moment very seriously. this empty capitalism movement is serious, and i think we need to get people on the side of business again, helping understand how important this is to our economy and our own self-interest, and we've got to turn the page on this cycle. it's really, really scary, it's really frightening, and it's time to reset. maria: yeah. turn the page. all right. we are looking at a market that is opening high 40er after stocks plummeted 1100 points yesterday. dow industrials up almost 300, a nasdaq -- the nasdaq up 122, and the s&p higher by 39.5. have a fantastic day, everybody. i want to thank you, mark tepper and lee carter, for a great show. we'll be watching all of that and, of course, news is going to develop on this cr, so we'll have details tomorrow. "varney & company" picks it up. stu, take it away. stuart: good good morning, everyone. some amazon workers have gone on strike a week from christmas. the teamsters' union, which represents about 10,000 amazon

workers, says they want more money for delivery drivers, and they want amazon to show some respect. amazon says operations will not be affected by any of the union's actions. let's get to the market it's the day after the huge selloff. jay powell says the fed is cautious about interest rate cuts next year. that did it. stocks tumbled. this morning, a modest comeback. the dow up maybe, what's that, 280 points, up 40 on the s&p, up over 100 on the nasdaq, but that pales in comparison to the losses yesterday. interest rates moving a bit higher, the 10-year treasury now yields well above 4.a 5%. as for the 2-year, that is now well above 4.3%, 4.32, to be precise. gold, $2,608 an ounce, down $44 today. the price of oil still around $70, moving up to 71.07. gas, $3.04 for regular, $4.31 for regular in california. diesel, $3.51 a gallon.

all right, politics. the funding bill goes down to defeat. elon musk said it was filled with unnecessary spending. the president-elect agreed, and the bill to keep the government open fell to piece. they are working on a replacement bill. if they can't come up with something, the government shuts down at midnight friday. speaker johnson's job, that's on the line, but this morning he can, quote, easily continue as speaker in the next congress if he acts decisively and tough and gets rid of all the spending traps set by the democrats. it is thursday, december 19th, 2024. "varney & company" is about to to begin. ♪ ♪ well, shake it up, baby, now. ♪ twist and shout ♪ stuart: twist and shout, i knew it before you even put it on the screen.

1963. >> well, it's moment of christmas parties, right? everybody's twisting and shouting. [laughter] stuart: nicely done, johnson. nicely done. john lennon lost his voice after singing this song. lauren: really? stuart: yes, he did. jeff bezos is the latest tech leader to meet with trump. elon musk was also in attendance, as usual. that wasn't the only business with many trump yesterday with. -- mr. trump yesterday. he took the truth social in order to put a stop to the congressional spending bill. the president-elect called the bill destructive and said any republican who voted for it should and will be primaried. he wants a new spending agreement by his inauguration, january 20th. he wasn't alone are. elon musk posted on x saying any member of the house or senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in two years. when the bill was officially scrapped, he celebrated saying the voice of the people has triumphed. mark these thiessen with us --

marc thiessen with us this morning. what's next? now what? >> oh, gosh. [laughter] i'm gonna fix it? no. look, here's the thing, you're not going to get a good spending bill. there's no good bill, there's no option for a good bill here because the democrats control the white house and the senate. donald trump isn't president yet. and so your choice is a compromise bill with the democrats in which they exact a price for, in exchange for keeping the government open or a clean c.r. where you just kick the problem down the road and let the republicans take care of it when they're in power. those are your options. there's no way chuck schumer is going to bail donald trump out by giving him a clean c.r. with a debt ceiling increase that doesn't have any of their spending on it. he's got leverage right now. so the idea that you're going to primary republicans for voting for the bad bill and for voting for a clean c.r., you're asking for the impossible. it's not going to happen. stuart: so the government shuts

