what is kevin hassett saying about that? >> when he was asked about that he said there are a host of other economic indicators that have led to volatility in the markets. the second point that i would is that inside washington the chatter around the treasury department has been that anyone who covers the treasury department, the treasury secretary calls frequent folks up on wall street and financial sectors across the industry. the just part of the job question becomes why that report raised such turmoil in the last 72 hours. this morning it seems the administration is much more back to speaking on the same page with regard to the market. seems they are breathing a sigh of relief from a lot of questions on christmas eve. taylor: certainly a sigh of relief. thank you kevin cirilli. mainstay welcome capital management chief investment strategist david coul. we are talking about the noise coming out of d.c. we also want to look at fundamentals. fundamentals seem good. how much of the market volatility really is just coming out

kevin hassett, chairman of the council of economic advisers: "the fundamentals remain extremely soundking to calm jittery investors the chairman of the council of economic advisers said wednesday recent declines in the stock market are not signs of a slowing economy.kevin hassett, chairman of the council of economic advisers: "christmas sales are through the roof."kevin hassett says g-d-p growth in the fourth quarter appears to be solid at near three percent or higher. kevin hassett, chairman of the council of economic advisers: "so i think that the momentum we saw this year is carrying into next year."but experts say the government shutdown, a trade war with china and other global factors all played a part in the biggest christmas eve market sell off in history. president donald trump"they are raising interest rates too fast that's my opinion. i mean the fact is that the economy is doing so well."for his part the president is blaming the federal reserve for pushing up interest rates.but hassett said wednesday the fed chairman's job remains safe. that appeared to ease worries on wall

kevin hassett, chairman of the council of economic advisers: "the fundamentals remain extremely sound."seeking to calm jittery investors the chairman of the council of economic advisers said wednesday recent declines in the stock market are not signs of a slowing economy.kevin hassett, chairman of the council of economic advisers: "christmas sales are through the roof."kevin hassett says g-d-p growth in the fourth quarter appears to be solid at near three percent or higher. kevin hassett, chairman of the council of economic advisers: "so i think that the momentum we saw this year is carrying into next year."but experts say the government shutdown, a trade war with china and other global factors all played a part in the biggest christmas eve market sell off in history. president donald trump"they are raising interest rates too fast that's my opinion. i mean the fact is that the economy is doing so well."for his part the president is blaming the federal reserve for pushing up interest rates.but hassett said wednesday the fed chairman's job remains safe. that appeared to ease worries on

the comment came from kevin hassett, who also said the u.s.t face a hit in liquidity crisis. vladimir putin what the final test of his country's hypersonic weapon that will be used to overcome -- the so-called avant-garde can carry conventional and nuclear weapons. 30 in sudan are dead after a demonstration on rising food prices and shortages. the protesters are demanding that the president step down. onhas blamed the violence foreign countries and so-called mercenaries. and in asian authorities are asking people to avoid the coast -- indonesian authorities are asking people to avoid the coast. remainnds and heavy rain a threat as government workers continue to monitor mount krakatoa is a ruptured. -- krakatoa eruption. global news 24 hours a day on air and @tictoc on twitter, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. i am the vienna hurtado. this is -- viviana hurtado. caroline: still with us is, all sri-kumar. i want to take your fed perspective a little bit further , because a key aide to trump saying ov

kevin hassett, chairman of the council of economic advisers: "the fundamentals remain extremely sound"seeking to calm jittery investors the chairman of the council of economic advisers said wednesday recent declines in the stock market are not signs of a slowing economy.kevin hassett, chairman of the council of economic advisers: "christmas sales are through the roof."kevin hassett says g-d-p growth in the fourth quarter appears to be solid at near three percent or higher. kevin hassett, chairman of the council of economic advisers: "so i think that the momentum we saw this year is carrying into next year."but experts say the government shutdown, a trade war with china and other global factors all played a part in the biggest christmas eve market sell off in history. president donald trump"they are raising interest rates too fast that's my opinion. i mean the fact is that the economy is doing so well."for his part the president is blaming the federal reserve for pushing up interest rates.but hassett said wednesday the fed chairman's job remains safe. that appeared to ease worries on w

kevin hassett, chairman of the council of economic advisers: "the fundamentals remain extremely sound."seeking to calm jittery investors the chairman of the council of economic advisers said wednesday recent declines in the stock market are not signs of a slowing economy.kevin hassett, chairman of the council of economic advisers: "christmas sales are through the roof."kevin hassett says g-d-p growth in the fourth quarter appears to be solid at near three percent or higher. kevin hassett, chairman of the council of economic advisers: "so i think that the momentum we saw this year is carrying into next year."but experts say the government shutdown, a tre war with china and other global factors all played a part in the biggest christmas eve market sell off in history. president donald trump"they are raising interest rates too fast that's my opinion. i mean the fact is that the economy is doing so well."for his part the president is blaming the federal reserve for pushing up interest rates.but hassett said wednesday the fed chairman's job remains safe. that appeared to ease worries on wa

