impromptu press conference today and he said we'll see if we, if we keep the meetings with the chinese in september. the trade meetings could be cans he had. he is not making a deal right now. negative on trade. down goes the market. neil it's yours. ashley: you summed it up perfectly. neil anyone exposed to this is feeling pressure on this we'll be following that. following battle of donors right now and those who are feeling the heat because they are lending money to the president's re-election effort. we're exploring that. also, keeping fair and balanced, some are getting leery about the man who wants to take on donald trump next year, that is joe biden. some of his recent gaffs and slip ups.

prompted money guys to were in his camp. neil the dow up 250 points. edward lawrence what might be the fierce of all this an extended trade war. reporter: the president in almost a news conference before he left, uploaded some very critical thoughts about a trade deal with china. listen. >> we're talking with china. we're not ready to make a deal. we'll see what happens. we've been hurt by china for 25, 30 years, nobody has done anything about it. we have no choice but to do what we're doing. reporter: the president upping the ante and pressure on the chinese economy. he says no u.s. cop will do business with huawei. that will halt of process of 35

companies going through for a special license to sell to huawei. the u.s. labeled china a currency manipulator. the yuan hovering seven to one with the dollar lessening impact on tariffs. the president doesn't want to artificially weaken the dollar but believes he needs more help from the federal reserve. >> we have virtually no inflation in our country. if the federal reserve brings down interest rates over a period of time. i would love to see a point or little more than that if they would stop quantitative tightening we would have a rocket ship. reporter: markets think there might be a rate cut at the next meeting in september. with the u.s. growth the president took another shot, a parting shot at the chinese numbers. the president saying the gdp number the gdp growth number in china he believes is phony. he thinks it is flat or neutral. neil: we're in a rocky month.

mostly october gets fingered for the worst month of the year but typically the month we're in right now. jackie deangelis at new york stock exchange with some of the latest news. jackie. reporter: neil, it has been a rocky august to say the least but the sound bite in edward's point regarding china, coming straight from the horse's mouth, if you will, a deal is not imminent. you saw stocks moving down to session lows. the dow trading 227 points lower. traders told us since monday, expect a volatile week, expect a volatile month as this whole thing gets hashed out. look at the 10-year note though. that caused a lot of volatility this week as well. you can see that we're seeing stabilization in the 10-year. that is helping things out a little bit. finally, take a look at the vix as well. the vix is sort of a fear gauge, a gauge of volatility, if you will. we did see a little bit after speak in the vix now trading at 19 and change.

so a 12% spike up just today leaves people wondering how much longer is this going to take and how long will it go on? it was a rough week for the dow but you did have some winners mixed in there. we're looking at mcdonald's, coca-cola and dow as weekly winners so far during the session. the losers, ibm, intel, 3m. you know the selloff and volatility we've seen was on a broad range of sectors, pretty much everybody was impacted. neil: all right. well-done, appreciate the update, jackie deangelis joining us from the new york stock exchange. you heard jackie talking about the 10-year note. there is a lot of fixation on inverted yield curves. without getting too arcane about this, a lot of focus, the gap between a two-year and 10-year note, between a three month bill and a 10-year note, between overnight bank lending rate known as federal fund and the 10-year note, there was inverted

yield curve when it came to the latter maturities i was telling you about, three-month bill, what was happening right now on the overnight bank lending rate. there had not been an inverted yield curve when it came to the gap between the two year and the 10-year note. now there is with the 10-year trading slightly under that rate. it has been jostling here. that completed sort of a hat trick for the markets. if all three were showing themselves inverted. in other words you were getting more rate return for shorter-term maturity than you were with the longer-term one, at the risk of boring you that i do so well anyway, that was a cause of concern. that kind of fueled this. this is technical sort of underpinning these guys who read chicken entrails and tea leaves. i don't know what to make of it myself. but sometimes it tends to pan out. we have rich karlgaard, david french with us.

on the whole china thing. rich, i think you're back from china. maybe you can give me an eye from there, how they're responding to all this, how they're taking all this in? >> my flight from singapore to hong kong was a quarter full. the hotel occupancy rates are way down in hong kong. the airport looked like it had been bombed out. just warrant that many people there. hong kong, all these protests are going to exacerbate the situation because despite the nominal reason for these protests the extradition, you know, thing, it's really an economic protest. you have got so many people in hong kong who can't afford a house, things like that. if they will lose their jobs in a weak hong kong economy, you can see this thing is going to get worse. now the thing about president xi is, we don't know, at least i don't know what kind of internal support he has in china. he has a couple of major face

saving issues going on at the same time. hong kong and the fact that you know, the u.s. has the upper hand in this trade war for the moment. so, you know, we assume, we call him president for life. i don't know that's necessarily true. neil: yeah. the last one ripped up the constitution and deemed himself the leader for life was mussolini. that didn't work out too well. we'll get into that a little later. david french, from the retail side we're told the latest wave of tariffs that kick in on september 1, those likely will be felt immediately, pegged to 10%, they're on items already here and effect will be immediate, unless with some of these others we see on industrial side, american distributors can absorb a lot of body blows, not pass along that much. what are you envisioning? >> certainly the tariffs land right in the middle of the busy holiday shipping season. our busiest months for import

and shipping in retail are september, august, october. that sets up the holiday season of the pricing increases will be felt by consumers fairly quickly. we're talking about over the next year, apparel, $4.4 billion more. for toys $3.7 billion more. that is what people buy at the holiday seasons. it will cost more. neil: what do the retailers themselves do? this is the time of year, when they start stocking up ahead of the christmas holiday season, are you getting evidence that some are stocking up a little early, more just in case, this lingers for a while? what are you getting? >> retailers are doing everything they can to mitigate the harm of the tariffs but the tariffs create a lot of uncertainty. retailers just don't know when the next tweet is going to happen, when the next cost increase is going to be forced on their supply chain. but certainly they're bringing in product earlier, maybe ahead

of the tariffs if they can but only large retailers can successfully do that. smaller retailers may not have the storage capacity and inventory and things like that. smaller retailers are also very vulnerable to price increases from their wholesale suppliers. so it is really not a very pleasant environment in retail right now when you think about the cost of these tariffs. neil: you know, rich, at the outset you were starting to mention the wild card that is hong kong. hong kong residents have fairly free and open access to what is going on in the world back in mainland china not so much. do we know, did you ever discover some of the things you were running into including airport is did are up shuns and like i guess -- disruptions will pick up team this weekend are getting pass along to mainland chinese who might not be aware? >> i would assume so, probably more than the chinese government would ever want to admit. you have giant shenzhen in

mainland china over the border from hong kong, a lot of travel back and forth. people can see what is going on. you have smartphones with cameras everywhere, probably the chinese. more information getting into china. the business class, ruling party knows all about it. so xi may be a little weaker than we suppose. neil: so when you go there now, do the protesters block access to the airport, outside, inside? where are they? how do you get around them? can you get around them? >> well they have attempted to. the peak protest day earlier this beak in hong kong was monday. i happen to be there on tuesday. it was blessedly a kind of rest day for them. it will be gearing up again this weekend. it seems to go in surges like that. these are very smart protesters. they pop up here, they pop up there. they shield themselves with

umbrellas. this thing, they're really provoking some kind of a violent response from mainland china. i certainly hope that doesn't happen. i think china is aware that they are on the global stage with billions of cameras around the world and smartphone users and social media users that, so, we're at a stand off likely to go on for some many month. neil: wow. it is escalating there. rich, final word. david, have a wonderful weekend. >> thank you, neil. neil: speaking of the weekend we'll monitor what is going on in hong kong. we're messing around with a city, country airport, you're messing around with core commerce. the chinese are not taking that happily. good thing we're live 10 a.m. eastern time on fox news channel. live time reaction what is going on there and how it could impact the trade deal. these are more joined at the trade be hip than you think. we'll connect. you will want to watch.

