punishing people who have done the right thing and saved their money. maria: wow. we have been faced with that for years now. great to see everybody. good show today. thank you so much. always a pleasure to see you. come back soon. have a great day, everybody. "varney & company" begins right now. stu, take it away. stuart: good morning, maria. good morning, everyone. question, what do you get when there's favorable china trade news? the near certainty of a fed rate cut soon. virtually no inflation, no yield curve inversion, full employment and a top performing economy. what do you get? answer, this. a stock market rally within a few points of all-time record highs, up six days in a row. the dow will be up again at the open. it's only a couple hundred points, 200 points away from its all-time high. the s&p, very close. 20 points away. it too will be up in the early going. same story with the nasdaq. this could be a record-setting day. quick point here. the rally means a lot to all of

us. we have all got a stake in the action. 55 million 401(k) holders, 35 million i.r.a. holders, union pension plans, government worker pension plans, all benefit from the trump rally. maybe records today. politics. this is the day the democrats define themselves and their party. in a couple of hours, speaker pelosi takes to the podium. she will try to bring a badly divided party together. they are split on impeachment and split on how far left to go on the green new deal and open borders. then tonight, there's the democrat debate. that too will define the party as it goes to the 2020 election. same story. how far left will they go. we've got a big show for you guaranteed. we are dealing with vaping, guns and the europeans, yes, they are printing money again. "varney & company" is about to begin.

stuart: here it comes. a tweet from the president moments ago. it is, i'm going to read it for you, it is expected that china will be buying large amounts of our agricultural products. there you go. we have more on trade. the "wall street journal" says china wants to narrow the scope of the trade talks to get things moving. susan, what does narrowing the scope mean? susan: to deal with only trade matters because we know these trade negotiations have been complicated with what they call national security problems as well, that includes huawei, what's happening in hong kong, u.s. arms sales to taiwan. let's get the rest off the table, separate the issues, national security and trade. let's just deal with trade, since we know both countries want a trade deal. we have been hearing also, by the way, china will make a gesture of its own since we know president trump of course giving face to the chinese, giving them a two-week reprieve, especially when october 1st is rolling around. october 1st is very important to

the chinese. this is the 70th anniversary of the communist peoples party founding. that's a very smart move by the president, giving face to the chinese delegation. china will say well, we will buy more agricultural goods before the october talks and that includes purchases of soybeans and pork and hence the tweet you saw from president trump this morning. some say we might get a smaller deal, as you mentioned. we do have liu he who is heading up the trade talks. he has been quoted, at least according to the "wall street journal" from sources, he wants 40% to be negotiated now, 40% later and 20% is non-negotiable. stuart: i call that positive. i think that's reflected in the futures market. okay. we are up 50 points, that's not a lot given a headline like that but we are up very close to record highs. gary kaltbaum is with us. gary, you know the story. we are a few points from record highs all across the board. are we going to hit record highs today, do you think?

>> i don't know about today but i think it's in the cards. five days ago, everything that i have been saying to avoid for a year woke up. i'm talking the small caps, midcaps, foreign markets, transports, and commodities, and that's broadened out the market here while hitting the growth stocks, which is, they just had too big of a run. i'm not sure about today, but for sure, looks like the big four, the dow, s&p, nasdaq, nasdaq 100, will get there in the days ahead. stuart: know what drives me nuts, gary? the fact that you barely hear a word about these record-shattering performances on wall street in the conventional media. they are just not mentioned even though it's a wonderful thing for all of us. >> two weeks ago, the national media spent days, 24/7, running recession, recession, recession coming and it looked like they had the champagne out ready to pop the corks off it. they looked so happy, i couldn't believe it. you know what like bill maher

said and some of these others. yeah, i'm not surprised by it. but i will tell you, people that are in the markets are quite happy right now. stuart: i want to get this in. white house adviser on trade largely, peter navarro, is talking interest rates. roll tape, please. >> if the fed cuts rates next week 25 basis points as the "journal" has reported, is that going to be enough to move the needle on economic growth? >> it will move the needle but not enough. this is a chess match. fed's playing checkers in a chess world. stuart: i think he and the president want 50 basis point cut. what do you say, gary? >> i disagree with the administration big-time, stuart. leave the markets alone. the ten-year has backed up from 1.5 to 1.75%. telling me we are not going into recession. a quarter point's fine. i hear all this talk from the president about going to negative rates. all that does is screw the savers. the president for years railed

against obama and bernanke for their 0% printing money. there's a reason why they have negative rates in europe. they are a basket case over there. the big socialism has taken over what greatness the economy can be over there, and they need to go to these negative rates. by the way, they're still not helping. we need to learn a lesson from japan who has tried it for years and years. it does not work. if i were the president, i hope he's watching, let the markets be. they are doing just fine right now. stuart: okay. got it, gary. hold on a second. i've got to get to a couple retailers. down big at the opening bell. look at oxford industries, the parent of tommy bahama. their outlook fell short as they say and by the way, they are blaming tariffs. separately, tailored brands, the parent of men's wearhouse, they expect lower profit. look at that, 8% down on oxford, 26% down tailored brands. then grocery store chain kroger.

they did report better sales but the stock is virtually unmoved, up 11 cents. $25 a share. next one. federal regulators have reportedly ordered google to assure their employees they are allowed to speak freely on political and workplace issues. tell me more. ashley: yeah, this order comes from the national labor relations board who responded to complaints from google employees who said if they complained, no matter what the issue was, they felt they were retaliated against, and therefore felt a little unable to express their thoughts. that's come back to remember the google engineer who was fired, he said he was fired for talking about unpopular right wing politics on internal memo boards. google have always said no, he was fired for misusing equipment. regardless, the new ruling from the national labor relations board says you have to allow people to speak freely without fear of retribution. stuart: gary, is google retreating here? >> well, they should. look, free speech is everything

this country has going for it. doesn't google own some things where people get on there and put up videos and free speech and all that? it's kind of ironic that they would block people having free speech at their company but yet own companies that do the exact opposite. this is good news that somebody's pounced on them and hopefully they do the right thing. stuart: gary, thank you very much indeed. see you again real soon. as you know if you watch this program, the streaming wars are really kicking into high gear. apple rolling out their product november 1st. disney plus comes out november 12th. i've got the big streaming players on the screen and how much each of them is going to cost. all of them under ten bucks a month. apple is the cheapest. mark douglas is with us, a tech guy who follows this kind of thing. on the screen there, all these new streaming services, who wins? >> i still think it's netflix and disney. apple is actually cheaper than that. it's free to everyone who buys a new iphone, computer or ipad.

that's an indication what they think it's worth right now. they are literally giving it away. stuart: will they win on the basis of a super-low price and free for a lot of people? >> apple's ambition is kind of stunning. they basically are taking music, tv, games and everything you read and offering it under one bundle. they are saying you can get everything from apple for one family price, that's the ultimate ambition. they are offering it in 100 countries at the same time. they are basically creating a new playing field above disney, above netflix, where all entertainment comes through apple but they don't have the tv part of it right now. they are getting it but it's going to take some time. i think people are being optimistic in terms of that. stuart: if you are a consumer, and you want these streaming services, are you going to get them all and pay for them all? if you do, you are paying about as much per month as you used to pay for your cable. >> clearly the days of paying $150 a month for cable and there's nothing to watch on tv are officially over.

now you can pay about $20 a month, get disney and netflix, apple is giving away the service for the first year, essentially, and if you want live television it will kouft anothcost you ano. it's less money than cable and it feels like virtually unlimited content. stuart: i think most people will go for two or three of the major streamers. >> everyone says three. apple is trying to create a whole new spot on the third spot. if you want to watch it, play it, read it or listen to it, you can go to apple, pay one price to get it. stunning ambition. stuart: stunning ambition. if not yet accomplishment. >> exactly. exactly. stuart: thanks very much, sir. appreciate it. next case, france, france, they say they will block the development of facebook's libra digital currency in europe. does that mean they are blocking it all across the country? susan: the french finance minister said not on european soil. france is also going after, you know, u.s. tech in general with the digital sales tax but that's

what he says about libra. it's dangerous, could be linked to money laundering, to terrorism, exactly what steve mnuchin, our treasury secretary, just said moments ago. he said very far away from adopting libra here in the u.s. you are looking at shares of facebook, they are up today. why? they are going ahead with this because they think they don't necessarily back it, they are part of a consortium of dozens of private companies that back it. they have over two billion users that will use it, they think, but the concern is because you do need global cooperation for this thing to really work and go through, how do you get that global cooperation when france is saying no, the u.s. is saying no, and who elected mark zuckerberg, right? stuart: who indeed. who can de-elect him? he controls the entire company. thanks very much, lauren. check futures again. moving up a little here. good news on china trade keeps on coming. dow going to be up about 70 points at the open, 50 up for the nasdaq. walmart expanding its

grocery delivery subscription service nationwide. $98 a year gets you unlimited grocery delivery service right to your front door. walmart is at $116 this morning. former acting i.c.e. director tom homan, big fight with aoc over her comments about the agency he used to lead. he says he's never witnessed such hatred toward law enforcement in this country. you will hear it all. nearly 150 ceos writing a letter to the senate demanding it take action on gun control. next, senator john kennedy. what does he think about corporate involvement in political issues? we will ask him. "varney & company" just getting started.

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to act on gun control. what does it say? ashley: basically saying doing nothing, they say, is unacceptable. the letter urges the senate to pick up from the house's lead. they want bipartisan agreement, legislation, on expanded background checks and these are just an example of those companies that have joined this. beyond meat, gap, lyft, twitter, uber, you name it. a lot of corporate leaders saying you need to -- firstly they would like to see an expansion of background checks on gun sales and strengthen the so-called red flag laws. interesting, too, "the washington post" abc poll this week found that 89% of respondents including 83% of republicans do support requiring background checks for all potential gun buyers. there's less divisive issue as time has gone on. stuart: let's bring in senator john kennedy, republican from louisiana. welcome back to the program. look, here's public opinion, clearly motivated towards doing something, background checks,

red flag laws, et cetera. what are you going to do about it? >> i find it curious, stuart, that when a radical jihadist blows up a school and kills kids, we're told not to judge all muslims by the act of one muslim and i agree with that, by the way. i just don't understand why the same rule doesn't apply to the hundred million law-abiding gun owners of this country. here's my starting point. i want to see facts. i believe love is the answer but i also own a hand gun just in case. that's my right as an american citizen. the bill of rights is not an a la carte menu. the second is just as important as the first or the fourth. some of my colleagues say okay, we are going to curtail the second amendment constitutional right in the interest of public safety and it will reduce mass shootings. my response is okay, prove it. i'm interested in facts. i'm not interested in

speculation. i don't want to see people pull stuff out of their orifices. show me the scientific evidence because you are dealing with a constitutional right and in terms of what these ceos say, i respect their right to have an opinion but i don't pay any attention to them. lot of these guys, they are the ones who tanked the economy in '08. stuart: that was my question, senator. how do you feel about corporate involvement in political issues, whether it's gun control or anything else? it's corporate involvement in politics. i know they've got the right to do it. how do you feel about it? >> well, they do have the right. but do i find it persuasive, no. most of these ceos, not all of them, but most of them, they think they're the smartest guy in the room or gal in the room, and they've got their eye on the bottom line, and you know, i treat it as like any other letter. and about that poll, stuart,

first, i got to see the polls that say what folks say they say. i know how to write a poll question. i can make a poll walk, talk and whistle the battle hymn of the republic. number two, let's suppose that the polls are right. we have a bill of rights not to protect the majority. but to protect the minority. the bill of rights doesn't protect the high school quarterback or the prom queen. it protects people who aren't as popular. stuart: mr. senator, out of time. as always, you are pithy and right to the point. we always appreciate that. see you soon. thank you very much. again, we are going to take a look at futures because we moved up a bit more. now it looks like an 80 point opening up for the dow, 50 for the nasdaq. we'll be right back. the world is built for you. so why isn't it all about you when it comes to your money?

