stuart: dwayne "the rock" johnson saw that headline about his tequila brand and he posted it on his instagram page. he thanked us for chairing his story. he will look forward having a finance biz chat with us one day down the road. come on anytime you like. just bring the tequila. neil, it is yours. neil: beats getting a nasty message from him because he could beat you up. take to you new york city, a lot of restaurant owners, sharing a story about the virtual shut down of indus door dining industry. the mayor, governor of new york city, hinted that there might not be the worst of it. there could be more sweeping measure. they are allowing delivery of the new york city metropolitan

area, outdoor dining as is. the city is bracing for what could be a blizzard tomorrow at this time. some estimating it could dump up to two feet of snow on the new york metropolitan area. we'll update that. we'll get a handle how bad this gets in new york economically for a group of workers that has been disproportionately affected by the pandemic and now is all but on life-support. jackie deangelis following these developments in new york. jackie? reporter: good afternoon to you, neil. while you're watching the pictures, look behind me, these are the restaurant owners and employees speaking out in times square saying save the restaurants, save the bars. we heard the stories on this show and some other shows how they are struggling and they're so fearful about the future. their voice is being heard today. as you mentioned this is coming at new york governor andrew cuomo and new york city mayor bill de blasio are warning that new yorkers should get ready for a full shutdown or a pause if the coronavirus keeps spreading at the current rate. cuomo said, quote, if we don't

change the trajectory we'll head back to a shutdown and that is something to worry about. this is coming after indoor dining as you mentioned was halted but what we're talking about here would be bigger than that. it would mean all non-essential businesses would be forced to shut down just like they did back in the spring. take a look at the coronavirus stats in new york. more than 5,000 patients hospitalized statewide. more than 1000 patients in the icu statewide. the positivity rate, 5.66% and 83 people died of covid-19 yesterday. mayor de blasio had this to say. >> we're going to need to do some kind of shutdown in the weeks ahead, something that resembles the pause we were in in the spring. if we implement that, my nomination would be right after christmas. reporter: meantime just as new york city restaurant owners are told they can only serve food outdoors we are bracing for the biggest snowstorm in the northeast in years. it could leave more than a foot

of snow. as you mentioned some forecasts up to two feet. the ability to serve out doors doesn't seem realistic at this point. a lot of problems here, neil and they're layering on top of each other. neil: really is silly. imagine like, you know, tomorrow this time would you like your table outside? i don't think so. thank you very much for that update, jackie, meantime this is help on the horizon. obviously the pfizer vaccine is out. another one from moderna getting a lot of rave reviews for its effectiveness. get the latest on that from edward lawrence, how soon this could be out, hey, edward. reporter: first the fda did approve an at-home covid test, the first one you can buy over-the-counter. saying the moderna vaccine was highly effective. now on the pfizer vaccine 2.9 million doses will be pushed out by the end of this week. this is a greater expansion of what is going on yesterday.

we had 145 sites yesterday get the distribution of the vaccine. 455 sites today are expected to get that pfizer vaccine. by the end of the week we'll have 2.9 million doses at the end of next week, by the end of next week, the 6 million moderna vaccine doses will be pushed out of this. i am live here at the clearwater fire and rescue as this truck pulls away on to a call. these guys won't receive the vaccine, those first-responders until the first or second week of january and there is an eager anticipation that this could actually happen. listen to this. >> we're hoping, our fingers are crossed as this vaccination starts to spread out throughout the community it will lessen the effects, then help the numbers for sure. reporter: now still he says only about half of the firefighters in clearwater were sure they would actually take the vaccine even though they're truly on the front line for emergency calls.

clearwater police chief feels once people see the front line workers vaccinated without problems others will will follow. >> we have 60% are going to take it or interested in taking it. 40 telling us right now, no. we hope once it starts to roll out, people feel more comfortable with it, make they reevaluate that decision. reporter: you know that is the effort now, to get this, educate people that the vaccine is effective and safe as well as getting it out and distributed. now the distribution part might be a challenge as you know the next couple of days on the east coast as we get the big storm headed up your way. neil, back to you. neil: thank you my friend, very much. back to new york city right now. i want to take you to times square where restaurant owners and a lot of their workers are rallying. let's dip into this a little bit. >> we're asking government to help us. we're asking the new president to support us. thank you. >> thank you.

[cheering] neil: continue to follow this right now. what they are angry about, understandably, they have been forced to shut down indoor dining. now the caveat here is that they're told it might not last too long but we just got word today from the new york city mayor and new york governor that more sweeping restrictions could be coming, outright shutdown, akin to what we had in the spring of this pandemic year which would just doom all of these guys right now who are hoping that there is a chance they can reopen. keep in mind they are allowing, you know, delivery and outdoor dining but as you just said the city is preparing for a blizzard tomorrow, anywhere from 18 inches to two feet of snow expected in the new york area. so i doubt people will be requesting outdoor tables in that environment. we have new york republican congressman tom reed with us on these developments. so much i want to talk to you about, congressman, including what you're doing with problem

solvers, fellow caucus members to provide relief for these folks. more importantly what you make of what is happening in the city and now in the state where they're entertaining quite seriously more sweeping shutdowns, what do you think? >> well it is great to be with you, neil. what i think is the, the approach should be more of a targeted containment strategy and i supported the governor when he talked about having a containment strategy, not these mass shutdowns where one size fits all type of approach he is talking about statewide from within the city, across the city, across the state and if you focus on containment, now we have the testing capacity, now we have the contact tracing, we learned so much more about the virus than where we were in the springtime. that to me can mitigate the risk, mitigate the exposure and contain the virus, not have to shut down, kill these restaurants, kill these businesses living day-to-day on a thread. neil: why is it restaurants are always the first line of attack

or to be attacked, especially when the data doesn't always jibe with the biggest contributors to the spikes in cases we have seen? in fact they're fifth on that list and i'm just wondering why and how they're constantly targeted by the way not just in new york but every time we see spikes in other cities like baltimore, certainly through much of california they're the initial attack line? >> yeah. it's a great question, neil because if you do follow the data your point is well-taken. it is like 1% is potentially the exposure rate is my understanding looking at the data. i guess maybe because they're the most visible, the ones on the front line in regards to people look at them and public officials easily can point them out. follow the data i think we can come up with a better strategy. neil: let's talk about a strategy for covid-19 relief, sir. i mean i know republicans and democrats have been at loggerheads on this but i always get a feeling something might be coming and maybe this latest

idea that cut the 908 billion-dollar package into two parts has something potentially in it for everyone but i could be wrong. maybe explain the latest two part strategy, what is included in each part? >> we're glad to work with the problem-solvers caucus with our senate partners. we stood with the senate partners yesterday, the "gang of eight." the showed we can find common ground on $748 billion of relief to the american people like the paycheck protection program, like the unemployment sections and food assistance and other areas that are much-needed and vaccine distribution. the job wasn't done. we took it back to the problem-solvers caucus in the house. let's show we take the $908 billion which takes the state, local aid money, combines it with much-needed liability protection. mitch mcconnell and others were talking about for months. combine those two together find the sweet spot joe manchin and

