there we're still fighting it every day. great show everybody. wishing all of you a very happy and save 4th of july. we love our viewers. jon hilsenrath. love you. >> back at you maria bartiromo. >> payne in for stuart. charles: thank you, maria. charles payne in for stuart. futures are pointing higher after a remarkable reversal yesterday. we'll dig deep into that. there are big changes coming to germany's migrant policy. chancellor angela merkel coalition government remains in power but she agreed to tighten borders and ease flow of migrants into germany. president trump speaking to mexico's newly-elected president on the phone. trump says it is a good conversation. he says he thinks we'll be able to work with obrador on immigration and trade. secretary of state mike pompeo traveling to pongyang on

thursday. he will meet with kim jong-un and his team. sarah huckabee sanders says we're continuing to make progress in our talks with north korea. we've got a special 4th of july treat for you. one of the top fireworks sellers in the country will join us live on set. he says he will sell $200 million worth of bottle rockets, roman candles, firecrackers, that is just to me. may be holiday week. lot of news coming thick and fast. we've got it all covered for you. "varney & company" starts right now. ♪ >> i just spoke with the president-elect of mexico. we had a great conversation, about half an hour long. we talked about border security. we talked about trade. we talked about nafta. we talked a separate deal just mexico and the united states. we had a lot of good conversation. i think the relationship will be a very good one.

we'll see what happens, but i really believe it will be a good one. he had a very excellent election. charles: that was president trump after speaking with mexico's newly-elected president on the phone yesterday. joining us brad blakeman, former deputy assistant to bush 43. the big question obviously somebody in mexico ran as a socialist, ran on an anti-trump platform. will we be able to work with him and get some things done? >> i think the president extended his hand. looks like the hand was extended from the mexican president. this is a good start. but it is only a start. look, we have common border. they're one of our largest trading partners, one of our largest energy providers. it is in both our interests to have a good relationship. we can differ own a lot of things but there is a lot of commonalty of interests. i think this president is a deal-maker. if this newly-elected president of mexico is a deal-maker too, i think they will have a great

relationship. charles: there is no doubt. obrador has been in mexican politics a very long period of time. he is charismatic, outspoken, some say he reminds the mexican population of president trump, not idealogically, but certainly from personality point of view. here is the thing, brad, look south of mexico and united states. we see venezuela. we see what's happening there, people losing weight. 1.5 million refugee crisis. toll unrest. the ultimate outcome unfortunately of socialism. he has to understand whatever his brand of socialism is he better have a big component of capitalism. >> it is in our national security interests that mexico be profitable and stable. we can't have a venezuela south of our border. i'm sure it is not heading it in that direction. if the mexican president is sincere, he will find a good partner with donald trump.

charles: speaking of socialism. cortez, she is the one that defeated house democrat joe crowley last week, she says the far left can win in the midwest. that sort of socialist theme would resonate in the midwest. are you buying that? >> not at all, maybe midwest queens, in the heartland of america, i'm sorry, her new nickname in washington is bierne niece sanders. she is the female bernie sanders. everything is free. education, have at it. that is not what the american heartland is about, about working hard, being proud of what your hands can do, what your mind can do, not what the government can give you. charles: that is really interesting, brad, i watched a lot of commercials, talked about working families, at same token getting things for free. that is the american message, pulling yourself up by the bootstraps that used to anger president obama, the notion that everyone could pull themselves up by the bootstraps. is that key part of being an

american? >> that is it. the american dream to aspire, to build, to learn, to be, in control of your own destiny. this socialist cortez believes in cradle to grave care. that the individual means nothing. it is about something bigger than the individual. that is not america. government should only do for the people what we can't do for ourselves. leave it to us. we can figure it out, the notion there are obligations owed to you for being born in this country are just absolutely mind-boggling. >> right. charles: brad, thanks a lot, happy 4th of july. >> happy 4th. charles: quick check of the futures. markets are closed for independence day. we had a huge reversal yesterday. now looks like we'll have a real strong open. there are a lot of theories we'll delve into later. president trump taking a very hard-line with the world trade organization. roll tape. >> wto has treated the united states very badly and i hope they change their ways.

they have been treating us very badly for many, many years. that's why we were at a big disadvantage with the wto and we're not planning anything now but if they don't treat us properly, we will be doing something. charles: joining us now, economist peter morici. peter, a lot of speculation about president trump taking america out of the wto i think more and more people learn about the ineffectiveness of the organization they may jump on that bandwagon. what are your thoughts? >> i think it is false to generalize about the wto. if we have dispute with france or germany, trade issue, we can get a fair trade adjudication in the wtof we have a dispute with china? not. the wto was set up to mediate problems between market economies. china is in there, but not a market economy. it has been driving mack trucks through loopholes. we don't need to get out the of wto, we need to throw china out.

charles: it is unlikely if it works for them. people say, it's a great organization. we won 85% of the case, china only one 64%. i wonder why they won 6%, are you kidding me? they shouldn't win any cases. there are a zillion complaints against them by all the countries in the world. that is why i worry about this. unfortunately we're not concerned about france's economy or these other economies. it is china's economy that is coming on like a juggernaut. >> absolutely. the reason it is coming on because it cheats on the rules. the trick to get other allies on side with us as opposed having a trade war with them as well, basically clobber the chinese on trade. cut a deal with the chinese we manage trade with china. balanced trade with china. that is the best we'll do for you. you can't be involved in intellectual privacy. there was a article, on the chip-makers, basically hiring their engineers, paying them to photograph plans, stealing their information and so forth. china is run by crooks and

thieves. it is modern day mafia, elevated to the level after sovereign state. and it is a terrible cancer in the system. charles: yeah. maybe we've, maybe we've elected an elliot ness to feign alley bring them to justice. >> exactly. charles: we'll see. next one, peter, germany chancellor angela merkel coalition government now, we know it will remain in power, she had to agree to tighten borders and ease the flow of migrants into germany. some are asking after 1.6 million, is it too little, too late? >> 2% of german population are recent migrants, as recent as 2015 and some german villages are unrecognizable. these folks don't speak german. they can't get jobs. 87 of the syrian asylum seekers or 84% is on public dole. yet, how do they reward the german people? they commit 2% of the commits 14% of the crimes. what they're going to do, what they have agreed, what merkel

agreed to do to keep the coalition together is as people come in, to basically put them in camps at the border. so they can process them. a lot of these asylum seekers are not worthy of asylum. the european union is like america. they slip in the population. they never go back. they become disaffected, cause problems. the problem germany has, it doesn't need to stop the flow. it has to start repatriating the flow. charles: there is big difference between authentic asylum seeker, looking for economic change. >> a handout. charles: open borders and welfare. that is why they go through so many country. >> we just elected somebody who wants, she won the primary in new york. you were talking about. alex -- alexandria cortez. basically modern day saul alinsky. charles: what happened to

puerto rico, as a result of terrible migration policies is another story. this is something to use as cautionary tale. i want to talk about your piece. you wrote one for fox news, entitled trump's birthday gift to america, a booming economy. make your case. >> first time since 2005 the u.s. economy is likely to hit 3% growth. talk about maga first time i used it on air. finally got it out of me. make america great again. george bush couldn't do it. barack obama couldn't do it. barack obama had a goal to make america like france, 1% growth, 12% unemployment. lots of despair. unsafe paris, the whole works. guess what? america is back again. people are investing with new confidence because, let's face it, if you don't make businesses spend all of their time filling out forms to send to washington, they might do something productive with that manpower and money and invest. that is exactly what they're doing, investment is up.

you know this isn't just a boomlet. because it is investment, it is opposed to consumption, product tivity will improve. charles: peter morici, always great talking to you. >> take care. charles: nice reversal from yesterday. we're open half a day. this looks like it could be a monster session. we'll get more into that. check this out. china, says they're developing a laser rifle that can hit targets half a mile away. they say they're ready to start mass producing it immediately. more toxic politics. epa administrator scott pruitt confronted by a woman holding a baby while eating lunch at a restaurant. she tells pruitt to resign. you will see it. there is a new report that president obama granted u.s. citizenship to thousands of iranian vips during the nuclear deal negotiations. the big question of course, is that legal? judge napolitano on that next.

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charles: china developing a portable laser weapon. ashley, details. ashley: i mean this sounds like sci-fi, maybe 10 years ago it was really science fiction but today it's reality. apparently chinese developed that. it weighs about the same as a ak-47. it can fire laser shots, up to 1000, two seconds at a time. this laser they say, which is, get this, hasfied as non-lethal, however, described as energy beam that can not be seen or heard by, at all. it can pass through windows and quote, instant carbonization of human skin and tissues. if it hits clothing it can catch on fire. they say no, they will use this in hostage situations. of course they could use this in military situations as well. disturbingly, i think last month the u.s. government lodge ad complaint with china saying somewhere above a chinese naval

base two military pilots had minor eye injuries what appear to be a laser shot. charles: wow. ashley: this gun, obviously, you know, the, applications militarily are immense, a laser gun. charles: we have a serious arms race going on that we don't talk about enough i think. ashley: right. charles: thanks a lot, ashley. president trump said he met with possible supreme court nominees. roll tape. >> during the morning i interviewed, met with four potential justice of our great supreme court. they are outstanding people. they are really incredible people in so many different ways, academically and every other way. charles: all rise, the judge is here, judge andrew napolitano. all right, judge, do we get something out of the first four? is there any meaning to that or was it just logistically convenient? we've had, got this list of 24,

25 names. the first four show up. >> so there are 24 sitting judges and one sitting u.s. senator. they have all been vetted by the federalist society. donald trump has done something no president ever done certainly in the modern era, outsourcing the vetting. so if he says i will not ask about roe v. wade or sarah huckabee sanders says, he will not ask about roe v. wade, that doesn't mean that roe v. wade was not asked about. it was just done by the outside group. so when senator collins of maine complained that she doesn't want what she considers to be a pro-life activist on the court. charles: right. >> probably can't vote for any of the people on that list because they're all pro-life. it's a condition of getting there. because the president made no, that is her phrase. charles: there is distinction. you can be pro-life and you condition say, but i interpret the constitution a certain way. >> right. listen, to the most pro-life

people, and i'm among them, the most activist opinion in the modern era was roe v. wade. it will require activism to undo it. however, there is also the view that roe v. wade has become so settled in our jurisprudence that generations of women have come of age expecting to have this, no matter how horrific pro-life people think it is, again i'm among them, procedure available to them, that it would be unwise, unjust and politically unpalatable to change it. one could be pro-life and of that view. for example, the chief justice of the united states, a practicing self-proclaimed pro-life catholic of that view. that the court should not change some basic aspect of its jerusalem prudence because of an election. if it does, and the next election goes another way, where it will go back to the result of that election and the court loses credibility. charles: if a case ping-ponging

like that. i want ask you about a tweet by president trump, put it out. obama administration granted citizenship during the terrible iranian deal negotiation to 2500 iranians including, top government officials. how big and bad is that? the question is, how big and bad is that, that perhaps the president, former president was exchanging citizenship in the united states to help get this nuclear deal done? >> okay. so the only thing that the president could grant on his own, is honorary citizenship. aside from being an honor, they gave it to mother teresa and winston churchill, doesn't even get you a passport. so it doesn't get you the right to vote. doesn't get you the right to come here. charles: could he expediate process for someone? >> that is a public process which requires renunciation, as you hear me tease, stuart, renunciation of all foreign governments and queens, princes,

kings and process of learning, swearing allegiance to the form of government in the united states which wasn't done. that is the, is the statutory way that a person other than being born here becomes a citizen. did he grant honorary citizenship to 2500 people? i don't know. he would have to have done it in writing that writing would have to be publicly available. again there are no benefits come with that saying, ah-ha, i'm in the category of churchhill and mother teresa now. charles: circulating. we'll hear more about it. >> see you in the 11. charles, ford numbers are out. we get into motor sales for june. ford out first. sales out, up 1.2%. not sure what the estimate was. ashley: trucks and suvs leading the way. as usual. charles: yeah. and now i want to get to starbucks being advised to pay for anti-bias training for local police forces. we're going to explain that one right after this.

