>> thanks for joining us everybody have a great weekend here's "varney & company" stuart take it away. >> good morning, good morning everyone. all right, with it is not what the president wanted to see. it is not what republican ares but really hoping for in the first three months of the year economy grew annual rate of 2.3%. and i should tell you that is much better than almost all of the forecasts. so now, those same say reverse looking to the next quarter they now see a 3.5% gain for the economy. wool see. but clearly, this economy is still doing very well. there's other news about money. amazon seems like it is got a license to print it doesn't it? it reports enormous jump in business. the stock is going straight up,

and the last 12 hours, founder jeff added about 12 billion dollars to his net worth. one more thing on amazon prime membership goes up $20 to $119 a year. yes that is lot of extra rev are but will people pay it we'll find out. microsoft doing well were very is well profit xbox all expanding stock yes i own some hitting record highs 97 this morning. overall, however, it is going to be a subdued open for the market. the dow will be up but sorry dow will be down about 30 s&p down a fraction. but oh look at that nasdaq, the technology stocks are doing very well. nasdaq will be up about 30 points. but this -- is the big news of the day. kim jong-un walks across the dmz and joins south korean counterpart for peace talks this is to a summit meeting probably

with trump. the overriding question with, will kim jong-un really get rid are of his nuclear program at this point we simply can't say but we can say this president version of dplom city is working so far. friday morning, "varney & company" about to begin. ♪ it was obvious -- of course. you know why we're playing that song. because the buckingham palace announced name of william and kate third child not a fan. got to say but care what i think is louie arthur charles those are are three names no one had picked louie. by the way, 18 french king have gone by the name louie and comes from derivative spanish and

thinking german so bottom line is britain gets out of the europe. we have now a prince that has a very european name but did take everyone by surprise. it is shared, though, by william in his name. george -- louie is a new brother. has the great, great uncle -- he was called louie so there's history there. but no one is expecting it arthur a middle name was hot favorite. >> do you think we can justify leading this great program with the naming of a prince. >> absolutely. i'm surprised it wasn't stuart or ashley. opposed to -- [laughter] opposed to this -- [laughter] north and south korea, truely making history today. now, you see in the video they walk across the border that they shake habdz now here's what trump tweeted it be. korean war to end -- the united states and all of the great people should be very proud of what is now taking place in it korea.

follows north south summit from senior advisor to trump and george w. bush administration should we be saying thank you mr. president because it was your diplomacy that carried this off a. >>s that exactly what south koreans are saying they're saying this would not have been possible if donald trump had to do this. there was a year of very tough military pos increases, diplomacy and very quiet including in southeast asia including with country where is north korea was making a lot of money through elicit activities and a ex-patriots so a lot went into this. as you point out this reason to skeptical but a pretty good step. >> an enormous e step isn't it? who would have is thought that we have leaders of north and a south walking together and hand-in-hand they shake handle see it on the screen right now. i think they've signed some kind of peace memorandum and i know -- there is an agreement for the two sides senior military to together on a meeting i think it

is going to be next month. so -- this looks like real progress. i mean you can be skeptical all you like but it is real progress >> it's real progress for diplomacy starting to realized a framework when president meets with kim jong-un probably late may or more likely early june. you know the question is what happens there. and what happens after that. and i would still expect some on and off again process with north korea. but yeah this is a big deal. this is kim jong-un first trip ever to south korea stepping across the line and there have o previous meetings between the north korean dig day or tore both with kim's father. kim jong-il also what is in addition to the military engagement you talked about engagement between military leaders is a et mooing between kim again, taking place in north korea at some point in the future. >> let me ask you 64 thorks question because you've been involved in this -- a lot of your professional life, do you think that at the a end

of the day i don't care how many years away it is at the end of the day do you think kim will really get rid of his nuclear program? >>i don't think entirely. i would always keep a few around just to be sure but you can have substantial dismantlement but you never know. but what kind of announcement is that? >> well if you look at it it has been a fundamental part of the regime. you know, i don't think we would ever give up our niewx not equivalent but just the risk that is applies and then people ask why did it we undertake theafort if you gave it away. plus i think we want to turn our attention to china it is the real threat the country to end the united states and we want to cut a deal i think that just sort of dismantles it is their icbm and nuclear program and so they're not ready to launch at the united states at the moment's notice. >> progress has been made christian thanks for joining us, sir, appreciate it. let's get back to the market

friday where are regoing dow will be back a fraction. but look at that nasdaq composite all of the technology stocks packed into that index going up significantly this morning. microsoft -- much better profits and a oh, that cloud business -- it went up by -9d93% i think that was the actual number and stock premarket is up 3.5% over $3, 97 on microsoft as we speak. axon stock premarket it is down 2% lower. disappointing earnings report there i think we have the same story at chevron. where's that stock premarket? actually it is up -- their profits were good apparently so axon down chevron up. amazon got to get back to that. that is the stock of the day, i mean, look at that. 138 per share, 9% higher. there's one caveat here, the wonderful profits et cetera et cetera but they're going to charge 119 a year for prime

membership as opposed to existing 99 a year. not going to hurt them. but burt is here with a strategic resource group i can look at this two ways extra 200 that's a lot of revenue. or some of those 100 million going to bock at the extra. >> only a couple percent bought but 10% increase in prime membership because it is more affordable and comparable to what costco members pay. so amazon will be able to increase the membership 20 dollars this year to your point and continue to increase prime membership rates at 10% per year, and still grow the prime base at over 10% per year like you said print money stuart. j but you have that rights. earlier on the program on this program, you said mike amazon goes to 2,000 a share. you're going to repeat that? go to $2,000 to 2150 per share as long as there's not an a antitrust investigation from

either the federal trade commission that has done nothing for 20 years or the department of justice that has done nothing for 20 years while -- there's so much rekill wreckage through bankruptcies and these horrible federal bankruptcy judges toys are us, elsewhere -- retail will be wrecked amazon will be capitalized if a shareholder i feel goods about this shares. but also regret that really regret the hundreds of thousands of people put out a work from retail to mattel to has burrow, et cetera. >> i want you to repeat the story that you just told me about the lek which are you gave at cornell to a group of students it be amazon. you've got 30 seconds. >> 100 students worldwide every continent every major country factor class strategy and marketing, how many of students only shop online retail primarily are amazon? it was over 20% of the students who don't go to stores how many

only shop amazon over 50% including julio lopez the star of the class soften my grant lettuce workers and farm workers came to this country from maaco live in a bedroom with six brothers, single brother and to save money every penny is important so shops at amazon and he's using some of the savings to finance a trip to africa over spring break to find out how to save more money to raise standards of living for americans worldwide. >> i think you made your point. good stuff. still on amazon one more story here. chief bay bankrolling with amazon stock. >> one billion dollars year, he says he liquidate now 134 billion stock holdings. to fund blue origin this is his favorite program. he says this is his legacy it's most important thing he can do. reusable rocket space tourism. stuart he loves this so much.

back this 2003, when jeff was up in a helicopter scout for they crashed in a creek he survived it but he started laughing after he got out of that helicopter crash and still pushed forward on blue origin going toe to toe with elon musk right now in reusable rocket. retail sales right now -- surpass century combined. >> caveat there you go. >> to liz's point amazon within 6 and a half years will be bigger than wal-mart by 2025. like pac-man everything up. >> superlatives keep flowing out all good stuff. where will the market open on this friday morning? well, very small drop for the dow industrials. same with the s&p. but because of all of those nasdaq stocks which are technology stock it is that index is going up. now this -- a negative side effect on the push to end opioid crisis --

new rule keep the drug that tried to keep the drugs out of the hazard dealers and addicts got it but that's making it much harder for people who need to get them. doc siegel coming up on that shortsly. another big day at the white house germany chancellor angela merkel meeting with president today she'll push the president to rethink tariffs, iran, and yes climate change. this could be a contentious meeting i think you can say that. it will not be a love test like one we saw with macron earlier this week. oh, no speaking of the macron visit bill cassidy it attended state dinner on the menu classic southern dish jambalaya but what was served was not jambalaya. bill cassidy is next. [laughter] finally meet you. your parents have been talking about you for years. they're all about me saving for a house, or starting a college fund for my son. actually, i want to know what you're thinking.

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>> friday morning let's run through the markets first of all price of oil is down a bit 67 a

barrel more to the point gas prices keep on going up. look at this. the average nation wide for regular is now reached 2.80. and there is still nine states in the three dollar club, hawaii, california, washington, alaska, nevada. oregon, utah, idaho and look over there on east coast, pennsylvania. joins the three dollar club. the president of france emmanuel macron says our country america will come back to the ferris climate teal. oh, hour next guest is pushing become on that idea joining ugh senator bill cast by republican from louisiana. why don't you want to go back into the paris congratulate deal i thought we were destroying the planet? >> hey, stuart if you really care about global green house gas emission then paris climate accord has no teeth. people are not meeting the u.s. is proablg doing the best at meeting the goal under status quo, and it excuses china and india the world's greatest polluters or from becoming

compliant until 2030 and oh, by the way, it insent vises manufactures to move jobs to china and india for next 20, 15 years. >> aside from that it's not a bad deal. [laughter] sarcasm is low form of wit. why make such a strong statement saying he thinks our president america will come back into? why does he say is that? >> you're concerned about global green house emissions but if you look since 2004 when the e.u. and united states began to regulate carbon emissions our emissions have gone down yes they have. but china's has gone up from 19th in the world to manufacturing and 20th emissions or vice versa to first in both. and we've had a significant increase in global green house gas emissions that oh curred. so manufacturing moves from the

west in order to comply with cap-and-trade. but it goes to china which uses coal as a stock and has no environmental stardz which they ten force for all practical purposes. is bad all the way around. >> i think we'll leave it at that mr. senator i think most of the country probably agrees with you on that one been but i have to ask you about you know what's coming you saw me doing the tease here. you want me to talk to you about jamba with lie ya a banquet state dinner it was served you were there. you say it's not jambalaya first -- >> let me say the food was fantastic and melania did a great job and state dinner was very impressive but i'm not sure there was a rue within that jambalaya as everyone -- back home knows first you make roux i'm not sure i taste it. >> what's a roux again? >> if you take flour and oil and gently brown it and use that as

a base put your rice gumbo or jambalaya and add your meat, chicken, with et cetera that's what makes it different from say just a rice dish. >> i also hear that in the jambalaya fake -- served at the white house state dinner, there was no seafood or sausage in it, is that accurate? >> i think i read that they really minced sausage very finely. now, will the me stress, it was a fantastic rice dish. i'm just not sure it was jambalaya. >> you're on dangerous ground here talking jambalaya with north and a south korea just having an agreement and paris climate accord which we've left and not going back to. but you know, thing about jambalaya was interesting and captured our audience. >> i think you can bring north and south korea better together if you taught them both how to make a good korean and a dish. >> so teach us how to make --

>> republican of louisiana thank you sir, we appreciate it. >> sure thing. >> we'll open this market on a friday morning i tell you flat to slightly lower for the doug and same story for s&p and nasdaq technology stocks, they're going up. now after a week of praise aring president trump on twitter rapper kanye west is now calling out president obama. he says that former president didn't do anything to stop the violence in chicago. we've got that story for you. insurance that won't replace the full value of your new car? you're better off throwing your money right into the harbor. i'm gonna regret that. with new car replacement, if your brand new car gets totaled, liberty mutual will pay the entire value plus depreciation. liberty stands with you. liberty mutual insurance.

