♪ santa claus is coming to town.

♪ ashley: very classy, telling us that santa claus is coming to town as we look down sixth avenue on a chilly morning. but pretty quiet in midtown manhattan. good morning, it is christmas eve eve, i'm ashley webster, in for stuart varney, 10:00 eastern. as you can see, the dow and s&p are down slightly. the dow is off 200 points, about half a percent. on the other side, the nasdaq is up a third of a percent but all very mixed and trading as you would imagine pretty light. one of the headwinds for equities today is treasury yields, they've been moving higher and they tend to take the wind out of the sails of stocks. the yield up 3 basis points, 4.55% on the 10 year. take a look at the price of oil which has been relatively flat. down as you can see about 38-cents, at $69, and bitcoin has been on the way down, it was down earlier by about 2,000,

it's down nearly $3,000 at $94,081 for a bitcoin. all right, now this. donald trump laying out his second term agenda while speaking in arizona over the weekend. listen. >> the actions i have described today are just a small preview of the common sense revolution. because that's what i call it, a common sense revolution that's coming soon to america. we're going to give them the best day one, the biggest first week, the most extraordinary first 100 days of any president in american history. the united states will turn the page forever on four long, horrible years of failure, incompetence, national decline and we will inaugurate a new era of peace and prosperity and national greatness. ashley: four long years of

misery, about to come to an end apparently, charlie hurd joining me now. great to have you here. isn't common sense basically what americans voted for? >> oh, i think without a doubt. and you know, it's kind of extraordinary the way that's president trump kind of rewrote all of the rules about the way voters behave in this election, by eating into minority voters, young voters, and all of it was with that common sense agenda that sort of steps away from the kind of hardened partisanship that has defined our politics for so long and obviously a lot of politicians and the political media that was nashing their teeth over donald trump's return were focused on whatever they were focused on and meanwhile voters were just focused on that common sense agenda and it really did break through. ashley: it really did. you mentioned young voters. i want you to listen to what

trump said about getting youth voters engaged in the election. listen to this. >> and we got the highest share of youth vote of any republican ever before in history and we had great people. you know, my son, baron said dad, you've got to see this one, that one, he says he likes joe rogan a lot too. you've got to see joe rogan, dad, you've got to do an interview with these people and he has sort of a feel for young people. ashley: you know, i don't think we can underestimate too much, charlie, you know, donald trump going on these youth pod casts like joe rogan. i mean, it was a big factor among many as to why he was so successful in the election, don't you think? >> i think i agree with you, ashley. i think it's one of the most heartening things about this election. when you look at -- we spent a lot of time, old geezers like me spend a lot of time complaining

about social media and complaining about the internet and complaining about things like tiktok and there are are a lot of bad things about it. but on the flip side, it does allow people like donald trump to sort of hijack the political media or skirt the political media and go around the political media and go directly to groups of voters like these young people who -- we focus on the foolishness of doing the tiktok challenge or whatever young people are doing but they're also getting good information and listening to interesting debate on places like joe rogan, which is a complete free speech zone where they talk about absolutely anything and it turns out if you provide those voters with the actual truth and free speech or their choice of what they want to believe and free he speech that it actually does connect with them and donald trump mastered it and that's how he sort of reached those voters that we would have -- you and i

would have predicted four years ago would have been impossible for donald trump to reach. ashley: absolutely right. talking of joe, i want to talk about senator joe manchin. he delivered a parting shot to democrats as he prepared to exit congress after 15 years. listen to this. >> it's been so maligned from the standpoint of just it's toxic. they have basically expanded upon thinking, well, we want to protect you there but we're going to tell how to live your life. the progressive left, which was always the minority. ashley: you know what? i think that's the crux of it, isn't it, charlie? they're the minority but they're toxic and they led the way and it led the way to the party's downfall. >> yeah. i think you're right about that. and if you stop to think about it, i mean, the democrat party has every institutional advantage you could possibly

imagine from sort of the whatever you want to call it deep state, bureaucracy of washington is we'ded to the democrat party, the political media is weded to the democrat party. they have all these institutional advantages. despite the institutional advantages the party really has turned completely toxic and people are starting to see through it and of course that's what donald trump masterfully sort of figured out how to sort of expose and he did it brilliantly and he did it by being an unconventional politician and doing all of the things that sort of regular republican politicians were like cringing over that he would do it but it's how he broke through and i think that joe manchin is probably correct and by the way, with joe manchin goes -- i mean, he would have -- if he was on the ticket running for re-election at the same time that donald trump was at the top of th the ticket, he was going o

