right. very happy easter and very blessed passover to everybody. right now, it is all about stuart varney. "varney & company" is up next. mr. varney, take it away. stuart: i like that introduction. i really do. good morning to you on easter friday. good morning to you. all right. good morning, everyone. oh, we have news and it's not about robert mueller. it's about joe biden. there are reports that next week, he will announce he's running for the presidency. no confirmation yet, but his candidacy has long been forecast. this is big news in presidential politics. biden is considered a moderate. he would be the only middle-ground guy among the frontrunners. he would be just about the only candidate who could bring the democrat party back from its socialist drift. and we have news on mueller as well. the news is that the democrats are moving to retry the whole thing.

jerry nadler demands that mueller himself testify to congress and he demands all the documentation that went into the mueller report. they will spend the next 20 months rehashing no collusion. those hard left radicals still demand impeachment. representative al green repeated his impeachment call and aoc said the mueller report puts impeachment on our doorstep. bottom line, the democrats and the media will not let go. whether america has investigation fatigue or not. dare i say it, stocks went up after bill barr outlined the no collusion report. perhaps financial people want trump re-elected and no collusion sure helps that and maybe a congress tied up with investigations can't mess up the booming economy. wall street likes that. okay. the markets are closed but we're here and yes, we've got news. "varney & company" is about to begin.

today, the markets are closed but we're open for business. you need an edge on all the economic news and you won't get that from old reruns on cnbc. stuart: yes, yes, yes, stay with us, please. we are open for business. those guys over there at cnbc have the day off. lucky people. now this. "the atlantic," a magazine, reporting that joe biden will announce his candidacy for 2020 next week. come on in, doug schoen. you have to be pleased that biden looks like he's running. >> i want to see if he comes out with a real moderate program or if he tries to prove he's just as progressive as everybody else. i fear he might do that.

stuart: if he comes out as a moderate, start here with his policy stands, he might have a very hard time in the primaries because the activists dominate the primaries. >> i agree with that, stuart. i think you are absolutely right. the activists dominate and they dominate in numbers. but also in rhetoric. i worry that they are going to try to take joe biden down. stuart: is this a shot in the arm for the moderates who are left in the democrat party? >> it may be a temporary shot in the arm for we moderates. i embrace joe biden and his candidacy but let's see how far he goes. stuart: you don't think he's going to make it to the end? >> they have attacked him from the beginning over his alleged treatment of women. it was the bernie sanders activists who said he was smelling her hair. i mean, this is at levels of ridiculousness but it's to me a h harbinger of what's to come. stuart: watch out. >> exactly. stuart: stay there for a second. i have to turn to money even though the markets are closed.

we are a financial program and we have to cover money. that's what we're going to do. jonathan hoenig, capitalist pig hedge fund manager. love that name, jonathan. welcome back. good to see you. >> great to be with you. they're closed, we're open and so much is happening this morning when it comes to people's money and the markets. great to be with you. stuart: here's where i'm come from. it looks like the democrats will pursue endless investigations in congress for the next 20 months. i think that means gridlock in congress. nothing is going to get done. i think that's good for wall street. what say you? >> we have historical precedent for that. some of the market's best months, best quarters came, if you remember, almost 20 years ago during the clinton impeachment proceedings. yes, we could see a tremendous amount of push and pull in washington that could be good for wall street, especially when it comes to ongoing issues, whether it be trade tensions or slowing economic growth. so yeah, ironically, gridlock in washington could be gangbusters on wall street but there are

bigger factors at play here. everything from slowing growth to some of the performance of these ipos. yesterday it was zoom and some of these big ipos. if those falter, stuart, that's what worries me moving forward. they are like the leading tip of the spear when it comes to risk. if we see pinterest, if we see them start to falter, this market's in trouble. stuart: i take your point about seeing them falter, and they may because a lot of ipos go up, then back off a little bit. but what intrigued me was that we got our shot at investing in these brand new technology companies. i think that's a very good thing. i was very pleased to see them pop as they did. i took that as overall, that's a plus for the overall market. what say you? >> yeah, look, deregulation writ large has been good. one of the areas that we really need it actually is in financial deregulation. people don't realize, 10, 15 years ago, there was many more ipos just writ large that were coming to market. so it is good, as you said, to see these so-called unicorns, these very highly valued

well-known stocks finally coming to market. ironically, the fact that for example, lyft did very poorly but we saw zoom and pinterest do very well, that's positive, too, because it's showing the market is showing some sense of differentiation between these business models. again, it makes me a little worried, brings me back to 2000. i remember those high profile ipos like pom, you might remember that came public, so keep a close eye on these ipos. when they start running out of gas you know the market is heading for lower prices. stuart: just out of interest, if you had created one of these unicorns and you were -- i mean, if you did, and you were sitting on a very very successful technology company, would you go public? >> well, it's a mixed bag. the notoriety and awareness, the availability to raise capital is necessary for a lot of these big unicorns. more than anything, the availability for some of the early investors to get out. look at uber, for example, the early investors have been

waiting five, six, seven, eight years to finally become liquid. so these liquidity events as they say are good for the market writ large. they spread risk around, they allow companies to raise capital. once again, we should not be demeaning wall street. we should be celebrating it. they are the ones that make these technological advancements available to all. stuart: yeah. absolutely. you are correct there. what worries me, of course, is the short sellers and the lawyers. that's a bee in my bonnet i have had forever. jonathan, have a great weekend. love to see you again next week. >> good holiday, stuart. stuart: you, too. attorney general barr, the mueller report. here is the joint statement from speaker pelosi and senator chuck schumer. attorney general barr deliberately distorted significant portions of special counsel mueller report, deliberately distorted. mueller's report paints a disturbing picture of a president who has been weaving a web of deceit, lies and improper behavior and acting as if the law doesn't apply to him. come on back, doug schoen.

>> yes, sir. stuart: they're not going to give up. they are going down the investigation, the impeachment road. they are really going to try to really mess with this president. is that the right political strategy? >> stuart, it's absolutely the wrong strategy. stuart: really? >> yeah. they should, in two words, move on. people care about the issues, health care, immigration, educati education, income inequality, their retirements, their kids. get on with those issues. people don't want more investigations. yesterday was a win and a huge win for president donald trump. my message to the democrats, grow up and move on. stuart: let me throw this at you. >> please. stuart: joe biden looks like he's running. >> seems so. yeah. stuart: it sure seems, as we just discussed. what about joe biden standing up and saying enough, enough. enough with the impeachment stuff, enough with these investigations.

let's discuss the issues. if he did that, he would stand out from the pack, he would lead the moderates right from the get-go. good idea? >> i think it's a good idea. the "but" in the deal is the left is so powerful and so loud in the democratic primary that i worry and i think he worries that if he does that, he will be shouted down and marginalized by a resurgent and powerful left, so i look for him to do something else, which disturbs me, try to demonstrate he's really not a moderate totally, he's really a progressive moderate, and demonstrate that he's a lot closer to the emerging consensus. stuart: that's a very difficult line. >> it is. we'll see if he can navigate it. i'm nervous about it. stuart: bottom line is, you don't think he makes it to the end. you don't think he's the candidate. i think you believe bernie sanders is the candidate. >> i certainly believe bernie sanders has a better chance than

joe biden and i think joe biden thinks bernie sanders has got a better shot than he does. stuart: i think he does. you're right. you know, i know you're wearing a little makeup, as we all do, on television. underneath it, i see a suntan. i think that's a florida suntan. >> it's a florida suntan. you know where i'll be high-tailing it to as soon as this broadcast is done. stuart: you and i have a lot more in common than i think i would normally give us credit for. >> i think that's so. i will look forward to doing that broadcast in naples with you. in the sunshine state. stuart: that would fly. >> it would. stuart: mr. schoen, have a great weekend, great holiday. thanks very much. president trump greeted with cheers as he arrived at mar-a-lago for the easter weekend. the attorney general says the president will not be prosecuted. is that the last word on the matter? probably not. a former federal prosecutor has his verdict on that one coming up. gas prices, well, they are

still surging, especially in california. prices in the formerly golden state are now $4 a gallon. highest level in years. what a story. uc berkeley supporting aoc's green new deal. calling it quote, financially wise. are you kidding me? $93 trillion? "varney & company" just getting started. 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?

this report not only vindicates the president completely, but the fact is that the president of the united states has gone through a two and a half year investigation, by the way, actually went back -- we know it started in 2016, and for the sake of the presidency, no president should have to go through what this president has gone through on this issue. unprecedented. stuart: no president should have to go through what this president went through, quote, jay sekulow there. now, we have breaking news and it's about the mueller report. what do you have? ashley: democrats not giving up. as expected, u.s. house judiciary committee chairman

jerry nadler has issued a subpoena today to obtain the full russia investigation report by bob mueller, saying he cannot accept the redacted version that leaves most of congress in the dark. he says my committee needs and is entitled to the full version of the report and any underlying evidence. here we go. stuart: that's a lot of underlying evidence. that's a lot of documents. ashley: a ton of documents. thousands and thousands of pages. stuart: it might run to a million. ashley: it could. there you go. stuart: okay. come on in, michael wildes, former federal prosecutor. good to see you again, sir. >> how are you? stuart: very well. i'm an american citizen, thanks to you. thanks for being here. i've not forgotten. >> thanks for paying your fee. stuart: that exorbitant fee. look, the democrats are not giving up. they are going to prosecute this, they are going to retry this thing. i don't think that's a very smart move. what say -- you are a former prosecutor. what say you? >> well, i think investigating the investigators is

un-american. look, stuart, we had good reason because of the strong ties and the russian efforts in getting involved in this election to look at this. now, there's no conspiracy, there's no collusion, and the truth is the president is lucky that even some of his own aides stepped away and didn't do what he wanted. but the country must go on. the congress will continue to do what they want to do, but the healing of this country is by bringing people together. look, stuart, you -- stuart: that's not going to happen. michael, that is not going to happen. you just saw what nadler is doing. they are going to retry this thing all over again. there will be investigations, subpoenas and televised hearings all the way up until the 2020 election. now, i don't think we should be doing that. i don't think america has much tolerance for this. and i don't think america has tolerance for these legalisms, the splitting of legal hairs.

i think they're tired of it. no? >> i happen to agree but i also disagree, because a lot of people in the president's orbit eventually did fall out of step and actually went to jail. i think that it's important that the community that is the nation -- stuart: that has nothing to do with collusion with the russians. nothing at all. >> of course it doesn't, stuart. i'm not disagreeing with you. i think that our nation's success is in unifying the community and bringing people together. once there's been a proper investigation, if congress wanted to finish off part of it, good, but the right way is in the ballot. stuart: why are you not saying enough is enough with this? why not? if you agree with me that we've got investigation fatigue, why not just turn around and say stop it, stop it now, enough, walk away from this thing? >> there are questions still that need to be looked at. stuart: there will always be questions. >> but that doesn't mean that

you close a chapter on something significant like this or that. and the truth is that the president has to give congress a moment now to express themselves and yes, there is fatigue in dealing with this. look, i'm now a mayor of a city in new jersey. there was a shooting in nmy fourth ward last night. bringing people together and finding that middle road is being lost by the hijacking of both parties on the extremes. you are talking to a very moderate democrat. i'm talking to an immigrant who is actually squarely in the president's corner and i'm actually a proud democrat that helped the first family. stuart: it is not the extremes on both sides. >> no, we've had -- [ speaking simultaneously ] stuart: i don't recall any republican and i don't recall any republican calling our president a traitor.

