again the covid quarter is over. [closing bell rings] good-bye, q2, 2020. see ya. we're closing off of session highs with the dow still up 242. s&p up 49, nasdaq 191. now to "after the bell." melissa: the best quarter in decades. stocks gaining steam in the final moments of trading for the month and the quarter as we await for an update from the white house coronavirus task force this hour. i'm melissa francis. connell: i'm connell mcshane. these are some numbers. welcome to "after the bell," everybody. the major averages are up here certainly on the day and certainly for the quarter. we closed higher by 200 plus points own the day for the dow. it is the best quarter for the dow in more than 33 years. we will break it all down in some detail for you as we bring you the top stories of the day with fox business team coverage. blake burman is at the white house. jackie deangelis in newsroom in

new york, edward lawrence in washington. but jackie, we start with you. reporter: can we say party like it is 1999? fourth quarter 1999 is the last time we saw a quarter this good. that is positive given the fact we've been through so much this year because of the coronavirus pandemic. you can see the dow is up 17.7% for the second quarter. s&p 500 almost 20%. and the nasdaq composite, really the winner there, 30% for the second quarter. so we are watching those numbers as we're processing what happened today, a 215 point gain on the dow jones industrial average. you're seeing more optimism in this market. you're seeing investors digest some of the news about the spike in coronavirus cases. and seeing some hope in this as we move forward, that hospitalizations are down and it may not be illness has to run its course. they're taking it in stride at

least for today, to close the quarter. meantime i want to talk about another merge are potentially happening in the space, in the field today. i spoke to a source with knowledge of uber and post mates who told me the fact that there have been reports that uber is offering to acquire post mates. that post mates will go forward with its s-1 within the next couple of days. that is the registration to begin the process for an ipo. i'm told jpmorgan, bank of america, they will indeed be the book runs. when you look at uber and its push with uber eats you can understand why it would want to acquire postmates because that is company that delivers food. all these businesses are doing real well especially with the pandemic right now. sources telling me that postmates wants to move forward within ipo on its own of the guys? connell: we have deion raboin,

stocks editor at "axios." we get a headline all the time virus cases are spiking. we might have more lockdowns in texas, california, whatever, florida. as jackie says the stock market wraps up its best quarter in a long, long time. what's going on? >> i think what's going on is as simple as one word, stimulus. folks are expecting maybe bad news equals good news when it comes to the federal reserve and the u.s. government. we've already seen about four trillion dollars in deficit spending from the government. we've seen about three trillion dollars added to the balance sheet on the fed. i think the thinking goes if the coronavirus cases get worse if we do have to lock down more parts of the economy if more businesses simply can't function, that just means the fed is going to turn on the faucet, give more liquidity pumped into the system and government is going to have to go back and maybe right now the market is expecting a billion,

i'm sorry, a trillion or trillion 1/2 dollars in new stimulus. that could rise to two trillion, or and the i think the market is looking at it in the sense if things get bad in the real economy, we can get that sweet, sweet government fed money. connell: looks like, just to put it all in perspective, we just missed doing the something the market hadn't done since 1932. the s&p 500 almost was almost up 20% this past quarter. it hadn't had a down 20% quarter as far as i know, follow that one with up 20% quarter since 1932. just fractions off of that. still, at 3100, really is something, dion, after all we've been through. if i'm hearing you right, investors are betting, we'll see if they're right or wrong, that we can manage our way through this with the help of the federal reserve and with the help of the stimulus and maybe with the help of more knowledge than we had the first time we went through it first time around or a few months ago?

