maria: great show today. thank you so much, everybody. >> welcome back. >> happy new year. maria: happy new year. thank you for joining us, laurence, dagen and mitch. have a great day. "varney & company" begins right now. stu, take it away. stuart: good morning, maria. good morning, everyone. this is day two of the market's reaction to the killing of iran's terror general, qassem suleimani. thus far, there's been no significant selloff. hysterical politics, yeah, we got that. relative stability, however, for your money. how about that. the dow after falling, what, 200 points friday, is going to be down again today, but we are still well above the 28,000 level and only a fraction below the record highs. the s&p was down, what, 20 on friday, down maybe 18 today. the nasdaq was down friday, down 60 today. this is not a huge stock market selloff by any means.

the big market mover is gold, and this is a classic flight to safety. it's getting closer to $1600 an ounce. that's a seven-year high. $1577, up 25 bucks as of now. price of oil, $63 a barrel. can you imagine where the price would be if the general had been killed a few years ago, before america became energy independent? got it. here are the late news developments. the iranians threaten retaliation. hundreds of thousands marched through tehran for the general's funeral. the iranians say they will no longer comply with nuclear enrichment limits contained in the nuke deal from which mr. trump was already withdrawn. no backing down from president trump. oh, no. after the iraqis demanded the withdrawal of american troops, the president threatened to send them a bill for the bases we had built for them and he threatened to respond to any iranian attack by going after cultural sites. this has been hard line trump.

in washington, speaker pelosi will organize a vote this week to restrict the president's war powers. as for the left, it remains outraged at suleimani's killing. aoc calls the president, our president, a monster. ilhan omar and senator elizabeth warren talk about war crimes. joe biden says the president is irrational. what a monday. a lot to go at. let's get on with it. "varney & company" is about to begin. stuart: let's deal with your money first of all, bring in market watcher keith fitz. tell me, keith, does this -- this is day two of the market's reaction to the suleimani killing. i got that. do you think this is just a temporary interruption of the bull market, or the start of something big? >> i tell you what, there's something, one particular asset behavior i'm looking for, called

walking away from the bid. that means people stop buying. we haven't seen that, as you pointed out in your intro. this is still an orderly progression. traders i talked to all weekend and coming in this morning prior to coming on air are not panicked. they are still looking forward. they believe this is going to pass. is it going to hold a damper on things, probably. stuart: you see anybody buying the slightly lower levels that we have seen over the last couple of days? i'm thinking about apple, i'm thinking about microsoft, i'm thinking about other big name stocks. any buying there? >> there is. you know, myself included, i'm looking at all of those stocks and thinking they are very appetizing levels and i will buy more if they go lower, but the point is there is not an organized run for the exits yet. it's still very stable. let's see what happens, very measured, at least financially speaking. stuart: would you be putting any money into gold? >> no. absolutely not. because i think much of that speculative energy that used to drive the flight to safety trade has moved into bonds, moved into cryptocurrencies, moved into

cannabis stocks, all of which has been vaporized in the scheme of things. stuart: forgive me, keith, i can't resist this, but sitting next to me is a gentleman by the name of pete hegseth, a well-known bitcoin investor. i just have to ask you, keith, would you put money into bitcoin now? >> me personally? no, i would not, because i don't like it, i don't understand it. but that doesn't mean it's great for some people like the gentleman sitting next to you. stuart: or so he thinks. thanks very much for jumping on so early this morning. we appreciate it. see you soon. got it. president trump has warned of further strikes if iran retaliates. pete hegseth, army veteran, 1 s 101st airborne, is with us. let me speak of speaker pelosi, who will orchestrate a vote to limit the president's war powers. >> where was she when barack obama was conducting thousands of drone strikes in syria and elsewhere, which i didn't have a

problem with. listen, chasing down your enemy is important. there was no war powers resolution introduced by the house or senate restricting his latitude as commander in chief to go after terrorist organizations. the trump administration designated iran in april 2019 a -- the quds force, which suleimani ran, a designated terror organization. if he's in baghdad, we have an aumf, authorization for use of military force, in that area. he's there to disrupt our embassy. we have actionable intelligence. we kill him. that is well within the purview of what our commander in chief has the right to do. this comes down to nancy pelosi and the democrats hating president trump, not trusting him, thinking the iran deal was a good one when in reality, it was a terrible slow motion progression to a bomb. that's the big question here now, i think. there might be tit for tat. what happens when iran truly does chase to a bomb, what is our next play because we cannot live in a world where iran has a nuclear bomb. stuart: president trump, as you obviously know, caught a lot of heat from the democrats over

this killing of the iranian general. roll some tape. let's look at what they said. >> this is and was an enormous escalation, and it follows a string of dubious actions that president trump has taken, and have drastically increased the prospects and risk of war with iran and danger to americans. stuart: let me move on immediately to aoc and the tweet that she put out, because i think -- i know you have already seen it. i think our audience should as well. look at this, please. can we highlight it? show it up there? here we go. this is a war crime. it does not make you strategic, it makes you a monster. little over the top, i would say. >> then she comes from the generation where a tweet is a war crime. this was in response to president trump tweeting out i have 52 targets ready to go if you strike americans or american interests to represent the 52 hostages that were held under jimmy carter and released under

ronald reagan, held for 444 days. president trump, thankfully we have a president who now has a long memory, understands the nature of the terrorist regime and knows they trust one thing, strength. that's the one thing they respect. weakness, they run right over which they did over obama. did they want their economic sites, military sites, political sites and/or cultural sites targeted? how about their oil and gas. if they don't have energy they have absolutely nothing. as you said in your opening, you are perfectly correct, with energy independence, we don't need them the way we did before. stuart: makes all the difference. all the difference in the world. it really does. pete, thanks for being with us so early. always appreciate it. thank you. individual stocks, going to bring them to light right now. look at apple. it hit $300 a share for the first time ever last week. it's backed off to $294.75. by the way, we found out last week that ceo tim cook made $125 million but that was last year. okay. tesla, there's a stock that was riding high.

investors who bet against it, the short sellers, they reportedly lost a total of $8 billion. tesla is backing off just a little this morning. tesla at $441. as for the price of oil, $63.92 as we speak. can you imagine what would happen to the price of oil if the killing of suleimani had taken place five years ago? hundred bucks a barrel guaranteed but with the frackers out there, $63. that's all you've got. another potential headache for boeing. yes, again, about the 737 max jet. boeing is at $328. give me the story. susan: an internal audit in december uncovered that the faa now looking into whether sections of the wiring that control the tail of the plane are just too close together and could cause a short circuit and again, endangering passengers of 737 maxes. i would call boeing a stock story of 2019, the grounding of 737 max after 346 lives were lost, the ceo being fired and

the fact production has been halted, shaved about half a percent off u.s. gdp. you have a new man taking over on january 13th, david calhoun, but people think this plane may never take off again. stuart: full disclosure, as i told our audience last week, ashley, a word here, i sold about 75% of my microsoft. what did i do with some of the money that -- ashley: tell me. stuart: put it into boeing. susan: really? stuart: i did. full disclosure. susan: you are way off the record high. $448, we are off $120. it was underperforming last year. stuart: looking forward to -- ashley: we shall follow it. stuart: check futures, please. we have come back a little. we will be down at the opening bell, maybe 160 off for the dow industrials. senator lindsey graham sending this strong warning to speaker pelosi about impeachment. watch this. >> if she continues to refuse to send the articles as required by the constitution, i would work with senator mcconnell to change

the rules of the senate so we could start the trial without her if necessary. stuart: all right. senator graham there says what speaker pelosi is doing is quote, bad for the country. colin kaepernick now claiming president trump's decision to take out suleimani is because of race. "fox & friends" host brian kilmeade joins us later to discuss that. first, though, more u.s. troops are reportedly headed to the middle east. general jack keane is on deck. what does he think of that? we are just getting started for monday morning. back in a moment. i'm your mother in law. and i like to question your every move. like this left turn. it's the next one. you always drive this slow? how did you make someone i love? that must be why you're always so late. i do not speed. and that's saving me cash with drivewise. my son, he did say that you were the safe option. and that's the nicest thing you ever said to me. so get allstate. stop bossing. where good drivers save 40% for avoiding mayhem, like me. this is my son's favorite color, you should try it.

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stuart: president trump, new warnings to iraq and to iran. we have the latest from baghdad. trey? reporter: stuart, good morning. you can hear the call to prayer in the background as the sun is going down here in baghdad. president trump over the weekend making new warnings towards the

iraqis, saying that if they are to expel u.s. troops from the region, that he may sanction them harder than he sanctioned the iranians. as for the iranians, the president saying over the weekend that if iran decides to strike u.s. targets or u.s. personnel in the middle east, that he will hit back harder potentially even at a disproportional level and even consider hitting cultural sites, all this as tensions do continue to flare in the region and overnight, there were three rockets fired by iranian backed groups in iraq, to the green zone just off to my left. stuart? stuart: trey, thank you very much indeed. now, general jack keane is with us, retired four-star general and a fox guy. general, great to have you with us. my question is this. if and when the iranians retaliate against us, can they do serious damage to, a, our military or b, our economy? >> well, they can try to do that but i don't think they can do serious damage, stuart, to be frank about it.

here's what i think they are doing. politically, they are trying to shore up their population in support of the regime because just a few weeks ago, there was millions of people demonstrating against that regime and against their foreign adventures in syria, yemen, et cetera, and they are using suleimani's funeral as a vehicle to do that. that will be short-lived because the economic challenges that the people have and their frustration with the regime will be right back dead center days after suleimani's buried. secondly, they are moving politically in iraq to push the united states out, they are intimidating and coercing the iraqi parliamentarans to do that. they passed a resolution to do that but it's non-binding. there will also be an election in that parliament and i think the people of iraq are rebelling against the iraqi government and the iranian support of that government, i believe a new parliament would have a different attitude about the united states presence. the other thing they are doing is they pulled out of the

nuclear deal, and with a caveat. if you give me economic assistance, this is blackmail, then we will go back into the nuclear deal. that's targeted on the uk, france and germany. militarily, stuart, i'm not convinced that they will take a very bold move and go after the united states military in a big way because this thing has shook them. they were not expecting this, stuart. this is the number one guy. they not only had a professional relationship, they had a personal relationship. when he looks around the room at his advisers now, there's nobody like suleimani in that room. so i'm not convinced they have the confidence to go after the united states, because president trump has laid down quite a marker here. he's telling them if you do more of this, i'm going to do, i'm going to also escalate and come back at you. stuart: what you're saying, general, is that hard line trump, that's hard line approach, is effective in this

instance? >> i think it is, particularly, stuart, in the face of the restraint that he's been exercising for a year. an american drone shot down, tankers blown up and seized, oil fields hit, and ten times the iraqi shiite militia fired rockets at bases where u.s. troops were. it wasn't until an american was killed and servicemen were wounded that he responded on the 11th time. so i think the restraint that he exercises actually strengthens his position when he did pull the trigger. because now they know how dead serious he is. stuart: if you watch the media or some democrats over the weekend, you would think that america is terrified of the iranian response, that we are all shaking. >> yeah, i don't know what's going on there. i listened to some of that and i turned a lot of it off because i think it's mostly politically inspired and i try not to get

