there's an a.i. trend, okay? christie's auction house, people are calling on them to cancel an auction focused on a.i. art a because the around the u.s.es say the technology was -- art because critics say it's mass theft because they borrow other ideas. taylor: i don't know. brian: very quickly, would you want to buy a.i. art? jackie: no. taylor: i'm in an intellectual property class right now, and they have of not ruled that's fact. we have no laws -- dagen: if the artist used the a.m. i. to create the art can -- jackie: right. copying something. dagen: well, they write the code to create the art, so there's n- jackie: and what value is there, even if it is original? >> taylor's going to be a lawyer. a. taylor: bury the lead, larry. >> did you hear what she said? brian: charles payne is on now -- charles: i just want an a.i. art piece but it was the artist who

put it in, i'll bring you a picture tomorrow. it's wonderful. all right, so the market under pressure from that hotter than expected inflation data. we're going to get to that in a moment with the great liz an sonders. why the inflation roadblock makes doge folk ifs -- focus' success even more critical. we've got a special guest on that. meanwhile, the market down, but i've got to tell you these days it's not about the market, right in it's more about individual stocks for retail and hedge fund investors. in fact, aye got to tell you, fourth quarter earnings releases have seen really compelling individual stories that are starting to emerge. and this is great for your portfolio. and, of course, everyone looking for artificial intelligence. and the move beyond sort of the picks and shovels, right, what's going the dominant theme for '25-'26. one name that's emerging is in the a.i. living market, a

company called upstart. upstart last night reported, blew 'em away. revenues up 56%. by the way, they've been doing this for over a year, these amazing results. and, of course, the stock has erupted. it is up significantly higher,. 1.3% higher. and thissen continues a trend of overpriced ipos and spacs, right in you know i hated them. look at this, this was a $300 stock at one point. what happens is they've been dying, the stock dose down, the business continues to the mature and come to fruition, and then they tart to take off. there's a lot of opportunities for investors. and, again, we're talking individual stocks. then, of course, there's the curious case today of super micro, right? think about this one. they posted results that was an unmitigated disaster. no matter how you tried to clean this one up, i know, i came into last night long with my subscribers. they missed on both earnings and revenue. by the way, unaudited numbers

they confirmed they received from the doj and sec subpoenas. they cut their guidance for the next year, dilution, 14 days still away from delisting, but they did swear their 10k will be in by february. so wall street giving hemming the benefit of the doubt. you know, this market really, you know, tries to -- a lot of folks out there still trying to pursue this market with a paint by numbers approach. i'm talking old school kind of stuff. unfortunately, this is why so many of these big firms and these big analysts keep missing the grand slams. and i'm talking grand slams of a lifetime. my first guest, though, takes a blend ared approach, and it's served him and his clients very well. slatestone wealth chief market strategist kenny polcari. kenny, if i told you this company missed everywhere and the stock would be up today, you'd say it's nuts. >> it is nuts, absolutely nuts, and i'm still trying the figure out why is the street giving

them a break? charles: the ceo said, listen, we're going to do extraordinarily well over the next several years. we've seen it with elon musk, with marc benioff. there are ceos a this somehow convince wall street that things are going to be okay. >> right. but they end up pulling through, right? this one was so excited, got caught up in the bitcoin and the a.i. and the computer and all that stuff that if they had taken it to prices that were unsustainable. we saw the crash and now we see this. yet the street wants a comeback or investors want to come back and give them another chance. makes no sense the me. charles: before i start talking about a.i., because that's the theme, individual a.i. to moving beyond picks and shovels. quickly let me get your thoughts because we saw the cpi number both on core and headline come in i aide of -- ahead of expectations. >> i've been saying i think the problem this year is going to be the inflation. not out of control like it was, but i wouldn't be surprised if we get back up to the 3, 4, 5%

range which is kind of where we're going. the cpi hadn't caught up. tomorrow we're going to get another ppi report. let's see what that says. charles: all right. individual stock buys, it's all the rage. for a long time retail's, a lot of folks talk about it, this is hedge funds. and this is buying into technology. we can see a huge spike just on individual stocks. individual stock names. >> yep. charlie: is it cliche, or when we say it's a stock picker's market, is it really factual if you want to seriously outperform? >> 100%. listen, you can go passive and try to buy everything, and you'll just go aa long with the crowd. if you really want to outperform, doing your homework, look for the opportunities is going to create the understood. charles: all right, a.i. beyond picks and shovels, you've got an interesting play. you say accenture has an a.i. play brewing. >> they're spending inordinate if amounts of money on generative a.i., $1.2 billion

