investigation? we are waiting to see. cody, veronica, christopher, good to see you all. that does it for us. right now, it is all about stuart varney for the next three hours. "varney & company," you take it away. stuart: good morning, dagen. you are totally wrong on that. but let's get going. good morning, everyone. we said it before and we will say it again. it sure looks like this market just wants to go up. wednesday, the dow was up 248. thursday, 326. this friday morning, up another, what, 130 points. i guess the yield curve recession threat has faded and we are no longer that worried about a china trade flareup. sure looks like we are going to close out the month of august with a rallying stock market. now then, hong kong could be the fly in the ointment. news today that three protest leaders have been arrested a day before the planned huge demonstration, which the police have banned. a confrontation is possible. however, there is a late report

that protest organizers have called off saturday's demonstration. we're on it, guaranteed. think of the timing here. protest saturday night, maybe. new tariffs on china set for sunday, maybe. there is a connection between hong kong protests and china trade and our market, which by the way, does not reopen until tuesday morning. but look, it's dorian that is the center of attention, certainly in florida this weekend. it's likely to make landfall monday and blast the state all the way through tuesday. already, there's been a run on groceries and gas stations. president trump's canceled his trip to poland to be in america when dorian hits. there's a nasty note here. a former prime minister of canada, kim campbell, tweeted that she hopes the hurricane scores a direct hit on mar-a-lago. she doesn't like our president. all right. stand by. the latest on dorian coming up and we'll have the latest biden gaffe. yes, there has been another. "varney & company" is about to begin.

stuart: all right. this is happening now. florida's governor ron desantis holding a briefing on hurricane dorian. we are monitoring for headlines. any big news, we will bring it to you real fast. that is a promise. president trump taking a shot at general motors this morning on twitter. what's he saying? ashley: he says general motors which was once, he says, the giant of detroit, is now one of the smallest auto manufacturers there. they moved major plants to china before i came into office, in capital letters, there you go. this was done despite the saving help given them by the usa. now they should start moving back to america again, question mark. stuart: general motors still owes the treasury i think $11 billion to $12 billion from the bailout. ashley: correct.

stuart: thanks, ash. look, the continuing stock market rally, that is the top financial story of the day. yes, we are going up again this morning. come in, john allison. look, john, i say the markets just want to go up. are you with me on this? >> actually, stuart, i'm with you that it wants to go up, it wants a wonderful excuse to go up, and it wants the excuse to be the end of the trade war in a sensible way. i'm very rarely as categorical as i'm going to be now but if the trade war were resolved in a sensible way, a long-lasting way, i think the market could break through. if it is not resolved in a sensible way or we go back and forth to, you know, a tweet around the corner or the chinese saying something negative around the corner, then i think we're going to be range-bound and we will go up to 3,000 and back down again. so yes, i think you're right, the market wants it but the market needs to have a true fundamental reason to go up and

that is the abrogation of this trade war. stuart: okay. am i right in saying that the inverted yield curve and therefore the threat of recession, that's faded, it's no longer considered that big a concern? am i right in saying also that maybe we can get over a long, drawn-out china trade war and we don't suffer that much? and that's why i think we want to go up. what do you say to that? >> well, again, there are two aspects to this. first of all, with the inverted yield curve, i would modify what you're saying as people are not as concerned, you're correct about it being an indicator of recession. i think to some degree, that's one reason things have improved recently. however, the inverted yield curve has another aspect to it that very few people talk about, and that is the $900 billion of net new debt that the u.s. government has to raise the next four months, and that is a technical matter, boring for your program, but bottom line is contributing to it.

i think the more people understand that, the more they're not worried about it. in the end, though, stuart, i think that the china -- i think we cannot exist in a high prosperity mode if we don't have this china thing resolved. so i think that is really what people are looking for. stuart: we will do anything short but we do not wish to be boring. thank you very much. i'll try not to do that. thanks for joining us, sir. we will take it into consideration. got it. now, about the individual stocks that are indeed moving this morning. first off, tesla. that stock is going to be up, what, about 3%, six bucks at the opening bell. china has exempted 16 tesla models from sales taxes. that's good for the company. how about campbell's soup? nice profit boost. it's up 3%. better profit at dell. there is more demand for desktop computers, apparently. that stock is up just a fraction, but -- no, not a

fraction. it's up 9%. ashley: heck of a fraction. stuart: big fraction. oh, now look at this one. ouch. ulta beauty, down big. 25%. that's premarket. lauren simonetti is with us. consumers are cooling on makeup? lauren: we want to look more natural. stuart: you look great. lauren: or it could be we need -- i know this is kind of going to go over your head, i'm just going to do it anyway. big eyebrow trends, contouring, these are trends that have been in existence. they require a lot of products that you buy at ulta beauty. we need a new trend, perhaps, or perhaps that trend is less. less is more. therefore, more investment in skin care. stuart: is this a generational thing? lauren: it could be. stuart: when i say there's less demand for makeup, i'm thinking millenials are moving away from it. lauren: in terms of the kylie jenner which has been amazing, her beauty line at ulta, kim kardashian west is coming out with a new line, that would be

more generational but i think caring about skin care is for all women and men. stuart: ash and i, well, certainly i wear makeup every day. ashley: the only reason i got in the business. stuart: that's right. thanks very much for joining us. lauren: any time. stuart: let's get serious. ulta is serious but look at this. the e-cigarette maker juul getting a closer look from the ftc. when the ftc gets involved, i think that's a new level of scrutiny. ashley: yes. they are truly under the microscope, this company. the ftc wants to know whether the company used what they call influencers or other marketing to appeal to minors. what's an influencer? it's basically paying someone who has a large social media following to promote a product. they want to know whether juul essentially engaged in deceptive

marketing. the fda is already looking into juul and its marketing practices, as are a number of states as well. for the record, juul says absolutely not. we are very transparent with any government agency and we do not engage in these practices. but just another example of what juul is facing these days. stuart: the ftc has real power. whatever they find, they can -- ashley: absolutely. they may apparently look at fines. stuart: look at the stock price of altria, which has a stake in juul. we are coming up to the opening bell, 20 odd minutes' time. we will be up 142 points. that follows big gains thursday and wednesday. then we've got uber and lyft. believe it or not, they are teaming up. they will fight a proposed law that would classify their drivers as employees. now, look, if that passes, they've got to pay benefits. it would cost them millions and could jeopardize their business model. a volatile weekend for hong kong and china.

big protests planned for saturday night. there is a report that the protests have been called off by the protesters themselves. we will see about that. tariff hikes, they are scheduled for sunday. there could be a direct link here between hong kong, tariff hikes, china trade and our markets. look at this. hurricane dorian could wallop florida as a cat 4 storm. janice dean coming up next with the latest on the storm track. we'll be right back. there's a company that's talked to even more real people than me: jd power. 448,134 to be exact. they answered 410 questions in 8 categories 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 "thank you, real people." you're welcome. we're gonna need a bigger room.

stuart: we are going to be up at the opening bell of the market, about 140 points. that follows big rallies thursday and wednesday. look, now we are getting some headlines from florida governor ron desantis on hurricane dorian. headlines. ashley: one of the things we are realizing, this storm is going to be slow-moving which is bad news, which means flooding, definitely almost likely, of course. they are now deciding to open all the shoulders on the interstates or major highways. they have been cleared and they

will be open for traffic as evacuation orders are handed down. they say if you are in an evacuation zone, get out now. when it gets to that point, given what we know so far, it is likely to happen. they are telling people prepare now. they are looking at using high water vehicles, they are getting ready. fuel is already becoming an issue. gas stations sporadically are running out of gas. they are trying to bring in more fuel from out of state. they have been checking on nursing homes, make sure do they have generators and there will be spot checks immediately after the storm comes through. there's a lot to consider here. this is a monster storm. stuart: he wants to show that he is on top of it. ashley: correct. stuart: let's stay on dorian, bring in fox news meteorologist janice dean. looks like it's going straight at florida as a cat 4 storm. the latest, please. >> well, i will tell you, there's a lot of uncertainty with this storm. i wish i could tell you the exact pinpointed location where we are going to be dealing with the potential of a landfalling

hurricane but there is also the argument that we might not have landfall for several days, and it's going to cause a lot of problems all up and down the east coast of florida. so what i can tell you is this is a strengthening storm. it's almost a category 3. 110 mile per hour sustained winds, 111 makes it a cat 3 and we are forecasting a category 4 as it moves through the bahamas and potentially causes very destructive problems for the bahamas, and then we have to watch it monday, tuesday and wednesday, because the storm is going to slow down. that is a worse case scenario for so many reasons, because we can't tell you exactly where it's going to make landfall and does it stay off the coast and just scrape along the east coast of florida, does it make landfall and then move northward, does it move into the gulf of mexico? all of these scenarios could potentially unfold over the next couple of days and we really don't have a good handle on this forecast. here's what the computer models are saying right now, and this is wednesday.

so we're talking about not just hours of a hurricane, but days of a hurricane, of heavy rain, very strong winds, obviously, and storm surge that could be devastating for this area. so stuart, this is a very different type of hurricane because there is so much uncertainty as we go forward, and it's going to be a big nightmare for a lot of officials trying to get people to evacuate. do you evacuate to the west coast, do you go northward, where we still have the potential of a hurricane moving inland. stuart: it's a very tough call for the authorities to make. >> absolutely. and i wish i could give them a better forecast. we just don't have a handle on it yet. stuart: janice, thank you very much for joining us. i'm sure we will see a lot of you this weekend. thank you. let's get back to china. we've got a new report that hong kong protest organizers are canceling the big demonstration which was planned for saturday. the confrontation is still possible. people may still turn out for some kind of demonstration. meanwhile, trade talks continue on an encouraging note.

asian watcher steven mosha is with us now. i think there is a connection between hong kong protests on saturday night if they indeed occur, the imposition of tariffs on sunday, and our market tuesday morning. are you with me on this? >> absolutely, stuart. what we've got going on here is a complaint not just by the united states of america, but by the people of hong kong about the lack of the rule of law in china. there are laws in china but they are used to enforce the will of the chinese communist party to make sure that it wins in all circumstances. the people of hong kong where i lived for several years, by the way, don't want to be under that kind of rule of law. they like the british system the british left in place. one of the great contributions to civilizational events was the british rule of law they left in hong kong and other countries. the people of hong kong have enjoyed that. stuart: what do you make, there were three protest organizers arrested overnight or earlier today, i should say, three

arrested, then some of the hong kong protest organizers apparently called off saturday's protest. now, what do you make of all of that? >> well, one of those protesters who was arrested has been released now, i understand. but the organizers were unable to get a permit to demonstrate in hong kong, and so because they didn't have a permit, they didn't want to go ahead with their demonstration which probably would have brought two million people out into the streets. that's a quarter of the population of hong kong or more. so there's enormous support in hong kong for a continuation of the rule of law there. they don't want to be under the laws of the peoples republic of china. stuart: but if there is no major demonstration saturday night, beijing authorities, xi jinping, has won. >> oh, i don't think so. i think xi jinping is under tremendous pressure economically and politically in china now. i go back to two months ago when he warned the chinese people that they were looking at a new

long march scenario. the long march, of course, was chairman mao's effort to move the communist red army from the south to the north. he lost 90% of his troops over the course of two years of fighting with the nationalists. it was a devastating blow to the communist party. so he's talking, when xi jinping talks about a new long march, he's not talking about a setback, a recession, even a depression. he's talking about a cataclysmic economic event. i think they are walking on the edge of a cliff and they don't want to fall over it. i'm optimistic about a deal being reached between washington and beijing because beijing desperately needs a deal now. stuart: thank you very much for joining us, sir. only time will tell, as they say. we've got about 36 hours and time will tell. thank you. here's a look at futures again. holding to a nice solid gain. about 140 points higher for the dow industrials at the opening bell. a rally again. some states pushing back against the $12 billion opioid settlement with purdue pharma.

