new mexico 50, even phoenix is a mere 62 degrees. head up north, minneapolis, you poor devils down minus 16. have a lovely weekend, north america. neil, it's yours. neil: all right. stuart, thank you very, very much. we are on top of the cold and on top of the heat like the hot stock market again on a jobs report that really wasn't all that great, but it did show job gains, did it not? 148,000 more than december. the bottom line is the unemployment rate remains around 4.1%, the lowest we've seen since 2000. so a lot of folks are measuring that and saying you know what? steady is a good thing for all of us. we're going to go to market watch right now on what that could portend because i'm thinking as i'm looking at those employment numbers we're going to rattle through them, including wage growth that was moving at about a 2.5% clip, if anybody is worried about a inflationary up particular, it doesn't seem to be pronounced

but what do you think? >> you know, i think the federal reserve lost control some time ago, neil. they may be worried about it, but it's traders who are driving the boat right now. and what they're telling you is that they're betting on a continuation of 2017. that's what the numbers look like. i think more money is going to attract more money is going to attract good money. it's earnings and higher prices. that's what the affect is. neil: you know, the market was tweeting again new all-time record. jumped 1,000 points in the last five weeks. goes on to say record fastest 1,000-point move in history. i could go on here. but even the wall street journal pointing out today in its editorial page, be careful doing that, mr. president because it could come back to bite you. what do you think? >> well, that's always true. like trying to predict the weather which right now in the united states is a pretty complicated task. neil: actually, today it's

not. it's pretty easy to say cold. it's cold; right? i don't have to be a great weatherman. >> trying to predict that is like trying to predict ten out of the last two recessions or ten out of the last sessions. the key is that's what's going on. the numbers are good, the job growth is good. never mind the political circuits we have on either side of the aisle. neil: well, where do you see it going? obviously this is a market that hasn't experienced so much as a 5% trimming of the better part of 20 months. that alone is scary. i think the run is what's happening. even justifiable run-ups have pauses. >> well, they do. and to be frank, i'm looking for the highest probability of a pull back in q1. but, again, that doesn't disturb the longer picture of profits. the single biggest danger for individual investors right now is they try to second-guess this. if you take those out of the

equation as hard as that is, and you focus on the companies that are growing, the money that is moving, the profits are being created, longer term you're going to do just fine. neil: well said, well said. have a happy new year, a warm one. seattle's always the same. cloudy and rainy. >> yeah. it is. we have it good skiing too. neil: all right. you would not know the because he can i believe timing of good news versus bad news and the middle of this we have controversy that the media is much more focused on a book i think called fire and furry that they already rushed to print today and get it in people's hot little hands today. it is the most downloaded book in the last six years we're told. anyway president trump told if this were president trump the markets would be the biggest story, fox business network charlie gasparino. what do you think of what he's saying? >> well, look, this is something that's going well for trump; right? so he likes

to focus on that. but it's kind of a distraction. the president what you said earlier could be right. it could be a dangerous game if there was a pull back in the market. so i don't think the press can walk and chew gum on twitter yesterday when it hit 25,000 and went over it, it was blowing up on that. but this book is outstanding and good inside look at the white house. neil: you and i were saying during the break, charlie, there is uncanning weather, or whether just his fate every time there's good news, the tax cut thing suspecting the president better not fire mueller or now with the dow 25,000 and this fire and furry. outside events the president himself step on the good news. >> yeah. he does it more often than i think the outside events, which is unfortunate because he's right. fractural news standpoint. i don't know how any journalist can compare somebody calling the president an f'ing idiot, the news value

of that to the news value of 25,000. look, i'm all for tabloid stuff. i'm a tabloid guy. worked at the wall street journal. neil: but the book is a lot more than f'ing idiot; right? >> well, if you think about it substantively, and michael is a great writer. but what has he said about the president that's so damning other than, you know, sam saying maybe he's got -- he's sick of listening to -- he didn't want to read the constitution. sam'sa friend of mine. and, by the way, if you talk to sam, that antidote was taken a little out of context. i know a lot of people who said that their antidotes were taken out of context or made up. i know at least one guy, i'm not going to say his name. he's telling me he's seriously going to think about suing michael wolf for essentially putting something in there that he never said. so i'm just going to say this. the worst thing we got from this book is that people in the white house don't think --

maybe don't think the president's very smart. but that's not substantive. and, by the way, if he was so stupid, why did the few little things that he did continue the stock market rally and the economy. which was slowing down. neil: you raise a good point. we've had brilliant presidents, not so smart presidents, but i think always to paraphrase bill clinton to get to this office, you can't be an idiot. he beat the best of the best of the republican field. but this book that is certainly getting to the media is that those around the president don't think he's up to the job. how does he counter that impression? other presidents have started out on a bumpy fashion, but they've not been cursed by a tell all book so early in their presidency. but what do you make of the impact of this? >> i don't know that there's a long-term impact. i think this is certainly very

salacious and i would say what it is the first six months a lot of the staffers that are no "fox 11 morning news" at white house that has really been tapped down quite a bit. . neil: and you mentioned this at the time and the inauguration portion spicer trying to say it was bigger than barack obama. that started it i think. that's when the pylon started. but so much you'll never know. but do you think any of this sticks? i guess that's what i'm asking. >> yeah. i mean, the question is is it going to stick with the american public? it's obviously getting bought a lot. so is this going to be the impression are that people don't have any confidence? and i think the way whether or not you're going to see can he move past this is the erratic behavior. >> suppose at least 60% of the book is debunked. i mean, there is a real possibility of that. and here's the thing, again, i like michael a lot. he did not check the other

side of the quotes a lot of times. he did not call mr. murdock and say mr. murdock, did you call donald trump an f'ing whatever? . neil: do we know he didn't do that? >> there was no quote. well, here's the thing. maybe they didn't call him back but there was no quote in there. neil: do you think this will have any impact beyond the salacious -- because i think it proves the narrative for those who don't like the president. we always suspect it as much and for those who think the media's being unfair. >> i think the bannon stuff was probably pretty solid because i know rodger was cooperating, which is what i heard. as a matter of fact, i heard rodger brought him in with bannon. neil: by the way, what happened to bannon now. >> his fate is in the air from what i understand. he doesn't own the majority share of breitbart. he owns a piece. i don't know the ownership structure, but it's breitbart's widow, and they

are from what i understand right now deliberating on whether to get rid of them. but it's 60 to 70% of this book which is debunked, which i'm telling you they are out there trying to do that right now, i don't think there will be any impact. neil: all right. i do want to shift it down a little bit because it's his comment in particular how blunt they were. and as i'm going through this book, he pops up again and again. i'm just wondering what happens to bannon now. i'm breitbart, and i'm trying to move ahead here and some of my loyal readers are getting, no, sir, by this, wouldn't they just let him go? >> i think it's tough. earlier is the heart and soul of breitbart. the rise of the website really came under his -- neil: there have been many founders of a site, a channel that all of a sudden go when they become expendable. >> yeah. and let's be real clear. andrew breitbart was the heart and soul of that. steve took it in another

direction. >> but it was certainly steve bannon. i don't think you're going to see him go away whether or not he is there or whether or not he has the backing of the mercers. i mean, he has got a loud megaphone, and he knows how to use the press. neil: well, clearly not. rodger was once the soul for this place. and i love rodger so much. i'm just telling you no one, no one is above. >> do you remember three years ago if someone told you rodger was going to leave, we would be, like, oh, yeah, right. . neil: well, that's my point on the whole breitbart thing. >> right. neil: and bannon and the fallout from all of this. >> see, i think more of the issue they're worried about is the staff. the staff seems to be somewhat loyal to him. i mean somewhat loyal. neil: they're loyal to jobs more. >> and that's the other thing. i'm always telling you there's always an undercurrent from that place. not the true reporters but the others that feel they were going alt-right. neil: do they love trump or

