Bob Nardelli: Performance is strong across corporate America

This is a rush transcript from "Your World," November 15, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SUSAN BUCHER, PALM BEACH COUNTY SUPERVISOR OF ELECTIONS: We gave it everything we have had. I'm very proud of my team. I'm proud that we had partners at Palm Beach County. And we are a good election office. And I have a great team.

I think that we just got stuck with some mechanical issues that were inherited.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NEIL CAVUTO, HOST: Well, they may have given it everything they got, but in the end Palm Beach unable to beat the clock with election results.

So, the board of elections supervisors, Susan Bucher, saying she now expects a hand recount to begin. That will be on schedule. She will be testifying later this hour before Judge Mark Walker. He's the same judge who just called the state the laughingstock of the world.

This is "Your World," and welcome to it. I'm Neil Cavuto.

More on the legal fallout from all of that in just a moment.

First, Fox team coverage with Peter Doocy in Broward County on the final vote going on there, and the count still goes on there. And Phil Keating  on Palm Beach, still very much up in the air.

We begin with Phil -- Phil.

PHIL KEATING, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Neil. Good afternoon.

The counting room and recounting room here in Palm Beach County, as you can see right now, is devoid of people. The machine recounting has stopped.  And unless that federal judge this hour rules in favor of a Democratic House candidate who has petitioned to eliminate the deadline for Palm Beach County, just so that this county can finish recounting all the races, which could take another three or five days, if that doesn't happen, then the recount is over.

As far as Palm Beach County's numbers go that they just submitted to the secretary of state, those are from last week, the ones they submitted on Saturday, so actually not recounted numbers that went from Palm Beach County, which could be the only county in the state, it's still not official yet, that failed to meet at 3:00 deadline.

Now, on these tables that are now set up -- and you see all the papers out there -- what's going to be next here is going to be the hand recount order by the secretary of state. They followed the numbers as they did after the first round of counting.

That is for the Florida Senate race and here in Palm Beach County, Florida House District 89. They will have 40 people at these tables, papers in front of them and pens. On those pages, they will have to go through all of the undervotes and the overvotes. So these are ballots where somebody filled out all the bubbles or connected the arrows on the ballot form, but in one race, they didn't do that.

So that's an undervote. So they will then go through, the people here, and see whether there was any kind of marking on the ballot to indicate who they chose. And then they would decide, OK, we think that was actually an intentional vote, even though the machine didn't notice it.

The overvotes are where somebody actually voted for more than one candidate. So there will be looking at those as well. So the number of ballots that would be recounted by hand for the Senate race and the local House race here in Palm Beach County substantially, significantly smaller than the total number of county ballots from Election Day that were just recounted here until two nights ago, when their old and outdated machines broke down.

Also, 4:00, Tallahassee, the race between Jim Bonfiglio -- he is the Democrat -- and his Republican opponent, Mike Caruso, that is separated, the total, by just 37 votes. Obviously, that's going to be within the hand recount margin.

So everybody's on hold to see what the federal judge decides at the hearing, which is happening right now in Tallahassee, whether Palm Beach County alone will get an extension to finish the recount, or whether it's over for all the state, for all the counties, and now we move on to the hand recounts.

All right, Neil?

CAVUTO: All right, so there would be a hand recount in those three races, for governor, for Senate, for agricultural commissioner, again, regardless of what happens here, whether they make an extension for Palm Beach, right?

KEATING: Correct. Without a doubt, these numbers aren't going to change enough most likely to disavow any expected hand recount.

So that's going to happen. Whether anybody else can get involved in Tallahassee and persuade this judge to allow Palm Beach County to finally get back to work and recounted here, we will see this hour ago most Libya.

CAVUTO: OK, Phil, thank you very, very much, Phil Keating.

Now to Peter Doocy in Broward County, which just didn't make today's 3:00 p.m. deadline.

That surprised a lot of folks, I guess, huh, Peter?

PETER DOOCY, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Very early today.

Neil, this is the county, Broward, where officials were still finding boxes of ballots or loose ballots days after the election. But, today, they did submit those election results to the secretary of state a few minutes ahead of the 3:00 p.m. deadline.

The results, as they read them out to us a few minutes later, show that between Election Day and the recount, Rick Scott lost 606 votes, but Bill Nelson lost more than 1,300.

And Brenda Snipes, the election supervisor, did come out to say that not every vote was included in the total. There were a few dozen included in a batch that had some duplicates. But they couldn't figure out which ones were duplicates. So they went ahead and submitted them all to avoid having any voters feel disenfranchised.

That is a big concern in the court system today too. Judge Mark Walker has issued a few big rulings today, some celebrated by one side, some celebrated by the other. After initially giving Florida voters whose ballots have been flagged as having issues with signatures until Saturday night to fix them, Judge Walker then ruled that a Democratic motion to blow out the 3:00 p.m. deadline today wasn't going to fly because nobody told him how much he should extend it by.

There are also some new questions this afternoon about Judge Walker and whether or not he might want to recuse himself, Neil, because some recently located FEC data has emerged to show that his wife has in the past donated to some of Bill Nelson's campaigns -- Neil.

