Moderna to apply for FDA emergency approval of coronavirus vaccine

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Moderna to apply for FDA emergency approval of coronavirus vaccine

Dr. Bob Lahita tells ‘Your World’ vaccine rollout will be ‘big boost’ for healthcare workers.

This is a rush transcript from “Your World with Neil Cavuto” November 30, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

NEIL CAVUTO, FOX NEWS ANCHOR:  Indeed, it is a wonderful time of the year,
if you like to shop, let's say online, because the Cyber Monday, that's
what a lot of folks are doing.

Now, of course, here at FOX, we're all work all the time, so the last thing
we're going to do is shop when we're supposed to be doing shows.

(LAUGHTER)

CAVUTO:  Good. Got it done.

Welcome, everybody. I'm Neil Cavuto, and this is your, well, shopping world
on a day we got a reminder here that we, boy, love this idea of just
cocooning and doing or buying at home and cozy and not necessarily at those
old stores, because that's where the dichotomy exists.

There's a big separation between going to a mall and just, well, punching
and keying it in and getting what you want delivered to your home. We're
going to go into that in just a little bit, looking at that phenomenon.

Grady Trimble, he's in Chicago, Susan Li keeping track of how Wall Street
is keeping track of all of this, because I should stress, on the bottom
portion of your screen there, you're seeing a sell-off in the Dow, but this
is one of the best months we have seen in many a decade, I suspect before
either those folks were born, even before I was born.

No, OK, that's a lie.

All right, a couple other things we're following as well, as what's
happening in Atlanta, Georgia. We're expecting to hear from the secretary
of state, writing off again on what now has been three different votes in
The Peach state that all confirm the same thing, Joe Biden won, end of
story. Or is it?

We will get an idea. When the secretary of state approaches that podium, we
will be approaching him.

Let's go to Grady Trimble first on what you have been up to, and shopping
and all of that, because, depending where you are, and how you're doing it,
you're either breaking records or you're not doing anything at all --
Grady.

GRADY TRIMBLE, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT:  Well, Neil, Americans spent $23.5
billion online Thursday through Sunday. And, today, well, we're going to
keep spending.

Adobe projects that we will spend somewhere between $10.8 billion and $12.7
billion this Cyber Monday. That would make today the biggest online
spending day ever and would be between 15 and 35 percent more than we spent
last Cyber Monday, which, as of right now is the current record holder.

The pandemic, of course, a huge reason for the surge in online sales, Black
Friday foot traffic down about 52 percent, according to Sensormatic
Solutions. That, in some ways, though, was by design. A lot of the
retailers didn't want big crowds at their stores because of the pandemic.

And so they drove them online and spread out their sales over the entire
month of November. What that did is, it heated up the competition with
Amazon, but Amazon rose to the occasion. Look at this. Amazon increased its
share of online sales on Thanksgiving and Black Friday to 55 percent.

Amazon was followed by Walmart, Best Buy, Target, and eBay. Some of the
sales on Walmart's Web site today, treadmills for those keeping up with
their fitness at home, as well as Apple AirPods. Over at Target, they have
vacuums on sale from Dyson, as well as Apple Watches.

And, Neil, weather-wise today in Chicago, a very good day, I would say, to
sit on the couch and order away online from the comfort of your home.

CAVUTO:  Ah. It sounds like my typical day. Thank you, my friend.

I have heard of these things called treadmills too.

(LAUGHTER)

CAVUTO:  Thank you for that update, Grady Trimble in Chicago.

Hitha Herzog here. No one follows retail activity better than Hitha. I have
been honored to know her over these many, many years. She can kind of sort
out where the strengths are, where the weaknesses are.

It is interesting, Hitha. I mean, a lot of people are certainly interested
in buying a lot of things, as long as they don't have to leave their homes,
huh?

HITHA HERZOG, RETAIL WATCHER:  We have been seeing this trend happen for
years now. As you mentioned, Neil, we have been doing this for a long time.

But one thing that I have been tracking are the direct consumer businesses.
So, if you look at Shopify and their numbers, you saw that they -- the
direct-to-consumer businesses did about -- these are one million businesses
-- did about $2.4 billion worth of business. That is 75 percent more than
what they did in 2019.

So, while we're tracking the different companies that are taking away
market share from Amazon, and Amazon wrapping -- or ramping up their online
sales, we still -- we have to look at the small businesses especially. And
Shopify is one way that we're able to track that.

CAVUTO:  So, when you track it, obviously, people are inclined to spend,
the pandemic notwithstanding, maybe because of the pandemic.

