maria: well, i want to thank our great panel this morning. have a great day, everybody. that will do it for us. "varney & company" begins right now. ashley webster in for stu today. go seize the day. big rally under way. ashley: i'm on it. thank you very much. good morning, everybody. america enters another crucial week. president trump warning of a sad week of news ahead. the surgeon general comparing it to pearl harbor and dr. birx warning us not to go to the grocery store even if we don't have to, don't go to the store, says dr. birx. social distancing becoming critical as some of the numbers suggest a glimmer of hope. new york reporting its first daily drop in coronavirus deaths and here's another positive stat. 74% of those hospitalized in new

york have been discharged. meantime, italy seeing its lowest number of deaths in more than two weeks and that is helping the market this morning. a strong rally in store as investors begin this holiday shortened week with some optimism. as you can see, the futures up, the dow up 788 points, the nasdaq and s&p all well above 3%. it is a different story, though, for oil. even with hopes of a deal between the russians and saudis, we still have a glut of oil because, well, no one is using it. oil down, as you can see, down nearly 5% at $26.94. meanwhile, questions begin over whether to reopen the economy, when exactly. that will be a political decision as well as a medical one. and president trump warming to the idea of a second task force whose job would be reopening the economy. all of this while the need and

scope of a fourth stimulus package is also being discussed. hello, everyone. i'm ashley webster in today for stuart. we begin with your money. joining us now, economist john lonski. john, thank you for being here. does this rally today, based on some more optimistic news, could this mirror what we see once we get through the virus and come bouncing back on the other side? >> without any question. we are at a point now when i go back historically and look at the beating the market has taken, where the vix now resides, 12 months from now, by april of 2021, we could be looking at a year-to-year advance for equities in excess of, well, in excess of 20%. i'm being conservative there. of course, all of this assumes that we manage to reduce covid-19 related risks sufficiently. that remains the big question mark. ashley: it does.

what's your thought on that? when does the economy essentially reopen? i know it's a tough question. what are you thinking? >> the question we have to ask ourselves is how much longer can we afford to pay this very high cost of trying to deal with the virus. to be perfectly honest, right now, what we are trying to do is we are engaging in social distancing, primarily to give the hospitals, the health care professionals, a chance to deal with this problem before it just gets out of control. we don't want hospitals to be overrun with new cases for covid-19, so the idea is keep people apart, flatten the curve. you're not going to eliminate the virus but at least you will lessen the burden it's placing on the health care system. it very well might be that come the month of well into may, we

could perhaps slowly begin to reopen the u.s. economy, slowly begin to normalize it and hopefully begin to make some progress so that we will actually see an increase by third quarter real gdp that would come this summer. ashley: right. may would be good. we have to wait and see. john, thank you so much. stay right there, if you can. i want to bring in lauren sim simonetti for news on boeing. lauren: this year, boeing is down over 60%. they have now extended the temporary suspension of their seattle area factories that makes planes until further notice. it was two weeks and now because at least 100 of their 160,000 employees do have coronavirus, they have tested positive, and also worried about their suppliers. they have extended those closures in the seattle area indefinitely. one final thing, boeing will update tomorrow their orders on deliveries, as you know the

travel market is essentially dead in the water right now. jpmorgan expects boeing to deliver just 60 max jets from the grounded backlog for all of 2020. that's not good news. ashley: yeah. no, it's not. the last 15 months for boeing have been an absolute nightmare. all right, lauren, thank you. let's bring in susan li. susan, interesting story. a big admission from the ceo of zoom. susan: he says i really messed up and this is after, of course, a lot of these zoom bombing attacks. the fbi has warned that conversations could be hijacked. you have 27 attorneys general raising questions about the privacy and the security of using zoom. also, elon musk's spacex and tesla have now dropped using zoom because they don't think it's safe. we have heard numerous accounts of what they call zoom bombing which is these conferences and calls being hijacked so you have hate speech being uploaded, pornographic imagery as well that surprised a lot of people on a lot of these conferences. zoom's ceo saying i really messed up, i'm going to work on

this, try end-to-end encryption although that won't be ready for the next few months. zoom hosts everything from classes to professional linkage and discussions in the corporate environment and it's gone from ten million active users to 20 million active users. some are saying they will not use zoom going forward. more than 1800 schools across the city's five boroughs will not use zoom in the future. the stock is up 100% since the start of this year. ashley: yeah. it's their moment to shine. it's not a great time to mess up. that's for sure. all right. thank you so much. appreciate that. let's get back to the medical side of all this and bring in dr. kate tulenko. doctor, thank you for being here. i want to get to this issue of face masks. the cdc recommends that americans wear face masks voluntarily in public. if i go walk my dog or just want to walk down the street and

back, should i be wearing a mask? >> so whether or not to wear face masks in public depends a lot on the type of housing you live in and the density of your neighborhood. if you have to pass through a shared corridor, stairwell or elevator, i would definitely recommend wearing a mask because we are now finding out the aerosolized virus can hang in the air for three hours or more. as far as walking around your neighborhood, if it's an urban area where you will be passing a lot of people, definitely wear a mask. if it's a more residential, rural area and you can stay well out of six feet range, you don't have to wear a mask. of course, if you enter a store, you should definitely wear a mask, because the whole issue is that of ventilation and the aerosolized particles being able to be swept away. it's also important to note you need to be very careful when you remove your mask not to touch the outer side because that's the side that might be infected with virus.

ashley: so a lot of people can't get their hands on a mask, so how effective are the homemade remedies, bandannas, scarfs that cover your nose and mouth? are they really realistically effective? >> so our research institutions are now studying these homemade masks and they are less effective on protecting you from virus, but they are more effective in protecting other people from you. so the idea is that my mask protects you, and your mask protects me. so wearing a bandanna could definitely help protect other people you come in contact with. it's definitely worth doing. ashley: something better than nothing. dr. kate, we have been asking our viewers to send in their questions and here is the first one. sharon asks what over-the-counter meds really help them? do they use tylenol for the fever, cough medicine, soup, tea?

the viewer says we are concerned there won't be enough meds to help people. how effective are those meds, essentially? >> certainly for a fever, tylenol will help. there is some concern about ibuprofen, it might up-regulate the receptors the virus uses to get into the cells so we are asking people to avoid that. this is more a theoretical concern than something that's been directly observed. we do know there's a shortage of medication is in the u.s. both hospitals and at the pharmacy level. one important thing to do would be to use the defense production act to ensure that we have adequate supplies. for other medications such as chloroquine where people are thinking it might work, we need to have a stock taking, because whether or not physicians prescribe it on an out-patient basis depends on the stock.

if there's an adequate supply, we can try and use them more for the general public but we have to know what the supply is and we just don't know that right now. ashley: try and get one more in. ken writes on facebook, he says i notice three cars ahead of me at the traffic light were each stopped about six feet apart. is that taking social distancing too far? >> i think when you are in the car, it's not a concern. i think you can maintain a regular distance with a car. absolutely. ashley: good. i have to get this in. a tiger at the bronx zoo testing positive for coronavirus. a, that's absolutely surprising. b, why are they testing a tiger? and does this have any implications for domestic cats? are they more liable to contract it and pass it on? >> so we do know dozens of different types of animals can get the family of coronavirus from camels to bats to civet

cats and birds. we are now seeing in this outbreak domestic pets such as cats and dogs getting the coronavirus. i think as far as action, your viewers should make sure they wash their hands before preparing the animal's food and they don't let that animal lick their face. on the tiger, that's a bit of a puzzle because there's no shortage of tigers in american zoos but i guess somehow they were able to get access to the test. ashley: we have to leave it there. dr. kate tulenko, thank you so much for joining us. appreciate your expertise. let's take a look at the futures, if we can. they are pretty impressive. we are about 20 minutes away from the opening on wall street. the dow up 779 points, up 3.75%. same story on the s&p and nasdaq. let's see whether that, in fact, turns into reality. meanwhile, small businesses lining up for loans through the federal government's new program which may be extended. those details coming up. plus, italy's daily

coronavirus death toll drops to the lowest in two weeks. newt gingrich is in italy. he's on the show next hour. we will get an update from him. and joe biden criticizing the president over his handling of the virus. we will have exactly what he said coming up after this. you wouldn't accept an incomplete job from anyone else. so why accept it from your allergy pills? flonase relieves your worst symptoms which most pills don't. get all-in-one allergy relief for 24 hours, with flonase.

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ashley: let's get to some politics. rnc chairwoman ronna mcdaniel joins us. good morning to you. okay, joe biden making some bold claims about the president's coronavirus response. listen to this. >> look, there are a few things he can do. he can immediately fully implement the defense production act, which i and many others called for a long time ago, and he's just getting under way with it. there's still no defense supply

act -- production act for gloves, masks, all the things first responders need. we've got to save jobs. we've got to save people's businesses. we have to exponentially ramp up testing. ashley: you know, let me just say it's easy to snipe from the sidelines in such a difficult time and let's face it, joe biden needs the attention. he also needs to do some fund-raising. what do you make of his comments? >> he also needs to get his facts straight. the president has enacted the defense production act but a lot of companies have stepped to the plate and said we're going to help anyway so they haven't had to use it. the president's ramped up testing. we passed a million tests in this country. we are testing day. the president passed the rescue package to help small businesses. joe biden's finding ways to nit-pick from the side and be critical and i think joe biden more than anybody recognizes that in a time of crisis, we should rally around our president and we should be doing

everything we can to help our country instead of focusing on the petty politics of a campaign. ashley: and ronna, biden not the only one with criticism for the president. let's listen to what bernie sanders is saying. take a listen to this. >> it goes without saying that this crisis has been exacerbated by trump's initial downplaying of the crisis, his many inaccurate and misleading statements, and his inability to respond effectively to the dimensions of the pandemic. as a result, tragically, many, many lives will have been lost. ashley: so bernie sanders essentially accusing the president of having blood on his hands. >> so unfortunately, this is what we are seeing from the democrats. you have already seen them open an investigation. you have seen nancy pelosi use

that same rhetoric. we are seeing their playbook. they want to blame the president for a global pandemic that's affecting the whole world when he shut travel to china down in january, when he was called racist and xenophobic by democrats for doing that when the president declared it a public health emergency, bringing on people like dr. fauci and dr. birx, and he's communicating with the american people every day. it is disgusting. to see democrats trying to politicize and go against our president in a time of crisis. you know what? put down the mic, go over to the cdc and make sure you are working with the president hand in hand like other democrats are, like cuomo, like newsom, who are in this together, because this is an american crisis. it's not a republican or democrat crisis. that's how the president's treating it. democrats are going into that rhetoric already. we will see more of that come november. ashley: a whole lot more. thank you so much for joining us this morning. we are moving on. we got a big rally on our hands with the markets opening up in just under nine minutes from

now. as you can see, some of the work from home stocks we are putting up there, we like to keep track of these, zoom video down 11% because their ceo says i messed up, people are zoom booming and putting inappropriate material on the zoom video conferences. that's not good. as you can see, the futures up 818 points on the dow, the nasdaq up nearly 4%, same story on the s&p. very nice indeed. can we bring in edward lawrence to talk about small business loans? reporter: hey, ashley. ashley: how you doing, edward? listen, we know the line has formed. there's a lot of businesses out there desperately needing money. how's that process going? reporter: you know, there have been some hiccups in it but we are talking about a lot of money here so already, 17,502 loans have been written or processed on this for $5.4 billion. this is a massive amount.