lose west virginia. in a normal election year joe manchin is probably one of the only democrats in west virginia who could have possibly clung to that seat. that will be a republican seat for as long as republicans want it and there are other states like that where the democrat party has become so toxic, so poisonous that voters are just gone from it. ashley: yeah, yeah, and i'm not so sure they learned a lesson based on the comments being made but we'll see. but charlie, thank you so much for joining us. have yourself a great christmas. >> merry christmas. you too. ashley: yes. it's exciting. i love this week. all right. thank you very much, charlie. we just got the latest read on consumer confidence for december. it's coming in at 104.7, that's a bit of a surprise decline. not a major impact on the markets. the dow is down 215 points. we got new home sales for november coming in at an annual

rate of 664,000. the median home sale price by the way, 402,600. that is down 6.3% from november of last year when it was 429,600. so median price, house price is coming down, perhaps becoming more affordable but overall as you can see the home builders, most of them down just about half a percent. let's get back to the markets and talk about this with jeff seeker who joins us now. we talked about the strikes at amazon, cks. does this mean anything for the economy and the markets? should we be keeping -- especially amazon at this time of year. >> well, ashley, it doesn't mean a lot to me because two things i need is i need gallons of espresso that i don't have to mortgage my house to afford and i need my presents that i waited for the last minute to order to show up by tomorrow.

but in all seriousness, i think what the issue is going to be is the unions have been emboldened in the last four years. now you have serious implications. i have a tremendous amount of sympathy for the membership of the unions that are dealing with this inflation, that want better wages, better work conditions, but that being said, president trump is going to have to walk a tightrope with the unions because they may push him to a point that is not going to be good for the rest of the economy. for example, the long shoremen, i do support the long shoremen. their pending strike, their contract ends on january 15th. president trump came out in favor of the long shoremen and their fight against automation. now, what that might do, the unintended consequence is that might embolden every union to

strike because president trump is taking this initiative so we have to be aware of that. ashley: we do indeed. i wanted to also ask you about the fed basically telling us that interest rates could stay higher for longer. we that huge temper tantrum on wednesday when we got that statement on the markets. but what is the outlook for the markets with rates higher for longer? >> i think it is an implication that we have to factor in because what we're seeing is that there's so much confusion over inflation. though the inflation numbers are not budging, so president trump wants to lower rates. he said he wants to lower rates. but inflation is sticky and if inflation is sticky, the one thing that is going to hinder this market from continuing to make new highs, is if that inflation continues to persist. so this is going to be a volatile market.

we're going to have to earn every inch in the future. i think a lot of us, myself included, who are optimistic about the trump presidency and the tax cuts and everything and the deregulation have to realize that we still -- there's no quick fixes and we have to be very aware that there is going to be volatility. maybe more than we've seen in quite a while. ashley: indeed. we'll have to leave it there, jeff. jeff seeker, thank you as always, sir. have yourself a wonderful christmas. >> you too, ashley. ashley: thank you very much. all right, let's take a look at some of the movers in the early going on this monday. christmas eve eve. let's begin with xerox, just announcing they're going to purchase the printer maker lex mark international, a deal valued at 1 and-a-half billion dollars. xerox up 3 and-a-half percent to $8.69. next up is nordstrom, going private. nordstrom has agreed to be

acquired by its founding family, a mexican retailer, that deal is valued at 6.25 billion. nordstrom stock down 6.1%. meta reportedly developing display technology in its ray ban smart glasses that will ignite competition in the smart eyewear market. the company set to release the new glasses as early as the second half of next year. could be interesting. meta by the way up half a percent. coming up, president-elect trump doubling down on his push to get the panama canal back as he made his first rally style speech since his election day win. >> we're being ripped off at the panama canal. we will demand that the panama canal be returned to the united states of america. ashley: ripped off, he says. we'll have that story. also, 'tis the season for

bridging the divide, senator fetterman putting country first and politics second as we head into the new year. >> i'm not rooting against him. if you're rooting against the president, you're rooting against the nation. ashley: amen to that. so can other democrats follow that example? we'll talk about it. and joe biden signing the stop gap funding bill, narrowly averting a government shutdown but now republicans are facing pressure to address the debt ceiling. we're going to talk to florida congressman carlos jiminez about that, next. ♪ i'll be home for christmas. ♪ you can count on me. ♪

