baby boomer. but health care both politically and economically, that's going to be a boom industry. lauren: steve forbes, veronica, thank you so much for spending christmas eve with me. merry christmas to maria bartiromo. that does it for us. "varney & company" is next. david asman, good morning. david: merry christmas to you. have a wonderful one. thank you very much. good morning, everyone. i'm david asman in for stuart on this christmas eve and america is merry, and we are spending. super saturday as it turns out was a blowout. sales hit $34.4 billion. that's the biggest single retail day in u.s. history. that's a big green flag for the strength of the economy. people have money to spend, they have jobs galore. the president's tax cuts have delivered for hard-working americans and they are spending. we are expecting to hear from the president very shortly. he's going to participate in a video teleconference with members of our military. when he speaks, you will speak

it right here live. and we are looking for more market records today. the dow and s&p and the nasdaq, all expected to make records. it was a year ago today that the market was in free-fall. remember that? it was about 6,000 points lower on the dow. that is very much not the case today. "varney & company" is about to begin. david: and there is news overseas. we are watching hong kong this morning. months-long protests are flaring up once again. riot police fired tear gas at protesters this morning. we are going to be monitoring this throughout the morning right here. but let's focus on some positive news at home. a brand new sales record, super saturday sales hit $34.4 billion, the biggest single day of retail sales in u.s. history.

the figures coming from customer growth partners. joining us is retail watcher michael zacore. i've got to think this is all about the economy. we have fatter wallets because people are making more. we've had increase in wages and we have jobs galore. is that why people are spending? >> yeah, good morning. merry christmas. absolutely. you know, people -- the consumer confidence index has been up over the year, people have money to spend, they feel really confident. we predicted numbers that would be around 2.9% to 3% higher. it's actually been 3.8% higher year on year spending. david: that's about twice what you were expecting. >> that was a fairly optimistic estimate so it blew past na. but in the context, the $34 billion, it was part of the first trillion dollar holiday season in u.s. history. it means consumers during the holiday season which roughly began right before thanksgiving,

right up to today, tomorrow, last minute christmas shoppers, a trillion dollars was spent. david: that's extraordinary. have we ever done that before? >> that was a new record. david: what was the previous record? >> we have approached that number, close to 850, but this was by far a record. david: let's look at both online and brick and mortars. i understand at malls, foot traffic is down. however, the conversion rate, that is the number of shoppers that actually buy things, is up, correct? >> yeah. i think people are going to malls and department stores with intent, but they are definitely the laggards in the bigger picture here. if we look at, as part of this trillion dollars in spending, $135 billion of that was spent online this year. that's a huge number. that number grows 15%, 20% every year but it tells another story, which is, you know, you've still got roughly $850 million being spent in physical retail locations. the companies that are doing well are the companies that

blended that online to offline experience seamlessly. we look at companies like target and walmart and even amazon now -- david: costco. >> one of my favorites. these are companies that have blended the new retail which is online/offline technology and logistics for a whole new consumer experience. david: so there are enough products out there that people want to pick up, see, feel, try on, that we are not going to see the end of brick and mortars. >> no. in fact, i think this is a great time for bricks and mortar companies. yes, there are store closings, there are -- david: we will talk about some of that later. >> but i think this is a banner time for retail. the banner time for companies to reinvent with their physical locations and as long as they are integrating it with the online world and the digital experience, they have nowhere to go but up. david: hold on. we have breaking news on uber we want to tell the audience about. travis kalanick will depart the uber board of directors. uber has been through a lot of

problems recently, particularly dealing with city governments, also dealing with the pressure from unions, to unionize, to change the status of the drivers who are working for them. we will bring you more on that as we get it. let's see. go ahead. >> okay. david: scott shellady is with us now. how are you? good morning. merry christmas. what do you make of these spectacular shopping numbers? >> you know what, we finally have given the consumers in this country some certainty. that's a big deal, right. they feel secure about their position, they feel secure about their wages and their jobs. that's really where this is all coming from. then follow that with the fact that they all have jobs. the unemployment numbers are fantastic, as well as interest rates being so low, and that's where you come up with this rosy scenario with our economy and these markets. david: i want to get back to retail but first breaking news on uber, what do you think happens to this company? the whole ride sharing and it's

not just with regard to rides, it's also with regard to things like airbnb and other services that provide that sharing of property. i mean, does it have a future or is it on its way out? >> i think it's got a future but i think they have really screwed up this whole offering. you know what, uber is kind of modeling -- lyft as well -- that can be easily replicated from city to city. you can do something like that. airbnb i think, that model is going to be a little different. i think that that could be something that's really more here to stay. i like that model a lot better than the ubers of the world because again, you can kind of replicate that in a city. it's hard to do that with airbnb because you have such -- many more tentacles with folks traveling around the world looking for a place to stay. david: with kalanick dumping his stock, we now see premarket taif activity, a little upward movement in uber but with more stock in circulation, does that mean the stock's going to come down? >> well, it doesn't mean it's going to spike higher, right. that's a bad way to answer that

question. but lot of times the markets like to see, you know, get past events and that could be what the market sees with this. we are done with it and will move on. david: let's get back to the happy news which is the blowout numbers in retail. we have never seen anything like this in u.s. history. we just had michael zakkore on telling us this was 5% to 10% greater than his most optimistic projections of what was going to happen. what will keep this market going, particularly in the retail sector? >> what's going to -- well, we have to continue with the certainty. that's going to have to be something with china. we will have to continue going down that road and keep working. i don't want to be sitting here next year talking about phase 43, right. we have to kind of get on with that. number two, we need to see something happen positive with that brexit outcome. i think the world would like to see that. finally, get usmca behind us as well. so there are things out there that could also affect the market going forward, at least underpin it but i need to remind everybody, stay in their line a

little bit because the s&p is up, what, 28% for the year, the nasdaq 34%. how much more do you want right now you would take this if i told you the beginning of last year how bad we started. be careful. stocks are about to go down, and not get too greedy. it's the time of year to be humble and kind, not greedy. david: isn't that nice. you avoided the coal in your stocking this year. merry christmas to you, my friend. thank you very much. let's come back to michael. despite the blowout numbers on saturday, there are a lot of store closings going on. there are 9,300 store closing in brick and mortar. that means that it's not so rosy for a lot of people that haven't been doing it right. the sears and row bucks, what are they doing wrong, these stores? >> you keep hearing this term retail apocalypse. we have been hearing it for

awhile now. and the truth of it is, there's not a retail apocalypse. there is a store apocalypse. now, the stores that are failing have three things in common. they are legacy retailers who haven't changed who they were for the past 20 years. they were slow to adopt a digital, they were slow to integrate online and offline -- david: michael, i have to jump in because the president is speaking. again, he's in mar-a-lago down in florida speaking to our troops. let's see if we can break in and listen. >> -- making a lot of progress there. as you know, we are also reducing troop force because we were unequal what we had there and we reduced troop force and are in the process of doing that very significantly. thank you very much, general. back in the united states, we are joined by the 20th attack squadron at whiteman air force base in missouri, great state. greetings to lieutenant colonel daniel waspman and all the airmen on the air base. you know what happened, recently you helped us so much, one very very big, you crushed isis from

the air, kept the taliban running scared and conducted countless lethal aspects against the enemies of freedom. you are an incredible group and we are supremely grateful for your service and the job you do. what happened with isis was incredible. as you know, we took over 100% of the caliphate and destroyed them. that doesn't mean they don't come back in smaller sections, and we handle them as they come back. but we had 100% and al baghdadi is dead, the founder of isis. his replacement is now dead. we have our sights on the new replacement. i don't know why anybody would want that job, frankly. finally, we have -- we have with us a captain who is somebody that's so highly respected, michael frawley. everyone on the coast guard air station in alaska, we want to

thank you for your work. you conduct treacherous mountain slides, towering waves, thank you for being our faithful guardians, and you really have. the work they've done during hurricane season two years ago in texas, in particular texas, because they saved 16,000 lives. nobody understands what that means. 16,000. even me, i heard that number and i said can that be possible. 16,000. they served 16,000 lives and saved. people out at sea, people on the land, where we had that massive, probably the largest -- david: the president delivering a christmas eve message to the troops from his home at mar-a-lago, as you might remember he's one of those tax refugees from the city and state of new york, going down to florida, changing his residence. so he is now speaking from his residence in mar-a-lago to the troops. congratulating them for an extraordinary job and again, we

hope you keep our troops in your hearts. it's a christmastime they feel it the most. they need your prayers, they need your thoughts. check the futures as we go into this last trading day before the christmas holiday. we are doing quite well. it's not spectacular. you wouldn't expect it to be on christmas eve but again, when you think of what's happened in the markets, all the doomsayers proven wrong, particularly when the retail sales numbers are factored into all of this, you realize how strong the economy is, how well not only the consumers but workers are doing with their jobs, with their pays, et cetera. it's all paying off. we see all of the major indices on the plus side. this may be a record day. meanwhile, nike has released a new colin kaepernick shoe. it was an instant success. it sold out in minutes, if you can believe it. contrast that with the betsy ross flag sneaker that it released and then pulled in the summer. apparently there is something

bad about betsy ross flag and something good about the face of colin kaepernick. we are going to be asking some young americans about why that is so and whether this is a continuing trend in the new year. meanwhile, how much has president trump's tax cuts really helped the middle class? we've got the numbers on that coming up next. more "varney" after this. than you. you are my diamond. for the diamond in your life, get up to 40% off storewide or get these one of a kind deals at the "you are my diamond" event. exclusively at zales, the diamond store. (thud) (crash) (grunting) (whistle) play it cool and escape heartburn fast with tums chewy bites cooling sensation. ♪ tum tu-tu-tum tums

david: okay. check out this headline from the "wall street journal." boeing's new ceo charts own course in 737 max debacle. what does that mean? joining us is jeff wise, an aviation industry analyst. did anything surprise you about this ceo change and what does this guy have to do that the other guy wasn't? muilenburg wasn't? >> frankly, i think the thing that was most surprising about it was that it took so long for boeing to take a step like this.

boeing is a company that's been building airplanes for over 100 years, it has earned a reputation as the most reliable maker of commercial jets. yet over the last nine months, we have seen a steady erosion of that trust as the company found itself in this crisis that just seemed to get deeper and deeper and deeper. david: muilenburg is an engineer, one of the finest aviation engineers, i have been told, that there is, but he lacked a certain diplomatic skill that apparently calhoun, the new ceo, has. he's not only going to have to -- he had a conference call apparently with a few airlines yesterday just to reassure them that they are making the changes that will -- because a lot of airlines now are short airplanes because there are so many maxes that have been piling up. what's more important for him right away, to deal with the airlines or to deal with the faa? >> i think really, neither. the problem isn't a question of diplomacy, it's a question of the underlying rot. we live in -- david: rot, that's a pretty strong word. >> absolutely.

you don't get to a situation like this, a crisis of this magnitude, by accident. it's a state of corporate governance in the world today is such that there's a prioritization of short-term profit, interest of the shareholder comes first, all other considerations go by the wayside. david: including the lives of your customers? >> exactly. that's the amazing thing. when it turned out that muilenburg had allowed the coverup of damning information where engineers had tried to come forward and say hey, there's problems with the way this plane is being designed and built, and they were not forthcoming. what they need to do, to answer your question, is to be forthcoming. david: very quickly, is calhoun the person to turn this around? because what you are describing is a major turnaround of the company. >> right. they need to do a major reboot. david: is calhoun the guy to do it? >> that remains to be seen. he needs to take decisive action. david: jeff wise, aviation expert and author of "the taking of mh370" good to see you.

