become permanent. maria: yeah. bottom line. dagen? >> i save my time to others. maria: it's been a great conversation. dagen, joanie, jon, lisa, charles. have a good day, everybody. it's friday. keep it right here. fox business, fox business.com. i will be interviewing the ceo of 3m in a few minutes. be sure to tune in for his reaction. go to foxbusiness.com for it. i will talk to stuart varney. first let's get to "varney & company." stu? stuart: one day looks much like another, doesn't it? it doesn't seem like a friday, i don't know about to you. here we go. good morning to you. good morning, everyone. all right. 701,000 jobs lost. the unemployment rate goes to 4.4%. look, today's job numbers, the ones i have just given you, do not fully reflect the true state of the economy. these numbers relate to early march before the full impact of the virus became apparent.

a far better measure is the ten million people who filed for jobless benefits in the last two weeks. fed governor lockhart just told maria the jobless rate is already more like 10%. clearly, we are in an employment crisis, and another report that comes up at 10:00 eastern will likely show the services sector in collapse. that's a strong word to use but it's accurate. later this hour, we are going to talk to larry kudlow, the president's chief economic adviser. i will ask him how bad is it and he will spell it out. look, with nearly 300 million americans under a stay-at-home order, the economy is shut down. morgan stanley says that between now and june, the economy will shrink by 38%. that would be a depression, the likes of which we have not seen before. travel, shut down. at the airport tsa checkpoints, they are processing two million fewer passengers every day. that's down 93% from a year ago.

those flights that do take off, virtually empty. public transit ridership, down 75%. commuters just have to stay home. the vast retail sector, that's shut down. foot traffic at stores, down 97% from a year ago. target is now restricting the number of people allowed in at any one time. factories, idle. the auto makers have extended the shutdown into may. yes, it is april 3rd. that means 27 more days at least of social distancing, and dr. fauci suggests the stay-at-home order may have to go national. political tempers are frayed. the president's in a public fight with senator schumer. speaker pelosi will establish a commission to investigate the president's virus policy. that is pure politics, extremely divisive. the speaker's commission will become an attack machine right

before the election. that's politics. temperatures rising on the corporate front as well. 3m is under fire for allegedly selling face masks to foreign countries, when they are badly needed here. now, the markets, they are kind of wobbling but so far, we have not gone back to challenge that low on the dow of 18,591. in fact, the dow remains above the 21,000 level. this morning, despite the dire economic situation we are in, we are going to be down maybe 40 points at the opening bell for the dow, 14 on the nasdaq, down, what, maybe one point on the s&p. that is not an extreme reaction by any means. check out oil. yep, big move up yesterday after the president tweeted about a deal with the russians and saudis to cut production maybe ten million barrels a day. look at this. we are up to $27.98 as we speak. but even at that price, the energy industry remains in deep trouble.

if you want to call this a bright spot, do so. the price of gasoline this morning on a national average basis, down to $1.95. i'll take that if i can get it. let's get straight to it. i'm bringing in jonathan hoenig. let's get at it. tell me how to invest when the economy may be shrinking by a third or more in three months. >> the irony, we always talk about the importance of long-term investing, but lately it pays to be a day trader. you mentioned we will open down a mere 40 points. there's been a 1,000 point swing overnight. we are seeing amazing swings almost every day in the market, not just in stocks but across the spectrum of investments. that's because of the uncertainty. morgan stanley as you said predicting as high as 15% unemployment, certainly higher than the global financial crisis. and we are talking about, this is not hyperbolic, we are talking about depression level

standards by some of the dire predictions that are expected and that's, of course, what happens when you shut down production. unless we can find some way to free the creative minds, dyson with ventilators, or creative minds that are finding some ways to get this economy forward, it's very tough to invest for the long term when legislators and regulators are making it up moment by moment. stuart: jonathan, stay there. i will get back to you in a second. want to bring in paul conway, our labor market expert. paul, 701,000 jobs lost, unemployment rate up to 4.4%. the picture, the real picture is much worse than that, isn't it? >> yeah, it absolutely is. i would vow this month's report as another vital sign but you are looking at a report that's based really on mid-march reporting and the true report will actually come at the end of this month for what we are looking at right now in the past couple weeks. but i would see these weekly reports over the next three or

four weeks as better indicators of it, stuart. i think that april number won't be surprising but i think it will be quite high, absolutely. stuart: now, at 10:00, literally 55 minutes from now, we get the big report on the service sector. i'm expecting a service sector collapse. how about you? because that will be a more accurate indicator of the state of play now as opposed to looking backwards, the services sector. >> i agree with you. i think that's probably the closest thing we will see in realtime. let me back up and say one thing. all of these indicators, i don't think this is said often enough, these are not just an indicator of public health crisis and economic crisis. this is a crisis in every single household you are looking at for those who are losing their jobs, laid off, and the absolute chaos it creates in the household. right off the bat, our heart goes out to those folks and have them understand we are in the middle of it and this is

response time. you so tee the government tryino do a response on economic and health care at the same time and we got to get to the point where we start having the conversation obviously about recovery but then longer term, rebuilding in terms of what can companies and entrepreneurs do one or two or five years from now coming out of this to build something that's more hardened for future events. i think that has to be discussed now. i just don't see it. stuart: look, i'm with you all the way on that but i want to get something clear here. the money is going out starting today, $2.2 trillion. i want to make the point that that is not a stimulus plan. it does not stimulate the economy. what it does is rescue individuals. the kind of people you are talking about, paul. >> stuart, i 100% agree with you. it's very important to look at this is a work force stabilization type of measure in the very early stages of something that's emerging. having managed the effort for the federal government as chief

of staff for gold coast rebuilding, that was $147 billion, i can tell you the logistics that are involved in pushing a lot of money out into an area over the next two or four weeks here is going to be critically important on how people see this and the efficacy of the program, whether banks and the sba can get this money into the hands of people is critically important over the next 14 days. absolutely. stuart: thanks, paul. hold on for one second. want to get into the politics of what's going on here. politically temperatures really are rising. there's a number of elements to this story. senator schumer, he's not happy with the president. listen to what he said on msnbc last night. roll tape. >> i'm just appalled, you know, i say to the president just stop the pettiness. people are dying and so president trump, we need leadership, we need to get the job done. stop the pettiness. let's get it done, let's roll up

our sleeves. i sent the letter with the best of intentions trying to improve a very bad situation. stuart: okay. look, okay, the senator says he's appalled at the president. ash, come into this, please. what did the president say in the first place to prompt senator shum chumer's response? ashley: he sent a letter that went after senator schumer calling him a bad senator of a state that was ill-prepared for the pandemic of the coronavirus. let me show you one of the excerpts of this. it's strong stuff. the president saying we have given new york many things including hospitals, medical centers, medical supplies, record numbers of ventilators and more. if you spent less time on your ridiculous impeachment hoax which went haplessly on forever and ended up going nowhere except increasing my poll numbers and instead focused on helping the people of new york, then new york would not have been so completely unprepared for the invisible enemy.

no wonder aoc and others are thinking about running against you in the primary. if they did, they would likely win. that's the president firing back both barrels at senator chuck schumer's criticism of him and his leadership in this pandemic and the crisis. stuart: okay. thanks, ash. now, there are other political arguments going on. speaker pelosi is going to start the select committee on the virus. i call that an attack machine. we will deal with that in just a moment. right now, i want to go to susan. we've got news on a variety of companies and what they are doing here. tesla. i notice the stock is up big-time. what's going on? susan: speaking of big-time, what about their best first quarter when it comes to deliveries, 88,400 vehicles, even more than what analysts had expected. yes, that does push the stock higher. also, they are making model ys, that crossover suv, delivering them a lot faster than anticipated. i think you have to take these

numbers in stride because we are looking at 76,000 deliveries, model 3, model y, 12,000 deliveries, model s, model x but the freemont factory where they primarily produce their cars didn't shut down until march 24th and the first quarter ends at the end of march. guess what, this is the bullish part, they are keeping their delivery estimates intact, saying we will easily exceed 500,000 deliveries this year and that's despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. they are sounding bullish and i guess the markets are reacting. stuart: okay, we've got an analyst on in a few minutes who says they will not hit the 500,000 delivery target that they've got. we will see about that. right now, tesla is up 60 bucks. lauren, come in and tell me about jpmorgan chase, please. lauren: biggest bank in the nation and they say they are not ready to accept applications for small businesses looking for loans. the small business

administration, their $350 billion loan program is off and running today. in fact, the treasury secretary said community banks have already processed over 700 loans. large banks coming soon. as i just said, banks like jpmorgan said they don't have enough time, they are not sure of all the requirements, they are not ready yet and they will e-mail their customers when they are ready to accept those loans. stuart: thanks very much, lauren. we've got a big show lined up for you today, especially bearing in mind we've got a dire economic situation. we have with us later this hour national economic council director larry kudlow. he's the top white house economist and he's on the show today. we are also talking to the ceo of verizon. how are they keeping the connection going here? speaker pelosi, here we go, announcing that coronavirus oversight committee. next, dan crenshaw will deal with that. we'll be right back.

[ "one more time" by daft punk ]

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stream it now on pandora with xfinity. and don't forget to catch "trolls world tour". let's party people! ♪ one more time stuart: we are showing you the price of target stock. it's actually down a buck at $93. target will supply all employees with masks and gloves and they are beginning to check and limit the number of people allowed in

any store at any one time. amazon, banning the sale of n95 surgical masks to the general public. they are wanted by health professionals. amazon won't sell to you or i. speaking of masks, 3m under fire for reportedly selling masks to other countries. hillary vaughn joins us with more on the story. what have we got on this? reporter: stuart, well, what we are hearing from florida's emergency management director is that he is trying to buy masks, but 3m is not selling them to him. instead, the masks sitting in warehouses overseas are going to foreign countries that are bringing cash to the warehouses and scooping up the supply. he said he was on the phone with 3m last evening, with their government relations director. they didn't deny that this is a problem. they also said they had no idea on how to stop it from happening, but one step in the right direction is this new order, the president invoking

the defense production act that would allow him to prioritize those n95 masks and make sure they are going here to america first. that's something that this director says would be a huge help. but we are also getting some new information from 3m about what we reported yesterday evening, that the white house is looking at a further crackdown, considering banning exports of critical medical supplies from companies here in the u.s., that's something they are considering. 3m is saying doing that, by shutting off exports of medical supplies here to other countries, could have a devastating impact on the supply chain. i want to read a quick snippet of that statement. ceasing all export of respirators produced in the united states would likely cause other countries to retaliate. the net number of respirators being made available to the u.s. would actually decrease. that is the opposite of what we and the administration on behalf of the american people both seek. i will lastly quickly add i did

talk to another medical device company who makes ventilators and they told me their concern is similar. they have 1500 different parts that they source from 100 different countries around the world, and if you shut down exports here, they have concerns they won't be able to get those parts from other places in order to build these much-needed ventilators. stuart? stuart: that's quite a debate. hillary, thank you very much. now, we will sort this lot out with maria. she joins us shortly. she is talking with the 3m ceo as we speak. she's on the show shortly. we will sort it all out with 3m. let's go to ashley. the white house and the cdc, what is this, recommending that people wear masks or some kind of facial covering? ashley: yeah. originally the cdc said leave the masks to the health care workers and doctors, but now in light of the fact we know that people can be asymptomatic, in other words, show no signs of the virus, but indeed be a

carrier, there's a bit of a shift in the guidance. it is now believed that some sort of mask would be effective. at least it wouldn't hurt. originally they said it doesn't do you any good, in fact, it could be more detrimental but that's not the case. now, what kind of mask. maybe a home-made one, maybe a bandana or thick scarf. the president talked about this yesterday saying a scarf may be just as effective, if you can put it over your nose and mouth, it's quite thick. whatever it can be to stop the spread, the droplets of the virus, if indeed you are contaminated. we are expecting some new guidance and regulations from the administration in the next couple of days but it's certainly a shift in the thinking that perhaps these people we see on the street wearing face masks who are not health care professionals, it may be a good idea. stuart: yeah. i hear you. we are rethinking the whole concept of the mask. i think we are also beginning to

rethink the idea of a national stay-at-home deal. at the moment we leave it to the states. there is some consideration now of a national lockdown, stay-at-home nationally. congressman dan crenshaw is with us, republican from texas. congressman, welcome to the show. i want to ask you about the possibility of a national shutdown, national stay-at-home. what do you say to that? >> well, i think federalism is working quite well. different states, different municipalities are experiencing this problem in different ways. you know, new york is a unique location. lots of international travelers, people live right on top of each other. i would say for now i think we should be continuing to benefit from federalism. we have a vast country, different problems, different solutions. stuart: okay. you are in texas. you are from texas. i want to talk to you about the energy industry. we've got the price of oil this morning around $27 a barrel.

