mobile. smaller cap game developer. charles: i remember when they hit the scene making video games for the kardashians. i will put it on my radar. good stuff. really appreciate it. as i hand it over to liz claman, liz, s&p, dow, we came back during the show and just for a split second, the nasdaq was positive. we may get some momentum in your hour. i think the market's hinting we could even get some news during your hour. i'm just saying. that's the way i read it. liz: just sayin', right? you could call it tentative at the moment for the markets because we are just under six hours away from one of the most crucial events of the 2020 presidential race. you are looking live at case western reserve university in cleveland, where tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern, president trump and democratic nominee joe biden will square off in the first debate of this election cycle. ahead of it, investors undecided in this final hour of trade.

markets slightly lower, flat, off the lows of the session as charles said. no doubt, though, before making any bets, many want to hear what each candidate has to say about the major economic issues affecting the markets and the economy. so we in this hour are about to give you a jump on that. our special presidential debate economic undercard, a powerful lineup for you. larry kudlow, the national economic council director, is here to defend the president's record. former biden chief economic adviser ben harris explains joe biden's tax plan, his infrastructure plan and more. what happens if this election is not settled on election day? how should you invest ahead of that possibility? billionaire investor marc lasry, ceo of avenue capital, owner of the milwaukee bucks, reveals how he's investing and our power panel. biden donor mike novogratz and trump supporter robert kiyosaki face off on which candidate is better for the stock market.

all right. so here's a live look inside the debate venue. we want to show this to you. a small audience of 80 to 100 people will be on hand at the debate, hosted by fox news anchor chris wallace. millions will be watching from home and abroad. there will be six 15-minute segments ranging from the trump and biden records to the integrity of the election, the supreme court and the economy. to get a jump on the economy part, we first welcome white house national economic council director larry kudlow and after, we will give equal time to biden economist ben harris. larry, great to have you on the show. up until the covid crisis, let's start with this, the president consistently said the u.s. is enjoying the greatest economy on record and indeed, unemployment was at historic lows, s&p enjoyed 128 record closes but once covid hit, we did see living proof of perhaps how shallow employment was for many americans. it exposed how they were living hand-to-mouth and yes, job creation spiked in trump's first three years, wages moved up, but

surveys show only 40% of u.s. adults have 400 in savings. 32 million filing for unemployment. food banks overwhelmed. so here's my question. can you really say the economy was amazing for everyone, the best ever, and should president trump win a second term, what will he do to fix that, give it more depth? >> well, look, liz, with respect, every single measure shows that people were better off and i'm talking about the census bureau measures on federal income, the federal reserve, consumer finance measures. i can't vouch for everything you mentioned, but those are the measures, 2017, '18 and '19. this is the first raise in wages, you can call it family income or call it plain old living standard, the first increase for middle and lower middle class americans really since the year 2000 but most

particularly, much greater than anything done in the prior eight years. the president takes great credit for that and he's very proud of that. you can go through any of these numbers. the increase last year, $4400. that's after inflation. five times the rate that we had in the prior eight years, for the whole eight-year period, and if you look at the wage numbers and the job numbers, it's just not true. pre-pandemic it was the middle class, the blue collars and lower, who had the largest wage gains, much bigger than the top 10% or even the top 1%. those are wages. these are terrific numbers and i will say that the policies of liberalizing the economy and providing incentives, lowering taxes across the board and deregulation, particularly among small business, unleashed a wave

of middle class prosperity the likes of which we haven't seen in over 20 years. liz: well, i'm glad you brought up the tax cuts because the gop and president trump's tax cuts and job act simplified tax brackets, cut tax rates, specifically, though, to corporate tax rates, it went from 35% of course among the highest in the developed world, all the way down to 21%, arguably making us more competitive, luring business back to the u.s. the president said the tax cuts for corporations would pay for themselves. but larry, they have not. 2018, the first year, so i'm taking out covid because that is just a force majeur situation but the first year of the tax cuts, revenue shortfall was almost immediate. corporate tax revenues plummeted 31%. you can see on the screen, from $297 billion to $204 billion. why such a massive spike in the deficit? what happened to the promised revenue? >> lizzy, sure, right after the tax cut you will see drop in

