>> with that student debt we're saddled with. the fed will raise rates and that's a good thing that's happening. >> a vote of confidence. dagen: i'm waiting for donald trump to troll republicans who aren't on board with health care reform. maria: thank you, we'll see you tomorrow. here is "varney & company" and stu. stuart: thank you, maria. green shoots of spring, maybe that's why stocks are staying stro strong. >> good morning, four months after the election, expansion signals are flashing. 300,000 overall. preside tmp retweeted this fox business graphic. i've got a new indicator for you. linkedin, reports strong hiring. as we reported, confidence and optimism are at decade highs. this uptick started november

the 8th and gained momentum. it's been ignored, passed over by the anti-trump media. but, its happening now. other head liens out this morning the negotiator in chief steps into the obamacare debate and will take conservative critics out for bowling and pizza. talking about president trump, he's got a lot more leverage than bowling and pizza. gas average 2.30 nationwide, watch for it to come down very soon. the price of crude oil is tumbling. gas will follow. despite it all, the dow is holding up. no big selloff since the trump rally began. we will open ever so slightly open down today and please remember, eight years ago today, the dow hit bottom around 6,500. it's been quite a ride since then. "varney & company" is about to begin.

♪ >> well, start with this breaking news, this is going to be a headline today. u.s. led coalition forces ramping up air strikes on syria. the marines have arrived in syria and carrying with them heavy artillery. what else do we have. >> howitzers, 500 marines and they're going on full blazing right now. 4,000 isis fighters remain. isis leaders fleeing raqqa, the defacto capital for other strong holds in syria. so the pounding that's expect today take is going to be serious, considering now, by the administration, putting in more special ops and attack helicopters as well. stuart: we're firing guns in anger in syria. we've got our troops, marines on the ground with heavy artillery. liz: yes. stuart: going towards the isis pital of raa. i saw the fight is on. liz: the fight is on right now and it's those triple 7

howitzerses are powerful and precise, that's why the leaders-- isis leaders are now fleeing raqqa. stuart: did i hear you say, the president is considering using more special ops and attack helicopters? did i hear you say that? >> yes, that's under consideration right now. stuart: the president said he's going to smash isis, we've got troops on the ground that appears. liz: that's right. stuart: senators not voting or not in support of the house obamacare replacement. rand paul, mike lee, ted cruz and collins. and says the plan is dead on arrival in the senate. joining us is the senator from wyoming, himself a doctor. >> thanks for having me. stuart: what are you going to do when they say we don't like the plan emerging out of the

house, it's got to get through the senate. what are you going to do to bring them on board? >> a couple of things, stuart, this is a monumental shift away from obamacare, we'll see what actually passes the house. there are a lot of people in the house with good ideas how to improve it and i'm looking forward to having those incorporated and in the senate, we're going to have a chance to put this on the floor for debate and amendment. fundamentally, we know that obamacare has collapsed. insurance companies are leaving. people aren't buying and we need to do something to provide relief for the people hurt by obamacare and to rescue those who are under this collapsing system. stuart: are you going to look to the democrats for some support in the senate? i think it's 11 senate democrats face reelection next year and come from states that candidate trump won big time in november. do you think some of them will come over? you're going to need some democrat support.

>> i would welcome their support, they tend not to want to do that. president obama came to rally them, don't cooperate, don't work with republicans. the democrats realize this is such a fundamental shift away from obamacare, that they're conflicted. because they, in the sense, created obamacare, which has failed the american people. so, i would welcome their involvement. we have a responsibility to the american people to provide them with affordable coverage and care. stuart: if this thing doesn't go through, it will be the republican party that gets the blame. you'll get the blame for not allowing the president's legislative schedule, obamacare, tax reform, you'll get the blame when it doesn't go through. there will be, forgive my french, hell to pay next year. we all know that, don't we, senator? >> i think that's why it's important for the president to be involved, as he is, in working with members of both sides of the aisle and he's had both sides of the aisle at the

white house to talk about the importance of focusing on the american people and their needs. that's where this focus needs to be, but he's working with-- people from the left are against it, people from the right have come out with legitimate concerns. we need to strengthen it and focus on what we need. bee have done the right things eliminating the mandates and taxes and completely getting rid of the penalties, but saving things that are important. protecting people with pre-existing conditions and young people underage 26 and people so there aren't lifetime limits, this is a huge step. stuart: then you will bend, you, senator, will bend a little towards the conservatives to get it done, will you? >> well, you know, i'm with ronald reagan who said, you get 80% of what you want, you should take it rather than go over the cliff with the flag flying. so, look. you've got to look at what the policy needs are and as chairman of the policy committee, i can lay them all out. there's also the politics which you talk about and the

procedural hurdles having to do this through reconliation because the president, the former president has told the democrats don't participate. stuart: senator john barrasso, always a pleasure and thanks for coming back to us. >> thanks for having me. stuart: i've been saying it all week, no retreat for stocks despite the political turmoil in washington and as you can see we'll open on a fraction lower today. look at the price of oil, please, that's not helping the stock market came way down yesterday, a very strong dollar, massive supply. it's down another 60 cents today and dropped below $50 a barrel. how about the price of gasoline. national average now, $2.30. as i said at the top of the show, watch that number to come down, with crude oil tumbling, you will probably see the price of gas come down and relatively quickly. next case, urban outfitters, the ceo there says the retail bubble has burst.

e-mack, i think he's coming into our line of thinking, retail ice age. stuart: and. liz: he's equating it to the house bubble crash. retail guys overbuilt. too many empty shopping malls, really turning into ghost townes. one estimates a third of people will be ghost malls, ghost malls, rather. for him to come out and say that, he also said this, it's going to accelerate. stuart: whoa. liz: meaning there will be more retail companies shutting and more shopping mall problems across the country. stuart: what a story. liz: we're watching it. it changes the way america looks, not just the way it shops, but the way it looks. stuart: thank you, liz. liz: sure. stuart: i want to get back to that very important and developing stories. marines have arrived in syria support of the fight for raqqa. excuse me, that is the isis capital. joining us now is congressional duncan from california who sits on the armed services committee

and a former officer. i think that's correct. >> yes, sir. stuart: we're marching toward raqqa and knock them out of the ballpark. the effort started and started now. big deal, sir? >> yes if you're bringing marine artillery, we're going to crush you, break you in half and you're not going to exist anymore, that's what marine artillery means, special forces in training, that's fine, infantry guys there. if the president is allowing marine artillery there? it's over for them. this is jim mattis at his best. this means we're going to crush you and because it's marine corps artillery and not army, it's fast in and fast out. so we're not going to stay there, not going to set up fort operating bases for six years, we're going to crush you and leave to the next base, if you pop up again, we're going to crush you again. that's what the artillery signals to me. stuart: a lot of people say,

we're in, how long do we stay, assuming we win. and your answer is, fast in and fast out. >> right. stuart: but, again, to summarize here. we've started. the president has said repeatedly he wants to crush isis and now we've got troops on the ground, the marine corps on the ground in syria, that's new and the effort has begun, right? >> yep, that's what i think here. and you know, this is still just supporting. we're not going to have guys on the front line. the artillery can sit back ten kilometers or so and how far they can sit back and shoot when called for with the people they've trained now in syria, in that theater, they can call for fire and the marine corps can shoot and the special operators that are already there, they can also call for fire, so, you know, the marines are sitting back supporting, but they're going to crush people now. >> congressman, look, i know you came in at short notice for us and that was particularly important on a day like this and we appreciate your

presence, sir, thank you very much. >> thank you. stuart: yes, sir. this is one of the most amazing come from behind wins i've ever seen in soccer. yes, we're going to cover soccer. there's the first goal of the day, okay? barcelona, the guys in the dark blue shirts-- no, sorry, that's the winning goal. i'll show you the rest later. believe me, this was the most extraordinary comeback in soccer ever seen. attention, soccer fans, american and otherwise, crowd scenes going wild. look at that! you've never seen anything like that before. next case, president trump's tough stance on illegal immigration seems to be working. new report finds a number of illegals crossing the border down 40% in president trump's first month in office. michelle malkin deals with that in a moment. and check this out, new piano playing robot, don't you know it, rolls up to a piano, lin itself up with the keys and pedals and place, gives a concert pianist a run for its

money. watch this. ♪

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>> you know, staples is in some trouble. the stock is down 6% premarket today and they're going to close 70 stores in north america this year. they're in trouble and they're down 6%. now, this, president trump's immigration enforcement credited for the plunge and it is a plunge, an illegal border crossings down, look at that, 40% down for the first month of the presidency. in some areas, crossings have slowed to a trickle. come on in, michelle malkin, author of sold out, and conservative review senior editor. michelle looks like president trump's stand on immigration, before he's even built the wall, it looks like it's working.

would you say that's true? >> i would. and you used the phrase, trump effects when talking about the economy, i think there's a trump effect when we're talking about national security and immigration enforcement and this is really part and parcel of the comprehensive immigration enforcement strategy that many of us who have covered this issue have been wishing for. and here it is. now, it's significant. i don't want to overplay it. we're just talking about one month. but as john kelly pointed out. it has usually been the trend that in january and february, that those crossings and apprehensions from the south have always seen a huge spike. the fact that we're not seeing that sort of expected seasonal increase shows you that even the rhetoric, of course, backed by executive orders and all of the policy changes that are now being instituted is really providing an effective deterrent strategy. >> you're not going to pay somebody, 3,000, $4,000 to help

you get across the border immediately if you have a good chance of getting sent back quickly from the other side. that's quite a disincentive. >> yes, it is. when you see ran and file border patrol agents and the boostn morale that they've seen since trump took office is very significant. their hands have been tied behind their backs. they were punished for trying to do their jobs under the obama administration and again, i have to emphasize, this is one piece of it. because interior enforcement goes hand in hand and these are flip sides of the same coin. when you have a few high profile interior arrests, that's a ripple effect and sends a message to the people in the south. don't take those risks for yourself or for your young children as well. >> michelle, i want you to deal with the new wikileaks dump

that has the characteristics and they're saying they've only released 1% of the information that wikileaks actually has. my question to you, michelle is, what would you do with assange? >> well, i think he has to face consequences, and i've been one of those people who has been fairly consistent about being wary about wikileaks and not just, you know, jumping to their side because it serves, you know, certain political or partisan purposes and i strongly condemned the leaks under the bush administration, that endangered a lot of nsa operations and i feel the same way, obviously, about the so-called vault seven dump, because even though wikileaks, redacted and withheld the actual code, you know, the millions of lines of code, the fact that there's an implicit, if not explicit threat out there, that they would release all of that information to.

this is a danger to america's security apparatus. >> sure is. he's got a press conference coming up in ten minutes. michelle malkin, good to see you again, come again soon and we'll see you later. >> you, too, see you la stut. stuart: check the futures, we're going to open up pretty much dead flat today. this was a comeback from behind for barcelona barca to fans and we'll lay it out as it progresses.

