with us tomorrow, diamond and silk and mark morgan among our guests cheryl: the richest person in the world versus the national enquirer, jeff bezos accusing the tabloid of ex portion in and online post. we are going to break down these explosive claims. lauren: alexandria ocasio-cortez giving an overview of her green new deal. it includes rebuilding every single building in the united states and making air travel obsolete. we have all the details including how to pay for it. cheryl: or if there's no way to pay for it. and the rising tide of debt, consumer borrowing topping a record $4 trillion for the first time ever. this is from the federal reserve. what you can do to keep your share of that debt down. lauren: let's take a look at your money and the stock market

this morning. dow futures are down buy 67 points, s&p down 8, nasdaq down 31 1/2. cheryl: in europe, the turmoil continues, the ftse barely up this morning. lauren: in asia, the nikkei is down 2%, the hang seng and the e kospi losing ground today. "fbn: a.m." starts right now. cheryl: 501 in new york. it's friday, february 8th. good morning. i'm cheryl casone. lauren: good morning. happy friday to you. i'm lauren simonetti. cheryl: i would say fri-yay, but we've got a lot of news this morning that's pretty incredible.

jeff bezos is accusing the owner of the national enquirer of extortion and blackmail. in an explosive blog post, bezos wrote, american media inc. threatened to publish private photos of his if he doesn't end an investigation into how the national enquirer got the pictures and the messages. last month the tabloid released racy text messages between bezs and his girlfriend. lauren: it prompted bezos to hire investigators and prompted the national enquirer to request an end to the investigation. bezos says of course i don't want personal photos published. i also won't participate in their well-known practice of blackmail, political favors, political attacks and corruption. for more on this, criminal defense attorney david bruno bro joins us. david, good morning. >> good morning. lauren: is this extortion, in your view? >> probably not.

the demand was not for money. it was for a public statement that they have no reason to believe that the article against him was a political hit. if you change the fact pattern a little bit and they demanded $1 million, then yes, i think it's clear-cut extortion. let's not for get in the block post, he says there's been an investigation and he found others in similar situations and that there could be other demands that are extortion that we don't know about but on the bezos point, i don't believe any prosecutor will move forward on extortion based on these facts. lauren: is he trying to he protect journalism here? >> i think he's getting out in front of a story. i think it was brilliant p.r. because it looked like these photos were coming out, right. so he already got hit with the last story that resulted in divorce. he gets out in front of it, and now it's a positive story about jeff bezos as opposed to a negative one.

he did the right thing from a p.r. perspective. lauren: we're looking at amazon stock right now. jeff bezos is the founder of that company. it's down three-quarters of 1%. he also owns the washington post, a newspaper that's critical of president trump. on the flip side, american media owns the national enquirer and its ceo, david pecker, is a friend of the president. and has admitted to catching and kill, that's when you buy a story and bury it so you can prevent negative headlines from getting out there. so my question to you, how much of all this do you think is politics? >> all of it. i mean, that is exactly what ami is trying to say. bezos come out and say that my articles against you are not politically t motivated. and bezos and his investigative team have said yes it is, it's more than just bezos, the washington post. the mistress has a brother that's politically activated as well. it has everything to do with

politics, unfortunately and we're seeing that today. lauren: ami reached a non-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors last year and under that deal they have to refrain from all illegal activity for three years time. so did american media violate the terms of that deal and could there be a case against them now? >now? >> i would say no, not on the facts of the bezos statements. however, in the bezos blog post, he talks about other investigations. that leads someone like me to believe there may be crim crimil investigations based on others and if there are others that have been extorted, then the answer is yes, it could be a violation of the non-prosecution agreement with the southern district of new york. lauren: what a story. david bruno, thank you for unpacking it for us. if you grab a copy of the new york today, the title is the best, bezos exposes pecker.

