maria: it's been a great show, you guys. dagen, lee, mitch, thank you. >> thank you. maria: have a great day. "varney & company" begins right now. stu, take it away. stuart: good morning, maria. good morning, everyone. one more time, it's a good news monday again. i'm still savoring the president's reception at the army-navy game and the young men and women singing the national anthem with such spirit. you are going to see more of that in the show today and that is a promise. and of course, we will roll out the good news for you. there's lots of it. trade rep lighthizer says phase one of the china trade deal is quote, totally done. treasury secretary mnuchin says we are moving on to phase two early in the new year. all of that's good news. okay, there will be an impeachment vote maybe wednesday, but the democrats are having a hard time getting a

unified party. one democrat switching sides, some others may vote no. but the end result is not in doubt. the president will not be removed from office. now look at this. the market is going up again. the dow is being held back a little by boeing. the "journal" says it may halt or cut max jet production. boeing's a dow stock, way down, hurting the dow average by about 90 points. we also have to tell you that bank of america is talking about a melt up for the market into next year. look at the market go. the dow is going to be up about 80 points despite the news on boeing, up about 80 at the open. s&p, big gains, 17 points. that's more than a half percent. the nasdaq's going to do well, 50 points higher. that is a rally this monday morning. in britain, landslide winner, boris johnson, is pushing hard for a brexit vote by christmas. then he wants to work on a trade deal with trump next year. defeated socialist jeremy corbyn

says he won the battle of ideas. he just couldn't convince voters he was right. my opinion, in our 2020 election, socialism will lose just like it lost over there. why reverse prosperity? "varney & company" is about to begin. stuart: a big loud standing ovation for the president at the army-navy game saturday. okay, you saw that. now listen to this. the combined choirs of the army and navy singing the national anthem. you got to listen. got to watch this. go. ♪ o'er the land of the free

and the home of the brave ♪ stuart: don't you love it. what a great way to start the week. what a great reception for the president of the united states of america. let's get on with it. turn to your money. look at stock futures as we head toward the opening bell. remember, bank of america calling for a melt up early next year. all the averages showing lots of green. market watcher keith fitz joining us now. wait a minute, keith. i have read your stuff. you think the dow could hit 29 or even 30,000 this year? are you serious? this year? >> oh, yeah. stuart: surely not. come on. it can't be. >> you bet, stuart. how many times have i said things on this show, some of which i lived to regret, some of which i lived to celebrate. i think if we get the headlines out of the way, we get the money on the move, which is happening,

and we get the tweets, everything else, that goes away, it's fomo, fear of missing out, and we could do it this year. stuart: are you really serious now? >> i'm not kidding. stuart: the dow is at 28,300. you surely don't see, what, a 1700 point gain between now and new year's eve, do you? >> look, this is not as outrageous as it sounds. yeah, it's an outside prediction, i will give you that, no doubt about it. but is it doable by outside probability, my secret back of the envelope calculations, yeah, it's possible. be prepared for that. stuart: would it set up a huge selloff early next year? look, in late 1999, the market went straight up, melt up. got it. early in 2000, it came straight down again. is there a danger that could repeat this time around? >> there is always that danger. right now you got a short burn, got a lot of people betting the other way, all of whom are being proved wrong right now. so yeah, there's always a possibility of correction. we are overdue for one.

but is it a headline-driven risk event, probably not at this point. we've got china, got brexit, got trade deals, got prosperity, as you put it in your opening remarks. that's a very hard combination to stop. stuart: okay. hold on for a second, keith. we are going to get to what may be the big negative of the morning. it only concerns one stock and that is boeing. the "wall street journal" says boeing could halt production of the 737 max jet. kristina partsinevelos at the new york stock exchange. kristina, that's going to do serious damage to the dow because boeing is a dow stock. reporter: exactly. the dow is weighted so you are starting to see the stock continuing to fall, now over 4% down. i reached out to the company moments before going to air. they have responded about this potential production cut by saying we might need to consider possible further rate reductions or other options, including a temporary shutdown of the max 737 production. so this is big news for boeing because they have been trying to

get the 737 back into production. the stock has been down today but year to date, stu, it's been up 6%. this comes after april, where they cut 20% of their production, so this would be another big blow. it would have a trickle effect across the flyers like spirit, so the stock is probably down, i haven't been able to check just now but it could mean potential job cuts as well as affect other airlines. but at the moment, what we are seeing from faa, i reached out, tried to get comment, they have stated just in the past week or so that they are not looking to approve any of these planes until well into 2020. boeing, though, is alluding to its being sooner than that. you can see the stock is down and that's not the case. back to you. stuart: got it. thank you very much indeed. come back in again, keith. would you consider buying boeing on this huge dip, 328 a share? >> normally i would, stuart, but this is a do or die moment for boeing. they handled this crisis poorly. the dividend's at risk now.

have you had multiple billion dollar charges. the backlog isn't going to help because most customers pay for their aircraft when they take delivery. if this thing doesn't go back in service now, i think boeing risks becoming the ge of the airframe industry. stuart: is muilenburg at risk? his position as ceo? >> i've got to believe that's the case. in my opinion, i think they handled this entire crisis very poorly and now they are simply dancing around the obvious. if customers don't feel safe on boeing aircraft, doesn't matter what the stock price is. stuart: keith, thanks very much indeed. we like your bullishness. first thing on a monday morning. we will talk to you again soon. take a look at dupont. that company is merging its food and nutrition business with international flavors and fragrances. dupont is up, flavor's down. apple, got to look at this, this is record territory, premarket quote, $277. that's apple. $277. that makes it worth $1.25 trillion. pretty much the same story with microsoft.

premarket, they too are at an all-time high. $155.31. okay. look at peloton. they have been up and down, all over the place. down slightly this morning. peloton this monday morning, $31 a share. uber is reportedly, reportedly selling its uber eats business in india to a rival. the stock is up, what, 2% on that. why are they doing that? susan: well, they are losing market share in this country so might as well just sell it off when you are burning up so much cash in delivering food. would you call uber technologies, i would say probably one of the underperformers of this year? it went public at $45, still trading well below that, and they have a history of when they are not doing well in a country, they cut their losses and run. for instance, they did the same thing in south korea a few months ago when they said okay, we are no longer delivering food there because it's just too expensive to operate and there are so many local competitors. the same thing when it comes to ride hailing in china as well. remember a few years ago they weren't winning the race so they

sold the stake and got a board seat on china's equivalent of uber. did the same in southeast asia with grab and same thing in russia as well. so they know there is an intense cash burn, when you are burning $3 billion last quarter, $5 billion the quarter before, and you nied eed to prove profitabi to your investors just to get it back up to the ipo price. stuart: you have to staunch the flow of red ink. thanks very much. good stuff. check futures again, please. yes, we are going up. the dow influenced by boeing, it would be up way more than 100 points were it not for boeing. the other indexes, sharply higher. want to know when the trumps open their christmas presents? i asked the president's son eric about their christmas traditions. i've got a personal tour of trump tower as well. there i am with santa. you will see the whole thing at 11:00 this morning. good stuff. the city of seattle raising its minimum wage to $16.39 an hour. restaurants forced to stick to

those rules and are warning they won't be able to stay in business because of that. we have a waitress with us who says the whole thing cost her her job. now this. a number for you. 1,332. that is the number of ceos who have left or been fired in 2019 alone. that is a record number. what's going on? we've got the research to back it all up later this hour. we'll be right back. i'm your 70lb st. bernard puppy, and my lack of impulse control, is about to become your problem. ahh no, come on. i saw you eating poop earlier. hey! my focus is on the road, and that's saving me cash with drivewise. who's the dummy now? whoof! whoof! so get allstate where good drivers save 40% for avoiding mayhem, like me. sorry! he's a baby!

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stuart: this is very important story here. morgan stanley says amazon is already delivering half of its own packages and that the company is set to overtake ups to become the largest shipping provider by the year 2022. amazon is doing it itself. check the company formerly known as weight watchers. it's extended its partnership with oprah winfrey and is up 2.5%. better take at look at apple. they just announced a deal for 2020 election coverage.

who with? susan: i would say abc wins because they are teaming up with abc starting with the february 7th democratic primary debate in new hampshire. apple news is featuring news videos and also livestreaming coverage from abc news stream, what they are calling the key moments of the 2020 race for the white house. you know why abc wins? because they are owned by disney and abc has now access to the 900 million install base that have iphones that actually work and they actually buy things on. i would say this creates a bigger market for abc news, disney, iiger. they are competitors when it comes to streaming but partners in news. stuart: yes. interesting, isn't it. well, when you have such huge companies they will overlap in various places, sometimes competitively. sometimes not. susan: right. it depends -- stuart: this is one of them. all right. let's get to usmca. we have a top trade negotiator from mexico pushing back on a key labor provision. edward lawrence, come in, please. what is this problem on the

mexican side and b, will it hold up usmca? reporter: this is not over yet. the mexican -- members of the mexican senate balking over the fine print in some of the finalized usmca. the annex of the agreement that was sent to the house of representatives would allow up to five u.s. inspectors who could go into mexican plants and make sure she comply with labor provisions. in the letter to u.s. trade representative robert lighthizer, the mexican undersecretary has said the legitimate way to deal with enforcement is through panels and mexico will not allow inspectors into their country, citing foreign sovereignty, the language has to be -- or the final language has been submitted in a ratification vote scheduled for tomorrow in house ways and means committee, then thursday could be a full house vote if, if, if this can get sort of sorted out there. there's some language issues they have to deal with. stuart: got it. edward lawrence, thank you very much indeed. by the way, u.s. trade rep robert lighthizer says the phase one trade deal with china is

quote, totally done. he also says it will double our exports to china in two years. senate minority leader chuck schumer calls the deal a sell-out. let's decide what's going on here. curtis ellis is with us. curtis, lighthizer says great deal, going forward. mr. schumer says rotten deal, sell-out. where do you stand? >> i stand with baambassador lighthizer. he's the greatest trade negotiator on the planet, the best one we have ever had. look, for the first time we now have verifiable enforcement of a deal with china. china is notorious, the communist party of china is notorious for cheating and lying and reneging on its commitments. for the first time, when we see, when a company believes that its intellectual property is stolen or china is not living up to one part of this agreement, they don't have to go to china as they used to. they go to the u.s. trade representative for filing their complaint. then we have a fast track

arbitration system to resolve the complaint so we're not tied up for several years while the company goes bankrupt while it's being ripped off by the chinese. this is an ongoing problem. look, this does not solve all the problems, never will, because we are dealing with a regime that is intent on destroying american companies, so let's be clear here, this is a great deal but don't lull yourself into believing that now we have solved our problem with china. china is always going to be a problem. the communist party of china is going to be a problem. stuart: let's look forward into next year because treasury secretary mnuchin has said look, phase two, discussed about phase two, it begins almost immediately, i think as soon as they have phase one signed. so this is -- this is going -- that's when you start to discuss more about intellectual property and changes within china's economy. that's phase two, right? >> that's phase two. we have already started on the intellectual property, that the forced technology transfer is

dealt with in phase one. remember that there is a new law going into effect in china which is going to require every american business and every business doing -- working in china to open up its computer networks to inspection by the chinese authorities. so you know, we have a problem there. so there's a lot of externalities that can affect phase two and affect this deal as we have seen now, the arsenal soccer team is not being able to broadcast in china because one of its star players spoke out against the detention of uighurs in western china. china could blow this thing up by behaving badly, which they kind of have a reputation for doing. stuart: we have to leave it at that. bottom line is, your opinion is this is a good trade deal and it's a win for president trump. >> very good deal, big win. stuart: curtis, thanks for joining us. see you again soon. newly victorious british

prime minister boris johnson, he wants a vote on brexit before christmas. ash has been over there covering it. he's back here in hometown new york. can he get that done? real fast timetable. ashley: he could. what happened at the queen's speech on thursday when they lay out the agenda this week, then friday, i think he will put the bill right to parliament. stuart: get on with it. ashley: that was his campaign platform. get brexit done. he will certainly be able to get through the january 31st deadline and we move on. stuart: that will be popular. ashley: yes. stuart: get it done. move on with it. no more messing around all the time. ashley: exactly. stuart: by the way, our next hour, we speak with the father of brexit, nigel farage. he's back on the show. take a look at futures, please. looking very nice. looks like a monday morning rally. no question about that. the latest installment in the "star wars" saga hits theaters on friday. fans are already lining up, would you believe. we will tell you how much disney is expected to cash in on the