but i'm seeing that from democrats and i have seen it in the left wing media. i've seen it. >> i think the dialogue has deteriorated on so many fronts. i concur with you except i have to just rewind the tape a little bit and show you how the republicans didn't give president obama any runway whatsoever towards the end of his term. so there's unclean political hands on both sides and it's time for us, that is america's elected officials and leaders, to go forward. there's terrorism fatigue, there's mueller report fatigue. give congress the chance to air this out, then let america go back on track. then the real way to deal with this is going to be in 2020 at the polls. we have to get over 2016. i agree, it is wrong, just as bad as the president's rhetoric on immigration, just as bad as the way the democrats are talking to the president as a traitor. he's not a traitor. thank god. and there is constitutional integrity to the process and the investigation and giving

congress a little deep breath, let them express themselves. stuart: okay. >> if they go over the top, i'm right in the middle with you, my friend. stuart: i've paid my fee, i'm an american citizen and i'm going to vote. michael wildes, thanks for joining us. >> thank you, stuart. stuart: federal investigators may be going after facebook's chief guy, mark zuckerberg. this is about privacy violations. this sounds like a shot across the bow to all technology companies to me. we are going to deal with it. we've got more facebook news, too. millions of instagram users had their passwords exposed. when did they release this news? right before attorney general barr's news conference on the mueller report. that's called a dump, if i'm not mistaken. details coming up for you. you wouldn't accept an incomplete job

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stuart: watch out, facebook, again. the feds are investigating the mishandling of users' personal information. they are going after the company's chief, zuckerberg himself. susan, wait a minute. are they trying to make zuckerberg personally liable for privacy violations? susan: for privacy lapses, yes. this goes back to cambridge analytica where 87 million of their users and their information was shared, some would say illegally, and mark

zuckerberg in congressional testimony last year said that the buck stops with him. okay. the federal trade commission which is in negotiations right now with facebook, according to "the washington post" for multi, multi-billion dollar fine, which should be the largest against any tech company in u.s. history, they are thinking of maybe making zuckerberg personally accountable. i think that sends a message to silicon valley that if you are the operator, you say the buck stops with you, you will have to oversee the company yourself. stuart: that is tough stuff. you're right, shot across the bow. there's more on facebook here. they say they -- they admit they stored passwords, tens of thousands of instagram users, now, those passwords could have been accessed by facebook's own staff. the real interest here is the timing of the release of that news. ashley: coincidence, i don't think so. this is an old trick, to be honest with you. they call it the news dump. what happened in this latest example, released one hour before the mueller report was made public yesterday and of course, just before a long

holiday weekend. so there you go. it's not unusual for facebook to do this. they have done this with bad news before. they did it just before christmas in 2017. they did it on the wednesday before thanksgiving last year. so this is a tactic, try and make the news because it's negative kind of get swept away in other topics or a long weekend, so it doesn't affect the stock and they release it after the bell closed. stuart: it worked. it did work. that's the truth. we told you at the top of the show, we've got news and we've got big news on the border. listen to this one. an armed militia detaining hundreds of migrants at gunpoint before the border patrol arrived. i'm going to call that vigilanteism, not necessarily good. we've got the full story for you coming up in our next hour. following the release of the mueller report, aoc, alexandria ocasio-cortez, now says she backs impeaching president trump. i don't think the country's going to stand for it. that's my position. that's my point of view. we will certainly deal with it

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stuart: just thought we'd rub it in. we're open for business. they're not. aoc, alexandria ocasio-cortez, here's what she's saying about impeaching the president. mueller's report is clear and pointed to congress's responsibility in investigating obstruction of justice by the president. it is our job as outlined in article i, section 2, clause 5 of the u.s. constitution. as such, i will be signing on to rashida tlaib's impeachment resolution. virginia congressman joins us now. what's your response to this? more impeachment, more drive to impeachment. >> well, the new leader of the democratic party has spoken, right, stuart? i guess they better fall in line. i feel like we have the top three now looking at 2020 for the democratic leader. i think it's going to be tlaib, ocasio-cortez and omar are now the leaders of the party. let's see what happens with the schism with moderate democrats

and with the justice democrats and by the way, it helps virginia. if they want to do this, the virginia democrats will have a tough time running that far to the left. i think it helps virginia and helps the rest of the country as far as republicans are concerned. stuart: i don't believe there is any chance that the president will be successfully impeached and removed from office. do you? having seen the mueller report, is there any chance that he will be successfully impeached? >> no chance. i actually read the report. i'm through the first 60 pages or so. looking at the report so far, there's obviously some salacious stuff in there but i think the things we should be talking about is probably number one, russia meddling in our elections, number two, fisa, right, and what we got to do about the fisa process and the issues there, and getting back to government -- governing and moving forward. i just can't imagine we are going to go down this impeachment trail for the next year and a half. again, i think you will see the schism between the justice democrats and the moderate democrats. republicans want to move forward. we have all had enough and our district has had enough for

sure. stuart: stepping back from the extreme of impeachment, we have congressman nadler today demanding the full report, no redactions. he wants the full report and he wants all the underlying material, all the documentation. i think he's going to retry the mueller report and my position is that the country is not going to be happy about it. what say you? >> i think you are exactly right. i hope they do. i mean, we are to a point that we want to get stuff done. you know, i got issues, we have issues in our district. i have a very rural district. if they do something like that, you are going to see republicans running on issues, running on making sure they do the right thing for the american public and you have this other thing going on on the democratic side, nadler in '98 sounded like ag barr when he was defending clinton, right. so i think there's this hypocrisy in politics, emotion in politics we have to get out. if they want to continue down this emotional path i think it will help republicans in a way we can't imagine and i think we will take back the majority in 2020. stuart: i know it's early days. the full report only came out

yesterday. the barr press conference was just yesterday. but have you got any feedback from your constituents in virginia about how they feel about it? i know you are a republican so you are probably getting feedback from republicans. what's the general mood? >> the general mood is let's move forward. we knew this all along. i think that's the thing, everybody said well, what was the emotion that you had when this happened, what was the emotion your constituents had, and they shrugged their shoulders, well, we sort knew. then the democrats, the way they reacted, it figures, they really don't have any ideas. i think my goodness, can i pull a macbeth quote right now? i think what's happening is you got some craziness going on, you know, you know, life is a tale told by idiots full of sound and fury signifying nothing. i think that's what you've got from the new left or the far left. they're just sort of screaming into a popcorn box and are very loud but you can't quite tell what they're saying. if they want to do that, we are going to go ahead and run on issues. i'm excited to run on issues in the republican platform right now. we're doing pretty well. stuart: was that a direct quote, shakespeare? was it?

>> i think it was. you know, it's -- i'm at uva, my alma mater, so i had to pull some shakespeare stuff i learned back in college. that's what i got to do. stuart: pull some shakespeare stuff. okay. for a moment, you were at a great intellectual level. you were doing great. but pulling some shakespeare stuff. >> i don't know what i'm doing here. stuart: but it was good. you can do it again if you like. thank you very much for joining us on this weekend. we hope you have a happy holiday, sir. >> stuart, as always, a pleasure, sir. stuart: thanks very much. our next guest working with art laffer and stephen moore, free market guys. our next guest is all about how taxes are affecting states differently. jonathan williams, american legislative exchange council chief economist, that man right there, is with us now. let's go through this.

first of all, what's happening with high tax states? how are they doing? >> hey, stuart. the high tax states are taking it on the chin. whether you look at the population growth or the economic growth over the last year, last decade, last five decades, we have measured in our report rich states, poor states, states like new york and california are hemorrhaging jobs, hemorrhaging individuals, and people continue to vote with their feet towards freedom-loving states like texas and florida. stuart: we can definitively say that. look, i live in new jersey. i work in new york city. we can definitively say that these states, new jersey, new york, new york city, that they are losing population and that they are losing high income earners. that is accurate, is it? >> absolutely. the numbers that just came out this week from the census bureau show new york city has gone into population loss territory. people in upstate, southern tier, other areas of new york that have been unfortunately really harmed by state-wide high

tax policies and bad labor policies, people continue to go to low tax states and in many cases, stuart, they are states without income taxes like florida, texas and a great feature this week in the "wall street journal" on nashville, tennessee. stuart: yeah. now, is there any move in new jersey, new york, illinois, california, to lower taxes? any move at all? >> well, around the edges we have seen a little bit over the last five years. but one of the new dynamics of the federal tax reform law by president trump which i think is awfully important, why ronald reagan cared so much about this aspect, is the limitation of the state and local tax deduction, the salt deduction that we heard so much about during that debate. it was a subsidy to high tax and high spend states and we are starting to see even liberal officials in those state capitals to some degree say if we can't pass off that tax burden to other states and socialize it, we're not going to raise taxes anymore. i think that's a very positive development and one that was overlooked a lot of times by the liberal media across the

country. stuart: yeah. look, i live in new jersey. i work in new york. i've got a bee in my bonnet about this because a lot of the people i talk to, some people are one percenters and they've gotten killed in this. they are paying far more in tax thn th than they used to. you got a cut in the tax rate, the top tax rate went down but they lost all of these deductions and are paying through the nose and they don't like it. i'm glad you confirmed that. last word to you. tell me about the no tax states. florida, texas. presumably, they are just pulling in people left, right and center. >> absolutely. when you look at texas, 1.3 million americans they have gained on net over the last decade. florida is up nearly a million over that same period. so the proof is in the pudding. don't take my word for it. look at how people are voting with their feet in places like that. they are spending less, they are giving people more value for the tax dollars and guess what, we have two different business models in this country that people are clearly choosing the low tax limited government

model. stuart: jonathan, here's my last word. you ain't seen nothing yet. that exodus will just explode, in my opinion. jonathan williams, thanks for being with us, sir. see you again real soon. >> thanks, stuart. stuart: we haven't talked about gas prices for a long time but when you look at this, we really should be talking about it. $2.83 is the national average for regular, up about 60 cents a gallon in, what, three, three and a half months. now look at this. in california, residents pay an average, this is an average, of $4.02 a gallon. ashley: it could go up another 10 cents within the next month. there's a number of reasons. we know taxes are very high in california, so already, the price of gas is higher. but they have had a couple of problems at refineries in california which has created a supply crunch. here's the kicker to that. because of such high standards on their gasoline, it's hard to replace that lost production. also, flooding in the midwest has cut down on the distribution of ethanol which california uses a lot of. put all of that together, and

the gas price in california has gone up 68 cents in just four weeks. an average of $4.02 and it could get worse before they get that production back online. by the way, lowest in the country, alabama, $2.50. stuart: that's a long drive. ashley: a long drive. stuart: i've got another example of the retail ice age. pier one imports, 45 stores closing. they reported larger than expected quarterly loss, sales fell nearly 20% from a year ago. good-bye, 45 stores. the fallout from the jussie smollett investigation continues. two top employees in the office of chicago prosecutor, cook county prosecutor kim foxx, two of them have resigned. full story coming up in our next hour. a florida university will soon offer a class on the mueller investigation, but don't expect an unbiased look. the teacher is a democrat donor

