maria: i don't know, i mean, if you're starting out and why not? take some time to go to italy, live there for a while, how long were you living there, dagen? dagen: i lived there for almost like a year in venice, i almost mispronounced venice. todd: hey, maria, can we make her an honorary paisson for the day? maria: i think so, yes. todd: okay. dagen: but northern italians and southern italians, they don't get along. not really. maria: [laughter] well, i love this idea and i love that story. its been great being with you guys this morning, dagen mcdowell, todd piro, honorary italian, dagen, i should say. dagen: [laughter] maria: markets this morning flat we're waiting on lots of economic data and earnings this week "varney" & company begins right now. ashley webster in for stu this morning have a great day, everybody ashley take it away. ashley: thank you very much.

good morning to you, maria, good morning, everyone. i'm ashley webster yes, in today , for stuary varney. guess what? he's back. elon musk has restored the twitter account for former president trump. that's got the left in full-on meltdown mode. no big surprise so the question is will we see a tweet soon from mr. trump? only time will tell. bob chapek is out. bob iger is back in as ceo of disney, it's a shocking shakeup, iger retired by the way less than a year ago. shares are down for disney roughly 40% this year. i wonder if it has anything to do with how woke the company has become. we'll talk about it. the stock is up big time in the pre-market. take a look at stocks on this holiday shortened traiting week overall. the dow as you can see essentially flat down 10 points also, same story for the s&p, and the nasdaq. we'll follow that closely when the bell rings in just about what, half an hour from now. bitcoin hitting its lowest level in a week, as the ftx scandal

unfolds. new ceo john ray says the exchange is looking to resell or restructure its global empire. the company owes its largest creditors an estimated $3 billion. we're going to have the very latest on that saga. bitcoin as you could see right around $16,000. a new report by the gop accuses the pentagon of promoting critical race theory and gender identity insanity. it claims resources have been allocated to root out extremism within the ranks and promote predominantly left wing ideas on race and gender and we'll bring you the details on that story and oh, by the way the world cup on fox is underway. host country qatar kicking off the tournament against ecuador. they lost 2-0 but the biggest story might be fans in the stadium, who were heard to chant "we want beer." hilarious. team usa has their opener today at 2:00 p.m. eastern playing against the mighty wales. it's a buzz holiday week, monday

, november 21, 2022 "varney" & company about to begin. ♪ i didn't know then that you were right, you're all i ever wanted ashley: holiday time in new york , i just love all of the decorations looking at sixth avenue there down towards central park there saying "i want you back" and we're starting off this monday, why not, with twitter. so much going on. elon musk reinstating donald trump's account. my oh, my good morning, lauren. is trump going to be tweeting again, tweeting up a storm as he used to? lauren: no, no, the 2024 presidential candidate says no. so here is the deal, ashley. elon musk conducted a twitter poll, and he said users do you want trump reinstated on the platform? so donald trump shared a screen

shot of that poll on his social media site, truth social, this weekend and he wrote "vote now but don't worry we aren't going anywhere truth social is special." so based on that poll, 52% voted to reinstate the former president, and the 2024 presidential candidate, so his account is unlocked. he hasn't used it yet, ashley, and just one more piece of the twitter drama. there are reports that elon musk is considering more layoffs today at twitter in sales and in their partnerships business. ashley: yeah, it's quite a story indeed. lauren thanks very much. republican leaders taking aim at donald trump by the way this weekend. just listen to this. >> the fact of the matter is the reason we're losing is because donald trump has put himself before everybody else. >> let's stop supporting crazy unelectable candidates in our primaries and start getting behind winners that can close the deal in november. >> you know, trump was saying

that we be winning so much we would get tired of winning. well, i'm sick and tired of our party losing. if you repeatedly lose to a really bad team, it's time for new leadership. ashley: well you know what? they didn't mince any words did they? david avella joins us. david great to see you this morning. it seems like there's a split in the republican party. how is this going to shake out? >> we're going to need leaders who talk about looking forward and what they want to do and that includes president trump and if he were to get a second term, what the would he focus on just as all of these candidates who want to be the republican nominee are going to have to talk about how we move our country forward and, ashley, it can't be said enough. president trump at this point in the 2016 election still hadn't come down the golden escalator and started talking about securing the border and creating jobs. we have a long way to go in this

