was just said a little bit because prior to the election unemployment had dropped below 5%. [closing bell rings] >> once it gets substantially below, that you have wage inflation, that drives gdp. liz: you got to witness it. lifetime closing high as well as for s&p and nasdaq but the dow is the star. david, melissa, take it from here. david: if you're watching the show, i'm sure you are in stocks and you're making money today, the dow ending just shy of 20,000. 90 points away from a brand new milestone at the close. this is the closest we've ever been to 20,000. meantime we'll have to settle for the dow, s&p 500 and nasdaq all closing at record highs. melissa: we'll take that. david: not a bad settlement. i'm david asman. melissa: i'm melissa francis this. is "after the bell." we have you covered on all the big market movers but here is what we have for you at this hour. surprise, surprise, the president-elect not only meeting with key cabinet considerations but also kanye west, bill gates

and nfl legend jim brown. we'll tell you why. donald trump adding two big texans to his team. we love texas. exxon ceo rex tillerson as secretary of state. sources telling fox news that former texas governor rick perry will head up energy. we're live at trump tower with the latest. david: before we get to all that, let's go back to wall street for a record-making day. the dow up 110 points. less than 100 points away from a major milestone, 20,000 for the dow. it has only been three weeks since we hit 19,000. looks like it's a trump rally, folks. it has been a rocky day for oil. trader scott shellady is here to tell us why and lori rothman on floor. new york stock exchange. so the biggest movers, lori, who were there? >> hi, david. look at the dow and break it down. intel up with two and 1/3%.

exxonmobil wishing rex tillerson sending him off. ibm up as well. microsoft all-time high. bill gates went up the golden elevators to meet president-elect trump. the news about ear pods, wireless ear buds, the delay is over. even if you order them today you will not get them until december 29th. after christmas. what a shame. total bummer if you were looking forward to this. it could hurt apple overall holiday sales. it is a concern how good the is the bluetooth technology. quest diagnostics, another big story. the stock hit an all-time high. shares up a quarter of a percent, not a lot but when you consider the news, data breach, 34,000 individual health records were hacked at quest diagnosis. that is little bit troubling. looks like this company benefit in overall strong market. i can't remember a day guys, that you're disappointed as a bull that the dow is up more than 100 points.

it was so close, yet so far away from the key 20,000 mark. we'll see what happens tomorrow. melissa: absolutely. lori, thank you for that. scott, oil closing at a 17-month high. investors still believing in this opec deal? >> well you know what? if you're a bull you better hope it continues to go through. you know what happens when we artificially make things do something just like the fed has last six or seven years, sometimes when we start to see cracks, we see cracks in the system the sharks start to circle. i think 53 is big level. we have to stay above that we're slightly below. 50 is the next big one. with all the bullish news and saudi arabia and non-opec countries joining as well, if we don't get a bid, wait for inventories from the fomc. that ultimately could be what ultimately undoes the equity rally. david: scott, stick around. dow charging towards 20-k. all the markets are up but we're

virtually certain the fed will raise rates. but will the fed work to undermine or support president-elect trump's dramatically different economic policy? let's also bring in shelby holiday from the "wall street journal." shelby, good to see you. scott, what about this? ronald reagan and paul volcker back in 1980 worked very closely together for ronald reagan's dramatically different economic policy i don't see it happening this time. janet yellen and donald trump are not friends. >> i don't see it happening this time, number one. number two, this time is way, way different than last time. look we've come off 7 1/2 years of zero percent interest rates. couldn't get housing market started with that. we have quote, unquote, full employment. we have a lot of work to do with the engine. the engine is broken and pull over to the side of the road to see what we can do. i love optimism and animal instincts trump let loose but are we getting ahead of ourselves? he hasn't been inaugurated yet, january 20th. there will be bumps in the road.

