they think making a change in washington is not going to matter a case of -- >> a great kfks congressman gregg murphy anthone a schlapps dagen mcdowell john lonski might be one of the last days we are together of you amazing christmas present your show bottom line with sean i want to say i am going to is the you terribly i wish you best of luck merry christmas, knock them dead! dagen: i am not going yet i want to pop up just wanted to say it i am going to be out next week. >> thank you i love you so much, merry christmas. >> lauren: merry christmas, maria, merry christmas, everybody and good morning, i am lauren simonetti in for stuary varney today. we have to begin with unfortunately the weather. the massive storm sweeping ink

across country bringing record breaking cold, life threatening wind, chills to 150 million people, it is snarling traffic and unleashing chaos and misery at the airports. drama on capitol hill. the senate has passed the massive $1.7 trillion spending bill. it is now in the house where they are expected to vote on it today. chad pergram will give us the state of play. ftx's sam bankman-fried has post ed a record $250 million bond and his holdup right now at his parent's home in california. let's get to the markets. stocks in the green after the big sell-off that we saw yesterday. where is this santa claus rally? is it coming? the dow up a near 23 points. the s&p 500 completely unchanged , as is the nasdaq. let's take a look at the bond market and the yield on the 10- year treasury. 3.72% up 3.9 basis points and

bitcoin once again in the range, high 16, it's 16, 844. some new york politicians giving themselves quite the christmas gift. democrats in the new york state senate and assembly voted yesterday to give themselves a record raise, 29% to be exact. did you get a 29% raise this year? you can not make this stuff up, and we won't. we have the truth. i'll show. you don't always get in other places. it is friday, december 23. christmas eve-eve. santa and a bomb cyclone are on the way and "varney" & company is about to begin. ♪ ♪

lauren: "breaking free" playing that because it looks like sam bankman-fried will be home for the holidays after his parents agreed to pay the historic $250 million bond using the equity on their home. sbf has been ordered to stay at their palo alto residence while he awaits a trial. he's required to wear an electronic tracking device and get mental health counseling kenny polcari is with us for the hour. kenny, good morning. >> how are you, lauren, merry christmas. lauren: merry christmas. what do you make of this quarter million dollar bail secured, kenny, using equity in his parent's home a $4 million home, but what about the other million s of dollars? what do you make of this arrangement? >> well, listen. i think it's appropriate considering what he did. i'm just confused on where all of that money is coming from because the house is only worth

4 million so i'm not sure i didn't read or didn't hear, maybe you did on where the other $246 million is coming from or whose putting that up or whose on the hook in case he should decide to run. now, i don't think he's going to run so i think it's all just fine, but it is amazing that that number is as big as it is but look, it speaks right to what he did. the fraud that he committed. the fraud that they all committed, and then whose ultimately going to be responsible. lauren: so they're required to make 10% collateral on bail, so think $25 million so the 21 million missing after you take into account the california home is from one relative and one outside person, kenny, i would love to find out who they are. let's hit the markets right now. >> the outside person is probably going to, that'll come out i'm sure because i'm sure there's a lot of people wondering where they came up with the money. the mother and father are

professors at stanford unless stanford is paying all kinds of big salaries it's amazing to me but we'll find out. lauren: he's got a lot of connections that's my point. so we're just in the exact territory for getting that santa claus rally, right? the last five trading days of the year and the first two of the new year. i mean, you feeling like santa claus right now, kenny? >> i think santa claus is coming. i've gotta tell you, i'm still in the game that he's going to come. i think it's going to started to , and then i think it's going to continue into next week but i think we're only going to s&p 4,000, which is just up what 120 points or 150 points from where we are now which be , you know, a little bounce into the year-end but then i think like you and i have discussed is that the beginning of 2023 is going to once again be concerning and volatile for the mark etiquettes and investors. lauren: everyone is on vacation, volume will below today but kenny that didn't stop the data dump. already we got inflation data,

