keeping your allocation -- telling people to sell when the house is already on fire. maria: thank you all so much. great day. it's going to be a wild opening. find it all on "varney & company," up next. stu, take it away. stuart: we got it all. good morning to you. good morning, everyone. look, it's friday. it's a tense time on the financial markets. very tense. here's the best anxiety indicator of all. the yield on the ten-year treasury. okay, it sounds technical but this shows how much money is flowing into safe investments and how much is flowing out of risky investments, into treasury bonds, out of stocks. that yield absolutely tumbled overnight, touching a low of .69%. right now the yield is .73%. there is a bright side. this means lower mortgage rates to come. now, stocks. another big day, a down day at the opening bell. remember on february 12th, the

dow hit its all-time high of 29,568, just 16 trading days later it's down 3,400 points. keep a little perspective here. yeah, that's a big and rapid drop, but we're not at this point in a bear market. we are going to open down 700 for the dow, 80 odd for the s&p, 270 for the nasdaq. it's a friday. remember that. it's important. there will be some reluctance to hold stocks over the weekend because you simply don't know what virus headlines will greet you come monday morning. now, here's some positive news on the economy, which is having no effect on the market. 273,000 new jobs added last month. a blockbuster report. but that report looks backward. the stock market looks forward. larry kudlow will be addressing this coming up on the show today. and we expect to hear from president trump shortly. last night at his town hall on fox, he had a calm demeanor and

on the virus he said we have plans for every single possibility. the campaign trail. elizabeth warren has not yet thrown her support behind either biden or bernie. maybe she's looking for the best deal. speaker pelosi says there was quote, an element of misogyny as in sexism, in warren's loss. bernie has a russia, make that a soviet problem. the "new york times" has documents showing he cozied up to the soviets in the 1980s and they used him for propaganda purposes. whoa. big show coming. let us get on with it. watch this. >> it certainly might have an impact. at the same time i have to say people are now staying in the united states, spending their money in the u.s. and i like that. you know, i've been after that for a long time. you know that. i have been saying let's stay in the u.s., spend your money here and they're doing that. they're sort of enforced doing that. so it's going to all work out. everybody has to be calm. it's all going to work out. stuart: the president has indeed signed the virus funding bill.

we will get tape for that for you very shortly. jonathan hoenig, market watcher, joining us right now. why should our viewers care about the historic low on the ten-year treasury yield? what does it mean for them? >> it's sending an ominous sign. the president is right, stuart, certainly we got to keep watching fox business for larry kudlow's comments and for the president's comments as well because those will move markets but the bond market is sending a very ominous sign. the fact that yields continue to go lower and lower and lower here but also globally. all of the government bonds in germany are now negative yie yielding so in germany you buy a 30-year bond, you will be guaranteed to lose money for 30 years. many are concerned the u.s. is headed in exactly that same direction. low interest rates in a very slow economy is a big fear. stuart: do you think we are headed for negative interest rates in america? >> every economic textbook that's ever been written, there are month chapters on the negative interest rate. it simply has no precedent in

economic history. it's happened in japan, in europe and boy, we are getting awful close with these historic plunge in yields and where stocks go, ironically, the more people are prompted to want to seek any safe haven even if it's yielding only .3%. stuart: as i see it, yields down and stocks down, that's the relationship at the moment, isn't it? >> absolutely. this is i don't want to say capitulation because it's early in the day but we are seeing this type of throw everything out, toss everything and pile into the safe havens, the government bonds and of course, gold now at a fresh multi-month high. stuart: hold on a second. we dealt with the treasury yield, with the stock market. look at that, minus 720, bottom right-hand corner of the screen. come in, paul conway, former labor department chief of staff. the jobs report, 273,000 new jobs. the rate, 3.5%. that's a blockbuster report but paul, you know it, it looks

backward, not forward. >> it does look backwards and tell you what, along that line, it also looks back and revises the numbers in january. you now have two months of 273,000 job growth, you have this still historic unemployment claim, low number, and the unemployment low number at 3.5%. i think you are taking a look at a picture in hindsight before coronavirus impact of a very strong and robust economy and very tight labor market, which bodes well for anything that we need to absorb. but again, i think this issue of the virus and the presidential leadership that will come with it and the leadership of governors in all sectors as we start to address this as a country is fundamentally important to public confidence and public trust in our institutions. stuart: paul, i want you to look forward for me for a moment because you were involved in federal responses to emerging events and external threats. do you think the federal reserve or the administration should pump money into ailing industries or pump money into the economy? >> i think in the calculations

that they go through when they take a look at different models of risk, and potential impacts, i think those will probably be some of the discussions and recommendations that come up to look at. when actually somebody makes a decision to engage on that will involve a lot of other factors. but i think what they are going to take a look at right now is the fact that the country has to be nimble in its response. we don't know what we don't know, literally, and that the president has an opportunity here to keep convening the people, thanking the professional staff -- stuart: again, sorry to interrupt, but do you think it would be a good idea, i'm not talking a bailout in the classic sense, but just propping up some industries which are clearly ailing because of the virus? you think it's a good idea? >> well, tell you what, i think that's something that you need to be very very careful about because we are still in the initial stages and you don't know all the industries that might be impacted. i think you have to take a look at the sequencing of it. in terms of options on the table, the president will be given all options. ultimately it will be his call on what to do based on the

advice of business leaders and other economic advisers that he has with him. stuart: by the way, the president at the signing of the virus funding bill, he did say the federal reserve should cut rates now to stimulate the economy. he did just say that. all right, paul. let me look at the market. we've got, what, 20 odd minutes to go before we open up this friday morning. we are going to be down all across the board, 750 down for the dow, 95 down, 96 down for the s&p, big drop down there for the nasdaq. that's what we're looking at right now. jonathan hoenig, any idea, is this the capitulation day, the wash-out day where everybody gets rid of everything and we go straight down? >> well, it certainly looks like it could be shaping up to be that. it's going to shock us, when that day finally comes, it will certainly shock us. could be 1500, could be, i don't want to be hyperbolic here but it could be a couple thousand point day. these 1,000 point swings in the

dow, we have gotten accustomed to it but it's important that everyone goes back to his or her own individual context. truly, if you are in your 20s, 30s, 40s, i remember the 1997 asian contagion, that financial crisis. at the time it seemed like the world was ending. just a few years later we kind of looked back at it and chuckled. we will do the same thing now even though some of these numbers look quite dramatic. if you are in it for the long haul, now is the time to stay in it for the long haul. stuart: very good point. we have a lot of viewers who are indeed in their 30s and 40s and they've got a 401(k). this could be a pretty good time to switch out of some areas and maybe take more risk, because you can buy some bargains at these levels. what do you think? >> it never seems like a great opportunity when the sky's falling, but as the adage says, you want to buy, it's a little off-color, but buy when there's blood in the streets. there's tremendous blood in the streets. it doesn't mean it can't get worse or stay weak for quite some time but the president is right. the virus will pass. companies will improve over

time. those who bet against the market over the long term have always lost. stuart: paul conway, still with us. i've got a question for you. you used to work there at the chief of staff at labor department. we are getting a lot of reports of people working from home. some companies are demanding it, actually. microsoft is recommending it. i think this is something that's going to spread. does that affect the economy so much? >> i actually think the economy is pretty resilient on that. one of the lessons we learned, one of the things that the private sector did quite well after 9/11 was introducing more workplace flexibility, especially on telework. it's tougher to manage, you have to have talented managers, but you've got upwards of 40% to 50% of the work force that has access. most of those are white collar jobs to telework, and that type of thing. i don't think it would negatively impact the economy in the short term. as you take a look at longer term, industries like services, where telework may not be as much of an option, in fact, markedly less of an option for workers, you could see some

impacts there. i think again, as you are looking long range, i think you can absorb it, you have the flexibilities. the president's own work force, the u.s. civil service, just this week has encouraged all agencies to make certain that telework is part of its plans and they should be part of their emergency and contingency planning for pandemics and other things like that. stuart: okay. i want to stick with the virus funding bill which the president has just signed. dr. marc siegel is with us. $8.5 billion i think it is. where does that money go? where do you think it should go? >> first, about $3 billion of it will go to research and development for vaccines and antiviral drugs. really important, because we are really on the cusp with that. there's at least ten different candidates for vaccines. we talked about it on the show. antiviral drugs, remdesivir, i talked to the clinical director of that, that's very promising. we need the money for that. that's $3 billion. another $2 billion or $3 billion will go into testing. as you know, there hasn't been enough testing.

we talked about that. we've got to make testing widely available to not just rule in people for coronavirus but to rule out people who we fear could have it just to say look, we don't need to quarantine you or isolate you, you don't have it. we need to be able to do that on a daily basis. those are two big ticket items here. stuart: good. now, we were told we were going to get a test, reliable, quick test very quickly, distributed around the country. have we got it? >> we are starting to. we are starting to get -- well -- stuart: we're not there yet? >> no. we are getting one where you will have the results within several hours, not within five minutes. stuart: when will that be widely available? >> right now as we speak, it's becoming available widely in state and local health departments. stuart: all across the country? >> right. stuart: how many? >> it's supposed to be up to a million. we're not there. we are lucky if we will get 100,000 by the end of today. stuart: i ask the question -- >> we're not there yet. not only that, i want to add another criticism. not only that, we don't even need it in state and local health departments. we need it in hospitals and labs that i can access.

if i send it to the new york city health department, which now has it, i may not get it back for a couple days. i want it right away. stuart: i'm looking at the economic impact here. i see the test coming, we don't know exactly when we are going to get this mass testing -- >> i'd say next week. they are really pushing on it. the vice president is really pushing. stuart: that's all good news. but when you get that test and it's widely distributed, you will have a lot more cases revealed. that will appear in the headlines and i think that's having some impact on the financial market. >> it will have a huge fear impact. we need to tell people right now those tests are -- those results are already there. people just don't know about it. these won't be new cases. there is definitely, definitely hundreds and hundreds of cases out there that are positive with mild illness that people don't know about. stuart: hold on for a second. i want to discuss the case of jamie dimon, the emergency surgeon he has. i know you know more about that. right now, want to tell you the market is way down, as we approach the opening bell. we are about 20 minutes away. 700 down for the dow, 100 down

for the s&p, nearly 300 for the nasdaq. oil is way down. gold is up and the yield on that treasury is down. now, more headlines from what president trump was saying at the signing of the virus funding bill. lauren's got it. lauren: the president said the federal reserve should cut and stimulate the economy. that would be a marriage of monetary stimulus, more coming, rates going even lower and then fiscal stimulus which might really help get things going. stuart: that's the thing. lauren: you might hear that next week because as these kits, as you were saying, we don't know when exactly we are getting the kits but the numbers are going to spike as we can test more, that's going to be jarring for the market. he also said we should have the lowest rate by far, lamenting the fact other countries are [ inaudible ]. stuart: jonathan hoenig, you heard that. the president pushing for rate cuts by the federal reserve and also, maybe some fiscal stimulus. that's what intrigues me. the idea that you can pump some money into the economy regardless of interest rates, put the money out there. what say you?

>> i will give you an example of a country and economy with a slowing economy, aging population and 0% interest rates. not america, it's japan. they have been trying this in japan for the better part of 20 some years. fiscal stimulus, make-work projects, ultra-low interest rates, it hasn't helped yet. on this, i think the president respectfully might be a little mistaken. ultra-low interest rates are not a sign of a strong economy or strong credit, they are a sign of a very weak economy. i think that's exactly what's prompting the drop in the stock market today. not even weak fundamentals. we got that jobs number, the economy fundamentally is very strong. but when we see interest rates at 1%, .75%, that's sending a very strong message to investors, the economy is not as strong as we perhaps think. stuart: doc siegel still with me. i've got what might be a rather strange question for you. as this virus spreads, does the weather in america make any difference to it? >> i think it does. that will affect the economy.

this is per jonathan's point before. you take a look at singapore right now. there's only 117 cases. know why i think that is? again, theory, not fact. it's 85 degrees in singapore today and chance of rain is about 85%. high humidity, high temperature, low virus, low respiratory virus. 117 cases. south korea, 40 degrees today, zero chance of rain, cold, low humidity, over 6,000 cases. stuart: you think that -- >> i think that's why we have a flu season. we have a flu season because in april, it starts to get humid and starts to get hot and respiratory viruses don't travel as well. if that ends up being true, i'm piggybacking on jonathan's theory, we may see a recovery and see less and less virus. stuart: thank you, doctor. stay there, please. got a lot more for you and want to hear about jamie dimon. give me a couple seconds. i'm going to go back to politics. paris dennard is with us, black

voices for trump co-chair and trump 2020 senior adviser. paris, it seems to me that black voters, african-americans, really control who is going to be the democrat contender in the election. am i right? >> you are absolutely right, because that's why you have seen so much attention that has gone into south carolina's primary and the nevada caucus, so the democrat has a strong hold or historically with the black vote and they know that any democrat nominee or candidate who wants to be president of the united states has got to do very well with the black community, which is part of the reason why i believe hillary clinton did not become the president, because she had horrible numbers, comparatively speaking, to president obama and past democrats in places like florida and other places where she needed to perform well. she did not do well with the black community. they did not trust her, they did

not believe in her message, so that's why joe biden was banking so heavily on the black vote. that's the base of the democrat party. the other thing about the black vote on the democrat side is they turn out. they are a reliable voting bloc. but the good news is for the republicans and for president trump, and for black voices for trump which i'm proud to be part of, is that president trump and his message, his inclusive message is making a difference. it's impacting the lives of the black community and they are coming over to the republican side because of what president trump is doing on a regular basis as president of this country. stuart: i find this fascinating. i really do. thanks for joining us. i've got to get back to the market. we are 12 minutes away from opening up today and we continue to move south. now we are looking at an 800 point loss for the dow and over 320 points down for the nasdaq composite. 833. 840, to be precise. what are you telling me? all right. can't hear you. jonathan hoenig, it looks like a

washout at the opening bell. >> one of the factors playing into this, you alluded to jamie dimon's heart surgery. we of course wish him a quick and full recovery. but the banks are in many ways, at the nexus of all this. i saw northern trust, credit suisse, the systemically important banks, all at 52-week lows. that's a worrisome sign. a couple months ago, the federal reserve told us how well capitalized the banks were. but they are really at the nexus of this in many ways, suffering from ultra-low interest rates and what we are seeing is a lot of credit instruments, junk bonds, those are starting to crack up and banks are exposed to those as well. we wish jamie dimon the best of luck but jpmorgan is going to need it and the rest of the banks are pulling the market down this morning as well. stuart: i see your point. let me go back to two key indicators. first of all, the yield on the ten-year treasury, as we were saying, this is the ultimate anxiety indicator of the moment. look at it now.