as banks have opened at 8:30 today, this morning, there will be more. that number is expected to explode later on today at some of the big banks, as they start to process and send through their loans. this has mainly been led by community banks but i can tell you wells fargo now saying they are accepting no more applications as of last night because they said as a company, they want to just give out $10 billion worth and the applications they currently have are at that level. so they are not going to participate beyond the $10 billion at this point. bank of america, jp chase still working through the kinks coming online. bank of america allowing those loans only if you have an existing customer as well as a credit card with bank of america and jpmorgan chase doing their due diligence. that's why it's taking a little longer to verify that each small business is actually who they say they are. again, the federal government pushing this program, expecting it to explode later on today with the numbers, as they go up to that $350 billion that they

have available for small businesses. this is a lifeline for some small businesses and they are really looking for it. ashley? ashley: yeah. great stuff, edward. thank you. as you can see, the bank stocks in premarket, all nicely higher as people line up for those loans they so desperately need as the economy is shut down. all right. let's try -- we mentioned this at the top of the show, some perhaps light at the end of the tunnel though i always wonder how long the tunnel is. a sign of hope. susan, coronavirus deaths in new york are now down, is that correct? susan: we are looking on sunday, 595 coronavirus deaths that were being reported. that's actually less than what they saw on saturday when 630 people died of coronavirus. also, if you look at the hospitalization rate, a very interesting chart andrew cuomo, the governor of new york state, put up yesterday and that means hospitalizations, try saying that so early, right, is half the rates. we are looking at 500 people that were hospitalized compared to 1,000 cases the previous day.

that's half the rate. that's very, very promising given we are looking at 122,000 cases across new york state itself. italy also looking at its smallest number of deaths as well in the six weeks they have been trying to get over this epidemic. so there are some green shoots around the world. ashley: yes, hospitalizations. it's not an easy one, believe me, at any time of the day or week. all right. susan, thank you. we will take a quick break before we get going on wall street. we are expecting a gangbusters open. you can see the futures pointing the dow up more than 800 points, close to a 4% gain. we'll be right back. announcer: wash your hands...

avoid sick people... and touching your face. there are everyday actions to help prevent the spread of respiratory diseases. visit cdc.gov/covid19. brought to you by the national association of broadcasters and this station.

ashley: all right. welcome back, everybody. market's opening in less than three minutes now. let's bring in keith fitz-gerald all the way up there in the beautiful pacific northwest. you know, before we get to the markets, seattle was the very first place that the coronavirus was confirmed. you are at least two weeks ahead of us. how has life been in seattle right now? >> well, i tell you what, it's still very much a ghost town. people are finally behaving themselves and social distancing.

the emotional impact seems to be focused more on the light at the end of the tunnel than the onset of a very dark time. so that's actually extremely encouraging as far as i'm concerned. ashley: yeah. with that in mind, we know the first and second quarter are going to be very very tough. are you a little more optimistic now about the third quarter and the fourth quarter? >> definitely, i am much more optimistic. a couple things are going on. number one, we have formative cures being worked into the pipeline. we have release statistics, healing statistics beginning to come into the headlines. third, we've got people's emotions actually shifting. so if you look at how the market's reacting as evident by today, volatility is going down, buyers are starting to come back in, that is a good thing even if we haven't seen the bottom yet. ashley: we are a consumer-driven economy. i often wonder as a result of this, keith, have consumer habits changed forever?

>> i think that's a fair question, and i think they have. people have discovered how to shop at home. they have discovered that they can get what they need, more or less. they have discovered that they can really live their lives in a very different format. i think we will see a shift away from cash. we will see a shift to online shopping. we will see a lot of the kinks worked out in the home delivery which we are using right here in the northwest every day. ashley: we are seeing this nice bounce in the premarket, based on some more optimistic news about the virus here and in europe, for sure. is this kind of a forerunner of what we can expect once we get on the other side of this thing? >> to my way of thinking, yes, it is, ash. because volatility works both ways. it tends to be very sharp to the downside but when the programs come in, it can go ripping higher just like it did when president trump was actually elected. ashley: we like that. ripping higher, about 20 seconds

away now from getting the bell going on another trading session on wall street. of course, there's no one actually on the floor. it's all electronic trading. there you go. the bell's ringing. no one is smiling. we are all in this together. flatten the curve, that's the sign outside of the nasdaq as that clock counts down. we will be off and we are expecting a lot of green at the beginning. all the major sectors showing they will move higher based on hopes perhaps the areas hit hardest by the coronavirus are starting to see a downward trend of new cases and deaths. that is very encouraging, of course. all right. let's take a look at the dow. bang, up 900 points, up 4.33%. the dow closing in on 22,000. the nasdaq also up 283 points at 7656, good for a near 4% gain. same story on the s&p, up 97 points, up nearly 4% on the s&p. there you have it. the dow starting off very nicely. let's look at some of the

stocks, if we can, go through the sectors. we like to check these whether it's big tech, airlines, grocers, you name it, we will take a look at them because so many have been so beaten up. you know, let's have a look. zoom video communications, this is one we were talking about earlier. susan was talking about this, down 12.5%. it's been on an absolute tear because of course, so many people are using the product as they are stuck at home, using the -- the companies using these zoom video conferences. however, hackers have gotten in, it's called zoom bombing, and that has been a major problem with a number of companies and school districts saying we can't be using this if it's going to be hacked. the ceo himself saying i really messed up. that's what you get when you do that. you are down 13% on zoom video communications. all right. let's have a look at boeing, maybe. there you go. how about that. also, they are continuing to shut down production but the

stock itself up 6.5%. boeing at 132.76, good for an $8 gain today. apple, we want to talk about apple, helping health workers on the front lines. they are donating a lot of masks. right, susan? susan: -- million masks sourced from around the world. originally it was ten million a week ago but if you are apple with a large, complex global supply chain, you can find 20 million masks somewhere. also, they are starting to make shields, face shields for front line medical workers. i call it the eye shield but that's not apple's words. so these will be delivered, they will be making one million each and every week, already delivering one million last week with the kaiser hospital group in santa clara, the first to receive them. they will be making a million each week as well. 20 million masks, 1 million face shields each and every week for front line medical workers. ashley: great stuff. eye masks, eye shields. good stuff, susan. let's take a look at disney, if

we can. they face some backlash over charging park pass holders fees. what's that about? lauren: well, disney parks have been closed since march 15th so should you be charging people the annual pass holders monthly payments for something they can't use? the answer is no. so now you will be refunded for any payments that were taken from your account from the 14th of march until the 4th of april and you won't be charged going forward. in addition, disney workers, non-union employees who work at disney theme parks, their furlough starts on the 19th of this month. ashley: all right. let me bring in keith fitz-gerald on disney. you like disney. i was reading an analyst's report over the weekend that said if it ever gets back close to 90 bucks again, it is a screaming buy. what's your take on disney? >> you know, i would agree with that. but i tell you what, i'm a little concerned by the way they reacted with this pass holder

information. the time to make that move would have been when they closed down the parks and said we value our customers. in fact, they were after the case. contrasted with apple which went ahead of the curve and said we will find these masks, make these shields, do all of these things. i agree with the analyst but i would watch that far more closely than i would otherwise. ashley: all right. let's move on, talk about amazon. the company on a hiring spree. come in, susan. how many workers have they added? susan: they are looking for 100,000. so far, they filled 80,000 jobs. don't forget, they have been i guess trying to bandage up some of the bad p.r. they have experienced with the amazon warehouse walkout that took place last week because 13 facilities across the u.s. right now have confirmed cases of coronavirus amongst its workers so i guess in reaction to this, you heard from amazon saying we are going to start checking employees' temperatures when they walk into the facilities, in europe and the u.s., also providing more personal

protective gear like gloves and masks. amazon employs around 500,000 people in the u.s. that makes it i think the second largest private employer right after walmart who employs 1.5 million. with ten million employees, 100,000 jobs at amazon, 80 of those already filled. ashley: impressive. 80,000. susan, thank you. let's take another quick check of the big board for you, if we can, just five minutes into the new session. look at some of the winners, why don't we. grocers, walmart. they are up half a percent at 120. costco up nicely 1%. target also up .5%. foot traffic for these stores has dropped off a cliff but they s tried to step up with the online deliveries and curbside pickups. nice to see the grocers gain a little ground today. can we check the ten-year yield, if possible? it's been all the way down to about .5%. ten-year yield, 0.664%.

that is up 7.1 basis points, up slightly, but of course still extremely low. take a look at gold, if we can. it's one of the few things that's up, i think up 6% or 7% year to date. up another 27 bucks, $1673 per troy ounce. good for a 1.5% gain. let's take a look at oil. oil plunged again premarket and overnight. west texas down 5%, $26.85. we were hoping to see some sort of meeting today between the saudis and russians to come to some sort of agreement on cutting production. that meeting has not taken place, although russian minister said we are very close to a deal. nevertheless, crude selling off, down 5%, under $27 a barrel. let's move on. gm is encouraging some of its suppliers to produce face masks. susan, you are the face mask

guru today. susan: gm will also provide the blueprint as well, the manufacturing blueprints for face masks and they are offering this to 600 of their suppliers, parts suppliers in order for them to hopefully produce some of these face masks. we know the u.s. is in dire short supply of them. so you know, they have 600 suppliers hoping to make these, will provide the blueprints, please do so. gm expects to have 20,000 masks ready for delivery by wednesday but 20,000 masks for delivery by wednesday seems to be a lot less than what we hear from other suppliers. if apple can source 20 million, alibaba shipping a million, it seems like it's behind the curve, doesn't it? ashley: a little bit. yes. seems like a low number. let's bring in keith fitz-gerald. these companies now lining up to help. is it a little late or have they just not been given enough leeway? >> you know, i could go both ways on that. this is an unprecedented time,

and susan's point, whether the number is a little light, a little late, the fact is a lot of people are stepping up. they will have to retool manufacturing, retool production. sooner or later they will have to comply with all sorts of osha regulations they are not familiar with to manufacture unfamiliar goods. i love what i see because this is how america functions. this is what makes our country great. we are stepping up. we are doing it together. and at the end of the day i think they will produce a tremendous number of masks. ashley: very good point. by the way, ford is shipping face masks all the way to new york city. how many, lauren? lauren: one million face masks coming to ground zero of coronavirus here in the u.s., which is new york city. get this, ashley. they have 120 union workers, uaw workers, making the masks in michigan using 3d printing so that is very cool. but the speed, they are producing one every ten seconds. so ford, the union, technology

with 3d printing, coming to new york city. thank you very much. ashley: that's a beautiful thing. also, mcdonald's making a donation of masks, right? lauren: i believe mcdonald's is as well, yeah. grady trimble is in the chicago area and he did say that. mcdonald's is, give me one second, ashley -- ashley: i'm sorry. lauren: what is mcdonald's doing here. do you have it? ashley: one million masks, apparently. yes, i do. i'm sorry. lauren: the n95 respirators. ashley: very nice indeed. that's a nice wrapup of all those companies, to keith's point, all pulling together. it is wonderful. it makes you feel good that everyone jumps in and helps out at this unprecedented time. i just want to thank everyone for being here. keith fitz-gerald all the way out, i always say it, but it's beautiful in the pacific northwest. thank you everyone on this day, where the dow is up 779 points. can't beat that.

