an emergency declaration by one arizona town at the border, a 3 trillion-dollar additional spending plan, and yes, sex, in the caribbean. that's a show and a 1/2, isn't it? what more do you want? but my time is up. neil it is yours. neil: na, na, na you didn't say what you said. it is a family show what the heck. thank you very much, my friend. we're taking a look at that, not the sex part of it, we're looking what is happening with jerome powell, janet yellen, the two financial bigwigs will talk about where they stand. we're already hearing from a fed district president he thinks rates will rise next year. not just market rates. the federal reserve will raise interest rates sometime in 2022. he is the first prominent them better federal reserve to lay

that out. yields are backed up all the time i was out, my colleagues could not stop the back up in interest rates. ii want to thank, david asman, ashley webster, jackie deangelis filling on this fine show and charles payne filling in on my 4:00 p.m. show. i had to rush back pause of job security. speaking of job security, 9 bilge money guys get attention of the big money guys, likely get the treasury secretary and federal reserve chairman with edward lawrence on capitol hill what we can expect. reporter: likely will hear treasury secretary janet yellen give a more optimistic view when we get back to full employment. she will say next year. one point when she says full employment, the federal reserve long believed full employment was 4.1%, not the 3 1/2% former president donald trump reached under his presidency.

still she sees all the spending under the american rescue plan as the key to boosting the economy. federal reserve chairman jerome powell outlined a long road back where everyone who lost a job has a job again. republicans on the house financial services are worried about raising taxes and slowing down the economic growth. republican senators worry about the amount of debt that taxpayers will eventually have to pay off. >> i asked jay powell, asked janet yellen how much debt can we have? is 40 trillion too much, 50 trillion too much? what percentage of our revenues are you willing to pay in interest expense. look what happens. interest rates are going up. how much of or federal revenues will we pay in interest expense? how will we pay for medicare, medicaid? reporter: democrats i talked to say the debt-to-gdp ratio is manageable now because interest rates are low. you see there $28 trillion in debt and counting. in fact the treasury secretary is telling the committee right

now, today of course the speed and strength of our recovery depends in part how we implement the legislation. she is talking about $1.9 trillion american rescue plan. the treasury department will be key directing billions of dollars targeted at certain areas of the economy within that plan. back to you. neil: edward lawrence, thank you very, very much. want to go to charles payne right now, the host of "making money." a lot to get in about, charles. this new 3 trillion-dollar plan ostensibly for infrastructure. we hear it will cover a lot of other things including the possibility of paying for it by trimming a little money out of the defense department. at least a number of democrats advocating that. as an air force veteran yourself you have to probably be scratching your head a little bit but what do you think? >> and as a concerned american. we look at china, what is happening in china at this very moment. ask the philippines.

ask japan. ask tie wage. ask australia. this is nuts. this is the worst time, we entered into a new defacto cold war from 2011 to 2021 their defense budget doubled. how much they spent depends. official number is almost 200 billion. outside sources think it was a lot more than that. just that on its own, you know, these are the same folks that want us to be the policeman of the world. we can't be the policeman of the world. we can't stay in the middle east. we can't rebuff russia, china, all the other bad actors out there and start to trim our defense budget. our numbers came out three or four weeks ago, the deficit numbers and there were a lot of things that came in terms of more expensive than our defense spending including interest payments which i heard the previous guest, i think it was senator rick scott, if i recognized his voice, yeah. neil: you know, though, you got to wonder, charles, interest rates are going to go up. so you know, even if you are in

the camp they don't go up worse, they are going to go up. so the cost of that debt goes up substantially. any small up tick will make it a lot pricier. are we ready for that the? are the markets ready for that? >> the markets are not ready for it if happens too quickly. you're absolutely right, neil. it is going to happen. we can't get much lower than we were anyway in the past year but at some point we're talking a trillion dollars a year just to pay the interest of all of this good stuff. markets are are going to have to pay attention to that we saw the rapid pace which the 10-year bounced one of the reasons the market is sort of discombobulated and not really sure what is going on. neil: you know, charles, i think larry kudlow, a short time ago talking about the debt. doesn't like it anymore than a lot of folks do. it run up under both parties. when you look at the debt, as a percentage of the overall economy, debt-to-gdp, whatever you want to call it, we're

actually doing very well. the same analogy he was using a lot of people use about debt levels of americans compared to the other side of the ledger. their assets. we're doing much better than the numbers would indicate. didn't mean that larry was a fan of all this spending. he did say those who were crying we're heading into a debt recession or worse, they're missing that point. is it a point? >> it's a great point. i think, you know, for those who were saying over a decade ago we were going off the cliff, you know, they overmade their hand politically. when we didn't go over the cliff everyone is looking around, saying what are you talking about? i look at those same numbers, debt-to-gdp is really much lower than it has been in a long time. conversely household debt is at the lowest point it has ever been to disposable income. savings at the highest point it has ever been to disposable income. we're sitting pretty right now vis-a-vis the fairly strong

economy. but you do have to worry at some point particularly for the politicians that want to hijack the system. since we have never gone over this cliff that was promised. why don't we change the entire system and print up money, pay everything off. print up money. call it modern monetary policy the stuff president biden is working on, we're putting in defacto universal guaranteed income programs. that is when you start to worry, if we get too emboldened on the other side what larry kudlow was talking about, really go for it and print money non-stop. neil: all right. i always love it when i'm out, charles, hear from viewers, love you so much, the one that got mee, you know, neil, the one thing i noticed you were gone, how much i loved charles payne. i guess it comes down to this, he's not you. i thought, wait a minute. charles payne. that was mean.

out of the blue. >> you know what? i'm trying to get her a hobby, stay off twitter. that is all i'm saying. neil: i'm coming after you, my friend. i sent all the nasty emails. you didn't read a one. i kept saying who is this loser? >> called a junk file. neil: yeah, right. i got you. thank you, my friend as always. >> see you, neil. neil: we have dan geltrude, keith fitz-gerald, good reads of this market. dan, keith, good to see you as always. one of the things i'm wondering, likely upward tick of interest rates to say nothing of what is going to be happening on the tax front. at least, dan, first to you, if i'm reading the president at face value, it will go a lot beyond just a hike in taxes he outlined during the campaign on rich individuals like you guys and corporations. this will be a lot more to this. are we ready for this, dan? are the markets ready for this? do they even know what could be

coming down the pike? >> we should be ready for it, neil. joe biden spelled this out very clearly during the campaign. so, no one should be surprised. now the question is, is this a good thing? and i am very much against all these tax increases because what are we going to use the money for? more spending. we are not looking at putting our financial house in order. we're just going to try to take in more money to spend more money. so effectively, we end up in quicksand here and both parties are guilty of it and whatever you tax is what you want to go away. so for example, if you're going to raise the capital gains rates which joe biden is talking about, that is going to disincentivize investing. so investing will slow down and certainly the market is going to

feel something like that. neil: you know, keith the market has been resilient through all of this, seeing past this. i would assume a lot of it is based on the idea that they factored in those tax increases. i don't know if they factored in the additional tax increases for infrastructure and the like. leaving that aside though, the markets have been remarkable, right? do you see that continuing? >> well i do see it continuing because, you know, hope, future aspiration are the drivers. if we have good earnings, we have solid companies, we have global brands that you need those are things that will power ahead but to dan's point you don't want to disincentivize that growth and i think more taxes very clearly through the annals of history do that. neil: you know, dan, are you in the camp if the holds tight i guess we'll get a sense from jerome powell as he speaks before this house committee, he and janet yellen speaking

virtually to the committee, but betting seems to be that interest rate hikes are not in the offing. i'm not talking about market rates, the fed hiking rates. then along come as key member, kaplan to say, yeah, i think they will be raised next year. where are you on this? what would the impact be if all of sudden that is what happens? dan? >> i think the fed really has to have a steady hand here, neil and not overreact and jump into adjusting the interest rates too quickly. we've seen this happen before. i think jerome powell kind of jumped the gun a while back. of course president trump was all over him. i will rule that a rookie mistake. i think he knows better now. i think it is a wait and see. will he ultimately have to increase interest rates? i think that's going to depend upon where we go in inflation. everybody is looking at that, saying oh, we're okay.