thank you very much for being here. switching gears to the trump tax cuts, there has been some chatter about a second round of cuts in the new year 2.0, as it is, but how much have the first round of cuts really helped the middle class? hillary vaughn is live from the white house right now. i guess the answer is quite a bit. reporter: david, that's right. of course, the more you make, the more you save under these tax cuts, because your tax bill is higher, with your higher income, but congress joint committee on taxation did give us insight into how the middle class is faring under this tax cut. if you make $20,000 to $30,000 a year on average, you saved about $186 through this tax cut. if you made $50,000 to $70,000 you saved about $840. it doesn't sound like a lot of money, it's not in the thousands but you are saving more than you were under the previous administration's tax structure and of course, if you -- you have probably seen your wages go up through this administration

as well. so you have to take that into consideration. but bottom line, the middle class is saving money under this tax cut which is something democrats argue is not happening. david? david: they are spending it, as we saw in these extraordinary saturday christmas numbers. by the way, real disposable personal income per household has increased $6,000, per household, since the tax cuts were passed. that's a lot of more cash running into the system. hillary, thank you very much. well, months-long protests are flaring up again in hong kong. joining me now on the phone is phil yin, former cctv business anchor. phil, has this been planned for awhile, the protests we are seeing today? >> hi, david. happy holidays to you. six months of this, can you believe where we're at here on new year's eve in hong kong. by the way, for your viewers, it is new year's eve evening in hong kong. it's been relatively quiet for

the past few weeks. mostly peaceful protests and today, something sparked again. i think the frustration from the protesters is they are probably thinking about 2020 now, as what have they accomplished in 2019, and they have had some accomplishments but at the end of the day, the government is still in place, which they dislike, and at the same time, there are still many questions about human rights and the way police officers treat their citizens when they go out and protest. david: the one thing that sparked the protests initially, that is the change of the law which would have allowed chinese law to override hong kong law, that was changed, correct, so they won on that major point but as the protests began to develop, so did their demands. thou those demands are the ones that haven't been met. >> there's a critical element there, i think, had that law been reversed earlier on or withdrawn, as they call it,

probably a lot of this would not have happened. now there's the greater question, whether or not the people of hong kong want to be i don't want to say under chinese rule, but under heavy influence by beijing, and unfortunately, the laws state that hong kong is a part of china, and that makes it extremely difficult for the protesters to have anything to stand on unless they are really willing to fight. as you can probably imagine, the police have all the weapons and the protesters have umbrellas. david: thank you very much from hong kong. president trump is still talking to the troops. let's listen in. >> -- with women, they are down to a 71-year low. we will soon have a his tore numb -- historic number there, if it keeps going, we will have an historic number, in the history of our country, as opposed to 71 years. 71 years is not bad. i will tell you, we have never done before. 401(k)s and jobs in the country, we have the most people working right now in the united states than we have ever had in the

history of our country, close to 160 million people. so for all of you, i just want to tell you thank you very much. you make it possible for us to do what we have to do. but our country is doing well. we are the envy of the world right now. every foreign leader that sees me, they come up and say what are you doing, congratulations, we have never seen anything like it, and they want to do it too but it doesn't work out so well for them. we are doing something that's never been done before and our numbers reflect it so you make it possible. thank you all very much. thank you. david: the president at mar-a-lago speaking to the troops. first of all, we love it when he talks about the economy and we love it when he goes off-script talking about the economy as he just did, saying that were it not for the military to provide the safety and security that we need as a free country, we wouldn't have the strong economy that we have. that's a great point to keep in mi mind. all the decisions that certainly affect the economic behavior of

the producers and the consumers in this society, but if we didn't have the underlying freedom that this country has, we wouldn't have any of it. our best wishes to the troops and of course, to the president. the opening bell just moments away. futures are up. we may end this season with another record. we will see if these numbers hold true. they are not a lot but it doesn't take much to beat a record, the one that we had yesterday. we may do it today. opening bell just moments away. we'll be right back. than you. you are my diamond. for the diamond in your life, get up to 40% off storewide or get these one of a kind deals at the "you are my diamond" event. exclusively at zales, the diamond store.

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david: dow component nike has released a new colin kaepernick shoe. it was a big hit and sold out in just minutes. joining us is lou mayone, founder of fantasy sports website sports grid. this is a stark contrast, by the way, to that betsy ross flag which they released, then they pulled it almost immediately, so why is it okay to have colin kaepernick on your shoe and not the american flag? >> it's the generation that we live in. i think it's, one, about money and you have a few that will complain to the world about what they don't like, and we somehow nowadays, we say to ourselves well, if nine people dislike something or want something, we

are going to change everything we do to appease those people. it's extraordinary. it's a shame. david: draft kings. got to ask about them going public. what do you think? >> i think it was a great day yesterday for the entire gambling community. the industry as a whole. david: you provide a lot of content for these companies. >> sure. sure. fan duel, draft kings, absolutely. we have done draft kings in the past. we are currently doing a lot with fan duel. what really happened yesterday that people have to pay attention to is that jason robbins, a friend of mine, full disclosure, went out there and knew what he needed to get done. what he did was he said okay, speed to market. i need to execute here. so they took that diamond eagle, that shell, that they knew there was about $400 million in there, went out to the marketplace, picked up about $304 million through the pipe and that was able to run the goeg forwacompa forward. david: the market just about to open but before we go, you think they will be successful?

>> absolutely. jason robbins, never count him out. david: lou mayone, great to see you. thank you very much for coming. merry christmas to you. all right. the opening bell has rung. the last bell before christmas. it looks like we will open on the plus side. all indices are showing premarket activity in the green. the dow is at about 22 right now, let's see, trading a little below that as we go. now -- nope, now it's going at 22. the s&p is also in the plus side, as you can see. we've got a predominantly green screen there. we have about eight stocks in the red. the rest are in the green. some are trying to figure out where they belong. nasdaq is in the green as well. so is s&p. check uber, if we can. can you put uber up on the screen? travis kalanick will resign from the board of directors. that has led to the suspicion as he dumps stock that perhaps the stock would down and indeed, looks like it's going down a

little bit, as we see surplus of stocks in the marketplace. we are also showing you boeing. one day after announcing a brand new ceo, of course, it was a big successful day yesterday for boeing as a lot of investors thought that maybe it's finally looking for a way to dig itself out of the max crisis that they have been in for so long. apple continues its rise, close to that 300 point level. we have $284.52. president trump is talking right now. let's go back to that. >> -- where sends me a beautiful vase as opposed to a missile test, right? i may get a vase. i may get a nice present from him. you don't know. you never know. reporter: [ inaudible ]. >> say it? reporter: are you going to pardon roger stone? >> i don't understand the question. reporter: roger stone. are you going to pardon him, sir? he's been convicted of felonies? >> am i going to pardon him? i hadn't thought of it. i think it's very tough what they did to roger stone.

compared to what they do to other people on their side. i think it's very tough. i think it's a very tough situation that they did something like that. you know, roger stone was not involved in my campaign in any way other than the very very beginning, before i think -- long before i announced a little bit. i have known roger over the years. he's a nice guy. lot of people like him. he got hit very hard, as did general flynn, as did a lot of other people that got hit very very hard and now they are finding out it was all a big hoax. they are finding out it was a horrible thing. it was spied on, my campaign was spied on and again, roger stone was not a part of it, the campaign. he was somebody i have known over the years but not a part of the campaign. very very very early on, long before -- i think long before i even announced, he was involved in a minor way. but he's a good person. what they did to him is very unfair, in my opinion. what they did to general flynn

was very unfair, in my opinion. what they did to so many others is very unfair. now we found out that a bunch of dirty cops paid for by the dnc, paid for by hillary clinton in many cases, and in much, they did a phony dossier, they used the dossier from fisa and now as you know, the fisa court and your top judge is very much involved and hopefully they are going to do something about it. but these were dirty people, these were bad people, these were evil people, and i hope that some day i'm going to consider it my greatest or one of my greatest achievements getting rid of them. because we have no place in our country for people like that. reporter: sir, what did president putin say to you that convinced you that the ukraine interfered in the 2016 election? >> what did he say to me? reporter: yes. >> about what? reporter: what did president putin say -- >> you are putting words in somebody's mouth. who are you referring to, me? i never said anything about it. i never said a thing about it. any other questions? reporter: -- hold up the

articles of impeachment indefinitely? >> all i know is my poll numbers are the highest they have ever been. our fund-raising on the republican party is the highest it's ever been. she hates the republican party. she hates all of the people that voted for me and the republican party and she's -- look, she got thrown out as speaker once before. she lost like 63 seats, 61 or 63. tremendous, a record so-setting number of seats. i think it's going to happen again. she's doing a tremendous disservice to the country. she's not doing a good job. and some people think that she doesn't know what she's doing. a lot of people think that. a lot of people have said it. they had no evidence at all. they had no crime. we had 196 or so republicans voting 100%. we didn't lose one republican vote in the house. we had three democrats come over to our side and two in another

instance, two in an additional instance, and we are in a very good position. ultimately, that decision's going to be made by mitch mcconnell and he will make it -- he has the right to do whatever he wants. he's the head of the senate. people remember they treated us very unfairly. they didn't give us due process. they didn't give us a lawyer. they didn't give us anything. now it comes to the senate, they want everything. you look back just two weeks, just look back at what they did but over a long period of time, look at what they did. we weren't entitled to witnesses, we weren't entitled to lawyers. we sat in the basement. they would leak it, we weren't entitled to do anything, they would leak selectively with a sick, corrupt politician named schiff, he's a corrupt politician. no, they did us worse than anybody's been treated from a legal standpoint in the history of the united states. that's never happened before. where you can't have a lawyer, you can't have a witness, you can't have time, even recently when they had the constitutional

lawyer, they got three lawyers, we got one. fortunately, our one lawyer was better than their three. and we also had a much better case. we have a perfect case. i say it again. we have a perfect case. they have no case. but they had three lawyers, we were allowed one. think of that. they had three lawyers, constitutional lawyers, and each one spoke for an extended period of time. we had one lawyer. what do you think of that. so now they get to the senate. and now we have the majority and it's up to mitch mcconnell. and we have the majority and now they want mcconnell to do wonderful things for them. i mean, he's going to do what he wants to do. smart guy, very good guy, very fair guy, but they treated us very unfairly and now they want fairness in the senate. they ought to look back at the last year to see how they hurt this country. fortunately, we have a president that was able to plow through all of the stuff that went on

and goes on and also, tremendous amounts of information are being written about even by the fake news concerning fisa, concerning dirty cops, the people that started this whole thing. what they've done to this country is incredible and hopefully it's going to be taken care of. the attorney general is working and everybody's working but if you just go because i like to stay out of it, i do stay out of it, if you just go by what you see in the papers, it's incredible what's going on. we have dirty cops, we have people spying on my campaign. they did terrible things. the likes of which have never been done in the history of our country. very sad. all right. have a good time, everybody. merry christmas. david: president talking about all things political, talking about the impeachment, about roger stone who once worked with his campaign, who of course was convicted recently, whether he would pardon him. he didn't say he even thought about that.

wishing everybody merry christmas. let's see if we can hear -- reporter: will you sign it during xi jinping? >> we will get together. we will have a quicker signing because we want to get it done. the deal is done. it's just being translated right now. okay? thank you. david: talking about the deal being done. that may be the hidden message there in all of this. he was talking about china saying the deal had been done and had been signed, but in fact, there were some dots to be made and some ts to be crossed. we saw the market's down a little bit, at least one of the indexes is now positive, the nasdaq. we will wait and see how it digests this news from the president. again, very often the news comes at the end of a press conference as we just heard. the president suggesting that the deal is done with china. meanwhile, franklin graham is speaking out in defense of president trump after a scathing op-ed in "christianity today," a magazine founded by his late

father, the reverend billy graham, which was critical of the president. graham is going to be joining us in the next hour. and millions of little boys and girls eagerly anticipating presents from santa on christmas morning. norad is tracking officially jolly old st. nick as he spreads cheer around the world. we will be checking in on santa's progress coming up with a four-star general. he's headed to russia. last minute christmas shoppers helped super saturday set brand new u.s. sales records. we have the extraordinary numbers coming next.