david: shelby, the markets don't care, they don't care about the bumps or fed or anything else. >> no, the markets don't care about. a lot of people describe it as a sugar high, santa rally. market is up 10% since the election. that is an incredible number. not just trump's numbers. you're seeing a pretty healthy workforce, signs of strength abroad. pretty healthy data. the investors don't seem to worry about it. the fed is different question. if the trump inauguration is the starting point of his new fed administration, the fed doesn't necessarily want to jump the gun to predict trump's policies he will enact, what the tax cut looks like. congress has been very dysfunctional and that is the big question, will congress get something done? melissa: bill gates joining surprise guests meeting at trump tower with the president-elect earlier today. >> quick comment. we had a good conversation about innovation. how it can help in health,

education, impact of foreign aide and energy. and wide-ranging conversation about the power of innovation. melissa: oh, my god. i love the parade in and out of the tower, right? precores sore to trump's meeting with silicon valley heavyweights where staunch trump opposer jeff bezos will be in attendance. scott, let me start with you. people keep filing into the golden tower, former enemies where they have the battle back and forth, battle of words. they go in. come out with a big smile everything is great. jeff bezos is the latest. relationship between these two is been acrimonious at best. what do you think happens tomorrow, big happy face like everyone else? >> two things i would ask, number one, have these people no pride? melissa: come on, it is the president-elect. you have to go make nice with the president-elect. we're supposed to be putting all that behind us. >> okay. great, now that you brought him up i would have made sure they

came up in the service elevator, not the regular golden one. melissa: oh. shelby, what do you think? this is what the president does. you helped fences. you bring in -- now everybody wantses his ear. all right he won. i have to make friends. >> exactly. they saw him sit down with his other political opponents. why not his political open points? bill gates know he will pick up a.if a billionaire calls. this round table is supposed to be about jobs. i think a big question is will other topics be discussed? will they talk about immigration or fake news, encryption, some of the battles between the government and the tech sector? those will be real messy if donald trump doesn't work with these tech business leaders. i think it will be really telling agenda after that meeting to see what they actually talk birx talking to the owner of "the washington post" about fake news. that could be interesting. president-elect donald trump outlining his plan to avoid a

conflict of interest, tweeting yesterday, quote, even though i am not mandated by law to do so, i will be leaving my business before january 20th so i can focus full time on the presidency. two of my kids, don and eric, plus executives will manage them but no new deals will be done during my term in office. shelby, is that enough? >> that is smallest, tiniest baby step you could possibly take. it will not silence his critics. no new deals, doesn't really mean much. the fact he is handing his company over to his sons, doesn't really eliminate conflicts of interest. trump is right, legally there are blurry lines here. he has to be very careful. he doesn't want to set up his presidency to be a big ugly battle about his business interests versus interests of the country. david: scott, the american people just hired an active businessman. this hasn't happened in a long time. >> right. david: there are bound to be conflicts of interest. do you think, i mean maybe the press won't forgive him but do you think the american voter

will? >> 100%. they expect him, they expect him to do what he did in business in office. yes, he will have to do a lot more and work harder to divest himself to make sure we don't have those conflict of interests, but i can't stand to listen to the press talk about his conflicts of interest, clinton foundation all the time in the background as secretary of state. where were they talking about conflict interest. i don't really listen what they have to say. he will have to do be a better job nobody can be surprised by snow in winter, heat in summer, businessman in office. david: something about that coat, when you're saying something like that, looking at you with the coat it all fits. i love the package scott. >> i -- david: go ahead. >> i'm burdened with common sense. it is not good but that is my big burden in life. melissa: i love it. david: direct from midwest. shelby, thank you for joining us. melissa. melissa: doubling down on media bias. "the new york times" promised it

would be fairer in coverage we're getting reports of a controversial new hire. david: surprises continue at trump tower. president-elect meeting with rapper kanye west, microsoft founder bill gates. nfl legend jim brown, why they were all there today. we got answers. melissa: support and opposition growing for donald trump's pick for rex tillerson as secretary of state. we'll discuss. >> what do you think of these two announcements? >> i think tillerson pick is frankly pretty genius. we have had a lot of career diplomats and some of them have made catastrophic decisions.

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very -- eclectic group of rappers, sports stars and republicans like rick santorum. connell mcshane is outside of trump tower with a fascinating mix of political bedfellows. right, connell? reporter: rick santorum to kanye west. i like that electric. today we -- elect tick. even with that somehow kahn cray west rushes through lobby in the morning manages to steal the show. he tweeted about his meeting with mr. trump. he wanted to talk about bullying and violence in chicago and other things, adding i feel it is importance to have a direct line of communication with our future president if we truly want change. one meeting that did allow us one and only look today at the president-elect. here is what he said at trump tower.