>> look, the real economy is not back. it's in bad shape. you have more than 30 million people collecting unemployment benefits. you have a number of businesses, some, some small businesses closing about 20% from february to april of this year. we're in real trouble on the real economic side. but when it comes to the market, when it comes to these public companies, these big companies, especially on the tech side, with those nasdaq tech-heavy stocks, investors are saying hey, you know what? we'll be okay. the fed is going to keep liquidity pumping. they will be able to issue debt. get more money to load up those war chests. companies have issued going on $1.5 trillion this year, a record in just six months. the relate economy is in shambles now and in bad shape, but when you look out on wall street, people are saying as long as the fed keeps coming through and keeps the hose pumping we'll be all right. connell: what about the election? i was talking to steve forbes about it the other day. it happened to be on a day the

market was strung struggling a bit. he was hearing from more people that is more of an issue. we'll talk about joe biden's speech and questions from reporters later in the show. from investors how much of the issue is the election, betting on the election as of right now? >> well i think in the short term investors are thinking that the election coming up means we'll definitely get some stimulus. neither party wants to the party that held back more unemployment funding or more help for small businesses or you know, the party that sat back and did nothing or stopped the other party from doing something that could help rescue the economy. in the short term they're thinking that. there is worry in the long term arranges president joe biden does mean liar taxes, higher corporate taxes and higher individual taxes, that he could he cut back on stock buybacks. push companies to return dividends, things like that. so in the long term if the numbers move and continue to move as they have, in favor of

vice president joe biden, that could start to move the market as it starts to rethink that is the future. connell: right. >> right now -- stimulus. connell: yeah. i want to ask you one other question. we're going to talk as i said more about that later, about real estate. you wrote about it in "axios" today. we had housing numbers out this morning case-shiller, home prices up 4% annually, fastest pace since december 2015. talk about it, the myth of closing what was described as the racial gap through homeownership, the racial wealth gap through homeownership is a complete myth. that the idea that homeownership creates wealth. talk about that a little bit, what you found out from the numbers. it is reversed? >> what people seem to think when they talk about closing racial wealth gap, if only black people would buy more homes or become more, or would see it

more as desirable to buy a home, they could close the racial wealth gap and what the data shows us, homeownership is a part of wealth. black people have less wealth, therefore are less able to buy a home. it is actually the other way around. people say you could solve the racial wealth gap or close the racial wealth gap through homeownership but wealth begets more wealth. the fact that black people have much less wealth to begin with why they own less homes. without a big government financed program, to simply push more wealth into the black community, there is no way for black folks to get the kind of levels of homeownership, get the size, the size of the homes, more expensive homes with more equity value in them. that would actually start to close that wealth gap. connell: one of many items to make you think in his "axios"

note. deion, arbouin. medical less is a, back to you. melissa: all of us that lost wealth. press briefing wrapping up at the white house. members of the coronavirus task force are set to answer questions later this hour. let's go to blake burman with details. reporter: this is one of the rare times that something is actually early here in washington. vice president mike pence and members about the coronavirus task force are in rockville, maryland, 25 miles northwest of us in washington, d.c. they're actually taking questions right now. this is the second time in just the last handful of days we heard from the coronavirus task force. they had taken several weeks off. but once again they're back talking before the cameras as number of cases across this country continues to rise. meantime back here in washington, but especially up on capitol hill there was discussion today about what a next phase iv relief measure could look like in the upcoming weeks. we heard from the senate majority leader mitch mcconnell who said today that

he would be in favor of liability protection, something he has talked about for a while but also even talked up the need for added uninsurance employment for those who have lost their jobs. he was asked if a package would come before august. this was his response. >> back to work bonus pays people who are working. what about the people who are unemployed and can't get back to work? i have don't get it. it is illogical. if unemployment insurance are supposed to help people unemployed, back to work bonus doesn't solve that problem. reporter: that very clearly is not mitch mcconnell. that is chuck schumer the top democrat in the senate. you heard him talk about this idea of a back to work bonus. that is something that republicans, specifically some senate republicans even over here at the white house talking about potential for phase iv package, something you heard schumer pan right out of the gate. democrats, melissa, they keep saying phase iv, negotiations and discussions should happen now but the bottom line with all

of this is, that this is going to have to wait for a few weeks until everyone gets back here to washington after the july 4th break. as we heard from mitch mcconnell say today, he expects for a package of some sort to happen in july. melissa, back to you? melissa: yeah. we got to wait for all of them to get back to work once again. blake, thank you. tomorrow you will be speaking with president trump. i am so jealous. the full interview will air on the "claman countdown" at 3:00 p.m. eastern. i love it. connell, over to you. connell: look forward to that. meantime today, treasury secretary steve mnuchin, federal reserve chairman jerome powell were on capitol hill and they testified on the response to the coronavirus pandemic. edward lawrence keeping track of that throughout the day joins us from washington with the details. edward? reporter: i can sort of echo what blake was saying there. the treasury secretary in this hearing testified he wouldn't start negotiations on a phase iv for a couple of weeks into july.