you see that cheryl? cheryl: i did see that. thanks, david. we've got a lot more going on this morning. lawmakers are now saying they are near a deal to prevent a second partial government shutdown and resolve the fight over president trump's proposed border wall. reports say negotiations between the democratic controlled house and gop held senate could result in a deal as early as this weekend. there is a february 15th deadline to reach a compromise. that is a week from today. the president says he hasn't ruled out declaring a national emergency if the spending impasse is not resolvedded. lauren: the longest serving member in the history of congress has died. former michigan democrat john dingell died yesterday at his home after battling cancer. he was known for being a master deal maker and for protecting the auto industry. his wife says he will be remembered for, quote, his razor

sharp wit and a lifetime of dedication to improving the lives of all who walk this earth. former congressman john continul dead at the age of 92. cheryl: thousands of ram trucks are being recalled because of faulty parts. hill hillary vaughn has details. hillary: pump the brakes on this. chrysler issuing a recall over 880,000 trucks for possible steering loss or brake pedal that's could detach. over 573,000 ram 2500s and 3500s are being called back over a steering linkage issue, over 190,000 more ram 1500s are also being recalled so fiat chrysler can properly secure the brake pedals, not a problem you really want to have when you're driving a big pickup truck. no injuries or accidents have been reported yet. lauren: let's talk about another recall.

this time in the tool department. hillary: you need to check your garage or tool shed if you have a yellow and black dewalt drill. some of those are being recalled. the power tool company is recalling about 122,000 drills because people could get shocked when using them. the recall affects the three 8-inch vsr drills, models 110 and 112. no injuries have been reported yet so far with this. cheryl: you're out in los angeles. this story's perfect for you. another big name celebrity turns out said no to hosting the oscars. hillary: the rock had to say no. he had to turn down the oscars, even though it was something on his dream list. he said he was offered the host job but he had to turn it down because he was so involved with two other movies, including the see kell for jumanji. the oscars will be hostless for the first time in 30 years. lauren: which i'm kind of

excited about. cheryl: maybe they'll take the politics out of the show. lauren: finally, hillary, another fast food chain wants to deliver to your doorstep. hillary: taco bell, it's rolling out delivery across the u.s. customers can now order online or using grubhub's app. the really good news, though, orders over $12 arrive free at your doorstep for a limited time only. taco bell's parent company, yum brands, also bought $200 million worth of grubhub stock last year. so this partnership makes sense. lauren: confession, hillary, we tried to do it this morning but it's not available at this hour, unfortunately. just so you know. hillary: no! lauren: this is the hour everyone orders taco bell or is it just morning people like us. thank you so much. cheryl: this is the hour we take a look at your markets. right now, it's looking like another tough day for your money.

dow is down 80 in the premarket, s&p is down 9 3/4. now, this may be certainly a continuation of yesterday. the markets finished substantially lower yesterday. there are fears over a lack of a deal with china on trade. the trump administration is warning now, there's a long way to go before a deal is set. that has really upset markets. are these trade worries going to keep markets down a third day. outages with wells fargo online banking, leaving customers in the dark, talk about not getting your money. we'll have that story. you're watching "fbn: a.m." ♪ go to work, work, work, every day. ♪ ision tech. it's screening technology that helps you find a stock based on what's trending or an investing goal. it's real-time insights and information,

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cheryl: stocks falling for a second day amid growing worries that the united states and china are not going to be able to reach a trade deal. take a look at this, the dow

down 220 yesterday. president trump says he does not plan to meet with china's president as u.s. tariffs are set to increase on march 2nd. the selling began after white house economic advisor larry kudlow on fox business said the united states and china are still far apart. >> the president has indicated that he's optimistic with respect to a potential china trade deal. but, but, but, but, but, we've got a pretty sizable distance to go here, to quote a colleague of mine, we have miles to go before we sleep. cheryl: miles to go. let's bring in riley walters, a heritage policy analyst on the asia economy. david ragland, good morning. >> good morning. cheryl: riley, i want to start with you. there has always been kind of a fear as these negotiations have continued that the chinese are really not willing to make the changes that the u.s. wants. larry kudlow made that statement

on fox business. markets took a hit right after he said that. is that the case? are we that far apart? >> we were that far apart a year ago. we're going to be far apart three months from now. the question is, do we want to continue the tariffs for another three months or don't we. i think the market was reacting to the poor signals from the white house that potentially there might not be a deal by march 2nd. now, at the end of the day it's always going to be a deal amongst the presidents. if president trump and president xi can't meet before marchnd, we -- march 2nd, we night not have the deal. markets are showing they want the deal. cheryl: i think there was optimism on that. i think especially in january, that was at least a part of it, despite the shutdown. but now it looks like -- look at the pressure we've seen on the semiconductor space, for instance, look at the pressure that we have seen on a lot of these technology companies that are very dependent on the chinese market. all of that is going to go south. how much of a hit do you think the markets could take if the news doesn't turn around? >> well, if we don't get a