kevin hassett. appreciate it. susan: let's get reaction. bring back in our panel, james freeman, liz peek, adam johnson. adam i was kind of encouraged by the positives when it comes to china trade. >> i'm glad you mentioned that. i've been listening to myself speak because people tell me i'm far too optimist i can. i think there are reasons to be optimists or optimistic. the fact they're working through the holiday says a lot. the fact that the chinese have given ground on several different occasions says a lot. quite frankly both trump and xi need a win. politically they're facing headwinds. they need some sort of a deal and i think they get it done. i'm long way bow and alibaba. susan: that makes sense. kevin hassett agrees with the rest of the world and markets they would probably make a lot of headway if they actually met face-to-face? >> i think mr. powell could probably make a pretty good case that the fed is confident raising rates because the economy is strong and i think that is largely the result of president trump's policies. i t

could have have been my interview with kevin hassett. am impressed what we're seeing. >> if you want to tell you that the computers were in charge, last couple days computers are in charge. people are saying it is taking up almost 85% of the activity we're seeing. we talked about this before. consumer strong. there are a lot of fundamentals do suggest if we're seeing a correction now, which we're due for a correction, it will not a bad one. i think that 2019 is going to continue with volatility but it shouldn't be a replay of 10 years ago. charles: david? >> i would agree to a large extent. we actually went negative on the day briefly. like you said the consumer bails us out every time we have one of these events. we all know where this started, how this started. a at some point these things end. you could make the case right now the valuation we're under 1times trailing earnings. that is a good level to be. draconian maybe down to 2100 would be all you can take. value players would have to step in there. dividend yields would be still h

hassett instead blamed the market volatility on fundamentals. he said the u.s.ntinues to be strong. >>> jc penney shares fell below $1 for the first time since 2010. it offered steep discounts. even after the expensive makeover, jc penney has not been able to recover from the great recession. holiday sales overall had a fantastic december. fastest pace in growth in six years. rising wages and drop in gas prices. shoppers spent $850 billion from november 1st through christmas eve. gas prices dropped more than 20 cents a gallon over the past month gave shoppers extra cash for the holidays. so online sales rose 19% compared to last year. amazon had 1 billion items shipped for free with amazon prime. a big number. >> a couple of them came to my house. >> the boxes are all in my basement. i complain about it all the time. >>> winter storm intensifying as it moves east. this is santa fe, new mexico. snow and ice caused roads to deteriorate. wrecks on i-25. heavy lightning causing cancellations with the first responder bowl in dallas. the game called off after ten minu

. >> this is right on from kevin hassett, not a major economic event. this is not much of the government shuts down of the most of us don't notice it when not operating at full, fearsome capacity. also probably not much of a long-term political impact either. look at history of shutdowns, they generally get forgotten fairly quickly. blake: here's my read what heard from president trump yesterday. he is taking aim at jay powell. we heard from the president who said yesterday, you might want to buy the dip. if you have money in the bank, rate increase is not necessarily a bad thing because your money will not make more money. are we getting realization of president trump this is kind of going to be the way forward here and you got to deal with it? >> it is good news for savers. they have gone through an ear a where they weren't getting any return on their money. sparse mr. powell, hard to argue the federal funds rate should be zero in real terms. he has come up slightly above that. historically it is still very low. this is a weird era we're in because of

that is what we got earlier today from kevin hassett. do you think that shift in tone within the last 48 hours has done the job the administration wants and calming the market concerns? >> i would think so. the market is probably wanting at this point consistency. that hasrobably helped. there was some discussion from treasury on monday that did not really help. that may have caused volatility to jump higher. yes, as the communications are coming up, the more consistent they are, the better the market wants, i think it does not want the kind of erratic back-and-forth maybe we saw earlier this year. that would help. federal reserve is looking at these numbers ideally probably they would not be raising rates because the rest of the world and the rest of the markets are moving in the opposite direction. if we can just have some calm and more consistent comments, i think that would be helpful. and probably the change in the tone is probably going to be helpful. us.n: please stick with later, a special edition of bloomberg businessweek. my pa

was it something that the white house chief economic council adviser kevin hassett saying yeah, powell is safe as chairman of the fed? >> the latter might be a little bit of it, lauren. the market was looking for an excuse. monday was pretty dismal by any imagination. we were way oversold. we needed a spark. perhaps this whole thing with the fed was one of the unknowns that was out there that was hurting the market. perhaps that cleared that particular air and you know, maybe that's what we needed. they opened up stronger, we sold off. they were looking pretty dismal around 11:00 this morning, but clearly, we have rallied and let's just hope it continues. lauren: keep talking. hitting session highs right now. dow up almost 680 points. what's the catalyst for the green today, larry? >> well, i think personally, just a normal bounceback. it was such an oversold environment on christmas eve. you had twin vacuums of lack of liquidity and you really don't have any news to keep the market from stabilizing. i think it's that simple and reverse is true today. we don't have any major data comin

