MARIA-00
Concerns; Tragedy in Mexico; Southwest Outage; Trump Meetings Continue;
Trump Admin Picks? - Part 5>
Cafaro, Gianni Russo >
Policies; Germany; Police; Donald Trump; Stock Markets; Terrorism; Theft;
Economy>
The VA wastes a lot of money they have healthcare labor issues and you need individuals who understand healthcare, labor and procurement to go in and restructure that component.
Now with VA service writ large. You need the ability to allow those veterans into the private sector marketplace by using their VA card and then charging those services back to the Veteran's Administration.
We have working in this compendium of services things such as jobs assistance and educational assistance, education loans -- you know different things -- the Pell Grant series that can help our veterans as they transition out. And then as they step back and help mentor and care for some of these families of active duty and military
So we want that process to become seamless. We want it to become productive. And be there consistently for those veterans that have served our nation so well.
SAYEGH: Representative Blackburn it's Tony Sayegh. Thank you for being with us.
REP. MARSHA BLACKBURN (R), TEN: Yea
SAYEGH: I think you characterize very well the fact that Donald Trump has picked a cabinet of doers. People who have accomplished something. I cited this statistic before they have cumulative 6.9 percent average in years in government service versus 17 years of government services average for Obama appointees. Which I think is really the wrong direction.
The American people clearly want disruption. They want to drain the swamp.
REP. MARSHA BLACKBURN (R), TEN: That's right.
SAYEGH: They want something new. How though, does that agenda with a lot of private sector people, people who've worked largely perhaps in the military, get translated through actual government process and reform.
How do you envision this working for example through congressional action coordinating with the White House on their agenda?
REP. MARSHA BLACKBURN (R), TENNESSEE: Yes and Tony that's the right question to ask. People want government to run in a more businesslike manner. Now when I was a freshman we made waste fraud and abuse and fighting that our class project.
What we really never had was one person, an innovation officer that was in charge of coordinating the executive branch with the legislative branch. And that is -- you got to have its somebody's job in order to get government innovation and government reform work done.
Because every single program goes out across, it kind of spreads across several different agencies. You have to pull all of it, plus the funding streams, out in order to actually get rid of it and right-size -- or go through merging and consolidation of different government programs.
I think what you're going to see is that (ph) the committee chairs of the House and the Senate standing committees -- like (ph) my committee, energy and commerce; when it comes to healthcare, when it comes to technology policy, when it comes to energy policy; working with those cabinet secretaries and with.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
BLACKBURN: . the administration. To say, let's pull these programs out and let's make this work.
BARTIROMO: Congresswoman, what can your committee do in the face of what (ph) President Obama is trying to do right now; basically say this is all off limits. In terms of drilling in the arctic, drilling in the Atlantic Ocean. He's basically taking a stand here in these final weeks in office to stop what the incoming administration is doing. What can your committee do?
BLACKBURN: What we can do is go back in and recall, under the congressional review act, these last minute rules that he is doing. So we can pull those back (ph). Legislatively, we can go in and in statute (ph) put in some provisions that will address the items that he is trying to eliminate -- the things that he is trying to take off-line, if you will.
When it comes to the problems that we have had with Keystone Pipeline or the war on coal that he has exercised, or the outer conventional shelf drilling, or what he tries to do with Arctic lands or Federal lands; we will be able to go in and legislatively put in place some components that will allow greater utilization of our national resources.
And then also, to focus on an (ph) all of the above energy policy that will help us be energy independent. That will spur innovation through the private sector and shift that focus so that we do put that attention on all of the above.
BARTIROMO: All right, we will be watching the developments, Congresswoman. Good to see you as always, thanks so much.
BLACKBURN: Good to see you. Merry Christmas.
BARTIROMO: And to you, Merry Christmas. Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn there.
We'll take a short break. Then a dangerous defect under investigation, the U.S. is probing Fiat Chrysler over complaints that the cars can roll away while parked. And then cocaine found under where at an airport? The surprising $78,000 at New Jersey's Newark airport. Back in a minute.
(Commercial Break)
BARTIROMO: Welcome back. German police this morning searching for a new suspect in the Berlin Christmas market attack. Lauren Simonetti on headlines now.
LAUREN SIMONETTI, FBN REPORTER: Hi, Maria. Good morning. You're looking at pictures from a live scene where this investigation in Germany continues -- there you go.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
Multiple reports say police have launched a nation wide manhunt for a Tunisian suspect after finding his identification papers in the truck used in the attack. Fox news has learned that the man, in his 20s is also on a police danger watch list. Now a Pakistani man, suspected of driving the truck, has been released because authorities did not have enough evidence to keep him.
ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack on Monday, but German officials say other leads are being pursued. German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has faced growing criticism in the wake of the attack for the country's generous refugee policy.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
Here at home, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launching an investigation into a potential Fiat Chrysler defect. There have been reports of at least nine injuries and 25 crashes where the vehicles allegedly roll away after drivers shifted them into part.
These are the vehicles that officials are investigating; the 2013 to '16 Ram 1500 pickup truck and the 2014 to '16 Dodge Durango SUV.
This rollaway issue, very similar to the flaw that caused Star Trek actor Anton Yelchin's Jeep Grand Cherokee to roll away. That was in June and that did kill him.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
Well, a Dutch man is in police custody after police found five pounds of cocaine hidden in his backpack at Newark International airport. The man was stopped when he arrived from Aruba.
Police say he was hiding the coke in a pair of coke in a pair of spandex shorts. The street value of that white stuff; $78,000. Major drug bust.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
And finally -- you can't make this one up. A pagan priest in Maine has won the right to wear, yes, goat horns in his driver's license photo. Phelan Moonsong, that's his name, says unless he's sleeping or bathing, Maria, he always wears his horns.
But back in August DMV officials told him he needed to take them off to get his picture taken on his ID. He appealed to the Maine Secretary of State who eventually approved that picture on his license, allowing the goat horns because of religious purposes; and they also didn't block his face.
This leaves the door wide open for other photos, right Maria?
BARTIROMO: Yes, I guess so.
SIMONETTI: That's a pretty bad license picture.
BARTIROMO: What do the horns do? I mean, what is.
SAYEGH: Maybe (ph) that (ph) he (ph) shouldn't be on the roads driving.
MURPHY: I never thought I'd hear the term, goat horns for religious purposes. This is really something.
CAMPOS-DUFFY: What religion is that?
MURPHY: Well, they're (ph) pagans (ph).
BARTIROMO: Pagan.
MURPHY: That's his thing, I guess.
BARTIROMO: Yes, I guess so. OK.
Coming up, FedEx does not deliver on earnings headed into the holidays. What's squeezing profits for the package delivery giant. We'll talk about that. The Dow just a few points away from Dow 20,000. We'll (ph) take a look at whether the rally has legs (ph) into 2017 one President-Elect Trump takes office. Back in a minute.
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BARTIROMO: Well, they're calling it the Trump-bump. The rallies is (ph) continuing this morning, especially on the Dow Industrials, which is approaching 20,000. Once Trump is in office, though, and his tax plan is implemented, could we see even more gains and faster economic growth?
Joining us right now is Americans for Tax Reform president, Grover Norquist. Grover, good to see you, thanks so much for joining us.
GROVER NORQUIST, AMERICANS FOR TAX REFORM: Yes.
BARTIROMO: So we want to go through the plan. And of course we know that a priority for Steven Mnuchin, incoming Treasury Secretary, is to lower corporate taxes to 15 percent and then lower individual taxes. What's your take on the president-elect's proposals?
NORQUIST: I think what the president put together is largely what will pass. His proposal and what the House of Representatives is working on are very close. I think we're likely to get 20 to 15 percent as (ph) the corporate rate. I believe they will do the individual side at the same time and the same piece of legislation, inside reconciliation.
They also got a full territoriality (ph), so that there (ph) will no longer be this -- have this situation where our tax policy drives inversions or drives American companies to be owned by foreign companies. And full (ph) expensing is a very important part of this, it's part of both the Trump plan and the republican House plan. So that rather than having long depreciation schedules, you expense new business investment in year one. It reduces the cost of investment.
They want to get rid of the death tax and the AMT. It is a significant pro-growth set of policies that will be enacted starting -- it'll take affect January 1st of 2017, but it'll (ph) take us 100 days to pass it in the House. And then it'd take less time than you'd normally think in the Senate. But the Senate always takes a while.
BARTIROMO: So it's a growth plan and the goal is to get growth. Economic growth up to 3.5 to 4 percent in a short period of time. Is that doable? Do you think it will work?
NORQUIST: Yes. And we can look at history; Regan, from the bottom of his recession through his presidency averaged 4 percent growth. What did he do? He reduced marginal tax rates, he had some restraint on government spending -- not as much as he wanted, but some.
What Trump has the advantage of is he can not only cut taxes dramatically at the corporate level and the individual level, which will be a big help, but we're also getting rid (ph) of 18 taxes inside Obamacare. Obamacare is a collection of 18 very significant taxes, totally more than $1 trillion over a decade and they put a stethoscope on top of it and called it Obamacare. But it is a massive tax increase.
