individually. there is a lot of volatility. think after diversified portfolio. [closing bell rings] the dollar will weaken for the next 10 years but -- liz: yeah. okay, so as you say, go into some of those south american, yeah, currencies. there we have it. just the nasdaq looking at a record at the moment. new closing record for the russell as well. ♪. connell: we've been fighting all day for those record closes. to your point, liz, we do get it for the nasdaq, not for the other two. we had strong corporate results. we have some optimism about stimulus. that has been helping stocks but you can't keep going up in a straight line. the dow after being up throughout the day, looking like it might close at a record is now settling down by 10 or 11 points and the s&p 500 is down by four at the close. both of them are down, so those streaks come to an end. the nasdaq keeps the winning ways going. that is the fourth straight day of close for nasdaq composite

index t closes above 14,000. above the 14,000 milestone for the first time in its history. 14,007. there you go. kind of a mixed finish to today. a lot going on outside of wall street. i'm connell mcshane. welcome to "after the bell." it is time for the news that is happening at this hour. our fox business team coverage reporters set up. blake burman coughing the white house for us. we'll get to blake. and gerri willis as well who is reporting in new york. in fact we'll start with blake. not only impeachment trial after former president which we'll talk about a little later on in the show but with the current president meeting today with various business leaders. tell us about that. reporter: pretty big meeting this afternoon, connell with, the president, vyings president, treasury secretary janet yellen and some of the biggest names in business. it just wrapped according to the white house in the last half hour or so in that meeting along who i mentioned, the head of jpmorgan, jamie dimon, the head of walmart, doug mcmillon, along

with ceo's of lowe's and gap. the president saying off the top they would talk about four major issues, the economy, the rescue package, infrastructure and the minimum wage potential increase. the president saying in his words that the american people are hurting and are in some cases in real trouble. he continued his push for a massive relief package. >> i think we're in a position to think big and move big and move in the direction that can be not only get the economy back on its feet but we have to get people well before we get people on their feet. reporter: still awaiting a readout from the white house what was actually discussed in that meeting. as for the stimulus package, connell, the white house saying today the president not only supports the 1400-dollar checks which we knew, but supports what the democrats coalesced, keeping threshold income the same as

prior payments, 75,000 for individuals and $150,000 for a couple. connell: i want to focus on the conversation about the $15 an hour, maybe it wasn't getting in the bill. what is the white house saying about that. reporter: democrats are hopeful we heard from the top democrat senate majority leader chuck schumer there still waiting word working with the senate parliamentarian to try to get it in there. this could be much tougher sell from democrats which the northern partisan congressional budget office, if there is increase to 15-dollar minimum wage by 2025, it would mean 900,000 people lifted out of poverty. however it also means they project 1.4 million fewers jobs. the white house has been asked about this repeatedly today, part of their response they believe the jobs number isn't

necessarily should not be that high but they say there is a jobs bill coming down the line soon from the president. >> the president is going to roll out a build back better agenda a jobs package in the coming weeks. part of his objective is combine with this package to make sure we have not only addressing the pandemic but we are also reinvigorating the economy. so his goal was all of these plans is to work with congress to put people back to work. that minimum wage increasing the minimum wage to insure workers are pulled out of poverty. reporter: clearly a sales pitch needed from this administration going forward because while they say the president will be unveiling a jobs package, they pushed back on that 1.4 million figure, it remains to be seen how moderate democrats especially in the senate would go along with 15-dollar an hour minimum wage hike with the 1.4 million job loss projection. connell? connell: moderate democrat, code for joe manchin as we know.

