okay, james freeman, you work at "the wall street journal." tell us what is going on. they always have a tricky relationship, is this unusual? >> james: it's a little unusual that it is this over it. there is a question of how independent are they? they wanted to be insulated from politics. that's part of the design. we should note there track record is not so hot. whether or not they are independent, so i think like all of us, president trump is probably right to be paranoid about the fed screwing up as they have. but i think the fed chairman, jay powell, has a good case for why rates should continue to rise. >> kennedy: they were kept unnaturally low for a long time, which created a "wall street journal." they are looking down the road at inflation. we are not seeing the kind of inflationary caution that jay powell is forecasting. it's not there. >> james: it is good that we are not seeing it. at the federal funds rate, this is the rate that they have, that banks lend to each other. write about at the level of inflation. so in other words, they are paying nothing to b

are these people really as far apart as they seem, james freeman?ht the democrats in the room did not want to say we don't want a wall. we want a an open border, we shouldn't have barriers. you're right, i don't think that is winning position. i felt was interesting, maybe a miscalculation on part of senator schumer he seemed to be thrilled that he got trump to accept responsibility if the government shuts down. i think he is really overrating how much americans would care if, for some brief period, some quote, unquote, non-essential personnel didn't go into their offices in the washington bureaucracy. melissa: i know especially they will get the money later. they get a paid vacation. no it's true. but you see them sort of go back and forth. and now, like one of the big, i know you are, what am i fights that was in there. you're paper, you're glue, whatever. can you actually have the votes on floor of the house in order to pass something in there? you know nancy pelosi kept saying no. president said yes but it doesn't matter because the senate won't

no wonder nobody wants to be in politics, james freeman. >> i think you raise another reason to doubthis story which is even if he was a complete partisan, even if james comey decided it was his job to save the country and the world from donald trump. i think any reasonable human being would wants to know how exposed he was, how thin this sourcing was. who christopher steele was. who was getting the information from. very basic. because especially -- he's a lawyer. at some point you might have to tell the judge where you got this. trish: he's a lawyer and he's pretty well educated. i would think these are common sense questions you would have. doug, one of the things i worry about -- a zillion things go through your head with all of this. but who is to say this christopher steele, who's to say word didn't get out to putin that there is an expert spy compiling a document for the dnc and the hillary clinton campaign, and by the way like it's connected to the fbi. don't forget the guy at fusion gps, his wife was at fusion gps. bruce ohr i'm talking about. there is a chance it could muck

james freeman jointly, foxbusiness do better.mer will begin commitment from utah, foxbusiness contributor. great to have you both here and i will turn to you first, jason. as we look at the vote here on house to give the president $5.7 billion that was my cue in the control room to put that out. there we have 194 votes yea. [inaudible conversations] 43 nathan and we are 96, 86, i can tell. it looks like this will pass. what happened to nancy pelosi? >> it will not even be close. getting over 200 and you will certainly win. the thing that was so infuriating to a lot of conservatives, both on this stuff. we make it way too easy for people to say i would and i would not but make them vote and guess what? the president will prevail by a good decent margin here on this houseboat. lou: this is terrific to watch. we are now taking a look. it looks like it will win. as you say a good margin. what is going on with the namby-pamby nonsense from the rhinos and radical dems talking stuff about votes that they don't have turned out they do ha

james freeman, as we wait for all of this to happen is joining us from "the wall street journal" wheretant editorial page editor. james as we watched ceremony, it will be poignant ceremony in washington, we have a few minutes to talk about the president's legacy which a lot of people have been doing the last couple days. in particular for our audience, we focus on economics, you dos as well. a lot we can get into there with george h.w. bush's legacy and debates. we were talking about trade not only with china but canada and mexico. he was the president who negotiated the nafta agreement at the time t became a huge 1992 campaign issue particularly for ross perot getting involved in that race. >> that's right. president bush was a free trader. we have to thank him for that. other policies more controversial. that is one of his enduring legacyies. all the coverage today, we don't want to go out the way he is in terms of number of people in houston, in maine, all over the world who recall his friendship his loyalty, a special personal qualities and character. >> we would all be so lucky. c

