government on that, deirdre phil, about michael, and rachel, such a pleasure to spend last three hours, with all of you folks, mr. varney and "varney & company" begins top of the hour every monday threw friday stuart take it away. >> top of the hour here we go, thanks dagen, friday, september 1, after a dreadful week a glimmer of hope in houston, only modestly growth in jobs market at home, good morning, everyone look at this, 156,000 new jobs created in august, that means well over a million extra paychecks this year, there is some momentum in this economy, all right now to -- what is that glimmer of hope in some parts of houston water receding flowing faster than expected some people are returning home. granted there maybe returning to a washed outhouse, but some are going home and we will show it to you, president trump gives a million from his

pocket, he wants a fast six-billion-dollar down payment from congress, surely he will get that quickly. private money flowing in fast jerry jones dallas cowboy guy gives a million j.j. watt is now up to 13 million in pledges, and 33 companies pledged a million bucks or more that list growing volunteers they are still showing up in droves. americans generous the rescue and relief effort has gone very well nation's economy is growing. the stock market going up more, "varney & company" is about to begin. any significant way, it looks like the dow will go up some more at the opening today, did he spite all of the negatives

in the nice background, i got to tell you, that the big movement on the markets this week has been in gasoline, and gallon regular comes in .51 per gallon that is your national average, that is up 7 cents. just over night price spikes, in texas, this again overnight, dallas up 14 cents a gallon, el paso 16 cents houston 6 cents, san antonio 11 cents okay got it. now the well have a sale gas prices moved to a different contract october away from september. yesterday, that alleged contract up 11% the big play on that is set to reopen this weekend and now the price is down 4 cents, a buck 74, maybe the spike of the pump will be short-lived more in a second, the mayor of houston says much of the city is now dry. a lot of people in moouven are getting back to going to homes jeff flock our jeff flock, the

man himself is with us what you got there jeff? >> look what houston has been doing the president tweeted, stuart this morning, houston recovering fast, some people think maybe just talking in positive again not really reality. no, look what is happening, these people the floodwaters went down begun tearing stuff out tragic to see this look at drywall that came out of that all furniture that sort of thing look how quickly the last couple days floodwaters still up in areas, people are out they have got gloves on over there, crews coming in already done a lot of tearout just first step what needs to be done to get this city back, nice to see this, difficult as it is to see how bad it is, nice to see it moving right now. >> yeah, well said jeff flock we will be back shortly thank you very much get to jobs' report came in, what -- the

news is, 156,000 jobs created. capital markets with me now. >> adp, 156,000 doesn't make it. >> you know you are still going to see 3% growth for third quarter regardless of the jobs' report unfortunately, of course, there is going to be a little bit of a feblth on economic activity because of the storm in texas. >> i am now disappointed pessimist you are the on the

mist. >> i am optimistic in the sense that i like this type of growth, we had steady growth noninflationary i think we can take this unemployment 4.4%, all the way down to 1/2% and not pay a price in terms of higher inflation. >> that is important. >> 36,000 new manufacturing jobs, that is a bright spot. >> hiring, people don't necessarily 4 to take a job at discount chain or they don't have to work at restaurant, they can make real money in manufacturing, and hopefully advance from this. 3% growth in second quarter, are we going up from there to rest of the year into next year. >> i think going to see 3% third quarter for the final quarter this year you know start getting boost from the rebuilding in houston perhaps we stay close to 3% for the final quarter with interest

rates going no place so long as they go no place a good chance we will get an upside surprise in terms of economic growth 2018. >> what would be get if news of a tax cut this year. >> just rein for those the oddsing favoring growth at least 3% going forward. >> okay. >> i think the biggest thing from washington reduce regulation, i think that is providing the bigger help to the economy than many had anticipated. >> all right redeemed yourself thanks for joining us stay there more on you coming up okay. i want to get to the critical issue of gas prize now in the future, what you are looking at colonial pipeline news on that i believe may be reopening this weekend that is real good news. intermittent east of houston louisiana this is a pipeline that is too big to fail half the price spike thursday in

gas prices came from price line, what he they are talking about don't want gas panic lines on labor day weekend fighting to reopen it for by sunday here is the problem, a lot of this fuel from that pipeline georgia carolinas west virginia virginia, so you see north carolina declaring stfrjr stjts vr statedch emergency georgia asking a aware of from epa to get fuel trucks into the state to deliver gas from this pipeline. >> you know why doing it i-95 main link from northeast to florida goes right through the carolinas and georgia, you got to have fuel for the labor day weekend. >> exactly right. >> north carolina north carolina. >> so carolinas west virginia virginia georgia heavily served other pipelines fuel

supplies new york we get it. >> more on this the price of wholesale gas spiked more than 10% different story today, come in michael cohn, head of energy markets research future price likely down a bit is this because the pipeline should reopen this weekend? and the states stfrj to get fuel? >> in part i think day-to-day changes from yesterday today are related to positioning let's focus on good news yesterday where we go from here, important thing to understand is that refineries in the governmental operating almost one hundred percent capacity. through the course of this summer demanded strong so now of you taken out a quarter of capacity still sometime before we get refineries back up to full capacity even though colonial pipeline maybe back up and running if no fuel to put into it, it is going to

case problems across the board not just in east coast but across u.s. across the

stuart: so they could rescue the dogs and cats. we saw it throughout the morning. we even saw a turtle, a givenny pig or two. rewe really do cover it all on "varney & company." how about j.j. watt from the houston texans? he's raised $13 million through his social media campaign. remember, his original goal just a couple of days ago was a mere $200,000. not to be outdone, the dallas cowboys holding a telethon for the salvation army pledging for harvey relief. jerry jones, the man on the left, called in with a big donation. watch this. >> now, let me say this, this is jerry jones of the cowboys, okay? >> hey, mr. jones. >> every time i get you on the phone or talk to you, it costs me a lot of money. [laughter] how many million dollar contributions have you had tonight? >> i haven't had not one of those. >> you got one now, buddy. >> oh, yes, sir. we got a million over here. it's time to rethink what's possible.

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stuart: the news this morning was that some people are going back to their homes on houston. on the left-hand side of your screen, that is what they're going back to: piles of their own turn churn and wall board furniture and wall board piled outside, they're inside trying to clean up. big news is they are back, and the clean-up has started. and now this, the coastal elites -- i'm going to say they detest texas. i don't think that's an exaggeration. a lot of criticism in the media today blaming houston itself and texas itself for the storm. rampant capitalism, rapid development and, after all, houston is the center of fossil fuels, and that is blamed for global warming, is it not? charles hurt joins us now. all right, charles -- [laughter] let me see that smile, please. >> good morning, stuart: stuart: i've got to see that smile. progressives, they just have contempt for texas, and it comes right out, doesn't it?

>> it really does. and, you know, the idea that they could take a situation like this and the first stint is -- instinct is to make it political, it is so disgusting. and it's why people, they despise the left, and they despise politicians in general, because, you know, to look at these amazing rescues, as you point out, these people rescuing people's dogs. they don't even know these people. they're rescuing their dogs, their guinea pigs? and to somehow sandwich in politics there, it really is appalling. stuart: yeah. now watch this, charles. we've got kellyanne conway going head to head with cnn anchor chris cuomo over climate change. just watch this. >> whether or not what happened in harvey and why it's happening and why these storms happen open up a discussion about the role of climate change. is the president, is the administration open to that conversation? >> chris, we're trying to help the people whose lives are

literally underwater, and you want to have a conversation about climate change. >> imagine if we could figure out why a 100-year storm seems to happen every other year. >> you play amateur climatologist tonight, and i will play professional helper to those in need. stuart: by the way, mr. cuomo is totally wrong. research show it is frequency and intensity of hurricanes has not changed since 1900, and the frequency and intensity of floods has not changed since 1950. but he's determined to get climate change in there somewhere. >> yeah. because, of course, stuart, climate change, that's the sort of end-all and be-all of all politics for these people. it's their religion, everything they believe in. i love how kellyanne got many there calling him an amateur climatologist, that's a great crown for him to wear. stuart: do you think the media will ever give texas and the president credit for the job they've done in dealing with harvey? >> no, because i honestly do

believe so many of these people, they view every situation in terms of the federal government is the answer to every problem. and what we're seeing with all of that footage down there around houston is that, actually, the federal government can do very little to help people, and the only help that's immediately there are neighbors and strangers and people from other states who gas up their boats, load 'em onto the trailers behind their trucks and haul them in and set out there on their own to save people. that is -- and it is a beautiful sight, and it is what makes america great. it's that kind of, that volunteerism and not sitting around waiting for the federal government to either prevent something from happening or to come and fix a problem. it isn't the answer to every problem. and these people can't fathom the idea that the federal government isn't the answer to every problem. stuart: real fast, charles, president wants a $6 billion aid package, kind of a down payment on the big aid package that has to come. he should get that through

fairly quickly, shouldn't he? >> i think without any doubt whatsoever. you know, nothing brings politicians together like spending must money, and i think you'll get buy-in from democrats and republicans on that. stuart: and you can't load it up like a christmas tree, i don't think you can anyway. [laughter] >> not this one, but we'll see about the next one. stuart: come back soon. on the left-hand side of your screen, the ford motor company just out with their latest figures. thinker -- their sales were down 2.1% year-over-year. the stock's still at $11 per share. ford sales down. now we have another hurricane to monitor, irma. it's a category three right now, it's in the atlantic. janice dean is tracking it, and she will join us next. later in the program, the man known as mattress mac joins us again. he's become a kind of folk hero in texas for opening his store to evacuees. now they want to name a state holiday in his honor.

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♪ ♪ stuart: now hurricane i many, janice dean -- irma, janice dean, tell us where it is and where it's going. >> reporter: it's out in the atlantic, so we have a few days to wait, stuart. obviously, it's going to be one of the strongest storms we have seen this season, maybe perhaps in several seasons as it is anticipated to strengthen as it continues its westward track across the atlantic. now, the steering, what is going to keep this storm to the south and west, area of high pressure. we call in the bermuda high. if it's strong, it's going to keep this storm on a westward track, remaining southward. if it weakens and there's a weakness in the high and we have a trough that moves across the east coast, then it has the, you know, the direction of maybe curving it a little bit towards the north and east. there is the possibility that it curves right out to sea which would be an excellent case scenario. but here's the reliable forecast

model, very strong hurricane moving very close to the lesser antilles, puerto rico, dominican republic, cuba, the bahamas. if you're or planning a trip in the bahamas, you need to watch this storm. east coast also needs to watch this. september 10th, we've got a little more than a week and change to watch this. watching this, and these computer models are in consensus right now with what we think is going to happen in the next 5-7 days. there's the gfs, and it curves it more towards the north. however, we still need to watch the east coast, florida and the gulf coast because this time yesterday we were talking about the potential for the storm to go into the gulf of mexico. so these are both models right now, stuart, as we get into friday/saturday, pretty good agreement on where we're dealing with this. will it curve out to sea or to impact the east coast? still yet to be determined. we need everyone to make a preparation plan, and we will watch this. stuart: quickly, janice, my phone tells me there's more rain

coming at some point in the next few days to houston. is that true? accurate? >> reporter: it's possible. we do have the potential for showers and thunderstorms in the gulf of mexico. but yesterday we were talking about a system, a potential system impacting the gulf coast. right now the national hurricane center's saying, no, for the next five days we look to be in good shape. there's always going to be a chance of a thunderstorm along the gulf coast in the summertime, getting into the fall. but for now, no tropical systems in the gulf. stuart: thank you very much, janice dean, we'll talk to you again shortly. i want to go to grif jenkins, he's been right in do middle of the -- in the middle of the rescue operations. what do you have for me and where are you, by the way? >> reporter: i'm south of houston along the brazos river. it is one of the major concerns right now because it is expected to reach a more than 100-year record. last memorial day the it flooded communities at 54.7 feet when it crested. now around noon it's expected to

hit 56. and behind me one of the communities, kingdom heights. we're about half a mile above north of the brazos river, and the community behind me is literally trapped in between the northern higher ground and that river which is continuing to rise and overflow. you see they're having trouble getting supplies in. stuart, it's the first of the month. people are getting their bills, they're short on supplies, so it's a community that's having a lot of trouble. and even though the sun's been out for a few days, this water behind me gets as deep as 10 feet just a but hundred yards in. in fact, i'm here joined -- corporal, come over here for one second. the state trooper thes, the sheriffs' deputy, they're all here. corp.al david -- corporal david stewart, i want you to share with all of your colleagues that you have the admiration and the gratitude of the entire nation with your work. and i have seen it firsthand, so

thank you. >> yes, sir, thank you. >> reporter: corporal, this road behind me, you helped us navigate. people can get into trouble very quickly, and we still could see deaths in trapped vehicles. tell us the dangers of what you're trying to warn people about. >> yes, sir. well, one of the bigger dangers now is you really don't know what's under that water. the road could be gone, or you just never know. it's not that your car could float off, but the road just may not be there. you just have to be real careful with the roads you go on. >> reporter: and when you get into that water, it can be a hard to get out of your hard, water comes in, it could be fatal. >> yes, sir. yes, sir, very dangerous. very dangerous. >> reporter: well, there you have it, stuart. the authorities here still working, most of them -- [audio difficulty] as we watch. we're going to try and connect with the sheriff here and get a little closer look. we can't get on that river, it's far too treacherous, but we're going to see these communities like the one behind me, kingdom

heights, that's trapped in. interestingly enough, just an anecdote, just behind me an advertisement to lure people to the kingdom heights neighborhood. the motto is live on a lake. i don't think this is what they meant. stuart: take that sign down. thanks so much, grif jenkins. it is 9:30 eastern time, and the market has just opened. we're expecting it to open higher. did we? yes, we did. 28 points up in the first few seconds of business. look at the level, 21,979. you're awfully close to 22,000 all over again. so you've got a gain for the dow before they all open up of about .17%. let's have a look at the s&p 500. is it a broad-based move up? i believe it is. the s&p at point is -- i'll get you, i promise, i'll get you there. yes, got it. we're up .19%. how about the nasdaq? the home of the technology companies. i'll bet that's up. had a nice gain yesterday, another quarter percentage point up today. stocks friday morning opening

