take a water taxi back. [laughs] so you don't have to walk back. so boom. it's like. i'm down for that [laughs]. yep, yep. alison loves hiking. definitely. definitely. heather and matt found their american dream on lake tahoe. and many more are finding that in america, dreams and dream homes still come true. maria: good wednesday morning, everyone. thank you so much for joining us. i'm maria bartiromo, wed december 22nd, 6:00 a.m. on the east coast. president biden on state of covid promising rapid test on everyone who wants them claiming it's patriotic duty to get the vaccine. omicron variant continues to surge despite biden's testing plans, more americans ramping up their testing ahead of christmas. everything that you need to know

this morning all morning long. market this is morning are higher extending yesterday's big rally, take a look at futures indicating a gain for the dow industrials this morning about 28 points, we are waiting on economic data. we have the final read on third-quarter gdp out this morning at 1:30 a.m. eastern. right now nasdaq lower by 26 after big rally yesterday investors shrugged off am cran fears, check out dow industrials up 560 points at the close, one and two-thirds percent. nasdaq up 360 points, 2 and a half percent and s&p 500 higher by 81, 1 and 3 quarters percent at 4:00 o'clock on wall street. fractionally below all-time highs there. european markets are mixed. ftse 100 down a fraction, up 17 and dax higher by 29. check asian markets overnight, they finished mostly higher, fractional moves across the board. the one weak spot with shanghai

down a fraction. mornings with maria is live right now. morning movers, tesla climbing in premarket. elon musk has sold enough stock after unloading more shares yesterday. musk began a selling spree last month after asking twitter followers if he should sell 10% of stake, tesla stock up 2 and a quarter percent. up 33% year to date. he was making a point about selling stock in the face of new taxes that the democrats wanted to put in place on assets. next al back bay is sinking this morning ahead of the open as analysts says that the e-commerce giant facing competition at home and abroad causing concern of user

retention, down 47% in 2021. down 3 and 3 quarters right now. future searching for direction following yesterday's rebound on wall street. we had fractional moves this morning with dow up 25 and nasdaq down 28 expectation is growth 2.1% for final read of the quarter. sharp slowdown from 6.7% rate back in second quarter. lots of expectations coming down toward year end and we see that expectations in the third quarter this morning. joining me right now penn capital chief investment officer, eric green and joining the conversation all administration long dagen mcdowell and republican strategist lead attorney at the madison firm, madison. eric, thank you for joining the conversation. what's going on? >> sure, there's 3 major issues that are causing this volatility

in the market, first was the change in the fed language which is indicating that the stimulative period that we've lad for a long time is coming to an end with potentially rate hikes, potentially 2 or 3 next year and spread of omicron virus and dysfunction in dc that we saw over the weekend. so a couple the omicron spread along with the dysfunction in dc and the fed still saying they will reduce the stimulus and the economy that's causing jitters in the market right now. maria: yeah, lack, we are lacking at a macro story that has slowed down quite considerably since the expectations earlier in the year. i know that you're looking at small cap and value-oriented companies going into the new year, what's your outlook on the macro story for 2022? let's start there and then zero in on how to invest around it? >> sure, despite the issues that i just mentioned we are pretty

positive on the market particularly after the pullback we have seen a much bigger pullback in small caps than large caps. from a value versus growth, we would rather be in value stocks because we think the economy does have some steam going forward. we believe -- we are hopeful the omicron virus is not a major economic issue and we are starting to see data to suggest that it's not nearly as severely lethal as previous variants, the consumer in street signing shape and added to network pet pandemic, for the first time we have been in recession where the consumer is in much better shape than they were before the recession. maria: what do you like in terms of the small cap universe? >> sure, we like the consumer, we like energy stocks, actually really like autosuppliers, you look, some of the supply chain issues, they are going to abate over the next year, we have the

least amount of inventory on manufacturers on their lots right now, we will need to build a lot of cars over the next several years just to get where we were a few years back. the companies that are going to be working 24/7 for the next several years just to get the supply back it's not a question of if, it's a question of when and there's a significant demand for cars right now. all of the suppliers interesting energy, we have 5-year lows and inventories worldwide, almost every energy product, oil, gas, diesel, et cetera. >> yeah, one of the issues there for whether it'd be devices, technology or autos are the semiconductor chips, right? president biden is having a supply chain meeting at the white house later today, the meeting is involving both members of his cabinet and a number of private-sector ceo's in terms of the supply chain, you see auto production improving in the new year, that should help the automakers as the demand for cars has not

slowed down certainly. are you expecting headlines to come out ofelia chain meeting today and how would you aseethe semiconductors right now? >> probably no major headlines, nothing that can be done today that will have impact for several months or years. we have seen car manufacturers come out in the last month or two saying supply chain issues have basically peaked and they are starting to lee a loosening in the supply chain. it's going to be slue but we will see improvement. although i don't think that inflation is transitory some are transitory and that's going the make economic improvement more likely as a supply chain issues abate. >> all right, we will leave it there. eric, good to see you. have a merry christmas. thank you very much for being here this morning. >> you too. take care. happy holidays. maria: we are just getting started.

we have a big show this morning, harvard professor convicted in federal court of lying financial ties to the communist china party. this is something i have covered extensively in my book, the cost, trump, china and american revival. we will get into it all morning long this morning. then approval under water and sinking fast. the president is lessing support all across the board. hear how independent voters are reacting right now. wait till you hear what they are saying. plus beyond the border crisis, the new steps dc and texas are stepping the finish the wall but president trump again. you're watching mornings with maria live on fox business. ♪ ♪ ♪

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maria: welcome back, some of the stories that we are watching this morning, prominent harvard professor charles leiber found guilty of payments he received from the communist government, something i have outlined extensively in my book, the cost. lieber lied which was aimed at wooing foreign experts and economic ties to the wuhan university of technology. he also failed to disclose hundreds of thousands of payments that he received from china on his taxes. he faces up to 5 years in prison. meanwhile president biden claims he's confident on reaching a deal at some point with senator joe manchin on the dead in the water build back better bill. >> senator and i will get

something done. maria: coming out as official no on the vote as you know. he later outlined changes that he would like to see in the bill that could get his support down. president biden outlined his new plan to battle the spread of omicron, a key part of his plan includes buying and distributing 500 million at home tests for free. this forcing white house press secretary jen psaki to walk back her words from 2 weeks ago. >> why not just make them free and have them available everywhere? >> should we just send to every american? >> maybe. >> what happens if every american has one test, how much is the cost and what happens after that? maria: telling journalist that is she should have been more thoughtful. we have snake lines around the corners of big cities people want to go take test.

there aren't enough. new polls spelling out more bad news for democrats and president biden. latest morning political poll if i understand 46% of voters think congressional democrats have accomplished less than expected while 42% believe the same of biden. a poll from pbs, includes finding two-thirds of independent voters disapprove of biden while only 29% are actually supporting him. that's an 1-point decline in just one week. dagen, the poll numbers are dropping like a rock and it's happening fast. dagen: because he alienates the independents who voted for him by being divisive and vilifying the unvaccinated which he did again yesterday in the speech and so off base. he talked about the -- he sounded like it was march of 2020 all over again talking about ventilators and not

talking about antiviral therapeutics that we are waiting around for the fda to give emergency use authorization for. i'm talking about pfizer and merck drugs. joe biden needs to try to be the guy that independents thought they voted for rather than the one they got. and i think -- one of the biggest things that we talked about the border, afghanistan, lying about the build back better, but one thing that really stuck out to me was when he vilified the border agents on horseback and said they were strapping people when he stood up in front of the american people and directly went after and demonized people who are doing their jobs and forcing the law of the land and lied about them. people who are putting their lives at risk, if he really wanted to turn things around and, again, the customs and border patrol was supposed -- inspector general was supposed to be investigating this, where

is that investigation? and the -- the immigrants have filed lawsuit against the u.s. government over this, joe biden can stand up in front of the american people and say i was wrong, i apologize to those border agents on horseback, i apologize to their families and i appreciate their service. he will never do it but that's where he has to go. maria: well, you're right, dagen. all of these lies they continue just come out and be honest, there was never any whipping. i will tell you where there was whipping, jonathan, there was whipping of woman in afghanistan. that i saw u with my own eyes. there was whipping by the taliban of women on the ground in afghanistan, what does joe biden have to say about that, the way that we left afghanistan, the crisis just keep piling up for this guy? >> yeah, i mean, the numbers speak for itself. $2.2 trillion spent by the taxpayers over 20-year term war

and the botched withdrawal, what does -- what do we have to say about this. what does it say for the people, the men and women who risk their lives who fought and died in that war? beyond that, quite frankly it's hard to attract independents when you can't even keep members of your own party maria, senator manchin is considering his place in the democratic party as a result of the president's lack of leadership. beyond that, the crime -- crime is rising throughout this country. here in san francisco there are people who are leaving their trunks up just to curtail people from coming and thinking that there's things in their car that they can steal. so to prevent people from committing property crimes and what not. there's a number of things, build back better has become a built disaster. the open borders are just continuing to get worse and worse. i mean, this is going to get a whole will the worse before it gets better, maria, and i hope

more independents start waking up. maria: did you see the soundbite of nancy pelosi about the lawlessness in san francisco? apparently jonathan, she's clueless as to how the lawlessness happened. she said she doesn't know where it's coming from, maybe you do she said the other day. >> you know, it's one of those things where you have someone who has been in leadership for so long here in san francisco but they are so disconnected, starkly disconnected from anyone here in the city and people who are actually having the crimes committed, property crimes. i don't know what city she's living in but it's in the san francisco. >> yeah, let's take a short break, finally the president comes out and addresses the lack of available covid tests, have you seen the lines up and down the block? what you need to know on how to get tested coming up. elon musk takes aim at california and speaking out of move of the golden state, the

morning hot topic buzz coming up. stay with us.