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talk with your advisor about shield annuities from brighthouse financial- established by metlife. this wi-fi is fast. i know! i know! i know! i know! when did brian move back in? brian's back? he doesn't get my room. he's only going to be here for like a week. like a month, tops. oh boy. wi-fi fast enough for the whole family is simple, easy, awesome. in many cultures, young men would stay with their families until their 40's. we're all under one roof now. congratulations. thank you. how many kids? my two. his three. along with two dogs and jake, our new parrot. that is quite the family. quite a lot of colleges to pay for though. a lot of colleges. you get any financial advice? yeah, but i'm pretty sure it's the same plan they sold me before. well your situation's totally changed now.

right, right. how 'bout a plan that works for 5 kids, 2 dogs and jake over here? that would be great. that would be great. that okay with you, jake? get a portfolio that works for you now and as your needs change from td ameritrade investment management. >> where is the price of gold today? well it's not that much changed it's at 13. 21 per ounce got this. kanye west criticizing former president barack obama here's the tweet, obama was in office for eight years, and nothing in chicago changed. and kanye has been voice his support for trump all week. now, he's blasting obama to some l degree there. a break in the black support of democrats here? >> possibly hollywood as well we have roseanne problem with the left is -- and a long line of democrats but this was aa sonnishing. it is astonishing how the left

cannot count a disagreement oral other points of view they shut it down so he's unfollowed by score by celebrities in held. >> why do i feel like a priest? the thing is on this, let's face it donald trump gets blamed for everything under the son whether anything to do with it or not so people say obama dpght have anything, you know, could really do anything about chicago. he was in the white house. he came from chicago he is a community act vision from chicago didn't pay a lot of attention to it. did he? in office, so jobless rate is going down for -- minorities under president trump. thank you for the confession we accept it and dow industrials will be down about 40 points on opening bell but just wait until you see what happens with aiming dison microsoft, and intel. i do declare that they're going straight up. we'll be back.

>> now, how does the market follow-up on a friday morning after it was up 230 points on a thursday and after we received

extraordinary reports are financial reports from amazon and from intel and from microsoft and few others to boot how does the market open after big gain yesterday and it is friday morning today? and a tap dance here. here you go 3, 2, about 1, bang 9:30 oh that's interesting we're up 18 we're up 12. we're up 11. we're up 6. we're up 5. up 7 -- >> i should be an auctioneer and call this dead flat with a bias to the downside that'sed dow industrial now we're down 6 and s&p 500 is actually up one-third of one percent so that's a decent gain of 8 points for the s&p i want to see the nasdaq look at that. up 1%. now there's a rally there's a gain. up 76 points, 7,193 as we speak.

that is amazon all time high up 114 dollars per share. 7.5%, 1632 is your quote got a lot more on that coming up. microsoft yes i do own some all time high. and one with third percent -- i didn't ask for -- look what i got 9750, and any advance on that once we got it on the screen back to you shortly but 9756 as we speak and chevron is up a buck and a half at 125. exxon, though, profit fell short of what the people are expecting and it is down it sharply. 4.7% lower, 3.61 down. friday morning the regular crew is and entire conspiracy is a symbol around this set. ashley webster elizabeth macdonald jeff and david, i'll start with you. gdp first quarter 2.3% annualized growth for the economy. not what was --

not great. >> i liked it why here is a lot of business investment i think that's going to continue what was soft was the consumer. however with the tax cuts with very low unemployment i can see that picking through rest of the year so i think it is a good way to start this year. forecasting 3.5% of the next quarter after 2.3% of the last quarter. that's an improvement. >> i think that's very credible given these trends. >> might be helping market because dow is up 37 point i have to get to amazon that's the story of this morning. it was a story of last night as well. the profits more than doubled. and here's something interesting. they're raiseing the price of prime membership and 99 a year up to 119 do you have prime membership will you pay the extra? >> yes. i do and i will. you've got it. >> i do and i will. i don't but my kids will probably sending my money to continue. >> in other words -- you know this table collectively

doesn't think that many people will back away from the pricing? >> what price will be backed away $200? >> i don't know. but that's way off in the future at some point. you look where they started at 50 now they're up to dollars this is a trend to pay more and more but justify on savings. >> because it does mean a whole lot of extra revenue for the hundred million prime members who are now paying $20 a year extra. i can't do the computation in my head it's a lot. and that's a lot of money. okay. let's get to microsoft oh please let's get to microsoft. 9760 a improvement there nice cloud business is doing extremely well up 93% over the previous quarter. david 9769 too expensive for viewers not yet to get in. >> we've owned microsoft and my hat is off. it was very interesting, of course, is here all of the growth is coming from cloud

business in microsoft and amazon can everyone win in cloud or is there a winner take all had is a cautionary tale for investors. they did well in the pc business and other lines of business all doing very well. >> that's true but revenue and profits went up 97% in term its of the cloud business that's red light highlight. >> okay. i'll take it. doubling as you point out quarter to quarter in the cloud business this is a strongest growth in a decade. >> for microsoft it really is. are you boipg to pour cold water with on my company? >> no. i agree with david, no absolutely not. but the numbers were great. yes, amazon does have the market. they are the leader in the market. but i am extremely impressed about how microsoft has approached amazon, and a -- [laughter] that's better. thank you martin. and and -- because you know what the complaingt about amazon about

microsoft was always their old tech. i think microsoft has proven that they are not old tech. they're new tech. they're keeping up with the amazon i think it's more -- cash flow than google. so all big techs are up except apple down a mere 60 points a gain of 9 points i'll say dead flat on dow industrials look at that down a pont that's it. look at intel please. they turned in a very good report yesterday. nice gain for the stock, 3.5% intel is at 54 dollars share. higher sales and profit that the chinese search engine they got a boost from very strong online advertising just like google just like facebook. that stock is up 7%. huge gain. better salessing and more bookings at the travel site expedia they're 9% look at mattel toy maker strong demand for barbie and hot wheels it's up 4%s that a really big move

today. how about starbucks, their chief executive it said what happened in philadelphia will not happen again. you know lizzy what's a big problem for me. >> can't take that promise he has to change his entire business model and no longer then be a public library with coffee where people sit arranged for periods of time with laptops. i mean, i don't think he can make that -- any can make that kind of a problem. >> interesting that stock is down so much that's quite a drop for starbucks. >> i love that all companies make mistakes but great companies learn from them that's putting or more neck out there and to lizzy point you're setting yourself up. you have to be careful. seems like they spend all of their time trying, trying to alienate every type of customer they have. [laughter] so this -- to me just show it is that first of all, look at their earn orings, they are very lukewarm and they're not going anywhere and taking political stands like this does not benefit them many any way.

>> the situation is not saying any decline in attendance at the stores in philadelphia. contrast that with for example, southwest airlines which is seeing a decrease in ridership because of the recent tragedy. >> time we moved on toe facebook, that stock was close to 200 bucks share back in february of this year. now it is at 1758. but latest fox news poll finds that 43% of current facebook users have considered deleting their profile. >> who was? how many did? >> and what i want to track is how many deleted and then found that they were so addicted that they couldn't handle it and they -- >> exactly. all concerned about privacy -- but let's face it. facebook has created a worldwide addiction that is very hard to break. >> okay. ge got a cup of that one too. lots of headaches lately. but their new chief will fix the

business. now david, you were a ge bull. are you ?il >> yeah, i still am. that latest quarter gave me great validation for my views. what i like here is you've got one of the cheapst companies in america that is cost cutsing -- which is disposing of unwanted assets certainly the other day and offered a big price are for their life science unit they turned it down. to that i think underscores value in that company. >> i think it is a trading vehicle and not something that i would buy and own for ten years but buy it at 14 a share and if i can get 15 and sell it. >> once per sale value it would be a 70 stock. so -- it's not -- a gain yesterday and progressing down a bit today but look well above 400 a share. is will -- it is turnaround is working?