we'll be back to looking at that key senator from west virginia as it has been here the last few weeks. blake, thank you from the north lawn. james freeman joins us from "the wall street journal." james a fox news contributor. it is kind of interesting to watch all of this, james, putting together what blake talks about, whether minimum wage is in there or not, looks like the democrat will put through a large relief or stimulus package, whatever you want to call it, you do see pushback from economists, even liberal economists like larry summers, this might be too big. inflation could be a problem. in the midst of all of this we still have the stock market hovering at record highs. pretty flat today but still doesn't seem to be very concerned if there is a concern about the future. what do you make of that? >> as far as the economists it is very striking, larry summers, jason furman, steve rattner, leading lights of the obama economic team, saying polite

ways joe, we don't need a package this big. it is not 2009. the economy is in pretty good shape. that relates to the second question how are markets reacting. you've been talking about a very strong earnings season. i think consensus which i share is that this year is set up to be pretty strong economically if washington policy doesn't get in the way. so, i think you have a lot of very strong economic facts. you have a hospitalization numbers on covid that peaked two weeks before inauguration day. so the trends are all very positive regardless of what they're debating in washington. connell: that's a fair point. on the minimum wage, i don't know, as blake says not sure whether it gets in or not. they seem more optimistic than they were last week. amazon came out supported it for what it is worth, going up to 15 bucks an hour nationwide would be a good thing for business. they're already at $15 in their

private business. we did have the cbo report about job losses as a result of this. but thoughts on a big company like amazon and you know, its interests here favoring $15 as a minimum wage nationwide? >> as you mentioned they have been at that number, above for a while. you recall 2 1/2 years ago when bernie sanders was beating them up, you're not treating people well enough in your warehouses they said in terms of full-time workers at the fulfillment center they were already averaging $15 or more. this is not going to cost them. i think you can assume now. do they see a competitive advantage? are some of their competitors based on the wage and labor mix they have in their facilities going to be disadvantaged more than amazon? or is this kind of a free moment to virtue signal? i think who you really want to pay attention to are those small businesses and especially as we

allow restaurants and retail to finally try to survive and reopen after covid, this would be really a difficult burden for some of those smaller firms. connell: as you know, that is what we've been focused on. we have a restaurant owner later in the show. james, stay with me. a "fox business alert" on, and talk to you about jobs and twitter. earnings came out. you mentioned strong corporate earnings, don't know whether twitter should be in this group or not but twitter results 38 cents per share for last quarter. that is better than expected. the results were expected to be 31 cents a share. revenue $1.29 billion for twitter. that is another company with better than expected corporate results. we'll get more into details about twitter. they're are questions about the business later on in the show. i said i wanted to talk about jobs. the bottom line on jobs, james, 2020, we have new figures come

in to show this, was the worst year for the american labor market since 2009. numbers show the pace of hiring fell in december. this brings it all together with the relief package. as jen psaki talked about, you heard the clip. that is not all the spending they planned. they want a quote, unquote, jobs package following all of this, targeting these numbers. what is your view? you think the economy is in pretty good shape to rebound without all of that? that the jobs are coming back, right? >> very good. there was a huge rebound starting middle of last year, the worst of the spring shutdowns, unemployment rate getting into the 15% range. now it is below seven. lately the labor force participation has been a little down. that is a concern. if you look at the problems it really is concentrated in kind of covid sensitive industries as we continue to see these positive trends there. i think those industries get to come back and reopen and rehire.

so the table as i said i don't think this is controversial view, i think the table is really set for a very strong year of growth this year after two quarters of growth to close out last year. so, in terms of what the markets are going to be thinking, if that next bill is the one that has all the biden tax increases, i think that is not going to be well receiveed. connell: right, because biden, administration view full employment doesn't come back until i believe they say 2025. but if you spend all this money they're proposing, it comes back, we get back to full employment by beginning of next year. what do you say is the final thought? >> that is the incoherence. they're looking back at the precovid unemployment rate of 3 1/2% we saw early last year. they are saying that is their target.