no, we'll head towards hyperinflation. it will come on very quickly. i'm in the camp, wait and see, not commit to anything right now. neil: keith, i was citing robert kaplan the dallas fed president who shade the fed will have to be pushed into that, obviously the strength is such, that the fed didn't do something, this is my takeaway what he said, it would look like it is way, way behind the curve but, you could make an argument it has been behind the curve for a while, argument of fostering of a good job environment, good job creating environment? what would change next year? >> well i think the fed, as you know, i've been harshly critical of the fed. i think they already caused the next three crises. they have been a day late, dollar short the last 20 years. idea of modern monetary theory, holding rates down, not moving too soon is pop at this --

poppycock. i think they need to create a business environment that allows ideas to flourish. voila, that is how you create value. this game is overstated. it is convenient. it is causing a huge amount of disarray in finance ral markets. that is what is at stake. millions of people devastated by the virus, loss of jobs, loss of income. they need to get back to work. that is where the fed should be focused, not the false idea of managing inflationary figures. neil: dan, keith, see you later in the show. we're following the dow drifting a little bit. this is not impactful anything happening, save maybe some words we'll get out of jerome powell. janet yellen they have to pay a lot of attention to her as well about the spending plans, maybe the tax hikes to go there. how does she feel, for example about a wealth tax. how does jerome powell feel

about that. sometimes they skirt the issues. some people will demand answers as they should. we'll have more after this. ♪. ♪ mom and dad left costa rica, 1971. and in 1990, they opened lrazu. when the pandemic hit, pickup and delivery was still viable.

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no payments for eighteen months. neil: we're making progress as vaccines get out there to treat the virus. we're not out the proverbial medical woods yet. the u.s. has 6600 cases of the known variants. florida alone has more than 1000 of them. how big of a threat are they going to be with all the vaccines, deal with all of these threats? let's go to admiral bret giroir, former health and human services secretary in the trump administration. admiral, thank you very much for being with us. thank you for taking the time. >> great to be with you. neil: let me first ask you about these variants. you were away of them and you have to keep an eye on them obviously. it is not unusual for a virus to

have mutations and variants. is this more than that though? how would you describe what is going on and should we be worried? >> well we really should be concerned. i don't know if it's a worry yet but it's a concern. right now we know that the british variant is more contagious. it may be sheetly more harmful particularly in the youth. the potential is the does the vaccine cover all the variants? the data we have the three vaccines in the united states provide a sufficient protection. they overprotect you that we can even overcome the worst variants like the south african ones. that is what we think. the data suggests. we don't know that 100% absolute truth. we will know that very soon as we get more data on vaccine and protections. right now we're in good shape. you need to be cautioned, concerned, variants are the curveball we have to hit out of the park. neil: you know you heard some of the concerns around

astrazeneca's vaccine. it might have had outdated data when getting approval for that vaccine, new trial of data is a lot more promising. but a lot of americans have looked at the secretary, to say, this is why i'm not wanting to get a vaccine. what do you tell them? >> well, i think you saw that the system works today. astrazeneca announced their top line data which looked very good. the independent data safety and monitoring board saved maybe not so fast. we're not sure if the data is complete. so americans is should be confident that the independent safety data and monitoring board as well as the fda have americans backs at all times. what i suspect happened, again, i don't know, that astrazeneca reported on fully vetted, fully double-checked, triple-checked data that is probably a month or six weeks old and there may be new date that came out that may be slightly less effective, we don't know.

this will be worked out in the next 48 hours, americans should understand this is the way the system works with double and triple checks including the dsmb and fda to make sure everything is square up and up and americans can trust vaccines are authorized. neil: secretary, when you look what is going on in miami with these large, college spring break crowds, that are defined, you know, a lot of rules and regulations in place by the miami mayor, do you worry that that could be become the new breeding ground? it could risk becoming a superspreader event lead to other spikes in cases? there is no evidence of that yet, still early but what do you think? >> well, of course it's risk, and of course i'm concerned and look, i've been bullish about opening up the economy and dial that dialer up and travel, people are vaccinated. people should have gatters,

everyone shut be in school. what we saw in miami was over the top. by the photos, thousands of people very close together. unlikely the demographic there was vaccinated. clearly they could pass the virus, including variants. young people are not at high-risk, what we always worry about those people going to their grandparents and others. that is really of a concern that could have secondary spread. we are really concerned about that. while the country is in much better shape and vaccines are rolling out tremendously fast, we're not ready to have thousands of people in a crowd, potentially spreading virus including variants. we're just not quite ready for that. we have to get more vaccines on board, particularly to the older and to the vulnerable. neil: all right. secretary giroir, thank you very, very much. former health and human services assistant secretary under president donald trump on these developments. real quickly before i take a break here, i throw to my friend and colleague in arizona on the latest trouble in the border.

hillary vaughn will be joining us there very shortly, but meantime we're getting dribs and drabs in the hearing going on in the house, janet yellen, treasury secretary and federal reserve chairman jerome powell. yellen is saying the country is 10 million jobs from its covid peak. so the fact of the matter we have aways to go. i worry the covid economy will haunt people long after the pandemic is over. she ad sophisticated very hard for american rescue plan. the speed of recovery itself depends how we enforce and follow up on that legislation. jerome powell is speaking right now. he might have something to say about a colleague. of course the dallas federal reserve president, robert kaplan, who advocated the federal reserve will likely have to raise interest rates next year to respond to the sharply improving economy. so we'll monitor this very, very closely for you. remember these can trip markets up, get them going again, based on what either says. maybe this time yellen will get a lot more attention because what she is advocating in terms of ways to pay for infrastructure and some of the

other things that the administration wants to do, including a wealth tax could get disproportionate attention. we're following all of that. we're following what is happening at the border, particularly in arizona where we find our hillary vaughn. hey, hillary. reporter: and, neil, we're going to have more from gila, arizona where a border town is declaring a state of emergency. ♪♪ ♪♪

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listen and work with you to create personalized investment strategies to help you get back to drafting dreams and building your future. edward jones. it is time for investing to feel individual. ♪. neil: all right. it is a crisis at the border, folks. no other way to describe it, especially democrats, republicans alike, who work, try to handle that surge in that area, are urging the president to be more responsive. hillary vaughn joins us right now in gila bend, arizona where the mayor just declared a state of emergency.

