financial services to offer people and stone has a brilliant ceo have that figured out. >> all right. all right. we'll have to leave it there, kevin. you got it in. that will do it for "the claman countdown." connell mcshane picks it up, "after the bell." connell: ashley, thank you my friend. economy front and center in our nation's capital today. law make remembers turning to relief for millions of americans as democrats, they plan to go it alone on stimulus. so we have that. we also have this storm for the record books. a large part of the country getting absolutely blasted with massive amounts of snow. that is leaving behind dangerous icy conditions. we're reporting on that at this hour, speaking out as some members of his own party are calling to strip his emergency powers we have new york governor andrew cuomo's defense in the nursing home scandal. we'll bring that to you. i'm connell mcshane. welcome to "after the bell."

great to be with you. the stock market closed today for the presidents' day holiday. let's get straight to the news happening at that hour. ♪. our fox business team coverage with blake burman in washington. we also have susan li in new york. blake we'll start with you on the latest from the white house. it is fair to say the focus shifting maybe even more to the economy. so what is going on there. reporter: the president is back at the white house, connell. he was over at camp david over the weekend and he will actually be out on the road starting tomorrow for what his first official road trip. the president will be heading to wisconsin for a town hall there. then in the state of michigan he will be there thursday on a pfizer manufacturing plant. it frames up where you expect the white house to go from here, now that the impeachment trial, everything situated around that in washington is done with, focusing own covid response and focusing on the economy,

specifically in $1.9 trillion package that the president and democrats here in washington continue to, continue to try to shape to get together here in the upcoming weeks. we heard from dr. anthony fauci talk about this over the weekend. he pushed a need for the package saying it will help get children back into schools. watch? >> i think that the schools really do need more resources and that's the reason why the national relief act that we're talking about getting passed, we need that. the schools need more resources. reporter: yesterday of course was february 14th. democrats believe they can get all of this wrapped up, connell, by march 14th. you're looking about a four-week time frame here on out where potentially you could have this $1.9 trillion package written, voted on and then put on the president's desk for signature. connell? connell: sounds like a lot. we'll see.

thank you, blake burman covering the white house for us. here with us now the former governor of arkansas fox news contributor mike huckabee. governor, as blake says democrats will go it alone. good to see you by the way. on stimulus which we anticipated. there are some in the democratic party though encouraging president biden to be bipartisan on this. rahm emanuel was talking about pair the minimum wage hike with republican ideas on small business. he doesn't have to. owe can push a lot through on his own. what do you make of bipartisanship, that still a thing in washington? >> i'm not seeing any signs of it. look what's been happening the last month. impeachment part two. we've had keystone xl pipeline destroyed. you had relationships with our middle east partners upended. you had the mexico city policy where tax people and taxpayers are funding abortions overseas. i don't see anything that

president biden has done that says i really want to reach out to you guys. i really want to meet you halfway. i don't see him moving a step. i don't get it. there is no bipartisanship going on and he's the leader. he will have to take some initiative and put some stuff on the table that republicans might actually support. he just hadn't done it yet. connell: what is an example of something they would support? what is the play here for republicans if the president were to reach out and not try to jam things through? >> well i think for example he could say he made a mistake. he was a little hasty on keystone xl. he would have a lot of democrats happy about that. he would have unions happy about that. he would have every person in america that uses energy which would be all of us happy about that as well. he doesn't have to say he is not committed to getting rid of fossil fuel. we don't expect him to surrender on that but he has got to be realistic when he keeps talking about we'll get these folks in good jobs, when is that going to happen? right now they're unemployed.

connell: right. >> there is no employment for them. so he has got to be more realistic and he has to show he is really seriously understanding working people in this country are hurting and he just stuck one right through their guts by the keystone xl pipeline. connell: isn't that a timing issue too? to your point you don't expect a democrat to act like a republican but if president biden would say now is not necessarily the time we know will kill jobs in the short term. we'll talk about the issues later that might have have been better approach and republicans would be open to working with them on some of these issues if you pushed it off a little bit? >> the timing is a great point you made but also talk about border security. you have people rushing to the border because they think joe biden will let us in. he unlocked the gate. let's go there now while we can. now a year we've been talking about how critical it is to control covid, making sure that the people who are coming and going aren't bringing the covid disease with them. suddenly does it not matter