bannon more? >> they love trump more. and as someone who likes steve bannon. i like him a lot. but here's what i will say from some of bannon supporters. what they can't understand is why they called donald jr. treasonist. of all the stuff he said, he just went way too far on the -- neil: well, that apparently tipped it for the president. disparaging comments with his kids. i was raised in the outset that the president always gets annoyed that some of his best news is stepped on in developments like this the 25,000 thing with the release of these book excerpts, et cetera. it has happened countless other times. sometimes of his own doing, you know? a tweet that comes out and all. but he does have a point. i mean, whether you like him or not, some of his best achievements get buried in these sort of other developments. what do you think? >> yeah. i don't disagree with you. i mean, house republican,

senate republicans, aids i've talked to on the hill are very frustrated. they feel they just passed this tax bill. they want to be talking about that. they want to be selling this. they think they can make it a positive for the midterm elections. they do not want donald trump and the erratic behavior and his negative to be what everybody is talking about. they think that could be basically the house right there. if this continues that he's not able to turn the narrativ n. neil: do they think that the house is in jeopardy now? i've talked to others that say they could beat losing now. they might narrow down and lose 20 seats. what's your latest? >> i think it's going to be very tight. i think it's definitely depending on what happens -- even in the senate. you talk to senate republicans privately, i think they're very concerned about keeping their majority. >> i think one other point here, and that is definitely true. the house republicans are freaked out a lot of consultants tell me it could be like one of those wave elections; right? here's the

one problem that trump has, the president has going after bannon as visualize as he's doing right now. bannon is the only guy that's not caught up in this russia probe. he knows where all the bodies are buried. neil: and there's talk that he's leaking stuff still. >> who knows. i mean, bannon's a smart guy. he thinks a little bit ahead. neil: you're both smart guides, and i want to thank you happy new year. not so happy if you're a fan let's say of warm weather because this cold weather, we're about two-thirds of the country 200 million americans affected by weather particularly in the south that they have not seen forget decades, like, ever. at least restraining order ever. after this is this a phone?

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. neil: all right. we have massive snow, power outages, crews are scrambling to cleanup with blistering cold here. connell mcshane was in boston yesterday and hartford, connecticut right now. how does it look there? >> well, it looks freezing if that's possible, neil. i think it is. we just got an alert from the state of connecticut saying that through sunday at 7:00 in the morning there's a wind chill warning in effect and in that time period expect wind

chills between 15 and 35 degrees below zero. so you can get frostbite just by being out in those types of conditions for up to ten minutes. so that's what we're dealing with. we talked on the air from boston yesterday about a historic storm. we found out that indeed that's exactly what we covered. the high tide that led to all the flooding early in the afternoon both in the city of boston and some of the neighborhoods there, the seaport district in particular and some of the suburbs, that high tide was the highest tide that has ever been recorded in the area going back to when they started keeping records in 1921. so it broke the record set for the infamous blizzard that hit bottom back in 1978, some 40 years ago. so that was yesterday. today the challenge again with the cold weather is trying to keep the streets clean. i know we drove down the mass pike here from boston to hartford, and they've done a pretty good job.

it's vital that they keep doing that so that it doesn't freeze over. power outages at the peak and from 25,000 down to a few hundred today in connecticut just a few scattered power outages. so they've done a pretty good job of diverting most of it, neil, which is having your power out and temperature this low. neil: try to stay warm. connell mcshane, thank you very much. >> yes, sir. neil: the affect on retail. but there is with us right now. what do you think? >> great affect for retail. this is when the wholesalers and retailers do their best. super value record-breaking results. costco, kroger, walmart, all the same. but the guys at goldman have it completely upside down or backwards. they have neutrals or shorts on most of the names when the frigid cycle that connell just reported for the last five to seven weeks record-breaking sales, record-breaking profitability, yet the stuff that's going up are the companies impaired the most.

amazon impaired, fedex impaired, ups impaired, restaurants impaired, restaurant wholesalers impaired. people can't get out of his or her driveway if they can't get to the restaurants, there's no food. schools canceled. everybody's eating what's in the house, and they're going to the grocery store to buy more. food retail best time in the winter storms, especially on the 40th anniversary, neil, when you and i were both in school and up state new york and the blizzards since history that connell just reported. neil: you know, one of the things that's interesting, and i do remember you as a young student is that this phenomenon where you cocoon last as long as you have to. in other words, if the weather warms up, then what the markets give it, they take it back. what do you think? >> they took it back. but with the american people

record levels of being overweight and obese, they eat the food, and they're back in to buy more. the other thing on the key cocooning point you're bringing up is people have a tremendous amount of apartment home damage lost wages lost overtime so they can't afford to go out. they can't afford to go to the other 13 retail sectors. so the only place they're spending is food retail and food retail and food wholesale benefits tremendously from storms like this and reverse frigid winter actorric cycles across canada and like you said 65% of america this week and throughout december and january so far. . neil: all right. thank you, my friend. be well. i'll get you for those references. you're the best. such a smart guy. all right. in the meantime, dow 25,000. that seemed unimaginable. a president is saying, you know, dow 30,000, you ready? we're on it after this nah. not gonna happen.

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>> if we can get the rates up a little more, it'll make more of an incentive to the banks to start lending to small businesses because there's a return on it. and i think a 4% bond, it may hurt the treasury guys, but it'll show people there's going to be access to capital. small businesses can grow. i think i see 25,000 on this market. neil: all right. that was more than 6,000 points ago, and there were people who were laughing in this place outside when he made that prediction, but he was right. actually, he was right almost to the very week. i'm talking about john tobacco. good to have you, john. >> it's great to be back, neil. neil: well, the market did what it said, confounding a lot of your critics and cynics, but now people are getting worried. love it, love it, love it, but worried about it. what do you say? >> well, first, neil, you're the don of television, so i'm sorry to let you down and miss by four

days -- [laughter] but last december, i'm not on the trump train, but i've been very supportive of trump's policies, pro-growth policies from larry kudlow and stephen moore. and it took a little time for him to overcome the fake news and get his policies through, but what i saw was during the obama administration companies were so overregulated, overtaxed -- neil: you said that that was actually a bigger problem for them than taxes. it was just that that was weighing them down. >> overregulation, people were pushing money offshore. the only way the s&p 500 companies were making money was by cutting. you don't grow by cutting. and when i saw trump talking about tax reform that was sensible, when i started hearing him talk seriously about repatriation of cash which, companies, yeah, they'll make capital expenditure investments, they'll hire people, start new divisions. and last of all, i think trump deregulating has caused more innovation, and it helps companies, public companies, and it spurs growth.

neil: do you see this growth continuing? >> oh, my god, neil, ten years i've been coming on with you, i've never said anything positively long about a stock or a market. i've always been able to find a way to see where the overvalued situations were. but at 20,000 i saw 25, at 25 i see right now this repatriation, all this money coming back. i did call the donald yesterday and say 30, so he's going with 30. neil: he's going with 30? that would be a 20% runup here. that's not unfathomable, but do you ever worry just for the sheer health of the market going forward that it needs to pause a little bit, maybe a 5%, if not a 10% correction before it moves on again? this has been uninterrupted for, what, 20 months -- >> i've been a perma-bear most of my life, but i see tremendous opportunities for growth -- neil: but you turned bullish with the election of donald trump. >> because of his pro-growth policies.

