stork. my face at rest looks just like it. maria: i am going to google that. great show, you guys. quiet day but it will be busy rest of the week. we are on it, on first quarter earnings and all of that. have a great day. "varney & company" begins right now. ashley webster in for stuart. ashley: i'll have to look that up later. it sounds fascinating. good morning, maria. good morning, everybody. i'm ashley webster. stuart, by the way, back tomorrow. let's take a look at the big story. lots going on today. certainly could be an explosive day on capitol hill. attorney general william barr testifying before a house committee. the hearing supposed to be about his department's budget but democrats are going to ask him all kinds of questions about the mueller report. also, top executives of google and facebook will be testifying before a different house committee, this one all about hate crimes and the rise of white nationalism on social media. democrat congresswoman ilhan

omar at it again, this time going after white house adviser stephen miller. wait until you hear what she called him in her latest tweet. actress felicity huffman could be facing up to ten months in prison after pleading guilty in the college admissions scandal. she is accused of paying $15,000 to boost her daughter's s.a.t. scores. let's take a look at the futures before the opening bell. under 30 minutes from now. pointing lower, gaining a little more downward momentum. the dow off about 74 points at this hour. as we say, the closing bell -- or the ringing bell in just under 30 minutes. can we get some gains today? we have a lot to go at this morning. money and politics. "varney & company" about to begin. ashley: as we mentioned, attorney general william barr making his first appearance on capitol hill since he received the mueller report and wrote his no collusion memo. susan, what will we see today?

susan: fireworks, 9:30 a.m. this morning, about 30 minutes' time. william barr, his first testimony in front of the house and the senate appropriations committee. he is supposed to be talking about the $21 million budget for the department of justice but you can bet a lot of the politicians, especially on the democratic side, will have a lot of questions about the mueller report, 400 page document, the summary by william barr and the doj being sent in. he has promised, of course, the redactions and to release this report in mid-april. the democrats want to see the whole thing. in fact, the judicial, the justice committee, subpoenaed for the entire mueller report last week. you can bet there will be some fireworks. let's bring up some of the opening statements we already have from congresswoman who will open things up. she says i want to address a serious oversight matter, your unacceptable handling of special counsel robert mueller's report. all we have is your four-page summary which seems to

cherry-pick from the report to draw the most favorable conclusion possible for the president. i understand the portions of it must be redacted as a matter of law but my hope is that you will stop there and bring transparency to this process as soon as possible. the american people deserve the facts. now, the department of justice, william barr, even rod rosenstein went through this report and they need to redact some of this shall we say sensitive material, such as prior grand jury testimony which of course they can't release to the public. ashley: that's going to be the argument, bottom line. you say look, by law, by the secrecy act, i cannot release this. it has to be redacted. there's going to be a back and forth on that. we will dip into that as the hearing gets under way and of course, any fireworks, we will bring them to you. let's take a look at this tweet from congresswoman omar slamming white house adviser stephen miller. quote, stephen miller is a white nationalist. the fact that he still has influence on policy and political appointments is an outrage. joining us, republican strategist jeff balabon with b2

strategic. we know stephen miller takes a hard line on immigration. is that why we're hearing such strong language and is it acceptable? >> what's completely unacceptable is for ilhan omar to yet again target jews. it's not just stephen miller. what she's doing is by declaring a jew, someone known to be jewish, a white nationalist, saying jews, you're not minorities. in other words, this is a way of taking away our right to speak out in their culture, this leftist culture that says certain kinds of people have agency. the fact is, jews are not only minority, they are the most victimized minority in this country, far more than blacks, muslims and women which is what ilhan omar keeps on being characterized as though she's being attacked. she is the most dangerous anti-semite we have ever seen, more dangerous in this country, more dangerous than david duke and louis farrakhan combined because she sits where she sits and no one is stopping her. she keeps on assaulting jews. ashley: that's the next point of this. what are the repercussions on

this? she will say it's her opinion, it's free speech. what consequences should or could there be? >> well, first of all -- ashley: you go the other way, you are going to be accused of islamophobia, that you are being racist, you can't mention the muslim world, you can't talk -- can't be critical in that sense. if it appears the other way, it's free rein. how do you stop that? >> the idea of her identity protects her while she launches attack after attack after attack on jews, is sort of like, you know, let's protect the gazans while they launch missile after missile after missile into israel. that's ridiculous. at some point you have to defend yourself. she's using her role not just in congress but in the foreign affairs committee and she seems to be untouchable. the democrats keep on saying they are going to do something about it, then they back off. they will pass a resolution against her anti-semitism, her anti-semitism, then they back off. generic -- ashley: nothing has happened so far. >> correct. it's not just her. we saw beto o'rourke over the weekend. oh, it's not israel i don't

like, it's bibi netanyahu. ashley: racist. >> correct. not just racist. what he's calling racism is probably the opinion of 80% of israel which is 80% of israel really believes more or less what this guy, beto o'rourke, is calling way beyond the pale. this is an outright assault on jews. ashley: you mentioned netanyahu. of course, israeli citizens heading to the polls today. prime minister netanyahu has been in office for more than a decade. he's going to be the longest tenured leader. he's kind of going for his fifth term, but he's in a real tight race right now with benny gantz, the military leader. how do you see this playing out? >> it's really anybody's guess. ashley: is it that close? >> it's close because there are a lot of other factors. the way israeli elections work, if parties don't hit a certain threshold, 3.25%, they can't be included and won't be able to be part of building a coalition. right now, going through the election, i believe bibi probably has the upper hand in

forming an actual coalition. unlikely, even if benny gantz blue and white party is able to get a seat or two more, they are less likely to form a coalition. ashley: it's a complicated process. very difficult. so your money is on netanyahu? >> my money is on netanyahu. let me say this. the difference between the parties as stated in terms of actually being able to manage the politics, bibi has proven himself to be masterful. ashley: the corruption charges, how much -- >> well, they may keep on going or may not. we know what corruption charges are like in this country. we will see what happens with them. i think that country knows they want him in charge. he's doing a fantastic job in a very precarious situation. they mad massive advances all around the world. ashley: we will find out later the results. thank you for being here. appreciate it. let's turn our attention to your money. joining us now, market watcher david barnson. stocks not too far from record territory, 26,200.

i think 26,800 or thereabouts was the all-time closing high. the question is, of course, we have been asking this yesterday and today and probably tomorrow, strong earnings season, could that get us back up into that record territory? >> it certainly could. but if it does, it would not be because of the earnings results in q1. it will be the guidance, what companies are saying about their q3s and q4s. it's going to be forward-looking. it's interesting, i think the markets actually respond positively to if indeed earnings contract 1% or 2% versus q1 last year, because the markets now baked in about a 4% decline year over year. ashley: i find fascinating the last quarter of 2018, all doom and gloom. the markets had a bad run in, that was going to translate into a weak first quarter. the comps from otherwise a strong 2018, it would be very hard. i feel like it was overdone a little bit. i don't think the first quarter has been as bad as predicted. >> i don't disagree but i will

say this. some of the facts did change, right. the credit access in the economy by nature of the fed's sort of about-face changed the facts by which market actors are responding. i think that the doom and gloom was overstated, but i really believe that you can't emphasize enough what a big deal it is that they went from tightening to essentially pausing on that balance sheet and now market actors can function knowing the data, fed funds rate is staying put for a year. it's a big deal. ashley: you are a big fan of dividend growth. we are running a little tight but you have a new book out. does it drop today? >> today is the release date. ashley: the case for dividend growth. what am i going to learn? >> you will learn that multi-decade argument, we look at the last ten years, have been so strong and somewhat of an outlier, the ten years before, a lost decade for equity investors. i think dividend growth represents a very stable, dependable way to be opportunistic and defensive. i make the full case and i can't

wait to hear what you have to say. ashley: i will get going on it. david, thank you so much. thank you for the book, by the way. appreciate it. breaking news. attorney general william barr arriving on capitol hill just moments ago. there he is, in the throng. we know he is going to face questions from a house subcommittee. the hearing technically about his department's budget but democrats will be focused of course on the mueller report. we will continue to follow that as it develops. now this. president trump tweeting about tariffs this morning. here it is. the world trade organization finds that the european unit subsidizes airbus have adversely impacted the united states which will now put tariffs on $11 billion of eu products. the eu has taken advantage of the us on trade for many years. it will soon stop. now, that tweet could be affecting the market. check the futures right now, the eu by the way says it is quite happy to retaliate following that announcement. the dow up 67 points at this

point. not a massive response from the market but we will see how the day plays out. meanwhile, walmart going high tech, planning to add robots to hundreds of its stores. they will be handling all kinds of jobs like managing inventory, cleaning the floors, unloading trucks even. we are on that. actress felicity huffman pleading guilty for her role in the college admissions scandal. could she actually spend time behind bars? that's the question. the judge coming up on that one. "varney & company" just getting going. wall street guy. what's the hesitation? eh, it just feels too complicated, you know? well sure, at first, but jj can help you with that. jj, will you break it down for this gentleman? hey, ian. you know, at td ameritrade, we can walk you through your options trades step by step until you're comfortable. i could be up for that. that's taking options trading from wall st. to main st. hey guys, wanna play some pool? eh, i'm not really a pool guy. what's the hesitation? it's just complicated. step-by-step options trading support from td ameritrade

you wouldn't accept an incomplete job from any one else. why accept it from your allergy pills? flonase sensimist relieves all your worst symptoms, including nasal congestion, which most pills don't. and all from a gentle mist you can barely feel. flonase sensimist.

you can barely feel. i swibecause they let metual, customize my insurance. and as a fitness junkie, i customize everything, like my bike, and my calves. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ ashley: take a look at apple. web bush expects stable iphone demand trends in china, raising its price target to $225. not having a huge impact on the stock, just up a third of a percent right at $200 on apple. let's get to this story, the story that keeps going. maybe there's more to it. the college admissions scandal. actress felicity huffman pleading guilty.

judge andrew napolitano is here. i guess the reason why you plead guilty is you're hoping to get some sort of deal, is that the inference here? >> it's funny, we were talking off-air. do people who plead guilty, are they actually truly guilty. the answer is surprisingly, no. sometimes people plead guilty just to get rid of this. because the prospect of a guilty plea is more attractive than $5 million or $10 million in a legal defense, and a legal defense would be a defense to ten charges. the guilty plea is to one charge. they haven't actually entered their guilty pleas yet. they have signed agreements to do so. it's bizarre in a couple respects. one, there's no cap on the penalty so the charge these people all pleaded guilty to is 13 of the 36 or so, 20 years. ashley: prosecutors said they want jail sentences. >> are they going to go to jail for these crimes. i don't know. that's when the judge has to

evaluate each of them differently rather than as a group. but i will tell you, the people that plead guilty first, these 13, will get the best deal. among them is a superstar lawyer, gordon caplan. he obviously understands the system and knew he had to be -- he's a defendant -- he knew he had to be one of those pleading guilty because this relieves a tremendous burden from the government, and it can induce these people to testify against others, even others not in the case of whom they may be aware, have engaged in similar behavior for their children. ashley: does the amount of money involved in the alleged bribery have any impact on the charges against them? in other words, if someone paid half a million, is that more egregious than someone like felicity huffman who allegedly paid $15,000? does it matter, the money amount? >> yes and no. the money amount does not matter for the charge but it does matter for the sentencing.

the court will take all those things into account. now, that's the bad part. the good part is these people do not have criminal records. they are not a danger to society. they are not involved in an organized criminal activity. they are not distributing drugs. they check all the boxes on the mercy side of things. ashley: that said, this is a very, very public case. >> yes. ashley: government is under pressure. they have unveiled, you know, the case in front of everybody. we are all very familiar with it. there's a lot of public interest. does that hurt the defendants because you can't be seen to be going lenient on people who have a lot of money and are trying to peddle influence for their children. >> this is one of the reasons we have life-tenured judges in the united states which as you know, i was once one, because they should not be influenced by public pressure or even governmental pressure. they have to do the right thing, they have to sentence each person individually irrespective of the culpability of the others in the group.