that's up from where it was 24 hours ago. but it's still a real problem for the energy producers in america. look, it seems to me american energy is crashing. do you have any idea how you can save it? >> we do have a bunch of solutions and you're absolutely right, it is crashing. lot of producers say this is the worst they have ever seen it. we do risk losing energy independence. we risk going back to the days of the 1970s where we are beholden to energy shocks around the world, long lines at the pumps, huge, enormous price shocks, we might see $90 a barrel. it's really cheap right now but if we lose our independence, you could see disastrous consequences. how do we fix that. well, one idea was to buy into the strategic petroleum reserve. that would be some relief for our producers. of course, democrats said no to that. they can't stand the idea of helping anything in the oil and gas industry. instead of selling we should be buying into it. that's one thing. royalty relief for some of our producers. that would be again, a

short-term fix. allowing oil and gas companies to have some forbearance on their bank loans would also be helpful. so these are some things we can do in the short term just to keep our industry alive. in the long term, we need to come to better agreements with saudi arabia and russia and look at the -- i know the president talked about hopefully good news if they start to cut some of their exports, that that may help oil prices as well. but we need to ensure that we have an actual american energy policy and fight to keep price stability for our producers. stuart: congressman, while i have you, i just want your comment on speaker pelosi, who is going to establish the coronavirus oversight committee. i bashed this on the grounds that it's an attack machine right before the election. your comment, please? >> yeah. i mean, you can assume that given her past action. this is not made in good faith. this is going to be led by

clyburn, the guy who said that they want to make -- they want to remake america in their vision and use this crisis to do it. let's not forget, we already have plenty of oversight. we have this committee in congress called the oversight committee, they can use that. we also have a separate board, separate oversight board that was created just for this new fund for the stabilization fund. there is also a separate inspector general created specifically for these funds. there is also additional money given to the gao so they can conduct oversight. this is not about oversight for them. this is about finding ways to attack the president and also, they want to be able to pick and choose which americans actually get help. that's really what this is about. no, this is not made in good faith at all. stuart: what do you make of the president's approach to the virus so far? >> listen, america got hit by a truck, okay. there's a natural disaster happening and i just, i find it so bewildering that democrats are so quick to finger-point and

to say that people's lives are at the president's feet. he was looking at this way back in january, as he was getting impeached by these people. don't forget, the intelligence committee in congress was getting briefings on this. did they talk about it, no, they hired more people to help with impeachment. the president was cutting off travel from china when everybody else was looking somewhere else. so you know, it's so bewildering and i'm not blaming democrats for not sounding the alarm either. we were blindsided by this. china lied to us. they didn't provide the world with the data that we needed. this could have been prevented. but it wasn't and right now, we all need to come together and actually recognize that we are doing the best we can. i just find it so sickening that democrats are so quick to blame trump for just everything. it's made in such bad faith. stuart: i 100% agree with you, sir. i want to thank you very much for coming on the show today. good stuff. thank you. congressman crenshaw. now, i want to break here and go straight to ed lawrence.

today's the day when these loans and grants are supposed to go out, small business loans. what have you got for us? reporter: yeah, i can tell you that treasury secretary steven mnuchin had a phone call at 8:30 with a number of the banks across the nation. already we have seen 700 loans that have been written by 8:30 this morning by small banks, that's $2.5 million so far and counting. this has been led by the community banks. those are the ones that have been online first. the smaller banks. we are hearing the larger banks are lagging behind a little, wells fargo and bank of america will go live with their program at 9:30, in about four minutes. jp chase is lagging a little behind that, 1:00 p.m. this afternoon is when their program will go. but now community banks are starting to write these. senior treasury official tells me 700 loans have been written, $2.5 million so far and counting. breaking news for you, stu. stuart: we've got it. thank you very much indeed. company, come on into this, please. this is the day when the money is supposed to go out.

they have made some loans already. they are on it. the big banks are a little behind the curve here but expect to get on board later. any comment from ashley, lauren, susan? what do we have here? susan: first come, first served. they need this money and they need it fast. lauren: it is refreshing to see the banks are on it but they have a lot of questions about how exactly this is going to happen. overnight, what the administration did because a lot of the banks were saying look, these terms are somewhat onerous, that was a word used, and risky for us, what the government did was they increased the interest rate that lenders can charge on those loans to 1% from .5%. so making it a little more favorable for the banks. stuart: hold on a second. i want to go back to susan. you made a very important point there. when you are applying for these loans and grants, it's first come, first served. that's why any delay from the big banks creates anxiety from all the small business operators who desperately want the money.

susan: think about it, small, medium size businesses employ around 70% of the people in america, and there's a lot more in need than just $300 billion to $350 billion. imagine you are not one of these people that's able to get one of these loans, guarantees two months of pay and overhead for your employees, what do you do in that situation? i think the unemployment jobs report really reflects the anxiety that we are seeing across small business and rural america. stuart: we should say, susan, that the treasury secretary has said if the 350, $370 billion is worked through, you go through it, more will be available. i think we -- susan: when? people have to pay the bills, have to pay the rent, have to pay people's salaries. these people need to put food on the table. you can say yes, we will get you more money, but for the average american looking to feed their family, i think time is of the essence. stuart: okay. all right. susan, hold on a second. let me go to is it lauren has

the story on costco? what do you have? lauren: i do. costco is doing crowd control. if you want to go stock up on toilet paper or whatever you're buying at costco, you plus one other person, just two people going into that store. obviously it's a fluid situation and as we react to the coronavirus, they are changing their policies. stuart: yes, and we had the story on target. they are limiting the number of people allowed in any one store. it's that social distancing. no crowds, please. we are moments away from the opening of the market. market watcher david bahnson is with us, jonathan hoenig still with us. quickly, david, give me 20 seconds on why this market is not much more sharply down given the dire economic news we are getting. >> stuart, it's a really helpful reminder for viewers that markets are always and forever a discounting mechanism, fancy term. all i mean is markets are

pricing in every day what they believe about the future. there is not a person in the country, let alone a market actor, who did not know the unemployment picture is grim. the market is up 2,000 points between yesterday and last thursday. the two days those horrible jobless claims numbers came. they were awful numbers. they are going to stay awful for a little while but the market is already knowing that. it's simply not new news. it's bad news, but it isn't unexpected. stuart: okay. all right. we are off, it's friday morning. we are off and running, 9:30 eastern time. right from the start, we are down just a little. that is not a huge decline. granted, some of the stocks on dow have not yet opened and maybe we will go down some more when they do open. but at this moment, i'm seeing a little green. microsoft, for example, in the green. boeing is in the green. the dow at this moment is down just over 100 points. that's interesting. bearing in mind that we've got some dreadful economic news in

the background. the nasdaq is down 39 points. half percentage point. the s&p is down a half percentage point. that's how we have opened up this morning. susan, let's go to you. you have news on apple, please. susan: apple, in this report by bloomberg, i'm trying to confirm the news, apparently will close their stores around the world until at least may, until their workers -- their workers will stay home until that time. there's a lot of buzz on the internet, social media right now, that maybe apple is going to imminently, possibly today, possibly later on in the next few weeks, release cheaper iphones. we have heard stories they were preparing for this launch in the springtime and because of the coronavirus impeding the production lines and supply chains, i guess people were concerned maybe they weren't going to do it. but social media is abuzz we will still get this device at some point. stuart: okay. apple is down just $1.35. it's at $243. okay. we've got -- let me bring you up

to speed on the jobs report. we got that about one hour ago. 701,000 jobs lost in march. the unemployment rate up to 4.4%. but there's a general agreement that the actual employment situation is a great deal worse than that. maria was told by fed governor earlier that the unemployment rate is already at 10%. ashley or lauren, do you have the numbers that we received here on foot traffic in retailers? it's way down, isn't it? ashley: i do not have it but i thought, if i'm not mistaken, i thought it was down 95% is what i saw earlier. i would not be surprised if that's the case. stuart: okay. actually it was 97%. i just checked the numbers. in other words, retail at dead stop. travel, airlines, even public transportation, almost dead stop. no traffic jams in los angeles. now we've got news on google.

i don't know what it is. susan, you will tell me. susan: well, google apparently has released some location tracking data. this is from anonymous sources and what they find is that they are tracking people in the big cities and whether or not they are actually adhering to social distancing. from what i see, they are actually doing that in san francisco. they see that traffic in parks and recreation and other public places are down some 70%. also spending $6.5 million to fight against coronavirus misinformation, less than what we saw from facebook which says they were handing out $100 million in grants to local news organizations to make sure they could survive through this shutdown but some of this money, $6.5 million, will go to local news outlets from google as well. i guess they are making sure those that give us dependable news still have access to funding and money. stuart: i'm going back to david bahnsen. i know that you look at stocks which have a growing dividend yield. that's your kind of company. that's what you buy. but i'm told that a lot of

companies are cutting their dividend right now, either cutting it back or cutting it out entirely. is there such a thing as a big name stock, big name company, that's still paying me 4% or 5% in dividend and it's reliable, it's safe? have you got a company like that? >> we have about 20 companies like that, stuart. there are a whole host of companies that through multiple recessions, through wars, through the great financial crisis, have maintained their dividend. what's the difference between those cutting right now and those that have the ability to maintain it? it's balance sheets. it's less leverage. it's a less cyclical business. walmart, procter & gamble, coca-cola. walgreens yesterday, their cfo saying we have had a commitment to our dividend for 70 plus years and don't intend to stop that now. that was yesterday, the cfo of walgreens saying that.