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liberty mutual insurance >> bear with me, dear viewer, i'm going to bring you the greatest comeback in soccer history. barcelona playing paris. barcelona went into the game four goals down and caught up and won. let's start with the first goal for the barcelona team, that's

the first goal. there you go, goal number one, it was a goal. second goal, again, for barcelona, we're going to see it. yes, here it comes. it was actually an own goal by the parisian team. score one forbarcelona. this is a messy one, where the penalty occurred, and the barcelona player tripped up. that's messi and he scored. necessary one, psg scored this one and put them very much back in the game and reduced or expanded their margin of lead. next one, another, there it goes, that's the parisian guy and he goes, and now, that's a free kick from barcelona, that's another goal. at that tied it 5-5. and then, oh, will you look at that? penalty. i think. i think that's what happened. yes, a penalty.

tripped him up in the box and they scored! that evened it up five apiece. and now they go into stoppage time and bingbingo, barcelona, knocked out the parisian team. the greatest comeback in sports history, if i can say that. and barca is probably the best club team and certainly have got the best player, messi. liz: looks like they almost took the stadium down how wile they were. stuart: you've seen enough of soccer and you'll probably see it in hour two and hour three. let's get to oil prices because that moved the stock market yesterday, dropped 5% yesterday. down another 40-odd cents today. point is, we're back to $49 a barrel on crude because of a strong dollar and oversupply. that may well affect the market

again, we shall see. at the moment. the bell rings in five minutes' time. we'll be down three points, that's it. a fractional loss, in other words, n huge selloff since the november 8th election. we'll open dead flat this morning. back in a moment. hey nicole. hey! i just wanted to thank your support team for walking me through my first options trade. we only do it for everyone gary. well, i feel pretty smart. well, we're all about educating people on options strategies. well, don't worry, i won't let this accomplishment go to my head. i'm still the same old gary. wait, you forgot your french dictionary. oh, mucho gracias. get help on options trading with thinkorswim, only at td ameritrade.

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>> ten seconds and that bell will start ringing and trading will start. we're looking for a fractional loss when things finally get going. in the news background i'm saying we've got green shoots. we're up 8 points and i thought we'd be down a fraction. we're up 5, up 8, a mixed market basically, no really clear trend in the very, very early going. the dow 30 shows some winners and some losers about evenly split and now we're down 6 points. look at the price of oil. it has dropped below $50 a barrel. there's a lot of oil in storage, there's a very strong u.s. dollar. the downside move in oil hurt the market in stocks yesterday, not having that big of an impact today, but it's at $49 a barrel. all right. i am saying there are indeed green shoots of spring for the economy, clear signs of growth.

let's see what everybody else thinks about that. and joining us, liz macdonald, charles payne, you're first. i see green shoots for economic expansion. what say you? >> absolutely. by the way, and underscored with the aadt report. stuart: 300,000 private sector jobs. >> and look under the hood, they're goods producing economy, people working with their hands. this is the epicenter of the meltdown. it was a record, a record 106,000 jobs, never ever in the history of the adp reporter going back to 2002 has the goods producing sector produced 106,000 jobs in a single month, mining up, construction 66,000. manufacturing through the roof. these are good jobs. there are only two job categories that make more money than the miners do. they've gone back to work.

that's huge. stuart: i'm trying to hold charles payne back with great difficulty. you make your point very, very well. well done, charles. scott shellady, that's a case made for green shoots and economic expansion. do you see it that way? >> i do. i agree with charles, it's hard to fight the tape on this one. i like anecdotal stories a little bit. two days ago i was driving around chicago andor the first time ever, i didt see just one, but nfour "now hiring" signs. we've gone eight years when we were looking at of the coin and now i'm starting to think that the u.s. and the average consumer is starting to look at the good side of the coin and that's coming through in the jobs number and a little bit of inflation, too. it will be interesting to see how we take this for six months after the rate hike next week. stuart: scott, you're a watcher, how do you see these developments? >> it's great news. i think that the stock market

truthfully has forecasting since november 9th. we're seeing the hiring come through. tomorrow is the first nonfarm payroll that reflects the first full month or first, say, 28 days, let's say, february shorts of donald trump's presidency so reflects the first full month of nonfarm payroll growth we'll see under the new administration, i think over 250,000 jobs added as charles said, a lot of goods producing jobs, a lot of the grunt work that's produced in this economy is already showing up, thanks to this administration. stuart: i think there's one more green shoot i have to report and i think challenger gray and christmas that came out with-- >> it's the number of job cuts down. stuart: down. liz: 40% year rovover year. and 45,000 jobs cut last year. the retail sector coming back on-line and hiring and the construction guys, to charles' point, hiring, too. maybe in anticipation of the president's infrastructure

spending. stuart: green shoots, boys, i'm telling you right there. next case, we've got disney's chief robert iger defended his position, the member of president's advisory panel. one wanted him to step down. liz: they said it's wrong to be in collaboration with the administration. bob iger says i'm not going to step do. i have a seat at the table and i'm going to express opinions in the best interests of the shareholders. i'm against the immigration policy, but corporate tax cuts. stuart: they want one of the most successful ceo's to step down because he gets close to mr. trump and give advise. liz: he's the only media ceo sitting there. stuart: oh, worse. who is shouting at me, scott? go ahead. >> the intellectual inconsistencies of the left. why not have your leader sitting next to a bigger leader and be part of the process

instead of protesting and staying away? it doesn't make sense to me. stuart: okay. the border tax is in the news and we've got the comment from the ceo of adidias. he says he's not worried about the border tax. about 80% of the sporting goods products are made in asia and the tax would hit almost everyone evenly. he's not worried about it and adidias stock is up 3% at this point. what do you make of the border tax and who it's going to hit, scott martin? >> retail first and foremost are in the cross-hairs. he's right, it's going to hit a lot of companies evenly. when you think of the u.s. economy, and what it relies on, which is imports. we need imports to make a lot of goods. the auto industry is another one. it's a shock to the system to see how it plays out in the next few months is going to affect some stock prices, i believe, in those areas.

stuart: i'm not sure we are going to get at that border tax when the horse trading is done. liz: if you don't get it, then that corporate tax cut is not 20%, it might be 25%, not sure. stuart: well, i would take a tax cut, i'd take it. liz: so would bob iger. stuart: would dead flat on the market, the moment is up 1 1/2 points and now it's up 3 points. 2859. soft outlook signet jewelers. jared's, kay, the stock took a hit when a lawsuit was laid on them. >> a poorly run company, and i was in the stock and got crushed. stuart: did you? >> i got out a year ago, it was a disaster, a disaster. >> i hate hearing that.

the staples, all of these bricks and mortar stores, they take a beating. liz: you wonder if they're going to try to merge with office depot, how do they save themselves? >> i don't know if a merger would office depot would. at&t, there was a glitch that caused 911 outage in various parts of the country, some wireless countries able to make emergency calls not able to make the stock at all. sears revenue coming across, a bit higher. the stock is up 3%, but sears has been devastated, period. that's retail ice-age. the ceo of urban outfitters says that the retail bubble has burst and there's going to be a wave of store closings which will accelerate. how about that, charles? >> he's absolutely right. you can still make money in retail if you do it the right way. yesterday, children's place, only three stocks in the entire market outperformed. by the way, they've closed

almost 200 stores, the nonperforming stores. you've got to make it an experience. we all know it's a huge, huge, hurdle to compete against on-line, but if you can somehow still make it. i used to go to urban outfitters, with my son and it was eclectic, i'm not surprised her rudderless. nd women,he last time we saw tho sizes in second grade. they were microsizes. stuart: it's a good interjection there. liz: forgive me. stuart: bottom line, there is such a thing as retail ice-age, joen line shopping is the cause of it and the result will be ghost malls, that's our story and it's a big one. look at apple. they promised to quote, rapidly address any security holes used by the cia to hack iphones. meanwhile, the stock has been close to an all-time high, close to $140 a share. so, let's have the general discussion here, would you buy

the world's premier technology company at $137 a share, scott martin? >> i would, stuart. we've been in apple for some time here because of the eco system. i don't totally agree with apple's stance how they've worked with the government in the past, especially given this latest news, but the reality is, apple is still the dominator in the space. the iphone 8 is coming out, which is going to be what, over $1,000 bucks. they have the pricing power, they have the customers, that's why you want to own the stock. stuart: do you own it, scott? i've got to ask you. >> i do. stuart: you've got some of it. do you own it? >> yeah, i've owned it for a long time, my own account, my client's account. pounding the table. something that scott hit on last earnings report the price of a phone. people said it's antiquated. the iphone 8 is going to be amazing. maybe cute and sell after that, but i think you hold on for

now. stuart: got it. happy birthday, bull market. we're up more than 14,000 points since march the 9th, 2009. on this day in 2009 the dow bottomed, with the close at 6,547 and look where we've come since then. charles payne, you talk about this all the time, don't you? >> we spent many times on the show talking about getting in or out of the market and hanging toughment you know, listen, i've got to tell you, i believe the stock market mass a proxy for america, first and foremost and as long as i believe america will innovate and create great companies and lead the world, i want to be involved in the stock market. stuart: that's a pretty good outcrew. i'll thank you, charles payne. thank you, scott martin and scott shellady, all of you together, thank you for joining us, big day. and the dow industrials are up, not much. i mean, we've got an 8 point gain, 9 point gain, we'll take it, 20,864. next case, i've said that five times this morning, i'm not going to say it again, okay? next. china announcing plans for

manned mission to the moon. we have details for you. and the house ways and means committee pulling an all nighter, approving the obamacare replacement bill, came 4:00 this morning. you'll hear from a lawmaker in the room all night. ♪ all night long ♪ ♪ all night, all night long ♪

>> the news from the dow this morning is still no big selloff. despite the huge run-up since november the 8th. now this. china is indeed developing a new spacecraft.

liz, what's different about this one. liz: what they want to do is china is seeking to unseat nasa as the world's premier space endeav endeavor. what they want to do is kohl nonize -- colonize the mon, build a base, a module on the moon and shove aside the u.s. and say we are the ones to go to when it comes to space travel. stuart: did they give any time frame for colonize the moon? >> they only shot into space in the '70s. and bull bore on those in the '90s. now, president trump says listen, i will send a bill to congress for more nasa spending. we cannot lose the space race. stuart: we're back in the space race. liz: that's right, look at the rockets, those are china rockets. stuart: china rockets. all right. republicans health care plan clears the first hurdle. the house ways and means committees. it's a 18-hour session and approved the obamacare repeal bill.

