[ speaking simultaneously ] maria: i certainly was surprised to hear that kind of solution from the conservative end of government. that was a shocker. equity stakes. yeah. you heard a big pushback from boeing. great to see you. have a great day, everybody. "varney & company" begins right now. stu, take it away. stuart: good morning, maria. good morning, everyone. the president says, and i'm quoting now, we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself. and the governor of new york state, cuomo, he says it is not sustainable to run the country with the economy closed down, end quote. what we are talking about here is an early return to work in some industries. that is being considered. business and the president are therefore at odds with the medical community over easing these restrictions. this is the big story of the day and in about 40 minutes we will be joined by larry kudlow

discussing just that, an early return to work. 9:40 eastern time today on this program. there is outrage at speaker pelosi loading up the stimulus package with a host of items unrelated to supporting workers and industries. for example, canceling post office debt, the return of obama phones, same day voter registration, $35 million for the kennedy center for performing arts. what has all that got to do with getting money to people who have just lost their jobs, millions of workers thrown out of a job. however, treasury secretary mnuchin and senator schumer did meet last night, and they suggested that a $2 trillion rescue package, stimulus package, is close. we'll see. all this has given the market a shot in the arm. for much of the morning, we have been limit up for the dow jones average and at the opening bell, the dow will be up, what, 900

points, maybe more when the restrictions of the limits on trading are off. s&p, nasdaq also up 4%, 5%. clearly, investors like the $2 trillion rescue package. they like the trillion dollars the federal reserve is putting into the economy very quickly, and they like the possibility of an early return to work. now look at this. gas prices still tumbling. the average price is down to $2.10 a gallon. yes, it is cheap if you can drive. separately, the "wall street journal" reports that the airlines are considering a voluntary plan to shut down all domestic passenger traffic. they are simply running out of passengers. all right. this program will again observe social distancing. i'm joined by susan li, lauren simonetti, ashley webster. we are all keeping great distance between us. we are all doing well, locked down as we are. i see smiling faces all round.

i regret to say, however, that i am gaining weight. sorry about that. i hate this. ashley: aren't we all. stuart: at least you're honest. well done, everybody. more on this later, i promise. we will get started with this possible return to work early. scott shellady joins us. scott, i think you want this. you have been arguing for this. spell it out. >> yeah. we've got to open up america, open america up again. the things you just listed at the top of the show about the money, that's all well and good what the government wants the throw at everything and i think the stocks might like that just a little bit. but what they love is the prospect of opening up the economy again, stuart. i mean, every day that goes by is more and more drastic. i don't want to be too dramatic but i took a car to the studios here this morning in scottsdale, arizona. they fired 25 of 28 drivers. the guy that came by to help me

out with my pool yesterday, they are closing down. there's nothing moving. so yeah, i like the idea of getting some cash to people, but still, it's going to go in their pockets and it really can't get around the system because they can't get out of their houses. we have to open up america again and i think that that's really why the stock market's doing what it's doing. stuart: i think you could open up some industries and certainly some businesses and still observe social distancing. you can do that and get a paycheck back to millions of people. i think that is the main story of the day, scott. i think it's under discussion right now. >> well, that's fantastic news. i think you're right. he started to -- president trump started to allude to that yesterday and we can still have some common sense measures, right. if you're an at-risk person you should probably stay home. you should definitely stay home. if you have an at-risk person in your family and you are a young person that's been out and about in south padre spring break, don't go see your elderly

relatives right now. all those are common sense measures. that shouldn't stop a 19.2 trillion economy. we have to observe some of those things but we have to get the doors of the economy opened up again very very soon. stuart: stay there, scott. thanks for joining us so early in the show. i want to move on. i have a development from susan about the olympics. what's happening? susan: the summer olympics are being postponed until 2021. we heard from the japanese prime minister shinzo abe after much discussion with the ioc, looks like they will postpone the olympics. we had a lot of countries including canada, norway and possibly even the u.s. re-evaluated their participation in the july summer games because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. now it looks like japan has taken the initiative saying we will postpone until next year. you got to feel sorry for the athletes involved because obviously, you peak at different times, you have been training for the last four years for this big event and people, i guess

they perform in different years, different parts of their lives, and you know, you got to feel sorry for them that maybe they missed their chance here. but this is for the good of the people and japan, boy the wy th built about $28 billion in infrastructure so they also spent a lot as well. stuart: yeah. got it, susan. what we are doing here is talking a lot about economies around the world shutting down, just as we think about opening up a little bit here. ashley, tell us what they are doing in britain now. ashley: boris johnson, the prime minister, went before the country last night and said this is it for at least three weeks, now we are going to go into lockdown mode. he said there's only going to be four reasons why you can leave your home. you can leave once a day to exercise, you can travel to and from work where only absolutely necessary, you can shop for essential items and to fulfill any medical or care needs. no gathering at all, no gathering in public of two

people or more, and he says the police will now have powers including fines and they will disperse any gatherings. he said the country is facing a moment of national emergency. we have to protect the national health service and save lives. stuart: ashley, what about spain? ashley: the latest from spain is pretty grim. in the last 24 hours, they have recorded 514 deaths. that is the worst 24-hour period. nearly 2700 people now have been -- have died from the virus in spain and the number of cases approaching 40,000. so spain really struggling to keep up with it right now. stuart: but ashley, in italy, i understand the number of deaths is declining. is that accurate? ashley: that is right. for the second day in a row, the number of new cases and the number of deaths has come down. now, before you get too excited, health officials say it is way too early to know if the worst

is over. of course, with each passing day, they will get a better sense of this. but again, the italians have had more than 63,000 confirmed cases and they have lost more than 6,000 people to the virus. so in the next 24 hours, if this trend continues, there is a little bit of light to be seen in italy. stuart: i wonder if there's some light to be seen in china. susan has the latest from there. what's going on? susan: the epicenter, the hubei province where the city of wuhan is in, looks like they are going to ease travel restrictions. they are going to end that two-month lockdown starting at midnight in hubei and this is of course where we saw thousands of cases break out. the city of wuhan itself still remains in lockdown until april 8th, from what i'm seeing on the register from the chinese government. don't forget the outbreak started in late december and two months on, and this might be telling us how long you have to keep people in quarantine in

order to contain the spread of this virus. two months is a long time, right? stuart: yes, indeed. but it's interesting that hubei is the province where it started. susan: right. stuart: they are starting to ease up on restrictions and will ease up on restrictions in wuhan in april. i've got to say that's positive news. i have to believe that. susan: it took several days of having no new cases of coronavirus. most of the cases are being reported, new cases, are travelers coming from outside of china back into the chinese borders so now beijing, shanghai are requiring returnees to actually self-quarantine for 14 days. but you have to take these draconian steps as you know. you lock down a province which is home to how many hundreds of millions of people in order to contain the virus. that, i don't know if the u.s. is ready to do that just yet but that is the remedy. stuart: okay. got it. lauren, how about price gouging? two items here. what's the department of justice doing and what's amazon doing? lauren: attorney general bill

barr is saying if you are hoarding items that are scarce and that are needed right now in the coronavirus pandemic, or price gouging on those items, we are coming after you and you could be referred for criminal prosecution. this isn't if you have a lot of toilet paper stocked up at your house. it's if you actually have the masks and gloves and items that our hospitals need. if you are hoarding them or increasing the price on them, you are in trouble by law enforcement. at the same time, amazon is suspending 3900 accounts on its site and taking 500,000 products off its site because they do suspect price gouging, sending a warning to sellers that if they at least think you are gouging prices, they are going to submit your information to the feds. stuart: all right. i want to bring in greg valier. greg, talk to me about this possible early return to work.

what's your opinion on it? >> i tell you, i have been doing this for a long time. i have never seen a shift in attitudes like the one we have seen in the last 48 hours. i think there's a growing consensus that young healthy people could get back to work in april. older people or people with existing conditions might have to wait until may or later. this has been electrifying to see this change and i think the president feels that it's almost mandatory. the consensus is this country cannot tolerate a lockdown for two or three months. it would rip the fabric of society and the economy. stuart: it doesn't mean to say everybody goes back to work. you can still keep social distance in all kinds of industries and you can target those most at risk, the elderly, and say okay, you've got to stay home. in other words, it's a dilution

of the draconian lockdown. you are in favor of it. i think business is in favor of it. i think it looks to me like the market is in favor of it. right, greg? >> yeah. and you know, there's a middle ground. it's not an issue of total lockdown or letting everybody go about their previous business. it's a midpoint where you use common sense and i think that it's going to get increasing political support. the one negative here is that it could so alienate the scientists, dr. fauci, that he could quit in protest. stuart: that would not be good. all right, hold on for me. i want to go to ashley. we are talking about the eventual relaxation of some of these restrictions but i think there are new states putting those restrictions in place. ashley: yes, indeed. with regard to your conversation there, we are going in the opposite direction when it comes to the states and their regulations. washington governor jay inslee issued the latest stay-at-home order for residents. he says they will do this for

two weeks. pretty much the same rules and regulations, i think that brings together now 15 states now have a stay-at-home policy. michigan and massachusetts yesterday, rhode island, washington, there's a number of them out there basically saying the order mandates that non-essential businesses close within 48 hours. this was from yesterday evening. social gatherings of any kind, including weddings, funerals, also barred. again, this will last for two weeks. just the grocery stores, pharmacies and banks will remain open. restaurants with take-away -- that offer takeout services can remain open. washington state has 2200 confirmed cases. that was where it first cropped up, if you remember, what now seems like a year ago the first case was in the seattle area. there you go. about 15 states i believe right now that have stay-at-home

orders. stuart: got it. thank you, ashley. back to susan. that "wall street journal" report of domestic flights shutting down. tell me more. susan: voluntarily or by government order, really, because we already heard from united and also american airlines, both airlines have cut capacity by 40% and virtually nobody is flying. you have heard stories just this week where you only have three passengers on board and these, by the way, are the airlines asking for government help, maybe a lifeline of $26 billion to $50 billion from the u.s. government. why not hold back and reserve some cash, maybe cut some of the flights. by the way, it's also not safe given we have heard stories of las vegas and also chicago o'hare and some of those flight directors have not been able to work because of the coronavirus. so why not just keep everybody safe and preserve some cash right now in these difficult times. stuart: got it, susan. by the way, if you are watching, if you are just joining us, we are limit up for futures, a 900

point gain for the dow industrials and solid gains also for the s&p and nasdaq, up about 5% there. joining us now, representative kevin brady, republican from texas and ways and means committee ranking member of that committee. congressman, thanks for joining us. h this rescue bill, i'm going to make the assumption the rescue bill is going to work, the vote will be yes. if it is yes, are you convinced that the money will go to the right people at the right time? >> you know, the answer is it sure looks like it. i'm frustrated, three days, that's how long we've lost when nancy pelosi rode into town and bullied the senate democrats into holding this bill hostage. i'm hopeful that what we are hearing in washington now, which is they are very close to agreement, is accurate. i do think the money that's focused on helping workers keep their jobs, the money that's

focused on our businesses and small businesses to keep them open to ride this out, then making sure that businesses are around so there are jobs for people to return to, i think that's exactly the right approach, plus i think helping our hospitals, health care providers, are going to need more resources right now. i think the design of this bill really tackles the economic challenge. stuart: if i just lost my job, and i'm not going to get a paycheck next week or the week after, do you know what is in the bill that will actually give me money real fast? is there part of the bill that gets me the money fast? >> yeah, a good part of it, as a matter of fact, it looks like about $350 billion, is focused on those who have lost their jobs, those whose hours are reduced, those who are furloughed, in other words, still attached to the job, and even those who have expanded unemployment in this bill to

cover the self-employed and contractors, the so-called gig economy, and there is extra money to help complement what the states are doing for unemployment to act fast there. so there is help for those workers who have been laid off. a lot of focus, though, is helping them keep their jobs. we have to keep these small businesses and industries working and moving, helping them ride this out. so yeah, i think there's been a great deal of thought. as fast as this has moved, i have been impressed with sort of the laser focus until now on those workers and on those job creators. what i worry about is nancy pelosi continuing, you know, to hold this bill hostage. we just can't afford this delay. stuart: will small businesses get loans to keep -- to stay in business on condition that they don't lay people off? >> the answer is yes. the small business provision, again, about $350 billion, is

really focused on that small business. you know, look, there's no revenue coming in, they want to keep their workers but there's no money to do that. some have capital but others frankly can't take on more debt, so the focus of the paycheck protection program is to allow small businesses to borrow money from their local banker and if they can keep their payroll going, they can use this for rent, utilities, health care premiums, keeping their workers on the payroll. then if they do that successfully have that loan forgiven at the end of june or thereabouts, i think that approach can create at least for small businesses in texas, which are like much of this country, i think that could be a huge help. stuart: congressman kevin brady, thanks very much for joining us this morning. always appreciate it. >> thank you, stuart. i might also point out, i think the key here in the economy is let's lock down the virus, not necessarily the economy. we haven't done the first yet.

that's got to be our number one priority. i think some common sense here can allow us to keep this economy sort of unlock more of it but still focus on that virus. stuart: yes indeed. that's the talking point of the day. thanks for joining us. see you again real soon. let me get back to ashley. the plight of americans, lot of americans, stranded abroad. what's going on? ashley: there are thousands of them, stu. the window to bring them back is closing fast. we understand from the state department some 13,000 americans have contacted the state department saying can you help us get home. now, people are being encouraged to use commercial flights wherever that is possible but we know the number of commercial flights are dwindling from many countries so it's very hard. they are telling people if you are stranded abroad to go to the state department website and register with their so-called step program which is smart traveler enrollment program, but there is no guarantee.