finally, hallie, on the shutdown, he indicated -- kevin h hassett indicated there wouldn't be long-term effects of a government shutdown, saying for at least a couple of weeks there's no effect to the overall gdp growth. that's an indication the white house is prepared to go of longer on a potential shutdown, and it could be weeks if not even months. hallie. >> and, hans, in your conversation with what we call the stakeout of the driveway there with kevin hassett, he seemed kind of relaxed it sounded to me from reading it. >> reporter: kevin hassett is always upbeat and cheerful. i don't know what he will look like if he has to deliver bad news, but i think it is part and parcel. this is a serious parcel about him, is he has his finger on so much economic data, he is very circumspect about betraying that in public. when he has, say, the jobs numbers the night before, he won't go out in a public forum where people might be able to read his mood. you don't want to tip anything off to a bunch of traders on wall street that are working hard over the long weekend or this holiday week, trying

here is what kevin hassett had to say. >> probability of recession over the next months is about zero. i think that is the right read given the momentum in the economy. connell: kevin is in the erin gibbs plant. probability is zero is pretty low. many people would disagree with that. we have market trading down. are we pricing in a different probability? what is your take? >> i think the probability is significantly higher. i think when you look at the market, the markets are telling you there is a problem. we know they never announce themselves so what i would expect to see, i would expect a recession. if you want to by me a bet on zero i will take all he wants. there is a lot of issues here including rising wages and rates are going to rise no matter what the fed says today, they're signaling there's a problem. connell: let me ask you about stocks in particular, todd. the idea of rallying into the end of the year, it has become this annual thing. there are numbers to back it up. usually the market rallies towards the end of one year and first couple trading days of a new year. avera

hassett wasn't going to go there.h respect to the federal reserve. he eventually acknowledged higher rates at some point could really hurt the economy or hurt the slowdown. i'm concerned about these things. coming into the week, goldman sachs was down 37% this year. goldman sachs is getting hammered today. i'm not sure what's going on. regional banks are getting hammered. they were supposed to be the winners this year. what's going on? >> we saw improved capitalization the banks are not going to be a problem moving forward. according to the equity market they are becoming a worry. we no longer have a steep yield curve. we have a relatively flat yield curve that squeezes the margin -- the profit margins and banks get on loves. and there also seems to be some mounting concern regarding the underlying quality of the loves that these things have provided. in some cases they are loans to highly leveraged companies. junk bond companies. highly leveraged loan market in some cases a sub prime auto loan, student loan and the l

comments comments of kmarnd hassette the president's remarks aren't the beginning of the truce between president trump and the fed. if sew behind the fierce of selloff markets can cross one f the list. i'm steve lies i mean ofrmgtsven day f the partial government shutdown. the president is doubling down. he said today that he is readyai to it out and the shutdown could impact some of the teconomic datat wall street relies on. ylan mui looks at that part. >> the government shutdown could wlast all theay into the new year. president trump's spoke toak reportering a surprise visit to the troops in iraq where he doubled down on the comments he made cistmas day. he said no money for the border wall, no government spending bill. >> moug do you think the shutdown wl last, mr. president. >> whatever it takes. i mean we'll have aall. we'll have safety. we need safety for ou country. >> this is a partial shutdown. and affects about 2025% of the government. about 800,000 federal workers aren'tch getting a pk right now. and about half of them still have to show up for workanay. on when some of wal

now, maybe these comments by hassett can begin to ease that bit of instability out there, carl >> steveas we keep reminding people, we have eight live meetings for the fed next year is there going to be a press conference after every one we're less than a month away from the january meeting how do you think kind of the fed speak will proceed from here, at least the cadence of it? will we start hearing from lots of policy makers in the next several days >> yeah, we'll hear a good amount you're right to point this out, mike, because i think it's going to create more volatility in the markets. i was a huge fan of the fed doing the press conferences once a quarter. i'm not sure what the fed chairman has to say once a month or once every meeting. the trouble is that now we go in with the volatility of thinking they could hike or not hike at any meeting and so the fed will have to kind of -- i guess the best way to put it is retune its communication strategy for a press conference every meeting and the fact that these meetings will now be considered by markets to be much more live than they w

kevin hassett is with us at the top of the half hour next, u.p.s. david abney joins us after the break this isn't just any moving day. this is moving day with the best in-home wifi experience and millions of wifi hotspots to help you stay connected. and this is moving day with reliable service appointments in a two-hour window so you're up and running in no time. show me decorating shows. this is staying connected with xfinity to make moving... simple. easy. awesome. stay connected while you move with the best wifi experience and two-hour appointment windows. click, call or visit a store today. >>> welcome back to "squawk alley. we're about halfway through the peak shipping season u.p.s. saying it's been smooth so far still expecting to handle a record number of packages through the holidays joining us now exclusively here at post 9, u.p.s. chairman and ceo david abney. so great to have you here. >> glad to be here. >> before we get into peak season and what you're seeing so far, it's another triple-digit day for the dow, up 350 points right now. u.

