but my wife thought your christmas sweater was awesome. he included this picture, there you go. you see, or ladies and gentlemen, i really do have taste -- [laughter] even in crazy christmas sweaters and so, sir, does your wife. neil, it's yours. [laughter] neil: i can't beat that. i cannot beat that. stuart, thank you very, very much. a bit of a selloff here, but again, back to capitol hill, what's happening right now, flags at half staff, this as moves are afoot to get donald trump out of office and soon. the indications are that a number of republicans could be onboard with that but not nearly enough to get that the into fruition. time will telling as they say, another 12 days to go. we're going to get the read from doris kearns goodwin. you know, the last president who refused to go to his successor's inauguration was andrew johnson. this president is not going to

go to joe biden's. they don't like each other. what to make of then versus now. we're also going to be hearing a congresswoman who arrived to the capitol, had a strange and eerie feeling a couple of days ago about what could go down at the capitol. what was going through her mind. and ric grenell, the former acting national intelligence director, on what seems to be increasingly a jailbreak amongst, well, a growing number of trump officials and cabinet members. more with a that. but first, blake burman with a different kind of inauguration. i remember in 1869, blake, covering -- [laughter] president johnson not wanting to go to his successor's inauguration, and i thought, boy, i won't see this again for more than a century. now here we are. >> reporter: i was covering the one in 1969. i was wondering about the one in 1869. i'm just kidding. [laughter] but, yes, you're right, it is certainly interesting. let's actually start there, neil, as president trump saying

today that he will not be going to the inauguration of joe biden here 12 days from now. it'll be 12 days at this very point that joe biden will be sworn in as the 46th president of the united states. it's interesting, neil, because as you mentioned, it's been, what, 1360 year -- 160 years sincing something like this has happened, but we have some recent examples. just look back to the last inauguration. hillary clinton lost the election, was there front and center as a former first lady, of course. and then 20 years ago, al gore when he lost to george w. bush, the former vice president was at that inauguration, but we heard president trump say he will not be involved with the inauguration 12 days from now. speaking of not being involved, the amount of trump administration officials who are leaving this administration continues. and, neil, we're not talking about just staff members at this point. some of the highest officials within the trump administration, the secretary of education, betsy devos, the secretary of

transportation, elaine chao, both resigning. the former white house press secretary who was working for the second lady, stephanie grisham, resigning. mick mulvaney, who was a part of a diplomatic post for president trump saying he's had enough. of course, all of those and others saying they simply cannot serve based off of the actions they have seen from president trump over the last many days and many weeks as well. i can tell you though, neil, that the president's top economic advisers will be staying at this point. larry kudlow, the president's top economist, steve mnuchin, the secretary of the treasury, will be involved with the administration for the next 12 days. we'll see how much work they have to do, potential executive actions and regulatory actions that the president could put into play here down the home stretch. of course, as you also mentioned, there's growing talk about congress potentially trying to impeach president trump and growing talk about whether or not the 25th amendment could be invoked. nancy pelosi, the house speaker,

saying today that she and chuck schumer are still awaiting a call from the vice president, mike pence, as to whether he would be onboard with invoking the 25th amendment which would involve removing the president from office. they say they have not heard back from the vice president. sources in the vice president's office tell fox that the vice president does not intend to pursue any possible efforts. nancy pelosi also just wrote to her democratic colleagues a little while ago, and one of the things that she says she was worried about is the nuclear codes. she wrote the following in that letter, quote: i spoke to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff to discuss available precautions for preventing an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike. the situation of this unhinged president, she writes, could not be more dangerous, and we must do everything we can to protect the american people from his unbalanced assault on our country and democracy. that is the read from the top democrat up on capitol hill,

neil, to give you a sense of how they view these next 12 days. neil is? neil: there's going to be an interesting 12 days. blake burman, thank you very much. how interesting depends on how much support nancy pelosi might get to go ahead with impeachment proceedings certainly in the house. let's go to chad pergram on that. chad, we've got 12 days here. how realistic is this? >> reporter: well, they are running out of track, that's one thing to be sure. but if you look at that letter that a blake referenced from the house speaker nancy pelosi, you know, it's kind of contingent on whether or not the president can be removed via the 25th amendment. they view this as pretty serious. she talks about in that letter that in the waning days of the nixon presidency, there were these wise republicans who went to president nixon and and said it was time to resign, and she says. >> she hopes similar republicans go down to the white house and urge the president to step down right now. as to impeachment, we very well could have articles of

impeachment on the house floor next week. that's been implied, implied by the speaker of the house. nowhere is it written down that it has to be a long process. you don't have to have depositions, you don't have to have an investigation, you don't have to have hearings. if you write articles of impeachment, you can just put them on the floor and vote. yes,listen. >> mike pence will not do what is required of him and invoke the 25th amendment. we don't have a choice. and we cannot hide behind procedural rules. this is the time for action. this is a crisis of our constitution and of our democracy. >> reporter: democrats and some republicans believe the president's rhetoric was so malignant that they have to make him the only chief executive impeached twice. the president's defenders, including his one-time v.a. secretary, fighting back. >> hearing stories now that nancy pelosi may bring people

back for impeachment hearings. that is not the solution to what is happening right now. we need to come together as one team, one fight right now on both sides of the aisle. >> reporter: flags are flying at half staff at the u.s. capitol today, u.s. capitol police officer brian sicknick died late last night. fox is told he suffered a stroke after being hit on wednesday. the u.s. capitol police chief is resigning, but in a memo obtained by fox, the chief says that authorities are treating sicknick's death as a homicide. sicknick is only the sixth u.s. capitol police officer to die in the line of duty and only the third to ever die defending the united states capitol. neil? neil: all right. chad, thank you very much for that. chad pergram reporting the latest on capitol hill. meanwhile, a number of business groups including a keyed to to e y'all in the -- key editorial in the "wall street journal" are encouraging the president to

resign right now. liz peek with us, mark hamrick with us. liz, what do you think of that? the push -- well, the journal says to avoid any of this and resign right now. >> well, i think that's a road available to the president and, certainly, it is preferable to, certainly, invoking the 25th amendment which i don't think's going to happen or going to another embarrassment with another impeachment inquiry. i'd have to say, neil, i think the democrats have sort of cheapened this whole impeachment trek by going through that process earlier in president trump's term on what a lot of republicans thought were rather spurious charges. now, you know, i just -- i think all of this is unpleasant, it certainly divides the country. joe biden ran, his primary campaign theme was healing the country, bringing both sides together. i don't see how an impeachment

will further that promise, and president trump certainly could do the nation a favor, i think, by resigning now, allowing mike pence to serve out the term. i think that would calm the waters. because i've got to tell you, a lot of trump supporters as much as most people were appalled by what went on at the capitol, people are still frustrated and angry. and i think east of those -- either of those two actions by democrats being pushed would just further put gasoline on the flames. nick: the difference is there are a few more republicans than there were in the last impeachment go round, but you could be right, liz, that with 12 days to go, would it prove anything. i understand where some of these business groups are coming from but, mark, just a crass market perspective on that. let's say the president does that and, you know, then you have mike pence as president for 12 days, 11 days. would that be any more of a relief to markets that have done