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have ever heard. inside your head. stuart: whoa. that's tempting, isn't it? that was a clip from "star wars rise of skywalker" hits theaters friday. how much will it bring in in the first, what, weekend? susan: yeah. first five days, you want to include the holiday. we are looking at $200 million. if you want to add in china, that's $400 million for the opening weekend. definitely going to be a billion dollar box office hit. stuart: that would be the seventh. susan: that's right. stuart: disney billion dollar movie just this year. susan: just this year. you know they bought lucas films in 2012 for $4 billion and they made so much money already on top of that. this is the ninth and final installment. that's a question mark. stuart: sony, the sequel to "jumanji" had a big weekend. ashley: how many sequels will there be? many, i guess. it took in $60.1 million in three days. it actually pushed "frozen 2"

into second place at the box office. this is just in u.s. and canada, by the way. for sony it was a three-day record for a comedy in december for them. you know, the message here is just continue to make sequels. stuart: it's holiday time. take your grandkids to the movies. everybody else does that. i haven't yet. take a look at futures please. we are up. this is a wonderful monday morning. green arrows across the board. dow is up, s&p is up, the nasdaq is up. what a day. we'll be back. ♪ ♪

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i think you can too. trust aag for the best reverse mortgage solutions. so you can... retire better. stuart: we've got a minute to go before the opening bell actually rings and they start trading. it's going to be a terrific day, at least at the opening bell. look at futures, up 17 for the dow, 15 for the nasdaq. look who's with us. jeff sica. susan li and of course, ashley webster is back from london. great to see everybody. jeff, what do you think about this concept of a melt up? looks like we might actually have one. >> it certainly is a melt up. i think you have all those people that want to get in and make sure they own stocks for the end of the year, but here's the thing. there are major concerns into next year, and next year, right around the corner, the head winds are going to come into motion and then you are going to

start to look at number one, where is this trade deal really going and number two, how leveraged is the consumer, and can they keep this market going, because they are overleveraged. stuart: they don't sound like real big head winds to me. >> $14 trillion in consumer debt is a big head wind. stuart: very wealthy society. okay, the opening bell has rung. we are off and running and in the very early going, it's a sea of green, ladies and gentlemen. that's what it is. 28 of the dow 30 on the upside. only two losers -- only one loser now, that is boeing. so we are up about a third of 1%. that's on the dow. but remember, boeing is taking a big chunk out of the dow, maybe 80, 90 points, out of the dow. it would be up over 100 but for boeing. look at the s&p. where's that? i'm sure it's higher. sharply higher. up about .66%. that's a fine rally indeed. as for the nasdaq composite, another big gain there, .66%. you are up 58 points on the

nasdaq. let me show you boeing before we go further. the "wall street journal" says that company may halt production of the max jet. that really hurts the stock, down nearly 4%. going the other way, check apple. i think this is a brand new all-time record high. $277.14 on apple. that is an all-time high. apple. watch it go. dupont, it is merging its food and nutrition business with international flavors and fragrances. any idea why they are doing that? susan: to get bigger in the space and it's a health culture as well. don't forget, dupont, some would say it's kind of a stale company. huge, but stale. so they are breaking up into three different types of businesses, agriculture being one of them, also they have a material sciences which includes kevlar, styrofoam and the like and specialty goods. why are you laughing? i'm curious. stuart: some people call dupont stale. goodness me. can you imagine the p.r. person and they just heard you say

dupont is stale. susan: well, it's not apple or microsoft or high-flying, even though they have $11 billion in sales each and every year. they are shaking up the food industry. stuart: oevenlth big deal right there. international flavors is down 6% on this. they didn't get the right side of the deal. how about -- we've got a segment here on streaming. big deal. netflix and amazon prime, at & t, they are launching, at & t is launching another streaming platform? is that in addition to hbo max? ashley: yes, it is. they own the company warner media but yes, debuting in february next year, at & t tv, that's a lot of ts, is being tested in 15 u.s. markets. they say it's going to reinvent the living room experience. uh-huh. the device, the box you have to install yourself will take voice commands, has live tv packages, 55,000 online demand titles, 500 hours of dvr storage and access

to thousands of apps. how much will it cost? we don't know yet. they are not saying. stuart: then we have hulu live tv. they are raising prices by $10 a month. that starts wednesday. i see prices going up, all these streaming services. how many, as we consumers, how many are we going to have? susan: analysts say on average, the average consumer has three of these streaming services. three. but you know, if you talk to a lot of people here in the office, it's more about four or five given that so many are coming online. peacock is next year, hbo max, then hulu is raising their live tv package service by $10 so you are paying $55 a month which is pretty expensive and i'm a hulu live tv package subscriber. i am not happy about this. what can you do? stuart: you're stuck. at the end of the day, i would say we just have to get used to paying more for entertainment. there's an awful lot coming at us if you want it but you have to pay more to get it.

>> there's a deluge of entertainment and it's getting harder and harder to pick what you want to own and how everything integrates with each other. the fact that at & t requires another box i think is a real negative to them, because a lot of these are app-based, a lot simpler to download, and you are able to use them, but there does come a saturation point where people are going to want to just cut off from a lot of these, now to see our bills as high as they have been with cable, you really have to select a little better. stuart: look at this. bottom right-hand corner of your screen, that's the dow jones industrial average. another all-time record high. way above 28,000 now. you are closing in on 28,300. up a half percentage point on the dow, even though boeing is pushing that index down by 80, 90 points which is quite an input right there. this is a rally. it's a monday morning rally all across the board. susan: five stocks hitting all

time highs on the dow that's helping push up this rally. apple, microsoft, nike, united health care and p & g. stuart: p & g? procter & gamble. ashley: not pg & e. stuart: look at them go. apple, microsoft, p & g, united health, nike. how about that. show me the ten-year treasury yield, please. it's still right where it was last week, 1.84%. show me the price of gold. i don't think that's doing very much. no, it's not. $1481. show me the price of oil. again, not doing that much. what is it -- oh, back off, stu. it's $60 per barrel. that's interesting. i don't think we will see many more declines in the price of gasoline if oil goes to $60 a gallon -- barrel, sorry. susan: we are forgetting the fact we had pretty positive economic news out of china last night. industrial production did better, consumer spending is better, and when you have better economic numbers out of a big economy like china, that's pushing up oil prices.

stuart: if i'm a driller or fracker some place, i'm happy. i want 60 bucks a barrel. >> i agree, there's a lot of good that happens from these prices. there's nothing but good in it. stuart: i've got some headlines on electric cars. mercedes, what's this, they put the -- good, i'm glad to hear this -- they put the brakes on an electric suv. ashley: yeah. why? they have seen how poorly audi and jaguar have done in this country. audi sold, what, you know, 4,600. jaguar sold 2400 of its suv, both very poor. mercedes says we are going to push back a year now to introducing our version of an electric suv to another year. they say that demand in europe is very high. we will have electric cars in europe, not so much in the u.s. stuart: i think they have rushed into this. i just don't see -- >> what's shoving down the electric cars, shoving them down

our throats, they have to let it happen and it will happen, but not everyone wants to trade over, especially when the technology is not quite right. it's not quite where it should be. people are not going to spend the money that they have -- susan: there are government mandates to clamp down on co2 emissions. their hand is being forced in germany to buy electric vehicles. we know they want to combat climate change, there's a government mandate to cut down on your footprint. stuart: if the democrats win in 2020 there will be all kinds of mandates. get out of take gasoline powered car into an electric. i don't think voters will stand for it. >> you have an industry that needs government subsidies to thrive. that's a very bad thing. pull the subsidies away, let's see how they do and let the market evolve. stuart: we've got tesla on the screen. they are up this morning 2%. what's this, how many model 3s have they sold? ashley: in 2019, 111,650. compared to audi who managed

just over 4600 and jaguar, 2400. you know, they certainly have cachet. not bad. stuart: $365 is the stock price. got it. uber reportedly selling their uber eats business in india to a rival. the stock price this morning, up $1.10, nearly 4%, $29 a share. would you buy it? >> no. i was involved in uber early on pre-ipo. i would tell you that -- stuart: do you own uber shares? >> not currently. no. i would not own them and have not owned them publicly and primarily because here they are saying that uber eats, uber eats was supposed to be the driver, but look at what's happening. they have to get rid of what they had said was going to drive their growth in the future, and they were unable to execute. i think they have real problems. i would not touch this stock until it drops below 20, then maybe it might look good if they make the management changes that i think they should make.

susan: okay. uber eats, growth in that part of their business is around 40%. they are losing around $300 million last quarter when it comes to subsidizing some of these deliveries. analysts say they are subsidizing about three bucks for each delivery in the u.s. which is substantial. stuart: if they get out of the business in india, the stock goes up because they won't lose the money they were losing over there. susan: it's a tough environment when you are operating in a different locality where you are not the big player. same in south korea as well. stuart: i said i would buy uber at $28, $29. i did not. i'm not touching it until it goes to $19 a share. >> yeah. every government is against, a lot of governments, especially the democratic cities, are against uber, against subcontractors and as long as they keep doing that, uber is going to be under a lot of stress. stuart: all right. jeff, thanks for being with us on a great monday morning. wonderful rally. check the big board.

we are up 127 points as we speak on the dow industrials. look, this is a rally all across the board. it's an even bigger rally in the s&p and the nasdaq. the dow dragged down by boeing. here we go. boeing is the big drag on the dow but check airbus. that stock is just -- 2% higher. look at jetblue. jetblue exclusively uses airbus planes. we have jetblue's ceo on the show today. that's in our 11:00 hour. i will ask why flying has gotten so expensive. because it has. last week, we told you about the bat babe ruth used for his 500th home run went up for auction. it sold for really big bucks. of course we will tell you how much in just a moment. 2019 broke a record for ceo exits. more than 1300 left. why? we will break it down for you next.