of course we remember how we got there. it was not through lots of government intervention t was the opposite. the trump program was tax cuts and deregulation. that is how you got this great labor market. so i don't understand the economic case that they want to get back to that trump number but with a completely different set of policies. connell: all right. james, as always, thank you. covered a lot of ground today. always grad to talk to you james freeman from the "wall street journal" we'll talk to you again in a few minutes about another subject. we have a lot of other things to get to. more on earnings of twitter and other companies coming out after the bell. the latest on china, the latest threat from china to any country that is boycotting winter olympics set in 2022. we'll have fallout from the announcement on the world stage. there is an investigation underway after an attempt to poison one city's water system. the fbi on high alert as a result of that. a massive spike in sales for one

industries following a series of unexpected events. you can probably guess we're live at a gun shop later this hour, on numbers behind that story. stick around. more to come on "after the bell." ♪

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connell: second "after the bell" earnings to report to you, cisco systems is just in. gerri willis join us with the numbers. gerri, what do we see? reporter: that's right. cisco another company benefiting from move to rework from remote. i have to use my glasses. eps at 79 cents a share versus expectations of 76 cents a share. the revenue also beating actual, 11.96 billion, versus a revenue estimate of 11.92. they say they had robust demand for networking. that is what they make, networking equipment. they're also a dow member, move lower not good for the dow overall. i should note they're trying to move to a subscription service with a lot of their products. 76% of their software revenues are sold as subscriptions. that is positive for the company. q3 guidance in line. they're not moving it up. not making it higher or lower,

in line, i should say seeing signs of strength across the business lines here. they are seeing a strong economy shaping up for their products out there? once again, eps, a beat here coming in at 79 cents a share. revenue higher at 70.96 billion. no payoff for the stock price. connell: selling on the news. gerri, thank you very much. we'll talk later in the show. the other big story in the world today, the second impeachment trial of former president donald trump that has been going on. let's get an update as we look at pictures from capitol hill. fox business correspondent chad pergram covering them as we expect. it has been through quite a day. take us through it. reporter: this is a record-setting day. they consider article of impeachment against a former president. they have considered former

officials but never a president who left office. house impeachment managers jamie raskin played a violent graphic video of chaos that ingrid the capitol on january 6th. >> i told her how sorry i was. i told her it would not be like this again when she came back to the capitol with me. you know what she said? she said, dad, i don't want to come back to the capitol. reporter: at the end of the video raskin posed the following question you ask what a high crime and misdemeanor is. that is what a high crime and misdemeanor is under the constitution. raskin noted that article i, section 3 of constitution that the senate has right to trial all impeachments. trump attorney david shown argued that the trial is not constitutional. >> our great country a model for all the world, will be far more divided and our standing around the world will be bad did i

broken. our archenemies who pray each and every day for our downfall will watch in glee. reporter: they vote on constitutionality of the trial and well start with opening arguments. connell: connell, thank you. chad pergram live on capitol hill. on this trial "the wall street journal" editorial board had a piece this morning why the democrats want a trump trial. the argument it is political. they know it will cross pressure for the gop in 2022. with that james freeman is still with us. the piece was critical of the former president just to be clear saying that mr. trump's actions on that day, january 6th and after the november election were, quote, disgraceful but again, it got to the point of what would be accomplished with this trial while he is out of office. pick up on that. what's your view? >> well there is the big question about whether it's

constitutional. i happen to think it's not. i think a lot of people are wondering why this is happening now. the democrats obviously are bringing it to the senate floor but don't want to spend a lot of time on it. they have scheduled it not to interfere too much with their effort to pass legislation. so i think the political motivation is that they can kind of force republicans to take what they think will be a bad vote if they vote to acquit trump. that democrats hope will alienate moderate voters if they vote against former president trump, then, many conservatives will be disappointed. so i think the political value for democrats is clear but the case, it's beyond the constitutional questions. there is also, we are blessed with a very strong first amendment in this country and also applies to the president along with the rest of us and i

think an incitement case is a reach if you look the way the law has been interpreted with people who are not name trump. connell: there is also the political reality. we know the outcome going in which is why for us looking at any impact on markets or economies oring in like that, there doesn't seem to be one. we'll keep everyone updated. we know where this is going. james, thank you, as all for all of this. extra time. we'll move on to talk about china for a moment. the world health organization has ended its investigation that it was doing into the origins of covid-19 and the conclusion is, from the world health organization, it is extremely unlikely that the virus leaked out after lab in wuhan, china. they spread likely spread from animals to humans. that is the conclusion they're going with. president biden announced the u.s. will rejoin the world health organization.

