>> 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

about 80% of companies buspar reporting are beating their estimates. furthermore there beating them on revenues by about the same level. that could be more telling. in the first quarter the economy grew at about 2.3% and that was a lot stronger than what was expected, but there are some nuances to that report. we will get into that, also getting into this, north and south korea meeting where they each tipped on the other side, but did you expect like a james bond thing where they would, something would happen or they be pushed into a car, they're okay, they're getting along very well and they're making some sort of framework for peace that they hope will last and set the stage for a very productive talks with the north korean leader that the president will have next month. let's get a read on all of these. sabrina, so much going on here , but a week where we are reminded form policy and how

foreign events are going are big, front and center. the north and south korean meeting, the president meeting with the german leader days after meeting with the french leader, what is your sense as to what affect these other developments have on our markets? >> i think this is all good news, i've heard a lot of trump critics come to the table and say hey, i might not like this man but he is doing some good things on the international scene ms to be applauded. i have to admit i was glued to booktv watching the summit of north and south korea. i was also a little amazed that kim jong-un is younger than i am so all sorts of cultural changes. it's good news for the white house and hopefully good news for the market. >> i was going to recommend king guido if it's an italian. >> really?

the north korean thing, if it happens it will be a net positive and will make them maybe the nobel prize winner despite what we heard yesterday on fox and friends. it's interesting that his policies, many of his policies are really good. listen, you cannot have open borders and a welfare state. the corporate tax rate needed to be adjusted so it reflected, we were losing jobs to ireland of all places because i have a low corporate tax rate. listen, he's actually open the door for peace in north korea but who knows. >> here's the thing, what a lot of people witnessed yesterday on fox and friends was downright scary. that the tone, the weirdly

lashing out and i think he is an accidental threat to the economy in the market. the guy is going to be that on glued on tv, it was an unfriendly interview, then you wonder how he's going to react. >> all this good stuff is going on today. i agree. i'm just saying the policy is so much different than the wacky demeanor. i'll care what anybody says. you don't have to be, you can be objective and fair. >> all that great news, the markets re- stabilizing you want to call it the economy even with the threat of higher interest rate may be because of the higher interest rate reflecting the improving economy, all seems good in economic market land, or is it. >> right now it seems good to me how profits growing by 20%,

next year is expected to slow to about 10% growth. we don't want to overlook that. >> the next three quarters after this will all be compared to the old tax. it's amazing. [inaudible] he's not talking about this when it comes to form policy. you can either expect and concessions from the front.

it does remind everyone about the crucial role of china's leader in this whole debate. what you make of that. novel and different in some is criticized the approach with north korea, all of that and here we are. what do you think? >> i think you're picking up on what charlie is saying which is there sort of this up-and-down roller coaster affect to this administration. some of the policies are good but it's alarming when you don't know if he's serious or not serious. i was just going to add, the administration may be favorable in terms of the regulatory peace but a lot of the areas we are seeing brooke growth is in the tech sector. and they are percolating under the surface which is a whole lot of surface and the

technology industry. it's very concerning. we are seeing all this growth and i'm not sure companies are aware of just how much power washington has to bring them down. >> not just washington, but what were seeing out of europe. they want to rein in a lot of these guns. >> i think in europe there's somewhat of an economic slowdown, in china, things really aren't living up to plan, we had people who had a relaxed monetary policy, believe it or not the chinese government bond yields is down for the year. >> by the way, i don't trust the data. you remember we grew and now we got one word just under 6%. believe that. >> if you understand what's going on in china look at industrial commodity prices. look at the prices of industrial metals. >> i don't believe there are strong as are made out to be and i think that complicates things for the president when he bets on getting some

concessions on trade. >> that's why china doesn't want to do that. they will use anything at their disposal to go in and pump up their economy. >> good point. listen, i'm usually there slowing down, the famous hedge fund short sale has been talked about china economy and in some ways that's been going on for a long time. it is a huge market, we have to be there, the trade stuff is something that could slow this down. if you wonder why the markets are kind of choppy lately, i've usually traded the big thing, whether we engage in a trade war, nobody can argue with the president and his economic advisers, peter navarro who is the most hawkish protection is there that china steal stuff from us and we need to address them in a concerted effort. i think where it gets heated is the notion of tariffs that never works. we can save some steel jobs, it's a very highly automated industry and cost us a lot of

manufacturing jobs. manufacturing is doing pretty good in the u.s. right now. >> you're all connected around the world. you travel a great deal. now what is, i look at a lot of the foreign press and they're all, to a publication or media entity, not that different from our own media here. not big fans of this president, still wondering about him, but clearly focused on some of the unusual things going on. america seems to be firing on also wonders, it's market seems to just deal with all these things thrown at it, and they can't understand how this is all happening under this guy. >> i think in large part that's because it's earlier deregulation. you have an administration that is pro-business as opposed to being antibusiness. >> but the same group that was rallying against him, if it

gets him the nobel prize because he gets a peace agreement they will be shocked. >> in conclusion, donald trump is his own worst enemy. he loves to go ahead and say things that make those dislike him hate him all the more. as long as he does that. >> what can i do to get desperado furious. >> look i don't get mad at this man. every reporter wants to hear him, this is what i don't think he understands. every reporter wants to see what he did yesterday happen every day because they know he sounds knots and he can write columns on him. >> is unfiltered. >> i think 40% of people will give him a break on that pretty think 60% of people said on my kids exposed to it. >> that's me. i often have to turn booktv off. >> a lot of times i have to just do a quick mom check of

what's happening on booktv or the radio before my children come into the room because of for talking about porn stars, is not really the morning news in my opinion. i don't love that part. >> it's not just porn star, it's playboy playmates and corruption and paying people off, it's all sorts of things you don't your kids to hear. >> on a thank you all. it is interesting, i urge a lot of you, if you don't get the chance, you read the press and you see what's going on, including this interaction going on right now. >> you can rest assured she was going to win that election and congratulations on winning and by the way, a formal congratulations after a great victory. we are working on a lot of different subjects including trade and nato and military of all types and we have a really great relationship and we actually have had a great relationship right from the beginning but some people didn't understand that, but we

understand it and that's what's important. very extra and a woman it's an honor to have you at the white house. thank you very much. [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue] >> thank you very much for this very warm reception and the congress relation. we took some time to build a government, that's certainly true but that's what it was very important on this first visit outside of europe to come to the united states, to come to washington in order too, yet again deepen our relationship further and i hope and trust and very much looking forward to the very good talk that we will have today. >> thank you very much >> mr. president

[inaudible] >> we were honored. it was a great report. no collusion, which i knew anyway, no coordination, no nothing. it's a witchhunt, that's all it is for there is no collusion with russia. you can leave this one. she probably can't believe it. who can. but the report was very powerful, very strong, there is no collusion between the trump campaign and the russian people. as i've said many times before, i've always said there was no collusion but i've also said there has been nobody tougher on russia than me. without all being said, if we can get along with russia that's a good thing, not a bad thing that there has been nobody tougher on russia than me. i was very honored by the report, it was totally conclusive strong, powerful, many things said that nobody knew about and said in a very strong way. they were very forceful in saying that the clinton campaign actually did contribute to russia so maybe somebody ought to look at that.

what we really should do is get on with our lives and get on with a lot of things but we have a lot of great things happening including potentially with north korea. a lot of very positive things happened over the past 24 hours. we are in total touch with both north korea and south korea, will be setting up a movie engine meeting very shortly, we haven't broken down to probably two sites or three sites for locations and hopefully we will have great success. we will see what happens but hopefully we will have great success. president moon and i are speaking very much with south korea and north korea. the relationships are building and building strongly. this will be a great thing for the world. this will be a great thing for germany, but this will be a great thing for the world. we have discussed this over the period of the last 15 months quite a bit, the north korean problem and i think you are seeing a lot of very positive things are happening.

