of whack. >> yeah. stuart: forgive me, i have to interrupt. i have to get this in. a programing note of great importance. tomorrow on this show in the 9:00 hour, senator ted cruz republican from texas. a very important interview. hope you can be there 9:15 tomorrow on this show. time is up for me. but, neil, sir, it is yours. neil: thank you very much, stuart. we're following not coinbase here. this is one of those that is really hard to figure. certainly not an initial public offering here. it's a direct listing. so the company is looking at existing shares rather than offering new ones. it is price of those shares that proved to be a bit of conundrum today. coming out the gate we were looking $250 something like that. now $355 if you want to do the math backwards that would assume a valuation to this marketplace for all things digital currency in the vicinity of $100 million. which by the way was worth more

than nasdaq, more than the parent company of the new york stock exchange. who is arguing over these eye-popping prices? keep in mind, a little more couple years ago, fetching valuation ahead of a planned offering, years ago, it was valued at 5 about -- five billion dollars, now versus $100 billion. it is lifting all parties with it. with this direct listing, spotify, slack, they were direct listing, often times quite aways into the day before you get a figure, before you get a price and remember the distinction here is that existing holders, usually employees and the rest, they can sell their shares. they're not locked into that. it is full throttle moving once we get to that but we're not there yet. let's go to jackie deangelis what she is leaning from this and reverberation for the entire

digit call currency universe. reporter: good afternoon, neil. you're right, it will move fast and furious. it is giving us that indication. this a watershed day if you will for digital currency. specifically coinbase is making a debut on the nasdaq. direct listing means no underwriter. the ticker will be coin. the valuation is 365 a share. that is more than the 250-dollar price we saw last night. we're looking at projections of a eye-popping $100 billion valuation. the founder, brian armstrong has 20% stake, he could make 20 billion, putting him on the map as one of the world's richest people. he is fascinating character, bringing digital currencies like bitcoin to the masses. once more, even if you're not directly invested in crypto yourself, if you don't own bitcoin, you can tangentially

diversely over a company like this with a little piece of it. armstrong wants to make digital currency as ubiquitous as email. you know how that goes. there is a lot of money on the line as crypto becomes more mainstream. we have bitcoin and ethereum up 1300% respectively in the past year, wow, if you owned those. what is crucial the efforts to go mainstream to adopt digital currency. tesla is allowing people to buy vehicles with bitcoin. they're doing that paypal is allowing people to check out with a credit card swipe it. the city of miami wants to experiment paying salaries with bitcoin and allowing people to pay city bills with digital currency. they want to invest in bitcoin, keep the it on their portfolios. coin, citadel and blackrock are a some of those to watch here.

as soon as this gets moving we'll bring you the latest. neil: thank you very, perry. let's go to the digital chamber of commerce founder and president. last time we spoke we talked about the appetite for anything digital currency. it can be volatile, depending on the issue here, irony today, bitcoin is trading off from its you know, opening high here but for the rest of the players largely a robust couple of days. how do you see this playing out once they settle on a price, once this comes up and we've got to see if any insiders or early investors want out but what do you look for? >> so i think i mentioned in the previous segment there is currently six million shares matched up at $360 per share. that is opening trade of

$2.2 billion. let's put that number in context. roblox holds the record for largest trade ever on a stock exchange $2 billion when they went public two months ago. coinbase is going to take that place in, within the next minute, couple of minutes, it should be trading here very soon and according to the bankers that are advising the coinbase many employees on the direct listing they're expecting that first order to be $4 billion. again this would make the largest trade ever on a stock exchange. so what coinbase really represents here is, there is the first blue chip company, and the first blue chip play and they're really finding themselves in the right place at the right time. one of the reasons why there is a lot of excitement and interest

with coinbase, public companies in the digital asset space, hold digital currencies, most brokers do not allow clients to invest directly in digital assets. so they have to invest in the shares of stocks of public companies. again, coinbase will be the first blue chip company. that is really the key point about why today is going to be a very exciting day not only for coinbase but the entire industry. neil: so let me ask you, for people who are confused about this technology and they look at bitcoin, which is traditionally gets a lot of the attention, but if you look at coinbase it is essentially the shop and entree you buy bitcoin and ethereum and all others, what is to stop investors saying i will just buy the shop because that looks promising to me? >> yeah. they can do that. they can now buy shares of the company or just go be a customer

of coinbase. anyone can buy cryptocurrencies directly. you can set up an account at a company like coinbase. there are many earth regulated companies in the united states companies in the united states that people can get exposure to assets. robinhood, a many others a lot of people prefer to make investment actions and decisions through the brokerage. coinbase today released numbers, last week, their earnings and numbers from q1 and they have over 50 million active users. so why that is interesting because we're seeing a change in behavior. you're seeing investors who are now comfortable leaving brokerages or making decisions outside of the brokerage so you're seeing a shift in activity and that is really an important thing changing and how people make decisions today. neil: to be clear, perry ann,

coinbase is the largest of so-called currency shops, right? it is the venue which more invest than -- >> they're the largest, they're the largest in the united states. they're not, right, they're the largest in the united states. they're not the largest in the world. there is another company called buy nance who has higher trading volumes. neil: understood. the reason why i even raised it, you have eight or nine applications into the securities & exchange commission to offer exchange traded funds that would be geared toward this new technology. i'm wondering in a weird way, people who want in on this might look at that as a better way to invest in the future of all things digital currency than, then these other vehicles like coinbase or for that matter buying bitcoin directly or or ethereum directly, lite coin, in a weird way i'm asking you are

there potential etfs to come, i know there is a active one in canada, a threat to these technologies what do you think? >> it is really a conundrum we don't have one. we do have crypto or bitcoin etfs in other countries. the sec has been holding the industry to a higher standard in the way that they're approaching exchange traded products that track bitcoin and other digital assets. that is absolutely perpetuating what is happening today people are getting creative and making investments directly. so i do think having a bitcoin etf is something that would be beneficial to investors. it would be beneficial to the market. it would also help level the playing field. remember, the types much products that people have available today and the public republican -- the public markets, accredited investors

and unaccredited investors do not have equal access. that is something that has been perpetuated by the sec. there is a lot of open application and hopefully with new leadership there we'll have a shift in what gets approved for the crypto space. neil: you were here, and you were quite bullish on the prospects for bitcoin itself. could you review that again and give me your latest response? >> yeah. i talked about the stock to flow model. that is one of the most popular and well-known valuation models that investors use to value bitcoin. stock to flows today says that bitcoin should be valued between 100 and 288,000 this year, so throughout 2021. we've taken metcalf's law and applied that to bitcoin. if you look at metcalf's law, says bitcoin should be valued at

$72,000 today. again these are very popular valuation models that many investors use to value bitcoin. we talk about the price of bitcoin what it is trading on places like and ultimately what should the price be if you follow these models. so i'm, it is not necessarily, i am very bullish on bitcoin but also using data that has been available for 10 to 12 years. i do think that bitcoin is undervalued. for that reason i think coinbase sunday valued what was currently proposed at 100 billion-dollar valuation. neil: all right. i know one of the metrics they use for bitcoin and others is participation in it, interest in it, users who are drawn to it and the bigger that base goes, poe nextly, higher the price goes.