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stuart: let's talk peloton as you race around on your home bike. very expensive proposition, by the way. they are getting ready to go public. mark douglas with us. look, you like peloton. you like the company. expensiveness and all. >> yes. stuart: make your case. >> basically they took the soul cycle craze and brought it to the rest of america.

like when amazon started, they started with books because it turned out there were a lot of towns in america that didn't have a bookstore. there's a lot of towns in america don't have a soul cycle shop. peloton brought it right into your home and people love it. stuart: wait a minute. how many americans are going to spend $2,000 on the bike, $4,000 on the treadmill if that's the way you go and maybe $20, $30, $40 a month to be shouted at by someone in a distant location? >> if you want a date you will probably do it. people are motivated to look -- stuart: what? >> to be healthy, look healthy and there's obviously a market for it. they are doing well. they continue to grow. they have also expanded into treadmills. susan: $4,000. >> it's expensive but the market is there. the market's in new york, in l.a. and now they brought it to the rest of us. susan: they say their retention rate is 90%. of course it is. when i shell out $4,000, what am i going to do with this

treadmill? >> you need the subscription and the motivation that comes with it. stuart: i want to leave time for wework. loads of red flags around their supposedly upcoming ipo. softbank wants them to shelve it. i don't think it will go forward. >> there are so many governance problems. the ceo basicswas basically buy real estate out of the company, taking money out of the company. they are trying to be valued as a tech company when it's basically a real estate company. it's like a lost red flags. investors these days, they are smart. they are not going to -- if they buy it they will sell it immediately. stuart: i think we stuck it to them. all right. stay there. opening of the market in about four and a half minutes' time. the dow will be up nicely, 70 for the dow, maybe 50 for the nasdaq. back in a moment. for farmers here, this is our life's work. but when a recall happens,

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speed electric vehicle. stuart: porsche went round a track in x number of minutes. ashley: they went to one in california. stuart: there you go. the opening bell is ringing. in three seconds, we open this market. you know, we are very close to record highs and the media doesn't talk about it. check the big board to start with. we are the media. we are up 50, 60 points. that's the dow. now we are up 80 points on the dow industrials. 27,200. real close to the record. where's the s&p? in the very very early going this morning, it too, up nicely, a quarter percentage point. i think that's about 20 odd points away from the record. the nasdaq, real close, solid gain in the early going, 34 points higher. that's almost a half percent. look at the ten-year treasury yield. ashley: it's so high. stuart: sure is. a couple weeks ago it was 1.40. now it's 1.70. got to bring this to your attention. couple retailers in deep

trouble. the parent company of tommy bahama, oxford brands, down 4%. then we have the tailored brands, the parent of men's wearhouse, an ugly outlook. they are down 26%. how about that. more on these two in a moment. joining us, scott martin, susan li, ashley webster. scott, right to you first. how come we are almost record highs, couple of points away, and nobody in the media is talking about it? how come? >> well, stuart, i think it's one of those stealth rallies you love to see kind of in this late summer when everybody was so bearish and so negative when we had the inverted yield curve, we had a rough august which was seasonal anyway. and nobody is kind of looking for this move. i think people are kind of embarrassed -- stuart: you have got it completely wrong. the media will not talk about anything that would help president trump's re-election. a stock market rally that delivers goodies to millions of americans is good news and they

won't report it. >> stuart, fair, but has trump done anything let's say in the last 20 to 30 days that has really helped this stock market? yes, things have -- stuart: he got elected and cut taxes and red tape and set off the trump rally. it's never been acknowledged by the media. >> that's fair. you asked me about the last 30 days. the last year and a half, two years plus has been great. i agree with you. but i will tell you, just going forward, the fly in the ointment, the old kind of little elephant in the room, is the fed coming up, my friend. if the fed doesn't take trump's lead, doesn't take the lead from the yield curve which is telling the fed they need to cut rates, this market's going to be in jeopardy. stuart: all right. we shall wait and see. dow component, walmart, they are taking grocery delivery service nationwide. it's a subscription service. you pay $98 for a year and you get unlimited grocery delivery right to your door. that has helped walmart move up again. we are close to $117 a share there. but susan, you think that's too

expensive? susan: i get grocery delivery but i think if i'm just paying $98 a year for grocery delivery and by the way, you have to have a minimum order of $30, that's already more expensive than my amazon prime membership which charges $119 for the year, then you may get charged if you don't order a certain amount on groceries. but i feel like comparing apples to apples here, that doesn't compel me. however, walmart is the largest grocer in the entire country and they want to get this in half of their stores by year's end. walmart is such a giant in the grocery chain business that they make more sales in groceries every year than the number two and -- all the way through number 25 combined in annual so that's how they get their traffic in. ashley: is it worth it, that's the question. stuart: a subscription service means absolutely regular, you're locked in there. the more subscribers, the more the cash flow. susan: everyone is doing it.

target, also $90 a year as well. stuart: costco is the originator of the subscription service in these large chains. susan: not delivery, though. stuart: no, not delivery. >> how can you deliver all the stuff from costco? if you can figure that out, we love costco, can you imagine $50 worth of mac and cheese dropped off at your door by a drone? i would be the first one. stuart: all right. walmart, $116, almost $117. all right. in the early going, we are up 50, 60 points for the dow industrials, 27,200. that means about 150 away from the all-time high. grocery store chain kroger, they reported better sales, not much influence on the stock. it's up 17 cents. oracle, their forecast falls short and the ceo is taking medical leave but it hurts the stock. i think it's mark hurd that's hurting there. it is down 4%. apple's market value back above $1 trillion. $221, it hits a trillion.

$224, it's well above it. gamestop, big loser yesterday. this morning, down another 2%. $4.49 a share. all right. let's look at bitcoin. 10,200 a coin. let's look at gold. is it still at $1500 an ounce? $1522 an ounce. nice gain today. ashley: yeah. stuart: interesting. $18 higher today. but oil, down $1.33, $54 per barrel. gasoline at $2.57. susan: i bet gold is moving up because of money printing in europe. they cut interest rates, they're buying more bonds. stuart: we didn't burden our viewers with news from the ecb today, but we should tell you that the european central bank is going to lower rates by ten basis points. ashley: to negative .5%. stuart: print money. susan: print money. ashley: negative .5%. >> they still have no growth. stuart: thank you very much indeed. on your screens, ladies and gentlemen, big problems for a

couple retailers. oxford industries, the parent of tommy bahama, weak outlook and they blame tariffs. and the parent of what is it, men's wearhouse, tailored brands, down a whopping 27%. why? because they expect lower profit in the future. kiss of death. ashley: $5 stock. stuart: looks like -- there's a shakeout in retail. shakeout. ashley: shake the tree, those that can survive, do. susan: companies that have digital strategy are the ones that are obviously above the fray at this point. look at tommy bahama and tailored brands. who's buying them online? nobody. that's a problem. >> i thought those guys were already out of business. to take a line from some of the men's wearhouse commercials, i definitely don't like the way that one looks. if you look at how walmart, costco, even kroger, yes, because they talked about delivery and teaming up with other brands to enhance kind of

their offerings, those are the areas, tjx as well, those are the areas where customers and consumers are flocking, not the other names we just showed. stuart: another big story we have been following for you is the trump administration, they are preparing a ban on flavored e-cigarettes. juul has responded with this statement. i will read it. we strongly agree with the need for aggressive category-wide action on flavored products. we will fully comply with the final fda policy when effective. come back in again, an early juul investor, gregg smith, who frequently appears on this program. i've got a radical solution for all of this and you won't like it. you only get a vaping device by prescription. >> look, as you know, i hate smoking, but the unfortunate reality is there's a billion smokers in the world today. half of which are all going to die if they don't change their current behavior. the fda even said if we can get to 34 million u.s. smokers off combustible cigarettes on to

e-cigarettes we would save 15 million lives. we would actually probably lower health care costs for the rest of us that don't smoke. so i think we have an issue today here in the u.s., we need to keep tobacco products away from kids and there's three things we can do immediately today to solve that issue. i would love to see trump tweet, promulgate tobacco 21. let's raise the national age, the industry is in support of this, i can't imagine anyone that wouldn't be in support of this but let's raise the national age to buy tobacco products to 21. second, i think that we need to do a better job at our borders. i walk up and down the streets of new york. juul actually pulled all flavored products out of 90,000 stores a year ago. they have been the only company to pull all flavors out of stores. but when you walk and you go into these stores you see counterfeit, you see knock-off products that are flooding into our shores by the pallet load. customs needs to stop these from coming in. the last is technology. juul already launched in international markets a kid-proof device which pairs with your phone. you need to be age-verified to

use it. if you are not age-verified it's basically a paperweight. there are many actions we can take immediately today to solve this problem. no kids certainly should be touching tobacco products. stuart: agreed. unfortunately, so many of them do. once you get a vaping device in the hands of a teenager or somebody in their early 20s, they get hooked on nicotine before they even smoke tobacco in the conventional sense. they are hooked on the vaping device which provides them this drug nicotine. that's the problem which you really can't get over. >> no, i think it's a tshl ther thing. i have two teenaged kids. we have open discussions about smoking. unfortunately, they tell me smoking cannabis is more prevalent among teens. if you look at the data particularly here in new york it's almost 50% greater than vaping of nicotine. you have 36% of high school students using cannabis and 30% drinking alcohol. so we definitely have problems but i know what can be done to solve the problem of keeping nicotine out of the hands of kids. stuart: gregg smith, we appreciate you coming on board

frequently to defend the investment that you made and you do it in a very articulate fashion. there are two sides to this argument. >> absolutely. but again, i hate smoking. we need to keep these away from kids. we know what we can do. stuart: got it. gregg, thank you very much. appreciate it. it's that time. 9:40. you know what that means. thanks, everybody. all of our guests, scott over there. i think you're in chicago. thanks for being with us. check the big board. we are up 47 points despite some pretty good trade news. 52 points now, 21,187. the feds reportedly looking at housing some of california's homeless population in an abandoned faa facility. we will ask hud secretary ben carson about this. he's coming up in our 11:00 hour. perdue pharma and its owners, the sackler family, settled thousands of opioid cases across the country. it will cost the company billions of dollars. we will report that number for you. wendy's going to launch breakfast at all its restaurants

