34 days out now until the Iowa Caucuses who will emerge from a crowded group of candidates . A lot of people asking that. Were also of course following the developing news out of baghdad. Hundreds of protesters storming the u. S. Embassy there and they are protesting recent air strike against an iranbacked malitia were following that story. Were also expecting more protests out of hang kong, they are now just two hours away from ringing in the new year, and mass demonstrations are planned as well. Well take you there. Im Ashley Webster in today for stuart, Varney Company about to begin. Ashley and on this last day of 2019 why not start with breaking Economic News for you right now, were getting the latest numbers on home prices. Especially when its positive right to end this decade this year, so were up monthovermonth 1 for the year for the last year were up over 2 and weve been talking all year long about slow down taking places in housing especially with existing home sales which represent about 90 of the market, and yesterday, also positive news with pending home sales up 3 out of the past 4 months and with Interest Rates being cut a few times this year, Mortgage Rates coming down, and it makes it more affordable and that means housing which pairs onefifth of the u. S. Economy thats 20 . Ashley good stuff susan thank you very much. Now to baghdad where hundreds of protesters are trying to storm the u. S. Embassy, susan what do we know at this point whats the latest . Susan the latest that we have here is President Trump is blaming iran for supporters of the iranbacked malitia trying to storm the u. S. Embassy and the iraqi capitol on tuesday, take a look at these pictures showing the blast walls through any of the compound were on fire , one man, in fact, had a hammer to the window of a booth used by embassy guards and now, the forces are returning to baghdad back in 2014 and thats the help by islamic states and although on sunday they launched the rocket attacks on the iraq syria border targeting the hezbollah group, which has been blamed for rocket attacks but it is also killing 27 civilians. Ashley susan, thank you, while fox news security analyst on the phone with us now, waleed, i guess, according to the president , its safe to assume that iran is behind this and i guess the question is how should the u. S. Respond . Yes, of course. The president made it very clear , both u. S. Have been on the phone with a number of iraqi politicians including members of the parliament who of course oppose the iran malitia and are all confirm confirming this has been organized by iran. Now look at the demonstrate ors we call them the protesters at the u. S. Embassy but they are the members of the malitia and many among them if we look very carefully at the pictures and the videos are wearing the uniforms so this is in response by the iran malitia to the attack that we have conducted against a terror organization, which was responsible for the attack against american targets, so this is really part of the u. S. iran conflict now inside iraq ashley but as we watch these pictures, walid, at one point the u. S. Was seen as an Occupying Force in iraq, now its seen as being invited there as part of the effort to wipe out isis. Should the Iraqi Government do more now to protect the u. S. Embassy . Look, the iraq government is now facing an uprising. We forgot indiana 24 hours there were tens of thousands hundreds of thousands of iraqis demonstrating and they are still in baghdad and that government is crippled by the demonstration s. On the other hand, iran controls most of the ministries of that government, so i would not see government doing more than what it is trying to do between the pressure coming from iran, the pressure coming from the public and of course, their commitment to protect our institutions including of course the embassy. I would not be concerned in terms of a repetition of what happened in iran in 1979. We have a force on the ground, and the iran knows very well, any attempt to repeat what theyve done in 1979 will be met by much much greater force than ever has seen. Ashley well have to leave it there but walid, thanks for jumping on the phone to bring us your thoughts on this developing situation, thank you so much. Thank you. Ashley all right, of course the last trading day of the decade and what a decade it has been for the stock market, triple digit percentage gains acrosstheboard. Joining us now, market watcher d. R. Barton, whose been with us much of the way. Does a running of the bulls carry on in 2020 . I believe so, ash and i believe theres a bunch of things pointing to some very big positives. One of them is so many stocks are participating in this move up. A lot of times in the past few years weve had just a few big names pulling everything up and smaller names not doing too much and thats going to propel us to a pretty big 2020. Ashley i wanted to get into it on tesla. You had comments i believe last week. Lets listen to the sound bite and ill talk to you about it. In the next week im going to be on both sides of the trade the last couple years and had a couple that worked out really well, one or two that didnt but i think right now, this is just technically, it cannot my man, youre playing with fire. Youre playing with fire, my man Ashley Charles payne says youre playing with fire, now if i understand it right you are with tesla 435 is that right . That is right, right when we were getting on the show on friday. Ashley well congrats it down. Very good. Yeah, so i think thats a shortterm play, ash. I think actually tesla is doing a lot of things that are good for the long term and