going more into value away from mega cap tech which has run so much and isn't as levered to those domestically oriented policies, i think the value areas are going to start to catch up. taylor: tim we only have 20 seconds give me your case on lumen technologies. >> it's an a.i. play. there's a lot of infrastructure between data centers that have to be built out, lumen entered agreements with microsoft aws. it's a great under valued company and should do very very well over the next 12 months. taylor: jose, tim, always need more time. so grateful. >> [closing bell ringing] taylor: stocks near session highs as we finish up the count done on clayman, kudlow is next. larry: hello folks and welcome to kudlow i'm david asman in

for larry kudlow. democrats rads drift as donald trump prepares to take power. that is a headline, in today's "wall street journal." it sums up, i think, kind of well where washington stands at the end of 2024, so where do democrats go from here? and what does it mean for the short-term of the trump administration? we're going to ask rich lowry and david webb in just a moment but first, jacqui heinrich is live in new york studio. good to have her here with the very latest on all this. reporter: hey david good to be with you. trump's foreign policy agenda is beginning to take shape with the panama canal and greenland topping the list of american interest. speaking to a crowd yesterday at turning point usa trump demanded that panama lower the fees american ships are charged for passage or face the canal's seizure. trump didn't say how exactly he would force its return to u.s. control but claimed america is being ripped off after constructing the canal in the early 1900s. >> you've got to treat us

fairly and they haven't treated us fairly. if the principles both moral and legal of this magnanamus gesture on our following we demand the panama canal be returned to the united states of america in full, quickly and without question. reporter: that drew a rebuke from panama's president who wrote every square meter of the panama canal and its adjacent area belongs to panama and will continue to be. the independence of our country is not negotiable. well trump replied, we'll see about that, posting an image of an american flag planted in the canal. trump is also eying greenland again which he first expressed interest in purchasing in 2019. in a post naming his ambassador to greenland trump said for purposes of national security and freedom throughout the world, the united states of america feels that the ownership and control of greenland is an absolute necessity. greenland's prime minister gave

a response saying the country is not for sale and so far there's no response from leading democrats and the party is left without after biden leaves office. the "wall street journal" reports their party has yet to land on a clear message or a leading messenger leaving the president-elect mostly unchallenged even as republicans who expose their own vulnerabilities and divisions when trump nearly derailed a stopgap funding deal with last minute demands. biden has largely stayed out of public view as trump continues to hold meetings with business executives and world leaders, in fact yesterday, trump announced the russian president vladimir putin is seeking a meeting with him pretty soon, david. david: jacqui heinrich, thanks again for being here. joining me now is rich lou we editor in chief of national review and david webb fox news contributor and host of the david webb show on sirius xm. david great to see you, rich great to see you as well. so david we just had a four-year test drive of progressive democrat policies.

of course we elected biden who claimed to be a centrist for all his life but the policies were clearly the economy, the border, public safety, foreign policy issues. it was a disaster. the test drive crashed, big time, both with the economy and even, i mean you think of the peaceful time during the trump administration. that wasn't coincidental. that had a lot to do with his leadership, donald trump's leadership and the wars that ensued during the biden administration, so, where do democrats go from here? >> where do they go from here? probably not far from where they are right now. david: really they stick to what doesn't work? >> they stick to what doesn't work. if you look at the split in the democrat party the elitists are now too old to stay in charge much longer. the nancy pelosi, joe manchin who faked being a centrist is left, what are they left with? is aoc, hakeem jefferies, the squad members, ill an omar

who are the center, the heart of their party, are they going to change? no, bernie sanders has walked off the stage. he did his job and got his nose under the tent and now his policies, his thoughts are now mainstream in the democrat party. hillary clinton recognized that a large part of her base when she ran against trump were socialists, so the democrats are stuck there for sometime but that also means a significant resistance they are going to continue not just against trump but really against the country and their complaints about billionaires, they have their own billionaire, so many others, so -- david: there were more billionaires supporting kamala harris than there were supporting trump. >> i had a list of 88 prime wall street players that were supporting harris, so they are not going anywhere and part of the money is acquire the power and hope to build the next base. david: all right well, you said that it was all the old school