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near or far covered. leaving every competitor, threat and challenge outmaneuvered. comcast business outmaneuver. charles: outside advisors telling starbucks to help pay for antibias training for local police. what is going on here? ashley: a big report compiled by so-called outside experts including the naacp who finally filed their report, came up with

a list of suggestions for starbucks, and that was just it. basically to revamp how it hires, trains, promotes staff, including evaluation of managers. they came to this conclusion. bluntly they say, some managers, even corporate leadership may not have a future with the company under the new standards that we are suggesting. as you mentioned also, that the, they should help pay for anti, anti-bias training for local police forces as well. charles: yeah. ashley: so there you go. we know they recently closed some 8,000 stores to undergo some anti-bias training. some are giving them praise for addressing the issue head-on, but the bottom line is we'll see. charles: they have some internal issues. ashley: they do, they do. charles: they set themselves up, if you want to be the conscience of the world you have to start with the company first. ashley: exactly. charles: market will open up, going to happen here real soon. meantime we're looking at futures which have been strong all morning long. remember yesterday we were down almost 200 points on the dow

jones industrial average. first we got a manufacturing report that beat the street, beat it pretty good, reiterating fact we do have a manufacturing renaissance going on in this country. that helped power massive reversal. the big question, what can join tech in leadership. we'll be right back. more "varney & company".

charles: folks, opening bell, less than 20 seconds away. we're expecting a really nice open. [opening bell rings] it is a holiday shortened session. the key thing to remember, we were down 200 points yesterday. there was no reason to come back realistically with all the tariff talk and anxiety. nevertheless we did. stage ad remarkable rebound. the question can we keep it going, can buying going on beyond big tech names? nike in the red. giving up little bit. that is the best dow performer of the year. i wouldn't panic too much. maybe profit-taking looking to rotate things like dupont, chevron which has room to the upside. s&p 50000 up for the year. there is the juggernaut. nasdaq composite, absolutely phenomenal. let's take a look at alphabet. they just revealed scans your data for companies. none of this news maybe a month

or so ago may have derailed some names temporarily seemed to matter anymore. big brother, take it all, what the heck. we like convenience. take our privacy. ashley: what privacy? charles: chipotle, had a big selloff last week when they unveiled their new menu. some people thought maybe it wasn't up to snuff but rebounding yesterday. we know they're going to go high-tech to rework sales. mobile ordering, delivery, digital drive-through. that stock up two bucks. with a good session. joining me to discuss it all, ashley webster, dr barton, david dietze. dr, yesterday, nice reversal in the markets, what do you powered that? >> we have the same thing happening over and over again. like bill murray on "groundhog day." every time something goes to push the market down, there are different triggers, every time we go to push it down, it is like a cork, it is going to pop back up a little bit, until we get to a level, until we get

something else going on. a little bit of lightness. i think lightness on tariffs yesterday could help the market just turn. ashley: ebb and flow, trade tensions. they don't go away. they're hanging out there. to your point earlier, charles, it is the manufacturing number, much better than expected. this economy is humming along very well. that gave cheer to investors. that is what turned it around. charles: china state media without out an article, they put out a bunch of them. they try to calm fears. one of them was like u.s. agriculture post losses amid the escalating trade war. mexico should diversify trade in wake of u.s. tariffs according to u.s. think tank. they put out one that was interesting, to me, david. intensifying between the china and united states, chinese economy had inevitably to experience before its rise. we long anticipated, prepared for chinese economy, that is controllable range.

the reason they're acknowledging pain china is suffering. china markets have been hammered. shenzhen is down 50%. if you read between the lines they probably suggest they want this cleaned up right away at some point. >> i think we all want them to get it cleaned up. the fact of the matter it is obvious to all the market is experiencing pain. it is two of had-year low. bear market. the currency is weakening. how will we go forward when the world's second largest economy is struggling like that? ultimately that bodes well for these tariff negotiations because obviously china has even more to lose. i think an agreement can be reached before midterm elections. charles: talk about that. president trump taking a hard-line on the wto, so, david, hard-line on wto, listen, i talked about this a lot yesterday. i talked about it last week on my show. look at complaints. look what we're complaining about 12 years ago. look what we're complaining about today. it is the same stuff. it is the same stuff!

a lot of people don't like wto-you know. i don't know if we're going to leave it, i don't know they will be the answer what we're trying to achieve here. >> i couldn't agree with you more. i wonder if this is case of strong bark but not much bite follow-through. not clear the president alone can unwind that. congress has a lot of execution responsibility there. when you start examining the all the decisions the wto made, in many cases we benefit more than burdened. charles: i know we win more than we lose, what do we win? if we have to go, 2007, we filed a complaint against china stealing intellectual property. in march of this year, we filed a complaint, china stealing intellectual property. if we file the same complaints, what do we win if it is non-binding? >> i totally agree to that we're adding to the tariffs. we're putting pressure on china. let's hope american companies get greater access. charles: boeing up nicely.

chips are up nicely. those are my proxies. >> i agree completely and both of them had big up days especially the chips have been getting hammered charles. the world trade organization issue, we paid 11% of the total bill for world trade organization. it is set up to work for market economies. if you have china coming in with a, with a command come my, not a market economy, we can't help what is going on. we have to do it other means. charles: china labeled themselves in the same economic bracket as togo. they get benefits for that. let's look at alpha before. we're learning like facebook, they sold your data. how surprised are you about this? >> not at all. the whole thing in this whole story. i own facebook, do not own google right now, we do in the company, we know that when you get a service, you got to pay for it. are you going to pay dollars or are you going to pay with data?

when you use google maps, gmail, any of those things, they are using your data, whether it is identifiable as you or it is big data. we, i think the stock prices are showing that. people realize when you use the 1.4 billion users of gmail realize when they hughes that, that some of their data is not protected. ashley: what is disturbing about this, we say disturbing, doesn't affect the stock, we'll probably let it go on, not only computers going through gmails, almost everyone has a gmail account, looking for algorithms to give to advertisers this, person is interested in this, we'll guide our products to this person, it was doing fell employees were actually reading unredacted emails. anything anyone said, looking for buzzwords to sell on to advertisers. that really is disturbing. charles: that is. ashley: however will it change anything? probably not? >> this morning facebook was under pressure before the open. you had a hodgepodge of agencies, doj, fcc, sec taking

closer looks. facebook down a couple bucks here. most tech stocks are up. ashley: yeah. charles: i think we're all in the same camp, we're worried about too much government intervention, but david, do we need some rules of the road because they have so much of our personal information? >> i'm a big free market guy but the crux of a free market acting successfully people understand what the deal is. as dr mentioned, you will not get a great free email service or social media service for nothing, what are you giving up? some of your data and privacy. people need to know that or affirmatively agree to that or not as they wish. charles: quick check of the big board. market is open for seven minutes. we're holding up pretty good near the highs of the session. 134 points after the nice reversal yesterday. take a quick look at oil. that is a superstar. look at that move, guys. ashley: four-year high. charles: this is after the opec decision, right? ashley: yeah. charles: we have a lot of rigs

coming on. >> bottlenecks, charles. charles: per -- permian. >> there are bottlenecks we need to address with other transporttation issues. charles: is there good news aspect on the demand side? demand, more recent international demand estimates have gone up that reflects well on global economy, right? the price would not move up if people weren't willing to pay for that. that reflects more robust global economy that is good news. the fact that we're producing more oil ourselves, albeit bottlenecks, ultimately helps our economy. charles: 40 million americans hit the road. national average of gasoline is $2.86. we're okay with it. $3 was some sort of magical number. it was starting to become a political issue.

people were saying this will resonate by the midterm. we'll see. wynn and las vegas sands took a big hit after macao estimates fell short for second straight month. a little bit of a rebound. really they're both in lot of bad shape. i think the selling was overdone. they still grew but not at the same pace. watch out mylan labs. a rival to epipen. mylan labs and epipen and price scandal with that. mylan has not had a good business model for a long time. they bought epipen. they jacked up the price, they didn't have any, sort of backlog of ideas. ashley: right. charles: all right, folks, the box office believe it or not we're in a record. $3.3 billion in the second quarter. things like avengers infiniti wars, incredibles ii.

is this a turnaround? i crutched the data, since '95, the box office is 18%. average ticket is up 106%. i don't think that is long-term sustainable trend. >> i think that's right. in order to get streaming, at home services movie industry had to up its games. much different experience. recliners, cocktails, food. ashley: now you're talking. >> why prices are going up. to parrot mark twain, the death of the box office is much exaggerated. if you have the right content people come out. charles: stein mart, 52-week low, 32, 52 week high, 35 bucks. these stocks are really stuck in the mud. >> they're still stuck. look who is providing content? disney, viacom. they own all the big studios. comcast, are the big three. no longer sony, mgm. that is the companies that will

benefit. charles: they have to get back to good old-fashioned movie making. sequels are great. ashley: same thing rebe had. charles: even "incredibles ii "i loved it, but too long. happy 4th to you. another quick check on markets. we're up about 140. pulling back a little bit. still a very strong session so far this morning. meanwhile billionaire richard branson has a plan to end income inequality. he says the american government should give out free cash to the poor. i hope he starts first. give us the example. [laughter] scott pruitt the latest white house official to have his meal interrupted by white house protesters. we'll show you the video right after this. ♪ see that's funny, i thought you traded options.