new bookings as a result. they've raised their dividend, they've got a buyback coming on. this is stock was an underperformer in 2024. it started in january up 10%. it's pulled back a little bit, but i think this one is kind of a back door into that that a. a i. conversation. charles: by the way, i love that you found that name. to your point, these are the names that will take the picks and shovels, use them the right way and reward investors. beck and dickenson. >> so they announced. they beat on all the a lines, they announced that they're splitting off two wizs from their -- businesses from their core medical technology business. the street took it back down, but we actually think it's back at a level now where it provides opportunity. you know, 10-15% up from here. charles: a question for you. how did beckett and dickenson meet? [laughter] they were salesmen, one was iting in a train sayings is, and the light was in his eye, expect other guy moved the curtain --

>> oh, really? if. charles: yeah, put a lot of money in new jersey. useless trivia. and microsoft. >> listen, this is justin on sale. it was down 11%, might be down a little bit more. it's a core name in anyone's portfolio, certainly in my portfolio, our portfolio, so i think you have to take advantage when it's on sale. charles: it's been too long, my friend. you're looking good. donald trump is taking washington by storm and getting a lot of to help from elon musk, but elon is paying a price for it. his net worth is down $90 billion this year alone. i want to bring in advisory managing partner kip herridge. it's really amazing because it's been rough sledding for elon musk. a lot of people have said this guy is? there, he's trying to take advantage. he's paying a heavy price for it. you like the stock though. you say it's a buy here. >> we do. yeah, it's an absolute buy here.

tesla just yesterday hit our most oversold levels. we call it extreme oversold on steroids. that's' usually when you find a reliable bottom. we like it really for the fundamentals going forward. the future of tesla is all going to to be two things, robotics and about a.i., of course. but i just -- autonomous if driving. i just drove here in a heavy downpour here in houston in my tesla, and i used fsb the whole way. i use it about 90% of the time now. anyone who hasn't experienced this, you've got to do it. it's the stock to own for the innovation revolution. charles: kip, not long ago a middle of december it was $480 a share, now it's down around 337. it did fetch an upgrade today, i think. how long do you think it'll take for it to get back up here? we know it moves quickly in either direction. it's a class you can momentum name -- classic momentum name. >> this stock is really going to

catch fire in the second half of the year. i think by year end is stock will be $7000, and we're probably on -- 700 and we're probably on the low end. this stock is a home run from here. charles: jpmorgan has a new investment vehicle out, and they say focus on china, china, china. they believe china right here with all of these different opportunities will outperform america when it comes to a.i. i know you like some parts of the china a.i. trade too. >> we do. we like k. webb, etf, but if you saw j.d. vance's 15-minute presentation about the arms race taking place in a.i., just fascinating. this guy gets it. it is an arms race, winner take all between us and china. and the real issue, as j.d. vance said, is here we have in the u.s., we believe in innovation because we believe it represents freedom. in china they use it for authoritarian government. so this is the arms race, no question about it.

u.s. has to win. hopefully, we're positioned to do so. charles: are you worried, though, taking economics out of it that china really is nipping at our heels? >> absolutely. that's why we think trump's exactly right on his tough policy stance and why we think tariffs against china are really appropriate here. charles: i've got to ask you about the semiconductor, the triple, right, the three-time semiconductor. at one point today it was down almost 2.5%, and it's it is near a bottom that it held last august. last month. you know, it's really not necessarily for the faint of heart. where do you -- what's going to trigger this higher? >> well, we actually use the nonleveraged etf for charting purposes. but, yes, we do own it. this has been a very frustrating investment for the last five months. the semis bottomed in august a of last year, and they've been

consolidating ever since then. we're right now at the 200-day moving average. we believe the semis are going to to lead the market higher from here because if they don't, if the semis break down, the market breaks down. charles: some go up and some lose the thread, advanced micro, micron, i've seen them falling apart. new scale, everyone's jumping on the bandwagon. subscribers in it. snowline globe, i've never heard of that one. >> snowline gold up about 4.5, junior miners are done absolutely nothing, this is a miner in the yukon, in canada, is and e we think maybe it's the largest gold discovery in north america in at least a decade. by year end, probably by middle of the year they'll announce their first gold resource report, we hi it's a buy here. charles: okay. kip, thank you so much, my friend. appreciate it. >> thanks, charles. charles: jay powell testifying yet again in washington, d.c. as

this inflation data came out. we've bot the great liz an sonders to break that down and also share strategies on how you really can make it as the market becomes more sol im. -- volatile. you don't want to miss if it. she's next. muck i keep dancing on my own. ♪ if i keep dancing on my own ♪ morikawa on 18. he is really boxed in here.

