This is a rush transcript from “Your World with Neil Cavuto," August 19, 2020. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
NEIL CAVUTO, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: All right, thank you, Billy, very, very much.
Well, we interrupt all of this political drama for a lot of the narrow, Apple, an American company, becoming the first in human history to attain a value in the market of $2 trillion.
Let me put it this way. It took this company 38 years to get to $1 trillion, less than two years to get to two.
Welcome, everybody. I'm Neil Cavuto. And this is YOUR WORLD.
And what in the world to make of an American juggernaut we simply call Apple.
Susan Li on the comeback that has everyone wondering. Holy cow -- Susan.
SUSAN LI, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Neil, it took a 40 years for Apple to be the first on the planet to cross through $1 trillion, and only two years after that to be the first American company to surpass $2 trillion, Apple continuing its growth even after the death of its iconic founder, Steve Jobs, in 2011, growing nearly six times in value since then, and recovering a trillion dollars in value in just 21 weeks after hitting March lows this year.
Now, most of Apple's growth has come under the leadership of Apple CEO Tim Cook, who was criticized for not being a product guy at the time, with critics calling the end to Apple's innovation. But Cook has proved that, despite iPhone sales peaking, Apple can innovate in different areas, including services, like music, TV and cloud, now Apple's second biggest moneymaker after the iPhone.
Cook also introducing the Watch and AirPods, with Wearables now a Fortune 140 company on its own, but Apple has also recently been accused of being too big and too powerful, especially when it comes to its App Store, currently in a showdown with "Fortnite" video game maker Epic Games on the fees Apple charges and being criticized for being too deferential to China, which is now its second biggest market.
Now, Neil, I know you have interviewed Steve Jobs in the past. And many say that Jobs, looking down today , would be proud of the company that he started in his parent's California garage back in 1976, not only America's biggest, but now the biggest company on the planet -- Neil.
CAVUTO: Just mesmerizing.
Thank you very, very much, Susan Li, on all of that.
By the way, there was a short shelf life for the major market averages that were advancing into record territory. The S&P, the Nasdaq were following up on records they had earlier. All three finished in the red today, but an interesting footnote, while we're talking about Apple and great comeback stories, and looking at a Dow that ended up down 85 points.
All the major averages from those March lows are back at least 50 percent. That is the fastest comeback for the averages, again, in market average history. Just incredible.
All right, so we will keep on top of that.
We're also keeping on top of the drama in Washington, whether we get a stimulus measure. We're going to get that going in just a second, talk to Rand Paul about where things are going on a skinny relief bill.
But, before we get to that, the battle over schools that are putting off their in-person classes, one after another, at the very least looking at a couple of weeks later, before kids can be doing all of this in-person at Notre Dame, Michigan State, University of North California-Chapel Hill, so many others.
But a lot of parents a lot of the kids themselves are asking, all right, if we're going to do this virtually, can you give me some money back? Can you help me out with that?
Grady Trimble following it all in South Bend, Indiana.
Hey Grady.
GRADY TRIMBLE, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Neil.
Notre Dame is one university that is doing everything it can to keep in- person classes and avoid the discussion of a possible tuition refund entirely.
But classes are shifting online for the next two weeks after more than 200 cases have been reported here since August 3. That's a 17.2 percent positivity rate.
The university now requiring masks, limiting gathering sizes, and essentially quarantining students. The goal is getting this outbreak under control, and then returning students to the classroom.
The students we talk to hope this plan works.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLAIRE REID, COLLEGE STUDENT: I don't want to lose another semester of my college experience to doing online school at home, I think. And I think everybody really agrees.
MUQSIT BUCHH, COLLEGE STUDENT: People are saying, oh, they're not going to make it.
And it's like, we don't want to prove them right, right? But the way we have been doing it, it kind of looks like we do. And that's not the mentality we have to have moving forward.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TRIMBLE: And at other universities going mostly virtual, many students are saying they shouldn't have to pay so much in tuition.
A Rutgers students started this online petition calling for a tuition cut. You can see there it has more than 30,000 signatures. Most universities, though, are not issuing tuition refunds. Many of them already fear that they might have to cut staff, cut academic programs, and they're already losing out on room and board fees -- Neil.
CAVUTO: All right, Grady, thank you very much.
