quote-unquote, priced for perfection. think longer term. with that in mind, we're going to hand it over to liz claman. she'll take it the rest of the wayment liz are. liz: yeah. just like a roller coaster ride at magic mountain just north of l.a -- [laughter] that is what we have right now, charles. happy monday. we've got a roller coaster ride on wall street to open the week after hitting a all-time highs earlier in the session on the nasdaq and the s&p. stocks have reversed course, at least with the dow, but then we've seen another about face. so let's check it right here. dow is down 113, s&p up 4, the nasdaq is up 57. any gain for the nasdaq and the russell, brand new records. our floor show traders are here, we have invented a brand new trading acronym called the ntd trade. we're going to tell you what

those letters stand for. meanwhile, chinese president xi jinping attacking the, quote, arrogance of isolation at a speech before a virtual davos today. where does that leave the biden administration on paris, 5g security, delisting chinese stocks here in the u.s.? we're going to ask china beige book ceo leland miller. all the big ceos of companies go to him to find out how china's thinking. as president xi takes on global trade, president biden focusing in on american manufacturing. he's expected to roll out his buy america plan in this hour. it has a twist. we'll get the details live from the white house. and the gamestop short squeeze saga purred by andrew left are, the famed short seller, is turning one of the nation's top bulls into a bear. but it's also rewriting a the history books. we have one of the new analysts who has double downgraded the stock of gamestop, but we also

have one of the top shareholders. it's a bull/bear debate on a day that's seen gamestop swing more than 140% just this session. big tech powering the nasdaq to all-time highs, setting the index up for its fourth straight record close. major earnings on tap in just over 48 hours; microsoft, verizon, apple, facebook and tesla. with money pouring into big tech, we at "the claman countdown" have come up with a new act cothem in -- acronym, mtv. take a look at fubo tv, it is jumping more than 11%, up more than 300% over just the last 52 weeks. let's held it over to apple,

hitting a new all-time high after getting a slew of price target hikes. it's up about 2.5% to $142.52. and then you look at the ev titans, tesla and, you know, nikola. tesla earlier today hit $90 per share for the first -- $900 per share for the first time ever. nikola jumping 2%. now to our traders on the mtv trade, scott redler, larry shover. scott, what are you watching most closely with money pouring into media, tech and vehicles? >> every week i'm trying to watch with the money flows. i love your acronym, because it's very relevant are. this week it's going to be very important. you named a lot of earnings that are coming out. i do think apple's important tomorrow. actually, no, apple's on wednesday, but with i feel like it's all at an all-time high.

we've been paid so handsomely to sit through the past few weeks. traders fear of missing out on a big earnings. netflix, solid report, goes up 13%. you needed to have an option trade on. you know, what i'm looking at though is netflix is sort of dripping lower, the fomo is leaving there, that created a choppy trade. so i think tesla on wednesday going to be very important because it's the darling of all momo. i'm going to be in it, i'm in a 920 by 990 call spread where i'm risking $10 to make 70, but i don't think the move's going to be like last year. last year the traders were worried about inclusion into the s&p. right now i don't think t going to have the momentum and the power we've seen the past few earnings quarters. so if we do get a bump on wednesday and they sell this

trend in tesla, that could be a little bit of a signal to not be buying strength in some of these big tech. liz: larry, where do you see the mtv trade -- and, yes, i'm trying to trademark that right now. [laughter] media, technology and vehicles. because it's not just, you know, the car companies. gm just hit an all-time record last week. ford is making a bunch of electric vehicles not to mention all of the associated names, laser -- >> yeah. liz: you know, you could go into plug, fuel cell. this is very hot. but there's also this frenzy in options trading activity, is so that's kind of disconcerting, is it not? >> well, to me it is. it's been going on for well over six months. we have, you know, gigantic option buyers who, you know, on the other hand, you have market mavens selling these options, so when the stock rallies, that

