what do you say? neil: i don't think you could. with or without that voice but, it is a goal. they are all amazing. absolutely amazing. >> they are great guys. they really are. >> hi, neil. neil: keep their ego in checks. that is the quality i love about us, we're that way too, stuart. is my hair okay? thank you, guys, you very much. this is not what is so best for you or good for you right now a lot of selling going on. we're at session lows. a lot of this first, you can hear on facebook. it is news right now. that, it was getting some data on 50 million users some years back through an intermediary. a lot of folks are just finding out about that right now. that and what is going on in europe considering taxes on twitter and amazon and google amounting to 3% of their revenues. it's a one-two punch the likes of which the markets can not

shake off. we're on top of that and what could keep this going for a while. this might not be a short-lived event, this anti-technology wave here might have some global you know pinneds. we'll also -- underpinnings. we'll have you talk about the president's trim to new hampshire he lost barely to hillary clinton in the general election but his victory there launched him to the republican nomination gennslar daunting odds. >> a lot of big companies are complaining about that he is recommending the death penalty for anyone who sells drugs illegally. certainly coming from the border. we're on top of that, so many other developments here. i do want to thank as well charles payne and connell mcshane in my absence. i know you missed me. i can feel it. i can feel the love. meantime adam shapiro feeling

latest from the white house ahead of this big new hampshire trip. hey, adam. reporter: hey, neil. perhaps you can hear the president's helicopter is engaged. they're waiting for president to get on board and head off to new hampshire to keep another campaign promise which has to do with dealing with the opioid epidemic in the united states. new hampshire is one of the states singled out by a senior administration official. what he will unveil on his proposal how to crack down on the opioid epidemic. as you said raise awareness on the dangers of opioids and evidence-based treatment for people opioid addicted. safe prescribing plans. there is issue of pharmaceutical companies pushing salespeople to get doctors overprescribing on opioids. they want to crack down on that. they want to stop illicit opioids from entering the u.s.

and the allowing prosecutors to seek the death penalty if there is case of murder involving drugs as well. not as if something out of left field. but here is what the secretary of health and human services alex azar had to say about the president's initiative. >> he will prevent addiction from the legal opioids. he will reduce the supply of illicit drugs coming into this country. he will assure we have great treatment for those struggling with addiction from opioids. if you're involved in the distribution of illicit drugs, or if you are improperly using, selling, distributing even legal opioids there should be serious penalties attached and serious enforcement attached to all of that. reporter: neil, you should also know on totally unrelated issue political pundits are wondering if the president will use the visit to new hampshire to push for his re-election in 2020 because his approval rating is going up.

this "nbc/wall street journal" poll showing his approval rating risen in march. on the flip side, there is trouble in the republican party. the same poll showed democrats asked this question, preference for the november midterm elections, congressional elections, who would you like to control congress the response is democrats 50%, the gop, 40%. that is greater march win, the width between those two greater than in a previous poll, adam. neil: are they surprised at white house the numbers are where they are? improvement in the president's ratings it is happening despite the tax cut which public support has been building but obviously not showing up in the sentiment about keeping a republican congress? reporter: remember the president when you asked people kind of question you're asking here at the white house they point out this president speaks to his base, works for his base as well as other americans and his base has responded as well as those

other americans. what is it they talk about? people who voted for president obama who voted for president trump, those people perhaps in parts of ohio and in pennsylvania, who like some of the action this is president is taking when it comes to standing up tough to china and to other countries with steel and aluminum and what we're expecting will be the china tariffs perhaps later this week or by the end of the month. neil: thank you very much, adam. meantime, why are we not seeing more of a follow-through on those tax cuts that most americans now have been seeing in their paychecks but are not registering when it comes to support for keeping republicans in charge? at least in congress. again polls can change and often do but this is a worrisome development for republicans who thought they would be get much more follow through on the tax cuts than they're getting right now. independent women's forum hadley heath manning. "real clear politics" national political reporter, caitlyn your burns and last but not least,

joe borelli. you talked to trump and surrogates a big deal. they have to be a little chagrined. the tax cut is popular with independents but independents who seem to support swing from republican congress to favor a democratic one. what is going on? >> i don't think it is exactly entirely rosy picture for democrats, when you take state by state polling five democratic senator was lose on the ballot had it been held that day. i think you are seeing -- neil: very least, you see the senate staying way it is? >> in the generic ballot the president in midterms always seems to lose a little bit. i think one of the things we saw in conor lamb's pa race, president trump didn't help or hurt it. he wasn't on the ticket. remember back to 2012, barack obama, a cult of personality, he was not popular president in the midterm, having him on top of the ticket motivated people. when president trump is more involved or perhaps on the

ballot again in two years you will see republicans returning home and being very, investorsful in the elections. neil: caitlyn, a lot of people said do we utilize the president on the stump to help us or not. what do you think in the lamb situation? >> completely depends where you are. you mentioned the senate map is very different from the house map. if you're a republican senator, we're seeing senators running towards donald trump, hoping to motivate the base in those state because a lot of democrats are up for re-election in states trump won. on house side very different, path for the democrats take over the house runs through new jersey, new york, california, colorado where -- neil: you think they will take the house? >> it looks promising at this point. i'm still very skeptical because we are talking in march and elections are in november. one thing i will say though, we've seen in the pennsylvania race and some other races republicans are turning out. they're meeting their target numbers, just that democrats are vastly overperforming and also you mentioned independents in

that poll and women also in that poll. supporting more after democratic-controlled congress, republican one, that is what republicans are worried about, they're hemorrhaging support among independents, not necessarily their own base. neil: hadley, another phenomenon rejection of once democratic party stalwarts. hillary clinton getting ripped apart by fellow democrats on her notion that a lot of republican women or women in general who voted for donald trump did so at the behest of their boyfriends and husbands generally not avant-garde remark. you have also growing concern that nancy pelosi is more after drag for the party. her approval numbers gone down into the high teens, low 20s, record low numbers there. so not across the board, all democrats all the time there. are some democrats they don't want to deal with any of the time, huh? >> that's right. i think it would do both parties well to get some fresh blood, new leadership, new face, new

names on the ballot. when it comes to midterms, two points caitlyn and joe touched on it, we elect congress noting it nationally by district by district and in the case of senate by states. tax law continues to very popular. that should be their focus. they should tout the economy, economic benefits of that reform. secondly elections go to people that show up. turnout will be the most important variable. of course new presidents tend to lose in the midterm elections following their election. but people, it is hard to be negative, hard to get the negative emotions motivating people to go to the polls when economy is doing well. so it will be a good economy versus anti-trump sentiment. neil: so, if we were play this out, look toward november, always hard to do, this idea the president is targeting bob mueller and comments and tweets, gone from not naming to very much naming him fueled a lot of fire even among republicans who say go slow. is he risking compounding this

political problem in the midterms by doing that? >> i actually don't think so. this is something caitlyn and i were discussing backstage. you know, you saw the president's poll numbers go up in february as the tax cuts went into effect. you saw the president's poll numbers go down after parkland as people were frustrating with the government's handling of it. you saw them go back with handling of north korea. people are stopping to pay attention to the scandal de jure of the trump administration which the other networks, you know, carry wall-to-wall. they promote it in such hysterical narratives, people have phased out. neil: doesn't feed that base? shouldn't he just ignore isn't. >> certainly doesn't put out the flames. neil: right. >> i think his base is not going anywhere on the issue. his base is rightfully concerned that this bob mueller investigation is getting out of control. there was an article on cnn.com linked stormy daniels to the russian investigation. this is the validation of moving goalpost theory by other networks. neil: i don't know what is more