democratic party, republican members we participated with showed support unanimously for. there is still hope we finish this off. we're still close on the 908 billion-dollar approach that to me a win for everybody. we'll not leave for christmas until some relief is flowing for the american people. neil: by doing something that each side likes as well as each side dislikes, for example, republicans are not keen on relief for cities, especially cities and states that might have created their own problem for the pandemic, neither are democrats keen on liability protection but they might swallow their pride on these respective issues to get a deal done? >> that is exactly where we are. that is what we showed with the senate partners and the members of the problem-solvers caucus. this group we founded and share with josh from new jersey on democratic side, 25 members equally split. 50 members in the house of representatives. you can do it, if you listen to each other, put the american

peoples interest first. we showed you can do it. you can figure out the complex problems, if you listen to each other, respect each other. you don't have to shed your ideologies of proud republican and proud democrat. i'm a proud republican. i'm willing to listen to find the common ground. who wins in that scenario is the american people that is it what we need to do for the christmas holidays in particular. neil: your optimism might be grounded in fact here, we're learning per your kind of tease after the beginning, congressman, nancy pelosi invited mitch mcconnell, chuck schumer and kevin mccarthy, her counterpart in the house among republicans to look and work on this two-part package, the package you alluded to. is it your understanding there is optimism this can get done, only this way, the way they're doing it now with two bills rather than one? >> i think there is -- i'm an optimistic person and i'm just glad to see the four corners that is one of the things in the

problem-solvers caucus we've been demanding that the folks stay in the room and listen to each other. the four corners, talk about the speaker mitch mcconnell. stuart: chuck schumer, kevin mccarthy, as well as the white house they have to be in the room to finally sign off on this package. that is a very interesting development that happened in the last few minutes. neil: all right, congressman, thank you very, very much. i hope something can be hammered together, they need that relief. spell out so-called i wouldn't call it agreement, as much as common understanding that party leaders will flesh out, i believe at 4:00 p.m. eastern time today. it includes $748 billion to aid small businesses and set up a mechanism to help the unemployed as well as cash for covid-19 vaccine distributions across the country beyond what we already have, another 160 to potentially $180 billion for bailouts of

hard-hit cities but the devil is deciding whether they were hard hit by the pandemic or they were pre-hard hit because of their own fiscal sloppiness here. that is the area republicans are insisting on, but, but, we're told republicans would bend on that if there is some liability protection built in for businesses in this package. so there is a lot of give-and-take on this and right now those people, you know, who are protesting in times square, it's not just an academic issue. for them it is surviving or not surviving. we'll have more after this. ♪.

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you might think you were born with a slow metabolism.d to lose weight, that's exactly what these people thought. (woman) i lost 75 pounds with golo. (announcer) nambu lost 48 pounds. hannah lost 60 pounds. and graham lost 131 pounds. how? they went to golo.com. now it's your turn to lose weight quickly and easily with golo. head to golo.com now. that's g-o-l-o.com. neil: all right, back to new york city right now. a lot of these are restaurant owners and they are workers. they are marching in new york city from times square, heading over to third avenue where governor cuomo's new york city offices are located here. they're shouting to anyone who will listen, whether new york city mayor or the governor. look your plans to shut down indoor dining and think we can

survive on delivery and outdoor dining as if, if there is blizzard expect the in new york at this time, that is not a solution to our problems. they want to see them do something to get off the proverbial rear ends to get off something more logical and protect livelihoods, something politicians are ignoring. they want help from washington. they are not only ones hurting right now. kristina partsinevelos, all retailers in a world of pain. kristina? reporter: neil, shopping centers, malls across america are hit hard, retail tenants, so many filed for bankruptcy. so many of them just are not making rent. of course a third factor too, a lot of americans are hesitant to go shopping or avoiding malls all together. that is completely dead has to do with surrounding businesses

that are being closed. with mauls or stores closing that could mean a major drop in real estate tax revenue that would go to local municipalities, the money, tax revenue dollars would help support school budgets as well as the police. according to the international council of shopping centers, roughly malls across america pay $400 billion in state and local taxes. so when foot traffic is down, people are not going, this could be really bad news for municipalities, it could eventually fall on the shoulders of taxpayers. listen in. >> the local communities always overtaxed, overassessed and overtaxed the malls and shopping centers who wound up subsidizing the taxes paid by the local constituents but they're losing the real estate taxes which will substantially increase the real estate taxes that the individual

homeowners are paying. reporter: major mall owners like cpl and others filed for bankruptcy in november. malls closing, a 47-year-old mall in phoenix called metro center closed three months ago. three other malls in new jersey filed for bankruptcy. we understand when the major shopping centers close down that could be a huge hit to already weak or shortfalls, budget deficits across the country. that is the big question, will that result in an increase in taxes for americans across the country, especially at a time when supposed to be the joyest, busiest shopping time of the year. not looking like it so far. back to you. neil: no. looks like a ghost town in fact. thank you very much, kristina, for that. back to the protest movement building in new york adding more to it, the new york metropolitan

area like some others are seeing the restaurants shut down and businesses stymied, well the corner of wall and broad, the hope that stimulus could be happen having lifted the dow in and out of session highs here but try telling that to those protesting restaurant owners and their workers in new york city and headed to governor andrew cuomo's new york city offices on third avenue to make their wrath be known here we need something an soon. if you're not going to do it. washington is not going to do it, we're done, we're toast, we're finished. in the big apple, we are big finished and not getting any better. we're monitoring that with brian wesbury, jonathan hoenig. jonathan, what the folks are saying to a man or woman, one thing to talk academically talking about stimulus for the economy. that is long overdue for us. we cannot survive. in the new york metropolitan area looking up to half of the restaurants that might not make

it at all if this were to last another few weeks, this indoor dining shutdown. what do you make of it all? >> neil, tragic. you covered, you talked to a lot of these small business owners. the irony the one stimulus government hasn't tried, they have given some stimulus but the stimulus they haven't tried is the regulation. deregulation works so will for example, when it came to getting the vaccine quickly. why not try to take the same approach when it comes to so many small businesses in new york, many metros around the country? what they're doing is opposite, more taxes especially on the evil billionaires, more lockdowns, neil. americans who might want to go out, socially distance to get a sandwich, businesses ability to adapt, survive, find new ways to get customers. the biggest drag on the economy is the virus. it is the reaction we're seeing in new york, major metros across the country.

neil: jonathan, the irony here to his point, a lot of promise and hope there will ash limit to all of this, yet thing are getting worse covid cases in this country, in shutdowns and restaurant shutdowns, mening behind this great strike that is going on and protest among restaurant owners and workers in the big apple, it's a tale of two worlds. >> neil, it is. people called it a k-shaped recovery. in a way it is rightly so because the big tech companies have stayed open. the big box stores have stayed open and the people that have really been hammered are the small business owners. and it hasn't stopped the spread. there is mask usage across the united states as higher than it has been in the entire pandemic. yet the spread is still going on. what we're doing is, even with these vaccines, reacting with

more lockdowns which is the damage is immense. it goes, your previous report about the damage to tax revenues to cities is amazing. then we get politicians, like for example, in new york, aoc, who is now called any billionaire that exists a failure of policy and yet what she did is chase amazon out of new york city. by the way, amazon this year has hired 500,000 new employees and so what they did is they chased away the job growers and locked down the job producers. it's a disaster for cities like new york city and now companies and billionaires are going to leave those cities where these lockdowns are mower severe -- more severe. neil: thank you for the breaking news. i'm truncating a this a little

bit. in new york city a protest has grown in the time this broadcast. restaurant owners, workers, those sympathetic to their cause. indoor dining is no longer allowed in new york city. they're relying on delivery, outdoor dining which it is very cold in new york of late and they're expecting a big ol' snowstorm tomorrow. that is an option few will take advantage of obviously. they are on their last legs. they need help. want help. they're hearing about stimulus in washington coming closer. it ain't happening yet. they might not survive and doesn't come and soon. this is the real tale of the pandemic. that is lingers on. ironically in the face of promising vaccines that could eradicate it. if only so easy for restaurant owners that might not survive that time after this.