>> he's really zooming hard and hard on the millennials he wants to -- he's saying no breakfast burritos yet but longer -- hours open. this guy what a turnaround about a month and a half at helm. the new ceo from taco bell bringing in flavor and new ways to do business. >> i'm afraid to eat there. if you -- no, i am, and any time i drive past one, i think of -- i couldn't do it. >> you do not. psychological impact of e. coli. >> do you -- i know they're all in my ears. are you living in fear, do you really? >> i can't do it, stuart. listen, i've never -- had e. coli. >> you don't live in fear? >> i don't. i don't i don't think about those things i could care less if you take off in a thunderstorm take off. get me there on time. i don't be to chipotle because i

don't with like expressive rice and beans but -- >> for the highlight reel. is this for the hot -- [inaudible conversations] [laughter]

stuart: oh, look at this, please, all-time highs, first of all, for amazon, 1608, and also

for microsoft, i do believe. we're still around $97 per share on microsoft. we'll get to it. amazon renews the thursday night nfl streaming package. nicole, tell me how much they're paying. >> oh, they're paying a pretty penny, because back in 2016 when twitter got this same package, it was $10 million. last year it was $50 million. well, guess what? big amazon, you have to really pay up. year they're going to pay $65 million. this is a two-year deal, 130 mil. it goes out only to the prime subscribers. it starts in week four, in the rams/vikings game, and not on thanksgiving so forget about watching it at that point. it did not come cheap, but this is the nfl raking it in, and don't forget the nfl has television rights on fox. now you get to see it on amazon as well which is having a great day today. stuart: nicole, thank you very

much, indeed. serious stuff, rear add miller ronny jackson withdrew his nomination for v.a. secretary. pete hegseth with us. i say the man had his character assassinated. >> i agree with you wholeheartedly, it was a political ambush. it was manufactured by jon tester from montana, fancies himself a bipartisan and is an absolute partisan. worked with the willing media, you look at msnbc or cnn, they went wall to wall on speculation to smear his character. as a result, he was forced to withdraw his nomination before he even had a day in court. give him an opportunity in committee to defend his record and talk about what he'd do at the v.a. he never got that shot. stuart: he was described by jon tester, senator tester, he said

jackson was a candy man, overprescribing medication. >> give me your sources, jon tester. again, we live in an era where you don't have to tell us where your sources are coming from, the media runs with it. jon tester's not held accountable, and he gets to be part of the resistance. what nominees of this administration need to learn is that's not going to change. they're going to resist trump no matter what. you have to fight back. you have to know the policy, know the politics, go into the media, make your case and not back down. they need to meet their match because what trump's doing at the v.a. is right and good and true, and you need to articulate that. stuart to your point, president trump wants choice. he doesn't want this monolithic socialized medicine, if you like, he wants choice so that you as a patient have a choice of where to go and how to get treated. >> not according to jon tester and the democrats. held say what you want is privatization, evil privatization.

you want to shut down the v.a. they say it about ronny jackson, they say it about me. no, i want a choice. i'm smart enough to say i can either go to the v.a. if that serves me best, or i can go to a private provider, then the v.a. reacts to that, and they get better because now they have to compete and adjust accordingly. they maintain the specialized services that they're so good at, and the primary care can be done elsewhere if a veteran chooses. it's common sense, but the v.a. swamp is as deep and complex and nasty as any in washington d.c. i call it the veterans industrial complex. look out, because they're coming after you. stuart: the country. >> the veterans are the losers. >> that's what i say to jon test er, did you serve the veteran? stuart: none of us, none of us are squeaky clean. >> absolutely not. stuart: we're all sinners, and that's a fact. >> amen to that. [laughter] stuart: thank you very much. see you tomorrow morning.

check that dow 30, 30 stocks on the dow industrials, where are they? it's not -- yeah, about two-thirds are up. the dow industrials are up 15 points. let's get to that downside in the crackdown on opioids. patients who really need 'em are having a tough time getting their hands on the stuff, certainly getting their hands on stuff that works. doc segal address the story after this. welcome to the xfinity store.

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and you can save by... by getting up to 5 mobile lines included. whoa, you're good. i'm just getting started. ♪ simple. easy. awesome. come see how you could save $400 or more a year with xfinity mobile. plus ask how to keep your current phone. visit your local xfinity store today. we're all under one roof now. congratulations. thank you. how many kids? my two. his three. along with two dogs and jake, our new parrot. that is quite the family. quite a lot of colleges to pay for though. a lot of colleges. you get any financial advice? yeah, but i'm pretty sure it's the same plan they sold me before. well your situation's totally changed now. right, right. how 'bout a plan that works for 5 kids, 2 dogs and jake over here? that would be great. that would be great. that okay with you, jake? get a portfolio that works for you now and as your needs change from td ameritrade investment management.

stuart: joirching us now, fox news medical correspondent marc siegel. we are prescribing or far fewer opioids and making it very difficult to get opioids, and that's leaving people who desperately need them out in the cold. do you see it that way? >> i agree with the last part of that, that there are people in the world that have chronic pain syndromes that nothing else works for but opioids that in some states are having more trouble getting it. but in this state, i don't see a problem with this. and as a matter of fact, i talked to one of the directors of our cancer institute at new york university this morning who said he is not having trouble prescribing opioids for patients with cancer. stuart: in some states you could. >> you could, but here's the problem with this headline. it makes it seem like the bigger problem. even if we've cut down 5-10%, the bigger problem is did you need the opioids in the first

place. physicians overprescribed opioids, and the bigger problem we've talked about on the show is it ends up often times in the hands of someone other than who were we were intended. maybe a teen ends up on heroin. stuart: you've said on this program there is an alternative to opioids for people who suffer from chronic pain, but there is some -- >> completely agree. i also want to the add that the nih and other places are working on pain medications all the time that are less addictive. so there's a future for that as well. but we have to watch out for those who need it, no question. stuart: on the program actor jeremy miller. i want to run a sound bite from the interview we did with him about his experience using an implant to treat his alcoholism. roll tape. >> within hours i started noticing the effects. and what you notice is what's not there, that constant

obsessive need. it just kind of vanished. i mean, it was like a light switch got turned off for me. stuart: this was an implant inside him that released a small amount of a drug on a regular basis that cut his craving for alcohol. seems to me like a pretty good thing. >> as he said to you on the show yesterday, it's been around a long time. this implant will work 3-6 months. it doesn't work for everyone. it works for some people, it works for some people on opioids as well. fda hasn't approved the device, but all the parts are approved. fda is now looking at it. in other words, you can use it even without fda approval off label, they're looking at formally approving it. stuart: what you're really looking for is a drug that can be implanted and released gradually that works for everyone. that's what you're really looking for. >> yes. yes, and you and i discussed this, we're both excited about the concept of an implant -- as he made this point -- gradually

releases the treatment so the side effects are less. a little bit offer stability, nausea, but he tolerated it. the future of treating addiction is going to include devices like this, there is no question about it. he's at the forefront. stuart: so the implant idea is the best idea. >> it is a great idea. stuart: that's progress. >> it's huge progress. i think this one works, i think this is very exciting. whether it actually delivers, whatever it is that it delivers, it goes right to the source of the problem. addiction centers in the brain, absolutely right. stuart: certainly worked for that young man. >> very exciting. stuart: it was inspiring, frankly. thanks very much. dr. ronny jackson pulls his name out of the running for v.a. secretary after a democrat senator made unproven claims against him. i want to know why would any talented person run for high public office these days? my take on that is next.

: . : :

>> why would a talented person run for high office these days? that is a fair question after what just happened to doctor ronnie jackson. he was a victim of character assassination according to the wall street journal. president trump nominated him to run the veteran affairs department. leading the attack was the democrat from montana. he went on tv networks to characterize doctor jackson as a reckless, dishonest, mean-spirited drunk. asked if he could corroborate these charges he said well, were waiting for people to come forward. really? senator tester should surely have proven or shown evidence before going public and maligning a public service who has spent his career treating

patients and even presidents. back to the original question, who would want to go into public life? would any of us qualify if we were subjected to the kind of deliberate character assassination the democrats are handing out? if intense scrutiny revealed a drunk driving conviction or a pot smoking arrest or a shop lifting prosecution or a nasty divorce or a white lie on an employment verification or harsh word to a colleague, should any of the above count you out of public life forever? and if it does, what kind of person do you think you're going to attract in the government? i often think of winston churchill. he saved his country from the nazis but i doubt he could be elected to anything in america if he stood for office today. he drank heavily. he had a tongue and he smoked in public. how many good people are put off by the kind of circus we subject our leaders to today. the second hour of "varney and company" is about to begin ♪

♪ ♪ >> okay, show me amazon yes please. thank you very much indeed. one analyst has just hiked the price target on amazon to $1900. share currently it's at 1594. he says, i'm not sure who it is they say it's going to 1900. more on that in a second. look at intel chip maker, strong outlook. that really works wonders on wall street. if the leading dow stock is up one and half percent, 53 on intel. microsoft, very strong earnings report, strong cloud business, early this morning was up three dollars. now it's up to attend. 9530 on microsoft. the price of oil is $67. barrel. no impact on stock today. overall the market is dead flat.

we have news on the economy. it grew at an annual 2.3% expansion rate in the first quarter of the year. david bronson is with us. he's author of crisis of responsibility. david, that gdp report was a lot better than expected. >> people are saying it would be in the 1% range and its well over 2%. why isn't that a bigger plus for the stock market. >> it will prove to be a bigger plus as we get into later quarters in the year, but i think the issue right now is that within the number, the bowls are seeing a very positive sign out of business increase which is what i want to focus on and the bears are saying the consumers are

slowing down. ultimately the number was bigger than expected. it still below the growth we need to get to but it's far above the growth we've been getting in the first quarter for several years in a row. that's after seasonal adjustment. i think this is a very bullish sign for were headed later in the year. >> hold on a second. i got more economic news just coming in for this is the university of michigan consumer sentiment. up or down. >> it is up. it finishes to the final reading. april came in at 98.8. it's down from march which hit a 14 year high but better than expected. this number is always influenced by inflation, higher cost and labor market conditions. better than expected, still pretty positive. >> david, let's get back to you. you said on this program you really like exxon. well they came out with their earnings report and the stock is selling off today, down a couple dollars. what went wrong? >> it up over 10% in the past three or four weeks and so you have a very classic case of getting its rally in advance of the news and then as the earnings came it was slightly

less than some folks had expected short-term. if you look under the hood, i spent the bulk of the morning studying the numbers and fundamentally it was their greatest generating quarter in years. they raise the dividend by six and a half percent. you are looking at plus 4% yield and really, really solid news and in the macro sense you saw chevron's result which is another holding of ours that did very well so the big environment was quite positive. i would most certainly not be looking at it as a quarter by quarter holding. the definite long-term play but it was in the low 70s at the beginning of the month, it's in the high 70s now. >> okay. i want to talk about amazon. i'll call that the stock of the day. it's up significantly. profits double. one thing here, they are going to raise the price of prime

membership $20 a year. do you think that's a negative or positive for amazon? >> i think it's a negative for the customers i think it's a positive for amazon. i think right now with the price level you're seeing at amazon, previously you could've bought the stock for only 450 times earnings and now you have to pay 510 times earnings. it exists in a different stratosphere than something that i think is easily for castable or analyzable. it's a wonderful place to buy books, whether you're buying crisis of responsibility or anything else, but tell you, as a stock it is at a valuation level that a valued guy and a different guy just can't buy. >> understood. thanks for joining us. we will see you soon. i want to get back to my editorial or rant.