down? >> well, no p. i think at some point you're going to have to have some kind of a clean c.r. at least for a week or two in order to keep the negotiations going. but look, if the government -- if they stick to this position, then the government -- there's going to be no inauguration because if the government shuts down, you can't pay people to put up the stands for the inaugural, so why does donald trump want to have a government shutdown right as he's about to take power triumphantly after this massive election victory? the other thing is you can do a debt ceiling increase and handle all in a budget reconciliation bill with the republican votes only. the problem is nobody ever does that. democrats don't do it, republicans don't want to do it because you have the put a number on it, you have to actually say we're going to raise the debt to this amount, and you have to do it with just republican votes. so everybody tries to do it in a bipartisan way so everybody shares the blame for raising the debt, but donald trump doesn't want to do that he wants the debt ceiling off the table. chuck schumer will say, well, okay, you want me to do a favor

for you? he's not going to give it to him as a christmas present. he's going to want something for it. he's not santa claus. so is he's going to demand something in exchange, and republicans are going to pay the price or not. stuart: you know, mark teens, i asked you -- marc thiessen, i asked you to sort it all out, that is an interesting attempt. >> thank you. an attempt, you call it. [laughter] stuart: marc thiessen, you're all right. have a great weekend, and we'll see you soon. teamsters' union launch. ing an historic the in, nationwide strike dennis -- against amazon. madison alworth is in new york. what's this all about, madison? >> reporter: stuart, the big thing that the workers want here is for amazon to recognize if them as teamsters' union. they've been saying that amazon's not willing to come to the table and recognize them. what you're seeing right now is one of the trucks leaving. so as part of this protest, there's hundreds of people here.

they've been letting, slowly, one car by one car through, but right now what i think you're looked at is they're convincing the driver to put the car in park. so amazon's saying this is not going to delay shipments holiday season, but here in queens the trucks have been rolling out very slowly and in this case not rolling out at all. again, it's the recognize teamsters' union at amazon and also for many of the bargaining things that we hear during these strikes. they're looking for better safety, better pay and better benefits. this is a nationwide issue that we're experiencing today, seven locations across the country are on strike the representing thousands of workers at amazon. again, looking to be recognizeed as teamsters. so i want to bring you a statement from teamsters regarding this strike. this is from general president sean o'brien. he says, quote, if your package is delayed during the holidays, you can blame amazon's insatiable greet. we gave amazon -- greed.

we gave amazon a clear deadline to do right by our members. they a ignored it. amazon, of course, responding as well with. quote, for more than a year now the teamsters have continued to intentionally mislead the public claiming that they represent thousands of amazon employees and drivers. they don't. this is another attempt to push a false narrative. the truth is that the teamsters have actively threatened, intimidated and attempted to coerce amazon employees and third-party drivers to join them. i want to bring it out live because it's still quite loud here. we have a lot going on. i have an employee with me here, lamont. let's talk about this, what's going on with this truck here? why is it stoppedsome. >> right now we're just trying to show other drivers why we're out here. and we're out here just trying to get them the join the movement right now. that's what we're doing with this driver. >> reporter: so i was doing amazon's statement. they're saying teamsters have been coercing drivers. you're a teamster driver, what's your response to that? >> as you can see, amazon

continues to lie to the media, the public and us. the real truth is none of us were forced, none of us was forced to be teamsters, we're all proud to be steamsters. -- teamsters. >> reporter: and real quick, what's the plan here? how long will you be out here? >> we'll plan on being out here as long as it takes until amazon does the right thing. >> reporter: thank you so much, lamont. stuart, back to you. stuart: thank you,d madison. remember, this is the day after the big, big selloff, so is you can expect a solid rebound, rally, and it is solid, but you're not making up the ground that was lost yesterday. dow up 300, nasdaq up about 145 at in this point. adam johnson with me this morning. the huge selloff came after powell's comments yesterday. >> yes. stuart: what are you doing in the market today? >> well, i took my lumps yesterday. i didn't do a thing today. i'd like to do some buys today. i'm not going to chase stock, but i had a number of stocks that were up 4-5% in the morning