I mean, early on, I remember you were saying, watch. That's what's going to
happen. And, indeed, it did.

But I'm surprised that physical structure malls, stores, haven't done more
to entice people to come in, not all, not all.

But who is getting this right?

HERZOG:  Well, a lot of malls are trying to take into consideration safety
measures.

So, if you walk into a mall, you will see a lot of social distancing, signs
everywhere, ways to keep yourself, your hands sanitized. We're even looking
at this one company that I was getting -- I was talking to. It's a company
called ChargeItSpot.

And their business is basically, they were charging phones and a lot of
these retailers. Now they're sanitizing and charging your phone as you
shop, so different retailers. And they have partnered with a bunch of
different retailers in the mall, including Bloomingdale's and Target.

So, you're seeing a bunch of different retailers take these measures into
consideration. But, Neil, according to the study that I was looking at,
Oracle, 64 percent of people still want their purchases delivered to their
homes. And I think, to your point, no one really wants to go outside.

I'm here in New York City. It's raining. It's cold. We haven't seen a lot
of snow yet here. But I can guarantee that people are just going to want to
hunker down this season.

CAVUTO:  Yes, they might get their first chance this week. I don't want to
depress people on that. But we will see.

All right, thank you very, very much, on that, Hitha.

In the meantime, we did have a backdrop, a sad last day of November, but do
not cry for the bulls, one of the best months they have seen, well, in
quite a number of decades, depending on the average and depending on how
you want to look at this.

And Susan Li looks at it better than anyone I know here.

Susan, what can you tell us about the month of November just wrapped up?

SUSAN LI, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT:  Well, it's definitely a November to
remember.

So we're looking at new record highs so far this month and best November
for the Dow going back to the 1920s. There's never been a better November
for the broader S&P 500, and same for the small cap, Russell 2000. The
Nasdaq is looking at the best November since after dot-com bubble burst,
all with double-digit gains, mind you, in just 30 days. That's explosive.

So, what stocks did well in the month? The ones that have lagged all year,
so, energy, financials and banks, industrials, like equipment and machinery
makers, materials, like plastic paper and metal suppliers.

And three main catalysts for this November bump, first of all, vaccine
hopes. Then you have stimulus predictions with the Janet Yellen, Treasury
and an orderly transition. One of the vaccine hopefuls, Moderna, says it
will apply for FDA approval on Monday.

Meantime, we had the world's biggest company, Apple, getting upgrades today
from analysts, now telling the clients to buy the stock. Shopify reporting
strong Black Friday sales, as you heard.

Slack, it could be bought up by Salesforce as early as Tuesday. And, yes,
Bitcoin as also hit a brand-new record high, surpassing levels from three
years ago, before crashing 18 months later. But experts say that this time
is different, as Bitcoin is going more mainstream on platforms like PayPal,
Square and Robinhood.

Now, as we head into the final month of the year, December, it's typically
the strongest month of the year for the stock market, for the so-called
Santa Claus rally. The S&P 500 has risen more than 80 percent of the time
in an election year.

So, Neil, we will see if Santa Claus delivers this year.

CAVUTO:  All right. Well, Santa has quite the wind at his back. We will see
what happens.

(LAUGHTER)

CAVUTO:  All right, Susan Li.

Before I get to our next guest, I do want to let you know, I promised you
we would be going to this Atlanta development, where the secretary of
state's office is going to detail the vote count. It's not the secretary of
state. It's Gabriel Sterling, the voting system implementation manager in
Georgia.

We're monitoring this very, very closely. They have had a number of counts,
I believe three now, to go through the vote in the Peach State. And all
three have come up the same way, a victory for Joe Biden. The president, as
you know, is apoplectic about that, saying that Georgia's governor let him
down, a host of the bigwigs in politics there have let him down.

He is still, I believe, going to be campaigning this weekend for the
Georgia Republican senatorial candidates. But, for now, if we get anything
out of this that disputes that or indicates that they're going to give it a
fourth try or look at some other mechanisms that maybe were missed, we
will, of course, keep you posted.

One of the variables in this election year is, a number of states are
making their tallies official right now.

Art Hogan with us, the National Securities Corporation chief market
strategist.

I think it's -- at this point, Art, the markets have concluded it's going
to be Joe Biden on January 20. That's one constant they see happening. Do
you?

ART HOGAN, MARKET STRATEGIST:  Yes, I think that is a -- if you look at the
headwinds in September and October, when the market briefly pulled back 10
or 15 percent, one of the headwinds was election uncertainty.

