stuart: on sunday, there's a big vote in italy. on sunday there's a big vote in austria. depending how those votes go, you could see our markets react vigorously come monday morning. i urge you to watch "varney & co." at 9:00 p.m. sharp monday morning. neil cavuto, it's yours. neil: [ speaking italian ] have a great weekend. thank you very much, stuart. the president-elect trump is inheriting a glowing report. you've seen the numbers and gotten the breakdown and the obama administration saying we're handing off a good he and, don't screw it up. this is what they mean. 4.6 unemployment rate and another good surge in jobs of 178,000. we're going to look into the number whether it's all it's cracked up to be with former microsoft head steve ballmer

what his take on donald trump is and maybe the clippers. one of the world's richest men and he oftentimes speaks his mind. oftentimes because he's so rich, right? first jonathan hoenig and conservative commentator gina loudon on the data that has a lot of democrats crowing and tempting, i guess, gina, donald trump to top that. what do you make of that? >> yeah, well, it shouldn't be, i think it was albert camas who said that if you were in such an unfree world, your very existence becomes an act of rebellion. that's where donald trump found himself. he is by his very existence an act of rebellion. so used to taxation, regulations so, used to everything that pulls our economy down and putting it into a national debt that we close our eyes to and pretend it's not happening.

i think the american people stand ready, that's why we're seeing so many amazing improvements in the economy, honestly, in a projective way that i don't know we've seen before the president was even in office. neil: one of the things that's amazing in this report is that the unemployment rate has been cut more than half. i know there's a real unemployment number and all that, and the party out of power likes to make note of that. jonathan, to get much below that rate, that's going to be some tough work for donald trump, won't it? >> neil, if you take donald trump at face value what he's saying that number is going to jump. unemployment is going to jump dramatically, and i know he's not in power just yet, taking the carrier deal, neil, as an example, republicans are applauding this. this is cronyism. this is exactly the type of maneuvers that kill an economy, and the fact that so many on the right, steve moore and down the line, gina are sanctions this cronyism.

neil: why is it cronyism? >> neil, it's government picking winners and losers in the economy. by definition. mike pence and donald trump told the "new york times" america is losing because of free economics. neil: brian, what do you make of that, you teach kids and try to teach them about the free market, the capitalism, and, of course, there are many who argue in democratic and republican administrations we lost sight of that. we have government that plays a role coddling, protecting and shielding the federal reserve and the role it's played in keeping things sort of propped up. so it's capitalism in its purest form, not the form we're looking at now. >> over the past eight years, the obama administration propped up green energy company

solyndra. they dictate wages. >> this is solyndra, just as another favor, though. i think he's a point. this is a special break from washington for a particular company, that's not the way you're going to grow the economy long-term, that might put a thousand people in indiana back to work. not going to put hundreds of thousand across the country back to work. you need broad base reform, regulatory reform, tax reform, if he stays in the carrier deals, you're not going to get that. neil: one of the things he was selling them on, gina is the notion bear with me. the incentives were state based, indiana 7 billion over ten years. i don't know this for sure but i imagine any other company entertaining leaving the area it was subtle imploring, hey, rates are going to come down, i'm talking about tax rates, fewer regulations. give me time to give you less reason to leave in the first place.

what is wrong with that? >> yeah, i don't think there's anything wrong with it, i understand the caution for crony capitalism but i don't think that's where president-elect trump is going with. this and i think that's evidenced by the fact that carrier has plenty of skin in this game, they built the plant, they're going to have to close the plant they built in order to do. there is plenty of skin in the game for them, and it's important to note that president-elect trump had no relationship with them prior to this, unlike deals with solyndra that we saw out of clinton administration. here's why, president-elect trump is unconventional -- he's going to be an unconventional president. >> he's a crony. no, he's a crony. >> it's about sending a message of keeping jobs in america. >> this is a totally conventional move, this is what we've seen time and again. this is where the swamp comes from. special breaks for special companies, the president gets a good headline. >> let me make one point. this gentleman says, it we've

seen this before, neil, we saw this under president kennedy in the early 1960s, president kennedy started threatening the steel industry to prop up prices. neil: he did. >> he saw what was called the kennedy swoon, the kennedy slide. 25% drop in the stock market because of exact type of anti-capitalist threats. you want to sanction this, applaud this, go ahead. neil: we should explain u.s. steel had an effort to increase steel prices overnight, the president put the kabash on it at the time and made them cower to reduce that. here's where i disagree with you, brian, and i guess my friend jonathan and agree with gina here, what is wrong with making a pitch for american jobs, regardless of the sector? what if he sets a precedent it's not beneath him to call the ceo of a company and say what can i do to keep the jobs here? i don't care what industry you are in.

say he did the same with conventional fossil fuel company, the same with a plane manufacturer, anything and everything, the most powerful representative in the united states can do to keep jobs in the united states? what is wrong with that? >> here's the thing, neil, guess who doesn't get access to donald trump, the small- and medium-sized business who doesn't have a pipeline to washington. donald trump is meeting with carrier, a subsidiary of united technology, 10% of revenue comes from the d.o.d. this is big with big, exactly what's wrong with the swamp in washington. if you're connected, you get a deal, if you're the small guys, you don't get a deal. he should push broad-based reform tax cuts for everybody. regulatory cuts for everybody. neil: he's doing that. jonathan if a company is announcing these jobs are gone, they're going to mexico, there is nothing you can do about it, and a president-elect in this case, not even a president yet comes back and says how can we

not make this happen? how can we reverse this. >> he's wrong for doing that. neil: why? >> he's wrong for doing that. neil: if i were president, i would do everything in my power to keep people from losing their jobs, i really would. really, neil? would you enslave other people. neil: john, you don't believe what you're saying, enslave? i would make the pitch for the local 7-eleven not getting rid of the hostile guy, that's what i would do. >> just as obama made it out of teachers, president-elect is doing out of the steelworkers. the purpose of the government is not to create job, it's to protect rights. has the conservatives forgotten that completely now that they're the mob in charge? neil: what do you think of that, gina? >> there's a huge difference between government jobs and jobs that are in the private sector, and as to the accusation that this isn't going to happen for small- and medium-sized businesses, of course it is.