higher. who's with me? ashley webster, elizabeth macdonald and jeff sica and john lonski -- >> ashley's out. stuart: yes, that was an old script. ashley's out, slacker. [laughter] good luck to you, ashley, wherever you are. >> we want you to be here, but you're not. stuart: let's talk resilience, shall we? no matter what you throw at the market, it seems to bounce right back. look who's here. jeff sica -- [laughter] >> talk about resilient. i keep coming back. stuart: you're coming back for more. [laughter] it is resilient. you throw anything at this thing, and it goes up. >> yeah. it is resilient, but one thing we have to realize is this market has embraced the bad news is good news scenario. what the market is ultimately concerned about right now is how the fed is going to react, is the fed going to continue to keep interest rates low. and when you have things like the tragedy of the hurricane, north korea, all the geopolitical unrest and the delays we have in congress, that

is all bad news. but bad news is good news, and that's driving the market. stuart: and we're up 47 points, just four points away from 22,000. john lonski, you're an economist. what do you make of the federal reserve in light of what i think is a disappointing jobs report, only 156,000 jobs. that means no big rate increases from the fed, is that it? >> exactly. fed funds futures, i think, has it right. there's perhaps nothing higher than a 35% chance that we get another rate hike in 2017. who knows what's going to happen in 2018. inflation's going no place. my goodness, we have this very low unemployment rate of 4.4%, yet we're looking at wage growth annually 2.5. in the past we'd get wage growth of 3.5-4%. stuart: no inflation, it's not there. >> core inflation less than 1.5%. this is incredible. stuart: okay. two-and-a-half minutes in, we're up 34 points. general motors, i think they've

just come out with sales figure, up 7.5% year-over-year. the stock's hit 36, nearly $37 a share. earlier we brought you ford where sales were down, and that stock was dead flat at 11. fiat chrysler, their sales down, but they're subject to thing possibility of a merger/takeover with a chinese automaker. that's still out there, and the stock is up $15 a share. okay, got it. now, i've got to talk about the nasdaq. 45th record close this calendar year. that's where it was yesterday. under normal circumstances, we talk about the big tech names every day, but this is a broad-based technology indicator, and it's up another 20 points today. good news on the technology front, john. >> definitely good news. you know, world leaders in technology, that's going to continue to lead the u.s. economy x. that's one of the reasons why we could be sanguine about the outlook. stuart: i'm looking at the big tech stocks, facebook up this morning, amazon is up this

morning, google's up, apple is up. they're doing well, jeff. >> here's where i'm uncomfortable with this. you have five stocks that are making up almost 50% of the gains. so we have a lot of investors piling into these five stocks. yes, we do have moves in the other stocks, the indexes are moving, but the discrepancy between the haves and the have nots and nasdaq and the rest of the s&p 500 concerns me greatly. stuart: okay. but that's where the money is flowing. >> all the money is flowing into -- stuart: and i notice apple going up as you march towards september 12th and new iphone -- >> to your point, look at the manufacturing jobs. just in the computer tech sector too. manufacturing jobs came in really strong at 36,000, construction jobs 28,000. so that's with buoying the indices all into the green right now. stuart: that's it, the 36,000 -- >> solid, solid numbers in manufacturing and construction. >> and let's not forget, these tech companies are global leaders. and, you know, as a result we're seeing faster growth in the world economy, and that should

improve their prospects. stuart: all right. now, let's talk about the price of gas, because that's -- that was the market, the gasoline market, that's the market that moved this past week. overnight we saw a seven-cent-per-gallon hike in the national average. this is not a spike that's just restricted to the texas area, this is all across the country. we're seeing a rapid rise in prices. seven cents higher, $2.51. but if you look at wholesale gas, we've moved from one contract to another, and the wholesale price of gas -- that's what you will be pay anything the future -- is actually down a bit today. the pipelines are reopening. >> i mean, it is an american pastime to focus on gas prices. so we're coming into the labor day weekend, and the colonial pipeline which is too big to fail saying they will be back online by sunday. it is supplying intermittently gas right now to the eastern section of the pipeline. stuart: and if you're traveling up and down i-95 on your way to or from florida this holiday

weekend, in the state of -- is it north carolina? >> correct, state of emergency. stuart: why? nothing to do with the weather. they're trucking in gasoline to make sure all the gas stations are fully stocked. right? >> yeah. and georgia's moving that way too, getting the epa to lift it. stuart: how about that? check that big board, we're now six minutes into the trading session, friday morning. we're up 34 points as we speak. strong sales at lululemon -- haven't heard much from the yoga pants industry these days -- [laughter] but they raised their forecast -- >> it's the yoga pant indicator, there you go. [laughter] stuart: well done, lizzie. politics, watch out. only 12 days for congress to get anything done. that's the 12 days when the house and the senate meet at the same time. can they accomplish tax reform as well as the shot in the arm for harvey relief, the $6 billion package that the president wants? jeff? >> here's the problem i have, they cannot tie the two together. tax reform is a political issue.

it needs to happen, it's imperative, and hurricane relief is a human issue affecting the lives of people. they can't, there can't be this cross-negotiation of trading incentives tax relief and -- stuart: but a $6 billion package, only a $6 billion package -- >> it'll come up. stuart: should go fast -- >> let me just push back on that. george w. bush administration, 2001, dealing with 9/11 they had a laser focus on tax cuts. to the point where dick cheney stepped in to do the deciding vote to make tax cuts happen. the administration needs a laser focus like the george w. bush administration had on tax cuts to get growth going. stuart: okay, hold on a second. the overall cost of harvey, lonski, they pit at, what, $160 billion. is this a negative for the overall economy in the third and fourth quarters of this year? >> i think it's a positive -- stuart: a positive? >> yeah, 2017 -- [inaudible conversations] >> rebuilding.

stuart: economically good? >> you saw that furniture, the ruined furniture out in the streets. all of that's going to have to be replaced. a lot of construction -- >> auto sales. >> auto sales, exactly. very helpful for the auto industry in the united states. clear them of excess inventory. stuart: we have a guest later in the show who says that 500,000 cars were destroyed. >> uh-huh. stuart: that's a nice market for replacement vehicles. >> it is, right. it gives these automakers a nice temporary lift. stuart: and there is some suggestion that people can use the money from their 401(k)s and their iras without penalty if they use it to recover from the flood. that's stimulative. >> yeah. there's one concern i have right now is the amount of people that don't have flood insurance or in houston, texas. that is a major concern. i own real estate in houston, texas. there's a lot of people when you talk about consumer spending, there's a lot of people in what's been a very, very strongly performing economy in houston that might cut back on

spending because they have to pay for things that insurance -- >> well, wait a second. look, after hurricane sandy auto sales popped 4% in the month after -- 49% in the month after that in the new york area. stuart: did they? >> yes. stuart: i didn't know that. >> people said, you know what? our cars are wiped out, we need to get our kids to school. to john's point, sales could pop. stuart: okay. could be stimulative. >> right. >> yeah. i'm looking at hurricane katrina. you know, we briefly had jobs growth slow down, 75,000 jobs for september and october, therefore jobs were growing by 260,000 per month. so this can be, over time, quite a spurt of economic activity. stuart: we're on the verge of hitting 22,000 again. we're at 21,994 and change. i'm doing the a math, that looks to me like about seven points away from 22,000 on the dow industrials. i'm not sure when we last hit

22k, but we're awfully close again this friday morning despite all that's going on in the background. we have some positive economic news. we've got a 3% growth rate for the second quarter, announced earlier this week. yesterday we had 237,000 new jobs in the private sector reported by adp. today a disappointing overall jobs number, disappointing to me at least. but 36,000 new manufacturing jobs last month, and that's a nice spike in well-paid jobs. anything to add? >> yeah, you know -- stuart: 22,000, there we go. 22,000 exactly on the dow, up 50 points. sorry, lizzie. >> 120 away from a record. this report is usually funky because you've got auto industry furloughs with plants, you've got students quitting their jobs to go back to school, teachers come anything and out of jobs. -- coming in and out of jobs. i would say take it with a grain of salt. there is that positive with manufacturing and construction jobs coming in strong. >> we have low unemployment, low

inflation, perhaps the market doesn't fully appreciate how much upside potential there is for growth in the united states without having to pay the price of faster price inflation. stuart: all right. jeff sica has been known to issue a couple of bearish ideas in his lifetime. i mean, on occasion on this program you've turned and said it's time to get cautious. >> yeah. stuart: where do you stand now? >> you have to be cautious -- stuart: all investors -- >> embrace the optimism, it's wonderful. but the bottom line here is that if we don't get the tax cuts when it comes to the jobs report and when it comes to all this economic progress we've made based on the rhetoric, if we don't get the tax cuts, we are going to stall. the market is not showing the level of resilience that it's been, that it's shown in the past. to me, it seems awfully flat most of the time. and the bottom line? the tax cuts are imperative. without them we're not going to move forward. and if we get them, i'm going to probably do a back flip here,

i'm going to be so happy. if we don't get them, it's all the rhetoric. stuart: by the way, gary cohn -- the point man in the administration for getting it organized -- he's on our program in, what, i guess about 20 minutes, 25 minutes' time. he'll be on this show, and he will talk about tax cuts, and i'll put it to him. we going to get it this year? he'll answer the question. see how we go. 21,996 for the i dow industrials. let me go through a couple of stocks that are moving today. apple, they've got the new iphone coming out on september 12th. the stock price is going up as we approach that date. it's gone up consistently. it's at $164 at the moment, 164.50. awfully close to its all-time high. we've got facebook moving up today, i'm sorry, facebook is dead flat today. but it's -- no, it's up slightly. it's at the 172 level now. full recovery there. microsoft hit an all-time high yesterday. it's only backed off by 20 cents this morning. google's at 955, apple at 164.

so the big tech names, they're holding right in there very close to all-time record highs. by the way, i've got general motors at $37 a share this morning. their sales were up year-over-year. that's a change there. who have we got with, please? lori rothman at the new york stock exchange. what do you have for me? >> reporter: well, stuart, i wanted to show you some of the big material stocks, in particular how they've performed since monday given the devastation in houston season and the gulf coast. obviously, goes without saying so much rebuilding is about to happen. here's a look at the performance of names like eagle material, up one-half of 1%, vulcan materials, little changed, just down three cents. martin marietta, this is the company that provides crushed stone, sand, gravel to residences as well as businesses. it's down about a half a percent, and u.s. concrete there up 1.5%. this is, according to many analysts now, the costliest natural disaster in u.s.

history. the damage total at $190 billion, stuart. stuart: okay, we've got it. thanks very much, indeed, lori, at the new york stock exchange. around the block. one week ago, friday of last week, we were just getting the grim details about the impending harvey storm that was going to hit, at that time a week ago, going to hit texas. well, it hit. who among us thought that on this friday morning, one week later, we'd be at 22,000 on the dow jones industrial average? lonski? [laughter] >> well, it's a surprise. and i think, you know, a lot of the good news again, we're seeing growth in consumer spending, growth in jobs. as i said previously, all of this is taking place in the context of contained inflation. and i'm getting back to the point that we have a lot of upside potential left in this economy, we need not worry about a disruptive -- by interest rates that otherwise might harm financial markets and slow -- stuart: you are surprised. [laughter]

>> you know what? the market is the fear of the absurd to me. i feel like a spectator in it. [laughter] the bottom line is i'm happy for the bulls. i've been cautious on it for quite a while. i'm willing to admit that. but you know what? sooner or later we need to get something real to back this. i think low interest rates have driven the market. some of us on one end of the table believe that excess liquidity is going to lead to future problems. other people think that the more liquidity the better. i'm of the belief that we have something ominous on the horizon, and people have to get cautious. >> what's going to spark it? >> i think they're going to feel the need to raise interest rates at some point, and that raise, that increase in interest rates is going to affect the psychology of markets. and a lot of investors that have piled into these top five stocks are going to run for the door at once. and my concern is always with the regular investor who's got their 401(k) who believes all the, you know, that this is going to last forever. nine years of a bull market,

they need to be cautious. stuart: please remember you're talking to me. [laughter] i've got a 401(k), and i've got a ton of microsoft -- >> and he's been around forever. stuart: you think i'm running for the hills? >> i would never tell anyone to run for the hills, but there comes a point where you have to look at the fact that markets don't go up forever, and maybe it makes sense to be a little more cautious and a little less optimistic -- stuart: what do i put the money -- where do i put the money if i cash in all that stock? where do i put the money? >> there's things like real estate -- stuart: no, it's in my 401(k). i can't invest in real estate. >> well, that's true. stuart: that is true. [laughter] >> cash. stuart: .25%. >> i know, there's nothing wrong with cash and waiting. there's nothing wrong with having some patience because at some point there will be an opportunity. stuart: are you coming back? [laughter] >> as long as they pay the dividend, that's what matters. stuart: thank you. i've got a 2% dividend at $74 a share. i'm going to sit with it. >> most investors are so heavily

invested in stocks now that there's no bond opportunities. so everybody is all in, and when people are all in, that's when everybody heads for the door at once. stuart: okay, sica, look at the screen. can you see that bottom right-hand corner? that's 22,009. we're up 61 points, that's a quarter of 1%. >> if i keep talking, it's going to -- [laughter] stuart: this thing goes up. don't go. [laughter] all right, thanks very much. let's get back to a little politics. congressman brian babbin is with us in woodville, texas. he's a republican from texas and a frequent guest on this program. i believe where you are is about an hour and a half outside of houston, and you represent the 36th congressional district. brian, welcome back to the program, it's good to see you, sir. >> hey, great to see you, stuart. thank you so much for spreading the news around, because we need it over here as badly as anyone in the country. stuart: i want to ask you about the president's proposal for a $6 billion down payment on the