and you're right. we had joe manchin and we were going to run the sound bite but we won't. i do want to run the sound bite though of a younger democrat whose thinking of actually moving to the republican side, if democrats don't get off this progressive line. run that steven smith sound bite if you have it there. >> i voted democrat and i've gotta tell you something right now. i don't like the fact that i did. nobody's above the law but then you go out and pardon your son and i'm no longer interested in, nor do i believe any of us should be interested in listening to a bunch of fear mongering to tell us who we shouldn't vote for. why don't you come up with a plan that tells us why we should vote for you and if donald trump, j.d. vance or the host of other republican candidates coming down the pike, that's the kind of message they are going to put forth, i'm down for it. i'm open-minded. david: and rich, then you have a rookie mike john fetterman who just said i'm not rooting against donald trump.

so it's not all of the just the old timers that want to change the progressive policies. >> the parties not going to change. it needs to lose another national election or two but if you want to point to someone who gets it, it is john fetterman. one, speak with a clear and authentic voice, be funny and don't just distance yourself from the left. denounce them when they're ridiculous, wrong, or immoral which he's done over the last year, so that i think is a workable to model for the party. david: john fetterman's changed though from the way he was before the stroke, it's like the stroke shook him up. besides donald trump he has the list of politicians with the best year this past year. david: couldn't he sort of lead the party? be the front of the speer of changing their policy from aoc? >> i think he's been a loaner this last year and will continue to be because of forces that make the democratic party beholden to the left are too

strong. david: david i want to switch to the public safety side of the national debate which i think democrats are losing big time because we see with our eyes what is happening, and of course the most recent example, this weekend that barbaric attack of that woman in the subway. she was burned to death by a guy who was sitting there watching, watching her burn, and then, by the way, he was a guatemalan, illegal alien, kicked out during the trump administration. came back, probably during biden. we don't know that as a fact and he's been accused, not convicted yet, but the amazing thing is the reaction of governor hochul who after the actual attack said, and i'm putting up from her post, a suspect is in custody for the horrific incident on the f train. our brand new security cameras helped law enforcement to get the suspect. i mean, she has no bragging rights for not preventing what

happened here. it's all about prevention. we have to prevent attacks on innocent people, not just react to after its happened. >> kathy hochul is more tone deaf on illegal immigration than governor cuomo was during covid. think about that. kathy hochul is another working families party candidate much like letitia james whose their biggest first success. david: working families for those who don't know is a far left outfit. >> call them what they are. they are the communist party in new york, and they are operating in about 24 states right now. i've been tracking them for a long time, and when you look at what kathy hochul did, she's trying to take credit for something that she caused. the deal with the mta, the state, who governs it and the city falls under the governor. she's responsible. her office is responsible. david: but rich, having said

that, you've gotta give some -- >> hats off to david. he's such a pro. he lost a piece of equipment. did he bat an eye? david: not an eye lash. i've been in the business a long time, you did quite well. back to the issue here. it's not just governor hochul. the d. a. alvin bragg was so busy on this prosecution of donald trump ongoing after daniel penny talk about the subway crime. here is a guy who steps up a former marine who steps up to the plate, does the right thing, and all d. a. bragg can do is try to prosecute the guy. thank god the jury was not of like mind there. the d. a. has to take blame for this. >> absolutely if daniel penny just punched someone in the head randomly on the subway and left he would have been fine but because of his race he stepped in and did the right thing and if one person is burned alive on the subway that has an effect on everyone because you're thinking about it when you ride the subway and you shouldn't have to do that.

david: the statistics by the way are cooked, the ones we get from the administration. >> but they use that to reassure people but this is much more stark and real for people and also, the way you prevent these things from happening, don't have criminal illegal immigrants on the streets, don't let low level offenders go. don't let minor disorder go. lock it down in that sense and it's less likely that something like this happens. that was the rudy giuliani approach. david: then we wake up this morning and find out these commutations by the biden administration, you know, obviously, biden is not competent enough to do these things but somebody in his administration is trying to. what is it, 37 of the commutations involve violent criminals who were just, the worst of the worst. what is that about, david? >> it's about an agenda within the biden administration. he's not in charge of this. the pardon process always has a lot of players in it for any president. the review by the justice department, but this is