And I would say that that's behind us. We can put that safely in the
rearview mirror. And I think that's a good thing. So, as we look at that
and combine that with good news on vaccines, where we have three of the
four leading candidates out with results from phase three, and likely
heading to the FDA for emergency use, I think that's a -- that was an
unknown that's turned into a tailwind for this market.

But I think the concept of sooner, rather than later, we're going to get
some fiscal stimulus out of gridlock in Washington and into the hands of
the people that need it the most, probably not as large as we were talking
about in September and October, but certainly getting out of Washington.

And it may well happen in a lame-duck session. So I think the market looks
at all three of those things and says, OK, smooth transition, there's a
light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, and more fiscal policy stimulus
for this economy that's very needed right now, and it is celebrating that

And I think that is what October -- what November has been all about.

CAVUTO:  Let me just throw a couple of variables at you, wild card
developments that might or might not happen, but they're worth considering
what the market expects vs. what it doesn't.

It doesn't expect that split government view to change, the White House
under Democratic control, the Senate remaining under Republican control.
But what if those two Republicans did lose in Georgia? It's unlikely .Now,
you never know. Things could change, certainly, January 5.

The polls for both are very tight. Then what? How would the market digest
news like that?

HOGAN:  You know what's amazing to me is, when we sort of came into the
beginning of this election cycle, it felt like, on the sort of Thursday,
Friday, Monday, before the Tuesday, we were actually celebrating a blue
wave. And that would mean larger stimulus, changes across the board and
things that would be stimulative to the economy.

And then, when the elections rolled around, that sort of Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday, we shifted gears pretty quickly to, gridlock is good.
So I think this is a market that change shift on that narrative pretty
quickly. I think, at the end of the day, though, the market is counting on
sort of no real changes to corporate tax codes, no major regulatory
changes, but some form of stimulus coming, and certainly an administration
that is going to be less erratic in our foreign policy endeavors.

And I think that's a positive as well.

CAVUTO:  Art, much has been said of the economic team that president-elect
Biden has assembled, including Janet Yellen, the former Federal Reserve
chairman, now likely to be the next Treasury secretary, that it's center-
left.

I don't even know what those terms mean anymore, but that it would be pro
still more stimulus. In this kind of world, Wall Street likes that, doesn't
it?

HOGAN:  I think so, yes. I think that anything during a pandemic, and
coming out of a pandemic, that we -- that gets more stimulus out there to
help companies and individuals bridge to the other side of this pandemic
gap. And I think that that's important.

But you also have to remember the Street is looking at this and saying, OK,
there's only so much that an administration can do when they don't control
the Senate, right? So, we're not talking about this sort of north of $3
trillion or $3 trillion. We're talking about something in this sort of just
south of a trillion dollars and something closer to $600 billion to $700
billion in the near term.

And then sort of having a president that has worked with the Senate his
entire life and able to get things done, you may see things down the road
that are stimulative, like infrastructure spend that we can all agree on. I
think it's a bipartisan issue that we need more of that.

So, yes, I think it's a market that's looking at this and saying, OK,
here's what we know right now. And then let's make an assumption about
Georgia. And let's move forward and say, now what does the future look
like?

And the biggest piece of all of that, clearly, is getting a strong,
durable, broadly available vaccine. And I think those pieces of the puzzle
are starting to come together nicely.

CAVUTO:  All right, Art, great catching up with you, my friend. Be safe and
well this holiday season, Art.

Art Hogan follows these developments very, very well here.

We are still monitoring this Atlanta presser featuring the guy who
calculates and sort of adds up all the numbers for the secretary of state.
He has just wrapped up here. But it does not appear to be any change in the
overall vote there.

We can tell you that Atlanta and in Georgia itself, after these multiple
counts, they're close to officially certifying. They have, in fact, on the
vote there in Wisconsin. The recount affirms a Biden win. Ditto in Arizona,
as well in Pennsylvania.

So, the president is certainly running out of options here and legal
battles. As to at what point he gives up the fight, whether that's
officially on the electoral vote tally, is anyone's guess. But, for today,
at least, apart from politics, the promising developments have been on the
vaccine front.

And a lot of people dismissed the president when he said that a vaccine
could be ready this year, and now word that Moderna is already filing for
emergency approval to get it out in people's hands as soon as this week,
Pfizer as well not that far behind.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO:  Well, it looks like Moderna is going to be out there a lot sooner
than expected.

How about this week? Looks like it's going to be granted emergency approval
to do that. And look at the pop in the stock as a result, up better than 20
percent on the news.

Casey Stegall in Arlington, Texas, on what that FDA vaccine nod could mean
-- Casey.

CASEY STEGALL, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT:  Hey, Neil. Good to see you.

