That they short. This is a startling development in a battle that has taken it to washington as both sides are preparing to meet the politicians who have it out to regulate wall street. Welcome, everybody. Im neil cavuto. This is your world. And in case those big hedge funds were looking for trouble, well, they found it for themselves. Because theyre going to put up quite a stink, quite a fight that theyre no ones tool, capitalist or otherwise. Charlie gasparino has more. Whats happening here . Neil, the speculation in these stocks has farranging implications. The markets are going nuts. The stocks are up and town. Gamestop is down dramatically. Somehow the focus get on hedge funds following comments by massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren who thought this was a good time to crack down on hedge funds. She seems to have some support in congress, and some republicans. The Hedge Fund Business is fighting back. Theyre worried about restrict Tiff Measures from congress that curtails what they to, how they do it and the practice known as Short Selling. Making money when stocks decline. We should point out a couple of hedge funds got caught in this frenzy over gamestop not making money but losing money. They were caught in a short squeeze. When prices go up, the short position loses value and at least one funds needed a bailout from steve cohen, the current owner of the mets and one of the top Hedge Funds Executives in the country. The hedge funds are planning a Battle Royale with congress or an Information Campaign a vigorous one where they go to congress and to the public even and explain the benefits of Short Selling and what they do. We should remember that Short Selling uncovered many of the biggest frauds ever that saved investors tens, hundreds, countless billions of dollars from enron to valiant to martin forgive me for not saying his name. They had information to the marketplace where the stocks are being touted. Theyre planning to gear up right now. Listen, neil, as i talked to the Hedge Fund Executives and theyre a lobby group called the manage funds association, which will be heading this effort, they were telling me, listen, we knew something would come down against us given the makeup of congress. Now that its democrat. You notice Elizabeth Warren, the Progressive Democrat from massachusetts is on the finance committee. What we department know is what the triggers of that would be. Its this whole thing involving robinhood, gamestop and red did it and they feel it unfair. They had nothing to do with the speculation and the promoing of these stocks where some of these people will lose money as it closed below 100 a share today. Somehow hedge funds were involved shorting the stocks. Should point out the problems with gamestop, blackberry and some of the other stocks, amc that were at the center of this. It was they believe they became a convenient whipping boy for progressives like Elizabeth Warren who harbored intentions to regulate them. Its going to be game on now. Neil we know the robinhood ceo has been called on to testify and some like Elizabeth Warren were wondering if they had a cozy relationship with the hedge funds. Theres no proof of it but seems to be will he be facing scrutiny in congress but a lot of these short fund traders will as well as well as managers. This could get pretty big, pretty ugly pretty fast. Could get ugly. The facts are on the Robinhood Ceos side and the hedge funds side. Lets be clear here. The robin hood ceo had to stop trading the stocks, lock down the stocks because he couldnt meet capital requirements. Does he have relationships thats it. Thats factual. You cant deny that. Everybody knows that. Does he have Side Relationships with hedge funds . Well, certain parts of the Hedge Fund Business by his order flow and match to buyers and sellers that is a big business for that side of the Hedge Fund Business. Guess what . If they didnt want to buy it, robin hood would sell to someone else because its a valuable commodity. The consider theory falls apart quick here. Im not some big defender of hedge funds, neil. Ive written books about them going off the rails. They dont like me a lot of them. But in this instance, the class warfare argument doesnt match logic or the facts. Neil all right. Very good, charlie. Very easy to politicize this. Were going to explore it in more detail in the next segment. Why the general markets were running up today. A lot of it had to do with trouble for all of those stocks that were shorted and people buying them, that there might be a come upance going on here. Those that bet open stocks going down are still doing so. Those that want to reverse that activity are still doing see. We might have sinister motives to this but were discovering sometimes when people rush for the door, theres only so many that can get through. Might be as simple as math. Well explore that a little bit more detail. Mean time, fox on top of two storms barrelling down. Not only the political one you saw brewing on hedge funds but mother of all twin storms that has hit 80 million americans along the northeast cost of the United States. And much further. The latest right now. Bryan llenas who is looking at an east coast trying to dig out. How is it looking, my friend . Hey, neil. Youre talking about 16 inches of snow in new york. Theyre having fun. Nobody has been under a more strict lock down in new york city for this long anyway. The end of the day, 17. 