jon: i'm jon taffer for elizabeth macdonald. this is "the evening edit." jeff flock is in illinois with an update on sears. reporter: this just breaking. based on reporting from reuters as well as somebody we know. eddie lampert did come in with a bid. the former ceo of sears trying to turn this thing around. apparently b of a as well as citibank were involved in extending a $559 million line of

credit. also in canada, they got involved as well. in addition to that, an editional credit line has been issued as well as lampert agreeing to forgive debt he already owes. in terms of what he would get out of it or what he would take. he would take $1.1 billion in liabilities the company has. he would assume those. he would preserve 50,000 jobs we believe as well as get 500 sears stores, the diehard battery brand and kenmore appliances. he comes in, makes the bid, $4.6 million. where does it go from here? even though this came in before the deadline or after.

that takes to us january 4 when sears advisors and the board gets top consider with whether this is a legitimate bid. if so it goes to january 14. that's the deadline when sears has to make it decision. do they want to accept this bid or go to' liquidation. if it goes the other way he's not insulated and we go to liquidation. sears lives to fight another day. we'll go to next week and we'll dough from there. ed a cold, windy, snowy night outside chicago. but sears has warmth and life left in them.

jon: there is any business planning other than a financial plan and forgivans of debt? reporter: that's a great question. if he has a plans we don't know what it is. it seems to me it's another loan, another extension. maybe he jettisoned some negatives, fewer stores. but is there a plan going forward? if there is one, i don't know about it and i don't know that anybody else does either. >> we'll see if there always plan next year. >> that's the thing. we'll see and see fit has life beyond that. i am not going to bet on it. but we have been down this road before.

we'll see. jon: joining me now, is retail analyst. burt, what is your plan. any retail giant that lost 40 consecutive quawshters. he's a privileged wall street guy who doesn't understand mainstream. you and i, jeff and your whole team are so grateful for the workers holding on to their jobs and doing the work in stores. but having families been in retail across three centuries web's the biggest retail loser in north american history. to let him almost strip mine the

company going forward. the big thing is to bring rack arthur martin and bob me metlerd such a great job. the board which is mostly controlled by lampert should get liz williams, the sears dream team back that built it into such a powerhouse and rebuild it now while it's one of the great roman empires of retail. but it's not viabling as long as eddie lampert is anywhere near this company. jon: under lampert leadership there has been no evolution. >> it's almost george orwell who wrote the book 1984.

sears is last store standing on the canadian border outside buffalo. lampert and the board were so myopic they closed the stores near the canadian border. and canadians pay huge taxes on everything from clothing to cleaning products to tools. so they shopped all those sears border stores. and sears even by the self, the customers don't trust a lampert led retail company. citi has the co-branded sears branded mastercard. but even this week the sears merchandise isn't selling in sears store number 1984. what does that say about lampert, a man with no plan as you said so well. does sears survive?

do we see tonight some form in the future? >> sears should and could survive without lampert. but with lampert at the helm it will break up in the whirlpool below. they let so many retailers, amp, path-mart, sears. got you all be the bankruptcy lawyers take hundreds of millions of dollars. not the right people, not the right skills. don't take correct yiched action. the same thing in my professional view with all of them. the judge has to stand up the way he has not done professionally in the past the way keith phillips let the

bankruptcy lawyers take $20 million out of toys r us. they threat their colleagues and associates plunder these places and the taxpayer and shopper pay the price for these liquidating empires of retail. jon: we hope we'll see some change next year. >> we need a plan and we haven't seen it. jon: another big story tonight. it's day 7 of the government shutdown. hillary vaughn is at the white house with our most of current update. reporter: the president canceled his christmas and new years vacation to stay here and work out a deal. congress is mostly out of office. lawmakers are home for the holidays. nancy pelosi was spotted in hawaii today. the biggest roadblock to the deal is not trump's border wall,

it's nancy pelosi. >> i think left to their own devices chuck schumer and the democrats would cut a deal in the senate. but if nancy pelosi cuts a deal before january 7 she is in risk of losing her speakership. we put the last offer on the table. you guys have done this for your own salaries. reporter: while the white house waits for the democrats to give a counter offer. the president is threatening to shut down the border. tweeting, we'll be forced to shut the southern border down entirely if the obstructionist democrats don't give us the money to finish the wall and change the ridiculous immigration laws the country is saddled with. nancy pelosi's spokesman said they have given the white house

