above 2%, the pressure is much higher interest rates. charles: there is a debate within the fed, treat it like you throw a football, treat it to where it might be, that's where he has to push back. have a great weekend. >> have a great weekend. charles: neil cavuto, it's yours. neil: i see where you went with the football analogy. okay. thank you very much, my friend. all right, i don't know where the football will be on this one but it's a remarkable way to look at political headlines that cross the wires, and then disorderly way people who bet money on the stuff are thinking. i'm talking about the trump organization ceo who was granted immunity in the michael cohen probe. normally you hear news like that and what it could mean for the president. remember wall street is uncertainty and the uncertainty of the investigation is going, yada, yada, but what's remarkable here, wherever you stand on this, the folks who bet money on a lot of stuff going on including how they

react to headlines like this, they were higher when we first heard about mr. weiselberg being granted immunity, the dow up 161. so is this wall street's way of saying for the piem being much ado about nothing or don't know what's going on down the pike here but just going to ignore it. whatever the case it is causing reverberations and not surprisingly, we have the reaction from hillary vaughn. what's going on there? reporter: no reaction from the administration, but important to put this into context. weiselberg is the only outside that's right president trusted to take over his business when he left trump tower and came here to the white house to run the country. weiselberg along with don jr. and eric took charge of the trump organization, weiselberg,

the cfo, as you mentioned. he has received immunity. this is a man deeply involved in trump's financial assets. he was a great keeper to a lot of insider information and business interests. this is part of the prosecutors' probe into hush money payments that trump's ex-fixer michael cohen used to buy two women silent during the 2016 campaign. now a source with knowledge of this investigation tells fox news that weiselberg's immunity deal all happened before cohen made his guilty plea. and you put this into context, this is happening as weiselberg joins a list of trump's inner circle that has been caught up in several legal probes into the trump campaign. he joins david pecker, the ceo of the company that runs the national enquirer in securing immunity to turn over information about the president and his dealings during the 2016 campaign. neil? neil: all right, hillary, thank

you very, very much. what is going on here and what happened to the original investigation, how all this started with bob mueller and company for russian collusion as it veered into something very, very different, business ties, business relationships, who is paying who and when, who knows? raising questions that have been in the investigations. remember the entire whitewater investigation with bill clinton was about real estate deals and veered into one about an intern and a blue dress. it's unusual but it is actually a part of historical record they go way off-course. where is this going? to special assistant ron christie, "national review" columnist and director of public affairs ashley pratte. ashley, what do you think? >> i think there's a lot of things to kind of unpack here as we move forward, neil. i think his poll numbers are very, very low. i think at this point, he's struggling, he's got the economy going on his favor, but i think that as we're moving

forward there are a lot of things we should be looking at overall and i think that as these scandals start to plague the white house, he's going to have a hard time moving forward and moving his economic agenda forward. neil: what the heck are they looking at then, john fund. if you work with a guy like donald trump for 40+ years, it's all about business relationships, maybe business transactions, this is before the michael cohen developments here so you start piecing together, what would they be wanting to get because all of this would predate any of the russian allegations. so you leap into a lot of areas but is it possible that this has now gone beyond a russian collusion investigation to just, you know, a business transactions investigation? >> i think it's pretty clear this has mofrd. i think mueller found much less than we think on russia collusion, and he's found that

the trump organization is a massive entity that did business in 75 countries around the world, many of whom have a tenuous with the rule of law. speaking hypothetically if a trump casino in tajikistan engaged in money laundering from kingpins, he may not know about it but responsible for it because he ran the organization. there is stuff that trump is legally not involved in but it will be embarrassing if it's an october surprise leak just before the election. neil: ron, as i mentioned, looking at just what's happened in wall street. no reaction. in fact, they're ignoring it for the time being or maybe not make anything of it at all. leave that aside and say these guys can be wrong, they often are, but i pay attention to the polls popping up and getting into this in the next couple of hours other in battleground states where the president and

republicans have a devil of a time. the republicans getting chastised on the tariff stuff which. is weighing more do you think? >> what's weighing more on the minds of consumers is one the economy seems to be doing very well and people looking for jobs have them, but most importantly to second point is how are these tariffs going to play out in battleground states such as pennsylvania, such as wisconsin, areas that went for trump and now the voters are looking and saying hey, not only are people not buying products and services but for us trying to buy the products and services from overseas it's a lot more expensive. i think it's all going to be about the economy and how that plays out rather than the swirl with the alleged russian collusion narrative that we keep hearing about. neil: ashley, started talking about the president's poll numbers, they ticked up a little bit as far as approval on economic issues pretty strong. in the battleground states problematic and the concern seems to be tariffs that would

not be greeted favorably in pennsylvania and illinois and texas, what do you make of that? >> current poll numbers are around the low 40s. going into midterm elections should be concerning to republicans, but at the same time, there were recent polls from quinnipiac and mpr showed him hovering in the high 30s which is more concerning i think, but then you look at the poll, the economic impact overall and how people perceive him handling the economy which has him at high 50%. there is room if he sticks to the economic messaging. have we ever known the president to stick to messaging? no. he is his own worst enemy. when it comes to tariffs, which is another dimension in the piece of the puzz nell pennsylvania, illinois, texas, where we are seeing competitive seats in november, this will be a problem and maybe a sense of buyers remorse. he was getting white collar or blue collar democrats in the areas and i do think that some

of them now might flip the other way, and we definitely did see that in the 2016 election so, it will be interesting moving forward into november if he keeps on with this tariff messaging. neil: john, much has been made and i've done it interesting, the president in his remarks, what would happen if democrats did pursue him or go after him, and that was his tony soprano moment there, where he was saying, go ahead, make my day, go after me, but it would be a shame if the market tanked. it would not look good, in other words, he was envisioning that we'd be looking at the market substantially and all of that, he might be right on that. what but make of the fact if this is what you want, this is what you get. >> we live in strange times, neil. a lot of voters don't care about all this partisanship. they just want washington to work, let them go on with their lives. here's the problem, trump's

white house is in chaos. headlines every days, the president makes most of them, they don't like the chaos trump created. but if they vote for democrats and democrats take over the house, we're going to have an impeachment move which is more chaos, and frankly impeachment is not high on the agenda items of most americans. they're interested in the economy and health care and other things. so the irony is by running away from the chaos of the trump white house, they may run into the chaos of impeachment. they won't like that any bit more. neil: you know, ron, you're a good student of history, most americans weren't keen on the investigation, the watergate investigation, continuing was a waste of time, politically no motivation there, no there there, and the tapes of the white house, and all of a sudden the pendulum changed. do you look at any of that? is that something we're dismissing as a possibility or what?