now on the economy for this, federal reserve chairman jerome powell giving a little bit more upbeat assessment, saying he welcomes the economic bounceback he is seeing. treasury secretary steve mnuchin giving a more optimistic view of it saying there will be a v-shaped recovery once the economy fully opens. again the fed chairman though not going that far. listen. >> the economy remains extraordinarily uncertain and will depend in large part on our success in containing the virus. the federal reserve is strongly committed to using our tools to do whatever we can for as long as it takes to provide some relief and stability to insure the recovery will be as strong as possible and to limit lasting damage to the economy. reporter: both said fiscal monetary policy help will position the economy to jump-start when it does reopen. mnuchin says the talks on the next round of aid for the federal government will start in july. but it will be forward-looking. listen to what he said here. >> we would anticipate that any

additional relief would be targeted to certain industries that have been especially hard hit by the pandemic. with a focus on jobs and putting all americans back to work. reporter: and you heard blake say the senate majority leader mitch mcconnell, if they can agree on something, it will happen to be passed in the senate by august 1st. now in the hearing, there was a lot of questions about the paycheck protection program and transparency receipted to that. also, what to do about the pot of money that will be left over? today is the last day they're accepting applications for the paycheck protection program. there should be about $134 billion left over in that pot. now only congress can reallocate that money. mnuchin said he had bipartisan support for transferring or moving that money into an industry, possibly into an area for businesses that have been hit the worse by coronavirus like restaurants. back to you. connell: all right. edward, thank you.

edward lawrence. melissa. melissa: "fox business alert." fedex reporting fourth quarter results. let's go back to jackie deangelis with the numbers. reporter: hey medical melissa an top and bottom line with adjust the expectation. that is a beat about a billion dollars from expectations. $2.53 in earnings per share compared with estimates of 1.52. now both numbers that came in were less than we saw a year ago bus businesses have definitely struggled, even businesses that saw increased demand during the coronavirus pandemic. here is what fedex had to say in headlines coming out. they saw surges in residential deliveries for fedex ground. obviously that makes sense because of the coronavirus. they also said virtually all revenue and expense line items were affected by the covid-19 pandemic during this quarter. for the outlook, the near-term outlook is unclear but they

expect to benefit from the global recovery. so finishing it off there on a murky, yet a little positive note. again a beat on the top and bottom line, guys here for the shipper. melissa: all right. jackie, thank you for that. connell? connell: the fight to defund the nypd that we've been talking about. mayor de blasio's latest move to cut a billion dollars from the police department budget is now facing a vote. what that expected approval could mean for a city that is trying to get back on track. we'll have. then getting back to business. the hotel industry, grappling with how to safely lure customers back which is normally the busy summer months. stick around. much more ahead. ♪ liberty mutual customizes your car insurance,

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♪. connell: all right. back now talking about slashing the nypd's budget. the city council of new york set to vote on a billion dollar cut to the department and that vote, less than two hours away. after protesters pushed for the money to be given to different city programs. aishah hasnie in new york with a the story. reporter: that vote has been postponed to 6:00 tonight. so far things are calm in city

hall park where protesters have been camping out in days. this morning a different story. we saw clashes happening with protesters and dozens of police officers in riot gear. one person was arrested for assaulting a police officer. now the mayor's plan would slash the nypd's budget by a billion dollars and also cancel an upcoming recruit class, with those dollars, going to youth and community programs. the mayor says he can do all of this, while keeping the city safe as well, but the police union feels differently about that, pointing to a surge in shootings and violent crime. that is why not every councilmember will be voting yes tonight. >> we are undoing everything we did to make new york city the place i like to live and the place that some people like to visit, and it is just a sad day for new york. and i'm confident this vote will be replicated in so many of america's large cities. reporter: the budget is expected to pass tonight based on number