three paths to end the shutdown and they didn't take it. >> the stock market has been very volatile. >> i think it president decided a shutdown will distract from all of that. he wants a shutdown because he wants a fight. there are 800,000 federal employees whose lives have been adversely impacted' it hurts real people. reporter: the white house and the shutdown is deepening the device between congress and the administration. there is no end in sight for the shutdown. mulvaney said they are expecting nobody this for quite a while. jon: does it look like we'll be in this until january 3 until we have our speaker vote? >> since we heard no new agreements from democrats and nothing new from the white house, we are expecting this to extend past january 3, and that's what the white house is

saying has been the democrats playbook because they think nancy pelosi wants to get elected speaker and address the issue after that. >> just more lines in the sand, hillary. president trump claims the u.s. loses $75 billion a year on trade with mexico. he said he would consider closing the border a quote profit-making operation. joining me now, kurt schlichter and scott bolden. kurt, is this really just a chess game to get to january 3 so mrs. pelosi can win the speakership? >> i don't think it's a chess game. i think it's a game of ching. there are two cars racing at each other at high speed and let's see who turns first. my money is on the democrats because the democrats are out of work. it's the democrats who love

government. the shutdown has been on for days and days. you haven't noticed. i haven't noticed. the vast majority of americans haven't noticed. but the non-essential people affects have noticed. but they are non-essential. jon: by how many votes do you think nancy pelosi is short? >> absolutely not. this is the narrative that donald trump and the gop put out was she doesn't want to do a deal before she gets the speakership. she cut her deals, so she'll be the speaker. and the leadership of the democratic party in the house is set and done. this is about donald trump the democrats have told him for years, not several months, that they won't give him any money and support a budget issue that includes a wall it's immoral and

it doesn't keep drugs or illegal immigration out. this business take the wall off the table. we'll do a deal and give you $1.3 billion or $1.8 billion for border security. there is no reason to get back to the gop or done were because he changed his mind on gop republicans, than is no reason to get back, because if i'm negotiating, if you i have told you what a non-tarter is, and in this case it's the wall, if you keep coming back to me with the wall, you are not going to get it. donald trump and the gop are not going to get this wall. >> how many cops have to die from illegal aliens why the democrats can't do the most of basic thing they can do to defend our country. how much fentanyl has to cross the border.

how many people have to o.d.? when are they going to start protecting the american people? you are a criminal defense lawyer. let's go to trial. let's take it to the american people. >> the gop and donald trump are going to lose. why are illegal immigrants coming across the border? if drugs were coming across the southern border and i will he'll immigrants, if the majority of them were coming across the southern border then you would see the democrats want to go act. there is no empirical data to support that. the majority of illegal immigrants come on legal advicas and stay over. the drugs are smuggled in at port centers in vehicles it's a

myth. that's why the political promises a political promise, not a political reality. and you are not going to get it no matter what happens. >> we are going to get and there is nothing you can do about it. we are getting the wall and we'll protect the american people. no more dead cops. no more dead kids. no more people o.d.ing object fentanyl. jon: we are out of time. this an extremely emotional issue and it's become very, very personal. i think this will be left up to the voters at some point. scott thank you very much. we'll have you both back in just a little bit. wow, what a wild week on wall street. where are we headed in the new year? that's coming up nex place, the xfinity xfi gateway.

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what do you look for i want free access to research. yep, td ameritrade's got that. free access to every platform. yeah, that too. i don't want any trade minimums. yeah, i totally agree, they don't have any of those. i want to know what i'm paying upfront. yes, absolutely. do you just say yes to everything? hm. well i say no to kale. mm. yeah, they say if you blanch it it's better, but that seems like a lot of work. no hidden fees. no platform fees. no trade minimums. and yes, it's all at one low price. td ameritrade. ♪ jon: let's get to the markets. volatility is the word of the week for sure. and gerri willis is at the new york stock exchange with a current and new update. gerri: we couldn't quite squeak out a three-day cally. the dow fell 76 points. the markets incredibly volatile,