>> i don't think so neil, if you look at what happens with watergate and move forward with whitewater, i don't draw links between what happened in the two cases and the one we're looking at now. the special counsel impaneled to look at efforts to influence the american election with russia. we've seen clearly on one side with fusion gps, the dnc, hillary clinton's campaign paying for it but to date haven't seen any real connection to president trump or his campaign and his administration. neil: we see some of the other stuff, right? and you're right to say that was the lead-up to investigate the president of the united states during clinton's term and the real estate deals. final report had nothing of the sort. >> neil, one quick thing. neil: sure. >> we have to remember this, ken starr went to the attorney general janet reno and said i will take up the monica lewinsky thing and the perjury issue. he got permission from the attorney general to do that. bob mueller has never done that. bob mueller morphed this into a

different area completely without seeking a new mandate. neil: and we don't know what's going on there but you raise a very good point. ron, what do you think of that? >> neil, let me pick up on my point here. what i'm concerned about the immunity deal struck here, no question in my mind they wanted to flip roger cohen so he would turn on the president. we have the immunity deal with one of trump's biggest business partners, they want to indict the president for something, this is the beginning of the process, not the end of it. neil: watch that closely. talking about the ongoing probe and anyone who did business dealings with him. we'll keep an eye on that. the market doesn't seem to be too upset about it. the guy decides where the market is going is the chairman of the federal reserve who indicated today that the economy is doing just fine, seemed to telegraph a couple of more rate hikes are being planned and we could see at least that many in the next year. he isn't spelling it out so directly as to this pressure the president is putting on him. president is not a big fan of

hiking rates in this environment, potentially spoiling the party. stuff he said last year to friendly backers and the rest that maybe he chose the wrong man to head the federal reserve. jerome powell saying well, i am the chairman of the federal reserve now. so just deal. more after this.

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click, call or visit a store today. . neil: all right, today was time for the big guns to speak at jackson hole, wyoming and the central bankers, i think they call it a summer camp for them, but he's the big gun, our chairman of the federal reserve and an opportunity for folks to hear what he thought about criticism from no less the guy who appointed him. donald trump. edward lawrence with the very, very latest. how'd it go? reporter: hi, neil, i guess you could call it a symposium, their word for summer camp. the fed speech, jerome powell, the federal reserve chairman laid out that gradual rate high, the way to go forward to get the neutral position for the federal funds rate and told the symposium he sees no elevated risk of inflation going above 2%. in his speech, we've seen no clear sign that acceleration of 2% and does not seem to be

elevated risk of overheating, this is good news and believe this is good news results from ongoing normalization process. atlanta fed president says he sees no signs of the economy overheating. he says the fed policies are working. he is a voting member for the fomc, bostick says there should be three rate hikes this year, not four. >> so coming into this year, i was at a viewpoint that we would have three moves this year. i'm still there, and i think the risks are balanced and the upside and on the downside and neither -- which has not pushed me to change my projection. i said i'm going to let the data inform how i think about what appropriate policy is. >> should that policy be september? let the economy go a little bit? run a little bit or go

december? >> some data points between now and then that will help form that. i would be comfortable with a move in december as the data comes in as we're expecting it. if it comes in hotter, that might impact my longer run. if it becomes cooler, if for example we get a big sign that the auto industry is starting to struggle a bit, then i'd be comfortable with a deeper clause. >> he revised yearly gdp projection up to 2.7%. he's hearing a number of companies are waiting on capital investment. because of that, bostick believes we may see the fiscal stimulus carry over to 2019. could see the lingering effects of that. neil: thank you very much, edward lawrence. the response we had to the economy has been the fed, if

things pick up, interest rates go up, if things go down, interest rates go down. donald trump said that in numerous exchanges with folks. other presidents feel the same way, he's been more up-front about it. my next guest, former federal reserve official wrote an intriguing book on the very subject. i wrote about it a little over a year ago. danielle, you argued why the federal reserve is bad for america. sometimes it can be out of sync, it's dominated by academics, nothing wrong with academics but make insular and wrong moves, but do you think the president then is right to say this knee-jerk reaction to the economy and willy-nilly hiking interest rates is not the best idea? >> you know, i think that the fed is an independent apolitical institution for good reason. the longest serving fed

president in history came under undue pressure from several presidents under whom he served, and resisted them all. i think that part of what trump is grappling with right now is that jay powell is the first nonacademic since paul volcker who you remember was in the walls of the echo building in d.c. and jay powell doesn't have an agenda, he didn't mention political pressure or even give a slight nod to trump's comments in a speech this morning. neil: would you be aware, and everyone is aware, whoever the president is, the administration in power that there's not so subtle pressure and concern about raising rates, of course that wasn't the problem in the last ten years prior to this, but what do you make of that? >> so when i was there, actually, neil, one of the reasons i wrote a book about it is the fed was a very politicized institution. there have been times in the past ten years that the u.s.

economy was strong enough for the fed to assume more than the glacial pace which janet yellen raised interest rates. she was at the helm of the slowest pace of tightening in fed history that put policymakers in a tough day where we don't have interest rates where they would be otherwise, and i think janet yellen and her two predecessors did bow to political pressure too often from the former administration and i'm hoping that this changes and that trump is maybe able to step back from some of this outside commentary. neil: well, you know it technically began in the administration before that with the meltdown and ben bernanke, a student of the depression and fearing another one did something very unusual and unprecedented on the part of the federal reserve to forcibly bring down interest rates ultimately to zero. maybe that's what we're trying to unwind and get enough of a cushion should the economy slow

down if we have more hours in our quiver here, what do you make of that? >> i think it's rational that jay powell and he said it publicly, would rather have interest rates a whole percentage point above where they are now. ideal neutral rate is 3% versus the dovish people on the committee who would rather have it be at 2%, that is perfectly reasonable. if you look back at jay powell's meetings when he was a rookie at the fed back in 2012 he was resistant to the idea of all of this money printing because he wasn't sure when the time came, and by the way the time has come, how the fed was going to be able to unwind its position without perhaps blowing up argentina or turkey. neil: do we know how the process is going? i know they're dealing with that 4 trillion or so. there is no way to know, they don't publicize it, right? >> we see it at the end of every week, it is very public. you see the size of the fed's

balance sheet by matter of law and seen them pick up the pace. neil: what is the height and what is it now is. >> it was 4.5 trillion and come off a couple hundred billion. as of october, we're set to increase the rate to 50 billion, and that's going to be the fastest pace, at the same time, neil, that the europeans are set to be stepping back from their own money printing experiment as well as that of japan, so i think that's what's got global markets a lot more jittery than u.s. financial markets is because a lot of the liquidity that we saw in 2017 record levels of liquidity in 2017 is already being cut in half this year. neil: so real quickly, when donald trump talks about it seems weird that we're in the middle of this big economic boom. give it time, and there's the federal reserve taking the punch bowl away, that it's doing more damage, you say?

>> i say that it is the federal reserve's job to take the punch bowl away when the party is just getting started. it is their job to be, again, apolitical and be the adults who shepard the economy and pro vent it from overheating. neil: very politically correct the way you framed that. >> thank you. neil: danielle, thank you very much, danielle dimartino booth, very good read on all of this. if the fed is the adult in town does, that risk ignoring a president who told them that they're making a big mistake. we're on top of that and on top of tesla, big moves right now that our own charlie gasparino is breaking as we speak. after this. ♪ i don't care where we go ♪ and i don't care what we do ♪ just take me with you there are roadside attractions.