5,000 americans have been brought back to this country from 17 countries. there's another 1600 people being brought back by charter flight this week alone. but there are people out there in very remote areas. i was just reading about some people in akitos, peru. there's no internal domestic flights and they can't get anywhere close to the capital of lima, how do you get those folks out? it's going to be very difficult. the state department says they are doing everything they can but they say look, try if you can to get a commercial flight. if not, register with us, we will do our absolute best to get you back. i will say the priority always is for elderly and those with underlying health risks, they get first choice. stuart: got it. thanks, ash. one of the big problems we are facing, of course, is the shortage of medical equipment. lauren, i believe elon musk is doing something about it? lauren: the tesla ceo bought 1,000 ventilators, breathing machines that were left over from china, he bought them, they

have been delivered to hospitals in california. that coming from governor newsom. he says those thousand ventilators elon musk promised have arrived. elon musk, obviously ceo of tesla and spacex, he said look, there is a shortage, my companies can do this. the hvac systems for tesla and the life support systems for spacex. the other auto makers are saying this, too, they can produce these pieces of equipment should we need them and we do need them. stuart: yes, we do. lauren, thank you very much indeed. let's get back to the main talking point of the day, an early return to work in some industries by some people. marc siegel, nyu langone health professor of medicine, what's your opinion? open up early? what do you think? >> i have a proposal. here's what i have been thinking. let's get a more extensive serology test where i can test

everybody in the areas that we are calling hot zones or the epicenters. new york, seattle, san francisco. let's figure out who has this virus once and for all. let's separate them from the general population. let's restrict travel to and from these areas. let's lock these areas down and let's free up and liberalize things in the rest of the country. it really doesn't make sense to have people sheltering in place or closing stores in areas where this virus is not. the reason we are doing it is because we don't have a handle on the spread. if we can figure out who has it, separate them out, lock down those areas, we can reopen the economy in the other areas. that's my proposal. what do you think? stuart: well, it sounds interesting. you know more about the medical side of it than i do. i concentrate -- >> i think it's how you control the virus. stuart: okay. >> i think it's how you would control the virus. you've got to know who has it. stuart: if you have an early return to work, for anybody,

don't you risk a second wave of the virus washing through us all? that's the risk, isn't it? >> yeah, that's something we are concerned about in hong kong right now. it's something that i believe is going on in china right now although we are never going to know that for sure. so that's why my point is even more important that we figure out who has it. you know that they believe in china that 80% of the people with this virus don't even know they have it. they may have very mild symptoms. they may have changes in sense of smell, they may have diarrhea, they may not even have the classic cough or shortness of breath we are talking about. so we have to figure out a better way to figure out who has the virus. what i'm proposing here is completely dependent on knowing who has it. when you say early return to work, stuart, one of your previous guests said can we keep in place some of the precautions we are already using, yes, social disappeatancing, washing hands, being careful what you touch, using clorox wipes,

staying well hydrated, not as much contact. but we have to reopen some of our businesses. we just have to do it in a careful way and not in the epicenters. stuart: tell me about the impact on the virus -- no, let me change that. let me change that. different question. when will we be in a position to test millions of people with a quick, reliable test? when does that happen? >> well, here's my answer to that. right now, we have the ability to self-test people. we have a swab that was tested that we can have people do at home. we should be able to free up the current test we have and as you know, we have rapid throughput screening we are talking about and there's other methods of people you've had on the show where we can do protein tests. the test i'm talking about is still a few weeks away. we need to put pressure on getting that done. is that possible medically and scientifically? absolutely. it means testing your blood for antibodies to this virus. that's the test i want. we have the technology for that.

we got to put a lot of emphasis on getting that out in order to control entire populations because otherwise we are just guessing. we are saying you know, everybody could have it so let them all stay home. well, that kills the economy. stuart: yes, it does. all right. thank you very much, doctor. let me get back to ashley. you've got the update on what ford motor company is doing in making medical equipment. go. ashley: this is interesting and quite heartening. ford says it will be working with 3m to manufacture these powered air purifying respirators. they are collaborating on a new design, leveraging parts from both companies, putting them all together and meeting the demand of course for the first responders and health care workers. ford also teaming up with ge health care. ge already has an existing ventilator design and what ford will do is try and work in some of their own car parts or whatever it takes to manufacture more of these, especially for patients with respiratory

problems from the virus. they are also, ford says it will be making -- hopes to make about 100,000 critically needed plastic face shields per week at a manufacturing site. they have done a deal with the uaw, the union, and of course, these will be distributed to medical professionals, they say factory workers, store clerks, anyone who needs them. it's interesting to see this, at the time of need, ford teaming up with other companies to try and get these items in production. stuart: thanks, ashley. ronna mcdaniel is with us, rnc chair. welcome to the program. will speaker pelosi and senator schumer, will they back down from some of the ornaments they have loaded up this stimulus bill with? you know,forgiving post office debt, same day voter registration, the kennedy center for performance arts, are they going to back down on this? >> i think it's really shameful they have adopted the rahm

emanuel mantra of never let a crisis go to waste and try to put their political wish list in this bill instead of focusing on the millions of americans who aren't going to work, who are wondering if they will have a job when they get back. i think the media has done a good job of pointing out the christmas tree they tried to put into this bill and recognizing we need to focus on the virus and the economy and hopefully the senate will pass something that's good for the american people and not for the democrat party. stuart: i'm sure you have not forgotten it but it seems most of the country is ignoring the democrat presidential campaign. joe biden is out there calling the president a failure, or his treatment of the virus a failure. that's not real unity, is it. >> i think it's stunning that joe biden's trying to give alternative briefings as the president is going out with the surgeon general and the head of department of homeland security and many of the experts trying to calm the american people, give them information and biden

is doing a political side show because his campaign is floundering. this is a time when you have to put politics aside right now, everybody, and we have to focus on how do we get our economy working, how do we focus on killing this virus, how do we make sure we put the health and safety and the economy first and not our partisan politics and biden has been shameful with these ridiculous briefings. i don't think they are working for him. stuart: what do you make of this possible early return to work for some workers in some industries? >> i think the president's looking at everything, as supplies are going up, as they are able to control the virus, as they understand it better, as certain states are in peril and others are doing better, i think the president is going to do a methodical analysis but he wants to get our economy going. he wants people to live but he also wants them to have a lifestyle to go back to and a job to go back to, because people are concerned about those things as well. stuart: ronna mcdaniel, thank

you very much indeed. appreciate you being with us today. all right. we have less -- about a minute, just over a minute to go before this market opens. i want to reset the stage here. we have with us scott shellady and greg valliere plus ashley, susan and lauren, all ready to go when this market opens if n e precisely one minute. we are going to be up today. i see an awful lot of green arrows across the board. the dow, s&p, nasdaq, they are limit up. ashley, what do you think? the main deal, the main reason for us going up is this possible return to work early? is that the big deal here? ashley: yes, although i would caution a little bit there's nothing in place solidly on that and also, the belief that at some point, we are going to get this big stimulus bill through that's helpful for americans and that will eventually get done despite all the pork that's being put into it on the democrat side. but yes, as long as that continues forward we will see

gains. stuart: all right. i can hear in the background the bell ringing. you used to see a crowd of people clapping and cheering at the start of trading. not today. they are all alone. all i hear is the bell and i don't hear much cheering. here you go. 9:30 eastern time and we are open for business on wall street. what we are going to do is run through the markets overall, then take you through various groups of stocks. look at that. bottom right-hand corner of the screen, we are up 5.9%, over 1,000 points right from the get-go. that is a rally. the s&p 500 is up very significantly, 5% gain there. don't forget, if the s&p goes up 7%, they actually halt trading on the upside. they halt it for 15 minutes. that hasn't happened at the moment. we are still up about 5%. the s&p up 5.1%, that's a 114 point gain. we will go through a bunch of stocks on the left-hand side of the screen.

we will hold it on the s&p for a moment, up 5%. now, show our viewers, please, big tech and the airlines in particular. i want to see all those stocks as we have commentary on the other side of the screen. let's go to greg. i'm saying that one of the biggest pluses for the markets is this possible return to work early rather than the stimulus plan from the congress and from the federal reserve. what say you? >> i agree. i think when the history of this horrible disease is written, two things will be pointed out that occurred yesterday. number one, jerome powell made it clear you do anything to avoid a deep recession but number two, maybe more importantly, a psychological sea change, with people realizing you can't shut down this country for three or four months. there has to be an alternative. there has to be common sense. just in a matter of hours, that opinion has swept through washington. i think now there's a new view

on how we approach this. stuart: scott, it seems like we are saying this is too much pain, shutting down the economy is too painful, so open it up fast. >> well, he calls himself a wartime president, right? fighting this virus? our wartime president has to start making some very uncomfortable wartime decisions. he needs a churchillian moment here because he's got two things to choose from. he either can open up the economy again or solve for the virus. i don't think he can solve for the virus right now. the pendulum is swinging towards opening up the economy again or at least some sort of it. that's why the market loves it. know what i would like us all to do? we need to have a little perspective and we need to see other numbers of other deaths of other diseases on a daily basis so we don't just have these numbers in thin air. this is ridiculous just reporting one numbers. nobody knows is that good, is that bad. i think that would help with the

psyche of the country. just as lawyers look at how things have been handled in the past, right, why don't we look at how other viruses have been handled in the past. how did we handle h1n1? give us some idea about how those things were done so we can see how this is being done because i'm telling you, i'm talking to the everyday, average man and they are absolutely flummoxed at how we can do this to all these people, 150 million people don't have a voice. they have worked 35 years only to lose a third of their 401(k) right before they retire. they didn't get a say in any of it. it wasn't their fault. how do you prepare or at least how -- to amend those losses. there will be death and destruction on that side of the coin that nobody is talking about. yes, the market loves the idea of opening back up again because that's the problem. here we are, sitting here, taking advice on how to stay safe from our local government and our federal government and they can't even come to an agreement on helping out the guy that lost his job yesterday.

that's a joke. so we are taking advice from people that can't come together on some pretty basic things and look what's happening on a day-to-day basis. we can't let this go on anymore. stuart: okay. scott, i can see the passion, i can hear the passion in your voice. thanks for offering that up. we like that. mike murphy is with us as well. mike, let me pose this to you. we've got the fed taking significant action. we've got congress probably about to take $2 trillion worth of action. and we've got this idea that maybe we'll have an early return to work. do you think that all of those three items, taken together, will put a bottom to this market? >> stuart, it's a bottoming process for sure. but i think when you talk about whether or not this rally has to do with people getting back to work sooner, just look at zoom. zoom has been a high flyer here. that's the video for people who are not going into their offices. that's selling off big in the rally that we have today.

i think that will tell you that what the market is looking at right now is rewarding companies if people are going back to work sooner, so people want to put money to work because they are thinking if the president gets the economy back up and running again and, as you point out, we add the stimulus to that, look out. because there will be a lot of money pouring into a lot of quality names that are selling at 30%, 40%, 50% discounts. that's why you are seeing the rally we have today. stuart: are you buying anything today? >> so we're looking at two names first thing this morning. that's mcdonald's and nike. it's rare, very rare that you get quality blue chip companies that have the type of selloff that a lot of these companies have had. we have added to names like uber, like apple, but now we are looking at mcdonald's and nike. they held up, then they sold off here recently. we are buying them at 20% discounts from where they were just seven or eight trading sessions ago. that to me is value. you put that away and we will

make money in those, i believe. stuart: okay. greg valliere, will you come in on a different problem. that is the price of oil. we've got oil this morning at $24 a barrel. that's still way down there. does that still pose a problem to texas, north dakota, the drillers, the frackers? >> i think trump has so much on his plate he hasn't devoted much time to saudi arabia and russia but i think he will. i think there may be a deal down the road. i think, though, the other side of that coin is that this being a consumer economy, you've got two enormous sources of real disposable income, obviously gasoline prices and secondly, a massive wave of refinancing i think will occur over the next couple of months. both of these things i think will be a de facto tax cut. stuart: let me throw this out to ashley, lauren and susan. i want to talk about the price

of gas. it's down to $2.10 on a national average. wonderful. but we're not driving, are we? susan: i think that's a problem. that's the problem. you are talking about getting americans back to work. we are in day nine of the government mandated, more or less, their suggestion 15-day self-quarantine, self-isolate as much as possible. we have six days left of that. in those six days, does the white house readdress the situation with all these ideas we have been talking about, how to get people, healthy people, back to work. that depends on the testing. because right now, you can have coronavirus, i spoke to someone yesterday who has tested positive. not one symptom, feels totally fine. the risk to that person going in the public is the problem right now. so we need these at-home tests. we need the healthy people to be able to get back to work. i think when that happens, we can start to open up the economy a little more and trust me, the president wants to do that because he was looking for re-election riding on the strongest economy there was.

well, that's not the case right now. they need to get it back. and he might need to be able to say you know what i said go back to work, but it's up to the states, up to the companies, to allow that to happen. in a way, he can then say i said open up but so and so company said not to. stuart: okay. i want to go back to susan. as we are talking to susan about shutting down -- not shutting down the airlines but voluntarily ending passenger flights domestically, show me the airlines, if you can, left-hand side of the screen. this is a report from the "wall street journal," correct? susan: yeah, that's correct. either they are voluntarily going to do this, cap domestic flights, or they might be forced by the government because no one is flying these days and also, there's a safety concern since we know air traffic control in chicago and las vegas has had problems in staffing given the coronavirus pandemic. also, i want to bring it back to boeing as well. we have heard from david calhoun, the ceo of boeing, he's been on the news channels, the

business channels, all morning long saying it's going to take a few years to get back the 737 max on the balance sheets and also getting a $60 billion maybe bailout from the u.s. government. it's interesting he mentioned they have $15 billion in cash on hand but there's an intense cash burn since we know boeing continues to pay its suppliers and if they had to shut down their everett production field because of a coronavirus outbreak amongst one of its employees so it's tough going for the stock. we are back to $121. a few days ago we were below $100 and the stock had lost about 70% so far this year, cutting its dividend, no buy-backs. in fact, david calhoun has foregone his salary for the rest of this year and people are thinking that boeing will probably not survive if it doesn't get some sort of government help here. stuart: we should point out the airline stocks are all up this morning. boeing is up nicely this morning. they will, in all likelihood, get some kind of government assistance. that's why they are up.

