maria: what a jam-packed show. thanks, everybody. >> thank you. >> great to see you both you fellows. maria: right back at you. fantastic show. jam-packed with news. seize the day. "varney & company" begins right now. stuart: i'm seizing it, maria. good morning to you and good morning to everyone. political turmoil, the market slugs it off. -- slugs it off. politics and money on steroids. here is the headline shaking politics. cohen's guilty plea implicates the president. that is the "wall street journal" his former lawyer, michael cohen admits to paying off two women who said they had affairs with mr. trump and he says the president told him to do it. question, is paying off women to keep them quiet an impeachable offense? is impeachment the issue the democrats will run with in the

midterms? tuesday in west begin crashes the president insisted the cohen and manafort cases quote, have nothing to do with russian collusion. battle lines clearly drawn. all of this on the day the stock market notches up its longest bull run ever, stretching all the way back to march of 2009. we've already hit a new high intraday for the s&p. and the dow starts this morning very close to the 26,000 level. bottom line, you're waking up to a political firestorm but at this point it has not affected your money. hold on. we have some very positive news on your money. trade talks with china begin in d.c. today. wait until you see what's going on at target. shoppers back in the stores big time, prosperous consumers. "varney & company" is about to begin. ♪

stuart: well's start with the good stuff from target. i'm going to call this a stellar financial report. what was that about the retail ice age? looks like it is money for consumers who rescued surviving retailers. maria: re. ashley: retailers have done very well. target,most startling number, same-store sales up 6 1/2%. the strongest growth in 13 years. they invested 7 billion this year to ramp up the recommerce and also to remodel existing stores, put in new smaller stores on the same scale. we heard this from tj maxx and kohl's. foot traffic is picking up. bricks and mortar are not done out of it yet. that is a sign of strong economy, consumer confidence, tax reform kicking in, low unemployment all that combined, people are going physically into stores. stuart: what was that word target used to describe, thanks, producer, unprecedented gain in

foot traffic at target stores. ashley: that is remarkable. stuart: retail ice age. susan: walmart biggest sales in a decade. people are eating out of restaurants. hot, hot market. consumer in full swing. stuart: well-said. hold on. hold on. jumping the gun there, liz. back to the political turmoil. this is where you come in. headline from cohen's lawyer, lanny davis on tv this morning. he says mr., cohen, michael cohen does not want and would not accept a pardon from president trump. now let's bring in liz peek. how bad is this for mr. trump politically? >> politically is the big question. legally not even clear how bad this is for president trump, legality of making payoffs to women is unclear. was it really campaign donation or something arounded between two entities. we'll see. that certainly is question.

politically i don't think trump supporters will be much swayed by this they are on board with his agenda. they're looking at this plea deal from cohen and wondering what it has to do with russia. more importantly they're looking at manafort conviction yesterday saying what in the world does that have to do with collusion or obstruction of justice? look, i think mueller has made his case there are people surrounding trump who are not good, who are crooked. so far that is not tied into the bigger picture. so look, what the real issue here is, are democrats going to seize on this as grounds for impeachment? stuart: that is the point. >> when we come up -- we talked about this before, a lot of people on extreme left already called for impeachment proceedings. politically the democrat leadership is very nervous about this. they know it could backfire, it will get people out to vote. that is the thing. turnout is the big question in the midterm election.

stuart: is paying off women, knowing about it, is that an impeachable offense? i don't think it is. >> that is the question. is it campaign finance violations? that's muddy already. and then is it an impeachable offense? they may not care. maxine waters was ready to go for impeachment before there was any offense on the table. that may not be the issue. i think they have to be careful, it will be about turnout, a lot of trump supporters who i heard from, who cares about this stuff. somebody has an affair, they try to cover it up. who wouldn't? stuart: stay there, liz, a lot more for you, believe me. >> i don't get to talk about the income numbers. stuart: sorry about that. we've gone from political turmoil, now let's look at market reaction. shaw ghailani is with us. political turmoil the market

market shrus it off. >> we end higher on major indexes, none of it matters. the news broken pretty much end of the day in terms of the trading day, after the close, the market hasn't had a chance to react. the futures this morning are so subdued. i am surprised i thought they would be volatile overnight and this morning. i don't think it. stuart: i get up 2:45 in the morning, i look at futures. where are we. we were down 100 points. we're down 20. we may actually open higher this morning. what does that tell you about politics and money? >> these are the records. if we break the records, i think the dow breaking above 26,000 moving forward, that is only 600 points away from its all-time highs. market seems to slough off everything in its.

stuart: target news is pretty good. i will switch gears again. a murdered college student, an undocumented suspect back to liz peak. that is the illegal alien accused of murdering molly mollie tibbetts on the left-hand side of your screen. democrats are calling for abolition of i.c.e. this guy has been here three or four years. what do you say? >> this is not first time an illegal alien has been murdered in the united states. astonishing "the new york times" didn't mention the story in the first section. maybe buried in another section. here is what is happening. it is ignored on the left. and for good reason. they made this big political push to get rid of i.c.e. which is stupid premise to begin with. i.c.e. does a lot of very good things for this country. trying to stamp out drug

trafficking, sex trafficking, i don't know what they're talking about. makes for a great campaign promise. this really brings this back to the idiocy of this premise and i think it won't last. stuart: if you bring up the illegal status of this man, this accused man, you are accused of bringing politics into a brutal murder. >> right. you're a racist. stuart: all that. i reject that. >> i do too. stuart: his illegal status is a political issue. the crime isn't. his illegal status and doing the crime is. >> i totally agree. it speaks to trump's argument that open borders really lead to increased crime and i think that is a case that president trump made again last night in west virginia, very forcefully. his supporters are totally on board with. you can not have open borders. people don't realize, there are thousands of people coming into this country illegally every year. we have no idea who they are, what they represent or where they go. that is really not acceptable. by the way, it wasn't that long

ago between, when a lot of people like janet napolitano and others were agreeing it wasn't acceptable this has gone so far crazy now, into crazy land, in terms of the democrats wanting to just basically absolve all border enforcement. it is ridiculous. stuart: let's not forget kate steinle. >> i was going to mention kate steinle. obviously the other big name in this. stuart: liz, thank you very much. we have much more on this coming up. senator bill cassidy is going to join us. he is calling for the mayor of portland to step down because of how he handled anti-i.c.e. protests in his city. senator cassidy in our 11:00 hour this morning. back it futures market, as i said very early this morning. we were down 100. now we're down 22. pretty good economic news. much more money coming over the transom as we say at urban outfit is. another retailer doing well. that stock is up 5%.

lowe's, however, much bigger retailer. not so much of a rosy forecast but stock is still up 1.7%. lowe's at 101.50. we have a cat-5, category 5 bearing down on hawaii. this is going to be a big one. we'll tell you when it is going to hit big island. seaworld stepping in to help the manatees affected by the red tide in florida. seaworld rescued a dozen of them. brought them to the orlando theme park for first aid treatment. 92 manatees have been killed by that red tide. microsoft says russian hackers are now targeting conservative groups ahead of the midterm election. next, general jack keane, he says sanctions not working. he wants president trump to go on offense and take down the russian hackers. we'll be back.

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stuart: category five hurricane, headed towards hawaii. tell me more. ashley: hurricane lane. category 5, that is the strongest category. however it will turn north towards honolulu, which spells disaster. expected to weaken, maybe cat 2 by the time it gets to honolulu. strong wind, maybe 80, to 100 miles an hour. 10 to 15 inches of rain. a lot of flooding expected t was three weeks ago hurricane hector scooted by to the south of hawaii. that is very unusual. normally these storms carry on west and miss hawaii. there is a different track this year. people put on notice from the video. they're stocking up, getting ready for the storm that could hit within the next 36 hours. stuart: 36 hours. that is the time frame. ashley: hurricane lane. stuart: thanks, ash. russian hackers targeting

conservative groups ahead of the midterms. joining us general jack keane, fox news strategic military analyst. general, i read your stuff. you say we should go on offense, attack them with our cyber weapons. are you saying that? >> yes. here's why. russia has reset the strategic framework in dealing with the west and the united states in particular. every single day, stuart, they're involved in conflict operations. what i mean by that is, intim daigh, coercion, massive influence campaigns. comprehensive cyber operations conducted to undermine the west, undermine the united states. to undermine our political systems to weaken our political and moral will. they're confronting us in every aspect where they see the western united states pushing back on them and they developed a new norm. they consider this all-out conflict but they want to win this fight without ever having

to have a military confrontation with the west. that is what is so different than what we have dealt with in the past. stuart: are you now saying that russia has returned to the status of the cold war? they are now clearly our enemy and it is okay to attack? is that right? >> it is indisputable. i mean we can use parsed words like competition and others but they are our strategic adversary. russia identified as the united states as their number one strategic adversary in the world. they blame us for all the problems they have. that is how they keep their domestic audience sort of fueled with propaganda but what i'm suggesting is, we have, we have been slow to recognize how massive these campaigns are that russia and china are doing. it is much more than cyber espionage. it is really weakening our political and moral resolve in europe and also in the united states as it pertains to russia. we've tried sanctions in the

past. we'll continue to try sanctions, but when it comes to russia, sanctions really don't have much impact. in other words, they continue to their same behavior, despite the sanctions. last week president trump did something that's truly important he rescinded an obama political, excuse me, policy directive that inhibited our use of cyber offensive capability. and, now president trump has enhanced our ability to conduct offensive cyber. we have the number one offensive cyber capability in the world and we use it, very, very reluck tanly and some of that is for good reason but when these sites, aggressive as they are, as microsoft was describing them and these other sites meddling in our elections we know where the sites are coming from. we know who they are. we can attack them through our cyber kippability and destroy those sites. every time -- stuart: i want to get this right, when we attack those

sites, you're talking about destroying those sites. how do you mean destroy? not blowing them up. what are we doing? >> you're destroying a site through offensive capability, can no longer use the computers, hard drives, et cetera. we physically destroy it. we've done some in the past but we have to do who are of it this is a tool available to us. we have to recognize we are involved in conflict operations. this, russia certainly is committed to it as is, as is china. this is the new norm. we've got to use all the tools in our kit bag to push back on them. yes, publicly, humiliate them. yes, use sanctions to try to impose our will on some of the specific leaders. but also use these tools. after all it is these tools that they're using on us that are having the impact. stuart: we hear you, general. coming from a four-star general we really hear you. general jack keane, thanks for joining thus morning. >> good talking to you, stuart.

stuart: thanks very much. check futures. we've come back a bit. we'll be only town 10, 15 points at opening bell. that is not much of a loss bearing in mind the politics of the day. alexandria ocasio-cortez lamenting the closing of a new york coffee shop she used to work. the problem is they closed in part because of a policy she is campaigning on, that is $15 an hour minimum wage. kind of ironic, isn't it? more after this.

