, just to make sure i didn't miss something. maria: i love this , nancy. >> i know, me too, maria. listen, he should buy his mother a gift and then invest the rest. can you imagine if we started with a million bucks at the age of 20? maria: nice. great advice. yes, great advice. ladies good to be with you this morning thank you, liz peek and nancy tengler, "varney" & company begins right now, ashley webster is in for stu this morning, ashley take it away. ashley: thank you, good morning, maria and good morning, everyone indeed i'm ashley webster in for stuary varney on this monday and let's get right to it. is the media starting to turn on president biden? the associated press is calling him out, and called him for a lack of transparency they say he avoided news conferences during his first year. you think? and a panelists on cnn of all places blasting him for a " policy problem and messaging problem", a scientist meanwhile

in cypress says he's found a new variant that combines delta and omicron. is this a big deal? i'm going to ask dr. marc siegel when he's on the show in just a little bit. congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez has tested positive for covid. this comes after she was seen partying mask less in miami we'll talk about that. it is a big week for the markets , fed chair jerome powell will be testifying tomorrow. inflation concerns are an all-time high and guess what? fourth quarter earnings will also kickoff this week. so much to contemplate for investors. meanwhile as you can see the dow , the s&p, and the nasal moving lower in the pre-market. the nasdaq, again taking it on the chin down 189 points. let's take a look at the treasury yield, as the yield has gone up, the markets have gone down, not just the nasdaq. the 10 year treasury yield now up again, a couple of basis points of 1.79%. now, let's take a look at bitcoin, if we can.

now, at 40,000. by the way this is the longest losing streak for the crypto since 2018 in four years, almost , down another 1,200 bucks tennis star novak jokovich is out of detention winning a victory in australia, he had a victory not on the court but in court let's put it that way. a judge reinstated his visa. he had were under guard in hotel quarantine since thursday, days and days with his legal victory doesn't mean he is free to play in the australian open. we'll have the very latest on that ongoing drama. we also have some sad news to report this morning. bob saget has died at the age of 65. the actor and comedian was found dead in his hotel room on friday afternoon. we will take a look back at his life. it is monday, january 10. "varney" & company about to begin.

♪ wake me up, before you go-go ♪ ashley: a sunny, bright, very brisk morning in new york city. wake me up, that will wake you up, the cold weather let's get right to the market good morning, lauren simonetti. i feel like investors have a lot to guy guest this week. lauren: yeah, it's a big one, especially on two fronts. inflation and the start of fourth quarter earnings season. so, wednesday we get that all- important consumer price index. it's expected to be up around 7% from last year, investors are going to dissect it to predict when the fed will hike interest rates and how much. futures right now are pricing not three, ashley, but four interest rate hikes this year. then on friday we hear from the big banks, earnings reports

from jpmorgan and citi, delta the day before on thursday. you've gotta watch what executives say about higher costs squeezing their profitability and how these higher yields potentially make investors less willing to pay such rich valuations for some of these companies. ashley: exactly. that's the issue, lauren thank you very much. now let's bring in jason katz. jason, good morning to you. lots to think about this week. what are you expecting on the markets? >> there's a full plate indeed, and lauren pointed it out. cpi, pti, fed testimony, and then of course we have earnings starting in earnest on thursday, and i kind of like that, because we're shifting from the macro, which has been omicron, its been inflation, to the micro, and it's all about the micro, because at the end of the day, stocks follow earnings, but look the bond market has and will continue to set the course for this market and i think we're going to get off to a wild start this week.

ashley: what about the fed? you know, goldman is saying as lauren just reported perhaps four hikes this year alone. is it time to start picking up these interest rates? can the markets, the economy, that is, can the economy handle that? because we should desperately try to get back to some sort of normalization, right? >> we should. i mean, look. i'm surprised that the market is surprised that the fed is really what has and what will continue to be the narrative for the market. there are more jobs seeking workers than workers seeking jobs, so duh, the fed has to normalize policy here, and look, it's not just raising rates a few times. goldman sachs thinks as many as four times. it's accelerating the taper. it's not only accelerating the taper. it's quantitative tightening. they're going to let a lot of the bonds they bought over these last few years start to runoff. the silver lining in this , what could be grey cloud, is it's

going to be hard for the fed to surprise to the hawkish side, because i think with goldman and others now calling for as many as four rate hikes, i think the market is getting their arms around the likelihood of a 2% treasury and a 10 year treasury in no time. ashley: but with very quickly, jason, with those rates going up how much of a dent does it put in profits or doesn't it? >> policy normalization doesn't necessarily equal a bear market and it shouldn't dent the profit outlook which remains very much on solid footing. balance sheets are on very solid footing as well, flush with cash we do have a robust job market which is going to support the consumer. corporate earnings this year could surprise to the upside had s with as much as a 12% gain so look, growth stocks are going to face the headwinds here with hawkish policy. time to invest in the tangible. the profitable. not the aspirational, ash. ashley: that's a great place to leave it right there, jason katz , wonderful stuff as

always, jason, thank you, thanks for joining us. >> of course. ashley: this lovely monday morning, thank you. let's take a look at bitcoin we talked about that earlier. sliding below definitely 41,000, perhaps we'll have to see how it goes maybe below 40,000. it's off 1,220 bucks, lauren come back in. what's behind this drop? do we know? lauren: the fed. you know, bitcoin is down 12% since the fed warned it might act more aggressively to combat inflation so a major catalyst for bitcoin is that cpi data on wednesday. look if it shows inflation spiked more than we think, bitcoin can actually bounce, but it's not just bitcoin that's taken this hit this year. if you look at the value of all cryptos worldwide it's $1.9 trillion. that's down from 3 trillion, which was just back in november, so cryptocurrencies are really having a bad december and a bad start to the new year. ashley: they are. there's some fresh money coming.

i know stu "varney" won't jump in but maybe others will. the media honeymoon apparently with president biden seems to be ending. the associated press criticized the president saying biden shied away from news conferences and interviews in year one. he certainly did, did he not? let's bring in matt schlapp. a cnn panelists also criticizing, yes, i said cnn, also criticizing biden over the covid testing. i mean, my question to you, is is he losing some of the support from mainstream media? >> absolutely. i mean if you think about, he's really hoodwinked so many people politically and maybe it's his handlers around him but he achieved the presidency without really mounting a real campaign. he didn't really engage people with real events and real press events and ronald regan, when i was a kid, got a lot of

criticism for being very careful with the media, and ronald regan compared to joe biden, joe biden is like a hermit, a presidential hermit, you really don't see him, and the problem is this , ashley. usually, in poll sicks when you're drowning, and he is, his numbers are like lower than we've ever seen, when you're drowning like this , you change it up. the problem for joe biden is the tools he needs to communicate more and to get out there more, he simply doesn't have anymore, so there's no fixing this problem. ashley: right, it's interesting. they kind of sidestepped the covid testing issue because they tripped up there, the build back better bill, thanks to joe manchin is kind of struggling to get any traction right now. it's stuck in limbo and so i notice nancy pelosi and others have now pivoted and are all about voting rights, and likening it to the january 6 riot at the capitol. that's interesting, but it tells me one thing, that they know the

mid-terms are coming up later this year and they're trying to find an issue, they feel, that will bring them, perhaps, a little more support. >> yeah, let's hit both of these issues, ashley. on the first question of the miss on the testing and the fact that joe biden's number one strength in polling has always been his handling of the virus even as he was running because he had some kind of secret cure for the virus. they spent a $1.9 trillion bill and they didn't buy any tests, and they weren't prepared for anything. that's miss appropriation of our taxpayer money and i think people are mad about it, because look, we can all disagree on whether it should be mask mandates or vaccine mandates, but testing is common sense that everybody wants to have. they weren't prepared for that, and so this is a huge problem for joe biden and yes, they have one thing they can talk about. guess what it is? we're all racist, and we're all trying to keep people of color from voting. i just think america knows that that's a kanard. the republican party was

established to end slavery and to give those former slaves their full civil rights including voting rights. we have to remember our history as republicans. we have to speak up proudly for the fact that donald trump did more to help people of color , their unemployment rates were historically low, they had economic opportunities, he didn't try to bully them and teach them about 62 genders, and he didn't try to destroy women's sports. he was there to protect people who are on that first rung in our society and this is simply not going to work. we know that we're better than what the democrats say that we are as a country. we are tolerant people. ashley: right. we are, indeed. matt schlapp great stuff, thank you very much, matt. appreciate your time on this. >> thank you, ashley. ashley: thank you. let's take a look at the futures before the opening bell in about what, 19 minutes from now. a lot of red on the screen. the dow off a quarter of a percent but the s&p and nasdaq certainly the nasdaq down now more than 200 points in the pre- market. all right, coming up, chicago mayor lori lightfoot is calling

teacher's unions walk-out illegal. roll the tape. >> to be clear, what the chicago teachers union did was an illegal walk-out. it abandoned their post and abandoned kids and their families. ashley: abandoned the kids it is now the fourth straight day of no classes. we'll have a report on the very latest there. meantime, more workers are receiving no jab, no job ultimatum but will this mandate push backfire and also hurt an already-fragile labor market? we'll have stephen moore here on the show next to take that on. ♪ superpowers from a spider bite? i could use some help showing the world how liberty mutual customizes their car insurance. ow! i'm ok! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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ashley: the cdc, look at that, reported more than 300,000 new covid cases yesterday, and lauren? new reports suggest that we still haven't reached the peak, right? lauren: we're close. a few weeks away, so i give you one statistic from the university of washington. they say peak is in the final days of january, with 38 million americans actively infected at that time. it's a big number, but this is more reassuring on the east coast, dr. scott gottlieb thinks we're already peaking, as i speak, so it's bad. it might get a little bit worse but we're almost done, ashley. ashley: sooner the better, all right lauren, thank you. let's bring in stephen moore, our favorite economist. stephen, what do you make of that number and what impact is it having on this economy? >> you talking about the vaccine mandates? ashley: well, yes. you know, the no jab, no job

ultimatum. it's got to have an impact. >> right, right, so i have a piece that just posted on fox business news, and on foxnews .com that shows that in fact, we really slowed down in job growth and the worst thing we could possibly do right now, ashley, be to have more deterrence to people getting back to work and we're finding that there are a lot of workers & companies that refuse to comply with this mandate for one reason or another. that's keeping a lot of workers out of the workforce. ashley: you know, it's interesting that president biden says no president in recent times has had a better first year, addressing the issues that families of this country most care about. what's your opinion of that? >> well, this is something i addressed in that piece on fox news.com, which is that in fact, if you look at the data, the job creation rate in the last seven months of trump, as we were recovering, ashley,

from covid, was actually about twice as high per-month as the job creation we've had under biden so we've actually slowed down in job creation under biden. i mean, look. the job numbers were good under biden but they were even better under trump and i do worry that we're going to see a real slow down in 2022 in job creation i hope i'm wrong about that but look, those december numbers that came outdo not include the effect of the latest virus outbreak. we could actually go negative on jobs in january. again, i hope i'm wrong about that, but look, the worst thing we could do right now is pass another massive government spending and debt bill, and an important story that happened this weekend, ashley, the people should be paying attention to, is that joe manchin apparently has taken off the $1.5 trillion compromise offer that he had put on the table, so that's very

good news if you believe in limited government, you don't want to see a new massive spending package but there's also talk, ashley, in washington about yet another trillion dollar covid relief bill. that be , i believe the fourth, we're talking about five or $6 trillion now, that we've spent on covid, and to make matters worse when they pass that infrastructure bill, remember the infrastructure bill of 1.1 trillion, they "paid for that" by taking money out of the covid relief fund that they didn't think they would need and now they need it. you just can't make this stuff up. ashley: you really can't and stephen, very quickly. let's not forget we've been paying people to stay home with such generous welfare programs. what about the participation rate in this current labor market? >> it's the biggest problem out there right now other than inflation. i see the two big curses on the economy right now, as number one inflation, clearly is really negatively going to affect the economy if it continues and number two is what you just hit.

