get the economy open and moving again so that issue isn't one we have to worry about anymore. maria: everybody is moving fast. 35% of gdp is stimulus. dagen, lee, mitch, great to see you this morning. have a great monday. i will send it to "varney & company." stuart varney, take it away. have a good day, stu. stuart: thanks, maria. good morning to you. good morning, everyone. here's where we stand. the number of new cases in the united states may be peaking. the economy appears to be at a new low. contradiction right there. that is the backdrop to the most important discussion of the year, when to start reopening the economy. the debate is raging. the president has suggested that next month, some parts of the economy in some places could be up and running. his political opponents and some medical experts suggest that that could be too soon and could cost lives. on the program, later today, the

president's chief economic adviser larry kudlow. he's going to join us. that's the question we will ask, when, where and how will some americans be able to get back to work. now, check out the market. it reopens today after a three-day weekend. last week was one of the best weeks in decades, with the dow rising 12%. no significant pullback this morning. we are down just maybe 70 odd points for the dow industrials and well above 23,500. how about that. the s&p down about .33% and the nasdaq, same thing, down about .33%. that is not a significant pullback. not helping the stock market is a forecast from jpmorgan. they suggest that gdp could fall 40% this quarter and unemployment could reach 20%. now, that is a dire prediction. check out the price of oil. the u.s., russia, saudi arabia and other oil producers have

announced an agreement that would take 9.7 million barrels of oil a day off the world market. however, that has had very little impact. it may put a floor under the price of oil but it's failed to raise the price to a point where american drillers can make a profit. it's hard to see how you can reverse the global crash in demand. we are up just 18 cents, $22.94 on oil. how about the price of gas, though? that continues to fall. however, it's falling at a slower pace. the national average is down to $1.86 a gallon. however, wisconsin, amazingly, the average there all the way down to $1.30. that is wisconsin. our program today is ball the financial markets. no selloff at this point in response to the virus. the possible peak in new cases, we are talking about that and when, where and how the economy can be reopened. now watch this. >> the models do show we are

very close to the peak. we see the incredible resill sens resiliency of the american people with respect to social distancing, hand washing and all the mitigation factors so that gives me great hope. i think it's just too early for us to say whether may 1st is that date. stuart: look, here it comes. the political battle to reopen parts of the economy. let's bring in lisa booth, who joins us this monday morning. i would like to see the economy opened up as soon as possible, balancing public health. where do you stand on this? >> i think it's ultimately going to be up to the states and up to localities about when to reopen because obviously, as we have seen this thing play out [ inaudible ] half of the deaths in the country have come from new york and new jersey so obviously, they are going to look to reopen potentially at a different time than the rest of

the country. i think the good news is that it looks like we are going to start getting some better data. thus far we have largely been testing the sick which skews the data actually to a higher mortality rate, a deadly and more dangerous disease. we will get better information, stanford university are doing a study on random sampling. you look to miami-dade county, i talked to the mayor there, they are doing a study that's a population of over two million people, i think 2.7 million people, they are testing up to 750 people per week, random sampling. what that will do is give us an idea of what percentage of the country is infected. then based off of that, we will be able to get a better insight into what the true mortality rate is. we talked about all these models being off and sort of a loss of confidence in some of them. this random sampling information we are going to get will provide better answers. also, the national institutes of health are also doing random sampling, testing 10,000 people. that's better data, that's going to inform our decision.

stuart: joe biden writing in the "new york times" laid out his plan for reopening the economy. he wants the number of new cases to be shown to go down. wasn he wants widespread and prompt testing to be available and hospitals made ready. that's his plan. that's his statement on how we can reopen the economy. what do you make of it? >> if you look at the collaboration of both the federal government working in tandem with states and localities, the hospitals are ready. they have helped build up, you look at what president trump has done by sending these hospital ships, by helping the javits center get up and running in new york city so that's a ridiculous statement on behalf of the former vice president. additionally, again, getting to the bottom of what percentage of the population is infected will also inform how we go about testing as well. i think it's easy for joe biden, you know, to play monday morning

quarterback when he's sitting on the sidelines and he's not in it and he's not having to make these decisions. we are all probably fortunate the fact he is not the president of the united states making these decisions right now. so i think he should sit this one out and let the president make the hard decisions which is what he's doing right now. it's a lot easier to sit on the sideline and say whatever you want when you're not actually having to be commander in chief. stuart: well, the debate is on. when, where, how do we reopen at least parts of the economy. lisa boothe, thanks for being with us this monday morning. thank you. let's turn to lauren. lauren, our allies and opec and the united states have made a deal on cutting oil production worldwide. doesn't seem to be having much effect. tell us more. lauren: but it will in time. 9.7 million barrels of oil a day taken off the market between now and the end of june.

here's the question. will the economy reopen by the end of june? the answer is most likely yes. when you take this near 10 million barrels a day off the market, people will start using gasoline again, it will make a difference. this is all donald trump and deal-making, first with saudi arabia and russia, getting them to talk, then with mexico. mexico wasn't agreeing to cut 400,000 barrels a day but the u.s. said okay, we will make up the difference for what you don't cut so we do have a deal and in time, it should help stabilize the price of oil and perhaps keep our shale producers in business, stuart. stuart: let's see. okay. lauren, thanks very much indeed. by the way, i will be speaking with the energy secretary around 9:40 this morning. that's 9:40 eastern time on this program. let's turn to susan. a grim outlook, i want more on this. jpmorgan on the economy and unemployment. tell me more about that. susan: jpmorgan is calling for a

decrease, a shrinkage of close to half of the economy in the second quarter of this year so from the march to june period, jpmorgan is forecasting shrinkage of 40% in u.s. gdp and they are looking for unemployment to hit 20% which means 25 million will be unemployed. that's pretty much in line with what we heard from other gold standard investment banks as well as goldman sachs is predicting 34% contraction in the second quarter, morgan stanley looking for 30% declines as well in the second quarter of this year but i just want to give you some fresh news this morning which is getting a lot of chatter across investment and trading desks. looks like goldman sachs this morning says we put in the lows for this year, we have seen the worst of the stock market in 2020. they are sticking with their s&p forecast of 3,000 at the end of this year, before they said we might get back down to 2,000 before we see a bit of a bounce back at the end of this year but they are going bullish because of unexpected and do whatever it takes sort of moves from the federal reserve and also the government as well.

stuart: that's fascinating. in the depths of the economy, goldman sachs says we have reached the bottom already. not going to retest. fascinating stuff. keith fitz is with us. keith, you called this market the big selloff. you called it before anybody else. i want to know, anybody else on this program, i might add, so i want to know when are you calling for the rebound? are we in it already? >> well, tell you what, thank you for recognizing that. this is tough business. my magic eight-ball is on the fritz right now. we have psychological barriers we wouldn't otherwise have. i think we are still close to the bottom, the retest the fed has thrown the kitchen sink and everything else at is keeping us higher. that's a great development. you know what, i'm going to get in the water and say it is the bottom and we ought to continue to play off it. stuart: you are playing a dangerous game, of course, but

then you do that anyway. stay there, please. i want more from you just a little later. back to susan. we have news on the iphone. getting a new look? susan: yeah, getting a new look since we know iphones still account for about three-quarters of their revenue. it's going to look very similar to the ipad. we are still looking for the cheap iphone release. some say it's still coming at some point this spring since they already put in the production lines and all ready to go except for the coronavirus, which has impeded first of all their launch event, then of course, consumer appetite in closing all their stores and having some disruptions to their supply chains over in china. but we will look at the 5g phone later on this year. most analysts say it might be delayed and not in september and october, the timeline we are used to, but we will get it still in time for christmas. stuart: i've got to tell you, your backdrop today, i'm looking at a live shot of sixth avenue, utterly deserted. we are not used to that at ten past nine eastern time on monday

morning, are we? susan: nope. it's a whole new era here. there aren't virtually any pedestrians in the street, even if it's rain, snow, whatever, you usually see a lot of people here in the financial capital of the u.s., right? stuart: my, how times change. show me the banks, please. the banks kick off earnings season. it starts tomorrow. i think we've got these banks premarket, this is. a little bit of a movement to the upside, not very much. of course, they have been really clobbered by the super-low interest rates and some problems with mortgages as well. we do have jpmorgan, morgan stanley, citigroup, wells fargo on the upside today. goldman down just a fraction. no significant movement there. these are the banks that report this week on your screen right now. i want to update britain's prime minister boris johnson. he has tested negative for the coronavirus after being released from hospital. not sure i understand that one. i thought he tested positive. nonetheless, he's out of

hospital. he's been released and tested negative. that is accurate. okay. check the futures market. where are we this morning? we are going to be down, but not that much. i'm looking at about a 60-point loss for the dow, just a fraction, .25%. same percentage loss for the nasdaq and for the s&p. on the show in our 11:00 hour, top white house economic adviser larry kudlow. i want to know when are we talking about reopening the economy and what's the progress on the formation of this second virus task force? he will let us know. also on the show, energy secretary dan broullet, applauding this deal agreed to by the russians and saudis. couple virus vaccine updates to tell you about. gilead sciences drug has produced promising results in a small trial and eli lily is starting clinical trials using its arthritis drug to treat the virus.

details on all of that coming up. plus we have the ceo of a company just given fda approval to treat virus patients. more "varney" after this. it's a challenging market. edward jones is well aware of that. 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. 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. confident financial plans, calming financial plans, complete financial plans. they're all possible with a cfp® professional.