Abolishing Obamacare is more than $1 trillion over the next decade. Add that to the tax reduction of the Trump tax plan and you have a great pro- growth policy put forward. Plus, the policy of allowing and permitting all of those infrastructure projects.
You know, Obama had a war on infrastructure; pipelines -- you know, all of the things we needed to build with private sector money that he wouldn't allow because he didn't like energy and he didn't like infrastructure unless it's run by the government. That all becomes possible, because the money was there in the private sector. All we needed was the stinkin' permit from Washington D.C.
BARTIROMO: Wow.
CAMPOS-DUFF: Grover, this is Rachel here from the studio.
NORQUIST: Hi.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You seem pretty happy with what you think is going to happen here with the Trump administration in terms of regulation and taxes. Your group was decidedly anti-Trump. How is (ph) your organizations, Americans for Tax Reform, now dealing with this? How is the board sort of readjusting to this new reality?
NORQUIST: Sure. I don't think we were every anti-Trump, we didn't take a position in the presidential primary among the republicans; they were all very good. And we were very enthusiastic about Trump's tax plan from the very beginning. They were kind enough to talk to us and take some advice and we certainly advocated -- in his second iteration he added full expensing.
It wasn't in the first one, it was in the second one. And the Trump plan and the House plan have been coming together over the months and they've each moved towards the other. The House plan looks more like Trump's plan, Trump's plan looks more like the House plan. I think it's going to be easy for them to get together.
But Americans for Tax Reform has always been very enthusiastic about the approach Trump was taking on taxes and regulations. We didn't endorse, in the primaries, I certainly.
BARTIROMO: But you know what, Grover we.
NORQUIST: I voted for him, not Hilary.
BARTIROMO: We have to push back on the cost of it.
NORQUIST: Yes.
BARTIROMO: Because yesterday Jack Lew joined me in an exclusive interview, and he (ph) said that tax cuts never work. And rolling back regulations are not going to work. Listen to this, Grover.
NORQUIST: Yes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JACK LEW, SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY: We have the highest statutory (ph) rate in the developed world, but our average rate is on par with most countries in Europe. The difference is we need to get rid of the loopholes of (ph) the deductions and we need to lower the rates. What (ph) we can't do is spend a lot of money having a tax cut that loses revenue, because that's just going to shift the burden somewhere else.
Why couldn't we get it done? You know, the politics have been challenging in the last few years. I think that there was more of a consensus around ideas then there was about getting something done.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: What do you make of that, Grover?
NORQUIST: It's nonsense. The administration told the business community that they were willing to take the corporate rates down. But they forgot to tell them that whenever they met with the republicans they demanded a net $1.4 trillion tax increase in any tax reform tax changes.
I met with Kerry -- then Senator Kerry. What did they want? Net $1.4 trillion in higher taxes in any, quote un-quote, tax reform. You can't have tax -- reduce marginal tax rates and raise the net tax burden. Net tax burden $1.4 trillion, it's a mess.
So the reason why they didn't get tax reform was that they insisted on hiding, hiding, a massive tax increase inside of anything called tax reform. And the business community didn't want it, because it wasn't going to be helpful. And there's (ph) nonsense, the republicans have all taken the tax payer protection pledge.
They're not raising taxes, not $1.4 trillion, not nothing. And so he didn't tell the whole story. That the administration never put forward an effort to actually reduce the corporate rate without having this massive net tax increase, which was never going to happen.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
NORQUIST: Now Trump will sign a bill that -- is (ph) a big tax cut statically. But if you take into effect the dynamic effects, will be revenue neutral. But you're still talking about tremendous pro-growth policy in bringing those rates down.
BARTIROMO: Yes. All right, Grover, great analysis as always. Thanks so much for joining us this morning.
NORQUIST: Good to be with you.
BARTIROMO: Grover Norquist there. Coming up next, the search continues this morning for the suspect in the Berlin terrorist attack on a Christmas market. How law enforcement here in the U.S. are working to protect Americans during the holiday season.