personal income and spending data and the moral of the story is it's a lot of numbers but the moral of this story is inflation is cooling, wage growth is holding up. that's kind of what the fed wants to do in a way. do you think that's why the markets are so muted right now because everyone is trying to figure out well, what, is the fed achieving what they are trying to achieve by getting inflation down and not killing the job market? >> well, listen, i think that depends on what day of the week, right? yesterday we saw a bunch of negativity and the market get crushed and today if you said the pce is trending lower it was expected to trend lower but if i read it correctly it was a little bit higher than the estimate still lower from last month but higher than the estimate and that sent futures that were up, flat, then up again and then flat again as the confusion is but look you said it. a lot of people are away from their desks today, right? much of the action will be driven by algorithms. there will be wide spreads so

moves in this week and next week can be and will be exaggerated in both directions like we saw wednesday, they rallied them hard, thursday they killed them hard right? so i think you people need to understand that that will be the theme until we get into the new year and everyone's back at their desk. lauren: all right kenny don't go anywhere you're with us for the entire hour. look forward to that and now we talk about this massive spending bill that just passed in the senate. senators voted on 15 amendments to add, let's give you just a few of them. here is the first. the pump act, which provides protection for nursing mothers at work. then compensation for victims of terrorism. then using forfeited property think assets taken from russian oligarchs to help fund ukraine. pregnant fairness workers and act payment for navy lieutenant that his pay was cut while serving a three-year sentence in a jail in japan after a car accident that killed two citizens. kenny, it's a lot in this 4,200-

page bill and then the senate just added even more, so house lawmakers today and the clock is kicking, before the government shuts down, have to debate even more pages and consistents of this bill. what do you make of these pages and the bill in general? >> listen first of all the bill in general they should be ashamed of shelves. it's a 4,200 page bill like you said and how many senators and congressmen did we already hear tell us they don't have time to read it and they aren't sure what's in it but they will pass it because they need to pass it and it's ridiculous and they should all be ashamed of themselves and the amendment they added yesterday, were they necessary? i'm not really sure. to me, a pregnant woman who is breast feeding her baby should have protection no matter where she is. the fact they have to legislate that is a little bit concerns to me but listen it is what it is. they will do what they do. i think the whole thing is completely on a broad level, the spending package $1.7 trillion on top of

everything else we've got is an abomination and they should be ashamed of themselves. lauren: on your screen let's pull it up you see the list of the republican senators 18 of them who voted favor of this spending bill, former arkansas governor mike huckabee is with us and we're looking at this list, senator blunt of missouri, tom cotton of arkansas they mostly credit the bill's increase in defense spending for their vote. governor, do you think that's a fair justification? >> i do not. i think that you have to look at the big picture and the fact is they spent a whole lot of our money. people worked hard to get their money and the government took it from them and they're spending it on stuff that can't be justified, like $3.5 million for a highway bill that protects bees on the highway, $3.5 million for the michelle obama trail, that's ridiculous

and a whole lot of this is social engineering. it's pride expenditures to promote lgbtq pride. i'm just not sure that's a function of the government, and so what we're seeing is people saying oh, we had to vote for it the government will shutdown. well if we vote for this stuff and keep spending money every american household will shutdown because there's not going to be enough money that people can pay those taxes to even pay the interest on the debt, so their houses for voting for this nonsense. lauren: yeah, governor nothing for border security in the bill. senators lee, sinema tried to get title 42 extended in the bill. they failed. i want you to listen to democratic senator chuck schumer making in my opinion, a major admission. watch here. >> i think first, the biden administration realizes it has to come up with a real plan for the border that not just punitive or health-oriented. you know, title 42 has no

consequences so you cross the border, you pushback on the other side an the same people crossover and over again. it's not a comprehensive plan that's ever going to work, and so the biden administration's coming up with one. lauren: [applause] okay, governor, title 42 a might not be enough but it is responsible and i pulled this from something griff jenkins reported earlier. it prevented 178,000 migrants of the 57 5,000 that tried to cross in just the past 84 days that's something but clearly we need more. what else do we need? >> well for two years, joe biden's been president, he's undone everything that was working in terms of securing the border. he's got a department of homeland security whose utterly incompetent, should never have been hired, certainly should be fired if not impeached, and this whole nonsense is an insult to the american's common sense. you know, the congress comes up with these last minute got-to-

fund it right now, got to go home for christmas. this is like a college stuff that goofs off the whole semester and goes through an all -nighter to try to pass the test and congratulates himself for making a d. i'm sorry. you've had months to work on this. you waited until the last minute and now you shove it down the american's throats and you haven't read the bill. it's an insult to all of our intelligence and all of you ought to resign if you want do your job and get your homework done before the last day before you try to go home for christmas it's ridiculous. lauren: i'm sure you still have christmas shopping left to do as we all do. this procrastination and this last-minute push is exactly what our government is doing. governor, merry christmas to you and the family. thank you for the time today. i know it's a busy time. >> merry christmas, lauren, thank you. lauren: let's check the futures on this friday, christmas eve- eve. down just modestly, this is pretty scary.