Again, more universities are at least putting this off, going from virtual and to in-person classes. They're not dismissing it out of hand. They're just pushing it further and further back. Whether other universities, colleges act on that and say, all right, we do have to pony up some dough, we will keep you posted on that.
But Dr. Marty Makary joins me right now, the FOX News contributor, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.
Doctor, good to have you back.
Leaving aside the wisdom of whether tuitions and/or room or board should be curtailed, it is a familiar problem that a number of colleges and universities are seeing, that, college kids being college kids, like to gather, like to go to bars, like to party, and this is playing out across the country. What do you think?
DR. MARTY MAKARY, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, good to see you, Neil. Good afternoon.
Most colleges have been taking extraordinary measures. They have been doing a lot to retrofit their campuses, to test frequently, and come up with strict policies, distancing, masking, and protect their faculty, some of whom are vulnerable.
Remember, vulnerable populations don't just live in nursing home. Some of the faculty are vulnerable.
They have been doing all this stuff. And then things fall apart with the parties, people go to off-campus congregate settings. And all of a sudden, you have got 150-plus positive cases at Notre Dame. People are talking about now going back home.
So you can actually have, with good behavior, a functioning university, and, with some bad behavior, a university can turn into a super-spreader factory. So, right now, that's our concern. If you look at what's happening, kids are not kids in a uniform way.
Certainly, risk appeals to some kids, but most kids have been taking a lot of precautions. And it's the small group that are doing these congregate settings that are really ruining the dynamics for the entire student body.
CAVUTO: Well, colleges are betwixt and between what they do, right?
They're between a rock and a hard place. What do they do, Doctor? I mean, they know they're going to get a spike in cases when kids get back together, much like when baseball teams resume and get back together and start playing, and much as college football teams when they get together, start practicing. The cases rise.
But I always wonder whether there is an acceptable level? Medical experts like yourself, say, all right, this is more than just a small spike? What do you look at?
MAKARY: Well, I think we have learned to not accept, but manage spread of the disease.
What we're concerned about is the exponential spread that you see in these congregate settings. It's 500 people now at UNC who are either in quarantine or isolation. It's these spikes in the positivity rates. That's where there's concern, because we can only protect those who are vulnerable for so long.
At some point, it seeps into that group. And if you look back at, say, what's happened after June and -- mid-June -- Las Vegas was a big source of super-spreaders, right? You had a lot of people going there temporarily.
A nice study in ProPublica yesterday, and it shows then they fly back, many who are asymptomatic. So that's our concern right now with the universities. And, of course, it's a small group of people that are changing the dynamic for a large number.
CAVUTO: You know, a number of states have reported these seminal numbers that get very, very big in Texas and Florida, where it's at 10,000 now who have died.
And I'm just beginning to wonder where we go from here, especially when the World Health Organization, Doctor, puts out a warning saying, scientists indicate that it could be years before students can return to schools without masks, without social distancing.
In other words, this caution we're taking to risk of the spread of a virus that by then we would assume would be long gone is going to be with us a long time. What do you think?
(LAUGHTER)
MAKARY: Well, I have a different opinion than the words we have heard from the World Health Organization.
If you look at the announcement this morning from Regeneron, the monoclonal antibody therapies are very promising. They work against Ebola. They have many other applications in medicine.
And right now, I believe, Neil, that the therapeutics are going to beat out the vaccines. And they may be a bridge to the vaccines. But there are 15 therapeutics in phase three trials. There's only three vaccines in phase three. Three of those therapeutics involve monoclonal antibodies.
Some of those trials involve using it to prevent the spread. People who live with someone infected who are not positive themselves are getting it as a part of a phase three trial, and those who work in nursing homes are getting it as a part of a phase three trial.
So, those antibodies may not necessarily be used just for treatment. They may be used for prevention. I think it's very promising. So, a short-term amount of pain could provide a long-term benefit. I don't think the horizon is far off.
CAVUTO: All right, well, it's hopeful news.
Doctor, always good talking to you.
And to the doctor's point here, Regeneron has now in listed Roche to help make this COVID-19 drug that might address some of the issues that have bedeviled so many others. There are about six biotech and general drug companies that are competing for the honor to get -- to get something out.
I talked to the Novavax CEO earlier today, who is confident that his antibody measure, using your own body to fight this thing, is looking promising as well.