of people who are going to say yes, even if the budget passes though, with the one billion dollars in police cuts, a new york city public advocate is now threatening to use his powers to block the execution of this budget in order to obtain even more cuts. and another question tonight, connell, is, will these protesters willingly leave city hall park after the budget, let's say passes? we just don't know that for sure. right now there are some people out here that do not want to leave because they have even more demands they want to see met. they're going to collectively talk about that after the vote tonight. connell? connell: all right. aishah hasnie in new york, 6:00 p.m. vote. melissa. melissa: who better to discuss new york city's decision to possibly cut police funding than our own david asman. david, this is such a frustrating and infuriating story because crime in new york city, we have been watching it

skyrocket. >> that's right. that's right. melissa: now we see that the mayor wants to pull money from police, look at that, 142% increase in incidents of shootings this week to date, versus the year before. >> yeah. melissa: where is a lot of that money going? >> well that is a very good question but first of all, don't you feel like we're living in a backwards universe right now, melissa? where you do exactly the opposite of what you're supposed to do? when crime goes up by figures that i have seen higher figures than the one we've put up on the screen, but hugely increase in violent crime in most areas of new york, you usually have more police, you don't cut the police budget by 20 to 25%, which is what they're trying to do here. but you're absolutely right, you got to follow the money as we say in journalism and in politics and where that money goes is very interesting because a lot of it goes right into the pocket of the mayor's wife or at

least into projects that she is in charge of. she has a horrible track record. her name is sherr lien mccray. you have may have seen her before. she was given about a billion dollars of the city budget to start something called thrive nyc a couple years ago and a lot of that money just disappeared. it can't be found. "politico" did a huge piece on it about a year ago, suggesting that there was malfeasance of some form because we have an independent budget process here and their figures had discrepancy of about $220 million from what city hall said had been spent on this project. now the mayor admitted yesterday in fact the idea for cutting the police budget came from his wife. and that the money would be moved from the police to social services that she is going to be involved in. she is now chair, co-chair of something called racial inclusion and the equity task force, after doing such a horrible job with thrive nyc,

and losing hundreds of millions of dollars as far as we can tell, she is now going to be in charge of money that should be going to the police force. it's crazy. melissa: yeah. i retweeted that "politico" in depth piece because it was a really good piece of investigative reporting where they tried to find people who could say where the money had gone or what improvements have been made or any sort of accounting for where the mayor's wife had spent about a billion dollars and there is nary a track record for that. one thing we do know is that one place where they're going to immediately cut funding if this goes through is from the graduating class of police officers. they're not going to be putting people into the police academy. my thought is, david, you know, just yesterday we were talking about the accelerating and unusual number of cops in new york city who are retiring because things have gotten so bad. >> can't blame them. melissa: because morale is so

low. because they're not getting any support. because frankly they're risking their lives. we see shootings and stabbings with cops, they say to themselves, if i'm close to retirement, i might as well do it, rather than eking out a few more years. >> yeah. melissa: as you have acceleration of retirements and stifling the number of police who are coming up what does that mean for our future here in the city, david? >> it means we have a pretty bleak future if you're talking about the safety on the streets. that is one reason why we've had a renaissance in new york city over the past 20 years because the streets did become safer as a result of good policing put into place, in some ways it went in endings ses. that was, was cut back but to cut the budget by 20 to 25% is crazy. by the way this, is not just new york. as you well know, melissa, this is happening in places like seattle, minneapolis, the city council of minneapolis voted unanimously to defund the police there we should mention, very importantly. it goes against what the people say they want. all of the polls in new york

city and minneapolis showed they don't want to defund the police but we have a city, these city councils in minneapolis, in seattle, in chicago, that are dominions of their own unaccountable for some reason to the views of the public at large. a lot of that has to do with the fact that these votes for city councils, most people don't even show up for the polls for them because they don't consider it to be important but as we're now finding, they are very important, to the individual lives of people who feel exactly the opposite of the way these city councils are the very voting. melissa: this is so true. we mention the story of new york over and over again. we see it in so many major stitts across the country. this is the future, defund the police what the outcome is, we want to show you before it is too late when it comes to your town. david, thank you very much. see you in about an hour.