primary race and it's good for the party to have this discussion about the direction we go. ashley: you know, it's interesting though, because the former house speaker paul ryan famously said just recently , anyone but trump in the republican party can beat biden. i mean, we're hearing this a lot and how would you respond to that? >> there's going to be a lot of views about who should be our parties nominee. this isn't the democratic party in the house under nancy pelosi where everybody had to think the same thing or they got thrown out of the caucus. we can be diverse over the next couple months. we can talk about who best represents us and then as voters vote, we'll find out who they want. ashley: all right, let's move on next one for you. what do you make of hakeem jefferies as a replacement for speaker pelosi? fresh blood? a lot younger person. is that, what do you make of that? >> well, we're going to see if he can hold house democrats

together the way nancy pelosi did. to her credit, she did run a very tight ship. she did not allow descent to occur but when you have a caucus that includes people like auto aoc and the squad, you're going to have a very rowdy caucus. will jefferies, his first test, can he keep them together as they move into the minority and try to challenge house republicans. ashley: yeah, very quickly, david. does that, perhaps, signal we know pelosi was at odds with the progressives, even though she had to cava long the way. how do you think hakeem jefferies will handle that? is it almost impossible these days for democrats to hold somewhere in the middle? >> there is no question the house democrats are more progressive, a smaller group, than they are right now, and that will make an opportunity for house republicans in 2024 to actually gain seats as house

democrats show their true colors and it's not for the policies that will move this country forward. ashley: right. all right, we'll have to leave it there. david avella, great to see you this morning thank you very much >> you too. ashley: thank you well now that the republicans control the house, democratic leaders are speaking out. come back in here, lauren. who is saying what? lauren: so majority leader steny hoyer and majority whip jim clyburn both stepping down from their leadership roles. both appeared together yesterday on msnbc, and they said the new house will be legislative over investigative. that means they are going to have to work republicans, right, to get things done. the democrats say putting people over politics will help them take back the house in 2024. can both parties work together is the question. ashley: hmmm. yeah. lauren: you know. ashley: always the question. generally the answer is no but we'll see. lauren thank you very much. let's check the futures now and bring in our good friend jeff si

ca. great to see you, jeff. the future is slightly lower, and nasdaq is down now half a percent in the pre-market. all right, jeff. what sectors are you looking at? what sectors are uninvesting in right now? >> well i know ashley, you're probably going to find this a shock but i'm not exactly doing backflips over this rally. i do think it's a bear market rally but one thing i will say is theres a couple sectors which are very compelling to me. number one, banks. i think the banks who will make more money as interest rates go up as there's that delta between what they pay in interest and what people pay for loans, banks , but i especially like rates reit's. i think real estate investment trust which invest in portfolios pay dividends. if you follow the big boys like blackstone, blackstone has invested tens of billions of dollars in reit's. i think they are very attractive

a lot of them are trading at a discount to what the value of the real estate is. they still offer attractive dividends, so we're buying the heck out of them because i think a lot of them are going to be bought out by the likes of blackstone. ashley: all right, i've got to ask you about disney. pretty shocking shakeup. bob chapek out, bob iger coming back again as ceo. good move certainly in the pre- market look at disney stock up 9%. >> yeah, i mean, i've been on this show recently in talking about the fact that i like disney. i think disney was going to have a turnaround but i've been very, i've been slamming bob chapek since he's took over. i think he's made -- he's handed one of the most iconic brands in the world and he blew it. now, bob iger, whose been with the company for 40 years, ashley , 40 years, 15 years as

ceo, he knows this company. he orchestrated my favorite take over which was marvel and pixar and lucas films. he's a brilliant man. a great operator. i stand behind, i have owned disney for 30 years, it was the first stock i bought when i started managing money and i'm happy to own it now and thrilled today about the move. ashley: i've got about 30 seconds, jeff, very quickly. a lot of the market, well certainly investors, are kind of talking about this so- called pivot from the fed, that they may start slowing things down with regard to interest rates and quantitative easing, whatever you want to call it. do you think that's true? because the fed heads last week were all saying no, no, no, no, we've got a long way to go yet, what do you think? >> i mean, i think the fed has so far to go. let's face it. they have blown their credibility. their notes come out on wednesday. i'll be reading them probably half reading them because they are dazed and confused.

