maria, thankful for the team for dagen for hads amusing me during the commercial break reading headlines from the babyl on bee. got to be, got to say thanks, very thankful for my great family and i'm also thankful for the mayflower compact, 402 years ago beginning of self- government pretty groovy. a lot to be thankful for on that score, and 401 years ago first thanksgiving, strong move. dagen: [laughter] >> what can you say? a lot to appreciate here. maria: let me also say -- i wanted to say, i want to thank our fury friends as well, my dusty girl is also someone that i'm so thankful for and i know you're thankful for yours. dagen mcdowell, james freeman, great to see you both have a happy thanksgiving, everybody we'll see you again next week, and on friday, we're live

"varney" & company is up next, ashley webster in for stu. ashley i know you have a lot to be thankful for as well. ashley: oh, indeed i do, maria, and i love your little doggy, so cute, love that picture, thanks, maria. good morning, i'm ashley webster of course in today for stuary varney. let's begin with president biden , why don't we? announcing he will extend his student loan payment moratorium until at least the summer of 2023. that's when the supreme court, by the way, will hear the case. there are now calls for dhs secretary alejandro mayorkas to be impeached. house gop leader kevin mccarthy says if mayorkas doesn't resign republicans will investigate " every order, every action, and every failure." meanwhile, dr. fauci says he will cooperate fully with any house republican investigation into the origin of covid, but the question is, will anyone be held accountable? meanwhile, a new hhs report says mask mandates should, get this , be reinstated to protect against

long covid. we'll get into that. meanwhile, to the markets, after nice gains yesterday on this holiday short and trading week, the dow slightly down in the pre-market as is the s&p, the nasdaq, just slightly higher let's take a look at the 10 year yield. has been floating right around the same, up just a little bit this morning at 3.76% that's way below the two-year yield by the way which always signifies a recession. we'll get into that. what's going on in the crypto world? bitcoin up 297 bucks, hanging around at 16, 405. that's bitcoin. we're also learning, by the way, more about ftx's gross mismanagement. new reports that say sam bankman-fried used the company as his personal thiefdom, and one of the units in the company actually spent 300 million bucks on real estate in the bahamas. what would have gone wrong? it is wednesday, november 23. "varney" & company is about to

begin. a little party never killed nobody, we're going to dance until we drop ♪ ashley: a little party never killed nobody, as she said in english, not exactly great but we get the message. there's sixth avenue looking down towards central park in midtown manhattan. it's the day, it's thanksgiving eve. so much to be thankful for , getting ready for the big feast tomorrow. as you can see , the futures, kind of we're waiting for the fed minutes really that come out at 2:00 p.m. eastern this afternoon. all right, talking of the economy, we have some more data. the latest read on durable goods out today. good morning, lauren. take us through the report.

lauren: good morning. so these are orders for big ticket items, think electronics, furniture, there rose a solid 1% last month. it shows demand for expense ever items that keep america's factories humming so if the factories are humming, they will need workers, right? that's good for the job market. if you take a look at the core capital goods part of this report, that's a proxy for business spending. they also rose more than expected up .7% in october. bottom line. higher interest rates often used to finance corporate large purchases in the future are not impacting companies at least not in this data. what message does that send to the federal reserve as they decide how much to keep hiking interest rates. ashley: yeah, it's this game, isn't it? good news is bad news and vice versa, and all of the rest of it we'll get the fed minutes this afternoon and you can be guaranteed that every word will be parsed to figure out what they are actually thinking. lauren, thank you very much.

now this. president biden is extending the student loan repayment freeze. watch this. >> folks, i want to give you an update on my student debt relief plan. as americans continue to recover from the pandemic, my administration is working to provide student debt relief to millions of working and middle class families ink across country, but republicans special interest and elected officials, even for their own constituents, and i'm completely confident my plan is legal, but right now, it's on hold because of these lawsuits. we're not going to back down on our fight to give families breathing room. ashley: we are not going to back down, says president biden. todd piro, great to have you here with us this morning, todd. what do you make of this extension? todd: that phrase that the president used and his entire speech there in that video leads me to believe he knows or thinks he is going to lose in the courts, so by extending the moratorium,

he's trying to give one final gift to the people that quite frankly, ashley, he duped into voting for him on this one issue and one issue alone. those are called young voters who really helped democrats avoid a blood bath during the mid-terms so he's going to string them along for six more months. in the end they likely to have to pay this back. they will have been duped into giving their vote because joe biden gave them "gave them" an extra $10,000 to pay off their loans and one final point. he says if you listen to that video in full, he says it isn't fair to ask, meaning make those individuals payback their loans. you want to talk about fair? it isn't fair to ask the welders , you know, who didn't go to college, whose sweating, the ditch digger, the coal miner, you can name and go on and on and on. is it fair to ask that person to pay off the basket weaving degree of somebody who went to a liberal arts college, relax i went to a liberal arts college too but is not using that degree to generate income.