and they finished down 7-8% in the afternoon. think of that. that's 12, 13 percentage points. as you know, i run a growth portfolio. so you expect that kind of volatility. but i'm looking for stocks the buy today, especially stocks that have been hit, say, 10-a 15 over the past several days. stuart: but you don't think the trump bubble has burst. >> oh, gosh. to the contrary, not. the fact that we are up today is, i think, the market saying, that ultimately, maga matters more than interest rate consistent she man if gans. -- shenanigans. all that happened yesterday was day traders said, oh, we're not getting as many rate cuts as we thought. no rate cuts? sell stocks. and they sold everything. and the reason you started to see some stocks actually into the bell yesterday kind of start to migrate back upwards is those day traders said, fine, we made our 12%. let's go home flat. it's just shenanigans. yesterday was about gaming

interest rates, today is about looking forward, and that forward is very much a part of the trump administration. there's no death to the trump trade or any silliness like that. stuart: okay. you stay with me, and later in the hour, you tell me what you're buying today. >> oh, i will. stuart: biden's approval rating, uh-oh, slipping as he prepares to leave the white house. where is it now? if. lauren: his lowest ever, 34%. translation, two-thirds of people disapprove of how president biden is handling the country according to this march debt poll. -- marquette poll. and and i'm to juxtaposing that with the same poll that found 53 now approve of the way donald trump handled things when he was president. buyer's remorse if a little bit after they got biden. trump, his years seemed much better as he's about the enter his second term. stuart: 34%, all the way down there. can't remember any if president as low as that actually. thanks, lauren. coming up, kamala harris is

now poking fun at the word salads that plagueded her presidential campaign. >> and i ask you to remember the context in which you exist. [laughter] yeah, i did that. uh-huh. [applause] stuart: that's good. some democrats are laughing with her, by the way, and some even want to to see her run again. charles hurt takes that on later. house republicans in chaos over the spending bill. now all eyes on speaker johnson. could he face the same fate as kevin mccarthy? we'll deal with it next. ♪ oh, won't you give me three steps, give me three steps, mister -- ♪ give me three steps towards the door. ♪ give me three steps, give me three is steps, mister -- ♪ and you'll never see me no more, for sure ♪ if. ♪

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stuart: there's plenty of green this morning. [laughter] it doesn't quite make up for all the red yesterday. dow up about 330 at the moment and the nasdaq up about 150 points. trump and musk, well, they put a stop to the 1500-page spending bill with. they want a bill without the democrats' bells and whistles. chad pergram joins me now. sort it out for us, chad. what happens now? >> reporter: stuart, good morning. what's next is far from clear, but with lawmakers must somehow solve this political rubik's cube or face a government shutdown. a conservative revolt incinerated the bill. house speaker mike johnson scrapped the bill after elon musk said members who support the plan should be voted out. president-elect trump and vice president-elect vance torched the bill. >> we had a productive conversation. i'm not going to say any more about it tonight because we're in the if middle of negotiations, but i think we'll

be able to solve some problems here, and we'll keep work oning on it. -- working on it. >> reporter: mr. trump never to opposed the bill until the last minute. the incoming president now wants a debt ceiling increase attached to the bill. conservatives are fuming. >> it's a monstrosity. this is what we see year after year. this is why ran for congress, the try to stop this practice. and it's frustrating. for the last two years, i've had a front row seat the this reckless are spending process. he could kick forward a clean, streamlined c.r. are without all of these other things anytime. >> reporter: now, including the the debt ceiling complicates the bill geometrically. many conservatives will not support any debt ceiling increase without cuts. one senior gop if source believes chances of a government shutdown are now 70%. getting the votes the pass anything is a challenge. >> pretty crazy. i think what we've seen today is that the speaker tried to get

the votes, and those weren't there, and he saw what happened on social media. a lot of folks have, you know, had second thoughts. obviously, every time you change something, it's a challenge trying to find the votes. >> reporter: house minority leader hakeem jeffries says democrats will not bail out republicans after reneging on the bill. president-elect trump says johnson, quote, easily remain speaker if he stays strong and avoids democratic traps. stuart? stuart: chad, thank you very much. a member of the house ways and means committee, nicole malliotakis, joins me now. you don't support this spending bill, so can you tell me what happens next? >> so i had to come out against this bill two days ago, well before elon musk, and the reason was because of the process. what happens next, we don't know there's a lack of communication from our leadership to the rank and file members. and that is part of the problem. that is part of the reason why there was so much opposition to this. speaker made a deal with the democrats but didn't in inform