>> mr. trump, kanye, what did you discuss in the meeting today? >> just friend. just friend. he is a good man. of the known him a long time. we've been friends for a long time. [inaudible]. life. >> no comment about your meeting with the president-elect? with president of the elect of united states nothing to say? >> i just want to take a picture now. reporter: just take a picture of the friends a long time. among people here today, all over the map, football star, football great as a matter of fact, jim brown, formerly of the cleveland browns years ago. he met with mr. trump and a group to talk about issues in the african-american community. that will lead us into a big day tomorrow. president-elect on his way for event out in wisconsin to continue the thank you tour. back here tomorrow for the tech summit that you guys were talking about, everybody was talking about, executives from google and apple, all the companies coming in here. ahead of that, an open letter has been sent out by some employees at a number of tech companies, alphabet and sales

force, twitter, some others, i will read a piece of that sets us up tomorrow, we refuse to build a database of people based on constitutionally protected religious beliefs. we refuse to facilitate mass deportations of people the government believes to be undesirable. not fans of president-elect and these policies. you wonder how the other executives at the companies feel at work about it. maybe we find out a loyal about that tomorrow. david: sort of makes kanye west very sensible. i don't know. melissa: yeah. david: melissa? melissa: here is guy benson, townhall.com political editor. he is also a fox news contributor. capri cafaro, democratic state senator from ohio. thanks to both you for joining us. guy, start with you. let me ask you, so rick perry in for the department of energy. club for growth is calling for rick perry to close the doors to the doe. it is one of the places we think he wanted to close when he was talking during the debate although forgot name of it.

maybe it is that forgettable. do you think he would take over and shut it down, is that possibility? >> i have three reactions to that, melissa and i can only remember one of them. melissa: that is good. >> nice one. melissa: well-played, guy benson. >> it's a cheap shot. rick perry is very successful former governor. he was elected, three terms in texas. melissa: yep. >> that was a boom state when it came to energy. that is a good pick. i don't think he will show up and shut the whole thing down but maybe whip it into shape and streamline it and bring a totally different mentality to the department of energy than what we have had for the last eight years. i think it is a good pick. he would certainly be a change of pace and in many respects particularly from job creation perspective, a breath of fresh air. melissa: capri do you agree with that or allergic to this pick. >> i'm not allergic to this pick. remember, elections have consequences. donald trump and republicans won the election.

so they get to choose who they want. rick perry make as lot of sense. being governor from texas. it is energy-rich state. he obviously understands that his former governor perry understands nuances of energy business, particularly oil and gas. so i think it's a fit, a good pick and one that fits certainly with the competencies of former governor perry. now that being said, there are other aspects of the deal -- doe, including the nuclear arsenal and aspects of nuclear technology, but no one is expected to know absolutely everything. about, you know their incoming job. it will be interesting to see how he gets up to speed on those issues. but i think it's a pick that makes sense. melissa: he is such a hardcore energy guy. guy benson, let me ask you about kanye west. do you think he was there to become secretary of talking smack or do you think trump talks smack anyway, doesn't need a lot of guidance in that department? what do you think that was all about?

>> as soon as i heard kanye was at trump tower we know trump's affinity toward gold-plated everything. i speculated perhaps kanye west was being a gold digger. melissa: oh. >> i'm afraid -- >> you're on fire today, guy. >> en fuego right now. melissa: has no one done that joke today? that one is right there. i haven't heard it. i love it. >> bump out of the segment playing a song. >> i can't even compete with the amazing zingers coming out of guy benson today. i'm very impressed. i can't even think of anything as a comeback but i will say this i am generally annoyed when celebrities decide they're going to inject themselves into politics. we can argue that our president-elect is indeed a celebrity as well. melissa: true. >> but kanye west is annoying, sorry, guys. first two albums, his first two albums are great.

they have subsequently gone downhill. i don't know if the kardashian influence. this is bad optics for trump. on one hand people saying, well, you could make the argument, he is not necessarily taking some of the national security briefs but making time for kanye. now whether or not there is substance there remains to be seen but the optics can be argued, not particularly great. melissa: i think kanye is locked out of the kardashian house after this. we'll see, guys. david: that is true. he has some explaining to do. the president-elect looking to reduce tax, really shake up the tax code but could some members of his own party be getting in the way of lowering your taxes? art laffer, inventor of the laffer curve, is here to weigh in on that. some on the left is still not coming to terms with the election results and new york city's mayor de blasio is feeding right into it. you may be outraged what he is doing. >> the problem the left has, they can not come to grips with

