maria: great show. jared max has joined us this morning. "varney & company" starts right now. stau stuart, notice anything different today about our set? notice anything different? stuart: yeah. maria: april fool's! stuart: i know jared very well. maria: he has hair. april fool's. stuart: good morning, maria. good morning, everyone. clearly, it's april 1st. it is a monday morning rally. it's the start of a new quarter and watch stocks go as surprise rebounds of manufacturing in china, good news for the global economy. their vice premier arrives here

this week. that's good news for ongoing china trade talks. you're not getting much of a return on your money in cash and bonds. that's good news for stocks. it's been a great year thus far as president trump says, your 401(k) makes you look like a genius. let there be no doubt. let's go to politics for a second. let there be no doubt there is a crisis on the border. it has truly reached crisis levels. 1,000 migrants a day for ten straight days have come across the border just in the rio grande valley. 40% of border agents are now assisting migrant families. i don't see how you can call it anything but an invasion encouraged by democrats. the president says he will close the border if mexico doesn't act and he will stop aid to central america if they don't act. here's some good news for the president ten days after the no collusion mueller report. in a "wall street journal"/nbc poll, 57% said they had no more doubts about the trump

presidency. what a monday. big rally. trump's looking good and wait until you hear the latest on joe biden. "varney & company" is about to begin. very unexpectedly and out of nowhere, i feel joe biden put his hands on my shoulders, get up very close to me from behind, lean in, smell my hair and then plant a slow kiss on the top of my head. stuart: that accusation surfaced just last friday and here's how joe biden has responded. quote, in my many years on the campaign trail and in public life, i have offered countless handshakes, hugs, expressions of affection, support and comfort, and not once, never, did i believe i acted inappropriately. if it is suggested that i did

so, i will listen respectfully but it was never my intention. this all spells trouble for the biden campaign but his associates insist he will still be in the race. we will have more on this throughout the program today. here's that mueller poll again. 57% say they have no more doubts about the trump presidency. andy puzder joins us now. i call that good news for the president post-mueller. what do you say? >> absolutely, that's great news for the president post-mueller. what people should also realize is that there was a real conspiracy, not the smoky room kind of conspiracy but a deep state conspiracy where people were, you know, you had political operatives in the press and the fbi, law enforcement officials, all putting this kind of made-up story together and people are now seeing it's not true. stuart: do you think the president should go after the deep state conspiracy, or should he just move on, drop it, move on, let's get on with it?

what should he do? >> look, we can't let this happen to another president. this president trump said that. i think what we need to do is not go after the deep state in particular, but go after individuals who really violated their responsibilities, violated the sacred trust they hold as officers of the government, and find out who they are and let them know that this kind of behavior is completely unacceptable. stuart: so hard line trump, right? >> i would be hard line with this. i think it's time. stuart: he's definitely taking a hard live with the federal reserve. he was tweeting about that again. had the fed not mistakenly raised interest rates, especially since there is very little inflation and had they not done the ridiculously timed quantitative tightening that 3% gdp and stock market would have both been much higher and world markets would be in a better place. mr. trump wants the fed to cut rates by 50 points, 50 basis points. larry kudlow agrees with him. stephen moore may be at the fed, agrees with that, too.

the president doesn't want -- he wants to keep the economy rolling all through the 2020 election. that's what's going on here. >> the democrats want to stop it. look, the dollar is very, very strong because interest rates were increased eight consecutive quarte quarters. the economy is very strong which further strengthens the dollar. when the dollar's strong, obviously other countries have a hard time buying our products. we have an easier time buying other countries' products. you see our exports go down, our imports go up and that is a direct impact on gdp, on economic growth. so the president's right. if it hadn't been for those last two interest rate increases, i think we needed some but the last two were over the top and he was critical of it at the time, as was steve moore and larry kudlow. if it hadn't been for those cuts we could have had well in excess of 3% gdp last year and would have had a much better first quarter. stuart: andy, thank you very much for joining us this morning. i wonder what the president is saying about the fed and with

mr. kudlow joining in, i wonder if that's got something to do with stock futures which are up this monday morning, up over 200 points on the dow. yes, we've got encouraging growth numbers from china. that helps the market here. high level trade talks continue this week in washington. that's no doubt a help as well. dennis gartman is with us this morning. what do you think, this jawboning of the fed, these statements from larry kudlow? you think that's helping the market this morning? >> it's certainly not being detrimental to the market. clearly that's being beneficial. the announcement, the numbers out of china were very, you know, very surprising. the purchasing manager's report was well above 50 for the first time in months. that's a clear help. it's something the chinese have done, they lowered the discount rate, lowered reserve requirements and as i like to say, a reserve requirement cut is a two by four to the head of a recalcitrant mule. it gets the mule's attention very seriously and the mule was the chinese economy which has turned much for the better.

the economy, the global economy depends much upon what we do, what china does and you now have both economies moving from the lower left to upper right. it's still a bull market in stocks. it shocks me somewhat to see stock prices as high as they are and overbought as they are, but they still want to go higher. stuart: i'm with you. but if you are sitting on some cash or in bonds, what are you doing? you are not getting much of a rate of return, are you? if you just chuck it into equities, you've got a shot here of a significant gain. is that the basis of what's going on here? >> it's the only place for money to go for many people. there are places, other places to go. there are places in the bond market, there are etfs that have corporate debt and non-u.s. government debt that are yielding 5%, 6%, 7%, 8% and pay on a monthly basis but most people don't pay attention to those things. they would rather be involved with kellogg or apple or equities generally and so that's where money is going. i understand that, i see that going on and it's going to continue. write this down, it will continue until it stops.

stuart: i believe that's called a truism. >> 45 years of wisdom. stuart: one last one. do you think politics has got anything to do with this rally? >> well, i have not been a great fan of the president, i disagree with him on trade completely. i think he's got it wrong. i don't like the fact he's jawboning the fed. nonetheless, the mueller investigation having been -- having shown there -- that the president was not guilty of collusion and he never was, i find it unbelievable that people thought that was a possibility to begin with, but now that that's out of the way, and the polls are showing a greater respect for the president, that clearly is beneficial to the stock market. it can't be seen any other way. stuart: got it. dennis gartman, thank you. see you again soon. thank you, sir. airline system outages to tell you about this morning. if you are a passenger, maybe check with your airline, as they say. ashley: no april fool's either. this is real. the faa just announcing by tweet

that this issue has been resolved but we know as the airlines go, one issue has a domino effect. it was a problem with the aerodata program, which basically plans the weight and balance on airplanes. it's part of the paperwork needed to take off. without it, with the system down, planes couldn't take off. there was a delay, southwest says it was 40 minutes to an hour. planes that were taxiing out had to come back to the gate, that kind of thing. delays were reported already in chicago, new york, boston, atlanta, miami, detroit. it's going to take awhile for all of this to get flushed out. as i say, one of these major hubs has a problem, it does ripple across the country. the only good news is, faa says this issue has been resolved. stuart: just no fun flying. ashley: no fun at all. stuart: imagine you are sitting at home on monday morning, you have to travel, of to get there, you have a deadline -- ashley: you're just stuck. liz: it's like preparing for a small military battle when you get to the airport. stuart: you are right. absolutely right.

liz: anxiety-provoking. stuart: relieve the pressure, look at futures. we are going to go up 200 points on the dow industrial average, approximately 20 minutes from now. a big gain, maybe up 1% for the nasdaq. big rally this monday morning. new developments in the drama surrounding jeff bezos and those texts between him and his girlfriend. a private investigator says saudi arabia hacked bezos' phone. more in a moment. mark zuckerberg calling for more internet regulations. he's got four suggestions. looks like he's trying to get out front of his problem. and president trump tweeting about the border. here it is. democrats working with republicans in congress can fix the asylum and other loopholes quickly. we have a major national emergency at our border. get it done now. as we told you, the president threatening to close the border maybe this week and he wants to cut u.s. aid to three central american countries. what a story. "varney & company" just getting rolling.

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stuart: let there be no doubt, it is a crisis on the border and president trump may close the southern border and he plans to cut funding to el salvador, guatemala and honduras, payback for not helping to stop the flow of migrants trying to get to america. joining us now, former state department official christian whiten. christian, that closure at the border, let's deal with that, that would be drastic.

mexico is our third largest trade partner. it would just interrupt it immediately. do you think that kind of drastic action is justified? >> i think at this point we have been hearing so many things from central american leaders and mexican leaders that they are going to be helpful with this, and they haven't been helpful with this. they could actually, you know, mexico especially talking about the migrants coming from central america could easily control its border, could turn these people back and subject them to some law enforcement because they are breaking mexican law in addition to ours and the president has threatened to do something about this. it's time he followed through. it's a little unclear what he means by close the border, if that really would be closing it to all commerce or just visitors or some combination, but something should be done. stuart: what about taking away money from central america? >> that's a good idea. you know, if you look at the purpose of the foreign aid, it's supposed to encourage capitalism. we don't really say that explicitly although we ought to, and it isn't really having that effect. if you pour money into a corrupt system, sometimes you just get more corruption. not only is it not really achieving what it's doing, but

again, the president has threatened to take action to avoid a sort of obama-style red line as with syria. he really does need to follow through on some of these things. stuart: across the political spectrum, do you think there is support for the hard line action closing the border may be, and taking money away from central america? >> definitely central america. foreign aid has very low approval. the american public tends to overestimate how much we give away to foreign countries and a lot of what we give away is military money that they turn around and actually buy military goods from us. but no problem getting rid of that. there will be an outcry for anyone with sensitivity to trans-border commerce about closing that border but if you're looking at 100,000 illegal entries plus per month now, it's really gotten out of hand. stuart: a million a year by the looks of it, this calendar year. we have pope francis, he's getting political, this time saying that leaders who build walls will end up becoming prisoners of those walls. which is a source of a lot of the migrants trying to get into

europe. so the pope has established his slap to the e, directly united states. this pope, the pinko pope, is most comfortable criticizing the united states. what he says on its face is stupid, actually. anyone who has a fence around your backyard knows that it's not to make you a prisoner, it's to keep people you don't want or things you don't want out of your backyard. incidentally, the pope has a very nice large wall around the vatican. is he going to take that down? does he feel like he's a prisoner? it's just very disappointing from a left wing pope. stuart: as a christian leader should, he is stressing the humanitarian side of this. what do you make of that? >> as a christian leader, i would like him to stand up for christiandom and western civilization and the things that has produced. the idea that especially in europe, that this will be flooded by, you know, frankly a lot of islamists, people who believe in political islam as well as muslims who wmay not, wo