involved in all that nonsense. i really think we don't have to be terrified of the iranians. we have to be sober about what their capabilities are and i think that's what this administration did, when they saw an attack coming and i have been told by a high government official that it was multiple targets in multiple places and they were not about to let that happen. so they thought to themselves how do we stop it. i'm sure they had a number of options and one of those options, let's take out the people that are planning the attack and directing it. that's what they did. stuart: got it. general jack keane, thanks for being with us. always appreciate it. >> good talking to you. stuart: yes, sir. thank you. now, something completely different. the saga of ex-nissan chief carlos ghosn continues. ash, welcome back. do we know how he got out -- ashley: there are all sorts -- i mean, this is really going to be an amazing movie, because listen, you know, the private security firm hired by nissan to keep an eye on him in his tokyo residence finally stopped

surveilling him. when he knew that, he hatched this plan, managed to get out of his house, race 300 miles across japan to a private jet facility in osaka, japan, where he got on a plane inside a big large black box with holes in it which was actually used for some sort of musical instrument like a double bass. he was loaded on to that plane, flown to turkey where, in the predawn rainstorm, he was taken out of that on to another plane, then flown to lebanon, where he was safe from extradition. there is so much more to this story but it's remarkable. stuart: who plays ghosn in the movie? ashley: good question. stuart: look at futures, please. we are going to be down but this is no big catastrophic selloff period. maybe down 180 for the dow. look at that level, 28,400. golden globes, the host, ricky gervais delivering a scorching message to hollywood. please roll it. >> so if you do win an award tonight, don't use it as a platform to make a political

speech, right. you're in no position to lecture the public about anything. you know nothing about the real world. most of you spend less time in school than greta thunberg so if you win, come up, accept your little award, thank your agent and your god. stuart: i wish i had stayed up for that. i can't. ashley: yeah, yeah, yeah. stuart: more of this, after this. any comments doug? yeah. only pay for what you need with liberty mutual. only pay for what you need with liberty mutual. con liberty mutual solo pagas lo que necesitas. only pay for what you need... only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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him more. stuart: really. ashley: i think he's absolutely right. he says i'm here for the 200 million people who weren't invited to this little shindig so i will look at it from their point of view and he says they're all jokes, we're all going to die soon and there's no sequel which i think is hilarious. he delivered. stuart: i was looking at the reviews of his performance, his performance in like "the washington post." they were really lukewarm about it. ashley: of course. stuart: he got out there and bashed hollywood. they didn't care for that. susan: what's wrong with that? especially when they have less education than greta thunberg, apparently. stuart: stay there, please. we have the dow coming up. we will take you right down there. you will see the dow drop about 150, 60, 70 points at the opening bell. we'll be right back. could switching to geico really save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance?

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liu he will be here on january 13th, signs phase one on the 15th, then the president goes to beijing. do i see a smile here? >> it is good news and you know, i don't want to start this monday off by actually looking at the flipside of the coin, which there is a phase two, so -- and that includes all the most controversial things, so let's see how that evolves. stuart: you got out of that one, didn't you. we are opening the markets. we have opened this monday morning, day two of the market's response to the killing of suleimani. what we've got in the first couple of minutes, seconds of business, is a minus 200 points. that's where we are. we've got at least 26 of the dow 30 in the red on the downside. so the dow is off about, just about .75%. show me the s&p 500. i believe that's down about the same amount. no. a lesser amount, .6%. the nasdaq composite, that is down but how much?

about .82%. so we are down across the board between .66% and .75%. okay. got that. the price of oil, where's that? $63.48. not a big change. we keep saying this, but if the killing had taken place five years ago we would have $100 a barrel. price of oil, that's a big market mover. we are up 25 bucks an ounce at $1577. i think that is a seven-year high. all right, jeff sica, perennially cautious on everything, would you put a dime into gold right now? >> you know, i have -- stuart: yes? >> yes. i have always liked gold. i think people need a hedge against all this uncertainty. if there is greater military action, people will run to gold. i think we are going to have a very very sharp upward movement in gold prices. stuart: how would you buy it? would you buy the little coins for the grandkids or would you buy gld, the etf? >> i like physical gold, i don't like paper gold.

i would buy the coins, i would buy the bars and stock up and accumulate as much of the actual metal as i can, and don't trust the paper gold. they are traded very volatilely, there's issues with that. buy the hard gold. ashley: you bury it in the backyard? stuart: buried in the backyard. you don't have to answer. susan: i want to know. i actually bought the paper gold back in 2008 when it was $1800 an ounce. that was when helicopter ben, ben bernanke, was coming into the federal reserve to try to rescue the global financial crisis. you have to pay to carry gold, mind you. interest rates close to 0%, i mean, you are losing a lot of money. are you that scared? >> well, i think what appeals to me with gold is that gold is basically showing that we don't trust the government, we don't trust the central banks, those people like me who don't have that full level of trust have a

lot of confidence in a physical, tangible thing. stuart: we are two, three minutes into this monday trading session. now we are down 140 points. jeff, got to get your feelings on this one and you, too, susan. is this a temporary blip in the bull market run? or is it the start of a big and long downside move? >> i think this particular event is a very temporary blip. i think if we get greater military action, it will have much more of an impact. the later event will be greater which is when the trade deal doesn't come to fruition. susan: i think the concern is that oil, oil prices with brent crude hitting close to seven-year -- seven-month high, pardon me, at $70 a barrel, you know, when oil prices move up that's a tax on the u.s. consumer and given that they have to pay more at the pump eventl eventually, that might crimp into how much it drives the u.s. economy. stuart: if i say is this a temporary blip in the bull market or start of a down side

move, what's your answer? susan: temporary blip. that's the answer. i'm bullish. stuart: you want to get into this? ashley: temporary, without a doubt. yes. obviously the initial reaction but as far as oil price goes, i don't think it's going to go that high to make that huge a difference. yes, it will go up but not massively. stuart: it will bail out some of the drillers. ashley: who then pick up production. stuart: i think we settled this one. let's get to tesla. what a run it had last week. a big run now, look at that, up another near $4. by the way, lot of investors bet against tesla. they are called short sellers. we understand they lost about $8 billion in the last couple weeks, betting against tesla. look at it now. $446. you still don't like it, do you? >> yeah, thank god i wasn't short, i have never been a short seller but i don't like tesla. i think they are facing a lot of competition. i think this china initiative is not going to be as profitable, i really looked into it over the weekend, it's not going to be as

profitable as they think, and i will stand by that, and i think people have got to really look at the gains they have in tesla and potentially taking them, because i don't see upside in this stock at all. stuart: susan li was laughing at this. susan: because we are in record territory. short sellers have lost $700 million in the first two days of trade in 2020, it's not just china. china is doing great since they started rolling out model 3s ten months braafter breaking groundt they have a giga factory in berlin they are expecting to roll out model 3 and model y in the future. this stock, 21% of the stock was selling short meaning betting against it. they have lost over -- a lot of money, i think, over the past 12 months. stuart: he doesn't like it. do you? susan: if they get, if they continue to churn out numbers of 1,000 model 3s a week in china and if berlin does kick off in 2021, i would say yeah, why not. stuart: okay. okay. got to move on because i can't spend too much time on single stocks, no matter how much

homework you have done over the weekend. disney. now, they had a banner year 2019. there were seven billion dollar movies from disney released just last year. by the way, "frozen 2" is the highest grossing animated film ever, bringing in $1.3 billion at latest count. the stock, though, $145. that's not the high. would you touch it? >> i like disney here. i have always liked disney. i think they are going to make significant progress in streaming which is going to bring them to a whole new level. i would consider buying the stock. stuart: look at that market, though. now we are down 136. just think of it this way. this is day two of the market reacting to the suleimani killing. friday we were down 230. this monday morning we are down 130. i'm doing the math. that's 370 points on a 28,000 -- i don't call that a selloff.

i just don't. >> to me, i look at it as actually a good thing that we are taking this initiative. the market should actually be considering celebrating something like this and not be concerned. stuart: why can't we celebrate the death of a terrorist? >> a terrible human being. stuart: thank you, jeff. thank you very much indeed. the golden globes, netflix had the most nominations, i think. susan: they did. stuart: didn't win a prize. susan: 17 nominations, they only took home two awards last night. same as amazon. the streaming services really lost out. the winners were hbo and warner. six awards each. disney, viaviacom, three awards each. i don't think taron edgerton should have won for best actor in a musical or comedy. stuart: i know jeff sica is actually a producer currently of a series that will appear on netflix. you are a netflix producer.

>> yeah. i look at what susan was just saying, netflix is earning the respect of a lot of people who want to make film and not spend the money to make film for major box office release. it allows us to do a lot of creative things. stuart: netflix producer, gold market investor, cold water thrower. my, oh, my, jeff. >> i have it all. stuart: check that big board, please. now we are down 139 points. there you have it. i will go through this fast. down 140 on the dow. the ten-year treasury yield, back to 1.78%. not exactly a bullish signal. the price of gold going up sharply. we are up 23 bucks an ounce at $1576 and oil, $63.36. that is your market as we speak. jeff, thanks very much. look at mcdonald's. the new mcdonald's chief wants a change in the company's culture. grady trimble live at the

headquarters in chicago. what's he trying to do? reporter: well, stuart, there was reportedly a culture of senior managers going out for late night parties and drinks as well as those managers hanging out at the bars around here with rank and file employees. that's according to the "wall street journal" who cited unnamed mcdonald's employees. there was also a report that steve easterbrook, the ousted ceo, used to flirt with female employees to the point that it made them uncomfortable so now the incoming ceo, who has been on the job for about nine or ten weeks now, he's made it a point to go around and listen to managers and employees, take surveys of them all, and says he's renewing their commitment to values, which presumably isn't the partying. stuart? stuart: the stock is back up to $200 a share. grady trimble, thanks very much. 2020 hopeful mike bloomberg has a new rule if he were to be president. no tweeting from the oval office. do the voters care about that? we will certainly discuss it and

him. president trump spoke with britain's prime minister boris johnson to discuss the situation in iraq and iran. later in the show, i will ask nigel farage why britain is not supporting our president in this. outrageous. in our next hour, we discuss the media expressing their so-called deep concerns about the president's decision to take out suleimani. keep it here on "varney." a lot coming up for you. so what are you working on? >>i'm searching for info on options trading, and look, it feels like i'm just wasting time. wasted time is wasted opportunity. >>exactly. that's why td ameritrade designed a first-of-its-kind, personalized education center. see, you just >>oh, this is easy. yeah, and that's >>oh, just what i need. courses on options trading, webcasts, tutorials. yeah. their award-winning content

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to learn more, visit paycom.com stuart: this is day two of the market's reaction to the killing in baghdad. we are down 130 points. this is not a major selloff, by any means. joining us now, congressman mark green, who currently serves on the house committee for homeland security. congressman, great to have you with us today.