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charles: jay powell testifying for a second day on capitol hill as the fed and interest rates take center stage in the stock market. this after that consumer price came if in, report came in much higher than expected. i want to bring in charles schwab and company chief investment strategist is liz an sonders. often a economists and market strategists will find component in the report and kind of dismissit or ignore if it. i know you've gone through this. is there something or some things that stand out that we should be alarmed by? >> yeah, there are, and unfortunately they're not the good things. not only did all a four sort of components of cp -- cpi, core and headline, month over month and year-over-year were all ahead of expectations.

you did see continued pick-up many those sort of -- in those sort of necessities components, you know, food, energy, shelter, medical costs. but if you look at core goods excluding those, that's where you saw an acceleration. you can take the component parts, and more than half of the components of cpi have a sarper rate -- sharper rate of growth up in the 3-month average versus the longer term average. so that's a way the judge whether you've got an accelerating rate of inflation. so it was not great. other than the big surge that we were seeing many in things like rents, owner's equivalent rent. some of that growth has eased a little bit, so maybe one bright spot, but it was a tough number. charles: yeah. so, you know, it seemed that the street was getting comfortable with the idea of maybe no if rate cuts this year, but what would happen if we start to see conventional wisdom shift to, okay, we may have a rate hike this year? >> i think that would be tough to digest for the market.

we certainly have heard from ye roam powell and others -- jerome powell and others on the fed that the bias is still to at some point move back into easing mode. that continues to get pushed out. rightly so, i think. it's pretty easy to make a case for no rate cuts possibly the entire year. now saying december. but that's so far down the road x a data-dependent fed means the data is going to dictate that. but a necessary turn, if that happens, the actually hiking tes again, i do not think that's priced into expectations. that's not our base case, but to your question, i think that would be a risk factor. charles: overall though, even today's session, the market seems sort of impressive to me. what are your thoughts, right. >> the market, the way it's acting today and all year long. >> yeah. it has. but you are seeing a lot of things happen under the surface, beyond just what you see at the index level that i think is important.

a lot more dispersion in terms of returns even among the magnificent seven group. only one of the tocks in the magnificent seven, meta, is in the top ten year to date, and in 10th place. five of the seven you have to go down to the 335th ranking in terms of the 500 stocks on a year to date basis. and then it gets worse from there. so much more dispersion. but you are seeing sort of this stealthy improvement in areas outside of that group. you've got 9 out ofis sectors -- 11 sectors up year to date, tech one of the worst ones, one of the only ones in negative territory. consumer discretion just went into negative if territory. so there are opportunities. it's just being spread out a little bit more. and the weight within the indo dex of the magnificent seven means if you continue to see a good chunk of that a falter, that's going to keep the index gains constrained -- charles: right. >> -- but performance can be had

elsewhere. charles: right. so on an individual level, we might actually have a better market although the headline won't say as much. the earnings reports have been strong. i saw where you noted though these revisions. how concerned are you -- how to do they offset one another? >> yeah. is so there's something called the blended growth rate which updates on a daily basis as you go through reporting season. and it encompasses the stocks of companies that have already reported blended with the con seven us estimates for those -- consensus is estimates for those not yet reported. right now it's 15%, well up from about 9.5% which was the expectation going into the start of earnings season. so that's good news. that said, the beat rate has dropped to about 76%. that's actually below the past four quarters' beat rate. so a little less breadth in terms of how many stocks are doing well from that metric, and estimates for 2025, all four quarters in 2025 the have been

coming down. so the beat in the fourth quarter is not leading to rising estimates in 2025. some of that is base effects. you yet stronger earnings -- you get stronger earnings, but it's more than just that. i think it's tariff are policy uncertainty, profit margin uncertainty in particular, and tech is bearing some of the brunt of that. charles: i do want to share with the audience because we're ruining out of time that you do say stay focused as your he's emphasis, positive earnings revisions. look for these high interest coverage, strong free cash flow and low volatility. i think that's where you might sleep better at night. liz an, thank you very much. always appreciate it. >> my pleasure. good to see you. thank you. charles: the stock market is used as a proxy for america's dynamism, right, for american exceptionalism. and it's dominating the world. my next guest and her firm are at the forefront of making sure we stay there. we'll break it all down for you next. ♪ when you were young ♪