hillary? reporter: hi, neil. the mayor tells me that state of emergency will be declared at some point today and the point of that state of emergency so they have resources to be able to deal with the busloads of migrants that are now being dumped in their town. the mayor, chris rigs, talked to him today, he says president biden is creating a crisis in his community by dropping off migrants that were in border patrol custody for 72 hours and now are being dumped here. he told me the reason why his town was chosen is because someone in washington, d.c., thought they had a bus stop here when they don't. do you believe that president biden's immigration policies have created a crisis here in gila bend? >> yes. all the rhetoric prior to the actual election, i think encouraged people. they saw it. talking with these migrants, yesterday, obviously i was in a van with them for a couple of

hours. talking with them and getting some of their feedback. in their mind, they were invited. so yes, his rhetoric prior to the actual election has encouraged people who believe they are invited. as far as the border being shut down, if it is shut down, why did we receive people yesterday? reporter: and, neil, the mayor here also said that essentially the migrants were dropped off and border patrol is essentially telling them good-bye, and good luck. he had to borrow two vans to take them to a shelter an hour away in phoenix. but these migrants also are not being covid tested. he said, that so going to come out of his city budget if he has to do that. he calculated if two busloads every week dropped in his town that will cost them over $600,000 for the covid tests that takes over a third of the town's budget for the entire year. their budget is only

1.5 million. so that is a huge chunk of resources out of their budget. neil? neil: hillary vaughn, thank you very much, hillary. i appreciate it. to hans nichols "axios." hans, we can argue semantics until the cows come over, whether it's a crisis, it's a problem, a big problem and the criticism increasingly coming from democrats particularly along the border the president doesn't seem serious about it. how big is this getting for him? >> well, leaving some ethics aside which is a fair debate to have, seems like the white house is consciously trying to stay away from certain words, namely a crisis but just look at the numbers, neil. the latest reporting at "axios" from my colleague saying just 13% of families that are trying to get into the united states are being turned around. that means about 87% are going through the normal immigration process. that's families, okay? now what the white house is

saying publicly that unaccompanied minors are allowed to come in. they get an exception from title 42 which is the public health exemption. they get an exception, from the public health sort of provision. what the white house has not been terribly clear on, may be because the numbers are tough to get, just how many they are turning away and what sectors they're turning away from the non-minor classification. what you're talking about is political challenge for the white house. regardless whether or not they are willing to call it a crisis on the border it's a political challenge and they're trying to solve for it. neil: i guess the issue, security officials are said we'll get to the border from the white house but they're not all the obvious. they're not homeland security. they're, because a lot of that staffing isn't it in place. there doesn't seem to be a rush to put them in place. i'm just wondering whether, maybe accidentally, maybe quite strategically, the president is just not making this a priority?

he wants the focus to be on the infrastructure. he wants focus to be on the effects of stimulus, once it courses its way through the economy. this is a non-event. what do you think of the just the politics behind it? >> well, so, they got cabinet approved, close to statutory cabinet. not everyone biden decided to include in the cabinet. there is broadly a sort of lack of urgency, sort of undersecretary and assistant, deputy secretary level. deputy underassistant that. is true, we're hearing that is true across the board. so i wouldn't necessarily single out dhs for that. it appears to be broadly the case at interior, dod, states. this is part of the problem, or the challenge of getting your people confirmed, especially when they have a little bit of a slow start. so i wouldn't necessarily read into too much of that. they do have a former ambassador from mexico who is now the czar of immigration, the border czar

at the national security council. she and another colleague are heading down. biden over the weekend said he would go. he didn't say when. if you listen closely what the white house are saying, they are slow walking that as much they can. they don't necessarily want to put biden in front, down at the border, for optical reasons, political reasons, a whole host of reasons. neil: now that i have you here, what do you make of the latest talk about infrastructure? 3 trillion-dollar package could conceivably had more taxes than the president originally outlaned, telegraphed when he was running for president? let alone the markets might not have factored that in, they factored in the tax hikes to come, corporate rate going up to 28%. taxes on guys like you going up but they have not factored in, see i got that through there real quickly, they haven't factored in a wealth tax or the possibility thereof or a surtax on corporations to pay for a lot

of this. i would have imagined that would put the nail, again in the could have fin for republicans support on this, but what do you think? >> i think there are all fair points but it is all very fluid right now, right? the number could be 3 trillion. it could come in less, 3 trillion for what? battery stations or caregiver economy or 3 trillion for bridges roads, tunnels, airports, broadband? this is the beginning of a process. as for the pay-fors the white house has never been clear. before that the biden campaign was never clear how much their build back better program which is in three trillion range how much would have to be off set of. what they said any sort of one-time spending deal didn't have to be offset. if they were permanent they would try to pay for it. back to your question whether or not markets are pricing it in, it is not just joe manchin, krysten sinema, mark kelly, moderate democrats have to say

yes or no up or down on a lot of these things. so i would ask the kellyies, sinema, mansions, where are they on a wealth tax? where are they on a financial transaction tax? where are they on the pay-fors progressive members of the party are talking about? i think we'll see. for you and i, it, you will see senators being with the markets just with comments as they walk off the floor. neil: hans, thank you very much, hans nichols of "axios" following all the fast moving developments. the dow is down 51 points. we're expecting to hear from the president regarding these shootings that happened at this colorado supermarket. we don't know much more about what was behind it. why 10 people are dead after a gunman just inexplicably opened fire. the president already indicated he wants to talk to the nation about it. he will momentarily.

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♪. >> all much sudden we heard in succession, boom, boom, boom. by the third one we're look, got to get out of here. >> he shot at us. [inaudible] i couldn't help anybody. neil: we know what he did. we don't know why he did it. why a 21-year-old man opened fire and killed 10 people at a grocery store yesterday, using an ar-15 style rifle. the president called the media into the white house to address this meantime let's get the read from alicia acuna in boulder colorado, with the latest where authorities once again looking at a mass killing.

alicia? reporter: hi, neil. the boulder police chief says by 4:00 this morning they had notified the next of kin of all 10 victims. people who were inside of that grocery store who died in that grocery store and just outside. ranged in age from age 20 to 65, men and women. one of those victims was boulder police officer eric tally. 51 years old, a father of seven children. he was first to arrive at the king super. he ran into the danger as his job required. today he is remembered as a hero. 21-year-old is charged with 10 counts of murder in the first first in the first-degree. he is in a area hospital treated for gunman. he used a ar-15 rifle when he began shooting inside and outside of the grocery store.