news from costco on the front lines of supplying america. what do you have? lauren: starting today, every tuesday and every thursday, seniors can go into costco with nobody else, because they are the most at-risk population for coronavirus, and shop for one hour between 8:00 and 9:00 a.m. so they can get the supplies they need. as you know, everyone has been going to grocery stores and costco and bj's to stockpile. seniors can do it for one hour on tuesdays and thursdays. stuart: please pay attention, bottom right-hand corner of the screen. the dow jones average is now up 1200 points. that's a solid gain. that's about 6.8%, 6.6%. i repeat, if the s&p 500 goes up 7%, they halt trading for 15 minutes. these restrictions on trading apply on the upside as well as on the downside. ash, back to you. what's your news on chevron? ashley: if you look at the oil patch today, doing much better. chevron up along with all the

other big oil producers. but this news from the oil giant saying it's dropping the number of drilling rigs in the permian basin from 16 to fewer than eight. that's coming from the ceo of chevron, mike worth. he says the company is looking at $4 billion worth of spending cuts this year and half of that will come from the permian basin which he says is a more flexible category of capital spending. he calls the 2020 oil market just unprecedented and so obviously, these oil companies trying to find places where they can cut costs and the permian basin for chevron is one of those. stuart: all right. let's bring in greg valliere again. i'm about to interview larry kudlow, national economic council director. what would you like to hear from him? >> i would like to get an update on where things stand on the hill. i think there's a bill by the end of the day but i'm not sure. i would like to get a little bit more detail on who gets what.

and just one other thing. with everyone talking about ending the lockdown, i still think he needs to tell people that we still have another couple of weeks to go. i don't think we are going to end it tomorrow. maybe he could give us a little more detail on when he thinks this conversation could really heat up. i think it's still mid-april. stuart: all right. scott shellady, i'm pretty sure i know what you would like to say to larry kudlow but i don't know what you expect him to say. tell us. >> i would say to larry kudlow this is the time where you're going to really kind of put your name in history. you have to make a decision and let the americans know how to plan on those decisions. what are you looking at that would make you make the call to open up america again. what are the things you're going to be seeing and need to see to open up america again because americans have pulled together even though i disagree with this whole shutdown thing, they have pulled together very well.

in doing so, if we can give them the right data and dynamics, they are going to pull together and understand where we are going with this even more than they have been now. i want to know the metrics. but you listen to everything what susan said about the airlines, job losses, what shall aley just said about the oil patch, job losses. this is going to continue to come. one last thing i would like to add about the energy sector. one-third of the corn we produce in the u.s. goes into making ethanol. can you make what's happened to corn prices as you have seen the oil price go down? because a third of the balance sheet of corn is energy? so the farmers are now taking it in the pants again after they have suffered two years of china. so there isn't any really big bright spot out there and i would ask larry kudlow when can we get these people moving again and what are you looking at to make that decision. stuart: interesting. all right. got it. susan is next. what do you have? susan: i want to talk about big tech, actually. look at the reversals we are seeing with most of these big

names, up once again. there has been debate amongst the analyst community about whether or not big tech is going to come out of this even stronger than they were going into it. if you think about it, amazon has spiked when it comes to online orders. they can't even keep up with demand. they are hiring 100,000 extra workers. take a look at zoom video. this stock is up 100% since january because people can't go to work so instead, they conference over calls instead. same with facebook. you heard recently, facebook says there has been a spike in demand when it comes to messaging and video messaging and chats as well, and we heard about netflix. they can't keep up with streaming so they have to slow down the quality of their streaming in order to keep up and preserve the streaming of the broadband infrastructure in europe and also here as well. alphabet google, there might be more searches taking place on the internet and apple, more people are buying music and watching movies and tv shows on apple music. some people are arguing going into this they were already strong but coming out of it,

they might be stronger, especially as more people move to the cloud and have less people and physical data centers as well amongst this coronavirus pandemic. stuart: it is just fascinating to think about the long term changes that this pandemic will inflict, so to speak, upon america. do we have larry with us now? >> larry is here. larry is ready to go. stuart: thank you, larry. i regret to say there is always this slight delay when we are broadcasting from all over different points of the compass. let me start with this. the talking point this morning, the main talking point that i'm hearing is this possible early return to work. the president is saying look, we can't let the cure be worse than the problem itself. can you update us on this? what's going on? >> first, i can reaffirm it. he has said it. i spoke to him i guess sunday eveni

evening, had more conversations yesterday. it's going to be a question of balance and trade-offs. i don't want to get specific on details because they haven't been mapped out but there's no question we have to think seriously, i would say after the 15-day period is over, which i guess ends at the end of this week or the weekend, we will take another look at the possibility of targeting areas that are safe enough. we have to do this with the assent and help of the health specialists. no question about that. it's just a matter of where it's possible to open places that are not hot zones, for example, in order to try to expand the business reach and reduce the shut-in that's taken over the economy. look, a bad economy, if it continues and continues to decline, is unhealthy by itself. so that's an important point. now, having said all that, i do want to go back to the issue of the need for senate and house

votes today, the senate vote today. this is the largest main street, i emphasize main street, this is small businesses, this is workers, this is families, this is the largest main street assistance package in the history of the country. it's about $2 trillion in terms of direct programatic assistance, for example, on unemployment and payroll holidays and small business loan guarantees, but also, as you may know, the federal reserve will have the power of roughly $4 trillion of lending authority. stu, that's a $6 trillion package, about 30% of gdp is what it could come to. so you know, if you're a business and you are open beginning of the year, small business, we want you to stay open in july. that's very important. we want to help the work force but you can't have a job without a healthy business. this package is loaded with both and it would go a long way, so it helps us as we move perhaps, i say perhaps, to a different

phase where we will seek some greater balance and perhaps reopen economy in a number of places that have been shut in. stuart: we heard reports from mr. bullard, fed governor, we will have 30% unemployment rate in the second quarter. gdp will plunge by 50% in the second quarter. was it that kind of forecast, that kind of draconian, horrible impact forecast, that pushed you into thinking maybe we had better get people back to work soon? >> well, look, jim bullard is an awfully smart guy and he's a friend so i have great respect for him. numbers are numbers at this stage of the game. we all know the enormous challenge and risks that lie right before us. we actually started this conversation before that. a lot of people in business and finance, lot of small business people, too, that's very important, have called us and talked to us to see if we could

liberalize, if you will, and perhaps target more and stop as many shutdowns we have. that doesn't mean we're not going to leave social distancing, doesn't mean we are going to walk away from the mitigating advice we have received from our health specialists and so forth. it just means we will take a slightly different look at this. i think the president would like to do something in the next couple of weeks. again, there's nothing specific but this financial assistance package, this main street financial assistance package, is absolutely essential for the reopening of the economy, because we know small businesses have been shut in, we know that a lot of workers are either furloughed or laid off. we want to give them 100% unemployment insurance, we want to give them direct deposit checks to tide them over and provide sufficient liquidity. we want to provide loan guarantees in so many different places, want to deal with distressed industries and so forth and so on. so here we are with a $6

trillion package and we may be taking a new look at the shut-ins around the country. but let's get this thing passed. let's just get this bill passed. it's so important. i think it will provide some confidence. hats off to the fed as well as the legislators up on the hill. stuart: so get the $6 trillion deal in place but there's talk about another deal, another package down the pike. what would that look like? what would that entail? have you any idea? >> yeah, my vision, i don't have any vision for it. i can't see it. it's not coming into focus yet. i want to focus right now on the here and now. let's stop, you know, dilly-dallying around. our friends on the other side of the aisle, some of their asks don't have anything to do with the virus. i don't want to blame anybody. i just want to get the package done. we are very very close. i spoke to secretary mnuchin this morning. we are very very close.

let's just get that vote done and let's move forward. just to review, it's worth reviewing, the fed is working very closely with the treasury. we want to expand the exchange stabilization fund which is the equity piece that provides the fed leverage under section 313 of the federal reserve act. you go down the list, you probably have, stu, but they are looking at student loans, auto loans, credit card loans, sba loans, money market loans, commercial paper loans, bolstering the corporate bond market, buying government securities, buying mortgage-backed, providing sufficient liquidity to settle down these financial markets. now, in order for the fed to get all that done, we need to pass this phase three bill because of the importance of the exchange stabilization fund. i'm not sure folks understand that. moreover, we have made compromise with the democrats on the, for example, unemployment insurance, basically now 100% of

wages. earlier, we got through the sick paid leave issues for families, people who are sick or spouses or families or kids, we got through that. we have also focused on virtually the entire work force with respect to direct dial checks coming from the irs. we've got a business payroll tax holiday, we've got a student loan payment holiday, we've got a tax holiday coming up for several months. these are really essential. this whole package goes together. treasury, federal reserve, congress, the administration, we are all going to stand behind a lot of these loans, some of them will be forgiven and so forth. you have probably gone through these details. but before i look down the road to another one, let's get this one done. that's the important thing, i think, in terms of today's activity. stuart: treasury secretary mnuchin has, we are told, agreed to oversight of corporations. do you know what that means,

what kind of oversight? i presume does it mean an ownership stake in an airline or a boeing? what does it mean? >> well, couple things on this. i can't go into deep details on this, but there's always oversight, whether we go back to 2008 or whether we go back to 9/11. any time these government programs kick in with assistance to companies, there is transparency, there is oversight, always. with respect to taking an equity position, one of the options here is to have taxpayers take a position maybe through warrants, some of these larger public companies. certainly we worry about the airline business. you can't have an economy without airlines. so those things all go in place. the idea of some kind of slush fund is simply not the case. the esf is essential and the federal reserve has always been open and transparent on this and

so has the treasury and there's always been conditionality imposed. i'm going to wait in terms of the details on the conditionality. this is above-board, everyone will get a chance to see it, nothing's going to be hidden and we are just trying to get the basic essentials of the economy. just let me repeat, this is the biggest main street financial package in u.s. history and again, with regard to payrolls, keeping payrolls going and keeping the small business going, if you are in business beginning of the year, we want you to be in business when hopefully, prayerfully, this pandemic in the u.s. will calm down or leave us. i think it's a matter of weeks and months. prayerfully, that is the case. and we want to keep people going with enough liquidity and enough cash so they can get through this, and then because we had a strong economy in the first place, january and february it was growing 3%, because we have had pro-growth policies on taxes and regulations and trade reform, i believe again, prayerfully when this virus

thing settles down, that we can have a snap-back in the economy, we can get a v-shaped recovery. that's the key point so we don't suffer long term. this is not about years. this is about weeks and months. stuart: how will -- okay. if we get a snap-back, a nice solid rebound at the end of this, what would the economy look like? what would be the differences from, say, the way it was four weeks ago? >> well, i'm not sure what you are thinking about here. stuart: well, business travel, for example. online learning. travel, leisure. is that going to bounce back the way it was? >> it could, stu. i think once confidence returns, that may not happen all at once. i'm thinking more of basic manufacturi manufacturing. health care is the most brilliant industry in this country and what president trump

has done with the help of his advisers and the help of the private sector -- let me make just a point here. one of the innovations the president has done is brought in the private sector. they are working with us with respect to vaccines, with respect to therapies and medicines, with respect to the distribution of key medical supplies, masks and testing units and so forth. america has the greatest private sector, okay? we have put that to work. so, i think some of these industries will be even more streamlined. there is no question there is going to be great care and caution as we move ahead. as people go back to work. we get them back to work. they go about their business. if they're healthy hope fully we get sign off on that from our health care experts. more exercise of caution. in that respect the country will change but look in fairness, nobody really, nobody really

expected this kind of virus spreading and going into every nook and cranny of the economy. this was something nobody was able to foresee. we'll never be quite the same. there is no reason why essential industries can't go back to work rapidly if we get a flattening of the curve, if we start opening up sectors again. you know the main thing here, i come back to this, i hate to be redundant. we just got to make sure our businesses stay alive as much as possible and our workforce is ready, so they're healthy and they can be able to survive, have the cash flow to meet family needs, what not in the next few weeks. that is really the key point. then we can go back into our free enterprise economy which has always been the best in the world. we're on a roll a few months ago. there is no reason why we can't

roll up again. stuart: larry kudlow, always a pleasure. thank you for joining us on a very, very important day. >> you too. stuart: sure thing. we have our company still with us. i want to know the reaction to what larry kudlow had to say. greg valliere first of all. he said there is no reason, i'm sorry, we don't have that. ashley, there is no reason why basic industry can't go back to work when we bend the curve. in other words, going back to work early is talked about and considered. ashley: it is. look, once we see that curve flattening out, yes, we could do that while keeping some of the safety measures in place, as you said stu, the social distancing. i think sooner we can get this done it is better. it is hard against a backdrop of all the state governors saying you must stay at home, at least for the next two, three weeks.

it is very difficult to receive these mixed messages from the federal government saying yes we'll get back as soon as possible, perhaps sooner than we had thought. at the same time, you're getting on state level of, these messages only way to beat this is stay off the street and stay indoors as much as possible. he seems optimistic, larry kudlow, something along those lines could be achieved. i'm not so sure but maybe. stuart: okay. okay. lauren, come into this because you're cooped up in the house with two young children and your husband. i'm sure you would like to return to work early, but what do you make of what larry had to say? >> i look at china. they're reopening the hebei province in early april. that is 3 1/2 months. i sure hope it is sooner than that here in the u.s. that is one example. kudlow seemed to echo what i read in "the wall street journal," you cannot separate the employee

from the employer. they're one in the same. as congress reconvenes in 10 seconds from now, hopefully they can pass 2 trillion-dollar stimulus package, both sides, particularly democrats, you got to keep, this is what kudlow kept saying you need to keep businesses afloat. stuart: let me jump into this immediately. sorry, we do this, exactly 10:00 eastern time. we're going to reset the program and here's what we've seen. the market has been open for 30 minutes and we've gone straight up. at this moment the dow industrials are up close to 1200 points. the s&p is up 5.6%. if it goes up 7%, you will shut the market down for 15 minutes, while they consider trading on up side. we have latest read on new home sales. that is looking to the past. that is not much indicator of the future but, ash what do we have? ashley: just looking now.