they say it doesn't bring in nearly enough money to satisfy their demands. we've got the story for you. gold bars stamped with fake logos, make their way into jpmorgan's vault. they are worth about $50 million. it's not fake gold. just a fake stamp. that story is coming up for you. oh, wow. you two are going to have such a great trip. thanks to you, we will. this is why voya helps reach today's goals... ...all while helping you to and through retirement. can you help with these? we're more of the plan, invest and protect kind of help... voya. helping you to and through retirement.

stuart: if you are just joining us, the word on this friday morning is rally. yes, stocks going up again despite this. a still inverted yield curve. the yield on the two-year is 1.53%. the ten-year, 1.52%. supposed to be not that way. but it is and the market doesn't care. next case, please. let's get on with it. some states not happy with the multi-million dollar opioid settlement with purdue pharma. what's the problem? ashley: purdue would file for bankruptcy, reemerge as a public benefit corporation run by trustees and the sackler family would kick in $3 billion. a number of states including new york and connecticut say not good enough. they want more money from the family. they are also not happy with this public benefit corporation trust because a lot of the money that's going to be in there comes from the future sales of drugs, including oxycontin. so on a number of levels there's

no guarantee how much money is going in and they say ironically, we are going to be leaving off the money that's generated by a drug that's created so much misery. stuart: the negotiations begin. $12 billion is the initial offering. they want more. okay. got it. group of senators calling for an investigation of amazon's consumer safety policies. what's this all about? jackie: the "wall street journal" did an investigation, they found that more than 4,000 products on sale on the amazon website actually were declared unsafe by federal agencies. they had deceptive labeling or they were banned by federal regulators. so three democratic senators, blumenth blumenthal, markey, menendez, writing to jeff bezos and asking him to basically do something about it, either stop the sale of unsafe items or make sure there are accurate warning labels so consumers know what's going on here. according to the "journal" amazon pulled down most of those listings but then some of them

popped up as other listings elsewhere on the website. when the "journal" contacted amazon they said we spent $400 million on consumer safety last year and safety of course is a priority but the question that the senators are asking is what are you going to do about it in the future, because these products can be hazardous to people. stuart: who is liable, the third party seller or amazon's platform? jackie: that's a good question. ashley: that is a good question. stuart: quickly to the futures. we are going up at the opening bell which is now just four and a half minutes away. about 100 point gain. leave it at that. back in a moment. at fidelity, we believe your money should always be working harder. that's why, your cash automatically goes into a money market fund when you open a new account. just another reminder of the value you'll find at fidelity.

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stuart: real gold bars with fake stamps reportedly making their way on to the world markets. the only question here is where does the gold actually come from? ashley: that is the question. stuart: it's real gold. ashley: it is real gold. they reckon at least $15 million worth in the last three and a half years have found their way into the vaults of people like jpmorgan, which is a big player in the bullion market. the only reason this is a big issue is because where's it coming from? there are many places where the west won't deal with gold. venezuela, north korea, those types of places.

criminals can use it to launder, you know, regimes around the world. but it's so good, you can't tell the difference. stuart: it's still worth exactly the same price. ashley: correct. stuart: here we go. it's friday morning and bingo, it is 9:30 eastern time. we're off and running. we're up 326 yesterday in the first couple seconds, we are up 128 this morning. 137. okay. every single one of the dow 30 except for pfizer, all of them, every single one of the dow 30 stocks are up. we are now up 151 points for the dow. better than a half percentage point. i'm telling you, this market wants to go up. show me the s&p. where is that? it is up a half percentage point. how about the nasdaq? is that in this rally, too? almost exactly the same, up a half percentage point. the two and ten-year yields still inverted. the two-year yields more than the ten-year. shouldn't be like that. but the market doesn't seem to care. scott shellady is with us, david dietze and ashley webster.

scott, you first. i say the markets just want to go up. what say you? >> they do. slowly but surely we are starting to see what we have seen already happen in the ag world. we start to get deal delirium where we start to react less and less to this news about whatever china may be doing or what donald trump may be tweeting. so slowly but surely, we kind of start to get back to normal even though we've got this big tariff war looming right in front of our faces. so this market wants to do what it should be doing, because the economic news and economic indicators are saying things are pretty good here and the u.s. is still number one on the street. so yes, the market wants to go up because it should. stuart: david, my comment is the market wants to go up. scott agrees with me. what about you? >> i agree. the caveat is china quite shartly decishar smartly deciding to negotiate as opposed to fight back with higher tariffs this week. when you look at the underlying fundamentals, stocks are almost a no-brainer here. you have 70% of the s&p 500 trading with a higher yield than

ten-year treasuries. that's very rare. now people are saying let's go into stocks for income. it's not treasuries anymore. stuart: seven out of ten stocks in the s&p 500, i just buy them and i get more in dividend than i would if i bought a treasury -- >> it gets much better than that. you start with more income and historically, dividends have blown up 5% to 10% per year. so a decade from now, where you going to be better off? stuart: good question. i might be dead. that's a different story entirely. stop laughing, scott. i hear you there. >> sorry. stuart: protests still possible in hong kong tomorrow. although protest leaders have reportedly canceled the demonstrations but it's still possible they get something going here. i see this as the fly in the ointment. if there's a big demonstration, they crack down, if that happens, i'm speculating here, that really upsets the market, doesn't it? >> well, it could. it also has the silver lining that i don't think china wants to have wars on two different fronts. to the extent they have to focus

on hong kong, i think they are going to be a little more relaxed in terms of this tariff fight. that could be the silver lining. nevertheless, you are absolutely right. the markets abhor wars and uncertainty. stuart: we don't know what's going to happen but you've got to watch saturday night, what happens there. do we impose the tariffs on sunday and what happens when our market opens up on tuesday morning. because this is a long holiday weekend. next case, california. they got a new proposal, it would make uber and lyft drivers employees as opposed to part-timers on contract. ashley: meaning they would be entitled to better wages and benefits. stuart: yes. ashley: this is something that's being pushed aggressively by labor unions. however, lyft has come back and uber and by the way, door dash is part of this, too, saying let's have a compromise. instead of doing that, we will guarantee a minimum wage of $21 an hour for the time spent driving and picking up customers, a fund to pay for sick leave, an ability for workers to organize a group that

could negotiate. it's assembly bill 5 in california. it's a democratic legislature. this thing could go through. stuart: here's your chance, scott. here goes california, home of innovation, clamping down on innovation. go ahead. go at it. >> well, here's what i would say about it. it sounds as though that they are going to give the free market or at least kind of the free market a chance to solve their own problems and keep the government out of telling people what to do, and maybe even also give the drivers a chance to have something to say there as well. if this thing goes through where it's not going to be the government stamping down on everybody and there might be some sort of compromise, i would be for that. this is not just california. this is happening all over the world. everybody's wrestling on how to handle these drivers, whether they are going to be self-employed or contractors and/or employees. stuart: i just hope they don't squash a really interesting company. i just hope they don't. dow industrials now up 125 points. we have been in business for nearly five minutes. up 126. still about a half percentage

point higher. look at ulta, as in ulta beauty, the salon chain. look at them go. down 25%, that's $85 lower. consumers are turning off from makeup, apparently. that's what we hear. the stock is way the hell down. excuse my language. higher stock price for big lots, 15% higher almost on big lots. cost cuts boosting profit at campbells soup. it's up 8%. big moves today. look at dell. better demand for desktop computers and it is up a whopping 10%. pretty good. the government has awarded a $7.6 billion cloud contract to general dynamics. this is not the same as the pentagon $10 billion cloud contract which microsoft and amazon are fighting over. no, it's general dynamics. they got the contract. it's up a buck. now let's go back to those hurricane stocks as we call them. we always show you these when any part of our land is

threatened by a hurricane. we've got home depot, up. lowe's, up. and generac are up as well, $77 a share right there. the price of oil this morning, still in the mid 50s. $56.24. the average price for a gallon of regular gas has actually gone up a fraction. i'm very disappointed here. we are at $2.58 as of right now, up a penny. ashley: outrage. stuart: outrage. people are driving this weekend. come on. next case. president trump has taken a shot at general motors. took a shot at them on twitter. he's criticized them for moving plants to china. he urges them, bring them back here. hey, david, gm still owes the taxpayer $12 billion. they better come back. >> so ungrateful. we bailed them out in 2008 and how do they show their gratitude? by taking all those jobs that we helped save, and taking them to china. doesn't make sense to me. stuart: oh, now look at tesla. they are raising prices in china

and 16 tesla models will be exempt from the sales tax in china. you know, that sounds pretty good to me and the stock is up a nice 4%. what have you got to say on this one, scott? >> i still say like some other guests over the past couple years, tesla is more of a technology company rather than a car company. yeah, that will help obviously taking off those sales taxes but at the end of the day, i think tesla's a lot bigger or a lot more different than the car company that they pretend to be. i think it's still got some legs but it's going to be exciting to see elon musk and how he kind of navigates this tariff tantrum with what's going on right now. stuart: tariff tantrum. watch out there. >> it's going to be tough for tesla in china. the chinese auto market is completely in the doldrums right now. there's no doubt about it. there are scores of electronic vehicles, companies that are struggling to survive right now in china. it's a tough environment on top of everything else. stuart: i'm not so sure i would put my money into a stand-alone car company.

ashley: no. stuart: car companies these days have to be much more diverse because the worldwide demand for cars is down. and falling sharply. i wouldn't put my money in that. tesla may be a special case, i don't know. show me apple, please. they are going to unveil their new phones on september 10th. that's not too far away. apple is at $209. any big changes coming that you know of? ashley: i think the camera will be the big one. three lenses on the back, wide angle lenses, there's talk they are going to take the airpods, i don't know if you have them, i have them, they are fantastic, they have a little charging case. there's rumor perhaps you can put this on the back of the new phone and it will charge the airpods. stuart: three cameras. what does that let you do? ashley: take even better pictures than you can now. stuart: stop laughing, scott. i can hear you in new york. >> that's the problem. are these innovations we will see. is september 10th going to be enough to move the needle? right now, iphone sales are in the doldrums. the other thing we want to hear about, are there any new services they will announce because to the extent that apple

can move the needle on their service revenue, they are going to get a higher multiple. stuart: quickly to scott, what have you get -- what's your problem with three cameras on the back of the iphone? >> well, what are they going to do next? i don't know the difference between the last five. it's not really that different to me. maybe the millenials will notice something new. seems to me they are putting a new cup holder and air conditioning on now and it won't really make a difference to me. stuart: sidebar, i just got a new screen and a screen protector. know how much this cost me? $139. out the door. $139 out the door. okay. ashley: they saw you coming. stuart: here comes fox news. charge it. breaking news from our reporter in hong kong. jonathan hunt has confirmed that protest organizers have officially canceled the protest march scheduled for this weekend. that does not mean that there won't be any kind of demonstration. but the official cancellation has come through from the people who run that.

what else have you got? ashley: they say those that will come out peacefully will probably not come out. that does not mean that the hardcore of this protest won't indeed come out. that could lead to arrests because the chinese -- the hong kong police said they will arrest anyone who denies the ban. stuart: the pictures you are seeing, left-hand side of the screen, are from wednesday. those are not current pictures. we ought to tell you that these protests take place at night and it's now 9:40 at night in hong kong. gentlemen, it's 9:40. therefore, scott, david, we say good-bye to you. thanks for being with us. have a great weekend, gentlemen. we appreciate you being here. again, check that big board. holding on to a nice solid triple digit gain. up 123 points. look, i'm saying throughout the show, i will say it, these markets just want to go up. that's my perspective here. the mainstream media, the left, they keep talking about recession. they want to see this economy fail because they think it will hurt president trump. we will deal with that, next.

dorian, bearing down on florida. hospitals and retirement communities could be in its path. here's the question. when and how do you evacuate facilities like that? it's a very tough call. doc siegel coming up. the greens at it again. climate protesters have a plan to shut down london's heathrow airport. oh, no, please. we will tell you what's going on in our next hour. how do you gauge the greatness of an suv?