hey, you every talk to anybody about your money? yeah, i got some financial guidance a while ago. how'd that go? he kept spelling my name with an 'i' but it's bryan with a 'y.' yeah, since birth. that drives me crazy. yes. it's on all your email. yes. they should know this? yeah. the guy was my brother-in-law. that's ridiculous. well, i happen to know some people. do they listen? what? they're amazing listeners. nice. guidance from professionals who take their time to get to know you.

stuart: all right. better sales at, look at the stock, that's la-z-boy, recline recliners, okay? higher prices, more sales. more money coming in. the stock is up 17%. five up on la-z-boy. 39. tweet from democratic socialist alexandria ocasio-cortez here it is. the restaurant i used to work at closing its doors. i swung by to say hi one last time and kid around with friend like old time. i'm a normal working person who chose to run for office, i believe you can have a better future. you can do it too. we all can. ashley, tell us why, her former employer, the coffee shop is closing? ashley: in part the call for the

$15 minimum wage increase, that basically put this coffee shop over the top. a wage increase, miss oc has been calling for, saying there will be no negative consequences. workers deserve $15 an hour. the coffee shop owner had this to say. we have a quote. time to changed in our industry. rents are high in new york. we know that. the minimum wage is going up. we have huge number of employ reese. you can not miss the irony miss oc has been campaigning. no negative consequences. workers deserve 15 bucks an hour, her favorite coffee store, 115 employees are out of work. stuart: that is a terrible thing. ashley: it is. it is a classic example you should maybe stop to think about what you're calling for. how much impact on small business. stuart: you do that you will have fewer jobs. ashley: yes. stuart: how many times do we have to say that? they will never learn. only california story, taking the fight against sugary drinks to whole new level.

susan: california going from nanny state to bully state. the jerry brown the governor, set to okay a new bill that will fine any restaurant that offers any sugary drinks with a kids meal. you can only offer milk and water for kids meals in restaurants. parents can separately order drinks for their children but i think parenting should be left to the parents, not to the state, not to the restaurant. stuart: happy meal at mcdonald's is what? ashley: cheeseburger and a glass of water apparently. susan: and milk. ashley: or milk. stuart: are you allowed to have fries? susan: i assume so. >> not allowed to offer it. obviously the parents can buy it. susan: with a plastic straw. ashley: if parent can order it separately just so stupid. >> how will they enforce that? stuart: i know how they do that. you get some guy to walk in, give a happy meal, get as soda,

then a lawsuit. i'm almost out of time. i got to go. we're down 14 points on the dow. that is the futures. look at the market when it opens in, four minutes time. we'll take you there.

stuart: well, well, we're shaking up to be a very interesting market this morning.

we open in 15 seconds time. let me explain the backdrop here. number one, we're in the longest bull run ever. [opening bell rings] number two, there is a political firestorm this morning surrounding president trump, michael cohen and manafort. boom. we're off and running. let's see how this thing develops. right from the get go, we're down three, down one, down five, down six. i'm calling that dead flat to ever so slightly lower. that is a really muted response to the politics of the day. okay? i will leave it at that. after 30 second is, 20 seconds we're down eight points. the s&p 500 is down two points. that is .09%. the nasdaq, that is down, but not much down, .20%. we're off and running, down, but ever so slightly. please look at, target. they came in with some very strong numbers this morning, right from the opening bell. they're up five, nearly 6%.

that is a huge gain for a stock and company of that size. susan li is here. head's up, susan. ashley webster is here. sit up straight. market watcher shah ghailani. ashley: can't get straighter than this. stuart: shah, longest bull run in history. what brings it to an end and when is? >> i don't think anything will bring it to an end. stuart: sometime. never? >> i see the future sunny and bright. we'll have occasional showers. market always experiences some turmoil here and there. last week it was the turkish lira and threat over emerging markets and contagion. that seems to have subside side. that is not gone. it is still out there. maybe political implications with cohen testifies against the president. nothing really happened there. same old story. fabulous earnings, low interest rates, nowhere to put your money that will get a better return than equities.

the u.s. market is the strongest. stuart: ashe? ashley: was at new york stock exchange yesterday afternoon, talking to traders, only thing in their mind, other than the geopolitical event, the fed getting carried away, tightening too much, runaway inflation. no sign of either of those things. stuart: as a matter of fact up. i see interest rates, yield on 10-year treasury, i pegged it at 2.81%. that is a flight to safety. susan: it is. no other place to put your money, park your money, but i would argue usually how traditional bull market ends. the fed, economy growing too fast. they need to raise interest rates. stuart: no sign right now? or immediate future. >> fed engineered this significant market rebound with the wealth effect. they will not raise interest rates. consumers feel good. the market is higher. that confidence creates and begets further consumer spending. not going to do it.

ashley: president is upset with the fed raising rates and jeopardizing but should take it a compliment, that this economy is humming along so well, to shah's point, we could get back to normal with higher interest rates. susan: that statement donald trump was round-about way talking down the dollar without talking down the dollar. let's talk about interest rates instead. stuart: not bad. let's talk trade for a second. no trade deal yet with mexico but china has come back to the table. they're talking as of right now in washington, d.c. let's suppose, let's speculate wildly we get some kind of deal, any kind of deal with china. what happens to the market? >> talk about dark clouds on this great market. certainly trade wars have been one of them lately. now the market has gotten past that. if there is positive news, negotiations, result in some positive news on both sides, markets will experience this next leg up. it could be quite significant. stuart: okay. i want to get to target. by the way, the dow now just turned positive. literally a second ago.

now we're up two points. ashley: summation of where things are. stuart: we did it. well-done, susan. susan: there you go. stuart: we just turned negative again. be quiet, susan. target, i have got to get to that because this is a remarkable economic indicator. biggest sales growth in 13 years. the consumer is clearly back. that is an, just moments ago, $88 a share. all-time high for target. looks to me like retail revival is on because of a very, not a spendthrift consumer but consumer has a lot of money. >> with tax cuts the consumer doing better. big box companies, target, walmart, done a great job, adapting to the market, getting online, pushing online products. target used to be sheep chic.

but they have gone back to what they have done very well and i think the stock will reflect that. stuart: we're still positive, up four or five points, that is extraordinary bearing in mind the politics hovering right below the surface this morning. the market is shrugging off this headline, from "the wall street journal." cohen's guilty plea implicates the president. the market sloughed it off, shrugged completely. we're up eight points. got it. individual stocks moving, urban outfitters. a lot more money coming in the stock is up 8 1/2%. look at loews. the stock was down earlier. they put out a weak forecast. it is completely turned around. lowe's up 7%. maybe the consumer up with target and bleeding over to lowe's. look at la-z-boy. they raised their prices. more money coming in. the stock is up 12%.

how about the burger chain red robin? sales down. they say they're moving urgently time prove service. the stock is down 4%. that is red robin form may burgers. -- form may burgers. facebook pulls accounts intended to mess up our political system. facebook dropped to the 155 level. susan: 160. stuart: low 160s. now 173. nowhere near the high of 217. would you buy it? >> i'm looking for it to come lower. i think it could break 170. 170 is fairly strong support. i think it could go to 50 at fairly quickly. i would be a big buyer at 150. stuart: you would not buy it at 169? >> breaks 170, 169, i don't know where the bottom is. 150 is a secure bottom. i could commit a lot of capital. stuart: if shah ghailani said i

would buy it at 169. it would never go to is 50. ashley: facebook, almost every day we hear about purging and. we hear expression "whack-a-mole." it is a constant boom, boom. you can't keep them -- this is so big, so uncontrollable, hon on earth going to try to stop the influence-peddling websites that pop up all over the world? susan: i think it is public relations campaign. 232 pages. ashley: out of a billion? susan: tell the market, we're being vigilant, we're being more. that is all it is. stuart: that is all it is. we can do what we want them to do. >> regulators want to see them proactive. public wants to see them proactive. facebook users wants them proactive in terms of privacy. ashley: does it stop the problem in my opinion? no. stuart: the stock goes back if

there is no regulation which changes their business model. still exploit the information, they're leading the charge, but if in america they can keep their business model the stock probably goes up. >> no sign of regulation on the horizon. stuart: not here there isn't, no. we have morgan stanley dropping coverage of tesla's stock. where is it tesla this morning? dead flat at 321. why, ashley, why is it a good sign? ashley: they're obviously working working with tesla on the inside to make their next move to go private. they said we can't be involved in analyzing this company because we're on the inside. essentially we'll have to recuse ourselves, which could be a positive, we don't know. stuart: goldman sachs. ashley: goldman sachs. stuart: morgan stanley not covering it. now 322 on tesla. couple days ago that thing was 280, right down there? we have walmart. they're taking another shot at amazon. walmart is going to start selling ebooks for the first

time. susan: six million electronic books available. what i find interesting in this, they will try to i guess employ a monthly model, a monthly fee. you get one audio book a month for just 9.99. kind of like the netflix model for ebooks. i would argue a little late at this point in 2018. ashley: i don't think someone will pay that. stuart: i'm a kindle user. i buy books through amazon. read them on my kindle. get a discount. >> that is real problem for walmart. they will find some readers that can sell at discount and attach it to a subscription service this is walmart standing in the ring with amazon, not only will we counter you, we will punch-up. susan: i wouldn't say punch-up. i say catch up. stuart: only night gadget i love. amazon may team up with goldman sachs to buy a large grocery chain in india. there is a billion consumers in

india. sounds like a good move to me. >> huge market. obviously walmart is already there. walmart committed a lot of money. amazon also in the game. this is not a large deal. less than 100 million-dollar deal. what is interested, amazon buying into bricks and mortar stores in india. i think they use that as a platform to turn the stores into on-line businesses much consumers are familiar with the bricks and mortar stores in india. stuart: dangling future growth. the stock is up 10 bucks. >> doing a good job of it. susan: so much less than the walmart flipkart deal. that was 16 billion. >> that was for 77% of flipkart. that is the largest -- susan: acquisition by a foreign company. >> growth in india. the companies are going after it. stuart: fascinating. 9:40 eastern time. we have to say good-bye to shah ghailani. good performance.

well-done. we're ten minutes in and up five points. despite politics. who would have thought? olive garden popular never-ending pasta pass goes on sale tomorrow. 100 bucks get all the pasta you eat for a year. if you want one, you have to act fast. susan: how many caches right? you have to regulate your glucose levels. stuart: next time i run a marathon i be sure to eat pasta before i do it. target blow out numbers. the ceo says there was unprecedented surge in foot traffic. very good sign the consumer is coming back. what will the guy who coined the phrase, retail ice age, have to say about that? his name is burt fleckinger. he is next. note note. ♪

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stuart: all right. 13 1/2 minutes in, and we're up four points despite politics. how about that? we have olive garden's never ending pasta pass. i'm told that is very popular. >> popular, forget about it. it sold out in seconds last time. you can have two kinds of pasta. the eight-week pass for 100 bucks or annual pass for $300. the 8-week pass is 23,000. annual pass, only 1000. eat all the pasta you want. toppings veggies and chicken. i have to warn you, one gentleman did this, went over 50 times for never ending pasta. his blood glucose and cholesterol went up a bit. though another couple, they spent $200, stuart, that was their investment, but you know how much pasta they ate?