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david: donald trump working with a republican congress democrats might not get in the way of a tax overhaul but could establishment republicans be ones to worry about? one of those establishment republicans senate leader mitch mcconnell appears to be putting tax cuts behind the agenda of lowering the national debt. listen. >> this level of national debt is dangerous and unacceptable. and so, whatever we choose to do next year i hope we will not lose sight of steps that we could take that would exacerbate the problem. david: art laffer, is former reagan economic policy advisor and laugher associates founder and chairman. he joins us now. a lot of people listen to that, art, sounds a lot like what happened 30 years ago with ronald reagan, with a lot of

establishment republicans back then opposed tax cuts because they were more would irid about the deficit. first we have to take care ever the deficit, then we can do tax cuts. is that how you read it? >> that is how i read it in 1980. i can remember being lectured on that by holz tuttle. that was nunn-heart, which was done before reagan took august, kemp-roth tax cuts required deficit to be zero first before tax cuts. david: that never happened. if you want to get to zero, increase growth you do that by tax cuts. so tax cuts come first, right? >> yes they do. tax cuts come first. that is exactly what mitch mcconnell means to say and did say. what i think he is talking about there the infrastructure spending, when he talked about it i heard, he didn't want another obama stimulus package of 900 billion, cost us jobs, extended great recession.

he doesn't want that. i think he is completely right. we have to be very careful david, make sure the spending programs are pro-growth, not boondoggles and payoffs. we see eye-to-eye. the tooth fairy no longer works at the u.s. treasury. david: we saw all the tooth fairy stuff with the obama administration with their stimulus package. >> there you go. david: but sticking with taxes, it really takes an outsider, somebody like ronald reagan or perhaps somebody like donald trump to pursue this notion of taking the tax code because all insiders have stake in it, right? >> they sure do. although camp has done, excuse me, brady has done a very good job at ways and means committee, paul ryan is wonderful, trained by jack kemp all the way, so they're very, very good. they very detailed plan i think would be excellent. i'm really not terribly worried, david, about the whole thing. you're always alert. because these silly people who

do accounting don't understand the do name beings that we -- dynamicses we want. you can't balance the budget without economic growth being very, very high,. david: pencil pushers, look at numbers, don't get the way entrepreneurs think. finally a lot of people are concerned about the way the way cabinet shaping up. wall street folks and they're not concerned about supply-side tax cuts. what do you think? >> i think they're wrong. don reagan. david: first treasury secretary of ronald reagan. go ahead. >> without him tax cuts wouldn't have occurred like they did. he was wonderful. tillerson is fantastic. i look all of these people up there. i am holding my fingers crossed, my eyes crossed, my legs, crossed, ears crosses, everything we'll get a couple of good economists on council of economic advisors. i'm waiting for some somewhere along the time, steve moore and larry kudlow get there.

if they got in there i would jump up and down and spit wooden nickles. david: for the sake of the laffer curve, i hope you're right. >> thank you very much, david. david: thanks very much, art. melissa: record day on wall street, dow, s&p 500 and nasdaq all closing at brand new record highs. take a look at this. dow ending about 85 points away from 20,000. it has been three weeks to the day when we first hit 19,000. can you believe that? what a wild ride, as the trump rally rolls on. david: oh, seems unstoppable, for the moment. anything can happen. exposed for being a political hack, his words, in the "new york times" hires him. new details you will not going to believe. melissa: the president-elect's choice for secretary of state is drawing praise and alarm. nile gardiner, advisor to margaret thatcher, sounds off on rex tillerson's controversial ties to russia and vladmir putin. >> when he gets the friendship

award from a butcher, frankly it's an issue that i think needs to be examined and again, that is not mean we should prejudge mr. tillerson.

