putting our own lines on the line. >> on law-enforcement appreciation day, thank you to all of the firemen and fire women and firefighters and all law enforcement from doing the right thing. >> and they deserve total commitment and support. "varney and company" begins right now. stuart: good morning, everyone. there are big developments in both. put investors mind at rest after the big selloff of "the opening bell". the dow is down 24 points, the

nasdaq down 18, early gains have been erased. it's nothing like the selloff of yesteryear. that upset the nasdaq. we were up one.7%. it dropped before 40 grand before recovering, bitcoin polkadotted at 41,$600. now politics. the president goes to georgia to campaign for the reform, he wants same day voting with mail -- mail in id, and ballot accepted well after election day. to get this done he needs to change the fullest rule which senators manchin and kristen sinema won't accept. civil rights activist like stacy abrams will not be at the georgia speech. build back better and voter reform appear to be on shaky ground. on capitol hill fed chair jay

powell speaks on inflation. this is important for the markets. what he said about rate hikes, a big impact on your 401(k). hotheads in québec have to get the jab. the health minister says proof of vaccination will be required to go into a state run cannabis dispensary, canada, australia, parts of europe declaring war on the unvaccinated. i am glad we live in america. did you stay a plate to see this? georgia beats bama 33-18, bulldogs win for the first time in decades. georgia is celebrating today but i wonder if that distracts from the president's speech in atlanta. it is going to be a big day. tuesday, january 11th, 2022, "varney and company" is about to begin.

♪♪ do what you want to do ♪♪ stuart: ceo of jpmorgan, the most powerful banker in america, jamie dimon, spoke with maria bartiromo earlier this morning. what he says counts in the financial world and he was positive about the economy. >> he was. best economic growth in decades adding the economy can handle four if not more interest rate hikes this year. >> a strong economy. the consumer has a lot of money, jobs plenty, wages going up. this is pretty strong. this is the strongest economy you've seen in 2021. in 2022. lauren: he knows because this is what half of american households, the bet is the economy could handle hikes but can the market?

jpmorgan analysts say yes they can, higher yields should not disrupt equities but rather support this rotation to value from growth. stuart: i want to bring in david nicholas, market watcher of tuesday morning. jamie dimon says the markets can handle higher yields. do you think stocks can whether three or four rate hikes? >> not all stocks are created equal. something lauren said is right, rising is disruptive for stocks but with support their call from the rotation of value. not the rising rates are great for all stocks but if rates rise which i think they will we will see investors get out of growth stock, over to value. that is what the big take away is and if you are an investor holding the bag you don't want to hold back on these names but have gotten so detached from reality. talk about it last week, we thought rates were going to

175. rates are going to go to 2%. when that happens i think is going to be 2022 for the year, free cash flows, companies that are creating a profit are going to be prioritized. you want to be owning those names this year. stuart: jpmorgan says to buy the dip. have you been buying the dip? doesn't sound like you have. >> facebook, amazon, microsoft absorbed the rising rates, should buy those dips in those names, so detached from reality, no. we have three themes this year, energy, financial and reasonable tech, those are areas you want to buy the dip and very profitable. stuart: not necessary to buy big tech on the dip. you want to rotate out of big

tech. i'm trying to get to grips with this. not to buy the dip big tech but rotate out of big tech. is that right? >> exactly right. if i can give you one of those sectors, energy, omicron hopefully the worst is behind us, great for all of us as americans but if that is the case can you imagine what that will do for travel this year if international travel comes back? of corporate travel comes back? i think energy crisis -- prices, it $80 a barrel for the energy companies, straight profits. companies like exxon mobil, atf, those are the names, confidence by names, energy is a great sector. reasonable trading at 18 times earnings, that's the tech name i think you can get at a reasonable price. stuart: talk about energy for a second. a cold snap in the northeast will last for some time. i've got stuck in a storm on sunday so i presume a cold winter is good for energy stocks which we are rotating into. >> crazy dichotomy happening, clean energy like electric and solar coming on board but what

about the old dog energy. looking a report on energy by 2050, clean energy sources will only support 50% of the world's energy needs. oil is not going away. we've got another 25 or 30 years where oil will be a big part of our daily lives. i think we can confidently be buying these energy names and know they are providing profits for years to come. stuart: oil just went to $80 a barrel as you were speaking. got you, thanks for joining us, see you soon. next case. federal reserve vice chair is going to be stepping down from his term of office early. did he profit from nonpublic information about covid? take us through the story? >> february 20 fourth 2020, three funds. february 27th, he repurchased them and the next day february 2, '08, the federal reserve to calm the market by

promising a rate cut. that timing was problematic. the reason he gave for that transaction, rebalancing from bonds to stock but he really went from stock back to stock. he's going to step down on friday instead of january 31st. you have senator elizabeth warren wanting an fcc investigation into the federal reserve's trading but what about congress's? do you differentiate the two? stuart: people in congress are allowed to invest in companies which they regulate. a basis of information which is nonpublic. there is a move to stop that. we get into a discussion later on this one. democrats are looking to pass sweeping voting reform. senators manchin and kristen sinema are in the way. micah could be joins us now.

is it possible senators manchin and kristen sinema could sink build back better and voting reform? >> i sure hope so because if they don't the country is in trouble. first, they are both responding to their constituents which is exactly what they were elected to do. they are getting in trouble from chuck schumer over it but this voting bill is a disaster. it really is a way to help make it easier to cheat in their votes. that is not a reform. that is a d form. the idea of getting rid of the filibuster, if the democrats pursue this, if they succeed at doing it, they will rule the day they have done it. republicans will have the senate come next year. i hope they have the guts and i mean this with all my heart, to

say okay, and god help us all. >> stacy abrams and other civil rights activists, in -- vice president harris, they say scheduling conflicts. we want to break the filibuster, the party is split, a to me. >> so pick that the mistake to go to georgia because nobody is thinking about president biden or voting. they are thinking about the dogs who beat alabama, championship and that is the only thing they are talking about in georgia, you sort of messed up in your own pen here. governor abrams doesn't want anything less than total complete capitulation, to a

voting system, that says you don't have to show id, you don't have to register today. who are you? change the election. that is insane. your papers please, to prove who you are. that is not right. >> you have to show id, and go through magnetometer and a lot of other things. i hope the american people will recognize it, i hope the republicans would be very specific.

stuart: thank you very much for being here, always appreciate it. back to those futures, minor losses. not like yesterday morning where there was across-the-board big-time selloff. we feel the red ink this morning but not that much. remember when candidate joe biden pledged to shut down covid. watch this. >> president biden: i'm not going to shut down the economy. i'm going to shutdown the virus. i will shut down the virus, not the economy. stuart: that clip is not aged well. omicron still raging and our question is are we near the peak? covid hospitalizations hit a new record. i patients coming in for the virus or just with it? a crucial difference. i will ask john hopkins, professor doctor marty maccarry after this. ♪♪

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>> sunny and 90 degrees. some may be eligible for a fourth covid shot. this is for people who are immunocompromised, >> the mrna vaccines.

and people are moderately, moderately severe compromise, consider primary doses of the fourth shot, the booster would be delivered after the third dose. the 6 month interval people used to have to wait for their boosters. covid hospitalizations rival the record set in january of last year. people for unrelated conditions for people who test positive in the hospital even though it is a substantial number of these infections may be mild or asymptomatic. the strain on hospital resources, omicron is so infectious, and more medical

staff are testing positive, >> the surge in cases in hospitalization, not a very issue as we saw during the first wave of the pandemic and the winter surge last year but a staffing issue and that will get more acute as the epidemic roles and the midwest where there is less hospital capacity overall. >> reporter: because current vaccines are not a perfect match for the omicron variant they are not able to prevent a lot of these breakthrough infections but they are keeping people out of the hospital. if you look patients making up the surge, the upward curve in hospitalizations we are seeing in the us, by and large this is among the unvaccinated. stuart: got it, thank you very much. covid hospitalizations hit a new record high, doctor marty macarry is with us. there's a distinction between those in hospital because of covid and those in hospital

with covid. what is the breakdown between the two sides, just in the hospital with covid there is a difference, a huge difference, it undermines public confidence in the numbers. >> that is right. it is 50/50. we have 125,000 people in hospital right now in the united states with a causative covid test and have that is 65,000. i can tell you also people to come to the hospital and we have no idea why they are sick. this is pre-covid. we might have 5% or 10% of the population in the hospital, they don't feel well. some of those are being described as covid when we don't know. stuart: we just learned that yesterday, monday, 1,480,000 new cases were reported monday. that's the most new cases i have seen. does it imply we are close to the peak? >> doesn't imply it is everywhere.

some that might've been weekend reporting that spilled over to monday but we are only capturing one in three to one in six cases, that means half of one% of the us population on a daily basis is getting omicron. a bad cold season, probably have of everybody you know will come down with this. stuart: doesn't that mean it is running through our society, and will run through pretty quickly and we will be okay? it seems that way to me. >> it does suggest we need to abandon the idea we can contain this by testing and isolating those who test positive. the virus is ubiquitous and sweeping across the country, we've got to think of the repercussions of containing individuals with a false notion that we were controlling this by testing and isolating them. stuart: you don't want to see vaccine passports?