amazing, the stormy daniels charge or the fact you're reading cnn.com but i will let that go. the question going forward is how the president moves forward on this? he is very strong on this opioid thing, getting control over it. maybe showing that as commander-in-chief on that issue, lead on tax cuts but i always think some of these tweets destroy whatever progress he made. just my opinion. what do you think? >> absolutely, a lot of republicans on capitol hill agree with you since they are going to be on the ballot. they want the president to talk about tax reform every day. going out and doing events like this in new hampshire. instead the president -- neil: why are we not seeing tax cut reverberating, people getting a sense what democrats say, this is chump change, you are not benefiting? >> more of a reflection how people feel about the president's behavior in office and things he is doing. neil: that has been a constant, right? >> that is constant. people do feel like the economy

is good but they're not giving the president credit for it. that will trickle down to the party. the democratic party at this point, the base is very motivated by this anti-trump sentiment. that is helpful for them in a midterm. not necessarily for a presidential election. if trump were to let the investigation play out, the mueller probe, you know, the white house has exonerated -- has validated parts of it by issuing sanctions against russians for indictments part of it. if you let it play out -- neil: if they were cozy with the russians they wouldn't do that? >> if they let it play out they can focus on other things when sy campaigning he talks about cultural issues as well designed to gin up the base and reverse support of generating opposition among democrats. neil: hadley, this is one of the states the president lost to hillary clinton albeit by small

amount the opening victory there set the stage for winning republican nomination but he also visited california last week. he is going into the waters and going into states he lost but i wonder if this is a sign of things to come? he is is not just writing off states he might not have done too well in last go round? he is setting up markers he will include those in the battle plan what do you think? >> well the benefits of president trump's economic agenda are coast to coast. they are for every state. therefore people of both political parties i think getting that messaging across, really trying to position himself as a uniter. it is very difficult for the president to do because as you mentioned, neal. neil: he can go off on twitter sometimes. his communication style, very different from communication style for republicans in congress, sometimes the better. if democrats passed a tax law that put money back in people's pockets they wouldn't talk about trillions of dollars and faceless economy. they would talk about the new

shoes, warm coats families will be able to buy, new fridge, vacation. they would talk about how this makes a very personal difference in the lives of americans. we feel it. republicans need to do better job of messaging why this is not just a political issue but personal one. neil: they are very bad at that, very bad at marketing. that is important. thank you all very, very much. keep up with facebook. keep up with technology. keep up with a broad selloff right now in the dow jones industrials. facebook among the worst-performing s&p 500 stocks here and a lot of that goes back to cambridge analyst can, a "politico" analyst firm that gathered date to the scores of 50 million plus users and none of those users knew about it and they're ticked off, and right now they are selling off. you add that to what is happening on the front here with big names in technology land including google and twitter and amazon, all of whom have been targeted by the european union

for upwards of a 3% tax on their revenues. generally that is not a favorable development. generally people sell off on that. they are doing just that. more after this. whoooo.

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only about 80% of your part b medical expenses. the rest is up to you. so if 65 is around the corner, think about an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. like all standardized medicare supplement insurance plans, they help cover some of what medicare doesn't pay. and could save you in out-of-pocket medical costs. so don't wait. call to request your free decision guide. and gather the information now to help you choose a plan later. these types of plans let you pick any doctor or hospital that takes medicare patients. and there's a range of plans to choose from, depending on you needs and your budget. so if you're turning 65 soon, call now and get started. because the time to think about tomorrow...is today. go long. neil: all right, still at session lows.

this by the way could be a market mover especially if it accelerates to the degree. some concern that the president wants to fire special counsel robert mueller. his attorney denies it that it will never happen. lindsey graham says if even attempts to that it will be beginning and end of his presidency. chris, let's play that out, the president is naming mueller. not speaking vaguely about the fbi. using the guy's name in tweets. my immediate reaction to that he is setting up for something. do you think he is? >> i don't know. i think he is pretty impulsive and he just reacts to events of the day. sometimes he okay with the special counsel, he hangs back, and other times he is strident and his comments. i think it would be huge mistake to fire the special counsel. someone else will step in place and investigation would go on. neil: rod rosenstein would have to find someone else.

that someone else could be even worse. you think that would be a bad move. bill daly, is it your read would be a bad move? maybe the president is weighing all this, deciding, i don't care, i'm ready to do this? >> i think certainly the optics on it would create certainly a negative connotation that he was had something further to hide and that is why he was getting rid of somebody getting close to what they were thought hidden secrets of his, however i would suggest to you, that, i think it is fair enough to question whether or not the investigation should continue, particularly because the predicates which is was based have fallen apart. whether the steele dossier. whether precipitated fisa warrants. also with a joint bipartisan senate intelligence committee report saying that they didn't find anything after them investigating, looking at thousands and thousands of documents and interviewing scores of witnesses. certainly fair to question -- neil: they would argue that was republican manufactured event? you might be right or wrong on

that. but chris, one of the things i've seen on this debate, is the argument that the president is getting frustrated by his, as bill pointed out, by veering from its original intent t would not be such the first investigation that has. bill clinton's fell apart whether he lied about a relationship with an inturn. turns out he did but that was not ken starr's original goal. now we got mueller going after business transactions of the trump organization and those involved in it directly or indirectly, their business transactions, that is far afield from what the original edidn't was. so the president could come around and say, that is why i'm even contemplating this, if he is, what do you think? >> neil, i think this is, if it is just for the russian inquiry alone their bad dirty tricks, their bad behavior, their criminal behavior being exposed

it is worth a special counsel. now whether some people colluded or other things went on, whether manafort got greedy and flynn got greedy and took russian money and hid it that is nice to know, i happen to think that is it politics and people just being greedy but i'm happy to see the russians exposed. they have doing this for years and years. not just interfering with elections but exporting insurance fraud, russian fugitives sitting at the foot of the kremlin. about time they to the exposed. that is a good thing. neil: i don't know know what changes we would see, with the re-election, if you want to call it that of vladmir putin. is he not going anywhere. he does not seem frightened by the investigations going on, if anything emboldened by them. what do you think? >> i think at the end of the day he and his cohorts are sitting

back, having a laugh fest. doing what they like to see, casting aspersions on the american system, the president and official process and distracting from things focused on elsewhere in the world or expressing doubts about our political system. they enjoy it. i agree with my colleague, positive things coming out on this is fully flesh out whether or not there was any collusion f there was such or any americans were involved with the russians, at this point it is pretty speculative, we don't have details at least in the public sector to suggest that, that is something we want to know. going back to what we were discussing before is the enabling statute which put mueller in place we have to look and say how much was given as far as the specific scope? has he deviated from that. was given more cart blance much. has he gone back to the justice department for additional powers to look outside of the original preview, i think questions need to be asked and they are reasonable questions to ask. neil: i think this will be

dragging on for a while. gentlemen, both, very, very much. do any of you remember in the meantime "the unabomber"? they chased that guy around for years why he was sending packages and devices to people. now they have something going on in austin that seems to eerily parallel what happened then decades ago. why they're nowhere close to finding who is leaving the these packages a fourth explosion in austin. two people are already dead and a number injured and they still have no chance at this early sign of finding the guy, or woman, after this.