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charles: checking on the big board. solid way to go through the holiday. amazon prime day will run longer than ever this year. go to the floor of the new york stock exchange. nicole, what is going on? >> doesn't come as surprise. jeff bezos, richest man by "forbes," 182 billion, has a great idea. they made 60% more than the prior year. why not extend it. instead of 30 hours, it will now be 36 hours. moving more and had fact this, will be on july 16th. starts in the afternoon. they will have slew of products and discounts. they boost membership at that time which is now more expensive at 119 bucks. that was recently raised $13. so year-over-year they're seeing accelerated, accelerated revenues. it was recently rated about a billion dollars in revenue,

three times average daily revenue. they will bring it in, rake it in in amazon, july 16th, 17th, but you will get discounts. charles: i can tell you my wife will be there. every day is amazon day at our house. thanks a lot, nicole. mining giant glen corp. being investigated. ashley, you have details. ashley: glencore is a big mining company. anglo swiss company. handing over a lost documents related to its business in three countries, nicaragua, venezuela and the congo. has huge copper mine in congo and oil business in nicaragua and venezuela. the charges are looking at foreign corrupt practices and money laundering. these are very serious. this is getting involved, an israeli diamond tycoon done a lot of work down in the congo. he has been sanctioned about

alleged corruption with by him with the u.s. and tie with him and glencore. charles: seems like every few years they get into this. a woman confronts epa administrator scott pruitt in a restaurant. roll tape. >> that affects our environment, believe in climate change. that affects all of us, including our children. so i would urge to you resign before your scandals push you out. this is my son. he loves animals. he loves clean air and clean water. charles: joining us now fox news contributor jason chaffetz. we're seeing this kind of public scorn. i think it's, i think it is dangerous. i think it is tough when you get up in people's faces like that. and, you know, the woman is holding her child. okay to express your feelings, should be a place to people to -- >> if you're scott pruitt out

there, i didn't think that was that bad. i thought she was respectful. what i saw and heard about with sarah huckabee sanders, that was way over the line. eight 1/2 years in united states congress, chairman of the oversight committee, that happens every day to most members of congress. charles: really? >> oh absolutely. some go beyond. a people, person in florida arrested. i had the fbi had to visit people in arizona, in washington state, in oregon. unfortunately in utah. that happens more frequently than everybody understands. charles: something like that happened with rand paul, right? >> rand paul. some get death threats. i've got audio clips people have left for me, and packages that were suspicious. this happens a lot. i'm afraid that the vitriol has risen to a new level, and when you have a maxine waters and even nancy pelosi and others, really encouraging people to say that this should be a life sentence, i think was beyond. charles: pam bondi, for instance, with three men,

chasing her down the street, yelling in her face, i think it is dangerous. it is hard for me not to see somehow where it could be easily that these things can evolve into something a lot more, uglier. >> capitol hill police give us wonderful protection when you're on the capitol. but at home, it should be the u.s. marshals look at this. they protect judges. they protect prosecutors. if you add a few members of congress, then in your home state, then they can assess the actual threats and if there is something that goes above and beyond what happened with rand paul they can provide local security. charles: last one, jason. people of utah spoken, they support you as governor. apparently a poll out. you must have heard about it right now, you are on top of the poll to be next governor of utah? >> it is very humbling. thrilled to see it. it is amazing the confidence that people continue to put in me. it's down the road. we're talking 2020. charles: come on.

politics that is not down the road. >> i said i'm a definite maybe. i like relationship at fox. charles: definitely take a pay cut if you do it but it has to be enticing. >> it is. look, i served as chief of staff to governor huntsman. to be able to be home, engaged day in, day out would be tremendous honor. charles: you were seen as rising superstar, a lot of people including myself when you stepped away. listen, i still find it to be something of a mystery having gotten to know you. i think you're an amazing person, a great guy, level-headed. you're exactly what we need in washington, d.c. so you know, it is interesting that you stepped away when you did considering the trajectory that you on on. >> i really believe, you serve and get out. my life was getting a little bit out of balance. i have a wife that i love. kids i adore. i was home four or five days a month. there comes a point you're all-n you have to pass the baton to

somebody else. charles: governor of the utah you don't have to worry about being away. >> careful. because i may hit you up for a donation based on that. i will roll at that tape back and ask you. charles: see you later. auto sales continue to come in for the month of june. fiat chrysler up 8% last year. that was all about the jeep. i got a new one. ashley: uh-huh. charles: toyota, numbers up 3.6%. versus last year. stock edges up just slightly. a special 4th of july guest coming up. vice president of one of the biggest fire work companies in the country. in fact, his dad started the business by selling fireworks out of the trunk of his car. now they're expected to sell $200 million of them this summer. more "varney" after this. or bre. and at expedia, we don't think you should be rushed into booking one. that's why we created expedia's add-on advantage.

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charles: phantom fireworks is america's largest consumer fireworks company from memorial day to the 4th of july. get this. they will sell more than $200 million worth of fireworks products. joining us is john with phantom works. we were talking in the break. 80 brick-and-mortar showrooms, 1500 pop-up stores. this is the golden age of fireworks. you guys are right in the middle

of it. >> yes it is. with more states legalizing, we're expecting a huge growth this year in fireworks sales. we're excited to be here. charles: i was in costco this weekend. they were selling fireworks. i didn't even realize the law changed in new jersey. they're changing all around the country. >> yes, iowa, pennsylvania, west virginia, opened recently for full line fireworks. new jersey, new york, west virginia have opened for ground-based items and sparklers. charles: talk real quake about your company, it was american success story. was it your dad? >> yes. my father started selling fireworks out of the back of his car as a means to pay through college and school. then it just grew from there. and now we have 80 brick-and-mortar showrooms. 1500 temporary stores open just around 4th of july and new year's. charles: what's new and exciting? i'm old school. we had sparklers, m 8s.

the boxes are so popular. >> m-80s are no longer legal. charles: i would think so. i don't think they were legal when i was a kid. >> by far the hottest thing is 500-gram repeaters. close as you can get to professional show. most people can not tell the difference between a 500-gram repeater and big show they're seeing in cities. 500 grams of pyrotechnic composition. goes off in under a minute. blows the sky out. charles: i can buy this at one of your stores? >> can buy it at any of our 80 stores. charles: ron, congratulations. appreciate it. we have a big story. the big new sports story is lebron james and 154 million-dollar contract with the lakers. congressman devin nunez says he should have held out even more. lebron is about to pay the highest taxes of his career. more "varney" after this.

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charles: ten a.m. on the east coast, seven a.m. out west. markets are closing early today ahead of the july 4th holiday. three more hours to trade this market which happens to be higher right now, and we're all over it. have some major headlines, including president trump meeting with four potential supreme court nominees yesterday. he said that they were all very impressive. the president, of course, says he'll make his pick on monday. we're on top of that. and more democrats jumping on the bandwagon calling to abolish i.c.e.. we're asking if they're on the wrong side of this argument. congressman louie gohmert will join us for that one. and president trump speaking with the new mexican president yesterday. we've got a mexican businessman who says, don't worry, mexico won't become venezuela 2.0. and then there's king james, lebron james moving to los angeles, can the lakers build a team that can dominate the golden state warriors? fox 1 sports host jason whitlock is with me later this hour.

you watching the second -- you're watching the second hour of "varney & company." ♪ ♪ charles: checking in on the big board, starting to get back some of those gains. really tech stocks bringing it down, which is unusual here. chevron and exxon, though, are leading the dow higher as the crude oil has surged. in fact, we're really getting close to a four-year high. crude oil above $75 on west texas intermediate. right now look at that move, 74.52. nike pulling back again, the biggest loser this morning on the dow but the biggest winner for the dow in 2018. big tech names, all of a sudden they started to pull back. remember, facebook already opened under pressure because you've got the doj, the ftc, the sec all looking into that, and now we're seeing pressure along with most of the other ones. want to get back to trade, president trump tweeting this morning about it.

quote, the economy is doing perhaps better than ever before, and that's prior to fing some of the worst and -- fixing some of the worst and most unfair trade deals ever by any country. in any event, they are coming along very well. most countries agree they must be changed, but nobody ever asked. joining me now, scott shellady. tjm europe managing director. all right, scott, your thoughts. you know, we complained about it, but no one ever really, no american president ever pushed the issue before. >> no, they haven't, and that's the problem. so it's going to make trump look, you know, a little bit mean here and give more fire to the folks that really don't like him. but at the end of the day, i believe -- and i think a lot of america believes -- he's got american interests at heart. he loves his country, and we are unfairly being targeted by other economies because we're rich or our economy's richer than theirs, and that has to stop. so the free ride is going to be over, and somebody has to call, you know, call it what it is, and it's been unfair. i don't believe he genuinely

wants to hurt the american economy like others would say. he's trying to do what's best for his country, and what's wrong with that? charles: it's interesting, was to your -- because to your point america, i think for a long time, had that marshall plan, sort of a commitment, right, to help rebuild the world. and we did that. we did it through lives lost and trillions of dollars in aid. and you're right about that, but what i find remarkable, scott, is one of the big topics going along wall street these days is short termism. all these corporations complaining about it, the big wigs on wall street complaining about it, and yet these same folks won't give trump a week, a month, a day to try to fix this. they keep saying it's dead on arrival, and they're actually making his job harder. >> exactly. i've seen it here too. i'm allowed to judge you in three minutes, but you need three years to judge me. that's the problem. at the end of the day, look at the strides and the right steps

he's made so far. the haters are having a more difficult time hating this year than they did last year, and the numbers -- slowly but surely, and we're all about numbers in this business -- are starting to support what he's been doing, and the american mindset is coming around to the fact that, hey, let's continue down this path, and we're doing the right thing. charles: yeah. to the elite establishment, you know, give him a chance to see if this works before dissing it. i know you're afraid you may lose your perch, but don't worry about it. scott, i've got another one. facebook was the one that made these headlines were selling user data, google also scans our data, and they're selling it to other companies. what are your thoughts? the stock was up earlier, but it's starting to pull back nicely here. >> i've said this before, i think the halo is off the tech sector because of this. slowly but surely most of america's waking up to the fact that, hey, by sharing with my other friends when i'm going to be on holiday or shopping at only these stores, when i'm

doing that online, that starts to build up an online image of me, and they can package and sell it. folks are starting to wake up to that fact. whether that changes their behavior, i don't know, because they're still running out and buying the amazon echo or whatever that can hear what you say and what you need to order in your refrigerator. we're still going down that path, but you have to be careful about how much online self you want to have out there and that personality they're building up and packaging and selling. they're definitely going to do that. if you don't like it, scale back. if you don't care, well, continue as you are. charles: consumers have entered into a faustian deal, but should government get involved? apparently the doj, ftc and sec and a whole bunch of agencies looking closer at facebook which led the tech stocks down this morning. >> yeah. you know, there needs to be some sort of government oversight. there was when we started taking advantage of workers in the 1930s, now it's going to happen when we're taking advantage of customers in 2020. but at the end of the day, the

