ashley: love that shot of the empire state building, straight into the crystal blue skies. good morning. it is 10:00 eastern, i'm ashley webster in for stuart varney. we are in the green modestly so, dow reporting on points, s&p up a quarter 12:45%, nasdaq, look at the 10 year treasury yield. down a basis point, 3.83%, moving slightly lower, there you go, down $1.64, taking a look at bitcoin, up $16, up $53. some other numbers, the latest

read on pending home sales. lauren: they fell by 4%, down 38% on the year. appending home sale is pending when the contract is signed and the deal is not closed. rates have come down. why are these sale still bad? there's a lag between rates, maybe next month it will be better. ashley: next one, a new judge in the carmel case against sam bankman-fried. lauren: ronnie abrams recused herself because her husband is a partner at a law firm that advised ftx last year. this is assigned to lewis kaplan who is handling the defamation lawsuit filed against donald trump.

ashley: now we know why. looking at some of the movers, let's start with a company called work horse. lauren: the electric delivery truckmaker, investigating its contract with usps, leading up to the announcement of that contract, that investigation is over, that is good news for the stock. i never heard of it until now, but i've heard of gilead sciences and they are buying the remaining rights for extreme mental cancer therapy. for $67 million. with that the dollar stock is up 65%. let's take a peek at amc shares, down 11.4%. ceo adam aaron has asked the

board to freeze his compensation because of the sharp drop in shares. is trying to be popular, he wrote the mean stock frenzy, this year is a different story. december alone has been brutal for amc. now he says it would raise $110 million in liquid capital by issuing several units and seeking shareholder approval to convert them to amc common stock. ashley: the things you never thought you would hear on our air, ape units. thank you very much. msnbc's chris hayes defending president biden's history of lying by going after george santos. he said on twitter, quote, i think there's a line between normal politician bsing and con man syria line, he has infractions on either side of that line. it would have been a big deal if it turned out president

biden didn't actually have a law degree. i get his point. cassie smedley joins me now. why is anyone defending lies? a liar is a liar. >> nobody is defending lies. a lot of people are trying to get to the full truth and nothing but the truth. that is fair as relates to our president and his family or congress and elect -- ashley: in the case of santos who believes in this day and age when we can check on anything by googleing it, why would he think he could get away with embellishing considerably his resume? lauren: a really good question and good point. i worked where we find that opposition research that usually appears on your tv screen. the fact that democrats didn't do this for him, this was more concerning for the voters who just elected him, he's got a lot to prove to them. he said in last night interview

apt on tucker carlson they elected him because of issues he said he was going to tackle, he needs to do that but he will have a tough time in washington finding friends to cosponsor bills. this is a game of numbers republicans need every number for the majority but the voters in new york will decide if they are buying his story is what they want to do about it and that maybe next year's primary election challenge. ashley: could be tricky. you used to work for the are in c and i want to ask do you think there should be a leadership change in the wake of the midterms and the problems the party faced? >> the party is rightly going through a conversation about what went right, what should have gone better, as a party as a whole. people like to focus on the are in see but it is more than just the rnc, it doesn't recruit

candidates or tv ads, and and all the networks they do at the party. that is what fed chair rana mcdaniel, i enjoy working under her, to expand the voters, it is a long-term process. she has the backing of the 168, they know the work that is happening on the ground. conversations across the party, more than the rnc has to be part of that conversation. the chairwoman continues to have those conversations and whatever feedback they give her. should she be reelected. ashley: feedback is always positive. thank you for your time. appreciate it.