anymore? there is just a host of things that are utterly inconsistent with what president biden, what he has said, what he is doing. he is pitching everything he can to the far left of his party and sort of reminding us of barack obama's statement, elections have consequences. but i would say to them is, elections have consequences. sticking it to the other side has consequences. if you really want republicans to work with you, pretend that you really want to work with republicans. it might go a long way. connell: there is another side of this, governor. as you know the republican party has to figure out where it wants to go. there has been a lot of talk especially we manufacturer on to put impeachment in the rear view mirror. seven senators on republican side voted to convict. seven members voted to impeach. i'm sure you had these discussions. your daughter sara is running

for governor in arkansas, where is this party going? what is your answer? one of the ways to have that discussion is donald trump a viability republican candidate for president in 2024 or does the party now move on? >> if he wants to be i think he could be. i don't know that he wants to be. i know what it is viable, the philosophy and principles he brought to office. people didn't care for his personality but they absolutely support pushing back on china, bringing manufacturing back, realigning the middle east where actually we're dealing with our friends rather than surrendering to our enemies, making sure we are energy independent. lowering taxes and making it possible for small businesses to survive. putting america first unapologetically. connell, those are things republicans are about and handful, seven, not so magnificent seven of saturday, they don't represent the bulk of the party. they are the outlyers. overwhelming majority --

connell: governor, do they, is that true or do they support many of those policies that you talked about and they don't support the actions of the president leading up to and following january 6th? can't both of those things be true and why should you be punished if you takes a stand on that particular issue? you might still agree with many of those things you talked about? >> you might, if you really will try to go out there to side with the democrats so you can get a nice appointment bsnbc sometime this week on the morning joke show, i'm sorry i don't buy into, that is a republican who is really trying to stick to the principles of what made the republican party effective and successful. what brought a lot of people including minorities and women and hispanics to the party. it just isn't. so if we want to be as popular as liz cheney at a trump rally, then yeah, just try to make it the donald trump is the worst human being that ever lived but i think that is a stupid play for republicans. they need to be acknowledging

and pushing hard on what this president, president trump, did get accomplished if they want to push back about his personality, knock yourself out but stand up for the constitution and the constitutional processes which were eviscerated by the house managers and by the democrats in this ridiculous second impeachment hoax. connell: all right. governor huckabee, as always thank you. always a pleasure to speak with you. thanks for coming on today. we appreciate it. governor huckabee starting us off. one of the issues on the business front a lot of conservatives are looking at, the return of parler, the social media app sells itself as pro-free speech and popular among many conservatives is making a come back on a new platform. let's get an update on that how things are going by susanly. reporter: parler.com is back on internet, available only to existing users this weekend, new ones next week.

parler.com crashing in a returns on monday, some users complaining they have been unable to go access. no word which tech company hosting the website. parler had to find a new home after it was booted off amazon mobile web services it the app is not able on apple or google app store. they blamed parler monitoring the content some blamed sparking january 6th capitol riots. it comes with new community guidelines a two page outline to users, promising to quote leave decisions what is seen and who is heard to each individual. in no case will parler decide what content will be removed or filtered or whose account will be removed on the basis of opinion expressed. conservative-leaning parler maintained that it's a platform for free speech and its ban is an example of big tech censorship. an argument crusaded by former

ceo john matze who was fired at the end of january by parler's board led by rebecca mercer. it is being led by a new ceo, mark meckler until a new one is found. numbers spiked after parler was banned from twitter. parler said they had 20 million users. that is 1/10 of the 200 million that visit twitter each and every day, connell. connell: did i hear you say, susan, we don't know who is hosting the site? reporter: nothing official coming from parler.com. we have data analogy sis, and technical analysis and two infrastructure experts might be maintaining and hosting parler.com and not a russian website. initially remember they moved their, parler.com name over to an russian-based web hosting company and then of course that sparked calls for the fbi to investigate in terms of john

matze's acquaintances in russia. connell: all right, susan. boy, complicated story to say the least. susan li, we'll keep following what is going on with parler. we also today have what many are calling an unprecedented winter storm. we'll get to that. it prompted weather advisories for more than 150 million americans. temperatures could get even further within hours. ♪. >> the severity of the cold weather that is about to be experienced here in the coming days is unprecedented in texas history. smooth driving pays off you never been in better hands allstate click or call for a quote today allstate i have the power to lower my blood sugar and a1c. because i can still make my own insulin.