us, the members of the congress, and allow us to weigh in before doing the handshake. and that's why you saw this type of rebellion take place. i think members are very frustrated because either we would have a clean c.r. just continuing for the next 35 days or 3 months until we can get president trump sworn in and do the work that the american people elected us to do and they spoke loudly about, or you -- if you're going to open up this c.r., then at least fight for your own members' legislative priorities, and i don't see that happening from our leadership. what can we do for the individual members to then hem -- help them score small p legislative wins that are noncontroversial to make everyone go home a winner in this process. instead, so much was given to the democrats, and we were left holding the bag. i don't know what actually happens next. i would love to see more communication between leadership and the members, but i think we can pass a clean c.r. and just postpone, you know, fund the government until three months from now without any bells and

whistles. that's fine by me. stuart: donald trump, president-elect trump says johnson, speaker johnson, can, quote, easily continue as speaker if he acts decisively and tough of and gets rid of all the spending traps set by the democrats. if you think johnson can do that, the speaker? >> look, i think it's a difficult dynamic right now because you have these various factions within our conference that a want different things. if some want a clean c.r., some want if you're going to add anything to it like the disaster aid and the supplemental for farmers, that it's paid for, and then you have others who, you know, want to see legislative wins for their own districts. and so i think you have -- and this is the problem. when you don't have everyone in a room hashing this out and trying to figure out what is the common denominator, how do we move forward as a team and get this done, i think that's problematic. stuart: i mean, are you going to hold meetings today? this morning to try and thrash

something out? >> you know what? again, it's a, it's a very small group of leadership that is in the room doing this. the rank and file members have not been part of the process, they have not been informed. and we were dually-elected members -- duly-elected members. this is how we got in this mess to begin with, by shaking hands with the democrats and not first bringing what the agreement was to the membership for consideration and for approval. so i would simply say that, you know, there needs to be a better system in place here of how leadership interacts with the rank and file members and work with us to see how we can score legislative wins that may not cost -- don't cost money and are not controversial. stuart: just doesn't make the republican party look good, does it? >> no, it doesn't. it's very frustrating, quite frankly, and hopefully things will change next month. stuart: congresswoman, thanks for joining us. i'm glad you're on the show. >> thank you. stuart: adam, i want to change

the subject -- >> you mean you don't want to talk about the dysfunction in washington anymore? you're over it? yeah, me too too. stuart: i'm done with that. the viewers are as well. >> yeah. stuart: i want to talk about markets. specifically, the move today on the 10-year treasury yield. it's gone well above 4.5%. >> i know. it's a little uncomfortable. stuart: 4.55. it's a danger signal, isn't it? >> it is. we got as high as 4.65 a few months ago, and that was very uncomfortable because then you say, wait a minute, next stop 5? what does 5% actually do to stock valuations? remember, the higher interest rates go, t t not just that borrowing costs go up, but you are less willing the pay more today for earnings tomorrow, right? that's what happens when rates go up. so it's a little uncomfortable. stuart: mortgage rates are not going to come down. you're going to get well above 7%. >> correct. stuart: and we're going to get home sales figures at 10:00 this morning, just about a half hour

from now. >> it's uncomfortable. we can bounce, and let's remember we got some gdp price data today. only up 1.9. that's actually below the -- stuart: that's positive. >> that's good news. stuart: adam, stay there, please. tell me what we've got on the futures market. some green, dow up 350. the opening bell is next. ♪ ♪ time to take my hand and travel south across land. ♪ put out the fire --