it is the very foundation of president-elect trump's economic plan is to cut regulations and cut taxes. neil: that's what you hope, gina, you provide an environment that you provide an environment that provides opportunity for all types of businesses of all sizes. all i'm saying is there is a difference when big companies announce big layoffs or big transitions to other countries. as leader of the country, i think it would behoove to you do everything you can to avoid that sort of stuff. that's all i'm saying. >> what it ends up with, neil, the companies line up in washington and say here's the deal president trump. we don't move jobs if you give us a break, it will give you a great headline and make you look like you're a champion president. neil: why wasn't it teddy roosevelt speak softly but carry a big stick kind of a message. i'm not doing squat for you but could make life hell for you and the bad pr could hurt you trying to sell products if

you're tainted by the products by the notion you were just trying to save a few bucks when, in fact, staying here might be in long-term interests. >> it's not saving a few bucks, it's being competitive on a world stage. neil: don't you think carrier has the numbers and came to the conclusion this might work. jonathan first, and gina i will go to you. >> i'll say quickly, neil, you said it, isn't walk softly but carry a big stick okay? no, it's not. the stick is force, the stick is guns and the president-elect is using it against innocent american citizens. neil: you would not just go and willy-nilly do what it wants, maybe consider the benefits that aren't so obvious to staying here, to working here. the companies leave for a variety of reasons, not pointing out that incoming administration might have a whole new economic policy and a set of goals, that would be very, very conducive to that business staying here. what's wrong with reminding

them? >> the same old policies, cronyism, and economy can be judged by number of jobs that are destroyed, not those that are saved or created. neil: there are a thousand individuals in indiana who are going to have a good christmas and no one gave a rat's ass about them prior to this. >> there is your appeal to motion. neil: if you were to lose your job and no one spoke out in your defense or tried to save you, is it pure emotion to say you're worth the struggle. you are telling me it's emotion for me to say you are worth the struggle. you are! i'd fight are you a little bit. >> i lose my job and no one came to save me. i hope you would come to fight for me. neil: that depends what day it is. >> donald trump has to do it in a way that benefits everybody, not just big companies who have a direct line to the white house.

neil: how do we know he won't? you don't know. >> we want him to do that. in the meantime, doesn't make sense to put carrier on level playing field with competitors. why should they get a special break? >> there is no direct line, though. these jobs were already gone. all he did was save them. there was no relationship preceding. this president-elect trump didn't know this guy. he literally saw the guy on tv, it was like my gosh, what can i do? he made a phone call. how is it cronyism if there is no preexisting relationship and no visit prior to this. neil: you are not getting involved at all. >> you would not get involved at all, you would let them go, wouldn't fight for them, grand economics, that's the way the world bounces, no interference, no role at all. >> freedom! you fight for them but fight in

a way that preserves long-term benefits, not just about the short-term story, neil. neil: well, i don't know. short term goes way beyond talking about a company's quarterly performance. those people are going to be working pretty hard, the message sent to a lot of manufacturers and those who work at them is there is someone in the white house coming to the white house who has our back and cares. >> the message sent to manufacturers is be careful if you start a business here, if you do something the president doesn't like, he's going to come after you. neil: i don't believe that. >> i do believe that. >> neil, he threatened to do that! >> he's talked again and again about threatening ceos, this is a staple, a cheer line. neil, respectfully, we don't know what he's going to do, he said exactly what he's going to do, he's doing it, calling ceos, threatening ceos, making special deals. neil: if you became president, jonathan, if you ever became pictures are you would say when you hear announcements of jobs

that are going to go, go, go, go, go, capitalism rules, these workers drool. >> that's not the alternative, that's a false dilemma. neil: that's jonathan, heartless tony. >> what's the point if having principles if you don't live by them? neil: what's the point of having principles if you're willing to see so many lose their jobs to uphold them. >> this country was once 98% agricultural. we could hope president trump would have been around to save the agricultural jobs. you could be working in a field not sitting on tv, respectfully, sir you. >> would lose weight, thank you very much. in the meantime, the president-elect is rubbing this win, a win he sees it, in the media's face, but the media, let's just say, not taking it. in fact, responding bigtime nasty to it.. >> and that person is doing the

math, and that person was saying for months that there's no way that donald trump can break the blue wall, right? [cheers] we didn't break it, we shattered that sucker. we shattered it.

. >> and we won it big. but then the people back there, the extremely dishonest said, very dishonest people. how about -- i mean how dishonest. how about when a major anchor who hosted a debate started

crying when she realized that we won! >> something about martha raddatz, right? anyway, donald trump's battle with the media is ongoing, this is preview of coming attractions, who better to ask than adam knuckman what this is going to look like, what do you think, buddy? >> he's going to continue to tee off against the networks and papers such as the "new york times." neil: but he sucked up to them, he went over to the gray lady, i don't know. mixed messages. >> there is a mixed message there. in person, donald trump, as you know, can be exceedingly polite. i doubt if he would go into somebody's office and cause a riot and yell at people. >> i heard from when he met to other executives, he lays it out there and salty in language, and nothing wrong with that, but what i find here.

who might have judged he's going to be president of the united states, so it's working for him, but i'm just wondering with the media, he's going to get, you know, a lot of tough coverage. is he going to keep this up and attack the messengers of that coverage constantly to deflect or maybe just to make them the issue and not whatever he's doing. what? >> i don't know if he'll apply that argument or approach to every situation that he's in. i think for the time being now in the so-called victory lap that he's taking, it's a subject that plays well to the people filling arenas at these rallies that he loved before he was elected and seems to continue loving them now. he can't go wrong preaching to that choir about the missteps and the dishonesty of the media because the general public link the media with the east and west coast college of media elites they turned out in the election. no brainer to target them.

will he do it in the future during his administration? i suppose he will at times or surgates will, i think he will be involved in the issues of governing, and i think he'll be a relatively aloof president, but he's a guy who doesn't exist or can resist interviews to be on some national media. i think he'll accept invitations to the highest rated shows like "60 minutes" for example. neil: he is often attacked, regardless how you think about him, in a disproportionate way. a lot of the headlines have been as condescending as they were prior to the election. in the new york times in a special look how he handles things, talking to foreign leaders. picking his cabinet, you know, they're aghast how he goes about just speaking from the hip when this is what got him elected. people like that quality, so they kind of compared it to the bull in the china shop and even worse, but that's the bull in the china shop that americans

elected because they looked at what these conventional guys have brought us and they concluded not much. >> and this approach that you just described by the "new york times" and others is precisely the approach that has the mainstream news media in the dog house with the voters who voted for trump because it's the same condescending attitude that the people who were in office had that they voted against and replaced with others. it's interesting how the news media doesn't seem to have learned from that and doesn't seem to be balance. there's nothing wrong with colorful adjectives in stories. the one you mentioned about trump's correspondence and phone calls. >> the pakistani leader and all of that. >> it quoted a lot of diplomatic professionals and lifers in the diplomatic core. they're upset because in a trump administration they may

be out of the loop. neil: bingo! you hit on it as you always do, my friend. the message there was -- and i've been to the state department many, many times, very elite group of foreign policy professionals, like the guys who advise our most elite politicians. and they have their own built-in briefing books on every country, every leader, every section of the world, and here's donald trump, whether you like the leader of pakistan or not but generally in the state department they don't, he's a dangerous guy, and there's, you know, trump sing the guy's praises. they don't like that because he bypassed them, and there is nothing more annoying to an elite crowd than to be ignored, and that is what's going oner. >> exactly, and, you know, there's a perception, and frankly the perception the reason why people voted for trump was people in washington talk a lot to each other. they don't get anything done and advise presidents and briefing books and nothing gets

done. neil: they say my god, my god, he didn't call me. adam buchman, thank you very much. >> thank you, neil. neil: this is proof of it. a retired general who donald trump wants to make his next defense secretary who goes -- are you listening to this, state department, by the nickname mad dog. did he just appoint mad dog? this is going to be such a wild four years. are you strapped in? good. more after this.