neil: you built into that that the policies would pass. it happened. do you see this continued lift? >> i talk to a lot of short sellers, i you said how they estimate -- i understand how they estimate, and i see short sellers running out of the way the of the trump team. he keeps coming out, when he can get his news out and his policies passed, that's the biggest fear of the shorts. they don't want to get caught in an explosion. and what i see is innovation, and i just want to mention this one thing to you, neil. everyone's just starting to talk about block chain which is the new internet of money for cryptocurrencies and the -- neil: of which bitcoin is just a beneficiary. it's bigger than -- >> bitcoin's one. neil: right. >> block chain is the main event. that's the place where many public companies are finding ways to disrupt their old cost mechanisms. they're getting more efficient, they're connecting with people more peer to peer, they're adopting artificial intelligence -- neil: you think that technology has a future. >> i think it's going to change the way people invest.

it's empowering investors, and it's making public companies that people want to invest in much more efficient with the cash coming back and the job growth, i don't want to one-up the donald, but i think 30,000 is closer than 35,and it could be 24 year. neil: dow 30 could be this year. >> absolutely, that's how i feel. neil: good seeing you again. john tobacco, he's way ahead of this curve. that was then, this is now. in the meantime, the president wants $18 billion for border wall. will he get it? he's on the verge of a deal that could be put together this weekend. i'll explain. ♪ ♪ every truck guy has their own way of conveying powerful. yeeaaahhh boy. kind of looks like a monster coming to eat ya. holy smokes. that is awesome. strong. you got the basic, and you got the beefy. i just think it looks mean. incredible. no way. start your year off strong a new chevy truck. get a total value of over $9,600

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jay-z, tina fey, howard stern. again, this will be a monthly release, the first time that letterman has taken the hosting seat on a talk show since he left his own show, late night, back in 2016. 2015,, i should say. again, that's being paid close attention to. remember, there are rumors abounding here that apple is interested in scooping up netflix. speaking of which, apple admitting that all its imac users are able to be hacked. >> reporter: a billion devices are affected by a design flaw that makes these devices to hackers. intel says they don't think the flaw will hit their bottom line, but it may be too early to tell. the company makes chips for billions of devices ranging from desktops, laptops, smartphones, tablets, even cloud servers. apple says all mac and ios

devices are affected. apple tvs, iphones and ipads should protect some users, and apple says they also have a patch in the works for safari web browsers that should be ready in a few days. intel is developing fixes for existing chips and has firmware updates for half the chips made in the past five years, they think they'll have 90% secured by next week, and future chips won't have the defect. as intel scramblings to patch things up, the ceo has a bigger problem on his hands. he's in the hot seat for a massive stock sale of his intel shares that coincidentally happened after he knew about the defects but before everyone else knew about it. here's what happened. intel found out about the flaw last summer. in october the ceo makes changes to his stock plan that would allow him to dump basically all his company stock that he's permitted to sell. in november he sells $39 million worth of intel stock, and it isn't until this week that intel goes public with the information.

the move could be turning heads at the sec, and intel's spokesperson says the selloff has nothing to do with the faulty chips, but they didn't explain why the ceo wanted to dump millions of dollars in company stock. neil? neil: all right. hillary vaughn, thank you very much. elsewhere the administration does plan to make good on its plan to allow more offshore drilling, and we mean significant offshore drilling well into the pacific here and well beyond ranges ever thought possible in the past, certainly under the obama administration. we go to jeff flock, phil flynn over at the cme with the fallout for a lot of energy-related prices as a result. hey, guys. what are you hearing? >> reporter: this is a perfect counterpoint because, phil, we've got plenty of oil out there. we don't need all this drilling. this is the craziest time in the world to do such a thing. what do you say? >> absolutely wrong, and it's a dangerous misperception. if you look at what's happened with the u.s. inventory this year, we've seen the biggest drawdown in history finish.

>> reporter: aren't we uh-uh producing more than we ever have? >> we are. number one, the oil that we're producing our refiners can't refine, so we have to export most of that. a lot of that oil is not doing us any good. and the other thing is when you drill for shale, jeff, there is a huge decline rate on the well -- >> reporter: doesn't have the same in the oceansome. >> no. it might be good for a year or two, a drill in the ocean could be good for decades. >> reporter: and it could also blow out like the deepwater horizon, foul all these beaches, the tourism industry along the coast would be ruined. >> that's always a risk, jeff, but there's always a risk with any energy source. to be honest, the u.s. energy industry has a really good track record. the deepwater horizon is more the exception than the rule, and it's not going to happen every day -- >> but the tourism industry along the gulf keys, that's nothing compared to what it is along the eastern seaboard, states like new jersey and florida and all the rest. >> right. all i know is when you start pulsing drills in the ground and the economy starts doing better,

east people will have more money -- >> reporter: to swim in all that oil. there you go, neil. >> that'd be a good story for you, swimming in oil, i like that. >> reporter: but all the opposition. you've got republican governors, senators saying, hey, we don't want this. >> but everybody wants lower energy prices, right? it kind of reminds me of walter cronkite. we need more wind energy, but when they were going to put it right outside his summer home, he's like, well, maybe on second thought we don't need it that bad. >> reporter: point/counterpoint. phil, you ignorant slut. [laughter] neil: that was very good like an editorial professional wrestling. you're wrong, brother. thank you very much. president trump, we're told, open to a deal for dreamers but, but, but with a caveat, i'll give you daca, you give me that wall. we'll see over the next couple of days as the president gathers with top republican leaders to hash all of this out ahead of a budget that is due by the 19th of this month. to louisiana republican senator

bill cassidy. senator, very good to have you. how likely is that, that they can hammer out these differences? that appears to be the thorniest one to getting this budget done. what do you think? >> i think it's easily done. the president clearly wants border security. he's clearly willing to negotiate. i don't know if democrats want to give up the issue. i don't know that democrats actually want a solution to daca because they love to use it as a political prop. but if they are truly interested, the president's willing to negotiate. he just wants that border security. neil: so how do you feel about it? many conservatives have been saying, you know, we don't all like the whole concept behind daca justifying and giving, you know, legality to illegality. what are your opinions on that -- whatever your opinions on that, but a wall would buffer that a little bit. what do you think? >> totally. the wall resets. the wall says that from this point forward we have our border secure not just for folks coming here illegally, but also for

human trafficking, drugs, guns going south and north, all the activity the cartels are doing, we have a better way to control. that's a good thing. if you have to negotiate to get that good thing, the president's clearly willing to negotiate. again, the question is whether the democrats are serious. neil: i'm sure you're aware of this michael wolff book and the advanced printing today, the attention it's getting. a lot of people are downloading this thing like crazy. it doesn't paint a great picture of the president. i know you haven't read it, maybe you're not inclined to read it, but are you worried that that image of the president as someone in over his head is the image that might stick? >> since the president took office the economy's grown over 3% per quarter, the gdp, 3% per quarter. we've deregulated, we've got conservative justices, we've just done the most significant tax overhaul in the past 30 years. it doesn't sound like a fellow

over his head, it sounds like a fellow who's englished a lot. -- accomplished a lot. neil: but this view that people in the white house are afraid of him? he wouldn't be the first president with a temper, but does that disturb you? >> i've seen him and general kelly, i don't get the sense that general kelly is interim dated by president trump. he's -- intimidated by president trump. in the meetings i've had with the president, he's always charming. i am sure he can lose his temper. who doesn't? on the other hand, look at the accomplishments in the economy and regulations and the judiciary, etc., and i think we've seen a president who's been pretty effective his first year. neil: speaking of losing tempers, senator, we live in an environment where it's very polarized, and the thought was it would become depot lahrized with an structure that could enjoy bipartisan sport. i'm not so sure that's such a sure thing anymore, but what do you think? >> yeah, the question is how do you pay for it. but i do think there's bipartisan support for a deal. on the other hand, republicans want to make sure we can actually get the projects done.

