maria: welcome back. good thursday morning, everybody. thanks very much for joining us this morning. i'm maria bartiromo. it is thursday, january 9, 7:00 a.m. on the east coast. we've got breaking news. at least five people are dead as the five active wildfires devastate the los angeles area, torching more than 27,000 acres. the palisades fire now the most destructive fire in la history, burning more than 17,000 acres, the eaton fire burned 10,000 acres. both fires are zero percent contained. firefighters have been working around the clock but reportedly they're running out of water from the fire hydrants. tens of thousands evacuating homes, more than 1,000 structures have been destroyed. officials are warning the worst is yet to come.

gerri willis has the insurance crisis that is facing california. >> that's right, the tragedy you described of the california wildfires setting in motion an insurance crisis after major insurers left the market last year. california's largest insurer, state farm, canceled 72,000 policies last february, 30,000 were homeowner policies. and now the state's insurer of last resort, the fair plan, will likely be overwhelmed by the billions of claims they will receive over the coming weeks and months. core logic estimating 456,000 homes with nearly $300 billion in reconstruction cost value at moderate or greater risk within the los angeles and riverside metropolitan areas, these numbers are at risk v values, nt actual values. the neighborhoods around the palisades fire are the hardest hit. they experienced 1930 policy

cancellations between 2019 and 2024. that's 28 out of every 100 policies and this is according to the san francisco chronicle. as a result, homeowners turned to the state's fair program. the pacific palisades is the fifth largest user of fair policies in the state with nearly $6 billion in exposure. but the fair program has only $700 million in cash on hand to pay claims. insurers for their part say operating in the fire prone overbuilt areas like southern california make it impossible to stay solvent. according to the insurance information institute insurers paid out $1.08 in 2017 and 2018 in claims and expenses for every dollar taken in premiums. state farm released a statement yesterday, encouraging policy holders to file claim saying we prioritize safety of our customers, agents and employees

impacted by the fires and assisting our cost iners the midst of -- customers in the midst of this tragedy. maria: we'll keep following that. lee, the numbers are just extraordinary but what gets me is that officials are saying the worst is yet to come. >> there's zero containment. they're saying zero containment at this point. it's so hard to get your arms around how in a place like the pacific palisades, a fire breaks out in a residential area at 10:30 in the morning in one home and this is the result. i understand the wind conditions. there's all of these things that are outside of our control but it just seems inconceivable that this is where we are and the ripple on effect of this not just to the people impacted directly right now but to all of us over the coming years is going to be felt for a very, very long time. maria: you don't know where the wind will go. you don't know how the winds will blow. so you don't know what the next vulnerability is. look, there are a lot of questions about this, jonathan. i mean, we're going to get some

more information on the origins of these fires and we'll learn more at that time. but these are all open questions at this point. all we can say is thank god these people are safe who have evacuated their homes but -- >> that's the good news, is there aren't more fatalities at least that we know of at this point. how many of these people that are paying the high taxes of california, these are the high earners, how many leave california after this because their government failed them and president trump was talking about the two issues of the forestation issue that made it vulnerable to fires, also not having water available. two things they could have planned for to at least have mitigated this issue, certainly wouldn't have solved it all together but you do wonder why would you move back, why would you rebuild if your government failed you, particularly your government that you're paying so much money to every single year. maria: yeah. and we were just talking about how president trump has predicted so much. he also talked about the lack of water and talked about the

vulnerability to fire in los angeles years ago. watch this. >> you look at other countries where they do it differently and it's a whole different story. i was with the president of finland and he said we have a much different -- forestation, he called it a forestation and he spent a lot of time on cleaning and doing things and they don't have any problem. when it is, it's a very small problem. maria: isn't that interesting, mark. >> a lot of things you can do in advance to mitigate the potential for something this devastating. maria: doesn't seem like gavin newsom did any of it. >> correct. you can't blame not having water in the fire hydrants and insurance companies canceling policies on climate change. sorry, it doesn't work. i want to comment on state farm cancelling policies in the pacific palisades area. the go to opinion on that is probably insurance companies are