changed the culture without the consent of the people, i would think the pope would be concerned about that. stuart: let's just say political pope, shall we, as opposed to your characterization which i will not repeat, all right? got it. thanks for joining us this morning. appreciate it. good stuff. i want to talk about facebook. mark zuckerberg is calling for more regulation of the internet and he's got, what is it, four suggestions? liz: harmful content, election integrity, privacy and data portability. in other words, be able to be freely able to sell data into other platforms. he wrote an op-ed about it. this is basically tossing in the towel saying yes, the world is coming after us to regulate us. okay, you show us how to do it. the most important thing is the fourth one. that's what he cares about. stuart: data privacy. liz: portability. in other words, he got in trouble in the cambridge analytica scandal. he's saying show us the rules how to write carefully and position us to sell people's data. he's positioning themselves as a neutral platform, other people

come and do bad things. it's the fourth one he cares about. stuart: he's trying to get out front of the opposition to him and the stock is still just below 170 a share. liz: that's correct. stuart: now this. a federal judge telling pg & e, the california utility, it cannot pay dividends to shareholders because it's responsible for those deadly wildfires in california. that is a very big development. any ceo should take note. the stock actually is up ten cents this morning. overall, we have a very nice rally coming our way. up 200 points for the dow. that's almost 1%. and the nasdaq will be up 1%. all right. i would like to share a little good news with you, our viewers. loyal "varney" viewer angela page turns 90 today. she was born april 1st, 1929 to italian immigrants. she's the second youngest of eight siblings, one of only two girls. didn't finish high school. she's self-taught, worked in a garment factory, then as a bank

teller. she watches every day. she says i am down-to-earth. thank you, angela. thank you much indeed. happy birthday to you, angela. and many more to come. god bless you. i didn't really know anything about my family history. went to ancestry, i put in the names of my grandparents first. i got a leaf right away. a leaf is a hint that is connected to each person in your family tree. i learned that my ten times great grandmother is george washington's aunt. within a few days i went from knowing almost nothing to holy crow, i'm related to george washington. this is my cousin george.

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hacked his phone and took private information. tell me more. liz: yeah. jeff bezos owns "the washington post." the "the washington post" was going full on on the khashoggi murder. gavin debecker, jeff bezos's personal detective, said leaked messages, texting with "national enquirer" showing the sex texting between jeff bezos and his girlfriend basically was connected to khashoggi. he is saying the saudis were hacking jeff bezos' phone prior to this because they were concerned about the coverage of khashoggi's murder and watch this. what's really terrifying in this story, what he is saying, gavin debecker is saying the sachlds can take out of thin air iphone text messages, photos, anything you do on your iphone, they hack it out of thin air and grab it in between. we have never -- i never heard that before. stuart: neither have i. very advanced hacking from saudi arabia. liz: that's what he's saying. stuart: we will follow the story. a federal judge wants to prevent

pg & e, the california utility, prevent them from paying a dividend because of its role in the california wildfires. tell me more about that. ashley: this judge says look, until the pg & e, the utility in california, meets the goals to trim hundreds of thousands of trees near its power lines, something the company has been criticized for not doing which led to wildfires and ultimately death, this judge says unless you do that, you are basically on probation in bankruptcy 11, you can't be paying out dividends. he hasn't done this, but he's threatening. stuart: wait a second. the environmentalists will not let you trim trees. ashley: in many cases but right next to power lines, you should have that area cleaned up for public safety. pg & e has been battling environmentalists but at the same time, have, according to authorities, not done a good job of cleaning up their property. the judge says you paid out $2 billion in dividends in 2016 and 2017. you should take care of what you're supposed to do first before you pay out money.

this is a company still operating. stuart: but that puts all the blame on pg & e for the california wildfires. ashley: environmentalists certainly have their role, as we know. stuart: they certainly do, in my opinion. better move on. futures, why not, this is looking pretty good, folks. we are going to be up about 220 points for the dow industrials and 73 points for the nasdaq. that is a monday morning rally. we're on it. we will show it to you after this. fact is, every insurance company hopes you drive safely. but allstate actually helps you drive safely... with drivewise. it lets you know when you go too fast... ...and brake too hard. with feedback to help you drive safer. giving you the power to actually lower your cost. unfortunately, it can't do anything about that. now that you know the truth... are you in good hands?

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stuart: we took it right up to 9:30. monday morning, april the 1st and away we go. trading is off and running. i guarantee we've got a triple digit gain right from the get-go. yes, we have. we are up 189, 195. look at that. 190 points. well above the 26,000 level. i'm trying to do the math. we're about, what, 650, 700 points away from the all-time record closing high for the dow. that is a rally. show me the s&p. i'm pretty sure it's a broad-based deal. yeah, up .7% there. solid gain. how about the nasdaq? i think that's looking at a gain of almost 1%. yes, it is. 7,800 on the nasdaq. it is a rally on a monday morning all across the board. jeff sica is here, keith

fitzgerald is here, liz macdonald and ashley webster both here. the markets have opened clearly higher. we have good numbers out of china. their manufacturing sector perking up. jeff, is there -- what else is going on here that i have missed out? >> china is the main thing. the fed is the secondary. low rates have helped. one thing i'll say is that investors are failing to remember that a lot of the data out of china is very politically motivated. to me it seems a little suspicious that right before we're getting the major trade talks, china comes out with these so-called positive economic numbers. they cannot be trusted. stuart: i want to throw cold water on that. i think that's a legitimate point. chucking you a bone today. keith, what are we missing here? why is this market up so much on this, the first day of the quarter? >> i think jeff's on it for sure. i think the fed, traders are trying to get ahead of that. all the jawboning about rates going up is really tell-tale

that rates could go down i think 50 basis points sometime this year but don't forget brexit. you have also got the potential for a real bilateral trade deal that would be good for the uk and good for us. stuart: i have been talking about that. i think there is an opportunity here. u.s./uk trade deal. usmca maybe makes it. china trade deal. there could be some real good stuff happening on trade coming up. i want to backtrack and show you lyft today. lyft is down four bucks today, down 6%, okay. went out public on friday for the first time, first time you could buy shares in it, popped almost 9% at the close. now it's backtracking. $72 remember was the ipo price. keith, would you be buying it at $73 today? >> well, this is a family show, so i would use some language to basically say no way. i think a deal like this, it's lost more money than any company coming oucht. it's not a quality offering.

give it a quarter or two, then re-evaluate. stuart: please get that graphic off the set, please. i don't want to know about friday. i want to know about today. look at that, $72 now, down five bucks. i take it jeff sica who never touches anything with a ten-foot pole would not touch this? >> no. i was thinking even more obscene way to say heck, no. bottom line is that if you look at most of these big ipos after they go public, it's the worst time to buy them on average. they don't do very well at all. lyft has very, very serious problems going forward. stuart: liz and ash, i thought all the enthusiasm behind lyft was good for the overall market. ashley: because the money was coming in. stuart: i don't think it's a shot in the arm for the market today. liz: you're right. there was a positive sentiment for ipos in general when we saw lyft beating uber to the punch. stuart: sure. i hope it's not another

facebook. >> they are losing $1 billion trying to coattail uber which they have done successfully. uber is fighting a lot of these legal battles and lyft is filling a niche but they are hemorrhaging money right now. they wanted to take the money and disappear. this stock is going down. stuart: keith and jeff have been bashing lyft. it lost another 1%, now down 7%. you guys have moved the market down. you know what you're doing here? all right. last thursday, mortgage rates came in. around 10:00 eastern time, got the latest mortgage rates. 30-year fixed down to 4.06%. i've got to believe that's a shot in the arm for housing, isn't it? >> it is. housing needed a shot in the arm. this will help the market. unfortunately, i don't think it's going to help the housing market long-term but for now, it's what we needed. you will see a lot of people who haven't refinanced should get out and refinance. liz: five million already. stuart: mortgage applications up 12%? there's a market angle to this

as well. if you got interest rates way down like this, you're not getting much of a return if you got your money in cash or bonds. am i right here? put it into stocks. you can get 4% or 5% dividend yield on a stock. >> you get the dividend plus the growth. that's really what you've got here. if rates come down low, that's the natural decision-making part of the process everybody is evaluating right now. stuart: the real estate sector as of right now is not doing that well despite 4% mortgages. however, we have now gotten ourselves, let's see, almost a 200 point gain for the dow. we are five minutes into the session, well above the 26,000 level. we have apple, this is not going to affect the stock but they canceled their wireless charging mat, remember them, because they say it didn't meet high standards. not affecting the stock which has reached again, $190 per share. this is interesting. disney's live action version of

"dumbo" fell short at the box office for its opening weekend. what did it make? liz: $45 million. stuart: how much did it cost? liz: $170 million even before marketing expenses. $170 million. they've got a way to go to recoup the costs. this is a family movie, beautiful story, maybe the wrong director, tim burton has kind of a macabre, dark vision. we will wait and see. stuart: not affecting the stock. liz: not at all. that's correct. stuart: what next? the dow is up 170 and -- oh, take a look at boeing. we know about the problems with the 737 max jet. keith, are you saying it's a good buy at $384? i guess you missed it at $369 last week. would you still buy it at $384? >> actually, i said buy it below $370, nibble into it. i still think it's good. there's a lot more to this business than the max jets. you still have lots of back order and lots of defense

contracts. assuming there's no additional cancellations, yes, i think it's a good buy. stuart: take a look at lyft again, please. it has now dropped below its ipo price. w went out at $72, just dropped below -- well, right at the deal there, just right at it. and the dow has come from a 200 point gain -- $71.78, it fell to -- the dow was up 200, now up 160. i wonder if the pullback from lyft is dampening enthusiasm a little. no? ashley: no. stuart: i'm out on a limb on this one? okay. i'll move on. right at $72 per share. okay. there you go. $71.37. kellogg getting close to -- you know it's got this keebler cookie brand. they might be selling it to

nutella. you don't like kellogg at all, do you, keith? tell me why. >> this is another american brand that's been out of touch with consumers. they are focusing on sugar bomb cereals, on pop tarts, on eggo waffles, but really, they have missed the shift toward organic foods. cash flow's down, their brands arestruggling. i think it's got dividend risk. stuart: jeff is nodding his head. >> i 100% agree. the bottom line is organic food is the only way to make money in the industry. they are trying to revive these brands which basically contain processed, very bad for you foods. stuart: organic food is the only way to make money in -- >> in the food business now, because millenials are shifting to eating healthy. i survived on twinkies and ring-dings and all that. stuart: didn't we all. >> eight cans of soda, stuff