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stuart check those futures, please. three minutes to go to the opening bell. dow is up 2300. -- 300. d.r. barton with me. huge selloff yesterday, is the party over? >> oh, stuart, i don't believe it's over. far from over, actually. i think yesterday market threw a little bit of a temper tantrum when they didn't get all of the good things they wanted from jay powell. they didn't get lots more interest rate drops in the near future. so they, i think that adam

really hit the nail on the head earlier today when he said the volatility that we're looking at now is really here to stay with us, and that long-term investor, stuart, needs to to keep their nerve and hang in there because we're going to see some of these swings while new, good things keep happening and the market keeps moving up into the new year, i do believe. stuart: i'll say the same thing that i've often said at times like this, what's wrong with me buying a- 2-year treasury that yields 4.25%? dead safe, a small tax break. what's wrong with that safe i? >> boy, i love that. and, again, your cohort sitting beside you said it well, people are paying up to be able to get good interest rates right now. they're not willing to wait longer. so a good 2-year treasury's not a bad idea for the near term especially for people that are a little bit more squeamish and don't like being battered around a bit like being in a growth fund or some other big, high

volatility moving stock. so i do not dislike your thought at all. [laughter] stuart: okay. what about google? i know you like it. where's it going? >> yeah, i think it's going a lot higher, stuart. you know, what happened here with this big selloff a yesterday and even a couple of days before that, we got google telling us that the alphabet company made a huge quantum computing leap. the stock took off and now it's pulled back not quite to where it was when they made the announcement, but close to that. so we're getting future goodness at the old price. [laughter] i like that. i like buying every pullback on google for a little while. stuart: nicely put. all right, d.r., thanks for joining us. see you again soon. the market is now, yeah, now it's open. there we go. thank you. the market is going to open higher, and it's -- i keep saying it was way down yesterday with. but the dow in the first couple of seconds' worth of business you're up over 300 points.

look at the dow 30, much more green than red this morning. it was not like that at the closing bell yesterday, of course. the s&p 500, that has opened 42 points higher, that's .7%. the nasdaq composite, that has opened with a gain of almost 1%, 186 points, 189, to be precise. how about big tech? if took it on the chin yesterday. this morning, all higher. meta, alphabet, amazon, microsoft, only apple is down and that is only down 12 cents. looking at individual stocks now, start with micron. they reported after the bell yesterday, but they're down big today to, lauren. lauren: down 14%. they were stung by lower demand for pcs and these things, smartphones. old tech, if you will. old tech, right? and if because of that, their current quarter revenue forecast missed the estimate by a billion dollars. so their forecast missed by a billion. that's a big deal. there is a lot of a.i.

excitement around micron, i don't want to kiss miss that. up -- dismiss that. their high bandwidth memory chips, one of three companies that that make that sort of chip. stuart: they're down today bigtime. how about nvidia? i believe i saw it up. what's the story? if. lauren: up 2% but still right around 130. they still own the a.i. chip space, and i don't think anyone's going to deny that. so analysts are incredibly bullish, but other companies are now getting in on their territory, and that includes broadcom which has doubled this year in price. and nvidia's own customers, big tech company like google and amazon, they're making their own chips. so there is a lot of competition. stuart: show me apple, please, because that company is in talks with tencent and bytedance to do what? lauren: reportedly, roll out a.i. features in china. apple would integrate a.i. models into their iphones because you need a certain deal with china to do it. is right now if you have a

certain iphone, you have chatgpt. siri has superpowers, if you will, in your iphone because of the integration of chatgpt, but it's the not available in china, so apple has to partner up with local companies which is why this report says it's doing so with tencent and bytedance. one more thing for you. apple was reportedly planning to allow owners to rent their phones because they're so expensive, and then you pay a subscription fee and get a new one every year. that has been scrapped -- >> good. so tired of our being just a rental society. you know, you rent stocks. oh, what's our trade for today and, you know, you own the stock for a day or you lease your car or rent your part i mean, where's commitment? if no wonder our divorce rate's 5 2%. [laughter] we're a bunch of renters. stuart: you missed out the runway. >> can you imagine renting your clothes? stuart: i know people who do. lauren: and handbags. >> yeah.