CAVUTO: All right. But just to be clear, in the recounting they were doing there, or just adding up the numbers, Rick Scott extended his lead. Did I hear that right? I mean -- or clarify that.

DOOCY: Well here, in Broward County, heavily Democratic, so, Bill Nelson had more than 100,000 more votes than Rick Scott.

CAVUTO: Right.

DOOCY: He had more to lose here. But he did lose more than twice as many here in Broward as Rick Scott did.

CAVUTO: All right, I'm sorry I wasn't clear.

But just to be -- in getting the final ballots here, did the numbers change? I know it's heavily Democrat. Of course, Nelson had a bigger lead there, a substantial lead. Did the final numbers then favor Rick Scott?

In other words, had more votes than was earlier thought than the substantial votes that Nelson already had?

DOOCY: So, statewide, as the counties are still coming in -- and we still have not heard officially from the secretary of state in Tallahassee that a hand recount is about to start and at what time it's going to start.

But the numbers that are coming in from all these different machine -- a couple dozen -- dozen different machine recounts show that the Scott lead has extended a little bit, but less than 1,000 for now.

CAVUTO: Got it. All right.

And, again, he's trying to overcome about a 14,000-point gap between himself of, course, and the senator.

And now to the legal fallout from all of this.

Election law attorney Brian Silber.

Brian, that is an important distinction because obviously in these counts, it's very important for the losing candidate to see if he can gain some ground, whether the gubernatorial battle, the Senate battle, the agricultural commissioner battle.

And then we have these 4,000 or so absentee and other ballots where they have to verify signatures. So if -- I know there's going to be a hand count as well, but a lot of things have to go Senator Nelson's way even if you got all of those ballots that are -- signatures are being checked.

It wouldn't be enough to close the gap at this point.

BRIAN SILBER, ELECTION LAW ATTORNEY: Well look, it's not a question right now of what will the ultimate outcome be.

This is a question of process. And the whole idea is, we want to make sure that the citizens of this country have their right to vote protected. And Florida law says, when you have a race that is X amount of narrow margin, you have to do a mandatory recount.

CAVUTO: Right.

SILBER: Those are statutory safeguards.

And where that lands us in the end, we will know when we get there.

CAVUTO: All right, well, I like that.

But just to understand, when it gets under a quarter percent of the vote, then the next step is a hand recount. Now, the hand recount...

SILBER: That's correct.

CAVUTO: Now, the hand recount gets into these issues of these ballots, where they were thrown out, some of them were thrown out because the signatures didn't match or whatever.

SILBER: Right.

CAVUTO: How do they handle something like that?

SILBER: So the very first thing that you have to realize is, in a manual recount, we're not counting every single ballot that was cast.

That is not the situation. We are limited strictly to manually looking at those ballots that the machines cannot read. And the reason why they can't read them is because they're an overvote or an undervote.

All that machine does is read penciled-in ovals. That's it. It's a Scantron machine. So when it gets a check, a dot, something not registered, that's when a human has to come in and look at it. And that's the part that's going to be the manual recount.

CAVUTO: OK.

So, when Broward County officials seem to be indicating to us, for example, the Democratic county, that the sway in these numbers doesn't seem -- and I know what you're saying about process -- it's a very good point and a reminder to us -- but a lot of people are looking, what will change in this process as it moves to the hand count, and verifying signatures and all that?

But that they are saying, at least in their county, that the numbers have not starkly moved one way or the other. Then it gets to the hand recount.  Assuming that doesn't change, the final numbers come in statewide by November 20, when all this has to be finalized, right?

SILBER: That's correct.

And, in my experience, having handled a recount in the past, this just summer -- this summer, in fact, the electronic recount is almost perfect.  When we redid about -- it must have been about a quarter million votes, the numbers came back exact. They didn't even change by one single vote.

CAVUTO: Wow.

SILBER: The only time we saw change was with the manual account.

CAVUTO: All right, that's very, very interesting.

I learned a lot talking to you.

SILBER: Thank you.

CAVUTO: Brian Silber, election law attorney, much appreciated.

What a confusing process. All right.

SILBER: Thank you.

CAVUTO: I wanted to dip in a little bit here. Give we take a little bit of this, guys?

You're looking at Melania Trump. She's at this U.S. Institute of Peace on Constitution Avenue in D.C., that the subject his family online safety, to avoid online bullying. Let's listen in a bit.

(NEWS BREAK)

CAVUTO: All right, we're monitoring this Melania Trump event.

This was a well-scheduled and telegraphed, planned event on the part of the first lady to address cyber-bullying at a family Online Safety Institute annual conference put on by the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C.

The first lady's gotten a little more news lately. She was complaining about the deputy national security adviser, Mira Ricardel -- I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. She said that she wasn't really helping out, put out a statement to that effect, that she shouldn't be working in the White House.

And now she's not. Ms. Ricardel has been reassigned.

But, again, whether there is an opportunity here for the first lady to take questions, we will take you to that when it becomes possible.