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site so stuart: i have good news. those stimulus payments are now getting into your bank account, or at least some bank accounts. susan, tell me. who got the money first? susan: direct deposit. if you filed your irs tax returns in 2018-2019 providing a direct deposit bank account, according to the irs, they have already started depositing these $1200 checks for those that make $75,000 and less and $500 for each child under 16. what about those physical checks? it's interesting we just got a report from our washington, d.c.

correspondent edward lawrence, who says a senior treasury official has told him that the checks, physical checks, have now started as well and by wednesday, the official says they will have deposited $50 billion to $60 billion. previously we heard that physical checks won't reach those recipients until may, possibly even september, and as we know, speed is of the essence as 17 million americans have filed for unemployment, jobless claims just in the past month or so. so people need money, they need food and they need security. stuart: all right. here comes the money. thank you, susan. let's get to lauren. give me the update on the latest vaccine news, please. lauren: a british scientist out of oxford university says she's 80% confident an effective vaccine will be on the market in six months and they are starting trials on it, human trials, in the next two weeks. the w.h.o. says there are about 70 vaccines being worked on worldwide.

however, only three are in human trials and two of them led by u.s. companies moderna and inovio. a vaccine coming hopefully within a year. stuart: we'll take it. there's a company called cytosorbents, c-y-t-o, cytosorbents. it has received emergency fda approval to treat virus patients. dr. philip chan is with us, the ceo of cytosorbents. the stock is on your screen premarket. it's up 26%. dr. chan, how exactly does your product treat virus patients? >> hi, stuart. thank you very much for having me on the show. cytosorbents is a blood purification cartridge that hooks up to standard dialysis and blood pump machines found in the intensive care unit as a way to treat deadly inflammation and cytokine storm and it's been

widely regarded as causing shock and other problems. cytosorbents approved in the european union has been used in more than 80,000 treatments for critically ill patients to treat the same kind of complication that patients of covid-19 are being seen with, and we are very pleased to have an opportunity to help u.s. patients. stuart: when you say it's been used on 80,000 patients in various parts of the world, can you give me a success rate for it? >> so what we have seen in more than 80,000 treatments, is that it has significant effects in terms of stabilizing patients and reversing dangerously low blood pressure and helping improve oxygenation and lung function and improving the overall inflammatory response that is often the main cause of

why these patients are dying. stuart: now you've got emergency fda approval, you can now use that treatment in the united states, is that accurate? >> that is correct. emergency authorization enables us to now make available our product in all hospitals throughout the united states. again, we are eager to get this in the hands of physicians. we have already been contacted by approximately 70 hospitals [ inaudible ] and we hope that they will see the same effect physicians in europe and in 58 countries around the world for cytosorbents see the same clinical benefits that they have, and hopefully [ inaudible ]. stuart: doctor, we appreciate you being with us this morning. we always like news on any progress that we can make on treatment, and we do appreciate your being here. dr. chan, thanks very much for

joining us. okay. i don't know whether you noticed but bottom right-hand corner of the screen, you will see the market has come back a little bit. we are only going to be down, what, 19, 20 points at the opening bell. that follows one of the best weeks ever, last week. let's go back to susan. news from china. what do you have? susan: we know that maria bartiromo has been reporting this morning that china is imposing some new rules and regulations on materials used to make personal protection equipment, ppe, that is much needed right now by the front line health care staff. we were talking about the face shields, masks and n95, and this is resulting in major delays in getting that equipment to the u.s. and around the world. we know that there has been problems with sourcing some of this material. you saw that on "60 minutes" last night as well and apparently according to maria's reporting, this has something to do from the chinese government imposing some rules and regulations in terms of where they can ship some of this ppe. don't forget, we are still in the midst of a trade war, as we heard from president trump at the end of last week. there are still $250 billion to

$300 billion worth of chinese goods that are being tariffed at this point but china apparently is making good, this morning also some headlines china is buying 120,000 metric tons of wheat, making good on that phase one trade deal in buying more agricultural goods. this is shall we say complex, would you say, stu, dynamic, bilateral relationship between the world's two largest economies? stuart: it reminds me of that movie, "it's complicated." got it. thanks, susan. this really surprised me. more people are booking cruises for 2021 compared to last year despite the virus and despite the cdc extending its no-sail order. we've got the full story for you. incredible though it is. markets will open up moments away. we will be down just, what, 30, 40 points. more "varney" after this. ♪

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stuart: i'm going to update the programming for you. larry kudlow was scheduled to join us in our 11:00 hour this morning. he cannot make it. he has a meeting that he's got to take. he will now join us tomorrow. so that's larry kudlow, tomorrow on this program. now, we are a couple minutes away from the opening of the market this monday morning. let's bring back keith fitz. keith, i'm looking at the

futures here and i see a very very small decline. i mean, down 70 for the dow, 20 odd for the nasdaq. that's nothing. that's a quarter, maybe a third of 1%. how do you explain that? when we are coming off the best week in decades? >> well, there are a few things at work. one, the computers have not come online so there's no program that's buy or sell. number two, people are digesting what's going to happen next. the narrative has shifted over the past few weeks from this is terrible to hey, we got to start to have a discussion about reopening the economy. the markets are forward-looking. that to me says traders are looking at putting their foot on the gas, not the brakes like they have in the past. stuart: so what about the shape of the stock market recovery? there's a lot of talk as to whether it's going to be a v, i'm trying to demonstrate on the screen here, a v, straight down and then straight back up again, or an l, straight down and then steady as she goes along sort of

a lower line there, or even a w, straight down, up, down again, and then back up again. what's the letter that you would use to characterize this stock market, keith? >> historically, i would have used a w because that's 70%, 80% of how the market adapts to big what they call cascading sales but right now, i think it's more like it's an l, kind of a 45 degree angle. i don't use the normal alphabet. it's not a v or w or even a c. it's more like we have hit and now will have this trajectory, it's not going to be straight, but again, markets are starting to look forward. that to me is a gradual come-out-of-the-basement move. i like it a lot as an investor. stuart: one question before we get to the opening bell. did you buy anything last week or advise your clients to buy anything, and if so, what was it? >> oh, absolutely. i went hunting for microsoft

personally because that's a stock i believe in longer term, it's something i want to accumulate, it's got gobs of cash, great position, the virus makes it stronger. my son went hunting for some of the banks and pharmaceutical companies, including jpmorgan and pfizer. yeah, we played offense the whole week. stuart: okay. here we go. it's 9:30 eastern time and the market is opening this monday morning. caution, this is an opening bell following one of the best weeks in decades. i believe the dow was up close to 12% last week. actually, it was up 12%. now we are open. trading has begun. i see a lot of red on the left-hand side of the screen. i would say about three-quarters of the dow 30 are in the red, they are down, and in the initial opening phase of the market, we are down just 90 points on the dow industrials. that's about .4%. now we are down 100. that is not a significant selloff after last week's performance. the s&p 500, okay, that's down

13, 14 points. that is a half percentage point down. the nasdaq, this is how the technology stocks are doing, the nasdaq this morning has indeed opened lower and we are down there about .4%. in other words, no significant losses, certainly not in percentage terms, regardless of which indicator you're looking at. right now, the dow is down 132 points. i want to take a look at apple. you have to take a look at apple. it's one of the most valuable companies in the world. america's most valuable company. this morning it's opened slightly higher, a gain of 50 cents at $268. we are hearing rumors, speculation, about a new iphone. we brought you this news a few minutes ago. susan, repeat it, please. susan: apple plans an ipad-like design for its next iphone and also a smaller home pod as well. this is according to bloomberg reporting. this is a refresh, we are waiting for it. will we get the cheaper iphone, maybe in the spring of this year, that was anticipated and

the production lines apparently were in full production, but some say it might be delayed, might even be nixed at this point. the 5g phone, we will get mofr more of an ipad design according to this bloomberg report and 5g anticipated for the launch in september-october which might be delayed until december but you will get a new iphone. that's still expected from analysts later this year, just in time for the christmas holiday shopping season. stuart: on that note, let's bring in dan ives, who has been analyzing apple for a long time, he's one of the principal apple analysts. dan ives, what do you make of this ipad-like design for the new iphone? >> yeah. look, this is consistent with what we have heard out of the supply chain in asia. i think the question for investors right now with 5g phones is timing. we continue seeing 10% to 15% chance it's september or october release, most likely december time frame given what we are seeing with the consumer environment here. but this is, in my opinion,

probably the biggest release if not in five years, maybe ever in terms of 5g being really the seminal event for apple. stuart: okay. hold on for us, dan. i want to get back to you shortly. i want to move to disney. lauren, come in, please. lot of disney park workers are being furloughed. tell me more. lauren: this is for disney world in florida. 43,000 of the union workers are being furloughed. no timeline when they get their jobs back, when the parks reopen. they will get to keep their health care and benefits for up to 12 months. disney stock down 1%. stuart: but they don't get paid but they do get their benefits and there's no telling when they are coming back? lauren: they don't get paid starting on the 19th. yes. starting on sunday, april 19th, furloughed, no paycheck. they do keep their benefits. stuart: got it. thanks very much. keith, come into this. you've been positive on disney.

how do you look at them now? >> well, i think it's the right move. i want to see it drop a little bit to make it a real screaming buy but if you are a long-term investor, i have no problem with the stock at this level. stuart: all right. let's move on. netflix. they are teasing, i have become a netflix viewer, by the way, they are teasing a new dating competition. better tell me about that one. susan: wow. you are the new netflix viewer, are you. okay. so we are looking at too hot to handle. i don't know if this is your genre but this is a new dating show that has scantily clad singles on a luxury beach vacation and there's 100,000 up for grabs but they are not allowed to get physical with each other or even kiss, and the money does decrease each time they fall victim to their sexual desires. we know netflix along with viewers like you have been really spiking over this quarantine coronavirus age. they just gave us numbers for

"tiger king" that hugely popular documentary, call it that. 34.3 million viewers in ten days from the march 20th period and that's only second, by the way, to season three of "stranger things" which attracted 36.3 million views. netflix in the age of coronavirus, some say is a winner. stuart: dan ives, come into this, please. netflix is running away with this. they are benefiting from everybody staying at home. they are, in my opinion, because i'm a netflix viewer nowadays, they are the principal streaming operation. are they not? >> they continue to be king of the mountain but ultimately if you look at disney with the numbers that came out last week, those doubled subscriber numbers, 50 million from even february. it just speaks to right now, it's bonanza in streaming. 20% spike in terms of viewership and sub growth and now you look at peacock, at hbo, others

entering the mix. this continues to be a seminal period for streaming given the consumer lockdown globally. stuart: okay. bottom right-hand corner of the screen, please notice the dow has taken a leg to the south. now we are down about 250 points. that is 1% on the downside for the dow industrials. that's pretty much matched across the board. we do have a downside move right now. amazon, interesting, not accepting new grocery customers? tell me more. susan: they are relegating all new online grocery customers to wait list starting today and are working on adding capacity. they say each and every week. so far they have increased capacity, grocery delivery capacity, by 60% according to amazon. amazon like netflix are some of the stay-at-home winners we keep talking about, that has outperformed the rest of the broader market but amazon has been having problems keeping up. you know they are hiring 100,000 extra staff in their warehousing and fulfillment centers, fulfilling 80,000 of those positions so far, and they are