this sentiment taken on more likely the price going up. so by your definition, by that definition, there is nothing frothy going on here? there are others who are saying this is one incredible bubble waiting to burst. counter that argument for me. >> this is very simple. bitcoin has 21 million, there is 21 million bitcoin in existence. that is the supply. supply is fixed in this market place. so if you have an increase in demand there is only one thing that can happen in that scenario. the price is going to go up. as more people are buying bitcoin the price goes up. we have a couple different models how we determine what the price will look like at one time period. when you have fixed supply, increase in demand the price goes up. it is that simple. neil: got it. thank you very, very much. i want to get back to you

another day, maybe later today to get your thoughts on this debut. again we're waiting again for the price that we're going to be ultimately getting on coinbase, the app that lets you buy and sell a lot of these cryptocurrencies including bitcoin, ethereum, litecoin. there must be 50, 75 others under its base here. in this type of an auction you're seeing a exists shares are already there. they're not creating new ones like you would in a initial public offering. they already have shares. another with the direct listing, prices we discovered with spotify and slack, direct listings a little bit of a different flavor here, once they were out, insiders, early investors were free to sell their shares. we didn't see inordinate amount of that maybe more in slack if mem my serves me right than

spotify but by and large it is not early investors buying on shares that have yet to be born. in other words shares created out of the blue. the shares are already out there and determining that price which has moved up from $250, yesterday 355, then 365 last time i checked around, 369 to $370, do the math backwards and you would be looking at a valuation of coinbase, the shop through which you read up, trade and get all this stuff, of about $100 billion which is bigger than that other shop you might have heard about, the new york stock exchange. yeah, one other. the nasdaq. let's go to danielle dimartino booth. we have ray wang here as well. ray, to hear the bulls for bitcoin and digital currencies in general tell it, this is not a bubble. this is just based on exponential building demand on

the part of individuals and now more and more companies that are including it in its arsenal or as investment alternatives. in the case of tesla means to buy cars. so is it a legitimate investment in your eyes or a bubble waiting to burst? >> yeah. this is definitely a legitimate investment. you have to look at it this way. if you have reserve assets like gold before, the dollar is devaluing 10 to 15%, you've got to beat that 15% number. so gold is doing okay but gold has got, it is not a finite supply or infinite supply. gold has a supply that continues to grow. what you have on bitcoin that fixed supply, 21 million bitcoins. as more people come to the space, institutional investors come to the space, that will legitimatize bitcoin and that is driving demand. 100 billion-dollar value of bitcoin is not unrealistic.

you might get to $120,000 by the end. year. there are other coins in the mix. there are two trillion in coins. that number is expected to grow to 10 trillion in coins the next three years. if you're in the middle of that exchange process, coinbase is the nasdaq of cryptocurrencies, direct to consumer minus the brokerage is what is giving them the lift. people are betting in early being in on cryptocurrency exchanges. they're saying regulation, they will work it out, figure it out but by then the momentum of institutional investors along with the day traders and consumer traders will be in play. neil: all right. i raise these concerns, guys because i want to be fair to everybody. i want to look at the bullish argument. it is substantial there, you just outlined it yourself. i want to be aware of some of the bearish arguments bubble burst terse looking around, sec looking into this, top treasury officials, danielle, you know

very well, who have been saying let's go slow on this because they fear it could be a threat to the dollar to say nothing of being a threat to you know, our ecosystem. what do you make of that? is that a legitimate concern? >> well so, there is a lot of confusion surrounding a central bank's digital currency and a platform, a decentralized cryptocurrency such as bit form. they are really different beasts but the danger is if china, predominantly china which poses obviously enters national security interests into this equation, if any major economy decides to clamp down on regulation we really don't know what the other side of that looks like. as it pertains to today, by the way i am quite concerned that our, our regulators, our officials at treasury are so adamant about taking things

slowly because of the fact that china's going the opposite route and going very quickly at trying to devise its own central bank digital currency such that it feels people inside of its country have an alternative to something like a bitcoin to use but as far as today's coinbase goes, i think people should distinguish the fact that bitcoin is a cryptocurrency and a finite number of them exist. coinbase is a profitable company. a lot of the ipos we've seen in recent years have not been profitable. if coinbase makes $100 million anticipated in the first quarter, then the 100 billion-dollar valuation puts it in line with the average nasdaq kind of go-go growth stock valuationwise. if for all four quarters of 2021 it has similar performance. but again we're talking about two separate beasts here. one is an exchange that facilitates cryptocurrency trading. the other is the actual

cryptocurrency. my caveat is one that you share, regulators looking around as well as the fact you can expect coinbase to be just as volatile as bitcoin as it trades. neil: very well-put. guys, i want to thank you for that. we'll be monitoring this. what we're waiting for a final price. it sounds like an initial public offering. this is not. it is selling stocks directly in issues that are already there. they're not creating new shares here but getting to that final figure and deciding a price on that final figure, well that is a devil of a time here. i should stress here unlike an ipo and a direct listing, the pool of investors, usually original workers at the company to say nothing of early investors in this, they're free to sell their shares day of, intraday, something that a lot of ipos do not allow with so-called lockup provisions. not all ipos but a good many of them. now we're up to $373 a share,

you're an original holder, right? you were looking at, yesterday at this time, 225 to $250, now we're up to $373, is it going to prompt a lot of selling from those, you know, established investors early on and will that add to the volatility here? the one thing about a direct listing it is very democratized in that way. underwriters are kept out of this. you know how people on wall street tend to feel about underwriters and greedy investment banks. this eschews all of that. the risk is since no one is tethered at least everyone is free at least in the initial wave to sell or take profits, adding to the volatility we saw in spotify, we saw in slack. nothing like what could happen here because the numbers are just far bigger and the investment is just far weirder, just different that's all. different and weird.

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♪. reporter: welcome back to "cavuto: coast to coast." i'm blake burman. for the very first time the cdc and the fda made recommendation to pause johnson & johnson covid-19 we heard from the head of the cdc. dr. rochelle walensky saying there are three reasons essentially why they made the decision. first off health care providers could be on the lookout. secondly there may be additional cases to report in the upcoming days, third, she says the pause will allow an independent committee to review events to determine their potential significance. that committee by the way meet as couple hours from now. dr. walensky saying this morning she believes that the decision shows the system is working. >> i want to share with you my confidence in the system we have in place. jointly cdc and fda were able to identify these rare events and act quickly to alert health care providers around the public. this demonstrates that the safety systems we have in place

are working. reporter: over here at the white house they continue to maintain that taking johnson & johnson's vaccine off-line will not impact the vaccination efforts across the country at large although they do acknowledge daily vaccinations could potentially slightly drop in the short term. >> i want to be clear that we have more than enough pfizer and moderna vaccine supply to continue or even accelerate the current pace of vaccinations and meet the president's goal of 200 million shots by his 100th day in office. reporter: neil, there was the question put forth to jeff zeints who runs the covid coordination efforts here at the white house whether or not the administration would buy more pfizer and buy more moderna vaccines considering that jones and johns vaccine has been taken off-line, it is uncertain when that might come back online, at this point, neil, the white house says they're comfortable with where things