maria: welcome back, harvard professor charles leiber has been found guilty for lying to the government investigators about his participation in the ccp's thousands talents

programs. leiber failing to disclose and joining former u.s. acting attorney general mat whitaker, matt, great to see you this morning. i know during the trump administration there was a string of indictments of similar nature academic who is were working with the chinese communist party, first, tell us the ccp's goals here, what it's trying to do as it has been trying to infiltrate academia in america for many years now? >> yeah, it's good to be with you, maria, what you see in this dr. leiber case in addition to the other type of cases are the chinese organized and trying to steal american technology, innovation and research and mr. leiber was trying to recruit others, experts in their fields to work with and for the chinese

government, obviously the most concerning thing is that is not a crime in and of itself, it was because of his tax evasion and lying to the fbi that he was found guilty but this is one example of the chinese influence in our country and how they are just trying to take all of our innovation and use it for their own interest. maria: but we haven't seen a lot of indictments under the biden administration frankly. i mean, under the trump administration we really looked under all the different rocks to find out what was going on from academia to the embassy in houston even ccp spy on the nypd at one point. what are your thoughts? have we stopped being tough on this issue? >> well, it's clearly that there has been a change of stance regarding the chinese government and what they're doing in our country and it's very concerning but you're right, when i was at the department of justice and during the trump administration,

we did make this a priority. now this administration is making airline passengers and parents in school board their priority instead of these, you know, foreign actors and especially the chinese government who are trying to do harm to our country so, yes, there's clearly been change in priorities and it's detrimental to the american interest as it relates to chinese. maria: it's very concerning, you did a great job when you were there and we are going the keep watching this subject. i wrote all about this in my book, the cost, so i want to make sure people understand what's going on because this is so critical in terms of giving the ccp a leg up. i want to switch swears, though, and get your take on thousands of federal convicts released due to home confinement. they are release today home confinement due to covid. they won't be required to return to prison once the pandemic end. ag merrick garland said, quote, we will exercise our authority for those who have made

rehabilitative progress and comply with the conditions of home confinement and who in the interest of justice should be given an opportunity to continue transitioning back to society are not unnecessarily returned to prison. matt, your reaction as you we battle massive crime spikes across the country, now we are returning criminals to home confinement? >> what i see 4 to 5% of the non-violent low-risk people were let out because of covid emergency, obviously the violent criminals, the trigger pollers, the violent drug dealers, they are still in bureau prison custody and they are not going to get out because of covid. those 8,000 people, you know, obviously have done what they have supposed to do. many of those 8,000 are -- have served out their time. these are people who were at the end of their debt to society and transitioning into society anyway, but you're right, maria, the biggest concern for me the

rise in violent crime challenge that we are facing but a lot of of that because the men and women of law enforcement aren't being supported by the political leaders whether it's chicago, whether it's california, where the politicians have not had the backs of law enforcement, you're seeing spike in crime. and we know what works and that is taking these violent criminals, the trigger pollers as i call them and getting them off the streets and those people are not being released because of covid and they should spend a lot of time or maybe the rest of their lives in prison for their crimes. maria: it's unbelievable. this doj is ignoring crime in plain sight meanwhile they are letting real criminals out on the street. let's talk john durham for a second, special counsel, no surprise here to me. no surprise to you. durham's team requesting a judge inquire into a potential conflict of interest connected to the lawyers of christopher

steele's main source, durham's team say a separate lawyer at their firm is representing clinton 2016 campaign and some of its former employees. so what a coincidence, matt, the same law firm that is representing igor, the lie who died about the dossier, same firm representing hillary clinton's campaign. >> obviously because they are at the same firm they can share information hypothetically. where durham is going is exactly what his charge is to get to the origins of the collusion. at the end of the day, all roads are leading to the hillary clinton campaign and maybe even hillary clinton herself because this was a complete fabrication that was used -- anyone that was paying attention to get them off of the 30,000 emails that hillary clinton had destroyed. what did they do, classic 4-year-old game that it's you,

not me. it's your fault and created this russian collusion story and i think durham is on the trail and i think he's going to find where this started and who started the lie. maria: unbelievable how effective they were in terms of snarring the fbi. >> because they didn't lake donald trump and what he stood for. they knew he was an outsider and not a person and shake things up and hold people accountable and they didn't like that. they didn't like being questioned and being held accountable for their connections. this is a classic washington rising up to something they don't like. maria: yeah, that's right. she just want today cover up what she was doing with her emails. matt, good to see you, merry christmas. thank you for all your work.

matt whitaker. >> we will do it again next year. maria: you got it. that's a date. investors starting to worry on the impact of broader markets, we are looking at a big comedown from big tech and then the very first text miami ever sells as nnt, the whopping price tag when we come back. ♪ ♪ ♪

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it has the power to change the way we see things. ♪♪ it inspires us to go further. ♪♪ it has our back. and goes out of its way to help. ♪♪ when you start with care, you get a different kind of bank. truist. born to care. maria: welcome back, good wednesday morning, everybody, thank you very much for joining us. i'm maria bartiromo and it is wednesday december 22nd, take a look at market this is half an hour after a big rally yesterday, we've got a mixed story this morning. searching for direction a bit. dow industrials up 17, s&p negative by 1 and a half and the nasdaq is negative by 22. we are waiting on the final read of the third quarter gdp out this morning. it's out u in two hour's time, we are expecting to see growth but way down from earlier in the year on the gdp final

assessment. yet big rally underway, investors shrugged off omicron fears. take a lack, dow industrials finish up 560 points at 4:00 o'clock on wall street. nasdaq up 206% and s&p higher by 81. european markets are mixed. we, of course, we are in a holiday shortened week for christmas. european markets are moving fractionally, ftse 100 down a fraction, cac up 12, dax index up 25 right now. in asia right now markets mostly higher, fractional movers. china was the one weak spot, down just a fraction. back in u.s. lauren simonetti has more on headlines, over to you. lauren: maria, good morning, disappointing news americans are not living as long as we once did, cdc finding life expectancy in the u.s. falling to 77 in

2020. largest since at least world war ii. why, heart disease, cancer and coronavirus were the 3 leading causes of death last year. meanwhile population growth in america also growing at a record low increasing by only .1% in 2020 and, maria, as you know, this is something elon musk is concerned about, we need humans to work. release of covid-19, federal relieve funds unleashing wave of fraud, responsible for a hundred billion dollars in stolen benefits with 900 active criminal investigations in the pandemic related relief fraud. congress passed over $2 trillion cares act in march to try and soften the economic fallout of the pandemic. well, the two and a half month strike at kellogg is over just days before christmas. some 1400 union workers ratifying a new 5-year deal, the deal maintains pay raises, new

health benefits, cast of living adjustments and guarantied that no plans will be shut down for 5 years. kellogg shares barely budging here in the premarket and this the first ever text message has been sold as an nft. it was sent on december third 1992, almost 30 years ago by a british wireless company for $121,000, proceeds from the sell went from the united nations refugee agency. the message was sent from a engineer to his manager on a mobile phone that weighed 4 pounds at the time. can you imagine, do you remember? i remember the big phones but not one that is weighed for 4 pounds and maria what did the text message say? merry christmas. back to you. maria: i love it. thank you, lauren. president biden defending his plan to fight the omicron variant as he gives the green light on christmas, watch this.

i know some americans are wondering if you can safely celebrate the holidays with your family and friends and the answer is, yes, you can. we should all be concerned about omicron but not panic. if you're fully vaccinated and especially if you got your booster shot, i know vaccination requirements are unpopular for many, they are unpopular for those anxious to get them. my administration has put them in place not to control your life but to save your life. maria: what a relief we can celebrate christmas. joining me right now infectious disease expert, dr. amij adalja, what was your remarks of the president's comments yesterday? >> i think showed where we are in the pandemic and some policies that are going to be put in place are going to be

helpful particularly hospital capacity concerns and likely hit with the omicron wave. that's very important. home tests are very good but little bit late. something that we all predicted that we would need but they will be helpful when they come but we will have a couple of weeks here without any -- any real abundance of these tests so people are still going to be struggling and i think the fact that he just told -- he set this squarely, we are going to get breakthrough infections with omicron and they are going to be mild and that's a victory for the vaccine and this is a two-track pan dem where i can the unvaccinated are at risk, they are the ones that are causing the issues in hospitals and i think that separation is important because so many vaccinated people have not been going about their lives and are scared and he layed it out in a way that makes it easy for vaccinated people to see, the trajectory of where we are going with this pandemic. maria: doc, let me get your

assessment here, let's say a person that is vaccinated, even double vaccinated and even boosterred as well gets covid right now. let's say they get omicron right now, what should they do? doctor: well, they should isolate especially if they are symptomatic and tell close contacts that they are positiver and what we will see the individuals are contagious for a much shorter period of time than someone who is not vaccinated so instead of that ten-day one fits all isolation period, you will see guidance shift to and antigen if you can find them and i've seen some individuals do this and sometimes their contagious period is only two or three days, sometimes 5 days, and sometimes longer. i think we will get more precision guided when it comes to isolation period because even though breakthrough infections are mild, ten-day isolation period is disruptive for people with their work, with their -- with all of their life and we have the data now to truncate that isolation for breakthrough infections. maria: yeah, you're right, it's a good point.