If this is approved for emergency use, by the end of the year, Moderna says
that it could have 20 million doses of that coronavirus vaccine here alone
in the United States.

And then the pharmaceutical company says it would be on track to generate
some 500 million to one billion doses for 2021. The U.S. Food and Drug
administration approval process could take a little bit of time. But not
only do the clinical trials show that 94.1 percent efficacy rate, but 100
percent in preventing severe COVID cases.

Here is what the company's chief medical officer had to say about this
breakthrough.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. TAL ZAKS, CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, MODERNA:  And, you know, on a personal
level, when we saw the first interim results, I think we were all really,
really relieved and enthusiastic.

I can tell you, when I saw the final results last night -- they came in a
little bit earlier than we had planned for -- I allowed myself to cry for
the first time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEGALL:  Pfizer, meantime, says that it is preparing for the first mass
air shipment of its vaccine seeing if it's approved, shown to be 95 percent
effective in the clinical trials.

And with all this talk about vaccines, the federal government wants to
remind people to beware of any kind of phony advertising or abilities to
offer vaccines to you online for purchase, things like that. Sadly, Neil,
as with anything, scams are expected, and ICE, actually, Immigrations and
Customs Enforcement, watching this very, very closely in terms of what is
coming into the country.

Of course, the actual coronavirus vaccine will be very limited at first,
and it will be distributed in a proper means. So, purchasing it online,
anything like that, if it sounds too good to be true, of course, it
probably is -- Neil.


CAVUTO:  So sad, Casey. And in the middle of every crisis, people will do
that to try to take advantage of people.

STEGALL:  Yes. Right.

CAVUTO:  Casey Stegall, in Arlington, Texas, and thank you for that
warning.

Just a heads-up. There are some nefarious characters out there, folks.

Dr. Bob Lahita, St. Joseph University Hospital chairman of medicine, New
York Medical College professor, so much more.

Doctor, always great seeing you. I hope you had a wonderful and safe
Thanksgiving.

DR. BOB LAHITA, ST. JOSEPH UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL:  Thank you.

CAVUTO:  How do you look at this -- these vaccines and the rollout, Moderna
maybe before Pfizer, but, in short order, two biggies, at least for
emergency use, in a matter of weeks.

LAHITA:  We're really excited about this, Neil. This is really more than
light at the end of the tunnel, as you heard the CEO of Moderna getting
very emotional with his description of the vaccine.

We have seen so much death in our field, in medicine, and there's so much
depression among health care workers, to have a vaccine come forward would
be a big boost to all of us who are taking care of those who are very,
very, very sick, and those who are going to get very, very sick. And we're
worried about that, Neil.

After Thanksgiving, after the big gatherings that we were warned against, I
have heard of many patients just today, this morning, who were with their
relatives who are COVID-positive. And everybody's walking on eggs right now
-- Neil.

CAVUTO:  Oh, boy, they didn't listen to you, Doctor. And you were here many
times saying, be careful and all that.

LAHITA:  I did.

CAVUTO:  But, Doctor, I was thinking of you on this same subject, because
Dr. Fauci now is saying, what you did at Thanksgiving -- I'm paraphrasing
here, sir -- you should consider at Christmas and Hanukkah and the
holidays, one more holiday.

Go slow. Keep the family members low, because we can do this, if we do it
one more time, one more big holiday gathering. What did you make of that?

LAHITA:  I think he's right.

I think the big concern was the gatherings that we're seeing and the
spreading, the super-spreader events. Well, first, they wind up as small
spreader events at your dining room table. And then it goes from there,
where people leave that are infected and infect others and infect others.

The most important thing is, remember the masks, wash your hands, social
distancing. But the bump from Thanksgiving should happen around the second
week of December, which is right into the Christmas holidays.

And then, of course, with Christmas, everybody's going to get together in a
big clump. And we're back to square one with spreading and people getting
sick well into the new year. And that's what we don't really want to see.

But we're prepared for it. However, we're running out of steam. It's hard
to staff a hospital when half the staff is ill. It's very, very difficult
in towns and cities where there's only one hospital, say, in a 50-mile
radius within the country. So that's what we're concerned about -- Neil.

CAVUTO:  Doctor, another thing I was curious about -- and maybe just me
noticing -- older people who are getting this are not facing the same trips
to the ICU or worse, God forbid, that I saw in the early days of the
pandemic.

Maybe a reminder of that was none other than 87 years young Chuck Grassley
in the Senate who was -- tested positive, and everyone was worried. Well,
boy, he is in that age group and everything else. That could be worrisome.