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this comes at a time when police are all but begging the a sail sail -- assailant to come forward or what he is thinking. casey stiegel in austin. what do you know? reporter: that is interesting but they spoke into the cameras, not just the police chief this austin and but atf, other officials saying whoever is responsible for this turn yourself in now because they say they are following up on hundreds of leads and they identified persons of interest but they have checked out and they want to make sure, they emphasize no one has been named a suspect that is it different than as we know a person of interest. bottom line right now at this hour no one has been arrested. for now the fourth bombing in the city of austin in a short period of time and austin's police chief not mincing his words either saying quote, we

are dealing with a serial bomber. because we learned that that device last night has some similarities to the others that were used in the previous crimes. what the similarities are, they will not say but federal agents do tell us that the one last night was far more advanced. in other words, it had a trip wire on it. so anyone could have set it up. placed randomly in the southwest austin neighborhood to target no specific group or person police say, just intended to hurt anyone who stumbled across it. listen. >> i will reach out to the suspect or suspects that you ask you contact us, reach out to us, communicate with us, so we can put this to an end. innocent people are getting hurt in this community and it needs to come to a stop. the last thing we want to have is another injury or another death in our community. reporter: the previous three explosions happened in other

parts of the texas's capital city, north and east but those came in the form of a package that was left on a doorstep delivered in the middle of the night with a bomb inside. the one here in this affluent neighborhood known as travis country it, was placed sitting next to a fence. two men were seriously hurt in that explosion as they were passing by. as this investigation ramps up, you heard authorities imploring the public to be vigilant, making sure if you see anything suspicious, backpacks, packages, be it at a business or in a residential neighborhood. call police, do not touch it by any means. they're also asking again for whoever is responsible to come forward because they warned them they are hot on their tails. neil? neil: thank you very much, casey, my friend. get the reed on all of this with johnny jones a former marine

bomb tex. a lot of people are bringing up unabomber comparisons and sophisticated targets, some noted executives. in this case comes at a time when it seemed like they were racially motivated, african-american, hispanic teenager were among those killed but what is your sense of seeing what you've seen? >> i think they don't know. i think that every time we put out a narrative we think the motivation is we give two opportunities, one for a copycat killer, two, for that bomber to change their tactics to throw the police off. so i think what we're seeing a very genuine we don't know. i will tell you that right now the best-case scenario one of these bombs is placed and found before it has a chance to go off so they can fully prosecute that bomb, take apart every piece of it, analyze it, gather forensics, possibly things like dna or fingerprintstry to use that to catch this person.

what we're seeing here on level of sophistication, not necessarily anymore sophisticated to rig up a trip wire as what we would call the other types being victim-operated or anti-disturb. so i don't know that in of itself shows a change in sophistication but it does show a change in tactics and implementation and that is worth noting so we have a sample size at this point because we have different types of bombs placed in different areas seemingly initiated in different ways. i think what we have to do now is hope and pray if anymore of these bombs are put out we find it before it blows up and use that as an opportunity to get information. neil: you mentioned the possibility of changing tactics because of those hunting you down, trying to find out where you are, or who you are, you can suddenly confuse them. "the unabomber" did that going after someone who had no similar ties to prior victims but you stumble upon these perpetrators,

sometimes by accident. where could the -- >> absolutely. neil: what do you look for for slip-ups here? >> absolutely. when it comes to initiating a bomb you can do it in really simple way, using wiring from a hardware store or use sophisticated projects like boxes or mercury switches. a lot of times they will survive the blast. you see where was it manufactured and where was it possibly be purchased and kind of go there. look at amazon purchases, things like that. the other side of this is, i highly doubt law enforcement is not continuing to follow the original motive narrative, two of the victims were connected. they were connected in this way. obviously they were african-american. i believe that is still a very legitimate line of motive to follow simply because there is high likelihood the bomber would want to throw them off his or her trail but when it comes to

capturing this person and finding him, timothy mcveigh was captured through the purchase of ammonium nitrate. only one out of every four or five barrels of that bomb went off. they could actually located specific type of ammonium nitrate back to the dealer in that area. so a lot of components and parts of these bombs will survive the blast, that is when you really get into the science finding out what the chemicals, the precursors for the explosion is, where it can be purchased, how it can be purchased and who has the ability to do that that of the that is a big part of it. unfortunately when we talk about sophistication, there is electronic componenttry and actual homemade explosive. if that is sophisticated that means they're doing chemistry in their house or backyard, a lot of people can do it and a, not a the love people at that type of tools and ability.

neil: so confusing. johnny joey jones. thanks for your insight. >> absolutely. take care, neil. neil: i had a pleasure of reading tom sew well-'s greatest book. bobby kennedy's campaign launched 50 years this week. what does bobby have in common with this noted conservative icon. i tell you more than you might think. i will explain after this.

♪ neil: all right. let's look at what is going on at the corner of wall and broad. it might link up with what is happening or not happening in the capital right now. the dow down near session lows. facebook is a big factor behind it. other technology stocks. indications through a intermediary facebook might have been gathering data on 50 million users. the users didn't know about it. the users are ticked off. investors in facebook are ticked

off. technology generally as an investment is getting sold off across the board. to louisiana republican senator bill cassidy, i'm happy to say joins me in the flash. >> thanks, neil for having me. neil: do you pay attention to the markets, your colleagues, looking for confirmation of hard work you're doing, versus not a confirmation? >> in the macro it's a confirmation. we have seen since president trump took office the stock market has done great and you can see that reflected in record low unemployment for african-americans and for hispanics. you pay attention to that. day-to-day fluke situations, not so much. neil: when you see the poles show double-digit gap favoring democrats in sort of a macromidterm election romp, does that worry you? >> you are heaviry weighted toward states like california and new york if they will compare across the board. neil: district by district. >> if you go district by district, there will be some states, for example, in missouri where the president is very

popular and we have a strong republican senatorial candidate. you can't look at macro in this case. you have to look at more after state or district. i think that is where you learn your lessons. neil: you're in the senate. there is concern house goes democrat. do you think that will happen? >> i don't know that. i think that the longer we allow those tax cuts to kick in, and the other parts of the president's agenda, for example, to lower drug costs or otherwise lower health care costs the more folks like that agenda. as that happens, i think, things change for republicans. neil: all right. there are some wild cards here. thinking of letting tax cuts sink in. i think you're right, even among independents there is more favorable view of the tax cuts than going in. still remains to be seen how that pans out in individual distributes. what happened in pennsylvania last week is adding fuel to concern fire in your party that it is not helping. you think eventually it will? >> so the last eight years have been one of economic

dislocation. families not doing well. you don't just turn that on a dime. neil: yeah. >> i think there was a hope that it could. it hasn't. things are better. look at consumer confidence, doing fantastic. but still folks were hopeful things could change more i am -- immediately. if you look who voted for whom. working class voted for president. to be prank he has had a little issue with women, you see that play out in pa-18. as economy continues to improve there will be up swell for the republican candidates. neil: you mentioned i would be remiss didn't talk about latest tweets particularly going after bob mueller investigating him with potential russian ties. are you concerned that he is seriously contemplating firing the guy? >> i will not pretend to be inside president trump's mind but i think it would be a mistake. so far his legal staff is thoroughly cooperated with