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♪ stuart: the rally has faded, i regret to say. we are up 25 points now, just a fraction of 1%, but we are at 27,161. then there's this. the opioid maker perdue pharma has reached a settlement deal with 23 states and a lot of local governments, too. susan li is with us. 16 states have not signed on to this. do they want even more money? susan: probably more money, probably more stipulations on what happens with purdue pharma, the maker of oxycontin. the "wall street journal" says they have reached an agreement with 23 states and also local cities as well and they will pay

$10 billion to $12 billion depending on oxycontin sales. that changes the number and the settlement amount. now, as for purdue pharma itself, the "wall street journal" still says it will go into bankruptcy this weekend. that's what's expected. here's a statement from purdue pharma saying they continue to work with all plaintiffs on reaching a comprehensive resolution to this opioid litigation. purdue pharma still expected to file for bankruptcy protection and when it does emerge from bankruptcy, the sacklers, the billionaire family, will be removing themselves from ownership and it will be overseen by a group of trustees. the sacklers, the 18th richest family in the u.s., are expected to pay $3.5 -- including $1.5 billion on top of that, depending on the sale of another pharmaceutical company that's on the table right now but the fact you have 16 states, you know, they're not joining this settlement, there are over 2500 cases still that includes every state, municipality, even native

american tribes that are suing purdue pharma, $10 billion to $12 billion might be a small amount. stuart: it ain't over. they want more. got it. thank you, susan. fast food chain wendy's spending a lot of money, tens of millions of dollars to ramp up this breakfast menu which arrives next year. one analyst is a little skeptical. he joins us now. look, i thought that breakfast was the rage, that every fast food joint had to offer one. you say it's just too expensive for wendy's? >> first off, thanks for having me. second off, yes. everyone has to have it. the problem with that is everyone has it. you have a number of players out there that are in this highly competitive landscape. the consumer wants breakfast but if everybody has the opportunity to offer breakfast, some of them are going to do better than others. wendy's has tried this in the past. it's had mixed results and they have had starts and stops. so this isn't the first time they have done it. as we have seen over the years,

mcdonald's has gotten stronger at breakfast not just in the morning but all day, and you have had a number of the other larger players really get their foothold into breakfast. stuart: they are entering a field which they have to enter but it's going to be very expensive to enter and they might not win. >> we focused on the top line. within the top line, you are fighting for the consumers. they are going to need to add 20,000 new bodies into the stores and as we all know, it's a tight labor market right now to begin with. throw on top of that wage escalation and you are really putting yourself in a position where not only are you going to have to market breakfast, you also have to staff for breakfast and then you have to hope that no one else in the interim has stepped up their game because remember, wendy's is launching this nationally in 2020. we are still a few months away. i don't think their competitors are going to sit back and say let's all start on january 1 with a level playing field. they will sit there and say how can we strengthen our business

in the interim. stuart: fascinating. which restaurant stock do you like most? i know you cover the restaurant business. we have reported that $863 billion is going to be spent or has been spent by consumers in restaurants in the last 12 months. which do you like the most? >> the one i mentioned, mcdonald's. stuart: really. >> if you loo at what wendy's has done, wendy's is doing a good job, working on breakfast, working on technology, working on delivery. these are all things -- and working on improving the box image. these are all things mcdonald's is also doing. if you are the 800 pound gorilla in the industry, you want to have that competitive advantage and competitive moat. if someone is trying to catch you, mcdonald's has upgraded their image, they have upgraded their in-store experience with kiosks, they are updadupdating drive-through experience with

dynamic yield and a voice activation test they made an acquisition in so they can have more of an alexa type feel. stuart: mcdonald's at $212 a share. what's your target price? >> i have a $250 target price. stuart: within what time frame? >> over the next year. stuart: $250 within 12 months. all right. you are on videotape. we will come back and check you out. >> thank you very much. stuart: you're welcome. see you soon. let's have a look at all the dow 30 stocks. it's really a pretty even split. we have now reversed ourselves. the market was up at the opening bell, now we are down seven. 27,122. build-a-bear workshop, remember them, big mall retailer all across the country. they are branching out, opening up popup stores in walmart and getting into the music business, too. what's that all about? we have the company's ceo on the program next. you wouldn't accept an incomplete job from anyone else.

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stuart: let's call it dead flat, shall we, down 10, 11 points for the dow, 27,100. that's where we are now. how about apple? the stock price has hit its best level since october of last year. it was at $224. now it's at $223. bottom line, it's still a trillion dollar company. retail ice age. no, not so fast.

forever 21 says it's not going to -- not planning to file for bankruptcy on sunday. give me the full story. susan: so forever 21, the teen fashion star just a few years ago struggling with a cash crunch and not selling as many goods. bricks and mortars, we mentioned. there have been reports they might be filing for bankruptcy as soon as sunday. they say not so fast. they might be closing some of their 700 stores, but look, we know it's a tough retail environment. more than 7,000 stores have been shut in the first half of 2019. that's more than all of last year, 2018. and you know the first half of 2019, take a look at these bankruptcies. 14 retailers, major retailers, have filed for bankruptcy. you don't have a digital strategy, you are going up against amazon, you better figure things out quickly. stuart: some are doing extremely well but a lot are not. susan, thank you. let's stay on retail. shopping malls on the decline, got it. more mainstay build-a-bear

workshop, they are branching out. they are going into walmart. joining us, build-a-bear chief executive sharon price john. welcome back, by the way. >> thank you so much. stuart: i will correct myself. it's not popup stores in walmart. these are permanent, right? >> yes, they are. stuart: what's the strategy? >> the strategy is to continue to diversify and be where consumers are going for shopping and for entertainment and excitement, and that's the core strategy of build-a-bear since the beginning. just where families are choosing to go changes. stuart: and you've got to not move out but move a little away from the malls because mall traffic is way down? >> mall traffic is down, but not all malls are created equal. and we have focused on this diversification strategy, not just in where you can participate in a build-a-bear workshop and create those very special memories that are so important to our brand, but we have diversified from a consumer-based perspective and are diversifying from a categorical perspective. so speaking of digital, we have grown our e-commerce at double

digits for the last seven quarters. stuart: thearke m is taking a slightly negative view of you. >> that's correct. yes. right. stuart: they question whether your strategy is going to make it because your stock is down to two bucks a share, a little above. >> little more than that. yes. stuart: you have to prove yourself here. >> yes, we do. you know, when you are in a situation where you a pivoting a mainstay company like build-a-bear that is known for being primarily mall-based, it's easy to look at the stock in a way that sometimes misses the overarching strategy of our shift to that diversification. a diversification that increases the acceptability to different consumers, whether they are adults through the e-commerce space, or to different socioeconomic strata such as our partnership with walmart where we expect to have 20 stores open before the end of the year. stuart: what's this about you are going to start a record label? build-a-bear workshop record label? >> well, again, that's part of the diversification strategy. it might not seem natural to

some that we are in the music business, but we sell 750,000 music chips a year inside the build-a-bear. part of the process is you get to put things inside the bear, whether a scent or a sound, and many of the sounds are music. we also just recently had a radio station launch last year and we have hundreds of thousands of people that tune in to listen to build-a-bear every single day. stuart: you are on the line, aren't you? >> that's through a partnership with warner. the arts label, which is the family label. it's also representative of just the first piece of our strategy as we pivot into entertainment. in our last earnings release, we announced a partnership with sony pictures worldwide acquisitions where we will be making -- stuart: i can see that. [ speaking simultaneously ] stuart: we have been customers of yours for many years. we wish you well. sharon price john. >> thank you so much. stuart: all right.

the latest from 2020 candidate beto o'rourke. he says everyone has a right to live near their job. really? let's see what judge napolitano has to say about that. . .

stuart: all right. it's 10:00 on the east coast. we're up three points on the dow industrials. it is thursday at 10:00. you get the mortgage number. i am prepared to be disappointed. ashley: i am glad because this week the rate came in at 3.56%. last week it was 3.49%. so it ticked up a bit. stu is looking very hanged dog right now. but i can say four consecutive weeks it has been under 3.6%. so i'm putting a positive spin on it. it is interesting, rates are still historically low. you want it obviously to come down and down and they're not. stuart: i did. i actually went on the air, if you refinance, maybe wait a while you might get a low rate.

i'm terribly sorry for issuing bad advice. susan: that is not true. we're expecting a federal reserve rate cut next ten days. you might get one before year's end. that brings down interest rates. stuart: short term adjustables. the arms would come down. i'm salvaged. no response on the stock market to the blip up in mortgage rates. we're still almost dead flat. that is the state of flay as we speak. now this. this is the day when democrats define themselves and define their party. i think it is going to be tough going. later this hour speaker pelosi will take to the podium to outline where she will take house democrats. she will try to pull the badly divided party together. there has been already a fight about impeachment. number two, steny hoyer in a tussle with jerry nadler, he supports nadler to determine

whether to recommend articles of impeachment to the house. that is called papering over a very badly split. speaker pelosi wl have to navigate the tricky waters surrounding the squad. how far can she go to support the ludicrous flue green deal or open borders. any way you slice it, the speaker will have a hard time defining the party with wildly differing agendas. maybe the main event, candidates on stage for the democrat debate. here comes another defining moment. how far will they go down the socialist road? they are already the most far left of any group of candidates in modern history. so-called moderate joe biden has dipped his toe in the "green new deal." he will repeal all the trump tax cuts that have given us prosperity. i can't see any of the candidates walking back any of their radicalism. how can they? if they want to win primaries dominated by socialist activists? by the way the republicans will have hired a plane which will fly over the debate arena with a

banner that rds, socialism will kill houston's economy. and there is a big nfl game on tv at the same time as the debate. if it's a ratings fight with football, sorry, socialism loses. the third hour of "varney & company" is just getting started. ♪ stuart: all right, you just heard my little rant there on the democrats and defining themselves. come on in, jason johnson, ted cruz's senate campaign strategist. welcome to the program. >> thank you. stuart: i'm saying the democrats have an extremely hard time defining themselves and bringing everything together with a coherent message because they're split every which way. where am i going wrong? am i overstating the case? >> i don't think you're overstating the case. the only thing i wou add on them trying to bring themselves together, if you step back, and think about it, we're one year

away from a presidential election in 2020. democrats are in control of the house yet what are they doing? the only thing they're really focused on even though it is a farce, impeachment. impeaching the president. donald trump is the glue that binds this democratic party. you take donald trump away they fall apart. they have so many factions, mostly, as you noted driven by the squad and aoc, right from the radical left. stuart: you're a texas guy. >> yes, sir. stuart: the debate in texas, houston. >> indeed. stuart: what about all the talk maybe in 2020 texas goes democrat. >> a lot of talk. stuart: anything to it? >> there is nothing to it going but it's on the slide, right? we have been a safe, very safe red state for a long time, as you know. stuart: sure. >> but going you will the way back to the year 2000, every cycle there is this talk, right. in 2000 the democrats had the dream team, right? they got blown away. same thing happened in 2012.