And I have seen anecdotal cases of that, that people who used to follow
that trajectory of a certain age and risk group who aren't anymore, and
there's no vaccine out yet.

So, I'm wondering what's going on there.

LAHITA:  Yes.

CAVUTO:  Are you guys just better at treating, finding a way to deal with
this, what?

LAHITA:  Well, number one, we're much better at treating it. We're much
better at keeping people off of ventilators. That was a big one.

And the fact that this is a stepwise increase in cases, rather than a big
surge that we saw last spring, means a lot. And the other thing is, it's
impossible -- and I have said this over and over -- to tell who is going to
succumb to this.

Now, there's clearly an immunological either genetics or a glitch that
allows you to get very, very sick and die. But it's not present in
everyone. The vast majority of us, thank goodness, are not in that group.

But you have got to remember that there are -- you never know who's going
to be the one that will succumb to this virus, even within families --
Neil.

CAVUTO:  No, you're right about. And all words well-heeded.

Dr. Bob Lahita, thanks for all you, all you are, and the good advice you
give, even when people like me don't like the eating advice you give, like,
try not to overdo it and all that. But, for the most part, you're very good
to listen to on the subjects that matter.

LAHITA:  Thanks, Neil.

CAVUTO:  Dr. Lahita, good seeing you again, my friend.

All right, in the meantime, by the way, on the eating thing at
Thanksgiving, did you hear these doctors who are advocating wear a mask?
And, in California, they said wear one indoors. I guess the idea was that
it not only makes it more healthy around you, but you eat less that way.

(LAUGHTER)

CAVUTO:  I found a way around that by cutting a hole in the mask.

(LAUGHTER)

CAVUTO:  We will have more after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO:  All right, the presidential vote in Georgia might be signed,
sealed and about done, but the secretary of state's office is examining
some registration efforts by some progressive groups, like America Votes
and Vote Forward, to encourage people who are outside Georgia to vote in
Georgia.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO:  President-elect Joe Biden has received his first security
briefing, a transition briefing that's crucial right now. I believe Kamala
Harris was also part of that.

Jacqui Heinrich has more from Wilmington, Delaware.

Hey, Jacqui.

JACQUI HEINRICH, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT:  Good afternoon, Neil. Good to see
you. Hope you had a good holiday.

Vice president-elect Kamala Harris received her briefing at the Department
of Commerce. That is where the official transition office is located. It's
been rarely used since it was first made available in September. And
president-elect Joe Biden received his first briefing, presidential daily
briefing, at his home here in Wilmington.

We can deduce that it has now been concluded from the language that I just
received from one of the transition officials. It marks the very first time
Biden has received this briefing as the president-elect. He was previously
receiving limited intelligence briefings as the Democratic nominee, but,
after he won the election, he was blocked from the PDB, as it's called, for
several weeks, while the White House held up the formal transition.

It led to a really unusual situation where, for about three weeks, vice
president-elect Kamala Harris had access to more classified information
than Biden himself because she was a member of the Senate Intel Committee.

Biden, at one point, resorted to holding a national security briefing with
outside intelligence, diplomacy and defense experts.

Meantime, Biden announced six key choices for his economic team today,
nominating former Fed Chair Janet Yellen for Treasury secretary. If
confirmed, she will be the first woman to lead the department. And she will
face a unique set of challenges managing economic fallout from the
pandemic.

Biden also tapped Neera Tanden from the liberal think tank the Center for
American Progress to lead the Office of Management and Budget. Her
nomination, though, is already being met with a lot of pushback. There are
reports that Democrats have floated the idea of a sort of sacrificial lamb
to let the Senate flex its muscles, so to speak, maybe nix a confirmation
of one person to allow others to more easily pass through.

And she's being eyed potentially as someone who might fit that description.
Lots and lots of pushback against her -- her nomination here today -- Neil.

CAVUTO:  All right, there's always one in those Cabinet choices. And,
invariably, that's someone that just doesn't get through.

Jacqui Heinrich, thank you very much, Jacqui, of course, in Wilmington,
Delaware, following the president-elect.

Charlie Gasparino following the president-elect's economic team choices,
what we know of them does far.

Charlie, what can tell us?

CHARLIE GASPARINO, FOX NEWS SENIOR CORRESPONDENT:  Well, I think Janet
Yellen is going to pass. I think they're all going to get through, except
for Neera Tanden. We will get to that in a second.

I mean, I -- here's what I think the -- listen, this is all based on --
this analysis that I want to give you -- that the GOP keeps the Senate. And
I think people inside the Biden camp believe it's a very good chance that
they're -- the GOP is going to keep -- take one of those Georgia Senate
run-offs.