In fact, just in case, they have gotten help from Uncle Sam to provide what could be over 100 million doses to get out in folks' hands, just in case they have got a home run.
All right, in the meantime here, we're following a number of developments going on, on the political front. Obviously, this will be day three of the Democratic Convention.
And, certainly, for Kamala Harris, it's her big debut on the national stage. Now, most people, certainly by now know who she is, but outside of some wonks and pundits, and outside of California, this is her chance to debut on a world stage that will change everything.
Is she ready for that?
After this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CAVUTO: All right, will it be a virtual home run?
Well, Kamala Harris certainly hopes so, all eyes on her, as we get to Wilmington, Delaware, and the focus of attention the first black and Indian political candidate running for the highest or second highest office in the land, but part of a ticket that it hopes, if the polls bear out, will take control of Washington next January.
That might be getting ahead of ourselves, but there is ample pressure on Kamala Harris to reintroduce herself to the American people, and not just the political pundit types, who know are quite well.
Peter Doocy following all of that.
Hey, Peter.
PETER DOOCY, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Neil, good afternoon.
Everybody that's going into the Chase Center for Senator Harris' remarks this evening needs to president a negative COVID-19 test. But on a conference call with reporters this afternoon, the Biden campaign is declining to say whether Biden or Harris have been tested for COVID ever, which is creating some new questions about what they have been up to.
Biden was inside the Chase Center for more than two hours this afternoon. And we just got a clip of some pretaped remarks that he delivered to the Hispanic Caucus.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOSEPH BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I wish Kamala and I could be with you in person. But, right now, it isn't possible.
Despite the limitations of the pandemic, I think we all seen these last two nights, what we're going to see again tonight and tomorrow, is, the Democratic Party is coming together to unite our country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOOCY: Kamala Harris got to town last night. She watched the roll call vote from a nearby hotel.
And ahead of her star turn this evening, a former rival who actually stayed in the race longer than she did is criticizing the Democratic Party's messaging. That's Andrew Yang.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDREW YANG (D), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If we're not standing up for the trucker or the waitress or the retail clerk, then who are we standing up for?
Democrats have this tendency to have a message out there and then, if you don't like the message, then it's like, well, it's your fault. There's like this patronizing element to a lot of what we say and do, and it's hurting us. And it's wrong. It's unproductive. It's a great way to not win.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOOCY: We also expect to hear this evening from Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
And we just learned that Barack Obama is going to be making his remarks from Philadelphia at the Museum of the American Revolution. That is a 40- minute drive from where I'm standing right now -- Neil.
CAVUTO: Oh, I did not know that.
All right, Peter Doocy, thank you very much, my friend.
So, what's at stake, certainly, for Kamala Harris? Well, for those who watch FOX Business, which, if you don't get, you should demand, it's kind of like the CEO in waiting. A lot of people are looking at Kamala Harris maybe differently than they have other V.P. candidates in the past, because Joe Biden, at 77, will be 78 coming into the White House, the oldest president ever.
So, maybe she gets a little extra scrutiny, sort of like that vice chairman or a CFO at a company who gets a little bit more scrutiny because, well, they could become the boss.
So, the pressure there with Emily Larsen, The Washington Examiner commentator, reporter, analyst, you name it.
So good to have you, Emily. I think we always watch with scrutiny the novel picks. I mean, Sarah Palin certainly got a good deal of that as John McCain's running mate in 2008, because most people didn't know the Alaska governor at the time.
A lot of people know the California senator, but she's actually introducing herself to many, many more who do not. So, what's at stake for her tonight?
EMILY LARSEN, THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Sure.
I Kamala Harris -- last night, we had the keynote speech, which was split between a whole bunch of rising stars in the Democratic Party, and it was such a quick shot between each of them that you never really got to hear from any of them.
And that's kind of maybe related to the fact that Kamala Harris really is sort of a representative of what the future of the Democratic Party is going to be, should she and Joe Biden be the winning ticket in November.
And so this is very important from her. And it's interesting that you mentioned her in the sense of a CEO, because, obviously, elections are much different than a corporation. The voters aren't necessarily shareholders. They're not looking for profit or things -- or running well, necessarily.
But the whole convention right now is about an emotional appeal. And that's what we're expecting to hear from Kamala Harris tonight. She's definitely going to highlight her own personal story and the fact that she is the daughter of immigrants, and also is going to highlight other stories from other Americans, is what we have heard from the campaign as a preview of what her remarks will be so far.