>> i don't think it matters at this point. doesn't matter if you've been vaccinated for covid or mm are or anthrax. you will get omicron and there is some degree of cross community with omicron so it is good to have immunity natural are vaccinated but no, the idea that somehow the unvaccinated are the ones to blame with us but that has been disproven. stuart: thank you very much, appreciate it, see you again soon. we know someone tried to get their hands on at home test kits, nearly impossible. but lauren, if you get them, will insurance pay? lauren: starting on saturday in stores will be required to cover eight at home test per month for each person on their plan. for a family of four, that is 32 tests per month. this idea of forever testing is here, that is how we live with

covid but there are criticism of this plan. it is not retroactive so you can submit claims for reimbursement starting saturday for a test you but to cover your christmas dinner so everybody could come to your house and others are saying other countries subsidize the tests altogether for at home testing so why aren't we doing that here in the us. what could happen in the end, this will become expensive for insurance companies, they jack up premium prices, something to watch down the road. stuart: it is, thanks, back to the futures market before "the opening bell". we are the downside across the board but that's no major league selloff. "the opening bell" is next.

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stuart: bitcoin coming in at 41,$500, it dropped briefly below 40,$000 yesterday and bounced back below 39,000, lowest level since september. look who has come back to us. a long time crypto investor

joining us this morning. you have made money on bitcoin but now you say you are buying ethereum another you basis. why are you doing that? >> thank you for having me. averaging ethereum for quite a while now and that is because i think ethereum will make a big mark on the meta-verse and i see a lot of smaller coins being built off of the ethereum platform like central land and sandbox which allow people to rent and buy plots of land in the meta-verse. stuart: how have you done in cryptos since you started? you have been doing this for several years as i understand? are you up or down over that period of years? >> i am up over the years i have invested in crypto. stuart: you can keep that private but if you want to tell me how much you invested i would be delighted to hear? >> i have done a lot better

than the stock market. i will say that. stuart: a lot of our viewers have done very very well in stocks, 20, 25%, did you beat that better than 25%? >> yes. i beat that. >> do you ever invest in stocks? >> yes. i invest in nvidia, facebook, apple, a lot of big stocks and funds like bdt and? q. stuart: do you do this in your spare time or are you fully employed in investing? >> i do it in my spare time. i have a job as a marketing manager. i also am a writer on the side as well and after all of that, and reading morningstar, wall street journal, learning what is going on in the market, something that i find going for me. stuart: forgive me for asking

but do you make as much in investing as you make on your 9-to-5 job? >> one day it will as well as some point. stuart: come and see us again soon. here we go. january 11th, trading has begun. a modest upside move. even split on the dow 30, winners and losers, pretty even split. that is dead flat. down 0.02%. the nasdaq sold off and came back minor league selloff by 30 points.

big tech mixed picture, amazon, apple up, down. and record month for china sales. >> car sales jumped by more than a third, that is impressive, slightly down, better than the chinese market. and the domestic market. and shipped from shanghai in october, and these november december to the china numbers,

blowing away production figures last year. in 2022. stuart: can you say tesla can so many card can build? >> yes. you heard elon musk say this over and over, supply is the issue, not demand. everyone is waiting for their tesla cars but anecdotally, people when i ask how would you wait for your total of those numbers are coming down. instead of 6 months it is two. stuart: that is very good news. what is this about apple going to broadcast major league baseball games? >> this could be big turning point. deep pockets. it is advanced talks with the mlb to broadcast games the next season. $11 billion a year to stream thursday night's nfl game.

the apple mlb deal won't be anywhere near that price but still, when you have apple, $200 billion, cash, the balance sheet, other deep-pocketed tech giants, amazon, netflix, a lot of that money into getting people to pay up for streaming services. that is a big deal. stuart: i will never get used to a company with $200 billion in cash. i ever get used to that, don't care how long i hear about it. tell me about ribion. >> burning money i think. stuart: what is some executive leading? >> it is a big deal and a sign of the executive shakeup when you have the chief operating officer leaving the electric truckmaker six months after its ipo. have you looked at the stock lately? we are below the $100 mark and selling off along with high

moment of it high-growth names as you see the 10 year treasury yield pickup 30 basis points. of you seen that explosives move before in the 10 year yield? stuart: know. we have seen it but not recently and that kind of move in the 10 year treasury yield is a big deal. doesn't sound like much but has a significant impact. let me tell you something, 30 or 40 years ago if you downgraded ibm, you would have been a communist. these days somebody had just downgraded ibm. tell me more. >> actually one of the worst performers when it comes to downgrades. downgraded by ubs calling in a cell at 124. a lot of good stuff right then. there are other more exciting upside tech plays, have you

looked at shopify? in this downturn, it is $1,100 now, equities down the second largest e-commerce player after amazon and equities downgrading to neutral. stuart: it could do no wrong and now that is not true for a while. >> some momentum play. stuart: it was. abercrombie and fitch, what's the story? >> there were some mornings but it is a positive because they had strong holiday sales and demand was there. the problem with the supply chain crisis and that meant less inventory and less supply to meet the heightened demand so that is the reason you have abercrombie lowering their guidance the final three months of the year but interesting abercrombie is sticking to their forecast of the full-year and sales won't be in front of fifth, almost -- people really like that kind of recovery play. stuart: that is a strong forecast.

albertson the same thing, we boosted full-year guidance but they are down nearly 4%. >> that is right. have you been to the local supermarkets recently during omicron? have you seen the empty shelves and empty stores, lack of sales as well? and higher inflation, afflicting albertson like the rest of the entire grocery chains like kroger and the like and lack of labor. the inventories in there and they pay higher prices and smaller margins for those grocery chains. stuart: the dow is down 170 points. dowling, walgreens, walt disney, they are the winners but they are not off that much.

the s&p 500, vega stands, juniper networks, none of the big names are in the winners list. the nasdaq the same story, you know, paypal is there but no big tech name is there. the rebound in big tech if it exists is not that strong. the big board right now down 148 points. 48,900. one.77%, 180 yesterday, goals, 1803, bitcoin at 41,400 right now, the price of oil hit $80 a barrel 20 minutes ago, 7934. natural gas, cold snap in the northeast, the average price for a gallon of regular $3.30, not budging that much meeting

california $4.65. chicago students are finally returning to class this week after a blowout between the union and the mayor. >> the mayor has been relentless but she's been relentlessly stupid. relentlessly refusing to seek the combination and find a way to get people back in school. stuart: they are going to vote on this back to school again, they may vote against it. we will take you to chicago for a live report. a disturbing report finds critical race theory has crept into mandatory courses at hundreds of colleges and universities. chris rufo has been all over the story and is here on this program later in the day. this is what it looks like at many grocery stores across the country. that is the supply chain crisis and you are looking at it. still with us. we've got that story next.

stuart: you are looking at lake george in new york state, that is wine country and right now it is 0 degrees there, that is wine country. that is without the windchill. the markets are moving south, certainly for the dow industrials. we opened with a modest gain and now we are down 220 points 13 minutes later, nasdaq sliding down about 80. this coming to us from bank of america possibly under pressure from senator elizabeth warren cutting their overdraft fees from $35 to 10, to illuminate fees for bounced checks entirely. it has been over a month since president biden promised to get the supply chain issue under control but consumers are facing lots of empty shelves. it has gotten so bad that

hashtag bear shelves biden is trending. kelly o'grady is at the port in los angeles. the transportation secretary buttigieg going to make his first visit there today or tomorrow? >> today he is. secretary buttigieg is expected to tout the administration's efforts to alleviate that but as of yesterday, 105 were loitering in the harbor as was those islands further out, 18% higher than one of the peaks in november and that hovers near record high. it starts opposition to celebrating improvements. these problems are impacting stores across america. you mentioned bear shelves biden trending on twitter, empty grocery and pharmacy shelves, when issue causing these challenges, omicron and great resignation are creating labor shortages, winter weather, and secretary buttigieg is expected to highlight investment on the

infrastructure bell like a support facility but those are long-term solutions, businesses and consumers are looking for change now and with challenges living in asia we could be seeing more short-term pain. stuart: china factories before the chinese new year, important holiday. in addition to that we had spot shortages still coming out of chinese production due to omicron related shop downs. >> reporter: one immediate solution we discussed is containers welling in the terminal for over 69 days but the implementation keeps getting pushed out since october. the ports were supposed to be operating 24/seven. it is kind of dead, hard to fill the early a.m. shift and supply chain experts are telling me we could be seeing a

snarl until the end of 2022 if not beyond. stuart: the supply chain crisis has not been fixed, thanks for being here, see you again shortly. look who is here now. art laugher joins us. i want to know if the supply chain crisis at the very heart of our inflation problem. >> it is surely at the heart of near-term inflation, if not the total cost by any means but the supply chain has pushed prices up, that's for sure and they will come down later if this is ever solved, if they ever get it back open. it is not a long-term inflation issue. it is short-term but the short-term is very important and very much to biden's detriments. when you talk about lake george being wine country, washington dc is the fine country.

