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>> it doesn't work on the schoolyard and this is airpacks tension of barack obama 3.0. joe biden sitting around blaming someone else. no proactive way of protecting the united states of america. >> these are the same drones we saw russia use near weekly in ukraine that took place during the strike in israel. strategic for the israelis and they know it. it's a win for netanyahu. >> i think a direct attack on the thing they care about the most with the vitality of the nation will certainly send a message. ♪ stuart: toby keith and that's a fine, sunny monday morning of

new york city. it's monday, april 15th. who can forget that date. it is tax day. check the markets and what a reversal. when we opened up at 9:30 eastern time this morning, s tocks were in straight up. the dow is up 300, nasdaq up about 150. that has turned around. we are now up just 65 on the dow. big tech, mixed picture, amazon and alphabet and microsoft are up but only just. meta and apple are down. i think this is the problem, yield on 10-year treasury was starting to go upright from the get go this morning and keeps on going up in terms of yield, 4.64%. not many investors like that. the price of oil down earlier today and still down despite the tension in the mideast, $84 a barrel. that's the markets, now this. you noticed, everyone is calling on israel to show restraint. world leaders, united nation nassau county, president biden,

they've all joined the restraint correspondent re--- chorus and iran fires off hundreds of drones and missiles and immediately the ziti r aillies are told -- israelis told don't reit retaliate and e a wider war. it was the same response after the attack in israel on o ctober 7. iran and hamas are relying on this restraint or the ceasefire movement to shield them. basically getting them off the hook for their aggression. this is appeasement. biden's ongoing appeasement of iran brought us to why we are now. biden lifted sanctions so'can can pocket $10 billion. appeasement hasn't worked in the past so why do we assume it'll work now? appeasement restraint is based on fear. fear that an attack on iran would make things work.

fear that finishing off hamas in gaza would lose biden the election for heaven's sake. this is not the way to keep a lid on things. a ceasefire in gaza allows hamas to regroup and do it all over again. restraint with iran allows regroup something more attacks launched with the oil money they're collected. president biden told prime minister netanyahu to take the win and the united states would not take part in any retaliation and that's how strong the p rohamas block is in the democrat party. biden has one eye on election politics but for israel, about national survival and a ppeasement doesn't work for them. third hour of varney starts now. ♪ stuart: steve forbes joining me this monday morning. steve, what do you think, should the israelis appease iran?

should we appease aan or what? >> should we when japan attacks pearl harbor? when you get attacked, you hit back that . tells iran they continue to attack israel. this weekend it was a dress rehearsal. they have thousands more m issiles, thousands more drones with hamas, hezbollah, houthis and others, and they have themselves a ton of it. so they're ready to destroy israel, and what we're showing them is we don't know, we don't want them to do anything about it. what israel will have to do is decide soon if they're going to take out iran's atomic capabilities, which they're on the verge of doing. 1967 israel decided to attack before they were attacked and now make the same basic decision with iran and the u.s. taken a disastrous powder. stuart: doesn't have to be a direct military attack on iran but could be going after f inances. changing sanctions and impose the sanctions. >> and encouraging their

opposition. there's a huge amount of opposition in iran. barack obama ignored it when they rose up in 2009, which would have overthrown the m ullahs and give them full support. we did that in central europe during the cold war with poland and other dissident groups. why not here? stuart: i'm going to change the subject for a second because i've got another good thing for you. headline in the wall street journal, i know you saw it, a 41-year-old executive says he feels unfairly targeted by b iden's 400,000 tax cutoff and doesn't think of himself as rich but being taxed as if he is r ich. any comment, steve forbes? >> well, with the federal income tax code and all the other taxes there are, riches with the current tax code, you don't get rich on a salary. in terms of inpolice station, it's now 500,000 or 400,000 was four or five yearsing when bin first use that had number. look at inflation. inflation is a tax and it's a

hidden sales tax like a va10 in europe and hidden sales tax and hitting people and look at expenses, insurance expenses for car or home and child's expenses and healthcare and any bit of money not going to get aid to send your kid to college and all that hits you hard. you're not rich and barely s taying above water and takes no account of different costs and different parts of the country. stuart: that's right. $400,000 in new york city is not huge by any means. but 400,000 in the south or p arts of the midwest is a huge income. >> sure, but they take no act - account of that. it's demagogue reigns and wantd more ways to tax people and it exposes the lie they want economic growth. they want power at the expense of economic growth. stuart: they'll get hold of a wealth tax at some point and t rying to tax you this and established wealth in stocks and

