended up about 185 points, but shy of a new record for that index. this morning dow futures indicated down about 73 points and it is just one stock that is dragging it down salesforce, and we'll talk more about that in a moment s&p 500 futures down by about 3 1/2, and nasdaq off by about 6. and if you have been watching the treasury market, you will see that at some point at least the ten year looks like it is picking up a little bit. there is good news out there if you want to tell us more about that, andrew >> there is good news. let's get right to it. the uk authorizing the pfizer/biontech covid vaccine for emergency use. it will first grow go to medica and elderly, as early as next week

julianna tatelbaum is joining us with more. >> and certainly feels like a big day here in the united kingdom with the uk becoming the first country in the world to authorize this biontech/pfizer vaccine. 40 million doses are due to arrive in the uk between this year and next year and they will arrive in vaccinations are set begin next week. first off the hospitals, then the advantage sin nation centers which are currently being set up and then eventually community rollout which means pharmacies and general practitioners. and today we learned around the order of prioritization of the vaccines during the first phase, the vaccines will go first to people who are most at risk of dying from covid-19 as well as health and social care workers. what was explained to us this morning in a press conference is that the calculations were based on estimated risk of dying from

covid-19 and the biggest single risk factor there is age as to the first people who will receive the vaccination or be offered the vaccination are residents in care homes and their careers, then all of those 80 years of age or older as well as front line oig health and social workers, then it goes down in about five year increments and then number six on the priority list are all those people between the ages of 16 and 64 with underlying health conditions which put them at higher risk of serious disease and mortality. so we learned all of that this morning as well as we gwe got cg that the vaccine is safe for widespread use, the safety of the vaccine is similar to other vaccines and most side fepgeffe are usually mild so offering assurances to the public on this historic day. >> as you look at that time line, what does it looks like in terms of going from the nursing

homes to number 6six on the lis. and how will they be contacted i think a lot of people looking at your country as a trial run >> what is unique about the united kingdom, this is august being done in a very centralized way through the nhs, the national health system so the nhs will reach out and offer the vaccine to those people as they appear on the list and they will do it in a centralized manner when it comes to moving down that list, we are expecting 40 billion doses between now and the end of next year so that is just 20 million people because this is a two dose regime. so it will take some time, it will likely be the middle of 2021 before we see the masses vaccinated so it will be the elderly who will be prioritized near term.

>> okay. thank you. good news for the uk and hopefully good news for the world. appreciate it. becky. and in the meantime, the cdc has voted on immunization practices here in the united states it decided that health care workers and those in long term health care facilities will get the vaccine first, but that raises all kinds of questions because there won't be enough in the early days to cover all of those people, so there will have to be those who are prioritized even within those ranks. the cdc is also set to update its quarantine guidelines saying people exposed to covid 7 to 10 days to get it down to 7 days, an individual would have to receive a negative covid test. otherwise you wouldhave to wai for ten days >> think about that. have we adopted that yet >> i know usual counting tyou'r

days >> yes i don't like to delay. it is difficult. and you know, we have that great you producer, max, he gets me stuff, you know, in the morning. whether it is a latte or something. but i look forward to that i miss that. although i do get toast. dry toast. >> you miss having people wait on you >> cheers to you, becky. >> what was that tequila you -- that is coffee, or is that -- are you really going crazy and having some seltzer? >> this is water >> i've got the coffee here and i've got the water here. so it is clear, so it could be whatever you want to be right now. >> exactly we'll see how the show goes.

in other virus news, the fda granting emergency use authorization for a roche covid-19 antibody test they say it detects antibody against the spike protein within blood samples. we'll talk about all this with scott gottlieb, so tune into that i think that is at 7:30. coming up though, walmart takes another shot at amazon as the holiday shopping season heats up those details next but as we head to break, check out this morning's biggest stock move movers ok, just keep coloring there...

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. welcome back want to talk about shipping. walmart is dropping the $35 minimum order for members of its walmart plus loyalty program to ship stuff the change only applies to items bought on walmart.com.

of course this is a big competitive effort to amazon prime. meantime, big merger deal. marc benioff talking about their big acquisition of slack for more than $27 billion in cash and stock. and here is what he told jim cramer last night about it >> slack changes everything. and makes salesforce a whole new type of company. a company that is truly architected to work from anywhere we have already introduced salesforce work from anywhere a couple months ago, but now with slack, it super charges our proposal it lets our customers rearchitect their workforce to be truly from anywhere >> take a look at shares of salesforce right now, and slack, salesforce has come off a bit on

perhaps maybe the price of the deal slack of course still not a profitable enterprise. the big question is whether putting it together will help salgs force oig be able to turbo charge its business and we'll see. shack off marginally joining us right now to talk more about this is stephanie link with hightower, and stephanie, good morning. great to see you >> good morning. >> so what did you think about salesforce and this deal with slack? >> well, i think the deal is very positive for the long term. i think everyone is upset because benioff the ceo three months ago said that they weren't going to do any deals and now they did the biggest deal on record paying twice the

multiple as they did with tableau. so there is a lot of uncertainty. but i would say that lhas change in the last three months what are we talking about? vaccines being administered as early as next week we wouldn't have thought about this three months ago. so i think that it is forward looking from the ceo and the company and i think that it is transformational so i would not get too upset about the short term action in the stock. if anything, i would look to be buying i thought the quarter was fine margins big up side. they beat margins by 260 basis points cash flow is strong, bookings up 60%. so the fundamentals are solid and he is building an empire and i think you want to be buying this over the coming days on the weakness >> on the weakness even this morning down by 4%, you'd buy?

>> yeah, i mean the problem is, the stock is up 30% from last quarter and up 44% on the year so expectations were a little inflated ahead of print. so only down 4 pr%, i would lov for it to be 10% and then i'd go in with all guns blazing if you will >> you mention that we're talking about vaccines and trying to get to the other side of covid but some of your picks are still very much based on the changes that were brought about by covid starting with the housing trends you like sherwin williams and you think that is because continued move for people looking for housing, making sure that they have their own place to stay, you think that will continue even after covid kind of disappears or at least gets maybe a little more under control? >> yeah, and we've talked when a couple different housing plays in the last couple months. ppg, black and decker, sherwin williams is beneficiary. we've seen great data points on housing, no surprise in terms of

permits and new home sales hitting a million last month one data point that i want to highlight, single family home sales that have not started are up 91.5% year over year. and that is an enormous pent up demand and backlog so you definitely want to have exposu exposure sherwin up 27% year to date, so it is not exactly undiscovered but this company growing free cash flow of 30% ofafter they py out the dividend their margins are expanding by 200 to 300 basis points. they are gaining market share and they have pricing power. so i want to have exposure to housing, i want to be selective in what i'm buying, but i believe that this trend will continue not only from covid, but we're also hearing from companies like d.r. horton, they said any l said millennials are starting to buy as well. so i think that you still want to have exposure there for sure.

>> maybe spurred the trend that we thought would eventually happen anyway, that the millennials would buy houses so this sparks the trend and maybe it continues from here >> absolutely. low interest rates will help my only concern is pricing is starting to go higher. so we have to keep an eye on home prices. obviously that is because we only have two months of supply in housing the inventory is not there so let's keep an eye on pricing. but that is why i suggest that sherwin williams has pricing power to offset that too >> one of the stocks you like is another stay-at-home one, match group. again, you think this is a situation where the demand for this sticks around long after maybe we are able to get back out? >> yeah, it is a stay-at-home, but also a total addressable market story 600 million global online singles ages 18 to 65. growing at 3.5% per year

and 65% of these people haven't even used online sites yet so this company is going to increase their market share, increase their free cash flow, grow total revenues double digits, and also improve over time so it is a pure play and that should help the multiple ove time and the liquidity over time so i wouldn't even look at this dough years ago, but now i'm looking at it because it is very lick kid and again, it is a pure play and i think the multiple will improve over time >> what about blackstone, another one of your picks. explain the rationale here for the private equity company >> yeah, and it is kind of a laggard. only up about 8% year to date. it is best in class private equity and they have leading market share in the industry. so they will benefit as

investors increase that are allocations looking for noncorrelated assets and they will also benefit from low interest rates and investors looking for more private opportunities. and i think their cash flow growth is very consistent and that is really because of their fee income growth from assets under management as well as better performance and the long duration assets 3 to 7 years to hold private equity and so they can retain the assets under management versus an asset manager which can kind of see fluctuations in their assets so i think fee related earnings can glow mid single digits great management team with a good bench too so i think this one can work >> stephanie, nice to see you in the morning. thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having me. we have a lot more coming up this morning why a record number of americans are renouncing their