revenues, okay? you go from 35% to 21%, all right. companies get to hold more of their own money, large and small businesses, new incentives, fabulous returns whether you are a small business or a publicly held company. of course. however, if you look at the cbo numbers, we have been through this with a fine-tooth comb. every time the cbo does a study, before taxes, before the tax cut and after the tax cut, they showed that the increases in nominal gdp from which revenues come, and therefore the increase in revenues, actually rose significantly. now, not in the first quarter of 2018, because the bill was signed in december. but once you get into late '18 and all of '90, the corporate tax cuts have more than paid for themselves. in fact, the last pre-pandemic measure from the cbo showed that almost the entire package, they showed, if i'm not mistaken,

either 1.2 trillion or 1.3 trillion in increased revenues from their earlier estimate. the bill was estimated at 1.5. i just can't agree with you, i'm sorry. you and i are old friends but i got to push back on this stuff because that's what the numbers show. liz: i'm telling you the numbers also show president trump had $297 billion in corporate tax receipts in 2017 and then they dropped. they are climbing back and the expectation is to see in 2020 -- >> they have been dropping. of course, when you -- liz: as you say, but -- >> -- the first instances, yes, but as the growth takes hold and the job creation takes hold, and people come into the work force with higher wages which is exactly what happened, then you see your tax revenues go up. look, the theory here, i believe it was proven out, lower corporate taxes provided the

biggest benefit to the middle, the blue collars, the main street and the lower wage income. they had larger percentage gains than the upper group. that's what we had promised. we had promised them higher living standard and more jobs and higher wages and that's what they got. liz: okay. i want to go to infrastructure. specifically the president's plan versus donald trump's plan. when you talk about that, you know, it's interesting to see that joe biden's website, he expects to have $2 trillion in infrastructure spending. a lot of it is similar to what the actual spending for president trump is promised to be, that's transit, all kinds of investment in highways, not to mention build out a 5g and broadband. however, we are still weight ain an exact figure. i have heard 1.5 trillion, i have heard 1 trillion. can you clarify the number for our viewers? >> well, no, i can't, at this point i can't, because these are guesstimates, okay?

mr. biden's are guesstimates. look, we tried to negotiate a bipartisan infrastructure bill on several occasions. i personally was in the room, i was deeply involved in this. but we couldn't. we just couldn't make a deal with the democratic house and republican senate. what's going to happen, my guess is, the highway bill, so-called, will be extended through the end of the year, maybe next march, maybe that will be 80 or $100 billion but yes, president trump wants to increase infrastructure and by the way, he said many times not only roads, bridges, tunnels, very important, okay, it's also pipelines and energy terminals. in other words, we had executive orders which have opened the door to the building of pipelines, north, south, east, west, so that this gigantic bulge in natural gas which is a clean fuel can help the east and

northeast states so they don't have to buy their energy from russia. and we are going to do it on the other side, too, up through alaska into the pacific. so that's one of the things that he would love to do. unfortunately, mr. biden wants to shut down fracking and essentially end fossil fuels and i think that would be disaster. liz: i want to get quickly to the elephant in the room, entitlements, social security, medicare, medicaid. guys like billionaire home depot founder ken langone from said many times means test for social security, meaning reduce or eliminate benefits for higher income recipients like him. 100 millionaire, billionaire class, would you be for, is the president for means testing? >> no, he hasn't spoken on that at all. look, ken langone is a great man and friend. i would just say this. right now, right now president trump wants to defer the payroll tax which would give a 6.25% raise -- liz: doesn't that borrow from social security later? >> no, it does not, because just as the obama administration did

in 2010 or '11, you borrow some money, you run it through the general fund, then you exchange it for non-marketable treasury certificates with the social security trust fund. it's a short-term measure. we would like to create new work incentives not only for those who are opportune enough to have jobs through this pandemic but for those coming into the work force. we are going to offer them, it's about $1,000 per person. now, longer term, longer term, we will look at all these measures. right now, this is not the time to do that. it's not the time to be raising taxes on anybody. you just had a pandemic contraction. you yourself were quoting all these numbers and how bad it was. i think it's recovering with a terrific strong v-shape. in any event, in any event, this is not the time to raise taxes or regulations. i think mr. biden is outside the mainstream. he wants to across the board tax