that's very bad for you. stuart: it's not in moderation. what's wrong with that? if you live on twinkies and doughnuts, yeah, you've got a problem. >> i will buy you a case of whee cheese-wiz. stuart: to facebook, here we go. zuckerberg wants more regulation of the internet. i think he's trying to get ahead of even stronger regulations coming down the pike. liz: the deluge around the world. >> this is so disingenuous. he's made billions of dollars selling personal information and now he's going to the feds, kissing up to the feds and telling them he agrees with it. this is not first amendment. i think this is a very, very bad thing. stuart: keith, i can hear you all the way out from the west coast, i can hear you saying yeah, yeah, i ain't going to touch facebook with a ten-foot pole. go ahead. >> not even a 20-foot pole. where has zuckerberg been through all of this mess? he could have taken ownership, could have put on horns on,

could have said this is my company, my watch, here's how i'm going to fix it. instead, he's sending his lieutenants and this is just getting -- this is play acting. liz: he's right. have they shut down streaming yet? no. streaming was the problem in the new zealand slaughter as the massacre -- stuart: if he shut down streaming, you wouldn't have a stock at $169. you would have it at $120. liz: that's where they are, making money off that. >> nothing is worse than the government getting involved in these tech companies. they should have self-regulated. they had the chance and blew it. ashley: painfully transparent attempt to try and win some good will. stuart: wow. what a day. tell you what. jeff, keith, thank you very much indeed. good stuff. check the big board. we are still a solid rally, up 164 points, well above 26,000. now this. walgreens testing more tobacco-free stores but said it has no plans to stop selling cigarettes nationwide.

the company has been under pressure from the feds for selling tobacco products to minors. walgreens stock this morning virtually unchanged. the president's energy policy facing a legal setback. a federal judge blocked the administration's plan to expand offshore drilling. we have more on that coming up in our next hour. president trump threatening to close the southern border as early as this week. next, we are going to talk to congressman andy biggs. does arizona have a problem with a border closure? we'll be right back.

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stuart: let's take a look at lyft. the big board shows a nice rally, up 148 points, 26,077. now show me lyft, please.

okay. it's now below its offering price of last friday. went out public at $72. now it's at $70. moments ago, it touched $69.78. it's hovering right about, a couple bucks below its offering price. we will keep an eye on that all day long. immigration. president trump talking really tough about the border. roll that tape, please. >> mexico's tough. they can stop them but they chose not to. now they're going to stop them. if they don't stop them, we're closing the border. we will close it and we will keep it closed for a long time. i'm not playing games. stuart: not playing games. congressman andy biggs, republican, arizona, joins us now. you are a border state. if they close the crossing points, that would have serious implications for arizona. do you support the closure at the border? >> well, look, i'm hearing from constituents nothing on this. the border in many respects needs to be closed but it would cause economic distress in arizona and throughout the rest of the country.

we have one border crossing where you have almost 25,000 people cross every day just to work in our fields in arizona and thousands of trucks crossing the border. you know, we are going to interdict about 1.5 million people coming across this year. it's an invasion. when we closed the border after 9/11, we saw the drug trade and human trafficking trade in phoenix, 120 miles north of the border, absolutely dry up within about seven days. stuart: then would you favor a border closure? because there's no question it's a crisis. no question about it. i have to ask you really strongly here, would you support the closure of the border? >> i would support a temporary closure of the border with respect to closing it as much as possible, with respect that it has to be short term. it has to be basically a cudgel against mexico. it will hurt us if we have to close the border economically in arizona, no doubt about it. that's a problem. but when we closed it after 9/11

the whole country was unified. right now, 50% of the country says there's a problem, we should do something like close the border. if you close the border, you have 50% of the country including members of congress who say there's really no problem, why do something like that. so we would have tremendous i don't want to say unrest, but discord over that issue. economic interests say no but humanitarian interests and what we have on the border, this crisis, it's a yes. stuart: i wanted to just show you former obama homeland security chief jae johnson, talking about the border. roll that tape, please. >> by anyone's definition, by any measure, right now we have a crisis at our southern border. according to the commissioner of cbp, there were 4,000 apprehensions in one day alone this past week and we are on pace for 100,000 apprehensions on our southern border this

month. that is by far a greater number than anything i saw on my watch in my three years as secretary of homeland security. stuart: that was president obama's homeland security chief, jeh johnson. he did not qualify the word crisis, saying it's a manufactured crisis. he said it's a crisis. i wonder what options does the president have other than closing the border? because we are being invaded. >> he has few options. that's the reality of it. that's why closing the border, it will cause us some economic distress but it has to be done if we are going to inspire mexico to do what it needs to do. it's not enforcing its own immigration laws. so we get these caravans and now there's this massive caravan working its way up. if mexico were to stop these people, we would be able to control our border but we have no control right now. stuart: you hope this threat from the president to close the border will have an impact on mexico's government and they will do something, right? >> yes.

exactly right. we need a deterrent. we need help. stuart: very difficult situation down there in arizona for everybody, i would suspect. thank you for joining us on a difficult subject. thank you, sir. >> thanks, stuart. stuart: all right. we've got the dow -- let's see. by the way, jeh johnson is going to be making today's -- he's going to be on today's "making money with charles payne" on this network today, 2:00. charles payne. got it. jeh johnson again. check the dow 30. we are still up, nice gain, 167 points for the dow jones industrial average. back above the 26,000 level. there you have it. we've got 27 of the dow 30 in the green. that means they are up. it's been a rough year for retail workers. more than 40,000 laid off just in the first three months of this year. our retail watcher says there are some winners in bricks and mortar retailing. he will tell us which they are, next.

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stuart: retailing, we have covered it a lot. there's the number, 41,000 people in the retail industry lost their jobs in the first three months of this year. burt flickinger, our retail guy, is with us now. you brought with you a list of bricks and mortar winners.

i've got your winners, dollar general, dollar tree, the parent company of tj maxx, bj's wholesale, ulta beauty, five below. they are all discounters. >> everyone needs a bargain. they are looking for a bargain. the headline on the "new york post," tax, tax, tax. people are just overburdened with taxes. the stores are overburdened with taxes. the full line retail can't afford to stay in business and people, price is primary for about 90% of u.s. shoppers. it's the number one motivation of where he or she shops. stuart: i'm going to go through it again. dollar general, dollar tree, parent of tj maxx, bj's wholesale, ulta beauty, five below. now, i'm looking at the stock now. all of them, you think, are going to go up? >> yes. stuart: how much? >> probably if the s&p's up 3% or 4% this year, they should go up 7% to 8%. costco, walmart should have good moves. stuart: they will outperform the market, those discounters and off-price people?

>> yes. stuart: fascinating to me. no retail ice age for them, then. >> but there's a retail ice age for everyone else. and they are winning from the others contracting. stuart: now, i live around new york city. i have watched fifth avenue. i see tommy hilfiger is the latest to close their flagship store on fifth avenue. lots of our viewers, look at them, lord & taylor, gap, calvin klein, ralph lauren. they are closing on fifth avenue, new york city, midtown. lot of our viewers love to come to new york to shop. what happened to these -- what happened to midtown manhattan? >> big city mirror. same as michigan avenue in chicago, same thing in san francisco, boston, washington, d.c., los angeles. the big city mirrors have choked off the cities. lousy public transportation, lousy buses, subways, mass transit, tough traffic and you hear it on the conference calls that people used to be able to get in to shop, see a show, go to a restaurant. 45 minutes each way. now it takes two and a half,

three and a half hours each way so they stopped coming and the operating costs, the taxes have just gone up geometrically exponentially. stuart: not to mention the amazons of this world which competitive on price. >> bull's eye. stuart: you see any change to this? >> just as you referenced, fifth avenue, madison avenue, the destination areas are really struggling all the way to third avenue to broadway. what we are seeing in london, what we are seeing in korea is the digital interactive, animated stores, retailers that invest with their big brand suppliers, to make the stores more exciting, kind of like going to a disney show. those retailers are winning with bricks and mortar so in london, yes, paris, even without the yellow vests, champs-elysees, they are struggling with traditional bricks and mortar

and australia, new zealand, rest of the western world, japan, too, but people who are digitizing the stores are winning with bricks and mortar. stuart: fascinating. thanks very much indeed, sir. we appreciate you being here, as always. check the big board. holding on to a very solid rally. the dow is up 180 points, almost. 26,100 is where we are. a new post-mueller poll shows a solid majority has no more doubt about president trump. that's pretty good news for him, i'd say. however, democrats will likely keep up with an endless series of investigations. i say they should be held accountable for what they have done and said before the mueller report came out. i think they have confused us all. that's the least of it. my take on that, next. val, vern... i'm off to college and i'm not gonna be around... i'm worried about my parents' retirement. oh, don't worry. voya helps them to and through retirement... ...dealing with today's expenses... ...like college... ...while helping plan, invest and protect for the future.

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construction spending. have you numbers? liz: up 1%. expecting a downdraft. it went up. so the market, look at that responding nicely, 2.05 popping up. this is indicative of people, construction builders wanting to come into the economy and build. stuart: brian demetro laffer center of economics. does this indicate a rebound for the economy. >> the story of the american economy since 2017 has been significant growth. might have been a little paws month or two ago in the first quarter, now it is back on the train. stuart: we had reports that china's manufacturing sector, made a surprise rebound, a surprise expansion. is the global economy not slowing as much as we thought it was? >> stuart, certainly the chinese manufacturing sector is linked to the american economy.