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a record number of americans are renouncing their citizenship and it is mostly because of money. robert frank is joining us with

more i like to be agnostic, but reading this, i don't know, just something so dear that some people work so hard for and just would really -- it is very precious ten years some people to finally -- and it is a great kay day in their life. this is about money? maybe it is not as bad as i think. >> it is about a lot of things let's just talk about the numbers first. the number of americans who have renounced their citizenship has more than tripled since last year to more than 6,000. that is a record because u.s. embassies have frozen new applications since march, attorneys say the real number of people who intend to renounce could be five to ten times higher and we've also seen a big surge in wealthy americans buying second or third passports in europe or asia with through the gold golden visa programs

eric schmidt recently became a citizen of cypress all of this is driven by a tax law that forced any american citizen to report overseas tax accounts and file taxes. but the pandemic also increased demand for passport forportfolis that makes international travel easier and clients are citing the likelihood of higher taxes, more debt and political dysfunction in washington as a reason to move to many of the places like the virgin islands, singapore are popular destinations americans worth $2 million or no have to pay capital gains tangss on all of their assets as an exit tax and as you say, it is not only sort of near and dear to

americans, but it is also very costly so it shows you how motivated these 6,000 people were to renounce >> so we had an election, the bad orange man is leaving, dude. this is not babs and hollywood exodus they never leave when they say they are going to. so it is not that. it is capital gains on every penny of that 2 million, that is hurtful. >> yeah, and to your point, what prompted a lot of people to start either signing up or leaving in the first three quarter, remember these numbers could grow even more because we are still waiting on the fourth quarter numbers, was the prospect of capital gains taxes under a biden plan going to the ordinary income rate so that actually makes that exit tax worth it as well as an increase in the estate tax now, a lot of people who move overseas do to avoid capital gains and the estate tax not so much about income tax and if those two things consider

going up under biden, that whole calculus of paying the income tax versus a higher staestate tx and capital gains became worth it for people to leave if we have a divided senate, that is likely not going to happen, so this could all slow but that was a catalyst why a lot of people started to leave >> the numbers are still pretty small. but it does kind of throw a wrench in the works of the notion that they did that over in europe and people just moved to different countries and then people would say you can't do that in the united states, you're stuck apparently you can do it if we nationally become too heavy as far as taxation goes i guess you can leave. i could never i don't think. >> you're right, the number is fairly small, but it is the tripling in one year and that it is only nine months so it could

grow even further and the fact that we've had frozen applications, there is a demand of five to ten times that amount, so then you are talking 40,000 to 60,000 people and the it gets to be a real number and a loss of revenue taxes. >> all right, robert frank, you'll be here, i feel the love of country coming from you every day. so i think we'll still be together thank god see you later. becky. and when we come back, we'll talk about elon musk and the warning he gave to workers in his always colorful way. he said there is something that could get the stock crushed like a souffle under a sledgehammer we'll talk about that when we come back. first though, take a look at yesterday's s&p 500 winners and losers

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good morning u.s. equity futures down triple digits this morning on the dow after some big moves on the first trading day of the month following a strong november. i don't know, andrew, the vaccine news, a lot of it is out obviously. and a lot of it is out, the news is out and in the market over the last six months obviously. so i don't know how much more traction we get, but things are happening. i mean, people will be getting that vaccine in the uk like near term so things z are starting to happen so it is good. >> you think it was a buy the

rumor sell the news kind of situation? >> it always works that way. but i think that the process spepgts radios pekts for -- i don't want to talk about hug, but going to a bowling alley, or other things that people like do that we're not doing very much. i think the process pepgt spect that again, i like wearing those bowling shirts, you know, like charlie sheen on that two millennial amen and whatever it was. i miss a lot of things that we don't do anymore hugging is one of them and seeing you guys every day at the nasdaq, all those things we're getting there, but i think the market has already gotten there. >> the market is already there it appears that way, and hopefully things will get even better having said that, these next two months where you are looking at covid cases rising and then you

have auto sales and other things that are off so it is hard to make sense of it talking about auto sales by the way, or autos, making some headlines,elon musk of tesla o course now warning his employees in an email yesterday, he called on workers to control their spending as tesla continues to try to squeak out quarterly profits. he wrote investors are giving us a lot of credit for future profit ability, but if at any point they conclude that is not going to happen, our stock will immediately get crushed like a s souffle under a sledgehammer tesla sales this year as you well know have been on quite a tear down a little bit this morning in large part because they will be added to the s&p 500 later this month and i don't know if you saw it, he went on a trip to germany in the past 48 hours and he was asked whether he wanted to be buried on mars

and his answer was just not on impact >> that's clever >> it is i don't want to be buried anywhere that is my answer like would you rather know when you're going to die or where you're going to die? i want to know where and i just won't go there not mars all right. >> well, we'll be coming back to earth in a moment on the other side of this break nasdaq looking to make history pushing its list 6 companies to focus on more diversity and we'll talk about it with ursula byrnes and darren walker of course a reminder that you can watch or listen to us anytime on the cnbc app. america's been waiting for.

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from a resume data base so you can start hiring right away. claim your seventy-five-dollar credit when you post your first job at indeed.com/promo welcome back the nasdaq pushing for greater diversity on corporate boards, something we spoke to the ceo of

nasdaq about yesterday >> we're not the leader here in the world. the other countries have taken bigger and bolder steps in terms of requiring board diversity and i think that it has been an issue over the last decade to try to understand how can we bring more diversity on to boards there is a huge body of evidence to show that there is a lot of benefits in terms of financial performance and control environment when you have a more diverse board. >> joining us now to discuss potential impact on businesses, darren walker and ursula burns and both are founders of the board diversity action alliance. good morning to both of you. appreciate you being with us ursula, i'll start with you. this is a big decision by nasdaq could have a huge implication on over 3,000 companies of course there are folks the

second this was announced that said may be a good idea that businesses should be pursuing but not necessarily a rule what do you think? >> i think that we're splitting hairs here i think that what nasdaq did is an affirmative move. it is one that as we spoke about before on this show, it is one that is long in coming, there is a lot of evidence, full body of evidence that companies perform better with diverse boards so pushing against this or arguing against it in my opinion is actually senseless, something that we should get on with and just do. companies across the world are starting to recognize this and nasdaq is giving it a boost to push it forward. >> interestingly, the government

oddly enough -- i don't know if it is oddly enough, because nasdaq is a private business, they do have to approve this >> that's right, but let's be clear here this is about performance, about productivity and about profit. so this is not about political correctness. this will inure to the bottom line of every company that had ed adopts this poll is i. the challenge is that people don't like being told to do the right thing. and i think what we know is from this year, i find that when i serve on boards and i serve on three public company boards, the goal is to have every director being accete some valued a if we look back, there were many companies in this environment

who were not resilient in a moment where diversity would have helped those boards i found myself in a situation with a ceo who had no diversity on his board or in his brating committee asking me to join him in a meeting with his black employe employees. had he had a day verse board, he wouldn't have to call his black friend and say would you come to meet with the black employees so that he understand that i care about our issues if you care about the issues of your diverse employees, your board will look like them. >> right not only your employees, but your customers, your shareholders the world is a diverse world and so inclusion of all types of people in decision making and sharing of the gains and of the

suffering is natural so the debate and the discussion about whether this is a good thing or bad thing i think is in the past now what we have to do is get on with it. and i applaud nasdaq in being the first in the united states to actually step out in this type of agency, to step out and move forward it does require government intervention and approval. and i think that when that happens, because i am fairly confident that that will happen, when that happens, it will be just an amazingly positive step forward for america's diversity and inclusion efforts. >> ursula, i know we've talked about it before, i got i thought a bit hammered on twitter yesterday when some people seemed to think i wassed aed adg for more diversity on boards, but people come back and they

say look, what about meritocracy, why doing it just based on somebody's gender or age. sorkin, you're a middle aged white man. frankly, i think we can agree we want more diversity even on our own network. you will be hurting other people what do you tell those people out there who have that view >> we have never in america practiced this theory or seen this theory of zero sum game this argument comes up only when we speak about diversity and inclusion, about including people who have the right, who have the talent. we never discussed and i don't think nasdaq is discussing, and the board tdiversity action alliance, companies across america are not speaking when including people who are not up to the challenge and up to the game who are not skilled in doing the work that is required.

that is not a debate at all. seem to throw this debate into kind of derail the conversation. we're talking about including skilled diverse people on boards they exist, they have not been included in the past, for a myriad of reasons, part of it is people believe that white men own these seats. we're talking about including skilled people into the mix so that we can have better outcomes as darren said, this is not charity. this is a better bottom line better financial performance better and happiy yeier employen investors, end of discussion this is a good thing to do and the right thing to do. >> and what this is about is in-coupin incumbent and status quo

people on twitter are committed to the status quo. and i think given how much corporate america talks about innovation and continuing new frontiers, this is the next frontier in this country and the post-covid world, we will be living in a time where diversity is expected. i don't show up on panels anymore that are not diverse when you walf token pre-covid world that we lived in, that was acceptable. but that is no longer acceptable and we need to move from tokenism to real representation. and when we do that, companies will be better >> ursula, you must get frustrated just from the number of people who say we can't find qualified candidates, but what do you tell them when they say things like that, how can you actually help boards or ceos who

are looking to make sure that they are promoting qualified people where do you tell them to look, what have they done wrong, where are they not thinking -- what are they not doing >> i think one of the things that we have to do is help these people who don't have friends and neighbors that they generally run with that they can see have the talent that they need because the way that most boards are populated today as you know is i know a friend, i know a friend, i know a friend. so there are a couple things one, we will help them know better and more people the board can help, eoc can help, there are organizations out there who can help search firms can help. second, find one and it is amazing, anything, african-americans, gay, lesbians, women, it is amazing how many flock around like people so if you get one, you will ge

then you get more people third, that when you make it known and what nasdaq is doing that it is a requirement, it is amazing how many people come out of the woodwork. it happened in the uk, it is happening in california. when they said that they had to have women, surprise, surprise, a lot of women appeared. this idea that there is not -- talent doesn't exist is a falsehood. the idea that they don't know where the talent is true so i think what we have to do and what we're committed to do, black leader, women leaders, to help companies find people, help companies engage with search firms who can help them find people, and we'll be able to make progress in this space. >> darren, before we go, i just want to ask, one of the things we discussed yesterday, that nasdaq doesn't come it on its own, that the s.e.c. would do

something similar and they can do it across all the exchanges and private companies as well. would you had vow cyou had vowa? >> absolutely. we need to scale this idea fast. and the most effective way is through public policy. >> and if i may, the bigger issue is on venture firms and on private companies where there is little transparency and very, very little diversity. so this has to happen across the board. >> ursula, darren, we appreciate you joining us as always happy holidays and coming up, the pandemic forcing companies around the world to change the way they do business rent the runway definitely an example of that. its ceo will join be us next