stuart: how would art laffer fix the inflation problem? >> i follow reagan's advice, don't just stand there, undo something, get them out, stop paying people not to work, get the government out of the process and that thing will clear up quickly. that is exactly what needs to be done, the government is causing the supply chain problem. it is not the solution, it is the cause and the same thing with rapid testing and all the other things. one thing trump knew how to do is get production to work correctly and when he put through the operation warp speed to get it it worked because he worked with the markets, not against. we would if trump was still president he would be on the shoreline of los angeles at the board with a bullhorn telling people what to do and how to do it and get things moving. there is no sign of that movement. biden is not getting it done and the transportation secretary, it reminds me of vice president harris who delayed forever going to the border for three hours and the transportation secretary making his first visit to the port of los angeles, the first visit

after all these months. >> wouldn't you expect that with buttigieg? in the primary you can tell this is not a guy who get stuff done. when he ran his own city was a problem. here is a guy who loved chitchatting and talking and never guided getting off the dime and doing some thing about the thing with kamala harris. very sad but they are messing things up. stuart: tomorrow we get the consumer price index. would you have -- last time it was 6.8% inflation. would you have any forecast as to what we might see tomorrow? >> let me give you how to look at it. we are going to lose one month of the year going gain one month of this year so the change will be dependent on two months, one month a year ago and one month this year, one month this year for one month a year ago. the one month a year ago is inflation, could be very small. even if it is not a huge number this month it will push that

up, 6.8% up. i am expecting the 6.8% to go up a little bit, not much but a little bit in the next one because only one month changes and the year ago, the low-inflation month, not i so if we get any type of inflation this month it would be up a little higher than 6.8, 6.97 which is bad news for the administration. stuart: that would also mean the wage gains of working people over the past year would have been virtually wiped out for many with a 7% inflation rate. >> totally. not only the wage gains for people who were eaten away by the inflation but think of interest rates. when you go to borrow money and you go to pain and lend money to the government and lend money to the government, one.5% a year average and you are losing 7% your lending that money, paying the government 6% a year to take your money, that is ridiculous. stuart: i am sorry i am out of

time. >> none of this is good. stuart: see you again soon. good stuff. the formerly golden state of california unveils a new budget that includes healthcare for illegals. top california lawyer harmeet dhillon takes that on in the next hour. democrats like aoc escape their blue states for wide-open red states, florida's governor desantis is catching and selling escape to florida t-shirts. sign me up for one, i will take it. ♪♪ nicorette knows, quitting smoking is freaking hard. you get advice like: try hypnosis... or... quit cold turkey. kidding me?! instead, start small. with nicorette.

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>> old foods says its employees are not allowed to wear masks with political slogans like black lives matter. the national labor relations board is fighting that. david & at the justice department, is this a free speech issue heading to trial? >> it is a free speech issue and it appears that this will be heading to trial by march. you can consider this an argument over free speech. basically whole foods believe the first amendment is being stifled by this government agency which your viewers are familiar with, the national labor relations board. the board in a complaint specifically arguing the

upscale grocery giant violated the national labor relations act by refusing to allow employees to work black lives matter masks in the store on the clock. specifically attorney for whole foods argue the national labor relations board general counsel jennifer a brutal, biden appointed has 3 years left on her terms unlawfully infringing upon and or diluting whole food markets protective trademarks by attempting to force the company to allow employees to wear those dom masks. in the court filing whole foods wrote bicycling out the phrase black lives matter the general counsel is impermissibly favoring and requiring whole foods favor certain expressions of political speech in the retail grocery stores. in a statement of fox news from whole foods we are told our dress code policy does not single out any one message or

slogan but designed to create a workplace and shopping experience focused entirely on excellent service and high quality foods. we do not believe we should compromise that experience by introducing any messages on uniforms regardless of the content that shift the focus away from our mission. we have reached out to the national labor relations board, no comment, black lives matter, no comment. both groups did give us that statement, looks like a march trial for this. stuart: thanks very much. a big hour for you. nigel farage, trying to meet, sean duffy, morgan ortagus, 10:00 hour of varney is next. ♪♪ ♪ feel stuck and need a loan? ♪

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stuart: good morning, everybody, 10:00 eastern. i'll get straight to the money because the dow is down, what, a 250 points. yeah, down 250, nas a damage down 46, s&p down 25. let's have a look at the losers among the dow 30. this is why the dow is down so much. ibm is selling off, travelers, procter & gamble, caterpillar, nike. no clear trend as to which industry is going through the big sell off, all of those are down. off 216 mow for the dow. the yield on the 10-year treasury, 1.76% as we speak. big banks should be the winners if interest rates continue to go up. citicorp and morgan are up this morning, goldman and jp slightly, ever so slightly on the downside. right now fed chair jerome powell is on capitol hill. he's about to be gigged -- grilled on inflation.

that's a look at the markets, now this. in quebec starting next week, you cannot walk into a state-run cannabis dispensary or liquor store without proof of vaccination. no pot, no booze without the jab. within hours of that announcement, the number of people getting a shot quadruplinged. evidently the threat worked. now, look, we can make jokes about the joys of getting high versus the lows of covid, but what we're seeing in quebec, australia and much of europe, nothing to laugh about. @the continued attempt to -- it's the continued attempt to kill the virus by restricting the lives of the unvaxxed. just think about this. these governments are insist on vaccinations that have clearly failed to stop the spread of omicron. what is it? you can't take part in regular life unless you get a jab that doesn't work. how far are they going with this? force you to get a pearce as well in force you to get a fourth shot and then another? and if you don't agree, you're out? fortunately, we live in the united states where the supreme

court will decide if politicians and bureaucrats can tell us what to put in our bodies. in many parts of america, draconian restrictions have been dropped simply recognizing reality. vaccinations don't stop omicron, we are learning to live with covid. the potheads of quebec are being forced to live with the jab. second hour of "varney" just getting started. ♪ >> and that is the problem. they put out this release,s stuart, that basically said, you know, we could still be in this situation a few days from now. basically it was like a threat to the city of chicago. and, quite frankly, a threat to the parents of these kids that this isn't the end of the story. so it begs the question, what was this last four-day, five-day work stoppage about in the first place?

it's all about power. we've said this repeatedly. they got an inch, they now want to take even more. this is all about putting themselves in a better position to extract more concessions from the city of chicago. and it's happening on the backs of those kids. let's keep in mind, stuart, chicago is not the only city in america that is undergoing a covid situation right now. literally every part of our country is dealing with this right now. what makes chicago so special that they can shut down their schools because the teachers don't want to work when you and i are working, everybody else is working and other teachers are in the classroom working? stuart: this is an embarrassment for democrats,en isn't it? because they're closely aligned with the teachers union and school districts that are shutting down. this is a problem for the democrats. i think it services in the elections this year. >> and that's a great observation because we've seen this disaggregation at least from the teachers union by some

of these big city mayors, specifically lorily lightfoot who said -- lori light lightfoot who said we need to get back in the classroom. you heard it from bill de blasio, former mayor of new york city, he even battled with the teachers unions over getting kids back in the classroom. for all their faults, these liberal mayors recognize that this is not a hill that they want to die on, especially after what we saw in virginia where education won glenn youngkin that election. stuart: got it. todd, thank you very much, indeed. see you again real soon. good stuff. house minority whip steve scalise and congressman james comber are calling for a hearing into president biden's failed covid response. take me through the details on this one, lauren, please. lauren: they're focusing on three broken promises, testing, the fact that biden said he wouldn't mandate vaccination and he did, and that he would get the virus under control.

failed on all those accounts. the letter says this: democrats' failure to conduct real oversight of the biden administration's woefully inept response to the ongoing pandemic is unequivocally a dereliction of duty, and they are calling for a joint hearing with witnesses. including dr. anthony fauci. so this highlights part of the republican' midterm -- republicans' midterm strategy, right in biden worsened the pandemic. he broke his promises and it's also twisted because the democrats did this to president trump. they were constantly grilling him for the way he handled covid. stuart: by the way, dr. fauci and dr. walensky, they are both appearing on capitol hill today to answer questions about covid -- lauren lauren they are. stuart: -- precautions, all the rest of the it. we'll be following it. thank yous -- thanks, lauren. jamie dimon, very important banker in america, he spoke with

maria bartiromo this morning. he said he sees the best economic growth in decades. roll tape. >> i think that the table is set for a very strong economy. that consumer has a lot of money, businesses have a lot of money. they're spending it. jobs are plentiful, wages are going up. i mean, it's pretty strong. this'll be one of the strongest economies ever seen in 2021, and 2022 will probably be pretty good too. stuart: that's pretty dramatic stuff, i'd say. scott shellady, dramatic growth, we saw it in 2021, dimon thinks we're going to get more of it in 2022. what do you say to that, scott shellady? >> i probably would have followed up with how much do you think inflation's a problem and how much do you think the fed's going to raise interest rates. i think that's going to have an overarching effect on everything this year, and that's the problem, stuart. we're arguing about whether it's going to be 3, 4, 5. the settled science seems to be we're gone to have four interest rate hikes in 2022 which, i tell

you what, i'm alone on an eye island in my thoughts on that one. i think they're going to struggle. but ultimately, the things that put jamie dimon's great ideas of a great economy to bed is the administration. i don't have a lot of faith in what the fed does, so i think that we'll struggle to say it's going to be the best economy we've ever seen. we were expecting 400,000 jobs last week, we got 199,000. by the way, we have 11 million open, right? [laughter] i mean, that's craziment so my problem is in this, that the jobs numbers coming through have not been anywhere near what we've expected them to be. yes, the unemployment rate fell, but we've had people just leave. i'll end with this, stuart. this inflation problem that a we're all talking about, this is going to sound crazy, but i don't think it's got a lot to do with the economy, right? i've been doing this for 35 years. whenever you want to raise interest rates, the fed does one

of two things in my book, right? just simple -- dumb it down. get out in front of an economy cha's been overheating or get in front of one that's about to overheat. i don't think you can use the word overheat in the same sentence as the u.s. economy. we have an inflation problem that's genuine and distinct from government fiat money, helicopter money, free money. that's where all this inflation's coming from. it's not coming from an overheating economy. so if they're going to try to take the old tools the way we used to fight inflation and try to beat up the market that way, they might kill the patient, right? stuart: yes. >> powell, he's going to be the chemotherapy to try to kill this cancer of inflation, but he's got to be very, very careful that he doesn't kill the patient because they're separate now. they're not the same thing. inflation and the economy aren't growing together right now. we've got an okay economy over here, but it's definitely not overheated. stuart: i can't see -- he's got

a strong economy. i can't see the stock market doing very well if the fed comes in with three or four rate increases. last word to you on that, the market. >> yeah. [laughter] well, because -- i agree with you, stuart. they might do one and they'll wait and see and maybe -- to do four is going to have to be one a quarter. and something always happens. something always goes wrong, and to quote mike tyson, everybody's got a plan until they get punched in the face, right? they might raise it once, and all of a sudden something happens, new variants, the stock market goes down 20% in two months, then all of a sudden everything changes. so i think that that's a really hard row to hoe, i would not be backing four or five rate hikes year. stuart: scott shellady, thanks very much. come back in here, lauren, please. i want to know what goldman sachs said about tech stocks. lauren: so they said the gap widenedded within tech.