we're back with dan henninger, mary anastasia o'grady and james freeman., first let me ask you a question on a separate issue. bill barr has said he's going to nominate the former attorney general to be his next attorney general. what do you think? >> i think it's a good choice. he was attorney general during george h.w. bush's presidency, sort of repudiating the idea that donald trump doesn't like bush values -- [laughter] because bill barr represents them, integrity, sense of public duty. one of the things you've got to understand about bill barr is he's a great believer in presidential authority. he defended president bush's invasion of panama at the time, can you imagine if donald trump did something hike that? and in the coming year, donald trump, i think, is going to need an attorney general who understands presidential authority. i might add as well that while he was in the torn general's office -- the attorney general's office, he had someone working for him who is now white house counsel. and he has worked for bull barr. the -- bill barr. think th

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 think kevin hassett, you take his optimism seriously because you

james freeman immediately to my left is assistant editor of the "wall street journal" editorial page and the office of the journals best of the west column and newsletter. vern mckinley, to his left, is an attorney, financial analyst, policy analyst and author whose specialty is international central banks, operations in deposit systems and policies. christy ford chapin is an associate best of 20th century u.s. political and economic business history at the university of maryland baltimore county and also a visiting scholar at johns hopkins where she's working on her own book entitled flexible finance, finance capitalism and the evolving culture of risk. finally, gary stern, was present and ceo of the federal reserve bank of minneapolis from march march 1985 all the way through august 2009 which i think is think is some kind of record, isn't it? second-longest. he's also the co-author with ron feldman of too big to fail, the hazards of bank bailouts which was published by the brookings institution in 2004. thanks to all of you for taking part in this discussion today. i'm going to st

over humans, fox business dagen mcdowell, wall street journal assistant editorial page editor james freeman and 32 adviser, economic adviser to president obama robert wolf. >> well, i was expecting to locking with the market big up after futures were better and then the incident, opec, brexit. seems like a whopper of a show. maria: investors are viewing this arrest by the cfo of this telecom company in china as president trump continuing to get tough fighting back on china abuse, how do you see it? >> the world's number one telecom equipment manufacturer, the daughter of the company founder, not sure when expedition request will occur and it's not clear if the president will do anything about it. it is an issue that's been ongoing in terms of chinese telecom companies violating sanctions regime. i'm not sure it's a pattern that telecom equipment from china represent national security threat. dagen: but i think it say that is the united states will not standby if a chinese company or individuals violate sanctions, that we are not going to standby and ignore violations sanctions and our laws

here with me this morning fox news contributor liz peek, assistant editorial page editor james freeman and max funds.com cofounder jonas max, good morning, everybody. >> good morning. lauren: we also have this morning the security's research managing director dan ives, former presidential candidate, herman cain, jody, you don't want to miss a beat. amazing performance by the market. we were hope to go see follow-through, we have the opposite. all this again it is a major averages posted strong across the board gains yesterday. biggest percentage gain since march of 2009, again, dow up over a thousand points, we have never seen that in history. nasdaq and s&p 500 erasing all of their losses from the meltdown that we saw on christmas eve, let's bring in equity strategists director marty, marty, when we saw the huge melt-up yesterday, we were saying is this a turning point for the market or technical balance but appears to be the latter, what do you think? >> well, we have two forces really causing this volatility. one is the fear of recession, a decade past 2008 but it's in everybody's m

joining me to break it down, dagen mcdowell, brian benburg and james freeman.re. maria: goods to see you. >> we're wondering which way china goes here. they're talking about not favoring domestic companies, they're talking about respecting inintellectual property in the. maria: they talked about those things before. just saying. >> it seems like acknowledging problems is the first step. they're further along that step. >> they've never gotten past the first. maria: peter navarro said that acknowledged that they want to fix i.p. they're acknowledging they're stealing the intellectual property. step one. dagen: i was going to say there are three major worries weighing on the market. it is trade, not necessarily the number one. the global economy slowing, weakness in europe, weakness in japan. but also the federal reserve. with r mario dragiy getting ready to say we're going to stop our bond buying program, that's a problem they've been talking about for a year they're going to stop the quantitative easing. the bond buying program will end at the same time -- the