ashley: yeah it's vote-buying and that's simply bottom line what it is. next one for you, todd. biden, by the way, became the oldest serving president when he turned 80 this past weekend. now, there are some potential names being thrown around for 2024. kamala harris, bernie sanders, pete buttigieg, to name a few, and i would say that's a pretty shallow bench, not a beep den . at all. to i'm worried if i don't include lauren simonetti she will yell at me like she did in the first story. lauren: i could win. todd: to that point though, ash, and lauren, the lack of a mid-term blood bath for the democrats should not make them confident in their bench. we need to remember that democrats did well winning certain races. they lost the popular vote which is ironic we're talking about gop and popular by about 5 million so the nation is lean ing toward republican policies. that bench is sad and when you look at the republican bench

going into 2024, that bench is robust. we've gone through the names multiple times. there they are on your screen. those guys are extremely popular names. while not every policy or not every personality trait maybe the most popular, those guys will put, in our business, butts in the seats. does pete buttigieg do that? does kamala harris do that? i think we know the answer to that and it's no. ashley: no, no. yeah, exactly right, todd, thank you and good news is you're sticking around with us for the full hour. todd: good for me. ashley: listen, we've got the latest read on mortgage applications. lauren, assuming that todd doesn't jump in? lauren: he just punched my arm, ashley. i'm joking. so this is actually mortgage applications rose 2.2% from the prior week. here is why. the mortgage bankers association says well, i know they are very high, but mortgage rates pulled back just a little bit and what that does is it's a small sliver of relief for those potential home buyers, they get a little

bit more purchasing power, right i also wanted to point out quickly that october building permits were revised to fall even more than they initially had. they are now down 3.3% for the month, so future building not looking so good. ashley: okay. you are the data lady today. lauren: i know. ashley: investor home purchases took a major drop what happened there, lauren? lauren: an investor home purchase is important because this is the big wall street-type buyers with lots of money who makeup about 17.5% of all home purchases. okay? they fell 30% in the third quarter according to redfin. those are the numbers. last year they bought 894,000 homes in the third quarter, this year 66,000, why? because rates have gone up and prices haven't come down as much , so they are sitting a bit on the sidelines. i'm going to make the argument, this is a positive, because those big buyers often rent their properties out and that's one reason why rents are so high so let's take this too as a

positive piece of news today. ashley: yeah. you're exactly right, lauren. it happens a lot in florida. a lot of investment funds come in and buy up all these communities and then as you say rent them out and the rents go up. lauren thank you very much. take a look at the -- lauren: data lady done. ashley: but not totally. let's take a look at the futures , slightly muted and slightly lower in the pre-market investors waiting to hear from the fed minutes that will be released from their last meeting this afternoon, and going to go through every word and say oh, he said would instead of should and so on. let's bring in eddie ghabour and get some sanity here. eddie, let me ask you this are we going to get a santa claus rally this year? >> unfortunately, i don't believe so. i think that rally has been pulled forward with what we've seen since the bottom in october , and look, we're going to be heading into december waiting on an inflation print and waiting on a fed meeting, and if the market is up 10-15%

from the october low, heading into that, i don't see how you can be bullish there. i think that when we get the cpi data next month and the fed meeting it's going to continue to prove that the fed is staying true to their word, that they would rather overtighten and before risk having inflation spike again, and so i think you're going to see these gains evaporate very quickly so we raised cash yesterday, we raise more cash on friday and heading into december with the strongest cash position of the year because we think we're going to make a new low that's going to start materializing in december and will go into the beginning part of next year and we will be big buyers of that, so even though we think the economy will be worse next year, we think the stock market itself will be better, but we are waiting to be patient for the entry point because i think we still have at least 15% downside from here. ashley: eddie i'm sorry it's so short but we're going to have to leave it right there but you pretty much said it it all and