tech sector's still very powerful, and i just saw some research before i came on air, ten stocks are responsible for more than 100% of the 3% return on the s&p 500 so far this year. so they're still a force to be reckoned with, and they still need to have some scrutiny. charles: absolutely. scott, thanks a lot, buddy. we'll talk to you again real soon. >> have a happy fourth. charles: president trump met with four potential supreme court nominees. roll tape. >> during the morning i interviewed and met with four potential justices of our great supreme court. they are outstanding people. they are really incredible people in so many different ways, academically and every other way. charles: joining us now, mike huckabee, former arkansas governor. okay, gore, your -- governor, your thoughts. president trump says he's going to make a choice by monday. >> first of all, charles, i can confirm that i was not on the list, and i was not interviewed,

so let's get that out of the way, all that speculation regarding that. nothing to it. [laughter] i think what's most fascinating is people act like he's rushing. this is the president who before he was even elected already put out a list of 25 people, people that had been vetted by the federalist society. he has stuck to that list. it's been very clear that he has a criteria for someone to be an originalist, a person who is clear to the text. when i hear people say i hope he appoints a conservative, i hope he doesn't. i don't want him to appoint someone who is known as an ideological conservative or liberal. i want him to appoint someone who is true to the constitution. so he's a constitutionalist or she's a constitutionalist. that's what becomes important. if a person wants to legislate -- as this court has done time and again -- let them run for congress. that's not a role that the court should play. charles: well, it seems like even though we know that the

list that's been vetted was 25 names and again to your point i think the focus was on their adherence to the constitution and not, you know, not the constitution being sort of a living, evolving document, as the media focuses on five names, one that they seem to be pushing back on, amy cohen barrett. and i'm not sure why that is, it feels like they believe she's the front-runner, and now they're really aiming some serious barbs her way. what to you make of that? >> well, they're going to be against whoever donald trump appoints. i said last weeking that if he appointed moses who walked down from mount sinai with two tablets of stone, they would say, no, he's unacceptable, he's too jewish for us. that's the point. there's never going to be anyone that donald trump puts forward that chuck schumer and the democrats are going to say, ah, good choice, we can live with that. despite that we have a long history of giving presidents -- even barack obama -- the people that he wanted. charles: right. >> he got sotomayor, he got kagan. republicans, many of them, voted for both of them even though they didn't probably like them

on want them to be the supreme court justices. charles: sure. >> that's how this needs to work. charles: brian ross reported yesterday leaving abc, of course, this is just months after his botched report on president trump. when that aired. what do you make of it? >> i would say to brian ross, don't let the door hit you where the good lord split you. the point being that brian ross is one of the most, i think, belligerent reporters i ever personally dealt with. i found him to be incredibly unfairly aggressive. he had his story written before he went to the sources to begin to find it, and i think abc did the right thing by splitting with him. i know he won a lot of awards, and maybe there was a time when he was a professional, competent journalist, but in his latter years he bungled things, and i think it was because of his personal bias. that's not journalism, that's advocacy, and that's why a lot of people have very little confidence in journalism today. charles: governor huckabee, happy fourth of july.

thank you very much. >> and to you. headache birthday, america. charles: president trump tweeting again about harley. here it is: now that harley davidson is moving part of its operation out of the u.s., my administration is working with other motorcycle companies who want to move into the u.s. harley customers are not happy with their move, sales are down 7% in 2017. the u.s. is where the action is. shares right now of harley are up 80 cents. it's been in a tight trading range ever since they reported their last earnings report. coming up, president trump calling out maxine waters again, says she will make people flee the democrats. that should make congressman louie gohmert happy. he's with us next p. also trump says there has been many good conversations with north korea. this as we're getting a report out of axios that trump might actually meet kim jong un right here in new york city. believe me, we're all over that. and then there's king james moving to l.a., and we've been wondering can the lakers wild a

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charles: all right, folks, big board pulg back a little bit. again, you know, it's a short session, and it's a little like a mini friday, if you will. we're giving some gains up most of the week, this coming from technology stocks. meanwhile, multiple price target hikes. it had a big session yesterday, it was up at the open, we're pulling back here again. this is after yesterday when its parentings dell technology, said it would buy out shares, taking it a step closer ultimately to going public yet again.

and then there's campbells soup, dan loeb pushing for the company to sell itself. a lot of value on some of these consumer staple stocks that have been beaten down. president trump continues to push the importance of i.c.e., he mentioned it this morning in a tweet saying when we have an infestation of ms-13 gangs in certain parts of our country, who do we send to get them out? i.c.e.. they are tougher and smarter than these rogue criminal elements that bad immigration laws allowed into our country. dems do not appreciate the great job that they do. congressman from texas, louie gohmert, joins us right now. all right, congressman, it's interesting because, you know, it changes weekly, but now it looks like the dems have latched onto the new midterm rally cry, and it's abolish i.c.e.. first, before we talk about the politics of it, let's talk about the practicality of it. you're someone on a border state. does it really -- does this concern you? >> absolutely. it's a call for anarchy, and

it's a amazing that -- amazing that it has caught on and has been spreading even among what were thought to be mainstream democrats. i mean, it's insane. you don't have borders, you don't have a country, and when you're a welfare state like the u.s. has become, it is just a giant sucking sound from all over the world. you can't control it, and it means anarchy, it means mike makes -- might makes right, and that ultimately leads to a totalitarian dictator coming in and rounding up the military, taking over. it's the way countries end and a new dictatorship begins. you call for anarchy, and then you get a dictator. it's unbelievable that people that are so ignorant, can be such foolish servants of those who want a dictator -- want a totalitarian government. and that's the only way you can

have socialism. you have to force people to take from those according to their ability and give to those according to their need. takes a totalitarian government to make that work. even khrushchev tried to set up a committee to figure out how you go from having socialism to no government, and they gave up. you can't do it. you've got to have totalitarianism. charles: and yet the democrats are selling this as an anti-totalitarianism measure. >> correct. charles charles they're saying, you know what in this is like the most, the best thing we can do. i.c.e., they're breaking up families, they're part of a broken immigration system, an unfair immigration system and that we should be a society -- you know, listen, the way i hear them express it is that we're lucky to be born here, and the fact that someone wasn't born here doesn't mean they don't have a right to be here. now, i agree with the lucky part. we're blessed to be born in america. >> that's right. charles: that doesn't mean everyone else has the right to be americans, does it? is. >> no, it actually doesn't. and if we do not preserve what we have, nobody is going to want

to come here, nobody is going to want to be an american, and nobody is going to have any place to go to in the world to beg for help, to beg for contributions like we're the most generous country in the history of the world, what we give and what we do for other countries. and as i've traveled, especially in africa, i had -- and they were normally christians begging me, you're getting weaker and weaker in america. they were saying this during the obama administration. please, you've got to stay strong. if you're not strong, we know where we go when we die, but we have no hope in this life -- charles: right, right. >> -- if america's not strong, and we can't stay strong without borders. charles: let me ask you this real quick. president trump is going off this morning, right? maxine waters -- [laughter] i want to give you one of the tweets. crazy maxine waters, said by some to be one of the most corrupt people in politics, is rapidly becoming -- together

with nancy pelosi -- the face of the democrat party. her ranting and raving, even referring to herself as a wounded animal will make people flee the democrats. what are your thoughts on that particularly considering there's a recent poll, a reuters poll, online poll, that showed millennials leaving democrats, particularly white male millennials fleeing that party? >> well, you know, pelosi made it clear, it is outrageous for anybody to refer or to a human being including themselves, i guess, as an animal. but i was in the judiciary hearing when maxine waters told a very touching story about being -- i think she was 9 and a cross was burned in her yard, and she was scared to death that her dad was going to be killed. and i thought, my gosh, no child should ever have to worry about that. and to see her calling on people to scare others the way she was, i was just going, this can't be. and then i realized all my days as a felony judge, we repeatedly

saw it. the abused became the abusers. finish and this may be with what you're seeing here. charles: well, you know, that's something that does scar you deeply psychologically and emotionally. >> yep, exactly. charles: you know -- >> and then you become the abuser. that's what's so incredible about it. charles: judge -- [laughter] you were a judge -- >> used to be. charles: have a great july 4th. we appreciate it. >> thanks so much, charles, great to be with you. charles: tomorrow is our independence day, and much of the country is experiencing a heat wave. we're going to head over to the weather center next to see what we can expect tomorrow. ♪ ♪

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charles: checking the price of gold, a bg move for gold today up almost $13. still in that range though, right, above 1200, below 1300. it's been resting there for a long time. bitcoin, on the other hand, trying to make this comeback. it's pretty volatile, but at least it's above 6,000 or it might be consolidating. it's down a lot since hitting its all-time high. and, of course, the july 4th middle of the week holiday is coming soon, upon us, and so many parts of the country already feeling the heat. this now as we have to grill. [laughter] fox news meteorologist janice dean is in the weather center with the latest. janice, give us some good news. >> here in the northeast things will subside a little bit. are you grilling though, charles? i'm coming to your place. charles: i'm the supervisor. [laughter] >> good job, my friend. i'm going to take that title, actually, i'm going to get a t-shirt, supervise. here are your heat advisories. it's going to be down right

dangerous across the east coast, ohio valley, parts of the plains states. the reasoning is not only is it hot, but we've got the humidity, so it is oppressive outside, over 100 degrees in d.c. and raleigh, back through the ohio valley, much of the plains states under heat advisories. so the good news is as we get into tomorrow for independence day, east coast gets rid of some of that humidity, but it moves into the plains states and even parts of texas and the southwest. that's going to be the story as we head towards thursday and friday. really hot for the southwest. i know they're typically hot this time of year, it is the desert, but they're going to be really dangerously hot here with temperature temperatures well over 100 degrees, and that's not factoring in the humidity. 113, charles, in phoenix on friday. so that's where the real dangerous heat is going to be as we head into friday. happy fourth of july, my friend, supervisor. charles charles thank you very much. [laughter] any tips on how to supervise, i'll come down to the green room later and show you how to do it. >> sounds good to me. charles: all right.

it involves a lazy chair. [laughter] one congressman has a message for lebron james. he should have waited for more money. why? because of california's repressive tax regime. and we're all over that. and president trump says there have been many good conversations with north korea. this as we're getting a report out of axios that trump might actually meet with kim jong un right here in new york city. talking about setting the big apple on fire, we're all over it. ♪ ♪ metastatic breast cancer is relentless, but i'm relentless too. mbc doesn't take a day off, and neither will i.