chinese economy is really nothing without the united states. the their currency is linked to the dollar. if the united states is starting to roll again china will feel it in their manufacturing sector. stuart: brian, stay there for a second. two items of economic news truly created a move up for the market. we were up about 190. now we're up 227. the dow is at 26,156. now this. there has been a shift in public opinion. now that the mueller no collusion report is out, 57% in a new "wall street journal/nbc" poll have no more doubts about the trump presidency. that is significant jump in confidence in our president. so now, what do we do with all those people who had access to intelligence but kept on saying

trump was in league with the russians? if mueller says no collusion, these people misled us. adam schiff and eric smallwell are on the house intelligence committee. for two years, they are saying there is evidence of collusion. senators wyden and warner are both on the senate intelligence committee. both said there was evidence of collusion between trump and the russians. senator blumenthal on the judiciary committee says the evidence of collusion is quote, pretty clear. former senate leader harry reid, wrote to the fbi's james comey you possess explosive information about close ties and cooperation between donald trump and the russian government, end quote. where is the accountability? for two years, leading democrats along with government officials like the cia's john brennan led the country down the rat hole of collusion. mueller, an army of lawyers and $25 million say there was no collusion. i don't think you should be

allowed to drag the country through the dirt without coming clean what you were doing at very least apologize but they won't. when the full mueller report comes out, they will pick on minutia of detail, there are still questions. after all if you're going into the next election claiming if the president is russian agent it is hard to back off. of course there will always be more questions. their last hope is sow seed of doubt among the trump haters no matter what mueller says f the democrats insist on endless investigations, that is exactly what they are going to do, they should be held accountable for what they have said and what they have said. that is my take. my next guest says congressman adam schiff should resign. curtis ellis, former trump campaign manager, is with us. make your case. >> you wouldn't hire somebody for the job if they didn't read

the job and understand it. the job of the intelligence committee, intelligence oversight committee to provide oversight of intelligence agencies make sure what they're doing, quote, in conformity with the constitution and laws of the united states. stuart: okay. >> you have to go right back to the founding of these committees in the 1970s, 1977, followed the church committee. u.s. senator frank church, a liberal democrat, had conducted an investigation into abuses of the intelligence agencies where the fbi and cia were conducting wiretaps on american citizens against the law. where they were circulating derogatory information in order to discredit people they didn't like, steele dossier, anyone? stuart: okay. >> when they were running informants into campaigns illegally. as a result of all these abuses being uncovered they said we need to set up legislative oversight committees to make

sure these intelligence agencies are not breaking the law. we need congress to protect us from our protectors. stuart: that's not what adam schiff did on the intelligence committee. >> no. stuart: he chairs it now. >> he chairs it now. he has actually become an asset of rogue elements within the intelligence community have been circulating things like the dossier, the steele dossier, running informants, the informant sent into the trump campaign as pretext for opening a counterintelligence investigation. seymour hirsch wrote a story in the income times, 1974, quoting an intelligence operative saying we would get a request from the white house. they said we want to wiretap this foreign person who is talking to jane fonda. they couldn't order a wiretap of jane fonda because she is an american citizen but they knew that that was the real target. stuart: you think that is what happened in the 2016 election?

>> well, there are certainly a lot of creditable evidence. i personally believe that but there is a lot of credible evidence that is what was going on and we need to get to the bottom of it. stuart: you can't force adam schiff to resign? >> no. stuart: could he be forced out by speaker pelosi? >> yes. because the senate select, pardon me, house select oversight committee is chosens the chairman is chosen by the speaker. he is not a senority post. and let's go right back to what the church committee wrote. they said, lawlessness by government breeds corrosive cynicism among the people and erodes the trust upon which government depends. for the good of country he must be removed so we can have faith that our system is working and that we don't have rogue elements, rogue operatives, trying to choose the president, which again, 1976, the church committee found that the fbi and others were trying to interfere

in elections. stuart: curtis ellis, that is interesting stuff. i don't expect he is going to resign. but we shall follow it. curtis, thanks for joining us. >> thank you. stuart: by the way, we have more on this story later this hour. we're talking to a justice department official, victoria toensing. i want to know was there a deep state conspiracy to undermine the trump presidency? we'll certainly ask her. that is 10:45 on this program. the dow is up 220 points. brian, come back in again. what is the basis of this rally? why are we up so much today? >> we are up so much because the trump policies are persisting. perp meant corporate tax rate. there is strong signals we'll have a free trade deal with free trade partners. democrats are imploding. no big spending on the horizon.

the all systems go. stuart: what about the view, you leave the money in cash, the or bond, rate of return are extremely low with rates so far down, your best alternative is the stock market? is that what is happening, reallocation from cash into stocks? >> to invest in an enterprise that will do something to earn a profit. that is the stuff of economic growth. it is a great scenario and we're experiencing it. stuart: do you think this rally has the aways to go, the market rally? >> if there is real continued progress on all these fronts, especially free trade, i don't see any bar on the stock market reaching new highs. stuart: okay. that is interesting idea on a monday morning with the dow up 200 points. brian, thanks for joining us. we'll see you again later. check out lyft please. there we go. check lyft. it is below the offering price. went out at 72 on friday. popped up at 87.

opened this morning on the downside. we're at 70.54 per share. let me separate this from lyft completely. there is a horrible story today from south carolina about a student there was murdered when she mistook her killer's car for an uber. tell me more. ashley: it is very frightening. it can happen. unfortunately for this young lady, samantha josephson, from new jersey, going to university of south carolina. she made one fatal mistake. she summoned an uber. stood outside of a bar early hours. looking down on her phone. car pulls up. car drives away. the real uber turned up three or four minutes later. dreadful story. her body was found the next day. they have found the person they believe committed this horrible, horrible crime. he is phasing kidnapping and murder charges. bottom line you order an uber, make sure, this is the lesson, the car they say it is coming you get into that car.

but what a horrible situation, this poor young lady, made one mistake it cost her her life. terrible story. stuart: terrible story, ashley. ashley: sure. stuart: the federal ban on bump stocks, going into effect. one bump stock maker just surrendered 60,000 of these things to the feds. you're looking at video of them being destroyed. that company is suing the government for this. we're going it took to him in next hour. ambassador john bolton on the program friday. cubans and russians are calling shots in venezuela. question for our top venezuela watcher, is our reluctant to use military force, helping to solidify russia and cuba's position in venezuela? we'll ask her that next. i knew about the tremors.

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stuart: we're up 200 points. there is the good news this monday morning. starting a new quarter. the last quarter was terrific. we started out well on the new one. we're at 26,125. look at apple, which is a dow stock by the way. not much but it is down. there is a report they are slashing iphone prices in china by as much as 6%. that has taken the stock down but it has not affected the overall dow industrials, still up 203. let's get to venezuela. listen to what national security advisor john bolton said about russia, cuban involvement there.

roll tape. >> the maduro regime is bad enough but if we have curb bans, russians, many believe calling the shots that is one reason why we need to peaceful transfer of power to interim president juan guaido. if russian military forces are entering the western hemisphere to protect maduro, to keep him in power that is not something we accept. stuart: mary anastasia o'grady, "wall street journal." she is our venezuela expert. i put it to you, mary, the reluctance of the administration to use real force, allows russians and cubans to solidify their military position there. >> i think you're right about that but they also feel that conventional use of warfare in venezuela, the u.s. does not want to engage in that, i think for good reason. first of all we don't have a lot of success in recent years. that is something from an earlier generation.

we do have this think smart about this. they do know we can't afford to do a big invision. not only because we would probably lose some soldiers but also because the aftermath of that would be it is going to be extremely difficult. there will have to be rebuilding of institutions there. it is not a small project, go in, knock them out, go home. the russians know we're reluctant to do it. that is why they're pushing this. this weekend, the general jack keane was on "the journal editorial report" and he was saying that he thinks, you know, the u.s. showing a little bit more might in ukraine might send right message to the russians. we should up our support for countries in eastern europe in response to this in order to send a signal to russia that we're not going to just sit there while they do this the other point, very important to remember, this is not new. they did military exercises in decent with two, tu-160 bombers

which can carry nuclear weapons. they did that in 2018. they sold 100,000 kalashnikovs to hugo chavez. the russians have been. there. president obama did nothing about it. mon -- the monroe doctrine as if it didn't exist. now we find ourself in this situation, not like we'll reverse bad years of policy incrementally get their feet into south america overnight. we'll have to let the sanctions work. that is another thing. i think the sanctions can be tighter. there is more we can do. stuart: but longer it goes on, the more power they run into caracas. >> i'm not so sure. this is 99 people on a plane. some were medics, some were communications advisors. it is more of a show -- putin is trying to play a game, but we're still in charge. we can still do the right thing. it has to be very thoughtful. stuart: i just want them out. >> okay.

stuart: i have about 30 seconds left, what on earth is prince charles and his wife, camilla, what the devil are they doing in cuba on a state visit to cuba? can you explain this to me? >> it is really despicable. i think maybe this guy thought this was hip thing to do, celebrities, hollywood people have been going to cuba for some years. he didn't realize cuba is basically the intellectual, intelligence author what is going on in venezuela. you see all the starving venezuelans, that lies at the feet of cuba, here goes a british royal to kiss the ring of the castro regime? it really looks bad. stuart: looks bad? that is the understatement of the decade! >> he is very pro-environment, but apparently humans not so much. stuart: oh, dear. that is good way to end it, before i explode. thank you very much for joining us. >> thank you. stuart: this year, this calendar year, america is going to spend

$500 billion on interest on the federal debt. that is what, 10 billion a week in interest on the debt? that is what happens when you run up the deficit with wild spending. that is a story we are following for you. the biggest week in television is almost here.

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stuart: back to the big number i gave you before the break. that would be $500 billion spent on interest on our debt, the federal debt this year alone. what is that, about 10 billion a week? kristin tate is with us. she is the author of, how do i tax thee? she is columnist for "the hill."

kristen, this is the result of just endless spending, constant expansion of spending and both parties do it and i see no end in sight. what do you say? >> i don't either. right now the economy is humming along. unemployment near a historic low. this would be a fantastic time to start paying down the 22-dollar national debt but during the first five months of fiscal year 2019, federal spending reached a 10-year high. meanwhile president trump's proposed budget for fiscal year 2020, shows he would add as much to the federal debt, almost as much as barack obama did during his term. you know, these budget deficits are reaching catastrophic levels. the biggest contributor of course is ballooning entitlement programs. no one seems to want to cut. stuart: that is the third rail of american politics, isn't it? you can't to after medicare. you can barely reform it. you can't suggest to reform it.

you can't go after social security. you can't even suggest reforming it. that is a problem, isn't it? we always had this. for year, after year, we have the massive debt it keeps on growing but nothing ever happens, does it? >> something has got to change. excessive government handouts encourage people to remain jobless. consider 42 million americans are currently on food stamps. nearly half of americans pay zero in federal income taxes. so this kind of irresponsible spending in face of a debt. stuart: politically impossible. >> it is my generation that will bear the burden of it. stuart: it is politically impossible to do anything about it. you suggest reforming medicare or social security, you lose the seniors vote. you just can't do it. >> you're right. it is a really tough political position, meanwhile you have democrats saying they want to expand social security to illegal immigrants,

"medicare for all," free college. republicans need to do a much better job explaining to americans, particularly young americans, how this path is not sustainable, how if we continue on this path, there won't be any social security for my generation. stuart: you're absolutely right. that is true. but you know, we, say this stay in, day out, the debt bomb is coming, the debt bomb is coming. it never comes. kristen, thank you for your story. interesting stuff. see you soon. >> thank you so much, stuart. stuart: a federal judge blocking president trump's plan to restore offshore drilling in arctic waters. the judge said the only congress can overturn the obama-era ban on offshore drilling. our own judge napolitano will break that down. pope francis taking a shot at our president. we'll tell you what he is saying about walls and migrants next. termites.