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stuart: all right. it is a rally. i'm going to confirm it. look at that. we're up 150 points. that's a half percentage point. big rally all across the board. now take a look at pg & e, the california utility, way down today. 14% lower. what's the reason for this latest sell-off, ash? ashley: well, the california governor gavin newsom says the plan put forward not good enough. he's concerned about the financial stability of the company and also, he says the safety measures that you put in force in the redoing of the infrastructure, just not up to par, not up to new california standards. so they filed for bankruptcy back in january. now they are having to go back and look at their plan and you know, they have to go back to the bankruptcy court in san francisco and say they can't get

out of bankruptcy until they get state approval. newsom is also, by the way, floated the idea of the state taking over the utility. stuart: at the end of the day, that's probably what -- i think that might be what they have to do. ashley: they offered like $13.5 billion settlements to victims going back to 2017 and 2018 fires. newsom says i just don't see how you can be financially viable coming out of bankruptcy, you will be vulnerable to another catastrophe if it happens. stuart: what a mess. let's get back to that big number. 2019 ceo exits, the record number is 1,332. just in one year. robert moran joins us. he's with the brunswick group. robert, that's a huge exodus. what's going on? why? what's the main reason? >> well, there are a number of reasons. look, from january of this year to november of this year, there have been 1480 ceo exits in the

u.s. the previous high for an entire year was 2008 at 1484. so we are only four exits shy of a record for the whole year and we are only just in early december. we are going to bust past that. i think there are a number of reasons for this. the first is that the economy is really strong, and there's actually demand for c-level services so you see an uptick in external candidates taking new jobs. so number one is just the strong economy. it may be that ceos look at 2019 and figure this is a good year to get out, they don't know what 2020 is looking like because of uncertainty and that goes to the next reason. economic uncertainty. mostly about regulation about the 2020 elections, about china trade which looks like it may be getting resolved, but uncertainty would be too. the third is technological disruption of basically every industry, and the fourth would

just be personal or leadership accountability for misconduct. stuart: there's a lot of high profile departures because of personal behavior. i'm thinking of mcdonald's, for example, steve easterbrook and a few others as well. but that's not a big factor in the overall scheme of things, is it? >> no. they're not. what's interesting, i think last year was the peak for that. in november there were four exits for misconduct. there were 14 overall in 2019 so far. that's much lower than last year. my theory on this is we are actually entering a new normal where we just have a much higher level of ceo exits and ceo transitions, and here's why. we have to look to the sports world to understand. in college football, there's the coaching carousel where coaches are constantly moving because of performance. we are now in a

hyper-competitive age where you are replaced if you can't meet those numbers, you are replaced very quickly. you can see this in sports at a dramatic level. florida state bounced its coach after like a year and a half. you can see this in the nfl with the dallas cowboys coach in trouble. i think you are going to see that now in corporate america. stuart: it's a brutal thing and yet, in a way, it's a good thing. because you've got to perform. you're right, it's like a sports team. if you can't perform, you can't produce the results that you are supposed to produce, you're out real fast. in capitalism, that's not bad. >> no. it's actually good, in my view. it's brutal, it's a fact of life. if you look at sports, managers and coaches have now gotten used to it. they call it the coaching carousel in college football, that's what they call it, and you see it like, i mean, a great example is the washington nationals. they replaced their manager last season, not because he wasn't winning. he was getting into the playoffs every year. but because they believed they

needed to go to the world series with the team they had. they replaced that manager, got a new manager and they went to the world series and won it in one year. that's the kind of pay for performance i think you will see across the board. if you can't win, you're out. stuart: you should see what's happening in english premier league soccer but that's another story entirely. i'm not going to bring it up now. robert, good reporting, good research. thank you, robert. see you again soon. >> thank you. stuart: all right. remember the baseball bat we showed you last week, the babe ruth used to hit his 500th home run? it sold for a lot of money. all right, bottom line? susan: $1 million. yeah. you surprised by that? well, the bat was -- stuart: no. susan: no, right. it was used to hit his 500th home run. the buyer was not identified. this is the bat in the game against the cleveland indians where the 500th home run cleared the right field wall and into the history books. you know, the bat that babe ruth used to hit his first home run actually went for more.

inflation-adjusted it actually went a lot more because it sold for $1.3 million in 2004. stuart: i actually thought that bat, the 500th, i thought it might be more than a million bucks. susan: i agree. a bargain. stuart: a bargain? okay. whatever. let's check in on the rally, why don't we. look at the dow 30. pretty sure we've got 29 of the 30 -- no, 28 of the 30 are very much in the green. they are up. mcdonald's and boeing, the only losers. look at that. the dow industrials are up 171 points. new all-time high. we are well above 28,300. and we have an american success story for you, another one. a steak house in rural iowa has celebrities flying to the heartland to take a bite in that restaurant. it's ranked number two in the entire country. what on earth is the secret? i will ask the owner after this. what if numbers tell only half the story?

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steakhouse. bob rand, the guy who owns and runs it, is with us now. welcome to the program. >> good morning. it's a pleasure to be here. stuart: obvious question, sir. you are in the middle of rural iowa. i know it's a relatively small town. what's so good about your steak? >> well, it has a lot of great things going for it and one of them is the greatest cattle in the country are raised right here in northwest iowa and northeast nebraska. that's where we source all of our beef every day, gives us a great advantage and we have had fantastic employees for seven years, treat archie's like family and we have been very fortunate to have a very loyal customer following from 30, 40 miles around. stuart: is it true that you sometimes get hollywood celebrities flying in for your great steak, and by the way, i know the secret to your steak. shall i tell the audience? shall i tell them? >> yes. stuart: garlic. is that true?

>> yeah. we do have very very wonderful garlic we use and our own blend of fine ground peppers and salt we use as a seasoning as well. we take the greatest beef that we can buy, the top end of choice and prime, and we put it through our aging process and then we hand-cut every steak, every day at our restaurant. stuart: why do you spell the name of your restaurant w-a-e. why not w-a-y? >> that story goes back to the early '50s. we opened in 1979. my grandfather archie told me the story that somebody called from the state of iowa and another club had a name wayside and he said i can fix that in five minutes. make it w-a-e-s-i-d-e and we moved on. stuart: your grandfather founded it. he was a russian immigrant, i think? >> yeah. my grandfather's family came over during the revolution and wound up working in the

stockyards in chicago, then moved to sioux city to work in the yards. they became the largest in the country, so a big background in beef in my family, and he passed away in 1973. my mother valerie took over the restaurant, did a fantastic job and my wife and i were fortunate enough to purchase it in 1994. stuart: bob rand, archie's waeside inn, best steak in the world, so i am told. great to have you on the show. we love success and you, sir, are a success. we wish you all the best in the future. merry christmas to you, sir. >> same to you. it was a pleasure being on my favorite show. thank you. stuart: now he tells us. oh, come on. bob, kyou could have had an exta hour. see you soon, bob. good luck to you. thanks a lot. next one, look at that. that's seattle. they've got a liberal government they think that forcing a higher minimum wage will help hourly employees. we will talk to a restaurant worker who says it's done the exact opposite.

it cost her her job. not all democrats are on board with the party's impeachment push. in fact, new jersey congressman jeff van drew is so fed up with it, he's crossing the aisle to the republican side. will more democrats follow? we will follow up on that, believe me. . . needles. essential for the sea urchin, but maybe not for people with rheumatoid arthritis. because there are options. like an "unjection™". xeljanz xr, a once-daily pill for adults with moderate

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stuart: 10:00, precisely 10:00 here in new york city. we have the latest read i believe on homebuilder sentiment. i think that is an important for the homebuilders. ashley: we do. 76, which is nicely above the estimate of 70 which shows a little bit more strength in the housing business. encouraging. should add to the bullish sentiment for sure. stuart: okay. the market just found that out. no tick up. in fact look at this, the big board, okay, we're still very, very strong day. we're up 160 points on the dow industrial average. that's true across the board.

a major gain for all sectors of the market as of today. and now this. there are times when i find it hard to take. the systemic trashing of president trump by a political party that is divided and vindictive and apparently now controlled by its out of control left-wing. woe all know where impeachment is going, nowhere, but the democrats keep at it. they're not unified. one democrat threatens to become a republican. others are waivering. if it gets to the senate for trial that will go down to defeat. that is guaranteed. this is a exercise in burr political nastiness. we the people, we're trying to get on with our lives. two weeks before christmas. we got jobs to do, gifts to buy, family gatherings to organize and we're doing all of this in a very prosperous economy and we're supposed to pause, pay attention to speaker pelosi and her quest to save civilization as we know isn't we're supposed to interrupt our joyful holidays

to watch our politics run by coastal elites. congressman adam schiff from los angeles, jerrold nadler from new york city. like we're living in different worlds. ordinary people are getting on with their lives and on the other side a band of politicians determined to trash our president and remove him from office. the society you see on the news is anxious and hateful but the society we actually live in feels very different. the best economy in the world. huge gains in employment, no inflation, no interest rates and your pension money gaining by leaps and bounds. prosperity at long last. that is the real america at these holidays. that is the society we are and you are living in. now look at the latest "fox news poll." on president's approval rating t has gone up to 45%. it has gone up to that. however, 50% say he should be impeached and removed from office. brad blakeman is with us.

how do you account for that, brad? i mean 50% want him out of office? i find that hard to believe, brad, i really do? >> i find it hard to believe too. if you look at battle ground state polls it doesn't reflect. the president is doing quite well despite 3 1/2 years of non-stop rhetoric out of democrats to remove him. the fact is, the public has only heard one side of the story. in spite of what they're hearing, the president's poll numbers are quite good. once it switches to the senate you will hear a whole different story. you're going to see a fair and balanced presentation of facts as they are, not facts as they wish them to be the democrats have presented. so i think the president is doing well. i think that his fortunes are going to change especially as we move into the senate. and the american people, as you rightly pointed out in your commentary, they're concerned about the bread and butter issues. there is no crisis beyond the

beltway. america is getting on with its business. it totally dismissed this witch-hunt, this inquisition. stuart: such extreme division. most people, ordinary people, the holiday period, is a very prosperous time. we're getting on with our lives, while washington seems to be thoroughly and totally distracted by chasing down of the president. everybody knows it is going nowhere. he is not getting kicked out 6 office. it will not happen. >> despite of that, look at jobs numbers. look at deals president is able to make not only on oomph all and china and others. the president continues to keep his nose to the grind stone, ignores the manufactured crisis that doesn't exist. he will be cleared in the senate. life will go on. democrats will move on to their next attempt to discredit this president. in the end he will be reelected in november. stuart: brad blakeman, thanks

for being with us. happy holidays. >> happy holidays, see you later. get back to the market. we have a rip-roaring rally going for us. joining us "barron's" senior editor jack hough. what do you make of the comment from bank of america this morning and other wall street big name firms, melt-up? we hear that, melt-up. do you think we're in one? >> melt-up means not just prices are rising quickly, they're getting nuts, totally disconnected from fundamental measures. i don't see that in this stock market. i saw it this past year rejection of some of the nonsense. some ipos flopped because the companies didn't make money and weren't on a path to making money. investors become skeptical for companies that won't make money for years and years. tremendous gains? sure. a big bull market? sure. a melt-up, i wouldn't call it back then. stuart: i remember back in 1999, you don't remember. >> i do remember 1999.