In the meantime, take a look at the corner Wall and Broad, where we had stocks down -- or stocks up -- I apologize -- up better than 200 points.  We were down for a good chunk of the day on growing concerns about what's happening in Britain. Brexit seems to be breaking apart right now. And everything was going south, that is, certainly for the British pound vs. the dollar, and even for the British markets earlier on, as Theresa May tries to hang on to our prime ministership.

But everything changed on a report that broke that the administration was very close to discussing the grounds of a truce with the Chinese ahead of the G20 summit and what that could mean. And then everything started a reverse because the understanding was that maybe they cobbled together the broad outline of a trade deal with the Chinese.

Keep in mind the president is going to meet -- be meeting with President Xi Jinping of China for this summit.

Let's go to Ashley Webster at the New York Stock Exchange.

Talk about getting whipsawed on this stuff, huh?

ASHLEY WEBSTER, FOX NEWS BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: It's just a series of headlines, Neil.

But I want to focus, if I can, on Brexit, because we for so much of the session, certainly through two-thirds of it, were dealing with all these headlines and the effort by the U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May to try and salvage and sell this withdrawal plan she's put together that nobody seems to like, including her own Cabinet.

So, as you can see, she spent some time on the floor of the Houses of Parliament today, saying this is the best deal we can get, maybe we can change it for the better down the road, but this is the best deal you're going to get.

But people on both sides of the aisle say, this is a terrible deal. Well, later on this afternoon, the U.K. prime minister held a press conference and addressed the country. And she basically said, look, this is the best deal. It's now up to the U.K. Parliament to approve it.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

THERESA MAY, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: I'm going to do my job of bringing back the best deal for the United Kingdom. That will then the put before the House of Commons, it will be put before members of Parliament in a meaningful vote.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WEBSTER: It is indeed a meaningful vote, Neil, because if it goes before Parliament, probably next month, and they vote it down, chaos ensues. The future of Theresa May would then be very much in doubt.

And then there would be questions of whether there should be another vote.  But bottom line, this Brexit deal, this divorce has taken years to bring to fruition, and it's far from over. It's very messy indeed. And that does have an impact on the markets -- Neil.

CAVUTO: All right, well put, Ashley, thank you very much, Ashley Webster.

Again, we were down 200 points on that, and the idea that we were exposed to trouble certainly in Britain and Europe, the club they want to bolt from here.

But then we got that news out of China that they might cobble together the broad outlines of a truce. Whatever that means is anyone's guess.

Let's get the read from former Chrysler and Home Depot CEO, Bob Nardelli.

Bob, good to see you.

ROBERT NARDELLI, FORMER CHAIRMAN, PRESIDENT & CEO, HOME DEPOT: Thank you, Neil. It's good to be with you.

CAVUTO: All of a sudden, sellers became buyers on the notion that maybe we and China can settle our differences, or at least walk toward a truce.

NARDELLI: Yes.

CAVUTO: That was a reminder, as if we needed it, that this China trade thing is still a big, big issue of concentration, huh?

NARDELLI: It's a big deal.

And I couldn't be happier. As I talked to a lot of my colleagues and CEOs, performance has really been very strong, as you have said many times, across corporate America. Great earnings, great growth, great return to the consumer.

And it's these external events that are just crushing and really somewhat demoralizing to the men and women of these companies who are working their tails off for performance and return to shareholders.

CAVUTO: Sure.

NARDELLI: And then you get these outside events that really just take it down.

So while we had the Brexit issue weighing on us heavily, I'm really encouraged with the -- as you said, the breaking news about China. I think this will get resolved. I think Xi Jinping and President Trump are both going to come out winners.

I mean, they're both going to have things that they can go back to their constituents and say, look, we have got a good deal here. China has suffered the last couple of months, consumer spending, if you look at investments and different things.

CAVUTO: In fact, they're slowing down. And that raised the concern about oil prices, which have been tumbling, well into bear market territory now.

Is it your view that the global economy is softening, that we should worry about that? Or what do you think?

NARDELLI: I think we have talked ourselves into that.

Within 24 hours, we went from an over -- an undersupply to an oversupply of oil. Now, if you think about oil and the impact on gasoline and fuel, that's got to give us more discretionary spending. So I think that's going to help the economy. I think we got a lot of goes-ins and goes-outs.

But I think, overall, we have a strong economy, a lot of concern with these external events. We have got the Fed rate. They're still talking about December. If you look at the PPI and the CPI, I don't think we have an inflation issue.

CAVUTO: So, wholesale inflation numbers that show it relatively contained.

NARDELLI: Yes.

CAVUTO: Inching up a little bit, but...

NARDELLI: And the same with the CPI. It's only, what, 0.2 point. 0.3 percent.

CAVUTO: Right.

While I'm talking to you, we're getting some flashes in from regulators who are looking at easing up the pressure on lenders in the California area, bank lenders and the rest.

The only reason why I mention it is because the new Democratic majority coming into the House led by Maxine Waters, who is going to be taking over the House Financial Services Committee, has made it very clear, we're not going to go slow on this easing back on regulations.

NARDELLI: Yes.

CAVUTO: What do you think of that and the battle to come here? Because there are two different views on this.