setting new records. lots of drama down here a lot of old-timers telling me they have never seen trading like that, and they are astrike it to the machines, the algos as they call them. all three major averages are negative for the year. that's what we are seeing as we come into the year end. you are seeing professional traders finishing up the year, trying to get their books in order. in the meantime we thought we might catch a rally today, it didn't happen. on, back t -- jon, back to you. jon: joining me now is lee

munson, glad to have you. did this week completely freak you out? >> no. i have some sweating palms monday. i said last week on fox if the market goes to 23,500 i'm loading up the truck and buying. and boom we go to 23,5000. i didn't expect it to happen on christmas eve. jon: does this algo trend in the market and the fact the individual consumer is almost riding the wave computers? does that consume you? >> it does. a great team of reports at "wall street journal" wrote a great piece on how 85% of volume right now is computerized algorithm

trading. that means they are look at charts and pricing and numbers. they are not look at fundamentals. i think that's why we have seen this rush down. were mortgage rates lower than the high? the bear case is dicey. i think we have to be honest with ourselves saying there is a bear case that exists. what happened is the computerized traders pushed the market down below where it deserves to be. it was a buying opportunity. it was a christmas miracle for me and my clients. jon: we had a few weak sectors for sure. when you look forward to 2019, do you see any sector that will break out of this trend? >> i think the tech sector is still a little off. but i think you will see you the

banks, the industrials, the value areas of the market, those are what's going to break out. when people start think doing i want to commit capital next year to places unknown on valuation. facebook, they are on shaky ground. but there are a lot of stocks that have been beaten down over this expansion. so people will be looking for deals. we saw this happen in the year 2000. we saw this happen in 2009. it's when the underdogs finally come back because people don't want to overpay next year. jon: do you see these swings again in '19? >> i know people don't want to hear this but hell yes we are and i love it. 2017 was a low point in my career because there was nothing for me to do. it just went up.

i think we'll into see volatility and people will continue to be confused to see this market go up or down when we don't have earnings fall off the cliff. you have got to take the other side of that bet. you have to look longer term on what this economy is doing and you can't get wrapped up. love the volatility, embrace it. get excited for it. if i see 2300 on the s & p, i think we'll see 2 or 3 big one next year. it allows to us buy low and sell high. jon: the rollercoaster continues. >> it shows markets work. and i love the speculators. i love the black boxes. because they don't think and people like us do. jon: let's say congratulations

to the thinkers. they will be the winners in 2013. ahead on "evening edit," china is offering an olive branch to the u.s. details next.

♪ ♪ >> for the first time ever and in a sign of possibly thawing relations, china has signaled it is open to importing rice from america. rich edson is in washington with an update. >> good evening, jon, and that's according to the chinese customs office, the laters in a -- the latest in a series of gestures between the two countries. the u.s. rice producers call this announcement an important milestone in a more than decade-hong fight to secure access to chinese consumers. in a statement, u.s. rice says, quote: as with our all our dealings with china, the devil's

in the details, and we have many questions including when the fist sales will be made, but this is definitely good news for our producers and millers. china still needs to announce a list of aa proved american rice mills, it's almost unclear how much american rice china will import. it also buys rice from other asian countries. the u.s. and china had previously raised tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of import on each other's countries, they're in the middle of a 90-day negotiating window where both have agreed to hold off on increases and offer goodwill gestures. china has said it would resume buying american soybeans. that negotiating period ends march 1st, though administration officials have said they would consider extending it if the two countries have made enough progress. chinese authorities say u.s. and chinese negotiators will hold their first face to face meetings next month since president trump and chinese president xi jinping met earlier this month in argentina.