we appreciate it. unfortunately, bah humbug, no santa claus rally. eddie ghabour as always great stuff, eddie thank you so much. >> thank you. ashley: coming up dr. fauci, thank you, dr. fauci says he would cooperate with possible house republican investigations on covid origins, but the white house wouldn't even let him answer a question. roll tape. >> a question, asking about the origin of covid. >> i hear the question. >> dr. fauci is the best person >> i hear your question. i'm done. simon, i'm done. i'm done with you. ashley: well apparently she's done. no more questions for you. we'll get into that. then there's this. 49 million people will be traveling by car this thanksgiving, oh, my. gas prices have come down though but they are still on track to be the highest-ever for the holiday. jeff flock riding around to give us, you know, a report that will take you right on the street

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♪ ashley: a pretty picture of lake ville, pennsylvania, where it is currently 46 degrees. by the way, we're playing that song, because it's the day before thanksgiving of course and there's a lot to be thankful for. one thing people are not really thankful for are the higher gas prices compared to previous years. jeff flock is driving along the pennsylvania turnpike. jeff?

good morning to you. how expensive will this thanksgiving be for drivers reporter: only the most expensive in thanksgiving history, is all, but you know, they are coming down i will say that. a lot of people traveling though it doesn't seem to be standing in the way of people. we're out here along the new jersey turnpike. we were in pennsylvania making our way off into new jersey and i'm headed north. i'm headed towards you. i don't know if i'm going to make it that far though. yeah, 54 million people is the number, trains, planes and automobiles this thanksgiving. most of them by car, but yeah, those gas prices maybe as you come back here alive, a lot of traffic and despite the high gas prices, $3.60 i think is what they tell us the national average is right now. that's down $0.03 overnight, and about $0.15 in the last week, so coming down, but still a lot more expensive than it was this time last year. i think we were at like 3.40

this time last year, ashley, so yeah. it's going to cost you but not perhaps as much as it could have in the summer, we were if you remember, $5. beautiful day though to travel here, if you are traveling the northeast, in the neighborhood of philadelphia or new york. beautiful sunny day. what can i tell you? it's a good day to go. i'll leave you with this though. the triple a says if you really want to beat the traffic, travel thanksgiving morning, if you can afford to do that. that's the best way to do it, and dodge all of the traffic that we got out here today. happy thanksgiving, sir. ashley: very good. yes, happy thanksgiving to you, jeff, stay safe, my friend. thank you very much on the new jersey turnpike. lots of trucks around. the average cost by the way for a gallon of regular currently $3.60 as jeff just mentioned. gasbuddy's patrick de haan joins me now. patrick, gas prices have been

falling ahead of thanksgiving. that's the good news. does that trend continue, do you think? >> well it certainly does at least for the next week or two. we're watching continued challenges in china with covid that's pushing oil prices down significantly as china has to shutdown its economy which limits oil consumption. heading into thanksgiving the national average here in the u.s. at its lowest level in 268 days, you have to go back to late february. prices falling in every state in the last week, some of the biggest drops now prices in wisconsin down $0.24, california down $0.23, in the run-up to thanksgiving. ashley: you know, as jeff also pointed out, we know triple a says 49 million people will be traveling on the roads this holiday. have gas prices had any effect on travel plans? i mean, as jeff pointed out it was five bucks and more during the summer. are more people driving especially with the nightmares

of the airports these days? >> well, certainly more people are driving than last year and i think triple a's metric agrees with ours that we're not going to quite get back to 2019 because its been a year of gas prices in the summer hitting $5 a gallon, and only now are they really starting to plummet so in essence, while not as many americans are hitting the road as 2019, more are than last year but the last minute travelers that jumped in a car and said hey, gas prices are down $0.25 i'm feeling a little bit better the number of those travelers could jump up as gas prices continue to drop. ashley: very quickly, patrick. what about the price of diesel, which of course has been sky high. >> yeah, as you mentioned, diesel prices also starting to trickle down. it's not a huge benchmark or a record, but prices now for diesel lowest since late october. back down to about 5.29 a gallon the good news is that diesel has the momentum to fall back under $5 a gallon but it will take