these are high dividend yields at verizon, i'm giving you more and more names because there's so many that meet that criteria, that not only are able to pay a great dividend but will continue to grow it through these very difficult but transitory times. stuart: david, that is valuable stuff, because there's an awful lot of people who run to the safety of a genuine strong dividend payment that is safe in the future. a different kind of investor is jonathan hoenig. you run a hedge fund. i presume you are in and out all day today. you are a day trader, essentially, today. >> these types of markets, i think probably you want to be. david is absolutely correct. borrowing a line from warren buffett, when the tide goes oushths yout, you see who is naked underneath the water. so many companies who have leveraged themselves are getting taken to the cleaner's. only about 8% of stocks are above their 200 day moving average so we are still in a

bear market but i do think now is a great opportunity depending on your context, to pick up bargains. i'm still looking at gold. people are talking about the durability of balance sheets. 'this follows the 2008 recession, we will see a strong snap-back for a lot of those physical commodities, stores of value, gold and silver are on my list. stuart: interesting. gold this morning is priced at $1640 an ounce, up $2.80. we will bring you news on people in corporations and the corporations themselves. susan has news on fed ex's ceo. susan: well, so founder forfeited his base salary by 91%, reduced from $150,000 a month to just $10,000. they say and they report pretty much what we heard from a lot of corporations. every one of them saying covid-19 has significantly hurt

their uncertainty, hurt their business and caused a lot of uncertainty, potentially causing a global recession. don't forget these companies like fed ex, ups, dhl, these delivery companies, are proxies to global economic growth. they are basically saying we are having a tough time, the economy is shrinking around the world and it's going to be pretty ugly for the first six months of this year. stuart: back to david bahnsen for a moment. we are in a dire economic situation right now. i personally don't think we can get -- we can start to grow the economy at all or even get back to normal at all until we relax these social distancing rules. we're not going to see that until at least may. in other words, david, this dire situation continues. >> well, i think that the position we are going to is going to be different in geographical territories around the country. i think it's likely, i'm sad to say it because obviously i live in new york over half of the year, i think new york is going

to end up lasting longer, in other pockets of the country it's going to be shorter, but you are somewhere between three weeks best case and god willing, eight weeks worst case until some of these things can begin to normalize. the question is how much the markets priced in, what the magnitude of the recovery will be, and the magnitude of the recovery is going to depend on how long it lasts. the next few weeks are very crucial from a health standpoint but also to measure what the economic recovery will look like. what is not a mystery is that economic recovery is coming and right now we are trying to figure out what the timeline will be. stuart: that's what everybody wants to know. when is the comeback coming and when is it going to happen. got it. we like to bring you up to speed on different industries. we told you about retail, flat on its back. bed, bath & beyond, news from them, lauren? lauren: they are furloughing or temporarily laying off almost all of their store workers

through at least may 2nd. those workers can apply for unemployment insurance. also cutting salaries for their executives by 30%, postponing their dividend and also furloughing some of their corporate workers as well. stock down 1.1%. stuart: that's a tough story right there. $3.50. we got a big show for you. fast-moving day in the news and for your money and politics. shortly, we will be talking to larry kudlow. but first, we are talking to the chief executive officer of verizon. we'll be right back.

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stuart: some really bad economic numbers coming out this week. today, we got news of 700,000 jobs lost in the month of march and yet we now have some green for the dow. green for the nasdaq, green for the s&p. we've gone to the upside despite this dreadful background of economic news. more on that shortly. but a very special guest joining us now. hans vestberg, verizon communications ceo. hans, look, thanks very much for coming on the show. we've got reports of a slowing down in the internet because of all the traffic that's being piled on there. how are you keeping people connected at verizon?

on the phone: first of all, when it comes to the networks we are keeping up here, we of course have seen a surge in usage on the network and applications and all of that but what we see is that our network is holding up very well. i will give you a couple stats. today, every day now we have 800 million [ inaudible ] in the net works, twice the amount we would have on mother's day, the biggest day of the year. we have nine billion messages a day and that's equal to new year's eve. we actually are performing on the peak days of the year on a daily basis right now. but all networks are performing very well. we are seeing all our customers, consumers, first responders, health care workers, get the access and of course, everyone working from home, if it's students or companies working from home, all of them have much more capacity but the network is

holding up very well at this moment. stuart: is it easy for you to ramp up capacity? obviously you are faced with this gigantic extra surge of demand. can you ramp up capacity just like that? >> we can move capacity but this build over the network is something we have done. what ayou are seeing right now n the middle of the crisis, we have high speeds and right now it's being put to the test but it's working very well. constant contact with all the ceos and enterprises in the count country, i talk with organizations and so far everything is working well. clearly we have an increase of

50% in the network on vpn, meaning access from home to corporation. we have 100% growth of gaming in the network at the moment. so of course it's a lot of new capacity but the network is built for that. verizon has built the network like that. stuart: did i see you either creating a concert was it, dave matthews band, did you have that online? >> so we have every tuesday and thursday, pay it forward live. that is for small and medium businesses. yesterday we had a performer, we had gamers on tuesday and dave matthews the week before. we have two million live pay it forward to small businesses in their community and of course, verizon is putting in money for every tweet and every hash tag on pay it forward.

again, it's a way for using technology and having to do something at home and of course, supporting small and medium businesses that are extremely vulnerable in this situation. stuart: hans vestberg, verizon ceo guy, thanks for joining us. we really appreciate it. i know you're busy. we really appreciate you coming on the show like this. thank you. good stuff. all right. disney, disney workers, we've got news there. susan? susan: they are furloughing their non-union park employees. currently, they employ around 177,000 of cast and park members. they haven't told us how many of these would actually be furloughed but they said that employees will receive full health care benefits. disney will pay the costs of employee and company premiums which i think is pretty generous, but they haven't indicated as to when the parks would reopen. from indications on the website, they aren't even taking any reservations until maybe the early part of may. this is a big deal, by the way, for disney which makes around $26 billion in revenue from

these theme parks. but here's one symbol of hope. disney continues to fly the american flag because they say this is a symbol of our nation and time to be patriotic. stuart: they have been hit about as hard as any company. the theme parks which as you say, that's a huge source of revenue. what about the movies and studios? i mean, the cinemas are closed these days. walt disney has been very hard hit. susan: i would argue what about disney tv plus? aren't people staying home and streaming and bingeing? that might be an increase in new subscription numbers which will hopefully be seen in the next quarter when they release and guide us for the first six months of this year. but you're right, it's the movie theaters, the theme parks will take a hit but some say at these levels, this might be a screaming buy. stuart: yeah, because the stock was $140, i think, and now it's $95 a few weeks later. my goodness me. all right. susan, i will move on to general motors.

deliveries, what have we got there, lauren? delivery of vehicles? lauren: yes. they have delivered 461,000 vehicles in china in the first three months of this year. that's down 43% versus last year. still, the stock is up 1.75% today at $18.51. stuart: but that stock was around $35 to $40 just a few short weeks ago. now gm is at $18. how about that. all right. got a big show for you. larry kudlow, chief economics guy at the white house, is coming up on this program in just a few minutes. stay there. these days you need faster internet that does all you

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stuart: look at that market.

i do see some red now, but not much of it. let's bring in david kelly, jpmorgan chief global strategist. david, look, what we've got here is a dreadful economic picture and i don't think we've gotten a full picture yet. it's going to get worse. yet the market seems to be holding up reasonably well. what do you make of this? >> well, we are already trading down 25% from where we were on february 19th. we already had a pretty significant correction. i think people have asked me is this like the depression or great financial crisis and i think the big difference is this. look, this is going to be horrible in terms of unemployment but there is an ending to this. at some point, we will have a vaccine in place, we will have better treatments in place. we are not talking about years from now, we are maybe talking a year to 18 months. we all want it to come sooner but when that day comes, this economy will come surging back. we have a full stall and a surge. stocks are based on the value the companies provide for decades into the future so yes,

2020 is a write-off, it's dreadful. the first part is going to be pretty ugly. but this is going to come back. that's what's imbedded in stock prices today. stuart: but you are putting off the comeback for at least a year, right? >> well, you know, i'm not an epidemiologist but the problem is this. this thing is a highly infectious pathogen and if you say only 5% of the population has got it, the other 95% of us are sitting ducks. so unless you do social distancing, you can't start this thing going again. i'm afraid i'm not in the camp of people who believe that we can just somehow squash this with social distancing and then get back to normal. i think unfortunately, that horse has bolted. we are probably going to have to maintain some extraordinary level of social distancing until we have a vaccine, if we are going to stop millions of people from unfortunately dying from this thing. stuart: okay. well, we just have to wait a

couple of years, maybe. thanks for joining us, sir. we do appreciate it. thank you. news on american airlines. the airlines have got lots of news about them these days. who have we got? lauren, do you have that? lauren: yeah, looking forward, i've got it, stuart, looking forward to summer, peak demand. american airlines says it's just not going to be there. so they are cutting for their summer travel season, worldwide demand by 60%, including an 80% cut to their routes to the pacific but on average, 60%. take a look at the stock. it's up about 2%. it has been down 35% over the past five days but it's a tough time for the airlines. people aren't flying and they are cutting routes. this does not spell good news for their workers. stuart: did you see, we had that statistic earlier this morning. tsa checkpoints at airports, they are processing two million fewer passengers per day than

they were a year ago. i mean, airline travel is at a dead stop, isn't it, really. lauren: it really is. and we were thinking here at home -- stuart: i'm sorry. let me explain to our viewers, we've got a problem with the delay here. so it's not realtime conversation. that is almost impossible. we do our best but occasionally we talk on top of each other. my apologies to all if i'm talking on top of anybody else. one person i will not talk on top of, that is larry kudlow. top economic guy at the white house. he joins us next. has stood strong through every dark hour and bright dawn our country has endured. it has seen the break in the clouds before anyone else. for the past 168 years, we've also stood by you, helping you weather storms like this one, to protect your loved ones. and we'll do it for 168 more.

stuart: it is 10:00 eastern time on this friday morning. the market's been open for 30 minutes. we have no really clear sense of direction. the dow is down 70, s&p is down just 1 and the nasdaq is up 11. pretty close to break-even point, even though we've got some disappointing jobs numbers which don't fully reflect the dire situation of employment in the month of march. 701,000 jobs lost last month. the unemployment rate went to 4.4%. that does not reflect the true situation right there in the employment market. fed governor lockhart told maria bartiromo early this morning we are already at roughly 10% unemployment. national economic council director larry kudlow is going

to join us in just a few moments. right now, just after 10:00 eastern time, i believe we've got the latest numbers on the service sector. this is very important. i'm expecting very bad numbers. ashley, do we have those numbers yet? ashley: we do. you know what, not as bad as we thought, stuart. coming in at 52.5 which means anything above 50 is still an expansion. the expectation was for it to crash down to a level of 44, which would have been contraction, would have been the first time since december of 2009. but a little bit of a surprise on the upside, coming in at 52.5 for the service sector in march. better than expected. stuart: i can't explain that, because the service sector has been utterly clobbered and that was true all the way through the month of march. so to have that reading, i just don't get it. can't understand it. however, i've got jack hough

with me, bar ron's associate editor. also greg valliere. jack hough, first to you. what's going on here? the service sector, i thought it was going to crash. >> with all of these numbers, the jobs numbers are awful but is that normal? these are the job losses that we need to see in the near term if we shut down these businesses so that we can do what we need to do for this virus and eventually get the economic bay back up an running. we hope this is temporary. we hope this we hope these are temporary, we hope these are paths to better day and that's why it's hard to see the market tanking. >> the market is not tanking as you say, it's up 21000. i guess we expect dreadful

news on the economy in april. >> that's a good question. in the near term, i'm terrible at predicting the short-term because everyone is terrible but share prices look reasonable. everything right now rests on the virus and everything is a combination of hope and dread. we think we see things improving in italy, that's hope because that might be a leading indicator for us but we have dread because were pretty sure the situation is going to get worse here in new york in the near term over the next few weeks and maybe across united states. the market is this mechanism, it's not pricing and what's happening now, what's happening in the next few weeks, it's pricing and what it believes normal will be

after this virus is passed. the only thing that remains to be seen now is whether and how consumer behavior will be reshaped after this is done. >> what's your analysis of the market action this morning bearing in mind the dreadful economic news coming at us throughout the month of april. >> i agree that he is not going to be what happens in the next few weeks. we know it will be terrible. the key will be whether we get a b recovery. the key is what happens to small businesses. do they get their loans? do they get up and running. this will be a crucial week to see if they can accommodate all the loan applications. >> would you agree with the following statement that the

economy cannot recover until the social distancing rules are relaxed. >> i think would be a great development psychologically but i don't think we're there yet. it will be well into may until we get there and everybody will have to put something on their mask if they go to a restaurant that's cried road or something but psychologically that's huge. >> we have morgan stanley saying between now and june the economy will contract at an annual rate of 38%. i've never heard of anything like that before. it's absolutely unique. you think that's accurate? >> uno stewart. it's an educated guess.