stuart: dot-com, huge gain for nasdaq 35%. >> that is a melt-up. what a melt-up feels like the dumbest people in the room think they're geniuses. people in the room, saying let's do the math, those people are idiots. they're being laughed at that is it what a melt-up feels like. this is not a meltup. i look at stock markets, many companies should be rising, they're doing quite well and quite prosperous. stuart: i bring up 1999. as soons with got into the 2000, passed new year's, pretty much came straight down by march i think it was. down we came. >> yeah. stuart: a lot of people are worried, this sharp move up, that we're seeing, this calendar year, 2019 will be followed by a sharp downturn. >> could it happen? it could happen. on a meltup, when we see a meltup, when the nonsense is rising along with everything else, that is classic sign of

end of a you will about market. i said all along, i could be wrong about this, some people say hate what when i say this, bitcoin will be bellwether. i can't think of another financial. i don't think we're there yet. stuart: have you seen apple and microsoft, both hitting -- >> heard of them. stuart: together they're worth 2 1/2 trillion dollars together? >> yeah. stuart: are they, out of bounds in terms of overpriced do you think? >> i think long term both those companies can still do very well. one of the keys about some tech titans that have gotten so large, we have never-before-seen companies this large grow this fast. that is particularly true of alphabet and facebook. but microsoft still has excellent growth in the cloud. look, apple is proving the doubters wrong every day. if the phone cycle isn't that exciting, people are buying the ear buds, they're buying

services, they're buying something else. they're always buying something over there. the number of apple skeptics slippings -- shrinking as we speak. stuart: get back to the numbers. look at this, the dow is now up 172 points. you're above 28,310. ashley: that housing number was highest in 20 years, with a jump of five points. so -- stuart: i was pouring cold water on it. ashley: yes, you were. stuart: i didn't think it was a very important indicator. my producer says i do it every month. apparently it is important, because the market had another leg up right after the number was released. the dow is 2/3 of 1%. show me s&p and nasdaq. let's give everybody a complete view of the market. s&p is up 3/4 of 1%, 23 points higher. nasdaq is up best part of .9%. doesn't sound like much but it's huge. 77 point up for the nasdaq.

the dow, 168 up. boeing came back a little. it had been down 4%. now it is down 2%. that actually helped the dow because boeing is a dow stock. okay? not that complicated. broad-based rally. leave it at that. amazon is planning a new grocery store in los angeles. it is not a whole foods grocery store. it is their own brand. amazon up a tiny fraction actually. now it is down a fraction in otherwise up day. boeing is a drag on the dow. the journal says they may suspend production of the max jet. down it goes, just 2 1/2% right now. it was down more than that earlier. tesla, the government is investigateing a 12th crash may be tied with autopilot system. hillary vaughn in washington on this. what is the story, hillary. reporter: the latest crash that

the national highway traffic administration is looking into happened in connecticut a tesla rear end ad parked police car. investigators want to know if auto pilot may have been engaged at the time of the incident. this is not the only crash they're looking into where they think autopilot may have played a factor in the crash. so far investigators believe three fatal crashes over the last three years may have been, autopilot may have played a role. they're investigating 10 other incidents past few years they're trying to figure out if autopilot may have played a factor in those. stuart? stuart: the stock is up this morning. tesla is up 16 point as we speak, hillary. back to 375. jeremy corbyn suffered a landslide loss in britain's election. he still think hes he won the argument. he said so in a op-ed over the weekend. nigel farage, we call him the father of brexit and he is, we'll ask him what he thinks

about corbyn. there is a new show on "the discovery channel," the diesel brothers. i'm a big fan of life below zero, i love gold rush. can the host of "diesel brothers" get me to watch their show. they will be here later this hour. later a career waitress says seattle's minimum wage cost her job putting the restaurant she works for out of business. she isthe show next. ♪.

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>> your reputation precedes you. >> i have to admit i wasn't expecting an invitation back. >> they're called orders, maverick. stuart: good clip. when do we get to see it? susan: june 26th, 2020. that was maverick aid played by tom cruise in the 1986 classic. he is returning as flight school instructor. who he will teach? the soon of goose who was the copilot to tragically died in the first movie, played by miles teller. also there is john ham. i.c.e. man is definitely back, val kilmer. stuart: if you're a fan of movie like that, even if you know the ending, won't stop you from boeing to see it. lap it up, see two or three

lines. susan: the one line from the 1986 movie? stuart: what? susan: i feel the need for speed. stuart: do you think i can remember 1986. 1946 crystal clear. staying on hollywood. hosting on "saturday night live." plugged nbc streaming services. ashley: peacock services is coming out. did it in interesting way. i don't know if we have the clip. probably don't. pete davidson one of basically on "snl," made characters disappear. she says, where did they disappear to? peacock, nbc streaming services, comedy starts here. he winks at the camera. stuart: it was a commercial. ashley: begins streaming- susan: april. ashley: they paid 500 million for a bunch of their own content to get the back from netflix, everywhere else.

"cheers," parks and recreation. all the old shows. susan: "cheers." ashley: sam ma'am loan. stuart: i remember that. interesting story out of seattle. my next guest, single mom, restaurant worker in seattle will lose her job because of increase in minimum wage there. it goes to 16.39. it will force the restaurant to close. simone baron is with us. she is with us? she is. welcome to the show. good to see you. >> good to see you, thank you for having me. stuart: have i got it right, you're a single mom. you were making ends meet in this restaurant and then the restaurant closed because of the minimum wage. take me through it, please. >> well, yeah. kind of a stressful time for me right now. at the first of the year, my restaurant i've been working in for six years will be closing. my second job, former job that i had that i thought maybe i could

go back get hours there. it will be closing at the beginning of the year. the one interview that i got in the last couple of weeks before i could even confirm that interview with the manager, that restaurant is closing as well. so all of this is due to the minimum wage increase paired with other laws that are coming down through our city council. stuart: sounds like this is widespread thing, restaurants closing, cutting the hours at which the wait staff can work. is it that widespread? >> well, yeah. as we're seeing the minimum wage increase, we're seeing like a gradual decrease in our industry in ways, seeing a loss of hours, a loss of our tipping culture. a loss of support jobs like buzzers and hosts, where young people are usually employed, the first job in their industry. we're losing those jobs. then it comes down to, now we're

closing. we're closing restaurants. there have been several restaurants in seattle that have closed because of the burdened laws coming down that are hitting them. and minimum wage is one of those. stuart: trouble it is very hard to reverse it, isn't it? once you've got this deal, this law, $16.39 per hour, you can't have second thoughts, say, this really isn't working, we're withdrawing it, you're stuck, aren't you? >> we're a little stuck but that doesn't mean there is a solution. i do believe there is a solution to this. i mean we could have something like an exemption for tipped workers like myself. we never asked for this raise and, if we could get an exemption from the minimum wage law, i mean if we're talking about, they're going to take the minimum wage law and spreading it across the country, we need an exemption for tipped workers who never asked for this. who are already making far above the minimum wage.

if we had an exemption from minimum wage law we would be able to take money to put it to people that need it like cooks, dishwashers but we don't have that. we need some sort of a balance here because right now, we're losing jobs. we're losing hours, we're losing our tipped income. and it is not good. stuart: simone, thanks for coming on the show. i think you're a victim of this new rule in seattle and -- >> absolutely. stuart: really great, if you get an exemption and get back into business and do the right thing. simone baron, appreciate you being with us today. >> thank you so much, yes. stuart: come see us again. thank you very much. >> i will. stuart: this week we're highlighting top five states with the best economic outlook. we're counting down until friday when we reveal number one. next we'll tell you what the fifth state with the best economic outlook is. don't go away.

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stuart: yes, it's a rally. we just hit a gain of 200 points for the dow industrials. that puts us at 28,332. look at all major averages since the 2016 election. very important point. just happened. the dow gained its 10,000th point since the president was elected. back then we were 18,000 and change. now we're 28,000 and precisely the same change. 10,000 point up since the great election, 2016. who knew.

this week we're highlighting the top five states with the best economic outlook. on friday, we'll reveal number one. today we start with number five, which is, indiana. lauren simonetti. what are they doing so well? >> thinking of corn, manufacturing. made in the usa, booming for the state of indiana. exports were at a record last year, bringing the unemployment rate down, lowest in the midwest, 2.3%. why and how? that is an achievement. stuart: whoa, 3.2%. >> here's your why. corporate taxes very low. by the end of 2021, 4.9%. so they have communicated, the state has communicated we're bringing the state income corporate tax rate down. number two, wages, you had the seattle guest on. guess what the minimum wage is in indiana? same as federal minimum wage, $7.25. businesses are able to manage the expense. they're a right-to-work state.

that is important. wisconsin in 2012. indiana became the first right-to-work state. that brought in five billion dollars in investments. over 8,000 jobs. one more freebie for you, stuart. no estate or inheritance tax. good for farmers. stuart: good for all kinds of people actually. that was interesting. indiana, number five, i can't wait to hear how good the four, three, two, one are. >> one is exciting. stuart: i don't know who it is by the way. coming up next hour, we'll talk to indiana's lieutenant positive and how well the economy is doing. britain's boris johnson won the landslide election and i wants a vote on brexit by christmas. i will ask former ukip leader, nigel farage, he is the father of brexit, can he get it done that fast? a vote before christmas? how about that. ♪.