so in other words we could see that you're contagious for only 3 days, is that what you just said, as little as 3 days? >> i've seen some people with breakthrough infections with omicron doing home tests every day and the -- it becomes negative much faster than we have seen in people who weren't vaccinated. if you tell people they that's they are mild and certain hospitals like nyu, come back if you're a healthcare worker if you're negative and it's been 5 days. maria: let me bring in dagen mcdowell. dagen: i know that delta, for example, is practically begging the cdc to changing the ten-day period because they are staring at severe flight disruptions because of the ten-day guideline. city md has had to shut down a

number of locations because of staffing shortages and i think every american particularly those in areas that are experiencing this kind of -- the omicron wave which is incredibly virilant, why is it so hard to get a test, two years into this. the state has a trillion dollars in covid relief, why -- why were all of these bureaucrats in the states and the government really caught on their heels with this? i know people who are waiting 5 or 6 days to get results back from a pcr test and they're positive and a loved one is negative and causes disruptions in their own family. doctor: it's inexplicable, to me testing has been the original sin of the pandemic. we had testing problems in the last administration and continue to have testing problems in this administration. now there's no absolutely excuse for it in december 2021.

we anticipated a need for the tests, even back in october it was difficult to find tests where people had to drive around town. we had one company basically destroy their inventory and lay off people because they didn't there was going to be a demand. this was predicted that we would see acceleration of cases as it got colder and more contagious variants evolved. there has been undervalues of tests of and we put a lot of restrictions on them, regulated like fda medical devices rather than public health test that is they are. they are held to high standard, standard of pcr which they shouldn't be put them and made them costly and onerous to develop. i think we are paying the price for that now because people need these tests to be able to navigate life with a pandemic virus that's ever present and this is a way to -- maria: yeah, i want to ask you about navigating covid if you do get the omicron because bloomberg is reporting that the fda is set to approve covid treatment pills for pfizer and merck as early as today.

onset of symptoms to prevent hospitalizations and death, similar story that we heard about things like hydroxychloroquine. what do you say about early symptom treatment? doctor: we have an oral antiviral that's effective that's going to be a game changer. the merck pill does have a benefit but marginal. hydroxychloroquine have shown no effect on the ability to prevent covid complications so those have no role in the treatment. fluboximine is interesting. antidepressant. not hydroxychloroquine, the pfizer pill is really going to be what i think is game-changing when it comes to controlling the

virus because it's an oral pill that can keep you from dying and we haven't had anything like that. much better than tamiflu for influenza. >> great advice and continues from you. maria: great to see you this morning, thank you very much for all of that info. quick break then watching the tech sector and impact on the broader. we have 5 stocks that you need to be watching right now and going into 2022. don't forget to tune in fox business tonight, american gold, start 8:00 p.m. followed by the pursuit with john rich at 9:00 a.m. you're watching mornings with maria live. we will be right back. ♪ ♪ ♪

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maria: welcome back, big tech is driving the s&p 500, according to analysts at goldman sachs, just 5 names, microsoft, nvidia, alphabet and tesla account for half of s&p's moves, gains since april and one-third of the index is 24% advance year to date and has some investors concerned heading into 2022 because it's such a narrow rally. joining us dan morgan, dan, good to see you, thank you very much for being here. your thoughts on this issue? >> you know, maria, somewhat reminiscent of what we saw back in 1999, 2000 we had a narrow market in terms of certain tech

stocks did extremely well with intel, dell, cisco, microsoft, old four horsemen but i think dollars differences today compared to what was happening back then in terms of market multiples back then. the trek sector trading 70 times earnings, right now it's 33 times earnings. we are going into the next year, the expectations for growth in the tech sector are extremely low, it's only about 5% for 2022 in terms of corporate prompts and i would expect them to do better than that. to be honest with you, maria, you probably remember the tech companies today are far more healthier from from a profitability perspective. we had companies that weren't earning money at all. maria: yeah, that was dot com

infancy years. today, apple hoovering trillion dollar value. major valuation of apple and by the way, there are multitrillion valuations within that group of big tech, are they too expensive? >> you're right, maria. it's amazing, in 2020 it hit $2 trillion and you look at the fang stocks, a lot of them trade a trillion or close to 2 trillion. they become massive market caps. as long as a company can keep growing, apple, for instance, we know about iphone 13, they should have a good holiday season in terms of closing down for their year, they have all the new products coming on with metaverse virtual reality and autonomous vehicle that could add legs maybe 5 years down the road and we have a renaissance in older products like the mac

and so forth. it can go to 4 trillion, it's a mega company, you know, is it too dangerous to have the valuations, as long as they can support them with profits they can keep going. maria: so in that area, in terms of profit and in terms of growth, dan, sketch out for us how you see the growth story evolving within tech, for a long time we talked about being 3 legs to the stool, retail, social media and cloud, is it still 3 legs to the stool, where do you see the big growth story happening from here on out in tech? >> well, 3 areas that we are focusing on are artificial intelligence, 5g and the cloud which you mentioned before. those are really the big things that are really moving the -- the pendulum down the field so to speak. pc volumes are slowing down because the work initiative is

ending. nvdia, aws in terms of the cloud, those are the high-growth areas going forward and if we look beyond 5 years from now, metaverse, virtual relate, autonomous vehicles, those aren't profitable yet. these are the areas that we could focus on right now and those are the areas that should do extremely well going to 2022. maria: good stuff, dan, happy holidays, merry christmas. thanks so much. >> merry christmas. thank you. maria: dan morgan joining us. we will see you soon. elon musk slam it is golden state, he's speaking out after he moved out of california. it's the next hot topic buzz coming up. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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maria: welcome back. time for the hot topic buzz. elon musk makes good on his promise, he said in a new interview he sold enough stock to meet his 10% goal. in that same interview he slammed california for tax policies, calling it a land of over-regulation, over-litigation and over-taxation. dagen, he moved out of the state along with tesla's head quarters, went to texas where obviously the tax treatment is much better.

your reaction? dagen: i hope more people make that decision and certainly based on what we've seen here in new york city, every day i know people who are thinking about moving or making the move to places that are more hospitable, like floor did da, for -- florida, for example. i know i say this all the time. i hope they don't take their politics with them. if you're a liberal and you're moving to a conservative state, conservative meaning you get to make decisions with your own money about your own life, that you make better decisions than bureau crates and politicians do, vote that way, vote for that when you move to your new hometown. maria: governor de santis says right now is the most construction of new homes happening in florida, of any state. >> well, to dagen's point, 265

companies have left california since 2018. that includes tesla, of course. i think that speaks for itself. but it takes a billionaire like elon musk to make the case when the middle class has been saying that here in california for eons. but i digress. maria: it's a great point. dagen and jonathan, stay right there because the next hour of "mornings with maria" begins right now. ♪ maria: good wednesday morning, everyone. thanks so much for being with us. i'm maria bartiromo. it is wednesday, december 22nd. your top stories right now, 7:0. still trying to force a deal, president biden is insisting that he is going to get his build back better plan done, just days after talks fell apart with senator joe manchin. we've got new polls this morning showing democrats underwater going into 2022, a majority of

voters say congress and the president have accomplished less than they expected and voters do not approve of the president's performance. we've got all of the numbers this morning. markets this morning are picking up some speed. we've got gains in the dow industrials but it is a mixed story this morning. take a look. the nasdaq exactly where it closed yesterday. it is unchanged. but the s&p is up 4 and three quarters and the dow industrials right now up 68. this on top of the big rally yesterday where all three major indices notched their best day in weeks. dow industrials were up 560 points at the close, that was 1 two thirds percent. the s&p was higher by 81 at 4:0. european markets this morning are moving fractionally. it is a holiday shortened week this week. christmas week has arrived. the ft 100 is up 5 and-a-half, cac is up 16 and dax index higher by 33. in asia overnight, markets finished mostly higher, hong kong was the best performer, hang seng up half of 1% on the

session. "mornings with maria" is live right now. and now some of the top stories that we are watching this wednesday morning. prominent harvard professor charles leber has been found guilty on six counts of lying about money he received from the chinese communist government, this is something i have extensively outlined in my book, the cost, trump, china and american revival. hope you'll pick it up. it is all in the there. leber lied to investigators over his participation in a chinese program which was aimed at wooing foreign experts and his academic ties to the wuhan university of technology. he also failed to disclose hundreds of thousands of payments he received from the ccp on his taxes. now he faces up to five years in prison. president biden outlining his new plan to battle the spread of the omicron yesterday. including a warning for americans who are not vaccinated yet. >> i know vaccination requirements aren't popular for

many. not even popular for those who are anxious to get them. my administration's put them in place not to control your life, but to save your life. the lives of others. maria: yeah, but the mandates have been called unconstitutional, a key part of the plan includes buying and distributing 500 million at-home tests for free. the white house is facing criticism amid a lack of available covid tests ahead of the holidays. biden is denying the lack of tests is a failure of his administration. cvs and walgreens are limiting the number of tests you can buy after a surge in he demand and the lines to take a test are snake-lines around blocks throughout big cities like new york. a group of haitian migrants who crossed into texas a illegally are suing the biden administration now, alleging mistreatment by immigration authorities. the lawsuit says the white house deliberately withheld humanitarian aid to thousands of migrants hoping to deter them from entering the country.