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♪. connell: this has been a winter disaster. we have more than 150 million americans in the path of dangerous storms. more than two million in texas are without power. let's get to casey stegall live in dallas where to put it mildly they are not used to this kind of thing. reporter: we're certainly not. because of that, connell, virtually everything, not just in dallas-ft. worth but throughout the state of texas has been shut down. people are advised to stay off the roadways. you have to keep in find places like texas, we don't have many

snowplows and special equipment that other communities have to get this stuff off the roads and to clear it faster and people don't have a lot of experience even driving on it so there is only so much they can do. every single county in the lone star state impacted with snow and ice. we're talking down through austin, as far as south as houston and san antonio. in fact a federal disaster has been declared which helps open community warming centers and the pandemic is also making that a challenge. listen. >> going to be covid protocols in place. we have screening at all the entrances. we'll be monitoring for temperatures and checking temperatures periodically. there will be screening in place. there will be security in place. reporter: take a look at pictures north of us up in oklahoma. winter weather, icy roads caused multiple semis to crash. this is a monster t stretches all the way from the pacific northwest hit over the weekend.

seattle got 11 inches of snow. it is going through the plains and headed to the tennessee, ohio valley before moving to the northeast. look at these pictures of branson, missouri roadway issues and things like that. real quickly on the power here in texas. more than three million. the number keeps going up. we're getting more information. not because there is so much demand and little supply. one of the reasons supply is down, a lot of wind turbines and new generators that are, running natural gas are just basically frozen out there in west texas. they're frozen. they can't get them thawed out. that is one of the reasons why there is also decreased energy on the grid. so this is pose some problems as we're headed into the next couple days. connell. connell: three million plus without power. another storm on the way, casey, is that right? reporter: that's right. it is not supposed to climb out of freezing until friday here in

texas. on wednesday another three inches, up to three inches of snow predicted in the dallas-ft. worth area alone. so the worst is not yet over. again, lots of people are just staying home. schools are closed. today it is presidents' day so they weren't going anyway. tomorrow, i'm sure districts will be closed down trying to get people off the roads as much as possible. connell: all right. thank you, casey stegall live in dallas. as casey said this thing is a monster affecting so many different people around the country. we'll get to the scandal in new york, one governor, governor cuomo, facing intensely and now increasingly bipartisan rebuke. he spoke out today. we'll tell you what he said when we come back.

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administration admitting that it downplayed the number of nursing home deaths due to the coronavirus and now there are calls to strip the governor of his emergency powers. this afternoon we are hearing from cuomo himself on all of this. fox's bryan llenas in brooklyn with more. bryan? reporter: connell, good afternoon. today was the first time that new york governor andrew cuomo spoke since really this bombshell report came out since last wednesday frankly. in this press conference he defended his nursing home policies essentially saying that he wasn't apologizing for any of his policies that may have contributed to worsening the crisis but instead apologized for what he said was a void of information that led to more misinformation and he said that all of this controversy is a result of the political climate we're in. he also defended his march 25th controversial directive that really for two months required that nursing homes take in covid positive

patients from hospitals which families say led to the spread of the disease to more widespread of the virus. take a listen to more of what he said. >> the void we created by not providing information was filled with skepticism and cynicism and conspiracy theories which furthered the confusion. covid did not get into the nursing homes by people coming from hospitals. covid got into the nursing homes by staff walking in to the nursing home. reporter: we don't know how he knows that because a new york, new york's attorney general in a report found earlier this year that cuomo's policy may have in fact contributed to more spread of the cone crone but that there is not enough data or studies yet out there to know for sure. he also defended his top aide

melissa derosa in a bombshell linked private conversation with democrats here in new york last week admitted to them they withheld releasing the full nursing home death toll data last year because of political pressure. they thought that the trump administration was going to weaponize that information against them while the department of justice was beginning its probe into how the state handled the nursing home crisis. well governor cuomo said today, well, no, the data wasn't being hidden from being state lawmakers. it was simply delayed as dealing with the doj inquiry. democratic assemblyman ron kim, who lost his uncle a u.s. army veteran to covid-19 nursing home was in the meeting where derosa spoke to them, she explicitly said they were holding the data because of politics. >> he didn't address the core problem we're dealing with. if secretary derosa came to us, told those things, i think we