you get an a in economics today , ashley. the labor force participation rate climbed up a very little bit but it's still at a record low. we should have about four or 5 million workers working today if we hadn't seen that decline in labor force participation and the employers need these people in the workforce. let's get america back to work. ashley: amen. let's put that on the bumper sticker, thank you so much, stephen moore, hitting the nail right on the head, stephen, thank you very much. let's go to california now, where there's been a big reversal. first, they mandated vaccines if you remember for healthcare workers, but now, what are they doing, lauren? lauren: they are asking covid- positive healthcare workers to return to work and directly care for patients. i kid you not. new guidance issued over the weekend because they need the workers so badly in the hospitals, and they're saying between now and the first of february, personnel who are asymptomatic can return to work

without isolating or testing and asked to wear n-95 masks and they would treat patients who also have covid but here's the rub. kaiser permanente s's pendants ed 2,000 unvaccinated workers back in october and they face termination completely this month. they could be used to alleviate these staffing shortages and they are unvaccinated but maybe they don't have covid. ashley: yeah, exactly. but bringing in covid-positive is just, you know, defies logic. anyway, lauren, thank you very much. lauren: how do you contain that in a hospital? ashley: i know. that's california. let's take a look at the futures there you go, dow, s&p, nasal, well i'd say solidly down, certainly the nasdaq, the bell will ring right after this break , don't go away. ♪

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ashley: all right, let's check the futures with the bell ring ing in just a few minutes from now, bringing keith fihz- gerald. keith, good morning to you.

you say this week is all about the fed, right? >> it is, all about the fed. powell speaks and unfortunately, it didn't have to play out this way. this guy has flip-flopped on rates, inflation, stimulus, now we've got the transitory, non- transitory thing, so i expect it to be volatile but it's also going to be a week of second chance, ashley. i think it's important to remember that. ashley: and what do you mean by second chances? >> well, for example, there are a lot of investors who missed some truly great runs because they have been scared on the sidelines so apple, microsoft, for example, tesla, maybe some of the ev choices, some of the financial institutions. if there's volatility buy low, sell high, is how the game is played so overtime if you've got it, that's the perspective you want to look at this week. ashley: and we've seen the nasdaq. you mentioned there's some tech names there but is this the time to dip in and grab some of these tech stocks that maybe, you know , could quickly turn around? >> you know, that's, i think,

makes all kinds of sense right here because don't forget against a bigger backdrop, we're still expecting 27% growth, the fifth or fourth consecutive quarter that we're going to see this kind of growth. companies like apple and microsoft, for example, maybe growing at 40 even 50% a year in some business segments so if you're worried about five, six, seven, eight, 9% inflation, look at a company growing at 35 or 40% that goes a long way to helping you sleep at night. ashley: i hear a lot more these days, keith, about financials, of course because of rising interest rates, but yes, they've had some good runs, but anything in particular? >> no question about it, ashley in fact, i own jpmorgan and that's my choice for this particular space and the only ceo on the planet who really understands in the banking space how money gets made and also active in cryptocurrencies, and they've got a huge portfolio that is

really well-positioned. ashley: what about crypto? we're seeing that slide right now. >> well, i own some. i'm upside down on it right now but this is a longer term gain for me. what concerns me on crypto right now is theres a lot of scared money out there and what i mean by that is there's a lot of divisiveness in the crypto universe and community that needs to be unified so that tells me that a lot of people are selling out and there's potential for manipulation, george soros famously bought some cryptocurrencies last october, maybe he's at work again, i don't know. ashley: what's your profit outlook like, keith? you have fourth quarter earnings seasons get underway this week, so what's your outlook for 2022? >> i mean, we're going to have some good numbers probably throughq 2. i think the fed as usual is going to punt the ball at exactly the wrong time. they, again, overtime they have caused the next three, so we're just working our way through the

first one right now. what the market wants we have three rate hikes or four and what's that rate actually going to look like that sets the tone for the rest of the year but positive is the way i'm going to go into this because that's how you play the game. ashley: that's very good. positive indeed, keith fitz- gerald, lots of information we do appreciate it. >> [opening bell ringing] ashley: here we go we start another trading week in 2022 we're smiling, holding our hands up and here we go. expecting a lower open, see how that pans out. very very early going but the dow off 115 points is what it's saying down 120 thereabouts bouncing around a little more red than green on the screen when we look at the dow 30. jpmorgan at the top, keith was just talking about that stock, the s&p off about seven-tenths of a percent down 42 at 46.44 and take a look at the nasdaq been under fire recently as we've seen those treasury yields move higher, tech takes it on the chin, the nasdaq down

187 points down 1.25%. and of course as we talk about tech let's look at the big names microsoft, apple, alphabet/ facebook, sorry, google , amazon.com, meta/facebook there you go, they're all down in fact meta down 2.25%. let's take a look at the meta platforms down 2.25 as we said. are they following in texas footsteps, texas, tesla's footsteps and moving to texas? or is texas moving to tesla? tell me, lauren. lauren: [laughter] there's a report that facebook has half of what will be the tallest building in austin, when it's complete next year adding hundreds of workers to the already 2,000 that facebook has there so yeah, this is another instance of big tech like tesla, building up in texas , they cite lower taxes, fewer restrictions so i'm making the assumption right now that those workers are going to be physically in the office if meta

rented like 590,000 square feet of office space across 33 floors for them, but that's just me. maybe it won't be stay-at-home. ashley: wow i think texas could probably move to tesla in the future, you never know. okay, tsmc. they are the chipmakers for apple. they saw record sales, right? lauren: yeah, $5.6 billion worth in december alone. huge surge in demand for chips from the big players, apple, but also qualcomm and others and then there's a report some of the players are paying deposits to tsmc to secure future capacity that's the bet this demand for computers and cars continues. ashley: all right, lululemon, we always call them the yoga pants people this stock down big 8% what's going on? lauren: yeah, they are warning that omicron dented their holiday quarter sales.

it wasn't just the fact that they couldn't get all of the product here because of supply chain snags. it's the fact that they actually had to cut back on store hours because they didn't have the staff to show up, to open and close the stores, so that's the problem there, and they say their earnings when they report march 30, are going to come in, ashley, at the low end of guidance. ashley: well that will do it to the stock, and it is. let's take a look at zinga, and take two interactive. apparently take two is buying the gamemaker zinga in a big deal. lauren: $12.7 billion worth, so take two is the parent of the grand theft auto franchise and of course zinga is a mobile game powerhouse so they're coming together, that's why zinga is surging right now and i do want to point out that zinga in the past year the stock is down sharply about 38% so this was well-needed and you have another tie-up in the video game industry. ashley: okay, that is a big deal

look at that stock, zinga 45% gain on that news. let's take a look at nike, moving down 4%, having problems in china? lauren: yeah, they are. demand is the issue so hsbc is cutting them to hold. they cite supply chain issues and like i said, chinese demand. they call it lackluster and they also say the valuation is un supportive at the current share price level that's why nike is down to 151 this morning ashley: very good. lauren thank you for that quick run-through. let's take a look at the winners in the very early going let's begin with the dow. amgen, verizon, all moving higher, jpmorgan chase having a good morning up eight-tenths of a percent, merck the pharma company same story, united health up three-quarters of a percent, the dow, however down 150 points. take a look at the winners on the s&p, wells fargo, bristol-myers squibb, hormel, the spam people i believe, wells

fargo and lockheed martin briefly on that list. let's take a look at the nasdaq winners. we've seen the losers on the up side, gillead sciences, am gen again, comcast, vertex pharma and xl energy these are the stocks doing well on the nasdaq that is struggling overall. the dow itself down 178 points down about half a percent. now, let's take a look at the 10 year yield. as that has risen, of course and look at that, it has now hit 1.8 % up another 3.3 basis points , as that yield goes up you can see the money coming out of equities. gold meanwhile down slightly, down nearly $5 at 17.92. let's take a look at bitcoin we've been talking about this this morning there you have it now below 40,000 at 39, 545 down 2,300 or 5.5% and as for crude oil down $0.25 at 78.65 that's good for about a

third a percent drop on crude oil. natural gas up slightly, up $ 0.19, $4.10 that's about a four and three-quarter percent gain for natural gas and take a look for the average price of a gallon of regular in the united states it is now $3.30. that's up from 2.31 almost a buck from a year ago. let's check california why don't we? we like to keep tabs on the golden state. $4.66 is the average price of gas in california for a gallon of regular. taxes at your work. all right coming up, manhattan's new district attorney is doubling down on his soft-on- crime approach. listen to this. >> it's going to make them safer. it's common sense, i don't understand the pushback. ashley: you don't understand the pushback. all right, well safer that's not what the city's police officers are saying we'll have a look at that story for you, the cdc

director is correcting supreme court justice sonya sotomay or 's false claim that more than 100,000 children are in serious condition with covid. listen to this. >> it's roughly 3,500 in- hospitals now. >> yeah. ashley: all right, she was off a mere 96.5%. a new variant called delta-cron, a combination of kilopounds and delta has been discovered in cypress should we be worried? guess what, dr. marc siegel will be here next to talk about it.

