awful gaf of some sort and that's the end of your campaign. that's what they're scared of so to wrap it up as i wouldn't hold a conversation with the president of the united states that is an extraordinary statement. no effect on the market we're still up 260 and my time is up, neil, it's yours. neil: yeah like a non-event for these guys thank you stuart very very much. that's wild, i wonder if they feel the same the one if joe biden was trailing in the polls and whether we'd have the need for debates. welcome, everybody very glad to have you i'm neil cavuto. this is coast to coast we're still looking at a fallout from hurricane laura, right now a category 2 storm but man oh, man did she do a lot of damage. they are just piling it up right now getting reports of a chemical plant fire that has ensued in a nearby town, i'm just getting the name of the town, in west lake, louisiana, a chemical plant fire , the governor is urging everyone shelter in place in

that region. this was disrupted by the storm. jeff flock first with what's going on in lake charles, louisiana, i saw the wind whipping around a little earlier today, jeff and that looked pretty strong. that looked very strong. >> reporter: pardon maya experience but i've been in a hurricane and you're absolutely right and how strong? well, look what its done. i mean, power lines down, trees everywhere. look at this tree here. i'm always fascinated by up close and personal with these things. that's the definition there, of a tree snapped like a match stick. 150-mile an hour winds can you see what it did through that house? right down through the middle of the house and this is a story in a lot of places. everything, you know, trees everywhere down, power lines down. they are going to be forever trying to get the power back restored here, and i think these are one off. every house that i have seen, i said this two hours ago and i've

been looking at houses since then, and ever since then, i've not found a house that has no damage. every house has damage. but as you can see , they are already starting. they are already starting the , well, the process of at least opening up the roads. these guys not part of the county crew, or the city or anything, they just are guys that say listen i've got a chain saw, let's go. there's going to be a lot of chain sawing to do before this is over, neil and a lot of guys with power from the power company, with a lot of work to do. this was a wild ride, neil. >> [chain saws sounding ] neil: to put it mildly, thank you, my friend, jeff flock, stay safe in lake charles could have been a lot worse, john porter is the vice president general manager joining us right now on skype. you know, john, where is this now, what's next in-store for people in the region? >> well, neil good to be with

you. this is a very serious storm with big impacts, as jeff was mentioning, and it's great to hear the chain saw starting already because that means people are starting to safely start the recovery process but i want to point out we're just getting started here, still going to be a threat for days to come. the storm is still a low end hurricane with winds of maximum sustained winds of 75 miles per hour, all the way up to shreveport, some 200 miles from the coast, so that's going to spread the continued risk for damaging winds to damage structures, homes, businesses, and create a lot of power outage problems here as we make our way through the afternoon, heading up toward little rock and jonesb orough as well with a risk for heavy rainfall we're expect ing 4-8 inches of rain and about a foot of rainfall that's going to cause flooding problems as we make our way through the afternoon hours so a long road ahead here, as we begin the recovery from a monster storm in laura. neil: john, thank you very very

much. john porter following all of that. with us right now the red cross, louisiana chief executive officer, joshua joakin. hope i got that right, joshua. what are things looking like from your front? >> absolutely well your other guests are explaining it well. lots of rain still happening, damage and destruction from trees, power outages and in some parts of the state rescues are still occurring due to flooding, so yeah, we really i don't have a full clear picture and it'll take some time today, tomorrow, and over next couple of days to really determine how much of the impact has really occurred. neil: joshua, what does the red cross need right now? there's a great deal of damage and that looks very obvious from this. it could have been a lot more harmful in terms of lives lost. i know of only one fatality. i'm not minimizing it but it could have been a lot worse but a lot of people are displaced a lot of people are without power, last time i looked between the two states louisiana and texas better than half a million

of them, so, what do you need to get help to these people? >> that's a great question, and so the american red cross has been preparing for the response to hurricane laura for more than a week now and we are positioned to fly all across across the south in texas, louisiana, arkansas and surrounding states and engaging our volunteer workforce mobilely and virtually and we have folks on the ground and more than 800 volunteers who are engaged in the responses so we can always, we always look for more volunteers and they can , people can engage with the red cross by going to red cross .org/volunteers. we've also been coordinating with our government partners to make sure we had a sound plan but right now, the red cross is really managing and working to ensure that our workforce is safe because as you mentioned, the state is still being impacted above texas, louisiana, by hurricane laura and later this afternoon, into arkansas. so once it's safe, for our

workforce, we'll start to determine exactly the impact and local communities and how we can match those impacts with american red cross support. a couple of the things that the red cross, you can see from the red cross as we support communities are some of the ways we're doing it right now which are sheltering so we shelter families in louisiana, and in texas, overnight, and i believe alongside our government partner s both in kong regatta and non-congregating hotel rooms there were more than 10,000 people who stayed in shelters in texas and louisiana and we supported some of those shelters feeding is going to be a need, so you'll see the american red cross feeding in shelters and possibly even out in the community in the impacted areas. supply distribution, some of the things that volunteers can help us with, supply distribution of cleanup kits and hygiene kits, water and those types of supplies, and then also we have volunteers who can support health and mental health services so we'll be

doing that in the impacted communities as soon as it's safe neil: now these 10,000 who sought out or got shelter, were they your typical shelter facilities, sometimes they are high school gyms, what have you, but maybe in this covid-19 world , they're a little leary of that. i understand a great many hotels and motels along the corridor have been opened up to accommodate them so where did they go? >> yeah it was a mix of kong regatta sheltering in places like you just talked about, in schools that have been rated for wind and hurricane-style sheltering but it's also, non- c ongregate spaces like hotels and you're right. covid does complicate the sheltering situation a little bit, but i think it also allows us to be even more careful and very thoughtful about how we shelter people. neil: all right, you're always there, in need, of course people

forget that, but i know you've had very little, if any, sleep joshua. thank you for taking the time to update us on all of that. as he was speaking we're getting a few more details about this chemical fire that's been reported off of i-10 near west lake, louisiana. the governor is urging a shelter -in-place. we can only assume this was storm-related we don't know for sure but the governor is saying if you're in that area, shelter-in-place, close your windows and doors and turn off your air conditioning units that's a tweet from the governor with us right now is the attorney general of the fine state of louisiana, jeff landry. attorney general, thank you for joining us. do you know much about this chemical fire, and what's going on right now? >> actually i don't. you know, neil i'm actually traveling east to west right now oni-10 headed to lake charles and i spoke with the sheriff earlier this morning and actually en route to meet him to talk about and to assess

a lot of the damage that has occurred in that area, and unfortunately, i think the damage across louisiana is really the storm is going to cut a swath from southwestern side of the state all the way to the northeastern side of the state, as it moves, you know, again from kind of west to east or from a northeast direction, but the damage is extensive. thankfully though, we've only had unfortunately a few lives lost that have been reported. we keep our fingers crossed, if things can stay just with structural damage, i think louisiana will really prevail in this storm. neil: now, better than half a million people are without power i don't know how it breaks down between your state of louisiana and texas but that's a lot of people. a lot of them have been dislocated. when you were urging them and the governor was urging people to evacuate most of them did heed that advice. not all of them but a good man it of them. do you know of any who are now

stuck in their homes who did not heed that advice? >> i know, i'd spoken to a couple of first responders earlier this morning, where they thought they had about 150 people in and around the area that needed to be rescued. i didn't get that particularly confirmed but i did hear there was some search and rescue actually going on. i know that there are some search and rescue efforts going on up in north louisiana and there are about 50 people trapped in homes up around central and northeast louisiana, some of the reports that i've gotten. i know as we traveled downi-10 again east to west we passed a number of utility vehicles and national guardsmen that are headed into the lake charles parish area. neil: all right, attorney general, i know you're busy and touring the state trying to get a sense of the magnitude of all of this. it does seem significant. be safe yourself and thank you

for joining us. the attorney general of louisiana, jeff landry. we're going to keep updating you on this. oil prices largely unaffected by all of this , because supply was already very heavy, going into all of this , so there is sort of like a positive wrinkle from this , it's that, that it mitigated what would have been a sharp up-tick in prices that did not happen. we'll have more after this. ta-da!