valentine's day gift next week or the following week, we could easily go back and test the lows that we saw right before christmas. so it could be 10, 12% lower from here if the market gets upset. a slowing economy, that's not good for the market long-term. cheryl: the nasdaq as of yesterday, before the big selloff, was flirting with exiting the bear market. you're saying we could go well back into the bear market, especially with the tech heavy nasdaq. >> no he question about that. the market have had tail winds, especially the tech stocks have had a big tail wind. you've had the fed come to the rescue. the shutdown is completed. positive comments have come out of washington as far as the trade goes. now you don't have the fed coming to the rescue anymore and obviously the market coming so far, so fast, a retest out of

these levels is -- sometimes happens on a regular basis. cheryl: there's a lot of voices in the negotiations. the wall street journal reporting that hank paulson is trying to push for a deal, steven schwarzman from blackstone, he is trying to push, because they know what's at stake for the markets. it's up to the chinese, will they be able to open up their markets to u.s. companies? >> what's interesting about this, i think they are willing to open up to a certain degree. obviously everyone talks about what they can give the united states in the immediate term, the purchasing of more goods. theic issuthe issue is with strl reforms. the chinese want to sort of decouple the tariffs from actually showing that they've changed china. they don't want to have other countries see that the united states has had success in changing china's structural reform through the tariffs. they're going to try to through

the talks for political purposes sort of decouple the talks from the structural reforms. cheryl: the markets are going to see right through that, unfortunately. but at least the story will end for now. riley and david, thank you very much for getting up and covering this for us. >> thanks. bye-bye. lauren: still ahead, congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez outlining her green new deal. the plan affects industries including airlines. we'll have details ahead. trouble with wells fargo and online banking, that is hitting customers in the wallet. we're going to have the latest for you. you're watching "fbn: a.m." ♪ i don't want no scrubs. ♪ a scrub is a guy that can get no love from me. ♪

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lauren: tgif. coming into today's session, the dow and nasdaq hire for seven weeks in a row but that streak is in jeopardy today. the nasdaq is down 34. wells fargo says a system outage caused a disruption to the mobile app and online banking. you one of the facilities in minnesota shut down power after smoke was detected during routine maintenance. there was no fire and the system does appear to be back up and running. and there's this, the typhus outbreak in down to downtown los affecting city hall. the disease was contracted by one government worker while in the building. she refuses to return until the building is fumigated. they are asking for all the carpets to be ripped up. the u.s. supreme court blocked a louisiana law that pro choice

protesters would have allowed one doctor in the entire state to perform abortions. chief justice john roberts joining the liberal justices in the 5-4 ruling. brett kavanaugh voted in favor of upholding the law. that's what's happening now. cheryl: here's what's happening for the weekend. winter weather making a big comeback. let's get a look at the forecast, fox senior meteorologist janice dean. we just knew we weren't going to be that lucky to skirt the wrath of winter. janice: it was a taste of what's to come. so we have a little bump in the road. we're going to see winter again for much of the country this weekend. there are your wind chills. so back to what it feels like, minus 30 in minneapolis, feels like minus 12 in chicago, minus 8 in kansas stitc kansas city. temperatures will moderate over the weekend. we have the potential for some showers and thunderstorms across the eastern third of the country, some snow over the great lakes, ohio valley, maybe a little bit of ice across northern new england. this system exits and then we

deal with the next system across the west with rain along the coast and then the mountain snow that crosses into the rockies and eventually portions of the northern plains and the upper midwest. heavy snow again for the sierra and then we could deal with flooding for coastal california. here are your highs on saturday, we will get down towards the freezing mark here in the northeast but then temperatures start to moderate and we'll start to warm up as we head into monday and tuesday. so a little bit of see-saw ride but there is light at the end of the tunnel. cheryl: we're halfway through february and it's march and we're off to the races. janice: march sometimes brings the worst snowstorms. cheryl: i knew that. i wasn't going to bring it up. janice: happy friday. lauren: i will add that it does snow in april because it has snowed on my birthday before. still ahead, the green new deal, congresswoman aoc giving an overview of her plan. what will it cost the country? we'll break it down for you.

a new study says more than 90% of americans take a big security risk every single year. this as we learn about apps that share our screens and sensitive information with other companies. how to find out if you are at risk. you're watching "fbn: a.m.." ♪ i'm so sorry about it. ♪ what was i thinking. ♪ ithinking [cell phone rings] where are you? well the squirrels are back in the attic. mom? your dad won't call an exterminator... can i call you back, mom? he says it's personal this time... if you're a mom, you call at the worst time. it's what you do. if you want to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance, you switch to geico. it's what you do. where are you? it's very loud there. are you taking a zumba class?