for investors who can navigate this landscape, leveraging gold, a strategic and sustainable asset... the path is gilded with the potential for rich returns. ashley: more than 700 flights already canceled today, and

nearly 600 more flights are facing delays. casey stegal is at the dallas fort worth until airport, the big question any indication this week will be better than the last few weeks? >> well we're certainly hoping, a lot of that depends on the weather and a lot of that also depends on how many additional airline workers and airport staff employees contract the covid-19 virus or have exposures and then have to be taken out of the work cycle but it was yet another long, long travel weekend for thousands across the country. yesterday alone, flightaware.com reporting that there were about 5,000 delays in the united states and more than 1,300 cancellations. numbers that have fluctuated greatly since christmas eve when this first started and here we are, the second week of january, same story, different day. winter weather continues to pummel some areas grounding flights while covid-19 also fuels the problem, at least two

security checkpoints at phoenix sky harbor airport had to be closed over the weekend because of mass call-outs from tsa workers being sick. >> it makes me wonder if i'm ever going to get there, [laughter] i've never seen it this way and i've taken many flights for school, 4-h, ffa, i've never seen it this way. >> the effects far-reaching, sf o or san francisco international airport had roughly 7% of its total flights interrupted. that's in a city with usually really good weather and not too many problems that would keep planes on the ground but that's then due to that covid staffing shortage as well, mixed with the wintry weather and it is really just added to the misery for so many passengers, but ashley, a travel analyst that we talked to last week says that if everyone can just be a little bit patient, it is eventually going to unwind and soon, because traditionally, january and february are very slow

travel months for airlines. ashley: yeah. >> so with the lower passenger numbers, that's going to help certainly but we gotta get this all taken care of in the winter weather first. ashley: yes, patience is the keyword, i don't have a lot of it but there you go, casey thank you very much, appreciate it. now this. researchers, believe it or not, in cypress, have reportedly discovered a new strain of covid they combine the omicron and delta variant, calling it well what else delta-cron. let's bring in dr. marc siegel. doctor, should we be concerned about this latest strain? >> i think this one, good morning, ashley, i think this one is scary. i think it's not going to suddenly take over the world. there's 25 cases in cypress. look, omicron itself is already wildly contagious and for any new variant to come up that would take over or crowd it out , it would have to out- compete it in terms of

transmissibility. this is not likely to do that. if anything the delta components of it would make it more deadly, or more virulent, and that doesn't give it an advantage. how about delta-cron, whatever it is, i don't expect it to take over the playing field here at all. ashley: good, that's good news, now this. the ceo of pfizer says he doesn't know if there's going to be a need for a fourth booster shot. that sounds like good news, right? >> yeah, i'm actually glad to hear that for a different reason i'd like to, you know, think that the ceo of pfizer is giving us honest information. i mean, obviously, it be in his advantage financially to be pumping out boosters but i think we're monitoring the data and we're monitoring the omicron variant and looking to see whether that is something you need. also, if omicron continues and you know i've said i think it's going to start to diminish over the next few weeks, if it continues you would probably

need a more targeted booster. interestingly enough about pfizer which i can not understand, ashley, is that even with paxlovid, this incredible drug, and the vaccine, their stock price is still flat. it's because there's no paxlovid around. we should have that in almost every house in america. then you would see a bump. i think that the focus is on therapeutics now, with pfizer. the vaccine is tried and true, and again, hopefully, we won't need a fourth booster. ashley: yeah, hopefully not. what about this one, supreme court justice sonya sotomayor making a claim about covid infections in children and the cdc director quickly corrected that claim. watch this and i'll get your comments, doc. >> we have over 100,000 children which we've never had before in serious condition and many on ventilators. >> it's roughly 3,500 in

hospitals now. >> yes, there are, and in fact what i will say is while pediatric hospitalizations are rising, there are still about 15 -fold less than hospitalizations of our older age demographics. ashley: it seems, doc, like the supreme court justice was given some pretty bad information. she was off by 96.5%. >> i mean, it's bad enough that kids are getting sick but i think the point that brett brought up there is that most of them are mild cases. mild cases, especially with omicron, and the point is the supreme court is making the huge decision about, you know, this idea of mandates on vaccines and it's basing it on completely false information. that's disturbing and i'm glad it was corrected, but the fact is, it shouldn't be that way in the first place. i don't think that this vaccine mandate is going to holdup under the supreme court but i would like to see the justice justices fall it informed and again it

does affect kids and they are not on ventilators, almost none of them are. ashley: are we approaching the peak, doc, and can we look forward to getting past it reasonably soon? >> i think so. i'll tell you why, because omicron creates or is like a hot fire burning and it's going at such a high rate and probably five to 10 times more cases than we are reporting, ashley. i think that we're going to see a swath of immunity, plus vaccination and if south africa is any prediction i think over the next couple of weeks we're going to see this suddenly drop down, and i think we'll be out of this by next month, at least, it'll be smoldering along. it won't be anywhere near what we're dealing with now. again most cases are mild but not all and we're having an issue with hospitalizations and too few hospital workers there. that's another issue, but no, i think we're going to see it drop down. ashley: excellent. sooner the better. dr. marc siegel as always, thanks so much.

appreciate you. >> thanks for having me. ashley: thank you. well no problem. let's take a look at royal caribbean. lauren, they're pausing some of their services. lauren: yeah, they're canceling four sailings for the serenade, jewel, the symphony and the vision. the latest date for those ships to get back in service is the end of april and doing so because of omicron and taking a lot of caution here. you know, i think the theme with this is any vacation that you plan, particularly accrues ship with all of the hurdles that the cruise companies go through and then you go through, so you can take this trip, gets canceled. it's so depressing isn't it? ashley: i know. lauren: over and over again. ashley: and it's frustrating. over and over again, but it will all come right in the end, i'm convinced of that. all right lauren, thank you. a cnn panelists blasting president biden over covid testing. take a listen. >> it's the worst kind of problem. they have all the money in the world for testing and they

just didn't focus on it, and that was a huge mistake. ashley: well, well, well, is the media turning on the president? going to ask brent bozell on the show he's always very informative and a shortage of gun ammo causing prices to double even triple the rate of inflation, grady trimble will have a report from a gun store in illinois, next. ♪ your shipping manager left to “find themself.” leaving you lost. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates

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for just $30 per line per month when you get four lines or mix and match data options. available now for comcast business internet customers with no line-activation fees or term contract required. see if you can save by switching today. comcast business. powering possibilities. ashley: now, this. gun stores are still dealing with a shortage of ammo, stem ming from the pandemic and of course, those supply chain issues. grady trimble, just outside chicago this morning, and grady, how are the gun store owners handling this shortage? reporter: ash, when they can find ammo, they're buying it and buying a lot of it by the pallete full in many cases but unfortunately, they're paying a lot more for it so that means customers are paying more for it. jeff regner is the owner at key firearms so how much more are you having to charge customers because of these inflated prices >> the prices pre-pandemic are about twice as much currently in

the market. reporter: and what about it's hunting season so big game rounds that you'd need to go hunting that's even more ex possessive and more difficult to find right? >> absolutely it's non-existent and when we do find it we pay a lot of money for it. reporter: you've got a big stash but certain rounds are hard to find? >> anything other than .9- millimeter is challeng ing to get and when we do find it it's very expensive. reporter: if you look at the numbers of background checks during the pandemic in general in 2020 and 2021, the increase in background checks for gun sales has gone up , it's more than 35% pre- pandemic, so a lot more people are buying guns as well. is that contributing to the problem the mismatch between supply and demand? >> yeah, there's a lot more people involved in the industry now with firearms in general so there's going to be more ammunition that they are going to use that wasn't figured into the manufacturing process. reporter: and quickly with omicron, now hitting, what's the future hold? >> well our suppliers are telling us to brace for another shortage because of the break down in supply chains because of this new variant to

prepare for the worst now. reporter: i guess the good news is, ashley, that we have gotten good at preparing for the worst throughout all of this and we're used to shortages at this point, but unfortunately, no relief in the short-term. ashley: no. sadly, you're right, grady. thank you very much, interesting story. as we head to the break, let's check the markets if we can. starting off the new week, extending the losses from last week, the dow off 373 points now , that's down 1%, s&p also down 1.5 and check out the nasdaq down almost 300 points or 2%. big tech names, you see them all there. they are all moving lower, meta by the way, platform s down 3%, the treasury yield on the 10 year, 1.80. that's a big reason why the markets are moving lower. still ahead jason chaffetz, chad wolf, steve forbes, leo terrell, so much more, 10 a.m. hour, next

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♪ e. ashley: good morning, everybody. there is new york city, the empire state building, 28 degrees. by later tonight, early tomorrow, the windchill could be five below zero in new york city. it is january after all. good morning, everyone. it is 10:00 a.m. eastern time. i'm ashley webster in today for stuart varney. let's get straight to your money. as you can see we have another

selloff going. the dow off 400 points. the s&p down 1 1/2%. the nasdaq down 308 points. that is a 2% drop extending losses from last week. bitcoin, also coming back a little bit. it dropped below 40,000. now up to 40,800. still one one thousand bucks but a big story is the 10-year treasury yield. as it rises it hurts stocks, equities, big tech in particular. that is a reason for ba's big selloff. let's look at op-ed from "the wall street journal" editorial board. carving up biden's inflation beef. the white house needs a refresher in the law of supply and demand. let's bring in jason chaffetz. good morning to you. >> good morning. ashley: the president blaming the meatpackers saying they are

greedy corporations taking advantage of high prices to sock away more profits. i don't think that is the real story, do you? >> no. look, this is a very tightly-priced product. the supply chain is very real and they can't just suddenly flip the switch, turn on a whole bunch more cows. it is pretty simple with the math how it works. to suggest they will be greedy, doing this, does not understanding how the supply chain works. does not understand all the elements, buried in transportation, oil and gas prices that has an effect because you have to transport those pork chops. you can't just go to your local, hey, there is the pig. i'm going to go. slaughter it. i get to eat it. it usually transports for a long, long ways. ashley: it does. on top of all that we have a terrible drought in the west which reduced the size of the

heard. many factor at play. i want to move on to this one, jason. speakser pelosi trying to tie january 6th for the need for federal election reform. i get your comments. >> what the republicans are doing across the country is legislative continuation of what they did on january 6th which is to mine the democracy, undermine the integrity of our elections, to undermine the voting power which is the essence of democracy. ashley: ah-ha, what do you make of that, jason? >> what she is advocate something very, very dangerous. she wants a federal takeover of elections. she wants to federally fund candidates how they are moving forward. she is in favor of ballot harvesting so allowing others to be able to collect ballots as you move forward. the ability to audit is gone away.

republicans have said, i think it is a good position, we want to authenticate the vote but nancy pelosi is opposed to that. you would not be allowed to ask for voter identification. this is the same party, the democrats who believe you don't have to be a united states citizen in order to vote. this is the position they have taken in new york. it's a position they have taken in california. who knows what they could possibly do with this, with ultimate federal control of federal elections. these have to happen at the state level. that is the way to do it. done county by county. that is the right way. compare georgia to delaware, you will find that georgia has more voting, early voting, more access to the ballot, yeah they will ask for identification just like you do when you get on on airplane and whole bunch of other things. ashley: we'll leave it right there. couldn't agree more. jason, thanks so much, appreciate your time this morning. >> thank you. ashley: thank you. we'll look at nat-gas. bring lauren back in.

