maria: all right. it was a great show today. jam-packed. we will bring you the saudi oil minister later. sorry, we had technical difficulties there. have a great day. see you tomorrow. "varney & company" begins right now. stu, take it away. stuart: good morning, maria. great show there. good morning, everyone. all right. the debate is on. the president is forming an opening our country task force. they prefer to call it a council of advisers but that's what it is, a council of advisers. state governors, they formed regional groups looking at exactly the same thing and that is opening up the economy and getting back to work. now, there's a new tone to the debate. it's upbeat, it's positive. the media, of course, is mired

in negatives, nothing changes there. the latest negative being this fight over control. the president or the governors. that is a distraction from the main event, getting back to work is now job one. later on the program today, larry kudlow, the president's chief economic adviser, joins us. he's on the task force. we will ask when, where and who gets back to work. that's coming up. to the get back to work debate, it largely excludes democrat politicians, shown side by side bernie sanders has endorsed joe biden. but all they can agree on is contempt for the president and some bernie supporters are saying now they will not vote for joe biden. the democrats are split. what are they contributing to the get back to work debate? in my opinion, not much. the market, however, they appear to like the idea of opening up the economy. investors looking to the other side. the dow this morning is going to

be up about 400 at the opening bell. that's a gain of, what, 1.75%. a similar gain for the s&p and a 2% gain looking likely for the nasdaq. that's at the opening bell. now, at the president's daily virus briefing yesterday, the media desperately insisted that the president had delayed locking down orders and therefore, cost lives. in response, he offered a timeline showing exactly what he had done and when he had done it. he brought the facts to the table. the reporters just brought their contempt for the president. listen to mr. trump talk about opening the economy. watch this. >> we are very close to completing a plan to open our country. hopefully even ahead of schedule. that's so important. we will soon finalize new and very important guidelines to give governors the information they need to start safely opening their states. my administration's plan and corresponding guidelines will

give the american people the confidence they need to begin returning to normal life. stuart: state governors, they are forming groups, regional groups, to discuss when and how to reopen the economy but the president says he will make that decision soon. come in, susan. good morning to you. which governors are grouping up? susan: first we have the northeast governors, so there's six of them right now. massachusetts joined in later, so new york, new jersey, connecticut, pennsylvania, delaware, rhode island, yesterday holding a press conference saying they are going to announce a public health official and economic official and also respective chiefs of staff and that's because they want to coordinate, have a coordinated reopening so that one state i guess policies doesn't affect the other ones and there isn't a re-flareup of the virus once again. again, this is about who actually has control to relaunch, reopen the states in this particular region. they say they do but the federal government has really taken the

hands-off approach until the task force meeting yesterday, wouldn't you say? stuart: i would agree with that. yes. let's see how that transpires. we have the white house, they are expected to launch this task force, i think they would prefer to call it council advisers or advisory group, they are expected to launch that today. hillary vaughn is with us. again, that announcement could come today. what do we know about it? reporter: that's right, stuart. the president did receive a list of 100 business executives that could be included in this advisory group that is going to be headed up by the president himself, also chief of staff mark meadows is going to play a supporting role in this group that's going to be advising the president through meetings and through advice of how to get america back to work. it's also going to include secretary of treasury steven mnuchin, secretary of commerce wilbur ross, secretary of labor gene scalia and u.s. trade representative robert lighthizer as well as larry kudlow and a few others. this group really is advising

the president on what steps need to be taken to open up the economy again but as susan noted, there already is other groups being formed through governors around the country, looking at their options of how to get their local economies back to work, and we are seeing now that there is a little bit of tension between what the president may want to see and what governors may actually do in their own states. stuart? stuart: hillary, i hear you, but the main point is the debate is on, getting back to work is the debate discussion. that's what's happening right now. by the way, again, i will be speaking with larry kudlow around 11:10 eastern time this morning. that's on the program and it is today. reopening the economy. i think that maybe is the key to the stk markock market's rally. ed yardeni, you have been watching the markets almost as long as i have, and i think that this current rally to the 23,700 level is the result of this

discussion, getting back to work, lifting the restrictions. what do you say? >> absolutely. the market has been amazingly intense bear market and now it seems to be recovering already. i think we actually have hit the low on march 23rd and i think it's that combination of all the money that's been thrown at the financial system by the fed and by the treasury, at least on the financial front of this war against the virus, things seem to be improving, then there's the economic front. you think about it as a three-front war, and the financial trends have sort of been dealt with by i call it b-52 carpet bombing at the economy. the economy itself is very important to the stock market. we are going to get some terrible earnings news up ahead here, and to the extent the market starts to discount a recovery by the summer, that

will be a positive for the market. then i think the other thing that's helping is we are starting to show some data that the number of cases, the number of deaths are slowing which is very very important. because you can't win the other fronts unless the health care front improves. stuart: one quick point, ed. we've got jpmorgan this morning warning of a fairly severe recession right about now. in other words, we are almost in the depths of it. what do you make of that? >> they're right. it's kind of baked in the cake. we are going to see second and third quarter real gdp down substantially. it's almost going to feel like a depression within two quarters, but that's the bad news and we are going to get some shockingly bad economic indicators up ahead here, but they're not going to be surprisingly bad. we have already had some shockers in initial unemployment claims, for example, and the market took it in stride because the market's looking ahead and the market's looking forward to

a recovery. stuart: all right. ed, thanks very much for joining us this morning. we always appreciate it. we will see you again real soon. we are looking to the other side like everybody else. now, some of the big banks, they are going to be reporting their earnings this week. i should tell you that the banks, community banks, big banks, all of them, are starting to push that money out. people are beginning to get that money in the small business loan applications. ed lawrence is with us. ed, i think, however, so much money is being pushed out, they could run out of money by the end of the week? reporter: yeah. they are in danger of running out of money at the end of the week. let's talk about two sets of money going out. you have small business loans but also, direct payments to americans. now we are in another day where the irs is putting those direct deposits directly into americans' bank accounts. a senior treasury official telling me that by the end of tomorrow, they want to have $50 million to $60 million from the treasury pushed out directly to americans. we are talking about for a

family of one, say, parents and a kid making $140,000 a year combined, that's a stimulus of $2900. on those small business loans, it's been wildly popular among small businesses, the payroll protection program. in fact, take a look at the latest numbers coming into today. looking at $240 billion has been processed through this loan, through the small business administration, and those forgivable loans, with over $1 million -- one million loans written. that's one million small businesses that have come looking for help related to this. so the program is expanding in terms of the numbers of people being involved and also, the banks, the number of lenders, are expanding. the small business administration opened it up to fintech firms. for example, lendio over the weekend said they did 2500 loans for a tune of $500 million so you have expansion there. but yes, wildly popular and it looks like if this trend continues, we could possibly be

out of money with the payroll protection program by friday or at least into the weekend, very close to being out of money by friday because some of the big banks have started to process but they really haven't in bulk put their loans through. stu? stuart: okay. thanks very much indeed. it seems like the speed at which the money is getting out there is truly remarkable. ashley, good morning to you. come in, please. the money's already hitting people's bank accounts, i think. ashley: yeah. that's absolutely right. good morning to you. 80 million americans are expected to get that check, actually it's going to go into their bank accounts via direct deposit, this week. 80 million americans. in fact, the majority of americans say the treasury department eligible americans will be receiving the payment within the next two weeks. to be eligible you have already had to have filed your 2019 or 2018 tax returns and you also must authorize a direct deposit. if you haven't done any of

those, it's going to be a little longer before you receive a payment. but 80 million americans this week will get that money into their bank accounts via direct deposit. stuart: one more thing, ashley. have you got -- have we got some sign of light out of youeurope? ashley: we do. out of spain. spain, one of the hardest hit countries in europe. they are now reopening their construction and manufacturing industries, although bars and restaurants, et cetera, and schools remain closed. but a little bit of light there. austria has reopened thousands of stores, even though it says it's not out of the woods yet, but the number of deaths and cases in austria is quite a bit lower than other countries. they acted very quickly and early. then in denmark, they will reopen the schools, kindergarten through grade school tomorrow. so just little, you know, little sliver of light there that things are starting to turn around in europe. stuart: interesting. ashley, thank you very much

indeed. look at your screens, ladies and gentlemen. bottom right-hand corner. we've got a rally at the opening bell this morning, up maybe 400 for the dow, 46, 47 for the s&p and a big gain for the nasdaq, looking at a 2% move to the upside. again, on the show this morning, in our 11:00 hour, white house economic adviser larry kudlow joins us. i want to know when are we talking about reopening the economy and what's the progress on this second virus task force or advisory group, as they want it to be called. that's in the 11:00 hour this morning. planet fitness, they had to close their gym doors but that's not stopped them from keeping people moving. they are now streaming workouts online. i believe it's for free, too. we have the ceo on the show in the next hour. also, i want to point out, i want to see what senator john barrasso makes of elizabeth warren's bill of rights plan. she's calling for higher wages and universal sick pay for essential workers. more after this. (music)

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i will do all that i can to see that that happens, joe. >> people are going to be surprised that we are apart on some issues, but we're awfully close on a whole bunch of others. i'm going to need you, not just to win the campaign but to govern. stuart: all right. you heard it right therement be. bernie sanders endorsing joe biden for president. come in, ashley. my question is, will bernie's supporters vote for joe biden? ashley: that's a very good question. it's certainly unusual. it wasn't a mere formality that bernie would endorse joe biden. i can tell you that they have decided to appoint six, count

them, six task force to find ways to bridge the gap between the moderate biden camp and the more progressive bernie bros and bernie sisters. don't forget, back in 2016, an estimated 10% of bernie supporters didn't like hillary and voted for donald trump. it's unclear what will happen this time around but certainly, joe biden does not tick many boxes for the pure bernie sanders camp and doing that and finding a way to bring them in under the tent is going to be very difficult. stuart: i don't think joe biden's that moderate but that's just my comment there. let's move on. senator elizabeth warren has unveiled a bill of rights for essential workers. wyoming senator john barrasso joins us now. senator, senator warren wants special extra pay for vital workers and unlimited sick pay for vital workers. is that going to get in the way of this second relief bill?