we are hearing a lot about iranian sleeper cells inside the united states. can you tell us anything about this? >> there is clearly a porous southern border, democrats refuse to close or secure our southern border so it's very possible that there are sleeper cells in the united states. you are basically asking if iran has the capability and under suleimani, he built a very effective killing machine with the quds force. they killed thousands of people, hundreds of americans. they have the capability. the question is really whether or not they have the willpower to do it and i don't think they do. their strategy so far has been about, you know, forcing the world to force america to capitulate on sanctions. these small attacks i think have been about that. so i don't think they have the will. stuart: you say they don't have the will. is that because it's hard line trump and they know if something were to happen with a sleeper cell in america, forgive my language but all hell breaks

loose? in other words, is your opinion based on hard line trump? >> it is absolutely based on a hard line president trump. i mean, they know this guy is not joking and he showed them again. so i think they are going to be very measured in what they do next. stuart: i understand that you, sir, interrogated saddam hussein right after he was captured by american troops. can you tell us anything about that -- for six hours, i believe. can you tell us anything about that interrogation that might throw some light on what we have just seen in iraq? >> yeah, absolutely. saddam was a megalomaniac. that guy, when i asked him about why he invaded kuwait he gave me the reason that he was essentially the president of iraq because all human beings come from the euphrates river so being president of iraq made him president of the world.

the big concern with iran, are they that same mentality. clearly in their constitution it states that iran's purpose, the country's purpose, is -- exists to continue the revolution throughout the world. their sect of islam, their specialized sect, they want to take that and export it to the world. the question is, are they like saddam in that regard. i don't think so. but clearly, clearly that part of the world is a volatile place. stuart: the iraqis want american troops out, so they say. should we leave? will we leave? >> we can clearly -- we can't leave, just the whole region, because that's going to look like beirut in the '80s, it's going to look like what bill clinton did when we got a black eye in somalia. we can't just leave the region but we can concentrate forces in kuwait, we can leave iraq, put those forces in kuwait and basically tell iran we're not going anywhere. we are here and we are not going

to let you bully us out of this region. stuart: congressman, thank you very much for joining us this morning. appreciate it. thank you, sir. wildfires in australia, still raging. the government is pledging, i think, to do whatever it takes, is that right? ashley: whatever it takes, pledging another two billion aussie dollars, $1.4 billion u.s. the good news is there has been some rain, heavy rain, actually, in victoria. the bad news is that by the end of the week, the rain goes away, the heat really picks up again with the wind. what the rain is doing is preventing them from setting back fires to try and stop the advancement of these fires. in other words, it's a good news/bad news situation. 25 people now confirmed dead, the latest a 71-year-old man found dead by his property as these fires swept through. as we know, u.s. firefighters are now being sent over, california firefighters arrived yesterday to try and relieve, this is going on and on, it's going to last for at least two

more months, they believe, and it's the heat and the dry, fierce winds that have driven these fires from the interior all the way to the coast. people being trapped at the ocean, trying to get out. it's just a devastating situation. stuart: dramatic video. miles and miles. ashley: miles and miles. stuart: i wonder if it will change the political debate in australia about climate change. ashley: it already has. russell crowe was supposed to have his award yesterday at the golden globes and sent a message saying i'm fighting climate change and the result of it, protecting his property from advancing fires. it's a big, big issue in australia and we are seeing, you know, these devastating fires. getting a little bit of a break now but it will get worse by the end of the week. stuart: got it. thanks very much, ash. keep your eye on the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. we are down just 120 points on the dow industrials as of right now. the new space force is going to oversee its first rocket launch. florida's first of the year.

this is news to me. susan: 9:19 p.m. tonight, we have the rocket owned by spacex and elon musk set to take 60 satellites into space. it looks like right now, the probability is 10% of it being scrubbed. so it's all systems go for this launch being overseen by the newest branch of military, the sixth in the space force, part of of course president trump's pentagon budget for this year. it's exciting, isn't it? spacex says they want to get around 12,000 of these satellites into space by the year 2024. ashley: wow. susan: cape canaveral. stuart: i like the sound of that. this market is coming back. now we are down 120. 28,500. that's the level on this, day two of the reaction to the suleimani killing. price of oil, we've got now at $63.53. the national average for a price of gas, that's holding steady despite what's going on in the

persian gulf. price of gas this morning is around $2.58 as a national average. is it going to go up? we will discuss that next. what a time to be alive. the world is customized to you. built for you. so why isn't it all about you, when it comes to your money? so. what's on your mind? we are edward jones, a 97-year-old firm built for right now. with one financial advisor per office, we're all about knowing what's important to you the one who matters. edward jones. it's time for investing to feel individual.

some people say that's ridiculous. i dress how i feel. yesterday i felt bold with boundless energy. this morning i woke up calm and unbreakable. tomorrow? who knows. age is just an illusion. how you show up for the world, that's what's real. what's your idea? i put it out there with a godaddy website. make the world you want. stuart: we are in receipt of a presidential tweet. i will read it straight to you. it's all in caps.

iran will never have a nuclear weapon. i will repeat that. iran will never have a nuclear weapon. that's from the president. we just received it. check the big board. it's not had an impact on stock prices, which are down, but not that much. we are off 125 points as we speak. now, the price of oil, that did go up following the killing of iran's top general. jeff flock joins us now from chicago, the oil trading pit. i put it to you, jeff, the price of oil would have gone straight up to a hundred bucks a barrel if this had been five years ago. is that what the traders are saying down there today? reporter: i hate to admit it, mr. varney, but the traders here at the cme, the oil traders, completely agree with your take this morning on oil. yes, that's part of it. the fact that the shale revolution has really made us virtually oil independent. and energy independent. that's a good thing. we are up about 44 cents right now. that's why they think oil prices

are staying relatively calm. i mean, we were up $1.70 earlier in the session, we are now up about 44 cents. so that's part of it. the other part of it, though, is this. you know, the thought that if there is escalation in the middle east, particularly in iran, maybe they hit saudi oil installations, u.s. could hit iranian oil installations, but that then chokes off the income that they would get from that, and that would not be a good move for them. so everybody's calm down here today. stuart: yeah, you're right. jeff, thanks very much indeed. we will be back to you later. now, the national average for a gallon of gas, that's holding pretty steady today, coming in at $2.58 per gallon. patrick dehaan, gas buddy guy, back with us now, what's your forecast? $2.58 now. where are we going in the immediate future? >> well, stuart, i think as what we saw friday, there is some upward movement possible in gas prices coming as a result, of course, i think the biggest news will be if iran retaliates.

then of course there's more potential there. keep in mind there's some head winds here for gas prices coming up and that's if january and february are lackluster months for demand. that may offset what we are seeing in the market with this reaction to iran thus far. stuart: so you don't expect a spike in the price of gasoline? >> not a spike, just more of a gentle upswing. we saw one last week. you mentioned today, prices relatively stable but we could see a little bit of upward move. oil prices overall up about a dollar or two from exactly a week ago, so overall, the suleimani killing really on friday getting markets going but compared to a week ago, prices not up that much. stuart: supposing it were five years ago, the suleimani killing? would i be right in saying that gas would be $4 a gallon? >> i think your take is pretty close with $100 oil. it's a new day for u.s. oil producers and of course, if this had happened five years ago, i certainly think you have a very strong argument that oil prices could hit triple digits but we have added the capacity of 7.5

million barrels a day versus where we were a decade ago, so we have come a long way and that's perhaps given the white house new options to deal with the middle east. stuart: good stuff. patrick, thank you for being with us. always appreciate it. thank you, sir. nfl ratings, they are up. does that have anything to do with fewer anthem protests? i will be asking "fox & friends" host brian kilmeade about that. take a listen to peter navarro giving a bold forecast for the start of 2020. watch this. >> -- she continues to refuse to send the articles as required by the constitution, i would work with senator mcconnell to change the rules of the senate so we could start the trial without her if necessary. stuart: you know, we made a mistake right there. i do apologize. why don't we roll the sound bite from peter navarro? can we do that right now? we don't have it. okay. my fault. my apologies. stay there, everybody. a lot more coming up for you right after this.

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stuart: coming up on exactly 10:00 eastern time. the market has been open for 30 minutes and look what we've got, not a big downside move by any means for the dow industrials. okay, we're up 129 points. that is less than a half percent down. we were down 230 on friday. in the two days we had to react to the soleimani killing, we're down 350 points. that's it. that's about, less, what is it, 1 1/2%, something like that? that is hardly a very big deal. the stock market down not that. the price of gold is up very strongly. that is a 7-year high at 1575. the price of oil, that has touched, what, a three-month high? that's it? 63.58. hardly a big time reaction to the soleimani killing.

things seem to be fairly stable. now this. qassem soleimani was indeed a brutal terrorist, america's enemy. so why are so many people on the left so upset that america took him out? it's trump derangement syndrome, isn't it? they are contemptuous of everything the president does, even killing of an enemy who is about to strike. if you watch media coverage over the weekend you would think the president had started world war 3. yet again democrats are being led by the far left activist base. alexandria ocasio-cortez, calls president trump a monster. representative ilhan omar accused mr. trump threatening to commit war crimes. senator elizabeth warren also used that expression, war crimes. joe biden said that the president is irrational because he took down a terrorist who killed or maimed thousands of our fellow citizens. hold on a minute.

is middle america outraged? i don't think so. trump der ringment syndrome is a live and well in the salons of new york city and the beach at malibu, but i doubt voters of flyover country feel that way, i really doubt it. we're beginning to hear more sober analysis, how about that. joe lieberman, remember al gore's running made, writing in "the wall street journal" saying the president's decision to kill soleimani was bold and should be supported by democrats. top, i repeat top "new york times" columnist, tom friedman says, one day they name a street after president trump in tehran. why? because our president took out the dumbest man in iran and most overrated strategist in the middle east. unlike others the at times mr. friedman shows little anxiety over the killing after mass murderer. what we've seen over the past three days is a hard-line president, who having acted will

not back down. that is something that trump haters just can't handle. come november, we'll all get the chance to pass judgment. brad blakeman with us, former deputy assistant to president george w. bush. brad, the democrats, i think i'm right in saying this, they are overwhelmed by trump derangement syndrome. he can't do anything, right? >> exactly. and i think it's a point when democrats reach hating trump more than they love this country. the fact is democrats rejoiced when barack obama took out usama bin laden. guess what? so did republicans. he killed my nephew who was a first responder in 9/11. i applauded the president, why he had the opportunity to take out america's most and the world's most noted terrorist. donald trump did the same thing. we had him at the scene of the crime. soleimani was one organized protest and breach of our embassy on sovereign territory

of the united states. he is one that killed thousands of iraqis and hundreds if not thousands of americans and millions more who have been maimed and tortured not only if iran and other countries due to the way iranians operate. they act as surrogates. they never do it in their own name. that is the cowardice of iranians. stuart: congress is back in form this week, what about impeachment? will that return, if so, when and how? what is going on here? >> as lindsey graham we'll act with or without the articles of impeachment delivered by speaker pelosi to the senate. they will not let this languish or linger. the fact the house said the president is such a danger to the republic he has to be removed immediately, yet they stop the trial from occurring and giving the president his day in court so to speak. i happen to believe there is no action for a trial. it should be dismissed on procedural vote for failure to state cause of action.