what about democrats fighting to lower heating bills? lauren: 41 democrats wrote a letter to federal regulators, ashley. they have asked them to act to lower heating bills for their constituents. to make sure that the oil and gas companies are not engaging in profiteering or exporting too much gas. then they cite racial justice saying black and hispanic households pay more, leading to homelessness, higher covid infections and higher covid death rates. no mention whatsoever of any of their policies, canceling pipelines, phasing out fossil fuels, elizabeth warren's massachusetts, they get gas in some instances on a tanker that comes from russia. that is why it costs more money, ashley. ashley: how inconvenient the truth can be some time. let's move on. general motors looking to

recognize california's authority to regulate emissions under the clean air act? lauren: in then they win california's state government order for gmevs. gm is investing $35 billion by 2025 as a pivot to electric and autonomous. california plans to ban gas-powered cars by 2035. gm agreeing to california and therefore they can be a part of any purchases the state of lifornia makes. ashley: got it. thank you, lauren, let's check back on the markets and bring in jeff sica. we see the selloff accelerating jeff. duh down 400, nasdaq off 350. what is going on here? >> i think what is happening ashley, investors have been spoon-fed returns. the fed has kept the interest rates low. there has been tons of liquidity. you know, used to be cash is

king. it has become cash is trash. everybody is fully invested. now you have the fed which is really become dazed and confused over whether this inflation is real, what they need to do and tomorrow you're going to have jerome powell give testimony for his confirmation hearing and we're going to hear whether he, what he is going to say. last week it became obvious that that the fed is going to raise interest rates, maybe sooner than people would like and then wednesday, this is the tense week, ashley. wednesday, we have consumer prices. and the last inflation number shows that inflation was at the highest level in 40 years f that number exceeds 7% significantly, i would imagine that the market is going to continue to sell off because the fed has to go to war

against inflation and if the fed goes to war against inflation, it might not be good for the markets in the short term. it will be good for the economy in the long term but not the markets, the markets have become so addicted to low interest rates. the tech stocks, that got destroyed last week. they are the ones who are affected the most because they rely on low borrowing costs. when you see borrowing costs climb those tech companies get hurt. ashley: all right. i want to get to this one, because you say the streaming wars, they're about to get pretty ugly, why? >> i mean i would consider, we always talked about the streaming wars but for what's about to happen, we could have called them the streaming skirmishes because they're going to go to war and the ammunition that they're going to be using is billions and billions of

dollars. they will be spending the eight top streamers will be spending $150 billion this year to create content. now why do they have to do it? they have to do it because they're saying that they, that first of all, they're seeing subscriptions decline significantly and they're saying that they couldn't create the content during the pandemic. so they're behind. so now you're going to have digs digs -- disney, companies like netflix, comcast, all aggregate of others will really start spending money. you will see the earnings come underfire. a lot of these companies can't make money spending that kind of money. it is going to get really ugly and it's a victory or death mentality. so there will be a handful that survive and others that don't. ashley: so these streaming units essentially will start losing honey, they have to do it,

otherwise they're not in the game? >> think about it, ashley. i look at my streaming bill every month. it is like a car payment. ashley: yeah. >> i'm subscribing to all these different streamers and i look at it this way, if there is nothing for me to watch to stream, i'm going to drop them and save the $7 a month or $15 a month. so these streamers are having people that are saying, wait a minute, we're supposed to save money over cable and now we're spending more. so it is going to become competitive. last, this weekend alone, i used five different streamers. i didn't have a particularly active weekend, so i streamed on five different. that shows you, the competition is massive right now. ashley: yeah. it really is. i'm right there with you, jeff. i know exactly what you're talking about. we're out of time. great stuff as always. jeff sica, thank you very much. >> thanks.

ashley: disney is looking to hire social media experts. lauren what's tiktok got to do with this if. lauren: it is about being hip and cool, expanding disney's presence on social media. if you're interested in one of two social media expert jobs in disney you must show a love of theme parks, food, engagement. it's a fun story, disney branching out, getting hip. -- bonuses to get workers to clean the rooms. laying off so many staff last year when covid first hirt them really bad. it is not good news. we give disney credit for trying to bounce back as best they can. ashley: exactly. next one for you, lauren. you're looking at some of the movers. begin with airbnb. lauren: yeah. sticking with travel here, piper sandler coming out and cutting them to neutral. the stock is down 6 1/2%. this is their argument. piper says this year the year of getting back to 2019 prepandemic

travel. meaning a tourist might want to be in a hotel in like the middle of the city instead of renting a house, right? so this would not be good for airbnb. take a look at tesla, they're also down. elon musk is raising the price of full self-driving, warns it will keep going up as fsd gets more sophisticated. we've seen bitcoins and crypto plummet. microstrategy which owns 120,000 bitcoin, mayor shown digital mines crypto. coinbase the exchange are down pretty sharply, as much as 6 1/2% today, ashley. ashley: a pretty ugly board. lauren, thank you very much. congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez testing positive for covid. this after she was seen partying it up in miami without a mask. we have those details for you. we told you about the mass exodus from democrat-run states. well now so many californians

are leaving it is a putting a strain on u-haul trucks. we'll have that story. the border patrol says they have seen more than 1000% increase in fentanyl seized at our southern border last year. that is frightening. former acting dhs secretary chad wolf will be here to take that on next. ♪. you ready to go fishing? i got the bait. i also earn 5% on travel purchased through chase on this rental car. that lake is calling my name! don't you get seasick? we'll find out! come on. and i earn 3% on dining including takeout. so much for catching our dinner. some people are hunters. some are gatherers. i'm a diner. pow! earn big time with chase freedom unlimited with no annual fee. how do you cashback? chase. make more of what's yours.

♪ ashley: the border patrol says they saw a massive 1066% increase in fentanyl seized at the southern border last year. here with me now is former acting dhs secretary chad wolf. secretary, good morning to you. that is a staggering number. how can we get a handle on these drugs crossing our borders?

>> well, i think the first thing we have to do is really crack down on the crisis we see that has been ongoing for the border now for almost 12 months. you can't separate the two. you can't separate what is going on with number of illegal migrants going on the border in the hundreds of thousands in 2021. cartels are making unprecedented amount of money on that smuggling, that human trafficking, putting it back into the illicit business with illegal narcotics at all-time high. the two are certainly linked together. ashley: how can the administration not recognize this? substance abuse in the has spiraled in the pandemic. 100,000 americans died of a drug overdose. this in addition to the massive number of illegal migrants coming into this country, they were simply disappear. why isn't more being done? >> well it's a great question. that 100,000 figure that you

cited should be a certainly, a bellwether for this administration. they have to get serious about it. i don't hear the biden administration really talking about the fentanyl crisis and the opioid crisis that we are currently struggling with. they need to be more aggressive not only with the government of mexico but also china where a lot of these precursors come from. so there needs to be a coordinated effort not only from a foreign policy perspective but law enforcement perspective and border security perspective. you don't see this, don't hear them talking about this prioritizing this as the crisis, as they should be doing today. ashley: yeah. how does that play with the electorate do you think, chad. taking a step back. is this an issue that could really hurt democrats come the midterms? >> oh, absolutely, 100%. because again, a lot of times when we talk about border security and we talk about the negative things that are occurring, usually only occurs in the state of texas and

arizona and new mexico and california but fentanyl and illicit narcotics we're seeing today is in he have community across this country. what we say is, every community now is a border community, when it comes to particularly illegal narcotics and fentanyl crisis. you're seeing communities in ohio, new york, other places being hit dramatically with this. their elected officials and those americans want something done about it and they don't see a strategy, they don't see solutions on from this administration. in the trump administration we talked about fentanyl. the president talked about it almost on a monthly basis and we were dedicated to trying to solve this problem. you don't see the same vigor and the same strategy and same energy out of this administration. ashley: chad, if you were in charge, what's the first thing you would do to try and stop this from occurring? it is very overwhelming. >> well, absolutely it is overwhelming. i think again first you have to

solve the crisis that's going on on the border. meaning you need border patrol agents on the line, back out there doing the national security mission so they can intercept a the-these narcotics. so they show visible presence to the cartels smuggling this across the border each and every day. now they're in border patrol facilities processing large amounts of migrants and not doing the job they were hired to do every day. ashley: really good. it is mind-boggling. chad wolf, thanks so much for sharing your thoughts with us this morning. >> thank you. ashley: now this. thank you. now this, agents are seeing a record number of migrant crossings. bill melugin in la joya, texas. bill, as the white house released the annual i.c.e. report yet? reporter: good morning to you. no they have not. it is the first time in a decade that i.c.e. fiscal year 2021 report has not been released by the end of the calendar year.

dhs source tell us it is being held up by the white house's domestic policy council, because the numbers will speak for themselves. meanwhile activity down here not stopping despite the fact that it is cold and windy. look at video we shot here an hour ago in la joya. a group of illegal immigrant runners were apprehended by the border patrol. these are handcuffed and arrested together and returned title 4sometime later today. so on this trip we see very few family units giving them he -- self up. we were watching from the fox drone as agents went after a group of runners crossed illegally in la joya you in dense brush areas. agents had to fan out and ultimately caught all of the men. put them in a back of a pickup truck, border patrol truck to haul them away. this area has a lot of

"gotaways". since october, 13,000 in this sector alone. saturday in mcallen, texas governor greg abbott was in the rgv was announcing he will seek a term as texas governor. he made the border center point of his campaign. talking about texas sends millions of its own dollars to protect the border, thousands of troopers and national guard and building the border wall. abbott says they shouldn't have to do this. the biden administration should be securing the border themselves. >> we responded with a strongest border securitier effort in the history of the united states of america. we provided $3 billion to secure the border and added 15 laws to crack down on the heinous crime of human trafficking. reporter: meanwhile fox news has spoken with several i.c.e. officials about the fact that

the i.c.e. report has not yet been released. all of them telling us there is just no excuse for it not to be out yet. it is unprecedented not out by the end of the calendar year, with former i.c.e. director tom homan when he was director he had the report in the hands by november. he thinks the white house will show severe drop in deportations and i.c.e. enforcement under the biden administration during the historic border crisis. we'll send it back to you. ashley: we continue to wait for that report. bill, thank you very much. let's move on. lauren, come on in a new u-haul report showing people fleeing california for states like texas and california they're moving so fast u-haul has run out of trucks. >> it's true. isn't it amazing? so gtt, going to texas, that is a common sign in california these days, so much so that, yeah, u-haul says it ran out of

inventory to meet the outbound demand. texas was the number one growth state last year for where people are going. followed by florida, tennessee, south carolina. number 50, dead last, california. number 49 was illinois in case you were curious. ashley: how do the politicians in california spin that one. lauren, thank you very much. now this, the nfl said they still expect los angeles to host the super bowl despite a rise in covid cases there but should the big game be moved to a state with less restrictions? sport agent leigh steinberg will be here to take that on. tennis star novak djokovic wins his court battle to stay in australia. the win doesn't mean he is free to play in the australian open. we will have the very latest details next. ♪.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪

ashley: all right. let's take a look at these markets. the selloff continues, led by that 10-year treasury yield. as you can see the dow down more than 500 points.