hikes and that would hit everybody. liz: not true. we will get to that in just a minute. he does say, larry, just to clarify, because we are dealing with facts, biden has said that he will not tax anybody who makes $400,000 or less. but larry, we have got to run because we are giving equal time to both of you. >> that's a great point that he makes. but the reality is he's going to repeal the trump tax cuts. it's the trump tax cuts that provided massive new benefits for the middle class. you repeal those tax cuts, you are going to take those benefits away and this is the wrong time to pick the pockets of middle income blue collar workers going back to work. liz: larry, thank you. i know it's a busy day for you. we so appreciate you coming on "the claman countdown." for our economic undercard, we kind of put this all together and we appreciate you being part of it. our debate just getting started. with the closing bell ringing in about 48 minutes, the dow a little bit deeper into red territory since the top of the

hour. we are down 49 points. up next, ben harris, top economic adviser to vice president joe biden. listened to for years as vp. he's here in a business tv exclusive. plus, as the dow does fall and the nasdaq and s&p are touchy, "the claman countdown" will come right back. that's what my dad does. good job, michael! ok, lindsey now tell the class what your mommy does... my mom has super powers. it's like she can see the future. what?! it's like she time travels in a rocket ship. that's cool! and then she comes back saying "try this" or "try that." she helps everyone. she helps them feel less worried. wow! mommy, so what is it that you do? i'm a financial advisor. she is! aig proudly supports all the professionals taking care of our financial futures.

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liz: we just heard from the president's top economic adviser. now in a business tv exclusive, let's bring in ben harris. ben is the chief former economist to vice president biden. he's also a professor at the kellogg school of management. ben, larry kudlow just said the worst thing to do right now is to raise taxes. joe biden has said among the first things he will do is actually raise the corporate tax rate from its current 21% to 27%. now, before the tax cut and jobs act during the obama/biden administration, it was 35%. back then president obama was frustrated with the offshoring, meaning corporations leaving the u.s. to domicile in lower tax countries. why raise the tax rate on corporations and risk triggering that flight again? >> so let's just set the record straight on this. the first thing joe biden will do when he becomes president is

get our economy back on track. we are down 11.5 million jobs relative to where we were at the start of the covid pandemic and the first thing biden will do is pass the build back better plan which includes $1 trillion for infrastructure, it includes money for the care economy. whether or not the corporate tax increase which is designed to pay for that plan hits in 2021, it will be something the vice president assesses after he's in office. but the top priority, the top thing he will do is get our economy back on track. liz: okay. but let me go to that corporate tax rate that will rise from 21% to 27%. are you concerned at all that that may put a damper on companies and force them to once again offshore, meaning move to lower tax countries, say for example like ireland? >> yeah, so the corporate tax rate in this country was at 35% for decades, going back to the late '80s. in 2017, at a cost of $2

trillion, president trump cut it from 35% down to 21%. the vice president wants to bring it back up to 28%. clearly, the goal of that is not to discourage corporate investment and it's not going to discourage corporate investment. if you want to get corporations investing in new factories, investing in workers, the best way to do it is to invest in the american middle class. you brought up offshoring. president trump in 2015 promised an end to off-shoring. one of the unfortunate things about that bill that passed in 2017 is it actually rewards companies for moving their operations overseas. we are beginning to see that in the data. vice president biden would actually slap a minimum tax on corporations that offshore. he would tax them higher if they moved operations abroad and tried to service the u.s. economy. for example, call centers that service americans, there would be a higher tax rate on that. everything around biden's plan is designed to keep jobs in america and within our borders.

liz: let me bring up a different part of the tax plan. biden says he will raise $4 trillion in taxes, again, by hiking corporate taxes, taxes on higher earnings. he is clear, though, no one making under $400,000 will see their taxes go up. what's the formula for that number? quite a few small business owners make just over $400,000, can barely pay their employees. why is $400,000 considered higher earner and wealthy in this country right now? >> well, let's be clear about -- i want to be really clear. you said it but larry made a mistake. the vice president committed to not raising taxes on a single person making under $400,000. one of the principles around his campaign has been to reward work, not just wealth, and that's a complete departure from what we are seeing from president trump, whose main economic plan, as far as i can tell, is just to cut capital gains rates mainly benefiting billionaires and the wealthiest in this country. so one of biden's top plans is to go ahead and tax capital gains for people making more