real estate. they'll go after it at some point-blank layups. >> you bet and that's why this election is important. stuart: you've got to stop them, steve. >> i'm trying, so are you. stuart: you're a good man, s teve. jason katz with me now to cover the markets. it's been quite a day so far. dow up 60 points and nasdaq down nine. that's almost a complete reversal from where we were when it opened at 9:30 this morning. jason katz with us today. so, i can't really explain this. the market goes straight up at opening bell and oil goes down and gold goes down. that's not supposed to happen, jason. >> it actually is. it's classic buy the rumor, sell the news. stuart: is that right? >> yeah. think about all the handwriting coming into this weekend whether lingering concerns of inflation, whether it be good but not great earnings and of course, what would happen and transpire over the weekend. this is a collective sigh of relief and this is far from o

ver. all the safety trade assets, whether it's gold, whether it's bitcoin, whether it's long term treasuries. i expect them to still catch a bid. there'll be buyers and have upside from here. that doesn't pretend necessarily a demise of the stock market and at a minimum it keep as lid on stock prices for the time being. good news is good news to the market as well. have i got it wrong? >> no, you've got that right. we're finally in the paradigm where good news is good news and the fed is hell bent on getting to their inflation target. >> we're going be wobbly in the market and we're going to take a step back and say why is the fed on hold? that's because good news is good

news. the market would rather see solid footing with respect to earnings like goldman sachs, retail sales and buy from the fearful for the buy down and sell to the greedy. that'll come to you and have that opportunity. stuart: buy from the fearful and sell for the greedy. i like that. jason, thank you for being with us. appreciate it. all right. lauren. lauren: yes. stuart: that's you. you're looking at movers and i think tesla is seriously moving. lauren: this is one of the worst performing stocks this year. reportedly they're cutting more than 10% of global work force. ev demand is down, competition is up. elon musk sends e-mail to employees and said the company needs to reduce cost skin crease productivity and stock on another 3.5% one more thing. two key executives announcing resignation on elon musk's x. stuart: oh, really. that's interesting.

lauren: in charming of battery division and something else. stuart: spirit airlines in a lot of trouble. lauren: stock up 7% and up 3.5 now? out with preliminary first q uarter results results and cosc oming down for labor and rent to the airports and that'll help boost margin when is they report for the first quarter. stuart: earlier this morning and trump media dropped below 30 a share and down another 16%. they are selling millions of additional shares in coming months including donald trump's stake. he owns a 58% stake and that's valued around $2.5 billion. he's set to receive another 36 million shares if the price of the stock stays above 17.50 for certain period of time.

it's above that now but keeps coming down. stuart: yes, it does. could be trouble there. thanks, lauren. coming up. donald trump is in court today as jury selection for his hush money trial begins and we have a report from the courthouse. a number of cryptoexecutives throwing support behind republican challenger that wants to unseat elizabeth warren. that's local election for s enate. sounds like a long shot but we'll bring the details. president biden telling benjamin netanyahu to take the win and show restraint in retaliating against iran. isn't now the time to be aggressive? i'll ask refired four- retired four star general jack keane. that kemp is next. ♪

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stuart: president biden had a warning for iran on friday of last week: don't retaliate against israel. iran clearly did not listen. edward lawrence joins us from the white house. edward, the president's strategy of telling iran don't didn't work. what's the administration going to do now? reporter: yeah and maybe say don't again. i know for the president seems to be favoring deterrence with the word don't. the president told iran don't as of last week leading up to the invasion. they didn't do it and told russian president vladamir putin don't before going into ukraine. the president didn't have a good track record using the word don't as a deterrent. we've heard it over the past five months. will listen to this. >> any country, any o rganization, anyone thinking of taking advantage of the

situation, i have one w ord: don't. >> don't. >> don't. reporter: yeah, the administration says its support of israel's ironclad and telling the prime minister not to go into rafah and finish off hamas unless there's a plan and president biden took every opportunity to hold off israel and saying it's a greater need to get humanitarian aid into hamas and agrees for hostage release terms and exchange for a ceasefire and john kirby says the u.s. might is a deterrence for iran and others. listen. >> he has devoted additional resources, not just militarily and diplomatically and economically around the world and advancing national security interest and we'll continue to do that. american leadership, talk about the middle east over the w eekend. american leadership was a bsolutely vital to helping israel defend it system. reporter: but the administration at the end of last year approved