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stuart: if you're just joining us, the rally continues. now we are still up a triple digit 109 points. look at that level, 26,472. this has been a positive week

for stocks. however, the mainstream media just keeps talking up the possibility of a recession. the forbes publisher and colu columnist is with us. this is not about objective analysis of the economy. this is about slamming the president. that's the way i read it. you with me? >> yes, i am. well, it's analysis but it's analysis of preselected data that makes the case we are going into recession but of course, you're right, the overall goal here is to damage president trump. at this point i think it's really important for president trump to not help them. not help this process. i think he's got to be a little more careful than he is by upsetting ceos and investors with some of his occasional tweets and let the economy do what it wants to do and the market do what it wants to do, which is to go up. stuart: but they will never change. the media will always, and these so-called analysts, they will always go after trump because they just don't like him, regardless of what he does or

says. >> oh, yeah. i don't think that's -- i'm 100% with you on that, stuart. all you have to do is, you know, look at people like paul krugman and you know, he said the market was going to crash after trump was elected. so that's how accurate he's been. stuart: we took note of that at the time and almost every day since. next one. "new york times" changes an article for the second time, they have done this in a month. the article titled "the tea party didn't get what it wanted but it did unleash the politics of anger." that was changed to include references to racist displays at some tea party rallies. the left complained that the original article just wasn't tough enough. come on, rich. how could the "new york times" claim to be objective when they do the kow-tow to the liberals who are readers? >> again, you see what you want to see and you preselect the data that makes your case.

there are bad actors on the right. there are bad actors on the left. in a country the size of the united states, 330 million people, you are going to find what you want to find out. so it's not a fair representation of what's really going on. stuart: wait a second. the "new york times" goes out of its way to describe our president as a racist. that is a subjective opinion. it is masquerading as objective fact, which it is not. i don't think a reputable news organization should be doing that. >> well, they do. they are doubling down. there's no question about it. between now and the election i think they are trying to do everything they can to dislodge the trump administration. i mean, that's just beyond debate at this point. stuart: you are a publisher of a major operation here. do you think that journalism as a profession will survive intact the trump presidency? >> you know, we went to a model at forbes where we have a lot of

outside contributors, in fact, we have more outside contributors than staff journalists. the contributors are only picked because they can really add value to forbes readers. they can help them on their careers, they can help them in their investment portfolios. i think there's a blending. i think this outside opinion that really knows what it's doing, you know, is turning out to be more valuable than probably 95% of professional journalistic reporting out there. stuart: i just object to subjective language in the news section as opposed to the opinion section. that's my problem. rich, great to see you back again. don't be such a stranger. >> thank you, stuart. stuart: see you soon. check that dow 30. when we opened the show, all 30 of them were up. now we have receded a bit, up 105 points for the dow industrials. next, top market watcher at jpmorgan says we need more immigrants coming into this country if we want to keep our economy growing. look, we are already letting a million a year in. how many more does he want?

we will ask him after this. so ...how are you feeling?

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sleep number 360 smart bed.st sale of the year on a you can adjust your comfort on both sides - your sleep number setting. can it help keep us asleep? absolutely, it intelligently senses your movements and automatically adjusts to keep you both effortlessly comfortable. and snoring? no problem... and done. so you can really promise better sleep. not promise. prove. and now, all beds are on sale! it's the last chance to save 50% on the sleep number 360 limited edition smart bed. plus 0% interest for 36-months. ends labor day. stuart: we are holding to that nice gain, about .4%, 111 points higher. check big tech. moving recently and moving again today. apple at 209, amazon's up just

three bucks, though. facebook actually down a fraction. but google is up $2.75 and microsoft is up about a third of 1%. most of them up. facebook fractionally down. look, our next guest says the economy needs more migrants, more immigrants just to keep it growing. david kelly is with jpmorgan asset management. he's making that argument. david, look, we've got, what, a million legal immigrants coming in every year. how many more do you want? >> well, i think we've got to recognize we've got a problem coming up here. the baby boomers have been retiring in huge numbers since 2012. the result of that is over the next decade, the working age population, age 64, is only going to grow by .2% per year. that just isn't fast enough to -- we are already at full employment, basically, so if we only have .2% growth in the working age population, that's what employment growth is going to be. if that's what employment growth is going to be, 3% is a pipe

dream. we will have a very hard time achieving 2% growth. so just over this next decade, as the baby boom retires, one policy choice we ought to look at is increasing the number of immigrants to sort of fill the pothole here caused by the retirement of the baby boom. you know, by the time you get to the 2030s and beyond, the need disappears, but over this next decade, we are going to be chronically short of workers and the one thing you can say about immigrants is about 75% of people who immigrate to the united states every year are of working age. 75% are between age 64. so when you bring in more immigrants you disproportionately bring in more workers and actually workers is what the united states will need over the next decade. stuart: david, do i detect a slight irish accent? >> yes, stuart. i worked with you many years ago. i benefited from immigration myself. stuart: me, too, actually. big-time. now, you also want to just three-year college degrees, not

four, as we've got now. three years. is that because you want to speed people into the workplace faster? >> well, these are all policy alternatives. we need honest debate about these issues. you know, too many things in this country, in the economy, are devolved to politics. this is not about politics. this is how do you grow the economy in the long run. if you don't do more immigration or only increase immigration a bit, how else can you increase your labor force? we live in the information age. do we actually need four years of undergraduate college to pack our kids' minds full of information when all that information or a lot of it is readily available? personally i went to three years of undergraduate but it's a different world today. i just think with so much information technology available, we may not need a full four years of undergraduate degree. if you do that, if you move to a three-year as opposed to four-year degree, you would actually put more people into the work force while you're transitioning or you could say let medicare kick in later, help

people transition to working past 65, 66, 67. there are ways of doing it. but all of them require honest conversations, honest choices about what we want our economic future to be. stuart: fascinating. i think demographics is a very key indicator, a big factor in future economic growth. david kelly, thanks for joining us. appreciate it, sir. attention, gadget people. nike has new shoes that you can control with your apple watch. i just can't wait. ashley: i know you can't. i love gadgets. you can take your watch and go siri, release my shoes. stuart: you can? ashley: you can. stuart: what will happen? ashley: it will, you know, either tighten or release and you can take your shoes off. in fact, you can change the settings. you can have them on tighter for exercise but have them looser if you are just around the house. stuart: are you going to buy them? ashley: no. because they have a similar shoe come out, nike adapt bb shoes that sold for $350.

i don't have the price on this one. if it's going to be something like that, it's ridiculous. you can also change the color of l.e.d. lights on the sole of the shoes. siri, make them bright purple. stuart: you can do that? ashley: yeah, yeah, yeah. stuart: do i really want that? do i need that? ashley: you? i don't think so. stuart: no. good story. all right. let's get serious. former illinois congressman joe walsh is challenging president trump in the republican primary. he's on the show today. mr. walsh has made some pretty inflammatory, very inflammatory comments in the past and i'm going to challenge him. what is he doing? why is he saying these things for? why is he challenging the president? he's on the show at 11:00. could be another violent weekend in hong kong. could be. three protest leaders arrested, one's been released on bail. police have banned the demonstration and the organizers apparently have called it off. but look, i think that a direct connection, our trade talks with china and what goes on in hong kong this weekend. good story.

check that big board. getting the latest read on consumer sentiment moments from now. that could move the market. we'll see. more "varney" after this. at fidelity, we believe your money should always be working harder. that's why, your cash automatically goes into a money market fund when you open a new account. just another reminder of the value you'll find at fidelity. open an account today. . . ows the range of prices people in my area actually paid for the same car so i know if i'm getting a great price. this is how car buying was always meant to be. this is truecar.

stuart: 10:00 here in new york city. show the big board with a gain 98 points. we received the numbers on consumer confidence from michigan. i have not pot the numbers ashley. have you got them yet? ashley: no. 92.1. stuart: we don't have the number? ashley: 89.8, just found it. we saw a drop of 7-month low, last month, now we're seeing a even bigger drop from the last month, from 92.1, what we expected, coming in at 89.8. consumer sentiment turning south. stuart: consumer sentiment

turning south again. ashley: yep. stuart: no impact on market. the market going the other way. ashley: good for the fed cut. stuart: i think you got it right. consumer confidence declines. the market thinks, well in that case we'll have a rate cut from the federal reserve, market goes up, i think that is what is happening. right now, we're up 120 points, and rising. got it? now this. it does not look good for hong kong. there could be a collision coming this weekend. anyone who believes in freedom and liberty should take note and support those brave people facing down a communist regime. the news today is grim. three protest leaders arrested, one of them joshua wong snatched on the street, bundled into a private car. there is a late report says he has been released on bail. the police banned the big demonstration planned for saturday. fox news has confirmed that protesters, protesters called off the event but remains

possible that another confrontation is coming in the next 36 hours. the authorities have offered no concessions. chief executive carrie lam says she does not accept the protesters demands, no backing down but she takes orders from beijing and it is xi xinping in beijing who will not budge because he can't. no communist regime can accept any degree of democracy. free votes? independent courts? beijing says no. there is a connection to the trade talks. sunday, we will impose more tariffs on chinese goods. that comes right after a possible hong kong protests saturday night. is there a potential deal here? we dropped the tariffs, if beijing goes easy on the demonstrators? we simply don't know what is going on in the background. the people of hong kong are showing us, that freedom is not free. it is a struggle to get it, a struggle to keep it. it takes courage and

persistence. those protesters, by the million have both. remember this, we are heading into a three-day weekend. our stock market is closed on monday. what happens to your money come tuesday morning will have a lot to do what happens in hong kong saturday night, beijing's response. and the new tariffs scheduled for sunday. no matter what, this program supports the people of hong kong in the challenge they now face head on. the second hour of "varney & company" is just getting started. ♪ stuart: get right to it, jonathan hunt joins us from hong kong. you confirmed, jonathan, saturday's demonstration is being called off by the protest, correct? reporter: well, this is a very nuanced statement from the protesters. the fact is, stuart, that while

