andrew johnson and bill clinton, the president sent scathing letter to house speaker nancy pelosi writing, quote, you are the ones interfering in america's elections, you are the ones obstructing justice, you are the ones bringing pain and suffering to our republic for your own selfish, political and partisan gain. if the impeachment goes through math heads to senate where mitch mcconnell and chuck schumer are sparring already. >> after 12 weeks it will be dumped on us in the senate. >> what is leader mcconnell afraid of? what is president trump afraid of, the truth. >> house democrats still have the opportunity to do the right thing for the country. >> the american people want the true. >> the house can turn back from a cliff and not deploy this constitutional last resort.

>> grand tradition in america, speedy and fair trials, we want both. the leaders seems obsessed with speedy and wants to throw fair out the window. maria: joining the conversation from new york fox business dagen mcdowell this morning, the wall street journal senior writer jon hilsenrath here in dc and fox news con -- contributor byron y. the letter that the president sent to speaker pelosi says it all, i've got it in front of me and goes through both articles and pokes hoes. if you were looking for wrongdoing you would look at the top of the fbi in 2016. dagen: "the new york times" with the media on the democrats' trying to blow hot air in this impeachment balloon, headlines in new york times, trump

belittles impeachment as attempted coup on eve of vote, that was on "the new york times" website this morning, but, again, it's the president belittling an impeachment process where they think it's legitimate, i will add this, 28 to 31 democrats are in favor of impeachment, ron in wisconsin is expected to move to yes column in -- for impeachment, so nancy pelosi has gotten all of these democrats who won in trump districts on her side. i think it was a rues to begin with. >> we know jeff vandrew is voting against it and democrat from new jersey, he's going switch from the democratic party to republican party, byron and basically saying i'm not believing any of this, there's nothing to this impeachment and

we are not getting anything done to the american people. >> i think dagen is right, there was this -- this period in which they also said they were thinking about it, they weren't quite sure, designed to make them thoughtful, nonpartisan and make this look like a more rashal process, as far as the president's letter is concern, the striking thing it's about, it's unusual for the president to express himself that way and donald trump is unusual president, he throws them back at them, this is nothing, he says nothing about democrats that they haven't said about him in this process. maria: i also think that the president wants to get it on record what's going on right here as piece of history to put everything down on paper in terms of what we have just seen. jon: maria, while we are talking about this i'm looking at the screen with green arrows on it,

what it tells me people in washington feel strongly on both sides of the issue and make passionate arguments, on wall street, in fact, for a lot of people out there, you know, elsewhere in the country, this kind of more washington behaving as it always does and they are moving on with their lives and going about their business and the economy is doing pretty well. you know, the deeper washington gets into, the more looks like a side show. maria: it does, the president writes in the letter, before the impeachment hoax it was the russian witch hunt, you claim that my campaign colluded with russians, lie, the bottom line is, at some point people say enough of this constant hyperventilating about the issues for years on end and getting nothing done? >> you know, the whole thing is strange to me bus on the one

hand everybody is hyperventilating and on the other hand everybody is rushing to get this over with. they were serious about this, they would be taking time and listening to all the witnesses. maria: they want to get it done as fast as possible. jon: chow it be a serious issue if everybody wants to rush through the issue, democrats and republicans, get it done before the holidays. >> the lewinsky scandal broke in '98. the house voted to impeach clinton just about right now in 1999. maria: almost a year. >> independent fact-finder, a special counsel who did the investigation for most of the time and delivered a report. dagen: senator chuck schumer's that witnesses be called in senate trial is admission that

nancy pelosi, adam schiff and nadler didn't do a good job, they didn't go to the court to the presidency and executive branch to get witnesses on the record because they knew it was lose. jon: why aren't courts involved in settling, particularly the supreme court, do people in the administration have to testify as congress ask or do they not as the white house demands. i don't understand how you can have a trial before the court -- maria: adam schiff said that, you know, you can't give your time to anybody else which is not normal in these, they get 5 minutes and then, you know, he said, he is changing the rules as he goes along. dagen: narrative is that they

need to hurry up with this because president trump is going to meddle in the 2020 election. as wall street journal editorial page has pointed out, there's no constitutional right or clause that gives congress the ability for preemptive action about what a president might do. maria: but they've already meddled in the election, this is what outrageous me, we've seen med until the election from the top of the fbi in 2016 where they tried to take down donald trump, they got fisa wants to fire tap on american citizen and they kept the fisa warrants going and kept wiretapping carter page throughout the president's term, they didn't stop until october of -- they started in '16, they went all the way up to october or november '17. that's crimson sitting president, it's outrageous.

>> this is another way of her trying -- >> which is based on nothing. >> after what dagen said this is in democratic terms a preemptive impeachment but they only came up with that argument recently, to begin, if you remember, nancy pelosi why are we rushing, because you to strike while the iron is hot. maria: because they know they can't win on 2020 based on what's on the stage, they want to get ahead of the american people vote. jon: right, the election shouldn't be dictating a legal process, if this is a legal process and fair legal process it should run its own course and the supreme court should have a say if there's a fundamental disagreement between congress and the white house about who testifies and who doesn't. maria: of course, we will steve can jean scalia and i want to get his take on the supreme court as well, he was spot on earlier, jon, talking about the

economy and what's going on in markets, let's take a look at markets, all major averages closed at record territory, record highs, the dow finishing up 31 points, s&p up 1 point and nasdaq up 9, all good enough to put us at all-time highs, investors are getting worried about fedex, shipping giant lowered second -- lower than expected second quarter results and lowering 2020 guidance, changing shipping habits and competition of amazon being blamed for the slump, big move on the stock and you wonder what it tells us about other companies in broad environment. >> right, under some circumstances you can look at this as troubling news for the global economy if there's less shipping going on, it shows, it's a sign that the global economy is slowing down, i think that's not completely what's going on in the case of fedex,

fedex has some company specific issues, one it's dealing amazon as a customer and another has been struggling to compete against ups and another is that the whole nature of shipping is changing and more happening in warehouses instead of global shipments from point to point, more warehousing going on and looks like fedex is having operational execution issues and that's one of -- and they also have some labor cost issues, an those are all affecting it, so is this a sign that the global economy is grind to go a halt, no, i don't think so. dagen: i want to quickly add something that i saw yesterday, factory production in the month of november rebounded strongly, house -- housing is up and exceeds the number of unemployed people in this country by 1.4 million, those are just 3

pieces of news that here there and everywhere in this country that the economy is strong. >> by the way, everyone is talk about how we are not getting anything done in washington, no, there's one thing that they are getting done, spending a lot of money, democrats and republicans both agree to spend a lot of money, that's priming the pump -- maria: voted on spending bill yesterday but also importantly they are expected to vote on usmca tomorrow. this -- yesterday apparently going to add to economy growth story in 2020. i spoke with u.s. trade representative robert lighthizer about support for the agreement and what this means for the broad economic growth story, watch this. >> over the course of 2 years we finally got the negotiation done in about a year and last year we spent at trying to find a way to get through congress. i think we have, we have the first trade agreement in a long, long time that has support of almost every business group,

almost every agriculture group, labor groups, democrats and republicans so where we are -- maria: he has made sure to stay atypical, he did not want to -- apolitical, rather, he did not want to come across as one side he's been working with nancy pelosi, lighthizer working with unions but this is big victory for the president to actually get this tone. >> this is a bizarre situation where you have wednesday the house impeaches the president and thursday enacts his top agenda priority. i mean, this is absolutely bizarre and i think not in terms -- when you look at the market, doing so well, it's kind of an indicater that the market doesn't believe anything of this is going to amount to anything, clearly if we were facing the prospect of the president being removed it would have some effect and look what is happening. maria: what i'm talking about

today, how will this hamper the president's policy, let's say it dies in the senate, what happens then in terms of the president's agenda? jon: in the middle of the process they're getting usmca deal done and they are doing it in a very labor-friendly way, maybe you can argue that it strengthened in the hands of democrats as well but washington is doing business, especially spend money. dagen: the democrats sat on usmca and didn't move on it for a year because they were waiting for moment to impeach the president, it's political, they should have done it a year ago. maria: all right, let's take a break, we are just getting started this morning in washington, also on deck house minority steve scalise, navarro and eugene scalia.

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third largest in series of settlements on damage claim, approved $11 billion of settlement that paid fire damages, let's take a look at shares, 50 billion dollar merger, company announcing preliminary plans for this deal 6 weeks ago, the new company will be the world's fourth biggest automaker behind volkswagen, toyota and nissan renault. no word of the new name for the new company yet, maria, though. maria: all right, lauren, thank you, we will take a short break, when we come back jobs back, we have the numbers coming up and the impact, going away from the holidays, las vegas among top christmas celebrations this year, what is number 1, you ask, we have the answer, stay with

