Says the syrian leader will cling to power at almost any cost possible. Theegyptian president has support of most of his countrys lawmakers. More than 500 of egypts 596 legislators have signed recommendations supporting a reelection bid by president lcc. Alsisi is expected to run in the march elections and when a second fouryear term. In Southern California risky crews are searching for survivors from devastating mudslides this week. At least 70 people have been killed and another reader still missing in an exclusive area near santa barbara. Global news, 24 hours a day, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. Im Mark Crumpton. This is bloomberg. Scarlet live from bloomberg World Headquarters in new york. Im scarlet fu. Joe im joe weisenthal. Julie chatterleys operative. Scarlet we are 30 minutes from the close of trading. Scott stocks resume rallies. Joe the question is, whatd you miss . Scarlet the white house the white house pushes taxes back into the headlines. Treasury secretary steven mnuchin, appearing at the white house to talk about the tax overhaul. The nations biggest private employer, walmart, has raised its minimum wage to 11 an hour and given its employees a onetime bonus. Equity rallies and records of 2018 dress on after a respite yesterday. But our by you asians looking peaky . Economic and market risks of 2018, with that hyman, the ever core chairman. Global news, 24 hours a day, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. Bloomberg markets. Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin visited the White House Press briefing today. For more, lets bring in Bloomberg National political reporter sahil kapur were on capitol hill. His message was really one of implementation, how the Administration Working with the irs is going to make sure people and employers prepare for the tax cuts coming their way. What was your sense of timing and how smoothly things will go, despite his best assurances . Hil things seem to be going as fast as the administration can push them along on this front. The irs had to redo their withholding tables to decide how much money is going to be taken americans paychecks starting in february, when the new changes go into effect. So i think they are trying to move forward with implementation and mnuchin is trying to paint a happy face on this to top positive Economic News that has come after the bill was signed into law. That was my take away from it. There was no great revelations i think, that he put out there, that we hadnt already heard and already know. Joe you wrote a great piece bring the taxreform debate, pointing out that when the were cut taxes peoples other taxes go down and didnt even notice. How cases of the white house to really make sure this goes smoothly and people start seeing those paychecks increase right away . Il extremely anxious, joe. This is going to be the be all and and all of their compass mitts before the 2018 election. There are things in this tax law including the repeal of the obamacare individual mandate penalty, and opening up well drilling. That is the heart of it. Thats the heart of President Trumps economic agenda in his two years before the midterms. So the extent to which americans see the difference in their paychecks and feel like theyre gaining from the slot or not, is going to have a big impact on how americans view the first two years of Donald Trumps presidency. Scarlet the discussion on the tax cut took center stage but there were westerns from reporters, especially about davos, because President Trump will be attending the World EconomicForum Annual Event in switzerland later this month. And i believe one question from reporters was, whys is he going to a globalist hangout . What can you tell us about the treasury secretarys response . He said the goal was in americafirst agenda, is what he is going to be pigeon. And what is good for america is good for the rest of the world. Its kind of hard to square that when you have a president threatening trade worth all the time. Il it was an awkward position for the secretary of the treasury to be in, that davos is not some globalist hangout when it is literally, exactly that. The on that i dont know if theres a whole lot to be said about it. Its not his decision, what the president does, but he was kind of put on the spot about it. Scarlet but he is going with him, right . Sahil that seems to be the case but hes not the one thats been going after globalist single after globalist single is a. Daca, is there any progress on a deal or is it too early to be optimistic . Just minutes ago we had at statement come out from center to date durban who set a Bipartisan Group of six senators working on immigration have what he called an agreement in principle. That agreement in principle includes a daca solution for the roughly hundred dozen people who could be thrown off the program if congress doesnt act by the time it ends. It also includes changes to familybased immigration, what the president calls chain migration. The diversity visa lottery, which gives green cards to people in countries that are underrepresented in terms of migration into the United States, we are long long way, from home on this. The house of representatives, where the hold up as traditionally been on immigration over the last many attempts over several years, have not signed off on this. So what we have now is the beginning of what could he is significant agreement. Scarlet yes, but there is still a long road ahead. Sahil kapur, thank you very much, bloombergs National Political reporter joining us from capitol hill. Speaking of Steve Mnuchin coming to give a big set up to walmart at that press breathing because the big bucks died boosted its starting hourly wage to 11 an hour and delivered bonuses to employees. This, to stay competitive in a tightening labor market. , sara, you wrote about this in your column today. Pr, walmart scored big points with republican politicians and certainly customers as well. But you are arguing walmart needed to do this with or without tax cuts. Sarah it simply because the labor market is getting tighter. We are at 4. 