one group has said, we are canceling the protests in the wake of those arrests of some activists leaders in the wake of chinese troops being seen rolling into hong kong, just 24 hours ago, and in the wake of the courts backing the authorities decision, that this protest as planned is unlawful, that one group is saying they cannot guarranty the safety of protesters, so they are asking them to stay off the streets. but all that means in fact, stuart, is that the peaceful protesters, hundreds of thousands of them, will probably not turn out tomorrow but what it also means, this is the important fact here, it also moons that the hardcore protesters, the ones that we have seen involved in clashes with police so far, will indeed show up. in fact, we were at an undisclosed location for an

interview with one of the activist leaders earlier today. she was one of those who said, we're canceling the protest. we said to others in the room, means no one will show up? what we got in the face of that, out right laugher. therethere will be protests tom. they will be large. because the police effectively driven a green light to arrest and detain anybody out on the streets protesting there is actually far more likelihood, stuart, that we will see violence on saturday in the streets of hong kong. stuart: jonathan hundred, that is a very important report. we're glad you can clarify that in the middle of it. good stuff, jonathan, we'll be back to you. jonathan hunt in hong kong. thank you, sir. get to the markets. bring in jonathan hoenig. i will ignore the name of his capitalist pig hedge fund for a second. this is serious stuff. what we heard from jonathan hunt

is a little chilling. he is saying there will be protests saturday night in hong kong. the hardcore will turn out. if it turns violent, i think that will have a big impact on our trade talks with china. what say you? >> this time around, stuart, as you have alluded to, there has been tremendous military been bused in by the chinese to address a lot of these protests. there has been potential talk, very horrific talk this could be another type of tiananmen square setting up. given the fact, hong kong such nexus for world trade, this is tremendous financial center, if there are armed conflicts on the street, you can bet our market given the holiday will react quite feverishly, quite violently this week. stuart: put the hong kong situation on one side for a second. i get the feeling, this market, our market, just wants to go up. what say you? >> you know, i would agree with that, stuart, but i took a look

at advancers and decliners from yesterday. even with that 300 point gain, there was still only 100 new highs and 100 new lows. that doesn't mean the market can go up. not yet are we seeing both stocks at new 52-week highs. many are doing well, home depot, coca-cola, proctor & gamble. there are a lot of concerns on the horizon, stuart, whether slowing global growth, still inverted yield curve. the prospect for a slowdown or recession, just isn't in people's mind, stuart. we had a great couple days in the market, keep in mind, two weeks ago we were looking at one of the ugliest months in months, in september i will throw it out there as well. i'm not a casandra, september is historically the worst month of the year for stocks. i'm not saying sell your book. but i'm saying be cautious, be a little bit prudent, because all concerns about the market haven't gone away in the last three days. stuart: you're calming me down, jonathan. don't let me get carried away. good stuff, young man. big day. appreciate it.

got to get to politics. joe biden on the campaign trail told a war story that "the washington post" is calling false, but his gaffs don't seem to hurt him. the he is still holding his own in the polls. marc later joins us now? how do you explain it? i can explain it. i want your explanation. joe biden, gaffe after gaffe after gaffe, he leads the democratic field, he leads mr. trump head-to-head. explain it. >> i don't think they're gaffs. this is clearly a pattern with joe biden. couple weeks ago he couldn't remember the name of the british prime minister. he forgot what state he was in. bungled in the course of minutes, according to "the washington post" story just about every detail about honoring these war heroes. it is not a gaffe. it's a pattern with joe biden. it has a lot of democrats rethinking their front-runner. stuart: but i think most democrats understand, in my opinion, that the second and

third tiers people, elizabeth warren, bernie sanders, kamala harris, mayor pete, they can't win. so they go with joe biden, because at least he is moderate, at least he is not a socialist. that is my interpretation here. what about you? >> that is a misinterpretation of his record. he is definitely not a moderate. he came out for open borders. he came out giving illegal immigrants free government funded health insurance. these are very radical positions. even flipped flop, after 40 years he supports taxpayer-funded abortion on demand. these are the kind of positions that are not moderate. you remember too, if joe biden is struggling this much in a field, 20-person field, like a socialist clown car, imagine all of them combined are not nearly as difficult as beating president donald trump next year. stuart: president trump makes a few gaffs of his own, exaggerations if you want to call them that, but the media

treats him much more harshly than they treat joe biden, even though it was "the washington post" exposed the falsehoods in mr. biden's war story? >> it is true they definitely treat these kinds of things differently. this is a pattern with joe biden and it is not necessarily an endearing one when you don't remember you're in new hampshire, not in vermont. those things raising questions among democrats, about joe biden's status as front-runner. some polls starting to show the race tightening. at the end of the day, doesn't matter which one comes out of primary. they have to get in the ring with donald trump. their policies they have endorsed are just absolutely opposite of what america wants right now. stuart: what will you be doing this weekend? >> i think i'm heading back to indiana, my home state, enjoy the holiday weekend, be back to d.c. on monday ready to go. stuart: my dear, taking a couple of days off 15 months before the

election? oh, you're in trouble, son. [laughter]. marc lotter thanks for joining us. enjoy that weekend. get outget out of here thanks vy much. it's a another big day for your money. wednesday up 248. thursday up 326. this friday morning after what, 45 minutes worth of business, we're up another 143. i can't do the math. ashley: don't look at me. stuart: we are about 800 points away from the all-time record high for the dow. we're up. we have more bad news for juul, the e-cigarette people. under investigation over their marketing practices. a lot of teenagers are getting hooked on vaping. is a serious crackdown on the whole issue of vaping, is a serious crackdown coming? i will ask dr. marc siegel. also for the doctor, hurricane dorian, bearing down on florida. when should nursing homes and hospitals start evacuating? it is an extremely tough call to make. we're going to get into it with a doctor after this.

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stuart: tweet from president trump. here it is. if the fed would cut we would have one of the biggest stock market increases in a long time. badly-run weak companies blaming small tariffs for bad management, who can blame themselves for bad management. and who can really blame them. excuses. no impact on the market. we're still up triple digits. we're up 117 points. got that. check hurricane related stocks. here is ones we use. home depot up nicely again. lowe's down fraction. generac, make the nice generators.

i have got one, up 60 cents. they're up. florida's governor ron desantis given a briefing on the storm. what did he say? ashley: he said the clock is ticking. take time to prepare yourself. get necessary supplies. if you don't, because this storm a monster storm will last days. let's listen to what he said. >> floridians need to be prepared. you know, the bad news of the storm going slower that could potentially have some negative impacts once it reaches landfall, but you do have time. we urge all floridians to have seven days worth of food, medicine and water. this is potentially a multiday event. but if you're in an area that has an impact from the storm, you know, you should assume you will lose power. stuart: ashley: you should assume that. slowness in storm, in addition to the power of it, stu, is what is really concerning. they are trying to get people to make plans now.

they will clear off shoulders on interstate evacuation routes. this extremely serious. stuart: he has not at this point ordered evacuations? ashley: not yet. stuart: listen to what florida's governor just said about evacuating nursing homes. this is important. roll tape. >> you know, in terms of these nursing homes, obviously that has been an issue in the past. the agency for health care administration is making site visits or calls to all facilities where the state does not have updated info about generators. as you know we now have a website through the agency of health care administration where you can go in each county see who has generators, who doesn't. stuart: dr. marc siegel is with us on this very issue. doctor, this is an extremely tough call. if you're elderly in bed, moving you and moving you where, we don't know, that is a hazard of itself. >> absolutely. the key word there he used is issue of power. if you lose power, reliant on

oxygen or generator of some kind, you're elderly, chances of staying in place would be greater than chances of moving. if you move an elderly person, risking falls, disorientation. do they have medication? do they have enough food and water? where are you putting them? where are they going? stuart: there is another problem, storm surge, masses of water coming in from the sea, extensive flooding, doesn't matter if you have a generate or or not, if you're deluged you have to move. that call, when you make it with a nursing home, tough call to make. >> have to make it in advance of flooding you have more false, hidden objects before the water. you have risk of contagion. risk of getting contaminated water, all of this comes in now. there are two huge investor health networks in central florida, tenant and hca. hca health care number one in

country of private health care. it is very extensive i have, what you heard in the set-up. the number one issue is staffing. do you have proper staffing for this kind of a storm? stuart: elderly are truly vulnerable at this point. i think i can say that. loss of power especially. you said flooding. will they be disconnected from food sources and from the emergency health care. more freestanding emergency rooms in florida than there was when irma was there. they moved in the direction being more prepared than before. stuart: that is what we want to hear. good news. is that it? just changed the prompter. okay. sorry, doctor, we're out of time, okay? [laughter] >> i agree with alex azar yesterday here as a guest. very important point, we have to clamp down on vaping and under the age of 18, vaping devices should not go to our youth. stuart: that is what i was going to. >> this is disgrace this is

happening. stuart: thank you, doctor. >> thank you. stuart: the war, the university is taking downpour traits of prominent scientists, nobel prize winners, taking off walls of auditoriums, all the pictures, they're gone, because they're all white men. the universities are worried about a lack of diversity. doesn't matter if you won a nobel prize. you're the wrong color, wrong race. you're out. california getting closer to introducing statewide rent controls. national association of homebuilders says it will not work. it will drive prices higher. we have the ceo to make his case in our 11:00 hour. ♪ there's a company that's talked to even more real people

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stuart: markets back up a little bit, up 85 points. we lost much of the rally that we saw earlier. i have to show you ulta, the beauty salon people. they cut the sales forecast. consume remembers cooling on makeup and the stock is down 26%. wow. ouch. down $96. then there is this. universities, some of them, getting rid of these dude walls. i need some explanation here. i think i know what i'm talking about, but lauren simonetti does. a dude wall is a wall in a university which acknowledges, honors the people from the college who have won a lot of prizes, like nobel prizes. >> correct. stuart: why are they taking them down? >> smart men are on the wall. they're taking them down because rachel maddow is giving out awards at a university here in new york. she was giving award to female scientist. she said, she might have just

meant, hey, congratulations as female scientist. what is with the dude wall. she didn't say take it down. that resonated with a lot of universities across the country. now a teaching university at harvard, women's, they're taking down the dude wall in bornstein auditorium. the pictures of men are going to other places in the university but they're not in the auditorium. they say that is where we bring in cultural audiences. it is offensive to some people. that not only example. stuart: you won the nobel prize. ashley: that is offensive. >> right. their picture is not offensive. it is to some. is their gender material to the accomplishment. middle east been back in the day, certainly isn't now. maybe the better question should we erase the walls or add to them. stuart: i will not get involved in this. outspoken in the extremes. i'm done. deep breath. >> i hope i wasn't outspoken either. stuart: no, never. you're wonderful. thank you very much indeed.

protesters in hong kong, called off the big march planned for saturday. but our own jonathan hunt who is there, says that doesn't mean there is no demonstration and no violence. he says the hardcore will turn out. that could have a big effect on our trade deal with china. we'll get into that in a moment. coming up in the 11:00 hour, former congressman illinois joe walsh, challenging the president in republican primary. he says outrageous stuff about our president. does he think going after trump will win him any vote. why on earth is he doing this? i will ask him. ♪ at fidelity, we believe your money