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neil: all right, as republicans plan to wrap up their convention tonight, with the president set to address the nation from the white house, with fireworks afterwards, a call by nancy pelosi to rain on the parade a little bit by urging joe biden not to debate the president, all but saying it'll be a waste of time, he doesn't need it, the president lies and what good would it do. that could be a classic case of just seizing on a lead and not wanting to risk anything to disrupt that, or it could create a holy hell right now, and so far no reaction from the trump folks. hillary vaughn on all of that. hillary? >> reporter: hi, neil. we are getting fresh reaction to pelosi's comments essentially

urging biden to not debate president trump at all. remember the biden camp has agreed to three presidential debates. the trump campaign has asked to put more on the schedule, but the biden campaign is sticking to three and they are reacting to what pelosi had to say urging them to not signify that president by engaging him in a presidential debate. the campaign spokesperson for the biden camp saying that while they agree with speaker pelosi's characterization of president trump's behavior, they still look forward to debating him and confronting him on policy, on the debate stage, so for now, those are a go. also happening right now, there are preparations underway at the white house for president trump 's big acceptance speech tonight. we are learning that they are turning the white house lawn into an outdoor theatre, where president trump will be accepting his nomination and making the case to the american people that they should renew his contract for another four years. there will be a live audience of

republican lawmakers and a fireworks show over the washington monument and the speech is happening while the country is grappling with a number of crisis from the pandemic that forced his speech to be moved to the white house in the first place and also, while hurricane laura bears down on the south, the speech will happen as planned though, and that president trump is headed to fema headquarters this afternoon trump's remarks will be the finale for the gop convention and follow his vice president speech last night where pence called out biden for not being more vocal on violence that's plaguing city streets. >> last week, joe biden didn't say one word about the violence and chaos engulfing cities across this country, so let me be clear. the violence must stop whether in minneapolis, portland, or kenosha. joe biden would double down on the very policies that are leading to violence in america's

cities. the hard truth is you won't be safe in joe biden's america. >> reporter: biden has stayed mostly silent and out of sight at his beach house this week in delaware, during this convention but he has popped up a few times on twitter. yesterday addressing violence and chaos that has in sued in kenosha wisconsin following the shooting of jacob blake. >> protesting brutality is a right and absolutely necessary but burning down communities is not protests. it's need less violence. violence that endangers lives, violence that guts businesses and shutters businesses, that serve the community. that's wrong. >> reporter: and neil, it's interesting because biden has been called out for not being more vocal on violence. what we heard from him right there is the strongest rebuke of this violence plaguing cities like portland for more than 90 days straight, so him speaking up now, some would say, is too

little, too late, but as we talked about at the top of this , after this convention is over, the big next event is the presidential debate between biden and president trump, and we're waiting to see if those are still a go. neil? neil: yeah, i wonder if he was telegraphing for the biden camp they're not going to debate be the first time since 1972 i believe that we have not seen a presidential debate if that holds to the case back then richard nixon was enjoying a huge lead didn't want to risk it , just as he hand't debated four years earlier in 1968 he was still sore from losing those debates or believed to have been losing those debates in 1960 against john kennedy so who knows history could be playing itself all over again. thank you, hillary on that. want to get the read on all of this from kristin anderson the fox news contributor much much more good read of the political land here. what do you think of that? do you think that nancy pelosi

was sending a message, that the debate isn't going to happen , and that joe biden shouldn't let it happen? what do you think? i think it be very foolish of joe biden to throw out doing debates, in part because a core piece of his message is to say, i want to be the guy that brings back normalcy, that trump is a disruptor , and look what disruption has got us. i want to be the one who brings us back to normal, whatever normal is. if he suddenly is throwing out traditions like doing presidential debates, one of the few opportunities that voter s will have to see him during this year, where he has been much more low key than you'd expect from a presidential candidate, it sort of throws away a bit of the notion that joe biden is the one who wants to respect norms and traditions and do things in a more conventional fashion. neil: i am wondering too, who stands to lose more, normally, if you're protecting a lead, and

you decline a debate you do so because you think you're coming from a position of strength but as we've learned with polls, they could be fleeing today's leader could be tomorrow's more desperate opponent, hoping for debate, so it could back fire, right? >> absolutely and i also think, you know, for all that we knew coming into the convention, that joe biden had a significant lead in the polls but we were seeing a little bit of tightening and now, that these conventions have happened, now that the news cycle changed with the evolution of this story in wisconsin, there is all sorts of stuff that's going to happen between now and november. i don't think either side should take for granted what they think the outcome is going to be. neil: you know, where do you think things stand? there haven't been any tracking polls post this convention. i did find a little interesting, kristin, that it didn't appear given i think one cnbc survey, there was another national survey that joe biden had gotten much of a bounce at least in

industrial states from his convention. way too early to tell, and maybe , given the virtual nature of these things impossible to tell, but what do you think from the republicans? >> i'm interested to see what clips break through. bear in mind most of the folks that watch these conventions front-to-back are folks who are committed, political junkies, they love this stuff and they pretty much know who they're going to vote for. i'm curious to see what breaks through from the gop convention, and is there anything that brings back what i would call wo bbly republicans, those who maybe the idea of voting for joe biden just doesn't fit great but they don't love trump either. a lot of this convention is messaging has been aimed at i think getting some of those folks to feel that old- time religion, to feel re committed to the gop again, and so we know democrats were really focused on getting their base energized focusing on why they don't like donald trump. its been so interesting to see the way this convention has actually, i feel like focused very much less on making joe

biden into a bad guy, and much more on explaining why they think donald trump is better than you might expect and deserves four more years. neil: i want to get your take on something a number of democrats, analysts and democrats, period, we're talking about this morning , i'm sorry, regarding the need to address law and order. republicans kept touting that and that democrats did not, but democrats countered, republicans are not talking about black lives matter, they've given up on that voting block, so this is going to hurt them. what do you make of that argument? >> i would argue republicans have not given up on that voting block. in fact if you just look at the lineup of speakers over the last two nights of the convention they have very clearly been making a pitch to voters who are african americans, latino, they know joe biden has weakness with young african americans and latino voters in the polls.

i do also think that democratic consultants are beginning to see numbers move from where they were in june. back in june the black lives matter movement was very popular and donald trump's numbers had really fallen but as we've moved on through july and august and as unrest in cities like portland and seattle has seem totally disconnected from the very justifiable quest for justice for someone like george floyd, i think those numbers have begun to tank even in especially in a state like wisconsin, and now if you have folks living not in a big city, not in downtown chicago or downtown new york city, but in the city like kenosha, wisconsin , the place where they might not have thought they were ever going to see protests happening in their streets or buildings being burned down, that conversation has changed and it may be leading more of these suburban voters to take a second look and go look i may support peaceful protests but we need to do something about the unrest that makes me feel unsafe. neil: all right, kristin thank you very very much. just want to let you know that

microsoft and walmart made it official they are indeed partnering on a joint bid for tiktok, that's the chinese video-sharing company. there are rumors all over the map as to how much this thing would ultimately go for , anywhere from $35 billion to $40 billion depending on how much you take whether it's the u.s. operations or it's north american operations then the price gets higher, but walmart and microsoft both confirming yeah, we want to hook up to buyout tiktok. we'll have more after this.