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♪. ♪ she tells me all the time, she said so ♪ stuart: i feel fine. she is not singing along. i guess she has not heard of it. susan: i enjoy it. good tune. stuart: good ditty did you say? ashley: i did. stuart: you've been in england too long. a rally, sports fans. look at this. up 184 points. precisely 2/3 of 1%. the dow is up exactly 10,000 points since the election of donald trump in november of

2016. how about that? 10,000 up. last week, big news on deals made on phase one, china trade, usmca. howard kurtz is with us, host of "mediabuzz." i want you to react as our reporter for a second, please. you look at the elite media, "times," "washington post," et cetera, et cetera, how did they treat these trade stories? >> i would say stuart with an initial burst of enthusiasm followed by some skepticism. i did a little research for you. here is "washington post" headline. trade truce with china caps good week in washington for trump economy. calls donald trump a winner. "new york times," does little to reduce u.s. concern about china's trade practices and industrial subsidies yet, the paper may help mr. trump politically, helping farmers, calming investors, so forth. stuart: in other words the president engineered this deal so it would look good for the forthcoming election. that is rather cynical view of a

china trade deal you can say. >> i don't think you can completely divorce politics from it. there is election coming up. donald trump campaigned getting trump on china and he has done that. more sophisticated economic writers recognize, administration calls it a phase one deal. it's a good deal that china committed to buy $50 billion of american agriculture, diverts some increases for tariffs in china. obviously what they did, they engaged in the art of the possible. they took what they could get. it is phase one. some of the more problems about intellectual property and property so forth, kicking the can down the road. stuart: if you broaden it out, look not just at the trade deals, look at the overall state of the economy, prosperity which we enjoy this holiday period, was there much comment on that? or was it's ad out by impeachment? >> well, there certainly hard to get through the static when it comes to impeachment. i think people are getting sick enough of impeachment, there wasn't even a saturday night live skit on impeachment but

"the washington post" again had a story, this was a good week for trump. leaving aside the fact that the house judiciary committee voted to impeach him, you've been talking about the u.s. mexico canada trade deal. there were policy deals with democrats as well as this china break through. the morning market surge on wall street i think underscores your point. i think there is recognition the economy is kind of on fire right now. the early recession talk in the media starting to fade. stuart: but does the media give credit to president trump and his policies for the economy we now enjoy? >> i think by and large the media does say it is hard to argue with the fact, certainly if we were in recession president trump would get the plame. the media probably not as much as you would like, is grudgingly crediting president for economy saying bull market will not last forever, that sort of thing. i think they're also saying if it wasn't for the economy, given some other problems he is having, that president trump would be in trouble. so the economy clearly his strongist suit according to the

press. stuart: are you trying to kwamme down, howard kurtz? are you trying to get me -- >> i think it is more fun when i rile you up. stuart: go ahead, try. >> 10,000 points on the -- it should be leading the evening news, right, stuart? stuart: of course, it should. you know it won't, will it? no way. >> you have the matter of the house vote on impeachment. stuart: you really do. howard, we appreciate it. thank you very much. look at amazon please. it is exploring how it can make a profit from content on its alexa devices. that es interesting. how does it work? susan: the information is reporting they're trying to make money off video, music and news. don't forget you can spend an extra dollar to have samuel l. jackson's voice on alexa. i will teach you that in a bit. making money on content you pay for. apple spending millions of dollars.

apple spending $4 billion this year. in order to do that, how do you make money? get people on subscriptions. since they don't have prime, they pay 12.95 a month. charge more if you listen to it on alexa. stuart: if i don't have amazon prime i have to pay for alexa? >> you have to pay for content, music, video. 12.99 a month, just for video alone, if you don't have a prime membership. i find it hard in new york city to find somebody that doesn't have a prime membership these days. stuart: over 100 million prime memberships in america. at least, more than that actually. over the weekend as you know if you've been watching this program, jeremy corbyn who leads britain's labour party, loss the general election in a landslide. he has written an op-ed. here is the quote, we won the argument but i regret we didn't convert that into a majority for change. how about that? nigel farage is on the phone with us. nigel, dissect that.

we won the argument but we couldn't convert voters? >> what he is saying is that the socialists ideology was very popular in university campuses and in some of our big cities and he went to those areas and met people who thought a new form of hard left socialism with high taxes, abolition of private education, and everything being free on the state and he had cheering crowds attending his meetings. but if he had gone out into middle england or in american comparison, the fly-over states, he would have found a very different reaction. he is trying to comfort himself. the truth of it is two things happened here. number one, 3 1/2 years after we voted to leave the european union mr. corbyn's party wanted us to vote in a second referendum a lot of working class northern britains said to hell with that. secondly hard-line socialism is not popular with ordinary

working people. what we've seen dramatically is the defeat of socialism for a very long time to come, thank goodness. there is some lessons lear in many ways for the democrats. if they go for a corbyn type figure, they will lose. stuart: now just, have a look at the brexit vote. i understand, prime minister johnson wants to get a vote done by christmas. i mean that is just a few days away. can he get it done in a short period of time like that? >> oh, yes. when you have a parliamentary majority you more or less do what you want. there will be a vote of some description i guess this friday. we were going to enter into a committee stage and then the european parliament will have the final say. i would say it is 99.9% certain that we are leaving on the 31st of january. there will be a lot of questions about the terms and conditions under which we're leaving but you know what? that at least we're going to be leaving so it's good news.

stuart: are you going to be coming over to america anytime soon to work with president trump? >> there is a lot of gossip and rumors about this i'm not sure any of it substantiated. all i will say if i can be of any use i'm pretty happy to. i'm a veteran when it comes to campaigns. i have one or two good ideas up the sleeve but absolutely nothing confirmed i can promise you. stuart: you believe if the democrats go with a hard left candidate in 2020, they will lose? >> absolutely. anyone goes for socialist agenda, elizabeth warren type, wants to wipe out blue-collar jobs where people are working on gas lines all the rest of it, and i think, again like jeremy corbyn, she will be cheered on left-wing campuses in los angeles and convince herself it is the right way to go. either way, whoever the democrats pick it is very, very important on the back of brexit

that the western world sees donald trump reelected. 2016 marked a big sea change. we need one more term to get this confirmed. stuart: nigel, you should come over here more often, you really should. there is sterling work for you to do in the united states of america, don't forget. >> i'll come see you very soon, i promise. stuart: you're on, nigel. thank you for joining us this morning on the phone. we appreciate it. see you soon. thank you very much. >> thank you. stuart: getting on a flight anywhere these days has become pretty expensive, even a basic economy flight is hard for some people to afford. jetblue rolled out its new fare structure this month. are they affordable? they're talking about bare bones prices. we've got the jetblue chief on the show in our next hour. the republicans are targeting 30 democrats they think are really vulnerable. we're going to ask liz harrington, republican national committee, how vulnerable are they, and what progress the republicans have made. we'll be right back.

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so you only pay for what you need. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ stuart: the rally hold the. big time, even though one dow stock, boeing, is dragging down the dow, the dow is still up 187 points, 2/3 of 1%, all-time high, 28,322, et cetera, et cetera. uber it's up on reports that it is selling uber eats in india. i guess it is staunching the flow of red ink. susan: exactly right. they're selling off the business in india to a local rival. they are having trouble operating in international markets. they stopped uber eats operating in south korea. even in the ride-hailing business, when they notice they can't compete with the local rivals they usually cut and run. same thing in china. they sold off there, same thing in southeast asia and also in

russia as well. this company lost a billion dollars in its recent quarterly earnings, five billion dollars the quarter before. according to analysts, they're still subsidizing each and every uber eats delivery one or two dollars. stuart: ouch. susan: they want to stem the tide. but the stock price still far away from the offer price of $45. stuart: that is a nice jump, staunching the flow of red ink, they go up 5%, the market is saying you're doing the right thing. susan: yes, still $15 away getting back to even. stuart: a long way to go. maybe i should buy it. ashley: here we go again. stuart: new jersey congressman jeff van drew does not agree with the impeachment push. he is, i believe, thinking, thinking about leaving the democrat party and becoming a republican. he met with president trump over the weekend. there is this, people on the screen, 31 democrats vulnerable in next year's election because their constituents don't like impeachment, went for trump in

2016. bring in rnc spokesperson liz harrington. you're targeting these 31 vulnerable democrats. what progress can you tell us about it? >> not so much targeting. holding them accountable to their own words. stuart: that is targeting. it is targeting. come on. >> listen to their own words. what did they say? in michigan 8, she said we need in washington buckle down to get things done and reach across the aisle. they haven't buckled down on anything except going for impeachment, which the radical left has been calling for since november 9th, 2016. so we're holding them all accountable to their own words, their own promises. they can't take credit for any of the amazing accomplishments this president has gotten done. they have done nothing. stuart: putting pressure on this week, essentially? running ads in their areas. the pressure on for this week when there will be impeachment vote on wednesday and you're looking to see which way those

30, 31 democrats go. how many do you think will say no to impeachment? >> we already had of course the two that was bipartisan opposition to the first impeachment phony resolution. but let's be clear about this, nancy pelosi, what did she say back in march? she said impeachment is so divisive for the country, it has to be so compelling, overwhelmingly and bipartisan. what did she end up doing, went for something that is so uncompelling, so underwhelming and so partisan even democrats are too scared to run as democrats next year. that is what you see with representative van drew in new jersey. this is such a political hit job, that you're going to see these democrats really worried about their re-election. stuart: really worried. but what you need, you want to see five, six, seven, maybe, eight, nine, 10 democrats, not switching sides, but saying no on impeachment. that is what you need. that is how you can say that the only bipartisan impeachment is on the republican side, is on

the no vote? >> i think when they decide to go with the radical left, all they're doing is signing their own pink slips. only silver lining for democrats next year the economy is so booming, so good thanks to president trump, they shouldn't have any problem finding another job. do this at their own peril. stuart: give me a number here. you targeted, you're holding accountable 30 or 31. how many are you going to get to vote no on impeachment on wednesday? >> we'll see. we'll see. stuart: give me a guess. >> i can't predict what numbers. stuart: what would you like to sigh? >> what we already see one of those democrat who voted against the first round is thinking about switching parties. how bad does that have to say the democrats case is? it is completely ridiculous. because who did they give the reins over? they gave it to adam schiff to railroad this impeachment, the same man, who has been lying about collusion and lied about what was in the fisa applications which was revealed last week. stuart: okay.

>> if they were smart, they would all be doing what jeff van drew is doing. stuart: after the vote on wednesday, you should look very carefully at those 30 democrats, what did they get for a yes vote. there is all this arm-twisting and horse-trading. like obamacare, if you vote the right way you get something from speaker pelosi, you concentrate on that you will come up with good stuff. >> guess what happened after obamacare? it was the biggest republican victory we had ever seen. this is the same thing, stuart. this is such an overreach. impeachment in search of a crime with nothing there, a complete political hit job, a day after the collusion lie collapsed, they were already spinning their next impeachment fantasy. such a disgrace to this country. it will pay them. they will pay for it dearly next year at the ballot box. stuart: we'll leave it at that liz harrington thanks for coming on the show this morning. we appreciate it. >> thanks for having me.

stuart: monday morning rally right from the get-go. right now the dow is up 2/3 of 1%. 28,318. christmas came early for walmart shoppers in alabama. i like the story. tell me what happened. susan: two separate cities, $45,000 in purchases at a store in the east alabama city of aniston was paid off. that is very nice. 25,000 in layaway purchases in nearby oxford. we don't know who paid off the lay wais. grate gesture. we heard celebrities doing the same. tyler perry doing that for $318,000 worth of walmart lay wais in georgia, atlanta where he is based. kid rock has done the same, 81,000. stuart: i bought lunch for two soldiers in hoboken, new jersey. it was right thing to do. next hour we bring more of our interview with eric trump. he gives me a personal tour of trump tower and shares trump

family traditions with me. got that coming up. i'm a big fan of discovery channel's life below zero and gold rush. love them both. they have a new show, "diesel brothers," about revamping diesel trucks. the stars are here. can they get me to watch that and like? we see. the epson ecotank. no more buying cartridges. look at all this ink it comes with. big ink tanks. lots of ink. no more cartridges.