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♪ ♪ another girl stuart: all right. ashley: air guitar. stuart: good to see ashley webster. ashley: i play a great air guitar. stuart: we all do. one of my favorite songs. it has a movement to it, a rhythm. the harmony is terrific. on a day like this, we could use more of that. wait for it. climate activists have a plan to shut down london's heathrow airport. how will they do it. ashley: disgusting. i have to tell you. it is absolute nightmare for travelers everyone involved. picking september 13th. the group called heathrow pause. they will call authorities one hour before they start launching these toy drones within the three-mile no zone area. they say they will do it at regular intervals, to quote,

insure no aircraft flights will take place. disgusting. the police are going to do everything they can to stop them. they will be arrested. but if you're traveling to the uk on september the 13th, be warned. it could be very, very frustrating indeed. we know what happens. they end up having to shut down the airport because these drones can pose a threat to aircraft. stuart: don't just arrest them. put them in prison! ashley: throw away the key. stuart: come on. ashley: i know. stuart: get real here. you have no right to do that kind of thing because you're worried about the future of the planet. get out of here! ashley: horrible. stuart: i'm getting carried away. show you the big board where the rally modestly continues. we're up 100 points. bunn third of 1%. 26,463 is where we are. two events here. at the top of the hour, we got a decline in consumer confidence. maybe that makes the fed think twice about lowering rates again.

p maybe it is impetus for fed to lower rates. after all we're up 110 points. the other story is, jonathan hunt, on our air at top of the hour, he had been in the room with protest organizers called off the big protest saturday night. he asked the question, does that mean there will not be any protest? they laughed at them. the hardcore will come out. therethere will be people on the streets of hong kong sass day night. that changed the whole tenor. ashley: hong kong police say they will be arrested. a confrontation is likely. stuart: it is a setup for the confrontation. president trump took a shot at general motors this morning, on twitter, criticizing them for moving plants to china. ashley: he does. he uses the power of the tweet to make his point. let's get to it. general motors which was the giant of detroit is one of the smallest manufacturers there. they moved major plants to china

before i came into office. this was done despite the saving help given them by the usa, the bailout. now they should start moving back to america again? stuart: they do owe $12 billion. ashley: that is a lot of money to be propped up by the taxpayer. stuart: come on back. bring your jobs here. ashley: seems fair. stuart: that is what the president said. by the way general motors is $37 a share. it has been there just about forever. the dow industrials picked up a little steam. we're up. bottom right-hand corner of the screen. we're up 120 points now. i'm trying to do the math. wednesday up 248. thursday up 326. friday morning up 116. ashley: 650 to 700 point gain. ashley: 2 1/2%. that is very good. not far away from the all-time record high. unusual as we're going into a long holiday weekend where anything might happen. still buying and still up. ashley: i think so. stuart: apple set to release the

new iphones september the 10th. do we know apart from three cameras on the back -- ashley: next one after that we'll have four cameras on the back. but also we understand at least the rumor is, front-facing lens which will have a slow motion option which i think is very cool. stuart: okay. ashley: you can take video something. do you? very good. we'll have this. by the way these phones, will not, we understand, find out, have 5g connection activity. stuart: okay. ashley: they're a little behind samsung on that. new phones which will replace the xs, xs max and the xr. these things become obsolete so quickly. you have got three cameras on the back which stu is excited about. slow motion lens on the front. charge airpods. they have a charging case. we think you might charge it on back of new phones. stuart: i don't know what you do with three cameras on the back of a phone. i'm willing to learn. let's get serious if that wasn't

serious. new york fed, former new york fed president bill dudley, as you know, he took a real big shot at president trump. he urged the fed to get political. don't low every rates, he said, because if you do, that would help mr. trump get reelected. pure politics, from a former new york fed president. incredible. look who is here. former texas congressman ron paul. we know you're no friend of the fed but what do you make of this, a former new york fed chair getting real political? >> well, i'm delighted. he is exposing the fed for what they really are. stuart: yes. >> they're very political. they usually hide it. most presidents badger the fed. they do it differently than trump has done it. he has exposed them. they fought back. but i think it tells you that they are a very political organization. for dudley to do this, i think it is fantastic. it also shows the shortcomings of the federal reserve. they shouldn't be involved.

what he has done is pretty atrocious. they have badgered federal reserve board chairman and presidents over the years. but this, to conspire out in the open, to try to get the president defeated, it is a little more blunt than usual. stuart: that is for sure. very blunt i call it, quite frankly. he came right out and said it. now i want your comment on negative interest rates in europe. i know we talked about this before. we got news today, that italy's unemployment rate went up, up, to 9.9%. germany, retail sales actually fell 2%. they're sliding into recession. so, ron, all this free money, negative interest rates, printing up a storm, it is just not working. but you told us that a long time ago. >> right. because there is no definition of the unit of account, which is the dollar for the world. and if you don't have a definition, it wanders around. sometimes things go up too high,

too low. but for the negative interest rates, that is historic. you've talked about this before. it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense. i go back to monetary policy. if you can't define the currency, you know, i have asked the fed chairman, before the committee several times, can you define the dollar? they really can't define the dollar. if i turn in dollar, will you reimburse me? another federal reserve note. that is where the problem is. if you can't define measurement of value for everything, then you get into the difficulty of trying to find out what real interest rates are. we don't know what they are. because they don't make any sense. that's where the bubbles come from, distortions, excessive debt. all the problems emanate, we have monetary system, not a viable system. it is fiat system. we put too much responsibility on the federal reserve. now we know exactly what they're in the business of, rigging elections. trying to keep certain presidents from getting reelected.

stuart: rigging elections. well, i've not heard you go that far before, ron. glad you said it on this program. >> maybe i should back off. stuart: what are you doing this weekend? are you barbecuing? >> haven't decided yet, we'll be at home with the kids. goodness, we're not anticipating the hurricane to hit us. hopefully it doesn't come our way but it will be family weekend. stuart: i hope you have a great long weekend, because you deserve it, sir. ron paul, great guy. thanks for being on the show. >> thank you very much. stuart: how about this one? some states are not happy with the multibillion, 12 billion-dollar opioid settlement deal with purdue pharma. kristina partsinevelos, why are they not happy. >> a few stipulations they are not content with. how will money be distributed across to various states and counties? they haven't specifieded because of population within the regions

or impact of the opioid crisis. that is what all of this is about. the deal, settlement you mentioned is a settlement with over 2,000 lawsuits from across the country. 10 to $12 billion. the sackler family, behind purdue pharma, they contributed their own money, $3 million but some of the states, according to "the wall street journal" more specifically, connecticut, new york, local states are not happy. they don't think, they think that the sackler family should one, contribute more, and then two, remainder of the settlement is reliant on future opioid sales. stuart: they don't like that. >> they don't like that. the problem is opioid and oxycontin. they will pay the settlement on future sales of the product. stuart: before we move on, can you put that board up again with the opioid makers. they're all way down. look at that! 16% down. endodown 8%. teva down 2%.

they have been beaten, beaten down, all of them way down there. >> there is a lot of settlements going on, rumors of it as well. stuart: states want more than they have already got. more on settlement with allergan? >> allergan just today within the last few hours, they posted on their website they will settle $5 million with the state of ohio. million, not billion, million dollars. this was a big deal because this trial was expected to go, was expected to happen in october in ohio, big bellwether as to what another company that has to pay money. we know johnson & johnson was held financially responsible. 572 million. they're planning on appealing. now this big one, allergan, has decided they're going to settle as well. $5 million. stuart: only five million? >> i double-checked it. ashley: very low. very low. >> number of people that have died across the country. with allergan they wrote on their website they have not actively quote, actively marketed or promoted opioids

since 2013. stuart: okay. ashley: wow! stuart: five million. doesn't seem a lot of money to me in the overall context of these settlements. >> no. stuart: kristina, thank you very much for joining us. have a great weekend. check the big board. not a bad rally to end the week. america seems only game in town when it comes to your money. charles payne coming up on top of the hour. nike, a new high-tech sneaker. you can lace them up by using an app on your phone. i just can't wait to get one of them. if you're so interested, we're going to explain how this thing works. more "varney" after this. complete sarcasm. ♪ ♪

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stuart: it has been like this for most of the morning. roughly a triple-digit gain for the dow. we're going up. back to hong kong. fox news confirmed protest organizers indeed called off saturday's big demonstrations but our own jonathan hunt says that doesn't mean we won't see clashes between the hardcore and china niece police this weekend. dennis if we see any violence, any kind of a crackdown on saturday night in hong kong, does that have a big negative impact on trade talks? >> stuart, i think there is some very troubling developments in the last 24 hours, indeed in the last few days. first of all the hong kong authorities have you have said denied a peaceful protest in central hong kong which should have been allowed. number two, student leaders have been arrested. at least seven of them.

thirdly, when the hong kong garrison was rotated out, the chinese called it a routine rotation. i can tell you this was not routine. the 50 vehicles that were brought in were not the same kind of vehicles that usually are there. were anti-riot vehicles, so beijing is prepositioning forces in hong kong, ready to go into the streets. i think we need to be on a real alert as to what's going to happen in hong kong. clearly beijing given the hong kong authority as mandate and a deadline. i think that deadline is one october, the national day celebrations. stuart: let me refer back to our own reporter in hong kong, jonathan hunt, what he said at the top of the hour. >> right. stuart: he went to a meeting involving protesters. they outlined the fact that they had canceled plans for this demonstration on saturday night. and jonathan asked them, nobody shows up, no demonstration?

they laughed at him. they said look, the hardcore will be there. if the hardcore is there, that raise as possibility of violence. that raises possibility of a crack down by these riot troops i guess you call them from hong kong. is that what you're expecting, dennis? >> i am expecting, as we saw last weekend, that the police are going to be much rougher and tougher with the demonstrators if they defy the police orders. last weekend we saw policemen pulling their guns on these students. they have clearly been given instructions that they are to be tougher and to use more force. and, anytime a police force is given those, kind of mandate, in a situation like this, i think, there is a real danger of casualties in a situation like this. stuart: dennis, we thank you for the warning. i think a warning is due, watch

out, come saturday night that would be roughly lunchtime here saturday, midnight there in hong kong. got to watch that carefully. dennis, thank you for joining us on short notice. we appreciate it very much. thank you. >> thank you. stuart: big companies like apple, allison, considering moving some production out of china to places like vietnam or india. this is very expensive to move a big operation to another country. wouldn't it be just cheaper to wait out the trade fight, stay in china, wait it out? we'll deal with that next. ♪ we trust usaa more than any other company out there. they give us excellent customer service, every time. our 18 year old was in an accident. usaa took care of her car rental,

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stuart: we're just about holding on to a triple-digit gain. about 1/3 of 1% higher. we're up 90 points. i will leave it at that. there are a number of american companies considering moving their production out of china. on your screens, those companies are considering moving, not all of them moved just yet. ryan battle, drucker school of management senior fellow he is with us now.