joining us now is congressman from ohio, he's a member of that house ways and means committee. have you been up all night? did you take a nap? >> good morning, stuart, yes, we were up all night. i think i had about an hour and a half sleep so we're still going though. stuart: thank you very much indeed for being with us at this hour of the day, so we do appreciate it. as i understand it, this is phase one. this is repeal. you just passed it this morning. there's something else coming down the line, phase two and phase three, is that the process accurately laid out? >> absolutely. we now have a secretary of health and human services who has broad discretion and abilities to make some changes and at the same time will be phase three when we turn around and start to change some of the policies. stuart: now, what kind of opposition from republicans on that committee did the repeal bill, the repeal plan, meet with overnight? >> well, most of the concerns that were coming from the democratic side last night was, you know, the affordable care,

a lot of discussions how it's working and things are working and why can't we just touch this or, you know, try and change a couple little things here or there, but what we really know is the affordable care act is on a crash course. that plane, as i say, i was a pilot, that plane can't continue to fly and what we're seeing, we have to literally strip that plane, make sure that it can fly to a safe zone and land safely and that's really the goal. and there was a lot of frustration on the other side and they kept talking about procedural moves and things that, again, sadly enough, when the affordable care act was passed, they were using the same tactics to move some things, which was surprising they brought it up last night. stuart: i want to talk about a different subject also on president trump's legislative schedule, that is cutting tax. there seems to be an argument among republicans on capitol hill, as to whether or not those tax cuts should be paid for with a border tax. where do you stand on the border tax? because it's going to run

through your committee, house ways and means? >> well, look, i'm a big believer that we've got to do bold things on tax reform. i was a business guy, in business for 30 years, we can't continue to have the rates that we have and get our economy growing. how we do that and how we move forward is the question and the border tax is one of the ways. the way to bring the tax down is to use a border tax. i'm uncomfortable with it, i want to see the transition rules. if you just put the border tax by itself, i have a lot of concerns and i want to look at transition rules how we get there, but in the end we've got to bring taxes down, we have to look at ways to get this economy growing, more than 1, 1 1/2%. >> would you be believed to just lower taxes and not worry too much about paying for those lower taxes? would you do that? >> well, i also have a dubious distinction of being on the budget committee as well. so i can tell you that the numbers running in the budget committee are not good. the spending has to come down, but i look at it from a business standpoint.

we've got to get the rate where it needs to be so we can tell our country as the most competitive country in the world and on the other side, make adjustments to bring in more revenue or cut our expenses. i'm okay in looking at ways to get these rates down and how we get there, but ultimately we have to be very concerned about our budget and deficits as well. >>. stuart: yeah, but a border tax is not easy to sell and cutting spending is not an easy political sell. that's a difficult row to hoe, isn't it? >> as a business guy, you make those tough business decisions and live with them. and too many times politics gets in the way of good policy. we have to start making these discussions. we have to start looking at things that will spur our economy and at the same time theig concern i have about the border adjustment tax, it picks winners and losers, i've said three concerns i have, it picks winners and losers and the other one is whether it can pass the wto.

if we can pass those things, it's going to be politically easy. those are tough sells and that's why i'm concerned today. stuart: i think you should prepare yourself for a series of all-nighters like the one you went through last night. >> i hope not. as i said, a business guy gets things done, we don't stay up all night. i'm not sure if this is the true process of getting things done. stuart: if you run businesses, you're not a committee guy, are you? that's not an insult, by the way, that's a real compliment. jim, thank you for joining us. >> thank you, stuart. stuart: the dow and the market, we are beginning to inch higher. more winners than losers on the dow. president trump laying out his $1 trillion infrastructure plan and elon musk's hyperloop could be part of it. more varney after this. i have asthma...

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>> the dow is moving up a little not much, but 20 points higher. 20,800. the price of oil is down. nowhere near as much as it was down yesterday, but another 1% lower and reaching $49 a share. talk about a stock that's been beaten up in the retail ice-age, look at sears. it's up today.

brought in more money than expected, but still, that stock is it way, way down over the past couple of years. less money coming in at staples, as well. another retail ice-age story, down it goes, $8 a share on staples. look at the infrastructure stocks, please. president trump mapped out the trillion dollar infrastructure plan. there's a good headline here, give it to me, liz. liz: the president says i don't want this money sent to the state where it's sat on by seven years by state bureaucrats who abuse it and exploit it for their own political ends. i want it put to use for taxpayers, maybe a three-month deadline for you to decide and spend it to improve your infrastructure. stuart: what a revolution. remember the obama $800 billion stimulus program. they didn't spend the money for a couple of years. liz: not so state of the art by president obama. stuart: how about elon musk. liz: he was at the meeting

about the spending. hyperloop and talking about japan and high-tech projects coming for japan. in exchange, what will he say? he'll say to corporate companies, bring that money back home, holiday for the 2 trillion in tax and that's-- >> that's the hyperloop we're looking at. liz: cool stuff, dreaming big. stuart: i'll believe it when i see it. when i'm riding at 1,000 miles an hour i'll believe it. liz: what a way to deal with it, they'll end up fighting over it. stuart: i'm going to show you video that's surprising, actually look at that, that's pink tap water in canada. you know, liz, i want the full story. liz: this looks leak ghost busters, the goo out of the tap. this is onaway, alberta, what was happening, they were disinfecting their water supplies. the chemical was put in there to flush the water line and

ended up in the reservoir and people's kitchen sinks and bath tubs. stuart: harmless, i take it. liz: they're dealing with it in canada, looks like pink lemonade, but, yeah. stuart: what have we got? a dow jones average up a little bit, not that much, a 10, 12 point gain for you at this moment. we've got green shoots for the economy, looks like the expansion is beginning. facebook, did i hear it had gone to an all-time new high this morning, facebook at 138, 139 around that level. 138, new high on facebook, that thing is going up. stuart: president trump i'm going to call him the negotiator in chief. he has started negotiating the health care reform deal. i'm going to say, in a moment, he's got leverage. i'm going to show you what that leverage is. believe me, this man has muscle in these negotiations. we'll be back. what powers the digital world? communication.

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stuart: jay jill had just opened. that is a retailer. they specialize in women's clothes for 35 years of age and up. they want to expand the number of stores from 275 now, to eventually 375. their ipo, went public for the first time today. they opened ever so slightly down, 11 cents. they opened at $13 a share. they're down fractionally. not a great time really to be doing an ipo for a retailer at this moment, down slightly. next case, i said it again, sorry about that. all the headlines scream about the republican divide, yes, we too have frequently reported the gop's lack of unity. it's a fact. what's lacking here is some understanding ofhe president's power to bring the divided party together. he has leverage, more than you might think.

if he chooses he can play very hard ball politics. conservative republicans in the house freedom caucus vigorously open pose the ryan obamacare replacement plan. they might want to be careful how far they take their opposition. candidate trump won big in the states they ref sent. the chair of the caucus, mark meadows, is from north carolina. trump won all 16 members in his district. ron desantis, all four counties in his district went for trump. alex mooney, another caucus member, 17 counties all went for trump. 11 democrats in the senate represent states where candidate trump won 80% or more of the counties. they are all up for re-election. how can they go to oppose the president ho won in some states? president can play hard ball,

all republicans and democrats vote against the trump agenda. the president can play hard ball politics. he has the power which he is yet to use. the second hour of "varney & company" is about to begin. ♪ stuart: we're up 22 points on the big board at 20,787. state of plate for the oil, we're down again 50 bucks a barrel. 49.76 to be precise. facebook moments ago hitting an all-time high. the stock at 138.35, never been higher. we do have the latest on mortgage rates being thursday morning 10:00 eastern time. what are they, liz? liz: trending higher 4.21% as u.s. 10-year yield continues to go up. the rates were in a holding pattern.

they were off one fifth after point. with the strong jobs report and challenger report talking about job cuts low are than expected you can bet the fed will raise rates. mortgage rates continue to go up. stuart: mortgage rates, 4.2%, still historically low in my time. liz: that is correct. stuart: get back to my take editorial at the top of the show. "town hall" editor katie pavlich is with me now. i think you heard about the what i had to say the president won in those states which freedom caucus people belong to. i think that gives him enormous leverage, doesn't it? >> i think it depends. the freed dome caucus was put into power before president trump was put into power. it was put into the power by the tea party movement working very hard going door-to-door to get can ditz who could win to repeal obamacare. they went through a lot. they were targeted by the irs.

they, wait it out in the cold and had a bunch of different rallies to get millions of people involved in their local community to change this around. i think president trump has leverage in some ways, but if he promised on the campaign trail to repeal obamacare in full, and final bill, not the bill now, but the final bill doesn't actually do that i think he also is going to have a problem. stuart: i'm not so sure i agree with that. i can not he see a freedom caucus member stopping the repeal or reform of obamacare, holding up the entire legislative agenda with the tax cut deal can. i can't see any republican holding everything up, then going back to his constituency and winning again when president trump is say, you just messed up my entire agenda. it is your fault. >> if you listen to what people, conservatives on the hill are saying they're getting hundreds of phone calls, tea party groups, ke tea party patriots are getting hundreds of ail,

this is not what i worked for. this is obamacare 2.0. this is not repeal we promised. you can argue that republicans and president trump put themselves in a corner saying we'll fully real peel obamacare that would be difficult thing to do. people care about the technicals. stuart: if you readied of the mandates and reform medicaid provision within it, you've done an awful lot. it is only a technicality that says, well you have knot repealed the whole thing. >> sure. i think results will be a very important part of that and the white house is making the argument. they are making argument, entrepreneurship, initial first step, taking the wet blanket of obamacare off the economy so businesses can grow. we've seen with numbers recently, people feel better about that. in terms of the political side of this, conservatives in america have a lot of leverage as well when it comes to spending on this issue. their main thing is cost, mandates as you mentioned. so they will have to work together.

i think the president having some of these conservative leaders who are out in the country doing the work at the white house last night is him trying to bring the party together to get this done. stuart: he has the leverage in my opinion. katie, hold on a second. i have to deal with a breaking story. then i will get back to you. a report from circa news, it finds the fbi investigation, investigated a computer server tied to president trump's business that was allegedly communicating with the russian bank. sean hannity spoke to the reporter who revealed the story. watch this. >> two instances. so this is completely new evidence. remember, we all thought, and everybody had reported that the server was inside trump tower. the server was not located within trump tower according to our sources. they thought this was part of the original investigation into russian hacking and now president trump. it wasn't. it was completely different.