cutting off amazon shipping, which was their third party shipping service because they don't have enough workers. why not move some of them to the delivery and fulfillment centers instead? they paid $13 billion for whole foods so they operate just around 482 whole foods stores and so they are now reducing hours in their physical stores as well, like whole foods, in order shall we say to right-size some of their distribution of their labor force for now because it is boom time for amazon. everyone is ordering online instead. stuart: okay. keith, come into this. it would seem like if amazon can't keep up with demand, i guess that's good news, isn't it, because the demand is just so strong. >> yes and no. it also exposes tremendous cracks in the system, stuart. i don't know that that's a good thing because this is the first chink in the armor we have seen definitively from team bezos. they have a lot of other businesses that i think will go beyond this but this bugs me,

because you can't hit customers when they are down and they need you. if that's truly broken, they have much bigger problems to deal with. stuart: yet the stock is up and well above $2,000 per share. right now it's up over 1% in a downside market, $2,065 is your amazon quote right now. come back, dan ives. i know you have a new etf called ives, i-v-e-s, your name. is this all about cloud computing? >> yeah, that's really the focus. we believe a trillion dollars will be spent in cloud over the next decade. fundamentally, you look at the large caps like microsoft, aws, google, but this is really the stack, it's focused on the global cloud and it's really a vehicle for investors to be able to play what we believe is the most transformational trend we have seen in technology covering this call it 20 years plus. stuart: am i right in saying that the big players in the

cloud are amazon, microsoft, i believe alibaba and those are the major players, i think. am i right? is there anybody else in there, big players? >> look, when you think about microsoft and amazon, that continues to be the two-horse race. obviously alibaba over in china and of course, google. but then there's a stack in terms of the infrastructure in cloud and that's why i think as investors, you play the large cap names as well as midcaps and that's really the focus in our global etf. stuart: all right. dan ives with the etf bearing his name. dan, thanks for joining us this morning. appreciate it. keith fitz, thanks for joining us. see you all later. check that big board. we have come back a bit. there's volatility here, obviously. just a few minutes ago, a few seconds ago, really, we were down 250. now we are down 192. but look at that level. the dow is at 23,500. couple weeks ago, it bottomed,

maybe bottomed for a long time, i don't know, 18,000. so you have gone up 5,000 points in a few weeks and the dow is now 23,548. some police departments are using drones to break up gatherings and tell people to go home. the voice from the sky, can you believe. can they do this? well, they can, because they are doing it. i'm asking the judge about this next. let's see what he's got to say about talking drones. over 70% of baseball fans say they will not attend games unless a virus vaccine is developed. not good news for major league baseball. we've got that story for you. but next, energy secretary dan brouillette is applauding the historic opec deal. he's on the show and is coming up after this.

stuart: well, look at this. a tweet just coming right at us from president trump. i'll read it for you.

having been involved in the negotiations to put it mildly, the number that opec plus is looking to cut is 20 million barrels a day, not the 10 million that is generally being reported. if anything near this happens, and the world gets back to business from the covid-19 disaster, the energy industry will be strong again far faster than currently anticipated. thank you to all those who worked with me on getting this very big business back on track, in particular saudi arabia and russia. let's bring in the energy secretary, that would be mr. brouillette. dan brouillette. mr. secretary, thanks very much for joining us. which is it? what kind of agreement do we have? is it 10 million barrels a day cut from production, or is it 20 million? >> thank you, stuart. great to be back with you. look, the president's tweet is

absolutely correct. so the agreement that we saw, the historic agreement that we saw over the weekend from opec and opec plus is roughly 10 million barrels but that is, in fact, only half of the story. there are over 100 countries that produce oil all around the world, and what we will see is production declining over the next few months as the world deals with this covid-19 pandemic. so when you add up all of the production cuts around the world, we are going to be much closer to 20 million barrels per day coming off the market, which represents roughly 20% of the production just a month or month and a half ago. so it is extraordinary times. this was an extraordinarily complex deal that was struck by opec and opec plus members, and we hope that we will see the return of the energy industry very, very quickly. stuart: what you're battling more than just opec plus, what you're battling is the crash of demand for oil worldwide. i mean, i'm told that there's

like 30 million barrels a day not being used. and the price of oil, bearing in mind the president's tweet, is only at $23 a barrel. it's very hard to fight that crashing demand, isn't it? >> it is, stuart. that's why this deal is so important. when you produce oil, you really only have two options and that is to use it or to store it. without the demand signal because of the pandemic, it leaves storage as the only option. what we are seeing all across the world is storage capacity is becoming more and more scarce. so it creates a unique challenge. if you reach the tank tops, what happens next is production begins to shut in. that creates a challenge for bringing this industry back once these economies turn around. stuart: now, is the government going to help the drillers and frackers in north dakota and texas and elsewhere? are you ready, willing and able

to put a floor under their operations with money? >> well, stuart, what we have done is taken some very aggressive steps to open up things like our strategic petroleum reserve. the president directed me a few weeks ago to open it up, make it available to private industry. we are in the process of filling that up. that alleviates or mitigates some of the initial challenges around storage. but also, the congress and the president have negotiated an incredible package that allows these drillers, allows these energy companies to take advantage of some tax law that will provide liquidity for these industries. first and foremost amongst that is the ability to take losses, to deduct your losses that are incurred this year against your last five years of profits. that's an important, important tool for this industry to use. stuart: can you assure the oil industry that it's going to maintain america's energy independence when all this is done? >> yes, i think it will, stuart.

look, i have to remind, you know, you and the viewers, we are, in fact, in a different position than we were just 10 or 15, 20 years ago certainly. imagine if this pandemic had happened in 1973 or 1974, when we were wholly dependent upon nations for the importation of oil. the fact we are able to produce the amount that we are able to produce today place the united states of america, place this president in a position of strength in order to bring this deal together. stuart: energy secretary dan brouillette, thanks very much for joining us, sir. we do appreciate it. thank you. now, again, paying attention to the bottom right-hand corner of the screen, dow industrials have taken a leg to the south. we are down now 360 points. that's about 1.5%. susan, come in, please. you have news on boeing. what are they up to? susan: we know boeing needs a rescue package. so far we have the government earmarking around $17 billion

for the american plane maker in their stimulus package but analysts say boeing needs $20 billion and they don't necessarily like the strings attached to any government bailout. for instance, the government aid might look for limiting executive pay, also stock buy-backs and dividends and some say the stimulus package for boeing means they have to maintain around 90% of their current work force and the ceo, david calhoun of boeing, doesn't like the fact the u.s. government might even take an equity stake as part of this deal. so one possibility could be that boeing could apply for the treasury to maybe buy a few billion dollars worth of its bonds, secure the rest of what it needs privately in the private equity markets, but boeing will be second to the airlines and needs help first. stuart: got it. thanks very much. here's what we have coming up for you. the world's largest pork producer has shut down one plant. that pork producer is warning of meat shortages to come. we have the story for you. coming up on your screens, video of a new streaming called

quibi. it's all about very short videos, maybe ten minutes or less. we have the ceo meg whitman in the third hour of "varney & company." woman: my reputation was trashed online.

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stuart: all right. 24 minutes into the trading day this monday morning and we've headed a little bit south. dow is off about 1.33%. put that into real numbers, we are down about 320 points as of right now. look at the movie guy, by that i mean amc. they are in talks to hire a bankruptcy law firm. movie theaters closing around the country because of the virus. that's what happens. stock's down 17% and falling. come back, susan. smithfield foods closing a pork plant. tell me more. susan: in sioux falls, south dakota. this is one of the largest pork producing and processing plants in the u.s., supplies around 130 million servings of food per week. that's a lot. they are shutting down for 14 days because 293 of those 3700 people i guess at that work, at this processing plant, have now been diagnosed with covid-19. also tyson foods facility in columbus junction, iowa also has

more than two dozen employees that tested positive so there are concerns about the food supply. stuart: all right. susan, thank you very much indeed. we will tell you exactly what we have coming up on the show for you immediately ahead. first off, joe biden. he's laid out his plan to reopen the economy. look, i think he's facing an uphill battle to begin with and if you add to that adam schiff, congressman schiff, he wants to investigate the president's response to the virus, i don't think that's going to be good for joe biden with that congressman on his tail. my take on that is next. life isn't a straight line. and sometimes, you can find yourself heading in a new direction. but when you're with fidelity, a partner who makes sure every step is clear, .p .

stuart: in his run for the presidency, joe biden already has an uphill struggle. his fellow democrats may make that struggle even more difficult. the left just can't suppress its disdain for president trump. having that contempt on full display will not be popular with an electorate desperate to get past the virus era congressman adam schiff may be mr. biden's biggest problem. he will run a 9/11 style investigation of the president right before the election. he and speaker pelosi claim this will be simply accountability, tracking how the trillion dollar rescue money is spent. there is nothing wrong with that, but this is congressman

schiff we're dealing with, a man who led the russia h, russia, russia, fiasco and the impeachment failure. he will use the 9/11 style hearings to undermine the president during a national emergency. does anyone doubt this is pure political move with wall-to-wall televised hearings, inevitably beating up on the president right before the election, that is what they're going to do. the trump haters will have a field day. the media will pile on. hold on a minute that political strategy did not work with russia, russia, russia, or with impeachment. the president's approval ratings actually went up and are still going up. if by the fall we're beginning a recovery, will voters be happy to see the president vilified by congressman schiff? i think not. congressman schiff and the rest of the trump haters will make joe biden's election to the presidency even more difficult. they just can't help themselves.

okay. now listen to this. >> we are right now going through our intelligence holdings, what did the intelligence community make us aware of at the end of last year or earlier this year. i only have a partial picture of what went wrong in terms of the early testing problem. a lot of mismanagement within the trump administration but we do need to get those answers. stuart: he just can't hold that contempt to himself. congressman dan crenshaw is with us. you heard adam schiff there. is, do you think this is the time to investigate the president right before the election? >> no, it's not. it is not the kind of divisiveness we need. these are not good faith investigations at all. these are gotcha games and these are based on alternate reality where we don't have to judge people's actions based on what

they actually knew at the time f we're judging the administration actions, what they actually knew at the time, well, let's look back in february and march. places like italy and iran, their pandemics had not really started yet. they did not start to get bad until around early march. even then their officials were questioning whether they should be locking down society. compare to go that our own administration we restricted travel from china on january 31st. we restricted travel from europe in mid-march. to say the administration was not taking action early is not accurate objectively speaking. stuart: okay. congressman, joe biden has a plan to reopen the economy, reopen the economy, get it moving again. he wrote about it in "the new york times" today. he wants to see, he wants to make sure that everybody can get a test when required. he wants to see a fall in the

number of new cases and he want as prompt test for everybody to be available. what do you make of that plan? because reopening the economy is the key question at this moment. >> yeah. i mean, first of all i question whether joe biden really wrote that and second, joe biden has a tendency to simply repeat what the administration is already doing and make it sound like this is his policy. of course we're working very hard to get new tests. of course i agree with that. i think testing and testing sample populations, targeted testing, being able to contain outbreaks as we go through the summer and the fall will be extremely important as we open up the economy alongside that kind of a strategy. stuart: congressman, my observation is that america is a very resilient place. i see people obeying the social distancing commands, obeying the rules and just getting on with it as best they can. am i, am i right here?