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we created bionic and put the word out with godaddy. what will you change? make the world you want. maria: welcome back, well, president trump is poise today sign $1.4 trillion spending bill that the house approved yesterday avoiding government shutdown, money for border and election security, pay raise for federal employees an repeals several healthcare taxes, joining us right now committee for responsible federal budget president, mayaa, great to see you, thanks so much for joining us, love to have you as you raise the alarm and raise the red flags when we see overspending which is all we have been seeing for last couple of years. >> i would like to raise the alarm on this one, this is a really irresponsible bill and there's so much going on that even the lawmakers i don't think are fully paying attention to the fact that this is a bill

that first a number of months ago we raised the spending cap significantly just to get the bill passed and throwing in a whole will the of tax cuts none of them paid for, all of them going to increase national debt to tune of half a trillion dollars, this is the way things are working in washington now, nobody wants to make choices and pay for things, both sides only get along when they are each giving each other irresponsible deals and left with massively growing national debt. maria: where is the answer? you have one side saying we will not give you any more money for defense in the military even with the threat that is we face today and the other say, well, okay, i will roll over and say, i will put more money towards other things if you give me the money for defense? >> right, neither side wants to do the hard thing, we should have passed a clean budget bill, 3 months into the new fiscal year, we have been running the country without a real budget

which most leaders would not be able to keep their job if they weren't able to do that. maria: that's right. >> they should have passed a clean bill, kept within spending levels, not add unrelated things to that. don't hide them in christmas tree legislation that nobody has even read yet. jon: maya, isn't the market giving a free pass with long-term interest rates below 2%, a lot of people argue, you don't have to worry about all the government. >> the market is an enabler here. we have the benefit of low interest rates, not necessarily for god reasons and some reasons they -- maria: rock bottom low rates. >> you want to get your fiscal house in order when your economy is growing, right now the

biggest deficit. >> isn't this also structured to happen when there's no time to have a real serious debate, even if we weren't impeaching trying would be trying -- nobody want o have the debate then, isn't this time at a time where nobody seriously talks about it. >> last-minute situations, that's when bad decisions are made and what we need and we need on a lot of issues is a bigger strategic plan and what are our national priorities and how do we want to fund them, we are funding a lot of things that don't make sense and neglecting to find -- >> this is what i wanted to ask you about.

there's two different kinds of spending, you can spend on christmas, total waste, if you spend on something that's investing for the future. what's in this spending, is it bad spending or good spending? >> this is discretionary portion of the budget. ignore it is two-thirds of the budget that's on automatic pilot, nothing on social security, farm, veterans, all those issues, these are the bills appropriated each year, there's a lot of investment in this part of the budget, there's a lot of outdated spending that doesn't get enough scrutiny, because the bills are passed not one appreciation at a time like they are supposed to be but in two big sort of all of them wrapped together and, in fact, last year the president said i will never sign a bill like, put everything together, some of it, of course, is good, lots of things in spending bill make sense, we should be willing to pay for and others we should be willing to pull back and cut but there's a constituency for every piece of spending in the federal government and those lobbyists

and those people who benefit from that or the tax cuts fight much harder than those who are saying we can't borrow indefinitely and not borrow to prosperity and we are going to get in trouble trying to do that. maria: go ahead, dagen. dagen: the lawmakers in washington treat the defense department as if they have a credit card with no limit on it and i point to the washington post expose on the war of afghanistan, there was one anecdote in there that said that people on the ground, a subcontractor was expected to spend $3 million daily in an area of afghanistan in a district that's the size of a county in the united states, there is no accountability for the money being spent overseas and you would think president trump would be able to rein this in and control given the fact that he ran on getting out of these wars. >> yeah, accountability is really the name of the game here

and there's just not enough scrutiny in all parts of the budget, $4 trillion enterprise and less time checking out and figuring out how they are working, and so i think we would really benefit from spending much more time evaluating the effectiveness of our existing programs to the point of defense department, the defense department can't even pass its own audit so we don't mow where the money is going, and i think the bigger issues in our national security, we are paying for a lot of priorities that are really decades old priorities instead of looking to what the big national threats and where we need to be the most worried. we have a lot of entrenched interest where our budget is focused on things that are not really the future risks of the nation but they are very big industries which have a lot -- maria: isn't it true that the defense industry, the military is just coming back from massive, you know, starvation from sequestration, this is just

coming back. >> the sequester put huge down and busting through caps and spending more in those areas, the other point i would make, i don't think we are shifting where we should be spending so it's both how much we spend and accountability oversight question. maria: should the president get a second term and he were to look at pulling back in terms of entitlement, what would be your best advise in terms of getting our house in order? >> we need to focus on entitlement spending, the biggest threats are aging of the population and, show up social security, medicare and medicaid. we owe it to the american people to fix those programs and deal with big entitlement program. jon: i think what is really going on in terms of the last budget, these folks are just priming the pump to keep the economy going in 2020 because

they want to get through an election year on both sides. >> i grow, arm's race to see who can give away more things, here huge tax cuts, here is huge spending inyeahs, nobody is going to pay for any of them, this is about politics and not policy and that's why our budget no longer makes cohesive sense. jon: when do we see 2 trillion-dollar annual deficit. >> if we hit a recession we could hit 2 trillion-dollar budget deficit sooner than anybody would have anticipated. the highest debt of this country other than just after world war ii and we just fought a world war, right now our stroy is strong. maria: maya, gate to have you. capitalism versus socialism, new fox new poll shows that capitalism is on top despite socialism's recent popularity. alexa stop the madness, featuring avoid an argument on christmas, back in a minute.

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♪ music maria: welcome back, good wednesday morning, everybody, thank you so much for joining us, i'm maria bartiromo, coming to you live from washington, d.c. this morning, wednesday december 18th, your top stories right now, 6:34 a.m. on the east coast, historic day on capitol hill this morning, the house set to vote today on impeachment of president donald trump after the president sends blistering letter to house speaker nancy pelosi saying democrats are declaring open war on american democracy, full coverage this morning right here live. futures showing markets seeking all-time highs, we are in unchartered territory once again, s&p and nasdaq futures up fractionally after record day yesterday, closing at all-time highs, fresh new unchartered territory with the dow 28,267.

s&p up 3192 and nasdaq at 8823. big numbers there, it was the fourth straight day of records for s&p and nasdaq by the way, global markets this morning look like this, fears of a no-deal brexit impacting european markets so ftse 100 is up 20 points and cac quarante in paris is up 8 points and dax index is negative, down 23 right now. in asia overnight markets are mostly lower except for hong kong which closed with slight gain, fractional moves across the board there. top story this half an hour, impeachment vote, the house ready to debate two articles of impeachment against president trump ahead of a vote later today, president trump writing a letter to speaker nancy pelosi in it writing this, your legacy will be that of turning the house of representatives from a revered legislative body into a star chamber of partisan prosecution, i have no doubt the american people will hold you and the democrats fully responsible in upcoming 2020 election, they will not soon

forgive your abuse of power, speaker pelosi dismissed the letter while speaking to reporters as she walked the halls, watch. >> your reaction on the president's letter. no reaction? >> no i haven't really read it, we've been working. maria: democratic strategist kelly grace gibson and kelly, good to have you this morning. should she have read it before she said it was ridiculous? >> i think she was briefed on the top lines and he delivered 6-page letter not reviewed by senior staff and lawyers on its face is ridiculous thing, perhaps that's what she was referencing, we are bringing articles of impeachment, she probably read it by now but saying it's ridiculous is a fair assessment. maria: i feel like the reason he

wrote this letter so that it's on the record and all the issues are on the table in terms of his own legacy. >> well, you know, i'm a little surprised you say it wasn't reviewed by senior staffers, i got the sense that it was actually written by some of the senior staffers. maria: how do you know -- >> his attorneys are on the record this morning that it wasn't run by legal so i suppose when i say senior staff it wasn't a fully vetted presidential document which would be what you think would happen -- maria: i'm holding it right now. i don't understand what you're saying. >> his attorneys didn't look at it. >> the impeachment polls have really not moved for 2 months and these are the 2 months in which democrats were making their case often times on national television across the board, why do you think that is? >> i saw a poll yesterday about women moved 11 points and men 3. there has been movement and democrats have been battling, they believe it's constitutional duty, they took an oath to the

constitution and this president in fact, did obstruct congress in these proceedings and so they were up against the wall, they had to -- they had to move forward with articles of impeachment. in terms of approval i think the democrats are willing to take the risk, nancy pelosi was asked in an interview she would feel if the impeachment cost election and she responded that it's her obligation as the peaker to move forward. >> why move so fast, we haven't heard from central characters in this whole thing which ironically the white house is complaining about but they're not making them available, but seems like the courts ought to have something to say about whether, you know, people like mick mulvaney have anything to say about this, why are democrats moving so fast, why not move slower? >> there was some level of how do we move forward with that and, yes, the courts is an option, the second thing is we are discussing involvement in a

foreign, foreign entity in our elections, we have another election around the corner so i think the democrats are moving forward because we went to prevent interference in 2020. dagen: that's not a constitutional power granted to congress to take preemptive action against something that might happen that the president might do leading up to the 2020 election, number 1. and the first abuse of power item is the 2 articles of impeachment, talks about a threat to national security despite the fact that the aid was paid to ukraine and even if the aid not not been paid to ukraine some $400 million that would have reverted back to what president obama did in terms of support of ukraine so how do you even argue that that's a threat to national security? >> well, i think for the first thing that it's not the duty of the congress to prevent something, i think that this is something prevention, this is reaction to 2016.

dagen: that's not what you said. >> right, there's a congress and responding to something significant and they took an oath to defend the constitution and that was -- maria: but had nothing to do with trump. we know that from the mueller report and we know that from the 3 years of exhaustion that the country has been through with the constant focus on collusion that was based on nothing, i mean, russia has meddled, has been med until the west business for decades. so it has nothing to do with trump. >> well, the conversation with the president of ukraine, in fact, the second piece of how it was not abuse of prior, i mean, this is what we have been going back and forth and back and forth. maria: the president writes in his letter president zelensky said i did nothing wrong, no pressure, i don't feel pressure and nobody pushed me. >> the president of ukraine depends completely on this country's support. maria: you're saying he's lying.