mr. mueller. he is behaving like a fellow in terms of cooperation, as one who is innocent. he continues to drag on. i'm sure he is frustrated f mueller goes somebody else is there. i think he should let it play. insist he is cannot and let it come out. neil: do you get a sense that mueller is widing the probe, to the trump organization, looking into business practices long before he announced for president? much like the ken starr investigation first looked into real estate transactions and ended up being about an intern and affair, this is going in whole another direction? >> you do have a sense it is broadening but i don't have a sense it broadened widely as that. neil: i see. >> and again not pretending to be inside of that investigation, i think the important thing is the president inservices upon innocence. the american people would like to see the process play. i think we should allow it to play out. neil: if you could advise president tweeting about it, or naming bob mueller you would say what? >> i would say let the process

play out. the president is not taking my advice on tweeting for last year-and-a-half. neil: he might not now. >> he might not now. neil: let's talk a little bit about the budget situation. you want to get the whole health care thing under control and take a stab at it or different stab at it. explain. >> we need to lower health care costs, we need to lower pharmaceutical costs and one thing we've been promoting price transparency. someone should know the cost of a procedure, you name it before she has it done as opposed to finding out six months later. should be like going online to buy a plane ticket where you know the date and time you wish to fly, where you wish to go and log on to find the best price. logging on to ct scan for your daughter's abdomen. i can go here for $250 thursday at midnight. or go right now at $2500. i will stay up thursday at midnight get my child's x-ray then. can happen. it is happening already.

price transparency for example, for lasix surgery -- people pay cash. they ask for the price. the prices come down, the quality has improved. we can do that in other areas besides just lasix surgery. neil: what kind of reception have you been getting? >> sent a letter. we got three democrats, three republicans. ed perlmutter, democratic congressman from colorado is introducing a bill on the house side. we have a bill teed up on the senate side. united health insurance came out say they would give what they are calling point to sale rebates, a form of transparency for folks buying drugs within their deductible. secretary azar, scott gottlieb, fda commissioner spoke in favor of either a direct concept or associated concept. we think it is an idea whose time has come. neil: very interesting. senator bill cassidy, very good seeing you in the flesh. >> thank you, neil. neil: much success, senator from the beautiful state of

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♪ neil: all right. have you been seeing what is going on with facebook? this industry darling led the market up last year and through much of this year, quite a different take today. down about 7% at session lows. the market is as well following this technology selloff. gerri willis with the details that got this nightmare started. >> yeah, i got to tell you, neil, this stock now in correction territory, down about 12.5% from its highs. the stock losing about 4% of the company's market value today and why? well, because a firestorm over the weekend how the social media company managed third party access to its users information. facebook said cambridge analytica founded by former trump advisor, steve bannon and robert mers earns improperly kept facebook user data for years despite saying it destroyed those records. facebook says the situation is unlike data breaches that plagued american companies for

several years right now. this is facebook, quote, the claim this is data breach is completely false. people knowingly provided their information. no systems were infiltrated and no passwords or sensitive pieces of information were stolen or hack. at issue is an app that hundreds of thousands of facebook users downloaded in order to take a personality test. they agreed to have their data collected. facebook later changed its policy on this but the company knew cambridge retained access to the data as late as 2015. cambridge now says that no information from the company that provided the data was used in the 2016 election that is. quote, cambridge analytica's commercial and political divisions use social media platforms for outward marketing delivery data led content to target the offices. they don't use whole data from facebook profiles. as we've been following the social media companies are trading lower in sympathy.

twitter, snap, google all lower. facebook shares under the 200-day moving average at this point. big move for facebook. not good news for the company. everybody and his martie saying we'll investigate. the eu, you name it, everybody taking a look at this k neil? neil: gerri, thank you very, very, very much. fallout from all of that to gerri ace point is widespread. mashable deputy tech editor michael nunez and tech analyst, cathy swaim. technology stocks taking on the chin. group taking you up would lead you on the way down. how bad is it going to get? >> first problem is facebook's response to this, initially trying to quash the story about what happened. and now saying that there was no data breach. i think it's a trust issue with facebook. neil: they do keep changing stories. why do they do this? get it out, if that is the case, get it out?

>> i completely agree. any marketing expert would tell you that is the first thing they need to do, they need to get it out there, they need to say we're investigating. we're appalled, this is not supposed to happen but their first move was to try to hide it and i think there is a trust issue there and i think people are probably worried and probably going on facebook right now and changing privacy settings. they're worried about downloading third party apps. when you have that type of panic going on and a stock down in correction mode over 12 1/2% you have to do something proactive and i think their initial move was not very smart one. neil: yeah, i think you're right on that. michael, ironically many of those 50 billion ad adjusted privacy settings so something like this wouldn't happen and it did. what is the message there and what are folks to do? >> anyone following this pretty closely would come away with the same answer which is facebook basically can't be escaped this is something has far-reaching tentacles. even if you were to delete your

facebook account, for example the company is still able to triangulate about you just based on your friends. things like your phone number, address, other connections they can use from the network. they don't necessarily need to you opt into actually coming to those conclusions at least. so the machine learning and artificial intelligence is by far and away the most interesting and biggest part of this story. i think people are just starting to understand how powerful some of these systems actually are. neil: but i always get a sense with this stuff, guys, and cassie, we get outraged and furious, a lot of people were furious at target when a lot of information got into the wrong hands at wrong time, people still went to target. facebook and others had problems in the past, people didn't leave facebook. think we're resigned to this. what do you think? >> i agree, and i agree with the gentleman that just spoke. one of the problems we are all over the internet. our information is everywhere. it is very difficult to scrub

any information off there. if you're already on facebook and you already have a couple hundred friends and you downloaded information, your information is out there. i think every time you use a credit card, the same thing can happen. there are risks out there. so, yeah, i think that there is going to be just a general consensus that you have to live with this possibility but i also think that people are starting to grow tired of social media. neil: yeah. >> and they're starting to deactivate. you're seeing that with teenagers, starting to deactivate from social media. i think that you could potentially see a backlash. neil: all right. we're certainly seeing it on the corner of wall and broad today where the selloff is showing no abandon. more after this.

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we need this bath. yes. yes you do. a kohler walk-in bath provides independence with peace of mind. call for a free kohler nightlight toilet seat with consultation or visit kohlerwalkinbath.com for more info. neil: all right, i don't know what the actual case is, because now we're learning from tempe, arizona, police that a uber vehicle that was behind the killing of a pedestrian in arizona might have had a driver behind the wheel after all. nevertheless, the accident involving one of uber's so-called self-driving vehicles is the first time a pedestrian has been hit and killed by one such vehicle. whether there was someone behind the vehicle or not. so they've suspended that function and service for the time being. so we'll keep you posted on that and what it could mean for this driverless car wave that is pretty much all the rage among all the major manufacturers and how this could change things or

not. meanwhile, we've been keeping a close eye to what's happening to tech stocks, snooping on millions of users, 50 million plus, after vowing to stop doing it and continuing to do it. all occurred around the time of the 2016 election, so people are kind of wondering who was behind what and how much. this as the president himself will be arriving this hour in new hampshire. manchester, i believe, where he'll be talking up opioid use and trying to curtail the prescription market for these types of medications. some are perfectly justified, but he wants to slice it by a third. easier said than done. the drug industry lobby not too keen on that. meanwhile, his poll numbers have been improving even as democrats' prospects of holding on and toppling the capitol, maybe taking the house are improving as well. it is an odd confluence of events to put it mildly. let's go to the hill

editor-in-chief bob cusack on what this could mean. you're the encyclopedia on this, but i believe the time the republicans took over in the last midterm, the idea was that beforehand it looked like a crap shoot. there was no overwhelming polling to indicate that it would happen, and it did. >> it did, yes. neil: so what is your sense from this polling right now using history as a guide? is this a sure bet that democrats do take the house or what? >> i think, neil, it's better than 50/50 that democrats will take back the house. just historical trends -- a long way to go, but it's interesting, as you said. the tax law has gotten more popular, president trump has gotten more popular, the economy's humming, the stock market is going along. but republicans in washington, they are very nervous about the energized left. we saw that in a number of races including the virginia governor's race and pennsylvania 18 last week. so that's what's concerning.