david: it's a slow day, as one would expect on christmas eve. markets are, i would say, just about flat to negative. the dow jones industrial was down double digits, now it's down six points, all of six points. nasdaq was briefly positive. may be a little bit of sell the news, buy on the rumor, sell on the news.

we had rumors of what super saturday did but then we got these blowout numbers. 34.4 billion. that is the biggest retail day in u.s. history. an extraordinary number, far surpassing the best estimates of a lot of retail experts we have talked to. meanwhile, president trump was just speaking about how extraordinary the numbers are in the economy, doing very well, telling the u.s. military to which he was speaking that were it not for them, we wouldn't have numbers to talk about at all. so we do wish our very best to the men and women in service to our country. meanwhile, shah gilani is standing by with reaction to these extraordinary retail numbers. shah, i'm just curious, what are the stock implications of these retail numbers? >> good morning, david. nice to see you. happy holidays to you. i think it bodes well for the market. have i been calling for the market to go up at least another 10%. this is part of the fundamental background that the market has

been leaning on, strong consumer. these kind of numbers are extraordinary, especially in terms of the fact we have six fewer shopping days this year from thanksgiving to christmas. so these numbers are brilliant. i think after the season, we get the grand total of numbers, i think investors will be surprised about how strong the consumer position has been and how much spending has occurred. i think that's going to bode well for the market because again, consumer is sfe % 70% of growth and growth is strong and steady. consumer wages are increasing, unemployment at 50 year lows, we have nowhere to go but up in the market. david: nobody would be able to buy anything unless they had jobs, and jobs is really the reason i think people feel comfortable spending and again, as you mentioned, the wallets are fatter this year, right? >> well, again, the fundamentals in terms of the economy are all there. the president has done a remarkable job of guiding the economy higher and the markets, too. in terms of the markets, we see lower interest rates for longer and that again, is a great fundamental basis for stocks to go higher, but again, it's

really about the economy growing at probably 2%, 2.5%, maybe 3% clip for the rest of the year, probably into 2020. manufacturing i think is picking up. so all the things that people were a little nervous about, maybe those recession fears were put out there falsely, the fake recession narrative, that's behind us now. the fake recession narrative and the manufacturing, you know, bust, behind us now. i think as far as the first quarter goes, we are going to see spectacular numbers in terms of earnings. david: stay with us, shah. i want to bring in robert moran with brunswick group. robert, were you expecting these blowout numbers, 34.4 billion, the best in u.s. retail history? >> so yeah, i actually was expecting these numbers, because the fact is if you look at the consumer confidence data, and all the polling we have about how families are feeling about their paychecks and the economy, it's actually really positive. there's a huge argument for

optimism here. you know, on christmas eve. i mean, if you look at the data, just the economic data we have just in the last couple days, and there's a ton of it, home builders are registering their highest spike since november -- from november of last year, highest spike to 104.7. you have going back to 1999, the highest rating for home builders. you have small business optimism spiking. you have consumer confidence spiking. and if you look just at the consumer confidence numbers from the university of michigan, they are in the same range as the consumer confidence we saw in the 1997 to 2000 range. so you have a huge amount of data that we are getting showing that consumers are really going into this shopping season really confident and looking forward to the new year, and i think the big x factor here is, as you

just heard, getting some kind of a trade truce in the u.s./china trade war. i think that takes some deceleration -- decelerating pressure off of the economy. it gives it some pop. david: sounds like this is just the beginning. we will wait and see what happens for the rest of the holiday season. robert, thank you very much. i want to check on tesla now. we saw it in a record yesterday, hit that $420 mark which if you remember, is the mark that mr. musk said he wanted the stock to be at to take it private. now, of course, that particular tweet got him in a lot of trouble, had him leaving one of his top positions with the company. kristina partsinevelos was there watching it all unfold. at the time, it seemed like pie in the sky, but did it? kristina: we actually saw in the past few months, the stock has climbed about 80%, up over the past year, 140%. he even tweeted out after it hit that 420 mark, oh, so high because he's making fun of the fact it has to do with pot and

he smoked pot on joe rogan's podcast but overall, the company itself has had a management shift that nobody is talking about. just yesterday, there was a german newspaper, another executive leaving the company that's based in california. nobody seems to mind as much. yet you are seeing this stock rally. just over the past 52 weeks or so, you also had elon musk weighing in within the past 24 hours saying he is not an investor so please delete that from his wikipedia page. instead he's invested or is responsible for this company, he wants that removed. he would rather be a business magnate. with regards to taking it private, that's a stretch. david: shah gilani, what do you think? he made the $420 mark. a lot of people said they wouldn't do it. it did it. now that it's at $420 or close to it, do you think it is going to go private? >> i don't think so. because the company is carrying too much debt. kristina might have addressed this. the stock i think has gone up considerably because of the fact there's a huge short position in

the stock, something like 20% plus of the stock's floating shares have been shorted. david: short sellers have done terribly, shah. >> but they are still out there. they are still out there and still adding fuel. i think that's fuel for the stock to go higher. every time there's positive news on the stock or elon musk tweets something positive or considered to be positive, the shorts have to cover. this is going to continue to go forward, i think. the stock has been the beneficiary of all the shorts. david: shah, very quickly, the rally that we saw, the buying rally in terms of super saturday, $34.4 billion, do you think that's just a harbinger of what's going to happen in 2020 retail? >> i do. i think the consumer is in a very enviable position. best position consumers have been in in several years. i think that bodes well for the economy, for the stock market. yes. i think there's a lot more purchasing to go. i think the first quarter is going to be great for the consumer, too, then i think we got the rest of the year i think is going to be a positive. again, blue skies, i think, for the market for consumers, for

the economy. david: shah gilani, great to see you. thank you very much. kristina, thank you. check the dow 30. we are down about 35 points right now. again, it might be sort of a sell on the news, great news on the economy. not a very bad day in terms of a negative day, but a significant turn to the downside. we saw something positive in premarket activity, all the indices were up, all the indices right now are down but not by much. coming up, a feel-good story on christmas eve. tossing loose change in a jar in your kitchen can help make someone's christmas a lot better. it's a simple gesture that most of us can do and it's inspired a book and now a new movie. that story coming next. ♪ ♪

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["thrift shop" (instrumental) by macklemo♪e and ryan lewis] david: we celebrate success on this program and right now, we have an amazing american success story with a lot of good things to feel about on this christmas. the book, there is a book out called "christmas jars" which has sold over a million copies. it was inspired by a family experience. author jason wright is here to tell us about it. there is also a movie we can talk about as well. but it's a very simple concept. if you don't mind me saying so, you get a jar, fill it full of

money and you decide for yourself how charitably it can be spent, right? >> yeah, that's right. this all started 15 years ago in 2004. my family was looking to add a little color to our holidays. we put a jar on our counter, we filled it up every day from about mid-october until christmas eve, then exactly 15 years ago tonight, we gave away that first christmas jar and it's not hyperbole to say that that experience of giving that jar away anonymously, it only had about $90, it changed us forever. it led to the idea to maybe fictionalize our story into a little novel and tonight in a few hours, we will deliver on year 15, another wright family christmas jar to a needy family in my community, and many people around the world are doing the same thing. in fact, some are watching right now, probably giving or received a jar over the last decade. david: i love this idea. i have to tell you that without knowing about your novel, we have been doing the same thing in our house for awhile now,

just putting money in a jar and we have family in nicaragua which desperately needs money right now so a dollar here goes a long way in a place like -- so it doesn't even have to be in this country where you spend that money, but nobody knows how to spend charity money better than you do. you spend money and i mean you to the folks out there watching, the idea is there's no overhead to this, no administrative costs, you do it all yourself. >> absolutely right. yeah. it's this, you know, if you like writing a check to your favorite charity, there's nothing wrong with that. but this is almost like an investment, isn't it? it's just accumulated kindness, a little bit of kindness every day, it's exponential, it grows, you give it away, people pay it forward and we estimate, based on the number of people who have e-mailed us their stories at christmasjars.com that somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 million has been given away in change since 2005, when the book first came out. now there's a movie, people don't like to read, check out

the movie and stream it for free for the rest of the year. it's a great gift to the christmas jars community. yeah. david: jason wright, it's a terrific idea. we hope more people do it. thank you for joining us. appreciate it. merry christmas to you. >> thank you. merry christmas to you. david: last year, americans spent $72 billion on their pets. a good chunk of that went to putting pets up in pet boarding services. we are going to be talking to the owner of one of those businesses coming up. and evangelical leaders are speaking out on a controversial "christianity today" op-ed critical of president trump. franklin graham is supporting the president. he's going to be joining us in the second hour of "varney & company" straight ahead. . .

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super saturday was a blowout. americans spent record $34.4 billion. that is a huge record. we have more on that in a few moments. president trump last hour held a videoconference call with members of the military, wished them a merry christmas, thanked them for ire service and touted economy. the second hour of "varney & company" is just getting started. ♪. david: we are just about flat on this christmas eve, which is pretty much where everybody expected it to be despite spectacular news on sales numbers on super saturday. the market is flat to down right now t was up in premarket activity. now it is trading a little bit down. check uber. cofounder, former ceo travis

kalanick announced he is departing the board of directors, selling his shares. not having much of an influence. a lot of people thought the stock would be down. morning stocks in the marketplace usually mean a dilution in share price but not today. americans spending hugely so far. super saturday sales hit $34.4 billion. that is the biggest single day in retail history, according to customer growth partners. we have market watcher dr barton. good to see you. you brought us haves and have-nots but first of all, your feelings what you saw from these blowout numbers? >> yeah. it's really quite impressive, david. you know, we had a really good, we had a really good black friday, 31.3 billion. cyber monday was the biggest cyber monday ever at 11.8 billion. we get the numbers.

top all of them by a lot. big up swing. 58% of that move being as described to online traffic. but malls seen some up tick too. so i think the consumer confidence numbers that you talked about just a few minutes ago on the show are really flaying into this. people see the 401(k)s pretty flat right now because of the market. a lot of good stuff happening. david: very merry this holiday season. you have retail haves and have-nots. let's start with the haves. >> one of plays i like going into 2020, david, amazon. everybody knows about amazon but if you look back since last year's lows, we had the lows of christmas eve of 2018 when people were gnashing their teeth amazon gained the least among all the big megatechs in that time frame. i think amazon lagging in there

will pick back up. i like amazon at these levels. i like the stock. david: it is up 40% from a year ago. extraordinary number. but we had put up, before best buy and target as two of your have stocks. why? >> yeah. they are. you know, best buy continues to be the, really only national footprint place where you can to, you know, see, hear, touch electronics before you buy them that continues to give them a strong advantage. their numbers are good. their same-store sales keep surprising people all year. the stock is just still going straight up. i like riding momentum. target is a doing a great job executing at both the online, in store levels. they're doing a great job, keeping those stores full of people. david: very quickly, your have-nots? >> yeah. you got to avoid the big mall footprint stores, david.

abercrombie & fitch, a and f, avoid macy's this is no time for bottom-fishing. play with the companies doing well and executing well. don't try to dig for value in the garbage bin with some of those stocks. david: any disclosures on stocks that you mentioned? >> yes. the company is long target and best buy and amazon. i'm personally long amazon. david: great to see you, dr. oh, number one, you have another one, dr, president trump held a videoconference speaking to military members. he touched on the economy. let's play the tape. i want to get your reaction. >> our country has never done better economically. we set a stock market record yesterday. that would be the 135th in less than three years of my presidency. we never had a economy anywhere close to this. our unemployment numbers are the best we ever had. david: what do you think about that, dr? he is running for president.