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- hello, i'm michael youssef. lately, we are hearing so many conflicting voices and i don't blame you if you are anxious and worried and troubled. but if i told you that there's only one voice that you can absolutely trust. after all, he wants nothing from you and wants to give you everything. i'm talking about the lord jesus christ, who said, " come unto me, all who are carrying heavy burdens and worry and anxiety.

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but again, i'd stress it could have been worse, now a category 2 storm did a lot of flooding, a lot of damage, so for one reported death, although some local press are reporting potentially up to three others we don't know that, so we just go with the figure that we are seeing confirmed via ap, but as i said, the fear that this could spread even wider has also eased in the energy markets , not that oil prices prohibitively rose when a lot of the oil giants were shutting down their rigs, refineries all of that added abundance of caution, didn't happen. in fact, oil prices now are technically a little lower than they were before all of this happened. i'm combining, so why is that? what can we look forward to? right now the oil associates president, good to have you back with us, andy. what happened? normally you see a run-up when a storm approaches and certainly after it hits, we really didn't

see either. what's going on? well in the futures market for gasoline, we actually saw prices rise nearly $0.13 a gallon over the last couple of days and they've since given back nearly every bit of those gains, because the impact of the storm was not nearly as bad as feared. here, in houston, we had a number of refineries that shutdown or reduced operations. those are all returning to service this afternoon. the other big major change, or impact that did not happen, was flooding. we don't have any reports of refinery flooding in either the beaumont, port arthur or lake charles area and as a result the market is expecting that those refineries in beaumont/port arthur are going to start up today, and over the next few days, returning gasoline and diesel supplies to the market. neil: yeah, you've always reminded me, supply and demand really comes into play here, and

as we come out of the whole covid-19 sheltering and locking down provision, it's a slower world than it was. it's coming out if it's cocoon so to speak but the demand is just not yet there would that still characterize things now, or what do you think? >> well it would. certainly gasoline and diesel demand has recovered from its lows that we saw earlier this year, but gasoline demand compared to this time last year is still down about 10% and diesel demand is about down the same amount. jet fuel demand is down of course 50% as the public is not flying. of course this has resulted in refiners cutting their utility station down to about 80% which means that we do have sufficient slack in the system for refiners that were not impacted by the storm to pick up the slack

for those that were. neil: so, play out the rest of the year. i know that's always difficult. kids are returning to school, whether virtually or in-person, some sense of normalcy returning to most states not all of them by any means. play that out for energy prices, gas price, what do you think? >> well, i think a few things. first of all on crude oil, where we're about $43 a barrel today, i think that's going to rise to $47 a barrel, and the reason is that the rig count remains very very low. it's about 70% lower than this time last year. these prices are certainly not enough to support more money being sunk into the shale oil areas. on gasoline and geese el demand diesel demand i expect a slow recovery to continue through the balance of the year but still not reaching the demand levels we saw at the end of 2019

now, the eia is still quite optimistic. they think that next year, gasoline demand is only going to be off 1% compared to 2019. in other words a nearly-full recovery. they are a little bit more bear ish on the diesel demand but that gives you their thinking. for the consumer, gasoline and distillate inventories are well- stocked, gasoline inventor ies today are about 2% higher than last year, but diesel inventories are 28% higher, so i don't really expect upward price pressure on either of those. neil: all right, andy, thank you very much, we'll see what transpires in the months ahead, be safe and be well. by the way, we are learning right now from the national basketball association that the playoffs are on, and they will continue after postponing following the shooting of jacob blake. they had been delayed but apparently, they will resume

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>> [chanting ] neil: all right it could have been a lot worse. they were fearing a lot worse there were hundreds of guardsmen there in case it did get a lot worse, but it didn't happen a fourth night of protest in kenosha, wisconsin following the shooting earlier in the weekend last weekend of jacob blake, but again, calmer heads prevail, grady trimble in kenosha with how things look right now. >> reporter: neil, right now, reverend jessie jackson, members of the kenosha naacp are here speaking about the shooting of jacob blake as well as the arrest of kyle ri

ttenhouse. he is the 17-year-old charged with first degree murder seen on social media videos carrying a long gun and at one point apparently firing it during protests tuesday night. last night, though, as you said, protests remain peaceful. the curfew was moved up an hour and it was strictly enforced as hundreds more law enforcement officers were on the street including some sent by the federal government, fbi agents, and u.s. marshals among them. >> violence in the community is not acceptable. violence to property, violence to people, absolutely unacceptable. we're getting better at this , and we've got more resources coming in and we are not like the mayor said too, we're not going to put up with what we saw monday night. >> reporter: and today, around kenosha, firefighters are still putting out hotspots of fires set earlier in the week, during the rioting and protestingment meanwhile yesterday the wisconsin department of justice releasing more details

on the shooting of jacob blake by a kenosha county police officer, they have identified that officer as ruston cheske, and they found a five on the driver's side floorboard of jacob blake's van. we also know that the federal government is now getting involved in this investigation and the doj is launching a federal civil rights investigation into the shooting of jacob blake. that will be headed, neil, by the fbi. neil: all right grady trim bell thank you very very much hope some calm can be restored there right now, in the meantime i was telling you a little bit that the nba has announced that the playoff games will resume this weekend, they were put off in light of the shooting right now and many other team players we're saying we don't even feel like playing these playoff games there are contracts and understandings that can't be so easily broken, however, so the playoffs will resume this weekend but it occurred at a time when not only the nba but

the wnba, major league baseball , major league soccer and the rest, had also looked at delaying games and events, some days, some were even talking about weeks, don't know what the others are going to do. i do know teke barber is here the former nfl great, his read on all of this. the games go on it's just a matter of time before the other major sport franchises confirm it in their respective sports, but what did you think of the way all of this went down? >> it was shocking at first, neil. we obviously have come to feel that sports are bringing normalcy back into our lives, a distraction from all of the things going on in this country from covid to the racial reckoning we've been dealing with or talking about for the last few months but when the milwaukee bucks decided not to come out to boycott as they said the game last night, it was shocking, and but it was also telling, and i think an important telling of how their emotions are so connected to their fans and to the communities, with a lot of them come from.