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charles: i wounder if he -- wonder if he has that in his contract. ashley: let's hope he did. charles: a quick check on the markets. again, we were up a lot more, we've pulled back, and i think it was these big tech names. facebook stumbled out the gate, but all the heavy-hitting tech names just slightly down. they were higher earlier in the session. and then there's tesla. goldman sachs and other firms down playing tesla reaching its stated goal of model 3 production, and that stock closed down over 2% yesterday after coming out the gate pretty strong. and then there's this, president trump taking a shot at the world trade organization. listen to this. >> wto's treated the united states very badly, and i hope they change their ways. they have been treating us very badly for many, many years, and that's why we were at a big disadvantage with the wto.

and we're not planning anything now, but if they don't treat us properly, we will be doing something. charles: joining us now, nick johnson, axios editor-in-chief. of course, axios broke the story, president trump wanted to withdraw from the world trade organization. yesterday i'm pretty sure you saw the treasury secretary, steven mnuchin, responded by saying the report was exam rated. >> right. charles: what are you hearing now? where do we stand now? >> i don't think it was exaggerated. as we reported on friday, the president had been telling people privately that he wanted to get off the world trade organization, and we got a copy of the bill that he had asked his staff to draft doing just that, giving the president unilateral authority to violate those kinds of wto rules. and, of course, yesterday the president comes out and says himself publicly what we've been reporting he says privately. this shouldn't come as any surprise to anyone. one of the clear themes of president trump's entire administration has been his opposition to these kind of global, foundational

organizations that underlie trade. he pulled out of the tpp, he's renegotiating nafta. it makes perfect sense he'd also think the wto is giving workers and companies a bad deal. that's exactly what he ran on, and that's exactly how he's running his administration. charles: i agree. i mean, i don't think it's man bites dog at all. >> right. charles: you know, to that degree. and it dovetails, again, you could add the paris climate deal with that as well. >> absolutely. charles: and president trump, i think, also just has this sort of thing -- and a hot of americans do, particularly those who voted for him -- that these organizations, a, they really don't work, and b, they never have america's best interests at heart. >> right. if you look at the data of how many complaints are brought to wto, the u.s. wins most of those. in fact, the trump administration put out a report that president trump's signature is on that says, that logs that, 80% success rate. to some degree, there's some people not really understanding what the wto is. but there are a lot of people that voted for president trump and a lot of people who voted

for some democratic candidates who don't think that global trade regime -- charles: the only way i'll push back on that, nick, and i've done a lot of work on this, the question is what do we win. >> right, right. charles: on august of 2007 we filed a complaint with the wto against china about protecting intellectual property. >> right. charles: in march of this year we filed a complaint about china stealing intellectual property. we don't really get adjudication. the problems don't go away. >> right, right. charles: we also had a long case that we brought against canada on dairy products, and there's still a 270% tariff, and there's actually one close to 300% on certain products. and then just a year and a half ago they put in a new tariffs against unfiltered milk because there was a loophole that didn't cover it in nafta, and they essentially took $150 million from american dairy farmers. so we win these things, but the question is what do we win? >> i think that's exactly right. there are all these kinds of

agreements, winners and losers. if you hook at companies like boeing -- if you look at companies like boeing, that's great. you look at dairy farmers or agricultural interests, there are losers in these kinds of things. free trade is not a winner for all, and i think there are some people on the losing side of that. that's why president trump is president right now, and i think he's absolutely acting on the will of those voters to look at these kinds of world bodies and see if they're really doing what they can for america. charles: this first one was sort of a no-brainer, and we give you kudos -- >> thank you. charles: north korea, kim jong un, second summit, this time in new york city in september. >> right. we've been talking to people in the administration who are somewhat optimistic that north korea will make enough progress that they'll be able to have this meeting in new york in september. this is during the united nations general assembly, charles, i'm sure you know how bad traffic is. they might add one more leader to the mix this year. as we reported, there are a lot of other people somewhat concerned about north korea's

progress on this, they haven't really been making the moves on denuclearization fast enough to earn this second summit. there were a lot of headlines over the weekend about north korea possibly planning a secret proposal the keep their nuclear program, continuing work on missiles. i think this new york issue is on the table with some people in the administration. remember mike pompeo is on his way to the north korea later this week, and we'll see if he gets any progress. charles: it really feels like kim jong un loves the limelight, and the irony, of course, is a lot of people said president trump made a mistake by elevating him, his stature in the world, but certainly dangling this out to him would be attractive, i think. i don't know if he'd bring the launch codes with him, but maybe we could get something big in return. >> i think that's exactly right. remember the video of kim jong un walking around singapore and the crowds cheering him, sort of unprecedented. there is certainly something that could be said for dangling this in front of him. this is another opportunity for a big show in new york city, but i think there has to be more

progress on denuclearization on that. that is what's holding back the possibility. charles: first time anyone cheered him without a gun to their heads. this hearkens back to fidel castro coming to new york, it would be that cupid of media, wouldn't it? -- that kind of media. >> it would be a bit of a circus, yes. [laughter] charles: have a good holiday tomorrow. >> you too. charles: hey, the boys' soccer team that went miss anything thailand, they've been found, they're in good shape, but this is an amazing story. they could be up there for four months, right? >> they could. remarkably so. twelve boys ages 11-16 and their 25-year-old coach. they've been found alive, that's the good news. they've been given liquid protein the help them. the question is how do you get them out, they're trapped. and it's a very extensive and complicated cave system to get them out that's since been flooded, and there's more heavy rain heading that way. the only alternative, as you said, was to keep them there,

keep them fed and keep them going until october when the rainy season is over. the problem here is it's complicated to get out, they don't know how to dive -- charles: right. they're giving these kids options. apparently i read that they're giving them options if they want to learn how to scuba dive -- >> yep. they've got scuba experts down there. the issue is how do we get them out. charles: i would take those lessons. thanks, arleigh. president trump -- ashley. president trump spoke with mexico's new president. let's roll that tape. >> elect of mexico, we had a great conversation about a half an hour long. we talked about border or security, we talked abdomen trade, we talked about -- about trade, we talked about nafta, a separate deal just mexico and the united states. we had a lot of good conversation. i think the relationship will be a very good one. we'll see what happens, but i really do believe it's going to be a very good one. he had a very excellent election.

charles: joining me now, joining us now, gaston pereira. this election, how worried should americans be that we now have a socialist on our southern border? >> well, by the way, charles, nice being in your program. i wouldn't be worried. i wouldn't actually call it a socialist, you know? this is a left-leaning, you know, movement which which actually was created by mr. lopez obrador over four years, and many other latin american countries have shifted to the left when they were discouraged by the inability of traditional parties to provide the solutions of their problems. so, and they got done successfully, you know? in the chase ofkey lay and uruguay. and they have something common. they have maintained the economic status quo. charles: right. >> you know, when you have a movement like in that wants to

change a lot of things, it's very nice to think they will create a welfare state, but you have to pay for it. the health of the economy, i think, is critical for the future and successful moment in mexico. charles: you know, gaston, i guess for chile and your guy, you also have the brazil and venezuela as well as cautionary tales. this is not necessarily, you know, i would think that it would -- this would be sort of everyone in the world's watching, but certainly in the southern hemisphere. >> yeah. but let's look at individual, you know? those parallels, i think, are not really comparable to mexico. hook at the individual. here is an individual who has been in politics for the last 40 years. he had a successful administration as the mayor of mexico city. he came out of that administration with about 80% approval rating. he failed on two occasions to gain the presidency, yet he

didn't give up. he actually made it with a resounding, resounding, astounding 53% majority. so i think that you have, first of all, you have a seasoned politician with administration experience -- charles: right. >> and there is a word that i hear every time in every article that i've seen recently, he's a very pragmatic individual. he's not going to break this economic system to change the reality of mexico. mexico is a very successful economy. charles: all right. well, pragmatic, we've heard that before, and we've got our fingers crossed because a lot's at stake. sir, thank you very much. we appreciate you spending the time with us. >> i do have a vested interest, you know? our company has made great investments here in mexico. charles: right. >> we're expanding to the united states. so the healthy relationship of these two great economies is a benefit to all of us, so thank you for having me, charles. charles: you got it. thank you.

billionaire richard branson says he has the solution to income inequality here in the united states. he wants the government to give out free cash to everyone. i wonder what art laffer thinks about that. he's with us next hour. but first, veteran seattle seahawks safety cam chancellor says he's done with football. he's worried about injuries, and he's only 30 years old. fox 1 sports host jason whitlock is with us next. ♪ ♪

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your hotel should make it easy to do all the things you do. which is what we do. crowne plaza. we're all business, mostly. ♪ ♪ ashley: in the last hour, economist peter morici enthusiastically praised president trump's handling of the economy which could hit 3% growth. roll tape. >> for the first time since 2005, the u.s. economy is likely to hit 3% growth. talk about -- that's the first time i've actually used that phrase on air. [laughter] finally, you've got it out of me. make america great again. [laughter] i mean, george bush couldn't do it, barack obama couldn't do it. you know, barack obama had a goal, and that was to make america like france. 1% growth, 12% unemployment, lots of despair, you know? unsafe paris, the whole works. well, guess what? you know, america is back again. ♪

charles: all right, folks, quick check of the big board. we're clinging to gains here after coming out the gate relatively strong. it's okay though, we're up for now. in the meantime, your national average for regular gasoline, $2.86. now lebron james saying good-bye to cleveland, saying hello to a four-year, $154

million contract with the l.a. lakers. california congressman devin nuñes, though, giving a less than warm welcome to king james. here's what we tweeted: lol, prepare to pay the highest taxes you ever have in your career, you should have held out for more just to avoid the moon beam weather tax. jason whitlock, what are your thoughts? i don't know, i thought he could have gotten more money myself, although there are advantages to being in california as well. >> listen, i don't think lebron james is hurting for cash, charles. i think he'll be perfectly fine at $154 million over four years. i think he could make a living on that. plus with all the money he makes from nike and other things, he'll be okay. charles: are you, are you excited about what's happening? i think overnight the news now is they have delaware or markus cousins -- >> ray john rondo.

charles: yeah, they got a bunch of spare parts out here. >> after getting lebron, magic johnson and the lakers started shopping at garage sales -- [laughter] and they got rondo, they got lance stephenson, they got mcgee, they got congress they've yous caldwell pope. they're shopping at garage sales, and golden state went to saks fifth avenue and got boogie cousins. i'm not sure, i think they're resting on their laurels after getting lebron james. so now what we really have out here at the staples center and in los angeles is the cavaliers west coast version. this is the same team that lebron just left in cleveland. charles: so rondo doesn't have enough for one year to get him the ball, and then you get stephenson, the muscle -- >> charles, let me break it down to you. [laughter] what the golden state warriors have done to basketball is if you can't shoot from three, you're wasting your time.