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a plan to manage their own bankruptcy without a taxpayer bailout. david: and we've got more breaking news. ibm intending to hire about 25,000 professionals in the united states, investing $1 billion for its draining over the next four years. the stock is flat after-hours. melissa: all right. donald trump making it official. the president-elect announcing exxon ceo rex tillerson as his choice for secretary of state. trump tweeting, quote, the thing i like best about rex tillerson he has vast experience dealing successfully with all types of foreign governments. here is nile gardiner from the heritage foundation, a former special advisor to margaret thatcher. some people are saying that rex tillerson has no diplomatic experience at all because he has been in the business world. there are other people who say, that is exactly what he does in the business world, go around to places all around the world to different hot spots and all different kinds of people with different personalities and a lot of bad guys and he is forced to make deals with them because that is where the thank you

resources are. which camp do you fall into? >> i have to say certainly that mr. tillerson has a great deal of experience on international stage. he has been running a company which has about 70 to 80,000 employees, a huge brand name in terms of american business interests on international stage. he has worked for decades with a wide range of international leaders. so he is certainly a figure i think of very significant weight. there is no doubt about that but he doesn't have political experience. no reason why someone from a business background could not succeed actually as secretary of state. i think that the cabinet being assembled i about mr. trump is very unusual, sort of cutting-edge cabinet, a radical cabinet in many ways. certainly mr. tillerson's nomination certainly is very unusual pick. certainly someone with a business background brings with

him lots of skills, managerial skills necessary for this job. melissa: a lot is being made of his relationship with vladmir putin. obviously russia has a ton of natural resources, that was a place that exxonmobil certainly wanted to do business. he would need to go in to go head-to-head with him and not get steamrolled. does that mean he is friends with him in your mind? is his relationship, does that complicate the relationship or does it in some ways make it easier? what's your take? >> that is really the key question here. and as you say, mr. tillerson does have extensive experience with dealing with vladmir putin and russian regime as well. and, he would have to adapt i think his experience on that front into a new arena as secretary of state. and secretary of state, his role is to advance the u.s. national interests on the international stage. it is very different i think, when you're heading a major

international company like exxonmobil, for example. i think that mr. tillerson will have to adopt a far, far tougher approach towards the russians that let's not forget vladmir putin is a brutal, bullying thug. melissa: yeah. >> he has to be confronted and he has to be stood up to, really. i do hope the new secretary of state is prepared to do that. melissa: meantime i want to ask you about new tensions with iran. iranian president rouhani order scientists to work on nuclear powered marine vessels in response what he called the u.s. violation of the nuclear deal. what is your reaction to that? >> well i think that the iranian regime is growing increasingly desperate. they do sense that the new u.s. administration will either tear up this deal, walk away from it, or completely change it. and i think there is a great deal of nervousness in tehran here and, without a doubt, the iranian regime has not been

abiding by the terms of this agreement. they have been in violation of this agreement on numerous occasions. and i do hope that the next u.s. administration takes a far tougher line towards tehran and really ideally walks away from what is disasterous agreement for the united states. melissa: nile gardiner, thanks for coming on. appreciate your time. >> my pleasure, thank you. david: hiring a self-described hack to cover the white house. "the new york times" signing on glen thrush, former "politico" reporter exposed by wikileaks for colluding with the clinton campaign. thrush was caught sending clinton staffers stories for approval before they were published. guy benson and capri cafaro are back with us. guy, here is the email released through wikileaks. it was sent to john podesta, head of the clinton campaign. no worries, i have become a hack, his words, i will send the whole section pertained to you. please don't share or tell anyone i did this. uh-oh.

guess what, it got out. hack was his word. >> yeah. i mean i sort of feel bad sitting here calling him a hack, you're quoting his own self-description. he has done some interesting reporting and so sort of thing, but clear from the emails and twitter feed this guy was in the tank for democrats. he is a liberal masquerading as a reporter. that doesn't mean he can't do some good reporting work but he has been totally exposed. i think it is appropriate that "the new york times" frankly hired him we know how "the new york times" rolls. david: face it, capri, "the new york times" supposedly is out to inform readers but clearly this guy is out to misinform. he misinformed them with a tweet he came out with saying dems have a hard time accepting a clear majority of white americans are aware of trump's racist, xenophobic comments and support him anyway. even if you're a democrat, 95% of their readers you have to

admit you were being misinformed by that that misled you, possibly led you to lose the election because that is not why people were voting for trump. >> well i mean you know how i feel about middle america and the choice of donald trump. i talked about this extensively on this program. david: right. >> and other shows on this network and others. you know, the economic message i think was one of the primary reasons folks in my state and others chose donald trump and voted for him. that is why he won. that being said, i don't know glenn thrush. i don't want to jump to any conclusions but obviously if his tweets which obviously are real, and you know the stuff that came out through wikileaks are authentic, there is significant reason for concern. david: right. >> journalistic integrity is predicated being unbiased and being able to bring, you know the facts to the public and have them make their own decisions. david: right. that is what the "new york times" -- that is what "the new york times" is supposed to do.