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neil: you have heard by now that trump organization cfo, the chief financial officer was granted immunity in this ongoing michael cohen probe a lot of people are reading what the heck is that about? are they looking at business

transactions dating back decades there in the trump organization? no one knows. a lot of tongues wagging people wonder what is next are who could be next. charlie gasparino knows the trump organization quite well. you and i were chatting in the break. two things i noted this is confidante better than four decade and secondly markets don't seem to care. >> for now. neil: for now. neil: what do you make of it? >> give you a little story back last year in 2017, i'm pretty sure i reported on your show trump was telling people that he thinks the russian collusion investigation was going to be ended by the end of 2016, 2017. he said that to a mutual friend of ours, he and i who told me, and it that's mutual friend told him, don't be so certain about that because this may not be, mueller may not be looking at just collusion. he may be diving into your business practices, which have

always been somewhat obtuse and some would say shady. and -- neil: complicated. >> complicated, right. and esoteric. we were trying not to say too many pejoratives here. that is what he said, if they look into there who knows where this is going to go. neil: that would be a kick though, hunt for russian collusion and all of that, this ends up being about business transactions, beyond russia or any of that? >> yeah, could you make that case it is unrelated to the russian -- neil: no, what i'm saying, all this stuff cropped up in the whole discovery process. >> right. because, remember he was lusting to do business in russia for years. so i could see where they're drawing connections. remember back, he moved weirdly people thought, moved the miss america pageant to russia i think in 2014. neil: miss usa. big difference. >> okay. you seem like an expert here. anyway, youhe moved it there,

people are like why is he moving to some mall in moscow, outside of moscow. remember he was tweeting out, maybe i meet my new best friend, vladmir putin. we snow he had some lust to do business in russia, meeting putin, dating back before this happened. during the campaign, michael cohen working through another individual that served time in jail, cut some deal to avoid jail, felix sader, to create a trump hotel in moscow. there is a lot of russian connections there. that is where it opens up to the business dealings. like i said his business dealings were, if we want to be nice about it were complicated. notorious skin flint. a guy known to stiff his, stiff his people he owed money to. this is all donald trump. it has all been out there -- neil: you don't think it could veer completely beyond russia? this is illegal what you did here? it is illegal, and it never involved collusion at all, never involved even the russians at

all? >> i don't know. he wanted to do business so badly in russia, who knows. neil: all i'm saying, i could be very wrong, but i've seen how investigations go wildly off course as i mentioned many times on this show, this is what happens. >> it does, is he a sleezely businessman who deserves this. i well tell you look at michael cohen situation, look at it objective, what he did with michael cohen in terms of agreeing to the payment of these women, it is pretty sleazy. it is not something you really kind of want -- neil: my question is whether it is illegal. switch real quickly what is happening with tesla, what is the latest? >> something odd is going on here. elon musk is hiring all these bankers, right? he hired as we reported first to break yesterday, morgan stanley, already retained goldman sachs. my understanding he already hassle very lake but the company has not hired a banker. the independent board has not

yet hired a banker. which means to me, this isn't in the final stages of funding secured to go private. this thing is like in the third inning, we need funding secured. that is one thing. the other thing is this. i know jpmorgan, at least for now is sitting this thing out. the biggest bank, one of the most reputable firms on wall street, they did represent the saud -- saudis in their 5% of tesla. they are sitting this one out. the other thing is this, he can't issue debt to buyout the company, very hard given his credit rating, where his current bonds are trading. he has to find equity. if the saudis are really not interested, a lot of people say they are not at least for now, where will he get the money? the chinese? will cfius, allow the chinese, the u.s. government agency needs to approve -- neil: he will have a lot of trouble going private. >> i'm saying if you add everything up i'm not in the

room, goldman sachs, morgan stanley, they are able bankers, maybe they know people that can write checks in south america, maybe from china. i can't imagine the trump administration would after prove the deal, would they allow buying the tiny skybridge capital of anthony scaramucci. my sources say they have not shown an inclination, as of now, might change in ten minutes, to buy the whole thing to write a check. it sounds like a pipe-dream for now. and again, i don't see where the bankers are on tesla itself and the independent committees. we're going to have to see. if you do a buyout, just so you know, going private, if you talk to anybody that took their companies private, the individual, say like a michael dell, when he went private, he had his set of bankers but then dell the company had a set of bankers. then the board's independent committee leading the

privatization has to have a set of bankers. neil: they always think it is easier going private. which is why michael dell is considering going public again. >> he did a good job. he a good ceo. he is a genius. neil: as are you. >> not tweeting stuff out about 420. neil: loser, loser. rhymes with loser. okay. >> it is, i think we're in the think inning here. it is not funding secured. neil: baseball is nine innings? we're 1/3 through. >> sec investigation. neil: you guess than -- it is less than 1/3. >> what do you think of trump? do you think he survives all this? >> i ask the question. >> you are such a wimp. neil: we have a lot more coming up, dow up 152 points. we're waiting on trade deals that never seem to materialize. chinese and americans are working for the time-being. i don't know what happens next. i know another deal is a lot closer but apparently not

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neil: fixed debt by piling on more debt, not exactly that in chicago but reads that way to me. i'm not there. jeff flock is. jeff, what is going on? reporter: you and "wall street journal" said the same thing. sounds crazy you're $28 billion in debt. so you borrow $10 billion to get out of debt. it is not as crazy as all that. permit me this. everyone agrees $28 billion the pension debt the city has, firefighter employment, police employment, retirements. here is the city's plan, borrow 10 billion in a bond issue. borrow that, low interest rates roughly now, a lower interest rate and going forward your investments do better than that and so the arbitrage makes you

some money going down the road and gets you partially out of that big debt. here is the catch. don't raid the pension funds when you do that. make sure all the money goes into the pensions t could work. studies shown that sort thing, other municipalities tried it. it worked. mayor emanuel, rahm emanuel paying into the pension funds what they are supposed to do, which they hadn't done in the past but his chief financial officer, carol brown, who is actually done a pretty good job too, thinks this will work. she will make a decision on this next week. it sounds a little crazy, neil. but crazy times in chicago, when you're $28 billion in debt, better do something. if not, i'm going to have to pay for it. neil: what about just reining in the growth of those pensions or grandfathering in pensions, make them more like 401(k) contribution plans? defined benefit plans, that kind of stuff? >> they're trying some of those issues but state constitution

says you will not dim finish the pensions currently been promised. no way out of it. the supreme court ruled you can't give people less money than you have already promised them. that really is -- neil: no matter, no matter their age, no matter where they are in the pecking order? big difference telling that to a 55, 60-year-old worker versus 25, 30-year-old worker. >> new guys coming in they're trying to do a different deal for those guys but the, big nut is the guys that are, already down the road, and that's a tough one. i don't know a good bay out of it. i really don't. neither do they. neil: jeff, we'll see how it goes. jeff, thank you very much. >> thanks, neil. neil: we're following trade talks, you heard about the u.s.-china one, the officials went separate ways went back to superiors. on going nafta talks with mexico. canada not part of that many hoped there would be a deal for that. they're getting close.