while the map is republican-friendly, democrats have big fundraising edges. so i do think, you're right, in 2010 we didn't see such a big wave coming. 63 seats were picked up by republicans, and it was going to be close, everyone thought, and then it was a big, big wave. this could be a big wave too. neil: you know, i've had a number of top republicans on, even democrats who say to a man or woman, yeah, we think these tax cuts are resonating with the american public, even democrats saying we didn't fully comprehend that corporations would share as much of this wealth as they are. democrats like to point out they could share a lot more, but that as it may, they underestimated the appeal of these tax cuts. but it's seemingly not helping republicans in any substantive way yet. why is that? >> not yet. and i think that's why republicans have to double and triple down on the tax law. they're talking about, as the president said, a phase two

where they would do more tax cuts and go after individual rates, make them permanent. now, i don't think that can pass because they're not going to have that reconciliation 60 votes. neil: right. >> but can you make it a campaign issue and bin the debate -- win the debate. very possibly because in those red states where trump won overwhelmingly, that's going to be a tough vote for some of those centrist democrats up for re-election this fall. neil: switching gears a little bit, the president naming bob mueller by name, the fact that he's talking in this broad aggregate about how much he really abhors what seems to be an agenda against him at the fbi, now targeting mueller. and a lot of people seem to read into that that he's setting the stage for trying to fire the guy. what do you think -- what would happen if he did? lindsey graham has said that would be the beginning or the end of his presidency. what's the read you're getting? >> without a doubt. firing comey was big, this would be a hundred times that.

it would be a political earthquakement there would be a lot of pressure on republican leaders to protect mueller. lindsey graham has cosponsored legislation in the house that's getting a lot of cosponsors in recent weeks. i think that, you know, trump here has the fighter of mccabe, we haven't seen this report from the inspector general, but clearly fbi director chris wray did not think mccabe handled whatever he handled correctly. we have to watch out for that report. and that also, neil, that report could be very critical of james comey. and certainly, trump is going to seize on that. trump is just frustrated. this is going on the for a long time, and it's going to go on, i think, for a while. neil: and it seems to have veered off course, as a lot of these probes do. ken starr was a good example of that. but now looking into the trump organization and business dealings if these reports are right, the president is getting increasingly annoyed, right?

>> he is. and he doesn't like when people are looking into old financial transactions. certainly, that's what manafort, this is what the special counsel did with manafort going way back, and that's why he's looking at possibly life in prison. and mueller, though, wants manafort to say something. he's clearly putting the pressure on him. maybe that's because he's got some information, maybe because he needs more information. neil: yeah, good point. bob, good seeing you again. thank you so much. >> thanks, neil. neil: as we pointed occupant, the president is in new hampshire today, he's going to be talking about opioid use. new hampshire got the ball started for him, his win there, of course, in the primary set the stage for the surprising tumult where he took down 16 prominent, the best of the best in the republican party, to go on and take the nomination. a fellow who knows that very well and watched the drama unfold was herman cain, the former 2012 presidential candidate, best selling author as well. ing you know, herman, i was

thinking the president in new hampshire today, even though he lost the state by a teeny bit to hillary clinton, this is the second time in as many weeks he has visited a state he lost. and i'm wondering what's going on there. what do you think? >> here's what i think. i think you have to throw out all of the old models and the history of what happened leading up to the presidential race. and is with all due respect to bob, your previous guest, one of us is going to be right after the first tuesday in november. [laughter] i think there's a 60/40 chance that the republicans are going to maintain control of the house. here's why. this president has, one, reshuffled the deck. number two, people are feeling the impacts of the tax plan in their checks. and when you have more crumbs to take home, you don't forget about that. and so i just don't believe that all of the old models and all of the old predictions will apply. now, similarly for new

hampshire, i think it's a whole new day. the biggest challenge that the president has, all republicans have, all conservatives have, their biggest challenge is to get the positive message out there about the results of this president and not all of the noise that the democrats want to try and create. neil: so what would do that? what would make that prediction happen? >> first, the rnc, republican national committee, with all due respect, they need to kick it up a notch, as emeril lagasse used to say, in terms of messaging, in terms of putting out the template for the message of the republican party. look, you have so many things that you can talk about as part of your message. but you can't wait for 245 republicans in the house to figure it out or 51 senators in the senate. no, it needs to come from a centralized source, and that

source needs to be the republican national committee. the messages, the results are there. it's up to the republicans and the conservatives to communicate those results and that message. neil: you know, we're down about 450 points for the dow right now. how much of a factor are the markets and the whip sawing that we've seen from what was an inexorable ride up prior do you think are on voters' minds? >> i don't think it's on voters' minds that much as long as it doesn't take a huge dip. remember, this runup started at about 18,000 with the dow, and now it's over 24,000, and so i see 3-400 points a day as normal volatility. if all of a sudden the market starts to drop below 20,000, then it might be more on the minds of a lot of people. i happen to believe that a lot of day traders, with all due respect, they're the ones that's driving this volatility.

but the average investor who has a retirement plan of any sort, they're look at what they have today versus what they had last year. not what's happening day-to-day. neil: when you were in the business world, did you focus a lot on how stocks were doing even when you were running as a candidate, how stocks were doing? >> no, i did not. i focused on more of the long-term trends for the few stocks that i followed. i used to follow the dow, i followed the stocks of all of the boards that i served on because i happen to have servedded on some boards that really represented -- served on some boards that really represented a nice picture of this total economy. so when they started to show huge declines, then i would get concerned. but, no, i didn't focus on the individual market on a day-to-day basis, although a lot of people do because this is their primary method or means for trying to keep track of whether they're making any money or losing any money.

i have to go to work every day. [laughter] neil: wow, i mean -- [laughter] i guess you needn't add to the fact that that's what we do for a living here, but that's fine. >> exactly. [laughter] neil: herman, thank you very much. as herman was saying that and maybe just to rub salt in the wound for a lot of folks the dow down about 460 points right now. facebook, extended to technology stocks, then it tanked the nasdaq, some of the worst performers within the s&p 500, and there are 11 sectors we follow, the technology by far the worst hit. what is really going on here, and why can't people seem to find a floor right now for these stocks? things change and often do very quickly are, but with less than three hours to go of this particular trading day, it is looking ugly thus far.