$1100 worth of pasta. our producer justin, may not think this is the best pasta. he may argue it. but it certainly may be delicious. stuart: the guy is freaking out in the control room, by the way. >> i don't know. home cooking. i don't know. i'd go. stuart: i'm not sure whether we gave a commercial for this company or not. i'm not really sure what we did. nicole, very good. thank you very much indeed. i want to get to the serious stuff of the florida red tide, deadly to marine life. seaworld is actually doing something about it. tell me more. susan: i call them sea cows. stuart calls them manatees. seaworld is homeless shelter for sea cows across the florida coast pause of the red tied that come in. it is dangerous for animals, dangerous for humans. 6300 manatees call florida home. that impressive comeback from 1991 when the numbers dwindled off. 540 manatees, sea cows have been

killed off. more than 17% of those deaths attributed to red tide. stuart: well don, seaworld. thank you, susan. target spectacular performance. biggest sales growth in 13 years. joining us the man who coined the term retail ice age. burt fleckinger, with the strategic resource group. i say if you look at consumer, with target is leading surge of retail survivors. are you taking me on? >> i agree with you and add a quick corollary. the retailers making money are benefiting from the presidential tax cuts and reinvesting. target's tax rate is a third lower this year than last year. they're investing close to 3 1/2 billion a year, capitalizing on bon-ton group and 20 other retailers that have been victim of the retail ice age filed for bankruptcy liquidation all the way to toys "r" us. target is ben fifth. 52-week high today, stuart.

lowe's, 52-week high. urban outfitters, 52-week high. well-capitalized. capable retailers, benefiting from the darwinian destruction of the retailers that are losing. stuart: would you say the consumer is back? look at sales at target, same story up 6 1/2%. pretty good. >> consumer back, as you reported with nicole, everyone is benefiting from the obesity with america, with record levels of obesity, men, women, children. they're eating more at darden and buying bigger sizes and more clothes. serious. u.s. center of disease control is saying record levels of obesity. so apparel sales are way up. sporting goods sales are way down. target and apparel retailers, including macy's, walmart, others are really benefiting on the apparel size. stuart: i don't know where the devil you're going with this

obesity and retail is a subject we've not covered anymore. [laughter]. i'm taking target as numbers as an economic indicator that the consumer is back, they're spending money again, they're going into the stores? >> you're completely correct, stuart. target same-store sales up 5%. urban outfitters up double-digit. urban outfitters this morning up double digits. the consumer spending more, if the fashion is right, the fit is right, the price is right, as you reported yesterday, tjx, marshall's, winning across the board. burlington, macy's, back stage, et cetera. stuart: who would have thought. we have not a story like this in a long time. target turned it around. burt, you have to retire the retail ice age slogan. >> i keep it 80/20. 80 suffering from the darwinian destruction, and 20% are going, benefiting.

stuart: darwinian destruction, doesn't make a good banner. darwinian destruction. we turned south, not much, down 19 point. 25,800 is holding as of now. new york governor andrew cuomo says america was never that great. campus reform hit the streets, asked young people if they agree. you will hear their answers after this. ♪ you shouldn't be rushed into booking a hotel. with expedia's 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.

stuart: by the way, today marks the day when we are in, taking part in the longest bull run in market history, how about that? we're down about 24 points on the dow, just around 25,800. politics. can't ignore them on a day like this. remember when democrat new york governor andrew cuomo said america was never that great? cabot phillips with campus reform asked some millenials about that. roll tape. >> do you think america has ever been truly great? >> i don't believe america has been great for all folks ever. it was never really great but we do great things sometimes. we fix a lot of problems. >> was american exceptionalism taught in the classroom or do you know what that is? >> no. no it was not. no, i do not. >> okay. is that a phrase you're familiar with? >> i never heard it before.

>> our history we go from like, sort of a native genocide to slavery, to, slavery by different name, to slavery by different name again. stuart: just a terrible place, isn't it. the man himself, cabot phillips joins us now. first of all, methodology, now that was edited. so how many did you actually interview. >> stopped every person came by two or three hours in washington square park. 20 people would talk to us. one person said america is great. always been great. when he said it, he stopped and he looked around to make sure no one really heard him. we have gotten to the point that people are convinced being patriotic, supporting america you're not really intellectual. it is not highbrow, especially among younger generations, viewed, if you support america you don't know the history. of course no one saying we should mandate patriotism, force people to be proud of a america, we should have a context of history, no place in the world has done more good for the

humanity than the united states of america. stuart: i drink to that one. seems be like the youngsters are in intellectual straitjacket they feel they have to stay in, or they will be out of sorts, out of favor. do you get that impression? >> i do. i think president trump plays a role. they feel they have to owe poe him. by coming out against america, come out against president trump. you can't ignore the role leadership played. campus reform, american exceptional system foreign concept. people are not being taught by teachers, professors, context of history. i asked people, the follow-up question, what were you taught about america when you were in school, when college, what were you taught? a lot of i was always taught i america was great. and my professors showed me how the world really operated. american exceptional system not being taught in class. that is concept foreign to them. stuart: i'm a newcomer to america. >> we're glad to have you here. thank you very much. stuart: i heard about american

exceptionalism, not when i was growing up in england but got to america 40 years ago. i do believe we are a exceptional country. there is no place on earth like the united states of america. look, i can excuse the youngsters to some degree because they have never been any place else. >> so much of that is do with travel. people not outside the borders don't realize how good they have it here. there is no perfect place. the more you got to other places you see how special we have it in the united states. the roll president obama had to play. a lot of people came into time president obama came into office, america was ashamed of. the polegy tour, we're exceptional but every country thinks they're exceptional. president obama played a role seemed incredibly patriotic is something to be ashamed of. stuart: keep going with the video camera. great stuff. we're heading to the top. hour, as we go, tell you in

first 26 minutes of business we're down 22 points. the dow down 25,800. political turmoil in the extreme. will democrats run on impeachment? my take on that, coming up next, top of the hour. where the similarity stops . if you're on park street in reno, nevada, the high winds of the washoe zephyr could damage your siding. and that's very different than living on park ave in sheboygan, wisconsin, where ice dams could cause water damage. but no matter what park you live on, one of 10,000 local allstate agents knows yours. now that you know the truth, are you in good hands?

stuart: 10:00 on the east coast, 7 on the west coast. we have some breaking news. this is the existing home numbers of huge importance to the housing market and to realtors. who's got the number? ashley: i do. a little under what we were hoping for, 5.34 million on an annualized basis. the hopes were for 5.4 million. 90% of the housing market, very important, they've been a little frat this year. we thought they were going to pick up because pending sales are up, so we had high hopes for july. not quite there yet, but down .7% month to month. so we were expecting better than we got on the existing home sales. >> prices go up in the country

as well this year. ashley: because of the lack of inventory. >> so it's a supply-side issue. stuart: four straight months of declines for existing -- ashley: the median home price, $269,000, that's up 4%. >> yeah. ashley: to that point, there are more houses out there, but it hasn't quite gotten into the system yet, and because of that prices have gone up. interest rates are still low, but it's the still hard for first-time home buyers to get in. >> yeah, they say it's a supply-side issue, there aren't enough lower price homes to meet the demand. demand is strong, you just don't have the inventory. stuart: let me sum it up like this: the housing market is not as strong as we had hoped bearing in mind the strong economy, but home prices are rising to a median level of $269,000, up 4.5%. there you have it. no impact on the market. those numbers were just released right now after, what, 90 seconds of having that knowledge of the housing market under our

belts, we're down 23 points. no movement whatsoever. now this, politics. oh, it's about to get even nastier. that may be hard to believe, but here it comes. ten weeks to the midterms. the stakes could not be higher. the democrats want to retake control of the house so is they can move to impeach the president. they will have the full backing of a very noisy media. mr. trump will travel the country, rallying his supporters behind growth and prosperity. he plans dozens of speeches. the left will scream impeach him, remove him. trump's base will demand he stays and completes the job of making america great again. two sides, clear cut. into this toxic mix throw the possibility of an october surprise. it could come from robert mueller with some last minute revelations. it could come from the president with a big trade deal or some kind of breakthrough with iran or north korea. with so much at stake, both sides will pull out all the

stops. let me put it like this: if the democrats win back the house, they will move to impeach. they will stop any further tax cuts or tax reforms. they will call a halt to deregulation. the border will stay por toous, there will be -- porous, the border will be no wall -- there will be no walls. if the gop keeps the house, funding for the wall gets a boost, and a squeeze on sanctuary cities is almost certain. more importantly, the pro-growth, pro-business party, that's the republicans, will retain their power. the president can stay on his maga course. here we are, wednesday, august 22nd, 2018, the day we mark the longest runup in stock prices ever. 3,453 days. we're digesting the guilt of the president's former campaign manager and his former lawyer, and the dow shows little or no reaction. for some time our headline has been political turmoil, the market shrugs it off.