bad, i can't believe they did that in actuality, the real issue here is the california department of insurance. they make is so incredibly difficult for companies to raise premiums and that's probably what happened here. state farm went to the california department of insurance and said risks are higher, we're paying out more in claims, we need to raise premiums by 20%. california department of insurance then says you can't do that so state farm says then we can't do business here. that's a problem. >> you saw the numbers, one in four policies has been canceled or not renewed. it's going to be -- i mean, the impact of this, we can't even begin to process. maria: you hate to go back to failed policies of the democrats but it's hard not to see what has taken place, see the kind of pushback from the state regulator that you just raised. >> you're prioritizing dei hires over merit based firefighters, right? i mean, you're not doing your

controlled burns. it's more important for you to ban gas stoves an have electric stoves in people's houses even though it's well-known that an electric stove is 2.5 times more likely to create a fire in your kitchen. everything they've been doing, all the virtue signaling, people are sick tired of that. people want results. they're sick and tired of being told let's be good people, let's save the planet. i think most people care about the planet but at the same point in time we need results. you pay for results. >> you think that was -- president trump, that -- maria: 2018. >> if they had listened to him then this might either not have happened or certainly been mitigated substantially but instead they didn't listen, they still pushed the same things like mark was saying, dei and all these things that don't matter, the smelt fish and the people ultimately suffer. maria: unbelievable how he called this again. let's take a short break and

come back at it. markets are closed all day for jimmy carter's funeral and in honor of the former president. we're still looking ahead to the december jobs report this morning, 160,000 jobs expected to have been added to the any the last month. we've got that report coming out tomorrow morning. the word on wall street panel is here with expectations. you're watching "mornings with maria" live on fox business.n a stay with us. oh yeah. consolidate bad debt and save money for your next goal. take a swing at your kitchen reno... meant that literally. or design your actual dream wedding. all your ambitions. all in one app. sofi personal loans. low fixed rates. borrow up to 100 k. no fees required. go to sofi.com to view your rate. sofi. get your money right.

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maria: welcome back. time now for the word on wall street, top investors watching your money. joining me right now is citi's head of u.s. equity trading strategy, stuart kaiser, also with us is mark tepper this morning. stuart, great to see you. what are you seeing on the trading desk right now? ever since the federal research had the hawkish pivot at the end of last year, a hawkish cut we're calling it, basically telling us they're not in a rush in 2025, markets have been a little rocky. >> market's trading sideways. there's concern on friday, what are we seeing with the unemployment rate. the budget resolution debate at

the end of last year had people focused on fiscal policy as well. i think both of those things have added an element of uncertainty to the policy outlook and to the rates market in particular which has spilled over to equity markets but hopefully friday we get good employment data and it stabilizes things. maria: let's take a look at rates this morning. markets are closed in honor of president jimmy carter's funeral today but we've been watching interest rates tick higher and yesterday they actually hit 4.7% on the 10 year. the federal reserve's meeting minutes revealed officials will likely hold rates steady for now on lingering inflation fears, policy makers noted uncertainty around president trump's policies and how they'll be implemented is weighing on their outlook for inflation. can i get your take on this. we spoke with jay hatfield and others who say president trump's policies are not inflation. you don't have to expect that growth policies necessarily mean inflationary policies. >> yeah. i think to your point, interest rates are rising.

our view is a lot of the rise has come from growth expectations improving which is a net positive for equity markets. i think there is underlying concern about the tariffs. we don't have a lot of details on them, we don't know the size of them, don't know how comprehensive they're going to be. even if you don't believe they're infl inflationary, it as uncertainty. most are all ' assuming a 10% across the board tariffs. the u uncertainty is do you get more than that. and number two, do you get retaliatory tariffs from around the world. the fed needs to take a step back and wait and see and you get a pause in fed policy related to that. i think that level of uncertainty is impacting markets. maria: jay hatfield was here, he talked about the incoming policies and what sees. he says they're deflationary. watch this. >> we think that's exactly what most pundits are missing, is the