the nasdaq down 304, 43 points, it is a broad-based selloff led by tech. the 10-year treasury yield at 1.80%. up another three basis points. that is taking money out of equities. we're seeing the stock market move lower as the yields move higher. let's bring in lauren. lauren, you're looking at some other movers. let's begin with zynga. lauren: i wanted to add a bright spot this, is a rare green arrow you're seeing today on monday m&a news. there is a deal with take-two interactive buying or acquiring zynga. that stock is up 4.4%. the deal $4.7 billion. now you're down in companies. cardinal health, they say supply train issues, inflation will hurt their profits particularly in the medical segments, trimming about $150 million off of profit this is year. so that stock is down. look here at morgan stanley. charlie gasparino is reporting

that their workers will work from home every friday, remote fridays as they kind of reevaluate how and how often workers can get back in the office. are we less productive on friday? i think so. ashley: probably. i have heard of casual friday but just don't come into work friday even better. lau ren, thank you. now this. despite surge in covid cases and strict restrictions california officials and nfl say they expect los angeles to host the super bowl as planned. here with me now is leigh steinberg. good morning to you, do you think the super bowl should stay in california, leigh? >> absolutely. we have a number about of protocols. we're very different comes all season, profootball has done a wonderful job asking people to be tested before they come. there is a whole series of

corporations getting ready to encamp here. there are parties every night. it's a big boost to the economy and it will be safe for people. i throw a super bowl party with 5,000 of my closest friends at sony studios. so we're getting ready here in southern california and the protocals will be just fine and people will be able to mingle and, hopefully by then the spike will have gone down. ashley: exactly right. should be a day of celebration. all right next one for you, leigh. trans upenn swimmer is getting a lot more headlines, lia thomas was defeated twice in the ivy league women's swim meet. yale competitor isaac henick transitioning from female to male took home the gold. my question to you, leigh, is

this becoming a real problem for women's sports? >> i think that is really a scientific, or, medical question that someone with expertise in that area has to figure out because if in point of fact it is an uneven playing field, what we're trying to do in sports is create equity. if you have person a with much greater capacity because of anything, then person b anything other than talent, then it has got to find a way to be balanced. ashley: so you think the integrity of the competition could be compromised a little? >> again, it's a medical question. if you have people that are biologically men competing against people who are biologically women that can be a problem.

ashley: yep. no doubt about it. before i run out of time i want to quickly get back to the nfl, leigh. how is the league doing? we've seen viewership drop off in years past because of politics mixing in, do you think the game, the league itself is in a very good place? >> it is. the crowds were massive this year and we were able to deal with going to games without having to be masked but you did go through a strict protocol. the tv ratings were boffo. and so from both those standpoints, they were able to pull off a very normal season. so from all those perspectives football is booming and the super bowl in los angeles will be a convention of americana. ashley: very good. my titans are looking excellent. leigh, thank you so much. appreciate your time this morning. now this, the latest on this

drama. novak djokovic scoring a big win from an australian judge and there is conflicting reports about the tennis star being arrested again? what is going on, lauren? lauren: yeah. he was also seen on a practice court. but as you say reports that he was rearrested, i can tell you that he was released from detention earlier today. this is what he tweeted about that. i am pleased and grateful the judge overturned my visa cancellation despite all that has happened. i want to try to stay to compete at the australian open. i remain focus the on that. i flew here to play at one of the most important events we have in front of amazing fans. immigration minister can still cancel his visa. that means he wouldn't play. so it's a mess. in a highly-watched case in a country that has one of the most strict covid policies out there. as for the sport, of course he wants to play. the open is january 1th. he is the defending champ. he is going for a record 21

grand slams. will that happen? we'll see. ashley: yeah. i don't know. his 10th possibly australian open. congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez tested positive for covid. wasn't she just spotted maskless in miami? lauren: yeah. she is having a good time at the bars and restaurant while new yorkers were locked down or felt like we were locked down. so her office says she is fully vaccinated and boosted and she is experiencing quote, symptoms and recovering at home. she received her booster shot this fall and encourages everyone to get their booster and follow all cdc guidance. it makes for a good headline when, someone who is pro you know restrictions takes off the mask, goes down to the freedom of florida and gets covid. ashley: we wish her a speedy recovery. maskless in miami that is a good name for a movie, is it not? lauren, thank you very much.

remember when speaker pelosi broke covid protocols in her own state to get her hair done, the infamous video? well the salon owner who exposed pelosi said she lost her business because of leftist politics. we'll check in with her next. ♪. (judith) in this market, you'll find fisher investments is different than other money managers. (other money manager) different how? don't you just ride the wave? (judith) no - we actively manage client portfolios based on our forward-looking views of the market. (other money manager) but you still sell investments that generate high commissions, right? (judith) no, we don't sell commission products. we're a fiduciary, obligated to act in our client's best interest.

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ashley: let's get a look at these markets. as you can see the dow off 530 points. the nasdaq down 369. the big tech selloff hitting all major markets and why? 10-year yield hitting 1.80%. if it closes at that level highest for the 10-year in two years. high bond yields hurting markets. now this, last year speaker

pelosi was exposed for breaking covid restrictions for getting her hair done. the salon owner erica kios. thank you for being with this. i'm sorry to say you lost your business because of this. my question, have you reopened a new hair salon? >> actually, no i have not reopened a new salon. i left san francisco a little bit after closing my hair salon and moved back to the central valley. i'm originally from fresno, california. california, obviously we know our governor is not very small business-friendly. so at the time i am just renting a chair. i wouldn't take the risk right now to you know, putting in a bunch of money into a new hair salon. ashley: why did you lose your business? once this all was exposed, were you boycotted? did the customers just stop coming in? how did that play out? >> to be honest no, my clients did support me. they have known me for 10 years.

so what did get me out of san francisco was, yes, i did, i did get death threats. i got someone threatening to burn my hair salon. to be honest, a lot of people left san francisco because of the way it has been going. ashley: you did exactly the same. you thought about leaving the state. we just did a story earlier, u-haul is running out of strucks taking people from california to places like texas and florida. >> it is 100% true. i wanted to clarify that on my last interview with fox. i actually, what i did, because california has become so small business unfriendly, i am working and living part-time in franklin, tennessee. so i spend 50% there working at a salon. then i spend my other half in the central valley in california. so i'm having to work in two different locations. ashley: that is pretty extreme. franklin, just south of

nashville, a beautiful town. any thoughts of moving there full time? >> i will in about 10 years, hopefully once my children are, old enough. ashley: right. right. i mean, you know, you talk about the death threats but if you had support as well, have other people rallied to your side? >> absolutely. absolutely. i would say to be honest the majority of, a lot of people have been on my side. the support is what has made me go through all of this. this is america. i had the american dream. i worked really hard and opened up a small business. everybody, most of, all women get their hair done. men get their hair done, nails, facials. the beauty industry, i mean, you know, thank god we support each other and i had a lot of support from the american people. >> good luck to you. we wish you the very best. good luck in fresno and franklin, leading a double life, fascinating.

erica kious. appreciate your time. >> thank you. ashley: now this, talking to california, thank you, governor newsom is proposing new emergency funding for california. why, lauren? lauren: $2.7 billion to beef up testing, support the hospitals, fight misinformation, increase vaccination and it is a billion dollars more than last year. in fact it is the largest economic response package in the nation. why? because covid is here to stay as it will switch from pandemic to endemic at some point. i guess you know, california wants to be ready like everybody else, you know. sad but true. ashley: all right. makes sense. all right, lauren, thanks. now this, the u.s. reported its second highest daily total for new covid cases on friday. now, one economist says businesses need to brace themselves as more workers are expected to call out sick. it is already happening. the mayor of chicago is slamming the teachers union after the city can sells classes

for a fourth day in a row. listen to this. >> what the chicago teachers union did was an illegal walkout. they abandoned their posts and abandoned kids and their families. ashley: leo terrell will take that on right after this. ♪ as a dj, i know all about customization. that's why i love liberty mutual. they customize my car insurance, so i only pay for what i need. how about a throwback? ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ your record label is taking off. but so is your sound engineer. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire my name is douglas.

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ashley: all right. let's look at these markets, nasdaq as you can see big tech leading selloff, down 400 points. senior editor charlie brady pointed it out nasdaq is getting close to correction territory, down nine 1/2 from the recent high on november the 19th would have to go down 480 points. we're getting close. the dow off nearly 600 points as the 10-year treasury yield continues to climb, money coming out of equities. now this, chicago public schools cancel classes for a fourth consecutive day as the standoff between the school system and its teachers union drags on.

garrett tenney is there. good morning to you. has there been any progress at all getting schools open this week? reporter: negotiations continue throughout the weekend and we are seeing some signs of progress but apparently not enough for the two sides to be able to strike a deal. this morning the head of the chicago teachers union blamed mayor lori lightfoot for not being willing to compromise enough to reach deal. >> the mayor is saying she will be relentless in prosecuting the case but the mayor is not a prosecutor and i'm not a criminal being prosecuted. our numbers are not people who have done anything wrong. reporter: the one issue mayor lightfoot has been adamant about, refuses to compromise on, there will be no districtwide remote learning, that kids need to be back in the classroom. many parents are growing increasingly frustrated with the union as well. a group of parents is now filed a lawsuit against the chicago

teachers union in an attempt to have the courts force teachers back into the schools. >> at home because there is not even a remote learning option which i would not take but they're not giving the kids anything. we have hundreds of parents that want our children to go back to school. we're ready to stand outside and signs our children saving let us in. reporter: as these negotiations play out it is worth remembering what the union has wanted all along is for teachers to stay out of the classroom until next monday. so even as they're pushing for more safety measures they could ultimately get what they want by allowing negotiations to drag on to the end of the week. ashley: let's hope not. garrett, thank you very much. i want to bring in now leo terrell. you were a teacher. what is your reaction to the standoff. >> i'll tell you there is no standoff, ashley. what you have is democratic politics. the union controls the democratic party. i want to be very clear. i'm not giving lori lightfoot

any credit. she should have filed a lawsuit a week ago, demanding these teachers to get back into the classroom. education is being denied to these kids and they have suffered irreparable harm. this is politics at its worse. lori lightfoot should filed that lawsuit. these kids are being denied education. ashley, tell you right now, being a former school teacher, being a civil rights attorney, this will have emotional, academic, damage effect on these kids forever. ashley: why don't the teachers see that, leo? they're so concerned about their personal safety but the numbers show that the rate of transmission among kids in schools is pretty low. we now have very good vaccines. we are now getting to tackle this virus and yet the teachers are absolutely resolute that they continue to not to come to work? >> that's easy. they leave the free paycheck.