we have a david hope. and craig smith. david, to you first, no deal with mexico first. could be matter of dotting is, crossing ts, that could be the e first one scored. what do you think. >> you always hold your beth, neil, that one of these is close. appears the agreement with mexico on autos particularly is very close to happening. that would be a great positive i think. it would take some pressure off the tariffs off european autos, getting something done on that, moving forward on that. may give us a line into a vision, into what might be done with european autos so that we can lower tariffs there hopefully, get rid of them as opposed to raising tariffs. i think this mexico one is very important. we are holding our breath right now. neil: craig, i know we can get into the weeds about this the big hang up differences have to do how much of the vehicle ultimately constructed in north america versus elsewhere, i get that, if you pardon me and

step back from this, look at the possibility if we get a deal with the mexicans obviously the markets we'll think we're on the verge of getting something with the canadians or just the opposite. what do you think? >> well i'm pretty optimistic that the trade talks with mexico are going to turn out very positive for us. i'm not as optimistic, neil, about china. i think the, what we didn't see in that statement today from everybody that was negotiating in washington is more, more revealing than what was not, what was in the statement. that was, that there will be no further talks. there aren't any scheduled talks right now and i think that really america is, we have a problem with china right now, neil, and we have to deal with it. neil: they seem to be our biggest threat for the time-being. obviously the president prefers dealing with country by country. that is why he is talking to mexico on this nafta thing. after that potentially canada. but china does seem to be our biggest problem when we don't seem to be making much progress

there. what do you think of that? >> well, the meeting that is being held today in washington between the european union, japan and the u.s. on china, on wto and china's position in wto, i think is a very hopeful meeting. neil: talking about the world trade organization, but go ahead. >> that's right. i think putting that meeting together, focusing on a strategy that takes china to the wto to make them live by the rules of the wto, first make sure they are no longer treated as a developing country. but also they're stealing intellectual property, they're not coercing people into giving trade secrets and background information to them. that is the strategy i think we should be pursuing on china. so i'm very hopeful that meeting will set out a better road for working with china. but i agree that the meetings they had the last two days did not go very far. neil: you know, greg, both you and david are experts on this stuff. i'm not, but i have a couple crock pot theories -- crackpot

theories. i think the chinese will wait out the midterms. i think they're convinced this will hurt republicans in states like tense -- pennsylvania, illinois, texas, where a lot of trade measures president is considering are very unpopular. they will see what happens after that, before they make concession. what do you think? >> yeah i, i think you're right, neil. i think chinese are very, very strategic in their thinking. they're taking into consideration the elections coming up and how the american people will perceive this administration and its administration, the ability not only say they will get something done but actually get it done, neil. and look, the chinese identify three areas very key to the united states trade officials. one is increasing china's purchases of american goods. number two is opening up new markets for american goods which i think over time can happen in china both those issues. the third issue though, this whole idea of intellecutal properties and forcing american tech companies to give them

code, so on, so forth i don't think the chinese will give on that, neil. that is where you see the sticky mess come. look, we have $50 billion of goods that are being charged 25% tariffs right now, tit-for-tat. we're threatening another 200 billion. i am just not sure, neil, the chinese are willing to give us what we need and i think mr. trump really needs to think twice, quite frankly, neil, get all the players on the same page. mnuchin, david malpass are talking a whole lot different than peter navarro. neil: you're right, they're all over the map. >> i really believe that, neil. unless he has one theme, i think he is going to have tough time getting a deal done. neil: david, you were going to say? >> i agree with that you by think the theme is is if we work with allies in europe, work with japan, we have a interest chinese working in the world trade community fairly. >> absolutely. >> if we get together, the rest of the world gets together, tells the chinese and world

trade organization they have to live up to the standard of that group. that is the most leverage, going through ourselves than tariffs between the u.s. and china. neil: david, i have high hopes for going on a diet eating healthy but it has yet to materialize. thank you both. have a wonderful weekend. you're the best. i do appreciate it. we'll keeping track, we're being live this weekend, following hurricane lane barreling down on the hawaiian islands. they say it is only a category 3, already, already causing a lot of flooding and a lot of damage, 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. add-on advantage. the full value oft wyour new car?

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neil: you know has been there three times. i think the fourth trip is free. secretary of state mike pompeo is headed back to north korea next week. he is still pushing the country to go denuclearization. the devil in the details. the north koreans are saying they are doing that important person to help him in that regard. we'll pick all of this with former trump state department senior advisor christian whiton. your thoughts what is at stake here. when i think about it this trip

means a lot. as pompeo wants to help, this person, former top ford executive, well steeped in foreign policy. what do you make of the two of them going together? >> i think it shows there is a plan and progress to be made obviously on the deal with north korea. there is a lot of hyperventilating in washington. why hasn't this led to concrete, specific action to disarm north korea. the choice of steve is a interesting one. i think it is a good one. both the choice itself, he was lobbiest for ford, lobbiest have a bad name, i know, he understands politics and he understands also how frankly disarmament and arms control work because before that he was a top, or senior national security council official during the bush administration under both condi rice and steve hadley. they're going over there and i think it's very important that pompeo and trump understand if

you want a good deal you can't be seen to be in a hurry. you want some concrete outcomes from north korea. you can't be panicked. they will have some candid discussions to say we need to show progress but not be panicked. neil: i get the sense with north koreans though, that they're very big into showing the shiny object over here, included reunification of families meeting and similarly remains of u.s. servicemen and women, some ho were there going back 78 years. so they do all of that, and it does look good and does grant them pr but is that a sideshow? how much of that is integral to this? >> it's a sideshow but part of the sort of typical steps that north korea does when it shows it is willing to negotiate. now unfortunately the past, both the clinton and bush administrations led to talks,

which failed to disarm north korea, but starting with reunification, also the return of korean war dead, rkia, killed early part of that war in the retreat from the northern part when the chinese intervened, some of those remains were left behind. they have been brought back, we have not identified them all back but brought back by vice president pence. those are good measures. the question is whether north korea does what we want, disarm, hand over arsenal, and fissile material and or what north korea wants which is staged sort of response, gives up a little and gets something. south korea will be one, not the united states, to start easing economic situations and sanctions if we do go down that path i think steve and pompeo are probably going to be pretty adept at striking a balance between what has failed in the past, giving north korea goodies

up front, sort of libya style, we get everything and then we'll talk about normalization. neil: well-put. christian, have a great weekend. thank you very much. >> appreciate it. neil: the russian probe might not be about russia anymore. i will explain after this. year, i am sorry about that.

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neil: all right. this is interesting. the trump organization cfo, chief financial officer, allen weisselberg, has been granted

full immunity. for what? is it in the michael cohen investigation, is it just about business transactions that conceivably could go back decades? mr. weisselberg has been associated with donald trump and the trump organization for at least that long. the former romney campaign policy director, and we also have swan street strategy partner erin mcpike. what do you make of this? >> we have been hearing this name for a couple of months now. i think it just means we are getting closer to the money and obviously, what weisselberg was discussing with cohen. it doesn't necessarily mean that we are going to know everything about donald trump's finances as he has been worried about. it really just relates to the payments made to these two women. we are obviously getting closer on what president trump knew and when he knew it. neil: all right, is it your sense that this investigation is veering off course or going in a

different direction? that might not even involve issues of collusion or potential collusion, but just financial transactions in some cases that date back years? >> yeah. i think the short answer is we're not really sure where this is going to go, in part because mueller has such a broad mandate. yes, he is there to investigate russia-related activities but this is the challenge with a special counsel type setup and this is a challenge i think democrats and republicans have both acknowledged is a problem. of course, with different investigations in mind. but the notion that this special counsel is such a broad mandate is possible he's looking into financial transactions that may go back years, so long as there is some claimable nexus to the investigation more broadly. we just don't know is the short answer. neil: tom dupree joins us, former assistant attorney general. i'm curious whether there's any connection here, the manhattan

d.a. reportedly considering charges of its own against the trump organization. i just see a lot of legal wagons circling here. >> there sure are. i think what makes it particularly complicated is that you have an expanding investigation by bob mueller and now you have other state law enforcement authorities trying to want to get in on the game. i think one thing that makes it a little difficult to assess kind of where this is ultimately going is bob muler has not yet shown his cards. we know he's been talking to a lot of people. we know he's granted immunity to highly placed people within the trump organization, so i think all we can do at this point is speculate, just who bob mueller is talking to, what information he's gathering, what other agreements he's struck with witnesses who are very close to the president and at some point, presumably in the not too distant future he will start putting his cards on the table. neil: you admit to payments to these women that michael cohen had them authorized by donald trump, had tapes to that effect saying that, and much of the attention in the beginning was well, it didn't involve campaign funds so what's the big deal.