forces them to buy stock. it's almost a self-fulfilling prophesy where the stock continues to go up based on the fact you have market mavens who are selling options and have to buy the stock. beyond that, though, you know, it's hard to get my head around saying are these stocks fairly valued, are they cheap, are they expensive. i have to say that 90% of the s&p 500 market cap is in intangible assets. so looking at history, like look at 1975. only 20% of the market cap was intangible. -- in tangibles. it's really hard to draw parallels, although the only parallels we can draw are based on negative yields. you consider three-quarters of the developed world has real negative yields and the size and pace of quantitative easing. so rally ho and just stay really careful. liz: scott redler, goldman sachs, according to them, more than a half a trillion dollars of options on individual stocks traded on just january 8th,

highest single-day level on record. the financial industry regulatory authority found that margin debt is reaching $788 billion in december. i get nervous when i see too many investors on one side of the investment boat. is there anything to worry about here? >> liz, you're exactly right. you know, a lot of markets trade -- we've seen in the past year when you have all these unparalleled situations, you play with the trend, and whenever the trend gets too crowded, you have to shake the tree a little bit. that's why we look at the technicals, look at the strength of each sector. you have to try and today long until changes happen. and with some of those indicators, yes,sing they give me a little bit of a warning signal when you see a stock like gamestop go up 100 plus points and tesla trades 70 billion in eight minutes, you've got to be a little more careful, in my humble opinion. liz: yeah. we're talking a lot about

gamestop in the just a few minutes. scott, larry, great to see you. we've got to get to china. right now we're about, i want to say 30, 35 minutes away from president biden's buy america initiative where he's expected to boost demand for u.s. manufactured goods by announcing new guidelines on the federal government's purchasing power. problem number one, the u.s. just lost an important ranking. for the first time ever, china just leap flogged over the u.s -- leapfrogged to grab the number one spot for new foreign direct investment. this as chinese president xi jinping came out swinging today in a peach at the world economic -- in a speech at the world economic forum issuing a thin hi-veiled threat. to leland miller who's widely known as the guy to go to for what's going on in business. good to see you, leland. you know, xi said that countries that choose to two it alone, quote, will always fail. is that some type of warning to president biden about

trump-style protectionism? put that through the china filter and translate it for us. >> well, i think they're just -- [laughter] the country's talking their book now. china bullies all their neighbors, and they bully plenty of countries around the world, but there's only one country that can bully them, which is the united states. so i think what they'd like to set out is a multilateral framework where the united states treats china like a partner, and you can call that multilateralism, and would it mean not overrelying on any type of traditional system against china. talking about this open system and multilateralism sounds really good. it won't affect their behavior to the smaller countries around them, but it would be a nice, it would be a nice framework to set forward with president biden. finish. liz: well, we do need to know exactly how he plans to move forward when it comes to china. specifically, you know, we've got a lot of business leaders and business owners watching right now. their goal is to sell as much of their product to as many people

around the world as possible. that, of course, most likely includes at least, certainly, the chinese consumer. where do you expect joe biden to go with his china policy? >> i think joe biden thinks the best case scenario for his china policy is if he doesn't really have to have one for at least the first six months. they're looking inward both at u.s. economic weakness, but mostly the covid recovery. i think what they would like to do over the next six months is not hear the world china more than they have to and just focus inward. that mean, of course, that a lot of the actions that the trump administration put into play at the end of the administration will continue forward. but it may be spring, summer, in some cases fall before they get around to actually evaluating, assessing what they're going to carry forward and what they're not. liz: well, that almost seems like that's one thing that joe biden isn't sort of putting at the front burner to unwind when it comes to what president trump has donement but part of what he