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neil: it is good to be president. this one is expecting to raise $11 million in twin fund-raisers today in the hamptons. the donors are not backing down despite a backlash that involved one key donor, stephen ross of course of equinox and soulcycle fame, among other things. a multibillionaire. he and the president we're told goes back 40 years. he doesn't care about the dust-up, but a lot of people who frequent these gym establishments are threatening to leave an not come back, how much impact this will have is anyone's guest. we have a democratic strategist ted, and ted cruz former campaign pollster, well conducted in government circles. jim wilson. welcome to both of you.

>> thanks. neil: the fun raising issue for you yourself, chris, is it going to be a problem for the president. >> no. bottom line it isn't. donors like this don't care about this type of pressure. they're above it. if they care about it, they will switch support to super-pac and write a larger check because it will irritate them so much. when you look at where the president's money is coming from in large swaths amazing amount of small dollar donations he is eliciting. i'm on his list. they're already using this as a fund-raising technique. neil: you're a guy i would certainly want to hit up. >> they're using emailing. neil: you have heard what chris said, brad, is this kind of thing that boomerangs? there is always some controversial financeer that raises eyebrows. i see it in every election cycle but, this seems a little overdone but what do you think? >> look, first of all, i like

activism. it is part of the democratic, you know, base is the activists. the fact that we can, you know, stand up and say, hey, you're giving a lot of money and we are customers of yours, and you're giving money to a candidate we don't like, who might be very divisive, and we're going to do something about it, i think is a terrific thing. i think it is terrific thing for democracy. neil: you don't like economic pressure? a lot of people love ben & jerry's ice cream. they know they're liberal. they like chunky monkey. >> that's great. neil: i like chugky monkey. will they go that far. >> i'm totally conservative with the conservative wants to eat chunky monkey and the liberal goes to soulcycle. put all this at the fringe. doesn't matter to them. if you want this to matter to you, you want to take action, the good thing is, we do have visibility who is making donations. then we can expose them and

public can do what they want. they make their choices. this is terrific for government. neil: i hear a lot of this going on when barack obama was president. an event, entertainer would behind that event. we don't lash out at entertainer or go to their moves veries, not go to their establishments. seems this particular wrath is focused -- >> it was actually the other way around t was who is barack obama taking money from? okay? it wasn't who are those, would blame, you're taking money from this person. you're taking money from that person. that is no good. neil: did they go after any of the movie houses whose chieftans? >> no. there was an attempt to. come on. this network did a great job of saying, oh, my god, liberal left coast, the liberal moviemakers, hollywood, that doesn't make their decision with all due respecific. neil: if you don't give them the chance it's a little bit inintimidating here. chris -- >> intimidating?

republicans are afraid of mean, tough democrats. come on. we're not that scary. neil: depending on the day. >> do you think republicans are being consistent on this issue? if you're so upset about this and establishment being targeted because thegy who runs them, albeit as passive investor, is giving money to a campaign, you're going after, not you specifically, you're going after twitter, trying to cut business arrangements with twitter because they took down the whole mitch mcconnell house protest? >> took down. neil: can't have it both way. >> they shut down with mitch mcconnell. there is a lot wrapped up. for those want to protest, soulcycle, equinox, only people they are hurting, people that have jobs. they are not hurting owners. not afford a new quarterback for miami dolphins next year. he will be fine. when it comes down -- neil: that would be a nice effect. >> what twitter did is completely unrelated. that would be the same as if fox all of sudden said because the castro brothers exposed and

doxxed a bunch of their donors, we'll not allow on our network. you have nothing else to say. the fcc would come down fox immediately for denying someone a voice you would be fined overnight. twitter is doing that. neil: in remote cases this is slippery slope. going after news personalities on msnbc or fox, something that offends conservatives, hear it on msnbc they lead a boycott movement or hear the same here. you target a personality an his or her show. i don't like that either. what i'm just saying is, you're quite right to say, in free country, you're free to take this to any level you want. i think it is an extra level of intimidation? >> look, i don't disagree there. there is a point of no return here. when you start targeting individuals because they say something that you don't like, whether it's a comedian, whether it is a talk show host -- neil: don't watch them. >> don't watch them, come on. neil: when you carry it next

level where you hurt innocent people, say the guy working at ex-quinn knocks or, you know a trainer working at spin cycle, soulcycle, you see how well-versed i am, it goes a little too far? >> no, i don't disagree there. i think our society is reflective of divisive inness in our political, our political temperature here in this country. really is bad. and like everything else, there are times we go too far. that is the nature of you know, having a democratic society. the pendulum swings too far. it tries to moderate at some point in time. yeah, we've seen really ugly things occur with activists when they take target, put a target on somebody, i think later on history will say we regret having gone along, let them push us around. >> that is concerns me what happened with julian and joaquin castro, taking donors name to

trump, some of his own donors, putting them on line. it is public but when you expose them that is the true definition of doxxing. now, gives there are violent groups on the left in this country, on the right too and on the left, antifa is perfect example know who they are. that is unfortunate. one of the fundamental rights we have in the country is secret ballot. in essence that publicly exposes the secret ballot. you're implying they vote -- reason we have secret ballot because people were threatened, their jobs were threatened, careers were threatened -- >> with all due respect. you don't have to give a donation. yes your ballot is secret. when you vote. you don't have to gift donation. once you give the donation that is public. >> that is different from putting it up on the fcc website. that is going too far. neil: they can get it. >> i mean look, i stand with castro in the ability to do that. you know, look, if something

negative comes out of it, his neck is on the line for doing something like that. look, there is risk and return in all of this kind of thing. it is dangerous game to play, especially in this day and age, but there are serious issues we have to confront in the next election. so everybody feels the, you know, that we've put this ante as high as it can get. neil: thank you, final word on that. i want to thank very much with calm rational debate. that is not always possible these days. are they worried about joe biden, is it his latest blunder or are people antsy that he might become the latest nominee? we're on it after this. ies about vehicle quality. and when they were done, chevy earned more j.d. power quality awards across cars, trucks and suvs than any other brand over the last four years. so on behalf of chevrolet, i want to say