1 in employment rivalsemployment and its are making plans to do this as well. A lot of walmarts turnaround in last couple of years has been built on the fact that it already invested in wages and saw the benefit of doing that. I think it is thinking, as it swings the bat again on this front. Joe explain that a little further. You wrote about this in your column because it got a lot of attention when walmart raised an hour. Um wage to 10 you say theres a directly between higher pay and the improved performance. Can you explain how one thing led to the other . Sarah when walmart was in a really tough spot, what they were dealing with was shelves that were not well stocked, dirty stores, lousy Customer Service. I their own Customer Service scores and metrics, only 15 of their stores were meeting the standard on those measures. So you can see how that leads to comparable sales growth that is lagging. When they started investing in workers, doing things to retain incoming train them come and make it more worthwhile to work solvemart, we really the dynamic change. We saw negative comparable sales change to positive comparable sales. And investing in workers was a factor. Scarlet we need to put this in perspective yes, they are bumping pay by 10 to 11 an hour. To that represent five Hours Walmart because walmart generates almost 500 billion a year in global sales. Joe it really is an incredible number. Does going back to the performance at the stores, samestore sales aside, people who came into Walmart Stores today, or come in in 2018, versus people who are going in 2014, you are saying they would see a pretty significant difference in terms of how stock the shelves are and stuff like that . Sara i really do. The stores are cleaner committee can find what youre looking for, they brought back the greeter person to get that more personal touch. Yes, they need to continue that but their firepower key differentiator is their stores. And if they are not delivering good Customer Service in that arena, thats trouble. And a have been building that ecommerce portion of the business. One thing that significant is that, after walmart is a big raise increase in 2015 investors acted negatively. Ats time around if you look the stock price reaction it barely moved. It seems like investors had made their peace, even with the higher cost involved, even as we said this would just represent five hours of sales. Sarah yes come investors lize walmart in his walmart is in a much better Place Overall than they were whenmitt than they were they made this investment. We are seeing this grocery pickup service, a hybrid of online and fiscal retailing. Its connecting really well and growing choppers. Really investors are willing to tolerate a 700 Million Investment in this time when they think the business is moving into a healthier direction overall. Scarlet sara, thank you so much for joining us from washington. Ubers secret tool to keep Law Enforcement at mail. Thats Law Enforcement at bay. Thats next. This is bloomberg. Scarlet whatd you miss . Ast companies dont expect raid other offices but uber isnt most companies. The company developed the secret tool called ripley that allow them to lock down equipment and Foreign Offices before a police raid. Joining us is Bloomberg Technologys Eric Newcomer who helped break this story. Joe eric, thank you for joining us. Talk us through the mechanism. How quickly could bloomberg shut down its electronics and a Foreign Office when it got wind of a raid . Eric very quickly. Uber employees with sort of callin or otherwise alert headquarters that a raid was happening, and then someone from headquarters could trigger the software to lock the computers, meaning even some of the employees there, if police were asking them to log on, wouldnt be able to get on their computers. So this was a Rapid Response to an Ongoing Police raid. Joe is this illegal . thats a question for governments all over the world. It is certainly within ubers rights to secure some of the information. Really, the question is how it responded to specific warrants, what different sort of Police Forces were authorized to receive these warrants, and whether in any way uber sort of obstructed investigations with its software. Its hard to say. Scarlet your reporting show reporting shows this tool, ripley, dates back to march 15 when holies stormed ubers brussels office. The legal department, the head of the department has since left the company. Is that what we dont see uber using this as much anymore . Eric i think uber has changed its tactics somewhat, locking down particular encrypted files, and having a functional desktop. I think to a large degree, the Company Seems to believe this is sort of a reasonable response. Are probably they alone here. I think is particularly interesting in light of the fact that there are some legal questions at over. If polices to wonder had been able to more readily obtain information when they were rating ubers offices, with eight have been able to get any information about any of the sort of ongoing investigations . Locked down that a their computers, we talked to experts who say there are definitely other Companies Taking similar moves, to secure their computers from police with warrants that my just allowed that that might just allow them to raid offices but not any particular files. Joe was there any particular raid that people were