go. if you can get it out. liz: back to you. >> okay. what a present takes -- presentation by our president in the rose garden. neil, it is yours. neil: we're trying to see what happens in the dow as it melts down. not as bad things were a little bit earlier. down 270 points on the news, the president wants to update with iran not only going after the oil, who buys it on the global markets, even in the so-called black markets. petrochemicals. anything that touches on and needs oil as part of that rational. so you're hearing a lot of petrochemical related commodities are getting hit on the chin very hard here. that affects the price of metals how they're finished, petrochemical process with oil without getting too in the weeds

without a big drop in oil prices. offset of that, lizzie touched on this the possibility it would increase demand because things have gotten cheaper here. we're not seeing that yet. this sorts of flow on the belief that the administration is going after, not only iran as we said last week on the oil thing, but also those who do business with iran. the chinese are not buying it. germany, are not happily going along with it or formally doing that france also bucking this saying u.s. policy is one thing. to make it a global policy is quite another. so we're following that very, very closely. two key components within the dow, exxonmobil and chevron are disproportionally adding to this loss, down about 225 points. in the meantime, you have drama building on capitol hill with the white house at odds with

those in congress calling for the attorney general's head. all of this over his refusal to speak to the house judiciary committee. add it all up, you have a lot of concerns here that all these, are sort of combining to wallop stocks and investor confidence. get the read from robert charles, former assistant secretary of state on these developments. robert, when you're looking at what we're trying to do with iran, we might have a devil of a time getting other countries to comply, right? isn't that the issue? that, that effect could be limited? now that might actually stablize prices as the day ensues, but what do you think of all of that? >> you know i don't think it is new news that we're putting sanctions on iran and ramping them up. this waiver idea ramps the pressure up a little more. when you drop a rock in the pond you're not sure where the

ripples are going to go. i think frankly it's a lot along the line. it is interesting you also alluded to political pressures on the hill may be affecting the market. i ran a committee for five years. i will tell you as staff director and counsel, it is really unprecedented what we're witnesses over there. jerry nadler shut down all the republicans, literally shut them down, wouldn't hear them in a hearing. today they attempt to intimidate right out of the box a very straight shooting attorney general. i think what you're witnessing is not only adolescent. really abuse of discretion. the average american will take a deep breath. hopefully the average investor is as well. this is adolescent behavior. this is not appropriate. it may be an abuse of power. certainly unbecoming to the institution of congress. we need to get our ducks back in a row again, and start behaving more like responsible, frankly, cooperative leaders.

what the attorney general has done is above and beyond in terms of sharing information and yet, even a nearly unredacted report sits over there on the hill and democrats refuse to go read it really out after temper tantrum. this is not the way congress. not the way the average american wants their congress to behave. i am hoping house democrats realize that issuing subpoena after subpoena and trying to intimidate people is not the way to govern. neil: adds to the uncertainty in the markets here. most had assumed that after you know, barr's testimony, to the senate he would go along to the house. now of course kind of upped the ante in the house, didn't they, demanding that he be questioned by committee attorneys, not just those who are lawyers, who happen to sit on that panel. >> well -- neil: more to the point, i could he be very wrong on this i try to read between the lines. market's way oil issue

notwithstanding in iran, a far bigger factor i grant you, this issue some folks would die on the vine, linger over a few hearings in the a few weeks, maybe early part of the summer might not. i don't know whether that leads to anything more severe but this drama is not going away? >> i would have sort of alternate theory of the case. if i were looking for some degree of rationality behind what a very emotional house is doing right now i would say they're trying to undermine the credibility of this attorney general because they are not interested or they're not, they're worried about the report back that he may, that he may provide as to why this whole russia investigation was initiated. if you can undermined his credibility now, maybe that allows you going into 2020 have something to lean on later. i look at it from the point of view having had subpoena power. i have never seen so many subpoenas issued for so little reason. very often they're issuing to

people who volunteered to testify. why the attorney general didn't come it, was completely appropriate not to come, we don't put outside counsel of questioning a cabinet member for no reason. that's, that implies malfeasance and there is none here. you have entire judiciary committee supposedly composed of competent members of congress, everyone mo is lawyer. what are they say about their own capacity to question they simply, bait and switch. what they did, come be questioned by us. then at the last minute they flipped it around and said we're going to have outside counsel question you. it is unbecoming to the institution. i believe -- neil: some gone a little off tradition with judge kavanaugh and his accuser, they brought in someone expert at these issues to question here. that didn't deny the others to question here and the judge as well. but this is little weird here. >> it is unprecedented. >> where does it all go?

i will say, if they get you know they follow their temper tantrum to the end, they issue contempt, it doesn't go anywhere. it just looks like misbehavior on the part of an adolescent committee and frankly that of the chairman. i would like them to take a deep breathy about how it place out downstream. the average american looking at this does not feel good what they see. neil: average investor. robert charles. no matter where you are on this particular issue. republican or democrat or conservative, or liberals. i would say it many, many times. a good reminder, wall street abhors uncertainty. all of sudden we have a lot of uncertain developments, oil, syrian situation. nancy pelosi who assiduously avoided the "i" word, impeachment, out of nowhere bringing just that up moments ago. take a look. >> five of the six committees of jurisdiction have the potential

for subpoenas. they haven't all issued subpoenas but that is where we see some of that activity. as you probably know on articles of impeachment for president nixon article iii was that he ignored the subpoenas of congress. that he did not honor the subpoenas of congress. this is very, very serious. statements being made by the president of the united states has given a blanket statement that he is not going to honor any subpoenas is obstruction of justice. neil: all right. a little bumpy there. i think you get the gist of what she is saying. first time formally using impeachment as a possibility. laying the groundwork at the president's doorstep saying by his ignoring subpoenas and demand that his people testify, including by the way the attorney general of the united states, you know, that course is now set. is it? former cruz campaign pollster,

ted cruz campaign pollster i apologize, chris wilson, democratic strategist, roger fisk. roger is that taking a premature leap here? it is certainly among those issues sort of frazzling investors a little bit. should it be? >> first off, thanks so much for having me. i think what specifically triggered the reaction from the speaker was the attorney jess response to the question from representative crist about whether or not there had been communications from the special counsel to the attorney general expressing reservations or any kind of contention about how the attorney general was portraying the investigation in this four-page summary. the attorney general said there were none. then yesterday he explained at length that there were discrepancies, and there were issues. and i think when someone -- neil: she is arguing that he essentially perjured himself, right? >> and that is my point. you can have a broad pattern of

dishonesty but when someone does that to the institution you are the leader of, she looks upon it as responsibility where that is a very specific act that she can point to as breaking faith in the separation of powers. neil: all right. might be so. you guys are legal experts i'm not. all i know, chris wilson, is that the report did come out. people had a chance to read the 92% of it that was not redacted. and they can decide for themselves. did he overreach or not. far smarter people than i come to the conclusion he didn't take any undo leaps. others have said, obstruction is in the eye of the beholder. something that reports seemed to hint at but didn't make a final conclusion. i will leave people who know this stuff better to debate. what i'm wondering though is, has the train left the station for much longer, more involved, more acrimonious, possibly much more far-reaching hearings, even

impeachment hearings than 24 hours ago we thought possible? >> time will tell. i think the way the democrats are acting on the judiciary committee in the house is really, just throwing a temper tantrum as your last guest said. it is unfortunate the american public moved on this. there are numerous polls, i could cite three or four off the top of my head people just don't care anymore. they want congress to move on. they want washington to start talking about other things. we're at point nobody really cares about it anymore except for inside beltway press corps and liberal activities on twitter. the problem liberal activists on twitter motivating, democratic leadership of the house. neil: attorney general want to call his bluff, all right, i will meet with you, i'm very comfortable in my own legal shoes. i'm happy to take any and all questions. but not doing so, i can understand the reason, with separate lawyers doing the questions, i understand that.