the trump administration says it is confronting china's rampant intellectual property theft and what it calls abusive trade practices. jon: this is one of many, many steps, but we don't have any quantities, we don't have any orders. at this point it's just an open door, and we have a long way to go. >> reporter: exactly, and this has been a negotiating point between the united states and china for a decade now. it's a big step at least specifically to rice producers, but they're even saying they need to see more from the chinese government before they can actually start selling to that big market. jon: thank you, rich. joining me now is fox news contributor fred barnes. fred, good to see you. >> thank you. jon: so these talks about rice imports go back many, many years to specific discussions that really predate the trump administration. do you see this as a victory for his administration or just part of a long, ongoing process? >> well, it's part of a long, ongoing process, and it's been

called a goodwill gesture by the chinese. i don't think the chinese will be bringing a lot of goodwill when the trade talks resume in january. they are tough negotiators. they do not want to lose the advantage in trade that they have with the u.s. and so many other countries around the world. and partly because of unfair trade practices which they pursue. i think the u.s. does have some advantages here. remember -- [laughter] remember, there are two issues that trump has been talking about for decades, and he really cares about. one of them, of course, is immigration, and the other one is trade. and so i think he's going to be a tough negotiator, and he's hired one to be his chief guy, bob lighthizer, who is, i think, tougher than any of the trade representatives that other presidents have had in recent years. jon: this seems like sort of a baby step to me, fred -- >> exactly.

jon: not a lot of meat on the bone. are you worried this is really fluff? [laughter] >> well, i'm not necessarily worried, but i think it is fluff. i think you have that quite correctly. and, look, it just looks like so much more than it is. i don't think it will change, reflect any change, any softening in the chinese trade practices or the weight that the chinese negotiate than we've seen before. they'll be as tough and mean as ever. jon: well, you know, the chinese are coming off a really tough quarter economically. do you think that changes the dynamic of these discussions at all? >> well, that's a good question that i don't know the answer of. you would think normally with another country and maybe another issue it would, but with the chinese i suspect not. i mean, trade is so critical to their stature in the world and to their self-esteem and to

their wealth and power that i think they're going to be just as hard, as hard a person to bargain with as we've ever seen. jon: these past few weeks the chinese have talked about phone calls over the holidays and progress being made on the phones and an upcoming meeting in january. do you feel optimism in this process? it does seem to be moving at a more accelerated rate. >> well, it does. optimism, i wouldn't say that, because these are still the chinese, and these things that you talked about -- the phone calls and so on -- they don't amount to much. if anything, the chinese, of course, recognize this is the stuff that'll get in the american press, and it'll look like, oh, boy, all of a sudden we're getting along there. this is going to work out fine. i think it will work out to america's advantage, but it's going to take an awful lot, it's going to take a huge struggle,

and both trump and his negotiator, bob lighthizer, are going to have to weather a lot of criticism from the media and from americans as this goes on. jon: yeah, this is going to be a long road, for sure. not a quick negotiation. >> indeed. jon: fred, happy new year. good to see you. >> thank you. jon: coming up next, blowing the lid off facebook's secret rules on global speech. stay with us. ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ jon: well, another black eye for facebook. an employee leaked 1400 pages of the company's secret speech policy to the new york times, and the times discovered a range of gaps, biases and outright errors in the rules. joining me right now, american majority ceo ned run and business and technology attorney seth to really attack this issue together.

gentlemen, there's a group of people meeting every tuesday morning for breakfast billing these rules. -- building these rules. we don't know who these people are, we don't know what these rules are. is this facebook's censor squad blocking our rights? >> well, jon, i think one of the things we have to ask ourselves, are we really that comfortable with a for-profit social media company being the arbiters of free speech, and i would argue, no, not at all. i don't trust them. i mean, this year has just been one incident after another in which facebook has shown itself to be dishonest in regards to users' privacy and data. and at a certain point, we have to decide who are the real arbiters of free speech, a for-profit, leftist social media company, or dually-elected -- duly-elected representatives in congress? if you look like a publisher, act like a publisher, you should be defined as a publisher. and facebook and the oh tech

company -- other tech companies have to have these sections removed and have more oversight. jon: really what you're saying then is right now online content is not defined as published content. if it was defined as published content, it couldn't be censored either by faction or the government at all -- by facebook or the government at all, could it? >> well, when you talk about what can be censored -- and i do agree with you that facebook has had a lot of serious problems over the last couple of years -- let's keep in mind that facebook has really caused fake news and some accuracy problems for parties on both sides of the aisle. when we're talking about corporate responsibility and rules that make any kind of sense or at least trying to develop those, facebook has stumbled in very late to the party. the article in "the new york times" today demonstrates how arbitrary and ran done some of those -- random some of those rules are, and after all these years of making all this money based upon this fake news through the news stream, it really is disingenuous for