we look at them as multi million dollar athletes but a lot of their backgrounds and families are still in these neighborhoods and they feel it, especially in milwaukee, where it was their backyard. i think i was pleased to see the other leagues whether it was the wnba or the mls, as you mentioned and really more importantly the milwaukee brewer s who are a majority non- minority group of players decide not to play their game last night against the cincinnati reds. it just shows an empathy for what's going on with this country and when you back that up the fact the bucks didn't play the game and spent the afternoon talking to the attorney general and the district attorney out in wisconsin, it makes you feel like they know their impact can make a difference. neil: you know what i'm wondering about from here, i mean, all of this occurs the same week we had roger goode ll the nfl commissioner acknowledging he goofed in the way he handled the colin

kaepernick issue, and black lives matter and all of that. not that it dramatically changes things now, but it does remind you how quickly the pendulum has swung. where is it going? >> yes. neil: what are we going to be looking at assuming the nfl gets off to regular games this fall, just a couple of weeks really. what do you expect? >> yeah, that was coincidental, whether you want to look at that as fortioutous or unfortunate. roger goodell knew they were going to be on the wrong side of history probably then and now it's square in their face that they are on the wrong side as it pertained to colin kaepernick. i don't know the answer to that question, neil but i do know nfl players just like nba players know their voices have become powerful. now this is probably a consequence of the financial windfall some of these players have. when you have money you have influence and that wasn't the case with professional

athletes. they were fearful they be black balled from their places of employment and it was up to the owners, and those in higher powers to do things of this nature. now, players can do this because they are not afraid to walk away from millions of dollars. colin kaepernick was the example four years ago. now you're seeing it with the nba player, boycotting a playoff series. it could, it could extend into the national football league as well. let's hope that it doesn't. let's hope that the dialogue and the messaging and this country gets better. the empathy in this country gets better and we're not stuck at this point where the sports that we love and have depended upon to give us joy and distraction from life don't go away because of what's happening in the country. neil: you know, tiki, i'm curious, though, how they will handle the kneeling versus standing thing. i had the other former washington quarterback who was saying he hopes people will respect each other's right,

those who kneel that someone else can stand, someone who stands can honor the freedom of someone else who wants to kneel and leave it at that. >> yeah. neil: i don't know if it'll be that easy. what do you think? >> yeah, i don't think it will either especially when you have owners in the national football league who are divided on whether to support their players wholeheartedly or to realize that the fans that are going to come after them are going to be loud, and it's going to be visceral. i know that jerry jones got a lot of flack a couple of weeks ago when he throughout the word "grace" and it seemed like he was dismissing what was going on but what he actually said had some meaning to it. what he was saying was he hopes that the players understand why people not of their same color, or same race, or same backgrounds can understand why they're upset with them but also the fans in the stadium can also have empathy for why the players have to do this and why they

have to take a knee and why they have to use their platform to make an impact at least the littlest impact, even if it can to help change the society that we live in. i love this. i love that athletes have this power. i know that it's not easy and i know that they're going to get backlash but it's worth the sacrifice and a lot of people's estimation and i believe they're right. neil: yeah, it is powerful, and you're a strong spokesman for the right to express their power, because they certainly have it right now. tiki, good seeing you again. >> always. neil: it's going to be wild we'll watch it closely. tiki barber on that, different times my friend, and money talks and that is something we're going to follow certainly on the fox business network. we're also monitoring what's happening on the corner of wall and broad. you know that the nasdac of course with technology stocks under a little bit of pressure, it's going to have a tough time following up on that but look at the dow up 109 points, it's under 4% from a record.

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neil: you know, through this whole coronavirus thing if you wanted to work out, in new

jersey, you couldn't, and that was causing fits among those , who run those fitness places, including these next two gentlemen. ian smith and frank grambetti, they are the co-owners of atilis gym and they won. they got to be a real pain in the butt with the governor which is what you have to do, they were relentless and they won. the governor is allowing gyms at reduced capacity, but capacity nevertheless, to reopen on september 1. gentlemen congratulations. you must feel pretty good about that. >> thank you. we still have a long battle ahead of us, but it's a step in the right direction. we have a lot of legal issues to resolve, and some legal issues of our own, with governor murphy , but it certainly is a step in the right direction. neil: for those who aren't familiar with what both of you guys went through, they were threatening, i don't know if they succeeded taking your business license away, fining you, everything else. so, where does that stand?

>> well right now, we actually joined forces with rick mader, a republican representative trying to actually win a senate position in the state of new jersey, and we are now classified as a volunteer camp for his campaign, and everyday people come in here, since they took our business license away from us, everybody comes in and signs up to be a volunteer for the camp and we do different things throughout the day, and we allow everyone to exercise their rights while they are here, and as far as the fines they have taken our business license away. they are fining us up until everything was going on they were fining us $15, 497.76 a day , and we were being told by our -- neil: a day? a day? >> a day, yes. a day. >> our fines total over $300,000 at this point. >> they justified that legally and actually said that they need to take all of our money,

because with the things that we have done in the past, if they do not take all of our money, they knew we were going to stay open. neil: now, that means technically, that all gyms in new jersey can reopen, but yours so what are you going to do? >> correct. we're still open. we're going to stay open. we've suspended all commerce. we haven't charged any members since april anyway, you know, this wasn't about just reopening a gym and making money. this is from the beginning this is about taking a stand for what we believe are gross violations of due process and our constitutional rights so he put us out of business, you know , officially, but we stayed in business and we're going to go after the township for stripping our business license with no good reason, so lake i said we have a lot of things, to recover, but governor murphy got his way, and got us "out of business" but you

know, we're still open and we'll continue to be open, until we get all these matters resolved. neil: now, in the meantime, the governor had argued the reason he was doing that with not only your gym but other gyms is that the risk was too high, the spike in cases still enough to be a worry, that an abundance of caution, places like yours had to stay closed. now with this all changing after september 1, what do you think? >> i think from the beginning, it was just a joke. they had conclusionary statements with no science or data. we've proved that they had no science and no data. right now actually today, we have some people here doing actually evaluation of our facility to show that the protocol that we actually had put in place and we document ed on the internet on may 11, it actually works, and since june 16 we've had over 28, 464 visitors come through our site and we don't have a single

case of covid and we have not required them to wear a mask or anything like that, so to me , the latest turn where governor murphy actually opened up the gyms, it actually helps our case, because he actually is just arbitrarily picks and chooses when he wants to open things up, and i mean, i personally believe that he has a specific reason he's doing this which we don't need to go into but by the end of september he's going to try to shut everybody down and blame it on the gyms to say they weren't ready so i just hope all the gym owners out there, that have been closed they actually take the precautions that we have taken and they take it very seriously and make sure that their members take it seriously, and follow the guidelines, or else they are going to find themselves being made an example of. neil: hang in there, guys, we'll see what happens. we have reached out to governor murphy. he's not called back. we always try to assure people who react like that that both sides hiatus, so you might as welcome on. so please, come on. we'll have more after this. how they gonna pay for this?