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>> i know i have republican colleagues who voted no on the manchin-toomey bill in the past and rethinking that. neil: have you talked to mitch mcconnell whether he is open revisiting? >> i spoken with the president repeatedly. the president definitely has an

interest. he has not made a commitment to a specific bill. i have spoken with senator mcconnell. as usual, mitch mcconnell is about getting a successful out come. neil: will the senate move on gun reforms. a lot of money at stake, not only in that community, but a lot of money interests that support these candidates to vote a certain way. blake burman at the white house, where the president is saying a few moments ago, something has to get done, he talked to mitch mcconnell with indications something will. sir? reporter: indeed. we got the president this morning 35 minutes on the south lawn, neil, as he left the white house which turned out to be a fairly wide-ranging news conference which he ended up summing up his feelings with his reaction to guns or mass shootings saying quote, i don't want crazy people having guns. on multiple occasions the president suggested this time around there might be wide-ranging support for expanded background checks. the president saying in recent days he has spoken with

nancy pelosi, chuck schumer and mitch mcconnell. that even the top republican senator has expressed an openness to some form of expanded background checks. watch. >> frankly we need intelligent background checks. this is not a question of nra, republican or democrat. i will tell you i spoke to mitch mcconnell yesterday. he is totally on board. we don't want insane people, mentally ill people, bad people, dangerous people, we don't want guns in the hands of the wrong people. reporter: the president said he had multiple conversations in the last few days with the head of the nra, wayne laperriere. the nra said in a statement after last weekend's mass shootings, that it quote opposes any legislation that unfairly infringes upon the rights of law-abiding citizens. the president is saying this morning he thinks the nra will either support what might come

about legislatively or not provide resistance. >> i think in the end wayne and the nra will either be there or maybe it will be a little bit more neutral. that would be okay too. reporter: by the way, neil, over at the white house today there are staff-level meetings as being described to us with members of the white house, other members within the administration across government and those certain representatives of tech companies and internet companies. the white house has been very tight-lipped about this meeting though, not providing any sort of attendee list, or even when this might be taking place. the president though has talked about in recent days, the need to have social media companies work with the government to identify potential, those might be potentially posing harm to the community, as well as cracking down on videogames. this meeting over here at the

white house, we're told, will focus on extremism online, and violence on line. neil? neil: we have not gotten a full list who be there, have we? >> the president is not going to be involved. he is currently in the hamptons normally there are couple different ways you can look at this. with the immediacy and urgency, what is talked about, violence online, the white house should put forth a list, who is involved, what are they talking about. give us some sort of a readout. they haven't. the other side of the argument, there are staff level meetings every day, month or year at white house. maybe they don't feel they need to put out a list as it relates to this one. neil: interesting, blake burman at the white house. quick peek at corner of wall and broad, 26 of the stocks are up. others uber not part of the dow.

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shot. neil: i know what he meant to say. but remarks like that have been sort of picking up steam, we're told increasingly it's a concern not only to the former vice president's backers but some of the money folks who are behind investing in the man or woman they think is most likely to beat donald trump. fox business's hillary vaughn is in iowa right now, the iowa state fair where they all seem to be coalescing right now. what's the latest, hillary? reporter: hey, neil. biden is getting a lot of blow black for comments he made in iowa, not from his fellow 2020 democratic contenders. they're blowing it off as just a gaffe. i asked former hud secretary julian castro what his thoughts are on those comments, and if they are race it. remember castro served with biden in the obama administration but castro today tell me this. said yesterday that poor kids are just as bright as white

kids. do you think that is racist? >> look, i don't believe that the vice president was being racist in that moment. i think that, like a lot of us when we're speaking he got tripped up in his words? reporter: president trump today also choosing the front-runner as the person he would like to face in november in 2020, saying that biden doesn't seem to be all there. >> joe biden is not playing with a full deck. this is not somebody you can have as your president. but if he got the nomination i'd be thrilled. reporter: i also asked entrepeneur andrew yang who is also here at the fair speaking to caucus-goers if he thought biden's comments were off color? >> i think that is joe biden being joe biden. he clearly misspoke, using a poor choice of words. but we knew where he was going. reporter: neil, 2020 democrats

really staying far away jumping at the opportunity to take on the front-runner even over a gaffe. we'll see if that stays that way especially headed into september for the next debate. neil? neil: hillary, thank you very much. any fair and balanced observer could say, all right, if had misspoken or said the wrong thing, he gets a pass, which is probably proper thing to do, if that is what you suspect, not so much the president of the united states. maybe because well the other guy is the president of the united states. but just insight there. "washington examiner" senior editor kelly jane torrance on all of this. what we know right now, kelly jane, it has got some biden supporters a little bit nervous, money guys, more than a little bit nervous. some seem to be hedging their bets. hard to really pen to paper and quantify that, whether they will withdraw support as the campaign ensues, what do you think? what is going on behind the scenes? >> i think they are worried but, let's face it, joe biden has something very big going for

him. that is his fellow competitors. when the rest of the field on the whole want open borders and wants to end private health insurance in this country, what are donors going to do, there is not another good candidate that can appeal to a wide swath of american public and transfer money to. basically most of the polling elizabeth warren is the second place front-runner this is not someone i think a lot of people will appeal to a lot of americans with her call to end private health insurance. they're worried. they are concerned. but unless somebody surprisingly enters the race at this point, who like biden, appeals more to the progressive base. neil: i'm wondering, you talk about a nominee, either party, who can bring people out to vote, because that will make up, for general poll numbers that

might not look strong. i mean that was, always a concern for both parties over the many years, but you can go too far. the passion on the left in 1972 was for this guy george mcgovern. not so much ed muskie, a party stalwart in polls showed a pretty competitive race against president richard nixon. we later learned george mcgovern, popular with progressives in his party, went down to defeat in historical terms unprecedented prior to that. i think they wrestle with that ever since. who you lover sus who you think will ultimately will win. right now they still hold joe biden in the latter, someone who can win. >> i think you're right, neil. it was a striking moment at one of the last debates when elizabeth warren complaining about candidates were running to say what things we couldn't

done. there were people like john delaney talking how outrageous, how unworkable her proposals were, especially "medicare for all." she was complaining about, they didn't seem to be passionate about something. i found criticisms of her very sensible. but in the primary it is a different audience. the progressive base has a lot more sway right now. honestly the debate performance is one reason joe biden isn't doing worse. if he made the gaffs he made yesterday in iowa, if he did that at a debate, i think that might be a different story. a lot more people are watching. debate viewership is down from what it was. recall rick perry, 2012, cycle, he had that big gaffe. he couldn't name the third government agency, department he wanted to shutter. his campaign was basically over after that. so either -- neil: depends, like you say, depends on the moment. people want a smooth runway for

a nomination. there is no such thing. it will be a bumpy ride. kelly jane, thank you very much. >> thanks, neil. neil: all right, wal-mart is pulling violent videogame displace in wake of recent mass shootings. could there be something bigger brewing here you're not hearing now? after this. usaa took care of her car rental, and getting her car towed. all i had to take care of was making sure that my daughter was ok. if i met another veteran, and they were with another insurance company, i would tell them, you need to join usaa because they have better rates, and better service. we're the gomez family... we're the rivera family... we're the kirby family, and we are usaa members for life. get your auto insurance quote today.