you have those high growth companies with strong margins and then the high growth companies with low margins. so goldman says that disconnect is the single greatest mispricing in stocks this year as the fed will raise rates. i mean, you have -- bill dudley, he doesn't see three or four rate hikes, he sees four or five if not more this year meaning every fed meeting would be live. and you were just talking about inflation. so with inflation, goldman sachs is saying it's all about profit margins this year. companies immediate to prove they can stay profitable. stuart: and earnings season believe -- begins this thursday, i believe. we'll find out soon. lauren: yeah. stuart: you've got some movers to look at including ill lumina. why are they up 7%? >> medical devices, testing, genetic sequencing. that's in big demand right now, so that's why these shares are up in a big way. also take a look at another

winner, juniper, they're a net working company, communication services. double upgrade all the way to buy at bank of america. bofa says, look, networking is back, and 2022 is the year companies invest in their network capacity as well as 5g. and i want to show you united. shares have been up and down kind of, you know, now they're up about a third of 1%. here's the news. 3,000 of their workers have covid, okay? 4% of their work force is out sick. so we have flight cancellations for all the carriers, about 3,000 so far today, and now one of your major carriers saying omicron is killing our work force, so heir going to have to -- they're going to have to cut back even further. stuart: and listen to this. on monday, yesterday, 1,483,000 new cases of omicron -- i should say covid -- were reported. that's the highest number i've ever seen for a single day, and the spillout is all these people

who have got it testing positive, working at the airlines and manufacturing and every place else, the spillout continues. i i just wonder though if that high of a number, are we not close to the peak? not supposed to tell this, but only time would tell. lauren lauren i would like to believe that we are, but i think what this does is whatser exacerbates inflation, right? because you have a worker shortage. stuart: it does. there's the number on the screen right now. next case, president biden heading to georgia where he's expected to urge congress to completely overhaul our election system. critics are calling this a distraction. we've got the report coming up. the world health organization issues a dire warning as omicron cases surge in europe. west coast airports briefly ground all planes after a missile launched by north korea. concerned about that? a former state department spokeswoman, morgan ortegas,

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♪ just a little bit, just a little bit ♪♪ stuart: that's atlanta you're looking at, where the president will be later on today. we have now a fox news exclusive. president biden is taking the so-called voting rights fight to georgia, and former senator kelly leffler is ready for the fight. aishah hasnie joins us. sheath in atlanta. what is ms. leffler saying? >> reporter: good morning, stuart. the former senator says she is ready to defend the voices and the votes of everyday georgians here, and that is why about a year ago she put about seven figures of her own money into creating what she calls greater

georgia. it's a grassroots organization that i got to see firsthand as it builds really year-round campaign infrastructure, something conservatives haven't really done recently. it's an attempt to take on stacey abrams, it's an attempt to take on the left's voter registration machine, a ground game leffler saw the value of when she lost her seat to rafael war knock. right now she estimates there are about 150,000 fewer registered conservatives than liberals here in georgia, but one of her biggest challenges, stuart, is winning back hundreds of thousands of disenchanted trump voters after the former president aled election fraud -- alleged election fraud. and with biden's visit aimed at georgia's new election laws which, by the way, is her strongest tool to woo those voters back, she knows the stakes could not be higher. >> if we don't do this working toed today, if we don't organize on the ground, the path to the majority will not run through

georgia. so what's at stake is not just elections, but the freedom of every single american who wants their voice heard, who wants their opportunity in this country. >> reporter: political analysts think leffler could use biden's visit today to her advantage, but she really needs more help from the former president. >> we need help from president trump to tell voters that elections in georgia are trustworthy and that georgia republicans should vote in the next election. >> reporter, and stuart, i asked loeffler if she would like to see former president trump hold maybe a counter-rally to biden's rallied to. she didn't say yes or no, but she did say that the former president has a, quote, very important voice that still very much matters in this state. stuart? stuart: i believe it does. thank you very much, indeed. let's change the subject. i was surprised when i saw this. north korea appeared to test a ballistic missile that may be

more capable than the hypersonic missile we've been talking about. what was surprising was that this caused the federal aviation administration to briefly ground west coast airports. that lasted about seven minutes because of the missile launch. morgan ortegas joins us. what do you make of this, morgan? >> well, listen, it's odd that lax would have to close down even for seven minutes, but i think this should send a message to all americans that north korea continues to build weaponry that can be a threat to our homeland. now, i don't know if it actually, if the latest ballistic missiles that they were reportedly test thed could actually meet and reach los angeles. if so, that would be a new capability. but i'll tell you, stu, what the bigger worry is here, it's that north korea is creating more weaponry, more ballistic missiles than our defense and missile systems, interceptor systems here in the u.s. can come pennsylvania we have ground-based interceptors on the

west coast on two different states, i believe it's unclassified, but just in case, i'm not going to name the states. you can probably figure it out by going to strat force. but if you look at the number of weaponry that they're billing, and, again, a lot of this is classified but you can find a lot in open source messaging, you can look and see, look at the defense budget and see that we're not building enough ground-based interceptors to combat that threat. again, this is just reporting, but the biden administration may actually look at lessening or not building more of those capabilities. so you have an inverse relationship here in which north korea continues to test and expand their ballistic missiles and try to build weapons that could reach the united states, and you have the united states basically ignoring this when it comes to our defense priority spending and not building enough ground-based interceptors to stop what north korea may be building.

stuart: look finish. >> we have to watch. the bad news always, stu. stuart: it's not the case, but it seems to me north korea is launching these missiles at the bidding of china. china didn't want them to do it, they wouldn't do it, would they? >> you know, it's interesting, there's always a tricky relationship between china and north korea. china absolutely loves having north korea being a nuisance and a pest to the united states, but what china fears more than anything is some sort of military confrontation between the united states and north korea because what do they know will happen? well, there's a big border between china and north korea, and all of the north korean refugees would flood into china, and that's the last thing that they want to deal with. so they appreciate them being a nuisance, but they're sort of like a wild child that they can't control -- stuart: wild child that they can't control. i know that very well. >> i'm thinking of my toddler right now. [laughter] stuart: what's the significance of iran announcing sanctions

against 52 americans over the killing of qassem soleimani two years ago? what's the significance? >> thank you so much for bringing this up because this is not getting enough attention from the mainstream media, stu. what a lot of insiders believe often whenever iran does these sanctions lists, it's also sort of an informal hit list. why this isn't a special on every channel is beyond me. the united states is in the middle of negotiations to give $90 billion of sanctions relief to iran. iran at very moment -- at this very moment is threatening former trump administration officials, former high-level diplomats, threatening to kill them on u.s. soil. we all know the because i am very friendly with many of these people who still require service, protection from the diplomatic service from the state department, the secret service. they're out of government but they still require this protection because the ongoing

threat from the iranian regime to kill them, trump administration officials on u.s. soil. now finally after weeks of many of us protesting about this, jake sullivan, the national security adviser, alluded to this, spoke out about it. we haven't heard from blinken yet, but this is incredibly -- stuart: it should be headlines. >> -- partisan in this country. yes. we can't be so partisan that regimes threaten to kill officials from the last administration and the current administration goes, oh, well. stuart: the news media cannot ignore that kind of threat. mo began -- morgan, i'm glad we brought that out. very important stuff. jen psaki, press on why president biden is still is referring to this as the pandemic of the unvaccinated. roll tape. >> i'm triple vaxxed, still got covid. you're triple vaxxed, still got covid. why is the president still referring to this as a pandemic of the unvaccinatedsome. >> you are 17 times more likely

to go to the hospital if you're not vaccinate, 20 times more likely to die. stuart: okay, got it. but people who got the jab are still getting covid. remember that. the teachers union reaches a deal with chicago to reopen classes. grady trimble has a report from chicago next. ♪ keep on knocking, but you can't come in. ♪ keep on knocking, but you can't come in. ♪ keep on knocking, but you can't come in. ♪ come back tomorrow night and try it again ♪♪