. neil: all right, you've already heard about the president-elect's choice for defense secretary. retired general james "mad dog" mattis, apparently very salty language and does crazy things in battle but they work, and he's probably considered one of the more respective generals, they'd have to go back to patton, they'd have to address

a thing called a waiver here. so that a former general, less than seven years out from being an active general could be in a white house cabinet position. he's been out a little more than three years, they'd have to make a special allowance for him. that is not expected to be a big, big deal. admiral jim loy who served with general mattis says this is just the guy we need. why is that, admiral, how would he be different? and how did he come up with the name mad dog? >> well, i think the expressions that he's famous for, although my guess is he would put that in the background a little bit, whether it's his call sign chaos or this nickname mad dog is all about his aggressive nature with regard to telling it like it is, so jim mattis

brings the combination of the warrior on the battlefield with the statesman they think is a very appropriate balance, especially when we focus on the middle east as perhaps the most convulsed corner of the world and he brings the experience not only as the central command commander but the on the ground soldier and marine engaged in fallujah and in afghanistan and other places that will bring balance to his thought that he offers in terms of counsel and advice to the white house and executes the senior military official in the administration. neil: right, i believe the defense secretary is the only other member of the cabinet apart from the president, of course, who can declare war, right? >> that's in the constitution. i guess. i'd have to research -- neil: no, i was just curious about that. here's why i mention it, admiral, he and donald trump are not on the same page when

it comes to vladimir putin, who the general says wants to break nato apart and on iran, the single greatest threat to stability and peace in the middle east, further more donald trump said he knows more than a lot of generals. i don't know whether he included general mattis in that, but how is that going to fly? obviously, everyone reports to the commander in chief, but some chase at that. how is this going to work out? >> i think there's a little bit of a team of rivals notion there with regard to those intellectual positions. but if the president is doing his job in this cabinet building process, he is bringing to the table those people who are going to tell him what they think, right from the very beginning. so whether it is the national security adviser, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, the intelligence folks, he wants at that table those who will tell it like it is and

be honest and straightforward with regard to the counsel he's being given. if i'm president-elect trump, i'm trying to get to that table, people who will put the cards faceup on the table and tell me what i need to know so as to make a better decision. and in jim mattis' case, he will tell it like it is, he has built a career to some degree around his aggressive posture with regard telling it like it is, and putting those cards and facts up on the table to be dealt with. he's also the kind of guy as a statesman has an enormous and intellectual history. he reminds me an awful lot in this national security phase as barry mccaffrey was when hef the drug czar for the united states, bringing to the table an enormous appetite for learning and reading and listening well, and translating what needs to be done into the

positions and policy issues on the table. neil: well, he's -- doesn't sound too shabby to me. admiral, thank you very much, thank you for taking the time. >> you bet. neil: all right, you know about the dow and in and out of record territory, with today's slight downdraft here, and you also know about the picks for the economic team, the financial team that we have thus far from donald trump. what if i told you those pix are winning out over jobs report that would normally stress these guys out? charlie gasparino on that, after this. hey dad. hey sweetie, how was your first week? long. it'll get better. i'm at the edward jones office, like sue suggested. thanks for doing this, dad. so i thought it might be time to talk about a financial strategy. (laughing) you mean pay him back? knowing your future is about more than just you. so let's start talking about your long-term goals... multiplied by 13,000 financial advisors. it's a big deal. and it's how edward jones makes sense of investing.

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. neil: all right, president-elect trump announcing he's steak a president's strategic and policy forum. we don't know how often they will meet. it's a who's who of big deals. steve schwartzman of blackstone, mary barrett, ceo of general motors, jamie dimon, larry fink of blackrock, bob iger of disney. i'm looking for gasparino, no, no, no, no. >> how about scaramucci? skybridge capital? neil: daniel jurgen, jack welch our friend, pretty big crowd. we don't know others who are there. >> and people who didn't necessarily like him.

remember jamie dimon? neil: three people were not big fans, the former chairman of boeing. what do these kind of things prove? >> they produce nothing, president obama had a burch of them. neil: back here, i led this segment with it, and we did a little alert thing. >> i know, but you agree with me on the break. neil: i did, okay. well. [laughter] >> you agree. you didn't just agree with me, you put it in my head. neil: yes, i'm sorry. well, so you're saying and others have done this sort of thing. >> obama did. neil: ronald reagan are in sort of stuff. there were short meetings. what do they prove? just you want to what, you want to get them in the inner circle? >> want the business community to know that you're not insane. obama, his thing was -- neil: wait, to know you're not insane? >> to think you're not totally insane. neil: this doesn't come up in the respectives.

>> here was obama's hurtle that he was a socialist. that was really it. in 2008, reverend wright is his spiritual mentor, bill ayres is economic guru. neil: remember bill clinton had the same thing, tax-and-spend liberal and bob reuben was the guy. >> bill clinton -- new democrats existed back then, though he was liberal, he was more conducive to -- neil: the early days are crucial to him to convince the ceos and the investment community he wasn't going to be -- >> right,ing and donald has the same -- i keep calling him donald. president-elect trump, jack welch said he can't support him because of the billy bush video. neil: then he came around. >> and said i'll support him. jamie dimon, you know, rumored that -- i don't know, can't remember what network reported that he was going to be

treasury secretary. but jamie dimon privately said he despised donald trump, okay? didn't like his policies, trade policies, attacks on immigrants, so these people think in their heart of hearts that he is erratic. neil: these meetings have a pr value. >> yeah, and part of it is to teach the person to tell the business community, well, he's not insane. neil: really quickly, goldman, lot of goldman folks populating this cabinet. >> another possible one as we've been reporting on foxbusiness.com is gary cohn, the coo. neil: wasn't he teased for the omb. >> he wants out of goldman, he's been itching to get out of goldman for a long time, and now i think he sees his landing pad being a high-level cabinet appointment. he was in trump tower earlier in the week.