looks like home sales, .765 million unit on annual rate. that is little better than the, the expected of .750. so there you go. a little. as you say the problem with this as we have with all the other economic data that looks backward, we know this is going to change drastically as we move forward and look back into the period that we're in right now, if you know what i'm saying. but february home sales in the northeast, up 3%. the midwest down 7%. the south up just 1%. the west down 17%. so when you look at it from a regional point of view, the northeast, plenty of healthy sales number but not for the rest of the country. stuart: okay. now then, let me reset a few things here. larry kudlow was on the program a few minutes ago. he said, look, you have got a 6 trillion-dollar package when you combine the federal reserve and congress, combine it all

together, you have got 6 trillion-dollar input of help for the economy on all fronts. it is going to happen. he wants it to happen fast and that's clearly helping the market. so too are his comments about an early return to work. he said there is no reason why basic industry can't go back to work if we bend the curve. that is the curve on the number of new cases, then they start to decline. that is the curve. the market loves this. the dow industrials are up nearly 1200 points. you have got a basic gain all across the board here. bill mcgurn is with us. i want you to refer to what larry kudlow just said. this is the main story of the day which is the possibility of an early return to work. i think that is a very big deal. what do you say, bill? >> absolutely. look, as the journal editorialized we can't make the cure worse than the disease. the president has said that i think one of the worst things

about the way this has been done, things have been shut down and we haven't been clear, we haven't given a clear answer, what is the criteria to get them open again, right? i'm working from home. i have two children in school from home. people, people have been sent home from other businesses but no one has an idea, what is going to be the measure that allows the school to reopen or allows the factory to reopen. i think that uncertainty, people don't know whether they will being home for eight weeks or eight days. stuart: is this 6 trillion-dollar total package going to put a floor under the economy, $6 trillion combining the fed action and likely congressional action a floor for the economy? >> i hope so. i think a lot of stuff won't be effective if history is any clue but i do think we have a liquidity problem. to the degree it addresses that, i think it can make a

difference. you've already seen the market respond, the idea we're going to get something done but again, i'm like you, stu, i'm looking to the private second for for a lot of this stuff. for me i don't really see the market fully recovering until we get some news such as a vaccine or some big game-changer out there on the medical side. stuart: okay. bill, thanks for joining us. i've got to run. i have got a development here for lauren about therm genesis. -- thermogenesis. lauren: everything people are saying. thermogenesis, the stock is surging. they hope by early april they have a point of care test which could be used at the hospital, give the test, find out in minutes if that person does or does not have coronavirus, if

they don't sick, send them to work possibly. but this test potentially available to use at home as well. we need testing and we need a cure right now. but thermogenesis, they have a rapid diagnostic test coming to the market just a few weeks from now, early april. stuart: that is an important development as we go forward, got it. i want to make one correction here, i'm completely mistaken. i thought there were circuit breakers when you go up 7% on the s&p 500. i'm totally wrong. there are not. there are no circuit breakers on the way up. on the way down yes, on the way up, no. hope i cleared that up. sorry about that. susan, news on apple please. susan: volunteers at amazon, alphabet, apple, tech companies building a website to track coronavirus cases. there is concern about big brother. if you look at asian countries like south korea, like hong kong, like singapore, china as well, in order to keep the

containment, they were able to track contact individuals that may have the coronavirus and through their mobile phones. that is u.s. ready to do this? that is big brother. that is a big invasion of privacy, but there is this discussion right now especially amongst the tech community whether or not there is ability to use phones to basically track potential cases of coronavirus. apple for its part has not responded to this. they don't have any plans to do this whatsoever. apple, look at the stock, stu. yesterday it was down close to 6% or so? trading at 214 level. coming back up along with the broader level, this might be over with the stimulus plan and injection of the federal reserve. stuart: i was going to say that, susan. yesterday you and i were talking. the apple stock was at 214. now it is at 237. what an extraordinary development for such a huge and valuable company. it is back to being a trillion

dollar company i do believe. susan: it is. stuart: moving on, market watcher jim awad is with us now. let's add all of this together, jim. larry kudlow tells us you have a, $6 trillion worth of help for the economy from the fed, from congress. you have a active consideration of early return to work. is that enough? take it all together, that enough to put a floor under the market? >> i think the pieces are falling into place. we need a little bit more visibility on how long we're going to be closed on, what corporate profits will look like and gnp will look like in the second quarter with certainty say we have a floor under the market. what would i say we're statistically close, we're getting there in terms of time but you can't say it with certainty yet. what the government is doing, what congress and fed is doing is keeping america liquid while the scientists do their job and i think the scientists will be

the ones to tell us when people can go back to work. from everything you're reading likely by end of april. the second quarter is a wash out in terms of the economy. the question is, can we then get back to work and start to grow again in the third quarter? i think that is the most likely scenario. but what you don't want to do is reopen the economy too early and have people start to get sick again because that will scare consumers and they will just go home again. we have to thread the needle here. stuart: are you buying anything right now? >> well my, yes, my answer is, if you don't care about having a loss for the next 30 on0 days, you're willing to look toward the end of the year and year after that and year after that, you can buy any day the market is down hugely, buy companies you think you want to own, companies like apple and microsoft and companies that have gone down only because of the market, not because that

they are materially affected or their balance sheets are at risk. i think it is too early to speculate of companies on the line and without government aid might not make it. you don't want to go into lower quality companies. if you have a high conviction company, you're willing not to make money the next 60 days, absolutely be a buyer not seller, don't panic, reallocate your asset allocation, a long-term outlook and you look fine by the time we get to 2021. stuart: you're a cautious guy, but i'm reading between the lines what you're saying, i believe can see the light on the far side. you are beginning to believe that you can see the light at the far end of the tunnel, yeah? >> i'm, what i'm saying is, by the end of april we will have the clarity necessary to act rationally in terms of investment decisions. that is only five weeks away. so i'm saying the fog is

beginning to dissipate. we will see the light by end of april, but you can't wait to act always investment wise until the light is staring you in the face. you have to gradually leg in so when the light is clear you're well-positioned. the fog is clearing. i don't see the light yet but i can see a glimmer of the light in the distance. stuart: got it. we'll leave it at that, jim awad, nicely put. thanks for joining us, jim, see you soon, guaranteed. lauren, mondelez, what are they doing? lauren: giving workers two dollars an hour, get the extra money now until may 2nd. their sales representatives are getting a bonus of $125 per week and they're hiring 1000 workers for their distribution and their sales. so this is the maker of ritz crackers, oreo cookies, which you are eating a lot of and me

too as we stay at home. you know bing on tv and snacks. stuart: i'm trying my best to resist it lauren, but being locked up in a small apartment for a long time. i am indeed gaining weight. i don't like it. and we'll see what he can do about it but not much is the answer. bill mcgurn is still with us. let's get serious for a moment here. we have unleashed private enterprise to do war, make war on the virus. how are we doing? >> well i think we're starting to turn things around. look, we always knew if we were going to beat this, it will take our private sector, it is the great strength. they're more nimble than the government. i'm stuck out in new jersey. for the most part the markets shelves are filled. there is shortage of few things. imagine if the government were directing that? i'm writing a about a small

ventilator company called ven tech lighting systems. they do 150 ventilators a month. they partnered with gm to leverage the mass production skills of gm. this is incredible response. this is the kind of thing that distinguishes the u.s. health system from other nations. >> let me turn to separate subject. the ongoing presidential election campaign among the democrats. joe biden says, the president is failing in his response to the virus. your comment on the democrats side of the electoral process? >> well i think he is sort of has to say that. i'm not sure it is a good look. it is a difficult position when you're trying to be president and the president himself is always going to look presidential just by taking decisions and people who normally wouldn't have sympathy for a president of the other party might have it in this case. i'm not sure it is a good look

for joe biden. i think, i think he ought to be, frankly, i think if joe biden were smart and really wanted to get the marginal voters he would be criticizing the democrats in congress for holding this then up. stuart: it is amazing how sidelined the election has been. sidelined almost entirely by the virus. they don't make news. they don't appear in the headlines any longer whether joe biden or bernie sanders. doesn't matter. they're out there. i think election is on hiatus what do you say? >> i agree entirely. that is why i think joe biden is throwing these hail marys. trying to get attention back on himself. he can't do rallies. when you're the challenger you start out at a disadvantage that way. and meanwhile the president is on television every day with press conference. making decisions and giving us updates. that's a hard thing to beat. stuart: it sure is. bill mcgurn, thanks very much.

i hope you are doing well holed up in the living room in suburban new jersey. >> i'm doing fine. okay. stuart: okay. just a few moments ago we had the credit card stocks on the screen, mastercard, visa, american express and they're astonishing gains and why not? if you have a 6 trillion-dollar package of money in different forms going into the economy, you can expect credit card companies to do very well. look at that, mastercard up 14%, visa 12%. amex 10%. how about tesla? any news on tesla, susan? susan: we have lots of news on tesla. in fact the analyst community is very active today. tesla getting a price cut from citigroup, getting a target cut as well from ar gum. s research being cut to hold from a buy. we have did get news, i would

call him the master of pr, gavin newsom, governor of california, elon musk and tesla donated 1000 ventilators from los angeles. they didn't make the ventilate losser as they would. but a way to get in the headlines about 1000. apple donating two million masks. facebook is donating 700,000 masks as well. even benioff, sales force says they will donate millions of masks but tesla and musk can get headlines with smaller numbers i guess, but still necessary for them. stuart: yes indeed. you're quite right, susan, thank you very much. neil bradley with us, the u.s. chamber of commerce, very important organization represents business. welcome to the show. >> thanks for having me. stuart: the main talking point this morning was raised by ourselves and followed through by larry kudlow, this possibility of an early return to work.

larry kudlow said there is no reason why basic industry can't go back to work when we bend the curve. i believe this is what you're pushing for as well, am i right? >> well, we're suggesting that we follow the advice of the medical professionals, right? and so that is vary depending on location, state and obviously vary nationwide. so our best advice, what we're telling our members, listen to the local public health officials when it is safe to get back to work, that is exactly what we want to be doing. stuart: look i understand, neil, that you want to be cautious but a fairly early return to work on a limited basis, keeping social distance, surely would be in favor of that, wouldn't you? are you lobbying for that? >> we're lobbying for returning to work as soon as we safely can and responsibly can. and we have to understand that is going to be different in different work places, in different communities. and so, one size fits all is not a great policy here.

the great ingenuity of the american system there is entrepreneurialism and locality all over the place and so we ought to stick to that model. that's what works. i can tell you our members are eager to get back to work. frankly many are working remotely right now. stuart: this, these huge rescue package that is likely to go through congress, at least we hope it is, what's in it for you? what do you particularly like about it? >> this package is absolutely essential and every hour that we wait is an hour too long where we're putting at risk millions of american workers. it does three critical things that the u.s. chamber has been calling on for over a week now. one is help businesses of all sizes with liquidity by delaying federal tax payments. it does that including payroll taxes. two, help america's small businesses. they employ half of americans. create a special loan grant program for that. this does that to the tune of

$350 billion. third, for america's mid-sized, larger employers we need a credit facility up to the task in terms of size. this creates one up to $4 trillion that will insure whatever direction this takes, american employers have access to to the financing they need to stay afloat and keep paying their employees. stuart: all right, neil bradley, u.s. chamber of commerce, thank you very much for joining us sir. we appreciate it. let me take a time out for a moment to look at this market t continue toes go up. incontinues to go up. investors like what they hear especially from larry kudlow. plus the possibility of a early return to work. the dow is up 1300 points. that is 7.25%. that is a major rally. let me correct myself, there are no circuit breakers on the way up. i thought there might be. there are not. only circuit breakers on the way down.

my mistake, my fault, sorry about that. ash, tell me what you got on disney? ashley: they just launched seven countries in europe, a reduced bandwidth of 25% because of huge demand on broadband network and on europe as people stay indoors, disney launching the streaming service in the uk, ireland, germany, italy, spain, austria and switzerland. france comes online april 7th. the biggest multi-country launch to date for disney and just looking at the rates which will probably mean nothing to our viewers, five pounds or about six pounds a month, seven euros a month you can buy the whole thing. 60-pounds for a year subscription. a lot of people would probably welcome some fresh material to watch while they're stuck indoors. stuart: thanks, ashley. got this coming at me. this is another reason why the market is so strong, mitch mcconnell, senate

majority leader says they are close to a deal. this is the two trillion dollar rescue stimulus package, call it what you like, that is two trillion dollars. mitch mcconnell says they're close to a deal. they have been talking all night long. they are close to a deal. the dow is up 1365 points. the nasdaq is up 400. the s&p is up 140 and the dow is at close to 20,000. now we keep bringing you news on individual companies and stocks. lauren has the latest on twitter. lauren. lauren: twitter has withdrawn its guidance. they cite ad sales are down. these are negatives for the company. at home they are seeing daily active increase in users, 64 million, that is up 23% from last year. even though they have withdrawn their guidance and say they do expect to post a operating loss for this past quarter, the stock is up 1.6%.

stuart: all right. thank you, lauren. one of the big deals, the big issues arisen out of the virus problem, we depend on china for a great many pharmaceutical products. they make ingredients that go into many drugs, pharmaceutical products we use every day. congressman chip roy, republican from texas is with us. he has a plan to bring the drug-making capacity back to america and bring it out of china. okay, real brief, what's your plan? >> well, thanks, stuart. first of all glad to hear the good news hope we're getting to a deal after the -- democrats employed interrupting financial stability we need to get tote market but we need to restore the ability to produce the supplies, medicine, we need to take care of ourselves and not be so intertwined with china. we introduced a bill that would go back and restore something we used to have, ability under the

tax code have pharmaceutical companies on our shores, particularly in puerto rico. puerto rico used to be a haven we would have manufacturing of pharmaceuticals. we changed the laws in 1990s, took place in early 2000s. all the pharmaceutical production ran offshore and went to china. we have legislation to restore the tax break would allow some of the pharmaceutical companies to have the breaks, be on our shores, particularly in puerto rico, would have secondary benefit helping brothers and sisters in puerto rico through tough times as well. we have the results act to make sure we move things through the united states much more quickly through the fda, by virtue being approved by some of our friend, fda equivalents in other countries. we have legislation that would do that. senator cruz is a sponsor of that over in the senate but we've got to change the way we produce this going forward. we're seeing that right now. the good news the engine of commerce in the united states if we free it up allow it to occur we'll produce the masks we need,

we'll produce the tests we need to the scale we need in the united states of 30 million people. god bless gm, all the companies stepping up to produce the masks we need. we're getting tests out the door now that that the cdc has gotten out of the way for the private sector to do their job. stuart: mr. congressman, thank you for joining us. very important point you're raising there. we don't want to be dependent on china for the basic drugs we use today. chip roy, thank you. >> thank you. stuart: president trump tweeted this. i will read it to you. this is following on from the theme of early return to work. quote, our people want to return to work. they will practice social distancing and all else and seniors will be watched over, protectively and lovingly. we can do two things together. we cure, the cure, cannot be worse by far than the problem. congress must act now. we will come back strong. this is the main talking point of the day.