he did not walk and spraying bullets. each shot was a specific target. the police said the suspect was only person injured. the others who were shot died. here is the district attorney. >> i promise all of us here worked tirelessly to support you, help you through this process and also, to make sure that the killer is held absolutely and fully accountable for what he did to them, to all of the loved ones and friends of victims and to the boulder community yesterday. reporter: the suspect is from the denver suburb of arvada, which is 15, 16 miles from boulder. police say he lived in the united states most of his life. right now they're digging into his background. what the connection to this story if any is not something we know. investigators plan to be on the scene, working on the ground here for at least five days. at this point police do not know, or they have not shared if they do know of a motive. the suspect is expected to be

transferred to the bold you are county jail later today. neil, as you and i talked through the situation, many times unfortunately over the years, and i can tell you as someone who lives in the denver boulder area, i've been talking to friends and to family, there is a level of shock here that is also incredibly familiar. from where i am standing it's a 45 minute drive to columbine high school and a 37 minute drive to the aurora theater. neil? neil: had no idea. alicia, thank you very, very much for that. we'll go back to you with any updates we get. darren porcher joins us, a former nypd lieutenant. lieutenant, always enjoy having you, i always regret under these circumstances but maybe help us out a little bit what you're thinking right now. we don't know whether the assailant targeted those at the grocery store. didn't seem like that, but what can you glean from what you have

heard? >> well, from a law enforcement perspective these lone wolf attacks are the things that worry us the most because we don't have an agenda or a public agenda that was introduced. we have a gunmen enter ad location and shot and killed 10 people. what is unique to this particular situation, the gunman was taken into custody alive. this presents an opportunity for law enforcement to make a greater assessment as the why he did, what was the motive, et cetera. often times. i give you a contrast in comparison, we go back to 2017 when we had the mass shooting in las vegas. mr. paddock was not taken into custody. he subsequently died. here we have an a an assailant was taken into custody. we'll circle the target. we'll look at his social media. what was his digital footprint? what was his activity over the course of time which give as

greater assessment why he committed this horrific act. neil: that neck of the wood has pretty strict gun laws. i don't know if they extend to ar-15s and the like, but pretty strict. what do you make of that? >> 10 days prior to this attack they had an assault weapons ban in that county and it was lifted. so could this have been a harbinger? it remains to be seen. but we want to look more specific to the critical nature of things that have happened in that area. woe think about what happened in columbine. we think what happened in aurora. so we clearly have had horrific gun incidents that occurred in this area. that being said, i think it is necessary for law enforcement, coupled with the atf on a federal level to ramp up their for the if i for fortificationse don't have violent individuals come into custody of these weapons. that doesn't say that he didn't acquire this weapon lawfully.

we need to be better as law enforcement officials to insure that the public is protected. neil: well-put, darren. thank you very, very much. darren porcher. nypd lieutenant on all of this. we're montorring events, including up pennsylvania avenue for the president of the united states on this mass killing in colorado but, jerome powell is on capitol hill right now testifying virtually along with janet yellen. the fed head is saying as economy reopens and vaccinations continue there may be a surge in pricing. in other words, prices, inflation could tick up a little bit, he added maybe ominously, depending on your point of view, we have the tools to deal with inflation. robert cap plain said among the tools is hiking interest rates. they will early next year. sometime next year. so far we heard not anything to that effect from the chairman. but we'll see after this.

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♪. neil: all right. i told you to keep your eyes on janet yellen, treasury secretary, that she might make more newsworthy comments than federal reserve chairman jerome powell who is no slouch in that department. i will get to what he said in

just a second. here is what she said regarding taxes. that changes to tax policy will help pay for programs on infrastructure. this is coming from this house financial services committee hearing going on virtually right now featuring big money players. she is also saying that we do need to raise revenues in a fair way to fuel programs to help the economy. what we're not clear on is whether this goes beyond the plans the administration already had to return the top rate back to 39.6% from 37% and the to raise corporate taxes back up to 28% from 21%. she seems to be hinting, i stress hinting it would go above and beyond that to pay for some of this infrastructure spending. it could be a doozy, upwards of $3 trillion, we're hearing separately, all of this is inflationary. we hear from jerome powell, quoting here, we have the tools to deal with inflation. now among them, hiking interest rates. robert kaplan, the dallas federal reserve president was

predicting that rates will indeed be hiked by the federal reserve sometime in 2022. many might look at that see improving economy saying no big surprise, but it does counter what the federal reserve chairman said would be sort of a no touching rates at all for the conceivable future. by that a lot of people thought, right through next year, 10-year note now in and out of 1.65%. as rates back up a tad. we to the dan gelled true back with us. edward lawrence following all of this on capitol hill. what do you make of what you're hearing thus far? >> it is very interesting the pivot the federal reserve chairman has made. he was talking about inflationary pressures. he used the term, he said modest inflation what he expects to see but they will use their tools to keep the inflation about 2% target. that sort of opens the door for him if the inflation does spike more than the federal reserve thought, to go through that the other part of that is janet yellen, secretary of treasury is, her interesting points

talking about raising taxes. she says the tax structure has to change in order to pay for some of those infrastructure project es. she talked specifically about the corporate tax rate and raising that rate and quickly, one of the democrats representative sherman came in, said, they are focused on also that 1%, the rich, wealthy folks paying a bigger share of the tax rate. so clearly taxes and inflation as well as that next package, infrastructure are coming into focus in this meeting. neil? neil: you know, dan, if i had a dime for every time someone said the rich should pay their fair share i would have a lot of dimes. and they would be taxed to the hilt. fair share was supposed to be, if you got the top rate back up to 39.6%. fair share was supposed to be if we had the existing capital gains rates and not raising them to 50% as the administration might want to do for that targeted group. obviously that is a moving

target. does it worry you for the implication force market. they're creative increasing revenue to pay for it, then, dealing with the spending that underlies it? >> neil, it has to impact the market because if you're going to have a significant raise own the corporate income tax right now we're at 21. the talk was 28. are we going to go back to where we were at 35%? well that is going to take a huge bite out of corporate profits. corporations cannot just accept that the type of expense hitting their bottom line. they are going to have to react to that. neil: don't they expect it already, dan? do you think that is based into the prices already? does this added stuff that is not priced in? >> well, it is a good point neil, from the standpoint in spite of what janet yellen ney be saying. she is not in congress.

and it goes back to with a razor thin majorities that the democrats have, can they really pull off these types of tax increases? and of course that will come down to a handful of moderate democrats and what the democrats can give them in exchange -- neil: jumping on you, dan. i apologize, the president is addressing the colorado shootings took place yesterday. the president. i am speaking with the mayor on the aircraft. we're working closely with the state and local law enforcement officials. they will keep me updated as they learn more. you ask me to speculate, you understandably speculate what happened, why it happened and i'm not going to do that now because we don't have all the information. not until i have all the facts but i do know this, as president i will use all the resources at my disposal to keep the american people safe. as i said, at this moment, a

great deal remains but three thing things are certain. first, ten lives have been lost, and more families have been shattered by gun violence in the state of colorado. and jill and i are devastated, and the feeling -- i just can't imagine how the families are feeling, the victims whose futures were stolen there them, from their families, from their loved ones who now have to struggle to go on and try to make sense of what's happened. less than a week after the horrific murders of eight people and the assault on the aapi community in georgia, while the flag was still flying half staff for the tragedy and other american cities have been scarred by gun violence and the resulting trauma. and the state that i even hate to say it because we're saying it so often, my heart goes out, our hearts go out to the

survivors who had to flee for their lives and who hid, terrified, unsure if they would ever see their families again, their friends again. the consequences of all this are deeper than i think, i suspect we know. by that i mean the mental consequences. the feeling of -- anyway, just been through too many of these. the second point i want to make is my deepest thanks to the heroic police and other first responders who acted so quickly to address the situation and keep the members of their community safe. i'll state the obvious, i commend the exceptional bravery of officer eric talley. i send my deepest condolences to his family. his close, close family and seven children. you know, when he pinned on that badge yesterday morning, he didn't know what the day would