>> well, elizabeth warren is trying to hold hostage at gunpoint american workers' paychecks and what she's wanting to do it for, you look at that list of ten things she's demanding, it really is the ten commandments of the liberal left. it's a continuation of her failed presidential campaign. this at a time when the fund is running out of the money that can be sent to small businesses all around the country. here in wyoming, workers, farmers, ranchers, small businesses, so we can keep people getting paychecks. it's worked so far for 15 million americans who continue to get paychecks, about a million of these loans have gone out, it's been very successful but by the end of the week, we are going to be out of money so we won't be able to do more of this opportunity to keep those paychecks going and elizabeth warren is standing in the way. stuart: but senator, here's the problem. the house doesn't get back to work in d.c. until may 4th.

what is that, three weeks away, at least? three weeks with no action from the house? how are you going to get a second stimulus rescue package, call it what you will, how do you get that second package through if they're not back until may 4th? >> that's why we're saying let's work on the parts that are running out of money, and right now that's the program for workers to continue to get their paychecks, the paycheck protection program which has been widely successful. we put in $350 billion to start. we now find we need to get another $250 billion. other things that some people are talking about in terms of hospitals, communities, states, are important but they haven't run out of money yet. some of that money hasn't even gone out. just this week alone we will see 80 million people getting direct deposits into their own account, these $1200 for every american, the adults, $500 for young

people. all of those things are just going out this week. we want to get america back to work and the sooner we can get america back to work, the less that additional government aid will be necessary long term. so my goal is to get the country open again, get the economy moving again, but for the program that is running out of money this week, which is the paycheck protection program for people to get -- who work for small businesses, and you know about 7 out of 10 americans work for small businesses, if you are somebody who works for a small business, you need your paycheck. if that business wants to keep you and wants to be able to open for business when america opens up again, we need this program. it's a simple one-page bill to raise the number from $350 billion to $600 billion. that's what the democrats, elizabeth warren, nancy pelosi, are blocking. stuart: senator, always a pleasure. thank you very much for joining us, sir. we appreciate it. thank you.

some people in michigan are really angry over new stay-at-home restrictions in that state. judge napolitano is with us. judge, i notice that in michigan, the governor has told walmart r walmart, target and costco don't sell non-essential items. costco, target, walmart, private enterprise being told what you can sell and what you can't sell. what's the legal authority here? >> there's no -- good morning, stuart. there's no legal authority for this whatsoever. you and i talked yesterday about the slow motion loss of civil libertie liberties. almost as if she had been watching your show, the governor of michigan issued this bizarre so-called executive order yesterday in which she actually named some of the non-essential items. first on her list is garden hoses. how in heaven and earth can the purchase of a garden hose possibly impair public health?

it's april in america. this is what people buy and use, garden hoses. the people of michigan are rightly up at arms. there is no constitutional authority for governor whitmer to do this and there is no legal authority under michigan law for her to do this and i encourage walmart and costco and home depot and lowe's, all those big box stores, to tell the governor to take a hike and sell what people want to buy. stuart: all right, judge. i see we got to you this morning, didn't we. i'm sorry it's so short but that was real good, judge. we appreciate it. see you soon. thank you very much indeed. next one, zoom introducing more controls for users after admitting some video calls were mistakenly routed through china. we have the story for you. when this market opens we will go to the upside. we are looking at a gain of about 400 points for the dow industrials. we are pretty close. we will be pretty close to 24,000 again. we'll be right back.

i think we're going to zoom. i think it's going to go quickly. our people want to get back to work and i think there's a pent-up demand like there hasn't been in a long time. the stock market is at this

tremendously high number. not that much, you know, it's looking a little bleak for awhile but it hit a certain point, then started going up. i think that's a great tribute to the fact that there's a demand. stuart: you heard it right there from the president. he's expecting a boom in the economy and i think, i'm going to interpret that as the market's going to go up a bit more, too. mike murphy, market watcher, joins us now. what do you say? is the president there predicting a boom for the economy, the market, i should say, and do you agree with him? >> good morning, stuart. i couldn't have said it any better myself. i think what the president is telling you is when we get past the concerns of the coronavirus, which looks like we're levelling off, to say the least, or looking at how this ends, when you get past that, you have an economy that was booming that now has so much stimulus, the largest stimulus package ever thrown on top of it, i think there's a lot of upside and i agree completely with president trump. stuart: okay. now i am just going to ask everybody to hold on for a

moment as we walk up to the opening bell on wall street. i've got a shout-out for one of my granddaughters. abigail is 12 years old today. i think we've fwgot a picture o her and her mother, that would be my daughter, jill. there you have it. abigail on the right-hand side, of course, is 12 today. she's already a little bit taller than jill. happy birthday, abigail. this is a big day for you. you've got a wonderful future ahead and here you are, on global television. you will take that, won't you? happy birthday. all right. we've got 45 seconds to go and this market opens this tuesday morning. i'll tell you now, we've got a rally right from the get-go. i'm looking at green pretty much across the board, certainly for the dow and certainly for the nasdaq and s&p. i'm looking at banks premarket, some of them have just come out with their earnings. all of them on the upside. big tech, premarket, this is premarket, but all of them again on the upside. when you start talking percentage gains, like apple up

2.5%, you know you have a rally on your hands. look at microsoft, close to $170. here we go. microsoft close to $170. apple is at $280 and going up. the bells are ringing and they are going to start trading in literally five seconds. i don't know how this market's going to close but i will tell you now, it just opened and it opened with a gain. here's the numbers. right from the start, we are up 462 as i see it right there. 450. we will certainly take that. for our radio listeners, and there are some people driving around in cars listening on the radio, every single one of the dow 30 stocks are in the green. that means they are up. the dow at the moment is up now 400 points, 1.7%. as for the s&p 500, that too nicely on the upside. that's a gain of 1.7%. pretty much the same as the dow. the nasdaq, watch this carefully, if the nasdaq gains 40 points today, i believe it

just gained those 40 points and then some, it's come out of bear market territory. right from the start, nasdaq up 1.8%. 152 points. you are back to 8,345. this is a rally this morning. johnson & johnson on your screens right now, its profit is up. they made a lot of money selling consumer products. the stock is up 3.4%. amazon, what a stock, what a company. that's an all-time high. $2,194, up $25 today, up 1.1%. okay. we've got some big gainers right from the start this tuesday morning. breaking news from the imf. not sure what it is. edward lawrence has it. what are they saying? reporter: from the g-7 actually, treasury secretary steven mnuchin met virtually with the leaders from the g-7 finance ministers as well as central bank governors, the central bank governor for the united states, jay powell, the fed chairman was also on that call, and the group

of them decided that they are going to tackle this coronavirus and protect the economy globally. they said that the ministers reiterated their pledge to do whatever's necessary to protect jobs, protect the economy and the liquidity of the financial industry around the world. they also said they recognize it has to be a well-coordinated response going forward, putting aside all the other things that they want to do -- finish and do at this moment, focusing directly on the coronavirus. in addition, the group says the ministers and governors remain committed to, i'm going to quote here, committed to use all available policy tools to achieve strong, sustainable, balanced and inclusive growth. in addition, the imf, they do support what's going on there, the imf saying they have $1 trillion to lend out globally to help with this crisis on the financial side. also, the group of ministers and central bank leaders support what the world bank is doing to try and support this economic growth around the world. back to you. stuart: remarkable news, ed.

trillions flowing in from g-7imf, trillions flowing from our treasury and federal reserve, trillions and trillions of dollars and we are looking to the other side going back to work. that's why we are up 450 points s . we've got news on the iphone. who do we turn to? who else but susan li. susan: i think this is also a very good i guess indication as to how china has reopened for business as well. we know in february that iphone shipments dropped 60% because a lot of factories were closed against the coronavirus and also the lunar new year. in march we have seen a bounce back up, almost 20% and this is in a shrinking smartphone environment where broadly actually, smartphone sales shrunk some 20% but apple went in the opposite direction. they are saying according to reports that iphone city which is in the middle part of the country, a city of multiple millions, is back to work. 300,000 of these workers are back in the production lines and as a result, they are producing

300,000 iphone units per day. don't forget, we are still expecting a launch later on this year of the 5g enabled phone and indications are or at least reports by bloomberg is that we will get four new models, one that has more of an ipad design and a smaller one as well. have you checked out the stock lately? apple is back closer to intraday record levels once again and some have baurgecause we had problems in china early, they might be among the first to come out of it as well. stuart: very interesting. the stock close to $280 a share. i remember it kind of bottomed out at $230. what a gain. mike murphy, come into this. you have always liked apple, on the way to new highs, do you think? >> absolutely. if you look out not only the last week but in the last month, apple's pretty much flat. it hasn't sold off with the rest of the market. it's recovered all of the losses. i think it will be the next one to move. there is a global demand for the products that they have.

you know, the bears on apple will tell you there's no innovation but i think what the company is doing right now is just fine. if they keep doing it and they keep putting their cash to work, you have new highs very soon, before the end of the summer, in apple. stuart: how about that. all right. mike, thanks very much indeed. the dow, by the way, just crossed, it's up 500 points. dow industrials, 500 points higher. look at roku. up 8%. lauren, what's the news on roku that's pushing the stock up so much? lauren: stay at home is really good for streaming. roku giving out new numbers for the first quarter and they are impressive. their number of active accounts on an annual basis is up 37%, meaning they have added an additional three million customers in the past three months. also, the number of hours that we are streaming is up nearly 50% in the past -- in the past three months.sheltering in plac

nothing at home is good for a stock like roku, up 9.5% right now. stuart: how about that. okay. mike, come back in again, mike murphy. look, netflix is i think one of the leaders in streaming, but roku i think is a real pure play in streaming. do you like roku? >> you know, stuart, i think the numbers that roku is putting out are great. i don't own the stock. i would rather own at this price right now, if i'm buying streaming, which i am, i'm buying disney. i think roku for me is different. it's been a great stock for some people, but the way i'm playing the streaming business is through disney. stuart: okay. thanks, mike. i want everybody to see the price, stock price of tesla. this morning i believe tesla is up very very nicely. last time i checked it was close to $700 a share. there you go. it's up 9%. come in, ashley. what's news on tesla? ashley: yeah. well, they have already slashed salaries, furloughed almost all

workers that can't work from home but still, like every other company, they are looking to save some money wherever they can. now they are sending out e-mails to their landlords asking for a reduction, in fact, the "wall street journal" got ahold of one of those e-mails that says because of the restrictions on conducting business, we will be reducing our monthly rent obligations effective immediately. by the way, office space rental company wework has already stopped paying rent at some of its locations. just another way to try and save money. tesla hopes to be back to work and producing cars again on may 4th. stuart: all right. thanks, ash. i'm just looking at this rally now, up 520 for the dow industrials. mike, before we close out, i want to give you the last word. looks like a very solid rally to me. >> it does, stuart. i think for your viewers watching at home, pay attention to what the president is saying. this has been a horrible ride

that we've had with coronavirus. we've lost a lot of lives. it's affected a lot of people. but as an investor, you have to look out past this and look at what the president is telling you, look at what the administration is doing for the economy, for the companies that we're buying and i think if you just focus on that, it's a great time and there are still a lot of bargains out there to be had. stuart: mike murphy, thanks very much for joining us. always appreciate it. all right, everyone. here's what we've got still to come. top white house economic adviser larry kudlow, he's on the show. i want to know what the plan is to reopen america. what can he tell us about that? also, in the 11:00 hour, pete hegseth is with us. i say it's 2016 all over again. twice failed presidential candidate bernie sanders caves to the democrats, endorses joe biden. bernie's supporters, not happy. we will get on that one for you. the number of face mask sellers on etsy has increased five-fold in two weeks.

20,000 face mask sellers on etsy. the ceo will like that and he joins us. he's on the show 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, there's nothing to stop you from moving forward.