blake: james freeman of "the wall street journal," james, thanks for joining us. appreciate it. again merry christmas. hope you had a good one. >> thanks, blake, you too. blake: the nasdaq still solidly in bear market territory despite the bounceback so far. but is the market really an indicator of our economic strength. to market watcher richard leone and "fbn:am" host lauren simonetti. it is good to be here in new york. they have the lights, the trees. i saw you shaking your head when you talk about the president giving out market advice? >> he seems, he views the stock market as a gauge of his popularity. so when it comes down, the market averages are off 15% in the month of december and you've got the dow and s&p, more so the s&p teetering on bear market in territory and the nasdaq in bear market territory you somewhat have to take credit on the way down too but he is passing blame on to fed chair jay powell. blake: richard, you're somewhat of a bull going forward here? >> i am. looking into the underlying economy in 2019 i think it is very healthy. we can't forget the consu

street journal columnist dan henninger, columnist mary o'grady and assistant editorial page editor james freemane we going to get a trade deal with china or not? is that the reason for the market's volatility? >> i think it is. it's sort of silly that president trump had dinner with xi and came away with everything solved and the administration tried to put a very positive spin on it but we don't have the framework yet. what we have a promise to work on the framework within the next 90 days and there's some other good signals from china. they have a series of government agencies that are basically have announced punishments for companies that steal intellectual property, so, yeah, it may happen but i think that the market understands that this is a long-term process, they will buy more fruits and vegetables. paul: natural gas, a lot of goods. >> many things they were already buying before all of this started but this is a big steep hill to climb and so it's going to take climb. >> i'm glad to hear the market understands that. there's a lot to understand and get your arms around and especially th

lindsey piegza, economist and james freeman, associate editor of "wall street journal" and fox news contributor thanks for having me. charles: when i saw the powell comments last night and 3.1% wage growth number, the market went up my initial interpretation was powell was okay with higher wages for a while as most of the country gets benefit from the recover which and now the bottom has fallen out. what is going on? >> i think the market is confused where the fed stands at one point. at one point they said we're near near neutral and at one point they said no, we're far from neutral. the markets are trying to figure out what they can anticipate from fed policy. you look at the summer of economic projections vast amount of officials talking about three, four, five rate increases next year. the pendulum seems to swung. as we await a december update we may see it closer to one or two increases. >> yet the market is not acting like it at the moment, james. >> china global growth, china trade dispute. people may be overreacting for the huawei news. it is entirely appropriate for united states to en

bring me james freeman. >> here we are.ican dream is about the opportunity to earn happiness and the government has a responsibility to facilitate that marco rubio. >> has a great backstory. the family coming from cuba, working very hard, achieving more than middle class success for their family and i think his ambition is very sound, make sure everyone in america willing to work hard, play by the ruse as everyone always says, actually get ahead. his proposals in the op-ed he posted are interesting. i agree with some of them. making for example, investment totally written off the first year, i think that is a very good idea. with tax policy we're supposed to encourage behavior we want. charles: he says corporate america is benefiting so greatly from the tax cuts, using money to buyback stock. sounds like what we might hear a few times from bernie sanders. james this is something i've been talking about for a while now, this is why i wanted to do this segment. there is a wave of anti-capitalism in this country, particularly