an agenda that they need to drive forward. it's not just about the contradictions between 1993 joe biden, the crime bill and where he is today. this is an agenda and if you look at the people he's commuting or pardoning the first 39, the 1,499 commutations, look for whose in there and ask yourself, would anyone whose competent sit there no matter what they have a belief in, if they had input from a proper justice department would you commute or pardon someone who for instance kidnapped and murdered a 12-year-old? would you have someone who targeted someone a first responder that planned the murder of a military service member? this is something that has gone much deeper and wider and it's why when biden wasn't able to run the white house as president of the united states, the committee within have been running this. therefore their agenda, much to the earlier point about -- david: you know the thing that really politically i don't

understand. we found out that pandering to particular groups don't work. you're saying he's trying to apologize for supporting that anti-crime bill that many people in the black community, latino community objected to but pandering doesn't work. that's why the open border actually drove latinos into the republican arms. they were there waiting. pandering doesn't work . thank god americans woke up. >> it's beyond pandering when you have an ideological bend. they don't care about blacks. they don't care about latinos. they don't care about the poor. brandon johnson in chicago is a socialist. he doesn't care about the constituents. he wants to make sure he follows the very rule which is how you remake america. you have the country by people from all over the world that's one part of it. you don't care where the criminals come in with economic migrants or otherwise because it allows you to change and rebuild america. that's what their goal is. it's not even about -- david: by the way who actually

dedicated his last book, outroll "rulesfor radicals" to satan. i've got to give this to you, rich, because back in the late 1970s there was a debate between william f. buckley, who founded the national review and ronald reagan over the panama canal treaty. reagan was against it. he thought that eventually, panama would break all of the rules and it's a contract, a treaty, and in fact that's exactly what happened. was buckley wrong on that? because donald trump thinks he was. >> in this sense trump is highly reaganite, and if we get the panama canal, greenland and canada is the 51st state, it's the most successful foreign policy but i don't think we're taking back the panama canal. this is how trump works. he did it with foreign actors. remember when he cutoff aid to central american countries like they are going to collapse. he cut it off for one-day because they went along with his immigration plans and that's what he wanted so this is a way

for him to work others and get the negotiations he wants. david: david ursino know a little bit about panama. the fact is president is saying no, no, it's ours it will be forever but i love that american flag that donald trump put on his posting and can we show that again? in the canal, he has an american flag and what is it basically say, like it or not, here it is. this is the american property. >> he is a real estate guy and i can't find where france paid us back the 40 million, so maybe put a lien on the canal. i agree with rich's point. this is a negotiation starter. there's another issue down there, the darian gap and if you want to negotiate with molino and in panama you need some leverage and use all available tools. david: but the biggest issue that goes unstated is china. china has been bribing the hell out of panama officials for years. >> don't think twice about that too. david: exactly.

we don't want china to get a hold of our canal that we built. >> there you go. david: at any rate, great stuff. >> nationalist ic, david. charles: rich lowry, david webb, merry christmas to you. >> merry christmas. david: coming up how should elon musk and vivek ramaswamy's doge go about cutting federal spending and dismantling the regulatory state? art laffer the man who knows everything about taxes knows a lot about spending and the debt and the deficit as well. he joins us, next. the markets, like life, will turn and challenge us. but when emotions run high, we stay grounded. with the hcm buyline, we work to empower investors, in navigating market volatility and complex conditions. we provide a diverse portfolio with proprietary mutual funds and etfs aimed at growth and preservation. so you can invest with confidence.

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>> this is why we had the best job numbers ever, because of what we did with regulation. you know, we cut taxes more than any president in history, and we cut regulations more than any president in history. i will order federal workers to get back to the office in-person or be terminated from the job immediately. >> [applause] >> and we will create the new department of government efficiency, headed by elon musk. >> [applause] >> elon has done an amazing job. isn't it nice to have smart people that we could rely on? don't we want that? >> [applause] >> he's done a great job. david: joining us now is art laffer, former reagan economist

and a man who gives advice to virtually every president since then that will listen to him, has the sense to listen to him. great to see you, also co-author of the trump economic miracle. title i'm sure donald trump appreciated. >> thank you. david: art great to see you. these are grand plans, art. they're grand plans. the question is, can they pull it off? what do you think? >> they should be able to. elon musk is amazing. vivek ramaswamy is great, but they need to focus on most of all, david, is they need to focus on incentives. they need to make it rewarding for government employees to right size the department or agency. right now they have all the incentives in the world to expand way beyond what is necessary because that's the only reward they don't get any punishment for making an in efficient department and they do get rewards by having a larger and larger and bigger department. what they also need to do is make sure they have put in a reward system for department

