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they raise a lot of cash and are under invested and they are going to be forced to chase this thing. >> he let everything in this case happen the way it did when so many legal scholars sat back and said why is he doing this? this is a horrible legal decision. i don't know if new york's legal reputation is high on judge mershan's list. >> this ain't about politics. it's about protecting everybody in this country, citizens expect that in their government. >> the us government is spending $1.8 trillion more than it is taking in, and anything like that had happened in the private sector we be talking about layoffs. >> eric adams is reading the room. the incredible thing is other governors are failing to do so. >> ♪ can't buy me love ♪ stuart: can't buy me love, you know, the producers are really listening to me. they know i like the beatles and they play a lot of the beatles.

>> you do? you like the beatles? stuart: thank you mark tepper. we'll get to you shortly. 11:00 eastern time it is wednesday, december 4. on the markets, nice amount of green. the dow up 170 the nasdaq up nearly 200 points, by the way, salesforce leading the dow higher, salesforce is a dow stock and it's sharply higher this morning. by the way the nasdaq and the s&p 500 have all hit all-time highs. show me big tech please. mostly higher this morning. they are all higher. amazon, microsoft, alphabet, nvidia, and apple on the upside. the 10-year treasury yield, that has been moving higher. now it's just slightly down, but still at 4.21%. repeating this breaking news, trump says he will nominate peter navarro as senior counsel for trade and manufacturing and remember he spent four months in a miami prison and refusing to cooperate for a congressional investigation into january 6.

trump also asked michael whatley to return as chair of the republican party and trump also picked adam bola to the special presidential for hostage affairs and he was the lead negotiator in the abraham accord so all of that happening fast. now this. the president pardoned his son with a one page statement sunday night. this story has legs. it's still making headlines, because the pardon was so broad it covered everything hunter may have done for almost 11 year stretch. what does that cover and what does it cover up? we have these developments. a federal judge says biden may have exceeded the scope of the president's pardon powers. the implication is that the pardon was made so broad deliberately to cover hunter's interaction with his father and his family. the republicans want to question hunter about his business dealings. the pardon cannot be allowed to cover unethical and possibly illegal activity involving

the family. the federal judge said you can't use a pardon to rewrite history and the judge was not happy that biden blamed politics for his son's prosecution, because hunter pleaded guilty. there has been renewed investigation as to what hurter was up to while his father was running for president. he was living in venice beach with secret service protection in a $4 million home. he owes $300,000 in rent. the owner took to x to ask if the pardon means hunter doesn't have to pay. democrats are embarrassed by the lingering questions. gavin newsom sensing the shift in opinion says he understands biden's instinct to protect his son but after hearing the president deny repeatedly that he wouldn't issue a pardon, now newsom says he's disappointed and cannot support the decision. perhaps he senses what we have not heard, that we've not heard the last word on pardons. perhaps he's anticipating pardons for the biden family. right before he leaves office.

newsom and other democrats don't want to be caught up in an expanding scandal which paints their democrat president as corrupt but that is the way it's headed. third hour of "varney" starts now. guy benson with me this morning. look, this story has legs, because it threatens to see the president leave office labeled corrupt. that's not good, is it? >> it's not, and i think a lot of republicans have been using that word in connection with the president for a while but it didn't really breakthrough. semitism to the media which was protecting him and to maybe a bunch of average voters. this certainly throws the whole flood gate open on the corruption side of the biden legacy and i think it's a significant piece of the biden legacy. now, you were talking about gavin newsom there for a moment,

stu, and democrats and how they are starting to ring their hands about what to do about this. i was thinking about it last night. if i were a democrat right now, an elected democrat what exactly is there in terms of a value to protecting or defending the bidens? i'd cut them loose politically. joe biden is in his 80s he's never going to face voters again. no one from that family i think has a serious political future. they've moved on from him literally in the election. they did that months ago. i don't think there's too much political downside to seeing biden and that crew as expendable throwing them completely under the bus for political reasons and moving on and turning the page using the phrase that kamala harris unsuccessfully tried to harness in her presidential campaign, her truncated presidential campaign. this ship is going down. there's a lot of ugliness here whether we ever see the full scope of it i don't know but why the democrats, any of them, other than people named biden would want to saddle themselves