i think the stock market is telling us something that we can get into a recovery by the end of the summer. whether it's in time for donald trump is another question but i do think as we go into the fall things will look quite a bit better. >> jack, come into this. he just said by the fall things will look a lot better. what do you say to that? >> i hope so but everything depends on the virus. will we get a recurrence in the fall? if we do will it be less than right now. a lot of things are in the air. the question is whether we get this u-shaped recovery or v-shaped recovery. let's say we get a v-shaped, there is a rapid step back in the economy but we don't quite return to our previous spending habits. everybody's talking about pent-up demand and gbp, just

think about yourself personally. how much pent-up demand you have for big purchase tickets. the only thing i feel tense up is keeping my family safe and maybe i'll feel different over the summer but let's consider the possibility that consumers might stay cautious coming out of it. that's before you even count the people that are hurting from job losses. stuart: there is a suggestion from doctor fauci that we may need to go to a national stay-at-home policy. at the moment it's up to the states but the suggestion is that we have the feds come in and say everybody locked down. if we did go to that that would extend the period in which the economy is flat on its back and it would extend out further any compact possibility. you said it might be later if you get a national lockdown. >> yes it would. i think the governor of

florida and others should've move sooner but i think it's inevitable that virtually the entire country will be on lockdown. you can't sugarcoat it. the next few months will be terrible. i do think if we get to fall, even if there's a little return people will think we're getting a little closer to a vaccine and the return won't be as devastating as the initial round. stuart: on that note, disappointing news from singapore, they went through the first phase and they were doing quite well and coped with it quite well but now the prime minister cedro they're going to close most workplaces, all schooling from college to kindergarten, everything will be online, no gatherings of any kind in

their no longer going to discourage facemask. they're going back. i find that disappointing because they were the shining example of how to get through the first phase. >> wuhan is starting to get back to normal. you're right, it's disappointing. we can take some solace that it has leveled off and that's a good thing, were probably three weeks behind italy so i can't be very optimistic about april but have never in my life seen this kind of monetary and fiscal similar us that we have and i think it will make a difference by the end of the summer. hold on for a second period i want to go to lauren. we are still expanding, that was a surprise but you dug into it lauren and you have some nuggets for us. what do you have.

>> it looks like nine different industries. what some of the industries were saying wasn't that bad. i'll start with construction they set obviously coronavirus is having an impact but not as much as we thought. there are many customer concerns but we are finding workarounds. the mining industry, we are experiencing no real issues from a business perspective, but the virus has forced us to reconsider how we use our workforce to get things done. to some nuggets as why this number was a little bit better than was expected. it certainly surprised me. lauren thank you very much indeed. let's go to washington d.c., larry kudlow is ready, he's the president's chief economic advisor and he joins us right now. difficult day but thank you very much for being here.

>> you can't sugarcoat this thing, the economy looks absolutely awful. would you tell us honestly from your perspective how bad is it? >> well look, obviously this come from the exponential spread of the virus in the containment and mitigation measures that are health team has put together which, in effect has shut down the economy or shut in the economy. we are suffering through a very painful, very difficult economic contraction. >> is it a depression larry, i have morgan stanley coming out saying week contract 38% on an annual basis but that's extraordinary. annual icing quarterly numbers in this case i think, because this will not last a year, is the wrong approach.

i will lead them to whatever their views are. my point is that the virus itself and the steps we've taken to mitigate the virus have interrupted a very strong business prosperity, a very strong jobs prosperity, and the whole economy is suffering, and i do not think it's going to get any better in the weeks immediately ahead. i do think however this will prove to be temporary, that over the next 4 - 8 weeks or so, i say that perhaps with hope and optimism and some prayer, that's what the hell people are suggesting, it's not going to last the rest of the year. i do believe that we are taking steps to deal with this. we've got a six-point to trillion dollars assistance package on the books to help americans keep their job and their family and their small to medium business. this will not last throughout the year end i do think we

will see a strong economic recovery when this has played itself out. >> now we want to get the money out quickly. it's supposed to start going out today, 350, $360 billion but we have reports that some of the big banks are not ready and cannot, at this moment pump out the money. what is your response. >> i don't know. i'm not hearing the same. secretary mnunchin who has led the charge on this had been meeting with, for example you mention the big banks, and he has taken his proposal, changes to his proposal and i think they are ready. all of us have been talking to the big bank and i think this program is ready. it went through, they always have glitches when they start out. it's a massive undertaking but at the end of the day these

are guaranteed loans and they will be forgiven if you cover your payroll and other expenses. you have eight weeks to do that. i think it's a tremendous opportunity, a 1% interest rate, again the u.s. government is guaranteeing these loans let me also say for people who are looking to apply they should be moving rapidly. any bank, any federal reserve bank, for federal credit union, all of those are eligible for this program and it's not going to be hard to put together so i think the kinks will be worked out and were starting this up today and there's already demand as there must be. stuart: would you agree with the following statement, we can't get the economy back on its feet or even get the economy to come back until we start relaxing some of the stay-at-home orders. bearing in mind that we've got talk now of a national lockdown, not just

state-by-state. >> well look, our health experts have suggested these mitigation procedures. the president, as you know extended the stay-at-home orders, guidance for another month. i think it was the right decision to make. this is where prudence prevails, the health and safety of the american people is the most important item. we have to go through this. and the testing surveillance and all the other medical procedures are in place and they will tell us when it is safe to start reopening his nest. of course we want to get that done. this is a great country. we had a very prosperous economic story, a blue-collar story, you and i talked about it for years. january and february was very strong but the buyers came exponentially worse than anyone thought possible and we

are responding to that by trying to create as much liquidity and cash to try to keep folks going here for the next couple months. that's what we are doing. were just trying to keep folks going with the largest assistance package in the history of the united states and the payroll protection small business plan which will keep payrolls alive and the business alive, that's a key aspect of it, but don't forget, we are deferring income taxes, we have this business payroll tax holiday, we are deferring all manner of mortgages, no evictions, no foreclosures, frankly the private sector president trump's great credit for the first time in one of these crises, he has brought in the private sector with the free enterprise value in their ingenuity and they are helping us across the board whether it's drugs, equipment,

testing, changing their production line, i think that's the key element here so we are doing what we can but we can't move until we are satisfied on the health side. that's the key issue. we'd love to open up the economy but we just have to wait for the right amount of evidence. i think vice president pence has been great on this and the president has been great and are health people have been great. stuart: the package that's going out today, i call it a rescue package. it's rescuing individuals who have been harmed through no fault of their own. but look down the road a ways. do we need a genuine stimulus package that's intended to grow the economy, and if you want that, if you think we need it, what should be in it. >> that's interesting and important. this is a rescue package. i like this word. we are just trying to keep folks going. that's liquidity and cash and

that's the intent and hopefully it will play out well. >> over time, once we get through this i think our top priority right now is to execute this anonymous assistance package, rescue package as you call it. let's get that done. there's a lot of pieces. one little sidebar, no one's really talked about this, the federal reserve working with the u.s. government, the u.s. fiscal policy working with monetary policy, i talked with fed chairman jay powell a few days ago, i lose track of time, and he was so pleased that their various lending programs were getting help and support from the fiscal side. that is to say huge tax cuts and tax rebates. a hundred 75 million people are going to get direct checks along with the small business

protection. so you've got fiscal monetary coordination. let's execute this. we are just really beginning. the unemployment side for example. unemployment will be a significant problem in the weeks and months ahead. hopefully the states can distribute that but this goes to the point of operational execution. that's our job number one right now. down the road i think we can begin to look at creating additional incentives, free enterprise incentives to grow the economy, maybe infrastructure bill , or

business expensing, one 100%. how about a zero capital gains tax for a year or two. there's all kinds of proposals out there. i'm not saying were pursuing any right now, just to answer your question. what will help this economy grow in the next 3 - 5 years after this pandemic has run its course, sure we need that conversation. right now though we need to execute this phase three. help americans who are getting hurt badly by the effects of the virus. >> can you give us some hope larry, can we close out this interview on a positive note, what can we hope for in the not-too-distant future. >> you know me, i spent my entire career as an optimist. some people don't like this. i believe i work for an optimist, in fact to optimist. we wouldn't be doing this if we weren't optimistic. i think we have put together a very strong plan on the health side and the economic rescue side. this is not going to go on forever. this is a temporary problem. the coronavirus is running its course. we are creating therapies, medicines and ultimately vaccines. we have different procedures

in place that will stay with us. it's kind of like 911. remember 911 came, life changed, we had airport metal detectors just to use one small thing. a lot of things are going to change how we live our daily lives but we are americans, we will adjust, individuals, communities, small businesses, everybody is adjusting and pitching in. i've never seen a country so strong but of course there's optimism. this thing is not permanent. everybody knows that. we've just got to put, just get through with a little hope and prayer, just get through the next bunch work. play by the rules, we will get through this. yes you're darn right i'm optimistic. that's in my dna. >> can i reverse myself and ask one more question. he's meeting top oil executives. the energy industry is flat on its back.

what can the administration do for our energy producers. >> in terms of the pandemic and demand, there's nothing we can do right away. there may be some issues, smaller items that i'm in a leave on the table for that meeting. i helped organize that meeting, but one thing the president has already done is he has spoken a number of times with the leaders in saudi arabia and russia and they told them to stop polluting and throwing oil on the market that is already vastly supplied by oil and reaction to the collapse of demand. he said you need to cut back your production because you're having this little war between saudi arabia and russia and that is damaging everybody. damaging consumers, motorists, homeowners and damaging the fractures and our energy business.

u.s. is number one energy producer in the world. we will stay that way but will we see that kind of collusion going on for no good purpose but perhaps to hurt the united states we have to take action. the president has taken action and he expects there will be a considerable pullback in energy production by russia and saudi arabia and you can see in the markets, the price of oil is up seven or eight dollars. we can't solve the pandemic demand but we can make sure there's a level playing field. we can do that. i think you will see president negotiation bear through very soon. >> we want to thank you for taking time out to be with us. it is much appreciated. we will see you again real soon. thanks very much indeed. all right. when larry started the interview with me, that was about 20 minutes ago the dow was down 45 points. now we are down to 20.

i'm not sure if that downside move had anything to do with what larry had to say there. let's bring in jack, market watchers, i'm sorry i misunderstood right there. we have actually, we have susan and we have lauren with us. susan, i want to go to you first if i may. your our principal market watcher on the company. what did you hear larry kudlow say that you really picked up on in terms of the stock market? >> i think he made a lot of headlines in the interview. i was looking at all the red flashes coming up on my screen so we have some of the headlines in the interview they say the u.s. is going through very painful economic contraction and will things get better in the weeks immediately ahead, no but they will get better. he does see a very strong economic recovery when this plays itself out. this is pretty much what we've heard echoed from the white house so what about oil prices

that may be dragging on the sentiment that means consumers have to spend a little bit more but it seems that the economic play out and how much of an impact the u.s. is grabbing all the headlines. stuart: actually what stuck out to you. >> i like larry kudlow's fighting spirit and toward the end of the interview he said we are americans, we will adjust, everybody's pitching in. he said let's get through the next bunch of weeks but you are darn right i am optimistic when he talked about this country coming back from this unprecedented economic hit that it's been suffering through right now. he is right. the question being is how long is that going to take. stuart: well said. lauren you have last word. all of 20 seconds. >> the market hit the low of the session when he said oil demand is down and there is nothing we can do about that right away. he was realistic, not optimistic or pessimistic.