let's hope that. >> is rugging off -- shrugging off continues. you're watching the second hour of "varney & company." ♪ ♪ stuart: all right. you heard what i just had to say. let's bring in karl rove, fox news contributor. i say politics is going to get really, really nasty. you're not going to take me on on that one, are you, karl? >> we've got an election coming up so, no, i'm not going to take you on on that one. that's obvious that it's going to get increasingly acrimonious, and as we get close to the midterms, the stakes are pretty high. stuart: do you think the democrats will run their campaign for november on impeach him? >> publicly, no. privately, yes. i say that that way because i think the democrat leadership are understands that if they look like they have made their decision for impeachment, that this will hurt them among independent and swing voters who

really don't want to plunge the country into a political crisis like that. but the base of the democratic party and the resurgent left of the democratic party, the democratic socialists, ocasio-cortez, the sanders, all of this crowd, tom steyer, they're going to be whipping up the enthusiasm about impeachment. privately, these groups are going to be driving the heart of the democratic party towards this which leads to an interesting thing particularly if the democrats don't win the control of the house. if they win control of the house, there's going to be a split between those who want immediate movement on impeach. and those who want a more measured approach, and that's going to play itself out. but if they lose control, i think that in some ways is even more interesting to contemplate because i think it's going to actually end up in a weird place. the democrats will split with the hard core that hates trump sort of digging themselves into obstructionism and a minority of

the democratic party saying we gave you a chance to run your kind of campaign, a left-wing appeal to america, and it didn't work. so we're going to -- we, the sort of more centrist democrats -- we're going to find ways to advance the country so we can point to positive accomplishments by 2020. so there may actually be some efforts to get things done, things more in the certain of american politics. stuart: that's a fascinating spin. forgive me, it's not spin, that's looking to the future and seeing how things could turn out. more positive than we think. that's interesting, karl. >> well, look, we've already seen some of it. remember congressman jeb hensarling, the chairman of the house financial services committee, did an omnibus bill designed to undo a great many things in dodd-frank, and it only drew republican support. it passed the house but went nowhere in the senate. so he took that bill, broke it into smaller pieces and moved those items through the house, and many of them got huge bipartisan numbers, particularly

things that had to do with sort of shawl and regional banks -- small and regional banks. and those things have a much better chance of getting passed. i think the hensarling maneuver is a sign of things that could happen if democrats ruse their bid -- lose their bid to control the house. let me add one other thing. you talked about october surprises, and you talked about an october surprise from mueller. i think mueller is unlikely to act at some point after september 1st or 15th. i think he is unlikely to take actions that could affect the outcome of the election. you mentioned a positive outcome on the foreign side with north korea doing something with a deal or trade deals with the europeans, but we could also have an attempt by our adversaries to attempt the fall -- affect the fall election. remember in 2004 osama bin laden issued a message in a blatant attempt to damage bush and help advance the democratic campaign. i wouldn't be surprised to see some adversary of america decide

to deal the president a blow by doing something that makes it look like he is unable to achieve his agenda abroad. stuart: any way you slice it, the next ten weeks are going to be fascinating -- >> 78 days of excitement. 78 days of excitement. stuart: precisely right. thanks, karl, see you soon. thank you. let's get to the markets. i'm going to take what you might call a left turn the here. our next guest is recommending a stock as a way to invest in the president's space force. that's a real left turn, if you ask me. [laughter] come on in, jason rothman, make your case. you like this iridium. make your case. >> yeah, you know, i like facebook at 60, and you had me on several times a few years ago to talk about how that was my favorite growth stock. i now am really focusing on iridium. i was on with you a couple of months ago when it was at 15. that was the first time it's ever come up on your show, and i'm still focusing on it.

this is not a get rich quick play. morgan stanley predicts the space industry will be $1 trillion in 2040. this is a long, long-term fundamental hold. iridium is the only, it's the only satellite company in the world right now that has full coverage around the world -- stuart: is the space force -- >> -- and the government is one of their largest customers. stuart: i mean, the president's recommending we get onboard and create this space force, and you say that iridium plays into the space force because of its satellites? that's it? is. >> yes. i mean, iridium has many other plays going on, internet of things, but yes, the government needs very specific, targeted proprietary methods to track everything under the sun on our planet and in the orbit. and iridium is the major company best poised to do that. and the government is proving it. they have a $500 million contract with iridium right now. stuart: i shall remember it from, actually, long time ago.

how about 3-d printing? here's another left turn. we're going away from politics and the overall market. >> right. stuart: you like 3-d printing stocks? >> i do. and, you know, i will say not to get too hyped up on 3-d printing, you know, it's so in the nascent stages of growth. these companies are still not wildly profitable, if profitable at all. this is a -- and, honestly, this is a speculative growth play. but if we're looking towards the future of technology and where things are going, i do believe 3-d printing should have a place in people's portfolios. there's so many different ways to play it. there's an etf, there's, of course, 3-d, ddd. these companies are having positive earnings surprises, which is a good sign. stuart: jason, thank you very much for providing some relief from politics and the overall market and all that stuff. >> there is good news out there are. stuart: there is, isn't there? thank you very much, jason rothman. thank you, sir. check that big board, with all this political turmoil, i say it again, the market is

shrugging it off. we're down 23 on the dow happening right around 25,800. amazon, one analyst upping his price, his or her i'm not sure who it is, that price target for the stock. it's now at 1891. the analyst says it's going to 2215. big jump. target, record high. forecasting -- raising its profit forecast, i should say. fastest growth in same-store steals in 13 years and it's up 5% at 88. lowe's, it did lower its forecast, but it's caught up in the retail upsurge. that stock is up 8%. how about the produce of oil? is we get the latest read on how much we've got in storage at 10:30. so far we're up $1.50, big gain, $67 a barrel. no summer news slump here, certainly not. president trump's lawyer, cohen, pleading guilty, implicating the

president. here's the question: is paying off women to keep 'em quiet an impeachable offense in and will democrats run with that into the midterms? martha maccallum will be with us later this hour. we have the longest bull market ever on our hands, but later this hour someone who says if democrats do take back the house, it's a terrible sign for the market. tom lee, he's the market watcher in point. he'll make his case. and we've been all over the gaming revolution, billion dollar business and then some, and now game developers are reportedly making it even harder for gamers to put down the control. very hard to do. of we'll find out if that's true. you're watching the second hour of "varney & company." ♪ ♪ how do at business? stay at la quinta. where we're changing with stylish make-overs. then at your next meeting, set your seat height to its maximum level.

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stuart: you caught me ranting.

[laughter] sorry about that. very sorry. check the big board -- [laughter] the dow is down 23 points despite an extraordinary degree of political turmoil, we're down 24 points, that's it. 25,800 virtually. how about this from urban outfitters? that's a 52-week high for the stock. very strong sales and double-digit growth for their online business. the thing is up nearly 7%. look at lazy boy. better sales numbers in terms of revenue because they put prices up. the market loves that. stock's up 12.5% and a 52-week high. now we're going to switch gears again, another left turn. a big write-up in "the wall street journal" this week got a lot of attention. it said video game makers are making it harder to stop playing their games. not sure i see that one. come in, please, rob steinberg, gamer world news host. rob, i object to the characterization there.

the gamers -- sorry, the people who make the games, they're just making them better, so it is more difficult to stop playing. i don't see it as a pejorative, i think it's a good thing. i'm sure you do too. >> i absolutely couldn't agree with you more, stuart. you've got to think like back in the day when we were making video games for the sega genesis the supernintendo. in order to get longevity, you needed to make the game more difficult or limit the number of lives you have so that way you make sure people got their money's worth. nowadays game developers can focus on making a game more entertaining, focus more on multi-player environments or making sure they're an enjoyable social space for their friends. it's also important for us to acknowledge that there are things like gaming addiction, gaming disorders, things like that in this sort of ecosystem. so we want to make sure we a acknowledge those things as well. stuart: am i right in in saying

if you've got group play -- i'm not sure how this works -- if you've got group play and one person drops out, everybody has to stop? that's why they want you to keep playing, want to keep you involved in the game? what's that all about in. >> in certain games, in certain games, yes, game play will stop. but in most games, game play has to continue moving forward if you're playing an online game. so the game is going to continue to or persist even after you go. often times if you leave a game with, imagine playing a baseball game one player down. it becomes exceptionally more difficult for you to win an online competitive game with less players, so it is a little frustrating, and folks try and make sure to not do that as often as possible. stuart: now, we came to this story through you and others because we saw these stadiums or large theaters being rented out for competitive video game playing. the barclays center in new york, 20,000 people showed up for a competitive game. can you tell me there are any

more big events coming up that generate that kind of crowd? because i'm looking to see if the industry's still growing. >> oh, absolutely. in fact, your timing could not be better. stuart, the dota ii international is going on literally today the. you could go on twitch.tv/dotati and you could watch a gaming competition for defense of the eights, and it's being -- agents, and it's being paid for $-- played for $25 million. i've been keeping up with it, and i love it. evil geniuses and team liquid are two of my favorite teams, two american teams, and they are both favorites to win the tournament this year. stuart: i'm laughing because of the name of the game, defense of the ancients. [laughter] i'm ancient. >> defend varney. [laughter] stuart: we're pleased to hear the industry's still growing.

keep in touch, please, because i'm just fascinated by something i've never taken part in. thanks very much, captain. >> thanks for having me. stuart: china trade talks back on today. could we get a deal? i would love to speculate about it because the market would absolutely love a deal, wouldn't it? ♪ ♪ dear great-great grandfather,

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near or far covered. leaving every competitor, threat and challenge outmaneuvered. comcast business outmaneuver. this is moving day with the best in-home wifi experience and millions of wifi hotspots to help you stay connected. and this is moving day with reliable service appointments in a two-hour window so you're up and running in no time. show me decorating shows. this is staying connected with xfinity to make moving... simple. easy. awesome. stay connected while you move with the best wifi experience and two-hour appointment windows. click, call or visit a store today. stuart: kraft hines partnering with oprh winfrey for a line of frozen pizzas called, o, that's good. [laughter] oprah will appear in tv ads for that line. remember, please, she did very well for weight watchers, didn't she. >> and now this, new york

democrat socialist alexandra ocasio-cortez, she went back to visit a coffee shop where she used to work. when she got there, she found the place was actually closing down. [laughter] ashley, tell us why she goes back and they're closing down -- >> thank you to that federal minimum wage she's been pushing of $15 an hour. this story is absolutely dripping with irony it not? [laughter] she's complaining that the coffee shop closed down and, oh, by the way, the owner said not only am i battling high rents, but when i have 150 workers, if i'm paying them $15 an hour, that's it, it's the icing on the cake. i can't a afford to operate anymore. that's what they forget. i'm championing for the people, everyone should have a minimum wage of $15, that's fine, but look a what it does to small business, telling them how much legally they have to pay each worker. they just can't stay in business. when she goes by and hugs everybody and says i'm so sorry you're closing down, i'm fighting for you, guess what?

her policies is a big reason why these places are shutting down, including the coffee shop. stuart: i think we should hear more about this because that policy, pay more, pay more, pay more, ignores the end result which is fewer jobs. ashley: yes. and she's tweeting this out as though she is something she should be publicizing. i'd be embarrassed if was her. >> wow. stuart: if she wins, she won't be embarrassed. ashley: this is a classic example of what happens when you don't think through the consequences. stuart: big story for you, cheetoh's, the orange finger thing, okay? they're made by pepsi, they're suing a competitor. >> right. i love cheetoss, full disclosure here. the frito lay's division is suing a competitor for trademark violations. petos is made from peas and lentils, but they to have a paw print logo and the slogan is that tigers live longer than

cheetahs. [laughter] there you go. stuart: not bad. >> cease and desist, that's the letter they've sent out. stuart: i wonder how that'll go? somebody could lose a fortune. >> right. a big difference in revenues, want to point out, because peatos sold $5 billion -- stuart: coming up, russian hackers targeting conservative groups ahead of the midterms. here is the question: is russia, again, our flat-outenmy? and i use that word advisedly, are they the enemy? we'll discuss. a record bull market, but it could be the beginning of the end. we've got a guest who says,, look, if the democrats take the house in november; the market does turn south. tom lee makes his case shortly. ♪ year, i am sorry about that.