employees that make the department more efficient, more productive, you know, save money on all that. they really need to focus on the incentive structures. now there are lots of departments, if you just look and said let's get rid of them. but to make sure it lasts, you need those incentives and that's where they need to be. david: you mentioned one and by the way, dear old bob bartly is smiling down on us right now, because the first thing he told me when i was working for the late editor of the wall street. he said david, only two words matter in economics, incentives matter. >> yes. david: he had it. you have it. what besides maybe giving tips and an extra bonus for good tips, what can incentives could lead to a major downsize? they are trying to save $2 trillion from the budget. >> well if you just make the incentives correctly it'll do it by itself. it may not do it in two minutes but if you make them rewarded by contracting the size of a

department or agency or eliminated it if you made it a big bonus system there, for the people who made it happen, there's no way they would avoid doing it. just put in the private incentives when you look at a division not profitable you need to shrink that one. one very profitable you need to expand it. same thing is true for this. i was the first chief economist as you may remember in the office of management and budget when it was formed in 1970 with george schultz. i was his right hand person and looking at this the incentives are all screwed up in the budget and that's why we have such outlandish government spending and inefficient programs. you put those incentives in and bang you will see the thing go quickly and it'll be really great to see. it will have as much effect as cutting tax rates and producing the other side of the equation. david: well it's amazing that at the age of 14 you could become chief economist for omb back in 1970. that's extraordinary. >> thank you. david: but what's also extraordinary is how quickly

biden has grown the baseline of the budget in just four years its gone from in 2019, it was 4 trillion and now, it is 6.75 billion, more than $2 trillion increase in the base. we're not just talking about these temporary pandemic programs. we're talking about the inflation reduction act. the chips act. all of these other things. i mean, that's the ev evil cancr of the growth in government. >> yeah they just can't keep their stink'in metal in everything. but again if you're going to do these programs, to make them saleable and to make them work you need to tie government spending reductions with tax cuts, and so you make it so you have the carrot and the stick and the carrot is you'll pay a lot less in taxes. i would strongly recommend cutting payroll taxes, as one of the items there, in exchange

for reducing government spending. i mean that is one that be very very good. tie the bills together, and you look at it. it's just common sense and good nature that allows them to really come to this and can i ask you one more just on the earlier discussion you had in your first segment? you had the thing about the panama canal and reagan and buckley debate which was delicious. if you saw it, it was really wonderful but it was said best when he said we stole the panama canal fair and square. david: yes, yes. >> and trump appears right in that line. david: all right let me ask about another institution that a lot of people would, if not get rid of at least like to change it and downsize it enormously and that's the federal reserve. the federal reserve has gotten so many things wrong for so long and just recently, i mean just last week, they lowered the interest rate at the same time that the 10-year treasury, the market in general, was raising interest rates, because

the market in general understands that we still have inflation and if banks are going to lend out money they want to make sure they get it back with a profit and that's why the market, i think, understands what's going on a lot better than the federal reserve so why can't we just turn the federal reserve into some kind of currency board, something that doesn't set rates officially because they do a lousy job at it. >> yeah, i think it's completely correct. if you know from 1913 when we put in the federal reserve to the present, the price level of the united states has risen 33 fold or a little bit over 3.2% per an employee compounded. that's the average and the prior two and a half centuries prior to 1913, there was absolutely no general inflation for the whole time period. now prices did go up and down and interest rates did but there was no generalized inflation. that's what we need to do is get a currency board, or get some way of privatizing the fed just the way it was prior to the federal reserve board when it came into existence.

david: and extending -- >> bank notes still work. david: extending those 2017 tax cuts immediately. don't wait until -- >> right now. david: one thing is you've got to get money in people's pockets but if they expire we have a tax hike on 65% of americans, they are going to lose the 2026 mid-terms, right? very quickly. >> let's hope they don't. that's what reagan did but now we would get lower inflation but more jobs. what could be better than a win, win, win, win, that be perfect. david: art laffer you're a win, win, win, as well. great to see you have a wonderful merry christmas. >> merry christmas to you, sir. david: great to see you coming up house republicans need to get on the same page art laffer is on and pass the trump tax cuts without delay. we'll be talking about the political reality of all of this with congresswoman claudia tenney when kudlow continues. we now return to our interview with the insurance whistleblower.