down 20 basis points. in bond market terms that's gigantic. deirdre: if you think the safest bet is the safety and security of the u.s. government and if that goes against you we all have bigger problems but that is that vote saying i don't know where else to put my money. stuart: we are at .71%. the actual low this morning was .69%. these are traumatic times. lauren? lauren: going back to the equity market. remember monday, we were up almost 1300 points, then down on tuesday, up again big on wednesday, down on thursday? so this would be the second down day in a row which we haven't seen all week. the markets are actually up between 2% and 3% this week. just giving you perspective of the strong jobs report, the state of the u.s. economy, this virus is a wild card but we are up on the week about 100,000 coronavirus infections worldwide, 55,000 recoveries. deirdre: that's really the point. when jonathan talks about

germany or japan, they do not have the same gdp growth we have, they do not have the same consumer spending strength we have which is two-thirds of our gdp, even right now we are spending on clorox and wipes, we are still spending. stuart: we still have at this moment a strong economy. remember, please, we have that jobs report came out at 8:30 this morning. it's a blockbuster. 273,000 new jobs. the rate goes down to 3.5%. okay. that's backward-looking. looks back at february. it doesn't tell you what's coming up in march, april and may. but it means that you've got a cushion. you've got a strong economy to start with. okay, it will be chipped away at by the virus but nonetheless, you've got a cushion. that's where we are starting. lauren: we have to look at weekly claims going forward to see how the coronavirus affects hiring decisions and if there are layoffs particularly going forward. with the job market being so tight, you think a big company is going to lay off a talented worker because of this coronavirus? we don't know -- deirdre: even microsoft actually saying they are actually not

laying off the people who work in their cafeteria. we are not even talking about programmers. they are just saying we are going to continue to pay you because we don't want to have to go back and pay more for the same kind of work. stuart: they raise a very good point. paul conway, i hope you are still there. companies in what's going to be a slowing economy, they are not going to want to lay people off because the labor market is so tight. i wouldn't expect a wave of layoffs, would you? >> no, not at all. in fact, this is where people like to kick around the term human capital. this is actually the practical side of it. these companies have invested in trained workers and they now have them as part of their culture and production, part of their bottom line. they won't turn around on a dime and simply cast somebody off because of a current issue in the news. i think they will look and again, there has been a fundamental shift in how labor and people work with technology in anticipation of all types of different circumstances. this is going to actually be a

test of all the things that we have learned over the past 10 or 15 years about being nimble, having a work force and making certain that you retain your talent as an element of your business. stuart: we have two minutes before we hear directly from president trump. i will use those two minutes to give you the news about jamie dimon, america's top banker. emergency heart surgery on thursday night. hes recovering nicely. doc siegel, what happened to him? >> first of all, deirdre and lauren brought up a really good point. he had radiation therapy back in 2014 because of his throat cancer. know what that does? that can weaken the wall of the aorta. what is the aorta? the big artery coming out of the heart that feeds the brain and the rest of the upper body. stuart: did he have a tear? >> he had a tear, called an aortic dissection. it's about 200,000 people a year. stuart: for the benefit of the audience, what's the symptoms? >> chest pab pain, shortness of breath, pain radiating to the back. you go to the emergency room, we

see a strange looking ekg, do a cat scan and diagnose it right away. you've got to get into surgery right away. only 80% make it through the first month. it's a very dangerous, dangerous situation. you put in a graft, artificial. if he makes it through the first month he has about an 85% chance of living more than five years. and a greater than 50% chance he will get back to work. i would say in his case, more than 50%. stuart: we wish him well. thanks for that information. good stuff. the market is way, way down. we are about to hear from the president. i think this is the tape from his virus funding signing, where he does mention the federal reserve. we will roll that tape momentarily. here we go. >> [ inaudible ].

>> so we are signing the $8.3 billion. i asked for 2.5 and i'm getting 8.3 and i'll take it. okay. so here we are, $8.3 billion. it's an unforeseen problem. what a problem. came out of nowhere. but we're taking care of it. we have big news on the ship, lot of things are happening on the ship, people are being tested right now, and i just spoke to the governor of california, gavin newsom. we had a good conversation. we're both working on the ship together. it's close to 5,000 people so big ship. we're doing testing on those people, okay. could i have those other papers

i'm going to sign, please? is there additional papers relative to various things. >> [ inaudible ]. >> do you have anything to say? >> i just want to make it clear that in terms of tests, we have provided all the tests to the state of washington and the state of california that they asked for. the production and shipping of tests that we've talked about all week is completely on schedule. all of the cdc tests, the tests that are available to test

75,000 people, cdc has shipped to america's public health labs. those are out. that private contractor working with cdc to ship to the private sector and hospitals has already shipped enough tests for 700,000 tests and the remaining lots are arriving at cdc this morning for quality control and should get out as we forecast this weekend, then next week we will keep ramping up production, so as many as four million tests next week are going to be driving forward. so everything is on schedule for the tests. reporter: mr. president, why aren't you going to cdc today? >> he actually sent me. >> you can tell that. we may go. they thought there was a problem at cdc with somebody that had the virus. it turned out negative so we're seeing if we can do it but yesterday afternoon, we were informed that there may have been a person with the virus,

and they now find out that that was negative test. they've tested the person very fully and it was a negative test. so i may be going. we are going to see if they can turn it around with secret service. we may be going. here, this is for you, after covering me so well for so long. first time i have ever done that to a reporter. reporter: [ inaudible ]. >> job numbers just came out and they're incredible. the job numbers were tremendous. we picked up close to 80,000 new jobs from last report. if you add that up, it's over 350,000 jobs. job numbers just came out a little while ago. they were shocking to the people that were analyzing them. reporter: do you expect more gyrations? >> i think a lot of people are staying here and they are going to be doing their business here, they are going to be traveling here and they will be going to resorts here and you know, so far people come but we will have

americans staying home instead of going and spending their money in other countries and maybe that's one of the reasons that the job numbers are so good. we've had a lot of travel inside the usa. reporter: do you think your administration needs to take more action to diminish the risk of recession? >> well, all we can do is do what we do. i mean, we are getting a lot of business from people staying, which i've always liked anyway. you've known that for a long time. but people are staying here and spending their money here as opposed to going to europe and other places. now, that will change when this goes away and hopefully that will be sooner rather than later. but people, i would say virtually everybody, you saw the job numbers, i guess, people were shocked because you add another 80 or whatever it is, a lot of numbers from last month where they upgraded so the job numbers were a level that nobody thought possible. they were really incredible. reporter: -- stimulus? >> i don't know. we will see whether or not the

fed wants to stimulate. in my opinion, they should because europe is and china is and everybody is but us. i have a fed that is not exactly proactive. i'm being very nice when i say that. [ inaudible question ] >> i think what happens is the fed should cut and the fed should stimulate and they should do that because other countries are doing it, and it puts us in a competitive disadvantage and we have the most prime. we are considered by far the most prime and it's our dollar that everybody uses. the fed should stimulate and they should cut and why should germany have an advantage over us with interest rates? so germany just announced they're stimulating and they're cutting. asia is, all over asia, they are. china is. china is tremendously. we're really not. and we pay higher interest, we have a higher rate and it's ridiculous, frankly. we should have the lowest rate

by far and instead we pay more than other countries. other countries are paying zero and less than zero. you know it very well. and we are paying interest which is a very conservative approach but it's not a good approach because we're also competing against other countries whether we like it or not. even our friends, we are competing against. [ inaudible question ] >> eventually countries have to take care of themselves. we can't be there for another 20 years. we've been there for 20 years. we've been protecting the country. we can't be there for the next -- eventually they will have to protect themselves. this should have been done a long time ago. but you can only hold somebody's hand for so long. we have to get back to running our country, too. you understand that. [ inaudible question ] stuart: the market is now open and as expected, we have opened sharply lower.

a loss of about, what, 750 points for the dow industrials as we speak. i've just -- i point out the president made two important points there. he said look, we've got, we are shipping 700,000 tests right now. next week, four million tests will be shipped. that's good news because now you've got a test, who's got the virus, who doesn't have the virus, you can probably expect more cases to be revealed but now you've got the test and it's moving forward. point number two, the president says the fed should stimulate. everybody else is, why doesn't we. that's not had an impact on the market which is still down as we expected it to be down. all the dow 30 stocks are in the red except for one which has not yet opened, travelers. you can say this is down all across the board. 789 down for the dow as we speak. that's over 3%. okay. let's move on. take me out to the s&p 500. where is that?

have we got a 3% loss in the s&p? 3% down there. as for the nasdaq, this is the home of technology stocks, where are they? down 3%. you've got a 3% drop for the major indicators. big tech, all of it, on the downside, way down. microsoft, apple, google, amazon, facebook, all down. when you start talking percentage losses, you know you've got a selloff on your hands. at the moment, we are down 800. next group of stocks, let me see the cruise lines. man, have they had some bad publicity recently. it continues. carnival is down to $26 a share. off another 5%. royal caribbean, 7% down. norwegian, down 5%. they have already taken a huge hit this week. the airlines, same story. they have already taken a hit and are taking another hit today. very significant losses. do you believe american airlines is down to $14 a share? united, delta, jetblue, southwest, all of them on the

downside. car rental stocks, morgan stanley warning of significant earnings setbacks for the car rental companies because of the virus, that is. hertz, avis, down significantly, 9 p 9% drops for both those stocks. starbucks say they are seeing early signs of recovery in china. their loss, however, continues, down 4%. you've got your hand up. lauren: they are also warning that as business gets back to normal in china, they expect second quarter sales there to be down 50% from last year. it's a slow recovery that they are seeing so far in china. stuart: down 50%. the stock goes down 4%. that's entirely understandable. zoom communications, virus fears making more people work from home. so the stock is down 3%. clorox, where is that? clorox is -- okay. it's down. lauren: 1%. stuart: over the past couple months, it's up 13%, i think it

is. look at that chart. it's up, maybe a little profit taking today but it is up. i also want to show you rekit-benkaiser, a maker of cleaning products. look at that stock. it's down today a bit but look at that stock. the climb is straight up. netflix, we call this a cocooning stock. that's what you do when you can't leave your house for whatever reason. it's down after a very nice move up. >> moderna is up 3% today. that's the company that makes the vaccine. stuart: thank you, doctor. coming to my aid on the market. moderna is up how many percent? >> 3%. stuart: it's a vaccine company. got it. we still have jonathan hoenig, greg valier, scott shellady, lauren simonetti, deirdre

bolton. greg, i like the sound of what the president just said. 700,000 tests shipped this week, four million shipped next week. that sounds to me like an administration which has a handle on the virus. what say you? >> obviously they needed to get up to speed and it looks like they have impressively but at the same time, the fed's not going to bail us out of this. i think the administration has to look at fiscal options. there may be companies including airlines that are going to need federal help. stuart: you think that's likely? i'm going to ask larry kudlow that when he joins us at the top of the hour, 10:00. do you think that's likely that the money will be coming into these distraught industries? >> as larry knows, washington specializes in one thing, spending money. i do think that if it looks as if this is getting worse, there's going to be a look at some tax cuts, some aid to

people who are unable to go to work, temporary measures including even lifting tariffs. i think there's a large basket of options that are now under consideration. stuart: jonathan hoenig, if we went for any of those options, all of which pump money into the economy, would that be good for the market? >> i think you have to draw some distinctions here. removing tariffs are removing taxes, would be a benefit for the economy. slowing spending in my opinion would be a benefit for the economy. but starting to step in, if we get to a point of now starting to bail out companies once again, i've looked at for example some of the u.s. steel stocks that are down since the president's tariffs went into effect, we mentioned the banks a few minutes ago, if we start to get in the position, if the market deteriorates where the government starts to bail out companies, i think that's a terrible ominous sign. what that does is prompt a liquidity dry-up. i think the global financial crisis, the fundamentals were weak but also liquidity was pulled out of the system because of the bailouts. let's hope the trump administration does not go down

that path. stuart: scott, i want to bring you into this. when you start talking about money pumped into ailing industries, you are talking bailout. that's a very ominous thing because it reminds you of 10, 12 years ago, doesn't it. you think it will be a good thing to pump money into ailing industries? >> i'm going to be the debbie downer and say no. this is what it is. there's a lot of smart people out there and i've got an egrarian background so i have a common sense way to look at things. everything that you just mentioned, if any of those things are going to take ma and pa smith out of the house and have them go to a football game or restaurant or public gathering, then do it. but i don't care if you cut interest rates 2% today. they're not coming out of their house because they're scared. chinatown here in chicago has been slammed. nobody's going there. those types of things you just mentioned aren't going to alleviate people's fears. it has to be about the virus and

the virus only, if you ask me. keep an eye on how many cases. if that starts to trend lower, are people getting better, that starts to trend higher, that's when the market will get better and things will get better. but you can't throw money at a problem which is psychological. stuart: okay. greg, look at the pricing of this market, down another 3% today. is this market pricing in a recession? is the market saying we are going to recession? >> it sure looks that way, but there's two markets. there's the equities market that's gotten slammed but you look at interest rates right now, i think we are on the cusp of a dramatic refinancing boom in america with rates this low. stuart: dramatic refinancing boom. are we seeing the start of it? we've got the yield -- sorry, not the yield, the rate on the 30-year fixed rate mortgage all the way down to 3.2%. it could go further south. adjustables, you are in the 2% range. you think that's going to really come on strong with a refi boom

and mortgage boom? you going to see that? >> i think it's a de facto tax cut. absolutely. we have all refinanced probably half a dozen times. you can do it again at much lower rates. it puts money in people's pockets. stuart: do you see any positive impact, let me go to you, scott, do you see any positive impact from the sharp decline in the price of oil and therefore, the coming sharp decline in the price of gas? >> well, i have always said that's the fastest way to put money in consumers' pockets because they fill up their tanks once, maybe twice a week. i know i do. that's going to go immediately into their pockets so that's great news. then we've got manufacturing, especially mining, that's going to suffer from the back of that. they also had very good jobs numbers here today, too. that could be, you know, the opposite side of that effect. they were a real big reason we got out of trouble in '08-09, was really the oil fields really got us where we were going. so i would say this. it's all about the virus and no matter what we do, that has to

be fixed first. i know we can throw the kitchen sink at this problem but remember, ma and pa smith have to be able to be comfortable coming out of their house. until they're not, we're not going anywhere. stuart: let me talk something positive here. that would be the cushion which our strong economy as of right now, it is a strong economy, a cushion which may see us through the next few months as the virus hits. we have a very strong economy. see that jobs report today, up what is it, 273,000 new jobs, and more new jobs added in january that we hadn't reported previously. the price of gasoline is coming way, way down. you are probably going to have a refi boom and housing boom. all of that is positive. so greg, is that the kind of cushion that we really, really need and which other societies don't have? >> fully agree. unemployment could go up a full point to 4.5 and that's still a damn good rate. i think the economy's foundations are so strong that