i couldn't put o and b together with gary cohn because he's not the numbers crunching type. energy makes sense, he's going to get o and b or stay at goldman and get nothing. neil: he's a reasonably young guy. who what do they get out of this? it's not about money, anyway. >> it's the prestige. neil: it's the prestige. >> listen, gary cohn wants to be lloyd blankfein, he wants to be ceo, lloyd blankfein survived cancer and probably going to stay another five years. i don't think gary wants to wait five years. i think he wants to run something. this is a good landing pad if he gets o and, b, particularly energy, particularly energy secretary, running that department is a big thing, that would be a great cap. neil: what about wilbur ross? he will transform the commerce department. >> he's a smart guy. neil: very smart. >> he understands trade, tax

policies. neil: lot of billionaires. >> why do we care about billionaires? neil: i don't know. >> do you want jack lews running around the white house? jack lew was the treasury secretary. neil: money doesn't define intellect. >> he had a cup of coffee at citigroup in a very controversial part of the department that led to the destruction of citigroup and made a chunk of money out of it. neil: dialed up the word you were thinking of. >> do we want that? or wilbur ross who earned his money. neil: the observation there are a lot of rich people. >> my thing with donald -- neil: president-elect. >> president-elect donald. president-elect apprentice. comrade bill today, donald is light-years better than him. it's the goldman sachs, do we want so many goldman sachs guys running around? that's the question. and this trade and spending stuff on infrastructure, that could be problematic going forward.

neil: we'll watch it, we'll watch it. thank you, my friend. >> any time. neil: have a great weekend, charlie gasparino. >> you, too. >> all right, democrats are still reeling but already manipulating. we'll explain what they're up to now? ♪ guyhey nicole, happening here? this is my new alert system for whenever anything happens in the market. kid's a natural. but thinkorswim already lets you create custom alerts for all the things that are important to you. shhh. alerts on anything at all? not only that, you can act on that opportunity with just one tap right from the alert. wow, i guess we don't need the kid anymore. custom alerts on thinkorswim. only at td ameritrade.

. >> reporter: i'm nicole petallides with the fox business brief. the dow jones industrial average down 33 point, looking

like up week which is the fourth straight week of gains, we haven't seen a trend like that since the middle of july. watching from the dow winners and losers which include intel and merck, caterpillar and goldman sachs are lower. we did get monthly jobs report, 178,000 jobs added and jobless rate at 4.6%, nine-year low, over 22,000 left the labor force. watching goldman sachs, this is a financial steward. goldman up 23% in november and obviously on the idea of less regulations, but the financials overall are pulling back today and goldman is the number one loser in the dow jones industrial average. we also heard from charlie gasparino as well about cohn. ford, 650,000 recalls for seat belts in the lincoln mkz and the ford fusion.

. neil: all right, to this day, and we're almost a month out from the election. democrats not only the president of the united states saying it's not really their fault, certainly not his fault. might be a case of a lot of people watching fox in bars across the country, but i always wondered about that.

maybe it's because they're drinking because they're depressed about the economic policies in this country. i joke to make a point, no one acknowledging that maybe in the democratic party they were part of the problem, maybe a big chunk of it. to the independent women's forum sabrina schaeffer and adam smith and brad gersman on if the left is out of touch. brad, you were the last person who is out of touch. i'll ask you this, do you think the president is, not even acknowledging that his legacy he campaigned on and hillary clinton said should continue, was rejected by voters? >> i don't know that it's so much about the president being rejected by voters as it was independent and specific to hillary clinton who has absolutely no message whatsoever, and was a terrible candidate from the get go. she almost lost this thing to bernie sanders, who is a socialist. so i think the democratic party doesn't have to scratch their

head for very long or, you know, do a long-term brain dump on this. this is a hillary clinton failure and defeat and it was solidly done and should just tell it. neil: let's say you buy that for a lot of this. she was a bad campaigner, barely did survive bernie sanders, and if not for superdelegates, might not have at all. if the policies were so great and she represented continuing them then she would have won the electoral vote. in the battleground states where they have most on the line and some of them were dicey economically, they went to donald trump. >> right, look, i think that there's a little bit more going on than simply that hillary clinton was a failed candidate. i think that it's interesting that nancy pelosi was just re-elected because if you remember, she famously said when we were talking about obamacare, we have to wait to see the bill before we know if we're going to like it or not. she wants the american people to have the blind faith in government.

that's what i think so many voters were voting against. they weren't voting against democrats or republicans, voting against the idea of large government and the progressive policies that have massive trade-offs, whether we're talking about health care or labor policies or trade policies, people are beginning to catch onto that. that's whang they were responding to. neil: you know, alexandra for college republicans, the view is now this is just who we wanted, republicans controlling everything, but if you look at the democrats' fall from grace, and prior to that the republicans' fall from grace and prior to that the democrats' fall from grace. if they're not careful, they too should fall from grace, how do you view that? >> republicans benefit from the fact this is a change election, we have change on our side of the ballot this year. in two short years or four years, that could easily change, i think if the democrats want to take a hard look about what happens this year, they're going to have to

do some real soul-searching. like the republicans did after 2012. unlike the snowflakes on campus, i didn't need playdoe or a safe space to get therapy throughout the day, the americans went to work and diagnosed where we went wrong with young voters. we worked tirelessly to make sure that young voters didn't cost our party the election, instead of blaming fox news and yelling at opposing team's campaign operatives at the harvard iop event, democrats should take time to reflect what went wrong. neil: try as i might, maybe here, it's a little different. i don't see fox news playing anywhere outside of this building, but that's just me. i should keep that in mind. thank you very much. >> thank you so much. neil. neil: we got the jobs report out and it is better than expected, and 4.6% unemployment rate is very, very low, the lowest since 2007. all good, right?

until you start picking apart the data underneath the data that certainly you would think would get attention in the media, but it's not. i'm talking about the record number of part-time jobs within that, after this. i thought i married an italian. my lineage was the vecchios and zuccolis. through ancestry, through dna i found out that i was only 16% italian.

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because he's one of the richest people on the planet. has more than $24 billion in wealth, what he's done for the clippers, charity, what he's done and spoken out on a host of issues that a lot of big cheeses refuse to do. he's going to be with us in just a few minutes. stick around for that. good stuff. all right, remember this weekend you have that italian referendum going on, it could be a very, very big deal. could roil the markets, the italian version of brexit here, what the prime minister wants to do said if this goes down to defeat, he's going to resign is quicken the pace here so you don't have to go through parliament and enability quick changes, stagnated economy that isn't responding enough to the financial pressures in italia. let's get the read from gerri willis. let's say it all fails, won't be the first time depending on

the opposite. what do you think? >> here's what's going on, big referendum, major constitutional reform as you said. what they want to do is slim down the national legislature and, by the way, cut the number of senators by two thirds, imagine that. they're trying speed it up. why? this is the mostldy archaic government. there have been 63 governments since world war ii. renzi is trying to speed up this. here is a potential downfall. a no vote could make the italian banks fall. there is the number three bank assets in trouble. that might have to be bailed out. bond yields would rise and they could weaken the euro and if that happens, adds to the dollar's rise, and that, of course would make -- add to the dollar strength and make imports more expensive. think about it, lots of brexit-like results.

this is more of what's going on that happened in this country, this popular uprising that we've seen. neil: it's everywhere, gerri, thank you very much. >> thank you. neil: darrell issa what he makes of that, after this.