>> guest: well done. 20 seconds precisely. all right everybody we gotta take a short commercial break. the market is down, the economy is flat on its back and we will deal with it all after this. life isn't a straight line. and sometimes, you can find yourself heading in a new direction. but when you're with fidelity, a partner who makes sure every step is clear, there's nothing to stop you from moving forward. a partner who makes sure every step is clear, (aurelia) i was just frustrated i almost gave up. company. with miracle-ear, it's all about service. they're personable, they're friendly. i'm very happy with them. (vo) we provide you with a free lifetime of aftercare, meaning free check-ups, cleanings and adjustments. (wiley) i see someone new. someone happy. it's really made a difference.

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on a day when the economic news is breaking thick and fast, you might expect a more volatile market. that's not what we've gotten so far this friday morning. one hour into the trading session. were down 200 on the dow, 50 on the nasdaq, 19 on the s&p. but compared to what we've seen recently, that's a fairly narrow trading range. let's check big tech because we always do because that's where the money is and that's

where people have a lot of their money. apple is down to 42, amazon is down, 1910 down eight bucks. look microsoft is going up again. i gain of 13 cents at 155 but reading arrows for microsoft. facebook down, google is down. the big news this morning came at 8:30 a.m. that was the jobs report. 700 jobs lost in the month of march. 4.4% the unemployment rate. that didn't really reflect the dire employment situation that we face. edward lawrence is with us. he dug through the full report, he joins us. you've got some nuggets for me. >> i know you'd like to find winners and a lot of thing. the government sector was the winner in this overall 12000 jobs, the federal government hiring 17000 jobs, i'm sorry 18000 jobs. it was for the states senate but you have a 12000 job bump

overall. just look at this, 713,000 jobs lost. a little surprise given the health crisis. the health. [inaudible] 17000 of those in dentist offices. we expect losses in leisure and hospitality for the casinos and hotels, las vegas and all their workers home. ground transportation loss 4000 jobs, and just look at the breakdown. one more slide of the unemployment rate. you see it jump from 528% to 6.7%. that was not the biggest jump. hispanic on employment from 4.4 up to 6% and the asian unemployment, and we know this would've been bad but since the last week did not include the last two weeks of march, this was a little bit of a surprise about how bad this

number actually was the payroll protection program, one more thing before i go, 1500 loans have now been written in that payroll protection program and among those $560 million has now been given out to those small businesses. the community banks are leading this because the big banks have not yet come through with their loans. stuart: that's interesting because that is the immediate flushing in of $500 million in a matter of hours. that's a pretty good start. not quite good enough but a good start. >> those numbers on the program are jumping exponentially. at 8:30 a.m. it was just 2.5 million and now at 10:00 a.m. you're looking at $516 million. these numbers are jumping exponentially in the big banks haven't even started their loans. these are all community banks. >> okay. edward please keep on top of that because i'd love to see

that exponential shift of money to small business. good stuff. earlier, a few minutes ago we were speaking with larry kudlow. we will pick out some of the highlights for you. roll tape. >> the virus itself and the steps we've taken to mitigate the virus have interrupted a very strong business prosperity, a very strong jobs prosperity and the whole economy is suffering and i do not think it's going to get any better in the weeks immediately ahead. i do think however this will prove to be temporary, that over the next four to eight weeks or so, i say that perhaps with hope, optimism and some prayer, that's what the health people are suggesting, is not going to last the rest of the year. >> that interest it's not going to last the rest of the year. that's very important point from larry kudlow. our next guest is danielle martino booth and i want to ask you about the state of the

economy. it seems to me that it's in dire shape. how bad is it? >> i think we will find out how bad it is in the next 4 - 8 weeks in front of us. we are going to have to see a flattening out of the virus in order to flatten out the recession curve. >> forgive me for interrupting. i'm sorry for interrupting but i've got to get specific. we've got a report this morning from j.p. morgan and they say in the second quarter, the quarter that were now in the economy will contract at an annual rate of 38%. that's extraordinary, and earlier today on maria's program, governor lockhart said were already at 10% unemployment. that's real bad. okay. wait for the official numbers, but you can tell is surely that were in a depression, aren't we? >> i actually do think were in a depression. if you look at google trend

it's very hard to find real-time data and that's critical but if you look at google trends we've had a third subsequent wave of searches for unemployment insurance that are larger than the prior to meeting next week, right now we have officially one in 16 americans who are out of the workforce. by next week we could see a depression-era number closer to one and 25. stuart: okay. in my opinion we don't get any help for the economy until we start to relax the stay-at-home rules which now have affected almost 300 million americans. do you agree with that? >> i think that will be a critical first step as well as confidence in the business community that there's not going to be a second wave. i think one of the biggest things holding the economy back now and in the future is going to be a fear factor but

it's very hard to quantify so we will have to see that as we open communities up, as we relieve these lockdowns that we don't see a resurgence in the number of viruses which is what we are starting to see in a handful of countries. >> there will be an anonymous battle about when we open up and wear. thanks for joining us. appreciate it indeed. now, the price of oil this morning. we had a big bump up yesterday as the president tweeted about an agreement with the russians and the saudi's may be to drop 10 million barrels of oil produced today. we are at $26. barrel. andy, i don't see how anybody can handle this sharp decline in demand all the way around the world. i'm told that were using like 30 million barrels of oil a day less than we did four or five weeks ago.

you can't restore that demand anytime soon, can you. >> well you can't, and that is the problem that opec and opec plus members had that the demand is so huge compared to their proposal of cutting production by 10 million barrels a day that were going to see oil continue to go into inventory. >> is there anything you think we could do to help our domestic drillers? >> there's very few steps the u.s. can take. one of course is filling the strategic petroleum reserve and they have gone ahead and are reaching out that will take 70 million barrels or so off the market. be happy that there's very little we can do.

people proposed tariffs on imported oil but what i would say is the u.s. continues to export a significant amount of refined product and higher domestic prices will put those at a disadvantage. >> is it possible that at some point in the relatively near future we will run out of space to store the oil and the price will plummet even further because the glut is obvious. >> what we are already seeing that happen, especially in west texas where pipeline companies are no longer accepting some of the volumes because the shipper doesn't have a destination. we see refiners on the gulf coast are now turning away crude oil cargo, but the place to really look is up in canada. canada is sending to the u.s. over 3 million barrels a day and it's a refinery in the midwest in the rocky mountains that are taking it, canadian storage is measured in a matter of days.

stuart: okay, in the next, let's say in this month, in the month of april, can you see the price of crude oil dropping back below $20. barrel? can you see it at any point dropping below ten dollars a barrel? >> i can easily see it falling below $20 a barrel as the hub fills up over the next several weeks. could it go down lower, that is easily possible, especially there is opec, if they don't act or they act in a very limited manner. >> okay. thanks. very much for joining us. that's the other crisis. there's one crisis with the virus and another with the glut of oil in the world economy. prices are sinking. we've got that down. crude oil $26. barrel. by the way, the national price for gasoline is all the way down at $1.95. gallon. no, actually it's $1.95 on

gasoline. got that. i'm not gonna pay two cents extra, i'm not going to pay a dollar 97, i'm looking for a buck 95. tesla had its best quarter. they delivered 88000 cars and elon musk says he wants to deliver a half million cars this year. next hour we have a guest who says that is virtually impossible. nonetheless, tesla stock is up 30 bucks as of right now. coming up house speaker pelosi formed a new committee, it's a commission on the coronavirus plus the dnc has postponed the convention until august. tall tammy bruce joins us next on politics. attention veterans with va loans.

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that's a clip from top gun maverick. have they delayed the opening of this, it's not going to be in the cinemas anytime soon? >> stuart we have waited 34 years for the sequel to top gun and you have to wait a little bit longer. it's coming out christmas time. it was the end of june, now it's being pushed back to christmas which means yet another movie drops off the summer, the blockbuster season

which was worth over 4 billion in revenue last year. paramount not releasing top gun when it was supposed to. >> we know it's important to our viewers, that's why we got it in. top gun maverick got it. let's get serious. let's check out first of all the big banks. the financials. not doing well this morning in a low interest rate environment and they are under criticism because they haven't come through with the loans to small business. there little under pressure there. morgan goldman, morgan stanley, all on the downside. look at goldman sachs down over one and half percent. j.p. morgan chase, the financials are down. overall we've still got a loss of about one and a quarter% to the dow industrials, about 1% down on the s&p and nasdaq is down again. so we've got the red background because we are in a selloff mode. now this. president trump slammed speaker pelosi for what he

thanks are investigations after she announced a new committee on the virus. roll tape. >> endless investigations have already done extraordinaire damage to our country in recent years. you see what happens, it's witchhunt after witchhunt and in the end the people doing the witchhunt have been losing and they been losing a lot conducting these partisan investigations in the middle of a pandemic is a really big waste of vital resources, time, attention. >> tammy bruce is with us. to me, they just couldn't resist could they. right before an election there can hold these hearings investigate, investigate, investigate and come up with some dirt on the president. i think that's a disgrace.

what you say. >> it is, and even during the impeachment hearing itself, the president numbers increased you may recall. that was a message to the democrats that they didn't like what was going on. they didn't like what the democrats were doing and yet the left can never help themselves. they can't stop, but what the american people i think have seen, even the numbers amongst democrats have increased for the president because what's happening now is nonpartisan. it's not bipartisan. it's a nonpartisan american experience and this is a reminder and this is a mistake, she should take the advice from the president, she's actually helping them, that the american people want to focus now on what really matters is your show is proving, there's a lot of moving parts, this is something that is very delicate, in this is their answer when in fact so many more things need to occur. so the president is actually being generous in reminding the american people and the democrats what a mistake this is what we have so much to do together to move forward.