one day after kevin hassett dispelled rumors jay powell's job was in jeopardy. the red on wall street, there are many opportunities to be found, where you should think about investing. we'll talk about that before this market closes. i have great experts to weigh in. a whole lot more straight ahead but first let me get to this linkedin cofounder reed hoffman, issuing a public apology for donating reportedly up to $750,000 to a group linked to spreading false information in the alabama senate runoff election. reed says, well he claims he wasn't aware the group was tied to a project that used the same tactics used by russia to interfere with the 2016 election. he said quote i have funded a organizations to truth discourse in the united states. i would not have knowingly funded a project using such tactics and refused to interact with any such organization that had such conduct. alabama attorney general looking into whether the it could violate campaign rules. liberal groups quick to denounce all things about russia. i wonder where is the outrage from americans wit

you were there when we were hearing from kevin hassett. what do you make of the statement? kevin: trying to smooth the markets. telling reporters the fed chair is 100% safe in his job. what the administration was blaming the volatility on, he pointed to many reasons like uncertainty in europe and asia markets. i asked what their response was to u.s. companies in the auto blaming the president's trade policies to hold back in the u.s., he said in the long run it will work itself out and the trade policies will benefit u.s. businesses. this comes as the president has dried to shift his tone as the markets have been increasingly volatile. saidweek, steve mnuchin the financial stability oversight commission might be looking into high-frequency traders as a reason why the volatility has occurred. this comes as dave -- day five of the partial government shutdown continues. kevin hassett says it will ultimately be worked out and those on back pay will receive payment. caroline: and a time frame on when this may be ultimately worked out? trump has been digging in his heels. kevin:

report asked him, we've seen these indications that powell's job is safe, here is what kevin hassett is trump not going to fire him. job is 100%hairman not in jeopardy by this president. >> let's say that maybe donald trump is going to back down a little bit. another question is, this self inflicted damage, the president doesn't want the stock market to go almost into a bear market, but the concerns about the impact on the economy, will it cause the fed to pause in their rate hikes? , former president of the fed isk fed said waiting to see if the stock market downturns as well and curbs consumption. decline, markets financial conditions tighten. the fed was raising rates and they were tightening. look at a a quick chart from our bloomberg ivory. it shows just what i said, the screen mounds or when the fed a lot ofpurple line, easing financial conditions are suddenly lying down. we got some tightening, but it could be what the fed wants to arguee, but it may not quite as strongly for the path as the president like to see or is some economists expect it could. downad: so we have to shu

chairman kevin hassett saying the president is happy with the economy going into tend of the year. >> the president thinks that the economy is doing well that the economic fundamentals are sound and i think he's very pleased to see that the markets are moving to sort of where they belong given fundamentals. lauren: follow-through, upside for all three markets on your screen. asian markets mostly higher as well. nikkei, the you lier here, it is down a third of 1% and negative for the first time on a year in 7 years. well, day number 7 of the government shutdown in washington and does not look like it will end before the end of the year, new poll shows more americans blaming president trump for shutdown. we will break it all down for you, outside there's wicked weather, millions of americans hit by blizzard conditions and we will tell you where this storm is heading next. plus, did you look outside, blue skies at night in new york. we have details on what exactly what happened and more of this pretty incredible yet beautiful video. aliens, maybe. all right, deadline day for sears, strug

joining us now is kevin hassett chair of the council of economic advisors.ets. it has been a wild ride in recent weeks and looks like another one this week. what does the president have to say when he had so much to say on the markets all year. we saw so many records and now those gains are gone. is he concerned about what the markets are telling us? >> right, well i think the markets have fluctuated a loot this year. i can tell you what we talk about what it all means. basically what's going on is the u.s. economy is booming. we got data on friday that jacked up our growth estimate for fourth quarter all the way above 3%. we're rocketing along at 3% growth and the markets haven't reflected the good news. if you dig into it the big reason is the chinese economy is in deep trouble. chinese markets are down 30% last i checked. european markets are also having trouble. the european economy is really close to recession. in part because of insertty of brexit. there are uncertainties in europe and asia. u.s. multi-nationals make half their profits outside of the u

most of monday's woes were wiped out after one has economic advisor kevin hassett said powell's job is 100% safe and the president has no intention of firing the chairman of the federal reserve. kevin hassett defended mnuchin decision to question the banks. >> secretary mnuchin is in constant contact with the financial community. he's friends with most of those folks. he himself operated in that space. it's very normal for the treasury secretary to call people up and say hey, how was christmas looking? they have credit card data. how are sales? also do you have problems? >> he told fox business that president is happy with the treasury secretary. retail giving the markets a boost with u.s. sales growing 5.1% this holiday season according to mastercard. it's the biggest increase in six years. you also had a release from amazon stating that they saw an increase in sales for their own products, selling a million eco dots as well as fire sticks. they also said they added tens of millions of new subscribers to prime and people signing up for free trials. on the new york stock exchange floor