i don't quite understand what they are trying to accomplish but all of the interest rates they've had, they haven't been able to raise, to lower the inflation rate. they are saying they have a 2% target. they aren't even close to that, so this pivot talk, i think, is a sham. they are not going to pivot and like a two-year-old they're going to keep hitting this thing until they break it. ashley: [laughter] calling it as he sees it, as always and that's why we love him jeff sica thanks so much for joining us on this monday really appreciate it. thank you. coming up former ambassador to nato nikki haley addressed a possible 2024 bid for the white house. listen to this. >> a lot of people have asked if i'm going to run for president. for now, i'll say this. i've never lost an election and i'm not going to start now. ashley: we'll get into that, plus, despite warnings of a downturn ahead, president biden telling americans his approach

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ashley: president biden telling americans his approach to the economy, he says that it's working, despite warnings of a downturn ahead. edward lawrence is at the white house this morning. edward? what are the economists predicting? reporter: you know, it's interesting. it's not just economists now. now the mid-term elections are over we're starting to hear

union leaders say that there's a real possibility of a somewhat of a recession in the future. now the leaders told the president this in a meeting on friday a discussion that they had with the president in person listen to what the union leaders told fox business about a recession. listen to this. >> well i think that we're somewhat recession-proof because of the fact that we're in retail food, as well as manufacturing food processing, so but as far as a recession is coming, i think it's a possibility, and our members are very much concerned with the inflationary issues if they are having to deal with as well, so but i do think it's possible that we are going to see somewhat of a recession. the question is how deep is it going to be? reporter: so money managers are now saying we could see stagflation, where you have high inflation and a rising unemployment rate. in fact, when you look at food

inflation, year-over-year, eggs, for example, that's up 43%, fish , milk, fruit and vegetables also coffee which is up 14.8%. listen to farmers here. >> we haven't heard anything from the administration on what they are going to do for inflation in this country. inflation is on the rise with no end in sight right now, and the president, the agriculture secretary, isn't doing enough to assist america's farmers right now. reporter: the president is saying just wait six more weeks and then the inflation reduction act will start to kick in. we're going to hold him to that timeline, to see where we are in six weeks. back to you. ashley: you do that, edward, thank you very much appreciate it. good time to bring in economist steven blitz. good morning to you. >> good morning. ashley: is the economic outlook still worse even if there's no recession next year? we're slowing down for sure but by how much? >> well, the economy is slowing down but you know, it's an interesting story. if we don't have a recession,

we're going to have worse inflation, and unfortunately, i mean, there are, look, there are a lot of policy issues that can be put in place to help ease inflation but none of those have been put in place in truth and none of these things even if they put in place tomorrow would have much of an impact so the fed has no choice but you know you have a lot of doveish members of the fomc who are lean ing and pushing the fed to slowing down to 50 basis point hike as opposed to the 75 that's planned that was originally planned based on one cpi print, and you can see the reaction of the equity markets that you're actually easing financial conditions. if they do 50 in december, they might as well do nothing and so that recession risk is right now as high. it's a modest recession, and i hate saying modest recession because it's not modest for the people who end up being unemployed. ashley: right. >> so you know, fully aware of

that human reality to it but from a broad macro standpoint, you're talking about a recession getting to 5-5.5% unemployment an the fed will start cutting again, or they can avoid all of that and then they will find out that inflation isn't drifting back to 2%. ashley: you know what's amazing to me, steve, is the resilience of the u.s. economy, because in my mind, and this may not be true across-the-board, but consumers are spending. they still have money to spend from the pandemic and to me, the resilience is pretty remarkable. what say you? >> yeah, no, i think that's a great point. you know, one of the things that the fed is sort of missing. i think a lot of my fellow economists are missing. look the economy is decelerating from a level of growth last year , combination of fiscal transfers, reopening that was not going to be repeated, so now you're back down and look you have very high unaffordability

on housing, for example, and you're selling homes, new homes at least and construction where you were in 2018-2019 when affordability was a lot lower. affordability is about to come down, i should say be more affordable because mortgage rates start to come in and they are already beginning and you've seen that in the last couple weeks so yes, and you've never had this kind of disinflation into a strong labor market with strong nominal wage growth which is why if the fed eases up here, they will find themselves in a worse inflation problem in six months. ashley: all right, we'll have to leave it there, steven, but thanks. great conversation and we do appreciate it. thank you, and talking of the housing market, i want to bring lauren back in. lauren, there are eight u.s. cities where homeowners need to own or earn at least 200,000 to afford a home. it's a lot of, you know, big salary. which cities are we talking