when we start to come out of this maybe by midsummer, late summer, you are already starting from a really good place. stuart: paul conway, same question. have we got a nice cushion to see us through the next few months? >> i think we absolutely have a fine cushion. look, this is the difference of policies of a generation of opportunity as articulated by the president versus policies that denote a generation of dependency. right now, the consumer in how they are viewing the virus, i have to tell you this, one of the lessons you can take out of all the previous crises we have gone through in 20 years is this. the president can impart the sense of urgency on behalf of the consumer and the citizen but you need to elevate the scientists, get them on television and be able to talk to people because i think the american public can absorb and understand risk but they want qualified information they can take the tough stuff as long as they can comprehend it and put it in context. i think their behavior will come in line. i think you got to get the scientists out there talking straight and make certain the president is seen as driving the

urgency across the entire stake holder community. stuart: scott, to you, please. you say this is all about the virus and you are absolutely right but i'm looking at the president, a relatively calm demeanor last night at the town hall. he said look, we got a plan for every possibility. this morning we hear from the hhs secretary alex azar, you got 700,000 tests going in now, four million next week. i find that reassuring. do you? >> yeah, unfortunately, it seems like we can't even err on the side of caution anymore. we have to err on the side of hysteria. you are exactly right. this economy in the u.s. is the only economy that can really handle what's happening to everybody else around the world with this virus. but can i just bring in one more smell test, okay? we are all extolling the virtues of how great the economy is and what a fantastic jobs number this is. we just cut rates half a percent. we are probably going to do it again in two weeks' time. that doesn't smell right to me. we got to be careful about using

all our bullets we might need down the road on trying to fight a virus which these lower rates won't help. stuart: i hear greg, you are saying yeah, right. rate cuts don't cut it, so to speak. >> the fed is going to run out of ammunition. i fully agree. i also agree with the other speakers on the panel. this is a psychological problem. i was on a flight from toronto to d.c. two days ago. the flight was one-third full. how many cases do you have in canada, two, three? i think people are grossly overreacting to this. stuart: is the market overreacting, greg? >> well, it's hard to say markets are wrong. you can't fight the tape sometimes. you have to respect that. but i think if you put this in perspective, 30,000 to 40,000 people a year die in auto accidents. there has to be some sense of proportion here. >> yeah. stuart: jonathan, are you seeing the bottom here? >> you can't invest in the market based on how many

coronavirus attacks or symptoms are announced. it's not a successful, profitable way to do it. my fear is not necessarily that the cases will spike. we are fortunate, most of us, to live in the united states, still the most individualistic, best health care in the world. my fear is this coronavirus pushes the global economy. you've talked about the bond yields all morning. this is my fear, that the coronavirus pushes the economy writ large into a recession, long term recession, short term recession, one that leaves the broad market basically in a flat line for a couple years. we saw it in 2000 after the financial, the tech stocks imploded. we saw it in 2008, a period of basically moribund stock prices. that's my fear moving forward, not that everyone will get the coronavirus but the economy at least could be chilled for the better part of the next couple years. stuart: we have been open now in the market for 14 minutes. dow is down, s&p's down, nasdaq down, about three percentage points for all of them. big tech, i can't find a group

of stocks, an industry group that is up. they are all on the downside. we do have that flight to safety which is pushing the ten-year treasury yield all the way down, right now it's about .70%. it had been .69. there you go. it touched it again. now you're at .695%, down an astonishing 22 basis points. what have we got on the gap? kristina, closing their new york city offices? kristina: yes. this is their headquarters in new york. this is because an employee has tested positive for the coronavirus. they found out on march 5th so they have asked all of their employees at their headquarters, not the stores, to stay home and work from home. you are seeing most of the retail sector is being sold off with coronavirus fears. gap is down almost 2.5% at $13 roughly. on the bright side, there is other news from gap. gap is appointing the old navy

boss to take over gap as the new ceo on march 23rd. two little nuggets on gap this morning. back to you. stuart: i want to turn to doc siegel. you heard the news there. gap has a problem with its headquarters. its employees there are being told to stay home. >> i knew about that last night. one of the employees there tested positive, on 55 thomas in new york, and everybody is being told to work from home. fear is rampant there. the risk depends on how close you were. stuart: that's what i'm getting at. if you come in contact with someone, you've got to stay home. that ripple effect, isn't it, that's a ripple effect. >> because every place that the person would have gone to, they can't go to the store, can't go to see their doctor, can't go anyplace. that's where they actually have the virus found. imagine the idea that the airlines as we are saying are empty now or concerts are being canceled or in seattle, schools are closing. the fear is so out of proportion

to the medical risk right now that that's what's choking down the economy. that's going to continue. then you start testing people like next week with all these kits going around, you get a few hundred cases and it's going to have an enormous ripple effect. stuart: is it the right thing to do confining people to their homes? is that the way to contain it? >> you contain it, i'm -- if you actually know you have a case of the virus, it makes sense for people who are in contact to stay home, to decrease the amount of spread of an emerging contagion that we as public health officials are trying to get control of. that's it. not this idea of having no gatherings or no meetings. we will be doing this show from home pretty soon. stuart: in these big office buildings in new york city, one person gets the virus, everybody who works in that office building told to stay home. >> that's an overreaction. stuart: that's overreaction? >> that's overreaction. i only want people to stay home who may have come in contact with that person. works nearby them.

they could have kneed s e sneez. it's called contact tracing. to close down a whole building or whole block or whole concert or whole school is a vast overreaction. i had a case recently where somebody flew to seattle, came back from seattle and the school said you know, the person's spouse is a teacher here, they've got to stay home for two weeks. i'm saying wait a minute, the whole city of seattle? they have like 20 cases. vast overreaction. stuart: you've got to contain it. >> by containing the people who are in contact with the people who actually have it. stuart: okay. >> only. stuart: got it. steve cortez is with us, america first action pac. what's the politics of this, steve? you are on the political side of things. i know you are a market watcher as well. give me the politics here. >> look, i think the political reality is this. the united states, there's a lot of unknowns ahead. there's clearly challenges ahead economically. but the united states enters this crisis in a position of incredible strength. we know that from the jobs report we just got this morning, and we are in that position of

strength because of the trump boom, because of the policies of president trump, so we enter this particularly compared to the rest of the world with an economy that is ready to handle this challenge, with the expertise and the will to take this on. i'm very glad that the u.s., particularly compared to the rest of the world, has the economic momentum coming into this crisis to handle it. stuart: okay. bryant brenberg is with us, professor of economics, i do declare. >> that's right. stuart: we have been saying all morning we've got a real strong cushion with this economy. lower gas prices, mortgage refi boom, here it comes, very strong jobs report for january and february. is this a strong enough cushion for us to carry us through without a recession? even though you don't know the full impact of the virus? >> look, you don't know but that is about as good a cushion as you can get. it wasn't just january and february. it was also revision up in december, wages are still strong. the question is what does this mean for potential bounce-back. we don't know the answer to the question when will we get this contained, but when we do, when

confidence is restored, how ready is this economy to move back up. these kinds of job numbers suggest the economy is ready to move back up. there's a lot of confidence coming into this situation. stuart: do you thinthink the fel reserve or the administration should be pumping money into the economy either by tax cuts or just liquidity, shoving it in? would that be a good thing? >> i am always in favor of looking at the tax code again and finding ways to make it more effective, make business investment more attractive. i don't think the fed has a lot of power here. we saw them cut this week and the market shrugged it off. money supply doesn't seem to be the issue. but some stimulus on the tax side could be very powerful. again, the point is how do you get businesses reinvesting when this goes away. everything that you can throw at that is helpful. stuart: okay. let me recap again. first of all, can you show me, please, the yield on the ten-year treasury? i did notice that as it slipped back down into near historic record low territory, that was .69% -- look at that.

we are at .67%. this is the ultimate anxiety indicator. this tells you that money from all round the world probably by the trillion of dollars, trillions, plural, of dollars, pouring into our treasury bonds, pushing up the price and the yield comes down. that is an historic low. .67%. as that yield came down, so too did the stock market, because you got money going into treasuries and out of stocks. right now i think we are down 824 points on the dow industrials. that's better than 3%. in fact, you've got a better than 3% loss on the dow, the s&p and the nasdaq composite. while i've got you here, that's a real anxiety indicator. .67%? >> yeah. look, there's so much uncertainty here, especially around, you said it earlier, the question is how quickly do you get it contained and how quickly do people feel confident about that. this is a psychological issue. that number is the psychology of

the market right now. they want data, not headlines. what they are getting right now is headlines. stuart: i'm going to go round the block for all the experts we have assembled on this program to go through this. my question is simple. what signs, what positive signs should we be looking for, what will be the signal that we are close to a bottom for this stock market? first of all, greg, please. >> well, you reduce the number of new infections. it looks like in wuhan, it's starting to level off. if you see this levelling off start to take hold around the globe, that's the signal. stuart: scott, what's the signal that we are close to a bottom for the market? >> i totally agree with greg. it's not going to be economic, number of new cases and the number of people that are getting over it and getting healthier, and they are out there, speaking about what their symptoms were. when people see that it's not the boogeyman they think it is, that's the bottom. stuart: paul conway, what to you is the signal the economy is bottoming out? i mean, look, it's expanding right now. what's the signal we are at the bottom? >> i think the best signal for

this, stuart, quite honestly, is you had the president on television, you had the scientists on television and people are consuming the information and they consume the information about the impacts of the virus on the most at-risk population because good governance will equal good politics will restore confidence. that's kind of the bottom line here. stuart: on a day when we have a sea of red, that means everything is down, i'm going to go to the new york stock exchange and kristina partsinevelos, who i think may have a couple of bright spots. what do you have? kristina: yes, i do, stu. that's what i was looking for this morning so we could take a break from the doom and gloom. start with enzo biochem. you see it on the screen, $3 so it's a cheap stock, but it's up 34.5% right now. that is because as of next week, they are going to be testing a new covid-19, they have released a new test, more specifically at the molecular level. they will be working on that next week. they just announced it. hence the reason you are seeing

the upswing in the stock price. another bright spot for you, euro euronetices, up 14.5%. this is nothing to do with the coronavirus. this has to do with a device they are working on to help with bipolar depression. in 2008, they were working on a treatment for any adults that didn't react to drugs. this is another device that could possibly help with bipolar depression. i want to end on this little nugget. ge missed out big-time on this upswing because ge sold over 800,000 shares in q4. they were investing in neuronetics. they are missing out on this upswing. stuart: that's a nugget and a tough one at that for ge. thanks, kristina. a moment ago i saw the price of oil dropping to $43 a barrel. yes, it is down there. ouch. lauren: this is 6.4% slide.

they had that meeting in vienna, opec producers, they wanted to cut production. russia said no. now oil is extending the losses on that news. it's also a demand issue. if we -- this weekend will be key, how nervous people are. if we are nervous at all, do we stay home and hunker down or do we go in the car and fill up the gas tank and go to the movie theater and shopping mall. oil is reflecting that. stuart: $42 a barrel. the downside there is american drillers don't make a profit if you are only getting $42 for your barrel of oil. you don't drill so much. that's what's happening there. steve cortez still with us. i understand mr. trump will visit the cdc as originally planned. that's today, i think, right? >> i'm very glad to hear that. look, he's now a wartime president. that is just the reality. the enemy is not some invading army, it's a virus on one hand. he has to do everything he can, including visits like this to the cdc on that front, but then there's also the intangible part which is so important. the other enemy is fear.

he needs to convince americans like a good wartime president that we have nothing to fear but fear itself. he needs to be reassuring. he needs to be the cheerleader in chief for america. i think he's done a very good job of that so far but i think he needs to even accelerate it going forward. the more we see him, the more we hear from him, the more reassuring he can be and his team can be, the more we then defeat that enemy of fear because it is a wartime footing right now. stuart: sure is. jonathan hoenig, back to you. i know that you are a fan of gold. you have been recommending to buy it for some time. but i don't understand why it hasn't really zoomed. in times of crisis, it goes straight up. right now, it's still, what, under $1700 an ounce. what gives? >> interestingly, a lot of the gold stocks, precious metal is up today but a lot of gold stocks are down. these are big moves. big moves take time. you know, a lot of analysts are calling for all-time high of gold, that would put up at least a couple hundred dollars higher from this point. you know, what i can tell you, the history of gold from say

2000 to 2012 it went up every sing year and there were many news headlines over that period, there were wars and terror threat levels, et cetera, election jitters. the big moves take time and there's a lot of news headlines over those big moves. gold isn't up today but i still think long-term you will see prices significantly higher, even if the virus or i should say when the virus does get resolved. stuart: scott, as a long-time trader, would you want to hold stocks over this coming weekend? when you haven't got a clue what kind of virus headlines are going to greet you come monday morning? >> well, i'm starting to see things that have been normally higher like you mentioned clorox earlier in the show. when you start to see those things get washed out, when they had been doing okay because of the virus, you got to start to think we are starting to get close to the bottom here. but at the end of the day, you have asked everybody on the panel what they think would be the end or how we would tell. not really one of us has said it's going to be a monetary issue, more interest rate cuts or targeted company bailouts.