with this any longer i don't know. stuart: i agree. a top harris advisor is blaming president biden for the election loss. he told the atlantic and i'm quoting now. when i got in, it was the first time i saw the actual numbers under the hood. they were pretty gruesome. when the candidate switch happened, some of that stuff got a little bit better, but nowhere near where we ended up or where we needed to be. this was a rescue mission. it was catastrophic in terms of where it was. guy, they are throwing biden under the bus. >> yup. to my exact point and also pluf in fairness is doing some own saving of his own hide. right? this is some reputation protection from him. he's an obama guy. he parachuted in with harris to try to help her and basically now that she's lost, what are they going to say? oh, it was hopeless all along. oh, we came in, look at the numbers they were so terrible, biden was clearly unfit to be

president. we all saw it. they called us crazy and evidence to that effect cheap fakes and all that garbage and gave up the ghost and threw their election overboard and put her in but i just don't accept the idea. i do accept the idea that it was going to be very tough and an up hill battle. i don't accept the idea they could have never done any better because she was an atrociously bad candidate who was unbelievably phony, thoroughly inauthentic and couldn't answer questions in any sort of satisfactory way for virtually anyone, so i think someone better who could perform better with more talent and authenticity may have had a better showing. may not have won but the idea that oh, they did everything they possibly could have and she was great and it was all biden, i don't buy that either. stuart: tell it how it is, guy benson. we like to hear that. thanks for joining us see you again real soon, guy, thank you very much. >> you bet. stuart: check that market again, please. you like what you see dow is up 160 and nasdaq is up 200 points better than 1%.

mark tepper with me this morning is here for the hour. what do you make of this rally? is it going to hold? >> "i feel pretty" good about it. as we kind of wrap up this year and head into next year i'm not concerned about a bear market or a recession. i'm very optimistic because we're about to enter a phase that's very pro-growth pro-business, less regulation, lower taxes, and you just look at the consumer over the course of the last month and a half, two months, kind of leading into the election when it was priced in that trump was going to win. consumer confidence suddenly spiked again and when you look at the consumer discretionary sector overall over the last six months, three months, one month and probably over the last week, it has been the best performing sector so i feel very good about it . the only warning i'll issue is that retail investors oftentimes have a very short-term memory. we're up over 25% this year. we were up 25% last year. just temper your expectations for next year. it can still be a great year even if it's not up 25% again. stuart: wouldn't it be something

else if it went up 25%? i'm not forecasting that but wouldn't that be something else? >> happy as a pig in mud. stuart: any problem with the consumer price index that comes out next wednesday i believe it is. >> well, i mean, what we're seeing right now, so the jolt job openings number and the quits rate both spiked this week. it was kind of unexpected that was going to happen which implies a strong labor market but the reason people are quitting is for the most part, they are going to make more money elsewhere. so as wages start to come backup, stu, my concern is that i think inflation is kind of moderated right now but when you go back through history 85% of the time, there is a second wave of inflation and when people start looking for higher wages and then companies have to raise prices to pay people higher wages, it starts to spiral and that is my concern not necessarily next week but over the course, you know, maybe early 2026 that could be a problem. stuart: put it in the back of your mind when you're dreaming of a 25% increase next year. just lock it away somewhere.

thanks, mark stay there, please. more for you later. i want you to look, this is you, lauren. please look at chipotle up 4.5%. lauren: truist did channel checks and yeah, chipotle pushed through a 2% price hike at over 20% of its restaurants in the past week and they say a nationwide menu price increase could be coming. that's good for margins. they raised their price target to 74. stuart: you've got to show me eli lilly. i know there was a contest here on weight loss drugs. lauren: i've got the numbers. eli lilly's own study shows users of its zepbound lost 20% of their body weight after taking the drug for 72 weeks compared to 14% for wegovy but this data could help give lillian edge when doctors are prescribing the drugs. stuart: wait a minute, 20% -- lauren: versus 14. stuart: after 72 weeks? lauren: yes. stuart: it's a long time to wait isn't it? lauren: you want the pill and instant gratification. who wants to wake up 20%