>> what about the election itself. i noticed the democrats have shifted their convention and are walking into mid august. where does that leave joe biden and his campaign and the whole election process? >> it's an interesting dynamic. the election itself seems to be on hold in a way but the american people still are deciding. they are noticing who's doing what, what we just discussed as part of that, but they are moving their convention to a week prior to the republican convention. what this means is if it really moved in july as planned which obviously is really impossible, i think it's smarter to move it to august just for the safety of people, but it means their nominee will have, and it could be good news if it really is joe biden, one month plus to have to be in front as the official nominee. one month last of attention on him which seems to bring problems, but they've also said there will be fewer people at this convention and

it clearly is going to be a problem if there is any kind of the dissension. it's going to look even more difficult. they've gotta find a balance. i don't know if they're interested in having a balance of convention if they plan on having any kind of shenanigans. the bottom line is republicans, week after that and they will have that boost. we know who the nominee will be there but it's going to be very difficult for the democrats as this entire environment is because they have no fresh ideas. they are not contributing to a positive forward view of america and that's their problem. stuart: you're right. you've got it. tammy bruce thank you very much for being with us. i always appreciate it very much indeed. still a bit of a selloff going on. it's not that huge, we are down 200 on the dow jones. next charlie kirk says the virus stimulus package should have something for college students as well but what about their student loans. he's been in talks with the white house about that and he will join us after this.

for the past 168 years, we've also stood by you, helping you weather storms like this one, to protect your loved ones. and we'll do it for 168 more.

all right. here's the news we been waiting for that we'd really like to hear. the news is from italy. ashley, have i got this right? the curve seems to be flattenin flattening. >> you are absolutely right. very encouraging news out of italy. the rate of increases. day has dropped off significantly. now don't forget if he went on an entire country lockdown on march the ninth but now over the past four days the rate of increase in new cases is down four-point to percent. the previous four days it was 7.1%. the previous two weeks it was 10.8%. in the very heart of the outbreak it was above 22,

23%. what we need to point out is this is good news, it took an entire country on lockdown a little over three weeks to get down to this level. but it is encouraging news and hopefully we can see that kind of move here in the united states. we are are of course a little behind italy right now but that is encouraging news. stuart: yes it is. ashley thank you very much indeed. the market shows a small loss. it's a 230-point decline. next we have with us a student, not a student but were gonna talk about students in college. students have paid for full-time face-to-face classes but now, they're not at college. they're not getting that face-to-face tuition. they are at home. so should they get some kind of rebate from the college because the college is not providing what the students have paid for. charlie kirk is with us. he is the founder of turning point usa. what do you say charlie? should the colleges be giving back some of the tuition

money? >> yes. in fact it should be required. this is part of what i call the student stimulus. if congress is going to do a stage iv stimulus plan they can't overlook the college students. there is some terrific stuff in the stage three plan but then there some stuff in there that i'm not a fan fan up but something that was just huge and overlooked was that college students come you have 20 million college students out there and a lot of them paid for room and board. they paid fees for this semester and many colleges are refusing to refund them the money they paid for their dormitories, meals, student activity fees to actually be on campus so if any university that received federal government funding in any form or fashion whatsoever, they should be required to refund those students that portion. i'm also advocating for a two-year tuition free freeze. if were talking about deferrals and bailouts, were

talking about these huge multi trillion dollar packages, the most we can do is to freeze the thing that is making them go into debt which is tuition. the final thing we want to advocate for is to raise the limit on the deductibility of student loan interest. not have it be at $2500 cap. make it as high as it can go in that will incentivize people to work and that will be a student graduate tax cut. stuart: charlie kirk i'd love to get more on this and i know you're talking about it at the white house so come back soon and tell us the progress for students. good stuff right there. we will see you again soon. the dow is down to 47th and u we we'll be back. drop. gage rates and they just dropped to the lowest in newday's history. refinance now. there's no income verification, no appraisal, and no out of pocket costs. one call can save you $2,000 a year.

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stuart: it is precisely 11:00 eastern time. look at the market. you know, dare i say it's pretty stable. it has been. we have been down 200 points for about 40 odd minutes. nasdaq down 70, s&p down 23. last hour, we heard from larry kudlow, top economics guy at the white house. here's what he had to say on the economy. roll that tape. >> the virus itself and the steps we've taken to mitigate the virus have interrupted a very strong business prosperity, very strong jobs prosperity, and the whole economy is suffering and i do not think it's going to get any better in the weeks immediately ahead. i do think, however, that this will prove to be temporary, that

over the next four to eight weeks or so, i say that perhaps with hope, optimism and some prayer, that's what the health people are suggesting, it's not going to last the rest of the year. stuart: that's the point. it's not going to last the rest of the year, four to eight weeks, if you're an optimist and that's what he's praying for. got that. look at the price of oil. we are at $27 a barrel as of right now. here's what larry kudlow had to say about the price war between russia and saudi arabia. roll that part of the tape. >> it turns into pandemic and collapse and demand, there's nothing we can do right away. there might be some issues, smaller items that i'm going the leave on the table for that meeting. i helped organize that meeting. but one thing the president has already done is he has spoken a number of times with the leaders in saudi arabia and russia, and

has told them to stop colluding and throwing oil on a market that is already vastly supplied by oil in relation to the collapse in demand. stuart: all right. in summary, here's what larry kudlow had to say. yes, the economy is flat on its back and he doesn't see much improvement for four or five weeks into the future. he also said look, there's really not that much you can do about the depressed price of oil because of the depressed demand for it all the way round the world. brian bremberg is here, fox news contributor. you are an economist. you spell it out for me. i think we are in a depression right now. what say you? >> well, if you are talking about depression as a reduction in gdp of 10%, i agree with you. we are in that spot and we are going to see those numbers come through. it wouldn't surprise me if in the second quarter we saw a contraction in gdp up to 20%.

i think that could very well go along with an unemployment rate that hits 20%. i'm not saying the exact numbers but that's the kind of range we are talking about here, and there isn't a lot you can do about that when the economy's shut down. we are trying to soften the blow, yes, with some of these relief measures but until you open the economy, there really isn't much you can do when we are that shut down and people cannot go to work. stuart: you can't get a time frame on that because it depends on bending the curve. you can't have people go back to work and associate freely until such time as you have completely or almost completely gotten rid of the threat from the virus. now, i predict one enormous political fight when we start to see some bending of the curve. some people will want back to work, let's open up the economy again. there will be that very strong point of view. there will also be a point of

view saying don't waste the lockdown that you have been through for five weeks, don't let it come back for a second wave. there's an enormous political battle coming. >> yeah, and we need to be preparing for that right now. i agree with you, stuart, the one thing that could make this much, much worse is at the point where we need clear, rational thought, we are going to get partisan bickering but the truth is, we have to solve two problems. we have to solve the health problem and we have to solve the economic problem and unless politicians can get together and talk across the aisle about that, and agree that they want to try to do the best for both of those, you will prolong certainly the economic problem and that's going to hurt tens of millions of more people who were not directly affected by the health issue. they will have their lives devastated by the economic issue. we cannot afford it and you're right, it's a huge rfk. . stuart: what we've got going now, the package that is the money that's going out now, i

call that a rescue. that's not stimulus. we don't get to stimulus until we're on the other side of this thing and you pump in some money that will make the economy grow. do you see the need for a fourth stimulus package down the road? >> you know, what i see the need for most right now is getting the execution of this relief bill done right. you have many, many small businesses right now who are counting on that paycheck protection program to be in place today. they are counting on it to keep their people on their payrolls to pay their bills and we are getting some questions about whether that's being executed properly. that has to happen. larry kudlow said that very clearly. they are focused on execution. i think he's right. we need to take the $2 trillion we have allocated and spend that well and once we have done that, we can talk about a fourth stimulus but i don't want to see a fourth stimulus that becomes an excuse for a bunch of

government spending that pushes pet projects and doesn't get anything real done. i think that's the risk. let's get congress, let's get the administration, let's get our bureaucracy focused on dealing with the $2 trillion we have right now. stuart: you're right. brian brenberg, thanks for joining us. see you shortly. to the markets. still down 200 points, that's 1% down there. almost 1% down on the s&p and about .9% down on the nasdaq. that's not a huge reaction, bearing in mind the dire economic news that we are having to digest. jason katz is with us, ubs managing director. jason, i'm surprised that the markets are taking -- not exactly taking it in stride, but the news is so bad, i would have thought we would have a bit more of a downside move. what say you? >> i think what we have to remember, stuart, is by design, this is self-induced. so as far as the employment numbers are concerned, how the

markets reacted, if you take the bats out of the hands of the new york yankees, they can't score. that's precisely what's happened here. as dire as it seems right now, in the fog of war, it's hard to see from the big picture perspective. there's light at the end of this tunnel. we just don't know how long the tunnel is. in the meantime, we are stuck in this vortex of sobering news and the markets to some extent have discounted that, at least looking out a quarter, maybe a quarter and a half, what the markets haven't discounted is what the world looks like if the economy hasn't been turned on say late spring or early summer. stuart: can you give us a rough idea of how you think the american economy will look and feel say one year from now? when hopefully we're over it by then, but what will the economy look and feel like? >> so one thing's for sure. it will be different. it will be different. for better or for worse.

so the talk of a v-shaped recovery is dissipating when you see such draconian numbers like 113 months winning streak for jobs come to a screeching halt. i do think, however, a u-shape is very likely. there will be aspects of this economy that get across the finish line with vengeance. there awill be certain aspects that limp across the finish line and regrettably, some industries won't make it. thank goodness for the $6 trillion of aid in stimulus and rescue vis a vis fiscal and monetary stimulus and there's more where that came from, whether it be on the infrastructure side or some of the other fiscal policies that are likely to follow. stuart: you handle the money of some very very wealthy people from all round the world. could you tell us which industries are particularly attractive now and which you are buying into now? >> without equivocation, i will tell you that communication

services is where we are deploying capital. you think about what's happened in the last four weeks. we have taken what's probably a decade of a transition to a stay-at-home, work-at-home revolution and crammed it into four weeks. how we work, how we communicate with family, how we educate our children, how we are entertained. so companies in and around that space and the advertising that will result from it, once companies of course pay for the advertising, is definitively a place that i think you could deploy capital here. stuart: jason katz, thanks very much for joining us i guess from your living room. looks good. see you again real soon. thanks for being here. all right. looking at your money, by the way, look at that, zoom communications, $123 a share as of right now. that is a winner. let's get to the medical side of the virus and our administration's attempt to fight it. dr. anthony fauci was on "fox & friends" earlier. ashley, come in, please.