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stuart: the number surprise a lot of folks. 178 thou ones added. food chunk were part time jobs. 178,000. 4.6% unemployment rate. shocked a lot of folks. lowest certainly of entire obama presidency. neil: meanwhile president-elect

saying numbers can be boosted if he can scare companies from moving jobs from this country. take a look. >> i said to some of the folks, companies are not going to leave the united states anymore without consequences, not going to happen. it is not going to happen. [applause] tell you right now. neil: congressman darrell issa of the fine state of california. will you sign on to that? you're big fry markets here. one of the most successful businessmen, if not the richest in congress, what would you think of a president or president-elect calling you out, doing this? >> you know, free and fair markets work, as you know. we have about 5billion dollars trade surplus with countries we have trade agreements, including obviously mexico in that mix. carrier made a decision bodes well where they think the economy is going, why they think it makes sense.

what i saw in that story, when i originally reported was a concern that the unions are saying, we don't want to make concessions that might cause carrier to make those decisions. the state of indiana, made tax decisions made it make sense for carrier. the working americans who want to keep good, high-paying jobs, are also going to have to make sure they right-size their productivity. that is going to be part of the message you're seeing. neil: some are troubled by what happened. i am not, congressman. anytime you save 1100 jobs short of surrendering everything is a good idea. i have had free-marketeers on the show in the past hour say it's a slippery slope. you're playing favorites. no different than the president with solyndra. what do you say? >> we have to remember corporations don't really pay taxes. they make business decisions. americans pay taxes. anytime we employ americans, even if the corporation pays no

taxes those americans not only pay taxes but they earn the money they need to support their families and they're not on the public dole. 1100 jobs matters. neil: so a president should fight for that? >> i think a president and a governor should fight to make sure the jobs are created -- neil: but this same deal, congressman, i'm sorry, sir, this same deal was on the table roughly a year ago. that is when mike pence long before he became the vice president-elect, while he was governor trying to incentivize carrier not to go through with this. the presence of donald trump, making this a big national issue changed things, right? >> donald trump makes a difference and one of the reasons he makes a difference along with vice president-elect pence, they said they will roll back regulations. they will make america a place where manufacturing sear makes sense again. the anticipation of less regulations and certainly less growth in regulations is part of a consideration for every business.

if i were still an active businessman in the private sector today, i would be freezing my decisions at least long enough to give this administration the opportunity to show they're going to deliver on more productive america by getting government out of the way. that is the trump promise. that is my promise. that is what we have to deliver. neil: all right. sir, thank you very good seeing you. >> thank you. neil: darrell issa. well the president-elect is promising tax reform but one of the things that came up in an intriguing interview, steve mnuchin, the president's pick for treasury secretary when he told maria bartiromo the upper income will see lower tax rate, it will go down to 33%, that is the goal at least, but net-net won't mean they will get more money. it will simply mean they will make a lateral move here because their deductions will be limited and so it will be a wash. that might be news to people -- general my beth martin that is

not technically a tax cut, right, jennie beth? >> neil, thanks for having me on. in some places that may not be technically a tax cut. what i want to point out the tea party movement, this modern-day incarnation of the tea party movement, when we started we were very concerned about constitutionally-limited government. we didn't want new taxes. we are taxed enough already but what we were really concerned about is reducing the regulations, making the code fairer, flatter and simpler for all americans. and we understand if that happens to the tax code, and there are tax cuts that are happening along the way, the economy is going to grow and we're all going to be better off. so it sounds like we're moving in that direction. neil: i think at face value you're right about that simpler is always better but i think a lot of upper income folks assumed they would have a tax cut. they might not now.

i don't know how numbers ultimately crunch out but obviously the new message the incoming trump team is sending, your rate will go down but your deductions are going down or allowable deductions you might not see a tax cut. that is big news to me. a lot are emailing me, wondering what? since their, they would think of themselves big beneficiaries of tax cut, would do a lot of good for the economy, is this a marketing technique to sell this tax package, or will upper income be genuinely shocked to find out they're not getting a tax cut? >> well, neil, i think that when it comes to that, we're going to have to see what exactly pans out as to whether people are going to be genuinely shocked or not but we have over 75,000 pages of regulations in the irs tax code. between 2001 and 2010, there

were over, there were 4428 changes to the tax code. that is more than one a day. it causes businesses, costs the higher income taxpayers, costs every single american money to keep up with these changes to make sure we're complying with the rules and regulations properly. so by cleaning it up and reducing those regulations, and truly tackling that problem so that we have a much simpler code, we're all going to be better off, we will wind up saving money and if there are tax cuts to go along with it, the economy is going to grow. neil: just not for the rich guys. there is no lobby for them. they don't need one, right? >> but, neil, i think that, we're going to see that it is going to benefit everyone. neil: okay. >> i think if there are tax cuts in there it is going to benefit everyone, especially cleaning up the regulations. neil: jennie beth, always great talking to you. thank you very, very much. >> thank you, neil.

neil: jennie beth martin. we you saw john bolton walking into the elevators or waiting in the lobby. some of the waits for elevators are interminable with all the media guys snapping pictures and media running, you don't know what to do. hopefully you come with an aide, looks like he did. obviously you can't crawl into a wall fast enough. he is being considered for secretary of state. that is still not really nailed down. that is the one that mitt romney is being looked at, senator corker from tennessee is looked at. rudy giuliani we're told. who wins? we don't know. we'll have a lot more after this, and read from all of this from the former ceo of microsoft, steve ballmer, on that, on the tax plan to come, on what's warranted now, all of it after this. ♪ see me. see me. don't stare at me. see me.