facebook to come in and somehow demonstrate or suggest to us that they have any kind of a reasonable system in place to try to make sure that this is some kind of resemblance of control. i agree that it's problematic to try to require any more regulation than is absolutely necessary, but they have really shown that they have dropped the ball on this, they have spewed fake news all over the floor, and i think the congress is ready to come in and do something about it. >> so, in essence, we're suggesting a controlled censorship of types? is that what you're suggesting? >> well -- >> go ahead. jon: seth? >> well, what i'm suggesting is that there should be as little regulation as possible. i don't really think i'd call it censorship, i'd just call it corporate responsibility. remember that facebook had news feed problems that had fake news is so dramatic that it was causing riots and deaths in countries abroad. so i certainly don't call for

censorship. they are not constitutionally required to do anything because they're a commercial company. they're not a governmental actor. but if they don't get their act together, congress is going to step in and tell them how to do it. jon: so where does this end? does it -- when somebody blogs something, that can incite an issue? does that become an issue? when somebody writes an article online, does that become an issue? where do we draw the line on language and its impact on society? no matter how with we slice it, isn't that a type of censorship? >> well, at some point, jon, we actually have to go back -- washington, d.c. in many ways has created this problem. the 1996 telecommunications act in the section 230 exemptions, they've created a different set of rules for the facebook and the amazons and the googles of the world, and they've asked every other parisher and telecommunications company to play by a different set of rules. all i'm asking for, i'm not asking for new regulation, for censorship, i'm asking that everybody play by the exact same rules whether it's facebook,

twitter, amazon, at&t, verizon, comcast, all of them play by the same rules because they are all publishers or telecommunications companies at some point. that's all i'm asking. and this is where washington, d.c. gets us into a lot of problems. they create these arbitrary rules, they allow these things to happen, and they fail to define things correctly. it's time for congress to define all of these companies correctly because they have gotten to this point of their own volition, and that's fine. you want to be a publisher, you want to be a telecommunications company, fibro. you will now -- fine, you will now be treated like everyone else. jon: this is a big eshoo, gentlemen, and the whole premise of controlling what we say and write is a sliply slope. >> it is. jon: i somehow, we have to find a way to have it managed, i believe, within the corporate world. once we start changing laws with regards to free speech, that gets very scary. ned, seth, thank you very much. have a wonderful new year. >> thank you.

jon: ahead on "the evening edit," my pillow's creator shares his keys to success. we'll be right back. ♪ ♪

i'm ken jacobus and i switched to the spark cash card from capital one. i earn unlimited 2% cash back on everything i buy. and last year, i earned $36,000 in cash back. which i used to offer health insurance to my employees. what's in your wallet?

♪ ♪ ♪ jon: small businesses represent

99.9% of all u.s. businesses, and only about 1 in 12 small businesses will fail every year. so what's the key to finding success? let's ask mike lindell, creator of my pillow. mike, good to see you, happy new year. >> great to be here. jon: you know, mike, i am very curious about your story. and when i looked at your ten elements to success, there were three that really caught my eye. the first one was make every employee valued. very powerful, and a lot of employers don't list that as one of their top ten. are you close to all your employees? are you very engaged in their purpose every day? >> absolutely. i view every employee like my only employee, and i go back in time where what i would like as an employee. so if you put yourself in their shoes, that's what i do. i have 1600 employees and about 500 of them have my direct phone number. so they can call me anytime, and we've -- even though i've gotten

so large, i still view us as one big family and as a small business. jon: the other thing i thought was really fascinating is your commitment to listening to your customers. so you listen to your employees, you listen to your customers. there's a very human aspect of your company in the way you deal with people. how do you listen to your customers? >> well, i learned a lot when i was turned down everywhere. i ended up doing home shows and fairs, and or finish for seven years on the road. and customers would come up, and i would talk to them one-on-one and view every one of them like they were my only customer, and i learned from them. you hear deviations, good things and bad things, and you learn from them and make great decisions. and if you treat every customer where you go back in time where a handshake was your word and, you can't go wrong, and your company just will continue to grow by word of mouth and get bigger and bigger. jon: you're certainly good. the other really powerful point