but it just fires up both sides, right? >> it does. i think he proved very comfortable in his own legal shoes he said yesterday in frond of the senate. what he was walking into with nadler, whatever they brought in outside counsel was a p-r stunt. i don't blame barr at all. he stayed there yesterday. answers every question given to him. i think did so very emphatically. why walk in front of a committee where jerry nadler, cutting off mics of republican members of the committee. two weeks ago gets embarrassed by candace owens made him look like absolute moron. if i'm him i wouldn't want to go in front of that committee either. people on that committee should be most upset are democrat members who were basically being supplanted by outside counsel. what does that say when your own chairman doesn't have the confidence in you to sit there ask questions an hires other people to do that for you. neil: that as it may, i wonder, roger, if democrats have to be careful they could be

overplaying their hand, look zealous like republicans were going after bill clinton, came back to bite their heinies? >> they do need to be cautious. if you come into this with overpolitical agenda, that is not going to work well in the long run. this needs to be driven by the facts. but in the short term, the attorney general is doing a favor for the administration because he is serving himself up as very at track tiff target for criticism. a lot of his performance yesterday was odd. i yow! up with a very dough i can and kind of law and order gop. i never heard anyone talk about republican's feelings. the president felt like inquiry was not just. the president felt like he was under siege. i don't know when the whole thing with feelings came in. neil: talk about bob mueller's feelings? would he, if he was strongly feeling these obstruction issues that came up, 10 to dozen of them wouldn't he feel just as

strongly in his own feelings to say these are indictable? these are legal challenges that must be addressed? >> and i would love to see the reaction when attorney general holder went before the trey gowdy's and jason chafe gets of world said president obama feels like this is not an honest accusation. we're not going to answer it. people would lose their minds. it is not appropriate to say president can choose to fire someone accusations are being investigated he feels are dishonest. that is not how the justice system works. to justify firing someone because of someone's feelings that is not the gop i grew up with. neil: to justify firing the attorney general because he ended up releasing a report later that many wanted and mischaracterized they say mischaracterized is that where his -- >> it is clear to me the four page letter was driven by the

white house. some of the wording in there is so tortured. neil: you don't know that. you don't know that? >> i don't think attorney general barr would put in the phrase cooperation is defined tacit or express agreement. meaning unless people sat around the table in spring of 2016, this couldn't have been a conspiracy. that is extremely odd and high standard to try to reach to prove a pattern of behavior which is actually born out in the report. neil: i wish we had more time. you both feel passionately about this this is part of the debate. why people are getting a little concerned on this show, guys. we will try to avoid. >> thanks, neil. neil: we're done. i want to explain this, we cover this without getting knee deep into the politics and passions of conservatives versus passions of liberals. i don't think it will add anything more to our debate on this subject. what i do think matters is how this proceeds. if both sides are very strong in their views, that this needs to

be seen to the fullest from, from those views, in other words, democrats who are aggressively going to pursue every little angle in this report, republicans equally adamant to put it to bed, that is a prescription for not getting this settled anytime soon. now you might welcome that, depending on your passions. for now, the markets are saying we thought we dealt with those passions and they're passionately selling off in moment now, believing that maybe not add a little bit of an oil crisis in there, and it's a slippery slope, quite literally.

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>> i met virtually every major world leader in my role as vice president, as foreign relations chairman, over the last 30 years. that is not hyperbole. china is going to eat our lunch? come on, man. they're competition for us. neil: well the fact of the matter they are eating our lunch when it comes to trade, disproportionate trade imbalance. that is everything here. people were saying that about china 20 years ago when it was an economic asterisk. right now it is the fastest growing economy on the planet. at the rate it is growing, it is going to eclipse the gdp of the

united states, depending who you talk to anywhere within four to 10 years. so the vice president, former vice president downplaying that threat. you know this administration is not. the actual balance might be in between but it is probably elite to just dismiss china and its roll compared to us in the global community. sun microsystems cofounder scott mcnealy on all of that. what do you think, scott? >> i talked to a lot of ceos, nobody thinks that they're not a problem. they are an absolute challenge. it is an economic war. china is certainly fighting it. they actually map out their gameplan for all to see. they have their made in china 2025 platform that goes after 10 key industries. i suggest every ceo ought to find out if their company is in an industry being targeted by china. they plan to have 70% of all the products for all those industries made in china by the

year 2025, or 2030. the one they're really going after is a.i. 48% of all a.i. investments were made by chinese investors. neil: talking about artificial intelligence they by government edict to make the highest of priorities, right? >> absolutely. it is have lunch or be lunch. if i'm ceo it doesn't matter if jobs are taken by a competitor in the u.s. or one in china but you better pay attention to china. they don't play by the same fair, open rules we do with the rest of the world around tariffs, around market access, around intellectual property. i think the administration, i don't know any ceo who isn't just absolutely cheering trump on to try to figure out how to level that playing field because this is not a third world gdp anymore. this is not a third world nation we're dealing with here. you said it right. it is a massive gdp growing very, very fast rate, very

targeting at some very, very key industries of ours. neil: i just wonder there are a lot of u.s. allies who don't want to go public about this but we have them here, say things to that effect. sometimes we are not fans of the president's blunt style and approach to this. but we hope he succeeds on the china issue because they are throttling us on and if which let it go, we let our companies just sort of be slavish to whatever demands out of beijing, we're cooked. >> you look at huawei. huawei will be the -- any year now they will be the largest provider of cell phones. they're driving their telecommunications business and largest domestic market in the world. using that to basically dump into other markets and i think the real issue is, do we want splinter net. that is word you hear about, chinese controlled telecommunications world. then there is the orlando world

internet communications. neil: how did you deal with china back in earliest days with sun microsystem? they would like to do business here. it's a shared business. we like to see what you're doing. how did you handle that? >> well, early on the first internet in china was you built on sun. after they got going and they accessed all of technology and closed off their markets, twitter and facebook are not even allowed there, they fundamentally run their own technology now to go run the internet. they will just take it over and blow and go. if you look what huawei did, cisco, there has been a lot of issues around intellectual property theft and -- neil: in other words they get the best from u.s. or other interests, learn how they did it, do it, copy it, then those relationships go because they don't need them anymore? >> their targeted in the markets

they go after. they have got 10 very clearly identified industries they're going after in their 2025 plan. so it is not helter-skelter. i personally prefer governments to stay out of the businesses and i think the only choice the administration has is to go to aggressive bilateral conversations with all of our key trading partners and say, hey, if we, if you let for instance, their dell communications equipment or their a.i. into your marketplace you will end up being controlled. let's do more open, bilateral trade agreements between our companies. make sure we always have a larger market than our own domestic market to go after. because the chinese market is very, very difficult to crack. i advise lots companies, i tell them unless you're really big, don't even bother trying to get in there. if you do have to go in there they force you do to do a joint

