maria: all right. thanks to this great panel this morning. brian, dagen, steve, thanks everybody. have a great day. that does it for us. have a wonderful day. see you tomorrow. "varney & company" begins right now. stu, take it away. stuart: i shall indeed. good morning, maria. good morning, everyone. last week, 4.4 million people filed for unemployment benefits. that brings the total for the month of april to i think it's around 25, 26 million. now, let's backtrack for a second. the week before, it was 5.2 million. today, it's 4.4 million. can we take that as a down trend? does it mean we're past the worst and heading to an improving job situation? some economists will take it that way, a down trend.

look, any way you take it, employment in april was a disaster. we are looking at an unemployment rate that is likely approaching 20%. we get those numbers, the unemployment numbers for the whole country, next friday. however, got to tell you the back-to-work movement is really gathering steam. states across the nation are modifying their stay-at-home rules. businesses are reopening. oklahoma reopens some businesses tomorrow. california will allow some elective surgery. this, however, is receiving mixed messages. president trump says georgia is reopening too soon. he says he strongly disagrees with georgia's decision. however, he will still leave it up to the states. here's a positive. the field hospital built specially for virus patients in houston, texas, may be dismantled, not needed, underused. let's get to the markets. first i'm dealing with oil. look at this. moving back up again in price.

$16.71 is the production price right now, but production is being scaled back very very sharply. supply is being restricted and the hope is that the back-to-work movement will increase demand, albeit gradually. $16.71 on oil, up 21%. stocks reacting to the jobless numbers positively and perhaps positively to the news that the house will likely vote on the latest rescue package. also reacting positively to oil. dow is up about 70. nasdaq up about 50. s&p, 15. then there's this. tiger woods, phil mickelson, peyton manning, tom brady, they will stage a golf match to benefit virus victims. and tonight, the virtual nfl draft. fans desperate to watch any kind of sporting event. they may also be tuning in to see if the nfl can do a virtual draft without serious technical issues but it's going to happen. big show for you. "varney & company" is about to begin.

it's been encouraging to watch states begin to open up as -- and it really has been, it's a beautiful thing to see as restrictions are lifted. we must maintain vigilance and continue practicing social distancing. i encourage governors to follow a careful phased approach and i want to remind all americans to adhere to our guidelines. we have flattened the curve and really made tremendous progress but we must guard against a dangerous rebound. we don't want a rebound. stuart: okay. guard against the rebound but let's get on with opening up. you heard what he had to say. stephen moore is with us, ace economist. look, the back-to-work movement has begun. i'm not going to say the flood gates are open but they are definitely going back to work in various states. do you think people will be

eager to get back to work, to eat out or is this still going to be this lingering anxiety? >> i think a little bit of both, stuart. it's a great question. we really just don't know the answer to that until we see the behavior of people. i know and you know and everyone knows some people are eager to get out but i also know people who are still afraid so i think you are going to see a mixed reaction from people, but these restaurants and bars and stores need to get reopened because as i said last week on your show, every day the economy stays shut down, you see thousands and thousands more businesses go into bankruptcy. the other thing that's going to be so interesting to watch, stuart, over the next two, four, eight weeks, is this red state/blue state divide. look at the states that are talking about opening up in the next week. you've got texas, utah, georgia, tennessee and the states that are talking about staying closed until june or the middle of june

are those blue states like new york and connecticut and new jersey. so it's going to be interesting to see whether that has any impact on maybe some of these businesses in new york and connecticut, maybe moving to some of these southern states where they can open up their doors. stuart: how about that. let me just chime in for a second. i think that when the gates are open, i think eventually the flood gates will have opened. i think there will be an awful lot of people desperate to get out of the house, desperate to get a job or get the income coming back in again. i think it will be a flood. that's just my opinion. ten seconds to tell me whether you think i'm right or not. >> look, i think for a lot of people that's true but a lot of people are still afraid and it's sort of like sticking your toe in the water and when people see other people doing it, i do think over the course of the next month, you are going to start to see people rushing out and they want to make sure they're safe and you got to do social distancing and a mask but if you do it in a safe way, i

think woe can get this economy moving. remember i said if we do that starting now, i think by late summer we could see a real nice recovery. stuart: i just want to get this in. 5.2 million jobless claims last week, 4.4 million this week. i call that a down trend. i'm looking for the positive here. what do you say? >> i'm kind of with you on that. i thought we might see -- what's the total number now? 26? stuart: 26. give or take 100,000 here or there. >> look, i think at the end of the day we are going to go up to about 30 million but i thought we would go up to 30 million even sooner. look, when you shut down 30%, 40% of the economy, you get a lot of people out of jobs. i actually agree with you in a weird kind of way, who would have ever thought three or four million people signing up for unemployment would be a good number. but based on where we thought we might be, it looks like workers are starting to very slowly get back to work and employers are not laying off as many workers as we feared they might. stuart: all good stuff.

thanks very much for joining us today. important day. we appreciate you being here. thank you very much. now, one of the stories we are following of course is should you go back to work if you can go back to work. on that note, listen to congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez. roll tape. >> when we talk about this idea of reopening society, you know, only in america does the president, when the president tweets about liberation, does he mean go back to work. we, you know, had this discussion about going back or reopening, i think a lot of people should just say no, we're not going back to that. we're not going back to working 70-hour weeks just so that we can put food on the table. stuart: sounds like kind of a strike to me. lauren, have you found out how many people are unemployed or filed for unemployment claims in her district? lauren: sure have. her district covers parts of the

bronx and queens and in the bronx and queens, 236,000 people have filed for unemployment benefits in the week ending april 11th so in total, for three weeks, up until the week ending on april 11th, 236,000 unemployment claims coming in. that's a good part of the population. stuart: she's encouraging them don't go back to work. maybe she's, you know, she's on solid ground here -- not solid ground but look, those people on unemployment, i think they're making around $600 a week. they might not get $600 a week going back to work. lauren: and that's one of the issues right now, that a lot of folks getting these expanded unemployment checks are making more money now than they would have at their old job but what aoc and many others are saying is they are redefining the spirit of america that you want to go to work, you want to advance at work and you want to make as much money as you can and she's basically -- she's

using misery in the nation right now, she's using a pandemic to set forward and set forth her platform and her goals that, you know, free us from our economic insecurity because our paychecks don't get us anywhere. stuart: i'm with you. good point. lauren: that's what she's doing. stuart: that's exactly what she's doing. i want to have an update now on all those states which are unveiling plans to reopen. ashley, what do you have? ashley: yeah. it's interesting, because they vary widely. let's take oklahoma, for example. they are planning on reopening some businesses tomorrow. governor kevin smith says that will include hair salons, spas, nar sal nail salons, pet groomers, they will be open via appointment only and will have to undergo strict sanitary protocols. by may 5th, gyms and churches can reopen. take a look at pennsylvania.

they say they will begin reopening on may 8th. tom wolf, the democrat, says we are going to take a three-phase approach. many states are doing this. red, yellow, green. he said we are in the red right now. we get to yellow, that's when me health benchmarks are reached, continual lessening of new cases of the coronavirus. he says schools, though, will remain closed on may 8th and restaurants will only be available for curbside pickup and delivery. in maryland, the governor larry hogan is going to unveil his reopening plan today, calling it a roadmap to recovery. in maryland they want to see 14 straight days in the reduction of new deaths, new hospitalizations and new patients going into the icu. pretty extensive benchmark and that has to happen for 14 consecutive days. as you can see, the effort is there but each state is taking a slightly different approach when it comes to actual dates. stuart: got that right. thanks, ash. i want to show you the stock price of eli lilly.

earnings came out earlier. revenue up 15%, they pulled in $5.8 billion. it was just $5 billion last year. the stock is up just a fraction. coming up, we have the chairman and ceo of eli lilly on the show, in our 11:00 hour. we have boeing in the news. they are being sued for $330 million because they didn't return some advance payments on canceled 737 max orders. the stock is at $136. look at target. same store sales up more than 5% in this month, april. get this. online sales up a whopping 275%. the stock is down 6%. how about apple. reportedly going to add around $100 billion to their stock buy-back program. many other companies have put those programs on hold and they're not popular with the politicians but apple is going to do it. $276 is the price right there. susan, come in, please.

apple is going to start, what, make their own chips? i thought they do already. susan: well, they have been putting a lot of money into research and development into making their own chip and this has been rumored for over a year but this report coming out saying that apple will start selling its first mac with its own chip in the year 2021 and hopefully to increase that number in terms of making their own mac processors to three in the future, in a project co-named calamata. we also know intel has been making these chips for the macs so intel will probably have a bit of a problem when it comes to business and then taiwan semiconductor makes the chip that goes to iphones, ipads and if apple makes its own chips in the future, this will be easier to integrate the iphone, ipad and mac together into this underlying technology which will make it easier to run all apps in the app ecosystem and also for updates as well, and to secure security for all these hardware devices. stuart: it all revolves around apple, does it not.

why not. great company. thanks, susan. next hour, former chief economist at the world bank, paul romer, says yeah, we could restart our economy and contain the virus but with a national testing plan. we will let him make his case. next, republican senator john barrasso. i'm going to ask him how do we pay for all the trillions of dollars that we are shelling out in spending. how do we pay for that. technologies advisor. me too. me too. and if you're a small business, we're with you. standing by you every step of the way. bye bye. i wanted more from my copd medicine that's why i've got the power