top of the hour. doctor ronnie jackson, i call him the latest victim of character assassination in d.c. i think it's a disgrace. what do you say? >> i agree with you, but when i was on the left this was a discussed tactic to make things as ugly and difficult as possible to keep conservatives out of the public sphere, out of politics, do not challenge what was they were doing. i think we can use the president as an example of a good person, a talented person who clearly knew what he was getting into. if he wasn't it was apparent at the beginning of the campaign and he stuck with it because it was necessary because there is a higher calling. that is what we have to expect of good people. we now know and think, clarence thomas, bork, this is not new and the differences we have to have individuals who now recognize that if we leave that to the public sphere to politics, the nation will be

destroyed. we have a larger responsibility and the president is the best example of how to approach that. >> you don't get talented people to apply for public office. we would be destroyed. which one of us hasn't got something or other in our past that were ashamed of. >> rate. the establishment has done a great job for itself and covering those things up, but when you're on the outside, if you're a new person coming in, we live our lives naturally, we do certain things, we don't bother to do cover-up so it makes the outsiders particularly vulnerable. the establishment like that. i think you can consider even with his work at the white house, someone like jackson as an outsider, these are the people who really managed to move the president's agenda which is another reason why they've gone after him but the president has to encourage talented people from the outside to still come in. we see their success but i want there to be the law of

unintended consequences for the democrats but i want the president to nominate someone who will be even more dramatically able to move his agenda through and i think the american people are sick and tired of the spread we need talented people. this is the background. like we did with president trump, enough is enough. keep in mind, they tried to do it to the first lady. allegations in the beginning, photographs, smears, she sued and she won and it stopped. have you noticed. there is a way to push back. you must be willing to and she set the tone. it was perfectly done and she has now been untouched. not because it's the right thing to do to not try to smear the first lady but because there's a repercussion. i think conservatives and independents, all of us who care about the future and the issues of policy, we must begin to take a stand and this is the time to do it.

>> well said on a friday morning. >> next time pound the table. >> i almost was. my hands were too busy. me and jeff are the ones flying around with our hands on the party show. >> what's the correct pronunciation of mozzarella? >> mozzarella. okay, thank you. >> we have in new name. the new prince louis of cambridge louis arthur charles is the full name likely name for prince charles late uncle who was assassinated in 1979. he's also the middle name of prince george and prince william. the odds for louis were 33 - 1. >> i would never put my money on that. what do we have for you? the nfl draft underway last night. what is it like to get that life-changing phone call? marcus got one, he played for

the 49ers and he was a long road for him to get there. he's with us in just a moment. he's got here. angela merkel on her way to the white house days after president trump warmly embraced the president of france emmanuel macron. we are on it. much more on amazon, big-time venture capitalists invested in apple when he was two guys in a garage. he will tell us whether amazon can keep up this rate of growth. you are watching the second hour of money and company. "varney and company". ♪ ♪ okay ♪ ♪ ♪

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that was the first round draft, commissioner goodall was booed all my loudly by the fans. here's the news. the cleveland browns selected oklahoma quarterback and heisman trophy winner baker mayfield as the first pick. it was the first time since 1999 at five quarterbacks were selected in the first round. first time in almost 70 years in the first ten pics. an emotional moment, steelers linebacker walked out on stage , he was paralyzed after hit last season, he underwent spinal stabilization surgery in december the man walked onto the stage. that's an emotional moment. good for you. our next guest is a former san francisco 49ers. diversity of south carolina legend part he was on track to be a top draft pick his freshman year but suffered to devastated injuries. he went through rehab and was selected in the fourth round

draft in 2013. marcus livermore is his name. welcome to the program. it's great seal. >> thank you for having me. i'm glad to be on. >> i know it was a fourth line pick but you got that phone call, take me through it. what was it like when you got the call. >> because of the nature of my situation and some of the adversity i faced while playing in college, i had no clue where i would be drafted. the guys who are helping me out, my agent literally told me you may be taken in the first round or you may go undrafted so i had no clue in anticipation all weekend just killed me. >> but then you got the call. >> i got the call in the fourth round and i kind of equal weight it to winning the super bowl. it was an amazing feeling. my family, all the emotions

came out, it was a great time. it was a time that i'll never forget. top five happiest moments of my life. >> well done indeed. now, you are now director of player development at the university of south carolina. it's your job to prepare these youngsters for the big world of real football. what you tell them? you gotta tell them how to deal with all this money that's come showering at them. what you say to them. >> so here's the deal. we have a select group of guys who will have that opportunity to go on and play at the next level, but the majority of the locker room will have to go on and live a professional life outside sports. so with those guys who do have the opportunity to go to the nf nfl, we have that conversation about the aging process and getting people around you, a great financial advisor who can educate you and just making sure your have

a good team around you that can show you the process, show you exactly where your money is going and a company that's based off integrity because there's so many things out there that guys really get caught up in because they don't understand the process. hour make sure my guys are educated. >> what about the other guys who are not gonna go on to the big-money world of the nfl. what you say to them about life after football without the mone money. >> we will all experience that one day. everybody who plays for a spread there's 100% chance that you're going to get injured. i tell everything a person that sits in my locker room, you have to work on your life's work. you have to prepare. while you're here in college, take advantage of the opportunities you have because you have power, you have

leverage. there's 84000 people that watch you every single saturday. 7million people on espn. what you going to do to use that power and network while you're here. get to know your alumni. get to know your professors. get to know the students. make connections because you play football at a power five school, you've got the leg up in any any real you walk into so we have techniques and strategies and we bring in different speakers to help with professionalism and make sure they're prepared for life after football because you can get caught up in this athletic bubble, the things you been doing since you were 15 years old and you forget about the real world and you don't learn real life skills. you need that. so we focus on that. >> just got a few seconds left. you miss it, don't you, you miss running out on a field with 80000 fans going crazy. >> it's a time of my life i

will never forget. i made a lot of memories, i will say this, i don't miss playing football but i do miss the locker room. i miss being around the guys because those relationships you have last forever. >> it was a pleasure having you on the show. we are happy to see you doing so well and we hope you come back and see us soon. >> that means a lot. i'm a big fan. >> you are? now he tells us. why don't they give us an extra ten minutes. marcus, we'll see you soon. thank you very much. the end of an era, sears liquidating its last store in chicago. they called the city home for more than a century. we will take you there after this. your company is constantly evolving.

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president trump just tweeted this. just out, house intelligence committee report released. no evidence that the trump campaign colluded, coordinated or conspired with russia. clinton campaign pay for opposition research obtained from russia. wow. the total witchhunt must end now. what he was referring to, house intelligence committee just released their report on the rush investigation. the republicans on the committee say no collusion to be found. that's the republicans on the committee. now this. sears laster in chicago begins today. jeff is there. come on in.

i think sears was the amazon of its day, wasn't it? >> no question about it. you've got that catalog, that was like the internet that you had. take a look at the store. this is the last standing sears store in chicago built 1938 and this is fascinating. we have numbers that tell you the tale of sears, the numbers, decline numbers of stores. i want to tell you an interesting story. this is one of the first sears bill without windows because back in 1938, they had done a study that indicated shoppers like to see merchandise that was depicted in artificial light, not natural light. if you look across the street, that was what they called community remember that because i don't remember it either but it was a fancy clothing store. they built it the old-fashioned way with all these windows. sears said it study indicated they wanted no artificial light. they were on the cutting edge back in the day but revenue declined by 40%.

the last revenue count was $3.6 billion which is still a lot, but you mentioned, this was the amazon of its day. if you look at the stocks, compare amazon and sears over the past five years, sears was $40.5 years ago. it's now three. amazon was $2.5 years ago. it's now 1600. >> we took the point there. we been following that point for a long time. that was very interesting. thank you very much. we will see you throughout the day from chicago. >> we have a new poll, almost half of us consider deleting our facebook account after the data scandal. would anybody actually do it? legendary tech and inspector joins us with that story in a moment.

♪ ♪ ♪ lovely rita. it wasn't a bad song, not one of my favorites, certainly not, but were not in us play lucy in the sky with diamonds either. we go. president trump is about to honor and celebrate team usa olympians. we will take you there when the president appears and speaks to those olympians. right now, check the big board.

does adopt the south tower now down 87 points, 247200. big tech names, let's see where we are. we've got facebook up, amazon up $65. share but was up a lot more than that earlier. apple is down, out of it down the mirror 18 cents. chevron, higher profit is up about in half. different story at exxon, that is the biggest drag on the dow 30. it's up three dollars and nearly 4%. amazon, a the ball profits in the first quarter, joining us now someone has been investing for tech for five decades. i've known him for three of those decades. allen, welcome to the program. >> thank you. it has been a long time. >> too long. let's get right at it.

you don't like amazon, do you. you think it's ruining america. >> it's not a question of liking it. is it too huge. from a nonpolitical standpoint i'm concerned what it's doing to our communities in our country and frankly it's happening all over the world. go up and down main street, go to every shopping center, small businesses are being affected, jobs are being affected and is not just amazon. it's a whole online. >> so what. walmart did that a generation ago. >> but walmart did it with physical locations. those are going. we have vacancies and people have to refigure paired what interests me is how technology is going to be used in taking over these new spaces. i think we have to find, we used to use our five senses. >> it's your fault. it's my children's fault. >> you are the guy who invested in apple in 1979. >> right. i'm responsible for everything. >> you the guy who invested in aol in 1982, you launched this online stuff.