look, you got private schools open. you have got even california schools open. they like the free paycheck. they have don't want to go back to work. and when you have private schools in chicago that are open, you have no medical science justifying their position, you have to realize that teachers union in chicago is selfish. they're selfish. let's not pretend this is about the kid's safety. they are selfish and they enjoy staying at home. ashley: you know, it is funny, we just saw the sound bite in the report from the president of the ctu who made the statement, we are not criminals. i thought about that and i thought, what you're doing to these kids is a crime. >> you are absolutely right. those, that union rep is nothing more than an actor playing a role pretending to care about the kids. ashley, that union, in chicago,

is doing more damage, that will politically and socially harm these kid, deny them education. guess what will happen, ashley? what will the kids turn to if they can't go to school? crime, staying on the streets. they are damaging the economic future of these kids. it is shameful. ashley: that is the word, we'll have to leave it there, shameful pretty much covers it. leo terrell, great stuff, leo, to talk about what is going on in chicago. >> my pleasure. ashley: it is a disgrace. now this, one economists said millions could call out to work with covid. lauren, how much is being predicted? lauren: much of what we saw last week, five million workers, 3% of the workforce. it comes from a senior economist at capital economics. andrew hunter, he calls absenteeism a serious economic threat especially looking at the airlines and the hospitals but it is a temporary one as this month may be the month that the

omicron variant starts to peak. we'll see. but imagine that? if you, it is like the human resources department has become like the company nurse you know, when you think about it, handling all these calls? i don't feel good. don't come in until this time. who else were you in contact with? it is really a mess. ashley: right. it really is. we'll leave it there. thank you, lauren. still ahead in the show, steve forbes, paris den ard and brent bozell. meantime manhattan's new district attorney apparently doesn't understand the pushback he is getting from his soft on crime policies. roll it. >> this going to make us safer. it is intutitive, it is common sense. i don't understand the pushback. ashley: safer? we'll take that on as the third hour of "varney" rolls on. care. it has the power to change the way we see things.

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time to invest in the tangible, the profitable not the aspirational, ash. >> what the market wants to know when powell speaks we have three rate hikes or four and what that rate looks like that sets the tone for the rest of the year. >> it used to be cash is king and its become cash is trash, so everybody is fully invested, the fed, which is really become dazed and confused over whether this inflation is real, what they need to do. ♪ ashley: well a look at fox square in midtown manhattan, not a lot of folks on the streets, they're bundled up it's in the high 20s low 30s but it's january it could be a whole lot worse. it is 11 a.m. on the east coast, on this monday, january 10. good morning, everyone i'm ashley webster in for stuary varney today let's take a look at the markets and boy oh, boy

take a look at this. the dow off 515 points, the s&p off 84, the nasdaq down 369, a broad based sell-off but certainly led by the big tech names, no doubt about that let's look at those firmly in the red today as we've seen and we'll get into why but look at microsoft down 2.25%, alphabet down two and one-third, amazon down three and one-third percent , meta platforms down 4.5 % let's look at the 10 year treasury yield to give us a clue as to why we've seen that yield right around 1.80%. if it closed at that level it be the highest level in two years up three basis points as the yield has gone up money has come out of the equities especially those big growth stocks in the nasdaq, the big tech stocks. all right, now to some breaking news from the new york fed. let's bring back lauren in. lauren what are they saying about inflation? lauren: so the median one year expectation is 6%, so inflation

stays high this year and then if you look at the median over three years, it's at 4%, still pretty high, certainly double their 2% target. how does this impact consumers? well household spending expectations are starting to come down moreso for the lower income households and it's ironic because that's the group of people that are seeing big wage increases but it's just not enough to keep up with the ris ing cost of living, so, the bottom line here is the lower income folks are being hit the hardest right now by higher prices. ashley: exactly right. that's tough, isn't it? things are so expensive it doesn't matter how much of a wage increase you've got lauren thank you very much. a new survey showing nearly half of teachers have considered leaving their jobs. let's bring in jackie deangelis, good morning, jackie. what's going on? why are these teachers so unhappy in their jobs? >> good morning, to you, ashley well this is a problem that started of course before the pandemic and the whole

pandemic situation hasn't made it any better. a new survey actually shows that nearly 50% of teachers are currently considering quitting their jobs and on top of that about 34% of those say they may leave the profession entirely. now, there's a couple of problems here, because, of course education is a huge, huge , it is a huge profession that people choose to get their education for. behind me is the steinhart school at nyu, and people pay tons of money to go to schools like this , columbia has a teachers college, there's professional colleges all across the country but enrollment is down and the problem is, of course that you think about the future of the country, you think about the kids, and it's so important to have high-quality teachers but now the pandemic has made this all worse. listen. >> ten years ago, the program enrollment for traditional ed

programs started to decrease, people are just not valuing the profession anymore. these are folks who put in four years and then some, continue to get training even after their degree, and yet are paid minimal ly, compared to other professions who have four year degrees. reporter: and so that's the issue, right, of course, ash you think about as i said the children, the future, the backbone of america is making sure that our kids are educated and of course with two years of all of this remote learning, all of the fighting, the back and forth, and considering the fact that teachers aren't really paid that much, and you wonder what the future is going to look like and the impact that it's going to have on our kids. ashley: yes, indeed, jackie thank you very much. try and stay warm out there on the cold new york city streets. now, let's bring in paris dennar d. paris, look as we just heard half of teachers have considered leaving their jobs. are you surprised by that? >> you know, i am surprised at

teachers choosing to leave their jobs, because i know that teachers want to teach. i know that teachers want to do the classroom, but at the same time, what we have to understand is that it is unfair and i think unconstitutional for our government to be putting teacher s in these positions to have to choose between the profession that they love, what they want to be in, and getting these vaccines that are forced and discriminatory and unconstitutional vaccine mandates. government shouldn't be putting people in these difficult decisions anti-semitism not just teachers. it's healthcare professionals, it's single mothers, it's a whole lot of people in this echosystem and our economy that are being negatively impacted by the decisions of this biden-harris administration and this is only the tip of the iceberg as we begin this year. ashley: and then we just talked about, paris, chicago and what's going on there and teachers refusing to go back to the

classroom, and it's the kids, bottom line, the kids are suffer ing when they're not in the classroom. >> there is so much evidence that shows that the conditions by which children have been forced to be in, staying at home in front of a monitor is not good for them from a psycho psychological standpoint, an emotional standpoint and development standpoint. children are being left behind in this process. they need to be in school and the administration says follow the data, follow the evidence, follow the science, follow the facts and if you do all of those things you would see that the children should be in-person school full-time. that is good for children, it's also good for parents. ashley: well, you know, i feel like we're getting to the peak of this soon and i think we're going to get back on our feet but the question to you, paris, is is this administration going to recognize the massive , massive spending plans, maybe not the best idea given the state of the economy and what we're facing right now.

>> i don't think this biden- harris administration has any intent on changing course, because they have this world view that is so anti- capitalism, it's anti what the american people want and what the american people need. they don't have an america-first focus on this and so they're going to keep passing these policies that are hurting americans. ashley: well it's interesting, isn't it, because now the democrats are pivoting to voting rights saying that republicans are trying to undermine democracy and voting rights in this country. how would you respond to that? >> i think the response is very clear as someone who has family that comes from the state of georgia as a black american who has people who have literally fought, bled and died for the right to vote, it is, to me, un-american and disgusting to see that democrats across this country are passing laws to this day, that are trying to allow for non-citizens to vote. it's a smack in the face to

democracy, to freedom, and to the constitution, and what i see republicans trying to do is to make sure that the vote that my ancestors fought for , the vote that i take to be so pressure precious is protected and valued and sacred and it allows people when they go to vote that they know with confidence that their vote is going to be protected and count. election integrity is all about protecting and making it better for every american citizen, and harder for people to cheat so if you want to cheat, and you want to break the law, then that's what the democrats are trying to push. that is not what republicans stand for. we stand for making it safe for every american and have every american vote and that includes people that look just like me. ashley: all right, we'll leave it right there, thank you so much for joining us this morning , paris dennard, thank you. let's check the markets now if we can, thank you. let's check the markets big sell-off going on the dow off 470 points, it's really a big

tech sell-off led sell-off if you like, the nasdaq down 348 points, coming back just a little bit. it's one of those days, as we seen the bond yields go up. what a great time to bring in steve forbes. steve, what's going on with this sell-off? how are you reading this? >> i think the markets are finally realizing that interest rates are going up. the federal reserve, as you know , ashley, has promised this spring no more bond buying. well they've been financing over half of the federal debt up to now. whose going to buy those bonds without the fed there buying them? $80 billion a month, and so that's going to put interest rates up which is going to impact mortgage markets and the like so the markets are finally realizing there is some tough economic headwinds coming, the federal reserve has printed a ton of money and to keep that money damned up, we're going to have the kind of inflation that we saw in the 1970s. ashley: exactly, so really, gotta take your said medicine here, time now, a reality check

and you know, could this , this economy should be able to handle these small raises in interest rates, right? >> the economy be able to handle it if the federal reserve just got out of the business of trying to manipulate interest rates, let the lender decide what interest rates should be and the government stop getting in the way of letting the supply chain work its way out of the covid slowdowns, stop waging war against energy, for example, which raises the prices for everyone. government get out of the way. the fed stop printing money, the american economy will recover. truly. ashley: that's it. i'm totally believe you and would love to see it. i want to move on to another topic, steve. these may get your blood boiling manhattan's new district attorney defending his policy to stop prosecuting crimes like prostitution and resisting arrest. listen to this. >> domestic violence is on the rise, and we need to address that and the way to do that

partner with traditional public safety methods is to invest in our communities, racial disparity, rights of our system, i don't understand the pushback. ashley: don't understand the pushback, steve, you're a new york guy. what do you think of brags soft on crime policy. will it work? >> obviously not. anyone whose around a new yorker in the 70s and 80s knows what kind of ugly situation this leads to in terms of quality of life and crime. he's making at least manhattan a sanctuary city for crime and if you resist arrest or block a police officer trying to make an arrest and you aren't prosecuted for it what does that tell to the police in terms of backup when they are trying to fight crime and you can even own a gun now, carry a gun illegally in manhattan under this guy, and as long as you haven't shot somebody, they may take the gun away but you aren't going to go to jail for it. you can do a robbery with a gun but it's going to be considered petty theft if you haven't shot somebody.