many filing suit were sent back to haiti. they're asking to be granted asylum in the united states and they want money for expense as well. time for the word on wall street, top investors watching your money. joining he me right now is slate stone chief market strategist, kenny polkari, institutional services director, jim yurio and the fitz-gerald group prince tall, keith fitzgerald merry christmas to you all. keith, with markets that are edging higher this morning, a big rebound on wall street yesterday as we take a look at the third quarter gdp this morning, that's coming out at 8:30 a.m., that's in an hour and-a-half, the expectation is for growth of 2.1%. that is a sharp slowdown from the 6.7% growth that we saw back in the second quarter, keith. what happened? things slowed down quite a bit this year, didn't they, by year end. >> well, it is going to be a slowdown. we're going to come into a contentious fed in january and february. i think people have to be conscious of that. you have to pick your bets

carefully. to me i think anything that's a positive number is going to be good. i'm not concerned about number itself, as much as the reaction to the number. maria: what kind of reaction would you expect if we get a 2% handle? >> well, here's the thing, maria. it's all about the perception of what the fed's going to do next. if the number is really hot then everybody is going to perceive the fed will step in, be aggressive, raise rates faster, et cetera, et cetera. the market may react negatively. if the number's just right and we go off to the races, there's a lot of growth, pay pal, apple, tesla, have great numbers coming down the line and the markets are throwing those out the window right now. i think we quickly get back on the gas if the number's correct. maria: inflation is still a major issue, jim. european electricity bills skyrocketing amid concerns over the recent surge in covid cases. every country except poland and some scandinavian countries reporting a price of 300 euros

per megawatt hour for the coming week. what's your take on this and what does it mean for the oil market. >> it's a cautionary tale for us. if you look at the i'm ingredies that went into causing had this, it's overly optimistic on green, these things come together and net gas markets were tight already coming out of the pandemic the first time, prior to this. so this is a big deal. i actually think we're a little bit insulated from it, it looks like what our energy markets are telling us, natural gas is coming off, crude is going higher, based on demand. the real important take-away is that as we start making progressions of what policy is going to be, i'm hoping that we can learn from other people's mistakes and this is certainly a mistake and i'm for green energy as it goes long-term. you can't disrupt markets by trying to jam it in too quickly.

this is a big deal. it could lead to food shortage as well. maria: that would be unfortunate. we'll be watching that story. let's look ahead to 2022, kenny. are you expecting some activity at year-end, just from portfolio shift as you might see at year-end and what do you think in terms of those stocks that have been beaten up recently, will we see a bounceback in the new year? how do you see 2022 shaping up? >> good morning, maria. merry christmas. i think a lot of the portfolio shifting from big asset managers has mostly taken place at this point. we've got five trading days left in the year, six trading days left in the year, so most portfolio managers have closed up the book on that. they're walking away from their desks, leaving low ball bids in and high offers in just in case we get an move one way or the other. i think 2022 will be turbulent in the first half of the year, depending on what we hear from the fed, how hawkish he becomes,

i think he'll become more hawkish after he gets formally reappointed with the senate vote and that will lead to turbulence and people need to set themselves up. i've been calling for a defensive posture. i'm not getting rid of high growth names, my tech names. i bought apple for a reason, that recent hasn't changed. i'm not getting rid of it. the same is true for other names in my holdings. you might want to look at names take that got beaten up, that did well going into covid, peloton and roku, all did well going into covid and this year have really, really underperformed. peloton's down 140%. maybe you could argue is was too high to begin with. the other ones are down around 40 to 50%. i think some of that was year-end, people were getting out of the names ahead of the conversation about the fed but they're at a point now if somebody wants to make a trade, looking at those names as a trade, not as a core holding. none of those names would be a

core holding but they might be worth a trade if you want toal he locate 5 or of 7% of your portfolio, that's how you invest to names that have gotten beaten up because you might see a bounce. maria: kenny, if we see three rate hikes by the federal reserve early, first half of the year, 2022, does that really create a competition for stocks? let's face it. these rates are coming off of such low levels. even after three hikes, you're still talking about low rates. but does that create a competition for people's money away from stocks? do i say, well, you know, i'm going to get at this yield in treasuries, let me go here? >> i think it's going to. now, listen, we're expecting three hikes over the year of 25 basis points. that's what the market's expecting. my fear is that the fed is behind the 8 ball on this, inflation is going to be worse than what they say which is why i think he's going to turn more hawkish. what i'm afraid of is that the rate increases turn to 50 basis points at least on one of those increases and that will be enough to shock inflation and

shock the market and therefore then i think the markets will have to adjust. one way or the other, it will start to offer some competition. they'll still be low like you said but the lines will be drawn in the sand on which way they're going. maria: yeah, good point. all right, kenny, james and keith, merry christmas, gentlemen. great to see you all. thank you so much for the word on wall street and a great 2021 with us here at "mornings with maria." quick break. coming up, closing gaps in the border wall, texas attorney general ken paxton is here with his take on the announcement from the white house. plus, president biden pushes for a spending deal as the build back better talks fall apart, tennessee senator big haggerty will weigh in on what's next. from a bitcoin crash to regulatory crackdown, we've got the top predictions for the crypto industry coming up in the year ahead. joining the conversation all morning long this morning, dagen mcdowell and jonathan madison. we'll get back to this fantastic panel when we come right back. first, from our family to yours, merry christmas from the team of

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transmitting has been seen and mirrored in many other of countries and so we've been watching this carefully. we anticipated this. this is was we have been preparing for. there have been doubling times of this virus in other countries. this is what we anticipated. maria: okay, so it's exactly what they anticipated then. white house press secretary jen psaki having to walk back her words from just two weeks ago, telling reporters that she should have been more thoughtful before scoffing at a suggestion of a national distribution of at home covid tests, another failure of the administration, no tests. dagen: one of my favorites in the shocking moments from the biden speech, where one of the kindest journalists to this administration asked joe biden repeated the question about testing and he kind of -- he went come on, what took so long? maria: come on, man. dagen: that was his response to

her and this is, again, a huge failure on the part of this administration. if they anticipated this rapid spread of the omicron variant, and it is -- this is obviously not a scientific comment, but this variant is everywhere in new york city. it spreads very quickly, even among the vaccinated. so people in new york city, i think it's more than a dozen city md sites have had to close down in new york because of -- or at least shutter temporarily because of staffing issues. this is a very place where people have been lining up for two or three hours, trying to get covid tests the. people go and get pcr tests together, they get the results back days later, people are missing their flights. it is an utter nightmare. and why they weren't prepared dark-just to have tests, like let me -- i need to take a test, i want to see dad for the holidays, i want to be able to take a test in my house, very

easily, not going to happen because of the -- wheres the trillion dollars the states got sent? let's blame the federal government. let's blame the states and the cities too. maria: that's another lie from this administration, people getting tested at the border. they're not, jonathan. most people are not getting tested at the border so there you go, one more lie to the list of terrible egregious lies out of this white house. your thoughts? >> absolutely. the lies keep piling on. i mean, maria, the fact is, if the president president didn't see this omicron variant was coming, he's not fit to be president of the united states of america. in short. i mean, the average american people could actually see this was coming. cdc director walensky could see it was coming. i think bidens' lies are piling up you. his administration's lies are piling up. the one thing i was happy to hear the president actually admit was the success of

operation warp speed and what the trump administration did to prepare the vaccination. a private and public partnership. you know, so i think that these things together just suggest he's just not fit, if he's not prepared and he's not seeing what could harm the american people and adequately preparing to stop it. maria: yeah, it's hard to see anybody protecting the american people at this point. thank you. a quick break. the biden administration accused of abuse at the southern border, meanwhile. texas attorney general ken paxton will weigh on this new lawsuit and whether or not it's because the administration floated $450,000 payments to illegals. we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ remember when no dream was too big? ♪ ♪

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maria: . a group of haitian my grans who illegally crossed into texas earlier this year are now filing a class action lawsuit against the biden administration over alleged mistreatment. this filing said the administration failed to prepare for the surge of migrants despite knowing of their imminent arrival. joining me right now, texas attorney general, ken paxton. ag paxton, it's great to see you. merry christmas. thanks so much for being here. what do you make of this suit? >> it seems pretty ridiculous that a lawsuit could be filed

over illegal immigrants being treated supposedly in a way that they're not satisfied with. it just seems ludicrous. but, look, the entire border situation is ludicrous and yet here we are, every day, dealing with a crisis that just goes on and on because the biden administration doesn't face ret at or doesn't care -- face reality a or doesn't care about reality. maria: maybe since the administration started floating this idea that they were actually considering paying $450,000 per head to illegals who were separated at the border, maybe that gave these haitians an idea that maybe they could suck some money out of this administration. >> you know, that's not -- that would not surprise me at all, this idea that we're going to give them $450,000 a person, maybe up to a million dollars a family, was clearly floated several months ago. i don't think it went anywhere because people reacted so negatively to it. but the reality is, there was an expectation created by that and maybe they're just angry about

that and they're trying to get their pound of flesh. maria: so what an incredible situation at the border that you have been fighting, the department of homeland security announced that now it will close unfinished construction gaps along the southern border wall in california, arizona and texas, ag. dhs says it's going to use congressional funding to complete the building but will not construct any additional parts of the wall. this of course after you and your colleagues, governor abbott, was steadfast in putting state funding behind finishing any walls that were on state property that he could. that of course we saw the pictures of it last weekend. your thoughts on now what dhs is doing? >> well, i think you've seen the wall many times, i've been there with you and you've seen the gaps. it's ridiculous. they built these walls and a left gaps so they could finish construction. the biden administration he refused to close those gaps. i really think this is a

reaction to the lawsuit that eric schmitt from missouri and i filed about forcing the biden administration to appropriated funds for what they were appropriated for, which was the wall. they have not done that. they refused to do it. they wasted money on contractors not building the wall. thing this is their narrative to the court, look, we are doing something, we're going to do access roads, drainage, we're going to fill gaps and fix fences. it's actually not fulfilling the purpose that congress appropriated the funds for. thing is an end run around the court case we have with the biden administration over actually building the wall. maria: you've been so successful in your pushback of the radical agenda. look at the material on the ground. we're showing these pictures, am g paxton, about all of this material that was left for dead on the ground in texas. what are we talking about in terms of the cost? is this $100 million worth of equipment that they're not going to use? >> yeah, i think it's hundred of

millions of dollars and they say they're going to he throw it out. we would love to have that material for our wall. i'm sure they won't help us. they've done everything they can to evade actually stopping illegal immigration, they've done everything they can to encourage it. as we noted already, if they're offering money for people to come, you know they're incentivizing it. they've been incentivizing since day one. it's incredibly frustrating, with the ranchers having to deal with property damage, fentanyl deaths are way up in this country as a result of this and of course covid is being spread at a massive rate because we don't vaccinate these people and we don't test them. maria: i mean, how ridiculous is it that we don't even test anybody or vaccinate anybody at the border. meanwhile, yesterday president biden is there trying to make believe he's all, you know, fighting this. meanwhile, it's wide open at the border. you say you're going to take this fight against the administration's federal vaccine mandate for large businesses right to the supreme court.