america is indeed resilient and eager to get back to work? what do you think? >> well you better believe it, yeah, i think people are losing patience. it depends where you are in the country. we constantly need to remind ourselves it is our local and state governments that need to be implementing and managing this crisis. we're experiencing it different in texas than our friends in new york and there will be different solutions. we need to be talking about ways to get back to work while we also battle the pandemic. there is not a binary choice let the pandemic spread and lock ourselves down indefinitely. that is a false choice. there is an inbetween where we can educate the public on what proper social distancing looks like while getting back to work. we can build capacity in our public health system, get our testing, get our testing regime implemented thoroughly, get the ppe production going and ventilators going, we've done a

lot of this already, and as we get more prepared and better understand how to battle back the pandemic we can do it. stuart: the media seems very eager, well, first of all they're full of gloom and doom, they seem very eager to pin blame on president trump. i want to listen to what jake tapper at cnn, what he had to say to dr. fauci. roll tape, please. >> "new york times" reported yesterday that you and other top officials wanted to recommend social and physical distancing guidelines to president trump as far back as the third week of february. do you think lives cohave been saved if social distancing, physical distancing stay at home measures had started third week of february, instead of mid-march. >> obviously no one will deny that, what goes into those kinds of decisions is complicated. stuart: seems like they want him to blame, they want to set up a difference between dr. fauci and the president and blame the

president. it is a constant in the media these days. dan crenshaw. >> dr. fauci's answer was very nuanced, as americans we need to remember how to digest nuanced answers. these are not black and white questions. these are not black and white answers and to say that americans could have accepted a complete lockdown of the country in late february, when we weren't even seeing huge outbreaks in italy yet or spain or anywhere in europe, yet, when we definitely were not seeing out breaks here, do you think it would have been reasonable to ask americans to shed 10 million jobs every two weeks with that kind of a cost in order to battle back a pandemic they really weren't seeing at the time? and again, let's not forget there was enormous bold actions taken by the president. january 30 first, restricted travel from china. in mid-march, restricted travel from europe. to say they weren't taking it

seriously is absurd. to judge actions without judging what facts we knew at the time is a very bad faith way of actually analyzing how this administration has performed. stuart: would you like to see the economy open up in some places for some industries as soon as possible? >> well of course we would and we need to do it carefully and we knead to have other metrics that we're using to inform that decision, such as okay, if i'm looking at the houston area, for instance, and i want to be able to assess, how many icu beds do we have, what's our hospital capacity, what's our ppe capacity, what's our ventilator capacity, what's our testing capacity, we should be able to battle the pandemic opening up our economy. it doesn't have to be a binary choice. we can do sample testing

throughout the population. we can address from certain industries and interact with people often. there is good ways to do this. a lot of leaders are talking toward as structured reopening of the economy sooner than later lauren: congressman, thank you very much. i have news from ford. it is down substantially. here is the news, they expect for first quarter revenue revenue will be $6 billion less than last year. coming in expected $34 billion for all of the first quarter. ford shares at $5.16. that is a decline of 4%. one other piece of news caught my eye here is ford says they have $30 billion in cash on hand. that is enough to get them through the end of the third quarter. so the end of september, without producing any cars. so when we talk about reopening

the economy, perhaps, it might be the third quarter. that is the news on ford. susan, you have news on china, they're imposing new restrictions here? susan: we do know that coronavirus really deteriorated the relationship between the u.s. and china, the two largest economies in the world there is concern about personal protection equipment, ppe, n95 masks, gloves, et cetera, a lot are produced in china and front line health care staff say they don't have enough of it as we heard on "60 minutes" last night as well. our very own maria bartiromo this morning, china is imposing new rules on regulations used to make personal protection equipment, that is resulting in major delays getting equipment sent to the u.s. and also around the world. we also got news this morning that china is still buying a lot of u.s. agricultural goods, phase one of the trade deal is still being implemented.

we heard china bought around 120,000 metric sons of u.s. wheat this morning. as president trump pointed out the end of last week we do know there is still tariffs on around $300 billion of chinese i am poureds here to the u.s. so that is something that we'll keep a close eye on, the relationship between the two largest economies in the world. lauren? lauren: how much we trust one another. susan, thank you. let me update the viewers now on news from the tsa. how many people are going to the airport to take flights. number of easter flights hit all-time low. 90,510, the lowest ever if you compare that number to april 12th, 2019, where the number was 2.4 million. this is a decline of 96%. let's check the market overall, after a winning week last year, the best one for the broader market since 1974. we do have down arrows this

morning. substantial ones as well. caterpillar and american express leaving losses on the dow which is down 300 points. s&p down 30 or 1.1%. nasdaq giving up much less than the rest of the market, a third of 1% this morning. earnings season about to get underway. we'll hear from big banks starting tomorrow. later it this hour dr. marc siegel will join us. stu varney will ask him if we get the antibody test for coronavirus what does that mean, and what happens next? coming up next, beverly hills, california, is now mon dating that everyone going outside, everyone, must wear a mask. next up, we'll talk to the mayor of beverly hills on this show. be right back. 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.

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stuart: all right. we're in business now for 46 minutes this monday morning. i believe that is the low of the day. we're down 380 points. that is 1.6%. this is just coming at us from the mayor of new york city, bill de blasio, he just said all indicators are that the, all indicators on the virus are moving in the right direction, he says. i would guess that is a positive sign. caterpillar, check that stock please. it is a real drag on the dow, because it is down nearly 7%. it wasdown graded to underperform status from neutral. that was by bank of america. that hurts the dow which is now down 400 points. amazon planning to hire an additional 75,000 workers. they really have demand for deliveries coming at them from left, right, center. they will have 75,000 more. the stock is back above $2100 a share. los angeles county, what are

they doing about the lockdown. there is news, susan. tell me. susan: extending stay at homan dates until may 15th, 2020. l.a. county has more than 4hundred cases of covid-19. they have been closing public beaches, public places, parks and trails. they say that will remain close. if you do the math, they're maintaining the stay-at-home order until may 15th. does that mean the may 1st deadline for reopening the economy, which apparently what president trump wants to do is at risk nationwide? will that only be implemented in certain areas in certain cities? stuart: well, the idea of reopening the economy is not, you do it all of sudden all over the place. i think it is where can you open up, which industries, which jobs can be opened up for a return to work. it is not like a blanket return to work on a certain day. susan: right. stuart: that certainly, as you say, susan, that carries on to may 15th, the lockdown in

los angeles county. okay we have got with us on the phone the mayor of beverly hills, that is lester friedman. your honor, welcome to the program. i understand you're now mandating masks for anybody who goes outdoors. tell me more, sir. >> yes, stuart, thank you very much for having me. as we know the virus continues to take lives every day and we've seen how the recommendations from our government has changed over time. so we believe that the facemasks at first were not necessary and then they were. so we believe now that the facemasks will move us forward and that is why we have mandated it. stuart: what's the degree of social compliance with all the rules and regulations? are people of beverly hills falling into line? >> yes we are. we've very, very proud of our residents. we have a very senior population and we wanted to make sure that we could ensure the safety of

those seniors. even when we're walking down the streets and there are a lot of people on our streets walking now, there is the interaction as people see one another. and this is just an extra level of protection so that they can stop, see each other, keep moving. stuart: you can't get your economy up and running again though until what, may the 15th? i think l.a. county has extended the lock downorder to may the 15th. your lockdown, your economy is dead flat there in beverly hills at least another five weeks? >> yes, you know, as a city we did order all non-essential retail stores to be closed, including our beloved rodeo drive. our economy is at a standstill but it is worth it in terms of the safety and security of our residents and our community. health and safety are our number one concern.

stuart: your honor, we appreciate you being with us. lester friedman, the mayor of beverly hills, california. thanks, sir, appreciate it. >> thank you. stuart: on a related note, you know the festival, burning man? well we got some news on that. lauren, tell me, please. lauren: it is happening on the internet view allly this year. this takes place in nevada desert, early august, september every year. this is based on making connections, exploring different possibilities, getting creative. this is still happening but virtually. this is the what the folks putting on burning man say, they will provide refunds only those to need the refunds, because survival of burning man depends on ingenuity and generosity. if you want to donate any money that you spent i'm sure they will take it. stuart: i'm sure they would. you also have news on the cdc. centers for disease control and

what they're saying about the cruise industry. tell us that one, please. lauren: lauren: you can't sail for the next three months until the end of july in waters where the u.s. has jurisdiction. if you take a look at the cruise stocks, they're down in a big way today as a result. here's the thing though, there is certain loyalty comes with someone who does take cruises. travel websites are seeing a spike in demand, 40% higher when you look at future bookings for next year, 2021, versus last year, 2019, which is unbelievable when you think about it. i guess there are people out there who say, we're going to get through this coronavirus. yeah, the price is right i will take a 2021 cruise. not me but people. stuart: numbers on cruises, those number on cruise booking come from a cruise booking company whose president i believe will be on the show

later. let's get into the numbers a bit later on. right now the market, we're down 440 points. susan this, is the low of the day i think? susan: i just took a look at oil prices since we had the opec plus deal. it looks like oil is up 5%. so up a buck a barrel at this point. yes, good for a lot of oil producers, but if you think about the it, the average person that means gas prices go up, since we look at gas prices, $1.88 a gallon, the low post in four years. don't forget oil majors represent, nine 10% of s&p waiting, on consumer that might have a big impact. bullish note from goldman sachs which helped lift sentiment going into the opening bell, stu. goldman sachs says we see the lows of the year. we'll not test the 2,000 level we predicted for the s&p 500. in fact they're maintaining 3,000 end of year prediction for the s&p 500 because the federal

reserve and treasury department have shown they will do whatever it takes to keep the recession from going into freight depression. there is relief this morning. this might be a opec plus, maybe you buy on the rumor, sell on the news type of reaction? stuart: well i should also add, susan, we got a tweet from president trump about a half hour ago saying that it wasn't an agreement for 10 million barrels of oil a day cut, it was more like 20 million barrels a day cut. and i think that helped lift the price of oil by one dollar per barrel as we speak. next one, this is close to the low of the day, down 440 for the dow. check this out. remarkable pictures from the vatican where pope francis held easter sunday mass in an empty church. that is a huge church and it was empty. then in jerusalem at the church of the holy sepulcher, easter mass was held for very much

scaled down crowd. i will have more "varney" for you after this.