bring. i want everybody to think about this. every time an officer walks out of his or her home and pins that badge on, a family member that they just said good-bye to wonders whether they'll, subconsciously, will they get that call, the call that his wife got. he thought he'd be coming home to his family and his seven children. in the moment the act came, officer tully did not hesitate in his duty, making the ultimate sacrifice in his effort to save lives. that's the definition of an american hero. and thirdly, i want to be very clear, this is the one thing the i do know enough to say on in terms of what's happened there. while we're still waiting for more information regarding the shooter, his motive, the weapons he used, the guns, the magazines, the weapons, the modifications that apparently have taken place to those weapons that are involved here, i don't need to wait another minute, let alone an hour to

take common sense steps to save lives in the future and urge my colleagues in the house and senate to act. we can ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines in this country once again. i got that done when i was a senator. it passed. it was the law for the longest time, and it brought down these mass killings. we should do it again. we can close the loopholes on our background check system including the charleston loophole. that's one of the best tools we have right now to prevent gun violence. the senate should immediately pass -- let me say it again, the united states senate, i hope some are listening, should immediately pass the two house-passed bills that close loop hoes in the background check system -- loopholes. these received votes of both republicans and democrats in the house.

this is not and should not be a partisan issue. this is an american issue. it will save lives, american lives. and we have to act. we should also ban assault weapons in the process. i'll have much more to say as we learn more, but i wanted to be clear. those poor folks who died left behind families. it leaves a big hole in their hearts. and, and we can save lives, ins creasing the background checks like supposed to occur and eliminate assault weapons and the size of magazines. we don't know all the details yet on that, but i'll be talking to you more later today or the next couple days about what else we know. may god bless you all and those families who are mourning today because of gun violence in colorado and georgia, all across the country. we have to act so there's not more of you, there's fewer of

you, as time goes on. >> will you introduce new gun legislation, mr. president? [inaudible conversations] neil: all right. the president making clear that after the shooting in colorado that claimed ten lives, you know, literally just days after eight were killed in a series of atlantas massage parlors, that the time has come to resurrect that house legislation that took care of closing some gun ownership loopholes banning assault weapons and the like. the president making this very clear this will become a top priority of his administration. to chad pergram on how likely that is, at least in the united states senate. we've heard this kind of talk and these overtures before. what's the temperament right now for this type of move as things stand now? >> reporter: that's right: well, neil, timing is everything in politics, and right now these shootings come at a time when they're trying to ramp up an effort to end the filibuster in

the united states senate. harold wilson, the british prime minister, he said that the most dominant factor in politics were events. so here you have two events, you have the shooting in georgia just a couple of days ago, you have the shooting in georgia, and this comes at a time when democrats are talking about ending the filibuster and also the house of representatives has passed two gun control issues that are going over to the senate. the senate majority leader, chuck schumer, he indicates he's going to move these bills, force votes on these even if they don't pass. now, there is no issue more vexing to the left than gun control. they have tried to move gun legislation are through the house and the senate with very little success for a couple of decades now. you had the shooting of gabby giffords, the former democratic representative from arizona who was shot in 2011, you had newtown in 2012, parkland in 2018, and this is where democrats kept saying, okay, this is our chance, but it never really went anywhere. none of those conversations, neil, unfolded when there was

this active conversation in washington, d.c. about potentially eliminating the filibuster. that's the key right here. and this is where i go back to the harold wilson comment here, that we've had these events and timing is everything: you're right at that precipice. now, the republicans so far, some of the republicans we've talked to on capitol hill, they continue to portray any effort to crack down on gun legislation or anything like that, thayer perceive that as an -- they perceive that as an overreach. that's been their general mantra, and that's what they're saying right now. that is their initial response whenned asked about, you know, gun control legislation which will be coming up in the united states senate. it was already on the docket to come up no the matter what sometime in the next month or so even before these shootings took place, neil. neil: all right. to your point, i have two different pieces of house legislation passed that could go on to the senate. the irony would be that this becomes the means by which the filibuster goes away, right?

this is something that democrats feel strongly about. they will and could be able to force the issue that way, right? >> reporter: right. but, again, you have to look at who are the players in the middle. neil: right. >> again, you have joe manchin, you know, he's a moderate to conservative democrat. he's from a state where gun policy is paramount. you know, he's going to be very tough to get maybe to overcome the filibuster. someone like kyrsten sinema, again, the same types of players from a western state, again, where firearms are very important. that's why this is so tough, and this is where i come back to why the democrat and the left has been vexed for years. the president did allude to something very important there, and dianne feinstein -- the democrat senator from california -- indicated that she was for and reintroducing legislation to get rid of assault weapons. remember, there was an assault weapon ban for about a decade. it was part of that crime bill that joe biden, when he was the chair of the judiciary committee back in 1994, authored. and, you know, it had a 10-year

window, then it was turned off in 10 years, and they did not renew that in 2005. so, again, a push on high capacity weapons, high capacity magazines, so-called assault weapons, defining that is going to be very tough. it's just not background checks, that's mostly what the legislation in the house of representatives focused on. neil: real quickly, any republicans who would be onboard with some of this stuff? >> reporter: very tough to see. i mean, this is so early, you know, you never know if a moderate like susan collins or lisa murkowski might come along. but again, look at where they're from. they're from maine, a hunting state the, alaska, a hunting state. talking about firearms in those states, that does not go over very well on the right. neil: all right. thank you, chad pergram, on all of that. just updating you again, the president taking and seizing on these developments, of course, these mass shootings in just the past week or so that have claimed 18 lives saying that it's time for congress to come

together and pass some type of government reform. that might prove easier said than done as prior incidents have taught us. we do know a little bit more about the 21-year-old man from a deny very suburb, his name is ahmad alisa from a suburb of denver. we don't know what galvanized him to do this, whether he knew his victims, what the purpose was of going into that store in the first place. what we do know is a lot of people are dead, a lot of people are asking questions, and a lot of people are wondering why yet again. stay with us. some say this is my greatest challenge ever. but i've seen centuries of this. with a companion that powers a digital world, traded with a touch.

the gold standard, so to speak ;)

>> i think a package that consists of investments in people, investments in infrastructure will help to create good jobs in the american economy, and changes to the tax structure will help to pay for those programs. neil: all right. the clearest janet yellen has ever been about raising taxes to pay for some of this infrastructure. whatever you want to call it, it will certainly be something that the administration will be advocating to pay for the $3

trillion package. brian brenberg joins us now. i wish i had professors like you when i was in school. i put the pressure on you there, brian. [laughter] let me ask you about what yellen is telegraphing. it seems to me this goes beyond the known tax hikes that the president considered during the campaign, the hike in the top the rate, the hike in the corporate rate to 28% from 21%. this goes beyond that. how much, do you suspect? >> well, i think janet yellen's having to leave everything open because the fact is when it comes to raising taxes, the initiative really isn't with the white house, it's really9 with the senate, with folks like bernie sanders, elizabeth warren. i think they're the ones who are going to provide the energy for anything the administration decides to go after, and that includes things like a wealth tax. so i think janet yellen is trying to manage things. she knows she has a congress