under president obama's stimulus package, less than 10% of $800 billion was actually spent building new roads because permitting was so slow and expensive. so we need to also expedite that. but clearly an infrastructure package would be good for creating jobs in my state, in louisiana. we have lots of pent-up needs as well as stimulating the economy overall. i would like to think we can get that done. neil: on the tax cuts, senator, obviously the hope is of many in your party that because they're immediate, nothing is phased in and the fact that companies are getting such a big break that they would share the wealth with their workers which early on seems to be the case for the hundred or so companies that have promised bonuses and/or some relief to their workers. do you think that the effect then of the cuts especially when people see them in their paychecks next month will be immediate or close to it? >> absolutely. beginning in february after the irs updates its withholding software people will go home

with more take-home pay. that's important. you're already seeing businesses talk about increased money for worker training, increased money for capital investment, and so it's an immediate improvement. and then as companies begin to compete for workers, a increase in wage growth. now, since the president -- this president took office, there's been the beginning of wage growth. that's what we need more of. the american worker needs wage growth. i think the tax cut with the stimulated economy will create more of that. neil: all right, senator, we'll see what happens. very good seeing you again. happy new year. >> thank you, neil. happy new year. neil: as we said, the president is going to be in camp david, in fact, he's going to meet with mitch mcconnell, paul ryan among others to talk about uniting the gop and getting a budget done by the 19th. everything has to fall into place here and, of course, counting on the impact of a tax cut that, as the senator pointed out, should be immediate. the dow seeing the good rather than the bad, up 88 points, well

into record territory right now. we just had john tobacco here, the great market soothe sayer, who was saying he could see dow 30,000 this year. and apparently, the president must have heard his comments, because he's saying the same. dow 30,000, here we go. after this. ♪ ♪ a flight, then add a hotel, and save. ♪ everything you need to go. expedia

♪ ♪ neil: all right, maybe when we realize that sears wasn't offering any holiday commercials, that there were problems there and that macy's and all those crowded stores indicated there were no problems there. deirdre bolton on the latest that she's learning from retail land. >> yeah. so, you know, sears has been struggling for years. hedge fund manager turned sears chairman and ceo eddie lampert, he's been trying to turn this company around, but most analysts agree his changes, well, they just came too little, too late. amazon, other digital retailers, they are so strong that these bricks and mortar stores can't make too many management mistakes. this is what the stock is doing today. eddie lampert, listen, he did to a little experimenting, blending old and new. he allowed some brands to even be sold on amazon, outright sold bigger brands like the craftsman tool line to stanley black and decker, that generated a little bit of cash, but even with those efforts sears' sales down 45% in

the past four years. debt load topping $4 billion, and the company is losing more than a billion dollars annually. so as a result, more than a hundred sears and kmart stores are going to close in march and april. the list of unprofitable stores, 39 sears stores in 22 states, 64 kmart sites in 29 states. you can get good deals beginning as soon as january 12th, they're going to be closing and all those stores liquidating by the end of april. sears is not alone. macy's also cutting jobs and closing stores, 5,000 job cuts at macy's, the department store is going to be closing 11 stores this year, they've shut a total of 124 stores since 2015. macy's did have strong holiday sales, but if you look at the stock this morning so far, it has been mostly responding to those job cuts and store cuts.

but for balance, here are some retail brands. you can see apple, costco, tj maxx, these are ones that are opening new stores in 2018. these guys are thriving. sephora is another one. it's just worth noting, neil, there are a lot of retail analysts talking about the difference between spending and shopping. and their point is that we all spend maybe more digitally on amazon, etc., but when you shop and you really want to go in, some of these stores are still actually seeing increased foot traffic, increased sales because there's this whole kind of personal experience. some are figuring out the new model -- neil: i think that personal experience is way overrated. >> i think with clothes if you ask a lot of, if you ask a lot of women, they still like to try things on in stores. i think so. one, anyway. neil: you don't need it for the processed meats and cheeses. >> that's a solid gift all around. neil: thank you very much, deirdre. in the meantime, the justice department is now look into the clinton foundation on this

pay-to-play issue as republican congressmen are questioning if jeff sessions is doing everything he can. take a listen. >> i just want you to do your job. we expected different, we expected a different process and treatment and a different justice department when you took over, but unfortunately, we're getting the same kind of slow walking on witness access, slow walking on document production. so that's what we want to see happen. neil: all right. so if the attorney general doesn't have the president breathing down him and that isn't enough and now two prominent republican congressmen who could be shaping opinion on the hill among those on the right. to lee speakerman. that usually doesn't start a new year off well, if you're an embattled cabinet secretary to begin with. what do you think, lee? >> well, neil, if meadows and jordan are calling for sessions to be replaced as attorney general, that's very serious because sessions is obviously on

the right side of the republican party, and jordan and meadows are as well. so that's not a good sign. i've been calling for sessions to be replaced literally for months. he's been dilatory in handling investigation of the corruption of the department of justice and the fbi under the obama administration, he has walked backward on criminal justice reform which is terrible. he didn't name a topnotch person to head the civil rights division. he's, didn't replace rosenstein. so i think he's, he has done a very poor job. he should be replaced. i'd like the see a degeneva, someone that can be really hard-nosed about this because things are getting out of control. mueller has got to be removed. we've got to end this crazy russia investigation based on a fictitious dossier on donald trump and some overheard

conversations -- neil: it's almost too late for that now, isn't it? to remove the guy, whatever your opinions, could compound this, right? >> well, it could, but you know what? the left and the anti-trump people are going to be hysterical no matter what happens. and i think what really has to occur, and i also push for going back to may, is a special second prosecutor to focus completely on leaks on the department of justice, corruption under loretta lynch, under what happened under the fbi, this j. edgar hoover fbi that comey was running. i mean, this is crazy, and people are putting up, gee, we can't question our wonderful department of justice and fbi. well, wait a minute. those are very powerful organizations that can threaten the civil liberties of all americans, and now they're doing it, and they've been doing it to the president of the united states. yes, they need to be called to account, and i don't think it's too late to get rid of mueller and stop this insanity. in fact, if anything, what we've learned seeing that a top justice department official orr,

was married to a woman what worked for the democratic opposition research firm, fusion gps that put that phony dossier together and was trying to shop that, this is a top official under the department of justice, and then you had strzok that was supposedly investigating hillary clinton's e-mails. by the way, the 33,000 e-mails, we now know why they were probably deleted, they had to do most likely with uranium one -- neil: well, they weren't all deleteeded, as it turns out. but i do want to -- >> yeah, a lot more. neil: -- if we're still talking about it next year at this time, then what? >> well, that's why they've got to get rid of mueller and get a special prosecutor, a special counsel that can focus on the real crime. neil: be careful what you wish for, my friend, because sometimes they can go far afield. ken starr comes to mind. >> well, they can, but that's why rosenstein should have been replaced as well. neil: i see. >> that's why sessions should

have done that, because we needed a circumscribed, tight mission statement if we were even going to have a special counsel, which was a big mistake. but we should get rid of him, get rid of this corruption-laden investigation that mueller has been conducting that has come up with no evidence of any collusion with russia. meanwhile, there's a very disturbing if not terrifying pattern with the hillary clinton e-mail situation, pay-for-play, corruption of the department of justice under loretta lynch as highlighted with her meeting and what was supposed to be a -- neil: all right. a lot we don't know, and on and on we go, lee -- >> we need the find out. neil: indeed. thank you, my friend. the dow up almost 80 points, all these worries not wisconsin standing, we're in record -- notwithstanding, we're in record territory.