stand, 300 million doses of each of pfizer and moderna vaccines, 600 million total. they say that is enough to vaccinate 300 million people. the for now the suggestion is they like where they're at with the supply. no need to purchase any additional vaccines at this point. neil? neil: got it. in the case of pfizer they committed to maybe increasing production 10% to ramp up a little bit, at their levels would be more than enough to compensate for the j&j loss. maybe that is why the administration said there is no reason to panic here? reporter: jeff zeints saying today that the timeline which they would have all the these doses is moved up couple weeks in advance from the end to from the end of july to the middle of july. they feel comfortable where things stand. neil: got it. blake burman, thank you very much. i was watching the health task fores presser yesterday. lo and behold, my friend hans

nichols, "axios" was there, he was asking a lot of rude and relentless questions but he was great. whatever you make of the j&j situation, it was a good point is it going to add to some who have the vaccine skiddishness, going, no matter how small the figures, six in a universe of 6.8 million doses administered, is it going to prompt the paws? are they worried about that? did you get a satisfactory answer? >> so i will give you the answer, neil, i let you decide if it is satisfactory but their basic argument is that the way the protocols have worked on this, that the fda saw a problem, they announced they had a pause, should he l give everyone confidence in the system. if you get a warning light on a car should you have confidence your entire car is running smoothly or be concerned about

your engine? in the administration view it should give you the confidence in the system and the car. that is the sort of the analogy what i think the white house is trying to portray. the tripwires worked. they found a problem. they hit a pause and this shouldn't increase vaccine hesitancy. now that said, they are concerned about vaccine hesitancy and they're trying to convince more americans to make sure they go ahead and get the vaccine and one of their touchstones on all of this is transparency. so what they keep falling back to we're going to be transparent. that we'll have science on our side. as this question, if you announce a pause, decrease or increase vaccine hesitancy they won't really answer that directly. neil. neil: so looking at this now in the rollout, it has picked up considerable steam. j&j had the advantage in the early running here of being a one-dose vaccine. a lot of people were drawn to

that. if they had their druthers prefer one over pfizer, moderna, or j&j, they picked j&j alone. do we know whether the dynamic has changed, assuming j&j is soon back offering its vaccine to the public? >> from the white house's perspective they're agnostic about that. if j&j gets back online and meets all the rigorous review and standards, they don't like the idea of vaccine shopping. they like all americans to get a vaccine as soon as quickly as possible. raising an interesting question that is -- [inaudible]. that is what is the strategy for convincing americans that j&j is safe if it does get back online, back approved? we have confidence in the fda or will other sort of pro-vaccine arguments that the administration may try to

promote? neil: well-done, my friend. always enjoy listening to you in any venue. hans nichols, the "axios" reporter here. quick update on coinbase, the ticker symbol, coin, c--o-i-n. this is the shop you research anything having to do with digital currency, some ancillary invests attached to it, right now the price when it does debut, the very latest, $375 a share. keep in mind a direct listing here. i know i belabored this point but to make a greater point, existing shareholders are then allowed right away to sell their shares. some might be tempted. remember, this was kind of looking at a 250-dollar price per share yesterday. and before any of this started happening they were toying with something that might be in the 100-dollar range.

so there is great temptation for those early employees and investors, maybe to take some profits. they don't have to sell all their shares. the only way you can get involved then is to buy the shares that they're selling. but remember the old wall street maxim, someone is selling convinced it is as good as it is going to get. someone who is buying is of the opposite notion that they can get even better. that is capitalism. ain't it grand?

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voya doesn't just help me get to retirement... ...they're with me all the way through it. come on, grandpa! later. got grandpa things to do. aw, grandpas are the best! well planned. well invested. well protected. voya. be confident to and through retirement. neil: all right. we've been following not only bitcoin but obviously coinbase, one of the more popular shops if you will, the vehicle through which you can buy or sell, not only bitcoin, but a host of other securities and technologies that relate to these digital currencies. so that is bitcoin right now,

reversing what had been an earlier decline. that is in and out of all-time highs here. but just to give you an example what we're looking at now, with a listing price of around $375 per share level, going into trading today, it was around $250. put that into perspective, that means that the valuation of coinbase, the availability of its shares, to the marketplace now, once individuals have those shares on the market, can in turn sell them on the market if they want, no lock up, waiting period, the valuation of coinbase this morning was around $65 billion. now it is 100 billion plus. in fact inthink it is closer to about 110. i could be off a little bit there. that gives you an idea with a direct listing, once that price is announced and then it's out there, then a lot of those insiders who have seen that gain just intraday, well they can decide this is all about being

liquid, they don't have to do any of the things or search for capital, already a well-known entity, coinbase everybody knows it, as much as everybody knew slack and spotify. so that is an advantage in a direct listing, you have that advantage of being a well-known entity. so now a lot of these people who are seeing the paper gains, they could sell shares. that is the only way average joes, joannes can buy into something like this, they by and large keep it where it is, it will being very hard, only can keep going up. all in the eyes of the beholder. those made profits out of nowhere, are very, very liquid, they might get rid of some of that liquid. that is the opportunity for you there. we're not there yet. my buddy, charlie gasparino following all of this and other developments. a lot of people are looking at the technology and the fact it is raising eyebrows from the

sec, charlie, federal reserve and other, they are looking at acceptance and from so many others and investment houses talking about exchange traded funds to deal with this. it has gotten mainstreamed literally in the last few weeks, but what do you make of it? >> i would say in the last year it has gotten more mainstream. listen, there are a lot of factors at work here. let's just be real clear here, i speak to a lot of people quote-unquote, leaders of the so-called crypto industry, leaders at trade groups and other major investors they all predict some sort of regulatory crackdown. no one knows how far it will go. whether it will be more sort of hoops to jump through but there will be some washington reaction from the biden administration, according to the people that are major investors. and even people, listen, janet yellen has all but said it almost, she hasn't said exactly

what she plans to do. i think that is the 64,000-dollar question, or maybe 63,385-dollar question as the price of bitcoin. but you know, that is kind of where we are. by the way that regulation could knock significant value out of all these prices. there are two issues here, neil. i tell you, i was never a big believer in bitcoin until i started getting my hands around two things. number one, the notion of the blockchain technology. if you believe blockchain has a future which a lot of people do as a seamless way to do transactions, you don't need all the bells and whistles, cut out a lot of middlemen, clearing agents, if you sold the stock directly to blockchain it could process immediately. could skip through the dtcc. i'm giving 300,000 square foot example. that would be cheaper and faster. if you believe in that technology then the other stuff, the price of these currencies