NARDELLI: I think that would be really unfortunate if that is to occur.

You saw what...

CAVUTO: That if she gets her way?

NARDELLI: That she gets her way.

I think you just saw Warren Buffett put in a significant amount of money into the banks today, which is a real vote of confidence by...

CAVUTO: Specifically J.P. Morgan Chase, $4 billion.

(CROSSTALK)

NARDELLI: Yes, with four $4 billion.

CAVUTO: He's betting on banks.

NARDELLI: Yes.

So, if, in fact, they do slow this thing down -- look, they have done a great job in passing the pressure checks that they have imposed from the '7, '8, and '9 crisis.

I think the banks are much more under control, they are much more cognizant of the lending and the lending issues and a little more conservative. I think that would be a terrible impact.

And it's really going to put the brakes on what has been a very robust economic situation, Neil.

CAVUTO: All right, Bob, thank you very, very much.

As Bob was speaking, we're getting an urgent coming in concerning this Palm Beach County move to continue right now and give state authorities what they have from the ballots they tried to count. They didn't get them all counted.

Well, now Senator Nelson's attorney, they're suing Palm Beach County and the Florida secretary of state, saying they should first do that job before handing off any other job.

They're ticked. The heat is on. And it's still a week-plus after the election.

More after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO: All right. I want to go to Phil Keating right now on this development out of Palm Beach County, where you heard earlier on that they have counted all the ballots they can. They had some of machine irregularities.

Well, Senator Nelson's people have responded that say they're going to sue now over this.

"We have sued Palm Beach County and the Florida secretary of state to require a hand count of all ballots in the county, due to systematic machine failure during the machine recount."

And back and forth we go.

Phil Keating in Riviera Beach, Florida, what does this mean now?

KEATING: Well, the federal judge up in Tallahassee that has been handling all of these lawsuits filed by not only the Nelson campaign, the Governor Scott campaign, as well as some other groups, he's trying to assume them all.

Actually, right now in Tallahassee, that judge is hearing arguments to allow Palm Beach County to actually resume the machine recount just for this county alone. Could take three or five more days to complete their recount. We will see what the judge says in that.

But as far as Senator Nelson goes, because the machines here Tuesday and broke down and they lost a day's worth of counting, and in the end, 3:00 this afternoon, Palm Beach County failed to meet the deadline to get the recount complete.

So the original vote numbers from last week, which were submitted on Saturday to the secretary of state, that's what Palm Beach County is now going to have to go with. Well, Nelson wants all of those ballots for the entire county here in Palm Beach to be hand recounted.

And we will see what the secretary of state decides about that. I'm sure that will be heard in federal court by the same judge.

Also, Senator Nelson took a couple of losses today. He was hoping that the deadline could be just eliminated, and everybody could count until everybody got the recount completed. That was denied as well.

So, Senator Nelson, Governor Scott in a very tight race, so tight, it's only 0.14 percent of a difference with Scott in the lead. So everyone fully expects -- and we're expecting a order from the secretary of state any minute to order every county to now do a hand recount in those counties of the ballots, only the ballots that were undervotes are undervote -- or overvotes.

And so the number of ballots they will have to go through is dramatically different. The deadline for having that done will be on Sunday. So there will be a hand recount for the Senate race here, but Senator Nelson wants a machine recount of all of the ballots as well.

CAVUTO: All right, thank you, buddy, very, very much.

And, again, why that's important, of course, Broward County, heavily Democratic, and Senator Nelson handily won the county. The oddity is, in the counting that we're getting, is there was nothing that narrowed that gap between Senator Nelson and Governor Scott statewide.

And in fact, if anything, Governor Scott actually picked up some votes in this process. That wasn't expected. And, obviously, that was a development that Democrats didn't plan on. Palm Beach is a separate issue here, but the same really continues, that the numbers that the Democrats are hoping to pick up, both on the gubernatorial battle and in the Senate battle, and even, by extension, into the agricultural commissioner's battle, where they're really narrow, all these races are narrow, again, within the quarter point gap, the overall number has not changed.

In other words, it would take a Herculean leap right now in both the governor and potentially the senatorial battles for the math to change.

It's an issue, I'm sure, that came up at the White House today, as the president was meeting with GOP leadership.

John Roberts at the White House right now.

Hey, John.

JOHN ROBERTS, FOX NEWS CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It's clearly something, Neil, that's been on the president's mind. There's no question about that.

In fact, last weekend, while he was in Paris, he had one eye on what was going on in Arizona. Wasn't particularly happy that it came out in favor of Kyrsten Sinema over Martha McSally.

But the president also with a number of other things on the agenda today, as he met with the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, Senator John Thune and Senator Richard Shelby.

Among the things they talked about, the pending judicial nominations that the president wants to get through, as well as appropriations, including border security funding, wall funding, disaster relief funding, the farm bill and prison reform.

The judicial nominations jumped back up on the radar screen after Arizona Senator Jeff Flake complained about the appointment of Matt Whitaker as the interim attorney general, fearing that the Mueller investigation would be in some jeopardy as a result, and saying that he would vote against the president's judicial nominations until and unless the Senate took up legislation to protect the Mueller investigation.