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stuart: yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is a rally. now we're up 500 points, just shy, just a little shy of the 24,000 mark for the dow industrials. we are going to show you a couple of banks. first republic, jpmorgan, wells fargo, all of them reporting today. they're all on the upside. susan, i guess they reported very nice earnings, did they? susan: jpmorgan profits sank to the lowest since 2013. also they set aside $8 billion just in case so that shows you the concern. talking to some of these new york stock exchange traders, they tell me look, we already know first quarter is going to be bad, down 8% broadly for most of these big blue chip names and down 18% in the second quarter, march to june. what are they looking at, why are the markets up today? they say look, we have to see the market and the economy reopening.

that's what they're looking forward to. at some point we have to get america back in business and that's why you are seeing these markets trade higher today. also, there's a lot of pessimism, people have been holding a lot of cash. in fact, according to bank of america, highest cash holdings since 9/11. but they are willing to spend that cash once we have this economy reopening, right? stuart: susan, earlier, we showed you amazon reaching all-time record high, the stock price. are they expanding shipments? what are they doing? susan: they are going to start accepting non-essential items once again. just a few weeks ago, in the depths of the coronavirus pandemic spread, they said we will stop doing that from third party sellers which make up about 50% of their business, because they need to stock up on the essential items like hand sanitizers, toilet paper and the like. but it's boom time for amazon. yesterday we talked about them hiring an extra 75,000 workers on top of the 100,000 workers, paying them an extra $2 an hour and taking a look at how good these times are, you know toilet paper sales are up 150% from

this time last year. that's why amazon is trading at these record levels. stuart: susan, that was a nice little vignette to include in your report. very good stuff. thank you. now this. 20,000 sellers on etsy are selling face masks. 20,000. we have josh silverman with us, the ceo of etsy. josh, we love to hear stuff like this. this is proof surely that capitalism works in america. go. >> yeah, hey, thanks very much for having me on this morning. it's true, the cdc changed its guidelines in early april to suggest that americans should wear fabric face masks and all of a sudden, we saw an overwhelming amount of demand show up on etsy. in fact, people were searching for face masks nine times per second. it's as though you woke up and it was suddenly cyber-monday and everyone was looking for only one product and it's a product that nobody yet made. we have been -- sorry.

stuart: i understand that the face masks on your website, on etsy, may or may not be hospital grade, so to speak. but even so, i'm told that any mask, any coverage of your nose and mouth, reduces your chances of picking up the virus by about 50%. is all of that accurate? >> well, i'm not a medical expert and we at etsy are not trying to make medical claims. the cdc suggests they think it's better to wear a fabric face mask than not to wear a fabric face mask and we think it's important we protect the medical grade equipment to go to hospital employees and first responders and people who really need it. so by meeting the demands of average consumers, we are actually protecting the ppe so it can go to the people that need it the most. stuart: how is your business doing? because i checked your stock and i saw it go down pretty sharply towards march and towards the end of march. now i see, well, looking on the

screen right now, you've had a nice bounce in april. i take it that business is really, really strong? >> we haven't given an update since early april and what we said in early april was that we had a very strong january and february and then the covid crisis hit our business pretty hard, actually, in mid-march. so people really sheltering at home, schools closing, had a pretty big impact. we haven't given an update since then but what we have talked about is the dynamism of our marketplace. i think this mask crisis gives a good example of that. within days we had 20,000 sellers up and making masks. the ford motor company can't just switch production to make ventilators in days, but etsy sellers really can. maybe you have a seller who normally makes baby clothes or wedding dresses, and the wedding industry has been pretty hard hit, she can shift, pull out her sewing machine and start making fabric face masks in a matter of hours. we are now selling hundreds of

thousands of fabric face masks every day. when you buy a face mask on etsy, you are helping your neighbor, helping a fellow citizen, and also buying something that's got a little style, got a little pizzazz. we think that's a great win/win. stuart: yeah. a little style in a face mask. i will take that. josh, you are doing great work there. capitalism works in america. we appreciate you being on the show. josh silverman, etsy ceo. okay, everybody. check this out, please. i have actor matthew mcconaughey teaching everyone at home how to make their own face mask. watch this. >> we got more living to do. here's how. lay down your favorite bandanna, unfold it like so. get your two rubber bands. roll one down one end like this, roll the other one down this end like that. fold them over like so. grab ahold and you're good to go.

stuart: good to go. a bandanna and coffee filter. not bad. now let's get to disney. bob iger back in control as the company is trying to deal with the virus. our next guest says it's all about disney plus for that company right now. disney stock, $106. more after this. if you're a veteran with a va loan, one call to newday usa can save you $2000 a year. how? by refinancing at today's all time low mortgage rates. and best of all you can do it from start to finish without leaving the house. it's fast, too. with our va streamline refi, there's no income verification. no appraisal. and not one dollar out of pocket. our team is standing by right now to help every veteran who calls. ♪ ♪

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stuart: 22 minutes into the trading session, that is, and the rally is holding. actually, the rally is building. now we are up 585 points for the dow industrials, better than 2.5% and that's pretty true across the board. look at the nasdaq, up nearly 3%. yeah, that is a rally. how about ford motor company? it is starting to produce respirators at a plant in michigan today. it's up 4% but still right about $5 a share. now let's get to disney. bob iger is back in control. he stepped down in february, he's come back now, though, to deal with the virus crisis. joining on the phone, mark douglas. he follows disney closely. mark, you're saying that disney will bounce back. what do you mean by that? because the stock was at $150, now it's at $106. what do you mean by bouncing back here? >> yeah. so good morning.

so what's happening right now is disney plus is doing really, really well. obviously the big, big part of disney is movies and theme parks and people are very concerned as to whether people are going to m could out but i think what you're hearing is when we start to come out of this crisis, they have such a strong fan base for the theme parks that you are seeing online, a lot of people saying that's their first destination is going back to disney and i think they do have that following. then on the movie side, i think you're just going to see a big, big shift to streaming for their movies and away from theaters. some of this is probably going -- stuart: mark, i know you are actually in the business of tracking consumer behavior and consumer trends. can you tell us what people are buying during this virus outbreak? i notice people are buying a lot more alcohol. is that true? >> absolutely true.

although what's interesting is the relatively small percentage of consumers, 14% increase in consumers, are buying 202% more alcohol. so that's kind of how people are coping with this crisis. but the first week was all about stocking up, you know, and kind of just getting everything you needed in your home. the second week after the crisis started, the day after travel was stopped, the second week was all about entertainment. third week is there's a new category of consumers out there. they feel financially secure and they are buying luxury goods. they are buying furniture, you know, essentially during the crisis it's kind of hard to say, but every day is black friday for the consumers that have the income, and they are buying. they are buying a lot of big ticket items now. it is a pretty interesting trend

to watch. stuart: i notice constellation brands, a huge liquor company, is up 6% today. i think you moved the market. mark, thanks for joining us. mark douglas. see you again real soon. now, let's discuss the restaurants. the chains like tgi friday's are closed. but when they reopen, you will have social distance between the tables. what happens to the workers? what happens to your revenue? i've got the ceo of tgi friday's on the show today. of course, we do have economic adviser to the white house, larry kudlow. the question is, when is the country going to reopen? i will certainly ask him that question this morning. and at the president's press conference yesterday, the media argued with the president. they interrupted him. they were flat out rude to him. you will get my take on that, next. ♪

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at carvana, you can do it all 100% online from home, with a touchless delivery and pick-up process to keep you safe. and for even greater peace of mind, all carvana cars come with a seven-day return policy. shop now and get up to 90 days to make your first payment. check out carvana-- the safer way to buy a car. stuart: the democrats and the media, the president's principle opponents. what's the state of play? my answer to that one, not good, not good at all. in short the democrats seem to be irrelevant at this time of national crisis and media, they just can't get over their contempt for the president. i will start with joe biden and bernie sanders appearing side by side. bernie endorses joe. the78-year-old endorses the 77-year-old but all they can agree on we have to get rid of

president trump, that's it. there is no agreement on policy between them. the bernie supporters have been very vocal. they won't vote for joe. is this best the democratic party can come up with. joe televises from his basement. they are hardly part. debate during the national crisis. for the national media they look and sound even worse. the president's press conference tread h showed the media true colors. they argued with the president. they interrupted him. they were flat-out rude. they pushed the view that president trump delayed the response to the virus, and therefore cost lives. the president in response laid out a precise timeline, what he had done and when he had done it but the media was not content. they wanted him to shut down the country way back in february. think about that for a minute. f the president had done that, there would be no carolina primary, no super tuesday and

the media would have called him a dictator, anti-democracy. as a member of the media myself i found that performance frankly embarrassing. but the worst of it was their attempt to get dr. fauci to criticize the president. he was having none of it. he vigorously defended mr. trump and then a cbs reporter said, were you forced to say that implying his defense of the president was a lie. the look on dr. fauci's face spoke volumes. i wish we could have got it right there i will get it for you. i want to see the look on his face. we'll get it for you, i promise. my conclusion is this, president trump and the governors lead the federal and state government's response to the virus. that is as it should be. they are the executives in charge. the democrats and media just can't get over their contempt for the president. it shows up all the time and it is not going to do them or us any good at all. listen to this.

>> president trump, publicly signaling his frustration with the man seen by some as the public health conscience of the country. >> while trump publicly praised fauci he privately complained he contradicts him and at times refuses to let him answer questions. >> he is mad about something he said sunday on cnn overnight he president retweeted the message with the hashtag, firefauci. stuart: that was utterly refuted at the press conference yesterday, really stamped on it. brad blakeman with us, republican strategist. we showed a montage of the media pitching the president against dr. fauci but i just thought that was flat-out of bounds. i thought the media disgraced itself yesterday afternoon. are you with me on this. >> oh, there is no doubt about it. the evidence was clear and convincing, unrefutable, that

the president took to the defense of his policies and set the record straight and rocked the press back on their heels. they didn't know what to make of it. they never seen it before. they said a president never done this before. guess what, this president did. he told the truth. he didn't doctor up any video footage. there is no allegation it was made up. as a matter of fact they said it was done by the campaign. the president refuted that. done by the white house. it was done in order to defend the president against false and fictitious and malicious reporting. it is not reporting when you lie out right lie to the american people. you know the press were the first as you pointed out in your piece that trump is authoritative. a dictator. quite the opposite. trump has been true to the constitution. he understands that as president he has to defer to the governors who are closest to their people. they're the ones responsible for what happens within their states, the federal government backs them up. every governor, whether you're

republican or democrat who came to this administration and they asked for medical equipment, they asked for personnel, they asked for equipment, they got exactly everything they requested and president trump has been true to the constitution. he has been using common sense. he has been compassionate. most important, he has a business acumen. he understands what is going on here. more than a politician does. he never as you the politics once in the response to the coronavirus. stuart: i want to move on to joe biden and bernie sanders. by the way, nbc news is reporting that president obama, former president obama will endorse joe biden this morning. we'll wait for that one. but bernie sanders has endorsed joe biden. i don't think many bernie supporters will vote for joe biden. in fact as i said in my editorial there i think they're irrelevant to this whole debate. they're broadcasting out of some basement in maryland or some house, one of his houses in