that trade through the various block chains start to make a lot of sense particularly in the concept that if you trade through the blockchain and you are transacting business through the blockchain and you, and the currency of the blockchain, the bitcoin, ethereum, whatever coinbase, is not somehow debased by a federal government that's creating massive amounts of money out of thin air which the federal reserve is doing, then all of this starts to make some sense. i'm not saying i'm totally a believer here. i'm not saying this bubble won't pop. listen if bitcoin went down to 33,000, it would still be above where it started, right? almost zero. i'm just saying that it starts making sense when you factor in the notion of the blockchain and the fact that the federal reserve is debasing the currency and the currency of the blockchain cannot really be debased. apparently bitcoin, there is only a certain amount of

bitcoins you can actually, actual produced. they have to be mined. there is mathematical problems you have to figure out to get more about it coin and there is a limit. by the way that sounds crazy but think of it this way -- neil: 21.99 million bitcoins out there. they're not making more. that is, people forget that. that rise up, especially becoming more mainstream to your earlier point, charlie, tension between established firms and others doing this. there is one etf in canada. there eight others under application process through the sec. that spreads the interest around to your point the government intervention could knock some of -- >> that could. think about why people don't mind the crazy concept of mining bitcoins through solving mathematical problems? at least there is a method to the madness. the federal reserve is literally creating money out of thin air. it prints it. does it through open market

operations. neil: very good point. there is a method here. can i switch fierce, my friend? this is the thing i originally wanted to book you. bernie madoff dead at the age of 82. talk about ponzi schemes, that is not going on here in the cryptocurrency arena. he was able to fool a lot of people for a lot of years and now he is gone. you covered that whole drama. >> i knew bernie before the ponzi scheme as a market-maker at madoff securities. i covered it extensively when it happened during the financial crisis when i was at brand x. when i was here i actually interviewed him several times. i did a bunch of stories for foxbusiness.com and a few other places. the interesting thing about bernie madoff, i never had a crossword to with i am to be honest with you. interesting thing, about neil, speaking with him, contempt for his victims. they will get money back. hey, they were pain in the ass

customers. there was no feeling, there was no remorse. they're telling me i got to go. bear with me a little bit. there was literally no remorse out of his mouth, other than i'm sorry i caused it. he is a fascinating come part mentallization of his evil that i found. neil: on the stand, on the stand he ripped those investors. they should have seen -- >> that is crazy, that was gist of it. the big question how do you live with yourself unless you compartmentalize about himself. he would have killed himself. jeffrey epstein couldn't live with himself obviously. madoff could. neil: losing a son to suicide. >> that was horrible. neil: that happened last 10 years or so. thank you very much. bernie madoff victims, $13 billion recovered of the 17 1/2 billion dollars than you lost. more than you think were made whole on the principle, not on what they thought they had on

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♪. neil: all right. some comments moving the markets concerning the federal reserve chairman jerome powell who says he cannot envision a scenario where he starts raising interest rates before 2022. seemed to dismiss that as inevitable for the time-being. also said he has not met with president biden yet. he has regular meetings with other fed chairs and district presidents, weekly calls to the treasury secretary, monthly meetings with the head of the economic council but not the big cheese, not the president of the united states. so there you go. dowd up 207 points. we'll have more after this.

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♪. neil: after 20 years the longest time u.s. troops have been stationed in one country in an ongoing war, all u.s. troops will be out of afghanistan by 9/11. that is the goal, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. kirk lippold is here, former uss cole commander. what do you think of that, kirk? >> neil, what it signifies really we had three previous

presidents, bush, obama, trump failed to address the root causes. and president biden is choosing to loose the war. at this point the real cause of troubles we had in afghanistan, they don't reside in afghanistan. they reside in pakistan who continues to fun and support the taliban who is designated as a terrorist organization. who continues to kill americans. successive administrations refuse to go to the core of what we need to do to solve the problem there. neil: including joe biden's predecessor. i believe president trump's timetable was by may to be out of there. i understand you don't like the idea we're leaving entirely. why not? >> i think, neil, when you look where afghanistan sits geographically in the world, when you look between china, pakistan, afghanistan, and iraq, it sits right in the middle of what we like to refer to as the arc of instability. being able to have boots on the ground, being invested in that

country, being able to understand what is going on is in our national security interest, we should view it through that lens. i think it is important for us to be able to stay there but by the same token we have to begin to hold pakistan accountable for what they did. they created the taliban against the russians in the late 1970s because of their invasion. when they left the taliban took over the country. they clearly aided and abetted al qaeda, that metastasized to become the international terrorist organization that carried out the attacks on my ship uss cole as well as the 9/11 attacks. we still have not gone to the root cause of all the troubles that are there. pakistan continues to aid and abet terrorism in that part of the world by keeping the taliban alive. it is unfortunate president trump would pull out without solving it. it has been passed on to president biden who he may pull out but i don't believe that is going to help our national security interests. neil: president biden has sent a

stern warning to the taliban, don't think of it, don't try to do anything what do you think they will do? >> they will probably look at him say your interest in national defense is noted. until the united states is actually willing to confront them, go to their bases in the northwest territories of pakistan, start hammering them at their home, being done certain times during the bush and obama administrations we will not be able to do anything that is going to slow or prevent the taliban from eventually taking over afghanistan again and then we don't have any guarranties by either pakistan or the taliban that they won't continue to support terrorist agents conducting operations out of that part of the world. neil: i hope you're wrong, commander, but you've been eerily prescient on all these other issues. we'll have more after this.

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neil: all right, they might call it direct lifting but you directly do not hear much right away. we've got an indication of when it does finally list on the nasdac, that is coinbase the shop of shops for anything digital currency and related at $380 a share, so the valuation of the company of coinbase looking at around 60- $65 billion this morning now more like closer to $110 billion

-plus. i keep stressing i don't want to be redundant about it but it is an important distinction. this is not an initial public offering. this is a direct listing. companies seeking ipo's are generally seeking capital to expand or to get into new markets or to use it as a tool for further expansion efforts. in a direct listing, they are already well-along on that front and they are already doing well. spotify comes to mind, slack comes to mind, they're known entities and known money-makers and already giants and their respective industries as they were. coinbase is kind of the same when it comes to the place you go to to buy or sell or read up on bitcoin, etherium, and all of these other digital investments. this is what could be the interesting part added to the drama. once this is out the gate and we could see what existing holders, or original employees of the

company, as well as early investors, they've made a lot of money just on paper, just today if you think about it, so if you're looking at an investment that looked like it was about $250 a share, a lot less than that, a little more than a few weeks ago, and now, it's flirting with $380 who knows by the time it becomes $400, do you want to take some of that off the table and sell it? that's the only way for folks like you and me to buy into this so we just don't know what will happen when we get that bin g, that moment where all right, it's out there, you could buy these shares, someone has to sell some of those early investors or those employees, oftentimes both, like the young ceo of this enterprise jackie deangelis whose been following all of that in new york, what do you got? reporter: good to see you, neil the young ceo could make $20 billion today and he may want to take some of that off the table as you mentioned so that's one example but as we are waiting for this first trade,