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is. neil: keeping an eye on these protests happening in new york city right now it started with a few dozen. then it grew to looks like a few hundred. i'm a horrible judge of this but they are marching from times square where they first gathered, a good many of them heading towards 30 avenue new york city office ofs of governor andrew cuomo raised possibility along with mayor de blasio akin to something like shutdowns we had in the height of the pandemic back in the spring and april. can you imagine that? it would be double jeopardy for a lot of these restaurant owners and workers, protesting, gathering in new york to say enough is enough. this is playing out across the country in particularly in cities and states where crackdowns are going on as we speak. if you think about what they're dealing with, they have taken all sorts of precautions on

social distancing and the like, all of that doesn't matter, they're shut down entirely so you could argue that religious organizations and others who are protesting limited capacity in churches, for example in the washington, d.c., area, are limited to 50% capacity or 50 individuals, 50 worshipers, whichever is lower. some of those cathedrals are pretty large. some of them can hold hundreds of people even at half capacity. no, no. the minimum requirement is 50 people in that event. that has my next guest, the executive director of the beckett fund for religious liberty protesting all of this saying enough is enough. what kind of reaction are you getting here? you raised a very logical point. why are we limited to 50 people if cathedrals, churches, sanctuaries that can hold many, many more? >> absolutely. you have got it right.

this is about science and common sense and the archdiocese of washington has shown that they can have masks and be socially distanced and masked all of those things, they can bring masks to their people and be safe at the same time. there hasn't been any kind ever contagion for them. they have done live streaming, everything everyone wants them to do, to be safe. this boils down to discrimination on the part of the city where they are choosing to treat the religious entities different from restaurants where you can sit down for 90 minutes with no masks, or tattoo parlors or liquor stores. what is essential here? i think when we're 11, 10 days now away from christmas, i think we need to let people go to church. neil: what is so odd about it though, one thing if they had unequivocal proof that churches, synagogues, have been the problem for these spikes in cases or where they all started just as we're looking at, as i'm

speaking to you, you know, restaurant owners in new york who are not to blame for spikes in cases going on there. in fact they're 5th among contributors first led by people in their homes and private gatherings. it's a no-win situation whether you're a restaurant owner trying to serve food or a church trying to save souls, you're not doing well you know? >> that's right. that's right. it is really problematic is specially when you see that the city is going against the supreme court. the supreme court has already said, coming out of new york city, this case where the diocese of brooklyn and israel, jewish synagogues, educational institutions asked the court for relief from governor cuomo's discriminatory order and they gave it to them and you're seeing courts around the country start to apply this in california, today in colorado, people are waking up to the reality that 25% with no caps is

very reasonable, very, very reasonable. you don't need a 50 person cap in the basilica, the shrine of the immaculate conception can hold the statue of liberty lying down twice. i think it is unreasonable to have a 50 people cap in that building. neil: what do the churches, other religious organizations do, obviously fewer people attend church, fewer contributions, more businesses get diceys, see it with restaurants, 8,000 plus retailers just in the new york city metropolitan area going out of business, the common link is the sweeping sort of cavalier nature of these restrictions that are going to prevent these various cities and states coming back economically. >> you're right, there is a big financial impact for sure but i think the human cost is one no one is talking about. we were talking about it a

little bit earlier. the idea communities want to come together to help each other after months of being far apart. people who need to know, hey i need to bring my neighbor groceries? do i need to figure out how to help the mother whose husband has been in the hospital for the past couple months, that is what we find when we come together as a community. for worshipers that want to safely come together, they want to know what is going on with the neighbors, to make it through difficult timess especially times of the holidays when it can get pretty lonely. neil: you're actually right. thank you for your efforts to bring attention to the fact a lot of this gets a little extreme and a little bit dictatorial without thinking of ramifications ironically on the various cities, states imposing them. they will need those, will need the parishioners to come back. they will need people to get back to their livelihoods as they knew them. right now a good many of them,

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♪. neil: all right. we've got extreme weather coming the east coast way and for these restaurant workers and owners and a lot of those who are friendly to the restaurant industry protesting right now the lockdown of indoor dining, that is going to be sort of like double jeopardy for them. one thing there is still allowed to do deliver outdoor dining, put it mildly with the cold

weather we experienced is a bit problematic, will be virtually impossible, how impossible? rick reichmuth the meteorologist what we're in-store for. hey, rick? rick: impossible tomorrow, thursday, probably friday from the residual snows that will be there we had a huge storm move through yesterday, didn't cause interruptions in the northeast. what it did do was cool down the air a lot. storms through parts of the central plains. that is the snow-maker across parts of oklahoma into kansas. it will move throughout the day today off towards the southeast mostly as rain. eventually turn into this big snowstorm, a very classic nor'easter setting up for parts of the mid-atlantic and northeast. winner storm warnings. anywhere you see that pink, that will be extended through southern parts of new england later on today. here are the temps.

cold enough to go support snow. 22 in virginia what it feels like. this is the future radar. watch how this plays out during the day today overnight tonight. we start to see it pull in across parts of the southeast mostly again as a rainmaker, by tomorrow afternoon, d.c., parts of the ohio valley seeing snow at first. that is before the center of the storm really moves offshore. when it will strengthen become the classical nor'easter with really strong winds and heavy wet snow. what you will notice here that pink line, the division between the rain and snow line. nor easters talk about it a lot who is getting rain and snow. placing like new york city, philadelphia, come in the middle of that line and it becomes difficult to forecast. the other thing we'll probably see is sleet f you're in new york you are familiar with this. with snow you get a lot of sleet in middle of that, packs things down and brings the snowfall totals a little lower.

that is why it is so hard to forecast along the coast where some people live. interior, for sure we see all snow. maybe mixing in new york city, keeping those totals a little bit lower and that said i think it is out of here by thursday. i think we'll talk about a significant accumulation of snow event six to 12-inch rain from the cities philadelphia, up towards new york, and boston, interior sections we'll see in excess of two feet in a few spots. you notice to the north of this, really sharp gradient of a cut off-line. southern new england and southern new jersey, nothing going towards northern new jersey. the first real big snow, first classic nor'easter of this winter season. neil? neil: incredible. you have braced us, my friend. rick reichmuth on all of that. quick peek at corner of wall and broad before i go to my next guest. we have blizzard coming.