could have disagreed and could have argued back but at that is not what she did. that is not what she told us. reporter: there is a growing call, con nell for a bipartisan investigation, independent investigation for cuomo and his pandemic emergency powers to be rescinded. connell? connell: that was a long news conference there. i watched a lot of it. that was a great summary. as you said this is not over by a long stretch. thank you, bryan llenas live in brooklyn. i want to talk about the virus itself for a moment while we're on the subject of new york. we actually have positive news on the state in the case front. the positivetive rate hit the lowest mark since late november. we're joined by a doctor who is the senior director of the systemwide special pathogens program for new york city hospitals. i wonder big picture before we talk about some of the specifics on vaccines, all the rest, if you're finally looking at these numbers and comfortable saying we turned the corner and put the

worst behind us? what do you say? >> i think we've seen the numbers go down both in terms of cases hospitalizations, deaths. i certainly think we have potentially looking at maybe a surge because of these variants that are occurring nationally. this period of it is the calm before potentially the viral or variant storm that may arise but we can certainly change that. when we look at the national picture you're seeing example, b-177 doubling every 10 days. 1000 cases in the u.s. i'm worried about that but i'm certainly optimistic looking at numbers right now. connell: i guess the way you change it, right, by getting more people vaccinated, more shots in arms as we say. in addition to all the nursing home scandal we talked about, i was watching the governor's news conference today what he said, the supply is not there yet. you have 10 million people eligible in new york to get a vaccine in the group chasing like 300,000 doses each week.

those are his numbers. the fda will allow moderna to add 40% more of vaccine to its files. maybe that helps? how much of an impact might that have, do you think? >> it will have significant impact looking at data, the ability to offer now 14 doses versus 10 in a given vial. that will increase the nation's stockpile by 20%. every dose counts. we're certainly in a still a crucial period in the pandemic especially given variants that are obviously circulating widely. any way we get more shots in arms, having more shots available that is really good but i think there is a couple of things to quickly mention. when you look at the covid-19 vaccines specifically moderna, one, two puncture, you have about six hours to use that vial. we're going from 10 to 14. that is great. you have more doses to offer. we need to make sure you have individuals lined up to offer those doses. so it doesn't go to waste. i think one thing we need to continue to look at, to have

discussions really now is looking in the process during the pandemic to make sure we are avoiding it being wasted. if you're looking at -- [inaudible]. was released because he offered you know, doses that were made available in very short period of time to other people we need to really look back how we can look at these type of processes in the pandemic to really have a better grasp of how we can provide more widespread coverage of vaccines and avoid wastage. connell: as final point, other thing that stood out to us was a study that came out of israel on the pfizer vaccine. i wonder if this speaks to any of what you're getting at with worries about the new variants. they said the pfizer vaccine is 90% effective reducing symptoms in the real world. in other words outside of controlled conditions of a trial, of a clinical trial. how encourage something that, or might we be overstating how encouraging it is? >> it is very encouraging. it goes with the clinical, the

clinical trial data that we've seen from pfizer. for example, they were saying reduced, you know, in terms of efficacy had 95% efficacy reducing, inducing symptoms. and so we're seeing that play out in real life. so the difference between efficacy and being effective. efficacy is controlled environment in clinical trials. efficacy is what you see in the real world. from efficacy standpoint it may be lowered than we've seen in the world. the study in israel it is ba isally the same what you're sieving in the clinical trials which is really doing great news. it is essentially reducing illness all around and that is exactly what we want to see. connell: exactly. we'll take it where we can get it. still a lot of work to do. nice to see some numbers moving in the right direction. thank you, dr. madad here in

new york. the state's most poplous state is moving possibly closer to a special election. we'll tell you what is happening out in california. nasa's rover after 290 million-mile journey that spans seven months. the rover will land on mars on thursday, searching for signs of ancient life on the red planet. we'll be right back. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ sfx: [sounds of fedex planes and vehicles engines] ♪♪ sfx: [sounds of children laughing and running, life moving forward]