than $1 million a year as ordinary income. i want to make this point, too. you hear a lot from trump talking points that biden is going to jack up the top tax rate to something like 70%. that's just crazy. if you want to go to estimates out of the wharton school of business, you find that people making between 400,000 and 800,000, these are not my numbers, they are wharton's numbers, biden's plan will increase their tax rate from 28% to 28.5%. that's an increase of 0.5%. for people making more than $3.5 million a year, the vice president will tax them at that time about 35%, 36%. we are not talking about this really high number. i also want to be clear. the vice president is completely committed to paying for every last dollar of his long-term initiative. so we talk about, when we hear about things like another trillion dollars in infrastructure, the vice president is going to pay for that. when he wants to go ahead and give every middle class family $8,000 for child care so it's not so expensive to actually go

to work, the vice president will pay for that. how is he going to do it? he will raise the president ka gains rates on people making more than $1 million a year. liz: can i jump in there. you are a former hedge fund guy. you are a businessperson. that actually calms some people who think biden would go extremely far left in all of this. but people who take a chance in the economy, they are the entrepreneurs and they would argue wait a minute, i'm taking a bet on businesses, don't you think you would cause a chill if you raise that rate that had been capital gains? in a way i guess it's his way of equalizing the carried interest that private equity and hedge fund guys get when they take their income as capital gains, taxed at a much lower rate? >> yeah, you know, on the carried interest point, basically what biden would do is get rid of the underlying motivation for carried interest in the first place, for people making more than $1 million a year. it wouldn't matter how you get your income if you are getting it from capital gains or from wages. it's going to be taxed the same.

if you are making under $1 million a year, if you are making 400,000, 500,000 a year, you are still going to get that preference for capital assets. but i think this is important. he's not taxing just to tax. he's not taxing to be punitive or because people who make more than $1 million a year are somehow bad people. he's taxing to raise revenue for other productive investments, things like making sure that every middle class person can go to a public university for free, spending $400 billion to support domestic manufacturers, to reshore supply chains so we're not reliant on china. he's raising it to invest in other investments. the difference between him and president trump is he wants to pay for these investments. remember in 2016 we heard from then candidate trump that he would eliminate the debt held by the public entirely by the end of his first term. that was a commitment. he actually raised it by $7

trillion and counting. so the vice president takes completely different approach to trump when it comes to paying for his investments. the vice president wants to pay for them and president trump has shown he just doesn't care. liz: well, we have got now about 30 seconds because we are trying to keep it fair and balanced giving you guys each the same amount of time. infrastructure. the $800 billion obama/biden stimulus, that did not quite do the trick from the 2008 financial crisis. vice president biden says, what, about $2 trillion. can you just tell me how the d.c. math is going to work? that's about total $5 trillion in spending, $4 trillion coming in in tax revenues you just talked about. there's still a deficit there. quickly. >> yeah, there is going to be a deficit, and the vice president is comfortable with some deficit spending given the magnitude of this crisis. you have 26 million people collecting unemployment insurance right now. our economy, we have interest rates at zero.

you heard chairman powell come out the other day and say look, it's on the federal government now to give our economy a bit of a boost. that's exactly what the vice president is going to do. this is why i pushed back when they say he's not going to raise taxes on day one. what he's going to do is come in with a big bold stimulus package. he's going to invest -- liz: we have got to run. >> larry just said that the vice president doesn't account for every dollar in his infrastructure plan. that's not true. we have an incredibly detailed infrastructure plan laid out on his website. $1 trillion, every dollar accounted for. that's going to be how we get the economy back on track. liz: ben harris, thank you very much. we've got much more coming up.

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liz: all right. just because the markets are flat to slightly lower does not mean that individual names aren't popping droror dropping this final hour. beyond meat sizzling after the plant-based meat company announced an expanded

distribution agreement with walmart which will take its products into 2400 stores, up from 800. walmart, the largest grocer in the u.s. by sales, says the news is a bonanza for beyond meat, jumping 9.33%. walmart up .33%. that was food. time for drink. coca-cola launching the alcoholic version of its topo chico sparkling water along with moulson coors beverage. it will help coke push further into boozy beverages and moulson coors gets to strengthen its portfolio of spirits. coke is kind of fizzing, down a fraction here. moulson coors up .75%. now if you are looking to work off all that food and drink, fitbit. let's take a look at what it's doing. up .25% after reuters reported that google is likely to win european union approval for its $2.1 billion fitbit deal. sorry. fitbit is up 5.9%.