aid package coming from congress. i can't see anybody who's going to be opposed to that low level of funding, just $6 billion. is there any roadblocks you can see? >> i don't see any roadblock for this supplemental like that. i think certainly this is going to to be the first of several bills, maybe two, maybe three. we'll find that out, you know, next week. but we just need some hard numbers, and we don't have hard numbers right now. just heard, in fact, on your own show i heard a figure of $190 billion will be the final cost of this thing. but $6 billion will certainly replenish fema which is depleted because -- and the short-term infusion of funding. it will also include not only fema, but sba for small business loans to help in our recovery. stuart: that's good. >> so, absolutely, i think it's hard to imagine any of my

colleagues voting against that. stuart: sir, we know in some parts of the houston area the waters have receded, some parts of houston are now at least dry, the water's gone away many some parts. in some parts. what's it like in your area? >> the water is receding here as well but, quite frankly, stuart, we are still doing rescues here in southeast texas. i represent part of houston, but my district runs all the way over to louisiana and up about 100 miles into what we call deep east texas. and quite frankly, out of my nine counties we've had between 30 and 51 inches of rain across every single square inch of it. so we are still rescuing people, believe it or not. i will, i'm so happy to report the sun is shining here, and it started yesterday. we're very, very happy to see that. but we're trying to get stranded folks out. we've, we've got my staff spread

out around the county, i mean, all these counties here in my district. we're bringing some staffers down from my washington office to spread out around here, and we're helping get resources to emergency shelters that had no supplies or resources, food and water. we took some over to jasper county and tyler county yesterday, and we'll be fanning out across the district today and over the next probably several weeks. stuart: well, congressman, i've got to say that our hearts go out to those people who are returning to their homes today. sometimes, of course, they'll return to absolutely nothing there. most others will return to pretty grim conditions. if anybody in our audience has ever lived through a flood and they've got a flooded basement or a flooded living room, you'll know that recovery is extremely difficult, and it takes a very long time. so, congressman, our hearts go out to you and your constituents who are suffering as they return

to their homes. >> well, neighbors are helping neighbors down here. and i, it's just so heartening to see that. i witnessed it firsthand over the last week and especially yesterday as we're starting this recovery. stuart: sir, can i just quickly ask have you any idea what fema will do with those people who were evacuated and they don't have a place to go back to? >> oh, we're going to -- we'll have temporary shelters. this is not our first ball -- our first rodeo down here, stuart. we will get these people in temporary shelters whether it be temporary habitations or recreational vehicles or trailers of some sort. we'll have these folks squared away down here who are out of their homes. many of them have water up to the roofs, literally up to the roofs. and so we'll, we're going to be working extremely hard, diligently not only at government. i don't want to sound like the

government, we're all dependent upon the government down here. but we certainly are looking for everything that the government can help with. we have our churches, charitable organizations, and, you know, i would urge people across this country to contribute to relief organizations because that's what americans are real good at doing. give to the red cross, salvation army, samaritan's purse, your local church or synagogue. hundreds of employers are matching their employees' relief contributions. so that's what it's going to take, stuart. stuart: excellent stuff. brian babbin, congressman, 36th congressional district, thanks for joining us. >> thank you, stuart. stuart: let's go straight to grif jenkins. he's onboard an airboat, is that right? i love those things. to the rescue -- >> reporter: we are in that community, kingdom mights, that i told you about -- kingdom heights, that i told you about. sheriff, we're literally in a community that has been sealed

off between the rising brazos river in the northern part of the county. tell us what, as we take a look at this community, david, just show them what are we looking at? tell us about this. >> we're on the western side of fort bend county. this is fm-723. the brazos river is just beyond us, so all that water's flowing in this direction. right now as of this morning we're a little bit over 55 feet. they are now projecting models at about 57 feet at the crest. which now they're saying is sometime tomorrow. so we're going to go back here up into this neighborhood off of cummings road and assess the damage back there, make sure that there are no people that have been left behind or animals, things like that. >> reporter: sheriff, this is -- our viewers are looking at an entire community that is underwater, and we understand there are actually some that chose to stay behind. are you worried about them?

are you in communication with them? >> yes. yesterday afternoon, as a matter of fact, after you all left we ended up saving a grandma out of a home, evacuating her. and she stayed back in that home for four days. unbelievable. i call her texas' toughest grandma because i don't know what she was doing in that home. hopefully, we don't find anybody back in here, but we certainly need to do another sweep. >> reporter: sheriff, we just saw -- and wish i would have caught it on camera, i'm sure we'll see another, but we saw an alligator by our boat. a real alligator. >> yes. you have a lot of alligators in and out of that brazos river x now that it's overflowed, you're going to see probably some more wildlife in the next few hours out here, of course. >> reporter: and speaking of wildlife, not only deer, but this is certainly, i'm guessing, rural farming area. people must have cows, must have, you know, farm animals, horses. tell me about that problem. >> that's clear, you've got the kingdom heights subdivision

behind us, obviously, several hundred home, and then all of a sudden you're into some farmland a. that's what really makes up the west side of the county. test a combination of communities -- it's a combination of communities and farmland together. >> reporter: it's just stunning, stuart, to look, you're looking at literally mailboxes submerged, homes absolutely underwater. and, of course, as we spoke in the last hit, we were talking about the dangers out here. sheriff, as far as you know, have you had any close calls with people being stuck in water or anything here in the last 24? >> no, we haven't. we were back here about two days ago and rescued several animals off of cummings road. right now we need to come back and do a complete sweep of this area to make sure that there is no one back here, no one is in their home. >> reporter: all right. well, there you go, stuart. we're going to continue surveying this and bring it to you. we're, again, with sheriff troy nails of fort bend county, one of the hardest hit in the coming

next 24 hours because of the flooding of the brazos river. stuart? stuart: great stuff. just keep me away from the snakes and the alligators, please. thank you very much, indeed, grif jenkins. nobody likes that. look at this, an estimated half million cars destroyed by harvey. joining us now by phone, vir jill skinner -- virgil skinner, former chair of the automobile dealers' association. if you've got a half million cars destroyed, i've got to believe there's a very strong demand for replacements. it should be a great business to be in, isn't it? >> stuart, it certainly will. and it'll be a pleasure to help everyone that's been devastated by this flood. the houston area auto dealers are reeling from it as well. we have a number of stores that are totally wiped out from the flood. many of them are, have employees that are stranded all over the city, and they can't even get in to work. stuart: well, are you going to

ship in cars from outside of the state? >> absolutely. the manufacturers have already started that process, and they started it early on. many particular with us in kia -- in particular with us in kia, kia executives were in touch with me throughout the entire event monitoring what was going on and what demand might be needed. as you can imagine, a city the size of houston and automobiles is second to their home -- stuart: yeah. >> and without it they can't do anything. they can't go to the grocery store or anything else. so we can't repair flood-damaged cars as quickly as we can replace them, obviously. stuart: well, that's my question, virgil. look, i'm not much of a mechanic, but i would have thought once a car is submerged in that revolting water, that it's pretty much a writeoff, isn't it? >> it is. if the water gets up to the dash level on any of those cars, they're going to be total losses. and insurance adjustors will quickly make that decision. allowing us to move on with replacing the car or repairing

it. stuart: so when you say that, i mean, there is this report of a half million cars destroyed. that's a half million cars flooded out, and you can't repair 'em. >> well, we -- yes. if they're totally destroyed, they can't be repaired. they'll have to be salvaged. stuart: okay. >> like i said, there's 180 new and used car dealers in the houston metro market not including -- stuart: how many of those 180 are actually still open for business as of now? >> we have approximately 85%, 90% open today. we did a survey yesterday of all the dealers. i think we had 18 stores that are closed and severe damage both in inventory and the facility. and there are probably another suck or seven that we have -- six or seven that we have not been able to communicate with that are likely damaged as well. stuart: extraordinary. virgil, you've got your work cut out for you.

thanks very much for joining us with a very important report. we appreciate that. thank you very much, indeed, sir. eighteen minutes into the session, we're up 48 points, right around the 22,000 level. despite it all, that's where we are. that's where we are. okay. e. mac, what have you got? >> yeah. we've got the first big slug of money going towards hurricane harvey victims. it will be $5.9 billion, half a billion goes to small businesses. again, the first big, major push for funding, immediate funding to go to harvey out of -- it's coming out of the white house. now, what the white house is saying, look, get it done. whatever you've got to do, if you've got to wrap it into the debt ceiling or the budget, whatever your first legislative vehicle is, do it. get it done, get it roped in there. and i have to say there's 21,000 federal workers on the ground including the pentagon at hhs, two dozen federal agencies also

helping out as well. stuart: good stuff, elizabeth. thank you very much, indeed. the left finds fault with houston. the progressives, houston has itself to blame as the misery in texas rolls out. the coastal elites are saying, texas, it's your fault. my take on that, moments away. all right. i'll do it right now, how about that? >> you will? stuart: yes, i will. >> so excited. [laughter] stuart: the left is making two arguments where they find fault with houston. again, i'm going to repeat this. to progressives, houston has itself to blame. as the misery rolls in, the coastal elites are saying, texas, it's your fault. it's unbelievable. listen to this. they make two arguments. first, houston's rapid development trampled on wetlands and prairies so not enough drainage. and there's just not enough regulation either. that's a what they're saying. well, a mountain of regulation didn't help the new york area when it was hit by superstorm

sandy, and i suspect that no amount of planning could have alleviated houston's biblical 500-year flood. second, houston is the center of the fossil fuel industry, oil and gas, which progressives believe is a big factor in global warming. therefore, the flood is houston's fault. i guess it was inevitable. the climate warriors have to get their two cents in, but they ignore all the research which shows there has been no increase in the frequency or intensity of hurricanes since 1900 and no increase in the frequency or intensity of floods since 1950. no. what's really going on here is jealousy and cultural contempt. the coastal elites cannot stand houston's success. new york and california are hemorrhaging middle class people. they're leaving, fed up with high taxes, high costs and throttling regulation. a lot of them are going to texas. the left does not like a capitalist success. and the left really detests the public display of religion in

the rescue effort. and they seem confused by the volunteers who poured in with non-government help. ordinary people helping each other. religious people thank god, in public! the progressives can't handle it. so ignore them. they've dominated our culture for a generation. time's up. god bless you, texas. the second hour of "varney & company" is about to begin. ♪ ♪ stuart: all right. let's get right at it. from the white house, gary cohn, national economic council director. gary? welcome back. it's good to see you again, sir. >> good to see you too, stuart. good morning. and my prayers also go out to all those people in houston and louisiana for what they're going through. stuart: yes, sir. thank you very much, indeed, for that. we appreciate that. now, president trump talks of a middle class tax cut. that's what he talked about the other day in missouri.

does that mean that the top 1% won't get a cut in their taxes? >> that is what the president's talking about. what the president spent his time on and what we've been working on here in the white house is a middle class tax cut. he talked about simplifying the tax system, and he talked about getting rid of loopholes. the middle class doesn't take advantage of the loopholes, the wealthy takes advantage of the loopholes. so when he talks about getting rid of loopholes, he's talking about areas where the wealthy have used the tax code to their advantage to lower their taxes while the middle class does not have the advantage to take care of those loopholes. so that's exactly what the president has been talking about. stuart: well, does that mean that there will be no cut in the top rate of income tax for individuals? >> stuart, there may be a cut, and that hasn't been decided yet, but there may be a cut in the actually rate. but remember, it's the effective rate. it's what percent of your income do you actually pay. so what we're trying to do by

cutting out all the loopholes is get you to pay on a bigger swath of your income. so we're trying to broaden the base even for individuals, especially the top payers, and have you pay on a bigger percentage of your income. so if we lower the rate just a little bit but have you pay on a lot more of your income, your effective rate is going up, and that's what we're looking at. a. if you clawback some tax money with fewer loopholes, is that

still stimulative to the economy? >> it is stimulative to the economy but stimulation will have businesses in america. no longer at a tax disadvantage by being in america. where stimulation comes, and competing for workers by paying wages and higher wages to get them to leave the job to get to the new job, that is where we create real stimulus. >> you are talking about a cut in the top corporate tax rate, 34%. will we get it to 15% or 20%? >> the president wants us to work to do what we can to get 15. we will try to get as low as we can. ibly1 i know you will say yes, i understand that but are you

going to get this done? a tax cut this year. >> we are spending 100% of our time on the economic side on taxes and on harvey and other things but on the economic side, 100% on taxes and tax reform, tax simplification. the most important thing to do to drive the economy and economic growth and prosperity, and wages and that is what the president promised. ibly1 will you change the deductibility of mortgage interest? >> no. we want homeownership in america. and retirement savings, those are 3 improvements. >> they are deductible, everyone

is worried stiff that you will not allow them to be deductible because they take a huge hit from that. >> that is clearly on the table when the president talked about simplification of the tax code and closing loopholes, that is one of the simplifying effects and one of the loopholes on the table. ibly1 would you -- the gossip is, i will label it correctly, the gossip is come you are laughing, know what is coming, you are only staying in this administration to get tax-cut done. is that accurate? >> tax cuts are really important to me. it is a once in a lifetime opportunity. we haven't done tax cut in 31 years. to be part of an administration to get something done that hasn't been done for 30 years is enormously challenging and interesting to me. i'm very excited about being part of that team that is able to work on something that

important to our economy and the citizens of the country. ibly1 i think you have broken some news and i will wrap it up and see if i got it right. you propose a cut in the corporate tax rate, you want to get to 15% or 20%, cut the top rate of personal income taxes, not much, clawback a lot, fewer loopholes and most important of all, you are considering ending the deductibility of state and local taxes. is that all correct? >> all those things are on the table. ibly1 do you want to add anything? >> that is a good start. ibly1 thank you for joining us. thank you. jeff seeker is with me. the people of new york and california or massachusetts and new jersey and connecticut are horrified by that, gary cohen is talking about you can no longer