(sfx:footsteps in wet cement) (sfx:birds singing, distant dog barking) hi hi ♪(whistling tune: "don't worry, be happy")♪ lauren: the u.s. futures are lower at this hour. investors still worried about a global economic slowdown and fears the u.s. will not reach a trade deal with china by march 1st. the s&p is down 8. let's take a look at the close in asia. the big decline, nikkei in japan, down 2% and europe at this hour still trading to the upside, the ftse in london is up 9 points, indict toe for the cac in -- ditto for the cac in paris and dax in frankfurt.

cheryl: congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez outlining the green new deal yesterday. this is intended to transform the economy, mainly to combat climate change. here are some of the goals they have outlined. expanding high speed rail to a point where air travel stops becoming necessary, expanding electric car manufacturing and building charging stations everywhere plus upgrading all existing buildings in the country or replacing them for energy efficiency. the freshman lawmaker teaming up with massachusetts senator ed markey on the plan. >> our environmental challenges are one of the biggest threats to our way of life. >> our energy future will not be found in the dark of a mine, but in the light of the sun. cheryl: joining us now, chief strategist todd horowitz. good morning. >> good morning, cheryl. cheryl: we should add several

2020 democratic hopefuls for president have endorsed this. look at the tweet from corey booker. there's a lot of voices behind this. there's a green new deal to climate change. you've also got elizabeth warren, you've got kamala harris. is this what the democratic party we think is going to be pushing into 2020, climate change? >> i think that's one of their big deals. i mean, you've got to give aoc some credit, she's got a lot of energy, she's got some ideas. i don't think they're very solid. i don't think they're doable. listen, we all know that energy needs to be taken care of, right? we need to do something. this goes back to 2003 when we first started talking about using the sun, using natural gas, using other things. but one thing we know about this country, big oil is still pretty much in charge and until we can eliminate fossil fuel and get them to get on-board, i think it will be similar to the tobacco

industry when they eliminated them and let them get into other industries to keep their power. that's going to be the transition. the ideas for energy are great. i think that we have to do something over time to work to more electric and to work to more sun and these other ideas. but again, it can't be done and certainly the government with a $22 trillion debt can't pay for it. cheryl: we're sitting on $22 trillion in debt already which both parties have said is a problem. she was asked specifically in the interview how she will pay for it. here's one of the things she statement she said the question isn't how we're going to pay for it, what will we do with new shared prosperity. she didn't answer it, to be clear here. the republican national committee has come out and said this would be trillions of dollars. she wants to make all jobs unionized. she wants to make air travel obsolete, build rails across oceans according to her office. some of these things are outlandish. she says the federal reserve can

extend credit. we have to broadcast here some of the more ludicrous things that are in the plan. it seems to me impossible to pay forever. >> again, i agree with you 100%. there's no way we can pay for the plan the way that it's being presented. okay. look, everything is always back to the middle class, it's always back to the taxpayer and typically the left wants a bigger piece of the tax pie instead of letting people earn money and working through growth, they want to get it through taxes. and of course we're not going to be able to change, we're not going to be able to stop air travel and all these other things. there is a key point in here and, again, if it can be worked out -- i think everybody's on the same page f, if we can creae energy at a better price without hurting everybody and extending more debt, i think it's a good idea. overall, we have to have a better plan. we can't throw out all these promises of what we're going to

do, especially the unionize and jobs for everybody, let's be serious. we need to have a real solid plan going forward which i think eventually we will get to and i think that's the big problem here is that the left is selling a lot of dreams here and a lot of promises that can never be fulfilled and we all know what empty promises bring. cheryl: they don't win you elections in 2020, that is for sure. but i think one of the interesting issues-i thought of elon musk when i first saw some of this yesterday. i thought okay, he's working on high speed rail systems in los angeles, he's getting a lot of pushback because maybe that won't work out. electric vehicles, charging stations, but businesses are already doing that, the business community is pushing for these things because they make business sense. maybe some of this isn't necessarily a pipedream under aoc. >> listen, i agree, cheryl, 100%. i think elon musk is a genius and he's got good ideas. his train idea, i think those