>> i'm saying that it would be unprecedented that he spoke out against a president of the united states. >> the constitutional issues for congress demanding witnesses and the white house saying they can't testify or the possibility, the hypothetical possibility of something happening in 2020 election, i mean, shouldn't these basic constitutional issues take priority? >> well, yeah, that's the second article, obstruction of congress. jon: right. maria: the president writes about that one. >> we have 3 equal branches of government, right, they are supposed to be 3 equal and the executive branch and the president is leading to ignore by telling congress that he will not comply with the investigation about abuse of power, right, that is a clear violation of the way our government was established. maria: this is what professor

turley said in the hearing, i can't emphasize this enough, if you make a high crime and misdemeanor, you are doing exactly what you're criticizing the president for doing. >> there were 3 constitutional attorneys at the hearing saying this is clearly this was impeachment made for, a president that had inappropriate conversation leaning on a president of a foreign country for his own benefit and not complying with the congress. maria: the democrats know that they can't beat trump in 2020 -- >> no. maria: you look at the stage and have socialism all over it. capitalism and socialism, fox news poll show that is capitalism is winning the race, socialists were gaining ground, 6 points in registered voter since february, capitalism favorability remained steady, i think nancy pelosi looks at the stage, looks at bernie sanders, elizabeth warren's policies and

say we are not going to beat this guy and let's take him out and get ahead of america's people vote. >> we are in the early process of picking a nominee. we still have the -- the caucus is on february, a huge amount of time before we pick nominee. i think that senator sanders and senator warren are putting forward policies that are more democratic socialistic than before. and pete buttigieg is surging in -- maria: he's not moderate, kelly. >> the democratic stage will be more left than donald trump's administration, so but there's space and how they think and would approach policies. not yet, but i think he will. he's running a lot of ads. >> what do you make of this

weird situation with the democrats are impeaching the president on one day and passing his top priority the next day? what was that? >> i think they are doing their jobs and holding the oath -- maria: they've been doing this impeachment for the last month, they've gotten nothing done. they've gotten nothing done. congress has passed 400 bills an all been held up in the senate, we just passed bipartisan budget and i think what the democrats have been saying, fight them where we have to and work with them where we can and that's exactly what they are doing, fighting them where they have to and work with them where they can. maria: i don't think the american people see it that way. >> that's why we have elections. maria: kelly, good to have you. good debate, all the issues that americans are talk about today. >> absolutely. maria: kelly grace gibson joining us, bringing jobs back, ford making massive investment to detroit auto plans, numbers

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from britain. president xi to announce economic policies as prodemocracy protests rage on in hong kong, blaming security concerns for canceling the popular new year's fireworks display, first time in ten years, the fireworks won't happen. tourists and officials plan to go welcome the new year with a multimedia light show instead. some good news here at home, ford is adding more than 3,000 jobs at two factories in detroit over the next 3 years, ford says it's investing $1.45 billion in building new pickups and suv's and hiring expected to begin next year. if you're plan to go travel for the holidays, you might want to check the list on where to go twice, the best place to spend hanukkah and christmas is atlanta, georgia, the city is filled with holiday fun and much cheaper than the other big

destinations, orlando, florida ranked second, new york city rounding out the top 3, i think this is why atlanta got it, maria, they have a loft christmas tree farms and churches as well plus the cost of living is cheaper. maria: okay, there you go. me too. christmas tree farms make sense, first time i heard that before, thank you, lauren. all right, coming up too many people in the house home for the holidays can bring on the arguments. maria: yeah, but then there's amazon alexa, alexa can put an end to holiday disputes, we will check it out when we come back, stay with us.

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maria: welcome back now here is what's making buzz this morning, google impeachment, see what happens, you will likely be pushed to a mike al bloomberg campaign ad, you google the word impeachment and you get a michael bloomberg ad, for more that's been the top search results, presidential hopeful was able to make that happen but purchasing ad linked to the search to have word impeachment. that's pretty good. >> actually -- maria: pretty good strategy. >> if you look anything in the web you see michael bloomberg ad, what's interesting is it's working a little bit, if you look at the national polls he's now, 3, 4, 5% from 0 and there are other candidates who have been campaigning the whole way and they haven't gotten that. maria: dagen, that's basically confirms that skeptics say that

he's trying to buy the election. dagen: yeah, money doesn't buy likability as a person. [laughter] dagen: he needs to do a jerk cleans for at least 30 to 60 days, when he gets on the campaign trail we will see another version of michael bloomberg, well, the digital version, it's lovely. maria: the digital version is what he's going with, you said it during the commercial break he wants to win this on the air? >> he wants to win an air, you tell me, can you win a nomination without having an organization -- >> everybody thinks donald trump did it in the completely unorthodox way and they can too and we will see if that happens. maria: exactly, you can turn to alexa now to rescue you from christmas arguments, amazon has added feature to smart devises that let's users trigger a

distraction, you can just say alexa change the subject and she will pose a question to spark a new debate, like what would your super power be and why and is die hard a christmas movie? [laughter] >> what do you think? >> maybe, we will have to put an alexa right in the middle of dinner table. >> no spy ware in my house, i'm sorry. maria: i'm the same, dagen, you will have the spy ware around to change subjects? dagen: no but it has been decided die hard is one of the best christmas movies of all time. maria: and die hard. all right, we will take a break, when we come back house minority whip steve scalise live in washington ahead of impeachment, stay right here

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maria: welcome back. our top story this hour, an historic house vote today. we're live on capitol hill this morning where in two hours the process will begin to impeach president trump. the house will convene at 9:00 a.m. eastern this morning with the final vote expected to take place this evening. president trump sent a letter to nancy pelosi last night ahead of the vote, reading in part, no intelligent person believes what you're saying. history will judge you harshly as you proceed with this impeachment charade. pelosi slammed the letter as, quote, sick. >> your reaction to the letter? >> no reaction. >> you have no reaction? why not? >> i haven't really fully read it. we've been working. i've seen the essence of it, though, and it's really sick. maria: it all comes almost 21 years to the day of the president clinton's impeachment in 1998. joining me now is louisiana

congressman, stev steve scalise. it's always a pleasure to see you. >> wish it was under different circumstanceses. maria: tell me your reaction to what's taking place. tell me how this takes place in the house. >> i read the president's letter. he documents so many of the things that are wrong about what speaker pelosi is doing. every other impeachment, they all started with a crime, a specific crime. andrew johnson, bill clinton, richard nixon, all had a crime. there's been no crime. it's been an impeachment in search of a crime. they thought the mueller investigate was going to be it. it didn't produce anything. they kept going because it's a personal vendetta against the president, it has nothing to do with anything he the wrong. they don't like the fact he got elected in 2016 and they're scared to death he will get reelected. that's not why you impeach a president. maria: you've seen the impeachment calls for two and-a-half years now. >> the drum beat before he got

election, we have democrats voting on impeachment who said they were going to impeach the president. not because he didn't anything wrong. just because they didn't like him personally. i documented over 100 democrats already voted to impeach president trump for various things, prior to the phone call with president zelensky. it's not about the phone call, never been about quid pro quo or anything because all of their own witnesses testified the president didn't do anything wrong. they were asked under oath, can you name a law that he's broken, can you name any bribe rery. not a -- bribery. not a single thing. it wasn't about something he did wrong. it was because they wanted to apiece the radical left base and they're doing it today. they voted to impeach him because he criticized nfl players for not standing for the pledge of allegiance. they voted on record over a year ago for that. maria: do you expect any republicans to vote for impeachment. >> no. maria: not even in the senate?

>> no. i think there will be democrats who vote against impeachment. it will be the first time in our country where impeachment was a partisan vote, the only vote will be against impeachment today. maria: i know there are two at least that we know of, jeff van drew and collin peterson who will vote no. are there any others, democrats who you know of. >> there are others who expressed strong concerns with what speaker pelosi is doing. they've threatened all of them in their primaries. aoc, pelosi, they threatened if somebody votes against impeachment they'll run a democrat against 24e7 them in tr primary. i think this will be a stain on nancy pelosi's legacy as speaker because of the way they've done it in such a partisan way, breaking the rules of the house. rules of the house require a minority day of hear so you can present the other side. they didn't allow that. when the committee doesn't have the jurisdiction, it's a house rule and that broke that because they want to ram it through. maria: let's talk about the

things you are getting done. the house approved a $1.4 trillion spending bill to avert a government shutdown. you've got the usmca vote tomorrow, setting the stage for president trump to both get impeached and granted a legislative victory within two days on usmca. what can you say about the spending bill in terms of this really run-away spending that we've seen. >> there were two different bills yesterday, i voted for the bill that funds defense and homeland security. there was another bill i opposed. this is one of the many things that screes i congress is not gg done because of impeachment. we would have lowered drug prices. we talked about usmca for months. it should have been signed into law six month ago but then you't impeachment. there are things we can do to get our deficit under control. it has to do with ma mandatory spending.

states can run the medicaid program better and have more flexibility, it would save over $800 billion. that's serious savings. you get better healthcare outcomes for low income people. that's one reform we could work on together that speaker pelosi refuses to work on on because of this obsession with impeachment. maria: she said the he other day when usmca first got to her desk it was a nonstarter. she said she changed everything and the democrats really brought it to a place where it could pass. >> no. i mean, look, president trump negotiated a better trade deal with mexico and with canada. maria: he's been working on this for a year. this is a campaign promise. >> he's been working on this since the beginning of the presidency. people thought he was going to get out of na out of and-a-half. this will be a big win for workers across this country. the fact that speaker pelosi waited almost a year to get this thing done, it means over 160,000 jobs that our economy

would already have an higher wages for american workers, haven't happened yet because they delayed because of impeachment. president trump's the one who renegotiated this while they were criticizing and threatening to impeach him. the great thing about this president, he doesn't let this get to him. sure, we shouldn't be here, we shouldn't be doing this. but the president's continued to do his job, fighting for the people of this country and i think that's what they hate the most is that the president's following through on the things he ran on. maria: so what would be your priorities for 2020 in terms of legislative moves? what do you want to he see get done if in fact we do see this impeachment fail in the senate? >> right. and it will and so then let's move on and focus on real things we can get done. we can fix many big problems in healthcare if the speaker were to work with the president to lower drug prices. again, there was a bill that came out of committee, unanimously, bringing generics to the market quicker, reforms at the fda. maria: she won't work with the president. al green the other day said if