>> there is sluggish economy at this stage. the long-term is unquestionably negative. but there are positive signs in the short run which suggest that we're not about to dip into a recession. neil: that was alan greenspan with maria bartiromo early this morning, the former fed head saying he does have long-term worries about the debt, all of that. you can't escape that. but for the near term, whatever you want to call near term, he is talking through the 2020 presidential election, there doesn't appear to be recession

in sight. bounce that off fifth third bank chief economist strategist, chief investment strategist i should say. jeff kornek. good to have you. do you agree with what mr. greenspan is saying? >> there are long term wore roys that we won't have a recession but there are problems. neil: your problems are slowing down. >> slowing down. neil: not necessarily reversing course, but slowing can be psychologically tough to handle. >> what happens if you're up against the limits of growth which are structurally sub2% in the u.s. economy, we have poor workforce growth, if we don't have business confidence, we don't have productivity, if we're going sub2% opt tim alley, what happens in something goes wrong? you ever wider credit spreads. you're more vulnerable. you're more vulnerable in the sense if you're pushing against the limits of the labor force which we are, and now you have undermined cap-ex and

productivity gains, if you push too hard against those labor force limits you start to get wage inflation that is not offset by productivity gains. neil: are we near that now? >> well if you look at say, the atlanta fed's wage tracker, it is pushing up towards 4%. that is not worrisome if you grow productivity by 2% f you slow productivity growth, that starts to seep into inflation. that is an intermediate term worry but it is part and parcel of the challenges that american businesses are having attracting labor. neil: all right. a lot are worried about trade, these business guys, even those directly impacted by or do business with china. it's a spillover effect. how do you think that sorts out, especially if there is no deal by even the election? >> we're already seeing it in our manufacturing customers. we're bankers to the industrial heartland. what we're hearing from the small companies, small and mid

sighed companies we bank they're increasingly forced to play defense. supply chains, decreasing margins, all of that is one more reason they would be unwilling to invest in the long term to that cap-ex so critical to keeping the expansion going and getting it going faster. neil: in the meantime we left it to the fed to bail us out or have the administration's back on trade by continuing to cut interest rates. they have taken it as a given we'll have two more rate cuts. idea of weakening your currency to match the other weak, pathetic currencies abroad is a bad idea. that worries me. that we're chasing our own tail? >> these fundamentally aren't monetary problems but if you're the fed, if all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail and so -- neil: very well-put. >> that is dangerous path to go on. it could lead us to the european solution which is a non-solution. neil: am i weird thinking trying to stay ahead of the europeans doing what they're doing, what they're doing isn't helping, is

a bad idea? >> yeah, i mean, it is a case study in failure in many ways and i do believe our fed, from the officials with whom i have spoken don't want to go down that path. neil: they are, though. markets are forcing that. >> they're inching towards that responding to markets. neil: when the president was mentioning today before hopping on the flight to the hamptons, the rates should be a full percentage point lower, he said that before, what did you think of that? >> frankly disagreed because we were in the camp that the fed probably should not have started on this mini easing cycle. the fed likes to think it is 1995 when they had a successful easing cycle. we think it is more like 1966 the previous easing cycle, you didn't extend the economic life of the cycle that much longer. you didn't bring down unemployment a little bit. what you did started to unleash inflationary forces and the fed

lost some control. neil: that was seminal year, if you think about it. 1966 we were piercing, getting closer to 1000 on the dow. we wouldn't convincingly do it until 1985. >> collapse of the nifty 50. the fed reaction was in response to the markets which has analogies to today. neil: following the markets, a lot of free marketers, the markets you want to follow them. no. >> i think the fed, the benefit of the fed is its independence, that means independence from political pressure. really frankly from market pressure as well. neil: all right, so play this out. not a regression but a slowdown, from 2% growth what are we looking at? >> probably 1 1/2 to 2% kind of growth. the challenge for businesses in this, if you're not going to embrace cap-ex, that kind of commitment, you have to start thinking about workforce issues. those will not go away even at the end of this cycle. you go back birth rates 20 years

ago, were falling dramatically. we won't have workers in the future. at fifth third we became the first regional bank to increase our minimum wage to $18 an hour. neil: is that right. >> it is not a response to tightness. learning that we have to embrace employees. this will be the new business challenge. we think the new skill set that will be required of next generation business leaders. neil: it could explain too, why you have the least turnover of top financial institutions. >> we're proud of our employees. neil: treat them well early on. thank you very, very much, jeff. very good seeing you. meantime some fears about high drug prices that could turn to some very dangerous alternatives. this as the administration is writing its own health care plan that might include this very issue, after this.

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neil: all right. there are a lot of new worries about the cost of prescriptions as the president is expected to unveil his own health care plan next month. we're told it is in concert with leading republicans. we don't know all the details. we have a associate professor at nyu school of medicine joining us dr. devi. i'm sure i screwed that up, doctor. >> you got it. neil: very good to have you. i'm curious what you make of this, because so much of this will be targeting the price of drugs and trying to deal with the opioid crisis at the same time. so they will be sort of conflicting agendas there, but what do you think? >> there are a lot of policies being suggested, right? each of them might have some merit and might work, but our biggest problem is the lack of transparency in terms of why the prices are so high right now. so some of the things that are being posed or thrown out there by pharmaceutical companies is that their costs for making

things like insulin, live-saving drugs been around a long time are too high if they drop the prices. is that true or isn't it? hard to tell because there is not a lot of information out there. i think it's probably not true that it is too high just on its face value but on the other hand, if they're looking at could we spend our resources, spend our time and effort making more expensive patented drugs, versus making generic drugs more affordable maybe they are having an opportunity cost there. maybe could do more money doing other things. i think as a government whatever we choose to do or as a country, we need to incentivize things, so people get live saving drugs they need at a cost they can afford. neil: do you think it is what the president said, americans pay higher prices for the same drugs available often abroad, by the same companies making them at a much or discounted price? >> i think that's true but there are some caveats.

some of the drugs available abroad might be lower quality than the ones that are here. it might not be the exact same formulation. for example, say insulin, which has been in the news a lot lately, we have perhaps better form, something called recompetent insulin. in other countries they have lower form made from animals still serves the purpose but may not be as high quality. there are differences there. the other thing is looking at expiration dates for the medications. if you look at a medication, it will have a expiration date where it is not at its full potency if you go past that date. i think some of these medications, even 95% effective, rather than close to 100% effective, still could be used. we wouldn't have as much waste. maybe people could use something. neil: doctor, good ideas all, we'll see next week, we're supposed to get the first hint

what the administration want to do. thank you for joining us. we're well off the lows right now. i don't know what is causing that. i don't overly focus on minute by minute developments. suffice it to say we're down 69 points. e the future? can you feel calm in the eye of a storm? can you do more with less? can you raise the bar while reducing your footprint? for our 100 years we've been answering the questions of today to meet the energy needs of tomorrow. southern company

neil: all right. there have been a lot of new doubts about if a china trade deal will come to pass. now growing fears it might not happen before the election. you heard that earlier in the week. they are accelerating now. uber's problems are now becoming users' problems. we will explain how fear of price hikes has really quadrupled ever since we got indications out of uber's report it's losing money hand over fist and has to do something to get that money back. hikes in fares could be a possibility. also, republican rift with twitter that could impact the social media's bottom line. a lot of republicans, lot of conservatives in general saying no more.