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ashley: well, this just in. former congressman matt gaetz has filed a federal lawsuit against the house ethics committee seeking an emergency temporary restraining order to try to stop the release of its investigation into his alleged misconduct and drug use. his attorneys maintain his innocence and arre argue that releasing the report would prompt immediate and widespread media coverage and the allegation woulds permanently remain in the public record. that news just coming to us. let's take a look at the markets very quickly. the dow has been moving solidly down, down 254 points which is about a half percent less, the s&p down a quarter percent, the nasdaq also slightly lower. all right. now this. donald trump threatening to take back control of the panama canal after he says the country is charging excessive rates to use that critical passage.

grady trimble joins me this morning. how exactly would this work, do we know? >> ashley, it sounds like the president-elect wants to renegotiate the u.s.'s deal with panama to use the canal. he says he wants either lower fees or he's going to demand that panama return the key trade route to the united states which kind of handed it over gradually to panama in 1999. it became officially theirs. and this has to do with how much panama is charging for us to use the canal. it also has to do with china. to back things up a little bit, over the weekend president-elect trump posted on truth social saying the fees being charged by panama are ridiculous especially knowing the extraordinary generosity that has been bestowed to panama by the u.s. which by the way built the canal. he says this complete ripoff of our country will immediately stop. trump also expressed concerns over china's use of and control over the canal. beijing is the canal's second biggest user behind the united

states. a chinese company owns two of the five ports next to the canal as well. >> it's falling into the wrong hands. it was not given for the benefit of others by a token of cooperation but it was given to panama and to the people of panama but it has provisions, you've got to treat us fairly and they haven't treated us fairly. >> panama's president is firing back, saying in a video statement, as president i want to clearly state that every square meter of the panama canal and adjoining of zone is panama's and will remain so. president-elect fired back on truth social, trading jabs with him, saying, quote, we'll see about that and ashley, trump has also expressed interest in controlling greenland but greenland's foreign minister says greenland is open for

business but not for sale. big shifts in diplomacy and big shakeups happening already before president-elect trump even gets into office. ashley: that's the understatement of the week, i think. grady, thank you very much. fascinating stuff. let's bring in congressman carlos jiminez, republican from florida, to talk about this and other things. congressman, is donald trump right? are we being ripped off on the panama canal? what do you think? >> very well could be right that we're getting ripped off. what's most concerning is china's influence on panama and the panama canal authority. china has a way of trying to either buy or coerce different influencers or politicians to do their bidding and couple years ago we had concerns and we had reports that some of the members of that p panama canal authority

had been coerced by the chinese communist party. he has legitimate concerns when it comes to the panama canal. ashley: fascinating. could we take it back, do you know? >> i don't know. i haven't read the fine print but apparently he has and there has to be provisions there that say that they have to treat the united states a certain way. if they've been violating that then i don't know, maybe there is. you know, i always take him seriously even though they may sound a little bit out there. i always take the president seriously and it's a legitimate threat to panama. he wants a better deal and i think we need to get a better deal from panama and also we need to get rid of chinese influence on the panama canal. ashley: yeah. very good. all right. let's move on. over the weeke weekend presidenn signing the stop gap funding bill to avoid a government shut down. the bill extends government funding into march.

what does this mean for spending fights going forward? >> look, the congress, the republican congress and i know the president is committed to reducing the size of government. we have to. we have to reduce the size of our deficit. so what this bill does, it gives us some time. we want to put through a reconciliation package. one, maybe two. two of them that deal with the border and then other broader economic issues. the deficit is going to be a big, big topic of these reconciliation packages and so we need to move forward and so this just gives us a little bit of breathing room. the government's still operating. i always said it's not a good idea to shut down the government because it actually costs us more to restart it and it's not good for national security. ashley: no. i've got about 30 seconds, congressman. what about the debt ceiling? suspend it?