quite well through all of this? in fact, oddly well, eerily well through all of this panic? >> only on the margin, neil. i think the markets have long been looking past the end of the trump administration, and, you know, i mean, when you're hearing the conversation about concern about the nuclear launch codes, you know, those worst case scenarios are not favorable for markets, to say the very least. but i think we are basically thinking that the military establishment will take care of that problem much the same as happened in the latter days of the nixon administration when that was the work of henry kissinger, to try to make sure that inkeyesingly -- increasingly let's say a despondent president, to say the least. i don't think it really matters to markets at this point. neil: liz, markets had an incredible ride under this president, in fact, a continued runup is sort of a final buying

blowoff to his policies. others are saying, no, it's optimism ahead of a president biden and all the stimulus that he will likely deliver, much more aggressively than this president. what do you think? >> oh, i think that's true. i think after the georgia election results and put the senate in democrat hands, people were very optimistic when another, what, another $1 or 2 trillion stimulus bill getting through congress. i think the thing, neil, people have to look at is look at this unemployment -- or the employment report we just got. it is not a lack of money in the economy that is causing unemployment. it is covid shutdowns. we're seeing an increase in temporary layoffs, a decrease in permanent layoffs. in other words, it's still saying, hey, in new york or california i can't operate, so i can't pay you. excuse me. so you're going to be put on temporary layoff. if you look at the sectors that

are down, it's covid-related sectors. you take california and new york, that's 23% of the united states economy. i think it's more covid than financial wherewithal that is causing job losses currently, and i really do question when we need another big stimulus package. what we need is to get covid out of the works and get this economy opened up again. neil: well, we're going to get that stimulus package one way or the other, liz. i want to thank you both very much. mark, thank you. you heard at the outset of the broadcast that the president will not be attending joe biden's inauguration. that might be a relief to joe biden, but this is the fourth time a president has not attended his successor's inauguration. doris kearns goodwin on that historical perspective after this. ♪ ♪

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neil: all right, the president, surprise-surprise, is not going to joe biden's inauguration. we've seen this three other times, this president is the fourth to not attend his you can

successor's inauguration. doris kerns goodwin with us, so many classic books i don't have time to yet9 into them, it would take the entire segment to read them off. it's very good to have you, happy new year. >> same to you, neil. very glad to be with you. neil: now, i was surprised, i remember the andrew johnson thing, not wanting to go to ulysses grant's, but then i had forgotten about the two adams presidencies. but they did not go -- and it really came down to they didn't like the people, you know, who were taking their place, right? >> certainly that was true of the father and son adams, adams stormed out of washington, did not want to be there with jefferson, nor did john q. adams want to be there with his successor, but the one between grant and johnson is more interesting. he was going to go, johnson was, and then at the last minute evidently grant didn't want them

to be in the same carriage together, and then he got mad and decided at the last minute not to go. but the important thing is none of these are viewed well by history. i think history really wants to see these two presidents, even if they're frosty in their cagers, even if they don't -- carriages, even if they don't talk to one another. it's one of those marks of a transition, a peaceful transition to power that i think the country likes to see just as a symbolic sense that this is going to be okay. neil: yeah, i agree. i think it looks childish but, you know, who am i. i'm half italian with, so we hold grudges, doris, and it's hard to forget. [laughter] but i do remember how it must have been for richard nixon, you know, passing the baton. he was the president of the senate when he had to officially announce that john kennedy would be the electoral vote winner and move on to the presidency and was there at the inauguration. al gore in that ubiquitous role

and all the controversies around that election are leading to president george w. bush. so it's something that i'm sure the loser grits his teeth but does it just for the sake of -- and i think appearances count, but for the sake of appearances. >> i think you're absolutely right. i mean, the peaceful transition of power is the hallmark of our democracy. and of course it's hard when you've just lost an election to give a concession speech. your supporters are there, they feel like they've given their days, their weeks, their months for you. you may feel a sense that it's a really sad thing for you, but those the moments when you ask your leader to step up and know that it's really an important, symbolic moment to be able to say i wish i hadn't lost this election, i wish it had been different, but i'm going to support the next president. and that that transfers his supporters to at least an understanding that if he's accepting it and he's accepting the loss, then they too need to, because the country's often divided especially in these

close elections. so you do wish that people could rise and that this would happen in this case as well. it's tough but, my god, you're big guys in there if you're running for the presidency. you can do this as well. neil: yeah. the irony is i think donald trump's future was looking pretty good had he not contested to the degree he did the election, and then with a lot of made-up stuff i think he would never have lost the senate, certainly not both of those seats, those republican seats, and there could have been a very credible case to make for, you know, a 2024 run. that's all out the window now because of his behavior. so ironically, he grabbed defeat from otherwise the potential of victory four years from now. i think he's, you know, politically dead meat. i don't want to, you know, disparage him to that point, but i think he ruined it for himself. your thoughts. >> no, i do think that when you look at donald trump -- excuse

me -- when you look at his legacy, there might have been arguments about his presidency made one way or another, but i think it's going to be the really hard for history to not look at that period from november 7th when the election was called for biden until right now with anything other than a really tough mark on him. because the president has to accept a loss, and there has been no evidence that he did anything other than lose. court after court decision, 62 decisions, and if you accept that loss and you move forward and then if you focus on the virus, which is what people needed him to do during this period of time when the surge was so great, and then if he had then not only gracefully conceded, but come to the inauguration, then it could have been a judgment on his presidency. now these last few months i think history's going to be regarded -- i agree with you totally. neil: you know, another thing too is i was talking more, doris, sorry about the confusion, about his role in the republican party, and i always

think it's rather telling. i've seen this in companies, in the media when the chief looks like he or she is falling, all of their supporters begin to wander or, you know, all of a sudden people who were sycophants given to sense, wait a minute, we don't have to be such suck-ups anymore, and they move on. that's happening to donald trump. i'm just wondering even within the republican party can this man who had a vise-like grip on his party be losing? no one's afraid of the big bad wolf. no one's afraid of him. >> well, what you're seeing is, obviously, people have finally reached a breaking point. some people reached it earlier during his presidency, but with all the resignations that you're seeing right now, that means they're making a statement. and i think the statement was also made in georgia because there is a felt sense that his participation there and his not really just going and hoping that those two senators would win, but continuing to talk

about the stolen election really hurt what happened there. so i think there is a moment when oxygen comes out of a candidate. the question will be what about the followers out there. are they going to make a transition to a new republican party, that's the real question we've got to see. neil: or whether they bolt and want to get a third party going or whether the president is so angry leaving that he a makes a third party run himself, thereby dividing that vote and changing the republican party process. i know we're getting way, way ahead of ourselves with this new president about to take over in the days, but -- in 12 days, but i think of stuff like that. how likely is that? >> well, the interesting thing -- let me just take some water. neil: sure, sure. >> the interesting thing is that i've often been talking in the last couple days about charles sumner and the fact that that led to the dawn of the republican party. my voice. i've been talking too much. neil: no, no, it's all right. >> oh, i think i'm back.