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stuart: the student government at berkeley passed a resolution supporting aoc. the resolution calls the green new deal financially wise. how about that. campusreform.org media director is with us. i thought this was a $93 trillion deal. they just print the money. this is financially wise? >> it absolutely is. you could take the gdp of every single country on earth, add it all up and it wouldn't be $93 trillion. you still couldn't pay for all of this. i think so many of the students on this campus are not looking at economics. they are looking at social pressure. they see that the word green is in this bill, and so they realize you're either in this case, you're either anti-environment or pro-green new deal. that's the false dichotomy the left has created. so all these students are willing to ignore economics,

willing to ignore facts, ignore the fact this would impact low income families and support legislation like this because they think it will prove to everyone else how liberal they are, how much they care about the environment. stuart: but maybe they believe it. what aoc says, we have 12 years to fix this or we'll die or whatever the correct quote is, i think those students actually believe that. >> there might be students that have fallen for this ridiculous narrative the world's going to end in ten years if we don't take any action and i think they have also fallen for the social pressure that goes along with it, without actually looking into it. i think if you ask these students to describe what's in the green new deal, they would have no idea. i did a video recently where i asked students all day on campus what they thought of the green new deal. they loved it, they say we have to have it, we have to save the planet. once i read them off the specifics of what was in the plan, student after student changed their mind and said well, maybe this isn't feasible. that sounds a little over the top so the left in many ways is winning the messaging battle on campuses when it comes to

convincing people the green new deal would be helpful to our country. i think it's up to us to begin to educate people on what's actually in it and how much of a disaster it would be for all people but again, especially low income americans who would see their energy prices go up by 600% under this proposal. stuart: yes. $93 trillion of printed money. not a good idea. here's another one for you. you are a campus reform guy. an anti-trump professor at the stetson university, south florida, law school there, he's going to teach a class -- sorry, that person right there, that lady, she's going to teach a class on the mueller investigation. what do we know about this professor? >> well, we have looked at it in the past. obviously you bring it up earlier, democrat donations made. that's not necessarily the concern. the personal belief of the professor, not the biggest concern. i think the biggest concern a lot of americans have, what's actually going to be taught in the class. the mueller investigation, certainly something we should want our next generation of lawyers to be up to date on. this is a case study we should want people studying. the problem becomes and concerns some people have, what's

actually going to be in the course. the course being put together before the report's contents were made public, something some people were concerned about. i hope this course is doing away with the russia collusion narrative. i hope this course is explaining to americans what was done with $25 million in taxpayer money for this investigation. so we will wait and see. we have some students from leadership in student campus reform at stetson, they are going to be keeping up to date once the syllabus comes out. there is reason to be concerned for people around america looking at this. we will give them the benefits of the doubt until we get the information what's in it. once the russia collusion narrative spread and people will be ignoring the mueller report and how in many ways it was showing that was not actually something that happened. stuart: i just wonder what your grade would be if you said no collusion and no obstruction. thanks very much, professor. all right. thanks very much. give my best regards to your dad, please, this weekend. >> will do. thank you. stuart: yes, it is good friday. now, in the wake of the notre dame fire, people in paris

marking the day with a series of special events. greg palkot is there. what's going on, greg? reporter: really not a special event. it happens every year on good friday, the procession, the way of the cross, marking the passion for christians, for catholics, of jesus christ that on this day it is said he was crucified. i will ask my cameraman, martin, to give you an idea of the outpouring of parisians that have come out for this procession. this procession is being run, by the way, about 300 yards away from the notre dame cathedral which was ravaged by fire monday night and tuesday. this procession is usually conducted around the church itself but led by the archbishop of paris, basically the head of that church. these people are marking the day, marking the day amid new

developments about the church here, new developments about what caused the fire and what efforts should be made to reconstruct it and to stabilize it. again, the sad day today, good friday. sunday, easter, a day of joy, resurrection and a lot of people in paris, france and around the world are hoping for the restoration, the resurrection of notre dame cathedral. back to you. stuart: we appreciate it, greg. thank you very much indeed. get ready, everyone. endless investigations, probes, televised hearings, here they come. the democrats are engaging in, this is my opinion, engaging in a deliberate attempt to slime the president. it will go on for 20 months. i will give you my take on that, my full opinion, in the 11:00 hour. and the white house says the usmca, the revised nafta, will

create thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in new investment. however, congress has to approve it first. looks to me like we're getting gridlock in d.c. will the usmca survive? we're on it. your daily dashboard from fidelity. a visual snapshot of your investments. key portfolio events. all in one place. because when it's decision time... you need decision tech. only from fidelity. i couldn't catch my breath. it was the last song of the night. it felt like my heart was skipping beats. they said i had afib. what's afib? i knew that meant i was at a greater risk of stroke. i needed answers. my doctor and i chose xarelto®. to help keep me protected from a stroke. once-daily xarelto®, a latest-generation blood thinner... significantly lowers the risk of stroke in people with afib not caused by a heart valve problem.

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stuart: here's a new study.

it claims that the usmca, the revised nafta, of course, would add $68 billion to the economy, create about 200,000 jobs in its first six years. that's the claim. twhaps t that's what the report says. but of course, congress has to pass this thing first. curtis ellis is back with us, former trump campaign aide and jobs adviser. first of all, is this up to speaker pelosi whether there is a vote on this thing or not? >> she actually does have the option of not bringing it to the floor for a vote. stuart: what do you expect? >> i expect she will. i'm here to deliver -- stuart: she will put it up for a vote? >> i'm here to deliver a warning to the democrats. they bottle this thing up or defeat it at their own peril. remember, it was president bill clinton who signed nafta. president trump as candidate trump hung that around hillary's neck and as a result, he won michigan, he won pennsylvania,

he won ohio because the industrial workers of america, the labor unions, understand that nafta was a disaster. it destroyed the automotive industry in america. it destroyed so many other jobs. if the democrats now want to stop the revision of nafta because president trump has delivered on his promise to improve this deal, this is going to create thousands of automotive jobs, billions of dollars worth of investment in the automotive and auto parts sector. if the democrats want to repeat bill clinton's mistake and stop president trump from fixing nafta, they will pay the price. stuart: if speaker pelosi says yes, put it on the floor for a vote, can it be amended? >> it cannot be amended. stuart: oh, so it's as is? >> that's right. take it or leave it. now, there are talks going on in the back rooms about side agreements, making sure that the labor provisions are enforced

and can be enforced, which is a good thing, and ambassador lighthizer worked very closely with the trade unions and fixed the problems that they had with it. for example, mexican trucks. under the old nafta, you would not want to drive on an american highway because mexican trucks with unclear safety record, bad safety records, would be allowed to operate at will. that has been changed and fixed in the new nafta. so the teamsters are very happy with this. stuart: you're thinking that it does go for a vote and it does pass and if it doesn't, watch out, democrats? >> that's right. exactly. stuart: very good. nice succinct little message there on this day. thank you very much for joining us. >> thank you. stuart: appreciate it. okay. now i am a regular customer at mcdonald's. yes, i am. i'll be there today, as a matter of fact. susan: are you taking us with you? stuart: no. susan: oh, come on. stuart: i have news on mcdonald's. can i get to it?

they're changing the menu. i don't like that. what are they doing? susan: you do like this because it simplifies the menu. remember they had the signature burgers where you can personalize it with guacomole or bacon or extra additives you wanted to throw in there? no more. it takes too much time and not many people are ordering it since we have same store sales at mcdonald's falling last year by 2%. so they are failing to attract more american customers because there's a health kick that's taking place right now and they want to make sure things are easier for them. stuart: that's not it. that's not it. susan: fresh beef. cage-free eggs. stuart: if i go to a fast food restaurant, i want fast food. i want it now. i don't care about take the pickles off. i don't care. give it to me now. susan: i'm not going to win there. ashley: i hate pickles. stuart: take them out yourself. ashley: no. they already tainted the cheeseburger. stuart: lots of headlines about the new $2,000 folding phone. the buzz isn't all positive. some journalists say the phone

is breaking after little use. how about that? joe biden reportedly announcing his candidacy next week. i think he's got a shot if he's got some backbone. we'll be back with that. has been excellent. they really appreciate the military family and it really shows. with all that usaa offers why go with anybody else? we know their rates are good, we know that they're always going to take care of us. it was an instant savings and i should have changed a long time ago. it was funny because when we would call another insurance company, hey would say "oh we can't beat usaa" we're the webber family. we're the tenney's we're the hayles, and we're usaa members for life. ♪ get your usaa auto insurance quote today. . .

stuart: headline, joe biden is running. okay, i've yet to see confirmmation from the biden camp but reports suggest the formal announcement comes next week. it has long been forecast, hasn't it? he is the supposed moderate in a sea of leftist candidates. surely this is an opportunity for him to seize the middle ground. none of the other front-runners occupies the moderate middle. they're all chasing the green new deal or "medicare for all" or free college or all of the above. step in there, joe and bring some policy sanity to the presidential campaign. and i sense there is an opportunity for him in another area, the mueller report. the left is clamoring for

impeachment. house democrats are eager to tie up congress with endless, nasty, investigations. nothing's going to get done. how about joe biden steps forward says, enough. don't go down the impeachment road. don't follow insurgent radicals who grab control of the party. turn back to discussing issues. hatred and contempt for the president, smearing the president, will not win the election. alternate workable policy has much better chance t would not be easy by any means. a moderate who walks away from trump hating will have a hard time with the activists who dominate the primaries but in short, if joe biden as the backbone to stand out from the crowd, he would have a shot. this is an opportunity. the party is invested too much in mueller and he has come up with no collusion. the party is lurching to the left. now is the time to change course. joe biden is really only

democrat who can do it, right? the second hour of "varney & company" is about to begin. ♪ >> wall street bankers and ceos did not build america. he built america. we built america. ordinary middle class people built america. that's a fact. the middle class built this place. you know who built the middle class? unions. unions built -- not a joke. stuart: you know that sure sounded like a stump speech. he was speaking to a group of striking stop and shop workers. unionized folks are on strike around the country actually. sounds like he is jumping into the democrat fray. tammy bruce is here friday. >> that was awful stump speech if it was one. also the opposite. remember barack obama telling people you didn't build that, right. very interesting, when it comes to the businesses. obama's messaging was government