do away with it? or is it necessary? >> i'm not sure it's necessary. we have to control our spending and the only reason we have to raise the debt ceiling is because we can't control our spending. the fact is, if we don't raise the debt ceiling then we could default as a nation and that's a nonstarter. we can't default as a nation. that would have catastrophic consequences so i'm not sure it serves any purpose outside of political drama every year or so. [laughter] ashley: yeah, well said. congressman carlos jiminez from florida, thank you so much, sir. appreciate your time and happy holidays to you. >> happy holidays, merry christmas to you and to all your viewers. ashley: thank you so much. now this. the age debate in congress has been reignited after reports of representative kate granger has been living in a retirement facility in texas. she hasn't cast a vote in congress by the way since late july. granger who is retiring at the end of this term said in a

statement that she's been navigating some unforeseen health challenges over the past year, adding her health challenges have progressed making frequent travel to washington difficult and unpredictable. democrats are sounding off, roe ro khanna called for term limi. republican thomas massey says he's more concerned about the congressman who had dementia and is still voting. all right. coming up, donald trump previews a string of executive actions to tackle woke policies. >> with a stroke of my pen on day one, we're going to stop the transgender lunacy. we will keep men out of women's sports. ashley: and more on this, on his day one priorities, we'll be talking about it in the show.

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ashley: welsh this just in. luigi mangione pleading not guilty to 11 charges in the fatal shooting of united healthcare ceo brian thompson that inhe clouded first degree murder in furtherance of terrorism. mangione faces a maximum sentence of life in prison pout parole if he's convicted of these charges. in the federal case against mangione, one of the charges, murder through use of a firearm, would make him eligible for the death penalty if he's convicted. mangione's next scheduled court date in the federal case is january 18th. all right. let's take a look at these markets. all moving lower. we have seen the treasury yields moving higher which, again, takes some of the wind out of the sails for equities but the dow off half a percent, s&p down a quarter of a percent and the nasdaq just slightly negative.

but let's take a look at some of the movers in this morning's trade. let's begin with tie toyota, the company building a new ev factory in china. it will manufacture lexus models, the company's luxury brand. they hope the factory will be up and running by 2027. the stock is up a quarter of a percent, that's toyota. next up is walmart, the consumer financial protections bureau filed a lawsuit against walmart and financial technology partner, branch messenger, they claim the two opened expensive accounts for delivery drivers without their consent. the stock is down 3%. micro strategy just purchased bitcoin for the seventh consecutive week, they bought $561 million, near last week's record high. the stock itself down around 5 and-a-half percent. let's take a look at bitcoin itself which has been moving lower, well off the 105,000

value, down $3,700, and 93,200, that is bitcoin. take a look at the headline in the wall street journal. it reads more teens are using dangerously potent for intense highs, dabbing involves fumes of cannabis heated at high temperatures. big question from the headline. dr. marc siegel joins me now. i noel have the answer. doc, what exactly is dabbing and how is it different from other types of marijuana? >> it has to do with heating it, ashley. it has to do with making what's already a potent combination even more potent and i think the real headline here is that the amount of thc in all marijuana products has gone up to about 30 to 60% now whereas in europe it's about 1.5% and here it was 1.5% decades ago.

so i think that that's really the issue here and i think that that's make it much more dangerous. it doesn't matter whether you vape it, whether you smoke it, whether you dab it, whether you eat it. the question is how much are you getting and teens are getting way too much and that's why we're seeing mental health issues, anxiety, psychosis, all on top of pre-existing conditions, vomiting syndromes, developmental issues, poor performance in schools, that's the issue. ashley: that's a long list. i want to move on to this, doc. the fda updated the definition of healthy foods. packaged foods must follow a rule that sets limits for added sugars. it must limit sodium and saturated fat at levels that depend on the type of product. what do you make of this? is this a good start? >> well, i don't know if anyone's going to listen to it. i think the real issue is that the foods have this stuff in it and that's what rfk junior has

been focusing on and the new administration is going to try to focus on this, that there's too much sugar in food, too much fat, too much high fructose corn syrup. it tastes good but when you eat it, it's bad for you fda estimates about 5% of the food on the shelves is actually healthy so i'm glad they're making it more robust in terms of what's considered healthy. grains, produce, you know, even dairy is considered healthy. but not the stuff that's sweetened, not the stuff that has a lot of fat in it, not the stuff with a lot of salt in it. this is step one and they're probably doing it, ashley, because they know the trump administration is right over their shoulder. that's why they're doing it. but it's only step one. you know how many people don't read the labels. you think people read the labels when they grab some breakfast cereal and say this is unhealthy? they're still grabbing it. ashley: yeah.