growth is very anti-inflationary. it's also great for the budget deficit. so for instance, everyone wants to talk about tariffs and how they'll be inflationary but if those proceeds are used for cutting taxes on investment then you get more growth, less demand and less inflation. so nobody's really looking at the second order effects. it's really just leftover talking points from the election. maria: so we've got the december jobs report out tomorrow morning and we are expecting growth in jobs, 160,000 nonfarm payroll toss have been add todd the economy in the month of december, the unemployment rate steady at 4.2%. you've got the economic as the backdrop, the economic data, but the conversation in washington today and all week is how will trump execute his policies. how important is the tax cutting and the extension of those tax cuts to you as an investor, how important is it to you to have that in the first bill? >> first bill or second bill i guess probably a little bit less important.

i think the market is expecting an extension of the tax cuts. they're hoping i think to get lower corporate taxes as well. so i think both of those things are going to be very positive, positive for the markets and deregulation which i think is a side of it where you don't see a rate associated with it. but if you look at how banks are performing, how small cap stocks have been performing, how the economy responded during the first trump presidency, deregulation was a key aspect of that so i think that's probably almost equally as important as what we get on the tax -- maria: great point. you're right. that's going to be huge for business after all of the rules and regs they've been dealing with in the last four years. mark, it's interesting to me to hear these fed officials talk about trump's policies being potentially inflationary and not even note what we just saw from the biden administration's $7 trillion in spending. yesterday treasury secretary janet yellen finally admitted that the biden administration's covid money and all their stimulus spending may have contributed she said a little bit to the country's mounting inflation, mark. >> she also said inflation was

transitory along with jay powell. they've been lying through their teeth as relates to inflation. we all know inflation peaked at 9.1%. maria: 9.1% on the cpi. >> under their watch. that's devastating. look, the $7 trillion of fiscal stimulus, that is what caused an increase in demand when demand exceeds supply, prices go up. i mean, that's economics 101. most people understand that. we've been talking for the last year plus about the fed potentially cutting rates, how low might they go. i'll tell you, i read a report over the weekend, i couldn't find where i read it but they're now projecting that there's actually a 40% chance of a rate hike in 2025 now, not cuts, that the fed might have to reverse course and actually hike so we'll see what happens there but real quickly on the jobs report -- maria: i think they look like egg on their face, if they raise rates this year. what are we doing? raising rates and then cutting

rates and raising rates again. >> a political move, obviously. it's not good. they've had egg on their face. but the fed and -- they've lot a losta lot of credibility over te last several years and it makes you question how effective their fiscal and monetary policies have been. you look at how many years did we have a zero interest rate environment for. like from 2008 or 9, almost all the way until probably 2020. what are you doing? maria: you're absolutely right. there are people on wall street who have never seen a high rate environment by the way. would you put new money to work in stocks today for 2025, stuart? >> yeah. i mean, we would. we would probably focus on large cap tech and growth as the core way to do it. maria: even after the huge gains we saw throughout 2024. >> yeah, look, those stocks benefit from things. one, superior growth. those stocks will grow earning 20 plus percent, the market at 15% and the rest of the non-mag seven even less than that and secondly, the buyers of the

market over the course of the last month or so, a lot of it's been foreign demand and etf buying and those buyers tend to gravitate to large tech and growth stocks. you're coming to america for the large cap growth stocks. we think that impulse continues into the market to start the year. maria: you mentioned $6 trillion on the sidelines in money market accounts, right? that money eventually makes its way into stocks. >> assuming interest rates continue to come down which we're unsure whether or not that's going to happen. once you can't get a 4% return on your money market you're definitely going to move. maria: we'll leave it there. we'll get to your point on jobs, i think you have a point to make on jobs. stuart, great to see you. mark, you're with us all morning long. we'll talk about jobs with mark coming up. stay with us. president biden is not ruling out preemptive pardons for some of donald trump's political foes. wait until you hear this. house judiciary committee chairman, ohio congressman jim jordan is weighing in on that when we come right back.