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♪ stuart: all right. the markets are still kind of in a mixed position here. the dow was down nearly 300, now it's down nearly 200. but the nasdaq's recovered to an 11-point gain. mixed picture on wall street. lauren, you're looking at live january. what's the story? lauren: shares are popping 5%. i want to point out they're down 20% this year, and they're still about $1 is 00 from their high -- 100 from their high. but you have the coo departing, which was a surprise. i guess they're also trying to

regain some lost ground. take a look at las vegas sands, they got an upgrade to overweight at jpmorgan and added to their focus lift as a value pick. jpmorgan says the current level of investor apathy -- and i'm quoting -- the worst in his 22 years covering the sector, and they think it'll improve after the beijing olympics. and finally, a lot of chatter about doordash on social media. investors coming n. this stock is flying today by another 6%. stuart: got it. thank you, lauren. the teachers union in chicago has made an agreement with the public schools. they'll reopen tomorrow after five days of canceled classes. grady trimming in -- grim -- trimble in chicago. is this fight over for good? >> reporter: hopefully. hopefully, stuart, over forked good. that's what the chicago public schools is saying, at least through the end of this school year, but with the union and cps

involved, you never know. as you said, teachers are back in the classroom today, students will be back tomorrow: here are some of the highlights of this agreement. there are new metrics for individual school closures. a certain percentage of teachers and students have to be out for a single school to close, not a district-wide shutdown. they're also expanding covid testing and making better masks available for staff and students. the teachers were pushing for n95 or kn95 masks. in speaking about this agreement, mayor lori lightfoot said district-wide virtual learning was not an option again. listen. >> would you completely factor remote learning again without a public if health reason to do so? it would have created and amplified the social, emotional and economic turmoil that far too many of our families are facing. >> reporter: a grape -- a group of parents is trying -- suing to try to get teachers

back to work. they're going to be in front of a judge with their case tomorrow, and the reason they still want to go forward with that lawsuit is because they want to prevent what they consider illegal strikes like this from happening again if there's a new variant, for example, stu. stuart: all right. grady, on the same subject, listen to what attorney jeffrey schwab had to say about that lawsuit filed by parents in chicago. roll tape. >> let the people decide, let the parents have the input, let teachers have input and let the school district decide how it wants to handle it. the schools can decide on an individual basis if they want to. parents can decide on an individual basis, but the union can't decide for everybody. it's keeping kids out of school, it's unilaterally deciding for everybody what they want without parent input, without student unput. stuart: if you want my opinion, i think the schools should deunionize, but that's kind of my position only. the ladyty on the right-hand

side of the screen is karol markowitz who moved to florida because she want her children many school. karol, welcome back to the show. it's great to see you. can you give me a progress report? how are your children doing? >> it's only been a week or so that we've been in florida. school has been on for about phi days, but it's going -- five days, but it's going fantastic. i keep talking about it on my social media, and i have a piece out tomorrow in the post about the normalcy that my kids are experiencing because with i think it's so important to tell people in the blue areas, this is possible. your kids can go to school without masks and be safe, you can have normal things go on at school like there's events at the school, activities going on. they're living normal childhoods which is what we should all be aiming for. stuart: yeah. >> what happened in chicago, i think, is a travesty. the whole thing is just disgusting to me that these unions don't care about these kids and kept them out of school for all these days. stuart: is that right?

in florida, in the schools where your children are going to school, no masks? perfectly normal? after school activities, the whole bit? >> yeah. stuart: just like regular school. >>st amazing. yeah, it's regular school. i'll have this in my piece tomorrow, but my kindergartener goes to the rug for circle time, something that hasn't happened in new york since march 2020. little things like they're allowed to interact with their classmates. my daughter met a friend, sat with her at lunch in the cafeteria as if they were normal middle schoolers. this does not happen in whatsoever. there are event vents at the schools. of it's all just amazing and normal and exactly what it should be. stuart: are your friends still in new york angry at you for leaving for florida? >> they're not. a lot of them are asking where should i go in florida. [laughter] and it's not just new york, you know? the idea that it's just new yorkers and californians, it's not. i have a lot of friends in other places, you know, in maryland,

in virginia. i have friends in texas who are thinking about leaving for florida even though texas is definitely better than most states in terms of treating children well. stuart: i'm out of time, but i'm going to read that article tomorrow in the new york post. i'll probably be quoting from it too. thank you very much. >> come visit. stuart: oh, believe me, i'm there. [laughter] sixteen elite universities across america are being i sued. hey, ashley, good morning to you with. what's this all about? ashley: good morning, stu. well, we're talking about columbia university, cornell, duke, mit, notre dame, vanderbilt, yale and on and on. the suit has been brought by five former vanderbilt, northwestern and duke university students who claim that the schools illegally conspired to eliminate competitive financial aid offers in a price-fixing scheme. now, the suit claims the scheme artificially inflated the cost of attendance for all students receiving financial aid and

resulted in the overcharging of more than 170,000 financial aid resip cents by at least hundreds of millions of dollars. the crux to all of this hinges on a 1994 law, this called section 568, that actually exempts universities from antitrust laws and does allow them to collaborate with competitors. the complaint, filed in illinois, calls for a class action jury trial. finish interesting. stuart: very. thanks, ash. staffing shortages costing hospitals billions of collars. it's got -- dollars. it's gotten sod bad that some hospitals are denying patients. the report next hour. first they got driver's license, now california's governor newsom wants taxpayers to pay for illegals. harmeet dhillon, i'll ask her what she makes of this latest proposal. she's on the air next. ♪ -- every man i see. ♪ hey, big spender, spend a

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stuart: in california governor gavin newsom unveiled a $286 billion budge which included health care for illegals. here with me now is march meet dillon. -- harmeet dhillon. they already have driver's licenses, now it's health care. how long before illegals vote? >> well, stuart, thanks for having me. actually, it's been legal for health care to be provided to undocumented people here in california under age 26 and over age 50, that's already in place. it was a little bit before the pan deppic and during the pandemic for the older people. so now we're talking about covering that gap in between. and the impetus for this is a so-called budget surplus in california that the governor is claiming is double what it actually is, and he's using that

to call for five times more spending. so those of us in california who think that we are underserved as citizens, we're really out of luck because this is very popular with the radical democrats running the statement. i think t probably less popular with the citizens living here, but there are fewer and fewer citizens living here relative to the people coming in who don't have a legal right to be here. some of the other issues we see in this budget include the fact that he's claiming that there's a surplus that includes the fact that they didn't spend money on our stools -- schools, and there's constitutionally mandated spending in our california budget which they didn't spend, and they're claiming that eat a surplus that they can now use for other purposes, stuart. stuart: has this got anything to do with javier becerra? he was the attorney general in california, i think he was the guy who gave illegals driver's licenses. now he's health and human services secretary. you never hear anything about

it. i've never heard his name mentioned yet, but he runs one of the largest agencies of the federal government. has he got something to do with this health care for illegals? >> not really. i have to say it's much broader than that. i can't pin that on xavier becerra. it may surprise your listeners to learn that it is actually the moderates' position that the governor is pushing. the assembly democrats are actually pushing universal health care in california and doubling our taxes to do that. so p gavin newsom is calling this an incrementalal approach. i don't think it's very incremental. it's obviously going to encourage illegal immigration into our state. and to your prior question, it is already legal in my city here in san francisco for illegal aliens to vote in the school board election if they have a school-aged child, and san jose is proposing voting for noncitizens as well.

really what this boils down to, stuart, is there are some cities and municipalities in california and in other states like we just saw in new york where supposedly it's not against the city charter to do this. it may be against state law. it's not against federal law either, so this is something that republicans need to look at on a national level. stuart: this is why we have an open border, i believe. harmeet dhillon, thank you very much for joining us. >> my pleasure. stuart: sure thing. look at the airlines, please. ashley, what's the status of flight cancellations today? ashley: well, the number of night cancellations starting to slow down -- flight cancellations, but it's still a painful process. dealing with winter storms and the high number of absent workers because of the surge in covid cases. yesterday 870 flights, although i just updated that to 900. but regardless, it does end a 15-day streak of more than 1,000 daily flight cabslations. -- cancellations. of 668 so far told.

carriers have been preemptively thinning their schedules through the rest of this month and into tech and march to get a handle on these operational problems. a seasonal slowdown after the holidays along with reduction in bookings because of concerns about the omicron variant should help give airlines some breathing room. we certainly hope so. stuart: don't we just. novak djokovic has finally arrived at the australian open. nigel farage is in serbia talking to djokovic's family. he'll give us the latest on the tennis star's visa fight in our next hour. the georgia bulldogs defeat their rivals, the alabama crimson tide. it's their first national football championship since 1980. i wonder what brian kilmeade -- who he was rooting for? [laughter] i want to know. the man who never stops working, did he stay the up late to watch the whole game? i'll ask him, kiln kill mead

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♪ stuart: testifying before congress, jay powell says we're going to use our tools to rein in anyone nation -- inflation.

not sure what that means. read between the lines. price of oil getting close to $80 a barrel again. the so 10-year treasury yield now at 3.77 -- 1.77%, and that means the markets are down. the dow is off 250, the nasdaq is down, let's see, 64 points down this. red ink across the board again in the early going today. it's now 10:51 east coast, and you know what that means, kilmeade's here. brian, georgia beat bama, first national championship since 1980. who was your money on? >> well, i'll tell you what, i really thought alabama was going to prevail again despite how georgia looked in the semifinals. the one thing i find almost comical is that once again georgia's in the eye of the storm, this time for a good reason. remember, the all-star game was pulled out, then the braves win the national championship -- excuse me, the world series. herschel walker, of course, the georgia bulldog, maybe that's a

good sign for him. he hopes to win that senate seat. and then a time at which joe biden is going to georgia to talk about voting rights because it is jim crow 2.0 which is an insult to people who live through jim crow. he goes out there, he's got trouble catching attention anyway -- [laughter] now he's going to show up, and the backdrop is a national champion coming to town for the first time since 1980. unbelievable. stuart: i think herschel walker may get a shot in the arm from this. he's a football player, he's a republican. he's running for the senate in georgia, and the bulldogs -- he's a former bulldog, isn't he? herschel walker? >> absolutely. he played for this guy named -- it's on the tip of my tongue -- donald trump. of. [laughter] that's how their friendship really took root, and then he became ufc champion and did everything else he did from a bob sled olympian, now he wants to dominate in the senate, and let's see what happens. but all eyes point to georgia not showing up.