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>> if the republicans are going to really govern then they all have to become a team, they all have to agree after they are done fighting they will all vote yes, and anybody whose confused, the president will go personally and campaign in their district. that's what reagan did when reagan passed his tax cuts. that is the heart of president trump's first two years. getting no later than july 4. earlier is better. no later than july 4, a tax cut and deregulation bill to give the economy real growth. david: joining me now is new york congresswoman claudia tenney to talk about newt's idea of getting it done right away. the key is, of course claudia, can republicans get together long enough to do this? because i know there's some among the republican team who want to put other things besides the tax cuts and regulatory cuts first. >> yes, well that was a great hit by newt gingrich and what

you didn't show in the clip is what he said just before it. he said there's some people that get up and say we're voting no so what's the bill say, so we can't have that. look, we had almost a member i think almost 25-30 member majority when we passed the tax cuts and jobs act and i think 12 or 13 members didn't vote for it but we don't have that kind of luxury this time and we really have to stick together as a team, and honestly i know that it is tough to do that but people are going to have to, you know, compromise on something and you just said a really important thing. my favorite quote about legislating. look, there's no such thing as solutions. only trade-offs, and you just said something with the prior guest whose an amazing guy. he just said, you know, you have to talk incentives. that is what this tax cuts and jobs act has to be about the renewal of what we did under president trump, which just sent us off on a wonderful, you know, growth in our economy, the highest revenues brought in, imagine tax cuts bring

the highest revenue to our country and we now have to focus on cutting spending obviously and getting inflation down but all this has to be done, i think, in a very one big piece because you're not going to get a couple of bites of the apple. you'll have people baulk. you have to have the border security and the tax cuts and those same things and i think that's what gets us across the line but it's very very hard work and president trump is going to have to get very involved. david: and what about going or getting as involved as newt said ronald reagan did. actually campaigning for it in the districts of people who are like chip roy and others. it be really in your face, but if nobody does that better than donald trump. >> no he's really good at it and you can't just, look you'll have to make compromises. i would love, love if we could do a completely clean, non-reconciliation tax cut deal

but remember, we have to have 60 votes in the senate which we don't have and so we have very little room to work with the reconciliation. david: let me just stop you there, claudia, because i see a couple of possibilities here. one of the things that can avoid the static analysis that would require because they think you have to pay for tax cuts even though you don't have to do that. we'll talk about that in a second, but the other possibility is you know that there's one new york senator who is now leading the senate for the next few weeks, and he would love to see changes with the salt deduction and maybe that could be part of the deal, so there could be deals made with democrats, no? >> we hope but that didn't happen last time. they didn't help us at all, and so again, you've got this , we've got this very narrow threshold of even less and less members and a very narrow margin but it's so critical that we get it done because we need the growth and exactly what you just said. the cbo and tax foundation use

what you referred to as static scoring and it cost money but dynamic scoring shows the growth in the economy and how the economy grows and how we saw the revenues come back, you know, personal incomes going up for middle and lower class families going up significantly, like dramatically in a two-year period under president trump prior to the last eight years. david: that led to more tax revenue coming in and matter of fact it's music to my ears because we already setup a full screen that i love to use showing how much more revenue has come in since 2017. look at this , a 48% increase in revenue. that's way above the rise of inflation. a lot of economists say oh, that was just because of inflation. no, no, it's about twice the size of inflation in terms of percentage, so the more economic activity you do the harder people work, the more people pay in taxes, and the more money comes in as revenue, so and i've tried to explain this to some of your

republican colleagues who believe that you have to have these pay-fors that tax cuts actually cost money, and they come out with these figures that are crazy like it's going to cost $4 trillion to extend the tax cuts when in fact you make more money with these tax rate reductions. >> well exactly and that's the other thing. remember what happened though. imagine that we had the pandemic come as we were feeling this explosive growth and actually inflation at very very low rates, incomes going up, more economic activity, money coming in from the repatriation money that was a big part of the tax cuts last time. you know, hundreds of billions of dollars coming from overseas that were held in overseas accounts, all of this added to the treasury but then we had the pandemic and democrats spend this money on subsidies not incentives so when you talk about what do tax cuts cost, incentives, maybe i can edit what your last guest was talking about. you have to have incentives