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generosity is its oyou can handle being a mom for half an hour. i'm in all the way. is that understood? i don't know what she's up to, but it's not good. can't the world be my noodles and butter? get your mind out of the gutter. mornings are for coffee and contemplation. that was a really profound observation. you got a mean case of the detox blues. don't start a war you know you're going to lose. finally you can now find all of netflix in the same place as all your other entertainment. on xfinity x1. neil: all right. it has come to this, crest christie entertaining running the republican national committee. if he doesn't get that there is a stand-down here that he might get that. this is kind of weird. i'm kidding about the silvaki thing.

this guy was one of earliest backers of donald trump. thought he would get something out of it. for a while he was out of the transition team. he was vice-chair of the transition team. he was considered for a cabinet position. maybe now not a cabinet position. so much for sucking up. associate editor of "the hill," what do you think of this? >> coming into the process, key allies like chris christie, rudy giuliani would get the picks of what job they want in the trump administration. neil: right. >> we're a couple weeks into this, we're starting to see early on, reince priebus, incoming chief of staff, mike pence, other top republicans are trying to push trump in more establishment direction of selecting people that maybe have more experience and more connections on capitol hill if he wants to get legislation passed. neil: he has some outside of the box kind of individuals. in the case of mad dog general mattis, of course someone who have to get a waiver to serve as

his defense secretary, but outside of that, there is nothing wrong one way or the other, it is eclectic cabinet. argue a bit of a team of rivals cabinet, that some of these people, close to half of them were not active supporters of donald trump earlier done. but there seems to be a clear message to the early suck-ups, you're not going to be rewarded for that, right? >> yeah. there is definitely, this potential that, even mitt romney is still in the running it seems. neil: do you believe that? do you think that is still -- sounds too incredible to me but. >> it would be obviously very remarkable just because he was such an ardent critic of trump on the campaign trail, going out of his way to try to tear him down throughout the campaign but they have met a couple times now. they seem to have struck up some type of chemistry what his aides are say after the fact. it would be remarkable move. trump leans into this mind-set of potentially leaning on and

bringing in some former rivals into those top spots. so it is not out of the question that he could be the pick at the end of the day. neil: nevertheless, the passionate base of kellyanne conway and some others who were passionate and part of a small lonely group of people pushing donald trump along, they don't like some of these conventional picks, particularly mitt romney. if he picks romney, obviously for the secretary of state position they will go along but are you hearing, anything about the die-hard bunch with him early on and stuck with him, is swallowing hard on a lot of this stuff? >> yeah. we obviously saw conway on the warpath against romney. neil: right. >> of course giuliani being out there, very publicly trying to pitch himself as the candidate for trump to pick. at the end of the day, we would expect trump to go with his gust as he has done in the past. if it is mitt romney or general petraeus, those picks that would

of course have a lot of unease in certain parts of the republican party, if trump want to do that that's the direction he is going to go. he has been seems pretty pragmatic in choices he made so far. so if mike pence or priebus or others are really laying out the case of, you know, giuliani will have very difficult time in senate confirmation, go with someone maybe a little bit safer bet, he could look elsewhere and that might be part of his decision-making. neil: all right. we'll watch closely. thank you so much. good seeing you. >> thank you. neil: he was the lead bush attorney in the famous bush v. gore 2000 case. ted olsen why he calls and looking at this latest recount as curious. what is going on in some of these key states, like wisconsin, like michigan, like potentially others, and why it's creating such a ruckus. ♪ you totaled your brand new car. nobody's hurt,

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is the point echoed by ted olsen, former solicitor general, lead bush attorney, in bush v. gore in 2000. good to have you. >> thank you. neil: what do you make of these recounts? could be all in said and done, maybe up to three states, the rate we're going, are they justified? >> they are time-consuming, expensive distraction that can't lead to, an outcome any different than we already know. the differential was 22,000 votes between president elects trump and secretary clinton in wisconsin. 10,000 in michigan. 78,000, something like that in pennsylvania where there are also seeking to change the result. as you pointed out, the green party candidate, jill stein, finished fourth. she had 1% of the vote in wisconsin. it makes no sense. neil: you know, many have argued that the clinton campaign got involved not so much to make

sure their interests were being, you know, addressed, in this, but, to try to use the stein campaign as a proxy here. i don't know what the true cases, but the clinton campaign's involvement in this did raise eyebrows. what do you make of it? >> i think so too. we don't know of any evidence that they helped stein raise $6 million, all of a sudden to do this but it does look awfully suspicious. what, when donald trump in one of the debates said that he might not decide whether or not to contest the outcome of a vote count on election day, clinton expressed that that was horrifying. that that was just not possible, unacceptable completely, forgetting of course the al gore situation where he challenged the votes for 35 days in florida in the year 2000. but now, immediately, upon the

challenge, or the recount demands, in wisconsin and michigan and pennsylvania, the clinton campaign said, well, it was remember their civic duty to participate and they were going to be involved in it and they were going to send lawyers. it does look awfully suspicious. they are are the only ones who could possibly gain by any change in the recount. the numbers are such that they can't possibly gain anyway, but they can throw president trump's situation into disarray and, discredit, attempt to discredit the outcome and that is very, very unfor the that. neil: well they would have to win all three of the states that are being formally contested right now. to do that. even then, donald trump with the michigan win, even then it might hold that off. even leaving that aside, when something like this happens, and you see the funding involved, and i'm a money guy here, i try to follow the money here, in the

case of the good doctor, she has raised almost three times as much for this recount than she did in her entire campaign. what do you make of that? >> makes you want to wonder, you're in this business, follow the money. where did it come from? has she made any disclosure where that money came from? she has made a claim there were lots of people contributing on an average of such and such, few hundred dollars a piece, but it could have big in big lump sums from people who were clinton people, we don't know. she has an obligation if she wants transparency and legitimacy, with respect to the election outcomes where the differential between trump and clinton is over 100,000 if you count all three of those states, if she wants transparency and

integrity in the process, she should immediately disclose where those funds came from and where they came to her. neil: it would have to come fairly late. i haven't tracked all that down. ted, one of the things that did come up, the initial genesis was concerns about whether certain states and their systems were hacked. let's say a 10,000 vote in michigan is 5,000 vote. 23,000 gap in wisconsin is 10,000 gap, being arbitrary, does that make the point hacking could potentially be involved or just bad counting? >> if there is differential in the votes and there is no evidence -- she did not cite any evidence. she talked about well there is concern about this kind of possibility of hacking. i'm concernedded or some people have been concerned. she didn't really name anything. she cited one computer expert

that said, well that was possible. first of all, it is important to say, there is no evidence from her or the clinton people there are any miscounted numbers or any hacking. if you do find some disparity in the numbers and the numbers you hypothesized would be greater than any disparity ever come up as far as i know in any recount in history. there are just a few hundred votes in the whole five weeks in the florida situation. neil: right, right. >> we're talking numbers that are completely out of, out of any line of reasonableness, even if you hypothesize about that and there is no evidence that's going to happen. neil: all right. it is wild. ted, thank you so much for taking the time. >> my pleasure, thank you. neil: ted olson. trump supporters are already filing these legal challenges right now to stop all the recount efforts. so we'll see what happens on that.

we'll also see as we take a quick gander at markets that the markets are pausing a little bit today but you know one thing that is not pausing? interest rates are still moving up and the costs of doing business is moving up as well. now the argument is that's a sign the economy is about to fire on all cylinders or do better than it has. does steve ballmer accept that, buy that, see that?he he's next. for walking me through my first options trade. well, we're all about educating people on options strategies. i won't let this accomplishment go to my head. get help on options trading with thinkorswim, only at td ameritrade. when a moment spontaneously turns romantic, why pause to take a pill? or stop to find a bathroom? cialis for daily use is approved to treat both erectile dysfunction and the urinary symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently, day or night. tell your doctor about all your medical conditions and medicines, and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sex. do not take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain,