>> i think we will be talking about a rant, but i don't necessarily expect it one way or another. i know we will have a very good discussion on it ran as i did with emmanuel ground who just left, the president of france so we will be having discussions on a rant and trade. we will have various discussions [inaudible] >> i don't think he's playing, no. it's never gone like this, it's never gone this far, i don't get to read this enthusiasm for them wanting to make a deal, and yes, i agree, the united states has been played beautifully, like a fiddle because you had a different kind of leader. were not to be played. and hopefully make a deal and if we don't that's fine, the united states in the past was played like a fiddle. money going in and nobody knew what was happening the day after an arrangement was made,

if you call it a deal, i doubt it, but enemy arrangement was made, they start with the nuclear weapons again, that's not happening to us. we will come up with a solution, and if we don't, we losleave the room with great respect and we just keep it going. i will also tell you that president she of china has been very helpful at the border. i want to acknowledge that pretty think it's very important to acknowledge but president she has been extremely helpful to me, we have a very good relationship, he has been extremely helpful to me at the border. we will see where it all goes, but this isn't like past administrations. we don't play games. thank you very much ♪ [inaudible] you said you weren't discussing with the d.o.j. that might change

>> thank you very much everybody >> okay. he always way to last-second because you never know. the president was referring to this report that found there was some election interference but no collusion or effort to boost trump over hillary clinton. democrats unsurprisingly dissented on all that, the president saying that should be done on all this, the quote collusion issue is gone and were talking about north and south korea leaders meeting and that he's encouraged by what he sees but is still holding out the possibility that if he doesn't see progress in his own meeting with the north korean leader, he will up and walk out. but again, he is encouraged by the sign he sees this far, he just not on the president on this collusion issue, in particular has always gone back to the notion that

there's no there there. of course, going to this report via a republican nominated committee that there is no there there. if i can satisfy everybody and certainly doesn't satisfy the democrats. they have other ideas, i'm wondering how long this goes on. does it drag on all of the accomplishments or the thought of the unknown and where that investigation is going >> i think democrats see that there is no there there. and that's part of the reason why they decided to issue this lawsuit to keep this issue alive through the midterms because it appears more and more as the evidence comes out that president trump did not collude with the russians. we see the komi memos in which he said hey, it's a good idea to take a look at my people, just to make sure there was no there there, and i can appreciate that.

at the end of the day, this is something that drags in the headlines because the media, left-leaning media and the folks on the left want to keep an issue alive to delegitimize the presidency of president trump. meanwhile there's some very positive things going on in the world. look at north korea and i think president trump is really coming into leadership. and he's really become a bit more presidential on these very serious issues that deserve a lot of credit. i have to give them a lot of credit. in addition to a number of other topics. this is been beginning to change scope from the president we saw your go >> i'm just wondering, looking at the two presidents in the north and south and how they're getting along. they seem very amicable and talking back and forth. in the meantime, i'm wondering what insight you're getting about the north korean leader and what he might might offer to donald trump. they're both talking about denuclearization of the pins

and slid down the road and never to go to war and the war has existed for the better part of 60 years, et cetera, but what is your sense of looking at how it is when that guy on the left is talking to donald trump >> actually what i think is most interesting about this is, in fact, president moon, the south korean president because i think you might remember back to last spring when he was about to be elected and the american diplomacy unit basically kept saying they thought this new south korean president would be too liberal, too much of a dud but that was under underestimating him a little bit. you remember when the u.s. was trying to deploy the sad missile defense program. he said were really not into this because china didn't want it. at the same time after some north korean exercises he wanted to have military exercises with the un. he's been pretty good at

handling all the sites here. i think we have to give the most present to president moon because he's emerging as a very strong leader over there. much the same way that emmanuel macron has come out in force in the past year or so. we are seeing some strong leaders and they have figured out how to handle president trump, but really i think the south korean leader gets most the credit here. >> he has the most to gain as well >> remember when they were first talking about winter games and south korea that his invite to the north korean leader to have athletes participate in both countries so that was criticized by the administration before and buy guns were bygones but you get a sense that this has been a good foreign-policy week for the president? and that between the state dinner and the meeting with emmanuel macron and now it merkel they might have some differences between europe and the united states when it comes to these tariffs, a lot of them danced around the subject without getting nasty with the president but they

had serious differences. they are encouraged by what they could be progress on china and trade and particularly what's going on in north and south korea >> i think it's been an excellent week. we talk about north and south korea what we see is a president that's operating peace through strength. more importantly, definitely the meeting with the french president i thought was pretty exceptional and something in which the president, which i think is good here, not stepping on the message via twitter. often times when we see him accomplish something and have a really good week, we then see a series of tweets which discombobulated the message in totality. this isn't something that he's doing so i'm hoping he's learning lessons from his past and not only putting forth good policy and having accomplishments, but allowing for that message to be delivered to the american people uninterrupted by tweets that could be perceived as very negative and totally take away any positive headlines in

the media >> on foreign policy and the levels, multilevel the president is said to be working on, the president praised the french president for his help on north korea but stressing the personal friendship. honestly they're continuing to push his economic epistles on their way to china to extract some confessions from the chinese in agreement. if he gets that and gets the north korean leader to make some concessions when he meets with him, that's a big deal >> it is a huge win. i would say with respect to china, president trump has been back and forth and back and forth on president sheet, often talking about how much he likes the chinese president but sometimes he threatens him and sometimes he complements him >> he's his own good cap and bad cop >> he really is.

>> we have a couple of months i think until we see really how this relationship with china shakes out. there have been a lot of threats there, i'd like to see a couple months out from the midterms where that relationship really is before we can make a good conclusion >> by the way, do you think that relationship or what could come out of that potential talk could change the midterm elections? >> that's a tough one. i loosely midterm elections, form policy is important, however domestic policy is much more important and it's more than just present trump or president trump is good at getting a message out but you need a collective, the entire republican party to deliver a message that's consistent and the american people can clearly hear it and take note from there and go out and vote. those are important areas >> thank you my friend. i do want to focus on a couple things, the dow has lost quite a bit here. did any of you have a chance to catch bret bears interview

with james comey? i think most of the interviews i've seen, i've read his books, this was by far the best. the others can hold a candle to it. i don't think he's a lawyer but he was very prosecutorial. still very nice because that's just the way he is. anyway, there was an issue that came up in the interview that stunned me, now the whole world is reacting

. . nah. not gonna happen.