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♪ ♪ it's been a hard days night stuart: the last you hear is from judge napolitano. he laughs at us we try to guess which beatles song. >> i love that picture with you. you're all so young -- and you're present age. [laughter] stuart: our executive producer has a daughter. she was listening to the beatles today. and saw a picture of me. ashley: thought you were in the beatles. stuart: wow, was he alive when the beatles were around? our producer says yes he was. his daughter, said, man, he looks pretty good for his age. thank you very much indeed. ashley: thank you. stuart: check that big board. we have a nice rally.

we're going up, 228 points higher. let's get serious. a judge rules, bayer's roundup, the weed killer was liable for causing a man's cancer but scientific evidence finds that weed killer roundup is safe. judge napolitano is here. what do you make of that ruling? >> this is indefensible ruling. when the scientific evidence is equivocal, equal strength on both sides there is no case because the plaintiff has the duty of producing by evidence, by preponderance of the evidence, more than the other side. so what did the plaintiff do here? it snuck into the case out of mouth of plaintiff's lawyer, certain epa studies that were critical of rainedup. who cares if the government is critical of the product. the government is not in the case. the epa was not challenged or tested as to the scientific soundness of its opinions.

she snuck it in anyway. instead of declaring a mistrial, prohibited her to do it, he fined her $500 and her client walked away with 10 of millions. stuart: san francisco, guaranteed, guaranteed. >> federal district judge of san francisco. where the appeal will go in ninth circuit. what are the chances of this judge being overturned? none and none. >> that is pathetic. >> it is. stuart: this jury system, this particular court will ruin a major global corporation. >> you cannot blame the jury. you must blame the judge. the judge is the gatekeeper on the evidence. stuart: i blame the judge. >> unfairly operates that get. the the jury and only decide the case based on what the judge allows them to hear. stuart: i got this right. the federal judge blocked the administration administration to block offshore drilling. judge reinstated the ban on drilling in arctic waters.

isn't that gross judicial overreach. >> in my opinion it does. unfortunately the appeal from alaska goes to the same place. stuart: ninth circuit. >> the statute says the president can withdraw eligibility of certain lands from drilling which president obama did. the statute does not say that a subsequent can unwithdraw it. i think that is a needlessly narrow reading of the ruling. the ruling was intended to allow the president of the united states after consulting with whatever cabinet department it is, interior i guess, to decide which area should be drilled and which area should not. there is no way that a decision by barack obama can bind donald trump but this judge said there is. stuart: i'm really tired of the judiciary making policy. >> these are two glaring -- stuart: it is politics. >> i know you like to find this, i'm glad you do. the public needs to know this is happening.

these are two glaring unhappy examples and think night not be reversed given the reputation of the appellate court to which these cases will go. stuart: however, hasn't president trump made some progress in getting reasonable people on the ninth circuit? >> yes and no. yes, a half dozen. no, because there are 30 judges on the court. they are chosen by lot as panel of three which they sit. we don't know. odds are will be profundly adverse to the roundup company and president. stuart: get judiciary out of politics. >> this doesn't happen in britain, does it? ashley: never. >> the heir to thrown can go to cuba. stuart: a sore point. >> i'm with you on that as you can imagine. stuart: breaking news, the house judiciary committee will vote to authorize subpoenas for the mueller report. ashley: the full report, not the redacted one that ag william

barr says he will hand over by mid-april. that is one vote. they will also authorize, or want to thorize issuance of subpoenas to five individuals, including former white house counsel don mcgahn, former white house communications director hope hicks, steve bannon, former white house chief of staff reince priebus, and, and ann donaldson, former chief of staff of white house counsel. stuart: can congress force the revelation what went on in grand jury proceedings part of the mueller report? >> great question. the answer is no. only a federal judge can. when that subpoena cops it will land in courtroom of a federal judge who will have to decide. past two times this happened the courts ruled with congress. stuart: but they will not stop investigating ever. >> they want the underlying evidence so they can second-guess bob mueller and second-guess bill barr, use the second-guessing for political purposes. stuart: will always be more questions. >> oh, yes. stuart: always, always, always. >> yes. stuart: let the voters decide on

this. only way to do it. >> yes. stuart: judge, thank you very much. >> a pleasure. stuart: our next guest says you don't need a four year college degree to be successful in america. that is topic we covered quite a bit. thomas charleston is with us. thomas make your case. because i've been in america for 45 years and conventional wisdom has it, you have got to go to college. you have to really have a four-year degree, to get up in the world. you didn't, did you? >> well, i didn't, but i wouldn't counsel anyone not to go to college if they can actually afford to go to college. what i would say the real competition for career advancement happens when college is over. then you're in the real world. you're competing against people that see their career advancement as a competition against the person next to them. so i would say that colleges -- stuart: you went to a two-year college, community college? >> yes, sir, two years of community college. stuart: what is the nature of your company?

>> it's a software company. so we build software for i.t. pros. so for example, in health care, we insure that clinicians and physicians have access seamlessly to patient records when they're trying to provide patient care. stuart: may i ask how many people work for you, what kind of revenues you got? >> so we're a privately-held company. so we keep those a little close to the vest but we have plenty of fortune 500 companies. we have enough people to support them over the last 10 years. with a name like goliath technologies you're not a small company. stuart: i understand. nicely put, sir. let's suppose you had gone to say mit, got your degree in computer science, do you think that goliath technologies would have done any better? >> i'm not sure really. you know the past is not a hitch post, it is a guidepost. so i don't spend a lot of time looking backwards. what i do is try to look forward. that horse has left the barn.

i'm not sure what the company would look like, but it is operational expertise in building a great team with a group of people that really tip the grid scale, that give us the ability to do what we do in the marketplace, not necessarily my educational background. >> it is the quality of the person as opposed to the knowledge acquired in college, that is what you find more important, last question? >> i think experience is a, comes from a number of different factors. college might be one of them. but, yes, i think it is the quality of the individual. like i say, the grit scale, determination, dedication, work ethic, passion for learning after college, because the game doesn't end after college. it is really just beginning. stuart: this is america. thomas charlton, thanks very much for joining us, sir. very interesting story. we appreciate it. thank you, sir. >> thank you, stuart. stuart: now this, pope francis taking a shot at president trump saying that those who close

borders, quote, will become prisoners of the walls that they build. liz? pope getting political again. liz: he is getting political again and you know what the issue is, has to be seen in the broader context what the pope is saying about central america and south america. 20 former presidents of these countries said to the pope, your message about social harmony in venezuela and reconciliation in nicaragua falls flat when you have militarized dictatorships systematically killing and imprisoning your own people. when you see the pope making statements about a border wall has to be taken of the context how the pope approaches all of central america. very weak in his response to communism and socialism in the other parts of the world. he is weak on the border wall as well. stuart: yeah, but he was in morocco saying this. ashley: right. stuart: where thousands of migrants who want to leave north africa and middle east to get into europe. europe is having a real hard time. liz: the point he is not

criticizing the governments that caused the migrant outflows, right? that is the issue. he is not doing that. it is after the fact ref -- refereeing. liz: can you imagine if pope john paul had taken this approach to poland? stuart: very different stuff. thank you. apple is dethroned as the world's most. it is not american tech company. we have our answer coming up next hour. okay. mueller wrapped up his investigation, no collusion, but is there evidence of a deep state conspiracy to undermine the trump presidency? we're certainly boeing to get into that next.

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stuart: got to bring you up to date what is happening.

start of a new quarter, start of a new week, we've gone straight up. the dow industrials are up to 26,166. that puts us 600 points away from the all-time record closing high for the dow industrials. we've had several people on the program today saying the market will exceed the old highs soon. going to get back to the mueller report. no evidence of collusion, got it. joining us now, victoria toensing, former deputy assistant attorney general. do you believe there was a deep-state conspiracy to undermine president trump and overturn the election? >> oh, absolutely, stuart, and i know you have been saying it for a long time. so have my husband and i been saying it since the fall of 2017. we've called it a brazen plot to clear hillary clinton and frame donald trump. let me tell you how it started. it started of course with the does yea. they didn't know how to handle

did, so brennan is the mastermind. don't forget brennan should behind bars. brennan had to launder it. he couldn't just dump it over to the fbi. he takes the dossier to harry reid, democratic leader, who writes a letter to comey, bingo it is in the fbi. none of these facts are disputed, are they? we've known these facts for a long time but -- stuart: that is how it all started right there? >> but, they couldn't get mileage, remember? even mainstream media wouldn't bite on it. mccain, he just took it to the fbi. no, his aide tried to shop it with 12 different media outlets. here is how they did it. they bootstrapped it. they had comey brief president-elect trump on just the salacious part. bingo, clapper, who is the dumbest of the conspiracy members told cnn. cnn broke the story. that is how it all came out. that is the plot.

stuart: who is going to investigate this? who is going to find out what happened and lay it all out and get some accountability? who is going to do that? >> well, i hope bill barr is going to do that. now i would prefer that he appoint a special counsel because bill barr can't even say it is monday today and have the democrats agree with him. he is already being accused of a conspiracy to cover up the mueller report for gosh sakes. how how ridiculous, for political reasons, somebody outside of the justice department should do it, but there has to be a grand jury. this stuff, oh, the ig is working on something. ho-hum, he has been working on something for a long time. he doesn't have subpoena power. he can talk to anybody who is not with the justice department. that doesn't quite work. stuart: what about all the principals for two years have been saying yes, there was evidence, conclusive evidence of collusion? they said it. you have countless politicians,

former public officials actually said it. where is the accountability? >> is it democrats are lying? i'm shocked, really, truly? look how they're treated by the mainstream media. nobody challenges them. adam schiffty gets on and says, i have evidence and i still have evidence, nobody says, when they say, what is the evidence? there was a trump tower meeting. and nobody says, could you tell me the criminal law, what is the 18 ucs that violates and how does that compare with hillary having a dossier -- these people are not taken on. given a free ride, cnn, msnbc, i hope all the ratings go down to the cellar. it has been criminal. the poor president, he said it publicly, what do you think it is like meeting with a foreign leader, saying are you really going to be around here in a few months? stuart: really. victoria, i'm sorry to break in.

i have breaking news i have to work on. thank you very much for being with us. i want you to come back to explain exactly what happened. i want to hear more. >> we could go on forever. be glad to come back. stuart: victoria toensing, thank you for joining us. see you soon. here is the breaking news. homeland security secretary kirstjen nielsen is ordering more border agents to the border. tell me more. ashley: reallocation of 750 officers, that could go deemed into thousand, citing continuing humanitarian and security crisis at the border. not only more personnel sent to the border, to expand a program whereby these migrants are returned, hundreds more per day to mexico to await their pending immigration proceedings. so, two-pronged attack. get a lot more personnel down there. push more people back to mexico to wait for their immigration applications. stuart: so there is a crisis. ashley: yep. stuart: well-said.