the articles impeachment are invalid on their face. let's get rid of this, get it behind us, get back to the working for american people which donald trump hasn't stopped. stuart: brad, you will probably agree with this, president trump far from being in retreat or under, looking in a difficult position, i think he is surging. i think he is moving ahead on this. i think he is winning on this. am i out of bounds here? >> no. when you're doing the right thing the american people get it, dough spite what democrats say in the beltway and beyond. democrats will tell you the sky is red. americans know it is blue and it is red, white, and blue. they should get behind the president at time of crisis. the fact the president did what he had to do. he didn't want to do it but what if we let the guy go, how many americans, my question to the democrats, how many americans must die? what is standard by which somebody can take out americans before we act? stuart: let it rest there.

brad blakeman, let it rest there. >> thank you. stuart: market reaction to all of this. not that profound. down 125 points, that is the dow industrials. airline stocks, fuel costs are a concern. several air appliance suspended flights in and around the middle east. they took a hit friday. they're down again today. not that big after selloff. down 1% for bigger airline carriers. staying on your money, rebecca waltzer joins us. is this a bull one or temporary blip to halt it? >> i agree with everyone on the panel. it is temporary. we have everything going for us. time frame is not going for us. we are overdue for correction. when you look at recession cycles. everything is going for us. no, this is just a blip. stuart: i told everyone i sold

3/4 of my microsoft late last year. did i make the wrong move? >> stu, you might. stuart: i think so. i did. >> i think so. stuart: so, what, what about the fed here? do you think the killing of soleimani, does the fed take notice of this kind of thing? what is the likely out come from the fed because of this killing? >> yeah. good point, stu. it was very encouraging, i was very happy with them. the fed will look at inflation that is the key target that drives them. obviously oil prices going up is, barometer for inflation. that is are with the fed will be looking at this. you know, stu, this is not 1979 when iranians stormed the u.s. embassy. this is completely different world. we're number one largest exporter. middle east is not even number two anymore.

russia is number two. we're in a completely different world. if they thought they would leverage oil to control america or prevent the president from doing anything, they have it wrong. stuart: so you're still bullish? >> i still am, stuart. january 15th, china phase one, usmca, the fed supportive of policies, i mean what else, you know, we've got a long runway still, yes. sickly we're overdue for correction. i would tell everybody prepare for rainy day. that is always great advice. i'm still thinking we have runway to run in this market. yes, stu, absolutely. be happy. stuart: been running over 10 years. you think it will keep going. that is really interesting. rebecca, thanks as always being with us. we talk to you real soon. we promise. >> thank you, stu. stuart: take out, have a look at amazon. the stock is up 15 bucks this morning at 1890. that would be $1890 per share. "barron's" likes the stock. ashley: our good friend jack

hough said this is free cash rocket ship is headline about amazon not only this past year of 2019, but 2020. they generated nearly $25 billion free cash flow in 2019. he expects that to go up another 6%. 34 billion this year. almost said next year, but we are in fact in 2020. he said in five years, amazon will become the biggest free cash generator in america, passing the likes of apple and microsoft. bottom line, the crux of his point, amazon investment spending just cannot keep up with this growth rate. so back in the day they continually reinvested everything they made. now they have gone way beyond the point. that free cash flow continues to go up and up and up. a rocket ship he puts it. susan: last three quarters amazon didn't produce profits because they are reinvesting back in the business, getting to one-day shipping which will cost them about a billion dollars a quarter. free cash flow doesn't

necessarily translate into profits. stuart: through. but it works. performance over the holidays was fantastic. ashley: 1000 bucks on first day close in 1997. today it is 950,000. all in the time machine. stuart: i did well with microsoft. not as well as that. we had drama out of the gate at the golden globes last night. ricky gervais called out hollywood in a room full of hollywood celebrities. brian kilmeade joins us later this hour. he will talk about precisely that. much more on far left democrats, aoc and ilhan omar accusing president trump of war crimes. calling it trump derangement syndrome. tammy bruce joins us on that. next i want to know why europeans are not behind president trump's policy on iran. u.s. ambassador to germany, ric grenell, answers that question. yes, he is next. that innovationt

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stuart: not exactly a major selloff to follow the killing of soleimani. dow industrials down 125 points. that is minus .4%. look at boeing. they have a new problem according to "wall street journal." that is the hardware of the 737 max jet, specifically the wiring in the tail is not just a software problem. boeing is down on the news at 28. apple hit $320 a share. they have come down to 296. i found out that apple has $230 billion in cash. that is why it is not far away from $300 a share. 230 billion in cash. that is larger than most company economies. tesla in record territory momentarily this morning. they're building cars in china. now they're building cars in germany. do we have a production target?

susan: it's a target elon musk puts on the beryl minute factory. looking to build 500,000 vehicles per year in berlin. they are kicking off a fourth factory. costing 4 1/2 billion dollars in berlin. don't forget, they just delivered 360,000 in the past year, 2019. getting to 500,000 cars a year in one single factory in the year 2021? that that might be a lofty ambition for elon musk but they beat targets, right, for 2019. main think thanks to china which they broke ground 10 months ago, rolling out a few model 3s, 1000 a week. i would say china is a bright spot for tesla. why the stock is trading in record territory. stuart: didn't see this two months ago. many people didn't either. speak of germany, we have here ric grenell, america's ambassador to early if any. mr. ambassador, welcome to the program. good to see you, sir.

>> stuart, thanks for having me. always good to see you. stuart: the president of france, emmanuel macron, expressed concern over thekying of soleimani and our other allies in europe saying pretty much the same thing. why doesn't europe support us? >> look, i think they do support us. i have been quite pleased with the way that the german government and members of the parliament have come out. let me give you a couple of examples. even when the statements came out of the german government about the jcpoa withdrawal, when we decided to get out of the iran deal, they went out of their way to say look, we share the same vision as the americans. we share the concern that we have that iran must never get a nuclear weapon. now we can argue about the tactics and how to get there and certainly we have those disagreements within germany but we're getting a lot of support. i would compare it to the same discussions that we have in the united states. there are people who understand that this is a need that through

intelligence, we had an opportunity to take out someone who was trying to come after u.s. officials. by the way, u.s. diplomats. and so, the germans see that they have articulated numerous times the fact that iran is the one who escalated this problem and iran is the one who is responsible. we've seen that with a variety of statements. so i don't think it is too different than what we see in the united states. stuart: okay. now, on the other hand we've got russia's foreign minister, lavrov, he expressed condolences to iran. he said the u.s., quote, violated the norms of international law. mr. ambassador, what is your response to that? >> look, i know sergey lavrov, i worked with the him at u.n. a long time. he is good at saying things which are just not true but getting a lot of media attention. the fact of the matter that is not true. i had a discussion with the

german government about the point of international law and i think there is an agreement in europe self-defense is actually something that they must support with a western alliance. and so i'm pretty confident that we hear good support, although we also hear good criticism. let's be honest. this is a healthy debate in germany. it's a healthy debate in the united states. stuart: we're glad to hear it. ric grenell. america's ambassador to germany, as always, sir. thank you very much for joining us. appreciate it. >> thanks, stuart. stuart: sure thing, pay attention to the left-hand side of the screen there. there is not huge reaction on the market to the killing of soleimani. down 100 points. extraordinary images out of australia. wildfires tearing through a big chunk of the country. homes in the fire line. hundreds of thousands of animals perished. ashley: hundred of millions. stuart: hundreds of millions? what an extraordinary thing. a real emergency. we've got a live report for you

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stuart: very modest response to the killing of soleimani. we were down 230 on friday for the dow. this morning we're down just over another 100 points. that's not a profound selloff by any means. let's get to the australian fires, still devastating a big chunk of the country, burning right through areas. we have, fox news's jeff paul is with us. he is in new south wales. jeff, tell me this, are australians beginning to blame climate change for these fires? reporter: i think right now the focus at least where we are in some of the hardest hit areas of new south wales getting back on their feet. there has been criticism of the prime minister by some locals

here about his climate change policy and about his lack of response. those are the words of people out here, delayed response to the wildfires but again i think the focus right now is getting through with actively happening right now which are these devastating bush fires. it has, the weather has eased up a little bit over the last few days. there has been cooler temperatures and it has rained but authorities are telling people not to get complacent. they believe in the next couple days the temperatures will warm back up. they will have hot temperatures sweeping through the area. once that happens, firefighters are worry ad lot of firefighters they have been able to get on the upper hand will reignite. here in new south wales alone, 135 fires, 70 burning uncontained. stuart. stuart: that is just awful. thanks very much for joining us, sir. we appreciate it. i'm sure we will be back to you as well. on related note, california

housing market affected by wildfires which we saw there recently. affected in what way? susan: homes unable to get insurance. that means real estate trans actions have fallen past couple years. they paid $124 billion of fires that killed 90 people. what real estate association in the state found, 27% had issues with fire insurance. 34% had deal pull out and ended because they couldn't get access to insurance. state enacted new laws where you have to provide insurance to a home that has been affected by fire over the past year. that is impacted 800,000 homes but california is not a cheap place still. average home in california costs 600,000. that is three times the cost of a home in texas. stuart: what would the new insurance premium be if you had to offer it?

ashley: through the roof. stuart: has to be huge. susan: very high. you're right. pg&e paid out 13 1/2 billion dollars to compensate victims of fires the past few years. stuart: we'll see how that goes. thank you very much, susan. back to iran. a number of national security sources warning of potential cyberattacks for retaliation of killing of soleimani. we're going to discuss that. plus one of the top opinion writers at "the new york times," thomas friedman, he wrote a piece in support, not really in support of president trump's actions on iran but certainly taking soleimani to task big time. we'll ask media watcher howard kurtz what he thinks of that. why is friedman going, what looks to me like against the grain? we'll be back.