started up but as we have so many times dropped in the middle of the day and prior to 10:30, kevin hassette head of the council of economic advisers basically said calm down on powell. he's 100% safe and the market stopped dropping it took about an hour for it to start moving up. i think we saw some selling exhaustion as a result of this can you see we're just off the highs for the day. we noted at the close yesterday and the open today, really i call them stupidly oversold reading. very rarely will you see 89% of the s&p below their 200-day moving average 38% in 52-week lows. usually we're at 15, 16, 17, 13.6 and the dividend yield is higher that's a good piece of news at 3% it's a 3% day right across the day but some of the more beaten up sectors like banks and energy up 3%. tech is up 3% and healthcare is up near 3% if you take a look at some of the subsectors, it's individual stocks and beating up sectors like energy, the high beta names in some of these groups. bank of america, key corp, regent financial, all on the upside, 3%, 4% there eats banks, and if you take a look at the energy

we had kevin hassett saying there are more upside risks.ill looking at 3% growth this year, the best since 2005. >> if we get 3% growth i will be happy but keep in mind economists are lousy forecasters. that's not an idealogical point. doesn't matter what type of administration you have. i think there are significant risks, not only externally, china debt, italian fiscal crisis, but also, trump i think with his trade stuff is really destabilizing the economy, and there's one other thing, although i don't blame trump for it. we have had years and years and years of easy money policy from the fed and i think that's what's creating a lot of volatility in the market right now. susan: so what's your outlook then on economic growth? we're not growing at 3% this year? >> we're doing fine right now. the question is are we in the tail end of a bubble. economists don't have 20/20 foresight. we don't even have 20/20 hindsight. all we can do is recommend policies that will help. i'm very glad for some things trump has done. the corporate tax cut is ver

kevin hassett is white house council of economic advisors chairman. thank you for joining us. >> thanks for having me. melissa: let me start with the wage growth issue because that is one thing that took a while to pick up. >> sure. melissa: we've seen an annualized rate of 4.9%. 3.2, 3.2, 3.7 over the last four months. looking like very positive. the only challenge with that, it could be a harbinger of inflation. do you worry about that? >> oh, in this case know because what is happening is there has been a capital spending surge. capital spending drives up productivity and that drives up wages. something i have to disagree with the previous discussion. we're starting to see this really big positive news today on retail sales and industrial production. what we're seeing wage increases are feeding through into economic activity. atlanta fed gdp went from 2.4% in the fourth quarter to 3% because the big news. the 3% number i think is little low. the idea growth is slowing next year is not super in the data right now. melissa: how do you explain more pe

more important than what kevin hassett says or what mnuchin says is the president and rather than whatnt says, he needs to stop tweeting about the fed, stop tweeting about powell. less tweeting overall would be great. every time the president tweets about the fed it will remind people he's -- obsessed on the federal reserve and that's bad for confidence. >> the president hasn't mentioned firing jay powell and now we're hearing from an economic adviser and we already heard from the treasury secretary that the president doesn't have an intention of firing powell. how much of a risk is there? >> i liked what kevin said and i want to believe it but jimmy is right. there's obviously a volatile president that won't stop tweeting about the fed a lot depends on the underlying economy. trump's response is an obvious reaction to slowing particularly in the global sense and the markets and i think here -- i think the strong american consumer is a bigger deal at least in the near term than many people are recognizing, you played the big retail numbers. in fact, we're a 70% consumption economy, in

at the white house, econom advisor kevin hassett said most likely to receive back-p later, and he playedn the overall effects. >> ithe end, it's not-- it's really just a short-term problem, not a long-teve problem for ment workers. about two-thirds of the national parks are still en, and so the kinds of things, the services that people get out the government aren't really affected very much. >> brangham: hassett also said the jobs of federal reserve chair jerome powell and treasury secrety steve mnuchin are safe. the president has repeatedly criticized powell, and mnuchin has taken fire for his comments this weekend that unsettled the ock market. in afghanistan, the election commission has postponed the presidential election that was set for april. officials gave no new date. they said they need to fix technical problems that marred voting for parliament last october. the delay also comes as attacks from militant groups continue. also today, congo delayedec ons in three cities where a deadly ebola outbreak is centered. the cities are considered opposition strongholds, and the delay will

top trump adviser kevin hassett with nbc's hans nichols. >> is the fed chairman's job safe? >> of course, 100%. >> 100%, the fed chair's job is not in jeopardy by this president? >> absolutely, yes. >> that was a signal that politics wasn't going to take over economic policy and investors liked hearing that. >> reporter: fears of an impending recession eased for today. >> how significant is it? that remains to be seen. when you get this kind of a snapback rally, you wt out if it's going to be confirmed by even more rallies down the road. >> reporter: a new survey of cfos show half believe we will be in a recession by the end of next year, 82% by the end of 2020, kate. >> kristen dahlgren, thank you. >>> as the stock market was rebounding, president trump was making a splash overseas. the president and first lady took their first trip to a combat zone visiting troops in western iraq at the al asad airbase. chief white house correspondent hallie jackson has more. >> reporter: a standing ovation for a milestone two years in the making. president trump personally thanking troops