are all good ideas. i think that's something we should be striving for. i think one of the big m mistaks we've seen is when they drop coal and said no more and put guys out of business and out of jobs. we have to have a formal game plan of how to get to the energy. we have to be able to figure out how we're going to pay if for it, how we're going get there. the sense behind it is great. i think that's where we're headed but weaver got to get everybody -- we've got to get everybody on the same page and quit with the promising of things that can't be delivered and working on things that can be delivered. cheryl: clean water, that sounds t good to me. todd, thank you very much. >> thanks, cheryl. have a great day. lauren: despite the data hacking we keep hearing about, most americans don't do enough to protect personal information. there's a new survey by credit cards.com and finds 92% of americans have taken at least one major data security risk in the past year. the study finds that the most common error is reusing the same

password online which you know not to do but we do t anyway. dan hivedan ives of we'd wed bus joins us now. i imagine you have different passwords for everything. >> yeah, i do. it's an epidemic. it's part of why you have a trillion dollar cyber security industry. lauren: eight in ten of us recycle passwords and two in ten of us do it all the time. so how big of a problem is this for identity theft and other issues that pop up from it? >> it's a massive threat to consumers, i think especially if you step back, it's about what's online, more banking information, personal information, identity theft. i think it's really become something in the security world that's really becoming almost an epidemic like situation, especially even on wi-fi as more consumers are putting secure

type data through some of those networks in public areas. lauren: 16.7 million of us, that's a record number, fell victim to identity theft in 2017. okay. so we say we're concerned about this but are we changing our behavior to make sure we don't fall victim to identity theft? do you see people sake he you yw what, i'm not going to do banking online. are we turning away from tech a little bit as a result? >> i think to some extent, i think more are turning toward tech, not realizing some of the potential pit falls. that's why there's certain things like two factor authentication from a password perspective that i think are necessary. it's one where consumers need to check their credit often, make sure there's no identity issues out there. but the one thing i would caution is on the password side, two factors authentication and really being careful about the type of data that's out. lauren: i wanted to ask a

question about the tech crunch report that apple is telling its developers to disclose the screen recordings, a lot of companies were recording what you did on your iphone screen. that's a major problem. so can you just respond to that a little bit and then maybe take us through how-whether it's apple or alphabet or facebook, how they're navigating privacy. >> it's a major problem. apple put themselves on an island too, taking out the added ces and putting a line in the sand versus facebook and others. that's why they're going to come out strong from a privacy perspective. on the other side, google and facebook and others, that's why even you see what germany did yesterday in terms of facebook, i mean, this is going to be a major issue with apple and facebook on different sides of the fence. lauren: that's all fine and good. the flip side, remember the bug in apple software where you would face time someone and the person receiving the call didn't even have to pick up and the bug

enabled the caller to hear their conversation. >> and that's why, look, apple continues to be front and center with a target on its back and they continue to have an up-hill battle and other tech companies in this area. cheryl: amazon is investing in a tesla competitor. hillary vaughn's got that story and some other headlines this morning. good morning again, hillary. hillary: hey, good morning again. amazon investing over half a billion dollars in the self-driving car technology start-up called aurora innovation, making it clear that jeff bezos' commitment to bring automation and more efficiency to the company is at the top of his list. the start-up aurora focuses on developing a driverless system that could be integrated into different types of vehicles from cars to delivery trucks to heavy machinery. hyuandi and vw already pledged to use aurora software in their vehicles.

it could be a game changer for amazon's delivery side of the business. lauren: the facetime bug at apple, the kid who discovered this bug is now being rewarded big-time. you have that story? hillary: yes. apple has a bug bounty program and so the company is announcing that they're paying the teen who exposed the major flaw in their group facetime feature, that exposed people's cameras and their audio without knowing it, grant thompson is a freshman in high school. he found the bug while playing fortnite with his friends. he and his mother spent over a week trying to get apple's attention about the security flaw. apple says they are making a gift towards grant's education but would not say how much. i'm hoping it's a nul full ride, show. cheryl: i hope so too. good for him and his mother. i'm not ashamed to say, hillary, i did not know that pandas change colors. lauren: me neither. hillary: i didn't either. but they do. and a pair of giant panda cubs

in china are going through their own furry makeover just in time for the spring festival holiday. the two cubs had their fur color changed from a baby pink to an adult black and white, the traditional colors we think of when we see pandas. over the past year they learned to walk, climb, tree branches and roll around with their mothers at the panda house and now they're ready to show off their new coats. cheryl: this video is ridiculously adorable. if people don't love pandas at this hour, they aren't human. hillary: i agree. lauren: have a great weekend. still ahead, sears saved, the retailer's chairman given the okay by a federal bankruptcy judge to buy the company. what will it mean for the future and its thousands of workers. and the rising tide of debt, consumer borrowing top this, a record trillion dollars for the