the president yesterday commented on his vaccine mandates which have been called unconstitutional over and over again. watch this. >> i know vaccination requirements are unpopular for many, and not even popular for those who are anxious to get them. my administration's put them in place not to control your life, but to save your life and the lives of others, it is going to save thousands of american lives. maria: ken, your reaction? >> well, if he wants to save thousands of american lives, why don't we start at the border where it's pretty easy, where we keep people from coming in that have covid. at the very least, vaccinate them and test them so that makes no sense to me that he wants to save american lives. the reality a is, we've already applied for the supreme court on this issue. i think we're going to be successful. i don't see how the president can have authority to do this, especially when he is letting what's happening at the border

happen. how can he possibly enforce a vacation seen mandate where he forces people to lose their jobs while he lets people cross and spread them all over the country with covid. maria: not only that, but the drugs are just incredible. these illicit narcotics coming into the country. what is the latest on fentanyl? i know that there was one seizure seizing enough fentanyl to kill 200 million americans, just a couple weeks ago, ag. >> well, this is so sad and so frustrating to me because we already know and the biden administration knows had they empowered the cartels to move the drugs across the border and had they don't seem to care. and as the numbers have gone up, i think it's over 100,000 overdoses, record numbers of people dying and yet we're allowing the border patrol to be pushed aside and their focus is on logistics and moving people around as opposed to preventing illegal drug trade. maria: unbelievable. it's just disgusting, the amount of fentanyl coming into this country and killing our people

and there's absolutely no comment from this white house on this at all. ag ken paxton, we're going to be watching the developments and certainly watching your resistance to all of this radical agenda. thank you, sir. merry christmas to you. >> merry christmas. maria: thanks so much for being with us this year and all you're doing, ken paxton. quick break and then president biden holding onto that build back better plan. tennessee senator bill haggerty is here, we'll get his take on the future of the massive spending and tax bill. and then cracking down on unruly passengers, how travelers could face more than just a fine. back in a minute. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪

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of 2 and a quarter, the nasdaq is still lower, it is down about 4 points right now, searching for direction is an accurate way to put it, after a big rally yesterday. yesterday all three major indices notched their biggest gain in weeks, the dow up 560 points, 1 and two thirds percent. the nasdaq was up even more, up 2 and-a-half percent on the session, a gain of 360 on nasdaq and s&p higher by 81. european markets are searching for direction, take a look. we've got fractional moves across the board in the eurozone, ft 100 up 6, cac up 5, dax index up 17. in asia overnight, markets finished mostly higher, hong kong was the best performer. and that was about half a percent higher on the hang seng index, shanghai composite by the way was lower. in the u.s., pressure is building to recall mill l walky county's progressive district attorney following the waukesha christmas parade tragedy. >> there's a group called empower wisconsin, they're

filing a petition accusing the district attorney of dereliction of duty. they say it's time for him to go for releasing the man charged with that deadly christmas parade tragedy on inappropriately low bail. he could face a recall election if enough signatures are collected. the governor says he is taking the complaint seriously. tsa taking action against unruly passengers, according to a joint statement by the tsa and faa, passengers who act up may lose eligibility for tsa precheck on top of hefty fines. the new information sharing program is part of an effort to curb unruly behavior which has skyrocketed in recent years. i wonder why, right? america is frustrated right now. it's unclear how many offenders currently use that precheck service, however. and more bad news for you, maria, there's a christmas low on candy canes, feeling the

sting of the supply chain crisis as demand and sales for candy has increased from last year, leaving customers searching for something sweet. facing a tight he global supply of sugar, many retailers have been unable the to get their hands on ingredients amid soaring freight prices and smaller than expected crops. the u.s. imports about a quarter of its sugar needs. i got to say, maria, i've had no trouble getting candy canes, we always have a lot of them. maria: come on, first cream cheese, now candy canes many this is not good, lauren. >> i was trying to end on as positive. it's very difficult, maria. you ruined it. [laughter] maria: sorry. >> i know, i know, christmas 2021, here we are. maria: one to remember. meanwhile, pawn is holding onto hope that his massive social spending and tax bill still has a future, despite senator joe manchin saying he's a no. watch. >> so did senator manchin break his commitment to you? >> senator manchin and i are

going to get something done. thank you. maria: this comes as senator manchin has offered some insight on some key changes that he wants for the build back better legislation, manchin said that the bill should focus on no gimmicks. he's talking about rolling back the 2017 trump tax cuts but that's already happening because biden's plan raises taxes for most people. he's also talking about extending the child tax credit. right now, there's a child tax credit that's in place for one year, that is a gimmick because the democrats want that in for the full size of and timeframe of the bill which is 10 years. joining me now, tennessee senator, banking committee member big haggerty. senator, it's always a pleasure to see you. thanks very much for being here. merry christmas to you. we hope you're doing well. what do you think joe manchin's thinking is? now, i know kyrsten sinema does not want to see higher taxes

right now. she said. she's been vocal about saying it's not the time to raise taxes on people. what are the issues around taxes regarding joe manchin? do you know? >> i agree with kyrsten sinema. this is not the time to be raising taxes on america. what the biden program does is take the most targeted sorts of taxes, taxes that will single out individuals, cut the taxes that will harm specific sectors of the population but they'll have broad based effects. what they're doing essentially is attacking job creators, make it harder to form capital in america, have more jobs offshore, less profitable to invest here, companies will make the decision to invest else where. since 2017, america has been the best place to invest capital. what biden wants to do is kill that. he wants to make america less competitive, less attractive. that's what the policies would

intend to do it's going to be devastating to america in the long run. the people they're targeting in these tax cuts will vote with their feet. and i think what we'll see is just much lower economic activity. we'll see a lot of, again, aggressive tax planning underway to try to deal with this and at the same time we've got massive inflation, maria. inflation that's raging at levels we haven't seen since new coke was introduced in 1982. that's a tax attacking every american. everyone is paying this tax right now. we've not seen taxes at this level, we've not seen inflation at this level for 39 years. maria: and the white house is trying to explain it away, ground beef is up 14%, year over year, regular gasoline is up 60% year over year and yet jen psaki the other day said that it's corporate greed, senator, she says it's the meet conglomerates raising prices, has nothing to do with their wild, out-of-control spending. do you think anything happens with this build back better bill in the new year? because i know that chuck

schumer is continuing to push that he wants to jam a vote on the floor. >> joe manchin has said that they don't have his vote. it's a 50/50 senate. you've already got 50 republicans that are against this bill. 51 now with joe manchin there are 51 senators against this bill, at best. i'm saying at best, chuck schumer has 49. i think other democrat senators don't want to see it either. what we're seeing from chuck schumer right now we're seeing anger, he hoped to get it done, hoped to get it done earlier this year, during the year, he promised joe biden that he would do it. whats he's doing is kowtowing to the far left of the party, joe biden is worried about being pry mayored by the far left. that's what's driving the behavior, it's far left. they pulled the party so off center that they lost track with the american public. the american public don't want what's in this bill, indeed. maria: you make such a good point. we're showing you these new fox

business polls. over and over again, it shows that voters do not want this agenda. voters do not want the performance that joe biden is selling. and as a result, you would think that this white house says, well, let me listen to voters, let me listen to the american people, let's push it back. let me maybe change this bill. but that's not what we're hearing. so you say it's the pandering to the extreme left. alexandria ocasio-cortez claims she knows what's good for the this country. is that why they keep pushing this through and is there any chance that this comes to a vote in january? >> i've got to believe that's what's causing it, maria. i think what joe manchin did is he listened to he voters in west virginia who sound like the voters of tennessee. they don't want this bill. they don't want more fuel poured on this inflationary fire. they don't want see their healthcare, their child care socialized. they don't want to see the fossil fuel industry devastated. they want to see america thrive

again. we've got aoc and the squad who of live in small, very discrete areas of the united states, trying to push their policies, their left wing policies onto america and they're threatening people like joe schumer who are concerned they might be primaried by her. maria: joe manchin obviously saved us from socialism with his no vote on sunday. let me bring in jonathan madison who is with me this morning, senator. hold on. jonathan, go ahead. >> senator, you mentioned senator joe manchin and how he's not just a yes vote on this bill for obvious reasons. i had a question. senator manchin said vehemently that these intimidation, these tactics, these threats by the democrats, his democratic colleagues, they've been attempts to coerce him to vote one or of not on the bill. he also mentioned that the white house alluded to similar tactics. just in terms of that, i mean,

what kinds of threats, right, is he actually referring to and by the way, the white house actually came forward and said he should honor his commitments, right. his commitments should be the american people, his constituents. what kinds of threats if you could speak to those briefly is he referring to? >> sure. when the white house singles joe manchin out it's like putting a hit on him. we've seen the footage. they attack him where he lives. they're waiting for him when he comes from his home. he lives on the waterfront there if washington. they blocked his car, swarmed him. they've done the same thing to kyrsten sinema, they locked her in her school where she teaches on the weekend. they tracked her into the bathroom. the harassment has gone on and on. it's physical threats. his harassment not only to them, is to their families. they ruined a wedding where kyrn was presiding. the canceling concept, the way they go after a people that disagree with their ideas, it's unsettling.