you launched the smartphone adventure and i complain about it. >> i also did the first cell phone company in 1984. we do know is going to go to the point where we changed, did you ever read bob portman's book bowling alone? when you talk about how communities are breaking down, people are just, our kids, your grandchildren, they communicate by text. it's all because we become a unidimensional experience. we watch on the screen,. >> i've got my grandchildren spread around the world from new zealand massachusetts, florida, all over the place. what you gonna do about it. >> that's the challenge, that's what excites me, new technology concept, we sat company called beta outcome is people coming in with exponential activities in the shopping centers, they're going to be big ones, small ones for locals, the change dramatically, i think and it will be, your gonna go for the old reason is you want to smell something or touch something or feel it and it

will be an exciting event. >> so that's what you're investing. >> yes, that's where the opportunities are. >> i thought he would say artificial intelligence. using bit coin as an intermediary for money transfer. it was actually in avco run by an american woman who moved after to run this and has done very well. that's our using it, not betting on the client specifically. >> if i wanted to see the future the way alan would like to see the future, if i wanted to invest in it you would invest in the experience, a company which provides a new kind of experience. >> definitely we've invested in artificial intelligence and machine learning, we've got a company called work fusion,

we've just done a lot of company. >> what was the biggest mistake you ever made as an investor. >> you want to aggravate me, i've said on television and in every meeting because i always get asked. i was parochial and when i saw starbucks in 19, there were five stores, howard schultz likes to remind me of that, when i thought with five stores in seattle and someone in my west coast said there's a coffee shop out here that's really terrific, i said what we need another coffee shop for. there's three on every block and unfortunately i didn't see the exponential effect of what starbucks was pretty was not a coffee shop, it was a place to congregate and have an experience. >> would you put money to starbucks now? >> i don't think so, but there are still people who come in

in a month doesn't go by without seeing someone has a new coffee shop concept or the latest one i saw which was very good is called jax. have you heard of it? they've got five or ten stores. >> did you invest. >> i just saw the deal recently. the most interesting thing is the startup world is on fire around this country today. new york is probably a good example of it, but maybe one of the best, we see literally between 75 and 100 new deals every single week. our l.a. office sees between 25 to 50 every single week. >> hold on a second. >> it's hard to believe but it's happening in columbus ohio, indianapolis. >> you're sitting on a chunky capital and these startups come to you and say this is the idea, this is how we do it, give us the money and that's what they do. >> yeah, that's the way. these hundreds that come at you in any given week or month, how many do actually put money into. >> and say we do about 18 a

year a little more than one a month but we also do a seed program would probably do 25 seeds a year. those are just kind of getting us in the door and trying to get to know something and take your chance at a much earlier stage so we can put a larger amount of capital at a later date. >> almost all the time. a couple quick questions. >> i'm surprised cap me this long. >> had to be very entertaining otherwise you're out here. you invested in apple in 1979. how long did you hold that investment. >> not long enough. we actually distributed the shares to all investors about a year after. i often wondered who if anyone lost the stock and forgot about it or whether they all

dumped it the next day. obviously i didn't. >> this is incredible. you just got five minutes of airtime. that's the longest interview we've ever done except for, seven minutes on the air. that's the record. on monday at about ten in the afternoon eastern time we get the ratings but today, so we will be able to tell if your rates help traits or didn't help rates. will know exactly what happened. if you didn't rate, you never will be on the show again. >> i'll get invited to your competitors. [laughter] you do follow our competitors, don't you. >> i do. >> why don't you come with us more often.

>> you don't invite me, neil invites me once in a while when he wants to attack me. >> your democrat? [laughter] would you like to come back on this program. >> sure. we have fun. i can remember. where was it when i knew you. >> it was cnn. alan, i've got to say, that was a pleasure. nine minutes of airtime just taken off just like that. >> we are entertaining. >> sick shake that hand. it was a pleasure. >> sit still. i've got to give a market update. when they got to do? this is a tease. stay there. former fbi director james comey sat down with fox news but there last night. wall street journal kim

stossel's name came up and she is on the show next hour. last time germany's chancellor andrea merkel came to the white house, she and the president refused to shake cans or at least they didn't actually do it. she's on her way to the white house now. could there be another contentious meeting? we will show you. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ nah. not gonna happen.

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in the last hour senator bill cassidy shared some critical information of what goes into three jambalaya. that was after questioning the authenticity of the jambalaya served at the recent state dinner. >> the food was fantastic. the first lady did a great job and it was very impressive, but i'm not sure there was a room in the jambalaya. as everyone knows, first you make a roof and that's what you base your jambalaya. i'm not sure i taste that. >> what is that? >> you take a little flour and oil and you gently brown it. then you use that as the base to put your rice, whether it's gumbo or jambalaya and then

you had your meat your chicken your shop et cetera. that's what makes it different from just a rice dish

north and south korea make history. they agreed to end of the korean war. here's what president trump tweeted. korean war two and the united states and all of its great people should be very proud of what is now taking place in korea. arizona congresswoman joins us

now. this is real progress, obviously. do you think the threats of an all-out war with north korea has now receded completely? >> absolutely not. this is amazing progress and kudos to this president and the administration, including our new secretary of state for being a part of this, but threat equals capability plus intent. we learn that in the early days of military career. they still have the capability, both conventional and short and medium-range ballistic missiles and their nuclear program. he's changing some of his words showing maybe there's a change of intent but there's a lot of diplomacy that is to happen to have him put his money where his mouth is and not repeat the mistakes and propaganda of the past where they didn't follow through. >> i think many are trying to wrap their arms around the idea that north korea, after spending a couple generations developing together weapons and missiles will agree to get rid of them.

that seems like a very hard thing to get your arms around, literally. i take it you agree with that. >> i do agree. i've been studying this threat for my 26 years in the military and was ready to deploy with my scott squadrons if the balloon went up and we have to better understand what the intentions are and what the path forward is. we cannot do what we did in the past which is provide some relief to them economically from the sanctions and humanitarian relief on the hope that behavior will change and then all the things he said just goes in the trashcan and it just bought him some time. the pressure is certainly on because of this administration, the sanctions, china could do more but they've done a lot so maybe this is going to come to a point where the pain is so high he's willing to change his behavior but we will see. not exactly a threat to north korea but a watch out because if you don't agree with this, maybe something will happen.

do think there's something going on in the background that we really have not been exposed to yet? >> i don't know that the background but that president has made it clear that all options are on the table. we cannot have a nuclear north korea that have missiles that can hold american hostage. they already have our allies at threat. we have a military plan, we have the best military in the world and it's an awful option, but should we have to use it, we will to stop that from happening. maybe he realizes now deterrence means that your enemy believes that you're willing and able to go that extra step to stop him and i think this president has made that very clear. maybe that's what shifted. >> you are running for election. are you flat out a trump support her one 100% down the line? >> i work with president trump, have a great relationship with him, i voted 97% with his agenda, the most with anyone in the arizona delegation and i met the white house all the time. we have a lot to do.

we've got taxes and rollback regulations, we had to secure our border and the craziness in the immigration system is happening. we have a lot more to do and i look forward to getting over to the senate to actually make that happen. >> martha, thanks very much for being with us. where are we? let's check our money. we are waiting for president trump was about to address the olympic olympians. we've seen them lined up waiting for president. when he starts to speak we will get there. the dow industrials have taken a turn to the south. not huge but were down about one third of 1%. that translates to 85 points to the downside. 24200. the stock of the day remains amazon. the stock opened with a gain of well over 100 points. it hit a new record high, it's still up very significantly but it. [inaudible] we are up $60, 1579. there was a report early this

morning of a leading wall street analysts who looked close at amazon and suggested we would go to $1900. share on amazon and bert flickinger who is a frequent guest of hours on the retail industry on the online retail industry said it's going to 2000 here he comes. president trump addressing the microphone. listen in. >> thank you very much. this is a very proud day and i am thrilled to stand here and welcome team usa to the white house. great job. thank you very much. [applause] two months ago, america sent each of you to the winter olympics to represent the red, white and blue and you did an awfully good job of doing it. i will tell you. i think she's more famous than i am. great job.

you performed and you made us very proud and many of you came home as champions wearing bronze, silver or gold metal. you had very big crowds and i have to say, without certain backing, those grabs were not looking good but all of a sudden they got very big, very powerful and it became a very, very successful olympics aside from everything else. they had a lot more people show up than i thought. you think you know why, right, but a lot of good things are happening right now over there. literally, as we speak and the olympics really helped to bring it all together. it was a big help. so just in that respect it was something very terrific. through sheer drive and dedication and commitment you have risen to the top of your fields and the highest levels of your sports. you overcame setbacks, you powered through obstacles and you never ever quit. we have any quitters here? raise your hand please because

as, say get the hell out of here. no quitters in this group. [applause] i had a feeling that was true. you overcame setbacks, you powered through obstacles and i will tell you this, because of your hard work and your sacrifice, you were given the greatest honor in sports to represent the united states as an olympic athlete. that is really an honor. you have to be so proud and your families. so today on behalf of the united states, i want to thank every olympian and para- olympian and that was just incredible and what happened with the paralympics was so incredible and so inspiring to me. i watched it, it's a little tough to watch too much but i watched as much as i could. it was really fantastic and i want to thank you. you traveled all the way to south korea and you displayed incredible strength,

representing three very beautiful letters, usa. [applause] i want to thank the members of our delegation who traveled so far on behalf of the united states and who are with us today. first of all vice president mike pence when there and did a very good job. he was there for a reason and he did a great job. he always does a great job. ivanka trunk went there and was probably a different attitude. sarah, where are you? your father is so good to me. i love your father. sarah huckabee sanders and she's doing great and marcia kelly, thank you very much. my gratitude goes out to south korean and my warm feeling to

president moon being such a grea gracious host. on the occasion of this week's meeting between president moon and kim jong-un, i want to express my hope that all of the people of korea, north korea and south can somebody live in harmony, prosperity and peace. it looks like it could happen. when i began, people were saying that was an impossibility. they said there were two alternatives, let them have what they have or go to war. now we have a much better alternative than anybody thought, even possible. i will be meeting with kim jong-un in the coming weeks as we seek to d nuclear eyes the north korean area in the entire korean peninsula. hopefully the day will come when olympic catholics can compete on a korean peninsula

that is free of nuclear weapons and we where all koreans can live together and can share their dreams. it would be a wonderful thing to do. throughout the 2018 winter games, team usa achieved many historic milestones. with us today are many of these incredible athletes and they are incredible. redman gerard won gold in slope style snowboarding. he must be a wild guy. these snowboarders are little while. where is the? coming. i know this guy so when you're up there doing all sorts of things, do you know it's happening, that is that. >> it's a link mind sort of thing. you just hope to land on your

feet. >> you are a courageous guy. say a couple of words. >> you can put me on the spot like this, thanks for having us. >> great job. >> thank you so much. [applause] c he was more nervous here than he was when he was doing the flips, right? you know why because that's your business. that's great. great job and we all watched in your very special guy. thank you very much. very brave. ariel gold earned a bronze for her performance on the half bike. where's ariel? [applause] come on over here. oh no, look at this. i'm not that surprised, come your, but you're okay, right, say a couple words. >> hi everybody thank you very

much. you were fantastic. [applause] mark, where is mark? nick, khmer. where's nick? nick, where are you. he earned a silver as a slope style skier. where is neck i didn't know they had those big slopes in indiana. >> it's a real honor to be here in our nation's capital representing indiana and the midwest and america! [applause] [laughter] >> great job. >> john henry krueger won team usa's first individual speed skating medal since 2010 by claiming silver in the 1,000-meter -- where's john

henry? john henry. come on, john henry, get over here, john. [applause] let me see the legs. pretty strong legs, i tell ya. [laughter] i always -- i look at those legs when we want to work out. great job. >> thank you. >> fantastic. the competition was tough? >> yeah, definitely. >> better than you thought? >> better. >> well, you came out pretty good, right? [laughter] thanks, john henry. appreciate it, appreciate it. fantastic people. [applause] team usa also captured our first-ever gold medal in curling, and we met a truly amazing achievement with the members and the members of the team, and it's really historic because nobody -- i guess nobody thought we were going to be winning in curling, right? is that right? [laughter] where is tyler george, matt hamilton, john lansteiner and skip john schuster.