well, the pandemic taking a toll on many retailers forcing many others to rethink the way they do business rent the runway closed all of its physical locations and expanded its resale offerings. joining us is the company co-founder and ceo jenn hyman. i know we were going to do this a couple of times previously it's great to finally have you back on. net-net, and none of us will ever look back on 2020 fondly obviously, but has there been some positives for you in terms of your business model and

transitioning to what was, you know, an inevitability anyway? just been sort of sped up for you? >> yeah. i think that a few things. first is that this has pushed online shopping, especially in fashion, in a way that it would have taken decades to bring kind of customer segments on to the web that weren't there before. so we have seen wider diversity of who's actually coming to the site in the first place. and we think that that change is permanent because ageless customers are now feeling comfortable going on their mobile phone and shopping for fashion. the second thing that we saw is early on in the pandemic we had had a very small resale business it essentially doubled early on in the pandemic. customers were deriving a lot of value from buying secondhand clothing we had seen a shift when we

surveyed our customers over sustainability which had been a nice to have as a customer value prop for the first ten years of the business really became the first or second reason why customers were saying that they were starting their subscription or they were coming to rent the runway so that is extremely positive for us and for the circular economy going forward because i think that now we're living in a world where we're never going to think about health and the environment and sustainability in the same way again. it's going to be prioritized and then we made decisions to make our subscription product more customizable. clearly during this pandemic people were not using the subscription to get dressed for their everyday life as much as they were pre-pandemic they weren't going out to restaurants, et cetera, so we

had to offer personalized and more affordable programs so that customers could pay less and get less and so that really enabled a more personalized product portfolio for people to benefit us in the future >> yeah. hence, the no unlimited rental plan i guess i don't really need that anymore so you got rid of that jenn, is it -- i know -- and it's totally different than renting a car, but there's residual value to all of these clothes. how's the resale of the clothes that are no longer rented? how does that play into things and how is that business >> that business is soaring for us our resale business is -- what's interesting is that people are buying every single category of clothing from us and accessories via secondhand price we're able to dynamically price based on the age and the quality of the garment

and what we've seen over this pandemic is that secondhand clothing has just become completely normalized. in a world where we're now in a global recession and financial value is going to be even more important to the consumer, having aspirational designer product on our site but offering it at higher value than even an off price retailer would be able to offer it i think is a really compelling value proposition for the future >> okay. that makes sense jennifer, we appreciate it rent the runway co-founder and ceo. >> thank you. >> glad we were able to have you on, jenn good luck. happy holiday. >> bye >> beck? still to come this morning, we have much more on the big breaking news of the day pfizer biontech covid vaccine approved in the u.k. with a rollout set for next wk.ee we've got the full story when "squawk box" comes right back. we live in a world of fees.

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♪ should auld acquaintance be forgot ♪ ♪ and auld lang syne ♪ we'll take a cup of kindness yet ♪ ♪ for auld lang syne next customer please. ♪ ♪ breaking news, the pfizer biontech covid vaccine approved in the u.k. with the rollout set for next week. reaction from dr. scott gottleib is straight ahead. vaccine news the stimulus stalemate and payroll data will be in focus for investors today. we've got a look at what you should be watching when the markets open on wall street. and the cloud competition heating up salesforce firing a shot across the bow of microsoft with the acquisition of slack we'll break down what the deal

could mean for the sector as the second hour of "squawk box" begins right now ♪ ♪ ♪ good morning welcome back to "squawk box" right here on cnbc i'm andrew ross sorkin along with becky quick and joe kernen. take a look at u.s. equity futures at this hour we'll show you how things stand. we have good news in the u.k. about the vaccine. we'll talk about that in a moment the dow down 200 points. s&p 500 off 6 points and nasdaq looking to open down 17 points becky? >> thanks, andrew. federal reserve chair jay powell and treasury secretary steven mnuchin back on the hill as washington talks new stimulus. are they walking the walk? steve liesman joins us with yesterday's testimony and what

it means steve, good morning. >> good morning, becky the treasury secretary and the fed chair, we know they have their differences over the need to extend the fed's emergency lending programs they showed they agree on the need for new fiscal stimulus for the economy. will likely hear more talk like this today >> i continue to believe that a targeted fiscal package is the most appropriate federal response i strongly encourage congress to use the $455 billion in unused funds from the c.a.r.e.s. act to pass an additional bill with bipartisan support >> and in her first comments after being formally named by president-elect joe biden his pick for treasury secretary janet yellen signaled that the biden administration will focus on minorities, women and those hardest hit by the pandemic. >> so many people struggling to put food on the table and pay bills and rent it's an american tragedy and

it's essential that we move with urgency. >> fed chair jay powell mean while warned of the impact on the economy from the virus surge before the positive effects of the vaccine take effect. he repeated that it's better to do too much rather than too little when it comes to stimulus they have a $908 billion compromise bill. we talked about that yesterday on "squawk box." later in the day senate majority leader mitch mcconnell called for a one-month extension of unemployment benefits. with millions about to lose benefits and face eviction, there's bipartisan agreement on the need for new relief but no similar talk, did i hear, becky, of compromise that would put actual money in people's pockets. >> yeah. i think that kind of slowly became evident to people yesterday through the day especially with the comments from mcconnell coming out on that front >> right >> i guess the question becomes who would be the deal maker?

because it's been steven mnuchin who's kind of walked between the two sides for so long. maybe not much that he can or would do in a lame duck session. >> it's hard to game out the politics on this, whether or not mcconnell has any incentive to go forward with anything more than a one-month bill. obviously i think pelosi miscalculated by thinking she was going to have the senate on the democratic side. she had a bigger bill in front of her before the election and it's really hard to figure out where the president is who seems otherwise engaged in tweeting about the election even though mnuchin said that a targeted bill would have the white house's support. i don't know who the deal maker is here. i don't think washington knows and it's entirely unclear at this point how much power authority a president like biden will have to make a deal and bring the sides together i think the economic data and the market, becky, are going to

dictate what happens here, which is we have a jobs report coming up on friday and if the market sort of can scream for aid or relief and beat the turnabout the lack of it, that might motivate washington politicians. >> amazing how the market throwing a temper tantrum is the only voice that washington seems to listen to steve, thank you >> yeah. sure breaking news now on the housing market and diane olick has the latest it's a report on demand for mortgage applications. hi, diana. >> reporter: hi, joe thanksgiving week isn't a popular time historically for home buying but what's normal this year? mortgage applications to buy a home spiked 9% last week compared to the previous week and that's compared to the mortgage banker's association seasonal advancement compared with a year ago, purchase applications were up a stunning 28% and we don't usually see that kind of

comparison covid continues to drive buyer demand especially on the higher end of the market, and that was clear in the average loan application amount it sent another record high of $375,000 and that dates back to the start of that survey in 1990 now record low mortgage rates don't hurt the average on the 30 year fixed stayed put at 2.92%. that's for conforming loans at 20%. applications to refinance did fall 5% but they were 102% higher than the same week one year ago the mortgage industry is poised for the strongest year in originations since 2003. joe? >> diana, do you get the notion that it's a zero sum game? you know, is there a down side to all of these applications going out in the burbs and the cities are going to suffer or are people just deciding they're

going to own not rent and it doesn't bifurcate that way do you know? >> reporter: i think it's a little bit of both we are starting to hear about the bargain hunters going back into the downtowns looking for good deals i don't think the cities are gone for good. i do think the one down side to all of this is price you're seeing so much competition for the homes in the burbs and there are so few of them for sale that we're seeing prices overheat. you're seeing that on the loan application side and it's hurting affordability. that's going to be the problem going forward, joe. >> high rises, elevators, i just -- maybe some day we've got the news out of the u.k. diana, thank you coming up, senate majority leader mitch mcconnell rejecting a new bipartisan plan put forward in an effort to break the stimulus stalemate senator pat toomey will join us to discuss ree head to break we'll check on the markets "squawk box" is coming right back

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welcome back to "squawk box. new developments out of washington lawmakers restarting stimulus talks after competing proposals were unveiled. what happens next remains far from unclear joining us is senator pat toomey, pennsylvania

we appreciate you joining us >> good morning. >> take us behind the velvet curtain. what do you think is really happening here >> i think there are actually a lot of discussions underway. it's hard to know whether there will be an outcome soon or not you know, from the democratic point of view they're assured of not being any worse political configuration after the january 5th election i'm cautiously optimistic we'll hold those two georgia senate seats. that leaves us in the same situation we're in now not a big incentive either way, although as i said the democrats might be hoping for a configu configuration that's more beneficial for them. we're in a very, very different position in our economy today than we were back in march, april. i've been hearing since at least august that we had to pass another big stimulus bill immediately or the economy was

going to collapse. that clearly was wrong having said that, we've still got a ways to go we have some things we can do constructively it should be narrowly targeted, smaller at scale and it should go after what are the remaining serious problems in our economy. very, very different than where we were back in march and april. >> senator, walk us through what you think that looks like. the reason i ask is you've been more vocal about not needing a stimulus than others have. you were part of it, the hearing with the chairman of the federal reserve who has a view that stimulus is remarkably necessary, more than ever right now. explain how your view is different than his view. >> well, i'm just looking at the data i think you just did a report of how extraordinary the housing market is. manufacturing has been terrific. all financial market indicators are that we've got a very, very bright future ahead.