venture. we don't do that when people come here to the united states. we're much more open. neil: lighthizer and others they're going to have a deal that is harkens back to the reagan days, you can trust and verify but other president, other administrations said or attempted same thing. they sign a piece of paper and verify part becomes very difficult? >> well, the challenge we have is, that we have elections every four years. neil: yeah. >> which i love and appreciate. they are just going to wait us out. they will wait out to get to the next the next administration may not have as much focus on development business, all the rest of it, may not pay attention to it, may bow, who knows what they will do. they will wait us out. neil: with joe biden doesn't seem to be a concern of is. so if the message to china would be, this guy might be a better guy to deal with? >> maybe they will rig the

election in his favor, who knows. neil: that was hillary clinton talk. real quick while i've got you, a lot of interesting developments with technology companies, many who are buying back their stock. record $100 million worth from apple. also hiking its dividend. they're obviously trying to appeal to their investors. this strategy, what do you make of it? >> well, i mean there is two perspectives on it. one shareholders do like to get return on their, on their investments so there is lots of investors who like that. there is another statement that says, oh, so the ceo has no good ideas how to invest at a higher return after tax return for my investors? where are your good ideas? there are two sides to that. i think, you know, a third perspective on that is maybe they're making a statement that the market is undervalued and doesn't see what they have in

the pipeline. then the growth facility. so it is, there are many ways to look at buybacks. i don't think they're terrible. neil: they can do with their money what they wish. thank you very much, scott mcnealy. i thought you would have a thing or two to say about it here. speaking of china talks back and forth. they talk about something being imminent in the very near future that would involve a meeting with our president, china's president. of course they talked about that before. we haven't seen that come to fruition. they are cobbling together something we're told, the administration is confident will be easily able to monitor. after this.

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neil: all right.

breaking news for you. stephen moore has withdrawn his name from consideration to fill a vacant federal reserve post. this follows on the heels of herman cain doing the same. so two prime candidates the president thought could serve sort of as bulls in a china shop called the federal reserve are out. the president among other things tweeting out that steve moore, a great pro-growth economist, truly fine person has decided to withdraw from the fed process. steve won the battle of ideas including tax cuts, deregulation, which produce prosperity for all americans. i asked steve to work with me towards future economic growth in our country. this fast-changing development here, many say well-expected. blake burman with more from the white house. reporter: fast is right, earlier today on the north lawn on the white house press secretary sarah sanders was asked about the status of steve moore, she basically said nothing had changed. moore himself this morning according to bloom per was there having a breakfast with some reporters there saying this morning he was all-in, that the

white house was all-in. that was just a few hours ago. you just read the tweet from president trump, just a few moments ago in which the president says that steve moore is no longer under consideration to join the federal reserve board of governors. important to note steve moore had not been officially nominated. that is because he was going through the background check and in that process there had been several questions raised, i shouldn't say in the process, while this had been a waiting itself to say whether or not moore would be nominated several questions were raised including about a potential lien on his house. there had been some comments, very controversial comments moore said in the past. also in recent days as it relates to women. there were questions as to whether or not he could make it through the process up on capitol hill. just a couple days ago senator joni ernst of iowa, a republican came out, said it is very unlikely she would be able to

vote for steve moore. as this started to go on, neil it, got to the point where it almost seemed inevitable, moore would not have the report, the support rather, from republicans up on capitol hill. remember the basic math here with no democratic support, if four republicans were to say no, that was it. that is exactly what happened to herman cain whose name was put out there by president trump. was going through the background check. never initially nominated took his name out. now you can add steve moore to that list as well. so where do we go from here? where does the white house go from here? there are two open seats for two people to join the federal reserve board of governors. the president thought he had this one wrapped up with steve moore, a close confidante of larry kudlow and someone who helped the president deliver his tax reform ideas during the campaign. then herman cain, someone who the president thinks alike with politically as well but now those two seats are open, it

could take quite some time to fill them. neil? neil: real quickly, blake, i remember mitch mcconnell said about the vetting process for these two gentleman, i think referring to herman cain and steve moore it, has to be more thorough. they just cannot be dumped on the senate, overtrivializing and paraphrasing what he is was saying, question was do your homework f we have grenades here we best be prepared for them. reporter: remember the timeline here. it was herman cain was about to be put up by the president first. there were the past allegations that had haunted him during the 2012 presidential campaign of alleged sexual misconduct. there were questions about whether or not he was partisan for an independent job like the federal reserve. that was kind of the warning. then steve moore was put up. you add this, negative story after negative story after negative story, lots of real questions with them, neil. and now you got to wonder, going

forward, whether or not this white house will put forth potential candidates for the federal reserve board of governors that might be close to them but maybe unvetted or folks who are going to get a very, very, very careful look before even names are leaked or put forward. neil: yeah, it is the world which we live, my friend. blake burman, thank you very be much those tuning in steve moore is out after two weeks being considered for the federal reserve. herman cain is out. what is interesting you heard reports how nicolas maduro was ready to leave the country but the russians stopped him. now reports surfacing that his inner circle met with the opposition party to try to do something about ending all of this peacefully without violence, and peaceful transfer of power that would let juan guaido assume the presidency and

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>> nobody is going to join maduro. >> translator: he doesn't have the audacity when the country is going through, people don't have enough food, that there is no not enough supplies he needs to support from cuban forces to give supplies to the armed forces to generate fear and persecution in our armed forces but he is not going to achieve this. neil: that was juan guaido with our trish regan last night, opposition leader, duly constitutionally elected leader of the country who cannot get into the presidential palace. he is referring to nicolas maduro holding on by his fingernails right there. nicolas maduro himself is out to fight back.

he called for military unity. getting that, keeping that has been one of the things kept him in power. we have reports yesterday that the russians were trying to prevent him from leaving the country as part of an agreement to get a peaceful transition of power. then other reports that his people actually met with guaido's people. a former venezuelan u.n. diplomat is with us at the security council who rescinded in protest over human rights abuses under president maduro. sir, very good to have you. >> pleasure to be here on your show, neil. thanks so much for having me. neil: thank you for coming. what do you make of this and how likely this could end peacefully? the fact that reports that we have the two sides met all albet the top representatives is promising development, is it not? i sure you herd the saying you can vote yourself into socialism but you have to shoot

your way out of it and what has happened venezuela regrettably i don't think will be an easy way out. there are so many pillars of support and different layers of complexity lear. so as you fairly mentioned of course the military have been supporting maduro. but maduro is only one person. we have to talk about the maduro regime because the military is also part of that regime. we would do nothing by changing one person to replace another and get the whole system around. at this point in time venezuela has become one of the major epicenters of international terrorism. we have fourth quarter, eln, hezbollah, have already taken control of 40% of the territory. so i really honestly don't see how we can have an election. we have the major powers reflecting mirror imaging what happens in syria. we have russia, iran, turkey.