:

. neil: all right, jobs falling a little bit in the month of december. the unemployment still at close to two-decade low. stocks continuing record runs. this is interprets as a goldilocks report, perfect as she goes, market watchers kathryn rooney and brandon barrett. that was the knee-jerk read of it, it wasn't robust, continues a pattern of slow and steady growth that i guess a lot of folks hope will pick up steam. what do you think? >> yeah, well, look, 148,000. these jobs reports, they could be 100,000 either way. i look at this as right in line with what we've experienced over the last bunch of years.

no reason to believe this economy is slowing down at all. in fact, it's accelerating right now. the tax cut this year is going to make it accelerate more. regulatory reductions accelerate even more. earnings are up. the corporate tax rate being lower is great for corporate earnings. this is one month's report. i'm not going to read it into the macroenvironment in any big way. neil: i wondered, the "wall street journal" kind of took the president to task for constantly talking about the markets. who can blame them? they have been running up. want to 25,000 yesterday, they could easily turn and the media is going to pounce on him for that. he has constantly referred to that. do you think there is a danger in doing that? >> come on, absolutely. the president has it on the upside and the downside, too. if we see a correction, the president is not tweeting about it but own the upside and the downside. i agree with brian, i think

there's a lot of good news in the pipeline and this nonfarm payroll number does not change the market trend or the economic trend. however, i will say one thing, watch real wages, watch wage growth, stagnant 2.5% year-over-year, if we see acceleration, that will and can precipitate an acceleration and core pce, which is the magic the fed closely looks at. neil: we have no reason to go crazy here and start hiking like nuts because i guess the expectation is for two more hikes this year, could be three, but i see little in the way of that. what do you think? >> i totally agree. i mean, we actually think we're going to get three rate hikes this year. neil: do you? >> possibly, possibly four. and i'm right with katherine. inflation, there is a chance, inflation is picking up a

little bit. we have to remember, there is still $2 trillion of excess reserves in the banking system, that's fuel to the inflation fire. so -- so -- neil: what do you mean? fuel to the inflation fire, explain. >> right. well, reserves in the banking system, this is money that the federal reserve puts in. that's what can turn into loans and more m 2 growth and more money growth and that's what causes inflation. neil: and we're not seeing a heck of a lot of that. >> not seeing the monetary phenomenon. looks like things are picking up and looks like higher interest rates. i'm not worried. rates are too low today, they are excessively low, and a little higher rates aren't going to stop the bull market. neil: normally bull markets keep thriving as rates are going up. we had a market expert on who

accurately predicted dow 25,000 a year ago, talking up 30,000 this year. what do you think of that? >> look, i think there is certainly upside, there are definitely risks. we cannot discard them. those are inflations, those are the administration, exiting both nafta and wto, they are north korea, the principal risks. i am bullish. i think that the s&p for example goes to 3,000 this year, that's based on earnings growth. multiples look extended and can't negate that. compared to earnings growth, they don't. and if, in fact, earnings grow to our approximate number, 140 versus 119 currently, we think that earnings growth will validate current multiples. neil: it's not a rich market to you? these markets given the levels, it's not a rich market, even with the run-up? >> get growth continuing at a double-digit pace which is consistent with the tax reform, it's banking on that. we will get higher markets this

year. neil: thank you very much. republicans are hoping to see that happen, the sooner the better, obviously there is the effect of feeling it right away. daily caller editor katie fretas says that will determine the election. good to see you. >> good to see you. neil: it has to be even more robust and sooner rather than later? >> yeah, has to be fairly immediate historically as we were saying off cam ramp the party in power loses seats in the midterm election, 9/11 being the exception to the rule. they got about 40 seat in the house that they can't lose before power switches over and i think that the economy -- neil: 24 would do it? >> right. i think the power at that point, the economy needs to do well enough, you need people to say my 401(k) is doing better, pocketbook is better, more presents for my kids, i feel better about the economy.

neil: we're not at that point yet? >> getting there, but it's going to have to speed up. people have to feel really, really great when the midterms come around, a the love people don't like trump. neil: that is amazing, he is not benefitting from something the presidents going through similar economic stimulus periods like we have. >> he doesn't help himself out a lot. he's going on twitter. i've never been a fan of his tweets. when you looked at economy, people like him a lot more than it has to do with personality. neil: does it carry to a generic ballot or republican congressman? >> i think seats will be saved with a good economy and, of course, the economy, it seems like it is on the up-and-up, only going to get stronger, which is good news for republicans for sure. neil: when it comes to the tax cuts, in february will see it in paychecks once the irs has tables adjusted. the one thing you and i talked about before is the tax cuts,

corporations really are getting. it's a pig fest with them, got bless them, they have so much money, they don't know what to do with it, a lot of them are saying,000 dollar bonus checks, that's not the rule across the board but more than a million workers are benefitting from that? >> yeah, a hundred companies now? neil: my question is forget the individual and individuals are the beneficiary of that, then what? >> at this point, republicans can give the talk point they started raising the minimum wage to 15 an hour for certain companies. have you democrats that have been pushing this forever and none of them voted for this tax reform. if this keeps going, and companies keep doing, that republicans can say we raised $15 minimum wages at fifth third and wells fargo and so on. that's a great talking point for them to be able to have. neil: the uptick in minimum wages across the country. 18 states, it was premandated

in, is happening, and to little deleterious because of lower regulations and the prospect of tax cuts, is that going to wash? >> the damage is less, right? a lot of the companies are worried, especially small companies worried that the mandatory $15 minimum wage increase was going to hurt them. with the tax reform, it's going to balance out a little more. neil: might hurt the argument in the future if you want to raise that and say you kept warning it was going to be damaging. >> that is about can you give articulate understandable argument and say yes, it was lessened but because of tax reform, not because it wasn't as damaging as we thought it would be. neil: when you are in the flesh, you can give a swamp update right here. and i'm wondering the fallout of the michael wolff book, i downloaded it and started reading it, some of it sounds incredible to be true, i'm only a third of the way through it. what do you make of it? the fallout of it?