also, nasdaq and s&p up more than 3%. can we hang on to it throughout the day? that's the key, of course. we never quite know. certainly there's a little ray of hope when it comes to the coronavirus and the number of new cases and the death toll. both appear to be dropping off, both here, certainly in new york and in the hardest-hit areas of europe. that's why we are seeing a little more optimism on the markets today. let's get into this. president trump threatened tariffs on oil imports as a way to protect american energy workers. in our third hour, i want you to know this, north dakota senator john hoeven has been at the center of oil talks. he actually spoke to the saudi ambassador. we will get that news from him. we are also several months out from the next election. how's that going to work if we are in a lockdown situation? hopefully we're not at that stage but you never know. is america ready for electronic voting? i will ask bradley tusk in the next hour. up next, former toys "r" us

chairman gerald storch on the future of retail. more after this.

ashley: we know that most sectors of the economy have been absolutely shut down and none more so than the retailers. joining me is gerald storch, former toys "r" us chairman and ceo. gerald, welcome to you. you say retail will come back to a changed world when things do start to reopen. how changed? >> well, i think it's going to be dramatically changed. people talk about a u or v-shaped recovery. i think we are going into a different universe. we are going into a parallel universe that can still be very exciting, as long as capitalism is alive, we will have innovation, the pace of change will be accelerated. we will see some amazing things. this is what happened after big wars, this is what happened after our terrorism issues, when those were massive, in every

economic downturn, depression or recession, we came out different when we came out the other side. just take a look at today's market caps. i just looked at it before coming on. jc penney is worth approximately $96 million. probably you, i and stuart could put together a conglomerate to buy that. amazon, well -- ashley: stu, maybe. >> he could buy it himself. but amazon by themselves are worth $960 billion. that's 10,000jc penneys. that's how dramatic the changes have already been. the market is telling you what's going to happen. the old style of retailing, the malls, department stores, mall-based apparel in particular, these are going to shrink dramatically. of course, you see the growth in online retailing. you so tee the growth in home delivery. whatever you can do from home, working, playing, whatever it might be, those will increase

dramatically on the other side. change is in the works. the supply chain -- ashley: gerald, let me ask you this. will some retailers be gone forever? >> many retailers will never open their doors again. or if they do, they will be hobbled so badly. if you take a look at the credit condition of some of the retailers, particularly those that were highly leveraged going in or maybe the result of an lbo, they may be able to get the cash to get through this closedown period but there's still debt. they will come out the other side very weak, unable to order inventory. a lot of these retailers have dramatically cut orders for fall delivery so christmas will be very different from christmases in the past. the retailers who can afford to will have a lot of inventory and others aren't. we will be in a different kind of dip reflecting our changed mindset as consumers. a lot of these retailers when we get to that period, will not be able to finance the inventory they need to get through the

holiday season and beyond. we will see a spate of bankruptcy by the end of this year, early next year. we will see a dramatic increase in what was already a very difficult sector for bricks and mortar retailers. ashley: that's a very sobering analysis. gerald storch, sorry it's so short. we've got lots of news to get in today. as always, very, very interesting stuff. thank you very much. appreciate it. just getting some late news on sea world. lauren, you got that? lauren: their ceo, who was only on the job for five months, sergio rivera, has resigned effective immediately because of disagreements with the board. as you know, sea world has been struggling. their parks have been closed and they have been struggling even before that. this comes after the news that 90% of their employees would be furloughed. now the ceo is out. ashley. ashley: tough times. stay right there, lauren. gilead sciences donating an experimental coronavirus drug to hospitals, is that right?

lauren: this is remdesivir which we have been speaking about a lot on this program. it does not have fda approval but it is showing signs of promise for people who are very sick with coronavirus. they are donating, so for free, every dose that they have. that's 1.5 million doses, to hospitals and clinics across the country. it should cover about 140,000 people. they have also activity ramped up production of new doses of remdesivir and when that is ready, they can ship that out as needed. just so you know, this is a drug that's successful in treating ebola but it is showing signs of promise for those with coronavirus. ashley: all right. that's encouraging. lauren, thank you very much. all right. let's move on. president trump says he's optimistic nfl season will start on time this year, but we will see what college football hall of fame coach lou holtz makes of that in our third hour. up next, airliners slashing flights across america. i want to know will they return

in full capacity when all of this is over? good question. more "varney & company" after this. which is why we're ready to listen. and ready to help you find opportunity. so. let's talk. edward jones. it's time for investing to feel individual.

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ashley: american airlines and united have drastically cut their flights. let's bring in jeff flock. he's at midway airport in

chicago. jeff, i guess this is the new normal, right? reporter: well, you know, i heard gerald storch talk to you about what it looks like for retail in the future. could this be the same of the airlines? this is the check-in at southwest. normally all of those kiosks busy. now, of course, all shut down. i took a flight to chicago yesterday here at midway from philadelphia. take a look at what it looked like. i was the last person on the pla plane, one of ought peopeight p. you could see from the pictures, perhaps, that almost nobody on there, everybody had their own quadrant. of course, no in-flight service, no magazines in the racks for fear of spreading the disease. inside the terminals, all the businesses of course shut down and the tsa lines, no lines. they don't start up the line until somebody shows up. maybe you come back live and look at the flight boards here. about three-quarters of the

southwest flights from chicago, canceled right now. you wonder going forward, will it be that people just say hey, we can do those zoom meetings, we really don't need to travel as much, maybe there won't be as much interest in leisure travel. scary times going forward. ashley: indeed. and does it change the way we conduct business. you are absolutely right. jeff flock at midway airport in chicago, thanks so much. let's bring in market analyst mitchell green, lead edge capital managing partner. you like, i'm just reading this, alibaba and uber. make your case. >> sure. thanks so much for having me on. so alibaba, q1 data is quite difficult but china is coming out of it, will come out of it.

they are past their peak. we are kind of on our way to the peak. the china government has done a very good job as it relates to controlling a lot of this disease. alibaba is the amazon of china, plus the ups of china, plus the netflix of china. these guys are the 100 pound gorilla. i think they are very well positioned. you also find in situations like the crisis that we're in or like the 2008-2009 crisis, whether it's china or the united states, you will see a trend towards online so people will shift -- ashley: i'm sorry, we are going to have to cut you off. it's a crazy busy day. you made your case for alibaba and uber. we appreciate it. we'll be right back. there. i wish my trading platform worked like that. well have you tried thinkorswim? this is totally customizable, so you focus only on what you want. okay, it's got screeners and watchlists. and you can even see how your predictions might affect

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refinance now. there's no income verification, no appraisal, and no out of pocket costs. one call can save you $2,000 a year. refi now. ashley: welcome back, everybody. i'm ashley webster in for stuart today. it is 10 a.m. on the east coast of the markets have been open for 30 minutes and we are on a roll. a nice rally as you can see. check out the dow jones up above 22,000. up 1000 points. s&p up nicely, more than 4 1/2%. nasdaq up 4 1/2%. this is a nice rally perhaps based on some optimism more encouraging news of the coronavirus out of italy, spain, france, here in the united states. that is helping the mood on wall street. look at the 10-year yield up 5.9 basis points to .652% on the

10-year. look at oil if we can. oil is down. we still have no agreement between the russians and the saudis. they were supposed to meet today. maybe later this week. but oil down almost 4% but now getting above $27.25 a barrel. let's bring in newt gingrich. i believe he haas been pretty much trapped in italy. newt, great to have you here. i want you to listen if you can what bernie sanders said about president trump. then i will get your thoughts about it. roll tape. >> it goes without saying that this crisis has been exacerbated by trump's initial down playing of the crisis, his many inaccurate and misleading statements and his inability to respond effectively to the dimensions of the pandemic. as a result, tragically many,

many lives will have been lost. ashley: well no big surprise bernie sanders is coming out with this kind of rhetoric but what's your response? >> well, first of all, the first big thing that president trump did was cut off flights from china. i'm talking to you from italy, a country where they did not cut off. they had 100,000 chinese in northern italy. they had three flights a week from wuhan to northern italy. did not cut them off because of political correctness. so the result was in italy they got into a real crisis. they closed everything down across the whole country, so they that you have, you can go to a grocery store, you can go to a pharmacy, you can go to a gas station. you cannot be out on the street for some good reason, or they

fine you 3,000 euro. police are on the street asking people, why are you here? what is your reason. we have been accused being way too slow. president trump went in initially. doctor birx was exactly right in a white house briefing if the chinese had not lied and the world health organization had not lied we would have all been seven or eight weeks faster, we might contained it in wuhan but because they lied to all of us, they thought the controllable sars-like infection was nothing like the pandemic we got. i think china and the world health organization, which is basically now run by the chinese have a lot to answer for what they did to the world. in terms of sanders comments, look, that is nonsense. if you go back look how many democrats attacked trump when he cut off the trips from china and those trips bought us six or seven weeks. lastly i say, we just put in

four hospitals, 2100 hospital at the javits center, four medical centers and a u.s. naval hospital ship in new york. now that is a real surge. that is really focusing resources. i don't know what sanders thinks he would have done but i will guarranty you he doesn't have the management talent donald trump has. ashley: you know, newt, as you probably are aware, following it from italy, it is just the blame game now. not only do you have sanders and joe biden, you have a lot in the mainstream media here pointing the finger a the president saying you're giving us misinformation and you were very slow to act. this blame culture continues to gain momentum. certainly as we head towards the november election. >> look. i think there are people in the news media who hate trump so much that even if it damages america they can't help themselves. they get up every morning knowing donald trump did something terrible.

they just don't know what it is. so they spend the whole day looking for an excuse to fight. i think the president in organizing the quality team he put together, the vice president who has done a great job of managing this process, the number of companies who have come in to help. in fact if anything the repudiation of sanders kind of socialism, there has been a huge number of private companies who have brought a great deal of assets to the table, including in particular the pharmaceutical companies that the democrats like to attack all the time and yet it is the pharmaceutical companies that give us the hope that we're going to be able to actually solve this. so i don't think the president was perfect but i think he did an amazing job in a very difficult environment. nobody saw this coming on january 1st when we tried to go see the chinese -- by the way, secretary azar first approached the chinese on january 6th. so it wasn't that we weren't trying. we were just being lied to. i think the president will be

regarded by historians having done a pretty good job and his pushing and shoving, he has done a lot of things to improve the system pretty dramatically in speed and effectiveness and in getting things done. we put up a hospital in new york in less than four-days. that is better than the chinese did in wuhan. could only be done by using emergency decrees which the president did. ashley: last question for you, newt, and you touched on this, about life in italy right now but we have the dow is up more than 1000 points in part because of more encouraging news out of italy. do you get the sense, you're there on the ground, that the country has turned a corner perhaps? >> my wife as you know is the ambassador to the vatican. she is involved every single day reviewing information from around italy. it does look like the rate of increase has slowed dramatically from over 10% to about 3 1/2%.