stacey abrams, it's an embarrassment. stuart: what a distraction. it's a difficult speech to make in this environment in georgia at the moment i'm going to move on. president biden ran on the campaign promise to shut down the virus. remember this? roll tape. >> as i said before, i'm not going to shut down the economy, i'm going to shut down the virus. i'll shut down the virus, not the economy. stuart: okay. listen to this. we just got new numbers, new cases reported on monday, 1,483,656. that was just what was reported on monday. he hasn't shut down the virus at all. in fact, these new cases are hitting record numbers. it's another failure, brian. >> i mean, i've been talking about this on the radio show, stuart, i don't know where to start. first off, the thing that you can't -- you can't prevent a new variant, but for not anticipating it, i would fire everyone on my pandemic task force. why don't we hear from that guy, jeff zeitz, or whatever his name

is, tell me why he wasn't able to earmark this next variant, why he wasn't able to preorder tests. that's called filling out an invoice. why don't you get some stats? what about israel and the u.k. and germany in order to get the stats to find out how effective the vaccines are, whether we do need a booster, and why did he suddenly come around to understanding keeping schools open and getting back to work is something that america has to do? that is something donald trump said and got vilified for. it's too dangerous. well, thanks to joe biden and his party, people have been -- really good people are really concerned and scared to go outside their house, to go to a mall if, to get in their car. we're watching the cdc director indoors wearing a double mask again. and while the president walks alone on the beach with a mask and his dog, it's been a disaster. that's why all he talks about january ofth -- 6th. he's totally let us down. stuart: but it seems like we're moving towards a consensus in

america -- not elsewhere in the world -- that we've got to live with it. get these restrictions off. i think we're coming to a consensus for that. 30 seconds to you. >> i watch julie pace on the ap say basically that on this week with george stephanopoulos over the weekend. listen, to you realize the democrats and republicans are fed up? they've tried it your way, it's not working and the american people are standing up, and the mandate is the next thing. it's a bridge too far. now you're telling me to get a booster. soon you're going to be -- get this, in one month we're going to get an omicron booster. a fourth shot. and now they expire in a year? we don't have enough deltoid room for all the shots we're going to be getting. [laughter] enough. americans are fed up. we're going to come together on this. stuart: good stuff. brian, thanks for joining us. you work like crazy, you really do. i envy you your youth and energy, young man. >> thank you, stuart. back at ya. [laughter]

stuart: still ahead, sean duffy, u-haul vice president stuart schoen, nigel farage in serbia and christopher rauf foe. president biden's in georgia today campaigning to, quote, save democracy. he wants same-day, walk-up voting with no idea -- id, i should say. [laughter] we'll deal with that. it's my take. it's next. ♪ you've giving me such sweet loving ♪♪ ..

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stuart: it is 11:00 eastern time, january 11th, it is a minor selloff, the dow is down 200, the nasdaq is down 29 points. but mostly in the red. big tech mostly in the red, the only winner among the big tech names is amazon and that is $30. microsoft, apple, alphabet, meta-platforms all down, it hit 180 earlier but now it is 177. now this.

have you noticed the contradiction, you cannot eat in a new york city restaurant without proof of vaccination and id? you have to make sure your vaccination papers match. you've got to say that you are who you say you are. the democrats however absolutely do not want id for voting. this is at the heart of the fight over voting reform which is biden's priority. in georgia campaigning to save democracy. he wants same they walk up voting with no id. that guarantees fraud. he wants mail in ballots accepted way after election day. he wants former felons to vote. senate leader schumer's job to get through an evenly fit senate. he has to adjust the filibuster. voting reform is the centerpiece of biden's speech today but the leading light of the georgia democrat party will be there.

stacy abrams blame the scheduling conflict and senators manchin and kristen sinema will not support changing the filibuster. voting reform has split the democrats just like build back better. both look to be on shaky ground. i have never understood why you must show id to eat but not to vote. third hour of varney starts now. just getting this coming to us. senator manchin spoke out against getting rid of the filibuster. role that tape. >> we need some good rules changes to make the place work better. stuart: sean duffy joined me, senators manchin and kristen sinema could sink build back better and voter reform.

what say you to that? >> thank you for that monologue at the beginning pointing out the hypocrisy of showing id if you show vaccination card to go into a restaurant versus having to show id when you vote and what is the difference? thank you for that because it is hypocrisy at its finest. in dc it is happening. in new york is happening, you have to show id and your vaccination status and minority communities at significant portions of the population so why is it racist to show id to vote in georgia but not to show id when you go to meet in new york or washington dc but to your question, you are not going to pass either of these bills is manchin will not disrupt the filibuster rule and the house and senate, if you want to get people on board don't change the rules but actually engage in a conversation, find bipartisanship before election reform get republicans and democrats to buy into it, get them to agree on the problem.

to strong-arm one party and -- stuart: the left won't have it. they will not have anything bipartisan so they are trying to push this through with an evenly split senate and i don't think they can do it. >> the voters aren't going to have it. the elections come up in a mere 11 months. you see the voters, i don't like this partisanship, don't want to have this partisan electoral reform. most of americans, 70% of americans agree you should show id. we know you are when you vote so we can't have fraud in elections because if you look at whether it was donald trump elected in 16 or the 2000 the election when people don't trust the election results we have bad things in this country. we want losers to agree they lost and you do that by having rules in place to make sure the

laws are being followed in regard to voting. stuart: very simple indeed. peter doocy pressed jen psaki over biden's insistence that this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated. watch this. >> still got covid, your triple vaccinated and still got covid. wise the president referring to this as a pandemic of the unvaccinated? >> you are 17 times more likely to go to the hospital if you are not vaccinated, 20 times more likely to die. stuart: but we just got the numbers from monday, yesterday, 1,483,000 people got covid, new cases for covid. they are vaccinated. a lot of those people vaccinated but still got covid. what is going on? is the white house wrong? >> 100% wrong and there was a time we didn't know the data ourselves and had to rely on them to provide information we thought was accurate. now we get a look around our lives and everyone i know is double vaccinated or boosted, all got covid.

people who had antibodies, everyone has gotten covid, we now know you are lying because i look at my life experiences, friends and colleagues and the vaccines have no impact whether you get covid or not and if you look at the studies the comes come out of ontario, canada, doctor maccare he was siding this, that if you are vaccinated or boosted you might have a better chance of getting covid than if you just have natural antibodies and not been vaccinated so i think transparency matters coming from the white house and government. level with us on the numbers, quit lying to us because we see the truth with our communities that it is not what the white house is saying. stuart: it is incredible to me that you can't -- a 5-year-old of any age, you can't eat in new york city without showing your vaccination papers just like europe in the old days. you've got to show id but if

you want to vote you don't have to show id at all, don't have to prove who you are at all. what a contradiction. last word to you. >> one is racist, the voting laws showing id is racist but having to show id again in new york city is not racist. go figure. i don't get it. doesn't make sense. let's go back to letting people go out and eat and assume the risk they want to take when they live their lives knowing omicron and covid are still out there. we are big people, do it everyday in our lives, let us deal with it. stuart: we don't want to top down authoritarianism. we want up from the ground freedom. give it to us please. we've got it in florida. we want it all over the country. you and i agree on this. i think we do. >> you have the best intro music of anyone on television, vanilla ice come into the segment, your brilliance in your music and i know you select it. stuart: i don't.

i never heard of that. it is the producers who do a good job i might add. see you later. >> take credit. stuart: back to the markets. let's have a look at big tech. a mixed picture this morning, mostly higher but we have had quite a selloff in recent weeks. mike murphy is joining us. we have had a good run in big tech. is it over? >> good morning. i am going to correct you if i may. we had a great run in big tech and a correction. we pulled back about 10% from highs and now we have turned from a big selloff yesterday, we rallied, and turned green. it is not over by any stretch of the imagination. people want to sell as rates move higher but this market and big tech in particular is driven by earnings in the earnings are strong enough to support the prices where they

are today at higher prices also. anyone last time i checked profits earnings were up about 25%. whether that was for the full year 2021 or not, do you think we might get another 25% boost in profits in 2022? that is a bit of a stretch. >> it is a stretch but about a year ago or a little more than that we were on and a lot of people were talking about peak earnings, you will never see earnings this good again. take a look at big tech and i think they continue to innovate and continue to put up great earnings. until that story changes i hate to sound like a broken record but the people watching at home have to stick to the game plan and avoid getting scared by headlines that are coming out. stuart: did you hear what jamie diamond set on air earlier this morning, that we have a strong

year of economic growth? do you agree with that? >> i do. jamie dimon has been doing it for a long time. he has been right more than wrong. what he is doing is what i just said. he is looking past the headlines out there and talking about the consumer and businesses saying they all have a lot of money, the money is put to work and that is the engine for our economy and it will continue as we get past omicron, to move. i am fully in line with what jamie dimon has to say and it is going to be a strong year. stuart: you said it before and will say it again. thanks for joining us, see you again soon. what is going on with shake shack up 12%? got the story? lauren: higher sales, same-store sales during the fourth quarter rose 21%, amazing. there is a problem and it could affect them going forward. a problem a lot of companies

and restaurants have. where are they? they are facing shortages and had to cut their hours of operation because of it. investors ignoring that today. look at big lots, the retailer, omicron and the weather kept their customers home so they are warning profits for the quarter that ends for them in january will come below expectations. they are down today and so is kroger. imminent strike at the king superstore in colorado involving 9000 union workers, negotiations, breaking down between the union and the grocer so they might fly in staff and hire temporary workers to staff their stores starting bright and early tomorrow morning. stuart: that is dramatic, no wonder they are down to present, got to fly in workers at a time like this, that is not cheap. lauren: a lot of companies are doing that. we were let's move on to this. meta-workers, facebook workers don't need to be back in the office until march but when they do return they will have to have a booster shot. playing hardball.