we have all said it's a psychological issue, it's all about the virus, and i agree with steve cortez. the president is in the middle of that war now and being out in front of it >>stuart: greg, are you seeing signs of a washout? >> no and to make a quick comment, stuart, as you well know the people of london in 1941 and 1942 they had a stiff upper lip and acted with great bravery and what if somebody in america said i'm not going to go to the movies because my uncle was in seattle? we've got to toughen up on this. >>stuart: do you think we're panicked, greg? >> yeah, yeah. >>stuart: lauren what do you got lauren: speaking of the panic i have young children and i'm constantly getting e-mails from their gyms and play groups saying what they are doing to disinfect, there are two private schools in manhattan that are closed and also one in paramus, new jersey that are closed because they had to disinfect the schools or there was a basketball meet and at the meet there was someone who might have been infected so there is, i hesitate to use the word "panic"

but there's precaution out there and it's pretty heavy. >>stuart: i'll tell you what i'm doing this weekend actually what i'm doing tomorrow and i live in the state of new jersey and i'm going to go to two grocery stores that i know in the state of new jersey and i'm going to a shopping mall in the state of new jersey and i'm going to new york state to watch woodbur y collins, it's an outlet mall which usually attracts tens of thousands of people from europe and asia because the prices are so cheap and i'll do my own little tiny research there. what's foot traffic like in the weekend? whose laughing there is that you jonathan? >> i'm not laughing but stuart i'm anxious to hear the results of your analysis is. so much of what goes on at the mall, talking the cruise lines and airlines have been killed but this week i've also seen stocks like macy's and kohl's, costco and facebook is the only retailer doing well in this environment, people stocking up on the hand sanitiz ers et cetera and it does look like many americans are

going to stay home for the malls so we're awaiting your analysis early monday morning. >>stuart: why is everybody laugh ing at my mini research operation? lauren: go do it. >>stuart: scott are you making fun of me? >> no, it's the stiff upper lip that was mentioned earlier right carry on and keep shopping, right? >>stuart: all right, everybody, here is the story. it is 10:00 eastern time, and we're going to recap what's been happening this morning and in the last half hour, when the market opened being look at this it is down across-the-board we've got a 3% drop almost now, down 692 on the dow, that's what 2.5% and you're down 2.8% on the s&p and the nasdac is down i can't tell is that 2.75% yeah, something like that down, down, across-the-board. earlier, 8:30 eastern we had what i'm going to call a blowout jobs report. 273,000 new jobs added in the month of february. that is what i'm calling a blow

out. that is a very strong economy, but that report looks backwards. it looks back to february. it doesn't look forward to april , may, and june, when we get the impact of the virus. white house top economic guy larry kudlow, he's going to be joining us, moments from now, i want the very latest from him. outside the stock market, the other dramatic move is this. a huge drop in the yield on the 10 year treasury. it has hit historic lows. a few moments ago we were down to .67% never seen that never come close to that in all my time of doing this and that's over 45 years. the price of goldman it investors see it as a flight to safety and it's up $16 at $16.84 was that not exactly a blowout, can it backtrack a little i want you to listen to what the president had to say about the jobs report. roll it please. president trump: well the jobs numbers are incredible. the job numbers were tremendous, and we picked up close to 80,000

new jobs from last report and if you add that up it's over 350,000 jobs. job numbers just came out a little while ago, and there were shocking to the people that were analyzing them. >>stuart: all right, two minutes past 10, the market is still down, down, down, however, i'm not going to suggest we've hit a bottom, that be a foolish, foolish thing to say, but we have not gone below an 800 point drop. okay? i think that's worth pointing out i know we're only 32 minutes into the session but we haven't gone that low. the low of the day was a minus 825, 830 i think it was. brinberg, as in brian, still with us. i want to get back to the jobs report. i don't want to diminish it, it was terrific. >> i don't think its been baked into the market and people don't know how to make sense because it's backward-looking but it's not just backward-looking when you have three months leading into this virus scare, where

jobs numbers are that strong which means confidence is strong that means something about our ability to come out of this , markets are not paying attention to that because they are so focused on headlines around spread, but as they bake that in , i do think it starts to inspire confidence. 273,000 jobs in february, revised up in january to that same number. stuart we are, you know, 10-plus years into a recovery wow. that's a number we should not be seeing. >>stuart: okay put your wall street hat on. do you see any sign of a bottom for the stock market? >> i think we've been bouncing around that 800 drop number and i think that is meaningful we haven't wanted the press past that. i do think part of that is some of the confidence of the jobs number, investors are fighting between the fear and the possibility that we have a very very strong economy. that's the battle you'll see them going through in the coming days and weeks. >>stuart: i just want to inject a little perspective here. the dow jones industrial average reached its all-time record high on february 12. that's 17 trading days ago, and

that all-time high was 29, 568. look at it now, 25, 438 so you've come down, do the math, 4,000 points sounds like a lot. and it is. it's 11 maybe 12% it's a very rapid decline but a little perspective. we're not in a bad market not even close to a bear market at this point got to go down another 2,500 points before you hit that bear market okay? little perspective what do you got? lauren: i got more perspective today is the 11th anniversary of the bottom of the market. the bull market started 11 years ago today. would any of us make the argument that the coronavirus killed the market 11 years in? >>stuart: that's a good question let me ask the folks here, scott , do you think that the virus kills the bull market which has been running since march, whatever it was, in 2009? >> it's a long expansion. i think the best i would say is that it could stall a bull market. we're going to be with it until

we start to see these virus cases go down, so it could stall , but i also know that with the jobs number you're exactly right. that's a great example how good the economy is and just think about it stuart. that's the direct result of trump tax cuts, less regulation and a deal with china. that's the direct result so we've got a great cushion it just could stall things. >>stuart: steve cortez come in please. do you think the virus kills the bull market? oh, gosh, no listen, i think things might get worse before they get better but by no means is the bull market done not on wall street and main street. i also want to point out about a detail which i think is critical 42000 construction jobs added that's in addition to 49,000 construction jobs added the month before in january. that's fantastic news for the country because that means the very people that president trump promised to deliver opportunity to, the economic underdogs of america, a lot of them minorit ies those people have been benefiting the most from the trump boom, the hispanic

jobless rate for example, stuart now has been below 5% for 22 straight months under president trump. prior to president trump, there had been one month ever with a his pan hispanic jobless rate below 5% way back in 2006 during that housing boom so that tells me that he is in good political shape domestically, that his policies will maintain into his second term because there will be but we have challenged ahead and he has to be a war time president right now andrea sure that the american people that we come into the situation into this crisis in a position of strength and that we can handle it because we're american. >>stuart: brian, i think the president will move heaven and earth to avoid a recession and even a slow down as we head to the election and that means i would not be at all surprised if they jacked in some money at the various industries, lowered rates and do everything they can >> more importantly, i think people know that he would move heaven and earth. he is so committed to this economy and so committed to

jobs and wages. that's the kind of thing over time that brings people back. they have a president who has their back in the economy. >>stuart: is greg still with us? >> yes. >>stuart: greg thank you very much i'm glad you're still here. same question. i think the president will move heaven and earth to avoid a slow down certainly a recession and that means he will do anything he possibly can including putting money in the economy, urging the fed to lower rates, it's a full court press to support this economy isn't it? >> watch the trial balloon stuart over the weekend i think there are a lot of things floated to boost the economy. one other quick point. how is this for irony. this unemployment report was so strong this morning, had it not been for the virus, i think we'd all be sitting around wondering does the fed have to raise rates by summer? >>stuart: good stuff, good stuff now, i want an update on the cruise lines, specifically news on royal caribbean have we got it? >> yes, royal caribbean owns the princess cruises, which has had just problem after problem, whether it was the one that was

docked off the coast of japan, or on our west coast but they are now instituting this cruise with confidence policy so if you are a guest and you have a cruise booked basically you get credit for your entire fare, you use it when you like, let's face it this company had to do this , to hold on to its business, they say it applies to new cruises, it applies to existing cruises, so whatever you want to do, they are just saying we're going to give you your money, you choose when you use it. >>stuart: that might have helped the cruise lines a little bit on the left-hand side of the screen , deirdre, royal caribbean is up a little, norwegian is up a little, carnival cruise lines is up a little but still below $30 a share but nonetheless a minor league comeback. okay the national guard delivered medical kits to a cruise ship and we've got the video. lauren: it's stunning video that comes from the california national guard and they are delivering in these white boxes the coronavirus test kits to the grand princess cruise ship there's 3,500 people on that

ship about 100 are showing symptoms. they need to test them. they aren't allowed to dock until everybody needs to be tested is tested. the doctors on the ship will administer the test and send them to the lab in california and then we'll know something, but already, they are making an effort to see who exactly has what. >>stuart: full core press, can you show me the airlines please because we're talking here about depressed in down industries apart from the cruise lines nobody suffered as much as the airlines i've got a report this morning from lufthan sa, the german airline have canceled 7,000 flights cutting back their capacity by 25%, they have to. nobody is flying what you got lauren? lauren: the trade group says it be $113 billion hit to revenue for global airlines that parallels what we saw during the financial crisis. also a quick note from the wall street pointing out none of these airlines are firing people or laying people off, which is what we saw after september 11. he mentioned that as a contextual point, they are

cutting capacity and down flight s you do have unions, pilot unions refusing to fly into certain areas, but no one has been laid off. >>stuart: i'm looking for bright signs and looking for any possibility that we've got a bottom or approaching a bottom for the market. i see the airlines now moving up , again it's not a huge gain by any means, delta is up, jet blue is up but american it's up look at that level $16 per share okay, what is that? okay, more video of the national guard delivering supplies we got that? okay there you go. look, it's good to television, we like video and when you're making an effort to get the test out there to a cruise ship that's struggling with 100 possible -- >> and the reason why -- >>stuart: that's a cruise ship full of people. >> the reason why california declared a state of emergency yesterday, right there was one passenger on one of these cruise s who they think, not

entirely clear, but who did catch the virus who did pass away, i will mention without minimizing her death it was an older lady who did have an underlying heart problem. lauren: imagine being on that cruise ship though and seeing test kit come down from the sky essentially and then you have to go to the doctor there and wait for the results? >>stuart: on that story about test kits we heard from hhs secretary this morning, standing right behind the president as the president signed the virus funding bill, and alex told us that you've got he's shipped 700,000 test kits, that's this week and next week, you get 4 million. so what i'm trying to get at here, i'm sorry you got your hand up there is what i'm trying to get at is action is being taken, the president in a calm demeanor is reassuring everybody that something is being donald he did say we have plans for every single possibility. now trying to put a floor into

the market but i'm trying to come out with the positives on this virus. >> that's big news next week when you talk about that many test kits and how much more data that's going to give us and how prevalent this is. the downside of it potentially is people look at the increase in the number of cases, and markets panic but i actually think markets ought to look at that favorably. the more data we get on how fatal this is the more markets can bake that in and they can actually react positively so the more data the better that's what the test kits allow. >>stuart: just coming into us now a presidential tweet i'll read it for you. we'll protect your social security and medicare, just as i have for the past three years, sleepy joe biden will destroy both in very short order, and he won't even know he's doing it. okay, now that's the president changing the subject away from the virus and the market and the economy and turning to straightforward politics. that was the tweet we just received. recap the market, down 750 for the dow. that's not quite the low of the day, but we haven't gone lower than a minus 820, so i'm

not going to say we're coming back not going to say anything like that at all. it is a friday. remember that, please, because on a friday, you want to be holding stocks when you don't know what's going to happen come monday morning. scott, did i hear you rumbling away there? >> [laughter] yeah this is like a bad george or well movie i can't believe we're watching scenes of them dropping test kits on a cruise ship. next year at this time, stuart, let's make a deal. i want to see the guy get out of the ups truck and deliver the flu vaccine to the clinic at wall en grews that's what we want to see too, right so getting to the high point. >>stuart: i hear somebody calling my name is that you steve? >> regarding california can i make a political point on what's going on in california? >>stuart: yup. >> i find it fascinating watching this and feel terrible for people that ship, i'm not trying to make light of that situation but it's fascinating that governor newsom suddenly believes in borders this is a guy whose been a complete open borders critic of the president who doesn't believe in national

sovereignty and look at this a lot of citizens of the united states, a lot of residents of his state of california, he suddenly said do you know what? we've got ard barack obamaer that matters and you're going to stay in that harbor until it's safe for you to come into our country. i find the irony there really fascinating. >>stuart: dow industrials now down in the 600 minus column, 693 down, and s&p down 86, nasdac down 233 points, so 45 minutes almost 45 minutes into the friday trading session, we haven't gone lower than a minus 820 on the dow, and we've stabilized if i dare say stabilized for heaven sake don't laugh outloud please but we are somewhat stable at the minus 2.7 -2.8% all across-the-board. now just show me the airlines again i'm just in treeinged. we just saw a momentary blip up a few green arrows on the airlines, and i'm wondering if that's a bottom for them. look at that, yeah that's still up, not much.

not much. >> stuart, it's almost -- >>stuart: the producer is saying you're right. hold on a second, jonathan. we've got delta up 2%, jet blue is up i think that's 4% and american is up nearly 3%, jonathan, this is what is it? cheaper jet fuel? >> cheaper jet fuel, and much cheaper stock, stuart. some of these airlines are down 40% in the better part of a month. this is a historic move. i haven't seen anything like it since the terrorist attacks of 9/11 some 20 years ago. you mention the cruise line as well. cruise lines yesterday had their biggest drop many of them their biggest drop effort ever a lot of them are trading at decade- plus lows and if you were looking for an area you'd want to buy and maybe not look at for a couple years, airlines and cruise lines, those really the ground center for this terrible virus is probably a good place to start picking up bargains. >>stuart: isn't that the thing? if you've got some money, and you don't care what happens to

it for at least two years, in other words you can invest in something that you think is dirt cheap now, walk away from it for a couple of years, and you probably are going to be okay, unless this is a thundering down side move that never stops. what do you say? >> look i'm still a little bit nervous about the airlines here. if you look at how coronavirus is effecting how people are changing the way they do business, i don't think a lot of these moves working at home, teleconferencing are going to be temporary moves. i think you'll see new ways of doing business. that hurts airlines over the long term. every organization out there is going to may backup plan and it could become their first plan if they like how it works and saves them money, that's going to be very bad news for airlines, not just the next two months but for the next 20 years. >>stuart: if you can work successfully from home why go back to work? lauren: norwegian airlines says as of today they have sold over two-thirds of their available seats for march.

