and we need a consensus to stop china stealing american technology. lou: tomorrow lauren: it's 5:00 a.m. here are your top stories. round five of the democratic debates in the books. candidates divided on progressive platforms like a wealth tax and medicare for all. is there a clear favorite? cheryl: it's been a rocky start for retailers reporting this week with a few bright spots but today we're going to hear from macy's, gap and in orde nordstr. lauren: santa will not be delivering to offices this holiday season if millennials have their way. the christmas classic they're trying to ban. it is thursday, november 21st. "fbn: a.m." starts right now.

♪ ♪ don't need nothing but a good time. ♪ how can i resist. ♪ ain't looking for nothing but a good time. ♪ and it don't get better than this. ♪ cheryl: good time earlier in the week for nature gets. welcome to "fbn: a.m.." good morning. i'm cheryl casone. lauren: good morning. nice to see you, thanks for joining us. i'm lauren simonetti. cheryl: let's take a look at how your money is moving. futures came back a bit overnight. we got comments from china's vice premier that he's cautiously optimistic about a phase one deal. dow is down 36, nasdaq down 16 and-a-half. lauren: stocks down in asia as well. responding to an earlier report that the first part of a trade deal won't happen this year.

the shanghai composite losing a quarter of 1%. cheryl: a lot of back and forth and the europeans are watching all of this. the ftse is down 1 and-a-half percent. they have zoa mess particularthg on. lauren: democratic candidates took the stage last night in the fifth debate of primary season. they locked horns on a few major issues. cheryl: we've got hillary vaughn live for us early this morning from atlanta to break it down. what a night, hillary. >> reporter: good morning, lauren and cheryl. for the first time, mayor pete buttigieg took the stage as a frontrunner in iowa and a top contender in new hampshire. his rise to the top tier made him a target last night. he fielded criticism about his lack of political experience and lack of life experience. he is 40 years younger than joe biden and bernie sanders. he doesn't have the tradition l nail washington experience.

-- traditional washington experience. he says he has experiences as a candidate, particularly in iowa, where he talked to farmers who are bearing the brunt of president trump's trade war. >> we shouldn't have to pay farmers to take the edge off of a trade war that shouldn't have been started in the first place. i will support farmers -- >> answer the question, would you continue those subsidies or not. >> yes, but we won't need them because we're going to fix the trade war. >> reporter: warren he defended her wealth tax, targeting anyone making over $50 million. she thinks her idea is an appeal that appeals to democrats and also republicans and independents but she has not won everyone in her party over with her wealth tax, especially not everyone on stage. >> on day one, as president, i will do -- bring down the cost of prescription drugs on things like insulin and epipen, first

100 days i'll bring in 135 million people into me caree for all at no cost to them. people have had a chance to live with it. we're going to vote and we're going to want medicare for all. >> we have an obligation as a party to be fiscally responsible and think big and make sure we have people's backs and be honest with them about what we can pay for. >> reporter: that was warren defending the high price taking of medicare for all. let's listen to warren explaining how she thinks the wealth tax will bring people together. >> it's not about punishing anyone. when you pa mak make it big, to% big, pitch in two cents so everyone else gets a chance. something that democrats care about, independents care about, republicans care about. regardless of party --

>> wealth tax it's coupl cumber. it's been tried by other nations. >> i'm tired of free loading billionaires. >> everybody's tired of free loading billionaires, everyone's tired of corporations not paying taxes. >> reporter: what you didn't he see last night was a clash between the top three, biden, warren and sanders, who mostly avoided each other and focused on everyone else on stage. lauren and cheryl. lauren: that's ad goo ad -- tha good point. a lot of people would say the debate was somewhat boring. but that report wasn't. thank you for getting up early. cheryl: let's stay with the debate. timing is everything, especially when running for president. joe biden's campaign, their timing was off. they jumped i the gun, sent outa fund raising e-mail praising his performance six hours before the debate started. ithe.they sent out a second e-ml

and apologized for the misfire. >>.lauren: democrats and republicans claimed victory after grilling ambassador gordon sondland. cheryl: hours and hours of testimony in the books. ray bogen is on capitol hill with more. >> reporter: according to sondland's testimony, it had been much anticipated after bill taylor testified that sand longed told his staffer president trump only cares about an investigation into the bidens. sondland appears to have given democrats exactly what they wanted. >> was there a quid pro quo? >> the answer the answer is yes. >> reporter: he said he believes the quid pro quo was a white house meeting between presidents drutrump and zelensky. he said he concluded the