CAVUTO: Yes, I did probably stretch a little bit with the shareholder analogy. You caught me on it.
But, Emily, I am curious about the pressure on her here. I know it's all about galvanizing enthusiasm. That is what this whole virtual convention is about. Tough to pull off on a virtual basis.
But the rap against Joe Biden is, he doesn't engender that passion. What passion there is to vote for him is to make sure the other guy, Donald Trump, doesn't get in, whereas Donald Trump's backers are much more rabid in that regard.
Which wins out? Which is more important?
LARSEN: Well, yes, I think that when Kamala Harris was announced last week, we saw a lot of commentators and people online saying that they were not necessarily excited about Joe Biden before, but they are now, having a woman on the ticket who could be potentially a history-making pick.
CAVUTO: Yes.
LARSEN: It's to be determined whether this is going to boost Joe Biden in the polls at all. He is already ahead of Donald Trump in most polls, but that there is an enthusiasm gap between what we see for voters who say they're voting for Trump tend to say they're a lot more excited about voting than voters who say they're voting for Joe Biden.
And when Kamala Harris was announced last week, there was one poll that showed that her approval ratings spiked after that. That is part of the excitement of the initial rollout of announcing her as a pick.
So we will see if that can help Joe Biden get people more excited to vote and really shore up his base there.
CAVUTO: Do you see anything that Democrats have done so far in this convention that Republicans should take note of and not do, or just the opposite, something that they have done that Republicans might be wise to do?
LARSEN: Yes.
And we haven't gotten a lot of details about the Republican Convention so far that's supposed to be happening next week. I think one thing that the Democrats did last night that was very well-received was this sort of roll call vote across America.
CAVUTO: Ah.
LARSEN: And we got sort of a tour of our beautiful country and the -- every state had different backdrops, some of them some gorgeous landscapes.
Of course, there have been some slight technical glitches and some awkward moments. We have shots of people who are in their living rooms watching, and they're supposed to be clapping, but there's a delay. And so they're just staring into the screen.
CAVUTO: Right. Right.
LARSEN: There are some awkward musical numbers. So, those are things that I'm sure that Republicans are taking note of and thinking about as they prepare for their convention.
CAVUTO: I guess I'm just old-fashioned, Emily. I miss the in-person nature, when they have the roll count and, all of a sudden, you have the Iowa delegation, I'm from Iowa, the corn is as high as an elephant's eye, and they do it.
That's -- none of that. It's a little too medicinal for me.
But I do like the way they whipsawed around the country.
Thank you very, very much. Good seeing you again, and we will see how it goes for Kamala Harris, whether she pulls it off for shareholders or you, the voter.
In the meantime here, just want to give you a sense of where this goes tonight, not only Kamala Harris, but, of course, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and the attention right now on how much the Democrats can deliver on this and how world markets are focusing on this.
That means FOX Business is all over this. And I know a lot of you are saying, well, wait a minute, wait a minute, I know Bret and Martha are covering this.
Well, if you have a split-screen, you can watch our coverage on FOX Business and still catch them. If it's a real hard choice, you don't have a split-screen, Bret and Martha have said, go ahead, tape us. Watch Neil.
They didn't really say that. But it's a big, big world. It should be really interesting to watch, 9:00 p.m., all the FOX Biz all-stars weighing in on that and some surprise guests as well.
So, in the meantime, ahead of that excitement, which is coming up less than five hours from now, we're going to hear from Rand Paul.
Republicans have already forced Democrats into apparently accepting a skinny stimulus bill, by skinny, under a trillion dollars. Rand Paul's here to say, whatever you want to call it, it's a fat load of money.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CAVUTO: All right, all is not coming up roses in the Garden State.
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy indicates that everyone gets a mail-in ballot, the president intervening to say, I'm going to sue you.
And that's just for starters. It gets worse. And other states could get involved -- after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK MEADOWS, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: We need to put money back in people's pocket with perhaps a skinny deal that we can make sure that checks go out.
Let's go ahead and do that. I call on Nancy Pelosi to not only finally fix the post office, but let's find the things that are hurting Americans across the country because of this pandemic.