the pricing was at 250, and now we're looking at $380 a share. that is a valuation over $100 billion. now, what i want to point out here is that coinbase is aware of this exchange, where the digital currencies are bought and sold. it does make money. we've talked about so many ipo's this is a direct listing these unicorns that weren't making money. it makes money, on commissions, in the first quarter of 2021, revenue was $1.8 billion according to the company's preliminary results and the profit is expected at 322 million, so this is a company that makes money. the verified user base is up to about 56 million people and that's up 30% from last year. this company's success depends on the popularity of cryptocurrency. if people trade it, they'll do well. if it's a fad and it fades, well then it's not going to do well, right? but the crypto game is really interesting especially now because people are talking about it as a hedge against inflation. the worry is that the fiat currencies like the dollar and

the pound, the central banks are just printing more and more, that devalues the currency. that's when you have inflation but with crypto, take bitcoin for example. there isn't supposed to be any more than 21 million in circulation. when you do that you preserve value and that could be some of what people are attracted to here. take a look at how bitcoin and others are doing today, right now you can see shares of them are trading higher, neil. neil: all right, jackie thank you very very much. again, we've been going on the last hour the bullish of the barisha argument for these investments including coinbase itself ticker symbol coin. it is the means and now the only means by any means but worldwide pretty much the biggest and the shop through which you go through to buy all of this stuff even to research it and very user friendly a lot of people like it for that that they can trade on all these other various investments and vehicles of their 50-75 of them. some say etf's are coming down

the pike that could essentially kind of compete with what coin base is doing here. seven or eight of them have already applied to the securities and exchange commission to do so. that's seen as a threat to coin base. others see it as a help to coin base, because it legitimizes the entire thing in other words the fidelities are getting into it and some of these other big firms, galaxy investors what have you then it must be a sign it's a legitimate and safe investment and we dive in but we're going to go back and forth on that bullish argument, probably not meaningful right now as we wait for that price, but again, the latest listing price is 380 per sharon the nasdac, when we get that we will share that. now, on to washington where, you know, you consider something worth $100 billion, that's what these guys spend in a minute in washington, so i guess we should put it in perspective.

chat pergram on the 2.25 quarter trillion dollars package that republicans and democrats have very different views on, chad? reporter: that's right, neil democrats they're stuck. they may not be able to pass much of their policy agenda that includes gun control and immigration reform, but anything which is fiscal like infrastructure falls under a special budget rules which can avoid a filibuster, so democrats are trying to load up the bill under the broad title of infrastructure. they aim to stuff as many liberal priorities as possible into that plan. this is why democrats face gop opposition. >> minority prevents the senate from even debating some of these common sense proposals. we'll have to try to move forward without them. reporter: democrats hope to satisfy their base with a big spending bill but republicans know the democrats have a math problem. the house just swore in gop representative julia letlow of louisiana and that means democrats can only lose two votes on their side and still

pass a bill without gop help. >> the democrat party are about to show their colors between the far left and what i'll call the traditional democrat members , in both the house and the senate, and so anybody that thinks their taxes going up any time soon, relax. anybody that thinks the bill will pass anytime soon, relax. it's not going to happen. reporter: democrats continue with at least the guise of bipartisanship. members of the bipartisan problem solve evers caucus meet with white house officials on infrastructure today, neil? neil: thank you, my friend, chad pergram. let's go to the former congressional budget office director action president. it seems like john boehner, the former speaker now with a book out seems that it's unlikely this is even going to come to pass but again, the president along party lines did get his covid relief bill through. do you think as things stand now it's tougher to sell

infrastructure? >> i think it is going to be tougher to sell this bill. the previous bill was essentially the heros about from the previous congress that the democrats had worked on for quite sometime. they were familiar with it, they already voted on it was straightforward to get democrats together to vote it across on a party line vote. this is a very different animal. it's "infrastructure" and that means that different things to every member of congress and they want their thing in there, and they want to make sure their constituents get taken care of and there's no real coalescing around a single bill. there's a lot of constituencies. i'm happy with the president's proposal and they want to change the salt cap on taxes or change the way the money gets spent in medicare, and you know, those are differences that democrats have to iron out. that takes time. it takes a lot of leadership and it makes this bill harder than the previous one. neil: yeah, i think we're up to what, a dozen and a half largely democratic congressmen who are no votes on this unless they

change the salt thing. how likely is that? >> that seems unlikely to me. there are a lot of people who think it be a bad move to do something that essentially is a tax break for affluent americans and that's at odds with everything they are saying everywhere else so they really are stuck with a lot of internal conflict and it's a very different moment than what we sell at the $1.9 trillion rescue plan. neil: you know, you crunched these numbers far better than i, doug, but even with the hike in corporate taxes that investment taxes and taxes on the wealthy, it wasn't even close to paying for all of this , so what's to stop the president to say all right if i can get joe manchin on board and reduce the tax hike from 28% and bring it to 25%, fine. i don't have to go around and look for another way to makeup for that dough. where do you see this going?

>> i think that's the most likely scenario. they do have some problems with the moderate democrats on the tax policy. it's not good tax policy. they know that. it runs the risk of losing head quarter companies and getting us out of line with our developed country competitors, and that's a big economic issue, but there's been nothing on the part of the white house just borrowing a lot of money, and so when push comes to shove, they want to do the spending. they're unlikely to compromise on the spending, they are more likely to just say oh, not as much, let's go borrow the money. that's a big issue going forward , because we've came into the pandemic with a big structural deficit in the federal budget. we're going to exit with an even bigger win if they go down this road, and that's just meaning hard work for future congress. neil: yeah, to put it mildly. doug always good seeing you my friend thank you for sorting this out for the time being or at least making sense of it. all right we're following coin base, it's fascinating going

on this is a direct listing and you're probably saying neil relax already. when it's out just tell us when it's out but every time i come back to this its price has risen a little bit, $382 a share now, and the higher that go, keep in mind, this is not an ip o. i stress that to make the point that they're not searching for additional funds and added investors. they have their investors. the direct listing is a way to reward them, make them liquid but those direct investors, including the young ceo, including the original employees , including very daring original investors who were granted this internal stock, they made a lot of money on paper. they made a lot of money on paper today, so the higher that price goes, the more tempting it is for them to unload it. then the conundrum is, all right you're unloading because you think its gotten a little excessive. i want to buy because i don't think it's nearly as excessive. that's the view of the seller,

and that's the respective view of the buyer, both interpret value very very differently. now, in the case of slack and spotify, we saw little internal selling going on. there is no lockup provision here. you can move immediately to sort of cash in and get some money and a lot of early investors, by the way, have a bunch of shares. they don't have to sell them all , so that tug and pullback and forth is what we're watching here. in other words if they feel that all right, i can get rid of this at 380 or 385 or $400 a share, convinced that someone else is going to buy into that and say well this is like a little mini bitcoin i'm sure what the hell i'll buy in and see that go up. they've been richly rewarded doing that with bitcoin, right? it seemed excessive when it had 1,000 and 10,000, and 20,000, 50,000, now around 63,000, so it's always in the eye of the beholder and that's what's going to be fascinating, once it