having said that, today there is no question texas is a much more competitive state than it was in 2012, even than it was in 2016. we're not a purple state but we're also not a solid red state. i would say we lean r. gone are the days where republicans can take the state of texas for granted, that is for sure. stuart: if i'm right, the democrat party is now a socialist party -- >> you are right. stuart: call it what you like, surely that will be very good news for texas? because i just don't -- i've been in america 40 years. i know texas pretty well. i can't see texas going socialist. >> i think it will be fascinating. i was so excited they were doing the debate in houston, texas. i want to hear joe biden as you lurches further to the left and talk about the "green new deal," in houston, texas, the energy capital of the world, right? you say it will hurt the economy, that banner? it will destroy jobs as we know it. it will be fascinating to see

them run to the left in houston, texas, how the folks react to that. stuart: you look like you're having far too good of a time. jason johnson. >> thank you, sir. stuart: check the big board. we turned positive. only just. 15 points up for the dow industrials. 27,152. 200 away from the all-time high. president trump wants the federal reserve to lower interest rates to zero or lower. danielle dimartino booth, former dallas fed advisor is with us. first of all, let's lay this on the line. if we ever went to negative interest rates in these here united states you think that's terrible thing? >> i think it is one of the worst ideas that i have ever heard. we are a capitalist economy. we're proud of that. our banking system has created credit to help grow american businesses, to help american families buy homes, and if you were to have the banking system

way layed by negative interest rates, they would not be able to lend as they do today. president trump's words, we are a nation of debt and if you impose negative interest rates in this country you will bring the economy that is built on debt and that greases the skids of this economy to a standstill, stuart. it is the worst, most un-american idea i have ever heard. stuart: okay. but do we have a choice? i'm sure you're aware, this morning the europeans, the european central bank, they came out with it, that they will print some more money. they are going further into negative interest rate territory. how can we stay so positive? i mean we pay interest on our government bonds. how can we stay there, because all of the money is going to just flow right into us. dollar gets much stronger. our trade position gets much weaker. aren't we forced to keep on lowering rates. >> well, stu, i think that if you were to give mario draghi some truth serum he would know

lowering rates deeper into negative territory, relaunching quantitative easing is the equivalent of central banking spitting into the wind. he is going to accomplish a lot of nothing. the problem that -- stuart: it doesn't matter. >> is he launching a currency war in drag? is he trying to bring the euro down to make european exporters more competitive? if that's the case, i think that what we should be focused on is the currency here. stuart: in which case -- then you focus on interest rates. how do you get the dollar to a reasonable level if our interest rates are positive and europe's are negative, and japans are negative? i mean, we're all i'm saying is, aren't we going to be forced to lower and lower and lower interest rates? that is what they're doing? >> well it is, but this is, this is a race to nowhere. this is a race to zero. that is what concerns me. we had fresh inflation data out this morning. if you strip out food and energy, the core cpi came in at

11-year high. so, the typical reasons, you know, that inflation is contained, inflation here is double what it is in europe. my biggest concern is we're going to lower interest rates for what? if you ask a small business owner in this country, if the cost of capital is restraining their ability to gw their companies they will tell you no. that it is just fine. if you talk about mortgage rates coming down, we have fresh data out of the mortgage bankers association this morning that showed that lending rates, that lending standards have tightened despite falling interest rate. we won't get traction out of this for this country other than trying to do, as you're describing a tit-for-tat in a currency war. stuart: okay. danielle, i will put you in the don't do it column i think. >> yes, please. stuart: you're in that column. thanks so much for joining us as always. "the wall street journal" reports that china wants to narrow the scope for trade

talks, i want some more information, what exactly does that mean to narrow the scope? susan: only trade matters, farm goods, assets, intellectual property protection, not national security problems, u.s. national security problems, sales from huawei. narrowing makes it easier for both sides, from the chinese side as well. we know liu he, the gentleman leads the chinese delegation, according to sources reported by "the wall street journal" they will buy a significant amount of farm goods before the october talks kick off. this is something that president trump tweeted about this morning and also in exchange, a goodwill exchange for president trump, showing faith to the chinese side, on october 1st, tariffs will go up on $250 billion worth of goods. they have been delayed two weeks. that is significant. that is the 70th anniversary of the chinese communist party's

founding. stuart: that is all positive. susan: maybe a smaller deal beforehand, liu he, the chinese side might look to settle 40% of the talks now. 40% later. 20% off limits. stuart: if you settle 40% now, that is positive. market would like that i do suspect. look at this. susan: we're up 141. stuart: we're up, something must have happened. ashley: freddie mac. stuart: no. some kind of headline, algorithm s said buy. we're volatile now. it was a spike-u i guess on some kind of a headline. now we settled back down to a gain of 80 points. this market, i tell you, you have to follow it second to second. ashley: if you blink. stuart: that is theourt has admo force the ban on most central american migrants from seeking asylum in the united states at our border. we'll ask judge napolitano about that. beto o'rourke says living close to your job is a right and

not just a luxury for the rich. where did he get that from? ashley: what? stuart: what will napolitano say about that one. he is next by the way. ashley: a lot. stuart: the feds are set to ban e flavored cigarettes. there is outbreak of vaping related illnesses. six people dies. tobacco kills hundreds of thousands every year. should we try to ban or restrict a product that could help people kick the cigarette smoking habit? more "varney" after this. i get it all the time.

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impeach him. democrat rep al green. short and to the point. this hour we'll speak to sean spicer about the impeachment push. check the big board. we went straight up. we're still straight up. 124 points higher. bloomberg is saying trump advisors are considering an interim trade deal with china, something that we've been talking about for some time. that is what trump advisors are considering. that is very positive news on china trade, if it were to come about and the stars are aligning very much in that direction. that's what we've been saying all morning. now we're up 129 points. that is best part of a half percentage point. we're 80, 90 points away from the all-time record high. today could be the day. we'll see. that is the closing high, susan. no the intraday thing. right. walgreens teaming up with apple. gerri willis, come on in please. what are they doing together?

reporter: this is exciting. walgreen customers on nearly all of their purchases will receive 3% daily cash if they use the apple card plus apple pay, that digital wallet that apple offers you on your phone. you have to do all those things. you get 3% cash back daily. that is the special sauce apple adds in. it is virtually all purchases. even prescriptions, even alcohol. even tobacco. so big news for people who are apple annual green's fans. back to you. stuart: got it. thanks very much, gerri. short, sweet, to the point. you're all right. great stuff. the supreme court allowing the government to enforce president trump's asylum ban. judge napolitano is with us. he is the host of "fox nation"'s "the liberty file." >> you never call me, short, sweet and to the point [laughter] stuart: you really are. with the supreme court says you can stop them, you don't have to let them in. >> here's what happened. the trump administration, the department of justice and the

department of homeland security promulgated new asylum rules. you're coming from a country other than mexico, from central america or south america you want asylum here. if you really need asylum, if you are really being percent cutted because of a group you relong to in the home country, seek asylum first country it is available, mexico. if you want to come to the u.s., we'll accept your application if mexico doesn't. this third country rule, started in your country. you want to end up here, you have to go to mexico first, was invalidated by a federal judge on a preliminary basis. that invalidation was upheld by the circuit, ninth circuit court of appeals. stuart: of course. >> yesterday the supreme court said, let the federal trudge try the case first before stopping the government from doing what it wants to do. so this is not a ruling on the merits. it is a ruling on whether or not the government can enforce these new rules during the pendency of

the trial. stuart: and we can enforce those rules. >> as of yesterday, yes. stuart: those rules were in place for a while. >> they have been in place for a long time but they have been enjoined from being enforced -- stuart: now it has been activated. >> a very unusual supreme court ruling there is no opinion from the majority. there is only a dissent from two justices. the dissent is five-pages long. the majority is one sentence. stuart: in place for now? >> absolutely is. stuart: got to bring this to your attention this is right up your street. beto o'rourke, listen to what he said about the right to live near where you work. roll tape. >> here's a tough thing to talk about though we must, rich people are going to have to allow, or be forced to allow lower income people to live near them, which is what we failed to do in this country right now. we force lower income working americans to drive one, two, three hours, in either direction to get to their jobs.

very often minimum wage jobs. stuart: what, what, what? three hours to, for a minimum wage job? >> who would drive three hours for a minimum wage job. that is absurd. a right comes from your humanity, according to the declaration of independence. he wants to turn the ability to live wherever you want, whether you can afford it or not into a human right. he is out of his mind. stuart: yes he is. >> he doesn't understand the concept of rights. if he wants the government to buy land and give it away where does he get the right? stuart: say good-bye to his presidential bid. >> he started out with a fanfare, 2% in the polls, amongst democrats. short and sweet. stuart: short and sweet. thank you, son. thank you very much. >> all the best. stuart: listen to this one, former acting i.c.e. director tom homan, he has gone head-to-head with alexandria ocasio-cortez. here is just some of the exchange. you got to watch this. watch it. >> i find appalling that a

member of congress would throw that out there like that. in my 34 years i have never seen such hate toward law enforcement agency in my life. stuart: i will stay there please. after the break we'll show you a lot more what was said. we'll be back, promise. ♪. ♪ ♪

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the rules of this committee. >> enacting laws. >> mr. moment -- homan, your time expired. stuart: he volunteered to appear. then they shut him down. ashley: there is bad blood. in that situation, aoc had the gavel. she was trying to stop him from talking. back in july they had a big fight over issue of family separation from the border. it got very heated then. a lot of as i say, bad blood. mr. homan said if i got arrested for dui, i have a young child in the car i'm going to be separated. if you want to seek asylum, go to the port of entry, do it the legal way. that is the original fight they got into in july. as we saw yesterday, this fight continues. stuart: it sure does. heated. thanks, ash. ashley: sure. stuart: we have a gentleman who plays for the new york red bulls. the catch? he is in the team's e-sports division. why do they need an e-sports player in the first place? he is on the show.