Let's pass a skinny bill. We will be here on Saturday. Hopefully, they will, with a negotiating heart.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAVUTO: All right, I don't know if I like hearing skinny attached to any deal, especially when it's almost a trillion dollars anyway. That's hardly skinny.
But it is progress, in the eyes of Republicans and Democrats, who say that maybe they can cobble together something that might not be everything that Nancy Pelosi likes, and Democrats, but Nancy Pelosi already hinting that maybe they can do something like that, and then address still more spending down the road.
It concerns Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican senator with us right now.
A skinny deal, Senator, but it still looks like a pricey one. What do you think?
(LAUGHTER)
SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): Well, anybody who wants to give money to the post office, you might as well just put it into a big pile on your front lawn and burn it.
It's -- there's no way to give any money to the post office to make the post office redeemable. You cannot fix the post office, unless you fix their labor problem. Eighty percent of the cost of the post office is labor. About 50 percent of UPS' cost are labor. And FedEx is about 38 percent.
You can't run a business with 80 percent of your costs being labor, when your competitors have much lower costs. So, really, in the end, just giving money to the post office is giving money to an operation that lost $8 billion last year. So, giving them $10 billion, it'll be gone within a year's time. It's a foolhardy notion.
And, when they call it skinny, to me, it's just Democrat-lite. And I didn't run for office to be just slightly less bad than the Democrats.
CAVUTO: All right.
The president is for giving them some money. So, I'm just wondering if he just wants this done, and argue over the details later. What do you say?
PAUL: The only way I'd give the post office any money would be to have a hiring freeze, and they would have to gradually lower their employment significantly.
There's a third less overall mail going through the post office in the last 14 years. They need to have a third less employees. A few years ago, they started, through attrition, mainly by letting the older employees not be replaced. They were getting smaller. But they have actually started growing again in the last year or two.
If you look at the costs, even though the numbers of employees haven't gone up, the costs are still going through the roof because of the pension being so expensive. So, really, without a mandate to make it a smaller organization, you shouldn't give them any money.
So, it's sort of like, when you do -- when you do rescue a company that's failing, they have to have reforms. Nobody comes in with venture capital and just says, hey, here's a bucket of money. Keep losing money. They tell you, you have to change.
So, it's a real mistake to give the post office money, unless they significantly reform their ways.
CAVUTO: Well, whether it's $10 billion or one, I mean, the fact of the matter is, it's part of an overall stimulus measure that Republicans seem to be saying, we don't need to be nearly as expensive as Democrats want.
But Democrats seem to be hinting they will sign on to something that might be skinny or not quite as huge now to revisit later on. So this sounds unending to me.
PAUL: Yes.
Well, there is no money, is the most important thing. There is no rainy day fund. There's no savings account. You can't go over the Federal Reserve and open a big safe door, find a bunch of money, and pass it out. The money will be borrowed, or the money will be printed.
And both of them have ramifications. We -- if we do another trillion, we will be at about $5 trillion for one year. We have never, ever in the history of the United States borrowed so much so rapidly. And I fear the consequences.
I don't know how quickly the consequences come, but I fear that the stock market is going to see that, and the stock market is also going to worry about having all three branches of government in Democrat hands.
I foresee a catastrophe for the market, if the Democrats win the election, and we keep borrowing money, and then there will be back in December saying, oh, we need $2 trillion more.
So, if you give people money, and you make it less painful to be in a recession, we can stay in a recession longer. The recession is created by the government. The government shut the economy.
So, all of these governors, Democrat and Republican, will not have an incentive to open the economy if you soften the amount of suffering that they have created.
What we need to be doing is, every day, broadcasting that your governors are causing the unemployment. In Kentucky, our governor has called 700,000 people to be out of work. And he's the single, sole person to be blamed for it, because no one else had any say in it. He's doing it all himself.
And until that happens, and until there's a political penalty for it, he will keep doing it. He's still got the restaurant closed, even though Kentucky doesn't even show up on the radar compared to these other states that have had a significant amount of cases.
CAVUTO: Well, let me ask you about the president.
So, with his executive actions, he said, we could go to them if Congress can't cobble together a deal acceptable. But there's been no movement on it. The move to cut the payroll tax that a lot of companies say they're leery to follow up on, A, because it's just the president saying it, it doesn't have the stamp of Congress, and, B, if it's temporary and all, they're going to have to get that money back.