we are talking to china. we're not ready to make a deal. what happened and what's happening with china now, we have an open dialogue. we'll see whether or not we keep our meeting in september. the biggest problem we have is the fact that a lot of other continents, frankly, but a lot of other countries are not doing well. if the federal reserve would bring down interest rates over a period of time, i would love to see a point or even a little bit more than that. if they would stop quantitative tightening, we have a rocket ship. neil: all right. the president making clear how he feels about china trade talks, says they might not happen in september. that was something that surprised a few, the fact he was not optimistic they are going to be meeting throwing in that added wrinkle that maybe, maybe the talks that are scheduled to resume in september, don't. and of course the ongoing complaint about the federal reserve and how much he hates them. now, we have gary kaltbaum,

lauren simonetti and last but not least, kat. welcome to all of you. lauren, let me get your take on how people are taking the president's comments, obviously he knows he's leading the directives and his directive is maybe we don't get a deal. maybe we don't talk in september, maybe i could just wait this one out, maybe they are the ones who are going to have to wait it out. what did you make of that? >> so how long can you wait it out for? what do companies do in the meantime when there's a big question mark riding over what the rules of the game are going to be. do we just start to move supply chains because that's what we think we should do? how does this end? no one knows. there is zero certainty right now. very much in a state of flux. i was off earlier this week, monday, when we had that huge tumble, on the beach playing with our kids and family. people were actually talking about the stock market, saying

wow. >> what else do you talk about at the beach? come on. >> i couldn't believe it. i was fielding questions. neil: it's a small beach. >> i was off. leave me alone. neil: you can never escape this stuff. gary, you were saying a lot of companies have already made adjustments to lauren's point, so when we get a deal it's going to be a different world, and for china it's going to be a different world, for us it will be a different world, for u.s. companies that do business in this neck of the woods, it's a different world. we have a lot of expectations that might not be realized. >> neil, five minutes ago the market rallied 150 points because the white house clarified what he said on huawei this morning. we have the greatest roller coasters in orlando. they have nothing on what's going on with the white house and this china deal. we have been talking about this 15 months back and forth from tariffs back off, tariffs back

off. we just had the g20, everything's great again, and boom, tariffs again. i think the biggest problem the president has now is i think he would have gotten rid of those 10% but china just gave him the shanghai middle finger, and guess what? i think they are going to keep going after them, going after them. they see them as being weak. i think maybe they are going to stop buying oil from us. who knows what is next. neil: he sounded very tough there will be no part of this deal, then clarifying it, that it's not a dead issue. >> it's only government that's not going to buy from huawei but regular corporations can. that just came out 150 dow points before. neil: you answered that for me. i'm wondering in this environment, now you are hearing about the hong kong airport is all but closed because getting in and out of there with protesters, the whole weekend, that's another thing that makes traveling to that region such a risk. >> yeah, absolutely. it's a mess. i have a friend down there who is covering it right now. it is a mess. but i think that president trump

likes to really highlight the ways that things are not going as well for china as they had been in the past which is true but he completely ignores the way it's negatively affected things here. he always says china is paying for these tariffs. that's just factually not true. the amount of money we have gotten from these tariffs aren't even enough to pay for the farmer bailout, let alone all the other industries and businesses that have been impacted. it's a mess over there but it's negatively affecting us as well. neil: throughout this environment, the backstop we've had is very accommodative fed. you report it very early in the morning each day and this latest wave is to more or less telegraph additional cuts to come. whatever's needed to keep the economy afloat. now, the commensurate kind of impact of that, you'd think, would be possibly rushing to refinance, rushing to buy homes. a little bit of activity, tightened up with refi activity. not to the degree you think. none at all on the housing front. what's going on? >> refi activity last week was

up 12% but the problems in the housing market are still the problems in the housing market. that is inventory, don't have a lot of it, and also, this overall concern about where the economy would be headed. back end of last year, mortgage rates were near 5%. now they're -- the 30-year fixed is 3.6%. but we're not seeing people pour into the housing market. it's also christmas is over. the spring selling season is over. we might not see [ inaudible ] because of the inventory issues. prices are at record highs. >> it's all about affordability. if prices were much lower, the housing market would skyrocket. neil: how does the market look in orlando? >> decent but not fabulous. i can tell you the high end down in south florida, heading down, lot of high end areas across the country heading down. normally when i watch -- neil: is that a price issue? >> i believe so. when i watch the housing stocks, every time rates come down, used

to be housing stocks skyrocket. now they're just sitting dead. that tells you everything you need to know right now. i think we are flatlining a little bit here. neil: what do you think? >> i'm a millenial so i just rent because i'm spending all this money getting avocado toast delivered to my apartment. but interesting the way interest rates are, we haven't seen more people taking advantage of it but it's still early in the game. we have to wait and see. i think millenials are better seated right now than maybe people who are retiring or already retired, because millenials and the ability to pay off debt and whatnot. it depends if those are fixed loans or not. neil: was your generation burnt by the meltdown? i always subscribe to the view what they saw around them, their parents, other relatives, or in some cases, the older end of that millenials themselves don't want to risk that again, don't see the advantage of owning a home versus renting, and that is something that's changed regardless of the china issue

and all this other nonsense. >> oh, yeah. i think there's a lot of fear because we saw people just completely melting down. people who lost everything. we all know people personally whose parents went through that or whose families went through that, and i know that i am personally terrified to actually buy anything. even though i'm wasting so much money on rent. avocado toast is always a good investment. neil: what is it, though? someone was saying on one of the shows this morning that older buyers are just like younger bi buyers, they want a smaller house. they're not interested in big houses like gary kaltbaum. >> you have to clean it and pay taxes on it. neil: that's what's complicating things. >> a lot of the older americans are looking to downsize a little bit, to keep, if you sell your big house and move into something more affordable, then you have money to play with, but we are talking about china and the effect on the housing

market. a lot of the housing market, the all-cash buyer, is and was foreign but it's not necessarily china as much as it was. i think that's a good thing for you and millenials, if you're not afraid to buy a home because maybe prices will come down or it might be easier to get a home because you're not competing with all cash. neil: that's what i was asking about florida, because that was drawing and still drawing disgruntled high tax, you know, exiles from these northern states that are saying this is a more tax-friendly state to be in. when it comes to real estate, that doesn't necessarily transcend to a boom, right? >> because of overbuilding. too much supply. where i live, there are a ton of buildings going up with tons of small, mid and large companies coming in and every day, something new, they are building new hospitals now to accommodate for all the people. we're seeing it. when i speak to a lot of people that are moving into my neighborhood, they are coming from, guess what, washington,

new york, all these places. neil: because they hear gary kaltbaum lives there. >> i'm here. neil: let's take a look, we are down about 116 points here. the president is going to be raising some money today. we are told up to $10 million. that could be for starters. there's a great deal of fuss over stephen ross, of course, the man behind equinox and soulcycle. right now, the protesters are saying stop going to equinox, stop going to soulcycle. not exactly a fair and balanced way to handle things or is it? is this the kind of pressure the president faces as the campaign ensues? after this. we all feel, we all love, we all cry. it's part of being human. sonoma county declared a homeless emergency in 2018. you have to know the individuals you're serving to understand their needs. working with ibm watson we can bring together data spread across dozens of departments.