now you add to that deadly cocktail, china, and of course you know, you see cuba. 22,000 agents infiltrating the armed forces and other public institutions. they're running the show. neil: ambassador, what would happen then to prevent the crisis you fear? and history shows you're right, that normally is what happens, if the generals start bolting from maduro? now they haven't in any significant numbers. maybe something is happening today that i'm missing but unless that happens he is not going anywhere, right? >> well, as you, i don't know if you're aware of course mr. abrams had said that you mentioned traditional political opposition was negotiating with maduro's regime or on the side of maduro's regime. what i can tell you my deepest concern would be to come into

the wrong agreement because, to have a, what they called now a possible government of unity and have the criminals of chavez sitting on table, you are not able to give amnesty to drug traffickers, crimes against humanity, violation of human rights, grand corruption, money laundering. this guy is compromised to the neck. so what i believe our strongest support, i'm talking about the people that have been completely repressed and are being killed by weaponnization of starvation, controlled, social control by controlling the blackouts and running water and so on, they're actually out in the street for survival. neil: right. >> so i don't think this is going to change. our strongest support like the trump administration is to get harder sanctions, to be able to maybe, article iii under

helms-burton a major embargo in cuba. try to to deter pillars of support from outside. we need stronger action from the international community. if you allow me, what i think is the most important part is international humanitarian intervention. we need to save the civilian population. neil: that is not happening yet. ambassador, hope springs eternal. we'll watch it closely, sir. thank you for taking the time to chat with us. >> thank you so much, neil, the ambassadors with referring to one elliot an programs, he is our -- abrams, dealing with both sides in venezuela. he is is the one who cobbled together this meeting we're told of both sides, senior most officials of nicolas maduro or juan guaido. we don't know where the meeting was held but he orchestrated that. very latest on what happened to steve moore, why he has gone.

he decided to quit his battle to get on the federal reserve. the president accepting that grudgingly. steve moore will be my special guest on "your world" today 4:00 p.m. eastern time. his side of the story on the second key figure from the trump white house to consider a post on the federal reserve and not get it. more after this. with accident forgiveness they guarantee your rates won't go up just because of an accident. smart kid. indeed. are you in good hands?

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neil: if you've been following the political landscape here virtually all the democratic candidates to a man or whom have been saying tax cuts were a big mistake. disproportionate went to the wealthy and big corporations and want to dial them back, sum entirely. even paying for infrastructure giving some of the corporate tax cuts back. former 800 flowers ceo chris mccann is looking at all of that. you're not the former. i apologize for that. >> news i don't know? neil: when i rely on that i'm in trouble. let me get your take on what that message is, that it is a one-time nicotine high, then it is over with? >> i don't believe that at all, neil. when the tax cuts went into effect we got a one-time benefit q2, fiscal 18.

that helped our shareholders out of course. what really is nice, lowered the overall federal tax rate to effective rate 25%. neil: versus what was it before? no low 30s. freeing up more cash we're using to invest in the business. that is one of the reasons why we're getting accelerated growth this year. why we raised guidance in the last quarter. why we raised guidance this quarter. why we're distancing ourselves from the competition. we're investing into the business. neil: i think that, i try not to look at this through a political prism, to call tax savings, one time savings, had the tax not happened, that is assuming you would be paying higher rate next year and higher rate next year, that savings exists year after year unless and until it is chained. then they cite apples of the world will buy back $100 billion of their own stock? who does that benefit when they increase dividend, you say? >> apple is lot different shape than we are.

we don't have $100 billion to be spending. same thing, they're returning money to shareholders. shareholders use that to invest in other companies. it is a nice cycle of growth. we see the tax cut clearly benefited this country in spurring on economic growth we're seeing today. look where consumer confidence is. neil: without the tax cut do you think you would be investing to the degree you are? >> no. we would have had to dial it back. it gave us more flexibility to utilize your cash to, invest into growing our businesses. we're investing in new customer acquisition, specifically into our two lead brands, harry and david, one 800 nows.com. -- 1-800 flowers.com. we used our customers to other smaller brand, cheryl's cookies popcorn factory, 1-800 baskets. neil: on verge of biggest day of the year. >> biggest day for floral business, mother's day. neil: what do fathers get? >> on the flower totem pole yes.

lots of food. we have a nice steak business. a nice wine business with harry and david. mother's day is important holiday for us. mothers are so important in the role they play in society. neil: you guilt everybody out. are you really going to forget? >> guilt is a good motivator better to do that than your mom. neil: especially noteworthy this year versus last year? into. >> what we've done last couple years we built a celebratory growth system. we took from 3% to 4%. we guided 5%. we raised guidance after previous quarter 7 to 8. two days ago we raised our guidance to 7 to 8% growth rate. we're investing in the customer file. this gives us good sustainable growth going forward. neil: that is well-putt. chris mccann, the present big cheese. i apologize for that. >> thank you. neil: put it in perspective that

money thaw save, that lower tax rate exists each year, every year. not a one-time shot. you have that extra money to play with each year, every year. that is not right or left. that is just a fact. more after this. patients that i see that complain about dry mouth, they feel like they have to drink a lot of water. medications seem to be the number one cause for dry mouth. dry mouth can cause increased cavities, bad breath, oral irritation. i like to recommend biotene. biotene has a full array of products that replenishes the moisture in your mouth. biotene definitely works. it makes patients so much happier.

neil: all right. we're down with oil collapsing here for the time being, and that has affected the dow and of course, the s&p 500 weighted in the energy sector, two big

components within the dow, chevron and exxonmobil both taking it on the chin as we sort of expand these sanctions against iran to include not only oil, but petrochemicals and also go after countries that deal with iran. iran saying they won't take all this lying down, or any threatening actions from fellow opec members, that could be an interesting development that might reverse the oil slide, because it would prompt a big supply disruption. we don't know whether that would be the case and it certainly hasn't evidenced itself in the oil markets. that's just out there coming from the oil minister of iran. also, we told you a little while ago that steve moore, the president's choice to join the federal reserve, well, he's not joining. controversies including writings that go back decades, views that have been debunked by many of his critics who seized on this as a chance to go after yet another trump choice for the federal reserve after successfully getting herman cain to call it quits, he's calling

it quits. he's going to be my special guest, steve moore, on "your world." i'll get his thoughts on this whole process and what happened. obviously a lot going on. the independent womens forum, real clear politics co-founder. tom, what do you make first off of the steve moore situation? i don't think it's a big shock but it is unusual for a president to have two dom kne n to the same institution defrocked. >> i can't remember a time, you know this stuff better than i do, neil, where federal reserve board picks have been this scrutinized, this politicized. that's probably just a fact of the era we're living in with trump and the resistance and all of that, where there doesn't seem to be any area of the government, any position within the government, where democrats won't take a scalp if they can get one. steve moore obviously had a long record and the longer this

waited, the more it was dug up. death by a thousand cuts. people even thought that yesterday or the day before that moore was going to go through, so it's a little bit surprising but i guess he was losing support on capitol hill as well. neil: all right. patrice, where do you think this goes now in the search for, you know, more federal reserve nominees? many people harken back to the individual issues, either of these men had, to their very contrarian views on the federal reserve. one, even if we need one and the way the federal reserve goes about conducting policy. what do you think? >> yeah. i think it's going to come down to, you know, past writings, what people have said in the past, but also, you know, maybe a less aggressive stance on the federal reserve in general. i think the next candidates could be people who are going to be less aggressive than we saw with herman cain and with steve moore. i think the president may have

been looking for an ally in terms of the kind of policy that makes sense but you know, it's going to be harder and especially if folks are coming with the background, particularly both of these people had tv backgrounds where they probably said a lot of things they might have regretted today but it's going to be hard, you will probably want to pull someone more from the private sector who maybe does not have that paper trail. neil: i apologize, breaking news cutting this sthorhort. i appreciate you taking the time to join us. we are also looking at a pileup on bill barr, the attorney general of the united states, who did not speak today to the house judiciary committee. some saying we should hold him in contempt, we should subpoena him, we should do god knows what. others are saying just resign, already. it's gotten that heated and nasty. the white house responding look, we don't want -- he doesn't want to appear, he doesn't have to appear. hillary vaughn following it all on capitol hill. hey, hillary. reporter: well, fox news obtaining a letter written from white house attorney emmitt flood to attorney general bill