people protesting in new york. more shutdowns likely. world looking revisiting measures they are taking back in the spring. why the is heck the dow at session highs up 251 points? a lot of it has to do with optimism over a second vaccine, this one from moderna. more importantly progress on covid relief measure but first off on the vaccine front, where we stand, dr. cameron wolf joins us, duke university hospital infectious diseases specialist. i believe, doctor, thank you for joining us. your hospital received close to 3,000 vaccine doses, is that correct? >> we received the vaccines yesterday morning t was nearly 3,000 for us here at duke, that's right. neil: excellent. how are they allocated doctor? what procedure are you following? >> yeah. so we have, we follow our state and, the state follows -- stratify according to individual risk and exposure to covid.

frankly also how critical to someone is to our health care infrastructure. if you're, for example, someone who is in our front of our emergency room, in our icu, our covid services, those people get tiered up higher. we know age is a significant issue for individuals facing covid. our older employees, we're trying to bump up the list. at the end of the day we have 4,000 employees at a big hospital like this who interacted with covid patients each week. it is not a small task to try to figure out how to get those vaccines to people just as soon as we can. which is what they're doing now. neil: amazing. meantime, doctor, we have the hope of a second vaccine, this one from moderna could be officially approved even the fda given the nod it is effective and should be approved by the end of this week. so you could be looking at doses from two drug manufacturers, correct? >> yeah. that's right. we saw just this morning

actually the fda submission for the moderna vaccine. to be honest both these vaccines will be absolutely fantastic. when we set out a couple of months ago to try to understand what sort of effectiveness we would think would be great, to be honest, boy we would be happy with 50 to 70% effectiveness. these are 95. these are outstanding vaccines. both as good as each other. they both have good capacity. we've been able to see coming down the pike as we head into 2021. these are way out of this quagmire to be totally honest. we're excited we can get these to people. neil: you've been working hard yourself, doctor, just trying to look after a lot of people. sometimes it can seem like a thankless task. thank you and all the people. you're on the front lines in this battle, have been for many, many months. we're hopefully seeing light at the end. tunnel. can't see them enough. dr. cameron wolf up duke university. we're also showing some of the other drug players, not only

with pfizer what is going on right now but with moderna, astrazeneca is close to completing a hat trick with promising treatments for covid. stay with us. ♪ ♪ we made usaa insurance for veterans like martin. when a hailstorm hit, he needed his insurance to get it done right, right away. usaa. what you're made of, we're made for. usaa

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neil: he is the officially the president-elect if there was any doubt. joe biden heading off to georgia to campaign for the democratic candidates. democrats have to pick up both races to win back the senate. let's go to hillary vaughn in atlanta with more on the president-elect's plans there today. hey, hillary. reporter: hey, neil. president-elect joe biden will come here to have a drive-in rally but part of his purpose of coming here today is to try to convince voters to give democrats complete control of congress and of course control over the white house just as concerns are growing about potential conflicts of interest with his son hunter's overseas business deals. this is the first test to see if the federal criminal investigation to hunter biden will impact how voters feel here in georgia. today senator ron johnson telling fox business that these reports are proof that voters need to request hunter biden should release his tax returns to try to clear the air. >> senator grassley and i were

certainly warning the american public if you vote for joe biden you will end up with a big mess on your hand. that is of course what we're seeing right now. the bidens claim there is nothing wrong here. there are couple things they can do. first of all hunter biden can release his tax returns to see whether or not he amended the returns to report that $400,000. reporter: yesterday fox news obtained a e-mail from hunter biden's lawyer asking him to amend hits 2014 income because he left hundreds of thousands of dollars he got from burisma off of his tax returns. the email from january 16, 2017 reads this, in 2014 you joined the burisma board and we still need to amend your 2014 returns to reflect the unreported burisma income. that is approximatelily $400,000 extra but neil, we talked to several biden supporters here in line filing in, guesting ready to attend this biden rally today and we asked them if they want to see hunter biden relate his tax returns just to clear the

air but every single person told me they don't think he should, they don't think he should have to because president trump did not release his. neil: have your cake and eat it too. hillary vaughn, in atlanta, the former vice president, president-elect of united states will campaign on the senate candidates. charlie gasparino, on president trump his tax issues could become sooner right now that he will be leaving the white house after january 20th. what is happening here on that front, charlie? >> on the front of the manhattan district attorney's office, that is cy vance he had an ongoing investigation. we have color that you could say advanced the ball on the investigation into president trump and his business dealings, his taxes, including his dealings with deutsche bank. this is what we understand, people close to the office with the investigation, is simply

this, cy vance expected to ramp up investigation into taxes and business dealings after the president leaves office. here is the interesting thing, we are being told they are talking internally about vance's office about creating a task force, internal task force to look into the business dealings and far-flung nature of them and various other businesses and corporations that are involved including deutsche bank. there is an insurance company involved aeon. this is pretty wide-ranging. this is so wide-ranging cy vance is looking to develop an internal task force to start after trump, the president leaves office in january we are told. so this thing is heating up. i can't tell you if they have good evidence, i can't tell you if they have bad evidence. i can tell you they are clearly, they're clearly turning the levers now. this is going, this is rubber meets the road time on this.

we should point out one of the flies in the ointment if you think it is an easy case, tax cases are never easy, neil, they are difficult. donald trump has plenty of lawyers that went over his taxes over the years. the other aspect is political. from what i understand joe biden is signaled to various people i know in the democratic party he would like these investigations to end. now one reason he wants them to end obviously there is an investigation into his son. there will be blowback. his son's investigation involves taxes. the other reason from what i am told that he would like to get on with life and you know not have to worry about this. it would be a huge distraction if cy vance brings charges against trump in any way over his taxes and business dealings. what could they be? here is just one i'm surmising here, michael cohen, trump's former lawyer said in the past the president for tax purposes would lower his, how much money

he would make and then for insurance purposes he would somehow expand how much money to inflate his net worth to get more coverage. that could be a starting point. there could be something into that. but again, difficult cases and politically fraught. neil, back to you. neil: they are very difficult cases but it happens sooner now because he will then be an ex-president. we'll follow that very closely, charlie. thank you. following the corner of wall and broad, up almost 300 points. in and out of session highs. optimism about stimulus. i know you heard that before but let me say it one more time, optimism over a stimulus deal f- a visual snapshot of your investments, key portfolio events, all in one place. because when it's decision time, you need decision tech. only from fidelity.