it doesn't work this time we'll keep trying to impeach him. >> he said you don't need a an impeachable offense to impeach a president. they've been infa -- they shoule he focused on hard working families the president is fightinfor.we could have real br security. we could get spending under control. the plans are out there to get spending under control. speaker pelosi has never want todd astress this problem. so on all these fronts, if they don't address these next year, there will be major issues in the presidential campaign and more reasons why president trump will get reelected and get the house back. mariai've.maria: i've got the e summary from the ig report. at the same time, there's no addressing whatsoever on nancy pelosi's team or the democrats of what took place in 2016. i mean, former fbi lawyer lisa page went on another network last night, speaking out on more controversial texts with peter strzok. strzok sent page a text t

reading this i want to believe the t path you threw out that there's no way he gets elected. we can't take the risk. it's like an insurance policy. page defended the text last night on msnbc. watch this. >> if president trump doesn't become president, the national security risk, if there is somebody in his campaign associated with russia, plummets. you're not so worried about what russia's doing if he's not president because you won't have access to classified information and source and methods in our national security apparatus. the insurance policy was an analogy, it's like an insurance policy when you're 40. you don't expect to die when you're 40 yet you still have an insurance policy. >> don't just hope he's not going to be elected and therefore not press forward with the investigation hoping, but rather press forward with the investigation in case he gets in there. >> exactly. maria: if the really believed e

was somebody on candidate trump's campaign that was colluding with russia, why didn't they tell president trump. >> she ought to be ashamed for trying to undermine an election that millions of people p participated in, president trump was dually elected. they didn't want him to win. the foreign policy she is advocating for failed. russia tried to interfere with our election when barack obama and joe biden were in the white house. president trump is trying to root it out. even on the zelensky phone call. he said our countries' been through a lot because of the interference in the 2016 he'll ex which he wants to stop from happening. it happened on barack obama and joe biden's watch. they didn't a allow ukraine to stand up to russia. they didn't sell the javelin missiles to bust the tank, president trump did. i don't know whose side she's on. i think people ought to go to jail for the abuses of the fisa

process. what they did, trying to undermine the election -- if you read the definition of coup, trying to reverse the results of a dually elected president. maria: there was exculpatory evidence they didn't give to the court. there were transcripts of conversations where the people they were spying on were saying things like that's treason, that transcript wasn't given to the fisa court. there was anil tearing of documents. i -- ani an altering of docum. >> changing the meaning of documents. maria: saying we're going to look at procedures. you don't need a procedure to tell somebody you're not allowed toal a tea alter a document. >> if you break the law, you don't change the law. you put that person in jail for breaking the law. fisa court is critical for our national securities. it's controversial. they exposed where you need more guardrails in place. it's an important program they undermined by abusing it.

those people ought to go to jail. maria: the other thing, what took place before the official start of the fbi counter-intelligence investigation which the fbi claims was in july of 2016 and yet we know that there were inform p plants, people like -- informants, people like alexander downer and joseph mifsud who were running into people like george pop p done p, members of the campaign. >> comey said steele was a minor part of what they used when he knows better, he knows that was a major part, literally using the opposition research from a political party for the basis for trying to take out a president of the united states because you don't agree with his policies which by the way his policies are working. look at his foreign policy compared to barack obama's. under obama, you had literally rushing running over eastern europe, china continuing to cheat against american companies, north korea testing ballistic missiles, all the this under obama's watch.

boy, that was great foreign policy they want to stop. whose side are they on. maria: they didn't tell the fisa courts that hillary clinton and the democrats paid for the steele dossier. >> they paid for it. maria: she invited foreign interest in, she paid for it. >> she encouraged it. she literally was trying to stir it up. she talks about running for president. i hope she gets into the race. it shows you why are they trying to impeach the president. there's no crime. he didn't do anything wrong. it's because they're scared to death had he'll get reelected because their field is so weak, you've got more people talking about getting in than there are candidates leading the pack. maria: do you think voters will react in terms of the house? do you think you'll take back the majority in november. >> a lot of democrats will vote today to i' l impeach a presidet based on hatred and fear. they're going to pay a price for it. they can't explain the vote they're going to cast today. a lot of them might be one of the last votes they cast.

maria: leave it there. hey, go tigers. >> how about that. what a great year for louisiana sports. maria: coming up, assistant to the president for trade and manufacturing, peter navarro is here to talk about the usmca here. and eugene skalia is here. and mark morgan is here on the border wall provisions in the new budge he et agreement. also with us this morning, ted cruz on the senate's plan of after today's house impeachment vote, what happens when impeachment gets to the senate. we'll talk about that. coming up, ge's boeing problem, how the company's cash flow affected by the 737 max grounding is going to be impacted. and do your homework, broiled in the college admissions scandal, actress lori loughlin prodded her daughters to pick up their grades in high school. we'll be back in a minute.

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maria: welcome back. a disturbing new trend gripping american teenagers. lauren simonetti on headlines now. lauren. lauren: hi, maria. marijuana vaping among young americans is on the rise, according to two reports from the journal of american medical association. the percentage of 12th graders who reported vaping in the last 30 days doubled to 14% this year, right behind the rise of nicotine vaping. vapeing related illnesses have been reported in 50 states, 52 deaths on record. boeing's decision to suspend production of the 737 max jet could cause a major snag for general electric. the wall street journal reports the company which makes the engines for the plane could take a significant financial hit. boeing's decision to cut monthly production of that plane by nearly 20%, that already reduced quarterly cash flow by $400 million and the paper says

that number could sharply increase if production is delayed for an extended period. hit the books, that was the message lori loughlin reportedly sent to her daughters while they were in high school. new court documents claim the actress told her daughters to pick up their grades while also allegedly working with the man behind the college admissions scandal. lough lyn. carter page wiretap. judge napolitano weighs in on that coming up. google under pressure, another ex-employee says the company fired them unfairly. why they said the tech giant did this ahead, coming up. ♪ such a lovely place. ♪ such a lovely place. ♪ such a lovely face.

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mariamaria: welcome back. a rare public rebuke from the fisa court, slamming the fbi. the fisa court judge called the fbi's actions anti-ethical to the heightened duty of candor expected of government agents after the inspector general's report highlighted significant errors and omissions made in applications for the surveillance of page. page joined me last thursday to discuss being spied on. >> you were spied on for more than a year. they had to keep renewing the application and jim comey signed that application three times. andrew mccabe signed another application for you.

sally yates signed an application and rod rosenstein signed the application to re-up the surveillance on you. >> it's so terrible, maria. there's so much -- again, it's terrific that i sometimes didn't agree with the new york but even on the front time they called it a disturbing peek at u.s. surveillance and i think we heard that from both sides of the aisle yesterday. i think a realization of what a serious problem this is for our country, for our u.s. intelligence community, and for really a problematic in a judiciary committee context, our u.s. court systems, a major problem. maria: joining me right now is fox news senior judicial analyst, judge andrew napolitano. good morning to you. >> good morning. you know, because we talked about this so much, maria, i've been railing against fisa since it first came out in 1978. because it is profoundly unconstitutional. the interview that you had with carter page is one fisa

surveillance. that is a series of surveillance of one person. fisa's done this over 40,000 times. the court meets in secret. there's no one there to challenge it. unless you are part of some entity that's going to cause an investigation like this, you don't even know that you were being surveilled. maria: judge, judge, you're blaming -- >> -- corruption. maria: you're blaming the fisa court instead of what the fbi did. the fbi had exculpatory evidence they didn't give to the fisa court. it was the fbi who needed to give the exculpatory evidence to the fisa court and they needed to tell the fisa judges that hillary clinton paid for the steele dossier which was, quote, an essential part of the entire surveillance justification. >> the reason they didn't do that was probably the animous towards donald trump, it was also their belief because it was secret, there is no lawyer to challenge what they're doing, it will never be exposed. this is the only fisa

investigation that's ever been made public and it's rife with violations and the target was the future president of the united states. this is a court that grants 99.97% of all applications. when jim comey says it's difficult to get a fisa application, i would profoundly challenge that. fisa gives out search warrants like candy and fbi agents know that. maria: i couldn't believe he said that in the interview, saying it's incredibly difficult to get a wa warrant from the fia court. 99.5% is what the judge said. >> last year we had legal experts, former prosecutors, that sort of thing, that they knew everything was done by the book on this because fisa warrants are incredibly difficult to get and the fbi would never, ever present any evidence that it had not fully crocorroborated. there was a rejection of what devin nunes was saying at the time as conspiracy theories.

how did everybody get it so wrong? >> because it's all in secret. when i signed a search warrant when i was sitting on the bench in new jersey and it produced evidence and it was used against the defendant, the defendant's lawyers got to find out what the agents told me that induced me to sign the search warrant. that doesn't happen with fisa. until this carter page incident, whatever federal officers went to fisa rested in the confidence that they could get away with whatever they wanted because it would never been exposed. now it's exposed. now you see the outrage of the judges who have been duped by this. now we know that comey and company signed these applications much less without reading them and they didn't even question the data behind them. dagen: maria, let's point this out. this is not just incompetence in the fbi. it is corruption. >> absolutely. dagen: starting at the very top. the wall street journal points

this out today. the fisa court is saying it was deceived by the fbi and we need accountability. the people who abuse this process need to pay for that. and as you were on the case from moment one, we would not even know about these abuses without you and he devi devin nunes. maria: he came out with the nunes memo in march of 2018. everything in that memo was right and that's why i had him on and john ratcliffe on every sunday beginning at the end of '17, every sunday on sunday morning futures many we did original reporting. that's how i was so sure there was corruption at the top and they actually tried to frame donald trump and i'm proud of that and i'm proud of this program and sunday morning futures for sticking to it even when the whole media landscape with the exception of a couple, like kim strassel, that op ed she wrote was great. where is the accountability?