he is touting his own, running for re-election, touting his own history. it has been a terrific history, the economy since he took over, right? >> well, it certainly has. you know, i think the main thing that the democrats have to worry about in 2020 is not impeachment, which we all know is not going to happen, not going to make it through the senate. it is not what is happening with "green new deals" or any of those things. the main thing they have to worry about, is that americans are looking at their 401(k)s and seeing them really blown out, really nice, and they're seeing that they're not having trouble getting jobs. they're actually stepping up to higher level jobs because, labor force is so tight. all of those things so positive, david. david: dr barton, have a wonderful holiday. great to see you. thank you very much for being here. switching gears to the trump tax cuts, there has been a chatter about a second round of

cuts in the percent of the year but how much have the cuts helped middle class. hill vaughn from the white house. reporter: hi, david. when you dig out the numbers, middle-class families save through the tax cut more than others in the same tax bracket. look at someone single, makes $30,000 a year, does not have kids, under previous administration they would pay $6600 in taxes. under trump tax cut they are paying $6200, saving 370 in the tax cut. compare that to someone single, two kids, makes $52,000 a year, under the previous law they were paying $9100. the tax cut and jobs act brings that down to 7200. so they're saving over $1800 through the tax cut. we, take a look at someone single, makes $75,000, does not have kids, they're saving about

1700 cuts. married family, two children, making $85,000 a year, they're saving over $2200 a year through the tax cut. david? david: that is significant. hillary, thank you very much. house counsel saying president trump could be impeached again even if he is reelected. joining us brad blakeman, former deputy assistant to bush 43. i'm looking permanent impeachment. if he is reelected we could have a couple more of these before his term is out. >> they can't even walk the papers over to the senate in order to give the president a full and fair trial should the senate choose to do that. david: what is the latest, what is the latest on what speaker pelosi is doing in terms of delaying the appointment of house managers? >> i think she is delaying the inevitable. they're trying to muscle senator mcconnell. they have no leverage at all. senator mcconnell stated quite

emphatically he doesn't care if he ever gets the articles of impeachment. i don't think they know what they're doing. i think they're panicking. they're seeing polling numbers. the american people reject the removal of the president. i quite frankly as a lawyer believe the charges as they exist don't meet the threshold of the congressional standard of high crimes and misdemeanors. i would dismiss it on its face. david: brad, if you could hang in there for a second. we want to go back live to hong kong where the protests have begun again. i believe we have some live pictures from hong kong. there we have it. once again, the protesters had let everybody know in tweets and other social media contacts these things were going to flare up again. we haven't seen the kind of violence in terms of fires and direct confrontations between police an protesters we saw earlier, but these things continue, despite the fact that the people of hong kong, many of them, are trying to get along

with their lives, particularly their work lives. businesses, a lot of businesses, feel like the protesters may have overstepped their boundary in terms of going a little too far but again the communist chinese seem intent doing what they can to take over hong kong even before they had planned to do so or pledged to do so years ago when they took it over from the british. all right. let's go back to brad blakeman if i can. brad, i want to know what your thoughts are about democrats, if they in fact suffer consequences of what they are doing with impeachment, if they do suffer those consequences, in this election coming up and lose the house, for example, will we see the reemerge ends of a more centrist centrist democratic party? >> i think they have no choice but to move to the center. i think the american people

solely reject a socialist democratic party. years ago, if you called a democrat a socialist you were defaming them. today they get angry if you don't. the fact of the matter if they nominate somebody at their convention, that is unelectable, they have no choice but to reevaluate their party. they're in a crisis mode right now as to who and what they stand for. david: okay. by the way, we are continuing to shop pictures what is happening in hong kong. these are live pictures, the situation is, the protesters are out again, not particularly in the numbers. the police and other officials as you can see, kind of playing cat-and-mouse with the protesters. protesters look to be actually chasing after some of the police and emergency vehicles but we don't know how long that will last. we don't see the kind of rioting we saw in the past. i'm wondering, brad, do you think what is happening in hong kong is going to eventually play in any way to the election

rhetoric? >> well i think it does because we must stand for human rights. we must stand for the protesters against the crackdown of mainland china on hong kong. this is something that is fundamental. i think president trump has played it exactly correctly. he has done it with great restraint but i think he has deliver ad clear message to president xi we're watching, we're concerned and we care. i think we must stand with the protesters. we must reject violence on both sides but we must stand for freedom and basic human rights. david: as we've seen, one of the moisturing moments that we've seen a lot of these protests for americans anyway, when we see them bring out the american flag. sometimes even singing "the star-spangled banner" as they face off with police. the president himself has mentioned this but the president's in kind of a bind here in terms of trying to,

trying to actually do the best he can to placate the chinese as he is working on a trade deal while at the same time, appreciating what it is the protesters are doing? >> no doubt about it, but the president, i think has sent clear messages both affirmatively, publicly, and also diplomatically directly to the president and others in china, not only are we watching, the whole world is watching. so they have to act with great restraint. they have to also turn back some of their policies that may work well in minute land china but have no place in hong kong. david: stay with us. now we're looking by the way at what appear to be, i can't tell whether that is trash on the street? that appears to be trash spread out on the streets by protesters. keith fit jerrold joining us on the phone. is there any implication to the markets? hard to tell whether that is

reaction what is happening in hong kong but the market have been sensitive various times to these protests? >> well they are. the interesting think about it, not protests themselves that will kick off activity. it will be china's reaction to the protests that will jar traders. so far we haven't seen that happen. david: what could happen with regard to the protesters? could we see the wholesale shutdown of hong kong as a financial trading center in the far east? >> i don't think we will get to that without a few intermediate steps. my deepest fear we get tianamen square 2.0. i think china is acutely conscious the world doesn't want to see that. i think they know if they roll tanks in the streets that is what is going to happen. i think they are doing logically what they can to avoid it. short of that, traders view this very much as domestic chinese problem, rightly or wrongly. david: i honestly don't think they have the stomach for that kind of confrontation as of yet.

if things get out of hand, perhaps. there are also people in hong kong that feel protesters at least during the last couple rounds got too violent, stopped too much economic activity. it really came to a standstill. there was pushback. wasn't that the people were supporting the communist chinese, trying to rein in a little bit the protests that turned violent? >> you know that matches the information i'm getting from hong kong, spending a lot of time there as well, both and the mainland. they don't want to push beijing's buttons. they want to make the point. that democracy has a place in hong kong and don't do that through violence. in the protest community they're trying hard to self-police for lack of a better term. lauren: makes you wonder, it is christmas eve night in hong kong. protests turn a little more violent when the sun goes down. but they're protesting, the

police are reacting on a holiday in a very busy shopping district. imagine earlier many folks getting last minute christmas presents. you're watching these protests. david: yeah. lauren: i'm on twitter looking at some images that we cannot show you on tv. it is disturbing stuff. so waiting on potential china response to this. it doesn't look like 2020 will be a year of reconciliation. david: it doesn't, although i must say maybe it is temporary. at least at moment doesn't appear protests are violent as last, particularly the protesters track over the university. we saw deadly confrontations as of yet. who knows how this thing could spin out of control. we'll keep an eye on what is happening in hong kong. we want to switch gears what is happening in europe and socialism is apparently on the outs in europe in a lot of places. lauren, what is going on? lauren: ground zero for

socialism is what is happening in uk. labour party losing severely to boris johnson. now we're handling brexit negotiations. when voters in the uk saw what labour leader jeremy corbyn offered, promise of a socialist revolution, nationalizing everything, they are responding but we're seeing this throughout europe. in germany they have more high-skilled workers to blue-collar workers. the blue-collar workers remain, they're not supportive of socialism as they were in the past. more anti-immigration now. if you go more east, we're seeing this in countries like poland and romania as well. david: unlike the united states, they lived through socialism. they lived through national socialism in germany. they lived through communist socialism in the east. they lived through the socialism light of the uk. but during the heart of their sort of welfare state experiments, that country was close to ruin at various points. lauren: thanksgiving husband. my husband's side of family

comes from yugoslavia. there was political debate, democrats versus republicans. we fled that from yugoslavia. that is why everybody came here. and everybody shut up. david: check out an opinion headline from the "wall street journal." quote, venezuela desperately seeking dollars. joining us mary an stacia. what is going on in venezuela? >> the regime is starting to use the dollar. for years, dollar sim pearlists. they tried to make it illegal. but they're allowing it to circulate. in conjunction with that they have taken off price controls. the economy is still in terrible shape but the shelves are not bare anymore. there is some food. david: what is happening with cuba? cuba relied to a large extent during the '80s they were relying on the soviet union for

oil. when chavez came in venezuela they switched to venezuela. now their oil supplies are must be getting short? >> they're still getting oil from venezuela. they're the key reason why venezuela -- david: explain. >> they run the intelligence network. this is through cyberspace and ears and eyes on the ground. infiltrated all different institutions that keep your identity cards. they completely have infiltrated the military, the venezuelan military. if you get caught say to someone else how you don't like things, you're going to the dungeon. people are terrified. this put such a chill on the country, the military, many rank-and-file would like to see a change are afraid to move. david: n.o.w. on the positive side in latin america, there was another "wall street journal" article that said that the left, the pink tide way they redescribed it is receding a little bit.

they pointed to bolivia, brazil's lula. what do you think of that? >> i don't agree. morales fell because they didn't pay the police enough. david: is it that simple. >> basically the police and military are the ones that keep dictators in power. in venezuela, in nicaragua. you also see, for example, chile, the fastest, growing most prosperous economy in south america is under assault. they're being forced to rewrite their constitution. it will be loaded with socialist diatribes and populism and it's, chile will not become venezuela. it will become argentina, which is very discouraging thing. you do have the socialists coming back into power in argentina. you have a socialist president in mexico. so the idea -- david: all is not copastetic. >> not at all. david: marianne o'grady, good to

see you. let's get back to hong kong. these are live shots. protests are flaring up once again. appears might be more violence. 11:19 in the evening. they're closer to christmas day. things are not looking too merry in hong kong. china watcher gordon chang joins us on the phone. what is going on? >> there were -- [inaudible]. there were protesters in the malls but everything was peaceful until the hong kong police entered. after that there have been a number of violent clashes. so you know at the present time appears that the police -- [inaudible]. this comes after a series of bigger protests on the street over the weekend. those were sparked by hong kong -- [inaudible]. david: okay. you're breaking up a little bit on the phone, gordon.