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act now! neil: all right, we should know soon how long a pause that johnson & johnson was looking at for its covid vaccine. the cdc is taking a look at it right now. they're meeting on that as well as the argument here by dr. fauci among others that this won't take too long. there are six blood clot-related incidents including one death tied to the better than 6.8 million j & j vaccines that have already been shared in the united states. jonathan seri with the latest from atlanta. reporter: hi there, neil. well the cdc is convening its expert panel of vaccine experts. this is an independent panel that gives the cdc, fda and other regulators advice in this case on how to proceed with the johnson & johnson vaccine.

u.s. health officials recommended a temporary pause as they investigate a possible link between j & j's vaccine and a small number of women who developed a rare form of blood clot 6-13 days after receiving the shot. with only six cases reported out of the 6.8 million vaccinations now more than 7 million critics say the feds are being overly cautious and may unncesssarily frighten people away from potentially life saving vaccines but federal health officials say it's the safety culture that should reassure americans. >> jointly, cdc and fda were able to identify these rare events, and act quickly to alert healthcare providers and the public. this demonstrates that the safety systems we have in place are working. >> it should reinforce, in those individuals, how we take safety so seriously. >> federal health officials say there may be a temporary bump in daily vaccination numbers as

people scheduled for johnson & johnson shots have to reschedule their appointments for other vaccines, but they say between the pfizer and moderna vaccines they will have more than enough doses to continue or even accelerate the current pace of vaccinations, neil right now the u.s. is delivering about 3.3 million shots per day, that's up from 3 million last week. back to you. neil: jonathan serrie, thank you very very much so exactly what is the cdc looking for in this study of this j & j drug let's go to peter pitz, the former fda associate commissioner, commissioner thank you for taking the time. what are they looking at? we already know the numbers are extremely low. six individuals who have contracted these clots, one woman died, but 6.8 million have received j & j doses to date. should we be worried? >> i think that the science will lead us to the right answer , what fda and cdc are

looking for isn't correlation. now, we know, six women ages 18- 48 they all got the j & j vaccine. that's correlation but it's not causation, and correlation is not causation, so we've got to figure out what exactly happened , why these rare blood clots took place. was it something that women were taking, were they on birth control for example, or oral contraceptives have been known to clause blood clots is it the platform that the j & j vaccine uses the adenovirus which is the same platform that the astrazeneca vaccine uses and they also had blood clot problems so it is really digging into the data, understanding the epidemiology of these women who have gotten the clots and moving forward perhaps with a revised indication that this should not be used for women say of childbearing years but again we're waiting for the science to let us know what to do and we'll get that answer i think pretty quickly. neil: so when i hear, you mentioned the astrazeneca thing, and that was stalled and

suspended in some countries since blood clot issues of its own, and it still persists and there are a lot of people, especially in europe, who even where it's allowed and available , they won't take it. i guess what i'm asking is does that put a chill on j & j if the cdc and fda and others feel comfortable putting it back out there. >> well let's be honest. it definitely is putting a chill in the spirit of some people. i believe the johnson & johnson vaccine is safe and effective. it's highly efficacious against covid-19 and having getting a vaccination obviously is the goal here. we want to stop people from dying and getting infected with serious manifestations of the virus. i would have done the communications differently, but i think that the fda's role and the cdc's role and hhs secretary's role and vice president harris' role, she's kind of the point person on covid here is to convince the american public that the j & j vaccine, should the government say we're lifting the pause,

it's safe and effective and people should go full guns and getting vaccinated the danger is it became the vaccine of the last said report it's the red line vaccine and that's not acceptable. it's a single dose, it can be stored at higher temperatures, it's the perfect dose to use if we start getting kids vaccinated before school and we have to build the public's trust that it's safe and effective. neil: this issue, notwithstanding i know i'm ignoring the elephant in the room, doctor, but i'm wondering, do you get the sense that we're close to herd immunity here, that the vaccination rates, which have really gone dramatic across the country, that we're past the worst of this? >> i think that we are. i'm optimistic. i think that we are going to reach herd immunity by memorial day, possibly the 4th of july so it's something to celebrate kind of national independence from covid-19 but we've got a ways yet to go because we also have

to count people who have already had covid-19, they are going to help us towards herd immunity too whether they've been vaccinated or not but again the johnson & johnson vaccine is an important tool in our storage temperatures, and april 19 we open vaccines to all adults who need as many products on the market as possible. sure we can makeup the lag right now with the pfizer and the moderna vaccines but the more the better. neil: got it, thank you for your service and the country dealing with issues like these and calm ing us all down the former fda associate commissioner center for medicine in the public interest president and co-founder, thank you, sir. >> thank you. neil: we'll update you on what's going on with bitcoin and coinbase and all of that, as we wait for a final price and lift off if you will for coinbase, the one stop shop for all things digital currency. many are looking at coinbase, depending on its debut, as being the new focus for investors, not

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neil: all right, gentlemen, and gentleladies start your engines coinbase has debuted it came in at $381 as you can see right now , the shares are soaring, close to $400 a share. remember at around $280, of this gave coinbase which is the retail depository for all things digital currency, a valuation of $100 billion. now, this is 61% better than that, so i think you can kind of do the math here. this is dwarfing the valuation that is the coinbase digital exchange, if you will, the shop

to which you buy and sell all of this stuff, a market valuation higher than the nasdac, and the new york stock exchange. the parent of the new york stock exchange and continental exchange, so that's just remarkable in and of itself. now, remember this is direct listing, so the immediate beneficiaries are original employees, original investors, and unlike an initial public offering, where you're locked into it, into early players can't sell right away, early investors here can, and then you decide and the higher this goes, those early investors could say all right, i could take some money off the table and still make a mint here and remember they have to draw to a direct listing, because you don't need the capital for expansion and other related plans, you're well known entities coinbase is much like slightly well-known

entity, spotify or slack i should say was a well known entity as was spotify, so they didn't need that as much as to makerly investors and early employees liquid. they are drawn drowning in liquid by the way it's a good position for them to be in so as the day ensues the next two and a half hours, how many start unloading part of their shares maybe all of their shares very likely, all of them, and then who starts buying and someone buys in at $400, versus someone who is convinced that that's way way way too high, but the past is prologue here, early investors in bitcoin were richly rewarded buying originally in those eye-popping levels here so the fallout hads with francis newton stacey, scott shelledy. francis, your thoughts on this debut pop? >> well i think what you've mentioned is very important, because actually, we're not see ing it just yet, but we could see a lot of volatility as people do take profits and

that's going to maybe dissuade some other buyers so we'll have to see how that works out but this is definitely gaining in the mainstream cryptocurrencies even though jay powell just mentioned in an interview that they are not really supposed to be called cryptocurrency. they are really supposed to be called crypto assets because they aren't there to settle payments so i thought that that interesting distinction was very important, sort of to the regulations that maybe coming down the pike. neil: and scott, the fact is people argue to process payments and tesla wants people to use the $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin it just scooped up a few weeks ago, to buy tesla cars. having said that, where do you see this going? >> well, i mean, right now it feels like irrational exuberance yes there are others out there that are still kind of placating the payment or placating whatever the cryptocurrency and