now i'm told that the federal election commission should have been notified about this sort of stuff, that if it was consequential to changing or trying to change the outcome of the election, it could be consequential. all of a sudden just because they didn't involve campaign funds doesn't mean the president's off the hook. what's the deal with that? >> look, cohen spoke to weisselberg about these payments and there's a tape of that conversation apparently which is why this is all coming out now, so if the cfo of the organization is aware of the payments and where they came from, where they were going, and it happened in 2016, it is the top person in charge of president trump's finances, obviously the president knew about it at some point -- neil: wait a minute. the trump organization, you raise an interesting point, is a private organization. donald trump runs it. the check was cut from the trump organization, does that make a difference versus donald trump personally himself?

>> it was made in 2016 when he was running for president? neil: i have no idea. i asked you. i ask the questions here, young lady. kidding. that was one thing that struck me. tom, what about that? i thought of that just now as she was speaking, the idea that trump organization's cfo is now granted immunity to discuss this, among other things, possibly. and if a check was written by donald trump or from donald trump and it wasn't from donald trump's personal funds but from the trump organization, does that mix things up or what? >> well, it would change the analysis a little bit. i think the question is would that be deemed a third party contribution or a donation effectively to the trump campaign that was made for purposes of influencing the election. i think maybe the best way to look at it is to say the person who cut the check or whose funds were used to make this payment, it would change the analysis.

doesn't automatically make the president guilty or innocent, but it would mean we would follow a different analysis in trying to figure out whether or not this action complied with the law. neil: you know, lanhee, i look a lost tim lot of times to market reaction at news and developments. it could sometimes be a gauge of interest or concern, not that it's always right. a lot of times, it's very, very wrong. the fact the markets had a nonplussed reaction to this, they didn't think it would move the needle and it didn't move the needle, are they just missing something here that's important, or how do you look at it? >> no, neil, i think your analysis is exactly right. if you look at the markets, i think the reaction has a lot more to do with the fact that they don't necessarily see these recent developments as being significant to the broader questions around, for example, who might control congress. so we talk about all of this noise around the mueller investigation. i think for most voters, it doesn't necessarily affect their calculus fundamentally. i think the markets are looking

at this saying look, what are the things that would actually drive a reaction. if we got into a full-fledged trade war with china, that would shake markets, that would drive voter sentiment, that might drive an impact in the midterm election. i'm not convinced that given what we know about the mueller investigation now, there's enough there to move markets or move voters. now, that could change three, four weeks from now. but as of now, i don't see it. >> can i jump in? i think markets and voters are a little bit different here. when you look at poll numbers, for example, it generally takes two weeks for something to show up in poll numbers. i know trump's approval numbers have been on the rise, but they do not yet reflect what has happened this week. those numbers won't be clearer until after labor day. neil: you're right. >> we know robert mueller's approval ratings for the investigation have gone up 11 points in the last month or so. i think we will see different numbers for voters coming forward in the next week. neil: you're right there. the numbers on mueller include

those who say just wrap it up, wrap the damn thing up. >> obviously it's not going to be. all the news that came out this week, it won't end any time soon. neil: tom, is that your sense? it will drag on awhile? >> yes. in a nutshell, yes. you look at other special counsel investigations in american history, by that metric this is just getting started. whitewater, bill clinton investigation went on around seven years. iran contra seemed like it went on 25 years. the short of it is these investigations expand far beyond their original mandate, they go on much longer than anyone thought and it would not surprise me in the least if the mueller investigation is no different. neil: i could end on this note. the president yesterday was talking about they want to impeach me, the market would crash and it almost struck me as a tony soprano moment. it would be a pity if the market tanked with the democrats going after me. i don't know whether it was just a reminder or a threat. i thought it was weird but what

did you think? >> yeah. i think it was probably a little bit of both. i think it was an effort to try -- neil: he might be right. but we have learned in prior experiences, it goes back. go ahead. >> the market, there's a certain amount of independence from the president in the sense that we saw great markets under obama but he was pursuing a horrible policy. i think the reality of where we are right now is this. the president wants to remind people of the economy because that is a good issue for republicans. that is an issue that will drive voters and ultimately help them in the midterms. the challenge is he ends up getting sidetracked so when he talks about these things, they come out a little garbled. i think you're right, it was an effort to remind people about the economy but it had a mafioso type quality to it. neil: guys, i want to thank you all very, very much. we will see how this sorts out. we still have three hours of

trading to go today. meantime, the president's approval rating is up and that might be a little dated in the polls. we might see something different the next couple of weeks, but adding to this now is what the president is battling back and forth with his attorney general. it's getting very, very nasty. in fact, they tweet past each other. california republican congressman dana rohrabacher on all that. congressman, what do you make of that? does it concern you that the president's attorney general are kind of at each other's throats now? >> yeah, it concerns me when it concerns my constituents. i have been out here campaigning and every time i meet with a group, they say what's up, how can the president have a disloyal attorney general. that's what's coming across. they also are coming across with this fake news and deep state attack on the bogus politically

motivated attack on the president so we end up now, you just had a major discussion on what, the president was being blackmailed long before he was president, okay, and now everybody is talking about did he make some legal mistakes in how to deal with the blackmail. the bottom line is, the woman who was blackmailing him should be the focus of this. the fact is people should be outraged that mueller and these people are ending up trying to find any little thing, even if it's a procedural mistake -- neil: if he was being blackmailed, congressman, he wrote the checks. >> well, okay. so why is it that the blackmail, i haven't even heard that term being used in your whole discussion, there wasn't the term he was being blackmailed by this woman. the bottom line is, we have -- what we have is this massive p.r. campaign and jeff sessions is going along with it with

mueller and these people who planned it the day that this president was elected. they planned to undermine his assumption of authority. we have seen that. we have seen that evidence. neil: you include jeff sessions in that? he's part of that? >> i will tell you, i think jeff sessions has betrayed, i said this all along, when he knew that he was going to recuse himself with any charges that were coming up of collusion -- neil: why doesn't the president fire him? he's obviously sick of him, hates his guts now, is disappointed in him. >> why not? because there has been this massive propaganda campaign to actually neuter the president of some of his powers and one is to get rid of his attorney general. that would be seen as the giant cover-up. no, no. neil: why don't you think jeff sessions just quits? there's another opportunity there. if he quit, because it's