to give their take, "wall street journal's" liz peak and editorial editor james freeman., everything dismissed from day one, not to be believed. they have done it before. there was just a meeting in the politburo in china where they talked about making concessions but it is always dismissed out of hand. >> this is the third in just the last few weeks overture from china, signals i would say their anxiety what is going on with this trade war. their economy is not doing well, this is not good for president xi, who this past year amassed so much power unto himself. this rice thing is interesting. it is the first-every time united states rice will be accepted into china. obviously a country that consumes more than 100 million tons of rice. most people probably don't even know the united states produces rice but we do. we export 3 or 4 million-tons a year. that could be easily be absorbed into china. to your point, really, it is a goodwill gesture coming on heels of lowered tariffs on some 700 items and other things they have done, including a new proposal to end the policy of

bring in the power panel now, james freeman, assistant editor of "the wall street journal" editorial nt bill clinton. both are fox news contributor's. james, i'm going to start with you. do we know when former fbi director, somebody should be politically neutral we would hope, became such a staunch democrat? >> [laughs] a good question. it's especially interesting, given how he seems to have forgotten or not wanted to answer a lot of questions. but he was certain that there was no political bias at work. and he wondered, as i should say, as they phrase investigating the trump presidential campaign or associates of it, i think that is the most unbelievable part of his testimony. that he seems to be unaware and largely uninterested in how this investigation started. which could not be more consequential. the idea that the federal government using its surveillance powers to investigate associates of the opposition party. >> harris: doug schoen? would you say that you -- that this is a man who could recognize bias if he saw it? or is he just a gun for hire in terms of politics? >> harris,

liz peek, james freeman are in the studio.ing to the guys i wouldn't put the government shut down and stock market together as top three. we have some other things on our mind but just another you add to it. >> more uncertainty. people really don't know how long it is going to last. the president came out said, it could be a long time. connell: that's true. >> we heard many people say most of the time shutdowns result in markets going high or for whatever sort of abstract reason. look, i don't think that is a major market concern. i think what we're looking at now, investors putting their books to bed. i was surprised volume is as high as it is. except it's a triple-witching day. i don't think anything will move these markets dramatically. connell: putting their books to bed. saying we're done for the year? >> done for the year. there will a little trading next week, not much. i think people have to come back to the fundamentals. we're worried about the fed. the fed is going to be flexible. i really think this idea that they w

more on president bush joining us now contradict tore james freeman wall street journal editorial page guy it teams so me that left is using -- the passing of president bush to pile on and criticize president trump. kind of using that as an execution i'm not sure i like that. smg there's a pattern now fair enough when -- someone passes away you naturally remember the good things. but there is a pattern of the press kind of using if former republicans to criticize current republicans without mentioning how much they savage the republican previous republican while in office. pane i think while we can certainly talk about president bush's dignified well mannered persona at the time the media cut him in quarter in terms of his bipartisanship, his civility. you weren't reading at the time all about that. you were reading about how supposedly out of touch he was and you see, some of these -- fake news that was recycled in the obituaries that there was a famous moment where he supposedly according to "new york times" didn't understand a supermarket scanner it was meant to say that he was a pr

subject of which is the book "borrowed time: two centuries of booms, busts, and bailouts at citi" by james freemanand vern mckinley. i'd like to begin o

let's bring back in the a-team with us, jessica tarlov and james freeman and morgan ortagus.information that we're getting from catherine herridge and your reaction. >> loretta lynch hearing. i understand why democrats are frustrated to bring her back. >> julie: the last interview. >> the last time they'll have accountability on this matter. republicans continue to have frustration about every step along the way of these investigations last year how the f.b.i. conducted themselves with hillary clinton versus how they've conducted themselves with donald trump are just two mon mentally different things. all the text messages that have been revealed. all the communications where we have found consistent bias against the trump administration and campaign. is there one thing that was close to the same sort of bias? nothing that i found. >> we haven't seen everybody's text messages. we've looked into this over and over again which is frankly why there were more democrats that showed up for the loretta lynch questioning than republicans yesterday. both sides admitted there was no ne