sasai isfisa is blaming fbi. fbi is blaming fisa. >> one lawyer added "not" to a document. that tuned the rest of the fbi he pe perpetrated a fraud on the fbi and the court they that employed him. maria: there were crimes committed not just because he put that altering of of a document but there were crimes committed against a sitting president because they kept the surveillance a all the way through '17 during the president's first year. >> yes. maria: i would push back on that. i think there's going to be real accountability when john durham's investigation findings come out. >> go back to the comey interview with chris wallace. he took responsibility for nothing. maria: nothing. >> he said i'm guilty of having too much respect. maria: yeah, right. >> -- for the fisa process. that was it. he's not going to admit anything. maria: he's not going to admit anything. when john durham's report comes

out and they zero in on what took place before july of 2016, the fbi including jim comey keeps saying we started this investigation in july of '16. not true. there was joseph mifsud, informants running into campaign people earl-- >> some say the horowitz report is a good report with the beginning of crossfire hurricane. we don't find in the report what happened before that. maria: michael mccasey made a good point this weekend. the horowitz report said there was no political bias, right. look at those checks between lisa page and peter truce where lisa page says holy e oh, my god, ted cruz is out of the race, that means it's trump versus hillary. and peter strzok says there's more pressure on us to end the mid year exam, the hillary

clinton investigation. i ask what doe -- >> the point is to stop donald trump. maria: that's political bias. >> that's what the insurance policy is about. >> the prediction from durham he's going to reveal that the surveillance began in june of 2015. what happened in june of 2015? donald trump announced his candidacy for president. maria: that's right. in the ig report which kim extras eestrassel pointed out, g report it sense glen simpson was hired in may by -- i'm sorry christopher steele was hired by glen simpson in may of '16 to look at com collusion between tp and russia. it's there in black and white in the ig report. dagen: that's what i was going to point out, maria. glen simpson didn't talk to the

inspector general but christopher steele in the inspector general report says that he was told that it was about -- that it wasn't a vague reference to why he was hired. glen simpson told congress -- glen simpson did not talk to the ig but he told congress something different and those reasons for the reason he was hired, it was all about donald trump's -- investigating donald trump based on what christopher steele had said. that's not what glen simpson told congress. so i who is lying. maria: the lie started in may of '16. i think the judge is right, it started at the end of 2015. this is an a incredible story. obviously we'll keep following it. thank you. we will take a break. when we come back, a lot more right here live from washington. stay with us. investment opportunities firsthand, like biotech. because your investments deserve the full story.

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maria: welcome back a. good wednesday morning. thanks so much for joining us.

i'm maria bartiromo, coming to you live from washington, d.c. your top stories right now, 7:3. ahead of today's house impeachment vote, futures are rallying this morning. seeking out all-time highs once again. dow futures up 19 points, s&p futures and nasdaq futures higher fractionally, on top of another record day yesterday. yesterday the dow, nasdaq and s&p 500 called at all-time fresh new highs, unchartered territories. the s&p was at 3192, nasdaq at 8823. it was the fourth straight day of records for the s&p and nasdaq yesterday. he global markets this morning look like this, it is a mixed story. there are fears of a no deal brexit impacting european markets. the fq100 is up 12 points, the dax in germany is lower by 33. the record run on wall street did not continue in asia overnight. markets were mostly lower with the exception of hong kong which was up just a fraction as you see. it was fractional moves across

the board. the stock to watch is fed ex, this may impact other companies because it is somewhat of an economic indicator. the stock right now is down 7 and-a-half percent after fed ex cut its profit forecast and earnings missed expectations on fed ex. our top story this half hour, usmca on track for a vote tomorrow. the legislation clearing the house ways and means committee yesterday with the full vote set for tomorrow. here's what robert lighthizer told me when he joined me right here. >> over the course of two years, we got the negotiation done in a year and the last year we spent trying to find a way to get through congress. i think we have the first trade agreement in a long, long time that has support of almost every business group, almost every agriculture group, labor groups, democrats and republicans. so we're real excited about where we are. maria: joining me right now is assistant to the president for trade and manufacturing policy, peter navarro. great to see you. >> welcome to the swamp.

maria: you've been working a long time on usmca, you and bob lighthizer and your colleagues. how important is this? what is the impact to economic growth in the next couple years? >> i've got a lot riding on my streak here. i predicted 30,000 on the dow if usmca got passed and we got lower interest rates. so both of those things are going to be in place. i'm thinking 30,000, maybe in january sometime. so let's get it. maria: the market continues rallying then. >> here's the thing. as you and i both know, the stock market is a leadin leading indicator of the economy. president trump has built the strongest economy in modern history, putting in place all of trade deals that this president had has put -- let's think about this now. we have a japan deal, sout south korea deal, a canada deal, mexico deal and china deal. that's well over half of all trade that we deal in and every one of those deals are growth inducing and when this economy grows, the stock market goes up and that's exactly what's

happening right now. maria: is india next? >> yeah, we're engaged with india. the problem -- i like to joke, india's the maharajao tariffs. they have the highest tariffs in the world of large country. it's ridiculous. maria: that's funny. >> the president is a big fan of the reciprocal trade act which would allow this country to basically charge higher tariff ifs a country won't lower theirs. 90% of the time, 90% of the time india charges us higher tariffs than we charge them. yeah, we've got to get india to belly up to that bar and lower their tariffs and make nice with trade. maria: how far away is a deal with the u.k. and europe? what do you think about the eu and whether or not we're going to see increased tariffs on cars coming into the u.s.? >> with the eu, with the u.k., get my letters right here, we

would have had a deal already with the u.k. if brexit had been solved. that's the only thing holding us up. the nice thing about the u.k. is our economies are very similar. it's easy to do trade deals between similar economies. we're ready to go. so let bojo do his thing and then let bob lighthizer and the president do their thing. the president and bob lighthizer have shown they know how to do a trade deal fast. maria: what kind of impact to gdp are you expecting usmca to have? >> the conservative estimate by the international trade commission was about a point over time. that's going to unroll over time. i think it's going to be much more. the bigger impact for me with usmca is the rebuilding of our auto industry as a global hub of auto manufacturing. that's with the regional content, local content you rules. that's 75,000 jobs,

conservatively estimated. so president trump is like a jobs machine. everything he does, everything he thinks about every day is how to create good paying jobs for people in this country who work with their hands of. he's turned the republican party into the party of the working class. maria: china trade, there are no concerns about agricultural buys due to targets set up to $50 billion, that level more than double peak sales from before the trade impasse. here's what bob lighthizer told me about the phase one trade deal had that you just did. >> is this agreement going to solve all the problems between the united states and china? for sure it will not. but it has real, real structural change. it's not just about purchases. it is really important that people understand that. this has real protection on ip, real protection against tech transfer, financial services opening, currency provisions. there are agricultural barrier

eliminations and then there are these purchases. maria: lot of things there. let's go through the ag purchases. you talked about $200 billion in ag purchases over the next two years. >> let me do the numbers for you. it's $200 billion over four categories. agriculture, services, manufacturing, and energy. okay. maria: yeah. >> and it's $200 billion over the 2017 benchmark over two years. so it's about roughly $100 billion incremental a year. that's roughly doubling what we buy now. okay. so in terms of the ag, that's 40 to 50 billion. china's having a real problem agriculturally. they're going to need american farmers to feed their people, particularly with pork and other things that are going on there. so there's going to be plenty demand for china if china unleashes it as they promised to

do we'll sell them energy, manufactured goods and services. maria: when you were talking early stages of a china deal, the wall street traders were speculating that the whole point was for the u.s. to sell china energy. don't get your energy from russia. >> sure. but let's understand that the purchases are here, right, that's a really great thing for america but we've also got a deal that addresses structural issues on intellectual property, counterfeiting, forced technology transfer. the best part of the deal for me, based on historical understanding of china, is a strict enforcement mechanism. we basically have a 90 day clock in which ambassador lighthizer can register a complaint and if it's not settled adequately to our satisfaction, proportionate penalties can be imposed without china retaliating. maria: you've got a snapback. >> i don't like to call it a

snapback. that assumes there's something in place that we got rid of and we're snapping back to. the point is, if they steal our intellectual property, keep flooding us with counterfeits, if they fort technology transfer and we find them do it, ambassador lighthizer have the authority and the chinese have given it to him to take proportionate penalties. maria: it's not against the law in china, right? what about the cyber rules that basically say we give up encryption keys, that we won't be able to protect intellectual property. >> it's against the agreement. maria: it's not against the law in china. >> if they want to steel stealf from each other -- maria: stealing from american businesses, i'm talking about. if you find out they break promises, snapback tariffs are in place. >> the enforcement mechanism is put in place not just for phase one but for the whole agreement. phase two, phase three, the enforcement mechanism basically is what makes this work. maria: is this the new set of

narrow set of rules to limit the technology transfer and the exports to china? is that what's happening here? there's a now narrow set of exports expected to china? >> i don't understand the question. maria: in other words, is there new rules coming on that the administration is putting to maybe narrow the amount of exports going to china to limit the amount of theft? >> oh, well, there's -- look, there's separate export controls that we've had in place since tiananmen square. those remain in place. but, look, this agreement broadly construed begins what is a long march, if i may use their term, towards structural reform of the chinese economy. and it's a great deal for america. the big picture here as we go into 2020 is president trump has put in place deregulation, tax cuts, an amazing number of trade deals, any one of which would have been an achievement for a

single presidency and a he's got like five of them on the table. it's amazing. maria: 450er we ar here we aree day that the democrats want to impeach them. >> impeachment jackals in heat, that's what i think of when i think of the democrats. maria: peter navarro. we'll be right back magenta! cartridges are so... (buzzer) (vo) the epson ecotank. no more cartridges. it comes with an incredible amount of ink that can save you a lot of frustration. ♪ the epson ecotank. just fill and chill. available at...