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green new deal but msnbc did not challenge her, almost at all, certainly not how to pay for it. howard kurtz is with us, media buzz. look, that was propaganda. what other word are you going to use? >> i wasn't expecting alexandria ocasio-cortez to be grilled on msnbc but this had the feel of a campaign rally. i mean chris hayes talked to her, i was born in the bronx. she was born in the bronx. the crowd is chanting aoc, aoc, most of it on climate chain. the one semiskeptical question, very gently, could you have rolled out the green new deal better. she through her staffer under the bus, had a very, very bad day put out a draft talking about cow flat lens, guarantying everybody a job and replacing air travel. if there were questions how to pay for it i did not hear them. stuart: media loves her, maybe for ratings purposes. she is very good television, she

makes news. they love her, totally uncritical, it is obvious that the media is biased toward socialism, which frankly, howard i find really hard to understand? >> well, you know, i understand having a sympathetic interview with somebody whose politics you sort of like but you still try to ask a few skeptical questions. by the way of all of these democratic candidates who are sort of making the rounds on msnbc as well as aoc, are going to get the softball treatment, you can make more news when you are pushing back against more aggressive questioning. they will not be ready for the debates if this is the way they're going to be treated. not in every instance but a lot of interviews i've seen. stuart: i have got to say it, i have 30 seconds left, the establishment media has disgraced itself. may think i'm going too far but you have 20 seconds to sort me out? >> well i think the media did themselves a lot of damage with the mueller investigation coverage. there is no question about it.

donald trump, jr. on "mediabuzz" said irreparable damage. i kind of agree with that. i hope there is more aggressive scrutiny of democratic candidates to show some semblance of balance. stuart: our profession being trashed from the inside. howard kurtz, thanks for joining us. >> good to see you. stuart: a nevada democrat accusing joe biden of inappropriate touching. she says that his behavior should disqualify him from the presidency. i think mr. biden and the democrats have a big problem here. my take on that coming up next.

stuart: joe biden's expected presidential campaign has a problem. for decades, he has secretly shown quote, expressions of affection, as he puts it, touching and getting very close to people, behavior that may have been glossed over in the past is being taken much more seriously now. in fact, what mr. biden did back then may cost him a chance at the presidency. now, five years ago, in nevada, a democrat legislator, lucy flores, says she felt biden quote, put his hands on my shoulders, get up very close, lean in, smell my hair and then plant a slow kiss on the top of my head, end quote. she now says that that behavior should disqualify him from the presidency. that's the biden dilemma. past behavior versus a rapidly

changing #metoo landscape. some of biden's competitors have jumped in. candidate amy klobuchar says she has no reason not to believe miss flores. bernie sanders says i have no reason not to believe her. now, i don't want to get ahead of the story. mr. biden's close supporters still expect him to get into the race. but he now has a more difficult uphill struggle than he did before last friday, when miss flores first publicly revealed the five-year-old incident. she herself supported bernie sanders in 2016. she attended beto o'rourke's campaign launch and met kamala harris's campaign manager. currently she runs a company that empowers hispanic women. the older male joe biden has been confronted by a younger, more liberal female. he's playing defense. he admits to expressions of affection, but says not once, never, did i believe i acted

inappropriately and the wife of defense secretary ash carter, touched by the vice president, says the picture is misleading. quote, extracted from what was a longer moment between close friends. she was not offended. now consider this. trouble for joe biden means another hit to what remains of the moderate wing of the democrat party. of the better-known candidates, joe biden is the only one who could really be considered a centrist. without him, the socialists have a clear field. precisely what president trump wants. the third hour of "varney & company" is about to begin. stuart: we will get more on mr. biden in just a moment. first, i want to get to your money. look at this. it's a rally big-time, up 240 points, now the best part of 1% up on the dow. market watcher heather zumaraga

is with us. heather, give you credit where credit is due. you were right about this. you saw it coming. the next question is, congratulations, where are we going now? >> well, thanks. i get lucky sometimes. stuart: you weren't lucky. you based this on solid analysis. what was it? >> yes. right now, it's fear of missing out. if you weren't invested in the fourth quarter or you got out because you thought the federal reserve was going to raise rates four or five times over the next year or two, that is now off the table. the fed is now even rumored to cut rates by 50 basis points. i don't think that will happen, but the fact that they're not raising interest rates this year, they're not raising interest rates next year, and chinese trade talks are resuming today in beijing on the backs of positive talks last week and i really think that we're going to get a chinese resolution. it may not be the best deal in the world but we're going to get

these tariffs down and then start having more free and fair trade with china, stuart. the u.s. market is just on fire. stuart: wait a second. is it also a question, i don't want to bore anybody, but asset allocation? know what i mean? if you've got your money in cash or bonds at the moment, you're not getting a very great rate of return. you're just not. so the natural inclination is to look for your best rate of return and that's the stock market. is that what's happening? cash going back into the market? >> yes, so the hunt for risk appetite, the hunt for yield is back on. the ten-year is at 4.27%. interest rates have gone down meaning you're not going to get a look of money from putting your money in cds or money markets right now. you're not going to get a high interest rate, high rate of return, even investing in u.s. treasuries. so therefore, people are forced to take risks whether you like it or not. i think earnings estimates are going to be pretty good, a

little bit weaker this quarter than last, but the u.s. stock market is still the best place to invest right now. stuart: real fast, heather, right now, the dow industrials are at 26,177. trying to do the math, we are about 500 points away from the all-time high. when do we cross the all-time high? >> we cross the all-time high this quarter. we are on the backs of the best quarter since 1998, the first quarter, and i really think that we might not return 13.1% in the s&p in the second quarter, but expectations are still higher, just not at the same rate or the same run rate that we had in the first quarter. we're going to hit it very soon. stuart: that was a fine victory lap there. >> thank you. stuart: come back when we hit the new high, and soon. thank you very much. we have a judge who has shot down the work requirements for medicaid in two states, that is. our next guest says there's proof that those requirements actually do work.

jared myer is with us, senior policy fellow at the foundation for government accountability. okay. i want a full report here. how many able-bodied adults are actually on medicaid? can you tell me? >> we have around 15 million able-bodied adults on medicaid -- stuart: 15 million? >> 15 million. most of them are not working at all. so the whole idea is how are they going to advance in their careers and as arkansas governor asa hutchinson said, i stuck on medicaid forever. we need something to move them -- stuart: 15 million able-bodied adults are on medicaid. now, you have to carve out exclusions here. if you are a young parent, you've got young children at home, it's hard to get out there and work. you are a single parent. i do understand that. is there a carve-out for those people and do you think there should be? >> yes, there is an exemption for people with young students, if you have transportation issues, substance abuse problems, all those things can allow you to get an exemption.

it's important to note that these work requirements is only working part-time. you can fulfill this by training or also just volunteering at say your child's school. stuart: the judge has knocked it out. you can't do that, at least in two states. >> the craziest part is the reason the judge knocked this down, he said that medicaid, the changes to it putting work requirements, don't fit with what the program needs to achieve. however, the program explicitly says that the program needs to move people from dependency to independence. that's exactly what work requirements do. stuart: you think it's a good idea, move them off what i'm going to call the welfare rolls and into something productive, force them, you are asking to force them, aren't you? >> everyone knows you need a little push sometimes. people can get comfortable. it's the risk to go out into the labor force. maybe if you have been out of it for awhile. today when there's more job openings than job seekers, there's never been a better time for welfare reform. that's why i say to the trump administration, keep approving the pending work requirements.

don't let this judge kill the growing momentum. stuart: thanks very much indeed for joining us. very interesting number. 15 million able-bodied adults on medicaid? 15 million? that's a lot of people. ashley: heck of a lot. stuart: thanks for joining us. we appreciate it. thank you. president trump is going to attend the 2019 prison reform summit, celebration of the success of his first step act, focusing on prisoner rehabilitation. by the way, bet you didn't know this, more than 500 inmates have been released under that program. okay. it's been a rough start to the week for the airlines. the ones on your screen, that is. american, delta, united, southwest, jet blue, flight delayed because of a system malfunction. it's something to do with a program called aero data which deals with plane weight and balancing. the problem has been fixed but there are delays throughout the country, as it ripples across america.

rw arms claim to be the largest distributor of bump stocks in america until the new ban went into effect last thursday. they had to destroy 73,000 of them. cost the company $14 million. it now could put them out of business and they are suing the white house. they are on the program today. i will point out, there has been bipartisan support to ban bump stocks. what's their answer to that? president trump doubling down on threats dloto close the southern border maybe as early as this week. obama's homeland security chief jeh johnson says there is a crisis at the border, just as the state department announces funding cuts to el salvador, guatemala and honduras. we are talking to the national border patrol council president. what would a border shutdown really look like? good question. some republican lawmakers are rooting against the president in his court case to strike down obamacare because getting rid of it all while the democrats control the house could cause absolute chaos. this may pose a problem for the

president's pitch for the republicans to be the party of health care. we are dealing with it all this hour. we will deal with joe biden and his expressions of affection, too. stay with us. it's the third hour of "varney & company" just getting rolling. obvious. sometimes, they just drop in. cme group can help you navigate risks and capture opportunities. we enable you to reach global markets and drive forward with broader possibilities. cme group - how the world advances. ♪

stuart: an update on the jussie smollett story. you have not heard the last of it. the chicago police will protest the dropping of charges against him at 11:00 a.m. central time today. they will be outside the cook county prosecutor's office. they say he's guilty of faking a racist and homophobic attack on himself and they want the federal government to step in. back to my editorial, top of the hour. i say joe biden may have a problem with his recent behavior, his past behavior, if he wants to get into the race for 2020. town hall editor, fox news contributor, joins us now. right off the bat, katie, what's your opinion? does this count him out of the 2020 race? >> i'm not sure it counts him out. i'm still hearing that he's going to make an announcement to get into the race either this week or next week, but that doesn't mean it's going to be easy. joe biden has run for president before and has been unable to be a formidable candidate to take the nomination for the democrats

annotate when the democratic party has gone so far left and so focused on identity politics, it's going to be very difficult for him to get through an intersectionality-based primary. he's a white man, he has a history of inappropriate touching and behavior we have all seen, quite frankly, happen in the white house when he was working for president obama. he engaged in that kind of behavior as the vice president during events. the video is out there for people to see. they can make that judgment. but i do think democrats are going to be judging him on a larger issue and economic questions as well in terms of how he can beat president trump but there is that faction of the democrat party very focused on identity politics and it's going to be difficult for him to get out of that. stuart: i think some of the other announced presidential candidates will be going right up against him and picking on this. i've just got a quick montage of some of the other candidates and what they're saying.

roll the tape, please. >> i read the op-ed last night. i believe lucy flores. joe biden needs to give an answer. >> should he not run as a result? >> that's for joe biden to decide. >> i believe lucy flores. i believe that the vice president put a statement out today on that and you know, we need to live in a nation where people can hear her truth. >> i have no reason not to believe her, jonathan. i think we know from campaigns and from politics that people raise issues and they have to address them, and that's what he will have to do with the voters if he gets into the race. stuart: you realize if they damage him or force him out of the race before he even gets into it, that leaves the field clear for the socialists. there is no other centrist, really, of any name recognition in the race.