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stuart: congress is set to pass that small business funding extension. there's some big dollars involved. edward lawrence, come in, please. can you tell us when small businesses will get the new money? reporter: yeah, that's coming. you know, all eyes right now on the house of representatives and in about an hour is when they

are going to start the process to finish this voting on what could be called the phase 3.5. that's going to include the $321 billion added to the payroll protection program. now, in that program, i'm told the sba as we first reported is already looking at the language in that program to get the guidance out, sort of a sneak peek before it's actually been signed by the president. now, a source with the sba is telling me the guidance is expected to come out on friday to banks with this. that would tee up a saturday or sunday where the loans, once the money has been deposited with the sba, the loans could flow through or start flowing again to those small businesses. the $10 million that shake shack gave back will be added to the pot and given out in this next round. also, we are talking about the treasury secretary who said 30 million people were helped with the first round of ppp loans. he believes another 30 million employees will also be paid in the second round and you know, that may be why we saw a four

million number for the unemployment this week as opposed to a six million number. back to you. stuart: edward, thanks very much indeed. next, let's deal with treasury secretary steven mnuchin. he was on this program exactly 24 hours ago. i want you to listen to what he had to say about how we are going to pay for all this stimulus money, this rescue money, the trillions of it. roll tape. >> this is a war and we need to win this war, and we need to spend what it takes to win the war. on the other hand, i think we are sensitive to the economic impacts of putting on debt and that's something the president is reviewing with us very carefully. stuart: let me bring in senator john barrasso, republican from wyoming. senator, the treasury secretary was basically saying look, we are in a war, spend the money now, worry about paying for it later. you on board with that? >> no, i am not, stuart. let me just tell you, it is time

to push the pause button on additional congressional and u.s. spending. we have spent $2.7 trillion over the last one month. before we spend another dime, we need to make sure that we are all back in session to debate this face-to-face, number two, not another dime until we actually see the impact of the money that we are spending and also, the impact of the debt on our national debt picture. we have a conference call this morning of all the republican senators and i will tell you, as chairman of the conference, my position is it's time to push the pause button right now. stuart: okay. let's talk about opening up rural hospitals. you are a doctor. you are in wyoming. i know you've got a bipartisan plan to get those rural hospitals some more money but surely what those hospitals need is to be able to do elective surgery. isn't that what they want, really? >> that is exactly what they want to do. they want to reopen again.

all of these rural hospitals, and they are the lifeblood of so many communities, not just the health issue but also from an economic standpoint, they all live on very tight, slim margins. for the last five weeks, they have been able to do nothing other than emergencies in preparation for coronavirus. so they are at 20% occupancy. they have basically become flatlined economically. they still want to make payroll and what we need to do is make sure they are allowed to get back in the business that they are able to do the elective surgery and that means cancer surgery that's been delayed, mammograms that have been delayed, a number of things that are important for people's own health as well as the health of the hospital and the community, and there's bipartisan efforts to focus on money for rural hospitals. part of it is in the cares act. it's also in what's going to pass today. we need to make sure these hospitals remain viable in the communities because stuart, we have a hospital here in wyoming, in a county that the county alone is bigger than the entire

state of new jersey. the entire county has only had ten people who tested positive for coronavirus. none have even been hospitalized. yet they are sitting at 20% occupancy and have had to lay off nurses, therapists and others at the hospital because they cannot do the work they are trained and know how to do, and they can do it safely. stuart: can't the state governors say hey, you are a rural hospital, there's no cases in your county, do elective surgery? after all, the hospitals are getting $25 billion from the last rescue package and another $75 billion for the one that goes through today. isn't that enough? >> well, for me, it is certainly the position that i want to see because phase one of the reopening of america includes elective surgery. if you have communities like we do in wyoming, where the number of cases is low and declining, where they have the equipment, they have what they need in terms of taking care of coronavirus cases if they come

in, i think those hospitals are part of the reopening of america and they are in rural communities all around the country. the way to really reopen america and get businesses back and working is starting as we have outlined in the president's plan to reopen america in rural communities where we can identify quickly what's going on in the communities but also get back to work. stuart: thank you, senator. always obliged to you when you come on the show. thanks very much indeed. now, we've got the market opening slightly higher, 50 up for the dow, 53 for the nasdaq, 13 for the s&p. on the upside, green arrows. we'll be right back.

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stuart: check the price of oil because that is a market mover today. it's up 20% at $16 a barrel. that's kind of good news for the stock market as well. here's some good news for drivers. the average price for a gallon of regular is down to $1.79. how about that. come in, ash. i want to know where the cheapest gas is in america. tell me. ashley: i'm so glad you asked. it's the state we have been talking about for quite a bit, wisconsin, where the average, the average i tell you, $1.19. i looked at the national average, $1.79. i checked out california. how much you think it is in

california? stuart: i've got a buck says nearly $3. ashley: you're not far off. $2.78 which for california is pretty darned cheap. hawaii at $3.22. but wisconsin leading the way at $1.19 for the average. stuart: that's really low, isn't it. i mean, that's just rock bottom price. i think you brought us the story the other day, what is it, 12, 13 or 14 states where you can find at least one station selling 99 cent gasoline. ashley: it's absolutely remarkable, is it not, because the irony of course is that no one's getting out to even drive so it's there, we're just not really, we can motnot so it's there, we're just not really, we can motno take advane of it. stuart: oil up three bucks now because american producers have stopped producing and the world has stopped producing, opec is going to cut, what, 20 million barrels a day. the hope is that by the end of

may, we will be getting back to work, driving a bit more so demand will pick up. so supply depressed, demand picking up equals a rally in the price of oil. that may be helping the market, too. we've got, what, about a minute to go before we open up this thursday morning. we are going to open up in the green. it's not going to be a huge upside move but across the board, you are looking at gains of a quarter to half percentage point for the dow, nasdaq and s&p. there's a lot going on this morning. not so much in politics, but within the markets. i'm intrigued at the price of gold. i'm intrigued at the price of oil going up. look at that level for the dow industrials. i keep saying this. 23,400 on the dow. that compares to, what, five weeks ago we were down in the dumps at 18,000 for the dow industrials. that's been quite a run, hasn't it, from 18,000 to 23,400. that's what we have seen in a five-week period. that is a rebound.

that suggests that the recovery on this market so far is a v. whether it becomes a w and we take a downturn in the immediate future, of course we don't know that but at the moment, it's a v-shaped recovery for stocks. bang, it is 9:30 eastern time. we are off and running. thursday morning, 9:30 and the market has opened with a modest gain. bottom right-hand corner of the screen, the dow is up 70 in the very early going. i see a majority of the dow 30 stocks are in the green. all right. move on to the s&p 500. that is up .4%, slightly better percentage gain than the dow. the nasdaq composite, that's doing well, too. okay. it's up about a third of one percent. 8,500. show me apple, please. they just announced they are going to be making their own chips for mac computers starting next year. they've got a possible $100 billion stock buy-back program.

that's not going to be popular but it should help the stock. intel, one of apple's primary chip makers, do they now face competition from apple making its own chips? intel is down a tiny fraction on that. boeing is being sued for $300 million. they didn't return some advance payments on the canceled 737 max jet orders. the stock is up but only at $136. target, same store sales way up in april, online up. how much, ash? how well are they doing? ashley: same store sales up 5%. their digital sales quadrupled, up 275% year over year. but actual in-store sales, not same store sales comparisons, in-store sales down by about 15%. so the problem for target here is yes, these numbers are impressive but it turns out the items that people are buying are of a cheaper nature where the margins are a lot less. they have also maintained $2

extra per hour pay for their front line employees to extend that beyond may 2nd. all of this as you can see, has actually pushed the stock lower, down almost 4.5%. stuart: ouch. you deliver a report like that and the stock goes down. how about that. amazon, oh, susan, what's this i hear about jeff bezos taking command again? susan: running day to day according to the "new york times." very insightful piece you saw there. looks like jeff bezos, who has worked exclusively on long-term projects and really delegated the day-to-day to lower level executives, stepping back into the fray, especially amongst -- during this covid-19 pandemic spread. apparently he's been joining daily calls to help make decisions when it goes back to inventory, coronavirus testing and even how amazon responds to public criticism. for instance, he was the one that actually approved to delay amazon prime day this year and also one of the ones that says we should stop accepting these

lower priority items into our warehouse. now, bezos, interesting because in the past, you have heard these reports, he says i prefer to make these high level decisions, addressing a major risk to the business. in fact, one day out of the week he also allocates to blue origin, his space project. but it's interesting that he's back in the fray during these uncertain times and also boom time for amazon. stuart: yeah, boom time indeed. that's for sure. the stock is now $2400 again. the dow, look at that, now up 144 points. okay. we've got a lot of green on the screen. is there any green for the gaming companies, susan? i've got this news on the casinos. susan: las vegas sands arguably the most successful gaming company in the asia pacific, just reporting a 50% drop when it comes to revenue but they are expecting a recovery in the asia pacific. macao is the largest gaming hub in the world. it's the biggest gaming enclave, around four to five times the gaming revenues you get on the

las vegas strip and despite the fact we saw a 15-day extraordinarily, something i have never seen before, in macao, a 15-day shutdown, they say that asia could bounce back faster since they were first of all, the first to experience covid-19 and try to contain the spread and also, they have another huge casino in singapore as well. we know macao is still suffering a bit since ferries have been canceled, itineraries, travel itineraries are not being picked up by especially the chinese tourists and singapore is still shut. stuart: you're right about the size and scope of gaming in macao. i happened to be in the wynn resort casino there when it first opened years ago and it was absolutely jam-packed full. you almost had to line up out the door to get in. it was busy. susan: i should note also las vegas is still closed until at least the end of this month, probably even longer than that. stuart: how about that. of course, the end of the month is coming up shortly. all right. dow up now 163 points, 23,600.

we are going to put beyond meat on your screen. that would be the stock price. it's up $1.23 this morning. they are doing well in china, is that right, ash? ashley: well, they just announced a new partnership with starbucks, believe it or not. starbucks is launching a plant-based menu in china, including beyond meat lasagna and beyond beef spicy and sour wraps. also dishes made with what's called omni-pork, a plant-based pork brand. but this could be a good time for the fake meat people to get into business. meat plants have been shutting down because of the virus and this could be an alternative and certainly in china, it's interesting that you have beyond meat teaming up with starbucks. interesting to see how they are received in that chinese market. stuart: it sure will. all right. back to the overall market. now we are doing well. look at this. dow is up 179, 180 points,