unemployment is much lower we were told we would be lucky if we could get the unemployment rate below 10% we were at 6.9 at the end of october. >> what do you think jay powell is -- what do you think jay powell is looking at that you're not? do you see what i'm saying he's a smart guy you're a smart guy >> look, i have a lot of respect for jay powell i think very highly of him, but central bankers tend to be extremely risk averse, right you know, he also would have preferred to keep the 13-3 lending facilities we don't have to agree on everything i think there are some specific things that fit into this category i'm describing as the narrow items that are necessary. we've still got a very high unemployment rate and a real challenge for a number of folks so the expanded eligibility of unemployment benefits insurance

i think should be expanded we have categories of businesses that are still in a world of hurt, right? unlike, say, the manufacturing sector which by and large generally has come back strongly parts of the service sector certainly have not, especially hospitality, travel, entertainment. so some kind of expanded new ppp program, shouldn't say new really, ppp program that's designed for those businesses that were really seriously adversely affected i think you can make a case for some funds for school districts that have had to spend a lot of money to accommodate, you know, their new circumstances. i'm acknowledging, andrew, i think democrats agree on those things we would have broad agreement on a pretty significant list. we could get that done and the question is whether the democrats will agree to do that or whether they will hold out for all the things they know we don't agree on. >> let me make it more

complicated. we've talked a lot about different states oftentimes blue states but some red states as well, that you would argue are over indebted. we recently had the head of the mta from new york, for example, on the program the subway system in new york city is a disaster. >> right. >> desperately in need of emergency funds. he would make the argument that it's actually beneficial to the national economy because of the gdp of new york city you would say what, for example? >> yeah, well, everybody always says that. based on that argument you should throw money at every locality, every municipality because every one of them attributes to the national economy. the mta has been mismanaged for many years and is in terrible shape. what's really fascinating to me is, first of all, keep in mind, the money that we already sent to the states and municipalities back in march and april is probably greater than the sum total of all the lost revenue

and added expenses that they've incurred we've already done that. many still want more not surprisingly yet these states, including states that have been very hard hit like new jersey, for instance, they're passing new budgets with spending increases. how badly can they be affected if their decision is they're going to expand the size of their state government they should be free to do that if they want a huge state government, knock yourself out, but don't expect federal taxpayers to pay for it. that ought to be the cost of the people of your state >> and then finally, what about just the small business owner that can't open for whatever reason right now, what do you tell them? >> yeah, look. first of all, i'm strongly discouraging broad lockdowns i think that was a huge mistake. i understand why we made it, but the devastation that came from forcing the economy to close was just that, devastation

so what we should be all about, what we should have learned and hopefully have is we've got a very, very important need to protect vulnerable people. does not make sense to close down the economy so that's kind of, you know, first and foremost in addition to that, i'm acknowledging that there's some -- even in an open economy you might not have the foot traffic in a restaurant or entertainment venue that you certainly used to have and that your business model depends on i think a new round of ppp lending would go a long way for those that have a chance of being viable and that's why i think there's a broad consensus for that >> senator, we have to run but one final question the vaccine is going to be available in the u.k i'm curious whether you would advocate for private businesses, if private business decided to, to require vaccination either for their employees to go to work or for customers to get on an airplane to increase

confidence or that's something that you would be advocating against? >> you know, i'm not sure that we would -- that i would want to mandate that on business and i think the first rounds of the vaccines have to be distributed to the people who are most at risk so front line health care workers certainly, people in senior assisted living type of facilities should be very high on the list, but at some point when we have covered all the really vulnerable populations, there are a lot of vaccines generally available, businesses might very well decide that they want to take that approach i would leave that to them >> okay. senator toomey, we appreciate your time as always and look forward to continuing this dialogue as hopefully something comes of it all. appreciate it very, very much. becky? >> thank you when we come back, a new survey of business heeders a erleadersy

feel about the pandemic and then dr. scott gottleib will join us. the u.k. approving that vaccine, the joint pfizer biontech vaccine for general use. that vaccine which recorded a phase 3 efficacy rate of more than 90% will be made available across the country monday. we'll ask him about that and much more. "squawk box" will be right back. time now for today's aflac trivia question whampt compa atomny went public on this day in 1980? the answer when cnbc's "squawk box" continues 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!

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he's going to talk to us about that and much more also talking about the burden on the health care system what we've seen with the vaccine and who's going to get the vaccine first. later, boeing 737 max is set to fly again. nvceusme up to the airliners to coin ctors to get on the jet. that story is coming up. we'll be right back. new projects means new project managers.

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starting with you. covered california. this way to health insurance. enroll by december 15th. welcome back to "squawk box" this morning take a quick look at futures this morning show you what's going on dow looks like it will open down 111 points nasdaq opening off 34 points and the s&p 500 up about 9 points. joe? >> thanks, andrew. even before today's news the vaccine news out of the u.k., cfos around the globe were already weighing in on the impact of a vaccine and what it would have on their business and the way forward from there frank holland joins us with the results of the cnbc cfo council survey frank. >> reporter: good morning to you, joe as we face a second wave of the covid-19 pandemic, not surprisingly 2/3 said the

pandemic is the biggest external risk to their business this is a slight uptick from q3. important to know the survey was taken between november 13th and november 29th. during that time global deaths increased by 110,000 cases in the u.s. they increased dramatically. this survey was completed before today's vaccine news in the u.k. it could potentially be distributed here in the u.s. later this month cfos did know that pfizer and moderna had vaccines with 95 and 94% effectiveness. a vaccine being widely available by g 2 in 2021 would have the biggest impact on their company. now to the path forward. more than 2/3 of cfos said employees will work from home for the first six months that same number of cfos said

100% of their employees are working from home now. not many seeing changes. before today's big vaccine news. back over to you >> no one would have thought this, frank. i thought we were going to reopen at easter i guess not. remember initially >> reporter: i do remember those talks. i don't think anybody thought this pandemic would last this long >> or that the economy -- did you -- we just had toomey on the unemployment rate has come down fairly quickly and the stock market is -- it's just all -- i don't know. you know, if i ever go back to the future and go forward, i was going to use it for like betting sheets and tuff. if i could get ahold of those. no, i would be going backwards. >> joe, that's -- >> i never predicted any of this >> it was a real delorean,

wasn't it? anyway, you're right okay i'm confused that was just a movie. thank you, frank holland we appreciate it >> reporter: thank you. let's get you updated on that breaking fwhus this morning. >> it is the big story of the day. the u.k. is set -- has said that it's going to approve that biontech and pfizer joint covid-19 vaccine for general use. that vaccine, which reported a phase 3 efficacy rate greater than 90% will be available across the country starting on monday amid all of that, we are continuing to watch other news that comes out from all of this. joining us to talk about this and much more is scott gottleib. he is the former fda head. how quickly do you think we can see something similar happen in the united states?

the trial was able to be conducted in record time the collaborators with pfizer on this vaccine the other vaccine by other companies come to this quickly they have shown remarkable efficacy and so far in the trials that have been conducted. these are milestones that we've been able to develop and put them into the clinics and now deliver them to patients and a record in historic time frame. hopefully the beginning of changing the complexion of this next year. look, it's great news that the british are going to be moving ahead with this. i feel confident about the application. i'm hopeful the americans will

follow the advisory committee is coming up in about a week they could move after that advisory committee after they get hopefully positive feedback from the external advisory they could move quickly here in the u.s. as well we could see some action this month as well from the american regulators >> meaning that we could see something in the next couple of weeks, you think, potentially for the vaccine to start rolling out here in the united states as well >> i think that's possible the application went in about a little over a week ago so they've had time to work through it they'll have another week -- more than a week to work through it before they have the advisory committee with their advisers. they could be in a position to take action pretty quickly after that meeting on december 10th. the us fda i think by mid december you could see action from the american regulators. certainly the cdc advisory committee which met monday did that in anticipation of the fact

that there could be some decision this month. look, the u.s. regulators need to go through this they have a separate process when i was in fda we often made decisions that were on a different time line and had different contours than what the british regulators did and what the eu did as well >> hey, scott, yesterday the cdc panel voted to go ahead and authorize who gets this first. at the top of the list are health care workers followed up by elderly people living in group homes and nursing homes and such there's not enough for even that small group of people so how does it kind of get divvied up even from that are there some health care workers that should be prioritized? are there some elderly patients who should be prioritized? these are just guidelines. the states get to make it up and do what they want on top of that what do you think happens? >> that's right. states are going to do some things that are distinct to their state. i've talked to a number of

governors. some states will deploy the vaccine in some communities where they're particularly hard hit, where they have epidemics that are under less control. there will be some decisions made by states that are particular to the state. as far as distribution to health care workers, it will be by and large to hospitals they'll decide which staff get vaccinated first based on their exposure to covid, their proximity to the virus and with the long-term care facilities, there's 3 million residents and they'll be prioritized as well. there should be enough vaccine to move it into those facilities given the high-risk patients face >> you know, even if you are a governor who's trying to shut down an outbreak in a particular area or a particular neighborhood, even once the vaccines are given it's going to take five or six weeks before you can build up any immunity because of the idea you need two doses of this, a month apart and they need time for immunity to

build up what are we talking about here as they see cases decline, we could see a wave upon a wave in terms of this huge increase that we see and a surge upon a surge. what do you think it looks like for the next couple of months before these vaccines really start making their way out >> well, we'll see the data when the idea gets released around the advisory committee or the british after they make their approval so we'll have a sense of -- the public will have a sense of how protective one dose is and which population patients are getting some level of protection and perhaps meaningful protection after one dose of the vaccine. you're right, it does take two doses to get the full 95% efficacy there's a chance the vaccine could have an immediate impact it will take time to get the vaccine out. we're limited in how much supply we have. that's the biggest variable is

that we'll have limited supply for the remainder of this year and even into next year. so even beyond that sort of one tranche you talked about, health care providers and old people who live in institutional settings, as they get to 1b and 1c the next tranches will be limited to certain essential workers in the next waves of vaccination and older individuals who are at higher risk of having a bad outcome from covid those will be the groups that get vaccinated next. we'll be in this sort of rationing type of environment for this vaccine probably well into the spring. >> dr. gottleib, i have a related question i was on the phone yesterday with a very, very senior airline executive and apparently there's a conversation taking place within the industry about whether they should ultimately sometime this spring require a vaccine to get on' plane