try to move to a different location as i describe what we're seeing here. this is live action that you're looking at. history unfolding in hong kong as once again the protesters are literally taking on the police. in some cases trying to run down some of the police vehicles which is an impossible thing to do. but these, we always remember tianamen, that one protester in beijing facing off with a tank. so you see extraordinary acts of courage as these protesters in hong kong are taking to the streets again. the question is, how far the chinese government is going to push back. gordon i will try you again. with regard to the chinese reaction to this, of course we see these military people, they are supposed to be hong kong police but how much of what we're seeing from the officials facing off with the protesters are actually chinese main land communist party officials? >> well, you know, david, there has been suspicion, though never

been proved that there are chinese troops or chinese policemen wearing hong kong police uniforms and these reports which started circulating months agco insided with the hong kong police no longer wearing their identification number. clearly something is going on. we haven't been able to prove it but, i think that essentially china has deployed its forces in the guise of hong kong police. david: gordon, what about the pushback from the chinese government? we haven't seen a tianamen, thank god yet. we have seen deadly clashes. those have been horrific, we're liking major police vehicles. i never seen a vehicle like that before. that is a significant vehicle. it looks like it has water cannon capability on top. we'll see what happens as that is being used by the police and the military. is, are we coming to the point where we are likely to see some kind of tianamen-like clash in

hong kong? >> yeah. i don't think so, david, the reason is, i believe that china knows that if it were to do that there would be among other things, protracted warfare. this would not be tianamen, which is unrestricted killing of beijing citizens and demonstrators by the peoples liberation army. in hong kong you have a lot of apartment buildings. each one of them is -- [inaudible] china would take significant casualties. i don't think xi xinping chinese ruler dope want to bring home chinese boys and girls in body bags. i think they will hold on as they are right now but i don't see any significant deployment of troops. david: gordon, i must point out, you see the technology of these police officers or military officials whoever they are, you realize that the technology that has been, sort of transplanted to china, partly because of

their theft of our intellectual property but, some of it developed on their own, so often used military purposes there isn't much after distinct of private technologies in china and the government itself? >> no there isn't because xi xinping has a policy called civil military fusion. that means that everything that civilian enterprise develops is available to the chinese military. especially in the research -- [inaudible]. institutions which are nominally civilian have basically linked with the peoples liberation army. so this is extensive in china. people say that there really is no distinction between the military and -- [inaudible] david: with what about the people of hong kong, gordon? there is some suggestion that the protests got so violent last time with a takeover of that university, pushback from that

by the government, that people were beginning to grow weary of protesters themselves, what do you say? >> that has not occurred, david. that might very well occur in our society but people in hong kong i think are starting to understand this is their last stance. we saw in the district council elections at the end of november, you know, there was about 88, 89% of the votes for pro-democracy candidate. that came after the standoff at hong kong polytechnic university which you were referring to. so although you might think that would occur it hasn't. one other thing, david, the protest movement in hong kong is generally realized that the 2014 occupy protest failed because the pro-democracy forces started squabbling among themselves. this time there is remarkable unity among the pro-democracy camp even though they disagree about tactics, they're sticking together because they realize

what happened five years ago. david: gordon chang. thank you very much for joining us. we may come back to you as events develop. we'll keep a close eye what's happening with hong kong. but we have to take a short break. you don't want to miss a thing going on there. this is on christmas eve, hong kong, 2019. we'll be right back. start your next chapter with a legend. give her an engagement ring that says, "our love is legendary. our love is a diamond." the marilyn monroe collection of fine jewellery. exclusively at zales, the "diamonds are a girl's best friend" store. most people think as a reliable phone company. but to businesses, we're a reliable partner. we keep companies ready for what's next. (man) we weave security into their business.

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david: these are live shots from hong kong, ladies and gentlemen. it is christmas eve in hong kong at 11:27 in the evening, 11:28 in the evening. the police are pushing back. live shots from hong kong as action is taking place in hong kong. phil yen is on the phone. we'll keep pictures up. we may be seeing things you cannot there in hong kong. i'm just wondering by the way, as we look at pictures halfway around the globe, from the streets of hong kong, are you guys blacked out there in terms of what you can see of these protests? >> well, no. people can see the protests freely. there is a lot of live protests streaming on international news

stations and also via the internet but i will say this, it is extremely disappointing after six months of protests that the culmination of violence taking place on christmas eve, there is an area, i don't know if you viewers can see, but there is detention area where a lot of the students have been arrested, and a lot of protesters have con con -- congregated around the areas where the detention centers are. that is a point of conflict. david: we've seen what look like makeshift detention centers. polices with little carveouts from the buildings there in hong kong that have been surrounded by police. protesters con congregating in those areas. is that what you're speaking off? >> there is not just one area of protest but multiple areas

around hong kong. think of manhattan, different boroughs of the city under protest. it is not just one area. of course on television we can only see one or two areas at a time but there is a lot of frustration out there. i think this is the culmination of six months of protesting. you and i talked about, yes the government has acquiesced to some of the demands but for the protesters there is this still overriding burden or weight on the shoulders as to what china might do next, especially as we look to 2020. david: how are the protesters, you mentioned that, like manhattan, like new york have many boroughs where some of this is taking place. how are they coordinating their activities? >> well it is difficult for both the police and the protesters. you know the police obviously have the latest state of the art equipment in surveillance in addition to obviously having guns and weapons. the protesters have, it has been

a bit of a grassroots effort. they haven't been all that well-organized with the one exception of when they have large weekend protests. when it comes to evenings like this, as you can imagine, phones and different social media are being monitored by the authorities. so it does make it difficult for the protesters to assemble. quite frankly, that is exactly what the police want. they don't want them assembling in major centers. they're using the law of freedom of assembly, or in this case, non-freedom of assembly saying that urbanned to congregate in public areas as a group. david: this is happening tragically on christmas eve. that is the last thing you do as we celebrate the king of peace to get involved in any kind of violent clashes. will this endure, do you think, through the holidays, through

christmas day itself? >> one thing we've noticed with the protests is that many are, participants are the students. when the students are not in school, or when the workers have time off, obviously they are more free to protest. so during the holidays, although you might think it is kind of a quiet time, the holidays are the time that everyone has that time off and they have the freedom to protest during those times. so, in other words, don't assume just because it is holiday that is it is going to be peace and quiet. david: phil, i'm looking at one police, i guess he is police, i don't know if he is military, now they zoomed back, he was pointing his long gun, his rifle directly at protesters. that might have been a tear gas gun, not a gun shooting bullets, but i'm not sure. any reports of any shootings by authorities on protesters

tonight? >> so for your viewers, just to give you are an idea, there are multiple types of weapons the police use. one is a traditional tear gas gun you and i have seen on television is number of times. the other is sort of a sandbag gun, they shoot you with a mini sandbag, it kind of stuns you. the third one is a rubber bullet. so it looks like a regular rifle. actually it's a rubber bullet. the fourth kind, a normal rifle gun that is an actual bullet. we don't know at this point if they are actual bullets or they are rubber bullets. we know in the past, both have been used. they have been using rubber bullets, real bullets, what seems more frequently of late. david: irony of this happening on the eve of christmas where the king of peace was born. phil yin, thank you very much.

we'll stay in touch as these developments continue in hong kong. lauren, we were talking about how hong kong is a very religious place. there are a lot of churches there but what is happening with those churches on christmas eve? lauren: a lot of masses, have half as many midnight masses last year because of fears of protest but i was looking especially as the cameras were zooming in at some of the people caught up not necessarily partaking in these protests, caught up trying to get out of the subway station for instance. you do see tourists and you see families. this is when families go to the main center of town at night to watch christmas lights or go to midnight mass in less than half an hour from now. this is what they're confronted with. how does this affect business in the city going forward? phil told us students are off. this is festive time of the year. this is a time to mass in large

numbers to make the point seen and heard. but it is also a holiday. what does it do for business and a way of life? david: you make a terrific point. we are less than a half hour from midnight mass. there are a lot of catholic churches in hong kong. cardinal zin in hong kong has been very vociferious in protests against the vatican for making deals with the communist chinese government as protests continue in hong kong but what happens to those churches planning midnight mass, as you say, half of them are now closed? lauren: the exact numbers, half are closed. they are down to 20 late night services this year. last year it was 38. david: pray for the folks in hong kong, particularly those trying to go to midnight mass. curtis ellis, former trump campaign trade advisor joining us now. he has been quite vocal what china is all about. we're seeing some of what china is all about as protests

continue in the streets of hong kong. curtis, your reaction what we're seeing on christmas eve? not the kind of thing you like to report on on christmas eve. >> this is shocking, it is despicable, and totally in character of the nature of the chinese communist regime. it is no -- it is no accident and it is no coincidence. look, the chinese communist party has a hostility toward religion. we saw just 24 hours ago the protesters in hong kong came out in support of the repression of the uyghurs, muslim ethnic, ethnic muslims in northwest china being entered in concentration camps. that was met with brutality of so-called hong kong police which may well be peoples liberation army troops and now, the eve of christmas, the, as you put it, the birth of the prince of

peace, the chinese communist party is reacting again with hostility. remember secretary of state pompeo said the centerpiece of our foreign policy will be, our human rights policy will be religious freedom and that is something that the chinese communist regime is inherently hostile towards. again as secretary of state pompeo put it, they believe that people should worship government, not god and, therefore they must crush religion. any expression of religion is a time for them to move into action. it is really, really horrifying. david: it is hard to know what will happen as developments keep turning more violent it seems as these protests continue in hong kong. but if, in fact, it goes from bad to worse, how does this affect, if at all, our trade deals? >> well more and more people are going to be asking why are we doing business with a regime

that persecutes people of faith, whether it is throwing christian pastors in jail or throwing muslim uyghurs in concentration camps. by the way those camps, this goes right to the trade issue, the labor, the forced labor, the prison labor in those concentration camps are producing clothing which is being shipped to the united states. customs and border patrol had to turn back shipments of clothing, baby pajamas to be sold at costco. branded school team jerseys to be sold at american universities, produced by prison labor and only crime those prisoners committed was having religion. so people are going to be asking, this is beyond trade. why are we doing any business at all with a regime a criminal regime like this? david: let me ask about your former boss, president trump, how should he respond to what is happening in hong kong?

>> oh, president trump has held a very tough line against china and he has made very clear he doesn't want to see brutality and violence being used to solve the issues that are going on there. so he will hold the line and, i'm very confident he will. and you see that his other, other members of his administration, secretary of state mike pompeo, vice president pence, have been very vocal about these issues. david: certainly secretary pompeo made some very, very critical comment about repression in the communist regime and that of course echoes loudly tonight in hong kong on this christmas eve. curtis ellis, thank you very much. appreciate you joining us. i want to bring in young america's foundation spokesperson, spencer brown. he joins us.

spencer looking at those protesters in hong kong, realizing those people are young people like yourself, your thoughts? >> you mentioned break time for the students. young people looking at future of their country, realizing if they don't take to the streets to fight for their freedom they might knot be able to enjoy it like their parents or grandparent did. incredibly inspiring to see young people taking interest. in united states, a lot of young people a a apathetic in the freedom. this is a great display what freedom means all over the world. david: we're looking right now at the march of the military into the protesters. again, we can't see beyond the barricade there, that cement barricade but we are seeing things turn from bad to worse. stay with us if you can, spencer. we want to bring in special guest, the reverend franklin graham who we brought in to speak about the flap with

christianity today. we hope we will have time to talk about that but we want to talk about what is happening in hong kong. to see this happen, mr. graham on christmas eve itself, is tragic, is it not? >> it is and i would encourage people to pray for the leadership in beijing and for the leadership there in hong kong, that they can find a peaceful resolution to these issues. and i believe if we pray, god will answer these prayers. there are many christians in hong kong. i preached in hong kong. there are a lot of wonderful churches that are there. these people are very, i mean, they have been persecuted. we see this persecution taking place in many areas of china and we just need to pray that god will give wisdom to the leaderships in beijing. the bible tells us to pray for

those in authority, whether our president or those in authority in china. we're commanded by god to pray. david: there have been attempts to make deals. we're trying to make a trade deal with the communist government of china right now, a very important one. it's a huge country. the catholic church though has made some deals with the communist government that have not turned out too well. in fact they gave the communist government authority to play a part in choosing of cath lech -- cath bishops on the chinese main land. they feel that this was a sellout to the communist government. is there any deal you can make with a communist government that uses repression as a form of politics? >> that is a tough question. we make deals all the time with countries that have repressive

ghosts who have been doing this forever. i think china, we can make deals with them and i hope that the deals are done in such a way like a carrot and a stick, if you do this, we can do that and it would encourage them to give more freedom. encourage them to give more leniency especially to people of faith. this particular president on china has been very tough, yet doesn't mean we can't negotiate an work out a trade deal an work out some kind of a deal for the future of hong kong. president trump is master at negotiating. i think we just give him time i think we'll see something work out. he is very good at this. the chinese respect him. they listen to him. i'm confident that something can be worked out. david: your dad, the great billy graham, was known for going into the belly of the beast as it were, confronting at that time the soviet empire and going there and trying to

breathe the word of god into their heads, despite their atheism. some would say that his efforts, along with pope john paul ii and of course you had ronald reagan and maggie thatcher, helping politically did have an effect bringing down the seven yet empire. do you think the same is at all possible with the chinese communist empire? >> well, my mother was born in china. david: interesting. >> my father had opportunity to preach, he had a chance to preach in china. a number of churches. we have seen relax in religious persecution in china for a number of decades. it just been recently there has been a clamp down. it is not all across china. it is in certain sections of china. we need to pray. hope the president will work with the president of china and pry mere and see if something can't be worked out. i believe it can. they haven't gone down a bridge