makes things possible. joe biden seems to have learned lesson that is not exactly the best message. stuart: but he is the moderate, isn't he? i don't know where he stands on the green new deal. >> that is the problem, you don't know where he stand. the problem with democrats we need to talk about issues the only people who talk about them are the republicans. the democrats aren't. joe biden will not have a basket full of ideas and policies. no democrat does. he is as a result, going to be, you know, floating out there without being able to really come in with a real dynamic idea set. and i think that the democrat base, as barack obama said, even just, i think last, late last year, was that, they needed new blood. and i think recognized this. this is the realization in fact the obama administration was not good for everyone economically. why would you return to unemployment numbers that were

historically bad when in fact now we have an economy under the current president trump, where the economy and employment is good? stuart: am i complete way out of line, out on a limb, if joe biden said enough with the impeachment nonsense talk about issues. i think he would stand out from the pact. >> the sound of the laughing democrat leadership would overwhelm in this country. the sound of the guffaws coming. there is no leadership now in the democrat party. joe bideen has other major problems. not physicality with individuals and ukrainian situation where he brag ad few weeks ago about the obama administration and himself in particular pushing the ukrainian government to fire a prosecutor out of threat of withholding a billion dollars in aid and it happened to be a prosecutor who was investigating a company that employed his son

hunter. he left that out in that speech. but there are, i don't think anyone wants to really look at what the obama administration and hillary were doing with ukraine. i don't think want to relitigate the obama years. that is what you would get with joe biden. i think it's great. i think he should run and we would, but we would not have conversations about policy because joe biden doesn't have any. stuart: man, you have come a long way. >> it is common sense. i learned that here on "varney." stuart: flattery is the mother's milk of television i do believe. >> it happens to be all true. stuart: tammy, hold on a second. i want to talk money for a moment here. nice rally for stocks yesterday following the attorney general barr's news conference and release of the market report. market watcher david nicholas is with us. do you think the barr press conference, mueller report had

any impact on the market? was it a factor? >> i think it was. the market shrugged off any negative narrative coming out about the mueller report. we're seeing sin -- saying no collusion between the president and russia. markets look at that as a positive catalyst for two reasons. it strengthens the president's position on negotiation with china and also strengthens his re-election campaign for 2020. so all of those are positive elements for the markets. we saw some of that yesterday in trading. stuart: i have got a story coming out to us today, it is in "the washington post." they say the feds are investigating facebook for the mishandling of data. they might go right after mark zuckerberg himself, making him personally liable for infractions. that seems to be to me to be pretty drastic. maybe it's a shot across the bows from other big tech props

also accused of privacy problems. what do you make of that? this sounds like heavy-duty investigation of that man right there, mark zuckerberg. >> stuart, i'm conflicted on this. there seems to be a over reach. facebook is in the middle after pr disaster. this is warning to companies that if you misuse data you will be hilled accountable. stuart, i don't know if you use facebook or post photos of pup at thises or cute kid or mcdonald's burger, but as users we are not the customers of facebook. the customers of facebook are the businesses that advertise on the platform. we as users, we're the product. so what this does, it actually hurts the businesses that are advertising and it does hurt facebook's revenue. last fall when the cambridge analytica thing came out, facebook changed how businesses

can advertise and what data they have. we saw our facebook advertising results drop because we knew less about our customers. it's a negative for facebook revenue. the federal government is saying, don't use data. we sign up fairly. we share photos of our puplies. we can't be dedemanding of security. stuart: that is fair point. we're not looking at zuckerberg behind bars, but if it affects advertising within facebook i think you have a problem there. thanks for coming in on friday, david, we'll see you again soon. thanks a lot. >> thank you, stuart. stuart: back to the mueller report. listen what kellyanne conway said about investigating the investigators. roll tape. >> if you're going to talk about transparency and accountability and investigations for two years, then i got 22 more months to wait to see how we got here in the first place. i think america has been told by all of you, thank you for that, that we have right to know, we want transparency and

accountability. we want to make sure democracy is honest, let's investigate the investigators. stuart: okay, tammy bruce still with us here. i've said, look, i think we've got investigation fatigue, scandal fatigue. do we really want to add another layer of investigations by going after hillary clinton, barack obama, james comey, et cetera, et cetera? >> i think that in part that was part of the goal was to get americans to be tired of looking at what government was doing, particularly the perhaps the hillary clinton gang and the obama administration. that may have been part of the goal but what americans really want and why donald trump was elected in part was that we want the rule of law to return, right? we want justice. and freedoms based on having correct information and having the rule of law apply equally to everyone. we've seen that from the regular arrests on the street and the unfairness of local cities and states and how they handle justice to the, top law enforcement agency in this

country doling it out and using it as a political weapon. americans want the right information. we've also chosen to not watch necessarily the legacy news and the 24/7 use of it politically. so i think there is fatigue in that. so as a result the other networks have seen a massive ratings drop-off. we aren't fatigued with justice. we want it and i think especially in this case we know this investigation was based on something that didn't occur and isn't that what all of us as americans are frightened of? people being railroaded into crimes and jail because of politics, in large part that is what the civil rights movements were about the not to have that happen to people. not just what the fbi did know, what did mueller know as he came toward the end, if you knew before the midterms what did he know when he started? stuart: it ain't over. >> it's not. americans want transparency.

they want fairness. they want the truth. we'll never get tired of that. stuart: okay, tammy. we hear you. thanks for joining us. >> thank you. stuart: next case, 23andme, the genetic testing kit. you spit into a tube, you mail it in. they run all kinds of tests on but it may be giving bad results on its breast cancer test, even if you're at risk for breast cancer, their test might not pick it up. doc siegel coming in on that. he's next. new trend in the restaurant industry, adding a health chair surcharge on customer bills. covers the cost of employee health care. next hour we talk to the owners of a restaurant, doing exactly that. they say most of their customers approve. here is big news. armed militia on the southern border rounding up asylum-seekers. this could cause big problems for law enforcement there. we're talking to a former border patrol chief next on that story.

stuart: this is a very interesting story here on your screen right now. an armed militia group which patrols the southern border, they detained hundreds of migrants at gunpoint. they posted this video to social media. mark morgan is with us. a former border patrol chief. what do you make of this? look, i have to think this is rather dangerous and troubling. this smacks of vigilantism but i can understand it. what say you? >> stuart, i actually agree on both points. make no mistake from a haw enforcement perspective this is a bad things. citizens should not be arming themselves and placing themselves, carrying outlaw enforcement duties. this is bad thing for everybody. let's peel that back. why are they doing isn't they are there, seeing what the rest of us are seeing, southwest border is being overrun.

other law enforcement entries are being over run and they see no choice. make no mistake, congress can fix this. the flora settlement agreement, tpb, catch-and-release goes away, 85% of the problem goes away and the american citizens down there wouldn't feel a need to do this. stuart: you were border patrol chief during the obama years. what do you think of president trump's plan to send migrants to sanctuary cities? >> there are two good points, stuart. i like to say this is not really the president's plan overall. this plan generated from the experts. he is listening to people that have done this. he listened to the experts, leadership, border patrol council, et cetera, trying to do something to stem the flow of these migrants illegally in our country and exploiting our laws. every time he tries to do something congress attacks him. yet they won't do what they're supposed to do. look at sanctuary cities.

the communities on the border are overwhelmed. faith-based organizations are overwhelmed. the non-governmental entities are over well misdemeanorred. this is nowhere for them to go. why should border towns and cities foot the bill for think, one city i know, new york city, mayor of de blasio says it is illegal. you can't send them here out of hand, it is illegal. what do you say to that? >> i think learned, experienced legal minds can disagree on those points. i will submit to the american people too is, where do you think a good chunk of immigrants illegally coming where do you think they want to go? they want to end up in sanctuary cities. sanctuary cities are part of the incentive, part of the pull factor, the reasons why they're coming f we think about that. so in one sense we're expediting where they want to end up anyway. stuart: before we close, the president tweeted about you. i'm pretty sure you know this. here it is. mark morgan, president obama's

border patrol chief gave the following message to me. president trump, stay the course. i agree. believe it or not we're making great progress with a system that has been broken for many years. mark, you know you have arrived, when the president is tweeting about you. what did he mean by stay the course? >> look this is the first president in modern times that he has stood his ground. he has realized this country is at a critical crossroads with this issue. he has remained strong. even though congress again and again thwarts everything he is trying to do. they call him names. they try to attack him. he is staying the course because he realizes this is his job as the president, to protect this country. he is doing exactly what he should do to do his job. i applaud him. i do hope he stays the course. stuart: i wonder what your former colleagues when you were running the border under president obama, wonder what they're saying about you now? are you popular? >> i don't know. what i would say is that the

feedback i received is positive but it's easy they have been saying the same thing. the experts message has been consistent. stuart: okay. >> we need congress to fix what they could fix in 15 minutes. we need the wall along with technology and personnel. they have been saying that for decades. nothing has changed. stuart: got it. mark morgan, thank you very much for being with us. appreciate it. >> thank you. you bet, stuart. stuart: more trouble for kim county prosecutor kim foxx. her chief ethics officer, the head of her integrity department both resigning. this is the jussie smollett scandal. you know you have problems when your top ethics and integrity guys call it quits. we have the got the story for you. ♪

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save $400 on select sleep number 360 smart beds. only for a limited time. stuart: yeah, we're here. they're not. let's get on with it. markets are not open but fox business is open for business. got it. bad news for cook county prosecutor kim foxx. her chief ethics officer and the director of her integrity unit both resigning in the wake of the jussie smollett scandal. let's bring in kevin graham, the president of the chicago fraternal order of police. sir, is their resignation an indictment of the ethics and integrity of kim foxx? >> i certainly think she has a lot to explain.

now that an investigation is starting and her two top people are walking out the door, there seems to be more questions than there is answers at this point. so i think she's in trouble. stuart: so police officers, police in chicago, are they united in their opposition to the no charges brought against jussie smollett, and if you are, what are you going to do about it? >> you know, first of all, we were against dropping the charges on jussie smollett. we believe he needed to stand trial for the actions that he took and we, and our members, we had a resounding vote of no confidence in kim foxx and we had a resounding vote that we wanted her to step down. we had asked for an investigation long before she even dropped the charges because we felt it was improper for her to have ex-party communications

between private attorneys while the case was still being investigated and, before the prosecution had come to court. stuart: now i believe that the police force has demanded $130,000 i think it was, as payment for all the expenses you went through in this non-prosecution. i'm told jussie smollett is not paying. so what are you going to do? can he ever come back to chicago? >> well, i can tell you this, the mayor of this city has asked for the $130,000. they are going to take him to court and, he is going to have to either come into court or he will have to pay it. if he comes into court, then we get to know a lot about what occurred and we get to bring in a lot of evidence and we're going to get some answers as to what he knew, what kim foxx knew. i believe at this point we'll finally have some answers and some resolution to this case. stuart: kevin gram, thank you

very much for joining us this weekend. we wish you well in your quest for the money. good luck. >> thank you, stuart. stuart: thank you. samsung's 2,000-dollar folding phone, not available to the public yet but it has got some props already. some journalists who were given review phones, to have a look at them, see how they work, the folding screen is breaking at very light use. we'll tell you what samsung is saying to that. more aggression from north korea. they tested a new weapon, they say they're done negotiating with secretary of state mike pompeo. are peace talks falling apart? seems like it. our top north korea watcher coming up next. ainsley: they want someone more mature.