lighter. stuart: next case is foot locker. lauren: down big time and cut their outlook for the year, more promotions, weaker spending, pushing the company to post a loss in the third quarter. the consumer is selective. we are spending a lot of money but we're picking where we're spending it and apparently not at foot locker. stuart: let's move on from this. i want to go back to the breaking news. we can now confirm through police sources that the ceo of united healthcare, brian thompson was shot and killed outside the hilton hotel in midtown minute this morning. police say this was a targeted attack. to be clear, brian thompson led the insurance business. united healthcare, which is under united health group. there is a manhunt underway for the suspect and we're waiting for a press conference from the new york police department. should be coming up at 11:30 this morning we'll bring it to you live and see what on earth is going on here. hunter biden may have gotten a pardon but that could actually cause complications if he has to testify against other biden

family members. we'll explain that. the biden administration just locked in a deal allowing thousands of federal employees to keep working from home. musk and vivek ramaswamy promised to get rid of those remote jobs so what's the point and will they push it through and cut that workforce? the courts just handed trump a major win on his plans for mass deportations. is this the beginning of the end for sanctuary cities? i'd love it if it was. we'll have chad wolf on that. he's next. ♪

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stuart: breaking now. another trump nomination. the president-elect has picked jared isacman to lead nasa. he became the first civilian to complete a space walk and he is a billionaire and made his money from shift for the payment processing company. another billionaire on the team. san francisco banking on its new mayor-elect to turn the city around after years of speaking crime and homelessness. max gordon joins us now. he's in san francisco. you just spoke with lurie. what's his top priority? >> hey there, stu. well, lurie says public safety is his number one priority. he wants to create 1,500 new shelter beds and he wants to crackdown on drug use on the hopes that if he can clean-up the streets, people and businesses will return to san francisco. >> thieves going from car to car and smashing out windows. it's the type of image that mayor-elect is trying to shake from san francisco. over 50% of those that are

victims of auto burglaries are visitors and tourists coming to places like here. >> police have been trying to get a handle on crimes like smash-and-grabs and while both violent crime and property crime numbers are down that's only after seeing substantial spikes since covid. >> we need to make sure our tourists that come visit us feel safe. >> he wants to hire 500 more police officers in san francisco. >> how important is it to be fully backing the police department here and making them feel like they have your support. >> critically important. they have my full support and i've talked about fully staffing our police department. >> san francisco is also struggled with drugs, with overdoses killing more than 800 people last year. a record. lurie wants to declare a state of emergency in the city over the biggest killer, fentanyl. >> what does this mean? >> it means we'll be able to surg resources to areas like building more beds, more rapidly. hiring staff so that we have more crisis response on our streets. >> one of my goals is to make

sure we do not have our police officers and our firefighters being our homeless outreach workers and mental health counselors and drug counselors. >> i asked lurie if he believes san franciscos policies are too far to the left and he did say that san francisco has lost its way. stu? stuart: that's for sure. max gordon thank you very much indeed. programming notes, today, sam altmann, the chief executive of open a.i. will join charles payne for an exclusive interview on "making money" with charles. he will also speak with micro strategies executive chair michael saylor, at 2:00 p.m. eastern on fox business. an appeals court on the west coast just ruled the us can deport illegal immigrants even if local governments oppose those removals. chad wolf joins me now. does this mean trump can get around sanctuary cities rules? >> well i think this is

obviously a win for the incoming trump administration and i think what this validates is the ability for i.c.e. to do their job, to remove individuals, bad individuals from the country, regardless of what local jurisdictions may or may not do to help them do that. it's federal immigration law and they have the ability to execute on that law so it's a good ruling for them. stuart: how long before the concept of the migrant sanctuary is just out of bounds? i think the whole sanctuary idea is losing steam. it's nearing its end. what say you? >> well i think you're right, stuart. i think what you see in places like new york, right, you've got mayor adams saying he wants to sit down with tom homan and talk about how they can work together to remove dangerous individuals from their city streets and i think once you've got blue city mayors that start to understand what is going on here and how those illegal aliens continuing to commit those crimes and put their community at danger and how i.c.e. can help them, i think they will start to

come around but i agree with you. i think the public sentiment on sanctuary cities jurisdictions has turned over these last six to eight months. stuart: i really think public sentiment changes when it looks like sanctuary cities mayors or sanctuary state governors are protecting criminals. i mean, i don't see how you can getaway with that politically. you've got a rapist in prison and you want i.c.e. to go get him? i don't see that lasting. >> well, i think that's right, but you know, what a lot of these blue city mayors are good at doing is conflate the facts and say i want to protect residents in my community but they aren't saying i won't turnover criminals to i.c.e. so the more and more that we talk about this to say all i.c.e. is asking them to do is to let them pick-up this dangerous alien criminal while they are in a local jail, so that they don't have to go into city streets, into those communities and put others at risk when you have an enforcement team that goes out there. let i.c.e. do that within