congressman ted lou has been blasted by elon musk after he once again went after the twitter files. give me the details. >> reporter: democrats lead this tweet, addressed to the journalist david zweig who dispatched the latest twitter files, the tweet you cite is misleading. people at high risk from covid will benefit from vaccine this. prior natural immunity may only last a few months. covid is a leading cause of death in children. elon musk himself became one of the many fact checkers on that, ted is looking to misleading data. that was more than an error. ashley: once you put it out there you can try to delete it

but great stuff. let's bring in our market guy, david, we are modestly higher, the numbers this year are pretty ugly, the nasdaq down 34% by the dow off 3.7% which consideration is not bad. as we look at 2,023, do we take another leg lower, do we get new lows? >> i believe we will hit new lows in 2023. 55% of bloomberg respondents believe we are going into a recession. visa and fannie mae were in that group. 85% believer session next year. the market is looking at challenges as we look at the future. ultimately we are looking at the federal reserve bubble.

the federal reserve has increased so quickly the last 12 months that it leaves us in a difficult place as the american consumer, we will see bond markets decline, housing market. here's another big one. corporations today have been borrowing at record low interest rates, buying these buildings. i'm seeing a bubble in all of this. i hope the market turns out amazing as the year turns around and the fed accommodates but we need to be very defensive. the average american needs to wake up to this fact because i don't know if they have been prepared by washington dc, the biden administration and jerome powell. ashley: given all those head winds you've got to be defensive.

what are the best players for an investor right now? >> i look at cash assets, protected assets and risk assets. the goal is to have a right diversified portfolio. having more cash today, the protected assets are where we need to pay attention and that talks about bonds. if we see interest rates increase bond lose money. look at your portfolios but the other one, if corporations have challenges with higher interest rates paid and new borrowing with the that there could be defaults. i'm concerned as we look forward that there's a lot of debt and junk, junk bonds borrowing at 4% in the past and they were not as credit worthy. how do you keep everything together in this economy with new interest rates signaling and where do we go from here?

i don't think we are seeing a permit opportunity. i don't think we are looking at big upsides in the next few days so people need to be cautious about this and reevaluating how they are investing. be focused but be tactical in how you are locating things. my last point is in protected assets base there is an asset class people are not paying attention to called growth oriented fixed index annuity. there's never a better time to own one. people should look at them. they give you none of the downside the reason a return on the upside. 10 year treasuries plus 2 as an example. ashley: very good. thank you so much. a mine of information, terrific stuff, thank you very much. now the story. comedian john cleese is going after wokeness saying it stops people from being creative. >> you think of an idea and

immediately think will that get me into trouble? ashley: that is sad. what else did he have to say? that is coming up. some genesee -- gen zers have a fear of the phone, a woman can get them out of it for 300 an hour. the supreme court, leaving title 42 in place for now but thousands of migrants crossing the border every day. how much of a difference does it make? a live report from the border next.

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ashley: the supreme court is keeping title 42 in place, migrants continue to pour across the border. matt finn is in eagle pass, texas. what the latest? >> reporter: on the day the supreme court blocked the biden administration fermenting title 42, we stood here and saw them arrived totaling hundreds of illegal immigrants, on a single day. there are some shipping containers, there's national guard station here, they brought in some fresh razor wire this morning. the white house says it will comply with title 42 but that's a public health measure that should not be extended indefinitely. here is texas republican congressman tony gonzalez reacting. >> i expect the same from the white house unless they change

some of their policy decision-making you will see title 42, representing 42% of the border, communities on the border we've got a win tonight and we are grateful for even if it is just a band-aid, we will take a band-aid at this point. >> at the border the human smuggling and illegal migration continues, texas dps reported found 18 illegal immigrants inside an 18 wheeler on us route 77 in kennedy county, texas. the driver was arrested for human smuggling and another life-threatening high-speed chase, texas authorities say a driver from houston, ran out of the car, jumped a ranch, and these are happening on a daily basis along the border and we will keep you updated here from eagle pass. >> thank you very much.

by the way, the white house is blaming republicans for the crisis of the border. what are they saying now. >> today's order gives republicans in congress plenty of time to move past political finger-pointing, by passing the comprehensive reform measures and delivering additional funds for border security that president biden has requested. the money in the omnibus, $60 billion go for the border, that is chump change. immigration judges, only 600 across the country, 2 million plus cases they have to here so what solutions. >> congressman andy biggs, the republican from arizona joined me now.