the dea seized 2,000 fentanyl pills and you will never guess where exactly they found them. it's the new one, and then there's this. >> okay, people. tomorrow morning, 10 a.m., santa 's coming to town. >> santa! oh, my god! santa here, i know him! i know him! lauren: [laughter] says every child in two days. santa's helping rudolph and his sleigh ready to journey ink across globe even as , unfortunately, this winter storm is putting a damper on holiday travel for so many millions of americans. we've got the latest on the flightmares right after this ♪ i believe it's time for me to fly ♪

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♪ lauren: you are looking at a shot of beaver creek, ohio currently negative nine degrees. i think that's when you just can't talk anymore. glad we're not there but it is pretty cold here. it is the busiest air travel day of the holiday season and now many states are under a state of emergency due to this massive winter storm at the worst possible time. mike tobin is at the chicago o'hare airport but mike, one airport just closed their runway , because of ice? reporter: they did. that's seattle and unfortunately , i've got nothing but bad news for you, lauren.

seattle, tacoma airport just announced because of ice on the runway they've shutdown all operations and that means alaska airlines as well grounded all their flights out of seattle and portland as well so if you got people in the pacific northwest it doesn't look good in terms of them making it home in time for christmas. as we start to look at the major air carriers, cancellations since midnight. american, 246, delta 166 cancellations, southwest airlines is still taking it pretty hard, 764 cancellations, united 174 and again that's just since midnight. as we look ink across nation, the number of domestic flights canceled just came up a little bit, 3,433 and there really aren't a lot of good options for the people who are trying to make it home for christmas. >> unfortunately, last night, we were scheduled to leave about 7:50 this morning and we got a text last night saying they rescheduled us to austin at 12:00 today with a layover.

we're just trying to figure out what's going on and trying to avoid this line and just trying to get home. this is a mess. reporter: flightaware.com puts out something they call the misery mapping and you see the red on that map. those are the delays and cancellations. it looked like yesterday denver and the twin cities had the market cornered on misery but now they are sharing the misery. seattle you'll see a lot more red increases as the news gets out they have shutdown entirely but everywhere from seattle to new york, chicago kind of leading the way right now you can see things look bad down south and the weather might not necessarily be bad but all of the cancellations cause that ripple effect. in terms of how things are here in chicago, the roads never ended up that bad and we didn't think they were going to be because it wasn't that much snow the problem is the bitter cold temperatures that we're dealing with right now and the wind gust s that are coming through and one of the things you see at the airport right now, it's so unfortunate, lauren, the people standing around looking at their phones hoping somehow they get better news and the better

news just isn't there. lauren: i feel like christmas is coming every year with everyone getting covid and now the weather. it's just the worst possible date. i mean, december 24 and 25, past couple of years, it's just not working for us, unfortunately. are people calm where you are for the most part, mike, or not really? they are calm and the airports aren't as bad because the airlines did a good job getting the notifications out to the people letting them know but you do get the white christmas and i'm one of the guys who like the snow but i feel sorry for the people working just trying to get home. lauren: i know. mike, thank you, good luck and merry christmas. >> thank you. you too. lauren: the cdc says their life expectancy is at its shortest since 1996, 76.4 years to be exact, and the culprits, covid and drug overdose deaths. dr. marc siegel is here an the bad news just keeps ongoing. dr. siegel, what do you make of this? >> well first of all, good

morning, lauren, and merry christmas. lauren: good morning. >> i'll try to put this in a way which is not entirely bad in that we're talking about 2021. now the covid deaths peaked in 2021 and were close to 400,000 but they're coming down this year in 2022. it's much less than that because when we got into the omicron category, people still got sick, but less people died and i think , you know, the issue is that most of it with covid is still the elderly and you mentioned drug overdoses. that is actually related to that and this is the point i really wanted to make which is during the pandemic, there was an increase in drug use, alcohol use. people gained weight and became more sedentary and blood pressure went up and diabetes went up and you know what that is. that's heart disease so the number one killer in the united states remains heart disease and we started to really make head way with heart disease and with cancer number two about 2010 and 2011 we started making