>>stuart: who? lauren: norwegian air. as of today they have sold over two-thirds of their available seats for the month of march. demand is effected by the coronavirus but people are still booking tickets especially in the near future. >>stuart: but that's norwegian air. lauren: well still but it's an airline saying we're booking seats you don't think that's encouraging? >>stuart: i'm not down on norwegian, but major league carriers aren't they? lauren: i know but people are booking tickets is my point. >>stuart: okay you've made a point. lauren: i thought that was a great little tid bit. >>stuart: it was and the airlines are still up, now american is up 5%, they were listening to you, see? you have clout in the marketplace. lauren: oh, man don't send me to norway. >>stuart: who was in my ear, steve cortez or brian or whose on me? >> stuart can i make a quick comment? when trump talked about sleepy joe biden and then you hear this egregious comment from

schumer the other day i think this is a time when the politician should tone it down. we all agree that psychology is important. i think having the same old tired sound bite, ripping into each other, is something the public would say is on both your houses. >>stuart: i have to show you something now that's important, larry kudlow is with us national economic counsel director, mr. larry kudlow joins us from the white house, good morning larry. >> good morning, stu thank you. >>stuart: before we get into the jobs report which i'm sure you're very eager to talk about are you considering, are you recommending to the president that the administration pump some money into distressed industries? bailout in other words? >> well i don't like the term bailout. what we are looking at stuart is a timely and targeted micro approach. we are not looking to give everybody $1,000, which would not have any long term growth effects on the economy. we've done this before under

both parties and it does not work. i think in a situation like this , where each day we're doing the best we can to compile information and to take a look at the virus situation, we're looking at things like people who may be stranded at home and will lose pay, small businesses in certain areas, certain sector s, we may wish to help them with some cash flow, perhaps stu on a larger scale, some of the sectors might need temporary assistance there are a number of things i look at it as a micro and targeted and timely and i think that be the most effective response, but we don't want to act prematurely, because today's numbers show that the u.s. economy is in very good shape. >>stuart: we've been saying all morning we've got a really good cushion to work from here, but let's get back to the president

and what he said the virus funding signing this morning. he was urging the federal reserve to cut rates, again, and quickly, now, we have a lot of comment on the show this morning but really i wouldn't do that much good to the economy, are you on board with lower rates from the fed? >> well i think, look, i think in a sense the president is just following the markets, so the drop in long term rates, as well as movements in the fed funds futures market are predicting additional fed rate cuts, so i think that's where he's going on this. i think and by the way, i agree the feds should be market-driven i also want to say this , stu. i don't think it's so much monetary stimulus. that's sort of an old demand side word. there's my concern is theres a lot of deflation in these signals. broad commodities index, silver, gold, energy, oil, natural gas,

you know, in the bond market the various breakeven tips. there's a lot of, so what i'm saying is i think there's a huge demand for dollars. a huge demand worldwide and i think the fed, actually, i am supporting, the fed did a great job let's give him some credit. they may have to do more. we will wait and see on that. the point is if there's a huge global dollar demand, i don't want to create a massive worldwide deflation and the fed should supply more dollars. that's as far as i'd like to go on that. >>stuart: are you in a position t offer any kind of estimate as to how much this economy will slow down or take a hit because of the virus? i know it's early days and i know it's a projection which is difficult to make but can you give us some indication? >> well look what i know is that for the first two months of the first quarter the economy is

outperforming all expectations. the atlanta fed gdp now is 2.7% for q1. march is coming we'll get new numbers and so forth. these job numbers are phenomenon they are just phenomenonal. there's 350,000, and inside the numbers you seen big movements in construction, size of the movements in manufacturing. the blue collar boom is still very much in place, stu. you see the wage numbers times hours worked which have also went up is almost 5% as a proxy for middle income wage en earn ers much stronger than their plant managers all of those trump themes are very very much in place and look it gives us a very solid economic foundation to deal with whatever may come, with respect to the coronavirus. >>stuart: other societies don't have that. europe is largely in recession. >> that is correct.

>>stuart: chain is at a stand still, we've got the cushion but one of the main stories we've been covering is this extraordinary decline in the yield on the 10 year treasury. larry we just hit .67%. should i welcome that or should i be concerned about it? >> well, stu if you own a mortgage, you have a floating rate mortgage? >>stuart: okay, it's good for that. >> you'd welcome that wouldn't you? >>stuart: i would but look that's a panic signal isn't it? you drop all the way down to .67 %? >> look markets are markets. i don't want to say they are right or wrong, but markets are markets. i think there's a big fear factor of the market. you've heard me say this. i don't know some people say i shouldn't say this warren buffett has said this i'm a long term investor. i look at the long run health of the economy. i look at a president whose policies on taxes and regulation s and trade and oil have boosted the trajectory of

the economy, it will withstand a temporary virus so i have said and i will repeat, long term investors should think about going back into the stock market because there's a lot of cheaper prices. now, the bond market is probably signaling expectations about fed policy, there's certainly no inflation. there's deflation, stu more than inflation, so i don't know the market, right now our judgments regarding policy, this idea of targeted and timely micro policies, our judgments, our conditions, yes, on the markets but we have to look at real-world data, physical data, and the reports coming in from various industries like transportation and gaming and so forth. our job is to take it all in and we're doing the best we can as rapidly as we can. >>stuart: larry klayman we look forward to this weekend, maybe an announcement about these micro policies these micro

stimulus policies? >> i could not speculate on that, stu. just wouldn't speculate. all i can say is anything in treasury, secretary mnuchin and i and others, we're looking at a whole variety of issues. we will be in constant contact with president trump, and i don't want to predict the timing of it but i just want to give you, i think i've given you more info today. we're not looking at big expensive macro cash rebate, helicopter money from the sky that never works. we want to have this targeted in a timely fashion for those areas that have been hit the worst and i just want to repeat, the view of our distinguished veteran healthcare people from cdc and elsewhere, most americans have very low risk of contagion, that's so important, and most

americans if they do get the virus, 80% are them recover. some of them don't even know they have it. those folks who are, you know, elderly, that's a problem and they have to exercise great caution, but in terms of the economy, in terms of this healthcare analysis, what i'm suggesting is healthy folks should and can go about their business. we should not be afraid to travel domestically. where there are clear warnings in places like seattle i get that okay? that's just common sense but in general terms it's fine. we should not be afraid to travel internationally outside of the areas where we have issued warnings. i mean, in italy for example,, certainly china is still a big problem, south korea, and there are others so using common sense , using the travel warnings the reality is most people are in great shape they aren't going

to get the virus and the risk is low and if you do get the virus you'll be okay and come through this very well and incidentally i think it's germaine, we talked to the biotech and pharma companies with the president and vice president and they will have medicines out in may, june, july, august, the therapies are coming and the vaccines are well on their way too that'll take longer but the actual medicines are coming and we have done this free market economy, backed up by a president who put in travel bans right away, and then established the quarantine methods to follow through, we are in pretty darn good shape to handle this crisis, and the stuff we don't know that's going to happen in the future and we will act on it immediately. >>stuart: one last one if i may, larry. i've been talking to a lot of people about what i do for a living and a lot of them say this reminds me of the crash in

2007 and 2008. will you knock that one down? >> i just this has nothing to do with the crash. nothing to do with the crash. >>stuart: any similarities? >> this is not a financial issue. look, stu, we were both covering it, both part of that business. this is completely different. this is really a one-time external shock. the crash, we don't have time to go into the cause of the crash but they are multiple in their financial. i think the fed by the way has acted properly to stop some kind of financial virus as some people have called it. and the crash coming out of the crash for years and years, stu, years and years, this is not the same. the time period here, my view at least the view of our health experts is months not years, months not years. this too will pass. i don't want to downplay it and in many cases it's a huge an tragedy and i don't want to

downplay the importance of that but most important thing for our president and vice president is the health and security of american people, but this too will pass. the financial crash, complex things, lasted a long time. this has nothing to do with that , completely separate and apart and just look at these numbers today, let's not forget. people are saying well it's the least important number i've ever seen because it's the past. no it's not. economies are dynamic. this shows you that fundamental ly, the economy is strong, and strong economies can weather external shocks be the health otherwise. >>stuart: larry kudlow we'll leave it at that but we do thank you for coming on the show. thank you, stu appreciate it. >>stuart: thanks, larry. recap what larry kudlow had to say, because i believe it moved the market. in particular he talked about micro stimulus, people are los ing pay, and we can get some government money for them, back them up a little bit.

if they can't afford the treatment they've got to go for maybe we can get money to them there. it's micro. it's not across-the-board bail out of whole industries but this administration is targeting very narrow areas, not the stimulus but to make sure those narrow areas are okay. when we went into that interview i believe the dow was down about 750 points something like that at the end of it, 20 minutes later we're down 439 points i think larry kudlow moved the market with that micro stimulus idea. he also nailed it. this is nothing like the crash of 2007-2008 nothing like it. he says we will come through this in months, not in years, as it took us to get over the crash. let's go around the block for the people i have on the panel here, you were listen ing brian to what larry kudlow had to say. main point, go? >> he's threading the needle between being short and not panicking, which is exactly what

you need to do and he's doing it by offering data evidence and historical comparison that's what the market is buying. >>stuart: jonathan quickly your impression? >> i was happy to see him reassure the market. i'm a little worried the devil is in the detail about the so-called micro stimulus. there's a lot of people who would say they need stimulus, so the devil is in the details but you're right the market was down 700 plus points when your interview began, its cut that loss quite substantially since. >>stuart: scott, what do you got to say? >> i love how he said do you know what we will get through this. we are going to get through this and when we do, it's going to be quick because of these jobs numbers today that tell us when we do get through this we'll recover, quicker than the last time, because it's not an economic problem. it's just a virus. once wu get through the virus the economy will weather the storm. >>stuart: now we're down 400 points, greg come in please i'm sure you listened to what larry had to say your impressions?

>> well we said earlier, stuart watch the leaps this weekend, the trial balloons there's a basket and a lot of micro components to that basket. one other quick point it's a good thing trump gets to atlanta just like the royal family went into the subways in 1944 you've got to see that leadership, assuring people psychologically. >>stuart: what was that expression from the brits, stay calm and carry on? i think that was the expression, stay calm and carry on. it's a good one actually. >> yes. >>stuart: my producer just said keep calm and carry on. you'd stay calm in america, and keep calm in britain. there's a subtle difference there. you keep shopping. you don't stay shopping that's for sure. all right with me now is tammy bruce and i want tammy to address the politics of this. i think the president will move heaven and earth to avoid a real serious slowdown or a recession

before the election and he will move heaven and earth to make sure that this virus is contained and we get through it as quickly as possible. how do you think he's doing so far? >> i think he's doing fine. his attitude from the beginning has been like his first press conference saying look this is like the flu and it literally is even the solutions of course to this is the same solutions that we have for the flu. wash your hands stay away from sick people, take care of yourself, if you're sick, don't go to work et cetera so the silver lining here is that because the flu season already just this year 18,000 people have died, from the beginning of the 2019-2020 season, 280,000 people have been hospitalized. in the height of the week of the coronavirus panic, 100 children died in this country. we don't hear about that, people get the flu, that's important, it's also though only about 55% effective rate this year, but that's almost double what it was last year so we know how to deal with these things you don't see

people panicking over the flu, and this is something that even with the assistant secretary of health said to congress i believe just yesterday or the day before, the best estimates now worldwide of the fatality rate, the mortality rate ofcovid-19 is sherwood where between 0.1 and 1 % similar if not identical to the flu rate. >>stuart: interesting. >> as that number is going to become more apparent as more tests are delivered the american people will see the reality of what this is, because right now, it is the uncertainty and that the news interestingly, media, is covering this as a panicked framework versus the reality of the nature of what's going to happen. >>stuart: and the president's demeanor. he was calm in the down hall last night. he is probably trying to get to the cdc in atlanta later on today, health and human services today at the signing certainly with the president said look,

we've got 700,000 test kits on the way this week, 4 million next week, so is he projecting it's a fine line. you've got to clamp down on the panic and you don't want to say how do you think he's doing? >> i think he's fine and even the pundits and others of his first press conference were in some ways complaining he wasn't panicking that he wasn't urgent enough but the fact of the matter is the american people are smart and we must look at the difference between how these individuals are looking at and dealing with the flu as we do every single season, we live our live, we go and enjoy sporting events, we travel, i'm flying this weekend i know you're going to the outlet store, so so we're doing that but let's remember this framework that we have been through this , this is kudlow' comments about this being completely unique from the nature of what happened before is important but we are in a political season, it is an election year. don't let these politicians who have an interest drag you along by your ear, making you afraid

when you do not need to be. and it's people with pre- existing respiratory dynamics that are at risk that's the pollution in china, iran, the smoking rates of men and china who are the most afflicted, it's copd, emphysema, the elderly. check on your neighbors. if you want to make a difference make sure the people in your own family but also the people in your neighborhood and your building are okay. it's the elderly, or if you have a preexisting condition, just like with any respiratory illness, watch out for those people and yourself. >>stuart: and declare it. >> indeed. >>stuart: thanks very much, tammy. right now i have an update on royal caribbean cruise lines making news? >> they certainly are stuart saying they are going to deny boarding to certain passengers, they are also saying with equal

voice. >>stuart: what passengers? >> any guests traveled main lane china, south korea or italy in the past 15 days, so they are saying any person come from these places basically has a right to be turned away, however they are also saying all guests who are denied boarding, due to these restrictions, will receive full refunds. >>stuart: as you can see , left-hand side of your screen the cruise lines are actually that's not much of a bounce, bearing in mind how much value they'vevery lost but they are up right now, royal caribbean is up 4%, 4% gain for norwegian and carnival still below $30 a share but carnival is the one who owns the princess cruise line and that's the one that's really had pr issue after pr issue so they have really taken all of the pr hits so far. >>stuart: check that market one more time for you the dow industrials are now down 480 points, remember please when we started the interview with larry kudlow we were down over 700 and

now we're down 470. the nasdac is down, 1.9% and they have been down 3% at the opening bell and the s&p is down 2%, it too was down 3% at the opening bell this morning. the next big thing we're watching, president trump in tennessee. he left last hour, to survey the damage caused by that tornado in nashville earlier this week. he is expected to land soon and you can be sure you'll see it here. this is a live action show.

so people can experience speeds that ultra wideband can deliver. 1.7 gigs here in houston. 1.8 gigs here in frigid omaha. almost 2 gigs here in los angeles. that's outrageous. it's like an eight-lane highway compared to a two-land dirt road.