the supreme court leaving title 42 in place but a case will be heard on the merits in the spring we understand. this is kicking the problem down the road. migrants continue to pour across the border. >> exactly right. they are massing across the border in places like tijuana and other cities on the mexican side of the border, coming through more and more and don't understand title 42. what i'm hearing from sources on the ground is if they are apprehended these people say if you send us home they will keep coming back. to title 42, not really doing great when this administration released over one. 4 million people in the last 12 months into this country. it is as you heard someone say, may be a band-aid but is a tiny

spot band-aid. we need to do so much more on the border and this administration refuses to act or acknowledge it is a crisis. ashley: i want to talk about spending if we can. will republicans do anything about the budget once they take control? it is out of control. >> it is out of control, you need to fix that process, 25 years congress has ignored the budget control act, we need to get the process back, the 12 budget bills have to be done by early summer so we can negotiate and work it through the appropriations committee. and implement a plan of balance of budget in 5 to 7 years, no more of these 20-year plans i heard about, and things like

the homan rule, to target agencies and administrators, so you can reduce the size of the federal government. the federal spending is a huge problem and pressure for inflation, increases inflation because of that, line item, 0-based budgeting which cause us to reduce the size and scope of the federal government. neil: your challenging houseman or leader mccarthy's would become speaker, how's it going? are you gaining any support? >> quietly we have, the question will always be on day one, the board of truth when they have to say it, and we feel support, those who will

not support me but others quietly indicate they will support me or someone else. neil: republican from arizona, thank you for joining us today, always good to talk to you. thank you. by the way, director james cameron says he has cut 10 minutes of gun fighting scenes from the new avatar film. the question is why, we will get into that in the next hour, way may have been possible opening between ukraine and russia appears to have been closed again, a live report from ukraine next.

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sitting on a goldmine. call coventry direct today at the number on your screen, or visit coventrydirect.com. ashley: these markets have been open almost an hour. we turned negative, the s&p and the nasdaq slightly lower. holding pattern. despite that you are looking at some of the movers.

>> many oil names including marathon, occidental, oil is down, they are reopening. that would be big demand and hospitals are overwhelmed, not helping oil today. number one, number 500 on the s&p this year. the price target means they are going back where they started, a rise of 75%. tesla is number 2, lowered the price target on the stock, 252, quite a bit from where it is here but they keep it on the best ideas list for 2,023. the bulls are sticking their teeth into it. tesla is down 7 or 8 days in a row. ashley: 7 or 8 days in a row.

thank you very much. now this. moscow claims they are ready for peace talks but critics not buying it. rebecca joins me now, do you see peace talks happening anytime soon. >> none of the 3 sides that are parties to this conflict. and we are providing tremendous military financial aid to ukraine to help them stay in the fight. none of those ready to negotiate for peace, theoretically they claimed they want peace but are not doing what it takes to reach that agreement. putin is lying when he says he is ready to talk about peace. ashley: they continue to show

eastern ukraine. attacking person again. and and into the very cold winter months, are they standing up? >> ukrainian people displayed, they are tough. this is an atrocious strategy, and he is implementing the doctrine of the so-called strategic operation to defeat critical infrastructure, its purpose is to freeze ukrainians in winter, to deprive them of drinking water and electricity to break their will to fight.

and we will see ukrainian will remains strong. how ashley: how long can this go on? that's a difficult question to answer but we know what the russian strategy is and how tough the ukrainians are. this will grind on into next year. how does this play out? >> i believe two or five years from now we will still be talking about this conflict because the three sides are pursuing irreconcilable positions. of this war is unwinnable. putin wants to keep 1/5 of ukraine that his forces have occupied illegally. he wants zelenskyy's regime out and to keep ukraine as the russians believe is their strategic security perimeter similar to our monroe doctrine.