we got a few more days continuing to slow down we might actually be at the crest and begin to come down. it is encouraging. we're all still hunkered down in place. we're all still very aware how dangerous this is and i don't think anybody wants to rush out and risk reigniting the pandemic here in italy. ashley: absolutely not. newt gingrich, we thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today. stay safe, we'll talk to you again soon. thanks so much. >> great, thank you. ashley: all right. let's bring in ed yardeni. we want to talk about earnings estimates, the markets. we have to start though, ed, with this market reaction today. the dow up above 22,000, up 1000 points. again a lot of this based on perhaps the hope that we're seeing the flattening of the curve and maybe we're getting through this in some of the hot spots around the world? >> i think that is absolutely

right n addition we've had some good news here. you know, we've been flooded with so of bad news that it has been kind of been slim pickings to find the good news. university of pittsburgh school of medicine apparently has a vaccine that they believe could be rolled out very, very rapidly. i think that news might be helping. also the fact that there is a way forward here on testing. abbott labs has a test that works very quickly around cvs, apparently is rolling out right down to states. i think the ruling by the health officials that we should be wearing masks when we go out to work, when we go out to the grocery stores. i think that is just common sense. i think the market is starting to perceive we may very well be entering the worst week in new york and maybe in the united states but, it looks more like a top in case count. if that's the case, looking

forward we may very well find the economy has a decent chance of coming out of this before the end of the year and that earnings will recover next year. ashley: that is good news. let's hope that's true. you know, ed, where are you looking today? are you buying today? the markets are up 1000 points. is there anything that is tempting you? >> you know it was march 23rd that the market made its low for this bear market. that may not be the end of the bear market but i'm kind of thinking that the market is doing its best to make that the low. the market has been doing very well ever since march 23rd and i think it was the fed's introduction much what i call b-52 money. we used to talk about bazookas and helicopters what the fed is doing but this is b-52 money. the fiscal stimulus trillions

into the economy. the economic front and a health front and a financial front. the financial front seems to be stablized. if we can turn the corner on the health crisis than the economic outlook will improve. ashley: we'll leave it there. ed yardeni, thank you so much, ed, for joining us on a very positive day for the markets. ed, thank you so much. >> thank you. ashley: let's bring susan li back in. bill gates has been saying things, what exactly has he been saying. susan: he was on "fox news sunday." that the u.s. will have to pay a huge economic price unless we get testing right. he doesn't expect the u.s. to come out the current economic mire till the end of april. the social distancing should continue till then. he said number one factor is this, listen. >> it is fair to say things won't go back to truly normal until we have a vaccine that we have gotten out to basically the entire world. and so like china, there will be

a partial opening up which some jobs will resume, school will resume but we'll have to be very, very careful not to have the rebound until the vaccine comes. susan: also this morning announcing they are donating billions from the bill and melinda gates foundation to several makers of a coronavirus vaccine to build factories, maybe two out of the seven might be viable. they don't want to wait until you find the right vaccine in order to ramp up. by that time, you want to get ahead of the problem, right? that is what bill gates has been. back in 2015, ashley, he said that a global pandemic would bring the world to its knees. ashley: right, he did. susan, thank you. this, when we got news that uk prime minister boris johnson was being taken to the hospital got a lot of attention. now we're hearing from him, right, lauren? lauren: for the first time since being hospitalized last night, boris johnson tweeting this from his hospital room. last night on the advice of my

doctor i went into the hospital for some routine tests. as i'm still experiencing coronavirus symptoms. i'm in good spirits and keeping in touch with my team. as we work together to fight this virus and keep everyone safe. so yes, he is working. the housing secretary says he is still very much in control but boris johnson did test positive for coronavirus about 10 days ago. and we have to ask the question, at what point would he have to step back? that has not happened yet. ashley: that's right. dominic raab, the for win secretary would have to take over. he is still running the country from his bed. lauren, thank you very much. we're getting news out of china and germany. let's bring in hillary vaughn with that part of the story. reporter: good morning, ashley. germany is stopping the lockdown on april 19th. but they're limiting public gatherings and people are being forced to wear masks outside. would you hand, china, had first

full week of no infections. they opened up the economy quick. movie theaters were opened but shuttered. karoake bars were opened but told to close again. they're limiting flights coming into china. they're worried about people from other places bringing a resurgence of the infection back. all of this is sparking conversations how to reboot the economy here in the u.s. the president is open to putting together a second task force of business leaders, economists to figure out how to reboot the american economy once restrictions are lifted. he did talk about a few weeks ago possibly a teared system of opening the economy back up perhaps in regions that are not high-risk. restrictions on age. letting people who don't work in large groups coming back into work but yesterday he knocked that down saying, nope, restrictions will stay in place until april 30th. ashley. ashley: all right. hillary vaughn, thank you very much. let me take a quick look at the check of the markets if we can.

what a way to start a new week. the dow ral i laked up over 1000 points. above 22,000. the dow last week lost 2.7%. the s&p 2.1, nasdaq 1.7. wiped out those losses from last week and then some. all right, well, yes, we are seven months from the presidential election but we are still in a lockdown crisis. i want to know is america ready for electronic voting? i'm asking bradley tusk later this hour. it is kind of his thing. plus president trump says he will send 1000 military medical personnel to new york, the epicenter of the virus. general jack keane will join us later this hour to talk about that and other issues. next, los angeles mayor, eric garcetti getting sued after he closed gun stores in the city. andrews napolitano joins us next on that. we'll be right back.

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♪. ashley: we're getting news from morgan stanley making some projections. let's bring in susan. what are they saying? >> firm expects new york city peak in coronavirus cases maybe in two weeks time, despite the fact we saw the first drop in coronavirus deaths in the city since the pandemic really i guess has spread across the city, but morgan stanley says the nationwide social distancing measures unlikely to recede noll 70 days from now. june 15th. morgan stanley expect as huge contraction in the economy to shrink by 38% in the second quarter of this year. so in all, for 2020. they're looking at possibly declines in the economy by 5 1/2%. that is pretty dire. so this pretty much goes in line with their expectations. ashley: yeah, dire indeed. susan thank you very much. we also have news on right aid.

lauren? lauren: rite aid is hiring 5000 workers, ashley to work as cashiers, as pharmacy technicians and also in the distribution centers. they also say this. i thought this was very comforting. that they don't anticipate any significant near term supply disruptions. so they will be able to fill your prescription. if you need medicine rite aid will be able to get you that medicine. very good news. stock up 2%. ashley: very good news indeed. lauren, thank you very much. we'll talk about guns and gun stores. this is interesting. let's bring in judge andrew napolitano who is the perfect person for this. what we're talking about is l.a.'s mayor, eric garcetti is being sued for closing gun stores. judge, do they have a case? >> i think the plaintiffs do have a case, ashley. i mean, this is not the law in the entire state of california. it is just in the city of

los angeles where the mayor, there is a picture of him now, who is the former prosecutor for los angeles county, is trying to use the covid-19 crisis as a means to engineer social policy by restricting people from buying guns. now why do i say that? well the cdc guidelines list gun shops and other places that sell guns as essential. so they are open even in such liberal states as new jersey. and on top of that is the fact that the supreme court has characterized the right to keep and bear arms especially in the home as a personal fundamental liberty. that put it in the same category of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, spread dom of worship. it is nearly impossible for the government to inter fear with that right without showing fault on the part of the person who wants to exercise it. stated differently, i believe these lawsuits against the

mayor, which by the way will be heard virtually with judges in their homes, is, are likely to succeed. ashley: is this more of a statement, judge? because you mentioned new jersey. didn't the governor of new jersey tried to do the same thing, but then did a complete reversal realizing he couldn't win in court? to me, surely garcetti knows this. is he trying to make a point? >> i think he is trying to make a point. you're quite correct of the governor of new jersey. his guidelines originally listed guns as not essential, gun shops as not essential, when gun rights owners threatened to sue and pointed out the cdc guidelines, again, ashley, the president said 1000 times, these are just guidelines. the states are free to accept them or reject them, arguably the most liberal governor in the union, phil murphy, backed down on this. you can only buy guns with

appointment. the guns have to be wiped down before and after you try them. you have other hoops to which to jump but you can still purchase them and your right to keep and bear arms is not going to be interfered with with the state the purpose being public safety. so i don't know how mayor garcetti is going to win this one. i think his edidn't will be overturned as soon as the judge hears the case which would probably be this afternoon, los angeles time. ashley: while we have you, judge, i wanted to get your thoughts on some of the restrictions being put in place around the country. we just had the mayor of boston saying he is going to impose a curfew from 9:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. if you have no good reason to be out, not an essential worker, you could face fines or jail time. what are your thoughts of that. >> i think it is problematic and government established laws, we'll give you exemption if you have a good reason. what is a good reason?

us did the legislature or the case of boston, does the city council decide what's a good reason? no, the cop on the spot decides what a good reason is. cops don't want doing that. they want clear guidance what the law is. or the mayor decides what a good reason is. i took my dog to be boarded over the weekend. i said while she is here, can you trim her nails on her paws. they're getting a little long. the people at the boarding place, guess what? nail trimming of dogs is not an essential activity but boarding them is. so we can board gina, but we can't trim her nails. this is government overreach, making decisions of this nature which ought to be made by on basis of personal choices. ashley: even gina can't get her nails done. that is the very end, my goodness. judge, judge as always, great stuff. and keep us updated on gina. thanks for joining us this morning. >> a pleasure, ashley, thank

you. ashley: all right. let's move on. news on tesla, susan li. susan: so they have unveiled a prototype after ventilator that uses some of their old car parts from the model 3s. on the youtube channels we can bring up the video. it is pretty interesting. tesla engineers showed off two versions with entire prototype model and components laid out across an entire desk, and one that is actually built. i thought we would roll the tape. they have been criticized, tesla is criticized, why do you need to reinvent the wheel? we have prototypes and plans for building ventilators. why do you need to do it from own model 3 sourcing. as you know elon musk walks his own line, doesn't he. ashley: yes he does, and then some. we have news from restoration hardware, lauren? lauren: they call it hr these days. the stock is up 11%, ashley, but the news is pretty bad. they have furloughed 2300

employees. permanently cut 440 workers. that is essentially nearly the entire workforce. and what the company said in its statement is really telling. they said this, a complete return to normal operations may occur over time but not all at once. i think that is the reality for a lot of companies out there, that the economy will come back but we might not see that v shaped recovery and rh certainly affected by this. bad news, 2300 workers furloughed, 440 jobs permanently cut. ashley: yeah. that is a lot of folks. all right, thank you very much, lauren. we're seeing that of course in many places. let's take a quick check of the market, why don't we? more positive news there the dow up over 1000 points. up nearly 5%. same story on s&p and nasdaq, the dow above 22,000 after losses of last week. this week, april 9th,

2:00 p.m., write this down in your calendars, "making money" host charles payne, will be hosting a virtual town hall. it is called, america works together. he will talk to experts about the biggest financial questions we're facing during this financial crisis. tune in to fox business. guess what, charles payne is with us in the next hour as well. april 9th, 2:00 p.m., "america works together." the election is seven months away. i want to know if america is ready for electronic voting? i want to ask bradley tusk. he is spearheading a mobile voting platform. is now the time. we'll ask him. with va mortgage rates suddenly dropping to near record lows, my team at newday usa is helping more veterans refinance than ever. the newday va streamline refi is the reason why.