we have the center for national interest. i looked a little bit at the conclusions of the w.h.o. here on the origins of the virus, harry, like i said, they think most likely came from an animal. i guess the question would be, you have chinese officials, should be pointed out closely monitoring what they're doing, was this even a transparent and independent investigation that was done by w.h.o. officials in wuhan? >> connell there, is another question to ask to your point, the investigation is year too late. w.h.o. investigators should have been there in january. u.s. investigators volunteered to go to help the chinese. i think there was, there was ample reasons to do that. a year later we have 2.3 million people dead across the world. we have hundreds of thousands of americans dead. we have countless americans that will lots of health issues for years to come. so i think the chinese should have been way more transparent than they should have been. for a country that wants to be a superpower, to lead the global

economy, to not allow investigators in in my opinion shows they had something to hide. hats off to the w.h.o. for getting in there but it's a year too late. connell: there is some other news out of china i want to touch on while you're with us. huawei actually filed a lawsuit and the company is disputing the fact it has been designated a security threat in the united states. the quote from the lawsuit saying that it was arbitrary, can appreciate sures, abuse of discretion, not supported by substantial evidence. so that is the huawei lawsuit. now the company's ceo, the huawei ceo actually said as well, he would quote, welcome a phone call if it were to come in from president biden. on both of those points, whether president biden should talk to mr. wren, ceo at huawei and this lawsuit from the company who is now suddenly back in the news again? >> a phone call from president biden is not going to change the fact that the chinese communist party has a law on their books that says any chinese company

has to assist the chinese government in any matters of national security. that could be espionage, and let's face it, how can we let huawei, really any chinese telecommunications company integrate to u.s. networks whether we're talking regular broadband, high speed internet, 5g, when we know that those networks will be used to spy on americans, spy on the u.s. government, really any pack dealt of information that they need. sew it really is sad that a lot of these chinese companies do have really great technology but we can't use any of it because we can't trust them that is the fault of the chinese communist party and that is a shame. connell: the last point i want to get to on china is interesting, china will host the olympics, winter games, 2022. ahead of that, there is speculation there will be boycotts, china has threatened to seriously sanction that any country that ends up boycotting the event. the british, for example, british mps say we should

boycott this over the uyghur muslim issue and alleged genocide of people in china. other countries might consider. we've seen olympic boycotts in the past. what do you make of the china threat comes first before the boycott? >> i think chinese communist party is very scared. they spent something like five billion dollars to buildout all the stuck struck for these winter olympic games. they want to show off the high-speed rail that would take olympians to all the different cities taking part in the olympics. face it, china is a rogue nation, no matter what definition you use. not only are they imprisoning a million plus uyghurs, they're trying to take over the south china sea. they're doing military exercises around taiwan. trying to take over the east china sea. trying to displace the united states in the pacific. by any definition they are a rogue nation. i think they are scared they know a lot of could countries will look at that and they're

afraid. i think joe biden will make nice with the chinese. i may be wrong but i think beijing is afraid other countries might pick up handle. connell: there are only two sides. athletes working their whole life they don't want to be made pawns in a political issue but sometimes others can argue it is effective. thank you, harry, we'll follow all issues on china. we also have a make-or-break moment for one of the nation's larg school districts. all 25,000 members of the chicago teachers union to have to midnight to vote on reopening the city's schools. the vote total on in person learn something expected tomorrow. if the plan passes, students are expected to begin phasing back into the classroom this week. ♪. you shouldn't try at home... look, liberty mutual customizes home insurance