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with a whole lot going on inside the stick... [computers sound] "this one got around the antivirus software!" "not a problem." "we're on it." and because it connects to the internet, fixmestick it's always up to date. >> did you leak other things to mr. richmond? >> yeah, i'm smiling, i don't consider what i did with mr. richmond a leak. i told imabout an unclassified -- >> you gave -- >> let me answer the question.

i gave him nothing ever to share with the media. neil: when you give something to someone else who gives it to the media, that's leaking. [laughter] neil: right? bret baier got to the heart of it here. all right, must pass to intermediary to get to the press but got leaked. i'm talking about congressman chris stewart. congressman, thanks for taking the time. >> always to be with you. neil: same here, on what bret baier was able to isolate and what has to be one of the more, well, bizarre positions of the former fbi director, nice enough guy and all of that stuff, but i'm saying, how he could not see leaking for what it is leaking

whether it's through, you know, a friend oren its own, a leak is a leak that he authorized, right? >> yeah, look, doesn't it remind you of bill clinton when he went back and parsed the word is. neil: is that a crime, though? when you look at it and fellow congressmen look at it, is that a crime? >> well, i think there's several layers to this and one of them is if you were disclosing classified information, frankly any undisclosable information, of course, it's a crime. that's what we have been criticizing hillary clinton for the last two years, unauthorized e-mails on the private server and that's why she was being investigated by mr. comey. remember she deleted 30,000, and her justification, those are private emails. that's what mr. comey is saying, these are private memos, no, they were not, they were kept in

the fbi safe for heaven's sakes, he had no authority at all to release this information and it's what we have seen, look, if i were the director i would quit doing television interviews and go to bahamas and count his money because people are questioning handling. neil: essentially found out that the trump campaign used poor judgment in dealing with the russians but no evidence of collusion. dem cratsz -- democrats descended from that not surprisingly. when you say poor judgment, what do you mean poor judgment from the trump campaign? >> they took meet that is they shouldn't have taken. in hindsight they regret taking. it wasn't effort to transfer information to the russians and get campaign donations or

diminish the vote, it was obviously -- neil: the russian lawyer who might have been part of the series of meetings, some in the trump tower, was that part of these exchanges that you dismisbecause democrats said, that's a pretty big deal, you say what? >> look, we looked at that ad nauseam for 18 months. look f she claims to be a russian source, i think that's frankly laughable. the russians don't use people like her in such an overt way and talk about it in the media and 18 months later, oh, yeah, by the way, she's a russian source. neil: this comes back to what you were saying that the trump campaign flipped on some of the stuff and shouldn't have done it in retrospect. would that include her? the russian lawyer even at trump

tower meeting with campaign officials. >> no doubt about it. we are frank in appraisal of that. we say this was a lapse in judgment and it's not just that, there are a few other episodes as well that we are, again, very frank and open about. they cast a poor shadow over judgment. neil: i want to get your thoughts on it because you're the first member of the committee i had a chance to talk to. she apparently did not disclose or let on how close those tides were back to the kremlin. that said to conspiracy theorieses, i don't know which is which. did you investigate ties further and there's no there there because the other side is looking at it and said, we don't know how far this goes. >> well, this is what we do know. during the course of the meeting they talked about adopting and some very uninteresting relation, nothing at all came after, there was no

communications either written or verbal or in personal meetings, this was a one-off meeting, probably shouldn't have happen, nothing of importance and there was no contact after that. that's what we know. i mean, that's not speculation, that's what we know and bring us evidence of something more than that and we will consider that but we have been waiting for months and months now and there simply doesn't appear to be nothing more than that. neil: you spent time going after intelligence community, what did you mean by that? >> this was a hard one for me, i have to be careful with what i say and being critical of the agency but we know in drafting this very, very important document, this thing that says that the -- that the russians actually preferred trump, we know that the trade craft and

the process on doing that is not a standard and they cir have you ever -- and they were hasty in the conclusion, we have real concerns with that. neil: thank you very much for taking the time. have a good weekend. >> thank you, sir. neil: just to follow the report that the congressman was alluding to, the end result was that there was intelligence failings within the intelligence community determined that the kremlin did, in fact, try to interfere with the 2016 election to help president trump, but that they did not get cooperation from the trump campaign. they suggested that russia's main goal was to sell discord in the united states and that that is not over, they are still trying to do that. more after this.

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neil: all right, they always give me the stories, i don't know why. 53% of workers, 60 or older say they are postponing retirement and most want to remain anchors for as long as possible. kidding. [laughter] >> associate publisher with the retirement sec, always good to see you. they have to work longer and they don't have the dough they really want now. >> people are living longer, living longer healthier lives, incredible statistic, a baby in 1950's, odds were that he wouldn't live to 50. really, more than half died before 50. that's the good news, the longer you live the more chance you will run out of money and people are so inadequately prepared for this. 30% of baby boomers have less

than $50,000 saved for retirement. neil: so they do things later in life to speed up, you know, their 401(k) contributions but even that isn't going to get you paid dirt immediately. >> it's not a pension, we switched from the 80's from what was called defined benefit program, you got a check every, week, month, whatever it was for the rest of your life. now called define contributions which is using this, you put it in, neil, and see what happens. [laughter] neil: how bad is that, though? that would seem to two right off the bat that half those in that age bracket are nowhere remotely ready for retirement so what are their options right now? >> i think that's a fair statement, if you are in the boomer bracket especially in upper end and you only have $50,000, working longer, that's

number one. number two, i highly recommend financial adviser that's fiduciary because that's crucial, we heard unsavorily characters. neil: how would you know that that a person would get a percentage -- >> commission is not a bad thing, go to fiduciary. certain organizations, nafpa, garrett financial planning network if you don't have a lot of money. people tend not to do really dumb things, they make lots of small decisions that are wrong because they don't have the expertise. they tap the roth 401(k) first, most advisers say, you know what, save that, let it grow without -- you know, compound

without taxes and tap the other sources. so that's very technical. you get my point. lots of little decision that is you make correctly if you have advice and -- neil: but the idea that closer you get to retirement the more conservative you get and i know people that pouring money into fang stocks which have been nice over the last couple of years but they've made some big risky bets. what is the strategy? >> the study show actually that it's a barbell, when fidelity and other companies look at the retirement accounts, they see conservative people putting everything in bonds or cash, which is wrong, and then the risk takers, you're talking about put everything in high-flying stocks which is also wrong. you have to be widely diversified. if you have that boomer, say you're 60 year's old, you've got another 30 years ahead of you potentially so you can't just be in conservative, i don't want to lose any money kind of stuff. 20 years from now, your stock