things, the services that people get e government aren't really affected very much. >> brangham: hassetto said the jobs of federal reserve chair jerome powell and treasury esecretary steve mnuchin safe. the president has repeatedly criticized powell, and mnuchin has taken fire for his comments this weekend that unsettled the stock market. in afghanistan, the election commission has postponed the presidential election that was set for april. officials gave no new date. they said they need to fix technical problems that marred voting for parliament last october. the delay also comes as attacks from militant groups continue. also today, congo delayed elections in three cities where a deadly ebola outbreak is centered. the cities are considered opposition strongholds, and the delay will affect some one million voters.th will now wait until march to cast ballots. the rest of the country votes on sunday. indonesia today raised the confirmed death toll from saturday night's tsunami to 430. and, the government urged people to stay away from the coastlines thatear an erupting volcano. that volcan

this was a somewhat more successful attempt by kevin hassett.he problem with an unpredictable president is you never know what will happen next. with this president, what is he going to say? how is he going to react to the next setback or bit of bad news? he has been sitting in the white house residence watching television and tweeting at enemies and that does not reassure anybody. >> and reacting to what he hears from conservative pundits. always good to talk to you. happy holidays. >>> more more ahead. we'll be right back. >>> more more ahead. we'll be right back. still isn't "to-done". but hey, at least you still have time to get the ford vehicle you've always wanted. just get to the final days of our holiday sales event. see you sometime between now and january 2nd. so you can end your year on a high note. ford. built for the holidays. it's time to get our best offers of the season. makeup now optional. new aveeno® maxglow™ infusion drops with kiwi to lock moisture. and soy to even skin tone. unleash dewy, glowing skin from within. new aveen

kevin hassett who i had not seen before do you wonder why they do not put out to people more often whocommunicators. representing the administration very well and was very clear with the policies and giving americans the cash in the park at that they can go out and shop. we have talking a number of times on the couch and on your show as well about how the administration needs good communicators out in front of what is going on there when you have an administration stock of people not from a political background or communications background, but good ones that you have have them out there all the time. and they get rid of the bad ones that go into trouble all the time. >> i want to ask about this, because just because absolutely right, they are positive thing still happening with the econom economy. and that dow has a pretty substantial drop, just about 25% since september. and still the other areas when you talk about gdp growth, confidence, and unemployment rates, and are we on sound economic footing and are those the things that the administration should be focused on and telling the

hassett says the guys are having a hard time meeting demands. the odds below gdp next year are very small >> yeah. difficult to say i mean we certain lino other measures like corporate profit re-patriation has come down a year or ago tomorrow >> we move into next year's anniversary starting of the benefit of the cut in terms of what you are talking about whether it is repatriation and benefiting in terms of the stock market prices. it has been a long time since we have went up psychological damage this month, carl, i don't know it is a tough one certainly across the board as we end the year, certainly with a liquid markets here it is going to be interesting to see how we do prior to year end and early on >> s&p is down 11% so far this month. thebiggest december drop since 1931 stocks having for their fourth quarter. a lot of damage has been done and big question this week is what the message that the market is telling us about the economy and the outlook. clearly they don't agree with the jay powell who says things are looking okay and we'll con

hassett telling me that the market can handle a shutdown, even if it goes on for several weeks. that is learnly the position of the white house. >>> upcoming trade concerns and negotiations could have a big impact on small business. there is so much on the plate for this administration going forward. the president and ceo for the job creators network alfredo ortiz is with us here in studio. alfredo, thank you for joining us. >> blake, appreciate it. blake: i know you deal with the small business aspect. start with the shutdown since we left there with hillary. >> yeah. blake: this is a big deal for the d.c., virginia, maryland area, if this goes on and on and on what happens there? >> you said it best. it is a big deal for the d.c., virginia, maryland area. outside of that, we got a survey that most americans don't care about the shutdown. many say, when the government is shut down, actually a good thing because things actually get done. our small business owners continue to invest in businesses. optimism is sky-high with small business owners. revenues are good. cash flows are

reporter: absolutely, this was remarks fromevin hassett, who chairs the council of economic advisers. he was asked by reporters at the white house whether federal reserve chairman jay powell is safe in his job and he said absolutely 100%. the concerns about this came from reports in the media in recent days suggesting that president trump s thinking of trying to fire mr. powell for hirole at the fed the roles -- the world's most important central whether president trump tried to fire him will be a question of the independence of the bank, cause it would stoke concerns that the president is trying to intervene. but t this comes ate when president trump had probably -- had probably -- had broadly been interfering in federal reserve policy, raising questions about the way it is conducting its policy on interest rates there was another increase just last week, the fourth this year. president trump is concerned that the federal ress ising interest rates too quickly and that that might have a negative impact on u.s. economic growth. it has been growing pretty ly under his presidency and he