deduct state and local taxes, that is a hit. >> this tax cut is geared towards the middle-class. i'm happy to hear that. gary:is the man for the job. you ask if he is going to stay, it is imperative, there are other main points he made. first, i don't think he will get much bipartisan support. he has to push it through the way it is, not over compromise with the democrats. stuart: he should be able to get republicans on board with a pretty middle-of-the-road cut. >> my worry is how they define middle-class. there is a different opinion who the middle-class is. >> they can get through, new economist polls congress has an approval rating of single-digit 8%. stuart: the proposal gary cohn

just outlined, lower top rate, clawback a ton from loopholes endings. liz: chuck schumer in new york state, will he go for the abolishment of the state tax, they have a fight, explaining trickle-down economics and why corporate tax cut helps job creation. we had trickle-down government the last eight years so why not try it this way, put money back in people's pockets. stuart: it sounded like a plan that would get support from the middle ground, whether that is middleground democrat or republican. liz: that is trump's base. >> that is 15% tax rate for corporations will stimulate the economy in a tremendous way, that needs to be among our first pushes and i think they can get bipartisan support, they have to stick with that. if they get fed through others are to follow. stuart: what you are seeing is harris county, the area around, part of houston, looks like a

boat stuck as a reservoir overflows its banks, not sure of that but nobody and it, you get these dramatic pictures from all over the state when you have 50 inches of rain and the runoff happens that is the kind of thing you will see and we bring it to you. jeff flock, the man of the hour who brought the most dramatic pictures of all, what do you have now? jeff: the star of the hour, a great story of how the community, look what has been accomplished in his house over the last couple days thanks to volunteers that have come in. >> a couple miles that way. jeff: can we poke our head in? and old dog. >> he stayed in and consented to

look at this. holy moly. >> waste time. and waist high water, they already pulled out some on the wall, oh baby. it did not get to the electric, apparently. >> the lower clubs. >> you have power back on in here. >> we have power on. it is very cold in here. >> ac running, fans as you can see to try to drive things out and you have pulled out a lot of drywall. >> mostly from volunteers. everybody showed up, seemed like every 30 minutes someone would show up and say how can i help? this community -- we survived.

the fish survived and we have a little frog over here that survived. jeff: you don't have a duck? >> he would have definitely survived. jeff: where do you go from here do you imagine? you talk to your adjuster on the phone. >> he said take everything to the ceiling. my wife calls me every day to say someone else offered us a bedroom, a place to stay. as long as we need. i had women here packing dishes yesterday all day long. liz: you had people from the church cleanup the kitchen. >> in little league, my son's little league, they sat there all day and packed dishes people asking can we wash clothes. jeff: we came in and offered -- we are watching people's clothes. do you need people to wash your clothes, can we pull it hard?

>> this is the pile, most of it from the bedroom. just clothes everywhere. probably throw all these away but keeps going. jeff: this is not an area that has ever had flooding like this. i repeat myself so many times, those people stay in a flood zone, no. >> we had a couple small floods because they are working on the by you, he never flooded. i happen to buy it, flooded twice. >> it was nowhere near like this. >> did predict it and honestly didn't believe it. the storm, that was a fine time to predict when you are not able

to get out. >> nobody has ever seen anything like this in this neighborhood. everyone is devastated. >> we were in a house earlier that had floodwater in it. and this was everywhere. >> what was astonishing was the water level. and and send the goodwill, they pitched up to clean up for them. and thanks very much. the financial angle on this storm has been the spike in the price of gasoline. we are seeing that price spike

at the pump. >> the price moving up. >> $.21 in texas, north carolina saw a jump, $.27 the last week, talking about that critical pipeline, too big to fail. they shut it down and it is back running intermittently serving the east coast. east of louisiana, those states will get gas, trying to relaunch fully labor day weekend this sunday. stuart: north carolina has declared a state of emergency not because of the weather or flooding but because they want tanker trucks to supply gas, on i-95. >> there for coming in at any hour, once the man. the state of georgia asking the epa to get a waiver to let those

fuel tankers come in. we are tracking the story, staying on it. colonial is expected to open labor day sunday. stuart: thanks very much. joining us on the phone is dave paulison, a former fema administrator. 's it occurs to me the biggest problem fema faces housing people who lost basically their homes. what are you going to do with those people? >> absolutely right. this is a huge issue for the entire country, not just fema it self. we moved into shelters that are overcrowded. and do what i call permanent temporary housing. this is not going to be two or three week or 3 months type of thing, this could be a year, 18 months before they get back into

their homes. hopefully in texas they can move people into apartments. stuart: are they looking at hotels? 30,000 people may be involved but are they looking at hotels, just take over the hotel, buy it for a year and use that as temporary permanent shelter? >> we did that in katrina, took over entire hotels, that is not great if you have a family, what they need to look for is good housing stock but in a big metropolitan area, dallas area and behind that area putting people back into housing, kids registered for school, jobs and homes. stuart: the relief effort and rescue efforts, was carried out

by volunteers. you could not have had this end result without those thousands of volunteers. >> neighbors helping neighbors, people bringing boats in, this is a huge area, not just houston but metropolitan area even into beaumont, texas. people volunteer, tremendous and successful. stuart: abject misery from thousands of people on the other side, very good news, neighbors helping neighbors in a gigantic scale. very much appreciated. quick market check, scenes of dire flooding on your screens and the dow industrials back at 22,000, 100 points, record

all-time high, how about that? it started raining in houston a week ago, last friday. who would have thought the approach of that kind of storm, 22,000 on the dow one week later. >> we are 115, 117 away from the record. stuart: my math helper here, look who is with me on the set in new york city, robert funk, express employment professionals, that is his company, you have locations all over the place including 13 in houston, correct? >> we do have. stuart: are they open for business? >> they are passing out paychecks this friday and together -- stuart: express employment professionals you find jobs for

people. >> for 507,000. stuart: now you are finding jobs for people filling insurance forms, cleanup jobs. do you take anybody? does it have to be houstonians? can you take from new jersey? >> from all over the united states with our experience with katrina's they came from everywhere and we have to find jobs to do the restoration. stuart: obvious question. are you charging them? is a pro bono? >> we are giving the employees their salaries for the days they have been off and they come back to work to do the cleanup. stuart: are you inundated with people? >> we will be inundated. our experience with katrina, we set up offices, temporary offices for people to apply. in katrina they were wiped away, our offices are open for

business, all of them are open. stuart: is this because the water has receded? >> many of the offices were in higher locations and we also have the fact that we pay their checks in the bank. stuart: you are a worldwide company? >> we are in south africa and canada and we have 800 offices around the united states and north america. the largest staffing company for lan industrial. stuart: that is very good. express employment professionals looking for people who in houston will do cleanup jobs and insurance jobs. >> construction will be a big part of that as well as they reconstruct their homes and businesses. stuart: i believe the administration is located, some professionals, drafting into the houston area. >> we will employ some of those through express employment.

stuart: it is all part of the big picture. >> a travesty but an opportunity for us to help them. stuart: we have been covering this all week, the outpouring of private, not charity but private volunteering is extraordinary. is heartwarming, great to be an american. >> helping one another is the key to helping yourself as well. stuart: do you make a lot of money out of this? >> not really. stuart: what does that mean? >> we make some money for the opportunity for people to go to work and we get paid for employing people so we would have some opportunity but that is not the object of this. is to help them recover. stuart: thanks for joining us, we are obliged to you. i want to check the picture on

your screen. harris county, house flooded out, lots of houses flooded out. you will see a lot of this. the estimate was 100,000 homes, houses damaged, the extent of the damage very. some of the houses can never be used again, some can be cleaned up and reoccupied. as these pictures show, the extent of the flooding is truly remarkable, harris county, texas, surrounding the houston area. i want an update on the beaumont area. a couple days ago they got 26 inches of rain in 24 hours. >> no tapwater for 118,000 residents. this is a serious situation near the louisiana border. 118,000 people do not have any tapwater, no drinking water. the pump has been flooded. the secondary pump also flooded. they are trying now to go door-to-door, the national guard, firemen, to take people out of their homes because there is no drinking water supply for

beaumont as of this hour. stuart: hillary born is about to board a rescue helicopter, then we will get pictures of the overall damage. where are you and where is the chopper headed? >> reporter: we will be headed to the beaumont area in this black hawk which is part of the air marine operation, part of customs and border protection and conducting several rescues, helping people affected by hurricane harvey, search and rescue team lifting people in baskets. they lift people up and this is part of their operation to get people out of those floodwaters but i want to introduce you to agent thrill who has been firsthand lifting people out of the water and he was telling me about his most challenging rescue so far during hurricane harvey.

>> we have done hundreds of rescues but one of the most challenging was a gentleman with no legs, his house was flooded, had to relocate him and extract him using our basket but he had a wheelchair. that is everything he owns. people -- one of the challenges was to get him out of the environment and all his personal belongings which was everything, i had to reconfigure and rig his wheelchair a certain way to bring it up 100 feet to get in the aircraft, we made that happen. we had a lot of challenges, that is one of the most challenging ones we had to do. >> reporter: they are moving from the search and rescue to the humanitarian phase. dropping food at shelters, a lot of the roadways are flooded and blocked. these blackhawks and other helicopters and aircraft are needed to get supplies to the

shelters, food, other resources because the roadways are blocked. the next phase in a week or so once the water recedes, to move into law enforcement support making sure looters and other people, taking things out of these homes, personal belongings, prepared to back up law enforcement from the air and they tell me if they see a looters they can be down in the ground and have him in handcuffs in a minute. stuart: thank you very much and we will join you when you are in the black hawk and looking down on the extent of the damage. the stock price of ford motor company, it is up this morning, the stock is up 3%, ford is saying their losses in the houston area, don't know what they mean by losses but the number of cars destroyed or

damaged, less than originally feared. they go up 3%. anything to add? liz: we talked about this before. auto sales could go up because half 1 million cars, i think more cars are destroyed in this disaster. stuart: the added news is earlier we reported up to may be more than a half million cars were destroyed. as soon as you get the water level to the dashboard, it is dead. that car is dead, not coming back him you can't repair it. >> the main transport is cars, we saw that after hurricane sandy, car sales popped 49% after that. stuart: what you are looking at now is homeowners who are returning to their places in houston, taking everything out. spoiled, damaged, you will see furniture, mattresses, all out there piled on the sidewalks. the good news is the people have gone back to their homes,

cleaning them up. the bad news is the damage is extraordinary. the chief economist for first trust advisors. is is is eventually going to stimulate the economy with all the spending that has to take place? >> yes. for a couple months it will but don't forget, we destroyed stuff in the first place and it would be better to use this money to create new things rather than replace old things but yes, we will see car sales, retail sales, cleaning, all that stuff will pick up in the next few months. stuart: i want to refer to the interview we did with gary cohn, point man on tax cut in the white house. he told us several things. number one, there is a press on to get the corporate tax rate down 15% to 20%. there would be a small cut in

the top rate of federal income tax for top earners, small cut in vat rate but a lot of that money will be clawed back by ending loopholes including the deductibility of state and local income taxes. that is the broad outline of the plan that gary cohn is taking forward. what do you think? >> i love it, we have to get corporate tax rates down. it is killing our manufacturers. today's employment report gives me a sign that manufacturers and companies in the united states i may be expecting this a little bit. so far this year we had 125,000 new jobs in manufacturing added. last year during the same time january to august, we lost 25,000 jobs in manufacturing. people are expecting this. i love the idea of getting rid of state and local tax deductibility. we have to stop subsidizing high

tax growth killing -- i would be glad to take a small cut in the top marginal tax rate as an economist in a trade-off for that. the benefit of getting rid of state and local tax deduction is a real positive that will force states to get more sane with their tax policies. stuart: gary cohn said won't going to touch the mortgage interest deduction, not going to cut the charitable deduction and not going to mess with retirement planning deductions, 401(k)s, iras, that is good news for middle america. >> those are all third rails, no doubt about it. what is interesting is the people against getting state and local tax deductions are the ones that already don't like this administration. the high-tech democratic states are the ones --

stuart: i have to interrupt, what do you think senator schumer will say about ending the deductibility of state and local taxes? for senator from new york, a very high tax state, for income earners will take a gigantic hit, and therefore support it. >> what will be interesting is schumer is on record, i remember him being on record saying corporate tax rates are too high, we should have tax reform but clearly he is going to defend new york against this. what is interesting is i don't think he has a leg to stand on. once you tell nebraska and zen missourians and south dakota's -- i don't think people understand the tax code, so complicated but once this issue becomes debated and talked about

by all the press over the next couple months people around this country are going to get mad once they realize they have been subsidizing new york and massachusetts and connecticut and california. all these high tax states will start to get mad and i think schumer will be on the wrong side of this issue and he will do so he will make the calculation to support it because of that but once this

growth to be higher we have to do it this year, the longer we rate the slower growth will be before it happens, we saw it under reagan, staged it in, staged it in and what that causes is growth to slow down at first because people want to wait until tax rates are lower and in fact bush, we finally talked, the bush administration into accelerating that tax cut, and the minute they did it the economy grew faster. if we want faster growth this year we have to do the tax-cut this year. stuart: thank you very much. >> republicans won the popular vote just once in the last 29 years, that was in 2004 when the

tax rebates were passed so they have to be eyeing the midterms, not looking good for either side. they have got to get something done. we have job growth not just on deregulation. stuart: very good point. left-hand side of the screen, you see houstonians returning to their homes, you will see the damage, jeff flock was inside a house with chest level water. it has since receded but showed clearly the dreadful damage done in that particular home that is duplicated maybe thousands of times over. keep on seeing that shot. you will see the dow industrials on the bottom right-hand corner of the screen going very nicely. 60 points up at 20,009. the former chief of staff to republican texas senator ted cruz. welcome back to the show, good to see you again. we hear that donald trump is

proposing a $5.9 billion down payment deal to get some reconstruction money going into texas blues not a great deal of money in the scheme of things which i can't see any roadblock to that, can you? >> i wouldn't think so particularly if that is focused on emergency relief which is where the federal government should focus its efforts and if the president and congress focus on that i it will get done. we saw that with sandy. it was fema-related, $8 billion or $9 billion, that should happen here if they keep their eye on the ball and keep it emergency focused. what we see in texas and houston is community standing up, churches standing up, jj watt of the houston texans standing up at $40 million fundraiser. the governor of the state of texas collaborating and working together to help people.