so the process is they signed their agreements to plead guilty i think yesterday morning. they will eventually appear in boston and enter the guilty plea. the sentencing itself won't be for several months after that. things could happen in those several months that could influence the sentencing, like testimony by some of these now guilty-pleading defendants for the government against other people. ashley: do you in your heart think that everyone is going to face some sort of jail time here? >> i find it hard to believe but you never know. >> i don't. i don't. i believe that some of these people are absolutely not candidates for jail. ashley: we shall see. judge napolitano, thank you very much. let's take a look at the futures for you, pointing to a lower open as we have said, being in the same range now for the last 20 minutes, half hour. the dow off about 74 points, the dow and nasdaq also down quarter of a percent with just about ten minutes to go before the open. talk about a major slump.

baltimore orioles first baseman chris davis is now 0 for 47 on the season. that is a slow start. that's 47 consecutive at-bats without a single base hit. a new major league baseball record. i'm sure he's thrilled. get this. he's only a couple years into a seven-year, $161 million contract. my, oh, my, embarrassing. university of virginia capping off a thrilling men's basketball tournament, winning its first-ever national title in the ncaa, raking in millions of dollars during the tournament. the question is, should college athletes share in that wealth? susan: yes. ashley: susan li says yes. we will ask a former nba star, next.

oh, wow. you two are going to have such a great trip. yeah, have fun! thanks to you, we will. aw, stop. this is why voya helps reach today's goals... ...all while helping you to and through retirement. um, you guys are just going for a week, right? yeah! that's right. can you help with these? oh... um, we're more of the plan, invest and protect kind of help...

sorry, little paws, so. but have fun! send a postcard! voya. helping you to and through retirement.

ashley: talk about the difference a year makes. one year after becoming the first number one seed to lose to a 16 seed in the ncaa tournament, the virginia cavaliers are national champs. look at that. they beat texas tech 85-77 in overtime. what a tournament it was. now this. a former nba player has a new venture to help athletes better manage their money. joining us now, troy murphy. troy, welcome. i want to get into this issue. we had susan li say yes, college

athletes should be paid and that's a common and growingly popular point of view. listen, this tournament, for instance, generated a lot of money, billions in many different ways, yet the kids themselves, the ones playing, get nothing. should they be paid? >> 100%. i think they should be paid. you have a system where you have coaches, administrators, assistant coaches, who are compensated based on the value that they provide, then you have the players, the participants who are restricted in what they can earn. they should definitely be paid. ashley: you played at notre dame but you got out early, didn't you? you were drafted when you were 20? >> i left after my junior year. ashley: which is a product of why this is also a problem. if players were paid properly for what they were providing to the school, perhaps they would be more inclined, they may not get the money they get in the nba, but at least more inclined to see out their school years. >> exactly. i think it hurts the product of college basketball if guys leave after one year because you see the opportunity you have from a

financial perspective to make money and maximize your value when you're not afforded that opportunity in college. ashley: switch gears now. you help players manage money. obviously you are young, you get a ton of money, you are drafted in whatever sport, say the nba, all of a sudden you are flush with cash. what's the biggest mistake a player makes? >> right off the bat, impulse spending. you spend impulsively on big ticket items, you give money away, you lend money. before you really have a plan. i think that's the number one thing that guys get in trouble with. that's the number one thing you want to avoid. ashley: what do you tell them? what's the best thing to do? >> you have to acclimate to your newfound financial landscape, take your time, get clear on what you want the money to do for you, and get your plan and implement that plan. ashley: that's it. all right. i know this is very short. thank you for coming in. really appreciate it. >> thanks for having me. ashley: 6'11," not tall enough to be a center. they called him tiny. thank you very much. let's take a look at the futures before we open up.

little more downward movement now. the dow off about 100 points. the s&p and nasdaq also down about a third of a percent. less than five minutes before the open. we'll be right back. 2,000 fence posts. 900 acres. 48 bales. all before lunch, which we caught last saturday. we earn our scars. we wear our work ethic. we work until the work's done. and when it is, a few hours of shuteye to rest up for tomorrow, the day we'll finally get something done. ( ♪ )

let's talk about thisd when we meet next week. edward jones came to manage a trillion dollars in assets under care by focusing our mind on whatever's on yours. ashley: breaking news. attorney general william barr getting ready to testify in a house subcommittee hearing.

democrats will be focusing on the mueller report even though technically, this hearing is about his department's budget. forget that. we'll have much more on that in just a minute. of course, we will let you know any headlines coming out of that subcommittee hearing. the bells are ringing, meanwhile, and here we go. we are off and running, pointing to a lower open on the dow and right away, we are off 94 points. lot of red on the screen as the stocks start trading. down 102 points now, 107 points, 114 points. little bit of a tariff tiff at least verbally going on between the u.s. and europe. the eu, maybe that's adding to some of the sentiment. we shall see as the day unfolds. the dow showing a loss right now of 127 points, down to 26,200. the s&p gaining a little more downward momentum. 2883 on the s&p, down about .4%. let's take a look at the nasdaq. same story, down .4%, 32 points at 7920 on the nasdaq.

so far, a lower open on wall street. joining us to talk about it all, mike murphy, d.r. barton, susan li. we are all here so we can look each other in the face and make our points. switching gears to the money. stocks not too far away from record territory. we talked about that. strong season for earnings coming up, the banks this week, mike murphy, if they are better than expected or just show good strength with nice guidance, is that the next leg up for the markets if we get that? >> it most certainly is. the market has moved up in anticipation of good earnings but if you look at the banks, i think it's a great point that the banks have been laggards for this year and last year also. they have all been sitting very range-bound. good earnings out of the banks could propel the banks higher. the market likes when financials kind of take a leadership position. susan: i like when you say strong, because it is a strong earnings season, but when you compare it to last year, it's going to be much weaker so we are expecting earnings to be down about 4% and earnings are expected to be flat to zero

growth in the second quarter. we are possibly, you know, vulnerable to an earnings recession which does have the markets -- ashley: you said the "r" word. susan: again, you are comparing it to a very high -- ashley: that's true. i said this earlier, the doom and gloom at the end of 2018, i don't think it's translated to that extent into the first quarter. i guess we will find out. >> it hasn't, and i think the earnings were much stronger for the fourth quarter earnings that were just reported, the season ending. the one we're starting on friday has, as susan pointed out, much, much lower expectations. i think if they are even just a teeny bit better than bad, if they are just kind of bad, that's going to help the markets. because everyone is expecting big down year over year, no tax help. ashley: we'll see. let's get into big tech. there's a hearing on capitol hill today about hate crimes and the rise of white nationalism with witnesses from facebook and google. d.r., do you like any of the big tech names here? someone said look, if and when, we will have a guest talking

about this, regulation starts to affect the business model, it could result in a 30% hit to the bottom line. we are not there yet. all we have now is data breaches and problems with video content and ceos saying we're sorry, we're going to do better, and it hasn't hurt the stock price. but could that change as regulation, as we have seen in europe, starts to ramp up? >> it could change. but let's look at the glacial pace with which that change would happen. i think if you are a three to six to nine month investor as opposed to three year investor, the regulation is not going to hit and affect you between now and the end of the year. i think big tech names, because of their double digit growth continuation in revenue, are still all of them, all the big ones we talk about, the big five and six, are still to be bought on pull-backs. >> one thing is if regulation comes into a company, say like facebook, one thing it does to help them is it makes it harder for competition to come up.

ashley: that's true. which is why mark zuckerberg has been trying to get out ahead of it for that very reason. >> looking at facebook stock, it's mid 170s today so i'm out but interesting move. ashley: you are out, but. quick check of the big board, as we know lower right now on the dow, down 200 points. so we are gaining downward momentum. you can feel it. 26,100 on the dow. let's take a look at apple. we mentioned this earlier. web bush expecting stable iphone demand trends in china and raising its price target to 225. not a huge impact. apple -- susan: cracking 200. ashley: yeah, up about half a percent, 201. going up as we speak. ge got crushed yesterday, down big. what's it doing today? this is a stock of course as we know that's been trying to revive but there you go, down again. 1.33%, $9.36. levi's reporting, the jeans people, reporting after the bell because they just recently had their ipo, up today at $21.45.

up just 15 cents. all right. walmart wrapping up high tech and deploying robots for all sorts of repetitive tasks. does that do much, mike murphy? you could argue this is the consequence of the fight for 15. you replace people with robots who don't need time off or minimum wage or benefits. >> yes, absolutely. that is a fact. i don't think there's any point arguing it. it's a fact machines will replace some workers. workers are going to find other things to do like the gig economy. there are jobs out there for people, and technology is changing everyone's life. you look at walmart, they can be more profitable and you as the consumer can get products for less cost that much quicker. it's a win/win. susan: walmart hired 40,000 employees basically to pick groceries from shelves to fulfill online orders. they are hiring in different ways. walmart is at $11 an hour. target raising to $15 an hour just in the past week.

costco, amazon we know is paying 15. bank of america, a minimum wage starting at $20 an hour. we are at peak margins with higher wages coming in. ashley: i'm feeling pretty good. >> here's the huge thing. these jobs are the big turnover jobs, mopping floors and moving around heavy stuff. they're not the jobs people come in wanting to do. they are the ones they want to get out of. remember, i'm a numbers guy, walmart has 2.3 million u.s. employees. they are a bigger employer than numbers two, three, four and five combined. so this is a big deal. i think it's a move in the right direction for the stock and for the company. ashley: when do we get robot greeters? we shall see. let's take a look at mastercard and square. these are the picks you bought. make a case. >> the payment sector i think is a good one to be in, when you've

got so many stocks that have gone up to the top of the page, we are at 1% or 2% from all time highs. where would you put new money to work. these are the kind of stocks, mastercard, the big behemoth and square as the up and comer, that will not get pushed down as far if we have any pullbacks and they will continue to grow. like them both for that. ashley: thank you. we have to cut it short today. we have william barr testifying. we have to get to that. thank you both for being here. let's get back to the barr hearing. happening right now on capitol hill, attorney general barr making his first appearance since he received the mueller report and wrote his no collusion memo. joining us, bruce fein, associate deputy attorney general under ronald reagan. okay. thank you, sir, for joining us. are we going the get big fireworks today? >> well, i think the democrats will certainly pummel mr. barr about everything except what he was supposed to testify about, about the budget. i think mr. barr, as shown during his confirmation hearing,

knows how to parry those assaults. i really do not think that mr. barr is going to be forthcoming. he's scheduled to testify in the early part of may specifically about the report and release whatever he believes is within his ambit and discretion. so today, i think we'll get a lot of assault but i don't think that there's going to be a whole lot of new news. ashley: so bottom line, this is just an opportunity for the democrats to grandstand, look good for the cameras, make all sorts of assertions that they really don't know, and put mr. barr on the spot. really, this is an opportunity don't you think for the democrats who were disappointed on the conclusion of mr. barr that there was no collusion and they are going to vent that anger? >> well, that's accurate and then they will say that his unresponsiveness shows there's something to cover up when really, he's not gotten through the 400 page report and he's scheduled to fully testify later on. but optics, the democrats will

try to use to make it appear as though he's trying to conceal something. one of the things that i was involved in the watergate special prosecution back in the nixon days at the department of justice, and that report specifically said they were not going to release anything that accused or was negative about somebody who wasn't indicted and prosecuted and had a chance to defend themselves. so this idea that you can just sort of throw everything in the kitchen sink and the grand jury into the public domain is contrary to what the gold standard was as a special prosecution force. i doubt whether any of the democrats will remember that era of watergate. ashley: they won't because they just try to make a point today. listen, the reason these documents are redacted is because of the law and i don't see, as you say, that's going to be the standard response we expect from mr. barr today. >> yes, that's true. really, it's another example i think of congressional cravenness. if congress wants, they can go ahead and call mr. mueller and ask him what he thinks. they haven't done that.