the confines of a jail which is safe and secure, not only for the officer but for that alien as well and that's all we're talking about, and but what you see a lot of these mayors do is they conflate that to say well i don't want them to pick-up that 87-year-old grandmother. that's not what we're talking about here. it's not what the presidents talking about. it's not what tam tom homan is saying. stuart: chad thanks for joining us as always. we'll see you again real soon. thank you, chad. jose ibarra, the illegal migrant found guilty of murdering laken riley is asking for a new trial. ashley, on what grounds? ashley: well i'll tell you, his defense filed that motion in athens, georgia, superior court arguing his conviction and life sentence is contrary, it says, to the law and evidence, and that the court committed other errors of law that necessitate a new trial. the 26-year-old venezuelan faced

multiple charges including felony murder, kidnapping with bodily injury and aggravated assault with intent to rape. after four days of testimony and the bench trial the judge found ibarra guilty and sentenced him to life in prison without parole. under georgia law a notice of appeal must be filed within 30 days of conviction becoming final and attorneys have not elaborated on exactly what errors they believe were made in the trial. but that appeal is now in, stu? stuart: thanks very much ashley. let's get back to the market for a moment i want to give you the list of the biggest winners. the biggest dow stock winners that is. salesforce is now up 30 bucks just over 9%. amazon 2%, ibm 1.7, boeing 1.7, nvidia 142. solid gains. coming up trump's pick to lead the treasury scott bessent, he's on the hill today. he's meeting with send at republicans and bringing ideas

on to how to cut spending and tackle the debt. we'll bring you the latest on that but first, donald trump's attorneys want the new york hush money case completely dismissed. they say the hunter pardon proves why this case should be tossed out. former us attorney guy lewis will tell us if they've got a case. he's next. to go further, you need to be ready for what's down the road.

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stuart: any moment now the new york police department will give an update on this mornings deadly shooting of the united healthcare ceo brian thompson. we'll take you to that presser when it starts. check the markets. we still got plenty of green dow up 260, nasdaq up 170. mark tepper with me and he's brought his stock picks. oh, first pick, salesforce. how convenient that it's up by 9%. >> why the heck would i be talking salesforce and essentially pitching it when it's already up 9% because i think it'll go a heck o of a lt higher so coming into this earnings report there was a lot of questions on whether or not salesforce is a legitimate player in a.i. and they came out

and showed everyone they are a legitimate player, this new program they have agent force is really replacing a lot of human tasks, doing a great job of that so far and as we kind of enter next year, we're going to start to see more mondayization of its a.i. stuff and i think this one goes quite a bit higher. stuart: a lot of human tasks that sounds ominous for job losses doesn't it? >> it does, you know? stuart: the machine can do it. >> got to be efficient. stuart: next case is lululemon. why do you like it? >> we bought this around 250 bucks. this thing sold off last year or earlier this year when they didn't have enough small sizes. everyone was on ozempic and zepbound losing weight and they screwed up and didn't have enough small sizes and they righted the ship and got that straightened out. this is an iconic brand. just like nike. nike is an iconic brand but this is growing faster than nike and trading at a substantial valuation discount, so, i think

this thing, as they continue to get their ducks in a row they operate better. this is going to rate higher and i think there's plenty of upside here as well. stuart: just when everything is going up these days. >> i think so. stuart: thanks, mark. president biden's pardoning his son hunter sparked deep division among democrats. rich edson at the white house. do some of the democrats want biden to pardon trump next? reporter: well its been floated, stuart. you know, a number of prominent democrats are criticizing president biden's pardon of his son, now, one senator says that the president should grant another pardon. >> my recommendations would have been why don't you go ahead and pardon donald trump for all his charges and make it, you know, gone down a lot more balance if you will. i'm just saying, wipe them out. reporter: biden might be pardoned out but california governor gavin newsom told politico that he understands biden's instincts to protect hunter but that he took biden at