So, they're not acting on that. Concerns as well about unemployment checks continuing for a while here. The devil is in the details and getting states to pay up for a quarter of that. That doesn't look likely.
So, are these executive actions falling on deaf ears?
PAUL: Well, you know, Social Security is about $7 trillion short. It's set to run out of money in the near future.
There are people now estimating that we have pushed the time or we have brought the time closer to us when Social Security will be running at an annual deficit. So, I think not paying Social Security taxes is probably a mistake.
As much as I hate taxes as much as any of the rest of those in Washington, I would rather have lower taxes, we have obligated to spend the money. Unless you're going to reform Social Security in a way in which you move the age out or you do something to compensate for letting people keep more money, then you're just making the deficit in Social Security bigger.
And I think that would be a mistake. You're right. If Congress doesn't pass a law, and the president defers your Social Security payment, what happens in five months if we still can't come to an agreement, and we send every worker a bill for 500 bucks? Do you think that's going to get paid?
You know, I don't see really a good way out of this. And, also, the Constitution was pretty clear that the power of the purse resides with Congress.
And no matter whether the president is a Republican and a friend, like this president is -- and I consider him a friend, and I support him -- I also don't want any president, even from my party, to have so much power that they can control the power of the purse, without the checks and balances of Congress having to take action.
CAVUTO: Well, it's something you can take up at another time, because the president wants to make that payroll tax cut permanent, if he were reelected.
We will see how that all goes.
Senator, it's always good having you. Thank you for taking the time.
PAUL: Thank you.
CAVUTO: All right, Rand Paul.
Eighty-four days in a row of violence, uprisings in Portland, but it's gotten a little bit weirder now, because we're understanding some of the people behind assaults.
What we don't understand is what happens to them when they're fingered by cops.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. PHIL MURPHY (D-NJ): The president's campaign is putting itself on record as wanting to delegitimize our November election, instead of working with us to ensure that voters' rights are upheld.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAVUTO: Well, the Trump campaign not happy with that move on the part of Phil Murphy, the governor of New Jersey, to send every voting age person in New Jersey a mail-in ballot.
The issue is bigger than New Jersey, because other states are contemplating doing the exact same thing. So, this could get much bigger.
Judge Andrew Napolitano with us right now.
First, the legality of what the governor is doing and the legality of how the Trump campaign is responding. What do you think, Judge?
ANDREW NAPOLITANO, FOX NEWS SENIOR JUDICIAL ANALYST: Well, the Trump campaign, as well as the Republican National Committee and the New Jersey Republican Party, have accused the governor of usurping authority that belongs to the legislature.
And, in my view, that is a valid accusation, and he has done so. In fact, the Supreme Court has said that it is up to the legislature of a state to regulate federal elections, particularly presidential elections, in which you think you're voting for a candidate, but you're really voting for electors in the Electoral College who will choose that candidate. That's pretty clear.
The issue is, can this be remedied in a federal court? And, in my opinion, it cannot. So I don't think that the litigation is going to go anywhere, Neil. This is what we call a political question. This is a political dispute between Governor Murphy, for whom I hold no water -- he's been an authoritarian throughout the entire COVID pandemic -- but it's a dispute between him and the Democratic legislature that -- he's a Democrat and they're Democrats -- over who has the power to do this.
And, thus far, the legislature is happy to let him make these decisions. So, the decision says -- and you and I both vote in New Jersey -- that everybody in New Jersey is going to get a mail-in ballot. You can throw it out, or you can use it, but you can't use it and then go to the polls and vote in person. You got to do one or the other.
So, will people do the right thing and be honest, or is this an opportunity for corruption? The Trump campaign says it's an opportunity for corruption. I don't think a court is going to hear that.
CAVUTO: Which means that this would stand?
NAPOLITANO: Yes, which means that this would stand. And either it will work smoothly, or it'll be a disaster, or it'll be somewhere in between.
Neil, you're talking about -- and I don't know who's going to pay for this, because the state doesn't really run elections in New Jersey. Each one of the 21 counties does. So, someone is paying for four million paper ballots with prepaid postage on them, and someone is paying to mail all of those to the four million registered voters in New Jersey.
This is a problem with the governor crafting his own rules. There is no budget for this, and there's no explanation of who's going to print them, and who's going to mail them, and who's going to pay for them.