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now a category two but not before it did a lot of damage. jonathan serrie in the lafayette, louisiana, with more. jonathan. >> reporter: hi, neil. emergency management officials confirm three fatalities in louisiana, they include a man who died in jackson parish and a 14-year-old girl who died in vernon parish. both of those victims died after trees fell on their homes. we're still awaiting details on the circumstances of the third victim. meanwhile, state police and hazmat crews are investigating a chemical fire, it is ongoing. you can see smoke billowing from a distance from a chemical plant in west lake. officials have closed both lanes of interstate 10 in the area as a precaution and sent out smartphone alerts to nearby residents urging them to shelter in place with their windows closed and air conditioners turned off. west lake is near the city of lake charles which recorded sustained winds of 98

mile-an-hour with a gust of 132 miles per hour. these winds caused extensive damage. >> like a bomb went off in lake charles. it's pretty bad, pretty catastrophic for us. in the same breath that i say that, i also want to say this is not something that's going to be a knockout punch for lake charles. we're going to recover from this. >> reporter: and authorities are surveying the damage from cameron parish where hurricane laura made landfall around one a.m. central time. they estimate between 100-150 residents there decided to stay in their homes and attempt to weather the storm. difficult thing to do as winds were clocked at 115 miles as this powerful storm made landfall. neil? neil: thank you, jonathan, very much. jonathan serrie. again, we are waiting for this fema briefing that will feature the president of the united states as well. when they start speaking, we'll head over there. in the meantime, i've got the former fema director.

all right, after a storm, you know, go new the process -- through the process, if you can, david, what fema does, what it has to check, what it wants -- it really wants to get a good lay of the land, right? >> absolutely. and more than likely fema had people on the ground early, before the storm made landfall just to make sure that they had the supplies they needed and were ready to move in as quickly as possible. they'll start doing assessments immediately, they'll bring large crews in to help with that. of course, the first priority is making sure that people are safe and rescuing those who decided to stay behind, although they should not have, and make sure people are not trapped. then they'll start doing damage assessments. neil: yeah. and, again, i don't know whether these is statistics are reliable, david, so i'm not even going to use them with much authority outside of saying that each though half a million were urged to evacuate, nowhere near that did in texas and louisiana.

so that stands to reason that, for whatever reason, they stayed in their homes either nervous about going to shelters in this covid-19 world or just nervous about leaving period. so you have to track those people down, right? >> absolutely. you've got to find out where people are, make sure they're safe. we see this in storms often where people just simply refuse to evacuate. they don't understand the power of not just the wind, but the water, the tidal surge. we had almost a 15-foot tidal surge, and it just destroys everything. we do need to look at our building codes like we did after hurricane andrew and after hurricane katrina, you know? congress passed the disaster recovery reform act in 2018 which provides money for rebuilding back better than we had before, and we we definitely are going to have to do this on this one. we saw that high-rise with the windows blowing out through the night. that should not happen. that simply should not happen, and we've got to build better

and build stronger and build our homes safer. neil: you know, or i'm wondering too, you had marco for a while, so you had two at the time they were tropical storms barreling down on rough hi the same area, the gulf coast, and i'm wondering if this is a preview to continuing coming attractions and how fema prepares for something like that. >> yeah. we don't see any more storms, but storms we're seeing are bigger and much more powerful. this was a gigantic storm. it was almost 30 miles across, and that's a huge hurricane. neil: wow. >> it just takes like a big 30-mile tornado almost. is so if -- we're going to have to adapt to this. these storms are bigger and stronger and are causing more damage, so we've got to -- we can't stop the storms. we can't do that, though we can prepare and mitigate better for preparing our homes and our businesses and our infrastructure to deal with it. fema has a lot of money now with this reform act that was just

passed to start rebuilding our infrastructure system that can handle these types of storms. we're going to have to do it. neil yeah. pay it now or pay a lot more later. david, thank you very much. appreciate your expertise. the former fema director, david paulson. back to jeff flock in lake charles, louisiana. a lot of damage there but, again, it's hardly a caveat right now, it could have been a heck of a lot worse, jeff, i guess. what are you looking at now? >> reporter: well, i guess it could have been worse, a bigger population center, but i don't know how -- i guess it could have been cat five. i don't know how much worse that looks, to be honest with you. some of these structures just total losses. we showed you last hour the residential neighborhoods, well, this is one of the businesses, a gas station, if you can even tell it was a gas station and a liquor mart. a lot of these buildings you're not even sure what was in there. you know, the roof of this building, by the way, is behind

us somewhere somewhere in the neighbor's yard. a cat four, 150 mile-an-hour winds. you want to know what that's about? well, look at lake charles. and as i indicate to you last hour, we're not just talking about a couple of, you know, places that, you know, look really bad and, oh, the rest of it's okay. there's nothing that looks really good. look across the street here, you've got houses with -- i mean, it's not catastrophic damage, but everybody's got damage almost. roofs, most of the buildings in town have their roofs damaged or gone. like i said, what do you expect, 150 mile-an-hour winds. that's going to do some damage, and as you report, folks at fema are going to have their hands full, you know? this is a big one. this was a big one. neil. neil: you know, i'm curious, jeff, i mean, i think we had touched on it last hour. i know i you have so many hits here with multiple networks, but

those who opted not to evacuate, the warnings came out we're told better than half a million were told to evacuate, but a fraction actually did. so you have to look for those people, check that they're okay and all of that, right? >> reporter: well, you do. we didn't have the surge here in lake charles like they had right at the shore, at the gulf shore, so that's a positive -- neil: right. >> reporter: anybody here, i mean, you look at -- this wasn't catastrophic to all the homes and that. you could survive that. you probably are, you know -- [laughter] had quite a ride last night, but a lot of people didn't want to go to a shelter because of the whole covid business. and, you know, just -- [laughter] we've got a couple of perfect storms going these days, and this was a bit of a perfect storm too. neil: yeah. no, right, you're right. jeff, thank you very, very much. jeff flock in lake charles, louisiana. we're getting updates from him throughout the day.

to william porter right now, what's the first thing you notice and you realize you have to do now? >> yeah, i mean, you've heard a lot of the on-site reporters saying the same thing, there's a lot of trees down right now. i think everyone was kind of expecting maybe a hurricane harvey or a larger water event, but there's a ton of trees and power lines, so for us, it's how do we open those routes so the population can get back to their homes, get to essential services and so we minimize the safe i think threats of falling trees that may have been destabilized from hurricane laura. that's what we're looking to get to work on, and we have teams out on the ground right now assessing those areas and getting ready to start cutting some wood to open up those areas. neil: it's hard to get to those areas, right? >> well, that's what you see this compact track loader behind me, we rolled one of those out, we have chainsaw operators

author out there. we will move into those areas because we can move those downed trees. that's really what our value add to this disaster is, is being able to open up those areas not just for us, but for other ngos and first responders as the state department of transportation may be focusing on things like the i-10 closure and stuff like that. we'll open up those secondary and tertiary routes so everyone can get through. neil: you know, just when i'm looking at some of these aerials and shots we're getting from above, you know, it looks like massive destruction. i'm so surprised, you know, there were a few fatalities, you never like to hear that, but it looks like there would have been so many more. so it's clear that a lot of people either, you know, hunkered down or cleared out of the area depending on the area if you're along the coast. what do you think happened? >> yeah. i mean, we hope that everyone heeded the warnings from the local officials and the state officials to evacuate. surely i'm sure there, you know,

louisiana writ large is a very resilient population. so we hope that, you know, they did whatever was in their best interests to either stay or go or heed the local warnings to be safe. but, you know, we are definitely poised to help expedite that recovery. and those people whose homes are affected, we can help get them back in their homes as quick as possible. neil: you know, it's remarkable guys like you, william, you'll never take a bow because you go right into that trouble to help out. everyone's running away from it. thank you for all you're doing and the help you're providing. william porter, team rubicon, deputy director of operations. a godsend at times like these. thank you, william. we have a lot more on this. we're going the hear an emergency briefing from fema coming up minutes from now. the president will be there as well. speaking of the president, his speech is still on tonight, final night at the convention. he'll speak from the south lawn of the white house, fireworks,

all of that still scheduled to cap a convention that republicans say is going very, very well. we'll see you after this. ♪