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stuart: dow industrials down 120 points. we're gown --down a little bit. that is not major selloff because of the events in the middle east. not a big move. big move is gold not as up as much as it was earlier this morning but still $17 higher. 1570 is the quote. get back to iran. potential warning of attacks cyberattacks following soleimani killing. hillary vaughn is there from washington. what do you say, hillary. reporter: the department of homeland security issuing alert two days ago warning of ramped up activity, cyber activity coming from iran. the dhs saying that iran has very robust cybersecurity

program. that they used to attack businesses here in the u.s. of course the military as well. also saying that iran does have the capability to attack critical u.s. infrastructure that would be very disruptive. but, so far iranian activity has, could have ramped up already because, government website, the federal depository library program was defaced over the weekend with pro-iran messaging, anti-u.s. messages. cyber infrastructure and security agency says they don't know yet if the hackers of this website are state-sponsored by iran but the website has been taken down and they are monitoring the situation correctly. the secretary for dhs also saying they have an enhanced posture monitoring any situation that may pop up. they do say they have no knowledge at the moment of any specific or credible threat coming from iran. but cybersecurity agencies that

monitor incoming cyberattacks that u.s. receives on a daily basis from iran, u.s. businesses, financial sector, since the summer, these agencies say that activity from iran has been spiking. stuart? stuart: i think we should look into what we could do to them if they cyberattack us. i suspect we could shut them down. hillary vaughn, thank you very much. check this out, exexhibit -- excerpt from opinion piece in "the new york times." one day they may name a street after president trump in day hahn. why? because trump ordered assassination of possibly the dumbest man in iran and the most overrated strategist in the middle east, major general qassem soleimani. that was written by thomas friedman. he is the top columnist at "the new york times." howard kurtz, host of media buzz, with us now. i was surprised to see tom friedman writing that. it wasn't exactly endorsing what mr. trump did but he is shedding

no tears for that terrorist and i was surprised to see that. >> yeah, this is a really important contrarian column by tom friedman and for two reasons. one thing, friedman is two-time pulitzer prize-winning journalist, who lived in the region. no journalist understands the middle east like tom friedman. he is liberal columnist. supported president obama and fierce critic of president trump. you might have expected him to jump on the regularless escalation way so many media are framing trump's move here. stuart: that is very different from other writer in "the times," opinion piece writers in "the times" who really are threatening calamity. they want to change the president's war powers. i mean, really stands out like a sore thumb at "the new york times" at this moment? >> no dispute there, stuart. it seems to me that, you know, there has been a lot of focus on the intelligence that was used to justify this, mike pompeo and

others saying soleimani plotting an imminent attack. that is healthy for journalists to question that, given what happened in 2003, non-existence of weapons of mass destruction of run up to the iraq war. conventional wisdom of people who don't know a place like iran that friedman does, that soleimani was evil genius. he was a terrible terrorist, nobody is going to shed a tear as you say for his passing but he was so revered in iran and all that. what friedman says, soleimani threw it away because the u.s. and europe gave him the iran nuclear deal in exchange for, constraints on the nuclear program, all the sanctions were lifted. the economy was thriving but he continued to be the mastermind behind these terrorist attacks on americans and others throughout the region. that prompted the counterreaction by president trump. in effect tom friedman is without quite saying so that president trump did something that was good even though there

are unintended consequences. stuart: i also read in the "wall street journal" this morning an editorial by joe lieberman, who is al gore's running mate back in 2000. >> he was. stuart: remember it well. joe lieberman is now saying that president trump took bold action. and that democrats should support president trump in this. again, sticks out like a sore thumb from the rest of the democrat pack. >> lieberman is hawkish democrat been very close to john mccain but at the same time it seems almost reflexive that the 2020 democrats running for president, being critical to varying degrees about president trump's action. elizabeth warren in tv interview wouldn't ion say soleimani was murderer or terrorist, didn't want to say anything bad about him. the other interesting press angle here, leaks coming out, yesterday's "new york times" piece talking about you who the pentagon was stunned president trump chose extreme option going

after soleimani, there was internal debate over intelligence. that is normal. it happened with the osama bin laden raid and so forth. the fact people whispering to reporters there, is dissension inside the ranks. stuart: they have a scare going. maybe they reintroduce the draft. what do they think about that? that is a scare, flat-out scare. >> that will not happen. we don't know what iran will do. obviously iran can make some trouble. one thing is clear, president trump whether all of his advisors thought it was a great idea or not, delivered a very, very strong mage taking out soleimani. when you have tom friedman of "the new york times" saying this guy is dumb, essentially we should not miss him at all. iranians shouldn't miss him. that is very different perspective on the situation. stuart: name a street in atehran, trump street? that's something. >> indeed. stuart: i hope i live long enough to see it. howard kurtz, thanks for joining us. see you soon. thank you very much. markets looking very restrained response. i keep saying this, but it is

restrained. down 230 on friday. down 123 now. that's it. the dow industrials still at 28,500. not much of a reaction if you ask me. check disney, looks like they're picking up in 2020 where they laid off or left off in 2019. ashley: exactly right, "star wars" rise of skywalker, still at the top. tis tore rick year of disney in 2019. we know that. "star wars" coming in at 918 million. closing in on one billion dollars worldwide. which would be disney's 7th billion dollar movie released in 2019. don't forget "frozen 2" reached $1.3 billion. the rich keep getting richer with the sequels. the question being, can disany repeat this year what it was able to do in 2019? that will be very difficult.

but even so, 7th one billion dollar movie. stuart: enormous amount of good stuff for the streaming service. ashley: content is out of this world for "star wars." stuart: we don't know how many they signed up in the first, three, four weeks. susan: 7 million first day. we haven't had update since then. earnings in the first quarter, we might get update. stuart: stock is backed off from full-time high. off 144, 145 for disney. didn't see that coming six months ago. how about netflix. netflix up a little bit today. wait a minute, did they make a joke about sharing accounts is what we all do? ashley: stuart varney. susan: in india they poked fun of themselves, there is a faked a, if you want free netflix six months, call a certain number. get a user name and password, promotional offer, blah blah. netflix saw this, this is obviously fake because if you want a free netflix account, just use someone else's account

like theories of us and share passwords. we know that hbo, all other streaming services have been trying to clamp down on this, subscription mooching has cost netflix about 2.3 billion in revenue, but they just increased their packages over the past year. ashley: not saying a word. stuart: are you and i, have you and i been labeled moochers? ashley: i pay for mine, mr. varney. we'll leave it at that as far as you're concerned. stuart: right. having bought boeing shares and seen them sink i'm not in a position to avoid netflix, whatever it is. ashley: ah. susan: i thought everyone shared passwords? stuart: that is administration, susan. susan: lost 2.3 billion in revenue. a lot of people share passwordses obviously. stuart: netflix didn't win any prizes. susan: they had 2. won 17 nominations. and only won 2. that is little bit of a

disappointment. stuart: members of so-called squad accusing president trump of, war crimes after he threatened 52 targets in iran if iran retaliated against us. tammy bruce always bring as strong opinion. i'm sure she will. she's next. this is the age of expression. everyone has something to say. but in a world full of talking, shouldn't somebody be listening? so. let's talk. we are edward jones. with one financial advisor per office, we're built for hearing what's important to you. one to one. edward jones. it's time for investing to feel individual. ♪ ♪

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i'm proud to be a part of aag, i trust 'em, i think you can too. trust aag for the best reverse mortgage solutions. so you can... retire better. stuart: want to take this bet? we're down 114 points for the dow industrials. do you think there is a shot we end the day higher? maybe. only time will tell. right now we're down 107, 102 as we speak, 101. we'll see how this goes. members of the so-called squad going after president trump tore something he tweeted over the weekend. ash? ashley: bring the the's tweet which has everyone so upset on other side of the issue. trump tweet, we have targeted 52 iranian sites, representing 52

americans who damages taken by iran many years ago. some at very high left, important to iran and iranian culture and those targets an iran itself will be hit very fast and very hard. the usa wants no more threats. stuart: okay. here is their response. aoc says this, quote, threatening to target and kill innocent families, women and children, which is what you're doing by targeting cultural sites does not make you a tough guy. it does not make you strategic. it makes you a monster. and this came to us from ilhan omar. the president of the united states is threatening to commit war crimes on twitter. god help us all. hashtag, 25th amendment. tammy bruce with us, fox news contributor. i think that is a little over the top, war crimes, monster. what say you? >> yeah, it exposes illiteracy when it comes to the nature of foreign policy. i think that what the president's doing, is pretty clear. he is reasserting a dynamic of deterrence, of making sure

because we have not had that obviously for a few generations when it comes to the nature of what iran thinks is possible. they have operated really without being touched and this of course threatens them. keep in mind, part of the culture for iran is a military framework. it is expansive framework. and that is what soleimani was doing as well. so when the president mentions i would guess, issues of cultural importance, talking to the regime about who they are, what they stand for, which is consumption of land around them, at expansion of regime itself. think about striking military installations areas important regarding to that. they're very proud culturally of the nuclear program. now that they have said, even though they did restart it, they have been lying through the entire nuke deal that striking that framework would be a strike also when it comes to culture. stuart: well, what does middle america think about all of this? middle america looks on and hears our president called a monster and a war criminal.

>> yeah. none of that is true. all of that is a lie. stuart: how does middle america respond? >> we're finding out, aren't we? ranging through the impeachment and this, throwing every noodle on the refrigerator to see what sticks, there is reason why president support is increasing this is common sense. the real war crime having let soleimani live. the real war crime allowing iran through the cancer of terrorism, cancer what it does to people to spread throughout the middle east. the real war crime was allowing iran and soleimani to establish death squads in the middle east and europe and here. in addition to the fact that the majority of the people they have murdered have been muslims and have been people of color. so the war crimes, the ignorance, the race i am, has been in allowing this to continue throughout the last 40 years now. stuart: the big win is we have enough oil these days in america, so we don't have to have the world held to ransom by the iranians. >> that is correct.

that is correct. yes. good stuff. stuart: good stuff. thank you very much. see you soon. tammy bruce. total change of direction there, ricky gervais, at the golden globes he went after the hollywood elites, no one cares about their politics. i bet brian kilmeade has something to say about that and he will because he is next. so when a hailstorm hit, usaa reached out before he could even inspect the damage. that's how you do it right. usaa insurance is made just the way martin's family needs it - with hassle-free claims, he got paid before his neighbor even got started. because doing right by our members, that's what's right. usaa. what you're made of, we're made for. usaa

stuart: that is a comeback,down 80 point for dow industrials. roughly between a quarter of and 1/3 of 1%. anybody take my bet. we could end higher. susan: looks like a comeback is? the cards. ashley: this is second day of trading since the whole thing kicked off. the market taking in stride. there may be tit-for-tat. there may be a dip there. over all this market responded as you might expect. stuart: i got apple up a little bit now. got google up $31. that is helping nasdaq which you say is in positive territory. microsoft up 18 cents at 158.80. boeing which i bought --

ashley: gold play come down. it was up 23, 24 bucks. it is up just 11 bucks a little money coming out of gold. stuart: that is fascinating. we're down 80 points. that's it. susan: oil prices 11 months highs. lifting majors. stuart: not bad. joining us on the radio, brian kilmeade, host of the "brian kilmeade show." before we get into the interview. see this from ricky gervais from the golden globes last night. roll tape, please. >> apple roared into the tv game with a morning show, a superb drama, yeah. [applause] a superb drama about the importance of dignity and doing the right thing, made by a company that runs sweatshops in china. so, if you do win an award tonight, don't use it as a plat form to make a political speech, right? you're in no position to lecture the public about anything. you know nothing about the real world. so, if you win, right, come up, accept your little award, thank

you your agent and your god -- stuart: i repeat. talking to hollywood you know nothing about the real world. couldn't have said it better, right, brian? >> they're having meatless meal. water in a glass. nothing is disposable. everything is solar. the lights were solar panel like ours. at the same time they call came in limos. one of the things he segued too is felicity huffman. his him know, she made my license plate. no one laughed there, my feel something this, who keeps booking him? we think he is hysterical, if i'm hollywood he despises the place which he made a living. so -- stuart: real good monologue, was it. that is what he did. i'm sure viewers, most viewers would like what he had to say, even if his audience probably did not. >> right. stuart, i have a question for you. if there was a comedian that