time for gasoline and diesel prices will be falling. ashley: all right, we'll leave it there. patrick de haan with gasbuddy. patrick, thank you so much and happy thanksgiving. >> thanks, ashley. ashley: thank you. president biden and his family, meantime, leaving the white house for thanksgiving. come in, todd, where are they spending the holiday? todd: after the second straight year president biden and his family will spend thanksgiving at the nantucket home of private equity billionaire david rubenst ein, and biden's 2024 plans could be among the dinner table discussion topics. joe, jill, and other family members through to the upscale massachusetts island on air force one yesterday remaining until sunday and plan to stay at the $20 million waterfront home. thanksgiving on the island has been a biden family tradition with regular holiday gatherings held there since 1970. biden as you know indicated earlier this month that the upcoming holiday season be a prime opportunity for him to discuss running for re-election in 2024. he has no public event scheduled

, so his thanksgiving will differ from mine. i'll be staying at a thousand airs home, my own and not discussing 2024. ashley: [laughter] very wise, indeed. we should bring in lauren. lauren are you staying home? you aren't traveling right? lauren: i'm going around the block and i'm going to be for the first time, you know, ashley, i'm going to be a real guest. i don't even think i'm going to do a dish. todd: take that. lauren: i'm just going to sit down and enjoy the holiday. i can't tell you the last time i haven't hosted a holiday. do you think i can actually get away with that just sitting down not even bringing a dish to this? i feel too bad. i might try though. ashley: [laughter] todd: [laughter] ashley: why not? as i said you've earned it lauren. lauren and todd thank you very much. let's check the futures, we've got to get this opening bell in, which, by the way, rings right after the break. don't go away. ♪

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ashley: all right, let's take a look at these futures we're just going to open the markets in

about three minutes. let's bring in d. r. barton, looking to a slightly lower open d. r., good morning to you. let me ask you this when the new congress kicks off, we're basically going to have gridlock in washington. is that good for stocks? >> yes, it is, ashley, and been talking the last few weeks after the mid-terms, that having the senate controlled by one party and the house controlled by the other is actually a good thing for stocks, but we looked at one other thing, ashley. what happens when the house is under very tight control? so no monstrous mandate, less than 20-seat advantage for either party, and we found that out of 15 times that that's happened since world war ii, 80% of the time, the whole term is very strong for stocks, so 80% of the time, pretty good odds for us, i think the market loves gridlock. ashley: well, it means lawmakers

can't do any damage. you like amazon, d. r. they've announced some big job layoffs. there are questions about the consumer but you still like amazon. >> yeah, you know, there's a couple of things, ashley. this isn't just a value play, but it's at the lowest prices that that stock has been in a long, long time, so i think we can take a very small risk to the downside here over the next three-to-six months with an asy mptotic upside for all of that. amazon did the layoffs, they are going to get prices down and i believe the holiday season is going to be much stronger than everyone's expecting and a lot of the other retailers are already looking at big lifts in their stock price. ashley: i hope you're right. what about ibm? >> yeah, back in september, ashley, you and i talked about this one as well.

it's one of those rare tech stocks that has excelled this year. we looked at it on 9-22, on september 22. it's up 20% since then. i think this is a strong play into the end of the year, but you can buy it on a pullback, not here at the five-year highs. ashley: a lot of people, a lot of investors and funds going to cash for now. is that a smart move? >> well i think the time into the end of the year is traditionally one of the strongest of the whole year, ashley. >> [opening bell ringing] >> so i believe that finding some places to invest is okay, but i can't complain if anyone goes to task right now because i'll just have more money to put to work in the new year. ashley: that's exactly right. great place to leave it, d. r., thank you very much. as you see the open bell has

rung. i think even santa is there at the new york stock exchange. wow, a guest appearance for santa. home depot, coca cola, walmart all on the top end right now the dow though starting off very muted, just as we start the trades going, essentially flat on the dow. let's take a look at the s&p if we can. that too was pointing to a slightly lower open in the pre- market and is exactly what we are seeing, down just two or three points right at 4,000 on the s&p. as for the nasdaq, well, we'll call it a very very small gain up 4 points at 11, 181. let's take a look at the big tech names we like to do that everyday. see where they are. microsoft and apple moving lower , apple down half a percent right out of the gate. alphabet, meta platforms, amazon though moving slightly higher. alphabet though up more than half a percent. all right let's get to the cryptos as the ftx bankruptcy hearing is now in full swing. good morning, susan li. take us through all of the