his word and is disappointed and can't support his decision to pardon. on the hill the house speaker shows this pardon needs to overhaul the justice system. >> this pardon is a utter disregard for the rule of law and it undermines further undermines the people's faith in our system ov of justice. >> with pardon in hand hunter's legal team petitioned federal courts in delaware and california to dismiss the indictments against him. the judge in delaware terminatedded the case against hunter but refused to wipe the charges from his record. the california judge responded that once the court formally receives the pardon hunter's case will also be terminated but then he ripped the president for claiming his son was unfairly targeted writing the president's own attorney general and department of justice personnel oversaw the investigation leading to the charges and the president's estimation, this federal civil

servants are unreasonable people. biden, meanwhile, is still several thousand miles away on a trip to angola. he's scheduled to return from africa tomorrow. stuart? stuart: rich edson, thank you very much. now this. donald trump's attorneys have filed a motion to have the new york hush money case completely dismissed. they referenced the president's sweeping pardon of hunter biden saying the new york case is the result of the type of political theater that was condemned in the pardon. former u.s. attorney guy lewis jones me now. does trump's team have a case for complete dismissal? >> stuart, what originally they did not, in my view, based on the selective prosecution, but this is another reason why the president biden's pardon of his son is too cute by half. they have now taken his own language, president biden's own language, put it in their pleading, and then walked into court in new york and said look,

even the president of the united states in his son's case, the justice system is selectively prosecuted him. it was unfair, it was inappropriate. i had to put a stop to it. i think what he said was enough is enough. so they've used that language to go in and say hey, if the president of the united states can say that about his own justice department, certainly, it applies to my case, president trump's case, up in new york. he's got a good point there. stuart: i just want to offer an opinion. it's my opinion. i think it should be dismissed out of hand. us one way for the new york judicial system to get his reputation back because it's in tatters at the moment. >> i've gotta tell you, stuart. i so agree with you on so many levels on this. it is such a travesty of justice that a d. a. in new york, alvin bragg, can run on the platform that i'm going to go after trump. i'm going to get him. elect me, i'm going to get him

and then, go after him, convict him, on a bunch of no pun intended, trumped up charges, about hush money, that has never been prosecuted before, 200-plus years and the president for the first time has convicted. boy talk about a mickey mouse case and mickey mouse charges. stuart: it's a disgrace. >> it's ridiculous in my view. stuart: next one, if hunter is called to testify against or about family members, he can't plead the fifth anymore, can you explain why and what that means going forward? >> great question. so stuart, he no longer, he, hunter biden, no longer has a fifth amendment right to remain silent. he's gotten pardoned on the conduct but again, the president went too far high half. he's too cute by half on this. rather than just saying hey, he's my son, i feel bad, he used the selective prosecution

argument. that went nowhere really fast and then the second part is he did it on this time period from when? from when hunter biden first started, first was put on the board at burisma. there is the hidden dynamite in this case, stuart, because the president has liability. the president's brother has liability and other people in the biden family have liability and hunter at the end of the day, he's going to have to testify to this either in a grand jury, a federal grand jury, or in open court and that's going to be a bad day for the biden family. stuart: it ain't over. guy lewis, thanks for joining us this morning. we'll see you again soon. thank you, sir. >> yes, sir. stuart: coming up president obama's former chief of staff has advice for democrats. he says don't be afraid of doge, instead, be ready with your own ideas. >> people want to reform something, change something? i'm 100% for it and i'd have a

full agenda, 10 items, that is proactive, not waiting, not in the receiving, so don't say show me stuff. stuart: we've got all of his comments, coming at you, next.

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lender and get your free info kit. call this number. stuart: on the screen a list of the winner, the best winner for the s&p 500 salesforce right out front, service now, chipotle is on the list, they are up to 4%, insight corporation up 4% as well. all right, let's move to the nasdaq, the winners there, please, on your screens marvel, data dog, gdb and workday and the s&p 500 and the nasdaq both hit all-time highs again today. donald trump's pick for treasury secretary, scott bessent, he's

meeting with senators on capitol hill today. hillary vaughn is there. hillary? what is scott bessent telling them he's going to do today? reporter: well, stuart the goal of scott bessent being here is to get confirmed so trump's treasury nominee scott bessent is here on capitol hill to talk to senators, to work towards doing just that. he's meeting with senate majority leader john thune and incoming majority whip john barasso. bessent is making the rounds with the members of the senate finance committee and holding the nomination hearing for bessent and will also be here next week meeting with senators according to sources. incoming senate majority leader john thune was on fox earlier talking about the confirmation process for all of trump's nominees. >> i think the important thing is we give them a price opportunity to make their case about why they are fit and qualified to do these important jobs and obviously, the president should have a lot of deference and leeway when it