holdings are going to be worth more than they are today even though we will have dips. neil: what about the rule, plan 20% of income, that strikes me as high. >> it is very high and it's a raging debate among the people who think of this sort of thing, really, if you're paying college tuition or a mortgage that you'll end up paying off, with expenses there are a lot more expensive higher than retirement. on the other hand, health care costs will be killer, fidelity plan on a quarter million dollars in health care costs over a couple's course of retirement. neil: for a lot of people they didn't get insurance for that kind of thing, a lot of them are sick now, they are not going to get the insurance, right? >> let's hope they can find a way, there's medicare and medicaid. your current condition doesn't make a difference there, but, yeah, there are no easy solutions. you just have to make sure that you work as long as you can and,

you know, the interesting thing about the stat, 53%, we certainly know a lot of people would like to work longer and, you know, their company sees younger people who are cheaper and they are not able to work as long as they want. the supreme court made it harder to prove age discrimination. neil: the message you have is keep working till 100 and your boss is out to get you and replace you with someone much younger. >> let's get back to happy story. a woman in new york, when can i retire, he said, never. neil: okay. >> she said i want to live with my mother, they retired in méxico, they're not in good health, oh, okay, you can retire now. one option to move. neil: on that bright and cheerful day, jack otter. we have more after this, dow down 32 points.

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neil: all right, jeff bezos is having last laugh it would seem,

his company blowing earnings expectations, orders, prime membership fees coming up, you name it, amazon is on fire and cristina know all of that. here more details, amazing story. >> amazing, investors that got in earlier very happy, the stock today just soared 8%, actually all-time high. was higher, way higher than that earlier this morning. so definitely coming higher. blew earnings expectations out of the park, they had profit of $1.6 billion in the first quarter. this is more than doubled the profit for last year at the same time. but to put it into context compare today other tech companies, you facebook that put out earnings, they had $5 billion in profit, microsoft, 7.4 billion, alphabet, 9.4. still lower than the pack and expenses, expenses have been up 42% for amazon if you're wondering why expenses going up, they are investing in array of

various companies, most notably they are putting a lot of money into their content and the content has to do with amazon prime and that's the next big story for amazon, is that that 99-dollar u.s. per year annual membership is jumping up to 119 for all new prime members may 119 will be the day you see the hike if you already have an account, that will happen june 16th, ham -- amazon is no longer after raser-thin margins, that would be roughly $2 billion in extra revenue because they have 100 million people who use amazon prime. so they will take the money and invest it into new content like the lord of the ring show, they have a budget of $500 million for upcoming show. just one example of the great things that amazon is doing, taking control over, running our live. i don't know. neil: i don't know. analysts were way off.

huge. >> huge. neil: huge. thank you very, very much. in the meantime an op-ed, i think someone who would know a little bit about the subject, 800,000 people expect today flee high-priced states like new york and california, why, because of taxes, your message was hike and the nation will take a hike, what's happening here? >> the governor continued to raise taxes on millionaires last year without any relief to the middle-income taxpayers because we know most of the people are leaving, almost a million or over a million since the governor took office in 2011 and most of the people are middle and lower-income tax taxpayers, guess who gave them a lifeline? we did in house of representatives by helping lower-income taxpayers get a tax cut. we are trying to stop the outflow and let's be honest, new york has been losing population for decades and if we once had

over 45 members of the congress or house of representatives, we are now down to 27 and looks like in the next round we will lose yet another seat, that's historically low. neil: giving away or limiting the deduction that you get for state and local taxes, property taxes, $10,000 now, a lot of constituents pay more than that, the wealthy ones are the ones that will free to bulk and dispute as to how many are doing so. >> right. neil: is that event correctable because that's going to hit people dead on straight on next year when they are filing taxes, a lot of them don't see it or know it now. >> let's look at what the governor did, yielded $400 billion out of maintaining the millionaire's tax on the state side which is really what has driven everyone from new york state for years long -- neil: even long before he was doing that. you're talking about andrew cuomo. high taxes and high-related taxes and high-taxed states like

california were part of the mainstream. >> absolutely, the governor took the $4 billion, what did he do with it, tax credits for his donors, he's turned into national commercials that are nothing more than campaign pledges and campaign commercials for -- neil: it's not bill de blasio that wanted to have a surtax. what's going to happen? >> what happens is the governor needs to stop spending over $8 billion on our budget which is about 160 billion-dollar budget for people, you know, 19 million in change new yorkers, florida has the state budget of 80 billion with more people than we have. we have to stop -- neil: i know that you're not responsible, but you guys, republicans dropped the ball on the budget, so anyone lecturing anyone on budget, it's out of control. >> yeah, but let's be honest about that as well, new york state is the highest property

tax burden and sales tax burden, eight of the counties that i represent are in top 36 based on value of highest-taxed counties in the nation, not just locally. neil: you guys will be driving a trillion dollar deficit. >> we have to rebuild the military, my son is active duty marine, we have important installations, two step forward -- neil: no step forward. >> i don't agree, we did have fiscal resolve. neil: i see a party a trillion dollars added to the debt and i don't see the change -- >> i don't agree with you, actually. i think we are going to get there. neil: i hope you're right, i don't see it congressman, no offense. i wish we had more time, do i want to explore but there's a lot of blame to go around and it is out of control. right now not so stocks, right now up reversing losses, more after this from the market when it might be time to buy or sell? with fidelity's real-time analytics, you'll get clear, actionable alerts

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neil: all right, germany meeting with the president of the united states right now the second big foreign leader the president hosted at the white house it's a big for emmanuel macron of france and now we're getting the reading on all of this from blake burman, see how i'm doing that pay attention it's free basic cable. blake, what's the latest? >> hi, neil. they are having lunch right now, the president trump and angela merkel here at the white house she'll be on the grounds for the better portion r of about two and a half hours this bookends

the week with president trump and european leader macron today and angela merkel today there are a couple looming deadline in the very near future for the president with the eyes of the attention and european and world leaders especiallily in europe as may 1 the president will decide by tuesday whether or not he wants to continue to exempt the european union as it relates to steel and aluminum tariffs, part of the reason or at least part of the pitch from macron as well, on monday here and presumably from merkel today. and then if you go about 10 days after that to may 12, the president will have to make a decision on the iran nuclear deal, which many across the world want to see the president stay in though the president has given every inclination at this point that he is leaning toward backing out and then of course we don't have a date for it just yet, a location for it just yet, but there is a looming meeting between president trump and kim jong-un magnified because of what happened in the last few hours or so or earlier today in

the core en an peninsula over and president trump was asked about it earlier today as he sat down with angela merkel and said as it relates to what just happened and what might happen going forward he will not be played by the north korean dictator. listen here. president trump: the united states in the past was played like a fiddle. that's not happening to us. we will, i think, come up with a solution and if we don't, we'll leave the room with great respect. we'll leave the room or just keep it going. >> you're getting a couple different senses here from the president and from this white house. one of optimism, of hope, that whatever will happen going forward with north korea will end favorably, a denuclearization of the korean peninsula piece within that region but also a little bit of caution as you just heard from the president saying look if it doesn't work out, we'll back out or at least walk out of that meeting. 1:45 at the white house about 45