vermont. just out side of the debate. they am i out of bound here? >> the media are in effect the adversary of the president in this election. the candidates are nowhere to be seen. joe biden will pay a heavy price for bernie's endorsement, i can guarranty you, the fight of the century will be at the virtual convention or real convention if it takes place because bernie isn't going to away quietly. he will turn the democratic convention sofar to the left. joe biden will not be able to move to the center or what used to be the center. those days are long gone. stuart: hold on for a second, brad. i will move on to you in a second. scott shellady, let's check the market. the rally holds. this is all about getting

america to go back to work. scott, you're on. i don't know whether you can see yourself there but you're on. i think the stock market rally is all about the talking about, going, i'm sorry, have we missed him? have we dropped him? we've lost audio from scott shellady. i do apologize. let me go back to brad blakeman. brad, you have got an editorial about getting america back to work and getting america's manufacturing sector back to work, to counter the chinese. spell it out for me. >> look, we all know china is a country of makers takers, and fakers. they make our products, they take our products and fake our products. they don't adhere to the rule of law. whatever is in china's interest. the coronavirus taught to us valuable lesson. we have to return to for national security purposes critical infrastructure and products to this country. no better time to do it. we need to unleash the power of

the private sector. i believe we'll bounce back better than ever before. other countries will join us. they have learned a valuable lesson being too dependent on china. china is one that is taking great advantage of the world and as president trump said to their credit, they have gotten away with it. but all good things come to an end. i think america will find a new renaissance in our country by returning the manufacturing power and unleashing jobs back to this country like we've never seen before. let's return back to our hemisphere. as president trump has done with mexico. let's put not all our eggs in one basket. let's be diversified. first and foremost we have to be dependent on our own country for our own needs. stuart: brad blakeman, thank you very much for joining us, sir in a pinch. that was great. we appreciate it. thank you very much, brad. look at that market, if that rally holds as i was saying a moment ago, i think a part of this rally is because we're looking to the other side of the

virus problem for the economy. looking to the point where we go back back to work, get out of this mess, start expanding, growing, getting a paycheck again. that looks to be the motivation for the rally. a rally it is. dow up 560. you're almost up to 24,000. the low a few weeks ago was 18,000. you have come a long way in a few weeks in this bounce back. that is true of the s&p. it is also true of the nasdaq composite. take a look at some of the streaming stocks, because some of them are doing extremely well. netflix hit a 52-week high. netflix at $402 a share. roku says now it has nearly 40 million active accounts. that put roku's stock up, i can't quite read that. that is 8%. $8 higher that is roku. earlier this morning we had some

light at the end of the tunnel stories out of europe but i think we're going the other way with germany. ash, give us the update on german situation. ashley: yes. leading health institute in germany says we have not contained the virus in this country. now they have seen a flattening of the curve but they believe that is because testing was declined over the easter period. they have had 125,000 cases, positive cases reported in germany. but only close to 3,000 deaths a lot less than other countries in europe but the health officials in germany, they were not out of the woods yet. angela merkel, the chancellor will meet with regional leaders around germany tomorrow to try to find a way to come up with a plan to reopen the economy but the word out of germany is, don't go too quickly. we could have resurgence of the virus. maybe not quite as optimistic as we've seen in other countries that are starting to slowly

reopen the economies, stu. stuart: am i right in saying that in spain, i think in denmark there is a move to go back to work, open up stuff again? you gave us the report earlier, repeat it really fast. ashley: spain reopening construction and manufacturing. austria opened thousands of stores and denmark, tomorrow, will reopen kindergarten, kindergarten through grade four. those are a few examples of countries starting to recover. just a little bit of light as we said earlier. stuart: you got it. thanks, ash. we're trying to think about going back to work here, lifting some of the restrictions. in our next hour, we are talking with top white house economic advisor larry kudlow. he is on the show. i will ask him straight out, will we try to reopen america? later this hour the ceo of tgi friday's is with us. i ask him when do restaurants

reopen. what about distance between tables and bar stools. what happens to workers? i think they have a problem. we covered the impact of the virus on sports. there is a new survey. it says 72% of people will not go back to sports games until there is a vaccine. i don't know where that poll came from but we got it. what did brian kilmeade think about it? we have him on the show. jeff landry has a message for the democrats, quit politicizing the virus. more "varney" after this. you wouldn't accept an incomplete job from anyone else. so why accept it from your allergy pills? flonase relieves your worst symptoms which most pills don't. get all-in-one allergy relief for 24 hours, with flonase.

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because beyond technology... there is human ingenuity. every day, comcast business is helping businesses go beyond the expected. to do the extraordinary. take your business beyond. stuart: we still got a rally. 600 points higher for the dow jones industrial average. it is a rally. i think it is because we're talking about reopening the economy at some point in the

hopefully near future. that is a positive. the dow is up 615. ashley, you have update on field hospital. you have video on left-hand side there. the field hospitals we're constructing all over the country. update, please. ashley: yes, stu, turns out, as the banner said they have not been widely needed. we're showing video out of seattle. a field hospital was put inside of the seattle convention center. the military put it up one week and took it down the next week. it never actually served one patient t wasn't needed. let's go to the javits center if we can. this is new york. put up by the u.s. national guard, up to capacity of 2500 beds plus more if needed, taking in coronavirus patients but we've seen far less than that. the last number i saw was less than 300 patients as of april 10th. i haven't got any latest numbers on that.

i want to talk about louisiana. they have been using the new orleans convention center, turned that into a field hospital. they have a thousand beds. they can double it to 2000 beds. they are expected to reach their capacity for beds this week. so there will be a need. we're also understanding that the local sheraton hotel has been leased by the state to serve as a spill-over medical facility. so far, stu, the reports we're getting is, the worst-case scenario has not played out. in the case of washington state, that field hospital was never needed. stuart: that is fascinating, ashley. a great report, thank you very much indeed. ashley: thanks. stuart: now i want to bring in the attorney general of the state of louisiana because louisiana, in your state, mr. attorney general, welcome to the program by the way. >> thank you for having me, stu. stuart: actually didn't need all of the hospital beds that you had created and provided and president trump helped with, you

didn't need them all. i call that really positive news, yet you don't hear a word about it in the media. what is going on here, jeff? >> well you know, it is a distortion. it is trump distortion. the media refuses to give the president any credit. i mean he could cure cancer and kill the devil in the same day they would find some sort of fault with that as well. look, i think that's great news. i think it should be a headline in the fact that you know, there were cities out there, states out there like louisiana had assets necessary if our health care system became overwhelmed, yet we didn't have to use it that is great news. that is the kind of news we need in order to get american people's spirit back up, get ourselves in a position where we can crank the economy back up and we can all go back to work. stuart: do you think -- look, i just issued an editorial about 20 minutes ago. i said look, i think the

democrats are politicizing this whole thing and using it as a strike to chase down, go after president trump in a most personal way. i think their contempt is showing. do you think i'm going a bit far with this? what is your opinion. >> no i think you're right on the mark, stu. look, follow the independents out there around the country, they should recognize this, and i hope they punish those democrats at the polls. i mean you know, that fact that they're politicizing this when we have people are struggling for their lives, that we have a public health care crisis across the country, a pandemic around the world and they're using it to shove their agenda down the throats of the american people is really appalling. i think that you know, for those people who are always looking for balanced government, i think what you've seen is from the president and from many on the republican side, is look, whatever we have to do to get through this crisis, we're going to do for the betterment of the

people putting politics aside. but democrats in washington just don't seem to get that. stuart: if the governor of louisiana and the top medical experts of louisiana said it's safe, would you want to return to work in louisiana? it would have to be safe, got that, but do you want to do this, do you want to get back to work? >> absolutely. i think we should be looking at it, taking a measured approach, right? we should recognize what the vulnerable populations are and how we deal with those in that sector of the vulnerable populations. but for the rest of us, for those that can go back to work, and recognizing what we can do while the medical community, while the pharmaceutical industry, comes up with a vaccine or more positive treatment, for the virus, we should do that. we want to insure that our supply chains are adequate and that america continues to be great. again i think that those are the

things that we can do in the coming months. stuart: jeff landry, attorney general for the state of louisiana, thanks for joining us. we appreciate it. we love to hear good news. we got it. see you again soon, jeff. fox news has by the way confirmed that obama, barack obama will endorse joe biden. we're reported that moments ago. fox news has confirmed it. now back to the market. that is the high of the day. we're up over 600 points for the dow industrials. that is 2.7%. back to 24,000 on the dow jones average. look at that. s&p up a whopping 80 points. nearly 3%. the nasdaq is up over 3%. 8470. that is a rally. look at walmart, there is stock hit a all-time high. i'm not sure the price. we'll have it on the screen all-time high. walmart all-time high. 128, up 2.7% as of right now.

amazon, also all-time record high. $2259. that is a gain there of 4%. for disney they're coming back nicely. i think lauren, you have got news on disney and the shanghai theme park? what is going on? lauren: partially reopened. not where the rides are, not the theme park, the shopping center. this is what they're doing making people comfortable going. everybody needs to wear a facemask. everybody gets their temperature taken. you present the smartphone with a cr code, stuart. that code shows that you do not have coronavirus. so there is some tracking that is going on. as we talk about opening up theme parks and economy overall here in the u.s., is that what it is going to look like, to make people feel safe? i don't know. jpmorgan says this closure of the theme parks and disney is going to cost them $5 billion in lost revenue this year. as you know, the theme parks are

a moneymaker for disney, the company. stuart: yeah. but a partial reopening, i would call it a positive, even a limited positive. the stock is up three bucks. 106 on disney. move on to zoom. there is trouble with people bombing into zoom conferences but i think, susan what are they doing about it? boosting safety controls, that it? susan: boosting safety controls. set it to the strictest safety controls. they are now saying they will not route some of these calls through china, data centers. they have come under fire for doing that, according to researchers of university of toronto. some of the calls are routed through china despite none of the users are based in the country. this is because zoom says we have to handle 200 million daily active users. we were only handling 10 million at the end of last year. scalability depends where they

can track the calls to be saved as well, and some are run through china. it is interesting, i want to bring up if we have this, this bill gurley tweet. he is not a zoom investor, scalability is impressive, 10 million to 200 million, hard to do. zoom is not a first mover. wasn't first one in the videoconferences. because of ease of use. if you use zoom, it is easy cared to webx and cisco and the other products out there. stuart: that is astonishing move from 10 million at the end of last year to 200 million as of early april. that's an astonishing move in scalability. i mean hats off to the company, right? susan: yeah. one of the stocks of the year. almost doubling since the start of it. stuart: yeah, i had forgotten it. doubling since the start of the year, how about that? susan, thank you. we like to bring you events from around the country which show how we're coping with the virus and the lockdowns.

this is firefighters in miami celebrating health care workers with a truck parade right outside of the hospital. all kinds of stuff like this going on all over the country. that's miami as of friday. next, the small business administration is working to get loans to small business obviously but it is a 350 billion-dollar program and it might run out of money by the end of the week. we have a live report on that for you coming up next. 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. witpeople at higher riskng, must take extra precautions. you are at higher risk if you are over 65, or if you have an underlying medical condition. please visit coronavirus.gov for more information.