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neil: all right, we've got a selloff on our hands, down about 436 points right now. a lot of this began with facebook. we'll get to that. needless to say, the dow is negative for the year right now as a result of this freefall here. i should also point out that the cboe, volatilitying index and so-called vix, i don't like to pay too much attention to this because it's like, you know, getting a quick snapshot once the picture is snapped, it's shot, it's done. so i don't read too too much, and i know a lot of people swear

by it, but it changes so quickly, you really can't make much ado about it. but right now that volatility index has been, you know, obviously escalating on fears that this is going toes calculate9 into something with the facebook issue and even with the president tweeting about bob mueller and the investigation, that maybe he's sort of greasing the skids for firing the guy. we're told from the president's lawyer that that is not in the offing, but you never know with the president. he has surprised many of his own top staffers many a time, so you can't say no for sure. and right now the better part of valor seems for people to sell first and sort of analyze things after that. fortunately, we have deirdre bolton to get a gauge of what's going on here. all of a sudden this just became whammy time. what happened? >> it did, neil. you mentioned facebook, and i don't think we can underemphasize the effect that facebook's drop is having on the overall markets, the dow included. we know there are these reports that this analytical firm,

cambridge analytica, was able to collect data from 50 million people's profiles without permission. so that is really going to cause them a problem. obviously, facebook has suspended its relationship with this data analytics firm, but lawmakers on both sides of the atlantic -- in the u.s., in europe, in the u.k -- are calling for investigations over facebook's practices. and i'm not trying to draw a direct link here, neil, but you remember back in 199 9, i mean, in europe that was where the no knop be listic charges against microsoft started. and i think it's fair to say that microsoft took about a decade to refind its feet. so the bottom line is facebook is in the crosshairs, even the u.k. prime minister, theresa may, saying they are looking into the activities in the u.k., the european parliament making some strong statements. i think this is becoming of concern certainly for facebook investors and then reminding all investors of compliance risks

and regulatory risks, neil. neil: thank you, deirdre, very, very much here. this is a cascading event. you've heard that before, sometimes when selling happens and it happens in an area, it begets other selling. all 11 sectors within the s&p 500 are at or in deep red territory here. meanwhile, there is this russia probe too, and that could be affecting things especially when the president is actually calling out bob mueller by name. senator bill cassidy of louisiana was with us a short time ago, and he urged the president to stop that. >> i think the important thing is the president insist upon innocence. the american people would like to see the process play. neil: but if you could advise the president tweeting about it or naming bob mueller, you would say what? >> i would say let the process play out. but the president has not been taking my advice on his tweeting for the last year and a half. neil: all right, to former assistant fbi director ron hosko on all of that.

the president tweets to his own abandon, and he is the president, it obviously got him into office and keeps him into office, but that's a senator saying, ron, this is tipping into an area you might not want to be in, mr. president. what do you say? >> well, i too wish the president would put his twitter machine down. i think he's done a number of things so far in his term that undermine trust and confidence in our intelligence community and in specific components of the intelligence community. clearly, one of them is the fbi. some of the comments that he's made even though there's a part in there that suggests i'm not talking about the broader work force, it does have an impact. i think there's some polls recently that show an erosion of trust and confidence in the fbi, and i think this plays a role in that. neil: do you worry that the president might seriously be contemplating that, or is this just frustration? >> well, i do worry about that, and i've gotten some contacts and some text messages from

friends just walking in here today, yesterday very, very concerned about what the president's ultimate goal is in undermining trust in mueller, maybe trying to derail mueller's investigation. i frankly don't see, neil, folks at the doj lining up to fire bob mueller. so, you know, is, you know, are we headed to some sort of constitutional crisis because of the president's pressure? i hope not. neil: all right. you, you think though it would be a constitutional crisis if he you are fired mueller. >> well, i do because, first, it sounds like -- i believe that the authority to fire mueller comes from doj, from rod rosenstein, then it would start to trickle down from rosenstein. rachel brand recently left. i think it's next the solicitor general. i do not see people who are sworn to uphold and defend the constitution firing mueller for other than clear cause. and so if you have a line of

succession of people saying, no, i'm not doing it, i resign, no, i'm not doing it, i resign, until mueller -- until the president could find somebody who does agree to do it, i think we're headed down the wrong road if that happens. neil: all right, ron, thank you so much, my friend. all this breaking news here, for those of you just tuning in, we're down about 426 points, and it's not simply because i'm back. [laughter] i find some of you e-mailing to that point, and varney's got to stop doing that. [laughter] you're wrong. but i will say here that this began with facebook, but it is escalating to orr issues, and it's always the proverbial fear of the unknown. in the case of facebook, what it knew and when it knew it and whether it was oblivious to it, or more deliberately hiding it when it came to gathering information from 50 million users even though a lot of them had privacy settings that would have prevented this sort of thing. obviously, that didn't work like a charm. then there's this separate e.u. plan to tax some american juggernauts including the likes

of google and apple and saying, you know what? we think a 3% tax on your revenues, on your revenues is in order. so that's buffetting those stocks. and, of course, the president, another unknown factor here and what he is planning to do about bob mueller. he is, for the first time now, in the middle of a tweet storm saying that the guy leading the investigation into so-called russian collusion with the trump campaign, whether there's something there or not, is going way beyond what was justified or remotely was his first edict. that would not be the first time, of course, an investigation has gone that way. but for the president of the united states, well, it's not a happy event. and right now a lot of the musing seems to be that he could be teeing up firing the guy which, as you just heard from one analyst and a number of senators who have been talking to us, not a good idea. all of those unknowns creating this known, a selloff and a big one. more after this. ♪ ♪

neil: all right, we got the selloff continuing now down about 445 points. i'd be remiss if i didn't mention trade was into this mix too. the e.u. is looking at a 3 percent on tax revenue, amazon, maybe apple, but we've also got the german finance minister in town. he's very, very concerned about this plan on the part of the trump administration to slap tariffs on steel imports including those that come from germany, says it would be a bad idea and that it would create a no-win situation and a tit for tat that would go global and not be in anyone's interest. to former state department senior adviser under bush 43 christian white p, christian, good to have you. how big is this trade thing going to be, do you think? a number of republicans have advised the president be careful what you start. what do you think's happening here? >> well, i think what we've seen so far, the aluminum and steel

tariffs under section 232 which came out recently, that is trump negotiating. we're in a bunch of negotiations with several countries renegotiating free trade agreements or just other trade status quos. and this is partly trump, if you will, killing the chicken to scare the monkey, showing he's serious about it. more significantly perhaps than the 232 steel and aluminum tariffs will come next week. china, which is being investigated for systematically stealing u.s. intellectual property -- it's a separate investigation known as section 301 -- will am certainly find china in violation, and the question is just how big the tariffs are going to be placed on china. noaa neil you mentioned -- neil: you mentioned china, and given the fact that xi jinping is going to be ruler for life, and vladimir putin's just been renewed for another six years, these are thorns in the administration's side who aren't going anywhere anytime soon, so how does that play out? >> you know, xi jinping who is

particularly confident, same with putin having just had this mandate from their political systems, you know, ironically in china because you move from a communist system where there was shared power to an extent where one's predecessor chose your successor to one where there's just one creates, actually, additional stress on the chinese communist party. over time,, you know, in the near term this is stronger, over time this creates a possible future crisis where that government could come tumbling down. with putin i think we should realize we will try to define russia's interest for it and hope putin will be pushed from power, and neither of those things are going to happen. if we want an outcome that's going to be better in syria or ukraine, we need to sit down and negotiate with putin which we haven't been doing. neil: so you don't think this will get out of control. >> i think there's a big change coming with china. i think the 232 stuff that we've seen, and before that the 201 stuff that affected washing machines and some other

categories are minor, there'll be more and more exemptions as time dose -- time goes by. i think a decision to move the focus of our trade inexplicably has been focused on our chief adversary in the world, china, and i think this administration especially with the talk of a strategy that's sort of a code word for surrounding china or moving away from a focus on china, i think you'll see real disincentives to doing joint ventures in china. neil: thank you very much, my friend. we're keeping an eye on the selloff and this view that individual investors had been running this market is revisiting that right now, but who does it disproportionately affect? investors who are in this market or investors who have never touched this market? the racial boundaries on that and why famed economist and author thomas sowell says we obsess a bit too much on that, after this. ♪ ♪