is it a big issue for the news and time past, what's that? >> inside the beltway, everybody is buzzing about it, i'm going on the amtrak at 3:00 p.m., see if the city is going down. the worst thing trump could do is threaten to try to get the book stopped. neil: more attention. >> exactly. all it does for people who don't like trump. see? he's nervous, it must all be true, when we know there are certain parts of it that are not, in fact, correct. neil: do you believe the premise, because it starts early, that the staff thinks the president is in over his head? >> i don't know. i would have to read a little bit more. i think i'm a little shocked that the staff allowed this man to meander about the white house for so long. and even himself was like when are they going to kick me out? and everyone was like take a seat. neil: where's waldo, michael wolff was everywhere? >> these are the businessmen, they're not politicians, they

don't understand the in and outs of d.c. and unfortunately learning the hard way. neil: you do come from the swamp, you are not swamp-like. >> washington state originally. other one first. neil: katie, very good seeing. >> you thanks for having me. neil: in the meantime, the president is expected to leave for camp david soon. trying to iron out an agenda to get past the book and the soap opera drama katie was touching on. adam shapiro has the latest from the white house. what's on tap, my friend? reporter: leaving for camp david within the next hour and this afternoon over the weekend meeting with republican leaders. show you the people attending the briefings that you're going to have. vice president pence, speaker of the house paul ryan, republican leader mitch mcconnell from the senate, john cornyn, steve scalise and mick mulvaney, defense secretary james mattis, all in play. one of the topics is the midterm elections for 2018.

but the other is the legislative agenda, not only what we've been talking about which are the spending caps and funding the government past january, the big push from the trump administration on infrastructure spending, they are promising close to a trillion dollar package. here's what gary cohn said about that on "varney" earlier this morning. >> you will be seeing our infrastructure plan. i'll tell you right here, right now, two core principles in the infrastructure plan. number one is we are advocating over a trillion dollars of infrastructure investment. we are going to get the approval process on infrastructure streamlined in a dramatic fashion. we're going to take the approval process down from about 10 years to less than two years. reporter: and neil, the other thing that's a topic of discussion are the negotiations over immigration reform and the daca deal. remember, the administration is pushing for $23 million but the

report of $18 billion to expand the border wall and replace existing wall on the southern border with mexico. those are some of the things that the president talks about with the republican leadership at camp david, neil? neil: so much to do. thank you very much, adam. we've been telling you about the michael wolff book "fire and fury," they sped it up and let people buy it, download it and get a read of it. way, way early here, but the back and forth, forget the drama and the story and the back drop. is it accurate? after this. well, it's earnings season once again. >>yeah. lot of tech companies are reporting today. and, how's it looking? >>i don't know. there's so many opinions out there, it's hard to make sense of it all. well, victor, do you have something for him? >>check this out. td ameritrade aggregates thousands of earnings estimates into a single data point. that way you can keep your eyes on the big picture.

>>huh. feel better? >>much better. yeah, me too. wow, you really did a number on this thing. >>sorry about that. that's alright. i got a box of 'em. thousands of opinions. one estimate. the earnings tool from td ameritrade.

. >> i work like every journalist works. so i have recordings, i have notes. i am certainly and absolutely in every way comfortable with everything i've reported in this book. neil: all right, you know what i caught of that? i have recordings. i wonder how many of the so-called 200 sources that michael wolff used were put on tape. he'll have the proof right there. that book is out right now. all the sensation right now. let trump be trump is another book on the president. that author david bossie joins us now. rarely do political tones get

this attention. this casts the president in a very, very negative light, and the president isn't enthused. do you think his threat to take legal action actually helped its sales? >> no, i don't, i think this is a -- you know, a book that is structured like the national enquirer on steroids. this is tabloid trash, and i got to be honest with you, this reporter, i've now only seen excerpts of this book, but as you pointed out, you know, i have a book i wrote with corey lewandowski, the firsthand account from our campaign in transition, and we contradict in our account with what his fantasy is in the book, and several instances. i'm going to put our book up against his and see how it works out. neil: all right, david, the one thing i'm amazed with michael wolff is his access to the white house. i mean, only photos and videos released where he keeps popping up at the white house.

they obviously knew he was there, who he was, and yet they keep popping up. is it true those in the administration, maybe the president himself felt if they're going to do a tell-all book on me, we can trust this guy? >> i think it is a major mistake. clearly someone, and it seems that it is known that it seems to be steve bannon, gave this person really unfetterred access to the top level people. whether they are on the record or not is up to the individuals. neil: i'm sorry, do you know whether he still had that access after bannon left in august? >> no, i have no idea, but i would highly doubt it because why would you allow this person to be in there? so i find the whole thing incredibly troubling. this person clearly had an agenda going in, whether he was, you know, whether he lied to these people about it and

then did something exactly the opposite of what he said, that's going to be drilled down into. neil: you know, i love these type of books, good or bad, i love your book, i'm intrigued by, this i downloaded it. i read all this stuff. i don't know what that says about me other than i have no life. that's not to besmirch your fine tone with corey. i definitely get two different impressions from the president so far, one portrays him as a very enterprising, very inventing, hard working, humorous kind of guy. the other one, the michael wolff book as a nut case. how do you feel about that? >> you know, i'm incredibly insulted and i feel sorry for michael wolff. it's a pathetic, pathetic thing to have done. this president -- to say in his book, he didn't want to become president. no one worked harder than donald trump.

nobody deserved the victory more than donald trump. neil: he was surprised he became president. >> please! we had data, neil. look, we had data that showed that we had closed the gap in the final week. we knew it was going to be close. anything can happen on election day. we didn't know we were going to win, but to say we were shocked is outrageous. we were professionals. neil: claims of melania, his wife, crying, she thought it was a joyride and he wouldn't go anywhere? >> we write about it in let trump be trump. melania trump, the first lady, was euphoric, i stood next to her. this was outrageous lies on their face. people should not go buy this book, in my opinion, because it is full of salacious lies and selective information. neil: you are a lot closer to the president than i was or am, but this other portrayal of him, and you corey touch on it,

he could be quite the task master, successful people generally are, i'm sure you're that way, in a good way. >> yes. neil: but that can also come across as being volcanic, a volcanic temper and prone to anger and the president has a short fuse. again, i have to stress i'm only a third of the way through the wolff book, that issue keeps coming up. he has a short attention span and angry easily, and vindictive. that portrayal. what do you think? >> furthest from the truth. president has incredible intellect. he's well read. mainstream media want you to believe the opposite. he reads the newspaper, not just the front page of a newspaper and not just the front page section, he reads them cover to cover, really an older generation, old school style. he does it with multiple papers every day, and so he fights the fake news that he finds in them and takes them on because he reads what they are writing.

the laws in this book. neil: they are saying, david, he keeps track of those who say anything bad about him. maybe it's a list in his head. i know everyone who said a cross word about me. >> this president is different than your average politician. he fights back. normally in washington, you know, you're a punching bag. this president is an unbelievable counterpuncher and takes the fight to you, whether it's the mainstream media or hollywood, you know, or the left. in congress or elsewhere. he will take the fight right back to you and he's not going to take these punches lying down. neil: why do you think he's a suckup to the "new york times." you want to be liked by these guys as you rip these guys, but that comes through now and then where he grants an interview to "new york times" reporter over at the vacation in mar-a-lago. >> he gives them a chance, gives them an opportunity to be fair and truthful to the american people, and then they

choose editorially to write these nasty, negativelies about him, and that's what he points out. i gave you a chance and look what you did with it, you cannot tell the truth in a very simple exclusive interview which i was nice enough to grant. presidents sit down with reporters all the time to be able to make sure they are effectively communicating to the american people, but these things are outrageous. this book is a fraud, and i think that people should not take a look at it. neil: all right, i'm going to put you as a maybe on michael wolff. i want to end with this, i get the impression the president is surrounded by vipers now. a lot of people who don't like him, would sooner turn on him. are talking to the author of the book as he wanders around the west wing about him. is he surrounded by people who wish him ill? >> i will say that if michael wolff has the people on tape saying those things, you know, he would be doing a service to

everyone if he puts them out. those folks should not be working there. if you think that poorly of the president, this is an honor and a privilege to work in the white house for any president. this president or anyone else. and it is outrageous that people would be backstabbing other staffers, but specifically the president. so i find that to be outrageous and i think people need to be held to account for it. neil: david bossie, very, very good seeing you again. thank you very much. >> thank you. neil: the book is let trump be trump, and the co-author along corey lewandowski. the snow is gone, what if i tell you the real problems are just starting? i'll tell you after this.