i'm back! it led to the dawn of the republican party in many ways because there was such a sense of the senate having been violated when preston books, the republican congressman from the south, the democratic congressman from the south, actually, came to the senate and hit charles sumner over the held. people couldn't bear to see that bloody man carried out unconscious, and it somehow led more people into this new republican party in the north even though there had been lots of violation before that. it hit home in a certain way, and the whig party disappeared and the new republican party comes. so it'll be really interesting to see what happens. i don't think we know what's going to happen now, but we're in a time of great moment. decisions are going to be made. there's no question we're living through an historic tick moment. i do think that started with the president not having accepted his loss, and it's going to be seen when we look at it a hundred years from now now as a whole period of time that ended in some ways with january 6th and what happens between now and

the inauguration. neil: you know, the opportunity to speak to christopher nixon cox, of course, the grandson of president richard nixon, he was going back to watergate and all this stuff notwithstanding that ended that president's career, the grace he showed back in 1960 when there were a lot of controversies around that election with jfk, swallowed his pride and maybe his, you know, gut instinct to try to keep fighting and, of course, conceded to john kennedy. but more to the point, he said that informing the library down the road -- in forming the library down the road which all presidents do in these modern times, it helped pave the way not only to build that library, financial backing in places and locales for it. when i raised that very summit on this president with -- subject on this president with him, he had a different view. didn't think it would be an issue for finding money, but location might be an issue. i want you to react to this from christopher nixon cox talking about the prospect of a trump

library. burnt a lot of bridges. is it going to be difficult? >> i think that he will have the ability to raise that money, and then the question is where does he want to put it, where would it be accepted. i think normally they're tied to universities. i think it might be hard to find a university that would accept it. neil: what do you think of that, doris? might have a tough battle -- >> well, there haven't been -- yeah. you know, not all presidents have to have a library. it really started with franklin roosevelt who saved all of his papers. and the interesting thing is he said when he looked at his library the thing he cared most about were the letters written to him from ordinary people, more than the official papers. what will we have in a modern-day library anyway? you're not going to have diaries and letters the same way you'll have tweets. but i suspect this is what he should have been thinking about in this month, usually the last couple of months of the presidency they're already making plans about where a library would go. we haven't heard anything as far

as i know. so i think it'll be a difficult road. he's going to have to make a decision, but you're right, the fundraising will be easy, and that's usually the difficult part. neil: you've done so how volumis research on so many presidents, and i know i've asked you in the past, would you do the same to write a perspective on donald trump? >> you know, the reason that i wouldn't is that i need to have -- i love letters and diaries. i've only gone backwards in time. if you're in a present day, you'd be mostly a journalist writing about a president that's alive. i just want the time and perspective and also, to be honest, i want to live with that person. it takes me ten years to live with abraham lincoln, or it took me seven years to live with -- longer than the world war ii took to be fought to live with franklin roosevelt. i've got to really want to be involved with that person, and i want that person to be in the past. not somebody in the present. because then i can have my

diaries. it's much better to be able to look over somebody's shoulder and see what they're writing to their wife or their children and to get their full feelings that you're going to get from a short tweet or an e-mail or a facebook entry. so i'm an old guy going back to the past. neil: but you had plenty of that in recent times. of course i know you had worked with him, lyndon johnson, so you had that, but you just don't think you'll have it here. >> no. no, i mean, i don't think that -- most importantly, to be honest, as i'm saying, i've chosen leaders who have led in times of great crisis. i wanted to write about ones who handled those crises well so it could be a lesson for the future because we learn from our errors and mistakes, but we also learn from the strengths of the past. so i've had a great time living with the people who are considered the great leaders of the country. anyway, at my age right now i'm not going to take on some 10-yearbook. i'm actually trying to write

about the archives that my his left, over 350 boxes, and it's really a template of the '60s and will be my experience in the '60s, and i'm hoping that i can give some measure of looking at that decade through my experience and his. so i think by then if i'm going to be in my 80s or 90s, i'm also getting some movies made, i'm not going to take on another huge president. leave it to -- i really hope that prime ministers in the future -- presidents in the future will be taken on and people will care about them. we really need to write about them, but we also need to write about the movements that create the anti-slavery movement, the progressive movement, the civil rights movement, the black lives movement. it's important now. that's what education is doing now. it's not just the leaders at the top, but it's the movements that create the possibilities for change to take place. so there's a whole new educational way of looking at our history, and the most thing i hope is that people just can love history. again, it's so important in this time that we understand the

perspective and the lessons that history can give. we're in the middle now, neil, of a story that we don't know the end to, and eventually someday historians are going to know the effort of our -- the end of our story, and they're going to be able to look at us and see did this lead to a healing time, or did this lead to further divisions. and my hope is that person in the future who's going to be younger than me will see that something broke at this point and the healing began. that's what i'm hoping that if i come back a hundred years from now and i read some young historian, that's what i'll be reading. neil: meanwhile, i'll be seeing what's next on netflix. we'll see what happens. [laughter] doris, thank you very, very much. doris kerns goodwin, historian extraordinaire. many people who are eager to take a look at the trump administration and say it is history and it will soon be, but some of the movement that he inspired, whether you like it or not, you know, other historians see the possibilities. it's ample forder for historical

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>> welcome back to coast to coast, i'm jackie deangelis. good news on the vaccine front today coming out of pfizer. of course, we've been watching those variants out of the united kingdom and south africa. they appear to be neutralized by the pfizer vaccine. this was something that was being suggested by the experts when the variants first emerged. new research published yesterday now backing that up. now, pfizer and university of texas, they conducted a study. they used blood from those who were given the covid-19 vaccine. remember, the mutations that have been identified are more contagious than the original covid-19 virus wise, and this is a contributing factor to more lockdowns in the united kingdom which, of course, has been a concern here in the states as well. in some stock news today, we are taking a look at tesla because it is seeing a pretty big bump

today, up more than 7% at this moment. this is coming as elon musk has now become the richest person in the world with a net worth of more than $185 billion. he's even surpassed jeff bezos who's held that title since 2017, but he's only worth $184 billion. what's a billion between friends? musk, of course, saw his rise to the richest person status, it was the fastest in history. and speaking of tesla and electric vehicles, daimler's mercedes benz tripling its electric vehicle sales and also saying that it sees the future, the next decade, as transformative when it comes to these vehicles. neil? neil: all right. thank you very much, jackie. jackie deangelis. i want to go back to liz peek, mark hamrick. mark, i wanted to touch on this move on the part of some ceos to fire workers who were at these, you know, rallies this week in

washington, particularly the ones who stormed the capitol if they had pictures on social media of them. that was good enough for them do them. i don't think -- to can them. i don't think it extended just to those attending outside, but i don't know that. what do you make of that in. >> it's one thing to be, say, managing your brand with respect to public appearances and exercising your first amendment rights, it's another to be part of something that seems to be rapidly being viewed as either a coup or an insurrection or sedition, breaking and entering, stealing property. so, you know, to me, those are two wildly different things. and so, for example, in the realm of journalism that we're very familiar with, journalists are generally precluded from making public donations to politicians, to attending rallies particularly with respect to controversial topics or individuals, and then there's this.

so, you know, i feel like, you know, this event of the past week unlike anything, despite, you know, your apparent -- what you're saying is you've lived 160 years, what we experienced this week is much different than anything that's, you know, let's say attending a really that's associated with a given position that may or may not be controversial. neil: well, liz, already what's emerged is this talk of a double standard that, you know, a lot of folks don't remember corporations taking the same aggressive stance against those who attended the violent demonstrations, you know, on behalf of black lives matter and these other groups and that this double standard is still the case. now, obviously, there's some big differences here, the u.s. capitol is a huge international event, but that still applies, that there is more of, you know, an inclination to go after trump fans, violent though they may be, than those who might get violent at some of these other rallies. what do you think?