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we're getting word right now that joe biden is being interviewed right now on msnbc, is still going to debate the president. nancy pelosied had indicated a little earlier she didn't think it was a good idea. you can't trust the president, he lies, yada, yada, and it would be a waste of his time. no doubt offend responding to polls showing that joe biden has a comfortable lead if you buy that stuff. the former vice president indicating it's still on with him. first tocom mcshane, he's in jacksonville, florida. remember, that was posed to be the site of this convention. because they couldn't deal with the crowds and everything in north carolina, as luck or maybe lack of luck would have it, everything went virtual everywhere, but jacksonville, florida, still very important to this ticket. connell mcshane, what are you hearing? >> well, we decided to still come here, neil, as a part of our swing state tour. we've done five states now in two weeks and finally made it

to, i guess, what they call the ultimate swing state here in florida. and, you know, you look at some of the other places we've been, they all voted for president trump the last time around, but they have unique characteristics. for example, north carolina and georgia lean to the red side of things at least historically whereas the state we were in last week, wisconsin and pennsylvania, more blue state tendencies you could argue where florida florida. if you look at the last 12 presidential elections, florida has picked the winner 11 times, went for bush instead of clinton in '92x that was it. '92. speaking of voters in the jacksonville area, we did not, as we did in some of those other states, find a lot of undecided voters. what we did find was a lot of passion on both sides. >> look at the employment has recovered and jobs have come back, and the economy overall with all the numbers. >> trump had money from a little boy. when you never had to struggle and you never had to fight for

yourself and high are, you don't -- and life, you don't understand the real world. >> one fan of the president, one not so much. and if you look at the economy here in florida, it's so dependent on tourism. starting to come back a little bit, but un34r0eu789 is stubbornly high, well above 13, 14% in april, now back down to a little over 11% but still in double digits. speaking of the virus, you know, itself you have in this state more than 10,000 people dead as a result of coi have 19 -- covid-19, but it's different in different parts of the state. miami-dade, more than 2,000 dead. duval county where we are, a little over 200. i will say is, neil, a number of biden supporters did bring up the president's handling of the virus as one of the reasons that they are, they're voting for vice president biden as opposed to president trump. back to you. neil: connell, i love the swing

states and the battleground states, the work you've been doing because i think it puts it into perspective. it's all about the he can tomorrow votes. we forget that -- electoral votes. look forward to your coverage tonight, 8 p.m., as republicans wrap it up tonight. we'll tag team each other on that, but look forward to tonight when the democrats are going to be closely following what it is the president has to say. maybe on swing states, maybe on a record they say is lousy, he says trumps theirs. no pun intended. back to the debate over debates, nancy pelosi started it, joe biden tried to end that debate. take a look. >> i don't think that there should be any debates. i do not think that the president of the united states has comported himself in a way that anybody should, has any association with truth, evidence, data and facts. i wouldn't, i wouldn't

legitimize a conversation with him. >> i'm going to, as long as the commission continues down the straight and narrow as they have, i'm going to debate him. now, i know for certain that they're going to -- i'm going to be a fact-checker on the floor while i'm debating him. [laughter] neil: all right. republicans argue they're going to be fact checking him as well. it's amazing how you can pick and choose who's the fact checker here. we try to hold both sides accountable with whatever data. anyway, former virginia governor and senator with a look at how republicans -- also can kelly -- a democratic strategist. a lot of people quickly seized on what was nancy pelosi getting into, why was she raising this, is she sort of putting it out there that joe biden, to protect his lead, might not debate the president in what do you think? >> well, biden has already agreed to three debates, and so

i believe that he is definitely going to debate. we also have to think about people's safety. i mean, we are dealing with a pandemic, and we need to make sure that people's health and safety is taken into account. we have over 180,000 deaths, and people are very concerned about that. so i think that's an issue. but as i said before, biden's definitely going to debate him. neil: all right. when you mention the fact of people's safety and all, do you think that the virus could be used as an excuse not to debate? it's too dangerous? i mean, there are ways to do it where that wouldn't be the case. what are you saying? >> right. no, you -- i think it's a factor that, you know, we are in unprecedented times right now because of people's safety and security. i mean, look at our economy. people are very concerned about that, and the second issue that most americans are concerned about is health and safety. but i definitely think that biden has already agreed to it and definitely he's going the debate trump. but we have to remember according to "the washington

post," trump has over 20,000 lies or misleading statements. so i think that's important to consider when he's debating biden. neil: all right. you should hear what the republicans say about the democrats. george allen, let me get to you on that and this idea that a lot of -- are going to go back and forth between these guys. they have serious differences. but i'm wondering, above, from your vantage point could there be a possibility we don't have debates? >> i think it'd be very disappointing to the american people. i agree with kelly, and i hope that joe biden follows kelly's advice and there are three debates. and then, yeah, there's concerns about the pandemic, there's concerns about a lot of things and everything related to the pandemic as well as finding good solutions to some of the racial inequalities in our country, and those histories are all important. in a debate, i would hope they

could have a debate and, obviously, they may not have many, much attendance at the debate. most people watch debates on tv. this is really not much of an issue. what i'd like to see them do is put out their proposals how the united states is no longer so vulnerable and dependent on china and these foreign sources for our essential medical supplies. i'd like to hear both of them talk about how they're going to change our policies, our research and development so that we don't have to be worried about, gosh, are we going to get our medicines from an unreliable, adverse source such as china, or can we -- neil: i know what you're saying. you want to make sure issues like that are covered. governor, one of the things that has come up in this, and i do want to raise it as well with kelly, this idea that the administration has painted biden as all but mr. magoo and that the bar's been set so low, they might regret doing that --

>> [inaudible] neil: -- he's going to, he's going to look good if he can get through the evening without fainting. do you regret the hammering and the mr. magoo-ing, i like to call it, of joe biden, that he's hurt -- or the president could hurt himself with that line of attack. >> yeah. the expectations game, i come from the world of sports. it's a her tock rah i, everyone's treated equally regardless of race, relation and so forth. and if you think of sports teams, the coaches are always building up the other teams as how good they are. if you have people thinking so little of joe biden that if he comes off as coherent, people say, gee whiz, he was able to put two sentences together. i think what people care about is what is your vision for the future, making sure that this is the land of opportunity and to get our economy stronger again. provide liability protection for businesses that are struggling to reopen.

those are the sort of things that people care about. i think of single moms that are worried not only about the health of their children and their communities and whether they're going to work and whether the kids are going to school, all sorts of things that are really important -- neil: in other words, stick to the issues. i get what you're saying. kelly, let me is ask you real quickly, if the president were to go after joe biden, say, hey, sleepy joe, do you know where you are, some of the things, how do you think biden should respond? >> welsh you know, i think biden's handled it very well on how to respond to it because i think that's just a false narrative. i mean, he's not that at all. look at biden's speech at the democratic convention. one of the fox reporters said that biden, if it was the bottom of the ninth, hit a home run. on a scale of 1-10, it's 11. so the american people are going to see this is -- neil: no, no, reading a prompter, he read it very well, but, you know, in the debate there's no prompter, you know

what i mean? what do you think the vice president should do? >> i just think he should just ignore it. i think he debated great against sanders, i think he's a great debater. i think he's going to do a great job in the debates, and he's been calling -- trump's been calling him sleepy joe forever: i think that's a false narrative. we should call trump the dividers, because that's what he is, he's dividing -- >> the purpose of -- [inaudible conversations] neil: if the president doesn't divide and biden doesn't go to sleep, both of you might be disappointed. [laughter] we'll see. we're kind of crunched for time here. we are -- sorry, governor -- waiting for this fema briefing featuring the president of the united states. a lot more coming up. 75 years. they've really stood the test of time. much like these majestic rocky mountains. which must be named after the... that would be rocky the flying squirrel, mr. gecko sir.