staff shortages cost a hospital $24 billion over the course of the pandemic. some are stretched so thin they are denying patients. we have a report on that. covid cases down 10% in a week. are they passed the peak? i will ask nigel farage. ♪♪ break on to the other side ♪♪ at vanguard, you're more than just an investor, you're an owner with access to financial advice, tools and a personalized plan that helps you build a future for those you love. vanguard. become an owner. a must in your medicine cabinet! less sick days! cold coming on? zicam is the #1 cold shortening brand! highly recommend it! zifans love zicam's unique zinc formula. it shortens colds! zicam. zinc that cold!

stuart: philadelphia international airport where it is very cold.

the cdc warning against travel to canada and the country and the caribbean reporting high levels of covid but then which country is not? in québec, vaccine appointments, i know this story. i was on fox and friends this morning with this story, you can't go to the pot shop with a liquor store without proof of vaccination in québec. that is accurate. >> that is yes, in an effort to get more people vaccinated québec's government cutting off the booze and weed if you don't get the jab. it starts january 18th. québec will require people to show proof of vaccination when entering government run stories selling cannabis or alcohol. as you pointed out, the response appointments for the first shot of the vaccines quadrupled from 1500 per day to 6000 in just a few hours after

the announcement was made. i must out québec's vaccination rate is near 80%, one of the world's highest but hospitalizations are spiking among the unvaccinated, threatening to overwhelm hospitals. if you start putting the weed and the booze in the equation apparently you get a reaction. stuart: you certainly do. thank you. let's move on. covid cases in britain down 10% in the last week. nigel farage. do the brits think they passed the peak? >> a growing optimism. there is a realization omicron is nothing like the indian variant, delta variant and other people have it over the course of 5 or 6 weeks, that is beginning to fall hospitalization. and we mustn't be complacent

but i do think i do think it begins to feel we are in a good place. stuart: good news for us, we would like to see the other side as well. we you are in serbia talking to novak djocovicz's family. a has a ride to the australian open but his visa could still be canceled. what is his family telling you? >> the situation is i have chosen to have the vaccine but i respect the right of those who don't want to have the vaccine and i hate seeing it increasingly turned into second-class citizens like your previous report from canada. djocovicz has not been vaccinated. he went to australia and met the requirements, flying into melbourne if you are unvaccinated, met the requirements, proof positive he had covid in the last 6 months which is what they ask for and using arbitrary power he was

arrested in the detention center, went to serbia to support, if you met the rules it is outrageous and pleased he won cold case and got out yesterday. now today, other difficulties in how many european countries he may or may not have been in in the 14 days prior to australia. the family is saying nothing and very sad if after this great victory against to radical government on a technicality it went wrong. stuart: were you surprised what the australians did? i know australia very well, i always thought of it is a freedom loving place where they didn't like top-down authoritarianism, are you surprised what they are doing? >> during the course of the

pandemic, with a conservative prime minister, they have become very authoritarian and a famous australian comedian, the problem with australia isn't so many people are descended from convicts but so many people are descended from prison officers. the prison officers are in charge. stuart: before we leave, one last one, back to britain. oil and gas companies, the spike in energy prices. and can't imagine the brits do something like that but are they considering it? >> a labour party proposal, we are paying too much for that. our domestic bills are going through the roof and that is because we are a net importer

of energy despite the fact we have huge untapped gas reserves in this country. we need to take a leap out of donald trump's book and become self-sufficient and bring the price down. stuart: that is just a labour party proposal which hasn't got a prayer with a large conservative majority in parliament, not going to happen. >> not for the foreseeable future. boris johnson is in trouble but has a big majority so don't worry about that. stuart: the republicans in britain, not the republican party in america but republicans want to get rid of the malik he right before queen elizabeth celebrate a plan them jubilee in june. >> it is a good story that gets us all chattering. there is no way there is going to be any serious public debate about that ahead of the platinum jubilee.

there might be debates afterward when she is gone but for the moment she is there, probably the most popular monarch this country has ever had for the entirety of its history and probably the most respected human being in the world today. stuart: she has been queen almost all of my life and most of yours i think. thanks very much indeed for coming on today. difficult to get on the air from serbia but always appreciate it, thanks very much. back to the markets please. what do i see here? or rally for the nasdaq, up 115 and the dow has come all the way back from a 300 point deficit down 27 points so something of a turnaround on the market in progress right now. maybe it has something to do with what jay powell has been saying about inflation on capitol hill. planet fitness up 4%.

they are buying out their franchisees, sunshine fitness, $800 million, investors like it, planet fitness up for present. cvs raising earnings outlook, seeing more people in stores because covid testing and vaccines take place in their stores, stock is up one%. dow winners, there are some winners, salesforce back on the upside with a 2% gain. boeing is in there, chevron is in their, oil companies doing well as oil gets close to $80 a barrel. the s&p 500 winners headed by alumina, solid gain up 10%. las vegas sands, big change there, 6% higher and alumina tops the nasdaq winners. it is up 5%. next, the georgia bulldogs college football champions, first time since 1980 we are going to show you the game's biggest moment. in report finds critical race

theory, ideas of that are being taught in mandatory programs in more than 230 college campuses. chris rufo leading the fight against crt joins me next. ♪♪ real cowboys get customized car insurance with liberty mutual, so we only pay for what we need. -hey tex, -wooo. can someone else get a turn? yeah, hang on, i'm about to break my own record. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ we hit the bike trails every weekend only pay for what you need. shinges doesn't care. i grow all my own vegetables shingles doesn't care. we've still got the best moves you've ever seen good for you, but shingles doesn't care. because 1 in 3 people will get shingles, you need protection.

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stuart: we took the christmas tree down a few days ago. that is fox square in the midtown of manhattan sixth avenue. 14 degrees and a lot lower than that if you factor in the wind chill. that's why there's hardly any pedestrians walking on the street and not much traffic either. let's look at the markets. the nasdaq is up 122 points and a 10 point gain for the s&p but look at alumina. very solid gain right there. >> one of the best performers today, biotech company, dna sequencer, they put in some strong guidance for 2022 after a strong 2021.

alumina forecasting sales of $4 billion plus which would be a jump in 40% from last year. strong demand and new partnerships with four healthcare companies. i want to show you the chipmakers, an upgrade on keybank being called one of the best chip opportunities in this space, data center chips which they expect higher sales of and worth $155 in their view and the las vegas sands, one of the best performers on the s&p 500 and i will add to jpmorgan, the focus list, $48 in their view because of the risk reward profile. the stock has been hammered so much that on the other side jpmorgan says there's a discounted opportunity to get it. stuart: you say there is

sequencing company, they define what the new variants look like. is that the thing they do. >> in terms of therapies, therapeutics and how to, cancer drugs etc.. stuart: thanks for straightening that out, let's get to sports. sensational last night. georgia beat alabama in college football's national championship. georgia's win in 41 years. take me through it. ashley: it really is, going back to 1981. third ranked georgia bulldogs beating the top ranked alabama crimson tide scoring 33-18. i guess you would call that an upset. brian kilmeade was thinking alabama would win. it is also the bulldogs first win over the conference rivals

since 2007. if you watch the game of the first featured 5 field goals with alabama leading at the half just 9-6 into the second half opened up and the bulldogs would never let them score again. georgia quarterback stinson bennett through two touchdowns and was named the offensive player of the game. check out the excitement as you run down the sidelines. i love college football. i love the excitement and a special wok with a bit of from this being an extendable bargain self running for senate. stuart: may be so and this detracts a little from president biden's be john voting reform in georgia today because they will be celebrating. a top data scientist at thomson reuters says he was fired after exposing the falsehoods of

black lives matter narrative. chris rufo is with us. you've got the story. take me through it. >> it emerged because one of the chief data scientist at reuters, one of the most prestigious in the world had a moment of caution. he believed the company which was promoting credit race theory internally had totally botched the narrative on black lives matter and he toasted rebuttal to the mainstream narrative within the company and they fired him because the reality is news organizations even the ap, even reuters which are reportedly neutral, objective, fact-based news are dominated by the ideology behind critical race theory and it biases all of their reporting. stuart: this new report showing critical race theory is mandatory at 230 colleges and universities, in those colleges you have got to teach crt. it is like that?