about? lauren: it's crazy. they are basically all in california, san francisco tops the list, so the median home price there is $1.5 million. that means you need to show income of $402,000. san jose, not far behind 363,000 , income is needed for the median home price of 1.35 million. look, the numbers above 250,000 to live in anaheim, oakland. l.a. is actually all the way down in fifth place, and seattle , washington is in eighth place on this list. you need 20 $5,000 in income, so where is new york city? i thought we would have been in the top 10, no, number 11 you need income of about $179,000 to r mortgage payments in new york city. ashley: wow. lauren: so new york is cheap. huh. ashley: [laughter] never heard that before, but you know what? going west is very expensive these days all right, lauren thank you very much. let's take a quick look at the futures for you. we're slightly lower, ahead of the opening bell which oh, hey the dow turned around we're up 19 points. the opening bell coming up right

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ashley: all right, we have a shortened holiday week of trading, but ahead of the monday bell, we've got the dow ever so slightly on the upside, the s&p and nasdaq down slightly. good time to bring in keith fitz-gerald. keith, good morning to you. >> good morning. ashley: i asked this question to jeff sica. do you think the fed is going to pivot. that's what the market is asking >> boy, i tell you what. that is like asking what color pajamas a three-year-old is going to wear tomorrow. i don't know the answer to that. ashley: [laughter] >> i would love to see them pause, pivot, hesitate, take a reality pill, whatever you want to call it, ashley, but i don't know. ashley: what are you buying right now? let's get down to business. >> well i tell you what. i'm very intrigued by the disney situation, because they try to anger no one, wound up angering everybody, billions of people or millions of people walked away, billions of dollars lost so this is interesting i want to give it a quarter or two but other than that this week i'm going to sit back and wait to

see what the markets doing. there's so many cross currents i'm not in a rush to do anything this week. ashley: interesting. i think we're going to see trading volumes pretty low this week, because it's a holiday week but also, to your point, that it's all a bit difficult to decipher right now. you know, jeff sica was saying he loves the banks right now. he thinks they are going to be the big beneficiary of the higher interest rates of course on loans. do you like the banks? >> i do. we're long jpmorgan right now. i think it's best-in-class, certainly jamie dimon knows exactly what he's doing. he's been way ahead of this the whole time even though the fed has not so that's a holding i'll continue to keep in the portfolio for the foreseeable future but i'm also looking into healthcare , i'm looking into food. obviously inflation rages, so that speaks well to a company like tyson, which i also own, for example, but you know, again , this week is not something you want to rush, or narrowly thanksgiving week, people walk away. volume thins out. spreads get wider. it's just not a place to play

games right now. ashley: very quickly, are you exposed at all to the crypto landscape, keith? >> well, indirectly through jpmorgan because they're operating in digital clearing but that's a bet i want. now, we did recommend to get out of bitcoin and ethererum when the whole thing blew up because the ftx situation is unbelievable and you thought mad off was a boy scout. this is unbelievable. there are repercussions in big names concept out for many years to come. ashley: we'll leave it right there, keith, but thank you very much, appreciate it as always your time, the opening bell coming up in about 20 seconds from now thank you, keith, the happy and clapping and it's about to start a new trading day as we can see there the dow futures pointing to a slightly positive opening. >> [opening bell ringing] ashley: we've seen the s&p and nasdaq slightly lower in the pre -market so we are up and running, and here we go, got their phones out, everyone is taking pictures and off we go. we're going to take a look at the big board for you as the

first trades start to register and there you go right out of the gate, merck, disney strong today with bob iger coming back in as ceo, replacing bob chapek. investors seem to like that move , because disney out the top of the dow 30 as you can see. the dow up 68 points. all right, not bad let's take a look at where the s&p is, down slightly down 10 points at 39.54 and big tech exchange nasdaq down nearly half a percent down 50 points or thereabouts and talking of big tech let's look at some of the big tech names if we can there you go. amazon, microsoft, alphabet all moving higher, microsoft up another half a percent but meta/ facebook or the old facebook down half a percent, apple too down nearly 1%. let's take another look at disney if we can look at that up basically 9% as we say, ceo bob chapek out, bob iger back in, it seems investors certainly like