stuart: all right. everyone, we're one hour into the monday morning trading session. please remember we're coming off one of the best weeks ever for the dow last week t was up about

12%. this morning down 1.8% for the dow industrials. big tech stocks, there is no clear trend there. we have amazon up. they're hiring 75,000 more people because of crush of demand for delivery. apple is down a stein any fraction. microsoft down a buck 60. you have a mixed picture here on the major technology companies in these here united states. the energy companies, always other checking. we have news on oil. president says opec plus agreed to more like 20 million barrels of oil a day cut rather than the 10 million that is being reported. the price of oil itself is up about a buck as we speak. still not to level where drill us make a profit. but it helps the energy companies. chevron is up. bp up.

conocophillips down a intiny fraction. that's it. let's bring in market watcher, danielle dimartino booth. welcome back to the program. i read your stuff. you say there is something very unhealthy here, which is governor has taken over the financial markets, we now nationalized financial markets. explain your thinking please. tell us why that is bad? >> that is bad because we're free market society. i have will answer the second part of the question very quickly. federal reserve act precludes fed holding anything but paper, bonds, backed by the full, faith, guarranty by the united states government. in order to circumvent the federal reserve act fed has placed special vehicles. anything federal reserve not legally able to buy it is housing at the treasury. things such as corporate bonds. we'll get into collateralized

loan obligations junk debt. who knows if this coming thursday morning, another bad jobless claims report, if the fed doesn't cross that last rubicon into the stock market. anything is possible that the off-balance sheet structure is set up which is us whod at treasury department which makes it a national entity as opposed to a, what we would consider to be a free market, free, price discovery type of mechanism. now the government has say in where risky asset prices are headed. stuart: well, can you justify that, bearing in mind the seriousness, the gravity of the situation? after all we do face major bankrupts all across the board, is the fed action, massive gigantic action, can you justify isn't. >> i think to a certain extent you can justify some of the things the fed has come in and done but if you look at data,

one in six companies in america couldn't get past a month because the cash flow is inadequate. a lot of companies taken on more debt than they otherwise would have been. the fed is going so far to purchase individual bonds ever companies already been downgraded to junk. so it is setting a floor underneath companies that have taken on too much debt over the past decade. that is sending out the wrong message. that is moral hazard, writ large, i don't think anything that investors should be applauding necessarily because it is a nail in the could have fin of capitalism. that is not something you want to see happen under the auspice of emergency lending. i would prefer that there was a lot more emphasis given to getting that small business lending, that main street facility up and running quickly. stuart: okay. do you think that we're heading for some kind of a financial disaster because of what the fed is doing? >> i think disaster is the wrong word. i think it is the wrong way to look at it. i think investors here, here

domestically and globally will perceive the u.s. markets of being less capable of allocating capital because they have been defacto nationalized. so i think that we have to bear in mind how the rest of the world, how investors perceive the u.s. stock market going forward, based on the fact we've always had the most free and unfettered market. you don't want to think of the national government aloe it canning -- allocating capital because investors are incapable of doing so. stuart: this is happening all over the world. the europeans are buying bond and equities. we're doing same thing in a backdoor way. china has been doing this i assume japan is doing this. this is worldwide move to suspend the normal rules of capital allocation. we're just part of it, aren't we? >> we're certainly part of it, you have to bear in mind the united states was the first, the

federal reserve was the first central bank to say we'll buy junk bonds. we've gone from being following other countries to taking the lead as the growth of federal reserve balance sheet takes off to the moon. we've long since surpassed what that maximum size has been. we're past $6 trillion. we'll keep on going again. we were the most conservative of all central banks for many years as was the bank of switzerland, as the bank of japan, swiss national bank as they went into riskier assets. now we're taking the lead. i think that should be distinguished. stuart: danielle dimartino booth, i would say you are a little nervous, a little worried about things going forward but we thank you for voicing your concerns on the air this morning. we appreciate it, danielle. >> thank you. stuart: see you soon. let's get back to the virus itself. susan do we have more new cases

in china? susan: wuhan, epicenter where coronavirus started, lifted all travel restrictions after 76 days in lockdown. some said, maybe that was too soon. the numbers last night kind of have people in doubt now because china actually reported its highest number of coronavirus cases in five weeks. so going back to early march. they reported 169 new cases of covid-19. they say 98 of these cases were imported. travelers coming back from overseas. this is identifies vigilance and probably needs to speak vigilance for us here in the u.s. as well. whether or not we need to keep the stay-at-home orders in place for much longer so we don't have a reemerge of coronavirus. compare that to the u.s. which has 560,000 cases and 22,000 number of deaths, related to covid-19 there are doubts whether or not china is actually reporting the real figures in

the country. stuart: yeah. those doubts have been well-voiced on this program and elsewhere. susan, thank you very much indeed. i want to bring in dr. marc siegel. welcome back to the program. good to see you again. >> hi, stuart. stuart: i have very specific questions as related to risk around risk groups. first of all, of all the cases that have been reported in america what is the hospitalization rate? >> you know, that's interesting because, that, that was clearly reported out of china as 15% and, what we're really questioning right now, and susan was getting into this, anything out of china accurate? did we get any accurate information about how virulent it was, how contagious it was, how deadly it was? we don't actually know, stuart, because we don't know how many people actually have this. i can't tell you the percentage that are hospitalized because we're still not testing enough

people to know who is asymptomatic and who has mild cases but i think about 25 to 50% of cases are either mild or no symptoms at all. i think probably around 15, 20% are hospital sized. 5% earned up in icus, a shade under that end up in ventilators. we used 1550 ventilators in new york state so far. 1550. we were told it would be 30,000. so far it is 1550. stuart: can you give me any accurate indication of the fatality rate? by that i mean, let's explain that, for everyone one people who get virus, how many die? i mean, put it crudely, that is the fatality rate. do you have a firm handle on it? >> unfortunately the same problem arises with this. how many people actually get it, around what percentage of them die. i will tell you this, if you're in a situation where the really good health care system where

you're getting top care, i'm positive that that number is 1% or less. i'm positive of that. that is what we saw in south korea where they took careful numbers. here, we still are underdiagnosing mild cases. so i want you to understand the math of that. if i'm saying 50% of the cases are undiagnosed it is going to look like the death rate is higher. why? because if somebody dies of this, you figure it out on a autopsy or figure it out before an autopsy. if they're in the hospital, they're in the icu, you diagnose them most of the time but people out in the community that are asymptomatic you can't figure out whether they have it or not. no way in a carefully-done medical situation this is much beyond 1%, the death rate. probably a bit lower than that. in south korea it is about .7%. stuart: dr. marc siegel. thanks very much for joining us again. we'll have you back real soon what those objective numbers, get a handle what the risk

really is. doctor, thank you very much indeed. i point your attention to the right-hand corner of the screen, we have a new low for the day for the market. we're off 500 points as we speak. that is just above a 2% decline. look at that level you're still above 23,200. way above the low which we reached 2 1/2 weeks ago which was 18,000. so bear that in mind, please. coming up next, some police departments have been using drones to break up gathererrings telling people looking from the air, we apologize for the inconvenience, but the park is closed. voices prothe sky. what does judge napolitano think about that? he will tell us. google and apple might use phones to track the virus anonymously. what is that all about? what does it mean? what does it tell us? we'll ask the judge as well.

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p. stuart: some interesting stories about reaction to the virus. check this out, we have a new york city lawyer who is offering legal help for free during the virus outbreak. here is the tweet he sent out. new york people, these are insane trying times, if you need any legal help trying to deal with the impact of the virus on your life and business. reach out. no charge. depending own how many people do i may not be able to help everyone who asks but i will help as many as i can. is he a liability lawyer? i don't know, i am just asking. firefighters in wisconsin forming a heart with their trucks a way to thank health care workers. you see it on the screen. the gas in wisconsin, average price, $1.30. y wisconsin, i don't know. anonymous donor paid $5,000 of

groceries for elderly and immunocompromised people. judge, andrew napolitano, judge, i want to ask but the drones. we have video following people from the sky, saying people, go home, this park is closed. i maybe can understand the need for that in the current circumstance, but i want to know, judge what happens, when the virus ends? will we look up to see who is looking down at us? >> good morning, stuart, that is a very legitimate fear. so there is two sides to this argument. the police would argue, with some rational basis, it is a lot more efficient for them to disperse people from the skies and safer for them to do so, then to send police officers into these gatherings that seem to be coming out in public parks. the constitutional argument is, when the government follows you, that is a search under the constitution and they need a

warrant to do it. can you imagine how un-american or how very unbritish it would be, how unwestern, how unfree, to have a device in the sky with a computerized voiced a mon niching you because it is claiming you are where you shouldn't be? everybody knows you need to stay six feet or more away from other human beings whether they're contaminated, you're contaminated or not but to have the government doing this from the sky is downright un-american and dangerous because as you -- it won't stop using this tool when the virus has passed. i think you're right. i think you're right. this is a new tool. i'm sure it will be used in the most unfortunate way. the next one i want to ask you about is google and apple. now they are teaming up to track people who have the virus, using your phone. you have to opt in to this. so is that kind of an out that

would make it okay in your opinion? you have to opt in? >> well opting in is the decision for you, i will use you as the example to make with your mobile device but if you come near me and i am contagious, i didn't opt in, i didn't give you or google or apple permission to reveal to you my medical condition which is protected by a host of federal privacy laws. this is extremely problematic, particularly so because whatever google and apple capture, whether it is opt-in or not, is available for the government. my prediction is, one of their competitors will make an app which will negate the google and apple app, that everybody have to opt in order for that thing to work. bottom line if they kept my medical condition electronically without my consent to pass it on

to you, they violate at least three federal privacy laws right there no matter the beneficial intent they may have and if they pass it on to the government, then we have a constitutional issue as well. stuart: you know, judge, there was a time, in the not-too-distant past where you and i dispay greed vigorously -- disagreed about surveillance, i'm coming more into your line of thinking, now that you see these drones, i can see you smiling there, i can see you, the drones, tracking of one's phones, the surveillance upon us all for a long time to come. that really troubles me. last word to you, judge. >> i think the police will argue when the crisis has passed. you see how well this worked? you see how efficiently we operated it? you see how we saved money and using drones and iphones rather than manpower.