first time. we're going to tell you what you can do to keep your share of it down. we'll be right back. ♪ tell me why you've got to make things so complicated. ♪ i've seen the way you're acting ar the hangar. trips to mars. $4.95. hydroponic farms. robotic arms. ♪ $4.95. delivery drones or the latest phones. no matter what you trade, at fidelity it's just $4.95 per online u.s. equity trade.

cheryl: welcome back. let's get you caught up on what's happening now. nag a look at futures, the selling continues from yesterday, this is all about trade worries, are we going to get a deal wean the u.s. and china. -- deal between the u.s. and

china. a federal bankruptcy judge approved eddie lampert's proposal to buy sears. but not before issuing a warning to him. the judge told lampert give sears a fresh start and take meaningful action. lampert's purchasing sears for $5.2 billion. the company currently has about 89,000 people employed. s u.s. military plans to fully withdraw from syria by the end of april. in the coming days, u.s. backed fighters plan to seize final sagsanctuaries controlled by the islamic state. there is no plan to protect kurdish partners that fought along side the u.s. troops before the withdrawal. ibm investing $2 billion into a neanew artificial intelligence research hub in new york. the it will focus on the building and operations of computer chips. then there is this.

hall of fame baseball player frank robinson has died. robinson is the tenth best home run hitter of all time. he was also the only player to win mvp in the american and national leagues. robinson became the first black manager in mlb history back in 1975 with the cleveland indians. robinson died at the age of 83. lauren: let res look ahead -- let's look ahead to the markets. we have a sea of red on wall street on the final day of the trading week. dow is down 92. we could have seven weeks of gains in a row for the dow and the nasdaq if we can turn the arrows around. still ahead, we're also taking a look at the overseas markets. you can see european markets tradeing in the green this morning. the european economy, we're going to get the latest on britain's exit from the european union and how businesses are preparing for it and right here at home debt is on the rise, the federal reserve announcing that consumer borrowing has hit record levels. what you can do to keep yourself

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cheryl: the federal reserve reporting that u.s. consumer borrowing surpassed $4 trillion for the first time ever. could this mounting debt l signal bad times ahead? let's bring in wealth management ceo rebecca wallser. astonishing number coming from the federal reserve, $4 trillion in consumer debt. corporate debt is pushing all-time highs. how worried should we be? >> obviously this is unprecedented. we hit the last trillion dollar mark in june of 2013. so we have gone up another trillion dollars. on the one hand, it does represent consumer sentiment

being very high, low unemployment, steady wage growth, great gdp numbers. people with confident about the economy. we had the best shopping season last quarter in six years. that shows that people are not too scared of taking on debt. but at the same time, the reverse side of that coin is we're not saving, we're not putting enough towards retirement and we're spending too much every single day. cheryl: the average american is sitting on $6,826 in debt. that's every single american. that's the average, of course. that is a startling number and then we also are learning that mortgage debt is sitting right now at incredible numbers as well. $10 trillion for mortgage debt. we've seen a slowdown in the housing market. it seems like this is almost a perfect storm. the banks are starting to take notice of this. >> of course, when we have a federal reserve policy that's wanting to normalize to some extent even two rate hikes projected this year even though near a pause right now, obviously the debt will get more

expensive. as we see the global economy slowing down, europe, we did the forecast, china has had the worst growth in years, we're going to see the impact of that affect our economy and as the world slows down, we will as well right here. as we slow down, debt will be a bigger problem. these are monthly bills they have to service. cheryl: we're looking at the charts of the major banks, the players in the lending market, bank of america, jp morgan, goldman sachs is trying to get into the consumer end of the world, visa, should these banks be concerned? we already are seeing these banks starting to clamp down on lending standards in small doses. will this be a bigger clamp-down? >> we go back to-i'm talking about the housing market, go back to 2008 and mortgage backed securities and subprime debt without the actual normal lending requirements that people had to actually have a job and all of those things. that was a little too late to the game.

hopefully -- our debt is already 4 tril trillion dollars. we're already there. it's hard to verify these people after they already have the credit and they have to make the payments. what we have to do is get a china deal and let's goat this consumer sentiment continuing because we have -- america's the best place in the world to be for investment and capital. cheryl: did you say get a china deal? >> we need a china deal so we don't slow down. cheryl: i'm glad you brought that up. that's the bigger picture. i don't want to be debbie downer. there are good things we have to remind ourselves about and why we have the consumer debt. you've got a strong u.s. economy, rising wages, low unemployment. we haven't seen this since 1963. and although interest rates. still in theory, the economy is still strong, rebecca. >> the fundamentals are there. let's hope they continue to be there. we need them to stay. we t have to pay our bills. cheryl: we do. thank you very much.