where are they? come on up here. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> it helped, right? go ahead, say that. [laughter] and you do know ivanka was there cheering you on, they knew. >> she had her child on her lap leading cheers. >> that's true. anyway, fantastic job. thank you very much. that's the heaviest medal i've ever -- [applause] throughout the games we were treated to other historic moments like when the youngest member of team usa, a talented figure skater named vincent joe, landed the first quadruple lutz in competition. quadruple. wow, that's a lot. [laughter] where is vincent? where is vincent? that's a pretty good -- come on.

come on up here, vincent. [applause] wow. that was fantastic. >> thank you, appreciate it. >> i was watching, and i said that's a lot of spinning. [laughter] they checked it out in slow motion, because they couldn't believe that you know that, right? would you like to say something? go ahead. great job. >> it's such an honor to be here representing united states of america. kind of speechless right now, but thank you all so much, and i'm proud to be here. >> thank you. thank you. [applause] stuart: we thought we'd show you that because extremely entertaining. i don't think any other president can make a presentation of that kind and hold the viewers and make everybody feel pretty good -- >> yeah. stuart: -- and have those youngsters come up and say a couple of words, literally. [laughter] >> on the spot, yeah. stuart: the president opened with a statement about korea, he

said we seek to denuclearize korea. big story, and we're on it. how many times have we said this, you're watching history unfold. i'll say it agained today. kim jong un walks across the dmz, the dividing line, and begins an historic summit. it's time for the left to, number one, give the president credit. and, number two, stop the mindless resistance to everything the president does. democrats must surely understand that president obama's diplomacy failed. it was on obama's watch that the north developed a nuclear bomb and the missiles to deliver it. does the left really think that kim jong un would be brought to the table if obama's weakness had been continued? give credit for trump's strength, it's showing results. and, please, will the elites quit whining about the trump as the war among orer? --

warmonger? that insults our intelligence. susan rice, she of benghazi video fame, wrote in "the new york times" that we can, if we must, tolerate nuclear weapons for north korea. really? and there's not forget senator richard blumenthal who vigorously opposed the appointment of miami pompeo as secretary of state -- mike pompeo as secretary of state. he said he didn't favor diplomacy. that's nonsense. it was mike pompeo who flew to pyongyang. i hate to be nasty, but senator blumenthal said he'd served in vietnam. he did not. he has no standing whatever to go after this administration. today north and south korea signed an agreement to end hostilities. there will be high-level military meetings very soon and probably a kim jong un/president trump summit. are the democrats going to resist this? i think they should knock it off. now. the third hour of "varney & company" is about to given.

♪ ♪ stuart: happening later this hour, president trump is going to welcome germany's chancellor to the white house, angela merkel going to the white house. they will have a one-on-one meeting. here's what happened the last time merkel visited the white house. roll that tape. [inaudible conversations] >> that looks like a good time, doesn't it? [laughter] stuart: they were shouting for a handshake. it didn't happen. president trump is tweeting about today's meeting, here it is. look forward to meeting with chancellor angela merkel. so much to discuss, so little time. it'll be good for both of our great cups. we expect to hear her arrive --

watch her arrive, actually -- just a little later this hour. let's get back to my rant on north korea at the top of the hour. president trump is tweeting about it as well. look at this. korean war to end, the united states and all of its great people should be very proud of what is now taking place in korea. joining us, senator john kennedy, republican from louisiana. mr. senator, i think president trump should get a lot of the credit for what's going on on the korean peninsula and around the world right now. what say you? >> yes. [laughter] if kim jong un had threatened to drop a nuclear bomb on the united states and certain past presidents had been in power, they would have apologized to him and appointed a task force to the see what we had done to offend him. now, president trump didn't do that. he told him straight up if you do that, we will destroy you. and in the meantime, we're going to starve you to death. i'm going to hit you with sanctions so hard that you will

cough up bones. and lo and behold, kim jong unhas come to the table. i'm grateful he's come to the table. we're not home yet, but there are just some folks in this world that aren't confused, and they're not sick, and it's not a question that their dad da or mama doesn't -- daddy or mama doesn't love 'em enough, they're just evil. you've got to hit them right in the face and make them understand you mean business. president trump did that. i thank him more that. if things start going real well, maybe we we could send an amerin barber over and help kim jong un with his hairdo. but, you know, we're not there yet, but things are headed in the right direction. stuart: okay. a different subject. i know that you're upset with two of the country's biggest banks, bank of america, citigroup. they recently announced restrictions on lending to gunmakers and sellers. >> yeah. stuart: you say they are

politicizing the banking industry, and you threatened to file a complaint. what's this all about? >> well, the sophisticated, cosmopolitan, we're smarter than everybody else financial elite at citigroup and bank of america have decided that the rest of us in america who believe in the second amendment are a bunch of ignorant deplorables. and so they're going to have to tell us what the second amendment means. there's a problem with that. their proposal violates federal law. their proposal violates many state and local anti-age discrimination laws, and i would gently remind them that these are the same financial elites who almost destroyed their own banks and the american banking system with them in 2008 and came crying to the very people

they're condescending to now for a bailout. citigroup got $476 billion of taxpayer money, bank of america got, i think, $330 billion of taxpayer money. let me tell you where this is helded, stuart. -- headed, stuart. this is headed to red banks and blue bankings. we don't need red banks and blue banks. we need safe banks. we need honest banks, and we need banks that don't make stupid decisions and come crying to the american taxpayer to be bailed out when they act irresponsibly. they need to paddle their own canoe and let the more than people exercise their -- the american people exercise their second amendment rights. stuart: senator john kennedy, i'm going to leave it there. you're a valued guest, and we -- >> i shouldn't have said that about kim jong un, his haircut is really nice. [laughter] stuart: said with such feelings.

thank you, senator. we'll see you again real soon. >> thank you. stuart: check that big board, coming back a little. we're down 68, modest move there, but we're off the lows of the morning. by the way, we did have all-time highs for amazon and dow component microsoft right out of the gate. they've pulled back a little since then, but they're still doing very well. want to get -- well, we did get the latest read on the economy early this morning. annualized rate of growth in the first three months of the year, 2.3%. kevin hassett is with us, chair of the white house council of economic advisers. now, this was better than a lot of peopled had expected, but it's not the 3% growth that we really wanted. and i'm sure that you wanted. what do you think went wrong in the first quarter? >> actually, i don't think anything went wrong. if you go back and look at the last seven, eight years, every first quarter has come in way below the other quarters, and it's because, basically, the winter weather is having a bigger effect on the measurement

than the dea has really can accounted for. even jason furman, the former cea chair, wrote about this. and don't forget we had five really bad winter storms in the first quarter. so economically significant storms. so smoothing through that, this number's just about three. but down in the details you can see that the policies are working exactly as you and i have discussed, so there's a big surge in capital data despite the storms. if you go q1 over q1, the average american family because of president trump's policies ge of $2,900. that was in the data as well. stuart: should tell you the numbers were a bit stronger than expected, they've upped the forecast for the quarters still to come. i'm seeing one analyst saying, look, we're going to get to 3.5% annualized growth in the second quarter of the year. that's kind of optimistic, isn't it? >> i think that's about what will happen if we get the normal seasonal pattern. the first quarter has been low

by as much as a percentage point, and then in the next couple of quarters it's been maybe a little higher than it should be by an offsetting amount. but, yeah, i think right now you should be looking at a second quarter well north of three. and, again, for the year last fall we were ridiculed by some for saying economic growth this year would be around 3%, and that was because of the tax reform and our policies, and now just about every forecaster is saying that, even the cbo. stuart: kevin has especially, i kept it short, i'm very special. we spent really 15 very good minutes with the president and the olympians, and we're happy to do that. >> it was awesome. it was really entertaining. [laughter] stuart: it was, it was really good stuff. kevin, thanks for being with us. >> great to be here. stuart: a theme we've been hammering on this morning, the exodus of people and money from high tax blue states to low tax red states. up next new jersey senate

president steven sweeney. remember, governor murphy of new jersey, he's still pushing for higher taxes. sweeney says he doesn't agree with it. let's update that with him on the show today. james comey sat down with bret baier last night for an interview. bret asked a question that kim strassel suggested, she is with us this hour. and, of course, president trump will welcome chancellor merkel to the white house this hour. and, of course, we'll bring it to you. stay with us. yes, this is the third hour of "varney & company" on a friday. ♪ anna and mark are heading into retirement... and a little nervous. but not so much about what market volatility may do to their retirement savings. that's because they have a shield annuity from brighthouse financial, which allows them to take advantage of growth opportunities in up markets, while maintaining a level of protection in down markets. so they can focus on new things like exotic snacks.