that's very interested in going very progressive on tax hikes, she has a white house who's trying to not fall into that messaging at least. she's stuck in the middle, and she knew she would be from day one. so when i hear her speaking about this, i really hear her hedging her bets, trying not to overcommit, focusing on that language of infrastructure investment and investing in people -- neil: right. >> but the fact is she knows the door is wide open. whatever progresses in the senate can get done, they will try to get done. and the white house, i don't think, has a choice but to sign it. neil: you know, republicans, of course, are lashing out on this, looking at raising taxes. when they lecture none on debt, it's like me lecturing you on eating a salad. you are the last ones who should talk about runaway spending. it rocketed under president obama, it rocketed under this, president trump. the fact of the matter is this is a bipartisan binge we've

seen, and there's very little evidence that it's going to slow down. i know larry kudlow and people like that talk about the fact that it's a percentage of only assets we have in this country, it's relatively tame. but it's big, it's a big number. what do you make of it? >> well, i get nervous -- i agree with larry, by the way. this was an amazingly productive company. we're blessed to be able to handle the kind of debt load, $28 trillion. it's amazing we can handle that debt load. but what gets me nervous is when you start talking like that, you wonder if we will ever have the resolve to get our funding you should control. as an economist, we're talking about monetary theories right now, monetary theory which, in essence, says it doesn't matter how much money you spend ever. that's essentially what modern monetary theory says. that is practically what we're pursuing right now from a monetary perspective in this country, the idea that it does

not matter how much you spend. that doesn't mean we're in trouble today, but when you're operating on that kind of idea, it means you're going to be in trouble someday because that theory works right up until the moment when it doesn't. [laughter] if you've not found a theory to fit your practice, to your point, boy, you're in trouble. you're not going to be the eating many salads. that sounds like a lot of cheeseburgers -- [laughter] until you can't take one more of them. neil: we like the cheese bergeres.. -- cheeseburgers. not into that. brian brenberg, nice to see you again. former director of policy for vice president biden at the time, of course now he's the president of the united states. very good to have you. thank you for coming. >> thanks for having me. neil: you know, i do believe as i was raising with the professor that neither party should lecture the orr on adding to --

other on adding to deficits and debt. i'm just wondering, i get the investment thing sometimes. it's like a company like amazon that sets it up, then starts making money. a lot of critics to that approach in the early days of amazon, but i do believe the government's a little bit different here, and i worry about these staggering figures. do you worry? >> oh, i think it's certainly cause for concern over the medium to long term. right now we're coming out of a period where we actually had to shut down our economy or large swaths of it in order to deal with the global pandemic, so i do think it makes sense we've been spending a lot of money over the past year to help keep that going. but, yes, of course, we need to start paying for at least some of the investments, and i think that's actually what you're seeing secretary yellen say here. let's make some of these long-term investments in infrastructure and other areas, but let's pay for them with higher taxes and other issues. so i think they're starting to

see a turn, but certainly given the largess in washington, we have a long way to go. neil: you know, in your years working with the obama administration at the time with the vice president, i remember quite well hearing the rich should pay their fair share. and getting the top tax rate up to 39.6% was a step in that direction. then there was a surtax to pay for the affordable care act on the rich that that lifted it another 3, 4%. so it's a moving target to me. do you know and do you have the secret bible on this what they call fair share for -- [laughter] for the wealthy? let alone companies and bringing it up to 28%, the corporate rate from 21%. what is the fair share? >> well, i don't know that there's any one specific number. a lot of this is about trade-offs. if a certain individual who can afford it can pay a little bit more, then we can make investments in our infrastructure and

competitiveness. so i think -- neil: no, no, i get that -- [inaudible conversations] i get it, but when bernie sanders used to talk about the rich -- >> yeah. neil: -- once having to pay 80-90%, i got the idea, well, we could go up to that. is there a sense that for the wealthy, and whatever you want and however you want to define that, it has to be significant -- should it be 10% more? forget 39%, it has to be 49% at a minimum. at what point do people say, well, that's about right. because we used to be more than double where we are now. >> the hard thing about politics is you ask bernie sanders, and you get one answer. you ask pride. en, you get another. that's the challenge. but i think from the president's perspective, he's comfortable with the 39.6% for the top rate. obviously, there are some other surcharges that you mentioned for a affordable care act and the like, but i think he's comfortable where taxes were under the, you know, the

obama/biden administration. that's what he really talked about through the campaign. one of the things you can tell is if somebody runs in a democratic primary on an issue, that's probably the most left they're going to go. so i think biden's actually been remarkably consistent here. and the other thing that he's really looking to change is how we tax wealth versus how we tax work. but in terms of the top rate, i think 39.6 is your number. neil: all right. you're very good with numbers, you wouldn't be managing director after ever corp. if you weren't. can you pay for all of this just targeting the wealthy and raising the corporate tax rate? >> you're not going to -- if the white house ends up with $3 trillion the, which is the thurm that was floated yesterday -- number that was floated yesterday, granted, we've got a long way to go in this process, but they're not going to try and pay, i don't believe, for $3 trillion of tax increases. i think they're going to try to make the argument that some portion of this spending, and they'll outline which portions,

are short-term investments, one-time needed things that don't have to be paid for over the long term. so i think that you're going to see them trying to come in and pay for about a trillion of net taxes which will be smaller than what it looks like the overall size of the would be. neil: -- size of the package would be. neil: but in addition to the tax hikes the president already was telegraphing, right? >> not necessarily. i think in generally $1 is-1.5 trillion tax increases could include a lot of what he talked about in the campaign. he talked about, as you mentioned, the 28%. he talked about the top rate. he talked about carried interest. all of those pieces, i think, will combine. i think largely what you going to see from the president here -- there may be some new adds along the way, but i think by and large what you're seeing from this president is pretty consistent with what you saw in the campaign. neil: all right. sarah, thank you very much for

joining us, putting some of this in perspective. sarah by yankee on all of that. in the meantime, forget about this wrongs that are arriving at the border, why do they risk life and limb getting to that border? griff jenkins has more from tijuana. >> reporter: that's right, neil. they have the grip of the cartel on them making the decision whether or not they'll cross illegally. we've got that story when we come back from tijuana. ♪♪

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♪ >> if you were talking to him right now, what would you say to president biden? >> mr. biden, please help me, take my family with us. mexico, they don't protect us. neil: scary place. that's tijuana, mexico, where we find our griff jenkins.