this is insanity and he wants no pushback. the pushback is how can something so crazy be allowed to happen and when you know it's going to see happen since the politicians won't do anything about it, you're going to see civil suit, lawsuits, about the lack of this d. a. not enforcing the crimes on the book. he can't determine what's a crime and what isn't, so he's going to get hit with lawsuits, maybe that'll get his attention. ashley: well let's hope, but it's very worrying for the future of the city, no doubt. steve forbes, thanks so much for joining us this morning. we do appreciate it as always. >> thank you. ashley: now this. thank you. covid testing labs are giving priority to people with symptoms to boost turnaround times. we'll have that story, plus, the ceo of a company in arizona thinks the answer to the great resignation is giving 5,000 dollar bonuses for new hires to quit, we'll explain and a cnn panelists blasting the white house, roll tape. >> it's the worst kind of problem. they had l the money in the

world for testing and they just didn't focus on it, and that was a huge mistake. ashley: huge mistake. the tables are turning, apparently on the biden administration. brent bozell takes that on, next ♪ ♪ ♪ wow, we're crunching tons of polygons here! what's going on? where's regina? hi, i'm ladonna. i invest in invesco qqq, a fund that gives me access to the nasdaq-100 innovations, like real time cgi. okay... yeah... oh. don't worry i got it! become an agent of innovation with invesco qqq you're a one-man stitchwork master. but your staffing plan needs to go up a size.

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it's good to be moving on. watch me. move, look, and feel better. ask your rheumatologist about cosentyx. and there you have it. move, look, and feel better. woah. wireless on the most reliable network nationwide. wow. big deal. we get unlimited for just 30 bucks. sweet, but mine has 5g included. relax people. my wireless is crushing it. that's because you all have xfinity mobile with your internet. it's wireless so good, it keeps one-upping itself. take the savings challenge at xfinitymobile.com/mysavings or visit an xfinity store to learn how our switch squad makes it easy to switch and save hundreds. ashley: now this. a cnn panelists, no less, is blasting the white house for the approach to covid testing. roll that tape. >> it's the worst kind of problem. they have a policy problem and a messaging problem. this administration, with all the money in the world, from the

bipartisan deals of 2020 and the unilateral democratic $1.9 trillion bill in march, they had all the money in the world for testing and they just didn't focus on it, and that was a huge mistake. ashley: i wonder if he's going to be invited back, to be on a panel. we'll see but brent bozell joins me now but is the media's honeymoon with president biden over? >> hi, ashley. no, but there are definitely cracks that are developing. look, it's almost unheard of that there is, that there can ever be consensus left and right on anything, but when there is, then, the middle, the party that they're targeting better be careful. take for example, anti-trust legislation. when i hear elizabeth warren and ted cruz both talking about it i know there's something very serious that could happen. when you talk about this testing

, this covid testing , it's hugely important that what you just heard could have been heard on fox news. it's almost never that there can be an agreement on those networks. when it's there, here is something else to consider. talk about an alliance that could be held between tens of millions of white people and the majority of blacks that don't want to be vaccinated. it's an interesting concept there, and i think this is a very very important development. ashley: it's interesting, isn't it? also, brent, the washington post taking on supreme court justice sonya sotomayor. she said more than 100,000 children are in serious condition with covid but the post debunked that claim, giving it four pinnochios. look at that. four of them. what did you make of that? >> well good for the washington post but where is everyone else. you've got a supreme court justice that are reviewing a monumental case that will affect

100 million employees around the country. the supreme court justice put out, it was a lie, ashley. it was a lie, to be off by 5% or 10% but it was 20 times as much what if neil gorsuch has said that well if you know, no child is ever put in the hospital. do you think the media would stop talking about it? they would all be talking about it. this is, to me, it's the silence of everyone else. it's not the good work of the washington post. and good for them though. ashley: yes, exactly. you know, we had a guest on matt schlapp earlier who called joe biden a hermit president. do you think there's some acknowledgment in the mainstream media that this is a president who tries to avoid the camera at all costs and when he does face the cameras, he makes a statement and then high tails it off the stage. >> i'm wondering when a reporter is going to start behaving like a reporter. especially when the washington news, when they're going to start asking questions.

aren't reporters supposed to be doing this? aren't they supposed to be inquisitive? when a man turns his back and he always says somebody told me to leave they should be yelling at him, mr. president, turn around and answer the damn question. the american people deserve answers from this person so yeah , they're seeing it but the fact that no one, virtually, is calling him out on it is very very troubling. it just tells you that they are hook, line and sinker invested in his administration, although they don't like what they're se. ashley: yeah, and those cracks are deaf definitely appearing. great insight as always, we appreciate it. >> happy new year. ashley: let's get back to the markets, yeah, same to you. let's take a look at the markets not very happy new year for the market, the beginning of it at least. the dow off 427 points, nasdaq is coming back a little bit. it was down more than 400 points , now down 284. the s&p also down 1.5. this is a sell-off led by big

tech as we have seen the 10 year treasury yield rise right around 1.80%, so as that goes up those big tech stocks start to hurt. coming back a little bit, but still up 1.792% on the 10 year up 2.5 basis points. that is the dynamic we're seeing , yields go up, stocks go down. also let's take a look at moderna. they're raising their sales guidance for the year. they expect to make $18.5 billion in covid vaccine sales, they say, they also expect another $3.5 billion from additional purchases. that news pushing the stock up 11% where everything else is selling off. now this. sun labs are limiting access to covid testing. come back, lauren what's that about? lauren: well, they can't do it. they don't have the staff or the supplies, so many are giving priority to those who absolutely need a test, so they're showing symptoms, they can isolate, get treatment, here

is one example, university of north carolina, they are only testing the symptomatic and those who need a negative result because they have to go in the hospital for surgery. one in three are testing positive, ashley, then you have the university of washington, they had a temporarily shut one of their sites last week. they just couldn't do it. the upshot here is that because you don't have enough tests, we're spreading covid because people don't know that they have it and when you are getting a test done, because it's taking so long to process, it's often taking two to three days instead of one day, so you're waiting on your results and somehow, the administration is going to get us 500 million tests soon. ashley: yeah, yeah, good luck on that. all right want to get on to this issue. broadway, just extending their mask policy until when? lauren: april 30. so the broadway league is announcing that all 41 theaters are extending that vaccine and mask mandate through april and for children, if you're under 12 , you have to be fully

vaccinated, starting january 29. i know there was a lot of confusion because you think about it, the rules change on the fly. families plan trips to new york city, get that iconic broadway theatre experience, but oops the kids aren't vaccinated, they can't see lion king. ashley: yeah, it goes on and on. can't wait for this whole thing to be over. all right, lauren thank you very much. now this. there are 10 million open jobs in the u.s. right now. that number could balloon even higher, if the supreme court upholds biden's vaccine mandate. edward lawrence will have the very latest on the court's looming decision. taco john's restaurants have increased pay and employee bonuses, but is all of that enough to get people to work? i'm going to ask one of the executives at taco johns and he will join me next. ♪ everybody's got a hungry heart , everybody's got a hungry heart ♪

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flexshares are carefully constructed. to go beyond ordinary etfs. and strengthen client confidence in you. before investing consider the fund's investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses. go to flexshares.com for a prospectus containing this information. read it carefully. ashley: and there you have the statue of liberty in a chilly morning in new york city,

it is january, right around 29 degrees, but not too bad overall. now, let's take a look at the markets. can't say that about the markets , but we can say we're well off the session lows. the dow now down 400 points, the nasdaq coming back a little bit, down 1.5, down 244 points, and the s&p 500, also down 1.25. this after the 10 year treasury yield surged to a two-year high earlier in the session, all of that, of course on expectations of the fed rate hikes, and there you have it right now. almost 1.80 which it hit earlier up 2.8 basis points. money, you know, there you have it. money coming out of equities as the treasury yield rises. all right, quickly, bitcoin, there you have it down 275. it was below 40,000, if i'm not mistaken but now its come back as at 41, 600 so overall, maybe a little bit of a bounce back in

the overall markets but still, well in the red no doubt. all right now this. vaccine mandates are going into effect across the country, edward lawrence is at the white house. good morning, edward. are these mandates expected to pushback the economic recovery? reporter: you know some people are wondering that and what it is doing is it's costing some workers their jobs, some major companies are now firing the un vaccinated, the president has been villifying the un vaccinated in many of his statements out there saying that the unvaccinated, this is a problem. the covid variant that's coming up is because of the un vaccinated here, now we have 10.6 million jobs open in this country. now citigroup already said they will fire all unvaccinated workers on january 31. the mayo clinic already let go of 700 people because of it. google sent out the no jab no job message, so the attorney general's involved in bringing the case against osha mandated vaccines to the supreme court saying this is about freedom of

how freedom of choice, that should not cost someone their job. >> we've been the freeest country, we believe in individual rights, we believe in individual liberties that people can make these decisions. do we really want a country where an unelected bureaucrat can dictate this , what people put in their bodies, where people can go, what they put on their face, because it's not just these two agents at stake, you know, you already see the biden administration signaling climate change being an emergency and you could charge epa and transportation taking draconian measures there. reporter: and this graphic shows the issue. just look at the jobs added back to the economy since june. overall, it's starting to trend down. now, some economists worry that further government mandate on vaccines would further slow job growth in this country, because it could force some smaller companies to instead of taking on the cost of an unvaccinated worker, just fire that worker outright. back to you. ashley: all right, very good,

edward thank you very much. let's bring in now, coo of taco johns, greg miller. greg, good morning to you. just like everybody else, you have staff shortages, you have increased pay, you've added hiring bonuses. is that working? is it bringing more people into work? >> i would say, you know, it's a challenging environment out there right now for sure but definitely, the things that we're doing are helping us to stay above water, and really be an employer of choice in our communities. with that being said, i've been in the industry a very long time , and it's a tougher environment than i ever have seen or imagined would happen. ashley: you are what, in 20 states. where are you facing the biggest problems? is there anywhere in particular? >> it's pretty broad based. we're fortunate, right now, during the pandemic to most of

our footprint is in the midwest, and so we're not dealing with the coasts and some of the things going on there. most of our states are midwest and so from that standpoint, we're fairly lucky. again, the challenges are there. they're real, but maybe not as deep as some of our kind of full u.s. competitors have. ashley: got it. of course we talk a lot about the supply chain problems. i'm sure you're feeling that. are you having to pay a lot more and are you able to prevent those extra costs being passed on to customers? >> yes, so we just got done talking about staffing, on the other hand supply chain is also stronger and deeper opportunities than i have seen in the industry and so that extent, costs are rising at an exponential rate. at the same time, it's difficult to take the kind of price that we need to take to counteract