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lock in let's go. rated e for everyone. [rock and roll music playing] xfinity. made for gaming. rewards members, get early access to an ea sports fc25 kit. visit xfinity.com/rewards. maria: welcome back. attorney general merrick garland says he will publicly release jack smith's report on the 2020 interference case against president-elect trump, the election interference case after the 11th circuit court gives

him the green light. garland will not release volume two of smith's report that covers the classified documents case against trump. meanwhile, president biden not ruling out preemptive pardons for some of trump's political foes, in an interview with usa today biden said he's weighing whether or not to offer a preemptive pardon to former congresswoman liz cheney, dr. anthony fauci and others. trump slammed biden for this. watch this. >> ridiculous that he did that but we have more important things to talk about. liz cheney, she lost the republican party as you know by the biggest margin in the history of politician running for congress, s she lost by like 42 points. i don't care about liz cheney. i care about these people. maria: president trump slamming biden for saying that and i want to talk about this because jonathan, why would joe biden talk about a preemptive pardon

if she didn't do anything wrong? >> right. it's quite interesting because on one hand they want to say this has been the greatest thing ever, the january 6th committee but then again, why does she need a pardon. i think one of the things that i at least we heard about in the press has been how she was contacting witnesses that were represented by attorneys regarding their testimony and possibly influencing their testimony but i think one of the most important things with this and all of the law fare is people seem to lose sight of the process matters and they've sort of used this ends justifies the means approach and get trump at all costs and we've seen how much this has diminished the credibility of the criminal justice system which i know representative jordan has been all over this. maria: exactly. >> it really has hurt all of us. maria: let me bring him in. joining me now is ohio congressman jim jordan, the chairman of the house judiciary commit at this and subcommittee on weaponization of government and member of the house oversight committee.

thank you for being here. let's start there. i mean, you know e president biden talking about preemptive pardons for liz clay a cheney. why would she need a pardon. >> supposedly there was some republicans that said they were looking for pardons. that was the worst thing in the world. now they're doing the same thing. nonever forget this committee ws the first committee in the first committee of congress where there was no cross examination element. it was all one-sided. there was no ability for republicans to give any counter perspective and we know this committee was caught fabricating things, saying things that weren't true numerous times so look, i don't know if there's going to be a pardon or not. what we do know is what this committee determined turned out to be so inaccurate and specifically to their star witness, cassidy hutchinson, we know it didn't happen where the president came over the seat and tried to grab the steering wheel

in the car, we know the note she said she wrote wasn't written by her, was written by eric herschmann. all kinds of things by this group that weren't accurate. they will continue to look into january 6th and what took place and one of the things we're going to look at is the 26 confidential human sources who were there that day, four went in the capitol, two directed to be here by the fbi, there's a lot of questions that need answers regarding those individuals. maria: what about dr. anthony fauci e did he commit an crimes? he was largely the face behind the made up social distancing rules, the extended masking, double mask, the whole nine yards. he was also behind some scone censcensorship as well wasn't i. >> all of that is true. what i do know is that everything dr. fauci told us turned out to be false.

he told us it wasn't tax money in the lab in wuhan, china, yes it was. he told us the virus didn't come from the lab. it did. he told the vaccinated couldn't get it, couldn't transmit. he told us masks work. he told us six feet was based on the social distancing was based on science and he told us this was the first virus in history where there's no such thing as natural immunity. he was like o for eight on important pieces of information but we'll see if he did anything criminal. it will be up to the next justice department. maria: we'll be watching that and whether or not biden does this preemptive pardon but in the realm of censorship we heard some pretty important breaking news this week, meta ending censorship efforts, they claim they'll no longer use a third party fact checking program in the united states, they're moving to a community notes program like they use on x. you praised mark zuckerberg and credited the work of the judiciary committee for doing this. you're urging google to do the

same. this is the man who told us they were not censoring anybody and now he says they're going to stop censoring. >> he sent me a letter six, seven months ago, he said the biden administration pressured us to censor, we did it, i'm sorry and we won't do it again. now they came out with a new policy. the policy is literally the first amendment, this is literally free speech. community notes say if there's bad speech, wrong speech, inaccurate speech, the best way to combat that is for more speech and that's exactly the approach that elon musk has on x and the approach that meta is now taking as well so i think that's a win. good for them. i'm glad they're moving in that direction we've had a two year effort to try to stop the censorship, the election of president trump, the work of elon musk has made a huge difference. i would like to think the work of house republicans on the judiciary committee made a big difference as well. we applaud this.