Listen to Flake here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JEFF FLAKE, R-ARIZ.: Nobody expected him to not just leapfrog over the deputy attorney general, who is overseeing the probe now, but to take away his authority and give it to somebody who has not been confirmed by the Senate, who's expressed hostility towards the probe.

I just -- I can't understand why we're not doing anything about that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: Well, the reason is, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says, while he knows how the president feels about the Mueller investigation, he doesn't believe that the president would jeopardize the Mueller investigation.

Democrats, meanwhile, have called on Whitaker to recuse himself from overseeing the Mueller investigation. But after meeting with Lindsey Graham today, the South Carolina senator said he sees no reason for what Whitaker to do that. Listen here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, R-S.C.: He believed he didn't have a reason to recuse himself legally or factually. Nothing I have seen would require him to be recused. I think he's got the background and the judgment to be -- to fulfill this job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTS: The White House is in no hurry to replace Whitaker.

Neil, he could be there under statute they say for at least 200 days, and they like him running the Justice Department on an interim basis -- Neil.

CAVUTO: All right, and they're the ones who make the choice.

All right, John Roberts, thank you very, very much.

ROBERTS: You bet.

CAVUTO: All right, the read from Democratic Senator Joe Manchin on all these crosscurrents. He carried his state, won comfortably.

Now the question is, how does he get along with both parties?

After this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO: All right, it's hard to build this up.

It's tension you can cut with a knife, but, in Palm Beach County, they're done essentially counting votes here. The hand count now ensues, but the lawsuits are piling up.

How Palm Beach County deals with that -- after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO: All right, we might not know for sure at least the makeup of the House and the Senate, the official makeup of the House and the Senate, for maybe another week or longer.

That's because some House races still haven't closed, even though it looks like Democrats are picking up more than earlier thought, at least 38 seats by this point. And in the Senate, the early gains that it looked like Republicans were getting have evaporated in a host of lawsuits and close races, particularly in the state of Florida, where it remains tight as a tick.

Let's get the read on all of this from a guy who did win, and win pretty comfortably, West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin.

Republicans very much wanted that seat. They didn't get that seat. The senator with us now.

Senator, do you call what happened a blue wave?

SEN. JOE MANCHIN, D-W.VA.: Well, Neil, I don't know about a blue wave, but there was short an adjustment that happened.

In West Virginia, we picked up some House races, the local House of Delegates races, picked up a couple of Senate seats, which would be unusual unless there was movement. And there was.

I won in a state where President Trump came in multiple times. He tried everything he could, in spite of the voting with him more than any Democrat in Washington.

CAVUTO: Have you talked to him, Senator, since you're electoral victory?

MANCHIN: Oh, a couple of times, yes.

CAVUTO: Oh, really? OK.

MANCHIN: We're going to have a lunch and everything.

Here's the thing. He gave it his best shot. And I told him before he did it, I said, you're not going to beat me, but you -- but I guess that they're pushing you. The base is pushing you to go ahead after me. But you need Democrats like me that put my country before my party and want you to be successful, because, if my president is successful, my country does well and my state does well.

That's more important to me than any party affiliation. So with that being said, he needs Democrats like me who want to work and make things happen.  And I will try all I can.

The race is behind us. It's over. They gave their best shot. They didn't win. And now we move on and do what we're supposed to do, work together and govern.

CAVUTO: So let me ask you, then. In retrospect, do you think that your support for Judge Kavanaugh to become Justice Kavanaugh was the big difference?

Because some of your Democratic colleagues who lost, like in Indiana and Missouri, didn't.

MANCHIN: Well, first of all, Neil, I know it's hard to believe. People -- just in this toxic atmosphere of politics, people have a hard time believing that people make decisions based on the facts.

If I could have found one corroborating fact that Judge Kavanaugh always involved any way, shape or form with Dr. Ford, I wouldn't have voted for under any conditions.

But when I saw the FBI report, the facts weren't there to justify anything different. I had a lot of progressives that left me and the Democratic base that left. A lot of them came back . I'm very thankful for that.

CAVUTO: Well, how's your relationship with those Democratic colleagues now, sir?

MANCHIN: Well, I think they know what -- I mean, when it comes to health care, people fighting for health care, preexisting condition, that I'm going to be there fighting, because I think President Trump has a golden opportunity to fix health care in America.

We have a bill laying on Mitch McConnell's desk that was worked out after John McCain voted not to repeal it. It's been there for about 15 months.  It could be called. And, truly, it could be a legacy for President Trump.

It'll be Trump repair care. We can fix this thing. And I'm hoping he takes that up. But I'm working with everybody.

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: All right, so let me -- to that degree, sir, then Mitch McConnell just came out of this White House meeting with Republican leaders and the president, and he said he's optimistic that they have a way forward to fund, for example, the border wall.

Would you support that?

MANCHIN: Oh, I do. Not only would I support it, Neil. I supported -- and along with a bipartisan group of Democrats and Republicans -- in 2013 over $42 billion for border security.