If that happens, there's 51 Republicans. And you need votes to get through.
You need -- you need Republican votes to get through.

That being said, Janet Yellen, she will be approved. Not saying they won't
break her chops a little bit, which they will. If you saw the column I
wrote in The New York Post, her stuff about income inequality just doesn't
really jibe with the record of income inequality during the Obama years,
where income inequality just exploded, and the gaps between the rich and
the poor, and not only that.

The wage rate of those on the lower end fell dramatically, where rich
people made a lot of money feasting on Janet Yellen's zero percent, near
zero percent interest rates and Fed easing. So, she's going to have to
answer to that.

And I think that's going to be -- but that will be more rhetorical. She
will get through. Even some of the guys that -- like Brian Deese as head of
the -- I believe the NEC, he doesn't need to be approved. But, again, he's
more -- again, he's in that tradition of Janet Yellen, much more
mainstream, much more policy-oriented.

It's the Neera Tanden thing that I keep hearing from my Republican sources,
that they're going to try to light her up when she gets out there. She's
been very partisan over the years, on the cable TV circuit, doing partisan
-- making her partisan points.

And I think they believe that they have good grounds to deny her. I don't
know if she's been put up as a sacrificial lamb. I kind of don't believe
that. That's a little too conspiracy-oriented to me. I just think that they
didn't -- they don't realize the type of pushback -- they underestimated
the type of pushback they're going to get from her, thinking that
Republicans are just going to, like, roll over and allow anybody to get
through, including someone who kind of fits the bill.

She's a woman, maybe one of the first woman -- one of the few women that
held that job. But that doesn't negate her record. And her record was
highly partisan. She attacked some of the GOP senators, from what I
understand, that could be making the decision.

I mean, this thing has battle written all over it. And if the Republicans
keep the Senate, she's probably -- based on what I'm hearing, she's
probably not going to get through, Neil. I mean, that's the one.

CAVUTO:  All right.

GASPARINO:  The rest of them, I think, go through easy, you know?

CAVUTO:  All right, buddy, thank you very much, Charlie Gasparino following
all of that.

We're getting more details on this Georgia secretary of state charge. He
was talking specifically about the Senate run-off elections, not the vote,
the third vote wrapping up in Georgia, that has already been virtually
certified for Joe Biden.

This concerns the twin January elections for Senate, which the secretary of
state is examining registration efforts by some progressive groups, among
them, America Votes, Vote Forward, and The New Georgia Project.

He said some of these groups have been encouraging people who live outside
Georgia to register to vote in the state. These third-party groups, he
said, have a responsibility do not encourage illegal voting. If they do so,
they will be held responsible.

He took great care to say this applies to the January 5 run-off, and not
the presidential election, an election just passed. We will keep you
posted.

And we will have more on this from Steve Harrigan in Atlanta right after
this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO:  All right, well, if the Georgia secretary of state is right, some
progressive groups have some explaining to do regarding trying to get
voters to go out and have a role and vote for the Democratic senatorial
candidates ahead of that January 5 run-off election, even if, presently,
they do not live in the Peach State.

Steve Harrigan with more on all of this in Atlanta -- Steve.

STEVE HARRIGAN, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT:  Neil, two sets of problems, what's
already happened with the voting and what could happen in the future in the
voting, the Georgia secretary of state here worried about both.

As for those January 5 senator run-off races, they are concerned about
third party groups bringing in new voters, either from out of state or
trying to get college students to switch their registration, then switch
back, the secretary of state warning today that such activity was indeed a
felony.

As far as the general election in November, he said there's at least 250
open cases still under investigation, things like double voting, dead
people attempting to vote, or absentee ballots that outnumber the absentee
ballots requested.

So far, none of these charges have been verified. There are 23
investigators looking into them. And officials said today, at this point,
they see nothing that jumps off the page that suggests that these claims of
fraud could change the results, those results, of course, Joe Biden with
more than a 12,000-vote lead.

That third presidential recount still under way. It wraps up December 2.
And the president himself comes here to Georgia to campaign for those two
Senate candidates this Saturday -- Neil, back to you.

CAVUTO:  You know, Steve, I know that secretary of state there has been
critical of some of what he's called the fantastic stories that have been
generated. He called them half-truths, fantastic claims that are adding to
the cynical view people have a vote that otherwise, save some of these
examples you raise, would not have changed the outcome one way or the
other.

What do you make of that? What have you heard on that?

HARRIGAN:  Neil, you're right. The officials are saying, very critically --
actually going a step beyond that. The secretary of state today said he
thinks the president is being deceived by false actors.