they haven't issued any subpoena to mr. mueller. they need to do their own investigation if they want to. the fact is that the congress has all the authority and more than mr. mueller had. they can issue witness immunity, they can issue subpoenas, they can investigate non-crimes. the justice department only investigates crimes. the ambit of congress is much broader. they can just oversee, investigate what they think is impeachable offense and they do nothing and want the executive branch to do all the work for them so they don't have to be accountable for it. ashley: just drip, drip, drip. bruce, thank you so much for taking time to chat with us today. we really appreciate it. as you can see, william barr, little glum-faced sitting there during the opening statement which is supposed to be about the budget but forget about that, it's going to be when will we see the full mueller report. take a quick check of the big board for you. it's been a double digit loss at the open. just about ten minutes into the session, we are off 221 points on the dow, down at 26,122.

now this. the measles outbreak showing no signs of slowing down. there are now more than 650 cases reported in the u.s. so far this year. that's an increase of nearly 100 from just last week. new york city accounted for about two-thirds of the new cases, most of which are in patients 19 or younger. a new article claims most successful millionaire ceos are psychopaths. congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez, guess what, she agrees. that story coming up in our 11:00 a.m. hour. a new study shows phone addicts are more dangerous on the road than drunk drivers. up next, the head of the company who did the study. i want to know how bad the problem really is. we'll be right back.

ashley: let's take a look at the big board. stocks heading south right out of the gate after this tweet from the president. the dow off 208 points. this tweet, the world trade organization finds that the european union subsidies to airbus has adversely impacted the united states which now puts tariffs on $11 billion of eu products. the eu has taken advantage of the u.s. on trade for many years. it will soon stop. susan: wonder how boeing's doing in reaction to that airbus is probably the primary competitor. ashley: two biggies in the world, no doubt. there has always been that contention that airbus gets a lot of subsidies. we will see how that fight works out. certainly seems to be having an impact on the market. now this story. a new study says phone addicts are more dangerous on the road than drunk drivers. joining us now is the ceo of zen drive which conducted that study. thanks for joining us. i was looking at some of the stats you provided me with. it's really quite alarming.

let's begin here. how bad is the distracted driving i guess phenomenon in the united states, specifically as people look at their phones while they're driving? >> thank you for having me. thank you for bringing this important topic. distracted driving is on the rise, it's very much an epidemic. some would say it is this generation's drunk driving. over the last year specifically, we have seen a rise, a double of the number of phone addicts from 4.6% to 8% of general population. real threatening and scary rise. ashley: two weeks ago i was on the interstate coming back into new york city and there was a woman driving in front of me, and she was weaving, she would go out to the left lane, come back to the right lane. i was just trying to get around her. as i pulled up alongside she had the phone on the steering wheel and was just engaged in that. i wanted to call the police and say this woman is a danger to anyone around her.

what is the solution to this? >> so we all have seen that and unfortunately, the distracted driver, the phone addict, they are picking up their phone 49 times every hundred miles versus 11 times on average. there really isn't a cure for all. there has been legislation, there has been education, all sorts of attempts, and fortunately, we believe that with the right technology, there is a way to handle that problem. the technology is in our hands. whether you are using an iphone or android device, there is a do not disturb me feature you can turn on. if you turn it on while driving, you will not receive calls or texts. so we are asking people to turn it on and we are asking people before they get on the road to start their music, and forget about the phone for the duration

of the road. it's as dangerous as being drunk on the road. ashley: in the real world that's not going to happen. people are addicted to their phones. they don't want to miss out on the latest social media post or whatever it is. at what point does enforcement become just as important? because i don't know how well this is being enforced on the roads by authorities. >> that's a very good point. in previous studies we actually looked at correlation between state enforcement and legislation and the rate of distracted driving, and you know, also with this study, we studied billions of miles and almost two million drivers, there isn't a correlation, unfortunately. if there was a correlation, we could say this works, this doesn't work. but it seems like it's more of an attitudinal issue. people are aware this is illegal. we ran a survey in addition to the data collection where we asked people for their opinion, their perception of distracted phone and their particular personal driving. 90% of individuals on the road

believe they are safe, 47% of individuals on the road admit they pick up their phone about 10% of the time which makes them very very dangerous. ashley: while pedestrian fatalities at a 30-year high. i'm sure distracted driving is a big factor in that as well. jonathan matus, thank you for joining us. it's a story that's very important. i hope we can have you back in the near future to talk about ways to try and beat it. thank you very much. >> thank you very much for having me. ashley: all right. add another name to the list of democrats running for president next year. another one? susan: 18th candidate to enter the race. wonder if they have a stage big enough for the democrat ic side. eric swalwell is in, injecting youth and what they call prosecutor's zeal. he's the third one under 40 to enter the race. he basically has been an ally of house speaker nancy pelosi.

he's been tough on gun control. that's one of his mandates. also, he's been pressed to look into russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. he thinks he has a chance. people think it's going to be a long shot. ashley: you think? susan: announcement on colbert last night. ashley: that's kind of a hip place to do it. it's a very, very crowded field. susan: very. big stage. ashley: huge stage. thank you very much. let's check the dow 30 stocks for you. two green stocks there. i can see walt disney and apple. susan: boeing is down. ashley: there you go. boeing down as we fight with the eu over subsidies for airbus. up next, we talk to the owner of a cannabis company that just raised nearly $60 million in funding. what's the biggest hurdle right now for legal cannabis across the country? 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? ifor another 150 years. the fire going ♪ to inspire confidence through style. ♪ i'm working to make connections of a different kind. ♪ i'm working for beauty that begins with nature. ♪ to treat every car like i treat mine.

♪ at adp we're designing a better way to work, so you can achieve what you're working for. ♪ comcast business built the nation's largest gig-speed network. then went beyond. beyond chasing down network problems. to knowing when and where there's an issue. beyond network complexity. to a zero-touch, one-box world. optimizing performance and budget. beyond having questions. to getting answers. "activecore, how's my network?" "all sites are green." all of which helps you do more

than your customers thought possible. comcast business. beyond fast.

ashley: breaking news. attorney general william barr testifying as we speak, as you can see, at a house committee hearing. house subcommittee. he's answering questions about the mueller report from democrat congressman jose cerano. this is supposed to be a budget hearing but the democrats want to use this as an opportunity to say to mr. barr when are you

going to release the full report, and there you have the attorney general responding. not really giving anything in return, basically deflecting those questions. of course, as this proceeds, and as developments warrant, we will go to this hearing if indeed fireworks ensue. we are just keeping an eye on it for you. the cannabis company vertical wellness raising $58 million in financing. that's a lot of cash. joining us, smoke wallen, ceo of the company. i love that name. smoke, that's not just because you are owner of a cannabis company which everyone would infer but that's your name on your birth certificate. >> on my birth certificate. thank mom for that. ashley: you were born to do this. >> apparently mom knew a long time ago. ashley: you raised nearly 60 million bucks for vertical wellness. tell me about your company and then what you're going to do with the money. >> we are in the cannabis and hemp business. vertical companies is in both cannabis and hemp.

it's to build out our operations, build out our brands, really a brand company but in order to build brands in this space, you have to build the infrastructure. there's no ecosystem that exists. we had to build the cultivation, the extraction, the manufacturing, to put it all together in a brands and distribution. ashley: you do this in california. there's been a lot of criticism of how regulated and taxed it is by the california government, which has really helped the black market marijuana. >> yeah, absolutely. but look, this is -- ashley: have you discovered a lot of that? >> i came out of the wine and spirits industry. it's a regulated business. there's a lot of parallels to it. what's happening is the natural course of evolution, right? we are legal now at the state level but the federal prohibition still exists. that's the biggest hurdle right now for all the companies in the business is that the federal prohibition is inconsistent with the 33 states that now allow cannabis. ashley: do you get the sense that will change soon? i mean, we have had new york and new jersey just recently kind of pushing back a bit on legalizing marijuana. is that a concern? >> well, you know, they say you

don't want to watch sausage made or laws made, right. the new jersey thing is not unexpected. 14 of the top 25 pharma companies are based in jersey. the biggest opposition to legalization around the country is the pharma guys. but it's happening anyway. that's a speed bump along the way. the genie is out of the bottle, it's already happening across the country. when the majority of republicans and democrats all are in favor of some form of legalization, it's really just a matter of time. ashley: are you publicly traded? >> we are not. we're a private company today. ashley: any plans any time soon? >> absolutely. on the wellness side, which is hemp only, we are working on -- ashley: very good. >> laying the groundwork. ashley: smoke, thank you for being here. fascinating stuff. >> thanks for having me. susan: great name. ashley: big hearings continue on the next hour on capitol hill. we are monitoring the latest from william barr's testimony before a house committee and in just a few minutes, facebook and google execs will be testifying

about the rise of white nationalism on social media. any headlines from that one as well, and you will see them right here. we'll be right back. this is the family who booked the trip. ♪ which led to new adventures and turned moments into memories. with flights, hotels, activities and more for your florida vacation, expedia has everything you need to go. . .

ashley: 10:00 am on the east coast, 7:00 a.m. stuart will be back tomorrow. we're watching three, count them, three congressional hearings. upper left side of the screen, attorney general barr testifying before the house appropriations committee. this is a hearing about the doj's budget, but democrats are grilling bar on collusion and the mueller report. right side of the screen, the house judiciary committee, holding a hearing on hate crimes, the rise of white nationalism. executives from google and facebook will be testifying. at the bottom of the screen, you know that person, treasury secretary steve mnuchin. he will be testifying before the budget subcommittee. we're watching them all. we'll bring high lights and fireworks as they happen. we're getting headlines from the barr hearing.

what have we got, susan? susan: william barr asked to defend the summary report and releasing the report with redactions that will come out next week. by the way there were reports whether or not the mueller report actually exonerates the president, the mueller team had a chance to review his summary letter that he sent to both houses of congress beforehand and they didn't opt to do that. ashley: interesting. susan: makes redactions transparent as well. ashley: more breaking news. the latest read on job openings, right? susan: less than what we saw the previous month in january. so for the month of february there are over 7 million jobs available in the u.s. economy. that is down from 7.625. ashley: what was the expectation, 7 1/2? susan: they don't give expectations. down from the previous month but still close to the one million jobs gap of those looking for

work and jobs available in the u.s. ashley: still healthy. susan: still pretty healthy. anything above seven is pretty healthy. ashley: susan, thank you very much. our next guest, shows a screen grab from msnbc can democrats win on the economy? and our next guest replied saying no. simple. marc lotter, trump 2020 strategic communications director. marc, that was too easy. we're watching william barr right now supposed to be talking about the doj's budget, it is getting grilled by democrats what are you hiding essentially empty mueller report, what are you redacting, issue in the economy to your point would be a winner for the trump administration, donald trump, right? >> absolutely ashley and we saw that a few weeks ago on a poll from another network where 71% of americans said that our economy is in good shape, when given a choice more people said they are better off today than they were three years ago than

said they were the same or doing worse. so the economy is working for american businesses. it is working for american workers. we saw it last week with the jobs report. wages going up, unemployment holding steady. it is good right now to be a worker in america. the president wants to keep it going. ashley: i want to talk about the border issues. obviously a big shakeup in the department of homeland security, if i.c.e. the administration trying to take a hard-line attack believing that perhaps that's what is needed right now to solve this crisis is at the border. how does that play to the country? >> i don't think it has much impact from a political standpoint. the president, many people who have been there including the former secretary or secretary nielsen who is still in office for a few more days served for multiple years. these jobs are very demanding this is a time when a president might step back to say we have a new challenge. we need to make sure that we have people that are bringing a