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stuart: here we go. it is 10:30 eastern time, right now it is the dow is up 500. s&p up4. techs doing very well today. 2.7% higher. bring in edward lawrence. i want to talk about money flowing out to small businesses. how much is given out by community banks versus large banks so far, ed? reporter: we don't have the exact breakdown of those but it is disproportional, the amount, from day one community banks have actually embraced this program, embraced helping the small businesses. the big banks accepted applications but wanted to do more due diligence on those loans which took more than a

week basically. for example, jpmorgan chase, this morning saying that they have now funded $9 billion in the $34 billion in loans that they have accepted over the past week or so. so again, led by community banks. but look at the numbers in this program, really growing as independent contractors and self-employed can be involved in this. $47 billion processed through the small business administration. one million small businesses asked for the loans. the small business administration also opening to the door to fintech industry this is a big milestone for the industry. lendio, one of those, helped 2500 small businesses with their loans to the tune of $500 million. a smile stone for that industry. technology is embracing, big banks are slower and community banks going forward with this and now fintech getting

involved. back to you, stu. stuart: ed lawrence, thank you very much indeed. we should have a community banker on the show. we have a community banker right here. chris marh with ocean first financial a small community bank. chris, welcome to the program. i understand people are coming to you and you are handing out these small business loans. take me through the process. is it easy to get one of these loans through your bank? >> well, thanks, stuart. it certainly is easy. so it wasn't easy in the beginning. we had to do a lot of important work to the sba to make sure we've been ready. we've been accepting loan applications for 10 days now. we do it electronically. we have a tool sends an application out to the customer. they fill it out and send it back to us electronically. they process it and forward to the sba. we began funding loans -- stuart: do i have to have, do i have to have an account with your bank, if i'm a small business, in your area, do i have to have an account at your

bank, or that doesn't matter? >> so certainly our focus is on existing customers. so we're putting a priority on working with them. they have been loyal to us for years. we want to make sure we get them taken care of. that said all businesses in the community are important to us. if they have ma an issue, we'll try to work something out to get them in. the concern is that it may take longer. there are long ques and we're concerned about the program remaining funded. stuart: your a small community bank, can i ask you how many loans you processed last 10 days since you started in? >> absolutely. we received 2600 applications. we have 2000 of those back in and processing. those represent about 400, a little over $400 million worth of loans, as we like to think about it, 44,000 jobs. we gotten sba to approve almost $300 million worth of those

loans. we already closed more than $100 million worth of those loans and put that money into customers accounts. stuart: i think that is absolutely terrific. what a performance from a small community bank. $400 million worth of stuff out there. chris maher, congratulations sir. thank you for being on the program. you're doing exactly what america wants you to do. check different groups of stocks for you, which are moving as of today. i'm starting with pot stocks, marijuana stocks. the mayor of san francisco is warning people, don't come to the city on april 20th. that is the popular marijuana smoking day, 4/20. because of the shelter in place rules. tilray, leading cannabis company, the stock is up nicely, 3% right there. check the alcoa who stocks -- alcohol stocks, anheuser-busch says alcohol is steady,

consumption, we heard orders have gone straight up. the drop in bar sales offset by the spike in retail alcohol sales. look at that constellation brands, one of the biggest companies, way up there, 6% gain. let's get back to the overall market. that rally still intact. the prospect of america going back to work at some point in the not-too-distant future that has the market excited. up 500 on the dow. next even though restaurants do reopensocial distancing will still be in effect. i want to know what happens to restaurant workers. i have the ceo of tgi friday's on this program next

many of life's moments in thare being put on hold. are staying at home, at carvana, we understand that, for some, getting a car just can't wait. to help, we're giving our customers up to 90 days to make their first payment. shop online from the comfort of your couch, and get your car with touchless delivery to keep you safe. and for even greater peace of mind, all carvana cars come with a seven-day return policy. so if you need to keep moving, we're here for you. at carvana-- the safer way to buy a car. stuart: the market is rallying. we were up 600. now we are up 500 for the dow. we'll take it. check out the nasdaq composite because it is now at

8400. if it holds these levels, it will have exited bear territory. kind of important stuff. all right. we have the big tech stocks on your screens. look at apple racing ahead. it is up $11, 284 on apple. amazon, new all-time high, $2258 per share. google doing very nicely today. that is up $38 at $1248 a share. back in the day, those stocks would have split. nowadays, for whatever reason, they don't. now this. a struggling restaurant in tampa, really struggling, it is in florida, it put a rare bottle of bourbon up for sale. they wanted 20,000 bucks for it. but a veteran bought it for 40,000. okay, seller, restaurant, they reached out to the buyer to make sure it wasn't a mistake. but he wanted to overpay because of the struggles people are experiencing now in the

restaurant business. good man. ray blanchard is with us. he is the ceo of tgi friday's. welcome to the program. good to see you on the show today. >> thanks for having me. stuart: i'm just trying to look forward a little bit here when we get back to work, when you can get back to work, social distancing is still going to be in place. the way i see it, you will have to spread your tables around. you will have to separate your bar stools. that means revenue, even if you fill the restaurant when you get back, not going to be what it was, is that a big problem for you? >> we don't know exactly what to expect yet. we have a fairly sizable footprint in asia-pacific as i think you know. as we're watching those economies attempt to reopen there is a lot of different tactics. whether it is putting screens between tables, we certainly know that we'll be competing very differently in the future than we have in the past. at least in the near future, as

we find new ways to compete and new ways to win. the fact we're growing our away from restaurant business substantially right now, i think we could receive, reap the benefits of that as we lose seats in the dining room and keep people safe. stuart: okay. what are you doing? you say you're move aig way from the restaurant business. what are you doing? >> oh, not moving away from the restaurant business. we are finding a new way to compete in the restaurant business. as soon as our dining rooms closed, basically our, our team members were affected immediately overnight. they lost hours and, you know, so we had to quickly create new curbside options for the guests to safely pick up food, for the team members to be able to safely deliver it. it is a new world for us to compete in. so i think, that's really what we're learning is, how to

compete in today's environment and attempting to understand what we look forward to next as the economy tries to recover. stuart: are you getting help or, your workers in america, are they getting help from the government? >> not in the time frame that we need. we have yet to see any money from the cares act. we certainly are appreciative as an industry that we seem to be a priority and government now realizes how important the jobs are that we create. the second largest private employer in the united states, most of the people that we serve are very close or just above the poverty line. those are the ones most adversely affected in an economic downturn. we had to do things ourselves to protect our team, creating website that our team members in dire need can go to where we can get aid to them, but we have yet

been able to access any of the government funds. it has been a bit of a clumsy process. stuart: so i want to sum this up, your workers are in dire straits? they haven't got help from the government yet. i presume that some of them have been either furloughed or laid off. so they're not in great shape, are they? >> no. it is what keeps me up at night for sure. just the other night i had a call, you know, late on a friday night, single mom, living in a hotel with two kids is about to be evicted from the hotel. i'm trying to give my personal credit card information to protect that team member. we think the cares act and the ppp loan is a good idea. certainly the intent of 2 1/2 months of payroll would help us to continue to fill that need but in actual practice, because there is a 10 million-dollar

cap, that is about 2 1/2 weeks of payroll for a company like us. so i think, you know, if, secretary mnuchin could put some clarity and provide clarity to the banks, i think they will be able to execute this to the spirit of the law as opposed to the way it is being interpreted now. stuart: ray blanchett, we hope your workers get the help they need and deserve because it is not their fault this all happened to you, the company, and to them. let's hope they get the help fast. tgi fridays ceo. >> thank you. stuart: good for you. well-done, sir. great to have you on the show. we feel for you. thank you, sir. back to the market, still on a very nice solid rally here. 2 1/2% up for the dow industrials. i think at the bottom of this, what is behind this rally, is all this talk about going back to work, opening up the economy again. that is the main debate on the

market, on the economy and in politics these days. opening up the economy, getting back to work. very important. we got a big rally right there. next, there is this survey, it says 72% of us will not go back to a sports game until there is a vaccine for the virus. honestly, i don't believe that. i can't believe that. but we will deal with it. we'll ask brian kilmeade, what does he think about it? sports getting back to business, what does he think about that? we'll be back. awesome internet.

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stuart: rally continues. the dow is up 500 points. look at mariott. the stock is up 2%. why? they're reporting more bookings coming in china. 80 bucks a share, marriott. lauren, you have news on the cdc, parks and recreation? lauren: dos and don'ts what to do when you go to a park. social distancing. stay six feet away from someone else. playground areas with the slides and monkey bars. those are closed. don't go there or have kids touch them. water parks, thinking of summer. don't use water parks or organized sports or activities. bottom line, what is the point of going to a park if you can't

do anything of what i just said? stuart: yeah. that's a good question. i have don't have a answer for you. but i can sense people are getting mightily annoyed being so restrained with a park next door. joining us now, on the radio, brian kilmeade. he is the host of "the brian kilmeade show. brian, i have this poll from seton hall university and it says 72% of us will not go back to a game, a sports game until there is a vaccine. i think that is nonsense. i don't get it. i don't believe it. what about you? >> well, a couple of things. you are seeing people not going shopping, showing discipline, not doing that, not going to playgrounds not going to work t would make sense to say i would rather stay at home to watch it but i also think in the beginning, stuart, you will not fill up stay premiums or arenas. every third seat they will sell

in 18,000 seat arena. may sell 8,000 tickets. three seats between people to make it harder. once the games start. once you see the spurs playing and the rangers playing and yankees playing, or marlins playing, maybe not the marlins, you will say to yourself you want to go to a game. you want to get used to it. first thing i want to see is games. next thing i want to see fans in attendance. stuart: okay, all right. what do you think of this cactus league, the grapefruit league, getting baseball moving again. what do you think? >> they have half the teams, most of the teams in arizona. the rest of the teams in florida for spring training. they feel the distance would be so short, they will have stadiums they can play three or four, six teams there, or three games a day there. if it is a way to get games started, i see it. i understand the players balked on staying away from families whole year, four months. i will not do that.