the chairman of the economic council of advisors kevin hassett says he's 100% sure that their jobs are >>> more than a year after disappearing from the public amid sexual misconduct accusations, actor kevin spacey has released a bizarre "house of cards" inspired video drawing parallels between his character and real life. >> despite all the pop coopycoc the headlines and impeachment without a trial, despite everything, despite even my own death i feel surprisingly good. >> in the piece called "let me be frank" spacey channeled frank underwood and is apparently defending himself in the court of public opinion. spacey was dropped from the hit series after the accusations surfaced. he's scheduled to appear in court next month on indecent assault and battery charges. >>> breaking news from the north bay. sky 7 is over an apartment fire in san rafael on larkspur street. we do know the building was evacuated, and the fire was initially reported around 10:40 today. knocked down very quickly by fire crews. they said it was out by 11:03 or the majority was. we learned from fire officials there

hassette has good advice for small investors especially, buy and hold long-term bets on the u.s.y especially has been a pretty good thing. >> any group of stocks in the 1800s that he was referring to, they would be bankrupt. >> a lot of them would have been bought. >> they were bought by someone bigger and better. >> you're old school this morning. >> the lexington train, the station wagon. >> i'm going old school. >> we're going conwood wall street. >> fs investments chief u.s. economist, laura raim is here, government reform committee hem better jody heist and the cyber guy is coming up. our top story, major developments on the u.s., china trade front. china is announcing that chinese and american trade negligence ns will meet in january. bloomburg news reporting that the talks will take place in beijing the week of january 7th. rye torse is reporting that the -- reuters is reporting that the white house is considering a ban on purchases of zte and huawei products. let's bring in herman cain. are we making any headway with china? >> yes, we are making a lot of headway because t

joining us, kevin hassett, white house council of economic advisers chairman.ed. there were a few small revisions but the fact is we are looking almost certainly, we will have a 3% year and that's something people really thought was impossible. don't forget, go back to 2016 gdp growth was only 1.6%. to have another 3% quarter, fourth quarter right now our models have about 3% so we really are in a sustained 3% pace. i was listening to the segment before, sure there's a lot of volatility in financial markets but the economic data continue to even surprise on the upside a little bit. ashley: is it getting a little softer? certainly when we look at the global economy right now, the fear is what's going on, europe on the brink of recession, the slowdown in asia, all of that will wash up on our shore and it's going to drag us down. what are your thoughts there? >> you're right that it's going to drag us down at least a little. but the fact is that our exports to those places aren't exactly raging, because we have all these bad trade deals that we made. so when their

you don't need to be kevin hassett or michael strain to know that. and yet that is not, by and large, how drug prices work in america. if a company lowers its price for a given drug, the drug can actually become less desirable vis-À-vis its competition. obviously, consumers wouldn't look at it that way, but they don't decide which drugs are available and at what cost, that is decided by insurers, employers and pharmacy benefit managers. all of them are paid as a percentage of a drug's list price. if a drug's price drops, many patients will save, but those actually negotiating for the patients make less money. here, we have another example of how the way we finance care is driving up the cost of care itself: the only way we ended up with the huge gap between drug'' list prices and the net prices negotiated is because there is a third party in between the consumer and the product, just as there is in so much of healthcare. ideally, the patient should be at the center of this system. but in many parts of healthcare, we do need to support patients to wor

you don't need to be kevin hassett or michael string to know that and yet, it's not by and large how the drug prices working america. is a company lowers its price for any given drug, the drug could actually become less desirable vis-@-vis, it's competition. obviously consumers would not look at it like this but they don't decide which drugs are available and at what cost which is decided by insurers and employers and pharmacy benefit managers. they are all paid at a percentage of the drugs list price and the drugs price drops, many patients will save but those actually negotiating for the patient's may lose money. here we have another example of how -- for how this is driving up the cost of care itself. the only way we ended up with a huge gap between drugs and list prices and the net prices negotiated is because there's a third party in between the consumer and its product just as there is in so much as the healthcare. ideally the patient should be at the center of the system but in many parts the healthcare needs to support patients with navigators to make the right decisions and

hassett saying, ultimately, these government workers would have received payment, trying to calm some concern. washington, it is entirely run off the industry politics. this does have impacts even beyond federal workers. if you look at the contractors, the government contractors, or even the small businesses that are dependent upon the government employees going to work, all of that becomes very tangible here economically in this region, especially wants lawmakers and their staff, who are not deemed essential, are not able to show a dork. jason: really good work. kevin cirilli, we will be back to you later for a look at trade in the year ahead. for now, let's get a check on the markets. taylor: we are off the lows of the session, which is good news, but clearly still in the red. it is really broad-based. redrussell 2000, all in the as well. interestingly enough, what is not good news is the nasdaq is leading the losses lower. you need to start to see some of these risky sectors, like packing materials starting to outperform. we are not seeing that. we are unwinding a little bit of wha