CAVUTO: You know, but you raise a very good point, where someone could fill out a mail-in ballot and, the very next day, depending on when they mail it out, hop over to their local election precinct, school, gym, whatever, vote again.
How do you police that?
NAPOLITANO: Well, I mean, that would be a felony, and people have gone to jail for that, and, hopefully, no one would do it.
But this is part of the argument of the Republicans in this case, is that the governor, because he often makes these -- issues these edicts without thinking them through -- he's done this many times throughout the pandemic. Neil, you have heard me rant and rave about restaurants and gyms.
The governor did not think this through. And there's no -- there's no underlying regulations to craft exactly how this would work.
For example, the existing New Jersey law on mail-in ballots says they must be postmarked before Election Day. Well, these things are going to have a digital code on them. So they're not going to be postmarked. There will be no postmark on them.
So how do we know when they were put in the mail?
CAVUTO: And then, to count them all up is one thing when you have a lot of absentee ballots. You're going to have at least a factor of five to 10 times more than that of mail-in ballots.
And the states' wherewithal in the ability, depending on the state, of course, to count them all up, I mean, that could take a long time.
NAPOLITANO: Well, it could.
And federal -- what the Constitution says, everybody's got a vote on the same day. The courts have interpreted that to mean the ballots have to be tabulated on the same day. So, if two of the four million people mail their ballots in on Sunday, can all of those be tabulated by the end of the day on Tuesday, in order to comply with the Constitution?
And do federal judges really want to get involved in deciding who's going to count the votes and how fast they have to count them? That's what we're all confronting here in New Jersey.
CAVUTO: Real quickly, it's a dumb question, but you're used to them from me.
(LAUGHTER)
CAVUTO: Let's say millions of people across the country have already voted, right, and put in and filled out their mail-in ballot, absentee, whatever, and there's a change.
Either there's a crisis and one of the candidates, God forbid, dies, or has a scandal, takes themselves out of the running. But they have already -- you have all these ballots. I mean, what are the -- what are the rules on that?
NAPOLITANO: Once you vote, that's it. And changed circumstances do not give you the opportunity to vote again.
You may recall when George McGovern was the Democratic nominee, and he had a senator from Missouri on the ticket, and then some information came out about his mental health, and they removed his name and replaced him with Sargent Shriver, the Kennedy brother-in-law.
If anybody voted in that interim, they can't change -- they couldn't have changed it when they learned that the person they were voting for, for vice president was no longer running.
CAVUTO: All right, that's interesting. I'm way too young to remember that. That was 1972. I don't think I was even born.
(LAUGHTER)
CAVUTO: OK. I was -- I was more than born. I was around for quite a while.
All right, Judge, thank you for...
(CROSSTALK)
NAPOLITANO: That was the first year I voted.
(LAUGHTER)
CAVUTO: Oh, man, oh, man.
All right, thank you, my friend, very much.
All these possibilities come in with mail-in ballots. What do you do? What are the possibilities of that?
Anyway, back to politics at hand and, for tonight, the big speeches, including Hillary Clinton.
We're getting a little bit of the dribs and drabs on what she plans to speak about tonight. She's going to push getting out the vote.
"For four years, people have said to me, I didn't realize how dangerous he was," referring to Donald Trump.
"I wish I could go back do it over, or, worst, I should have voted. Well, this can't be another woulda, coulda, shoulda election. If you vote by mail, request your ballot now, send it back as soon as you can. If you vote in person, do it early. Bring a friend. Wear a mask. Become a poll worker. Most of all, no matter what, vote. Vote like our lives and livelihoods are on the line, because they are."
I think I can take from that, that she is not for Donald Trump.
We'll have more after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CAVUTO: All right, more violence, and it doesn't end in Portland, 84 nights in a row of this kind of stuff, although they are making progress at least identifying those who take this a little bit too far.
What happens from there, anyone's guess.
Dan Springer following it all.
Dan, what's the latest?
DAN SPRINGER, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Neil, the economic damage, as you might expect, is really starting to add up in Portland.
Major employers are moving jobs out of the city and others are planning to keep their employees working from home. Police declared a riot last night after arsonists set of fire inside the Multnomah County building. This is the third county building to be damaged, with $1.3 million in losses before this vandalism last night.