waivers that allows iran to have access to $10 billion and escrow account allowing iran to produce it is oil and sell the oil on the global markets and not enforcing sanctions there and you have both sides of the coin and clearly iran isn't l istening. >> let me put context on that question and feeling good and timely and three major take a ways from what we saw as a result of saturday national championship's attack is one, iran did conduct a major escalation by comprehensive attack as we know and 300 missiles and drones at israel. yet israel handed iran a humiliating defeat, which is really quite stunning. it pushes back on its heels as a

result of this. the second thing is certainly the multilayered air defense system that the israelis have all with u.s. engineered thumbprint before and very admirably and historically, this is the first time the united states fought side by side with israel since the start of israel and i mean central commander and headquarters in the middle east and organized with a multinational organization and coordinate it had through six countries. that is the most experienced war fighting headquarters and what central demand did was really significant and just think of this, stuart, we had arab n ations fighting alongside of israel's capability against i ran. that is also historic and then the last take away is where are

we now? the fact is israel is in a better place than just a couple of weeks ago with the united states pushing back on their worries and disagreeing with them and international community widely condemning them because of casualties taking place in gaza and shift has taken place and multinational community criticizing who, iran? for their aggressiveness and what they attempted to do in terms of producing casualties inside israel, not just for the jews inside but for also the palestinians and arabs inside of israel. there's a opportunity here. there's talk going on in the un and international community and sanctions in iran. take advantage of this opportunity. likely netanyahu administration looking at that as a positive thing and they may indeed exercise strategic patience here and not retaliate right away.

let this thing develop a bit. we need to crush iran's economy and in terms of what israel will do, they'll retaliate. they have to. they can't normize iran -- normalize iran's attack in israel on saturday night. i trust their judgment here about the level of attack that the comprehensiveness of it and lethality of it and they've exercised good judgment for six months in my view, and i think we should let them put that together based on how best to protect their own people and best to serve the situation as it currently exists. stuart: i think we in the news media are perhaps overlooking something here. our military, the american military helped shoot down d ozens of iranian drones fired at israel.

to me, this looks like a serious american military success. i'm sure you'll back me up on that, general. >> there's no doubt. we shot down 70 numbers is the number, and i know our ships shot down a number of the missiles, ballistic missiles. i'm not sure exactly that number and will probably take a few d ays to sort it all out. but, yeah, there's no doubt about that and the uk was involved and france was involved in doing that as well. so, yeah, certainly it's historic and it's significant in terms of what took place, and it complimented what the israelis were doing. i think it would have maybe been a different situation if we weren't there and certainly if the israelis didn't have early warning and detecting this c oming and gained their missile shooters the opportunity to warn them to be ready and two, to

advance their aircraft beyond israel to engage the platforms before they reached israel. that's true and israeli air force as well as united states and the other nations involved. really quite a significant military success for sure on the part of israel and multinational support. stuart: we're told, this sex travion -- this is extraordinary and we're told that half of the ballistic missiles fired by iran failed to launch or crashed. that doesn't say. for the quality of iranian weaponry, does it? >> yeah. this is something i've been t alking about for some time. iran has a very weak military, air force still flying u.s. and navy and small and not a lot of capabilities and land forces and and they resourced their rocket in missile force that failed them as well.

it always maintained and we can take advantage of iran's vulnerability here by conducting limited measured attacks against the irgc and east capables to force them to shut down their proxies. the biden administration has never done it because why? they fear a "wider war". when iran can't fight a wider war, that's the reality, stuart and they sure as heck can't win it and we don't use this leverage we have. stuart: got to end it right there, but i think that was e nding on a good note. general jack keane, thank you, sir, come again soon. >> you got it. stuart: coming up on the show, nearly 87 million households own at least one pet. there's agreeing push to get bereavement leave when those p ets die. going to bring you the full story on that. the media celebrating the start of president trump's hush money trial. they can't contain their couple.

media guy joe concha takes that on next. ♪

stuart:s dow is up 92 points and a different story from two hours ago, believe maine what's with intel this morning? lauren: stock down 29% this year. citi put it on a 30-day catalyst watch and you happen 2.3% and looking at data that shows notebook computership spiked 4.2% in march from february. stuart: tell me about coin base. lauren: they're down today. super micro should be in there. what's going on with bitcoin with geopolitical resident and can not spiking before and coming up soon that would take supply out of the market and this would be good news. these were down today. stuart: all the circumstances and developed on 66 ground on bitcoin.