humiliating, whether you like the guy or not. if he quits, at least it gives the president the opportunity to appoint someone in the interim. and he's not doing that. >> the fact that jeff sessions has not quit is a disloyalty to this president and to the country. the fact is if he disagrees with what the president wants him to do, he should resign. jeff sessions was not elected president. the fact we are letting people like jeff sessions get away with it should indicate this incredible propaganda campaign that has tied the president's hands to do what's necessary to be a successful president. this is a conspiracy against that. neil: i don't think you would succumb the a propaganda campaign. if you didn't like someone on your staff, you would fire them in a heartbeat. a lot of people are saying the president, regardless, just heave the guy out. fire him. >> no, no, the fake news has

created the situation where if the president does what's right so that he can assume his authority as president, there will be an avalanche, oh, it's part of the cover-up. neil: no, no. i think that isn't fake news to say the president and his attorney general have been back and forth at each other and the president does have the power to fire a cabinet member he doesn't like. >> neil -- neil: congressman, don't think of it as fake news. you don't like the guy. you hate the guy. you think he's a loser, he's not getting it done. the president calls him mr. magoo. then fire him, be done with it. >> the dynamics in our society isn't just the president has the legal power to do something. the dynamics are you can have people working together, you can call it a conspiracy, whatever you want. we uncovered evidence of people the very day the president was elected -- neil: i understand. congressman, it's not fake news

to say the president has the real power and authority to say you, jeff sessions, have disappointed me. i don't want you on board. i know i'm going to get chast e chastised for thinking i'm in the middle of a cover-up here but i am firing you. that is not fake news. this is the president of the united states. >> no, no, hold on. the fake news isn't that. the fake news is what's preventing him and creating the political dynamic of whether he would conduct himself like you're saying, there would be this massive onslaught claiming he was covering up other things and you know that's what would happen. that's what they would be claiming. neil: you can understand why there's at least raised eyebrows, don't you? he has said some things and then said other things to update those things, like not knowing payments to these women, whatever you want to call it, then suddenly saying well, yeah, i did know. you can understand.

you haven't been really consistent yourself. >> again, we end up discussing mistakes and perhaps in how he handled himself in a situation rather than the essence of the situation is the president's being blackmailed, was being blackmailed and the guy who is mistakenly handling it so every bit of the procedure is incorrect hern incorrect, he's not the villain. the villain is the person blackmailing him. we don't get that at all. neil: if someone is trying to blackmail you and you wrote the check to make it go away, you are at least a coparticipant in the blackmail, right? >> well, no -- yeah, legally, but what we are talking about is this massive p.r. campaign against the trump campaign. neil: you are being blackmailed and write a check for someone to make it go away, you are participating in blackmail. >> well, the fact they don't even mention the word blackmail and they are all focusing on the president, did he follow exactly

the right procedure, you're not mentioning the evil blackmail that caused all of this. neil: you're right. i just find it a little odd you don't think the president has at least some potential responsibility and culpability here. >> well, i didn't say that. i just said what we are talking about is not just that legal situation. but that has to be coupled with all of this buildup of a bogus politically motivated charge that he colluded with the russians in order to undermine his ability to assume the rightful constitutional authority -- neil: i have to take what you thrust on yourself. i'm not saying it's all one way. it always assumes the president's people are coming out, he's a victim, he's a victim. >> sometimes people make mistakes when they are a little bit desperate. he was going through procedures.

he made mistakes. but the bottom line is that this is just one example of where a bogus on this president is being done specifically to get away from the fact that the special prosecutor is way off target, way off. he was supposed to be giving us evidence of collusion with the russians -- neil: do you think the prosecutor is way off target when he went after bill clinton initially on real estate deals and it veered into something else? it happens, right? >> i will have to tell you that i believe that the special prosecutors, not just this one, but we have a history of it now just like you are bringing up, suggests that we should pass a special prosecutors law that says if you are going to give people that kind of power, an individual that kind of power, it has to be focused and within bounds and it's way out of bounds now. neil: that's a fair argument. both sides say that's something

we should be looking at. congressman, thank you very much for taking the time.

neil: all right. the chairman of the federal reserve didn't once mention the president's name but obviously, donald trump was the elephant in

the room. he heard when the fed boss was making it clear we are still doing what we were planning to do and still looking at raising interest rates. he didn't spell out exact numbers here but the pattern will continue despite the criticism the president has had on the federal reserve and jerome powell in particular. to susan lee and gary, what did you make of what the fed was saying? i'm going to do my thing? >> i love what he's doing. he's not worrying what anybody else is saying. as a result at this point, he is in the driver's seat. you have to remember something very important. last time we had an unemployment rate like we had for a whole year, fund rates were in the 6% range. we have very easy money which drives markets, drives economies, not to mention you have negative rates in europe and japan. they are printing money. the last few weeks, china went on another program of easing. all's well as long as easy money is still out there. neil: what do you make of it? >> i agree. the s&p, we haven't seen a

record close in close to seven to eight months. that's the longest stretch and drought in two years. if we hold at this, it looks like we will finish in record territory. i like the statements from jerome powell. he says we're in a strong economy. he knows what the markets are looking for. he doesn't want to chill the current expansion and that means we are not going to see that much tighter monetary policy which is good for stocks. neil: you know, that's one thing the president fears, the federal reserve goes too far and you know, puts a damper on this whole party. what do you think? >> but too far, they aren't going to go too far. they are taking their time. you have to remember, we still have the ten-year and i am amazed with so much debt out there, we are still sitting at 2.8%, 2.9%, which is tied to mortgages which is important to the economy, credit cards also. look, i look at consumer numbers, i look at retail stocks, they are skyrocketing.

it's telling you everything you need to know. again, we should be at 5%, 6% just based on our debt and based on the economy, and we're not. again, easy money is a great, great backstop for both markets and the economy and it's feeding on itself right now. i actually do think if we get past september, we may have a sizzling end of year in the markets, especially in the nasdaq. it's just feeling that way right now. neil: we have been in and out of record territory for the nasdaq. susan, people saying mr. president, you may be right, but best to keep quiet because whatever they're doing, whatever you're doing is working, so shut up. >> that's one way to put it. i thought the comments about jerome powell and the federal reserve, that was a way to talk down the dollar without implicitly talking down the dollar. he talks about monetary policy and interest rates which of course impact the strength of the u.s. currency. you are seeing that once again. the u.s. dollar is weakening today, yields are coming down.

i think yields are being impacted by concerns, as you mentioned before, this is the only game in town for u.s. assets but people need to run for safety. they need to hedge, especially with tariff concerns. >> let's not forget our market is so much bigger and better than every other market, big market around the globe, by far right now. that's meaningful. neil: well, thank you very, very much. who's right or wrong on that, time will tell. time will tell. we'll be right back. ♪ 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.