especially those pop tarts. but i speak for myself. last one for you, doc. the fda also approving the weight loss drug zepbound as the first prescription medicine for obstructive sleep apnea. it feels like every day or once a week we're learning of another benefit from these drugs. is there anything weight loss drugs can't do? >> ashley, this is directly related to the weight loss issue. ashley, this is because when you're obese, your chances of sleep apnea go way up through the roof. so if you treat the obesity, this is a study out of eli lilly, out of the company that manufacturers zepbound, when you decrease your weight, if you're obese, your chances of sleep apnea go way down. that's what the study showed. it's note that the drug treats sleep apnea. it's that obesity causes sleep apnea and 30-mile-an-hour 30 mis have sleep apnea right now. that leads to high blood pressure, leads to heart

disease, can lead to seizures and strokes. it's bad for you, sleep apnea. you can't function because you're sleepy and taking naps in the middle of the day, all of that. so i'm really glad this is being outlined. it doesn't change the fact that zepbound is really, really expensive but it may increase the pressure on he medicare to o approve it -- medicare to approve it. i think these drugs should be covered by medicare, i do. ashley: we'll have to leave it right there. dr. marc siegel. as always, doc, thank you. merry christmas to you. >> great to see you. merry christmas. ashley: now this. donald trump promised to end what he calls transgender lunacy on day one in office. >> with a stroke of my pen on day one, we're going to stop the transgender lunacy and i will sign executive orders to end child sexual mutilation, get

transgender out of the military and out of our elementary schools and middle schools and high schools. and we will keep men out of women's sports and that will likewise be done on day one. ashley: trump said this is just a small preview of the common sense revolution his administration will bring on january the 20th. all right. still ahead, steven smith says you know what, he regrets backing the democrats in the election. >> i voted democrat and i got to tell you something right now. i don't like the fact that i did. ashley: well, you know what? we've got more on his reasons why coming up. he's very pointed. donald trump floating a 280 trillion bitcoin reserve. what about that? we're going to ask bitcoin guy anthony pagliano what he thinks of that, next. ♪ santa baby, so hurry down the

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ashley: now this. donald trump has named beau hines to be executive director of his administration's crypto counsel. trump says hines will work along side david saks to, quote, foster innovation and growth in the digital asset space while assuring industry leaders have the resources they need to succeed. hines is a former college football player and 2022 republican congressional candidate. he has previously received financial backing from several pro crypto political action committees, his appointment is seen as part of donald trump's push to make the usa global leader in digital assets. bitcoin has been moving lower

after blowing through the 100,000 mark, it's off another $37,000 today, $93,188. it's posting its first weekly loss since trump's election victory back in november. so heading in the other direction a little bit. anthony pagliano, professional capital management founder and ceo joins us now. anthony, great to have you here. i guess the question is can bitcoin continue to outperform in 2025? >> i definitely think that bitcoin can continue to outperform. if you look at a bunch of the tail winds, etfs are bringing in hundreds of billions of dollars over time. you also see nation states are starting to buy up bitcoin. the u.s. talking about a bitcoin extra strategic reserve. corporations are buying bitcoin as well. that's obviously a boom. if you go to the last two bull

markets, 13 different times there was a drawdown of 10% or more during the bitcoin bull market. this is very normal. people should not get worried. i continue to think bitcoin will do very well in 2025. ashley: donald trump is reportedly pitching a massive 280 trillion price bitcoin reserve basically to save the dollar. what do you make of that and what will it do to the price of bitcoin. >> there's two different things here. the first question is, is the dollar in trouble and the answer to that question so far is no. we have a national debt problem and so there could be issues with the dollar in the future if we have to devalue it in order to monda monetize that debt but currently the dollar continues to be very popular globally. people want dollars. we see that with stable coin usage and other things on an international basis. the second question, an important question is should the united states bye bitcoin for the strategic bitcoin reserve. i think the answer to that is yes. other countries are buying up bitcoin.