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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. ashley: all right, let's take a look at these markets. what a way to start a week. the major markets were down 1 1/2 to 2%. not this week. we're already up. we're coming off the highs. we're up still 970 points on the dow, still above 22,000, up 4 1/2% on the nasdaq. up 4 1/2 also on the s&p. not a bad way to start the week. all right, let's bring in bradley tusk. he is the man who likes to look for innovations for the diamonds in the rough, my goodness what a time to try to find some of those, bradley. are you seeing any opportunities

out there? >> yeah, hey, ash. early stage tech star ups, not stocks. telemedicine is one. we were lucky to made a bunch investments in the telemedicine space before this happened. all the companies are doing quite well right now. the second is direct to consumer. for example, we're investors in a company called sunday lawn. it is organic fertilizer, so directly from the manufacturer online to consumers. the idea for the business was some people want fertilizer that may not have pollutants in it, things that could be dangerous for the dogs or kids, things like that. but right now you can't go to lowe's other home depot to by fertilizer in most places. their business is booming. every day is a new record. direct to consumer has big opportunity. telemedicine has big opportunity and we're lucky to be in both. ashley: i wanted to get to the

mobile voting effort. that is something you've been very much behind for quite some time now. >> yes. ashley: my question to you though based on this pandemic, god forbid we're in the position we may need electronic voting in november, this country capable of pulling that off? >> i don't think we're capable of pulling it off for an entire presidential election conducted over mobile voting. we have so far run nine different elections around the u.s. and they have been for relatively small groups of people, deployed military, people with disabilities, and those have worked really well. they have all been independently audited, came back clean and safe, turnout doubled pretty much every occasion, so i think if you wanted to say, hey, people over the age of 70, or people seriously ill or have disabilities, anyone who might be greater risk to in person voting making it available for them could work, that would pack good test case but i don't think

we can go from where we are today, 200 million votes recorded in a few months. ashley: well, maybe beyond a few months, do you see it as the future? >> absolutely. look, we do everything else on our phones, right? from our banking to our communications to managing every single facet of our schedule and the reason why voting is so low because it is really difficult to go do it. people don't want to miss work on a random tuesday or not take their kids to school, whatever is it requires, turnout especially in primaries is 12 or 15%. you wonder why this country is polarized and dysfunctional that is all you need to know. if only 12, 15% of each side of the aisle are voting, the furthest, furthest right are engaged that makes it virtually i amable to get things done. if you want more people to vote, you need to make it a lot easier. the cloud making global voting

secure. been testing it out in small elections around the country. but ultimately if we want people to vote easily around consistently it has to be on people's phones. there is no reason we can't do that. other than that, people currently it in power on either side of the aisle won't want to do necessarily do things to change the status quo so they're going to be the obstacle. ashley: i will finish with a market question with the dow up nearly 1000 points now, based on perhaps some optimism that we may be getting through to the other side in the hardest hit areas of this pandemic, do you share that optimism. >> i certainly hope so. investment habits at different stage hard to tell. cheered to see the market up 4% when i checked a little while ago. even more cheered, i live in new york, you guys see each other on set quite a bit, and the fact that cases declined last two days in new york city to me was a really good sign. i hope we're at the peak of it. in a week or two things start

getting safer. with that said, i feel like every day we learn things that we didn't know a day or two or three or earlier. so my fear is that we think we're over the hump, then we learn more about the disease in a month or two, and we're right back where we started. so i don't know but fingers crossed. ashley: all right. we'll have to leave it there, bradley tusk, great stuff as always. bradley, appreciate it. >> thank you. ashley: stuck indoors in new york city like some others. talking about things we didn't know, lauren, news on a tiger, right? lauren: nadia, a four-year-old tiger, ashley at the bronx zoo is the first animal in the u.s. to test positive for coronavirus. okay, let me answer a couple of questions. why would we test a tiger? it wasn't the type of coronavirus test that you or i or any human would get. it was a test done at a veterinarian school laboratory, that was number one. the reason they tested her because there was atom tick

zookeeper who -- asymptomatic zookeeper who tested positive for the coronavirus. we now know humans can transfer the virus to animals. should you have a cat or animal at home, should you be worried? that is a tough question to answer. you had a doctor on the show, you prepare the animal's food, wash the your hands before and you might not want the animal to lick your face, ash. ashley: we learn something new every day. that was a very strange story out of bronx zoo. lauren, thank you. let's get back to sues soon. nice from the airlines. susan: we have jetblue, united airlines volunteer to fly medical workers to new york free and charge to and from. they have flown 50 health care workers to the city according to mayor de blasio's office, but those numbers will increase in weeks to con, pitching.

jetblue is the new york airline. new york city hospitals are gravely understaffed, way too many cases pending cases as well to oversee. de blasio the city's mayor saying we need additional 45,000 health care front line workers. if you want to come here you will get the flight for free. ashley: very good. hop on board. all right with more animal news let's go back to lauren. news on pet fostering. lauren: we turn to our best friend in times of loneliness. animal fostering is at record numbers across the country. a lot of people hunkering down are wanting to shelter, and adopt pets. if you're interested, actually hard to find an animal right now that needs adoption or foster but good luck if you can. ashley: aw. always a good excuse to run cute video. thank you, lauren. aw, look at that the dow above

22,000. good for a near 5% gain. pretty much the same story across the board. nasdaq, s&p up as well nicely, nearly 5%. now this, president trump says he will send 1000 military medical personnel to new york, the very epicenter of the virus crisis in this country. so what does general jack keane think about that? we'll ask him. he is on the show next. i know that every single time that i suit up, there is a chance that that's the last time. 300 miles an hour, thats where i feel normal. i might be crazy but i'm not stupid. having an annuity tells me that i'm protected. during turbulent times,

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that's me. put your va home loan benefits to good use. call my team at newday usa. ashley: white house economic advisor larry kudlow talking to reporters. let's listen in. >> i think the fed has done a great job. they have acted very wisely to stablize financial markets and sectors of the markets, things like commercial paper and money market funds, municipal finance. they have expanded the balance sheets. they have put a lot of dollars into the economy for liquidity purposes. you know, fortunately right now we have a liquidity problem. we don't want to turn it into a insolvency problem. the fed has done a great job on

that. they have also increased swap lines with foreign central banks because there is a huge dollar demand around the world. i think that is great. they have opened up a number of specialized lending facilities. in this past interview i mentioned the main street lending facility which will be fleshed out and could be, i say could be, i don't want to get ahead, could be used for medium-sized businesses. for example, and other purposes. and they may, you know if they deem it necessary to open up additional facilities. so, that's what we've done. our part, we want to keep people as close to their businesses as possible during a difficult, difficult contraction and, we're going to get some lousy numbers coming up. we know this. we talked about this last friday with the jobs report. i still believe, giverren our assistance package, and hope and

maybe prayer, that we're at a four-day a week period we can get a pretty good snap-back. that is my hope. reporter: [inaudible] >> well -- reporter: [inaudible] >> the sooner we begin to reopen, the faster that snap back is going to be that is the rule of thumb i think most economists would agree with. again, as we've said, we came into this with a very strong economy, all right? it got interrupted by the virus if that is the right word and if this thing could be stablized fairly soon, yes i think we'll snap back. may be more after prayer, and a hope, i understand that. that is my view. i'm an optimist. i can't help it. reporter: can you talk a little bit about the heated exchange that happened last saturday between you and peter navarro and -- >> those are private meetings in

the sit room. reporter: is there mixed message about that with [inaudible]. is the president pushing for -- >> i, i will say our health specialists, people, have done a great job and they're parsing through all of these kinds of things. you had one young man, i want to be as polite as i can? -- reporter: answered before i got here what are the metrics that you're looking at when it is safe to let people go back to work? >> i wasn't, i wasn't specific, specific. obviously testing surveillance is vital, right? , vital, vital. and, hospitalization, capacity, recommend is it, therapies, all of that. it is not my place to go through a list. i'm not the health specialist. i said yesterday at the meeting the economists are house broken. we're taking our lead from the

health specialist. we'll have ideas of our own if and when it comes back. just a couple more, yes. reporter: do you have a rough date in mind, that restart the economy or -- >> you know i can't answer that question. you know. i have appreciate i have to raise it but i can't. yes, ma'am? reporter: [inaudible]. >> yes, yes we are. reporter: any updates about a payroll tax cut? >> payroll tax cut. well we have a business payroll tax holiday through the year-end, you know that? you didn't know that. yeah, i'm here to tell you it is in the plan. worth a lot of money. deferral. it will be paid back over the next couple of years. so that's, you know, a key part of our package. i go the to go. reporter: thank you. reporter: [inaudible]. ashley: all right, there you have it, white house economic advisor larry kudlow just

stopping by to chat with reporters saying that we know some lousy numbers will be coming out but he says we are optimistic about a strong snapback in the conm he was asked any idea when that would be? he said no, but i do believe we will see a strong snapback. he said our part is to keep people as close to their businesses as possible. he began by praising the fed for their policies and stablizing the economy and it is administration's job to try to keep people as close to their businesses as possible but only owners, but of course the workforce. he was asked again about going back to work. he says, well, testing is vital but ultimately we are taking the lead from health authorities. so there you have it. larry kudlow speaking to reporters at the white house today as the market it system, we've been up well over 1000 points. just coming off the highs. up 900 points on the dow. have dipped below 22,000, but still impressive. nasdaq up 4 1/2%.