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♪ >> i love you too. look at this place. [cheering] i love you too. [cheering] some guy, look at this guy! and i do love him. he is a rough-looking cookie. they don't know hillary lost a couple weeks ago. they forgot. i am asking, i, i love this. he is a believer.

you are a believer, right? neil: all right. president-elect donald trump on his thank you tour as he is calling it, showing a lot of passion on stage, something not lost on my next guest. take a look. >> steve ballmer! ♪ [screaming] >> get off! neil: i always wonder how steve ballmer feels when we play the video. i love it, steve, great to have you. shows unique passion. i covered you for many, many years. i think it's a rare quality in a lot of industrs, probably all industries to see passion, you don't see it that much. how are you? >> i'm great. how are you?good to see you aga. neil: very good. donald trump outside the box kind of candidate and outside the box president-elect.

he kind of speaks off the top of his head. rarely uses a prompter. you were that kind of ceo before before crowds and annual meetings. there are differences in the approach to the thing, that is probably an understatement, a lot of people are saying, you know, mr. president-elect, time to dial it back. time to start being more presidential. what do you think? >> not for me to give advice to the president of the united states, a whole different thing. i think it is fun for people who are leaders to both have a chance to be thoughtful and serious but also kind of you know, feel, feel it a little bit and show people that you're in and in general, i think that is a good thing as opposed to stiff and normal. you don't want to look like a madman with no thoughtfulness or

contemplative nature. neil: i am not blowing smoke but you could keep people glued to their seats in the audience because you physically glued them in the seats. no, i'm kidding. you're trying to jazz a crowd, whether you're talking about developers or clippers fans. i mean there is not much difference here keeping them engaged, right? >> i think it is really important. when you have a group of people in front of you, they have come, yes, to hear your message but they also kind of want to be there. they want to be excited. they want to be inspired. you are right, bring people to a computer conference and you want them, not only to understand what you're saying, you want them to follow you. you want them to be enthusiastic. we get guys at clippers game, the number one thing i care about on the business side of the clips, how loud we get our fans bumping and thumping during the games.

i think it is exciting for the fan, and by the way, it is great for the team. neil: sold out every game since you had them. you're doing something right. talk about in this postelection, i have no idea who you supported or voted for. i know your wife, connie ballmer donated to hillary clinton earlier in the campaign here. how is she faring now? >> well, i mean she, and i both actually were focused in on our issues. neil: yeah. >> and you know, for me, it is sort of like when you're on microsoft. as ceo of a company, you're not a democrat, not a republican, at least in your business. you're all about microsoft. you're all about whatever company you lead. the issue we are very focused in on, how do kids who are born in tough circumstances get a shot at the american dream? and there are literally communities in this country where 50% of the kids are the,

probability, 50% the kids will not do any better than their parents. i just think, i think people ought to, deserve a better shot, whether we have republicans in office or democrats in office. we're working with everybody on that particular goal. neil: that is not too shabby. you know, i wonder what you then make of the move the president-elect made to save these left -- 1100 jobs at carrier? there were a lot of free market capitalists, be careful what you wish for, mr. president-elect, you're picking winners and losers, same thing you criticized barack obama trying to build, support, solar, wind energy, solyndra et.al. what do you make of that, that a president, let alone a president-elect should be doing this kind of stuff? >> there are two aspects. again i don't sit in the

presidency and i wouldn't dare to say. i have another project i'm working on usa facts. by the next year after two years of study be able to simply tell people, try to learn where does government money come in, where does it go out and really what impact government has, and i developed a point of view that says there is very little the government can actually do to stimulate the economy in the long run. yes, interest rates in the short run. yes, spending in the short run but those things they blip up, they blip down. there are a few things and trade is one of them. the country has to decide how it feels about open border for trade or what is open border. this president will decide. but at end of the day i think inexorable advance in the innovation in the private sector will stimulate jobs, jobs in america. maybe jobs abroad too, but jobs here in america.

neil: what i like about this usa facts project, it would be, we always talk about where the heck does all the money go? sounds like, correct me if i'm wrong, pretty comprehensive accounting of that, where presumably every penny foes because i don't think a lot of people are aware. rough percentage and social retirement programs and military but i think they get away on the right and the left, no accountability, no policing whether money you committed to this area is going to that area. so this would be a good step in that direction, is that the gist of what you're trying to do? >> that is absolutely the gist. i couldn't understand it. i have said we have to write a 10-k, but for the government. where does money come in, where does it go? we'll literally us the 10-k format.

there are 24 million people work for government in the u.s. 24 million. i said, whoa, this number is huge. when you think of teachers around elementary school, or k-12 staff, higher ed, there are 11 million people just working in education. okay, i can live with that. there is another, almost 3 million working in the military and two million police and firemen. you can build some better and better perspective on what is the government doing with our money? who is it employing? some people think it is not right. some people will. but people should be able to sort of crawl through that, who are all these people? what do they do? who really pays the salaries? what really goes on? government -- a bunch of business is. neil: when you crunched numbers you were left with 1.7 million more bureaucrats. got to be more than that? >> no, when we actually publish

next year, you will get a number about, smaller than 1.7 million, people would call bureaucrats. governments run hospitals. a lot of people work there. parks and rec, national parks, almost a million people work doing that in this country, or work for government in that activity. remember, government runs the water, the power, sewers, in some places. in other places that stuff is privatized. there is a million people, less than a million people work for the post office. so, people may think the bureaucrats are the issue but i think what happens most people's experience with government is paying taxes, coming in to renew the driver's license or trying to get a building permit to remodel their house. or if you're less affluent, trying to get your benefits check or section 8 housing voucher. neil: they're soured on those experiences so soured on government. >> right. neil: real quick before we take a quick break.