23,600. it's a rally early this thursday morning. check out boston beer. they are the sam adams people. down. they reported a $10 million virus revenue hit and they pulled their full-year guidance. that's a beer company and it's down 2.4% as we speak. avis, the car rental people, just like hertz, reported -- well, they reported profits yesterday. revenue is up big in january and february. ah, then along comes march and april, especially april, they took an 80% slide in business in the month of april. that was avis for you. thanks to the virus, of course. the stock down to $11 a share. indicator time. what's the yield on the ten-year treasury? it is .61%. the yield is down. that means the price is up. that means money is going into treasuries. it's still going to stocks as

well. check the price of gold. this intrigues me. where is it? $1,752 per ounce. that has been a very gradual but very solid gain for the price of gold throughout the virus experience. disney, a new "star wars" series in the works, is that right? for disney plus? lauren: yeah, it would be an all female cast. it would take place sometime in the "star wars" timeline. not exactly sure. releasing on disney plus, as far as we know. but also, season three of the mandalorian has been green lighted. so that, too, is coming. disney stock down today, though, about .5%. stuart: tiny fraction. $100 a share. i think it's time we brought in john hudlick, ubs media analyst. he focuses very much on disney. john, i read your stuff. you say that disney is in the eye of the storm and therefore, won't reopen the parks probably until next year.

make your case, please. >> that's right, stuart. so because of the outbreak, we think disney is seeing pressure across all its major segments but none worse than the theme parks. the theme parks closed in mid-march and we think given the work we have done and the consultation we have done with our health care analysts, that it's unlikely they will open until january 1. that's a revision from our previous estimate for june 1st. we just thought it would be more prudent to make january 1 our base case. but it's not only important when but how they open. stuart: can you make any judgment on whether or not people will be willing and eager to go back to disney's theme parks? how are they going to feel about it? on the phone: that's exactly right. so disney world and disneyland have typically gotten between 50,000 and 60,000 visitors per day. again, this is like filling up a sports stadium every day, and it's obviously much more complex than that because the patrons are moving around, getting on rides, buying food, hugging mickey. it's a very complex ecosystem

and a lot has got to change for them to open up safely. we think it will take time. stuart: do you think $100 a share is about right for the price right now? on the phone: we think it's right right now. just given the lack of visibility and again, it's not just the theme parks. the box office is an issue with the theaters closed. espn with no live sports is an issue for the company. what we have worries about, what the outbreak is going to do for the company, and also what are the lingering economic effects at the company. at $100 a share we think it's accurately priced. stuart: you make a good case. it looks like disney is indeed in the eye of the perfect storm. john hodulik, thanks for joining us. appreciate that. the dow has now gone up 200 points. 200 point gain, 23,600. okay. check tyson foods, please. they are going to close their biggest pork plant -- i should say the biggest pork plant in iowa. some workers there contracted the virus.

they have shut it down. what's being done about this? that's a serious interruption of the pork chain -- what's the word, supply chain. it's a serious interruption. iowa senator joni ernst is with us in our next hour on that subject. here's a number for you. three million americans skipping mortgage payments. we hear that help is on the way and we've got details for you. next, i'm talking to the guy who helped create the travel website expedia. they are now nearing a deal to sell a stake in the company. is that kind of desperation after the horrible effects of the virus on the travel business? we will ask him. more after this. every financial plan needs a cfp® professional --

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susan: a security firm says they have high confidence that advanced threat operators, so that probably means intelligence agencies around the world, have been exploiting these flaws in the mail app that are used on iphones and ipads and don't forget, close to a billion iphones are currently in use around the world and they said that individuals and fortune 500 company in north america has been a target from a carrier in japan and also a journalist in europe. apparently apple has been made aware of this flaw in their mail app and say they are issuing a beta update in order to close that gap but the cybersecurity firm says that in that meantime, the people that are using this vulnerability will probably try to attack as many iphones and ipads as possible so be careful in opening some unknown mail. stuart: you know what got me in that report? nearly a billion iphones in use around the world. i can't belief tve the staggeri

numbers they come up with. extraordinary stuff. let's go to lauren. at & t has a cord cutting problem and it's getting worse, is that right? lauren: talk about being in the eye of the storm. at & t, they own cnn, warner brothers, hbo. in the quarter, in the first three months of the year, one million subscribers cut the cord, going to streaming options instead, but the first three months of the year hardly covered the lockdowns from coronavirus so that cord cutting is certainly expected to accelerate as we head into april and throughout. now, there is relief if you will for at & t because around memorial day they will launch at $15 a month their streaming service, hbo max, but it's expensive at $15. there's a petition going around, 60,000 people have signed it thus far, asking for the streaming giants of this world to offer their services for free for 60 days. so there you have it. stuart: okay. just give it away.

see about that. thanks, lauren. check snap. that's the company behind snapchat, of course. the stock has been on a tear recently, down a bit today. it has been on a tear. why, susan? susan: because they actually put in some pretty strong revenue numbers in their latest quarter, increasing daily active users by two million in the u.s. by three million in europe and the stock has been on a tear, seeing its best two days in close to two years and close to that ipo offer price of $17 a share, but here's the caveat because yes, we saw some pretty explosive sales growth in february, up by 58%, but then you know that acceleration fell off a cliff because of the covid-19 spread, so revenue growth slid to 25% on march, 15% in april and 11% in the week leading up to snap's report. why is that important? because snapchat, like other social media companies that rely on advertising revenue, will be hurt in this covid-19 so think of facebook and google and if you look at the numbers falling off a cliff like this for a smaller player like snap,

imagine the implications for someone like google. stuart: just imagine. all right, susan, thanks very much. time to take a look at expedia. yeah, the travel guys. they are -- we are told they are nearing a deal to sell a stake in the company to cover private equity firms. jeff hoffman is with us. you follow this company. in fact, you helped create expedia in the first place. would i be right in saying that they desperately need this money, because they have been hit real hard by the virus? >> absolutely. stuart, i think this is going to be a trend right now. private equity is flush with cash. they are sitting on $2.5 trillion in cash and this is -- they move quickly, so for companies like expedia, that are bleeding heavily like the travel industry, air travel is down 95%, this is a buying opportunity for firms like that. this one is a $3.2 billion financing, $2 billion in debt, $1.2 billion in preferred stock

that's being put together by private equity firms apollo global management and silver lake. stuart: can you give us any idea, your opinion, on how people are going to go back to traveling when we are released to be able to travel? will we travel again in the same numbers as we did before? >> so here's what i think. an investment like that is certainly optimistic to the travel industry. i think the stock's up 5% or 6% already. i think that business travel never gets back to the same numbers because we learned how to work at home. we discovered tools to do business online remotely and virtually. business travel doesn't recover all the way. leisure travel will. none of us want to take a virtual vacation in our living room. we want to go to the beach. but one other thing. i think there's -- you are going to see an increase in a brand new trend. you will hear this word called bleisure, the blending of a business trip with leisure

travel. when we do take a business trip since we will travel somewhat less, we will probably extend the weekend and do something fun while we're there. that will make up some of the loss. stuart: bleisure. did you patent that as a trademark? i bet you did. jeff hoffman, thank you. you are full of good ideas. thanks very much. appreciate it, always. now this. a number of diners and restaurants plummeted, zero, in the last couple of months. that's according to the restaurant booking site open table. i want to know when restaurants do reopen, will we have to sit six feet apart and if we do, are we going to tolerate that? are we going to be happy about that? i will ask the ceo of planet hollywood. that's coming up in our next hour. we'll be right back. let's be honest.

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stuart: i'm going to put a list of stocks up on the screen for you. this list includes amazon, chewy, godaddy, netflix, shopify and wix. wix is a cloud company. mark mahaney is with us, rbc capital markets guy. mark, you called these stocks that are on the screen structural winners. i just want to have you explain something. what's structurally winning about a pet supply company like chewy? >> okay. thank you, stuart.

i think we have to think about how human behavior, consumer behavior, could change as a result of this crisis and so you just mentioned one company. we actually have seen across the country pretty dramatic rise in pet adoption as people are forced to stay in their homes, they are looking for companionship so people are adopting more pets. it's led to an acceleration in demand for chewy's products. they talked about that on their recent earnings call. so that kind of makes them a structural winner. i think for many of these companies, this is just a big marketing event, unfortunately or fortunately, and some companies like chewy, particularly amazon, netflix, are able to take advantage of it. stuart: do all the stocks on your list, have they all done well very recently, during the virus? >> yes, they have. they have outperformed the market. they generally now i put them in the defensive basket. their fundamentals have held up better, we think, than other companies. they are not cyclically exposed although they could be in the back half of this year, but yes, they have all held up well. stuart: it seems that they are

heavily weighted towards online companies, internet companies. i mean, amazon, for example, shopify, wix, for example, that's all internet not based, but internet related, isn't it? >> yes, it is. i think it's a great point, stuart. what you saw is last two months, you have seen an acceleration in online retail sales in the u.s. for the department of commerce data, went up 12% year over year growth, high single digits the prior two months. overall, physical retail has plummeted, it's down 78% in the month of march. look, we want to continue shopping but we are forced to do it from home. that's a boom for online retail. stuart: fascinating. thanks for the list, thanks for the information. all good stuff. we appreciate it. of course, we are following the market. we are up 125 points as we speak. we'll be right back. . . .