fresh perspective on it. the secretary did a fantastic job. the president thanked her for that. ultimately he is responsible to making sure he has got the team together that can confront challenges that we face. as we see now, even some democrats are finally starting to agree, it is a crisis at the southern border. ashley: it is indeed. marc, stay right there. we'll come back to you. we want to get back to the tech hearing. facebook and google executives are testifying before the house judiciary committee. hillary vaughn is there to set it all up. what is happening? reporter: facebook, google sending two of their own all the way to capitol hill to face lawmakers who have a lot of questions, hate speech, specifically white supreme sy is allowed to proliferate on their platforms and spread. both companies admit they have a lot of work to do. facebook's neil potts, director of public policy at facebook is expected to admit they have made

some mistakes, some slip-ups in trying to regulate how they make sure hate speech does not spread on their site. got my hands on google's alex walden, counsel for public policy. she sin side. got my hands on her testimony, she is expected to talk about specifically youtube, how they try to crack down on hate speech, any videos from spreading on their site. she is expected to say this striking the balance is never easy, especially for a global platform operating in societies that have different standards for when speech crosses the line. one interesting interaction this morning i asked neil potts, does he think that the criticism from this committee is fair? they have said facebook and google are conduits that spread violence and hate speech on their platforms and need to be held responsible. i asked if that was a fair criticism. he told me will have something to say on that later. ashley. ashley: we'll continue to follow

that hearing. hillary vaughn, thank you very much. back to your money. the latest read on job openings. brian belski, bmo chief investment strategist. susan told us, brian, down a little bit, above seven million, just. pretty healthy. right? >> job growth is pretty strong. we entered we believe the beginning phases of this goldilocks economy. interesting to see in the february report by the way, what kind of weather impacts. because if you remember february was rough. ashley: yes. >> typically people hunker down. this winter was no different. you know the job growth remains strong. overall economy is showing i think more better than worse numbers. earnings, we think are going to be better. ashley: that is a big issue. >> absolutely. we've been a strategist now, next month we start our 30th year on wall street, we have models going back 20, 25 years and one of those models is actually a earnings revision model we monitored.

earnings revisions in january were the worst i ever seen in my career. meaning analysts and companies dropped their numbers so fervently, in march we had upward movement in numbers too much. ashley: they overdid it. >> they over did it. we're still playing defense, underpromise, overdeliver. i'm not saying we'll have a gangbuster earnings season. i don't think it will be as negative as forecast. ashley: doom and gloom forecast at end of last year. >> of course it was doom and gloom. ashley: we had a pretty stellar 2018. we know comparables will be hard to beat. we know pounding the table is the guidance. what are companies saying looking forward. what is their full-year guidance? >> full-year guidance is the one that got crushed in january. this quarter was first full-year guidance but we're starting to see numbers creep up for the second half of the year. that is important to note. number two, you go back to the old goldilocks analogy, not too

hot, not too cold. last year was too hot. we've seen some tempering from that. we don't think that great economics team from bmo that we're seeing recession any time soon, number one. number two, earnings will be better than most people think and number three on the whole political mind set you have to remember americans vote their pocketbook. they did so in 2012. a lot of people thought romney would win because it looked like polls are coming in. all of sudden, market was up 8% the day of the election, gdp was positive. people again vote their pocketbooks. ashley: right. >> we think that is a trend most people understanding especially given all the rhetoric and news. ashley: instead after nice leg up, we see grinding higher how you see this playing out? >> we do. we asked several times we think 2019 will play out as this generation's 1995. the fed misstepped in '94 just like december of this past year. we see markets grinding higher

and u.s. home for stability as assets come back. ashley: best game in town as they say. >> that's right. ashley: brian, appreciate it. let's get back to capitol hill, attorney general barr getting grilled by democrats about the mueller report. come back in marc lotter. marc, the democrats just won't let the collusion issue go. if they can't get collusion they will get obstruction. they're hell-bent getting something. it's a drip, drip, drip. can they get something out of this? doesn't seem like it, and it is a losing strategy up to now? >> you're absolutely right. they lied to the american people for two years about there being evidence of collusion. the special counsel and the attorney general summary both cleared all of that nonsense up as the president said from day one. there was no collusion. then they tried to look at other areas. at this point we have got to remember here the special counsel did not make any recommendation on charges obstruction. the attorney general backed that up. in our country, not charging

someone is not charging someone. it is pretty clear. there was no obstruction, no matter what the democrats would like to try to invent. we understand they're trying to keep their angry little base angry and motivated. but the american people are seeing right through it. they would rather talk about the economy than this witch-hunt apparently never going to end. ashley: that is a good place to leave it right there, marc, thank you so much for joining us. really appreciate it. thank you. as we've been telling you big day on capitol hill. three big hearings this hour, spinning places keeping it up with it all. attorney general barr, treasury secretary steve mnuchin, executives from facebook and google all testifying. we are watching them so you don't have to. how about that. that is a good deal. any highlights you will see them right here. coming up later this hour, a guest says tech industry biggest problem is not privacy, the biggest concern youth exodus from silicon valley.

young, talented people can't after to live there. he will make his case at 10:30. bill browder last time he was on the show, that putin wanted to kill him. he says anyone investing in russia is risking their lives. he is our next guest. varney hour two is just getting started. ♪

ashley: take a look at the big board. we were down well over 200 points. we're coming back a little bit. i say coming back a little bit -- susan: thank apple. 10-day winning streak. that is what is carrying the dow jones. ashley: thank you, apple. a big story of the day is of course president trump threatening $11 billion worth of tariffs on the eu in a dispute over their subsidies for airbus, the big plane maker in europe. more headlines out of the barr

hearing. susan what have you got? susan: he will release the mueller report next week. the questions are what will be restacked. redacted. barr is telling lawmakers, non-public evidence about trump will not be redacted. lawmakers, mueller's decision not to reach conclusion of obstruction of justice was not a mystery to the department. lawmakers are insisting making decisions what should be redacted in this report. ashley: thank you for those. we'll continue to follow it. the mnuchin budget hear something getting underway. we're watching that for you as well. there is mr. mnuchin. switching gears, bill browder, investor, and kremlin critic, the last time on the show he said mr. putin was trying to kill him. take a listen. >> yeah. putin wants me, he wants to you know, kill me as quickly as he can get me out of the picture in the same way the united states and rest of the world want these russian guys who are hacking

elections locked away. ashley: he is warning foreign investors still active in russia they are risking their own lives as well as their client's money. bill browder, hermitage capital ceo in london for us. bill what is your exposure to russia now? we know the russians are not happy with you. you've been following what you say are their criminal dealings, following a paper trail of money laundering and so on. are you still doing that and where are you in that process? >> first of all let me say that i haven't been investing in russia for about a decade. it is an ininvestable place. since the murder of my lawyer, sergey magnitsky in 2009 i have been going after the people who killed him and one of the things we've been doing is to figure out where the money went that he exposed, that he was killed over. that has gone to a bunch of european banks. we made criminal complaints in the authorities in sweden, denmark, latvia, lithuania,

estonia, and there are now criminal cases open. there are bankers fired. there are assets that have been frozen. this of course makes putin a very unhappy man. ashley: i read with interest you were detained in madrid last year. you got thrown into the book after car. you didn't know where you were going. a horrible situation. you feared the worse. you were released from that, do you spend your life looking over your shoulder? we know that russians were behind an attack in salsbury in the uk against a former russian citizen that has to be in the back of your mind? >> yeah of course. in fact russia right now as we speak has applied to interpol the 7th time try to have interpol arrest me whenever i travel. interpole will make their decision on monday next week. this is a active persecution being organized by vladmir putin and the kremlin against me. ashley: you warn foreign investors still active in russia they're risking their own lives.

how much money is being invested in russia these days? >> not a lot. the amount of foreign direct investment has dropped by 95%. it is not, it is not a welcoming investment climate. most people don't have to be there aren't there. i mean big oil companies are there because that is where the oil is. a few other big international companies. but if you have a choice to be in russia or not be in russia, not a place to be it is a kleptocracy, a criminal state. everything you have could be stolen at any point. if you try to fight for your assets you could be killed. ashley: switching gears a little bit, bill, you manage money, you're in london, brexit, nightmare goes on, how do you see this thing playing out? are we ever going to have a resolution? >> i was wrong about my prediction about brexit happening in the first place. i was surprised that it did happen. i'm not sure that my predictive powers mean a whole lot here. it seems to me that there will be so many different people with

some different views that it will, i don't see how anyone will come to a consensus. but, right across the river from where i am they're arguing about it right now. ashley: they are indeed, have been for years now. who knows when it will be over. bill browder, thank you very much for joining us, bill, really appreciate it. >> thank you. ashley: attorney general bill barr testifying right now. we'll bring you headlines as they come in. there he is facing the music at least from the democrats. president trump making some changes to the obama era cuba policy. this one could make it a lot harder for major league baseball to sign cuban baseball players next. ♪

hey, who are you? oh, hey jeff, i'm a car thief... what?! i'm here to steal your car because, well, that's my job. what? what?? what?! (laughing) what?? what?! what?! [crash] what?! haha, it happens. and if you've got cut-rate car insurance, paying for this could feel like getting robbed twice. so get allstate... and be better protected from mayhem... like me. ♪

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.

ashley: take a look what the big bored is doing, down 183 points. we've been kind of stuck at this level now for a little while, down about .7 of 1%. the dow 26,157. bank of america, taking a look at the banks down a quarter of a percent or there about, they're raising their minimum wage to 20 bucks an hour. b-of-a says it will go into effect over two year period. the first increase goes into effect on may 1st. susan: banking execs are testifying on capitol hill tomorrow. ashley: white house is cancel agreement that allows cuban baseball players to sign contracts with the mlb. joining us fox news radio sports reporter jared max. if anyone is on it he is. jared what is behind this? the u.s. trying to put the pinch

they say on cuba. >> secretary of state pompeo said to fox news, baseball players are essentially pawns in this much larger political game that involves the united states and cuba and venezuela and the players really just want to be able to, if they have the talents come to the united states to live the american dream and hey, i want to play with the best baseball players in the world. what the obama administration tried to do was open up relations in better way between the u.s. and cuba. that would allow players to come to the united states, where major league baseball worked out a deal in december which said they could come to play in the united states. would not have to defect from their country. ashley: right. >> seems like we'll have to go back to the old times. baseball doesn't like human trafficking element where -- ashley: since the rules were relaxed has there been a big pipeline of players from cuba into -- >> there were 34 players, cuba was saying 34 players they were about to release to major league baseball teams.

many to play. now for the 34 players they are caught up in a little bit of this serious political -- ashley: what happened before, they would try to find a way, jumping on a boat in the middle of the night getting across, whatever it be. >> like el duke hernandez or yasiel puig paid a lot of money to smugglers to get them to the united states. ashley: puts their life in danger. >> not only that they don't know how their families will be treated. hopefully the best players from cuba can make and everybody will be happy. 25% of the bonus player signs goes to the government. the u.s. doesn't want that. but we allow it with japan and south korea and china when players go. ashley: is this a blow to major league baseball who don't get to showcase these players now? >> a little bit. a little bit. we'll see where it goes. i don't think this is the end. ashley: i think you're right. jared max as always. great stuff, jared, thank you very much.

president trump he being accused of politicizing the federal reserve by nominating steve moore and herman cain. coming up we'll talk to one of the fed's biggest critics ron paul. what does he think about the president's move? cnbc tweets out a headline, most millionaire ceos are psychopaths. a. c agrees. we'll tell you what she is saying next hour. this is my headquarters.