using it as payment or at least allowing it as use for payment. you can use a lot of other things for payment too so that's really not the sale here. i think that coinbase has done a great job or at least had great timing going to market with these cryptos trading at their highs. that was fantastic, but we're going to have to wait and see how this shakes out. these days, no matter what if it's coinbase or slack or whomever, these days are going to be very volatile and by the way if you have customers, you still have to be very careful about getting people involved with the cryptocurrencies anyway, because they can be terribly volatile and still, we only have like a half of 1% of those people out there that are really still involved with it, so the growth potential is huge but so is the volatility. neil: yeah, and i hear you on that. frances, i look at things as overall price and i know so many investment firms and robin hood and all of these allow you to provide fractional shares and that's what builds up demand

but if you are looking at a $63,000 bitcoin, for one coin, and now you're looking for a share of coinbase, the vehicle in which you buy bitcoin for $ 422 it seems like a steal, so some of the other things that are, you know, that are included in the coinbase market, or ethererum and litecoin, and so many of these others that are dramatically cheaper than bitcoin, we could see a shift here, but the beneficiary of all of this are these digital currencies themselves, right? >> oh, it's true. i think the risk really now is theres no risk in enthusiasm, even if it is a little bit of irrational exuberance. i think the risk really going forward is the regulatory. powell was noting settling payments not just making payment s. for instance gold, he compared it to gold, but in any case, even ray dallio has come out to

say he thinks there's a decent chance that bitcoin could be out lawed so i think the risk exists in regulation and when you think of other currencies that have gained less prevalence and are less liquid and less traded, then you add that sort of liquidity risk and other risks to those other coins so i think bitcoin will remain the leader, and i think some investors and maybe i'm at a disadvantage being a money manager whose licensed and thinks about all of these thing, maybe i'll miss the boat, but i think there's some regulatory risk potentially and i know you love it when i super dork out on your shows but i think the legal precedent, obviously coming off the gold standard but the coin act of 1873 when we went from gold and silver to just gold was because the fed in order to fulfill its dual mandate has to have one yardstick to measure the money supply and so to the expense that these cryptocurrencies start becoming part of the money supply, i think we'll see them go get heavily regulated.

neil: you could be right, you don't have to be a dork to point that out. i appreciate that, but you know, scott, when we went off the gold standard, a lot of people go back to that and say well, you know, that created these problems that created these other hyperkinetic-type activities and investment vehicles like gold and made it more of a volatile investment, you could extend that today to coinbase, and bitcoin. i do wonder, to follow-up on fra nces's point a little bit though, scott, i think that the government at this stage were to out law this , it be maybe prompting a market crash, wouldn't it? the more and more people get into this , the etf's that are lining up like planes at laguardia right now, waiting for clearance with the securities and exchange commission, the ancillary industries that have been born as a result of this , you stop that or out law that you've

got problems far greater than digital assets, don't you? >> yeah, this is going to be a hot potato for a little while and i could not agree with the sentiments echoed earlier or more because i too have licenses. we have to be very careful. think about all of the dangers here, neil. we talk about anti-money laundering. all of the different ways that you can hide capital and that's something that the government is absolutely against and so is our industry, so as long as there's opportunity for bad actors, it's going to be heavily regulated. the government is going to want to tax it and get their piece, and so that's always going to be an issue with me and then at some point in time, maybe not ban them or maybe do ban them but they are definitely the central banks have their own digital currency. that's what the they are all aiming for here, so whose going to then trade bitcoin versus the feds digital currency, or whatever, so the question, this is still way too pioneering still, right? there's too much danger, too much volatility. yeah, i mean, we might miss the

first move but i'd rather pay 150 and see it go to 400, than pay 80 and see it go to 20. >> [laughter] neil: a very good point. you know, like you guys i have a license as well, it's a driver's license, so it allows me to just drive really really fast and i'm wondering whether early investors in this are seizing on the moment, because maybe this all goes back, guys, to those who missed the tesla boom, those who missed the amazon boom , that they want in on this , because it seems like easy money and i'm not faulting them, i mean, obviously individual participation, the fact that it's getting street credit by the street institutions that now have it in their sights to offer exchange traded funds or out right investments in this technology themselves. i'm wondering if that is spreading fast, and justifying all of this. what do you think, frances? >> it's true. it's definitely gaining some sort of unexpected momentum, but

i just think listening to jay powell's comments from just today, i just think that he said that they are really vehicles for speculation and so i just think that that's sort of an early warning sign and i like scott's point. neil: well maybe he doesn't understand it. you know what i'm saying like i'm not here to fault him and i'm not here to be a cheerleader for this whole technology but it does have some apparent traction to it, and i think for someone of jr. only powell, this is just too weird to grasp, too crazy to sort of appreciate, so, he is of the old school opinion here and they might need perfectly justified. i don't understand what the hell it's about but i'm afraid that it's going to disrupt things, and that the federal reserve is not big on disruptor s. >> very true.

>> neil, just to jump in on this but i think frances will probably agree. just leave the office today and ask people what bitcoin is. i mean, i don't think they really grasp the whole thing any way. they need to do a much better sales pitch on what it is and so what are you investing in right now? what are you investing right now , it's fear of missing out, f omo. i'm just guessing the guy behind me in line will pay more for it than what i did, and that's not really investing. >> that's a great point. neil: i wish i had more time, but frances, there are a lot of people who say well, i'm not banking the college kids money on it, but i am just, i'm willing to risk some money. is that how you look at it because there are people who saw the amazon or tesla, maybe even apple, of course all those are different because they had a

clear base of support, revenue, eventually earnings that justified at least the kind of enthusiasm that made those stock s go so higher. for those who think that way, frances i've got money to burn, maybe not a lot but a lot of these are fractional share buyer s and in these days it's quite easier to do what's the harm in taking maybe a fraction of those fractional shares and trying it? what do you tell people? >> yeah, exactly what you've just said, which is use money that you have to burn. use money that you have to lose. i mean, the challenge with being a money manager is you have to be so forward-thinking. i would put all of my clients all of their retirement in tesla last year and then i would have been a total genius but of course i'm not going to do that, because that's too much risk to take on, so just if you want to play the crypto game, totally great. just don't do it with your retirement. do it with money that you have

to lose. neil: see ideal with my college age kids. the worst that can happen is you don't go to college. daddy's rich, so, having said that, i'm kidding here because they might be watching, but what do you make of that strategy, scott? there's a lot we don't know yet a lot of variables you both astootly pointed out that are out there that make it risky and make it a little bit like a rollercoaster and that's putting it mildly. what do you tell them, scott? >> i like what frances said look to your point. tesla is an electric car company i understand that and i can invest in that. amazon used to be a book company and now it's morphed into something but i feel comfortable investing in that the so those types of things even apple or microsoft you know what the companies are and what they do, they've got, you know, but when you ask the average person okay, you've invested in bitcoin what does it do? they won't be able to tell you