And a strong showing from Nike headed into the holidays; we'll bring you the company's impressive earnings, why the stock is up this morning. Back in a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MARIA BARTIROMO, MORNINGS WITH MARIA HOST: Happy Wednesday morning, everybody. Thanks so much for being with us. Welcome back. I'm Maria Bartiromo. And it is Wednesday, December 21st. Your top story, 8:30 AM on the East Coast, we are on Dow 20,000 watch this morning, futures searching for some direction, but we're still expecting the Dow to eke out a gain at the opening of trading. That would be the 27th, this year, by the way, if in fact do you see another record high close today. Yesterday, the Dow came within striking distance of the round number of Dow 20,000, intraday it was 19 points away from it, but it closed 27 points away from that number, the Dow and the NASDAQ did closed at new records, as well. We are at record territory.
Global markets this morning not so much, take a look at European stocks this morning, down, the CAC quarante in Paris, down about one half of one percent. The major banks are weighing on sentiment in Eurozone, the Italian bank under pressure, the Spanish bank under pressure, even though the Italian bank -- getting a bailout. In Asia, overnight, mixed performances, the Shanghai composite the top performer, up better than one percent in shanghai. The other major as you see fractional moving.
President-elect Donald Trump not slowing down ahead of the Christmas holiday, the big names set to meet with the next commander-in-chief, as he looks to fill the final two positions of his cabinet. We've got some news on that this morning. And breaking news right now in Germany, a massive manhunt is under way in Berlin, multiple reports says that authorities are searching for now a Tunisian individual in the deadly truck attack. Apparently, he was the driver. The report says that the search is centering around an ID card that was found in the truck. Trump advisor, Sean Spicer, weight in on the president-elect response to this escalating terrorism threat.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEAN SPICER, TRUMP ADVISOR: First off, recognizing the threat head on. And then, secondly, getting together all of the appropriate agencies and principals, and creating a plan which he talked about during day one, as far as his hundred day plan. And making sure that that is the top priority and a focus of every agency understanding the threat that we face and the measures that we have to take, politically correct or not, to make sure that America is first and foremost safe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: The very latest on the manhunt coming up this morning. FedEx a name to watch, the stock is selling off in the premarket after the company earnings failed to deliver. Now the revenue is better than expected, the earnings were weaker than expected. This is an important period going into the holidays for FedEx. So the news was not good from an investor standpoint. That stock is going to be down. Plus, from an $11,000 scrabble set to $13,000 rogue, the luxury gifts for the super-rich this Christmas, we will show you.
Our top story right now this half hour, the manhunt for the suspect in the Berlin truck attack, reports say that German police are searching for a Tunisian individual after an ID was found under the seat of the truck. Yesterday, Kellyanne Conway, spoke out about Donald Trump's plan to tackle terrorism, watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KELLYANNE CONWAY, CAMPAIGN MANAGER FOR DONALD TRUMP: It's not enough to say that you're going to contain the terrorists or negotiate with them, or hope that they don't advance anymore. Somebody needs to get serious here. When he says eradicate, he means find a way to make sure that ISIS stops. I mean, they're bloodletting is now in our own shores, as you know, to Orlando and through San Bernardino in just the last year, again, certainly, as recently as yesterday in Europe. And the fact is that when the president-elect says he's going to eradicate them, he has specific plans in place.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: Joining us right now is the former CIA director, Jim Woolsey. Sir, good to have you on the program, thanks so much for joining us.
JIM WOOLSEY, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: Good to be with you, Maria.
BARTIROMO: First, talk to us about what's going on this morning in Berlin as you can speculate, in terms of what process is under way in finding this individual. Obviously, yesterday, they had somebody else in custody, that person has been let go. Now they're focused on this ID that was found in the truck.
WOOLSEY: Right. Well, German police are pretty efficient, and I imagine they're on top of that. They had somebody who was Pakistani who did not look likely at first, and they've now moved to the Tunisian suspect. Whether they're doing it that way or whether they would have been able -- I mean, the best of all possible worlds to stopped the truck before it killed anyone is still approaching this. They are, and we largely do, as if we were playing, let's say hockey, against the terrorists, and we deployed all our team as goalies, and we played no offense at all. We've got to change that. We've got to go after the terrorists. We've got to go after their ideology. We've got to go understand who may be more likely to be taking terrorist actions.
Giuliani and his colleagues did a very good job of that in New York, or early in his tenure. And we also need to change the economics of the terrorists sponsoring state. Iran is certainly one. But ISIS through its various -- measures is able to draw on oil. Oil is the lifeblood of the terrorism, and it's the lifeblood of Russia as well, which presents a somewhat different kind of problem. We need to move in such a way that we can switch fuels at the pump, and buy something to drive on other than oil products. And we need to take used and essentially waste carbon dioxide instead of just storing it somewhere, turn it into something useful and profitable like chemicals. We need to take those steps in order to affect the economics of the terrorist sponsoring states, and we are not doing that really at all.