s&p also up 4.25%. larry kudlow saying that, you can read banners on our screen, the fed has thrown a lot of money into the u.s. economy. that indeed they have done. all right, time to move on. i want to get into this story now. the captain of the uss roosevelt has tested positive for the virus. he is also has been i guess the expression, relieved of his command or removed from his command. i want to bring in general jack keane to get his faults on this story. it has gotten a lot of question. the captain in question, brent crozier, crazed a concern about his crew. he sent out a letter to too many people, general, is that what got him into trouble? >> not surprising he tested positive given 155 of his shipmates are. any captain of any ship is out among his own seamen is effect i

have. i'm sure this captain is effective as anybody out there. that is largely the issue here. i don't think he is relieved. frankly not become a publish issue. let's put that on the table although the, i think the navy secretary would take issue with me over that, but that is my issue of it. that is a the sad thing about this. everybody is so well-intentioned here, ashley. the captain is trying to take care of a crew obviously is getting sick every single day, the numbers are going up. i would suggest nobody in his chain of command to include the navy secretary ever had an experience like this and sometime over the last weekend, even though he had been talking to the senior members of his chain of command, he didn't believe things were moving quickly enough i'm assuming. he wrote this letter on a non-secure net, which was a mistake and he included other people in it other than his chain of command which is a

mistake. i think it is a boneheaded mistake although well well intentioned. that is basis for his relief. i don't know what the navy secretary is reaching down four levels, with four admirals between him and the captain who have years of operational experience, him, the secretary, although he is authorized to do so, removing a captain at sea. it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. let the admirals take care of this. let them make the assessment. they have got considerable more experience. the navy secretary should maintain emotional discipline about this, and let the chain of command work. after all he is taking issue with the captain going outside the chain of command, here the navy secretary reaches down four levels around removes somebody, that is his chain of command's business. ashley: let me bring in lauren simonetti. lauren, what did joe biden say about this? lauren: joe biden told abc

yesterday that it is close to criminal for the navy to out of captain crozier from his leadership on the aircraft carrier the theodore roosevelt. he was relieved because of that letter you guys are discussing. it wasn't sent through the appropriate channels and there is an argument that in doing that, he worried the families of the sailors on that ship, and he portrayed american weakness abroad. joe biden says, close to criminal that this captain was relieved of his duties. ashley: i think that is a little strong. you know, general, the thing is, the sad thing about this whole episode was he beloved by his crew. and clearly there was a strong relationship between him and those unhis command. it also feels like you're shooting the messenger. i understand he went the wrong way about it but it seem pretty harsh. >> i think it was ill-timed. i can't speak for the admirals

that oversee him, i will bet anything they probably would not have relieved him in the middle of the crisis when they're trying to focus on what, the health of the crew, and take the man who is in charge of that away. but dot assessment. make some judgment. get emotional distance from that, make a determination whether, days or weeks later whether the captain will continue. being he is sick, he would have to turn it over to his number two anyway to be frank about it. ashley: all right. we're out of time. i want to get into other issues. that will be another day. general jack keane, thank you for being here, sharing your expertise with us on these military issues. really appreciate it, general. thank you. >> good talking to you, ashley. ashley: all right. let's talk about restaurants. we know they are, well, they're shut or providing take-out food but now they're turning into food banks, right, susan? susan: one example is field trip

restaurants in harlem. chef, j, j, johnson is used to opening his doors serving thousand of customers. instead of relying on delivery he is deliverying meals to hundred of workers on health cares crisis. offering rice bowls, barbecue brisket un$12. serving meals to health care workers. donations coming across the country. you heard of 11 medicine park, considered one of top restaurants if not the one of the top restaurants in new york. they actually reopened their doors serving as commissary kitchen. they're helping to collect excess food from restaurants and grocery stores. jeff bezos donated $100 million to food banks across the country this is thinking across many cities across chicago and l.a. restaurants are closed. you're making meals for those in need and also the front line workers. ashley: good stuff. all right, susan. thank you very much.

let's bring in michael shlo to talk about restaurants. you're saying this crisis is causing especially small restaurants having to rethink its delivery, right? >> that is for sure. doing delivery and take-out is not what we were built for, not what we signed up for that. is small part of our business. our industry is made up much resilient, hard-working creative people. they're coming up with creative ideas how to drive revenue n our own restaurants we created margarita windows, you can come up to take margaritas home with you. take whole to go. it has to be in container obviously. we have a bar we use. we have all sorts of ideas to drive revenue in a difficult time. ashley: it is a difficult time. do you worry once we come out of the other side of this, people's habits will be changed? they will be more inclined not to be inside after restaurant

with memory still fresh in their mind and it changed habits in other words of customers? >> i think time will tell of that i think eventually we get back to what was once normal first. but sure, it will take a little bit of time as everybody is sort of getting used to this right now, delivery and take-out. we're trying to make really great food, and give you as close to a experience, obviously you're not going to be in the restaurant with the same social interaction you would have. i think it will take a little bit of time. eventually we'll get back to it. restaurants become the place we all gather once again. i'm optimistic about it. that will take time. ashley: that will be nice. look forward to that. michael, sorry we're out of time. thank you so much for joining us. we'll head to a new hour coming up, the 11:00 hour. we'll be right back. ♪ ♪

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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. ashley: it is 11:00 a.m. on the east coast. hello, everyone. i'm ashley webster in for stuart varney today. let's take a look at these markets. my, oh, my, what a way to kick off the week. they were all down last week and here we are. the dow up 975 points. we are up on session highs. we were up more than 1,000 but still above 22,000 on the dow, the s&p 500 and nasdaq both up 4.5%. let's take a look at morgan stanley. they put out a note and they expect a virus peak in new york city in the next two weeks. but believe nationwide, social distancing measures are unlikely to recede until 70 days from now, or june 15th.

morgan stanley up 6% today. let's turn to the president now, who is giving an alarming warning to americans about the tough week ahead. >> i think we all know that we have to reach a certain point and that point is going to be a horrific point in terms of death, but it's also a point at which things are going to start changing. we are getting very close to that level right now, and the next week and a half, two weeks are going to be -- i think they're going to be very difficult. ashley: very difficult. the white house coronavirus task force will give us another update today at 5:00 p.m. eastern time. first, let's get to your money and bring in our good friend, charles payne. charles, what a day for the markets today. based on a lot of optimism about some of the numbers of the pandemic appear to be slowing down and maybe on the bottom side of the curve or at least plateaued.

when do you think when we look towards the economy, and larry kudlow was just asked this about 10, 15 minutes ago, how, you know, confident are you that maybe, just maybe we can get this economy up and running a little sooner than first feared? charles: well, i think it will be sooner than what morgan stanley is talking about, you know, without a doubt in my mind. i think the administration probably will spend this whole month while they're working to combat the coronavirus on how to gradually get the economy back and the wheels of commerce moving and there's a lot of ways they can go about this and i'm sure they think about all of it. in austria, they already laid out when they will open up small businesses, open up malls and they plan on doing it very aggressively very soon. all of europe is talking about this, particularly in germany, where they have talked about these certificates, you know, for folks who have had it or

have antibodies where they won't get it or haven't gotten it. we have to be smart. we are on a dual track here. wall street, i have been for the last several weeks, waking up and the first thing i look for are numbers out of europe, then i brace for the numbers in america. yesterday we saw a pretty good press conference from governor cuomo, and it's just really sort of a hopeful thing but remember that the stock market historically has traded to where they thought the economy would be six months to a year from now. so you are going to start getting more of this. obviously price discovery is tough when we don't know what earnings are going to be other than disastrous, but we also know to what kudlow just said a moment ago, the snap-back idea, think about the economy and stock market as a rubber band. it's elastic. if you pull it all the way back and release it quickly, it typically comes back quickly and sharply. if you hold it for a long time, it bounces back slower. of course, you can pull it back to the point where it breaks and we don't want to go there. ashley: no, we don't.

we had gerald storch on earlier, the ex-ceo of toys "r" us, to talk about retail. he said there are going to be a number of retailers that will never come back. in fact, our world with regard to retail will never look the same. are you expecting some radical changes in the way our economy, in particular the consumer, behaves? charles: i think with respect to retail, i think we are going from a to b already, and i think this will hasten that move. so the names that could not compete in an online world, in a world where you can order online and pick up on your way home, places that didn't have the footprint, those kind of places i think were already in trouble. this may happen a lot quicker. that being said, one of the things that's starting to emerge also, the other side of the consumer, and that consumer discretionary, but consumer staples. those names have been very solid. we can get back to a point where

it reminds me of the 1960s and '70s, they called them the nifty '50s, 50 rock solid boring stocks that did extraordinarily well for almost -- for about 12 years until they got so overvalued they came down. but it included names that are still household names to this day. look for those names to fit in there, where some of these other retailers, discretionary retailers, fall off. ashley: love it. charles, hang on there for a second. i want to get your thoughts on this next story. edward lawrence has some new numbers from payroll protection program. this should be interesting. what have you got? reporter: yeah, as we know, this is starting to really grow in size. the big banks haven't even started to put in their applications to be processed. they are taking applications but we will see this number really jump today. so far, 129,000 loan applications have been accepted and processed through. we are talking about $37 billion. that's money that's been paid

out already to small businesses. this is mainly being led by community banks. but this next one is an important number. there's 3.4 million jobs that have been saved, according to the small business administration. they are getting that number maybe a little bit inflated because it's the number of employees that small businesses are telling them they have on their payroll, a portion of it would be laid off, maybe not all, who knows in some cases, but again, 3.4 million jobs, they're saying, could now have been saved by this money that's being put out. the numbers here are expected to rise. the big banks, as i said, going to come in in earnest. wells fargo may be an exception, saying they would only give out up to $10 billion. that's their own internal number they wanted to handle for them. they have already reached applications that add up to that. bank of america, though, looking at a huge number. bank of america saying they have $32.6 billion worth of loans sitting there. they are doing their due diligence. different banks taking a little

longer time to verify the business is who the business says they are before they start doling out a lot of that money. but again, this program really starting to take off this week. the administration expecting it to do good things and sort of dent that unemployment number. we will see if it actually works. back to you. ashley: indeed we will. edward, great stuff. charles, clearly this money is critical, especially for those small businesses desperately hanging on, trying to keep their workers. is this enough? charles: it's not enough. it's a heck of a start, though. those numbers are really impressive, to think that $37 billion already paid out. remember, in the great recession, efforts to get money to main street took three months or longer. it's very impressive. we have already had everyone from president trump, this morning marco rubio saying they are willing to put more money. i want them to do it before it runs out. we know $350 billion is not enough. do what you have to do asap to increase that number.