what they won't say, is, see how we cut corners on the constitution? it will require a great upsurge of the demand for return of personal liberty to stop this, stuart. right now you and i are right. we're on the same page. stuart: judge, i'm going to reread 1984, george orwell and big brother. i think everybody should do that. >> indeed. stuart: napolitano, you're all right. see you again real soon. >> got it. stuart: check the market. we come back a little bit. we were down 500. now we're down 484. bottom line we're down 2%, pretty much across the board. yeah, except for the nasdaq, only down less than 1% actually. major league baseball considering real big changes in the season because of the virus of course. they want to create maybe two leagues, the grapefruit league around the cactus league. how about that? we'll break it down. joan layfield with the story for us.

he is next. (music)

stuart: all right, we are down considerably down, but then again, we are coming off of a terrific week last week. right now the dow is off 500 points. that is about 2.25%. now xfl, i believe there is major news breaking there.

tell me, lauren. lauren: yeah, they only played five games and now are we saying all right, i don't know. this is what we do know. they laid off virtually all the employees minus some of the executives. they suspended all of their operations and they say they have no plans to return in 2021. not sure if it continues after that. as you know the xfl is similar to the nfl, much faster playbook. basically to fill the void when you don't really have football after the super bowl. it is owned by wwe ceo vince mcmahon and alpha entertainment. we'll see if it comes back but suspended for now, stuart. stuart: got it, thanks very much. lauren. let's bri in john layfield. he is not not exactly connected to the xfl but certainly knows a lot about it. john, that announcement, no season now, not looking for a season, they're pretty much gone, aren't they? >> i think so, yeah. i think it is a matter of with

this covid-19 being prevailing everywhere no idea of live sports going forward until we have a vaccine. when you have a start-up league like that, fans are important part of the league. they had wonderful success, good tv ratings. because of the macro environment right now with the horrible virus they will suspend operations. i don't know if that that is indefinitely or not. stuart: what about major league baseball idea, realigning into two divisions, cactus league, grapefruit league, playing only in florida, what do you think about that? >> i think it is awesome. all major league baseball teams have spring training in arizona and florida. it is broken down evenly with the teams where they have the basic infrastructure for spring training. what baseball wants baseball to do go to the spring training facilities. in arizona the all the facilities are less than an hour drive apart. social distancing, no travel, no

fans in the stands. you would have baseball play a grapefruit league in florida, cactus league in florida, winners of each play world series sometime in november. you create great matchups. washington nationals, defending series champion, would be in the same league as the new york yankees who are the favorite as they acquired gerritt coal from the houston astros. you would have a designated hitter which would help offenses significantly. stuart: seems to me that major league sports of all kind are taking it on the chin. john layfield, thanks very much indeed. folks we have a big hour coming up for you. the democrats continue to hold up the small busy stance package. what does tennessee senator marsha blackburn think about that? she is on the show next. and best of all you can do it from start to finish without leaving the house.

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stuart: the news on the economy is uniformly bad. the media is filled with doom and gloom. the numbers on unemployment, on layoffs and hardship, just plain dreadful. we can see it, yes, we can feel it. the economy is flat on its back. now's the time to look to the other side, the time when the economy begins to get back on its feet. now, when will that happen? nobody's talking about a sudden complete return to normal, where everyone goes back to work or school on a specific day. obviously that is out of the question. the political battle now raging

is about which businesses, which industries and in which parts of the country can some people go back to work and when. should a clothing store which limits the number of customers allowed in reopen? or a dry cleaner's? hardware store? how about restaurants with plenty of room for outdoor seating? the summer is coming, you know. how about office workers, where they insist on face masks and social distance between desks? and as the lockdown stretches on, the pressure for a partial opening will be very strong. it is already. it is a battle between ongoing economic disaster and the public's natural desire to stay safe and avoid further contamination. the president wants america to start opening up soon, maybe next month. as he says, we don't want the cure to be worse than the virus itself. his harshest critics, especially those in the media, have already accused him of costing human lives by delaying a full scale

lockdown. whenever there is an opening up, the left will again accuse the president of putting lives in danger. but it is now with the economy at a dreadful low that the discussion of reopening has to begin. to avoid despair and economic collapse, the public needs hope, hope that there is some light at the end of the tunnel, hope that there will come a time in the not too distant future when we can get back to economic growth, work and yes, a paycheck. tomorrow, the president's top economic adviser larry kudlow, will join us. this is what we want to know. who can get back to work and when. now listen to the president over the weekend on his plans to reopen the economy. roll tape, please. >> we were doing things that this country had never done before in terms of our success and we will rebuild it again. we are going to rebuild it again in honor of all those who perished. we are working very hard with congress on stimulus and taking

care of our workers and taking care of people whose fault this was not, and we're doing very well but a lot of things are happening and i think the stimulus coupled with this pent-up demand and everybody wanting to get out and go back to work, i think we're going to have just a tremendous surge. i think it's going to be like a rocket ship. i really believe that. stuart: a tremendous surge, the president's words from him himself. our first guest, economist anthony chan, joins us now. i read your stuff, and you agree with the president there will be a surge. spell it out, please. >> i have no doubt that there will be a surge in economic activity, and the reason for that is there's a lot of pent-up demand. but you also have to remember that there is life at the other side because everything is happening a lot quicker. if you go back to the great depression, it basically took two years to basically reach an unemployment rate of 15.8%.

it's only going to take two months from the start of this virus. it took three years to get the unemployment rate up almost to 24%. we probably get there in just three months. it took four years basically to have a government solution to help with the unemployment situation when we had the new deal. this time it took congress and the president less than four weeks to get the solution. so i have no doubt that there's going to be life on the other side. but when does that occur? i'm leaving that to the medical experts. stuart: but you are talking about a v-shaped recovery. we've gone straight down, that's a fact, and you're talking about all this government money, all this money just flooding into the economy, producing a rebound. so is it a v or is it more of a curve, an l? how is this going to work? >> based on all the economic evidence that i have seen so far, i would say it's not going to be a u but it's going to be an elongated v that approaches a

u because i think in the second quarter, we dig a deep hole and we talked about this in the past, where i thought the unemployment rate go up and we would have a deep hole in the second quarter of as much as 20%. i know you flinched when i said that. but the serve in the unemployment claims tells me that deep hole in the second quarter could be 25% or even 30%. nonetheless, there is life on the other side. by the fourth quarter, you can define that as an elongated v or v itself, we will see positive economic growth, no doubt in my mind. stuart: okay. hold on a second. the president has just come in with a tweet and i'm going to read it for our audience. for the purpose of creating comfort and confusion, some in the fake news media are saying that it is the governors' decision to open up the states, not that of the president of the united states and the federal government. let it be fully understood that this is incorrect. it is the decision of the

president and for many good reasons. with that being said, the administration and i are working closely with the governors and this will continue. a decision by me in conjunction with the governors and input from others will be made shortly. anthony, i think the president is talking right there about getting the economy opened up again. what's your response to his tweet? >> i'm excited. i want to see the economy opening up again and i'm hopeful both the governors and the president will be working with our health care professionals so we can make the right decision and not have to regret it, and i think at all levels, everyone has the economy and the american people's best interest at heart. if we do that, we will see a beautiful life on the other side, stu. stuart: okay. we like positive thinking. you gave it to us. anthony chan, thank you very much. we appreciate it. before we move on, pay attention to bottom right-hand corner of the screen. the selloff continues, although

again, i caution remember, last week the dow was up 12%. best week in decades. you can expect something of a pullback and that's what we are getting. we are down 2% as -- 2.5% on the dow as we speak. i want to bring in edward lawrence. he's in our d.c. bureau. what's with this aid to small businesses and the package? it appears to be held up. what's happening? reporter: yeah, you know, we are starting to -- waiting to see when the big banks will really process through their loan applications. right now, they have the applications, they're just not processing through the loans as of yet. the community banks are really leading the process on this and boy, are they leading. if you look at these numbers, $217 billion, $215 billion has been processed through by the small community banks. we are talking about 880,000 loans, more than 4400 lending institutions have written those loans. now, this puts the program a little bit closer to running out of money and that's partly the issue.

if you do some math here, we had $50 billion processed through last monday. by friday, $160 billion processed. by next friday, there will be only a little bit of money left in the original $350 billion for this program going forward. that's where the logjam is. congress trying to work out a deal in order to get more money and get this funded again. one more aspect to tell you about today. the irs, according to senior treasury officials, started to direct deposit those stimulus checks to eligible americans. that happening now. the irs official telling me that they would like to see by wednesday, end of wednesday, $50 million to $60 million directly sent to americans. paper checks will start a week from today on april 20th. back to you. stuart: so the money arrives big-time this week and we might actually run out by the end of the week. i guess that's good news, actually. long as we can get some replacement money in there.

thank you very much. reporter: the demand is there. the demand is there. stuart: oh, yeah. the demand is there. that's for sure. thanks, edward. all right. now, susan, i know you've got news on jpmorgan. is this about mortgages? susan: and lending standards, actually, increasing because we know 17 million americans are now jobless and as a result, for those that are looking for these ultra-low interest loans, with mortgage rates down, they need some more in order to make sure they are lending to the people that can actually pay it back, since we learned from 2008 and the financial crisis. jpmorgan says new mortgage applications now need a credit score, you need a fico score of at least 700 which is in the good range. also you need a downpayment of at least 20% of the home's value. we know jpmorgan is the fourth largest mortgage lender in the country behind bank of america, wells fargo and the like but they want to make sure if they are lending out any money in these economic uncertain times, they want to make sure they are lending to the right people who

will be able to pay it back. we hope the unemployment rate doesn't get to those dire levels predicted of 20% or so, 25 million in the second quarter of this year. stuart: my goodness me, 20% unemployment would really hurt. we may be headed there. susan, thanks very much indeed. new low for the dow, by the way. bottom right-hand corner of the screen. now we are down 600 points, just over 2.5%. left-hand side of the screen, the price of oil, $23 a barrel, up a mere 24 cents, despite an opec oil deal and presidential tweet about it. give me all the details, lauren. lauren: you got it. okay. so this was a record amount of oil, 9.7 million barrels a day, being taken off the market. that's 13% of worldwide production. this is what the president tweeted earlier this morning. he said having been involved in the negotiations to put it mildly, the number that opec plus is looking to cut is 20 million barrels a day, not the 10 million that is generally

being reported. if anything near this happens and the world gets back to business from the covid-19 disaster, the energy industry will be strong again and he continues, you asked the energy secretary dan brouillette about that earlier, will the united states be able to maintain oil independence. listen. >> imagine if this pandemic had happened in 1973 or 1974, when we were wholly dependent upon nations for the importation of oil. the fact that we are able to produce the amount that we are able to produce today place the united states of america, place this president in a position of strength in order to bring this deal together. lauren: and the deal buys time, as i said earlier, because if we are not using it and we are still pumping it, we are running out of places to store the oil. let's hope we can get the economy back open when we can start using that oil and save in the process our energy producers. this buys some time.