guy, i'm older than you but you could probably remember times when the "new york times" did that. i mean they had people like abe rosenthal managing editor in the '60s and '70s who really stuck to journalistic integrity. >> they have great health care reporters like robert pare for example,. david: what happens to the "new york times"? i think this business model is doomed to fail. go ahead. >> "new york times" does some good reporting that we react to and feed off of in the entire media, butyou know, david, for me i just want transparency, if you're a liberal democrat, that is fine. we can disagree on some issues and -- but don't run around telling readers or having readers assume you're a down the line, down the middle, unbiased reporter. david: readers can figure it out. i think capri, i think readers can figure it out. >> yes. david: viewers of tv shows. i think frankly readers and viewers want both sides, which is i believe, why we're wiping

the floor with cnbc right now because they want both sides and cnbc isn't giving it to them. neither is the "new york times." >> i will confess, as a democrat i have stopped watching msnbc entirely because it is so clearly one-sided. so i mean i do think that in the 21st century what we've seen is kind of a siloing of message where individual consumers of media are able to choose what they want that basically reflects back to them their own, their own agenda. i think others are more discerning that are willing to go out there and look to get both sides. david: i think public is -- quickly, go ahead, guy. >> disclose your bias. if you're biased as glenn thrush clearly is in some way, disclose it and let us go from there. david: guy, capri, thank you both. melissa: breaking news. president-elect donald trump at laguardia airport in new york. he is with vice president-elect mike pence.

they are jetting off to wisconsin, where trump hold as rally at 7:00 p.m. eastern as part of the thank you tour. tune in to fox business at 7:00 p.m. eastern. catch lou dobbs, with our special covering all of tonight's events. russia the final hope, last minute push for democrats to block donald trump from the white house. >> this whole thing is really a play by the liberal media to take away a legitimate electoral landslide from president-elect trump. 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, or adempas for pulmonary hypertension, as it may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. do not drink alcohol in excess. side effects may include headache, upset stomach, delayed backache or muscle ache.

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melissa: more breaking news. president-elect donald trump appointing steven miller, senior advisor to the president for policy. miller has served as a key advisor to several members of congress. david: well the general election was over a month ago but that is not stopping some on the left from trying to block donald trump from becoming president through the electoral college. among those leading the charge

is the daughter, one of the most powerful democratic politicians in the country. fox news chief washington correspondent james rosen joins us now with details. mr. rosen. tell us about it. reporter: >> david, good afternoon. the last time we saw anything even remotely similar to what's going on now, was nearly 16 years ago, back in january 2001, when then vice president al gore, the democratic nominee who won the popular vote was required, in his official capacity as president of the senate, to certify the results of the electoral college, which award the presidency to the republican nominee that year, george w. bush. now, a determined band of 30 electors, including one republican, are demanding that before they place their votes for the electoral college on december 19th, the obama administration should provide electors on briefing of classified intelligence that briefing, cia that russia actively interfered to swing the election to donald trump. among those signing a letter director of national

intelligence, making a request for briefing, christine pelosi, director from california and daughter of house speaker nancy pelosi. >> our independence, elections ought to be what define us as a country. and so if there is evidence that not only was the election tainted but that one of the candidates knew about that, and profited from it, then that certainly is something that the electors should know in advance. reporter: can you imagine, donald trump tweeted yesterday, if the election results were the opposite and we tried to play the russia-cia card. it would be called conspiracy theory unquote. the white house today stopped short of endorsing electors request. and pointed out a major hurdle to granting it. >> some of the request was for classified information. it is not clear that all of the electors and i'm sure most of them, don't have security clearances. so, this is an unusual request,

maybe even unprecedented. >> member of the republican national committee which is keeping close tabs on 306 republican electors told me the latest round of never trump activity is largely a joke. real danger is not defection of electors but resignation. as one republican elector in georgia already has resigned. david? david: historian, james rosen, you must love this stuff. you must eat it up. reporter: i do. i eat it. i drink it, i smoke it. i tweet it. david: you will be writing a lot in years to come. thank you, james. reporter: thank you, james. melissa: labor secretary tom perez telling democratic officials he plans to run for head of the democratic committee. the white house reportedly urging perez to run putting him troversialth democratic challenger, minute sew congressman keith ellison. perez will formally announce his intentions sometime this week. david: history of keith ellison

becoming quite a roadblock for him. president obama's new warning to the next commander-in-chief. why the president is accusing donald trump of quote, flying blind. you do all this research