hassett has some influence.t this morning reassuring investors that jerome powell will not be fired and there is no liquidity crisis at the treasury secretary suggested on sunday, but the president spent a lot of time on the phone with rich friends. about whatever, politics, the economy, what is going on in the world. i would just assume those people are giving him some advice on whether he's got the right people in the right jobs. jason: one of the things the investors do not seem that concerned about at least at the moment is this partial government shutdown, which we are president say on this unannounced visit to iraq is going to keep going as long as he does not get what he wants in terms of border funding. bring us up to speed on the shutdown negotiations, if there are any at this moment. investors areod not concerned about it because there is not much concern in washington either. there is nothing going on today. the president flew to iraq about one hour or two ago. a surprise visit unannounced until he ha

other small businesses like hassett hardware in pa lowlo alto are turning to self- driving technologythe partnerships too and testing vehicles on a manageable scale. >> when you eliminate the human you can allow cars or which ever ever vehicles to be deployed at any time of the day at a much lower price point. >> the self-driving vehicles are delivering to a couple locations at first but if the pilot project works, the companies hope to begin expanding next year. >>> it's 6:57 the boy scouts of america consider filing for banks rupt si. the boy scouts hired a law firm to help with the possible filing of chapter 11. they're dealing with escalating legal costs related to sexual abuse lawsuits and dwindling membership. ld give the boy sc >>> a tampon brand is being pulled because of a defect that the manufacture issued the recall this week. the company received ports that the kotex tampons regular absor ban si were falling apart when they were removed. some women had to get medical attention including few reports of infections and injuries. the boxes affected for manufactured between oct

what kevin hassett did yesterday is what investors want to hear. we will see what happens. >>> other news is the sad story south of the border. the second death of a migrant child. one agent tells cnn, we're not designed to hold all these people. a complete overhaul needs to happen. we're overcrowded and under staffed. no one thinks you lose a life. you give them food and water. if they complain, they flag it. it is sad. >> kirstjen nielsen announcing changes. all children in custody have now received what she called a thorough medical screening and she says going forward, children will get a medical assessment whether or not the adult they are with asks for one. >>> the mother of the 8-year-old guatema guatemalan boy who died in custody is in despair. local groups in el paso are adjusting to the faster pace. 522 people were set to be dropped off last night. the migrants are released through a network of hospitality sites through church connections. >>> the trump administration appealing a judge's order blocking asylum restrictions on the southern

caller: kevin hassett has lost his mind.loyee youal have to come in and you are not getting paid. it's very easy if you work in an administrative office you can sit home and just wait until the government opens and get your back pay in the next couple of weeks. the difference is when you are an essential employee must come in and i will say that i'm more than irritated because i had a vacation that was scheduled that was starting today through january 7 and i have to come in. i had to cancel my vacation. i had no refund on my airline tickets and my family has been their firstr christmas vacation that we earned in 11 years of working for the government. so people think that this is some type of temporary inconvenience. because donald trump has an agenda. these are people's lives and we planned our year for this and now to not have to report to work and not get paid and my kids are home on their holiday break is unacceptable. this president and this congress needs to find a better way to work together because this is they will

hassett, he says it will be 2.5% in the fourth quarter.i'm taking the over on that . i think it can still climb closer to 3%, but we will see. regarding next year, the combination of supply-side growth, capital deepening, better productivity, a lack of inflation, i think that spells very strong possibility of a 3% year or better. so i think the trajectory is moving.and i think we are something that is much more akin to our historical growth right since world war ii, which as you probably know is about 3.5% after inflation. i think that is where we are going. jonathan: one thing that wouldjonathan: help is to sort out the trade situation. what was clear to a lot of people, though, there's things to get done quicker when the president is around the table and in the room. we don't know how many days we have go before the negotiation expires. are you scheduling another bilateral for the president of the u.s. and the president of china? larry: i don't want to get into that just yet. we are working on roadmaps and timetables. i'm sure there will be a lot interaction at the

and kevin hassett was on fox business, and it's 100% saf safe.ou have the fact that there are some concerns, and consumers are heading to the shopping malls and we've seen some really strong numbers. so it depends on where you are reading the numbers and who you are speaking to. >> steven mnuchin, the treasury secretary is getting so much flack for calling the plunge protection team. has that been forgiven on the floor? but they were worried about tha that. he just said, why would they call and create a problem where no one was worried about the liquidity in the financial sector. so you are on vacation with your family on calling the bank ceos, this must be something that we are all missing. they want on the attack against the federal reserve and you don't want that happening, you don't want politics to mix and route the reserve. if you don't want the fed to start swinging their opinion about interest rate hikes just because the markets have been down for the past little while. and it seems like the fed it may slow down. >> you wonder how much of