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and find the aarp medicare supplement plan that works for you. there's a range to choose from, depending on your needs and your budget. rates are competitive. and they're the only plans of their kind endorsed by aarp. like any of these types of plans, they let you apply whenever you want. there's no enrollment window... no waiting to apply. so call now. remember, medicare supplement plans help cover some of what medicare doesn't pay. you'll be able to choose any doctor or hospital that accepts medicare patients. whether you're on medicare now or turning 65 soon, it's a good time to get your ducks in a row. duck: quack! call to request your free decision guide now. because the time to think about tomorrow is today.

neil: all right, take a look at what's happening in the lower right portion of your screen, a selloff going on. that kind of thing continues, and my next guest worries about solutions that come out of our nation's capital because invariably when stocks go down -- not so much when they go up -- the government tries to get involved and e tries to heal the process. it is a well-intended sort of pattern on the part of washington, and he writes very well about it in discrimination and disparities out tomorrow. its noted author, who we've had on once or twice on this show, thomas sowell. thomas, very good to have you. thank you for taking the time. >> thank you for having me. neil: let's go first, if you don't mind, i do want to attack some of these news developments, the big selloff going on on wall street. and it could be short-lived, but day's end it could be gone, but

invariably we have seen washington intervene when it seems to think that people have been poorly treated or unfairly treated. it's a big theme in your book. not the market part, but advise vise people on what happens when they own stock and why the government might not want to do that. >> well, you know, karl marx of all people once said that the crack-brained meddling by the authorities can make any crisis worse. so it's not just people on the right who criticize government intervention of the kind that they have. i've never tried to predict the stock market, thank heavens -- [laughter] neil: you're a wise man. you're a very wise man. you know, thomas, one of the things we talk about the government's role here, the president, as you know, is trying to exact concessions from those who he says have been dumping steel and aluminum on our shores, and they're responding in kind now threatening tit for tat action that could go global.

i know you have called these not so much tariffs, but trade-offs back and forth. do you worry that this thing goes out of control? >> oh, absolutely. i happen to believe that the smoot-holly tariffs of 1930 had a lot more to do with the great depression than the stock market. unemployment was nowhere near as low the first year after the stock market as it was in the first five months after the, those tariffs went in. and it's like many kinds of wars, it is very easy to start those kinds of wars, it is very hard to stop them. because they get grown completely out of control. the idea that we have to have a budget surplus, that that's better than a deficit, is completely con tower to -- contrary to what all the evidence shows. during the great depression in the 1930s, we had trade surpluses. it didn't do us a bit of good. during the prosperity of the 1990s, we had trade deficits that didn't hurt the prosperity

at all. this is a number that there's less to it than meets the eye. neil: all right. well, that would be news to the president who's made it a cause is celeb. do you think it's a mistake that he focuses so much on -- >> oh, absolutely. neil: go ahead. >> conceivably, a catastrophic mistake depends on how far he wants to push it in defines of what more -- defiance of what more experienced people around him may be telling him. neil: you know, the reason why i kept echoing that theme with him, i've been reading a lot of the european press, the english versions that i get, and a lot of them have been saying almost to a publication the president is unleashing something he might regret. you seem to agree. >> you can't, you can't control it. neil: yeah. >> when you start it, and you can't stop it. and that's the bad part. if this is something he could put in and after a month or two he sees it's not working, he can stop it. no, by that time it's acquired a life of its own.

other countries will already be taking retaliatory measures, and the net result is all the countries put together are going to lose because it'll cut down the total volume of international trade as they did in the 1930s. neil: you know, i always see government as sort of like this giant, well-intended beast, and i don't mean to disparage it, but you do it far more eloquently than i do, where it tries to correct ills that it sees. some very obvious, some maybe not so obvious. but the going against the grain of common sense, you mention early in your book and i'm quoting here, in nature as in human endeavors, there can be multiple prerequisites for various natural phenomenon. and these multiple prerequisites can likewise lead to very skewed distributions of outcomes. in other words, what we try to fix, we create a bigger fix, right? >> there is that, but there's this invincible fallacy that in the absence of some special

problems, people would have pretty much the same kinds of economic and other achievements. and that defies thousands of years of history. there are so many factors involved that for all those factors to come together the same one group is for another is virtually impossible. and you can compare any kind of groups from around the world. and i sometimes think, you know, if black and white americans were the same, these might be the only two groups on this planet that are the same. neil: huh. you do mention, though, that some of the fixes for disparities did worsen over time. and i'm wondering as a prominent conservative thinker but also as an african-american whether african-americans have been slighted or pushed aside by market forces having nothing more to do with than the color of their skin. what do you say? >> i think, i think that the

attempts to make things better are one of the major reasons that things have gotten worse. i go -- in the book, for example, i go into minimum wage laws. neil: right. >> and, you know, i start with a period in which the minimum wage laws were ineffective because of inflation -- neil: but you also argue before they came into effect, before they came into effect there was even unemployment rates between black and white youths, right? >> that's right. as of 1948 -- neil: right. >> -- 16 and 17-year-old black workers had a slightly lower unemployment rate than white workers the same age. and both of them had unemployment rates that are a fraction of what they are now. that made a special impression on me because i was one of those people. i left home when i was 17, and thank heaven the minimum wage law was ineffective, and i could find jobs. neil: since they came up with that fix, the disparity really increased. others, those who don't agree with you, say it had nothing to

do with that. i'll just leaf that debate out there -- leave that debate out there. you do mention other fixes where the government has gotten involved. when it comes for housing -- to housing, for example, later in your book you say why a family's decision to live in expensive san francisco should be subsidized by the taxpayers -- [laughter] this is one of my favorite parts of the books, including with family incomes of under $100,000 is a question that does not even arise in this context where words were arbitrary meetings and consequences guide government decisions. in other words, those same people have the option of not living in said city, san francisco. but it almost seems callous to say that they can't. you say? >> well, yes, because they -- the government has defined low income people as families making less than $100,000 who live in san francisco. because of the high rents in san francisco and the high cost of housing in the general.

but where, but people who are making less than $100,000 a year are having to pay taxes so people can choose to live in this extremely expensive place when there are lots of other places in the united states where you can live decently without making 100 grand a year. neil: what is it in statistics, and you just present a blitzkrieg of data that i found very interesting, anecdotal and kind of an eye-popping moment, you referred to the fact when it comes to golf, for example, that most pros never win a single pga championship, yet just three golfers -- arnold palmer, jack nicklaus, tiger woods -- between them have won over 200 pga tournaments. and statistically you see variations of this in almost every major sport, industry, what have you. why does that happen, and why did you choose to mention it in the context of discrimination and disparities? >> because of the assumption that there wouldn't be

disparities unless somebody was doing somebody wrong. and you see those disparities everywhere you look. one of the -- in nature itself. yeah, most people are una -- unaware that nearly 90% of the tornadoes in all the world occur in one country, and that's the united states. you don't hear about tornadoes in china or france. and it's because tornadoes require a lot of factors to come together. and all those factors are spread out around the world. but only in one place do you find all of them coming together at the same time. and so that's where the great bulk of the tornadoes occur. but it's that way with many other things. there are all kinds of factors going into most meaningful efforts. and unless you get all of them coming together, you don't get success in that endeavor. neil: you know, i'm reminded john kennedy said life is i saidicly unfair, referring at the time to those who serve in