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stuart: hey, look at this. this, ladies and gentlemen, is another rally. we're up 124 points on the dow industrials. this is about the tariff delay. ashley: this is to bloomberg. trump officials are exploring perhaps a condensed agreement for now. this would be, perhaps, a rollback of some u.s. tariffs for the first time in exchange for chinese commitment on intellectual property. that is not going to be easy but that could be possible. also some purchases of agricultural products which is a lot easier. they have been discussing this, apparently in recent days among the administration. as they get ready for the face to face negotiations next month. ashley: stuart: this is interim deal. ashley: which we've been talking about, secretary mnuchin elsewhere shot down the idea

after interim deal. this resurrects it. ashley: this may be a way instead of agonizing over one big enchilada as they say. susan: "wall street journal" reporting that the china is willing to wait out the 2020 elections. apparently not. china, head of the trade delegation might look to settle 40% of the negotiations up front. other 40% later. ashley: interim deal. intellectual property would be a big deal. susan: market access, ipr protection. stuart: i call it progress. i call it positive. that is why i think the dow is up 100 points, within what, 120 points of the all-time high. next one the trump administration is planning to crack down on flavored e-cigarettes. grady trimble joins us. what is the government planning to do? reporter: the fda is still working on the guidelines now, stuart. it could be a few months before we see the ban in place but the reason they're focusing on these

e-flavored cigarettes. those are seen particularly appealing to young people. juul, the biggest maker of e-cigs has been under fire for targeting young people and two, touting its product as a safer alternative to smoking tobacco. we should point out the cdc says 480,000 people die every year because of smoking cigarettes. tobacco is responsible for 7 million debts across the world. some make the argument hey, the e-cigarettes are better for you, because they don't have tobacco in them, nicotine and other chemicals. health officials say stop smoking emteen tirely the e-cigarettes while they investigate the recent deaths, six across the country, more than 450 illnesses. stuart: good story. very interesting. thank you very much indeed, grady. want to bring in wyoming senator john barrasso, republican from wyoming. you're a doctor. >> yes, sir. stuart: you were a practicing

doctor before you went into the senate. i'm sure you're still a doctor now. won't restricting vaping hurt those people who smoke tobacco, hurt them when they try to quit smoking using vaping devices? you don't want to go too far clamping down on vaping, do you? >> my concern, stuart, are young people and people recently been hospitalized. there are five million young people, about a quarter of all high school students who have taken up vaping. these are folks who never smoked in the first place. they're becoming addictive because the amount of nicotine in just one of the little pods equal as full pack of cigarettes additionally the companies are targeting young people to take this up to become addicted because of the flavors. chocolate chip, bubble gum, juicy watermelon, those are flavors used to entice young people. that is my concern from a public health standpoint and an addiction standpoint. stuart: can i throw this at you,

mr. senator. suppose you only get a vaping device with a doctor's prescription. i know that is radical stuff, but wouldn't that solve the problem? >> that would certainly help in terms of a smoking cessation device for people that are already smokers. you want to get them away from the cancer-causing chemicals in the tobacco. and if you can get them to something else as a transition to quitting completely i think that would be a better prescription, maybe the way to go. my focus is on the young people, and the people now showing up in emergency rooms with all of these incredible, what is called acute respiratory distress syndrome. the total cause is not known. stuart: i think many parents are concerned about this, mr. senator. now you have an article in the "washington examiner" and it reads the 2020 democratic agenda, take away your work-based health care. you don't want that to happen understandably. health care, work place based health care is good thing for millions of americans but there is a debate tonight.

would you expect any of the democrats, you're laughing, would you expect any of the democrats on the stage to walk back their support for endin private healthnsurance? >> no, i really, i think the democrats are all in on taking away health insurance from 180 million americans who get it through work. their goal is one size fits all health care plan, people pay more to wait longer for less care. what we also know they want to give health care to illegal immigrants, people here in the country illegally. at the earlier debate every hand went up, who would give health insurance to illegal immigrants? who will pay for that? the american taxpayers who the democrat taxpayers want to take health insurance away from. it is astonishing. stuart: you have got a very good election issue there. the idea that you take away the health care of 100 million americans, force them into something else, i just don't

think that is a winner. th ain is my opinion, mr. senator. we always welcome you on this program. thank you, sir. >> thank you, stuart. stuart: sure thing. let's get back to the trade war. i will call it the trade dispute with china. jackie deangelis is with us now. you're looking at a little history. which was the first company to get into china post their communist cultural revolution? >> on record it was coca-cola. the announcement came late 1978. as you know, stuart, some companies were looking to do business with china. what is so interesting the president is going back and forth with the tit-for-tat, tweet from delaying tariffs, talking about goodwill, he is starting to learn how to play ball with the chinese. culturally they are so different. coca-cola going there was antithesis. communism versus citalism, how the two could come together. we talked to bob hormats about this, he was negotiating relations to open relations with china. here is what he said about the

early companies when he went there and what they learned. >> motorola spent a lot of time there, general electric spent a lot of time there, caterpillar, a number of companies that were spending time to learn the chinese market and they did it not just at the level of the central government but they took the time to understand that china was not a monolith. reporter: the time to understand. they learned how to negotiate. what we're seeing in the last month or so with the administration and china niece officials is sort of a similar lesson where politics is mirroring business in some sense and perhaps it's possible with that understanding a deal can be made sooner rather than later. stuart: there is talk of a interim deal as of now. the market absolutely loves it. jackie, thank you. reporter: sure thing. stuart: check at individual stocks moving. look at walmart, taking 98-dollar per year, same day grocery delivery plan nationwide. walmart at 116. real close to a record high.

tailored brands, parent of mens warehouse. a big hit. they expect a sales slump. it suspended its dividend so it can pay down its debt. the stock is down 23%. similarly oxford industries, parent of tommy bahama, say tariffs could hurt them second half of the year. that thing is down 4%. kroger, grocery store chain, it is up, no, it is down a buck. kroger is trying all kinds of things to compete with walmart and amazon. 15 minutes ago it was up 3 1/2%. now it is down 4 1/2%. what happened? we'll find out. moments from now, speaker pelosi will hold a news conference. i think she needs to pull a badly divided party together. we're watching it. any news out of it you will see it pronto. john bolton out as national security advisor, the media

can't let go of it, calling the trump administration revolving door. isn't this the way the trump administration does business? former press secretary sean spicer next on that. ♪

2,000 fence posts.

900 acres. 48 bales. all before lunch, which we caught last saturday. we earn our scars. we wear our work ethic. we work until the work's done. and when it is, a few hours of shuteye to rest up for tomorrow, the day we'll finally get something done. ( ♪ ) stuart: we still got a rally going. talk about an interim trade deal with china. that's fired up the market nicely. can you show me google's stock price please? because we got news here. google is up 17 bucks. moments ago the french announced they were going to fine google one billion euros. this is a tax-related issue. separately the government is saying to google, hey, knock it

off. your employees should be allowed to speak freely in the work place. i like that. what more have you got? ashley: coming from the national labor relation board. google employees are issuing concerns, if i want to complain or speak freely or workplace issues or political issues i fear retribution or retaliation if the bosses don't like what i'm saying. the feds came in and said you have to allow these employees to have their say without fearing for their jobs or demotions or pay cuts, what we've. so interesting. stuart: i can only conclude, that the billion euro fine was expected. maybe -- ashley: at least you got the number now. you can move on. stuart: that is true. so the stock is up 18 bucks a share. the government is telling them to allow free speech in the work place. why the stock is up on that news i can't imagine. i don't think it has anything to do with it. the dow industrials holding on to a nice gain, folks and the

story today may be record highs real soon for the dow, the s&p and the nasdaq because we are very close on all three of those. something completely different for you. i want to welcome to the show, michael labell. wait for it, that young gentleman on right hand said of the screen, mr. labelle, he is a professional gamer for the new york red bulls. the red bulls are a pro soccer team. they have a e-sports division. michael is representing them. michael, why on earth would a team that plays soccer on a field have an esport division? >> it makes sense for clubs to be parallelling especially in the marketing end with gaming. gaming is growing every year, regardless what happens in the economy, gaming will keep going. mls, the percentage of 65% of new fans into mls being integrated with these teams come from playing videogame first.

they come fromla fifa. fifa outsells all sports titles in the u.s., not just internationally. makes sense to buildout a league to engage fans they already have. also to promote and create new fans. stuart: this is terrific. it's a brilliant tie-in, with expanding e-sports business and soccer gaining in popularity. what exactly will you be doing? will you be playing e-sports, wearing a red bulls jersey? >> no i do it collective. you can see me on youtube creating content there. i'm at the games. i've done different commentator work. shadow casting. competing under the new york red bulls team, going to events, representing them at events. we're currently in vegas at the tempest awards which is wonderful where i presented awards, of course, also a new york red bulls e supports athlete. i think this we're in a space where we have similar media.

people can do a lot of things. the same thing can be said for gaming. you don't have to be labeled just a pro or content creator or post on instagram. you have a collective of skills. where you add a lot of value whether intern any also, extern alley, whether just in general. stuart: a lot of viewers have a hard time getting grips with expanding e-sports business. the idea you have stadiums jam packed with people watching you play an an e-sport. people have a hard time understanding how it has come. it is a major league sport, isn't it? >> absolutely. when you watch the mls events you talk about 20, 30,000 people watching concurrently and online and want to be part of the fan dom. it has been special. i've been part of every aspect of e-sports growth with fifa where it was grassroots. now you're seeing a competitive

calendar. you're seeing teams aligning investing in players, almost as if you were a professional player for the organization which is really special just to see the shift, to be a part of it. stuart: let's get it straight, you don't play real soccer, do you? >> i actually played in college. i did play real soccer at weekly level. stuart: what position you play? >> old school striker. a mark laduca. stuart: that is where the money is. that is where the money is. i never played fifa soccer, the game. do you play a position when you're playing? >> so you control the entire team but being, having that experience playing as any level, whether you're a beginner, intermediate, advanced real life soccer player plays a part. you understand triangles. overlapping runs. how to structure team. getting in behind. going for deep balls. taking away space. crowding somebody out you name it, you are the all inclusive when you're on the virtual pitch. stuart: have to ask you one last

question, if i may, not a trick question -- >> i feel it is about to be a trick question. stuart: when was the last time you went into a gamestop store in a mall? >> majority of time now i get the games, i'm downloading a lot of titles. stuart: of course. >> i like to get a hard copy. it is good to have collection. i like to stack up the fifa installments. i like a hard copy. maybe that is sentimental side. almost a trophy, if you're really good at something, you remember time you spent on game. i know who is on title. a lot of soundtracks stand out. a lot of artists made careers being underground artist, got involved made a feel that soundtrack, 2007, 2018, so forth. stuart: michael labelle. you know your stuff. you can come back on the show anytime you like. red bulls guy. we appreciate it. >> thanks so much for having me. stuart: sure thing. let's stay on e-sports. why not.