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♪ >> hey there, old friend. been a while. remember me? i do? , you know, diesel dave. guy in the beard, jorts, boots. >> what are you doing? >> having a moment with my friend. stuart: wonder if i could get to the point where i would watch that show? that is "diesel brothers," a show all about building trucks. just so happens we have the stars with us. heavy d, to my right. that is you, heavy d. diesel dave to my left the man with the beard and t-shirt. i got that. i'm a big fan of "gold rush." what is the other one i like? "live below zero."

convince me, diesel dave, i should watch the show. >> do you see the emotion, we saw in the clip, the passion between a man and his truck that is the kind of passion we want to give to our viewers what diesel power means. if we get you in a truck i promise you have the same feeling. stuart: heavy d, why should i watch the show, make me watch. >> do you like america? stuart: are you kidding? >> do you like business? like making money? you like having fun? that is all we do. that is literally the definition of our show. that is not just about diesel. that what we lead in with diesel engines are powerful and everything else. we show you how made a business of it. how trucks led us to living the american dream. stuart: the diesel trucks, what do you do, renovate these things or what? >> start from ground up. make them purpose built, where we have a task at hand. we build a truck to accomplish the task. go up a mountain, go through sand dunes, go in the water.

stuart: you can take a diesel truck in the water? >> you can take a diesel engine anything where you want. we take them in the air, under water, in the ground literally. we want to make vehicles do something they weren't normally intended to do, we do it really well. stuart: do you take any risks, are you crazy, do you do that kind of thing. >> we like to drive crazy. i did almost a double backflip in diesel powered monster truck in minnesota couple nights ago. a little risk. stuart: i will watch. on "the discovery channel." >> monday night. we got moved up this is family show. you can watch it with your kids. anywhere from two years old, up to 80 years old, it doesn't matter. family show, highly entertaining. 8:00. stuart: heavy d, diesel dave. the show is called, "diesel brothers." discovery channel, monday nights. you will make a fortune, that is a fact. gentlemen, thanks for joining us. >> thank you very much. stuart: remember myspace? it was one of the first popular social media websites? the cofounder is now launching a

new service. we'll tell you all about that one too. president trump was at the army-navy football game this weekend and he got a roaring reception. i'll tell you about that as well. my take coming up after this. ov? that must be why you're always so late. i do not speed. and that's saving me cash with drivewise. my son, he did say that you were the safe option. and that's the nicest thing you ever said to me. so get allstate. stop bossing. where good drivers save 40% for avoiding mayhem, like me. this is my son's favorite color, you should try it. [mayhem] you always drive like an old lady? [tina] you're an old lady.

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stuart: i hope you didn't miss the army-navy game this weekend. it was important not so much as a sporting event, no, but as a political and cultural event. i found it moving. so we are going to do something we don't often do in these editorials. we are going to run the tape and let the video speak for itself. roll it. >> -- great pride and great honor to welcome our commander in chief, our president of the united states, president donald j. trump. [ [ applause ] ] ♪ -- stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight

o'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming ♪ stuart: i would really like to keep that going. that was moving. that was fantastic. a roar of approval for our president, the anthem sung with spirit by young men and women. it capped off -- keep it going in the background. we can hear it. it capped off a week of positive news right before the holidays. i could compare that to the impeachment mess but i won't. we will let the tape speak for itself. a lot more where that came from as the third hour of "varney" gets rolling. stuart: look who's here. trish regan, host of "trish regan primetime" by special request with me this morning. i broke protocol there to show

those fine young men and women singing the anthem to show the roar of approval our president got when he walked into the stadium. i thought that was moving. i wanted to show that. trish: i love that you did that. i think it's important to do -- to take a moment, right, and step back and look at what happened and i don't care if you saw it once already. watch it again, right, because you're right, it's nice to see that kind of unity, that kind of excitement for the president of the united states. stuart: those young men and women singing our anthem with such gusto and feeling -- trish: it's a feeling for this country. i don't care what side of the aisle you are on, we should all take pride in america. stuart: i'm glad you're with us this morning. trish: good to be here. stuart: i have got away from the cultural aspects of the anthem and turn to money. we have a rip-roaring rally going on. bank of america, jpmorgan, goldman sachs, big name companies, they've got bullish outlooks for the economy and the

markets in 2020 but you know what, i don't see the media covering it. trish: no. you know why? they don't want to cover good news. they only want to -- if it bleeds, it leads, especially right now. especially right now. because good news is actually good for the president. and that's not in sync with what their view of the world is right now. they would actually, i hate to say this, i think there's a certain part of them that would actually like to see a recession. we have heard so many call for it. right? stuart: they were talking it up. over the summer that inverted yield curve thing, you saw endless media people saying it's going to lead to recession. trish: they want it, because they figure that is their way to capture 2020. let me just say, in some ways they're right. when you are fighting a good economy, the lowest jobless rates for minorities and for women that we have had in the history of tracking this stuff, when you are fighting a record stock market and great earnings like we are seeing today, well, then that's a pretty hard fight. that is, you know, and don't forget relative peacetime. there's a lot of good stuff

going on right now. so what do you run against? stuart: good point. i just want to bring this to your attention. i know you have seen this already. the president's approval rating in a fox poll went up i think three points to 45%. however, 50% still want to impeach and remove this president from office. that's extraordinary to me. trish: shows you how divided we are. it shows you that a lot of people are buying whatever they -- stuart: half the population wants not only to impeach him but take him out of the oval office. i just can't believe that. trish: you know, look, i think you got to take all of these polls with a grain of salt. that's just the reality. we certainly learned that in 2016, didn't we? so take it with a grain of salt and just know that a lot of people feel pressured to say the right thing to the pollster when they are getting that question. the right thing right now if you want to be accepted by your neighbors, if you want to be accepted by what they are force-feeding you in the regular mainstream media is to say of course you have got to impeach him but the reality is you are talking about reversing 63 million american votes, 11

months before an election? stuart: it just doesn't make sense. trish: just let the american people make the decision. stuart: it would be wrong to do that. flat out wrong. trish: it is. i think it's fundamentally, it's against who we are, what we are. stuart: yes. now then, who -- wait a minute. 8:00 tonight. fox business. who you got? trish: kellyanne conway will be with me tonight. stuart: run the national anthem again. trish: i'm going to. i'm going to. thank you, stuart. stuart: thanks for coming in early like this. much obliged to you. good stuff. i've got headlines on streaming. first of all, hulu raising the price of its live tv service. that's interesting. by how much? lauren: $10, $55 a month. most expensive live tv streaming service there is. stuart: what's it got? lauren: 60 channels, fox sports, espn. here's their pitch. you will like this because let's say you like one college football team and then the season's over, you can switch and opt for something else.

i don't know. are customers going to pay $55 a month and then have disney plus and then netflix and everything else? you might as well keep your cable. stuart: but it's got live stream sports. that's the big deal, i think. lauren: correct. stuart: at & t are releasing their own streaming service, i think that's coming in february, is that right? susan: yes. this is a direct competitor -- stuart: another one? susan: exactly. hulu live plus tv, yes, they have hbo max coming next year, but they are testing right now to launch in february their own streaming platform, basically you get a set tv box, you install it yourself. it's going to cost around $60 a month so this too is expensive. you can see tons of programming. stuart: you've got to install your own box? lauren: i have been trying. i asked my husband, would you know how to do that. he said yes, i would know how to do that. i think the average person, not me, would be able to do that. all this is confusing and

expensive, no? stuart: it raises the question, how many streaming services will the average household have, and does this really mean your bill for entertainment, there's a lot coming at you, actually goes up? ashley: i think the average is four to five right now. lauren: is it? ashley: yeah. yeah. netflix, amazon prime, hulu, apple plus tv, it starts to get expensive. stuart: $150 a month cable bill will become a $200 a month cable bill. lauren: i have cable. we refuse to cut the cord for this reason, but my cable bill is well over $200. stuart: is it really? lauren: yeah. but the internet and everything else. it creeps up on you. it's a whole thing. stuart: we spend a lot of time on streaming, because it's a revolution. it really is. we have this one. the latest "star wars" movie comes out this coming weekend. what is it, could make $200 million in the weekend? ashley: yes. 175, $200 million. i just throw that out there like it's nothing. that's on par with the last jedi

and the force awakens when they debuted. it's got competition from "jumanji the next level" which knocked "frozen 2" into second place this past weekend. it's the ninth and final installment of the "star wars" series created by george lucas. the first one in 1977. stuart: i remember it well. but the latest "star wars" if it makes it, it will be the seventh billion dollar movie this year. seventh billion dollar movie from one company, disney. one year. ashley: incredible. lauren: ten days to do it. it would be a record. stuart: we will put jetblue's stock up for you. they've got new options including a new basic economy seat. i want to talk about that with the ceo of jetblue. he's going to be on the show very shortly. in fact -- very soon. you remember myspace, the

original social media website? co-founder josh berman, big-time investor these days. he will be on the show. we will get his take on unicorns with out of control ceos like wework's adam neumann and uber's travis kalanick. if you are looking to buy a new home, stick around. we have the hottest housing market for 2020. where could they be, florida? no. california? no. it's not. it's all about idaho. we will tell you exactly where and i will bring you the second part of our interview with eric trump. he gives me a tour of the decked-out trump tower just in time for christmas. there i am on the golden escalator itself. the third hour of "varney & company" coming at you. ♪ nationwide helps you invest for your future, brad. so you can plan for retirement and save for college.

oh, that explains this. the nationwide dome. state-of-the-art venue. 80-yard screen. fantasy sports lounge. climate controlled seats. sushi bar. club level pool. really? lastly... retractable roof. whoa. touchdown! peytonville just runnin' away with this one. go peytons. (pop) kind of lackluster. eh, still working out some kinks. who they playing? the brads. worst team in the league. of course.

stuart: well, look at boeing's stock, now down 3%. that's a $10 haircut. $331 is boeing's price. what's the bad news there? lauren: the bad news is they had to make a decision, the board, whether to halve production. no one is accepting it. they're not making deliveries or making money on these planes and very costly to produce them, or temporarily halt production all together. there are about 400 737 maxes just sitting there. that's $50 billion worth of sales for boeing. they continue to just bleed this money. they have cut back. they cut back to 42. some analysts are saying one option is to go to 15, or temporarily halt all together. stuart: but they built them, they've got them, they've got to put them in storage and they can't fly them yet. lauren: exactly. stuart: ouch. okay. stay there for a second. we have a special guest with us this morning. the ceo of jetblue, robin hayes,

has been a frequent guest on this program and we are glad to be able to bring him back. do you have any comment -- you don't fly boeing planes, i don't think? >> no, we don't. correct. stuart: what's your comment on boeing and this possible delay, another serious delay for the max jet? >> well, look, our industry, safety is the most important thing. in the u.s., the industry has made so much progress over many, many decades, so that's going to be the focus. the focus is going to be before the max comes back, everyone is comfortable that it's a safe airplane to fly. stuart: you have to get passengers to fly on it. not you. i understand you don't have boeing planes. but other airlines which fly boeing, they are going to bring the max jet back and passengers might say whoa, how about that? >> you might get that reaction at the beginning but i think that's why everyone will make sure it is a completely safe airplane to fly. the accidents that happened were tragic, we have to learn from them, but there's also lots of history in the past where people

come convinced an airplane type is safe again, they will fly it. stuart: you think it will come back? >> it will come back at some point, but only when everyone is convinced the airplane is safe. stuart: while we have you, i want to talk about blue basic. >> blue basic. stuart: or basic blue, on jetblue. this is bare bones flying. as cheap as it can get on your airline. tell me. >> it's cheap pricing but it's not bare bones flying because it's going to allow us to offer a lower fare than we do today to really make sure that our most price-conscious customers can still continue to fly, but you are going to get the full jetblue experience, the most leg room, the free drinks and snacks, free wifi, free tv. everyone gets that. stuart: free drinks? >> free soft drinks. yes. stuart: oh, yeah. qualify it. but wait a second. if i want to change my flight, i cannot? if i'm flying under blue basic, i can't change, can i? >> so the blue basic fare limits

changes, so you can't change it, but we do have other fares for a little bit more called the blue flex. you beeni you can buy that and change it. stuart: i buy the ticket, i've got that ticket, that's it. if i cancel, i lose everything? >> with the blue basic, that's right. but again, we have different fares for people who -- stuart: okay. i'm seated last. the sort of overhead luggage space, i get on last if i'm a blue basic passenger? >> correct. what you are really doing is for a lower fare, you are basically making some trade-offs up front to say limit changes, limit cancels and get on airplanes later. but our other fares which are very reasonable premium, you get all of that. stuart: i know you were getting to that and you did. just a general question. how much cheaper in percentage terms is a blue basic flight? >> it's going to vary. it's going to vary.