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>> -- as it aligns with the catch. >> coming in, getting ready for that -- >> down to three engines. [cheers and applause]

>> [inaudible] charles: and he sticks the landing, right? you know, it's so interesting that elon musk is the man of the hour, but many are questioning his motives and some even his abilities to help us, you know, bring down government despite the fact they've seen spacex and all of his other venn hurs. goldman released a poll, and they were asking the biggest risk to u.s. exceptionalism. you had a.i. competition, terrorism taking place but, oddly, there was nothing there about deficits, about our educational a trends which are horrific and scary, rising drug use among young adults. that wasn't there. in the meantime, you know, our stock market just reflects how great we have -- we are, our dynamism. we just had the chart how far ahead we are of the rest of the world. this stuff does not come by accident, right? it takes rule of law. it takes a system that celebrates and encourages success, a system that encourages investment. and on that front, my next

guest, andreessen horowitz general partner katherine boyle. katherine, you know, i'm looking at the chart. i pulled this up this morning of the top unicorns out there, the most valuable unicorns. i'm looking at lead investor, and there it is, andreessen horowitz, andreessen horowitz, andreessen horowitz. this is absolutely amazing. the commitment your company has and why it's so important -- we're not talking about making money, we're talking about prosperity for the nation, right? >> absolutely. so, you know, i cofounded the american dynamism practice which we define as companies actively supporting the national interest. and those are companies operating not just in what we think of as apps or the things on our phone, the things like spacex, which you just mentioned. defense, national security. other important categories like housing, energy, education. things that touch all a americans and are very important to the dynamism of the united states. so we're actively investing in companies that help to to shore

up our capabilities and make sure that we're investing in the critical needs of this country. charles: deepseek was a hell of a blow. i look at this also, okay, the top ten names, half are china or india. it should be a wake-up call, shouldn't it? >> it absolutely should be. i think deepseek was a sputnik if moment for america. it's not only an earn couraging thing, we should be -- encouraging thing, we should be investing private capital into a.i. companies and also there should be public investment in it as well and public understanding of it. i was very encouraged by vice president vance's speech in paris yesterday on artificial intelligence and the need for america to today at the forefront to make sure that we're not put onerous regulations and hindering the the innovation in this country. that we should be leading the entire world in artificial intelligence and investing in the supply chain, in the critical areas that are going to to ensure a.i. dominance for this country. charles: again, going to your web site, you guys are at every

stage of investing from seed throughout. and then there's some key investments that you're focused on right now, and a couple caught my eye with. at the top of the list, anduril. it's amazing, almost every day news is coming out about this. i think it's a palmer luckey company. tell us more about it. >> with we've been involved with anduril since the earliest of stages. yesterday they announced a massive contract they're going to be taking over from microsoft to work with the u.s. army on vr, and,s of course, palmer luckey originally founded oculus, he's a vr visionary, so it's great to wring him back to his roots -- bring him back to his roots. and a april is a prominent defense technology company in california, but they're also going to be working on this initiative for the army. if. charles: google it how he does this as a kid. i'm thinking of a wall --

[laughter] what is, you know, again, we can't go through all the a names, but that caught my eye. >> it is named, as you said, after hately january's wall. it's a company has supporting the critical parts be produced in the u.s. to make sure that our aerospace and defense sectors are shored up and the coming conflicts that we could see in the future. it is named after hadrian if's wall, it's an extraordinary committee company building up manufacturing in the u.s. charles: by the way, you talk about all the different jobs, people are can go there and apply, you're doing it all a, soup to nuts. it's amazing. your firm, you. katherine, thank you very much. really appreciate it. >> thank you so much for having us. charles: let's get back to the markets for a moment because my next guest says there's a good setup for the year. bn if y wealth head of investment strategies, alicia