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neil: all right, a lot of damage and now trying the get things right, it's going to take a long

time after hurricane laura, a category four storm when it came in, now a tropical storm moving north to arkansas and flooding a lot of places as well. enter brian trasher, the united cajun navy spokesman. they're there to help out in any way they can. they've got a flotilla of volunteers who do their best to help their fellow man. brian, not a bad job on your part. let me get your sense of what you and your men and women are doing right now. >> well, first of all, neil, thanks for the invitation. you have a lot of fans in the cajun navy, so keep doing a good job on your show. we're no strangers to bad weather here in louisiana are. for the last few years, the cajun navy has been all over different parts of the country including down in our caribbean territories and puerto rico and virgin islands helping folks

out. this time we have to defend our own backyard here in louisiana. hurricane laura came as a pretty strong storm. we're just now getting some of our intel back from our first drone teams looking at the damage. there doesn't appear to be a lot of wide spread flooding, but we're still watching the river which could crest over flood stage. we're going to need supplies, water, food, generators, chainsaws. there's a lot of debris everywhere, and we have our first caravan rolling out towards lake charles, louisiana. neil: you know what's is so amazing is when you guys try to reach out to the people who are unreachable, those who, i would imagine now after this storm, didn't want to leave their homes, they were afraid to, and they're stuck there. they don't have wear, they don't have food, they don't have a lot of things. how do you track them down? >> well, you know, i think that between southeast -- southwest

louisiana and southeast texas, there was a pretty good evacuation effort. so, but you still have some folks that for whatever reason don't want to, were not able to leave their home. but i've got to say, neil, since hurricane katrina which we're coming up on the 15th anniversary of, we didn't have smartphones just yet, and the data lines weren't as strong. neil: right. >> we have a lot of folks that can't use their cell phones to make calls, but they still have data, and they can go to our facebook page and they use an app which is like a two-way radio, volunteer louisiana and volunteer texas. people are reaching us that way, they're getting in touch with relatives, and they're calling us. there's a lot of ways to dispatch if, but i i really give the credit to technology. we've to come a long way in the last 15 years, and it makes it ease questioner to respond. neil: well, you were doing incredible work before all that technology. what's the number one folks need right now or those who can reach out to you via with data or whatever, what do they the need? what are they saying? >> so usually we get a lot of water donations from, like, the

coca-cola distributer in baton rouge, louisiana. they're a little light on inventory because of the pandemic, so palettes of water, it's very hot and muggy in south louisiana. but like i said before, generators, chainsaws, anything that can help move debris because a lot of times the difference between getting somebody out of their home or being in a situation is a tree in the middle of the road or power line down, things like that. and, of course, we don't go in and touch power lines, we have the experts that do that. sometimes you have to clear a way so that the experts can get to the power lines. it's a lot of things you don't think of. any volunteers that are willing to take pets, you know, a lot of first responders are not allowed to take pets, and some people don't want to leave without their pets, so sometimes we'll find volunteers who will hang on to those furry friends until people can get to where they can take their pets back. neil: well, god bless you, you know, brian? you're not a big guy, but you

clearly have a big heart. all of your men and women, their only goal is to help out each other. and it's hot there. dealing with people without power, and you're dealing with the same elements. continued success and thanks for all doing. >> i look bigger on the radio. thanks, neil. [laughter] neil: believe me, i always say the camera adds 50 people when they see me me in person, no, it doesn't. [laughter] thank you very, very much. i want to go to nick underwood right now with the aerospace engineer, of course, the noaa administration. nick, very good to have you. from your vantage point, what's job number one right now? >> right now? as far as the hurricane hunters are considered, we're all back home. we flew a series of missions starting when this system was still tropicalling depression 13 east of the antilles, flew missions collecting as much data as we could all the way up until landfall. right now our crews are back

home resting, start early next week we'll prep for the next storm that may head our way. neil: and thanks to the -- the magnitude of the storm was appreciated beyond just hearing it's a category three or four. i know it got within 7 or 8 miles of being a category five briefly, so you were able to send is back, you know, much more data and much more information than just the visuals alone. this looked at least from a lot of the images i'm seeing, like it was a monster. unusually big. how would you describe it? >> i would say that laura certainly went through a significant period of rapid intensification. we flew a mission on tuesday morning and found the storm to be a category one hurricane or early that morning. yesterday morning at our next mission it was a category two storm, and toward the end of that flight yesterday, laura was approaching a category four strength. is so that's a very strong increase in a very short amount

of time, but the data we collected in that storm was very critical to the forecasters at the national hurricane center who were able to predict that intensification and warn people in texas and louisiana that a strong storm was going to head their way. neil: these images are stunning. thank you for providing them. obviously, a lot of danger, people can appreciate just how serious this thing was and encourage folks to evacuate. nick underwood, appreciate it. be safe. in the meantime, we had some gym own ors in new jersey who got the good news that gyms could reopen in the state of new jersey. here's the bad news, theirs can't. joe piscopo on that, after this. ♪ ♪ introducing stocks by the slice from fidelity.

now you can trade stocks and etfs for any amount you choose instead of buying by the share. all with no commissions. stocks by the slice from fidelity. get your slice today. i'm a delivery operations manager in san diego, california. we've had a ton of obstacles in finding ways to be more sustainable for a big company. we were one of the first stations to pilot a fleet of zero emissions electric vehicles. the amazon vans have a decal that says, "shipment zero." we're striving to deliver a package with zero emissions in to the air. i feel really proud of the impact that has on the environment. but we're always striving to be better. i love being outdoors, running in nature. we have two daughters. i want to do everything i can to protect the environment