because just imagine all of the money we put into these green energy vehicles or whatever. they should be a choice. we shouldn't be subsidizing those things and can you imagine if when we invented and founded and actually founded new york state by the way, oil & gas, if we actually gave standard oil and all the people that originally started producing natural gas and oil for our combustion engines if we built their gas stations for them, that wouldn't have, it was a market economy. david: you know what it comes down to? it comes down to trust. trust in the american people. trust in ingenuity of entrepreneurs. trust that the free market system works, that it works a lot better than government. >> absolutely that is it. free markets, choices, incentives, not sub sudden subs. david: claudia tenney thank you so much, have a wonderful christmas, say semper fi to your

lovely marine son. thank you he's on his way home now as well and have a very gary christmas. david: thank you so much claudia tenney republican congresswoman and of course from the great state of new york. well, joe biden meanwhile is trying to lock up lng and drilling on his way out of office, so how can donald trump untangle this war, continuing war on fossil fuels? joining me now is dan bruette, former energy secretary, great to see you as always, dan. some people say well it'll be easy for donald trump . he just undo the executive orders that would for example, pause lng exports et cetera. is it that simple or is biden doing something right now more devious that would bind the creation of more natural gas? >> well, david great to see you. that's part of the answer no question about that but i think president trump is going to do exactly what he did in the first term defining as applying common

sense and business judgment to energy policy in the united states. yes, lifting the pause will make an immediate difference. some have argued i saw the deal that came out a week or so ago that suggested that perhaps we've reached peak natural gas use around the world. therefore, the world will be a wash in gas. that's simply incorrect. demand is going up in japan, demand is going up in europe, and the business judgment here that i think president trump will apply is that those demands should be met with u.s. lng. should be met with u.s. natural gas. david: which is clean, which is cheap, which is plentiful in the united states and which would make a lot of americans, make the country as a whole richer, and the bottom line is you're absolutely right. the whole world is going to need a lot more energy as we go to a.i. because of the data centers, et cetera, and you're not going to get it from windmills and solar energy,

right? you just can't. >> no you're not going to. as we talked about last time, the reason it's very simple. windmills and solar have a capacity factor of about 30-35% which means they are about 30% efficient so whatever you see is the cost of solar or the cost of wind today you should multiple that by at least three, because if you want your lights on, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, you'll need to buy expensive battery storage or will have to have some other alternative, another windmill, another solar panel, something that you can place somewhere else to catch the wind, or guess what? you'll be backing that power up with natural gas, which is the logical thing to do and i think what you'll see is the president's nominee and others doug burgum pursue as they come into office on january 20. david: by the way we should mention that concerning wind energy, c which a lot of green folks have been saying that's the solution. in 2023 correct me if i'm wrong, we had more windmills up and we

got fewer energy as a whole from the windmill production of energy. correct? >> that's correct because the energy source, wind and solar, they just aren't dense forms of energy. they are unlike nuclear power, which has a 90% capacity factor so you won't get as much energy as you would from other sources. david: by the way nuclear energy, would that if people are absolutely adimate against any fossil fuels including natural gas would nuclear be enough to fill the void with the energy we need? >> no question not only fill the void but exceed the void. it's perhaps the most dense form of energy that we know of here on earth and it's clean and it's available so we should pursue it. david: all right i want to switch to ev mandates we only have about 30 seconds here but the bottom line is as trump begins to end these ev mandates for that force car companies to put more money into something that they get less money from

because people don't want ev's as a rule, as trump is trying to do that the euros, the euro brats as we call them or eurocrats are demanding car companies increase ev sales by 20% even though sales of ev's have gone down 44%. it's totally against their nature, against what they would do based on the profit motive. might that send all of the car manufactures in europe to the united states where they could get a return on their buck? >> it very well could, david. mandates simply don't work. the consumers must have a decision to make when they walk into an auto dealership they aren't looking for ev's exclusively. they want choices. that's really what the government and the energy policy here in the united states should provide. consumer choice. let them make the decision and the market decide and everyone will be the winner. david: by the way in germany alone, ev sales in 2023 dropped