>> the blue collar boom is still very much in place, stu you see the wage numbers times hours worked which have also went up is almost 5%, as a proxy for middle income wage earners much stronger than their plant manager, all those trump themes are very very much in place and

look, it gives us a very solid economic foundation to deal with whatever may come, with respect to the coronavirus. >>stuart: okay, that's what larry kudlow said when he said that about these targeted stimulus very narrowly targeted he moved the market we're down 700 and now down 370. we have a presidential tweet coming at us that is fake news that hhs second azar is side lined from the great job he's doing on the virus task force with a total confidence of the vp and myself and doing a fantastic job as the numbers were indicated and by the way, secretary azar was right behind the president this morning in the white house went he signed the virus funding bill and he actually announced right there in the white house this morning, 700,000 test kits going out this week, 4 million next week. the market continues to make a little progress, now we're down

370, we've come back four maybe 500 points from where we were earlier today, and certainly come back 400 points from where we were before larry kudlow interviewed with us this morning what else have i got here? i think we should mention that president trump as he signed that bill this morning, the virus funding bill, as he signed it, he called for federal reserve stimulus, he said look the fed should be stimulate stimulating because everybody else in the world is stimulating he wants rate cuts and maybe he wants some qe, forgive me for saying this but that is quantitative easing, that means pushing money into the economy. he wants stimulus he was very clear, dow is down 380 that is 1.5%, we've cut the loss in half okay can we go back and see some of the blocks of so stock, the big techs all down earlier,

where are they now? have they come back a little bit show me, please, thank you. the amazon has come back, apple is down only $3 i say only $3 as they're down a lot more than that, facebook is down $3 at 182 , airlines, they've come back , and look. they're not going to come all the way back from their recent losses because they have a little bit of a bounce this morning. look at american airlines 5% up but still at $16 a share. do we have china stocks, alibaba is down, j. d..com is down, there is news that china is coming back. gotten over the worst of the virus outbreak there. boeing is actually coming back a little bit but its got a long way to go, 262 on boeing, bought it at 331.

the chipmakers is a forward indicator they are down this morning but again, they've come back. not a lot but they have come back. texas, qualcomm, broadcom, on the downside, but again not as much. gold stocks, let's look at them. they are down this morning, of course can't explain that but they are down. the home builders where are they bearing in mind, please we've got to have lower mortgage rates the home builders are down but not that much, except for lanar , which i see is down what 2.5%. the financials they do not do well when you've got sharply lower interest rates and they politicos renot doing well this morning. when i say lower interest rates i mean the yield on the 10 year treasury which is all the way down to .67 or .68% historic lows that does not help the morgans of this world, goldmans or citigroup as well. drugmakers everybody is struggl ing to get themselves a

vaccine or some kind of treatment for this , that they are down this morning, pfizer, merck, eli lilly i keep saying they're down but not as much as they were. i'm sure that energy stocks are really going to be really hurt this morning, and yes, they are. bp is down $31 a share on bp, exxon back to $48 a share. chevron is down to 94. why is the sell-off in energy? that's very very simple. the price of oil this morning dropped to $42 a barrel not sure exactly where it is now it may be at 43 but that is historically a very very low level, and it appears to be heading south because the russians would not sign on with opec to cut oil production. therefore you've still got this , a lack of demand, down goes the price, down go the energy stocks. travel companies, they've been hit hard recently coming back just a little this morning, expedia is up 1%, bookings

holdings up 2%, trip advisor, that is up 1% but from very very distressed levels. back to the cruise lines, where are they? they are up. well they've been down for so long, they're due for a little bit of a revival and that ain't very strong revival but i'm sure they will take it. leisure stocks, i'm not sure what leisure stocks are, peloton , oh, okay, is that a leisure stock? is that how you -- >> depends how you ride your bike. >>stuart: you don't leisurely ride your peloton now do you? they are shouting at you aren't they? >> yeah. >> turn down the volume and take a break. >>stuart: come on, sweat a little bit more stu. peloton is down, netflix, oh, that is a stock had been doing very well, down $5 today and walt disney, i suspect that is a bounce from an extraordinary low. that was at about what, $150 a share just a few weeks ago, back

in mid february, or early february i think it was, now you're at 114 and that bounced to $0.13 isn't exactly much of a bounce, but maybe disney hit a bottom. i think it was at 112 at one stage. hotel stocks, who stays in hotels these days not many people. they are really depressed, coming back a little for higher same with marriott, but intercontinental down a fraction do we have more, yes, we do. i want this sound bite, again, from larry kudlow, we don't have it okay. all right let's see now the dow is down 382, the s&p is down 51 and the nasdac is down 44. any comment, brian? >> yeah, i think we should talk about what larry kudlow said and how he said it. the president was talking about stimulus he wanted big stimulus. larry kudlow did something very interesting he said stimulus is definitely on the table but it's not going to be panic stimulus. it's going to be targeted. that's really important. if you do a big stimulus here,

people start saying whoa is this much worse than we thought, he's saying there are some spots that need help, that's where we will go he did a really nice job again of threading that needle. >>stuart: by the way he went out of his way to say this is nothing like 2008, absolutely and completely different, because if you're in this business, like i am, and you have anybody else in the financial business, there will be people coming up to you saying hey, is this another crash? and kudlow says no it's not. >> because it's not systemic, it's from the outside it looks more like a natural catastrophe that's very different. >>stuart: got to go to a break but i'll tell you this we're waiting for the president to arrive in tennessee, he's going to survey the damage from the tornado and we're going to head to nashville, right after this. the world is 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 a 97-year-old firm built for right now. edward jones. it's time for investing to feel individual.

instead of using aloe, or baby wipes, or powders, try the cooling, soothing relief or preparation h, because your derriere deserves expert care. preparation h. get comfortable with it. it's surprising how the bigger a city gets... the smaller it starts to feel. which makes it even more surprising, how big it feels in here. with sliding rear seats... and more available second row legroom than say... a chevy suburban. this is the completely reimagined 2020 ford escape.

wthat's why xfinity hasu made taking your internetself. and tv with you a breeze. really? yup. you can transfer your service online in about a minute. you can do that? yeah. and with two-hour service appointment windows, it's all on your schedule. awesome. so while moving may still come with its share of headaches... no kidding. we're doing all we can to make moving simple, easy, awesome. go to xfinity.com/moving to get started.

it's our most dangerous addiction. and to get the whole world clean? that takes a lot more than an alternative. so we took our worst vice, and turned it into the dna for a better system. materials made from recycled plastic woven and molded into all the things we consume. we created bionic and put the word out with godaddy. what will you change? make the world you want.

stuart: new presidential tweet. here it is. spoke to governor newsom early this morning about the cruise ship quarantined off the california coast. coronavirus test kits have been delivered. testing is taking place now. the president has to work with the governor of california. he's doing it. later on today, he's -- we understand he plans to go to the cdc. that would be in atlanta. hands-on president. how is the politics of this working out for the president?

liz: you see that despite major issues between california and the president, this work needs to get done. the president is making that happen. the american people are seeing him behave in a consistent way. donald trump has made promises, he's delivered on them, regardless of whether you support him or not, you know what to expect from him. he has an attitude of getting something done, he expects things to get done quickly which of course, has been a problem sometimes with government but also, when it comes to the testing, remember there was the glitch in the beginning about whether or not people could be tested because of regulations. the trump administration has reversed that regulation from the obama era which is why now all these tests go out and why local hospitals and doctors can get tests done when they need them to get done so they are working on the regulation front, actual testing. the president's encouragement and his personal involvement is perfect. stuart: thank you. we are waiting for the president to arrive in tennessee. he will survey the damage from the nashville tornado this week.

we take you there next. [ applause ] thank you. it's an honor to tell you that liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. i love you! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

by consolidating your credit card debt into one monthly payment. and get your interest rate right so you can save big. get a no-fee personal loan up to $100k. stuart: now we are coming up on 11:00 eastern time. i'm going to give you a market check all across the board. we are down. you will see plenty of red arrows. this is the fear of what kind of impact the virus is going to have on our economy and on corporate profits. right now, the dow is off 400. that's about 1.5%. it has cut its loss in half. meanwhile, an absolutely blowout

jobs report earlier this morning. look at this. 273,000 new jobs in february, showing a very strong economy january and february of this year. moments ago, larry kudlow weighed in on those numbers. roll tape, please. >> the blue collar boom is still very much in place. you see the wage numbers times hours worked, which also went up, is almost 5% as a proxy for middle income wage earners, much stronger than their plant managers. all those trumpian themes are very, very much in place and look, it gives us a very solid economic foundation to deal with whatever may come with respect to the coronavirus. stuart: we've got a solid cushion from a great economy early in the year. look at this. this is my anxiety indicator. the yield on the ten-year treasury. earlier, it hit an extraordinary record low of .67%.

it's bounced right back up again to .76%. as that yield started to come back up a little, stocks lost much of their downtime momentum. as yields come up a little bit, you can expect stocks to come back a bit as well. david bahnsen is with us. wait a second. also happening this hour, president trump will be arriving in nashville, tennessee, touring the damage from the hurricane. the president has declared a major disaster in the area, making federal funding available. got it. grady trimble is there. grady, when he gets off the plane, gets off air force one, is there any opportunity to talk to reporters very quickly, because he rarely shies away from a camera and if he says something, he might move the market. i want to know if he's going to say anything. reporter: we will keep an eye on that, but to be perfectly honest with you, we don't know exactly where he's going to go. we just know that he's going to be here very soon and when he

arrives, as i said, we don't know the areas he's going to tour but he's going to see areas like this all over nashville and all over putnam county as well as a few other surrounding counties here in tennessee. amazingly, the people who are inside this home, they survived this tornado. they woke up in the middle of the night to see the damage or they were woken by the tornado, then aftermath like this. i mean, look at that. this is inside their house. lot of people in this area cleaning up after all of this damage. i talked to them about the president's visit. they want to see the president. they want him to see the damage here because as you mentioned, it is a disaster now and that opens up the federal funding. they want that. they need that here, obviously, when you see all this damage, but also, they want him to see how positive this community has been and how it's been able to bounce back. we see people all over this neighborhood and all over this community helping out, people who didn't see any damage are helping. people who did see damage, i

just saw the people who own this house, who have lost everything, give food to a police officer who has been patrolling the area. it's been really uplifting here despite the devastation. stuart: we will get back to you when the president arrives and see if he does actually talk to any reporters. i see air force one on the left-hand side of the screen. i believe he's landed there in nashville. i think he has, at least. i'm not sure exact location. anyway, we are on top of that. he's arrived in nashville. i hope he speaks to reporters. if he does, you will know it real fast. now, come in, david bahnsen. are you buying anything right now? >> sure. we have been buying throughout the week, with the cash we have safeguarded for a week like this. we deployed across the equity portfolio where we had cash as dry powder. at this point, we kind of put our positions on and i think asset allocators like us have to let it play out because you are in the position you're in.

we can't do it as a timing mechanism. stuart: okay. but do you see any sign of a bottom? >> from a technical standpoint, this is panic selling. when you get to the point where the vix breaks out to near 50, that's when you are close to a bottom. i have gone through it about 25 times in history, the vix has exploded like this, and all 25 times, you had a higher return in the market 90 days later. the problem is that doesn't mean it doesn't go lower monday or tuesday. so i don't worry about those things for my clients. my clients have longer than a two-day and two-week timeline, but i don't want to give our viewers the impression we are calling a bottom in 72 hours. we just can't do it, as you know. stuart: let me relate something which i think did help the market. about an hour ago we began an interview with larry kudlow, the president's tomorrow economic

adviser, and he said, one of the things he said really caught my attention. he said the administration is considering targeted help for those individuals and groups of individuals who may have been hurt by the virus. people who have lost pay, for example, or perhaps people who couldn't pay their medical bills because of the virus. that seemed to lift the market. do you think that that kind of targeted approach, targeted putting money out there, is a good thing? >> it would all depend on the execution. in theory, i always love the idea of less government intervention than more. however, i certainly understand there's pockets here where there can be meaningful and helpful and acceptable intervention. i'm far more in favor of targeted stimulus than broad-based obama type stimulus across the economy and, by the way, the monetary stimulus which is utterly worthless in this environment. stuart: i think that's pretty

much exactly what larry kudlow had to say, as a matter of fact. >> larry and i say the exact same thing pretty much all the time. stuart: i knew that. i know you are good friends with him, too. david dietze, the economist kind of guy, with us now. i like the idea of targeted narrow help for groups of individuals. do you think it would help? >> absolutely. i would characterize this almost as humanitarian aid, the type of thing we see after a hurricane. no one should let them just deal with it on their own if there was an earthquake. i don't want to see any airline worker or cruise worker be laid off because of this. this is so different from the so-called bailouts in 2008-2009 where arguably, wall street got themselves into trouble by getting too far out on their skis. this is something that has nothing to do with these companies. it's something from nature and that's the perfect situation for government with targeted assistance. stuart: now, larry kudlow also said look, we've got a terrific cushion for our economy. very strong economy january and

february, terrific jobs report, 273,000 new jobs. that is a cushion which other societies don't have but which will see us through probably through the bad times in the next few months. you agree with that? >> i couldn't agree more. you got the low interest rates, you've got unemployment down to a 50-year low again. we have such a tail wind. of course, the deregulatory situation, when this economy meets what is basically the virus here is not stage iv cancer. let's put it into perspective. we have never not come back from a virus situation. stuart: paul conway is still with us, doing valiant work, sitting around for the last couple of hours. we appreciate that. we really do. you are our labor guy. here's my question. i see work at home spreading vigorously, all across the country, to keep people away from each other during the virus scare. you think they will ever go back to regular work in the office? >> i think they will, but i do think that, look, we talked about this earlier, there's been

a shift in how businesses plan for emergency contingencies after 9/11. telework and telecommunications technologies that are now out there and commonplace allow this to happen. it will be an interesting test how long the virus goes on to see how this imbeds and whether or not you can actually drive more telework options into non-white collar sectors as well to make us more resilient. let me tell you one other quick point. larry kudlow made a very important distinction which is this. this is a public health crisis with economic implications. it is not an economic crisis. i think that's an important thing to keep in mind. we are managing the implications and the president is doing that with the private sector, with pharma executives and with the governors. the governors play a massive role in how this is going to work over the next four or five months. stuart: larry kudlow did say this, too, shall pass. i heard that frequently recently. now then, the president is about to get out of air force one. he's in nashville, tennessee. he's going to inspect the damage

there. he's got emergency funds available now for the state of tennessee. when he's done there, we understand that he's going to go on to the cdc center in atlanta, georgia. kind of a hands-on visit to the center of our antivirus effort. dr. marc siegel is back with us. doctor, i guess you would think that's a good thing that the president goes to the cdc, that the test kits are getting out there, 700,000 this week, four million next week. all this is -- how do you judge the president's response to the virus? >> i think there has been a pretty coordinated effort and i think it's being underplayed and has led to way too much political division. he's been trying to send a calm message. you saw it this morning with him. an anti-fear message. a message of business as usual but we are taking this very seriously. him going to the cdc is a really good idea. he needs to meet with dr. redfield and the leaders there, go over the plan. the idea of getting the test

kits, i as a physician think the test kits are going to be more useful to tell people they don't have the virus. because you know what happens? people hear that it's in the city or in a block they were on and they don't know, so they worry and fear is a really positive driver here, not just of markets but of public perception. i think the calm leadership he's showing, i think the public leaders we have on the task force are doing a great job also. stuart: i want to update everybody on this remdesivir. that's a treatment of covid-19. it's made available by gilead sciences. you have some experience with this. i want you to tell us if it's an effective treatment for covid-19. >> by the way, the only stock that seems to be up today, gilead. stuart: on the screen, if we can. gilead sciences. >> i spoke to the doctor who is actually running the study from nebraska, when i was out there last week, and he says it's very promising. they are still in the early stages of testing it against

covid-19, but they gave it to that patient in washington state who got better from it. probably one of the patients in nebraska got it, he was in a clinical trial where you have to try a placebo out. several patients are in the process of receiving it. they think it's very promising. not a cure, but for people that have severe symptoms, to help relieve the symptoms, get them better. and everyone that was there in nebraska in the facility, all 14 patients have recovered or are in the process of recovery. stuart: look at that on the screen, the stock is up about 1.1% but it's had a terrific run anyway and it's moving up a bit more today. remdesivir? >> it's a biotechnology company. got a lot of good drugs in the pipeline. remdesivir is an antiviral drug. targeted therapy against viruses. it didn't work well against ebola. it seems much better suited to the coronavirus. stuart: good stuff. thank you, dr. siegel. on the right-hand side of the screen, the president is about to exit air force one, landing

on the tarmac in nashville, tennessee. he will inspect the damage. main point here is, he's going to go on to the cdc in atlanta. that's as we understand the plan. i do believe he will go there. hands-on president getting a grip on the virus. now, let's recap. we are back down 500 points on the dow industrials. that's pretty much a consistent loss of 2% now across the board. we have come back down a little bit more but the low this morning was a minus 800 change. that reversed when larry kudlow told us about this targeted stimulus that he's talking about. i did ask him, can we expect an announcement this weekend, because i mean, stock investors would love to hear that kind of announcement. he demurred and said they are discussing all types of options, would not discuss any timetable for any announcement of any kind but they are looking at targeted stimulus. there you go. the president, there he is.