>> i think there's no question that there's a double standard, neil. everyone is horrified, and rightly so, that there was an attack on our capitol. but what about the attacks in kenosha and court buildings in portland and the attacks on businesses in minneapolis? i mean, i don't really see much difference. arson is arson, looting is looting, and destruction of public property is terrible no matter who engages in it. so this is all kind of virtue signaling from these corporations, that, you know, punish trump supporters because then we'll look like we never had anything to do with this terrible populist movement. and, by the way, there's a big distinction, in my mind, between people who showed up to hear trump speak, people who came to express their frustration or disappointment in the election and those who assaulted the capitol building. i mean, that, i think, was a pretty small percentage of the turnout, and i think that there should be a distinction there.

if they broke the law, you know, corporations have a perfect right to fire them. and, by the way, that went, in my view, for people who participated in the black lives matter protests that also did turn violent. neil: yeah. very good point. liz, mark, thank you both very much. we're showing you some of the damage inside the capitol. a come wonk arrive -- congresswoman arrived just a couple of days earlier, and she had an eerie feeling about what was to go down in the capitol. it proved right. she's safe, her kids are safe and she's next. ♪ ♪ stay restless with the icon that does the same.

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neil: all right, we know at the outset here that the president's decided not to go to joe biden's inauguration in 12 days. my next guest probably says,

well, that that's a good thing, and she's a republican, a representative caught in the middle of all of that. she was arriving after being elected to congress from south carolina, i believe you were with your daughters, congresswoman, and you had an eerie feeling about what was to go down, and it proved prescient. could you tell us about it? very good to have you. >> yes, neil, good to see you. yes, i brought my two children this weekend for my swearing in. it was a huge moment in my life and a huge honor to represent south carolina's 1st congressional districtment but by the end of the weekend after swearing in sunday night, seeing the rhetoric, some of the things being said online and on social media, i felt very uncomfortable looking at the week ahead, and my kids because of covid-19, they aren't able to go to school. they're doing can virtual school. so they packed their backbacks, their computers, their textbooks -- backpacks so they could stay the week with me and do virtual school in my office. sunday night i said, guys, i love you, but i'm worried about

one thing, and i'm putting you on the first flight home on monday, and thank god i did. i would have been devastated if they were here and witnessed what i witnessed on wednesday night. neil: you know, you must be a smart woman in the first place against all odds, but what were you sensing, congresswoman? because, you know, the big speech came, you know, midweek, and we know what happened after that when the president urged those same followers to march on the capitol. so that was before with all of that. what were you sensing, what were you worrying about? >> the anger that i was seeing, the words that i was seeing, the rhetoric. and if you read between the lines or even sometimes literally some of the things that i was seeing being posted online by politicians, by folks who are part of that movement, it was worrisome. and what folks don't realize is that sometimes people take our words quite literally. there was someone who threatened

me online, threatened to shoot me on social media on tuesday night, i was going out to grab supper, and i was accosted on the street outside in public in d.c., and i just finally said enough is enough, and i put my foot on the ground. i think it's really incumbent upon us to set a better example for the country not only for republicans, but we've been dealing with violence for the last nine months across the nation. we've seen cities being burned down. but as a republican, i just had to say, no. violence is only going to beget more violence. it's incumbent upon us to show some leadership and get our nation out of this crisis. neil: the president is not going to joe biden's inauguration. i don't think that warrants a fox alert, congresswoman, but how do you feel about that and how it looks? or is it maybe given the volatile, polarizing times it might be for the better? >> i do think it is for the best, unfortunately. i'm devastated by it right now. i supported the president, he supported me when i ran for congress. i was one of the earliest staff

thers on his cam main in 2016 in south carolina -- campaign. all the great accomplishments he's had, i believed in them. but all of that was truly wiped out on wednesday, and we have to rebuild our nation and party. i want to insure that the inauguration on january 20th is a safe one. people ought not to fear for their live when they're attending an event or going to work. i've got to go home tonight, and i can't wait to see my kids and put my arms around them and hug them. aye got to reassure them that next time i'm in d.c., i'm not in great danger. we've just got to set a better example for everyone in this country, and i'm asking, urging everyone in congress whether they're republican or democrat to stop with the divisive rhetoric. this rhetoric has real consequences, and we saw the fruit of that this week. we've seen the fruit of that all across the country in these cities where antifa thugs and far leftists have been burning them down, burning businesses and hurting people all across the nation. and it's time to come together and to say enough is enough.

neil: congresswoman, thank you. i'm glad you're safe, your children are safe. >> thank you. neil: very, very scary week. congresswoman nancy mace, beautiful state of south carolina. we have a lot more coming up. you know there is a super bowl coming up. this is one of those rare instances where you know the ads are all sold out? they're not. not even half of them. what's the deal? after this. ♪ ♪ r 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 those are advanced poses. that's why at cvs, we're making not making excuses a little easier, with the vitamins and supplements you may need. now get a $10 gift card when you spend $30. cvs. healthier made easier.

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lose weight, look great, and be healthy. go to aerotrainer.com. that's a-e-r-o trainer.com. neil: all right, usually this close to the super bowl the game is sold out, advertisers will pay top dollar to take advantage of what is the largest television audience going, but not this go-round. grady trimble with more from soldier field in chicago. grady, what's going on? >> reporter: neil, playoffs start tomorrow, and the super bowl is now officially less than a month away. kind of hard to believe. cbs is still trying to sell ads. brands are hesitant this year to pay that $5.5 million for 30 seconds because there's so much uncertainty with the super bowl during the pandemic. brands like avocados from mexico, sabra hummus, they're

not advertising this year even though they did last year. make no mistake, big brands are still investing big bucks in the big game. toyota is one of those brands and all of these brands, mountain dew, that you see on your scream, they are still investing -- screen. that's because they still see the reach as something that you can't get anywhere else. so they are expecting to still sell out, it might just take a little bit longer as brands and companies gauge what things are going to be like as the game gets closer. listen. >> i think it's unlikely that you'll see super bowl ad slots meaningfully discounted. it's still, like i said, the coveted place for brands to be. i just think this year brands are being much more mindful, you know, being more cautious about actually making those deals. >> reporter: but look at this number. there are seven brands that we know of according to ad age that have confirmed that they have a super bowl ad this year. last year around this time there

were 17 brands that had confirmed that they would be advertising in the super bowl. so that's about 59% fewer from last year. part of the reason for that folks in the industry say could be because brands are keeping their ads closer to the vest. in previous years they were putting them out online before the game. this year they want to get them -- they want to keep them to themselves and have everybody watch them at the same time. but, neil, like mentioned right off the top, there are still a lot of questions. if there's an outbreak among the teams, will the game have to be postponed or canceled, and bigger than that, will people watch this year? viewership across sports has been down, and with no parties and bars are closed in many cities and states, a lot fewer eyeballs potentially on the game. neil? neil: just amazing. sign of the times, my friend. grady trimble on that. by the way, we're learning of those folks, protesters who had taken over nancy pelosi's