2 inches of snow in central park. The snow continuing tonight into tomorrow morning. When its said and done, this could be a top ten winter storm hitting new york city. The most snow weve seen since january of 2016. Overall, Flight Cancellations. Take a look. Over 350 Flight Cancellations jfk, lga and newark. 30 of all flights coming and going from the airports. In new york, there was over 300 crashes on the roadways in this state. At 1 point, we had 30 to 50 miles an hour gusts. 13 inches of snow falling per hour. New jersey saw over 600 crashes on their roads. Pennsylvania declaring a State Of Emergency. Some spots seeing 2 1 2 feet of snow there. Theyre declaring a State Of Emergency to clear the roads of snow. As a matter of fact, some interstates have banned commercial cars and trucks from traveling on those roads. Take a look at this video. This is from connecticut. Stanford, connecticut. A truck stuck in icy waters there. A man and a woman saved from that truck thankfully. A dangerous situation. Overall in new york city, the Vaccination Appointments have been cancelled for two days. They will resume tomorrow as well as Outdoor Dining if you can stomach it in this february weather. Restaurants feeling it. Hopefully Indoor Dining starting valentines day and things will get better. Neil . Neil thanks. Adam klotz on punxsutawney phil. If that little creature is right, get ready for more winter for six weeks. Adam, say its not so. I wish i could say that, neil. Unfortunately more winter is on the way. Maybe more winter storm in areas that we saw the winter storming the last 48 hours, this is the system dropping the snow in the midatlantic, new england. The heaviest snow continues to track into interior new england. 33 inches in new jersey. A lot of spots getting up to two full feet of snow. We have winter storm watches and warnings stretching to maine. Areas where you can see rain from this heavy system. The forecast runs us through tomorrow and tomorrow. Were on the tail end of the system. What could come next . We have a couple of rounds of systems here, this is still a ways off. This is taking you to friday. Eventually the Second System in to sunday. That is two more blasts of Winter Weather sweeping across the country. Something were going to Pay Attention to. Probably not as big as what we just saw. More snow is on the way. Maybe the groundhog was correct. Neil . Neil yes. Today he might be correct. Well see. Adam i trust your reports more so than the groundhog. Adam klotz on that. Meanwhile, the fight over that 1. 9 trillion stimulus measure that the democrats want, the president seems to be indicating he will get, but heres the thing. Republicans arent saying. Noise we heard out of the white house to indicate they might be justified having their doubts about a bipartisan move on the part of the white house. Chad pergram has more from washington. Hey, chad. Good afternoon, neil. The president and the secretary of the treasury, janet yellen spoke about the next covid bill. Theres a huge gap between 1. 9 trillion by President Biden and the gops plan. The need is different state by state. Ive been a proponent for helping any small business. The broader approach of 1. 9 trillion and you know the items in there that are unrelated to covid. If all 50 Senate Democrats stick together, they can pass a bill using a parliamentary gambet using budget reconciliation. Joe manchin signed off on Going Forward with Recondition Sillation but has not committed to backing the time bill. A Reconciliation Bill cannot be with the priorities by democrats. That means if you introduce an extraneous provision that has nothing to do with raising taxes, lowering spending and raising spending, you can object and the bill could be taken out. Democrats are still smarting after only spending 700 billion for the 2009 Stimulus Package following the financial crisis. Democrats belief that was an error. Neil . Neil thanks, chad. If you had any doubt that maybe some of the republicans fears about flexibility out the white house may be misplaced, maybe we heard the Press Secretary said that they might have something to beef about especially when it comes to the cost of the stimulus plan that joe biden doesnt want to compromise. You would acknowledge that the gap between the administration and republicans is wide, but the talk last night was constructive. Uhhuh. After the discussion in the Oval Office Last night, did the minute from the white house still 1. 9 trillion . It is. Neil all right. Still 1. 9 trillion. Theres no wiggle room there. Senator todd young from indiana was among those meeting with the president on this issue yesterday. Joins me now. Senator, did he hint at the time to you that this 1. 9 trillion, that was nonnegotiable because hearing from the White House Press secretary today, seemed that way. That wasnt the message i took away, neil. In fact, we have at the staff level some negotiations and conversations following on that visit just yesterday. What instead i heard from the president was a desire to find Common Ground where we can, but a determination candidly to move forward in some other areas where we wont find Common Ground. Looking, the president emphasized unity throughout his campaign. That was the theme of his inaugural address. Hes emphasized speed right now. The only way to move forward with speed is the way we moved forward five previous times during the Trump Administration since this pandemic hit. With almost unanimous support, we passed successive cares response packages. We should do the same thing again, getting vaccines in arms and getting kids back to school. That was our message and he offered a courteous ear to. Well see if we can arrive at some more targeted agreement. Neil all right. It seems that if they stick to the 1. 