rondo can't shoot. lance stephennd soften's not a shooter. mcgee, you know, gets garbage buckets, you know, around the basket. they don't have9 shooters surrounding lebron james. i have no idea what they're thinking or what they're doing. charles: i know there's some moves potentially left including kawhi leonard, right? is he the next most coveted free agent out there? >> kawhi leonard's the biggest target. he's actually not a free agent, he's forcing, basically, or trying to force san antonio to trade him. and, yeah, the lakers need to get coup buy leonard. but i'm also going to argue this today on my show that kawhi leonard, if he leaves san antonio, he desperately needs to play with lebron james. that system in san antonio was perfect for him. if he goes someplace else and is not with the right teammates or whatever, coup buy leonard could back up a little bit. i think he needs to be with lebron james as much as the lakers need him.

charles: right. and you have no problem, jason, with these teams putting together these all-star teams -- >> oh, i do have a problem -- charles: okay. >> i have a problem with it. too many super teams. too much talent stacked in the west, none on the east, don't like it. charles: yeah. as a long-term fan of the sport, it bothers me a little bit. i do want to ask you about this news that seattle star kam chancellor retiring, he's 30 years old, and he's got this neck injury and afraid it could get worse. i remember in that super bowl, he was hitting denver, it felt like a man playing boys. he was putting pain on those guys they had never seen before. he man handled them. if you inflict that pain, you must be taking some in exchange too. >> listen, charles, i think a lot of people want to put a little bit of a negative spin on this story. hey, kam chancellor's retiring at 30, football's so dangerous. let me tell you why kam chancellor's retiring, because

football is so profitable now and they spend so much money on the players, you can afford to retire early. if this were the is 1970s or '80s and kam chancellor hadn't made millions of dollars, he would still be playing in the national football league. the league is so profitable, they spend so much money on the players that if you're a great player and you get to the age of 30 and you want to step away from from the game because it is a dangerous game, you now have that option. this, to me, is a sign of progress. it's not something the nfl should be concerned about. charles: jason, thank you very much, buddy. have great show. >> thank you, charles. charles: coming up, new york congressional candidate ocasio-cortez says her social agenda would do very well in the country. kaley mcier inly is going to give us her take in the next hour. ♪ nah. not gonna happen.

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charles: so oil, it was up huge early ths morning. it was actually near a four-year high. but there's word now coming out russian oil companies are ready to step in and start pumping

more crude. christina's here to explain. a, can they really do that? you know, we hear about it, but does anyone believe they can do it? >> they operate in a fragmented, private system so that's why there is some hesitation as to whether they can actually put oil into the market like saudi arabia. they're a publicly-run company, they have one company that puts oil on to the market. there's a difference. when you say you're going to stick 500,000 barrels out, you can do it if you're saudi arabia. oil's down a little bit today, but it's at a three-and-a-half year high. the first reason is that you have stored inventories that have fallen across certain areas. i'll explain that in just a second. you have global demand that's strong, but we can debate that in just a second, and then you have disruption that we've often talked about,, sanctions in iran, venezuela are economic and political instability, libya -- [inaudible] but they have soldiers.

i had to look it up -- they had soldiers just stopping, political unrest in certain areas for there. and last but not least, you have canada, fort mcmurray, this was a massive power outage, and they weren't able to put the -- they were down 350,000 barrels per day lower. so that's contributing. charles: what's the biggest factor? what do you think? because after opec had that meeting, it was, the conventional wisdom was each though the announcement wasn't as large as people thought it was going to be -- >> right. 600,000. charles: right. it was still an increase in production, why did crude come up so quickly to this level? >> on the supply side they're saying it's going to go higher because global demand right now is so strong, and the excess supply, the stored inventory which is pretty much you can get the oil out of the ground really quickly, they believe that's hit capacity. there's not enough to meet demand whereas on the other side they're saying look at the numbers coming from china. weaker manufacturing across the

globe, so demand is not there. charles: we'll see. thanks a lot. hey, coming up, rhode island just became the first state to sue the world's largest oil company over their alleged role in climate change. the judge will be on that and see if it has any merit. the third hour of "varney" next.

it's 11 a.m. out here in new york and we are starting off with with your money. take a look at the market now, the bug board, the dow you're with looking at still populated nicely nike is biggest loser yet bigger for the yore and goldman sachs is worrisome because financials have been and amazing disappointment even m.a.v.e.n. on wall street say you have to be in financials for smartest guys are the biggests loser in the room. pulling back factory orders came out earlier about an hour ago and they crushed wall street estimates now only were they amazingly good last month were

revised significantly higher including ex-transportation so we're getting great da it like yesterday and other days but we are losing some altitude here with the market overall. and now there's this. a billionaire richard branson says he's got a solution to income inequality called universal basic income that's right he wants the government to give up free cash to everyone. former reagan economist art laugher joins us all right art free cash is that like jumbo shrimp? >> i don't know what it is. why doesn't branson who is wealthy enough himself to just to it personally? i think that's what he should do if he believes in it so much do it on his own accord. that's my thought. and it's a silly idea. you never want to pay people not to work. you never want to do that pay when they do work unless they can't work of course or some other intervening problem that needs help there for a while but

bottom line is you never want to penalize workers to reward nonworkers otherwise you're going to get a lot of nonworks and get growth stopped and get the economy going in the tank. so that's not what you want. and -- >> i think it was sweden right here recently that pulled pling on this experiment. it came with major fanfare. universal basic income you department by the way part of this deal is you didn't have to look for a job. you know you got paid a couple of thousand a month for being you. and -- [laughter] just didn't work out but why does someone as smart as branson and others continue in your mind to cling on to thought that this is the ultimate solution? >> i think he el poos guilty to be honest with you way more successful than he ever imagined he could have been and never imagine why me why am i this successful and all of that and feels guilty and a little bit too privileged and he wants to share it with the masses. and that's sort of like let them eat cake in france.

but it's a sad phenomenal. but many of your wealthiest people are that way. teddy kennedy wases in britain it was -- it was done there by i forget who it was but wedge wood bend it was the big winger there and a lot of time you find ultra lefty -- what you ma call it pane excuse me i can't remember. bill gaits sr. wants to give everyone everything he's got the money and they don't feel they deserve it and they maybe they don't. maybe they do but they feel this guilt. >> i tell people hear by gillette one of the richest men in the world and he's a blueprint for global socialism. you're in nashville i want to change a little bit. and that's, obviously, it's numbers are great. but you're going to serious growing pains right now. you've got the hot pest housing market in the country and prices are driving up but residents are complaining about a lot of

things maybe words weren't prepared for this and i saw a report crime might be on the rise is nashville growing too fast? >> no. [laughter] it's not. it's e beautifully pip told you about about nashville when i moved here from santa fe, california saying i want to go a zero tax state close to my home in cleveland, ohio and absolutely spectacular and get even better. you want to be where prices are rising radically fast because you're in a place where prices are collapsing that's not what you want but a place with with too much traffic congestion showing there's a lot of demand for people to be there because things are really good nashville and they're great here. 8th lowest in the nation no personal income tax earned income or unearned income you have no death tax. you know, all of this stuff is just -- fantasticking place to live and i guess i'm the best ambassador

for this state and city because i came here deliberately never been here before -- well i've been through the airport and stuff. and it's just the best place in the world. >> wonderful. now art, one last one -- you want to take us become down in -- our producer said you have a great story about president rage began in the fourth of july can you share it with us? >> i sure can. fourth of july is a big celebration around the lincoln memorial with bands and all of that stuff in the lead band there was the beach boys. that were programmed to be the the lead band at july fourth thing, and ray watts who was secretary of the e interior controls all parks and stuff thought that beach boys were a little too radical and a little too activist to be there. so he intervenes specifically and canceled beach boys and did not allow them to perform until -- the president from california said well you know i'm just going to have to override who i want on this one. [laughter] beach boys are playing.

it's, isn't it a wonderful life but reagan intervened and beach boys are least radical activist group you've ever seen. they are july fourth. >> they are. all right thank you very much buddy. appreciate it always. all right talk to you later. back to markets, shah gilani he's with capital way forecast with with us now and shah we know what do you make, though, of this market now so many yellowing flays inability to sustain rile lil has been something problematic particularly last week now so far in this session off more than 100 point from the high. are you concerned about that? >> first of all, happy independence day charles great to see you. no i'm not overly concerned i would be concerned if we hit lows again and catch them and broke those i would be more than concerned and get -- but i've been taking these opportunities to buy stocks down here buying the s&p. so i kind of like it. yesterday it was a great day, i thought, we brought up the open,

and we're very ep happy at the end of the day, obviously. so i think today we see a little follow through i don't know how we're going to close the day but rally back up but i'm not concerned about anything, though, the economy is going very well and market seems to be leading we j's had these trade tariff talks and negotiations ongoing and nobody really knows what to make of it so that's understandable market is he has tangt here and there but fundamental case is positive so in growth mode. >> let's check on oil prices because there's -- they're near a multiyear high, obviously, and they were really taken off. and we know that's going to start to affect gas prices. nationwide right now we're looking at average $2.86 a gallon. you know, shah will president trump what can he do because we know he's pressuring saudi arabia right now to increase production and that -- might also can can come up with a meeting with russia as well. what can he do to help lower prices? >> i don't think that there's a thing he can do and try to

jawbone that, you know produce is done in some respect but i don't think it is going to be effective at all. russians and sad did saudis have higher prices ultimately they don't want to see the the price go too high because profitability and they start to expand themselves. so they don't want to see a noncontrol price hike. but, you know, growing, the economies need more oil, need more energy and i think this is part of what weir seeing in price for oil so just a matter of groat. it's -- a positive for the market positive for the economy. >> one last one for you buddy i want to go over individual stock picks. i know you're hot, why? >> because it has been beaten down charles so badly and that is had some great changes. and old ceo is now cfo, the government put a lot of pressure on boss in order to keep oil prices domestically very low to keep gas prices low that pressure has been relieve sod

they have -- promise supposedly to let them price according to the market so good with with all prices rise aring and should we retain profitability but go about 50% next 18 months. >> we're going to watch that one closely and also like bank of america these big banks and money -- banks have been large dispowment this is year. why did you pick this one? >> we would short all of the financials up until day before yesterday. and we took a position in bank of america simply because we bought them down here. there's going to be a lot of return of shareholder value in terms of buybacks in terms whatever the the company will do possibly raise a diffed end but they pass the stress test with flying colors so bank of america is one of the stocks that we like baa it is domestic nature for the most part with a good base to go off the bottom here too. >> short to financials? >> they just looks very heavy. i mean, they weren't performing and we have a great opportunity to just basically we bought on

the xls quite well with that and when market look like it was about to turn arranged other day we coffered that and we moved forward and buying bank of america. whether that trade is going to last i'm not quite sure. financials take another hit probably get out again but i like in the bottom officials. >> have a great holiday and talk again real soon. thanks so much shah. >> now there's this rhode island becoming the first state to sue big oil. this is big oil companies right are over there. in climate change, andrew napolitano will be on that soon and we're going to ask him, is there any merit in this kind of a lawsuit? and health insurance expected to add more options for customers but that means premiums will rise as well. best in the business, betty mccoy will help us break that down for you and also -- new york congressional candidate says socialist agenda would do very well in the midwest. we're not so sure about that one

been we're going to talk to the rnc to get their opinion next, and the beautiful state of -- in the beautiful state of liberty, statue of liberty i'm sorry courtesy of earthkam got more varney, ahead. whoooo.