we're on a roll. videogames might be coming to, wait a minute, videogames might be coming to the olympics? susan: gold, silver, bronze, might be handed out in the future. ashley: my god. susan: stu, threw down his pen by the way. stuart: it is not a sport. it is a pursuit, a hobby. susan: my goodness that could be argued about a lot of things. stuart: is chess a olympic sport? susan: no? ashley: kite flying? susan: let me get back to you on that. videogames apparently a step closer to being an olympic sport, ahead of tokyo, next year, 2020, they will basically have a gaming tournament hosted by intel in advance of this. the organizing committee behind the 2024 french olympics considered implementing, putting in e-sports. e-sports is a big business. a bill dollars this year expected to be made. up 29% from last year. stuart: not a physical sport.

case closed. susan: i don't know about that. ashley: i sit in front of my tv 22 hours. stuart: what muscles do you exercise? ashley: your finger muscles. stuart: oh. susan: are there any olympic sports question being pcal endeavor? stuart: you're thinking. susan: i cannot think of something. stuart: ice skating should not be olympic sport. susan: ice skating should be -- stuart: objective judgments. i don't want any olympic sport with subjective judgment on part of judges because i can be fixed. ashley: right. stuart: who throws the things farther or runs fastest. susan: gymnastics. stuart: out in my opinion for olympics. i'm told my rant is taken so of time, we don't have time for a proper tease. all i have to say is more "varney" after this.

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stuart: you may wonder why we lost the rally. reports about possibility of interim trade deal have been discredited. put it like that. denied, by the white house. that is the story.

we're up nine points. on capitol hill, speaker pelosi will hold a news conference. we'll bring you headlines out of the news conference. the podium is already. there is lot of impeachment talk from the democrats. sean spicer, former white house press secretary, sean, i think democrats have impeachment problem. they can't decide whether to go whole hog with it or with a series of investigations. i don't see how nancy pelosi can pull this party together on that issue? that's right. there is high-wire act. chairman nadler figuring out what to call the hearings. they're not impeachment hearings. but impeachment related hearings. they don't know what to do. 118 democrats. pretty much half of their caucus, pelosi wants to do with this. while the base is eager to go with this, they hold 33 seats,

seats that trump won. if they overstep, that basically costs them their majority. so i think they keep trying to thread the needle on this they're doing a horrible job doing it. stuart: what about unity in the debate tonight. unity in the attack joe biden or unity they attack donald trump? >> you know, i think that is a really good question, stuart. biden is a falling store, not a rising star. do they go after him -- if you're on bottom of that stage. pete buttigieg, if you're andrew yang, kamala harris. you need to figure out how you rise up. the only way you rise up is taking somebody down. kamala harris tried this in the first debate. the question who goes after whom tonight. first time you see warren on the stage with biden. my guess a lot of warren going after biden. she is trying to claim the man tell of the front-runner as

biden starts to fade back. the biden campaign already lowered expectations for iowa and new hampshire. warren and sanders. stuart: i'm out of time. later it will be i will be glued. sorry, sean, out of time. back in a moment. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ "have you lost weight?" of course i have- ever since i started renting from national. because national lets me lose the wait at the counter... ...and choose any car in the aisle. and i don't wait when i return, thanks to drop & go.

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stuart: the media ignores any item of news that could be vaguely considered good news for america. the media really is the opposition party. opposition, that is, to president trump. nothing that might help his re-election can be reported. case in point. the stock market's march to all-time record highs. we're almost there again and there's barely a word about it. what a rotten performance. they're just not doing their job and let's be clear. the market's gains help everyone. 55 million americans have a 401(k). 35 million have an i.r.a. much of that pension money is in

stocks. pension savers have done very well. that is very good news. life insurors keep money in stocks. union and government worker pension plans keep money in stocks. in fact, almost three-quarters of the value of the entire stock market is owned by people over 55. you have rarely seen much about this in the media, right? and the reason is obvious. it is trump who has produced the trump rally, but the media just can't give him credit. three weeks ago, the media was all over the threat of recession. the pundits and the so-called journalists eagerly, indeed gleefully talked it up. they became instant experts on the yield curve inversion. now they have moved on to trump, the erroneous weather forecaster. it really is laughable. ignore them all. they will never get over hillary's loss. instead, look at what's going on. poverty declining. extraordinary employment gains

by women and minorities. and yes, the icing on the cake, the record highs for the stock market that fund your retirement. that's good news. you will hear a lot of it here. the third hour of "varney & company" is about to begin. stuart: okay. you may be wondering why we have lost the rally, ten minutes ago we were up well over 100 points. the answer is developments on trade. ash, am i right in saying the whole idea of an interim deal pushed the market up? ashley: yes, it did. now it's being denied by the administration saying no, that is not the case. we saw a nice jump, then the air came out just as quickly. stuart: but we do have a delay by the president in the imposition of these tariffs. deirdre: exactly. i'm just trying to give a break, the idea to put some of them off, some are already in place,

of course, but the president saying well -- at least trying to send the message they would like a framework established so that is part of why we did see the markets up earlier but this kind of trumps that right now. stuart: is there some agreement or talk about yes, they will buy a ton of our agricultural stuff? ashley: that's in the offing. that's probably the easiest thing. the original report said we can get a commitment on intellectual property and the u.s. will roll back even eliminate some tariffs. apparently as part of the temporary agreement, that apparently not being discussed by the administration. stuart: okay. now we have the dow dead flat to slightly lower. we'll take it. there is more news coming fresh right at us. thomas pickerton, remember him, the anti-capital french economist got a new book, 1200 pages long. it's about abolishing billionaires. ashley: yes. called "capital and ideology." comes out in english next year. get in your orders now. this follows up his other big

book, capital in the 21st century which introduced the concept of income inequality and a lot of people as you know, jumped on that bandwagon. what's he talking about here? he's essentially trying to upend capitalism. i was looking at some of the things he says. no shareholder can have more than 10% voting rights of the company even if they have a much bigger stake. he advocates for the people of france. all french citizens get a lump sum of $132,000 when they hit the age of 25. how are they going to pay for that? a wealth tax, of course. and taxes up to 90% on the wealthy. stuart: of course. ashley: the wealthy will move. stuart: squeeze them. how wonderful it is. next one. senator elizabeth warren doubling down on her war on the wealthy. here it comes. what's now? deirdre: so tax the top 2% earners of this country to pay for this. i'm going to give you the details now. raising social security benefits by $200 a month for roughly 64 million recipients so elizabeth

warren saying obviously by taxing the rich, you could make that happen. and she says in fact that that is going to have two effects. it's going to draw 4.9 million seniors out of poverty so that's the one altruistic argument she's making. the other is to extend the solvency of the underfunded social security fund by about 19 years. which many people have voiced concern on. the idea of taxing the top 2% earners in this country is so offensive to so many who believe in the american system. ashley: they already pay their fair share. i'm sorry, it's true. same theme. squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. stuart: it's constant. the wealthy can pay for everything. of course, they cannot. deirdre: longer term, you could make the argument this would be a disincentive. stuart: the debate is tonight and senator warren seems to be going for it. let's get some reaction to my editorial at the top of the hour. the media never reports the good

stuff about the market. chief economist at payden & rygel, jeffrey cleveland, is with us now. you always hear -- >> hi, stuart. stuart: good morning. i'm trying to catch my breath here. you always hear that september's a bad month for the markets but we're not seeing that at all. we are close to record highs. >> well, we are getting good economic news out of the u.s. i think that's a key. last week, the wage growth figures were excellent so we are seeing more money going into consumers' wallets and that will be good for growth. and then today, out this morning, the layoff data. we saw a huge drop in initial claims for unemployment insurance. back down to 204,000 for the latest week of data. that is incredibly low, near, very near the all-time lows. we are not seeing an economy that is wilting or rolling over. ultimately that's what matters most for stocks. if the economy continues to grow, stocks will make new highs, in my opinion. stuart: you expect new highs,

all-time highs fairly soon for the big averages? >> yes, sir. stuart: i'm sure you saw what the european central bank did today, cutting interest rates by ten basis points. very small cut. the president tweeted shortly after that decision, european centralaccounting quickly, cuts rates ten basis points, they are trying and succeeding in depreciating the euro against the very strong dollar, hurting u.s. exports. the fed sits and sits and sits. they get paid to borrow money while we are paying interest. what do you think? would you like to see america go to zero rates or below? >> no, stuart, the ecb is a cautionary tale for the u.s. they have had a negative interest rate policy since 2014 and they still face lackluster growth, subpar inflation. so i don't think it's the solution. all due respect to the president, i don't think we should go down that route.

what would help ease the dollar and boost the rest of the world would be if global growth recovers. that's really the key to the dollar story. a stronger dollar is a reflection of the rest of the world lagging this year. i think that's what we need. we need to see the rest of the world recover. stuart: is a china trade deal, interim or expanded or otherwise, is that what would get the global economy going? >> one of the big issues weighing on global activity, yes, is the manufacturing weakness that we are seeing in the u.s. and pretty much all around the globe. if we did a deal on trade, that should reduce some of the uncertainty and i think that will feed through into the global economic data. as the global economy stabilizes or picks up a little bit, the dollar should ease. that should give the president, you know, a breath of fresh air there. we don't want to follow negative interest rate policy. i think it's medicine that's worse than the disease. it doesn't do what it's intended to do. in fact, some of the steps you saw out of the ecb today were to

offset some of the negative consequences of the negative interest rate policy on banks in europe. so giving them some leniency on which reserves suffer the penalty of the negative rates. so it's a reaction to the medicine they have already delivered that hasn't worked. stuart: i keep hearing that. jeffrey, thank you very much, sir. see you again soon. maybe by then we will have a new high for the market. next one. swing state ohio. the cleveland fed says the state's economy is doing real well. wages up across the board. is the economy good enough to get ohio voters out for trump? we'll see. we will ask someone who knows. staying on 2020, american chief executives pouring their own personal money into campaigns. we will tell you which candidates are getting ceos' money. tonight of course, the democrat debate. that too will define the party as it goes into the 2020 election. same story.

how far left will they go? stay with us, please. this is the third hour of "varney & company." ♪ [upbeat action music]

♪ (pilot) we're going to be on the tarmac for another 45 minutes or so.