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that's it. i'm calling kohler about their walk-in bath. nah. not gonna happen. my name is ken. how may i help you? hi, i'm calling about kohler's walk-in bath. excellent! happy to help. huh? hold one moment please... [ finger snaps ] hmm. the kohler walk-in bath features an extra-wide opening and a low step-in at three inches, which is 25 to 60% lower than some leading competitors. the bath fills and drains quickly, while the heated seat soothes your back, neck and shoulders. kohler is an expert in bathing, so you can count on a deep soaking experience. are you seeing this? the kohler walk-in bath comes with

fully adjustable hydrotherapy jets and our exclusive bubblemassage. everything is installed in as little as a day by a kohler-certified installer. and it's made by kohler- america's leading plumbing brand. we need this bath. yes. yes you do. a kohler walk-in bath provides independence with peace of mind. call to save $500 off bath walls with your walk-in bath, or visit kohlerwalkinbath.com for more info. stuart: this is happening now, teachersn colorado protesting at the state capitol. they're from more than two dozen school districts. they're all demanding higher pay, more money for the schools. in other states -- west virginia, arizona, for example -- they've also seen big teacher protests in recent

weeks. and now this, perhaps evidence of the great tax exodus that we've been talking about. the census department says more than 1,000 new yorkers moved to columbus, ohio, in the last three years. that seems a little obscure, doesn't it? new york to columbus, 1,000 in three year ares. the number, apparently, is growing. people say the city's low housing costs, strong job market, lively neighborhoods and the banking industry -- which is big in columbus -- that's all attracting new yorkers who are also probably getting away from taxation. speaking of the tax exodus, new jersey is another of those high-tax blue states, and governor murphy, he wants even higher taxes in the garden state. joining us now is new jersey senate president steven sweeney. steven, it's been a long time. welcome back to the show. >> thanks for having me, stuart. stuart: i just read this on new jerseynj.com. it says that you oppose the

higher taxes that governor murphy is proposing, and nj.com says that murphy's allies are preparing to attack you. they're going after you because you oppose his tax increases. you're smiling. why? >> well, it's, it's so silly, stuart. we disagree. and we disagree because we're concerned about the flight of people leaving the state of new jersey. and, you know, and i keep talking about the same thing, and maybe the administration, maybe the governor should want to understand why that we are resistant and why our concerns are about, you know, raising taxes right now in a high-tax state where the people that can leave will leave, you know? so, for me, when i heard about that, that they actually put a superpac together to go after people like myself that are reluctant to raise taxes, why don't we start looking at how we fix the government itself first,

you know? you know, what happens here all the time, stuart, is people look to find revenue to fund programs. we're talking about expanding programs when we can't already pay percent programs that we have now. pay for the programs that we have now. so putting more programs on top of other programs that you can't fund doesn't make much sense. and my biggest point with this administration is if we gave them all the taxes that he wanted this year, how am i going to pay for these installments next year, the following year and the following year? you know, stuart, you're talking about a couple billion dollars more in taxes to pay for everything on top of this already. it's time to fix new jersey, not tax it. stuart: would you consider lowering taxes? i mean, if you had the power, would you lower taxes in new jersey? >> well, you know, stuart, we have done some of that. you know, again, the estate tax -- we eliminated the estate tax, we raised the threshold on retirement income where we tax retirees. we've done some of that. you know, it would be nice to be

in a position where we can make ourselves more attractive tax wise. but what i'm saying is what we can do is stop the increase in taxes and figure a way to start cutting the costs so that we don't have to keep going back to the people of new jersey every time. stuart: i just don't understand why a man who used to be big at goldman sachs and is now the new jersey governor, mr. murphy, why on everett would he think like that -- why on earth would he think like that? why would he want to raise a millionaires' tax, raise the sales tax? you've got a background of capitalism, goldman sachs. you know how markets work. you know how revenue works. why is he doing this? >> i think he believes it, stuart, to -- i tell people this all the time, i give him credit, this is what he believes in, this is what he's doing. but he has to understand that as democrats in the legislature, we are the same party of him, we don't agree. we have concerns, and we want to have a conversation on fixing new jersey first. you know, again, stuart, this is -- when the governor talks

about these, this is the first installment of four installments. this one costs $1.7 billion. where does the money come from next year to make the next installment? it's time to stop talking taxes, and it's now time to talk about fixing new jersey. stuart: sir, that is a sound bite that will live with us for a long, long time, and we're going to use it. steven sweeney, we do thank you for being with us. thank you very much. >> thank you, stuart. stuart: all right. look at gold, 1323 per ounce, up $5. [laughter] my northern english roots coming out. [laughter] bitcoin, where is that as of now? i believe it's above 9,000, yes, it is, $9,200. it's down a mere $32. how about this? the european space agency has released the largest map of our galaxy ever. it p contains more than a billion stars. the 360-degree map compiled by

the -- i'm not sure how to pronounce this -- project over the last few years and displays a full quarter of our galaxy. japanese engineers have created a real-life transformer that can carry people onboard. the robot car can walk over 18 miles an hour, transform into a sports car with people inside it. the creator was inspired by his childhood transformer, his heroes he watched growing up. check this, one italian company wants to build a new city where residents will live in floating pyramids. homes will start at $350,000. the city will also have shops, a gym, restaurants and a large greenhouse. potential investors will be able to vote on where the floating city should be built, where it should float to. the company hopes people can move in in 2020. you get it all -- >> you certainly do. stuart: varney, by gum. ♪ ♪

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expected to fetch a half million bucks. harrison ford played han solo, he used that gun many times in the scenes in return of the jedi. >> does it still work? [laughter] stuart: look at this, a florida man caught a 120-pound catfish fishing in the panhandle. joe single tear reeled it in, he says adrenaline gave him the strength to pull in what is a massive fish, and he got it onboard. a rare $5 coin from the california gold rush found in new england. the owner says he only hasn't said how he found it, he originally thought it was a fake. took it to a coin authentication company who told him it's actually worth millions. it's one of just four surviving half eagle coins produced by the san francisco mint in 1854. bet your life it's worth a lot. james comey sat down with bret baier last night for an interview. bret asked a question that kim strassel of "the wall street journal" suggest lded.

kim is with us next. and, of course, we're still awaiting the arrival of chancellor merkel at the white house. meanwhile, the market shows a very small decline, down 35 points on the dow. ♪ ♪ how do you gauge the greatness of an suv?

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stuart: donald trump welcomes angela merkel to the white house which any headlines from that meeting, you will hear them first. the dow is way off the latest of the day, down 7 months. and the historic meeting on the korean peninsula. the korean war is going to end. i think donald trump should get a lot of credit for this. >> liberals will go apoplectic, to say donald trump ended the korean war, hard to get that word out of certain is people's

mouths. during the ellen pics when they went to south korea, if you are not being -- life is pretty good in the western capitalized world, donald trump threatened them with military force. no other president has done that, like military force at his doorstep in the way trump is working with the chinese, and you have something magic which is happening now and hopefully it happens. "the dave ramsey show" stuart: it is time to knock out the resist everything trump. what are you going to do, resist this opening because trump has something to do with it? >> it is pretty anti-american, just because he is a republican let's not want him to do good things for the country, for the world but who knows what

happens? maybe the iranians will put a end to the thousands of years of syria sunni fighting. stuart: let's not get carried away. the migrant caravan from central america is on the southern border expected to cross into california, looks like we will apply for asylum and stay. >> mexico is being a bad neighbor, giving groups like these a few weeks in their country, given a passport long enough to get them out of mexico and escort them to the us border but that is not being a good neighbor for mexico. san diego and inland regions are not as crazy as people on the coast, something to do with saltwater getting inland making people's brains not so the inland cities in california are not joining the century city game so the interior of the state city by city, county by

county is hiding the sanctuary city policy. of telephone you can't have the open door to america, they will get into new york and everywhere. stuart: i have san diego county saying 12 or 13 towns, in northern california? >> it will stay in turn will. even people in iran, america illegally, working, those people don't want people from el salvador and central america taking their jobs because if they are working construction -- they don't want to el salvador in doing it for 10. even people who are there illegally are there. they don't want people immigrating illegally taking their jobs. stuart: i do believe the tide is beginning to turn in california, great to have you with us today.

james comey did sit down with bret baer for a live interview. our next guest came up in the conversation. >> there was a lot of possible questions but here is one. please discuss andrew mccabe and the ig report that says he lied repeatedly to you and about you. do you believe he stood tall as you said in january or is he one of the small people tarring down an institution? >> he stood tall, representing himself under tremendous stress after i was fired. stuart: you heard the response, i'm sure you heard it last night, he stood tall, your response to his response? >> bret baer did a great job with that interview, did ask some tough questions he hadn't been asked yet. he didn't answer the question. he talked about accountability

but accountability is a question after-the-fact. what we haven't heard from jim comey whose entire tour is morality, integrity, high standards and ideals, explain how his number 2 continues to be a great guy who stood tall and didn't hurt the fbi when the inspector general has found that he leaked and lied about it repeatedly to federal law enforcement. stuart: you are popping up in the news all over the place. the pres. tweeted about you over the weekends. kim stress of the wall street journal said after reviewing the dumb comey memos you got to ask what was the purpose of the special counsel? there is no there there. this would she do it is one of the weakest obstruction cases ever brought. your second appearance in the major news headlines. >> you paraphrased a little bit but the point is when you read

through these memos, go back at comey claimed the big issue is the pres. told him to stand down on michael flynn. a couple other things that made him nervous can you go through and read these memos and when you have the context of the full discussion, not just the pieces jim comey pulled out, there's not a lot of there there and you wonder why all the fuss that ended up with the special counsel. stuart: one thing that emerged in that interview to me was how is it possible james comey, head of the fpo, did not know precisely who authored the russian dossier? how is that possible? >> it is stunning the depth of the things jim comey, running the world's most powerful law enforcement agency, claims to not know. he didn't even know christopher steele's name at the beginning of this, he doesn't know to

this day beyond press reports who paid for the dossier. there is literally nothing more aggressive you can do as an fbi director then decide you are going to survey lamellar of a presidential campaign and you don't bother to find out where the information you are basing that on came from? it is almost beyond credulity. stuart: i don't think most people can keep in touch with who met who, what or why. i can't follow it but you do. you do. what emerges from these interviews is whether james comey is all around one of the bad guys. >> look at that interview. dodging a lot of explanations,

using clever ways of explaining away a lot of poor judgment at the fbi. stuart: thank you for being with us and join us again soon. the retail iphone, sears is closing its last store in chicago, it's hometown for 110 years, jeff flock is outside the store right now. that is happening in chicago. the ceo is selling off a valuable part of accompany to himself. what is going on? jeff: he would like to sell it to esl investments which is his headphones. this is a big piece of real estate you might think is worth a lot of money but across the street, this is a development they planned and look where it stands. it standing water. some of this real estate might

be hard to sell, more of a white elephant than anything else. i want to get to the store without getting run over. statement invite us inside the store but if you have a phone, you can go pretty much anywhere and take a picture so i want to show you a picture of the store and what it looks like. tremendous bargains in their as i look. a number of people, this is a huge store, the flagship of sears in 1938 when it was open. may be harken back to the sears catalog, that was the internet. that with amazon. not a lot of people. get any bargains today? you don't speaking wish? bargaining? i don't know what that is in spanish. we got a translator.