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neil: welcome back, everyone. top of the hour, 1:00 p.m. on the east coast of the united states, with the dow up almost 300 points. this is optimism that stimulus or something is close to happening. i know i teased you like that before but we are also getting news that president-elect joe biden says he's spoken with the senate republican leader mitch mcconnell and that they agreed to meet sooner rather than later. i don't know what that means, but it means sooner rather than, well, rather than later. all right. let's go to chad pergram on the significance of that on the same day we are learning they are trying to avoid a government shutdown, trying to get covid

relief done, maybe if they have to do it in two bills. a lot to keep you busy, young man. what's the latest? reporter: here on capitol hill, house speaker nancy pelosi is inviting other congressional leaders to a 4:00 p.m. meeting on government funding and coronavirus aid. now, she plans to huddle with the senate majority leader mitch mcconnell, senate minority leader chuck schumer and house minority leader kevin mccarthy, trying to wrap up a $1.4 trillion spending bill and covid relief package. they are not going to release the spending bill until they understand where they are on covid. there's concern about getting a deal on covid aid. gop florida senator rick scott opposes assistance to states. listen. >> -- andrew cuomo back in 2010, his budget today before covid was double per person ours in florida. he's never watched his money. i don't believe florida taxpayers ought to pay for the excesses of new york or california or illinois or new jersey. reporter: a bipartisan coalition of senators prepared two

compromise coronavirus bills but the fact they had to write two bills tells you a lot. they couldn't even agree on one bill. there are divides over a liability shield. >> -- back and forth, we couldn't quite get to the conclusion. i want to make it clear, everybody here including myself is concerned about the threat of lawsuits and what could happen to businesses. reporter: now, the greatest weapon congressional leaders have around the holidays is the equivalent of the stockholm syndrome. they threatened to keep lawmakers in washington around the holidays, wear members down and eventually they start to agree with their captors but does that approach work during a pandemic? neil? neil: interesting analogy right there. chad, thank you very very much. chad pergram in washington on that. there are a lot of people dependent on something happening in washington including a lot of restaurant workers, their

bosses, employees, those sympathetic to their cause who are marching in new york and desperate to see some sort of relief, if it isn't going to come from albany there. they are marching on the new york city offices of andrew cuomo to demand some help. they are going to need something here but they might have to wait a while because both the mayor and the governor have indicated that it's likely more sweeping measures because of a spike in cases in both the city and the state could warrant things that go way beyond closing indoor dining and restaurants. david lee miller with more on all of that in new york city. david lee? reporter: since 11:30 this morning, restaurant workers have been holding a rally in new york's times square and then they decided they are going to march which is what they are doing right now, to the offices on the east side of new york governor andrew cuomo. it was andrew cuomo that called for the shutdown of indoor dining and the restaurant workers say that they need financial help to assist their struggling industry. as i said, on monday, all indoor

dining in new york city will shut down in order to reduce the spread of the coronavirus. many in the restaurant business say the shutdown just doesn't make sense because the state's own tracing statistics say that restaurants only account for less than 1.5% of covid infections. meanwhile, now it looks like mother nature is going to cause even more economic hardship. a nor'easter is heading this way that could dump eight inches of snow or more. the city is saying that all outdoor dining must now stop as of 2:00 p.m. tomorrow. chairs and tables must be removed or secured. mayor bill deblasio said the city will try and allow the temporary outdoor structures to remain in place and have the plow trucks work around them. although a final decision is going to be made by governor andrew cuomo, mayor deblasio said a shutdown of all non-essential businesses in the city in the weeks ahead is all but certain, citing a second wave of the virus.

listen. >> unfortunately, i don't say it with anything but sorrow but i do think it's needed. we are going to need to do some kind of shutdown in the weeks ahead, something that resembles the pause we were in in the spring. reporter: mayor deblasio said if he had his way, the shutdown would probably begin right after christmas. hopefully he says it's only going to last several weeks thanks to efforts to contain the virus and with the help of the vaccine, but on top of that, neil, as i mentioned moments ago, the city now bracing for a major snowstorm that could very well shut down a lot more here than just the restaurants. neil? neil: david lee miller, thank you very much for that update. ahead of that snowstorm tomorrow and problems that could get worse in new york, our famous what-if segment. even though there does seem to be growing consensus that vaccines will save the day, the fact of the matter is that it is possible one of the largest metropolitan areas on the

planet, it could be shut down akin to what we experienced during the height of the pandemic back in the spring. what would that mean? what if new york city does a full monte, shuts down fully? again, back to where we were in april. would markets be jumping, would people be happy, would the protests be expanded way beyond just restaurant workers? to keith fitz-gerald, betty hughes. what happens then? we have a full shutdown in new york, then what? >> well, i think you see a lot of unrest, for sure, but one thing that is certain is that businesses have been very productive even throughout this shutdown of many, many offices in new york city. you still can't go down to the office since march, however, i'm not a restaurant. we are able to do our business over the internet and over the phone, whereas restaurants and in-person services have really

been affected very deeply. i do think, though, that businesses and business owners shouldn't be made to take the risk and governments should really have stepped in quite a long time ago so this waiting we are doing for the stimulus has been buoying all markets, it's really a long time coming. neil: it's interesting, keith, when you look at the dow and how it's doing right now more than at session highs, the highest level certainly of the day, up 320 points, it's obviously optimism about twin vaccines, not only one for pfizer but one due out many as soon as the end of this week from moderna, we could see astrazeneca's getting early approval weeks later, yet if you think about these protests going on in new york and you think about these restaurant workers fearing the possibility of something far more sweeping like a total shutdown of the city, and how the city makes up for that lost revenue, so many states talking about hiking taxes to deal with

this, what the stimulus relief could giveth, realities in states across the country could taketh away, couldn't it? >> well, it could, neil. these are terribly flawed policies. you can have a carrot or a stick. it seems to me the sticks haven't worked so what you need to be doing, unfortunately, politicians cannot be doing, is admitting they were wrong and changing course. it would be very easy, for example, to attract an amazon, to attract a google, to think about how you would change the business environment to bring millions of people back to the restaurants, back to the city. get crime back down to where people have faith in their leaders because that's really the ingredient that's missing. neil: you know, dani, i'm just thinking, what if no relief comes, that, you know, everyone's getting optimistic, markets are getting a little ahead of themselves on the belief that something could be cobbled together, that breaking this $908 billion package into two packages might be a quick

way to get bipartisan support but it doesn't materialize, we have been teased before, we could be disappointed again, then what? >> i really, truly hope that doesn't happen, neil, but one thing is certain, is that this holdup with respect to the stimulus has really put america behind its global counterparts. the longer that we stay at odds, the longer that the government doesn't put some stimulus into effect, and it's not just so much the rollout of the vaccine, it's actually securing workers, securing people that are fearing for the worst, and that's really the government's job. so what we're doing is we are stepping america back from the global forefront we have had for so long. i really hope that that doesn't happen but i think that that is what it would entail. neil: you know, if you think about it, guys, keith, i will raise this with you, perhaps the only game in town as far as a rescue or some financial support would be the federal reserve. it's kept interest rates very

very low, it's flooded the banking system with cash, it's been buying mortgage-backed securities, corporate securities, you name it. i even put some of my kids' furniture out in the driveway and the fed bought that. i'm just wondering if that is the future and the federal reserve is meeting right now to discuss presumably rates and what else it can do. what else will it be able to do? what do you think? >> that's a very, very tough call, neil. we have already thrown everything but the kitchen sink at it. the federal reserve would be the kitchen sink. you know, i'm not a political expert. what i do know is that millions of people need to get back to work, want to go back to work. the irony of them being prevented from going back to work by people who refuse to do their jobs is significant. i think the markets will ultimately get through it but the question i have, the thing i worry about, is what is the price individual families will have to pay. never mind the government, never mind these legislators and their cushy offices in washington. they have to feel what america