from a business perspective would it create more confidence and more people would get on planes because they know everybody has this, quote, vaccine passport or would it create some backlash either against the vaccine or against the airlines themselves? there's a question of whether airlines if they don't do it collectively, it would create a problem for one airline and become differentiating in terms of marketing giving people control of themselves, all of these issues where do you stand and land on that when you think of economic growth and trying to get the country back to business >> i think it's going to be very hard to require vaccinations for people to participate in commercial activity when the vaccine is still under emergency use authorization, isn't fully approved and isn't widely available. i don't think you can require people to get vaccinated with a product they don't have available. >> it's a summer/spring topic. not tomorrow, talking about into

the fall of 2021 >> well, that -- at that point you may have it available, but in the summer and spring of this year it may be the case it still isn't widely available under a biologic case application. it isn't generally licensed 2348 you get into maybe the late second quarter, third quarter this year. a the the point this is widely available, you'll see businesses make those decisions there will be litigation around this but you'll see businesses require employees to get vaccinated too unless they have a meaningful reason they can't get vaccinated you will see the sort of procedures put in place. that said, i think that -- i've said all along the spring and summer in this country are going to be relatively quiescent with this virus in part a lot of people have habits if you look at states that have dense upgrades, by the end of

this year, by january of 2021 we'll probably have infected 30% of the u.s. population with the virus. so you're getting to levels where as you get into the spring, which is going to provide somewhat of a seasonal backstop, you're getting to levels where this isn't going to circulate as readily you're layering on top of that vaccinations you're getting to pretty sufficient levels of immunity. you won't see this circulate very aggressively in the spring and summertime of next year. >> yeah. hey, dr. gottleib. very quickly you saw the news that the head of the fda was called to the white house to find out why they weren't moving more quickly on getting this approved in the united states, questioning whether he had been working around the clock or not, whether he had been on vacation. what did you think of that and what did you think of the prospects? is that something that would speed the process or is this going to be still on the same time line?

>> i don't think it -- frankly, i don't think it's going to have an impact on the process at this point. i think the time line is largely based here in the united states. they made certain commitments in terms of how they're going to roll this out. the public advisory panel won't be moved up. i had the white house ask me questions around policy decisions, sometimes around regulatory positions the white house watching the british approve this prompted legitimate questions about why the british are approving an american vaccine before the americans did. i don't think it was unusual for the white house to ask the question of the commissioner looked like it was asked and answered. >> great to see you. >> thanks a lot. coming up, we're talking about the airlines and american airlines is set to be one of the

first to reintroduce the 737 max back into its fleet, but how are they going to convince the public it's safe to fly again? phil lebeau has that next. as we head to break, here's a look at the airlines pre-markets. "squawbo cinrit ckk x"omg ghba

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welcome back to "squawk box. boeing 737 max set to fly again. phil lebeau joins us with that story. good morning to you, phil. >> good morning, andrew. this is the beginning of what we will see from the airlines that have the max in their fleet. they know they're going to start flying it. now they have to convince the public that's what we're seeing with american today the first of many demo flights we will see over several weeks these are american 737 max's parked at the company's maintenance facility in tulsa, oklahoma that's one of the destinations where they're taking reporters on a flight. they'll be up in the air for about an hour. this by the way not the first time they have been flying the max at american. they did this last night with american ceo doug parker, his wife, as well as robert isin

there's doug and his wife getting ready to board the flight on an updated and fixed 737 max. there in the cockpit with the pilots he was on the flight with the president of american, robert isim this is all part of not only american but all the airlines trying to convince the public, look, these are safe we've flown them you'll be flying them. we want our staff to be comfortable with them. how soon does it get back into service? american will make the inaugural flight and united and southwest in q1 and q2 american plans to fly the 737 max from new york to miami on a daily basis starting on december 29th you'll start to see this not only with that one plane but others coming on board feathered into the schedule in the first quarter. for boeing, this is critical they have been chomping at the bit to get the max back in service, not only with the customers who have a max in their fleet but also, remember, they have been gradually ramping up production.

the first airworthiness certificate was issued, andrew, earlier this week. you have them now in a position where they can start delivering these to customers. >> phil, real quick. how attentive or conscious are most airline customers or travelers about what kind of plane they're getting on meaning how often when somebody books something do they look at the actual plane type? >> reporter: i don't think it happens terribly often i know you will hear from people saying, i'm never getting on the max. i don't think the plane is safe. all of them will let you know you are going to be on the max i've said this from day one. if you look at the dreamliner after it was grounded. people back to the late '80s, early '90s after the dc 10 was grounded, people's memories fade if there are no issues with the max, i bet you within a matter of months you will not hear anybody saying like oh, i flew on the max initially, yes, you will hear something. i think that that fades rather

quickly. >> okay. phil lebeau. great to see you as always look forward to seeing you very, very soon. >> becky >> thanks, andrew. when we come back. done deal. salesforce buying slack for $27 billion in cash and stock marking the cloud company's largest deal ever. it pitts salesforce against microsoft in yet another market. we'll talk about that move and what it means for competition in the cloud right after this. check out the futures. in the meantime you'll see the dow indicated down by about 163 points sfaup futures down by 15 the nasdaq off by 55 "squawk box" will be right back. it's down to the wire,

the team's been working around the clock. we've had to rethink our whole approach. we're going to give togetherness. logistically, it's been a nightmare. i'm not sure it's going to work. it'll work. i didn't know you were listening.

all right. this is like -- i mean, it doesn't get any better than this this is like christmas coming early. two big events happening today on nbc the ravens and the steelers are going to kick off today at 3:40 in the afternoon are you in -- the director is a big steeler fan. 10-0 the ravens are 6-4 this is the first game of the season that's been delayed three times due to covid-19, but it's going to happen today. it's on nbc. lamar jackson is out because of covid. there's a lot of players out,

but rg3, last time he backed up -- last time he played the steelers, quarterbacking for the ravens, they won mike tomlin and the steelers are not taking this lightly and it's on at 3:40 everybody is going to be able to watch it i love mike tirico he was going to do the thanksgiving game when this was delayed. mike and chris -- i'm sorry, al michaels and cris collinsworth are going to be doing the game tonight, even though i love obviously mike tirico. then after the game the rockefeller christmas tree lighting will air at 8 p.m. eastern time kelly clarkson, earth, wind and fire, again stegwen stefani it's unbelievable to have both of those things happening.

i don't know who to take 10 point favorites the steelers are in this match-up, they're 10-0 if they win this game, they could get the only bye available for the playoffs this is a huge, huge deal. at 3:40 this is going to be on on a wednesday like a huge bonus. let's get right to -- you have the steelers what do you think? salesforce ceo marc benioff joins -- why, because i was positive on the steelers that's why you're saying that, you jerk joined jim cramer last night on mad money to discuss his company's deal to buy slack. this is what he said >> slacks changes everything and makes salesforce a whole new company, a company that is truly architected to work from anywhere

now it super charges our customers. they can rearchitect and work from anywhere. >> joining us is henry blivet. ifgs le i was reading your notes you have a lot of time on your hands to delve so deeply -- to delve so deeply into what this means for salesforce when it was all said and done i thought you -- reading your notes i thought you thought it was a great deal, however, citi, just to let you know, downgraded saying we're not fans of the slack deal we think the -- that salesforce needed to buy this -- did not need to buy this asset, especially with already high customer overlap and a landscape in the face where microsoft teams is basically becoming ubiquitous is it a good deal or not, henry? >> from my part, very smart from slack. slack was not seeing the kind of adoption it was going to see if

it was going to take on the world. they should have seen the same kind of boom that zoom and so many others saw and said, look, we have to develop virtual presence they did not see that. the business is slowing down teams, microsoft is giving it away for free. that helps a lot huge adoption there. so i think from slack's perspective, very smart. get a big partner. maybe that will help recharge things from salesforce's perspective, i hear what marc is talking about and what the vision is i think we've got to wait and see on that as to whether they can actually integrate the products in a way that makes people feel like they've got to adopt and build on the platform. so far we use slack. we were one of the early adopters it's a tremendous product. totally changes things it's internal. what marc is talking about is external everybody in the world is using it to communicate among themselves slack hasn't made that jump, at

least for us that will be a key part for us for salesforce. >> henry, does the strategy look better in a pandemic world is this going to sustain itself when we come out of it go ahead >> i think the slack product is absolutely going to continue to grow in a non-pandemic world i say that whether it's teams, whether it's slack or somebody else it is extremely useful and what mark was talking about with jim last night is we are going to shift to a world, even post pandemic, where where you are physically when you're working is much less important yet you can be present on an app like this for your colleagues, you can interact with them i think that has changed forever. i think a product like slack is going to be critical for that, but teams does that. others do that again, this is both salesforce and slack saying, wow, this is becoming a waltz of elephants.

we need to put ourselves together salesforce has tried to develop products that do that, hasn't been successful. the jury is out. slack's momentum has stalled in a period where it should have exploded. >> henry, longer term do you see slack as a give away, almost a freebie that salesforce uses to gain new customers do you see it as somebody whethr it's going to be a big revenue driver for salesforce because they can upsell their current customers to it? when you sort of look at the strategy, what are you thinking? >> to make it work, they have to have it be adopted and have everyone standardize on it that will give them a very strong install base that will be tough to dislodge. i think making this a platform that everyone adopts is very

important. my guess is they will try to balance those but in order for this to work, they have to create the product that mark had the vision for when he talked about with jim last night, which is the front end for everything. right now that is other products out there. >> henry, tech is not dead by any means yet. i know you think there's going to be some rotation to some of the others, but let me just ask you about these two ipos and the valuation that we're all talking about, the doordash and airbnb are either of those lipstick on a pig? who said that? or are these fundamentally good companies that should be valued here >> i haven't looked at either one in detail so i'm not going to comment in depth on that, but airbnb in particular, it's a spectacular business model and one that should be structurally extremely profitable down the

road and as travel starts to come back, they should be in a very good position in the business sense with door dash, they have discovered something we had a need for that consolidated the industry that industry will exist i think the big question is how structurally profitable it's going to be. that will be difficult of the two, i think airbnb is wonderful. >> all right, henry. we've got to run >> great y think it's seen its best days we've got to go. thank you. >> great to see you. thank you. ok, just keep coloring there...