this is where i trade and manage my portfolio. since i added futures, i have access to the oil markets. and gold markets. ok. i'm plugged into equities. trade confirmed. and i have global access 24/7. meaning, i can do what i need to do. then i can focus on what i want to do. visit your online broker today, to learn more. ♪ ♪ i am the egg man, i am the egg man, i am the walrus ♪

susan: catchy. ashley: stuart varney is the walrus. not quite sure what that means. that is for stu. he will be back tomorrow. we keep the beatles theme tomorrow. susan: play his favorite song when he is not here? ashley: yes. susan: that is how it works. ashley: just don't tell him. keeping with our british invasion theme, london has become the first city in the world to implement 24/7 pollution charge zone. susan what it is all about. susan: it a interest low emissions zone, 24 hours, 7 days a week, inside these particular areas cars will have to meet tough emissions standards or they face a charge. these are some steep charges as we mentioned, right? with vehicles, as you enter $16 for some cars. if you're a van or motorbike, 100-pound or $130, larger trucks, buses coaches as well. not keep for the average folk looking --

ashley: they don't want you in the middle with a vehicle. want to you take public transport. >> these are zones downtown. this is another brainchild law from sadiq kahn, london mayor, protecting health of youngsters. ashley: i think the air is pretty good in london because the wind is howling. so any pollutants ends up in norway. susan: rains drive it away. ashley: exactly. check the big board. we're down 180 points at 26,100 on the dow. a couple of things at play. certainly tariff war. a war at words with the eu between the president and the eu kind of unsettling the market as little bit. look at big tech stocks we check every day, a mixed bag. apple up at 202. check out facebook, up 3 bucks at 178. not bad. president trump has nominated steve moore and herman cain to be federal reserve board

members. who likes to talk about the fed? our good friend, ron paul, the former texas congressman. good morning to you, mr. paul. >> hi, ashley. ashley: i believe, i think you have said this it is a myth to believe that the fed is not politicized, would you agree with that? >> oh, absolutely. anybody who pretends is pretending. trump is a little more blunt on what he does. he is out in front. he makes it political he talked about it. yes, it is a very political group. even now you hear choruses from the members of congress, oh, we don't like what he is doing. we think the fed should be independent. i think that is just talk. i think it always been political and always will be. ashley: certainly going back in time, you can point to that with appointments going all the way back to nixon, right? >> right. nixon i think, nixon, one of the members once said we have to do what the president tells us or we'll lose our independence.

that is about it. but trump is out in the front. everybody knows what he says. so ebb, oh, looks like he is politicizing the fed. but it is. it always has been politicized. with these appointments i find it fascinating because it is politicizing the fed, i find the appointments he is making are crucial, i think we're at a crucial stage with our monetary policy, they are trying to unwind balance sheet. they can't do it. trying to figure out what interest rates should be. we have two new proposed members, they even like the gold standard. that is fascinating combination. ashley: i know you love the gold standard, that is where you think we should go back to correct? >> not that easily. i never want to go backwards. the old gold standard wasn't good. you can't just turn a switch well we can't get rid of what we have now because i think the policy that trump talks about now is going lower interest rates when economy is booming.

this has never happened before. so i think the gold standard is going to be there when the whole thing breaks down. you already see a lot of countries now buying gold because they're preparing for, a system is that doesn't work very well. it happened throughout thousands of years, when countries have inflated, they have been doing it for a long time, they have to resort to something of true value, something developed in the marketplace. so gold will be important but, i like to think that we understand money and gold a lot better than we did even at the time of our founding because the to buy metal is not under the constitution was not a good system. ashley: no. before you go, congressman, another one for you, your latest piece about the ninth anniversary of obamacare. i know you're not a fan but we certainly can repeal but what the heck will we replace it with? >> replace it with the market. that is my main goal. this is not going to be replaced, just like you can't

replace the fed tomorrow. you have to have a competition, have something evolve. you can't, you can't immediately replace obamacare. they have gotten too many people very dependent on it but the key to this, whether it is money or medicine is allow competition. don't outlaw competition. no monopoly. and that is what trump has done. he made one regulation where it is easier to get out of obamacare but except they have all these exceptions. so i think the country will survive if you can always opt out. i don't like government education for instance. but i really think it is important that we have the right to teach our kids at home in private schools as long as we have that right, we'll survive. and that is is the way it will be in medicine. there are good groups in medicine now doing it on their own. they don't take any government money or insurance money and their costs are prices are about 25% of what the market is because all that money under

obamacare goes to insurance companies, drug companies, management companies, all these people. so it's a waste of money. but the market, if you legalize it, allow it to operate, that is why the mandates of obamacare were so vicious. ashley: yep. free market and choice, it's a wonderful thing. thank you so much, congressman paul. thanks for your time today. always appreciate it. >> thank you. ashley: our next guest says that one of the biggest threats to silicon valley these days is not privacy or hacking, it is a youth exodus. young, talented people just cannot afford to live there. joining us is robert moran, insight partner. robert, make your case. how bad is the problem? explain it to your viewers? >> sure it's a very serious problem. look when the media talks about silicon valley they often talk to tech titans or tex experts. what we wanted to do talk to workers themselves to give us the ground level truth.

here is the thing. there is a lot of positive and optimistic news in the research we conducted. 67% say their companies are hiring. 55% report that they think the best days of silicon valley are ahead of it. however there are three storm clouds, and the biggest is the most mundane, which is housing costs. 41% of tech workers in the bay area between 18 and 34 years old say they are looking to leave in the next 12 months. and the reason? the reason is housing costs. they can't afford to live there. now the interesting thing is, this may be bad for silicon valley but it may be very good for america, because what you can get is kind of a high-priced startup academy where young people go to silicon valley, spend some time there, then move to the rest of the united states and start their tech start-ups somewhere else. so that is what we're seeing right now.

ashley: what does an entry level engineer at one of these big tech companies earn? i'm just interested. i thought they were paid pretty well, enough they could survive? >> well they are paid well. the problem is that real estate there is so scarce. ashley: right. >> that it eats up a very large percentage of their paycheck and they want to go somewhere where they can actually buy a home. the spiraling housing costs in palo alto and environs really priced them out. of course the city where people want to live, san francisco, city of san francisco, is exorbitantly, exorbitantly expensive. ashley: robert you said there is no academy that would be a solution. where do the young people go, silicon valley if you're in the tech industry, is where it is at. where do they go if they can't afford to live there? >> they will go to other tech startup communities in utah,

outskirts of denver, boulder area, austin. looking for places in raleigh. who knows, steve case calls about the rise of the rest and how we develop a startup culture rest of the united states, not just silicon valley. that may be what we see. there are two other storm clouds on the horizon in our research. the second that we've seen is an expectation of additional federal regulation. 55% of tech workers expect more federal regulation. they don't like it but they're expecting it. then the big one, the longer term threat is the rise of china and 49% of tech workers say they expect a rival to the bay area in the next five years and overwhelmingly they identify china as that rival. and chinese tech firms and the government trying to accelerate startups. ashley: it's a fascinating angle to all of this. we'll continue to follow it. robert moran, thanks for joining

us today, thank you. >> thank you. ashley: by the way, israel going to the polls today. prime minister netanyahu in a tough re-election fight with former army chief benny gantz. the former israeli ambassador to the u.s. will join us with more on that story in the next hour. also more fallout from the jussie smollett scandal. illinois congressman bobby rush says chicago police are the sworn enemy of black people. you will hear it after this. ♪ now i'm thinking...i'd like to retire early. let's talk about this when we meet next week. edward jones came to manage a trillion dollars in assets under care by focusing our mind on whatever's on yours. you wouldn't accept an incomplete job from any one else. why accept it from your allergy pills?

flonase sensimist relieves all your worst symptoms, including nasal congestion, which most pills don't. and all from a gentle mist you can barely feel. flonase sensimist. ifor another 150 years. the fire going ♪ to inspire confidence through style. ♪ i'm working to make connections of a different kind. ♪ i'm working for beauty that begins with nature. ♪ to treat every car like i treat mine. ♪ at adp we're designing a better way to work, so you can achieve what you're working for. ♪ you may be learning about, medicare and supplemental insurance. medicare is great, but it doesn't cover everything ...only about 80% of your part b medicare costs. a medicare supplement insurance plan may help cover some of the rest. learn how an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company might be the right choice for you.

a free decision guide is a great place to start. call today to request yours. so what makes an aarp medicare supplement plan unique? these are the only medicare supplement plans endorsed by aarp because they meet aarp's high standards of quality and service. you're also getting the great features that any medicare supplement plan provides. you may choose any doctor that accepts medicare patients. you can even visit a specialist. with this type of plan there are no networks or referrals needed. also, a medicare supplement plan... ...goes with you when you travel anywhere in the u.s. call today for a free guide.

ashley: take a look at the dow for you, been in the same range for an hour. down 185 points but the dow is still at 26,155. now to the jussie smollett case. listen to what democrat

congressman bobby rush said about chicago's police union. roll tape. >> the foc is a the sworn enemy of black people. what the foc and all of their cohorts. ashley: joining us is blue lives matter new york city president and founder. almost like you have to play that again to understand what this law maker is saying. the sworn enemy of the people, the chicago police union. well, first off your reaction to that? >> i say this all the time, you have certain politicians stand in front of a podium spew hate and complete lies. this is complete distraction what happened with jussie smollett. he did something wrong. no one wants to hold accountability for him. no this is the police officers. it is quite opposite. so many people in all these communities we served actually, love, respect, cherish police officers.

we have great relationships, better than ever. this is distraction to say jussie smollett, no he still is the victim we'll blame it on the cops. that is completely wrong. ashley: there are many black officers in the police union. how do they feel when a lawmaker says something like that? how demoralizing is that? >> i have several officer friends from chicago, and they have a big issue with their politicians over there because they make their job so much harder. people misinformed and listen to this, believe it. that is people with fighting back, resisting arrest, not listening to police officer commands. there is constant clash. doesn't need to be. walk around any up and down the blocks you would think everyone is racist. they're not. what is going on in the media is not true and unnecessary. ashley: these inflammatory statements they put police officers lives at risk, do they not? to your point, this could lead to dangerous situations on the street? >> absolutely. ashley: they take no

responsibility for it. >> same thing, stop, question, frisk. you can't stop people, now people think they can walk around the street with firearms, they can't. jumping turnstiles. you don't need to pay. you do, there are laws in place. need more politicians, honestly giving me motivation to one day run bring common sense in politics. to bring something back where people -- ashley: the problem is common sense. >> that is the problem. there is no common sense. correct. ashley: so much of this as you mentioned the jussie smollett case and all of this is kind of centered in chicago but does this reflect what is going on in the rest of the country or chicago being chicago is a real problem there, as opposed to rest of the country? >> i believe it is more there especially with our police department, our commissioner, he does a great job with community policing. so many people do. because of the respect, mutual respect, key word, mutual respect between the public and police officers things are getting done, crime is at all-time low we strive to bring

it down even further. ashley: joe, thank you for joining us. >> thank you. ashley: common sense politician. think about it. common sense may be a tough sell in politics. joe, thank you. more headlines out of the barr hearing. susan, what do we have now? susan: don't forget the judiciary committee authorized subpoenas for the full report, mueller report last week. william barr responded to this does not intend to send full unredacted copy mueller report to congressional committees at this point. but he does intend to release the redacted mueller report next week. ashley: fair enough. susan. we'll follow it. don't forget women's basketball coach making headlines off the court. she defended her decision no hire men on her coaching staff. you will hear it. you will get reaction from a sports legend, golfer annika sorenstam. she is retired now unfortunately. what a player, we'll be speaking to her next.