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♪ stuart: okay. jo this this is the one. stuart: you like this one, susan? susan: one of my favorites. stuart: go ahead. ashley: never do that again. stuart: we have taken a little bit little bit of a trip to the southlands. we're down 48 points. 25,776. 10:30 eastern time, because it is tuesday, we have how much oil we have in storage. wednesday, sorry. what have we got. susan: big drawdown for the week. weekly crude stocks off 5.84 million barrels. that is five times the draw down the market was anticipating, believe it or not.

stuart: okay. susan: let's take a look at gasoline, shall we? gasoline stocks are up on the week. 1.2 million barrels. very interesting moves here when it comes to the eia report. stuart: hold a second. let me get this straight, we've drawn down, we have used more, taken out of storage, 5.8 million barrels? susan: that is five times expected. stuart: that means the price of oil should go up because we're using a lot and demand is going up. ashley: talking about a oil glut. it is interesting there is such a big drawdown. stuart: $67 a barrel? susan: prices are up because people are expecting exports from iran to fall. stuart: we're at $67 a barrel after the news on oil. thanks, everybody. big tech names, you always have to check them. a lot of money running there. facebook is up. amazon is up. apple down 40 cents. of alphabet up. microsoft up. just 106 on microsoft.

walmart, how about this? selling ebooks are to the fir time. they will take on amazon. the stock is getting back close to $100 a share. stay on the markets. today marks the longest bull run in history. our guest about to appear on the camera, he says if democrats take control of the house that is bad news for the market. market watcher, tom lee. >> thanks for having me. stuart: you're welcome. if we get to november, the democrats retake the house, you say the market heads south big-time or what? >> well, we have looked at, since 1900 the performance of markets depend hog is in the white house, who is in the senate, who is in the house. the worst combination for stock markets when we have republican president, republican senate and a democratic house. stuart: really? >> yes. on average down 2% a year. the worst scenario for markets. stuart: you're not saying if the democrats win in november and take the house that we'll just plunge on the market?

we'll just end the bull run, that it? >> i think it makes the 2019 bumpy. but i don't think it ends the bull market. there are other interesting coincidences in 2019 that might point to having a tough year. stuart: we have 30 section. go ahead. >> turns out 2019 is the year that generation-x population is peaking. stuart: generation-x is what age? >> 64 to 1980. stuart: you were born in those 16 years you're a gen-xer. they are doing what? >> the size of that population is peaking this year. the reason it is interesting when greatest generation peaked in 20, 30, silent generation, 73, 74, boomers, peeked in 99, each of those pointed a turning point for markets. stuart: you look at that kind of thing? you go to clients, generation-xers, they max out

this year that is bad news for the market. >> right after i bring out the 8-ball. stuart: you include that in your analysis, you tell your clients, watch out gen-exers -- >> today worthying about. today the most important force in the economy are millenials, right? they are the folks 18 to 37. they're accounting for more than 50% of all growth in economic activity. so they're really important. generations are important. but it might be a coincidence. stuart: i think it is babe bib boomers are most important. we're still a huge bloom. >> let's hope for immortality for boomers. they have done a lot of good. stuart: we're wonderful people, let me tell you. >> yes. stuart: stay there. wait a minute. you're the guy who said bitcoin gets to $25,000, aren't you? >> yes. i did. stuart: what do you say now? >> i still think it is possible. stuart: anything's possible, tom. is it likely? >> i think there is a good probability, because one, bitcoin returns are really in

handful of days. 10 days a year account for almost all the gains in bitcoin. if you don't own bitcoin for those 10 days, you're down 25%. they have averages in the 10 days, 500% gain. there is catalysts coming up at the end. year. the probably big thing happening, i.c.e. backed launch. regulated exchange. allow you participation with bitcoin. stuart: killing me with the math here, tom. hold on a second. a subject i know a lot more about which is tesla because they're are two big investment probations not covering them. but is that a positive? susan: morgan stanley joining goldman sachs restricting their coverage on research side. goldman said they are dropping coverage because they are acting as a financial advisor with the possibility, the fundamentals of taking the company private as elon musk has tweeted there. is speculation that morgan stanley might be

providing similar services. it should be pointed out dropped coverage happens when the analyst leaves the bank. morgan stanley has not commented on think, the stock is down six bucks but at 315. which is appreciably above the low of last week. come back in again, tom lee. what do you make of tesla? >> i think tesla is a battle around story, a visionary founder, immensely loyal buyers of cars. i think it is transforming how people perceive cars but they have a capital structure that requires confidence in markets. so it's really important to watch but it is a critical moment because -- stuart: would you buy the stock at 315? >> you know, i'm, i think tesla could end up being as important as the "fang" stocks were 15 years ago. stuart: would you buy the stock at 315? >> i guess i would buy it here. stuart: there you go. buy with some. bitcoins. hope it goes to 25,000 buck.

>> maybe use some solar power as well. stuart: tom lee, you're all right. thank you, son. >> thanks. stuart: microsoft says, russian hackers are targeting conservative groups. that ahead of the midterms. we have a former u.s. defense department official. now we're told by general jack keane this morning told us he think's it is about time we hit back at russians, attack them using our cyber weapons. do you think we'll do that? >> no, i don't think this administration now will use offensive cyber tools to respond but what they have clearly chosen to respond is through sanctions. today there is a new set of sanctions based on the 1991 chemical and biological weapons legislation this administration chosen to respond to russia's attacks on uk soil. those sanctions will have some pretty significantly, potentially new sanctions coming up in 90 days that would limit imports and exports to the

russian federation. there was testimony by several officials that the administration is ready for more sanctions if russian nefarious activity continues. congress is calling for more sanctions on russia. there is cacophony of additional pressure on the russian federation although there is clear evidence that russia has clear involvement in undermining our midterm elections. stuart: are you saying you don't think we will go on offense using your sy per weapons or you think we should? which is it? >> i think the administration should limit its reaction in terms of offensive cyber but i think the administration has done the right things lifting some. restrictions, to showcase, essentially this activity continues, the united states has measures it could respond f this activity continues particularly as we reach the midterm elections the administration should hold all options on the table to include offensive

cyber. stuart: i know the sanctions are pretty strict but putin doesn't care about his economy, he doesn't care about his domestic opposition, whatever there is, he could care less what happens to his people. the sanctions won't change his mind, will they? >> that said, sanctions have taken a toll on the russian economy. the russian people are starting to feel the brunt of sanctions. clearly this administration has chosen sanctions as a child to change behavior. putin still remains in ukraine. he necessarily hasn't helped on u.s. interests in north korea and syria. but there should pack punishment for using sanctions to respond to continued nefarious a activity. russia could limit the response because of understanding that the united states could take more severe actions which is in the planning stages. stuart: got it. it is in the planning stages. that is interesting. mark, thanks for joining us. sir, we appreciate night okay. stuart: president trump's lawyer michael cohen pleading guilty, implicating the president. question, is paying off women to

keep them quiet an impeachable offense? will democrats run with that into the midterms? martha maccallum joins us next. in our next hour rnc kayleigh mcenany on that subject too. check the big board. we're an hour into the trading session, an hour and ten minutes. we're down just 17 points. look where we're holding, 25,800. more "varney" coming up for you. ♪

♪ ashley: in the last hour fox columnist liz peek told us michael cohen's plea deal is not likely to change the way trump supporters feel about the president. roll tape. >> politically is the big question. legally it is not even clear how bad this is for president trump because legality of making payoffs to women is unclear. in other words is it really campaign donation or something arranged between two private entities. we'll see. that is certainly in question. politically i don't think trump supporters will be much swayed by this they're really on board with his agenda. they're looking at this plea deal from cohen and wondering what it has to do with russia. more importantly they're looking at the manafort conviction

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goodyear down 3% in sympathy. talk about trade. china trade talks resume in washington, d.c. today. we have michael pillsbury. michael call the odds for us, you've been an expert in this. do you think it is possible likely president trump will get any kind of deal in the immediate future? >> i think there will be progress. the talks are starting today not far from here. both sides are playing down grand expectations, but frankly the chinese would not have accepted the treasury secretary's invitation to come if they didn't have something to say. we've seen a couple of hints. one hint in the past week in their press, saying china is not really that strong. we don't really want to surpass america. we're really quite backward and poor. they're bad-mouthing -- stuart: they said that? their media controlled by the communist party, controlled by

beijing, they're saying that we're poor, we don't want to overtake america, they actually said that? >> yes. stuart: do you think they mean it? >> no, i don't think they mean it but i think they're alarmed at the sense of vigilance there has been in the united states. president trump really rather brilliantly pointed out in four white house reports now, all these violations of international trade rules the klein niece engaged in. one thing to look for when do the chinese climb down from their high horse? the commerce ministry in china said this is all lies. they used the word defamation. they reject all the white house allegations and all the reports f they back off from that, say yes, there is a problem, we would like to do better, that is a big triumph for president trump. i think that is likely. frankly that is about 60% likely. the other area to look for is some recognition by china that they need to make structural

changes. they need to buy more u.s. exports. welcome more u.s. export in sensitive sectors they kept closed for decades. in that area there might be a little bit of a progress too. don't forget, this is the meeting of deputies. this is the deputy at treasury. the deputy at the trade representatives office. so they also have the responsibility to prepare for a meeting in november of president trump and president xi. they will not steal the thunder today and tomorrow but can do preparatory work. stuart: they're moving towards another top level meeting, xi and president trump. as they move towards that top level meeting, the likelihood of a deal grows stronger and stronger, because you don't meet the leader for life and the president of the united states, they don't get together unless they're getting something done? >> that's right. part of president trump's brilliant strategy, pardon me praising him so lavishly. he referred to president xi as his friend, he likes him. the idea there is a good cop,

bad cop. the bad cop is saying china as a government is doing bad things, need to reform. the good cop part of it, president xi is my friend, once he understands all these problems he will do the right thing. this i think will succeed. stuart: this is fascinating. you have a inside track. we appreciate you being on the show. don't be afraid of lavish praise for the president or anybody else. we want to get right at this. pretty positive about a trade deal. baby steps, ever seen the movie, "what about bob"? it is a good one. michael pillsbury, thanks for being with us. more "varney" after this. ♪

stuart: politics, sometimes known as our bread and butter. president trump's former lawyer michael cohen admits to paying off two women who said they had affairs with the president. cohen says the president told him to do it. martha maccallum is with us, host of the story, with martha maccallum on the fox news channel. i will quote the headline from "the wall street journal." >> sure. stuart: cohen's guilty plea implicates the president.