baby clothes. a few bargains, not many. jeff: there you go, i leave you with jason, our translator. they are asking for donations. that could be eddie lambert very soon if we are not careful. stuart: i don't know how you do it. i remember you from the days of the texas flooding, you were right there all the time and you just got a translator for a lady coming out of sears. you are very good. jeff: don't make this stuff up. thanks very much. check the markets, we are down $.25 on the price of oil, no impact, gas prices continue to go up, that is the story of the day and energy, $2.80 is your

national average. there are now tween 9 states in the $3 club. hawaii, california, washington, alaska, oregon. we are waiting for the arrival of angela merkel. going up to the white house for her meeting with donald trump. this is going to be probably a fairly contentious meeting. the pres. and the chancellor of germany disagree on three very significant topics, number one, terrorist, they disagree on trade, case closed. they disagree on the iran nuclear deal. angela merkel wants america to stay in it. i think our president has been adamant that we are out. the other one of course is the paris climate record, the big

-- americans -- they want us to go back into the paris climate record. liz: it is interesting, the trade deficit mr. many as 4 times the size of france. we are buying a lot of goods from you, $65 billion a year. stuart: he has a lot in his back pocket. i wonder if they shake hands. ashley: it will be a complete opposite with the french president which was warm and cordial, this will be very stiff. we when you never know donald trump. that man can perform on the spur of the moment, you never know what is going to happen. as we await for the arrival of angela merkel we have new poll numbers on the california governor's race, a real surprise, two republican candidates, john cox and travis allen are in second and third place and gaining a lot of ground. they are just behind democrat

gavin newsom. the chairman of the california republican party, i take it all back. i have lectured you, it will never happen, a republican cannot win a statewide race in california ever again but you are pretty close. >> in order to do the impossible you have to see the invisible and they see the invisible and are working hard and we like the survey, it continues a trend whereas the more they become known the better they do in the polls. at the beginning of the campaign almost every democrat candidate had higher name identification then john cox and travis allen. as this campaign goes into the last 5 weeks they are hitting their stride and we are very happy. stuart: a couple things going for you. you are organizing, republicans are organizing an initiative that would rollback the gas tax

increase governor brown imposed, and you will probably get on the ballot, working very much in your favor. i suspect across the political spectrum it is an unpopular gas tax in california. >> it takes 585,000 signatures this week, the committee the california -- to submit 900 signatures. jerry brown has said his administration wants us to be on a roads diet yet the minute democrats got the supermajority they passed a $5.2 billion gas tax increase, $.12 a gallon for regular, $.20 a gallon for diesel. money goes to building an additional road or additional highway. when jerry brown campaign for governor he would not support attacks that wasn't approved by

the voters. he did support this when it came out of the legislature, to allow him to keep his promise. stuart: san diego county, and sanctuary state law. can you bring us up to speed, any votes on northern counties or northern cities to oppose sanctuary state laws. >> supervisor kirk uhler asked to see if there are votes to put that in his county. most of the initiatives are in southern california where the greatest impact is. there are a number of conservative counties we expect

votes on. stuart: fast forward to november. see you have a real hope of a republican winning the governorship? seriously? >> if you look at nonmetric, the crime rate is up, infrastructure collapsing, spending $100 billion a year in education and california countries go out of state and sometimes out of the country to find a workforce. the greatest income inequality even though democrats rail against income any quality. by any metric california is in trouble, democrats own california, they broke california and voters are looking for a fix and republican policies are the fixed. stuart: you got to be the greens, the climate warriors, the government worker unions and terry strong, you got to be the trump haters, large in number, you got to beat hollywood and you got to beat silicon valley.

that is very impressive list of people you got to beat. >> paying attention -- the legislature is more unpopular today than it is popular. jerry brown is at his lowest popularity since 2012. voters are paying attention and don't like what is happening in california. i would remind people that mario cuomo, the great governor of new york couldn't be defeated but he ended up being defeated and in 1991 george herbert walker bush had a 91% approval rating. the candidates running against him were called the 7 dwarfs, bill clinton went on to be elected president. and an uphill battle, and fighting for the future of our state.

stuart: thanks for joining us, we wind, hydropower or geothermal energy in the city will allow buildings to install small wind turbines on the roof to generate electricity. nothing wrong with that, technology is there. ashley: take care of the pigeon population too. stuart: happening now, teachers in colorado protesting in the state capital many more people have joined the teacher protest. denver, colorado. we are waiting for angela

merkel to arrive, still no show but on the way. >> weeding the german media account, and came away with nothing, unable to persuade mr. trump to lift tariffs on metal imports from the eu and unable to persuade, to stay in the deal as it speaks. trade and tariffs at the top of the agenda. and it is a sort point with the germans, cozying up, and the question was disturbed macroand replace angela merkel because she had a warm relationship with pres. obama? they were very close.

merkel has been the they facto european leader, has macron taken over that role? liz: a dramatic change of fortune and leader of the european union, supported for a fourth term. those metal tariffs come on may 1st, that is the first thing and german headline say they could come in the us could slap steel and aluminum, so the german chancellor has to make up for a fragile relationship, she is in repair mode as this visit, such collegiality. ashley: french and germans coordinated prior to separate visits to the united states, they knew what the agenda was going to be, and perhaps the relationship between donald trump and angela merkel is not

as icy cold as you might imagine and he does speak to her on the phone. there is a link here. the europeans don't know how to handle donald trump. liz: it is striking germany did not join the attacks on the chemical plants in syria. stuart: what angela merkel once is something i don't believe donald trump will deliver. there is no way on god's green earth that donald trump is going to listen to angela merkel about getting back into the paris climate treaty, out of the question. liz: whether they will hold joint press conferences, they held several in the last visit and were very awkward. ashley: if the germans want america to stay in and uphold the iran nuclear deal i think it is not going to happen. you may, try for a fix like for example i think we can inspect

their military sites, at the moment we can't. if we could maybe the president would stay in because you can verify the terms of the deal but that is highly unlikely and angela merkel is not going to get us to stick with a policy -- liz: it is a deal so the president could change it. ashley: another item deals with natural gas pipelines it goes around ukraine and poland into europe, angela merkel supported, donald trump doesn't like it because it is another case of russia being able to hold your hostage. stuart: america will supply them with all the natural gas you want. liz: 500,000 barrels a day. stuart: you want it, angela? the pres. the car just rolled up, the pres. is waiting to greet angela merkel. i don't believe there's a microphone present so whatever

is that i don't believe we will hear and that is intentional. the european embrace, kiss on both cheeks. this may or may not last long. there is no sound here. i wish i could hear what is being said. i couldn't understand it but there you go. that is different from the state visit emmanuel macron -- not awkward at all, very different. i didn't see angela merkel's husband there. we thought you emmanuel macr macron's wife and the first couple, a state visit is a difference. liz: this will be a two day visit. stuart: estate visit. coming down the food chain. we will take a commercial break?

we have to. every now and again you have to, pay the bills, more varney after this.

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we just saw the arrival of german chancellor angela merkel at the white house. blake is right there for us. we ran tape of the last meeting between president trump and her. it was very awkward. the press was saying shake hands and they did not. it was frosty. what can we expect this time around? >> i think you're watching the video live. it was a warm embrace between the two. they will have some meetings before this news conference but the big issue will be

paris. dashed tariffs. the president only has three or four days to make a decision on the tariffs. the top issue for president macron was also tariffs and the iran nuclear deal. the president has until may 12 to make a decision on that front. most of your europe wants him to stay in on that front. two made deadlines is too big european leaders come to the white house. >> i think we're in the process of realigning america's relationship with europe. the issue of the iran nuclear deal may 12 and the issue of trade and then of course the president goes to britain july 13. they've decided on that. we don't know much about that visit. whether it's a state visit, handshakes with the queen, so there's a realignment of the

relationship going on. i'm not as which way it will go. >> yes, he will go over to the uk in july. we don't have much information. this is a trip that was delayed, the president, there was a lot of talk about him going over there much earlier than that but now he will be going over, and of course mixing into all of this is when and where will he meet with kim jong-un and under what circumstances? >> i'm sure you will be wherever the president is at that meeting. >> i got the passport ready. >> what you think? i'm hearing singapore. >> so, it's an interesting question because they could be in the asian region and there's questions of just exactly how far kim jong-un can and will travel or might be somewhere in europe

switzerland, countries that have acted as brokers between these two nations. it could go somewhere in the asian region or somewhere potentially even in europe. >> the aircraft carrier, uss enterprise. i doubt it. blake, thank you very much indeed. let's take a look at some of the activity on the financial front this morning for this is the stock of the day. the day, month, year, decade. 15. [inaudible] amazon is up $72. share. that's nearly 5%. it had been well above $1600. share earlier. it backed off just a little. microsoft, that had been up more than three dollars a share earlier. now it's up 76 cents but it's at $95 a share. >> the races on which company will be the first 1 trillion-dollar market but i think it's apple. there closest by a long way.

you've got facebook, they've had a huge gain since they reported stellar earnings a couple days ago. there up 174, remember their high, their all-time high was 195. very close to $200 a share. then it backed off. now, 174. show me intel. we don't spend enough time on intel. it's a huge chipmaker, just got a very good earnings up report in is at $53 a share. it had been a lot higher than that. >> not bad. >> is this the biggest story the day? abba, the singing group is releasing new songs after all these years. >> the role babies name dashed the royal baby name louis. >> prince louis yes or no. >> the no. >> it's a european name.

>> i was hoping for prince arthur. >> i'm almost out of time fortunately. neil cavuto appeared five seconds early and bailed me out. it's yours. >> you lost me on this one. i figure if you don't know this stuff and how the heck can i weigh in. if you have question about italian royalty, it's been a while i guess. >> 18 french kings have been called louis. >> not one italian more. can you imagine that. that's the extent of what i got for you. all right. have a great weekend stuart. in the meantime, we are looking at a so-so friday in the stock market. love the earnings, there sort of the backdrop because that earnings season, despite what you see going on today, what's going on in technology which is like off the chart, so far