minutes from now neil we'll get that joint press conference with the president and angela merkel. neil: very good my friend thank you very very much blake burman at the white house. the back drop for all of this is what's happening here in this country better-than-expected gdp reported in the first quarter down from what it had been but a lot stronger than what they thought it would be 2.3% clip in the first quarter meanwhile looking at companies that have reported i believe a little over half, of 500 companies have reported about 80% came in with better-than-expected earnings and better-than-expected revenues and then of course that is that north korea south korea meeting, these two seem to be getting along smashingly and a lot of people saying the president of the united states could be on his way to a meeting that will involve the north korean leader a deal and maybe a nobel peace prize. you never know, so, so many interesting back drops at the same time let's go to the publisher market watcher dan safer and deirdre bolton. there could be a confluence of

very positive development for the president. >> indeed. i really think those pictures were powerful and i know we're so far from knowing any of the details about north korea and south korea what they discussed apparently you can only hear birds chirping in the background nobody heard the actual language neil: i wonder if it was code. >> [laughter] that would be amazing. that would be amazing. neil: but they seem to get along as well as emmanuel macron and the president. >> it looked very very encouraging and of course nothing has been released about how this relates to nuclear disarmament any of that nature but i'm with you and listen just as a human citizen why not. that is a good looking video good looking picture of course this 3% gdp or almost 3%, 2.3% but getting closer to the president's goal of 3% growth better-than-expected the only part i'm watching is a little consumer caution seems like businesses are feeling more confident than the average u.s.

consumer since its two-thirds of our economy okay we'll put a pin in that but the tech earnings have been fantastic. amazon was bananas last night, knocked it out of the park and all of the other tech companies have been doing the same so it's a strong trifecta. neil: dan safer the president takes a bow for that and certainly we'd be blaming him if things were falling apart but he's saying the environment he's provided with lower tax cut and regulations and the like and that has been the wind at all of these guys back including our own. what do you think of that? >> well it seems that it makes sense that it should be the wind behind our backs, neil but i still think the consumers are tapped out and we're seeing that in this gdp number that they've cut back on their spending and inventories have been built because of not being able to sell. i don't think that we're out of the woods yet. i think what he's done is great and people will have a little bit more money in their pockets but i think they're going to take the money and pay down their debt and i think that's what this number is telling us so i'm a little concerned going

forward as to what the gdp will do and i still am on target that the gdp could go negative over the next four quarters. neil: you do that in back to back quarters you've got a recession. are you in that camp, rick? >> i am not. i think that there's momentum going forward. i think that 2.3% in the first quarter is good as first quarter s go. neil: in this point, i'm sorry, but to his point, it's a valid one a lot of people said it was brought up mistakenly higher from a lot of these businesses building up inventories that were never sold, because consumers have slowed down. are you worried about that? >> well, i'm not and i'll tell you, the consumer confidence is a lagging indicator. ceo confidence is a forward indicator, and the ceo's are positive about the next three- quarters and i'm positive too. neil: that's interesting you always want your boss happy right? >> yeah, you always want your boss happy and i did note the cautionary tone for the u.s. consumer but for the u.s. consumer to pay down debt i

also don't necessarily see that as a bad thing. in fact a lot of times we flag that as another potential trouble spot for our economy, where so many people have, i mean credit card debt is very close to record levels, the student debt we know is around the neck of our economy that is slightly more difficult to measure but outside of mortgages , that and car loans that's the next biggest category that effects a lot of people, so i don't necessarily think it's such a bad thing if people got a little extra money and are beginning to just kind of tighten their own belts a little bit. neil: dan, you seem to be of the opinion that whatever bang for the buck the consumers get for the tax cuts they've gotten it, spend it, save it whatever they do with it or plan accordingly and that's it. >> absolutely neil you hit it on the head and i understand exactly what deirdre is saying but the fact is they've already spent their future so if you've spent the future and you get a little extra cash what are you going to do continue to spend? then you've got more debt and

even your other guests talk about consumer confidence so high that's true, but that's part of the cycle where we are and you know there's just so many pieces here, i don't want to go into it neil but they got pensions underfunded where do they get the money? i just see this economy is tapped out and not only neil the gdp in london and great britain this morning came in at .1. it's not just the united states this heaviness around spending. it's globally and this is going to be an issue and i just think the federal reserve is going to have to back pedal and i'm a trader so the commercials in the treasury market the 10 year treasury they are so net long they're expecting a major drop in the 10 year yield. the yield curve we talked about when i was on the show about three or four weeks ago was flattening telling us a recession is coming. this gdp number at 2.3, i'm not excited about it at all. neil: you made that abundantly clear and bummed me out but what about this other thing that we're not appreciating and maybe this is something because of the

sinicism after the 2016 polling data that what's not being picked up are people who are feeling that prospects are getting a job or keeping the one is about the best its been in decades a record low minority, unemployment, women, what have you, and it is something that we're not picking up because well we're just not and we can't appreciate that but people are appreciating the extra dough whatever it is in their paycheck s, they are seeing their happy boss running around and envying him or her, but that this isn't being properly, you know, calibrated. what do you think of that? >> i think that's an as toot observation, neil. i would also point out because we didn't have any big rebound ing years coming out of the 07 to 08, 09 recession that we haven't eaten up this demand. there's plenty of unmet demand out there in this economy, so if we'd had a boom following the recession i would be a little

bit more worried but we haven't had a boom, so i think, you know , i just profoundly reject this idea that we're going to go negative four quarters in the next four quarters. neil: you know, deirdre another thing that's out there, the wildcard is foreign policy thing but of course you've got a peace deal with the north koreans where you make progress with the chinese who are hard to stick to their word by the way but let's say they do make some concession s and the president went up on a trade deal, gets something that was unthinkable under his democratic and republican predecessors on the north korean peace deal how does that factor in? >> i feel like we have seen the markets move a lot and be extra volatile on trade issues, and the perception of trade just how tough are we going to be on china. are we going to make exemptions for certain categories and for certain countries and i do feel like that has added a particular layer of volatility to the market and i think blake burman was just mentioning as well. part of the reason why we saw

the french president and the german chancellor here this week is because our deals currently with the eu expire i think may 1 , right? so there's a reason why these european leaders are here this week. they're trying to hammer something out so the trade as far as market sentiment i think trumps whatever good feeling or bad feeling we have about how we're getting along with other leaders. neil: you might be right about that guys i want to thank you all for the differences here. we are waiting on a couple things including the president of the united states and his german counterpart angela merkel and the president making notice for you at the white house earlier that a lot of people make a big to do over the fact that maybe the german leader and american leader don't get along, but generally that's not good. i didn't see any of that kind of stuff but people like to read into this stuff what they like to read and meanwhile the north and south, the north korean and south korean leader are looking like best buds. is this going to be the way it's going to all go down when the

president of the united states is meeting with the north korean leader? we'll see.