it was a completely separate incident and the leak came out anyways. it was monitoring of russian assets. >> would be a felony -- stuart: okay, the bottom line here is, somebody hacked into at server in trump tower, found nothing, but it proves trump's point, they hacked into trump tower. is that the story here? liz: yes. it appears that is one story coming out from this reporter. "the new york times" reported that there was surveillance. there was a fisa warrant, it appears under the loretta lynch department of justice to, watch russian bank computers talking to trump tower computers. it is unclear according to this reporter where -- stuart: 6:30 on saturday morning with right? not that the president ordered that but that trump tower was wiretapped? liz: we don't know -- so there is fisa surveillance is different from a wiretap. it can be different. i understand your conundrum here but there has been misreporting

about this by the way james clapper, former director of national intelligence, they found no collusion between the trump campaign and russia. that is what he told chuck todd. "new york times," wiretap data used in inquiry of trump aides about russian officials. so the misreporting continues here. the words wiretap has been used. it is different from surveillance of computers. stuart: good lord, what a mess. katie, can you straighten this thing out for me? sounds to me like trump tower was bugged. i don't know who by and i don't think it was by president obama but it was bugged, that the bottom line? >> i think bugged is a good term. i think wiretap is going too far. wiretapping usually pertains to listening in on phone calls. we don't have evidence of that but there was clearly surveillance going on. i don't think democrat will want to pursue this much further because if we start opening up the can of worms looking every single detail what the obamarata

history of using this type of surveillan, i don't think they will want the american people to know exactly what was going on. i think trump's tweet may have put somewhat after damper on this whole thing. we'll have to see. stuart: fascinating. i'm still not clear exactly what has happened here but something is going on and i'll sure of it. >> two senators asked for the warrant applications. if they get the warrant applications we know there was higher level of surveillance going on. as already stated there is a big difference between surveillance and wiretapping. wiretapping is much, much higher bar when it comes to law enforcement than simple surveillance. stuart: technicality. thank you, katie. thank you very much. >> thanks, stuart. stuart: several hundred marines have been deployed. they're in syria. andrew peak is with us. he is in d.c. you're a military intelligence guy. here what seems like to me is going on. the marines are in syria.

they have heavy-duty artillery with them. they're only 80 miles away from isis's capital, raqqa. they're marching towards raqqa. the president says he wants to use helicopter gunships. he wants to use more special forces. sounds to me we're having a go right at the headquarters of isis and we're gung-ho from here. is that accurate? >> well almost. what the marines are there to do is help the syrian kurds who can't necessarily take raqqa by themselves. instead of giving equipment to the kurds would enrage turkey. turkey has its own kurdish insurgency within its borders. they are temporarified if they get a foothold in syria, they will fuel domestic fires in turkey. instead of giving all the equipment to the kurds to capture raqqa. this is a compromise solution. that kurds can capture raqqa in fastest time possible potentially minimizing diplomatic fallout with turkey.

stuart: i understand. to me these are technicalities. the bottom line marines are in syria. they have howitzers with them. they will march toward isis just like the president said, is that roughly accurate? >> that is roughly accurate. stuart: thank you, thank you. we had congressman duncan hunter on earlier. he was an artillery officer before he went to congress and he says the marines are fast in, and pointedly fast out. which implies that once they have done the job, of beating up on isis, they'll leave. is that how you see it? >> i don't believe that at all. no, the marines aren't going to go home because if they dot syrian kurds will be left holding the bag with a large swath of syrian territory and arab city of 300,000 people. neither bashar assad or turks want them to retain control. there will be inflection point in the future, dual military threats bearing down on the kurds and they will be screaming for help.

either we face the decision point in the future, do we let an ally be crushed by both an enemy and ally in turkey, or do we just keep the marines there and prevent that decision point from ever appearing? stuart: i don't think americans want marine boots on the ground for any length of time. what say you? >> well i don't think the american people know what they want. no, you know, i agree, look, one of the constant in the campaign neither clinton nor trump wanted to put ground forces in syria. stuart: right. >> i don't think that's changed. so that will be, you know, contradiction in the president's policy, that he wants to defeat isis without going into syria but that contradiction is very much coming to the fore soon. stuart: andrew, thank you very much for joining us on short notice. we appreciate it. >> thanks, stuart. stuart: quick check of the big board. we're moving up, not a lot but we are edging higher as they say. 38 point up, getting close to 20,900. more "varney" after this.

stuart: we do see green shoots of spring for the economy. maybe there is a expansion on the horizon. the dow is up 20 points, 20,900 almost. facebook hit a new all-time high, 138.55. just happened. strong numbers from a cosmeticses company. elfelf beauty inc. up 15% on strong numbers. our next guest has to be happy on at least one part of the republican health care bill, the removal of the medical device tax. scott whitaker is ceo of avamed. i'm not sure of the pronounciation. correct me, scott, if you will. this is trade group representing the medical device-makers. scott, welcome to the program. >> good morning, stuart. thanks for having me on.

stuart: if it turns out i need a new hip, will i get a discount, is it cheaper for me, are you lowering prices? >> the bill last night did include the device tax repeal. that was a bipartisan basis. number of amendments offered. no members from the democrat to put that in. it seems you unanimity in congress it was a bad tax. it definitely had bad impact on jobs and medical innovation. if you need a new hip. we'll have a new hip for you. stuart: are prices going to go down? because presumably i will no longer be paying the tax? >> we have not passed on the tax to consumers in the past. during the three-year window when the tax was in place, what happened to us was we ended up shelving some of the innovative products we were working on and reducing jobs to eat the cost of that tax. we didn't pass it on to the consumer in the past. we don't do that in the future. our customers are different. this is not direct to consumer like many are.

we work with hospitals, health care providers and health systems and sell our products there. if you look over the course of the last decade we've been remarkably flat it relates to the cost in this industry a sign of healthy economy from the medical technology perspective. stuart: is the tax off as of right now. >> it is off right now. there was two-year suspension. stuart: the tack is not being paid this morning? >> it is not being paid this morning. if congress does not take action however, by the end of this year, the tax will go back into effect. that's why getting the tax fully repealed is critically important right now. stuart: i'm told senator elizabeth warren, wait out there on the left, never met a tax she didn't like, was all in favor of removing this medical device tax. is that accurate? >> what i'm hearing across the board, republicans, democrats now understand it was bad tax policy. it was bad economic policy and it is bad health care policy and everyone seems to want to repeal that.

that is good news for the economy. that is good news for us in e job creation standpoint and good news for patients who we serve. if we get rid of the tax once and for all it is great. stuart: you're a diplomat. you don't want to take off on anybody. you got the tax out of the way. you have a big smile. well-done, sir. scott whitaker, thank you for being with us. >> thank you, stuart. stuart: the market, modest gain for the dow industrials, up 33 as we speak. call the president trump effect. illegal border crossings down 40% in a month. how about that? more "varney" in a moment.

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from julian assange, the wikileaks guy. liz, have i got this right. he wants to share information with technology companies? liz: he is offering to shut the holes they found in their devices where the cia was breaking into devices like iphones and tvs, even cars. he has a way, he says, to shut those holes. apple, samsung, google, microsoft. they have not taken him up on his offer yet. he is offering to do that out of ecuador embassy he is sitting in now. stuart: is saying he will help the tech companies do it so the cia canned look inside your toaster to report your conversation? liz: that's right. stuart: he is protecting us from the see r. i find it a joke. this man releases details how c can ia gets into internet of things. that is only good for the bad guys.

he says he is protecting us from the cia. liz: that is what he is saying. stuart: next case. i said it again. liz: next up. stuart: i'm trying to stop using that expression all day long. we have this. in president trump's first month in office, illegal crossings from mexico down 40%. liz: from january to february, a little more than 18,000 apprehensions. that is how they're measured. it was 31,000 in january. last month 18,000. that is, department of home security secretary john kelly, says lowest in at least five years. that is what he is saying, number of apprehensions. he is attributing it to the president tough on boarder security. stuart: the president said, there have been spectacular deportations. it is all over the news, where people have been taken out of the united states, if i was an illegal immigrant trying to come north, and i, i would think twice out paying these guys who guide you through, get you across the fenwould think

twice about paying them a couple thousand bucks if i'm going to be sent back again very quickly. liz: that is about right. talk about human trafficking crimes, when you pay someone to ferry you. you get roped into a sex ring? prostitution ring. law enforcement has talked about this for years. we talked to them. that is a serious issue. the media needs to do more reporting on the serious problem. stuart: border crossings down 40%. we'll take that. look at jill a women's closing operation. they have 25 stores. they want 35 stores. they went -- 25 stores. they're down 5% from the initial offering price. not a good time i suspect for a retailer to go out there with a public offering. they did it. they're down 5%. president trump the deal maker in chief, the legislative wheels are rolling and obama

care is number one on the list. there are however, some conservatives that don't agree with the gop's obamacare plan. one of them will join us in a moment. i know you're my financial advisor, but are you gonna bring up that stock again? well you need to think about selling some of it. my dad gave me those shares, you know? he ran that company. i get it. but you know i think you own too much. gotta manage your risk. and you've gotta switch to decaf. an honest opinion, even if you disagree. with 14,000 financial advisors it's how edward jones makes sense of investing. why pause a spontaneous moment? cialis for daily use treats ed and the urinary symptoms of bph. tell your doctor about your medicines, and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sex. do not take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain,

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stuart: cautious optimism remains on the stock exchange with the dow industrials up 20 odd points, just shy of 20,900. different story at staples. they will close0 stores in north america this year. we keep talking about retail ice age. 70 stores. staples is feeling it. facebook up to a new high, up to $138 a share. price of oil down a little bit more, 88 cents lower and below 50 bucks a barrel. that hurt the market yesterday. not so today.

lower profit and revenue at bank rate inc. and it's down 8%. that is quite a drop there. our next guest says the republican health care bill is bad policy. he is one of those who met with president trump to talk about it yesterday. heritage action ceo, michael needham is with us now. you had the face-to-face meeting, i think you met face-to-face with the president yesterday, is that correct, michael? >> yep. we were over at the white house yesterday. stuart: was he amenable to any of your demands? i know you are not happy with the ryan package. you have your own. was he amenable to any changes you want to make? >> i think showed openness to ving a conversation about thinking about new i. there will be need to be big changes in this bill. this bill keeps the fundamental infrastructure of obamacare in place. it keeps the idea that the government from washington, d.c. should have regulations that increase the cost of health care. it keeps the relationship

between employment and tax, health insurance in place and it also provides huge subsidies. it is big changes that need to happen in order to make this bill acceptable and the president was very open to new ideas. stuart: but would you need all of the changes you laid out, do you you need absolutely all of them before conservatives can possibly vote for this? or are you going to stand on principle and risk not getting any deal at all and upsetting the entire legislative process? >> we understand how the legislative process happens. what we need to have happen is the promise to repeal and replace obamacare to happen. that means taking the progressive arc it being turf obamacare out and replacing it with free market reforms. i think that if you're keeping that architecture in place, and just changing some of the subsidies, or changing a little bit around the architecture, that is never going to be acceptable. if instead you say free market health care works. we should have earth pas and doctors making health care decisions, not government and insurance companies and your

boss, then we would be open to all sorts of creative ideas but the key is to completely repeal the architecture of obamacare. that is what the promise was. and that is what the president wants to deliver on. stuart: and again, if you don't get that, that basic, if you don't bet that it is gone, you will not vote for it, hold it up in the house and hold it up in the senate. >> every conservative wants to competent to yes, if you're not repealing obamacare, if not getting rid of infrastructure of obamacare why have people go home and tell that to their voters? stuart: taxes go away. mandates go away. medicaid to some degree is not reformed. that is not enough? >> that is not true. the individual mandate goes away but there is 30% tax if you don't have continuous coverage. stuart: that is applicable one time. >> the essential health benefits package, health status rating all this stuff remains in the bill. the idea around obamacare was that bureaucrats in washington d.c., would set regulation what is is health insurance.