is feeling or they're not going to do anything. neil: you know, dani, looking at this incredible year, you would have thought that facing a global pandemic that the markets would have been tanking. for a while, they were. but we are ending the year and we still have a ways to go, obviously, with the nasdaq up about 40%, the dow up close to 6%, and the s&p around 14%. i'm thinking 1920 and i'm thinking of this analogy people have, it's going to be the roaring '20s, we are going to be climbing all of this. i'm thinking what if it is like the 1920s just a century later? do you think it could be? ignore that little detail in the fall of 1929. go ahead. >> yeah. if you look the other way for that. there's an awful lot of similarities. the dollar was pretty weak in the 1920s. from 1913 to the mid-'20s there was huge inflation which is not something that's very similar. however, there is a tremendous amount of invitation to risk

because the dollar wasn't doing anything so people saving wasn't helping. there was a giant credit craze where people were using credit to buy automobiles and refrigerators and of course, there was the stock market craze. a lot of that had to do with the fact you could buy stocks for just 10% down and essentially borrow the rest. we don't have that same situation now. however, we do have more people than ever before inviting themselves to the party in the stock market and a lot of that has to do with accessibility. you can buy fractional shares, you're not paying a commission anymore, and it is a big huge gamble. it's a lot cheaper to trade now than it was ever before. neil: are we too giddy, keith? what do you think? >> you know, this is interesting. i think are we too giddy versus are the markets ahead of themselves are different questions. because the other thing we know from the 1920s is that it was a period of tremendous innovation. we had key medicines, key distribution, key reforms in the financial industry.

all of which were prompted by this tremendous angst. so looking ahead into 2021, we will beat this virus, we will beat this, we will get through this stuff that the government is causing, not necessarily reacting to, so from an investing standpoint, purely philosophical standpoint, i don't think we are too giddy at all. i think in fact, we need to be more hopeful and more aspirational because we have more computing power, more intelligence and more smart people working on many of these problems than we have ever had in history. that creates a bright upside after we get through the speed bump. neil: all right. keith, dani, thank you both very very much. hope you have a safe, healthy holiday. make sure you are well. you have been a big help to us this entire pandemic year. always looking at the big picture and usually the bright side which comes in handy now and then. we've got the dow up about 325 points. i don't know whether it's giddy. there is a school of thought that when everyone is bullish, you should be worried. i think as both our guests pointed out, not everyone is so bullish. there's a good deal of, you

know, anxiety about this runup or good deal of trepidation about it. that's a healthy development to have. long as it doesn't get out of whack. more after this. to all the businesses that helped us make it through 2020... thank you for going the extra mile... and for the extra pump of caramel. thank you for the good food... and the good karma. thank you for all the deliveries... especially this one. you've reminded us that no matter what, we can always find a way to bounce forward. so thank you, to our customers and to businesses everywhere, from all of us at comcast business.

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neil: all right. you see the vaccine rollout right now, properly illustrated in new york city, in chicago, showing you a little bit earlier. happening across the country. the latest from mike tobin in kalamazoo, michigan, where the rollout is going on as well. mike? reporter: i can tell you, neil, i hear the pfizer plant has really taken on the appearance of business as usual. the cameras are all gone, no one claps for the trucks. they just pull up and leave carrying this precious shipment. by plane and by truck, the vaccine has now made it to all 50 states. by design of the medical professionals, the virus doesn't sit in storage for long. the kits to administer it went ahead so it doesn't take long to mix it with saline, and get it in someone's arms. medical professionals on the front lines were the first to get the virus. the head of operation warp speed compared this to d-day, not the end of the war but a turning point. >> this is a magic moment. i was trying to recall something

equivalent and i thought back to when i was a kid and neil armstrong walked on the moon. reporter: more than three million doses have now been shipped from pfizer's facility. the prediction is that the nation and the world will really start to see a change to arrive at what they call herd immunity when 70% of the world is inoculated. that could happen late summer, early fall if everything remains on course. the next development, of course, to watch for is that moderna's vaccine comes up for approval on thursday, with the potential of delivering 20 million doses by the end of the month. neil? neil: thank you, mike, very much. mike tobin on all of that. want to go to mark meredith in washington. he's following right now, which is an interesting sideline here, how the government follows who gets these immunizations, who gets these vaccines and these doses. they are keeping track but how are they doing it? reporter: there is so much at play right here as mike tobin

and you were just talking about. the vaccines were going out, that was a huge part of this but now comes the complicated challenge of making sure they track how these rollouts are happening not only on the state level but on the federal level. for instance, when you go to get your vaccination, you are going to be getting a physical card that indicates what kind of dose you got, your name, your date of birth, and when you were able to get it. from there, that data is also going to be shared electronically with the federal government. there have been some states that have been questioning whether or not this was appropriate or not, how much data was going to be going out there, but officials say this is so important as it will allow them to track how the progress is going so far. >> as the systems have been developed, we purposely excluded a number of features that would actually make it more inclusive of certain conditions, like hiv status or something that might make somebody, a candidate for immunization but we don't want that information in the system for those very reasons. reporter: we are talking about

other things like social security numbers, they are not going to be included, past medical history. some governors have raised concerns about how this data could be used going forward. the trump administration insists there are safeguards in place to protect the data from being compromised or being used outside of hhs. privacy experts say that is the key. >> i think that data once it's out there can never come back. that's why i'm one of these people who very strongly supports collecting and utilizing the minimum amount of data to accomplish a specific process and nothing more. reporter: so that's the government side in all this. but neil, there is a huge other factor at play here and that is the private sector. whether or not you will have to show something on your phone before you get on an airplane, go to a concert or even go to work. that is something we are still waiting to find out what it will look like in the new year. that's what has privacy experts also concerned because as you just heard from that expert, once that data is out there, it's out there. neil?

neil: yeah. it doesn't disappear. thank you very much, my friend. mark meredith in washington, d.c. with more on that. with the dow up about 325 points, of course, it's not only the second potential vaccine from moderna but a two-part stimulus deal that they have found something to like and hate, that is both sides, republicans and democrats, in this latest measure to provide relief. here's something that the republicans like. there might be liability protection. here's something they don't like but democrats do, protection for states, and financial support for states and cities. they can each turn up their nose at certain factors here but the markets are not. they just want to see a deal. ♪