that story you just showed, churches helping that man, the story of what is going on in texas. stuart: 30 minutes ago gary cohn was on this program. i asked him directly what is the plan? he responded by saying we are going for a sharp drop in the tax rate paid by corporations, 35%, the president wants to get it to 15% or 20%, there would be a small cut in the rate of tax paid by high income individuals but some of that money would be clawed back by ending some deductions, notably the deductibility of state and local income taxes. that is the broad outline of the plan. is that a plan ted cruz would vote for? >> i won't speak for ted cruz but in broad strokes if you have a tax relief package that will get to the heart of the anemic 1% to to present economic growth hundred president obama with the tax policy, burdensome

regulatory should be focusing

on those folks together for cross the line. it is modest in the sense it is not a giveaway to the rich, what you focused on with tax reform and simplification that is what middle americans need to hear. the rich get benefits from the loophole, we need to simplify the tax code, they are beneficial. >> not going to touch the charitable deduction. and the preferential tax treatment for iras and retirement money. that is the protection of middle america. >> absolutely right. getting rid of the majority of tax deductions, we go through filing tax re-firms, if you get a reasonable rate reduction in

supplication of the code and watch the economy take off the only way to get around the $20 trillion in debt, gdp to debt ratio which is similar to world war ii, to get economic growth. you cannot get back -- stuart: sorry to interrupt but i agree with you. we need 4% growth. it is not a magic number. it is necessity. thanks for joining us, we appreciate it. big day. check the market, we are up 60 points, 22,008. as we say frequently, gary cohn with our guests, he outlined i think a middle-of-the-road tax-cut plan, insisted he is staying to get it done. that is helping the market. liz: there is the tax the rich angle, bernie sanders and

elizabeth warren have got to love. stuart: elizabeth warren is from massachusetts from a high tax state so you can no longer deduct the local taxes you pay meaning richer people in massachusetts may have to pay more. >> won't do website.

that is my opinion. they skew over to the left. and >> the government is here to help you. stuart: it ticked you off, didn't it? >> it ticked me off because i'm seeing it every single day. this is nothing new. the only thing different is people taking charge. people keep talking about donald trump's response, he has been helpful but it is the people of texas, the people of louisiana that said texas, you had our back during katrina, we are going to help you guys, the

people of texas that have been going door to door with their boats not knowing if they would be facing it themselves. the people of dallas saying houston, we have this rivalry among our two cities but already have shelter for you guys, food and clothes ready for you when we went to come back. it is us that are doing this and we appreciate the partners that are willing to sacrifice for us but you know what? all these people who want to be part of the problem and divide us we won't pay attention to them. they don't know texas. if you turn your tv on you with the every day go to social media, twitter, facebook and you can see people putting their address on twitter to be rescued. tell me another state that has done that. stuart: i saw this, gerri jones, dallas cowboys guy appearing in

a telethon to the salvation army for their drive to get money for the victims of harvey, you gotta $1 million donation, the dallas cowboys guide, nothing to do with the texas houston's, houston texans. that was good stuff. i loved it. >> we are unified. when donald trump went with the texas flag people didn't know what it meant. they didn't know but for people of texas we knew exactly what he meant when he put the texas flag across his back and held it up because it was a rallying call for all texans that we are going to be stronger than the storm. when he said we were going to be able to show about their and more resilient, we knew what that meant. outsiders don't know, i am trying to get down to houston

saturday if you want to contribute, we have different christian foundations on the ground to help these people, we are stronger together. stuart: one more thing, three days ago our own jeff flock was on a boat that was rescuing people from houston. they climbed on board, a lady and her children, she was in tears and she was grateful. i don't see gratitude very often in this country. all too often the media find something to be complaining about, to whine about, here was a lovely lady and she was in tears and ingratitude. >> people were thanking god too. it is one thing to talk about your faith when everything is going good, real easy to thank god for his many blessings but it is another when you are tested with storms and people turn away from their faith. i have seen people in my home

state turn to god and say at least we have each other, at least we are safe. i may have lost my house and everything, my birth certificate, pictures and photos that means something to me but you know what? i still believe in god, we are together, i have my family members and even if we have to sleep in a shelter at least we have each other. stuart: what was that website again? >> mercury-1.org. stuart: mercury, number one? 1? >> number one oh in e. stuart: mercuryone.org, christian organization. see how much money i can round

time. putting a price tag on this is unimaginable. stuart: well said. i do notice the sun is shining, a ray of hope, a bright spot. thank you very much. dow industrials up 58, we are at 22,006 on this day as we are recovering. liz: manufacturing jobs coming in strong, talk of a muted said rate hike due to the jobs report, we talked about it, culture wars don't put food on the table, people are tired of

culture wars, don't put gas in a gasoline tank. we talk about the jobs report, the jobless rate, what people out there feel, part-time jobs or more, sticking around 10%. stuart: there was another spot, 300,000 people came back into the workforce because they are inspired by the growth we have seen, 300,000 back in. a sign of optimism for the future. liz: we are above 22,000. i keep saying this, how many times, last week, we could go, who expected this? dreadful storm, biblical flood and still at 22 -- i love it. just love it. jeff flock back with us, what do you have? jeff: i have people working very hard in houston. all the work that has been done and being done out here as we pick our way, this is a

sidewalk, one of the neighborhoods that is coming back faster, these guys are working hard, fortunately they have protection and that sort of thing you have to do to work in all of this and so many groups have come together. this guy's church comes together, this -- you guys are from another church and what are you doing? >> these are friends of ours who developed -- evacuated after the flood. they were fine, you got to their top step but they are okay. we are sending people out from here to hit up other houses in neighbors and friends. jeff: you see the water line over here, look at this over here, the water line on this house, they had some minor flooding so this guy next door raised his house and he is okay

so there you go. but i tell you, folks have been coming from all over to help. we found a broken record but i have never seen this. >> amazing to see strangers helping strangers, doesn't matter what you believe or your background, everyone is human and trying to help each other out. jeff: appreciate the time, but you get back to your work, there is a lot of work to do. stuart: we see it. i can only imagine what it is like to go back to your house and everything in it has been spoiled. 5 minutes ago jeff was showing the inside of the house with a water level since gone down but water level up to your chest. imagine going back to your house and seeing that. i won't harp on the smell after a flood but it is not good. i have been in a few flooded basements, it is not pretty and you have flooded houses and now the entire contents are outside, not drying out.

have i got this right? it is a pretty dreadful seen. jeff: you could say it is a dreadful seen but on the other hand based on what we have seen so far this is progress. this is people starting the process of recovery and rebuilding and to me i look at that on the positive side. i can't believe how fast they have done it. this was deep water, we were in this neighborhood and today look at what has been accomplished. stuart: is it like that on other streets in houston? go down the street -- jeff: yes. this neighborhood there is not a street that doesn't have some of this on it but other neighborhoods, the ones by the reservoir that water is still up. we won't see this for god knows

how long and that is the scary part. this is the flood and this is recovery. those guys won't start recovery until the water goes down and i don't know when that will be. stuart: where will you go next? you have been all over the area giving wonderful reports for the past week. which part of town are you heading to? jeff: with all good luck i will go back to chicago this weekend. prior to that we will continue to comb around this neighborhood and be back next week but we will comb around this neighborhood. this is a story of today, the start of recovery. i want to stay in areas where people are doing stuff. we have seen flooded homes for a good long while and nothing can happen, those people are out, people are safe, that is fine, now it is recovery.

stuart: about this time yesterday on live tv you were giving your report, a truck rolled by with some people in the back of the truck including your daughter. that was a great moment of television. did you get together with her later? she is covering this story for pbs. did you get together with her later? jeff: yes. i haven't been able to connect with her. the hours have been pretty long and she works harder than i do because she is young and very you go as people continue to carry supplies. she is a hard-working journalist. someone in the witness protection program. that was sort of like my daughter yesterday, i can't believe you put me on television. stuart: she works with pbs, she can't believe you put her on fox, that is what she can't believe. jeff: there were people

yesterday am i think -- did justin say i couldn't believe the liberals but watch foxbusiness, they actually like it i think. my daughter, let me say this real quick, my daughter is as a straight line is you get, she's a journalist, she wants to report and that is what i'm most proud about her, i am proud of a lot of things about her as you are about your children, she is a straight journalist, she tries her very best despite her personal beliefs whatever they are, to be fair to all and that is what i'm most proud about. stuart: we are proud of you, you are all right. something up on my plate, hillary von about to head up in a chopper for a search and rescue mission. what have you got? >> reporter: i'm strapped in and we are about to survey the neighborhoods that were hit hardest by hurricane harvey but i want to walk you through the

mission that the air marine operations, custom and border protection, what they have been doing here, have taken aircraft from all over the us, 35 sites they pulled aircraft from and deployed here and they have been rescuing hundreds of people, search and rescue operation was the main first stage of hoisting baskets down, lifting people up, the most challenging rescue was a man in a wheelchair who had no legs and had to rig the basket so he could get the man up and into the aircraft but one of the other operations they had done is essentially loading up as many people as possible into this aircraft. i'm sitting in a jumpseat here, what they have done to fit as many people inside is clear out the entire inside of all these

seats are gone. people sitting on the floor of this badcock, black heart, and urgency, floodwaters were rising so high. the other things they have done, added and extra fuel tank that you can see right here will extend the amount of time to conduct search and rescue operations, they have been in the air for four hours. after the search and rescue phase they moved past have been conducting humanitarian missions that involve from picking people up to dropping food off at shelters. a lot of streets that have been flooded are still flooded preventing supplies getting to the shelters. people are safe and under a roof and out of the floodwaters, these helicopters and other aircraft have been delivering

supplies because the road has been blocked, dropping bags of blood off, roads have been blocked. materials they have been able to deliver and help out, the vital phase, once floodwaters received, the law enforcement support from the air. once we see the waters begin to go down and people have access to their homes, some people with bad intentions, looters trying to get inside these houses and steal people's personal belongings, they are prepared to take action if necessary and part of that involved from the air apprehending the looters. and less then a minute, they could be landing the aircraft and have that person in handcuffs in less then a minute. the other interesting things they told me his infrared sensors on this black hawk that

allow them to see heat at night so as they are searching at night they will identify if there is movement for people on the ground as well. stuart: we are stuart: where would we be without 'em? the volunteer navy came to the rescue of stranded homeowners. nobody asked them to come, nobody told them to go. there are a lot of people who owe their lives to the volunteer armada. surely, the death toll would be a lot higher if they hadn't shown up. hat's off to governor abbott and his team which got on top of this disaster so quickly and so well. what a difference compared to the corrupt and incompetent authorities who handled katrina. hat's off to the people of texas. that can-do spirit really

exists. you saw ordinary people doing extraordinary things. hat's off to president trump. he's giving a million dollars from his own pocket. he's told federal agencies in no uncertain terms, get on with the job. he visited wednesday, the vice president went down yesterday, and the president and first lady will go again tomorrow. that's hands-on leadership. be -- a big thumbs down to the coastal elites, california and new york never really like texas. it's too capitalist. it's too successful. so the media has spent the week sniping from the sidelines. i think that's pa in the ec -- pathetic. but it's mice to know exactly where the liberal left stands when a big chunk of america is in trouble. let's not underestimate the misery that have been inflicted by this biblical flood, but let's not forget the spirit of middle america that will carries through. the third hour of "varney & company" is about to begin. ♪ ♪

stuart: i want to see the takeoff. i want to see that blackhawk go. hillary vaughn about to take off, let's see it. not quite. pleasure. [laughter] i don't think she -- [laughter] i don't think she can hear us because she's got the helmet on, and it's very noisy. but i promise you, that is a blackhawk chopper. they're about to take off, and we're going to get some pretty good pictures shortly of all the damage that hillary vaughn can see as she looks down. joining us now with a big -- hold on, hold on. that's paul conway. i'll get to him in one second. look at the market. going up, please, let's not forget this. we're now at 22,017. that's a gain of 68, 69 points. that's not a bad performance on a day like this. now let's get to paul conway,

former labor department chief of staff and also the former chief of staff of the dhs office in gulf coast rebuilding. all right, paul, you worked on hurricane katrina. how important are volunteers in a situation like this in harvey in texas? >> you can't put a value on volunteers, that's the bottom line. the most important thing here is government is involved in the initial response, but really for the identification of those who have needs, for the long-term recovery, volunteerism in america is healthy and well. and without government interference, it does best especially at the local level. the cajun navy, people from all over the united states. you had an entire generation during katrina, millennials, who went down and spent their high school years and college years down there distributing goods and helping people out rebuild their homes. it's the best of america, is what you're seeing now and what you will see for the years ahead. stuart: okay, paul, hold on a second. left-hand side of your screen, hillary vaughn about to take off in the blackhawk helicopter.