and that they would then provide subsidies to help people buy that insurance because it is more expensive. what is paul ryan's plan do? it continues to have regulation, title one of obamacare, much of it stays in place. it provides a new form of tax saab sy did i. that is obamacare in a different way. we need to take away that fundamental infrastructure, replace it with he free market reforms. we can do that in different ways we can have that debate. if you're buying into this fundamental premise if the federal government, your insurance company and your boss making your health care decisions that is progressive health care system that needs to be repealed. stuart: you know where i'm coming from? i don't hide my light under a bushel. i want a deal. i want a deal to get on with cutting taxes and get on with growing the u.s. economy. i want a deal. >> we all want that. we want to get to yes, it is important you get to yes you're not claiming that you repealing obamacare, that you are repealing obamacare. stuart: the standoff continues, doesn't it. we appreciate you being with us.

you're the intellectual force i driving this this thing from the right. >> appreciate your time. stuart: how about this? george soros backed the groups that made up day without a woman protests, and he backed them up with a lost money. how much? liz: from 2010 to 2014, $246 million, nearly a quarter of a billion dollars given to 100 groups that help support this day without women. stuart: let's be clear here. it wasn't a quarter bill dollars went towards the one single demonstration. liz: no. stuart: quarter of billion dollars over period of years which went to variety of groups that staged events like day without a woman rally. liz: that is exactly right. he can do whatever he wants with his 25 billion-dollar net worth but he made statements, president trump would be dictator. he says has cabinet of incompetent extremists. so was it a march for women's rights? yeah we get that, for sure. i agree with a lot of what women were marching for but was it

that or an anti-trump rally or protest. stuart: do you have any doubt? liz: encouraging women like teachers to leave children stranded that was issue for single moms. stuart: stop trump, resist trump, stop whatever it is, it was anti-trump rally. liz: at a time, ivanka trump, donald trump, first lady saying help out women get more jobs in science, technology, engineering, math. is donald trump anti-woman? the argument is likely no. stuart: we can argue all day about that one, lizzie. not arguing with you. liz: i hear you. stuart: we have a guest on the show, sitting next to me. he wrote a column on foxnews.com. here is the title of the column. if trump wants to restore america to greatness he will have to compromise with democrats. doug schoen wrote it. doug schoen is with me today. i have an inclination to say you got it backwards. >> well you heard michael needham. stuart: i do. >> i heard you. i agree what you said to him,

there has to be a deal. in the senate you need 60 votes. they only have 52, given his intranssy against to get 60 votes because he controls or great influence, 40 house members through the freedom caucus. people like rand paul in the senate and a few other senators. so, stuart, there can be a deal. i think the outline of the principles you were speaking of are exactly where the country is. we need to provide coverage for the 20 million who got it. provide some tax relief and subsidies. if we do that and the president moves left, not right, he can get a grand bargain i think would advance the envelope, get some tax relief as you suggested. so i'm saying you're right and that the republicans and the president should listen to you. stuart: let's get this clear. the president, there are 11 senate democrats up for re-election this year. >> true. stuart: all of them come from states won significantly by

candidate trump in november. >> correct. stuart: so, they're going to be in a difficult position if they oppose any deal on obamacare, and stop it and then they have got to go back to their own constituent who actually voted for trump. they're in trouble. so they have to compromise with the president as much as the president has to compromise with them. >> but they are democrats, and their bottom line, if you will, is they can't compromise on coverage of the 20 million, and on cost. and if you listen to michael needham, you heard where he want to go, pure free market. that is a nonstarter. stuart: i think the bottom line is not that. the bottom line is the vote. the bottom line is they want to be reelected and they will move heaven and earth to be reelected. >> stuart, donald trump's approval rating is now close to 40. he is not running against hillary clinton. he may well be running against himself and an intransigent

democratic congress. his influence and power not necessarily strong as it might be when you have guests like the articulate michael needham who want nothing to do with any government involvement. stuart, this is perfect for the democrats to get a deal, roughly on the terms you're describing. stuart: i think he will compromise. i think ultimately the freedom caucus in the house will accept a degree of compromise, some of them, not all 30 or 40 of them, but enough to make sure they ha 216 ves they ne in the house. >> right. stuart: then it goes tthe senate and the president can strong arm the democrats. they can have leverage on him as well. >> they have a lot of leverage, more than you are willing to give them credit for. stuart: i think basis here for a deal which will go through and be accepted. i think there is enough compromise and the president has enough leverage to get some kind of a deal. >> but it will be on terms closer to me than to michael needham. stuart: i agree with you. >> that is very good for the country.

i'm glad you're moving back to your historical roots with the democrats and progressives and i'm very pleased. lizzie, you should be too. it is great that stuart is come canning back. stuart: stop it right now. look, i want a deal, because -- >> so do i. stuart: i want the trump program in place. i want to see america get moving again towards prosperity. that means you have to have a deal on obamacare. you have to have a deal on taxes. >> i agree with both. if we get both of those deals we'll get unrivaled economic growth, the stock market will go up and i think the great problem with trump presidency we're mired in obamacare and not talking about economic growth and infrastructure. stuart: if we get the obamacare and tax cuts we're in for huge run-up for economy. you said that. >> i'm saying it unabashedly. stuart: you are not a democrat. >> i'm a democrat, proud one. stuart: no democrat things tax cuts lead to economic growth.

>> i'm a lone democrat. stuart: you should leave the party. start a new one. >> i tried. doesn't work. remember we did americans elect to 2012, didn't work. the system is really, really rigged an corrupt against outsiders. stuart: tell me doug schoen did not lose a lot of money on third party. >> i never lose a lot of money on politics. i'm a capitalist. stuart: you're all right, schoen. >> appreciate it. stuart: give me a sense of the market. show me the dow 30. a lot of green, some red. up 10 on the dow industrials. no big sloff. i still say we have cautious confidence in the trump rally. a lot of you viewers upset with me over mid tomorrow on president trump's use of twitter. we will read you some of those comments after this.

♪ liz: now this, the house ways and means committee pulling an all-nighter to vote on the new republican healthcare plan. listen to what senator john barrasso had to say to stuart varney about that. roll tape. >> this is a monumental shift away from obamacare. we'll see what actually passes the house. there are a lot of people in the house with good ideas on how to improve it. i'm looking forward to having those incorporated. and in the senate we'll have a chance to put this on the floor for debate and amendment. but fundamentally, we know that obamacare has collapsed. insurance companies are leaving.

people aren't buying. we need to do something to provide relief for the people that have been hurt by obamacare and to rescue those under this collapsing system. ♪ attention homeowners age sixty-two and older. one reverse mortgage has a great way for you to live a better retirement... it's called a reverse mortgage. call right now to receive your free information kit with no obligation. it answers questions like... how a reverse mortgage works, how much you qualify for, the ways to receive your money and more. plus, when you call now, you'll get this magnifier with led light absolutely free! when you call the experts at one reverse mortgage today you'll learn the benefits of a government-insured reverse mortgage. it will eliminate your monthly mortgage payments and give you tax-free cash from the equity in your home...

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amazon or alphabet will get to $1000 first? they're running neck-and-neck. most people on this program say it will be amazon. we shall see but they are neck-and-neck. how is this for a close call? owners of a waterfront home in fort lauderdale, florida got a close look at massive cruise liner. take it from here. liz: south of fourth lauderdale. royal caribbean cruise liner, came within 100 feet. that is the owner of the home. . whoa, you're about to hit my back patio, two million dollars plus home. the wife said watch out, watch out! it stopped and looked like it grounded. the churn showed sand being thrown up by what was going on underneath the beat boat. royal caribbean denies it hit ground. the couple said it did. stuart: close to his $2 million house. he is not happy. yesterday i suggested that the president needs to lay off

the tweeting. a lot of you did not agree with me. first off this from hugh. stuart, i know you're concerned that president trump's tweets will disrupt progress and millions you are making from the stock market rally but try to think of it differently. aren't you pleased we have a president who doesn't play the game, calls out politicians for their shady disruption tactics and puts fake news on its heels bypassing them completely? i get the message, hugh. margaret. varney i like my president unvarnished. leave his tweets alone. last one from bob. come on, stuart. trump's tweets are not slowing down anything. sit back and enjoy the show. citizens united president, david bossie. citizens united is a political action committee and was deputy campaign manager with president trump. aren't you with me a little bit, david? lay off the inflammatory tweets please, mr. president?

aren't you with me? >> i'm much more in the camp of your viewers sending you your email there. stuart, i get it. it is a very emotional reaction that you have to it and it's a logical one but i can tell you, as somebody who was there standing next to the president during the campaign, somebody who watched him when he was tweeting, it is, he has a unique view. he has a unique opportunity to bypass the mainstream media, speak directly to the people. and send his message. he also has the opportunity to change the narrative when he want to. he uses all of those things to his advantage, over and over again. so everybody who tells him to stop needs to really stop because he is totally under control. look, does he have once in a while where we all wonder what is going on? , what's behind it? absolutely. but he is been first and foremost very good at this job. stuart: you can not see this, david, but on the left-hand side

of the screen we're running all the email response and the facebook response to mid tomorrow. almost all of it is negative, saying stuart, knock it off. the president is doing just fine. >> you have a very smart viewership. stuart: and a very weak anchor i suppose. [laughter]. where do you stand on this obamacare reform package, david? i know you're a conservative. >> yes, sir. stuart: you want radical change. you want to totally obliterate obamacare? >> first of all repeal and replace is something that president trump campaigned on. repealing it and replacing it, not creating obamacare light. i think that is the concern of many conservatives in congress, that it's not going to really repeal a lot of the very bad element of the bill. so that's, but president trump is a consummate deal maker. he is bringing together all the people that are part of this conversation, yesterday, today,

tomorrow. i think you will see a different bill next week than you're looking at today. i think it will be much better for the conservative movement. stuart: there is room for negotiation here and there is phase two and phase three still to come. not like the ryan plan is set in concrete. changes will be made. but at the end of the day, i take it, david, you would rather have some kind of deal than no deal at all that holds up the tax cut and the deregulation? >> i'm very much from the reagan mold. i would take 80% today. stuart: yes. >> and get a deal. then we can get on to other important issues, tax reform and other things. but i can tell you, it also allows us the opportunity to come back and fix these pieces that we don't like in obamacare, in this deal at a later date, one thing at a time. which is a little bit easier for congress to swallow. stuart: well-said, david, if you have 80% of what you want, take it, walk away and be happy. david, you're all right. we appreciate it.