this move. good morning to you, susan. >> so we are on track for the best day for disney since december 2020, two years on iger's surprise return, so moffettnathanson which is a highly respected media analyst and they love the news and upgraded disney stock to outperform saying it's worth $120 now. also remember though that disney has had a really tough year down 40% so far, and wall street, by the way, so the worst stock reaction to a disney earnings report in more than 20 years recently, so chapek had a really troubled tenure since taking over from iger in 2020. so many notable mistakes including that florida don't say gay bill, that was a disaster, the black widow fight, firing of a really popular tv boss, and then streaming $1.5 billion in that recent report card, so chapek was just so deeply disliked and unpopular and i'll give you an example of that because i was at the wall street

journal tech live event in lagun a beach and he was speaking there and he throughout what i thought was a benign comment that adults don't watch cartoons so that was even controversial so it just goes back to how deeply unpopular chapek was and in some ways kind of tough act to follow bob iger. also shocking that he only got two years on-the-job and by the way, he was just fulfilling the streaming strategy that bob iger had instituted. also, by the way, you know, chapek's contract was renewed for three more years in the springtime, so in just a few months time, i mean, they are spending so much money, probably pay him out for the rest of that contract deal, but -- ashley: yup. >> it's just shocking how things turn around so quickly with the board so we need to bring back the old card to maybe look for better leadership. ashley: yeah, and investors totally agree with that. look at that up 8.5%. let's get to the latest on the cryptos. >> i just want to note quickly that bob iger said he didn't want the job.

he wasn't coming back to disney. he also said that linear television is going to fall off a cliff on the precipice we just don't know when that is, so is he the man then? a solution to this possible cliff dive? ashley: exactly. right. all right, well let's get to the cryptos. the soap opera that is the ceo of ftx now talking about the future of the company. what future i guess, susan? >> well okay so we should note this is the good it guy that was brought into replace sam bankman-fried to try to retrieve some of the money for investors and users so the good news is according to john jay ray iii, who oversaw enron's collapse, most of the 130 ftx subsidiaries they invested in or owned actually has some value to re coup some money for users and investors that lost in the ftx bankruptcy. now ftx also owes $3 billion to its top 50 creditors. that was revealed this weekend and then you had sam

bankman-fried speaking out to reporters this morning, again maybe not advisable but his lawyer paul weiss stepped down by the way but sbf is still saying he can look for a bailout to rescue ftx. you know, some would call that pretty lofty and that's a polite way of saying it's probably not going to happen. ashley: let's just leave that where it belongs. let's talk about grey scale bitcoin trust. are they a contagion victim? >> absolutely. i think this is "the talk" of the crypto world right now. so grey scale is the biggest bitcoin fund in the world easiest way and for average investors to own a slice of bitcoin in this trust and a lot of people have bought in. supposedly, gbtc, as it's called for short, owns 643,000 bitcoins , but with the ftx collapse, concerns of contagion, the operator of the trust, grey scale, now refusing to share any proof of their actual bitcoin reserve. that's a big deal, because grey scale is owned by dcg.

dcg needs to plug $1 billion hole in its lending arm genesis by today, and dcg is having a hard time raising that cash so crypto markets thinks that there is risk that dcg may have to unwind gbtc to makeup for that $1 billion shortfall. also there's serious mistrust right now after ftx. many people are concerned of this illegal funneling of assets from one subsidiary to another without investors knowing, so does dcg funnel and this is again, deep mistrust, it might not actually be happening, but are they funneling money from gb tc to help out genesis? ashley: what a mess and tough to keep up with. doing a great job, susan. let's change gears so to speak. take a look at carvana. are they running out of cash? >> yes, so this is the used car dealer and it was a pandemic winner kind of like peloton but has collapsed throughout the last 12 months or so. wall street journal reporting and quoting analysts saying the

online used car maker retailer could possibly run out of cash in just a year's time so carvana just announced on friday they were laying off another 1,500 workers . second round of layoffs in just about six months time and i just saw that their interest expense, with interest rates shooting up to what, close to the i think the fastest rate since 1980s has doubled so far this year, and as you know, with used car retailers when rates go up, you have outlay of cash in order to buy those cars. that's a problem. ashley: yup. it certainly is. the stock is down more than 7%. all right, susan, thank you great job, appreciate it. let's check the big board, as we're what, nearly seven minutes into the session. the dow up 22 points all very muted right now. at least it's on the upside. dow winners let's take a lack at some of those well walt disney have their new ceo and old ceo and investors like it, it's up more than 9%, amgen, travelers, microsoft on the list, honeywell also all among the dow winners.