neil: all right, you know, this is really an amazing pow wow between the north and south korea leaders getting along just great setting the stage for what could be very productive when the president of the united states is meeting with the leader of north korea a little too early to tell, but to retired navy captain chuck nash, who always helps me step back from a lot of the pomp and ceremony and then look at the real deal here, and i think when we last chatted, captain, you were reminding me that let's not get ahead of ourselves here. they want things, we want things , he's a leader whose got that meeting that doesn't want to botch that but we've learned from him in the past he can do an about-face very very quickly and we've learned from his father the same his grandfather the same so how do we mark his sincerity? >> it has to be verify, then trust, reverse ronald regan's

famous saying. i think, neil, what we're looking at here is a three-step process and also the last time we spoke i think we talked about this. step one is end the korean war that appears to be underway, many observers never thought that would happen in their lifetime that's happening. second step is to come up with a mutually agreed upon non- aggression-packed between the two countries backed up by the international community with very vigorous and intrusive inspection regimes, and then the third thing is the eventually poll reunification of the korean peninsula. all those steps require a lot of due diligence on the part of not just the united states and south korea but the international community, because of the amount of nuclear technology that has moved out of north korea and into places like iran. neil: um, it's clear the north koreans need money, and i've always wondered what's wacky about that, is that their biggest benefactor china does have a lot of money but has

obviously not shared the loot backed them up when it came to the sanctions but they need the united states for the money. how should we play that? >> it would be a very interesting dynamic if the chinese keeping the north korean s on the tether were to somehow lose that tether. you want to talk about changing the political landscape in the far east. you've got japan which is an economic powerhouse, south korean economic powerhouse, china is an economic powerhouse. whose the poor kid on the block? and which side of, where is his bread buttered in the future? all kim is about is keeping that regime intact. he is not an irrational actor. he's a very rational actor but it's like a family business. the first generation starts it, the second generation builds it and if they're not careful the third generation loses it. i don't think kim wants to be that third generation. neil: he's killed a lot of family members. >> indeed. neil: his grandfather did the

same. he's already a brutal sob, so i'm wondering he's the leader we have and then we can't control the leaders with whom we chat, but obviously, we go into this eyes wide open, right? but how do we make sure that what is committed to is done? >> if there's no intrusive inspection regime, then you can't, because -- neil: but they can change that on a dime right? >> absolutely. neil: if you want to get a regime in there and check it out we learned that from saddam saddam hussein so how do we police that knowing full well that at any moment they can stop it? >> well that's just it all of these things, you don't just let go of the rope okay? you've got to meter that out and every time there has to be a quid pro quo, so it's not just that we're going to oh, release some of the sanctions and do all this happy stuff. this was the equivalent, well it was historic it really was and of course trump gets no credit

for this just like reagan the left tries to keep reagan from being the one who ended the cold war. everybody knows it's true but nobody will give him credit for it so he has to be careful, president trump has to be careful that if he's the master of the deal, that he's very judicious in the way he handles this deal and i think given his background, he's more than capable of ensuring that this goes step by step, verified each time before the next iteration. neil: i just wonder when he talks about i'll walk away if i feel that we're bogged down. now over what time period? and then when president kennedy first met with nikita in vienna and it was the first time meeting over a couple of days, it didn't go well for jfk, but by that definition, after the first day, could have said well i'm out of here and he stuck it out and then he returned later and ultimately dealt with the cuban missile crisis and then obviously the two that

unfortunately ended the date president was assassinated but my only point in saying that is that what would be the point that the president would stand up and leave and what is to be a meeting that's not expected to go on for weeks after all. what do you think? >> if a deal that he signs and he's a businessman, he signs a contract, there are things that are expected out of that and if he sees that he's going to sign a deal, sign a contract where there's no varification, where there's no there there, he's going to be reagan and just get up and walk out and that worked out very well for reagan and same thing with trump. i don't think kim has entertain ed the idea of talking to president trump without realizing the fact that he can't play this guy, because if he does, this is the first time since reagan that all options truly were on the table, and he knows that and with the sanctions and all options being military on the table, i think it shook people up and back to

that analogy with the family business. he doesn't want to be the third generation that follows through and loses it. neil: chuck nash, we'll watch it very closely. my pleasure, neil have a great weekend. neil: you too. i told you about james comey, he's been on the interview circuit talked to everyone and all that stuff so i've watched most of the interviews and i think brett baer's was by far the best and james comey seems like a perfectly nice guy depending on the point of view what he said and all that but what brett extracted out of that interview the world is abuzz on it right now. what really happen? what was comey thinking and what is the definition of leaking? next. well, it's earnings season once again. >>yeah. lot of tech companies are reporting today. and, how's it looking? >>i don't know. there's so many opinions out there, it's hard to make sense of it all. well, victor, do you have something for him?

>>check this out. td ameritrade aggregates thousands of earnings estimates into a single data point. that way you can keep your eyes on the big picture. >>huh. feel better? >>much better. yeah, me too. wow, you really did a number on this thing. >>sorry about that. that's alright. i got a box of 'em. thousands of opinions. one estimate. the earnings tool from td ameritrade.

neil: all right that battle for sky news, a british media giant, is getting pretty involved now, charlie

gasparino has more. hey, charlie. charlie: as you know we put in a bid right? we wanted to buy it meaning 21st company of fox business last week comcast put in an offer a higher offer which caused sky to drop its support of our offer and now here is something really interesting and this shows you this has, this deal between fox 's takeover of sky the rest of it owns a chunk of it already , has the potential now to becoming a really massive bid ding war. well we understand that disney, which is buying some of fox's assets and then the fox deal would own a piece of sky news ultimately and that disney is weighing whether to retain bankers like jp morgan chase, they're eying jp morgan chase, also citigroup and guggenheim partners and if they do that, what bankers are saying is that they may taken offer for sky news and yet, be another bidder in this deal. now we should point out, neil, that none of this is set in

stone, that no final decisions have been made on disney and again if the deal, if fox is able to buy sky and if fox is able to sell its assets to disney, disney in that case would get a chunk of sky, and would get something like 30% but from what we understand there's a distinct possibility it may go at it alone as this bidding war heats up and who knows who wins in the end, that there maybe a bidding war which pits even if 21st century drops out we don't know, but we have no comment from spokesman for our parent company, but you may see disney put in its own bid for sky and that's one of the reasons from what we understand it's looking to hire investment bankers and again these are fairly prominent investment bankers that it's eying. jp morgan chase, citigroup, guggenheim, this is going to be the story of the century if this is what goes on. it will totally disrupt media and even our deal with disney.