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. neil: all right, this is hardly the calm after the storm, talk about the excruciating cold after the storm. it's going to hang around a while. gerri willis with more on that. reporter: let me tell you how cold it is, my iphone just died. i was going to show you numbers off of this, but i can't do it because the iphone died. we're going to start with delays and cancellations at area airport. it's been a disaster if you wanted to fly. number of delays out there, i believe it's 1785 delays. cancellations a little more than 1200 here. i got to tell you this is better than yesterday. and speaking of yesterday, when i was talking to you out here, it was beautiful and the snow was flying, it was 23 degrees. right now, i think it's something like 14 now, 14 degrees, but the real feel, neil, because of how cold this

is, bright sky, no clouds covering us, negative 1 degrees, that's the big story this weekend because these temperatures are going to plummet. you look at -- take a look at this sidewalk out here. you see it looks like it's great, it's all water, we're all going to be fine, but hours from now, this is all going to freeze again, we're going to have a ton of ice and it's going to be very, very dangerous. the real danger, frostbite, hypothermia. i know your gucci loafers never touch the sidewalk, let me show you the hero of this live shot. rod mcnally in what appears to be a woman's rain coat. he's barely wearing anything at all and the total rock star through this whole thing standing by me and getting the number. we had fun out here, right? i kind of like it. neil: we'll make the assignment permanent. you know i tripped and fell

outside today and wailed for hours for someone to come by and help me out. reporter: diwalk by? was that you on the ground? neil: you kicked me, that was extreme. gerri, thank you very much. at first i thought it was connell mcshane doing, that he would never do that. he joins us in connecticut where it is awful as well, connell? reporter: you can't be falling down on me when i'm away like that, neil. if i were there, i would not have only picked you up, i would bring you a hat. neil: there is not a hat like that big enough for my head. i appreciate the offer. >> the animal rights people are not happy with me, i gave them your e-mail address. to gerri's reporting in new york, over the next 48 hours in new england, it's a real challenge, this storm has stuck around or the poor weather has stuck around for so long, if you can get through two days, we'll be all right. in hartford, an advisory in

effect for windchills from this afternoon to sunday morning, 10, 15 below, some areas 20, 25 below, maybe 30 below, believe it or not when it comes to windchills. they want to get themselves until monday. in boston where we were yesterday, we had all the flooding as the high tide came in, higher than before. same deal. if they can get to monday, in boston, they'll have 13 consecutive days of below-freezing temperatures by sunday. that's a stretch. people say it's winter and cold, these temperatures are 30% below normal, so it's a little more than that, and yesterday was certainly more than that. we saw all the flooding in boston, that's since receded, and the crews, the work crews whether it be up in massachusetts or down here in connecticut as we've driven through new england, they've been doing their best. all the main roads in the cities and the highways down to the pavement, and that's the key, so it doesn't freeze up over the weekend.

two more days to get through. neil: you can do this. the power grid, lot of fears whether it can stand up to the temperatures staying down. nick lauris. it's been a concern of yours for a while. what about now? >> yeah, i think there's always opportunities to enhance the resiliency and the reliability of the grid. if you talk to the power producers of the area, they're confident they have enough supply to get through this cold spell. the one real issue with regard to this weekend is really the wind. that's been the problem with the transmission line so, it's not been at the actual power plant themselves, but the wind knocking out transmission lines is cause anything amount of power outages in the northeast. neil: nick, i understand like the summer during a heat wave and they have the brownouts and staged brownouts, blackouts, et cetera, what do they do the inverse of that, the cold weather, when everyone is heating up their homes, what do they do?

>> a big part of it is fuel switching. if you look at new york for instance, a lot of the power plants run on natural gas and oil, and because of the huge increase in demand for natural gas for heating and electricity, they'll fuel switch to oil. they have the excess reserve supplies to actually help meet that exorbitant price spike and try and tamp that down in respect to make sure that we can keep the lights on, keep the heat coming but also make sure that prices aren't skyrocketing through the roof. neil: lately, they've been coming back a bit. by lately, i mean today. year to date, at much higher levels, multiyear levels for heating oil, other affected commodities, do you expect that to calm down? >> a little bit, yes, because some of the notice of the cold spell will be over soon. some of the contracts are long-term, so they're already locked in. what could really help is more infrastructure especially in

the northeast. they've been so anti-pipeline that if we had more natural gas pipelines coming up to the northeast, they wouldn't be so reliant on home heating oil, there would be a diverse choice for energy supplies for electricity and heat, and therefore you would have less price impacts when you go through cold spells like this. neil: nick, stay warm yourself, joining us from heritage out of d.c. the dow has 100-point gain as it continues to move into record territory. we had john predicting accurately 25,000, and saying how about dow 30,000? the president must have seized on that. that's his next goal. 20% uptick from today. that's what we gained last year for the dow. easily doable now? after this. [ phone rings ] hi, tom. hey, how's the college visit? you remembered. it's good.

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. >> welcome back to "coast-to-coast," i'm nicole petallides on the floor of the new york stock exchange, mark zuckerberg has a big to-do list including artificial intelligence, learning mandarin, one of the things he's noted is a personal challenge to fix facebook saying exactly. this my personal challenge to focus on fixing important issues. we won't prevent all the abuse but too many errors, enforcing policies and preventing misuse of our tools over 18 months it. certainly has been under scrutiny, violent videos and fabricated news. watching apple closely, everybody is expecting repatriation money with the new tax code. stocks up 1%, but we're seeing probably $200 billion. there's guesses the company will buy back stock, hike dividends and how about possible m&a activity, possibly buying netflix. we're looking at great tech winners, the leading sector in 2017.

how are they faring today? if you are loving tech, you're still loving it, uparrows, netflix, google, amazon and microsoft up arrows today. neil: positive underpinning, easing north korean and south korean situation because both countries are going to talks ahead of the olympics here. the u.s. is going to sit this one out, watch very, very closely here. also promises that we're not going to be participating with the south koreans in joint military exercises until after the olympics. to bush 41 undersecretary of defense jed babbin. jed, what do you think of all this? >> i think it's better than having a sitdown with the north koreans. rex tillerson saying he'd talk to them about the shape of the table, which was a bizarre desperate plea for negotiations, it was terrible. it's much better, have to see what each side is willing to give. as you and i both know, the

north koreans are famous for taking and not giving. interesting to see what they want. i suspect more pressure on president moon jae-in of south korea to not accept more anti-missile systems from us, to delay or postpone indefinitely the military war games. there's a lot of things that the north koreans will demand that the south koreans shouldn't give in on. let's give a chance to talk, can't hurt talking. neil: i understand what you're saying but see the desperation on the part of south koreans. i can understand it. the huge investment in the winter olympics that kick off next month, they don't want anything in the way of that. they invited north korean athletes to participate, don't know where that's going. do you think north koreans are playing them like a fiddle? >> i think they are. and quite frankly unless the south koreans give a lot, they shouldn't be prepared, to you will see a military demonstration at the outset of the olympics or during them, you may see missile tests or nuclear tests, that's almost a given. the north koreans have a very