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attempt to poison water supply outside of tampa. fox's jonathan serrie joins us with details on the story. jonathan. reporter: connell this, happened in the city of oldsmar. it is in the middle of the tampa bay area, a huge metropolitan square yet this small town has its own munition munition -- municipal water system. that is what the hacker was trying to target on friday this person or perhaps multiple people accessed water systems computer remotely and increased the level of ammonium hydroxide, it levels the ph of the water, increasing left from a safe 100 parts per million to 11,100 parts per million. >> because the operator noticed the increase and lowered it right away at no time was there a significant adverse effect on the water being treated. importantly, the public was

never in danger. reporter: city officials say even if the increase had gone undetected, automatic sensors throughout the system would have set off alarms long before any water with dangerous ph levels reached the public. nevertheless the cyber breach expose as potential vulnerability in america's utilities. >> the important thing is to put everybody on notice. i think that is really the purpose of today, is to make sure everyone realizes these kind of bad actors are out there. it is happening. so really take a hard look what you of have in place. reporter: connell the oldsmar water facility is temporarily disabled. remote computer access to install new software. they hope to safeguard against future cyber breaches. the fda, the fbi, and secret service joined in the investigation. obviously this is a issue of national concern, protecting america's critical infrastructure. connell. connell: was there any way they

could have known about this, any threats or anything like that leading up to the attack, jonathan? reporter: they say there were no specific threats to this particular facility but you know, connell, after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, utilities and critical infrastructure throughout the country started looking at the potential for attacks, either cyber or non-cyberattacks on facilities such as water treatment facilities and so many began installing safeguards. and so even though there was remote computer access to this facility, so that super advisors coremotely access water levels, astute employees, were monitoring the access to make sure nothing nefarious was going on. at least clearly in this small little town in florida, that system worked. connell: that is good news obviously. jonathan, thank you. jonathan serrie live for us on that developing story.

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♪. connell: back with a "fox business alert." "after the bell" earnings beat here with twitter. the stock seems to be reacting well to a beat, better than expected both on top and bottom line. the company reporting a 27% spike as well in user growth which of course is very important but it warned about the future saying that growth will slow down as boost from the pandemic fades that was twitter's commentary. john meyer joins us with his own commentary from starship capital. good to see you, john. it is interesting about twitter, a lot of people thought, are wondering, how the trump ban, the banning of president's account going forward.

not just that account obviously but other accounts banned or other supporters of the president they're not that long for twitter, the company said that five million subscribers gained in fourth quarter of the year, that was the last quarter with trump. what is your outlook going forward from here for twitter? >> you know, i've been critical of twitter in the past and you know, to be honest i'm surprised to see how well they're doing. and it gives me confidence today's results in twitter's future it is proving that the company is really a, truly resilient operation to the point where you know, you have these forces like donald trump not being on there anymore, you have forces like you know, other new competitors in social media. we're hearing a lot of whispers around a new social media app called clubhouse. a lot of things just don't seem to really affect twitter's growth. that is what makes it so

resilient. that is a very powerful trait to have, as a public company. and i think it also goes to show one last point on them, that it's very hard to build a competing platform. you know it is surprising and also striking there is no major competitor to twitter in a sim larp, you know, feed-style fashion with form contact. connell: right. we saw what happened with parler. nobody has risen up in that exact type of a platform. i want to talk about lyft as well, kind of same angle you brought up, the ride-sharing company, maybe a surprise how well a company is doing because lyft is a stock that is up, almost 7% after-hours. the cfo brian roberts, standing by the goal to become profitable by the end of the year and predicting a a rebound in demand by the second quarter. the pandemic causes problems for companies like uber and lyft and lyft looks like it is turning

some sort of a a quarter so to speak. what do you make of these results? >> i think the rise in the stock price is their guidance and they're confident about the fact as the covid-19 vaccine rollout happens more and more next few months, they believe they will see a drastic uptick in rides again. but you know, i'm a long-term investor. i look at lyft in a more multiyear fashion. i remain absolutely quite worried for the company simply because they're so behind in autonomous vehicle technology and there is some pretty big up starts that are going to compete with them in rideshare-based apps in an autonomous form and undercut those prices in orders of magnitude different. connell: interesting as a final quick point if you were coming up with a list of stocks as might be a play on reopening of the economy, maybe lyft would be on it but not for you?