is expected to talk about in the next 35 minutes or so is that he wants to close loopholes on the u.s. side when it comes to buying american. it doesn't sound like he's trying to hold his feet to the fire, but he wants to increase demand here. so to do that, you make the federal government when it's making gigantic purchases to buy american. specifically, though, reflect that on china. china is, i mean, they did not go through recession during this disastrous pandemic. they had about 6.4% gdp for the fourth quarter. do you believe that number? you're known as minute who's able to see through kind of the, let's say, lies and tweaking that china sometimes puts over their data. >> yeah. we didn't see that type of intensity in their recovery. they did have a recovery. they had a very nice recovery. and if you look at the progression of this, every month things were getting better, every quarter things were getting better, but beijing

decided very early on, probably as early as march, that they needed to have positive gdp growth for the year, so that was going to be the political statement they made, and the numbers announced in the meantime were all on a path in order to be able to claim that positive growth. what we were seeing in our data was a firm recovery, a better recovery than, you know, anywhere else around the world, but it was not somewhere, not a type of recovery that would put them in a better position in 2020 than 2019. this was not some sort of major improvement, they're not back to normal even though things are much better there than just about anywhere else. liz: great to see you, leland. thank you so much. leland miller. and as we talk, this is the guy that a lot of u.s. companies go to, of course, to make sure that they know exactly what they should be doing when it comes to believing stuff that comes out of chai comma and how they -- china and how they sell into it. merck's stock flatlining, forced

to abandon its covid vaccine research after trials did not show a strong immune response. but moderna, whose vaccine is already out there, shooting higher by 10, nearly 11% right now after saying it's vaccine should work on new variants, it will also start testing booster shots to see whether they can be helpful in combating the more contagious south african coronavirus variant. last february this stock of moderna was at $18. today shares are at $145. and businesses looking to give their own booster shot to the vaccination push. grady trimble about to name which companies are paying their workers, and by how much, to incentivize them to get vaccinated. will this turn into a classic case of money talks? we're going to find out in just a minute. with the closing bell ringing in 47 minutes, the dow not only down 146, but the s&p just turned negative again, down about 1 point.

we're coming right back on "the claman countdown. ♪ ♪ nicorette knows, quitting smoking is freaking hard. you get advice like: just stop. get a hobby. you should meditate. eat crunchy foods. go for a run. go for 10 runs! run a marathon. are you kidding me?! instead, start small. with nicorette. which can lead to something big. start stopping with nicorette

♪ ♪ liz: with president biden

warning that the u.s. could top 600,000 coronavirus deaths, the fear has people at a drive-through site in denver, colorado, on your screen here lining up for miles to get their vaccinations. now, despite the difficulties in obtaining vaccines what with some states running out, american companies are now starting to dangle money in front of their employees to entice them to get their jabs. to grady trimble who is outside the aldi grocery store in chicago. grady. >> reporter: hey, liz are. we're seeing a growing number of companies doing this. it started with dollar general, then trader joe's said they were going to offer incentives for employees to get the vaccine, and now aldi is the latest. they all say they're offering their employees four hours of their hourly wage if they do choose to get the vaccine, although they are not requiring it. instacart, which has become incredibly popular during the pandemic, is also offering a

stipend for its employees, $25 for full-time employees and even some of its contractors if they choose to get the vaccine. one company that we know of is considering taking things even further and making the vaccines mandatory for thousands and thousands of mows. that is united airline ares -- employees. that is united airlines. the ceo says it is not an official company policy yet. one thing he wants to see is other companies get onboard with mandatory vaccines. he said at a town hall with employees recently, i don't think united will get away with and realistically be the only company that requires vaccines and makes them mandatory. we need some others to show leadership, particularly in the health care industry. united so far, though, the only major company that we know of that is even remotely considering making the advantage seen mandatory. vaccine mandatory. a lot of companies are encouraging employees to get the vaccine and making sure it's