i don't think joe manchin is going to stand for it, not one bit. maria: well, you're right. i mean, what is this, a dictatorship? what is going on here that we have to face these mobs and this bullying activity because you don't agree with what the extreme left is saying. it's absolutely disgusting and somebody has to make a call and put an end to this. now, i know that the senate passed legislation last week with unanimous consent to ban imports from china's xinjiang region, speaking of bulls, over the -- bullies, over the concerns of use of force labor. you he co-sponsored the bill with senator marco rubio. do you think we'll get to corporate america to make sure they understand the genocide taking place and to take the dollar signs out of their eyes to sell to 1.4 billion people and start doing what's right. >> indeed i do. indeed i do, maria. you know, the trump administration in early july of this year named the xinjiang

region, named china as committing genocide in that region against those people. the biden administration agreed right early as they came into office but have done little about it but the congress has taken action now. i applaud marco rubio for his leadership. i am happy to join this. i expect joe biden to sign the legislation into law and put this into effect. we're reaching out to second raimondo at the commerce department to put those entities on her entity's list, those companies that have been misusing this type of labor and not allow american companies to work with those entities. we're going to have to take targeted action and we can do that. maria: is she going to do that? doesn't gina raimondo have conflicts of interest as relates to china, her husband works for a company that's backed by the ccp. >> we're going to put her in a tough situation. we're going to call on specific companies to be sanctioned and she's going to put them on the

entities list or explain why. maria: okay. senator, we'll be watching. by the way, are they still dropping off illegal migrants in tennessee? >> as far as we know, they are. they've been doing their best to hide it. senator marsha blackburn and i have been all over this, trying to get more clarity out of the department of homeland security, dhs. they have been not forthcoming on this but had they continue to move people across the border and i'll tell you this, maria. the incidents of fentanyl overdoses and deaths continue to rise month after month. that's not a surrogate, i don't know what is, but they are killing our kids here in tennessee. maria: they sure are. they sure are, sending fentanyl into this country, absolutely disgusting. not a peep from this white house on that. it's stunning. good to see you, merry christmas. please come back soon and thanks for all of your support and working with us on "mornings with maria" this year. senator bill haggerty in tennessee. we'll be right back.

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maria: welcome back. let in a services company built for bitcoin and digital assets launching the first ever bitcoin backed mortgage, the loan will allow clients to use bitcoin and property collateral as part of the mortgage and it is on track to launch early next year. the company also announced it

raised $70 million in its series b round of funding. joining me right now is the co-founder and chief strategy officer of let-in. mauricio, great to have you. thanks for being here. what is backing the mortgage? >> great to see you, maria. so as you mentioned, the mortgage, the new mortgage product we're bringing to market potentially uses real estate as part of the collateral, half of the collateral and uses bitcoin as the other half of the t collateral. what the product is, is essentially an evolution of traditional bitcoin backed loans which allows bitcoiners to access financing without having to sell bit coins. they can use it to buy real estate now. maria: wow, that's incredible. bitcoin is up nearly 70% since the start of the year, driving the crypto market to a combined $2 trillion valuation. what are your thoughts on where this is going? >> it's a great question. and we have seen some volatility as of late.

i think that's a combination of really uncertain macroeconomic environments along with some thin trading volumes because of the holiday season. i think what we've seen over time, myself growing up in venezuela, is the way the system is structured, inevitably regardless of the ebbs and flows of central banks, more units get injected into the system over time which is what makes the concept of bitcoin financing so palletable to investors in this environment. maria: who are you speaking to? i mean, tell me about the population of people who want to have a bitcoin mortgage. >> it's a great question. so right now what we're seeing, this actually came from our existing client base, a lot of our clients are wealthy in terms of digital assets. but in the eyes of a traditional bank they're not necessarily qualified to purchase real estate so they can't access a lot of that wealth that has built up digitally into the real world. so through let-in, they access and essentially use it as a bridge in order to teleport some

of their digital wealth had into the real world by using financial services that they can't access with a tradition fallacies testimony. right now, our -- traditional system. our client base has been broadening out into the mainstream with products like this mortgage product. maria: i mean, especially as you've got eric adams and the mayor of miami instituting bitcoin and cryptocurrency into their financial systems. very fascinating. great to see you. thanks very much. merry christmas to you and we'll be watching the development. thank you, sir. >> merry christmas, maria. maria: all right. see you soon. quick break and then bette midler forced to backtrack, after her comments about the state of west virginia. wait until you hear what she said about west virginia. we'll get into it in the morning's hot topic buzz when we come right back.

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an asset more relevant than ever before. gold. your strategic advantage. maria: welcome back, time for hot topic buzz bette midler now forced to backtrack after slamming senator joe manchin and all constituents, she slammed the entire state of west virginia, for failing to support biden's "build back better" bill, midler tweeted this, quote he wants us to all be just like his state, west virginia, poor illiterate

strung out now apology tweet after she came under fire from right and left i am just seeing red joe manchin and whole family are a criminal enterprise, really? dagen mcdowell i guess bette midler since a singer knows everything then? dagen: since we look to frequently to hollywood intirnz enter containers for opinions on politics they matter so much to us, i have said growing up in rural south let chattering classes elitists assume that we are stupid, assume that we are weak, because of where we are from the way we speak then we can stand back, and watch their pomposity melt when they realize that we are winning, and beating them. so that is exactly what happened to all of these left

ies communists from northeast hollywood joe manchin said, no on "build back better" i could read a tweet i said about her, but can't because it has expletives in it check out twitter feed. maria: we will check out your twitter feed the garners is jonned. jonathan: i used to think hocus-pocus was scary motive has nothing on comments, far scarier, i know, friends west virginia someone visited west virginia a number of times people are not poor des dispute strupg out whatever she said i mean they are informed hardworking up standing citizens, and you know i think what she said was deplorable owes more than apology gave watered-down, needs to do more. maria: a it sounds to me like bette midler is the one who is uninformed here stay right

there next hour of "mornings with maria" begins right now. . . maria: good wednesday mornings thanks for being with us i am maria bartiromo on this holiday he shortered week wednesday, december 22 your top stories right now 8:00 a.m. on the east coast, president biden is now defending his administration's response to the omicron variant even though cases are surging, people cannot get tests ahead of christmas,. >> searching for direction after a big rally dow industrials higher 36 s&p 500 negative by a quarter point, and nasdaq negative by 21, we are looking ahead to third quarter gdp news out this morning out in 30 minutes time, the expectation calls for growth of 2.1%, in the third quarter that would be a censorship slowdown, from the 6.7% rate of growth in the second quarter earlier this year we bring numbers see if

it impacts markets, in 30 minutes' time. european markets this morning meanwhile, muted investors cautious amid o o chrome risks some shutting down netherlands. >> cac quarante up 5 1/2 dax higher 11 points in asia overnight markets he moecht higher all fractional moves shanghai composite the one weak spot best was hong kong, hang seng up two-thirds of 1%, "mornings with maria" is live right now. >> mornings movers first up dodgio therapeutics sliding after jefferies cut rating, stock down better than 9% analysts cut price target to 36 from 36, rather to just 10 dollars a share, over uncertainty over the covid drug last week was shown to lose protection, against the omicron variant. look at carmax, a double beat third quarter results revenue

up 64 1/2% from a year earlier, hitting 8 and a half billion dollars, blowing past wall street estimates up 3 1/3% at 141 1/2 rest of the market lit changed waiting on gdp number this morning, big rebound yesterday, not following through this morning, dow industrials up 33, s&p 500 down a fraction, and nasdaq down if. in about 25 minutes time we will get the third quarter gdp, this is a final read of the gdp, and we are expecting growth 2.1%, that would representative sharp slowdown from 6.7% growth we saw in second quarter earlier this year, joining me right now is chairman founder of at inler associates, also joining the conversation dagen mcdowell, jonathan madison, great to see you merry christmas to you, happy to have you here, to talk about where we are, in the macro story how you see 2022 playing out in terms of

economic growth. >> well, the -- the final revisions not that big a deal i don't expect distant change we decelerated sharply most important thing fourth quarter, said 7.2% going to revise tomorrow most at least 5%, wall street looking forward not backward, as far as next year goes, the we are expecting 4% gdp growth, there is still a lot of -- back orders, because of the supply chain, semiconductors et cetera, and so, manufacturing is very healthy the ism service report highest it has ever been all categories, surveyed are up -- so we are going into the new year very, very strong kind of locked loaded services and

manufacturing. >> fascinating to see fourth quarter picking up such speed after he slower third quarter what is driving that assessment, by the atlanta fed 7% growth in the fourth quarter? >> well, in fairness atlanta fed does over shoot okay they were pg 6 to 10 third quarter -- at 2.1 right now trade deficit tell dramatically, okay exported quite a bit, the energy prunts, and vehicles, as our exports soared trade deficit fell going to boost gdp, obviously, october retail sales the if only november retail sales very disappointing, looks like spending most more than with gas in tanks, the holiday shopping season, is should still be very, very good. when consumers have money in pockets they spend it. they are spending a lot in credit cards now good sign,

and credit card growth exceeding personal income looks like spending money even if -- right now. >> so you are a growth guy let's look at big tech impact of big tech on broader market, analysts at goldman sachs are pointing out that it is just such a narrow rally, five names microsoft inindividuala apple tesla over half since april one third 24% advanced this year some are concerned, that this rally so is narrow heading into 2022, i know you even a lot of names, right what do you think about this does this worry you? >> you know always does, a lot caused by indexing, but i want to be clear do i like nvidia had it a long, long time based on 2000 how it exploded yesterday, i'm very comfortable with small cap hit hard after thanksgiving,