latest. >> good morning to you. so ftx founder sam bankman-fried sbf, as we call him in crypto sending in a letter late last night to ftx employees despite the fact he's already stepped down by the way as ceo, and he said that he actually had a backer that raised their hand just a few hours after he filed for bankruptcy and he still thinks that there's some way he can save ftx. it's pretty lofty. so in that filing, also in that letter that he issued he said he had $60 billion in collateral. that dwindled down to less than $10 billion of the crypto crash this year. a lot of people if you look through and sift through the court case by the way in that bankruptcy hearing in delaware, that's pretty lofty, because we know that ftx lawyers have said that a substantial amount of the assets have either been stolen or they are missing , and ftx lawyers also point the finger squarely at sbf , operating ftx like his own personal thiefdom, instead of being responsible to investors and users, what we

call fiduciary responsibility in business. now, also noting the main concern in crypto the last two days and the sessions this week has been the largest bitcoin fund on the planet. gbtc, grey stale for short, they had a relief rally the last few days after analysts said there might be little contagion from parent company dcg, and desperate attempts to plug $1 billion hole in the sister company, genesis. now even if that goes under, analysts at bernstein say that g btc grey scale will be intact. it won't be unwound, despite the fact they have 643,000 bitcoins in that trust so that's a big deal. ashley: so many moving parts. >> oh, yeah. ashley: let's check out tesla. on tesla, susan, long term bear on the company actually just gave them an upgrade. >> that's right. well they are upgrading them because the stock is so cheap, so we're looking at a two-year low. citi is calling stock now a neutral, and that's up from sell , and it's worth $176 in their view.

citi says it's a bargain after the stock lost about $300 billion in value the past pew months so tesla is down 52% and then morgan stanley, adam jo nas says in his view still worth $330 and $150 is a bear case scenario for him and still cheap but adam jonas despite the fact he's still bull ish on tesla and elon musk again criticizing the fact that the critter debacle well in his view it's still a strain on tesla stock, and really there has to be some sort of circuit breaker in his view. ashley: all right, now on to some other big news. dealing with manchester united, cristiano renaldo ended his contract. what more do we know? >> well yeah, so it's effective immediately. we know that, and also, man-u is in some trouble you know that so they could be possibly putting themselves up for sale, part of that strategic alternatives that they are looking at they are the

third premier league team looking for a new owner this year, and also, cristiano renaldo that departure effective immediately also playing the world cup. did you know the fact he was only paid from what i saw about $30 million, what is that about 26 million pounds? that's cheap. is it true it makes about $70 million a year? ashley: yeah. >> wow. ashley: yes. well, renaldo is at the end of his career now and he's kind of fading out and it will be interesting to see , ronaldo is still good but not what he used to be so he's not going graceful ly that's for sure. >> but is it worth that much money each year? that's more than lebron. i'm trying to think of every major league sports players here ashley: he's certainly one of the best players in the world no doubt about it so if someone is going to pay it he'll take it for sure. >> we're taking a lot of time. [laughter] ashley: yeah, stu will be proud. another big tech company announcing layoffs by the way.

this time at hp. what's the problem? >> yeah, i wish i made bopin numbers as well so 10 % of the 60,000 plus being employed around hp will be laid off over the next three years this is around the world because the company wants to save about $1.4 billion each year. we know that pc makers are facing a post-covid slump. it boomed, sales boomed during the covid lockdowns as people were remote working so they had to upgrade their home offices but hp isn't alone announcing job cuts other pc makers like dell announcing job layoffs as well but many companies it's a tough environment for high-tech, high earning jobs you had layoffs being announced at snap 20% gone, meta laying off 11,000 and others as well. ashley: also want to mention john deere. the company reporting before the bell today. how did they do? >> i actually wanted to look at nordstrom if we're running out of time we had to do one more stock but john deere did well, heavy equipment maker better-than-expected profit

revenue in the summer they issued an up beat outlook and if we can possibly do nordstrom because as we head into black friday and the shopping holiday season, nordstrom may not have the right inventory because they did beat in the summertime; however, they said that the sales are slowing into the holidays and they don't have the right inventory mix and unseasonably warm weather. ashley: we got nordstrom in, well-done, susan li, thank you so much. coming up, transportation secretary pete buttigieg is sounding the alarm over a potential rail strike. roll tape. >> a shutdown is a scenario that is not acceptable. we don't have enough trucks or barges or ships in this country to makeup for the rail network. ashley: well, we'll bring you the very latest on that dram that's playing out. meanwhile tomorrow's macy's will be holding its iconic thanksgiving day parade on streets of new york city. always great fun, but by the way , a virtual one will also be held right alongside. maybe not as much fun.

then there's this. congress isn't looking to shake off the recent ticketmaster fiasco over taylor swift tickets lawmakers have bad blood with the ticket seller voicing concerns about the services lack of competition. we've got the very latest on that story, coming up, next. ♪ ♪ you ok, man? the internet is telling me a million different ways i should be trading. look! what's up my trade dogs? you should be listening to me.