so they are just going to hope it's going up in value because it's going up in value, so i mean that's not investing. do you know what? i'd rather go to vegas and put it on red because that's going to give you a better understanding of what you're doing here because it is gambling if you don't know what you're putting the money on, right? it's just you're just hoping that it's going to go up in value because somebody behind you in line is willing to pay more for it than you are, and so yeah, get a grip on what you're investing in and if you do have that excess capital, i would still argue that's maybe not right the right place to put it so you might be able to get more bang for your buckles where and actually understand what you're buying. >> red has odds that you can calculate, at least. [laughter] neil: right. i hear you. >> exactly, frances. neil: and neither of you are dorks, by the way. i am a proud dork, so i don't know why you're having discomfort but i want to thank you both. we'll keep an eye on this right now, coinbase now at just under $400 a share, coming public right out the gate at about $149

less. in the meantime, whether this is a ponzi scheme or not and the back and fourth, the guy who was the biggest of all in that arena, the ponzi scheme, is now dead, bernie madoff gone at age 82. gerri willis has more. gerri: hey, neil that's right. the mastermind of the biggest u.s. ponzi scheme ever in u.s. history, he defrauded investors of $19 billion dead of natural causes at the age of 82. bernie madoff, a manhattan investment advisor promised stellar returns to his a-list clients they included kevin bacon, mets majority owner fred willpon, the charitable foundations of steven spielberg, and all told he defrauded as many as 37,000 people in 136 countries for more than 40 years he faked statements and trade

confirmations leading customers to believe they had more than $65 billion all told in their accounts. now, a court-appointed trustee irving packard managed to recover some $14 billion for clients but that's about it. look the fraud unraveled when markets collapse in december 2008. he pleaded guilty in march 2009 to fraud and money laundering. he had served 10 years of 150 year prison sentence and was being held at a federal medical center in butner, north carolina his attorney said he was being treated for terminal kidney failure, and i just want to say, as i send it back to you, his attorney had asked that he get a compassionate release and be allowed to go home. the court said no. back to you. neil: yeah, i remember that. no, no, you're staying right where you are, gerri thank you very very much as we ponder the life and significance of bernie madoff, it's important to

say how could he have duped all those investors a classic part of a ponzi scheme is impressing upon them that everybody else was with him. i think one of his victims said something to the effect, i joined because all my friends did, and their friends said the same thing. and the man who masterminded it is dead. they said it couldn't be done but you managed to pack a record 1.1 trillion transistors into this chip whoo! yeah! oh, hi i invested in invesco qqq a fund that invests in the innovators of the nasdaq 100 like you you don't have to be circuit design engineer to help push progress forward can i hold the chip? become an agent of innovation with invesco qqq

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back to the other side of the business, straight through. you don't see that in many office spaces for traditional apartments. now the conversion trend is one in d.c. that the d.c. planning office says they're seeing. >> the demand for office space is continuing to change. i would say it has accelerated what we were already beginning to see in terms of you don't need as many, as much space per person and especially as there is more opportunity to telework people will still want to live in vibrant walkable, bikable spaces with open spaces and parks and nature. >> and this conversion is happening in other cities across the country, they did a pretty good job with this one. more cavuto "coast to coast", coming up.

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history. congressman carlos gimenez, florida republican, sits on the house homeland security committee. congressman, i had the guy who was commander of the uss cole, kirk lippold was very critical of this move on the part of president biden. i pointed out to him as well that president trump wanted us out of there even sooner, by next month. what do you make of this? >> i don't think it is ever a good idea when exactly you will pull out or what it is exactly you're going to do. the trump administration had certain parameters, certain benchmarks the taliban had to comply with before we moved out. i think the biden administration has so up timetable and no such parameters to comply with. i don't think it's a good move. telling the enemy what you're going to, when you are going to do it is never a good idea.

neil: looking at the 20 year experience in afghanistan, congressman, who wonder whether this dragging on for 20 years is a good idea. how do you respond to that? >> no, i don't think it is a good idea but i think as the time comes for us to unwind from afghanistan, that our enemies should know that, yeah, we're trying to get out. we want to get out. you about you have to do certain things for us to get out. you have to comply with us for those things to get out, and bring peace to afghanistan. saying we'll pull out no matter what, i think our enemies will wait for to us pull out. then i think you will have chaos. what happened in iraq when obama pulled our troops there was a huge vacuum there. neil: right. >> the creation of isis. i fear the creation of some other entity there that is just going to create chaos and be an enemy of the united states t needs to be a more thoughtful process for us to pull out and our enemies have to comply with

some requirements before we pull out. that is what i'm saying. neil: i hear you. we expect the taliban not to do anything, of course that might be a leap right there. what are you afraid they might do? >> well i don't know what they might do. they're not telling us what they're going to do unlike what we're telling them we're going to do, they're not telling us what they are going to do but i do think there will be a vacuum. i do believe somebody will fill that vacuum. hopefully not somebody who is an enemy of the united states. the creation of isis because a vacuum was made when the obama administration basically left iraq. i fear the same repeat of that in afghanistan. neil: congressman, while i have you here, you're a florida congressman, i talked to a lot of cruise line ceos of late, bemoaning the cdc is aghast getting people get on ships.

some of them threatened to leave the u.s. ports to get on with business, including norwegian president and ceo told me yesterday he is ready to pull the trigger and get out. i want you to respond to this. you're making sure everyone have proof getting vaccinated, testing negative for covid, still you're told you can't set sail from u.s. ports. >> we'll have to leave the country because it is either that or go bankrupt. our company, we raised over seven billion dollars in the last 12 months to stay afloat literally and that is a lot of money. it is a lot of dilution to the shareholders. a lot of debt on our balance sheets and that only goes so far. neil: what do you think, congressman? >> i think what the cdc is doing to the cruise industry is unconscionable. the fact we don't take into consideration we're leading the world in vaccinations. they don't have vaccinations as part of their plan to reopen is

unconscionable. i've been leading the charge to try to get the cdc, hey, give cruise ships a timetable to start operating. they can't get up to running for 60 to 90 days anyway. we're supposed to be fully vaccinated by then. or at least everyone has the ability to be vaccinated by then. if in fact the cruise industry is willing to vaccinate all their crewmembers and most of the passengers will be vaccinated why can't you go back to cruising? asia is cruising. europe is cruising. now we have the threat that our cruise industry -- look, miami is the cruise capital of the world. now our cruise ships will go to the bahamas. people will go to the bahamas to start cruising from there we'll lose millions of dollars in revenue in the state and county because of the decision by the cdc. it is completely arbitrary. doesn't make any sense. the vaccine actually works. let's get on to it. we need to get back to a normal life. the cruise industry is the only industry completely shut down

and continues to be completely shut down. completely unfair to them. the cdc has to change their posture. neil: congressman, thank you very, very much. carlos gimenez the florida congressman on those developments. one last peek at coinbase up better than 125 bucks right now as it soars. we'll see who sells after this. here's charles payne. charles? charles: hey, neil, thank you very much, my friend. good afternoon, everyone, i'm charles payne, breaking right now. by the way this is "making money." the s&p 500 adding to its record as the earnings season is kicking off. mixed reaction from big banks making big bets. this is the challenge moving the share price this earnings season. we'll tell you what to look for the biggest story in the investing world coinbase going public adding more legitimacy into crypto as bitcoin continues to soar into the stratosphere. we have all the angles covered for you this hour i