too far here. there is a lot of people speaking into this. i think the chinese government is wanting help. i believe the president certainly could give it to them. david: you know it is extraordinary how one man, i guess that is a lesson we do take from the bible itself, from the life of jesus, that a few group of people can really change the world. is it conceivable though that the protesters in hong kong who are in many cases resorting to more than just non-violent confrontation, sometimes the violence is on both parties, is that a problem with the protesters, the fact that they do at times resort to violence themselves? >> well, i would hope that they don't. i cannot speak for the protesters but i would hope that they would be peaceful protests, that people would not get hurt. that the police would not be hurt. that the protesters wouldn't get

hurt. and, but, it is, coming back to, this is christmas eve. david: yes. >> and jesus christ came to this earth to take the sins of mankind. he was born to die on a cross 33 years later where he gave his life and shed his brood for the sins of entire world. the world of china, or europe, america, the whole africa, jesus christ shed his blood for all of our sins and that is what christmas is about. it is about celebrating the birth of the savior who came into the world for that purpose. the bible says all of us are guilty of sin. franklin graham is guilty but yet christ came and took my sins and died for me. if anybody is willing to repent, turn from their sins and by faith believe on the name of jesus christ, our sins will be forgiven. we can have a new life and a new beginning. i pray that right now in hong kong as we watch this in front of us that god would bring

healing to this situation. that he would bring calm. as we go into christmas, just a few hours there in hong kong, as we come into christmas, that the protesters and the government would find a way to stand down and celebrate the birth of jesus christ and see this done peacefully. that is my prayer as we watch this unfold. we saw during world war i there was a, one of the christmases, you may remember, where they had a truce. and germans and the french and the british and americans stopped fighting. soldiers came out of their foxholes and talked to each other. it was a silent night there on the front there in europe at that time. we just pray god can do the same thing tonight there in hong kong. david: that is a wonderful prayer as we approach 12 minutes away from christmas night in hong kong. it is a shame as lauren pointed

out, in fact so many of those catholic churches to a lot of christians in hong kong want to go for midnight mass are unapproachable what is going on in the streets. >> that's right. david: franklin graham, we do hope that your prayers reach the hearts of those in hong kong. if you can stay with us, we need to take a short break. we will come back with curtis ellis, with franklin graham, to talk about this awful situation in hong kong on this christmas eve. we wanted to bring you something more peaceful to talk about. we hopefully will be able to do so but meanwhile the news demands our attention. we'll be right back. i'm really into this car,

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[mom] the doctor sat down with me in a room and that's when i first heard nephroblastoma. [narrator] today's treatments are harsh and many haven't improved in decades. they kind of tell you when you go in that we are going to bring your child to the brink of death and then bring them back. my hope for the near future is to be able to take these immune therapies and to make it a first line approach. because as more and more of these children survive into adulthood we are seeing more complications. [mom] it can affect their heart; it can affect kidneys, and liver. it can affect their hormones and stunt growth.

it's almost like premature aging because of all the exposure to these drugs in the past. [narrator] together, we can find safer treatments for kids fighting cancer. [john wagner, md] the science says we have more hope than ever before, but we can only promise one thing, and that is we keep trying and that we'll learn from it. and, the children's cancer research fund allows us to do just that. david: well the markets for the moment don't seem to be reacting too much to what is happening in hong kong. despite the violence there that is spreading throughout the city in several different districts. we will take you back there as the situation demand as we get pictures. it does seem like the violence is escalating. there are about seven minutes away from celebrating christmas but not too many people are even able to get to churches tonight for a midnight mass.

meanwhile spencer brown is still with us. spencer, bring it back home and talk about alexandria ocasio-cortez, who is as we all know, very popular with a number of millenials. i want to get your reaction what she said during a rally in los angeles for bernie sanders yesterday, i believe it was or perhaps the day before. roll tape, get your reaction. >> what we're living in right now is not an advanced society. a society that allows people -- >> fact itch. that is what it is. >> it is fascism that we have. that we're evolving into as well. david: so we are evolving into fascism according to aoc. and she claims to have millenials with her. what do you say? >> i say she needs to get a dictionary look up definition of

facism. this woman obtained incredible success and power at her age because of freedom in this country f we were fact it country, evolving that way, she and president don't agree on these things. absurd for her to use the term, a way to fear-monger young people who were sold this every day in college classrooms, in order to attack the president with it. david: if you want to see fascism, or at least the form that fascism usually take, look at hong kong. look what happens to the protesters that have the guts to say what is happening in hong kong? communism has more relevance to what is happening in the world right now in terms of repression than fascism does seems to me. >> that is exactly right. if you look at the left especially on college campuses you see they believe america is a fascist country.

we're a big, horrible society. look at freedom fighters in hong kong they're patriotic, waving american flag in the star-spangled banner. that is what americans should respecting. david: spencer, thank you for being with us. we still have franklin graham with us. franklin, there is stir-up in regard to politics in your community as well with mark galley from "christianity today," at least was editor of christianity today, with come dem nation of president trump, i hardly know anyone or any evangelical christian who voted for trump. i don't know many evangelicals who didn't vote for donald trump. i don't know who is right. who do you think is right? >> well i think, "christianity today" is wrong and he has been in a bubble for a long time. they call themselves a centrist

right magazine but no one on the right or in the center is calling for the removal of donald trump. only the far left. i think this magazine represents now the far left opinion in america. the evangelicals in this country, the vast majority voted for trump. they will continue to vote for trump. christianity today, they represent what i would call the very left-leaning portion of evangelicals, very liberal-minded evangelicals. this magazine represents that very small group of people. but, the people that i know, i think are going to, vast majority of the churches in this country, evangelical churches, pastors and leaders are 100% behind donald trump. david: reverend franklin graham. we have to leave it at that i'm afraid. we're pressured on time. thank you for commenting on that and china and hong kong. we appreciate it. merry christmas to you, sir. >> thank you. david: thank you very much.

christmas eve and we're tracking santa claus on lighter note. let's look to see where he is now. looks like he is over russia. coming up next hour we'll talk to norad how they track santa clausth. get up to 40% off storewide or get these one of a kind deals at the "you are my diamond" event. exclusively at zales, the diamond store.

david: it is 11:00 a.m. in new york city, and midnight in hong kong. that means it is now christmas in hong kong, as we are looking at protests that have been violent all evening here or in hong kong itself. there aren't too many people going to midnight mass tonight because either they're out on the streets or they can't get through those people who are on the streets right now. things were calming down a bit, now they're getting more violent. again, you hate to see this thing any time of the year, but particularly on christmas eve and christmas morning. the markets, however, are taking things in stride. in fact, we saw positive movement on the nasdaq, we still

do, up just a tick on the nasdaq. down, though not significantly on the dow jones industrial average and the s&p. we will wait and see how things -- it's a shortened trading day today, but traders are not reacting too strongly to what's happening in hong kong, though that does not diminish the importance of what is happening there, either for the people of hong kong or for the situation in the future. here's a story we like, by the way, as we move from hong kong to back home. americans are really feeling the christmas spirit here in the united states. super saturday sales hit $34.4 billion. this makes it the biggest single retail day in u.s. history. let's get right to market watcher john lonski. these are blockbuster numbers, john. what do you make of them? >> excellent numbers, but we want to remember that in part, the strength of holiday shopping during the month of december can be ascribed to the late arrival

of thanksgiving. so the holiday shopping season is smaller than it is in the past and as a result, we are seeing stronger numbers for the month of december. david: it's hard to rain on this parade. this economy is growing, consumer spending is growing, will continue to grow. we had a couple retail analysts on already this morning on fox business who said their best projections didn't come close to this $34.4 billion number. >> incredible. strong finish to 2019. this should carry over into 2020. we want to remember that one of the features of 2019's economy that gets overlooked is there has been a huge increase in personal savings. in fact, i think we will have real disposable personal income growing by 3%, real consumer spending 2.6%. that means that we are basically spending less than what we are earning. we have this additional savings and that could come into play next year. david: all right. hold on, john. we want to switch gears a little bit to the president's tax cuts.

i want to check in with hillary vaughn, who is live at the white house. hillary, how much are the president's cuts really helping the middle class? reporter: what's interesting, it's not just the middle class americans are being taxed less in their tax bracket, but they are also seeing their standard deductions double under this tax cut which is a big benefit for married couples with kids. they are seeing their standard deduction up to $24,000. if you are single that bumps up to $12,000. here's what it looks like if you are married, making $100,000 in combined income with four children. under the previous law, you would be being taxed $19,600. under this new tax cut act, you are only giving the government $16,000 so overall, you are paying the government $3600 less under these tax cuts. if you are single making $50,000, you have three kids at home, under the previous law you would be paying about $7500. under this new tax cut, you are paying only $5200.

so your net benefit there, what you are keeping in your pocket, $2300. if you are single making $55,000, you don't have kids, you are seeing your benefits a little bit less but still, you are taking -- or you are keeping at home $1341 compared to what you were in the last year. david? david: extraordinary. hillary, thank you very much. john, we had a lot of rhetoric when these tax cuts were rolled out about only the rich would do well. we now see that not only in terms of the tax savings that the middle class has made but in terms of the jobs and the increase in wages, the "wall street journal" had a piece out yesterday over the past year, nominal wages for the lowest 10% of american workers jumped 7%. the growth rate for those without a high school diploma was 9%. so there is a lot of money circulating and i think that's why we have these tremendous number -- retail numbers today. >> trump has really made life a lot easier for those at the lower end of the income distribution. that's been a big positive of

this administration that often gets overlooked. we also want to remember, too, that with these tax cuts we are getting a livelier pace of consumer spending. i think the outlook is brightening for home sales. that is if we avoid any unneeded and unwanted jump by mortgage yields and so -- and with all of this livelier outlook for consumer spending, we are getting a stronger stock market. remember, in the past, people had for their pensions defined benefit programs. we don't have this anymore. we have 401(k)s. so the middle class has to be very glad with the fact their 401(k) type pension plans are doing so much better this year with the gains in the equity markets. david: to keep up pace with what we have seen in 2019, maybe in 2020, particularly if the president wins re-election, we will hear more about tax cuts 2.0. if the democrats win the election, if they win the presidential election and hold on to congress, i don't think we are going to see anything but tax increases but if republicans

win, i think we will see tax cuts 2.0. don't you? >> you know, we have trillion dollar federal deficits, i wouldn't get my hopes up for additional tax cuts. david: but hold on a second, because the tax cuts so far, tax cuts have actually meant increased revenue. we have seen an increase in revenue despite the fact that rates have gone down. we have more revenue because there's more economic activity. >> you can only get the tax cuts if you can somehow come up with a way of curbing spending. you have to be realistic on that particular point. but i think deregulation has helped out greatly for the u.s. economy. it's much more than tax cuts and that's been a positive, helping create jobs, encouraging business investment spending. david: so this time next year, what do you think's going to happen? are we going to be looking at this -- we certainly are not going to have the kind of record earnings we had this year. >> know what's incredible about this economy? 2019? we had the unemployment rate drop to 3.5% at the same time

core inflation subsided, went lower. so i will say by year end 2020 we will be looking at a 3.25% unemployment rate, a new low, lowest since i believe the early 1960s, and with that, inflation well contained and the economy continues to grow. i look at this economy not as a sprinter, not running rapidly, but as a long distance runner. this recovery will go on and on. we will start thinking australia, 25 years without a recession, why not give it a shot. david: holy cow. john lonski, very merry forecast. good to see you. merry christmas. let's take a look at tesla shares, in record territory after the stock hit the $420 mark. it's a very interesting story there. lauren: certainly is. it hit $422 earlier as well. elon musk's wish of 420 came true a year and a half later, right? david: it did. it did. it may be going up a little more. check apple, by the way. their airpod ear buds are poised

for a really big 2020 jump. but could see a dramatic decline in 2021. twha that's what we are hearing. next up, uber's former chief executive travis kalanick is officially off their board of directors after he sold 90% of his stake in the company. a lot of people thought that would lead to the stock value going down, as we saw more shares in the market. hasn't happened. today, the stock is up over 1.5% right now. check nike. the company releasing a new colin kaepernick shoe that we are not all that crazy about. they are already sold out, though. lauren: they sold out in minutes. let's show you the shoe. black and white, picture of what looks like colin kaepernick on the back, on the heel. on the bottom, six numbers, 081416. that's the first time kaepernick did not stand for the national anthem. nike releasing this shoe. it sells out, yet they pulled the sneaker that they made with

the betsy ross, the early american flag on it. david: that sneaker is the one they pulled. lauren: yes. this one with the flag on the back and red and white. nike has a millenial audience and a big millenial audience. many of that segment is influenced by colin kaepernick and that could explain nike's thinking here. david: they make money off of it. what can we say? lauren: $110 a pop. david: next case, president trump just announcing a keep america great rally next month in toledo, ohio. keeping up that push for the battleground states. coming up next, kelly sadler, former special assistant to president trump. i want to know if ohio is still all in for donald trump. like they were in 2016. the third hour of "varney & company" on this christmas eve just getting started. ♪ than you.