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maria: welcome back. u.s. retailers looking for record sales on the last weekend before christmas. lauren simonetti with the details now. lauren: it's here, super saturday shaping up to be the biggest shopping day of the

year, while there's less time this year between thanksgiving and christmas, six fewer days so folks are getting nervous as the clock ticks. one estimate says americans could spend $34 billion on saturday alone, that's online and in-store together. spending's getting a boost from steady price, stores are open longer ahead of santa claus' arrival. katherine spier said she was interrogated, then fired after alerting other google employees about workers rights and protections. she says during questioning she was asked if she intended to disrupt the workplace. google has been under intense scrutiny following a number of worker complaints that has been filed with the national labor relations board. jetblue wants to calm fliers fls this holiday season. >> now, go ahead, lean back, put your feet up and relax to some of the calming sounds of

the airport. lauren: you heard that right. most of us may think of an airport as anything but calming, jetblue disagrees. this video has nine minutes of low keyboarding announcements, some set to sounds like foot steps, rolling luggage and crowds. what's called autonomous sensory meridian response is meant to convey a pleasurable sensation. i felt like i was getting hypnotized by that recording, but i guess that's how jetblue is trying to make us calmer and happier, especially this holiday season. maria: every time i want to go to sleep, give to the a airport, of course. lauren: yeah, first thing i think of. let's get to jfk. maria: thanks, lauren. quick break and then returns made easy, one company streamlines the process for the nation's largest retailers, that's coming up next. stay with us. back in a minute. ♪ i'll make sure it will last

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side, in the store fronts, the operations centers to streamline the process and reduce waste and we help them determine the best channel to send them to, whether it's their own stores, online channels or to secondary markets, recyclers or charities. and we use day a take from the whole net -- data from the whole network from how much it costs to process returns, versus how much you get from the different categories and data from each customer returning the good, figuring out why they're returning it. >> how has online shopping changed the whole economics of returning? do you see more of it? is it changing the way retailers and others deal with it? >> online shopping is increasing returns behavior. the returns rate online is triple what it is at brick and mortar stores. online is the main growth driver in retail. the overal overall returns has n growing quite a bit. >> as a consumer, do i have

more opportunities to get good deals if more stuff is being purchased and returned and ending up in a secondhand? >> there's definitely a growth in secondhand purchasing culture. some of it might be because there are more returns and more goods available. the other is, i think a little bit of a cultural shift. as you see millennials and gen-zers willing to buy more goods. maria: you're predicting $100 million in returned goods. >> that's $7 billion more than there were of last year. we're seeing higher online sales this holiday season and that will result in more returns. >> return rates, do they differ for different kinds of goods, if you buy clothing or if you bilek ton ex or something else -- buy electronics or something else? do companies do different things if the items are returned? >> e-commerce is about 20 to 30%

return rate versus in-stores where it's just under 10%. if you look at fashion specifically, return rates are as high as 30 to 50% in the fashion industry. maria: big numbers there. thank you. good to see you. tobin moore. we'll be right back. >> thanket you. so you only pay for what you need. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ dimitri's on it. eating right? on it! getting those steps in? on it! dimitri thinks he's doing all he can to manage his type 2 diabetes and heart disease, but is his treatment doing enough to lower his heart risk? [sfx: glasses clanking.] sorry. maybe not. jardiance is the number 1 prescribed pill in its class. jardiance can reduce the risk of cardiovascular death for adults who also have known heart disease. that means jardiance can help save your life from a heart attack or stroke. plus, jardiance lowers a1c

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♪ everything your trip needs for everyone you love. expedia. maria: welcome back, history being made in washington, i'm maria bartiromo, here in our nation's capital today, house to vote on articles of impeachment. blake, good morning to you. >> in third time in american history, 22 years of the last occurrence, the house of representatives expected to impeach the president of the united states, that vote expect to be later this evening probably dinner time around the east coast, the process is about to get underway here in washington starting next hour. on the eve of this historic vote

the house speaker nancy pelosi sent letter to democratic colleagues writing the following of the articles of impeachment, quote, very sadly the facts have been made clear that the president abused power for his own personal political benefit and that he obstructed congress as he demanded that he's above accountability, above the constitution and above the american people, earlier in the day yesterday president trump fired off his own scathing letter to pelosi saying more due process were given to witch trials and democrats obstructing justice by going forward with impeachment and then it got personal. the president writing of the house speaker at one point, quote, even worse than offending the founding fathers, you are offending americans by faith by continuing saying i pray for the president when you know the statement is not true unless it's meant in a negative sense. during an oval office meeting yesterday with guatemala's

president president trump asked if he takes any responsibility for the impeachment vote that he's staring down? >> no. i don't take any, zero, to put it mildly, they took a perfect phone call that i had with the president of ukraine, an absolutely perfect, you know it, they all know it, nothing was said wrong in the call to impeach the president of the united states for that is a disgrace and it's a mark on our country. blake: maria, when you like at the timing, the process gets urnway next hour, that full vote later this evening and then comes a senate trial after that likely at least the thinking is to kick off 2020, though, when you look at the dynamics of the senate that senate trial will go absolutely nowhere at least be a complete 180 from what we are seeing in the house as it relates to the rest of the day, maria, as the impeachment vote is taking place later this evening, president trump is scheduled to be out on the

campaign trail for a speech in michigan 7:00 o'clock tonight, that should be something to watch. maria: blake berman at the white house. latest job's report shows 266,000 nonfarm jobs added to the economy in the month of november, that smashed expectations, unemployment rate dropped back down to 3.5% around a 50-year low, joining me in first national television interview since taking office is the new labor secretary eugene scalia. thank you so much for joining us, characterize the job's market for us as you get fit to take on this role and look at the skills gap, look at how to create more jobs, how do you characterize things? >> historic, when you look at overall unemployment rate 3, .5%, a number not heard in our lifetimes, lowest in 50 years

and you look at various other particular populations of americans for african americans, lowest unemployment ever recorded, for hispanics, so just terrific when you look at unemployment numbers and wages, wages are rising, it's just an extraordinary economy. maria: how do you keep going? >> that's the challenge. when i talk to business leaders, i meat with ceo's of very large corporations, i met the week before with some business leaders in michigan, they hear the same thing, they say our biggest problem right now, one or two biggest problems is finding the workers and so i think one of the principals task that is i have and the president is too is helping train workers and supply the workers that american businesses need to keep this going, it's been a real focus on apprenticeships as way

to get people with skills. maria: skills gap is definitely one of the big issues, let's talk usmca this morning, we are expecting the vote sending it to the senate for passage following a likely impeachment trial in january, i spoke with u.s. trade representative robert lighthizer, here is what he said about usmca, i want your reaction. >> i think we will bring back -- bring back or create 80,000 jobs directly and indirectly in the auto industry, 25 to $30 billion of new investment. maria: that's a lot of investment and -- and a lot of jobs, what do you think the job creation numbers are around usmca and when that materialize? >> obviously we need congress to act, you mentioned impeachments and one of the frustrations is it slowed down in the house, moving the really important business of usmca, we are now there, ready to move forward and we expect once it's passed by

the senate that we will see some quick results, when you look at the auto sector alone, we are hoping to see 60,000 jobs in that sector overall, we could see as many as 500 jobs or more added to the economy, maria, one thing i want to emphasize about usmca, it's a trade deal and this is something the president ran on and what he was focused on from the start was the labor issues, what it meant for american jobs and what it meant for american workers who right now are competing with workers in méxico who don't have employment rights, it was important to level the playing field. maria: talk about wages for a second because one of the enforcement mechanisms in usmcs just -- usmca is making sure the vehicle is made in america and $16 an hour, an auto worker,

union worker make tag -- $25 an hour in some cases. >> it's a big improvement than what you see in méxico, that's 3 times what's typically paid in méxico factories, this is a big boost that will make american companies a lot more competitive and it's one to have reasons we anticipate those big gains of 76,000 jobs just in the auto sector. maria: you've talked about deregulation being a key factor in terms of the job's growth that we have seen and the economic growth that we have seen, explain why. >> yeah, i think it's important to remember we are seeing unprecedented economic environment, there's cause of it, the tax cuts that the president ran on and put in place, also deregulation, i was in the private sector until recently, came in the job in october and before that i was a lawyer working on regulatory issues, very focused on the regulatory state and when the president announced in january

of 2017 that he was going to require agencies to take two rules off the books for every new one they added i said at the time that could be the biggest change in our regulatory landscape since the reagan administration who put in cost benefit analysis, we are seeing the results of that. the president has been vowed in to regulatory reform from day one and it's no surprise that we are now seeing this vibrant economy. maria: that dictates behavior, a couple of years ago jamie dimon wanted to invest in detroit but it would takes 3 years to build the bridge they were going to invest in and get the whatever into where he he wanted it, 13 years, i will not put my capital at risk in 13 years, that's kind of the red tape that was cut down? >> exactly, that kind of change, i was in a meeting with the president and elaine chao where they talk about infrastructure issues and shorten timetables. maria: let me ask you about the moment in time we are in, you have a vote on impeaching the

president today as the son of a former supreme court justice, one of the greatest of all time, antonin scalia, how do you see what's taking place and tell me about the state of the supreme court. >> on impeachment, briefly on that, i -- big surprise to me there is sure son of a justice but somebody who is court for a long time is how small an unimportant it seems right now, impeachment is meant to be a very serious step, a feeling i think here and certainly outside of town that it's not a serious exercise right now. you know, that is sad. maria: the it's sad, politics, like any old thing. third time it has ever happened. >> look, even less likely to go anywhere here than in other circumstances, they feel they must, but, yeah, from a perspective of the constitution and what the framers had in

mind, it's disappointing that it feels trivial and small. maria: it does feel trivial. what happens in senate trial in your view? do you think that witnesses should be called? how do you think that plays out? >> you know, the senate leadership and the white house will have to determine exactly how that goes and -- and to get us past this in a sensible way and on to the american of the american people including usmca. maria: secretary we will be watching your efforts in the labor market. >> pleasure to be here. maria: u.s. customs and border protection acting commission mark morgan, he will weigh on border funding, texas senator ted cruz exclusively ahead of impeachment vote. host of varney & company stuart varney. stock is lower this morning, down almost 8% after cutting