maga hat included, walking down the gangway there. that is nashville, tennessee. we are hoping that he will -- there will be some reporters close by. they will shout questions and the president will no doubt answer. i don't think we are there yet but if there are any shouted questions and answers, you will be hearing it real fast because he could move the market this morning. larry kudlow certainly did. steve hilton is with us, host of "the next revolution" on fox news. he is in silicon valley. there's a cruise ship with a lot of passengers on board who might have the virus and it's right off the coast of california. what's the mood there? people freaking out? i hate to use that expression, but are they? >> they are, stuart, but not quite in the way that you might expect. you're right to say this cruise ship is just a few miles away from where i'm speaking to you. some of the earliest cases literally in the county where i'm speaking to you from. the people i talked to around here, remember, a lot of tech people, engineers, people who as

andrew yang might put it, good math, they are freaking out at the response to this and in particular the media response, because they are seeing the hysteria that's being promoted, they are seeing the impact on the economy and saying what is this about, it's totally disproportionate. the way that you get a case here, a case there reported as if it's blockbuster news, the way people are talking about this as if it's going to be something that can wipe out half the population whereas, in fact, we know that the actual impact on real people will be less than you see in some of the worst case scenarios and in fact, what they look at is the overall attitude. this is people i talked to say when you compare this to other causes of death that are preventible, that the government can deal with, what is this about, this total overreaction. i support that argument, particularly on a day like today where you see such a strong performance in the real economy for real people. all that is going to be thrown

out the window by the overreaction. stuart: i think the president wants to show he's got a handle on this thing, that he's in control. he's a hands-on president. he's going to go on to the cdc, is that the cdcs, centers for disease control in atlanta, after tennessee. that's where he's going. earlier this morning, he said look, we've got the hhs secretary said 700,000 test kits going out this week, four million next week. steve, the president tweeted that he has spoken with governor newsom of california so he's working with the relevant authorities. the president wants to show he's got a handle on this thing. how's he doing? >> i think he's doing exactly the right thing. remember, always important to bear in mind that while the democrats were impeaching him, he was taking probably the most impactful action that we have seen so far which is closing down travel from china to give us that time to prepare for the outbreak. i think his vice president is

doing a fantastic job bringing those experts together. i think what you are seeing, though, is very consistent advice being put forward by the scientists, by the medical advisers, which has been totally ignored by the media and general public. i will give you a specific example. it's been made very clear by the experts, we are told all the time listen to the experts, not the politicians, what are they saying. there's no risk at all in flying. flying is fine. don't cancel travel. don't cancel flying. yet people all over the country, big businesses, are canceling travel, canceling flying. airlines in response canceling flights. it seems to me that actually, we are not listening to the advice and the advice is to take sensible precautions, wash your hands, all that. but not to overreact. that's what's happening right now. people are overreacting. when they are ignoring the advice. stuart: okay. i understand. but employers have a liability problem, don't they. this is america, land of lawyers

and lawsuits. if i'm an employer and i say to my employees you got to travel, you got to get out there, you got to go there, got to go here, got to go there, and they get it, or they end up in quarantine, i smell a lawsuit. that's the problem, isn't it? >> well, you can't have it both ways. either you do listen to expert advice from the scientists and doctors, in other words, continue to travel, that's what they're saying, or you ignore it. please, can we stop this fantasy that everyone is just looking for the right scientific advice to follow. that's not actually what's happening. people are overreacting to the hyperbolic panic and making their own decisions not based on medical advice, not based on science. that's the kind of reaction i'm seeing here from the very hard-nosed silicon valley engineers and data scientists, people i talk to every day. they are saying people are behaving in a completely irrational manner and ignoring the official scientific medical advice.

stuart: i'm going to do my own totally unscientific survey tomorrow. i live in new jersey. i'm going to go to two large and well-known grocery stores. i want to see what foot traffic is like, are they stocking up. i will go to a very large shopping mall. what's foot traffic like, are people in the malls. then i'm going to go to a very famous outlet mall called woodbury commons which used to have thousands of people from europe and asia visit every single day because prices are so cheap. i'm doing a little survey of my own to see what foot traffic's like, stockpiling is like and visitors from foreign tourists. what are you seeing in california right now? >> well, i'm seeing what i think you will see, too, which is this panic reaction. so in costco yesterday, people literally stocking up on water, on toilet roll, all the things you have been seeing elsewhere around the country. we absolutely see that kind of reaction. that kind of reaction is completely detached as i was

saying earlier, from any kind of advice we are getting from the authorities. that's what i mean when i say people are overreacting to hype rather than following the very sensible, very clear and consistent advice we have had from the medical experts and scientists. hygiene precautions, wash your hands, disinfect surfaces, et cetera. that's all great. but no one is saying don't travel. no one is saying stock up on toilet paper. stuart: that is true, steve. yes. i shall observe this first-hand tomorrow. hold on a second. doc siegel, just give me 30 seconds of what i should do, wash hands, all that stuff. >> i think steve was very eloquent but i want to disagree slightly as someone who wrote a fear book. you realize every time i tell you to wash your hands, you are saying why am i washing? is the corona here? also, if they close a school down the street, steve's right, they may be closing it for the right reasons but then people say is my school going to be next, is my church going to be

next. so the overreaction is done by public health officials in the name of containing and squashing the virus. people see that reaction, they misperceive it. i'm telling my patients there yes, wash your hands. the flu is around. yes, don't sneeze and cough on people. the flu is around. the coronavirus, we are trying to keep it from being around. we have to message this exactly right, or people get a fear message. stuart: i think the message got through, certainly for here in new york. last word to you? >> i completely agree with that. i think that's the thing that's really good about all this, is it's reminding everyone of these basic hygiene practices. it's been a really effective public service announcement basically the last couple of weeks. people have learned these things and i think they are adapting to them, they are putting them into their daily routine. that's going to be really great for public health not just this year but for years to come because it will reduce the influence of the flu which actually kills more children,

certainly, and so far has killed far more many people this year in america and elsewhere than coronavirus. long may that continue. let's keep taking those sensible precautions. i think that is something positive that we can all take from this. stuart: just moments ago, we were talking about remdesivir which is a treatment, apparently successful treatment for the symptoms of this virus, doesn't cure it but gets you through it, and that is made by gilead sciences. david bahnsen, i think you own a piece of gilead sciences. my question is, you going to buy any more? >> yes, we have been buying through the whole period. understand, we are not just buying in response to the news that they have a therapeutic here that we believe is going to be effective. we have owned it before and we want to continue owning it because this is a dividend growing biotech company. but it does just so happen that it's up 17% through this whole period so it's been somewhat defensi

defensive but the part that wasn't said on the segment before i wanted to add that i think is really important, is they don't have the final approval yet, they are waiting on testing to come back in china. we are expecting it back the second week of april. the fda has really gone quickly here to expedite the sort of investigative approvals they need. but they are ramping up and repurposing current manufacturing capacity in preparation for that approval. that's how much optimism they have. so nobody knows until you get the approval, but we believe there is a therapeutic that is a treatment, not a vaccine, that's going to be very effective in the marketplace from a dividend growing profitable company in gilead. stuart: i know you invest in dividend growing stocks. can you give me another? i have seen some of these stocks depressed way, way down and that of course raises the yield, the dividend yield. can you give me a company, a stock, which is all the way down yielding a ton of money in

dividend like say 8% or 9% and where that dividend is safe? can you name one? >> well, not necessarily 8 or 9, but 7-ish. stuart: who? >> i would take 7. it's a very solid dependable steady dividend that right now, you can get over 7% with simon property. they will not be cutting the dividend. it's being paid from net operating income. they have significant cash on the balance sheet. it's simply part of this selloff we have seen take place. people are very afraid of the energy companies right now with oil at 42, 43. that's of course a great time to be buying them, not selling them. the idea that exxonmobil, which never cut its dividend through the exxon valdez problem, is right now yielding close to 7%. people are not going to be able to buy these levels in the near future. exxon and simon are my two names for you right now. stuart: thank you very much, david. got to refer back to the market,

give you an update on where we stand. we are almost two hours into this friday morning trading session. i would again remind everybody it's friday. if you are a big-time trader, you might be reluctant to own stock over the weekend because you are not sure exactly what's going to greet you come monday morning. all kinds of announcements and developments take place over a weekend. that could hit the market, hurt the market. you don't know what's coming. so a lot of people will withdraw. i would not expect this market to close higher today. i would be very surprised if it did. i have no idea how far down it's going to close this afternoon but just bear in mind it's a friday. we are down, what, 2% plus on the dow, 2% -- 2.5% the nasdaq, 2.4% on the s&p. can you show me again that ten-year treasury yield? that's the anxiety indicator. this tells you how much money is flowing into america, into the safety of american treasury securities.

it's .728 right now. that's way down, 18 basis points down. david dietze, economist kind of guy, with me now. have you ever seen that before? a drop in the yield like that? >> no, absolutely. i'm not in the business of calling bottoms in markets but i have never seen a bond market be this panicky. it's not just the ten-year, it's the 30-year. you know inflation is going to be 2% or more over the next ten years to lock your money in at .75%. it makes no sense. i don't know who is crazier, the bond market or the people who won't fly or go out of their house this weekend. stuart: we will leave it at that. .72%, ten-year yield, as of right now. moments ago, the president arrived in nashville. you saw it happen. he will tour the tornado damage. we are following it for you. and check the market again. we are down 2.1%. we're not done yet. steve forbes, bill cassidy, mercedes schlapp and matt schlapp all coming up. stay with us, please.

with sofi, get your credit cards right by consolidating your credit card debt into one monthly payment. and get your interest rate right so you can save big. get a no-fee personal loan up to $100k. get a no-fee personal loan to be our guest. with an invitation. the invitation to lexus sales event now through march 31st. lease the 2020 rx350 for $409 a month for 36 months and we'll make your first months payment. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. their medicare options...ere people go to learn about before they're on medicare. come on in. you're turning 65 soon? yep. and you're retiring at 67?

that's the plan! well, you've come to the right place. it's also a great time to learn about an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. here's why... medicare part b doesn't pay for everything. only about 80% of your medical costs. this part is up to you... yeah, everyone's a little surprised to learn that one. a medicare supplement plan helps pay for some of what medicare doesn't. that could help cut down on those out-of-your-pocket medical costs. call unitedhealthcare insurance company today... to request this free, and very helpful, decision guide. and learn about the only medicare supplement plans endorsed by aarp. selected for meeting their high standards of quality and service. this type of plan lets you say "yes" to any doctor or hospital that accepts medicare patients. there are no networks or referrals to worry about. do you accept medicare patients?

i sure do! see? you're able to stick with him. like to travel? this kind of plan goes with you anywhere you travel in the country. so go ahead, spend winter somewhere warm. if you're turning 65 soon or over 65 and planning to retire, find out more about the plans that live up to their name. thumbs up to that! remember, the time to prepare is before you go on medicare! don't wait. get started today. call unitedhealthcare and ask for your free decision guide. learn more about aarp medicare supplement plan options and rates to fit your needs oh, and happy birthday... or retirement... in advance.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

stuart: i've got news from the cruise lines and it's interesting stuff. lauren? lauren: the administration is considering ways to discourage people from taking cruises as a way to stop the spread of the coronavirus. there's a meeting between the cruise lines and the trump administration, vice president mike pence this weekend to talk about what to do. kudlow is talking about microstimulus, targeted stimulus. if you tell people don't take a cruise, cruise liners would need that stimulus. stuart: that us true. look at that. the cruise line stocks have turned around. they were up 10, 15 minutes ago. now they are on the downside. fwr grady trimble live from tennessee, the president has arrived. where is he going? can you confirm he's going to the cdc later? reporter: i do believe he's going to the cdc later. i can also tell you he's right there right now. that's his group of helicopters

in the sky there taking an aerial tour. we do know he is taking this aerial tour today after he got off air force one. he was greeted by tennessee's governor, bill lee, as well as mayors of some of the towns most heavily impacted by these tornadoes, including the mayor of nashville and mt. juliet, not too far from here in putnam county. after this aerial tour, we are not sure what he's going to do. you can see on the ground here the types of things he's seeing from the air as we speak right now. not only is he seeing the damage and debris piles like this, but he's also seeing the volunteers helping pick up from this mess. he continues to go off into the distance right now. we will keep you posted if he swings back around toward us and we will certainly keep you posted if he lands anywhere and takes a tour from the ground. stuart? stuart: thank you very much, grady. quick update here on the impact of the virus. i think, what's this? deirdre: facebook is closing its london offices until monday.

they are ahead of us so i don't know with a half hour to go in business in london if this is the biggest news but there was an employee based in singapore who has been diagnosed with the coronavirus who visited the london office february 24th through 26th. so facebook just saying okay, office closed for the weekend. if you have work to do, it's not happening. they are pulling out along with numerous tech companies of the south by southwest conference which is scheduled to kick off next week. the organizers still having it but ten major tech firms say they are not sending employees. stuart: got it. a special moment on the program right now. not only do we have mercedes schlapp with us but she has brought her husband, whose name is matt schlapp. is this the first time you have been on set together in umpteen days? >> it's been awhile. couple years. >> you brought us together. it's a reunion.