we'll move forward. as we move into this a.i., this is one area that concerns me, i talked with joe kaplan with meta about this the other day, this is something we need to watch when it comes to the censorship effort as well so we'll focus efforts in that area. maria: thank you for your work on this because we all want the censorship to stop and you've made it a priority. let's talk about your priorities for executing president trump's agenda. the president-elect will be discussing reconciliation with senate republicans on capitol hill as well as house republicans this weekend. sources told fox that senate majority leader john thune told trump yesterday that the senate will start with a one bill approach but they're prepared to split the bill into two parts if it's too much and they don't feel they can get the votes for everything. house speaker mike johnson told me he wants one bill containing tax cuts, border funding, energy and raising the debt scheming, e wants that on trump's desk by the end of april. this is a big reach.

do you think there's too much in this for one bill. you'll be going to mar-a-lago this weekend as well. >> yeah, i'll be down there this weekend. we have to do what we told the people we were going to do. we make the job too complicated. it's pretty basic, pretty simple. what you tell the voters you're going to do, if you get elected, do what you. said. i don't care if the strategy is one or two. i want to get done what we said. march 14th is coming. that's a date that deals with appropriation, separate from the reconciliation process we're trying to use. so i know we have to deal with that. does it make sense to have one smaller bill before that? maybe. does it make sense to do one big bill before or after? i'm open to all that. i just want to get it done and let's come together as a team. remember what the american people elected us to do. secure the border, bring down inflation, keep in place the tax cuts so we get the kind of growth we need and reform our energy policies so we can get

our economy moving. that's what we were elect todd do. let's get focused and get that done. maria: you're going to have to deal with the debt ceiling, going to have to put that in there as well, right? >> yeah, and look, there are two approaches. you can raise the debt ceiling with democrats which i think they're going to want all kinds of ridiculous things or you can do it with republicans and reconciliation. i hope we do it with republicans and reconciliation, where we're fixing the border, extending the tax cuts and doing common sense energy policy that we can get in a reconciliation bill. i think that's the smartest way to do it but we'll see. maria: i don't know if you're looking at this or not but the fires in los angeles have been incredible to report on and watch. this is the worst, most devastating situation in la history. do you have any way of getting to the origin of this? do you have any thoughts in terms of how this started? were outside agitators involved here.

will you be investigating this. >> i don't know. that will probably be some other committee. i don't know that we will -- could be the government oversight committee. probably won't be judiciary. i don't know. it is a tragic situation. we feel for the families and individuals who have lost their homes, some people have lost loved ones. maria: terrible. >> it's tragic. i do think it underscores some of the policies that are in place in california when it comes to water. i heard former speaker mccarthy talking yesterday about decisions made in california relative to the governor there and other leaders that just made no sense. no common sense on having the resources you need to combat something like this. so that's important i think as we move forward too. that's largely the folks in california are going to have to decide that and who they have in elected positions making those decisions. maria: underlines how important policy is, right. you're dealing with policy, trying to get the policy right and we appreciate your work on it but look how important the right policy is. so we'll be watching that. mr. chairman, good to see you this morning.

thanks very much. >> you bet, maria. maria: jim jordan in d.c. stay with us. we'll be right back. (vo) weight loss. for so long, i felt stuck. but zepbound means change. zepbound is for adults with obesity, to help lose weight and keep it off. activating 2 naturally occurring hormone receptors in my body, it works differently. it's changing what i believe is possible when it comes to weight loss. it's changing how much weight i lose. up to 48 pounds. and changing what happens. don't take if allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer or multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. stop zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction.