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so google revealing that it allow soflt ware developers to scan the inboxes of millions of their gmail users ashley, of course, this comes on heals of facebook -- >> it does you know, and it's quite shocking gmail has 1.4 billion users nearly two-thirds of people who are actively use -- you know, e-mail use gmail so

it's a large, large poll of data. what's shocking about this is what we know now is there were actual humans going through unredacted e e-mails maybe yours charles maybe ours going through them and key out certain words that would allow advertisers to send charles payne the kind of advertising that they think you're interested in for the particular products. you know, look google says yes this is part of the deal you sign up for all of these free wonderful services. part of the other side to this is that your data is out there for advertisers to access. question is if you're given a choice would you mind anyway? should choice be more simple in yes or no button -- >> that's tough. we knew that was going on with the searches. not with your gmail like it was private. >> too far -- exactly thanks a lot. now there's this new york congressional candidate alexandria cortez saying there's

socialist agenda would do very well on the midwest joining us now spokesperson, caylee now caylee midwest up for grabs socialism here we come. >> yeah, this is fundamental misunderstanding of both the midwest and also of how elections work. because cortez went on to lift the states that she saw as winnable among them nebraska, kansas i'm huer of here to assure you today none of those states are going to go blue needless to say towards socialism so should go back to look at the electoral map not going to happen. >> make you wonder why she picked them doubt she's been to those states for sure, and you know it's just really weird to your point. you know maybe she picks some states that were razor thin margin of victory have been blue in the past but it's interesting. i guess it is just selling hype right now, an there are a lot of dems that are buying it. >> that's right charles unfortunately there are a lot of democrats the far left that are

buying it but on national scale this country is not going to buy socialism. and you know she also listed michigan and wisconsin those are, of course, states that donald trump won no republican nominee had ever won since the 1980s. and the problem with her argument is that i don't think those states are all of a sudden going to swing to the left towards socialism. when they see the economic result it is that we've seen with unemployment with wage, consumer confidence, gdp growth. that they're convinces at this point that the donald trump economy is a winning one. >> of course and then some say bernie ran on this platform and came short. you know, the that dem stole it from them and accomplishment did but this is something of a sup hill climb for them isn't it? >> bernie of course he talked about trade a very similar issue to president trump. he talked about, you know, bettering the lives of hardworking manufactures. so you know a common discussion there, but very different remedies one of the free market

solution that is verifiable that's worked throughout history and worked in reagan years that's the trump solution and one of the fail solution and that's socialism so you can discuss the same problem. but vastly different remedies and bernie sanders he is not going to pull this off in the end nor will a socialist like elizabeth warren. >> caylee great thanks for seeing you. >> you too. now move from the caves to lakers expected to have a negative economic impact on cleveland. ashley -- ashley: part of the problem, of course, is cleveland is one of the smaller cities with an nba team losing population and has been this movement from the north to rust belt to the south so that is already a down -- you know, kind of a market against cleveland but when you take lebron out we can look at this because when you left to go to miami first time arranged, what they saw is they did a study one mile radius aired stadium. number of restaurants dropped by 25 restaurants left went to closed when he went to the miami heat. ticket prices had gone from 60

to 107 dollars a piece when he came to town. they immediately dropped again when he left and again records speak for themselveses so bottom line is there is going to be an check impact. he and the team were the in thing what the main part of downtown cleveland was of course they have rock 'n' roll hall of fame but him leaving will be an economic -- >> that's from california's congressman defd muñiz with lebron james. check this out here's what he says laugh out lads prepare this is him talking to lebron james prepare to pay the high fest taxes you ever have in your career. you should have held out for more just to afford moon beam weather tax on governor moon beam people leak to call him yeah he's going to pay a lot of more taxes and painful. but as jason pointed out earlier i think -- >> 15,000 people are i think paying 25% of the taxes for the state 25,000 out of 40 million

people staggering stuff. staggering. >> that's why they're leaving. check this out. acrobatic, washington, d.c. police officers showing -- showing kids on the playground that well he can keep up. he starts you have with a cartwheel before pulling off the real dramatic stuff check it out. bam -- just the the way ashley lands them every day before this show. >> that's me to me in the studio. check this one with out guy two boston police officers showing off their special talent in an episode of cop karl pool karaoke. roll tape. ♪ ♪ god bless america ♪ my home sweet home ♪ [laughter] >> they're good. fantastic that was one way to celebrate independence day. more varney, next. ♪

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across multiple locations. every corporate office, warehouse and store near or far covered. leaving every competitor, threat and challenge outmaneuvered. comcast business outmaneuver. >> record number of people wanted to travel for the fourth of july holiday and jeff flock in chicago. how's traffic so far? [laughter] >> you know it's not so bad i've

seen a lot of these fourth of july holidays, and take a look out there. we have another camera out the front of the vehicle maybe you see this is 294 headed mort north to wisconsin not too bad despite this -- scene here, a record number as you say about i think it is 47 million people that are going to travel despite highest gas prices in four years we're now $2.86 average gallon of regular. that's if 60 cents plus more than it was this time last year. you know, this is thrown under the radar, you know how you love gas price increases take a look at the states that increase their state gas taxes just this week. that is your independence day present for you. charles. charles: i don't like gas taxes but i like which crude oil helps out our country be safe on the road but the did i talk to you again real soon. we celebrate our country independence we get new reports

that president obama granted u.s. citizenship to thousands of iranian vips during the nuclear deal negotiations we're on top of this story meanwhile markets are struggling here to maintain the gains slipping quickly. dow belly up nasdaq now in the red. ♪

checking big board approach stocks up than down and feel like we're going to limp into this abbreviated session here. but the big names johnson & johnson merck bottom fishing an fishing in drug name pps and then there's this president obama reportedly granted u.s. citizenship to 2500 iranians during negotiations for that iranian nuke deal president trump tweeting about about it here it is just out the that the obama administration granted citizenship during the terrible iranian negotiations to 2500 iranians including to government officials how big and bad is that? joining us now fox news contradict tore david webb how big and bad is that, david?

>> well, it's one bad how big is it is the scope of of who we granted it and what access they have and i would say i'm going to toss it to our friend the judge in the constitutionality. the presidency has certain powers executive does but obama would do thinking to get a deal which i remind people not even iran signed. they issued a letter to the state department in 2015 that the iranians never signed their end of the deal this wasn't a deal. it was a bad idea cooked up by the obama administration. and it never went anywhere, and frankly i'm glad to sew that this president and israel and our allies and saudi arabia and others are taking the iranians to account. >> all but -- so the 2500, though, we're not sure has that been flushed out to we know for a fact that's happening to your point, the president was desperate, the iranians knew this and that's why they were able to get this magnificent deal in the first place. >> i don't know all of the details behind the number but i

will say this what we found out over time constantly more things that obama did in order to get a deal are coming out and by the way we should pay attention to our allies because our allies around the world will also put in harms way by this access to u.s. bank in matters for iran, of course. and we gave them cash which is a multiplier on the terrorist market. that will play out in other countries not just against the united states. >> got another one for you trump trump tweeting about maxine water lings calling her crazy you can see that tweet right now on your screen. listen, maxine waters has become something of a superstar within a democratic party all of a sudden. >> well she's become a superstar in the party because she's been there there so long for for the hard left. >> where does the party go? >> when president calls and bring it up to hyperbolic levels and it is effective politics and communication from that standpoint.

what is maxine waters really represent? she's still talking impeachment while that's not likely to ever happen but now she's going out there to join abolish i.c.e. group and join kamala harris, cory brooker and kerr stand gillibrand and alexander cortez newly democratic socialist self-described in brooklyn? >> l she might because she's -- she pushed back i think she was surprised that nancy pelosi and chuck schumer actually drew a line in the sand saying -- >> she pushed back on them and, of course, in the interview that she gave on msnbc a hint that it was a racially racially motivated -- that schumer would do this to maxine waters, and not do it other democrats and so i think they're collapses under weight of their own rhetoric. >> soon ire or later what you talk about what you do and push has to face the mirror. the mirror is that you're looking at yourself and what it actually has effect on

politically. democrats passing their rhetoric and logic doesn't add up and she can play the race card but it won't be effective against nancy pelosi and pelosi controls money and she'll never be out of the speakership frankly until she leaves. and schumer does the same. maxine is a minor player who doesn't live in her district. doesn't represent her district. and if you with look at her district in los angeles, it is actually a tragedy. what's happenedded there -- >> let me ask you one last one because this is speculation out that trump administration going to reare send obama era policies that encourage use of race with respect to college admission do you think this is going to be a good or bad thing? >> absolutely a good thing. finally look, i get it you go back to -- the initial days following segregation when you needed to have an influx kind of period of time with affirmative action approach. i don't like it constitutionally i don't agree with it. but i will understand the use of it. it should have been terminated. we need to admit people who add

value qhor capable -- and we no longer need to have the fake measurements in these fake equal opportunity outcomes. we need people to go into college to advance in america to help our society. and bring -- >> yet you see in new york city where de blasio wants to do this with high schools particularly they say unfair to black and latino kids and seeing it in higher learning cases of it being against harvard. it is kind of crazy, though, when you put someone any situation and they're not prepare frommed for. i think that's unfair as well and doesn't make sense. >> they're forcing narrative on kids who typically and i would say broadly don't live in this narrative race, and gender ethnicity defining them. if you put them together in a good learning environment, they'll figure it out. what they're forcing is a social justice agenda. that really isn't about justice for these kids. >> start in kirngd to give theme tough curriculum and then there

won't be an issue. thanks appreciate it. rhode island becomes first state to suit world large pest oil companies over there lead role in climate change. all rise to judge and napolitano okay, i mean, how much merit does this case have? >> we just had a lawsuit brought bit cities of sphrirveg and oakland against the same oil companies and a federal judge and sphrifng san francisco threw the case out because proofs in the case are wanting this is a political argument it's not a scientific argument. you know, in order to hold the oil companies liable for climate change and thus expenses incurred by the state of rhode island to address this climate change. there would be a great number of scientific proofs that would have to pass muster. judge would have to say okay a jury looking at this could come to this conclusion, the people in california -- and they were best people in the country from the perspective of the climate change crowd.