♪ susan: i like this one. stuart: you know this one. susan: yes, yes. stuart: this is always one of my favorites. she was just 17, you know what i mean. ashley: leave it right there, stuart. susan: things are a little different. stuart: 51 years on from being, 53 years on from being 17. those are the days. >> let me do that math. hang on. stuart: real fast. i will stay on what we might call the british theme. nigel farage's new brexit party, i'm told it is gaining a lot of political steam, ash? ashley: really is. it is 10 days old. farage was with the ukip. basically got brexit through in parts. became illusioned with ukip.

feared it was going too far right. he left. getting brexit past the finishing line he said i will form the brexit party. it has exploded. 10 days time amount of people joined up is huge. he is holding rallies across the country, one in nottingham. this is showing in polls, brexit party will get 27% of the 70 seats available. labour 22%. conservatives 15%. that is european parliament. stuart: european parliament. ashley: shows you. looking in france, le pen, 27%. macron, 23. very close. same story in italy with the five-star movement. populist parties continue to do very well. stuart: they're really upset the european parliament. ashley: very much. stuart: that is cat amongst the pigeons. ashley: farage has a way to rally the troops. this brexit party is gaining a lot of ground. stuart: fascinating. good stuff. after firing a new tactical

guided weapon as its being called, north korea demand that secretary of state mike pompeo be removed from any future talks. that's aggressive, isn't it? with us now, gordon chang, author of the new book, "losing south korea." gordon is with us today. what do you think president trump's response to this should be? >> i think he should say to the north koreans, mike pompeo is staying in the talks. if you don't like it we're walking. remember at the end of may last year when the north koreans were unusually belligerent with regard to u.s. officials and their rhetoric, trump said i'm withdrawing from a proposed summit with kim jong-un. within hours the north koreans became conciliatory. i think we'll see the same do nam mick. the north koreans cross ad line. they're trying to put pressure on president trump. stuart: the question is, why now? >> they realize the sanctions are biting. president trump is not going to relax them until the north

koreans make important concessions of their own which they probably aren't willing to make. they're trying to see how far they can push the united states. stuart: it is basically a stalemate? >> it's a stalemate so far. but if president trump decided to go back to vigorous enforcement of sanctions he could make life difficult for the russians, chinese and koreans who are openly violating you know rules. that would put a lot of pressure on kim jong-un. then he wouldn't be getting cash. if he does not have cash he can't stay in power. stuart: president has a way of getting leverage back over north korea, significant leverage? >> president trump said before the north korean summit. i will give kim one-time shot. this is american generosity. the north koreans are mistaking generosity to weakness and that they can give a hard time to the u.s. that will be a big mistake, that may be the last mistake kim makes. stuart: that is provocative statement. it may be the last mistake that kim jong-un makes. what do you mean by that? >> because the united states can really bring pressure on the north koreans to the point where

he, kim could not maintain the regime. stuart: you got to have support from china to do that? >> you can pressure china. for instance, we have not gone after their banks for laundering money for the north koreans. all four of china's so-called big four banks have been handling kim's cash in violation of u.s. rules and u.n. rules. stuart: if we go of a their banks, really put pressure on their banks, chinese banks, they will not play ball with us when it comes to trade negotiations or are they? >> i think they will. we need to give them some incentive to help us. remember they only came to the table to talk trade after those section 301 tariffs. we always think you got to be nice to the chinese and they will be nice to us. no, they do not reciprocate gestures of friendship. we have decades of dealing with china to know what you do you put pressure on them. you leave them no choice but to do the right thing. unfortunately we don't do that enough. we think we have to be partners with the chinese that approach just hasn't worked, stuart. stuart: but look, seems like there is progress being made in

these trade talks. april 29th, secretary mnuchin and lighthizer they go to beijing. the following week the vice premier comes here. they're looking for a summit location, somewhere in neutral territory. i have to call that moving towards a trade deal. >> it is moving towards a trade deal. we have to remember when the chinese vice premier was here two weeks ago, everyone, "new york times," "wall street journal," was reporting on that thursday of the meeting that look, you know, president trump was going to announce a summit from the oval office. when they had that oval office meeting with the vice premier and with lighthizer, trump didn't say that as a matter of fact, trump actually threatened to cut off trade with the chinese during that oval office meeting. so, you know, there is a lot of progress being reported but there has been at that lot of progress reported in the past. we really don't know how far these talks are going. stuart: your position has consistently been hard-line trump, that is the way you deal with china, that is the way you deal with north korea, hard-line, maintain it always? >> always.

unfortunately that the is way beijing thinks. they're ruthlessly pragmatic. they might sort of some level think if we're nice to them they will be nice to us they don't allow emotions to get into the way of their statecraft. that is always tough. this is the way it is. we have four decades dealing with them. unfortunately we cannot be good to them because it doesn't work. stuart: gordon chang, the author of the new book, losing south korea. have i got it right? >> you got it right. stuart: i will read it. >> thanks, stuart. stuart: our next guest says that you, yeah you got a tax cut but your refund was smaller. joining us now, jared walchek, the senor analyst with the tax foundation. we got the benefit of the tax cuts but we didn't realize it, is that your message? if that is your message, sir, then that tax cutting plan was very badly marketed. >> i think unfortunately there is some truth to that but the message really didn't get through. you look at polls, less than 20%

of the public thinks they got a tax cut. reality it is reversed. about 80% got a tax cut under this bill. they got it through their pay checks over the course of the year. they didn't necessarily get it at the end of the year. and because there were also changes to withholding, to make it more accurate you didn't necessarily get refund you used to. i think that is a good thing. it is not interest-free loan to the federal government, don't judge the tax cut by the refund. stuart: it is bad politically. >> it is. stuart: if you give people a tax cut, you want a vote in return, if they don't realize they get a tax cut you don't get the vote. that is not good market. i want to talk about salt, state and local deduction, don't get the deduction or limited deduction. my point always been, 1% people, very well-paid people in live in high-taxed states, illinois, new jersey, new york, california, for example, they got clobbered by this tax reform. absolutely clobbered. i've been saying this for a long time. am i right?

>> i don't quite agree, stuart. certainly they did lose a lot of state and local tax deduction. some of the highest taxed people were in the amt previously. they didn't get it at all. now they get $10,000 worth. many at really high-end of the income scale -- stuart: i got to tell you, i know loads of high income people, new jersey, illinois, california, they all got clobbered, amt or otherwise. they didn't pay the amt last year. they got a huge refund. this year they paid extra tax, they to the murdered. >> reality yes, many are subject to a 10,000-dollar cap but they also got lower rates. most of those subject to the caps still have a net tax cut. if you look at who actually is impacted by the state and local tax deduction cap, 57% of the benefit of repealing that cap would go to top 1%. 83% would go to the top 5%. a small number of people but most are getting a tax cut. base broadening, rate lowering.

lowering of the state and local tax deduction cap, that makes a difference but at same time they pay lower rates, but they're still mad as hell. they won't take it. a lot are heading to florida, texas nevada. leave it at that thanks so much for joining us, even though we mildly disagree, we appreciate it. thank you, sir. >> thanks for having me. stuart: how about that samsung folding phone? we had it on the show last week. folds out like a tablet kind of thing. it has got some problems even though it is not on market yet. what's happening? susan: with your big tax return you can afford one with the 2,000-dollar phones. stuart: stay on subject. susan: the one that can turn from a smartphone into more of shall we say a tablet? but it is having problems, yes it cost as few thousand dollars but early reviewers, they don't turn on for them. the screens crack. the fact the screens don't even work when you expand it. that is not a good thing for

reviewers to have negative reviews on a 2,000-dollar phone set to be released next week. stuart: what are they saying about it? what does samsung say? >> maybe some. reviewers don't know how to handle it. some are ripping off the top layer, piece of plastic. ashley: protection. >> you're not supposed to rip that off. why some of these phones may not work. however, they're only going to sell a million of these foldable phones compared to 300 million they usually ship per year. yes the technology is advanced but negative reviews is not going to help that case. stuart: no it is not. that is a fact. nbc's brian williams not happy with attorney general barr's take on the mueller report. williams is actually comparing barr to saddam hussein's propaganda chief. "baghdad bob." we will tell you about it, i promise you that. tomorrow is 4/20. you know that? that is the unofficial holiday

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stuart: all right. tomorrow is 4/20 you heard that. 4/20, the unofficial holiday for marijuana smokers. a big summit, policy summit this year, the national cannabis festival, it is in d.c. my next two guests are speaking on panels at the policy summit. dan england of can america is with us and ricardo of grasslands is with us also. ricardo, start with you. >> portfolio -- stuart: i can hear something in the background. can you hear me?

what is going on at the policy summit, ricardo. >> hey there, national cannabis policy summit. that is fascinating, second year for the event. i was out here last year, just really high level, thoughtful conversations about cannabis policy we're talking tax, we're talking media. we're talking to many facets of this conversation right here in the nation's capital. stuart: hey there, dan, how are you doing? >> i'm doing great, stuart. thanks for having me back on your program. stuart: what is the big policy change, big policy initiative you would like to see come out of this summit? >> oh, well, hundreds of course, just complete deschedule of cannabis and treat it like alcohol. i definitely think that you know, some of the bills addressing the issues of veterans issues, with cannabis and, no retribution bill for veterans that do access cannabis, whether it's for recreational or medicinal purposes, i think that is

important. these things are not going far enough. but i've been solved so long i'm just starting to get impatient. stuart: that is why we had you on the show last time as i remember, dan. that you worked with veterans. you trying to get, trying to get thc marijuana is the veterans is that it? or the oil that you're trying to get to them? >> well, stuart, i'm a veteran of the united states marine corps and i'm a veteran of the industry. i've been doing this for nine years. one of the original licensees in colorado. i helped with policy development, created the colorado cannabis chamber of commerce, continue. i took my company public in 2018 on both csc and the otc so i have been moving and making progress in many different areas but now, you know as this conversation becomes national and can nan to focus on

veterans, 22 veterans a day kill themselves. anything that we can do to prevent that, or reduce that number, if cannabis is a solution for some of them we should do everything we can to provide them with that access. stuart: ricardo, it seems to me that the marijuana industry is on a roll. yeah, i can see it spreading dramatically. however, you've got a setback with new jersey. they were going to legalize it recreationally, they stepped back. the same thing happened in new york. are you getting some pushback now from various parts of the country to this recreational role so to speak? >> you're absolutely right. we are on a roll. there is lot of momentum behind this industry and at the same time it's a state by state concern. so this is not a sure thing in any state. but we do see these building blocks of a state moving into decriminalized cannabis. then perhaps to a conservative medical bill to a more robust

medical bill and then potentially adult use. you know, it is not a slam-dunk in any of these states. even if we go back to the 2016 election, you know we had nine state ballot initiatives being voted on election day. eight of them passed. eight recreational and medical bills passed. one did not. you know that was arizona, trying to go from medical into recreational. that failed. but, i'm confident arizona will be there. and i'm confident that new jersey and new york will join the ranks. it is only a matter of time. stuart: gentlemen, i just want to check something. i always thought the expression 4/20 related to the police call, so if they made a pot bust they would say 2/20, i'm told that is not true. i'm told it was a pot raid in california, group of high schoolkids wanted to raid a marijuana farm. they agreed to meet at 4:20 outside the high school, hence