free and available to them but not necessary arely mandating it and not offering incentives either. but we could see more as it becomes more widely available, liz. liz: somebody call me and tell me when it's widely available. i'm ready, both arms. [laughter] thanks, tbraildty. grady trimble. listen, it's been a long haul. if that's going to help us, i'm in. the wild ride for gamestop shares, have you guys even this? it's so far from stopping at least when it comes to this battle versus short seller versus investor. we've got the man who owns nearly 2 million shares of gamestop. plus the analyst who just double downgraded the stock today. that's coming up. and the trumps are planning their next move. you'll never guess e the surprising source the family and its business might be turning to for financial support. charlie gasparino breaks it next

when the closing bell right here on "the claman countdown" returns. the s&p now back up 2 points. ♪ ♪

liz: fox business alert, blackberry juicing its way to heights it has not seen since you'd have to go back to 2011. we've got the original qwerty keyboarder turned smartphone maker about to rap up its seventh straight day of gains. finish look at the gains right now, you guys, up 28%. the momentum started earlier in the month after settling a patent dispute with facebook in which blackberry accused the social network of lifting features from blackberry messenger, piquing the interest of canadian members. blackberry is based in toronto, but they say there's been no undisclosed information or any material changes in its business

behind this run. blackberry stands right now at $18.15. movie fans may still have to wait until july 2nd to see the top gun sequel maverick, but some action-packed moves playing out right now with the theater stocks. amc jumping 25% right now after securing $917 million in new financing, pushing any kind of bankruptcy talk at least off the radar for now. and imax big screenings us way right past the so/so review that goldman sachs gave it, cutting shares to neutral this morning. up 3.6%. -- 1.6%. uber's stock, shares fell more than 8% to session lows after the ride hailer slashed 185 jobs from its postmates unit. more exits and job cuts are expected as uber integrates postmates into its uber eats division. the stock has pared much of those losses today, now down

just 1%. all right, it's been less than a week since donald trump left office, but the family has wasted no time in figuring out their post-presidential plans. and they involve at least one entity that charlie gasparino has found out about. you've got the details here on who's helping them with their business thousand in, charlie? >> well, what they're telling us is that they're going to have no problems finding a bank to eventually be a top financier now that deutsche bank has bowed out from doing business with the trump organization. that followed the riots in d.c. a couple weeks ago. deutsche bank, sources there have confirmed to the fox business network and elsewhere they are not going to do new business with the trump organization. that's donald trump's financial and real estate empire run by his kids -- sons now, eric and donald jr. but the old man probably will be

getting back into the swing of things soon. so who is going to finance what they have to do going forward? from what i understand, they do have fairly significant plans. they want to start possibly a social media network to rival twitter, that that's out there. they're talking openly about that. they're talking about finding a way to basically capitalize on the success that, or the popularity that donald trump still has with a lot of voters. but they need someone to finance that, we've been asking who would that be. when we asked eric trump who, essentially, is running the show right now, can you find another bank, this is what he told us: the properties of the trump administration are premier properties, and there are hundreds of banks out there. we're not worried about finding another bank. he didn't specify who would do it, but i keep hearing -- and this part is speculation, we've

asked, we've been making calls to try coon-- to confirm it, we have not confirmed it, that some of the money could come from the saudi royal family, has connections with trump and jared kushner, his so many, so that could be a -- his son-in-law, so that could be a source of capital going forward. again, the saudi royal family has not commented. we asked them for comment, they have not responded. eric trump did not specify. speaking of the saudi royal family, we should point out davos in the desert is this week. it's wednesday and thursday. last year a lot of people boycotted, a lot of the top executives boycotted the event following the murder of the journalist, jamal khashoggi. a lot of people say at the hands of the royal family. this year -- liz: well, the royal family said

it. they arrested some of their own people. i mean, not the family members, but their security. >> i don't think that mohamed bin salman has, you know, fessed up, confessed to the murder yet. a. [laughter] or am i missing something? liz: no, not him. but they did sentence their security people -- >> i'm just telling you what i know,? i'm trying to report this straight. liz: forget all of that, it's in the past, they're going to go to davos in the desert? >> david rubenstein, larry fink of blackrock, the name that stood out for me is edina friedman, nasdaq. she's one of the most woke ceos pushing for diversity rules, and guess what? she's going to a conference that is, you know, put on by the least woke people in the world maybe. [laughter] so there you have it.