levine. alicia, sort of the extreme policy and worst case scenario. inflation, we got that this morning. the u.s. dollar is strong, higher long-end yields, we're seeing that as well. this is -- we can live with this for right now in. >> we can live with this right now. what i like about this is, essentially, there's a one-way trade going on with everybody thinking inflation's going higher, the policies coming out of the white house are going to be inflationary, the fed's not going to cut this year, dollar's going to remain strong. and and that's likely true for a while. but as you know, charles, when everyone's in the same trade, it doesn't take much to move it in the other way. charles: right. >> when you think about the data this morning, the s&p's only about 1 president if off it hig- charles: its all-time high. >> so even with all this going on, the market's telling you there's a lot of resiliency, and the fundamentals are pretty good. charles: let's talk about that, the strong signals outs there. again, i love the way you look at in this from a contrarian point of view.

again, everyone does -- i guess the 24-hour news cycle, but there are strong signals out there. corporate spreads are tighter, earnings and fundamentals are strong. when you look at fundamentals, how do you measure that? >> real gdp growth, we look at, you know, where is the rolling recession. we had a rolling recession really since covid. think about a manufacturing. we had data last week which hoed us the manufacturing sector is finally in expansion after two and a half years. charles: 26, 27 months straight. it's -- is that a blip though? some were saying maybe it was getting ahead of tariffs. i think it was real. >> i think it's real too because i think what happened is the distortions in the data and the overbuying and inventory build during covid. if you remember, it was the goods -- charles: right, right. >> -- it was buying stuff, and then it stopped. you had to work through the inventory cycle. i think the policy coming from the white house as well as the natural business cycle, manufacturing is out of the recession. and most importantly, the new earning -- the new orders number

is over 50, in expansion. really correlated with s&p forward earnings by about four months. charles: i was just talking to katherine about a investing. they do it on a vc level. this is corporate, cap-x plans, absolutely through the roof here. this is another aspect of what you liked in terms of fundamentals in america staying ahead right now. >> so i love the small business optimism, the plans the invest even with the policy changes that we see daily that you all talk about, we still have fundamental optimism about the economy. and small and medium-sized businesses encompass about 60% of hiring and employment in the country. so if there's investment in that sector, there'll be growth in that sector, and that means the labor market can stay strong. charles: let's talk about -- we've got less than a minute, but i want to bring up your sectors because it's still sort of a bifurcated market, right? maintain exposure the large cap tech tech. that's going against the grain a little bit.

let's finish it off with another contrarian view. >> everybody is talking about how the trade is over, it's not the mag 7, it's the lag 7. and, in fact, it has been lagging this year. and as you noted earlier, information technology is the worst performing sector year to candidate -- year to date. i just think this is where the earnings growth is and this is where the margin growth is. what's interesting this year is the 493 are closing the gap with the earnings year-over-year with the mag 7. so the rest of the market's going to do well which is why we like cyclicals, industrials, and mid cap. this is the best environment for mid cap because we're going to have an m&a environment, a friendlier face at the ftc which peens mergers -- charles: right. >> and so where you get the acquisition candidates. you don't get them from the top of the market, you get it from mid caps and small caps -- charles: and they've already been a big stealth winner this

year. large caps and and small caps, i wasn't jan in the brady bunch, but who was in the middle got ignored. [laughter] thank you very much. coming up, cracking down on waste, fraud and abuse inside the government. my take on bureaucrats and their entities lining their pockets at your expense. and look at that power panel. it's going to be a heck of a segment right after this. ♪ hello, hello. ♪ i'm at a place called vertigo. ♪ you it would me things i wish i didn't know ♪

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>> i knowier smith, and i will personal personally vouch for him. >> there's been a big mistake. >> why don't you tell the people a truth -- the truth for a change! >> you're an ordinary if stooge. >> this country is bigger than the -- or you or me or anything else. free principles don't get lost once with they come to to light. they're right here. you just have to see them. charles: one of frank capra's best movies, mr. smith goes to washington. jefferson smith, remember, appointed to the u.s. senate