did he have anything to say about the conversation we are having about masks? ashley: yes, because originally, the cdc and the doctors had said no, leave the masks to the health care professionals. but as scientists have learned more about the virus, and how it's transmitted, they are now changing their thinking. take a listen to what he said this morning. >> -- information that the virus can actually be spread even when people just speak as opposed to coughing and sneezing. the better part of valor is that when you're out and you can't maintain that six-foot distance, to wear some sort of facial covering. ashley: well, that's the key. they don't want to say face mask because they don't want a run because they want to save the face masks for health care providers and the first responders, but some sort of facial covering. if it's impossible for you to be

more than six feet away from people, some sort of facial covering, a scarf, maybe a bandanna, whatever it is, that is the recommendation. we will hear officially from the cdc maybe later today, if not tomorrow, on their recommendations. but the guidance has changed. stuart: okay. let's get more on the medical side of things and our administration's response to the virus. dr. birx, she had something to say on the states that have not yet imposed a lockdown on staying at home. lauren, what do we have on that? lauren: yeah. she said responding to the coronavirus is a nationwide approach and all states need to do their part. listen. >> we have to change the curve we're on. we see country after country having done that. what it means in the united states is not everyone is doing it so we are only as strong as

every community, every county, every state, every american following the guidelines to a tee. when we see others beginning to bend their curves, we can bend ours, but it means everybody has to take that same responsibility as americans. lauren: as ashley told you earlier, we are seeing in italy the lockdowns, the strict social distancing, shelter in place orders do work, because the number of infections go down, the bending of the curve, if you will. stuart: that's right. that was some positive news from ashley about italy. they have begun to bend the curve or certainly looks like that. lauren, thanks very much indeed. let's talk general motors. turning factories into virus-fighting factories, machines, i guess you could say. grady trimble is in chicago. how many ventilators are gm making and when are they going to be delivered? reporter: they are hoping to scale up to 10,000 at least per

month, but right now, they are repurposing their kokomo, indiana facility as quickly as they can, and training employees. they hope to have early prototypes of ventilators out next week, then they will hope to scale up production by mid-april. we will keep an eye on that. what's interesting is the safety measures that they have in place right now. they are kind of providing a blueprint for what post-pandemic production will look like and post-pandemic manufacturing at least for the automotive industry. when employees show up before they even step on to the factory floor, they have to answer health questions. they have their temperature taken and while they're working, they are wearing masks and keeping social distancing. i spoke with the head of global workplace safety for general motors who tells me all of these safety measures will be put into place once gm does start making cars again, whether that's in a few weeks or a few months. >> everywhere you look, everybody is going to have

reminders of how we're trying to care for everybody. will that alarm people or will that put them at ease? so far the folks we have volunteering feel very comfortable that we have taken every step we can to separate them from a germ and any type of infection. reporter: i also asked if general motors has any plans to expand ventilator production beyond that kokomo facility. as of right now, they say they could, but there don't seem to be any immediate plans to. stuart? stuart: grady trimble, thanks very much. i notice that gm's stock is still at $18 a share. we better check out 3m. they have been under fire after being accused of selling those face masks to other countries. here's florida's emergency management executive on that story. roll tape. >> 3m has lost total control so what i ask 3m is are they aware their authorized distributors, u.s. companies, are telling me the reason why our orders are

being pushed down is because foreign countries are showing up with cash to purchase the orders and when i told 3m that, not only did they not dispute it, i asked them if they put out any guidance to prevent the behavior and the answer was no. stuart: i should tell you the chief executive officer at 3m has been speaking out this morning. hillary vaughn joins us. what's he been saying? reporter: mike roman, the ceo, actually talked with maria bartiromo, saying, responding to the backlash they are getting for selling masks that are made here in the u.s. to countries in latin america and also canada. he's saying they really are in the business of playing god. they need the government's help to guide them to locate where they should be allocating these resources, where the hot spots are, where the most need is. he also responded to accusations that they are allowing price gouging occurring from some of their distributors. he said that's absolutely not the case. in fact, they're working with

the doj to make sure if there are signs of price gouging from distributors that they are cracking down on that and stopping that from happening. he also said that they are actively trying to work with the administration to figure out how to keep and allow exports of their in-demand medical supplies to other countries that need it. they don't want to have a humanitarian crisis in other countries but they are also working to make sure there's enough supply here. really, the line is they are in a tough spot. they are asking for the federal government to step in and help them get as many masks to as many people that need it here in the u.s. stuart? stuart: got it. that's their response. hillary, thank you very much indeed. i'm going to show you sixth avenue, new york. it is 11:15 eastern time and normally at this time, you would see traffic up the wazoo and the sidewalks crowded with people. look at that. that's today. april 3rd, 2020. it ain't the city we're used to. we'll be right back.

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oh, mister elton. ahh! he has figured out a way to be invisible. they picked the wrong woman. just say "xfinity movie premiere" into your voice remote to bring the theater to you. stuart: if you're just joining us, you may be surprised to see a limited amount of volatility. it's friday, right before the weekend. we've had some dreadful economic

news earlier this morning but we have been trading in a narrow band. we are still down between 200 and 300 points on the dow jones industrial average. all right. now this. speaker pelosi will establish the select committee on the coronavirus crisis. we are told that this will check where the money goes. in fact, it will be an all-purpose investigation designed to make corporations, banks and the president look bad right before the election. we have been through this before but now with the virus disaster upon us, the criticism will be racheted up to a whole new level. again, right before the election. now, there's nothing wrong with accountability. when you are handing out and throwing around over $2 trillion, we ought to know who gets what and why. pu do but does the speaker have to conduct a probe at precisely the time the nation is fighting a

uniquely destructive challenge? you know what's going on here and you know what's coming. congressman adam schiff and perhaps congressman jerrold nadler will be called on to pour out their anger at the president. it will all be very public. the banks that lend money to distressed businesses, they will be called vultures and thieves and drug companies will be called profiteers and throughout it all, in the background, will be the lawyers, eager to pin liability on anyone with deep pockets so they can grab 30% of the take. it is divisive, it is politics at its worst and it is desperation. speaker pelosi knows that the democrats are in extremely weak position so she is grabbing the last available option, the one she's used before, investigate, investigate, investigate at all costs, slime the president right before the election. i believe we have steve hilton

with us. no, sorry. this is what the president said about it. roll tape, please. >> -- partisan investigations, here we go again, have already done extraordinary damage to our country in recent years. you see what happens. it's witch hunt after witch hunt after witch hunt and in the end, the people doing the witch hunt have been losing and they have been losing by a lot. conducting these partisan investigations in the middle of a pandemic is a really big waste of vital resources, time, attention. stuart: all right. let's bring in steve hilton. i'm sorry, i think this is a disgrace. this is a nasty political trick to slime the president in the middle of a virus crisis. that's my strong opinion. what's yours? >> i think you are exactly right, stuart. i think nancy pelosi has shown over the last few weeks that her instinct on everything is to try and get the political advantage,

political opportunism. that's what she's focused on. you can see it in the way that she responded to the urgent need to help deal with the cost of this shutdown. what was her instinct? it wasn't to try to improve the bill to try to make the money go to people quicker, to help small business or working families, all the things she said. it was actually to try to get her political priorities in the bill about voting, about public sector unions, about the green new deal. it wasn't about helping people at all. then you can see tonight tit in she was talking about the president, accusing him of killing people. she is trying to get the political advantage rather than help people. i don't think that will be forgotten when this is over. stuart: i think it's a move of desperation. the democrat convention has been pushed into august and joe biden is simply lost. i don't see the guy at all. pelosi is acting out of desperation because her party is

in such bad shape. again, that's a strong opinion. that's mine. what's yours? >> well, that's right. because in a crisis like this, people actually want to put politics to one side. they want to focus on actually dealing with the current emergency and actually the increasing seriousness of the economic impact and the impact of the economic shutdown on people's real life. that's not what they want to talk about. that is what the president is talking about day after day showing he's marshalling the resources of the federal government to try to help people and nancy pelosi shut herself out of that, and joe biden is desperately trying to get relevance by doing these rather strange interviews from his basement or whatever, but every time he goes out, he shows he is the last person you want in charge. you're right, they are worried about the politics. we do have an election in november and i think people will take into account how their leaders performed in this moment and it's not looking good for nancy pelosi.

stuart: yes, we do have an election in november and it's coming up fast. steve hilton, thank you very much. appreciate it. okay. the stock as in tesla has been on a tear. they crushed their delivery numbers. the stock is up 32 bucks. that's it now. it was up 70 earlier. dan ives is coming on the show next. i want to know what's going on. he doesn't think tesla can deliver the cars they promised. we'll be right back.

stuart: all right. for much of the day, the market was down 200. now we are down 300. we may have a reason for that dip down a further hundred points. we have headlines from new york's governor cuomo. he says look, the state's total of cases, virus cases, has now

surpassed 100,000. that's new york state. he says there's been a sizeable jump in the number of deaths. in fact, the highest single day increase since the virus threat began. that is maybe one of the reasons why we have dropped to minus 300 points on the dow as of right now. let's go back to susan. you've got some staggering numbers from state unemployment increases. tell me more. susan: staggering numbers we had in national unemployment this morning. i think this pretty much goes in line with that trend. number one, louisiana saw 5,000, nearly 6,000 increase when it comes to unemployment from 2020 compared to 2019. so in just one year. look at that jump. this is because louisiana also just recorded a record jump of 42% when it comes to coronavirus cases. north carolina, looking at 6,000% increase from last year

as well and indiana was in the top three, as you see 7,000% increase. isn't it staggering to talk about this? we saw that unemployment rate jump to 4.4%, highest since 2017. some predict we will hit 10% unemployment. from a political perspective, unemployment usually drives instability, unhappiness and also drives people to polls as well. that's something we definitely have to watch. stuart: you are absolutely right. look at a state like louisiana going from absolutely full unemployment to a disaster and their unemployment rate is up 5,000%. there are political implications to this. absolutely. they are staggering numbers indeed. susan, thank you very much indeed. now let's have a look at tesla again. moments ago, they were up about 30 bucks. there was some talk they had nailed their deliveries. they delivered 88,000 vehicles i think in the quarter. they are supposed to deliver a half million vehicles at some

point over the coming year. dan ives joins us, wedbush securities guy. dan, you don't think they are going to do this half million vehicle delivery, do you? >> yeah, i think that's basically an impossibility today, just given the covid-19 environment. i think it's probably closer to 400 to 415k. i would view the delivery number as a step in the right direction in a dark environment but the devil's in the details over the next few quarters in terms of what delivery and cash flow burn could be for tesla. that's going to be the tug-of-war between the bulls and bears here. stuart: well, do you think tesla's stock, it's at 488 as of right now, does tesla's stock go up? >> i think it goes down as we go into earnings. i think right now, in terms of 2q, these next few quarters, i think streets go overly optimistic in terms of what delivery could be, in terms of

the lockdown and what we are seeing overall. we would be sort of selling into this rally here. stuart: tell me about apple. they are supposed to be getting a new iphone out this year. what do you make of that? >> yeah, look, all of our checks throughout asia and china say they could hit the 5g phone from a supply chain perspective by call it october. i just believe based on what we are hearing, just given demand, given the lockdown, that gets pushed out to as early as december. i think there's probably a 10% to 15% shot they get it on time here. that's why for apple, i continue to own that for the other side of the dark valley but looks like the 5g phone gets pushed out at least into holiday season just given what we are seeing in this covid-19 lockdown environment. stuart: what's it like being an analyst when you are hit by a two by four all of a sudden and the market goes into a tailspin and the economy goes into a tailspin? it's a tough job you've got

there. >> look, it's a great question. i can tell you 20 years covering tech, i have been to many shock events from september 11th through the '07-08 financial crisis. ultimately you got to hand-hold investors, stress test the models, look for winners the other side of the dark valley. that's the formula for success. no doubt, hand holding for us, that's why 24/7 we are available for investors to walk through this unprecedented environment. but we continue to navigate on the other side of the dark valley what wouldne want to own. stuart: tough job but you are doing it well. dan ives, thanks for being with us. good stuff. come in, david nicholas, nicholas wealth management president. david, what's this argument you have on socialism? what's that all about? >> hey, stuart. there's a narrative going around about if a small business

received any type of grant or funding from the government, that look, capitalism can work sometimes but when it doesn't, then we need socialism to take over. the response is look, getting back what you have already paid in taxes is not socialism. keeping what you have is more akin to free markets or capitalism. what i will say to any small business owner, when the government has mandated that your customers can no longer freely choose to work with you, that is something that's happening outside of the scope of your business. that is an area where government can step in. for businesses, whether large or small, receiving a grant or loan is not socialism. this is a time that free markets will be able to get us out on the other side of this but when the flow of capital has stopped completely essentially, like it is now, that's where government can set up and create a bridge as we are seeing now. stuart: real fast, are you surprised that the market as of now, the dow is only down 300 points, when you've got this dreadful economic news in the background? it's holding up quote weite wel

isn't it? >> i'm actually quite surprised. that actually concerns me a little bit because we did see a spike in volatility recently. i have to believe,and when we see it historically the market typically bottoms a few months after the spike in volatility. i don't think we will see the huge swing but i think we will see slow steady moves to the downside over the next coming weeks. stuart: slow steady move to the downside in coming weeks. oh, dear. david, we appreciate your input. we will take it. thanks very much, david nicholas. now then, all across the country, you are seeing these impromptu field hospitals being built, literally all over the country, because there's a great need for them. jackie deangelis is at one of these field hospitals in, of all places, central park, new york city. tell me more. jackie: good morning, stuart. that's right. these field hospitals are popping up across the country. here in new york city, you have a partnership between mt. sinai and samaritan's purse.