stuart: 5%? >> sometimes it's going to be -- it may be $20, maybe $30, maybe more. it's going to vary on the ticket. stuart: how much are you going to charge me to fly, i think it's today, you're starting, from new york to london? >> we are going to start in early 2021. stuart: oh, i didn't know that. i'm sorry. >> but the good news is you can be very excited about that because we are going to come in and lower fares. the thing about whether it's blue basic, whatever you call it, when jetblue flies, fares are lower. that's a proven fact. when we fly against our competitors, we reduce fares and we are going to do that with flights to london. stuart: robin, thanks for being on the show. sorry i pressed you so hard about blue basic. >> no, no, it's very popular. people love it. it's making flight even more affordable. stuart: i'm a cheap kind of guy. i need to know about these things. >> blue basic will be perfect. stuart: don't say it. blue basic is for cheap flyers? don't say it. robin, thanks for joining us. much obliged.

thank you. mercedes, delaying the rollout of its electric suv. tell me more. ashley: saw the writing on the wall, really. they wanted to bring out their eqc crossover electric vehicle to the u.s. next year, then they saw what audi and jaguar did. audi sold 4600 of their vehicles this year, jaguar, the i-pace suv, just 2400. so they are saying maybe there isn't the appetite here that they thought there was so they are going to delay it until 2021. by same comparison, you look at tesla, they sold 111,000 of their model 3 sedans. they are by far the more -- most popular electric vehicle out there. the next one down is the toyota prius that sold 15,000 this year. mercedes saying we will focus on europe, thank you very much. stuart: i think the electric car business is going to be a little delayed before it's a mass market thing. that's just my opinion. going to be a long time before i fly on a plane that's all electric. you heard that.

it is almost christmas. you know the toys -- we will put them on the screen, barbie, lego, star wars, trivial pursuit, their manufacturers are facing a dilemma. how do you keep a decades-old product new and fresh? how do you do that? we will tell you how companies are, in fact, doing it. no baby yoda. that's a promise. ♪

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[maniacal laughter] gold. gold! right, uh...thank you, for that, bob. but i think it's time we go with gbtc. it's bitcoin exposure through

a traditional investment account. nice rock. it's time to drop gold. go digital. go grayscale. here, it all starts withello! hi!... how can i help? a data plan for everyone. everyone? everyone. let's send to everyone! wifi up there? uhh. sure, why not? how'd he get out?! a camera might figure it out. that was easy! glad i could help. at xfinity, we're here to make life simple. easy. awesome. so come ask, shop, discover at your local xfinity store today. some people say that's ridiculous. i dress how i feel. yesterday i felt bold with boundless energy.

this morning i woke up calm and unbreakable. tomorrow? who knows. age is just an illusion. how you show up for the world, that's what's real. what's your idea? i put it out there with a godaddy website. make the world you want. stuart: some of the biggest names in toys actually hitting big anniversaries. barbie turns 60, trivial pursuit turns 40. how do those brands stay relevant? lauren: it's like a midlife crisis or midlife opportunity. think about it. you know a brand, i know a brand, nostalgia gets the parents, the grandparents, into the store. but it's the opportunity for the retailer and toy maker, hasbro, mattel, to sell new stuff based on the popular brands to the children. are any of them doing that successfully? stuart: she asks. lauren: i hate to say, but it

doesn't seem like they are to me. stuart: no? lauren: nothing seems that sexy. i don't want to buy any of these new iterations of these brands i know for my children. i hope i'm wrong. stuart: you are a mother now. lauren: i don't think they would be into anything that is being sold. ashley: it's a different world. do stuart: grandparents have done a great job re-selling the beatles to our children and grandchildren because we did a great job of doing that, keeping that brand fresh and alive. ashley: guess what the grandkids are getting? grandpa varney this year. stuart: granddad, actually. lauren: what are they getting? dvds? cds, rather? stuart: no, no, no. lauren: oh, they are getting -- stuart: what? lauren: new phones or something to stream beatles music? no? stuart: i have twin granddaughters 4 years old.

they aren't getting their own phone. how did i get into this? part two of my exclusive one-on-one interview with eric trump. i took a christmastime tour of trump tower. i took a trip down the golden escalator, there it is, the one the president used to introduce himself to the world. you don't want to miss this. stay with "varney." ♪ my body is truly powerful. i have the power to lower my blood sugar and a1c. because i can still make my own insulin. and trulicity activates my body to release it like it's supposed to. trulicity is for people with type 2 diabetes. it's not insulin. i take it once a week.

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trust aag for the best reverse mortgage solutions. so you can... retire better. stuart: just look at this. the rally holds. we are two hours into the trading session, the dow still well above 28,300. in fact, it is now 10,000 points above where it was the day that president trump was elected. how about that. then we had home builder sentiment at its best level in 20 years last year. the best level in 20 years. look who's here. how fortunate. jerry howard is the nahb president and ceo. this is a very nice trend for you guys, the best level in 20 years? >> it's a terrific number. it's up in current sales, it's up in anticipated sales, the highest in 20 years.

the builders out there are optimistic because interest rates are low, unemployment is low, the administration is doing things about regulations. we are hoping for a big, big year next year. stuart: this is home builders. does that relate to the overall housing market, where you've got existing home sales and realtors and home prices, that kind of thing? >> it absolutely does. actually, new home sales are only a small portion of the overall market. existing home sales are much more significant. but if builders think things are going well, obviously it spreads through the industry. stuart: could next year be your best year in years? >> it could be. it could be. all things being equal right now, we are very very optimistic. stuart: stay there for a second, please. lauren has the five hottest housing markets in the country, according to realtor.com. take us through it. lauren: you will be surprised. bo boise, idaho is number one. they are getting transplants from california going to boise, idaho. why? nice to live there.

they like the affordability, it's cheaper and also a smaller place to live. stuart: do californians bring their politics with them? lauren: very good question. stuart: do they infect idaho with socialism? lauren: that's happening to some places like tennessee also, making the list. second on the list was tucson, arizona. lot of retirees going there. also, businesses like amazon and texas instruments are setting up operations in tucson. stuart: the hottest markets are boise, mcallen, texas, tucson, chattanooga, columbia, south carolina? no coastal cities there. no california, no new york, not even florida. how about that. jerry howard, still with us. i mean, that really is remarkable, isn't it? these are relatively small towns booming. >> if you don't pay attention to it every day, it's remarkable. i talk to guys in boise, in columbia, all the time. i know what's going on in those cities. those cities are much like the federal government right now. they are trying to encourage

growth. they are encouraging business investment in those cities and that in turn brings people in and leads to a good housing market. i'm not as surprised as the average person would be. that's because it's my job. stuart: i don't know what brings people to boise, mcallen, tucson, chattanooga or columbia other than a good business atmosphere. >> exactly right. stuart: that's basically it, i guess. low prices and all the rest of it. are you very active in building new homes there? >> idaho is growing very quickly. south carolina has been hot for a long time. been a very pro-business environment down there. same with texas. i wouldn't be surprised to see if you did the top ten, there would be some other texas markets in there as well. stuart: they want you to build. they want you to build a house in mcallen, texas or tucson, arizona. they want it. >> they want the average american working class citizen to be able to achieve the american dream of home ownership. stuart: i have a country place right out there in the

catskills. i wanted to build a log home and i did, and i applied for planning permission. one sheet of paper. that's it. where do you want to put it, how big is it going to be, sign. that was it. if i had done that 100 miles south, closer to new york city, i would wait three years. >> it's a classic example of the catskills, i happen to know because my mother was born in catskill, new york, the catskills are a very depressed area. they are looking for growth. they want to make it easy. it makes perfect sense. stuart: they made it easy for me. i built it within 11 months, just like that. you're all right. thanks for joining us. merry christmas. thank you very much. all right. go to trump tower in midtown manhattan. this time of year, you are going to see a building not only adorned in gold, but also christmas decorations all over the place. eric trump gave me a personal tour of the building. we even spoke to santa. watch this. >> this is a successful business operation. are you ever criticized for making money off the presidency?

>> trump tower has been here since 1984. we have had this building for a long long time. it's always been incredibly successful. by the way, you want to talk about a successful thing. this was the escalator that started it all for my father. stuart: you were on the air on this. >> we were. we were. ♪ stuart: this is a trump store in trump tower. i have not seen this before. >> people from all over the world, they love my father, they come in here, they love the family, they love the hotels, they love everything -- stuart: you've got all kinds of clothing, you've got -- >> we do. we have hats, polos from the golf courses, a little bit of everything. stuart: how is business? >> incredible. it's been incredible. you see the spirit toward the company. the company has never been better. our properties have never been better. people love the brand. people love what we stand for. people love the fight and i don't think we have ever been stronger. stuart: they would suggest that you are making money out of the presidency. >> yeah, but listen, the polos from the golf places were long before the presidency, right?