yeah, see you in about an hour 1/2 when you fill in for liz macdonald on "the evening edit," 6:00 p.m. eastern. i will be standing by with popcorn. >> thanks for the plug. melissa: over to you. connell: a couple things we're watching right now. in just a few moments the coronavirus task force is set to brief reporters and you know, there are growing number of states to one degree or another paused their reopening plans. so we'll monitor this. we'll try to bring you those remarks as soon as they begin. so we have that. one of the states we've been watching is texas. a bar owner is issuing a a warning to other businesses hoping to stay afloat as new cases spike in that state. we'll speak to him. don't go away. we'll be right back ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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♪. connell: all right. a "fox business alert." we take to you rockville, maryland, and vice president mike pence is there with coronavirus task force. let's listen in for a moment to

hear what the vice president has to say. >> four states, so as you anticipate we're working with governors and state health officials in all of the state has are impacted but we're particularly focusing on the four state has are generating the majority of the cases which of course are california, arizona, texas, and florida. i'm pleased to say that, while there are 29 states that have, don't have a combination of rising positivity and rising cases, we also have an additional 10 states that are either entirely stable or have numbers that are so low they're diminimus. so our focus particularly at the task force today was on the 12 states that have the combination. beyond that while one life lost is too many, we mourn the loss of every american and grief with every family that lofted a loved one, because of the dedication

of our health care workers, because of our response, and the response of the american people we are grateful that today fatalities are at the lowest level since the end of march. we continue to be vigilant as we see rising cases. we understand that could, that that could change but again to see the precipitous decline in fatalities is a tribute to the health care workers in this country and to the cooperation and the compassion of the american people. our message to every american in the, in the state has are most affected by rising cases and rising positivity rates, is we are with you. we mr. working with the governors in your state to insure that they have the resources and the support to meet this moment and provide the level of health care that any one of us would expect for a member of our family.

but to all of the american people, i say, on behalf of the president of the united states and the white house coronavirus task force, because of all we've done over the last four months we're ready. we're in a much better place than we were four months ago or even two months ago. part of our briefing today will focus on progress that we have made in our ability to respond to the outbreaks that we're seeing occurring in states, particularly across the south. i have been traveling across the country. i was actually in texas over this past weekend. received a full briefing from governor abbott about the their response and i will be traveling to arizona tomorrow, meeting with governor ducey. and i will be able to confirm to him that we were informed today that a team deployed by fema of

62 disaster medical assistance personnel are on the ground in arizona. we're also currently processing a request from texas and we're in consultation with other states. as you will hear in a moment with regard to testing, with regard to personal protective equipment, with regard to ventilators, with regard to therapeutic medicines we're in a strong position across all the affected areas of the country to meet this moment but in consultation with the states we're going to make sure they have the reinforcements in health care workers and i'm pleased to confirm today that 62 dmat, or disaster medical assistance team members have arrived in arizona. i will also be traveling later this week to the state of florida where dr. birx and i will also receive a briefing along with secretary azar about that state's response. at the present moment all 50

states in the country are reopening and have done so in one degree or another since the beginning of may when we issued our guidelines to open up america again. at this moment in time because of the rising cases at least four states have taken action to close down bars, limit capacity in restaurants and, and another 10 states have slowed down or postponed certain reopening efforts and, let me make it very clear we fully support the new guidance that has been issued by the governors in these states. we truly do believe that these prudent measures and additional guidance and steps will make it possible for us to continue to move our nation forward, to continue to reopen in a safe and responsible way while putting the health, the health of our citizens first. i thought dr. fauci put it well in a recent task force meeting

when he said, and i think also testified today that we should not look at public safety measures as an impediment to opening up america. rather we should look at them as the vehicle to opening up. as we see rising cases and particularly those 12 states where we have combination of rising cases and positivity, the american people deserve to know that our best health experts say it is an either/or. not whether we continue to open up or whether we move in an opposite direction, but rather whether we take these prudent measures that will slow the spread and put the health of our citizens first. our governors in the affected areas and their public health officials are taking strong action to keep their states open while slowing the spread and, and putting the health of their citizens first. they have our full support. let me say again, as i said at