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connell: after the bell headline stories the race for mayor in new york city is starting to heat up. andrew yang, you remember him, hit donation threshold to get matching funds from the city, former presidential hopeful. he is advocating for 2,000-dollar annual payday for new york city's lowest income residents t would cost the city a billion dollars a year. the white house is expressing concerns about the world health organization investigation into the pandemic's origins, saying that the report must be independent and quote, free from intervention or alteration by the chinese government. national security advisor jake sullivan also calling on china to release data from the beginning of the outbreak. and president biden expected to speak on the issues of the pandemic and disease at the g7 summit that takes place this friday. a speak of the virtual summit will focus on the united states vaccine production and distribution efforts. some of your headlines. john bussey from the "wall street journal" joins you

now to talk about them for a moment. let's start right where we ended on the g7. it visiter all, john, this year, understandably. a chance for president biden i would suspect to draw contrast with his predecessor. president trump didn't want a national response to the pandemic. he wanted u.s. states to take the lead. now president biden is talking about a global response. what would you expect on friday? >> so this is a chance for biden to connect with the g7 as a group. this is the biggest developed economies. this is the group that is going to set in motion a lot of efforts to bring back scenes to developing nations which needs to happen because otherwise you get variants forming in countries without the vaccine and cooperate on a range of issues from climate to addressing china and how to do that threw alliances and trade accords. he will initiate a lot of different topics with there

group. it is not only time he met with leaders of g7 countries. he has done that in the past with as vice president. this kicks it off. there will be a security summit, munich security conference which happens in europe will be virtual. they will have a version of that as well. connell: let's talk a little bit about china which you brought up. we talked about in the headlines how the white house looking for transparency from the world health organization and from the chinese government. a lot of people say good luck, you will never get that but what should we read into these i guess investigations or the numbers that we're getting out of w.h.o.? does any of it even matter? it is all grain of salt. what do you make of it. >> it matters a huge amount. the w.h.o. went in to try to figure out when and how the pandemic started. for two reasons. one, how do you stop what we're in the middle of right now. how do you prevent it from happening again in the future. they wanted to get data. who got sick and where do they get sick? the chinese are being resistant

about that. not surprising this is uncommon about china. they are not a transparent society. rule of law there is determined by the poe lit bureau. so there aren't mechanisms for the w.h.o. to get what they want personalized data, and extensive personalized data, which cases where, what hospitals, who was it. maybe not the name of the person but you know what gender what age, so they could begin to piece together how this came about. the chinese are saying hey, this was an imported disease. probably came in on frozen food and really started in china in december. there is no evidence that it came in on frozen food and there is some evidence that it began before december. connell: right. >> so the u.s. wants this, the allies want it, and w.h.o. want it and chinese are not providing it. connell: right. which i guess surprises nobody really but it is still disappointing of course. >> that's right. connell: you know, to a grand total of nobody's surprise.

ask you about andrew yang real quick. that was the other headline. i don't know, universal basic income, some version will be a big seller in new york. what do you think, i'm oddly fascinated by new york city mayor's race he is doing pretty well on name recognition? >> that is leading the pack. it is a huge pack. over 24 people tossed their hat into the ring. he has proposed this universal basic income at a time when the city is going to have a hard sometime just paying its basic bills. he will inherit the pandemic response which city is in middle of. huge cost associated with that. controversy whether the schools open, stay closed open. all that will be on the mayor's plate if he were to win the primary in june. that will thin the field then. basic income at a time budgets are stressed in the city and the state? he is proposing the city take control of the subway system

from the state that would be a huge battle with albany. a lot to digest in a fascinating race to watch. connell: it is fascinating. i think maybe like i said earlier, name recognition has a lot to do probably why he is ahead right now in the polls. maybe people don't want the same old, same old kind of new york politician either which might be part of it. we'll watch it. see how it turns out. thank you, john for coming on as always. john bussey from "the wall street journal." despite warnings from health officials, the tsa says more than four million people flew in the u.s. over the weekend, that makes it the busiest weekend for air travel in over a month. overall figures put them in context, we're still 60% below where we were this time last year. we'll be right back. not what's easy. so when a hailstorm hit, usaa reached out before he could even inspect the damage.