headway, but two things that have been a problem during the pandemic is people haven't been getting their cancer screen ing so go out and get your colonoscopy, your mammogram, go out and see your doctor, not in this cold but get checked and here is a wakeup call from this doctor to get your exercise going and work on that diet because that's really what the next point of this will be and mental health. the deaths from covid themselves have declined now. lauren: and that is good news and we will leave it there. happy holidays dr. siegel and quick check on the market before we go to break. look its been a pretty ugly week if you're looking at the s&p 500 and the nasdaq. they aren't only down this week, they're down the past three weeks in a row. dow down 31 now up about 100 on the week. opening bell let's get these markets open on the final day of christmas week, right after this ♪ do you hear what i hear, a song, a song, high above the tree,

with a voice as big as the sea ♪

lauren: all right, let's check the futures, just what three minutes less than that, dow off 26 points, up 107 on the week. nasdaq down 42, down 229 on the

week and the s&p is down eight points right now. mark mahaney joins us. you're lowering your price targets of some of the big tech names that have gotten hit this year like amazon and alphabet. let's start with amazon, mark. where were you, where are you now, and why? >> okay, and merry christmas and happy holidays, lauren. lauren: thank you. >> this has been a very difficult year. this has been the toughest year for tech stocks since 2008 so that goes back quite a way we're doing 16 years there. we think the setup is more constructive going into next year but the overall demand trends whether it's online advertising, retail, travel, or cloud computing, all of those are softening and the data points we've seen very recently indicate that that softening is continuing the december quarter and likely will into the march quarter so we wanted to be more cautious on both amazon and on google. we're now a little bit below the street for amazon. look it's a great asset. there's no indications that amazon is losing market share.

in fact they are gaining it on the retail side and maintaining their leading share in cloud computing so you want to be long this asset for the long term but for the next three to six months you want to be cautious on both of these names. lauren: i know you don't have a crystal ball but you have the closest thing to it. in three to six months would you then be optimistic or do you think really too much growth had been brought forward? >> well, i think what we all need to do is answer the question, is this cyclical or is this structural? like is there something structurally changed that's facing amazon's business? i don't think so. there's a lot of trends these apple privacy changes, these regulatory risks coming from both d.c. and from europe. the rise of tiktok, things like that. those don't really impact amazon now they impact names like meta, facebook and google but not amazon so i look at amazon and the challenges are they had some execution errors. they overbuilt out of the covid crisis but mostly just cyclical so if you have that like all consumer discretionary names

you'll have cyclical pressures but you want to wade into the best performing names and you'll start seeing free cash flow inflect up on a name like amazon. i want to be long amazon if i have a two year perspective, one year perspective i'm long amazon lauren: i was just looking at my front door the whole world should be amazon all of the deliveries. it should be around $87 a share now but you just brought your price target i believe from 130 to 120? >> you're right. you're right i did lauren, so there are some when i said this is structure all or cyclical. there are some structural factor s that are coming after amazon. >> [opening bell ringing] >> coming after google but long term its position is rock solid so just because of that you want to be long google. lauren: rock solid position in search. mark mahaney, long on google, thank you, mark. there's the opening bell. >> thank you, lauren. lauren: trading opened on wall street on this final day of the week. we expect volume to be light, many traders and investors out

for the holidays hopefully not stuck at the airports but that is the reality. you're looking at the map of the dow 30, chevron leading the way, oil should be up today, russia's threatening to cut production in response to those price caps, all the way at the bottom of the list you can see apple, microsoft, some of the tech stocks that we were talking about with mark, as he mentioned amazon and alphabet. let's take a look at the broader market, the s&p 500. its been down for the past three weeks and right now it is still down not much, look just five points so this can turn around pretty quickly and the tech- heavy nasdaq is down today at 10, 447, it's losing a quarter perhaps one-third of 1%. alphabet investors don't know how they want to trade right now completely flat. amazon is down fractionally but you can see you have a three- quarter percent decline for both apple and microsoft and that is weighing on the dow jones industrial average.