BARTIROMO: So are you saying that one -- an important tool in terms of getting arms around the terrorist is driving prices lower -- oil prices lower?
WOOLSEY: Yes. And not just oil prices, but prices of a substitute for oil as well, like, let's say methanol, with an M, with alcohol. Look, use -- I think this is analogy that works for me anyway. Suppose we turn oil into salt. Salt for thousands of years was the most precious substance in the world. You're the salt of the earth in the bible means you're valuable, not that you're cheap. It's the only way to preserve meat. Countries went to war over salt mines, until becoming freezers, and ice boxes, and so forth, at the end of the 19th century. And all of a sudden, frozen and thawed meat tasted a lot better than meet that has been soaked in salt brine, and so the price of salt plummeted. We want to do that to oil. You don't bar people from using oil products, they can do it. It's just that we need to be able to make its competitors cheaper.
MIKE MURPHY, ROSECLIFF CAPITAL FOUNDER: Jim, its Mike Murphy. I agree with you, your point about taking the fight to the terrorists, to their radical Islamic terrorists out there. But soft targets, like what we've just saw in Berlin, can we ever fully protect ourselves, or what can we do to protect ourselves right now.
WOOLSEY: Well, there are certain steps that the Germans were not taking that other countries do, that have more of an experience with this, of the right kinds of guards, the right kinds of gates, all of those things are useful. And there is a chance -- some of them may stop some terrorist acts, but that's your goalie. That's right at the point where something may score against you. You've got to really stop this much further out than that. Destroy -- effectively destroy the terrorist organization.
TONY SAYEGH, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Mr. Director, its Tony Sayegh. Thank you for being with us. You mentioned two very big threats to us. One is the rising Shia-Hegemon in Tehran, which now controls four Arab capitals, there terrorists on mostly through Hezbollah, and the financing of other sponsors of terror and proliferator of terror. You've then have radical Islamic terror through ISIS and the Sunni radicals -- by the way, don't like each either, but in your assessment who are the bigger threats to us today?
WOOLSEY: I think it's the Shia. I think its -- Iran, front and center, the major terrorist state in the world. And, yes, ISIS is a serious problem, we have to defeat it. It's an immediate problem, we can't ignore it, but I don't think it or the Sunni -- basically terrorist groups have the kind of staying power that you can get from a major state such as Iran. And I think, Iran is the most -- and Iran will have a nuclear weapon before very long because of this terrible agreement that the Obama administration signed with them.
BARTIROMO: Do you think that will be easily undone?
WOOLSEY: I think it's very straightforward. You submit it to the senate to see if the senate will approve ratification by a two-thirds vote. That's what the constitution requires, it was not done by the Obama administration. They didn't do even the statute right when they tried to substitute a statute for the treaty of powers of the senate. Let the senate decide, if it passes by two-thirds vote then it stays in the effect, if it does not pass the senate by two-thirds vote its -- getting -- Iranians to get all of this money back, that was sequestered becomes a real problem for them. And I love to see it be a serious problem for Iran.
BARTIROMO: Sir, it's great to have you on the program this morning, thanks so much.
WOOLSEY: Good to be with you, Maria.
BARTIROMO: Jim Woolsey, joining us there. Coming up next, the Dow just points away from that magic number. Stuart Varney, weighs in on Dow 20,000. And then, another slam dunk for Nike, the company delivers a monster earnings beat, after being a laagered within the Dow from months, we'll break down the numbers. Back in a minute.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BARTIROMO: Welcome back. We are 45 minutes away from the opening bell. We are expecting a mixed opening for the broader averages, Dow Industrial we're on 20,000 watch. The other major averages though, under some selling pressure. Couple of names on the move, watch Nike shares this morning, up on second-quarter results, both profit and revenue beating expectations. The company reported strong demand in the U.S. and China, still the company is the worst performer in the Dow Industrials this year, with the stock down 17 percent through yesterday's market close. That's put Nike on pace for the first annual decline since 2009. FedEx this morning in the news, also reporting, the shipping giant results fell short of expectations, the company is talking about shrinking operating margins, and increases in transportation rates, as I.T. expenses really cutting through profitability. The earnings are below expectations. The company did bring in nearly $15 billion in revenue, and that was better than expected. As you see, FedEx shares expected to open lower. Dow 20,000 now in reach, but did anyone see it coming, yes, our guest right now, the host of Varney & Co., Stuart Varney. We're talking about 20k? STUART VARNEY, VARNEY & CO. HOST: No, no, no, no.