And that border security bill was written by both -- by a Republican, totally in support of it. The president could have a major immigration reform bill that works and gives him a legacy that no other president has ever had.

Just adopt the 2013 bipartisan bill, and he can make that happen. And I think the Senate definitely would go along with him. And hopefully we could get the House.

But, yes, I'm supporting border security. I -- it has to be done.

CAVUTO: Real quickly, in Florida, you know the battle going back and forth, the lawsuits being exchanged, sir. Senator Bill Nelson now the latest to sue Palm Beach County for halting what was a machine count recount.

Now it's down to a handwritten vote recount, where they take all of them by hand and count them all for the state. None of these numbers have changed in this process for him. If anything, Rick Scott slightly widened his lead.

Would you advise Bill Nelson to give up or let the process work its way?

MANCHIN: I think the -- I think the way their code is written down there, Neil, when the closeness of the race is as close it is, it's a mandatory recount.

CAVUTO: You're absolutely right.

MANCHIN: I could -- I could be wrong, but I think that's the way it works.

CAVUTO: No, you're right.

And the hand count is next, to that point.

MANCHIN: Yes.

CAVUTO: But these lawsuits could push things back, is what I'm saying.

MANCHIN: I would let -- I would let the process -- I mean, both sides are skeptical and everyone is paranoid. I understand that.

But I think if the process is able to continue, the count the way it's mandated by their laws, and then decide from there if you think you need to go on with a legal pursuit or not.

CAVUTO: You know, there are a number of ballots in question where the signatures don't match, Senator.

I know this is outside your state, outside your area.

MANCHIN: Sure.

CAVUTO: You don't like to weigh in on other races. But it does come back to remind folks Florida, after all these years, can't get its act together.

And I'm wondering. It's happened under Republican leadership, Democratic leadership in districts and counties controlled by Republicans and Democrats.

MANCHIN: Yes.

CAVUTO: So there's frustration that this could happen again. Are you worried for the 2020 presidential election we're going to see it play over yet again?

MANCHIN: Well, they should be.

Let me tell you one thing. All these national races are going to be extremely close. You know, I was fortunate enough to be a governor of my state of West Virginia, and I enjoyed support from as many Republicans as I did Democrats. It was a wonderful time.

But that doesn't happen in these national races, because they believe that Washington captures us and changes us. Maybe it changes some, Trump not changing me.

But with that being said, I think the National Secretary of State Association should basically put people and get its act together and help the states that have continuing troubles. Florida has had perpetual troubles.

And they have been deciding in some -- clear back to 2000, George W. Bush and Al Gore. And, my goodness, you would think a national organization should be embarrassed enough to step in and try to help clean it up.

CAVUTO: All right, Senator, thank you. Very good catching up.

Congratulations again on your victory.

MANCHIN: Thanks, Neil. It's always good to be with you.

CAVUTO: Same here.

As he was speaking here, we're getting some interesting corporate news here, at least one that has involved a titanic struggle between two good zillionaires, Carl Icahn, the takeover strategist, and Michael Dell, of course, of Dell Computer fame.

Michael Dell's trying to take his company public. It went private. And Carl Icahn had essentially been questioning the wisdom of that move, launched a proxy battle against it. He's withdrawn litigation against Dell, terminated the proxy contest.

So it would seem to be a victory for full speed ahead for Michael Dell, a company that he started in his dorm room making computers for some of his friends and buddies, and it grew a little bit, to go ahead and go back to being a publicly traded company.

We will have more after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO: All right, we just got word that the president plans to head out to California on Saturday to meet with those hit by those deadly wildfires still racing across the state.

The state, if you can believe it, right now is reporting at least 58 deaths. It could go much higher because they're at least 100 people, we're told, who are missing, considered still missing.

FOX News correspondent Claudia Cowan with the very, very latest -- Claudia.

CLAUDIA COWAN, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: And, Neil, breaking just now word of an officer-involved shooting that happened near an evacuation center.  We are working to get the details on that.

And, as you mentioned, the president is coming to California this weekend to meet with first-responders and get briefed on what is needed right now to help so many of these wildfire victims.

And with the death toll here in Butte County rising to 56, more than 100 people are still unaccounted for. Almost all of them are elderly.  Officials hope people will check the county's missing persons list and mark themselves safe, so they can know who really is missing.

Yesterday, California Governor Jerry Brown visited a burned-out school in Paradise. With him was FEMA Administrator Brock Long and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who called for changes in forest management policy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RYAN ZINKE, U.S. INTERIOR SECRETARY: And let's get rid of the dead and dying timber. Let's actively manager our forests to make sure these catastrophic fires don't happen year after year, season after season.

GOV. JERRY BROWN, D-CALIF.: This is so devastating that I don't really have the words to describe it. It looks like a war zone. It is.  It's the devastation that only fires of this kind can bring about.  Nobody's really expecting it, but it happens.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COWAN: Evacuees who lost everything are wondering if the local utility company, PG&E, is to blame.

There was a problem with a transmission line right before the fire started.  Officials say they're wrapping up that part of the investigation, but it's not clear when a cause or any criminal liability will be determined.