military aid was held up for that reason. >> i believed the resumption of security aid would not occur until there was a public statement from ukraine committing to the investigations. >> reporter: president trump said he never demanded anything. >> i want nothing. i want no quid pro quo. in the evening, a pentagon official testified. >> i'm not yo you're not awara nefarious motive to withhold aid from ukraine that's correct. >> reporter: laura cooper revealed ukraine may have known as far back as july 25th. >> the ukraines first required about security assistance on july 25? >> that's correct. >> reporter: president trump responded to the evening testimony, if this were a prize fight, they'd stop it. >.the impeachment hearings continue thursday with testimony

from a former national security official and counsel letter at the u.s. embassies in ukraine. ray bogen, fox news. cheryl: protesters in hong kong are hoping that president trump will today sign the hong kong human rights and democracy act which has been passed by both the house and senate. protesters feel it would be a significant victory tore the fos they continue to fight for democracy. lauren: jonathan hunt is on the scene in hong kong. >> reporter: good morning, lauren and cheryl. good evening from hong kong. we are once again on the campus of the hong kong polytechnic university. it's a really eerie calm right now on this devastated site. we've been wondering around it. it's a sprawling site. there are a few students still hunkered down here. that's the question they're all asking us, what you were talking about, when will president trump sign the hong kong human rights and democracy act. they feel that that would be a

significant boost for them. they are also extremely pleased to see the sort of language coming from u.s. politicians such as senator marco rubio who tweeted last night after the bill was passed by both house and senate, quote, over the last 24 hours by a cumulative vote of 517-1, the united states congress has made it clear that america is going t to hashtag, sand with hong kong. there are a few students on the campus, they are hiding out. we spoke with the student union president earlier today and he told us that those students are trying to figure out any way they can to get out of here without being arrested. listen here. >> they tried running out from sewage system, they want to go out by roof or climbing out.

>> reporter: police appear to be confident that they can catch any of those students who do try to make a run for it. they still have this campus surrounded and they appear for now to have backed off the idea of storming the university to try to flush out those remaining students, although clearly that approach, lauren and cheryl, could change at any moment. lauren and cheryl, back to you. cheryl: jonathan, thank you. lauren: apple could be getting a break on tariffs. cheryl: busy day for the president. he was in the great state of texas. tracee carrasco has that story. tracee: president trump suggesting apple might be exempt from an upcoming round of tariffs. yesterday, the president you along with apple's ceo tim cook toured a plant in texas that assembles mac pro computers. when asked about tariff

exemptions, president trump said, quote, we'll look into that. another round of tariffs on a variety of electronics is scheduled to hit on december 15th. more turmoil for the united auto workers union, its president, gary jones, has resigned. jones has been caught up in a federal corruption probe into an alleged scheme to split up $700,000 in union money. the announcement came after the uaw's board filed union charges against jones and director vance pearson. meanwhile, general motors filed a racketeering lawsuit against fiat chrysler, claiming the automaker bribed uaw officials to get a competitive advantage. fiat chrysler said it will defend itself vigorously against the lawsuit and questions if it's a move to disrupt the proposed merger with peugeot. fallout continues with prince andrew. the prince asked to step down from public duties.

he's also saying that he's willing to help with any appropriate law enforcement agency with their investigations and that is what's happening now. cheryl: that was quite the bombshell interview, certainly rocked england and the royal family. thanks, tracee. lauren: take a look at your money right now. the start of the show, the dow was down 50 points and now down just 7. s&p could turn positive right now. the wall street journal is reporting that china has invited u.s. trade negotiators for more talks as they try to seal phase one. as we saw from jonathan hunt in hong kong, if the president signs a deal to protect hong kong, what does that do to the trade negotiations. still ahead, elizabeth warren defends her wealth tax plan by attacking the american dream. >> it's not about punishing anyone. it's about saying you built something great in this country, good for you, but you did it

using workers all of us helped pay and educate. lauren: why she said her plan will unite the country. and to the war on chicken sandwiches, the new fast food chain that's entering the battle. you're watching "fbn: a.m.." does your broker offer more than just free trades? fidelity has zero commissions for online u.s. equity trades and etfs, plus zero minimums to open a brokerage account. with value like this, there are zero reasons to invest anywhere else. fidelity.