and one of the reasons, from what i hear, the saudi royal family, they have a lot of money, and they're going to spread it around. they're going to, you know, do what investors or do. and wall street is looking to cash in on that. the larry finks of the world, the david solomons of goldman sachs, james goldman of morgan stanley and adena friedman of nasdaq. last year with, or again, there was basically a boy coot. -- boycott. this year everything's forgotten. liz, back to you. liz: yeah. short memories. yeah, interesting. charlie, thank you. good report. charlie gasparino. okay, forget fortnite and call of duty, gamestop becoming the center point of the biggest battle in the market right now. andrew left, the same short seller -- famed short seller, fending off hackers after his apocalyptic $20 short call. shares leveling up in epic fashion as ryan cohen of chewy

founder fame joins in the fray. even if you don't own the stock, what's happening here is important for you as an investor to understand. with the closing bell ringing in 29 minutes and the dow down 12 the 6, gamestop coarsing higher, we've got two top players in this short-selling war. they're facing off when we come back, don't go away. ♪ ♪ get real-time insights in your customized view of the market. it's smarter trading technology for smarter trading decisions. fidelity. (vo) businesses are always making choices. here's a choice you don't have to make: the largest 5g network... award-winning customer satisfaction... or insanely great value. now, with t-mobile for business, there's no compromise. network. support. value. choose. all. three. t-mobile for business.

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♪ ♪ liz: last thursday "the claman countdown" was the first to flag you guys on a hacking drama playing out on twitter that has turned into one for the short squeeze history books. andrew left of citron research heavily promoted what he said would be his twitter taketown of gamestop. what are we -- takedown. before he could even get it up, his five-point video which he said was going to just hammer gamestop, hackers descended and

swamped the site a, and then-trying to do that thing where -- okay. left was able to finally post the video hours later in which he did slam gamestop saying it's going to go down to $20 a share. but despite his incredible record of short slams, that's not the case today. take a look at this wild intraday champ gamestop's stocking is looking like, yeah, it's the six flags roller coaster e theme today. up as much as 144% to the upside, then it turned negative, and now it's back up by about 22% as we approach the closing bell. let's tackle this still-developing story. joining us now one of the biggest shareholders, permit capital portfolio manager john broderick, he owns 1.9 million shares, and senior managing director joe feldman who just gave gamestop a double downgrade today. joe, let me start with you. what's at the heart of your double downgrade? the you're going full on with the short seller, andrew left. >> well, i'm one of the biggest

bulls still on the street with the double downgrade. and in terms of the analyst -- [laughter] i just think there's a disconnect between the fundamentals and the valuation of the stock. i mean, there's just -- it's been random speculation this these chat rooms, and they're fueling the stock. it just seems like it's gotten way ahead of where it should be. we've tried to put -- we have very optimistic fundamental outlook for the company. i mean, i've got very rosy forecasts for earnings for the next couple of years. and even with that i'm still only getting to the low to mid $30 price area for where the stock should trade. which is, clearly, far below where it is today. liz: well, okay. to you then, john. give me a sense of when you started buying and accumulating this stock. you have got -- nearly 2 million shares, correct? when did you buy your first share and at what price? >> well, we've been an owner of the shares for almost ten years, started acquiring the shares in

the mid teens. i think all the way back in 2012, if i can remember correctly, and since then, you know, it's been a roller coaster ride over a much longer period of time. but the point is, is that we started investing in it as a brick and mortar retailer, but we really like these customers who, if you engage them correctly and in a manner that can unlock their potential to spend in a very high growth category like video gaming, there's a lot of value to be gained here. so that's sort of the fundamental story. with ryan colm coming on the board recently and others on the board almost completely reconstituted in the last 12 months, you're looking at a situation where you could turn this into sort of the chewy of gaming. and, you know, chewy, i had to look at it recently, the last time i looked at it traded