comes to making these appointments because they are the people he wants to implement his agenda. reporter: on the table of topics senators have a lot of questions for bessent about trump's economic plans. he might get some pushback on tariffs from senators who represent industries that could be negatively impacted by a possible trade war and bessent also is probably going to be asked about an innovative yet controversial idea to some about creating a shadow-fed chair. bessent sailing in an interview this fall that instead of firing fed chair jerome powell, trump could just make his irrelevant by nominating powell's replacement well before powell's expiration date and based on the concept of forward guidance, no one is really going to care what jerome powell has to say anymore. senators thom tillis and chuck grassley have voiced some reservations about anything that gives the appearance of the fed being political. they both sit on the senate

finance committee, so we will see how these meetings go but bessent overall doesn't have as much drama surrounding his nomination as other trump picks, so while the meetings will certainly be substantive there's no indication that there's a major hurdle to bessent getting nominated. stuart: hillary thank you very much indeed. i have to break away. the nypd is giving an update on this mornings deadly shooting in manhattan. we're going to listen in. >> the suspect was lying in wait for several minutes. the surveillances approached from behind and fired several rounds striking the victim at least once in the back and at least once in the right calf. many people passed the suspect but he appeared to wait for his intended target. the suspect fled, first on foot, then on an e-bike and was last seen in central park on center drive early this morning. the victim was removed to roosevelt hospital where he was pronounced. we've been in touch with his

family, his friends, and his colleagues and they are very much in our thoughts and prayers, at this hour. the full investigative efforts of the new york city police department are well underway, and we will not rest until we identify and apprehend the shooter in this case. the women and men of the nypd take enormous pride in the work they do each day and each night to drive down crime and violence in our city. right now, we are asking the public for your help, as a pre-meditated, pre-planned targeted attack. millions of people will be enjoying the tree lighting tonight among other holiday events, and the nypd will be out there with them keeping them safe. for some preliminary details about today's tragic incident i pass it over to our chief detectives chief joe kenny. >> thank you. the information i'm about to give you is preliminary as our investigation is continuing.

this morning at 6:46 a.m., patrol officers from midtown law precinct responded a 911 call for a person shot in front of the hilton hotel located at 133. this is between west 53rd street and west 54th streeted. at 6:48 a.m. officers arrive and find the victim, brian r. thompson a 55-year-old male on the sidewalk in front of the hilton with gun shot wounds to his back and leg. mr. thompson was removed by ems to roosevelt hospital where he was pronounced dead at 7:12 a.m. mr. thompson is the ceo of united healthcare and resides in minnesota. detectives from night watch, midtown detective squad and manhattan south homicide responded to the scene and began their investigation. what we know is that the shooter arrived at the location on foot about five minutes prior to the victim's arrival. he stands long side the building line as numerous other people and pedestrians pass him by. from video we see at 6:44 a.m., the victim is walking alone

towards the hilton after exiting his hotel across the street. we believe the victim was headed to the hilton hotel to attend the united health group investors conference that was scheduled to start at 8:00 a.m. the shooter appears to be a light skinned male wearing a light brown or cream colored jacket, a black face mask, black and white sneakers and a very distinctive grey backpack. the shooter steps on to the sidewalk from behind the car, he ignores numerous other pedestrians, approaches the victim, from behind, and shoots him in the back. the shooter then walks toward the victim and continues to shoot. it appears the gun malfunctions as he clears the jam and begins to fire again. the shooter then flees on foot northbound into an allieway between 54th street and 5 fifth street. once at west 5 fifth street the shooter continues to walk westbound on avenue of the americas where he gets on to an electric e-city bike and rides northbound on the avenue of americas towards central park where at 6:48 a.m., we have the shooter riding this bike

into central park at center drive. at the scene, we recover three live 9-millimeter rounds and three discharged 9-millimeter shell casings. the motive is currently unknown but based on the evidence we have so far it does appear the victim was specifically targeted but at this point we do not know why. this does not appear to be a random act of violence. we're seeking information from the public to help identify the shooter as the commission has said, we have upped the reward up to $10,000 for information. you're urged to contact crimestoppers at 1-800-577-tips. all information will be kept anonymous. thank you very much. >> well we'll answer a couple of questions. starting off with cnn. reporter: about an hour and 20 minutes before the start of the conference is there any indication he was going to meet someone? it's pretty early. is he on his way to meet someone at the conference? >> he leaves the hotel dressed like he's attending a conference.