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it's the "you are my diamond" event. exclusively at zales, the diamond store. maria pap welcome back, we are watching shares of fedex down almost 8% after fedex cut 2020 profit forecast, gerri willis in new york stocks exchange looking at details. >> company blame manager culprits, shortened holiday season, bad weather, fewer packages being shipped globally but at the heart of the trouble, major changes to delivery business instituted by their one-time key customer now key rival amazon. we have no fewer than 4 major

banks here cutting price tactors including jpmorgan chase, bad news for fedex and bad news for the markets really. ford shares to pose lower this morning after announcing they will add 3,000 jobs in metro detroit, they are going to open higher, they will build new pickups, suv's, autonomous vehicles, broncos, 35 million in tax incentives to do this, the average annual wage will be $61,000 a year hiring start next year, tesla to cutting and that will allow them to reduce costs, maria, back to you. maria: gerri, thank you so much,

i wonder, jon hilsenrath, dagen, i know you have a feeling about this as well, if fedex is having problems, does that indicate slowdown in terms of international shipping, indicater of the economy. >> there might be some of that and people look at fedex as bellwether but in this case fedex's problems are specific to fedex and industry that it's in, a lot of things going on, one is big knowledge in call that they have some execution issues as the whole nature of shipping changes, you know, there's just a lot more online shipping that's coming out of warehouses and they're not prepared for that, they face competition from amazon itself which has cut contracts and also from ups, so i think in this case you look at the, boy, it's down more than 7%, it's not telling us that the economy is way down, look at the dow which is up again today, you know, we are heading towards the

end of the year, it's time to start thinking about 2020. i think we are setting up for a pretty good year, it's not going to be gang buster 3% years but the 11th year of an expansion and more records for employment in stocks. maria: yeah. >> the presidential campaign and democrats have been -- how long have they been predicting a recession? [laughter] maria: you're right. i forgot about this, we are talking about a recession being on the horizon. >> and joe biden is trying to adjust his campaign to the good economic news by saying, you know, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck, it's about a sense of dignity. they are trying to come up with an appeal that will work just in case the economy is doing really well. maria: that's really funny, that's a really good point because the other contenders are not touching the economy, they don't want to touch unemployment story that's 50-year low, let's continue the conversation after the short break, we we have a

border funding battle to discuss, allocating money for the border wall, acts u.s. customs and border commissioner mark morgan and historic day in dc, we are live this morning on capitol hill, less than one hour the house will begin impeachment process against president trump, exclusively with senator ted cruz, stay with us

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he knows exactly where we're going. my whole body is a compass. oh boy... the my account app makes today's xfinity customer service simple, easy, awesome. not my thing. maria: welcome back, the country is watching capitol hill today and the house reconvening in half an hour from now to begin process to impeach president

trump, do you think the hours of debate will sway public opinion? this is the question we are all asking and byron, where do you think about where this is going today, we had steve scalise and congressman said to us it will come to fruition to us around dinner time maybe 6:00 o'clock. >> will debates sway public opinions, no, it stayed static and democrats were making case for impeaching the president, if you look at the numbers they bounced around in 4 or 5-point range, maybe going up a little bit, down a little bit, there's been 20-point swing. people just had feet in cement on this. maria: dagen, isn't it true that the public has changed? when you look at the polls in terms of the support for

impeachment, that number has plummeted? dagen: support for impeachment as of this morning is under water. no on impeachment is higher than yes on impeachment according to real clear politics average, 47.6% no, 46.9% yes, speaker pelosi said roughly 9 or 10 months ago, unless there's something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan i don't think we should go down that path. they did, republican support right now is at about 10% for impeachment, there's nothing bipartisan about what's going to go on today. maria: that's right. they started this when the president was overseas and so i ask you what does that say about our democracy, does impeachment affect how the u.s. is seen on the global stage, what do you think the president is overseas

trying to do deals, g20, nato, here we are talking about taking him out? >> yeah, i think overseas people see all the chaos and they probably see it like the rest of the country sees it which is, you know, washington always has its dramas and sideshows and this is turning into another one of those dramatic side shows that i frankly, i think people are tuning out, you know, the polls ask are you for or against impeachment. i'd like to see a poll that says do you care, does this register for you and my sense is it doesn't and frankly the fact that democrats are trying to get this over with and republicans are trying to get this over with kind of shows that neither side really sees this as an issue that they want to stick to. >> i mean, but there is -- the democrats are doing this. they are doing the impeachment the president to make him less electable against democratic candidate.

it's an extraordinary thing, we have never seen an election year impeachment before and the pace of news has been so extraordinary in the trump years that really it could have just, you know, disappeared beneath the waves by march, on the other hand, this is historic, impeaching the opposition president. jon: what is the republican argument going to be in the senate? is it going to be, yes, he pushed ukrainians around, but it doesn't matter, he didn't do anything wrong, yes, is it going to be the president's argument, there was corruption here in washington that democrats need -- >> i think a combination of those, you have some people say that the president did absolutely nothing wrong here. you'll have others say they are troubled by what he did but don't believe it rises to the level of impeachable offense because he was doing it in the course of his actual constitutional authority to

conduct foreign policy. dagen: the trouble between two articles of impeachment because the way that they are written don't fly, they are not up to snub with the abuse of power, again, i've said this before, it's a turkey that you can literally stuff anything into and then the obstruction of congress goes back to it's an intrabranch dispute between the power of the legislative branch and the executive branch and if the democrats thought were in the right they would have fought it in a court of law in the court system to make the individuals in the executive branch to come and testify and for document production, they did not do that, there's no criminal act, period. maria: let me ask you this, let's say he gets impeached by the house by the end of today, how does that change his

policies, how does that change the president's agenda if this dies in the agenda, does it change it at all, does he just continue doing what he's doing, going to reelection and -- and, you know, just knowing -- you said it's supposed to, you know, dim his chances just from the american people compared to the democrat candidates, is that all it's doing or is it going to hamper his policies and his agenda? >> i don't think so. i don't think so. he still has control of the senate, he still gets judges confirmed and if you look back at clinton impeachment, the most successful argument clinton made throughout the impeachment process is i'm doing the work of the american people, there's partisan side show. jon: by the way, they are getting things done, they got budget deal whether you like it or not, they agreed to spend more money and doing usmca deal, and the president if he's being hampered overseas is about to sign phase 1 deal which is, again, why i think for the rest of the country they look at this

as a side show. dagen: i want to point out really quickly, maria, there has been at this point in this presidency more appellate court judges appointed by president trump than in any other administration thus far. i think it's at least 50, james freeman wrote a column about this last week and the quality of these is astonishing based on completely nonpartisan analysis. this is something that the voters recognize that it doesn't get talked about that much. >> they can thank harry reid because he broke the stalemate by saying majority rules. maria: that's right. we are watching history in the making this morning, we are live covering it on capitol hill in just over 30 minutes from now the house will begin impeachment process against president trump, senator ted cruz says if this becomes a standard every president going forward will be impeached when the house is in the opposing party, i will speak with him exclusively next right

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maria: welcome back, impeachment at the forefront, the house making history poise today begin impeachment process against president trump in about half an hour from now, should it pass? impeachment moves to senate for trial, joining me right now with exclusive look at that, exclusive fox business interview texas senator ted cruz. senator, always a pleasure to see you. >> good morning, great to be with you, maria. maria: can you walk us through what you're expecting once the impeachment gets to the senate for trial? >> well, the house vote and deliver articles of impeachment to the senate and the senate standing rules of impeachment kicks in and notifies the president and issues summons to chief justice of the united states and a trial will commence immediately, i think it's very likely that both sides will agree to start the trial in

january if i were to guess a date i would say january 6th, first monday in january and we will enter a trial where all 100 senators are jurors, we are sitting in our seats, we will listen to -- it will start with all 100 senators being sworn in with an oath that is prescribed in the senate rules, we will then hear presentations from the house managers, we will hear preparations from the white house defense team, senators are not allowed to speak in open session, so you're not going to see elizabeth warren and me going 15 rounds on c-span because the senate rules don't allow it, we are required to sit in our seat and listen which for a number of us it may put us in the hospital or the graveyard. maria: how how long does it take place in january? >> i think a trial would be 2 to 6 weeks. maria: 6 weeks. >> the clinton trial was 6 weeks long. maria: you bring the good point bringing elizabeth warren, what happens to elizabeth warren, bernie sanders, amy klobuchar,

corey booker, don't they have to get to the iowa caucus which is in january? >> assuming this i think the odds are very high we will spend the entire month of january here in session 6 days a week, every day but sunday we are in session, this is unchartered territory, democratic presidentials, they can't be in iowa, they can't be in new hampshire, look, i remember well in january of the election year, you're at a pizza ranch in cedar rapids, you are in a living in a house meeting in new hampshire, you're meeting with voters but they're going to be here and i don't know what that's going to mean for the democratic primary. maria: unbelievable, the president sent letter to nancy pelosi and went through the two articles, obstruction of congress and -- and the abuse of power, your reaction to these two articles because week ago we were talking about bribery and all the real crimes and misdemeanors, what do the articles look like to you? >> they are an admission of failure from the house democrats, we have seen their

case collapse, 3, 4 weeks ago every democrat was saying bribery, bribery, the reason for that is the democratic campaign committee polled it and polled really badly and the american people didn't like bribery and that became talking point every democrat said. the actual evidence they heard they can't prove bribery, the evidence and testimony doesn't back up bribery. where the house democrats are now, their position is they can impeach they -- without the president having broke any crime or law whatsoever. the position is he doesn't have to have a speeding ticket, they could impeach for what are essentially policy and political differences with the president, that's an abuse of our constitutional process, impeachment -- the constitution sets out the standards for impeachment that is treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors and what they've alleged here on its face doesn't meet that but this is a