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david: former president barack obama has stayed relatively quiet on his pick for 2020 but according to a report, he is now vouching for candidate to wealthy donors and it's not his former running mate, joe biden. who is it? lauren: it's elizabeth warren. he's nudging privately and in secret through his big money donors that hey, look, you might have to support her in the end. does he think she could perhaps be the nominee? has he not endorsed joe biden, the obvious endorsement, because he's waiting on an announcement from his wife, michelle obama? but you know, he hasn't outright endorsed her yet. these are just reports that he's silently nudging donors but it begs the bigger picture here. you have mike bloomberg putting in millions and millions of dollars in this secretive ad group to pour money into the race to win because everybody has to take on the trump war chest. elizabeth warren might need that money. she said i don't want, you're

rich people, billionaires are bad, i don't want your money. maybe she will need it. david: rush limbaugh has been suggest this for a long time. he's the first one i know that's been pointing this out. joe biden does not have obama in his pocket in terms of an endorsement. we will see what happens. thank you very much. the president has held rallies in several battleground states the past couple of months. he will continue to do so in the new year, heading to toledo, ohio, for his first rally of 2020. let's bring in communications director and america first action, kelly sadler. january 9th, is the president going to concentrate on these battleground states? >> oh, absolutely. you know, he did this when he campaigned in 2016. he had over 137 rallies and we are going to see that same pace moving into the new year, if not more so. listen, hillary clinton partly lost the election last time around because she never stepped foot in wisconsin. these everyday men and women in america are the president's base and he has not forgotten about them. so we are going to see rallies

in michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, ohio and then in some states where we feel that we could pick up some ground like minnesota, new hampshire, new mexico. david: now, you have a political action committee. i'm wondering how you spend your money. are you doing what the president is doing, focusing on battleground states? >> we absolutely are. we are cons stracentrating on s states. florida, which is essential, georgia, which we need to hold on to, north carolina, pennsylvania, ohio and michigan. so we are going to be focusing our efforts in those six states, making sure the president's message, you know, his message of economic opportunity, you just had a segment on, this past saturday was the biggest shopping day of all of america, because americans are feeling good about their economic place right now and that is because of the president's policies. his deregulation, his tax cuts. we will be putting those

messages forward as well as doing what a traditional super pac does, attacking whatever the 2020 dem candidate is going to be. david: the impeachment, some people said we heard on the one day the impeachment was announced the president pulled in $5 million. are you pulling in more money? how much money are you getting, do you think, as a result of impeachment? >> listen, i mean, the voters are enthused, the base is enthused and you know, we are a super pac so i'm not going to give you our money but we are doing just well and the reason why we are doing well is because the voters know this impeachment sham is just that. it's a sham. meanwhile, last week the president passed usmca, there's space force -- david: you won't tell me how much, but will you tell me if you are doing better after impeachment than you were before impeachment? >> listen, david, our goal is to raise $300 million and support the president in those six states. i can tell you that we are right on track of making those numbers. david: kelly sadler, good to see you. i will see more of you in the coming year, i'm sure.

thank you very much. merry christmas to you. now another case of a huge ceo payout in 2019. this time it's boeing's newly ousted chief executive, dennis muilenburg. how much? lauren: as much as $50 million. so as much as $40 million for severance, then the executive pension of as much as $11 million. that's how we get to that number. boeing will have to file another document with the s.e.c. to outline the severance package but for perspective, dennis muilenburg joined in his early 20s, was ceo for about four and a half years. in his time as ceo, his compensation was $70 million. that's what he's going to be getting. david: not bad. all right. now this. we have been teasing it all morning. we finally got norad on the program. the guys behind the santa tracker. we are telling you, these are serious people. four-star general. i want to know how exactly they keep their eyes on the big man across the globe. he's making his way already. we will ask him coming next. ♪

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david: during the holidays, a lot of people are looking for side jobs to help with buying presents and other expenses. the best-paying holiday -- wait for it -- being santa claus. grady trimble has the details from chicago. i love this story. reporter: yeah, david, i think being santa is more of a vocation than a job, but nonetheless, it's a pretty good-paying gig. there have been people lining up to see santa today all day long and santa can actually get paid more on christmas eve and christmas day if he's willing to work. let's talk about the numbers. the average seasonal holiday worker for retailers makes between $10 and $11 an hour. santa claus can make $30 an hour and if they are really good and really jolly they can make $75 an hour. but as one person said, two months of letting kids sit on your lap, some of them crying and trying to act happy, it might wear on you so he said

they earned every penny of it. you are a pretty jolly guy. i was wondering, is this something you might consider? david: yeah, who knows. i'm not going to be in television for the rest of my life. i'm just putting that out there. there may be a time when i choose -- if i had a choice between being a tv anchor and being santa claus, all things being equal, i don't know, but i would love to be santa claus at least one season. reporter: i do want to say, though, you don't make as much money if you don't have a real beard. if you have a real beard and a great personality, you could make $20,000 in two months. not bad. david: not bad at all. grady, thank you very much, my friend. appreciate it. merry christmas to you. well, it is christmas eve and santa is already busy on his journey delivering presents to children around the world. joining me is norad commander, four-star general terrence j. o'shaugnessy. this is serious business. where is santa right now?

>> well, david, merry christmas from colorado. right now, santa is actually over china on his way to mongolia. we here at norad are tracking him using the same technology that we use to defend north america with our binational command with canada 24/7/365. we are on the watch and today is no exception. as we watch santa, we are making sure kids can find out exactly where he's at. david: you have millions of children that are depending on you to give them accurate descriptions of where santa is. you say that's not distracting you from your other duties, right? >> it's not. i can't emphasize enough how important it is that our soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen 24 hours a day, 365, we are on the watch. we are always watching to see what's happening, whether it's the arctic or the ocean, to make sure we are postured and prepared. david: i think it's fair to say that other than santa claus himself, no adult in the world is more important to children

right now than you and what you are doing, you and your men at norad. thank you, general. we appreciate you being here. merry christmas to you. >> thank you, david. merry christmas to you and all the viewers. david: absolutely. thank you. four-star general terrence j. o'shaughnessy. next case, netflix taking some heat for a controversial new show called "messiah" and there's a petition to have it pulled from release. we will tell you what the fuss is all about. lauren has the details. and president trump taking time to talk to the u.s. military this morning. he talked about the economy, about terrorists and of course, china. you will hear what he said coming right up. ♪ than you.

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but how do i know if i'm i'm getting a good deal? i tell truecar my zip and which car i want and truecar shows the range of prices people in my area actually paid for the same car so i know if i'm getting a great price. this is how car buying was always meant to be. this is truecar. david: check the markets right now. we do have green signals from nasdaq. the tech-heavy index. both the dow jones industrial average and the s&p 500 are in the red right now. they weren't terribly affected by the riots that are going on in hong kong as we speak. we're not sure where those have ended up. we're not sure, by the way, whether they turned deadly.

there were some clear clashes that we were getting video of earlier in the morning. that video link is now down. we will let you know as soon as we get more details from hong kong. meanwhile, check disney. the company having a record-breaking year, securing 80% of the highest grossing films of 2019, although "star wars" may not be among them. netflix is facing backlash over a new middle eastern thriller show called "messiah." it's getting a lot of people upset. why? lauren: more than 3500 people have signed a petition to condemn the show and they don't want netflix to air it. it's a show that premieres next month, portraying the messiah for being anti-islamic and portraying the son of god as a muslim devil who marches palestinians into israel. it's very controversial, it's very heavy and it's provocative if not straight out controversial. but if you talk to the creators and the producers of this show,

content is king. that's the whole point. david: they are not -- they have no history of being anti-christian or anything like that. mark burnett was the producer who did "the bible," the series that was hailed by a lot of christian scholars as being right on target. i don't know. we'll have to see. it's definitely controversial. it's getting its share of controversy. let's bring in tech watcher ryan patel. first of all, what are your thoughts about "the messiah"? netflix does very often go right to the edge, don't they? >> yeah. it's very interesting, because you kind of become accustomed to their content that way. not to say they are changing their strategy but the fact you and i are talking about this, it's something that's good for them because it's getting free advertising and people will -- they have done this before. i'm not saying they have done it on purpose, but you know, when they put it -- when you go to the edge, people start talking about it, it creates more interest. it generates more interest because now people, maybe the average person who doesn't know what's going on with that

content now wants to watch it. it opens up the audience. so you know, i think when there's controversy, especially when it comes to content, netflix tends to be the winner when it comes to people watching to see what's going on. david: you may be right on this issue, but in the meantime, they've got a lot of competition. let's start with disney plus. disney plus has grown enormously in a short period of time. >> yeah. i came on this show three months ago saying you better watch out for disney plus, even though they are newer to the game. i think netflix, the last ten years, last decade, they are the disruptor. i think you've got to give kudos to them, what they have done with the streaming industry. but in business, as you know, what have you done lately, and netflix for the next year to next five years, have to create more of an identity to compete with disney plus. you just mentioned disney itself has had a blockbuster year when it comes to movies and content but disney is more than that. they will be able to deliver all kinds of content with their streaming plus which they never

really had, so they can have other kind of movies, other kind of shows where people can pay for that subscription option. so i think they are going to start going to the well, too, di disney, to put the hammer down and say they are the best. david: can't they both survive? you can have both disney and netflix surviving, right? >> i think so. the only way to survive is netflix has to create more of a niche. you can't just be general audience. they obviously have the comedy side on a stranglehold right now with actors and comedians and i think they've got to continue to do that and do a little bit more. they just can't throw a needle in a haystack and say let's try to find content all over the place. david: they are paying a lot for those comedians. uber, co-founder travis kalanick is now officially off the board of directors and he sold about 90% of his stake in the company. which was a lot of stock. nevertheless, it hasn't hurt the stock today. it's up over 1.25%.