griff, it looks like it's getting even scarier. >> reporter: yeah. you know, neil, it's really, you spend some time here and you talk to the migrants, and they're almost telling you that -- all telling you that they're fleeing poverty and violence. emmanuel and his wife and two small children are fleeing a very dangerous part of mexico, the sinaloa state the, where he says the cartels are trying to kidnap, possibly kill his family. he's been here a month and a half, it's gotten very difficult. you can see it's raining, it's wet, it's cold right now, and he's trying to decide how long he can actually wait before he crosses illegally, but the cartels control everything that crosses that border, and he's worried if he goes to find a coyote in the cartel and crosses illegally, he may have bigger problems. here's what emmanuel said, listen. >> use for other things, might sell part of your body or things like that, you know? they might use you to cross

drugs or do bad things that i don't want that for my family. >> reporter: meanwhile, neil, while these migrants face difficult decisions and conditions, the residents and store owners, business with owners around this encampment are getting frustrated with their presence. here's what pharmacy owner victor martinez told us yesterday. listen. >> that my question every day, what's going to happen with these people and with the business because it's killing us one way or the other. i mean, besides being the border closed for a year, over a year now, now this. >> reporter: on the u.s. side, a bit of good news. the transparency blackout that the media's gotten, we're now seeing two videos released inside these unaccompanied minor facilities, some 33 still photos coming from cbp. it's a good first step in access that should have been granted

hopefully soon, neil, reporters can at least get in these facilities as well. we'll see where that goes as this crisis on both sides of the border very, very difficult, neil. neil: griff, be safe, my friend. thank you very much. griff in tijuana, mexico. well, it's crises like these that generally bring a lot of investors' attention to cryptocurrencies. they tend to do pretty well when the world looks like a scary or volatile mace. jerome powell has weighed in on this volatile market worning it could get even more so -- warning that it could get even more so. carrie ann, thank you for taking the time. is that a common theme, the more volatile things look, the better for bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general, that they tend to get a lot more attention? >> bitcoin has been the best performing asset 10 out of the

last 12 years. one thing that's not volatile about bitcoin is it has a big supply. there's 21 million bitcoins in existence. this is very different than fiat systems like the u.s. dollar. just in the previous segment, we were talking about stimulus funds. trillions of dollars of stimulus money has been printed out of spending. i know everyone's excited to receive their stimulus checks, but i've got some news for you. free money is not free. it's being -- it's a hidden tax on anyone who currently holds u.s. dollar. it's a hidden tax. this is one of the biggest costs to corporate investors and corporate treasurers. and this is why we're seeing corporate and constitutional investors buying bitcoin. it's like what jerome powell stated yesterday, bitcoin is like digital gold. it's replacing gold. that is what's driving bitcoin

today. neil: what i'm wondering about is his weighing in and him saying maybe some involvement on the federal reserve, treasure's also looking at this, whether to restrict this, whether it would, you know, bar this. it's a leap too far, i'm just wondering what to make of the government potentially looking to get involved here? >> what jerome powell was talking about yesterday is the federal project around additional dollar. we saw his comments as a positive ten forward. yesterday was the first -- step forward. yesterday was the first time the chair of the federal reserve articulated the fed's political strategy for the digital dollar. this is being driven by technology evolutions in the payment strategy. he has detailed the necessary stakeholders in this effort from congress to the public, there was information that was made

known to the public for the first time yesterday. clearly, the process for developing a united states central bank digital currency is progressing. there's many reasons why this is incredibly important for our economic and our national security, and one of the most important things we can pay attention to today are efforts globally of other countries trying to surpass the u.s.' technical and financial preeminence and launching technology including with additional currencies. those are the big monetary things that are happening today that's driving conversations at the highest levels of financial institutions. neil: obviously, bitcoin, cryptocurrency in general has gotten a little more street credible, if you will, street cred, if you argue established players like tesla, morgan stanley, a host of others that are investing in it or using it as means, in the case of tesla, to buy their cars.

for customers to buy their cars. so there is something going on here, and it might explain -- i say stability in quotation marks here when i talk to bitcoin as an investment, but it's been a little bit more stable. in other words, it doesn't have these 15, 20% swings every day. expensive, volatile, yes, but not nearly as much. what do you make of that? >> when you look at bitcoin, the price of bitcoin on a day-to-day basis, it is volatile. you see, i mean, yesterday the price went up as high as 57 and down to as low as 53, it's about 55 right now. bitcoin, it's a technology. so you have to look at it a little bit differently than a stock or a foreign currency. you have to zoom out a little bit. in 2020 the return on bitcoin was 308%. in 2019 the return on bitcoin was 92%. again, it is the best performing

asset that's available today. and this war on covid has turned into a war on currency. it's called the great monetary inflation, and we're seeing investors as well as public companies, companies of all shapes and sizes that are buying bitcoin and putting it on the balance sheet as a store of value. so, again, this really articulates the point that chairman powell made yesterday that bitcoin is a digital gold. neil: all right. so so let me can you, up to 55,000, now a little bit north of that, where do you see it going? [laughter] >> bitcoin is going to become the monetary layer of the financial system. if you look at the stock to flow model, there's prices as high as bitcoin is expected to be $10 million when it reaches 90% adoption which is expected to happen within 8-10 years. so it is going to be volatile

between now and the time we reach 90% adoption of bitcoin, but i do believe this is going to be the base layer of our monetary, the price is going to increase significantly, again, because you have that fixed supply which is very different than the fiat system like the dollar. neil: 55 grand now and another another decade this could be a $10 million coin? >> if 90% of people own bitcoin, which if you use metcalf law and you look at an s curve analysis, it says we'll be at 90% adoption around 8-10 years from now. if that happens, which we are on track to do that, bitcoin would have to reach $10 million. neil: wow. feel like doing the austin powers dr. evil thing. 10 million -- [laughter] you're too young.

>> you might want to get some in case this is right. neil: man, oh, man, this is wild stuff. appreciate that. $10 million. wow. we'll have more after this.

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neil: private schools have been all the rage, in oregon the back and forth over officials trying to police that growth, some say a bit too aggressively here, they apparently are easing up a little bit. lydia hu has more on all of this. >> reporter: hey there, or neil. private schools in oregon say that they are under an all-out attack after local lawmakers tried to propose that private schools should have to register with the state. it's a move that critics say would erase the distinction between public and private

schools and allowing an indoctrination of progressive ideals. bill supporters say the registration was aimed at student safety, protecting them from predatory teachers with more government oversight, and though registration with the state was billed as optional, failure to register meant that private school students would have been banned from interscholastic activities like sports and music. critics say that registration mandate threatens the private school system. listen. >> private schools excel in mathematics, they excel in reading. they also teach traditional values. these are all things that will certainly become eliminated as more and more faddish ideas come to the forefront in our ever-changing cultural environment. >> reporter: now, neil, as an example of one of these so-called faddish ideas, critics point to recent policies promoted by the state board of

education encouraging the public schoolteachers to, quote, dismantle racism in mathematics by acknowledging that the primary goal of finding the right answer is an alleged description to white supremacy culture that's essentially making the subject of mathematics subjective. listen. >> this scam that's in front of us with regard to mathematics will be a tragedy for everybody involved. not only the minority students and the disadvantaged students, but the students who are engaged in every aspect of k-12 education. >> reporter: now, after widespread criticism that local bill there in oregon is now being withdrawn or tabled but, neil, it's probably not the last time we are going to hear about this because democratic lawmakers are promising to continue to work on the issue. they say they're going to consult with the private school community, and they will revisit the bill possibly in their current legislative session. neil? neil: so it's not done yet.

lydia, thank you very, very much. want to go to charlie gasparino following a lot of other developments, particularly goldman sachs, one of the critics to come out and say some of these tax hikes being planned could jar the investment world, but more importantly about getting back to work, particularly in the new york metropolitan area. of. >> yeah. david solomon, the ceo, has made some indication that he is listening to his work force, particularly the younger work force, the associates, the first-years who are complaining about working 100 workweeks, onerous conditions. in the old days at goldman sachs, people complained, and you got laughed at. now it look like david solomon is trying to do something. what fox business has learned is that goldman is going to ramp up hiring in these sort of lower level associate investment banking positions to basically take the workload off its junior

associates. we don't know exactly how many people they're going to hire. we do understand it's going to be targeted, certain aspects of the investment banking department that are getting crushed right now, in a good way. goldman sachs is making a lot of money. that's why the stock is up so much. we hear that spacs and certain areas of the investment banking department, telecommunications, technology, those are the areas where they're going to ramp up among these junior staffers so they don't have to work every minute of the day and weekends. again, unclear how many people they're going to hire, neil. but as someone who's watched goldman sachs over the years, there is something going on a at this firm. in the old one days -- old days, no one would complain about that. it was how you stamp thed your ticket possibly to become a managing director. but there's something cultural going on there. and it's sort of manifesting itself into these complaints about the workweek. but also on weird stuff.