♪ ♪ ♪ you got a side that wants more space, ♪ ♪ 'cause every day starts like a race. ♪ ♪ you got a side that loves that style, ♪ ♪ but to fit in those shoes gonna take awhile. ♪ ♪ today life's got you runnin'. ♪ ♪ tomorrow big things are comin'. ♪ ♪ that's why nationwide is on your side. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

our new, hot, fresh breakfast will get you the readiest. (buzzer sound) holiday inn express. be the readiest. my dream car. it turns out, they want me to start next month. she can stay with you to finish her senior year. things will be tight but, we can make this work. ♪ now... grandpa, what about your dream car? this is my dream now. principal we can help you plan for that .

ashley: god some breaking news on a story we've been following.

new york city mayor de blasio along with the city's department of health declared a public emergency due to the measles crisis. the city also apparently ordering mandatory vaccinations for people in select zip codes, williamsburg, brooklyn. susan what information? did i tell it all? susan: the zip codes are williamsburg and brooklyn. because we're looking at the second highest outbreak of measles since the measles was eradicated in 2000. 465 cases at this point. the de blasio administration is stepping in. they're talking about the measles outbreak affecting orthodox jewish community. it's a public health emergency. they're ordering mandatory vaccinations for all people in the zip codes. if you don't have any evidence of immunity or have not received your vaccine you could be given a violation or could be fined as much as $1000. ashley: wow. susan: don't forget, rockland county, what happened last week the judge striking down the order where you can't be in

public places if you are not vaccinated. ashley: we'll continue to follow it. fascinating. thank you. take a quick look at the dow for you, we're down about this much for the last hour. we're down more than 200 points. the dow off 191 right now, at 26,150. now this story, listen to what notre dame's women's basketball coach said about hiring women. roll tape. >> i'm getting tired of novelty of the first american, the first female governor of this state, the first female african-american mayor of this city. when is it going to become the norm instead of the exception? when you look at men's basketball, 99% of the jobs go to men, why shouldn't 100 or 99% of the jobs in women's basketball go to women? ashley: interesting points. joining us, golf legend, annika sorenstam. i want to talk golf with but i want to pick up on the point we heard from notre dame's coach.

you as role model top female athlete, when you were playing and now, does the coach have a point, should there be more female role models? >> there is no doubt we need to have more female role models. i believe they're out there. we need to make sure they have the stage to showcase their skills and able to be part of other teams and help other young women to inspire. one thing to say, one thing is to do. if you see them in roles, you will inspire young girls better. since i stepped away in 2018, i've been focusing a lot of my time to inspire the next generation of young girls to do that, to live the dream, share the passion and knowledge for the game that i have. ashley: talking of the game, you know, i'm a huge golfer. i love playing golf. i can't play at level anywhere close to you, but nevertheless it obviously is a popular sport but it has been losing players from 30 million i think was the estimate in 2003 at the peak, but you have been losing people,

taking part in golf. how do you turn that around, especially among millenials? >> well as of today we have 24 million golfers. now we're talking on golfers. the number off the course golfers is almost about the same. so we have 23 million. there we have quite, almost, 50 million people interested in the game of golf. we're finding new ways to attract a golf fan whether through top golf, whether through driving ranges, whether playing on the golf course. one of the things i do nowadays, spending a lot of time inspiring the next generation, partnering with companies like dick's sporting goods to help grow sports. it is funny, right now we're sitting in a golfathon promotion where we do all the deals with dick's sporting goods, you can trade in the old golf clubs, buy new golf clubs, to get you inspired to play the wonderful game of golf.

we have to have promotions partnerships to grow the game whether on the course or off the course. you can play all your life. ashley: that is for sure, even if you play badly. new clubs wouldn't help me, annika. i'm sorry we are out of time, thank you for your time-sharing it with us today. >> thanks for having me. take care. ashley: you too. big hour coming up alexandria ocasio-cortez backing up cnbc's claim that quote, most successful millionaire ceos, they're psychopaths. we'll tell what you aoc is saying. the fight for 15 movement might be backfiring, small businesses around the country feeling pinch from minimum wage increases. we'll deal with that. new details on the woman arrested at president trump's mar-a-lago resort. you won't believe what the investigators found in her hotel room. more "varney" after this.

... all before lunch, which we caught last saturday. we earn our scars. we wear our work ethic. we work until the work's done. and when it is, a few hours of shuteye to rest up for tomorrow, the day we'll finally get something done. ( ♪ )

ashley: 11:00 here in new york, 8:00 a.m. in california let's start off with varney the markets right now as you can see lower but trying, i say trying to come back the dow up 161 points at 26, 181 and one factor in today's action could be the president, tweeting about tariffs this morning, and here it is, the world trade organization finds that the european union subsidies to airbus has adversely impacted the united states, which will now put tariffs on 11 billion of eu products and the eu has taken advantage of the u.s. on trade for many years and it will soon stop, that we think, has hurt the market just a little bit. and even bigger morning though on capitol hill, let's break it all down for you, it's the hearing i think the house judiciary committee, meetings with representatives from google and facebook, taking the tech giants to task over the rise of white nationalism and racism on

social media. also happening, the senate finance committee holding a hearing on the price of prescription drugs focusing on pharmacy benefit managers the so-called middle man negotiating discounts on medicine and the committee wants more transparency and they are grill ing executives from cigna, cvs, humana and more and treasury secretary steven mnuchin testifying before the house appropriations committee and the fisa court fiscal year budget on the table but they have the tax returns on their mind grilling mnuchin on their release and that brings us to the justice department's 2020 budget hearing, attorney general william barr speaking before other members of the house appropriations committee, and this is where i want to bring in chad pergrum from this angle on this hearing the fox news senior capitol hill producer, chad, committee democrats trying to make this all about the mueller report, we knew they were going to do it and that's exactly what they are doing right? >> that's right and this is key

because it's the first time that barr has been on capitol hill since it was announced that the mueller report was complete, and barr sent up to capitol hill his memo, brief memo that was an interpretation so that's what they have been focusing on so far, robert aderholton arms, republican from alabama the top republican on that subcommittee he indicated he wanted to focus on appropriations and they've also dove off into other areas of the department of justice not defending obamacare in court, also some discussion about the family separation policy, but ashley you're rightist mostly been about the release about this report and barr told the committee he thinks it will be up in "about a week." ashley: chad we don't have that sound bite. >> i thought you were going to ask me another question. it's quite all right but the key to this report and i spoke with

jerry nadler the chair of the judiciary committee and said what happens when this report comes out the house and senate are supposed to be on a two week recess and the house in fact is going away tomorrow what happens if this comes out some time in the next few days do you come back into session and he says well we have to see what's in the report and how much is redacted there was a lot of conversation about how they would go about redacting this, this color coated system based on grand jury information or intelligence information and jerry nadler says let's see what he sends up, how much is redacted do we have to come back and have committee action or ashley, do we go back and say all right we've already authorized the subpoenas which they did last week and we'll just go ahead and issue those subpoenas for the full report. nadler said it doesn't matter to him whether it comes this week, next week he's pretty confident we'll get this report some time by the middle of next week at the latest ashley. ashley: we certainly have not heard the end of the argument i like those dramatic pauses though chad it makes everybody stand up and watch. >> you never know what's going to come next.

ashley: that's why we love live television as always chad thank you very much for your expertise let's get back to the money the rising minimum wage has some small businesses sweating triggering what some are calling a payroll tsunami, bank of america joining the pack, raising their minimum wage to $ 20 an hour. let's bring in peter marici, economics professor, peter my question to you is how are struggling businesses dealing with hikes like this, $20 of b of a, but even $15 an hour. >> will it depends on which side of the issue you're on. a lot of restaurants and small businesses can't cope with $15 an hour and some are shutting down or dramatically reducing the services that their clients receive when they come into the store. in turn that will effect their businesses. on the other end, it's always been the case that when you raise the minimum wage, those that are making two, three, four , $5 an hour more then see their wages go up and puts up with pressure being a bank teller is a much more skilled position. you need to be able to acquire

skills that say someone working at a fast fresh food restaurant, you know, quick restaurant in manhattan has, and as a consequence if those folks are getting 15 then they expect to get 20 and that's what bank of america is responding to. bank of america could afford to pay this, and in some ways it sort of rebalances what's been going on with wages so this pluses and minuses here, but by and large, regulating the labor market this way is a minus. ashley: and for the mom and pop stores when you start to have to respond to that kind of pressure , does it not tip the just getting by eeking it out to just having to go out of business? >> liberals are so concerned about the concentration of economics. look whose going out of business , mom and pop stores, look whose raising their wages, bank of america, this really tips the balance towards concentration. last year, amazon said oh, we're going to $15 an hour that was a great way for them to put credit to small retailers around the

christmas season, which they did my feeling is that this does not help small businesses and entrepreneurs, and it works again the very things that democrats say they aspouse, to create a more competitive economy. ashley: right but the problem is it's a great campaign message is it not? we're going to get you a live able wage, you know? one that can it helps to in some small way, get out the income and equality in this country. >> well look what's in the new york city subways, and yet the governor and the mayor found money in the last couple of years for paid family leave, you know, and basically, daycare, pre-k at two years old. you know, they win election by laying on one benefit after another, meanwhile the bridges fall down. you know, that's how democrats win elections but it's also how you gradually become chicago, chicago's de-populating and it has infestation of crime that's

rim in it's aunt of the third world and the wild west in chicago and a normal human being could carry a gun in chicago to protect themselves because the police won't do it because they can't do it, i'm exaggerating i know, but the point is that that's where you end up and sooner or later, chicago will end up at least like detroit did before its bankruptcy unable to keep the street lights on. ashley: hopefully not that far but if you take a step back into the macro view of all of this we just had the latest job openings report, 7 million jobs opened not enough, you know, people to fill them and while yes the minimum wage is certainly having an impact on certain sectors of the industry, the restaurant and fast food industry overall this economy seems to be humming along just fine. >> i don't want to throw too much of a pale of water on the trump labor market, but, my but is these days it's very cheap to have a job opening you just list it on one of these online exchanges.

you don't have to pay anything unless somebody is hired. it's not like the old days where you had to take a help wanted ad out in the new york times or the washington post and pay for it week after week if you didn't hire somebody, so you know, i don't know that all these help wanted ads mean quite as much as they say. i mean, after all, manufacturing is not hiring, but that's where we've heard all the claims of, you know, can't find skilled labor but in reality is they're laying people off and a lot of retailing they're laying people off so my feeling is let's take the jolts number that's the job openings number with a little bit of a grain of salt. ashley: all right it wasn't a full pale of water but a splash nevertheless. >> it was a nice tumbler from the back of the bar, with ice in it. ashley: don't worry the ice hurts if you throw it, but anyway. >> i don't necessarily like everybody at the white house anyway. ashley: okay, peter marici, we'll leave it right there thank you very much, sir appreciate it now this, new polling data reveals hispanic support for president trump is growing, and

it could help him get re-elected in 2020. two key factors behind their support? the economy and yes, immigration and the one we don't speak of. all right, it's cnbc, they tweet ed out a story with the headline most successful millionaire ceo's are psychopath s, and guess what? alexandria ocasio-cortez agrees. and very soon, we should see the president welcome the president of egypt to the white house, it is a very live action day in washington, we're all over it stay with us, the third hour of varney just getting started. >> ♪ ♪

ashley: it is election day in israel, current prime minister benjamin netanyahu right there on your screen, and voting

earlier in jerusalem today. the polls are very tight. his left leaning rival neck and neck with benjamin netanyahu especially on the heels of his recent corruption and bribery charges, and of course we'll be sure to bring you the very latest as those results start coming in. now, this, one of cnbc's twitter accounts posted an article explaining why most successful millionaire ceo's are often psychopath ic. really? well, congressman alexandria ocasio-cortez chimed in with this. "justifying psychopathy, low empathy, narcissism, dishonesty and lack of deep emotional attachments are traits that have made a tiny handful of people billionaires yet land more people in prison while not getting add ematt mental healthcare is very 2019" according to aoc. that's a bit convoluted isn't it let's bring in congressman