where exactly -- you're about to take off. where are you going? can't hear me. okay. [laughter] they're noisy on the inside of that thing. >> they are. stuart: i'll tell you now, that's our own hillary vaughn -- >> yeah, she's going to beaumont to see where flash floods, now 118,000 people without tap water there. stuart: that's the point, isn't it? 118,000 people, no tap water, and they had 26 inches of rain in 24 hours in the town that hillary vaughn is about to fly over. i want some pictures from that. back to paul conway, i know he can hear me. the jobs report, i was a little disappointed at only 156,000 jobs created last month. i don't think that's as much as i was hoping for. >> no, i tell you what, it's less than expectation. the other thing that's disappointing is the downward revisions of the previous to months. the good news is we're still moving along as an economy, but really i think this is even more of a reminder to both congress and to the administration that you need those fundamental

pieces in place, tax reform, you need to deal with the debt ceiling issue. and now with this issue, with the hurricane and a potential another hurricane coming, it's time to get serious and put the pieces in place that make certain the goodwill continues with job creation and wage growth. most importantly for those who are the least among us, those who are the lowest wage earners are still taking on two jobs or three jobs to make ends meet. the economy needs to get moving. stuart: now, one quick thing, i noticed 36,000 new manufacturing jobs last month. and the total of new manufacturing jobs this year, i believe, is well over 100,000 compared to a loss of manufacturing jobs at this time last year. that's a bright spot, is it not, paul? >> it's absolutely a bright spot because when you take a look at manufacturing jobs, what you're looking at are good with, full-time, meaningful jobs, usually in a career path or skill path that people are trained for. and you want to encourage the growth in that. that's why i think it's

fundamentally important that the other pieces of policy get put in place. but that trend on the manufacturing side is something that we can take confidence in. and you've seen it consistently. i think if you have a strong horse, you need to let it run. that's a part of the economy that i think could really get going with policy improvements. stuart: paul conway, everyone. thanks for joining us, big day odd today. now we're joined by patrick dehaan, gas buddy senior oil analyst. we've seen a spike in the price that consumers pay at the pump. is this spike, these higher prices, are they going to last longsome. >> i think they will. they'll probably last more than a week, week and a half, and we could be talking about it taking probably four to six weeks for gas prices to come back down to their pre-harvey levels. stuart: i'm surprised to hear you say that because this pipeline, the big pipeline, is partially open. they're hoping to fully open it come, i think it is this weekend. we've got a state of emergency declared in north carolina so

they can truck gasoline into the stations down the side of i-95. you think it's going to last longer than a couple of weeks, the spike that we're seeing, really? >> well, keep in mind that colonial pipeline date of sunday, that's contingent on them getting products again to ship through that pipeline. and for that sunday date to happen, you have to have the houston ship channel open without restrictions, you have to have refineries that are getting that crude oil from those ships that enter the port, and then you have to have the refineries restart their facilities which in some cases they're not at operating temperature which could take several days to restart. then refineries start churning out that product which then goes to colonial. i think sunday's too optimistic, and we could be talking about early next week. and keep in mind while that's happening you're having areas of the southeast, mid-atlantic states that are probably noticing their shipments from colonial start to become a trickle. stuart: is the price at the pump going up as much in states like

california, washington state, oregon, utah, way away from harvey's danger zone? >> yeah, stuart. you're talking the epicenter is well east of the rockies. so in california they're having some of their own issues with inventories being a little bit lower than last year. but the bulk of this situation with gas prices rising is really limited to, say, the rockies and east. stuart: okay. what about the spike in prices that we've seen in texas? we noticed that dallas up 14 cents a gallon just overnight, el paso, i think it's 16 cents, houston, 6 cents, san antonio, 11 cents. is that going to get worse in texas? >> i think california's probably laughing at the rest of the country because they're used to these refinery issues happening there. for us east of the rockies, yes. you'll continue to see dallas, san antonio, texas, prices will continue to lift up over the next few days, and you'll see that happen in the south and east. in fact, stuart, there in new

york city you could start to see prices really jump because some of those cargoes for new york city are starting to head to florida. florida's a market that's usually served by barges from the gulf, but obviously they need gasoline coming from somewhere. it's not coming from the gulf, so watch out in the northeast as well for higher prices. stuart: okay. i shall watch out, and i'll gas up as soon as i can. patrick dehaan, thank you for joining us, sir. on your screen, you see the blackhawk helicopter, it has taken off. you're going to see some interesting shots looking down on bow not, texas -- beaumont, texas, where they've run out of potable water. what do you have on that chemical fire? >> good news, one fire has burned out. no additional explosions. remember, there was reports that there could be more explosions happening at this chemical plant because these chemicals were kept in multiple storage locations. again, the fire has burned itself out. that fire started at about three a.m. eastern standard time on

thursday. so it took about, a little more than a day for it to burn out. this was a nasty fire of chemical products at that plant -- stuart: but the good news is that fire's burned itself out -- >> and no more explosions. stuart: and no more fires in the other big containers of chemicals. that's a positive. that is a plus coming to us. blackhawk helicopter, you seeing it right now. shortly, we'll be able to look down and see what they're covering. specifically, they're covering beaumont, texas. that's the place that got 26 inches of rain in 24 hours. we want to see the view from above when hillary vaughn in that blackhawk helicopter gets over that area, and we will show you the pictures. come on in, please, karl rove, fox news contributor. welcome to the program, good to see you, sir. >> thank you, stuart. stuart: you know what ticked me off more than anything else? it's the coastal elites sniping at the good christian folk of getting on with the job. i hate it. what say you?

>> i'm in total agreement starting with that stupid cartoon in politico. but also these unbelievably bizarre remarks that somehow or another houston deserved it because houston doesn't have zoning laws. i would remind the liberal critics of houston's pro-growth policies that hurricane sandy hit one of the most, one of the municipal areas in america that has most regulations about what you can build and where you can build it, namely the greater new york area. and new orleans had very strict building codes and zoning laws. didn't help it when hurricane katrina came ashore. stuart: i want you to assess president trump's response to this so far. he's donating a million dollars from his own pocket. he's visiting texas, he was there this week, he's going back tomorrow. and also he's arranging this, i think it's a $5.9 billion package, an initial down payment on the recovery effort. it looks like he's doing a good job, and it looks like that $6

billion should sail through without much opposition. >> i think that's right. he has been doing a good job. his comments have been good, it was smart of him to come to texas early, though it was equally smart of him not to go to houston where his presence would have interfered with immediate rescue efforts. most important of all, he has told his cabinet officials be responsive to the state of texas. and he's fortunate in this regard. most people think the federal government is in charge in disasters like harvey. not so. the governor of the affected state is in charge, and we've got a terrific governor here, governor abbott, who's been planning for a moment like this for months, training his people, holding tabletop exercises, going through, methodically going through what might need to be done in the event of an incident like this, and as a result, he and his team have been well prepared to say to the federal government here's what we need. and in addition, we've had state and local government -- unlike in katrina. remember how the new orleans police department sort of disintegrated and there was little or no, you know, the

mayor literally abandoned the command center? well, in texas, particularly in harris county, we've seen the leadership of county executives, the county judge we call him in texas, and mayor of houston, sylvester turner, working seamlessly with state and federal officials to make certain everything is done. the president's lucky he's got good allies like that working in these jobs, because without them he couldn't be as effective as he is, and they couldn't be as effective as they are. stuart: karl, i've got to talk to you about tax cuts. about an hour ago on this program gary cohn was with us, he gave an outline, a slightly lower top income tax rate on wealthier people, on high income earners with some of the money i clawed back from getting rid of the, what's the word, from state and local taxes, the -- >> exemption. >> the deduction. stuart: that's right. eliminate the deduction for

state and local taxes which actually is a hit especially on new york, connecticut, new jersey, california. it seemed to me like a middle of the road deal which could get some democrat support. >> it could. i think he also touched on double taxation of the profits of american companies abroad. we're the only major industrialized country that does that, that double taxes the profits of american subsidiaries on their foreign sales. this could be a great way to bring lots of revenue that today is stranded abroad for fear if they bring it back to the united states, it takes a huge haircut. i think all of these -- clearly, his mindset is what do we need to do to grow the economy. and so they're willing to take the tough thing and say we want to lower the corporate tax rate because that's going to grow the economy. we want to limit how much the government can take from anybody in their personal income because that'll help grow the economy. we want to have a territorial tax system like the rest of the industrialized world so that we're competitive and create jobs and grow the economy.

and i thought the administration's on a good path. stuart:9 i can't see how that would not be attractive to that vast bulk of people who are in the middle in congress. not the far right and the far left, but that bunch of people in the middle. this is surely attractive to them. >> well, it is. but remember, inside the democratic caucus you've got two things going on. one is the group of sort of pro-business moderates is shrinking inside the democratic party. they're more elizabeth warrens and fewer, you know, joe manchins. there are a lot more bernie sanders influence and a lot less blue dog democrat influence are. that's one thing. and second of all, you can bet that when this battle is engaged that the hard left of the democratic party is going to be making threats against anybody who cooperates with the trump administration and with house and senate republican tax writers on anything that is a reasonable compromise. and we're going to see now how much sort of the pro-business, moderate wing of the democratic

party has to stand up to that kind of attacks from the left. stuart: you're a texas guy yourself, i think. i think you are. >> i am, i am. stuart: and the rest of the country is in awe at the texas can-do spirit. take a victory lap, son. >> well, i wrote about it in my column yesterday, and it's so heart warming to see these pictures and hear these stories. but we are a can-do people. we're a resilient people. we get knocked down, we stand back up and we get back into it. this is going to be a long, hard recovery. there's still a lot of tough moments ahead particularly over the golden triangle on the louisiana/texas border, beaumont, port arthur, orange, these places are hard hit as you'll see shortly in the footage. 118,000 people live in that town, and it's the flooded. every bit of it's flooded. but you know what? we are a can-do people, it's why we are texans, it's why we're a dynamic, growing economy. it's why a lot of people are moving here, and we welcome them. i wasn't born here, but i got

here as soon as i could and, by god, there's nothing worse than a converted texan. [laughter] stuart: nothing worse than -- very well said, sir. karl rove, thanks for joining us. appreciate it, sir. >> thank you, stuart. you bet. stuart: now, we are monitoring another storm. this one is in the atlantic, hurricane irma. i misspelled it the other day, it's irma. janice dean is back with us for the latest on irma. what have you got? >> reporter: well, we are still watching this. we just got the latest advisory from the national hurricane center. they downgraded it a little bit, a category two, but we have at least 5-7 days to watch this system, and as you can see, it strengthens again. there's nothing in its way to tear the storm apart, we are expecting it to strengthen. here's the steering currents right now. we've got our bermuda high which helps to keep these storms on a westward track, and then, of course, our trough that comes across the east coast this time of year, the cold fronts that help to steer the storm. if this high remains very strong, we're going to continue

to see this westward track. if the high breaks down a little bit, it's going to allow for movement to the north. here's the euro, this is one of the -- the european model, one of the forecast models we watch over the next couple of days. still not out of the woods for the lesser antilles, puerto rico, dominican republic. if you have vacation plans in the bahamas, you need to watch this storm. that's, again, very close to the u.s., florida, southeast coast. this is the american model, also a very reliable forecast mold. as we get further out in time, wednesday, thursday, very similar to the euro. but it curves it a little bit more to the north. however, i just want to make mention that anything is possible right now. show you these computer models seven days out, it's not an accurate description of what these storms are going to do. but it gives you an indication of where the models are thinking at this point. and then as we get into maybe monday, tuesday we'll have a better idea, but they are in pretty good agreement on

saturday, very close call here. and the bahamas and all of these areas across the caribbean need to monitor the development. stuart: okay. >> reporter: again, here's irma, watching the computer models. still too close, stuart, i don't want people to let their guard down. all these areas, even the gulf coast could potentially still be in play. five to seven days out anything can happen. stuart: real fast, janice, i -- our cameras in houston show sunshine, but i'm told that this may be -- that there may be more rain on the way. not another storm, but more rain. is that accurate? >> reporter: it's always possible this time of year along the gulf coast. we have showers and thunderstorms always sort of percolating especially since it is tropical season. so there's always going to be a chance of showers and thunderstorms next week. so far though no tropical depressions or storms, but we'll keep you up-to-date. stuart: janice dean, thanks for joining us. appreciate it. back to jeff flock. i don't know where he is now. last time we saw him, he was looking over the damage. there he is. what have you got, jeff?

>> reporter: yeah, still combing this neighborhood. we have been on virtually every street in this neighborhood, stuart. it's amazing. and, look, this side, that side, everywhere you go there is, there is, you know, debris from this. and as we said earlier, you know, it's a good sign in some ways because it means that, you know, folks aren cleaning up. but on the other hand, you know, to see people's possessions out there, you know, to see people's -- everything that they own out on the street. now, i'm going to tell you another thing. you might not want to hear it. a lot of crews in this town. people, local folks helping. they might not all have a green card. this is a lot of heavy, hard work that's going, and a lot of people have hired folks. i'm not going to say anything, anybody in particular, but they're, you know, there's a lot of work that needs to be done here. and we need a lot of hands to do it. stuart: jeff, let me interrupt

for a second. i don't think anybody objects to anybody helping out at a time hike. the -- time like this. if you're going to get technical and say, well, you haven't got this card or that card, i don't think we need that at this moment. i think we need all hands on deck helping people no matter what it is, period. by the way, all that stuff that's piled up around the street there, i take it that's junked. it's gone. it's not drying out for later use, is it? >> reporter: no. anything at the curb is to go. and i'll tell you, there are some folks, you know, houston is a diverse neighborhood of people with economic class, whatever, pieces. and there are a number of people that we've seen today, you could call them scavengers. when i drive down the street and somebody's putting something out, i often -- if it looks good to me, i might bring it home and do something with it. [laughter] there are a lot of people in

that mode now. something that's flooded for one person, maybe that's something they're going to throw out. we've got a guy over here i was trying to talk to earlier, let me see if i can get him right quick here while you're standing here. look at this. look at this effort going. [laughter] how much space do you need? [laughter] >> oh, we're just trying to help as much as -- >> reporter: are you one of the folks just helping? >> yes. we work with gray stratton, it's his house. they put out an e-mail saying, one of our partners said we need some help. >> reporter: so this is work friends. >> yeah, work friends and some neighborhood friends as well. >> reporter: these folks right over here? >> see that lady right there? >> reporter: oh, my gosh. >> [inaudible] >> reporter: well, this is the fox business network. you've got a lot of friends here today, by golly. >> this is the main guy. >> reporter: who's the main guy? >> hey, how are you? >> reporter: you've got a lot of help today. >> yeah, getting a lot of help from friends, from coworkers.