>> thank you. lauren: speaking of bills, what is next for european stocks after disappointing forecasts from the european commission as well as the bank of england. stocks in europe up this morning. ♪ time to begin, isn't it. ♪ i get a little bit sick of the debt, i'll admit. ♪ i'm just the same as i was. so even when she grows up, she'll never outgrow the memory of our adventure. unlock savings when you add select hotels to your existing trip. only with expedia. ♪ ♪ move to the enterprise-grade cloud that's built to handle all your apps. ♪ ♪ the ibm cloud. the cloud for smarter business.

lauren: growing fears of a global economic slowdown with disappointing data coming from the zero zone and -- eurozone and renewed concerns over do we get a u.s./china trade deal by march 1st. chris be beecham joins us now. what do you make of this? >> i think this has been coming for a while, and reports of the recession from germany, it looks that things are getting worse and german data offering no encouragement whatsoever the past couple weeks, underlines

the point that this is a global phenomenon. you wonder how long the u.s. can remain entirely isolated from this. those china trade wars coming back into focus after a healthy bounce in markets. cheryl: if we don't get a china/u.s. trade deal we had an an list say that will be -- analyst say that will be a problem for markets. there is a report of a he secret group in the british government working on a plan to kick star the economy if britain crashes out of the e.u. with no deal. talk about this. that's a pretty bold headline. >> it is. i think it is reflective of where we are in the negotiations. the clock is ticking down. there's no signs we'll get to the withdrawal agreement. the irish are clamoring to stand firm on this. it's the kind of thing we need to think about if we do get to that no deal cliff edge and this

worries the government at this point. lauren: are you encouraged that theresa may is going to dublin today to maybe try to figure something out with that irish backstop? >> well, it could be a -- there are signs that maybe the e.u. is willing to shift but it's the irish that are holding the line on this one. i think that's the worry in dublin they might get sold out by the e.u. they're key to stress their unity and that ireland is not to be sold down the river for the sake of a brexit deal. cheryl: is there any movement within the e.u. in brussels to come to the table to work with theresa may. so far they've been not willing to renegotiate anything. >> well, there's only one woman that can shift this at the moment and that's not theresa may. it's angela merkel. she said they need to find creative solutions. when she says that, the e.u. says can we did creative and the

commission says no. these things aren't shifting at all and we've got a vote next week in parliament with no sign it will get through and it will be a rerun of two weeks ago. lauren: with the slowdown in italy, germany and spain and the question mark surrounding the future of great britain, what happens to europe and how much do you think that affects us here in the u.s.? because the china slowdown is being reflected in european -- on their shores. how much of that will turn up right here on the shores of the united states? >> well, it has to come back to the u.s. eventually. it's not good to see key trading partners lik germany and china n slowdown territory. you wonder how long the u.s. can he remain isolated. it makes sense that the fed is aware of the problem even if u.s. data continues to sail ahead. it's likely the rest of the world pulls the u.s. back down unfortunately rather than the u.s. pulling everyone else out of recession at this point.

cheryl: chris, a lot of ground covered. we're watching britain along with everything else in europe. thanks for being here, sir. lauren: thank you for watching "fbn: a.m.." happy weekend to everyone and good morning to "mornings with maria," starts right now. maria: thank you so much. happy weekend to you. good morning everybody. thanks for joining us. i'm maria bartiromo. happy friday. it is friday, february 8th. your top stories right now, just before 6:00 a.m. on the east coast. bezos bomb shell, the amazon ceo and washington post owner making blackmail allegations against the national enquirer, we've got all the details right near. rising trade tensions with china, big story, the president and president xi will not meet ahead of the march 1st deadline. now the united states may ramp up its protection against chinese technology like huawei and zte. investors are on earnings watch once again. we have a look at the companies in focus today, what will drive these markets and watching you type, a report says apps are