So, at the same time, though, he's saying there's 250 open cases. Keep in
mind, this is an election with five million votes for president. So, 250 is
not a large number, but the margin between the two is very close, just
12,000 votes, a fraction of 1 percent. So, you can see why it's heated on
both sides -- Neil.

CAVUTO:  Understood.

All right, Steve Harrigan, thank you very much.

Want to go to John Bussey right now, John, of course, FOX News contributor,
Wall Street Journal associate editor.

We already know about the presidential contest there, the Senate, the run-
off one that's getting a great deal of attention, probably just as much
controversy.

But, John, on the issue of Wall Street titans and backers who ostensibly
are behind Joe Biden now, but are holding out on the Senate election, if I
have got that right, what are they saying?

JOHN BUSSEY, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR:  Well, maybe it's a matter of kind of
all politics being local, Neil.

Bloomberg has an interesting story on this, that (AUDIO GAP) have not been
as forthcoming with donations to the senatorial campaigns in the run-off.
And there's conjecture whether or not that has to do with the fact that
Biden plans to raise taxes, and that these individuals on Wall Street don't
want to see that happen.

They kind of got what they want, but they want to sort of limit it. I mean,
broadly speaking, in America, politics tend to be around the center. It's a
fairly centrist country. So people do split tickets quite often. And, in
this case, they may have gotten what they wanted with a Biden victory,
someone new somewhat to properly manage the coronavirus crisis, a change in
tone in the White House.

But they don't necessarily want the tax increases that come with it. So,
the Bloomberg article was speculating that -- interestingly so, that the
desire to maybe kind of keep the Senate the way it is now, in the hands of
the Republicans to block any potential tax increases.

CAVUTO:  Now, the president-elect's Cabinet choices -- and it goes beyond
the Cabinet, as you know, John, to the economic team that with starts Janet
Yellen is Treasury -- they're called the center-left group.

I can never describe these sort of descriptions. But it's kind of neat that
the notion that Wall Street has is, they're very pro-stimulus, to a woman,
only one man right now, and they would be inclined at this point to up the
stimulus ante, which I guess Wall Street would welcome, right?

I mean, everyone seems to love the money from Uncle Sam these days.

BUSSEY:  Yes, low interest rates and government spending.

And I think that that's what's run the Dow up and the S&P up the way that
it has...

CAVUTO:  Right. Right.

BUSSEY:  ... is the expectation that there will finally be a stimulus deal,
and that interest rates are going to stay low.

At the same time, these same economic advisers, Neil, are facing a
ballooning deficit. And, at some point, they're going to have to contend
with that. The Republicans are worried about sort of tax increases on both
companies and individuals in the form of cap gains taxes.

President Trump took the corporate tax rate from 35 percent down to 21
percent. Biden is talking about raising it to 28 percent. It's really
unclear how much of that tax increase or that tax decrease actually
benefited the economy.

Our Richard Rubin has written on this, that there was a sort of an initial
kind of uptick in capital spending by companies, but not enough to pay for
the tax cuts. It didn't stimulate the economy enough to pay for the tax
cuts.

And a lot of the money went into stock buybacks, record level of stock
buybacks. Part of that may have been the fact that these corporate chiefs
were looking out over the horizon, and they realized the Democrats had not
supported the tax reduction, and they were worrying about 2020, the
Democrats coming back in the White House, which is what has happened.

And so they were hedging their bets. They didn't want to spend a lot of
their cap -- their lower tax money, their gains from that on CapEx, that
they would have to amortize that over years. So this is going to be -- it's
going to be very interesting to watch.

It's going to be a sort of play against the -- kind of the self-interest of
Wall Street and the broader direction that Biden wants to take the economy.

CAVUTO:  All right, well-explained.

John Bussey, thank you very, very much. I hadn't thought of that. You hold
back on some of this other stuff just in case you're going to see a switch
in administrations.

John Bussey of The Wall Street Journal on all of that.

We told you right now that Congress will be back in session for just a
teeny bit of time here. They call it the lame-duck session, but some lame-
ducks can do some things. What about this one?

After this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO:  All right, back in session, but really not for long.

What can we expect out of an abbreviated period where you have a lot of
lame-duckers in there who are not going to be in power come January, not
all of them, but some of them.

Chad Pergram on the hope for stimulus.

We have heard it before, Chad. And the hope now is that something is done
during this brief lame-duck session. But what do you think?

CHAD PERGRAM, FOX NEWS SENIOR CAPITOL HILL PRODUCER:  That's right.