4:20. i have 10 seconds. am i right? >> you know there is some different versions of the mythical 4:20. stuart: which one do you use. >> there is a third version where it was a group of guys, that is where they would meet, the time they would meet to consume cannabis. so i think for the industry it's a great day to celebrate the freedom of cannabis. stuart: we'll leave it at that sorry to be so short on the time. thanks for joining us, gentlemen. good stuff, see you again soon. >> thank you, stuart. >> thank you, stuart. stuart: let's go from pot to tobacco, why not? senate majority leader mcconnell has a plan to make it much tougher to buy a pack of cigarettes. we'll tell you what he is proposing after this. ♪ xfinity watchathon week has sadly come to an end.

what, what, what! no! but don't let that stop you from watching the best shows and movies from showtime, hbo, epix... jesus, what happened? ...and more. it's just the tip of the iceberg. upgrade now to get more into what you're into. thanks! just say "watchathon" into your x1 voice remote to upgrade and keep getting more of what you love.

stuart: genetic testing company, 23andme coming under fire for false-negative results in the breast cancer screening tests. dr. marc siegel with us now. look, doctor, i don't know about you, i wouldn't be going to 23andme for a breast cancer test in the first place. >> you stole the words right out of our month. doctors do something called

multigene analysis. you know what 23andme does? when they look at braca gene, for colorectal cancer and high-risk gene people carry generation to generation. someone has it in their family if they have a lot of ovarian cancer, and they have the braca gene, i don't want 23andme testing because they miss it 90%, 90%. there are 1000 variants of braca only test for three, for three. i was hoping for a study like this, come out, i want to say, go to the doctor, if you're worried about the family history, worried someone in your family had breast cancer, you might have it. maybe i don't want you tested. maybe you don't have a family history. genetic testing is serious business. it should be done by doctors. they should be involved. maybe some day i will be

different. maybe some day they come up with a product i endorse. right now no. stuart: what do you think of senate leader mitch mcconnell wants a national rule, law, call it what you will, you cannot buy tobacco, cannot buy cigarettes under the age of 21? he wants 21 the legal age across the board, what will you say to that? >> i will answer medically. that include vaping. vapeing with e-cigarettes increases risk of a teen, smoking regular cigarettes three to four types. we said that on the program. putting those two together, vaping, regular cigarette smoking, national academy of medicine in 2015 did a huge study on this you have 12% less smoking of tobacco if increase the age to 21. and you know what that means? 10% less deaths of cigarette related tobacco-related deaths. 10% less. it is hard for me to argue against that as a physician. stuart: okay. >> i'm for personal liberty. i'm not of big idea of regulations. i don't love regulations.

i think too many teens are vaping, smoking, putting themselves at risk for lung cancer. a the are of people will be non-compliant with it. i'm for it. 11 states are already considering it. i am for it. i like raising age to 21. how about you? susan: how about you? stuart: i would probably go with that. >> really? stuart: tell me 10% fewer deaths. >> national academy of medicine. austere authority says that. right. stuart: you're out of time. that was a good performance this morning, young man. >> thank you. stuart: right at it both times. >> i have opinions. stuart: big hour coming up. attorney general barr laid it all out, no collusion. the democrats will not let it go. they're demanding records from nine big banks now. they're doing everything they can to dig up any dirt on our president. i've got an opinion on that for you. plus a new survey of american chief financial officers. 2/3 of them think a recession is coming up next year. we're going to get the white house take on that.

kevin hassett will be with us. wait until you hear what the chinese are building in the gobe desert. i don't know yet. i will find out shortly. hour three, "varney & company" coming up. i switched to liberty mutual,

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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. ♪ stuart: the democrats will not let go. we are going to see investigations, probes and televised hearings all the way up to the 2020 election. it will be a deliberate attempt to slime the president. does america really want this? i don't think so. now, i'm not basing my opinion on any poll or survey. haven't seen one yet. i think america has a bad case of investigation fatigue. america surely wants action from congress, not posturing politicians bad-mouthing our president. he was not, is not and never has been an agent of russia. he's not a traitor. so get on with the business of ensuring our continued prosperity.

that's what trump has delivered. keep it going. the attacks on the president will be intensely legalistic. the lawyers are out in force, parsing words, looking into ancient statutes, desperate for the slightest hint of illegality. they have demanded the records of nine giant banks. they are looking for anything in donald trump's business career, way before he was even a candidate for the presidency. the lawyers will be digging through a million bank documents. the slightest infraction and the left will shout he broke the law, he's not fit to be president. i don't think it's going to fly. my judgment is this. we knew donald trump was a hard-driving businessman who has a history with women, salty language and in-your-face negotiating. he's tough and we knew it when we put him in the white house. we're not surprised that he reacted angrily when the media relentlessly suggested he was a russian agent. we're going to turn him out of office now, when we know he wasn't a russian agent, and he

didn't collude and he didn't obstruct? i don't think we're going to do that. the democrats won't let go, and neither will the media. they, too, are heavily invested in the traitor allegation. only the left wing precincts of the coastal elites is there much interest in pursuing russia, russia, russia or obstruct, obstruct, obstruct. as the democrats said after the clinton impeachment, move on. one last point. will we have scandal fatigue when congressman nunes and senator graham and attorney general barr investigate obama, clinton, comey and mccabe? and how the whole thing started? we'll see. won't we? the third hour of "varney & company" is about to begin.

stuart: we have run that three times the last two hours, rubbing it in, i guess. top of the hour, 11:00 on the east coast, 8:00 in california. we are with you on this good friday. cnbc takes the day off. i want to get a reaction to my editorial. for that i will bring in donald luskin and john layfield. donald, to you first. you say the mueller probe is good for the president. make your case, please. >> it exonerates him. this creates such a panic, so much cognitive dissonance among his opponents. i ask you if you don't believe this, go to the website today of your competitor, bloomberg. you will see two stories side by side. the headline on one story is that mueller report signals to congress to impeach the

president. the next headline, right next to it, says democrats in congress see no signals to impeach the president. right? i mean, these people, stuart, this isn't just good friday. this is great friday. stuart: okay. hold on a second. what about you, john? what does this mean, the mueller report, the barr press conference, et cetera, et cetera, what does it mean for the markets? >> i think very little. i think it's good for the country, obviously. we have had 21 special investigations since president carter, only twice has the lead figure being investigated been indicted. that tells you this is just political theater. that was what the mueller report was, just like it's been done for the last 30 years. but as far as the market goes, presidential scandals historically have had very little effect. you look at the big presidential scandals in history, teapot dome, watergate, iran contraand the two presidential impeachments of johnson and clinton, none of those had any long-term effect on the market. what affects the market most is

when policy makers make mistakes in the market which obviously, our congress could certainly do, but right now i don't think anything that happens with the presidential scandal is going to affect the markets. stuart: i will get back to you in a second, but let me get back to donald. i think the mueller report and barr press conference were actually good for the markets. i'll tell you why. seems to me congress is going to be tied up, congestion, gridlock, nothing's going to happen and i think that's good for wall street. secondly, i think it was good news for the president and that might help him at least a little in the run-up to his re-election. that's why i say mueller was good for the markets. now it's your turn. >> oh, i completely agree. the markets are agreeing with you, too. we have made new recovery highs. we are less than a percent away from all-time highs. markets vote with varney. one of the reasons for that is anything that improves the chance of trump getting re-elected, disimproves the chance that someone like bernie sanders will get elected, who is running on a campaign of

destroying the health care industry that employs 15% of americans, right? so what the mueller report shows is the utter recklessness of the democrats who are willing to take any hostage, take out and shoot anybody and anything, seize any private property from a bank if it might remotely be a record that may help them impeach the president. they don't care about private property, they don't care about capital, they don't care about sanctity of contract, they don't care about any of the things that move markets higher, as long as they win. so a trump win in 2020 abolishes that risk for the market. stuart: okay. john, back to you for a second. forget about mueller, forget about that side of the argument here. are we, when we get back to work on monday, back to trading, are we going to march towards brand new highs for the broader market, the s&p and for the nasdaq and for the dow? >> yeah, i think so. i think so, because of the strength of the u.s. economy.

look, it's the tallest lilliputian. emerging markets around the world are not doing well, europe is falling apart, german manufacturing data has been terrible, china manufacturing data has been awful, been in decline. the only place to really invest now is in the united states markets and even though we have a slowdown, we had a projection of 8% earning growth this last quarter. it came in at double that. now, that was 4% below what it was the year before so we do have a slowdown, but we're not falling off a cliff. we have 17% earning growth in the last quarter. that is phenomenal for this stage of a bull market. so yes, i think the market, if the market can just trade on market fundamentals and nothing else, i think the market will do quite well from here. stuart: that's like setting the stage for next week. we like it. john, donald, both of you, thanks for being with us this friday. we do appreciate it. have a good weekend, everybody. good holiday. i want to get the tesla news in. there is tesla news. yesterday was supposed to be the deadline for the s.e.c. and elon musk to settle their contempt dispute as ordered by a new york federal judge. they have now asked for one week extension.

lawyers for the s.e.c. and musk now aiming for april 25th. that's the deadline for their resolution. let's see what happens. liz: sounds like brexit. stuart: good one. under pressure again, facebook. the instagram password breach, much bigger than initially reported. facebook says millions of instagram users' passwords stored in a readable form, not tens of thousands, millions. by the way, it was a news dump. this news was released one hour before the barr news conference. that's how you bury a nasty story about your company. that's what they did. new jobs in the big apple. netflix announcing it's set to open a production hub in new york city. 127 new jobs. they are investing $100 million. the company already produces some shows in new york such as "orange is the new black."

netflix comes to new york city. liz: whoo-hoo. stuart: liz's two cents. boston dynamics. the stock mini rover going out for sale. they are looking to start production in july or august. they will make about 100 per year. don't know what they will do with them. early this week we showed you the footage of ten pulling a truck. the production model will include new features like skin to protect it, additional cameras so it can see in all directions. boston dynamics expected to announce the price and that's what i'm waiting for, the price. meanwhile, ouch, look at that. ashley: look at that. stuart: strange. what would you say, you see that? to the economy. a new survey reveals two-thirds of chief financial officers believe we will hit a recession by the summer of next year. that would be right before the

election, wouldn't it? next, usmca, the mexico canada trade deal replacement for nafta expected to give a boost to the economy. 176,000 jobs expected but some critics are not satisfied. they say that's not enough. endless investigations. will they hold up the president's economic agenda? we talk to the white house about that next. so i got an offer on the business, and now i'm thinking... i'd like to retire early. oh, that's great sarah. let's talk about this when we meet next week. how did edward jones come to manage a trillion dollars in assets under care? jay. sarah.