we're working with his co-workers and other people he planned on attending the conference with to get that information but as of right now, he's in charge of the conference so we believe he's getting there to help setup. reporter: just the city bike. we know where that city bike is now? does he dock it or does he keep riding it? >> we're still tracking video. the last we see with him on that bike is in central park. reporter: is there a way to track that bike? >> there are gps on those bikes we'll be working with the company. reporter: were any words exchanged, if so what were the words? and i'm told a cell phone was recovered in his escape route. >> we're working through that cell phone. obviously we'll be processing it forensically and as far as words being exchanged we do not have audio, we only have the regular video. reporter: nothing from witnesses? >> well there's one witness standing next to the victim when he was shot. we're still trying to identify that victim.

excuse me. the witness. reporter: chief, was he checked in to the hotel across the street alone? was he in the city alone? accompanied by anybody? did he have any known enemies or anyone that you've been able to find so far? >> like i said we're reaching out to law enforcement in minnesota and also interviewing his co-workers and family members to see if there have been any specific threat against him in the past. as far as who is he in the hotel with, we're doing a search warrant in his hotel room right now that might give us more information. reporter: based on what you've seen of this individual, do you feel [unable to hear speaker] do you feel this is a professional individual? >> i'll answer the part about whether or not he's a professional. we have no way of knowing that from watching the video it does seem he's proficient in the use of firearms as he was able to

clear the malfunctions pretty quickly but as far as the tree lighting i'll leave that to the chief. >> good morning, just really quick. this incident will not affect the tree lighting. the tree lighting is slated to start at 7:00 p.m. we will have a massive police presence out there around rockefeller center from 52nd street all the way down to 47th street and we'll have plain clothes detail out there and we will have our crc assets, our strategic response group assets. we will have our intel division out there. a lot of assets out there to make sure people can come out and have a good time and we're going to have additional police officers in the subways as well, so people can take mass transit to make it easier to travel into the city and enjoy the tree. this is a terrible event but we're going to go on and people are going to enjoy the tree lighting tonight.

reporter: i wonder if you could tell me, the mayor said there was evidence recovered at the scene that would indicate this is not a random event. i wonder if you could tell me what that evidence was and by looking at the gun it appears there's a silencer on the gun. was there and does this indicate not only that it was premeditated but this is somebody who knew his way around guns and might have been a professional. >> once again, we won't know that until we complete our investigation and identify the shooter and we'll recover that firearm. you see a glimpse of the gun in video so we're not able to make a determination on whether or not a silencer was used on that quick glimpse of video. we can't tell from that little glimpse of video. i'm not going to commit to saying that at this time. that's part of our investigation. reporter: what evidence did you get? >> there's a cell phone recovered in the alleyway, and we'll process that forensically and see if it comes back to the shooting. reporter: you don't think the cell phone was [inaudible]. >> once again

this investigation is less than five hours old. that will be part of our investigation. reporter: do we know when thompson arrived in new york city? my understanding is he was staying close by in the hilton but not at the hilton and has anything in the video indicated he was crossing paths at all? as of right now based on the current video that we do have it doesn't appear they crossed paths and he arrived in new york on monday. >> we'll take two or three more. reporter: chief, did he typically travel with a security detail and even though it's early is there anything to indicate there had been issues with a patient who was denied coverage or back in minnesota or more recently someone who lives here? >> from speaking to other employees that traveled with him to new york it doesn't seem he had a security detail. he left the hotel by himself. was walking, didn't seem like he had any issues at all.