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neil: welcome back dow down 93 .

clarifying the president's sort of warpath against huawei and that they're really not out -- i wasn't doubting, gary. i'm not cutting any slack here. he's right again, whatever. meanwhile, republican groups are saying they are going to stop spending to advertise over twitter, over this entire mitch mcconnell campaign lockout. you might recall the video they were posting showing protesters gathering outside his home and threatening, so they ended up taking his site down and not the protest e protesters. but lauren, what exactly happened here? >> earlier this week, there were protesters and they used profanity and physical threats against -- neil: this was [ inaudible ]. >> mitch mcconnell posted that video on twitter, twitter locked his account because the video

went against their policies and twitter said okay, if you don't take this down, if you don't delete this, we are going to keep your account locked and locked, it is. the reason that this is getting so much outrage is that he was the victim. he posted a video of things -- protesters angry with him because he wasn't calling the senate back to act on gun legislation that's been passed in the house. he posted the video of him as a victim, yet his account's locked. neil: now they are upping the ante. they want, a lot of these groups believed connected to him and others, republican national committee, chairwoman who was with maria bartiromo this morning was saying we are going to put the pressure on and maybe find other convenient usvenues message out. >> i don't blame them. when you think of the reason for twitter's rules against threats and violence, it's obviously so people don't make threats at other people on the platform. this is obviously, he was a victim, that's not what happened here. he was exposing threats against

him. that's not ever something you should be punished for. i think that it's good that the republican party and gop's kind of being proactive about it rather than just complaining. neil: isn't that inconsistent because they're against the punishment being meted out on stephen ross, the gazillionaire behind soulcycle, equinox, they're against the boycott many are saying because of this fund-raiser. that's an inconsistent message, isn't it? >> first off, the policy on twitter is based on who. there are death threats all over the place, people are on there, you got people deemed pretty much terror organizations on there and mitch mcconnell puts up a video of somebody threatening his life and his family's life in front of their house, and that's bad? i mean, it's yujust complete insanity. neil: did twitter put out a statement on this? >> that he needs to delete the

video. republican groups and the donald trump campaign pulled back their money. the trump campaign just in the month of august was prepared to spend $500,000. twitter is not going to get that ad revenue. so the money could talk here in the end and we could see politico is reporting there will be some sort of executive action by the president against this sort of thing. what that looks like, we don't know. i'm curious to see if that happens, because -- neil: well, applying financial pressure, you can understand. i see it here. but you have to be consistent across the board. you can't complain then when liberals or those left of you are advocating a boycott of these centers owned by a guy who gave money. >> i just couldn't believe that boycott. like these people are surprised that the rich people gym that charges $300 a month, they're surprised the guy who owns that is a capitalist. neil: what do you think of using that lever to get what you want? >> i think that everyone is welcome to do what they want with their own money. it certainly doesn't bother me. i'm a libertarian. my views aren't represented in mainstream anything. if i boycotted everyone who

disagreed with me, i would never eat or go anywhere. i have kind of got -- neil: you are very thin. >> i have to grow my own food which is hard in my apartment. neil: avocados. >> in the next couple weeks we will see more of this, not less. you got an actor out right now blasting the ceo of marvel because he gave 600 grand to trump. marvel entertainment. 78-year-old man who led a great life and philanthropic, all of a sudden he's a bad guy. we will have everybody is a bad guy who gives money to trump. neil: solely because he created the ant-man character? >> got to wonder about that. neil: useless character. >> we know what happened with castro. i feel like -- i think i'm like reading from the onion. neil: here's what i worry about. i don't know if you guys are of this mindset. say you say something impolitic, then someone gets, you know, a fury in their bonnet and starts saying i'm going to protest any

show that lauren's on, that kat's on, i will raise the next level, boycott any show that has lauren on, kat on, and we have seen it happen on the left, i don't like it when i see it done to msnbc anchors, i don't like it when it's fox anchors targeted. if you don't like us, who can imagine, you don't have to watch. i just think using that lever, pulling that lever, is a slippery slope. >> i completely agree with you. it seems like we are morally inconsistent in the way that it happens. i feel like conservatives are more targeted. i feel like most people would agree with that. neil: fair and balanced, i don't remember people eyeing the businesses of those who gave money to barack obama when he was president in the entertainment field. people didn't stop seeing the movies that their firms created or a host of others. maybe this is more of a glaring example of this rage against the

president. >> yeah. >> are people really that mad or are they just trying to fit in? i saw so many people, they're not just not going to soulcycle. they are posting on their instagram stories, i'm not going to soulcycle, you shouldn't go to soulcycle either. i'm like okay, i have never been, i'm not an activist, i'm not a hero, do what you want to do. i think it's so much more about being cool and accepted, it's like the new hip thing to do now. >> part of that crowd, imagine if soulcycle drops 15% and they have to get rid of 400 people. that's the way i look at these things. that is potentially what can happen here. and i think will happen in some situations. are these celebrities making themselves so self-important, putting themselves out there, look at me, i'm against this, i'm against that, so you love me and go against them, is that what they want? they want to see people actually lose their jobs, because that is what will happen. neil: you have a product or gym

or food item you love so much, are you going to let the people who create it and their political alliances affect you? i love chunky monkey ice cream, right? >> cherry garcia. neil: i don't really care who the founders are giving money to. i just love their product. end of story. >> that's how i feel. but some people apparently do not feel that way. >> we might see the flipside. we might see people outraged by this, saying leave me alone, i'm entitled to do what i want with my money. they might support more to president trump or whoever that person is. neil: that's what this guy says. stephen ross's case, he's a billionaire, it's different, he's not going to be affected by this, his fund-raisers just wrapped up in the hamptons with the president, on his way to the second one. his view is i don't care, i'm going to do this, the companies separately put out statements, he doesn't speak for us and leave it at that. i'm wondering if it's going to give other company chieftains

pause here. >> we live in a society where we want particularly millenials want companies to be very aligned with their own morals. the whole do-good atmosphere out there. in a sense, yes, if i were the head of a company, i would probably give to both sides equally. >> there are some heads of companies right now that back trump that are on the phones with their people saying okay, just in case something happens, how do you want to answer this. they are on the phone with their critical whatever care companies that do this for a living and how to act. look, in steve ross's case, he got flack from miami dolphins players, too. neil: is he the sole owner of the dolphins? >> he's the head hofrno. big cheese. neil: it could affect if he can hire players. if you hate the dolphins, this is a good development. cuts both ways. >> they have had not a very good team for awhile. neil: guys, thank you. stick around because we are kind of dealing with something like this with walmart. i will explain after this. ♪

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neil: the dow down about 77 points. it's a good thing uber is not part of the dow. in one of its more painful days since going public some months back, posting a $5 billion loss. again, the financial community expected a loss. it didn't expect one like this, nor sort of downbeat outlook. market watcher dave meney on this. what is happening here? >> the giant block of losses are from stock-based compensation. in my mind, i kind of drag that away because that's about, i mean, it's very much about their shareholders but it's not about their operations. but they lost -- neil: explain that. they are now in that period, they were able to sort of sell and cash in on their stock essentially, right? >> yeah, exactly. but underneath that sits this very big, fat loss. if you lose a billion three in a quarter, you are losing $5

billion a year or that's the pace you're going at. they do have a giant pile of cash, but in my opinion, what it looks like to me after you parse through their statement, they are trying to do a whole lot of things. they are trying to compete with everybody in every category of the mobility space and it appears to me they are not clearly winning in any of those spaces from an investor point of view, and that certainly sets off a lot of flashing danger signals. neil: they say we are building something like amazon, it takes awhile to get some money off of them. >> 37, 22, 20, 14. last four quarters sales growth year over year. complete deceleration. every time a ride occurs they lose about 60 cents. not a great business model as far as i'm concerned. neil: they would have to increase the cost of the ride. >> no doubt they are going to have to. i think it will be the revenge of the yellow cab going forward, seriously. dave's right, i just think they are in too many things.