staying on big tech. if you look at the index, the nasdaq, and we're talking about this with mark, it's headed for the worst december since 2002 and there were comments that growth stocks, tech stocks will be the biggest pain trade of the new year let's bring back in kenny. what do you make of what nomura says and do you care , do you like big tech anyway? >> listen, i like big tech right? as a long term investor you have to really like big tech. you can't dismiss it. now, is it going to be rough? i think the first quarter or the first six months of 2023 are going to continue to be volatile and rough, so names like that are going to kind of take it on the chin, i get it, but that's only going to provide a long term investor more opportunity. amazon is not a name that you should abandon, right? apple is not a name you should abandon, microsoft, ibm those are all solid good names that should be foundational for most portfolios, so no, i'm not worried about it at all. lauren: the course is building that the first half of the new

year will be tough and hopefully it's smooth sailing. let's take a look at tesla shares. it has been a rough year especially the past couple months for the company and now we have this. the national highway traffic safety administration initiating two more tesla crash investigations. it involves their driver assistance and one of those investigations includes it was thanksgiving weekend that happened on the bay bridge in san francisco and eight vehicle crash. it just seems like the bad news keeps piling up and piling up and piling up for the ceo elon musk. can he or his car company catch a break here, kenny? >> well, from a stock price, the car companies not going to catch a break until we get more clarity, right? not only on what he's doing with twitter but what's happening at tesla as well as what's happening in the economy, right? he himself came out and said the board would consider stock buyback once they get more clarity on the depth of the recession or where it's

going. now from the car crashes, look. i think that's a work in progress. i'm not getting in a car that drives itself or that tries to take the steering away from me at least not yet because i don't think its been perfected yet. it all looks great when they are driving on the highway and everything is straight but once you get into city traffic and the bay bridge, i am not letting go to the steering wheel i'm sorry. just not doing it. lauren: so we welcome this investigation even though it's a potential black eye for the company. >> but you have to welcome it, because they have to look at it. lauren: yeah, yeah, let's talk about google again, but from a different perspective. google is warning employees about their new performance rating system. the ceo sundar pachai says it's going to be harder for you to score higher so that's a warning , to me, it seems like, kenny, they are starting to scare employees to get them to be more productive but the labor market is still really tightment can't those engineers just say

well i'm just going to go to microsoft, i'll just jump ship. what do you think? >> well, they could say that, but we're kind of hearing about layoffs ink across whole tech sector, right? we've seen them. they have been going. we can hear them, week after week, new layoffs are being announced so i'm not necessarily so sure that they are going to be able to jump so quickly. some may, some may not but i'm curious about this new rating system that google is employing and why they're doing it. lauren: why. >> is it just a way for them to start to reduce head count by saying you're not performing up to standard so therefore you're out, right? no one should be employed if they aren't performing up to standard. you have to perform up to standards but why is google shouldly making it more difficult for employees to pass those tests and that's going to be the interesting question. are they really trying to kind of slim down and this is the way they do it? lauren: but that review process, right? that interaction, that engagement with employees to get them to do more is also one of the reasons that so many

google employees say i love my company, i love working for my company, and they get those high ratings when you look at best employers every year. i wonder if this warning, this ultimatum if you will challenges that. >> well, i think it is going to challenge that. the little bit that i've read so far after that came out is there is certainly employees that are now distressed and wondering where do i stand? what am i going to do? what if i don't do well? am i going to lose my job? lauren: am i going to go into the physical office, kenny? are they showing up for work? >> well that might be also part of the problem. these people that say no, no, i don't want to go back to the office. i want to stay home or go live here or go live there versus the company saying no, no, you need to come back. that's going to be another way. look goldman said the same thing , right? they told employees they had to come back and there was real pushback and suddenly there's 4,000 people out of work so it's a very interesting conversation to have but they through try to get people to come back. lauren: you came with picks,

start with the defense and aerospace sector. >> really as we move into the new year and we continue to see ukraine and threats of china , i think you really have to consider defense and aerospace stocks. we've got a trillion dollar defense budget so some of these names do well. they have done well this year i think they will continue to do well, raytheon, general dynamics , lockheed martin are all names in the space investors have to consider. look they they are up between 25 % and 40% this year and now going into the new year there's new focus with republicans in charge of the house, there's more talk about defense spending and we have a trillion dollar budget so those are names you have to at least start looking at and add to your shopping list on the other side i still remain overweight in the stuff that people need categories, right so it's consumer staples, it's energy, it's utilities, and so i think and healthcare, right? so johnson & johnson, merck, big tech again, ibm and microsoft are going to do well. ibm had a fantastic year this