A negligence lawsuit already filed against PG&E is causing its stock prices to plummet.

Meantime, a norovirus outbreak at an evacuation shelter in Chico has made dozens of people sick. For folks who thought it couldn't get any worse, it's gotten worse.

As for the Camp Fire itself, it is now 40 percent contained. But it might not be fully contained until the end of the month -- Neil.

CAVUTO: Claudia, thank you very, very much.

And, again, as Claudia said, the president will be visiting the region on Saturday.

We will have more after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO: Crazy weather and really crazy right outside our building here.

A winter storm is delivering a lot of mix of snow, rain, sleet, and it seems to be getting a lot worse than they said.

I don't know if that applies to our Rick Reichmuth.

But, man, oh, man, Rick, what's going on here?

RICK REICHMUTH, FOX NEWS CHIEF METEOROLOGIST: I was off yesterday. So I didn't say anything actually on this one.

CAVUTO: All right, I'm not blaming you for anything then.

REICHMUTH: Yes, don't blame me on this one.

I know you care about New Jersey, going to New Jersey. It's going to be a little bit worse than right along the coastline, where we're going to see a little bit of rain start to mix in, and definitely problems in the airports, delays across all big airports right there, from Philadelphia, Baltimore, D.C., and up towards New York.

That means there's going to be some carryover delays and problems probably all the way into tomorrow morning. So check your flights.

Temperature-wise, though, we're right here, freezing in New York, warming up in D.C. So, where we had some snow earlier, starting to see some rain move in. And that will be the case for a lot of areas along the coast, starting as snow. Eventually, it moves over in towards some rain.

But interior sections will be all snow all the time. And that's we're going to see some spots probably up to about 10 inches of snow here. We're only in towards mid-November.

Here at Central Park, heavy snow, out at La Guardia, heavy snow, Newark, heavy snow. That's why we're seeing those delays. But the last couple radar images here, you are starting to see that warmer air start to get in the area, and that's where we will see it switch over to some rain.

Winter storm warnings in effect all across interior sections, just kind of like a classical nor'easter. And when we put the future radar in motion, you will notice tonight temps in Philadelphia 45, New York 40, Boston 37.  So it warms up along the coast. That transition to rain also means it's going to be very slushy.

And right before that happens, we're going to see almost everybody see a really quick downpour of some heavy snow. And that's going to cause some problems along the roadways.

A lot of Connecticut, by the way, mostly snow all the way through.

Want to show you this. Behind this, cooler air starts to come in. Miami tomorrow, the cold front goes all the way through South Florida, so only to 76, 66, for a high in Orlando. And then take a look at this, Neil.

Saturday, winter comes right back here across parts of the Northern Plains, 17 degrees in Fargo -- Neil.

CAVUTO: You know, you're not giving us a lot of good news, buddy.

(LAUGHTER)

REICHMUTH: It's November.

CAVUTO: But you are so good at what you do...

REICHMUTH: Thank you.

CAVUTO: ... we will accept it at face value. It is closing in on winter, like in a month.

REICHMUTH: Yes, I know.

(LAUGHTER)

CAVUTO: All right, thank you very, very much, Rick Reichmuth.

REICHMUTH: You bet.

CAVUTO: Now, he mentioned Florida, where it's getting cold.

Well, it's getting legally chilly there right now. Senator Bill Nelson now adding to his lawsuit flurry here, this time challenging Palm Beach County for stopping the machine voting. They have obviously progressed now on to a hand count of ballots.

That's going to be statewide. The bottom line, though, is, this is going to be a mess certainly before 2020, and in fact growing concerns it's not going to be fixed by 2020.

Democratic strategist Jessica Tarlov, National Review's Kat Timpf, and Axios' Caitlin Owens.

Caitlin, end it with you.

Your thoughts on what's happening in Florida now, because any lawsuit could potentially delay this process, but what do you think?

CAITLIN OWENS, AXIOS: As you said, it is a mess, Neil.

We're seeing -- it's very -- practically very messy in a logistical sense, but it's also a mess of politics and lawsuits flying back and forth. It's gotten really nasty.

We're seeing the president make allegations, unsubstantiated allegations about voter fraud. It doesn't seem like...

CAVUTO: Where did he get that, by the way, I mean, people who are changing or putting a hat on and then coming to vote again? Like, crazy stuff.

(LAUGHTER)

CAVUTO: Where did he get it?

OWENS: You know, Neil, I actually searched for that today, and I couldn't figure it out. So I'm not sure. Your guess is as good as mine.

CAVUTO: All right.

OWENS: But I think this is going to keep going until -- it seems Bill Nelson has said he will keep going until there's no other legal means for him to keep fighting.

So we're in for a long one here.

CAVUTO: We could be, and beyond even the 20th, when the state is supposed to certify everything.

But, Kat, one of the things that has come up in this process is that what ballots they have counted have actually tipped in the Republican candidate's favorite, particularly in that senatorial race with Rick Scott, and I think the Nelson people were hoping -- they won that Broward County, for example, Palm Beach County, by overwhelming numbers.

But that they were hoping that would certainly pick up votes there, and they didn't. What are we to glean from that?