around seven times revenue. gamestop trades around one times revenue. so if we start to get that narrative around gamestop, you could see a much higher share price. if you look at the fundamentals over the last couple quarters, it's not inspiring. but with i think that over time you can look at this, and it's similar to steve jobs returning to apple in the late '90s. if you're a long-term investor like we are, that's a very promising narrative. liz: well, joe, obviously something's making you nervous about this recent runup and, yes, ryan cohen came in as sort of an activist voice and says, wait a minute, this is a company that could absolutely go gangbusters if you go all online and really push that. and then suddenly, it looks like the retailer, individual investors jumped in and said i like what this guy's thinking, and thousand we're talking about an -- and now we're talking about an unbelievable short squeeze that looks a little bit dangerous for people to get caught in at the moment.

but, you know, andrew left said that this is just -- i forget the quote, but it was something really, really rude about, what was it, joe? something about a has been, washed-up mall retailer. >> right. liz: my son still loves to go there, you know? [laughter] are you as worried about the brick and mortar side of gamestop as andrew left is? >> i'm not actually as worried about the brick and mortar side because of the fact that they have very short-term leases. gamestop has, the average lease life is around two of and a half years. is so really they could close every store within three years without, you know, taking major penalties just because the lease term coming due. so that's not the biggest issue to me. i just wonder how do you transition to a digital side, completely digital very much like chewy's, or, you know, chewy's at least, i get my dog food from chewy. it comes once a month, and i

need it once a month. i don't need the new assassin's creed once a month because it's only once a year, if i'm lucky. sometimes once every other year. so i think that the model might not work quite as wellment i do understand the digital -- well. i do understand the digital a allure in that you could have more streaming games and have more things in the cloud. that could actually work, and i know under the prior ceo a couple of ceos ago, they were trying to do that. they did try cloud-based gaming, and maybe they were just ahead of their time. liz: right. possibly. >> you're dealing with microsoft and sony as well, and they're streaming. heir doing it already. liz: john, we've got to run, but i do want to know, are you going to sell any shares here? it has had such a good runup, why not take some money off the table? >> well, as a matter of risk management, we have reduced our position from that number you described earlier, and so we have taken some off just because it became too large in our fund. i think our average cost was $7 or something.

so we have taken some off. but we are, we continue to own it, very interested in the future of the company and, you know, we're very excited about it. liz: great to have you both. john and joe, good discussion. thank you. we'll have you back as this is a story that continues. breaking news, we take you to washington d.c. president joe biden is unveiling his buy american pledge at this very moment. the details of these new orders and the stocks that could benefit from the continued fight to bring manufacturing jobs back home. we are going to take you straight to the white house. you'll hear what he's saying. he may have q&a, we're going to take that, but it's buy american with a twist. and will bitcoin's boon during the biden administration at least see more moves to the upside, or will cryptocurrency mania lose its momentum as bitcoin has faltered over the past couple of days, now moving higher. the most vocal bitcoin bear out

there may be peter schiff. you know what? the crypto faithful call him enemy number one. you've got to listen to my newest everyone talks to liz podcast episode. why he's so bearish and why he says bitcoin will fail. you can get it everywhere, wherever you find your podcasts. the dow jones down 105. stay tuned, we're coming right back. ♪ this is my granddaughter... she's cute like her grandpa. voya doesn't just help me get to retirement... ...they're with me all the way through it. voya. be confident to and through retirement. - i'm norm. - i'm szasz. [norm] and we live in columbia, missouri. we do consulting, but we also write. [szasz] we take care of ourselves constantly; it's important. we walk three to five times a week, a couple miles at a time. - we've both been taking prevagen for a little more than 11 years now. after about 30 days of taking it,