>> i think it's good news. no offense to travis, but you know, uber, when he started uber, his expertise has been that startup place. what the company is as of today and his sitting on the board, his skill set as a governance isn't really necessarily what uber needs right now because the platform has changed. now, travis has sold i think $200 billion of stock and him moving off the board was something, it's something uber wanted to kind of move on completely from him but i wouldn't feel bad for travis either. he has his startup with the cloud kitchen going on and being funded which is going to be directly competing with uber eats eventually down the road. i think this was a move that was necessary, when you look at board of directors going forward in the future, this is not for just namesakes. you need people with governance experience wanting to push the company to go forward and obviously travis is a serial entrepreneur that i think has other ventures he's working on. david: now he's got more capital to do that with. i want to get your take on tesla.

shares in record territory after elon musk joked about the company's stock hitting $420. of course, that joke got him in a lot of trouble. but it made it, it's now $420 again as we speak. >> you know, shocking, right? he jokes about 420, then jokes about it again on twitter the other day about the number itself and it got there by itself. what is that lesson learned? let the business do the talking. they have actually beat tesla, it wasn't even supposed to be profitable this year, they got to that point, they beat some analysts. they are doing what public traded companies are supposed to do, deliver on numbers. i think people see, i think the other piece to tesla is why they got there is the potential they have overseas, and how that's going as well. i think when you take a lot of the noise out which elon did in august and i think he realized he was creating more damage by doing these kind of tweets or these messaging to investor shareholder value, you kind of be quiet for a few months and guess what, it got there.

kudos to them. david: let's talk about boeing. yes, it was yesterday's big news, but i believe the stock is still up today. oh, no, it's down now about 1%. it was up earlier. now it's down. but what do you make of the change at the top there? >> i think sometimes we talk about board of directors needing to move fast enough and the right timing for boeing. this is about the right timing. i think with the ceo, they needed to get through the scandal and more so, how do they set up for the future. i think the board of directors made the right move to create new blood. now, for boeing itself, what they really need to do is create trust and is that next ceo obviously being filled in by the chairman of the board, is the next ceo going to be in-house from somewhere else in boeing or from out of house? needs to create a little more trust to the market that they need to make a change. they need to make a drastic play to quickly get confidence and be competitive again. boeing as a company isn't going

anywhere but obviously when you have this kind of controversy and mishaps, let's call it what it is, really bad oversight, someone has to pay the price. in this case, it happened as of today after they got through all the investigations. david: well, he paid the price but got a nice golden parachute to boot. so it wasn't all bad for him. ryan patel, good to see you. thank you very much. happy holidays to you. we've got a couple more big tech stories. another update on that tik tok like app from the united arab emirates called toe-tok. what's the latest on this? lauren: it's a chat app. reportedly apple and google have removed it from their online stores because of that "new york times" report that came down accusing the uae government, using this app as a spy tool to listen in on your conversations, to know where you are, your movrmen movements, to track them, your relationships and images and the like. major concern for a lot of people. i'm sure as apple and google

investigate this, millions of users, this is a relatively new app. if you have it downloaded, you can continue to use it as of now but no new downloads. david: got to be careful of the apps you put on your phone. lauren: any time you give anybody information, rule of thumb, someone has that information. david: absolutely. it can lead to your vital information even if at first it doesn't. thank you. we have this to show you. we have been wanting to show you this for awhile. a robot that's cranking out hot and fresh pizzas. what's the deal on this? lauren: a pizza-making robot. so plant-based food was huge last year at ces. now they are bringing robots and food together again. a pizza-making robot. liz claman can check that out. david: i want to see how it looks when it comes out. we may not be able to do it the whole thing. all right. you put a lot of cheese on. anyway, we have been following the situation over in hong kong. again, it is christmas morning there, very early.

it's 12:38 now in hong kong. the situation there continues to deteriorate as the protests get violent and we are going to keep you updated on that. also, bernie sanders and aoc holding a rally in venice, california over the weekend. of course, the congresswoman had to take her jab at america. she even went as far as to call america, the united states, fascist or at least leaning towards fascism. we are going to play that tape for you coming next. and we will also play you sound from president trump. what he said earlier today. that's coming up. ♪

david: president trump calling members of the military to wish them happy holidays earlier this morning. during that call, he also spoke about our trade deal with china.

or the coming trade deal. listen. >> as you know, we're now getting along very well with china and trade. in fact, i just took tariffs off more than 800 products where they were charging us tariffs and now those tariffs are gone but we made a very big deal with china. recently we made a very big deal with mexico, canada, north korea, japan, $40 billion deal with japan and we have plenty of others coming. david: let's bring in former u.s. international trade commission chief, peter morici. great to see you. merry christmas. happy holidays. happy new year. the whole shebang. first of all, on china, let's talk about trade in general. we are in a position right now where all the work the president has been doing over the past couple of years, the ustr, are beginning to pay off. no? >> absolutely. we've got this deal with china coming together with the deal with mexico and canada. those will provide the templates to future trade agreements. agreements that are based on real reciprocity. no more the u.s. lets in their

products and they get to block ours. the china tariff, wonderful news. we are going to pay lower tariffs than anybody else because after all, we have been china's biggest market. $100 billion more in exports a year if we get them, if the tariffs work, if the tariff cuts work. huge boost, hundreds of thousands of jobs. david: instead of dealing with the wta, the president has been very specific and so has the ustr and treasury secretary. if china violates, because verification is the key here. it's always been tough with the wto, you had to go through months, if not years of dealing with lawyers and everything. here, if they lie or cheat in ways that counter the deals that they signed on to, we just throw the tariffs back on. >> well, that's right. we have to see the text of the agreement but that's the case. going to the wto or the trade problem is like bringing it to an academy of pastry chefs. you will get something sweet to eat but you won't get any satisfaction the next day. david: oh, nice.

i like the apal jnalogy. >> that's how you become a full professor. david: i want your reaction to what congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez said over the weekend. she's claiming that america is evolving in a fascist society. watch. >> what we're living in right now is not an advanced society. >> why don't you call it fascism? that's what it is? >> it is fascism. that we have, that we are evolving into as well. david: you think she has any clue what fascism is? >> no, she didn't learn very much in college other than how to stir up trouble. my feeling is she should take her rhetoric and her language and go over to saudi arabia and see how long she stands on the street corner without ending up perhaps in jail or go to the western provinces of china. she will certainly end up in some sort of rehabilitation camp. this is the one place in the world where we actually get

challenged by people at the fringe for not being open enough, then having to be more open for them. this is absolutely absurd but what it really serves to do is look who was there with her. bernie. all we would have needed would be liz there, too. this should show people how moderate donald trump is. for all of his shortcomings, compared to this left wing gaggle they have over there in the democratic party. i mean, it's absolutely tragic who is running for president over there. it's simply not fair. i mean, this is a slander on dunkie. david: what kills me, a lot of them are millionaires. aoc isn't there yet. she will be. that's what i predict. it's not going to be long before she makes enough money from her speaker tours and everything to be a millionaire. but bernie's a millionaire. liz warren has about $12 million. >> liz made almost a million dollars last year, about four times the senate salary. the whole thing is absurd. it's the society of hypocrites

is what it is. really, there's nothing but demagogues and hypocrites over there. but fascism? let her do this. it's the gift that keeps on giving. how can you be a reasonable person in nassau county, the big suburb of new york on long island and not say this lady is bats? david: i don't know. stuart likes to talk about the ten-year yield. it is at a five-month high right now. what do you make of that? >> well, people are having confidence in the economy again and with that, long rates go up a bit but i would point this to you. although that's about the same as the yield on the s&p, the dividend yield, the s&p is trading at about 25 price earnings ratio on trailing and that's in line with the 25-year historical average. this market is not overvalued. if profits go up 10% next year it easily justifies another 10% increase in valuations. no problem at all. i suspect profits are going to go up more than that everywhere except boeing. david: so you would feel comfortable with what, 80% of

your portfolio in stocks or what? >> got to remember, i'm 71 years old so i have more -- i have more of faka fixed income hedge than that. i'm about 60/40 because of my age but if i were like you, still working, still collecting the big fox salary, 80/20 makes sense to me. david: we're not too far apart. >> you know what i'm saying. david: yale economist stephen roach said in an op-ed that trouble next year could come from the world's strcentral ban. some of them are souring on negative interest rates. what do you think? >> one of the things we learned is if you cut rates too far, you actually damage your banks. the trouble is unwinding them because you develop these zombie companies that are dependent on like 1% interest or 2% interest rates on their junk bonds. that's the problem. the problem with these things is unwinding them. but that's not where the problem is. the problem is right here in the american financial sector. like for example, with car

loans, where people are taking out $45,000 car loans on $25,000 vehicles because they have been rolling over one car loan into another into another. that and they are bundling them into bonds and selling them to old folks in florida again. david: sounds familiar. >> doesn't it? the only thing this time is the people that are doing it aren't banks. the people are going to go bust -- today's -- first jersey, remember them? are we going to get jail time out of this stuff? a lot of these loan applications are fraudulent. a lot of these bond offerings are fraudulent. i would like to know how standard & poor's and moody's managed to rate them. david: got to leave it at that. have a wonderful christmas. happy holidays to you. >> happy new year. merry christmas. david: merry christmas. happy new year. of course, it is christmas eve. yes, stuart is off. but i'm going to let you in on a time-honored tradition at the varney household this time of year. stuart is performing dra mmatic

reading of twas the night before christmas. it even brings him to tears. stuart varney. you will get to see that coming next. ♪ [ dramatic music ]

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david: we have all heard the classic story "twas the night before christmas" but have you ever listened to stuart varney read it? today is your lucky day. let's watch a special reading to his grandkids produced by stuart's daughter, angela. roll it, please. >> two of my beautiful granddaughters will be with us this weekend, abigail and paige are watching right now. this is for you. twas the night before christmas when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. the stockings were hung by the xh xhimney with chair in hopes that st. nicholas soon would be there. the children were nestled all snug in their beds while visions of sugar plums danced in their heads. and mom in her kerchief and in her cap had just settled our

brains from a long winter's nap when out on the lawn there arose such a clatter i sprang from the bed to see what was the matter when, what to my wondering eyes should appear but a miniature sled and eight tiny reindeer when i heard the prancing and pawing of each little hoof. as i drew in my head and was turning around down the chimney st. nicholas wam can a bound dressed all in fur from his head to his feet, his clothes tarnished from ashes and soot. his eyes how they twinkled, his dimples, how merry. his cheek were like roses. his nose like a cherry. he had a broad face and a round berry -- belly. t that took when he laughed like a bowl full of jelly. he went straight to his work and filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk and laying his finger beside of his nose and giving a nod, up the chimney he rose. he sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle and away they all flew like the down of a

thistle. i heard him exclaim as he drove out of sight, happy christmas to all and to all, a good night. it still brings tears to my eyes, especially when you have little abigail and paige watching and listening. i wish everyone such joy. ♪ than you. you are my diamond. for the diamond in your life, get up to 40% off storewide or get these one of a kind deals at the "you are my diamond" event. .

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male anchor: ...an update on the cat who captured our hearts. female anchor: how often should you clean your fridge? stay tuned to find out. male anchor: beats the odds at the box office to become a rare non-franchise hit. you can give help and hope to those in need. david: well let's take a final look at markets before we pass it on. dow jones and s&p 500 are in the red. nasdaq is in the green despite all the trouble in hong kong. it has been kind of a quiet day on christmas, which made lauren and i tear up a little when we

saw stuart varney give his rendition of the night before christmas. that was a few years ago. that was back in 2011. you don't often see the hard-nosed stuart varney who is always saving every penny, the, by the way, only fairly well off --. i have heard that he does that. he admits to that. and is very proud of that. but this is a man with a heart. you may not always see it on fox business but, he has a very big heart. he put it on display today. lauren: i see it sitting next to stuart on this set here and there, not every day. i see it when we catch up in the elevator and on the 20th floor, david. david: santa is on the move. i'm sure stuart is contacting norad for late left developments. we're told by norad he is heading to sri lanka.

we hope it has effect what is happening in hong kong and china. we wish them the very best. we wish all the peace in the world. they need it in hong kong and china. connell mcshane is in for neil cavuto. i want to wish you, connell, all the viewers out there, especially my family watching, very merry christmas. connell: we'll see you soon, sir. welcome to "cavuto: coast to coast." we'll be hear next couple hours. a lot going on, even on christmas eve. we'll have fun with christmas. we have serious news to cover. i'm connell mcfilling in for neil. there are protesters in hong kong back in the streets as the protest movement going on for six months continues. the police have been using tear gas, at times last night in hong kong time turned violent. it is early christmas morning. we will watch the market. we