friday night at 10:00 they allowed charities and churches in this. it's going to get wider and bigger and more refined. so many people, i spent so much of this weekend trying to allay fears or at least encourage small businesses to take part in this, even though many of them don't know that it will be enough, at least it's a lifeline of sorts until we can get more. i believe the administration and congress, this is one of those rare things, they are going to be on the same page and this program will evolve, so you want to get involved in it yourself as a business owner immediately. ashley: very good. charles, before we let you go, you are such a busy person, always in demand and rightfully so, you have a big virtual town hall coming up later this week. charles: i cannot wait. like i said, i have been deluged with so many questions and -- but they are amazing questions, smart, brilliant questions. let's face it, this thing was cobbled together. there still aren't answers for most of these questions. hopefully we will have them by

thursday. we will take them. please, folks, participate. send us a video of your question, send it to our facebook, instagram accounts. we want to be able to help you get through this and believe me, that is the main mission of this. i think larry kudlow will be on the show but we also have really amazing other guests as well. the most important person in that show or persons will be our audience. ashley: indeed. and you, charles payne. you are the man with the answers. thank you so much for joining us this morning. appreciate it. thanks, man. all right. let's talk about social distancing. easier said than done, maybe. todd pirro joins us now. i would suggest the numbers we have seen, perhaps a little bit of a light at the end of the tunnel, is proving that people are getting the message about social distancing. it took awhile, especially among the younger population, but do you think people in this country are getting the message? >> i think that they are getting the message but if you look at

all the numbers and what the experts are saying, this is a crucial time to do it. i understand, look, you talk numbers on this show, you talk about bringing the economy back. but if that handful of people, again, i'm just guessing at number, let's make an arbitrary number, 100,000 people, if those 100,000 people aren't social distancing, that could have such horrible impacts on our economy and it's not like those 100,000 people going to work is going to resuscitate the economy from what has happened over the course of the last three weeks. it's so important over the course of the next 30 days that we hunker down so we can get back to some sense of normalcy as soon as possible and that's what our economy needs. ashley: are you surprised that the mayor of boston, for instance, is now saying i'm going to put a curfew in, 9:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m., you can't be out there. if you are, you have to have a very good reason, otherwise you are facing fines and possible jail time? is that what it takes? >> well, because a number of us are following but there's that

small handful that aren't, and it's one of these things, everybody needs to be on board. i heard dr. safire talk about this on fox news earlier today. she basically said people didn't follow the seat belt rules when they were first put into place until the government stepped in and said you got to follow these rules or there's going to be fines. when people get a fine or some type of governmental punishment on the back end, they have a tendency to listen and follow those rules. when you look at what is at stake, our economy, our health, what else do you need? there was a picture of these people in brooklyn just enjoying themselves, sunning themselves on a nice sunny day. you can't do that. we just need to stop being selfish for 30 days at the very least, maybe a little bit longer, but if we do that, we are going to be in much better shape than if we don't. that's why the mayor of boston was right to do that. ashley: very good. have to leave it that. todd, thanks so much for joining us today. really appreciate it, with wise advice. next story, susan, news from

cuomo? i assume that's governor cuomo? susan: that's right. he's holding a press conference at the top of this hour. look, you are looking at a 1,000 point rally because it looks like we might be looking at the light at the end of the tunnel, especially with new york reporting its first drop in deaths. they reported on sunday 594 coronavirus deaths, compared to saturday, when they saw 630. that's positive. also, the new rate of cases is declining as well. hospitalization rates, right, so on sunday, they saw hospitalization rates half of what they saw on saturday, 50% that. so there are some hopes, maybe, that we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel at least when it comes to new york. italy as well reported its lowest death toll in the six-week crisis. so deaths went up 525, tragically, but if you think about it, that's the smallest number you have seen in terms of growth in the past six weeks. i think there's some positives to take away from this. ashley: yeah, newt gingrich

joined us from italy and said the lockdown is a lockdown. people are paying attention to it and apparently it's working. susan, thank you. lauren, come on in. news on a new covid-19 test, right? lauren: this is more good news. yeah. this is a blood test from the mayo clinic. it's an antibody test being released today. it can tell by testing your blood did you have covid-19 and are you recovered. this is a way as we talk about how we will get people back into the work force and open back up the country, if you will. well, if you know these people are immune or have had it, they could enter the public space. their blood, their plasma, could also be used to treat patients who are in critical condition. ashley: very good. by the way, we had the codiagnostics ceo joining us later to talk more about this. good stuff. susan, let's bring you back in. news on apple.

susan: -- of course joining in helping combat the coronavirus, apple sourced 20 million masks which is more than the 10 million they said they found a week ago, and they are also, by the way, building face shields for front line health care workers, the eye shield, eye mask, whatever you want to call it, my name, not the companies, but they are going to make a million of these face shields each and every week. with a company like apple, the largest in america and probably one of the best technology companies in the world, if they step up to make face shields, i think there will be high demand for those. ashley: i think you're right. susan, thank you very much. president trump, by the way, says he's optimistic the nfl will start on time. legendary football coach lou holtz joins me later on that issue. what about college football? joe biden says president trump's coronavirus response isn't fast enough. we react to that next. we'll be right back. an i... - safe drivers save 40%!!! guys! guys! safe drivers save 40%!!! safe drivers save 40%!

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only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ ashley: we have a headline for you from the sports world. the 2020 british open has been canceled and this just in. the masters is now targeting for a november 9-15 rescheduling date. they are targeting that date. but the thought of the masters in november seems strange but they are trying to save it for this year and that's the date they are looking at. november 9-15. meantime, check cvs. they are launching drive-through coronavirus testing in rhode island and georgia. cvs up 1.5%, up nearly a buck at $56.63. also take a look at wells fargo. they will cap, they say, their total contribution to the government loan program at $10 million due to regulatory constraints. wells fargo like the rest of the

banks today up nicely, 5.5%, $1.39. let's turn back to politics. katie pavlich joins us now for some observations on the coronavirus leadership of mr. trump and why mr. biden says he's not doing enough. roll that tape. >> look, there are a few things he can do. he can immediately fully implement the defense production act which i and many others called for a long time ago, and he's just getting under way with it. there's still no defense supply act -- production act for gloves, masks, all the things first responders need. we've got to save jobs, we've got to save people's businesses. we have to exponentially ramp up testing. ashley: well, it's easy to snipe from the armchair. in a situation that's totally unprecedented, you know, joe biden is just trying to get attention right now. >> yeah, he's doing everything he can to try and stay relevant

as there's a presidential election going on, but the campaign of course is very different this time around. the problem joe biden has, and has had throughout this process, is that he touts a 30-year record in washington, d.c. but he has to stand up and be responsible and accountable for the actions that were taken. he wants to talk about what presidents should do when it comes to pandemics. he has to answer the question about why the obama administration, while he was vice president, did not, you know, redo or replenish the stockpile of n95 masks for the federal government once they used them in 2009 for the swine flu epidemic, they never actually fully replaced them. that's why we have a shortage of that now. so in terms of the things the president has done, joe biden has suggested things after the president has implemented them. president trump has done a very good job of asking companies to voluntarily produce the products that the health sector needs

without having to force the federal government to make them do it. he's worked very well with governors. he oftentimes does not politically agree with or get along with on other issues. joe biden can be at home while the president is in the white house briefing the american people every single day and comment and criticize but at this point, you have to ask why you wouldn't just be in the fight with him even if he's an opponent for the sake of america rather than just trying to criticize from his library in his house. ashley: but this is the narrative, is it not, everything that's happened before the pandemic has now been gone away and the election very well could turn on how president trump handles the crisis. that's what it boils down to, don't you agree? >> i certainly think that the economy will be a huge factor when it comes to the end of the quarantine period that we have now. the president has received high marks so far but there is a

patience period here that eventually will run out. so there's this difficult balance that the president has had to strike between the public health issue here and the issue that comes when you have tens of millions of people unemployed overnight and unable to go out and look for another job. so he's been very clear over the last few days especially that he doesn't believe the cure for the coronavirus issue should be worse than the actual problem so he's been talking to his economic advisers about how they can safely reopen certain sectors of the economy, certain parts of the country, while also making sure that the health advice from the people who have been watching this thing roll into the country is taken seriously. ashley: very quickly, joe biden perhaps suggesting that the democratic convention may need to be a virtual convention. right? >> yeah. this is after they moved their convention from july to august. keep in mind that tom perez, the dnc chairman, just a month ago

was saying he didn't want to do a virtual convention. that's why they moved it back to try to get everyone in the same place at the same time. the biden campaign was behind the push to get it pushed into august. but a virtual convention would require the dnc to change the rules and the chairman has said he's not interested in doing that. we will see if it's inevitable given the timeline here of whether they have to do that but so far, the chairman has been very hesitant to go that route. ashley: yeah. all right. we are out of time. great stuff, katie. thanks for joining us today. appreciate your comments. susan li, we got a message from queen elizabeth. susan: elegant and reassuring. it's very rare the queen makes these nationwide addresses outside of christmas. she's only done it three times. that was before 1997 with princess diana's funeral, during the gulf war and when the queen mother died in 2002. in this really elegant address to the country she said better days will return. i really like that. we will be with our families

again and we will meet again. i think she probably needs to make shthese assurances because the prime minister, boris johnson, is currently in a hospital bed with coronavirus after ten days of confirming he does have the pandemic and the illness. so the country needs some leadership right now and it's so lovely to see the queen step up. ashley: i couldn't agree more. we will meet again, which is a throwback to a song during world war ii, we'll meet again. great stuff. it was great stuff. that's where that came from. by the way, boris johnson, we have heard from him, he has been tweeting from his hospital bed, says he's doing fine and just being treated for symptoms that are persistent. he's tested positive but just can't seem to get rid of the symptoms. he has tweeted he's doing okay. let's take a quick look at the markets. you can so the dow off its session highs but still impressive, up 989 points. also look at co-diagnostics, up

23% at ten bucks. later this hour, the ceo of that company will join us. that should be good. take a quick look at oil. president trump threatening tariffs on oil imports from saudi arabia. oil, though, sinking today. no agreement between russia and the saudis on production cuts. crude oil down 7% at $26.35 a barrel. that's next. attention veterans with va loans. mortgage rates are now at all time lows. by refinancing, you can save $2000 a year -- with one call to newday usa. our team is standing by right now to take your call. and from start to finish, you can do it all without ever leaving the house. with our va streamline refi, there's no income verification. no appraisal. and no out of pocket costs. one call can save you $2000 a year.

ashley: we are entering the next couple weeks, a critical time as the president said last week, but the market's starting off on a strong note. we are back above 1,000 points on the dow, 1,042 at 22,095 on the dow, the s&p 500 and nasdaq also up close to 5%. it's a very impressive start for the week. let's talk about oil, too. oil has been slipping again after we've gotten no, as you can see, down nearly 7% at $26.37 on crude oil. let's bring in daniel yergen. today, i thought we were going to get some sort of meeting between the saudis and russians to agree on some sort of production cut. but it hasn't happened. >> right. ashley, i think it's time for you to sing that song "we will meet again" that you did before the break, because that's what it's all about.

when will they meet again. now they are saying at the end of the week. there is still a lot of acrimony and finger pointing going on among the various parties and of course, president trump has stepped in as a kind of divorce mediator here to get them back to the negotiating table and to get some cuts and i think we are seeing it now being talked about, something we proposed about two weeks ago, within the framework of the g-20, bring more countries into it who are not in opec, but the big question of course is the united states itself now is talking about the end of the week that they will seek to meet again. ashley: yes. seek to meet again. you know, i guess the question is, i have seen reports that maybe, there may be an effort to stockpile some oil in order to try and support prices. back in the old european economic community days, they used to have butter mountains

and milk lakes to try to artificially support the prices. is that something that could be considered for oil? >> one thing is we have something called a strategic petroleum reserve. we could put oil, 77 million barrels into that. what has to happen, though, is congress has to appropriate the money to do it. it would be a very good investment because the money would be buying priced at this price and it would go up later. there's a lot of oil flowing into storage because the big thing is oil demand has really collapsed with the shutdown in the global economy. we are going to probably at the end of this month or beginning of next month, run out of places to put the oil. that's when you will have downward pressure unless these folks all make a deal. ashley: yeah. finally, daniel, the saudis did this, as we know, the u.s. frackers have been able to fill any gap based on production cuts from opec and i think this is a race to the bottom to try and

really put the frackers out of business or put them close to going out of business. are they achieving what they wanted to do? >> this has been a shock because this amazing thing has happened. the united states has gone from being the largest importer of oil in the world to being the biggest producer of oil in the world. this is a hit to the frackers because they need to keep drilling and if they don't have the money, the price isn't right, they won't drill. we are on a course to see u.s. production decline. this is putting pressure on them. the u.s. will still be a very major producer but we may not at the end of this year hold the number one position if we stay where we are. the president made very clear that he wants to ensure that the u.s. maintains the strength that comes from having this industry and all the benefits that flow to the rest of the economy, including the industrial midwest. ashley: how long can these -- those in the oil patch survive with prices at this level?