so i have a few thoughts on that early retirement... by focusing our mind on whatever's on yours.

stuart: the customs folks say 600,000 people overstay their visas every single year. okay. homeland security's going to get that number down. their new facial recognition system installed at airport departure gates will scan 97% of departing passengers in the next four years, within the next four

years. 97%. they growing to keep your picture to track who's in the country legally and who is leaving. you have been warned. i want to get to the survey that was released showing two-thirds of chief financial officers believe we will hit a recession by the summer of next year, that would be right before the election. white house council of economic advisers chair kevin hassett joins us now. these guys know what they're talking about. they handle finances for big corporations. do you discount entirely the idea of a recession next summer when you've got two-thirds of these guys saying here it comes? >> yeah. i mean, there's so much momentum right now, stuart, in the economy, it just seems almost impossible that there will be a recession by the summer of next year. the way to think about it is you saw the blockbuster retail sales this week. the reason why everybody's spending so much money on consumption goods, consumer goods, is that incomes are rising so fast right now. even the bottom 10% of americans saw their wages go up last year

6.5%. with that kind of income growth, there's going to be consumption growth, there's going to be gdp growth. we have all this capital spending happening. stuart: sorry, i keep interrupting. i'm very rude. very sorry. on good friday, too. very sorry. look, if the economy shows signs of slowing down, would you be okay with the president and larry kudlow pressuring the fed to lower interest rates? you would be okay with that? >> you know, everybody wants to know what the president thinks about things. my job is to respect the independence of the fed, not to give them advice. i think the president's opinion is what his supporters want to hear. so i don't think it's disrespectful of the fed or disrespecting their independence for the president to express his opinion. stuart: okay. okay. the usmca, the replacement for nafta, as you know, has already been prepared but my question, it's a very big deal, probably one of the bigger trade deals we've got going here. now, look, it has to pass the house. the question is, will nancy

pelosi, speaker pelosi, will she bring it to a vote? odds are she might not, you know. >> well, it's possible that she would make that choice but i think that, you know, the itc put out a report about the trade bill yesterday and it was a blockbuster report. one way to put it in perspective is there are positive benefits from the trade deals that they estimated in yesterday's report was about double the cumulative effect of all the trade deals back to 1984 by their own estimate. this is by far, according to the itc, the best trade deal ever. so of course congress needs to pass it. i think woit would have broad bipartisan support. it will get gazillion votes. stuart: you think it will get democrat support? because once you put it on the table in the house, can't amend it. can't change it. it's as-is. i presume that the democrats e are -- they don't want to give president trump any win

whatsoever and passage of usmca would be a win. you got to look at the politics here, surely. >> no, but it's a win for america. that's what the itc report showed. 176,000 jobs, $68 billion more gdp. there are some things they didn't quantity which we have quantified and we think the annual benefit is north of $100 billion of gdp per year or if you like, more than $1 trillion over ten years. that's $200 billion more in tax revenue and so on. i think anybody who is patriotic would look at that bill and want to vote for it. i think that's why if it does get to the floor it will get the vast majority of democrat and republican votes. i disagree with you about this sort of not letting the president have a win kind of thing. i know there are some people that feel that way, but i've got a lot of friends on the hill that are democrats that care about america, want to do what's best for americans. i think all of them would vote for it if given the chance. stuart: i think congress is going to be gridlocked for the next 20 months. i say that because they will be tied up with investigations and probes and televised hearings.

they don't want to do anything. that's gridlock. surely that will stand in the way of you doing anything on the economy through congress. >> well, well, well, i think that's one view, but i think when there's something that's such a clear win for america, which the itc report clearly showed yesterday, that you can get bipartisan support for things and think about the huge success we had with prison reform last year, which nobody expected. you know, that happened because we put together a coalition of people that wanted to help folks leaving prison reconnect to society and do so more effectively. so we passed the prison reform bill that i think is fantastic. so i think that there are moments in time when something is so obviously a good idea that it can make it through even this broken congress and i think the usmca will be one of those things. you can bring me back a year from now and hold me accountable for that statement. i bet you that it passes. it's too good a deal. stuart: one of the vices i do not have is gambling so i won't

take your bet. but i think you are underestimating the, i'm not going to use the word hatred but the contempt for president trump that is right there on capitol hill. >> i understand that there are a lot of strong feelings but i also understand most people come to washington because they are patriots and want to help their country. i know there are times when we really disagree about a lot of things but i don't think anyone could point at the usmca and say that it's not good for america, and it's also good, you know, one of the big effects we get when we model it is the mexicans agreed to modernize their labor laws, something that's been a major objective of democrats for the longest time, so it's really good for workers in mexico and drives their incomes higher and they buy more exports from the u.s. when something like that is happening, it's really heartless not to vote for it. i think we will see a vote and i think it will pass. stuart: i'm backing right away and i will call this a tie. you and i will debate it again when there's a vote on the floor of the house. we will see how it goes. kevin, i hope you have a wonderful holiday this weekend.

thanks for being with us. appreciate it. liz: can i give you one data point? stuart: you can. liz: only 12, a dozen laws signed by the president, so far this year. last year, 442 laws. stuart: thank you, liz. you get in your two cents. liz: happy easter to you. stuart: let's get a check on the price of gas. it's been on a daily rise for a few weeks. now it's $2.83. that's the national average for regular gas. but now look at california. look at this. way above the national average. $4.02 per gallon. that's california for you. they've gone up 68 cents in one month. triple a says refinery maintenance is to blame, demand is high in cities like los angeles, san francisco, but the supply they say has slowed to a trickle. $4.02, california. one restaurant in austin, texas, found a new way of adding a health care surcharge to your bill. okay.

it's a 3% surcharge, it's very clear, it's on the receipt, and it's all so the restauranteurs can supply health care for their employees. those people on the show. a couple of them, on the show. i want to know if they have received a lot of complaints about this. we'll see. check this out. dodge honoring the u.s. military with stars and stripes models for its challenger and charger. nine military-inspired color choices including dark gray, green and gray. a recent study shows dodge has the highest number of active military buyers in america. how about that. didn't know that.

stuart: okay. the markets are closed so where are we going this block? space. why not? we've gotten word of a new record being set on the international space station. this lady has been up in the iss since march, just last month. nasa released their schedule for astronauts and she will stay up there until february 2020, almost a full year.

that would set the record for the longest stay in orbit by a woman. nasa's all-time record, 340 days, set by scott kelly. more on space. nasa's test telescope has just discovered a new earth-sized planet, 53 light-years away. that's a long way away. orbitting its respective star once every dates. too toasty for human life but promising for nasa scientists who launched this telescope about a year ago. that replaced the retired kefla project. talk about inhabitable planets. china's space administration has just opened up their own mars base one in the gobi desert. it's supposed to stimulate -- simulate, i'm sorry, simulate conditions that are on the red planet. it's made of nine interconnected buildings, can house 60 people. yesterday was the opening day, 100 students showed up on a school trip. the plan that it's going to be opening up to tourists next year.

ashley: interesting. stuart: gobi desert. this is a baby t-rex fossil, most likely the only one in existence. it was listed on ebay by the guy who found it. a fossil hunter who lent it to the university of kansas natural history museum but wanted it back. he wanted to auction it off. so you can buy it now, as they say, for a cool $2.95 million. no returns, though. the media apoplectic when they found out the president was not the criminal they wanted him to be. wait until you hear what brian williams said about attorney general barr. you will not believe this from that guy. this is loma linda,

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stuart: our producers are just plain terrible. they just won't let it go.

ashley: rub it in. stuart: good stuff, ladies and gentlemen. here's my opinion. i think the president was completely vindicated by yesterday's release of the mueller report. he said so himself. this is the president. i'm having a good day, no collusion, no obstruction. however, our neighbors, if you want to call them that, at msnbc did not see it that way. here's how brian williams reacted to attorney general barr's press conference. roll tape. >> we would not be surprised if some headline writer somewhere came up with baghdad bill barr for what we saw today. stuart: whoa. baghdad bill barr. no, that's not the gentleman on your screen. that guy is a media reporter for the hill. that was over the top but is it typical of the media reaction? >> let's unpack that for a moment. brian williams used to be the nbc nightly news anchor for many years. he got demoted to msnbc because he lied about stories while covering the iraq war, right, he

was imbedded with troops, said he was getting fired at while in a helicopter. it never happened. so for him to use the baghdad bob analogy is the most stunning lack of self-awareness i can think of probably in the last five minutes. stuart: baghdad bob was the notorious liar who lied on behalf of saddam hussein, lied through his back teeth. >> yes. and you are comparing the current attorney general who by the way, served under another president in george h.w. bush, has been in this business for 40 years, and you are calling him basically the same kind of liar. i love the fact we are hearing about a coverup by barr as far as the mueller report, because at last check, rod rosenstein also worked on those redactions and members of the special counsel worked on those redactions. i don't think rosenstein's a fan of trump if he was willing to wear a wire to entrap him in the 25th amendment. stuart: i have to tell you, i did not feel yesterday afternoon, i just didn't feel like watching the left wing media have a go at our president. i just couldn't watch it. you did that. >> i have to.