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ashley: all right, let's take a look at these markets for you. been slightly lower but now we've just turned slightly higher. how about that, all very mixed as we wait for those fed minutes the dow, the s&p and the nasdaq have anywhere from up from a ten th to one-third of a percent. by the way the dow on pace to finish at its highest level since april so that's something to keep an eye out for. a price cap on russian oil could

be announced today. phil flynn joins me. phil? could that price cap firstly, do price caps work, i want to get to that first, and then could it have any impact here at home? >> you know, i want to steal i line from national lampoon, ashley. it's a stupid gesture and it doesn't make any sense, because price caps absolutely do not work. in fact, many times, ashley, they have the exact opposite effect. right now, of course when you see the globe with very tight supplies putting in a price cap could mean that you don't get supply when you need it the most, right? when prices start to surge, that's usually when you need the oil, and if you have a price cap in place, that's going to restrict supply and utility could have shortages. ashley: yeah, and what if the russians cutoff that supply? certainly to europe and the west they can still continue to feed china and other countries. >> they absolutely said that

they will. we heard from the russian oil minister, alexander novak, and he said listen, we're not going to go along with this game. we want to be reliable suppliers but if you cap the price we're going to cutoff your supply and this is the problem with price caps in general and, you know, one of the things you look at the debate over this price cap. the countries can't even agree on what's a fair price for oil, and that's the problem. if you come in with a price that's too low or too high, you're either going to restrict supply or the price cap isn't going to have any impact at all but at the end of the day, the one thing that i can tell you is that when you put a price cap into place and demand surges , and you don't have that supply, the prices are going to go up and you're going to see shortages and that's the issue right now. the g-7 should know better but apparently, they don't, and that's why we're seeing this price cap possibly go into play today. ashley: yeah, this could be a very long, cold winter for certain areas of the world.

certainly in europe, and it seem s to me when they try to put a cap on it, as you say, russia 's in the driving seat. what kind of cap price are they talking, 60 or $70, i mean, do you know? >> yeah, for oil it's between 60 and $70. the actual number isn't at play, but let's assume that it's in the middle at $65 a barrel. that's actually higher than the current price of russian oil right now, and there seems to be a grace period that they are going to try to put into play so they are trying to make this as simple as it can but that shows you why it isn't going to work. i mean, if russia is still able to sell some oil and if we're going to be able to move around that price cap because there's serving countries that want to greet you such as china, for example, then this oil is still going to go out so it's not going to have the type of impact they want. you know, apparently, the plan is to try to reduce the revenues to russia that teach them a lesson. i'm afraid that russias going to

teach them a lesson about price caps. ashley: yeah that's not good. good stuff, phil flynn thank you , phil, for joining us. >> thank you. ashley: we appreciate it. joining me now, by the way, christian widen, great to see you, christian. now reports came out that opec could be considering an output increase, right? but you say it's just fake news. >> right, right, well and as phil just explained, opec has just a much-better grasp on the realities of energy markets than our politicians too. it seems like i don't have proof of this , that someone who is in favor of these price caps who thinks they are going to work and thinks they are a good way to teach russia a lesson just wanted to goose the saudis into doing this. the saudi energy minister in a somewhat unusual comment came out and said no, we're not thinking about a production increase and in fact we might be thinking about a production decrease, which incidentally is exactly what i would do in his position if you look at what's cooking with the world economy, with china locking down again with europe going into an energy crisis, and with energy prices