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good morning the coronavirus vaccine is a go in the united kingdom. pfizer and biontech getting the green light for an emergency rollout next week. even bigger force to be reckoned with in the industry. salesforce is going to buy slack for $27 billion. breaking employment data on the way in a few minutes november adp data numbers on deck the highly anticipated jobs report for the labor department. the final hour of "squawk box" begins right now. good morning and welcome back to "squawk box" here on

cnbc i'm joe kernen along with becky quick and andrew ross sorkin u.s. equity futures are now down at some of the lowest levels we've seen down 150 points on the dow at this hour. nasdaq dropping 55 the s&p down 14 and change or so we'll take a quick look at treasury yields. haven't seen a lot of action there. we may get to 1% the whole wednesday night football. >> snuck up on you it keeps getting moved day by day. >> right but, you know, looking into it and who's playing and the records of the two teams al and chris are going to be there.

watching for eight hours straight. >> i hope you have two screens you'll be watching closing bell and the last half hour of that and football not for nothing. >> we can multi-task let's get you updated on stories investors will be talking about today. president-elect joe biden's biggest priority is to see a stimulus bill come to fruition he spoke about china saying he wouldn't immediately get rid of the 25% tariffs that president trump imposed on billions of dollars of chinese exports instead he wants to do a comprehensive review of president trump's phase 1 trade deal and get on the same page as

allies. it is official, salesforce is buying work face messaplace platform slack it will further intensify salesforce's rivalry with slack. marc benioff spoke with jim cramer on "mad money" last night. >> slack changes everything and makes salesforce a whole new type of company. a company that is truly architected to work from anywhere we have already introduced salesforce work from anywhere a couple of months ago slack super charges our approach it lets our customers rearchitect their work force to be truly from anywhere. >> salesforce shares are lower this morning after they shared soft guard terrelly guidance the stock is down 5.7%

that's the biggest drag on the dow. the dow down 125 points. it's the price weighted average. at $227. salesforce takes a big hit slack is lower despite top and bottom line beats for the latest quarter. then there's elon musk who's warning tesla employees that they need to control costs and the company's stock price is at stake. investors are giving us a lot of credit for future profitability but if they conclude that's not going to happen, our stock will get crushed like a souffle under a sledge hammer. we will be speaking with texas governor greg abbott later this hour on the latest company to move its headquarters to the lone star state, talking about hewlett-packard enterprise andrew. meantime, the united kingdom

taking a big step closer to vaccinating its population from the coronavirus. >> historic announcement this is the first clearance from a government of a covid-19 vaccine after a phase 3 trial. we've seen some of these earlier clearances in countries like russia and china they haven't had the full phase 3 results. this is a big deal they will begin to start shipping this to the u.k. within days, saying immediately they have ordered 40 million doses of this pfizer and biontech vaccine with delivery this year and in 2021. already this morning, guys, the speed with which the u.k. regulators decided on this is drawing scrutiny from around the world. here's what the u.k. regulator said about the safety review in

particular this morning. >> done using a process known as a rolling review a rolling review can be used to complete the assessment of a promising medicine or vaccine in a situation where time is of the essence in the shortest time possible but, and this is a very important point, indeed, that doesn't mean that any corners have been cut. none at all. >> reporter: so, guys, what does the regulatory process look like for other countries around the world? here in the united states the fda has set a meeting for the outside committee of advisers for december 10th and it's expected they could act quickly after that it's not guaranteed. this he could take weeks if they need to to decide on this. it is expected they could decide within days. in europe the regulators will decide by december 29th. countries around the globe will be deciding on this as well. supply is limiteds pfizer will have 50 million

doses available globally in 2020 how they split that up around the countries is not precisely known. in the u.s. we will probably get about 20 million at least of those doses, perhaps slightly more next year they'll have up to 1.3 billion doses. supply will become more pleasant at this full guys, the u.k. becoming first to clear a covid-19 vaccine we'll get to start to watch that process there as we head for it. back over to you. >> the credibility of this vaccine is so very, very krit kampt for people to feel like it's rushed, people get access to it, it's what we're going to see over the next several months in terms of its success, i imagine. how concerned is pfizer about this blow back that you're hearing? >> reporter: i haven't heard that they're concerned

pfizer has made such a point of their 171 year history, their reputation riding on making sure that all of the safety checks are in place and that science is driving their process. so they are confident in their data we'll have more coming up ahead of this. one of the great things about this process is when they have these meetings of the outside advisers, they make all of this public two days in advance we'll see the granular data and the public will get a better sense of how regulators are weighing all of these different issues that will come into the u.s. we're seeing pieces of it coming out through the u.k. review process as well. >> when you think about it, meg, this is a new type of vaccine. it's messenger rna

we want to tread very lightly. in the past there have been situations with vaccine introductions that didn't turn out so well. there's no doubt we want to take our time there's a lot of data in that the u.k. is looking at what in the next week, two weeks, one month, what additional data needs to be looked at by other regulators that will give them a different perspective than what the u.k. regulators are already looking at if we're worried about long-term effects of a vaccine, you're not going to know in a week, two weeks, a month whether we're missing something based on the long term. so i don't know how much additional data we're talking about these other countries looking at versus what the u.k. is looking at now? do you know? what more are we waiting for >> you're absolutely right, joe. the long-term safety you can only get with time from what i've been able to glean this morning, there is

some suggestion from the eu regulators according to the reuters reporting that the eu regulators are going to be looking at more data than the u.k. regulators. i need to dig into what differences are there. "the new york times" pointed out and it's reported this morning, the fda relies more on its own analysis of the data that is presented to it versus regulators in europe, for example, which might rely more on the ompany's analysis that could explain why the fda was taking longer. however, of course, you are expecting a few weeks later from the eu to decide on this as well the fda needs to go through all of this with a fine tooth comb and put a stamp of approval on this that means so much to the fda and the companies. when you get the stamp of approval, it means something. >> so easy to argue. you absolutely need to cross all of the is and dot all of the ts. you have to do that.

i think of bureaucrats look up bureaucrat in the dictionary not pretty anyway, thanks, meg. let's turn to the markets and some key stocks making moves in the premarket. dominic chu. dominic chu joins us now with more do you know that -- did you know there was a football game today, chu? did that make it on your radar screen >> yes >> unbelievable. >> i have the pittsburgh steelers defense and deontay johnson both playing in my fantasy team i have to pay attention to what the steelers are doing what's happening there anyway, let's cross some is and dot some ts to joe's point there is prevailing optimism in the markets. that has been denoted by the s&p 500 hitting a record high. we'll put a star up there. up 14% during that time frame.

it's also up 13% over the course of a last month to date period we're watching that. another place you're seeing the optimism work out is the outperformance small cap stocks specifically. the small cap etf versus the nasdaq 100 here, you can see that that gap is widening over there as well. watch the small cap stocks and then semiconductors as well. they've been fairly bullet proof, so to speak, from certain angles because they've been a work from home play and an economic recovery play that is at a record high as well we'll watch that on the consumer, guys, watch target, watch nike, watch walmart. each of those stocks hit record highs and the consumer is still a huge part of that story. we'll have more on "squawk box" coming up. right here after the break when a hailstorm hit, he needed his insurance to get it done right, right away. usaa. what you're made of, we're made for.

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adp reporting that november jobs in the private sector rose by 307,000 that's below the consensus of about 475,000. october payroll's revised from 39,000 to 404,000. they revise it up from the prior month. pretty good report 1,000 service sector 276,000.

nonfarm payroll is a good number the job growth by business size here and you see that it's pretty good spread across businesses when you look by sector, it has done well each month doing well. education health coming back pretty good construction 22,000 those are good numbers let me give you two reasons why this is good news. adp has been underperforming the bls by 10 million jobs during this pandemic. that number might be light relative to the bls. the high frequency data has been kind of naturally. it's been suggesting a negative number we've been talking about what's going on with the ukg formerly known as crone newus what i got from homebase yesterday. do we have the quote

yes, they do our businesses open metric declined noticeably, for december, ending a period of stagnation and initiating a clear decline across all metrics. so, becky, the high frequency data pointing towards not a great number this friday but the consensus of wall street has been relatively high this adp number maybe takes some edge off of the possibility of huge down side risk. >> steve, who do we believe when the data that we normally rely on doesn't match up with the high frequency data we've been relying on more recently >> look, i'm all in favor of criticism of the economists during normal times, but you have to cut the whole process a little slack here. nobody has ever forecast job growth in a pandemic, on again/off again lockdowns. we have not been using the high frequency data through a whole process here i'll tell you my plan was to

start to introduce some of this data very slowly, one at a time. the pandemic hit and we're all using this what i see and i think is interesting and telling about right now is, for example, jp morgan's own data showed the high frequency data, its own model showed a possible decline of 800,000jobs for the report this friday. they went for plus 400,000 so they're not relying only on the high frequency who's right? let's talk at 8:31 on friday >> let's talk more about jobs. specifically small business jobs joe biden calling for stimulus >> right now the full congress should come together and pass a robust package for relief to address these urgent needs any package passed in a lame

duck session is likely to be at best just a start. >> joining us to talkwhat a biden presidency means for small business and the real brilliance of putting these two gentlemen together again and again, it really struck me with how i want to start this conversation because we have. ♪ you're a mean one kevin o'leary and john hope bryant i'll tell you what i'm talking about, john. i love this. great to see you great to see you both. john, one thing you say that strikes me all the time, sometimes i'm surprised that you say it and cop to it, and that is that what we want is a republican brain and a democrat hea heart. the more i think about that, i agree with that.