that is crazy. they have a lot of young families. don't want to miss out. a lot of them might as well be away from their families as much as they travel in normal season that is the one way baseball is getting things started again. we want to see something matters that isn't from the 1980s on sports television. what are you doing on fox sports one and espn? i watched, i watched the other day, i watcheds toss across. trying to do toss across to get three xs or three os. that is it what we're down to. people are high-fiving winning poker games. that is not sports. stuart: no it is not but you have got to get back to sports somehow or the other. the cactus league, grapefruit league, similar to the nba. they're looking at a 25-day return to basketball, a 25-day super season kind of thing? >> they also want before they actually return to games, they

want to ramp up time to go train it seems. they want a 14-day training camp. 11 day series of individual workouts until they get used to each other, make sure they don't have the virus. to me that will be that 15 minute test we saw dr. siegel take with tucker last night. so i think that, if you get that test, the players can get used to each other again. remember they were the first league to stop. you have the 25-day lead-up. my thing, guys, you're in shape, you're the best athletes on the planet. i'm sure you're training or you have a peloton. why do you need 25 days? you already have 2/3 after season. how about five days, then go play? stuart: well the point is, get back, do it, get something out of the season, even if it is a super short season you about get back and do it again. but one sport, i should not say sport, one group is not going to get back, xfl. they filed for bankruptcy. i think they're gone. >> by the way, through no fault

of their own. they were off to a great start. they had two tv deals with fox and espn. they will send like 125 players into envelope camps. they had innovative rules, everything from kickoffs access to the coaches. can hear defensive coordinator call the place. coaches talking to the quarterback. it was phenomenal. i'm biased, my son's first job out of college with the xfl. had a chance to do so much so quickly. thursday last week they were planning out summer workouts and combines. on friday they were stunned to find out they weren't coming back. everyone is flawed. people like oliver luck, andrew luck's dad, ran the thing. had no idea it was coming. you can blame the pandemic. wwe has lost a ton of money. wrestling is struggling. that financed football. the football was great. it was lose all around. fans liked it. players loved it.

tv networks love the it. stuart: it is a loss. >> i agree, a tragic loss indeed. brian, thanks for joining us. let's see sports soon please, brian kilmeade. >> all right. stuart: the media keeps pitching dr. fauci against president trump. fauci looked absolutely appalled when a cbs reporter asked him whether he was forced to defend president trump? we'll break it down. pete hegseth on the show. summer is approaching, what does a lockdown mean for popular summer destinations. for example, cape may on the jersey shore. next hour, we'll talk to the managing partner of cape resorts. of course next hour white house economic guy larry kudlow. is may the target month for some type of reopening of the economy? i will ask him next.

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confident financial plans, calming financial plans, complete financial plans. they're all possible with a cfp® professional. find yours at letsmakeaplan.org. stuart: let there be no doubt the principal debate in this country at this moment is getting us back to work, opening up the economy, stopping the failure of businesses. the media, they're so intent on gloom and doom, always looking for the negative, always trying to say this president is costing us lives, and the latest distraction is whether the president or state governors are in charge of relaxing the stay-at-home rules. that is a distraction. it's just another way the media tries to encourage a big negative.

i hope the president and state governors ignore this kind of sniping from the sidelines. the president is organizing what is called the opening our country advisory group. good stuff. state governors, they are organizing their own regional groups, looking at the same thing, opening up the economy. just in the last week, the conversation has shifted. it shifted away from grim statistics about cases and fatalities and moved on to a conversation about hope. hope that we can see light at the end of the tunnel. and that light is an opening of the economy. getting back to work as fast as it's safe to do so. the debate now is much more positive, more uplifting and so it should be. we don't want our economy to crash and burn. we want to get out and rebuild it. in a few minutes, larry kudlow will join us. he is the president's top economic adviser. he had a lot to do with the policy which produced the as stone eii

stonishingly strong economy. now he's on the advisory group that will try to guide us back to prosperity. stay right there. we will ask him how and when we can get started. i want to bring in our first guest, mark tepper, strategic wealth partners. this man watches the economy. i think the rally we are now seeing and this new tone that we are seeing in the conversation is all about getting back to work, reopening the economy. you with me on this? >> i am, absolutely. the economy needs to reopen sooner than later. the mere fact it's in discussion, the mere fact we are talking about it right now, that's positive. the longer we stay shut down, the more damaging it's going to be to confidence, whether it's the consumer or the business owner and as we have all heard a number of times, we can't let the cure be worse than the problem. so it looks like that virus curve is beginning to flatten and that's important at this point that we start to come up with a prudent process for reopening the economy, but the key word there is process.

we are not going to flip a switch. it's going to happen in phases. but we need to get that ball rolling. even if we don't reopen 100% immediately, or on may 1st, just knowing that that plan's in motion, that's going to inspire confidence in people and in business owners. that's what we need right now. and give me some baseball on may 1st. i heard your prior guest. we do need to see that happen. i don't care if there's no fans. stuart: it would be a good thing. now, the dow bottomed, i will use that word, bottomed earlier this year at the 18,000 mark. now we are back up to nearly 24,000. how are you playing this market? >> yeah, so right now, you look at what's happening with the market, we have essentially retraced about 50% of the losses from top to bottom. so we are being very strategic about where we are allocating capital right now. there is certainly good opportunities out there. if you think about it, the world

is going -- we are going to emerge from this. we are going to emerge from this stronger than when we entered this crisis. but the world's going to change. there's a transformation going on right now. there's going to be winners and losers and what we are doing right now is we are repositioning our portfolios to be in those industries, to be in those companies that we think have a better chance of snapping back when we come out of this recession. whether that's -- [ speaking simultaneously ] >> yes, so health -- stuart: i'm sorry, there's this awful delay. we talk over top of each other all the time. very sorry about that. that's the way it is at the moment. look, which industries, which companies are positioned for a nice rebound? you tell us. >> so we like health care and tech. within health care, you look at companies like exact sciences, like striker. these are companies with great products, great solutions. the stock has been unfairly punished throughout this crisis.

so striker, for example, they are heavy in orthopedics, right, and those are elective procedures that aren't going to happen now but if you need a new hip or new knee, you will get it done at the end of the year. striker will be just fine. exact sciences, their main product is cologuard. i think most of us would agree we don't want to go in and get a colonoscopy at the hospital. so obviously, exact sciences provides a solution for that. then within tech, we are looking at companies that are embracing the cloud, embraceing the shift toward virtual work, whether it's microsoft, salesforce, nvidia. those are some of the companies we like within tech. stuart: why is the cloud so important? >> the cloud's important because that's where we are headed as a society. you know, distance learning, my three kids, they are sitting at the kitchen table this morning with computers in front of them, ready to have class done via

zoom. now, zoom, i talked about this last week, definitely not the area i would like to be right now, but you need to have more and more information stored in the cloud so that we can accommodate this new normal that we are experiencing, which is people working from home, too. i just talked distance learning. we specifically have people working virtually from home right now. so giving employees the ability to have a virtual desktop is going to be more important and all that information has to be stored somewhere and that happens to be the cloud. stuart: okay. and microsoft and amazon, if i'm not mistaken, are the big players in the cloud. is there anybody else that's important? i think alibaba's got a piece of the cloud, too. >> yes. microsoft and amazon, those are going to be number one and two. microsoft is a little more geared towards that hybrid cloud so that's really a lot of companies that have, you know, long term internal infrastructure in place with regards to their i.t. equipment

and they want to begin to move towards the cloud, that would be microsoft. nvidia, though, nvidia is one that's really important because you need the chips to store the information, and nvidia is the company that makes those chips. i think those would probably be my top three with regard to that virtual cloud industry. stuart: all right. mark tepper, all good stuff. news you can use, as we used to say 30, 40 years ago. mark tepper, you're all right. see you again real soon. thank you. appreciate it. okay. let's get to politics. ash, have you got news on the republicans checking out the virus and what's going on with it? give me the full story here. ashley: yes. wide-ranging probe, we are told. homeland security and governmental affairs committee, chairman of that is ron johnson, republican from wisconsin, and he wants to get to the very bottom of this coronavirus outbreak going right back to the beginning. where did this all start from,

what's this transferred from animal to human, was this from a lab in china. he's going to look at everything. he says we need to know also what role the w.h.o. might have had in trying to cover this thing up. they also want to know why wasn't the national stockpile better prepared, why is so much of the pharmaceutical ingredients and medical devices made overseas in china. lots of things here. by the way, senator rick scott, former florida governor, will spearhead that investigation into the w.h.o. he's been a very outspoken critic of china and w.h.o. there you go. they will go right the way through it to find out what happened and our response to it. stuart: yeah. i mean, it looks like china is the focus of that. ash, thank you very much indeed. good stuff. let's go to susan. tell me about i'm going to call them stimulus checks or rescue checks. they are going out? susan: $1200, $500 for any child

under 17. according to the treasury secretary this week, a lot of americans are set to receive them. listen. >> over 80 million hard-working americans will get the direct deposit by this wednesday and we know how important that is to all of those hard-working americans, many of which are at home not working at the moment. if you do not receive them by wednesday, on wednesday we will be launching an irs.gov. click on irs.gov, go to get your payment. susan: that's right. a web portal they are setting up at irs.gov where you can check on the status of your payments and upload your bank account details as well. they are also, by the way, setting up an app, get my payment app that they are set to launch supposedly this week from the treasury department. you know, close to 80% of irs tax filers are set to get these stimulus checks and i think it will go a long way to help the average american hopefully spend

again to get this economy going. stuart: you know, it's gone out so fast. 80 million americans get their checks in their bank account or whatever by wednesday? have you ever seen anything -- have you ever seen a government move so fast? susan: no, but it's only for those that have listed direct deposit accounts on their tax filings in 2018-2019. those waiting for physical checks, might have to wait until may or september unless you upload account details, if you need that money, do it quickly. do it this week because it's available for you. stuart: yeah. whatever you do, do it quickly. upload those accounts. direct deposit, the way to go. i held out for a long time but i'm a direct deposit guy now. susan, i still like the background. i can see sixth avenue, new york city, totally empty. i have never seen that before except for yesterday. susan, thanks very much indeed. here's a stock to watch. johnson & johnson.

they are working to develop a vaccine and the stock is up 5% higher, $146. jpmorgan are predicting a quote, fairly severe recession. i think they believe we are now in it. morgan's stock down 4%. big drop. walmart earlier today, i saw them at a new high. that was the stock price. lauren, what's going on? what's the news? lauren: imagine going to a walmart or target and having yellow tape saying you can't go to certain parts of the store. that's what's happening in the state of michigan, where governor whitmer has put these really strict quarantine measures in place. you can go into a walmart but you can't buy gardening supplies, you can't buy paint, you can't buy this, you can't buy that. now walmart has clarified you can buy baby gear, you can buy most items that you need. people obviously in michigan very annoyed by her strict quarantining policies. i did want to tell you that nationwide, daily between 7:00

and 8:00 a.m., if you are over the age of 60 or are a first responder, whatever you order from walmart, you can get that curbside delivery. you will get priority every morning between 7:00 and 8:00 a.m. stuart: i'm of the age. i will sign up. thank you very much indeed. let's bring in grady trimble, who has news from the airlines. what have you got? reporter: well, this is just a snapshot of how badly the airlines need help right now. at any given time this morning, there have been more united employees in this terminal than united passengers getting on planes. you can see just how empty it is here right now. some of the airlines are reportedly considering a way to generate cash, selling airline miles to their credit card partners. they would do so in bulk and at a discount, according to the "wall street journal." we reached out to united and delta, the two airlines named in that article, to see whether that's something they are considering. they wouldn't deny it but also wouldn't comment on the story.

united, where we are, is actually looking into getting more flights to europe and south america back online. that's another way to bring in some more cash, to get people flying again. when you see airports this empty, it's hard to imagine people wanting to get back on a plane any time soon, let alone an international flight. that's the latest here as we await the airlines perhaps striking a deal with the federal government to make payroll through september today. other ways they could generate cash as well. stuart: thanks, grady. that airport reminds me of sixth avenue, new york, totally deserted. the airport behind you, totally deserted. what a story. thank you very much indeed. next, national economic council director, larry kudlow. we'll be right back. what do youn you trade? i want free access to research. yep, td ameritrade's got that. free access to every platform. mhm, yeah, that too. i don't want any trade minimums. yeah, i totally agree, they don't have any of those. i want to know what i'm paying upfront.