we had an interesting anecdote, i'm going to write about this on foxbusiness.com with lydia moynihan, my producer. young staffers at goldman, 2019, debated the propriety of eating chick-fil-a at a group dinner in goldman sachs' headquarters in manhattan the because of the conservative christian views of the founders. or, excuse me, of the president. as you know, mr. kathy came out and said he was against same-sex marriage. this was a big debate inside the company and, apparently, management -- what we understand -- management had to step in and say whether it was right or wrong, they said they gave the go ahead. and it just tells you how much times are changing inside goldman sachs, that they're debating the propriety of chick-fil-a chicken sandwiches. neil, back to you. neil: don't they have other things to do? [laughter] >> you would think have some deal to work, some bonds to sell or something. [laughter] neil: yeah.

i could see if they were featuring an italian restaurant and all that, everyone has to look at that, but i don't know. charlie, thank you, my friend. good seeing you. charlie gasparino foaling those developments disturb following those developments. we are following janet yellen and jerome powell, the heads of the federal reserve and treasury respectively. they're talking about a pick-up in inflation, they both say it's manageable, so they're not too worried. what is worrying some investors is what they're saying about possibly higher interest rates and definitely higher taxes. after this. ♪ ♪

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it is a dubious distinction, being the first state to surpass 1,000 known cases of these covid-19 variants. florida represents roughly 1 in 3 of all known -- 3 in 6 of all -- 1 in 6, the vast majority being the b117 strain first seen in the united kingdom. federal health officials are concerned tourist season could further spread these viruses. >> travel, we know, is related to people who are going on spring break. for the most part, people who go on spring break are not the demographic we've been focusing on in travel. we are worried not just for what happens on the airplane yourself, but what happens when people travel. they go out, they mix, and it's with people who are not vaccinated. >> reporter: several studies suggest pregnant women who get vaccinated may pass along immunity to children in the womb. research also suggests mothers share protective antibodies against the coronavirus where

their newborn babies through breast milk, underscoring the potential benefits of vaccinating new or expect. about the mothers. >> first, protect the mother. so she's breast-feeding or still pregnant, we till need to protect her -- we still need to protect her first, so that should be the number one purity the. >> reporter: and, neil, nearly 84 million americans have received at least their first dose of vaccine. that's roughly a quarter of the total population. back to you. neil: jonathan serrie, thank you very much, my friend. jonathan in atlanta. dr. campbell on all of this, a physician, cardiologist. doctor, very good to have you. what do you make of, first off, the variants popping up in states like florida and elsewhere? people always hear that sort of thing and they worry about whether the vaccines can address so many of them. what do you think? >> well, you know, variants are just in the nature of a virus

itself. the mutates to survive, and these are what the variants are. and the great thing about the vaccine thus far, it is still effect i have for that. that's something we'll have to study over time, and just like the flu vaccine changes over time, i suspect our covid vaccine will adapt to the variants as we move forward. neil: i'm wondering too whether the variants concern you. i mean, i don't know the history of this. other types of flus and all of that, but this is, i understand, different. should we be worrying about the sheer number of variants popping up? it's gotten so bad in europe, for example, that some countries like italy are revisiting lockdowns. a slower than expected go of distributions in vaccines as people are getting anxious. what do you think? >> you know, i think that the key is vaccinating as many people as possible, and as we develop this immunity as a herd, as we like to say, you know, i

think we will also be able to continue to evolve to the variant. what we're seeing from the variants is they're a little more transmissable, but they don't seem to be more deadly, related to higher rates of hospitalization. so the key is creating herd immunity, and i think that's the most important thing the we can do. neil: how do you think we're doing on all of this, doctor, where we're going and the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel and whether the late spring, early summer is going to be, you know, when the great economy opens up and when people could start taking their maas health cares off? how do you see it? what's the timeline? >> you know, i think as president biden has said, he said that he's going to have thing vaccines available for every american by the end of may. ifs that is certainly true, if that really happens and we get more than 85% of the population inoculated, i think we're going to quickly see herd immunity. and once we do that, if we follow the science as we have

all been told we need to do, we should be able to remove masks and things like that, you know, in the months following that inoculation are of that number of people. i think we're going to finally get back to normal. neil: you know, doctor, there's a plurality of americans in particular who are leery about vaccines, and hen this news about astrazeneca, the day this its own vaccine trials, never mind that present-day trials are looking very promising, people are saying, aha, this is why i'm leery. they're not the silver bullet. what do you tell them? >> you know, i think these new messager rna vaccines, which is what we see with moderna and pfizer, these are vaccines that are much easier to produce, and they're much safer. but, you know, the myths are they actually come into your body, they don't enter the nucleus, they don't interact with your dna, but they carry instructions to the cell. and they tell the crel to make

antibodies or make protein like the covid virus, and then we create antibodies and t-cell immunity to these. so they're very, very safe, they're very, very effective. and i think, you know, with the recent stuff that came out with the vaccine, the astrazeneca vaccine, what we see there is probably just some poor science. i was trained if you torture the data long enough, it'll confess to anything, garbage in equals garbage out. we need to be meticulous in our clinical trials, and i think so far we have been in all the vaccines that sive even on the market -- that i've seen on the market today. neil: that's very good to hear. dr. kevin campbell, thank you, sir, very much. >> thank you, sir. neil: in the meantime, the dow down 111 points. it might just be a lot of antsiness around the vaccine, that might not be much of a factor, more some not so soothing comments out of the likes of janet yellen and jerome powell. janet yellen on tax hikes beyond

what the president first proposed and jerome powell on higher interest rates and inflation, all but definite. whether he is pulling the trigger or the market does. after this. ♪♪ lately, it's been hard to think about the future. but thinking about the future, is human nature. ♪♪ . . and building your future. edward jones. it is time for investing to feel individual. we started with computers. we didn't stop at computers. we didn't stop at storage or cloud. we kept going. working with our customers to enable the kind of technology

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♪. neil: all right. is very clear right now that the

markets are a little concerned about some of the language they're hearing from top two financial officials, including chairman of the federal reserve, the treasury secretary. both say the economy is rounding the bend, then some, so much so inflation nary pressures remain and higher taxes are to come. they don't like that, but they do like charles payne right now. hey, charles. charles: thank you, neil. welcome back, my friend. i'm charles payne this is "making money." what a difference a year makes. who thought a year ago would be the low point for the stock market melting down. who would have thought there would be a rally fors fastest, strongest recovery out of a bear market ever the we learned a lot about ourselves as a nation, individuals, investors. now investors are facing new tests. kneel talked about it. just remember, what happened one year ago today. while everyone is focused on the amount of taxes and spending, the boyden administration is

do