mainly because those in power said this guy's naive, we can manipulate him easily. eventually, he turns the table on them. the movie caused quite a stir. it was released in1939. but even the most crooked officials would be amazed at how politicians in d.c. have learned how to profit and if line their pockets. it's an art that they've perfected. fraud, waste and abuse continues to mount with the largest tranche in the treasury department, of all places. improper payments, by the way, last year you may have read, every year they're huge, last year $230 billion in 2023. and the american public is lucky as we have our own version of jefferson spit -- smith, but he's not so naive and is asking all the right questions. >> we do find it sort of, rather odd that, you know, there are quite a few people in the bureaucracy who have ostensibly a salary of a few hundred

thousand dollars but somehow manage to accrue tens of billions of dollars in net if worthwhile they are in that position which is what happened at usaid a. we're just curious as to where with it comes from. it seems to be mysteriously they get wealthy, and we don't know why. where does it come from in i think the reality they're getting wealthy at the taxpayer expense. that's' the honest truth of it. charles: joining me now, outnumbered cohost emily compagno along with abby hornacek. it's mind-boggling, so our public servants, emphasis is on the word servant, nancy pelosi has an annual salary of $223,000 but a net worth of $20 the 2 million. mitch mcconnell, $200,000 a year are, how about a net worth of $95 million. no wonder he's going, i would say kicking and screaming, but not necessarily. the list goes on and on. elizabeth warren, for the little people, how about a net if worth of $67 million in they weren't

millionaires, abby, when they were elected. >> no. i think that's what people are realizing for the longest time. they're looking at the crepe city between what these -- discrepancies, and i think that's really refreshing to the american people about this current administration many. we're seeing a level of transparency that we, frankly, didn't really have over the last four years. and they're really lifting the veil. you see elon musk the oval office in a t-shirt and a baseball cap, by the way -- [laughter] so it's becoming more relatable to people, and they're say, look, these politicians should not be making all of this money. charles: emily? >> as a federal attorney in the social security administration, i couldn't accept a gift valued over $24, right? you had to record, no, no, i can't accept that christmas bottle of wine. and yet that's the same agency that has a $8 billion per year in improper payments. when you hear about these guys woz salaries our tax dollars are paying, we know that they're getting enriched at our expense.

but at this point, why have we had up until this point the democrats' outrage not at what is being uncovered, but at the daring to audit, the daring to ask, hey, why are there so many improper payments? why are your pockets lined so is deeply? why, nancy pelosi, is the fund that tracks what you invest in does better by 20 than the market does? charles: right. or why she can come out of a committee meeting and buy the stock maybe two or three weeks before the news hits. her last one was amazing, i think it went up 50% after a people found out she was anytime. what's interesting, we talk about joe biden when he was president snubbing the supreme court on student loans. this was, to me, always a gimmick. what we've just learns is, folks, it increased indebtedness. in other words, it completely backfiredded, abby. anyone when accepted this ended up in a worse financial position. >> yeah. i think what we saw back in

march of 2021 when the u.s. government was ordered to cancel $132 with in debt, we all said -- 132 billion, increase in mortgage, increase in auto, increase in credit card debt. 9 cents for everyone dollar, by the way. we're just seeing it happen now, and i think a lot of people were fearful what were going to to happen. >> there's some xs and os in there economically, this is if a cost is forgiven, it's absorbed elsewhere on the supply chain, to your point. but the reality is i think what we're seeing here is when you don't have that foundational aspect of earning, of repaying, of building those building blocks, people get into higher credit card debt, don't know how to manage their money. and and those are some life skills that have been compounded on to the horrible economics the biden administration -- charles: and i'm going to take it a step further. i'm saying they've done it on purpose. there's this thing called propensity to consume, and the lower on the income strata you are, the more likely you are to do that.

whenever they want to hike gdp, not only will they give you $1,000, they know you'll go to the mall and spend $1500. they did in this on purpose. so you could argue, hey, you know what? if we did great. and, by the way, who benefits from it? all this money goes to the top 1%, also known as political donors. i've got to ask you, i want to share with you guys, i don't know if you watch squid games at all? i saw a few episodes, it really kind of grossed me out. [laughter] apparently, in amsterdam they're one-upping it. there's a game crawled the fear clinic, and they put you in a room with your fears. like, say someone is terrified by balloons, they put them in a room -- [laughter] abby, what do you think? i know you're doing some things recently that also you've had to confront your fears. >> yeah. you know, i'm not afraid of balloons, thank god. [laughter] but, yeah. for this most recent season, i went bungee jumping about ten years ago a with my brother. i wasn't afraid before i did it.