stuart: okay. let's get serious here. the president is on his way later this afternoon to the cdc. he's announced this morning they've got the test kits going out, 700,000, and got four million test kits next week. the president wants to show i think that he's got a grip on this, got a handle on this. you work for him. you obviously approve of this. >> well, what we have seen is the democrats politicizing this issue and i think that's been problematic for them. here's the president. he is ahead of the curve. he's taken the early action needed to restrict the travel to quarantine the people who are sick and also to work with nih to get the vaccine, to get the drugs necessary to deal with this problem. only in america. i think for president trump, he's listening to his health care experts. they are coming in and saying look, if we got to close this border, we are closing the border. the president saying we got to do what we can to ensure the priorities, the health and safety of the american people. stuart: he did say we have a plan for all possibilities.

he's looking forward, got a grip on it. >> it's the one thing you notice about the president, matt can tell you as well, he's thinking ahead. he's thinking what's the worst case scenario, then taking the necessary steps and monitoring the situation day in and day out. stuart: got it. matt, we heard from larry kudlow earlier this morning. the jobs report. our conclusion is that you've got a very very strong economy and that's a very good cushion going into this virus impact. a cushion which europe doesn't have. japan doesn't have. china doesn't have. we are looking pretty good. >> i would use the adjective resilient. because the president has taken all these deregulatory and tax steps, our economy can weather these storms. the other thing is a 3% increase in take-home pay and the fact people have money to invest, you know what's happening in the market. yes, we have had some rough days but there's a lot of people buying. they believe there's a lot of good buys out there in the marketplace. i would just say to everybody,

we have to go through the news, we have to try to figure out what's going to happen, but in the end, if the president continues to provide leadership and everybody is looking to america, no one's looking to a communist or socialist country to solve these problems. by the way, a border, it works, because this is the reason why you need to have a border you control, things like this. if the president provides that leadership, the american people will rally around him. we always do. it's what makes us americans. stuart: mercedes, when we were talking to larry kudlow, he was talking about a narrowly targeted focus on small scale stimulus to groups of people, groups of individuals, who need it like people who have lost pay from this or can't afford the medical expenses. targeted help for them. i asked him are you going to make an announcement this weekend about some kind of stimulus measures or defensive measures for the economy. he said no, no, no, we can't speculate like that. will you? >> well, in my days at the white

house, it was always we would have these discussions, brainstorming sessions, to figure out what we can do to provide relief. we did it obviously with trade and helping farmers in terms of the mitigation package we sent out. so they obviously are going to look into is there a need for economic assistance. i know it makes some republicans nervous. at the end of the day you got to work with congress to get these things done. i think for congress, even getting this emergency bill done, this emergency funding done of the over $8 billion to help on vaccines and help with kits and all the emergency response they need to do right now is definitely the first step. we'll see where the economic team goes but obviously, this is something the white house, the process they go through to ensure what's going to happen long term, what's the impact it could have on different individuals in the united states. stuart: the president walks a very fine line. he must come across as being in control, but he must not panic the nation with extreme measures

which could, you know, make people panic. how do you think he's doing so far, matt, walking that very very fine line? >> don't ask me. look at gallup. the american people feel he has better numbers today than he's ever had and the american people feel more optimistic about their future under trump than any day of the obama administration. so to me, i think the president is doing a great job but look, it's on his shoulders. his shoulders are broad but it's on his shoulders. he has to continue to show the country that he's listening and responding to the information we get. if he does that, in a fair way, not a perfect way, a fair way, the american people will be fair with their judgments. stuart: i think -- sorry, you were going to say? >> making sure the media doesn't overreact. making sure the democrats don't make this into a political game. this is a serious issue -- >> they want to create panic. >> we cannot create panic. there needs to be a science of calm. even our young kid, our 8-year-old, was asking us questions about the coronavirus. it really does impact and makes

our children worry. it's important for parents to also take that step of saying take a deep breath, we are going to be okay, we will get through this, because that's the bigger concern, what will the impact be come three months period of time here in the united states with the coronavirus. stuart: i notice the democrats have been relatively quiet on the issue of the virus. senator schumer has gone hog wild, of course, but i have not heard similar statements from democrats about the virus and the way the president is handling it. they have been i think relatively restrained so far. >> they backed off. initially, speaker pelosi and the democrats in congress were trying to say the president doesn't have a plan, we don't know if we can pass a funding bill. they got off that very fast. with the american people, the american people by and large are not that political. they are practical people that are running their lives, raising their families. when you play politics on something like a virus, there's going to be hell to pay. i think actually for the

democrats and for the republicans, once again, this is time to come together. the whole world is looking at america. they need not only help financially, they need our best scientists. the innovation is in america by and large. this is a time for america to lead. this is for us to dust off or flag, be proud of what we are all about. we have a free market, where innovation occurs and this is why we need it. it will save people's lives. stuart: mercedes? >> i have to say i think the president's handling this the way we need to be doing this, with leadership. the president said this clearly. democrats talk about that the president divides. you know what, he's been able to unite because of his success, talking about the economic success story, the comeback story here in america. compare that to biden who is now talking about tax increases or bernie sanders, more tax increases, which would negatively impact our economy. in order to even survive the coronavirus we need a strong economy. we have that in place. we are seeing the jobs numbers show that to us. now is the time that we all need to stand together behind the president and support him in his efforts to contain the situation

and ensure the american people feel that we are in good hands. stuart: mercedes, matt schlapp, great to have you together on the set, either side of me here. thank you very much for joining me. >> nice reunion. stuart: glad to hear it, lad. thank you very much. let me wrap up the market, please. we have been open for two hours and ten minutes. the low of the day was minus 800 odd points. larry kudlow came on the show and talked about targeted stimulus. that went down well. the market moved and now we are down just 450 points. we are still down. that's a significant loss. nowhere near what it was earlier. same story with the nasdaq composite and s&p 500. show me that all-important anxiety indicator, please. that is the yield on the ten-year treasury. we hit a low this morning of 0.67%. that is an astonishingly low yield. look at this. we are back up, not very far. we are back up to .73%.

still an historical extraordinary thing but nonetheless up in terms of where we were. coming up, steve forbes will join us and bill cassidy. that's the great senator from the state of louisiana and former presidential candidate, steve forbes, all on this program after this. hi, i'm bob harper,

and i recently had a heart attack. it changed my life. but i'm a survivor. after my heart attack, my doctor prescribed brilinta. it's for people who have been hospitalized for a heart attack. brilinta is taken with a low-dose aspirin. no more than 100 milligrams as it affects how well brilinta works. brilinta helps keep platelets from sticking together and forming a clot. in a clinical study, brilinta worked better than plavix. brilinta reduced the chance of having another heart attack... ...or dying from one. don't stop taking brilinta without talking to your doctor, since stopping it too soon increases your risk

of clots in your stent, heart attack, stroke, and even death. brilinta may cause bruising or bleeding more easily, or serious, sometimes fatal bleeding. don't take brilinta if you have bleeding, like stomach ulcers, a history of bleeding in the brain, or severe liver problems. slow heart rhythm has been reported. tell your doctor about bleeding new or unexpected shortness of breath any planned surgery, and all medicines you take. if you recently had a heart attack, ask your doctor if brilinta is right for you. my heart is worth brilinta. if you can't afford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to help.

stuart: all right. i've got news on tesla. apart from the fact the stock is down $31, the news is not about the car side of their business, but about the solar side. the news, please? lauren: they are hiring employees in china for their solar and energy storage project. why is this a positive even though the stock is not reacting, because they're betting on the china market for them and also on the recovery in china, that it is okay and safe to spend in that country. stuart: in our endless search for bright spots in an otherwise down day, we found one. deirdre: walgreens boots alliance, you will see green on the screen there. a gain of almost 3% there. of course, as more and more people shop for clorox wipes, purell, tissues, toilet paper, whatever it is, they are going to drugstores and this one included. stuart: can you show me the price of oil? i know it's way down. i believe it touched $41 a barrel -- it's $42.30 right now.

that's down 7.8%. that's a big deal. steve forbes, forbes chairman and editor in chief, joins me now. let's not deal with crude oil right now. want to deal with what larry kudlow told me earlier, that they would have targeted, targeted stimulus go to groups of people who may have been hurt by this. you approve of that? >> i think it was brilliant on his part. that was a great interview. i think it was very reassuring that they're not going to panic, they are going to deal with specific problems. that way, congress isn't going to go off on a binge, it's not going to harm the economy, people are hurt, we will help them as much as we can. that shows compassion. it also is one reason why the democrats are not trying to make this an issue. the administration is responding with calm, authority, tealing wi dealing with facts as they come and people want this reassurance. they know this did not start in trump tower, this virus. so get off that horse. stuart: that's a great line. can i steal it off you? >> sure. there's no patent. stuart: it did not start in

trump tower. >> so i think also, the report on february demonstrates that pre-virus, this economy was really starting to rev up again. i think after the election, assuming trump is re-election, you will start to see amazingly in europe next year, they will start to make at least some of the countries, structural changes. instead of trying to rely on monetary policy, they will start to deal with tax policy. you already started to see it months ago with greece, the ultimate basket case in europe. they started to do deregulation tax cuts and guess what? they showed economic growth. voila. stuart: you have to get past it. you have to get past this global problem with the virus. america's got to get past the virus. >> i think we are showing the way to do it. you take measures. the president responded earlier, as he pointed out a couple weeks ago, he got no credit for closing the border in the sense of the chinese people coming in. he's taken those measures as they have been needed, so yes, larry also i think emphasized, tragic though this thing is, we will get over it and we will recover. the strength is there.

stuart: last one. i asked larry kudlow, some people have said does this remind you of the crash, '07-08. he said absolutely not, it's nothing like it, it's a completely different thing. you second that? >> absolutely. the problem with '08 was government policies, mistakes by the fed, mistakes by the government, trying to stimulate when they shouldn't have stimulated, debasing the dollar and the like. he's right, this is a one-time shock. ultimately we will get over it and have more strength than the rest of the world to recover. after the election, i think you will start to see what happened with ronald reagan in the '80s. countries will start to imitate success even if they don't acknowledge who the author was. stuart: the long view from steve forbes. that's a good idea to do that. hold on a second. i'm going to tell everybody the price of oil is proving something of a problem for american drillers and american oil companies. we have the great senator from louisiana, bill cassidy, on the show right after this. discomfort back there?

instead of using aloe, or baby wipes, or powders, try the cooling, soothing relief or preparation h, because your derriere deserves expert care. preparation h. get comfortable with it. a more secure diaper closure. there were babies involved... and they weren't saying much.

that's what we do at 3m, we listen to people, even those who don't have a voice. we are people helping people. robinwithout the commission wfees. so, you can start investing today wherever you are - even hanging with your dog. so, what are you waiting for? download now and get your first stock on us. robinhood. can you help keep these iguys protected online?? easy, connect to the xfi gateway. what about internet speeds that keep up with my gaming? let's hook you up with the fastest internet from xfinity. what about wireless data options for the family? of course, you can customize and save. can you save me from this conversation? that we can't do, but come in and see what we can do. we're here to make life simple. easy. awesome.

ask. shop. discover. at your local xfinity store today. and now for their service to the community, we present limu emu & doug with this key to the city. [ applause ] it's an honor to tell you that liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. and now we need to get back to work. [ applause and band playing ] only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

stuart: well, the markets are moving today and oil is one of those markets that's really moving. the price is down 7% per barrel. you're back to $42. an ideal time to bring in the senator from louisiana, republican bill cassidy. mr. senator, it's great for us to see the price of oil go down because i'm going to be driving

with cheap gas, i know it, but it's not good news for the drillers and the major oil companies, which can't make a profit at $42 a barrel. what do you say? >> i would say it's not good for the country to have it too low, because that means economic activity is not doing well. it also means that air travel is not happening and we need that international commerce for many things, not to support the price of oil. that happens when you make a lot of jet fuel. but to make sure that we're communicating with foreign markets so in that sense, it's not good, either. stuart: on the other side of the coin, i thought this was terrific news, i read a report the other day that we exported four million barrels of oil a day, and i think a lot of it went through louisiana, didn't it? >> it does go through louisiana. if you will, we are the heart that pumps oil into the country and out of the country. it used to be into, now that we are energy self-sufficient, it's out of, including not just oil and gas, but oil and gas byproducts. it's great for creating jobs. it's great for using our

environmental standards to make those products instead of other countries'. i can go on but i'm very pleased for my state and our country. stuart: earlier this morning, i interviewed larry kudlow, white house chief economic guy -- economy guy, and he told me that they were thinking about targeted relief for groups of individuals like if you've lost pay or you can't afford the medical bill from the virus, maybe some financial help would come at you. you approve of that kind of targeted stimulus? >> i think we actually have some targeted stimulus already lined up. there's a surprise medical billing bill that's working through both chambers, someone goes to the emergency room, gets a surprise medical bill, oh, my gosh, i thought you were in network, yeah, but the test wasn't. we need to take care of that. there's also a bill to lower prescription drug costs. what we don't want is some cure to be discovered, maybe an older drug, a pharmaceutical bro buys up all the production capacity and then jacks the price up to,

you know, $100,000 a year. we don't want that, either. so there is a bill a grassley-wyden bill, that we need to pass as well. stuart: but you don't want to see kind of a bailout of airlines, for example? >> you know, i think the airlines can handle themselves. they have different ways to compensate. but i would like to see, i think, some sort of package to make sure that we continue this economic growth that we have. i'm really concerned about those working americans who have so benefited under the trump economy. i want that benefit to continue to come out. maybe we would have an infrastructure package keeping people at work in construction creating the infrastructure that spawns future growth. stuart: that would be good. senator cassidy, i'm out of time. thanks very much for being with us. really appreciate it. more "varney" after this. on the outside. but inside every etf... there are untold hours of careful construction... infinite "what ifs?" and contingency plans.

creating funds that help target gaps in client portfolios. tap untapped potential. en : . : .

1.8 gigs here in frigid omaha. almost 2 gigs here in los angeles. that's outrageous. it's like an eight-lane highway compared to a two-land dirt road.

the crews lines are very much the center of attention with this virus. we had a report saying the administration is considering discouraging travelers from taking cruises. that's from anonymous white house sources. we also have royal caribbean cruise line saying they will screen anybody before they get on board. disney cruises thing exactly the same thing. they will screen people before they get on board. they're very conscious of the

fact that these cruises can be floating petri dishes. that's very bad news for the cruise line and they are all down again. i think everyone on the program today, rock 'n' roll, here we go. >> great interview with larry kudlow. welcome to kabuto coast-to-coast. stocks are still down on coronavirus. we have the number of u.s. cases up to 232. it's nearly a hundred thousand worldwide and the president signed a funding bill the congress passed. the second thing we will watch in this hour is the president will be taking of the tornado ravaged state in