thanks, lauren. in 2020 election i should say, biden claimed if donald trump was president for another four years we'd be in a full blown war with iran. come on in, joe concha, we need you. we're now involved in two separate wars and china looking to invade taiwan. are we ever going to hear the media call bind out for all t his? >> well, on the contrary, stu. iran was infio netly weaker -- infinitely weaker during the trump administration and hamas carried out horrific attacks against israel on october 7 and trump pulled out of toothless iran deal and may recall and general soleimani was killed in an air strike ordered by tram and that sent a clear message that the u.s. was not to be toyed with. under president biden, we saw that wow. at the present timely at the present time chaotic withdraw out of afghanistan and that ukraine war

is 26 months old and doesn't appear any negotiation in sight when there's a hopeless steal mate on the eastern front and overall the world is as unstable as it has been, stu, since the 20 t first century. those are the facts and no spin can save that. stuart: trump's hush money trial underway and the liberal media salivating over this. josh, wash this. >> now to history in the making, tomorrow in new york, donald trump faces a rendezvous with justice and the first former president to stand trial for criminal defense. >> i understand that donald trump will come out every day and just, you know, try to pour hot water on the proceedings. >> trump has thrown hail mary after hail mary to prevent it from happening. >> what happens tomorrow tomorrow and the history books will record what will happen in the days and months.

stuart: the media is celebrating and they want to tie him down in court so he can't campaign. this is going in the wrong damn direction. >> yeah, i know exactly. not only can't trump campaign on a day like this, but also the biden administration, the biden record then gets completely wiped off f news psychoand will this cnn headline is stipcal "trump's first criminal trial is a historic and solemn moment for america". please, there's not solemn about this and it's borderline cheesy .x hundreds of reporters d escended on lower manhattan and a the main thing for o ctoberivity and trump is guilty till -- objectivity and tram subpoena innocent till proven guilty. this is an unprecedented attempt to revive the misdemeanor for inspiring that and if that's the

basis of thursday's diem, which was last week, biden could not have raised a waker basis to prosecute a former president. so what we have here, stu, is that we both refuse to pursue this case and they have major reservations alaska the prime witness here and it's michael cohen and a darling on cnn and m snbc. trump's former personal attorney and he's called a serial perjure and edward snow den and he's counting on the fact stuart: he's got to be at the trial so he's got to be in court because it's c . criminal.

that's going backfire and every day he'll walk outside and hold an expensive press conference saying anything and everything he wants to say. recapture the ground. last word to you, joe. >> sure, there's a poll out today from echelon showing donald trump is leading in six of seven swing states quite comfortably and seventh state which is wisconsin, he's in a statistical dead heat and after all the trial and attention on the legal process or lack thereof legal process, there's only seeming to have a boom rang effect and t providing jet fuel for the trump campaign and looks like weaponization of those key states, stu. stuart: got it, joe concha, see you again real soon. trip toe executives are l ooking -- crypto executives are looking to oust senator elizabeth warren. ashley, who are they putting their money behind and why do they want her out? ashley: someone named john d

eaton and more than half a dozen crypto executives executd to the long shot and he would receive full status taking on s ec in landmark crypto case last year and he has no chance of unseating warren and in very deep blue massachusetts and the donations keep coming in from executives from the crypto ripple. deaton endorsed by mark cue bin and the crypto enforcement and the network of crypto super pack out there and makes sense for other targets and going higher in montana and where deputies were slowing them and tough reelection in the crypto

industry. stu. stuart: thanks, ashley. latest poll from the new york times shows donald trump's lead over joe biden is narrowing but struggling with key voting g roups and brachythat for you. the pet care company bob barks launching charter flights for dogs and is there a demand for this and hawkeyes the price for dogs to fly in absolute luxury? the ceo of bark box. is next. ♪

stuart: the dow is still up 140 and nasdaq and s&p holding off modest gains.

bitcoin was 65,000 and it's gone down more. now it's 64.8. that's bitcoin for you. travel agents buying ticket pricing complaints against american airlines and what's the problem, ash? ashley: the advisory industry is accusing american airlines with the fair inventory and channels and used by travel agents and travel advisers and filing a complaint with the unfair trade practice and "substantially h igher air ticket prices for consumers and frustrated travel management companies". american says wait a minute, we just upgraded our third party technology including what it calls new end dc and access to

all affairs and review the state of competition in the domestic airline industry and american upgraded to new system and federal agents can't get access to it. stuart: wait till you hear the story. the maker of bark box is joining me now. matt, if i had a dog, how much would it cost for me to take one of your charter flights from coast-to-coast? >> coast-to-coast is $6,000. stuart: what do i get for $ 6,000? that's just one way; right? what do i get for that? >> one way. stuart: or what does my dog get for that? >> thanksgiving the better question.