bottomed on december 3rd, retested -- lows on monday, washed out lock and load on them the other thing that is going to be affecting the market, is you know, the dollar is very strong -- outside america multi nationals big debating raising profits it looks like it's going toed -- to broad-out, that means markets, hard to find, go into a funnel a bit more selective i am not that worried about tech right now we're going to have bottom out here for six weeks or so. maria: okay any headwind in 2022 do you want to talk about look we know the federal reserve is expected to raise rates three times, that makes things tighter more expensive

for everybody. we are -- waiting to see if in fact joe biden gets his wish, to get this plan, resuscitated, joe manchin put kibosh on "build back better" would have had taxes higher by 30% for middle class, even higher for higher earners, do you see that as an issue? what are the main issues, that you are looking at, as you look to allocate exam and what should a portfolio look like i realize everybody different depending on age goals roughly speaking the portfolio in 2022 what do you want it to look like. >> -- growth, a safe place for most investors millions of people put money in the market because so frustrated with yields, "the wall street journal" this morning has a good article about the -- that we like extra source space, stock that we like, so those are examples of -- stocks that

that dividends very good earnings growth we do a dividend we want to double every six, seven years i know i get a yield 3.4 but dividends growing tax advantaged i am a growth guy, i am not having any problems finding 30 is mr.% sales growth 50 plus% earnings growth but getting more narrow i am having fewer choices semiconductors hottest area wall street getting what it wants always wantedo buy government what we have, we are going to -- be more clear after november, and, as far as what joe manchin did to joe biden, you know, it is interesting it is -- -- the "wall street journal" had a good editorial saying he might have saved joe biden's presidency, by doing this, because -- joe -- biden back to center bill couldn't, he could save his presidency, but

right now, you know, better figure out who his friends are, and want to talk -- manchin -- >> that is right you are right journal op-ed, manchin saving the democrats spot-on driving themselves down a bad road with this, massive five trillion-dollar spending tax plan. merry christmas to you see so see you thank you so much for all your contributions this year. >> this you maria. maria: all right much more ahead coming up, more bad news, for joe biden, new polls we've got them shows nearly half americans think this president has accomplished a lot less than coupled new york congressman lee zeldin here to weigh in we talk mandates in new york if you do the crime you do not have to do the time apparently. thousands of federal inmates not returning to prison as

part of the plan, it is coming up then the commercial real estate boom in one city we tell you where stay with us we will take you there you are watching "mornings with maria" live on fox business. . (man) still asleep. (woman vo) so, where to next? (vo) reflect on the past, celebrate the future. season's greetings from audi. retirement income is complicated. as your broker, i've solved it. that's great, carl. but we need something better. that's easily adjustable has no penalties or advisory fee. and we can monitor to see that we're on track. like schwab intelligent income. schwab! introducing schwab intelligent income. a simple, modern way to pay yourself from your portfolio.

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when you start with care, you get a different kind of bank. truist. born to care. now top stories that we are watching this morning, he prominent harvard professor has been found guilty 6 counts of lying about payments received from the chinese communist party. this is something i have outlined extensively in my book the cost trump china and american revival enjoy through in academia, lied to investigators over participation in chinese program aimed at wooing foreign experts lied about academic ties to wuhan university of technology filed clove a hundred percent of thousands in payments received from china on taxes, faces up

to five years in prison president biden remaining confident on reaching a deal with senator joe manchin on dead in the water "build back better" plan. >> from -- manchin break his commitment to you? >> -- when he gets something. >> chuck schumer saying he wants something to happen with this bill in 2022 manchin effectively killed any passenger of the massive spending tax bill official no on sunday later outlined changes he liked to see should a bill get his support, including, taking the price down and taking out all of the gimmicks, which suggest federal program sunset after one year weeks ago i reported migrants in texas calling for ubers to take them elsewhere after they cross the border illegally the same thing in border hot spot arizona drivers telling fox picked up

illegal immigrants in yuma driving to several locations across the state interior of the country when asked to comment uber did not respond directly instead pivoting to work to combat human trafficking cold us this crisis expanded beyond texas into arizona, now arizona is a hot spot for illegals, thousands federal inmates on house arrest likely getting unexpected gift this year from the government, attorney general merrick garland and doj announcing will not make some criminals on home confinement due to covid return to prison once pandemic is over chicago mayor lori lightfoot makes a desperate plea amid skyrocketing violence in her city. >> this i have formally asked attorney general of the united states, merrick garland, to with all deliberate i have the

haste daem agents for six months to -- decrease. >> foot in mouth lightfoot cry for help one year after she proposed cutting 80 million dollars from the police budget, she went from defunding the police to begging to refund the dagen mcdowell how did she think this was going to end. dagen: right if you free federal written mates because of covid, why are you in federal prison? potentially for organized crime, would involve gun trafficking so you are going to free individuals who o are responsible for the very kind of crime and mayhem and chaos that you see in chicago? that is the world in which we're living i call it will have the wing "luniverse". >> unfortunately people had to

die get shot jonathan talking about 12 democrat-run cities reaching record high numbers of murders 12 cities record number of murders run by democrats. jonathan: absolutely defund police cities right no surprise here this was near and dear to my heart my family have had a prison ministry in san francisco five years or so i believe in second chance for inmates needs regulated oversight the problem there is no regulation, no oversight it comes at a time crime is at all-time high, president donald trump last year, you know, he answered the call for more agents. right at least 100 agents federal agents in chicago. and you know i think it is time that the president respond to the call crime actually was reduced last year as a result i don't think

this is time to let federal inmates just stay home. not return back to prison without regulation and oversight, i think this is a problem. maria: are it is pretty incredible a problem for you a problem for people the citizens of new york, but that is not their priority. right now. quick break new york governor kathy hochul pushback for statewide mask mandate. >> lee zeldin is here 2 china crackdown on campuses one with harvard professor found gull of six counts related to china payments getting paid by ccp former state department spokesperson here to react what we come back being, merry christmas from maria" ♪♪ ♪ . .

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charles leisure guilty on six counts of lying about money he received from communist chinese government his participation in chinese program the thousands talent program i'med at you you would agree foreign experts academic ties to wuhan university of technology something i have written about extensively in my book the cost, trump china and american revival, we discuss a number of spies in a number of industries. trying to infiltrate american business take secrets back to the ccp, joining us right now the former state department spokesperson morgan ortega thanks very much for being here this morning, i know, watch at state department, we saw a string of indictments, not just in being a deem kwa but elsewhere, the embassy in houston had to be closed tell us what ccp in terms of infiltrating our business to

try have to steal intellectual property. >> ho yeah first of all maria i think i want a signed copy of that book looks amazing we worked on past two years to try to deal with all things that you detailed, so, we looked at it as a government wide effort to figure out how chinese communist party as you just side was a infiltrating a businesses research institutions, universities we took actions in the trump administration first doj had this sort of ongoing china initiative seeking to find undue foreign influenza in universities let me tell you rampant incredibly corrupt one, mike pompeo state department we did things, said weren't going to issue visas for students afill yaitdz with pla chinese intelligence services unbelievable that you could be a part of this chinese military get a

providesa to study in some most sensitive most precious environments on american university campuses thoshs sort ofs things we did called for universities, think tanks to disclose full -- funding should take up pursue a lot of people get concerned about, students being harassed on campus being chinese all stuff we are sensitive to always talk about fact we are dealing with the chinese communist party. who controls influences, their own people, just as much as us, so we are very kind of to talk about chinese communist party versus chinese people but running rampant on universities i am happy to see this conviction today hopefully sends a chilling message to professors researchers around the country

think they can get away with this. >> this threat we have seen in my book i write about motorola there was an employee that was stopped at the airport had a ton of -- data from motorola was sending back, because the ccp wanted all intellectual property how making walkie-talkie phones, fascinating what you mentioned i want to mention perdue situation, morgan i know you know very well perdue learned from a national news account that one of its students after speaking out on behalf of freedom was a harassed, and martyred by chinese students secret police in china made a visit to that student's parents' home, so talk a bit about that bullying,

unfortunately people face if they go against ccp families might be in china they will get a visit from the secret police. >> yes, very chilling, i am glad you brought up the story it should be concerning for all of us we really need to wake up that the ee the way in which the chinese communist party sort of has great digital firewall to block off people in china from getting any access to real outside information. they don't want them to hear the truth it is like amazon how amazon can only give five star ratings review in xi jinping's book in china getting kim jong-un territory as how people in china have to talk about xi jinping. the terrible stories what happens to the people of hong kong who were promised advocacy freedom hearing all in china not used to hearing about it in united states, i think that this is -- perdue university statement was great

the fact you have chinese students studying in america that are being harassed because other chinese students probably told by government to harass them harassing families at home unconscionable should not happen here. new satellite photos showing worrisome chinese, in south china sea what do you make of in. >> chinese a long time have been military in south china sea, we've been doing things i think really important to efforts you are taking about showing pictures right now, in the south china sea they are contradict, fake i islands to control crucial packages important o now more than ever united states continue, ways in by our navy does freedom of operation to show international waters will remain free open thanks to united states navy, so we

should continue to do that. but china is going to seek everywhere they can around the world to do operations, that will have them controlling what they consider their sphere of influence. >> merry christmas to you thanks so much for being here, and for all the wonderful insights morgan i expect to see your prince on instagram, morgan ortega we will see you soon third quarter gdp out better than expected we want to tell you what looking at expecting a number 2.1% it is better than expected coming in 2.3% gdp, this is the final assessment of the third quarter, the final read of gdp, and we will have watching market for any reaction here as you can see, not much at all, this is backward-looking a bit but the final now that we know third quarter gdp growth came in 2.3% better than estimated 2.1% certainly way down, from

what we saw earlier in the year was 6% growth all the estimates have come down, as you heard navellier the fourth quarter estimates way higher atlantap federal reserve expecting 7% growth number for fourth quarter that may very well change as we see, business go into the year end, right now we've got a market that is trading down, by a fraction, on this number, dow industrials down just one point, with third quarter gdp final number in at 2.3% growth. quick break. then still trying to force a deal joe biden claims he is not giving up president biden insisting getting something done on "build back better" after deal fell apart with senator jo manchin we talk about that when we come back. what you see not always what you get one woman's airbnb