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neil: you know, we were showing you earlier these protests going on in new york city, lot of restaurant owners and those who support their cause. they're really itching to get open again but indoor dining had been shut down. they made their way to third avenue outside the new york offices of governor andrew cuomo. they're not happy. they wanted to reopen restaurants but we're hearing word right now that even more sweeping measures are due in new york and soon, a potential shutdown, so when you go beyond that and you hear plans that new york, when it does, if it does come out of all of this, will have to raise taxes, added to so many other states that are facing the same conundrum to come out of the pandemic and hit their residents yet again with potentially higher taxes, much higher taxes, put that in perspective when you hear that the likes of oracle and hewlett-packard enterprises and even elon musk is moving his

home to texas and you are beginning to see a trend here. some people are calling it the latest texodus, if you will, to play out the theme if you want safer tax environments here. sharice sees the reason why it's happening, austin chamber of commerce senior vice president of economic development. very good to have you, and merry christmas to you. certainly been a merry christmas for texas, hasn't it, because they are lining up one after another to come to the lone star state. what is the draw, you think? >> well, first, thank you, neil, and merry christmas to you as well. you know what, i think you said a lot of it just in the beginning there, that texas has a very business-friendly environment. we don't have a personal income tax. some people, they hear that, they're like what? so we're very advantageous for

individuals moving here. but we've got a lower cost of living. we're below the national average. our state and local tax burden is 18% below the national average. we also have the sixth best educated work force in a major metro area in the country. but you know, we have a lot of accolades. the thing about austin, though, is that it is little blend within the state of texas, it's a very creative, very innovative, very collaborative environment, and it's attractive to a lot of these big companies because you know what, at the end of the day, companies need to make a profit. and they want to make a profit but they are also very -- becoming very social conscious. they want to give back to their community. they want their employees to be involved in communities. but at the end of the day, they are a business and it's those

profits they can then turn into those good deeds they're doing in all of these communities. neil: you know, it's definitely picked up the pace. i talked about oracle and hewlett-packard enterprise, elon musk and tesla and all this, but what's striking about it is the mirror opposite of what's happening in so many states like new york, where we showed these protests going on. they're looking at having to raise taxes to fill these revenue gaps. that's not going down well. imagine their situation will only get worse if the only way they can sort of balance the books is to do it with higher taxes. it plays out in one state after another but not texas. i guess the obvious question i have for you is with all of these people and businesses coming, can you support them without raising taxes, without doing the kind of thing that other states say we have to do that to support the new infrastructure around these tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of folks coming over to our state? >> well, you know, that's an

interesting question, because in texas, that's something that's talked about. just in case you didn't know, our legislature is about to go into session and people go what do you mean, they're about to. they only meet every other year. we appreciate that. we like to limit that impact. you know, we really are focused on if you can provide the mechanisms for businesses to be successful, then that's going to translate into people that have jobs that are able to work, that then have that income that turns throughout the community and through the state. so it's more about giving companies the ability to be able to make that money and to make that profit that turns into that economic engine. so it's not let's see if we can tax our way out of a hole. neil: interesting. i forgot about -- i believe your legislature meets the fewest

days of any in the country yet it's pretty productive. i remember one texas businessman that said to me, my accent is horrible, it's less time to do any damage, neil. i always liked that. less time to do any damage. thank you very very much. continued success. it does provide an example of how we can entice businesses. how are you enticing buyers at the corner of wall and broad? well, the keys were the second vaccine. also the possibility of stimulus or relief coming as well. and you see what happens. right now, you have a lot of green arrows. susan li here to break it down. hey, susan. susan: my texas accent is probably worse than yours. not bad. let's talk about the shipping apocalypse during the holiday shopping period. yes, it's here because each year it takes almost santa-like heroics to move billions of packages around the world and this year, both fed ex and ups are now limiting the number of packages they pick up from big retailers like costco and even smaller medium sized ones, too,

to try to avoid overloading the system but that's creating a backlog of packages at the sellers. for the shippers, it's a good thing because it's skyrocketing their on-time scores to nearly perfect 100%. fed ex, ups and even the postal service all doing better than last year's holiday period. now, we know this has been a devastating year for travel and restaurants, nine times worse than 9/11, according to the hotel industry group. another example of that, marriott's laying off 850 at its times square marquee location. over 1200 furloughed last year and new york city hotels have been hit especially hard compared to the rest of the country during covid, losing both tourists and business travelers. in fact, only a third of available hotel rooms are booked in the city last week according to one analysis. finally, today is the apple rally, the world's biggest company up big after a nikkei report said apple would increase production of iphones by 30% for the first half of next year and that suggests maybe that iphone

12 demand is actually much higher than anticipated with apple likely shipping 230 million iphones, if that report is true. that's a whole lot more than wall street forecast. apple suppliers, chip makers, parts suppliers, getting a lift today as well as the broader benchmarks. apple is the most influential single stock in the s&p 500 in nearly 40 years. neil? neil: that is remarkable. 230 million of anything is incredible. susan, thank you. these are not cheap products. susan li on all of that. meantime, i love these feel-good stories and they exist during the holiday season. but this next guy you are going to meet, you realize a lot of people were hurting, couldn't pay their utility bills. know what he did? he paid them himself.

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the phone. call today and we'll also send this free guide. humana, a more human way to healthcare. neil: in the middle of the pandemic and hard times and a tough economy and so many who lost jobs and so many who are behind on their bills, there is a good story to tell. there is a reminder of the triumph of the human spirit and just simple decency. i want to introduce you to a fellow named michael esbon who runs a florida pool and spa shop on the panhandle side of florida. michael noticed there were a good many people in his community, this is not the first time he's done this, by the way, but a good number of people in his community who were not able to pay their utility bills. they were behind and their power was on the verge of being shut off. better than 114 families. what does michael do?

he pays those bills, better than $7600 worth for 114 families. here's the thing about michael. he did the exact same thing albeit for fewer people last year. he joins us right now. michael, what a nice thing to do. what made you do it yet again? >> what made me do it is last year, you know, i have been in that situation where i haven't been able to pay my power bills. back in the '80s i had to make a decision of christmas gifts for my family or maybe just, you know, not being able to pay a bill and i picked on my gas bill which was for heat in the house, but we live in florida so i didn't think it was any big thing. then mother nature threw the coldest winter at us that we have ever had. it went down to six degrees and we had ice inside the house. i mean, it was frozen. so i lived it. so last year, when i got my

utility bill and i saw the due date on it was the 26th of december, it just brought back memories of those years ago that my family and i went without heat and i just thought i wonder how many other people are in that same situation going into christmas, where they're looking at having their utilities disconnected. so i went to city hall. they have the gas and water utilities are done here at our local city, gulf breeze, florida, and i met joanne oliver who runs that department and asked her how many people in december were looking at being disconnected? she came up with a list of 36. so it came out to like $4600, i believe. so i paid those 36 bills last year but this year, we all know

the situation that the united states is in, and the world is in with this pandemic, and i knew there were so many more people this year that were going to need help, plus mother nature threw a hurricane at us here, hurricane sally, and that caused a lot of damage to homes and we had some barges break loose and knock a bridge out and now people can't get from pensacola to gulf breeze without detouring an hour or two hours. it actually closed up a lot of businesses. we are talking about a six-lane highway that goes through our town that used to have 55,000 cars a day. now virtually it has nothing. have you ever heard of the mcdonald's closing up? come here to gulf breeze, florida. our mcdonald's closed up. there's no business. neil: i heard that you picked up the bill for them, these people, when they heard my bill's paid, i'm not behind anymore, did you hear from them? did they know it was you?