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we're very close to completing a plan to open our country, hopefully even ahead of schedule, and that's so important. my administration's plan and corresponding guidelines will give the american people the confidence they need to begin returning to normal life. that's what we want. we want to have our country open, we want to return to normal life. our country's going to be open and it's going to be successfully opened, and we'll be explaining over a very short number of days exactly what is going to be -- stuart: you heard what the president had to say. joining us now is larry kudlow, chief economic adviser to the president. larry, welcome to the program. it's very good to see you. the president just said very close to a plan to reopen the economy. would may, some point in the month of may, be a reasonable target to go to towards

reopening some parts of the economy? >> well, look, stu, the quote you gave the president talking about guidelines to give to the states and so forth, i can't improve upon that. i do think it's safe to say that in the next few days, he will be making some very important announcements regarding those guidelines. look, the key point here really, number one, safety, the health and safety of the american people. number two, the wellbeing of the american people. we want to get folks back to work. you know, folks, ordinary men and women, blue collar workers, families, small businesses, we want to do it as quickly as possible. it has to be safe, it has to be driven by the data from our key health specialists, but the president i think is moving towards the very important announcement in the next day or two. stuart: it won't be a

simultaneous reopening, all states everywhere. presumably some parts of the country are more suitable to a reopening than others. would you agree with that? >> well, i think that's true from a common sense standpoint. and again, the president has suggested a kind of rolling reentry here, but i don't want to, you know, i don't want to front-run his views, i don't want to pre-announce anything this morning. i just want to say again, you know, it's a question of health, a question of safety, and a question of wellbeing so that main street folks, middle class blue collar folks, we want to get them back to work as soon as we safely can. i believe the country is ready to go back to work. i just want to make a point here. the president's vision all along, you go all the way back from the time he was elected, lower taxes, sweeping deregulation, energy

independence, fair trade deals to help manufacturers and farmers and so forth, that generated a tremendous, tremendous prosperity, okay? it's important that we not forget that. and now comes this pandemic and it's an awful situation and it's affected health and lives and of course, it slammed the economy. we're going to be in a brief temporary contraction. but i think this, stu. with the president's economic policy vision on taxes and regulations and so forth, there's no reason, no reason why when this pandemic passes, and we begin to reopen the economy in a safe manner, there's no reason we can't begin quickly to rebuild and reignite the american economy and regenerate, if you will, the same kind of tremendous jobs and wages and prosperity that we had before and i think we're going to see great economic numbers in the back end of the year.

stuart: you're looking at the other side of this thing. you're looking at the economy on the other side of this pandemic. you've got trillions of dollars flowing into the economy from the treasury, from the federal reserve, it's all flowing into the economy and you are looking at the other side. when does the pickup in the economy start? jpmorgan is saying look, we are in a severe recession as of right now, we are in the depths right now. when do we start to see those improving numbers? >> well, you know, a lot of these forecasts and so forth, i don't want to quibble with anything, i'm just saying this is, you know, using those old terms recession or related terms, you know, this is not of our own making. this is a very special unusual situation because of the coronavirus and the pandemic. now, looking on the other side of that, again, i'm saying the very same incentives that the president put into place when he was first elected showing up in the stock market, showing up in the jobs market, showing up in

the employment numbers, showing up in middle and lower middle class wage increases, inequality was falling under president trump's policies before the pandemic. so i don't want to be precise on anything. i'm just saying we regard this as a temporary matter. we are ready to go back and take the necessary steps to get america back on track. the president himself will be making a number of important key vital announcements in the next day or two. stuart: will we see another rescue plan? i know it is being considered. do you think we need it? i ask because the house is not going back to work in d.c. until may 4th, that's three weeks away. do we need it more urgently than that? >> well, a couple points on this. first of all, in two weeks, in two weeks we have executed an unbelievably large, largest

rescue plan in american history. i just had some up-to-date numbers. in terms of the small business assistance, the payroll protection plan, this is from the treasury department, we have approved over one million loans. this is in two weeks or slightly less. $250 billion now has been approved. and the money is, in fact, flowing. indeed, i want to say this. we have requested an extra $250 billion on top of the original $350. at the present run rate, we will be out of money for the small business assistance plan so we asked congress to please put partisanship aside and let's get that additional money. the other point i want to make is checks are going out, the economic impact assistance plan, direct treasury checks from the irs, will be in almost $150 billion by tomorrow, i am told

and the total package, this is such an extraordinary number, we have provided assistance to roughly 175 million americans. it's an extraordinary number. predominantly middle class folks, main street folks, blue collar folks and the like. nothing like this has ever been done before. so that's the focus right now and we would like to fill up our loan card with some extra help from congress because these payroll protection plans, the burn rate, they are so popular the burn rate is going to get us out before this week is over. don't forget, we had the business payroll tax holiday, we deferred income tax payments for individuals and companies, we deferred student loan payments. these are all part of the plan for liquidity and cash and stability. i look forward to the point when america can reignite, when americans can go back to the

animal spirits and restore the prosperity that president trump's original policy vision and execution put into place. stuart: there are some republicans in the senate who want to, as they say, hold china accountable for what happened during the epidemic and thereafter. they are talking in punitive terms as if they want to punish china and certainly change the supply chain when it comes to pharmaceuticals. will that hurt, a, our relationship with china and b, our trade with china? >> well, look, couple things. first of all, china has to be accountable in a number of areas, trade, the phase one deal, which is proceeding, by the way, certainly in fairness to the chinese, we are moving. i'm sure it's slower than it would have otherwise been the case but reports are coming in that deal is being implemented. china needs to be held accountable on a number of

measures. over a period of time, they will be held accountable, there's no question about that. having said that, the president is engaging with china, he's speaking with president xi, their relationship remains very positive so we are working with them. look, another point that often comes up, chinese -- american companies overseas, supply chains overseas. look, we would like to bring them home, just as a matter of policy across the board. you and i have talked about this. to me, 100% expensing, 100% expensing whether it's structures, plants, equipment, renovations, intellectual property, that would essentially pay the moving expenses for companies to come back to america. and by the way, it would also help americans to recover even more rapidly from the pandemic. but again, we are engaging with china and the trade deal is being implemented. stuart: larry, the airlines are

working out a deal for support from the government. if part of that support means the government taking an ownership stake in an airline, piece of the equity, or boeing, for example, do you approve of that? >> yes, i do. i don't want to speak to specifics. secretary mnuchin has said and the president has said time and again that in return for assistance, taxpayers, u.s. taxpayers have a right to take some equity position. after all, we are being very generous with the airlines. we need functioning air system, no question about that. that's true for other parts of transportation. i won't go into specifics. that's up to mr. mnuchin. but yes, i support that policy completely. stuart: larry kudlow, we have taken a lot of your time on a busy day. we always appreciate it. thanks for joining us. thank you. >> thank you, stu. appreciate it. stuart: got it.

okay. all right. check the market. when we went into the interview we were up about 280 points. now we are up 380 points very roughly. i want to bring in the company, that would be ashley, susan and lauren. to me, the big headline here, especially to you, susan, because you cover the markets closely for us, to me the big headline was the amount of money that's being pumped into the economy, different sections of the economy, so quickly with a lot more to come. i have never seen such a supply of liquidity provided so quickly before. susan: i think the number was $250 billion. that's a lot to get flowing through the american economy in just a matter of weeks and a matter of days. i know that there have been how many checks doled out, 80 million americans will receive their checks this week. i think it's been pretty impressive. in terms of reopening the economy, i was just paying close attention in terms of timeline, know kudlow says he will let president trump make the

announcement but people are expecting the economy to be open sooner rather than later and that's why you are seeing this big bounce in the markets today. stuart: ashley, what's your comment? ashley: well, the headline for me was the president is going to be making an announcement, important announcement in the next day or two. we will get a better idea of what he has in mind. of course, larry kudlow saying the safety of people is utmost importance. it will be driven by the data. he also talked about a rolling reentry. i think that's what we will hear from the president this week, some sort of plan to start the opening of the economy in waves and you know, that's what we want to hear. we want to hear how quickly can we get back. he used the word it's time to reignite the economy which i loved. and restore the animal spirits. stuart: the animal spirits. lauren, your comment, please? lauren: what ashley said, the word reignite and animal spirits

was used throughout by larry kudlow. the market really went to the high of the interview, up more than 400 points, when he said 175 million americans have received some sort of assistance. and they are focusing on blue collar workers and the middle class to make sure that you can get through this coronavirus and we can all restart the economy when it does in fact reopen. stuart: all right. ashley, susan, lauren, all good stuff. thanks for listening into the interview. we may have moved the market a little bit there, maybe up 100 points. okay. i want to bring in jeff hanserling. most know him as a former politician. he's no longer a politician. he's now a wall street kind of guy who looks at the markets and the economy. jeb, i don't know whether you heard larry kudlow there in our interview. one of the points he made was you've got all this money flooding into the economy from now until whenever, and that

will produce a vigorous rebound, vigorous return to prosperity. do you see it that way? do you see the economy coming roaring back when we get past this pandemic? >> well, speaking for myself, i don't see a v-shaped recovery but it depends on the timing of roaring back. i mean, under the president's policies, frankly, this economy was one of the best economies that many of us had had in our lifetime but i do think it's going to be a gradual recovery. i think it will end up being very robust but i do still think it's going to be gradual and as you pointed out, it's going to be kind of a rolling, if you will, reopening of the economy. stuart: what got me, and lauren commented on this just a moment ago, 175 million americans will directly get money. 175 million americans. that's really extraordinary.