denver rigelman, a republican from virginia. you by the way, sir sit on the house financial services committee with aoc. i guess what she's trying to say is if you're successful in this country clearly there's something wrong with you even possibly being a psychopath. >> well there's another even more disturbing study stuart and that's i saw the people who drink black coffee with no cream or sugar are also pike psychopaths so i was a ceo and i'm very frightened about my mental well being and soul and based on those statistics i hope i can get through the day. it's very tough. ashley: i have tea with milk and sugar so hopefully i'm okay. but this just kind of bangs away at the montra we get is that being successful, and being a successful person you generate lots of dollars, you're a bad person, your mean, you're money grabbing and yes, now your

psychopathic, and i just can't use how that resonates with the country at large. >> it doesn't today i just spoke and i know this sounds incredible in front of a bunch of people in lawn care, ceo's with 30 employees or hundreds of employees i don't see them as psychopaths, i see them as very good at business and cutting grass and mulching so people are looking at these studies that are ridiculous whether it's the black coffee study or somebody says one in five ceo's are psychopaths based on 73 people that they interviewed in a small town in delaware or whatever the heck they come up with so i think you have people like ocasio-cortez they just want attention and that's a little bit exhausting with common sense business owners like myself you just shake your head and keep actually paying people helping your local economies and starting businesses. that's the american dream, so if the american dream is being a psychopath i can say we're all psychopaths. stuart: i think it's ridiculous,

never apologize and the ceo's will be on the hill tomorrow i believe testifying before your committee and they of course will plan on saying everything is fine and that 2008 won't happen again with these new regulations. do you buy that? i have a feeling your democrat colleagues probably won't. >> no, they won't there will be a lot of questions about the type of things that they're funding or they're investing in and will say hey you invested in a paint in 1943 that was really bad so i think you'll have that on the left and the right we're actually talking about real reform and regulations stopping capitol from being released from business owners and it is job creation. there's appropriate regulations all of us know that at some point but we have to look at maybe there's regulatory burdens the banks don't have to carry all the time but we have to look at this in a very analytical way and i read the briefing papers and what they say and we'll have some good questions about what they're doing in the regulatory space how they look at liquidity

and capital and what they're doing to help the american economy those are the more pertinent questions on if you funded a group that invested in blue paint in 1943, so that's what we're doing now. stuart: well the big banks can pretty much handle themselves they have by scale they can handle themselves it's the regional banks that are often the most important because these are the small banks on the high street giving the loans to the people who want to get their business off the ground. regulation has been poured a little over maybe too harsh on the regional banks who really are the key to generating these new businesses. do you think they are being fairly treated? >> i think they are being unfairly treated and i think regulations have to be appropriate position that you're in and the community and i have regional banks and local banks obviously in my area i talk to every day and they say like congressman we're okay with some regulations, fine, but just make it appropriate. we're not big banks. some do three to 400 million a year, some do 1 billion a year

that's a lot different than a 500 billion-dollar bank or banks close to a trillion in assets and that's my goal is to make sure regional banks and local community banks can get that liquidity or capital into the market so the fifth district of virginia can grow but all rural districts and all districts that want to grow i guess maybe i look at this maybe a little bit too practical as some other colleagues. so i'm not quite sure i'll go get some black coffee now. stuart: i was just going to say you look the line, i was going to say go enjoy your black coffee and psychopath or not good to see you. as you know it's the highlight of my day. >> take care. stuart: very honest thank you so much congressman. quick stock check for you, starting with the same, the stock with lyft, down again this morning, 3.5% falling below the ipo price at $67.73. let's take a look at boeing down again, following that downgrade by bank of america they also say they did not deliver any new max jets in march, those max jets

are grounded until at literally june. boeing off 1 and a third percent down 3.69 and now check this out , virgin atlantic has unveiled a cabin for its new airbus aircraft and the business class section is now called upper class and it has new suites and a social space called the loft meant for passengers to socialize and mingle, one thing i don't do on a plane. in china, tesla's factory 3 making progress and it could be completed by may. this site is key for tesla sales in china which is considered to have the largest electric car market in the world. meanwhile, back "home, new details on that woman arrested at president trump's mar-a-lago resort and you're not going to believe what investigators found in her hotel room, we'll be right back. >> ♪ a feeling that i never never never had before, i get a good feeling, yeah.

♪ ♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪

stuart: i find this story very fascinating, we've got an update on the fascinating and weird, got an update on the woman who was arrested trying to gain access to the president's mar-a-lago resort, with several possibles, four cell phones, thumb drive with malware, you name it she had it e-mac there's

new details. liz: it was already suspicious and it just got fishyier that they went into her hotel room and found a signal detector that could pick-up hidden cameras in an area in other words if there's a hidden camera, it will notify her that there's a hidden camera there also 8,000 dollars in cash. now here is the problem with what her story is. she's been saying i needed to keep multiple cell phones on me for fear of losing them, and so forth. the reason the question is why did you leave behind 8,000 dollars in cash in the hotel room? so she's a flight risk, 32- year-old yujing zhang came here from shanghai into newark and the authorities are saying she lies to everyone she meets, so at her bond hearing, they testified also that she rs they took her usb drivers put it into her computer and it immediately in a flash infected the computer with malware so they are raising

more concerns that she is in fact some kind of a spy, she's being investigated for being a spy and also had five sim cards, nine usb drives and another cell phone in her room so it's getting more fishy by the moment stuart: it's kind of bizarre, amusing, strange and we call her the spy, but there could be something to this. liz: we don't know. stuart: more to that story as they say now this new polls indicate hispanic support for president trump is actually growing and it could help him get re-elected in 2020 two key factors behind their support? the economy and immigration. meanwhile, in california, the dm v there launching a voter registration system despite the bugs and hackers, could this make it easier for illegal immigrants to actually vote? details, next. >> ♪ ♪ heading into retirement you want to follow your passions

rather than worry about how to pay for long-term care. brighthouse smartcare℠ is a hybrid life insurance and long-term care product. it protects your family while providing long-term care coverage,

should you need it. so you can explore all the amazing things ahead. talk to your advisor about brighthouse smartcare. brighthouse financial. build for what's ahead℠ when it comes to type 2 diabetes, are you thinking about your heart? well, i'm managing my a1c, so i should be all set. actually, you're still at risk for a fatal heart attack or stroke. that's where jardiance comes in. it reduces the risk of dying from a cardiovascular event for adults who have type 2 diabetes and known heart diseas. that's why the american diabetes association recommends the active ingredient in jardiance. and it lowers a1c? with diet and exercise. jardiance can cause serious side effects including dehydration, genital yeast or urinary tract infections, and sudden kidney problems. ketoacidosis is a serious side effect that may be fatal. a rare, but life-threatening, bacterial infection in the skin of the perineum could occur. stop taking jardiance and call your doctor right away if you have symptoms of this bacterial infection, ketoacidosis, or an allergic reaction.

do not take jardiance if you are on dialysis or have severe kidney problems. taking jardiance with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. so, what do you think? now i feel i can do more to go beyond lowering a1c. ask your doctor about jardiance today.

stuart: take a look at the big board the dow 30 for you a lot of red, as you can see 26 at the dow 30 in the red we're up 167 points, all the dow, we've kind of hung in the same area for the last hour and a half.

the president getting into a tariff risk if you like with the eu, that hurt sentiment pretty much from the opening bell but some stocks are higher including apple and we are watching apple on an absolute tear lately up 10 days in a row it hasn't done that by the way in eight years and guess what in a down market is up nearly 1% at 201 for apple , $201 speaking of big tech we're following this hearing on capitol hill representatives testify before the house judiciary committee about the rise of racism and white nationalism on social media. let's bring in our tech guy for this, tommy stadlin, over in the uk, swing february noologies co- founder and tommy, i guess, one of the key questions, how can these companies set the standard for what speech is acceptable and what isn't. that's a difficult thing to do. >> hi, stuart yes it is a very difficult thing to do and i think what we're seeing is a real shift now, where previously

, the tech companies could get away with saying listen we're just a platform. we can't be held responsible for the millions, hundreds of millions of users that are saying things on our platform, all day every day and i think what we say now is regulators particularly here in the uk and europe but also across the pond in the u.s. as you mentioned are saying hold on we are going to hold you responsible for the content that is spread be that some of the terrible white supremacists terrorist content that was live streamed from new zealand the other week or child abuse, there's a lot of bad stuff online, we know that, and increasingly the tech companies have been asked to remove that quicker, to be much more on top of the content that is shared on that platform. it's doable for them. stuart: it is doable but is there like software of some sort of, you know, algorithm that can actually take care of this before it's unavailable and social media can it be taken down very quickly because i'm not so sure they can actually

police it because there's so much material out there. how can you device some sort of program that can handle these horrible pieces of video that you mentioned? >> well, you're exactly right. there are algorithms but that can only take you so far and so what you see now are literally thousands, tens of thousands of employees, both directly employ ed by the companies and offshore contractors who are having to comb through this material and try to get rid of it but it's going to have to be quicker and do it more robustly and tech will have to move pretty quickly because we're moving away from the era of self -regulation towards an era where tech companies will be regulated and the smartest ones will embrace that, they will say this is coming come what may, we have to get out in front of it and shake that regulation so that it does not stifle innovation, and you mentioned apple earlier. apple because they don't rely on private data ad-funded models like facebook and google do they are a company which could get

out and say we'll push for regulation which might damage their competitors less than someone like apple. stuart: very quickly, tommy, all of this talk of regulation, that could hurt the bottom line, could it not? >> it can. this is very much a significant bottom line issue. research by mckenzie for connect found that 30% of corporate earnings are at stake from companies interactions with the stakeholders including regulators so this is a really significant bottom line issue. stuart: all right, fascinating stuff, and we'll be talking about it every day tommy thank you very much over in the uk, we appreciate that. by the way, we've got another challenger entering the colosseum of potential 2020 democrat presidential candidates this week, it's congressman eric swalwell of california he announced last night on the late show with steven colbert and congressman s walwell joins potential candidates we don't have a screen big enough to show them all but the list seems to be growing week after week. i think there's 18 i believe, how are they going to put them

all on one stage? liz: right. stuart: as the 2020 democrat presidential field grows and grows, so does president trump's hispanic base. let's bring in lilly gill valett a, she's the cm plus co-founder and ceo. lilly thank you for being here this really caught my eye this morning as we looked at the metrics on this. you've done a lot, a lot of research among the hispanic community and in relation to politics and in relation in particular to donald trump. you say that the president is growing in popularity among the hispanic population. make your case. >> yeah, well let's take a step back. it will be the largest non- whiteboarder block for 2020, driving 50% of u.s. population growth at 32 million strong, eligible voters. so it is a block that everybody needs to pay attention to. what's very interesting is that we've actually used ai and big

data to analyze the voices of 1.2 million discussions of hispanics, and 50% of those discussions happen to be positive towards the president, and this is not just our caltech there are plenty of pulls and traditional research that keep suggesting there is an affinity despite the immigrant rhetoric or other messages around immigration, so it's puzzling to the left for sure, but could be very encouraging for the gop. stuart: so what is the key issue in the hispanic community when it comes to politics and who they will vote for? >> right that is my favorite question, because this is not a monolithic block. it's not an identity that define s us all. it's jobs, the economy, education, healthcare, by the way, immigration -- stuart: fifth? >> and some other studies ours show that it's number seven so immigration continues to be and i've said it before onset, like a political piniata, but it gets much bigger than that you stay strongly focused on what matters

to your family because we're upwardly mobile, hard working community, very entrepreneurial, 55% catholic and there is a message that is fairly conservative but none of the two sides can take for granted this takes work. stuart: so the hard line taken by the trump adminitration on immigration, how is that viewed in the hispanic community? >> well all of us know somebody that's caught unthe middle of a broken immigration system, that's a reality it's emotional however it's the know the top issue so back to the things that matter. if unemployment rate amongst hispanics is at its lowest, and the environment is one that is healthy for business owners like myself, who happen to be immigrants and are allowed to create jobs and grow and thrive, that matters, so i think it's going to be very important for the democrats who typically do have a lead versus a republican with hispanics to not fall into the immigration trap. stuart: don't take that vote for granted. >> you can not use just google translate for your website because we pick that up. language matters, outreach

matters and anyone in business from politics that wants to future proof themselves will have to bet in the fastest and biggest-growing voter block or consumer segment. stuart: fascinating stuff lilly thanks so much for being here. >> thank you. stuart: appreciate it. all right let's go to california now where the state's new voter system has been launched despite some, well, clear problems. liz: really it was not state-of-the-art and it was not ready for primetime. california was rolling out a voter registration push at the state dmv, and what happened was within days, they found this is the l.a. times reporting this, that the computer network at the dmv was trying to connect to internet servers in croatia to the election officials in california are saying this is just one of many snafoos and problems under audit right now and the department of homeland security already said that this, the california through the dmv wrongfully gave out

reportedly 2.5 million federally mandated id cards with only one residency document you're supposed to have two so there's concerns also from kreb security leading the way on cyber hacking news, brian krebs is saying that the dmv in california is he thinks routinely hacked to steal credit card information that hackers are going into the california dmv to take credit cards remember there's a big push to register people in california. stuart: right of course. liz: notably before primaries and through this system that's right, and it's really not up to speed. it's not cinematically picture perfect just yet. stuart: to say the least now people in croatia can vote in california how about that e-mac thank you very much. millennials listen up. this one is for you, a new study compared all 50 states including d.c. to determine where millennials thrived and where they've struggled they compiled the information into a list, of course we love lists coming up next we'll tell you the top state where you should be living if you are a millennial.