some damage done here? >> well it is possible that it does. it's possible that at the could push the theory or the notion that he is an unindicted coco-conspirator. i watched lanny daves on "america's newsroom." i will talk to him myself. he was michael cohen's attorney. he twice said michael cohen used language given to him by the prosecution, to use the president's connection to paying off stormy daniels and karen mcdoug gal. part of the agreement, we need you to say this in front of the judge, and he did that. that is part of the big surprise, michael cohen true the connection between the money paid and the president and did so at the president's behest as a effort to influence the campaign. we know from covering these stories a long time, look at john edwards, going back to the clintons, the china money flowed into the clinton campaign, it is

very difficult to prove campaign finance violations. it's a little bit like insider trading. you have to prove the intent and the connection between the payment and the finances of the campaign. so, yes, it is possible that it could implicate the president. is it he likely to be indicted? no. history tells us it is very difficult and not done to indict a sitting president. but cohen drew the line much closer than it had been before, there is no doubt. stuart: but will the democrats run in the november elections on basis of impeach him? >> there in lies the rub. the tricky question, it looks like they will have to make that decision. if indeed they win majority in the house there will be a faction in the democratic party pushing for impeachment. will they use it to run on is one of the big questions, right? that is either, drive people who are sick of the whole thing, will either drive some of them back to the base and potentially increase the base, if they're sick and tired of all this

stuff, or, it could be a viable option for democrats to run on but interestingly elizabeth warren was asked about it in an interview this morning, she kind of soft pedaled it, let's just wait and see. let's see where this whole thing is going. she didn't jump on the bandwagon. we'll see where it goes. stuart: go back to the impeachment process in the 199s where the republicans tried to impeach bill clinton, didn't work out well for the republicans. in the 1998 midterms the democrats came back quite strong as i recall. >> you can make the argument what we know from yesterday which was a big day for the president, certainly a big day in our business, is that i'm not sure that people are shocked that there are some shady characters that surrounded president trump. stuart: no. >> you know? i'm not sure that they watched this new york real estate investor come you through the ranks who did not surround himself with political folks, right? he had his lawyers. he had, manafort, who i think he

really pulled in because somebody this guy worked for reagan and ford. he is legit. he didn't have a lot of places to turn in terms of campaign management. he brought in paul manafort, right? even at the time, people said manafort has a lot of connections to foreign business dealings and lobbying, which by the way, thousands of people do in washington, d.c. when he goes to the next stage of this in the d.c. court, which is all about the work that he did for foreign governments, we're all going to learn a heck of a lot about how many people in washington are paid to write editorials about international politics, and all of it. so manafort, although he clearly was wrong and guilty in these tax and fraud findings, we're going to learn a lot more about that whole process which is pretty messy to watch. stuart: 78 days to the midterms. you and i have a lot to cover. >> thank you, stuart. stuart: now this, mollie

tibbetts murdered allegedly by an illegal immigrant from mexico. democrats still think that abolishes i.c.e. is a good idea, question mark? my take on that is next. meanwhile the dow down a mere 19 points. so if there's a better treatment than warfarin, i'm up for that. eliquis. eliquis is proven to reduce stroke risk better than warfarin. plus has significantly less major bleeding than warfarin. eliquis is fda-approved and has both. so what's next? seeing these guys. don't stop taking eliquis unless your doctor tells you to, as stopping increases your risk of having a stroke. eliquis can cause serious and in rare cases fatal bleeding. don't take eliquis if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. while taking eliquis, you may bruise more easily and it may take longer than usual for any bleeding to stop. seek immediate medical care for sudden signs of bleeding, like unusual bruising. eliquis may increase your bleeding risk if you take

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stuart: immigration and customs enforcement, i.c.e. it has a mission, quote, protecting the national security and upholding public safety, end quote. that's its job. we have immigration laws. i.c.e. enforces those laws. yes, if you are here illegally, it is isis' job to get you out. what a shame they didn't work to get this man out. christhian rivera. police in iowa say he murdered mollie tibbetts. he came here illegally from mexico. he has been about four years. his employer said he passed the government's verification process even though he was here illegally. even though the system is broke.

the system would not be fixed by abolishing i.c.e. as the left suggesting. it would not be fixed by leaving the border open as the left demands. when you say that you are accused of politicizing a brutal murder, not so. it is immigration status of the alleged killer that is a political fact as well as a political issue. you can't walk away from it, anymore than you can walk away from the politics of kate steinle's murder where an illegal fired the fatal shot. let's get into the politics. the left wants to abolish i.c.e. they insist on sanctuary. that is their political position. they protect illegals. they actively interfere with immigration enforcement. will they maintain that position while another illegal is accused of a brutal crime? no wonder they want to shut down the debate because the debate right now is all about them and the politics of immigration enforcement. in a moment senator bill cassidy, he is right in the middle of the i.c.e. debate. the third hour of "varney & company" is about to begin.

♪ >> you heard about today with the illegal alien coming in, very sadly, from mexico, and you saw what happened to that incredible, beautiful, young woman. should have never happened. illegally in our country. we've had a huge impact but the laws are so bad. stuart: president trump in west virginia last night, as you heard talking about the murder of mollie tibbetts. i want reaction from senator bill cassidy, republican from louisiana. senator, this case puts i.c.e. in the spotlight. i think we need i.c.e. and you're calling on the mayor of portland to resign over his handling of antii.c.e. protests. where are you on i.c.e. and this terrible tragedy? >> these are fellow americans

and law enforcement protecting our country against violent criminals. not all people here illegally are violent but some are, against drug trafficking, human trafficking. last year they confiscated over 2400 pounds of fentanyl, over three tons of heroin, as examples of what they do. you speak of folks accusing the conservatives of politicizing this, i'm concerned what happened in portland where the i.c.e. agency was surrounded by people throwing feces, throwing needles, that they claimed were hiv-postive or infected with hiv, at these officials, and the portland mayor would not allow the police to come and to help those trapped inside because they are i.c.e. agents. that is politicization. that happens in venezuela. it should not happen in a major u.s. or any u.s. city. stuart: i can't believe the democrats will adopt, as their official position, the abolition of i.c.e. i can't believe they will do

that in the present circumstances. >> i think miss ocasio-cortez speaks what others think but will not say. when she calls the i.c.e. gestapo, fellow americans enforcing our laws, confiscating fentanyl, heroin and stopping human trafficking, addressing violent criminals, for seem reason that is bad? that is good. we should protect the fellow americans and should applaud them. is there occasional excess. sure. this is human life. not everything is perfect. by far and away what they do is incredibly valuable service to us in the united states. stuart: mr. senator, you returned from mexico. there are reports we could get a trade deal with them, maybe as early as tomorrow. our trade representative says there are still major issues outstanding but do you get the sense, after your visit to mexico, that they want a deal and are moving toward a deal? >> they're absolutely want a

deal. they have become more prosperous. if you, you can just see, history shows when two countries trade, equal relationship both become more prosperous. my state, louisiana has a positive balance of trade with mexico. 25% of our agricultural exports i'm told go to mexico. so, in my state, as one example, there has been an incredibly beneficial relationship. doesn't need to be reevaluated? yes. one thing i'm interested in personally is how do we strengthen the ability to, to follow financial transactions? trade-based money laundering is a way cartels move money from the united states to mexico. they're also interested in that. i suspect nafta 2.0 will have provisions to help us do that i think we can come up with a new deal, that is mutually beneficial, but i would like to continue benefits for states such as mine. stuart: senator bill cassidy, thanks for joining us on very difficult subjects but necessary subjects to raise. thank you for being with us, sir. >> thank you, stuart. stuart: now check the big board

and where are we now? it is a go-nowhere market despite this extraordinary degree of political turmoil. we still have the longest bull market in history. we're down 17 points at the moment hat 25,800. we have greg valliere, chief strategist from horizon investments. following on what we discussed with bill cassidy, we get a deal from mexico of any kind but announced as a deal, does the market go up? >> i think it is quite encouraging. but i'm not sure, stuart. i think tomorrow we'll get an agreement tomorrow in principle. looks like they agreed on key provision, auto content rules. maybe within a week or two the canadians will come back into these talks. a very encouraging sign. stuart: would you say the same thing about china, trade talks with china begin again today in d.c. does that look promising? if we get any kind of deal does the market go up there? >> not as promising.

i think it would be unrealistic to expect much tomorrow. this is a mid-level delegation and i think they, maybe they will lay the groundwork the foundations for something late this year between donald trump and xi when he is here in washington but i think there is still a long way to go on china. the mexico-canada story could be fairly imminent. stuart: but there will be a previous meeting i believe between president xi of china and president trump and that takes place at the g20 meeting in november. >> yep. stuart: it would be unusual, wouldn't it, to have a run-up with that kind of meeting with no success as the end point? >> yeah, i do think we're going to see some progress at that point but inrd to get a deal finalized with russia, i realistically don't think that comes into 2019. stuart: turn the bull market, longest bull market in history, do you see anything on the immediate horizons to the end of

this year that could put an end to it? >> we talked about it, trade. the president should leave jay powell alone. i don't think the market was like to see that you and i talked about this before, stuart. the fundamentals are great, whether it is the labor market, gdp, corporate profits and i think we've got several more quarters to go. stuart: if the democrats took control of the house, and they started talking about impeachment, or certainly slowing down trump's growth agenda, that i take it would be bad for the market? >> yeah, but i would make two quick points. number one, trump's veto will be good on everything. if congress said we'll kill the tax cuts, he would veto it. his veto would be sustained. number two, the idea that you could get 67 votes in the senate to convict trump, maybe the house votes to indict. i think conviction still is very unlikely. stuart: all right. greg valliere, as always, short, sharp, to the point. you're welcome.

come back and see us soon. >> i will. thank you. stuart: you got to check target, a big story here. a huge rise in same-store sales up 6 1/2%. today's terms that is a big rise. around the ceo, the chief there, he called foot traffic, the amount of it, unprecedented. we've had an all-time high for the stock moments ago. it was at 88. now it is 87. big move for target. tesla, morgan stanley and goldman sachs are dropping coverage of tesla's stock. that could be a sign they're working with tesla on the inside to provide money for that privatization. the stock is at 317 this morning. now this, former cia director john brennan says he needs his security clearance to make some money. coming up former cia guy, mike baker, he says brennan is grandstanding and baker is not happy about it. president trump may have taken a hit with the manafort and cohen cases but what does that mean for the republicans in

november, the rnc. the republican national committee answers that question next. ♪ pah! that will never work. no, no, no, nah. a bulb of light?!? aha ha ha! a flying machine? impossible! a personal' computer?! ha! smart neighborhoods running on a microgrid. a stadium powered with solar. a hospital that doesn't lose power. amazing. i like it. never gonna happen.