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melissa: as many are questioning whether president-elect trump is having enough intelligence briefings. president obama is not taking the situation lightly, saying these briefings are necessary no matter how smart you are. >> it doesn't matter how smart you are, you have to have the best information possible to make the best decisions possible. if you're not getting their

perspective, their detailed perspective, then you are flying blind. melissa: mike baker is former cia operative. he joins us now. what is your take on this? >> well i mean the president is absolutely right in the sense, yes, of course you want all the available information you can if you are boeing to make informed decisions and set your policy and strategy in the right direction. that's a no-brainer. that is not exactly rocket science but it is also important to understand that you know, there is so much hyperbole is going on right now. when the president-elect says, you know, i don't need to hear these intelligence briefings every day, there are several types of intelligence briefings. you have the presidential daily brief, which people have heard about and that's very, very important. you have inr briefings from the state department. you have a variety of intelligence briefings that come in. if in fact all you did was sit and listened to all of the

various intelligence briefings that are prepared, assessments that are done, analysis that's done for the white house security team, you know, at some point could make their way to the president's desk you have no time to do anything else. president obama himself had taken some of these briefings, said i'm not sitting in a meeting every day. some of these briefings i put them on electronic device and read them at my convenience. so, look we're playing a little bit of gehman ship here -- gamesmanship. i'm not buying idea that president-elect says i will not listen to any intelligence briefing. >> a little rich coming from president obama. he didn't like the way it was being briefed. didn't work for him. he found a different way to do it. when donald trump was saying when he heard his own words, when they come back and tell you exact same words and nothing changed from the day before that doesn't seem like a good use of his time. since then i heard other people say it is important to hear the exact same words and exact same phrasing, that is part of

getting it cemented into your brain. that is hard to buy on this level, because he is running the free world, basically. >> right. to be fair, you're talking about, if you look at a major corporation, the ceo, he pushes down a lot of this to his lieutenants. melissa: right. >> much like you would with your national security team. it is important, i'm not, minimizing the importance of the pdb, the presidential daily brief or other key intel assessments coming across. they are extremely important but i have confidence in the fact that the people that are being put into the positions, into the, first and second, third, fourth tier positions for national security team and also the influence of people from the cia and the nsa and others they will do their job. they will insure this information gets where it needs to go. melissa: mike, real quick, we have only 30 seconds left. what do you think of the whole hacking thing? is russia really behind it? new information, big deal, what do you think? >> it's important to look at anytime a foreign state meddles

in our systems, regardless whether it is economic espionage or probing at our public infrastructure. russia has been doing this for decades and decades going back to pre-world war ii. so that is not a surprise. thest thing to do when gathering intelligence to determine motivation. that is is the part shrouded in all this partisanship right now. melissa: yeah. >> with high confidence you could say, do the russians and chinese and others do they probe and go after our systems? of course they do. melissa: got to run. >> but what was the motivation? melissa: mike baker. come back, thank you. david: first we coddle the nation's students and now we're providing safe spaces for adults. melissa: of course. david: how new york city's mayor is using tax dollars to help pay workers who just can't handle donald trump's win. wait until you hear this.

melissa: blame it on donald trump, the

president-elect is being blamed for lost relationships, weight gain and now for being too stressed out on the job. david: new york city major bill de blasio offering counseling services for stress. meanwhile, crime is way up. melissa: there you go. "risk and reward" right now. liz: live from fox business studios, it is the election blame game. the players, the democrats that just can't accept the election results. welcome to a special edition of risk and reward, i'm elizabeth macdonald in for deirdre bolton. critics calling on democrats for not getting over the election loss. first, they blame the electoral college saying it needs to be reformed. clinton won the popular vote. next up, they blamed fbi director james comey for the fbi's investigation into hillary clinton's private e-mail server. next, a recount push in th