the outset, the american people deserve to know that we're in a much better place today thanks to the whole of government approach, the whole of america approach that president trump initiated at the very outset of the coronavirus pandemic. the, working in cooperation with agencies across the federal government, working with the private sector across this country, we literally have scaled now 33 million tests have been performed across the united states. and as, admiral bret giroir will detail momentarily we're testing between 500 and 600,000 americans every single day with the capacity to significantly increase that through the innovation of what is known as pooling. when it comes to medical supplies, fema has facilitated the delivery of literally billions of gloves and gowns and masks and as admiral ad will

detail in moments, we're in continuous contact with states and hospitals across the country. we continue to receive strong supports about the support they received and supplies available to meet this moment. also we're in much better place because the availability of what is known as therapeutics or medicines that to treat people that contracted the coronavirus and are experiencing severe symptoms. dr. steve hahn of the fda is here. he will speak about the progress that we mr. making, whether it be availability of remdesivir, which we're distributing another tranche this week, the use of blood plasma steroid treatment and also we continue to hear hopeful signs of the continuing progress for developing a vaccine for the american people. and so with that i'm going to yield to the team here to give you updates. i'm going to begin with secretary azar, who will update

us on our national response including important work the cdc did today with regard to opening up our schools again and, and then admiral giroir will update us on testing, admiral polovchek, on supplies and dr. hahn on medicines. finally we'll hear from dr. jerome adams, the surgeon general of the united states who will give council to every american in states that are impacted and states all across the country about best practices. so to every american in state has are seeing rising cases and rising trends in positivity we want to assure you we're with you, and we're deploying at the president's direction the full resources of the federal government to meet this moment, and working in strong partnership with your state and local officials and to every american, we want to assure you that we're ready, more ready than ever before to meet this

coronavirus pandemic because of the, because of the resources that our president, that agencies at the federal government, and steps and deployed and efforts at state government and mostly because of what the american people have done and demonstrated that they have the ability to do. i mean the truth is, while we made great progress on making availability testing and supplies and medicines, we all need to do our part. we know how to slow the spread. and the common sense measures that that we outlined in our phased approach to open up america again, the guidelines that apply to all of the phases are, ought to be embraced by every american. wash your hands. practice good hygiene. wear a mask. wear a mask when the, whenever your state and local authorities say it's appropriate. so where it is always a good

idea to wear a mask when social distancing is not possible. we're all in this together. of. we have every confidence that as, as we met the moment before, when we saw this pandemic first strike in the northwest, and then strike so hard around the greater new york city area. then new orleans, then michigan, with a whole of government approach a whole of america approach, cooperation of the american people we'll do what we did earlier on in this pandemic. we'll slow the spread and we'll save lives. with that, secretary azar and members of the team will brief. then we'll have time for questions. mr. secretary. >> well, thank you, mr. vice president, for honoring hhs and the commission corps with your presence today and thank you for your leadership of the president's all of america

response to covid-19. i would also like to thank admiral giroir, and vice admiral adams for their service during this crisis and strengthening the commission corps. the men and women of the commission corporation will continue to be essential to the points of response, all six points of surveillance, testing, containment, health care capacity, vaccines and therapeutics. to every member of the commission corps who has gone into harm's way in this crisis who spent time away from home and loved once we're deeply grateful. i want to mention one particular step forward we took today to help americans get back to work and back to school while protect us from the guidance. new guidance from the cdc how higher institutions can protect students and their employees. in particular it offers recommendations how and when testing should be used for students, faculty and staff. including testing for symptomatic individuals and

testing for asymptomatic individuals who had possible exposure to the virus. the guidance also notes that in areas with moderate or substantial community transmission where sources allow, colleges, universities can work with local health officials continue to testing asymptomatic students with no known exposure this may make sense in order to identify outbreaks an inform control measures and would especially apply groups live in congregate housing. the guidance relies on what we learned about the virus in recent months n the very near future we'll release similar guidance for k-12 schools. these are two examples of science-based resources we're providing for state and local let departments and other institutions as they work with federal assistance to continue the fight against the virus and reopen our country. we need to reopen america. we have to get back to work, back to school, back to worship, back to health care but we must