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maria: welcome back. good wednesday morning. thanks so much for joining us. i'm maria bartiromo it is wednesday, december 22 take a look at market half an hour ahead of the opening bell now we got gdp number out better than expected, markets fractionally lower this morning, dow industrials down 11 s&p 500 down 7 1/4 nasdaq lower by 42 and 1/2 pulling back from yesterday's huge rally, we did get reading on third quarter gdp coming in 2.3% that is just above the expectation called for growth 2.1% way town from the growth we saw earlier in the year, in pebing the second quarter 6%+ amazon web services paishly

back on line this morning after outage lauren simonetti with details. lauren: again some on the east coast experiencing another outage on amazon cloudy service says power has been record in many snantsdz after widespread outage for many happened earlier this month down half a percent private sector ceos meet at the white house to give the president, an update on the bottleneck at u.s. ports, expected to out the economic progress despite soaring inflation, ongoing supply chain disruptions. crisis affecting many americans amid this busy holiday season. so i mean kind of -- christmas is a couple days away when will we get the items we need going forward, tesla ceo elon musk says he sold stock to

meet -- sell-off of shares in company also planning california calling over think aation, loss a quarter of value last month after announcement november 6 on twitter would sell a portion 10% stake in that company tesla loss at quarter of value hopefully just about done, digital burgers white castle in on craze, celebrating media artists flex 5,000 mark 100th anniversary set to launch this one, i like the snow of white castle burger you can't get that -- at least not yet. maria: not sure about that, a candle for christmas. that is a little better --

>> hoo. lauren: you are right some people -- it is good. maria: i am sure absolutely, thank you president biden claims he is confident -- is going to get something done with west virginia senator joe manchin pushing that "build back better" bill into 2022 now. >> -- did senator manchin break his commitment to you? >> senator manchin and i are going to get something done. thank you. . maria: yes manchin outlined changes that he would like to see, should he support anything including bringing the price tag, of course, cbo told us five trillion dollars moving gimmicks right now show a number of federal programs sunsetting after one year, which is note about the realistic, new york congressman, committee member new york gubernatorial candidate lee zeldin with me to talk policy and beyond great to see you sir thanks very much for being here this

morning. >> great to see you maria. >> merry christmas to you lee do you think we are going to see this "build back better" plan reemerge in 2022 the democrats trying hard to push it further? >> i think the bill passed thouts is good a possibility there is going to be conversation negotiations potentially a new bill. i believe that it will be smaller than what this prior bill is that passed the house, that senator manchin said not going to vote for. i can see the democrats president biden trying to work hard to pass something. we will see final product, senator manchin obviously, doesn't want not somebody making changes to local tax deduction not somebody in favor of the expanded child tax credit and as you pointed out doesn't like the size of

the bill the electric vehicle component but there are other components of the bill from healthcare, and more, that he might be willing to compromise on smaller price tag. >> so anybody's guess what ends up being in revised is bank surveillance in there a host of plans, to monitor what we do with our money, 87,000 new irs auditors is what joe biden wants to have with 80 billion dollars in there to pay for that, so that they can find what joe biden claims are tax cheats, we don't know if that is going to be in there we don't know if all higher taxes are going to be in there, a lot of expectations that the middle class going to see 30% increases in taxes. do you have a sense of -- any of that? because they are going to have to pay for whatever they put in there if they want 550 billion dollars green spending

they need to raise taxes; right? >> sure. for a while, president biden and others were saying this bill is going to cost zero. obviously, everybody for good reason hill skeptical of that charge and even if you are raising taxes to pay for it, it is still spending a certain amount of money that you should acknowledge that price tag as opposed to saying that it is zero. as member of house financial services committee with chairman powell, secretary yellen i was asking them whether or not as they make their inflation estimates whether or not they are assuming that a bill is passed or not passed, not getting clear answers, there is a lot of concern about inflation, the price tag of this bill, and there is uncertainty here as to whether or not the fed estimates that are coming out, are assuming that anything is going to pass or not pass.

that is a o big question mark. as far as the irs component, i addressed that as well during the testimony here that came up in the last couple weeks. because i heard a lot of concern, from small businesses, from individuals, from average every day americans, who just don't want the government spying on their bank account, they want more freedom, and they don't want heavy hand of big government watching each of these individual small transactions. >> of course. look a page out of communist china playbook; right? surveillance that is what it is, meanwhile, voters don't want i want yet the democrats seem to have a tin ear when it comes to american people, a poll finds two-thirds of independent voters full two-thirds independents disapprove of joe biden ovenl 29% actually back him that is 8 point decline, in just one week, congressman.

your reaction, and why aren't your colleagues on left seeing polls saying hold on maintain american families don't want what we are selling maybe we should pull it back they are just doubling down the answer to over simplify two parts of the democratic party you have the further left progressives aoc and her friends, then the others, you might call them centrists closer to center than aoc and her after november 2 they said we took are a shellacking because priorities of far left extreme irturning people off making democrats say this isn't the same democratic party it left me the other extreme of the party aoc and friends, far left, say the reason they took

shellacking have not yet passed priorities validation -- believe that is validation, that people are reacting to them not passing these what fails they should do it faster, president biden is suffering in polls from what happened in afghanistan, to southern border chaos with multitrillion-dollar debt spend bill, seems slowing down, and people won't competence. >> before you go the mask mandate in new york what do you want to say about it look the biden administration keeps trying to force mandates down our throats, judge after judge telling them these are unconstitutional what about kathy hochul's plan the problem is plans ideas are all under a box of mandates finds firings, threats, people want ideas that conversations should be not to instill fear

in the population -- from omicron while contagious causing milder reactions good thing a smaller peak happened in south africa hopefully plays out here talk about access to more testing, access to the vaccines for people who when want it to treatment, for people who need it, development of more treatment, more therapeutics. maria: therapeutics exactly right that is what we want we want to be able to care for ourselves should we get sick merry christmas happy holidays to you good to see you. thanks very much for joining us on "mornings with maria," we many see you soon merry christmas, quick break then companies ready to rebuild in a new city, we've got new hot shot -- and the surge in business real estate that is next. stay with us. . . it worked! happy holidays from lexus. get 1.9% apr financing on the 2022 es 350. ♪♪

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maria: welcome back a mass exodus out of new york fueling office boom in south florida projects in development west palm beach increasing total office space in city by more than 50%, compared to last year that is a according to data from cbre, joining me markets millichap ceo thank you for being here you think

people of businesses already moving to florida in droves before covid but the pandemic has accelerated things? >> exactly maria good morning, great to be with you on the program. florida has always been, a magnet for migration, great job pro-business environment attracting companies an people the pandemic was on steroids we are tracking close to 700,000 in migration since 2019 into state by far largest of any state, second coming in texas 500,000 people, unique about your point in the office space as people companies are moving there finding that there wasn't sufficient office space that particular submarket didn't have a lot of over building, or any vacancies, no i developers are responding by adding that is very different than when we're

seeing even in texas people are moving, there companies are moving there already have very high vacancy rates no need for new development. very different in the dynamic you mentioned west palm. >> there is a dynamic, i spoke with the governor of florida ron desantis on sunday, who celebrating it right after doing his budget, watch this. since covid people know in florida their freedoms are respected, people know they can invest here, and not have their businesses shut down, people know that they are going to be able to get jobs here not potentially forced out based on mandates the fact we've stood for freedom, in addition to having good tax and spend policies, has really caused people to want to come, work in florida, and we we are producing more jobs per capita than other states but have hundreds of you thousands job options because the economy is

performing well. >> have what do you make of that do you think 2022 is a big year for florida? >> is it a we really do believe that is what is happening in florida is sustainable, people are continuing to announce plans to move there, our operation throughout the state, one of our most significant presence in the marketplace reporting new demand from buyers that are investing in the state, as well as, companies relocating there, indicators very, very positive one thing to point out not only are people moving to florida on full-time basis also an outpost a little bit of a satellite location for part-time new york city financial service executives police spending time in florida not full-time basis. maria: you look at tax, that you are paying in a place like new york or california, and for these, you know, important

jobs, this is real money that is significant savings to say i'm going to take business to florida what about the rest of the country we've got recent gartner survey finding 44% companies pushed back also reopening plans, to -- the omicron variant new wave renewing concerns office space is going to continue to empty. >> we are seeing that wave of this unfortunately makes office space in palm very much contrarian, great investment opportunity a office space a cloud over it, variants or whatever investors are questioning whether the hybrid work model really is here to stay is going to -- it will for next two or three years we do believe that with the economy continuing to grow, business applications that are at record level there will be

new demand over time of offset but where apartments retail self storage property, so much demand office more hesitation kind of makes it a contrarian play. maria: hassan thanks for all info great to see you merry christmas to you and family we will talk in 2022 we will be right back with bias buzz of the morning stay with us. . ♪♪ ♪♪ experience the power of sanctuary at the lincoln wish list event. ..

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maria: welcome back. with the big but the morning, a tourist in new york city shocked to discover her hotel room does not overlook the city is advertised on the air b&b website but directly into a restaurant, this shows diner sitting inches from her. here b&b apologized offering a voucher. dagen: much nicer than many apartments i have lived in. maria: thank you for joining us. "varney and company" begins right now. lauren simonetti target away. lauren: president biden insists his administration was not behind when it came to testing but the lines are long, home tests impossible to find the 500 million tests he is