and border protection chief is in as the new homeland security secretary, and next we'll be talking to someone who worked with him is he the right guy for the job and will he get it done we'll ask that question and very soon we should see president trump welcome the president of egypt to the white house, they are all waiting it's all ready to go and we'll bring it to you we'll be right back. >> ♪ ♪ you wouldn't accept an incomplete job from any one else. why accept it from your allergy pills? most pills don't finish the job because they don't relieve nasal congestion. flonase sensimist is different. it relieves all your worst symptoms, including nasal congestion, which most pills don't. it's more complete allergy relief. and all from a gentle mist you can barely feel. flonase sensimist helps block six key inflammatory substances.

most pills only block one. and six is greater than one. flonase sensimist.

and six is greater than one. 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. excellent! happy to help. huh? hold one moment please. hmm. the kohler walk-in bath features an extra-wide opening and a low step-in at three inches, which is 25 to 60% lower than some leading competitors.

the bath fills and drains quickly, while the heated seat soothes your back, neck and shoulders. kohler is an expert in bathing, so you can count on a deep soaking experience. are you seeing this? the kohler walk-in bath comes with fully adjustable hydrotherapy jets and our exclusive bubblemassage. everything is installed in as little as a day by a kohler-certified installer. and it's made by kohler, america's leading plumbing brand. we need this bath. yes. yes you do. a kohler walk-in bath provides independence with peace of mind. stuart: well we'll take a look at the dow for you we've been in the same range most of the morning down 172 on the dow, 26, 169 down about six-tenths of 1%, all right millennials this one is just for you i'm about to break down both the top five best and top five worst states for you to live in at the very

top, is massachusetts. finance website wallet hub ranked it the best in terms of affordability, quality of life and education. number two, washington d.c. third is washington proper, washington state that is out on the west coast, and same as followed by minnesota and wisconsin round out the top five that's best for millennials now to the worst states for you to live in. last on the list, west virginia, country roads don't always take you home i suppose, [laughter] , check the bottom live, 50th is new mexico, 49th mississippi, 48th oklahoma and 47th best of the worst, louisiana. so there you have it for millennials make note of that. now, to immigration a federal judge stopping the white house policy of having some asylum seekers wait out their cases in mexico. what's going on here? liz: yeah and he's actually delaying implementing this giving the white house administration a chance to appeal it by friday. the decision from the district judge in san francisco said that

asylum seekers no longer have to wait outside the u.s. to get asylum. in other words the trump adminitration was trying to put in place this policy across-the-boarder, to have asylum seekers wait outside. 11 people who were trying to come in now can come temporarily back in as they wait their asylum case to be processed, and this is going to happen by wednesday, and the judge also issued a preliminary injunction against the administration blocking the implementation of this new policy putting asylum seekers outside the u.s.. why the judge was saying that this push by the white house was violating both u.s. law and u.n. conventions that these individuals are already fleeing dangerous situations, you're putting them again at risk, in border towns in mexico which are exceedingly dangerous, that was the case. stuart: but the problem is when they stay here and apply for asylum then they disappear and you never see them. liz: that's been an issue too.

stuart: why the policy was put in place, anyway e-mac thank you very much. liz: sure. stuart: let's stay with the border crisis homeland security secretary kirstjen nielsen is out, border protection chief kevin mcelenan is in and let's us bring in brandon judd, national border council patrol president. brandon look we've said this before you worked with secretary tell us about him is he the right guy we understand he's a hard-liner, but what do you know of him and is he the right man for the job? >> so you have to look at why the change was made in the first place. secretary nielsen did a very good job in the area of her expertise. cybersecurity she's second to none she did a really good job in that area. she doesn't have that same knowledge or expertise in border security and that's where kevin steps in his entire federal career has been spent with cbp, that's what he knows and dhs's focus right now is and has to be border security so in the interim in the short-term, he is

the right person. now whether he's the right person in the long term, that remains to be seen on how he handles this crisis, you know, in the immediate future. stuart: yeah, and well the question is is there going to be any big change short-term? we know what the president is trying to achieve he's threaten ed to close the border if mexico doesn't step up to try and stop the stam of migrants heading towards the united states. what could be done in the short-term that hasn't already been done? >> and that's where his challenge is going to come in is what is he going to do? if he's going to look for those authorities that the administration has right now under law, and is he going to act within those authorities to implement policies, procedures and operations, in order to get these numbers back down to the lows that we had in april of 2017. there are a number of things that we're currently trying to do that we're currently trying to implement that is going to make a difference if we're able to implement those and what we have to do is when we look at the judge's ruling we can't be scared knowing that the aclu is

going to file a lawsuit against what the administration is trying to do. what we have to do is implement those things let the aclu take it to the ninth circuit knowing that we're going to get a bad decision and let's get it to the supreme court where we know that a fair decision is going to be given. i'm positive that this judge's decision is going to be overturned by the supreme court and so we have to look, you know , kevin will have to look at those authorities, and he's going to have to implement policies and procedures within those authorities and take his chances at court. stuart: let me ask you this brandon do you think mexico is doing enough and if not, should the border be closed sooner rather than later? >> so mexico is doing a lot more right now due to president trump's threats than they have ever done before, so yes, i'm encouraged by that. that's one thing that i've seen this president do. he's able to let countries know that this is what i'm going to do if you do not help us out and you're seeing a lot more countries that are willing to then, of course, knowing that he will follow through on those

threats, so mexico is actually stepping up right now. there's more that they need to do but they are stepping up and so we're seeing a decrease right now an immediate decrease but we need to keep those decreases going down. stuart: we do indeed brandon as always thank you so much for joining us today we really appreciate it. >> thank you. stuart: all right breaking news a tweet from the president and it mentioned this program. "what's completely unacceptable is for congresswoman omar to target jews in this case steven miller. that of course from earlier in the show and it's speculating perhaps the president dvr's varney when he can't catch it live we like to think so but that is the latest from the president thank you very much mentioning varney & company. the president by the way, catching up on varney as he awaits the arrival of the president of egypt to the white house, he is just watching now it will happen at any moment. president of egypt due at the white house we'll bring that to you live. >> ♪ ♪

2,000 fence posts. 900 acres. 48 bales. all before lunch, which we caught last saturday. we earn our scars. we wear our work ethic. we work until the work's done. and when it is, a few hours of shuteye to rest up for tomorrow, the day we'll finally get something done. ( ♪ ) ifor another 150 years. the fire going the day we'll finally get something done.

♪ to inspire confidence through style. ♪ i'm working to make connections of a different kind. ♪ i'm working for beauty that begins with nature. ♪ to treat every car like i treat mine. ♪ at adp we're designing a better way to work, so you can achieve what you're working for. ♪

stuart: thank you so much. as you know it's the highlight

of my day. very honest thank you so much sir. do you know what? how can these companies set the standard for what speech is acceptable, and what isn't? that's a difficult thing to do. >> hi, stuart yes it is a very difficult thing to do and i think watt we're seeing is a real shift now. stuart: oh, do you know what? we all miss stuart. i know those two gentlemen couldn't see the picture but obviously, we are the same right liz: if they could have seen you they would have clearly seen that you have more hair than stuart, and that you're clearly not stuart varney. stuart: [laughter] stuart back tomorrow by the way we won't tell him that. liz: i will, i don't care. stuart: all right let's get a little more serious now a few minutes from now, egyption president will be arriving at the white house, right there, and he will be meeting with president trump the country's human rights record reportedly on the table one of the subjects at least let's bring in michael

orem, the israeli ambassador to the u.s. and before we get to that story, michael let me just ask you, we're just awaiting the results on the elections in israel, we understand that it's a very tight race, benjamin netanyahu of course long term leader how does the relationship change with the u.s. if he loses to ben it ghant? >> i don't think it's going to change very much there's a deep and multi-fas ited alliance between the united states and israel that it's in many fields certainly in the traffic and defense field, certainly should he win and nobody knows we still have three more hours of voting left to go, would have to have a certain learning curve and have to meet the president learn the president learn the administration, learn those rope s. he was the military in washington and he knows washington well he was the military when i was the ambassador there so maybe wouldn't be the steepest learning curve but a learning curve nevertheless. stuart: let's talk about egypt

we have the president coming to the white house and we're looking at pictures as we await his arrival how would you describe the relationship, i guess we'll begin with israel's relationship with egypt it could be described at its highest level in quite some time there's a military security co-operation , i mean, this has been quite a story in itself, that egypt and israel are now getting along, a lot better. >> it's probably the best relationship we had with egypt since the saning of the camp david accord in 1979 so yes indeed this is a strong strategic alliance in this region and it's crucial for fighting islamic extremism, egypt has been fighting al qaeda in sinai and isis for years now, and we don't go, we don't talk about the degree to which we helped egypt in this but we certainly on egypt's side against isis and al qaeda, and i think that's important. i think that that relationship is appreciated in washington.

yes, there have been concerns i know in washington, and interestingly enough, bipartisan concerns in washington about the human rights record in egypt, and i think it's very important that americans understand that the egyption government is facing very serious challenges indeed from islamic extremism. stuart: they are very quickly we're almost out of time but the u.s. relationship with egypt how would you describe that? >> again, it's closer than it has been in many years. there was in the period of the a rab spring 2011-2012 the muslim government brotherhood was elected there the previous president, president obama reached out to that government without success, and the army took over, since then, its been close strategic relationship with bumps on the human rights issue. stuart: got it michael oren, thank you for joining us really appreciate it we'll have more varney right after this.

. .

ashley: a few minutes from now, egyptian president el-sisi will be arriving at white house. guard is? place. flags are there. he should be there any moment. we understand he will meet with the president talking about number of issues. egypt holding a strategic place in the middle east, working with united states fighting al qaeda in the middle east. we understand another issue on the table will be human rights and egypt's human rights record. didn't help when we heard after little bit after rift between the u.s. and e.u.

liz: 7 million jobs openings. more job openings than workers is pretty great. ashley: that's a good thing to have. the dow off 162 points. david asman in for neil cavuto. take it away. >> we have breaking news on measles outbreak here in new york city. mayor bill blass last just declare taking drastic mechanic sure to stop 300 cases spreading any further. we will have more in the developing story in a moment. first a busy day on capitol hill. major hearings with big implications. irs commissioner facing new heat over the tax law and president's tax returns. steve mnuchin will testify before two committees while drugmakers are getting grilled over sky-high prices. social media exe