68%. just in germany alone. they went down 68%. so these mandates are going to kill them. they are supposed to pay a fine of 15% that they will pass on to the consumer who already don't want to buy ev's but it's quite a diem m del dilemma. dan, merry christmas. >> merry christmas. david: coming up are we seeing a broader societal shift back towards faith and religion. we'll talk about that with my buddy bill mcgurn coming next. ♪ a tougher kind of glove, ♪ ♪ like you never did see... ♪ ♪ now the cloth is strong ♪ ♪ stronger than the flames ♪ ♪ the flame is in the heart ♪ ♪ and the heart is in the work ♪ ♪ the work builds the life ♪ ♪ where we're safe at home... ♪ jpmorganchase invests in manufacturing to help create stronger communities. ♪ make the green grass grow all around all around ♪ ♪ make the green grass grow all around ♪

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>> i'm not supposed to be here tonight. not supposed to be here. >> "yes you are." >> i'll tell you, i stand before you in this arena only by the grace of almighty god. >> [applause] david: so, in keeping with the approach of christmas, were we all witnesses to a miracle that played a role in donald trump's election? joining me is bill mcgurn "wall street journal" columnist and a fox news contributor. we figured we would do something christmasy, and it's fair game, bill. i just want to put up on

the screen three picture of three men who had a significant role to play in world history. one is john paul ii, whose a great pope and then ronald reagan one of the greatest presidents of my lifetime, and donald trump. all three men skirted death by millimeters when they were shot by an assassin. they went on at least john paul ii and ronald reagan did to have a huge influence on a prosperous peaceful planet earth. donald trump may have a chance to prove himself. is it too much, by the way, ronald reagan said something very similar to what donald trump did in his diary he said whatever happens now i owe my life to god and will try to serve him in every way i can. is it too much to think that god had an influence in these men living out their lives and their second term so to speak? >> not at all.

i think if you survive something like that, you have to believe it's providential. you've been spared for a reason and purpose. i think donald trump believes it. i don't know exactly what he believes, but i wouldn't be surprised and i wouldn't blame, i think, this is as good a reason as any and as you pound out, two other guys that had that, reagan and the pope, really did some fantastic things after that scare. david: you know there's another quote and it's attributed to albertalbert pujols einstein bum sure you've heard it there's only two ways to live your life. one way is as if there are no mirmiracles and the other way is as if everything that happens to you is a miracle and that second way i would love to believe that einstein believed that at the end of his life rather than the chaos theory, wouldn't you? >> yeah, i think the people who believe that, i think, take a

little more joy in life with a sense of purpose and there's also a sense when things go wrong, the suffering that has a purpose, is not just gratuitous, not just the universe hurting you. there's some reason for it that makes you better. >> and the life of faith in this country, because faith has a life of its own. the life of faith in this country was so instrumental, informing the country, seeing it through really tough times like the civil war et cetera. presidents have talked about it. people say now, its gone and never coming back. i would say not so. i know they have statistics to backup what they say but at the same time you see a lot of conversions happening and these faith-based books and movies are very popular right now. you do see it kind of revival. right? >> yeah, especially, you know, we're both catholics. you see a reall among the young

who want more traditional practices and it really appeals to them. they aren't hold-overs from the regime. i think that people are looking for meaning, something real in their lives, because it's very hard to live without it. david: absolutely. >> you make something material or something stupid. david: it's a desire for something more, to fill the void that material gifts don't provide. by the way, you were godfather to a convert, a guy names jimmy lai, a billionaire who didn't have to be in a prison where he's been for four and a half years, a wonderful man, and i know as his godfather you helped him convert to the catholicism, we all need to say a prayer for jimmy lai. he's still in prison but he has hope and faith and his faith is eternal. we've gotta leave it at that, and have a wonderful merry

christmas to you. bill, good to see you we'll be right back. when a tough cough finds you on the go, a syrup would be... silly! woo! hey! try new robitussin soft chews. packed with the power of robitussin... in every bite. easy to take cough relief, anywhere. chew on relief, chew on a ♪ robitussin ♪

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