this is becoming the most important factor of the day, that would be, an early return to work. and the president's tweet there, makes it clear, that we would still keep social distancing even though some industries go back to work. social distancing stays in place. we would take special care of those most vulnerable. that would be the seniors in our midst and those with a previous existing medical condition. do that and it appears to be under consideration that there will be an early relaxation of the rules and regulations governing our social interaction. remember, please, that the medical community may be at odds with this, and the state governments are increasing their roll out of more and more stringent restrictions t would seem that this early return to work flies in the face of those two things. dow industrials, they love it. the dow is up 14 points, 7.6%.

that is what we have right now. so where to next? dow 20,000, yes. there we are. what have we got on amazon. go to the company. tell me what you got on the company, please. susan: that would be me. prime delivery now, the delivery delays might stretch into months according to some reports here. we know there has been a surge in amazon orders since some people are stuck at home, they're quarantined. they can't go out. what do they do? they order their supplies and goods instead. interesting story in the "wall street journal," about insiders and big billionaires holders of companies, founders of companies have been selling out before the stock market rout. they noticed amazon jeff bezos sold out roughly 3% stake in february before the stock market rout actually took place. so he actually saved himself about $317 million in paper losses if he had off-loaded the $3.4 billion just in recent weeks. i thought that was very

interesting article this morning. stuart: whales you're with me, susan, reiterate one thing which we've not told our viewers this hour, i believe the tokyo olympics have been postponed. can you confirm that? susan: that is confirmed. we heard that from japanese prime minister shinzo abe after consultation with the ioc reluctantly. they have postponed olympics first time in non-war years. they're delaying the games until 2021. they haven't given us a date when it will happen in 2021. you have to feel sorry for the athletes, stu, don't you? those are preparing, training for the last three four, years, trying to peak at the right time. athletes and performances their abilities shift between years, right? so i think it goes the same as march madness basketball players. you've been preparing so long. you've been eligible for so long. some ways you kind of lost your chance for now at least. stuart: no, but absolutely, susan, your heart goes out to

them. you train for the olympics, you train for years. suddenly train extra year. go off the peak. real personal trauma for great people. very sad indeed. let's continue our coverage of individual companies how they're responding. news please of walgreens, lauren. lauren: being nice to senior citizens trying to get items that they need. starting today walgreens will let seniors, vulnerable shoppers, those with preexisting conditions have one hour to shop every tuesday between 8:00 and 9:00 a.m., if you are 55 or older this applies to you. as we talk about walmart and costco and walgreen all doing this early shopping, they're saying from now, until typically goes until the end of april. so to give you a sense of as we do talk about getting americans back to work, a lot of companies are saying, well, we're in this crisis mode, this shutdown mode, probably for another five weeks. stuart: okay. thank you, lauren.

now, i want to get back, put the trump tweet on the screen again please. he just issued this literally minutes ago, it is about early return to work. it is on the screens right now. our people want to return to work. you can read the rest of it for yourselves. bring back jim awad. this has given the market an extra shot in the arm, jim, because the dow is now up, nearly 1500 points. >> yeah. don't forget, you have the program trading and quantitative trading when things start to get positive they accentuate it. three things i would like to see. i would like to see dr. fauci say that it its okay to get back to work. that what trump is saying is okay. that would add a lot of credibility what trump is saying. would like to hear jamie dimon and warren buffett saying they're buying stock. if those three things happen the market would roar and wouldn't stop. we haven't seen any of those yet.

meantime watch the credit markets. last week investment grade bond went down as much as the s&p. and that is not supposed to happen. investment grade bonds went down as much as high-yield bond. they're doing better this week as a result of fed actions. but if you want to watch investment grade bond market, has to retain the stability that is it got yesterday. and then we're only a few weeks away from companies issuing first-quarter earnings and guidance for the full year which will be mid-april, that is about the time we should have more clarity on mel situation. so, if congress can just, congress and fed can keep america afloat for four or five more weeks, we should be, we should be as we were talking before the light at the end of the tunnel. stuart: by the way, mitch mcconnell, the leader of the senate, he did say just a few moments ago that they are close to getting a deal. you have a positive trump tweet. larry kudlow talking about maybe getting back to work.

mitch mcconnell says the deal is pretty close. the fed is kicking in trillions of dollars. looks to me like you got a market rally on pretty solid footing. jim awad, thanks for being with us. i've got to move on. see what we've got here. nike, they report after the closing bell today, what are they doing? lauren? lauren: nike let me get that for you, if anybody else has the story please chime in. susan: i will help you out. lauren: thanks, susan, go for it. susan: nike is something we're watching. they warned already that 70% of the shoes worn in america are made in china. they guided there will be a hit in terms of sales, even production much supply chain lines. it will be interesting to see what nike does, given they still make a lot of their shoes over in china. they have diversified supply chains in cross-countries across vietnam and cambodia. this is something they watch. given we're in the stimulus game

right now. whether or not consumer demand is still there. stuart: nice jump in there, susan. thanks very much indeed. i was kind of lost. thanks very much. all right, ashley, i'm looking at various groups of companies and industries which are really rebounding very nicely today. i see the credit card companies doing extremely well. you tell me about the hotels? ashley: they're doing well as well. this is a sector like so many others in this line of work that have been absolutely pummeled, my eyes are not good, up 17%. hilt con up 7%. they're moving higher on hopes the government, will indeed, congress can come to agreement get stimulus going. to jim awad's part, if government policy and fiscal policy keep us going for the next four or five weeks i think then we'll be able to get back

to work. there is danger, a lot of people saying get back to work, we're fine. i think it is great, if you do it too soon. it could be disasterous. this virus passes on very quickly. to quote jim again, you're threading the needle on this thing. we're seeing all stocks rise today. let's face it they have been beaten down so much over the last several weeks. maybe people are now saying you know what? this is a heck of a deal. i'm going to buy it. stuart: maybe so. thanks, ash. now one of the big deals we've got going here is test kits. we need them. we need those tests to be fast. we need them to be distributed around the country. we need to test a lot of people. that is the way we can get back to work quickly. now, susan, do you have news test kits? what have you got? susan: interview on cnn today, the head of fema is suggesting that president trump enacted the defense production act. that is something he has been very reluctant to do. this requires basically companies to produce for the government in their time of

need, given that we've had a lot of these corporations stepping up like general motors, teslas, facebooks and apples, providing ventilator support and production, also creating jobs by the way in honeywell's case, providing 500 jobs to make ventilators, he has been very hesitant to force companies to do this, given they have been stepping up to the plate. fema says we need more help and production t has to be fast given the speed and velocity of the spread. pressing president trump to enact the defense production act. government cuomo doing this as well. scarce supplies like test kits, like hydrochloroquine goes across the country. stuart: thank you, susan. i'm seeing remarkable bounces for various stocks. i saw tesla go by way straight up there. wonder to show me uber. they hit a bottom.

i don't know whether full or long term bottom. hit something after low a few days ago. i think they bounced significantly, yes they have. up nearly 10% today. what are they doing, lauren? lauren: nice gain today. they have added bob bob eckerd. former ceo of mattel and kraft. people seem to like the news. the stock is up almost 10%. stuart: thank you, lauren. dow industrials holding on to a very solid gain. we've gone up since the opening bell. promise after 6 trillion-dollar package from congress and fed. maybe getting back to work early or loosening restrictions, mitch mcconnell says the deal is close. go to jeff flock joining from us lake station, indiana. jeff, with the retail and service industries suffering, i believe the trucking industry is

surging. tell me. reporter: talk about deserted streets in this country. this is a hive of activity. this is the lake station. you see guys gassing up. he is walking his dog. look at this, joe, he is walking his dog over here. this goes on, amazing. these are the guys that are you know, talk about heroes, keeping the blood pumping through this country right now. you know, everything, basically, you look at numbers on trucking stuart, even in a normal year, 70, 70% of all of stuff that we have is shipped via truck and it is these guys that do it. these guys coming in and out of and the big thing for them is, they need to have support themselves. they need to be able to get food. they need to be able to get a shower and these are the guys that are doing driving, doing long hauls. a lot of state, you know, rest

areas have been shut down. so it is these private locations, you know, flying j. this is the largest, by the way, group of truck stops in the country, 780 of these. mcdonald's that is shut down right there. there is food inside of here. spin around, joe, maybe you can see. there is some food but typically there would be a denny's in there they could get food at. now just inside of the truck stop. this is a huge location because there are two major interstates here. there are three different truck stops. they are all humming right now. i tell you, talk about stocks getting a bump today? those trucking stocks, trucking company stocks among those getting a bump today. great to see this activity happening in so much of the country, stuart, not much is happening right now. stuart: well-said. i guess there is something good to be said about having no

traffic on major highways. that let's truckers get through faster. reporter: cheap gas. that is always a plus. $1.57 out here. diesel cheap too. stuart: $1.75. jeff flock i would take that. thanks, jeff. market watcher, george z, welcome to the program. you and i talked about recent past, establishing a low, a bottom in the market. we have looks like a 6 trillion-dollar package coming at under the circumstances from the fed and from congress and we've got this possibility of an early return to work. does that amount enough to you, to establish a bottom for the market? >> well, we're about 30 to 40% on, stuart, with the dry powder we've got. that ought to tell you how i feel about it. i feel like we've got to see a declining cases of the virus and we've got to see really bad economic data before we're ready

to call a permanent bottom. this is a wonderful rally today, but we've got dry powder still. stuart: so you don't think that all of this money that is going to flood into the economy, you don't think that's enough to support the economy and support the market, establish a low? >> i think it will eventually for sure. it is overwhelming force. i'm glad to see fed and congress doing that, but i think we have to have more time play out before this thing can completely unwind, to get back on track. i think that is what we're facing. stuart: we've got enormous bounce in some major names today. if i was a trader kind of guy, if i had money to invest, i would be a little worried about missing this opportunity because, what has come down so far, so fast, now it is beginning to bounce, i wonder, have i missed it? >> yeah, i think there will be plenty of time to catch the surge in the markets that will

come over the next year or two once we fully recover from this. i think people will have several opportunities. most of our clients already have quite a bit of exposure. they will already benefit. we want to save rounds in the chamber for even worse circumstances if they do come. we tend to like to leave some in reserve in case things do get worse, but if you're a trader, you should have put it on yesterday, because you got a really nice bounce today. stuart: keep your powder dry and keep one in the chamber. i like these, what is the word, comparisons here, good language. george seay, thanks for joining us. ash is with us. you have news on ford. what are they doing? ashley: ford originally wanted to reopen north american plants on march 30th. that is not going to happen says the company. they are changing time to resume plants production.

they're working with union leaders and resuming vehicle production in mexico, the u.s. and canada. the company saying, look, ford's top priority is the health and safety of employees, dealers, customers and says, something we're talking about about, in light of various government orders to stay and work from home, ford is not planning to restart the plants on march 30th as originally hoped for. we're reassessing our options. stay tuned. there was hope that these production facilities could reopen on march 30th. it is not going to happen for ford. stuart: well, just, ash, before you go, let me come back at you. ashley: yeah. stuart: maybe some of these car companies don't want to be producing more cars, more vehicles because they don't feel they can sell them? ashley: exactly right. where is the market for them? in fact as we said earlier ford is working for gm, ge health care, work on creating ventilators and turning over production to that. so clearly that is more important than churning out cars

that will probably just sit in the lot. stuart: well-said, thanks, ash. moving on to lauren. got asking on hp, formerly known as hewlett-packard, now hp. what have you got? lauren: what a great story. they're mobilizing 3d production teams to make masks, face shields, hands-free door openers, so you can open a door in hospital or home for instance with your elbow. they have already printed and delivered 1000 of these three3 d printed parts. they hope to do more. hospital equipment, three -- 3d printed from hp. stuart: judge andrew napolitano.

bill de blasio will send police to the parks and playgrounds toe enforce social distancing rules. seems like we in new york and maybe other parts of the country have trouble, difficulty maintaining long term control of the population. i think that may be why we're beginning to talk about an early return to work. what say you? >> i fully agree with you. you know, we come from a tradition of personal liberty and the idea of constraints whether voluntarily assumed or artificially enforced is alien to us. so it is odd, stuart. if you look at photographs of the national guard in the javits center, a very, very large, enormous, indoor arena, not far from where we are now in the middle of manhattan, you see 10 or 20 of them, they're two feet from each other. when you see police trying to break up groups of young people in central park, they're in pairs, they're about two feet from each other. when you see the president and

his team giving the briefing from the white house briefing room, they're about two inches from each other. just contrary to human nature. i think the authorities are beginning to recognize that. we should have the discipline to stay away from each other but it is our human nature to try to be with them. so for how long can the, can the government, if they force procedures on us contrary to our nature. add to that, these procedures are being enforced in california, one of your states you like to study by drone, drones in the sky taking pictures of people, shouting at them. george orwell couldn't have dreamed this better. hey, you two, you're too close to each other. separate. stuart: wait, wait. this i didn't know, okay, california is deploying drones, monitoring the population, they're actually shouting at people from the sky, look up and they're shouting at you? >> not all the drones are equipped with audio but some of

them are and the person manning the drone is doing it alone, in the comfort, convenience and biological safety of a disinfected, what looks like one of our control rooms. if he has the high-end drone, has the ability, the drone is close enough to you, has the ability to speak to you. that is really threatening but it shows you the. >> extent -- extent to which some governments, the cost is astronomical. the state has not mandated this. some governments are willing to go. i think the president as i read him last night, i think you read him the same way i did is outraged by this and believes that the cost to the economy, to american prosperity is not worth it and we need some middle ground, somewhere between the draconian measures now being enforced and the freedom we all knew as recently as two weeks ago. stuart: i think you're right, judge. in fact i think that is the main talking point of the day when we

are talking about the virus. yes you have big rescue package, yes you have action from federal reserve, you have the president saying look, economic damage is enormous, the price is enormous, is it worth the price to fight the virus in this way. long term, judge, i don't think you can make draconian restrictions on americans stick. what say with you? >> i agree with you. i don't think prime minister johnson will have the success on your former colleagues on other side of the pond either, economic prosperity, the freedom to produce economic prosperity is so ingrained in us. certain cultures are accustomed to the government saying yes, no, maybe. none of us is accustomed to that. i think the president recognizes that, stuart. that was pretty clear from what he said last night. look what ashley just told us. even if ford wanted to open up, even if the president or governor of michigan said open up tomorrow, they can't do it.