this is going to be an up and down stock , but just when you get the parabolic move up that we had last week it was just something that i had to jump on. Ashley well you did indeed, well done, d. R. , thank you so much for joining us youre bull ish for 2020 we like that as well. Now to hong kong, where more protests are being planned for new years eve and new years day joining us former china politician anchor, phil yin. Let me ask you this any indication that the protests will subside at all in the new year . Whats your thought . Good morning to you and happy new year to susan and you there, ashley. Ashley thank you. Look one of the issues in hong kong is its been well over six months of this protest going on and as you mentioned earlier, tomorrow, i guess our time, or in a few hours todaytime in hong kong, the first they are planning a fairly substantial march and the government has already said they are going to deploy some 6,000 Police Officer s to ensure that there are no violence that takes place there. One of the Critical Issues from the protesters is they had a number of demands theyve asked the government to stand up to and theyve met one of the demands but there is still a number of demands that are outstanding and i think theres real confusion out there as to how governments are going to possibly meet some of the demands of the protesters going into the year 2020. Ashley well thats a good point i mean, are they gaining ground in your opinion, because the key issues as you say, still remain unresolved so the impasse goes on. Well, the clock is not their friend, right . For those watching the situation , they know that china for the most part has hong kong and in another couple decades its 100 of a part of china so this sort of one country, two systems theres question marks on how that works Going Forward but the clock is starting to run out and a lot of the protesters and lets just call it people in general, some acknowledge the fact that its sort of a foregone conclusion and some are protesting that still want to fight this clock, if you will. Ashley so you think that we could see some more violence that weve seen over the past year, you think that could spill into 2020 . Yeah, i think the violence is definitely here to stay. What youve seen the last couple of months with the protesters and the Police Officers battling it out in the streets of hong kong this is a fairly substantially dense area. Think about manhattan and times square where you have hundreds and hundreds of riot police battling out with protesters. Those are the scenes that are likely to take place into the year 2020 unless, unless the government could come out and pl acate what the protesters are asking for but you know they are asking for the possibility to truly vote in their leader, and thats just not a possibility right now. Ashley thats not going to happen for sure, phil yin, thank you so much for joining us appreciate it and happy new year to you. All right quick look at the dow component apple shares rising high in record territory, shares up more than, get this, 800 this decade. Not bad at all. As you can see the dow futures drifting a little lower, on some pretty thin trade in the pre market, so it may open down just slightly in about 20 minutes from now. All right, remember this. Its video of art laffer being shouted down by young protesters at binghampton university. Its one example of College Students trying to shut down free speech. Well bring you the highlights or the lowlights of 2019. Art laffer still smiling. 2020 hopeful Michael Bloomberg getting a lot of backlash on social media, and wait until you hear what he wants to do in the east room of the white house if he becomes president , coming up well have a bloomberg polster what he thinks about it and were also less than 24 hours away from the new year and 34 days until the iowa caucus and coming up well ask james free man what he thinks about the democratic field and whether their ideas can go up against President Trump. Were just Getting Started keep it here on varney. Itll ruin your house. So get allstate and be better protected from mayhem, like meow. Ashley this just in President Trump tweeting on russia and here it is. He says president putin of russia called to thank me and the u. S. For informing them of a planned terrorist attack in the very beautiful city of st. Petersburg and they were able to quickly apprehend the suspects with many lives being saved, great and important coordination. Thats when the president on russia. 2020 we know is an election year, and we talk about it for years now and its only now, 34 days until the Iowa Caucuses joining us is the wall street journal james freeman. All right, james its a question many people are asking. How does this play out in iowa. We dont seem to have any clear leader on the Democratic Candidates so what are you looking for . Well we do have a leader in the opinion polls there. Pete buttigieg whose the mayor of south bend, indiana, not poll ing that well nationally, but leading in the polls in iowa and also number two in new hampshire, i am very skeptical that he ends up winning those states and i think its because eventually, people do start to focus on the disaster that is south bend, indiana. He steps down tomorrow after eight years as mayor, and he leaves behind a city with more shootings, more murders, more aggravated assaults. Its a tragic story and i dont think that its a resume that can take him the distance. Ashley weve been talking a lot about how this all plays out and could it just kind of muddle along on the democrat side all the way to the july convention and the chance of a convention