enough. put your take down and own it. stuart: let us get to this nasty strike. the teamsters' union is on strike against amazon. the strike is underway, but the stock is up. lauren: amazon says this strike will have no impact on its operation six days before christmas. so, what, 10,000 out of 800,000 workers in their warehouses are on strike? that's a small percentage. this is in seven fulfillment centers. they have 600. so this is small potatoes in the grand scheme of things. you might see some delays, but for the most part amazon says business as usual. stuart: i want to say that is mean-spirited, right before christmas, deliberately trying to interrupt the christmas present flow. lauren: that's the point. they want to make a statement. stuart: well, it gives them leverage, but it doesn't make them right. it's a nasty thing to do. lauren: i agree with you. stuart: micro strategy down bigtime yesterday, back up 4% today. lauren: so they're the biggest corporate holder of bitcoin, and

i think a lot of the enthusiasm is what happens on monday when they join the nasdaq 100, and we have seen this incredible run in the price of their shares. and some analysts are saying it's like micro strategy is joining the nasdaq, but it's not, it's just the nasdaq 100. even with yesterday's 10% drop, it's up 450% this year. stuart: not bad, i'd say. i approve of that. the home builder, lennar. how -- why is it down 3.7%? if that's quite a drop. lauren: second biggest home builder in the country. their forecast for new orders missed the estimate, and then they reported lower profits and revenue for the last quarter. what's happening is you have reluctant buyers sitting on the sidelines saying mortgage rates are just too high. and because of that reluctance, lennar has decreased the average price of the homes they sell by $11,000. it's now an average of $430,000. and despite that, people are still saying it's too expensive.

stuart: okay. darden restaurants, they reported this morning, i think, before the bell. they're up 12%. lauren: wow. this is, like you said, old hiv garden. out-- olive garden. outperformance at longhorn steakhouse. overall, a nice increase in their same-store sales, so they're doing well. i guess people are paying to dine out at certain restaurants. stuart: next one i want to look at is tesla. are they thinking about bringing this autonomous driving to texas? lauren: absolutely. so remember in october when elon musk unveiled the cyber cab, the robotaxi. he said then i'm going to introduce this in california and in texas. bloomberg is reporting that we have those details that it is happening in texas, because the company has been speaking with austin officials about how to do this safely. texas doesn't have many rules and regulations about anything, right? >> that's why we like it. lauren: that includes autonomous vehicles. and their law states that specific cities cannot get

involved with how the state handles things. so this is actually happening, maybe sooner than we think. elon musk usually gives a deadline and it gets pushed back. but bloomberg says they're talking, and the cyber cab is coming to austin soon. stuart: i'd love to find out how much is musk worth now that tesla is closing in on $450 a share -- lauren: $450 billion? >> it was $400 billion last week. it's incredible, $400 billion. stuart: wrap your arms around that. oh, it's time for your stock picks. >> oh. stuart: the first one you brought is, pit on the screen, nvidia. >> i know we talk about nvidia an awful lot, and with good reasons. it was one of the the stocks that was up almost all of yesterday. right at 3:58 it finally went negative yesterday. that's incredibly powerful, stuart. of to have a market, the dow's down 1,000 points and nvidia's up? and the thing is, nvidia is already down 10, 11, 12% from

the highs, and anytime nvidia goes down more than 10% -- and it did that, well, four times this year -- you buy it. you buy it because it is the leader for a.i. it's a very simple story the. and it's no longer expensive at, like, 3 32 times earnings. it's cheaper than microsoft. nvidia is cheaper than microsoft and apple. stuart: glad you told me that. thanks, adam. coming up, homeland security secretary mayorkas warning of an ongoing chinese hack on global telecom providers. >> china has, in fact, hacked into our telecommunications providers. extent of it is quite serious. our cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency published mobile communications best practices. stuart: best practices? is that a strong enough response? retired four-star general jack keane will join us shortly. california residents fed up with theft and drug crimes voted lemm whenningly to reverse --

overwhelmingly to reverse soft on crime policy. we'll ask our california guy, leo terrell. fed chair jerome powell has a rosy outlook on the economy after the third rate cut of the year. >> the u.s. economy is just performing very, very well there's no reason to think a downturn is any more likely than it usually is. stuart: we'll find out if economist e.j. antoni agrees with that. he's next. ♪ 'cuz, baby, now we got bad blood. ♪ you know, we used to be mad love. ♪ take a look at what you've done. ♪ 'cuz, baby, now we got bad blood, hey! ♪ ♪