they are so shut down, it will take a while, a long time for them to get back to where were producing as recently as last month. stuart: got it. you know, judge, we're in agreement, unbelievable, there you have it. judge napolitano, thank you very much indeed, sir. >> the best to you my dear friend. stuart: thank you, ash, sorry, judge. now to ash. now to the prime minister of india, what do you have, ash? ashley: talking of draconian, mr. modi, prime minister of india, it will be a lockdown from wednesday and save india, and every indian living there. there is total ban venturing out of homes. he says he knows the economic cost will be great for the country, but he believes he needs to take this step to protect the country and everyone that is living in it. that is extreme to the hilt. a total ban on ventureing out of homes in india. i don't know whether they use

the drones or military to enforce it, but that is the latest from india, stu. stuart: okay. thanks, ash. i will get back to you in a second for an update what the brits are doing, right now, lauren, news on coca-cola please. lauren: lauren: -- upgraded them to a buy, giving them a 45-dollar price target. what is interesting here, coca-cola sells products in arenas, restaurants and those are shut down. you might order from a restaurant right now but are you also ordering a drink? that is why they withdrew the guidance. they said the quarter will probably be tough for them as for many others because of the coronavirus. nonetheless some analysts are optimistic about coca-cola today. as you can see, that is reflected in the stock price. stuart: got it. lauren, thanks very much indeed. now florida senator rick scott joins us. he is on the phone for us. mr. senator, florida wants to

put in, put some domestic travel restrictions in place. so if you fly from new jersey or new york down to florida, you're going to go into quarantine for 14 days. now i know that is a state issue. you're a united states senator in washington, d.c., but what do you make of that, domestic travel restrictions? i think we may have, we may have lost the connection there with senator rick scott. i do apologize. but, that is a point of news which we should emphasize this morning. the governor of florida is considering an executive order that would place all people flying from new york or new jersey down to florida in a 14-day quarantine. i guess you can drive down, no problem. but you can't fly down. he has not signed this executive order yet but he is, we're told,

considering it seriously. let me go back to ashley for a moment. because i want to wrap up some of the developments overseas. you brought news of the prime minister of india. got that. tell me more about boris johnson in england with a full-scale lockdown of the whole country now. ashley: yeah, you know what is interesting though, stu? just a follow up on that, yes he did call basically for a lockdown for at that time least three weeks. but on the london underground, the tube this morning it was during the peak hours, absolutely packed. there were pictures of people squeezed in like sardines, all wearing these face masks but, a lot of people said how on earth could that happen? it turns the out that the london underground staff, transport of london is company that runs it, not you have people showed up for work. they couldn't control it. i saw that nigel farage tweeting about it, disgraceful scenes on the london underground this

morning. we will only obey a government we respect. they are having problems in the uk with the social distancing thing. to get back to boris johnson, he said you can only leave the house for four reasons, to exercise once a day, to travel to an from work where absolutely necessary, to shop for essential items and to fulfill any medical or care needs. i also noted that some bars in london panned people going to the parks. that is in hammersmith, south and west side of the town but i don't think that is extended but they are having a hard time social distancing. stuart: yep. i wonder how the brits will feel when they hear president trump is considering an early return to work. ashley: yeah. stuart: i have a couple of items from overseas. first of all from china. hebei province that was the center of the outbreak in the first place, hebei province, they are going to ease restrictions. and wuhan, the center, epicenter of the whole thing, where it

broke out, wuhan will ease restrictions in april. that will be next month. so positive news there from the epicenter of the pandemic. that is where it started, i believe in december of last year. it is 10:51 eastern time. brian kilmeade with us. he is the host of the "brian kilmeade show" on fox news radio. the main talking point, today, brian, is this may be open for business early. the president's tweeted about it. larry kudlow told me about it a half hour ago, what do you make of it, get back to work early? >> listen, i have never seen anything like this in my life. it is like, we're a nation who is a caged lion, just want to be productivity. we don't want a hankedout. we don't want a direct deposit into our accounts. compared it to world war ii, that was one thing. world war ii we said we need to you grab a uniform, grab a gun,

grab a job help us out, they tell us to stay inside. that is anti-american. that is something we can't get our hands wrapped around. i can't. we're lucky to work. everything is makeshift. i talked to colonel allen in texas, why are we doing this,-h1n1 was worse. we have only 51 cases in our area, told to stay inside. shut down the whole state. blankfein, former ceo of goldman sachs. what a economy we have to go back to when we're ready to stand up the country. you know the medical community will push back hard on the president. no other country is standing up again, except for china but i don't believe anything that comes out of there. south korea might be the model, stuart. stuart: okay. look, it seems like we're opening up the conversation about a return to work. the conversation has begun. i consider that very positive and stock market reacted very

postively. here is a big negative in my book. speaker pelosi, goes on vacation, comes back, rewrites her own legislation for this rescue package, loads it up with utter nonsense. $35 million for the kennedy center for performing arts. same day voter registration. all kinds of stuff. that has nothing to do with those millions of people who are out of work and want a paycheck. i'm outraged. i think you are too. >> absolutely. it is just like the people who are gouging us for masks that cost 70 cents. now they're charging 17 or $25. no excuse for that. i like capitalism but there is this thing called patriotism. at the very least, you come back, you get this done, you want to come back later and you want to push your agenda, there is thing called an election. you win the election, then the airlines will have to go by your epa reservations. you will have to take money,

raise minimum wage and drive small business out of business. you will have a chance to forgive the post office debt. not now. it is like the firemen showing up at your house, when it is going up in flames, you mind if i wait out here a little bit longer. if you could tip the guys, get them something to eat before i go inside. it is inexcusable. when you lose susan collins. have you ever seen her that mad in her life? she was furious yesterday. what worries me most, stuart, they think they will get a deal. which means i sense the republicans may have caved on some of this. why would schumer be optimistic after those outrageous entries into this conversation? i hope the final product doesn't look like this. stuart: you know, it is one of those situations where you have to pass the bill to find out what's in it. i remember speaker pelosi saying that way back when for the obamacare legislation. that is the last thing which need. look, brian, i've got to run.

i do apologize for this. i'm cutting us off a little bit but i have to go back to the florida situation. susan, outline for me please, florida's governor, what is he saying about flights from new york or new jersey? susan: says there are 190 direct flights from new york city to the state of florida. he reckons given the outbreak there, meaning over 20,000 cases every single flight has somebody on it who is positive for covid-19. now you've heard from desantis saying he wants everybody that comes from new york, new jersey, if you're on a flight to florida, he wants you to quarantine yourself for 14 days. so sounds like he is saying the epicenter right now at least in the u.s. is coming from new york and new jersey and he doesn't want it to stuart: thank you, susan. we do now have the connection with florida senator rick scott. he is joining us now on the phone. mr. senator, we have this word of a possible start to domestic travel restrictions, more restrictions on our personal movement, and at the same time,

we have the president talking about an early return to work. what's fwogoing on here? >> look, i'm glad the president is starting to talk about it. we have to have a plan to get back to work. i put out a plan last week, a 30-day plan. we've got to stay home, if we can, but we still have to have businesses operate. we need to clearly close our border. i think we really need to close our airports for awhile manand e sure we don't have what's happening in new york spread around the country. we have to continue to build up this testing. if you are tested positive or around somebody who tested positive, you got to quarantine. stuart, it's real simple. if it doesn't get into our bodies, we can't infect anybody else. by the way, look, i'm going to look very closely at the stimulus bill but the fastest way to get money into somebody's pocket, say you don't have to pay your bills right now. wait 30 days. you still have to pay them but wait 30 days for your car payment and your rent and your

mortgages. give people a break for a short period of time until they get back on their feet. that would be the fastest way we can get people money back in their pockets. stuart: if we bend the curve and start to see fewer new cases, if we get to that point, would you be in favor of some relaxation in the rules? in some areas? you can maintain -- you can keep -- go ahead. on the phone: stuart, i want to get back to work. what i put out yesterday, i put out by state how fast this thing is growing so we can start, just like what we do in business, you say what is -- who's doing the best and let's do what they're doing and see if we're stopping the curve here and where we are doing it and maybe where we are doing it, we can open it up. but we all have to say our lives have changed. how are we going to fly, how are we going to go to restaurants, what are the terms under which we can open things, like disney world. what are we going to have to do from now on, what sort of

testing? don't go out with viruses anymore, don't go out with a fever. we have to change how we live now. we have to get back to work as quickly as we can. stuart: what are you going to do about the irresponsible bow hai behavior of some young people? the florida spring breakers, i understand five carried the virus, tested positive, now they are spread out all across the country. that's a problem, isn't it? on the phone: it's disgusting. it's irresponsible. they could be the ones that cause their grandparents to die. how irresponsible. but their parents have to be part of this. their parents have to stop them. say you can't go do this. as a parent you have to say that. stuart: should the police be part of it? in new york city, they are breaking up groups of people who assemble in parks. should we be doing that like in florida? on the phone: unfortunately, we don't have a choice. we have to say to ourselves

we've got to social distance. part of it is we all have to take personal responsibility but if people are not going to do the right thing, unfortunately we have to make them do the right thing. if they're not going to quarantine we have to make them quarantine. we've got to break this. you saw yesterday they were talking about how the death rate is coming down which is great. still 1%, that's a heck of a lot of people. so we've got to figure out how to break this. stuart: senator rick scott, i just want to thank you very much for being on the show this morning. very busy day for everybody. thanks for being with us today. on the phone: thanks, stuart. stuart: i'm going to reset the show when we come up at the top of the hour in 30 seconds. suffice it to say we have had quite a hectic morning. we've got all kinds of news on the stimulus package, news from the federal reserve, got a market rally of some significance here. the question we are asking is,

will it put a floor under the economy and the market when you pass the stimulus bill, the federal reserve acts and we are talking about going back to work. here we go. three seconds. top of the hour, bang, it is 11:00 eastern time. here we go. we are into -- we are all about what's going on with your money and in politics. first of all, let's deal with your money. the markets show a very significant rally. the dow is up better than 7.25%. that's 1300 points. why is that? item one, senator mitch mcconnell says we are close to a deal. the market really likes that. item number two, larry kudlow told us that they are close to a total $6 trillion worth of help for the economy from congress and from the federal reserve. item number three, the president has tweeted about a possible early return to work. very tentative at this point. but those three items are

producing a very nice stock market rally. we have got our eye on the white house, on your screens right now. happening next hour, the president gives a virtual town hall. it will come from the rose garden. that's in place of a virus press conference. you can watch it on fox news. back to your money, i want to check the ten-year treasury yield. where is it this morning? i'll tell you, it is 0.83%. that means money is coming out of treasury securities. of course it's a safe haven but money is coming out of it and going into stocks. the yield up to .834%. where's the price of gold today? it's been all over the place recently. it's up a whopping 4%. that is 66 bucks today, $1,638 per ounce. as for the price of oil, hovering around $24 a barrel. $23 now. up 12 cents at $23.48. you still can't make a profit

drilling for oil in america at that price. however, the national price for gas, the average, all the way down to $2.10. 20 states are selling gas below $2 a gallon and in oklahoma, the average price is $1.69 per gallon. let's go round the block to our reporters. ash, news from the pentagon. ashley: not so dp negood news f the top pentagon officials who said this outbreak of the coronavirus could indeed last up to three months in their estimation. let me tell you exactly what defense secretary mark esper said. he estimated it could take up to ten weeks but the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff went just a little bit further than that, saying he expects the military to be dealing with the virus at least for the next three months. so ten weeks to three months is the estimate coming from the pentagon. stuart: okay.

not good. we don't want to hear months. we want to hear days. but we're not going to hear days. we might hear weeks. lauren, news on intel? lauren: intel stock is up in a big way. they got an upgrade from goldman sachs and as you look at this, what are we doing. we are working from home. goldman says the strength of intel's cpus or central processing units are really able to keep up with the big demand and i got to say, look at that, zoom is down today by 11%. i have to say, everything that we are doing from home, whether it's working or streaming or finding stuff to entertain the kids, i've got to say, we have been able to keep -- the tech companies have allowed that to happen. so far, so good. i haven't had any issues with connectivity at home at all. stuart: yeah. while we're on the subject, i'm staying at home 24/7 and i'm gaining weight. will anyone else admit to gaining weight while on lockdown? lauren: five pounds right here. ashley: diet's gone out the window.

susan: not just during this period that i'm gaining weight. ashley: pizza yesterday here at the fox building. i regretted it all the way home. susan: no regrets. just enjoy. stuart: i should never have raised the subject. i'm very sorry that i did. ashley: thanks for that. stuart: okay. wipe the screen. let's get back to gold. it's up 66 bucks an ounce. big gain today. you have more news on gold? susan: yeah. well, looks like goldman sachs says gold is the currency of last resort. so acting as a hedge against currency debasement and especially in light of the fact you heard from the federal reserve yesterday saying basically we will do whatever it takes to get the economy going, to backstop it against the coronavirus spread and to get the markets back up again and to provide liquidity, and since you don't want to see financial markets seize up like they did during 2008. they are putting a price target from what i see, 12-month price target of $1800 an ounce, but given this world, we are only

going to get back to the levels we saw back during 2008, $1800 an ounce might not be too far-fetched, i think. assist got it. thank you. now let's talk small business. we are joined by linda mcmahon, former small business administrator. welcome to the program. good to have you back with us. on the phone: thank you, stuart. good to be here. stuart: now, we hear a lot about this rescue package, $2 trillion worth of it. we hear a lot about the federal reserve putting aside i think it's $400 billion in loans to small businesses. let's suppose that i run a small business and it's closed down. when can i expect to get some money and who is the money coming from? >> well, stuart, the first thing that has to happen is that congress has to pass this legislation. i think it is absolutely unconscionable what has been happening, when we were so close to having a deal, getting this money into the hands of small businesses so that they can pay

their employees and keep them on staff. it is much harder to restart a business once you have laid off employees. but this bill allows for money to go to small businesses and if they keep their employees at the level they had them approximately a year ago, they are going to pay them for their benefits, they are going to pay, the businesses will then be able to pay their mortgages, the business's mortgages and if they do all of that, this money that is being loaned will be a grant, and businesses will not have to pay back that money. this will restart the economy, it will put money into the pockets of all of those people that have been laid off and it will keep these businesses ready to pop right back in. so before any money can get anywhere, congress has got to act. and democrats have got to come forward and mitch mcconnell said earlier, i listened to him, that was encouraging, they were getting close. we got close saturday and they yanked the rug out. come on. let's get this done for the people in america. stuart: yeah, really.