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♪. connell: so recall efforts surrounding governor gavin newsom is gaining steam out in california. organizers have received more than 1 1/2 million signatures they need for the proposal to qualify on the ballot. let's get to fox's william la jeunesse live in l.a. with the details on this. reporter: connell, you have to think about this as two separate votes, right? a majority of voters would first have to remove governor newsom. then they would be picking a replacement.

but as you said the recall right now is on target. they need 1.5 million signatures but need two million really by mid-march because some of those votes will be thrown out or those signatures will be thrown out. last week the campaign got what it needed most, money, 125 grand from the state gop. >> we're not stopping at the 1.5 million signatures that we have collected thus far. our ultimate goal is to get two million, 1.8 million to two million. we don't want to leave anybody's any doubt in anybody's mind in regards to the validity and accuracy what we're doing here today. reporter: so going forward the hard part would be beating governor newsom. why? 25% of voters here are republican. a majority approve of his job performance and major democrats remain united behind him despite spreading homeless population, lockdowns that closed schools and put many small businesses out of business, a rising crime

rate. >> what is even more disturbing over the past year governor newsom has been quietly releasing thousands of inmates throughout the state. he is doing so without any threat assessment and come plight disregard of safety of california. reporter: if the signatures get verified, here is how it would work. question one, recall governor news zoom. if after of them say no he remains governor another two years. if it is yes, he is out. they were the question is who replaces him. so far two or three republicans, no democrats as of yet but no one with the money, star power, statewide note right of governor arnold schwarzenegger necessary to beat an incumbent f it qualifies, you should expect some democrats to get in this race as well. back to you. connell: more drama to come. thank you. william la jeunesse out in l.a. let's move back to washington now the price of security. it is estimated it will cost taxpayers nearly $500 million to have the national guard around

the capitol area around the 15th of march. the arrangement could extend further than that, maybe into the fall. edward lawrence joins us. he has or on all of this? reporter: cornell, the center of all this is cost and security. the visuals have some republicans very nervous about this. they say the impeachment is over, the inauguration is over, but yet d.c. still looks like this. you have seven thousand national guard members here at the moment. they are armed but bullets are close by, not necessarily in the guns. now the e-mail, there was an email obtained by the local fox affiliate saying after march 15th, 5000 national guard will remain here until the fall. we can't find any national agency warning of an i am impending threat against the u.s. capitol. the fact is d.c. looks like this and that bothers many republican law makers.

>> we have more servicemen and women protecting the capitol than we do in iraq panned afghanistan combined, to the tune of already $500 million. that number will only grow if we keep them there. reporter: exactly. more precisely from january 6th when they were activated until march 15th, $483 million will be the cost on this. representative jim jordan and three other ranking members sent a letter to house speaker nancy pelosi asking why she may not have let the sergeant-at-arms approve national guard help before january 6th when the request was made, also they want to know why it took more than an hour for capitol police requests for the national guard help on january 6th to get approved by the sergeant-at-arms as he sent it up the chain? in a statement, house speaker deputy chief of staff says the speaker has and will continue to take actions to insure accountability and enhance security of the capitol.

now the statement adds republicans are just trying to displace blame and focus it on house speaker nancy pelosi. she says she wants to get to the bottom of what happened and how to secure going forward the u.s. capitol. back to you. connell: you know, edward, i was thinking while you were talking, even on this issue we're so divided. it is split, republican, democrat. democrats say stay. republicans say we can't afford, it needs to go, that is how it comes down right? reporter: that is exactly what we're seeing which is very interesting. you have democrats who for months and months over the summer said nothing about the violence happening in cities like chicago and on the west coast in portland and seattle but yet now that d.c. looks like this. it may look like this for into the fall. connell: yeah. it looks like, you know, very well might. all right, edward, thank you. edward lawrence always good to see you. live from the streets of washington today. we'll see how long the guard stays on the streets. you know as we get back to

talking about businesses, many of them facing a growing threat to their bottom line of course. grady trimble will join news a moment. what do you have coming up for us today, grady? >> connell, restaurants are fed up. they're still at 25% indoor capacity here in illinois. the owners that we've talked to say the demand is there. the people want to eat inside but the government is stopping them. we're talking to an owner coming up. ♪. living with metastatic breast cancer means being relentless. because every day matters. and having more of them is possible with verzenio, the only one of its kind proven to help you live significantly longer when taken with fulvestrant, regardless of menopause. verzenio + fulvestrant is for hr+, her2- metastatic breast cancer that has progressed after hormone therapy. diarrhea is common, may be severe, or cause dehydration or infection. at the first sign, call your doctor,