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neil: the president of the united states is not going to joe biden's inauguration. that's not a big shocker here, given everything that's been happening and the tension between the outgoing and the incoming leaders. i misstated before that it was south carolina republican senator tim scott who thought that was a bad idea on the part of the president. it was rick scott of florida. i apologize for that confusion. all my own. no one helped me with that. he thinks it's necessary the president, despite all the divisiveness, go, saying i'm urging the president to reconsider his decision to skip the inauguration. he is, of course, not constitutionally required to attend and i can imagine his losing an election is very hard, but i believe he should attend. i plan to attend and believe it is an important tradition that demonstrates the peaceful transfer of power to people and

to the world. axios reporter extraordinaire joins us with what she thinks about this. what do you make of this, the push for the president even among some of his republican colleagues, to attend? i don't think that's going to happen. theme president has indicated is not going to happen. would it make a difference one way or the other? >> well, i think the biggest thing here, what we heard from senator rick scott, is more just about how to heal the nation and end this divisiveness and the president is someone who is still the most popular republican in the country and clearly has a ton of supporters, as we saw on wednesday, who stormed the capitol on his behalf, who are watching to see how he handles this moment and how he handles the transition of power, so i think that's why so many republicans are pushing him to attend the inauguration on january 20th. at the same time, though, i do think that yes, we did see the president concede in a video that he shared on twitter last

night, but to be honest, the concession only came after many people in his party had begun to abandon him and we also saw later on twitter him share a very different message than what we saw from his tone in that video message. it was still saying that he supports -- he loves all his supporters and that he stands with them, so mixed messaging. i don't think that we'll see a lot of the kumbaya from thement we kind of got a little bit of in that video last night. really, we just have to see what happens but everyone is hoping he will contribute to this healing process. still unclear whether he will do that. neil: i'm wondering if he's a popular figure, certainly in the country but even among republicans and the fact that so many who, you know, were borderline sycophantic with him over these years are openly criticizing him now, lindsey graham, ted cruz dialing back

former praise. does he have a future with the party now? has he todoomed it for himself? what do you think? >> i think it's to be determined. he is very popular with many voters across the country so as they are picking up -- i agree with you, we are seeing a lot of what i'm referring to is rehab, with a lot of these republicans, but it's still to be determined. he has a lot of sway in the party still. yes, maybe he's losing some, we saw his cabinet secretaries resign and we are seeing some of his fiercest allies try to disassociate from him, but that's what is happening right now. it's unclear what will be the case several months from now. so i think it's still too early to tell whether he will, you know, have his stronghold but it's definitely not the stronghold he did have earlier this week before the mob took over the capitol on wednesday. neil: yeah, no, i would agree with you on that. i think many are looking at him, trying to repeat history and

blame the loss of the senate on him. there might be some truth to that and maybe the confusion elicited over whether you should vote and the state where the president said everything was rigged prompted republicans to lose both those seats and maybe they are blaming him for that, they are blaming him for, you know, galvanizing a crowd that turned violent. he didn't turn them violent but maybe he gave them the match to do so. i have a slightly different view. i just wonder longer term what that means. but you were there on wednesday when all of this was going down. i'm wondering what that was like. tell me about it. >> i think i'm still processing it, to be honest. you know, when you're on the capitol, you think you're in a safe place. you don't expect anything like what happened on wednesday to happen. it started, i remember, early on i was actually going to be joining michelle -- neil: right. that was a hell of an excuse to get off the show.

whatever. >> we were evacuated immediately and at first i remember thinking okay, we're being evacuated but didn't think at all of the danger that kind of was still coming. i went back to the senate and ended up being locked inside the senate chamber when the rioters breached the wall of the capitol building. it was a surreal experience. again, just a lot of people hungry for answers, not knowing what was going on, then really when we realized what was happening, the police in the room said shots were fired, move away from the doors, that's when i think fear, you could see it come across senators' faces, the reality of what was going on, sink in. so it was a veryharrowing experience. it's awful, yes, there was a police officer who died, several others injured, a woman who was killed, so an awful day but i'm lucky i think, and i think we are all lucky there wasn't more, you know, deaths or injuries of that extent. neil: i'm glad you're okay but it had to be very very scary.

be safe, be well. thank you very very much. >> thank you, neil. neil: all right. well, the president has returned to social media, tweeting out a little bit here but by and large, he has been quieted here. facebook, instagram, they are not processing anything he does. susan li with more on the implication of this and where it's going. is he back, susan, on twitter? because we have seen tweets, right? susan: right. he's been unlocked on twitter, freed on twitter but still indefinitely blocked on facebook, instagram and snapchat, disabled on the gaming platform twitch, terminated from shopify and paypal and reddit is the latest just announcing it will ban a subthread on trump. that's a huge audience president trump is missing out on. facebook still the king of social media, more than a billion daily active users. snapchat has over 200 million while twitter has a little bit less than that. in fact, with the trump 88

million followers on twitter accounting for half the daily user traffic on that platform. so huge influence there. but that influence might be waning. in the near 24-hour twitter lockout, biden added over 200,000 followers, far surpassing trump on thursday. however, interesting on facebook, despite being blocked indefinitely, president trump actually added more facebook likes than biden did. currently as the world leader, president trump enjoys more leeway on social media than other average folk but twitter warns there are limits, writing that world leaders are not above our policies entirely and we will err on the side of leaving content up if there is a clear public interest in doing so. however, president trump may not get as much leniency when he leaves office, with twitter threatening a permanent ban if rules continue to be violated. but there's also concern about the power and influence of these social media giants and the selection of voices they choose to amplify, or they choose to silence, with many on the right

as you know concerned only their side is currently being muzzled. neil: susan li, thank you very much for that update. want to go to rick grenell, former ambassador to germany, former acting intelligence director. rick, always good to see you. i'm glad today we have you because i wouldn't call it a jailbreak but a number of people at the white house who have left or decided not to wait out these next couple of weeks, from betsy devos, education secretary, elaine chao, transportation secretary, host of others. stephanie grisham, press secretary to melania trump, i could go on and on. it's about a dozen top or mid-level employees who are leaving. what do you think of that? >> well, i haven't talked to any of them so i don't know what their reasoning is, but i'm very proud of all the work that the trump administration has done, especially when it comes to america first. i don't think you're ever going to be able to put that issue back in a bottle. i think it's been unleashed. the american people now are so

much more cognizant of what matters when it comes to foreign policy and national security. they're much more engaged. they see the benefit and they want to put america first. so i think what donald trump has done when it comes to really educating the citizenry about access to issues that washington types try to hold close to their chest and try to keep away from the american people, i don't ever think that that's going to go away. i think that that's a very good goal and it was something that was achieved by donald trump. neil: are you worried that he botched it for himself? i readily agree with you, some of the inroads he made to take on china, what happened with the markets, what happened with the economy prior to the pandemic, even the comeback in jobs since the pandemic, they are all substantive achievements but again and again, he had a record

of stomping on the message. even his anger over the election and a lot of it was palpable and understandable in some states, fi gi get that, he wouldn't let go and even his remarks on wednesday, some saying he lit the match to these demonstrators, and maybe lost the senate for republicans as well. what do you make of that and that he has destroyed that achievement, those series of achievements which are real? >> look, i don't buy that, neil. i think 75 million people voted for donald trump. i think the media -- neil: you think as many would vote for him again given this, though? do you think as many of those would vote, given all that we've seen since? >> i do. i do. i think -- neil: do you? >> i think all of them and maybe even more, because they now see what the media has done. neil, i also think you have to remember this is different.