KATHERINE TIMPF, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, that's certainly obviously what they were hoping, and not the case. Republicans are going to win on this issue.

But I just think that bigger focus needs to be, we need to make sure there isn't the same mess in 2020 as there is here. There's problems with...

CAVUTO: I bet there will be.

TIMPF: I bet there will be too. There's problems...

CAVUTO: And in a state that is so close, it's guaranteed to get exacerbated, right?

(CROSSTALK)

TIMPF: That's the issue. There's problems in lots of states here. In New York, there's problems with wet ballots and those kinds of things. But we know New York is going to go blue. So it's not as big of an issue.

When it happens in Florida, it's this big national story. They have issues with, for example, old machines causing problems. They shouldn't have old machines when they know that there could potentially be an issue coming up like this, and they will need to have to deal with it in a timely manner.

CAVUTO: What do you think of this and the back and forth?

I mean, let's say Scott wins legitimately. Still, it's a close vote. That DeSantis wins legitimately, still a close vote. But is there going to be an asterisk then next to the winner's name forever until the end of time?

JESSICA TARLOV, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: I'm not completely sure.

I think whatever happens in Georgia, there's going to be an asterisk there, the case that Stacey Abrams and her people are making against Brian Kemp, which is more reliant on voter fraud -- sorry -- voter disenfranchisement and voter repression throughout the early voting period and then on Election Day, is a lot stronger than what's going on here.

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: That some couldn't vote.

TARLOV: That some couldn't vote, and you had four-hour lines, which, if you're a working person, I don't know who can just take the entire day off to wait in a line. And machines without power cords.

CAVUTO: And that was deliberate on his part to squelch voting for her?  Really?

(CROSSTALK)

TARLOV: Well, no, no -- well, that's the accusation, that he -- I mean, there were hundreds of thousands of people removed from the voter rolls in Georgia over the course of Brian Kemp's tenure there. So that's the accusation there.

I think, in terms of the asterisk, as long as these lawsuits are filed, and it goes the distance, and they give them the amount of days that it takes to satisfy what Marc Elias, who is Bill Nelson's lawyer, is asking for, I think there will always be people who say it has an asterisk, but, generally speaking, I mean, Florida does elect Republicans, and by slim margins.

And this happens there all the time.

CAVUTO: This kind of stuff gets punctuated by the very nature of a close race.

TARLOV: Of course.

But -- so, we were talking about out this on Saturday morning. The idea that ballot is designed in such a way that Bill Nelson could have lost out on up to 3 percent of his vote because of name placement is so ludicrous.

That has to be changed by 2020. And I don't know why Election Day isn't a national holiday.

CAVUTO: Although a very similar ballot was in other regions, where there wasn't nearly the confusion.

So who knows? Who knows?

TARLOV: A lot of this is who knows.

CAVUTO: Indeed.

TARLOV: But the voter fraud claim that the president is making, which is completely conspiratorial, that Rick Scott has made as well...

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: And, by the way, the charge you're intimating, that the Florida winner, apparent winner, or the Georgia winner was doing something Machiavellian, it's a little bit of stretch, right?

TARLOV: No, I'm saying that will be...

CAVUTO: It will be debated, but..

TARLOV: No, no, you know, that will be the narrative more so than it will be in Florida, was my point. I'm not calling anyone anything.

CAVUTO: Understood.

If he gets 50 percent and then, of course, you have a whole new election.

TARLOV: Well, they're both declaring victory, so maybe we will have two governors, one from each party.

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: One at a time.

(LAUGHTER)

CAVUTO: But I would be remiss if I didn't mention this blue wave thing.

When I look at the numbers, I guess it's 38 seats now picked up in the House.

TARLOV: I think, by tomorrow, it should be.

CAVUTO: By tomorrow, it should be.

And then I look at what's happening in the Senate, where it could closely mirror the old Senate, which is Republicans still maintain their lead. Is that a blue wave to you?

OWENS: You know, I think -- what is the blue wave kind of is a philosophical question.

CAVUTO: More blue than red.

OWENS: But, yes, I mean, if you look at where we were at this point two years ago, right after Donald Trump won the presidency, Democrats were looking at the Senate map in particular just kind of with dread.

There were 10 seats that Democrats had.

CAVUTO: Right. Didn't turn out that way.

OWENS: Right.

And, you know, so it could have been a lot worse than it was. So do you count that as a blue wave?

CAVUTO: OK.

All right, Kat, what do you think, blue wave, or how do you size it up?

TIMPF: It was like half-a-wave.

You know, like, you couldn't really surf on it, but you could maybe play in it and get knocked over a little bit.

TARLOV: I feel like you could stand up for a second and then you fall back down. It was pretty good, seven governorships.

CAVUTO: Right. I don't know think you can deny it's a blue wave, you know?

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: This is a blue wave.

TARLOV: I'm with Neil, even though you called me Machiavellian.

TIMPF: I think it's a small wave.

CAVUTO: Small blue wave, but a blue wave nonetheless.

TARLOV: I had fun in the ocean.

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: Here comes "The Five."
 
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