it's nowhere near to even breaking even. >> i think, well, now actually you have had some relief because just the psychology of the talking, the intervention of president trump, has really raised the price because a week ago, one would have been talking about $10. now one is talking about mid high 20s, even 30s. but it is a lot of pressure. like the rest of the economy, like everybody else in the country, this crisis we are in needs to be over. the longer it goes on, the more difficult it is for them, as it is for everybody else. ashley: we will be singing "we meet again" between the russians and saudis later this week. daniel yergen, great stuff. appreciate your expertise on this issue. >> we will meet again. ashley: we will meet again. no doubt about it. thank you very much. time now to bring in north dakota senator john hoeven. obviously north dakota, a big part of the oil patch. senator, thanks for joining us. president trump threatening tariffs on oil imports.

you happy with that move? >> well, he's trying to end this price war between opec, essentially the saudis and russia and that's what he's saying is look, we need to get some reduction in supply at a time when the demand has been destroyed because of the coronavirus, and if not, the united states is going to have to take other action. ashley: how has it impacted, these prices at this level for so long, what impact has it had on your state and the people who work in that industry? >> well, you just talked about it. that's exactly right. it's having a real impact on our energy industry here in north dakota and throughout the energy belt in the united states. so you're seeing our companies, you've got a whole gamut of companies from small companies, oil service companies, all the way up to the large companies, and a lot of employees have their jobs at stake here because of that price war. ashley: how long can they last at levels like this?

>> well, that's it. already they're starting to shut in wells and again, it's because of the price war at the same time that you have no demand because of the restrictions that go with fighting coronavirus. what we are working to do is two things. one, stop this price war. that's why i have talked to the president and his economic advisers, i was on the phone with the ambassador last week. now it looks like we are going to get saudi arabia and russia to come to the table, i think this thursday. i have also talked to other countries, the petroleum marketers in canada and norway, other countries, to try to get some reduction in supply or management of supply while we fight the coronavirus. that will help. but also, doing more to put petroleum in the strategic petroleum reserve like you talked about. i'm introducing legislation as well to do that. we wanted it in the cares act,

we got blocked. i'm bringing back another bill to get that done as well. ashley: very good. we appreciate you taking time out to talk to us today, senator hoeven, and talk about the horrible impact these low prices are having on states like north dakota. thanks so much for joining us. much appreciated. time to move on. let's get to lauren with news on boeing. lauren: yeah. big news on boeing. they have indefinitely suspended their factories and operation in the seattle area. translation, 30,000 boeing workers after tomorrow will either have to go on unemployment or start taking their vacation and/or sick time. 30,000 workers affected because they were expecting to reopen these facilities after a two-week period but that two-week period is nearly over, still dealing with the coronavirus and it will be suspended until further notice. stock up 9.33%.

ashley: yeah. that's a familiar story. many companies. lauren, thank you very much. as we head to the break, check out codx. that is the symbol for co-diagnostics. guess what? the ceo joins us next. we'll be right back. isn't just a department. it's a voice on the other end of the phone. a note to say you're on our mind. a willingness to come to you.

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ashley: we have a tweet from the president, just tweeting this. joe biden wanted the date for the democrat national convention moved to a later time period. now he wants a virtual convention. one where he doesn't have to show up. gee, i wonder why. also, whatever happened to that phone call he told the fake news he wanted to make to me? there you have it. the latest tweet from the president calling out joe biden. let's bring in dwight egan. he's with co-diagnostics. the big news for his company is that the fda has approved

emergency authorization for your covid-19 test. is that right? >> that is correct. it's good to be with you. it means that co-diagnostics with now sell our easy to use, easy to interpret and cost-effective test throughout the united states. it's a great day for accessibility for testing. a great example of this is in the state of utah, where the state of utah along with silicon slopes has done an initiative called test utah, and in the first 24 hours, since they inaugurated this thursday afternoon last week, they have screened 35,000 patients, set up 2600 testing appointments and have tested over 800 people. so this kind of authorization from the fda allows our test to have great accessibility. it's a great day. ashley: how does the test work? >> our test is a realtime polymerase chain reaction test,

it is the gold standard that's used by many other providers of tests. it takes about 90 minutes from start to finish, including taking the patient sample and doing the extraction and putting it into the pcr machine which takes about 45 minutes to give you a complete result. ashley: is there something unique about this particular virus that's made it difficult to find a treatment? >> i don't know about what's going on on the treatment side, ashley. we are focused on the identification of the virus in a patient sample. ashley: have you seen an effort like this, including the fda and other government entities who have really fast-tracked these types of things? is this kind of a unique situation that you have never seen before? >> it certainly is. it's a world-wide pandemic. we sold our first test in the first part of february. we received a ce mark in the last part of february so we have

been distributing this test pretty much worldwide since then on five different continents, then the fda gave us approval on friday to distribute in the united states on an emergency use authorization basis. we had previously been authorized by the fda to distribute it in the united states under certain circumstances. so it has been in the united states for awhile but now it really opens it up and breaks the logjam for us. ashley: so the question being, can you meet that demand? i'm sure you are having to ship out an awful lot, large number of these tests. are you able to keep up with demand? >> we are, and we are pleased to say that we have ramped up our production now to where we can accommodate somewhere between a million and a million and a half tests a week. so we are shipping worldwide and now shipping within the united states at a pretty nice clip as well. ashley: well, congratulations to you and your company. dwight egan, it's a great story

and congratulations on getting that test out there as quickly as possible. appreciate your time, sir. thank you. let's look at retailers, if we can. we talked to gerald storch earlier, had some pretty bleak things to say about the retail landscape. after we get through this pandemic, he says there are many that never come back. we can show you those that are going along strong. best buy, macy's, kohl's all moving higher. kohl's up 20%, $2.31, up to $13.82 for kohl's. lauren, you have news on retail? lauren: let's start with the bad news first. the national retail federation is predicting that over six million retail jobs will be lost by may. that's 40% of the industry, jobs completely lost because of the coronavirus pandemic and obviously, the health of the retailer before the pandemic struck. if you are thinking in the future hey, can we celebrate

christmas and the holidays, what about the fall, you have to worry about inventory because so many retailers are tight on cash. will there be inventory on store shelves. you have to think about things like that. here's the good news. some companies are indeed hiring. as you know, we did the news today, rite-aid hiring 5,000 workers, walmart. amazon says they have already hired 80,000 of their 100,000 employees addition goal. so there is good news that comes along with the bad. ashley: there is indeed. talking of hiring, let's go to susan for some of those numbers. amazon and walmart, they are going gangbusters. susan: that's right. 80,000 out of the 100,000 positions already filled. in fact, amazon said they got 50,000 applications in the first 24 hours that they made the announcement and they are spending about $350 million to get more head count online and that includes paying $2 more per hour on top of $15 minimum wage. as for walmart, looks like they have hired so far 50,000 out of the 150,000 they are looking

for. they are hiring about 5,000 people a day. is this enough to make up for the fact that ten million americans have now filed for unemployment benefits and we could be looking at close to 15% to 20% unemployment rates in the next month or so, probably not, but it's a good start and it's good work if you can find it. ashley: it is indeed, a good start. thank you very much. take a look at kraft heinz, adding more shifts at plants that make packaged foods due to a spike in demand. up 2% today at $25.87. good for a 55 cent gain. also check general motors, gm. they are encouraging 600 suppliers to produce face masks. that stock up 6% today, up a buck at $19.10. guess what? president trump says he is optimistic the nfl will start on time. legendary football coach lou holtz joins me to talk about that and more, next. here's huge news for veterans with va loans.

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ashley: breaking news for you. reuters is reporting that russia says it is ready to discuss very substantial oil output cuts due to global demand collapse. that's the headline from reuters. talk is cheap, as we know. whether they actually can get

together with the saudis and get this agreement in writing or whatever they do, we shall see. oil, though, still down 4.5% today but coming back just a little bit. now to sports. the u.s. open golf championship in new york has been postponed. it was originally scheduled for june 18-21. no word on when it will take place. we have already heard that the masters will be maybe targeting a tournament in november. wouldn't that be interesting. the british open has also been canceled. let's talk about sports. president donald trump optimistic the nfl will start on time. let's bring in legendary coach lou holtz. lou, thank you so much for joining us. you have been a great friend of the show. i want to talk college -- let's talk about the nfl first. do you think there's any chance it could start on time this year? >> i definitely think it can start on time. will it, remains to be seen. so many times the cure is much

worse than the illness. i have been on this reservation for four months. am i going to be another four months? what's going to happen to the economy. it's insane where we're going to go. ashley: yeah. you know what, there are those in college football who are now kicking around the idea of having this season played in the spring of next year. what's your thought on that? >> well, i think financially it's going to be devastating to all the colleges, not just the power five but go look at the money, look at the economy, look at the unemployment. to me, as i said, the cure sometimes is worse than the illness. i think if you use some common sense, yes, we have to protect people's health but what i hear on tv is true, 99% of deaths fall into four categories. the elderly which i certainly qualify, the people that have respiratory problems, which my wife qualifies, obese people, overweight people, and diabetic account for 99% of the deaths.

now, i think we ought to be able to say those people could stay in until you feel safe and secure. the rest of us, we need to get back to work. most of the young people, unless you fall into those four categories, my understanding is it's like the flu and you will get over it in a week, et cetera. people are going to go stir-crazy. you think about yeah, all the sadness about the medical hardship, i took my wife to the doctor this morning. 125 waiting chairs, there was one other person in it. you look at the small businesses, the hotels, everything is devastated. but the misery and agony that people are going to have and the financial hardship they're going to have when this is over is even going to be worse than the problem we have now. ashley: lou, very quickly, are you confident we can get back on track? because the fear is we go back too early and let the pandemic loose again.

>> we don't want that to happen, but once again, what is the criteria we are going to have where we can go back into society? i'm an old man. i have never seen anything like this before. we have been through -- ashley: lou, i'm so sorry. we are out of time. you are the best. we will have you back again very soon. more "varney" after this. . .

♪. ashley: markets continuing to gain ground, close to session highs now. as you can see the dow is up 5%.

same story on the nasdaq and the s&p. susan, lauren, i tried to hold down the fort for stu. look what we've done for the markets, guys. not bad at all. take all the credit for that. our time is up, but neil cavuto, take it away. neil: thank you, ashley, very, very much we're waiting to hear from new york's governor andrew cuomo. he will outline the latest case there is. a lot of people say owes much of the rally not only happening in new york but the united states as rate of deaths and increase begins to slow. that is not across the board. we'll get reading from iowa. that state's governor about to address the press. iowa is one of eight states who do not have the stay at home provisions. this is boying optimism, that maybe, maybe the worst could be over. that may be premature. they will take anything they can