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neil: well, people are buying expensive cars but that's a whole other level when you get to the super, uber luxury cars. that's of course just the sweet spot for adam shapiro in pebble beach following just that. hey, sir. reporter: hey, neil.

the "f" word in the collector car industry is ferrari. they command millions of dollars. this 1950 ferrari will sell for between $6.5 million to $7 million. this 1966 ferrari is a bargain, $12 million to $14 million. then you've got this 1958 ferrari, again, about $7 million. here at gooding & company, the official auction house in monterrey, pebble beach, they have a ton of ferraris. up the street they have some competition. take a look at what's coming on the auction block at sotheby's. this is a 1962 ferrari 250 gto. it's getting a lot of attention because one recently sold as a private sale for $70 million. this car coming up for auction is expected to command between $45 million and $60 million. the c.o.o. told me about the auction attraction it's getting. >> there's been nothing short of thrilling for the last month. the announcement of this car is a very big deal, of course.

we will expect upwards of 2,000 people physically here joining us in the auction room. reporter: to give you an idea, the entire peninsula this weekend is about car auctions. they are going to sell something like $342 million according to haggerty insurance right here in cars. here they have $150 million to $180 million worth of automobiles. when i mentioned that private sale, the ferrari, '63 250 gto, that will be here at gooding but is not coming up for auction. after you spend $71 million on a car, you don't want people to touch it. not bad for a used car. take a look at this. my grandfather, who had the junkyard in portland, maine, will tell you cars like this are worth it because they have a light in the glove compartment and are used. back to you. neil: thanks, buddy. all right. on to the california republican congressman dana rohrabacher and his comments. a lot of you are commenting on this, particularly on this.

>> they want to make sure he doesn't assume that authority. neil: the president has the real power and authority to say you, jeff sessions, have disappointed me, i don't want you on board. i know i'm going to get chastised for thinking i'm in the middle of covering something up here but i am firing you. that is not fake news. that guy is the president of the united states. >> no, no, no. hold on. the fake news isn't that. the fake news is what's creating the political dynamic of whether if he would conduct himself like you're saying, there would be this massive onslaught claiming he was covering up other things and you know that's what would happen. that's what they would be claiming. neil: all right. a lot of back and forth. lot of people said i was unfair to the congressman. certainly my intention is never to be that way. i just wanted to get big picture how is the president necessarily a victim here. he was the one who wrote the checks and went through his lawyer. if you are arguing this is

something that's a cabal against the president, he was part of that process. i'm not here to judge, just to try to get the facts straight. fox news contributor lisa booth with me now. obviously there's a lot of anger on the right, saying the president is being unfairly treated in all of this. we don't know where it's going. but on this matter and how it's extended to the cfo of the trump organization granted immunity to talk a little more about michael cohen and payments and all of that, where is this all going? >> that's a good question. look, i think you could make the argument fairly that this seems to be running amok and running wild, in the sense the original mission as we knew it for the special counsel was to look at potential russia collusion crimes that were committed, and obstruction of justice as well. now we have all these different things going on, sideshows going on. neil: the congressman had a very good point about maybe the prosecutorial overreach goes way

beyond both in terms of expense, length of time, parameters. it has to be looked at, democrats and republicans have said that before. it is what it is for the time being so what do you think of that? >> i look at at least what we are learning with the michael cohen stuff. there's two sort of different buckets. there's the legal aspect of it which you have people like andy mccarthy saying he thought the legal liability was really low for the president on that angle. you also have someone like mark penn who used to work for bill clinton coming out and saying i don't see any crimes being committed here by the president. then you have the political angle which is my space, not the legal stuff, but the political space, and so the question with that is impeachment. that really only becomes an issue for the president if democrats win, they pick up a ton of seats in the house, right, and you look at the senate and it's probably going to stay in republican hands, so i don't see democrats -- neil: president clinton was impeached in the house, never

went anywhere. >> i don't see democrats taking that angle unless they pick up a ton of seats in the house and you have a bunch of liberal progressives calling them to move forward with that. that may not be a potential issue for the president. we will see after the midterms. neil: to the congressman's point, i understand his frustration it's veered off course. we are looking at business transactions. we don't really know what mueller and his people are looking at but we do know it's turned into financial stuff, right? wouldn't it be a kick, though, if it has nothing to do with russia, in the end they stumble across oh, by the way, you didn't pay this bill, you didn't abscond with these funds? way, way apart from where we started. >> i think that's where you had a lot of people from the beginning, like alan dershowitz saying special counsels are dangerous. this is the job of congress. we shouldn't have a special counsel investigation. i look at something, too, which is frustrating for me because there's a lot of talk about jeff sessions and if the president fires him or not. but i don't think jeff sessions should have ever recused himself

from the beginning. you look at someone like rod rosenstein -- let me make the point, if you don't mind. with rod rosenstein, if jeff sessions is conflicted, there's a conflict of interest there, how is there not for rod rosenstein? he's the one who laid out the memo for firing james comey, then opened up a special counsel investigation looking at part of it, at least what we think and we know of, is obstruction of justice. that seems to me a conflict of interest. neil: it's on me to correct it, right? >> i don't think there's anything wrong with him firing jeff sessions. neil: why doesn't he? >> that's a good question. neil: it's easier for the president if the guy quits but he's not going to quit. i guess he can have an interim replacement for awhile. firing guys is not so easy. you know anything about that? >> we are living in a world where net neutrality was the end of the world, tax reform law is armageddon. we are already at where

everything is 11 so anything president trump does is going to be criticized, going to be met with oh, it's so controversial, right? neil: i think we make it controversial. >> it shouldn't be. i don't think it should be. neil: you don't like the attorney general and he clearly doesn't, he's free not to, many a president turned on their cabinet members -- >> i don't dislike jeff sessions. president trump doesn't like him. neil: then get rid of him. >> i agree. why not fire him. what i think he should do, you put someone like, for instance, lindsey graham up for that role, i think it's going to mitigate potential, some of the political backlash, some of the rhetoric from the media because he's been someone heralded at various times as someone who is very middle of the road, very objective. i think he could mitigate it depending on who he would nominate for that position after jeff sessions. but i don't think he should have recused himself from the beginning. you look at the security clearance forms, he was actually right for filling it out the way that he did. neil: we can go back in time. >> in terms of taking meetings with russians, so did people

like senator mccaskill, who criticized jeff sessions for doing that thing. neil: the whole thing is just silly. always good seeing you. you're the best. a lot of you are very angry at me and you know how vulnerable i am when it's around lunchtime. more after this. i've always been about what's next. i'm still giving it my best even though i live with a higher risk of stroke due to afib not caused by a heart valve problem. 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.