>> because i'm in the long term, not for me, no. connell: all right. fair enough. that was as requested a short answer from john meyer. thank you, john. good to see you again on those companies twitter and lyft. this came in today, new findings after what was a year long investigation. federal safety officials blamed the helicopter crash that killed kobe bryant and eight other people on the pilot's poor decision to fly in thick clouds where he became disoriented and plunges the aircraft into a california hillside. the national transportation safety board poor visibility probably led the pilot to become so disor river ended he could not perceive up from down. we'll be right back. your car insurance so you only pay for what you need? i mean it... oh, sorry... [ laughter ] woops! [ laughter ] good evening! meow! nope.

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uhhh... yes. huh... what happens in this one? seagulls. oh, i like it. how are you doing? (seagulls sounds) only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ ♪. connell: close down two out of five, how close to the brink are you, in terms of keeping open your business at this point? >> if nothing happens i will have to close all my restaurants at the end of the year and then hopefully, hopefully reopen two or three if the conditions are you know, are okay for me. since of the end of nicer weather, end of october, we've been operating at a loss every single day. connell: all right. that is luca pietro, owner of

taralucci vino, facing challenges like dozens of new york city restaurant owners we've been speaking throughout the pandemic. new york governor andrew cuomo giving restaurants something of a lifeline with indoor dining reopening 25% of this friday, which is two days earlier than was originally planned. they have planned december 14th. before we talk specifically about indoor dining, luca, what about an update since that last conversation in december what you actually did. how are things? >> hi, connell. well, i'm open in one restaurant, seven days a week and another restaurant only three days a week. so things are, things have been tough. and operating at a loss. we have tried to really increase, take-out and delivery. we created a ghost kitchen. we pivoted -- i don't know how

many times we've pivoted since march but we're still going. connell: i know. like a constant pivot. it is crazy. you have five restaurants, only one is open full time seven days a week. what does indoor dining coming back at 25% capacity do if anything for you? >> well, certainly welcome news. you know the initial announcement that they were going to reopen on sunday the 14th was not great. i think the announcement reopening on friday is better news. last time we had valentine's day on a sunday, that weekend was over 50% better in terms of sales than the previous and following weekends. so it is good news. we're hopefully we'll have a normal, you know, the three days combined, 25% represent a normal valentine's day under normal circumstances. this is better news than we've had in the last two months. connell: will you bring back the

other restaurants or just go with the two you have, one-half operating, one fully operating? >> i'm bringing back one of them. so, yeah, the one that is already half will come back at 100%. and then i hope if things get better we'll be able to bring back a third one by mid-march? connell: okay. i mean, you know, obviously said you're operating at a loss. so it is not, it is not great. it is not even good. guess, luke car, it is a little better than some others in the industry, so many haven't made it at all. what do you do to keep costs where you need to be, hopefully being able to emerge from this it sounds like at some point, right? >> we've been very, very good taking care of our cash. we have not spent more than absolutely necessary. unfortunately we had to furlough quite many of our employees.

just really, keep our cash. we are also in the middle of applying for ppp, for the second draw of ppp and that's hopefully will help also. but what we need is, to go back to normal and, i hope that actually this weekend will bring more people out, more clients, more customers out who have been partying indoors, less safely might i say, than they would have done had they been inside one of our restaurants because we take care of safety. there is social distancing. we ask customers to wear masks when they're not eating. so hopefully we're going in the right direction. hopefully this weekend more restaurants reopen and bring more people in. we need to revive this city. the city has been hit so hard and hopefully this is the beginning of the end of this