For the first time, we're hearing a county commissioner condemn the violence. It was her place of work that was attacked, a building that is headquarters for the county's COVID-19 response.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DEBORAH KAFOURY, MULTNOMAH COUNTY COMMISSION: If the fire had spread, or if that life-protecting equipment had been damaged by smoke and water, then health care workers, patients and seniors would have paid the price.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SPRINGER: Portland-based Standard Insurance moved 2,000 downtown employees to an office in nearby Hillsboro because of significant vandalism.
And the national health care nonprofit OCHIN has decided to sell its office space in Portland and keep people working from home permanently.
Portland police are still looking for 25-year-old Marquise Love, the suspect in that brutal assault Sunday night. Before the pandemic, Love worked as a private security guard and a deejay. Now police are working with his parents, hoping to get him to surrender.
The victim in the attack. 40-year-old Adam Haner, is doing better. And his brother tells us that he's able to walk around the house and he's expected to make a full recovery -- Neil.
CAVUTO: Dan Springer, thank you very, very much.
We're going to take a quick break here, but let you know about some numbers that are coming in from the second night of the Democratic National Convention.
It looks like -- and, again, they do it by individual hours. I will just sort of extrapolate the bigger picture, down about 28 percent from day two of the Democratic Convention four years ago. Of course, that was an in- person event. It wasn't virtual like this one.
The first night, you might recall, was down some 24 percent. Democrats like to argue that, on social media, these comments, particularly -- particularly appealing speeches, like those of Michelle Obama, get a shelf life that goes way beyond the audience that watch them live.
There's simply no way to tell just yet, but, for the time being, day two day down 28 percent.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CAVUTO: All right, the president has not been just a passive observer of these Democrats gathering for their convention, of course.
He's been going to key battleground states. And, today, he's planning a press event just a few minutes from now.
John Roberts at the White House with the very latest.
Hey, John.
JOHN ROBERTS, FOX NEWS CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Neil, have you ever known the president to just sit back and watch while something else is going on? No. Neither have I.
The president not only has been counterprogramming the DNC, but also very actively contrasting his style of campaigning with that of Joe Biden, in the first two days of this week, the president traveling more than 6,500 miles, five events in four states, and taking questions every day, that in sharp contrast to Joe Biden, who has been spending most of his time at home.
He did go into a library last night, and has not been traveling at all, and has not been taking questions either since announcing his running mate.
The White House also reaching out to supporters of Bernie Sanders today. Remember, in 2016, a number of Bernie Sanders supporters who felt disenfranchised by the Hillary Clinton campaign turned around and voted for President Trump.
While Sanders has made it his mission to defeat the president, the White House trade adviser, Peter Navarro, today saying the so-called Bernie bros have a home with the 2020 Trump campaign. Listen here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETER NAVARRO, DIRECTOR, WHITE HOUSE OFFICE OF TRADE AND MANUFACTURING POLICY: I wanted to just reach out to the Bernie bros and say that the party of economic nationalism is here to reach out to you.
We're the ones who are going to bring the factories home to America, the jobs home to American. And if you feel bereft and left by what is happening before our own eyes, Bernie bros, you know you have a home with us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Bernie bros, you have a home with the Trump campaign.
The president with a real brash move tomorrow, Neil. He is going to be campaigning in Joe Biden's birthplace of Scranton, Pennsylvania. That is an in-your-face move if I have ever seen one.
CAVUTO: All right, my friend, thank you very much, John Roberts at the White House here.
And again to John's point, usually, there's a sort of a decorum to this, where the other party sort of lays low while the one party is having a convention, not this president.
And you could bet, probably next week, Democrats won't do that. These are very, very different times. These are virtual conventions. Way too early to tell what the impact will be or who gets a convention bounce.
What we do realize is, ratings in the collective sense are down, as I was mentioning a little earlier, for the second night of the Democratic Convention, down, on average, 28 percent from where they were four years ago, the first night down 24 percent from where they were four years ago.
Democrats like to remind those who are kind of perplexed by social media that that's the big deal today, that that's where the audience is. It certainly wasn't the case in 2012, when I was covering that convention, and the big issues were then keeping it electrifying, keeping everybody under one roof and really galvanized. That was then, very different world now.
On FOX Business tonight, beginning at 9:00 p.m., we will be monitoring this and the big speeches at hand, and whether Kamala Harris is sort of that CFO in waiting, like they say in the business world, pressure city.
Here's "THE FIVE."
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