>> amy klobuchar tried to come off as a moderate but when you look at her voting record, it's pretty far left. joe biden is not going to be necessarily attacked by republicans, democrats have been looking at opposition research on him to jump as soon as he decides, if he does, to get into this race. it's going to be very difficult for him. democrats don't have a lot of credibility when it comes to the issue of sexual harassment and sexual assault, considering they have taken years and years to defend the likes of bill clinton and ted kennedy, for example, and justified all of it, and now they are grappling with these issues of women coming forward and whether they want to take them seriously or not. so they have to come to, you know, come to conclusion about the behavior that they have been justifying for many, many years. stuart: politics changes fast in america. a week ago we didn't know anything about this. katie, thanks for joining us. talk to you again soon. happening now, census day 2019 but we are one year out

from the start of the 2020 census. news conference happening in d.c. as we speak. leadership answering questions about the once in a decade process. president trump's weighing in. he's tweeted about it. can you believe that the radical left democrats want to do our new and very important census report without the all-important citizenship question. report will be meaningless and a waste of billions. ridiculous that it costs to put it together. that's how he thinks. now this. only one blockbuster video store left in the world. it's in bend, oregon. believe it or not, they say business is booming. get this. we get to go inside it, check it out. we went on a hunt to find a dvd copy of "monty python." they found it. first, one company has dethroned apple as the world's most profitable. take a guess. you won't get it. it is not an american tech company. we will have the answer after this.

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want more from your entejust say teach me more. into your xfinity voice remote to discover all sorts of tips and tricks in x1. can i find my wifi password? just ask. [ ding ]

show me my wifi password. hey now! [ ding ] you can even troubleshoot, learn new voice commands and much more. clean my daughter's room. [ ding ] oh, it won't do that. welp, someone should. just say "teach me more" into your voice remote and see how you can have an even better x1 experience. simple. easy. awesome. stuart: high of the day, up 250

points. would you look at that. that's the best part of 1%. you have a similar huge gain on the nasdaq and the s&p, all across the board this is a major rally as we start the week and as we start the new quarter. good stuff. as you know, we are all about the dollar. big shift in which company is the most profitable in the world. apple, you might be saying to yourself. they are in the midst of a services renaissance. no, it's not apple. the most profitable company in the world is saudi aramco. big oil firm. their net profit last year, $111 billion. compared to apple's piddling $60 billion. aramco's profits are 50% since 2017. with numbers like that, investors are looking very carefully at a possible ipo of aramco. we may not have a good list for you today but i think you will like this one. remember blockbuster video rental behemoth? taken down by digital

competitors? there is actually one physical store left in the world and it's in bend, oregon. what did we do? kristina partsinevelos went there for us. we asked her to find "life of brian." did you find it? reporter: no. but i'm going to get to that in a second. i want to show our viewers -- i will get you a monty python film. i want to show viewers exactly how similar this is to all the blockbusters you ever went to in your entire life. it runs on the exact same ibm computers. if the system shut down they still need to take out the floppy disk and reboot it. the store is doing quite well, very profitable. everybody still has to use their blockbuster membership. this location has been open since 2000. at peak, there were 9,000 locations in 12 countries. the annual revenue for 2004 was almost $6 billion. now, we have come to the official last blockbuster in the

world. there was one in perth, australia but over the weekend they called this location to wish them luck and say that they were closing their store. you can see literally, you have brand new movies here, you have older movies separated into various categories and of course, the comedy section because i know that you wanted to know about the monty python movie. i know a lot of people like "the holy grail" but unfortunately, that one is out. i found this one. i think it's possible pertinent to you, "the meaning of life." this is just one example of movies, and they buy their movies every tuesday. stuart: i remember blockbuster so well. that's a great story. glad you made it out to bend, oregon which is a very interesting town. you will be on this network all day long. thanks for the movie. see you again soon. reporter: thank you. stuart: serious stuff. some republican lawmakers are worried about getting rid of obamacare while the democrats still control the house because it would cause chaos. how this is going to work out

for the president's pitch for the republicans to be the party of health care? meanwhile, yes, it is a rally. we are talking to a man who says don't believe the hype, there is no recession coming. he will make his case after this. fact is, there are over ninety-six hundred roads named 'park' in the u.s. it's america's most popular street name. but no matter what park you live on, one of 10,000 local allstate agents knows yours. now that you know the truth, are you in good hands? that's it. i'm calling kohler about their walk-in bath. [ sigh ] not gonna happen. my name is ken. how may i help you? hi, i'm calling about kohler's walk-in bath.

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stuart: at risk of sounding like a broken record, i do believe this is the high of the day. we are up 251 points, 26,180. got it. staying on your money, come in, david nicholas, president of nicholas wealth management. all right, david, at the end of last year, a lot of wonks and talking heads were saying oh, we are headed towards a recession. well, what do you think? are we? >> well, with the yield curve inverting, there has been a lot of talk about recession but remember, 2000 and 2006, the yield curve inverted. why? it inverted because the feds raised rates too quickly. we're not seeing that today. we are actually seeing the fed ease policy to help support growth. but one thing i will make clear, when you look at the data, in 2016, we were headed for a recession. jobless claims, manufacturing

data, mortgage applications, we were headed for recession in 2016. but what changed that? it was the election of president trump. there was a complete shift in business and tax policy, led to a complete 180 for the u.s. economy. unless the data changes significantly in the short term, there's to recession for 2019. stuart: the president and his economic advisers want to make sure that there's no recession right before the 2020 election. they are pounding on the fed saying hey, you got to cut rates, you got to cut rates, keep on saying it. do you think this will work? will we stay out of recession before the 2020 election? >> i think it will work. the data is just too positive right now. i don't see that shift happening quickly but you're right, there's these permabears always talking about recession, even bill maher earlier this year said even if it hurts people, he's hoping for a recession, why, because it will hurt president trump. i mean, that's the type of rhetoric that i think kills business confidence and business

growth, when you have people like that hoping and praying for recession. but i tell you, 40% of americans work for small businesses. what the president has done and his team, instilled confidence in the u.s. economy. it just takes one business owner creating one more job that sends ripple effects throughout the u.s. economy. i think we will continue to see that well into next year. stuart: this is a trump stock market rally. i got it. the dow is now at 26,167. we are just a few hundred points away from an all-time high for the dow industrials. do we get past that old high and move on? >> i think we do. september of last year we saw the s&p break over 2900. i think we see it this year. we got to get a trade deal done, but the market is headed that way. we have support at 2800. i think we will see markets hit all-time highs. i think this is -- i'm probably the fifth guest that said that today. i think we will see it this year. stuart: we have a lot of guests on the program, most of whom have been right, most of whom have said the market's going up,

the market's going up, watch out, here it goes. our guests have been right. i have to say, you included. david nicholas, thank you for being with us. you deserve a victory lap. we will take it from there. thanks very much. see you soon. >> thanks for having me. stuart: sure thing. now this. the president says the gop should be the party of health care. but his calls to repeal what's left of obamacare have some republicans worried. the go pac chair is with us. david, what is the republican plan? can you spell it out for me, to replace obamacare? >> the plan is to ultimately put consumers back in control of their own health care, whether that be through -- stuart: what does that mean? >> -- through health savings accounts where people can use their resources and be able to get the plan that best fits for them as opposed to a government mandated plan. that is really at the heart of this case. should government be compelled to require you to buy health insurance. the courts in the past have ruled that not to be the case. stuart: there's got to be more to it than that.

there's got to be more to it than health savings accounts. what else have you got? >> let's start there. ultimately we are talking about the funding mechanism. you want to put consumers back in control. what's not talked about in this health care debate is you can have access by insurance but if you don't have the number of doctors and nurses that you need, access by insurance only gets you halfway there. we need to talk more about how we are going to get more men and women to go into the health care profession. stuart: have you got a plan for that? >> as you look at telemedicine, you are seeing innovation occurring at the state level which goes to the second part of the answer for the gop is make sure there's a fund to cover pre-existing conditions and then let's let state governments be innovative and let's let them bring ideas to the table as many of them are already, and get waivers and let them go at it. and let's talk about democratic states that have tried to go medicare for all or government-run health care, whether that be vermont or oregon. when they did it, guess what happened? they said this is too expensive, we can't do this. stuart: okay. health savings accounts, more

doctors, more medical professionals, cover pre-existing conditions. what about tort reform? that's the motherlode of getting the cost of health insurance and cost of health care down. >> it has to be part of the equation. stuart: is it part of the gop -- >> it has. we have gone after that ever since the bush administration, where we have gone to try to put caps on damages that oftentimes you get trial lawyers making more money than patients out of cases after they have sued. there has to be a look at that. it cannot just be one thing which was the ultimate problem with obamacare. it really only went after one sector and there are so many things that are far more impactful to people in their daily lives. again, having access to actually having a doctor to be able to go see is far more impactful. stuart: okay. impactful is not a word, by the way. the democrats have got a plan whether it's medicare for all or call it what you like, they have got a plan, a formalized plan. are you guys, the gop, writing

up a plan as we speak to present it as a comprehensive plan? you doing that? >> stuart, we are sitting here talking about a plan right here. you do have members of congress that have introduced legislation on the house and the senate side. it's very interesting, the hill story that you are ultimately referencing here saying senators want the president to lose in court. no one gop senator was actually named in that story. it does cause dissension and think about this, gallop just had a survey out and you had a story saying unnamed senators want him to lose? no one senator was named there. stuart: anything else? give me 20 seconds on joe biden. >> the question is can he get 65,000 donors to be able to be in the debate in june. the answer is no. stuart: you need 55,000 to get in the debates? >> to be in the debate. it's one of the requirements. stuart: i didn't know that. good stuff.