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and together this'll be the largest mobile seation of public investment and procurement infrastructure and r&d or since world war ii. and with the executive order i'll be signing today, or we'll increase buy american requirements for these kinds of projects and improve the way we measure domestic content requirements. for example, right now if you manufacture a vehicle for the federal government, you need to show that at least 50% of the components of that vehicle were made in america. but because of loopholes that have been expanded over time, you can count the least valuable possible parts as part of that 50% to say made in america while the most valuable parts, the engines, the steel, the glass, are manufactured abroad. so basically, basically, we're batting 0-2. the content threshold of 50% aren't high enough. and the way we measure the content doesn't account for u.s.

jobs and economic activity. we're going to change that as well. the executive action i'm signing today will not only require that companies make more of their components in america, but that the value of those components is contributing to our economy. measured by things like a number of american jobs created and/or supported. at the same time, we'll be committed to working with our trade thing partners to modernize international trade rules including those relating to government procurement to make sure we can use, we can all use our taxpayer dollars to spur investment that promotes growth and resilient supply chains. and here's what else the action does. when we buy america, we'll buy from all of america. that includes communities that have historically been left out of government procurement; black, brown, native american, small businesses and entrepreneurs -- liz: president joe biden is just

now live revealing his buy american plan to boost u.s. manufacturing and create jobs. specifically, let me just say that some of the things that he said involve the u.s. government as the largest buyer of u.s.-made, manufactured products here. so what he is now doing is basically going to cut loopholes, tart to close them which will force the federal government to give american producers first crack at lucrative government contracts. and if they need a waiver, because there have been a lot of government offices -- not just private companies applying for waivers -- if they need a waiver, they have to, as joe biden said, come to the white house and explain to us why they need that waiver. to blame berman who's live at the -- blake burman who's live at the white house. yes, he cited usmca and that content threshold, he gave a nod to the trump administration on that, but said there were too many sort of loopholes that people were using when it came to waivers. so what he's trying to do,

correct me if i'm wrong, is spur demand by making -- or spur manufacturers by making demand go up on behalf of the federal government. >> reporter: you might be watching this and say, well, wait a minute, i thought there was already a made in america policy at the federal level. i thought the trump administration did that. are. liz: right. >> reporter: you're right, they did. this was a key thing from the prior administration, and the current administration was asked about that, liz, last night when we were on a conference call with them. and the biden administration is saying, look, they are putting this into play now because they feel, essentially, it was a lot of talk and no action on this front from the trump administration. for example, a biden official telling us on this matter that it was, let me just dig it up here real quick. quote: what we're going to do is make this happen and make outcomes change. in practice, nothing happened. that's the contention, and that is why there are some changes now. you just went through it.

the president outlining, for example, they're going to try to crack down on the waiver process, they're going to try to increase the domestic content fresh hold, that they're going -- threshold, that they're going to create an office within the office of management and budget for someone known as the director of made in america, and they will also reinestate support for the jones act which says vessel, when they're going from u.s. port to u.s. port, have to have u.s. flags. i believe the president's about the get into a question and answer session, liz, so i'll send it back to you. liz: yes. he is taking questions. let's listen in. >> right now the chicago teachers union has refused, they've defied an order to return to in-person classrooms because of a lack of vaccinations. do you believe, sir, that teachers should return to schools now? >> i believe we should make school classrooms safe and secure for the students, for the teachers and for the help that's

in those schools maintaining the facilities. we need new ventilation systems in those schools, we need testing for people coming in and out of the classes, we need testing for teachers as well as students, and we need the capacity, the capacity to know that, in fact, the circumstance in the school is safe and secure for everyone. for example, there's no reason why, the clear guidance will be that every school should be thoroughly sanitized. from the lavatories to the hallways. and so this is about making -- and none of the school districts that i'm aware of, there may be some public school districts, have insisted all those pieces be in place. and i might add, the same kind of thing we can do, i hope, with small businesses and businesses, making sure they have the capacity to test their workers when they come in, to make sure