all play our individual parts to enable this reopening. we can reverse these outbreaks and prevent future ones by doing what the president has called for since the beginning in his guidance, practice social distancing. wear facial coverings where social distancing is not possible, and practice good personal hygiene. by doing so, you protect yourself, you protect vulnerable household members, but you also protect the person you may be standing next to in the grocery line. you don't know whether they're vulnerable. you have no way of knowing whether they're high-risk of severity, hospitalization or fatality. you protect them. there are just three simple steps to keep reopening. social distance, wear facial coverings, when you can't social distance, and practice good personal hygiene. all we need to do is to keep

reopening we can work, go to school, go to worship. re-engage with health care if we all as individuals practice good, responsible behavior to protect each other and to protect ourselves. so thank you, very much, mr. vyings vice president. >> well-done. admiral? >> thank you, mr. vice president and mr. secretary. again you did us an incredible honor by being here and honoring and appreciating the 6100 women and men of the commission corporation. we do -- connell: all right. live coverage from rockville, maryland. the vice president of the united states, members of the coronavirus task force briefing reporters in terms of getting the country back open for business and also handling some of the outbreaks that we've seen in certain states. one of them of course is texas and we want to go there now,

talk to a business owner. follows directly what the vice president, secretary azar were talking about. this business voluntarily shut its doors recently with rising safety concerns. michael neff, you see on the screen, joins us, the co-owner of the cottonmouth club in houston. it is a club in the houston area. the bars and clubs were reopened. you opened and shut back down. tell us what your thinking was and the reason that was made. >> right now we were shut down because we were ordered to. basically the entire bar industry of texas is required to shut down for the safety of our fellow citizens. we're sitting here waiting to see if we're going to die. we're without resources earlier. we shut down earlier because the risk became too high. we're a public business, a lot of people, a lot of people were very trepidatious about going out. so when bars reopened, the people came out more likely the ones who didn't want to take the most basic precautions to take

care of people serving them, people next to them. they didn't want to wear a mask. the mask became a symbol of of not believing. if you weren't wearing a mask, that meant you weren't social distancing. you were not necessarily sanitizing of the result, now bartenders all over the city where i am in houston, covid-19 just raged through our community. this is kind of where we're at now. connell: i wanted to make that point t was your decision. i know you have been mandated now. it was your decision to get out ahead of this because you saw what was happening essentially. i believe it was secretary azar said this should be fairly easy for people. get your social distance, if you can't do that, get a mask on, wash your hands, practice personal hygiene. to your point, that wasn't happening. no matter what the government told you to do, eventually they told you to do something, you said you know what? i'm doing my own thing here? >> we weren't alone. a lot of businesses where we are in houston made the same determination because, we were

looking at the people who wanted to come in, seeing where they had been going. there were so many irresponsible people. but there is also so many irresponsible businesses let them basically pile on top of each other. people saw videos of a place called clay, a place called spire. all of these places were literally photographing themselves, dancing and pretending like everything is normal. the shocking irresponsibility of that from top to bottom was kind of what made us say i can't balance that risk for myself, for my staff, for their families or their families or my clientele. we had to make the very difficult decision do we jeopardize ourself as a business or jeopardize our entire community? for me that is not a choice. connell: and either/or shouldn't necessarily have to be an either/or. you bring up the phrase, balancing risks. we talk to businesses all the time. that is always the perspective we're coming at this from, covering the economic recovery. people are frustrated, forced to close down their business.

they want to get back to work, if you don't do it right, this is kind of proof, in terms of individual responsibility and everything else, if you don't do it right it actually hurts the economy. now look at you. you're shut down again? >> right. also bars are unique. they didn't ask us how to regulate ourselves so it didn't work. we didn't want to shut down. i mean our business touches every single part of the u.s. economy. we don't sell drinks for a living. we're in the people business. we're in the community business. that will be very clear to people because they have been stuck at home drinking more than ever, for cheaper. soon as bars open they wanted to come back, right? so we are a symbol of life being normal. you can gather with your friends. you can listen to music. you can have a drink but people didn't want to take the barest, barest step not only protect all the workers who had to come back, who had to come back and serve them, but even each other. but also, just, not even protecting the experiment with the economy. governor abbott wanted to rush

us open. around we did, this is what happens. connell: all right. michael, we'll check back with you. we wish you nothing but the best, to you and everybody in texas and houston. michael neff with us from houston. melissa: that was pretty eye-opening. thank you for that. a warning to supporters, presumptive democratic nominee joe biden promising to roll back one much president trump's significant policies and it could have major implications for your wallet. ♪ e. as a caricature artist,