google is up .25%. fitbit really is jumping here. the subsidiary will be offered to restrict the fitness tracker's data which may sway european regulators. that's kind of what they hope for. they like privacy there. who doesn't, right? let's get to tesla. continuing its hot streak, tesla rising for a fourth straight session. during a podcast interview released today, ceo elon musk said the electric vehicle giant's stock may be a bit high but says it will be worth more in five years. shares are pulling back by .33% but ashley webster, let's get to you in the newsroom. we are seeing shares of nikola dropping about 5% today. more bad news here. ashley: it has been a wild ride in the electric vehicle sector. that's right. if you thought the inner workings of a high end electric vehicle are complicated, try following the legal battles between two tech billionaires who are accusing each other of theft in the electric truck wars. throw in a yet-to-be signed deal

between general motors and nikola and investors have a lot to digest and be confused by. elon musk's tesla continues to accuse rival nikola and its founder, trevor milton, of stealing the design for its electric truck from a croatian car company. that claim came in response to a nikola lawsuit that alleges tesla stole its electric truck design for the tesla semi, unveiled in 2017. confused yet? earlier this month, milton stepped down as executive chairman after claims his company is a fraud and that milton was promoting technology that he knew didn't work. something he has vehemently denied but the damage has been done. analysts now wonder whether gm will get cold feet about a partnership with nikola. calls for the automaker to receive an 11% stake in nikola. when it was announced, that deal was worth around $2 billion. gm's potential stake is now worth a lot less, less than half

of that initial value, as nikola's stock has fallen down again 6% today. by the way, gm not commenting on whether it may scrap the deal or perhaps try and renegotiate the terms, saying only that the deal has yet to be closed. stay tuned. liz: yeah, it's called checking out before you make the big purchase, right? ashley, thank you very much. ashley webster. check the dow. we are down 57 points. low of the session, a loss of 245. so that's not a bad picture. at least at the moment. s&p down 8. closing bell is going to ring in about 27 minutes. bankruptcy looking a lot like the word of the year but up next, billionaire investor marc lasry, is he starting to look like a lender of last resort to big companies desperate for cash? he's here next with the biggest opportunities he sees to make money in the markets. that and more coming up on "the claman countdown."

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liz: all right. welcome back. supreme court nominee judge amy coney barrett making the rounds at this hour on capitol hill. she is meeting with republican leadership ahead of her supreme court confirmation hearings which begin october 12th. that battle between democrats and republicans just one of many brewing that could end up at the most litigated and volatile election in u.s. history. so how is the smart money investing ahead of election day? joining us by phone, billionaire investor and avenue capital cofounder and ceo and co-owner of the milwaukee bucks, marc lasry. marc, great to have you. how are you ahead of november 3rd, are you hedging, are you going long, are you shorting? open your playbook for our viewers. >> pleasure to be with you.

i think you want to be long. the reason you want to be long, you saw it from earlier on your program. there is going to be a huge amount of money that's going to be spent, whether it's a trillion, $2 trillion, whether it's on infrastructure, whether it's getting money to middle class america but trillions of dollars are going to be spent on this economy, and that's just unprecedented, the amount of money that's going to go into the system. so because of that, you want to be an investor and you want to be long. liz: okay. there is an impulse to cash out ahead of the election, to try and actually time the market. you would not advise that? >> no, i wouldn't. i think you want to be -- you want to be an investor. i think both parties, whether you are a democrat or a republican are going to be spending money. and spending money is going to be beneficial for the economy and for the market. liz: marc, you specialize in investments of distressed

businesses. in short order, chapter 11 bankruptcy filings rose 26% over the first half of this year. neiman marcus, jc penney, j. crew, so many more names. are you starting to see stabilization now or with what appears to be a second wave of covid, do you expect more bankruptcies on the horizon and in which sectors? >> i think you will have more bankruptcies. the reason you are is just because as you know, covid is just taking longer so because of that to reopen is taking longer, so for companies that we're hoping that everything was going to be fine by the fall, that just hasn't happened. i think you are going to see it in the travel, the hotel industry. you are just going to see more and more problems but you know, that's going to be the opportunity side for us. hopefully we will do well. liz: yeah. that's how you have done well. you know, forgive me if i make the incorrect analogy but it looks almost like you are acting