could not prove but same thing will happen in rhode island and in fact you could argue this rhode island case is frivolous because it will be -- governed by what was found in california. >> isn't there some sort of report -- or lead report that exxonmobil acknowledged existence of climate change ultimate smoking gun have you heard about that? >> i have harled about about that. and whether or not exxonmobil acknowledges the existence of climate change does not impose upon exxonmobil viability for the consequences of climate change. you know, this is a -- political lawsuit intended to permit the democratic party that runs -- rhode island -- to say to their base look what we're dong to try to recoup your money seam is the lawsuit in california. all it did was waste legal fees. this is -- whatever party he's pure use and legal fees are being spent.

loser pay -- and that ever comes to america i'm first one onboard. feds have loser pace they did not impose it in california and i doubt they'll impose it in rhode island. >> wow. i guess maybe the tobacco situation maybe gave them hope this could make it through. sm look, the tobacco litigation was a win fall for the state that didn't enhance anybody's health or safety but it just gave the state free care to spend however they normally spend. >> i have another real fun one for you one of your favorite recording artist madonna she lost her legal challenge in new york. a judge ruled that a manhattan co-op can actually enforce a rule that says that madonna can't have any family or staff at her apartment when she's not there, judge, can a co-op board say if you're not there your own kids can't be there? >> and this is really -- >> what kind of party -- >> this is unique in new york city if you own a co-op you don't own the real estate you own shares of stock in the entity that manages the the

building. and the courts have given these cooperative corporations as they're called here in new york, unique authority to regulate the property. now i don't know what was going on in this apartment. it's -- a magnificent apartment. [laughter] varney would drool if he had this apartment. but whatever it was, it was going on without her there. and so her -- fellow stock owners who are her neighbors got together and said we're not going to have any parties or anybody in the apartment unless the owner is there. quite frankly that's unheard of a lot of people have -- had her end of the economic scale, have skeleton staffs that stay in or maintain apartment think about your own housekeepers might be in your apartment when you're not there. not in that building because of whatever was going on in that apartment and that will stand. after being -- >> how big is -- [inaudible conversations] they have to know. how do you know that someone is in there? >> well they have security. someone at the door, doorman,

cameras the desk, the security. a lot of buildings don't want her in the first place but this is amazing. >> what of course she can. but think about what this will do to shares stock in that cooperative. down when they have problems like this. >> appreciate it. health insurerses expected to add more options for customers and that, of course, means that premiums also expected to go up. betsy mccoy is next to break it down for what it means for you. and america facing a truck driver shortage is the story, of course, we've been following right here on varney and now, the trump administration is looking to ease that problem by lowering age requirements for drivers. coming up, we're going to talk it a man who started his driving career in 1974. rev up that diesel good buddy. ♪

i'm nicole petallides with your fox business brief a close look at starbucks and the policy, in fact, a new report out from multiple advisors advising starbucks on how they should handle several things to revamp its procedures also how they should end racial bias. this comes from the naacp education fund as well as the senior fellow of the think tank. some of the things after this all of this occurred after two

black men were asked to leave the store after not purchasing anything. and while they complimented starbucks on their most move ton in the 8,000 stores for racial bias, but say other things can be done changes the manual to really understand customer rights. train in evaluate the managersen courage local police to be nor antibias training. just a few ideas. add-on advantage, booking a flight unlocks discounts on select hotels until the day you leave for your trip. add-on advantage. only when you book with expedia. the nation's largest senior-living referral service. for the past five years, i've spoken with hundreds of families and visited senior-care communities around the country. and i've got to tell you, today's senior-living communities are better than ever.

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>> a new report claim that food delivery business will grow to 365 billion dollars in over a decade ashley which companies ups -- apparently put a lot of effort into this research and delivered the 82-page report looking at the trends in this industry and absolutely you're right. it is ten times bigger than it is now in 12 years time and 12 years we're at 2030 it is amazing by itself. it is going to be 3,65 billion and looking at things that we do we order online and we want to order our fast food and have it delivered to us cooking in the kitchen will be a thing of the past but this is significant and you know those that are investing heavily now will certainly be invested more in the future. >> über will be a big winner from delivery company and up. another one chipotle turning to technology to boost their at least trying to help boost sluggish sales how is that working? >> they're trying to up their game when it comes to mobile ordering and problem is you know

you go in and you have off the of the workers there put your burrito together. what they're going to do is they've created a second line, that deals just with those mobile orders so when you order, about 10% of the ordering now are done on your phone and you order it. but the problem is you can wait up to 40 minutes to actually get the order. now they've created a second line they're going to have an order shelf that is heated you go in and pick up your food you're gone and that will move things along, and plus main line will be quicker too. >> cool. there you go now there's this obama care premium expected to rise average of 15% next year. so health insurers are expected to add more option for customers. joining us now is beating obamacare author betsy mccoy. >> let's keep this in mind and charles look at the big picture here. six years of obamacare and during that time premiums have tripled they called it the affordable care act. >> wasn't it cost curve thing, i remember that cost curve was going to go down. >> not happening they doubled in

first four years up another 18 pbts last yore and now for 2019 they're up another 15%. compounding that is triple what people were paying and by the way -- >> more for our money. a lot less. >> really. take a look at obama care plans, they're not like the commercial plans you get on the job, for example. these are very narrow networks. right, now the big players are the medicaid providers like molina oscar you're not hearing anthem united health care etna -- >> the big ones walked away and they were replaced by insurance companies that are in the business of serving medicaid community. so if you buy one of their obamacare plans you're paying for medicaid same narrow and same doctors who take medicaid stay limited hospital choices. that gets down to the number with obamacare propoangts hit or came close to these numbers and in terms of insuring people

distinction they "don't ask, don't don't make is this was a medicaid program not how it was sold. >> when you see slight tick in that it is free riderses people who to pay for their insurance don't want to pay for these plans it has in care at three times what they paid just six years ago. >> what's the livelihood because we know the economic toll of this is continues to reverberate and some issues taking care of with the beget but some of the key problems, though, that hurt our society that actually perhaps hurt perch the ability to deliver quality medical care is this still your hope that we can maybe some day really address it. what kind of congressional -- configuration do we need because they have the house, senate and white house still couldn't get it done. >> what we need to do is to repeal big chunk of the obamacare health law that

federalize that took over state regulation of the individual and small insurance market. we have to put that back to the states where it belongs. there's actually a court case in texas now that is likely to do that and go all the way up to the supreme court. and now that we're ploog to the president to make another nominee to that court, take it to the bank, charles. obamacare is history. [laughter] >> president obama hinted e, though, at some stock gap in the meantime. >> he's doing a lot to provide relief for individual in small group market so they're by this. he's giving them a lot of choices to buy these negotiation plans. you can buy what they call short-term plans but we knew them. all of this means that you have choices. you don't have to pay for the one size fits all, washington design benefit package that's loaded with things you don't want to buy. >> things you never need. right. okay. have a great one. you too. well, other with our own jeff

flock the a truck driving school learning how that we talked again about this massive truck driver shortage and it is considering lowering the age requirements for drivers to 18. we're going to talk to american trucker, next. nah. not gonna happen. that's it. i'm calling kohler about their walk-in bath. 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.

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>> well the trump administration now or canning lowering the age requirements for drivers to 18 to help ease this chronic truck driver shortage that we've been joining us todd spencer owner independent driver association. todd, thanks for joining us. we know we've been reading about this problem for a long time. we know actually gotten worse so do you like this idea is this part of our ultimate remedy to help alleviate the the problem? >> well, charles, when you say we've been reading about this problem for a long time, i can tell you as somebody from within trucking that we have been hearing about a truck driver shortage for 30 years now. the same people say it over and over and over and, of course, what they're really talking

about about is they have retention issues simply because pay-in benefits aren't adequate it is the pleasant adequate to attract people but not adequate enough to keep them so they continually say shortage and again we're talking three decades but having said that, you know, increasing the supply and this and another way of increasing supply of b drivers, that won't never address a problem because again, the problem is retention. >> well, other industry ises that have retention problems seem to be addressing it because normally for any business -- so much more expensive to keep retraining people to keep teaching them rather than getting someone who knows a job likes job and pay them a little bit more. [laughter] >> well, a normal person should conclude that. but for some reason or another a segment of trucking doesn't. and bear in mind trucking is sort of different than any other occupation in that, drivers

generally receive nothing at all for their time. they don't receive carling. salary. the pay they get comes from simply driving miles and nothing for anything else. they are among unique among other workers in they're exempt from overtime provisions and fair labor standards act so you know the only way they can hope to make more is to try to work more hours. and realistically a job to work 80 or more hours a week away from home for about 53,000 a year which what average pay is, people will look to replace that job not -- not pursue it as a career. >> that's true by the same token, though, we have a lot of people in this country who -- who either have been out of the market job market a long time had lost hope of ever getting into the job market and -- 53,000 sounds attractive to that group of people now maybe to your point todd, i know you're saying may take that job but won't stay in it.

but there should be at least a big funnel of people getting into industry now. >> well, there is actually -- stage issue over 400,000 new commercial driver licenses, these are licenses that go primarily to big truck drivers. they do that every year, again, the problem is retention. the companies can't keep those drivers so they keep saying, more, more, more -- but this is not across the board problem. >> todd we appreciate -- we appreciate what you're doing because i have not heard this side of the story so stick at it because it is clear you are for the american truck driver thank you very much buddy appreciate it. more varney right after this.

at crowne plaza, we know business travel isn't just business. there's this. a bit of this. why not? your hotel should make it easy to do all the things you do. which is what we do. crowne plaza. we're all business, mostly. >> well folks and the dow up 17 points up about 150 earlier in the session after remarkable reversal yesterday. and the only news out today economic data was absolutely phenomenal factory orders not

only huge for business the last month. but the numbers today were phenomenal ex-transportation through the roof. so it's not that. not sure what's going on with the market but i'm sure our friend neil cavuto has answers. >> i have no requested but counting on you to tell me but i'm on my own. all right have a good fourth my friend. all right we're looking at close things up early about an hour from now. on pace this could be for third straight gain, as we kick off on a relatively stable quarter here. but the details right and trade disputes that are on again, off again president extending his hit list if you will nato countries that don't pay their fair share so a lot of that going on and edward lawrence coping track of it all in washington hey, ed. >> the latest actually is commerce department now blocking a licensing agreement or deal that china mobile is trying to create a network here in the united states. the commerce department saying that they're a security a national security thr