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maria: welcome back. well, the ceo of the panama canal authority is denying president-elect donald trump's claim that china is now controlling the panama canal, a vital trade route, telling the wall street journal the accusations that china is running the canal is unfounded. china has no involvement whatsoever in our operation. trump has been calling for the u.s. to take control of the panama canal and greenland for national security reasons he said. he refused to rule out taking both territories by military force. denmark's foreign minister said greenland could become independent if it's what residents want but it's unlikely to become a u.s. state.

u.s. secretary of state antony blinken pushed back on trump's calls to acquire greenland. watch this. >> the idea expressed about greenland is obviously not a good one, but maybe more important it's obviously one that's not going to happen. so we probably shouldn't waste a lot of time talking about it. maria: joining me now is retired two star marine corpses general and punero group ceo. he's the author of if confirmed, arnold punero. great to see you. thank you for being here. so you have real authority on the panama canal. you heard what antony blinken said. your thoughts. >> maria, i was the senate staffer when president carter sent the panama canal treaty to the senate to be ratified. my boss was very concerned about protecting the neutrality of the canal because it was so important to our economy and national security. so we drafted a reservation that was adopted as part of the senate ratification process that allows the united states of america to protect the canal in

perpetuity so with the neutrality of the canal is threatened, we have the right to intervene m militarily if we ned to. my thought here is that we ought to have mike waltz as he takes over as national security advisor direct an updated assessment of those provisions. the president should direct the commander of the southern demand, that's why it's important to get the secretary of defense confirmed on day one to update military contingency plan. they're probably updated. i don't know that for sure. marco rubio, when he's up for confirmation, remind people what the treaty says so we have the absolute right to intervene, to protect the neutrality and intershipping of the canal. maria: we want to get to the confirmation process with you in a second. i wasn't surprised to hear that china is trying to dominate and china could be controlling but you heard what the ceo of the panama canal said, he said no, china is not dominate, not running the panama canal.

what do you know about it. it sounds like it would be china's mo, right? >> i would say it would absolutely be their mo. i don't have personal knowledge. it's important for mike waltz to get the experts and do a detailed assessment of it but china is dominating and marching out militarily, economically, technologically and diplomatically so it would be the way they're doing everything else in the world. >> one of the questions i have is so many people are criticizing donald trump for his statements about the panama canal and what he's saying about greenland and yet it does seem like common sense in some ways that we would want to have -- our interests would be represented by doing these things. what do you say about greenland, what do you say about the panama canal? >> i would say on greenland, my older brother anthony served in the air force and was stationed in greenland, the northern most post. it's an important country militarily and economically. what i would do there also is the same thing, have mike waltz

do an assessment, how do we increase our work with greenland militarily, economically, diplomatically, it's got a lot of natural resources and determine and provide a lot of options. what you want to give the commander in chief and what i think the incoming national security team will be a range of options to deal with these kind of issues but you've got to deal with your eyes full open. i mean, the chinese, again, they're on the march, militarily, economically, technologically. >> don't you think it's sending a clear signal to china and russia both, symbolic moments where he's saying you're not going to mess with us. >> absolutely. we're seeing that already. iran pulling out of syria. we're seeing in the united states of america internally the democrats getting ready to vote for the laken riley bill because they understand they're going to seal the border. it's important for the national security team to get on board on day one. we have a broad range of challenges we've got to deal with in the world and at home. we've got to get started. the motto is ready on day one.

i'm confident they'll be ready on day one. the united states senate needs to give them the up or down votes on day one so they can get in there and help the president. >> we have to make moves because china and russia are making moves. they've been snatching up land in the arctic. they're running military drills and operations in the arctic to control that trade route which makes greenland specifically outside of the panama canal even more important and my question for is, is the conversation about greenland just a pipedream or is this something that could actually materialize? >> it should materialize because we know now that the -- i'll call it the soviet submarines, they're russian submarines can get to the east coast a lot faster now because of the melting of the polar ice cap and everything and so having the barrier and having our sonar bouys and having the ability militarily to operate that far north to keep up with them, i think would be really important. so that's why i say we've got to