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weeks. officials continue to see deep economic contraction. the economic outlook very uncertain right

test test. if you do go back, to the office. can you still get into group conversations around the proverbial how much we need a paycheck and how much cabin fever we can stand. those who want to make a living again, are going to get out make a living again as soon as they can. the greets are opening. the restrictions are coming off. georgia is reopening quickly, across the state. the president's strongly disagrees with that, but he is leaving it up to georgia's

governor. maryland announces reopening plan tomorrow. the lockdown is really is loosening. i suspect there will be varying degrees of back to work enthusiasm. strongest in rural areas where people have always kept their distance. not so strong in older communities. no surprise there, retirees are a high-risk group but once back to work gets rolling it may become a flood, especially if we find that the virus has a fatality rate roughly equivalent to the flu and especially in businesses in danger of bankruptcy. and then there is the weather, yeah, it is spring. summer is coming. if you've been cooped up with the kids for weeks on end, the appeal of sunshine is very powerful. the great outdoors is very attractive when you've been indoors since the winter. how about that? second hour of "varney & company" about to begin.

♪. stuart: let's bring in our ace market watcher, gary kaltbaum. gary, the stock market rally we have seen is because we are opening up the gates. we are going gradually back to work. i think that is what is propelling the market higher. what to you think? >> combination of two things, number one yes, the market is looking over the hump and a very big hump, i think business where we're back to normal. central bank adding trillion bucks a month and not a year, into the market and a system. backing up junk bonds, making leveraged people happy. it is a combination of both. the farther along we go as far as days getting closer and closer to more places opening up, the better as we move forward. stuart: suppose we get a second

wave of the virus. does that, the market go right down again? >> absolutely. the market is about not only investor placing dollars but emotion of placing their dollars. this is a pandemic has been very emotional. if we started heading wrong way again, they will ask questions after. so, yeah, that would be bad news. stuart: really not out of the woods. we can't say, yes, definitely this is a v. you can't say that, because it might be a w. so there is still that very high level of anxiety left behind. i guess, gary, can i say this? i think we're relying on the federal reserve to bail us out of any future crisis that comes along. is that right? >> yeah. they already are. numbers that i can't even believe and i predicted a lot of this. the amounts are gargantuan. add in what the government is doing with the cares act and the ppp. what they call all hands on deck.

they will basically say down the road, the massive debt we'll deal with later. let's take care of issues right now. you can say it is wrong, it is right. but reality, it is something we deal with. stuart: give me an investment i should make right now? >> longer term, my favorite stock is microsoft. i just think they have delivered in just a gargantuan way. once, i think their earnings held up pretty well through all of this, going forward. i think they will continue to accelerate. the cloud business is gangbusters. i think they're a big benefactor. stuart: never let me forget, will you, that i sold microsoft way too early. >> you can buy it back. stuart: i could. all the money i made on microsoft i put into boeing, and lost my shirt. why didn't you tell me what to do properly there, gary. >> we have. we have been negative on boeing since 380, since the two tragedies. they mishandled this whole thing

and they're in the web. my question who will buy airplanes. i think it will be a dead stock for quite a while. stuart: thank you, gary kaltbaum. >> sorry. stuart: gary, appreciate it, always. >> yeah. stuart: listen to this, congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez, she has suggested that low income workers out of a job, unemployed, should boycott, don't go back to work when the crisis is over. watch this. >> we talk about this idea of reopening society, you know, only in america does the president, when the president tweets about liberation does he mean go back to work. we have this discussion about going back, reopening. i think a lot of people should just say no. we're not going back to that. we're not going back to working 70 hour weeks just so that we could put food on the table.

stuart: white house reporter phil wegmann is with us. phil, i don't necessarily want you to comment on what aoc is saying. you may or may not want to. i want you to tell us more about this low income task force that the president is putting together. >> i think what we're seeing right now is that alexandria ocasio-cortez is a perfect foil for what the white house is going to be trying to do in the coming months. her comments are very much out of the mainstream when it comes to democratic leadership and i think this gives the white house an opportunity to make their argument. again she is the foil that keeps on giving. stuart: but i'm right in saying the president is going to try to set up this low income task force. that is in the works, isn't it? >> it seems like it is in the works. seems like very interesting. the president has responded to criticism and to questions. we saw earlier that on the issue of african-american communities

with covid-19, he was pushed on that and about the response of his administration to, the fact that. some of these communities were not getting care that they needed. he was pushed on it. it was addressed. something similar to this low income task force. stuart: seems like the president can turn an issue to his advantage. the far left raises the issue, low income workers, aoc, the president turns around says, i'm going to do something about that, i have a low-income task force. he is responding to issues raised by the far left. quite successfully. that's my opinion. last 20 seconds to you, phil? >> reason being is because the president is only game in town at this point. the only one on prime-time television. he is the guy calling shots at this point. he can make decisions in real time. that is to his advantage going into next november. stuart: phil wegmann, always appreciate it. thank you, phil. >> thank you, sir. stuart: market moves up a bit. we're back to a gain of almost

200 points for the dow industrials. that is 3/4 of 1%. couple stocks to mention, honwell is giving one time cash bonuses to employees. the stock is up nearly three bucks. that is 2.2%. southwest airlines, the stock hit a five 1/2-year low. it bounced a little. $30 a share on southwest right now. next case, former chief economist at the world bank. he has a plan to reopen the economy. it involves unlesses of tests. he will explain that one. bookies taking a lot of bets on tonight's virtual nfl draft. expected to bring in 20 times more money than usual. wonder why that is. we have staggering numbers for you that we'll deliver next hour. but first, when restaurants reopen, will we all have to sit six feet apart? the ceo of planet hollywood has the answer to that and we're going to speak to him next.

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stuart: what have we got on markets now? we're up across the board, not by much. 172 up on the dow industrials. look at google for a second. they're now trying to compete with zoom, offering their own gallery view interface for on-line conferencing. market kind of likes it. up 19 bucks. 1277 on google. american airlines, listen to this, they're raising fees on some checked baggage again. you have to get revenue from somewhere if nobody is flying. the stock is up 21 cents. $10 a share. how about this, delivery apps like uber, grubhub, they're taking a lot of money off the restaurants that they're serving through fees. susan, tell me more about that.

susan: 25% according to these restaurants. delivery taking up to 95% of restaurants business. carry-out and delivery is their business. they are saying it is exorbitant how else do you get food to people and make money at this time. a class-action lawsuit launched against delivery services like uber eats, door dash, by restaurant operators saying the rates they charge are unfair. latest numbers from uber eats last time they reported was 30% surge in deliveries. you can imagine as the pandemic, covid-19 pandemic goes on, that number probably increased a lot more than just 30%. stuart: i would think so. thanks, susan. a big theme on the program is, we're opening up gradually. what will our society look like when we gobbing back to work in more normal times as they say?

robert earl chief executive officer of plan met hollywood. can you give me an idea how restaurants will look when they reopen? >> good morning, stuart. plan net partnership with guy fieri, called chicken guy. so i have a broad business across over 30 states. i think the importance for restaurants is that they must ramp up keeping the to-go business that most of us have managed to develop during these difficult times. while we haven't been able to maintain probably 80% of our employees until starting back next week, we have managed to develop increased sales through very things like you just mentioned, third party delivery and what we call curbside pickup

and i urge all restaurants to keep marketing in that manner. to your point i'm expecting the growth to be slow and one of the reasons is, even though i think there will be many people that wish to dine for all the appropriate reasons, our capacity is being limited and one can't just say, well you have still got 60% of your seats because most restaurant do their biggest business in a restricted number of hours. stuart: yes. >> so we're actually losing more -- 40% of our seats. but all restaurant like ourselves will be social distancing six feet, et cetera, et cetera, and when we start to reopen as early as next week in various states, most restaurants are following along cautiously. we will be all putting in lots of different aspects,

sanitizization. stuart: thank you, robert, come back in the future. i want to see you who the reopening goes. i want to see how people are willing to dine in the restaurant. that was a fine performance on your part, robert this morning. i wasn't aware of all the businesses you're running. robert early, thank you very much. i have to work this out, why is the virus costing sam adams the beer people a lot of money? can you tell me ash? plan. ashley: yes a lot of money. $10 million through march has been lost because of the virus. since march, sales have plunged except for the liquor stores. the breweries are stopped, and they have to produce for tins of

san adams not the kegs. people are not getting the kegs. they're passing that on to a third party brewer. this costs more money to produce. that which is actually being sold but the amount being sold has dropped off dramatically. it is sad, through february, sam sad dams sales volume was up 32%. they thought, this is it. we're having a great year. pandemic hit, then we know the rest of the story. stuart: such a typical story. who could have possibly seen it coming. things were just fine, january an february, rip-roaring economy, everybody doing well. suddenly you plunge you're out of business. look at that drop, 22 bucks on boston beer. i don't have the news, susan does. draftkings, what have you got. susan: shareholder approval for draftkings and sb tech combined. this will be a new ticker symbol available for investors. dkng listed on the nasdaq.

this deal valued 2.billion dollars. looks like they have more than half a billion dollars in unrestricted cash. that means access to capital which will fuel growth. we're looking at explosive growth and online betting just in time for the virtual nfl draft tonight. some people see this as an opportunity. stuart: thanks, susan. i will go to lauren for the american airlines baggage story. bottom right-hand corner of screen, we're up 250 points for the dow jones jones does trees. i think i know. the price of oil has gone to $17 a barrel. as this goes up, exxons, chevronses of this world go up, helping the dow. a rally of 1% now on the back of the oil rally. let's get this to american airlines. what is this, lauren, raising baggage fees again? lauren: they're not buying jet fuel, not flying full planes. so they have to make money somehow. the question is, why now? in the middle of a pandemic they are raising baggage fees for

basic economy tickets. it will cost you $75 each way, an increase of $15 each way, if you are taking a trip over the atlantic. there you have it. more in line what their partners charge. that's why, i ask, why now, american? if no one is really flying? stuart: is it just on the transatlantic route? just new york to london. lauren: yes. stuart: that's just it, $745 per bag each way, that's it? wow. lauren: basic economy going across the atlantic. stuart: nice chunk of change. lauren, good stuff. tyson they're closing, i dropped my fike phone, i'm sorry. dropped my microphone. go to a break next. ♪