stuart: here we go, airlines adding new fees, even if you fly economy. is this about united? susan: united joining american and delta already employing these tactics. these are regular economy seats. they're right after the premium seating. they're not part of united economy plus, where you get extra leg room. this is nothing normal or unusual about them but you will have to pay more to reserve them in the future unless you're a corporate client, which gets premium access. stuart: the seats at the front of the economy cabin, you will extra fee to sit there, right after first class up front.

susan: yes. after economy plus, actually. stuart: okay. there is an advantage to that. you're first off the plane or among the first off the plane. worth paying for. susan: you think? ashley: start selling the oxygen now, charging for the bathrooms. ryanair was one of those that thought about that. stuart: we have more. we always got more. southwest what are they doing? susan: price gouging. charging people for early bird check-in. flat fee in place, $15 each way. it will be go up to 20 to $25 for early bird check-ins, depending on length of flight, how popular the route is. stuart: but an early-bird check-in on southwest puts you on front of the line. ashley: for the stampede, yes. stuart: that is the advantage, right? susan: the advantage you can avoid a middle seat. that is the advantage of early bird check-in. stuart: you get advantage, you pay for it.

do you have a problem with that? susan: i do. you know what happens -- ashley: where do i begin? susan: what happens to everybody, you get in first, get online book your seat first. why do i need to pay for that? isn't that effort and time? stuart: with all the way. they have full planes. they can fill every flight just about, they can charge what you like. susan: i disagree. ashley: wish i could take a train. stuart: good luck to california. there is extraordinarily political turmoil in washington, d.c. seems to me president trump is taking a hit with the legal troubles for michael cohen and for paul manafort. joining us now, rnc spokesperson, kayleigh mcenany. your job, kayleigh, just got a lot harder. let me show you this. headline in the "wall street journal." cohen's guilty plea implicates the president. how will you counter that? >> first of all we don't see this as something of that much

importance. we see it in fact irrelevant as we approach the midterms. voters care about a girl losing her life because an illegal immigrant was allowed in this country. they care about the economy. they don't care about this, yet another effort to take down the president. don't take my word. take the word of mark penn, a clinton advisor who wrote that in the hill this is naked attempt to manufacture crimes and topple democracy. those are not my words, those are words of a clinton advisor. stuart: i would take issue when you say they don't care about what has been happening in the news here. the president knew about payoffs to women. now i agree that is not an impeachable offense, it doesn't look good politically in the country with women at the moment, does it? >> cohen made the payments. president merely reimbursed them. the president came out, president quite confused why there had to be any sort of payment. this is something cohen did. this is something the president

reimbursed. but at the end of the day, this is something that the people elected president donald trump to be president of the united states. and that is what matters. he is empowered to lead. and these charges really again look like an attempt to take town the president. where is the collusion by the way? we were told there was collusion. seems like a distraction to collusion. stuart: would you like the democrats to adopt as their policy, impeach me, remove him, i have a suspicion you would like that? >> nothing would motivate our base more than impeachment. everyone recognizes there is baseless, no high crimes or misdemeanors. it note -- motivates the base. stuart: do you have any plans for october surprise like a trade deal or with foreign rival? >> wouldn't that be nice, nafta came around, zero tariffs with the eu, right around october, quite a boom for the economy.

pretty exciting thing. stuart: by the way we get third quarter gdp number before the election. if it is 5%, i think you might look pretty good. >> i think that is what matters. not cohen, not manafort, but that 5% gdp. stuart: rnc spokesperson, i almost called you the rnc chair, kayleigh. >> i'm not the chair. just the spokesperson. we have a great chair. stuart: you will get there one day, kayleigh, i promise. >> sure thing. stuart: gold just back above $1200 an ounce. bitcoin firmly above $6,000 a coin, up about 200 bucks today. the price of oil, there was a big decline in how much we got in storage. we're using a lot of it. we're up to $67 a barrel. good news on gas prices down from a penny yesterday. the national average is $2.82 a gallon. listen to this.

for the first time ever scientists say they found definitive evidence of water, ice on the surface of the moon. why is that important? nasa officials say this discovery would make it easier to explore and even stay on the moon. look at this, extraordinarily, i love this. solar this, is the 2017 solar eclipse captured by john carmichael when he was 39,000 feet in the air. he was a passenger on a southwest airlines flight. i didn't know southwest flew at 39,000 feet. apparently it did. it was released on the one-year anniversary of the 2017 eclipse. clearly visible. good shot. just as the detroit tigers were paying tribute to aretha franklin, a rainbow premiered over comerica park. right during the moment of silence. we love that kind of thing. give you a shot of the detroit

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quite a lot of colleges to pay for though. a lot of colleges. you get any financial advice? yeah, but i'm pretty sure it's the same plan they sold me before. well your situation's totally changed now. right, right. how 'bout a plan that works for 5 kids, 2 dogs and jake over here? that would be great. that would be great. that okay with you, jake? get a portfolio that works for you now and as your needs change from td ameritrade investment management. stuart: i want to take you right inside a farm equipment auction. it is being held in illinois.

very active. jeff flock is right in the middle of it. come on, tell me what's going on, jeff. reporter: i have never seen such a busy farm auction as one i'm seeing right now. they're auctioning equipment in two different locations. farmers are -- let you listen. you want to buy something, by the way? 12,000 for this tractor right back here. actually a front-end loader. back here we have even more stuff at another location, see if i can get through all the farmers. they are looking for a bargain, colt prices are in the tank. -- commodity prices. arguably former were hurt themost by the whole tariff situation. they're trying to save money. very difficult to find anybody criticizing the president. i'm looking at this one too. this is dan sullivan. he is the auctioneer. seeing tremendous interest --

[inaudible] you need a cultivatetor? just about to sell. >> 21,000, greg, look what you're saving, greg dyer. now 21,000. reporter: if you're in, you have to be in for 21,000, 21 five, maybe. that is cultivatetor, you can use that on your form. i've been to a lot of these. sometimes sad affairs. but not today. stuart: i got to save something, jeff, i know you can't hear me, you have a lot of nerve intervening with a live auction. going up to the auctioneer. it takes nerve, really does. reporter: charging it to you in upstate new york. stuart: can't hear a word you're saying. jeff flock, get back in there, son. now this, quiet. the housing market in california is so bad that families,

retirees, tech workers, even, living in cars and vans. there is an, a housing problem period in california. we're going to deal with it shortly. we brought you this story, new york city luxury apartment sales are down big and i say because of taxes. we're joined in a few minutes by one of manhattan's biggest real estate agents, noble plaque. he has more than $2 billion in sales to his name. he will be with us. ♪ ♪ :

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and this is the only plan of its kind endorsed by aarp. that's the icing on the cake... i love cake. finding the right aarp medicare supplement plan for you could be just a quick call away. so...call. . stuart: the headline stands. political turmoil in the extreme. market shrugs. look at that. we're down 1 point! we now have the longest running bull market in history. 25,8 is where the dow standsment the s&p is up 3 points. small gain there. close to all-time high. and the nasdaq up a third of 1%. techies, the technology stocks are doing well, thank you. now this, california congressman duncan hunter and his wife indicted on corruption charges. accused of misusing campaign funds. hunter was expected to win

re-election in november but now his seat may be up for grabs. bring in larry elder, salem radio nationally syndicated talk show host. this has to be a blow for the republicans because they're expecting to keep that seat, right? >> absolutely. not good news. he and his wife have been indicted. and these are the things, stuart, that people can understand. campaign finance laws are murky but people understand taking campaign money and buying petty things like shoes and vacations and gifts for friends. these are the things that really, really irkpeople, and california has 7 to 10 seats that the democrats are hoping to flip. this was one of them that republicans were pretty sure was a slam-dunk hold for them. not anymore. stuart: has he stepped aside from re-election? do we know that? >> he has not stepped aside, looks like he's still going to run for re-election. at this late date, they can't use a write-in candidate. he has to go to a judge and have it removed. he's going to try and stick it out and win the race and fight the charges in court.

stuart: got it. is the shortage of affordable homes in california -- i don't know why you're laughing. that's why you have families, retirees, even tech workers living in cars and vans. now i say it's a shortage of affordable housing. what say you? >> that's exactly what it is. it is a man made crisis. a combination of dumb policies, high taxes, high pension costs, things that drive people away. if you want to start, build an apartment building in l.a., compare how long it takes that to do that this a town in texas. it is night and day. people leaving california and taking tax dollars with them. this is the primary reason. the lack of affordable housing. it's outrageous, you could leave the building where i'm in for fox and find rv's where people are living in them. i'm not kidding. stuart: i'm not familiar with

california, not been for some time. you are painting a grim picture there, ordinary regular people living in cars on the sidewalk. is that bad? >> it is that bad. hollowing out of the middle class. we talked about it many times. policies that don't hurt the rich because they are already rich. it's the people living in the middle class. bad schools. high taxes. jobs leaving, and they're leaving. stuart: are you telling me that the exodus which we expected because of the tax reform, and you can't deduct your state and local taxes against federal taxes. if you're a one percenter in california, taxes go up. has the exodus started? >> it's already begun and continues. talking about migration of native born californians. the population is growing, people born and raised here, the ones who are affluent are leaving and taking tax dollars with them, going to florida and texas. i have a very good, wealthy friend who does a lot of

business in china. he could live anywhere he wants to and now is. he's moving to florida. stuart: why don't you move? you could create a radio studio in your house in texas or nevada and save a ton of money, why are you not leaving? >> i really could. we talked about this before. i've been in home ownership over 30 years. anybody who has bought a home in california and held it 30 years is in good shape given the appreciation of equity. the people after me are suffering. i'm fine. stuart: no you're not! no you're not. come on, you do well, financially, and you're going to take a huge hit. >> i could save money by going somewhere else. it is my home state. i'm from here. born here. my friends are here. i like the weather. i'd rather fight and make the state better rather than leave it. stuart: is that all you got, the weather? that's all you have in california. >> weather, friends, tradition.