nice to be supported by community. >> reporter: i don't want to interrupt too much, although i just did. [laughter] look at this, stuart. where's the young lady i had -- tell me the company again in. >> dla piper. which, i think, it's a law firm which you may have heard of that does pretty well. >> [inaudible] >> reporter: and elementary school, is that what it is? >> the staff and faculty and families there have been amazing. >> reporter: so you put out an e-mail -- >> we did not, our friends did. so it's just been amazing. >> reporter: how bad is it. this is your home? >> this is my home, yeah. we had somewhere between maybe 13 and 18 inches. >> reporter: would you mind if i poke my head in? >> sure. >> reporter: i don't want to get in their way. that's great. thank you very much. the main thing, stuart, if you want to invest in a company, i'm going to say what is that flooring company that they call -- [laughter] i think they're going to need flooring in houston. stuart: home depot. >> reporter: look at this. and this had been glued down, so

that makes it much harder for this young lady. do you have much experience with floor demolition? >> this is my first time. >> reporter: you look like you're doing tremendously well. look, stuart, not only here, they've done this room already. that's a little darker, but that drywall's going to have to come out -- stuart: jeff, let me interrupt for a second. can you hear me? jeff, you're showing us america at its best. >> reporter: and they didn't get a ton of water in here. the lfl we showed you west, you know, he had a whole lot more water. but if you get water in your house, it doesn't matter. you've still got to, you know, tear it all up. so a lot of work to be done in houston. and fortunately, some people wearing the proper protection because stuff's flying through the air. stuart: jeff, we're going to leave you for a second because you've been showing us america at its best all week long, and we appreciate that. we'll leave you for a second.

i've got an update on the chemical plant that had a fire yesterday. some call it an explosion. update, please? >> they're saying more fires likely in coming days. what happened was there was explosions, one fire burned itself out. there was popping sounds that were heard by locals around this chemical plant, but they're saying that there's no additional explosions. again, this fire started at two a.m. thursday night. it's taken a day or more, more than a day to burn itself out. epa is saying no immediate harm to locals. it's really acrid, noxious smoke. no serious injuries right now. so, again, the news is more fires likely coming in the coming days from this plant. stuart: thanks, liz. if you're just joining us, on the left-hand side of your screen you're looking at homeowners who are ripping out floor of their own home. they're doing it themselves because i believe that house had about 13-18 inches of water in

the home. the floor has do to come up. it -- the floor has to come up. it had been glued down. they're ripping it out themselves. we saw them just moments ago taking out just about everything in the house, loading it up outside. much of it is junk. some of it is okay, being taken away in a truck. this is going on all over houston as we speak. you can multiply that thousands of times. that's what's happening now. we also saw a large number of volunteers. they just arrived. they didn't put out -- the homeowner did not put out an e-mail, come on and help. no. helpers came automatically. coworkers at their law firm, they just arrived and started work. that's americans helping americans, and that's at the heart of a really interesting and good-feeling story there in houston. now, come on in jim mcinvail. he joined us earlier this week.

he owns a chain of furniture stores in houston. he's turned them into shelters for flood victims, and now there is a petition to honor him. welcome, everyone. he's with us now. what do you make of this idea of turning august 26th into mattress mac day in your honor? 140,000 signatures so far. what do you make of that? >> stuart, august 26th ought to be first responders' day, not mattress mac day. the first responders, the firemen, the policemen, the national guard, all the government officials that risked their lives continuously during this horrific, historic flood. they're the ones that ought to be honored, not me. stuart: yes, but you are going to be orrin honored, and i think rightfully so. tell our viewers exactly what you did. you opened your stores up to the volunteers and first responders? >> well, as the rain came down saturday and sunday, we sent out 20 of our delivery trucks to pick up people who were flooded in their homes, under -- on top

of bridges, all around the community, brought 'em in, opened our two stores as shelters, had 400 people a might in both stores for three nights in a row, and we fed them and tried to give them some semblance of comfort and safety. it was a very uplifting experience for us to see how re-- resilient these people were. so entire thing was a great experience for us, and we're blessed to be part of this community. stuart: let me tell you, sir, that august the 26th in my book will always be mattress mac day whether whether you like it or not. jim, we think you're all right, and we hope you can join us again very soon on this program. thank you, sir. >> stuart, i enjoy what you do. thank you very much. stuart: joining us now, john fund, national review columnist. all right, john, let's talk politics for a second. congress gets back to work on tuesday. they've got a whole lot to do. harvey aid, debt ceiling, budget, taxes. what do you think realistically they can actually get donesome.

donesome -- done? >> i think harvey is going to have a psychological impact on congress. americans are coming together. i'm down here in texas, and i'm very impressed with the solidarity and the volunteerism down here. i think it will be difficult for congress to immediately jump into a bitter fight over a government shutdown or the debt limit. i think we're probably going to see some resolution of that, and i also think we're going to finally next week see some fleshing out of the tax reform. so in the short term, harvey -- as devastating as it has been, and i've seen some of it -- i think we're going to avoid a very little government shutdown debate. stuart: john, i want to bring to your attention an interview we did about an hour ago with gary cohn, point man within the white house for tax reform. give us a broad outline of a plan which is lower the top corporate tax rate from 35, maybe down to 15 or 20%. lower the top rate of income tax for high income earners, but

claw back some of the lost money in the form of ending the deduct bilityd of state and local income taxes. it sounded to me like a pretty much middle of road tax-cutting idea that could get the support of all republican moderates and some, and some democrat moderates as well. what say you? >> well, this is not the sweeping tax reform of 1986, but it's a good start at repairing some of the distortions in our tax code. especially regarding the repatriated capital that would be coming in because of the lower rates and corporate. the real sticking point, of course, will be the state and local deduction. that, of course, has been an enormous benefit to residents of blue states -- new york, illinois, california. that'll be the big fight. republicans are united, i think in most cases, that if you allow deductibility of state and local taxes, you're encouraging profligate government. illinois is basically bankrupt, new york is in a shambles,

california has enormous problems. so that'll be the big sticking point. but i think that unites republicans, and i think there'll be some democrats from, shall we say, trump states that will say this will get the economy moving in my local area. stuart: yeah. the democrat from missouri, for example, and mr. manchin from west virginia, the democrat from north dakota. they don't care about the ending deductibility of state and local income taxes. they don't have much tax to pay anyway. they would be for this, i would have thought. surely you could look at a maybe three democrats crossing over to support a middle-of-the-road tax-cutting package like this. >> remember 15 years ago when george w. bush had a tax cut -- i realize we were less polarized -- but he had something like 15 or 16 senate democrats cross over. i think the democratic party, which is now so much a party of cultural confusion and identity politics, i think they would risk something by opposing a common sense tax reform along the lines you mentioned.

stuart: all right. john, stay there for just a second. paul conway's still with me. broad outlines, lower the corporate tax rate, take a small cut in the top rate of income tax, claw back state and local tax deductibility. does that sound like a plan to you, paul conway, that would stimulate the economy? paul con? >> sounds -- stuart: go ahead, paul. >> it seems as though somebody has taken a look at this thing with strategy in mind and forethought and thought how do we get up 50 plus 1. you brought up senator manchin and, of obviously, the president was there just several weeks ago with the conversion of the democrat governor to republican, and there's a dynamic in that state for growth. and i think this is one of those

things that senator manchin would take a look at and say, yeah, absolutely. the state and local tax exemption, what does it mean in terms of the strategic picture for me in the united states senate and the policies that i've pledged to deal with? it makes it easier for him, it makes it easier for the folks in missouri to come along. but i think what has been put forward has been put forward with the thought of getting a win for the president and the people. stuart: back to jeff flock. moments ago, he went inside a house that they're clearing everything out of because of the flood damage. you're back there. who are you talking to now, jeff? >> reporter: i'm listening to the you and i'm listening to this gentleman who's telling me, you know, nice a neighborhood not flooded -- he's in a neighborhood not flooded, and you just thought to come here because people coming together. >> what happened is the schools shut down, hisd, so our daughter's not in school. and we got an e-mail. and after i saw the mayor hugging the police chief, losing officer sanchez, i said we've got to do something. i don't come to braisewood very

much, but i'm here and i love these people. the children are in our school, and here we are. and this is, this is the greatest feeling, to go out and help other people and start making this city back together. >> reporter: that inspired you. >> yeah, it inspired me. really the mayor, i'm so impressed how the mayor's office is coordinating -- >> reporter: people working together, you knowsome. >> it's the real deal. and people are actually showing doing the work, not just talking. this mayor's a doer and so's the police chief, and i think that's why we're going to win when we come out of this. >> reporter: i'll let you get back to this and i so much appreciate that. let me just take you back out to this large group. i just met a woman who is a teacher in the school district. she actually blooded in the last flood -- flooded in the last flood, and she said, you know, i know just what these people are going through. and she's had some experience with a hammer and, well, i guess that's a -- >> chisel. >> reporter: that's a chisel, yeah. you flooded in the last one? >> in memorial day in 2015,

yeah. >> reporter: you're not from around here originally. >> i'm originally from edge land. -- england. i've been here six years. >> reporter: either flooding or this outpouring of people. >> it's incredible to see how the folks of houston are coming together to help total strangers and just the generosity in any capacity is just amazing. >> reporter: and i asked this lady, you have some experience tearing up floors because you've been through it. this lady over here. i don't know if she even knows the name of the tool she's using. [laughter] >> i think it's a small -- >> i don't know what it is. [laughter] it's a case of using anything that is going to get this floor up as fast as we can, you know? >> reporter: all this drywall has to come out. you know the steps. >> i do, yeah. the sheetrock's got to come out. >> reporter: how fast did you get back to normal, and how fast -- >> so i was displaced from my

home for 13 weeks, and that was fast. >> reporter: that's over three months. >> we were one of the first to move back into our home. >> reporter: so these people have a long road ahead. >> it's marathon, it's not a sprint. it's about keeping the community and the sport going throughout -- the support going throughout that whole time. stuart: hey, jeff? >> reporter: get back to it, although you'd probably like a break. stuart: jeff? >> reporter: go ahead, stuart. >> reporter: leave it to jeff flock on one day to find his daughter and the next day to find a brit who's helping out houstonians recover after flood. [laughter] what are you going to pull out of your hat -- >> reporter: you have no idea how long it took me to find one solitary brit in all of this. [laughter] stuart: she's all right. >> reporter: we lucked out, what can i tell you? she's a tough one. stuart: i'm going to break back to john fund and paul conway, ask them both what do you make of the sniping from the coastal

liberal, the coastal elites? i don't think they like texas at all. john fund, you first. [laughter] >> well, you know, it's interesting. when texas was making a few rumblings about, gee, we're upset with the obama administration, they had a few people talking about secession, everybody was yelling at texas saying that they were retrograde reactionary. now it's california that wants to secede. texans never catch a break from the coasts, but texans have the last laugh because they create real jobs at good wages, people are flooding to texas. not to use that word too loosely. and they are bringing texas entrepreneurship and innovation and spirit here. i'm not far from austin which is becoming one of the silicon capitals of america. texas is going to do just fine, and it's going to come out of this better and stronger and with more spirit than ever. stuart: all right. i've got to say good-bye to paul conway and john fund.

gentlemen, thanks for joining us. come on in, please, congressman john culverson, he's on the phone, republican from texas. i want to bring to your attention, i'm sure you know this already, but president trump has proposed a $5.9 billion kind of down payment on harvey recovery, federal funds coming in. i can't see anybody who will stand in the way of a $5.9 billion down payment, can you, sir? >> stuart, i'm confident we will have bipartisan support for the first emergency relief appropriations bill. we don't yet know what the number will be. i think the president, that's an initial recommendation. we're still counting. we still have homes flooded. i have tens of thousands of homes flooded in my district in west houston. we are still getting damage ea accessments in, but there will be no democrats and no republicans in this debate. we will all be americans and stepping up to help the people of texas and louisiana. stuart: you know, sir, we really have been inspired by the sight

of all these volunteers pitching in to help out, friend helping friend, colleague helping colleague. you know, texas -- i don't want to go overboard on this. i think texas has been an inspiration to america. what do you say? >> thank you, stuart. i absolutely see it every day in the faces and in the actions of my neighbors and friends. in fact, we had the people of louisiana got together and put together what they call the cajun navy, and a couple of days ago 110 trucks from louisiana towing 100 boats loaded with jam be lie ya, red -- jam buy ya, loaded with red beans and rice, i had a gentleman from michigan who had towed his boat all the way from michigan. and let me give you the best story of all, stuart. my poor brother and his wife lost their home completely, tragic like everyone else. but they had organized in advance using a social media app called next door, and i

encourage everyone listening to download next door to your smartphone. they talked to each other, who has a boat, who has a truck, and when the storm came and the waters came up, my brother got on next door, said water's on my first floor, i need to be rest i cued, and here's what happened. within 5-10 minutes, a neighbor with a boat was out in front of my brother's house, loaded him up with his wife, took him to the subdivision, and my brother said there was a lewin of trucks waiting to pick him up. guy said where do you want to go and took him to a hotel. and within one hour of being drowned out, my brother had a hot meal, hot shower and clean sheets at a nearby hotel all because of his neighbors and his friends organizing and taking care of each other and themselves as we do in texas. we are very self-reliant. stuart: yes, sir. like we said, inspiring. representative, thanks for joining us, sir.

appreciate it. >> stuart, good to be with you. stuart: grif jenkins on the brazos river. what's happening, grif? >> reporter: stuart, just now the brazos river has crested at 55.19 feet, breaking last year's 100-year record of 54.7 feet. we're still with the sheriff, sheriff troy nails of fort bend county. sheriff, what does this mean? >> that's good news. early projections was 59 feet, and then projections went down to 5 7.6, but thank goodness, god has intervened. it is a blessing, if there is a blessing in all of this. >> reporter: not good news for the damage already to businesses. we're just, stuart, a couple of hundred yards, a couple of football fields away from the brazos river. get too close, it's far too treacherous even for these skilled airboats.