stuart: look at apple. yes, it is still and it continues to be a trillion dollar company, and now we hear news they are teaming up with walgreens for some kind of deal, apple and walgreens. deirdre: walgreens offers 3% daily cash on the apple card, with apple pay purchases. so if you use your apple pay in a walgreens shop, you get 3% back on your purchase. we know that apple just launched this product. they want people to use it. what better way than where a lot of us go foot traffic wise, in the pharmacies, the drugstores. stuart: apple pay, use it at

walgreens, 3% cash back. deirdre: yep. stuart: i'll do it. deirdre: there you go. stuart: apple at $2. trillion dollar company. got it. look at google, please. two stories on them. first of all, ash, am i right in saying the feds are saying to google hey, you let your employees talk politics at work. ashley: yeah. it's kind of embarrassing to have to be told that, you should allow first amendment rights in your own workplace but yes, the national labor relations board says you have to allow employees to talk about politics or workplace issues without fear of retribution. you know, you get demoted, taken off a project you really want to be on, which is what a number of employees have complained about. the feds say you can't do that. stuart: bearing in mind google's stock is up $18 as we speak, we do hear that they settled a tax beef with france for how much? ashley: one billion euros. two different issues. one for tax evasion going back to 2015, another for underpaying

taxes. two separate issues, going on for years. i think the stock's moving higher because they finally got a number, they finally agreed they can move on. it's not cheap. it's a billion euros, $1.3 billion, but it's done and settled and they move on. stuart: once you get the number -- ashley: once you know what you're dealing with. stuart: the stock moves up. these markets get to you sometimes. this is, in my opinion, the day of the democrat. that's right. the third debate takes pce tonight in houston. ten top contenders on the stage. kelly sadler, america first action pac communications director, is with us this morning. i know you are preparing all the sound bites you are going to use from the debate in your campaign in 2020. i know you are. >> well, i mean, they give us plenty. every single time they get onstage. stuart: do you think it's possible that some of the candidates will start to walk back, walk back their extreme positions on the green new deal, on abolishing private health insurance and taxes, anybody

will walk that back? to try to get back to the middle? >> they haven't so far. if you look at the cnn climate town hall that they had, you had basically everyone trying to out-bid themselves for this socialist part of the party. you had, you know, warren saying $3 trillion for the green new deal. beto's like i'll raise you, $5 trillion. yang, i'll match that. then harris saying no, we need $10 trillion. finally bernie, $16 trillion. they will ban straws and red meat, they will ban fracking. stuff that seriously does not play well to rust belt americans, to middle class americans, to everyday americans. stuart: why don't they walk it back a little bit? >> they have lost control of the party. the left has taken the socialist wing of the party has taken control of the democratic wing. you see this happening in congress. what do we have today? we have like this faux impeachment parade. nancy pelosi has lost control of the moderate wing of the party so they are doing these stunts. literally, i don't see anyone coming back to claim the

centrist lane. biden has not done that thus far and he's going to have to walk back a lot of his comments like banning fossil fuels in order to get the rust belt states. stuart: the debate is in houston. i don't think of houston as the fossil fuel energy capital of the united states of america. you are going to have maybe joe biden stand up there, say get rid of fossil fuel. they will all say the same thing. it's not going to fly. >> we feel good. what can i say. this does not poll well in pennsylvania, it does not poll well in ohio. they are in texas. in new mexico, you saw the president just have a rally. guess what, there's a lot of drilling going on on public lands in the state of new mexico that is bringing prosperity to that state and that is very popular. stuart: am i right in saying that you watch this, you are going to be glued to it and you will chop it up into sound bites which you will then insert into political ads next year? >> i mean, we have so many already but absolutely 100%. stuart: you enjoying yourself? >> yes, i am. always do.

stuart: i'm going to try to watch tonight but -- >> three hours. 's a bit long. stuart: it's late at night for me. that's the way it is. thank you so much for joining us. appreciate it. thank you. breaking news on trade. do we have edward lawrence? we do. edward, what have you got for us on trade? reporter: yeah, you know, bloomberg has been moving the markets, there was a report out saying some advisers are considering a temporary deal to put off some tariffs for china next week. i talked with an adviser on the trade team, michael pillsbury, an adviser to the president, who said the president is not going to accept anything less than a full deal, a strong deal with the chinese. he pointed to a tweet the president made a couple weeks ago where the president said basicall that he could make an easy deal with china but wasn't going to do it because it wouldn't be the right deal for the united states. he went on to say there is already an agreement on the table from last may, before the chinese deleted some of the things out of it that the chinese could agree to if they want to. but again, pushing back, there's

going to be no interim deal with this, just going forward, that the president is going to make a good deal for the united states and a firm deal that is long term with china. stuart: got it. i think i've got that. that report spiked the market, then when you and others said there's no interim deal, we brought it back down again. okay. good stuff, edward. thank you very much indeed. reporter: just want to get it right. stuart: you did get it right. we appreciate that. thanks, mr. lawrence. teslahallenging porsche. i guess what's this, the new super-fast power train, whatever the devil that is, with inspiration from the movie "space balls." not sure i understand that. we will try to explain it. i promise you that. first check this out. audi's new concept car. all electric offroader. get this. drones for headlines. what?

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i don't know if the ship can take it. >> what's the matter, colonel sanders? chicken? >> space balls one. stuart: that was a classic movie "space balls." that's the inspiration behind the name of tesla's super-fast power train. ashley: elon musk has put out the model s. you don't get the whole reference, the dark helmet. the power train has three electric motors instead of two. it also has ludicrous speed, yet another reference to the movie. it's so fast it's ludicrous. they put it on a racetrack in monterrey county, california, said they did that in 96 seconds which beat the record by one second. however, the track says none of

us timed you so it's not official. it goes quickly, apparently. stuart: okay. we have a new concept car from audi. it's offroad, all electric. deirdre, it's got drones for headlights? deirdre: it certainly does. all electric and offroad is not often what people think of with audi. that's why this concept car, they unveiled it at the frankfurt motor show. it has these drones that we can see in the front for head lamps which is obviously very cool. you can send them out in advance, you can check out the terrain. people do it with equipment -- ashley: then you lose your lights. deirdre: then you lose your lights. the idea is you can survey the terrain. a lot of golfers do this. stuart: look, how many people buy an offroad vehicle, ever go offroad? very few. deirdre: yeah. stuart: some of america's ceos have contributed their own personal money to candidates. we will tell you which ceos

donated to which candidates. we also have dan henninger with us about what he calls the democrats' dilemma. middle of the road democrat voters who are not sold on joe biden. what is a moderate democrat to do? ♪ i get it all the time.

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so you can... retire better. stuart: we're back. ashley: hello. stuart: the positive trade news was denied. we came back down again. now we're back up again, up 87 points. ashley: check the headlines. stuart: that's what's going on. all right. let's stay on money. europe is printing up a ton of money, all over again. they're going to buy a load of bonds. that is printing money, essentially. new stimulus package. mark grant is with us. this is the man who led the charge on negative interest rates in europe and the dangers thereof. mark joins us now. okay, so europe's printing up a storm, going further into negative interest rates. but i can't see any impact on us at all. is there any impact on us? >> yes, there absolutely is,

stuart. let me make this clear what's going on, because you're not going to find this in the press. the ecb has no independence. all they are is the front for the nations of the european union. what they've done is they've mandated, because they can't afford their budgets, they can't afford their social programs, they mandated their central bank to print money which i call pixie dust money and buy sovereign debt and buy corporate debt and drive down the yields so that currently, they are $17 trillion in negative yielding bonds and after mr. draghi's announcement today, it will go to $20 trillion quickly because they will print $22 billion more every month and buy more of their bonds. the effect it has on us is our central bank, the fed, has to respond to this to protect american interests. so in my view, the fed should

keep lowering rates down until we're just on this side of zero. not go negative, but just this side of zero. it's also going to have, to answer your question, a huge effect on the dollar/euro relationship which is bad for america and good for europe. stuart: so okay, so the dollar goes up, the euro goes down and that's what's bad for america, because our products and services in europe get more expensive. that's it? >> that's correct. you got it right on the nose. stuart: jamie dimon, runs jpmorgan, he says the bank is preparing for the risk of 0% rates. president trump wants to push rates down to zero or below. so what do you think happens in america if we go to say zero interest rates? what happens to us in that direct effect? >> then you are getting into what's going to happen is you are going to end up with a currency war between the euro, the european union, japan,

switzerland. japan and switzerland, by the way, not only buy sovereign debt and corporate debt, they buy stocks, they buy etfs and there was a suggestion made by blackrock that the european union saw that path, they decided not to do it at this point but they have started quantitative easing all over again. so you know, they have $5.3 trillion in assets liabilities at their central bank which represents 43% of their gdp. we have $3.7 trillion at the fed which represents 18% of our gdp. we have room to move without going into negative interest rates. we should move, they should drop the rates at the fed to right above zero, so we can compete economically with them and we are also going to probably end up being in some kind of currency malaise with china as they keep lowering their currency as well. it's getting to be a mess.

stuart: mark, you speak with clarity. you let us all understand exactly what's going on. my takeaway is, it ain't good. mark grant, thanks for joining us, sir. see you again real soon, promise. >> my pleasure, stuart. thank you, sir. stuart: our next guest has a very interesting article in the "wall street journal" today titled "the democrats' dilemma." i think it's all about middle of the road democrat voters who are tired of the drama of the far left but are not entirely sold on joe biden either. dan henninger wrote the column and he joins us now. so, if middle of the road folks are a bit worried about joe biden and terrified of far left candidates, what's left in the democrat party? there's nowhere to go. >> that is their dilemma. there is no plan b for them. i'm struck by how many democrats i talk to these days and if you raise something like how about this debate that's going to be on tonight with all of these democrats, they just roll their eyes like what is with these

people. some of them tuned in to cnn's ridiculous climate town hall and they are watching these candidates bid up the price of mitigating the climate. $10 trillion, well, that's not enough. bernie sanders, $16 trillion and it will pay for itself. a lot of democrats are sitting out there going this is just, what has become of us? they like joe biden. but it is fascinating how many of them say we don't think he's going to make it for whatever reason, and that means there's no plan b. there's no one that comes after joe biden. sure, they like someone like senator amy klobuchar of minnesota. she's down there at 2%. down there with senator michael bennet and why is it none of these moderate democrats, their expectation is if they were to nominate shall we say a normal democrat like biden or klobuchar, they would have a good shot at beating donald trump, who maybe voters see as increasingly mercurial,

volatile. but that's not going to happen because the left sees this as their once in a lifetime opportunity to win the presidency and the left controls the commanding heights of the media, both traditional media and social media. that's what we saw in that cnn town hall. stuart: i think that's totally wrong. look, i have lived in america for over 40 years, as you know. my judgment of america is that you never are going to elect a socialist as president of the united states. i just can't see that. maybe i'm totally naive because many people have said you cannot elect donald trump as president of the united states and it happened. am i way out of bounds by saying america cannot and will not elect a socialist? >> you are not out of bounds at all. under normal circumstances, that would be true. but the left would argue, i think, on the other side, look at president trump's approval rating. it is stuck in the low to mid 40s. it never gets higher than that.