let's take a look at the s&p 500 winners disney again, i can't even read that, becton dickenson, ross stores, up nearly 2% so there you have some of the winners on the s&p and the nasdaq there you go, amgen on there, microsoft, again ross stores, some of the winners on nasdaq. let's move on, shall we? take a look at this hit the headline if you will. the basement strategy is working for democrats. who wrote that? joe concha wrote that and he asks will politicians avoid the press forever? interesting concept. he'll be here, put wiser found a way to get rid of its surplus of beer and more of an incentive to win the world cup, we'll get into that, and ye formerly con yeah west made a big announcement to twitter. he made an announcement about 2024 we'll bring you the details after this.

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ashley: president biden declared the covid pandemic over, but now he's dealing with two other viruses on the rise. mark meredith is at the white house this morning with the very latest. good morning, mark. >> ashley, good morning to you. well since president biden took office we have heard from him so much when it comes to coronavirus but now as you mentioned, the white house facing a lot more questions about how it plans to deal with what something is known as rsv or respiratory virus, which is impacting infants nationwide. earlier this month, we saw two groups, the american academy of pediatrics as well as the children's hospital association send the president a letter warning that many hospitals simply do not have the resources or staff to handle the large number of

infants who are struggling to breathe. in this letter they write, "we need emergency funding support and flexibility" along the same lines of what was provided to respond to covid surges and the white house says it's letting health and human services take the lead and providing assistance to communities on a case-by-case basis, however the white house still wants parents as well as anybody whose eligible to do what they can to protect themselves from other things other than rsv, get the flu to protect yourself against winter illnesses. still for so many importants there's just not enough options. the wall street journal summing it up saying "some parents are sending kids to school sick or returning them too quickly after illnesses because parents cite an inability to take more time off from work and a broader weariness from dealing with so much illness during the covid-19 pandemic attainted that the truth. we know that the white house also deals with a supply shortage of different medicines including amoxicillan, impacting

how parents maybe able to get their kids healthier, faster , in d.c. ashley my wife had to go to three different cvs locations to beg the pharmacist to get some of this stuff. it's really a problem out there. ashley? ashley: it really is. mark, thank you very much appreciate that. good time to bring in dr. marc siegel who joins us. doc, good morning to you. how concerned are you about rsv? >> well, i am, because ashley, good morning. we haven't seen the last few years because likely because of all of the shutdowns, closures, school closures, masking, and so now, it's roaring back and it's roaring back early. earlier than we usually see it, and to give you an idea, 6% of all outpatient visits last week were either for rsv, flu, or covid, respiratory viruses and 10% of deaths were due to these respiratory viruses and as mark meredith just said, parents don't know what to do. they have trouble distinguishing let me give you a way that you

can distinguish, ashley. one, the rsv is usually upper respiratory, your kids get clog ged, their noses get clogged that's the number one symptom you see. with flu you get knocked out like a ton of bricks literally the fatigue, walking one minute, laid out the next. body aches, muscle aches, fatigue. not as much upper respiratory stuff. covid can give you any of the above, but mostly, i'm see ing with this sub-variant the sore throat predominantly. that's what tells me it maybe covid. someone suddenly has a killer sore throat and none of what i just said is absolute but i want to give people some guidelines. ashley: well how concerning is it that the hospitals are becoming overrun, and comparing it to the surge of covid? is it that bad? >> yeah, well they are getting overrun. the biggest thing here is that the pediatric part of the things is getting overrun, and i want to talk about what you can do about that. you know, you can test your kid

at home for covid. if you bring your kid to the emergency room, which i'm trying to avoid but if you do, i can distinguish in the emergency room whether it's rsv, flu, or covid. that helps me. i agree with mark about the flu and also you should be considering if your kid is in a high risk group what about the covid shot. we can't do anything for rsv. i want to reassure people that over the next couple of months, there's going to be a blanket of immunity from rsv around and it's going to calm down. very very young kids, ashley, under the age of six months, don't have developed airways they get clogged airways and get clogged with the rsv and very old people are the ones i'm most worried about. ashley: all right, we'll have to leave it there but great information as always, dr. siegel, thank you. appreciate it. >> thank you, ashley. ashley: china's zero-covid policy doesn't seem to be having a whole lot of success. lauren what's the latest? lauren: because there's no immunity right? there were three deaths in beijing over the weekend. those are the first deaths that