my parents have lived here since 1947. my brother lives here. for all those reasons. believe me, every april 15 i think about it and i have a lot of options people don't have. stuart: i have space for you in my apartment in new jersey when i leave for pennsylvania. it's as simple as that. >> i'll be seeing you in studio next week. let's talk about it. stuart: you're on. larry, thank you for joining us. we will see you next week. appreciate it, sir. still on real estate, as we reported yesterday, new york city, sales of luxury apartments, if they're worth $5 million or more, sales down 31% in the first half of this year. now i say it's because who wants to move to new york city if you make serious money, because tax reform is going to kill you. our guest may have a different point of view. mabel black is with the firm douglas ellerman, everybody knows that company. >> thank you for having me. stuart: you're welcome. wait a minute, wait a minute,

let me restate my case. which one percenter in his or her right mind would come to new york city to take a job knowing if they buy a place here, they'll pay the highest taxes in the country and get murdered with tax reform. that's why sales are down, your point is? >> it's still new york. people want to have a place here. lot of people have to be here because of business. a lot of people are here and have no desire to move. the numbers are down because you're looking at new development is an outside piece of that, and sales are lower than what they historically have been because of where we are in the cycle. stuart: wait, let's put this in real english. what you're saying is the owners of the $5 million plus apartments have reached too high. put the price way up there speculating wildly and not going to get the price. >> lot of aspirational pricing, this is coming to an end. we've seen an uptick in terms of activity the last two weeks, sellers can't ask anything and

expect to get that price. they are expecting to get a fair deal if not a good deal. stuart: are you telling me the guys in new york city, you don't care about tax reform, you don't care about innocent people who want to save a couple of million bucks. >> not at all. certainly not anything that makes us more attractive and not happy to see that it's less attractive to be here. most people can't move. the very wealthy, have the ability and the desire to be elsewhere. now it's slightly more attractive to do that than before. stuart: am i right in saying, many of the people who buy the way upscale places, $5 million or more are foreigners who don't live there long and don't have to pay new york city taxes? >> a lot of them are a lot of them are ped tears. there's a the love people if you have three or four or five homes, there are people who have that, they want to have a

place in new york and still to have a place in new york. stuart: why did you want to come on the program know and i'm going to have a go at you? >> i like you. stuart: you are so nice. there is a good story to be told in new york. not an 08 or 09 market. people are not fearful. buyers are taking stock of things and want a fair price. if you want a place here, better time to be buying than the last few years, you've gotten sellers that are capitulating and recognizing the pricing has to be reasonable. stuart: that i'll let you get away with. tax business, you are totally wrong. pleasure having you on the show. >> thank you, thank you. stuart: appreciate it. amazon, analyst upping his price, i don't know whether it's his or her price target, they think it's going to go to $2215 a share. right now at $1898. if it were that level, it would be worth way more than a trillion dollars. look at lowe's, they

lowered forecast, but that's not hurt the stock, normally it does. this time it didn't. maybe they're swept up in the good feeling among retailers. lowe's, big company, up 8%. la-z-boy, higher sales in part because of price increases. that's an all-time high -- no, 52-week high for la-z-boy. sales down the the burger chain red robin. it's moving urgently to improve service. the stock is down 2%. now this. former cia director mike brennan needs security clearance to make money. coming up, a former covert cia operations guy mike baker says you don't need that coverage. you shouldn't even have it. i'll have that for you. and new study looked at freedom in our 50 states ranked them on the basis of personal economic freedoms. you can guess which state has the least freedom and the most

freedom. i've got input on that one. now look at that. that is the mile high city of denver, colorado. beautiful. ♪

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hearing from morgan stanley. morgan stanley halted research coverage ever tesla, moving it from an equal weight to now not rated. leaving people to believe that the u.s. banks may be doing business directly with tesla. we heard from goldman sachs and said a week ago stopped coverage. it had confirmed it was acting as a financial adviser to tesla. of course, tesla under investigation. the sec looking closely after elon musk tweets it secured funding. in the meantime, very volatile chart there, and are you thinking about buying tesla? the analysts who cover it are almost equally split between buy, hold and sell. hi, i'm joan lunden with a place for mom,

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senior living has never been better, and there's never been an easier way to get great advice. call today. a place for mom -- you know your family, we know senior living. together we'll make the right choice. . stuart: some very significant and unusual events to report for you. first off this one, a magnitude 6.3 quake struck off the coast of oregon last night. no reports of any injuries or damage. venezuela hit about an earthquake too, magnitude 7.3. as if they didn't have enough to worry about. knocked out power. only minor damage caused, however. in the united states, pacific to be precise, a category 5 hurricane heading towards hawaii. hurricane lane has 160-mile-an-hour winds. forecasters say flash flooding and landslides are likely. just check out the storm's

path, expected to move close to the big island tomorrow, then move on up through saturday and then starts to weaken. that is hurricane lane right there. next, former cia director john brennan said he needs security clearance to make money. joining us now, mike baker, former cia guy who's with us now. i don't know why you were smiling, mike, i was shocked when i saw brennan wants to keep security clearance to make money? what do you make of that? >> look, john brennan is a very experienced individual, and you know, he doesn't need his clearance to make money. unless he's planning on working for a commercial business that has a particular project where he need that clearance, otherwise he's not relevant. he's looking commentating. i'm sure he's going to be doing well with the speeches. i'm sure a book in the works. what he means by that is in a broader sense is the world of security clearance in

washington, d.c. and the surrounding area is all about currency, right? if you have security clearance, that means the company doesn't have to go to the time, expense and difficulties of getting you cleared. getting your tickets. and sponsoring that seat for you within the clearance community. so that's what he's talking about. stuart: look, i would say you don't need that security clearance, you don't have it. that would go for most former senior officials. what's wrong with that? >> well, the process should be, and it's not, but the process should be, when you finish up your official job, position within the government that required you to get security clearances and you no longer have access to, need access or need to know classified information. they get handed back. they're pulled back and you don't have them. and that does happen most of the time. for most of the street people that the folks in the top echelons of the agencies, and then if you do go into the commercial world and you do need a clearance because you're

working for northrup grumman or whatever it may be and working on a government project, they apply for it. but what we've got over the years and we touched on this in years past but it never garnered interest really from the general public or the media until now with the spat between the president and john brennan, what we have now is over 4 million people roaming the earth in the u.s. with security clearances, and over 1.3 million are top secret, and so i would argue that look, let's use this as opportunity to review the clearance process and tighten it up. but i don't think that's going to happen in our lifetimes. stuart: i don't want to see a former cia director bad-mouthing the president something rotten be able to dip back into cia secrets to make his case against the president. i just don't think that's right. >> well, having a security clearance doesn't necessarily mean every day you walk in and given access to information or connected to the supercomputers

within the intel community, it doesn't work that way. but again, i would argue, a you don't have full security clearance and, b, the situation is far too loose. the issue is john brennan, again, very experienced, smart individual but very political, and look he was a campaign adviser to president obama back in 2008. a political appointee in the obama administration. so he's functioning more in a political capacity than as some objective observer of the state of the republic at this point but he wants to position himself as apolitical. and i don't think that's flying. stuart: no, that will not flight. not on this program. mike baker, thank you for joining us, see you again soon. >> thank you. stuart: back to your money real fast. down just 8 points on the dow industrials. all kinds of political turmoil. the market again shrugging it off.

how about that chipmaker, analog devices. give a not so rosy forecast, but for once it didn't hurt the stock, up about a third of 1%. goodyear tire down after continental gave a rotten forecast. continental down double digits. good year dragged down in sympathy. next, freedom in the 50 states which. state do you get the most economic freedom and the least? we have an answer for you. next case, check out charlotte, north carolina. a little cloudy, little ominous.

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. stuart: there's a new study out that says the least free state in the country, this is when it comes to personal and economic freedom, the least free state is -- new york! scroll up on the prompter please, i want to make sure i'm right. yes, new york! the study took in taxes and regulations, listen to what president trump said about new york governor andrew cuomo at a rally last night.

roll tape. >> new york's democrat governor andrew cuomo even declared that america was never great. oh, i see. okay. [booing] >> tell that to our great soldiers. his comments are an insult to the generations of brave americans whose blood and sweat and tears built our magnificent country. america was never great. that's the democrats' new theme. stuart: look who's back, david webb, siriusxm host and fox news contributor. what's your opinion? new york being the least free economically and politically. >> the empire state, a large economy, down up and state, provides corn upstate to financial sector downstate has been ruined by what's codified in constitution the liberal progressive regulations, the

crooked democrats and i'm going to be fair and say crooked republicans at the state level that have literally carved this state up for their own interests and surrendered it to long-term unfunded liabilities that they can't afford. electing mayors like bolshevik bill -- >> wait, wait, i have to interrupt you because you're saying they built this into the state constitution. the state of new york, the constitution says you got to pay those retirees government service, you've got to pay full pension, no matter what it is. >> unless they change that. and unless you change it you can't do anything about it, on top of this, laws and regulations, stu, you talk about this all the time and the effect on the economy. the effect on the people is that the laws and regulations are contradictory to each other. so economic freedom is not there because the laws and the regulations, bodega owners in new york, 2500 or so bodegas in

one association. over the years i've spoken to their leadership. they're getting killed. family businesses that start up. the people that live in the cities, i was just in buffalo, liverpool and syracuse, and you look at cities, once great cities, still great people. i have family up there. look at rochester, new york, ithaca, all the areas and what's killing them? what is it over 190,000 people, i believe have, left the state, and this is wealth that's leaving that doesn't come back in the form of tax base, all these things. stuart: one second, david. i want to turn to susan and ask which state offers the most personal and economic freedom. >> hot climate, sunshine, low taxes, florida, the overall most free states in america. stuart: i would have said texas. >> really? stuart: as a guess, yes. >> you do have low taxes

whether it's for business or income, probably the biggest seller for florida. personal freedom also increased as well. stuart: david, you made a good move going to miami. >> another thing about florida. diverse economy and international economy. the gateway to south and central america and the caribbean. stuart: i'm on my way, son. david, thank you very much. more "varney" after this. ♪ ♪ as moms, we send our kids out into the world, full of hope. and we don't want something like meningitis b getting in their way. meningococcal group b disease, or meningitis b, is real. bexsero is a vaccine to help prevent meningitis b in 10-25 year olds. even if meningitis b is uncommon,

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. stuart: we like to bring you remarkable occurrences whenever we can. we had one on the show earlier today. we'd like to show it to you again. this is a rainbow as you can see that, appeared at the precise moment in detroit where

they were holding a moment of silence for aretha franklin. >> that's right. stuart: i like that. clear, beautiful rainbow right there, just at the perfect moment for the wonderful aretha franklin. >> celebrate a legend. stuart: we like that. neil, it's yours. neil: that is beautiful. thank you very much. i think it's looking beautiful right now. despite the slight downdraft is the longest bull market in history is on. welcome, everybody, i'm neil cavuto. coming up, a read on the historic day and what it means for you and your money, not focus on the red or the blue or which party can take a bow. all. this trillions of dollars of green. the read from former nasdaq chairman and ceo, and cme group chairman and ceo terry duffy, former obama economic adviser austan goolsbee, and a bear in his own right says don't get carried away. first of all, a look back in time and how we