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the markets. >> reporter: yeah, and what it means today, at least the tantrum today seems to be subsided. still, the word of the day is uncertainty. the fed chairman saying he's seeing inflation i moving down to the 2% target. the fed forecast to reach their goal at the end of 2027. still, inflation ticked up over the last two the reports and the chairman adding it's not a time to panic. the fed added language to its statement saying that in deciding the timing and extent of rate a cuts, the committee will look at incoming data, and here's the explanation. >> we're at or near a level that will make it appropriate to slow the pace of adjustment. so that's what we mean by that. we're not trying to make decisions about the longer run, you know? we are trying to make sensible policy as we go and, you know, i just would emphasize the uncertainty which is, it's just a function of the fact that we expect significant policy changes. >> reporter: so as we come into those changes, the producer price index outpacing expectations last month, and

that's upward pressure on inflation. yet we hear the fed chairman optimist inabout the economy also. he's -- optimistic. he's hedged a bit, wanting to see how president-elect trump's policies unfold. >> we don't know what'll be tariffed from one countries, for how long, in what size. we don't know whether they'll be retaliatory tariffs, we don't know what, you know, the transmission of any of that will be into consumer prices. >> reporter: so it looks like the fed's setting up a pause in rates in january. members forecasted two rate cuts next year, that's down from four, and that's what the markets didn't like yesterday. stu? stuart: got it. edward with, thank you. now listen to what powell said about the state of the u.s. economy. roll it. >> the u.s. economy is just performing very, very well, substantially better than our global peer group. and there's no reason to think a downturn is any more likely than it usually is. so the outlook is pretty bright

for our economy. we have to stay on task though and continue to have restrictive policies so that we can get inflation down to 2%. stuart: all right. economist e.j. antoni joins me now. powell says the economy's performing very, very well. do you agree with that? >> well, by what metric, stu? sure, the economy's performing well if you're going to look at something like gdp which is getting inflated by the fact that the government is adding roughly a trillion dollars in debt every hundred days. sure, you can buy a lot of technical growth at least on paper if you're willing to do that. but beyond that, how are people actually doing? has the quality of their life improved? can they buy more today than they could four years ago? i'm sorry, i just don't see this in that he's talking about. apparently, he's not paying attention to anything with, that his philadelphia branch of the fed is actually producing these days, because just this morning they came out with a horrific manufacturing report, and it was only a few days ago that they

estimated that job growth in the second quarter of this year didn't increase at all. in fact, they think it actually declined. so, clearly, powell is not paying attention to the data that, again, his own organization is producing. stuart: was the rate cut decision a mistake? if. >> 100%, absolutely. and, look, you can go by a lot of different metrics to make that determination. let's just go by the metrics that the fed themselves say they look at. the apparent job growth, the apparent unemployment rate and the inflation numbers that we get whether it's cpi, pce, you name it. just sticking with cpi for a second, stuart, the monthly change in cpi has averaged an annualized rate of about 2.9%, very consistently, since june of 2022. in other words, we have not been trending towards 2%. that was a lie. it wasn't true from the beginning. we've been trending closer to 3%. we're stuck there in that range, and there's no sign that we're going any lower anytime soon.