ryan, wouldn't it be easier, it is very expensive to move production out of a country, set up shop someplace else. wouldn't be cheaper and to stay in china, wait out the storm? >> well, yes. that would be the easiest thing but you know, when you're starting to see what is going on with the global economy, countries like vietnam and india are providing heavy incentives, providing them to move their plants to come over there, and provide not just importing but domestically be able to make it a higher consumption rate. you add on why they have, why are they moving? because margins are taking a hit. now you have got that ability to change the mind where china always had that advantage when it came to the higher end manufacturing and infrastructure spending. it actually is starting, been a few years, people have put that thought in process. so people are exploring different options and with the trade war, it was a little extra push. they obviously that been thinking about it. not just like you can move tomorrow. apple, google, thinking about it

multiple years. amazon, india opened an office there, while thinking about moving manufacturing. stuart: some of these countries like vietnam, india, too, they don't have the infrastructure. they might be able to make the product but they can't get it to a port, to get it out of the country. isn't that a big problem? >> it is a huge problem. that is what vietnam is actually facing. talk about five years ago, six years ago, if you asked me which country is up-and-coming hottest market where investment was coming, obviously vietnam was up there with india. vietnam specifically in the region. you're seeing they have the highest investment dollars coming from mainland china. but the traffic and ports has become an issue. it is not as cheap as it was a year ago, if you wanted to set up shop there. it has gotten a little more expensive. you talk about india, for example, they have been notoriously always infrastructure issues. india finally, incentives they know they have to raise capital

to connect rural areas of india to urban areas to provide more incentive for companies to insure to get to that population number. stuart: president this morning, looked at general motors, you set up shop in china. why don't you come back over here, bring those jobs, bring factories to america. does that sound like something gm could do? >> technically gm can do whatever they want to do. that could definitely be a possibility. as you know china actually had a 30 year head start compared to other emerging markets when it comes to infrastructure spending, right? as we mentioned other emerging countries have to catch up in that automation, in the technology, so it has been pretty easier for a company to stay resistant in china, like apple, for them to actually start looking at other manufacturing, maybe come back, make it easier for the u.s. the u.s. will have to compete with incentives to make sure they stay here. it is better for them. stuart: doesn't sound like

you're outlining a deluge of companies leaving china in the very near future. is that right? give me 10 seconds on that? >> yeah, i don't think they will be moving because of the trade war. i think they are moving over long-term strategy. the trade war is just one more segment to push them towards that way. there is a lot of benefits for those companies in china, as of right now, especially in the short term. stuart: i can see that. ryan patel. thanks for joining us. see you real soon. thank you, sir. stuart: back to markets. we have a 80 point gain for the dow. there is lots of talk of looming recession from the media and the left. check your 401(k). you might be surprised. i think our economy is doing just fine. we'll talk about after this. when you open a new account. just another reminder of the value

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stuart: yes, it is the end of the month. check your 401(k). you might get a surprise.

remember, all you've heard about is the threat of recession, hyped up by a media that wants a downturn so the president loses in 2020. you have been bored to tears by the inverted yield curve. that's something else the media jumped on even though most of the commentators haven't got a clue what it's all about. and you have been alarmed of course by the trade war with china, which was surely going to hurt us badly. the surprise is that your 401(k) has weathered the storm, just like the stock market has weathered the storm. as of now, we're just a couple of percentage points away from an all-time record high for the dow industrials. we are 11 years into this stock market rally. i have been doing this for 40 years. i have never seen such a sustained move up. there are several reasons for it. first, it's the strength of our economy. it really is an outstanding performer. we still have strong growth. europe and japan do not. i don't want to digress.

the news came today that italy's unemployment rate had moved up to 9.9%. germany is indeed sliding into recession. i'm just saying. then there's the world turned upside down. not here, over there. we pay interest. they don't. imagine that. over there, you lend money and you get no interest and you don't even get all your money back. no wonder money pours in here. and some of that money finds its way into our stock market, into your 401(k). here's another fear that just has not materialized. the threat to our economy from china trade tariffs. remember the warnings, oh, prices will rise, consumers will be hurt. hasn't worked out that way. inflation has not ticked up. in fact, this labor day weekend, we will be paying the lowest gas prices in three years. have you ever seen the evening news lead with a story about america's economic strength? no, you haven't. it's always about weakness. it won't change.

the left hates him and will distort our economic performance in the hope that our president loses next year. ignore it. they have lost their credibility. at this moment, your 401(k) is a better indicator of how well the trump economy is really, really doing. third hour of "varney" coming up for you. stuart: president trump took a shot at general motors this morning on twitter. gm is responding. ashley: yeah. long statement. not an official statement, just pointing out some facts for the president to chew on. for instance, after coming out of bankruptcy in 2011, it says the number of employees has remained stable, 45,000, actually grown to 46,000 this year. it says around the u.s., gm employs nearly 100,000 people in 27 states, 132 locations, invested $23 billion in its american plants since 2009 and

accounts for 26% of all u.s. manufacturing investment in that time frame. it says that gm's china operations are not a threat to u.s. jobs. it says gm's china joint ventures pay their own way and send billions of dollars back to the u.s. every year. that's gm's response to the president taking a shot. stuart: general motors still owes the taxpayer between $11 billion and $12 billion. ashley: for that bailout. stuart: get that one out there. back to my editorial. charles payne is with me, host of "making money" on this network. look, i know you are pretty much in line with the way i'm thinking here but i still think, i want you to pound the table on this one, we are the best game in town, whether it's the economy or the markets. >> we are, and sometimes when people even begrudgingly admit that, they say we are the talle tallest midget. we have an amazing economy with amazing corporate growth. think about this week, all the

stuff that was either yur underreported or not reported at all. we are at the end of earnings season. came in much better than expected. we did not have an earnings recession. we had a really strong second quarter of earnings that everyone on wall street said would be the exact opposite. business investment, everyone who comes on says the tariffs are stopping businesses from investing. we got durable goods this week. businesses are invested. they invested in july, in june, in may. three months in a row of business investment. what about the consumer? monster. we saw data this morning that consumer's amazing but the gdp revision, here's what's funny, the top line went from 2.1% to 2%. that wasn't the story. we had the second best month over month increase in consumer spending ever. driven by durable goods. stuff that is going to last for three years like refrigerators and no one will talk about it. no one will talk about it. then we got again this morning another set of strong numbers. so the data keeps coming. by the way, the um kwooe consum discipline, savings at 7.7%.

you think about the eve of the recession, we were at 3.6%, 3.1%. so the numbers say the exact opposite of the headlines. the real facts are different than the negative speculation out there. stuart: you are so right. i want to talk to you about hong kong. because i think that jonathan hunt's report at the top of this hour, it may have moved the market. let me explain. he is in hong kong. he went to a meeting of the protesters, who had said we canceled the demonstration for saturday night. he asked them well, does that mean no demonstration. they laughed at him and said oh, no. there will be a demonstration, and the hardcore will come out. that suggests the possibility of a violent confrontation and it was at that point that the market started to pull back down a bit. i think that is a real concern for our market come tuesday morning. >> it is an anxious moment because we know the chinese officials are just eager, eager to start cracking heads. if you get the hotheads over

there, a handful of hotheads in hong kong, what did we see last week? this amazing peaceful protest in the rain, more than a million people came out. that's the kind of message they have to keep hammering around the world. if you get a couple hotheads out there who make it easier for the chinese to use force, then what does that do? because remember, one of the big news items this week was the olive branch of sorts from china saying okay, we're not going to go with those retaliatory tariffs, making it easier for both sides to continue this dialogue. we want to see this meeting next month. we want their delegation to come back to the united states and this could certainly jeopardize that. stuart: they are making nice on trade, softening up a little bit, at the same time maybe preparing a crackdown in hong kong. >> oh, they are preparing a crackdown. stuart: you could get very ugly headlines this weekend. i'm not saying you will. it's a possibility. >> right. and i think the organizers over there are smart. they understand that they are winning the global public relations aspect of this. but if you see one person throw a molotov cocktail or something, not that that would happen, but all you need is one or two, you know, hotheads or whatever.

that was a robocall. yeah. stuart: i get two or three in the middle of the show. >> haven't got robotexts yet. i hear that's the next big thing. stuart: don't say that. ashley: i have. stuart: you got robotexts? ashley: yes. yes. stuart: i haven't got that yet. >> oh, it's coming. one more thing i didn't mention. another sign of the economy, another proxy that we use, the draw-down in crude oil. ten million barrels this week. 500% more than anticipated. guess how much we were down since late may? 55 million barrels. stuart: strong usage in america. >> exactly. exactly. everything you would normally look at to consider where the economy is and going has been pushed aside for negative speculation, and to your point, often by people who don't know how or can't do the work and unfortunately, people who do know both but still ignore it. stuart: what time you on today?

>> 2:00 p.m. i'm going to go more into detail on all of this and also, we keep hitting a key support number. i know you don't like the jargon but we could be on the cusp of a major breakout. people need to know what they should be buying. stuart: appointment television. mr. payne, thanks. see you later. quick check of apple. why not. they sent out an invitation for a presentation on september the 10th. the speculation is you are going to see their newest iphone. deirdre bolton is joining us. they are also going to make it -- wait a minute. they are going to make it easier to repair your iphone or mac book? deirdre: it sounds like a snore. it's really important, actually. apple is going to be allowing independent shops to sell parts and tools and repair kits. i want to highlight that apple for years has been lobbying against laws for independent shops to do this. why the change? apple iphone sales have actually been falling for the past two quarters. they feel like you know what, if you pass along say a phone that you are willing to give up to a

child or friend, that person will stay in the apple ecosystem if that person can just fix or tweak the one little thing that's wrong. so basically, this allows them to keep growing scale. there are a lot of analysts who say at the upper end of the market that apple is pretty much saturated. one quick thing, they are still heavy-handed. if you are an independent shop that sells these parts, you have to take a 40-hour test, that's free, that apple provides. this is to get the official certification and you have to pass a test with apple. your shopkeepers have to pass a test. they are trying to do quality control but they want you in the ecosystem. that's the bottom line. stuart: okay. now you have explained it. i do understand it. it's not a snooze. deirdre: there you go. stuart: all right. let's get serious. hurricane dorian, this is from space. florida governor ron desantis says all 67 counties in florida, under a state of emergency. we are going to get the latest report from the weather center,

fox weather center in just a moment. california getting closer to introducing state-wide rent control. the national association of home builders is dead set against it. their ceo is next. we are also asking what about mortgage defaults? at the highest level since the financial crisis. what's with that? what's the end game, too? joe walsh is going to be on the show. he challenges president trump in the primary. walsh has made some truly offensive comments in the past about our president. i want to know, does he think that strategy of insult is going to work? what's he doing it for? and the big story today and every day, your money. maybe the third hour of "varney & company" but we are only just getting started. ♪ ♪

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stuart: the rally's gone. the dow jones average is actually what it says on the board, up two points but i think it slipped to minus territory. look at the nasdaq, down 33. there's an explanation for this. i have my theory. at the top of the last hour, jonathan hunt was on this program from hong kong. we are down 20 points. get rid of that board. thanks very much. we turned south, okay. i think the reason is -- part of the reason may be investors don't want to hold stocks over a long weekend because anything can happen. jonathan hunt was on our program from hong kong earlier saying that there is going to be, there are going to be demonstrators on the streets of hong kong on saturday night. the hardcore will turn out. there could be violence. if you get nasty headlines from hong kong on a saturday night, sunday, you will affect our markets. so you sell now. that's what's happening now. that's my theory. of course, i could be wrong. next case. ashley: never.