supposed to let headquarters know about this, or with the call on the ground were employees made the decision whether or not they should lock the system, and what is the protocol today . Standard procedure for any of these raids in any of these companies is to alert your headquarters, get a spokesperson for the company to do with it. So definitely the policy was to sort of escalate the decision to round the raid, and then it would be directed at the time to headquarters so that they could through apley technical system. But it was a decision often made , to stop police locally from getting information at the local uber offices. Scarlet Bloomberg Technology reporter Eric Newcomer, from San Francisco joining us for more on this story about ripley. Its fascinating. Just when you think you know everything, another secret tool. Time for a stock of the hour and climbing higher today are shares of delta airlines. This comes after delta reported for letting quarter results. Abigail doolittle has details and i assume its positive given the stock is up 5 . They beat both bottom and top line expectations. Revenues, solid growth. They say prayers are going to continue to climb. They say there are some questions whether or not whether fares can climb because theres is so much capacity out there. But overall, better than expected. Capshire hathaway is pretty is pretty happy. There are major holder of delta stock. Last year was a little bit rough , kind of sideways, but its starting to take off again. And just to be clear, its the confidence the company has about the strength of fares. Because in the airline industry, everyone is living in fear of another fare war. Abigail thats interesting and i think that fear of a fair war, a tongue twister there, it should not abate completely. Because we still have the likes of spirit and some of the others, frontier and alaska airlines, and they could still. Ry to cut prices and cut in so is basically too many seats too many seats. But right now they are expressing confidence of repairs and that they will be able to push those prices higher. Speaking to george ferguson, he was saying they had about a one Dollar Benefit your but the interesting point on these major payings, they are not cash taxes until 2019. But one of benefit is the idea that if it does stimulate the economy, there could be more business travelers. Business travelers tend to be. Ore sensitive to price if you buy ticketed last minute, youre going to do it. Scarlet abigail, thank you. Time now for the Bloomberg Business flash. Steve mnuchins Asset Management has lost second traitor. Steve has lost the top traitor before his hedge fund launch. Topteve colin has lost a traitor before his hedge fund launch. The u. S. Marshals service will option more than 3800 bitcoins valued at 52 million. The coins were seized in connection with highprofile federal, state, and local cases including drug busts andlaundering schemes. The option to anywhere 22nd could raise or recommend for the government. Nbc expect 1. 4 billion in ad revenue from the super bowl and winter olympics. 900 million of that will be from the olympics and south korea which begin february 9. Olympicsgher than the in sochi, russia. Super bowl advertisers are in line with cash. And that is your Bloomberg Business flash. Coming up, the Trump Administrations u. S. Tax levy on slaps a 1. 4 the wealthiest privateuniversity endowments. At where, hints, the northeast. This is bloomberg. Scarlet im scarlet fu. Whatd you miss . Critics call the tax reform package penalty. Tax on the wealthiest university endowments. Bloomberg crunched the numbers. The blue dots represent schools in blue districts, and here we are talking mainly new england, new york, connecticut, massachusetts, thats part of new england, and california, as walter in the red dots are schools in red districts, and if you look at the names of the universities they will sound familiar. These are the wealthiest private university endowments, cooper union, juilliard in new york, much of the ivy league, harvard in massachusetts, princeton new all familiar names. All very rich schools. Flip over to the schools in the red districts, much fewer. Notre dame indiana, rice in texas. That 22 ofews found the 28 colleges likely to be subject to the tax are and Democratic Congressional districts and his bluedistricts schools, make up 90 of the 200 million per year that the government expects. I was a fiscal policies the art of getting stuff for your people and taking stuff from other people. It looks like a good example of that. Jobless claims, we got them today and they bounced a little bit from a multimonth high. I dont worry about it because of you look at it, my favorite way of looking at jobless claims is, they are still super low. This is a target of nonseasonally adjusted claims so it ignores the holiday adjustments and quirks. If you look at the very end, we at postcrisis lows, right there at the bottom. No sign of any bounce or anything on this measure, so a pretty good sign there. It really is remarkably consistent. Scarlet and now we wait for the second part. Joe we will see what happens when we get past the holidays, and if the seasonallyadjusted numbers are still high, or higher in january and february, maybe we will pay more. Scarlet and the tax cut, as well. We market closes next and have u. S. Stocks resuming the rally to record highs. The dow is up by 180 three points, the s p 500 gaining two thirds of 1 joe . Joe another record high. Scarlet from new york, this is bloomberg. [ ] major indexes are back after retreat slight more like a pop. Reasury with a sell off after yesterdays jitters. Scarlett. Joe im joe. Julie is off. If you are tuning in live. We want to welcome you to the closing bell coverage ev