political gesture of anger, their base hates donald trump and they are going to impeach him because they hate him, that really is telling the voters that that washington politicians think they know better than the people who cast their ballots. maria: it's incredible, historical, we had eugene scalia and talks about how incredible the impeachment should be the third time ever and yet seems like it's a political thing, now, senator mcconnell is ripping senator schumer impeachment demands saying we will not pursue a fishing expedition, do you think that there should be witnesses in a senate trial? >> well, i think the two sides are situated differently. in terms of the prosecution, the house democrats, they have had several months of hearings, they've called their witnesses and they -- they didn't follow their own house precedence, it was a one-sided hearing, the white house got zero chance to cross examine witnesses,

republicans were not able to call witnesses because adam schiff denied ability to call witnesses and they built record one-sided record, now chuck schumer is coming to the senate and saying here are the witnesses we want to call, well, if they want to call those witnesses, you know they can call all four of them, postpone the vote today in the house and issue subpoenas from the house, the house has the ability to call those witnesses. now, the democrats didn't do that and that meant they never went to court to enforce subpoenas, there's a way you do this, remember the nixon case, the nixon case where the house wanted to get the tapes in the white house that nixon had audio tips -- audiotapes in the oval office, went to supreme court, the u.s. supreme court ordered nixon white house to hand over the tapes, two days later nixon resigned as a result of this. that's how you do this. if the democrats want their witnesses they need to reopen record in the house and litigate

and adjudicate the privileges; on the other hand, the other side hasn't had a chance to call a single witness, the white house has not presented its defense and so i think if the president's defense team and if the president wants to call witnesses and if the president wants to call hunter biden both of whom should have been called in the house, the president should have the opportunity to do that and that means the senate should allow the president to call the core witnesses necessary for his defense. >> are you expecting any republicans to vote yes on impeachment? >> you know, i'm not, i think the evidence is so weak, everything the house democrats promised fell through, they didn't -- remember quid pro quo, everybody was talking about quid pro quo, they didn't allege a quid pro quo, they are not impeaching on that. maria: yeah. >> let me get to other breaking news of the morning and that is your news, the administration you say needs to immediately begin pipeline vessels, tell us

what you want to see? >> in the national defense authorization act just passed the senate yesterday, on the president's desk for signature right now, and what it does it's designed to stop the north stream pipeline, a pipeline, natural pipeline from russia to germany, it's nearly complete, there's only 5 companies on earth that are capable of building that pipeline, russia has hired one, a swiss company, i'm sending today a letter to ceo informing him that under the sanctions they either seize construction the day the president signs the bill which is some time this week or they risk crushing sanctions which can put allseas out of business. i've got democrats on board, brought together, the house, the senate, everyone we passed the sanctions and what it is

designed -- allseas has a ship, pioneering spirit that's laying the pipeline, allseas needs to instruct to set sail for other waters because if they don't, they'll put the company out of business. maria: tell me why, the multibillion dollar national defense authorization act yesterday was important and people fell that the -- >> yeah. maria: the bill included sanctions on companies as you say allseas, i don't think people understand why this is so serious that you want these sanctions in place. >> well, this pipeline if it's completed it would generate billions of dollars for putin and putin would use that to continue russia's military aggressiveness, it would make europe even more dependent on russian energy and that makes europe susceptible to economic blackmail, putin has demonstrated he's perfectly willing to cut off the gas in dead of winter to try to force people to do what he wants,

europe dependent on russia is not good for europe and not good for america, by stopping the pipeline, getting the sanction's legislation passed, that will result, that will hurt putin and that helps ukraine enormously and help american jobs much better for european energy needs to be satisfied by american natural gas that creates jobs here in america rather than fueling -- >> how much conviction that you have europe will in fact, buy energy from america? haven't we've been trying this for years? >> well, they are buying a substantial amount of energy from america right now, a lot of what blocked it is under the obama administration, they made it practically impossible to export liquid natural gas, we couldn't get our energy to them because the obama administration was so opposed to energy that they didn't want american jobs. that's changed, we are exporting a lot more crude oil, we are exporting lute more liquid natural gas in the trump administration.

maria: yeah. do you need the europeans on board with this sanction plan? >> so the europeans, they don't have to impose the sanction. maria: i'm just saying in terms of being in unity with you against putin. >> the european parliament voted to condemn the north stream pipeline and the vote was something like 402 to 130, it was about that. it was an overwhelming vote against it because completing the pipeline is bad for europe and the timing, we are maybe a little more than a month away from the pipeline being done, the completion date was estimated to be january 30th, i have been working night and day, i had to get together, i had to get republicans and democrats together, i had to get the senate foreign relations committee in which i serve, unit republicans and democrats, had to get the armed services committee, had to get banking community and leadership and had to do the same thing in the house to get everybody together

in the bill, we've now got it, these are sanctions, they are targeted like a scalpel simply on the companies that can lay the deep sea pipe. freezes every asset in the u.s., blocks u.s. market so any company under the sanctions can't access u.s. markets, they can't get visas to come to america and -- and, listen, the contract that allseas has with russia, surely has a clause in it that is a legal or regulatory impossibility clause that if you can't get the permits, if there's sanctions in place you're out of it. i get allseas is making a ton of money from russia, if they don't want to subject their company to billions of dollars in shareholder derivative suits, not russia to finish it, stopping and complying with the sanctions if that if they do that, there's an enormous

victory. maria: huge deal in terms of russia as well. >> yes. maria: u.s. is pushing back on russia. real quick and let me switch topics. slamming fbi for the handling of the applications to wiretap former trump campaign aide carter page, antiethical to duty of candor after inspector general's report highlighted errors and omissions made in the surveillance of carter page, michael horowitz to testify in front of senate today, tell me what you want to ask him and what he should be asked rather and what you see in terms of accountability? >> it is 434 pages and details

excruciating detail and misstatements that doj and fbi made to fisa court the most stunning fbi lawyer doctored an e-mail, doctored evidence and submitted fraudulent evidence to the court -- somebody is going to jail over that. maria: somebody is going to jail, i agree. >> if you or i tried it in any other court you or i would go to jail and that was a senior lawyer at the fbi doctoring letters to the cia. maria: thank you, always a pleasure siness has a solution. we go beyond fast with aion. cloud-based security system that automatically updates, so you always have the latest protection. phishing. malware. risky sites. it can help block all of that. it's one less thing for us to worry about. comcast business securityedge automatically protects all the devices on your network. call 1-800-501-6000 today.

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maria: welcome back. the battle over border funding. president trump is expected to sign the $1.4 trillion budget deal passed by the house yesterday. it includes several border wall provisions with billions going toward new barriers at the u.s./mexico border. president trump will maintain his ability to use other defense related funds on border construction as well. joining me is u.s. customs and border protection acting commissioner, mark morgan. good to see you this morning. thanks so much for joining us. characterize the bill yesterday in terms of the money allocated

toward border funding. what is that money going to be used for, specifically building the wall? >> absolutely. that's a significant victory for us, for those of us in the law enforcement business, who our mission is safeguard this country. that 1.375 has been appropriated specifically for wall funding. and i think it's important, too, when we talk about wall, it's a wall system. it's an incredible system, has integrated technology, lighting, access roads and i always say for every mile of wall that's being built, this country is more safe because of that. it's because of this president and this administration's efforts. maria: that's just people coming across but startling statistics from your office on drug seizures. agents intercepted more than 82,000 pounds of drugs last month, a 32% increase over october. drug seizures on the southern border increased by 38%, totalling nearly 75,000 pounds. these are big numbers. tell us about this. >> exactly right. i appreciate your bringing this

up. when we talk about the crisis at the border, we over look focus on the immigration part of the crisis but the other part is a national security crisis. you gave some great stats. so far this fiscal year. but last fiscal year, we see at cbp over 800,000 pounds of illicit narcotics. what i call hard narcotics, cocaine, heroin, fentanyl, methamphetamine, all the hard narcotics went up last year dramatically. methamphetamine, for example, went up almost 70%. here's a stat that should be alarming to everyone. last year, 68,000 americans died due to overdose of illicit narcotics. the majority of those drugs come from the southwest border. think about that. that's more people that died in the entire vietnam war. think about that. maria: unbelievable. let me switch gears and ask you about one state testing whether illegal immigrants should have the same rights as citizens. u.s. citizens. new jersey lawmakers passed a measure allowing undocumented residents to get a driver's license.

driver's license in some cases, all you need to vote. >> look, from someone who has dedicated basically my entire adult life to this country, specifically law enforcement for decades, i am outraged by this. this is reckless. what this law does, just like sanctuary cities, you are giving more rights to illegal aliens and criminals. this type of law, actually protecting people that are here illegally. think about this. you don't have to really peel back too many layers of the onion to think about this. this is an effective tool for law enforcement. they are taking away a tool of law enforcement every time you do that, those cities, this entire nation is less safe because of it. maria: it's actually extraordinary. >> it is. maria: it really is. thanks for stopping by this morning. we appreciate it. >> you bet. any time. maria: we'll be right back.

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impeachment thing to happen. what's striking is the maneuvering to set the debate in the senate as already taking place. you were talking to senator cruz about that. senator schumer is trying to sort of control what will happen. maria: yeah. >> 2020 is looking like it's going to be a pretty good year for the economy and the market. maria: sure is. thank you so much. right to stuart varney. "varney & company" begins now. stu, take it away. stuart: good morning, maria. good morning, everyone. today, the president of the united states will be impeached. it appears that speaker pelosi has the votes she needs. it's entirely partisan. it's a big political risk for the democrats. the polls are already moving against removing the president from office. the president himself has written a very sharply worded letter to the speaker, addressing her directly he says you violated your oath of office. the democrats, he says, have declared war on democracy and they have done it because they lost the last election and have never recovered. that's from the es