the hospital behind me has 68 beds, it's 48 tents and the woman i spoke to said as of yesterday afternoon, they were treating 13 patients inside. that number could be higher as of this morning and of course, it's expected to increase. what she also said to me is as difficult as this has been on everybody, remember, this is just the pregame. we have not even hit the main event, where a hospital like this is going to be completely crowded or full yet with patients that are suffering from the virus, from covid-19. now, across the way on the west side behind me, even further west that way, you've got the javits center. that is also going to take covid-19 patients. this is after governor cuomo had a conversation with the president saying look, we were going to use this for overflow of patients who didn't have the virus, but we need patients with the virus to be treated here. other places across the country are doing this as well. california, colorado, connecticut, louisiana,

massachusetts, they are using all facilities, state universities, dorm rooms, hotels, event centers, convention centers, whatever spaces they can get their hands on to make sure that the beds are going to be there for the people who need them. stuart: okay. it's crash program, build them because you need them. thanks very much, jackie. coming up, we will talk real estate. tariq el-moussa is with us. i want to get his take on the real estate market in the age of social distancing. how do you show a house, you want to sell it? when you're not supposed to mix with people? that's next. it's a new day for veterans all across america.

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stuart: i am genuinely surprised with the backdrop of dreadful economic news, i would have thought you would get more volatility. we've not had it. we are down 285 points and it's been like that for pretty much the session. down about 1.33%, 1.5%. that's where we are. here's the anxiety indicator, that is the yield on the ten-year treasury. right now we are all the way down to .57%. that means that money has been flowing into the safety of treasury bonds and coming out of stocks. that's what's happening. so you've got stocks down and the price of treasury yields --

treasuries up. that pushes the yield down. .57%. never thought we would see that but we are seeing it now. let's take a check on the real estate market and for that, we turn to tariq el-moussa, home of "flip or flop" and "flipping 101." he's a real estate star and he's on camera right now. i would have to say that the real estate market is flat on its back at the moment. you can't show houses, can you? >> you know, it's been interesting, to say the least. in california right now, they just softened up the ban and are allowing showings of real estate but there are strict guidelines. for example, we are going to look at a house, only two people can be inside the home and the agent that's representing the house needs to be outside. stuart: do you think because the real estate market could really make a comeback, you won't make a comeback until some of the rules are truly relaxed around

the country. >> i mean, here's my thought on this whole situation. we have been in a strong market with real estate since 2010. we are in 2020. without coronavirus, we are in a ten-year cycle so in my opinion, with or without coronavirus, we are due for a shift in the pricing. stuart: this -- >> and i think coronavirus -- i think coronavirus is just putting a lot of fuel on the fire. stuart: okay. would i be correct in saying that the real estate market at this moment and probably for the next four or five weeks is flat, not much going on? >> i would agree with that, although properties are still trading. the motivated sellers are selling. the hungry buyers are still buying. it's just at a much smaller scale. stuart: do you think we will come out of this by the late summer?

>> no, i do not. i think we're in this for the long haul. i think we have so many challenges ahead of us right now that it's going to be going on for awhile. i do see pricing dropping. like i said, with or without coronavirus, it was time for the prices to drop. that's where i think the market might be going. stuart: prices falling. ouch. that's going to hurt. now, i know surely anecdotally that some real estate deals which were signed and the deposit made were then upset and broken off. have you seen a lot of that? >> i have seen a ton of that. i'm experiencing that myself personally. here recently in california, they actually came out with some new legal contract stating that buyers could cancel their escrows due to coronavirus and get their deposit back. so these are unknown times, these are uncharted waters. we have never seen anything like this. stuart: okay. i have to end it there.

kind of short on time. but look, thanks very much for being on the show. come back again, please, because the real estate market is fundamentally important to a lot of people and we want the news from it. tarek el moussa, thanks. see you again soon. got it. i want to update the situation on board the aircraft carrier, the "uss roosevelt." cases of the virus have been found on that ship. ashley, bring us up to speed. ashley: well, the biggest news from the "roosevelt" has to be the commander of the ship, the captain, has been removed. captain brett crozier has been removed by the navy for what the navy says was extremely poor judgment. the captain had sent out an e-mail saying, you know, we are not at war, sailors do not need to die if we do not act now. he has been removed because the navy said he not only provided poor judgment but he used an unclassified non-secure e-mail to make that appeal, and should

have gone to his direct commanders to make that point. he went too far and wide with his complaints. meantime, the crew of the "roosevelt" some 33,000 or so crew members, sailors, are being taken off that aircraft carrier in guam as we speak. we understand 31% of the ship has now been tested. there are more than 100 sailors who have tested positive. the big problem has been finding somewhere to put the sailors in safety for a quarantine period. maybe using hotel rooms is still working on that, maybe setting up tents. there are more than 5,000 people on this aircraft carrier. it is huge. but that effort goes on today and we understand that finding beds for all of the sailors has been a real effort. but again, the captain has been removed. critics say shooting the messenger, but the navy says he

didn't follow protocol and exhibited extremely poor judgment. that's the latest on the "roosevelt." stuart: all right. as we end our second week of home alone kind of thing, that's where we are, i just want to go round the block here and see how we're all doing. i'm in good shape because i'm not looking after young children or elderly relatives. i'm here all alone. lauren, how are you doing with two young kids? lauren: it's been tough. it's getting tougher. when you need something fast or they want to go somewhere and you have to say we can't do that, that's hard to hear after awhile. we are all fine and fortunate for that. i miss the small things like for instance, my coffee creamer. everyone is out of it. i don't go to the store very often. stuart: we will go round the block a little later. i have to take a quick break. here's what i've got for you next. we have a dietary supplement company that's now turning to hand sanitizer. can you believe it? back after this. i just love hitting the open road and telling people

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stuart: news from the administration. i believe the administration will be paying hospitals for uninsured patients with the virus. i'm sorry, i'm garbling this. break it down. susan: exclusive to the "wall street journal." john roberts has been reporting this and mike pence also mentioned this as well. it looks like part of the federal stimulus package that the white house will be paying for those that don't have insurance to cover their costs when it comes to coronavirus treatment. also, they mentioned this that a few of these insurors including aetna will be foregoing some of these deductibles and also premium co-pays as well. so this should alleviate some of the stress on the 8.5% of the american population, that's

around 27.5 million who don't have health insurance and just for comparison, axios did this study and they estimate the cost for uninsured coronavirus treatment, if you want to compare, is at around $20,000 per person. stuart: ouch. that's a lot of money. susan, thank you very much indeed. now, let's go to ashley. have you got an update on those i think it was masks that the patriots' plane, the new england patriots, brought over? what's the update? ashley: robert kraft, the owner, used the patriots plane, got to china, it's back, 1.2 million n95 respirator masks secured. by the way, kraft's son jonathan, chairman of the board of massachusetts general, so the patriots coming through for the state of massachusetts and now they can use those masks. it's a good story. it was a complicated agreement to get done but it got done. stuart: it got done. all right. that's good to hear. thanks, ash. fox news has, what, lauren, have we got a fox news special coming

this weekend? lauren: sunday night on fox news, 9:00 eastern time, it's called "america together." it's 'tabout the uplifting stories, images of resilience, stories of resilience of the american people as we battle the coronavirus together. sunday night, 9:00 eastern time. stuart: all right. thanks very much, lauren. another programming note. next thursday, charles payne is going to host a special, a virtual town hall that will be at 2:00 p.m. eastern. that's here on the fox business network. all right. what do we have next? i will tell you. nutralife biosciences. they usually make dietary supplements. they just got fda approval to make hand sanitizers and are working on producing face masks. edgar ward is the ceo and he joins me now. what are you doing, repurposing your entire company? >> yes, good morning, stuart. yes, we are. we have basically converted our

current bottling facility to accommodate the demand for the sanitizers and we have been able to successfully retrofit the facility to put out quite a bit of hand sanitizer a day. we have a decent capacity of output. we have been in business for over ten years packaging liquid-based nutraceuticals so it was an easy transition for us. stuart: does that keep all of your workers fully employed? >> it does. we have got a very family type of atmosphere here and with the surge of the coronavirus coming in and the questions out there of what are people going to do for work and how are they going to get by, we took all the necessary precautionary measures to keep them safe and employed at the same time. stuart: edgar, congratulations. you have repurposed your company and saved a few workers' paychecks. that's a good thing.

nutralife biosciences. well done, young man. thanks for joining us. more "varney & company" after this. a veteran with a va loan, one call to newday usa can save you $2000 a year. how? by refinancing at today's all time low mortgage rates. and best of all you can do it from start to finish without leaving the house. it's fast, too. with our va streamline refi, there's no income verification. no appraisal. and not one dollar out of pocket. our team is standing by right now to help every veteran who calls.

has stood strong through every dark hour and bright dawn our country has endured. it has seen the break in the clouds before anyone else. for the past 168 years, we've also stood by you, helping you weather storms like this one, to protect your loved ones. and we'll do it for 168 more. stuart: as of right now approximately 300 million of us, 300 million americans are under stay-at-home orders. you know what this sunday is, it is palm sunday. you know what that means, we are

not going to be having the family gatherings around the dinner table as palm sunday approaches. what we will have is virtual celebrations of palm sunday. palm sunday via skype. we will make the best of it because we have to. neil cavuto it is yours. neil: i always love your attitude. we will need that because a lot of people are getting short nerves on this. we are going to pick up where you left off. we have a market toss going on not as bad as you would think giving the sobering news that we got on the unemployment front. we expected it would be a bad report but not this bad, we expected the number of americans filing for the first-time unemployment claims this week would be bad but we did not expect that we got yesterday. the bottom line, were well on our way to a recession that can be very severe. we might already be in the battle of it already. there is some hope and help on the way in terms of the