Well, this would be the last-ditch effort to get a deal. There's been no
engagement from the White House so far. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, she is
getting some criticism from some Democrats, who think she should have cut a
smaller deal sometime before the election. She's going to have a smaller
majority next year.

Now, in the past hour, you have had the Democratic and Republican leaders
on the Senate floor for the first time since Thanksgiving. Let's start with
Chuck Schumer of New York.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), MINORITY LEADER:  We need a true bipartisan
bill, not, this is our bill, take it or leave it, that can bring us
together, can solve the desperate needs of the American people, which we
all very much want to solve.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PERGRAM:  Something new today. There is a Hail Mary effort by a bipartisan
coalition of senators trying to get a deal. They believe there's a chance,
since Pelosi and the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, haven't moved
from their positions in months.

Now, also some good news today. Chuck Grassley, the Republican senator from
Iowa, he is back in the Senate. He tested positive for coronavirus before
Thanksgiving. He said that this was the first Thanksgiving dinner he missed
with his wife. But he is back, and he had no symptoms -- Neil.

CAVUTO:  That is very good news.

And, sometimes, you worry. The older the positively tested patient, the
tougher, but not in his case. He's a tough guy.

Chad Pergram, thank you, my friend, Chad Pergram in Washington following
these developments.

In New Jersey, though, they are talking about potential lockdowns again.
And that, of course, for a lot of businesses already under enormous
pressure, was not exactly music to their ears.

Meet one very worried -- after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAVUTO:  New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy not ruling out the possibility of
another statewide shutdown, as COVID-19 cases begin to spiral kind of out
of control.

Count Paul Miller a little worried. Paul is the Just Jersey shop co-owner,
joins us right now.

Now, Paul, it's very good to have you.

We should stress that no decision has been made on this. But you're
concerned that another shutdown would keep you down, wouldn't it?

PAUL MILLER, CO-OWNER, JUST JERSEY:  Well, I mean, like any other business,
we depend on everyday revenues to make ends meet.

We may be a little bit more fortunate than some others. We had made some
investments in our e-commerce and online presence. While we have got eight
or 9,000 SKUs in the store, we have been able to get 800, 900 of them
online.

And so during the first shutdown, the three months that our doors were
locked, and we were only able to operate via online, curbside, local
delivery, we're one of the fortunate ones. Unlike many of our neighbors in
the restaurant or food business, our dedicated customers came through for
us and continued to order online.

With the holidays approaching, the uncertainty is magnified. We do about 30
percent of our business during this four-week period.

CAVUTO:  Is that right?

MILLER:  So, any impact on that is a major impact to us for the year.

And for us...

CAVUTO:  Now, you haven't heard anything about that. I know you have -- you
honor the distancing rules and all of that and keep things very, very
clean.

Do you know of any other requirements, short of shutting down or limiting
your hours, that are being contemplated?

MILLER:  We do not.

I mean, we have been following the executive orders as they're released and
updated. And, this weekend, Small Business Saturday is one of the biggest
days of the year for us. And we have adhered to the limit of 10 people. The
indoor gatherings, we assumed would mean our customers and employees
gathering in our store.

So, we limited the store to 10 people at a time on Saturday. And there were
times when we had a line outside of more people outside the store than
inside the store.

But the feedback we got was, one, it made our customers feel good that we
were taking the steps to ensure the safety of our employees and our
customers. And we might have had a little bit of a bonus bump from people
seeing, hey, there's a line at that store. That must be a place worth
waiting to get into.

(LAUGHTER)

MILLER:  So, I'm not sure we're the worst-case scenario in this claim.

One of the things we have found, that the pandemic has affected people in
so many different ways, that we're seeing an uptick in our corporate
business, because a lot of corporations want to do whatever they can at
their holiday giving time to support local businesses and show that they're
really connected to their local communities.

Our store is unique, in that our supply chain consists of nearly 300
individual artists and makers and small businesses all located in New
Jersey. And so those individuals have their own supply chain issues that
are impacting their ability to provide product to us.

CAVUTO:  That's right.

MILLER:  And so our supply chain is a little bit more complex than many who
may only order from a few different distributors.

But, in the end, we're all fighting for the same limited resources of time
and money. And we are just blessed with a great community, as you well
know, being a New Jerseyan yourself.

And our customers and neighbors have been great.

CAVUTO:  Well, you have got some very cool stuff. You're doing just fine,
Paul. I have no doubt you will weather all of this, Paul Miller, the New
Jersey shop co-owner.

Hope springs eternal for businesses just trying to survive.

That will do it here.

Here's "THE FIVE."


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