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♪ ♪ neil: a moment of caution, places like yours had to stay closed. now that's all changing after september 1st. what do you think? >> i think from the beginning it was just a joke. they had conclusionary statements with no science or data. i just hope all the gym owners out there that have been closed, they actually take the precautions we've taken and they take it very seriously. neil: all right. here is the good news in new jersey, gym owners can open their doors come september 1st. here's the bad news for those guys, the co-openers of atilla's gym,ing they cannot. they've had their business taken away, they've collected tens of thousands of dollars in fines, and the governor is making sure they don't even try. joe piscopo with us right now. joe, of course, a gym magnate in

his own right. what do you think of the way these guys are being treated, that they were keeping their doors open and forcing them open, now the governor, the state and the city is saying no can do. >> you know, we adhere to all the rules, all the cdc guidelines, listened to the governor. our ceo, who's been fox before, he did everything he was supposed to do, so we tried to do everything by the book, and we're going to open on tuesday, and we're excited a about it. really my attitude is i want to say thank you, we're supposed to say thank you? we should have been opened for five months. my heart goes out to the boys down this in south jersey because now they're being used as an example, some kind of revenge from the government. i think and i would call on governor murphy, respectfully, to rescind all the fines they put on this small business that was just trying to, you know, exist. they were just trying to make money so they could go day to

day-to-day. again, i told you this before, neil, i can't stress it enough, the politicians had their pension and welfare, their 401k was all set and they had everything in order. the rest of us are just small business folks trying to make a living. call back the fines, mr. governor. let the boys off the hook, let them get back to business like the rest of us on september 1st. neil: you're no more than a small business guy than i'm thin and fit, so we'll dispense with that -- [laughter] but i do want -- you're a man of the people, i know you. you keep pushing that. all right. here's where i want to get your thoughts. these poor guys if you think about it, joe, were doing everything they were supposed to do, the distancing and everything. in fact, capacity is far less than what the government was allowing in other locales, and they're still toll do not open and do not even consider it.

finish. >> yeah. neil: so this is not going to go down well. >> no. i don't think so. it just looks horrible. it makes trenton look like this big, you know, monolith going after the little person really. i don't know what -- you know what's so to funny, neil? we've got a budget problem, we've got property tax problems, restaurants that need to open. they were toll they were going to -- told they were going to open, they hired people. and the government's paying more money than some of of us small business owners can pay workers. it was an absolutely mess. by the grace of god, we're going to beat the pandemic, this virus, and you can't -- i'm very surprised that governor murphy is sticking it to these guys. just call them back say, look, we're all back to normal, let's start all over again. let them off. we are all going back. and, by the way, to the point that the guys were saying down there in, down in south jersey, neil, to the gym? what, 6 feet apart, we have got

the masks, they're going to sign everything. i told you we've got a checkpoint scanner that comes in that takes your temperature when you walk in. the gyms are probably the safest place to be, so i would respectfully submit to the governor that he lets these guys off the hook and, again, lets us all open september 1st and let bygones be bygones. neil: i don't know. in this case, it might be a while. we'll watch it closely, joseph. thank you very, very much. your show's great, you're great. good human being. the man of the people, i'll play with that a little later. joseph, thank you very, very much. he really is a good guy. we've got a lot more coming up here including what's going on with the markets. as you know, the s&p hit a record, the nasdaq, the dow, you know, bit by bit, it gets closer. but it's made a lot of technology stock owners very rich, and they've been leading the pa raid. -- parade. you should see how it's

emboldened the guys who own those companies. i mean, after this. ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ neil: all right. if you think it's been a good roll to be a technology stock

owner, imagine being a technology company owner. imagining jeff bezos. he's now worth about $200 billion. actually, a little more. imagine being elon musk, thanks to the runup in his stock he's worth more than $100 billion. and then you have the also a rans like bill gates with the microsoft at $124 billion and even the apple chief tim cook, not an own owner of the company but a shareholder, and his shares worth well north of $2 billion. so billionaires, all, which is why we got two other billionaires to talk about them. jonathan hoenig, jared levy as well. think about it, jonathan, when they get the attention they knew for a nice round number, $200 billion, 1 is 00 billion, it ig e nights more interest in washington in their companies. what do you think happens now? >> yeah. well, neil, or that's certainly rich for all of these technology companies, but let's not denigrate what these

gentlemen -- some females as well, but what these tech innovators have built. especially now during the pandemic, thankfully we have amazon, we have i'm, we have square. these are the companies that are making normalcy in life possible. so these are great heros. they should be admired. now, whether the tocks should be purchased, neil, that's another thing. i have to tell you, i look at shares of tesla, it's up 900% in one year. i've only ever seen price action like that back in the late 1990s. we know what happened then. neil: you know, i'm thinking the same thing you just did there and, jared, i'd be curious, these guys -- i'm referring to the tech giants -- they've been running far fast, they were soaring through the pandemic, actually, they've continued virtually uninterrupted post the worst days of the pandemic and a lot of people say there's a comeuppance coming. there was certainly in the late 1990s before the internet boom

went bust. could that happen again? >> it could but i don't think it's going to. i echo jonathan's sentiment that these stocks are rich, they're frothy, parabolick rubups are -- runups are kind of insane. i think back to what gordon gorn gekko said. he said information is the most valuable commodity he knows of, okay? and back then he was sending bud fox, his henchmen out to get covert information for him to capitalize on. but what these companies are doing is they are figuring out ways and there's a select group of them to gather hundreds of millions and billions of people's unique information, sift through it, sell it, monetize it both internally and externally and give us as consumers the apps and the power in a sense that someone like a gordon gekko had. so in a way, you know, the

apples, the facebooks, the amazon, as jonathan was talking about, they kind of make it. so without them we don't have a chance, right? anyway, the bottom line is there can be more upside. i do think it's a little frothy, but i think these guys can get richer. neil: yeah, well, he was a movie character, but he also said, you know, greed is good. and it's easy to be greedy and take a lot of this money, right? jonathan hoenig, when you look at it, they've been richly rewarded for being in the right place at the right time. you always remind me and you speak you hold this for the long term, you hold these types for the long term. but what if they got all their long-term gains now in a short period and that, you want to lock that in, what do you tell investors? >> that's just it, we talked about holding cisco for the long term back in the hate 18990s -- late 1990s. because it's valuation was so

high, fors still not -- it's still not back to where it was. and, you know, neil i don't want to -- [inaudible] but it feels very much to me like a top. finish the five largest stocks on average about 50% year to date and the ten largest stocks make up over a quarter of the s&p 500. we haven't seen that type of concentration since the late 1990s. so it's tough to call a top, but it's hard to say that the market and these big cap stocks are anything other than very, very expensive right now. neil: all right. we'll watch it closely. always in the eye of the beholder. today's overpriced stock could be tomorrow's buy, we'll never know. we find out usually after the fact. gentlemen, thank you very much. we've got the dow racing ahead, the nasdaq and s&p 500 in record territory. a little bit more than 3% away, still the highest level in positive territory for the year and taking a stab, less than

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now you can trade stocks and etfs for any amount you choose instead of buying by the share. all with no commissions. stocks by the slice from fidelity. get your slice today. neil: all right. don't forget our coverage on this network beginning at 8 p.m. eastern time, connell mcshane

starts you off, the final night of the convention, i'll pick up the baton at 9 p.m. until whatever. the president will be addressing the nation from the south lawn, there'll be fireworks, a lot of back and forth on how republicans see the future of this country versus democrats. we're all over it. to charles payne right now. hey, charles. charles: hey, neil. thank you very much. and good afternoon, everyone. i'm charles payne, and this is "making money." breaking right now, folks, here we go again. value names are taking off, maybe this time the rotation effort sticks because of major shifts in the underlying fundamentals and drivers. jerome powell pausing rate hikes to create what he calls true maximum employment that could the create maximum stock market return x. that big news on coronavirus testing which means a stronger economy before we get a vaccine. these developments could change everything, and that includes for your portfolio. i've got some of the best names in the business