i have never seen a rescue plan pump out so much money so quickly. i don't think you have, either. >> no, it's unprecedented. i served on the congressional oversight panel for t.a.r.p. in the 2008 crisis. by order of magnitude, this is three or four times larger and so much of it is coming out in such a quick fashion. very quick response by the administration, very quick response by congress. but it's also unprecedented, as you know, to have essentially the government put the economy into an induced coma. so i think that this is one of the few occasions where it's probably proper to borrow from the future to pay for the present. we just hope there would be some acknowledgment by congress and the president once we get out of this crisis, bills are going to have to be paid and our debt was

unsustainable before this crisis. it's going to be even more unsustainable. stuart: yeah. fair point. jeb, thank you very much for joining us this morning. it's such a busy day but we always appreciate you coming on board. >> any time. thank you. stuart: got it. sure thing. look at that market. we are now up over 400 points. when we went into the interview with larry kudlow we were up 280. now we are up 414. let's go to susan with news on boeing. what have you got? susan: this is one of the big drags today on the dow. boeing was actually down some 3% once it released results that 150 air max 737 planes were actually canceled in the month of march. that's a staggering number. just this headline just crossed, another 75 737 max plane orders have also been canceled as well. so you do the math, that's 225 plane orders from a lot of their high-paying customers have been canceled for the 737 and that includes a brazilian airline and also a leasing company called

avalon as well. for the month and the quarter, i see some 5,000 orders but 737s are not doing well for them in total for the first quarter, we are looking at 307. if you want to add the 75 that just came across, that's close to 400 of these planes have been canceled just in the first three months of this year. so things are getting worse for boeing. stuart: i'm the guy who bought boeing stock at around $330 a share and promptly lost my shirt. such is life. such is life. susan: that's okay. stuart: i'm going to just take a moment to back-track to yesterday's press conference with the president and dr. fauci facing a hostile media. i want to roll a sound bite for you where dr. fauci was answering a question from a cbs reporter. she had implied that dr. fauci had been forced to defend the president. watch this. >> the first and only time that

dr. birx and i went in and formally made a recommendation to the president to actually have a quote, shutdown in defense of -- not really shutdown but to really have strong mitigation, we discussed it. obviously there would be concerns by some that in fact, that might have some negative consequences. nonetheless, the president listened to the recommendation and went to the mitigation. reporter: are you doing this voluntarily? >> everything i do is voluntarily. please, don't even imply that. stuart: do you see the look on his face? the whole point right there, the look on his face. the man on the right-hand side of the screen is pete hegseth. i was appalled, pete, absolutely appalled at the rudeness of the media directed toward the president and dr. fauci. and i think you feel the same way. >> very much so, stuart. the media showed themselves for

the charlatans they are yesterday. they expose themselves every day. it was a beautiful press conference by the president. he held court, talked about how urgently he wants to reopen the economy and that plans are coming. he's taking responsibility for that. and this is the same media that's been trying to drive a wedge between the president and his advisers since the very beginning and they have been looking to find any moment when dr. fauci is at cross-purposes with donald trump or donald trump is telling the doctors what to say and they are being held hostage. every time they try to bubble that narrative up, dr. fauci or someone else comes up and says we have been giving advice, the president has been taking it, his leadership has been strong, no one is telling us what to say, yet the media, they absolutely cannot resist in their hatred for the president in trying to find any ingredient they can and in this case, the doctors have his back as they have the entire time. stuart: forgive me, but again, i'm going to go back to

yesterday to the point where bernie sanders endorsed joe biden. but it seems that some bernie supporters are not going to vote for joe biden. i think it's a split that continues, actually and i would go further than that, i said this earlier, i think that joe biden is now almost irrelevant to the whole political process that we are going through here with the virus. what say you? >> very much so, stuart. this is a referendum on the leadership of president trump and he's seizing the mantle. people are seeing him in that leadership position. joe biden is cooped up making internet videos with bernie sanders, who is reluctantly endorsing him, but his supporters know he's been railroaded twice by the establishment. the core of the party, of the base, is with his socialism, with comrade cortez and her socialism. she she's rejecting this endorsement which is a big problem for biden. if you can't show leadership and you are not cognizant enough to

show leadership, you are losing the base of your party. even 3%, 4%, 5% of the bernie bros and the like feel we will stay home because we're not voting for this. he's got a really big problem. he's not making big concessions to bernie so where does that support come from? i don't know, but their process is so confused. will they even have a convention, how long will joe biden be able to speak, what will the elections look like. they are in tough shape. the president knows if he stays on the offense doing what's right for the american people, that first of all it's the right thing to do, second of all it will end up being good politically for him. stuart: i can't wait to get back to a studio, have you sit next to me so i can feel your energy. okay? come back soon. we will get together again. you're all right. thanks very much. quickly, everybody, look at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. the rally is very much in progress. up 400 points. next case, gyms across the country shutting their doors, but planet fitness offering free

at-home workouts. we have the ceo of plant fitness joining us later. the virus affecting summer vacations. next, i have a hotel owner from cape may, new jersey. not in good shape. we'll be right back.

when we first opened our doors, it didn't take us long to realize ... ...we weren't in the car business. at lexus, we were in the people business. we needed to be helpful . . . . . . respectful . . . and compassionate. to treat people like guests. it's what we all signed up for. and now when people need this most, we will do what we've always done. take care of people first. the rest will follow.

stuart: i want to report what sounds to me like very positive news coming out of governor cuomo's daily press conference, updating the virus in new york state. two important points. number one, intubation, that's an extreme medical procedure, intubation of virus patients almost cut in half. very interesting. furthermore, hospitalization down 400 people in the last day. i would call that very positive news on the virus front in new york state. we also had positive news on the

economy from larry kudlow just a few moments ago. he told us quite clearly, 175 million americans will get direct help, money, directly from the government and trillions of dollars will be flowing out very quickly. maybe that's helping the market go straight up. we've got a 400 point gain now for the dow industrials. that's nearly 2%. the s&p is up over 2% and the nasdaq composite is up almost 3%. now let's get to the impact of this virus and more to the point, the shutdown on people taking vacations. we have with us now curtis basha, the cape resorts managing partner. curtis, very much welcome to the program. we have been doing some research here. you represent cape may, lovely beach town in new jersey, and i'm told that you, you are canceling people who have booked for this summer. are you canceling summer in cape may? >> no, we're not canceling

summer at all. we actually have formed two task forces with our city and our county to work on what reopening looks like for us. we believe that our visitors and our community, our citizens and our employees all feel that together we can work on a plan to have a really terrific summer here at the jersey shore, albeit giving each other a little more elbow room. stuart: so you will let people back on the beach? you will let families have groups of people on the beach? you will open up hotels again, maybe restaurants again? can we expect that this summer in cape may, new jersey? because otherwise, you really have lost the summer. >> well, you know, there's two fronts to this war. it's good news, you were just talking about on the medical front. small businesses are the front line of the economic front and here in cape may county and cape may, we are dedicated as foot soldiers in the economic battle to work on reopening in a

responsible way. we believe as we work on the downhillside of this curve that people will need a holistic approach to health. wellness is important. we truly expect that people will be visiting us this summer. our july and august reservations have not canceled. we have closed our short-term rentals for april into may, but we are all hopeful that if we have dialogue and work together on how to reopen the economy responsibly, we will be able to see a really great season here at the jersey shore. stuart: we really wish you well. i know cape may. i live in new jersey. it's a beautiful town and i hope you can get back on your feet and avoid the worst impact of this dreadful virus. thanks for joining us, sir. we appreciate it. good luck to you. good luck. thanks. couple of stocks to look at. first of all, groupon, 87 cents

per share. this are laying off 2800 employees. they say their business has deteriorated because of the virus. they are down to 87 cents per share. live nation are cutting executive pay, furloughing workers, freezing hiring. that stock, however, is up 4.5%. that's $41 a share. the dow industrials up 420. all right. up next, the ceo of planet fitness joins us. they are providing free at-home workouts during this pandemic. you will meet him next. robinhood believes now is the time to do money.

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it's an honor to tell you that liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. and now we need to get back to work. [ applause and band playing ] only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ stuart: chris rondeau is with us, ceo of planet fitness. welcome to the program. good to see you on the air with us. >> thank you, stuart. good to be back. stuart: as i understand it, you are offering free daily workouts from planet fitness and i could go on your youtube channel and you've got an increase in subscriptions of 130% during this virus. i can go on your youtube channel, that's free. i think you are doing a wonderful thing but my question to you is how are you making any money out of this? >> thank you, stuart.

i really feel that for planet fitness, the largest gym chain here in the u.s., it's really the right thing to do for us to not only help bring our planet fitness brand to our members who are stuck at home right now but also the rest of the population that's also at home. you know, fitness in today's world really, especially what we are all going through, is more important than ever. helps build the immune system, relieves stress. it's the right thing to do and i think it will pay dividends in the future. stuart: everybody else is doing it. i mean, you've got a lot of competition here. it's all free, isn't it? >> yes, it sure is. it's all free. you're right, we have had 130% increase in youtube subscriptions, over five million views. even our app which was launched last summer with 500 videos on it for workouts is up 146% in daily downloads. our content consumption is up 220%. stuart: well, in the long run, you need people to go back to the actual gym and pay the fee,

whatever it is. do you think they will do that? >> yeah, i think this really is just exposure, right. i think what planet fitness has done is really expose people to the idea and affordability to be able to work out in a gym. i feel that this actually builds the brand awareness outside our four walls, puts us in your living room and i think at-home fitness is great, a great supplement but it isn't the end-all, be-all. it's not as good a workout as a true facility is. i think for us, it really extends the value of our membership to our members and also just to our community. stuart: on a daily basis, have you any idea how many people are actually taking these free daily workouts? >> yes. we have it every evening at 7:00 p.m., facebook live, then monday and wednesday at 8:00 a.m., facebook live. we added those because the demand is there. during the live broadcast, 5,000 to 7,000 watch it live and we

post it on youtube which is much more. we have five and a half million views on these videos and we started doing these three weeks ago. stuart: that's a good thing. chris rondeau, planet fitness ceo, thanks very much for joining us. we will give you more time next time you're on the air. we appreciate it. thanks very much. okay. all right, everyone. there will be more "varney & company" after this.

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stuart: l as we close out i got to tell you again, it's a rally! the dow is up 400 points, 1.7%. we're up pretty much across the board. i have individual stocks really moving very nicely. look at amazon. what a run its had in the last few days! now it is at $2250 a share. i think that is the all-time high. it is up $81 today alone. if you got into amazon a few years back, you would be coining it, wouldn't you? as for walmart, they have got a new high. $128 a share. that is up three bucks, nearly 3%. going the other way jpmorgan. they came out this morning with not a prediction it, was a statement that we are now in a pretty severe recession. morgan is down 3%. boeing, more cancellations of orders for the max jet. they're not down much. down just 1%. i am waiting to hear if they

have got some kind of a deal with the government for a bailout and will the government take any kind of equity stake in boeing? larry kudlow told us that he has no objection to the government owning a piece of private enterprise. my time's up. neil cavuto, it's yours. neil: thank you, stuart, very, very much. revealing interview with larry kudlow here. he seemed to telegraph a decision is coming soon. might be ahead of the deadline already out there. we'll see. we're following up on that. we'll follow up on what is happening on the corner of wall and broad. a big comeback. if you think about it with amazon's at all-time highs. apple sort of inching closer, walmart at one, think a couple weeks ago when the issues were getting shattered. not so much walmart. if you wait it out, it is not a loss until you cash out f you had hung on, specially with market averages down as low