i'm not sure you want to have too much of the heart involved with really difficult decisions. it's important but it may take you in the wrong direction in terms of the path to good intentions and the path to health and then on the left i have a guy who's a cardiologist, it's got to be here somewhere i don't even know if kevin has a heart so what do you think, john do you admit -- you're a small business guy who doesn't want handouts, you want a hand up so you know it's all about business and the economy to get where we want to go. am i right about this? do you see what i'm saying >> there's hope for you yet, joe. yeah look, when you are talking to your daughter, who i met, you don't just say some left brain analytical decision of a spreadsheet about her school your heart is into who are you hanging around what's your culture? are you hanging around

nongroupie what's your environment? what's the school going to be like your heart is in it and your head is in it. hope is on the way and it's not a socialist. that word is out i don't know who used it or where it came from this is a capitalist cup be try, free markets this president, president-elect biden is going to have a plan that i think is going to be like open source capitalism i talked to some of his transition team last night one guy who i think is brilliant who is going to be the number two at treasury and the first african-american as deputy secretary. the guy is brilliant he's left brain with kevin o'leary and you and he's right brain for heart for businesses like the guy who owns this business with four employees because that's half of this country. 58% of all jobs work for companies with less than 50 employees. it's heart in hand here mean good gdp. >> kevin, you know, sort of

kidding around a little bit. i'm sorry i sung the grinch song for you. that's coming up always fresh, that half hour but when you hear something like john just said, socialism is off the table, only reason it's off the table is because voters didn't give the democrats a blue wave like we heard there was going to be. only reason it's off the table, if the senate stays republican, then the worst intentions of biden's far left flank aren't going to be realized, right? >> what happened is those voices, the aoc, you know what occurred with elizabeth warren did a lot of damage to the democratic party it showed up in the house. and you know i'm a policy pundant. i know the incumbent will always lose more seats in the house in the mid term biden's in a very tricky situation. he doesn't silence those socialist voices and try to get

them off the agenda for the american voter, he will be in a worse situation 24 months from now. having seen that, i think i'm encouraged yellen is great. i don't think tanden will make it i've been enjoying these sessions with you and john through the pandemic i have such clarity now on 2021 in terms of what business is going to be doing and i'm here to report to you that we actually don't need much more stimulus except for unemployment support. i'll give you an example i saw in in trillion dollar package more support for the airlin airlines themiddle name for the airline industry is bankruptcy in my own companies i'm happy to report that we are going to be slashing business travel in 2021 between 20 and 50% with no punishment to our revenue. we don't -- we don't travel for

business because we want to, we don't have to anymore and that's what's so fantastic about the up side of what this pandemic has put us through it's a new digital economy why are we supporting, i want john to think about this, i want him to spend as much energy starting up companies that are disruptive and represent the new america 2.0 as he is trying to keep the dead ones alive they are dead. anything to do with entertainment has changed. airline travel, business travel is dead. so many food service businesses is dead. we do not have to fund them anymore. those entrepreneurs will start new companies and that's what i'm really pushing for now stop giving dead companies money. it's so inefficient for the economy. i want john to get on board. that's my new mission. >> he's nodding. >> before i go -- >> he's nodding. >> before i go to the church of kevin, let me just say there's nothing dead about the flight attendants i met last week on

the delta flight i took. there's nothing dead about the mechanics i met who are happy about their job. there's nothing dead about the small businesses at the john hope fund that we helped delta employees, 100,000 people, something like that. and the contracts, one, one man black businesses with shopify. they need a source to get contracts. that is in this case delta making a commitment to let those businesses supply delta. this is a supply chain this economy is a supply chain, kevin. you don't live in a vacuum as i keep saying. you benefit from the fed window. that is your benefit of affirmative action white folks got a 23ir78tive action before black folks did. it goes back to the 1600s. i'll let you figure that out we're all in the thing together. we'll need a new marshall plan as i wrote i think you'll see a lot of what i wrote in the marshall plan in

president-elect biden's plan. >> i would have never thought we would have been below 7% unemployment we simply don't need more stimulus, john delta, maybe that's one of the surviving airlines all of the flight attendants, i want to support them i do not want to support the shareholders of an airline that is supposed to be bankrupt it's over. we have to stop doing that we now have clarity for 2021, 2022 fantastic opportunity to script the betina off the economy and stop funding the losers and give the capital to the new economy i want to help people. i want to help schools i do not want to fund shareholders in dead businesses. i think we can both agree on that >> we agree on not funding dead businesses i don't believe the example i gave you anywhere close to it. number two, let's keep in mind

that as of last night 5% -- i think we're about to agree now -- of the stimulus package that just happened, half of all stimulus went be to 5% of all businesses half went to big businesses and the businesses i supported got next to nothing. that's just wrong and this new program has to focus on businesses that have 50 employees or less. that's half. almost 50% of this country then it has to focus on keeping the life boats open. then we have to fund to get financial literacy, entrepreneurship, financial coaching from community college to high school everybody has to become a self-employment project or new business owner otherwise, we wouldn't end up with a founder of walmart. sam walton is the guy we're talking about. high school education, store front and a dream. somebody believed in him. >> listen, john, sam did not need the government to start walmart. he did that on his own

there are millions of entrepreneurs ready to go to work i don't want to pick winners and losers anymore we are going into a new year 30% of that ppp was totally wasted that's my estimate let's stop doing that. i support unemployment as the 20% of the economy has to shift to new digital businesses. i agree with that including the flight attendants you want to support and anybody else thrown out of a job not because of what they did, but the preferences of consumers and the economy has changed and we need to reflect that in government policy. we're not talking about bigger issues that biden has to deal with like china, i'm talking domestically. >> john, we have to go thanks, kevin. thanks for playing along just, john, in general, you say that a lot the brain versus the heart i mean, would you -- do you really want to run your life based on feelings and -- i mean, it's important, but shouldn't it at least be 51-49 brain? can i get you to admit that?

60-40? huh? >> didn't go to the mall and say, i have a dream that gdp will grow by 2% a year you've got to believe that >> we need both. we need both. >> we need both. >> that's why we get both of you guys or is it this way i don't know thank you, john. john hope bryant, kevin. this way he went that way bugs bunny remember that? thanks see you later. thanks, kevin. andrew. thanks, joe. what a conversation. on the other side of this break, another big conversation texas governor greg abbott will talk about how they poached hewlett-packard enterprises from california check out something we've been watching all week. the price of bitcoin now over $19,000. $19,224. stay tuned u' wchg quk x"n cnbc ♪

♪ ♪

still to come. much more on the markets our next guest sees a santa rally. stayun ted you're watching "squawk box" and this is cnbc

this is a major milestone. it represents the culmination of a lot of hard work for pfizer scientists and patient trials. it's great news the british are moving forward with this i'm hopeful the americans will follow. >> that was former fda commissioner and pfizer board member scott gottleib on "squawk

box" in the last hour. why aren't stocks reacting more favorably. we'll ask bill black steen portfolio manager. that's the question. is this a situation where people have sold the rumor, if you will, or rather bought the rumor and are selling the news >> well, i think the news came out in november and november was, you know, in terms of european stocks the best performance in over 20 years best performance for small caps ever so you've had a tremendous amount of market performance in the month of november related to the vaccine news now it's the implementation of this vaccine as well as what we're facing in terms of rising cases and rising hospitalizations i think we priced a lot of that in in november for sure. positioning was way outside in november the vix was high the amount of protection that was being bought ahead of the election and against elevated

volatility all contributed we had a massive, massive move in november. one for the history books really so i don't know how many times you want that to repeat, but it was pretty dramatic. now the rollout begins but what a testament obviously to innovation and -- >> so in terms of how you're positioning your portfolio today given the run in november, you look out 12 months from now. a lot of people are very hopeful the world will look a lot better i don't know how much volatility you think will happen between now and then i don't know if you're hoping to get out of the tech stocks and underloved stocks or do you hold tight for now? what's the strategy? >> volatility looks like it's going to remain elevated until the 5th of january until the georgia elections if you're looking out. january might see a presidenty

sidable rally. in terms of the reowning trades, everybody is looking at factors as independent circles whether it's value or growth it's much more of a venn diagram. the best looking stocks are the ones with highest leverage in terms of debt. if you look at the stocks whether it's hotels, online travel agencies, many have recovered or gone beyond where they were at the beginning of the year a lot of those stocks that have performed really well on all of the expectations were on the reopening trade have really priced in a tremendous amount. if you are going to look out to '22, '23, i'd rather own secular growth names looking at '22 or '23 than i would getting back to