we know about that they've reported in six months, and there were nearly 27,000 new cases yesterday alone in china. there are alarming figures for a covid-naive population, and they have china returning to heightened restrictions. so, you have a five-day lockdown in the biggest part of gunzou, residents ordered to stay home, they closed the schools and many businesses, people arriving to beijing, they have to take three days of tests before they can even go outside, and you have mass testing taking place in other parts of the country too so citizens who are so hopeful and they started to see small signs that china was scaling back their covid-zero policies and now bam, three deaths, that's not happening anymore. they are back to mass testing and lockdowns in many parts of the country. ashley: back to where they started. lauren: yup. ashley: and lauren, here at home some people are now suing for being fired after not getting the vaccine. what's the story there? lauren: christian employees at t akeda pharmaceuticals in

massachusetts are suing the company saying look, they were fired unjustly and takeda allowed them to request religious exemption but they say the pharmaceutical didn't grant anybody any religious exemptions. the plaintiffs say that the issue they had with the covid vaccines is that they were developed with aborted fetal stem cells, although none are actually present in the vaccine. they are seeking unspecified compensation damages including lost wages. this goes one year back plus legal fees. this was a year ago that they were fired and now you see this lawsuit. ashley: all right, lauren, thank you very much. coming up, intelligence committee chairman mark warner is crossing party lines with this warning about tiktok. take a listen. >> i think donald trump was right. i mean, tiktok is a enormous threat, so if you're a parent and you got a kid on tiktok, i be very very concerned.

ashley: all right well what makes tiktok so different from other social media sites? i'm going to ask vivek vivek ramaswamy later in the show and then there's this. retailers are gearing up for the busiest time of the year but also dealing with a crime surge hurting their profits: jeff flock has the story right after this. liberty mutual. they customize your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. contestants ready? go! only pay for what you need. jingle: liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty.

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tell your doctor if your crohn's disease symptoms develop or worsen. serious allergic reaction may occur. best move i've ever made. ask your dermatologist ashley: well, the holiday shopping season is ramping up, and so is organized theft. jeff flock is at the outlets in jackson, new jersey this morning jeff, that mall was targeted by an organized shopif hadding ring what are they doing now to try and prevent more of this? reporter: well, what they are trying to do is continue to do what they did then, which is they got word of that, and then they brought the police in and staged a massive bust. that is what needs to take place more at retailers say as this organized retail theft ramps up. take a look at the pictures of some of the stuff being stolen on these rings. it's not real expensive stuff,

ashley. it's like, you know, everything from deodorant to toothpaste to pain relievers that sort of thing, stuff that's easy to steal, conceal and get away with. you know, these rings, this isn't people that have a headache, can't afford the tylenol so they went and stole a bottle. these are people that are paid by these rings to come in and steal specific items that can be sold, resold on the internet. organized retail crime orc, up 26% in 2021 and the suspicion is more this year. what does it cost the economy? last time somebody did a study on it, $125 billion in lost economic activity, 650,000 jobs and $15 billion in tax revenue to the economy. whose getting hit? well, you might guess, drug stores obviously, a big one, some apparel retailers, food stores like kroger and then target, which i think you reported last week on. you know, the cfo is saying

they lost $400 million, i quote him now, i think what he said was at target, year-to-date, incremental shortage, which is a fancy way of saying we got ripped off, has reduced gross margins by $40 million so far. we expect it'll reduce it by 600 million by the end of the year. you know, it's already going to be a little bit of a difficult christmas season. goldman sachs did a study and found about half of america says it's going to spend less this christmas than it did last year. another quarter say they are going to spend about the same, so going to be tough all around. now the cost of doing business, ashley, seems to be getting ripped off. ashley: yes, and the numbers are staggering. all right jeff flock great stuff thank you very much. still ahead on the show, mollie hemingway, steve forbes, rob smith and vivek ramaswamy. the 10 a.m. hour of "varney" &

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