again, powell's own fed -- in this case the cleveland branch -- is estimating a 0.4% month over month increase for the current month in the cpi. that is nowhere near the 2% target. in fact, it's more than twice that. stuart: you don't cut rates when you've got a strong the inflation rate. got it. e.j. antoni, thanks for joining us. california getting ready to phase out new gas-powered cars. ouch. when does this go into effect? lauren: it starts in 2026. basically, a year from now. the epa has approved a request by the state of california that 35% of all cars sold there be zero emission by 2026 and 100% by 2035. that is effectively a ban on gas car sales. the issue is california leads the way on green initiatives, and often we see other states copy. what california does. the other issue is, well, trump's coming to down -- to

town, and he might revoke those epa waivers. stuart: odds are, he will. coming up, knocke voted for elon musk -- nobody voted for elon musk, but with the support of donald trump, he called the shots on shutting down the government. in fact, he has influence on just about every aspect of policy. is that okay? that's my take, top of the hour. ♪ ♪ i sure do like those christmas cookies, babe. ♪ he gets mad that they're all gone before i get the icing put on. ♪ i sure do like hose christmas cookies, babe ♪ (♪) evan, my guy! you're helping them with savings, right? (♪) i wish i had someone like evan when i started. somebody just got their first debit card! ice cream on you? ooo, tacos! i got you.

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stuart: president-elect trump has yesterday -- yet to decide whether he'll support a ban on tiktok. peter doocy with us. do we have any idea which way trump will do? >> reporter: stu, we are hearing now just because president-elect trump says that he's got a warm and the for tiktok after it aided his election win, that doesn't mean that he's ignorant of the platform's national security risks. >> joe biden is trying to get rid of it very quickly is that trump cannot save a platform that is widely used. however, it has to be, has to,

has to comply with american security standards, it has to be the -- can't be a national threat, and president trump understands all of that. and he will examine it. >> reporter: and republicans in congress are now hoping to clarify what exactly they're hoping happens. they are claiming they don't want to prohibit americans from using tiktok forever, they just want to dramatically reduce the risk of chinese spyware and data mining here. >> none of tiktok's ownership should actually be related and directly connected to the ccp. we know that tiktok has been utilized as a tool. china doesn't allow american companies or any international companies to own a social media platform in their country. >> reporter: the arguments before the supreme court about this law are january 10th. if the justices do do not rule quickly and tiktok is still owned by a chinese parent company, it's going to be banned in the u.s. nine days after those scotus arguments. stu. stuart: another mess.

peter doocy, thank you very much, indeed. adam johns, forecast. what do you think's going to happen here? >> i think tiktok's going to be allowed to continue to do what it does, because the fact is it's not doing anything differently that's not already being done by the likes of instagram, facebook, alexa in your home and on and on and on, right? stuart: but china's communist party is picking up all that information about a -- >> well, yeah, guess what? so is amazon. so is google -- stuart: but there's a difference between amazon, google and the chinese communist party. >> i mean, is there really? if. stuart: yes, there is. [laughter] >> okay, fine. one group is a group of companies, and they're using that that data to figure out how to sell you stuff, and the other is effectively a foreign country. we don't know what they're doing with that information, and it's a little unsettling. i can understand a case where government employees are told you cannot have tiktok on your phone. fine. absolutely right. then you don't have the chinese

peering into the homes of government officials. i'm okay with that. but to just worry about kids on main street, you know, the chinese government's listening? i kind of feel it's much ado about nothing. i know that's not a poppe polar viewpoint and people will probably pick me apart on twitter. i'm okay with that, i can take it. ye -- yeah, i think we've gone too far on this. stuart: all right. adam johnson, thank you very much, indeed. check the big board, we're up 228 points. we were down 1,000 yesterday. there are some dow winners. we have goldman, morgan, american express, ibm and visa on the winners' list. s&p 500, darden restaurants, aon and united airlines. marvell technology, paychecks, paypal, the tesla on the list of winners on the nasdaq. still ahead, retired four-star general jack keane reacts to the sweeping chinese hack of u.s. telecoms. california's governor newsom declared a state of emergency

over bird flu. we'll ask how serious the threat is. a long-promised high-speed rail project in california so over budget, doge is looking ate.. -- at it. more "varney" after this. ♪ ♪ .. y'all see this, patrick mahomes is saying goodbye! patrick! patrick! people was tripping. where are you going!? he was actually saying goodbye to his old phone. i'm switching to the amazing new iphone 16 pro at t-mobile! it's the first iphone built for apple intelligence. that's like peanut butter on jelly...on gold. get four iphone 16 pro on us, plus four lines for $25 bucks.

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