really. i'm with you all the way. let me just play a sound bite from larry kudlow, who was on the program earlier. roll tape, please. >> this is the largest main street, i emphasize main street, this is small businesses, this is workers, this is families, this is the largest main street assistance package in the history of the country. it's about $2 trillion in terms of direct programatic assistance, for example on unemployment and payroll holidays and small business loan guarantees, but also, as you may know, the federal reserve will have the power of roughly $4 trillion of lending authority. stu, that's a $6 trillion package, about 30% of gdp is what it could come to. stuart: okay. linda, may i get back to the mechanics of this. you say that it's possible that you've got your small business, you shut down, you can get an

interest-free grant, you can get a grant of money coming at you, you don't have to repay it so long as you keep your work force in place and you pay their benefits. that's really like the tax -- like a pass-through, isn't it, the taxpayer putting money into your business, you use that money to pay wages and benefits. that sounds pretty good to me. >> well, it is good. the federal government, the plan the president has put forward and the senate, this is what we need to do. and those businesses would be able to go to their local banks and to the state banks to get this money because the money will go right into the banks, it will operate, is my understanding, under the guidelines of the 7a loans that typically have come out from sba because those guidelines are already in place. now, clearly they can change them, they can make them easier to access, but that money's going to come right into their local banks, so the sooner we can get this legislation passed, that money will flow into the banks. it could be two to three weeks, i understand.

but you know, we got to get it passed. let's work on that. stuart: yes, indeed. i'm told the bill, mitch mcconnell says progress has been made, they are expecting a deal today, and you are telling me two to three weeks if it's signed today, it will be two to three weeks, that's it, and small business gets the money. will you confirm that? >> well, i can't confirm that exactly. that is what i have heard, that is what i have heard other people say on television. i think that is the hope. but stuart, i want to reemphasize, too, that sba also has its disaster loan program which is in place. so businesses can already be calling sba because it is funded already for its disaster loans because that's under the prior appropriations that sba has. so go to sba.gov disaster and you can see what the opportunities are there. stuart: let's get that money out there. linda mcmahon, thanks for being

with us. really appreciate it. thank you. >> thank you, stuart. thank you so much. stuart: sure thing. sure thing. headlines from governor cuomo. i think does he hold a daily news conference? ashley: he does indeed. at this time every day. i'm just looking, because i'm watching it in silence and just trying to interpret. i do know that he says new cases are rising dramatically. the rate of increase of new cases he says is doubling every three days. he projects that new york may need as many as 140,000 hospital beds. he says that we must dramatically increase hospital capacity. he believes that the apex, the top of this reporting of new cases, could be between 14 and 21 days away. as a result of that, he says we need more beds, we need more of everything. he says we can't ask people to work, you know, 14 days in a row round the clock. they need more help.

they say an empty hospital bed is useless without doctors and nurses needed to be able to attend the person in that bed. he said the greatest need continues to be ventilators. they have procured around 7,000. he said we will need at least 30,000. so some dramatic headlines from the governor of new york, mr. cuomo. stuart: those dramatic headlines did indeed affect the market. we were up over 1400 points before the governor said that. he said it, basically saying the rate of increase doubles every three days, we need 140,000 hospital beds, maybe, and we are not close to the top of the infection rate yet. when he said that, the dow dropped about 100 points. but we are holding on to a 7% gain. now, news from various companies and what they are doing about the virus. tell me what fiat chrysler is doing. lauren: governor cuomo just said we need to help our health care workers and fiat chrysler is

doing just that. they are going to donate more than one million face masks a month to get them not only to those working in the hospitals on the front lines but also firefighters and police officers and anybody else who is in contact with other people. stock is up 5.5% on that news. stuart: thanks very much indeed. again, the main stories today, a total $6 trillion package from the fed and the congress looks to be on its way. the president and some officials are talking about an early relaxation of the rules governing lockdowns. the dow is now up still 1300 points. news from facebook, susan? susan: m & a activity, just before the coronavirus outbreak it looks like the "financial times" is reporting facebook was looking at a multi-billion dollar stake in india's reliance geo which provides broadband and

internet services to the economy. it's owned by india's richest man. they are eyeing a multi-billion dollar stake. facebook was apparently close the a preliminary deal for close to 10% of the company before talks stalled after coronavirus and the epidemic continues to break out and spread around the world. by the way, google has also been engaged in separate talks with reliant jio as well. reliance jio has been a broadband provider, also providing packages for those who are quarantined and having to stay home and also, it's a big entry play into a big market of india which we know is, what, i think the second most populated country in the world after china. stuart: that is accurate. just over a billion people in india, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 billion in china. got it. thank you. we are joined now by zane tankel, frequent guest on the program. z zane runs a lot of applebee's

restaurants. he's joining us from an empty restaurant, i think joining us on the phone, totally empty restaurant. you're on the phone. am i right in saying you have shut down or had to shut down all of your restaurants? i think you have about 40 of them? on the phone: yeah. we are shut down everywhere but we have a restaurant open in a borough or two, bronx, staten island, brooklyn, queens, manhattan. one or two doing just takeout. we furloughed about 2500 -- sorry. stuart: you furloughed 2500 people. they don't get any pay, they are out of work at this point, are they? on the phone: for all intents and purposes. they will get a paycheck for the next two weeks and then we are scrambling around. i have a conference call with our bank this afternoon to see what we can do about some

immediate funds because these are people that are always the most vulnerable, that need the cash more than any single person and i don't know what they do about buying food for their children and family. we are very concerned about them. this afternoon i will have a call with our bank about what we can do about injecting some immediate funds, because waiting for the government frankly, you got to eat every day. we have thousands of people that have to eat every day. stuart: but you are -- i mean, in the stimulus package, the $2 trillion package, if it passes and we are told it's close to passing, you will then be able to get some money from the banks at either no interest or it will be a cash grant. that's very much in your favor, is it not? on the phone: it is, but here's the other side of that coin. not me, but the restaurant sp e

space, zwe have to first obviously control and mitigate. that best case, according to the pentagon, is some months away. then what's the date that it's mitigated? there's no hard date. it slowly goes away. how do people start coming out and ignoring what they have now gotten in the habit of social distancing and sit down in a restaurant? we are sit-down. our whole concept is about socializing. versus quick service or fast fo food. casual dining which is our sp e space, is all about what we are now trying to disseminate against which i'm not criticizing but when does it get back into shape, where people are willing to go out and sit down next to somebody else? that i'm afraid has a long runway before that plane takes off. stuart: i think you are

absolutely right. you have no way of knowing whether we will return entirely to the same habits we had four weeks ago. we just don't know. s zan, thanks for being with us. we appreciate it. we will take a short commercial break. the dow industrials are up over 1400 points. back after this. do you have concerns about mild memory loss related to aging? prevagen is the number one pharmacist-recommended

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stuart: we have extended the gains. look at this. we are almost two hours into the trading session, almost, that is, and the dow is now up 7.5%. that is 1400 points. i want to bring the company into this. ashley, susan, lauren. in my opinion, the market rally

is because of a couple of items. we are going to get a $6 trillion rescue package for the economy from the fed and congress, and the president is now talking about an early return to work. what do you feel about that, lauren? you are at home with two young kids. what do you feel about a little relaxation of some of the rules? lauren: i think everybody out there would like that to happen. i just think we have to wait this out a little bit longer. and i think that happens in a very targeted way, but i say we are at least, let's see, we are in day nine of that 15-day period that the white house is talking about. we are hearing from companies saying yeah, we are not going back until the end of april. i think we are weeks away from that happening. the market is up a lot today, because everything you noted. it's the fed pouring money at the problem, hopes that congress can pour money at the problem, but yeah, people at home, they are suffering right now. it's really hard. ashley: let me just jump in.

one of our viewers, jerry, makes a good point. it's okay, people go back to work as soon as possible but the kids are out of school for an extended period of time so you have a major problem there. who's going to look after the kids? lauren: can i come in on that? one of my friends was leaving for work in new york city and her nanny was showing up to her house and her doorman would not let her nanny in her house because they were taking the lockdown of new york city so seriously. so you like anecdotal stories, there's one for you. should that nanny have been able to work, yeah, but that building wasn't allowing it that day. that person couldn't go to work. susan: there is a price tag to kids being out of school. they say it will cost the economy around $50 billion for four weeks. that's a lot of money and a lot of lost production, productivity from workers who have to go home instead to watch their kids, including the health staff, the front line workers, doctors and nurses also have priorities at home which might keep them away from tending to patients and coronavirus victims.

stuart: i will pose this question to you, susan. the damage that we are doing to the economy which is severe if it goes on for much longer, it's severe, that's the damage we are doing, is it worth it in this fight against the virus? that's a strange way to put the question but that is the question, isn't it? susan: it's a very hard decision to make. obviously china has gone through a very difficult period for their economy as well. they took the pain, the medicine, in order to quarantine and contain the virus spread. but that also resulted, by the way, in close to a 20% contraction and that's on the conservative end of estimates. we have been hearing this will take a 30% decline in the economy, a third of the economy might go away in the second quarter of this year. it's very hard to debate but i would say from what i read from lloyd blankfein, i think he's accurate in his approach to this, is that let the young workers, those less at risk, get back to work after a few weeks and not shut down for months on

end. obviously if you have someone at risk at home, you shouldn't be going to work but those that are probably less at risk of fatality from coronavirus, why not let them produce, they have all this energy to spend anyway and they are going out to parks and running and not really socially distancing in a lot of cases. stuart: this debate will roll on. it will never go away. not in the immediate future. let's get back to individual -- sorry, ashley? ashley: cuomo, the governor, is now addressing this very issue. he says quote, no american will choose the economy over public health. he said saving lives is job number one. we can, he says, have a smart economic and health strategy. that's his opinion on it. stuart: just said it. got it. okay. the dow is still up 1400 points. let me get to lauren. you've got news on mask makers? lauren: this is interesting. we were talking about alpha pro tech and lakeland industries

because they make the masks that were needed and their stocks were surging. guess what? they are both down today. look at that. by about 5% each. when the market is rallying 7%. the reason is you have other companies, whether it's fiat chrysler or hp coming in and making masks and other equipment. they've got competition right now. i think this is a good thing, right. we are getting the supplies that we need to the people who need them. stuart: that is good news indeed. overseas, we have heard the olympics have been postponed. we hear that hubei province in china will lift restrictions and wuhan, the very center of the outbreak, will lift some restrictions in april. but you've got news from armenia? ashley: yeah. every second there's a new headline from around the world. armenia closing down 1,000 enterprises, banning outdoor movements witho movements for at least a week. that's the latest from the prime minister from armenia. india, 1.3 billion people.

how are you going to enforce a don't go outside rule for a country of that size and that many people? it's going to be very interesting to see how that works out. stuart: very interesting. all right. thanks, ash. n nyu pulmonologist is with us. i understand you are doing telemedicine. a patient contacts you, can you diagnose covid-19 without a test? >> that's a great question. we have been able to put 5500 doctors on telemedicine in less than 48 hours. we have already, this is all data, some 2,000 consultations by telemedicine at this time. i just finished two this morning. covid is a diagnosis that is made by history but it is not something you can necessarily do

in a clinical consult with definitive means without additional testing. remember, the actual assays are only recently becoming more available. even before those were available, we could make diagnoses based on radiologic [ inaudible ] cat stand. we can't do that with telemedicine. we also want to pick up patients before they develop that kind of radiology earlier. that's why assay testing will be critical in the most severely ill but when someone talks to me nowadays, every patient is asking about coronavirus, we can guide them and we have virtual urgent care facilities and telemedicine for that so that we can say this may be significant, self-quarantine, stay at home. do not burden the system with testing. we have to listen to professor deborah birx who has been speaking every day with the president. at the moment the testing must

be for the acutely ill at this time and people that may have more prominent conditions just to preserve those resources for those most in need at the present. stuart: i just want to be medically correct here. the way this was explained to me was that if the virus, covid-19, gets inside you, it settles in your lungs and expands rapidly, becoming like a crown, corona is in spanish a crown, and it expands inside you and leaves you with lung damage. is that medically accurate? >> so let's just talk about lung injuries a little bit. there are two things. first, there has to be a patient who is vulnerable. all of us are vulnerable because we all breathe and aerosol is involved with the transmission and it's on surfaces. there are people in the population who have no vulnerability in terms of being clinically sick.

the children and mostly even older teenagers are not showing this kind of illness. so you get inoculated with the virus, it targets the lungs and we think there are receptors in the lungs the virus likes. one of the biggest forces is the body's immune response to that. that is why we see people with very weakened immunity, whether they are transplant recipients, whether they are on steroids, dialysis, diabetes, 80 years old or above, their immune systems are overwhelmed by the virus. that creates lung injury and other damage. but also in younger people, the 40 and 50-year-olds, mount an immune response that focuses on the lungs and that causes the lung damage. so yes, that is the mechanism by which it works but we should say, i'm interested to know the new experimental drug, remdesivir, i find it difficult to pronounce it, by gilead, that

antiviral has a lot of promise in vitro and is now being tested in vivo and that could be a possibility, as well as plaquenil which was talked about earlier which seems to lessen viral burden and viral load early on. that doesn't necessarily mean it cures people but the less of it you have, the less intense the reaction is likely to be. stuart: good. okay. i think i got it. keeshgs dr. ahmed, you are doing great work there. thank you. i'm sorry, i'm out of time. i have to go. got to go. i've got to bring in ash. we've got news from citigroup. another bank that's cutting branch hours? ashley: they are indeed. why? because of the massive reduction in foot traffic. when you just walk around the city here in manhattan, i'm sure it's the same in other big cities, there's just no one out there. it's understandable that the banks will now have to start reducing the number of hours

because there are simply not enough people to go in and i don't the facilities. i'm sure the atms will still be open but as for actually seeing someone in the banks, well, those hours are available will start dwindling. stuart: got it. thanks, ash. let's bring in market watcher heather zumarraga. heather, what do you make of this discussion about reducing restrictions early? getting back to work as early as possible? that we're not prepared to take the pain of an extended national lockdown to where it destroys the economy. join the conversation. where do you stand? >> look, i think that health should come first and foremost. that is a priority. the quarantine here in miami, florida, for example, we are under similar, not quarantine but all non-essential businesses are closed similar to new york and california. i feel the pain. i think it's necessary for the two weeks and as you had larry

kudlow on the program earlier today saying after 15 days, that they will re-evaluate but if state and local governments feel it's necessary to shut down on their own, that's a different story. but those that can work or those that maybe are immune to this disease, if we get some sort of testing out that says, or you had the virus and now you maybe cannot get it again, if that's possible, you send those people, you send the healthy people back to work in certain areas and you keep areas unfortunately like where you are in new york quarantined and everyone else can go back to work. that's a great possibility markets are rallying on that. stuart: yes, they are indeed. dow is up 1400 points as we speak. do you think that $6 trillion worth of assistance the economy will get from the fed and from congress and this possible early return to work, just possible, is that putting a floor under the market?