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roma, chief economist at world bank, big hitting kind of guy. paul you can restart the economy if we have a national testing strategy. is that accurate? >> that's right. i released a new road map, a plan because we could be solving both of these crises, the health crisis and the economic crisis faster. and to move faster, the main thing we need to think more clearly. we're getting stuck in some traps in our thinking this is not partisan division. this is i think just muddled headed thinking, we have got to get sharp, get busy, get going. stuart: what kind of tests are you talking about? temperature checks, any checks to see if you have the virus? i don't think we're there yet. i don't think we have those tests, have we? >> we do. we know how to do these tests. they're molecular pcr tests. they see if you have got the

virus in your system and you're shedding it. the point, lockdown offers a benefit because it is isolating people who are infectious, keeping them from going out and infecting other people but it is costly because we're locking down a whole bunch of people who are not infectious. if we just knew who is infectious, you isolate them, everybody else can go about their business. stuart: what kind of time frame? >> well the critical thing to test people very early on, before and catch them even before they have symptoms because they're infectious at that stage. again, we have this pcr type test to, to catch people at that stage. we just need to scale it up. we know how to do it. this summer, we could be doing, you know, thousands, tens of thousands times more tests, just doing more of the thing we already know how to do. stuart: do we have to delay until the summer until we can do the mass tests? are we going to be locked down until the summer? >> no. first thing we should do is take

testing capacity we've got and use it to test the people who are already working. you have got hospital workers, emt, police officers, who could being tested until we find out, each one of them knows, am i infectious, will i infect my colleagues. is my colleague infectious. is he or she going to infect me. we need to redirect the tests we have. give them to people already working. scale up more tests. as you get more tests, use those to bring more people back into the labor market. stuart: is it a priority of yours to get back to the work with the tests, you're pushing this. you want to get back to work? >> i think it is essential. i think this country is running severe risks, really dangerous risks if we just let this paralysis linger. we just got to get moving. we got to have a simple plan, scale up your tests, isolate people who are infectious. let everybody else go back to business. simple plan, stick to it, as long as it takes. let me be clear about the costs

here. this country produces, 350 million cans worth of soda a day, okay? if we can produce 350 million cans worth of soda, we can produce 30 million test as day. what would it take to do it? we pay, 45, $50 billion to the soda industry and we spend as much on tests as we spend on soda, we could have those tests you know within a month or two. stuart: i know you don't want to get political robert, i'm sorry, paul, joe stiglitz says, look we could be in a depression, we become a third world country if president trump wins re-election. would you like to comment on that? >> i said before, i don't think partisan divide is holding us back. democrats, republicans, everybody wants to go back to where we were. we need to break free of muddle headed kind of thoughts, we can't never have a lot of tests. if we have 100,000 sodas producing a day, people never

said we could never produce 350 million sodas a day. our economy is incredibly pow per you recall and innovative. we have to direct the energy in the right direction and we can do this. stuart: paul roemer, we thank you for your opinion. the high of the day. we're up 300 points for the dow industrials. i think this is the reason, or part of the reason. look at oil, it is up 20% plus as we speak. 28%. investors like that. edward lawrence is with us again. edward, i'm interested in this story. i understand the treasury is clarifying their stand on big businesses getting help more than small businesses. tell me more, please. reporter: exactly stuart. the treasury department clarifying the rules, saying a company owned by a larger company with substantial access

to cash may not qualify. so basically they have to certify that they do need the funds in an emergency under the coronavirus or had losses based on the coronavirus, and certify that is the case. so now, for example, one of the companies that has been out there, ruth chris, got $20 million in loans under the ppp on april 7th but they had 70 or $80 million in cash on hand before getting that loan. that is one of the companies that may have to look at the position under this new rule. treasury secretary steve mnuchin says that he is going to open investigations if companies, large companies, don't give back some of the monies. if they give it back there will be no issues. again changing the rules now to make sure that larger companies, companies owned by larger entities with access to cash will not qualify, will not be certified under this program. back to you. stuart: that is exactly what treasury secretary mnuchin told us 24 hours ago on this program.

edward, thank you very much indeed. then we have the big banks. they earned a great deal in money in fees for processing small business loans. what was it, ash, 10 billion in fees? ashley: 10 billion, with a "b." this is according to npr who did the story. these loans were supposed to have less review needed than regular bank loans, according to the treasury department, who told lenders the requirements for these were less rigorous than those regular loans. so the question becomes is so why, why are they charging so many fees. bank of america told npr it had a group of 8,000 employees were purely vetting these requests, these loan requests and, says that that was the, that was what was needed. so there is two stories being told. the treasury department saying wait a minute, these were safe loans, low risk, why are you taking so long for one? and then the question of fees, $10 billion in fees fora stimulus bill that ultimately

taxpayers are paying for to get the small businesses. i still say the community banks did a much better job. that is just my opinion. stuart: i think you're right. i think you're factually right, ash, that's a fact. ashley: yeah. stuart: ash, you and i talked about about the electric car business in the era of dirt cheap gasoline. i'm a skeptic about electric cars going forward. ashley: yes. stuart: you have details on ford's new electric mustang? tell me. ashley: the mustang cobra. it's got a v-8 engine, at least you think it would, but it doesn't. when you hit the gas, when, say goose, when you hit the accelerator you will not have the roaring v-8 engine. that is what i was trying to say. this little promotional video of the electric mustang cobra jet. it is a one-off prototype, but maybe a shot across the bow for tesla and porsche who are in the high-end electric vehicle space.

the cobra jet is a iconic mustang. debut the regular fuel version back in 196. it it is incredibly fast. will people like it, when you hit the accelerator you doesn't hear anything other than a high-pitched whine. stuart: a high-pitched whine. that is pejorative if i ever herd one. i will ride my harley. thanks, ash. zoom, they have done real well with the teleconferencing. that stock has gone to the moon. susan, is google going to compete -- susan: they already have. they have a product google meet. they are expanding number of people can join the calls. before they had a limit of four people that can join the google meet call. now expanding it to 16. much less than zoom, you have can have 49 people on the same call at once. google is expanding features.

noise cancellation. better light in dim airs. they say this is helping hopefully attract more users to google meet which is the g suite offering. two million people are signing up for google meet videoconferencing each and every day. less than 200 million daily use zoom. but in the covid-19 spread this is kind of the wave of the future, right? stuart: i think so. two million signups a day? i that is pretty good i got to say. susan: i don't know, not 200 million daily active users like zoom. house party has signups in the last three months. stuart: that is house party. i know all about that. susan: i'm sure. stuart: mine kids do. my kids do. thanks, susan. couple hours time, fox business holds an "america works together" virtual town hall. charles payne runs it. mark cuban is the big guest. you still got time to send your questions to be answered by mark

and charles. you send them to investedinyou@foxbusiness.com. it starts 2:00 p.m. eastern this afternoon on this network. next one, a new poll shows a majority of americans now have an unfavorable view of china. iowa senator joni ernst has a plan to stop the taxpayer dollars from going to the places where the virus outbreak may have started. joni ernst coming up shortly. (announcer) in this world where people are staying at home,

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that's me. put your va home loan benefits to good use. call my team at newday usa. stuart: look at that market, i do declare. that is the hype of the day! the dow is up 371 points. that is one 1/2%. check big tech. let's see how they're doing this morning. the answer is they're doing well. amazon up 52. apple up five bucks, 281. across the board, big tech companies, some more of them. microsoft up a buck 1/2. look at google go $25.

across the board big tech doing well. look at the casino, las vegas sands. i'm pretty sure their revenue plummeted during this crisis, susan, they were closed, vegas was closed. susan: still is closed maybe until the end of this meant or probably extended past that. don't forget we have macau, four times the size of the las vegas strip when it comes to gaming revenue. of the shut for unprecedented 15 days over of lunar new year holiday. we saw 51% drop in sales. gaming revenue, want to call it that, at las vegas sands. they suspended their dividend. this is unprecedented, something they haven't seen in 70 years. given they are probably the most successful u.s. gaming company in asia-pacific, not only operate in macao, but they have the marina based property in singapore, they might come out of this earlier than others, suns macao is back up and

running. singapore looks to be open pretty soon. stuart: i've been in that singapore casino as well. i've seen casinos all around the world. i don't gamble. susan: there is a difference in years. macau opened a lot sooner than the singapore one. stuart: it did. that is very true. on your screens. sop of the market. we're up nearly 400 points. oil is back up to $17 a barrel, the market likes that. we have looks like a downtrend in new jobless claims. the market likes that. olive garden, offering custom photos for high school seniors who can't attend a prom. how does that work, lauren? lauren: think of being high school senior, your internship is canceled. thinking about what college will look like at in the fall and you can't go to the prom. olive garden says, dress up in prom gear, take a picture of

your date and send them to us, we'll make a gimmicky picture of your breadstick and other paraphernalia. this is cute and odd moment. i feel bad for high school seniors right now. their whole world turned upside down. this is time you want to party. u just about to go to college, start real life. stuart: i'm with you. absolutely with you. i do feel bad for the youngsters. also for college seniors. graduation party. lauren: yeah. stuart: that is a terrible thing. lauren, thank you. shortage of truck drivers is getting worse in this pandemic. jeff flock follows that story for us. what do you have, jeff? i'm not sure jeff heard me. i will reintroduce him. reporter: i'm sorry. somebody else was talking in my ear, stuart. i apologize. nothing more important than truckers these days. maybe you see more trucks out on the road than cars. here's the problem. we may be running into a