after i did it, i said, i don't want to do it again. fast forward to this season of parks, we went bungee jumping off this bridge the nowhere, and i said i don't really want to do it. they somehow convinced me to do it three times, now i've been a total of four times, till will never do it. and i'm confused, apparently, this is 90% effective? if yeah, i don't want to go bungee jumping. i was not cured. no, not cured. charles: anybody over 200 is going to the say they don't want to bungee jump -- >> i'm like you, i like to do a lot of stuff. bungee jumping is where i draw the line -- >> it hurts your neck. >> yes. what i cannot do is spiders, no amount of money, no show. you heard it here first. charles: that's a rational a phobia. i really think thats -- that's rational. the balloons, not so much. i want to come to your wheelhouse because all kind of headlines on the legal front.

lawfare, i think, is something that should never happen in this country. mayor adams saying that his bribery case is over, many say that was only brought because h- >> what's fascinating that the department of justice said this is interfearing with him being able to orchestrate in his official capacity dealing with the legal immigration crisis here -- illegal immigration crisis. critics argue every new yorker believe the mayor deserves to be prosecuted for corruption. no, be safe on the street and have their tax dollars used appropriately. the irony here is law fair at its absolute worst, or it was not limited to donald trump. hopefully, he'll be freed in order to tack tackle this issue, and some argue a he may be hinting republican which gives us a win in the seat. charles: a real quick, goldman sachs is scrapping the diversity mandate for ipos.

so before they wouldn't take your company public if you didn't have two folks on the board that met this criteria. whether it's well meaning or not, it's always a going to backfire, right in you want the best people. the it's a band-aid. ultimately, just a handful of people end up onen a bunch to boards. >> yeah. i do wonder with all the a dei things if some of these companies actually are a bit relieved that they don't have to follow the former policies. because they are seeing an increase in efficiency, and they can kind of hire whoever they want. charles: right. >> my new renewed fear is now having to give a legal analysis after a -- [laughter] 'em emily campagno. i just developed a new fear. charles: that's everyone's fear -- [laughter] >> she's so good at her job. charles: thank you both very much. watch a special edition of parks with abby hornacek right now on fox nation. you saw what's happening with inflation, folks, and we get retail steals on friday. as finally, the is the american

consumer finally on their knees? we'll find out from the best, next. ♪ well, some nights i wish that this all a would end -- ♪ 'cuz i could use some friends for a change ♪ [ car engine revving ]

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started slowing and lodging slowing and marriott yesterday and they beat but warned. and is a strong consumer showing filing of the weakness in >> you are right, looking forward to the first quarter, beginning of the year, thing haves slowed down. looking at holiday season, retailers had a merry, jolly holodare season but the first quarter and they're going to be cautious because they're dealing with stickier prices and stickier, stubbier inflation and more. charles: it's come down from -- i mean, it's half and not necessarily. >> 3% is the benchmark and healthy consumer spending. they are dealing with difficult spending from a year ago and important to note analysts pulled back have been bullish and raising estimates upwards

and looking at impressive 13% earnings growth rate. charles: retail sales earning ands the guidance; right. the guidance has been skewed a bit more negative than positive. >> yes, and this is mainly a lot of talk about tariffs. this is the main topic we're looking at. charles: are they building that in? >> yes. charles: we hear on earnings there's a 33 negative and 8 positives ty. >> this was all before the talks of the tariffs and this was the projection of fourth quarter and holiday season and retailers will report next week about over 50% of them going to have discussing that tariffs will have them going for symar and going to have the numbers going up and how many more. charles: income in spending and fascinate sergeant the orange line, folks. that's your outlays and spending and every single month, we spend more than we make. at least a rate of spending going up higher than rate of incomes and only time not like that was in october.

consequently line on top of the savings and they're going down. feels like we're trying to keep up with the kardashians at expense ovsavings. how much longer can we keep that going. >> very strong holiday season and first, second, third quarter and earnings growth and picking up into the fourth quarter and given inflation is still sticky and yes -- charles: 30 seconds on this. i got to ask you about shake shack because i subscribe and down like 20%. >> yards in aggie, a lot of shoppers went out to the mall, they wanted to save a buck while eating and shake shack is the main beneficiary of that and shopping at wal-mart. charles: going for them. >> yep, for experiences. charles: all right, over to liz.