stuart: don't laugh. ashley: i'm not laughing. stuart: e-cig maker juul, their marketing practices getting a much closer look from the ftc. when the ftc gets involved, that's serious. ashley: not good news, for sure. there's a slew of agencies and states that are investigating juul. at the heart of all of this is deceptive marketing techniques to focus on minors. but also, the use of what they call social influencers. you pay someone who is very popular and has a ton of followers on social media, you pay them to promote a product. so that's what the ftc is looking at. the fda is already on this, several state attorneys general are already looking at this. there could be, with the ftc, some sort of monetary damages. it depends on what they find. juul, meanwhile, says we are fully cooperating, we are transparent with any government agency, and they do not believe they do this. however, they are really squarely under the microscope. stuart: true. ashley, thank you very much. mortgage rates. 30-year fixed averaging now 3.58%. i'm disappointed to say that's

actually up a little from last week. here's the real news on mortgages, though. the default rate is at its highest level since the financial crisis. didn't know that but it's true. jerry howard, national association of home builder ceo, is with us now. can you explain that? >> we are trying to figure it out ourselves. this is really really shocking to us, i got to tell you. the economy's strong, unemployment is low, mortgage rates are low, yet we are seeing an uptick. now, the only thing i can say about it with certainty is when you look at it in perspective, it's still a relatively low number. it's just the highest it's been since the end of the recession. stuart: the trend is now up as opposed to flat or down. >> exactly. we prefer to see it flat or down. stuart: i'm sure you would prefer to see mortgage rates really tumble as opposed to stick right there at 3.58. >> yes, we would like to see when the fed meets again a lowering of the interest rates. the other area that we are looking at on these mortgage rates is during the recession, we had a lot of investment in

american housing from foreign investors. we are wondering and we are looking to see if maybe them pulling out of the market could be part of the reason. but it doesn't appear to us to be anything to be overly concerned about with respect to the traditional american buyer. stuart: okay. i want to talk to you about the california rent control proposal. you are shaking your head. let me explain it. they propose in california that landlords can only raise the rent once in a calendar year, and a maximum of 7% increase. you know, that's not a draconian imposition on the landlords, is it? a 7% rate increase is still pretty hefty. >> it is pretty hefty by current standards. the real problem that we have with it is that rent control is a band-aid on a problem. you're not addressing the real issue which is a lack of supply. in fact, rent control has been used here in new york for a long time. is there much housing affordability here in new york city? no.

san francisco has used rent control in the '90s and stanford university said that under the san francisco rent control laws, that the availability of rental units was down by 15%. it's an impediment to the free market. it's totally wrong-headed. rent control will not solve the problem. in fact, today, the los angeles times ran an article saying that in areas impacted by the wildfires, that they found the most effective way to rebuild housing. guess what it is? stuart: tell me. >> eliminate the onerous regulations. california's housing crisis can be solved by making it easier to build. stuart: breakthrough. breakthrough. miracle. ashley: turn the lights on. >> i really feel like the california legislature ought to read the "l.a. times" and look at the impact rent control has had around the country, and take action to really address the housing shortage. don't put a band-aid on it. stuart: well said.

i was not aware of the "l.a. times" article. that is very important. from the "l.a. times"? jerry howard, always a pleasure. thank you. appreciate it. next case, check amazon. they have just bought up disney's stake in the yes network. that's a cable channel. it has yankee baseball and brooklyn nets basketball. this deal is worth about $3.5 billion. look what it gets amazon. an 80% stake in that network. check disney. they have been at record highs recently. they are back to $137. still pretty close to the record high. let's talk about nike and their smart shoe. not smart as in fashionable, smart as in technology-wise. there's no need to tie your laces with these new things because siri will do it for you. don't tell me this is the sneaker of the future. i don't believe it. we will discuss it in a moment. ♪ there's a company that's talked to even more real people

than me: jd power. 448,134 to be exact. they answered 410 questions in 8 categories 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 "thank you, real people." you're welcome. we're gonna need a bigger room.

all right brad, once again i have revolutionized the songwriting process. oh, here we go. i know i can't play an instrument, but this... this is my forte. obviously, for auto insurance, we've got the wheel route. obviously. retirement, we're going with a long-term play. makes sense. pet insurance, wait, let me guess... flea flicker. yes! how'd you know? studying my playbook? yeah, actually. you may have gingivitis. when you brush, and the clock could be ticking towards bad breath, receding gums, and possibly... tooth loss. help turn back the clock on gingivitis with parodontax. leave bleeding gums behind. parodontax.

at comcast, we didn't build the nation's largest gig-speed network just to make businesses run faster. we built it to help them go beyond. because beyond risk... welcome to the neighborhood, guys. there is reward. ♪ ♪ beyond work and life... who else could he be?

there is the moment. beyond technology... there is human ingenuity. ♪ ♪ every day, comcast business is helping businesses go beyond the expected, to do the extraordinary. take your business beyond. stuart: the coast guard has taken in 2800 pounds of cocaine valued at $38 million. drug smugglers were trying to get it through.

three people arrested. some of the coke was found floating in the ocean. that is a lot of drugs. nike getting ready to release a self-lacing shoe. that's not all it can do. tell me more. deirdre: you can change the color. let's just face it. i think this is a gimmick from nike. whales c what else can you do with your shoes other than take them on and off? nike says here's the plan. you can make them looser if you're home, make them tighter for running. it responds to apple watch commands via siri. remember siri has a hard time understanding speech patterns. don't be surprised if you say unleash my shoes and you get a weather report. stuart: theoretically, you are wearing these shoes, you've got an apple watch, raise the watch like so, siri, unlace. deirdre: there you go. yes. you can change the color of the sole. this is a little bit of redesign for them. most analysts saying probably going to go for about $350 a

pair. stuart: what a steal. stinger's in the tail. thanks, deirdre. the great tax exodus. new report, people are leaving new york city in droves. actually leaving more than any other city. this is on a daily basis. they are getting out. we've got the number for you. of course, we will tell you where these people are going, too. check that market. we lost the rally. now we are down 50 on the dow, 54 on the nasdaq. people perhaps don't want to sell -- buy stock right before the long holiday weekend when there's risk in hong kong. we will deal with it next. ♪ at fidelity, we believe your money

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stuart: all the indicators are now pointing south and a majority, that would be more than half of the dow 30, are in the red. dow at this moment down 45. let me stay on this. i'm not going to call this a big selloff but it's certainly a downturn compared to where we were at the opening of the day. market watcher dan suzuki is back with us. here's my theory, for what it's worth. we opened with a nice gain up over 100 points.

then came the news from hong kong that okay, they canceled the protests, but the hardcore guys are still going to be out on saturday night. that raises the risk of a nasty clash in hong kong. i think that's why the market turned south. what say you? >> yeah, i think that may be part of it. i think first of all, it's important to realize that there's a lot of empty desks on the trading floor right now so volume is low. we are going into a big holiday weekend so little moves can be exacerbated in this type of market. i think the other thing is that we did get those pretty weak consumer sentiment numbers, lowest since october 2017, and a lot of the internals of it were pretty weak as well. i think that people are reading, i wouldn't read too much into that number, but i think that's part of the reason in this kind of low volume market that the market's very prone to selling off. stuart: here's my theory. if you get a nasty headline from hong kong over the weekend, maybe serious bloody clashes, i think the market goes south on tuesday morning.

and that's the risk that traders and investors here today want to avoid, hence the selling. >> well, yeah. i think that, you know, there's a lot going on this weekend. obviously we have the tariffs coming through. that may be part of this as well, the fact that by this time of day, you haven't got any news of any kind of announcement of a reprieve there, and we are going into this weekend, three-day weekend, where you are going to have the tariffs kick in. people don't want to sit on a lot of big positions going into that. so that may be part of it as well. stuart: i thought there might have been a deal, if the chinese go easy on the demonstrators, maybe we wouldn't impose all these tariffs, this is on saturday, go easy on the demonstrators, maybe we wouldn't impose the tariffs on sunday. am i way out there in conspiracy land? >> well, i don't know, you are probably talking on the wrong guy for that. but i do think we talked about this a little bit last time i was on the show. you know, the escalation that you are seeing in hong kong with the tensions in hong kong, it does put the china negotiators a little on the back foot because

they are in sort of the global focus and there's a lot of scrutiny on them. so that kind of reduces their negotiating power. stuart: you were sitting with me, you were sitting right there on the day when we were running full tilt with the hong kong protests and all that violence at the airport. that's when you said it. look, you get violence like that, and that can interfere with the trade talks. i think we're back to that situation all over again. >> yes. stuart: what are you doing this weekend? watching hong kong? >> yeah, i'll be watching hong kong, absolutely. i think one thing people need to get back to the underlying fundamentals. there's a lot of headlines. if you look at this market overall, this year, people, there's been a lot of hope propping up the market. it's been hope we get a bottom and rebound in earnings, hope that you are starting a fed easing cycle and hope you are going to get trade resolution. i think that all those things, despite news both ways, they are calling those into question, those hopes. that's why i think it's a bit of a fragile market. stuart: a fragile market could be nasty, bad news from hong

kong. dan suzuki, thank you for joining us. enjoy the weekend. thanks very much. now, that new report about people leaving new york city. more people are leaving the big apple than any other u.s. city. now, deirdre, you have the numbers on how many are leaving per day. deirdre: 277 per day, and in context, this is more than double than a year ago which was 132 per day. so this is according to census data basically 100 large major metropolitan areas in the u.s., they are basically going. stuart: a lot of money walking out the door. ashley: an awful lot. stuart: where is it going? ashley: well, there's a theme. it's warmer and it's less tax. so what's the downside? it's like the big cities, here we go, dallas, las vegas, austin, phoenix, orlando, throw dallas, houston in there as well. the only cooler climate in the top ten was seattle. they are having an influx, too. pretty significant one.

it's not low tax, by the way, in washington state. however, they are picking up quite a few people. but there's a theme. texas, arizona, florida. deirdre: funny. ashley: warm, low tax. stuart: i think the low tax is the kicker. if i'm going to leave new york city, it's because of the tax. ashley: sure. deirdre: no, it's the sun. i just want to be warm. it's cold here in the winter. stuart: for an extra few thousand bucks a year, in my pocket, i'll move. deirdre: would you? what about moving north? stuart: if it's a low tax place in new england, i might go but i don't think there is. ashley: good luck finding one. stuart: new england is like europe. high tax, all kinds of regulations. dan suzuki is still with me. he says you're right. oh, new hampshire. >> that's the one that didn't make the list. it's cold and low tax. stuart: all the liberals are moving into new hampshire from massachusetts and they are going to make new hampshire a liberal paradise and high tax place.