9 trillion figure and a lot of republicans are leery of going that high, i assume youre among them, they would have to do this with the reconciliation round. In order of a simple majority, not 60 votes. Did the president hint to you that that is what the hes prepared to do . Well discuss the details of our conversation. Ly indicate the president has spent decades in the United States senate prior to becoming Vice President and then president. So hes very much aware of the risk of using reconciliation. Its a tedious and lengthy process. So if he wants to get vaccine aid out to those that need it, he should work in a bipartisan way as we have in the past. Number 2, he could set the wrong tone for an administration that is trying to get more done down the road. If he wants to unify the country, not just politically but culturally. Hes Thinking Ambitiously in those terms. He needs to work with republicans. Third, frankly, could be a bit embarrassing if he cant pull enough democrats to support this reconciliation process, which would be extraordinary for this to move forward. Neil democrats have said all or nothing. Republicans want to slice this in half and were not. Looks like full speed ahead. Youre hopeful something could be worked out. Neil, i would emphasize that Chuck Schumer and nancy pelosi are moving forward with this process as we just heard from chat chad pergram. Theyre ready to ram this down our throats. They want people to make a Household Income of 300,000 to receive checks. People that have jobs. Thats absolutely bad public policy. Its irresponsible for our children and grandchildren. Thats just one of the many policies that i object to but nope theless, i remain open to working with the administration. If we can slim down the package and make it more targeted. Neil all right. Understood. Senator young, thanks for doing so. We have more coming up here. Were getting word that amazons Ceo Jeff Bezos will step down from day to day running the company. That all said, what is otherwise a stunning quarterly report. His best ever. Another company with a 100 billion plus revenue quarter. Offsetting that is this concern. Hey, the chief, the maestro, the guy that started it all wont be running it all. After this. Welcome, todays discussion will be around sliced meat. Moms want healthy. And affordable. Land o Frost Premium no added hormones either. Its the only protein ive really melted with. Land o Frost Premium. Fresh look. Same great taste. The Chevy Silverado trail boss. When you have a twoinch lift. When you have Goodyear Duratrac tires. When you have rancho shocks and an integrated dual exhaust. When you have all that, the last thing youll need. Is a road. The Chevy Silverado trail boss. Ready to offroad, right from the factory. Neil all right. Hes leaving. Hes leaving the company for daytoday operations. Jeff bezos has announced that hes stepping down as amazons ceo. He still will have a very active role in the company, but quoting for jeff bezos, right now amazon had their most inventive ever, making it an optimal time for this transition, a transition that will have hem taking on a role of executive chairman. If this should raise parallels, the closest i could see is when bill gates stepped down from day to day operation of microsoft to make way for steve palmer in that role. Its not totally unusual but gets a lot of attention given bezos extreme wealth. He founded this company in a garage selling books. Its bigger than that today. The reins are being taken over by andy jassey, the chief executive of amazons cloud business. All of this on the heels of a very strong Earnings Report where the Company Generated more than 100 million in revenue a little more than a week after apple said they did the same thing. Earnings were double what they thought they would be. The stock has opinion all over the map in after hours trading. Keep in mind in the past year, its jumped in excess of 84 . Theyre trying to digest what this could mean for the daytoday operation. Might recall when bill gates stepped down at microsoft, the stock took a hit and then stabilized and continued to soar in the new management and the emphasis on Cloud Computing and the like. This is a big development. Amazon has been a safer investment bets when Everybody Else at home buying from crazy at home. Amazon benefitted and given the guidance the company has been given after hours here, they expect that to continue whether were all settlered at home or not. Larry glazer is here from may flower advisers. The surprise isnt that hes doing the this and taking advantage of a company that is considered wellrun anyway but hes doing it now. What do you make of this . You know, neil, in normal times, blowout earnings from the tech giants would be the talk of wall street. They have driven the Market Averages and 401 k plans. If you have a pension, chances are you have exposure to these very big companies. You benefitted from it. At the same time, these are not normal times. You have shifting political stands in washington, neil. These company benefitted from covid. Its not just alphabet, google and amazon. A host of companies benefitted from the lock down at the expense of main street. We can see it doesnt get easier. Maybe it doesnt get better. Maybe hes getting out on top. Thats toe kay. Everyb