barr on april 19th, citing serious concerns with the special counsel's report and taking a major issue that mueller did not reach a decision on obstruction of justice. this letter in part reads quote, the special counsel and his staff failed in their duty to act as prosecutors and only as prosecutors, and earlier on capitol hill, democrats had a bone to pick with attorney general bill barr after he was a no-show at today's hearing in the room right behind me. house judiciary committee democrats chowed down on fried chicken in protest and put a plastic chicken in bill barr's place. democrat lawmakers were playing chicken with barr over who asked the questions. they wanted their staff to do it instead. >> [ inaudible ]. reporter: house judiciary

chairman nadler threatening to charge the attorney general with contempt for not showing up. >> we will make one more good faith attempt to negotiate and to get access to the report that we need, and then if we don't get that, we will proceed to hold the attorney general in contempt and go from there. reporter: house speaker nancy pelosi accusing barr of lying to congress, and she also when asked if that would call for jail time for barr, she didn't rule it out. >> he lied to congress. if anybody else did that, it would be considered a crime. reporter: a doj spokesperson responding to pelosi's remarks, calling them baseless attacks that are irresponsible and reckless. neil: hillary, thank you very, very much. getting back to this lying to congress issue hillary outlined, at issue is whether barr was truthful when he said the attorney -- the counsel, robert mueller, had not had any issues

with his characterization of the mueller report itself, when in fact just two days after he received it, mueller had sent him a letter saying he had serious issues with that. does that represent perjury, does that represent something more sinister. again, democrats are opening up a firing line on this. others are saying it's much ado about nothing. let's get the read from former justice department deputy director of public affairs, ian pryor. one thing that seems certain now is regardless of how people feel on this subject, it's not going away. the hearings aren't going away, the nastiness isn't going away, and if anything, the back and forth and lawsuits on each side indicate it drags into the summer. what do you think? >> it's certainly not going away. look, democrats didn't get what they wanted from the mueller investigation, from the results of it, and they are trying to continue to make controversy and the media is playing right along. you know, i think there is a lot

of criticism from the media on barr's testimony. i think he did a good job. it's clear he knows more about the law, about the department of justice and the role of the attorney general, than the folks that were up there grandstanding and trying to get their points with the press. neil: i do wonder, the chicken thing they did, the guy took body blows for more than five hours in senate testimony. his issues seem to be why the house judiciary committee would suddenly employ, you know, a special lawyer or lawyers to question him when in fact, two-thirds of that body consist of lawyers but the chicken thing didn't jive with me. what do you think? >> yeah. yeah. that's exactly right. this is the house of representatives. that's a campaign stunt that you pull when, you know, when you're running for congress. barr was up there at the senate yesterday testifying all day. he obviously is willing to go testify but when the house changes things up and says oh, no, we're going to have our staffers question him, this is

the attorney general of the united states. there's a precedent here. you don't have staffers question in oversight hearings. you have the actual members of congress. it's their job, it's not the staff's job. so then to change it up i think barr did the absolute right thing in not going there and not setting the precedent you can just haul cabinet officials and have staff question them like it's some kind of investigation. neil: you know, ian, it's more from whether russia, you know, was colluding with the trump administration, that part seems to be settled. i stress seems to be settled, to what did barr know and when did he know it, what did he know of these concerns of mueller and when did he relay it. indications are when he was asked whether he had heard or had any problems from mueller and indicated no such thing, when in fact he was in receipt by that point of a letter from mueller outlining, you know, his concern. is that to you misrepresenting at a minimal -- at a minimum what's going on to the extreme

as democrats are saying per juring himself? >> no, absolutely not. i looked back and looked at the exchange between charlie crist and bill barr. crist asked a rambling questions about news reports and what were the news reports referring to and barr said i don't know, because he doesn't know what the news reports are referring to based on anonymous sources. then he went forward and said i presume that they are probably concerned that i didn't put enough out there. concerns that were certainly alleviated when a few weeks later, he put the whole report out there. so this whole issue is really much ado about nothing. the report is out there. everybody can read it for themselves. neil: fair enough. that's a very good point. again, i think just to be clear, when he originally said he wasn't aware of mueller taking issue with any of his top line findings, when in fact he had a letter saying as such, it is a moot point if the report's out there, people can judge for themselves, but do you think that's going to be a sticky point and just widen this at least for democrats? >> you know, i think democrats are going to seize on anything

they can. especially when you have a presidential election coming up and you have every presidential candidate out there calling on him to resign. of course, just because he doesn't agree with their point of view, he's not going to resign. he works for the executive branch. he doesn't work for congress. so they growing to keep this issue alive until the next issue and that may be when mueller testifies, and they will find some little crumb there and they will blow it out of proportion and try and appease their base and get some credit with their friends in the media. neil: ian, thank you very, very much. that's what we're waiting to hear, to ian's point, when mueller will testify, because that obviously will be the one that will draw international attention and whether it puts it to bed, i can tell you now that given the lawsuits back and forth and what i'm hearing from people far smarter than i am, this at the very least extended what was supposed to be maybe politically based, maybe substantively based hearings from a few weeks or a few months, maybe even longer. more after this.

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now that's simple, easy, awesome. xfinity xfi gives you the speed, coverage and control you need. manage your wifi network from anywhere when you download the xfi app today. -- humanitarian crisis at the border. the department at the request of our front line officers and agents, need additional resources to respond. in march, cbp apprehended and

encountered over 103,000 migrants crossing without legal status, the most in one month for over a decade. two days in the last month we had over 5,000 people cross our border without organization in one 24-hour period. neil: all right. that provides the background for why the administration was requesting $4 billion more in security funding. kevin mcaleenan, acting head of the homeland security cabinet, department, saying that today at a committee meeting attended by west virginia republican senator shelley moore-capito. senator, did he explain that request for additional emergency funds and where they go? >> yes, he did. he talked a hot abolot about th humanitarian issue. they are also having difficulty with meeting the demands of the work force. the cbp cannot patrol the border and take care of the influx of families at the same time. it's resulting in unfortunately

catch and release and that i think is a dangerous thing for the country. it's not fair to those trying to get in here legally and it really, i think, needs to be stopped. neil: all right. the fact the growing number of democrats are now agreeing that something has to be done at this border, it is getting a little out of control, have you talked to some of your democratic colleagues who agree, whether they agree with the additional funding request, part of it, all of it, what? >> well, you know, they don't really agree with the funding request which for the life of me, i don't understand. they acknowledge that there's a crisis but they don't want to give the president any kind of a win which they perceive this would be. quite frankly, if we don't get a handle on this, because we're not, you know, i would like to see us change our asylum rules. that's where the key is. so that you can, you know, if you claim asylum, your case will be heard in a timely fashion. we also need to be able to keep families together but also adjudicate their claims quicker so they can have the answer that they need. we can't turn them back because

they are claiming asylum and we have a process that we have to go through. neil: i'm sorry, senator, just to be clear, the democrats with whom i have been chatting are afraid this is his roundabout way, referring to the president, of getting more funding for that wall of his. can you answer that? >> the wall is part of it, if it's a comprehensive system. he's asking for another $5 billion for the wall which i plan to support. however, we know that the wall is not the only solution. neil: but it's $4.3 billion, it's not for that? >> no. there's no wall money in there at all. neil: insiunderstood. switching gears, if you don't mind, the justice department which is dealing with a lot of issues at the same time, to put it mildly, separately is looking at overturning pretty much all of the affordable care act known as obamacare on legal grounds. this is a novel issue but they are looking at the legal ras