awfully high here especially in the northeast, that there may actually be production cuts on order. ashley: you know, again, we keep coming back to this , christian, but should we really be continue to beg the saudis and other countries for oil, because we stand on top of all the oil we could ever use and under president trump, we were oil- independent. energy-independent. it makes it so frustrating, does it not? >> it does. you point out, we have so much here. we're still about a million barrels a day off the trump peak of around 13 million-barrels per -day, and 2019 before the pandemic set in and you know , president biden has said well we're issuing permits. we're not doing anything and that's pretty much lying through his teeth because there's infect a capital strike against energy production. there is this talking down by blackstone, by other nabobs of finance and of our culture, about funding, about providing

capital for domestic exploration , and then there's also this anti-pipeline sentiment in new york state. there's a reason diesel which is a proxy for fuel oil, for homes, is a buck a gallon more in new england and massachusetts this morning than it is the rest of the country and if you look at the cost of natural gas being delivered in new england because we have a ton in the midwest you just can't get it there, it has to be shipped in from other countries, it's near all-time highs. ashley: it's insane. it's just crazy. well thank you for pointing it out, again, christian whiton, great to see you today, thank you so much. thank you. all right, with a potential rail strike on the horizon, congress is calling ceo of union pacific for a hearing. what do they want to know, lauren? lauren: staffing, i think. so the ceo of union pacific, his name is lance it fromz, he's in d.c. for hearings december 13 and 14, so that's a week after the potential strike by the rail unions that of course can cripple the economy. both the unions and the

companies are impacted by low levels of staffing, so lawmakers want to know, well, what's this thing called embargo es? that's when a rail company meter s traffic. they need to control congestion. it's fancy for , we don't have enough workers to manage the railcars that are moving goods ink across country. so far this year, through september 30, there were 1,100 embargoes most of them by union pacific. the numbers were half of that in the prior-year, so lawmakers want to know why is this happening and what can we do to fix it and it's a similar issue to what the rail union workers are complaining about, that they are being worked to the bone. there's just not enough staffing and there's huge demand. ashley: yeah it's going to cost 2 billion a day when they get hit with this strike. crippling. lauren, thank you. lauren: but the thing is where is the white house, ashley,

because this is a pro-labor administration. they stepped in the first time what's being done right now? ashley: exactly. all right, coming up, house republican leader kevin mccarthy blasting homeland security secretary alejandro mayorkas for his handling of the migrant crisis. listen to this. >> our country may never recover from secretary mayorkas dereliction of duty. this is why today, i am calling on the secretary to resign. ashley: well i wonder what kentucky congressman james comer makes of that. guess what? i'm going to ask him next, and then there's this. senator elizabeth warren says the collapse of ftx should be a wakeup call for tougher crypto rules, so, will there be a crypto crackdown? we've got that report, next. ♪ so wake me up when it's all over , when i'm wiser and i'm

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ashley: we are continuing to peel back even more layers to the collapse of ftx. a lawyer from the company now

claims they were funneling millions of customer funds into real estate. edward lawrence has the story. edward good morning to you. how much money did they actually spend? reporter: you know, and this is exactly what we're trying to figure out through lawyers in the bankruptcy court. we know that owner sam bankman-fried spent $300 million on real estate for himself and senior staff. court records show that bankman-fried used $10 billion in client funds to prop up his hedge fund called alameda research which lost money betting on investments and other crypto funds. that left ftx without enough money to uncover the client withdrawals or to cover those client withdrawals which where the house of cards kind of fell. now we have about 1 million investors left wondering where billions of dollars went. experts say there were a lot of red flags that were missed related to this cryptocurrency exchange. >> you can see the failures looking in the rear view mirror but i think anybody that would have invested in this on the front end should have asked some very pointed questions about really just corporate.

>> governor: er answer and control and anytime you're dealing with something that's offshore obviously that heightens the concern. reporter: as the bankruptcy court in delaware tries to unravel where the money went and recoup losses for investors left holding the bag, more calls for stricter regulations of cryptocurrency exchanges like this. >> we have consistently urged congress to take action to address regulatory gaps, processed by digital assets and support legislation to better protect american consumers. reporter: but the founder of ftx spent money to buy influence and donated 10 million to president joe biden getting elected as president and 7 million on super-packs meant to keep democrats in control of congress ashley? ashley: all right, edward, thank you very much. also want to thank todd piro for joining us for the hour. happy thanksgiving to you. todd: you too, sir. ashley: and for , yes, thank you so much still ahead in the show, liz peek, sean duffy and joe bor

elli. the 10 a.m. hour of "varney" & company is next. ♪ ♪ ..