i hope you indulge us here, the markets and their response since election of donald trump, all key sectors have benefited, agra have benefited. people think this is sign of more robust activity to come, interest rates backing up what do you think about all this? >> i think there is an excitement what might be. i think if you just take a look at what the incoming administration's talked about, it has talked about somehow reduced taxes which there is more money to go buy things. that should propel stocks up if you will. neil: do you think that is good idea, reduce taxes? >> pardon me? neil: i'm sorry, do you think that is good idea, reduce taxes in all brackets? that is what donald trump is talking about? >> i will say my, it's a complex system. if you asked my sort of general opinion, independent of the facts, in the long run i do think it is nice if the budget balances, and there are a lot of ways to get the budget to balance but democrat or

republican administration, at least this citizen, not this presenter of facts, this citizen would like to see the budget balanced and president and his team will have to figure out what they think about that, how to get there. neil: you don't think you can do it the way he is presently telegraphing it with tax cuts, right? >> no, no i actually don't make that comment. as i said, it is very complicated. even tax system is a little complicated. which is partly why people like to simplify it. i would like the budget to balance. there may be other ways to get there. but, i, i think running deficits, just, i understand debt financing and all that kind of stuff. it makes me nervous. i don't like to have debt. i hope our country is not holding that much debt. at the end of the day the debt the country is holding is all debt that the citizens owe. we're borrowing money essentially from our children and that doesn't seem quite

right and fair to me. neil: depends if you like your children on a given day i guess. just a thought. then we'll go to a quick break. the technology community community, by and large was not a fan of donald trump, i'm not talking monolithically but they have sent signals they want to work with the president-elect. that is the patriotic thing to do. even apple talked about building some iphones in the united states. obviously that would make much more expensive independent phones but what do you make of that? >> well, i think the theme president-elect trump come to, hey, where can business think about doing more for job stimulation inside of the country? that's not a bad theme at all. now exactly where that goes and what to do.

will american citizens wind up paying more money for goods produced as you point you out with the iphone. it is a complicated picture. neil: yeah. >> having a general theme out there for companies to think about, i.e., can we figure out ways to lower and engineer our costs lower and still do great work in the united states, that is perfectly great theme. still won't be things happening outside of the u.s. but it will force companies to think a little harder. neil: steve ballmer. if you can stick around. we'll take a quick break and address what is going on with the economy, more particularly with the technology and his old haunt, microsoft. right after this.

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call unitedhealthcare or go online now. ♪ neil: back to billionaire steve ballmer, owns l.a. clippers. former microsoft ceo, ran the company from 2000 to 2014. steve, do you ever go back, think about 4% stake in the company, do you go back to meetings and offer them guidance, advice, what? >> well, not, not really so much. when i first left microsoft maybe i had some value to add as transition occurred, but i called at that time -- satya, i said ex-ceos are ought of date, six months a year max.

that is true. data is not coming at you all the time. at this stage i'm a shareholder. i watch what the company does. i'm cheering every day and, rooting for them occasionally. i will talk to satya, or somebody else in the company or i will run into a friend from the company at the health club that the company kind of sponsors, but other than that, no, i'm pretty independent. neil: you know, you recently were telling bloomberg that you didn't appreciate the importance of hardware. you recognized it too late. you were referring to the fact, 10 years ago when the apple iphone was coming, wouldn't see how big of a deal it would be, but i disagree with you beating yourself over that. you saw the importance of this surface, which was early hardware laptop that had u know,

had kinks to work out but is has become the big, cool thing, unthin coming up with it. what do you think of microsoft has evolved in this area, particularly with hardware, not so much phones, but maybe don't cut out phones all together, what do you think? >> well i appreciate the nice words. and actually i was really proud about getting the muscle working so the company could do hardware. because i do think it is important part of the future. i love the way the surface now emergeed. the other bet the company made did not work out way you might hoped. neil: did you get out of that too soon though? you know what i'm saying? the idea there you would swallow a lot of losses but we learned from samsung and others and you could stumble badly and take their place? >> well, you know, management

chose to go the direction it chose to go. neil: i know. >> the thing i was pretty clear about, when i, when i was working there, was we absolutely, the company absolutely had to be in the hardware business and as you noted, we had been in xbox for a while but it wasn't really a general purpose capability. neil: right. >> so it was surface and then phone. sounds like they're taking a different kind of a cut at it, just from what i read in the the press, but you know, it is kind of like, the terminator, i'll be back, count of sounds like -- neil: i'm mad about the xbox, i'm mad about the xbox, because my teenage boys can't put the thing down. i want to talk to you about that. but i want to step back a little bit, did you ever talk much with bill gates, you quoted saying we drifted apart. he has his life, i have got mine. where do you guys stand?

>> we drifted apart, i said what i would say on that topic. i'm fired up about what i'm doing and, you know, seems like he is too. neil: yeah. he is big into philanthropy. warren buffett said, you know he is going to give every last penny to the bill and melinda gates foundation. what are your intentions with your billions, i guess, 24 billion or so at last count, but what do you want to do? >> well, that's probably the thing that really i've dialed up the most. my, since i retired. my wife, it has been 10 years looking at child welfare. i joined her really in the ballmer group as we call it, focusing in on issues of intergenerational poverty. what can be done by not-for-profits, government, philanthropy, to help create opportunities. if you're born in the bottom quintile of this country and you live in certain neighborhoods, you are almost consigned, 50% as

likely to stay as poor as your parents. that is not okay. from a philanthropy perspective we'll use whatever resources we can to invest in not-for-profits, trial things, which could lead to government assistance reform. whatever it takes to try to make something happen. sometimes it will be new programs. sometimes new money. but a lot of it actually is getting community focusing on the process and how communities come together to help their most disadvantaged kids to give them a shot. from a philanthropy perspective that is my wife and i kind of single focus. takes a lot of time. it is a big, big opportunity for us to contribute but at the end of the day, society has to get after. neil: reason i asked, jon huntsman, petrochemical billionaire told me not too long ago he would leave all the money to huntsman foundation and

charitable medical efforts, nothing to the kids. and i and i always want to know how that thanksgiving dinner went down but do your three kids know or, that you are committed to this and they might not get your entire fortune? >> my kids are not focused in on it. i'm very proud of the way they kind of work on their own and they're very independent and want to be that. we'll obviously give them something. at the same time, what i find the harder challenge is, is how to really sensibly and impact fully deploy our philanthropic resources. my wife and i are like, wow, what can we really do? obviously it is not about handing cash out to people. that is a job only government should consider. how really do we use that money to be effective? and we're working overtime on

that. whatever we put to use we will. neil: steve baller in, love to have you back. we're out of time. great talking to you of the best of luck. i'm not a bilge clippers fan. kind of like the knicks but that just me. >> okay, baby, we'll get knicks here later in the season. we'll talk about that. neil: very good seeing you. steve ballmer, much more after this. :

. neil: all right, the dow down about 38 points. been a good week and nice run since the election. now if steve ballmer is right, we're putting off serious discussions, both parties are. see how that pans out. whistling past the graveyard, his take on that. trish regan, to you. trish: i really enjoyed that interview with steve. that's great. neil: he's an interesting guy. trish: i love how he said you got to deliver on the personality, people come, want to hear you speak and you got to offer something. neil: his annual meetings were like rock star events. he got people into it. trish: terrific stuff. thank you so much. jobs, jobs, jobs, the topic of the day. donald trump says jobs are his number one priority now. will his policies get america back to work? and will they get america back to work fast enough? i'm trish regan, welcome, everyone, to "the intelligence report". president-elect donald trump isn't in office yet but out there trying