incredible crisis. that is -- connell: incredible crisis to put it mildly. i was looking at video when we came and did the show back in june from your restaurant in the upper west side of manhattan. it is hard to believe we're having this conversation the following february still. even then we, oh, we'll be in for a long ride or long haul with this. it has been more than anybody ever could have anticipated. so are you, in any way still optimistic about new york, new york in general or what do you think? what do you think this city will look like a year from now? >> i think we're coming back. i am so confident in new yorkers and business owners and new yorkers, in new york, who have tried everything. and we're going to come back. they have been resilient. they have been you know see all the construction outdoors. people have built restaurants outdoors. we, you know, we have, very have done the impossible. i think we'll come back. we've been creative. this has been really, you know,

i don't know how to put it mildly, it has been such a shock. but i think we're coming out of it. we'll be better. we'll be more efficient. and i truly a lover of new york city and i think we're going to get back and, you know, even though the naysayers are saying new york is done. i don't believe so. we'll be back. we'll be back. connell: imwith you. hope you're right about that. once we are back, we'll come and have some paninis, whatever it is at the restaurants. the food is great. we ate there for lunch when we were with you in june. good luck, luca, i hope all five are up and running soon. >> thank you so much. i appreciate it. connell: luca di pietro in new york. that industry is struggling. the next one we're talking about has been booming. in fact, jeff flock, what do you have coming up for us? reporter: i have in my friend a

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♪ ♪ ♪ connell: all right. you know, this really has been a buying boom, unprecedented spike really in gun sales following the capitol riot, the inauguration of a new president and also promises of action on gun safety from that new administration. jeff flock today is reporting from a local gun shop in new lennox, illinois, with some of the details on this spike in sales. jeff. >> reporter: a perfect storm, i think, that you just summed up there, connell. this is a place called te firearms. they were one of the people that bought early on when the coronavirus panic started, and consequently, they've got ammunition and guns. so many gun shops have even gone by the way of the boards at this point because they don't have, you know, they don't have the

inventory, jeff. we'll put the numbers up. last month 4.3 million background checks. it was in a month unlike any other. >> it was the best month we've had ever. just lines out the door all day long. >> reporter: incredible. what do you attribute that to? we talked a little bit about some of it, but -- >> it started out with the coronavirus, then we went into the civil unrest here, and from there we went into the presidential election, and then we went into storming the capitol and then into the inauguration of the new president. >> reporter: and in terms of the people that buy, and we've got a store -- walk with me, if you would, all sorts of people here. typically, it's guys that look like you ask is me, it's white males that typically buy the guns, and that's still true over the course of the past year. but in terms of the increases, all ethnic groups as well as women and particularly first-time buyers. >> correct. we have about 60 percent of our

sales have been first-time buyers, and about 40% of those have been for women. >> reporter: i was going to say, the women piece, when they come in, what to you hear most often? why are they buying guns for the first time? >> it's self-protection. they're scared, and they see what's going on in the world that we're in today, and they're afraid. they want to have something to protect themselves. >> reporter: jeff wagner. his father was a chicago police officer for 30 years. he said used to be that people counted on the police to protect them. now it seems that there, connell, is an increasing number of people that feel the need to protect themselves. connell? connell: i wonder if this will be short term, jeff, you know, from the perspective of those people. that's a high number though, first-time buyers, 60%. >> reporter: it is. there seems to be a sea change. you know, it's not uncommon a new administration comes in that doesn't like guns as much and people buy, but there are a lot of factors driving this one. connell: there are. and bringing them all together

means that, yeah, it might last a while for this industry, whatever it means for the world. certainly has helped that industry. jeff, thank you. jeff flock there live with us. thanks for watching us as we report the news qualify after the bell." i'm connell mcshane, see you back here aim time tomorrow. tomorrow.muck -- same time tomorrow. ♪ ♪ jackie: good evening, everybody. i'm jackie deangelis. this is "fox business tonight." first up, corporate america today further aligned itself with the policies of president joe biden and the democrats. the president today hosting business round table chairmen and walmart ceo doug mcmillan along with the heads of the chamber of commerce, jpmorgan chase, gap and lowe's. today's meeting coming as the biden white house accelerates its push for a nearly $2 trillion covid relief package. it also comes at a time when many small businesses and american workers are struggling under coronavirus lockbounddowns, and yet president bidened today