shortage. why? because of what you've been talking about all morning, the need to reopen things. take a look at this map. we have 21 states and district of columbia where the dmv, the departments of motor vehicles are shut down. you can't get a commercial driver's license. as you know going into this whole thing we had a potential shortage of truck drivers. they're getting older. now may be getting worse. we talked to the guy who is head of the organization that trains truck drivers. here is what he said, here is how he put it to us, stuart, listen. >> but if the estimates hold, you're not only going to see driver shortage return, you will see the driver shortage on steroids because we're not producing the same number or level of drivers that we would on a normal year. reporter: you know, stuart, some drivers tell you, if you talk to drivers, we don't have a truck driver shortage. it is companies trying to keep market flooded so the salaries

stay low. but the fact is we're not adding new drivers right now and that is a problem. stuart: it sure is jeff, thank you very much indeed. tyson foods closing the largest pork plant in iowa because of the virus. some of the workers there have the virus. come in iowa senator joni ernst. senator, this is real fears here about the pork supply food chain. i think we're facing food shortages at the retail level. what can you do about this? >> well, our packing facilities are vitally important and that's why we have an on going effort here in the state of iowa thanks to our phenomenal governor kim reynolds and her efforts to make sure those workers are being tested. but then as well, putting measures into place in our packing facilities to make sure that there is enough space between workers or maybe barriers between workers as they

are providing for that food that will go from our iowa farms to those packing facilities on to your kitchen table. stuart: so you got to do a lot of testing. >> we have to test iowa initiative where people can go online and screen themselves. this type of plant, those workers, all 2800, will be tested later this week. as i understand and we hope that we can get these facilities back up and going. they are absolutely essential to our food supply chain. stuart: if you get the testing done, got the separation at work, got the special clothing, security clothing for the workers you can get back to work at that plant in iowa you think by next week? we need it fast. >> this plant will be shut down indefinitely. now we do hope to get those test results back quickly but depending on how many of those workers are positive, that will

impact as well how much production can begin again. we have a number of other plants that have either slowed down production through their facilities because of shorter work, worker shortages and other factors but we also need to make sure that the workers are safe, but then our food supply chain is safe as well. so if there do need to be measure taken to sanitize the plants that will also take time. stuart: senator, i'm terribly sorry to cut this short but that was a vital question. you answered it for us. we appreciate that. senator joni ernst, republican from iowa. thank you, ma'am. do you need plans for the weekend? how about this? a beatles sing along. ♪ ♪ we all live in a yellow submarine, yellow submarine, yellow submarine ♪ stuart: not one of my favorites but the animated movie yellow

submarine will play on the beatles official youtube channel saturday. the lyrics will play on the bottom of the screen so you all can sing along if that is what you like to do. tonight though, the big event is the nfl virtual draft. it is the first time they have ever done that in history. first time they ever needed to. we have a preview for you. it is coming up next.

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stuart: gronk, as in rob gronkowski, he had rough words for the patriots. ashley, why am i not surprised? ashley: he came into the varney studio, if you remember, he was such a character. he has been retired for a year and he was asked about his time at the new england patriots. he was there for nine seasons. he said in an interview, i can't say they are the easiest organization to play for. that was about as much as he said. he didn't expand on that but he also added, what i have learned there i am going to definitely take with me as he goes to the tampa bay buccaneers to join his old friend and quarterback tom brady. i don't think it was a massive slam. he wouldn't expand on what he meant by not an easy organization. so we'll leave it at that. stuart: terrific marketing and publicity for the tampa bay

people. you want to bring in the fans. that is how you do it. a little controversy. pick a fight. that is how you do it. the virtual draft it is tonight. grady trimble has been following it. what do you have, grady? >> i'm one of those tampa bay people. i'm from the area. the any of draft was supposed to be the most grand did i owes draft of all time in the land of excess and sin city, there was supposed to be floating red carpet in front of the bellagio, the nfl scrapped all the plans. it will be pretty bare bones this year but extremely complicated from a broadband and i.t. point. team owners will have to be spread out to rely on technology to communicate with each other and other teams. because people are craving anything live right now as far as sports goes, many people are expecting this to be the most watched and the most bet on nfl draft of all time. some of the more unusual draft bets that you can place, who

bill the number one overall pick hug first? will the draft be hacked and, will the total number of dogs shown during the first round. earnings well, you got to bet on something related to sports. if that is the best you got. well you're in deep trouble. grady, thank you very much indeed, sir. the lockdown is lifting. america is starting at least to reopen. we're going to talk to the pennsylvania congressman dan muser. his state will be back in business in a few weeks, weeks. why the delay? i will ask him. to some people this reopening can't come fast enough. the jobless numbers are out. four million new unememployment claims. that is down from last week. more on that in a moment. look, this isn't my first rodeo...

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stuart: exactly 11:00 eastern time. here we go. we're up 345 points for the dow industrials. there are a couple reasons why. first of all, first thing this morning, we learned that there were 4.4 million new unemployment claims filed and that's actually down from last week, when it was 5.24 million. now, some people are looking at that as a trend, a downward trend, taking some inspiration from that. the other factor on the market rally this morning is the price of oil. at the moment, we are up about $17, almost $18 a barrel. the market loves that. because this extreme weakness in oil has been depressing stock

prices. now we've got the price going up 25%, 26% for oil and the market likes it and is rallying. all right, everyone. now this. never let a good crisis go to waste. that's so true of the virus crisis. senator schumer is using it to get bailouts for state governments, something the left has wanted for decades. the virus presents the perfect opportunity. look what it's done to us, give us the money. senate leader mcconnell doesn't see it that way. instead of sending more federal money and racking up enormous debt, he would rather see these states declare bankruptcy. now, it's the big democrat-run states that have their hands out. they are demanding a virus bailout even though their finances were a mess way before the virus hit. new orleans spends nearly a quarter of its entire budget on

state worker pensions. the governor refuses pension reform. illinois is broke so the state senate president wants $41 billion from the feds of which $15 billion would be a no strings attached cash handout. and there will be another $10 billion for government worker pensions. perfect. we pay and illinois solves its self-inflicted problem which has nothing to do with the virus. michigan has already received $3 billion, that was from the first rescue package. that's 27% of its budget. they want more. new york got $5 billion already. governor cuomo says the virus has left him with no funds for reopening. okay, but we shouldn't be paying to fix new york's underlying problems that have already left it chronically in debt. when senator schumer called for a state bailout, he insisted that the money is needed for essential workers, police, firefighters, bus drivers.

okay. help for those people is just fine. but taxpayers should not be funding runaway pension costs or any pre-existing financial problems. that is out of bounds. that's for new york, illinois, connecticut, new jersey, california, or wherever. it's for them to fix. give states money but put strict conditions on it. states should only get the money to meet virus expenses and that's it. let's not allow this crisis to be financially abused. here's mitch mcconnell. see what he's got to say. roll tape. >> we all represent states, we all have some regardless of party who would love to have free money. that's why i said yesterday we are going to push the pause button here because i think this whole business of additional assistance for state and local governments need to be thoroughly evaluated, we would certainly be in favor of allowing states to use the bankruptcy route if the states

and cities and there's no good reason for it not to be available. stuart: let's bring in our favorite guy, pete hegseth, "fox & friends weekend" cohost and author of the upcoming book "american crusade." we got that promo out for you. what do you make of this, the democrat-run states are already in deep financial trouble. i think they are using the virus as an excuse to get some money out of the taxpayers to fix their pre-existing problems and i don't like it. how about you? >> it is a pre-existing condition of their own making, stuart. what i say to your open is amen, amen, amen. i mean, we know exactly how these types of states have been run. they have been run by democrats, by progressives, by leftists, who have not cared one bit about their balance sheet and has caved in to unions and pension funds, invested in massive rail projects that people barely use, and ultimately their balance sheets are out of whack so they

get in a tough spot and as you said, here comes the crisis, here comes the handout. it's like your cousin, right, who doesn't know how to manage his own checkbook and keeps falling into debt over and over and over again and you can only bail them out so long. he's got to deal with his own problems. so you can easily section out what goes to covid, what goes to this, and narrowly tailor it to that. problem is, you know, you can do that in the senate with mitch mcconnell. nancy pelosi, though, partners with chuck, is going to do everything in the house to pass something that is bloated and prolongs the tough love that these states need. they can't go on like this forever. stuart: i knew you were right. now try this one. i want you to listen to congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez encouraging the national -- a national work force boycott, don't go back to work. just watch this. roll tape. >> we talk about this idea of reopening society, you know, only in america does the president, when the president

tweets about liberation, does he mean go back to work. when we have this discussion about going back or reopening, i think a lot of people should just say no, we're not going back to that. we're not going back to working 70 hour weeks just so that we can put food on the table. stuart: it's another example of don't let a good crisis go to waste, isn't it. don't go back to work if you're low paid, stay on strike almost, and demand more money. >> i hope she keeps talking. the more she talks, the less sense she makes. in this moment, notice what she said, only in america. only in america. know what, you're right. only in america was adam smith and capitalism unleashed so that we have iphones that have more computing power than the first shuttle we sent around to moon, where the internet and refrigerators and cars and air conditioning and all the things that are of american invention and innovation have improved and uplifted the lives of billions

of people. only through the unleashing of the fact that people say you liberate me by giving me a chance to achieve the american dream through a job and some day i want a better job and i want a higher wage and i want to do better for my family. that is only an american dream and it is what has made us so special. you talk about it every day on the program. if comrade cortez is so dissatisfied, there are plenty of workers paradises around the globe. it could be china, russia, check out venezuela. the workers there can unite all day long and there's no jobs for them so they can protest all day. this is lunacy that is completely antithetical to american capitalism and prosperity except it is precisely what is being taught in our schools right now. it's what i write about in the book. it's what we talk about every day. kids are being led to believe there is a free lunch, that government should pay for it and it's totally anti-american. stuart: by the way, i grew up with people who called each other comrade. can you believe that? look at me now.