came out with non-stop anti-stuart varney comedy, that was legitimately fun any to people at home, would give you big ratings, would you sacrifice yourself esteem for big ratings? stuart: yes. >> i wouldn't. stuart: you wouldn't? >> i'm more insecure. i would rather not book someone that hated me. he hates the people, he gets big ratings for the golden globes. i don't get it. stuart: speaking of hatred, patriots lost over the weekend. the sun still came up this morning. is this the end of the pate trite dynasty? >> i already don't get it. he is 42 years old, tom brady. he looks like he is about 30. that tb-12, how to live your life thing, we all should buy it. we call ant afford it. it is to bucks. better off buying sam houston and the alamo avengers according to studies. he can still play, not had the

best year, but he had fewest tools. he might have another peyton manning chapter. manning was 36. betting odds say it will be pittsburgh steelers. i don't see it. ben roethlisberger wants to come back another year. don't be surprised a place where peyton manning went. denver. john elway understands if he quarterback has anything lift. new technology, better protection. he feels like tom brady can elevate his team for another couple years. stuart: i got another football question. we're scripted for me. i don't know what i'm talking about. the cowboys reportedly hired a new coach, super bowl winner. good move. do you know anything about this. >> it is a fantastic move and i'm very surprised that he does this. jason garrett ran out after contract. he was basically not done. dallas got blow back because they didn't fire him right away. i think that is class. he likes him, he didn't want to

fire jason garrett, one time back up quarterback from to troy aikman, from princeton. fine coach. they underachieved. got a louder guy. mike mccarthy. a ceo coach. offensive coordinator call place, defensive court nate store call place. he was in green bay. the literally the town owns the team. here jerry jones owns the team. i'm surprised he could have wept to the giants, made me happy. woe have guaranteed a victory, a successful team. stuart: excuse me, brian, aaron rodgers is the face of the green bay packers, can we get that straight? >> you're right. aaron rodgers did jettison mccarthy, still in the playoffs, maybe you're right. stuart: i'm feeling pretty good. >> mccarthy -- stuart: yeah, yeah. >> strong coach. i think it's a great move for dallas. dallas has a lot of talent. they have a great, very strong team. maybe we'll see if they're too soft to be successful.

the word is, you don't know this, but if you treat your people too good, they don't work hard. evidently they treats his players so good feel they already arrived before they tackle. that is the problem. you don't do that. you don't feed people. give them christmas parties. that's why they're hingery. that is why you're number one. i don't salute that way but that is stuart varney way of running things. stuart: by the way you treat your people well, not good. >> maybe in your country. stuart: oh. you may or may not be back next week. we'll see you soon. brian, good stuff. >> get them, stuart. stuart: u.s. air strike killed iran's top military general. got that. escalated tensions between the u.s. and iran. got it. uk urging both sides to ease up on the tension. coming up, nigel farage talks to us about that. number of democrats outrained by the president authorizing soleimani. wasn't too long ago some of the same democrats said all options

should be on the table. david avella go pac chair responds. check the markets. not exactly a big down day. we're only a fraction down from record highs. the market is clearly coming back. we're down 80 on the dow. we're up on the nasdaq. people think my job is easy. you just go on tv and talk, right? well, each season there's over 1,500 players and hundreds of games... plus passing yards, turnovers, injuries... we have to be ready to analyze any of it, on live tv. if we fumble on air, that's a problem.

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stuart: just a few years ago, the killing of iran's top general by an american drone would surely have brought on $100 a barrel oil, a huge stock market selloff and probably a full-scale recession. well, that general, suleimani, was killed just three days ago, but the financial impact has been shall we say muted. oil is up, what, about 3%, $63 a barrel. the stock market is down only a fraction from its all-time highs. we are still at the 28,000 level on the dow and yes, the economy keeps on growing.

the political frenzy so evident in d.c. and in the media has not been seen on the financial markets. why? start with oil. there's a new reality. america is now the dominant power in the world energy market. our drillers can make up any shortfall if oil supplies from the mideast are restricted. better yet, the slightly higher price, $63 a barrel, makes a lot more american drillers profitable. iran is actually helping texas and north dakota. as for the stock market, where is the selloff? a couple hundred points down on the dow, that's hardly the big deal when you are still looking at a market close to record highs. and the suleimani killing has made no discernible difference to the economy's performance. i can qualify that by saying so far, because we don't know how this is going to play out, but so far, investors don't see world war iii. it's not iran that threatens our

prosperity. i see a far greater risk coming from the democrats. you will see $100 a barrel oil if the greens shut down america's frackers. you will see a recession if the left vastly raises taxes and you will see a huge market selloff if we get a green new deal forced down our throats but cheer up. we are an island of stability and prosperity led by a president who puts america first. let's get straight at it. charles payne with me. all right, charles, you heard my take. what do you have -- you are sitting right there. i thought you were on a remote location. charles: snuck up on you. stuart: five years ago it would have been a catastrophe. now we are shrugging it off. charles: i think that played into the calculus. to be honest, a whole lot of people around the world are underestimating president trump and maybe believing too much. all year long i remember hearing trump must get a china trade deal before the election, by

people who by the way knew nothing about trump, know nothing about his voters, and the same thing, you can imagine they probably thought in iran there's no way he would ever try something like this in an election year. you know, the same pundits of course they listen to and that's how he's kept everyone off-balance. in the meantime, you are absolutely right, i don't disagree, $100 a barrel if a democrat got in, particularly bernie. how about $200 a barrel? really, if they really went as heavy-handed as they said they would, even joe biden said he would eliminate those jobs -- stuart: iran is not the threat. it is a threat of some sort, i got that, but the big threat comes from internally, the democrats. charles: internally. stuart: let's talk about economic growth and what's possible this year, 2020. i want you to take a listen to what peter navarro said about growth in 2020. roll tape, please. >> so i'm looking at growth closer to 3% than 2%, continuing rise in wages, particularly for

the people that i try to help every day who work with their hands. stuart: let's pick up on that 3% number. you think that's possible? charles: that's my number as well. i see the two head winds from last year becoming tail winds. the biggest one would be household formation. the third quarter gdp number, we saw residential investment up for the first time in a number of quarters. on friday, we got the u.s. home construction numbers from november, up five months in a row, gaining momentum, up huge. remember, permits at a 13-year high. you look at the stocks today, look at d.r. horton, they are up pretty good. the housing home construction stocks up about 50%. i think that's going to be a major contributor to gdp. i also think business investment comes back. the big question mark will be oil and you know, the structures for oil, that holds us back, but i.p. and equipment, are huge. then of course there's the

consumer. on friday, when the dow was down 234 points, of the top 20 stocks, the top stocks, 19 were consumer discretionary. if you take a look at how much money we save, we are at 7.9% savings, $9.8 trillion. americans have dry powder. i think they will be more confident to spend it as long as wages are going up. i see a tight labor market making 3% gdp, 4% wage growth. paradise. stuart: not quite. charles: a few bumps in the road. that's all. some we know, some we don't know. stuart: last one, bill gates, he's pushing for higher taxes on the rich. what do you make of that? charles: listen, bill gates is one of these guys who has put his money where his mouth is, unlike a lot of -- you know, there's a whole bunch of very ultra-billionaire types who have taken the giving pledge. do what you want with your money, don't give it away. he's given away a lot. he's very competitive. his investment fund, his

personal investment funds, make him a lot of money. he's not trying to get to the poorhouse any time soon. if he wants to tax his fellow bi billionaires, that's fine with me. the problem with these things, it's like a trojan horse or whatever, once you start at a certain number it always trickles down and next thing you know it's some family making $100,000 a year paying the bill gates tax. stuart: supposing it doesn't trickle down to taxation of the middle class. supposing it just is a big new tax on very high income earners. would that mess up your 3% growth plan for the economy? charles: it would depend. listen, i'm not for higher taxes. i think we have seen the benefits of low taxes. the trump tax cuts generated the best boom in blue collar wages in two decades. so you know, we can complain about some millionaire making -- you know, keeping more money because they earned more money, but the biggest beneficiaries under president trump has been blue collar workers. i wouldn't want to touch taxes.

if some billionaire is talking about taxing his fellow billionaires, that's for them to dice up. stuart: you are not a billionaire yet. charles: i'm working on it. that's why i'm here. i'm here because the crew is here, too. good to see you. stuart: what time are you on tv today? charles: 2:00 p.m. stuart: that right? charles: yeah, we are going to delve into a few of these topics. stuart: i bet you do. thank you, charles. check netflix. i think they had the most golden globe nominations but they didn't take home a lot of trophies. lauren: they had a record 34 nominations across film and tv, but they took home just two and none of them were best picture. the irishman, for example. what they did get was best actress, olivia coleman in "the crown." stuart: new queen. okay. lauren: best supporting actress laura dern in "marriage story." it was a disappointment for netflix. the movie that did win best motion picture drama, "1917" the

director sam mendes said this, i really hope people will see this movie on the big screen, for which it was intended. stuart: okay. ashley: he's got a point. some of these big epic, especially a war movie like that, you need to see it in full glory. it's not the same on your couch on a television. lauren: i agree with that. i really like going to the movies. it's expensive though. streaming movies are good. ashley: i know. stuart: disney, they still dominate the box office. you know, it occurs to me, for their streaming service, box office dominance, it's paradise. ashley: it's the content king, disney. they continue to do tremendous things at the box office. "star wars, the rise of skywalker" i have not seen, probably won't, but continues to be number one into the new year. carries on and on. another $34 million over the weekend, this on track to get to another billion dollars, the seventh billion dollar disney movie that was released in 2019. oh, by the way, "frozen 2" and i

know lauren saw that, she wasn't that impressed but it's still making money, up to $1.3 billion worldwide. that makes it, you know, iced the competition. top spot, highest grossing animated movie of all time. the rich just get richer. lauren: you know what's shocking, it didn't win a globe for best animated film. "toy story 4" and "the lion king" and "frozen 2" were up and none of them got that award. stuart: did your kids love it? lauren: no. too long for them. it's a very long movie and it's dark. stuart: our producer's daughter, anna, loved it. what was your 12-year-old? the 12-year-old daughter of another producer also loved it. lauren: wow. okay. stuart: let's get back to the situation in iran. we found comments from joe biden and elizabeth warren from a few years back. they sang a very different tune back then. yes, we've got the tapes and you will hear them in a moment.

we are also talking about mike bloomberg. he's moving up big-time in the polls. one puts him in third place tied with elizabeth warren. he's spending a lot of money and doing very well. we have our eye on the white house, too. later this hour, president trump has an event with new ambassadors. if he speaks to reporters, you will hear it right here. this is the third hour of "varney & company." ♪ it's been reported that there's a cyberattack on business every 39 seconds. ouch. i don't even want to think about it. comcast business has a solution. we go beyond fast with a cloud-based security system that automatically updates, so you always have the latest protection. phishing. malware. risky sites. it can help block all of that. it's one less thing for us to worry about.