give the commander in chief, president trump some options in all of these areas but you're right, we are way behind the power curve in so many different parts of the world. maria: and he's got to get his team in place. that takes me to the confirmation process. let's talk about it. trump cabinet nominees scheduled to testify before the senate next week. defense secretary nominee pete hegseth and veterans affairs nominee doug collins confirmation hearings slated for tuesday, january 14th. marco rubio will testify before the senate foreign relations committee next wednesday, the 15th. what are you expecting from hearings? walk us through the process. you wrote a whole book about it. >> i've been doing this for a lock time, maria. i think the expectation is, i think all the nominees you mentioned are going to do extremely well in confirmation hearings. the number one thing is for the senate committees of jurisdiction, the president actually can't technically nominate anyone until the afternoon of january 20th when he's sworn in. he'll go over to the president's room after he's sworn in, sign

the nomination papers and the committees will have had hearings. they can get a quorum, report the nomination toss the senate. the national security nominations deserve an up or down vote on day one. secretary of state e secretary of defense, director of the cia, director of the veterans of things and so -- and not get delayed. there's a precedent. we've always for an incoming new president allowed him to have his secretary of defense confirmed on day one with few exceptions, i hope that's what senate will do. i believe they'll do that with marco rubio. i don't believe doug collins has any issues. pete hegseth deserves an up or down vote on day one in the united states. maria: john ratcliffe i would imagine is going to come along swimmingly. i mean, he's obviously has an incredible resume and he's slate todd be the incoming cia director. >> correct. chairman cotton, the chair of

the senate select committee on intelligence with mark warner has hearing set up. that should move quickly as well. the problem in the senate is, it takes unanimous consent, all 100 senators have to agree. if they don't agree to allow a vote on one of these nominees on day one, leader thune will have to file cloture. that could delay it two or three days. we can't delay for five minutes much less two or three days. maria: jonathan. >> i want to ask a question about the state of the military currently after a four years of joe biden. maria: i'm glad. i was hoping to ask that as well. glad you're bringing that up. >> anyone i talk to that retires from the military, one of the main complaints is the dei wokeness, just basically soul crushing, morale crushing, crushes recruitment. how big of an issue is that? what does the military need to do to turn it around if it is a bigger issue. >> i don't think we have a sufficient national security strategy to deter our

adversaries. you want to be able to have deterrence. for deterrence to work, you have to have military capability, it has to be credible, adversaries need to believe you will use it. we need to deter two major theater wars. the undersecretary of policy is a real expe expert in this area. we've got to basically get our military more prepared and ready than it is to deal in the world we're in. one of the problems we're having obviously is issues of recruiting and some of the areas where they've gone overboard in terms of not doing decisions based on merit, based on capabilities and based on qualifications creates a lot of problems for our military. maria: all of this dei and all of this politically correct stuff that was put into the military actually has hurt the military. actually has hurt our defense. i mean, think about where we are with regard to china and you know, jack keane has been on the program every week for several

years now and he's been saying this for so many years. he said we're out-manned, we're out-gunned. we're out-shipped. when you look at the navy in particular from china versus the united states. >> maria, i have immense respect for jack keane, anything jack keane says i'm going to agree with. the problem is, all of those things are accurate. the problem is, we are spending in constant dollars more money on defense than we spent in the peak of the reagan buildup and our military is 50% smaller, less fighting capability. that's why i'm excited about what elon musk is going to do on doge so we can get more bang for the buck. we're spending the money. we aren't getting the military capability coming out the other end and the dei is one of the big problems as you pointed out. maria: really an important conversation. you're a marine, aren't you, sir. >> yes, i am. maria: semper fi, thank you for your service to our great nation. general arnold punero. stay with us. we'll be right back.