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♪ ♪ connell: you know, we talk about vaccinations growing nationwide, and they are. at this point we're up to about 14 million americans who have received both doses, and that is actually prompting restaurant owners across the country to call for a loosening of restrictions. grady trimble's in westmont,

illinois, with that story. grady. >> reporter: connell, more than 11% of people in illinois have gotten at least their first shot of the vaccine. we've seen cases go down in recent weeks and months, and we've also seen the percent positivity go down to some of the lowest levels since, say, last summer. and because of that, a lot of restaurant owners are saying, well, why are we till at limited capacity? here where we are at meat kitchen and bar, they're at 25% indoor dining capacity despite the fact that pef seen all of those metrics that have been promising. matt is the owner here, and this has been kind of a tough thing for you. you obviously have the space here to spread people out. you think you can fit more than 25% capacity and do it safely. >> absolutely. we take a lot of precautions here, put the staff in masks, they wear gloves, we have hand sanitizing stations throughout the restaurant, to so taking all the necessary precautions is something that we pride ourselves on. >> reporter: and it's not just here in the chicago area, it's

also in detroit, new york, other places that are still at reduced capacity for indoor dining. it's hard for your staff as well. we've kind of gone on this yo-yo of open and close, then reduced to a lower amount. it's got to be hard to keep track of and hard for your staff to rely on. >> absolutely. you know, our staff depends on this for income, and the opening and closing, the ups and downs and stuff like that are just really difficult for them to keep track of what's going on and whats' coming next. >> reporter: i think for a while there were people who were uncomfortable with dining inside, and at that time it was okay to eat outside because the weather was okay. we got a snowstorm here right now. it's been below 10 degrees for basically the last two weeks. outdoor dining's not really an option anymore. so what has to change in order to get the governor and other public officials to make some moves to help you guys? >> you know, outdoor dining is definitely not an option right now. it's the middle of winter here in chicago.

you know, 25% just isn't going to cut it. we need to be 50% or more in order to make it make sensement not just for us as business owners, but also for our staff. >> reporter: so 50% and, obviously, right now nowhere near that. the illinois restaurant association is calling for that as well. 25-50, obviously, is not where you'd like to be, but it's still better than where we are. what amount of difference would that make in terms of generating revenue and turning a profit? >> it's definitely something that would impact us. we would probably be able to bring back some additional staff, create some more jobs and put some more money into the hands and the pockets of those individuals as well. >> reporter: and, connell, matt here is in the unique position of having opened a restaurant in the middle of the pandemic in a different can part of this chicago land area, and they actually were able to open that restaurant before they were able to open this restaurant back up for indoor dining. like i said, it's been this

yo-yo of close and then open for indoor dining. again, 25% for them is just not cutting it, especially when they're watching the metrics and the number of cases go down and getting more people vaccinated. connell: no doubt. grady, thank you. grady trimble with kind of a fitting way to wrap up our hour of coverage. we've done so much reporting on small businesses and restaurants. there will be a new program in this time slot tomorrow, and as we do wrap it up, i want to, first of all, thank all of you guys at home for watching. it has been an absolute honor for me to work with our senior producer, amanda, and the rest of our terrific team that puts this show together, jamie, alyssa, john, serena, ed, anna and tori. we've really tried our best every single day to give you an honest and a fair account of the business day's most important events. i can tell you we've enjoyed doing it. in fact, i plan to keep doing it. i'll be out in the field much more, as much as i possibly can

here in the months ahead trying to tell the important economic stories of the day, and there are so many stories to tell. that's it, one last time we thank you for watching as we report the news that's happening "after the bell." i'm connell mcshane in new york, have a good night. ♪ ♪ dagen: good evening, everybody, i'm dagen mcdowel, this is " fox business tonight" on this prime ministers' day. presidents' day. two governors facing fierce backlash. in new york governor andrew cuomo on defense this afternoon responding to growing demands for an investigation after one of his top aides admitted that the administration downplayed, covered up the number of nursing home residents who died from covid-19. >> to be clear, all the deaths in the nursing homes and in the hospitals wer