war at home, you know, pushing papers. i'm vastly trivializing his remarks and those who serve elsewhere. robert kennedy, his brother, famously said when it came to welfare that we must find an alternative to that, and work is that. two noted liberals there who just had a different view of things. you mentioned early in the book about this study, i think the early part of the last century, on nearly 1500 people with iqs of 140 or more, which is about 130 points more than my iq, for example. [laughter] and yet of that group, 20% i guess whatever they did in life was deemed disappointing considering how smart they were. could the government have helped that? could the government have improved those odds for this -- >> no. one of the factors that was missing among those people was something like 30% of their parents, 30% of them had at least one parent who had quit school before the eighth grade. so they're brilliant, but they're not brought up the same

as people whose parents have gone to college, who have books, magazines and all the things that go into success in later life and, therefore, having -- being the top 1 of iq was just not enough to cut it. neil: so is the government there -- does it have a responsibility to step in and say you have a genius child, you because of your, appearance might not see -- experience might not see the importance of that and how unique his or her set of brains is, but we will take -- >> the government is very unlikely to do that. what the government is far more likely to do is to subsidize bad behavior so that more and more children from low income backgrounds have only one parent, which is really a tremendous handicap. neil: yeah. >> and so the things that they tend to subsidize are usually things that are counterproductive. neil: you know, you're going to get a lot of heat on this book, as you have and have dealt well keptly in the past on some other

books, but you do talk about those who are kingmakers for a time aren't necessarily going to be for all time. i think you mentioned eastman kodak and how it ruled the film world, and how digital technology came along, and they completely missed the boat. what were you trying to say there? >> i was trying to point out if you have multiple prereckrequis, then missing just one of those prerequisites can drop you from the top to the bottom, and that's what happened with eastman kodak. they were worldwide. i bought kodak film in london, paris, singapore, sydney -- neil: right. >> -- anywhere in the world. and they had, oh, 140,000 employees around the world. and in just, oh, about a decade or so they went from that to bankruptcy. neil: no, you're right. >> kodak is out of the photographic business now. i think there's some little remming significant that does --

remnant that does something else now. neil: you're a little bit older than i, but i would imagine i had more advantages, not just the color of my skin, but to me that didn't go to you. so a lot of people who hear this minority, minorities in general might say, well, it's easy for thomas sowell to say so now, he is a huge deal. he is an international bestseller, he is one of the great minds of this century, but his, his is a potential case. and -- a special case. and he shouldn't ignore the opportunity for government to make more special cases. you say what? >> the fact that government has an opportunity to do the right thing in no way guarantees it won't do the wrong thing. you have to look at what political incentives are. and the political incentives are for them to do things that look good right now. you can run up an enormous set of examples of where they step into a situation and just ruin it. and i think that -- and that's not just confined to the united states. you can see the very same

phenomenon in england, in new zealand, you name it. neil: thomas sowell, i thank you for this book, "discrimination and disparities." it does make you think, no matter the color of your skin, about the responsibility of government of and whether it can compound a bad situation and make it worse, as he seems to indicate, and gives alarming proof in cases, one right after the other. so much common sense in one book. thomas sowell, thank you very much. >> thank you. neil: all right. we'll have more on this big selloff here that's a little less of a selloff after thomas started speaking. i don't know if that's just coincidental. we'll have more after this.

♪ there's nothing more important than your health. so if you're on medicare or will be soon, you may want more than parts a and b here's why. medicare only covers about 80% of your part b medical expenses. the rest is up to you. you might want to consider an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. like any medicare supplement insurance plan, these help pick up some of what medicare doesn't pay. and, these plans let you choose any doctor or hospital that accepts medicare patients. you could stay with the doctor or specialist you trust...

or go with someone new. you're not stuck in a network... because there aren't any. so don't wait. call now to request your free decision guide and find the aarp medicare supplement plan that works for you. there's a range to choose from, depending on your needs and your budget. rates are competitive. and they're the only plans of their kind endorsed by aarp. like any of these types of plans, they let you apply whenever you want. there's no enrollment window... no waiting to apply. so call now. remember, medicare supplement plans help cover some of what medicare doesn't pay. you'll be able to choose any doctor or hospital that accepts medicare patients.

whether you're on medicare now or turning 65 soon, it's a good time to get your ducks in a row. duck: quack! call to request your free decision guide now. because the time to think about tomorrow is today. neil: all right, the president is in manchester, new hampshire, where he will be talking up getting a handle on this opioid crisis in our country here. ahead of that, we've got a big old court battle underway right now. the justice department and at&t battling over that time warner merger. connell mcshane outside the courthouse in d.c. with the latest. connell, you have been busy if not subbing for me, i ask that you be shipped away, far, far away to handle this. apparently, not far enough. [laughter] what's going on here? >> reporter: no. you know, that's funny, you didn't get me -- neil: oh, that's the way i roll. >> reporter: yeah.

well, you know, this is a big one, neil, probably the biggest one antitrust wise going back to the microsoft days. interesting, the judge says, boy, not a lot of room in this courtroom, it's packed. media, lawyers, what have you. bigtime implications, certainly, for consumers with the question is if the deal goes through, will we be paying higher cable bills and even bigger implications possibly for the future of american business in terms of what will happen to other so-called vertical mergers. companies may be either already thinking about or thinking about in the future. if you think about it, cases like this don't come to court all that often, these so-called vertical mergers where companies complement each other rather than compete directly. we have it with the at&t, time warner merging properties. at&t and directive on one side. -- directv. they want to buy time warner. we have listed there some of the networks that time warner owns, hbo, cnn, cbs, cartoon network, there are others. the thinking from the

government's point of view is they've got to leverage all those together, consumers end up paying more. companies argue, that's nonnecessary, no legal basis for it. today was about the ed that can be -- evidence that can presented at trial. the judge was appointed by george w. bush, he basically went to the lawyers, he wanted to know, you know, what's a business record. is an e-mail always a business record? that's the kind kind of thing they were going back and fort on. another name, daniel petro sellly who you may know from the o.j. civil case, won for the goldmans years ago, but kind of ironically president trump in some of the trump university cases. and, of course, the president's kind of in the background of all of this because of his criticism of cnn. the doj has said they won't bring it up at the trial, but the at&t ceo says that's the elephant in the room. wednesday morning is opening arguments. neil: all right. your next stop is iceland where they're debating climate change.

[laughter] we'll clue you in on that. thank you, connell, for all your hard work, seriously. as always. he's the best. in the meantime, we're following the president of the united states. he is in manchester, new hampshire. he's going to be delivering re, mas on the opioid crisis, wants to cut the available drugs that are out in the public market by a third. the drug industry not too keen on that. he's also calling for the death penalty for anyone who sells bad or dangerous stuff like this. we'll have more after this. ♪ . . . .

but i'm not standing still... and with godaddy, i've made my ideas real. ♪ ♪ i made my own way, now it's time to make yours. ♪ ♪ everything is working, working, just like it should ♪

neil: we were talking during the break what the president is going to say in manchester as he talks up opioid abuse this country and how he will get a handle on it. first time he visited a state he lost during his presidency. cheryl casone in the next hour. >> we will have president trump during this hour. stokes are falling -- stocks are falling because of a reports after massive data breach at facebook. i'm cheryl casone i'm in for trish regan today. welcome all of you to the intelligence report. we've got a busy hour coming up.