>> your conversion, you got to write a book about it, brother. stuart: i will think about that. pete, you're all right. see you again soon. good luck with the book. furniture stores, ethan allen, laz-e-boy, planning to open some stores may 1st as furniture manufacturing increases, we are told. both stocks are up. kroger sharing a blueprint on how to reopen post-the virus. tell me more, lauren. lauren: you can reopen, but will they come. how do you make customers feel safe going out to stores again. kroger says look, we have been doing this for the past five plus weeks because of coronavirus. they are sharing what they have learned. limit the number of customers that can come in. put up barriers where you can. lots of signs with education and tips on what you should do to protect yourself and others.

one-way aisles. temperature checks. so when they start to reopen, whether it's their retail stores or their production plants, because yeah, a lot of us are refurnishing our houses right now and fixing them up, the demand is there but you've got to make people feel comfortable going out again to spend their money. stuart: yes, you do. you've got to be comfortable, got to put the anxiety to one side, got to get out there and be comfortable. that's true. how about this one. abigail disney, a relative of the original walt disney, she is slamming the company again. what's it this time, ash? ashley: yeah. not for the first time. she became upset after reading a story in the "financial times" apparently that said that the company has decided not to pay 100,000 workers and saving $500 million a month but at the same time, choosing to keep the bonuses for its top executives. most of those bonuses coming in the form of dividends. she said initially what the actual "f" exclamation point, then went on to say that it was

abuse. she says that that money that they saved not paying the workers would pay for three months' salary for front line workers in the battle against coronavirus. she said it's going to people who have already collected egregious bonuses for years. disney, by the way, points out their top executives have endured pay cuts as well. she says that's nothing, just a drop in the bucket, and she says her conscience is such that she has to speak out about what she calls such abuse. by the way, she's not on the board, has no other tie other than being of course, an heir as the granddaughter of the walt disney's brother roy. there you have it. not the first time we have heard from her. stuart: by the way, the "financial times," "ft" as it's known, is the most rabid anti-trump vehicle. you think the "new york times" is bad. you ought to read "ft." i stopped reading it. i can't take it any longer. just thought i would get it out of my system.

susan, come back in, please. what's this about a stock buy-back program at apple? that's a big deal. susan: that's a big deal, especially when it's $100 billion. but if you think about the type of companies and the name of companies that have that type of money, apple is probably on top of that list. so $100 billion in buy-backs. they usually make these announcements during the march earnings and that's pretty much what we will get next week. now, what does this mean for the stock price? when you buy back your stock, that increases the stock price so that's a good thing for apple investors and according to the bernstein apple analyst, he predicts apple will take 40% of the stock out of the market so can you imagine the boost in the stock price? stuart: yes. that will be huge. $100 billion, take 40% of the stock out. that's big. but one more thing, susan. the bloomberg report on apple chips. what's that all about? susan: so they are going to offer their first mac with their own made chip starting in the

year 2021. currently macs use intel chips. bloomberg says apple will eventually try to make three more of their own chips internally but this is a surprise? not really. we have heard apple say they want to build their own supplies in the future and their own chips. we know that taiwan semiconductor makes a chip from the iphones and ipads but if you have the same underlying technology, in-house made, by the way, you also control your own ecosystem, right. that makes it easier to run on ipads, iphones and macs and then you can protect, there's better security software and you can provide updates more frequently as well. is this earth-shattering? no, since we have been talking about it for over a year. it makes sense, you want to control your own chips and -- stuart: so isn't that called vertical integration? susan: oh, yes.

stuart: that's what i learned in economics class a long time ago. you control each section going down the food chain and you do that, you've got a lot more control over the product. i think that's probably what they are up to. i don't blame them. thanks, susan. polte group up, they reported revenue up from a year ago. lauren, the new home sales number came out earlier. i don't think we ran it. what have we got? lauren: okay. down 15% plus in the month of march. look, when i say march, that's an old number. things were getting bad in march, as you see new home sales down 15%. pulte homes, the stock is up today because in the first quarter of the year, they did fine, but the ceo of pulte said the first quarter is not reflective of the damage that we are seeing right now in the market. let's talk more about that damage. three million homeowners in forbearance, can't pay their mortgages right now because of coronavirus. it's a really bad scene. people are pulling their homes

from the market. so inconvenieventory is down an 3.3% mortgage rate isn't going to save the housing market in the short term. so that's the synopsis. the housing market in april amid the coronavirus. stuart: okay. all right. here's what we have coming up for you today. the next 45 minutes. eli lilly smashing first quarter earnings thanks to prescriptions in the virus pandemic. the stock actually is up nearly 2%, nice gain. i've got the ceo of eli lilly straight ahead. one state using drones to monitor and stop the spread of the virus, or so they say that's what it's for. we will tell you where this is happening later this hour. president trump says he strongly disagrees with georgia governor brian kemp's decision to reopen some businesses quickly. we will tell you exactly what the president had to say. that's next. - [narrator] soon, lights will come on.

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i told the governor of georgia, brian kemp, that i disagree strongly with his decision to open certain facilities which are in violation of the phase one guidelines for the incredible people of georgia. phase one, we're going to have phase two very soon, is just too soon. i think it's too soon. i told the governor very simply that i disagree with his decision but he has to do what he thinks is right. stuart: you heard directly from the president. he just thinks it's too soon. strongly disagrees with governor kemp in georgia about reopening so quickly. ashley, come in, please. what did dr. fauci say about this? ashley: well, much what the president said, because of course, he's advising the president, but the doctor says look, when we talk about reopening, we have to do it, reopening the economy, that is,

we have to do it in a very measured way. tliv take a listen to what he had to say. >> if i were advising the governor, i would tell him that he should be careful and i would advise him not to just turn the switch on and go, because there is a danger of a rebound. i know there's desire to move ahead quickly. it's a natural human nature desire. but going ahead and leapfrogging into phases where you should not be, i would advise him as a health official and as a physician not to do that. ashley: the governor brian kemp said look, he's defending his decision saying he has all the confidence in the world that the business owners of georgia will indeed adhere to the health standards required. so he's not backing down. stuart: i understand that. the whole story, as you know, is we are beginning to reopen in various states. i notice that california is going to allow some elective

surgery. that's a breakthrough. oklahoma opens up a little bit tomorrow. i'm bringing in congressman dan meuser, republican from pennsylvania. dan, great to be on the show with you again. your state is beginning to reopen on may 8th. that's a couple of weeks to go. i think pennsylvania is a largely rural state. what's the delay? >> well, it's not necessarily a delay. what we have is a strategic problem in that it's based upon not the safety standards of a company but based upon what they're producing and as well, our governor put out some other standards based upon the number of cases within a county's population. you know, from the very beginning, if governors would have followed the guidance of the cdc and the president, and truly began with a plan completely based upon safety standards, provide legislation which the president and congress

has to allow people to be at home and for businesses to slow down and not shut down, bring in the private sector in an inclusionary manner in the best steps to take to move forward and then lay out a plan that starts with safety standards that has a very high level of such requirements, that businesses need to abide by, and regardless of the product and services they provide, they can open under such high levels of workplace safety standards. and it's not too late. governors and frankly our governor in pennsylvania i hope adopts the safety standards approach, not what it is that you make and produce. stuart: yeah. the sooner we open safely, the better using the guidelines. that's where i'm coming from. congressman, i've got to ask you about this. there's a fox news poll that says joe biden is more popular than the president in your state, pennsylvania, 50-42. can you explain this?

is it because joe biden is a pennsylvania guy to start with? >> well, people aren't remembering, anyone who took that poll are not remembering that joe biden has stated he's going to ban fracking, he's going to eliminate coal, he's going to raise your taxes. bernie sanders might be out of the race but his policies are alive and well in the biden campaign. the green new deal is something they think is fantastic. he's also going to bring on beto o'rourke to handle gun control. once people start realizing what the joe biden camp is about and campaign is about, then look at what president trump has done over the last three years, we have the lowest unemployment in over 50 years, wages are going up, manufacturing is way up, trade is doing great for our agricultural community. you know, as soon as we really look at some facts here and the full situation and the picture, people will, the majority of pennsylvanians will say yep, this is the right track we're on, this is where we need to go,

america, we are going to keep america great. that's where pennsylvania was and that's where pennsylvania will be. the president kept his promises since 2016. the majority of pennsylvanians realize that. stuart: dan meuser, republican from pennsylvania, thanks for joining us. appreciate it. now, we have news from senator elizabeth warren. what have you got on that? ashley: we do and it's sad news. the senator announcing that her eldest brother don reed has died from covid-19. she put out this tweet, saying my oldest brother died from coronavirus on tuesday evening. he joined the air force at 19 and spent his career in the military, including five and a half years off and on in combat in vietnam. he was a charming and funny, he was charming and funny and a natural leader. reportedly don reed was 86 years old. he tested positive about three weeks ago for the cocovid-19, t

virus, and passed away in norman, oklahoma. that's what we have heard. it's touching many people's lives including elizabeth warren. stuart: it certainly is. thank you very much indeed. take a look at hershey, chocolate people. that's how i think of them. their profits weren't great and the company says it's going to -- here's the redeeming factor if there is one. they are going to still pay the quarterly dividend. they are holding on to that one. the stock is down 3%. similar story at blackstone. their earnings are not that great but they are keeping their dividend. they pay a very strong dividend. that's why the stock is up 6%. big gain there for blackstone group. i do own a few blackstone shares. back to $49 on bx. look at this one. a drone that could detect virus symptoms? really? that's a new one on me. find out which state is testing out this technology. because one of them is. first, though, 4.4 million

people filing unemployment benefits. 5.2 million the week before. is this a down trend? is that a positive? i will ask that of heather zumarraga, market watcher, next. oy