large game going here. they want sanctions released, money given and want nuclear legitimacy, they can't afford to do any of those things. neil: what if there are missile tests during the olympics? >> withdrawal of several athletes, enormous disruption of the games and 80% likely it will happen. neil: would the united states do this too? pull the athletes out in the middle of it? >> i don't think we're going to bow to that pressure. people might. we all know how brave the french are. who knows? neil: is it your sense that the chinese are the real key to this, and their little faith they're going to follow through. of course, they shut down banking system to anything that would benefit north korea we're told, but no way to verify that. what do you suspect? >> well, i think there's less than meets the eye there. i think quite frankly the chinese are trying to put more

pressure on north korea, but we still have evident of ships carrying oul to north korea under the chinese flag and quite frankly, i doubt they have an enormous amount of power over kim jong-un. they have the power probably to replace them if they wanted to do that, but short of, that i don't think they are in control, neil. i think this is one of the things that one of those more pliant puppets in there. i don't think they can control this guy. neil: looking that way, jed babbin, good seeing you, my friend. >> thanks, pal. neil: a lot of the young people are getting a sense stocks is where we want to be. did they miss the rally? bitter boomers are here to say you did. after this. nah. not gonna happen. that's it. i'm calling kohler about their walk-in bath. my name is ken. how may i help you? hi, i'm calling about kohler's walk-in bath. excellent! happy to help. huh?

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charlie gasparino, steve leeb, liz macdonald. do we have to slam them? >> yeah. >> they have a lot of debt, college debt, get in as soon as they can. >> all the private schools taking fine arts, doing -- and they make -- no wonder they get jobs as baristas at starbucks. >> they really don't get barista jobs. >> they actually do. >> they don't. >> everything is done on facebook, and they don't really appreciate, you know, what's going on in the country, i mean -- >> it's all social media to them. >> it is social media, and the problem with social media is they lived in the cloistered little circles and only hear what their friends are doing. neil: pay attention to the rally, charlie, say they did get involved in the market now. we had a guest saying earlier i see dow 30,000 this year. you could make the argument, you are late to the party but the party roars on.

>> john tobacco said that, the dow rallied 25% last year to. hit 30,000 would be a 20% rally this year. is it possible with earnings growing and multiples staying the same? neil: no. >> earning growth? >> and the thing is there used to be, i may be dating myself as a bitter boomer. >> you should be allowed to date whoever you want. that's an old joke, sorry. [laughter] >> there used to be a simple rule. p plus inflation 20, and that's -- neil: price earnings multiple plus inflation. forward earnings today are about 18, inflation is about 2. the market is not that overvalued. neil: what about the nasdaq trading at 28 almost 30 times, is that a little too rich? >> that's where the earnings growth comes in. neil: justified as the new math. >> the tech sector was the big winner last year, it's

continuing this year. neil: five stocks. >> amazon had trillion market cap. neil: it is 28. >> i don't think amazon trades on earnings, necessarily. >> no. but wait a second. amazon. >> it is not that good. >> they weren't that good. neil: the millennials are anxious. >> amazon has a solid free cash flow. they have money at the end of the day. and facebook has a fair amount of money at the end of the day. >> amazon is the most profitable nonprofit. it doesn't have a bottom line at the end of the day, right? >> it doesn't have a bottom line but does have cash, lizzie, it has a lot of cash. >> one thing i say about the nasdaq. neil: you just touched steve. >> i like touching him. [laughter] >> his manly shoulders. but the one thing you have to say about amazon, and it's a market bias towards this company. this company does not outperform in traditional sense of the term, and the traders

and investors give it a lot of credit. suppose they stop giving amazon that much credit for underperforming. neil: then it can turn. >> it can turn, maybe we should give millennials more credit and more leeway then. >> why? >> bringing it back -- >> please don't mention amazon again. >> okay, i won't. some of the companies could be in trouble. okay, i said some of the companies. neil: could i switch gears a little bit? >> yes. neil: lizzie, raise this with you first off. the president getting no mention of this. now the fact is if you read all the papers today, dow 25,000 would prominently mention, i dismiss that. much more mentioned is the michael wolff book, and the president has this uncanny nack when good news comes even with passage of the tax cut, what do we hear that day, mark warner on the floor of united states senate saying you better not

fire bob mueller. the president steps on his message too many times. do you think he gets a fair shake for the markets and/or the economy? >> no, here's the problem, the president has made in a very unfortunate way the tweets and a lot of rhetoric where he shot off his own feet. he's hurt himself. there is emotional reaction going on now in the d.c. beltway, the media beltway, and charlie in all of us trained journalists, when we were at the "wall street journal," we were taught if you get emotionally involved in a story, you get immediately hooked and removed from the story because you're going to blind yourself to the facts. yesterday you have the presser. 25 k on the dow. 19 questions about steve bannon, zero about the record run in the dow. zero about the economic mini boom that's going on right now, possibly taking off because of tax cuts. neil: it could be a legitimate story but the dow is a legitimate story. >> exactly -- hang on. when you look at journalists

doing the reporting, where are the questions about that? you know what i mean? >> the dow has been up -- the dow is actually -- was up more under obama than trump. i know that is an unfair, somewhat of an unfair -- >> the bull market started in march of 2009. >> tons of qe. neil: lot of quantitative easing. >> i don't think it's the biggest story in the world. >> i fully agree, it's not either or, charlie, not either/or. >> inevitable correct comes, trump will get the blame for that in the media. >> he also, to lizzie's point, he steps on that because he's married to the markets, you are going to be married to them when they go the other way. >> how many white house press conferences under obama did you watch the media ask questions about the economy and growth and the markets. a lot. they asked zero yesterday about that. neil: to be fair, we were coming out of a meltdown, and everyone is fixated on 700+

thousand jobs lost on a monthly basis. >> understood, and obama created a net 10 million jobs and created more. all the presidents inherit recessions and obama did, too. >> i remember distinctly, i'm not quibbling with you. neil: were you with cnbc back then? >> yes. neil: those are the good old days. when i used to move the markets 500 points a day during the financial crisis. when the media covered obama, a lot of reporters, myself included, were very focused on the lack of job growth. the u6 number being astronomically high. neil: he got to be far more impressed with this president. >> feet held to the fire on the slow recovery. that's why the republicans won in 2010. >> uncharacteristically antagonistic with the press.

neil: he creates it. >> he does. but he doesn't get enough credit and we don't realize what's going on in the economy. neil: we can cover all of this, right? it's all fair game. >> it's all fair game. neil: okay, all right. >> people don't realize, he is his own worst enemy. neil: i have a producer younger than millennials saying get out! we're out of time! >> he acts like a millennial. neil: he's annoying. >> i know, i know, you got to go to bed, son, we'll have more after this. . . ...

>> i think the boomers brought the dow up a little bit. president ready to leave for camp david. big powwows this weekend. cheryl casone is here. hey, cheryl. cheryl: big weekend at camp david ahead, heading to camp david for the weekend retreat for republican leaders. they will hash out a spending bill and 2018 agenda. a controversial new book sneering the president and his campaign and early days in office but is there really any there there to it? i'm cheryl casone in for trish regan today. welcome to "the intelligence report." mr. trump blasting on robert wolff's new book saying it's a full of lies. the justice department launching a new i