rationale, the funding mechanism, which means it's not legally enforceable anyway. your thoughts? >> i think obviously we will wait and see what happens with the court case. i think that, you know, the scare tactic of you're going to lose your insurance and you're going to lose your ability to have insurance if you have pre-existing conditions is just a smokescreen i think, which i don't think would be the result of this court case. i think we've got good solutions here, small business plans, selling across state lines, shorter term insurance plans, more choice. we're working on reducing the cost of prescription drugs. all of these issues i think will help. but you know, we're going to have to wait and see what happens with the court case. but i don't think in any event that the court is not going to throw off millions of people off of insurance the next day. we'll have time to transition. neil: senator, you probably heard this, steve moore has taken his name out of contention to go on the federal reserve. maybe he was just reading the writing on the wall that the support wasn't there, particularly among female

senators. >> right. neil: were you going to be a yes vote, no vote? >> i expressed deep concerns about some of the writings that stephen moore had done, particularly about women. i think that we're looking at the whole person now and i think it was very -- making his seat, he obviously felt he wasn't going to make it and wasn't going to go through it. neil: thank you very much. good chatting with you. a lot more coming up with the dow paring some of the early losses. oil still the story, because the administration is going after iran in a much bigger way than we once thought. not only trying to get the oil off the market but get off the market the people that are buying that oil from off the market. after this.

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neil: all right.

where are those chinese trade talks going? hard to say. we do know that asian stocks for four months running now have been going up. the data we have been getting out of china is showing the pickup in activity. could that embolden a trade deal or slow one down? let's get the latest from edward lawrence. reporter: trade sources are telling us the chinese have now opened up dates on president xi jinping's calendar to come to washington concerning a trade deal with the u.s. the dates they opened are in mid-june, before the g-20 summit. this signals the chinese believe they are close enough to a trade agreement to schedule a trip to washington. the chinese sources say they were happy with the rolloff offer on the table. as the chinese reach certain benchmarks following through with protecting intellectual property as well as meeting other parts of the agreement, the tariffs would roll off. treasury secretary mnuchin says after the talks in washington next week, he will be able to recommend to the president if they can make a deal or not officially. white house press secretary sarah sanders says they will let

the talks play out starting on may 8th. again, these are all positive moves in a positive direction. we'll see what happens next week. neil: thank you very, very much. meantime, take a look at the markets. the dow down 159 points right now, at its worst level of the day on what's been happening with oil and oil-related prices. we will get to that in just a second. but focus on technology as well. a lot of people thought apple would give up a big chunk of the gains yesterday. that has not really happened to a measurable degree. there is a race back and forth. apple, amazon, microsoft and alphabet have been making competing bids on who has a trillion dollar market cap concern. the market might be getting a bit too frothy, maybe a little ahead of itself. what do you mean? >> well, i think it's interesting, neil, when you consider the market relative to perhaps the shiller index which

looks at relative value, there's an argument for that, but certainly if you look through the prism of historic p.e.s for these companies, there's a counterargument that suggests that we're not even at the frothiest for many of them. it's certainly the economy is strong, it's going to continue it looks like throughout the rest of the year and early parts of next year in terms of visibility, which bodes well for these companies. i think the only headwind would be the argument about europe and whether or not europe's slowdown is going to be material to these companies. i don't think it's going to be impactful. so we could see an interesting situation where you could have many that cross the finish line but within the next three years, even if there's a market correction, at the trajectory of earnings that these are headed on, i expect that you will see if not four, perhaps three out of the four that are in the

trillion dollar market cap which is a phenomenal accomplishment for these organizations. neil: a lot of them are doing darned near conservative things and that is either introducing or hiking dividends that they have, buying back stock that has already prompted finger pointing from democrats who said that's what we feared with this tax cut, they would just enrich themselves. we can go back and forth about the wisdom of that, because in fact, people do very well in pension funds and the like that own these shares when they do just that, but what do you think of the argument that a lot of them, apple included, are finding a way to bring in investors who typically might not buy a technology company? >> well, first of all, on the first argument, i think democrats are going to look at any way to shoot down the tax plan and certainly that's another way to get at it. i think it's been certainly beneficial for the economy. these companies have benefited.

and when organizations like these go and buy back stock, that affects and benefits overall the economy because it's just more net wealth that's available to investors. i think that it's interesting in terms of trying to reach out and broaden the investor base. i think they are doing that. there's a lot of money that's spent by these organizations on trying to communicate their brand and translate their brand down to a consumer level not only for purchasing but also from an investment confidence and investment i think integrity standpoint. i think they can certainly do more. you're beginning to see retail investors i think, you know, i guess main street investors start to re-look and look at getting into the market. all benefits these technology companies because they're so well-known. i think that's an advantage, no question about it. neil: yeah, it is. eric, thank you very much. all right.

for those of you just tuning in, i will bring you up to speed on not only the markets but on steve moore. the president's choice to join the federal reserve board now joining herman cain. he's not, saying in a letter to the president i was honored and grateful you asked me to serve. your economic policies have been of spectacular success for american workers. he goes on to say that your confidence in me makes what i'm about to say much harder. i'm respectfully asking that you withdraw my name. the unrelenting attacks on my character have become untenable for me and my family. three more months of this would be too hard on us. the president accepting it. "wall street journal" and dan heninger. what do you think of this? >> it's terribly unfair to steve moore. i have known steve for a long time and yeah, there were attacks on his character and the fact of the matter is that steve moore is all about public policy and economic arguments. if you've ever -- neil: a nerd. >> he's a nerd's nerd. he lives, breathes and dreams

economic policy. i think he would have been a good contribution to the federal reserve board and to have him taken down this way by the beltway and the beltway press is just terribly, terribly unfair. neil: these are the times in which we live. >> it is. neil: we are riding on words written and spoken many decades ago. i don't know how you feel, i think mitch mcconnell said the white house has to get a little better with this vetting process, not expressing support or concern for either herman cain or steve moore, but knowing full well, the savvy politician he is, these issues would come up. >> i guess so but what exactly do we mean by that? with steve moore, they dug into his divorce records and his relationship with his wife and his family, and i mean, there's no reason -- neil: they dug up some stuff. >> they dug up a lot of stuff. neil: maybe he was upsetting the

apple rt cart. both men, if you think about it. >> this was the establishment circling the wagons. they didn't want an outsider to come in. i must add one more thing. i think the white house and president trump are indeed paying a price here for president trump's relentless public attacks both on the federal reserve and federal reserve chairman jerome powell. you can make what you want of the nature of those attacks, but if you are going to play that game, if you are going to get into battles like that with washington, washington is going to find ways to fight back. i think that's what they have done here with herman cain and steve moore. you want to attack us, then try to send up a nominee to the federal reserve board. neil: what if it was a vanilla nominee, would he or she still deal with the same issues? >> on that point, i think the president should quickly and immediately indeed appoint a heavyweight to the federal reserve board. he should appoint someone like shelton, a respected monetary