where someone, we havent even talked about up to now could come out of the woodwork. What are your thoughts . Yeah, i think it is a possibility. After the Hillary ClintonBernie Sanders drama, the democrats got rid of superdelegates so they cant, the party elders cant go into the smokefilled room and anoint someone now as easily as they could have before. You have joe biden leading in National Polls but fairly stable his support isnt really rising or falling too much, so i think, and thats at about a quarter to 30 of that democratic electorate so that would suggest there is room for someone else to emerge. Ashley well Elizabeth Warren is interesting. We talked about how her Fundraising Efforts are starting to stall out. Is that a bad sign for her or is she losing ground to bernie . Shes certainly lost ground lately. I think she is offering a program that a lot of americans dont want, in terms of much bigger government, much less decisionmaking over their personal healthcare, much higher taxes. When she finally acknowledged the trillions of dollars it would take to partially acknowledge say the trillions that it would take to fund her plans, her popularity has taken a dive. Ashley it was snl describing makebelieve money. Its not real but it is. But they are smart enough to realize they have to pay that. Ashley we havent talked about Mike Bloomberg. We always talk about all these candidates and oh, yes, Mike Bloomberg spending heavily in some parts of the country, can he get any traction, james . Well the resources make him a contender, and i think beyond the money, this is someone with real achievements. Obviously built a Great Company and built a very valuable company, had a good run as mayor of new york, he compares pretty favorably with pete buttigieg, and here is a guy whose run a much bigger city, many times bigger, and had success versus the mixed record in south bend for pete buttigieg, so i think to the extent people start focusing on the south bend mayor as the possible leader in iowa or new hampshire, bloomberg looks pretty good in comparison. Ashley but does he play well in Middle America is the key question. I think he could. I think when you look at polling and its interesting he initially said no, im not far enough left last year. Ashley right. Now hes decided maybe there is room for him in this race and i saw biden as maybe not as strong as some people had expected, but i think what hes got to do is resist the temptation to move further left, because the premise of his candidacy is im the economically sane rational moderate alternative to this field. Ashley right. He insists on endorsing the most expensive climate plans he really takes away his differentiation. Ashley fascinating and getting back to joe biden, it seems to me his best strategy is to stay out of the light because he is a gaf machine, i hate to put it that way but he is but he seems to do better and he gets better in the polls when he doesnt appear in as many places which cant be good in the long run. Yeah, i think there is this ongoing debate of whether it helps him or hurts him being the donald trump. Susan guys, we got a big movement in the markets because President Trump tweeting on china trade. It says i will be funding a very large and comprehensive phase i trade deal with china on januar. The ceremony will take place at the white house. High level representatives of china will be present at a later date ill be going to beijing where talks will begin on phase ii ashley that is a huge development. Susan the fact that we got an actual date for the phase i signing and phase ii negotiations will kickoff in the new year in 2020 and this is all positive and puts u. S. China trade on the background and puts more focus on other elements of the markets. Ashley very encouraging. The futures is not really responding but not only talking about getting phase i down but as susan just said now making plans for phase ii. Very quickly, james. It is great news. Encouraging. I think maybe markets were expecting it or seen enough of these tweets that they dont respond as much, but this is great news because it really opens the door to that Corporate Investment kicking up to a higher year. Its been down super worried about china. Ashley james freeman, as always thanks for joining us. Take it a look at u. S. Futures down 60 points youd think we would have a turnaround but dow futures down 62 points the s p down 7 and the nasdac also down 24 points, or about a quarter of a percent. 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That takes a lot more than an alternative. So we took our worst vice, and turned it into the dna for a better system. Materials made from recycled plastic woven and molded into all the things we consume. We created bionic and put the word out with godaddy. What will you change . Make the world you want. Ashley lets get back to that breaking news that came from the president in a tweet on china trade. He says ill be signing our very large and comprehensive phase i trade deal with china on januar. The ceremony will take place at the white house, high level representatives of china will be present, at a later date, ill be going to beijing where talks will begin on phase ii. So now, we have a date, january 15, susan and were already now talking about phase ii of course its just talking about it but this should be encouraging. The markets certainly the futures not responding. Susan i think probably the biggest reaction will be overseas since chinas slow down has been exacerbated by this ongoing u. S. China trade war thats had an effect on european off the chinese growth thats down to its lowest in close to 30 years. Ove