thursday morning joining my to break it down fox business network dagen mcdowell, wall street journal james freemanpeople saying earnings are up markets down let's take a look at some individual stocks, because storks pretty darn cheap. >> i like that analogy, that way to put it fed -- >> that is what it was yesterday. >> to your point, you see dollar weakening a little, maybe servers are not quietly sure whether it was hawkish or dovish -- all of the the messages we got yesterday, but we've two months here to talk about government spending i know talking about the border wall hope they talk about restraining government spending has it gotten into rescuings on budget? >> looking for -- >> very good. [laughter] >> free pass, because of the weakness in treasury yields buying of treasurys, government one thing we haven't mentioned yet the possibility that president trump vetoes whatever spending bill, gets passed out of the senate, and up next the house because he said after that omnibus spending bill did not fund his border wall funded border fencing did not restrain spending ons sanctuary cities he

come on in, fox news contradict tore james freeman wall street journal editorial kind of guy.he president is do you think that president is pushing fed into a corner? where they have to raise rates to show that they're independent? >> no, no. i think there are -- and sometimes we criticized tweets but i can hardly criticize that one right, look, the fed has every justification based on their own strategy and or a articulated policy tholed off now. because you look at what they've said they're going to be data dependent and you have moderate inflation you have a bizarre phenomenon where eve asset class is down with stocks around world bonds currency, commodities so the -- rises plus a half trillion of cash they've pulled out of the economy by shrinking their balance sheet, they have a lot of data to support a position that they could hold off for a moment. >> so you're saying they should not raise rates. no, no justification for it at this point that's you're saying? >> i think you could say ideally inflation ought to be sister but they have a very good case that doesn't requir

james freeman here wall street journal editorial board kind of guy both sides of digging in, the democratstand say hey you can get 1.6 billion and that's it. and president says we're building the wall. >> yeah i think he's in a pretty good position to negotiate here as you said they've already offered 1.6 billion so they've conceded the principle that a wall ought to be built, of course, he's got all of the old clips on youtube showing all of them saying let's build a wall. we ought to have border security. we also have this recent history where when head-to-head it, with immigration related shutdown fight with chuck schumer last winter it didn't last very long. the schumer shotdown ended monday midday after starting friday evening. so that's not a real strong shutdown. >> but are the democrats laying out their policy the president confrontation, in your face, and we're not going to do a deal on immigration are they laying out that kind of groundwork for future? >> i think it is an interesting test in resistance mode or just focused on impeachment for whatever, fill in the blank on what th

let's bring in james freeman, assistant editor of the "wall street journal" he will toler page and athe president would only answer questions over my dead body. and, quote: i'm not dead yet. so he is not answering any more questions from these people that seems to settle that. >> yeah. i think rudy is using some colorful language as he likes to do. he is making a fair point here. the president has already answered in writing questions about the russia collusion theory. which was what this investigation was created for and what it was about. i think mr. giuliani based on media leaks reasonably concludes what the mueller investigation has turned into is an effort to describe the president's lawful exercise of his constitutional authority as some kind of obstruction of justice. >> rick: so it become something completely different than what it was originally intended to be. >> yeah, absolutely. this fence now, again, this is according to what's been reported. maybe not true. but based on what we know, the effort is to say that when president trump said as president obama had about hillar

freeman who had defied death multiple times over the years, it seemed like the moment might finally be arriving. friend and former secretary of state james a baker the third arrived at his houston home on friday morning to check on him. mr. bush suddenly grew alert, his eyes wide open. where are we going to come he asked? we are going to heaven, said mr. baker. that's where i want to go said mr. bush. later, mr. bush was dead. the former president died in his home in a gated community in houston surrounded by several runs, members of his family, doctors, and a minister. at the end neared on friday night, his son george w. bush, the president was put on the speakerphone to say goodbye and told them he had been a wonderful dad and that he loved him. i love you too, mr. bush told his son. and those were his final words. that's from mr. baker in the new york times. we didwe get to calls, learn quite a bit of information yesterday about the plans for this national day of mourning and for the funeral in washington. he will lie in state at the u.s. capitol. given the american public an opportunity to bid farewell to the 41st president and then