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stuart: here's a positive on trade. that trade delegation from china will arrive in america a week from today. i say this is positive, because they are coming to sign this thing. ashley: they are indeed. in fact, turns out that scombrang wbeijing was surprised by the president's

announcement by tweet he was going to sign phase one on january 15th. by all accounts, the chinese had arranged to come out a little earlier. now they pushed it back a week so that the signing, they will go back on the 16th so one would assume maybe this culminates with a signing of the phase one deal on january 15th. the president had not nailed down this with the chinese, so they were surprised. he's making more fanfare out of it according to the south china newspapers. they say beijing is a little less ecstatic, shall we say, but the president is going to claim this is a win, that he's finally got at least some things agreed upon and of course, why not. next week, we could indeed, by the end of next week, have this thing done and move on to phase two. stuart: can't wait for that. thanks, ash. i'm going to play a little joe biden for you. this is tape from 1996. this is where he said if iran attacked any u.s. facility, it would be an act of war. watch this.

>> wire taps won't change that. >> an act of war? >> an act of war. we will take whatever action it deems appropriate. stuart: take whatever action deemed appropriate. applied to the president of the united states. he's not saying that now. david avela, go pac chair, with us. what do you make of this? that's a total turnaround. >> that's part of the problem for joe biden. he has been at the center of iran policy now for more than a decade and ever since that first iraq war, you have had a democratic party that the fervor for anti-war has only grown. in fact, it helped derail hillary clinton to barack obama in 2008 and as you have clear anti-war democrats, whether that be bernie sanders or now elizabeth warren, it does give them edge with primary voters who are in that camp of anti-war. stuart: yeah, but that's the primary voters. that's the activists on the grassroot level. >> sure. stuart: i know i'm feeding you

here, but i just don't see middle america going along with the characterization of our president as a monster or war criminal, when he takes out a rotten terrorist. >> complacency and submission to evil is not diplomacy. diplomacy is protecting american interests and defending americans. the democrats' position is undefendable to many suburban women and to voters who are ultimately the swing voters who will decide the general election which why it makes a warren or sanders nomination a guarantee that president trump is re-elected. stuart: okay. speaker pelosi is going to introduce a bill in the house this week to limit the president's war powers. what do you make of that? >> your only child is a marine at an embassy that's under attack by our enemies. you have two cell phone numbers, donald trump and speaker pelosi. whose do you hit send on to call and ask for help? stuart: okay. i get the point. will it go anywhere, limiting

his powers? why not? >> it's not going to go anywhere in the senate. stuart: it has to go through the senate. would it then have to be signed by the president himself? >> probably. stuart: that's not going to happen. >> not going to happen. stuart: talk about bloomberg for a second, mike bloomberg. i have a presidential poll which shows him in third place. he's tied now with elizabeth warren. he's spending a ton of money. is that why he's moving up or -- >> $140 million will build your name i.d., right? if you are looking for a candidate who wants to tax your soda and put calories on every menu you look at, bloomberg is your guy. stuart: he's a moderate guy. apart from the soda tax. that's minor league stuff. >> he's a democrat -- he was a republican when he was mayor -- stuart: he's not -- he actually thought it was okay to take out suleimani. >> he also was the one who bragged about turning the house from republican to democrat, that he was the one that helped lead the impeachment effort. this is now that he's a democrat. remember, he was the mayor of

new york as a republican, which certainly bernie and elizabeth and vice president biden are going to remind democratic primary voters. stuart: i think he's got a shot at being the nominee. >> sure. all of them have a shot right now. stuart: i think he's going to be the nominee. >> i don't agree. stuart: what do you mean, you don't agree? you know whose show this is? >> good healthy debate here. stuart: if it's not bloomberg, who is it? >> it's going to be biden or sanders. stuart: not warren for sure? biden oren sanders. >> what it boils down to, has sanders learned his lesson from the last election. he ultimately lost to hillary clinton because the establishment of the democratic party was against him. he has a solid not leaving him base within the grassroots movement of the party. where he lost to hillary clinton was he didn't have the super delegates, he didn't have the infrastructure of the democratic party behind him.

if he starts to woo them or bring them into his camp he will give biden a run for his money. stuart: be quite something at that convention. thanks for joining us. see you soon. look at the market. it is coming back. bottom right-hand corner of the screen. we are only down 40 points as we speak. blackberry seeing a nice gain, 2.7%. they are collaborating with amazon web services. they are going to make software for in-vehicle applications. interesting. blackberry coming back. how about amazon? lots of news on amazon this morning. they are doing really well. the stock is up 21 bucks. barron's magazine says they are a free cash flow organization to die for. $1,896 per share, up 20 bucks today. let's get one more check of that big board. again, i'm going to say it. i think there's a good shot that this market closes up today, not down. we'll be right back. plastic.

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the 60 go up of 180, and the purpose is to connect us all. anything that you do on your phone, believe it or not, there are 25 million americans who still do not have access to high speed internet. these satellites are meant to be the bridge between people in rural areas, people that are living in poor infrastructure areas to connect the world. stuart: look, at my farm out there in the country, upstate new york, we don't have very good service so this will bail me out? deirdre: this will bail you out. there are some complaints, though, as you can imagine. not everybody is enthusiastic about this. elon musk has pretty big plans for this. he's not the only one. jeff bezos' blue origin has similar plans. it's basically putting satellites in low orbit which is about 200 feet above the earth's atmosphere, but the problem is it's getting crowded up there. it's going to be a little traffic jammy. stuart: he's going to get -- spacex is going to get paid, he's going to get paid for putting these satellites in space.

deirdre: he is. stuart: will he also get a piece of the action when they start beaming down the internet to rural folks like me? deirdre: that, we don't know quite yet, but he is going to get paid for putting them up there. the air force is actually launching, you know, the newly space force is going to be at cape canaveral this evening to do this. to your point about profitability, part of this is going to fund all of elon musk's missions to send cargo and eventually humans to mars. there is a business purpose. but astronomers are complaining, if you want to know the unhappy lot, they say all these bright shiny things in space are obstructing the view when people want to look at stars and then also, after five years, they burn up and fall and nobody quite knows the environmental impact. stuart: okay. there's always a downside. thank you very much indeed. now, you've got to keep checking this market, because it is possible that we end the day higher. i don't know, it's possible. coming up next, we have a market

watcher, top market watcher, mark grant. he says a correction is coming. stay for that. i want to get back to oil. lot of talk about iran shutting off or closing down the straits of hormuz as retaliation. that's big shipping, big oil shipping gateway, of course. our next guest says that would be a declaration of war against the entire world. he will make his case in a moment. ♪ huh, fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. everybody knows that. well, did you know pinocchio was a bad motivational speaker? i look around this room and i see nothing

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stuart: as of right now, the dow industrials are down a mere 50 points. staying on the markets, let's bring in top market watcher, mark grant. what's this about a correction, grant? how big is it and when's it coming? >> stuart, i'm not surprised you are asking me this question. here's the answer. i don't play golf and i don't go fishing so i did -- i do wall street and i did a lot of homework over the weekend and i noticed something that i haven't seen anywhere else basically, which is that there's a very strong correlation between the amount of money that the central banks are putting in and between

the s&p 500. if you go back to 2008, right before the financial crisis, the s&p 500 was up way over what the central banks, the amount of money that was coming in. it only repeated itself briefly in 2015, briefly, and now this correlation, the equity markets are running about 6.5% higher than the central bank money that's coming in. to go back to your comment, yes, i think trump's jobs cuts and tax bill was terrific for the market, for people, the economy, but i would say even more important over the last decade has been what the central banks have done and we are getting a signal that we could have about a 6.5% correction here given this relationship between the central bank money and the s&p 500. stuart: okay. when does it hit?

any rough idea? months or next year or weeks away? give me some idea. >> well, i think you've got this, which is of course a technical indicator, but it's a good one, very good correlation here, and then of course, you have what i call polynomics which is impeachment and what's going on with iran, but i think over the next few months, we are probably more likely to go down some in the broad markets than to go up some right now. stuart: okay. give me a real fast idea of gold. it's at a seven-year high almost, i think $1564. does it keep going up? >> so stuart, as you and i both know, gold is driven really by two things and only two things. one, inflation which we don't have, or very little inflation. and two, by concern about world events, by politics and by some kind of, you know, disaster,

war, something. so i think that gold basically has been going up here based upon this confrontation with iran that could result in any number of scenarios, none of which are probably any good. stuart: mark grant, thanks very much indeed. i'm watching out for that correction. that's why i sold a lot of my microsoft because i thought a correction was coming. i may have sold a little early. >> took some money off the table. stuart: i did. i did. i did. thanks very much, see you soon. am i right in saying the price of oil is now -- no. ashley: it did go down slightly and has come back a little bit. stuart: not much of a gain. $63 a barrel, right after the killing of suleimani. $63 a barrel. that ain't much. i want to bring in someone who we know has a restaurant but is actually a major character, major player, i should say, in the world of oil. zane tankel is with us.

i just gave you one extraordinary compliment. >> you certainly did and i'm shocked. stuart: all right. all right. now, you're not really worried about the iranians retaliating, closing the straits of hormuz, it's not going to happen, is it? >> probably not. stuart, as far as the united states is concerned, it's not new news, we are totally independent on oil -- not totally, in all fairness. there's different grades of oil depending on sulfur content. there's light, heavy, sweet crude, so we bring in oil from depending on our refinery capacity or capabilities, rather, not capacity, capability, we bring in oil from colombia, brazil, canada, because it's a different weight. we export oil. we are now net exporters. that just actually occurred at the end of last year. it's not sustained yet but it looks like it will be sustained but here's the deal. the stuff that comes through the strait of hormuz is going to

asia, it's going to china, it's going to south korea, it's going to all these other places. it doesn't directly impact us. if iran chose to close down or choke off the straits of hormuz, what they are really doing is declaring war on china, south korea and all those other guys who did not have anything to do with suleimani. so realistically, last but not least, i'm reasonably familiar with the iranians and the iranian people and they are really smart. the iranian people are really smart. forget the mullahs and revolutionary guard. the people in the streets that are protesting, actually. iran has been under incredible stress since the embargoes went on. economically they are having huge inflation. that's what the riots are about in the streets. i think there were 100 some odd cities that the iranian people, the real people, were protesting and in the street for the first time. they are not prepared for a war without the backing of the people itself. here's the bottom line.