>> thanks for having me. stuart: president trump is mapping out his trillion dollar infrastructure plan. you got any details on that? liz: he had a big meeting about it with big players including vornado, hyperop backer, elon musk. here is what he is saying and it is pretty revolutionary, he is saying i will give you states this money as long as you don't sit on it and lock it up with state bureaucrats for seven years with unions at the local level fighting over it. i want the money put to work. i may put a three-month deadline on you to get it working for the american taxpayer. that would be a sea change. even ronald reagan get couldn't that done. remember ronald reagan to get out of the recession, in 1981, it took five years for the money to come into the economy. same thing with president obama. what happened to the stimulus money. stuart: that is very important. here's the money you have to tell me in thee months how you spend it. liz: talking high-speed rail and maybe japan to invest in infrastructure.

stuart: i don't care what it is, the point, you get the money and you spend it now. get to work now. liz: let me back up. not japan investing in infrastructure. showing the u.s. how to do it. stuart: get on with it. liz: get on with it. stuart: thank you. get on with it stu. with the election i see green shoots for the economy. i say it is the trump rally. we'll have more in a moment. at angie's list, we believe

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go long™. ♪ stuart: there seems to be an argument among republicans on capitol hill as to whether or not those tax cuts should be paid for with a border tax. where do you stand on the border tax, because it is going to run through your committee, house ways and means? >> well look, i'm a big believer we have to do bold things on tax reform. we have to cut rates. i'm a business guy. we can't continue to have the rates we have to keep our economy growing. how we do that going forward is the question. one of the ways to bring the tax down using a border tax. i'm still a little uncomfortable with it. i want to see the transition rules. if you put the border tax by it is i have a lot of concerns. we'll look on transition rules how we get there. we have bring taxes down. we havto look at ways to get

the economy growing more tn one, 1 1/2%. stuart: would you be prepared to just lower taxes and not worry too too much about paying for the lower taxes, would you do that? >> i have dubious distinction being on the budget committee as well. i can tell you the numbers we're running on the budget committee are not good. spending has to come down. i look from a business standpoint. we need to get the rate where it needs to be so we sell our country as the most competitive country in the world. on the other side we have to make adjustments to bring in more revenue or cut our expenses. i'm okay looking ways to get the rates down how we get there. ultimately we have to be very concerned about our budget and deficits as well.

. . .

stuart: well, the evidence is moting. we are in the early stages of a what looks to me like a robust economic expansion. okay, you haven't heard much

about it because political turmoil has ruled the headlines, but look at this. nearly 300,000 private sector jobs were created last month. 60,000 in construction, 30,000 in manufacturing. good jobs and the president liked the numbers. the other side of the coin, layoffs, way down in february, down. linkedin the professional social ned -- network reports the highest hiring. the federal reserve is taking notice, odds are they will start raising rates very soon because of strength in the economy. don't forget consumer confidence and small business optimism, both at decade highs. now, we have seen the green shoots of expansion before, but on every occasion hopes were dashed. we haven't seen better than 2% growth for years and now the green shoots a popping back up again and, yes, hopes could be dashed specially if there's no tax cut or little deregulation.

so watch tomorrow's job report. it will detail how many jobs were created in february and we will see if there really is a tump effect, not just on stocks but on the economy as well. the third hour of varney&pane is -- varney & company is about to begin. ♪ ♪ ♪ stuart: i do believe that sun is called walking on sunshine. >> yes, it is. stuart: green shoots for the economy. there's optimism, clear signs of strength. check out the big board. up 26 points. there you have it. no retreat for stocks. green shoots for the economy, i am seeing signs of expansion, does jack how? >> thanks for not asking me to sing.

i do see green shoots. the hiring numbers have been strong, the labor market is getting tight right now which means you will get good wage growth in the future which is desperately needed. now we need to see -- the stock market has given us advance on some of the trump promises, corporate tax cuts. maybe boost in gdp growth. we need to see it happen. stuart: do you agree with me that this modest expansion, the green shoots started to appear because of the election of donald trump? that's not a political question, that's a timing question. >> it's going to pain me. stuart: why? you don't like trump? >> i'm not hopeful. i have equal disdain for both political parties. there was economic momentum in the latter part of last year. we were talking about interest rate hikes, interest rate hikes are a good sign when we get in desperation level. i talked with corporate chiefs

every week who tell me they're hopeful about things like less regulation going forward, less money wasted in certain areas. so look, we can get some good growth for corporate earnings going forward and maybe at some point in the future i will be able to with you and say it's trump rally. stuart: it's the show me stock market. you to show me. >> tax cuts are priced in. we are at 20 times trailing earnings. give us the corporate tax cut and we get get down the 16 which is closer to normal. if we don't get those cuts we are pricey, easy come and easy go on the recent stock markets. stuart: the tax cuts have to come t august recess or stretch it out? >> it's not so much important as seeing the path to them taking effect, knowing so that investors can price in the future. stuart: why has the stock market not shown a huge decline?

let me back up a little bit. from november 8th until now, the dow industrials have gone up very roughly 2,700 points. it's a whopping great big rally and there's not been a significant palback at all, period. it's not happened. why not? >> people who put money to work in asset markets, they don't care about tiff with arnold schwarzenegger. they care about what's going to happen with risk and interest rates and so forth and the signs there are generally promising. you know, you're not going to get a big dive by the way in the market absent of recession and there is nothing on the horizon that suggests to me a recession is coming. you could get if we don't get follow through you could get correction in 10 percentagish. stuart: concentrate on whether

or not we are going to grow the economy. >> or petty matter. stuart: i agree with you. i really do. thank you. we now have -- here is the latest count, five republican senators who say they are not vote if. >> the house obama replacement bill as it stands. tom cotton just joined the other four who are rand paul, mike lee, ted cruz and susan collins. senator collins said it would be dead on arrival to the senate. republican from ohio and he's a member of the freedom caucus who objects vigorously to the use plan as it now stands. what would it take congressman for you to go with a house plan at some point in the future, what has to change? >> stuart, based on what you said and five individuals against it, why don't we do what we did before, the house members all voted for, let's pass a clean repeal.

i introduced the bill yesterday. a clean repeal and we can focus on the replacement, the effective day is not for two years, there's time to whine down and time for a market to actually form and we can focus on what really needs to be the focus, which is bringing back affordable insurance for working-class families and middle-class families. stuart: the real argument is what do you replace it with, that's the argument. >> right. one thing we can all agree on obamacare has been a disaster, driven up costs, let's get rid of it. we put this on president obama's desk, he vetoed it just a little over a year ago. let's put the same piece of legislation on president trump's desk. we know we can agree on and let's pass health savings account, health formation, purchasing across state laws, interstate shopping, all the things that will make sense that bring back the market. stuart: some of them can come in

phase one or phase two, you could do that, get competition between drug companies to get prices down, all of that comes in phase two and phase three. >> i agree. we don't have agreement on phase one. so we can still do the phase two and phase three like you described, let's do phase one where we all agree on and one thing we all agree on and frankly we told what the voters we were going to do is repeal obamacare. we didn't tell them we were going to repeal but keep medicaid expansion and extend it. we didn't tell them that we were going to keep some of the obamacare taxes which is in this plan. we didn't te them. let's do what we told them. let's repeal it and we can do phase two and phase three. let's be consistent. >> can i bring the leverage which i think president trump does have with members of the freedom caucus. mark meadosws is the chair and

president trump won 16 of the 16 counties in his district. if congress meadows and fellow freedom caucus members, if they say, no, and they ditch this plan on obamacare and it doesn't go through and the whole thing is held up, i mean, president trump could go to that district and say, your guy held things up, it's his fault. >> two things, two things the white house has been clear that they are open for real debate, robust debate, changes to this bill and that's what we are focused on doing, making the bill something that's consistent with what we said. nobody helped president trump in north carolina more than mark meadows. he did more for president trump than any other member and so many freedom caucus people were doing that. when we had poll incomes the republican party that weren't willing to help nominee in the campaign, a bunch of freedom caucus guys making sure that we didn't have hillary clinton as president, that we elected donald trump who i think as you said earlier is one of the reason it is market sup, job

creation is up, wages are going up. we were out there making sure our nominee won. that may be the case, you may be right, i think it's important to remember what happened last fall as well. stuart: okay, i want to move onto another story here. developing story. u.s. marines have arrived in syria. they are 6800 miles from raqqah, the pentagon is considering sending a thousand more troops to kuwait to help the fight. congressman, looks to me that we have boo on the ground, they arfiring guns in anger, we have returned to the middle east with guy who is are shooting guns bha do you make of this? >> well, we have to get briefed on this, to what extent, how many more troops may be getting there, i don't know what the plans are. we will have to see and get information -- >> do you approve, sir? >> i don't know enough of the details to really frankly say one way or the other and i don't know what the plans are as we move forward.

i want to get briefed from generals and leaders and see what they have to say about the situation. stuart: you're laughing on the healthcare reform. if you compromise a little tinny bit we can get a deal and get tax cut deregulation, we could grow the economy and return to prosperity? >> we want to do all of that. there's nothing that says that we have to go in the order that we are now proceeding in. look, we want to repeal -- we campaigned on it. we understand what a disaster it is. instead of focusing on doing it quickly, let's make sure we do it right and what better way to do it in how we passed it before, the clean repeal that every republican was for. stuart: you know, i'm really enjoying this debate. jim jordan, pleasure to have you on the show. thank you, sir. appreciate it. up next someone who knows a great deal more about politics than i forgotten. is that right? i got this backwards, didn't i?

bret baier knows more than i know. great bear has forgotten more than i know. that's the way. thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. bret baier will be with us shortly. ♪ ♪ ♪

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stuart: stocks that are moving today. a stock appear for the first time jay jill, women's clothing retailer. they went out at $13 a share, they have dropped a little bit from there. this is not a great time to be offering your shares to the public for the first time when you are a retailer. one of the big stores that we have been covering the retail ice age, people are walk get away from bricks and mortar stores and going very much towards online shopping. now this. senator tom cotton has become the fifth republican senator to

say he cannot support the obamacare replacement plan that's making its way through the house. bret baier host of special report is with us now. bret, first of all, may i apologize to you for shamelessly using the numbers you announced last night. >> they're to be used, stuart. [laughter] stuart: i'm very sorry. >> that's quite all right. stuart: no, that's out of bounds. we are not going to go with the house obamacare plan. does the president have the leverage over those 11 democrats in the senate to overcome those five republicans? >> well, it's going to be tough on the healthcare bill as is. there is leverage on all of those 11 democrats up for reelection in 2018 as i layed out last night on the show because donald trump won more than 80% of the counties in each one of those states, 80%.