the length you would like to kick the russians out of the ukraine. that is an unachievable goal. and washington although general milley himself realize the chief of the joint chiefs have acknowledged there is no military path to victory for ukraine anytime soon, so what is happening is zelenskyy a secured additional aid from us, the american taxpayer. we have provided 50% of ukraine's gdp, $100 billion. even if this war were to end, 750 billion would cost to rebuild the place and it is mathematically prohibitive. the american people understanding that, that's why 47% of americans are no longer in favor of keeping the spigot going indefinitely even though

president biden would like us to keep helping ukraine for as long as it takes. ashley: we are running out of time. the only way this will end as if the ukrainians say okay, you can have part of the lands your wanting whether it is the don bass region or whatever but you say that is never going to happen. >> based on president zelenskyy's statements and his 10 point peace plan it is not achievable. he is not willing to settle and that is because he has confidence that he is going to continue to get aid from us, from the united states. ashley: we have to leave it right there. great information, thank you very much, we appreciate it. los angeles's one.

$2 billion program to house homeless people behind schedule, no big surprise, way over budget. what went wrong? we will get into those details straight ahead. students may face financial setbacks later in life because of school closures and remote learning, we have that report next. ♪ ♪

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broke ground. william, the question is what is the problem? >> reporter: la has 40,000 people now living on the streets and that billion dollars we were told would solve the problem, only 26,000, it didn't happen. instead of building shelters and low-cost areas, stretching that money, the city wanted high end apartments near public transit, shopping and pharmacies, taxpayers and the homeless are paying the price. >> we have done everything wrong we could possibly do to address homelessness in los angeles. >> reporter: in 2016 voters approved the billion dollars for los angeles to build 10,000 housing units for the homeless. 6 years later the city's 8000 short and the units they have built are ridiculously expensive. >> units are costing $600,000 a door you will never have enough

public money to create as many units as you need. some of them estimated to cost one million a door. that is an acceptable. >> reporter: 100 apartments in venice cost one million per unit. a nearby apartment building such taxpayers back $640,000 per unit and $668,000 here for 45 student -- studio apartments each the size of a single car garage. by comparison the average house in the us is four times larger and costs half as much. >> focus on housing a few, very expensive housing, you leave the many, the thousands on the street without shelter. >> reporter: andy bales blames politicians for focusing on housing instead of shelter. >> something people need today. >> reporter: wise housing so expensive?

you have bureaucracy taking 3 to 6 years to get permits and approvals to do something, then of course you've got lawyers to fight the homeowners who don't want the housing as well as union wages which adds 15% of the cost. the mayor said that didn't work, different direction, we will rent hotels and motels to get these people off the street. ashley: a complete bust. thank you, fascinating story, taxpayer money at work. a new study shows remote learning during the pandemic could lead to financial setbacks for students later in life. lydia joined me now, explain this to me. >> reporter: this is from a study by stanford university economist who says learning loss accrued during the

pandemic will cost each student $70,000 in lifetime earnings and that means $28 trillion for the country over the rest of this century. the study is based on declines in scores on eighth grade math test which found 8 point decline since before the pandemic. that means a correlation between policies that force children to stay at home and the largest drop in math test scores in more than 30 years, the study highlights house and state separate learning loss is greater than others like oklahoma, delaware and west virginia, students in idaho, alabama and alaska showed the smallest declines. other studies found learning losses lead to lower graduation rates, higher rates of arrest and incarceration. overall lower skilled and less productive adults, earned less money in their lives and some are asking what is being done to reverse the learning loss,

schools received $190 billion in pandemic aid. there's concern because 15% of those funds were spent by school districts. now, $28 trillion is on the line for this country in the future. economic impact of learning loss coming into focus and it touches every american regardless of whether they have a kid in school during the pandemic. ashley: thank you very much. ashley: they are cracking down on big investment companies pushing woke policies. these companies have that? >> they push green agendas on shareholders and find themselves in political isolation, presenting a united front against their investment

decisions, not necessarily in the interest of shareholders but lobbyist groups are not resisting the narrative. they -- you have to think about what is good for your shareholders, not what big lobbyists are telling you. ashley: now for something completely different. monty python nada. actor john cleese sounding off on how wokeness hurts creativity. lauren: they say it comes with age. this comedian is 83 years old and says this. >> think of an idea and think is that going to get me in trouble. that immediately stops you being creative. the meaning of a word depends on its context.