your dog gets to travel with y ou, which sun usual, in style in luxury and tailored for them and it's very calm and they lay on their blanket and choice of water, toilet or tap or champagne. we offer dog champagne, which is chicken broth. no alcohol there. and they get a luxury experience and for you you get to fly coast-to-coast on our gulf stream and beautiful. beautiful plan and straight up on the flight and no stressful experience. stuart: i'm told you start these on memorial day weekend and that's not too far away and how many bookings do you have? >> we have a lot of interest for the flights and we've got enough

interest to fill two flights in both directions and it's really growing and great to see. stuart: do you feel sometime as little guilty about this kind of excess? i mean, $6,000 to take your dog with you. champagne for the dogs? i mean, what do you think bernie sanders would make of this? >> i don't know what senator sanders would make of it u but i know there's a big problem for consumers that can't travel with their dogs, especially the larger dogs. it's very, very difficult and this is the first product i've been involved in where i'm g etting notes from people t hanking me saying you've just stopped a huge problem for me and my family. i agree. $6,000 is too much. this is our starting point. we have aspirations aspirationn to built more routs and take on more risk as a comfort and lore

the ticket prices going forward. stuart: you got flights coast-to-coast. that's it? stuart: no other routes at this point? point >> no no, but we're open to suggestion. stuart: that's very interesting, matt. very interesting indeed. i'm not quite sure how to deal with it but nonetheless it was interesting. i dare say when you're on this program, you might get more b ookings because of what you're doing here and in which case, i want a commission of all your advertising. matt may recollect, bark box and we'll see you again soon. thank you, matt. >> thank you. stuart: some companies are reevaluated bereavement leave to include pets. lauren: that might be ally l out of touch if you don't feel it.

people ran out and adopted pets and could have them because they're not working from home and they're home all the time and there's no federal law on bereavement leave for human beings, some companies are p utting in policies for pets. they want to signal to the new generation of workers that they care about them beyond their job titles. i'm waiting. stuart: would you want someone working for you that just can't take the death of a pet? lauren: they're very special to me and they have the pets their whole lives. what's one or two days? making me look like a softy. ask the viewers. stuart: is the viewers. it's on friday for friday f eedback and state queens you want to ask about bereavement time off for pets.

varneyviewers.com lauren: how long should it be? that's the state of the market and plenty of buying and the dow industrials up 127 points. next case, jury selection underway for the trump hush money trial and bring you the latest from the new york stream court half. ♪ -- new york supreme court after this. ♪

stuart: trump is in the courtroom as we speak. eric sean is live at new york state supreme court. what's the latest, eric? reporter: yeah, hello, stuart. while the prosecution wants to hold or have arguments about holding the former president in contempt of court because of those attacks on witnesses and we'll see about the arguments on that dealing with the attacks primarily on michael cohen with the former fixer and beginning

the day and pumping his fist in the air and not a sense of defiance and private victory and said he in his view and this case should have never been brought. >> there's no case. not necessarily how or when. trump charged with falsifying records and $130,000 in payoffs and during the 2016 presidential race and porn star stormy

daniels to keep her quiet about their alemminged affair he d enies. the money was reimbursed by michael cohen and he'll testify at that trial and as part of the jury selection process, the jurors have been given a 42 question form to try to fare out the jurors that can't give trump a fair trial. the judge did give the trump side a win by denying the ability for the jury to see the access hollywood tape in which the former president with them not wanting that and they've got that win today and see what

happens if he holds the former president in contempt of court or attack on withins. ashley: the good date and new york times and polls show president biden is virtually tied with donald trump holding onto a 46% to 45% lead there you have it and lit february had 4 8-43% lead and break it down even more and joe biden gaining support with the black community with 69% compared to 66% for previous months and trump f alling from 23-16%. biden's hispanic support also surging back to 50% and last month he was at 40 and meanwhile trump is at a 41% not gazon slightly from 36% but biden has

lots of support among young voters and gaining among the 1 8-29 year-olds and meantime 69% of voters, stu, believe that joe biden is too old to be an e ffective president. 69%, almost seven out of ten and that's a high number. stuart: a number that's a key statistic. ashley, thank you. time for the monday trivia question. here we go. how many small businesses in america? 33, 36, 39, or 42 million? we'll be back.

how many small businesses in america 33, 36, 49, 42, million, actually of the honor of being first. >> i'm very honored, 36 million, number two. >> number 442.4 million. >> i'm going with number four. the answer is only 33 million as small business declined of