there's 21 million that will ever be available and so the downside risk to going ahead and buying tens of billions of dollars of bitcoin is outweighed by the potential upside. if the united states wants to be a leader on this front, it needs to own bitcoin on the balance sheet. if bitcoin is good for individuals and companies, it will be great for the united states as well. ashley: i've got 20 seconds. is the current pullback a buying opportunity in your mind? >> every time bitcoin has drawn down and you bought it and held until about this time it's been very good so i think people who continue to dollar cost average into a finite asset like bitcoin will do very well in the future. ashley: fantastic information, anthony pagliano, thank you so much, anthony. appreciate you being here and happy holidays to you. now this. donald trump is weighing in on whether or not he'll keep tiktok around despite the threat that it could be banned next month. >> because you know we did go on tiktok and we had a great

response. we had billions of views, billions and billions of views. they brought me a chart and it was a record and it was so beautiful to see and as i looked at it, i said maybe we've got to keep this sucker around a little while. ashley: the supreme court will hear arguments by the way on january 10th over whether the law to force a sale of tiktok from its parent company or face a ban is constitutional, so that's january 10th. interesting. coming up, trump says putin wants a meeting as soon as possible about the war with ukraine. does that mean they are ready to compromise? and a horrific attack, this new york post photo shows police arresting a man who sources tell us is in the country illegally. he's accused of setting a woman on fire in the subway. we'll be right back.

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ashley: and welcome back, everybody. the market's moving slightly lower, on muted trading. it's right around 1051 on the east coast. brian kilmeade joins us now. great to have him along.

brian, we have to warn our viewers the upcoming video is graphic. we're only going to show it once. it was a man who was arrested who allegedly set fire to a sleeping subway rider in new york city, killing the woman. multiple sources said he entered the country illegally and was deported and he then snuck back into the u.s. and was living in a shelter in new york city. what's your reaction to that. >> a couple things, 7:30 in the morning, a young woman fell asleep on it and we don't know much about her and they light her on fire and she dies the most horrific death possible and you can't believe it and he sits there and watches. because the cameras are in the subway you get a picture of his face, he's from guatemala, crossed over, got in legal trouble in arizona. don't know the scope of it yet. his picture was out. three high school age guys were able to identify him, called 9111, said i think we saw this glia the subway.

they stop the subway. cops gets on, they corner him in one car and they arrest him. this is s the same time the governor comes out and does a highly edited video of how safe the subway is which shows how screwed up new york is. hailing the safety of the subway after someone gets burned up alive for sleeping on it. ashley: listen to what democrat senator john fetterman said about donald trump's political talent. take a listen. >> what was the single biggest factor behind kamala harris and democrats losing in november? >> you have a singular political talent. it's undeniable. trump. you know, he had the energy and almost the sense of fearlessness to just say all those kinds of

things. i'm not rooting against him. if you're g against the president, you're rooting against the nation. ashley: you know what? aoc would never say something like that. it seems fetterman has become somewhat the voice of reason for the democrats. what say you? >> over and over again, when you think about being pro israel, knows exactly where he stood. he doesn't care really what anybody else says about him. he laughed at the protesters who were trying to harass him and it really is on him. knows exactly what he thinks. if you agree, if it's with the people of pennsylvania, and how he agrees, he's going to go along with you. i met with kash patel. seems like a good guy. i got a chance to hear about his parents, their immigration story coming here, i met with pete hegseth for 30 minutes, i asked about his objective. i want to hear more. how could people criticize me for meeting and endorsing he'll lease stefanik, she is extremely

impressive. she has my vote. i wish more democratk trump shot to him and say you know what, where can we work together. i have legislation coming up, where can you help me. i need to get to 60 on some of these things, do you know anybody else that would go along with things that you believe that i believe. if the president has slots open, joe manchin has been open to president trump. and remember, if it wasn't for him we would have two more states, if it wasn't for him we would have a packed supreme court. ashley: the retiring joe manchin said the democrat party is toxic right now. led by minority progressive group. is this party ever going to get back to what it used to be? >> i don't know. one of the questions put to him was some people on the democratic party said if we were more in line with congresswoman

jaya paul and less with joe manchin we would have been more successful. he laughed. he said you've got to be kidding me, the squad, a member of the squad to win a general election. the squad can't even keep their squad together. they lost two different members this past year in a general he'll eggs. ashley: exactly. >> and were primaried. so i think it's a joke. ashley: exactly. it is indeed. brian, thank you very much. brian kilmeade. and merry christmas to you and your listeners. always a pleasure. >> thank you, ashley. appreciate it. thanks for having me on. ashley: our pleasure. still ahead, steve forbes will be here on donald trump's first rally style speech since the election. new york congressman michael lawler on what was cut out of the spending bill. impurborder guy on gearing up fr trump deportations and the latest piece on democrat strategy to cause a riff between

trump and musk. the 11:00 a.m. hour of "varney & company" is next. ♪

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