>> exactly right and i suggest these are just pulmonary numbers, actual numbers are likely much higher but the reality is this. if you are not being forced to study critical race theory in the classroom what they have done is laundered it into the academic and university bureaucracy and diversity, equity and inclusion which is a bureaucratic euphemism for critical race theory and they are taking this new ideology and forcing university students, k-12 students, federal employees and even corporate employees to submit to this new ideology which is intellectually bankrupt about politically very powerful. stuart: but you've got to agree with it. you are not allowed to object, you're not allowed to say that is wrong, that is false, that is divisive, you can't say that, sitdown, shut up and listen. is that it? >> that is what i have seen over and over in the last year and a half of my reporting. this is and academic debate or

inquiry, this is about a mandated ideology to which it is ruining our institution, capturing a lot of power centers and i think it is important for people like zach krugman, they decided at reuters, conscientious objectors to this ideology to stand up, to tell their story and push back. stuart: this is your story, when did you start to report on this? was it recently or some time ago? you exposed crt. exposing critical race theory since 2020. it has gone from 0 name recognition to 75 million americans who have opinion critical race theory, they oppose it by a 2 to 1 margin so this is not only an intellectual issue, but is very salient for conservatives. the american people oppose crt and it is up to our elected leaders to implement reforms in schools, universities, corporations, to get this

ideology which teaches racial abuse out of our institutions and i am excited because this is the year where i think that will start happening in state legislatures across the country. stuart: thank you very much for coming on the show today, hope to see you again very soon. democrats like aoc escape to florida for sunshine and freedom. now governor desantis is cashing in selling souvenir t-shirts. we will show them to you too. a company, one company offering new workers $5,000 to new hires to quit their jobs. i honestly don't understand this but the ceo will explain it all after this. ♪♪ to legit ♪♪ to legit to quit ♪♪ too legit to quit ♪♪ too legit ♪♪ too legit to quit ♪♪

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stuart: meta-platforms joining other companies dealing their return to the office. until when? ashley: march 20 eighth. employees must show proof of a booster shot. the facebook parents is the return date push back will give more flexibility regarding their work arrangements, they previously planned to fully reopen offices for vaccinated employees on january 31st. they want to remote after march 20 eighth. in those deferrals, anywhere from 3 to 5 months. apple told employees last month it did not have a firm date on when it will be in the office while google parent that has pushed back its return date indefinitely.

stuart: can you show me the market again please? jay powell just told congress he is confident we will achieve price stability. that has gone down well with investors. the dow is up 50, nasdaq up 73 points, s&p up 22. the ceo of a software company is paying paying new hires $5,000 to quit their jobs. the ceo who came up with that idea, chris, take me through this. if a new higher isn't excited about their work at your company within two weeks, you will pay them $5,000 to leave. i think i've got that right but what does that achieve for you? >> you got it correct.

if they go through their training process and get to know the business, they don't feel this is the perfect company for them we want to know sooner than later. we have a pool of candidates the just applied, they probably have other offers and it is savings for the business if we can figure this out and not wait until it is over. stuart: have you just started this? has anybody taken the $5,000 yet? >> we started in may of 2020 after a developer 5 days into his role told us this isn't the right roll for me. how many people feel that way and don't see anything? we put the incentive in place, we've been running it since may of 2020, hired 39 people and no one yet has taken it. we started at 2500 increased to 5000. stuart: ever thought that somebody might front up, stay for two weeks and say my 5000 please or are you trying to weed them out before they get in the door? >> everyone that has been messaging me on instagram says here's my address, i don't need to apply.

we have a great hiring team and recruiting process. we are only making offers when we're really sure. this is a chance for the employees to say they are sure too. they double opt in to the point they want to be working here. stuart: with this labor shortage which affect everybody in the country, every industry, are you finding you've got to raise pay, raise salaries significantly to get those new hires to come in the door in the first place? >> of course, the market is competitive, salary benchmark collecting data from people we interviewed all the time but we also review performance and give raises frequently and promotions for a growing company. this offer at the beginning is about making sure we find someone who wants to be in our business. if they are not absolutely certain, somewhere else anyway, the onus is on us to have a great culture. stuart: how much have wages and salaries at your company gone up since 2019 before covid?

>> it has been a 15%, 20% increase across the board. stuart: that is a good indicator of what you've got to do to get people in the door. great idea. i never would have thought of it, giving people money to leave. great to have you with us. come back and tell us how you are doing in the future. good stuff. hospitals struggling to keep up with demand. covid hospitalizations hit record high, staffing shortages are worsening. madison allworth is outside the medical center in brooklyn, that hospital so overwhelmed they asked the city to divert ambulances to other locations. is that accurate? >> reporter: that is accurate. they made that request last weekend it was only a couple hours they were able to maintain it because the surrounding hospitals also understaffed and overfull. this is a problem we are seeing across the us, in new york

especially today, a new high with hospitalizations from covid 19. the rapid spread of omicron cases in the us is causing a breakdown of many essential services. the healthcare system at the forefront of that. after over two years in the pandemic doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals are tired, overwhelmed and in some cases just leaving. just to keep hospitals operating many turned to hiring temporary workers, travel nurses, to fill those gaps. that is the measure the cost the hospital big time. in new york, around $2,000 a week. during this covid crisis, travel, nurses working in new york city could make 10,$000 a week and why we are seeing covid cases surge, some doctors offices and hospitals would have to stop elective surgeries. that is a really important part of the financial line for all of these. take a listen. >> surgery is one of the biggest things that makes money

for the hospital. with a slowdown of surgery and especially when the hospital has to pay more overtime to our nurses and clinical teams that put a damper on their bottom line and they are going to suffer in 2022-2023. >> reporter: when surgeries are pushed or stopped it doesn't just hurt the bottom line for the hospital but also potentially hurts patient care. this is happening at a time when certain hospital systems are firing and turning away workers because of vaccine mandates, difficult time across the us as we continue to deal with omicron. stuart: maybe they should drop the vaccine mandate and get those people to work and alleviate the surge. thank you very much, good story right there. show me the dow 30 with a sense of the markets that 50/50, even stephen, winners and losers.

the dow is up 17 points. people are moving out of california so fast you always running out of trucks. no surprise here. one of those trucks wind up in texas. the vice president of u-haul joins me next. ♪♪ care. it has the power to change the way we see things. ♪♪ it inspires us to go further. ♪♪ it has our back. and goes out of its way to help. ♪♪ when you start with care, you get a different kind of bank. truist. born to care.

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comcast business. powering possibilities. stuart: the reelection campaign of governor desantis is selling escape to florida the lockdown lives tour t-shirts, the back of the shirt lifts democrats like aoc and eric swalls of the well who were vacationing there during the holidays under their names it reads we don't blame you, we like freedom too. $25 a pop for those t-shirts. sign me up. californians fleeing for texas so fast that u-haul is running out of trucks to move them. the vice president and board member of u-haul stuart shown joins me not, we know about the mass migration, i want to know about the prices. how much to rent a u-haul to go from california to texas right now?

>> go to www. u-haul.com, they change every day, a constant state of changing circumstances. anyone give me a ballpark figure. >> a 4 digit number for sure. stuart: let's reverse that. i'm in texas and want to go to california. in a u-haul. will you pay me to take the u-haul from texas to california? >> it wasn't that bad. the circumstance you were talking about the ran out of equipment, luckily has not been a current condition so far. we can serve everybody trying to get out of -- you are going to get a sweet deal if any of your viewers would like to move to california.

stuart: not many viewers will be urging to get out of texas and go to california. i know this audience real well. who is doing the moving out of california? is it families, young professionals? who is doing it? >> it is everybody. not everybody is leaving california. some are going from cities, lower cost-of-living. the last calendar year, probably the most significant inability to meet customer demand we have ever had. stuart: which part of california are they leaving from? >> they are leaving from the big cities. there are some exceptions to that. in san diego, they grew but everything you would expect,

the big cities where cost-of-living is very high. some of these lockdown measures were the most extreme. that is where we saw the most difficult time serving customers. stuart: real quick, when you go from california to texas, cost you a couple thousand dollars, is that today or the whole trip? >> that is for the whole trip. a rate like that, we try to give the customer a good idea of certainty how to expect their moving hidden costs don't do anybody favors and they don't want to come back and do business with us. we will quote you a rate for a generous allotment of time and miles to complete the trip. stuart: we love having successful businesses and you are it. thank you for being here, see you again soon. look at the time. 11:55, tuesday trivia question, which president serve the shortest term? i know this one. the answer when we come back.

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stuart: here is the question, which president served the shortest term? ashley, do you want to take a questions guess. >> i think i know it was harrison, a month, died in pneumonia after being caught in a rainstorm. stuart: it is the right one. i'm not sure about getting caught in the rainstorm story. i'm not sure about that. that is the correct answer. harrison was the ninth president

of the united states. he served for just 32 days. as you said, ash, he caught a cold. developed into pneumonia. 1841 he was the first president to die in office. how about that? i didn't know that. anyway, i got it wrong. we don't need to check the markets because our time is up, ashley and myself. let's go straight to neil, sir, it is yours. neil: thank you very much for that, stuart. we're following the same thing you are. a bit of a comeback on wall street today you about not a big one. let's get the read as we sort of get a better sense what jerome powell's intentions with the economy. he says he will not let the inflation grass grow under him so he telegraphed a lot of big moves here. hasn't really been more specific than that. again, jamie dimon and others are estimating at least four rate hikes this year. jamie dimon for his part would like even more than that. go to edward lawrence at the white hous