some of thes up to 90%. so, i think, the democrats are going to hold the line on health care but on judge gorsh, they'll be a lot of pressure to minate him. it gets to conference committee where the senate and house come together, there's a possibility that there's some negotiations ongoing that help conservatives get on board. i think he's going to spend, the president is going to spend capital to try to get this across the finish line because it's the lynch pin that opens the door to tax reform next. stuart: it sounds that everybody, the president, house republicans, senate republicans, they want to get this don't. sure there's an argument about the precise form of getting it done, but it does seem at this point that they are attentively

moving closer together and gauging all parties in an intense discussion. i would love to be a fly on the wall to see the horse trading going on, frankly. >> yeah, i think there's going to be a lot of negotiating and this president made it clear that that is part of his approach to negotiate. this is not a firm thing that will be thrown down people's throats. that said, there are vocal opponents, we heard from the rand pauls today and senator tom cotton saying the house should start over again. he's not an opponent of trump administration, he's an ally. i would look to republicans, not democrats for the future of this hhaca bill. stuart: i think this is a very big deal. the marines are in syria, they've got heavy-duty artillery with them and advancing within 60 or 70 miles of raqqah, the

isis capital, it looks like the push is on with american boots on the ground firing guns in anger to go after and destroy isis as the president said he wanted to do. i think this is a very big deal. >> it's huge, it's huge, stuart. this comes as u.s. forces are working with iraqi forces to continue to push through mosul and iraq but this is raqqah, this is the capital of isis inside syria. syria a place where we said during the campaign and the obama administration said that we were not going to put u.s. boots on the ground in big numbers, this is the marines landing and working with special operators for months and this story is going to be significant. general of central command telling congress today that a new strategy in afghanistan will require more u.s. troops on the ground in afghanistan. so these are significant developments when you're talking

about deploying men and women abroad. stuart: it's going to be in the news business because things change so rapidly. bret, we will be watching tonight because you're sitting down, i think, with vice president mike pence. the vice president ice first interview in senate office. bret, we will be watching. thanks for joining us today. >> thanks, stuart. >> yes. now, this apple has promised to rapidly address any security holds used by the cia to hack iphones. we will tell you if your phone is safe in a moment. ♪ ♪ your insurance company

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liberty mutual insurance. stuart: as you know by now wikileaks tells us that the cia can read your iphone. well, now we find that apple is going to tell us how we can stop anybody reading into our iphone, lizzie, how are they going to do it? >> they are going to send security upgrades, any time you see telling you tonstall t new software update do it. they are saying they are already

closing the hole that is were blown open and they're fixing it and so microsoft and android, alphabet google and so is samsung. even julian assange says we may show you tech world how the cia did it. they are moving to stop and fix it. >> as far as i'm concerned anything connected to the internet is readable from anyone that's a good hacker, that includes, israel, china. there's no such anything as privacy. >> specially connected to the internet. stuart: i brought this to you briefly at the top of the hour. i want to repeat this. challenger, a research form report that february job cuts were down 19% compared to january and there was, in fact, in that month of february a hiring surge. >> yeah, january, february was the highest on record according to challenger. they are saying it's the best ever.

year over year job cuts went down 40%. even retail has been laying off, you're seeing energy coming back online, construction coming back online big time. maybe it's the president's infrastructure plan, they are hiring in anticipation of that, wow, january and february the biggest on record says challenger. stuart: down 40% from the year before, hiring surging. i tell you, this is a green shoot of expansion going on in the economy not necessarily flected in the stock market, we are only up about 6 points as we speak, but nonetheless looks like we are on the cusp of some serious expansion for the united states economy. that's the white house. we will be back in a moment online u.s. equity trades...

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stuart: a violent mob from the radical leftilenced another college speaker. this time it was college and really was violent mob and ran

the speaker out of town. free speech of american universities is flat out finished. dan, you say that that middleberry incident was the culminating point? >> turning point, for sure. one because of the physical violence against charles murray and one of the professors there, a woman's whose neck was yanked and had to go to the hospital, pounding on their cars, took it to the level that we haven't seen before. the second thing was most importantly, stuart, the day after that 40 middleberry professors signed a statement on preinquiry on campuses listing the things that some students had done. most professors are now so afraid to speak out because they think they'll be targeted. middleberry professors published a statement and 81 middleberry

professors on that petition. stuart: hold on for a second. i'm getting president trump meeting with small banks, listen in, please. >> experts was and we have great bankers with us. today's discussion is crucial to my job's agenda and to the american people. community banks play a vital role in helping creating jobs by providing half of loans in businesses and that's been dwindling. nearly half of all private sect or are employed by small businesses. small businesses to grow. community banks, we a going to preserve our community banks. you probably noticed i signed an executive order on regulation, on february 3rd, i believe it was and that's a big executive

order, very powerful executive order and taken a lot to have regulation away. you'll be able to loan, you'll be able to be safe and be able to provide the jobs that we want and create businesses. it's an honor to have you with us today and perhaps we could go around the room and we will start with dorothy and say who you are and who you represent. >> thank you, thank you, mr. president. i'm dorothy and i'm from cape cod mutual company in cape cod, massachusetts. >> i'm leslie anderson from the bank of nebraska. >> suburbs of pittsburgh, pennsylvania. [inaudible] >> st. charles. [inaudible] [laughter]

>> thank you. great, thank you. >> okay, thank you very much. thank you. stuart: that's the end of it. the president said, okay, thank you very much, indeed. he doesn't take questions. you usually here a lady's voice saying that's it, goodbye. i don't think there was any group within the banking industry that suffered more from dod -- dodd-frank than the community banks, what say you? >> i agree with you. it makes so clear the difference between the democratic party and the republican party. sure, it's donald trump at the center of it, but let's understand during the years of the obama administration they passed dodd-frank, the democrats

had no understanding whatsoever anymore of the private economy, they had become so separated from it. when this lady sits there and says i represent a bank in cape cod, massachusetts. i'm from northbound, as far as the democrats go, these people might as well be from pluto or from mars. really, they don't have any clue and that's why community banks sat on their back and stifled from making loans to the community. stuart: the paperwork that you have to go through to ensure dodd-frank compliance simply daunting. he democra shrugged the shoulders and say, so what. >> 30% less small community banks since 2008 because of rules that have came down from dodd frank. stuart: gone out? >> yes. lend to the small businesses that create small and mid-size,

75% of the u.s. job growth in the country. dan called it a smothering pillow. stuart: dan, i'm not really sure i understand the process that well but i think some of the provisions of dodd-frank could be struck down by executive order or by the treasury department as opposed to going through congress for full-scale legislation. >> some of them could but some have to go through congress. that's a good point n. the resequencing here we have obamacare reform, then the tax reform bill and i believe dodd-frank reform is probably standing at the light at tend of that, big changes won't come until later in the area. >> i want to be clear, that's also why they went under, but steve mnuchin you noticed was sitting there, treasury secretary. the president said you come back to me by june with a report on

how to dial back regulations and steve mnuchin was ceo of one swiss bank, remember? stuart: stock price go up significantly as well as the big banks. that's happened up already. some are going up a little bit more, a little bit more following the meeting. chesapeake financial was in the meeting. >> it was. stuart: community bank stocks looking good because of it. good timing. the legislative wheels are rolling and obamacare is number one onhe legislative list. the house ways and means committee is taking a first stepped. it's approved house repeal bill and pulled an all-nighter to do that. scott joins us. he's the ceo of e-health. you like this ryan package on obamacare?

you like it. tell me how it brings down premiums. i was told it wasn't. >> it will because it's bringing choice to the consumer, one-size-fits all government plan and putting choice and empowering the consumer, stuart. the consumer don't want a one size fits all plan, they want to buy what works for them and where they want to. the government monopoly will be manipulated. stuart: i got the point. but i want to big a little deeper, i want to know why we can't get the absolute cost of health care down, bliek a blood test, for example, i know people who had blood test, $1,400. i don't think you can get that down without tort reform, let's say you? >> well, i'm a huge fan of tort reform. it needs to happen. critical costs that americans absorb unfairly, it's buried in every single expense throughout the healthcare system, so god

bless you for pursuing that, stuart. stuart: i don't see it in the ryan package, i don't think it's there. this is a great first start and it's necessary. we need to empower the consumer and stabilize the insurance market to stop the obamacare spiral, if we don't do this, obamacare is going to collapse. so this is a good first step. there's a lot more that will get done on the regulatory front and they'll be other bills that will be coming but we all need to get behind this. the president needs to gain momentum, we need to get the first bill passed. it does a lot of very good things. stuart: now tell me how -- one of the biggest problems was enormous deductibles on the exchanges. tell me how the ryan plan gets rid of those enormous deductibles, does it? >> well, it would help, for sure. what it does is puts tax credits on the hands of the consumer and

will let that consumer go out and buy the plan that meets their own needs. you know, 62-year-old couple does not need to buy maternity care. young people want to buy catastrophic plans and the tax credit gives them the money to be able to do that and incentivizes healthy lifestyle choices and if they don't spend the money on health plan or benefits, a young person can keep the tax credit for their retirement. this is a win-win plan. stuart: as i understand it, e-health sort of anticipates the collapse of obamacare because, i think, you put consumers in touch with policies not necessarily issued in their state. aren't you in the national market for health insurance, is that what you do? >> right. we are like the amazon.com for health insurance. we are licensed in all 50 states. we represent all the carriers. we give the consumer choice and selection and 90% of consumers say that what they hate about obamacare is they don't have any choice.