washington, d.c. and the people in washington, d.c., i would include the media and politicians and bureaucrats, they have this kind of feeding frenzy right now, and that's not what's happening out in the real world. i think that people understand that the media's biased and so they take a lot of this rush to judgment with a grain of salt. i love the fact that every republican that i know, every republican that is in a position of power has condemned this riot, this political protest that turned into riots by some. it's outrageous, it's animalistic, everyone should be identified and prosecuted. neil: many of them condemn the president, right? >> well, let me finish this point. i love how the republicans have all condemned this and you go back to last summer, and i think that we should not make a distinction between violence in portland or minneapolis or on a

baseball field in washington, d.c. with what happened at the capitol. i think when political disagreements become violent, they should be called out immediately and i did not see the same from the left. they pick and choose when they talk about this violence and i would even go so far as to say that joe biden and kamala harris have not been helpful in their comments, yet they don't get the scrutiny because the media system and the political system in washington, d.c. is very different than the rest of the country, and it's not being helped when we just do pile-on. i think there's an evaluation of what president trump and his policies have done that will take place in the future, and so be it. let's talk about those policy discussions. neil: i hear you on all that. i certainly hear you on the media bias here, the double standard a lot of the time. i guess what i'm getting at, the fact that so many republicans are challenging the president

right now and some are even saying, you know, not as fast as maybe the predictable case maybe we should pursue impeachment and others are looking at the 25th amendment, get him out of office, we're afraid what he might do in these last 12 days, where are you on that? do you worry? you know the president far better than i do. he valued your advice and consultation. you never went public with any of the private conversations you've had which i tried to pry out of you to little avail, so you are a very classy friend and loyal friend, but i do wonder what's going on now with this fear, even among many republicans, many of whom now have said all right, that's it, i'll risk burning a bridge with the president but for mitch mcconnell, even the vice president, i have to stand for something here, whether there is something to worry about, that in these next 12 days, he could do something. do you think he could? >> well, first of all, let me correct you on one thing.

it's not just being a loyal friend. it's being i think a loyal american to work for the president and keep your conversations private. nobody knows what i'm saying to the president and that's the way it should be. maybe it's a little old-school -- neil: it is that way and you are being add mirmired for that. it's not the way it is. you're unique. someone who works with him and knows him well, whatever happened between you guys, discussed, that's your business. but i am curious what you make of this growing concern that he's got to know now that a lot of people are saying that you know, get him out now because he's got the nuclear codes, he's going to do something. what do you think? >> look, i think this is a conversation that is intense in washington but it's not intense out in the rest of america. i do not see any republicans who haven't been always needling president trump, who hasn't liked president trump for the last four years, suddenly coming

forward and saying anything different. all of the voices that we keep hearing maybe are louder but they have been very consistently anti-trump, never trumpers, or people that just didn't like the president's style and therefore, threw in the whole kind of get rid of him because i don't like his style. i don't have those fears. i think president trump is a non-politician, absolutely, and there's a political establishment in washington, d.c. that wants to keep putting him into the political establishment box, so they judge him on you're not being a good politician and i think the rest of the country in many ways says we kind of like that, we kind of like that there is somebody who's not a politician. now, look, i think some of the president's greatest attributes, like all of us, become some problematic areas in the future. i think that this president has done amazing work. i think his policies will live

for a very long time. i can talk very long about the america first agenda and how important that is, but i think that there's a little bit of a feeding frenzy right now in washington and i just don't see it outside of washington. neil: you know, richard nixon famously said in an interview with david frost, i gave them a sword. what he was talking about is i did a lot of good but the media was always out to get me, i'm paraphrasing here and then with this watergate thing, kaboom. he didn't say kaboom but his point was my style, my demeanor, my going after people, my inability to instill loyalty among people who came and went ultimately doomed me. do you think that the president's style of leadership, very effective in getting a lot of things done and a lot of good things done, but in this case, not being able to instill loyalty among staff members who came and went, unprecedented in american history, came back to bite him?

>> look, i think that this is a non-politician and so when you judge somebody by the political standard, then the political standard is you pick one national security adviser and they're supposed to stay x number of years, and president trump doesn't think like that. i actually believe in total that that's a really good thing, that we shouldn't have these washington standards. you know, the way of washington, basically nancy pelosi gets to fly to san francisco, get her hair down and when she's outed by the small business owner for being a hypocrite, what does she say? nancy pelosi says you owe me an apology. that's the washington way. that's washington-speak. washington-speak is that, you know, you get to promise during the campaign that you're going to move the embassy to jerusalem and when you get into office, everyone is in on the joke that that's never going to happen because that was just a political promise. i think that these are just the ways of washington. all of the system is there. why is it that we're talking

about d.c. becoming a state but then that state would have a lock on the entire federal bureaucracy, every single agency is going to be based in one so-called state, one area? i think we got to start thinking differently. we got to move all of those agencies outside of washington. get them in with the regular people. get regular people, regular americans, the ability to work for the federal government and bring their ideas. we joke about the swamp and it's funny because we call it the swamp but i think it's an intellectual label, because a swamp doesn't allow fresh water, fresh ideas to come in. a swamp is stale and it's the same old, same old and kind of entraps you and gets you smelly. i think that what we need is outside perspective from washington. the washington establishment, i think, is not thinking about americans, regular americans.

neil: finally, i always enjoy having you on, but you talk about the swamp and i agree with you, i think there's a lot to be said of addressing that, but do you think it's swampy behavior to fire people by tweet, to not sit down, face them, man-to-man, man-to-woman, and say you're fired or you're gone? isn't that swampy? >> i wouldn't call it swampy. i would just call it a different style. i'm not sure you and i know exactly the real details of how someone is let go. neil: all right. ric, you are a class act. one of these days i want to get all the personal conversations, you in a weak moment just blab it all on national tv. maybe the next visit. very good having you. ric grenell, be well, be safe. happy new year. more after this.