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our goals and bring our country together is we talk about the things that unite us and that is we want to build an america that works for the people, not one that just works for rich folks. regardless of party affiliation, people understand across this country, our government is working better and better for the billionaires, for the rich, for the well-connected and worse and worse for everyone else. we come together when we acknowledge that and look for real change. lauren: is warren's plan to tax the rich really the best way to unite the country and how did the rest of the field perform. we bring in former obama campaign director, robin buy roo and kristin tate. robin, any winners last night? >> yes. cory booker, he really needed to gain some points. he has not qualified for the next debate. his takedown of joe biden was stellar last night. so he did really well.

it was not elizabeth warren's best night, i'll be honest. but joe biden did pretty decent until that point with cory booker. lauren: you know what, kristin, how do you think joe biden did and also, cory booker had a strong moment when he attacked the wealth tax, he basically said why are we talking about creating wealth, we're just talking about taxing it. >> right. well, that was a good point. unfortunately, it's probably too late at this point for cory booker to emerge as any kind of frontrunner. joe biden is trying to make the pitch he has the best chance of beating donald trump. that may be true but he's going to have to improve his performance in th the debates moving forward. he started making gaffes before the debate began. his campaign sent out an e-mail to supporters talking about how joe biden left the debate before it even began. and then of course he had that moment with kamala harris where he said that his campaign had been endorsed by the only black

woman elected to the u.s. senate but of course kamala harris was just feet away from him and she hasn't endorsed his cam page. campaign. meanwhile, his name is in the news with the ukraine scandal. lauren: it was hardly a food fight last night. no one really locked horns, robin. was it boring to you? is there a lack of a front runner? are the democrats in trouble? >> you know, the trouble is in messaging. because you've got candidates up on that stage that are clearly -- they know what they're doing. they're running for a democratic primary. other candidates are running for a general election. but they've got to win that primary first. tulsi gabbard, i thought she did a good job. she's sending a message geared toward general election voters. i don't know how she expects to win a primary. lauren: i want to talk about medicare for all, it's a hot

button issue. mayor pete, the frontrunner in the early states, says healthcare should not polarize people. do you think his rise in the polls is forcing elizabeth warren, who had been the frontrunner last time around, to dial back her stance on healthcare and medicare for all? >> yes. mayor pete is doing a really good job of exactly saying that message, that needs to be said, about how are we going to pay for these things? these things sound great but how in the world are we going to pay for all of these different programs. these things poll really well with progressives, so i understand why people like elizabeth warren are saying them. but these are nonstarters in the senate, for example. so joe biden was correct to say and mayor pete how are we going to ever -- is this practical. especially not if it's going to pass the senate. lauren: let me get you the last word, kristin. >> you know, trump has a lot to be proud of ahead of 2020, a roaring economy, record low

unemployment but perhaps his biggest asset ahead of next year is the democrats. this field is so disapointing, the democrats of today stand for higher taxes, play th socialismn borders, abortions on demand. there is no moderate that seems poised to take the battle ground states they need ahead of 2020. i'm not optimistic about the democratic field. lauren: speaking of the battle ground, mike bloomberg not officially in, spending money to get voters out in some key states. thank you for joining us this morning. ttoday on "varney and co.," tom steyer will be on in the 10:00 hour. cheryl: take a look at the green arrows. the chinese invited u.s. officials for more talks before thanksgiving, that is moving the markets. dow up 22. we were down more than 50 earlier. also we've got a lot more coming

you up. let's talk about this next story as i'm trying to get the prompter to move up for myself here, as we look at the markets, gordon sondland grilled for hours on capitol hill but this answer is getting all of the attention. >> no one on this planet told you that president trump was tying aid to investigations. >> yes. >> you really have no testimony today -- >> other than my own presumption. >> which is nothing. cheryl: which side should call it a win and where do we go from here. and how doctors who created a life saving heart drug are crying foul over the out-of-reach price tag, coming up on "fbn: a.m." ♪ when i close my eyes. ♪ it's you i see. ♪ you're everything i know this is the epson ecotank color printer.

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cheryl: president trump claiming that ambassador gordon sondland's testimony means that the impeachment proceedings should end. >> here's my answer. i want nothing. i want nothing. i want no quid pro quo. tell zelensky to do the right thing. then he says this is the final word from the president of the united states. i want nothing. cheryl: reading from his own notes by the way, that was president trump. sondland testified he never heard the president explicitly link military aid for the investigation of biden but it was understood that's what the president wanted. what does it mean for the impeachment proceedings. let's