they want to be all things to all people. they forgot about their main niche. neil: wouldn't lyft benefit in that environment? >> lyft would. uber is going for scale over profit, obviously. add some numbers to that. 5.2 billion lost, 3.2 billion in revenue. that's a big difference. how forgiving will investors be. i think more forgiving than we might imagine. i was reading a couple of analysts' notes on this. they say look, what they are doing is generational, it's amazon-esque and it might work out for them in the end as they go for that scale. >> but as you mentioned, they are trying to do too many things. i was reading about this and one of the things they are going to try to do is add scooters. like what? there's never been a problem in my life where i'm like if only i had a scooter. i just don't think scooters are how you solve problems ever. but they are investing more in their delivery food service which i think is smart because i did use it this morning. i got an egg mcmuffin from uber eats to my house.

neil: you are so thin. >> i eat terribly. >> companies like uber and the fake meat company are lucky we are in a bullish market. if we go into a bear market they are going to be cut in half before you can say boo, because in bear markets, the curtains come down and losses, good night irene. then you can't raise money also. i would be really careful about them right now, valuations are an absolute joke. i think uber's stock should be worth about $15, not $40. i mean that. neil: what do you think of that, dave? >> well, look, you know, interesting thing this morning. if you go search for instance, they touted well, we are going, look at the growth in the food delivery segment. if you go search top food delivery apps, you will find that there's a top ten, not that there are only ten competitors, but there's a top ten and they are one of ten. so this idea that we are going to run the table in all of these segments is phenomenally

expensive, and many of these other companies are focusing on their one segment because they are trying to compete in scooters and mobility, they trying to compete in food delivery, trying to compete in cargo, trying to compete in airplanes and more focused competitors are nipping at their heels and getting higher in every one of those segments. that's not a bet i would make. >> you know the worst stock in the market almost in the last year? grub hub. it's just a very tough business. too much competition and they got to fight each other on price. some of these deliveries cost a ridiculous amount of money. neil: not if you take a scooter. >> and buy avocados. neil: quick break here. thank you very much, dave. meantime, nbc universal moving forward this movie about hunting deplorables. i kid you not. >> every year a bunch of elites hunt normal folks like us. >> where they get you from? >> miami.

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call unitedhealthcare and ask for your free decision guide. learn more about aarp medicare supplement plan options and rates to fit your needs. oh, and happy birthday... or retirement... in advance. neil: walmart is now removing displays of violent video games in the wake of these shootings. dan henninger from "wall street journal" says it could be something deeper. what's going on here, dan? >> i don't think the video games are really a problem, violent video games. they are part of the corrosion of the culture and it's fine by me if walmart wants to push back against that.

but let's understand the video games are basically a cartoon or kind of a cartoon shooting gallery. i think that the real problem is the rising incidence of anxiety, neurosis and mental illness caused by people immersing themselves daily or even hourly on online forums or factions like college students who are constantly worrying about texting their relationship with their friends and so forth. there are many articles that appear for instance in the chronicle of higher education in recent years about mental health clinics on campuses being overwhelmed by visits from students, saying they are suffering from depression. one constant here i think is that people are spending so much time worrying about themselves online and if you push that out to scale along normal anxiety to serious neurosis and real mental illness, you get to the point

where people like connor betts and the el paso shooter spending time on forums like 8chan, interact withiing with other pe feeding their neurosis about other people and they snap and you end up with the kind of shootings we've had. it's a very toxic atmosphere. neil: while you didn't cite games, a lot of games have streaming online communities who you are playing with online. that's another wrinkle on the gaming thing. you're not looking at that as a problem. as an observer, i know games have advanced over the years. they are pretty brutal. i think the latest wave of them outdo certainly earlier versions but that's not what you're concerned about. >> no, not so concerned about that, although i do think it's a problem. no question about that. the level of violence in society. neil: and what's accepted. >> and what's accepted, reducing it to the cartoon level of these video games, it cannot have a positive effect. but for instance, you had over

40 murders in chicago in june and that is not really being caused by video games. this is being caused by people with, you know, living in conditions where they just sort of feel that the only outlet they have is to go out and start shooting people. so i think when you have individuals like these very troubled young men living online, immersing themselves in chat rooms where they talk to other people, raising this quality of neurosis about enemies, perceived and so forth, it is inevitable some of them are going to snap and go out and start looking for victims. so living your life online hourly the way many young people do has just got to be a path to trouble. neil: you have young kids. as a mom, do you worry about this is the wave of the future? >> 100%. i worry even more that i don't know what the solution is. and if i can ask dan a question, what do you do about these

platforms? you can't de-platform them or cut off their funding or their power because they will just find another way to have a platform. as we talk about social media needing to do something, what is that something that we can do? >> yeah. i know. the genie is out of the bottle. there's nothing we can really do about that. it will be pretty hard to regulate these things. i'm talking about young individuals who have become totally inner directed. they disappear into their own minds. i think the solution really is indeed cultural, is finding ways to become more outer directed, getting involved in things, like athletics, like religion even, like organized activities where you're not spending all of your time worrying about yourself, thinking about yourself. the human brain wasn't designed to do that. it's not natural. the natural thing is to be out in the world thinking about other people and somehow the culture has got to take hold of

this problem and start pushing these young people out into the world, where they belong. neil: yeah. i'm so glad they didn't have this technology when i was a kid. dan, thank you very, very much. switching gears a little bit here, i don't want to be remiss in addressing this. nbc universal, talk about a violent backdrop to everything, is moving forward with a movie about hunting deplorables or those who might like donald trump. it only pushed it back one month. it's still coming out. this is a pretty violent theme here. it was only pushed back in light of these shootings. >> yeah. i guess i'm someone who is always kind of rejected the idea that violent video games or violent movies are going to cause people to commit acts of violence. japan's very violent video games doesn't have a mass shooting problem. i played a lot of mario cart growing up. i don't walk around throwing banana peels everywhere. i think if -- >> or avocado skins. >> if you are going to blame this on the video game or movie,

you clearly had some underlying issues and it's more about those issues than the gamer movie itself. neil: gary? >> all i know is as my kids grew up, i watched, saw the video games they were playing, i looked at them like what? just people blowing up with blood flowing out and prostitutes. i'm like okay, hold on a second here. i would try to do something about it and they were on it the next day. it didn't affect them but unfortunately -- neil: it's the community. what i was trying to get there with fortnite and some of these other advanced games is that there's a community and you are playing with them. >> they are like this. it's very, very close-knit. neil: the violence, you might be right, there's no study that's confirming this, but i'm seeing now in light of what's going on with this movie, that's just pushed back a month, pretty violent, gruesome theme. >> and it's political. it's hypocritical in the sense a lot of people are calling for gun control right now in the wake of these shootings and this

is a movie where blue states is the assumption use guns and target red states, and part of the trailer that universal has released, it actually says let's get the deplorables, aka trump supporters, in the red states. neil: imagine if this were the reverse. >> you say it's somewhat hypocritical. it is the definition of hypocritical. the people that are yelling and screaming on gun control are making a movie, going out, shooting the other side in a very volatile political environment, where people are screaming and yelling back at each other, and imagine if it was in reverse. imagine if it was -- >> i can't. >> -- obama-ites, they would need paddles in some of those network offices for people having strokes over it and veins popping out of their heads. it's a shame. >> when it comes out, boycott.