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neil: all right. a tweet from the president literally just came in out of the blue. i have asked secretary of state mike pompeo not to go to north korea at this time because i feel we are not making sufficient progress with respect to the denuclearization of the korean peninsula. it adds that no direct impact on the markets here. all of this comes at a time when he's been getting scrutinized over what's going on in the white house, staffing issues at the white house, the fights back and forth with jeff sessions, but he was just saying secretary pompeo looks forward to going to north korea, but it's just not going to happen right now.

so he was literally getting ready to do that. it would have been his fourth trip this year. the president sending a signal i don't like what's going on so it ain't happening for now. what do you think of all this, adam? >> well, i was thinking when you were talking, it's nice to have a private plane so you don't have to unwind all of your reservations and hotel reservations whand whatnot. i feel so out of my element trying to analyze anything president trump does because on the one hand, this isn't how responsible statesmen behave. if you're not making progress, maybe it would be a good idea to go talk and make progress. that said, this is how you do real estate deals. the bank doesn't want to agree to my terms, we aren't making good progress on the interest rate i want for the loan so you know what, i'm not showing up to the meeting. i have to say it works very well for him for many years, even when he had lost money with the

banks, they kept lending money to him. i can see how his tactics work for him. it got him the meeting in singapore, after all. neil: so if this is off-track or delayed, a lot of people had market optimism, this is among the factors that helped. does this unwind some of that? certainly the economy is good, earnings are very, very good. what do you make of that? >> it's funny. it comes to the word "this." what "this" is. i think what the president did with north korea was a huge achievement in that it got people to calm down. things couldn't have been much worse before that. we were on the brink of a potential nuclear war with north korea which was horrible. so the president's meeting got things to calm down and not much else. so i would say we're not in much worse shape than we were when he got things to calm down. we aren't in any better shape,

either, because there's no deal. neil: meanwhile, switching to corporate news, there doesn't appear to be a deal in place or even remotely in place according to the reporting of charlie gasparino, to take elon musk's tesla private. they are having a devil of a time either finding investors to help make that happen or maybe they never had them in the first place. what do you make of all this? >> well, i will sort of argue both sides of this case. i think musk never had anything in the first place, both reporting by a lot of good journalists and the company's statements show all he had were some conversations. on the other hand, if he really wants to do this, i actually take his comments at face value that he doesn't need to borrow $60 billion. he probably needs to borrow something more like, i'm making up this number, like $10 billion which is a lot of money, but not 60, because he's got his stake, he hopes the existing public investors, some segment of them will roll their shares into private shares in the company.

i think theoretically, he could do this. i just think he's barking up the wrong tree and should focus instead on making automobiles. neil: very, very quickly, the samsung/apple battle that's going on right now, samsung with a large phone that's out, what do you make of it all? apple which will make its own announcement next month, a little later, where is this going? >> i think that samsung having a phone that's being well reviewed by critics is very good news for samsung. it's not necessarily bad news for apple. number one, they have this very loyal following in china and in north america and europe that tends to buy their phones and use their services because they like apple phones. secondly, apple has shown before they will copy samsung when they need to. samsung led the way into larger size phones. apple said we don't need larger size phones and the next year, they introduced the iphone plus-sized phone and did very well with it. that's apple's way. neil: yeah, it is.

the way of the tech world. you were brilliant. i threw a lot at you, a lot you weren't prepared for, you handled it. thank you very much. >> i always enjoy talking to you. thank you. neil: same here. have a great weekend, my friend. the north korean trip is off. the tickets have to be returned. what's going on? your insurance rates skyrocket after a scratch so small you could fix it with a pen. how about using that pen to sign up for new insurance instead? for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise their rates because of their first accident. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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neil: all right, well, i wonder if he can get his money back. secretary of state pompeo will not be going to north korea after all. the president canceled the trip, tweeting out he doesn't see much progress so he doesn't see much reason if the north koreans aren't doing more to denuclearize for his secretary of state to make a fourth trip there. to ashley webster on the repercussions of all that. that came out of nowhere. >> wouldn't it make a nice deflection news-wise and we stop talking about all the legal issues. let's get back to north korea. maybe there's a power to that. we were talking about how good he is at, you know, driving the news cycle. yes, he can go off on the twitter storm but this is perhaps a technique. i do think that things, we had no clue what's going on in north korea. it hasn't been encouraging news out of there. they continue to apparently have

their activities around the nuclear facilities and continuing to do what they do. there was much fanfare when we were told earlier this week mr. pompeo and a new representative were heading off to pyongyang and we all thought great. who knows with this president what's behind this. neil: you can switch one, you know, he did dump a story for one that's even hotter. this is one of his crowning achievements, meeting with the north korean leader. if he's now saying all right, it's not looking like what i thought it would look like, he could be shooting himself in the foot. >> he could. it's ironic, isn't it. well, mr. trump shooting himself in the foot, there's a statement. we could say it quite a few times. yes, he really did fanfare his meeting with kim jong-un in singapore. we haven't seen anything about it. i think he actually announced at that point there's no, you know, we are going to denuke north korea. there were a lot of big statements made. i think everybody took that as we'll see. this is not good as far as if he

doesn't see any progress. he is, though, being the strong leader he claims to be and always wants to be. if you're doing it, i'm not going to bother talking to you. neil: this is the same president who, before his meeting with kim jong-un, had canceled the meeting saying there wasn't progress and it had been rearranged hastily. you don't know what's going on. >> maybe by the end of the day he will announce mr. pompeo will be going. we don't know. it's part of his rhetoric. neil: what do you think is going on, meanwhile, with this latest immunity deal, the cfo of the trump organization, this allen weisselberg, what that is about? one of the things that's come up with a lot of legal experts we talked with, at the very least the investigation has veered way off track, maybe to just as promising a field of -- >> what do we know? well, it's disturbing, isn't it, when someone is given immunity because that suggests the

prosecutors say this guy has some really good stuff, we could get him to talk and we can do that by granting him immunity. it just adds another layer to what the heck is going on and how can they basically chart the path from wherever this is all the way to the president. that's what they're trying to do. if i'm the president or part of the administration, now what, where does this go? we'll find out eventually but it's not good news for the administration. neil: they are down from their highs a little bit but they tend to think, i could get this wrong, but tend to think it's all going to work out, the trade stuff, these investigations, all going to work out. >> i will be honest with you, the markets are resilient and almost numb to what's going o everything that's going on around the administration. yes, the tariffs, we talk about it every day, but to your point, the markets are remarkably resilient and the markets are relying on the fundamentals. this economy, to the president's point, he had a tweet storm earlier today talking about the economy and what ceos are saying and he's absolutely right.

everything about this economy is humming along very well. neil: his crowning achievement. >> it is. that's where he needs to focus his rhetoric. neil: real quickly, you were originally supposed to be here to talk about australia. i know you're british. it's the same thing. scott morrison beat malcolm turnbull in a confidence vote so he's going to be the new guy. >> australian politics has become, dare i say, almost italian-esque. neil: why rip my people? >> look, i think the problem is in australia when you vote for a prime minister, you don't vote for a person. you vote for a party. the party decides who the leader is. this is the fifth prime minister in eight years. andy warhol used to say everyone would have 15 minutes of fame. in australia it's like every 15 minutes, someone in australia will be prime minister. neil: we didn't give this to anyone else. >> my wife is australian so i feel i can speak with authority.

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neil: leave you with the dow up 137 points. no immediate reaction to the president saying that trip of the secretary state of the

fourth for mike pompeo to go to russia, i mean north korea, it is off. president is says he is disappointed in the pace of denuclearization. cheryl casone will get into that and much more the next hour. cheryl: it is friday, doesn't mean it will slow down. neil, thank you very much. breaking right now, president trump is expected to depart the white house at any moment for an event in iowa, excuse me, ohio, this as the president is directing secretary mike pompeo not to visit north korea at this time saying quote, we are not making sufficient progress on denuclearization. hello, everybody, i'm cheryl casone in for trish regan today. welcome to "the intelligence report." we're seeing if president trump addresses reporters when he leaves the white house to depart