stuart: thanks, lauren. i want to bring back anthony chan. let's talk about this depressed price of oil. look, it's good news for me as a driver. i'm buying $1.80 gasoline right now. that's dirt cheap. however, is $22, $23 a barrel oil real bad news for the overall economy? >> well, because we now are an oil exporting country, we actually make less money when the price of oil is very low and of course, the banks that have huge exposure to energy loans are also not going to do well if the price of oil is too low. the big question is, we take 10 or 15 or 20 million barrels off the market, is that going to be enough. right now, we have a short demand from the 100 million barrels or so a day. remember, the airlines themselves are using about eight to nine million barrels of oil per day and very few people are,

in fact, flying today. that's going to change when we open up. but during this time, when we are basically in lockdown, we are going to use less energy. look at india. 1.3 billion people are essentially sheltering in place. they're not using a lot of energy. look at china. yes, we are seeing the manufacturing sector is doing well but the service sector is still recovering very slowly. how do we know that? satellite photos are telling us the recovery is moderate. all these things tell us that there is a moderation of the demand for oil. when things get back to normal, we will go back to demanding 100 million barrels of oil' per day but right now the shortfall is real. that's why we need more than 10 million barrels taken off the market to push prices off the level that would be good for the american energy companies and shale companies. stuart: texas needs $40 a barrel oil, not $23. all right. anthony chan, thank you very much indeed. always appreciate it. thank you. we've got to check

individual stocks and look at the news behind the movement. first of all, disney. they are going to furlough 43,000 union workers but the employees will keep their health care and other benefits for up to 12 months. disney's stock is right there at $100 a share. it's actually down 3.7% as we speak. then there's amc theaters, movie people. they are in talks to hire bankruptcy lawyers because of the virus closures. that stock is down nearly 16%, $2 a share. and boeing, they are hiring investment banks to help analyze the government's $17 billion aid package, and potential funding from the private market. boeing is down 2.9%. boeing is at $147. then we have quibi. the ceo is meg whitman. she's on the show this hour. she is here to explain what makes her streaming service, quibi is a streaming service, different from all the others.

she's a big name and launched at a very opportune time. first, though, a new report says china is deleting online research about the origins of the virus. senator marsha blackburn wants to crack down on china. she's next. 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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you know, i don't know where the missteps went. the only thing i know, what theethe e end result was, that early on we did not get correct information and the incorrect information was propagated right from the beginning because when the first cases came out that were identified, i think on december 31st, in china, and we became aware of this, they said this was just animal-to-human, period. now we know retrospeculatively

there was ongoing transmission from human to human in china. stuart: that's dr. fauci on the transmission of the illness, the condition, i should say, right from the get-go in china. we have a report from the guardian, a british newspaper, coming out today that says china is deleting reports about the origins of the virus. okay. that's what they're saying. there's the headline. china clamping down on coronavirus research deleted pages suggest they're not telling the truth is basically it. senator marsha blackburn, republican from tennessee, joins us now. senator, you've said you want to hold china accountable. what exactly are you going to do? >> there are several things that we need to do to hold china accountable for this, because china knew they had this, they hid it, they were not transparent, they didn't want to share the information or the viral sample for research once

we found out they did have it. so the first step is to pass a resoluti resolution, senate resolution that says china did all of these things and they need to be held responsible. the second thing that we can do is ask china to waive the debt, they own a lot of our debt, over a trillion dollars and look at what they have cost not only the united states, but other nations. you're talking about 180 countries that have coronavirus, covid-19, in their countries. the third thing is to bring our pharmaceutical manufacturing and other supply chain manufacturing components back to the united states. stuart: can i just interrupt about the debt they hold. that's accurate, they do hold about $1 trillion worth or more of our debt. they bought that debt. what are we going to do about

that? are you saying they should just not pay it back or we should -- how does that work? when you want to do something about the trillion dollars worth of debt that they hold, what exactly do you want to do with it? >> one of the things we could do is just have them waive that debt but we know there are going to be a lot of recommendations that are going to come forward with how we deal with china now, how we deal with china in the future, and stuart, i will also say there are questions about how we fund the world health organization and also the u.n. that have arisen out of this. why should china, in the middle of all of this, be given a seat on the human rights council at the u.n.? why would the world health organization, after all the funding we do for these organizations, why haven't they helped cover us and praised china for being transparent in this process when the activists,

the chinese activists, the individuals we have talked to in china, are telling us china knew for 51 days, 51 days, that they had an outbreak on their hands, and if they had accepted help from us and others, that this could have been contained right there in wuhan where it started. stuart: senator, i want to extend from our viewers to you and the people of tennessee our condolences on the tornadoes which have hit your state, and i can't imagine a worse situation of being hit by the virus, first of all, then tornadoes. how are you doing there? >> well, i think they're doing fine. i was just talking with congressman chuck fleischmann on the phone about what is happening there on the ground. he is out with emergency responders right now. and we were discussing the needs and the way to handle this in

the middle of this pandemic also, and as you remember, the president recently visited in early march, he visited tennessee because of putnam county and the incredible hit that they took. so what we are doing is beginning those assessments and it is heartbreaking to me. every life that is lost from the tornadoes, the livelihoods from the tornadoes and the pandemic and the loss of life from the pandemic, it is a time that is challenging to us but we know that through our faith, it helps to make us strong to be resilient and to look forward to a time of recovery. stuart: senator, i want you to know that our thoughts and those of all of our viewers are very much with you. a very tough situation there in tennessee. marsha blackburn, thank you for being with us. thank you very much.

>> thank you. stuart: okay, everyone. pay attention to that bottom right-hand corner of the screen. we have come back a bit. we were down 500, 600, now we are down 493. we have settled into about a 2% loss. left-hand side of the screen, there is president trump in better days holding those rallies. susan, come in, please, because you've got news about or from the trump re-election campaign. susan: they are putting up some strong fund-raising numbers, raising $212 million in the first quarter of this year, 2020, so increasing 36% from the last three months of 2019 and for the month of february, it looks like the trump campaign and the rnc raised $86 million in the month of february. compare that to biden who raised around $43 million or so and combined, the rnc, republican national committee along with the trump campaign, raising combined $677 million since 2017. stuart: that is a lot of money.

$212 million. my goodness me. thanks, susan. big numbers indeed. take a look at amazon. last time we checked, the stock was way up in an otherwise down market. yeah, look, $87 higher. 4.25%. why? look, they are adding 75,000 jobs, they are increasing hourly wages by $2 per hour. the stock is at $2,130. they are having a hard time coping with all the demand for their services. the virus, well, that's shut gyms nationwide. fitness apps are reaping the benefits, we are told. a live report on keeping fit at home coming up for you. the new streaming service quibi is on the market and the ceo meg whitman joins us next. ♪ it's a new day for veterans all across america.

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stuart: i want to bring in su n susan, who has news about the new streaming service, quibi. when you've given us the news, please introduce the ceo meg whitman for us. susan: absolutely. we know quibi is debuting last week, short form videos of ten minutes or less, and in this covid outbreak, they are doing very well. announcing this morning 1.7 million downloads, exceeding their own expectations and the

markets and represents one of the strongest debuts for any brand new app in recent memory. let's bring in ceo meg whitman, who joins us for more. meg, from what i understand, jennifer lopez is the most popular on the platform in the first week but you are giving it away for free for 90 days. i'm wondering how many customers will stick with you when they have to start paying. >> well, first of all, thanks for having me. delighted to be here. we are really pleased by our launch. you're right, jennifer lopez is in one of the most popular shows, although we have others, liam hemsworth in the most dangerous games and lebron james but when covid hit, we originally thought we would have a two-week free trial. then we said given the economic circumstances, let's do 90 days for people. it will give them a long time to not have to pay for the service, then in three months, we will know about, in the industry they call it roll to pay, how many people decide to stay with us. it's impossible to know at this point. what we also know is if you sign

up by the end of april, that's when you get your 90-day free trial. if you sign up in may, you will obviously get back to normal two-week free trial. susan: you said before you don't want to compete with hulu or netflix or even disney. disney announcing last week they have 50 million paying subscribers. they are spending a lot on content as the rest of the players are. i'm wondering from your perspective, do you feel you need to spend more, just from what i understand, you are spending $100,000 a minute up to $6 million per show. >> yeah. right now, we feel great about the lineup of content we have. remember, all content is new, made for quibi because it has to be made to look great on your mobile phone, whether you are watching in portrait, vertically or in landscape, what they call landscape, which is horizontal. so it's all fresh content and we have about three hours of fresh content every day. it's made for mobile so it's completely different. we feel great. we have enough content to last us now through november and this

is important, because all of hollywood is shut down like the rest of the country, and we will see how our users consume and if we continue on this path of downloads, we certainly can afford more, if we think it's the right thing to do. stuart: meg, can i just jump into this for a second. stuart varney here from somewhere in new jersey. i think you've got my number, meg. i think you realize that most people, certainly myself, have a very short attention span these days. is that why you made the videos ten minutes or less? >> yes, that's exactly why. you know an analogy in another medium i think you will appreciate is the davinci code. remember dan browns novel? what you probably don't remember from the novel is it's 464 pages and 105 chapters. every chapter is five pages long because he said my readers don't have 45 minutes to read anymore and they never want to stop in the middle of a chapter.