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lock in let's go. rated e for everyone. [rock and roll music playing] xfinity. made for gaming. rewards members, get early access to an ea sports fc25 kit. visit xfinity.com/rewards. maria: welcome back, biden administration is about to shell out millions of dollars to illegal migrants. cheryl casone with details now. >> maria, that's right, the biden administration issuing millions of dollars in refunds to illegal migrants who applied for failed amnesty program, the keeping families together program promised legal status to undocumented immigrants. it was struck down by a federal

court last november. the administration will returned the $580 application fees to 94,000 applicants, $55 million. this is the federal budget is stretched pretty thin. president biden is making a last minute push to limit america's a.i. technology, announcing new restrictions on exports of nvidia's highly advanced a.i. chips, aims to limit the export of powerful a.i. chips, claiming it will block russia and china to accessing cutting edge tech but nvidia is warning the sweeping rules will do more damage to united states economy than protect national security. the stock is down a little bit mother than 1%. los angeles mayor karen bass is facing growing criticism for being out of town as wildfires ravaged the city of los angeles. she refused to answer questions about her trip to go guana durg

the crisis. >> do you regret cutting the fire department budget by millions of dollars? have you nothing to say today? have you absolutely nothing to say to the citizens today, no apology for them? do you think you should have been visiting guana when this was unfolding back home? >> that video went viral by the way. this comes after she slashed nearly $20 million from the city's fire services budget this year, even more shocking, guys, she proposed even deeper cuts for next year. i've got the numbers. in 2022, la county, the fire department donated surplus supplies to ukraine. but let me give you the numbers, 2023 to 2024 fiscal year, 837 million for the la fire department. that's a cut of 17.5 million, maria. so that's one thing she's getting hit on. but guess what she's spending

11.3 billion on, the homeless. motel rooms, meals, subsidies for jobs, on the homeless. maria: she wasn't answering any questions about it, mark. >> of course not. of course not. and you know, what i think everyone needs to do is just stop for a second and think about the causes that you think you support, such as you ukraine. right. we want to help ukraine but we're going to send half of our ammunition stockpile to ukraine. and start thinking about how does that impact us. what if we're attacked and now we don't have the ammunition anymore. what if we have a fire and we no longer have the fire equipment anymore. like there is a cost associated with everything we do, with every virtuous thing you think you should protect, there's a cost associated with that. money does not grow on trees, fire equipment does not grow on trees. >.>> hoses, nozzles. maria: we go back to bad policy. >> this is where local politics matter.

we've seen it here in new york city. if you're a los angeles county voter, wake up to what's happening in your city. maria: what happens next? how many people will be affected? >> people that pay taxes will be -- >> it's upside down. you're left with people that pay no taxes. >> it shows what their priorities are. it's not protecting the people. >> overgrown vegetation, lack of water yesterday. we've seen the reports. what are you paying for if you're a los angeles taxpayer. maria: don't forget what happened during covid. they forced firefighters to get covid shots. those who did not want to get covid shots quit. >> and if you're a white male you couldn't get a job. maria: meanwhile, hurricane force winds fueling the deadly apocalyptic wildfires in los angeles county. at least five people have been confirmed dead. fox weather meteorologist britta merwin with an update. >> good morning, maria. thankfully overnight the winds have calmed down.

that led to a very important aerial fight. we've been showing you live on air this morning on fox weather with our flight aware data powerful partnership we have with fox weather the helicopters up in the air. with that said, it's still a dire fight. this afternoon, the winds are going to increase. we're past the peak, it's not going to be as bad as what it was but we still have 30 to 40-mile-an40-mile-an-hour wind s possible as we work through the afternoon. the winds are not in check until friday. here's a look at the map, palisades fire has jumped above 17,000 acres, zero percent containment. what we really need is rain, maria. unfortunately, that is not in the forecast. we have live crews on the ground. make sure you go to foxweather.tv to find out how to stream us and you can download the fox weather app. maria: they ran out of water? >> i mean, there's so many things that are going to have to be looked at post event. right now it's tough because we're literally trying to save people. so there are going to be so many important conversations that

have to be talked about once we get people into a safe location. maria: thank you, britta merwin. stay with us. we'll be right back. you're watching "mornings with maria" live on fox business. we've got a big hour coming up,y . we design and test our own tools and sell them directly to you. no middleman. no folks in suits telling us to raise prices for the heck of it. just quality tools you can trust, at prices you'll love, every aisle every day. that's how we like to do business any way. whatever you do, do it for less at harbor freight. (♪) as your host, i have some rules. two flush maximum per bathroom visit.

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