does this establish a bottom? >> well, it's at least a temporary floor. i think we need to see the extent of the virus in terms of as more testing gets out there. as you know, it's going to get worse before it gets better in terms of how many people are infected. but once we have clarity, even if it is worse than expected, markets like certainty. if we say x amount of million people have it, here's the recovery rate and it seems like x amount of the population has been tested and it's a majority, then when you can get people back to work and the markets see a bottom, you have the stimulus plan coming that's helping people keep their jobs, kudlow mentioning if you were employed at the beginning of the year, just about a month ago the economy was roaring and small businesses, we don't want them to be negatively impacted so the stimulus is going out to help foot the bill and unemployment benefits and payroll and deferring tax payments, keep those people employed. that will put a bottom in the

market, if we are getting the assistance into small businesses in this country who right now need a helping hand and are really hurting. stuart: linda mcmahon, former small business administrator, was on the program literally a few minutes ago saying loans, actually, not loans, cash grants are going to be made available to some small businesses to keep them going, to pay the wages, pay the benefits and then in a couple months' time, those cash -- they don't have to be repaid. that seems to be a very good way of putting a floor underneath. completely forgiven. a floor underneath small business and business in general. that seems to me to be a very good thing for the economy and the markets. >> yeah, it's amazing, we have heard about deferring tax payments, they are also talking about deferring mortgage payments up to 12 months. remember, those things have to

be paid back. you can't stop paying your mortgage. the banks may add that to the end of your 30-year payment. but completely forgiving business loans, if you meet the criteria and you keep people employed, this is the biggest fiscal stimulus in history, as kudlow rightly put on main street of all time. markets love to hear that. i know eventually the debt will become a problem but treasury secretary steve mnuchin saying that now is not the time to worry about debt and deficits and even as fiscal conservative, i would echo that as well. stuart: all right. heather zumarraga, thanks for joining us from miami. good stuff. grady trimble is with us. what have you got for me? reporter: well, short of an all-out travel ban for domestic flights, we are almost already there. there are more than 900 cancellations here at o'hare this morning. there are more than 8,000

according to flightaware, across the country. but there's a report in the "wall street journal" that the airlines are preparing for the possibility of essentially shutting themselves down and stopping travel dmoeomestically entirely. they say there is also a possibility the government might order them to do so. what we know is that the faa and specifically flight traffic controllers have been particularly hard hit because they work in tight quarters and they have experienced coronavirus in those tight quarters. there are reports of tsa agents also contracting coronavirus. it's getting harder and harder to maintain these operations. but it's not as if people are flying anyway. there are some flights that have passenger numbers in the single digits. we'll have to stand by and see if an all-out ban on domestic travel happens any time soon. but it is apparently in the works either at the government level or by the airlines themselves. as dave calhoun, ceo of boeing, said this morning it's

essentially inevitable at this point. stuart: interesting. on the one hand, increasing restrictions. on the other hand, talk of retreating from some of those restrictions. good story, grady. thanks for joining us. what about disney? i saw their stock rebounding quite nicely. what have we got? lauren: let's take a look at the stock, up 14%. this is the best day for disney since may of 2009. it's at $97.65. here's the news. starting today, disney plus, the streaming service, is available in the uk and europe, not france yet, although in europe because there's so much use right now, internet traffic is high. they are slowing down or reducing the quality, i should say. but disney, it's certainly a winner today. stuart: thanks, lauren. i'm just going to take a commercial break. before we quite get there, i want to repeat something we had on earlier. prime minister modi of india

announced a total ban of coming out of your homes for three weeks. for all 1.3 billion of the people of india. how about that. more after this.

stuart: governor andrew cuomo, new york state, trying to govern with the most number of cases in the nation. he's held a press conference, he's had some dramatic headlines. tell me more. ashley: the cases in new york now are 25,665. he says originally it was like a freight train coming at us. now he says it's a bullet train. he says it's accelerating at its own pace, as you said, doubling every three days. that is the number of cases. he's now taking aim at the federal government, the trump administration. he says it's inexplicable that the federal government has not enacted the defense production act. he said the federal government

has to prioritize resources, we need help and we need it now. he said if the president says it's like a war, then act like it's a war. he also goes on to say 23% of those people who are going to the hospital because of this end up in the icu. they desperately need ventilators. they are even experimenting by using one ventilator split between two patients because it's gotten that desperate. he's putting a call out, we need help, we need ventilators, let's get it going now. that's the latest from the governor of new york. stuart: that is dramatic indeed. by the way, when he first came out with this dramatic headline, the dow lost 100 points but we gained it all back again. the dow is now up nearly 8.5%, 1569 points to the upside, back above 20,100. georgia congressman barry lowdermilk joins us now on the phone. congressman, what do you make of this talk about getting back to

work early? when at the same time, atlanta has just issued a two-week stay-at-home order? seem to be going in different directions here. on the phone: well, thanks, varney. yeah, this is a fine balance we have to walk this fine line between health care and the economy, because if the economy tanks, it's going to have a drastic impact on the future of health care because we have the greatest health care system in the nation, the strongest science in the nation when it comes to health care because of the strong free market economy and it is a balance. yesterday govern or kemp announced there would be a lockdown for those who are most vulnerable, those with underlying health conditions and those who tested positive. my home county has the highest per capita rate of infection in the state of georgia. but it's a little more rural, so people, we don't have to do a complete lockdown here. it looks like we may be turning the corner on it. i think it's region by region,

not just state by state, but even geographical regions. that's why the governor didn't go to full lockdown because he's leaving it up to each and every governmental jurisdiction in the state. it's what is best for that area. i think the president struck a great tone yesterday that people have to have some confidence, they have to have a vision going forward. stuart: we were discussing the bailout package earlier today and there was some dismay at some of the items that had been added to the package by speaker pelosi. $35 million for the kennedy center for performing arts, immediate same-day registration for voting, forgiving the postal service debt, all that kind of stuff. that has nothing to do with getting people back to work and supporting them in these dire, difficult times. so are you confident that that kind of pork can be taken out of this bill so it can be signed in

good conscience? on the phone: well, it has to be. look, this is politics at its worst. the american people saw two weeks of bipartisan cooperation when mitch mcconnell broke the senate up into working groups of republicans and democrats to come up with the solution to get liquidity in there. now, stuart, this is the way the founders envisioned us working, working together even though we have differences, laser focused on an issue, on a problem. nancy pelosi parachuted in because she saw an opportunity to actually get a list of items that they have tried to pass throughout this congress, they haven't been able to get, like you said, election reform. the federal takeover of the election system. hr-1 which passed on a partisan basis in the house, didn't go anywhere in the senate, she's trying to roll that into this. it's frustrating. stuart: get rid of it. congressman, i've got to run. barry loudermilk, republican, georgia, thanks for joining us.

we appreciate it today. we really do. susan, let's get to you. news on moody's? susan: retailers are going to get hammered, of course, in the coronavirus given that macy's and best buy and the like are shutting up stores across the country. so moody's says u.s. retail operating income will slip to a decline now of 2% to maybe 5% in 2020, either flat or down some 3% and the worst of it, department stores, apparel, footwear and these sectors may face up to 40% declines when it comes to operating income. on the flipside, digital companies, those that have a digital footprint are actually hiring. 500,000 jobs have been announced in the past few weeks. stuart: susan, thank you very much indeed. jamie richardson is with us, the presidenten white castle, or vice president, i should say. i just gave you a promotion there. i'm sure you'd take it. mr. richardson, welcome to the show. good to have you with us. can you just give me 30 seconds, what is the status of white castle's business? tell me.

>> you know, it's interesting for us, we are fortunate we have a retail business so we sell through grocery channels. we are keeping really super busy on that front. we own our own manufacturing facility so we are working seven days a week to keep our grocery stores supplied. that's been a big focus for us. in addition, we are able to keep our drive-throughs open in our restaurants. that's so vitally important to feed our local neighbors and friends and to be there for all of our community. we are 99 years old. we are still a family owned business. we have been through a lot over the years. our focus is to keep going strong. stuart: okay. you kept the drive-through business. is that going well? i would imagine that in these times, drive-through is really terrific and what, have doubled or tripled your drive-through business? >> the drive-through business has been strong. you know, we are down overall because people appropriately are heeding good guidance and staying at home so people just aren't out and about like they would normally be. but our teams are there and we are able to take care of the drive-through and that's been busy.

we are thankful for that, because it helps us keep our community fed. these days, we are not only hungry for great food, we are hungry for hope. one day at a time, we really are thankful for those workers who are making it happen. today is actually great american takeout day. we are encouraging folks to visit their local restaurants to get that carryout food to take it home. stuart: that's -- i did not know that, jamie. you are the vice president at white castle, but i'm sure you enjoy being a little promoted there. nonetheless, thanks for being with us. >> it didn't last long. stuart: -- business is doing well. i'm sure it was. it's probably on tape somewhere as well. i've got to run, i'm sorry. i've got a hard break coming. we have to make some money, too. jamie richardson, white castle. thanks. market update real fast. we are now up 1500 points on the dow industrials. back above 20,100. i believe we are going to take one of those rare commercial breaks. yes, we are. back after this.

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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. ♪ neil: now let's get news on different reacting to the virus. what have you got on virgin galactic, lauren? lauren: this stock, stuart up about 30% right now. i do want to put it in perspective for you.

virgin galactic was down over 60% in the last month. the market has been down but not 60%. so it has taken this pretty tough. there is an analyst at morgan stanley, very bullish, on the company. he says this. he says, the balance sheet can handle this. they have a healthy cash position. he thinks the story of virgin galactic which is space tourism can still work in the long term. virgin galactic. stuart: that is one of the last things i would be thinking about right now but nonetheless i would think about it at some point in the future. lauren: isolate in outer space. stuart: yes, 2 does sound right, doesn't it? lou is with us. the i think lou is the perfect guest for this moment. he is the ceo of echelon fitness. they sell indoor exercise bikes. lou, you're quite an entrepreneur. i think you hit this market on the spot because you have a less

expensive home exercise bike than peloton. tell me more. how is your business doing? >> business is doing amazing. actually every day is kind of like black friday for us right now. sales are up 10 times what they were of normal. usage levels up to 50%. so it has been very crazy. our office is trying to keep up with the demand. we're working overtime. keeping up with that demand. we have two brands, the echelon brand which is the connected fistness brand. that is lower priced entry level brand. we're hiring people. we're trying to figure out how to supply to keep up with everyone. since these, since the gyms closed everyone is looking for at home fitness in their home. we're supplying that. we also started 90-day fit pass.com, we're giving you free 90 days of classes as well. business is amazing right now. stuart: real quick question, i live in new jersey where we're

told to stay inside of our homes. if i order an echelon bike from you, are you allowed to come to my house and install it, using workers to install it in my house? are you allowed to do that? >> with logistics we can. what is great about echelon, unlike our competitor, the product can be set up 30 minutes by yourself very easy. youtube video. set up directions less than 30 minutes. we have bikes and rowers, which you can't find out there with the competitors. we have a reflect mirror which supplies additional fitness activity, boxing, yoga, cross-training and more. so all of these things can be set up by yourself. fedex delivers them to your door. you can set them up within 30 minutes. stuart: okay if you're not careful i will buy one because in this lockdown period i'm gaining weight. i'm not happy about it. i may be on the phone to you, lou at some point.

thanks very much for joining us, sir, we appreciate it. you are the man of the hour in a perfect position. lou lentene. >> thank you, stuart. stuart: we like to cover what's going on around the world. we're bringing news from india, china, europe, now, ashley, what have you got news from russia and putin? ashley: yes the russian president not going bare-chested thank goodness. he put on a hazmat suit, a rest respirator and visited in hospital in moscow. he has yellow one. everyone has white ones. that is what you get when you're president. he said previously, mr. putin said, there the situation is under control. there is questions how many cases are there in russia. last report just 495. but that led the mayor of moscow to say that the outbreak in the russian capital was much worse than the official figures. so i believe there will be a job opening as the mayor of moscow

pretty soon. you don't go against the government. stuart: okay. ashley, breaking in for a second because i understand that senator schumer, minority leader of the senate, has said that he is everring or the congress will offer, unemployment benefits on steroids. i'm not quite sure what he means by that. obviously there is a great deal of money going to be flowing out there. can you confirm that, ashley? have you seen this report? ashley: what i thought i saw was four months worth. unemployment, if you lose a job, you will be furloughed. you will be paid a full salary for four months. that is remarkable. that is steroids. stuart: that's a lot of money. ashley: yep. stuart: i i want to break in there, ash. he said that moments ago. i did notice that the market took off moments ago. it was already up 7, nearly 8%. now it is up 8.8%. you have a gain of now of 1636 points. the dow is back to 20,200.

clearly, that's, that has something to do with the rescue package that is going through congress and what senator schumer has said is in that package, supplying money to people who desperately need it. my time's up. neil, it's yours. neil: stuart, thank you very, very much. we're getting dribs and drabs, same thing you are, stuart. package already around 2 1/2 trillion dollars in order to sat spy everyone, republicans and democrats. this feature that will have dramatically extended unemployment benefits and social security checks that could go up by as much as $200 a month. at this time the financial community doesn't care about the particulars, just get it done.