he said if you've got five minutes, read one chapter. if you have ten minutes, read two. that was the inspiration for making content in these short, under ten minute chapters. i think that's in some ways, that novelty and that way to view content that fits our lifestyle is the reason that we were the number one app in entertainment in the google play store and number two app in the apple app store in the entertainment category only behind tik tok because it fits people's lives even when we are all quarantined at home. stuart: you know, i'm really hurting myself here because this is a three-hour show and we do hope that our viewers, you included, have the time and attention span to stay with us. i do have to ask, i have not seen quibi, i should have, i have not seen it, do you have ads on it? >> we do. we have two choices for consumers. $4.99 a month with ads sha, $7. month without ads. we think in the end about 75% of the people will pick the one with ads because it's a little

cheaper and the ads are 15 second prerolled in front of every piece of content we call quibis and we have ten of the greatest brands have decided to launch with us. they make ads very differently. they make it with our patented turnstile which is full screen video, portrait to landscape. yeah, there's an advertising business that's an important part of our revenue stream. susan: i know you raised a lot of money, $1 billion so far, and closed another half a billion dollars earlier this year. i'm wondering if you feel you need to raise more cash to go up against the giants. >> i think right now, we feel really good about where we are. we are doing something so different than a big streaming service. we've got three kinds of content on our app, movies in chapters, unscripted and documentary series, like the "i promise" documentary and daily essentials which is news and sports and e-gaming news and celebrity news, all in six minutes, delivered for a millenial

audience. right now, we feel great about our path to profitability. we feel great about our economic model and we don't actually anticipate needing to raise any more money depending on obviously how things go. but we are feeling pretty good about where we are. as i said, if the downloads continue at this rate, we will have opportunities to raise more money if we think we need to. but we are very focused. jeffrey and i have been in business for a long time. ultimately revenues need to be more than cost and we are very focused on making that happen in the near term. stuart: you are off to a very good start. attention span notwithstanding. meg whitman, ceo of quibi, thank you very much for joining us. we appreciate it. thanks very much. >> thank you. take care. be safe. stuart: i shall. check that market, please. we are down 470 points. that's just about 2%. s&p is down 1.7%. but only a small loss from the nasdaq. that's down about .7%.

i want to bring in another market watcher, david nicholas. he manages people's money, tells them what to do. here's my question. we are at 23,234 as we speak on the dow industrials. do you think that we are going to go back to the 18,000 level that was the low on the dow over the past 12 months, i guess? are we going to go back to that low, 18,000, on the dow? >> stuart, i hope not, but we should be expecting that we probably will. i don't think it will be in the short term because the reality is markets are pricing in perfection. so i will say that the market does not believe there will be a second wave of infection in the fall and it also doesn't believe there will be [ inaudible ]. if there is a second wave of this, which i don't want to think about in the fall, if we start to see defaults in the energy sector across the broader market, that's a scenario we will retest the lows, easily.

stuart: oh, dear. we will certainly watch out for that. i'm sorry this is so short but i've got a ton of news coming at me today. david nicholas, thanks for joining us albeit briefly. we appreciate it. thank you. you better check those cruise lines. i've got a surprise for you. more people are booking cruises for next year, 2021, despite the virus of 2020. we've got the full story for you after this. hey, can i... hold on one second... sure. okay... okay! safe drivers save 40%!!! guys! guys! check it out. safe drivers save 40%!!! safe drivers save 40%! safe drivers save 40%!!! that's safe drivers save 40%. it is, that's safe drivers save 40%. - he's right there. - it's him! he's here.

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trust aag for the best reverse mortgage solutions. so you can... retire better. under these circumstances, you just never know. i never would have considered it prior to a month ago but now things are changing rapidly and dramatically. i'm just keeping the door open. this is not something we've seen before. this is obviously a unique set of circumstances and so i'm just not going to say no. you just don't know what could happen between now and november. stuart: that's for sure. lauren, come into this, please. from that sound bite there, it sounded like mark cuban is actually eyeing, as they say, a

2020 run. what do you make of it? lauren: anything could happen between now and november. that's seven months away. okay. what would he run as, republican, democrat or independent? likely the latter, as he told neil cavuto earlier in the year when asked that same question, but he also said at the time his family said no, we don't want you to run for president. it seems like he might be changing his mind. as we know with the coronavirus, stuart, anything can happen and maybe we have a new name to consider when we decide who we are going to vote for in november. stuart: well, a third party, like an independent run using perhaps some of his own money, because he's got a lot of money, that would be very interesting. lauren: a billionaire. stuart: extremely bad news for joe biden but that's just me. okay. i want to put up on the left-hand side of the screen the cruise lines and their stocks. i think, yeah, they are all down. it's been a terrible time for the cruise industry. however, there is this new

report that says in 2021, the bookings for 2021 are up 40% compared to the bookings for 2019. we have with us bob levenstein, the ceo of cruise compete and that is a cruise booking company. bob, these are your numbers. are these bookings through you that are up 40%, or are these bookings overall for all cruise lines up 40%? >> well, these are bookings through us. actually, that number is a little bit convoluted. it was supposed to represent the percentage of bookings for the next year rather than the absolute number of bookings. so that's on us. little bit of bad communication between us and a newspaper there. but bookings actually have been pretty strong for next year, especially on our site. i don't know if you are familiar with cruise compete, but consumers request a cruise, we have 500 different travel agencies compete to offer the

best deal. so we tend to work with more experienced cruisers, people who have been on a lot of ships and have a lot more confidence in booking. stuart: i take it prices are vastly reduced. they have to be, to get over this bad p.r. that the cruise lines have gotten. how much of a price cut could i expect if i were to book a cruise for next year? >> let me give you some examples. msc cruises right now is offering prices for $600 per person but they are including all your drinks, your wifi, another $100 to spend on board. we've got princess going to alaska next year for as low as $569 a person. if you want to spend $700 they will give you all your drinks, free internet, all gratuitiies. but that may change.

we had people who had cruises planned for this year, where the cruise was canceled and instead of taking the refund, they took a future cruise credit that was higher than the amount they spent. we will see a lot of demand very so soon. we will see a lot of demand for these sailings next year and i expect prices to go back up. stuart: now, you said you could see cruises for $500, $600, $700. is that with drinks and wifi and all the rest of it, is that for a week? >> that's for an entire week. yes. remember, your cruise already included all your food, most of your entertainment and you know, of course, your cabin. they are throwing in, yes, all the drinks, they are throwing in all these extras. it's really a deal. stuart: so i guess that the people who are booking these cruises are not concerned about the virus and being kind of locked up on a ship with the potential -- i mean, they're not

concerned, that's what i'm getting at here. >> i mean, look, you are talking about people who have seen a lot in the cruise business and cruise industry, and they expect this to be short-lived. the other thing, though, that the cruise lines are doing is they are being very very friendly on their cancellation policy. so honestly, you can book these cruises now, you can have it in the can, have it ready to go, and if things change, if things do not work out the way we want it to, you can simply get your money back. so there's really no downside to booking now. stuart: okay. you're right in the middle of it and we appreciate you coming on the show. i was really surprised to hear those numbers but we will go -- >> sorry about that. stuart: thanks for joining us. >> thank you. have a great day. stuart: see you again real soon. now, then, lot of people locked down, staying at home, are trying to work out at home. i think a lot of people are doing this. kristina partsinevelos has more

on stay-at-home workouts. what do you have? kristina: yeah, i'm not going to demonstrate or anything like that but it does add an added weight to a lot of those gym owners. how are they going to survive if our habits change? i spoke with several companies including planet fitness. we know they have gyms all across the country. they are publicly traded. we know the stock is trending down over 3% today. they told me they have furloughed their staff, cut executive and senior pay. howev however, cowan believes the stock will do well because the stock is quite lean and once they reopen, you will see revenues flow in. not necessarily the case for equinox. they told me they haven't been paying rent all across the country right now. they too have furloughed staff but what planet fitness and equinox are both doing is launching these virtual livestreaming online classes. that's the big question for these big organizations. should they be charging for

these classes against a backdrop of live content. i spoke to one ceo of an app that's well-established, plank, and he said business is booming. listen in. >> we were already growing going into this. like i was saying, just the shifting landscape in the fitness industry in general. but what's really happened is, you know, big brands like cal sports international who we partnered with with 550,000 members, we are able to offer a digital platform to them now to help them hedge what's going on with their doors having to be closed. kristina: so this is something gyms will have to think of in the near future. virtual online classes could become the new reality once the lockdown is over. back to you. stuart: once the lockdown is over. how many times have we said that. thank you very much indeed. in a moment, we are going to talk to someone from u-haul. actually, he's coming up next. i want to know, look, if i pack up a truck and head from new jersey, where i live, to florida, is somebody going to

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stuart: we have the u-haul vice president, he is also a board member, joining us now. stuart, good name, welcome to the program. good to see you, sir.

>> good to see you, too. good morning from one stu to another. i don't get to do that very often. stuart: that's true. it's spelled the right way as well. correct. now, what happens, i live in new jersey, what happens if i get a u-haul, load it up and drive down to florida to get away from it all? do i get stopped at the state line? >> i can emphatically tell you no, you do not. you have a perfectly normal trip and you will probably end it with a good experience with u-haul hopefully. stuart: are you seeing a lot of that happen, like northeasterners heading down to florida? >> you know, it's a little too early to tell. by the time i see the numbers, they are pretty averaged in with a lot of other things. in general, yeah, moving is a need-based business and people, you know, nobody moves for fun but people move, when they do need to move, it's because they absolutely feel they need to.

so i'm sure we are getting some amount of traffic like you are describing. stuart: stuart, i do want to leave time for this. you are offering free storage to college students displaced by the virus. tell me how that works, please. >> it's pretty simple. u-haul does this any time there's any kind of disaster, whether it's local or in this unprecedented case, you know, nationwide, but the mechanics of it are if you are a college student and you have been displaced or otherwise affected by the coronavirus situation, all you've got to do is basically show someone on our team that you are a college student and you are going to get 30 days of free storage at any of our facilities that have, you know, open availability. so it's a pretty simple, straightforward deal. it is exactly as it sounds and there's no hoops to jump through, and it's because you need us and we are trying to do the right thing and respond. stuart: stuart shoen, you are a good man.

that's a good thing that you are doing right there because lots of college students really need that service. stuart shoen, u-haul. thanks for joining us. we appreciate it. >> thank you, stu. stuart: there will be more "varney & company" after this. . . .

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stuart: wish i could hear more of that, it is a stunning performance from andrea bocelli in milan. thank you, for getting us through the three hours. neil, it's yours. neil: thank you, my friend, very, very much. we are following a few developments that you are, stuart, latest warnings from the world health organization urging countries considering demitigate ssing go slowly, keep the public health in mind. the number of cases have ballooned to 558,000 plus in the united states. of course, the rise in deaths as well. some developments out of new york where we had a surprising jump in cases and or related deaths. but the fact of the matter is certainly the trend remains the trend in the big apple and new york state, well off highs. now the rule of thumb on this, folks, you got to keep this