it's crazy stuff, but it looks like it's in the works we'll see what happens and cover each and every development. neil: you always do. real quickly any updates on the at&t time-warner thing? charlie: i will only say this its been kind of quiet it's now at&t putting on its side of the case and i will say this i spoke with a government attorney. he's just reading the tea leaves and he doesn't think it's going well for the government and by the way you never know what's in this case it's a judge, it's not a jury. what's in the judge or jury's mind. they're just surmising by the questions he's asking judge leon he's been really sort of conned esending and critical of the government, you know, its approach, its expert witnesses. neil: all right charlie: and that's just a tea reading but that's what they're telling me. neil: all right buddy thank you very much. charlie gasparino. okay, getting a little late to brett baer last night on his fine show he might have wished

in retrospect he didn't show up at all. take a look at this over the issue of leaks. >> you said in the memos i said i don't do sneaky things i don't leak, i don't do weasel moves, but i mean, we can argue what a leak is but that's a leak isn't it? >> it's not. >> not without a motorcade. neil: okay i apologize for that. we dropped the ball on that so brett is with me right now but he's now ripping his mic off and leaving which would be understandable but good to have you. do you know what's interesting about that first of all are you a lawyer by any chance? >> no, i play one on tv. neil: oh, that was really really good and what was fascinating about that is this idea of no i didn't leak. i gave it to someone who leaked it but isn't that a leak? >> yeah, i mean listen, i wasn't really expecting, neil he was going to go down that road to say it wasn't a leak but i had the kind of fbi protocol

that he signed in his implement agreement that he fines what leaking is. there is a lot of investigation that is going on currently about this, and how those memos were handled by the former fbi director, including the inspector general and he said last night that he has talked to the inspector general about this very issue. neil: now, that got me thinking especially with the inspector general citing andy mccabe and his multiple lies to investigators, at least a criminal inquiry wondering whether those two are going to be pitted against one another the former number one and two at the fbi. >> i mean, i think that's very possible just looking at what the ig has already put out on andrew mccabe, saying that comey and mccabe have different views of the same thing. mccabe says he told comey that he was going to release this information to the wall street journal. comey says no he doesn't recall

that and there are four other instances when it comes to mccabe. i think another thing that was fascinating was the decision to reopen the clinton e-mail case 11 days before the election cops as andrew mccabe is on top of that, but authorities in new york say that they had known that those e-mails were on anthony weiner's server if you remember the ins and outs of that for weeks prior to that decision so i think their backs were up against the wall and again that's mccabe and comey making those decisions. neil: you got into this back and fourth issue with he was treating donald trump and his surrogates the same as hillary clinton and her surrogates and was very very clear that that was not the case, and this has said sort of a damming view of the president has had of this whole investigation and the fact that they had it out for him, that maybe there was a good reason why he was paranoid because people were just behind his shoulder, and i'm wondering

what you've got a sense of comey thinking on that because as he said had none of this happened he'd still be the fbi director today and still with those strong opinions of the man he has view few kind words for today it would be in a different world. >> that's true if he hadn't been fired, on one of the dis mount on that question, if he hadn't been fired he said yes, i would still be fbi director tonight. despite being on this press tour and this media blitz on this book saying that the president is unfit and not moral and should be voted out of office if people vote their values and principles these are all things he said on this media tour so i wanted to get that perspective and his sense that peter strzok and lisa page the two fbi agents texting back and forth and if he knew back then what would he do and he said he would remove them from the investigation but he doesn't say that their work product throughout the

investigations should be questioned, so that's, there's a bit of a disconnect there too. neil: and his own point of view on the president think about it given the people who have now since left you mentioned peter strzok and lisa page, andrew mccabe of course, james comey, and all these other officials who work at other networks, talk about james clapper and these others who have very dim views of the president now or donald trump now, and maybe they didn't publicly state that at the time in their positions but we know and knew where they were coming from. i'm just wondering whether it gets back to the information we're going to get and whatever ensues from the investigation as comey seems to be saying impecable thoughts of robert mueller but it does make you wonder. >> it does and i think there are lawmakers up on capitol hill who are pursuing that line of questioning, neil and i think the other thing that struck a lot of people was that former fbi director didn't know who had funded specifically the dossier,

that is the basis of a lot of the investigation, the basis of the fisa application to spy on carter page. he didn't know specifically it was the dnc and hillary clinton. neil: that's incredible. i mean, on face value that is just in credible. >> i actually didn't expect that response either. i had follow-ups going down a different exit ramp and then i had to like put it in reverse and say wait a second what did you just say? because i didn't understand that either. neil: what did you personally think of him when he left, how did it go? >> you know, it was fine. he was very apologetic about being late in traffic there was a lot of traffic yesterday at first when i heard the word five minutes before the show i thought he was just trying to ice the kicker or something, but he was very gracious with his time and during the commercial break said that they were tough but fair questions. so that's what i hoped for. neil: well it was the best of

all interviews i've seen and i think i've seen most of them but i'm just wondering where this goes. is it your sense he was selling a lot of votes and that i understand but has it moved the needle at all? >> well, i think if you're robert mueller, neil, and you're looking at all these interviews and you're looking at this book, you can't be happy that this is all playing out in a public sphere. i mean, i assume that comey would be a witness for mueller should he move forward with something, and you wonder how much he has taken a hit on some of the things he said just by the bias that perhaps is indicated in his decision-making based on what he says now. neil: separately real quickly, you know the house intelligence report releasing of their views of russian collusion thing, nothing there, et cetera, the democrats, you know, now we're hearing that nancy pelosi says the house democrats will continue to investigation

russian meddling in the elections that they're not done with this so this is nowhere done, period, is it? no, the real one that everyone is waiting for here in washington is mueller and when he finishes his investigation. i think trey gowdy told chris wallace a couple weeks ago that he didn't think the house intel process was complete because they didn't interview everybody. they didn't have access to all of the key players like robert mueller does, so you can come to your own conclusions based on the documents and what you have, the evidence you have but they didn't have everybody, and so they're waiting on the big kahun a, robert mueller. neil: and so we wait and wait and wait. it was a great job my friend thank you very very much. thanks, neil. neil: brett baer, the dow up about eight points we are awaiting that joint press conference with angela merkel and the president of the united states. he says they get along swimming ly. i don't know what the german word is for swimmingly but she feels the same, so you can

decide. now i'm thinking...i'd like to retire early.