the percentage of the population says the country is going in the wrong direction. 57%, that is a high number. and they do have the media and social media on their side, and they are going to, like a bull with a bull fighter in the ring, they will goad president trump constantly between now and november 2020, hitting him with barbs and enraging him as he attacks back. i think the idea is they are going to try to turn donald trump into simply an unacceptable candidate by the fall of 2020, with elizabeth warren standing there waiting to pick up the pieces. that's their strategy. stuart: you are enjoying it. i know you are enjoying it. i know you are. >> bull fights can be fun. stuart: come back soon. thank you, sir. appreciate it. next case. we've got a list of some big name chief executives donating their personal cash to 2020 democrats. who is giving to whom? deirdre: so amy klobuchar, very much in the lead. she actually has five ceos and

these are of s&p 500 companies. you can see right there on the screen. the thing i want to let our viewers know as well is more than half of these contributions are going to the politicians where the companies are based. so there is a little bit of strategy here. obviously, they support the candidate but in klobuchar's case, all of these are based in her home state of minnesota. if you cycle through senator cory booker from new jersey, he has four s&p 500 ceos giving to him. you can see the logos there. prudential is actually technically the only one based in new jersey. if you look, he has ties to silicon valley so you can see the support he has with paypal and salesforce. he also has one from connecticut, the last one, a connecticut-based company but as you cycle through, mayor pete from indiana, simon properties based in indiana and the others again are more of a nod, netflix, reed hastings, huge fan of mayor pete, has done a lot of

personal fund-raising for him. oddly enough, biden and kamala harris are really sort of struggling, if you like, at least from a corporate donation perspective. amerisource bergen based in pennsylvania, where biden was born. kamala harris has salesforce and a lot of support from the ceo of twitter, jack dorsey. a little bit of mix and match there. biden's campaign is realdy to make an official statement saying they are looking for small amounts, meaning they recognize the importance of corporate dollars but are also looking for people to donate up to $29 and they have sort of averages. i think he's averaging $43. stuart: interesting. big corporate donors usually back people they think are going to win. the absence of big backers of who is it only had one -- ashley: biden has one. stuart: that's not a great sign. not a great sign. expectations for him.

thank you. i will stay on politics, stay on money. the leaders of some of the biggest companies in america have sent a letter to the senate about gun laws. ashley will have details on that in just a moment. we are also going to deal with ohio. the cleveland federal reserve bank says the state's economy is holding nice and steady. so is the economy and its performance enough to get voters out again in 2020 for what is an important swing state? ohio's lieutenant governor will join us. in california, the feds are looking at housing some of the homeless in an abandoned faa facility. would that work? we are asking housing secretary ben carson. he's on the show next. ♪ at fidelity, we believe your money should always be working harder. that's why your cash automatically goes into a money market fund

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stuart: the fbi is investigating

a venture capital firm. deirdre: peter thiel, the fbi in recent months questioning some people close to the fund and the focus here is on financial misconduct at the firm. i do have to give a shout out to re/code, they are the only news organization with this right now. they are quoting or actually leaving it anonymous because of lawyers. stuart: we should say peter thiel appeared at the republican convention for donald trump, to the aggravation of many people at silicon valley. deirdre: he is known for wanting disruption. he saw president trump as a disruptor. stuart: he did indeed. the leaders of some of the biggest companies in america sent a letter to the senate about gun laws. what do they want? ashley: they want the senate to pick up where the house left f off. the house passed legislation

requiring bacro checks for all potential gun buyers. we are talking about some big companies, uber, twitter, to name just a few. let's take a look at the gun stocks. what they want is to expand background checks on gun sales and also to strengthen the so-called red flag laws. i mentioned this earlier but a poll by "washington post"/abc showed that 89% of respondents including 83% of republicans do support requiring background checks for all potential gun buyers. stuart: interesting. that's what they want. later this afternoon, president trump heads to baltimore. he's going to a gop retreat. he will also be speaking to residents of the city. reportedly about quote, forgotten communities. ben carson's with us, housing and urban development secretary. he will be -- you will be joining the president at that speech. now, is the president going straight into the heart of baltimore and addressing the african community there head-on? is he going to them? >> well, yes, the president

wants people to hear directly from him as opposed to, you know, being reinterpreted by people who perhaps have other agendas, and you know, it's very good that the president's having an opportunity to express his heart, because you know, most people don't know this, but ever since i have known him, he's been extremely concerned about the forgotten individuals. you know, it has nothing to do with color. it has to do with the fact these are americans and you know, they have not been able to participate in a lot of the wonderful things that are going on in this country. he wants to change that. stuart: what kind of reception is he going to get? he might get some hostility. >> that's a possibility. but i was with him in detroit a while back and we went to an african-american church, and you know, he was received like a hero. it was really quite amazing. so it can be variable but do recognize that, you know, african-americans are not a

monolithic group who all think the same. many of them are starting to think for themselves and recognizing that, you know, unemployment for blacks is at a record low, that wages are going up, opportunities exist. there are more jobs than there are people looking for jobs. these are very very positive things. you know, people will try to spin them as negative and try to make people think they are victims, but you are only a victim if you think you're a victim. we are trying to do things now to give people an opportunity to climb out of dependency. stuart: mr. secretary, we have got this report the administration is, some officials are touring this abandoned faa facility near los angeles, possibly to help house the homeless there. is this the administration's first step towards solving california's crisis? >> well, i don't want to get out ahead of the plan but i will tell you that we are looking at a lot of different options, both

to take care of the acute phase and the more long-term phase. like i have said before, if tokyo which has more people than new york city, can have no homelessness, certainly we can do it as well. stuart: yes, sir. i can't let you leave without asking you about this furniture-gate thing. not sure i know all about it. i do know that you have been cleared. tell me more, sir. >> well, you know, i was so disgusted with that story, because you know, they tried to claim that i want to buy expensive furniture while i'm trying to take money away from the poor people. that was the only narrative that they were interested in. and the ig's report demonstrates as i have said all along that i had very little to do with the whole story. there's probably no one in washington who cares less about furniture than i do. then they tried to say that i'm throwing my wife under the bus, you know. none of that's true. but here's the key thing,

stuart. will they now come back and say oh, we were wrong, carson was -- of course not. they will say nothing. stuart: not a prayer. they will hope to cover it all up. mr. secretary, thanks for coming on the show. we love it. >> absolutely. my pleasure. stuart: next, we are talking to ohio's lieutenant governor. the cleveland fed says ohio's economy holding nice and steady. is that enough to get ohioans out to vote in a swing state for mr. trump 2020? ♪ ♪ 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,

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stuart: gap clothing stores, old navy, okay, they own old navy, they are doubling the number of stores. okay? doubling old navy stores, double. talk about bucking the retail ice age trend. by the way, they pull in already $10 billion a year in sales. that's old navy. not bad, huh? next ca. ohio, cleveland's federal reserve bank says the state's economy is doing okay. wages up across the board and the retailers are pretty solid there. john hustead, lieutenant governor of ohio, joins us now. sir, mr. trump won ohio i think

by nine points in 2016. is the economy in ohio strong enough nowor a repeat performance in 2020? >> well, the ohio economy continues to grow. it's grown a lot since president trump took office. we've seen growth in appalachia with the petro chemical industry and oil and gas developments. we have seen entrepreneurs grow in central and southwest ohio. the economy is growing steadily. manufacturing technology, oil and gas, we have widespread growth in ohio and things are moving in the right direction. stuart: look, your state, i always think of ohio as an industrial state, and i think of it as an energy state. i can't for the life of me understand why anyone would vote for a candidate who goes for the green new deal. where am i going wrong on this? surely it's a slam-dunk, isn't it, in ohio? >> look, much of the growth in the poorest parts of our state have been due to the oil and gas revolution that's occurred. it's spawning new industries, it's creating petro chemical

industry along the ohio river in eastern ohio. the green new deal would kill all of that. that part of the state, i can promise you, thereen new deal is a loser and if you can't do well in that part of the state, you're not going to win ohio. stuart: i'm sure you're aware of this, sir, but the republicans are going to fly a banner around the site of the houston debate tonight. the banner reads, it's on a plane, it reads socialism will kill houston's economy. do you think socialism would kill, say, the ohio economy or the columbus economy or is that going just a tad too far? >> well, socialism has proven to kill every economy and it's not the right direction, it's not based on american values. we believe in hard work and competition and innovation that drives the next generation of jobs and opportunities. look, we have seen innovation in our state that has transformed many of our communities. look, there are opportunities now that exist for people in

ohio that never existed before. people who were once addicted to drugs are now getting job opportunities because we have full employment. we have people coming out of prison who are getting opportunities to work for manufacturers, employers they never had before. we don't want to go backwards. we want to continue to inject new investment, new innovation into our economy and that will keep us going long into the future. socialism will kill all of that. stuart: do you think that the people of ohio like the president, his language, his style, his tone? is he personally popular? >> i think among some people, he's personally popular. i think, though, that people -- i hear this so often, i don't like his tweets but i like the job he's doing. if i've heard that once, i've heard it a thousand times. that's what i think most people in ohio feel about the president. stuart: us, too. sir, thanks for joining us. we appreciate you taking the time with us today. appreciate it. okay. we're coming up to the close of the show, regrettably.

i believe that's new york city. yes, it is. little cloudy but kind of warm today. more "varney" after this. ♪ . .

stuart: as we walk up to night's debate, 10 democrat candidates on the stage tonight, as we walk up to that, we have news broken by "politico," a nasty fight between president obama's political people and elizabeth warren campaign staff. what is the word? >> "politico" interviewed 50 people behind the scenes many on the obama team and elizabeth warren team, there was never any real agreement on things. it could get quite nasty at times. i think it is, i don't want to give a plug for powe lit call. it it is an interesting story. none of this bubbled to the surface but -- stuart: tonight president biden,

vice president obama's on stage first time with elizabeth warren. she will go after him. >> released social security benefit expansion plan this morning. lots to talk about. stuart: tax the rich. i got it. time's up. stuart, it is yours. neil: tax stuart varney. that is what they're all doing here. amazing, dump it on the rich. following on developments, trade back and forth, how many times you heard me say, you want to foe which way the markets go, get a headline what is happeni with the trade talks. more promisinghe look, earlier indications today were the chinese were bending and dodging. we're bending and dodging. we're making concessions. they're making concessions. we'll get into details of it. there are reports being disputed as well. they're trying to get things ironed out before they talk to one another very soon. it isn the details. right now good enough