economist who has written on this subject for "wall street journal." i think she agrees by and large with the president's position on these things. but he should not hesitate to go back and nominate someone -- neil: don't you worry that those who question the wisdom of, you know, pavlovian hikes in rates when the economy picks up, the president did have a point about that and in retrospect, the fed did overshoot things. >> i think it is in president trump's nature not to back down. he has a point of view, as i said, i think he paid a price for the public attacks on jerome powell, but he does want to get a dissenting voice in there and he should step up and indeed, nominate someone, probably with greater economic credentials, at least cross that hurdle. judy shelton would certainly qualify. neil: what are you doing these days? you like your gig. >> i like my gig, yeah. neil: i would be remiss, the

bill barr situation. i try not to get into the politics of these things. democrats say he should resign, didn't serve himself well, he lied, saying he didn't know of any criticism by mueller on his findings of the report. i do have a sense, stepping way back from all of this and hearing both sides just on this show, this is not going to end any time soon. hearings that maybe some thought would end in the early summer, i think are going to drag out way into the summer, maybe beyond. hearings beget revelations, revelations beget more hearings, demands for more witnesses, more subpoenas. i'm wondering how that plays out. >> i think there are two events coming up that are going to intervene in the scenario you described, which is entirely accurate. this is never going to stop, these hearings and investigations and so forth. but there are two events. one, recall that attorney general barr said it was his intention to investigate the

surveillance, he called it at the time spying, surveillance of the trump campaign during the transition by possibly the obama administration. two, justice department inspector general michael horowitz is expected to release his report soon on the conduct of the fbi during this period. neil: i forgot about that. you're right. that's going to be a big deal. >> this could incriminate some democrat, possibly some members of the obama administration, and i think what's going on here is they're trying to delegitimize attorney general barr ahead of this material coming out, because it could be a real problem for them. neil: can't people see through the political subterfuge and almost professional wrestling nature of this? >> i think they do. i think the public at this point, you know, the public has watched so much of this now, we all kind of considered ourselves insiders who have to explain it. we're getting to the point, neil, where the general public is as sophisticated about some of this politics as those of us who spend our daily lives with it.

they can see that politics is being played here. the democrats i think have to make some calculation about what they think the political upside for them long-term is in pushing this. neil: what about risk to the president if he fights them at every legal pass, saying you can subpoena me up the yin-yang, i'm not going to keep throwing people at you to torture like you did my attorney general. this could get nasty on both sides. >> i know it's not the president's style. he likes to be the public face of these battles. but if it were me, i would turn it over to the lawyers, let them fight it through the legal system, the courts. just let it kind of go away, go dormant, let the democrats fight with his lawyers rather than taking it on personally himself, because i think the democrats do want donald trump to be the raging bull. his base loves it but they want that middle, the voters, to

become uncomfortable with the trump personality going into the election. neil: wouldn't that have already happened? >> well, you know, he's got some accomplishments. he's got the strong economy to run on, he's making that case. neil: you could make an argument to your point that he would be doing much better if not for that personality, those quirks. >> i would make that argument. if he would just dial it back 25% or 30%, i think he's on his way to re-election. but you know, he feels no one defends him. the beltway press, the media is constantly attacking him and he feels nobody at that level is fighting back so he becomes his own spokesman and spinmeister. neil: he does indeed. he's not entertaining a role on the federal reserve. that could change. i don't know. we would not want to lose him, though. that's probably a good thing. we have been exploring all of this back and forth on what's going on here on capitol hill. we are going to explore that and certain tie-ins to the summer of

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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. neil: oil is going down because we are racheting up the pressure on iran. the administration now sees a lot of sanctions waivers that could expire and soon, wants to stop doing business with iran, have our friends stop doing business with iran, have everyone he can think of stop buying oil from iran and he's just lately expanded that to petrochemicals and a host of others. the countries don't comply, then what? a good many of them, including china, have no intention of complying. who better to get a read of this than the smartest oil guy i

know, phil flynn. phil, what do you think? what happens now? >> you know, i think that a lot of countries are going to be afraid to buy oil from iran and petrochemicals because they don't want to deal with president trump. donald trump is serious and if anybody has learned anything about this president, when he says he's going to do something, he will do it. so you can buy oil from iran, but you do so at your own risk. and it's very possible that if anybody runs afoul of these sanctions, they will get hit pretty hard by the trump administration with big sanctions, a lot of money out of their pocket. i don't think a lot of them are going to want to take that risk. neil: so what happens? >> i mean, listen, right now in the short term, the market is prepared for the loss of this iranian oil from over a year, right? the other buyers of iranian oil, they knew this was coming, the prices were going down. we saw the price of oil rise up over the last couple of months. that in part was because of these sanctions. now that we're at that point, the market's holding back

because they look at inventories in the u.s. last week, they saw a big build and are assuming they will be able to get through the next couple weeks without any major problems because there's plenty of supply. that could change very quickly, neil. you know, u.s. demand for oil is really going to ramp up in the next couple weeks. refiners have a long way to go to get ready for the summer driving season that's going to be here before you know it. they will be using a lot of oil. so even though we are calm today, that could change very quickly. neil: i don't know about these travel surveys that a record number of americans plan to travel and use their car to do so over the summer from memorial day to labor day. obviously that's the demand equation. airlines are saying similar thin things, the whole 737 max issue notwithstanding. that's a lot of demand, so much supply. which wins out here? >> i think they're right. look at the economy. it's doing great.

consumer confidence is strong, people are making more money. you know, it's been years before they have had more money in their pockets. they are going to want to travel this summer so i am looking for a record-breaking travel summer. now, one area that we have been worried about has been diesel demand. it has been down a little bit the last couple weeks. some people are worried that that's a sign that the u.s. economy is slowing. i don't believe it. i think it has a lot to do with the flooding in the midwest. farmers can't get in the field, are not using as much diesel so that's going to change as well. but the economy is great. if you measure it in miles per gallon, it's going to be a record-breaking summer. neil: all right. we will watch it closely, phil flynn. thank you very much. we told you earlier that steve moore, the president's choice to join the federal reserve, has taken himself out of the running. and the president begrudgingly accepting that. steve moore is joining us on the phone right now. steve, what made you get to this point?

>> hi, neil. it was very disappointing this couldn't go forward but you know, the fact is that this sleaze campaign over the last three or four weeks was just really too tough for me and my family, and you know, we just decided it was much better for donald trump to select someone who doesn't have a 30-year paper trail. if people are looking at things i was writing 25 years ago and looking through my divorce records and it just was -- it was too difficult for us. i feel bad, because i feel like i've let a lot of people down, the president most of all. he was incredibly nice and kind when i told him about this, and he understood but you know, i'm bummed out, frankly, that i'm not going to be over there. neil: you are very good with numbers. even your critics would say that. maybe you were reading that support among republican senators might have been dicey,

that you might not have, you know, the number you need to get to the federal reserve, particularly among female senators. i was just talking to shelley capito of west virginia, who spoke highly of your credentials but had issues with some of the other stuff. >> that's exactly right. by the way, neil, these were so long ago, one of them was almost 19 years ago, i honestly don't remember writing it. but they were insulting to women and they were meant to be a joke, they were meant to be humorous, and they weren't. some of the writings back then were humorous but some of them were not. look, i understand some of the senators, many of them, were upset and concerned about those writings. they were meant to be jokes. people in the media took them literally but you know, one of the things i would say about this, though, is you know, the growth, the amazing growth that's going on in the economy, you saw the number that came out