but you're looking at an auto body shop, the riverside and automotive service shop. these business owners just rebuilt, i understand, from last year's record. now got this again. what will they do as small businessmen? >> yes. these businesses here were flooded out from the memorial day 2016 flood which was a record flood at 54.7. obviously, now we've exceeded that by a few inches, and alan that owns that 723 auto shop over there, you know, it's him and five employees. you know, i was just on the phone with him, and it's going to take him some time to recover. he just rebuilt from that memorial day flood in 2016, and now again he's underwater. >> reporter: will small business owners like alan just consider picking up and moving on away from this area now that they've had two horrible storms back to back? >> i don't believe so. people here in the county, people across texas are very strong people. and i think we will prevail. we will get through this. it is sad to see that their

businesses again are underwater, you know? less than, you know, in a year and a half. >> reporter: the president comes down to this area tomorrow. for these business owners, for these residents, it's so hard. what do they need, what does the president need to know from these folks? >> i think it's wonderful that president trump and his leadership, he's come to texas to see the devastation. and i would encourage him if he's listening, he needs to come to fort bend county. he needs to hop on this airboat with you and i and have an opportunity to survey area and look at these businesses that are, you know, struggling and suffering underwater. maybe reassure allan who owns that business that, you know what? the federal government's going to get involved. we're going to try to get you back on your feet as soon as possible. >> reporter: i have to ask you a tough question, sheriff. some of these homes, we understand, in trailer parks and other areas may not have flood insurance. what will they do? >> i don't know. you know, that's another question i would ask for fema,

but we do know that we can do better in this country, we can do better in this state and nation. we just have to understand that there are so many emotions running through these people. the suffering, the fear in their eyes is real. ask we need -- and we need to make sure that president trump and fema, they get involved and stand by their word. >> reporter: let we just, lastly, bring you back. now the brazos river's crested. it's not going to get any more, but how long will they endure this kind of unbelievable water? >> this road here, this 723 right now, you may not -- this isn't going to be passable for the next seaferl days, so you could see this high water here for at least the next week or two. >> reporter: all right, stuart. that's the news here, the brazos river cresting. we're southwest of houston, but certainly these small business owners in this community, tremendously hit hard after even last year's storm which set the record.

now we have a new record. stuart: extraordinary stuff, grif. thank you very much, indeed. to repeat that number, that river is cresting at 55.19 feet. days ago it was at 10 feet. >> yeah, that's right. and now -- it's good news because they thought it was going to go to 59 feet. county officials stepped in and said you guys working to shore this up to stop this overflow, get out. you've got to evacuate. and the guy said, you know what? we're not getting out. they were in a furious fight to sandbag it, to shore it up, to stop the brazos river from swamping richmond, sugarland or missouri city. and now it looks like good news, it may have topped out. stuart: peaked. >> yeah, that's right. stuart: 45 feet above where it was a few days ago. >> exactly right. stuart: speaking of pictures, new video coming in to us. the u.s. air force special ops doing a rescue, landing a

helicopter on a flooded street to evacuate an injured civilian. you're watching it, that video came into us just moments ago. that's live action -- not quite live. recent video, action video of a rescue. got it. special ops right there. on the phone now, galen phillips from port arthur, texas. now, i am told that this gentleman on the phone rescued 50 people in his neighborhood when official rescue teams failed to show up. can you tell us your story, galen phillips? go through it. >> yes. we just -- as you know, we had a lot of water down here in port arthur. we were trying to get rescue by the helicopters. they weren't able to do so at the moment because they had another man in the neighborhood who needed assistance, and he was older, and i think he was by himself as well. so they went to him, and by that time my uncle had showed up in a

boat. and after that we just went from there helping people in the neighborhood. stuart: well, well done, young man. was your house where you were living, where you were, was that completely flooded and you were in danger of real trouble? >> yes, sir. we needed to get out of there as soon as possible. and like i said, they had another, they had another man in the neighborhood who needed assistance fast, and he was an older man. but, yes, sir, we needed to get out at that time. so as soon as the boat came, i left. stuart: okay. gaelon phillips, you're a good man. we think that's terrific. you're part of an extraordinary scene. congratulations, young man. you deserve our praise. gaelon phillips, everyone, rescued 50 people. all day long, all week long, you've been seeing scenes of extraordinary heroism, bravery and just plain goodwill from one person to another. and yet what's going on in

texas? doesn't have the great respect, in my opinion, of the coastal elites. they kind of look down on texas. paul conway, still with us. sitting it through, he's a good man. paul, how do you explain this? we're seeing the most extraordinary unfolding of america, something to really get your arms around and love. what happens? we've got the coastal elites sniping at it. i think it's terrible, and and you say what? >> well, i think some people, you know, their perception of texas is based on watching "dallas" reruns. i can tell you this, as an honorary texan, i have to tell you this: they're tough people. they're like all americans especially who are on the coast. but you had this nasty elite who want to make judgments, and they want to make judgments about state and these people and these small business owners down there. you've got to remind yourself that under president obama it was the texas economy that drove the high unemployment -- the high employment numbers in much of the job growth for eight years, because these people know

how to make things happen from the state level down to the local level. but the elitism, let's put that off to the side and encourage folks who are watching. please, get in touch with your religious organizations, catholic charities, so many of them, and others down there to get involved. samaritan's purse, habitat for humanity. because i have to tell you this, stuart, what you're watching there is people in the initial stagings. but fatigue will set in, depression sets in, and the reality -- and they need to get energized by even more people getting involved. this is a time for americans to stand behind texans, not to take pot shots and for people to get out of their penthouses and get to work. if you need to cut a check, cut a check. if you need to get on a plane, get down there. this is a time for everybody to look at each other as americans and not pop off an opinion about 'em. it's just absolutely wrong. stuart: funny you should say that, because on our phone now is one of those people who's

really helping wherever they can. a regional manager with pizza hut in sugarland, texas. she loaded up kayaks to deliver pizzas to hungry families. tell us your story. >> well, you know, we just wanted to go and feed the people that were in our neighborhood, and the only way for us to get to them was on kayak. [laughter] it was about chest deep, and -- stuart: you may not understand. that's a terrific story. i mean, here you've got a flooded street. we've got a picture of you on our screen right now. you're going out all across the country -- all around the world, actually. >> oh, wow. stuart: we've got a picture of you, and you're loading pizzas onto a kayak. was the pizza hut place itself flooded out? >> no. they were actually able to get to my store, and my husband and brother and my sister-in-law and friends, they -- we got all together, we went and made, you

know, over a hundred pizzas, we put them in our brand new bags to keep them hot, and we got them out there. that was the only way for us to get it to them, and we knew there were hungry people back there and they couldn't get out. stuart: did you just load up the pizzas and then row or paddle down the street shouting pizzas for sale to anybody who wants -- is that what you did? >> so we, at first the plan was just to see what happens when we get out there. and i told them, you know, you guys can sell them, we'll do, you know, 75% off at $5 a pizza. but if they didn't have any money, i said give it to them because i'm not going to stand here in front of their door and have ready, hot food, you know, right in front of them and them not have any money and, you know, not give it to them. that's just wrong. stuart: you know, you're a very good lady -- >> thank you. stuart: no, no, what you're doing is so typical of what's so great about america. i think you're terrific. shayda, anytime you want to come

on this show and deliver a pizza, you can come right ahead to new york city. we'd love to see you. [laughter] we think you're all right. we think you're all right. >> that's awesome. thank you so much. stuart: sure thing, ma'am. sure thing. paul conway, we were halfway into our diatribe against the coastal elites. i think i cut you off. [laughter] i don't think the coastal elites like texas and its success. low tax, small government, a can-do spirit. so totally different from the whining and complaining that you get from california and new york. >> well, i tell you what, the good thing really is that some of these elites are so minor in terms of their number, but they have loudspeakers. when you take a look at texas, yeah, it is a shining example of what can be done with determined people and small government and people that work through nonprofits and ngos to solve problems. government doesn't have to be the source of everything. but for those who are watching, stuart, id i'd especially remind folks of this, some of the folks you've had on the show, they're already going through the phase

of deconstructing and recover anything the houses, but some of the things that are going to be involved are masks, goggles, tools, antiseptics, you're looking at a foot print here of about 100,000 homes that are impacted, the degree to which will vary. but the one thing that has to happen is anything that is black mold and that type of thing has to be remediated and taken out. so when you see these opinions and cartoons about people taking a shot at fellow americans down there, they have no idea the amount of suffering that a community will go through. and the fact is that right now some of that stuff is appearing in the media, and right now you still have folks in the national guard and in the military who are flying with infrared to detect whether or not there's life or a loss of life. and it's just absolutely morally wrong to be doing this to people in the middle of this type of thing. stuart: you know, conway, you show admirable restraint. [laughter] i would be nowhere near as restrained. >> i try. stuart: stay there, hold on.

on the phone now, colonel ed bush, louisiana national guard public affairs office, sir. ed, texas gets all the attention. that's what we're paying attention to, that's where the video is coming from. give us an update on the situation in louisiana. >> absolutely. our priority effort today is in southwest louisiana, southeast texas where we are doing everything we can to pull texans from harm's way and from flooded areas across the border to safety and then moving them north into shelters in louisiana. stuart: okay. what kind of resources are you bringing to bear? the whole lot? >> oh, absolutely. we have high water vehicles and boats getting to those citizens in areas where nothing else can get to them. then they put them on a bus. it's a short trip to sort of a staging point, if you will, and then they get up to a shelter. what you're seeing is a tremendous, combined effort between the guard and several other state agencies, the wildlife and fisheries, the state police. of it's a tremendous effort, and

it's all about getting these people to safety where they can sort of catch their breath. stuart: so at this point in louisiana it's still a rescue operation, correct, sir? >> it is a, it is a combined, team effort in louisiana as we come to the assistance of texas. we are all too familiar with the scenario where you find yourself up to your eyeballs in a scenario that's bigger than you. texas was here in louisiana for katrina, and texas came across the border last year to help us with flooding, so this is what we do. we help each other out. stuart: have the feds given you everything you ask for, everything you need? >> that's really a question for the governor. i can just speak to the national guard fight, and i can tell you that we have the resources that we need, yes. stuart: thank you, sir. ed bush, we do appreciate you coming onboard today. you're doing valuable work, and we all appreciate it. thank you, sir. >> thank you for helping to keep the rest of the nation abreast. stuart: yes, sir, thank you. paul conway, still with us. glutton for punishment, guy. i keep pressing the man but, you

know, unfolding on this program throughout the week is just this extraordinary story of people helping out. i know i'm harming on it endlessly -- >> you're not. stuart: you know, i think it's one of the great stories of the year. this is america. it's a wonderful thing. >> it is america. look, you're not harping on it too much, stuart. and i have to tell you that apart from the headlines and the nonsense that goes on, there's a time for elections to end, and there's a time for governing to begin. and when people need to draw inspiration for how they govern, they ought to look at the american people and what's going on down there. you just is had somebody on from the louisiana national guard saying they've got the resources and that the governor will work with the president. the president will work through the cabinet, they're going to push down federal funds for small business, emergency unemployment assistance, housing assistance and those types of things. but again, what's happening on that ground is person to person. they're not divided by headlines and silly cartoons. stuart: well said. >> they're trying to take care of somebody's life. stuart: thank you, conway. i think you're all right. >> thank you. stuart: i want to get 60 seconds

from grif jenkins who is still there, still part of the rescue team. what do you have for me now? 60 seconds only, please, grif. >> reporter: 60 quick seconds, stuart, as we wrap up our reporting from here. we have seen some livestock, there have been some goats, there have been some chickens, things that simply were left behind. it's tragic property, it's not a sort of rescue that the sheriff's going to do. we see the things, we only have a few seconds. this is a tough part of this story. >> it is, of course. we've been policing these areas for the past several days, and we've recovered some animals. thank goodness that we don't have any humans that have been left behind. right now the river has crested here, and that's a blessing for us all. >> reporter: so there you have it, stuart. that's what's going on. as you saw yesterday, we were saving pets with pet owners. in this rural area though, some livestock, it's just a really difficult part of what's happened here. stuart? stuart: grif jenkins, fine work. our congratulations toss the sheriff right there as well. all good stuff. thank you, gentlemen.

i want to recap what we've seen so far this morning. number one, the market is up 22,000 on the dow jones industrial average. number two, the price of gasoline is going up. how long it stays up, i don't know, but the national average is now at $2.51 per gallon. that means it's up roughly 15-20 cents this week alone, and that is the national story. that's not just texas, that is all across the country, the average has gone up. the wholesale price of gasoline this morning, actually, is going down. a little technical stuff here. there's a change in the futures contract that's being quoted. but we're at $1.72 on this current contract, and that's down 3%. maybe that's good news for a little later when we've got this spike. maybe it won't be such a long-term spike. lastly, paul -- i'm sorry, not paul conway, no, no, gary cohn. gary cohn was on this program at the beginning of the 10:00 hour.

he gave us a capsule of the kind of tax plan we might see. lower corporate tax rate, a lower top rate of tax on individuals, but a lot of money clawed back with the end of the deductibility on state and local taxes. that's what happened. neil, it's yours. neil: yeah. so much news in your hours, and i think that was really the most significant. it hit me when he just said, again, this is kind of getting in the direction we thought it would be of these hurricane developments, stuart, if you think about it will actually be wind at the back for passage of that, because people will rally around that. and not the least of which because the rich don't end up getting much from this. in fact, they might end up paying more. cohn almost said as much with you. so that is being telegraphed as something that improving the chances of passage. and i was talking to a wall street banker who had caught that interview soon afterwards and had said, well, that cinches it, neil, tax reform is done. i'm not getting any tax break. he was referring