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♪ ♪ connell: so he took questions today for the first time in nearly three months, joe biden, the presumptive democratic nominee for president. not holding back by any means, taking aim at president trump and also the white house's response to the coronavirus pandemic. >> month after month as other

leaders in other countries took the necessary steps to get the virus under control, donald trump failed us. month after month, as many of us urged him to step up and do his job, he failed us. melissa: biden telling potential donors that, if elected, he plans to reverse many of president trump's tax cuts like raising the corporate tax rate from 21 to 28%. let's bring in gary kaltbaum and liz -- fox news.com contributors. gary, what a great idea. if the economy's in a slump, what you really wanted to do is raise taxes. because that is just the smartest thing you can do, do you agree? >> oh, yeah, sure. if i was joe biden's adviser and i had his ear, i would just simply say, no, joe. we are in the most uncertain time for businesses small,

medium, large that i've seen in decades, and to now put this on them, i can promise you already businesses are talking, okay, what would we have to do, how many people would we have to get rid of, how much investing less will we be doing if this occurs. and, by the way, it's not just the talk of corporate, but it's all taxes, and it's the worse possible scenario e in an uncertain time. i wish he would take a step back and just wait at least until the pandemic -- melissa: yeah. liz, true or false, corporations are inanimate objects, they are not people, and when you tax them, it hurts no one. [laughter] >> false, false, i got that one, melissa. look, biden's going back to the obama white house playbook. it didn't work. we had the slowest recovery since world war ii. but more than that, i mean, joe biden is apparently a pretty slow learner. it seems to me he should take note of the fact that we're actually getting corporations to

bring back manufacturing right now at a rate that we have not seen in decades. that is the really important. middle class workers, he wants them to vote for him, so so why in the world would you start pulling the rug out from the tax benefits that corporations are using to do that and make them less competitive? it is really bad policy, melissa. i just hope that he mends his ways in case, heaven forbid, he wins. melissa: gary, it seems like -- >> -- will slow the economy which means the less revenues will come into the treasury anyhow. it just does not work either way. melissa: yeah. liz, on top of that, you know, he's talking about putting alexandria ocasio-cortez in the administration in a position where she would have an impact on energy whether it's the epa or the environment or it's clean energy policy, whatever it is. i mean, that would -- she's against all fossil fuels, so in those swing states, especially pennsylvania where he needs to

pick up votes, she would be putting all those folks out of business. is that smart strategy? >> well, it's smart strategy if you need young people to vote for you, and that's all this is about, melissa. he is bending so far left to get bernie sanders' supporters on his side, he can't see straight or think straight. it's terrible strategy in state -- not just pennsylvania, but a whole bunch of states democrats are hoping to win. so, again, it doesn't make sense. aoc is an incredibly divisive person even in her own party. joe is just trying to keep her in line, and i think it's really bad news for america. i can't even imagine her in a position like this. melissa: no. gary, if biden wins, will you take your money and run for your life to root country, another island -- to another country, another island, anything? >> let me put it best, if he puts aoc with energy policy, elizabeth warren treasury secretary, these people are left

of leftist, and and they are out to -- melissa: all right, thanks to both of you. thanks, guys, for playing our fun game today, my worst financial nightmare. that does it for us. and connell as well. we will be back here tomorrow. "lou dobbs tonight" -- ♪ lou: good evening, everybody. we begin tonight with the rising tensions between the united states and communist china. the federal communications commission today designated chinese telecom companies huawei and zte as national security threats. the fcc also barring u.s. telecom companies from using federal subsidies to buy equipment and services from those chinese companies. fcc chair ajit pai today saying both huawei and zte have close connections to the chinese communist party and the people's think about rakes