that you said that really caught my interest was your commitment to produce your products here in america. and to keep all of your materials domestic. was that a goal of yours from the beginning? is that something that evolved? because that's a powerful part of your company identity. >> right. and there's a couple things there. one is i'm just, i like to be able to look at every pillow that comes off or every product that comes off my assembly line and that i would use it myself. quite frankly, not trusting. you get stuff from overseas, and you get it here, maybe by the time you get it here, your footprint changed, or it's not up to your specifications. my most rewarding part is looking out my office and seeing people i grew up with and people having careers at my pillow, not just jobs. and it is so -- i can't say enough about being, you know, making things here. of it's not just like at my pillow, our 1600 jobs that it creates here by keeping the manufacturing here, it's all the

other companies that we affect, you know? where the patented foam is made in wisconsin and how many employees they have and where the cotton's grown and where the fabric is made and then putting everything together. it's just, it's so -- people that talk about making stuff overseas, and you've got all these 120 days of coming over by boat and all these, and then you get it here and things have changed or it's not up to your quality or specifications, i never, ever thought of making stuff, you know, my product overseas. it just never crossed my mind, and i would never do it. jon: so you feel you have better quality of control in your supply side that way. you know, mike -- >> 100%. jon: so many people have watched your success and know your product with all of your advertising. what did you do before my pillow? >> well, i was a entrepreneur. i would do different things. id had a carpet cleaning business, and i've had bars and restaurants. i usedded to be an addict, so

that wasn't a place, to open a small town bar. i would see a need or a thing, and i would, you know, take a chance and go out and, you know, different things. i had a lunch wagon business. i had a lot of different things where i went all in, and so it was -- i had a little bit of experience as a entrepreneur, but nothing where a manufacturing product, so to speak. jon: so you are a serial entrepreneur. mike, last question for you. did you ever think that my pillow would explode to the point that it did? have you exceeded your own expectations? >> well, you know, when i was on, when i was turn down everywhere back in 2005 when i invented my pillow -- and i did home shows and fairs for seven years, and people would come up to me, they say to me all the time, mike, how can you have as much passion as you do 13 years later as you do now? it was customers that came up and had my pillow and told me how it created a miracle in their life. that would just -- i see it and

i go, wow, if everybody gets this, it's going to be such a blessing. did i see it being this big? i was hoping it would be, but this is pretty amazing, where it's gone. [laughter] jon: well, it's a great success story, and your name, your personality and passion is all over it. mike, great to have you. have a wonderful new year. >> yeah, thank you. god bless. jon: god bless.

jon: another caravan 15,000 people is prepared to leave honduras on their way to u.s. this as the oakland mayor says she did the right thing by tipping off illegal immigrants to an i.c.e. raid. corporate executives have a responsibility to the shareholders. do elected officials have a responsibility to obey the law and put americans first? >> that's a softball question. of course, they do. they take an oath to our constitution. when a government official does not follow the law, that official is saying representative democracy doesn't matter. i am going to do what i want. they sent me overseas to fight dictators. we shouldn't have to do it here at home. jon: what's wrong with that statement. >> if that's directed at me.

there is nothing wrong with that statement. the mayor of oakland. she tipped them off because of the fed. reality is she was following the law because oakland is a sanctuary city. she was serving her constituents. i.c.e. captured 500 individuals. these individuals were simply here illegally waiting on their asylum hearings or waiting on something. that alone does not mean they are breaking the law, at least not the local law. most of people believe if you are waiting on that and you are here illegally you probably ought to be given that time to have that hearing before you are deported. jon: unfortunately we are out of time. it's a hot issue and we certainly aren't going to solve it today. thank you all for watching. have you a wonderful, wonderful new year, and keep it right here

on fox business. lou dobbs is next. [♪] ♪ >> at the edge of death valley... >> it's weird and unusual and unique. >> ...a man puts a dusty weigh station on the map. but the town and his legacy fall on hard times. >> i was hearing from the residents that it was an eyesore. >> has he left his family a money pit... >> we want you to keep this in the family at all costs. >> ...or a monument? >> sometimes in life, we don't appreciate things until they're gone. [ door creaks ] [ wind howls ] [ thunder rumbles ] [ bird caws ] ♪ [ horn honks ]