completely misunderstand the intention of the writer or speaker. lauren: he says people are sitting there, waiting to be insulted so they can call you out. he calls it political correctness, the enemy of humor and the enemy of creative thinking. i think he's right. ashley: he is absolutely right, john cleese. we look at the markets as we head to break. they are down slightly, that is all we will say. now quarter 12:45% or less. coming up, the greek island or state where the glass onion is set is on siloed. it is $450 million, we will tell you what it is coming up. the story, prisoners in washington state could be paid

minimum wage for their work in jail. jason rantz is fired up about it. ♪

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ashley: taking a look at the markets, very cautious as investors look ahead to the new year, now this. a new proposal in washington state could pay incarcerated individuals hourly minimum wages for working their prison jobs. jason rantz, our seattle guy, joined me now. this sounds nuts to me. what say you? >> you are correct, it is nuts. $15.74 an hour is going to be our minimum wage starting in 2,023 and we are choosing to give that to folks who have committed murders, rapes, assaults, people who are in jail for an actual reason. in washington state it takes a lot to put people in jail and

we are going to reward them, they should be lucky they are serving the short sentences they are currently serving. at the end of the day we are rewarding people for bad behavior. they are going to get paid, the money should be given to the victims. ashley: this is coming from a lawmaker who herself was formerly incarcerated. is that right? >> correct. she spent time in jail after theft as well as drug charges, this is someone who spent her career in the legislature pushing for incarcerated individuals which is the term we are supposed to use, calling someone a common-law felon is offensive. ashley: next one. the story continues to go on. local authorities in washington state invest getting four attacks on local substations. and the latest in a string of these attacks. what is going on and who's

behind it. >> law enforcement officials haven't given us details, and federal law enforcement officials coming in the pacific northwest, to be on the lookout for these attacks, there was some chatter online, traditionally although not always right wing groups calling for this disruption. we have a lot of left-wing groups have the same kind of chaos. these soft targets, how easy it is to target substations. going through a fence and that is about it. ashley: they've got to get to the bottom of it.

jimmy thaler broke down the metals for the most woke outrage failures, the bronze medal went to netflix employees who called for the company to cancel dave chapelle and got them comedian more specials. it went to the gay iran, called pro-plaps which ended up tanking at the box office but lastly, the gold medal goes to disney, the mouse house, they replaced their ceo after the company clashed with ron desantis's parental rights and education bill in florida, congratulations to disney, they won the goal. what was the biggest woke failure of 2,022. >> anything taylor lorenz touched is a woke failure. as much as i love jimmy i would have given rows the gold, i say that, it is offensively bad, for anyone to claim homophobia

was the reason for its failure, what movie were you watching? it was awful. it was in every trope about gay people that is imaginable. it was an awful film, people didn't want to watch that they are big it is not just lazy but delusional. ashley: absolutely. great stuff. thanks for joining us, we appreciate it. one host getting back lash after suggesting the author of the classic little women was transgender. what is this about? >> reporter: transgender wasn't an official word back then. louisa may alcott, a podcast or like peyton thomas, wrote of herself as the father of her young nephews. her father, bronson, called alcott his only son.

and letters to a close friend, a man of all work and gentlemen at large. this leads me to wonder is alcott best understood as a trans man? thomas is getting pushed back, the idea of dreaming of success in a man's world must make you a transgendered person, it is far-fetched. a lot of female authors wrote at the time for they identified as men. it went unnoticed. ashley: the eye roll, and thank you very much. jonathan honu will be here and kim straddle and the 11:00 hour of "varney and company" is

next. ♪ ♪

>> the the administration's really got a chilling policy on drilling for more oil in the u.s. we moved from energy independence under the trump administration t