listen, we were 15 seasons, 14 seasons on "the apprentice." not like we weren't a brand before the presidency and didn't sell this stuff long before the presidency. you know, the difference between most politicians is when they get into politics, that's when they start making their money. my father will lose a fortune based on the fact that he's president. stuart: i was just going to tell our viewers as we walked around trump tower and walked into this store, eric was treated like a rock star. he stopped the traffic completely. i asked him, do you like that? do you enjoy it? you can't walk around anywhere these days. >> that's hard, right. the lack of privacy is hard. at the same time, just the severity o severi spirit out there and the friendliness, people saying i love you, i love what you stand for, thank you for sticking up for this country, thank you. that means a lot to me. we never turn that down. stuart: santa. is this the first year you have had santa in trump tower? >> we have literally lines out

the front door and it's been a lot of fun. stuart: what's it like being santa claus in trump tower? >> it's amazing. stuart: that's the son of the president of the united states of america. >> we put american flags on the christmas tree. we are having some fun. you can finally say merry christmas again. there was a little period of time you might get criticized for saying it. stuart: all good. all good. i have to ask you a question. in your household, do you open presents on christmas eve or christmas morning? >> christmas morning. christmas morning. stuart: that was true at your home with your father? >> always. always. there was a little arguing because my mom was east european, european, and they like to do it on christmas eve. we always did it christmas morning. it's interesting, with two youngsters in the house, my 2-year-old literally likes to take every ornament off the tree. our tree is very top-heavy because every ornament has to be above three feet. otherwise my son is pulling them down. stuart: the decorations are absolutely fantastic. i see lines of people all over

the place. >> we have been trying to give melania a run for her money. she does a phenomenal job at the white house. i don't think we can do it but we are certainly trying. she's doing an amazing job there with the holiday decorations in that house as well. stuart: who decorated your christmas tree in your apartment? your house? >> you know what, i did. i did it by myself this year. stuart: i know why. because you are 6 foot god knows what and can reach the top of the tree. >> laura was traveling so i surprised the family, i did it myself. i love doing it. little tradition of ours. stuart: you going to tell us what you are giving lara for christmas? >> no. i'm a little bit of a last minute guy. i will get myself in trouble. you might have just got me divorced. stuart: very sorry about that. >> i will whisper it to you. stuart: may i, on behalf of my crew and our viewers, and on behalf of santa claus, wish you a very merry christmas. >> thank you. thank you. stuart: next time i do an interview with eric trump, i'm going to have a little box that i carry around with me so i

don't look like i'm vertically challenged. i think he's 6'6" and i'm not. lauren: i can relate. i can relate. but you know what nobody says? they never say oh, that person looks tall. it's always you look short. stuart: you look short. lauren: yes. stuart: i might try a toupee as well. no more top shots. don't love that. staying on christmas, ashley, what have we got here? a very expensive christmas tree? what have you got? ashley: i know what to get you. a 19 foot tall fir tree in a spanish hotel worth $15 million. stuart: what? ashley: i know. it's got one diamond on it. it's worth -- it's a red oval diamond, with pink, red, white and black diamonds all around it. for me, that would be a security nightmare. you know what i'm advertising i. it is considered the most expensive tree in the world. now you know. stuart: we put it on the show. fell for it.

okay. let's get serious. we have seen two very high profile ipos, i'm going to say they failed, basically. uber and wework. in fact, wework had so many problems, they never actually went public. so will investors think twice about this kind of tech unicorn in the future? i'm going to ask myspace cofounder josh berman what he thinks about that. josh is next. ♪ to the outside world, you look good, but you don't feel good. with polycythemia vera, pv, symptoms can change so slowly over time you might not notice. but new or changing symptoms can mean your pv is changing. let's change the way we see pv. you track and discuss blood counts with your doctor. but it's just as vital to discuss changing symptoms as well.

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stuart: uber is selling its uber eats in india, and i'll bet that's to stop the flow of red ink. lauren: cut and run, baby. investors rewarding that decision. stock up 5.5%. they are considering bailing in advanced talks to sell to uber eats in india as part of the

deal to a company which uber could eventually have a stake in. its ceo has said look, goiour g to be number one or two in the market. if we can't do it, we bail. they are looking at the health of their operation. ipo'ed at $45. the stock today only at $30. stuart: it is up because they are staunching the flow. now, 2019 has really been the year of the unicorn ipos. some of them have really not done well. for example, wework had to halt plans to go public. i want to bring in josh berman. he's the co-founder of myspace. he's the ceo now of troy capital. josh, are these companies, i'm looking now at uber and wework in particular, are they doing less than spectacular because of their raucous ceos? >> i believe these are great

brands and huge addressable markets, and i think, you know, the problem is they are in a public market so there's a lot more scrutiny over cash flows. however, these are tremendous brands. as i look back when i had myspace 20 years ago, brands like facebook, amazon, were also, you know, went public and doing okay, but you saw amazing growth since then. so time will tell what will happen with companies like uber and wework. stuart: you do think they will come back, because their business -- not so much their business model, but they are such disruptive companies in a whole new area, that there's a place for them in our economy. >> i think there's a credible ct could be a top company for decades for uber. stuart: does airbnb, look to next year, they want to go public next year. i think next year is their timetable. do they have to show a profit before they can do a successful ipo? >> i think they are on their way. again, it's a great company,

satisfying a huge need in the marketplace with incredible growth. those are all key characteristics to get public. i think they have done a good job. they didn't rush to go public last year in '19 so i think they can and will have a successful ipo in 2020. stuart: tell me some more companies which are considering going public next year and which you think might do well in the long run. >> well, there are some unbelievable companies, i'm a venture capitalist, i have been investing in technology for quite awhile. i look at unbelievable companies like spacex. won't be next year, but it will be years to come, that is unbelievable and i'm really excited about it. i look at a company like flex board, like unity, that's doing incredible stuff in the gaming industry. those are all ones i'm watching for and i'm excited about. stuart: you think they should go public? because i often wonder why go public when you are going to be attacked by the short sellers, overwhelmed by the lawyers and heaven knows what else? isn't there a role to stay private these days?

>> i think you are seeing a big trend to stay private longer. that's one of the reasons why i have a pretty interesting liquidity solution where companies these days are staying private much longer than they did maybe 10 or 20 years ago. so i think you have seen not a huge rush to get public, and companies want to be really ready for the scrutiny and the predictability, so i think that trend will continue to stay private a lot longer. it does create billions of dollars of value in these private companies. stuart: if i'm an investor, and i put my money in before the ipo, and i've got a private piece of the action, can you get my money out for me, if that's what i want? this liquidity service of yours? >> great question. we started get quid.com just for that solution. there's many employees at some of these great private companies we are talking about, airbnb, that have a lot of wealth created and it's a great asset. think about it, i own a home or a car, i could go get a loan

from a bank. you can't do that today. we created a solution where these employees, maybe they have left the company and want to exercise their options or do some tax planning or simply they want to put a kid in a private school or buy a home, you can now get some liquidity on your private shares of stock. so if i'm an employee at airbnb, we can now provide them with a solution where they can get some cash to exercise options and that's exactly, there's a huge gap and need in the marketplace as companies are staying private longer. that's what we created with quid. stuart: you will of course take your piece and take the risk that the ipo doesn't work, doesn't happen and the company fades. that's your ricsk, right? >> we do have some risk if it's a company that doesn't do well. we take on all the risk. our employees and clients have no personal guarantee risk. we do our homework, study a lot on these companies. also, we have some reward, as you said. we want to work with companies where we think there's tremendous upside because we

will actually, part of our, we will participate in that upside as well. stuart: josh berman, sounds like a great idea. we appreciate you being with us today. thank you very much indeed. >> thank you, stuart. stuart: sure thing. take a look at peloton. i don't think we have checked that all morning. we are checking it now. it's two weeks of fallout from that ad, and the stock didn't really come back, did it. $31 per share. forget the price it went public. was it $29? i have forgotten. can't remember. but it's not done well. next one. we are going to do a deep dive into what makes the country's top economies tick. today it's indiana. we have the lieutenant governor on the show. what is the secret in indiana? farming? manufacturing? auto making? we will certainly ask. keep it here. ♪

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that takes a lot more than an alternative. so we took our worst vice, and turned it into the dna for a better system. materials made from recycled plastic - woven and molded into all the things we consume. we created bionic and put the word out with godaddy. what will you change? make the world you want. stuart: all week long we are looking at the five best performing states or the most buoyant economically states. we start with number five today and move to number one on friday. today's number five is indiana. we have with us the indiana lieutenant governor, suzanne crouch. welcome to the program. great to see you. >> thank you, stuart. thanks for having us and thanks for highlighting indiana. stuart: why not? you've got an unemployment rate

of i think 3.2%. how do you do that? >> well, what we do here in indiana is we create jobs. we understand that our future is being built today. as a result of 14 years of fiscal conservative leadership. our economy is strong and it's getting stronger. stuart: are your taxes lower than surrounding states? >> of course. absolutely. over the past 15 years, we are in double digits for cutting taxes. we have eliminated our business inventory tax, our inheritance tax. we have cut our corporate and income taxes. we have stabilized our property tax system and made indiana a right-to-work state. do you know why, stuart? because we understand that if you don't have a job and you can't put a roof over your head, food on the table and clothes on your back, little else matters and president trump understands that also, with his tax cuts and job act of 2017, we have seen indiana's economy explode.

stuart: do you think or do you have any doubt that indiana will vote for mr. trump in 2020? >> do you know what, indiana voted overwhelmingly for president trump back four years ago. in 2020 i think we will see a repeat of history. stuart: i don't know how you can get the unemployment rate down even more. 3.2% i would think is about as low as you can go. what do you say? >> well, i'll tell you what, it has presented a real challenge for us. but one that we are addressing, because as a result of that low unemployment, lower than the national average, it has created a challenge, and that challenge is getting workers skilled up and attracting more businesses and jobs to indiana. we created and attracted 31,000 jobs last year, stuart. so we believe we are up to it. we created the governor's work force cabinet and we are skilling up our unemployed and

skilling up our employable. we understand that the skills are necessary for the high-paying, high demand jobs of this century. so can we go lower? i guess time will tell. but we are rising to the occasion and taking the steps to ensure that we have the workers that indiana needs and the jobs need and businesses need when they come here. stuart: suzanne crouch, indiana's lieutenant governor, our fifth most dynamic economy of all the states in the united states, that's indiana. thanks for joining us. we appreciate you being here. thank you. >> thank you for having us, stuart. stuart: sure thing. tomorrow, number four. i'm not going to tell you who it is. nor am i going to tell you number three, number two or number one, either. more "varney" after this. ♪ most people think of verizon

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stuart: yes we do. those are people lined up for the new "star wars" movie. this is los angeles. it doesn't you can't see it until when? is it friday? susan: friday. stuart: it is mondaying. they're lining up. what do you make of that. it is tradition? a lot of fans do this hope they get invitation to see advanced screening perhaps with some of the stars or executives, maybe. stuart: if i was studio, i would pay people to line up outside. ashley: create the buzz. you don't need to do that with "star wars." stuart: you don't? ashley: no. stuart: first one came out in 77? >> '77? stuart: can i tell you the story when i went to see the movie? i was living in san francisco. i went to see the movie "star wars," you could be stoned being in that movie house, the

cinema. ashley: not much changed. >> in 1977 i wasn't alive. ashley: oh, my god. stuart: oh. ashley: my gosh. stuart: moving on. check the market please. it's a rally sports fans. there is a good reason to smile. across the board. this is significant rally. positive news on china trade. phase one done. going into phase two next year. all good stuff. no inflation. rip-roaring economy. that little thing about impeachment? forget about it. the market is rallying. we're way up on the dow, s&p and nasdaq. don't you love it. neil, it's yours? neil: stuart, thank you very, very much. all three averages, as stuart pointed out up and up a lot right now. imagine if boeing were not part of this picture. that stock sliding 11 bucks a share on concerns that the 737 max might be not flying anytime soon if at all. take that out of the equation, we would be up in excess of 250

points versus roughly 185. easily record territory. this is more with optimism about trade, earnings an consumer sentiment. housing sentiment numbers, best they have been in couple decades than anything going on with impeachment. while we're on subject of impeachment, senate likely taking up the baton in the new year, assuming house goes ahead to impeach the president of the united states,