>> thank you. stuart: the last second there. all right. we are going to talk about saving face. no pun intended, of course. facebook chief zuckerberg calling for more government regulation. he's written a "washington post" op-ed, saying he wants a baseline definition of what is harmful content and he wants companies to build better systems to keep that content out of your feed. the stock is up $1.50 at $168. look at lyft. this is about the time that it opened back on friday, the first time you got a shot at getting into it, and it's dropped way below its offering price which was $72 a share. now it's back to $69. rw arms claims to be the largest distributor of bump stocks and when the new ban went into effect, they had to destroy, you can see it now, destroy 73,000 of them. cost them big bucks. could put them out of business. they are suing the white house. they are on the program. i've got to point out, there has been bipartisan support to ban

bump stocks. they will respond to that today on the program. president trump doubling down on threats to close the southern border as early as this week. jeh johnson, homeland security chief under president obama, says yes, this is a crisis at the border. just as the state department proposes cutting aid to el salvador, guatemala and honduras. we talk to national border patrol council next. what would the border shutdown look like if it happened? we'll be back.

stuart: all right. we have a gain of over 2ed h e2 points for the dow industrials, good news on manufacturing, good news on construction spending, low interest rates forcing you out of cash and into stocks. what have i missed? ashley: i don't think you missed anything. we had a guest on earlier said the promise of cheap money is also helping this. liz: there will be a china trade deal, also retail sales down 0.2%. not a lot. refund checks are starting to come in. stuart: not in high tax states. quickly, check the big technology stocks.

apple, 189. alphabet, amazon crossed the 1800 level. facebook is up a little bit. microsoft, 118. big day. back in a moment.

they can stop them but they chose not to. now they're going to stop them. if they don't stop them, we're closing the border. close it. and we'll keep it closed for a long time. i'm not playing games.

>> by anyone's definition, by any measure, right now we have a crisis at our southern border. according to the commissioner of cbp, there were 4,000 apprehensions in one day alone this past week and we are on pace for 100,000 apprehensions on our southern border this month. that is by far a greater number than anything i saw on my watch in my three years as secretary of homeland security. stuart: a day after president trump says he's not playing games at the border, the former homeland security chief backed him up with staggering migrant numbers. he called it a crisis. not a manufactured crisis, a crisis. case closed. brandon judd is here, actually in new york with us, national border patrol council president. if they actually close that border, shut the thing down, all the border points, that would be utterly chaotic, wouldn't it? >> it would, but that's going to hit the mexican government in the pocketbook. that's going to hurt their economy which is why president trump is considering doing that. that's the pressure that will be

put on the mexican government to actually close their southern border which will stop those illegal migrants -- stuart: do you approve? the president says he's not playing games. might leave it closed for a long time. >> i do approve of it. you know, there's going to be some backlash from mayors on those cities right there on the border but if you look at this, if you look at the crisis, you have to take extraordinary measures when you are dealing with an extraordinary circumstance. you are looking at obama people, secretary jeh johnson, you're looking at the former chief mark morgan, all of these people that worked under obama are telling you right now, we have a crisis, we have to do something about it. but there is something that's going on. look at what stephen miller, policy adviser at the white house, what he's trying to do. what he's trying to do is he's trying to get border patrol agents trained as asylum officers so we can start the process immediately. what that will allow us to do it will allow us to deport people in ten days rather than two to five years. that will be a game changer. stuart: that would indeed, if you've got enough people to

actually make that switch. what do you make about the president's threat to withdraw aid from central american countries? >> again, extraordinary circumstances require extraordinary measures. if that's what it needs to take to get this border secure, he's going to do it. that's what he wants to do. he's going to do it. stuart: i'm told that every day for ten straight days, 1,000 migrants per day have been apprehended just in the rio grande valley. that's a 300 mile section of a 3,000 mile border. is that accurate? >> it is accurate. my brother just deployed from montana down to rgv yesterday. he's down there today. i am not going to be on your show in the month of may, just to let you know, becausely be i be on the border working. i put myself voluntarily in uniform down at rgv in may. that's how serious. we are apprehending record numbers of people. stuart: i don't see how long the democrats can resist this. resist the idea that it is an

invasion. it is really a crisis. >> the democrats have an economic problem because the economy is so good, they also have an immigration problem. they need to hire you or me, because they are going to get beaten up over illegal immigration. stuart: you really think the democrats would hire someone like me? >> no, and i wouldn't take their job. stuart: there you go. thank you very much for joining us, sir. good information. welcome to new york. good to see you. >> thank you. appreciate it. stuart: on a related note, pope francis is getting in on the border debate. what did he say? liz: continues to misunderstand the problem. he's saying that the u.s. is trying to keep migrants out. that's not what the u.s. is doing. they want -- the u.s. wants legal immigration. then the pope said the u.s. risks becoming prisoners of the walls they build. let me tell you this. the pope has yet to go after the communists and socialist countries that are collapsing and why people are fleeing those countries in central and south

america. they are narco dictatorships, communist dictatorships, they are killing and imprisoning their own people. if this pope was alive and was pope when poland was under duress from the soviet union, poland might still be part of russia. can you imagine pope john paul talking like this? stuart: no. i actually cannot. liz: you have to address the root causes of the migrant crisis and it's the haphazard, cataclysmic, chaotic communist socialist dictatorships in that part of the world. stuart: you got it in one basket of deplorables right there. liz macdonald. programming note, important. former secretary of homeland security jeh johnson will be on today's "making money with charles payne," this network, 2:00 eastern this afternoon. now this. on your screen, 73,000 bump stocks being destroyed. the company which made them is now suing the white house.

they say the bump stock ban will put them out of business. they are on the show, next.

stuart: an appeals court just came out and said stthey will uphold the trump administration's ban on bump stocks. they are attachments that make semiautomatic guns fire at a more rapid pace. one bump stock maker had to destroy i think 72,000 pieces which they had in their inventory. they are also suing the government. come in, mark maxwell and mike stuart, co-founders of rw arms limited. these are the bump stock makers. you have destroyed these devices. okay. gentleman in the hat, i do declare, there is bipartisan support for the bump stock ban. why do you suppose -- why do you support it? no, why do you want to keep on making these things and selling them? >> well, at this point we weren't manufacturing them. we were retailing what was

legally manufactured by several different manufacturers. stuart: okay. the ban wants to get them out of society, so they forced you to destroy them. it's not a question of who makes them. it's a question of getting rid of them. do you oppose getting rid of them? >> the ban hasn't gotten rid of all of them. the estimates on the street is actually grossly understated. the actual numbers are probably closer to a million, if not 1.2 million. stuart: mike stewart, gentleman on the right of the screen, mike, these devices make for maximum killing power in a rifle which is otherwise designed for hunting. that's as far as i understand it. why shouldn't they be banned? society is calling for this. >> first of all, thank you for having us on. mark and i are both fans. you say they are making them killing machines when the stock

does not change the rifle. it's still a semiautomatic rifle. it's still one round that's released for one pull of the trigger. it's a semiautomatic rifle. the bump stock did nothing mechanically to the rifle. therefore, it hasn't changed anything about it. stuart: but do you dispute the idea that it increases the killing power? i believe a bump stock device was used in the las vegas shootings. >> they were there, i don't know if they were used, but i disagree. you can do the same thing with a rifle without a bump stock. stuart: well, look -- >> i disagree completely. stuart: i understand, and there's room for argument here, but we have reached a point in our society where, i mean, there is demand, do something. you heard this. do something, when you've got these mass shootings. one of the things the administration has done is to ban these bump stocks. in light of -- because they were used in vegas. mark, in light of that, you do

understand this ban, you may not support it but you can understand it, can't you? >> we can definitely understand the wording that was used, i think there's some misconceptions, as mike just said. it doesn't change the actual functionality of the gun. this is clearly a second amendment overreach. if they ban this first, then what's next? is it going to be triggers? is it going to be binary triggers, is it optics that increase range of sight for a rifle? is it going to be target and practice rifles, what's next? stuart: what's the purpose of a bump stock? >> beginning of a very slippery slope. stuart: what is the purpose of the bump stock device? what is it? >> the purpose of the bump stock is to have fun. it's just a different way of going out and enjoying our second amendment rights and shooting. it's just like going out and plinking with a .22. >> i may add the bump stock is the safest way to bump fire a rifle. there's many ways to bump fire a rifle. stuart: okay. look, i don't understand the

technicalities of it but i do understand public opinion and i think i can understand public opinion wanting something done about a device which does increase the shooting power of an ordinary rifle. you see what i mean? last question. >> the power isn't changed. stuart: is this going to put you guys out of business? >> it's going to hurt our business. we are a small business, both veteran owned, operated. we did about 40% in sales of bump stocks. we are going to continue to bring out innovative products to the gun industry. stuart: mark and mike, rw arms, i think it's a good debate and good debate to have. we thank you for appearing on the program today. thank you, gentlemen. >> thank you very much for having us on. stuart: sure thing, sir. more "varney" after this.

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stuart: lots of excitement on friday when lyft went public on. it went out $72 a share, and popped 9% higher. look at lyft, 69.48, down eight bucks from friday's close. i thought that might take steam out the of overall market a little disappointment. look at this, almost the high of the day as we speak. the dow industrials now up 260 points that is the best part of a 1% gain. it is better than 1% actually.

the nasdaq composite up more than 1%, 71, 72 point gain there. so what you're looking at here, a rally all across the board, the industrial, technology stocks, you name it, they're up today, big deal. neil cavuto. it is yours. connell: it would be but connell in foreneil. you have done so much. you're busy. welcome everybody, to "cavuto: coast to coast." we have a lot to cover next couple hours. stuart getting to the markets. big story on the border developing. we'll get to in a few minutes. let's get started with the u.s. markets on "cavuto: coast to coast" surging today right around session highs. remember for context, we're coming off of the best quarter to stocks as measured by the s&p 500 in a decade this is kind of following through on this, helping to keep the rally going. some of the data on manufacturing, it rebounded here in the u.s. in march. before that, overnight,