2000 earnings. many stocks are pricing in a return -- they've already gone back to where they were and the earnings won't be there for a number of years. if you think the economy is going to be stronger and the companies are going to get their earnings faster, that bodes well for pretty much everything then. >> so no -- play january out for us if the republicans keep the senate, you said -- i think you were saying the market runs. how much is that worth to the market and if the senate were to go to the dems, what's the implication there? >> yeah, i think that the house is obviously an area where people think the democrats have won. i do think with moderates it's less clear everyone will vote among party lines necessarily. you know, i think most people are betting that the house -- excuse me, the senate remains republican and then i think there's more coordinated policy. i think we do get a package in here the most important part of that

package is income support in terms of fiscal policy i've never seen anything work so powerfully hopefully we can get an extension of some of the be benefits you can't shut down an economy and not provide supplemental support. hopefully that gets in as an overall bridge i think if you have a republican senate and a democratic president, then we get compromise and that bodes well for the overall economy. i think expecting off the chart type of growth, i'm not sure where people are coming to that. obviously the base effects year over year compares look great and in the first and second quarter, but the question is sustainability after that. i prefer to stick with some of the more secular growth areas of the market. >> no, we're going to leave the conversation there we have some news coming out and i have to turn it over to becky. appreciate seeing you and hope to see you again very, very

soon >> thank you >> moderna shares trading. >> reporter: merck took the stake of moderna in 2015 and increased it in 2018 the companies have within working together on multiple different projects including vaccine for the respiratory virus rsv. in october they decided to stop working together on that they gave the rights back to moderna. the explanation was that merck had its own program with a drug for rsv and moderna was taking that program back. they are still working together for cancer but merck saying in a statement this morning that it divested that direct holding in moderna in the first half of the fourth quarter saying they expect to report a small fourth

quarter gain and noting that it achieved a substantial holding of moderna over the life of the investment particularly in 2020 given the substantial appreciation in moderna's stock price. merck points out it does retain exposure to moderna indirectly through the investment adventure funds and they are working together on the personalized cancer documents moderna down there 4.3%. merck up slightly. this week we had seen it trading not on fundamentals. this is actual news that might be affecting the stock price the shares down substantially. this basket of vaccine stocks, novovax and bion tech have been trading together but no one can argue moderna stock price runs

up substansubstantially. >> you just said biontech. that's what i call it too. i asked you -- i think it is -- meg, we pointed that out on one of those days this week. it was a $70 billion company up from like 10 billion we were trying to figure out the -- how you would justify on an income statement any type of valuations like that, even if they do have a really good vaccine for covid. so i immediately -- when i heard this about merck, i said are they selling the company or are they selling the stock it sounds like they're not any lessee namm mored of the technology or the platform, they just had a huge gain in the shares like anybody else is what it sounds like, right? >> reporter: yeah. i mean, after a stock moves like that, my friends and colleague over at stat news was pointing out, moderna is a bigger company by market cap than regeneron which is crazy to think about

considering how long the two different companies have been around and how many products they have on the market, but talk about biotech valuations taken to the maximum with moderna here i think moderna ceo might argue their valuation is justified based on the prospects of their pipeline others might argue the opposite. >> right they didn't want it called b biontech they shouldn't have capitalized the n. >> when we come back we'll get jim cramer's take on the trading day ahead. after that texas governor greg abbott on the news another giant company is rocintoelatg his state. stay tuned, "squawk box" will be right back

cnbc headquarters located in cramerica. the heart of cramerica jim cramer joins us now. yesterday there was too much going on to talk about what i thought was a good showing by your team even though there was a loss against one of the highest scoring teams in the nfl. today did you see that, we have al michaels and cris collinsworth steelers/ravens. did you know that was going to be on? >> buddy schefter, i was talking to him about that. i wasn't sure where juju

smith-schuster plays a lot were completely thrown off when it comes to fantasy maybe i'll miss most of this in filming but this is a good one because i want to see who baltimore can field. baltimore needs pfizer right now. there's no doubt about it. >> what about pfizer you like the u.k.? i made the point earlier we don't want to cut any corners. if you look up bureaucrat, it's not a pretty sight what they can do with red tape what do you think? >> about the u.k., the u.k. understands that it's important to end be the tyranny of this illness and i think -- i think the world of pfizer people maybe one of the most important fi pfizer people, dr. gottleib is on the board there's far more vaccines available than we thought. i hear some people, i watched on the brian sullivan show, some

fellow from maine saying we need the governors involved yes, there's no cvser walgreen around it's mckesson to long term care and then to us i am an optimist and the u.k. situation does not change that >> great all right, jim we will tune in for more. >> let's stop being so negative. this is amazing. >> it is >> amazing. >> we'll see you in a couple of minutes. coming up, we're going to talk about texas governor greg abbott we have a picture of him from alke 20 years ago but he looks rely good. stay tuned, you're watching "squawk box" on cnbc no one likes to choose between safe or sporty.

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welcome back, everybody. hewlett-packard enterprise announcing it plans to move its headquarters from silicon valley to texas by the year 2022. it is the latest example of a big american company relocating to the lone star state for more on this as well as the coronavirus and the expected u.s. vaccine rollout, let's welcome texas governor greg abbott governor, thank you for being with us today. this is pretty big news. when did you first hear about

this and had you been working with hp or did they come to you on this? >> so we have been working with hp we have been talking to the ceo as well as other officials with hewlett packard enterprise and working on this for a while. we got to put this in context so you can see what has been going on across the united states as well as across texas it is this month that was announced, hewlett-packard enterprise moving its headquarters to texas. last month it was announced that the fortune 500 real estate company moved their headquarter to dallas. it is next month where the official headquarters opening of charles schwab will take place in dallas, moving from san francisco. as you know, it was a couple of months ago we had the official announcement of tesla opening up its gig factory in the state of texas. as you know from elon musk, their vision for texas is far larger than just this one giga factory. that's a surface level of what has been happening in texas,

during the time of the coronavirus and so you see these businesses that continue to go through this process of reimagining themselves in new locations, where they're setting up for the next few decades and then on top of that, as you all know, i've been engaged in discussions with leaders from the nasdaq, as well as other trading companies, i had them over at the governor's mansion two fridays ago, where we went through the economics of how texas is a far superior location and far lower cost location for the nasdaq and for the trading operations to be located as they build out for the next two or three decades. >> those trading companies, the nasdaq and others, have talked about moving operations from new jersey because of new taxes that are being threatened here on some of those companies. do you have any progress to report, any updates on what the actual situation is? >> sure, a couple of things, when we had the opportunity to meet with them, they learned that, of course, they would have the savings on taxes, but they

did not know all the other benefits that would be available to them, for example the cost of energy and power to run their data centers is about half of what it is in new jersey one thing that nasdaq wants to achieve is to be carbon net neutral. in texas, we lead the nation in wind energy. by the end of next year we will lead the na igs tion in solar p. we have the capability of providing them reliable, renewable energy to help them achieve their goals in that regard at a lower cost than what they would be paying in new jersey and then the cost of the data centers alone and there is this key factor you all probably know about that they care a lot about, and that is the latency-based issue we're able to solve at a far superior status than what new jersey is capable of delivering right now. >> what new jersey has done in response is they will make new taxes only exist for two years they promise to sunset it after that do you think that's enough to

keep the companies here and is nasdaq or any other company said they're leaning your way >> well, so, when you look at the fiscal situation for new jersey, it is clear that they're going to have to be finding ways to meet their budgetary ends and what the leaders of nasdaq and other businesses realize and this may be a one-time situation right now, but it will be an ongoing issue where the state of new jersey is going to have to tap into these businesses for more tax revenue where as texas for one, for example, we just passed a constitutional amendment banning an income tax in texas, i'll be seeking to ban a financial transactions tax in texas. with we do not need the tax revenue that some of the other states have and our regulatory regime is far less onerous but all the other lower costs of doing business make texas very attractive >> governor, just in terms of

hewlett-packard enterprises moving, that's a pretty big blow to silicon valley. this is a company that was started in a garage in palo alto, very deep roots there. even the san jose mayor says this is a wake-up call and that california needs to start looking more carefully at ways to work with these tech companies instead of demonizing them do you think that is likely to happen and will that stem the flow >> from my conversations with business leaders across the entire nation, we don't see any change in the approach by these other states and to the contrary, the approach of the state of texas is we partner up with all these businesses my goal is to call them to reach out to them, and explain how i can help where as the other states are looking to use these businesses to tap into them in a leeching type way, where they are bleeding them dry of their tax revenue. as the most recent example, late yesterday i spoke to the ceo of

pnc, that is acquiring bbba in texas, and i let them know that they're welcome to do business in texas, and they said it was refreshing to get a phone call from a governor reaching out to find out ways that we can help them as opposed to trying to pose new taxes upon them >> governor, real quick question about the upcoming vaccine a large anti-vaxx movement as you know in texas. and i'm curious what you're planning to do in terms of economic growth and trying to create that kind of confidence you want for the economy to encourage people to ultimately take that vaccine. i know there is part of a law that allows a reason of conscience not to take a vaccine for students going to school so what your plans are there. >> sure, andrew, i want to dove tail this into what jim cramer was talking about, because this is so important for people to realize how fast this is going to change business in the united states so putting aside the people who choose not to have the vaccine, which is texas law, we will not

be forcing the vaccine upon anybody, but as you might imagine, there is more than sufficient demand to use up the entire -- however, we just had a phone call with the white house coronavirus team yesterday, we were talking about the latest status of the vaccines and we have been working with them on this since august. the state of texas as well as other states, we will be able to vaccinate about 10% of our population this month. next month, the month after that, and when you add that on to the fact that about 20% of our population already had the antibodies, because they have contracted covid-19 and been able to survive through it, you will see that we will be very quickly getting to that stage of herd immunity, we will be very quickly getting to the stage where we are reducing hospitalizations, we are reducing fatalities, we are reducing the number of cases in our state, and so i am expecting a quicker acceleration of reopening businesses, of getting back to normalization, we still

have challenges with regard to international travel and things like that, but when you look at the percentage number of people who are getting vaccinated in the state of texas is going to be looking very promising going forward. >> governor, thank you for your time today we appreciate it we'll see you again soon that does it for us today. make sure you join us tomorrow right now time for the "squawk on the street. >> good wednesday morning. welcome to "squawk on the street." i'm carl quintanilla with jim cramer and david faber futures are a little soft here after a solid start to december. coming off s&p, nasdaq record highs. pfizer gets the first vaccine approval in the uk for emergency use. but investors state side looking for a clearer path on stimulus our road map begins with that vaccine optimism the uk