so i don't think he did not have a security detail. reporter: as far as denied coverage i know it's typically an issue with these major companies. any reason to believe he had been the subject of a threat? >> once again, we're looking at everything. we're looking at his social media. we are interviewing employees. we are interviewing family members. we will be speaking to law enforcement in minnesota. >> two more before we wrap up. reporter: sorry i was just going to ask if any cursory look at any social media whether it's the company, whether it's his personal social media, his family, is there anything obvious that sticks out at this early stage? >> we have not uncovered anything at this time. the investigation is still too early. >> we'll go last question here with jake? reporter: how's it going? with the suspect still at large in central park, are you urging new yorkers to avoid the park? is the nypd deploying its drones? i know they started doing that recently in the park and also i was wondering, is there any indication when he gets the city

bike that he's a city bike member? like sometimes if you're not a member you can pay to use it. i don't know if you're able to till? >> the chief of detectives will answer the part about the city bike but in terms of we're encouraging new yorkers to go about their daily lives and daily business but to be alert. we put the picture out. you're putting the picture out. we want people to take a look. if they see anything suspicious or hear anything we ask them to call 911 and reach out to our detectives. with an incident like this of course we put a heavy deployment into manhattan. we put additional resources out. we have the drones up. we have aviation out. we have canine out. an incident like this happens, we don't spare any expense. we put all of our resources out there to support the chief of detectives mission and to keep new yorkers safe, so we will have a massive presence out there around the tree lighting, but throughout manhattan as well until more information develops and we're able to support the chief of detectives and what he needs to make a

quick arrest. >> as far as where he got the city bike we're still working that through. we're pulling video from numerous locations, numerous sources, and we have him on our timeline walking and what we're very fortunate is he has that very distinctive grey backpack on so we see him on one video clip walking and then another source is him riding that bike so we don't have video or witness confirmation on how he obtained that bike. reporter: do you know if the cell phone is related to this? >> a cell phone was recovered. we will confirm that later on down through our forensic examination. >> thank you, everyone. this concludes our press conference. thank you for your time and attention. stuart: you've been watching the nypd conduct a press conference concerning the killing this morning in manhattan of brian thompson, the ceo of united healthcare. as the police were determining there, it was a targeted

killing, not a random act of violence. they are pursuing the perpetrator who has that distinctive grey backpack, it's what he was wearing at the time and he escaped on a city bike. the investigation continues. i'm going to get back to the market now because there's plenty of action there. i'm going to start with the dow up 250, nasdaq up 176. show me salesforce if you can get it up there because it's really leading the dow, huge gain there right now. it was up 10% earlier. i think it's still up about that percentage point right now. show me big tech please, because they are all on the upside. the exception is apple down only $0.20. nvidia up 2.2%, amazon, microsoft, alphabet on the upside. how about the cryptos because i would suspect they are on the upside today. bitcoin reaching it was at 96 a few moments ago now it's at 94.8

ethererum on the upside. mark tepper looks like a terrific rally to me. >> without a doubt. when you look at what's going on the only thing i would say is that there's so much optimism right now, stu. a lot of optimism surrounding trump coming into office again, as it relates to the stock marketed but just to set realistic expectations for next year. if you make or get another 10-15% next year it's fantastic. we shouldn't take the 25 we got this year, 25 last year and run that out into perpetuity. stuart: yeah. don't get your hopes up too much. okay. >> don't set yourself up for disappointment. stuart: a lot of people wait for this , we do it at the very end of each show everyday and this is the trivia question. here we go. it's wednesday, the trivia question is, what is the square footage of a california king size mattress? now that's very interesting. the square footage, 36, 38, 40, or 42 square feet. i didn't know there was a special category for a california king bed.

i presume it's bigger than other king beds. ashley i hope you've been watching what's your answer? ashley: i have. of course, i've been riveted. you think it be texas king size mattress that's 100 square feet. i'm going to go with number 3, 40 square feet. s's as opposed to rhode island. what do you say? >> stu i think the way this goes is the california king i believe is lodger, but more narrow than a king. i hope i've got that right. stuart: you know about this? did you just look? >> no i'm not using the google machine at all. i just came up with that on my own, buddy. i'll go with 42. stuart: i'm going with 40. i don't know why i'm doing that. the answer is 42 there you go. right again, tepper. 42 square feet is the largest common sized mattress that's according to casper. it's meant for people who are about seven feet tall. the largest bed is the alaskan

king. you learn something everyday by watching the trivia question. is it rob does it, fine producer. fine selection of these trivia questions. i think that i better do a final quick check of the market because i want to confirm we're in the green all across-the-board and we are. i don't know how the market closes today but right now, after across the board and we, i don't know how the markets will close but after couple hours of business we are up 230 on the dow and the nasdaq, 187 points. charles payne has all sorts of, the guy who runs ai, sam altman is on that show. our time is up. neil cavuto, it is yours. neil: we a