like warren buffett did during the 2008 financial crisis when he lent capital to struggling companies from goldman sachs to tiffany at very beneficial terms to berkshire. you have done that recently, as i understand it, with a major airline. which airline and what are the terms? >> i would love to tell you the airline. i'm barred by a confidentiality agreement. i would like to try, if i can -- liz: i tried. >> it is one of the seven major airlines and really, what we did was buy planes back, buy planes from them and just lease it back and we ended up leasing those planes at 16%. so as long as that airline is going to be flying, and i think they will be flying for the next two years because they have got the cash, we are going to do quite well. we think that within two years from now, people, things are back to normal and people will be getting back on planes. liz: do you foresee any u.s. major carrier either filing for chapter 11 or being acquired by

another? >> i think they can get acquired. i think right now, if you look at american and united, delta, they all have enough cash. the question is how quickly people come back. but what may end up happening is one of the carriers may say look, it makes more sense to cut costs so one of the ways to cut costs is let's merge. i wouldn't be shocked if you ended up seeing that over the course of the next year, if you saw one carrier taking over another. liz: marc lasry says go long, don't worry about whatever volatility you see. great to have you. thank you so much. >> my pleasure. thank you for having me. good luck with everything. liz: any time. thank you. avenue capital's marc lasry. all right. closing bell, we are about 17 minutes away. rich dad poor dad author and trump supporter robert kiyosaki ready to face off against biden donor mike novogratz. first, what the people want. charlie breaks it on what the

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liz: breaking news. president trump has just touched down at cleveland hawkins international airport. this happened moments ago, ahead of tonight's first presidential debate. he will head for the campus of case western reserve university where he will make final preparations for tonight's big event. wall street donors are also making preparations ahead of the event. they are popping corn and probably biting their nails ahead of tonight's presidential squaring off. charlie's here now with an

inside look at really wlaps hat the line for both trump and biden when it comes to campaign bucks right after the debate is over, right? they start writing checks? charlie: oh, yeah. wall street does care a lot about this election for a lot of reasons including the fact that if you have a president biden, you have -- and maybe a democratic congress, you will have massive changes of fiscal policy, increased regulations, higher taxes, higher capital gains taxes, who knows what other type of taxes they come up with that will affect stocks. but that said, biden still has plenty of supporters on wall street. there are many wall street democrats who believe he's much more moderate than anything else the democratic party has to offer and he could restore certain things back to the economy. there's going to be some positives to the biden agenda, they say, even if you have all those increased taxes. what i'm hearing from the biden camp and then i will get into what i'm hearing from the trump camp is simply this. they believe donald trump has set the bar so low, the gop has attacked him on his mental acuity, rudy giuliani was out

today saying he's on adderall. if joe biden does average against trump, he will win and they will get a motherlode of campaign contributions because it will push him over the finish line. all they're saying is listen, we just have to show up and do average. if we do that, we are going to win the debate, we are going to get a big fund-raising push and it's going to be very hard to dislodge joe biden as the frontrunner. the republicans, on the other hand, say not so fast. when i talk to people, wall streeters that are close to the trump campaign, they are simply saying this. you know, he's going to come out swinging, he's going to go for the jugular, he's going to go for joe biden's mental acuity, he will try to rattle him. they believe the former vice president is easily rattled. if he goes and attacks him early and keeps him rattled for the whole debate, they could basically, you know, basically wipe the floor with him because he will make many mistakes, he will underscore what the main sort of line of attack from the trump people that he is not

equipped mentally for office. the one thing i can tell you when i'm talking to gopers on wall street, i talk to the trump people, is that they are saying this, that they are really worried about the questions being hurled at donald trump on his taxes. this is a new development. the "times" wrote the story about his taxes that he doesn't pay many of them, some years, he has businesses that are underwater. they are really worried about lines of attack from the questioner, chris wallace, on those issues and whether the president can accurately handle those questions. it could be -- it will be interesting to see how that comes up. those are attacks, liz, i should point out, that won't be coming necessarily from biden. they are worried about the moderator asking those questions about taxes and the president not being able to fully answer them or answer them in a way that is believable. one of the problems that trump has had for many years is that his tax issues could have been dealt with years ago, which would have been an old story,

and they weren't, and now you are getting dribs and drabs of them leaking out and particularly right before a debate. this could be very interesting to see how he answers those questions. that's how both sides are lining up. i would say whoever wins this debate tonight will get a windfall in campaign contributions because they will think -- they will basically be able to tell their donors the wind is at their back. back to you. liz: i got kettle corn so i'm going to be popping kettle corn. charlie: me, too. i'll be watching. it's like a heavyweight fight. it's like tyson versus -- remember the great fight with tyson and holyfield, the first one, not the ear biting one, the first one? amazing fight. that's what this is going to be like. this is going to be one for the ages. liz: well, you never know, because when tyson faced off against ohio's own buster douglas, that was a surprise. charlie: i saw that one, too. liz: you never know what's going to happen. charlie, thank you. that's right. i know my boxing. okay. charlie, thank you so much. nine minutes to go before the closing bell rings.

up next, which 2020 candidate will be best for your stock portfolio? wall street legend mike novogratz and author robert kiyosaki are here ahead of the main event in our special presidential economic undercard. we'll be right back. . . . .