year. it's one of my favorites and i think ibm is going to be one of those names you look at next year as well. lauren: kenny, thank you. coming up remember this scene in one of the best christmas comedy ies? >> what are you looking at? >> oh, a winter's mourn, in bathroom emptying a chemical toilet into my sewer. lauren: i think something seriously is wrong with our producers and all these movie clips they are giving us. police in shepherdsville, kentucky were called to a scene of a man allegedly exposing himself outside a home and yes we have those details and there's this , the senate passing a $1.7 trillion spending bill with help from republicans in the house. they vote today. i wonder how missouri congressman jason smith is going to vote and we're going to get this answer. ♪

♪ what will you do? ♪ what will you change? ♪

will you make something better? ♪ will you create something entirely new? ♪ our dell technologies advisors provide you with the tools and expertise you need to do incredible things. because we believe there's an innovator in all of us.

lauren: the quest to avert a government shutdown by midnight is not over the massive $1.7 trillion spending bill is through the senate and it is now up to the house to vote. chad pergram joins us from capitol hill. chad, what is the state of play? reporter: we don't know the exact timing here. at some point here maybe mid-day , maybe early afternoon, the house of representatives is poised to align with the senate and pass the omnibus today. 18 republicans voted yes in the senate yesterday. there will not be that many in the house today. lindsey graham was among the gop a's. >> the bill i voted for today, non-defense spending went up 5%, defense spending went up 10% the men and women of the military got a raise and more money than inflation, and if you did nothing you're

reducing defense spending at a time of great danger. the process sucks. it was a train wreck. reporter: house democrats don't like the bill either, but they will vote yes to avert a shutdown. >> many senate republicans knew this package was a good bipartisan deal. i thank them for their willingness to work together and deliver it for the american people. let me just close by saying, look, i don't love everything in this bill. quite frankly, i find these endless increases in defense spending year after year to be appalling. reporter: and even though congress is racing to pass the bill before the midnight deadline, lawmakers are still approving a band aid bill to fund the government through december 30. the reason the bill is so complicated, it will take days to get the plan in error order for the president to sign. the top gop member on the senate appropriations committee defend ed the move. >> we've done that before. that is just a stop-gap to make

sure all the paperwork has gotten done for the president's signature. >> that's a little ironic we'll go through this and have to do another cr right? >> well we've done it before. it'll work. it's just insurance. managing risk. reporter: and when the house votes later today expect many members to vote by proxy, perhaps the last round of pandemic proxy voting before the gop takes control next year. lauren? lauren: chad, thank you very much for setting us up and with that wie bring in congressman jason smith, republican from missouri and he joins us now. congressman good to see you. how will you vote on this bill that was just called a train wreck by senator lindsey graham? >> it's not a train wreck. it's a terrible piece of legislation. it's a very bad decision for senate republicans to decide to move forward on this event. i'll be voting "no." think about this. in 11 days, republicans will take the gavel from nancy pelosi , republicans would control the house of

representatives. why would republican senators not want to make it be kevin mccarthy negotiating a funding bill instead of negotiating with nancy pelosi? it was a bad decision. look at this. they started this congress. one party democrat rule, white house, house and the senate they started this congress spending $2 trillion with their first reconciliation package. they're ending this congress spending another $2 trillion. that first package is what sparked the inflation fire that has increased the cost of goods for every american across this country. in fact to the highest cost increase in goods in 40 years. lauren: congressman, but how do you change the mentality in washington among democrats but republicans too that it's okay, you can keep spending and spending and spending. how do you change that? >> you need to get rid of a lot of those senators that decide to continue to spend like this.