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that and reports of continued spikes in cases that are continuing as we speak. better than 4,000 deaths yesterday in the united states, five of the last ten days in the united states have seen record spikes in new cases. so maybe this is a delayed reaction, but certainly not a delayed reaction to what's happening on the hill. we will keep you posted on that because they are going ahead, moving strongly ahead, that is nancy pelosi, to lead an effort in the house to impeach the president, saying that if the vice president doesn't act to invoke the 25th amendment with a majority of the cabinet, then she will. it was once dismissed but apparently it's taken on steam and is worrying some traders. in the meantime, you pay for your teachers to teach, but what if you thought you were paying them to do union duties? that might be another matter. in new jersey, it's come up all the way to the highest court in the state. kristina partsinevelos with more on that in jersey city. what's going on here? reporter: neil, you've got it right on the head. it's a debate as to whether

taxpayer dollars should be going to government workers working for their unions instead of the job they originally were hired to do. so you have a conservative watchdog group that filed this lawsuit highlighting two public school teachers here in jersey city that, instead of teaching, they have been released from their duties and are now working full-time for their union, receiving the annual salary as well as the benefits. this is a common occurrence across the country. there are police officers that do it, firefighters that do it, but i spoke to the lead counsel on this case about why he's questioning where taxpayer dollars are going. listen in. >> it's a real simple issue. a government worker should be paid to perform the jobs they were hired for. they shouldn't be paid by taxpayers to work for private unions. unfortunately, that's exactly what's happening in jersey city's school district. reporter: jersey city public school president said to us that he can't really comment on this

comb case because it's ongoing litigation which is why i then spoke to a workplace attorney who raised the importance of unions. >> what you're asking these people to do is to now turn around, take their experience, take their knowledge, and help negotiate better wages, help negotiate better health benefits, help negotiate better retirement security. reporter: neil, there are pros and cons to this story but the new jersey supreme court will make a decision hopefully within the next three months or so, but the latest news we are receiving about the education system here in jersey city as well as newark is that schools will remain closed until april 21st because of the spike in covid cases. that means three more months of remote learning for teachers and students. back to you. neil: wow. just incredible. great reporting. thank you very much. kristina partsinevelos in new jersey. if we get any read on this we will pass it along. want to pass this along.

the republican leader in the house, kevin mccarthy, says he plans to talk to joe biden about how to unite the united states amongst all this craziness here. you might have heard that the president himself will not be going to joe biden's inauguration. charlie gasparino with us right now. how investors are weighing all this and some new tax policies that are coming our way, i guess, huh? charlie: you know, a good barometer is to talk to people in the c-suite right now of major corporations. some of the most politically correct people in the world were condemning president trump's actions over the past four years, even before the horrific events of the last few days which they have condemned as well. but i have asked these folks privately what do you think of the fact the georgia senate race went to the democrats, that democrats literally control all three -- control the presidency, control both the house and the senate, are you worried.

you know, the answer almost uniformly is yes, and here is what's interesting. despite the fact that they vehemently dislike donald trump in mannerism, they do not dislike his policies. they do not respect the sort of fiscal leadership of people like larry kudlow and steve mnuchin, treasury secretary and head of nec respectively. they like low taxes. they like less regulation. they also like the fact that elizabeth warren wasn't calling the shots. here's the interesting thing right now, neil, is democrats nominally control the senate -- well, they control the senate via a tie-breaker. it's still 50/50. it's still going to be very difficult to get stuff through because of the filibuster will exist because of joe manchin, who is a democrat, but still, it's 50/50 and so that's the positive. the negative is that all these committee assignments and you know, the "wall street journal" editorial page pointed this out

the other day, it's starting to seep into corporate america, all the major committee assignments will go to democrats and it will put people like elizabeth warren, the progressive corporate, you know, business-hating congress -- senator from massachusetts in charge of something. it's going to put -- it's going to give stroke to aoc and jerry nadler and people of the far left so you will get a sea-change out of washington at least in terms of whose voices are going to be heard and corporate america is worried about this. again, we are talking 50/50. some of the bet in the markets is that, you know, kamala harris is not going to be -- to enact very far left policies through a tie-breaker of the vice president will be difficult. there still is a filibuster. a lot of moderate democrats don't want to get rid of the filibuster. that's going to make it difficult to really change things dramatically but trust me, corporate america is worried about the leftward tilt of the

country. remember, for all donald trump's faults, and there are many and you know, there's a debate going on whether he should remain as president through the weekend, you know, there's a lot of bad stuff going on on the left and so that's what has corporate america worried. back to you. neil: i think you're right. to your point, we are learning joe manchin is not keen on much bigger stimulus measures. of course, he's a moderate west virginia democrat. could be a swing senator. you need all those 50 democrats in a lock, assuming that every republican senator votes against whatever joe biden wants to do. you're right, you know, even steven doesn't necessarily cut it. we will watch it very closely. charlie gasparino, thank you very very much for that. the dow down 160 points. it came back from its worst levels, when it was down about 220 on this kevin mccarthy planned chat with the president-elect joe biden. but the catalyst for this might have been when the ten-year note jumped over 1.1% a little while

ago, the highest we have seen it in close to a year. i should stress it's very very low but if you were getting used to what were we at our low, .7%, that was a reminder that rates could back up as the economy picks up steam. good for the economy picking up steam. you don't want it to pick up too much, right? these guys don't like the rest of us to be happy. that's just a rule of thumb. when we get a little happy, things are percolating, they like to slap that down.

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neil: we told you what's going on in britain with this variant of the coronavirus prompting a third lockdown in that country. along comes pfizer to say that its vaccine will work against this virus -- this virus variant. that could be very good news indeed because cases of it have

popped up in this country as well, the latest in new york state. how significant this is at a time of spiking cases in this country and sadly, i must report, spiking deaths, more than 4,000 of them yesterday, we are joined by an infectious disease specialist. doctor, very good to have you. the pfizer development, claiming that its vaccine will address this, others, moderna said something to the same effect, what do you make of it? >> this is something that we expected. we know that for a virus to become able to evade a vaccine is a long process. it's not something that's easy for viruses to do and then a vaccine doesn't just make one type of antibody in your body, it makes a whole bunch of antibodies, a whole host of them, as well as stimulate another part of your immune system called t-cell immunity. so it was something we expected that the vaccines would be robust against. i think it's important to test them and make sure that they

work, but i do think that we can be confident that our vaccines are going to work against the uk variant. neil: these latest spikes in cases and tragically deaths, doctor, what can we attribute them to, do you know? is it just to be expected or are people coming off holiday travel, maybe that did it, what? >> we have a tremendous amount of community spread in the united states. this outbreak is largely not controlled anywhere you look. that's going to lead to a certain number of cases which are going to translate to a certain number of hospitalizations and those are going to translate into a certain number of deaths. so i do think for the next several weeks, we are going to see record numbers of hospitalizations continue and record numbers of deaths. there are going to be some dark days ahead before the vaccine is able to have any kind of benefit in terms of the trajectory of the pandemic. neil: still trouble getting all these vaccines out to folks. what do you make of that? >> well, it's that last mile, turning a vaccine into a vaccination, which is very difficult. what's happened is the federal

government has spent a lot of time distributing the vaccine to the states, but the states don't have the resources to be able to put these vaccines into people's arms. it's something that takes a lot of logistics, lot of planning, lot of staffing. at the same time, you've got health departments and hospitals that are taking care of so many patients with covid, so they need more resources and those resources are coming, things are accelerating. there was a bill signed on christmas eve that's putting some money towards this but we are going to need more. this is going to be an all hands on deck approach and it's going to take some time to be able to get enough vaccine into the population to reach that herd immunity threshold. neil: all right. we will watch it closely. thanks for taking the time. we appreciate it. >> thank you. neil: all right. thank you. all right. we are at session lows right now, down about 207 points. couple of causes, i don't want to attribute one having more influence than others, but they are going to move ahead with impeachment efforts in the house even though they might go nowhere given the limited time before donald trump will leave office anyway.

the ten-year note, you know, hopping over 1.1%, something we haven't seen in a year. oil closing in on $60 a barrel. that's a bit of a startling development that a few saw coming. they thought it would be more an end-of-year development. be that as it may, all of these are sort of combining right now to take maybe some of the steam out of a rally. oil back down to $51.72 a barrel. the fears were we would get that high. meantime, we will look at that and look at the movement right now on capitol hill to go after donald trump like now. how much support does it have. and then this idea of stimulus that the market thought was a given might not be a given not because of republicans but because of joe manchin. he's not keen on what he's hearing. after this.