>> you just don't go. neil: it will be more popular than ever. left to right, it gets kind of whacky. quick break here. the dow has recouped most of its losses. gary will probably say i told you so. not allowing him to speak. meanwhile, president trump wants to maybe commute rod blagojevich's prison sentence. this is the guy who thought it was golden to have the power to select a replacement for then senator barack obama who was campaigning for president and became president. that opportunity landed him in jail. now this president is apparently poised to get him out. after this.

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>> well, the president now getting pushback from members of his own party. illinois house republicans put out a statement criticizing the president, basically for considering to free the former democratic governor. here's part of their statement. commuting the sentence of rod blagojevich, who has a clear and documented record of egregious corruption, sets a dangerous precedent and goes against the trust voters place in elected officials. so president trump first brought this up about a year ago. republicans in illinois opposed it then, too, and then the debate reignited wednesday when president trump made some comments on air force one. he said he's been in jail for seven years over a phone call where nothing happened. he went on to say you have drug dealers who get not even 30 days and they killed 25 people. you may remember rod blagojevich was on "celebrity apprentice" in 2010 so that's how the two know each other. blagojevich has been in prison in colorado since 2012. he was impeached and removed

from office in 2009 after that federal investigation in which he was accused of corruption, then convicted on more than a dozen counts including the one where he offered to sell president barack obama's now vacant senate seat. this is a statement from patty blagojevich, rod's wife. she says our president's comments on air force one last night which was wednesday night, make us very hopeful that our almost 11-year nightmare might soon be over. we are very grateful. the president is getting some unlikely support from reverend jesse jackson as well as his son, who is a former congressman here in illinois. they both sent letters to the president last week asking him to go forward with this commute. there's no timeline, though, on when or if anything official will happen. neil? neil: thank you, my friend, very, very much. again, we should know this fairly soon. in the meantime, the markets are doing something they have done twice before this week, overcoming huge losses from earlier in the day and trying to bounce back into positive

territory. the dow now down about 44. something's going on here. i will talk to gary about that, lauren and kat about that. then we will revisit this whole delivery issue that has kat out of sync with most of society because this isn't involving scooters. this involves rerobots delivering our food after this. ♪ ♪ ♪ introducing the all-new chevy silverado. with fifty industry-firsts. it's the strongest, most advanced silverado ever.

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neil: all right. we are back to this delivery service thing. i immediately thought of kat, thinking of scooters and all the overcharging that goes on. i don't know how amazon will deal with this. right now we are told it is testing a robotic delivery program. guess where, in southern california. what do you think of that? robot delivery? >> i think it's great. i'm not ordering food to my apartment because i want to interact with other humans.

first of all. so that takes that out of the equation. also, it's great for the company because if you see people fight for 15, robot's not going to fight for 15. you don't got to pay for a robot at all. you don't got to give a robot health insurance. you don't got to give a robot time off to go to his niece's christening or whatever. r robots, people who are in low skilled jobs should be concerned. i would be. neil: would you tip the robot? >> no, you don't got to tip the robot. >> you got 15 minutes of standup on this subject. neil: you do. you do. lauren, that puts you in a conundrum, right? what do you do? >> well, they take up some sidewalk space, these are robots that are pretty wide that go down the sidewalk. it's kind of annoying. i kind of like it because it takes the cars and vans off the road and i feel like there's traffic everywhere. neil: if it's a walk-up -- >> if it's a walk-up, that's tough. you probably have to make robots with knees.

>> what about the cars and the people that can't see the little robot on the ground as they drive? you don't drive into a driveway on the sidewalk? listen, i always say -- neil: you sound like a luddite. >> i have to ask what could go wrong with little robots visiting your house and kids in the street with little bb guns and little things like that. neil: they didn't see "2001 space odyssey." >> say you live in an apartment building so you have to go put in a code and get your order. >> it would be take mine and take hers, too. neil: would you go to the lobby? >> got to come to my door. i'm not going to the lobby. >> are we ever going to do anything, anymore? >> i hope not. >> will everybody do everything for us? >> i certainly hope not. neil: there is some other news. i don't know if this is good or bad. any vegans here?

burger king is introducing a plant-based impossible whopper. they already tested this thing. it tasted so good. >> got a lot of sodium. neil: is that right? >> yes. neil: i didn't know if it's more calories but you would not know. i'm wondering where you think this whole stuff is going. >> i think it's a fad. neil: you do? >> i may get beaten up for that. i think the market isn't just vegetarians and vegans. it's also people like me who want to eat less meat because it's more healthy but i still love meat and i'm probably going to take a juicy burger over a plant-based burger. neil: i don't know what they are using to imitate the juicy burger. they have even got that down. >> you liked it? neil: i was surprised, too. >> i liked it, too. it was peas and soy or something. neil: it's all natural ingredients but it's all combined together to give you this just like beef feeling, texture, taste, which it does.

>> it does. i'm a little disappointed we aren't getting any on set. last time we talked about this, we got some on set. i'm disappointed. neil: high whining content. >> i am a millenial. what do you think we do all day? neil: you think this is going to come and go? only reason i disagree with that, this changed the dynamics of this, when you have these alternatives, they really do taste awful and this didn't. >> there is a big following right now for it. but it's what you said, sometimes when you go the healthier route, you are packing what you eat with -- neil: he's a food elitist. >> other chemical, if you will. >> they will have many more applications for this. it will continue to grow. then it's going to level off. then it's going to sink again. it's not a fad that will be here forever but it's not going to be this big gigantic changing the world type thing. simple as that. i remember in '91, outback

steakhouse came public and somebody did an article saying nobody is going to eat meat anymore, the stock's going to zero. people love meat. neil: i agree with all that. but if you have an alternative that tastes just like it. >> it does. the veggie burgers of the past tasted like wet bean envelopes and this tastes exactly like meat. neil: take it from the vegan. all right, guys, i want to thank you. you did a great job, all of you. you are going to be on "bulls & bears" later on. great seeing you. lauren, you worked a very long day. always good. kat, love the humor. keep bringing it to us. deal with the scooter issue. progress. you have to deal with that. a lot more coming up. the dow down about 37 points or so. it's making another attempt to do something it's done at least twice before this week, overcome a very rough start. i don't know what that signals. more after this. let me ask you something.

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neil: all right. welcome back, everyone. the dow is down 54 point. still those sensitive to what can happen in china, are taking it on the chin. not across the board but it is noteworthy here we are with two hours to go, the markets clawing back from lows. charles payne, i have seen that twice before. have you? charles: microcosm of the week. the resolve of the market, whether speculation or earnings, it has shown a real ability to come back, hasn't it? neil: you called it early, my friend. charles: good afternoon, everyone, i'm charles payne. this is "making money." stocks are lower. there is sort of a calm as investors consider everything this week. news, speculation, of course the wild swings. i will tell you what i think the message of the market is right now. the president trump blasting the strong dollar and blaming the fed. we'll talk to perennial fed critic ron paul. we have that