stuart: you are the media reporter. >> of course. stuart: it seemed like brian williams was over the top with that but were there matching statements, was there matching condescension and keeping it going from the rest of the media? >> it seemed almost uniform on the other two major cable news networks. i'm not saying that because i'm on fox. that was what i saw and what i have seen over the last two years. it's amazing. all we heard about collusion, collusion, collusion. then collusion as it's shown in the mueller report did not exist. now it's like did you watch "dallas" on cbs when you were growing up? remember season nine when pam ewing walks into the shower and bobby, who is supposed to be dead, is in there and they say it was all a dream? collusion isn't even mentioned anymore. it was all a dream. what we have been telling you for two years, we promised you and it never happened, it was all a dream. now they pivoted to obstruction. they will pivot to trump's taxes. it will constantly be negative, instead of the types of interviews we should be talking about in terms of immigration, health care and the opioid

crisis. but democratic lawmakers when they go on these networks will never be asked about that. they will only be asked about the president and how horrible he is. stuart: they will never get their reputation back. >> i agree. stuart: that's a fact. media reporter for the hill, thanks for joining us, joe. much obliged to you. come again. don't be a stranger. now this. the minnesota house of representatives passed a new bill that would allow illegal immigrants to get a driver's license. passed with a big majority. state democrats say it will make the roads safer. republicans say it would incentivize illegals. the bill is now stuck in debate in the republican-controlled senate. but other states have given licenses to illegals. switching gears for a moment. let's talk restaurants. that one on your screen there is called foreign and domestic. it's in austin, texas. they are known for their pig nose two tail tasting menu. okay. that's not all they're known for. this restaurant has a 3% surcharge on all bills. this is to cover their

employees' health care costs. nathan lindley and sarah hurd are with us, the co-owners of foreign and domestic. welcome to the program. good to see you. >> thank you so much. good to be here. stuart: nathan, start with you. any complaints thus far? >> most of our complaints have just been from online comments. the people who come into the restaurant, our guests are generally very excited about it and very happy to support us in doing this. stuart: sarah, what's the general comment level? do people say oh, this is great, i'm dying to pay an extra 3%? do they really say that? >> well, nobody is dying to an extra 3% but ihink most people are really excited about it when they come in. and anything that you do that's different, you are going to have critics and you are going to have supporters. definitely those critics tend to be a little more vocal because obviously they are fired up about it, and by vocal i mean they type really fast sometimes before they even read the whole article. stuart: okay. now, i'm a big tipper, because i

started out in america as a waiter, and i tend to reward the waitstaff very generously. have you noticed any impact on tips now that you have got a 3% surcharge? >> very, very few. occasionally somebody will obviously tip exactly 3% less than the norm, but the servers are totally happy with it. just tipping well doesn't mean they have access to health care. as an individual getting a policy is almost impossible that's worth the money you're spending on it. so they're happy to get a tiny percentage less tips so that they can have access to that health care. stuart: nathan, how much of the extra cost of providing health care for your staff, how much of that extra cost is paid for by the 3% surcharge? >> so right now, the 3% surcharge goes to pay for half of the cost of it. we just rolled it out in the beginning of the year, so we will see exactly where that takes us, if we do end up having

some overages. it's a possibility that it can pay for a little bit more for the staff, their costs. we'll see. stuart: i just have 20 seconds left. what's this pig nose to tail thing? give me 20 seconds. >> it goes back to being responsible, responsible with the product for sourcing and how we can best support the farms. stuart: so the whole animal, serving all parts. some people with squeamish about it but we like cooking the whole animal. stuart: okay. we will leave it at that. ladies and gentlemen, thanks for being with us. we appreciate it. >> thanks so much. stuart: sure thing. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell has introduced legislation or i think it's legislation, that would raise the legal age to buy tobacco products, cigarettes, to 21. it's the mcconnell bill. it includes the use of e-cigarettes as well. according to mcconnell, it's aimed at high schoolers who start the habit too young. it's gained bipartisan support

in congress as well as the support of e-cigarette manufacturers. probably, here it comes, 21 nationwide. probably. on this good friday, we will be joined by paula white, the spiritual adviser to the president and has been a personal friend to the trump family for nearly 20 years. she is also leading the charge on opportunity zones and she is going to be with us. first, though, the house judiciary committee subpoenas barr for the full mueller report. investigations continue forever. next, we will talk to jenna ellis. she's on the trump 2020 advisory committee. she is also a constitutional lawyer. i want to know, is president trump fully exonerated here?

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stuart: more continuing problems for boeing. canada and airlines around the world want to add more simulated training for pilots. the faa, however, america's authority, is not requiring this extra training. jeff flock is with us. jeff, why isn't the faa requiring this extra training? when everybody else wants it? reporter: well, it's not everybody else, but they simply say it's not necessary. the pilots will get some extra training but they won't get simulator training. th difference is the way the faa has proposed it, they would simply go on an ipad and get that training. however, the transport minister in canada, who is a former astronaut, trained for 16 years as an astronaut, says simulators are the way to go, particularly after these crashes. so he has signaled that canada will require it. also, other airlines around the world like ryan air, the big cheap carrier in europe, they

say they are going to require it for their pilots here in the u.s., american is going to require it. but united and here at southwest, which of course 737 max is big for them, they are not going to require it unless the faa does. there's a comment period on this, ends at the end of this month. they could change their mind. but used to be the faa was the standard, the world's gold standard. if they said something, everybody followed in lockstep. not so with this. stuart: that's a remarkable development. used to be the gold standard, but the max jet has upped that gold standard. very interesting. jeff, thank you very much indeed. have a great weekend, young man. fallout from the mueller report. okay. president trump all smiles yesterday. he said he was having a good day. the report found no collusion with russia. come on in, jenna ellis, trump 2020 advisory board member and constitutional law attorney. welcome to the program. great to see you.

>> great to see you, too. stuart: there's no question but the president was fully exonerated on russia, russia, russia. we got that. but was he fully exonerated on obstruction? i think not. what's your opinion? >> absolutely he was. exoneration means to absolve from any wrongdoing and there were no charges, and so that is the closest that in a legal context a prosecutor can fully exonerate because there are no charges and there won't be any charges. so what the american people have to realize is that the legal and prosecutorial questions on both collusion and obstruction have been fully resolved. so the democrats are just focusing on the political question which is simply emotion based on how they feel the investigation should have gone, but not based on any evidence, fact or legal question. stuart: of course, you know that this morning, congressman jerry nadler subpoenaed, he wants the full report unredacted, he wants everything, but more

importantly, perhaps, he wants all of the underlying materials, all the documents, all the witness statements, everything. i think he wants to retry this thing. i think you're going to see it retried. >> well, there hasn't even been a trial. i mean, that's the thing, is that why are we going back and actually questioning what the investigation showed? we have 448 pages -- stuart: i'll tell you why. it's because the democrats do not agree with the interpretation delivered by william barr. >> it's not even an interpretation. the point is that there are no charges. what happened to the presumption of innocence and due process in this country? the president hasn't been charged. he's not going to be, and the investigation is fully closed. so for nadler to second-guess that and put the american people through even more after 22 months and how lengthy this investigation has gone, that's absolutely inappropriate and for congress to second-guess

prosecutorial discretion and how thorough this investigation was is simply focusing on the political hatred toward president trump, not on the legal question. stuart: i agree 100%. i think the hatred is coming out here, the contempt is coming out here, but i think you and i will also agree that we are going to see this for the next 20 months. they are never going to let it go. it will go on and on and on. but i think they are making a false political calculation because i don't think america wants that for the next 20 months. what do you say? >> i think that america is smarter than that, because the democrats are running on feeling and emotion and hatred, and that is not a sufficient legal basis to undermine a sitting president or to file for impeachment. that's not going to be a winning strategy. i think the american people are so frustrated and so over this because we saw that with brett kavanaugh, we have seen that through the whole me too

movement and i think the american people understand it's them being targeted by law enforcement, they absolutely want the presumption of innocence and due process and they are sick and tired of this president being targeted just by hatred. stuart: okay. jenna, thanks for joining us. you have a great holiday weekend, please. thank you very much. >> you also. stuart: we had news this week that prime minister abe and president trump will hold a meeting next friday at the white house. they will discuss north korea, they will discuss china trade. then next month in may, the president and the first lady go to tokyo. they will meet with abe and they will witness the enthronement of the country's new emperor. that's quite something. coming up, friend of the president for decades, his spiritual adviser. i want to know what the president's plans are for this easter weekend. we will ask her after this.

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stuart: it is good friday, and we have a special guest with us.

pastor paula white. she is the spiritual adviser to the president and has been a personal friend to the trump family for nearly 20 years. she joins us now. pastor white, what are the president's plans this easter weekend? >> it's so good to be with you, stuart. he will be at mar-a-lago with his family and i'm sure celebrating the death, burial and resurrection of our lord and savior jesus christ along with millions of us, as we are in good friday today. so happy good friday and easter weekend. stuart: pastor, forgive me for pressing this, but is the president overtly religious? does he go to church often? >> the president absolutely has a deep conviction of faith and has had that ever since he was confirmed as a presbyterian, grew up in church. i'm sure there's times in his life like many people, i mean, he went to church regularly of course with dr. vincent peale but there are times people go on

easter and christmas and other times. as a pastor, i wish people went three times a week but that's life. stuart: can i put it like this? i don't think the president wears his religious heart on his sleeve. i think that's accurate, is it? >> that's very accurate. i mean, especially in the position he is now. it is something that is deep and personal and as you said, stuart, i have known this family and served to them as a spiritual adviser and pastor for almost 18 years now. so it is something those of us who know him, especially close up and personal, know how important his faith is to him. stuart: a change of subject dramatically, if i may. i think you are leading the charge on opportunity zones, if i'm not mistaken. we have the hud secretary on the show, he's part of that, but you are leading this charge. can you give me a status report? >> that's quite a reach there but i am part, i'm leading it with the faith people.

so the opportunity zones is just with the stroke of a pen, our president continues to win. when he did the 2017 of course tax cuts and job act, he created a vehicle for opportunity zones which reaches to the most distressed, and these opportunity zones are enabling and allowing private citizens to use private money and vehicles that will help in distressed areas, our public communities, over 8700 of them and that will reach urban, suburban, tribal, rural america, and he cares. he cares so much about every american. he wants to lift up the economic opportunity for everyone. we see that even as we approach tax season, how millions of people found more money than they have ever seen, we see all time low unemployment, almost 5500 jobs are added daily so this is just another opportunity for businesses and for infrastructure --

stuart: what does christianity deliver to opportunity zones? what does christian faith deliver to the push for opportunity zones? >> it's a great question. it's really all faiths that are involved here because we recognize that faith leaders are really the grassroots, people who go to church or synagogue or those of us that attend to people every day. we have the heartbeat plus it is our mandate that we take care of the poor, that we not just give a man a fish, but help him learn how to fish. so this is an empowerment vehicle that allows that to happen. so we work with government leaders, state, local, all the way up to the white house, to see these opportunity zones and people in distressed areas live out a better life. i mean, we -- ben carson was just in vicksburg, mississippi. stuart: he was on the show, too. >> he's great. stuart: heartbreak, here we come. i want to wish you a blessed

easter weekend. we thank you very much for being with us today. thank you. >> thank you so much. stuart: sure thing. more "varney" after this. how do you determine the durable value of a business in the transportation industry without knowing firsthand the unique challenges in that sector. coming out here, seeing the infrastructure firsthand, talking with the people behind the numbers creates a different picture. . . . ♪

stuart: it is easter weekend and i'm going to ask my colleague ashley who is not -- ashley: you're stuttering away here. i'm not particularly religious person. stuart: i know that. ashley: enjoy the weekend with my wife, visiting city, hopefully it will not rain and look for chocolate x. stuart: wash for ashley webster parading up and down. lizzie, what are you going to do? liz: trying to find easter eggs

i hid last year. i think i hid them at ashley's house. stuart: if you find them you give them to me on monday morning. lizzie, you're all right. liz: happy easter. neil, it's yours. neil: stuart, thank you very, very much. markets are closed as stuart has been telling you here but the mueller report is out and now in washington very much open for business doing what is next. we're already hearing jerry nadler who runs the house judiciary committee he wants to subpoena those documents including those with the redactions so he has everything. he says, in the clear day of light we should have all that stuff. that differ as little bit from his views in the past. i want to juxtapose those two points of jerry nadler. look at this. all right. take my word, we had that i will show it in a bit here. meantime we have former justice department official under bush 43 jay christian adams. who s