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neil: welcome back, everybody. we are focusing on the markets,

the recent downdraft, about 240 points. i don't want to cite one catalyst over another. incredible sprint in all the markets, all of them hitting records just yesterday, but one could be joe manchin, a democrat, moderate democrat, swing democrat, obviously, swing senator, period, in a 50/50 senate, who is not keen on some of these new stimulus efforts. that might have taken some of the wind out of the sails of the market. scott shellady joins us, john tamney joins us. scott, what do you think? >> that could be part of it. you mentioned some things before the break about the ten-year going over 1.1%, oil obviously being more expensive but you know what, we have all forgotten that we had a horrible jobs number this morning. i mean, we are handing over an economy that's improving at a slower rate, arguably could be turning over with this last jobs number, to an administration that wants a $4.4 trillion tax plan and more regulation. i mean, that's what's got people spooked i think. not everything is good for the

stock market. there is one predicate you need to have and that's a good economy. just because the democrats may want to spend and may want to put out all this new cash into the economy, we still have to have a great economy and right now, it's not looking like it's that great and actually, it looks like to me it's declining and that's the problem. i think you will see more and more of this because at the end of the day, in order to have a great tax and spend administration, you have to have the building base of a good economy. neil: jobs declined 140,000. that was not expected. we were looking for around a 50,000 gain. that didn't happen. the unemployment rate at 6.7%. john, you could step back from this and say all right, if president biden will still be intent on raising taxes, he's only going to raise it on people like scott and corporations, 28%. so what's the big worry? what do you say? >> well, the big worry is that the richest in society are

always and everywhere the drivers of economic growth, and they are for reasons that economists will never understand. economists think that consumption drives economic growth. no, investment does. that's why the rich are so crucial to progress. they uniquely have wealth that they don't spend and what they don't spend automatically redowns to the creation of new companies and new interesting ideas so anything that puts a bull's eye on the richest harms all of society more broadly. neil: scott, how do you see the markets faring? they are off to a strong start today notwithstanding. >> we have borrowed a lot of great news with this vaccine from the second and third quarter, when everybody thinks we are getting quote, back to normal but we have lost at least 20% of our small businesses and i think that number doubles. you've got 500,000 jobs lost this last month in the new report this morning from leisure and hospitality. do you think to get those people back to work, it's a good idea

to tax and spend? i don't think so. that's the problem. i think this market will slowly but surely realize it's been borrowing a lot of good will from the middle to back end of this year because the vaccine is supposed to make us all feel better. i will just say this. when they say that even when we get the vaccine we still have to socially distance and wear a mask, that's not changing business. this building i'm in right now is empty. it will probably still be empty this summer. there's going to be no business around here to make money off the people that are in this building. i'm telling you right now i think we are borrowing a lot of good news and have to kind of pay the piper here over the course of 2021. neil: i want to thank you. i apologize for the truncated nature of this. we are following this virus and stubborn spike in cases in this country. the mayor of san jose, california says we got to get a handle on this. controversial as some of his methods are. after this. it's time for the lowest prices of the season

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your constituents we have to kind of wake up and smell the virus coffee here, it's bad and we got to do something about it what are you doing? there are some renewed restrictions, right? >> there have been, yeah. the state is going to be extending the existing restrictions for several more weeks, we expect, until we see the capacity in our emergency rooms and icus really expand. i think it's going to be a while before we will really be able to see any significant return to life here on the streets. we are at about 3.5% capacity of icus here in the bay area and parts of southern california, it's 0%. so they are in a dire situation and we've got to do more to be able to create that capacity to be able to save lives. neil: do i understand, maybe i was slow here, there is only 3% capacity left? is that what you're saying? >> in the icus in the bay area,

yeah. roughly 9 million resident bay area. neil: we are seeing this in similar locales and i'm wondering, is it a problem getting the vaccine out? we've heard reports of various states either unable to get the number of vaccine doses they need, or unable to get them out even if they have them. what's happening where you are? because only a quarter of the available vaccines are out in americans' arms. >> there's no question there have been issues about distribution of the vaccine, but that's not really what's at issue with this immediate crisis that we're facing in our hospitals. just trying to keep people alive. the problem is that the number of cases are rising and spiking and even if we had perfect distribution of the vaccine, the quantity of vaccine is so small at this point even nationally it would not significantly affect what we're seeing in the larger

case rates or more importantly, in hospitalization rates. we've got to be able to do two things. we've got to be able to distribute the vaccine effectively and of course, we need to do everything we can to reduce the spread and that means everybody wearing masks and staying indoors. or i should say, staying at home, rather. what we know we've got to do together, though, is we've got to get more quantity out there and certainly i hope that there's going to be approval with astrazeneca or a third or fourth vaccine because there's no question we don't have enough right now. neil: very quickly, i would be remiss if i didn't mention what's going on with gavin newsom and this recall effort. i think the petitions have gathered better than a million signatures. what do you think of that? >> yeah, i don't expect it to be successful. this governor is still pretty popular in the last polls i saw, 58%, 59%. we know this is a very difficult time, things can always turn, but i expect governor newsom

will weather this. neil: all right. we will watch very closely. mayor, hope you get the better of this. watching that. but it's something that's happening across the country. we are keeping an eye on that. keeping an eye on the dow, down about 188 points. stay with us. now is the time for a new bath from bath fitter. every bath fitter bath is installed quickly, safely, and beautifully, with a lifetime warranty. go from old to new. from worn to wow.

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neil: all right. couple quick things before i hand this off to my buddy charles payne. we are seeing the selloff here,

in and out about 200 points. we were up that amount and then some early this morning. a lot of things are weighing on stocks, including, you know, the ten-year note now over 1.1%. i can't believe that's causing worry but when you have gotten as low as .5%, .6%, i guess it's a big deal. not everyone is suffering. i should point out that tesla right now is better than $800 million market cap company. that's only increased the wealth of elon musk, now the world's richest man. with that roughly 6% advance today, it's a 6% advance today, but with that runup, keep in mind that stock began last year about $70 a share, i think, i don't know if i'm exactly right, look where it is right now. he's the world's richest man, closing in on a valuation of personal wealth of about $195 billion. jeff bezos far behind him at

$185 billion. those are like charles payne net worth kind of numbers. he joins us right now. you know, these richest guys, charles, you think about it, enjoy your time on top because some other tech titan is about to take you over. incredible. charles: yeah, you know what, when you got $180 billion, though, you got room to be upset but i think everybody's going to be good there. neil: i think so. charles: thank you very much. have a great weekend, my friend. good afternoon, everyone. i'm charles payne. this is "making money" and wow, it's already been a crazy session, right. now despite today's turn-around, the broad markets continue the upward march and they are powered by stocks like the teslas of the world that have gone straight up. on wall street they call it parabolic and it feels so good but it's also worrisome and brings to mind, when do you register profits? when do you ring that register? we have you covered. meanwhile, with trillions possibly about to cascade into this economy, where should you be position