80% of consumers and customers say they don't like the high prices, they want to buy the plans, stuart, that works for having the government figure this out, tell you where to buy and where to buy it is a prescription for failure and that's why the obamacare plan is collapsing. stuart: fortunately that mandate is gone. scott, as always, thanks for being with us, sir. appreciate it. >> thank you. stuart: disney chief, hiname is rert igar, he's defending his position on the president's advisory panel. he sits on that panel. some shareholders wanted him to step down. >> that's right. stuart: not just from the panel but position at disney? >> just from the panel. [laughter] stuart: all right. >> this happened at the annual shareholder meeting and bob iger, he's a democrat, he's been under fire in social media. why are you collaborating, that's the word, with the trump administration, we think they are evil. he's saying i'm not endorsing

what the trump administration is about, we do need to sit at the table and we do want influence debate. we don't agree with the president on his immigration policies, but we do like the corporate tax cuts. stuart: good. >> the only media company sitting at the table. stuart: he's dead right on this and keeping going. we are up about 19 points, more than half the dow 30 are in the green, they're up. any minute now speaker paul ryan will make his weekly address and by the way, we got news from mitch mcconnell on tax cuts, jam-packed show coming up for you. we are not done yet. ie's list, e there are certain things you can count on, like what goes down doesn't always come back up. ♪

[ toilet flushes ] ♪ so when you need a plumber, you can count on us to help you find the right person for the job. discover all the ways we can help at angie's list. because your home is where our heart is. i mwell, what are youe to take care odoing tomorrow -10am? staff meeting. noon? eating. 3:45? uh, compliance training. 6:30?

sam's baseball practice. 8:30? tai chi. yeah, so sounds relaxing. alright, 9:53? i usually make their lunches then, and i have a little vegan so wow, you are busy. wouldn't it be great if you had investments that worked as hard as you do? yeah. introducing essential portfolios. the automated investing solution that lets you focus on your life. nicole: i'm nicole petallides with fox business brief. six weeks of gains for the s&p and the nasdaq, will this be a losing week on wall street? right now trying to stay in the green here. the s&p is up 3 points, dow gaining 17. for the week down a half of a percent. here looks like winners and losers, there are more winners and losers, johnson & johnson and jpmorgan are winners. oil has been a big story and oil is at 49.13 the barrel.

amazon is planning to open a brick and mortar store inside seattle, they want to have merchandise available to you, the echo and kendall. they are doing well in selling food online as well. apple losing some of the students to google's chrome book, they are on the rise over the last year while the ipad and the mac have been flipping

stuart: look at this.

the first images of a test track built in the middle of the nevada desert designed by california company called hyperloop one. cated arou 30 minutes outside of vegas. they want to perform the first public trail later this year with pods that travel 800 miles an hour. can you imagine the acceleration in a 500-yard track from zero to it, i can't imagine that. >> it's like a rocket ship. stuart: you would be pinned to the back. >> you would. stuart: mitch mcconnell said that the august deadline for tax reform may not be a sure bet. listen to this. >> if there are some constraints here. i don't want to get too much down in the legislative weeds but we have to -- we have two reconciliations to do. we have to get the one that we are going use for health care out of the way before we can go to the second. i share your view that, i think,

finishing on tax reform will take longer but we do have to finish the healthcare debate up or down, win or lose before we go to -- to taxes. stuart: say it ain't so, mitch. you're stretching out the timetable there. jerry, wall street journal guy joins us right now. we did not want to hear this, jerry, but it looks to me that they are stretching out the schedule because they can't get done on time. what say you? >> the legislative calendar works, the way republican leaders say it must work for procedural reasons, they have to do health care first and then budget and on the back of the budget do tax reform and health care as everybody is learning once again is enormously complicated and everybody is unhappy and it's not clear that tax reform -- excuse me that healthcare reform can be done by the end of the spring which was the plan, that means tax reform is going to get pushed back. this linkage between healthcare reform and tax reform is a really important story and

probably hasn't gotten enough attention. that's what mitch mcconnell is telling us. stuart: we have given it a lot of attention because the trump stock market rally depends on it. would you bare with me for a moment. i'm going to segue over to speaker ryan who is holding his week his press and he's got a powerpoint presentation on what obamacare reform is all about. listen in. >> administrative action for the health and human secretary deregulates the marketplace and allows more choice and more competition to come into the marketplace. number three u and this where i think there's a lot of confusion all over the map. additional legislation that we feel is important and necessary to give us a true competitive healthcare marketplace. so think of things like inter state shopping. a reform that we long believed in, regulatory competition to give people even more choices. association health plans, let a farmer buy her insurance through the national farm bureau plan or restaurant tour by his insurance

for he and his employees for the national restaurant association plan on a nationwide basis, let small businesses buy insurance through plan, we would love to be in the reconciliation bill but the rules in the senate don't allow that to happen so we will move those bills independently, move those bills at the same time through our process and bring those to the vote. unfortunately they'll have to hit what we call the 60-vote threshold. we have a three-pronged approach to repealing and replacing obamacare. let's get into why this needs to happen and why it needs to happen now. options are disappearing fast. this law is in the middle of a collapse and people are quickly losing their choices. in 2016 the amount of counties in america that had three or more insurers, three or more carriers to choose from was about 2,000. in 2017, that number has plummeted.

insurers are leaving the marketplace, choice and coetition is going away and people are having less choices. how many insurers -- how many counties in america that had just one insurer? a little over 200 just last year. so in america about 200 counties had only one plan to choose from. one insurer. this year in 2017, that number has skyrocketed to over a thousand counties. over one in three counties in america, you've got one plan to choose from. the insurers probably never intended of being monopolist but they are, no choice, no competition, one plan to choose from. it's a 454% increase in american counties of people who are stuck with one option. now that humana has said they are going to pull out of the marketplace next year, they'll be counties that have zero options. so here is what it's happening under a law that's collapsing.

premiums are going up and going up at a very, very fast cliff. options and choices are going down. so what we are seeing in america is people who have to go buy their own health insurance are getting far, far fewer choices down to the point that they have one and the price they pay for that coverage is going up and up and up. take a look at what's going on around the country. this just shows you a map of the premium increases just this year alone. minnesota, 59% increase in the health insurance premiums. pennsylvania, 53% increase in their health insurance premiums. tennessee, 63% increase in their health insurance premiums this year alone, over one year. alabama, 58%. oklahoma 69% increase. nebraska, 51% increase in health insurance premiums. arizona, locked in at 116%

increase in their health insurance premiums with obamacare. here is what's happening. quote, obamacare is in a death spiral. it is not getting any better. it's getting worse. as the coo etna said a couple of weeks ago. what is a death spiral? it's a weird term. a death spiral is a system where in an insurance pool only sicker that only have to have the insurance buy it and healthier people who want the insurance won't pay those really high prices because it's too expensive and they don't absolutely have to have it because they are healthy. so in any kind of a pool typically you have a healthy person paying premiums to subsidize a sick person. but the way they set up on i'm care, it's not set up that way. it's cranking up the costs of the insurance so fast that the

premiums are just spiraling out of control and the insurers are losing so much money that they're pulling out of the marketplace. that's called the death spiral. it is literally mathematical collapse of the insurance markets. that's what america is facing today. if we simply did nothing, just washed our hands of it, if we in the majority party said, you know what, the democrats gave us obamacare, let them live with it, the collateral damage will be awful. more and more people would see even higher premiums in 2018, more and more people would see zero choices. we can't do that. the goal of healthcare reform has always been one that we all share. goal of healthcare reform is people get access to affordable coverage. our goal is use choice in coetition, not govnment coercion and mandates. so here is what we propose. here is the american healthcare act, the bill that's moving through committee process through regular order today, the

bill that's going to take three weeks just to move through the house because we are following regular order, lower costs, more choices, not less, patients in control, universal access to care. these are the four driving principles that we are focused on, lowering the costs, giving people more choices, having patients in control and universal access to care. let me walk you through how exactly we propose to do this. these are long-standing conservative principles that those of us who have been working in health care for about 20 years have been fighting for, working toward, now we have an opportunity to do that. how do we do this, first you have to repeal the law, you have to repeal the taxes in obamacare. stuart: this is speaker paul ryan making a very strong pitch that obamacare is collapsing. you have to do something about it. and i've got the plan. jerry, wall street journal political guy still with me. you've been listening to what speaker ryan has to say. i want to know if you can answer

this question for me, who is he appealing to? is it the freedom caucus of conservatives who don't accept his plan, is it democrats who don't accept his plan but they might want to think about it, who is he talking to? >> i think all the conversation is republican to republican. i don't think there's much hope that democratic votes will move over to repeal and replace obamacare plan. the question is, is this good enough for republicans, the key and the house and the conservative republican who is don't see as a real departure from obamacare, this may not be perfect but the situation is dire enough and it's our responsibility. we own this problem and we have to do something. this is the best that we can come up with right now. what he's not saying is it has to get to the senate and maybe that's the bigger problem. rand all and tom cotton voicing objections, moderate senators are probably going to have problems with this as well

because the medicaid coverage may be rolled back eventually. this is a pretty tough thing to shoot the gap on. stuart: but, you know, you are always going to have the splits. you are always have differences. the point is, i think, both sides of the republican party know that you have to do something. you must repeal and get rid of obamacare and you must replace it because if you don't, you are toast next year, 2018. i would have thought that was a big enough incentive to drive the two sides together, possibly with help from president trump, sort of a strong arm in various sides. my judgment is that there will be a deal. it may be delayed but there will be a deal, what say you? >> well, i think that's what you're saying is essentially what paul ryan is up there trying to illustrate. we have to do something. the something that's on the table is the best thing that could be on the table right now. and he's also making a point that i do think has gotten lost along the way. this is not the last word. the key to this and one of the reasons people are complaining is obamacare replacement bill

that he's talking about doesn't allow for insurance to be sold across state lines but under congressional rules, that's a process, a procedure that can't be stuck into this bill and has to be put in a separate bill. he's trying to make the point, don't assume that the flaws that are in this package won't be fixed down the road. i think that's a message mostly to conservative republicans to say, this is the best we can do right now. it'll get better over time. stuart: i want to go back to the first question i asked you which was about mitch mcconnell who says that all goes deadline on getting obamacare fixed and tax reform bill in place, that's going to have to be stretched out a little bit. looks like an optimistic schedule. i take it his statement about tax reform being delayed a little bit follows on from the difficulty they are having getting agreement on obamacare. >> i think that's right. i think the tax reform done by the august recess scenario implied getting health care done by the spring break. that's just a few weeks of time

between now and then. i think that's a pretty ambitious schedule. you know, if you want tax reform to happen you want it to happen in 2017, whether it happens in august, september, or october. what it's important that it does not slip in 2018 which is an election year. you better want it to be done in 2017 and not slop over into so i think what mitch mcconnell is saying logical under the circumstances. it's a problem, not a fatta problem for those who want to get it done but it's a warning sign that it could get worse if the schedule slips more. stuart: whose side is trump do you think he's on? he's trying to organize a deal. does he favor the conservatives, does he favor the ryan plan? >> i think he's in favor of getting something done in health care. he has bought into the idea that the ryan plan is the best you can do right now. he made the point of later on we will get around to policies sold

across state lines n. -- in the message last week, is i just want an obamacare replacement bill done. meanwhile it's up to you guys to fix the tax problem. stuart: thank you very much for joining us. we appreciate it. dow jones industrial average not as strong. maybe it has something to do with mitch mcconnell stretching out the timeline. >> may be. stuart: the market wants a tax cut fast and mitch mcconnell says not so fast. that's that story there. elsewhere in the markets we have the price of oil coming down some more. that's not helping the dow industrials either because we are down 48, $49 per barrel but does mean good news that very probably will be getting much cheaper gas in the very near future. always brings a smile to my face.

[laughter] stuart: all right i'm going the pitch now to niel cavuto who has a spirr -- special guest today. andy puzner, niel. neil: you think about it, stuart , famous as well for talking about the dangerous of hiking minimum wage too much too soon, famous i will saying that he would be looking at the machines to replace the workers. thatid not fit welwith unions, the very same union that is are now trying to favor with donald trump. whether that had anything to do with his decide to go cancel his appearance the night before to a committee that was going to decide his fate. we just don't know because he has really spoken to anyone until now. to tell us what happened and why a job for which many in zmè corpofzz community thought he wasd÷@q uniquely qualified, buty unions thought him uniquely disqualified, well,