♪. liz: all right, breaking news. now we have president trump exited air force one in cleveland moments ago, heading to the venue for the big debate. we're awaiting video of joe biden when he arrives in cleveland ahead of tonight's big moment. how will the stock market fare when it comes to the two candidates duking it out and how will dueling philosophies on the fed play out? trump supporter robert kiyosaki,

author of rich dad, poor dad. mike novavax, founder of galaxy ceo. agree the stock market is separate from the economy. make the case why president trump will be better for the markets. >> number one he is a capitalist. i only support capitalist candidates. obama, biden, clinton, they're sewingists. it's a free country, you can believe what you like. socialist believes taking from the rich giving to the poor. a capitalist would rather make the money and share their wealth through the stock market, things like that. i'm a capitalist. trump and i wrote two book together. it really disturbs me, cnn, they don't even know him, and they trash him. that is why i'm on your program. i i am 100% behind donald trump.

he has a great family. have known him for eight years. liz: mike, let me guess you're on the other side. why would biden presidency -- >> i have my patriotic cupcake. i'm a capitalist. i spent my whole life as a capitalist. i'm a taxpayer. donald trump was a failed capitalist and hasn't paid any taxes. i think that will be a big deal in this debate tonight. you pay taxes to fund the military. you pay taxes to fund all kinds of things and he didn't pay any tax. this whole story that he is a capitalist, doing capitalist things is ringing hollow all of a sudden. if biden continues on that attack line, it will be a really good night for biden. the stock market will have a mind of its own. the fed is driving the stock market far more than the republicans or the democrats are going to drive it. mark last legitimate has good opinion. buy any dip in the stock market because there is lots of

liquidity coming. liz: we'll get to the taxes and fed in a minute. let's talk about their records as best as we compare. both enjoyed big moves under the market. s&p under president trump has gained 47.3% since he has been president. and the best comparison we could come up with were the first four years of the obama-biden administration. we can put the numbers up on the screen. during the four years there was a gain in the s&p of 74%. both also had, and have the benefits of low interest rates. in the case of president trump near zero. both eras pushed people looking for yield into stocks which could be of course risky but robert, you've been highly critical of the fed saying it and treasury have quote rained helicopter fake money down on americans. that is in conflict with donald trump demanding zero or even negative rates are the way he would like to see it so how do we square that? >> donald trump and i got together because we are wrote our own books on financial education. if i could address taxes really

quickly, america was founded on a tax revolt. it was called the boston tea party in 1773. so "the new york times" and cnn says he doesn't pay taxes, well duh. everybody knows the rich don't pay taxes. only people that pay taxes are people who don't know anything about the stock market, the bond market and life itself. so the reason trump and i pay no taxes because we borrow money. debt is tax-free money. with that we buy assets and again the tax law is written for capitalists. liz: mike, we have 45 seconds. >> that is insulting to mark he pays taxes insulting to a lot of businessmen that pay taxes. the government runs on taxes. if you guys think you're so snarky and smart, i don't think that what america votes for. they want a leader pays its fair share.

the kind of snarky i didn't have to pay because i did some voodoo, that doesn't resonate. we'll see tonight. [closing bell rings] that is almost insulting. liz: i would love to have both of you guys back. there is the closing bell. thanks to mike and robert, it is time for "after the bell." we'll see you tomorrow. connell: melissa: five hours away from the first presidential debate of 2020 and investors are on edge, along with everybody else. stocks sliding but closing off the lows of the day, president trump and joe biden prepare to face off. what a day. i'm melissa francis this is "after the bell." hey, connell. connell: hey there, melissa, what a day and what a night i would say. i'm connell mcshane reporting from geneva on the lake in the state of ohio. we're out talking to voters in this key swing state. we'll bring some of that to you throughout the show today. looking at cleveland, ohio, that is where the debate will take place this