you asked me a question. i don't think there's a sustained rise in the oil prices. don't forget, just before the end of the year we were suffering, if you will, from a glut of oil, right. we had more oil and that's why prices were down. stuart: look, isn't this actually $63 a barrel, isn't that pretty good for american oil producers? because they were losing money at 50 bucks a barrel. at 63 they are making some money. they will increase production. >> you are absolutely correct. i said domestically, as far as the united states is concerned, there's not a whole lot the iranians can do to directly hit us. i think what we will see are results of third party proxy wars, if you will, hezbollah, hamas, terrorism, but a declaration of war, here's where the president's unpredictability is very predictable, in the sense that he's unpredictable and they don't know what he does

on the next round. when the iranians hit the saudi oil fields with their drone strikes, oil spiked 15%, you know. that's not crazy. stuart: no, it's not. if it was five years ago, $100, $120, $150 a barrel oil. >> and here's the deal. we are -- we're not suffering, we have an oil glut right now here in the united states. i don't see a sustained -- look, no one likes uncertainty. the oil business, the oil patch definitely hates uncertainty. geopolitical factors, as your previous guest said, have a lot to do with how the market runs, also has a whole lot to do how the oil patch runs. stuart: we are going to be okay. >> i would say -- you want lunch sometime, i'll buy. that's the kind of confidence i have. stuart: you're on.

zane tankel, oil man, thanks very much. now, look at the market again. we are down just 50 points. that's all we are at the moment, down 50. also look at tesla. they are betting big on their new berlin plant. they aim to build, what, 500,000 cars a year at that new plant. what happened with tesla, the stock went straight up, and those people who were betting against it, so-called short sellers, how much did they lose? lauren: the first two days of this new year, $700 million. in the past seven months, about $8.5 billion. this is why some analysts say you should not bet against tesla. the model y is expected this summer, this is expected to be just as popular as the model 3, and affordable. number two, international exposure. the shanghai plant is up and running and the berlin plant you just mentioned, that would be a further giga factory, we might not see it in 2021 although that is the target, it's probably

going to get pushed back but in germany, the heart of auto manufacturing, tesla setting up an electric vehicle factory. stuart: i didn't see this coming. i got it completely wrong. i was not giving him much credit, six months, a year ago. just didn't do it. lauren: 113:38, stuart got it wrong. stuart: i was completely wrong about it. also about baby yoda. ashley: oh, boy. stuart: take a look at apple, please. where is it? 300 bucks for the first time last week. dropped a little bit, come back up to $299.11. wait a second. did we find out how much -- ashley: tim cook? stuart: tim cook made? direct compensation from last year? ashley: it was varney-esque. he pulled in $125 million smackeroos. that's a base salary of $3 million, $7.7 million bonus,

$113 million worth of stock divested for him. he actually took a pay cut from 2018, where he owned $136 million. why? because apple did not beat its sales or income operating income by the same levels this year as they did in 2018. so he's not hurting, don't get me wrong, but still has $400 million worth of apple stock that has yet to vest. stuart: he's doing all right. next case, the uk government sounding off on increased tension with iran. they are warning president trump, saying this whole ordeal is in nobody's best interest. what does nigel farage say about that? we will find out next. ♪ at fidelity, online u.s. stocks and etfs are commission-free. and when you open a new brokerage account, your cash is automatically invested at a great rate. that's why fidelity leads the industry in value

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for newly appointed ambassadors as of right now. we are keeping an eye on it. if the president makes any comment of any kind, we will bring it to you immediately. the backlash to the suleimani strike continues. britain is urging both sides to de-escalate. they say this is in nobody's best interest. however, listen to this. earlier on the program today, america's ambassador to germany, richard grinell, says germany has our back. >> they do support us. i have been quite pleased with the way that the german government and members of the parliament have come out. let me give you a couple of examples. even when the statements came out of the german government about the jcpoa withdrawal, when we decided to get out of the iran deal, they went out of their way to say look, we share the same vision as the americans, we share the concern that we have that iran must never get a nuclear weapon. stuart: we need some clarity

from the brits and that man there is nigel farage, who joins us frequently on "varney & company." nigel, germany has our back but the brits do not? explain yourself. >> i think that's a rather over-optimistic assessment from the american ambassador in germany. i have no doubt one or two german politicians have told him what they think he wants to hear. the fact is the european union, their foreign policy which was put together with president obama, was the iran nuclear deal. the european union not only still stands by it, they have actually invited, would you believe, the iranian foreign minister to go to brussels for talks. i at the moment, having heard one or two comments from president macron of france, think that the european union wishes to continue with its policy of appeasement of iran. now, when it comes to the british government, well, we are seeing equivocation.

we are seeing our foreign secretary raab sitting on the fence, saying something he thinks won't offend america and won't offend the european union, but to call for de-escalation implies that both sides have done something wrong and i think that's a mistake. what we have seen are constant endless provocations and law breaking from the iranians and for once, an american president has struck back. i think boris johnson, who spent the last 12 days on the island of mustique, nice work if you can get it, i suppose, he's now back in london and i think the british government needs to make a decision. are we in brexit britain going to stick with the eu's foreign policy or side more with the americans. i know which i would choose. stuart: i didn't know this. boris johnson spent 11 or 12 days in the caribbean, 3,000 miles away from britain, just as all this stuff's going down and

all this is happening, he's over there. i'm surprised to hear that. i'm also surprised to hear that boris johnson doesn't come out swinging in favor of president trump. i mean, i'm surprised at that. >> okay. point number one is that everyone deserves a holiday, absolutely, but 12 days for prime minister, new prime minister, is a long time. he should have come back as soon as this crisis began. i think that is overwhelmingly now the public opinion in this country. secondly, remember, boris johnson was the foreign secretary in our country when all of our foreign policy dealing with iran and russia and elsewhere, was tied to eu policy. now, i know that boris has now become a brexiteer and i'm delighted. but we need at the end of the month to free ourselves in terms of foreign policy, too. at the moment, the establishment in this country are still trying to keep us tied to the european union, not to america. as i say, the eu policy, the

obama policy, is that you can appease the iranian regime. i think what history teaches us is when you are dealing with regimes, based on fundamental religious fanaticism, you can never appease them. stuart: you speak in sound bites and that's why we like you. nigel farage, everyone. good man. thanks for joining us. see you again soon. thank you. what was the most popular video game in the world? i will answer it for you. fortnite. how much money did they bring in on fortnite last year? lauren: it's a free game and it brought in $1.8 billion. $1.8 billion totally free. that was totally less than the year before when it was $2.5 billion. still, how is this game from epic games making so much money? two things. in-app virtual purchases and it's a cross-gaming platform which means you can play it on so many different consoles and

platforms and they did really cute and successful promotional tie-ins with the vendors, for instance. it worked for them last year. stuart: 1.8 billion comes in from a free game. not bad. more news on the elusive former auto magnate carlos ghosn. what's he got -- ashley: he spoke exclusively with maria bartiromo. he will be holding a press conference i believe wednesday in lebanon. he says he has actual evidence of documents that prove that he was the victim of a coup to take him down. he's going to name names, he says, at this press conference. some people behind the japanese government which he believes are behind the 2018 arrest of his over those alleged financial misconduct charges. he believes they wanted to take him out but he also goes on to tell maria that he was really unnerved and upset, he says, that he failed to underestimate the unfairness as he calls it of the japanese judicial system and that the straw that broke the camel's back was the fact he was unable to speak to his wife, and

he was stuck in this apartment, he wasn't allowed to talk to anyone and he felt he had to do something. he says he is prepared to go to trial, just not in japan. he will be prepared to have his case heard in front of any court outside of japan. stuart: he got that -- ashley: we expect to hear from him on wednesday in lebanon. it's a fascinating story. there's a lot more to it obviously. stuart: well done, maria. good stuff. coming up, we will get another take on the escalating tension with iran. this time from a millenial, spencer brown from the young americans for freedom foundation. i want to know what youngsters are saying about the president's move. keep it here. this is "varney & company." ♪ i'm your curious cat, and you know what they say about curiosity. it'll ruin your house. so get allstate and be better protected from mayhem, like meow.

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stuart: we've heard from the far left. we've heard from democrats. we've heard from all kinds of people about how they really don't like what president trump did with that iranian general. but you know, we haven't heard from freedom-loving youngsters. so let's bring in young americas foundation, this gentleman on the right-hand side of the screen, spencer brown. he represents these youngsters. how do you feel about it? what have you got to say? >> well, you know, young people and me especially who are watching this, i think have

learned a really clear lesson and that's that peace through strength works. i think watching just the response from this, i really hope millenials are paying attention because i think what's scary to see is how the left is reacting to this, and you know, ridding the world of a horrible terrorist who is responsible for the deaths of american soldiers and innocent civilians in the middle east and seeing how the left is treating that, i think it's a really good sort of learning point for young people to see how the left views the world. i think you know, the "wall street journal" too had a great point over the weekend, saying that this opposition wouldn't be there if donald trump weren't the president. stuart: young american foundation is a conservative organization, i take it? >> yes. we are sort of the prominent conservative organization reaching young people in college and now high school and we also own and maintain president reagan's ranch home in california which gives another really good example to young people of what peace through strength can do to take down, you know, dictators or people around the world. stuart: i take it you do have some concern that you don't want things to get out of hand, you really don't want world war iii. you got to have an element of

caution there, presumably. >> absolutely. i think, you know, if you watched over the weekend, there was sort of a response among millenials and even generation z online, joking about world war iii getsing started. i think young people do recognize that there is a reason to have concern about this. but young people especially know it's our future that's on the line so we want to make sure that the world and the united states is safe and you know, young people more than pretty much anyone else love to travel and visit around the world and american citizens are safer abroad when people around the world know that they can't mess with the united states and get away with it. i think that's exactly the message that the president sent over the weekend. stuart: if you were booked to speak at a major american university, you think you would get a fair hearing? >> that's a good question. that's something we haven't tested yet but i think the name young americas foundation today really strikes fear into the hearts of administrators and professors and leftist students because they know when we come into a campus, conservative ideas and intellectual diversity are going to be there on campus with us. so we see them do basically everything they can to try to stop us on a regular basis but

we don't back down and we are getting ready to announce a number of schools where ben shapiro will be speaking with us again in the spring. we can't wait. stuart: you are welcome to come on this program and voice your opinions because we like it. spencer brown, thanks for joining us, sir. appreciate it. i'm actually breaking in because i've got breaking news here. former u.s. national security adviser john bolton says he has concluded that if the senate subpoenas him in the impeachment trial, he is prepared to testify. more "varney" after this. i'm part of a community of problem solvers. we make ideas grow. from an everyday solution... to one that can take on a bigger challenge. from packaging tape... to tape that can bond materials to buildings... and planes. one idea can unlock a breadth of solutions. . .

stuart: i think i'm accurate in saying the response this monday morning to the killing of soleimani last week has been muted. look on the screen. that is a 61 point drop for the dow industrials. lousy 61 points all it is. that is not a major reaction to the killing. look at the price of gold.

when we started on the air this morning we were up 25 bucks. now we're up $14. a muted response in the gold market. look at the price of oil. we were going on the air at $63 a barrel. we're still at $63 a barrel. muted. my time's up. neil, it is yours. neil: we were going to have all those three things in our lead. stuart: sorry. neil: i was going to say ditto. in all seriousness you and i are old enough remember how we would have responded to these developments in the past. nothing like then. to your point, i think it was your point about we're more energy independent. it's a different world right now. very, very different world. shocking. anyway, thank you for the lead. i appreciate it. stuart, we are on all of that. middle east tensions rising. as stuart pointed out here, not the reaction you would think, especially when the president is warning iran of major