that with the guest because, you know, they expect us, we're in the qsr sector, they expect us to provide value and so it's a real challenge for us. the reality is, you can't take enough price to makeup for the commodity increases if you do you would scare away customers and that wouldn't help any of us. ashley: exactly right. well you seem to be doing as well as anyone. greg, thank you so much for taco johns thanks for joining us this morning and giving us an update. we do appreciate it. >> you bet, my pleasure, thank you. ashley: thank you. now this. 4.5 million americans quit their jobs in november, and one ceo of an arizona subway company, well he's taking a unique approach to the great resignation. what's he offering, lauren? lauren: he is offering $5,000 for employees to quit. he says this. with today's market, hiring teams have to move quickly to

assess candidates and get them through the process to a competitive offer, so it's impossible to be right 100% of the time. the offer to quit allows the dust to settle from a speedy process and let the new team member throw a red flag if they're feeling anything but excited. so i guess it's a test of how excited you are early on. i don't know, ashley, $5,000 to quit and probably get another job pretty quickly. it's enticing but i guess this is how he knows that people really want to be there. ashley: wonder how much money he's going to pay out. i guess time will tell but you should never say on television according to stu "varney." all right, lauren thank you very much. now this one airline is no longer contact tracing when employees test positive for covid. we'll have that report, plus, a new bus company wants you to feel like you've just boarded a private jet. they even have on board snack service and special seats that cancel out 90% of bumps in the

road. we're going to take you on board the jet, next. ♪

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to healthcare. ♪ ashley: as philadelphia, international airport on a clear , sunny crisp monday morning. so far, by the way, there have been 750 flight cancellations in the u.s. today. 969 flights have been delayed. we're not out of the travel nightmare just yet, and take a look at southwest, if we can. lauren, they are no longer contact tracing their employees, is that right? lauren: yeah, it says it makes no sense. the number of infections are

just too high, and 93% of their staff are fully vaccinated or have been granted an exemption, so that lessens the need to contact trace. 97% of delta staff is fully vaccinated. delta reports earnings on thursday, they are the first of the airlines to do so. you know it just begs the question. if you're fully vaccinated, in many cases boosted, should you be returning to work if you do test positive for covid? and if you do, maybe cancellations aren't as big. ashley: that's the question. yeah, exactly, all right lauren, thank you very much. what a mess. now this. travelers are grappling, as we know, we just told you with mass airline cancellations and now, luxury buses are actually seizing on that. madison alworth is on one of those luxury bus, lucky her. good morning, madison. tell me what is the average price difference between a flight and luxury bus travel? >> hi, ashley, good morning.

so if you are booking for this upcoming weekend, you're going to look at a flight from new york to d.c. maybe around $250 if you're lucky, whereas for the bus it's $200 starting round-trip and the difference between, you know , the flights or a train and the bus, you show up, you get on, and you get going. obviously with airlines you have to go through security and all of that on top of all of this as you mentioned we're dealing with unprecedented cancellations and delays. since christmas eve, over 2,600 flights have been canceled, 2,600. did i say that right? it's a lot and people are dealing with these issues and seeking new opportunities and new travels, enter the jet, which is a luxury bus company currently only operating between new york and d.c. i'm here with the founder, so i just talked about all these delays and cancellations. you guys launched in november as omicron started to really pick-up and we started to deal with these issues but what have

you guys seen with ridership, reservations increasing? >> well we've actually been really lucky our ridership has been good, north of 70% overall ridership for december and i think one of the reasons you're seeing that is because of it's a safer covid environment here. we've got more space, 6 feet per row, cutting-edge filtration and we just announced the vaccine requirement for all passengers and staff, so it's just a much, you know, with maximum 14 passengers, it's much safer way to travel. reporter: even though there are buses between the two cities you guys see yourself as more of a competitor with airlines and trains, obviously you have all these features and attendants like nikki here, thank you so much, so coffee, drinks on board , why then is this a competitor, you know, to an airline or train, versus to a megabus or a bus line? >> i think it's just a more comfortable easier way to travel , like you said there's no lines, reserve seats walk right on board, six feet of space per row basically replicated a private jet experience but much

more affordable because we're a bus. reporter: we talked about that affordability. thank you so much for having us. we're enjoying this ride, it's very smooth, i think you could tell the seats actually move with all of the bumps ashley so ivoried en buses in the past it's not easy to do work if bouncing all around but the entire seat actually moves with it, so you really have a smooth ride. pretty good. ashley: pretty good indeed, madison plus you're being served drinks. i love it. i think that looks very appealing, so enjoy the rest of the ride. that looks terrific. madison thank you so much. not looking so terrific, the dow 30. lots of red, but we are, well no , we're down 487 points out of the dow 30, we have intel , merck, and coca cola on the upside, the rest are selling off, being led by big tech which is selling off today. you know her from shows like sab rina the teenage witch and now, melissa joan hart has her own podcast and she'll join

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beloved tv dad, bob saget has died. come in, lauren, do we know the cause of death yet? lauren: no, detectives say no foul play or drug use was found in his orlando hotel room where he was found unresponsive yesterday, for almost 10 years, saget played america's dad, danny tanner on the show i grew up with, right? full house, here you go. >> okay, i have the supplies, and i also put together this construction outfit, how do i look? >> [laughter] >> like one of the village people. lauren: [laughter] he played the cheesy dad that everybody loved but he showed another side recently on a comedy tour that did take him to orlando and sadly, ashley, bob s aget, the great american comedian, loved by all, dead at 65. ashley: way too young, all right , lauren, thank you. lauren: i know. ashley: i want to bring in actress melissa joan hart.

we'll talk about your new podcast but i wanted to get your thoughts on bob saget's death. did you know him? >> i had met him a few times, i found him to be very sweet, very funny, oddly enough, like the funny thing that i took away from it was he was always a lot raunchier than people knew and he was always his comedy and i think we might have done like a hollywood squares or something like that together, and i can't remember where it was but i remember going that guy is not like, you know, he's not for disney channel, he's funny, and it seemed like a great guy. i have a lot of friends very close to him that worked on full house, fuller house, friends of candice and jodie, their dad. last year, i lost markey post and she played my mom that was devastating to me i can't imagine the girls and what they are going through with a man

they worked with for so long in much close capacity, it's like losing a family member like that ashley: it really is. i want to get on to this , if we can. you just launched a new pop culture podcast, what women bing e. here's a preview from episode one and i'll get your thoughts. >> the homework was to watch the first episode. >> we all had to watch. >> whoever explains it all, because like a crazy person, -- >> i have been busy, amanda. i have been very busy. ashley: so you really hadn't, melissa, watched your old shows. [laughter] >> all these years i've never watched tv before so with the pandemic and whatnot, i've been able to, i watched a lot of children's television with my kids but i wasn't able to watch anything i wanted to so with my friends, being like long distance and whatnot, texting each other i needed a new show to watch or a book to read or

a podcast to listen to on this long drive and it was like we were going to start a spreadsheet, when instead i started an instagram page and it was like this should be a podcast when people come on and talk about what they are into so we're always wanting to know patricia heaton is a guest of mine and we all love her from " everybody loves raymond" but what is she into? what does she love, and what advice can she give us? i had annie pots and jason alexander tell me i should really watch "the greatest and it's my favorite all-time show ever so i'm so glad they told me that, recommendations from people can be a lot of fun. ashley: yeah, you know, you're absolutely right. everybody, these days, wants to know the next great show, they're missing on their stream ing but let me move on to this issue, melissa. we know you're the mom of three boys. what was it like home schooling during the pandemic and do you want to see schools close again

for covid? you had breakthrough covid this summer. i know that, but what's your thoughts on getting the kids back in the classroom? >> i think it's important to put them back in the classroom but i'm also a strong supporter of the mass, i do believe they work and when we took them away that's how our family good sick, it was too soon with people traveling and the holidays after summer maybe just a few weeks to make sure everybody is in a bubble that everybody is good and then remove the masks and go back to learning. i was not a fan of virtual learning. i understand the importance of it. it's way too difficult and not meant to be a teacher, it was not a profession i was meant to do, trying to get three kids in three different grades to sit down and do their work is impossible, so i respect those teachers and what they do and i also know they don't want to put their lives at risk so i understand all the elements of it but i do think that let's go back-to-school and wear the mask s when we have to. ashley: yup, yeah, because i

mean, remote learning will never take the place of in-person. that's for sure. i also want to ask you, melissa, covid has done so much, its shutdown television production and you're an actress. what's it been like for you and are there any signs of production coming back? >> yeah, production came back pretty strong, i was the first director to direct a director's guild production last year, and i did for mario lopez and life time, and we were setting the protocol and it was a little tricky having to wear the masks, and wear k n-95 masks, constant testing sometimes every day, depends on where you are, some people have vaccines, you have to wear a tracker that beeps if you get too close to people, they have people to keep you six feet apart, certain sets you have to wear eye wear, don't go near the cast because they don't have their masks on so you don't get it in your eyes, it's a lot,

but fully adapted and we've been able to put up good content for people. i just directed i-carlie. ashley: melissa we'll have to leave it there but best of luck to you. thanks for taking the time to talk to us we really appreciate it. thank you so much. i want to quickly get to the trivia question. which state is the most densely populated? i have no idea. it's not montana, i know that. the answer is next. at fidelity, your dedicated advisor will help you create a comprehensive wealth plan for your full financial picture. with the right balance of risk and reward. so you can enjoy more of...this. this is the planning effect. so you can enjoy more of...this. my daughter has type 2 diabetes and lately i've seen this change in her. once-weekly trulicity is proven to help lower a1c. it lowers blood sugar from the first dose. and you could lose up to ten pounds. trulicity is for type 2 diabetes. it isn't for people with type 1 diabetes. it's not approved for use in children. don't take trulicity if you're allergic to it, you or your family have medullary thyroid cancer,

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♪. ashley: earlier we asked, which state is the most densely populated? take a guess? i will give you the answer? new jersey. the population per square mile is 1208. a lot of folks in new jersey. the markets selling off. not a great way to start the week. neil cavuto, i done everything i can. take it away. neil: all right. i appreciate that, my friend. enjoy the rest of your day. ashley: sure. neil: we're following these very same developments you've so beautifully monitoring, ashley, that is what is going on with technology here because what we saw play out in the first week is continuing to play out today. we're off our worst levels but again in case you're looking at the nasdaq right now you know it is down close to 9%, 10% would deem a correction right now. 20% of course is a bear market. so we're watching that one closely, you know, when you get into the internals of this