what's unfortunate is the people who crafted this huge spending bill, none of them will ever face a vote of the people again, because they're retiring. both the democrat and republican people, individuals, who crafted this legislation behind closed doors will never be up for an election again. this is what's wrong with washington. this is what people can't stand. think about this. when we had budget caps from 2011-2021 spending increased 2% every year. since those budget caps ended, the democrats and the last two years now have increased spending more than 16% just to keep the lights on, not counting the more than 10 trillion with a t dollars of increase of new spending that they've spent outside of just the regular funding process. that is why everyone's going to be having a blue christmas. that's why it's costing every american more to just buy the christmas tree, put the presents underneath the christmas tree and to put food on that table and drive to

their christmas events. it's causing a lot of struggles for working class americans. lauren: and we saw that in the data this morning. we got personal income and data spending and our spending in these holiday months is actually slowing down. congressman, thank you. good to see you. coming up tiktok is stepping up efforts to address security concerns. the parent company fired four employees who assessed u.s. tiktok data. vivek ramaswamy is here to react to the platform's new transparency efforts and according to an upcoming book, president biden was reportedly furious, even dropping the f bomb, about the intensify ing border crisis under his watch. so why isn't the white house doing anything about it? we've got the answer, coming up. ♪ things are getting out of control ♪ what should the future deliver?

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♪ it's officially christmas ♪ lauren: it is officially christmas, and the "varney" & company team is celebrating this

holiday season. let's show you. here is our producer julie with her entire family. she is the second one from the right. juliana is looking forward to getting married to izaac in the new year, and here is a christmas picture from our coordinating producer rob mcnall y. that's not him, those are smart kids to be our coordinating producer that is his son, robert and walker, right in front of their beautiful christmas tree. associate producer chris dane, superman, with his familial wearing their christmas sweaters can i call some of them, chris, ugly christmas sweaters don't get mad at me and here is ra chavez with her family. oh, that's a beautiful picture and here she is with her boyfriend whom i've met and their pets under their christmas tree. production assistant stephen at kins wearing his santa hat with his family but we can't see their eyes i swear they have

beautiful eyes. let's get on to the bad news now , the winter storm that is sweeping ink across country fox weather meteorologist brita merwin is with us. good to see you. the storm is bringing the cold, the bitter cold. >> yes, absolutely and i think that's really what most will remember after this all clears out. it's going to be the cold, it's going to be the wind. if you live on the east coast get ready that's all i've got to say so this morning we're actually waking up warmer in new york city at 50 degrees then what they are waking up to in atlanta where it is in the teens , and that's when you look at the power of this system when you have temperatures dropping 40, 50 degrees behind a cold front, it's pretty powerful and some of the winds here, you know, state college, pennsylvania 61-mile per hour wind gusts. it's a lot and that means we're going to have power outages. in fact right now we have over a million customers across america without power, and we're really just starting the day. we have the whole day to get through. travel is just completely snarl ed. you know, we have many flights

that are completely canceled and in fact i think southwest is one of the airlines struggling the most with almost a thousand flights that have been impacted just today and when you add everything up you've got to keep that in mind, lauren. the flights who don't go off today it's a trickle down effect so we had issues yesterday and we have issues today and the time is ticking getting closer to christmas so the reality is some of the flights that don't take off today you might not be getting to where you're trying to go. in terms of driving in the northeast, this temperature drop is going to cause a large issue for the east coast. the east coast is waking up in the 40s and 50s so its been rain we had about two to three inches of rain in the last 12 hours and by the time we get to this afternoon temperatures will be dropping below freezing and stay below freezing all the way through christmas day so that means icy roads. lauren: and the rain freezes and then you have the black ice. be careful. merry christmas to you and your family thank you for the update. kenny let me bring you back in here. everybody knows you're a chef. i know because i still use some of your recipes you sent me a while ago so what are you cooking for christmas, chef

kenny? >> so listen, like you might know for than italian family it's the feast of the seven fish es so we have seven different kinds of fish we make including things like linguini and lobster sauce, muscles, you're going to have sc allops, black truffe el cream sauce, shrimp scampi, however you want to do it so there's a bunch of things we make and we make every year but this year i have a new recipe that's stuffed bronzino with spinache and almonds and baked in the oven and topped with a lemon olive oil garlic sauce. it is outstanding. lauren: amazing. kenny you just wet our appetite. thank you for joining us for the hour. happy holidays to you and yours. still ahead tammy bruce, jason r antz, bill hagerty and vivek ramaswamy. stick with us.

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>> is starting to feel like christmas.