they have plastic dividers between their booths and -- in their restaurants, etc. so make sure they can sanitize. it's not so much the idea teachers aren't going to work, the teachers i know, they want to work. they just want to work in a safe environment and as safe as we can rationally make it, and we can do that, and we should be able to open up every school, kindergarten through eighth grade, if, in fact, we administer these tests. and it'll have the added advantage, i might add, of putting millions of people back to work. all those mothers and fathers that are home taking care of their children rather than going to work even when they can work. they're not able to do it unless they have the luxury of working distance wise like many of us do. they're not able to do it. and so this is about generating economic growth overall as well. >> [inaudible]

>> thank you, mr. president. i'm alex hall per from reuters. i wanted to ask a question about navalny, if you are considering imposing sanctions on any of the individuals involved in his attempted poisoning and/or his arrest when he returned from germany. and if not, is that related to your concerns about it potentially derailing a new s.t.a.r.t. extension? thank you. >> i find that we can both operate in the mutual self-interest of our countries with the new s.t.a.r.t. agreement and make it clear to rush or shah that we are -- russia that we are very concerned about their behavior whether it's navalny, whether it's the solarwinds or whether it's reports of bounties on the heads of americans in afghanistan. i'veed asked the agencies in question to do a thorough, a thorough read for me on every one of those issues to update me precisely where they are, and i will not hesitate to raise those

issues with the russians. >> [inaudible] >> mr. president -- [inaudible] a question about your covid relief deal. on friday you said the nation is in a national emergency, we should act like it. given that, given the scale and the severity of the need, how long are you willing to get sufficient republican support before you would green light democrat atents to use reconciliation -- attempts to use reck are silluation, for instance, to pass that bill? >> well, look, the decision on reconciliation will be one made by the leaders of the house and the senate, but here's the deal. i have been doing legislative negotiations for a large part of my life. i know how the system works. and what i am not, i can't guarantee anything at all, but i can say that what i'm going to be doing and have already begun is making it clear to the leadership in the house and the senate as well as the group of

16, that group of bipartisan group as well as republican individuals who have an interest in the issues that. saying here's what i'm doing. here is why i want to do it, here's why i think we need do do it and what kind of support can or can't you give with that, we go on the way we deal with legislation all the time. you know, we didn't have any votes for the recovery package when barack and i came into office. we were short three votes. we don't know we had the votes until the day of the, the day of the, of the, bringing it up. and but here's the deal, you know, it's interesting and i know you ask a lot of these questions, you know the answers but, to help educate the public as well. i'm not suggesting you don't know what i'm about to say, no one wants to give up on their

position until there is no other alternative. they have to make a decision that they don't do what, they don't support what is being proposed, they insist what they have or they let it all go away, fall down. i think we're far from that point right now. the decision to use reconciliation will depend upon how these negotiations go. let me make clear about negotiations. i've always believed, part of negotiation on the part of a president and or a chairman of a committee trying to get a major piece of legislation passed is about consultation. it is not enough for me to just come up to you say, i like this, i expect you to support it. i want to explain to you why i think it's so important in this package that we have to provide for money for additional vaccines. why i think it is so important why we provide for money to

extend unemployment benefits. why i think it is so important we provide money to provide for the ability of people not to be thrown out of their apartments during this pandemic because they can't afford their rent. to make the case i think, we think the priorities are, i apologize, within this legislation. and i don't expect we'll know whether we have an agreement, to what extent the entire package we'll be able to pass or not pass until we get right down to the very end of this process, which will be probably in a couple weeks, but the point is, this is just a process beginning >> [inaudible]. reporter: thank you, mr. president. annie linski with the "washington post." >> annie. reporter: i want to ask about the major themes of your campaign and how you measure