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neil: all right, minutes away from angela merkel and donald trump having a joint meeting with reporters here they take questions with respective countries you know the drill you know the type of questions that could come up so does my next guest dan henninger the wall street journal editorial board member. what's at stake here in this pow wow only days after elizabeth macdonald emmanuel macron was here with very different views? >> well there's a lot at stake on both sides i think for angela merkel it is her role in europe because macron has made a splash and no question about it he's established a strong relationship with president trump a year ago angela merkel basically thought donald trump was an incompetent b, so in this meeting this morning she undoubtedly is trying to get

serious in trump and bear in mind she won her re-election, squeeked through at a hard time forming a government and germany has typically been the post-war leader economically for the rest of europe, and now macron to some extent is challenging her. now the big thing he did while he was in washington was to reset the terms of the iranian deal which could expire on may 12, and what he said was and he told us to congress, we would like to keep the essential parts of the current deal the status quo. that's what angela merkel said she wants the status quo, to that macron added that we now have to talk about the sunset provision, that's 2025. he says the iranians will never, he said to the congress, they will never get nuclear missiles so he's willing to talk about that deadline 2025 and also wants to talk about tougher inspection standards and wants to talk about iran's long range ballistic missiles their icbm's

the europeans previously had been talking about mid range ballistic missiles, and he added to that their cyber threats, their hacking, their sponsorship for terrorism and their hegemeni c intentions in the middle east. he's pushed the deal a lot farther than angela merkel wanted to take it so we're going to find out in this press conference i hope the press asks where she stands vis-a-vis macron's reset of the iranian deal. neil: she's been quoted in the pastas saying the sentiment about the station, the deal is done they've got their money and the iranians gots tens of billions of dollars. it's hard to put the jeannie back in the bottle and start a new bottle. >> well the deal has the word comprehensive in the middle of it and i think there's generally an agreement among serious people that it was not comprehensive that barack obama and john kerry were under the deadline of the end of the obama term and his presidency and they

wanted to get something donald they left some aspects unfinished such as inspections and the crucial issue. neil: proof that they are doing what we signed on to do. >> yes, that's right but also, it does not have the force of law. obama never submitted it to congress. it's an agreement and if the europeans and the brits and the united states came to an agreement we do not need china and russia. neil: what if we walked away from it? >> if we walked away -- neil: they're all still with it but we're not. >> that's plan b, and i don't think anyone wants to do that that's going to get very messy because if president trump insists on walking away from it he ultimately could start imposing sanctions on european companies currently doing business with iran. this is what's at the center of it for the europeans, neil so those commercial relationships with the iranians. french trade with iran went up 112% last year. it's now at $3 billion.

totale, the oil company made a huge development in exploring for gas in the commission gulf. the europeans want to protect those commercial relationships and the question is would the iranians be incentivized to protect those commercial relationships by not themselves walking away from a revised deal and i think it's possible that they just might be willing to stand back and say we'd rather have this financial relationship with germany and france and the uk than shutting down the deal altogether. neil: but they are aware and would love to see this division between president trump and what he's encountering from the europeans right? >> i think yeah they always are but they have this big commitment now in the middle east right? they've got all these troops up in syria so they've got a lot of balls too as does donald trump. neil: dan very good seeing you my friend. the dow down about nine and a

half points we'll see what comes of that also whether angela merkel responds to reports that the president is not going to exempt the european union from the steal and aluminum-related tariffs that have expanded to some other goods here. there was a sentiment expressed at least by emmanuel macron when he was here that maybe he would no guarantee so what happens after this. ♪ this is a jungle gym... and a baseball diamond... ...a mythical castle... and a grand banquet hall. this is not just a yard. it's where memories are made. the john deere x350 select series with the exclusive one-touch mulchcontrol system. nothing runs like a deere®. ♪ save 200 dollars on the x350 select series tractors at your john deere dealer today.

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neil: all right, the u.s. and german leaders are moments away from addressing the press here, we've got the heritage foundation, senior fellow so-called the american council on germany president. steven, what do you think of this relationship that comes only days after the french president is wowing this country and there seems to be a special bond there between he and president trump. not so much with the german leader but i might be missing something what do you think? >> well there's a little bit of coolness betweens chancellor merkel and president trump that's obvious but one shouldn't read too much into the bromance of macron and trump that we saw at the beginning of the week, because they are very different characters. macron and trump of course have a business background. they're in a sense new kids on

the block as heads of state in their respective countries. merkel is the elder statesman if you will. not elder but she's been in office for a very long time for 12 years at this point and she's looking ahead at her next term, as your last guest said, you know, she did have a hard time forming her coalition government , but the coalition is in place now and -- neil: took her long enough didn't it? >> it took germany a very long time and there was a little bit of angst if you will in germany about the amount of time it took to form the government but the new grand coalition is in place, and i think that it speaks well of the german government that many of the ministers have been making trips to the united states but around the world since the government has been formed and it's a good sign that merkel is here in the united states having this meeting with trump at this point in time. neil: you know, i've got a sense reading from some of the foreign press on it that they're stunned

at the success that donald trump has had for whom they had little regard if you think about it, mocked him in his first european tour last year, that he has gotten to this eventual one on one with the north korean leader and today the north and south korean leader doing hugging and handshaking and all of that and surprised as well that china might be on the verge of cap it you -- capitu,lating on some of the stuff. what do you make of that? >> the european press reminds me exactly of the treatment george w. bush got from the european press. always looking to den egreat any sense of achievement from the bush administration and in comparison the obama administration could virtually do no wrong. president obama was treated like a rock star from day one through today in europe yet essentially didn't have the policy

achievements to back it up so that's why we need to look at the substance of what's happening rather than just interpret these things. neil: we're mentioning a little earlier that germany is leary of the president just abandoning the whole iraq iran deeing and equally lumping in with the fines and tariffs on steel and aluminum what have you and i'm sure she is presenting that case as did emmanuel macron but what's your sense as how the president might be reacting? >> so i agree obviously the iran deal is high on the agenda for these meetings while merkel is in town and of course to talk about trade, to talk about particularly the aluminum and steel tariffs, and i think one thing that's very important to mention is that both merkel and macron come here as french and german respectively but also as europeans and they have a european position that they've been trying to push with the president. how the president is reacting this is something that we'll have to sort of be digesting

over the course of the next few days as we see the results of these meetings. he's already been somewhat dismissive of some of macron's overtures when it comes to the iran agreement and so that's obviously something that we're going to have to see whether merkel is able to push that agenda forward at all. neil: you know, i get a sense, robin, that his now best bud in europe isn't germany though. it's quite clearly macron. >> yeah, i think there's no doubt there's a greater kinship between trump and macron than there is between trump and merkel and it's not just because of the personality side of things though there clearly is a great connection between trump and macron than with merkel but also in terms of the policy side of things. trump and merkel are miles apart on nato, on how to deal with syrian refugee crisis, on tariff s, on the iran deal of course and this has been a real readjustment period for germany

because they were used to having a very close relationship with the obama administration and essentially saw the world the same way so they're now having to deal with a very different president and it's not a real surprise there's some bumps in the road in terms of working out in your relationship. neil: guys thank you very very much. still waiting for the two leader s to cop before the press and state their case or whether they're divided after this. emen. and market volatility isn't top of mind. 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're less concerned with market volatility and can focus more on the things they're passionate about. talk with your advisor about shield annuities from brighthouse financial- established by metlife.

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neil: key cabinet officials, white house spokesmen, john bolton are getting in place. we're seconds in place from that that. dow jones is down 13 points. they will settle some issues. to trish regan. trish: thank you, neil. german chancellor angela merkel will join the president for a press conference at white house. the big question, will we continue tariffs on the eu? she is hoping not but he has them in place. i'm trish regan. welcome to "the intelligence report." merkel's visit comes on heels of president trump's meeting with france president emannuel macron. she will like macron to cut back on tariffs. is there any deal to be had? famed economist, jeffrey saks is