today, neil, that shows big, big, big increases in productivity which is fantastic, productivity is going to lead to higher wages for workers. we are going to get another blockbuster jobs report tomorrow. this is an unprecedented, at least not in the last 20 years have we seen anything like this. i would make the case that growth is a women's issue. the increase in wages for women, the increase in jobs, women tend to be the ones in families that do the family finances. i know that's the case in my household. they are totally attentive to the economic security of the families. that's the most important thing. i thought when the president called me about this a month ago, we would have a vigorous debate about my economic ideas and that never really happened. it became a kind of character assassination and i think in part because the left understood they couldn't beat me on my economic ideas. neil: well, chuck schumer's comment on this first came

according to herman cain, now moore, referring to you, thank goodness neither were actually nominated. the only thing less funny than [ inaudible ] were offensive sexist jokes were the idea the president would even consider him for a seat on the federal reserve. now the president must nominate two serious candidates who will strengthen our economy. what do you think of that? >> well, look, this is kind of a victory lap for the left because they took me down with a smear campaign. you know, but it is interesting to me, go back to what i just said, they think my ideas were so, you know, out of the box and so, you know, so wrong, why didn't they debate me on the economic ideas? you remember i was on your show back late last year and i became very upset about the fed's policies of raising interest rates back in december. there were a lot of people who were doing that but i was one of the loudest voices. the people criticized me for being critical of the fed and of course, you remember what happened, the stock market fell

by 2500 points. the fed actually had to admit that people like myself and president trump and others were right and they corrected course. neil: then you've got -- you took a different tune, though, with the last 24 hours talking about the president, who wants the federal reserve to cut rates a lot, i think he said a full percentage point, resume quantitative easing, the one thing he criticized during the campaign, that refers to the federal reserve buying treasury bonds to bring interest rates down to darned near zero for much of the last decade. but you said you would not go along with it. you didn't think that was a good idea. did that raise any hackles out of the white house? >> no. you know, the president -- i often disagree with the president. more often i agree with him, but you know, the irony here, by the way, is people are saying i'm just going to be, you know, a puppet for trump over at the fed which is the furthest thing from the truth. look, do i think we should be cutting rates by one percentage

point, no. i do think we should probably -- the fed made a mistake yesterday. i think they should have canceled the december rate increase because i think that's held back the economy. i'm a little bit more -- neil: you would have advocated that they at least cut that rate. but not the status quo position they took? >> probably. look, when i -- had i gotten there, the fed has the advantage of having access to a lot of data that you and i don't have immediate access to so they might know something that i don't or that you don't. but yeah, i have been on record from the start, it was a mistake to raise the rate in december so reverse it. i do worry about whether we've got enough dollar liquidity in the economy to keep it, you know, we want 3% to 4% real economic growth. trump wants 5%. i don't know if we can get to 5%. but i do think we are on a course of 3%, 3.5% growth.

i think we can pump it up to 4%. i will just summarize by saying the whole mantra and theme of my campaign for this job was trying to educate people, economists, just the american people, that growth does not cause inflation. neil: what you did have a healthy discussion about this pavlovian response to growth, just raise rates, it did make a lot of people think. i'm wondering if this was also an attack and response to the president and his attacks and response to the federal reserve, particularly jerome powell, and saying that wait a minute, we're going to make this guy, you, pay for the unending constant jawboning second-guessing of the federal reserve from the white house. >> well, maybe there was a little bit of that. obviously, you know, the democrats and the media don't like donald trump very much.

i think that they also don't like me very much as well. i mean, i have been in this game a long time, 35 years. i have been very outspoken. and i think they were very afraid to have someone as outspoken for free -- neil: the media is familiar with you. you're not a stranger here. >> for sure. neil: people on the left and right are aware of you. i don't know if they were aware of some of the personal stuff that came out, but did you raise that with any of the -- anyone at the white house, look, this might come up or were they surprised? i heard one, again, these are always dangerous, unnamed white house source saying we had no idea. what happened? >> well, you're right. what went on here is the vetting process, because frankly, i got to tell you, when the president asked me to do this job, i was very honored, i was thinking well, gee, do i really want to be one of seven people on the fed, locked away with a bunch of economists and cloistered away.

i talked to some people who have been on the federal reserve board and they said this is an amazing job, you will really enjoy being over there, learning a lot about how the economy works, so i agreed to do it. god's honest truth, i never thought, i thought it would be a one-day story. moore's going to the fed. what happened was the flood gates just opened up. if i had had any sense this would happen, people would be looking at my writings from 20, 25 years ago, i would have told the president wait a minute, i can't do a confirmation -- neil: you must have seen what happened to judge, now justice kavanaugh. you must have seen other exampl examples, that that backdrop has changed. in other words, we don't look at candidates for any substantial office, getting a seat on the federal reserve is a substantial office, the way we used to, and that maybe you should have, maybe you should have told him, here's all my dirty laundry, i'm not saying it's dirty laundry, just saying controversial comments, questionable ballots with the irs. i don't want to regurgitate all

that. but maybe you should have given him a heads-up. >> you know, by the way, some of that stuff that the media dug up, i didn't even really know about or didn't even remember. neil: which stuff? which stuff didn't you know? >> you know, the stuff i wrote 20 years ago, you know. but i talked to the white house frequently about the process. they talked to the republican senators, they all had a very high opinion of me. the "washington post" wrote an article saying he's got it in the bag. that's why they had to resort to the sleaze campaign. they knew they couldn't beat me on the economic ideas. i do think i could have been a good voice over there. i think i would be -- i would have brought a new perspective to the fed. i think that is very badly needed. there are too many keynesians there who believe in the phillips curve and you have to restrain growth every time we get higher wages.

neil: now you have to suspend to get the growth. now there's not going to be alternative voices. there might be. if the president chooses guys like you or herman cain, that's one thing, but he likely might not to avoid controversy. then what? >> i don't know where he's going but i know this. there are a lot of really highly qualified people. judy shelton comes to mind. she writes all the time for the "wall street journal." neil: what are you going to do now? what will you do now? you never got this job. >> i'm going to come on your show. no, look, i'm going to continue -- neil: writing, appearing, media pundit? that sort of thing? >> also, whatever the president wants me to do. i have worked with him now, you know, formally and -- neil: he intimated you would still be involved with him. in what way? >> we'll see. we'll see. it will not be a senate appointment. neil: we shall see. steve moore, thank you very, very much. again, pretty good number

cruncher, knows what he's talking about, but running into a buzz saw controversy over his economic views to writings decades ago. it's not happening. steve moore will not make it to the u.s. federal reserve. more after this. termites.

we're on the move. . . . .

neil: with all of these developments it is interesting we're looking at business of small business here on fox business and what it says about another fed pick who is not going to make it into that exclusive club. steve moore making it clear he didn't have the votes, neither

did herman cain. what that means now now, federal reserve remains on policy it unanimously agrees with, keeping interest rates where they are, unchallenged view, no matter where you are politically is not about it change. to charles payne. charles: neil, good afternoon. i'm charles payne, this is "making money." breaking right now. big news, stephen moore withdrawing his name from being a seat on federal reserve board, saying unrelenting attacks were too much for him and his family. the markets under pressure. investors continue to wonder about the fed's next move. the question now has powell opened the trap door? or is this typical stock market temper tantrum. plus the attorney general a no-show at the house judiciary committee hearing today, while house speaker nancy pelosi said he lied to congress which is a crime. we're going to break that down for you. 2020 democratic hopefuls