>> oh, yeah. yeah. people, what happened is i guess when people are sitting at home and they're waiting for their utility bill to come in knowing that they haven't paid the bill and it might be disconnected, what they got was a christmas card from gulf breeze utilities and instead of a disconnect notice, this is what they got. it is an honor and privilege to inform you that your past due utility bill's been paid by gulf breeze pools and spas. you can rest easier this holiday season knowing you have one less bill to pay. so when they got that, yeah, i got a lot of -- it's a small town and everybody can look up my phone number, my cell phone is my business phone, so many, many people called thanking me personally. yeah, i had plenty of replies from all the people that i had

paid their bills. neil: you are setting quite a high bar for yourself. so many people are impressed with what you've done. it's gotten national attention. international attention, actually. i'm wondering what are you going to do to top yourself next year? >> well, i don't know, people ask me that question last year and i said i don't know, i will come up with something. you know, this year has been, you know, much more needy, much more families, where last year it was 36 families, the list they came up with this year was 114 families. that just shows you how bad everything is in our little community here. but next year, i will come up with something again. there's lots of needy people out there that need help and hopefully people will see what i'm doing here and i know this has already happened, where people are paying it forward. people are calling me offering me money and i'm telling them take the money and do this in your own community.

neil: you know what's so neat about it, you went through hard times yourself and could have gone one or two ways. you could have hunkered down, make sure that i save all that extra dough so i'm never in that position again. you decided to share it with those who are kind of in the same situation you had been early in your life. that's a very selfless act right there. >> well, when you've been there and you have to make a decision to either pay a bill or maybe not put christmas presents under the tree, you make a decision not to pay a bill. i'm glad that i was able to help some people out, where maybe i can make their christmas a little bit less stressful and they can use that money, you know, for paying that bill, putting some food on the table or christmas presents under the tree. neil: you are a good man, michael. we needed stories like this. the fact that they are true and

real and making a real difference in people's lives, sort of puts this crazy year in some upbeat perspective. thank you for that example. thank you for sharing it with us. you are a good man. >> okay. thank you. neil: all right. michael esmond. just saw a lot of hurt going around him, lot of people who couldn't pay their utility bills and said i'll pay it and they are paying it forward. a lot of people in the community are similarly helping others out because of his example. it's the season. more after this. robinhood believes now is the time to do money.

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neil: it's not the perpetrators, it's kind of something like that. dan springer in seattle with more. hey, dan. reporter: hey, neil. king county which of course includes seattle wants to prosecute hundreds and perhaps thousands fewer first-time felons under so-called restorative justice program. to do that, and still comply with the state law mandating victim restitution, the county will have to have taxpayers make the crime victims whole, so the criminals are not stuck with a record and a debt to pay off. it's kind of like giving first-time felons a mulligan, instead of facing the charges and legal consequences they get diverted into a community counseling program.

>> -- had their cell phone stolen will be able to have faster recourse and not have to wait for a long, complicated criminal legal process and at the same time, have the young person who took that phone get services and support that will hopefully help them change their behavior. reporter: county officials believe the restitution fund will have to be about $5,000 a year, split between victims of crimes committed by juveniles and adults. they are also adding two class b felonies to the list of crimes that are eligible for diversion, robbery 2 which includes use or threatened use of force and assault 2, recklessly inflicted substantial bodily harm. council member reagan dunn voted against the program. >> exactly in the wrong direction. we have decades and decades and decades of empirical data that show that enforcement of our laws work and that people should

be held accountable for criminal conduct. >> to do it without demanding anything from the criminal, to just take money from the taxpayers, is simply crazy. reporter: and neil, the program is being launched as local crime spikes. neil? neil: let me get this straight. the taxpayers who had nothing to do with the crime are footing the bill and the restitution for the crime? reporter: state law says the crime victims have to have restitution, it has to be a fund to pay restitution. so in order to have this diversion program and getting people away from getting their first-time felony convictions, the county had to set up a fund to pay restitution. who's got the money? well, taxpayers. neil: all right. you live in a very unique town. i will say that, dan. just incredible. we want to let you in on what's driving the dow right

now, up about 332 points. progress on the stimulus front. we are just getting word that speaker nancy pelosi and treasury secretary steve mnuchin spoke on the phone for over an hour to discuss this two-part covid-19 relief bill, and government funding at the same time. that's the longest they have spoken through this back-and-forth saga here that will include apparently moves on two fronts. that is a measure to keep the government lights on and avoid a shutdown, and separately, this covid-19 relief measure that's been on and off the burner for quite some time now. elena trine from axios with us now. markets have been teased before certainly on this covid-19 relief thing and so have people waiting for that relief. how real is this? >> well, neil, it's more real than i think it's been in months. it's a story that i know a lot of my colleagues on capitol hill as well have been covering for several months, hoping to see movement on, and i think leaders

on both sides of the aisle are more confident than ever they may actually be able to strike a deal. i know there's going to be a meeting this afternoon between house speaker nancy pelosi, treasury secretary steve mnuchin, but also senate majority leader mitch mcconnell, house gop leader kevin mccarthy and senator chuck schumer, really just a meeting of all the leaders on capitol hill and at the white house to push this forward. the main thing is what senate majority leader mitch mcconnell and house speaker nancy pelosi can agree to. there is still apart on priorities but they are closer than they were previously, particularly before the election and they hope they can tie to it the long-term spending bill on friday before the government shuts down or if they don't pass the deal on time. neil: i would be remiss if i didn't mention mitch mcconnell has already referred now to joe biden as the president-elect, since the electoral college,

it's done, move on. is it? >> well, i mean, i think the biggest news about that is he's the most prominent republican to really concede that president trump lost in november. many republicans and gop leaders were very hesitant to really congratulate joe biden or say that he was the president-elect because of the ongoing legal battle from the white house and the president's campaign. after that electoral college vote yesterday, it's clear that republicans are starting to wake up to the reality that yes, joe biden will be president on january 20th. of course, we did see president trump tweet shortly after leader mcconnell's remarks, he shared a breitbart story that said essentially president trump had won the electoral college which of course, is not true. if anyone was paying attention to the news yesterday. but it just shows how the president's still hanging on to

what he hopes will be a win when most other leaders are starting to recognize joe biden is the actual winner of the november election. neil: all right. i will believe it when i see it on january 20th, one guy takes it. but we're not there yet. we'll see. thank you very very much. a nice day for the corner of wall and broad. can we see it last? after this. ♪ sofi made it so easy to pay off my student loan debt. (chime) choosing sofi was literally one of the best decisions i could have ever made because it gave me peace of mind. ♪ to syour body needs routine. system, centrum helps your immune defenses every day, . . . 4. with centrum.

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♪. neil: all right. a lot of running around in washington with a promised meeting between nancy pelosi and other leaders in congress on getting that stimulus relief, whatever you want to call it for covid-19. we'll see. could happen. charles payne right now. hey, charles. charles: neil, it better happen. i tell you right now. thanks a lot, my friend. neil: we're close. charles: good afternoon, everyone, i'm -- we're close, i think. this is "making money." i know that for sure. major indices are trading at record highs as investors do indeed take the bait, buy on the notion that congress will finally come through with financial help. with the vaccine distribution and the notion it will unlock our economy in 2021. wall street is so convinced more firms calling for huge gains. as more money managers are buying bitcoin. the other part of the story is more money printing from the federal reserve. we'll have a preview