>> obviously seattle is amazon. ashley: yeah, that's true. stuart: the voice of reason. he doesn't shave, doesn't wear a jacket. thank you, dan. thank you very much. check tesla. you might say they dodged a bullet on china car sales taxes. explain. deirdre: yes, they did dodge but they are also raising the prices. we want to make this point, of the model 3 in china ahead of the tariff jump which the trump administration is going to be imposing, and the other thing we have to pay attention for, tesla is trying to crank out production quickly. they are not known for making deadlines. they do have the shanghai plant. elon musk trying to get these cars going so that they are home-grown in china and not being imported from the u.s. not sure if he will be able to make it. stuart: they are raising the price of the model 3 in china, right? deirdre: yes, they certainly are. it is going to go from $45,860 all the way up to $58,070 if you happen to be in china. there's a lot of question about demand, also, in china for ev

vehicles. there's a lot of electric vehicles in china and some people say that market is saturated. whoever wanted one already bought one. stuart: tesla is offering their own insurance. ashley: only in california. they just unveiled it this week. they believe it could be as much as 30% less than other insurance companies. they say you can, you know, sign up for it in a minute, you can cancel it at any time. people question because tesla to insure is expensive because of the nature of the car, the parts and the cost and everything else. stuart: can you show me the big board again? we had an interesting occurrence here. we turned around. five minutes ago we were down 20 or 30 points. i was talking to dan suzuki and saying hey, watch out, there's risk from hong kong this weekend. he pooh-poohed that and said no, look at the fundamentals instead. sure enough, see what you did? the market turned around. we were down on my theory and now we have gone back up again on you. all right. show me big tech.

he did it, not me. here it comes. here it comes. they're all down. now, half hour ago, an hour ago, we were all up. now they are all down. not huge losses but they are all down. that gain for the dow has been tempered, it's now just five points. all theories are off the deck because we are dead flat. how about this one. former illinois congressman joe walsh challenging president trump in the republican primary. mr. walsh has made some truly offensive comments in the past, especially about our president. so does he think this strategy of insults is going to help him? why is he doing this in the first place? he's on the show and i'll ask him. ♪ [ barking ] ♪

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stuart: we have a three-hour show and today we failed to mention the price of bitcoin. let's do it now. it's up $84 at $9,580 per coin. the price of gold still around $1550, i believe. there you have it. $1537, i'm afraid. up 60 cents. $1537 per ounce. speaking of gold, jpmorgan gold bars with fake refinery logos stamped on them made their way into some vaults. deirdre, the problem here is not that it's fake gold, but we don't know where the gold came from. deirdre: all about the provenance. the idea is it may be coming from parts of the world that are illegal or just not, for example, i will start listing them, africa, venezuela, north korea, china. there are a lot of experts who say probably this is coming at least through china but the concern with areas like north korea is for example, they are sending children into the mines

to get this gold out of the earth and smelt it down. so the west does not like to do business, not legal, not acceptable, that's the concern. now how it got into this system they are trying to figure out. stuart: good luck with that. all right. thank you very much indeed. now, let's move on. my next guest is joe walsh. he's a former illinois congressman and he is running against president trump as a republican. he said somewhat i think are just outrageous things in the past. i'm going to quote a couple of his statements. first off, the single greatest act of racism in american history was at the election of barack obama. people voted for him simply because he was black. he said that. next one, no more muslims in the u.s. they want us dead. next one, trump's an unfit con man who doesn't care about anything but himself. and another one, i'm voting for trump on november the 9th, if trump loses i'm grabbing my musket. you in. another one, obama is a muslim, happy new year. he has since apologized for that last one.

joe walsh is with us. welcome to the show, joe. okay. >> hey, stuart. good to be with you. stuart: why you doing this? you flat out insulted the president when you made your announcement and that comes on top of other insulting comments that you've made in the past. why the devil are you doing it? >> i think this president, stuart, as i said, is an unfit con man. i think he's unfit to be president. i think he's a real danger to this country. i think he's a child, stuart, and i think america is strong enough that they can handle his four-year tantrum but not another four years of this president. stuart: you have no credibility, joe. you have no credibility for saying something like that bearing in mind all the things that you said in the past. you are just going right there insulting our president on top of a whole series of insults. i have to believe you just want the publicity. that's it, isn't it? no, it is. >> hey, stuart -- stuart: what other reason you doing it for? >> let me know when you're ready

for an answer to your question. stuart: go ahead. answer. >> you asked me a question. i'm running against this president because i believe he lies virtually every time he opens his mouth. you know that, too. stuart: no, i do not. i do not know that. >> blooi believe he's morally u. i believe he's a danger to this country. stuart: don't do it. do not use that on me. i invited you on -- you are on this program because i got questions. oh, my god, we are just on to black. okay. you are on the program because i've got questions that i want to ask. when i get an answer like i know, stuart varney knows the president lies, i'm going to push back. because that's nonsense. you know it's nonsense. don't try to bring me into your phony arguments. >> stuart, you asked me, let's get back to where we started, my friend. you asked me why i would do something as monumental as this. you can disagree with why i'm doing it, my friend, but i'm

doing it because i believe he's unfit and he's a danger to this country. i would not take on a task like this, stuart, because admittedly, it's a difficult thing to do unless i felt that strongly about it. that's all. stuart: explain yourself. explain yourself. you say he's unfit to be president of the united states. trump is an unfit con man who doesn't care about anything but himself. explain it. what are you talking about? >> i think he does. let me explain, then you can jump in and disagree. i do believe we have never had a situation like this where we have a president who we fundamentally can't believe. i do believe he lies virtually every time he opens his mouth. stuart: give me an example. >> i believe, stuart -- i will give you an example just from yesterday and even his staff, stuart, admitted that he lied this week when he said there were high level phone calls between the united states and china. trump said that repeatedly. his staff came out yesterday and

admittedly, admitted that the president of the united states lied to the world to manipulate the markets. i have a problem with that. stuart: that's not a lie. let's not get technical. >> that's not a lie? stuart: that's not a lie. if the man said and he did that high level talks had been held with china, that is not a lie. they were held with china. >> stuart, he said there were high level phone calls with chinese officials, his staff admitted that was not true, that he lied in order to manipulate the market. stuart: give me another one. >> period. stuart: give me another one. >> he said that -- stuart: that doesn't work. >> stuart, really, you don't believe that that's a lie? stuart: no, i don't. >> you don't? stuart: i really object to you saying to me you know it is, stuart. i do not know it is. please, don't bring me into your nonsense. >> stuart, do you believe this president lies? stuart: no. >> you don't believe he's ever lied? stuart: he exaggerates and

spins. >> okay. do you believe he's ever told the american people a lie? stuart: no. >> okay. i do. and i think that's a problem. that's fine. we have a disagreement. stuart: didn't you say obama was a muslim? >> yes. stuart: is that a lie? >> yes. and i apologized for that, stuart. i apologized for that. also, stuart, i apologized for helping to create the environment that put such a cruel bigoted unfit con man in the white house. i feel sort of responsible for this, i do. we've got somebody in the white house, stuart, who believes he's above the law. we've got somebody in the white house who puts his own interests ahead of the country's interests at every single turn. that should concern all of us. stuart: you say the president is bigoted. you, sir, are bigoted. listen to this. june 2016, you said no more muslims in the u.s. they want us dead. they seek to kill us.

islam is a doctrine of hatred, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. that's bigotry any way you slice it. you said the single greatest act of racism in american history was the election of barack obama. people voted for him simply because he's black. bigotry, joe. you know it. you know it. all right? >> stuart, absolutely. i am happy to come on and go through any of my 65,000 tweets and if i need to apologize for anything i have tweeted, i will. when has this president, stuart, ever apologized for anything? can you tell me when? stuart: no. he hasn't apologized for anything. i don't think he should. we are over, joe. i'm sorry. time's up. >> stuart, thank you, my friend. stuart: you used to run a media show. hard break. we are coming up on it. thanks for being with us. all right. let's see. we have colleagues with me. what do you make of this? deirdre: i want to know why he changed his mind. why now, the about-face? at one point he did support president trump. i also would actually like to know the money behind him.

the motivation, right? i think you hit it right at the top, it's for publicity but there has to be something else. stuart: in my opinion, yes. i think it's for the publicity. ashley: you held him to account. he couldn't answer a lot of the questions. he's doing it purely for the attention. stuart: yep. some people like to be on camera, they like to be in the headlines, they want to make news. ashley: it's a decent point. deirdre: the end game, though, how do you primary a sitting president just from a political -- stuart: you can. deirdre: you can, of course, but what success does he hope to achieve? what's the end game? ashley: be on television, on radio and in the media. that's about it. stuart: maybe we won't have him back. i don't know. but ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much indeed. let's get real, shall we? dorian, you are looking at the hurricane from space, left-hand side of your screen. right-hand side is the likely path of the storm. florida's governor ron desantis says all 67 counties are under a state of emergency. we will get the latest from fox news weather center in just a moment on the progress of

dorian. check this out. photos of the president in a fema meeting on the hurricane. he canceled his trip to poland because and to monitor the storm. that's what he's doing. we are on it after this. ♪ patients that i see that complain about dry mouth,

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stuart: look at that. here it comes. rick reichmuth in the fox weather center. rick, this seems to be an unusual and more dangerous storm because it's moving so slowly and is so strong. >> yeah, well, it will be moving slowly right when it gets right around the florida coastline. right now it's not moving that slowly but that's going to be the case. a really strong storm, at least all the signs are there that it will be. in fact, this is visible satellite imagery. you notice over the last couple images here, a center really forming, an eye forming. we will get the infrared satellite, you get a sense of that. all day yesterday it was kind of battling some erosion across the southwestern side. if the storm is being battled on one part of it, it will stop the growth of the overall storm. that is not the case anymore.

looks like that erosion has kind of subsided and i see this here, we have a center forming, winds at 110 miles an hour. it's right below category 3, that's major hurricane. i think we will see that upgraded pretty quickly to major hurricane strength. what happens, we are very confident in these next 36, 72 hours, track of this storm. it's going to continue to pull off towards the west. then we still unfortunately have our spread of what could happen. one possibility is it moves in and kind of hugs the coastline, similar to what we saw with hurricane matthew a few years ago. another possibility is it goes and makes a direct landfall that would be devastating here across the central florida coast, and then moves up somewhere the center of the peninsula. the other option still is that it moves past the peninsula and then goes and has a second landfall somewhere later on next week. but overall, the official forecast from the national hurricane center has it at a cat 4. i will tell you, cat 4, cat 3, cat 5, these are difficult for us to predict that strong of a storm and they go through

fluctuations. nonetheless, we will be dealing with a major hurricane somewhere here, best case at this point around central florida. stuart: it's going to be bad. rick reichmuth in the weather center, thanks very much indeed. i want to move on to michael walsh. he's with us on the phone, florida republican, who represents a central florida coastal district. mr. walsh, we just heard from our weather guy there that along the coastline it's going to be devastating. i take it that your biggest concern, because of where you are, is a storm surge. that's the problem, isn't it? >> yeah, that's right. it's the storm surge, it's the flooding. florida already has had record amounts of rainfall so a number of the lakes and tributaries and rivers are already at record high levels. i just left a group of farmers, folks in agra business. stuart, lot of folks don't realize, agra business is florida's number two industry,

that not only feeds florida but feeds the country, particularly in wintertime. they are looking at threats to their entire way of life. but also have coastal areas, been in touch with the national guard, the entire national guard is mobilized. i understand we are waiting any time now for an announcement of the presidential declaration which will push federal resources in. i just can't tell you enough about our first responders and guardsmen, many of whom are coming from overseas and going immediately into this rather than taking care of their own homes. stuart: we welcome ou the program. we hope that you and your constituents weather this difficult storm. >> floridians are tough. we will do it together. stuart: more "varney" after this.

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stuart: all right, coming up with a three-day labor day weekend. these are two stories that will affect our markets and our country. right-hand side of the screen, dorian, a hurricane which is

previousing florida and will hit sometime late labor day weekend. left-hand side of the screen, hong kong. a big demonstration could still be in the offing. risk of violence on saturday night. neil cavuto. yours, sir. neil: you're right, stuart. something bad goes there, all bets off tuesday, talking about hong kong, on again, off again, you don't know. we have latest on hong kong. in our country, hurricane dorian is all anyone talking about. a dangerous category 4 storm. flight cancellations building ahead of all of this. it could run into thousands across the country whether you're in that neck of the woods. gas stations going empty as reports of fuel shorts already. this thing doesn't touch down in florida, if that is the ongoing track, for another couple days. empty shelves, long lines, grocery stores across the state. people are panicking. they scarf up anything t