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now on the dow industrials. one of the reasons is the price of oil. it's gone up to $18 a barrel. that's what the market kind of likes to see. how about target? they say that digital sales quadrupled. same store sales went up in april. however, their stock is down 1.5% because apparently their profit margins are getting narrower. how about gap. they are suspending rent payments on all their leases. talking to landlords about deferring payments as the closures become apparent because of the virus. virtually no change in the stock. up 12 cents. that's it. dominos. i would imagine their weekday sales are pretty good. are they? the stock's down. what's going on? susan: the stock's down because they removed their long-term forecast so their two to three-year outlook because uncertainty over this ongoing pandemic but this stock and this company is actually doing very well. they are saying same store sales went up 7% just in the first few

weeks, the first four weeks of the second quarter. they are looking to hire 10,000 more workers and yes, weekday sales have significantly been up and it's interesting that weekends have generally been more pressured in the u.s. i guess people aren't eating as much pizza on the weekends but they say delivery, carryout, holding relatively steady, on average at least in the u.s. the problem stems from the international business, where they are seeing same store sales drop 3% in the first few weeks of the second quarter. but you know, people are eating a lot of pizza, when you are stuck at home and ordering out or ordering in, actually, in this case. stuart: i wonder why overseas sales would drop like that. they're all locked down just like we are. susan: i would say there isn't that much delivery, if you look at european you know, countries, for instance. asia is a lot of delivery but the european -- stuart: i'm a european and of course, originally, and i don't order out. susan: you don't say. stuart: you know that. general motors, got news on them. the stock's up, i see.

not much. lauren? lauren: they want to restart production. general motors tells grady trimble this. a lot of planning is under way to safely restart production. that includes notifying some team members that we may need them to report to work soon. the detroit free press says soon is next week. recall furloughed workers, coming back, gm and other makers want to make cars again. but first, they need to get the factories equipped with social distancing to make sure the workers are safe, but we just told you a few minutes ago about some of the furniture stores. now some of the auto makers, america is opening back up slowly and in the right way. stuart: yeah, that's a very important point on the overall picture of opening up. we are getting on with it. i like to hear that. thanks very much, lauren. market watcher heather zumarraga joins us right now. heather, what do you think of my theory here. we've got five million jobless claims last week, four million

this week. i call that a positive trend. as if we may have reached the peak in the unemployment unhappiness. are you with me on this? >> well, it definitely is an improvement. as horrific as it sounds, talking about four million weekly job losses as if now it's become somewhat normal. it is a decline from the peak that we perhaps have seen last week, unless states are still having trouble processing these claims at a rapid pace. in terms of the economic significance, which i think you would also be pointing out, it really isn't as significant as it was say a few months ago because this is a self-inflicted shutdown wound by covid-19. it's nothing -- it's not indicative of a bad economy that we had which we did not have going into this. stuart: we are spending trillions and trillions of dollars, congress is spending trillions, pushing it out into the economy. i want you to listen to what senator john barrasso said

earlier on this program about government spending. watch this. >> it is time to push the pause button on additional congressional and u.s. spending. we have spent $2.7 trillion over the last one month. before we spend another dime, we need to make sure that, one, we are all back in session to debate this face-to-face. number two, not another dime until we actually see the impact of the money that we're spending and also the impact of the debt on our national debt picture. stuart: what do you say to that? no more spending? >> well, i think spending is and will happen until we get through the virus. so it's a health crisis but i do believe debt and deficits will be a hot topic or area of discussion when we get back to reopening the economy. senator mcconnell has echoed some of those same concerns,

saying that we should be concerned about extraordinary levels of national debt while people like aoc and schumer are just asking for more blind i think wasteful spending. so yes, we need spending like the paycheck protection program to get us through these tough times but it needs to be done in a way that is not wasteful and is getting into the right hands. stuart: it's rescue spending as opposed to stimulus spending. that comes way down the road. rescue now, stimulate later. heather zumarraga, thank you very much indeed. the dow is up 300 points. got it. okay. dan henninger is with us. after all, it is thursday. "wall street journal" deputy editorial page editor. the title of his article today, "how we'll live with coronavirus." dan, i think you expect us, americans, to bust out of these stay-at-home rules eagerly. i think that's what you're saying in your piece. >> well, something like that, stuart. not just eagerly but inexorably.

it has to happen. look, human beings have been around for millions of years. we have learned a certain kind of social behavior and we have been living through a very abnormal period with coronavirus. we have had to think about it every day of the week as a kind of unstoppable plague. well, we took the advice of anthony fauci and the medical experts and we did the lockdowns and the idea was to create space for the hospitals, not to crush the hospitals, but to get past the peak to the point where we would have renewed hospital capacity. we are getting at that point now, stuart. so i think you're going to see just a rising tide of human beings in the united states trying at this point to restore social and economic equilibrium to their lives. it's the natural course of things. that's why you see people pressing to reopening their stores. that's why you see doctors and hospitals saying it's time to

restart cancer surgeries, heart surgeries. all of these things are beginning to make an equal moral claim to the way society functions, to the way it's been forced to function for the last two months. that's what i mean by social equilibrium. stuart: do you think the flood gates are opening? and we'll be flooding back to the workplace and to the entertainment venues? is it going to be we are going back, here we go? >> it's more like a slow rising tide, stuart. i think people are pushing forward, small shop owners that are opening here and there around the country. many parts of the country have extraordinary hospital capacity to deal with any upsurge in coronavirus as some have been suggesting, and i think over time, people will start gathering in their workplaces, on the streets, on main street, perhaps the great big sports arenas will be the last to go, but you can just feel, stuart, that people are coming back and

trying to get on with their lives again and avoid the sort of economic destruction that is suggested by these unemployment numbers again this week. it's just inexorably going to happen. stuart: cabin fever is an awful condition. thank you very much for joining us. see you again soon. all right. look at the stock price of eli lilly, please. earlier today, they put out a gangbusters financial report. revenue up 15%. they pulled in 5.8 billion, up from last year. moments away from talking to the ceo of eli lilly. first, though, one state using drones to monitor and stop the spread of the virus. we will tell you how that's happening, where it's happening, and what you might want to think about that.

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we have come down a bit. we were up 400. now we are up 280. we will still take that. a town in connecticut using drones to fight the virus. i'm intrigued by this story. kristina partsinevelos, come on in, please. tell me how does this work? kristina: well, imagine you're walking down the street and all of a sudden you start coughing and then you notice a drone flying right above you, or you hear the drone's speaker tell you step away from your friends, you are standing too close. these are called pandemic drones and they have arrived in america. they are being made by dragonfly, a canadian company, and these drones can detect your temperature even if you have a fever, from 190 feet away, it can detect if you are sneezing or coughing, of course if you are standing too close to friends, your breathing rate and your heart rate. they have had their first test flights here in america in westport, connecticut. the westport police is using them as a test to stop the spread of the virus but of course, accuracy is a major concern. listen in.

>> this is definitely something that needs to be worked out. how are we able to distinguish between what's a true fever, what's not, how are we able to identify at-risk groups and remove them from the gathering because essentially, that's one of the things we're looking at dragonfly being able to do. kristina: dragonfly of course raises also some privacy issues. i spoke with the federal aviation association. they say they monitor security, not privacy, and the company's ceo of those drones said as it stands today, the drones are not designed to identify people. stu? stuart: okay. i just worry what they are going to use them for when the virus goes away. i mean, you know, i don't want to be looking up to see who's checking out me. all right. good report. thanks very much indeed. see you later. thanks. google. here we go again. they have issued a warning about cyberattacks. what, another one? what's this one about? lauren: yeah. another one. they have noticed at least 12

foreign governments try to hack into our health care system, meaning maybe saying to a hospital look, we are going to lock down all your data unless you pay us money. pay us ransom. another way they are spotting the attacks is 240 million coronavirus related spam e-mails sent a day pretending to be your employer as you are working from home, you may not have the proper safeguards in place or a fast food promotion for health care workers. google are beefing up security for those accounts most vulnerable. stuart: we are glad to hear that. thank you very much indeed. big name guest with us today. eli lilly released their first quarter earnings report earlier today. they took in $5.8 billion worth of revenue. that's a 15% increase. the ceo is dave ricks and he joins us now. dave, welcome to the program. very good to see you, sir.

>> great to be with you, stuart. hope you're doing well. stuart: i am doing remarkably well. hope you are, too. can you condense into about 30 seconds and tell us what eli lilly is doing in terms of testing, treatment and vaccine for the virus. >> absolutely. thanks for having me on. we had a good quarter but all that seems small relative to the problem in front of us addressing the covid-19 crisis. of course, companies like lilly were made to solve problems like this. that's exactly what we're doing. we're directing our scientific and technical capabilities and addressing this problem with three separate medicines, therapies we are working on, then locally, setting up, converting our labs almost overnight to backstop the state of indiana for its covid-19 testing. the three therapies we have either starting trials as we speak or in the next few days. one is already on the market, a rheumatoid arthritis drug that's being studied in an nih study.

we have our own repurposed cancer drug, ang-ii antibody. that study has begun. then as early as june, we will start studies with a direct antibody approach where we take antibodies from surviving patients who had covid-19, we pick the very best ones, change them to make them more like drugs, then we will treat patients with those and it will knock down the viral load. that could start as early as june. stuart: now, dave, when this is done, are you going to have a liability problem, in that the lawyers are going to come after you big-time. they always do, with every new product you ever put on the table, so to speak. you got a liability problem? >> well, to be honest, i haven't spent a lot of time thinking about that although i'm sure you're right, stuart. a number of risks are being taken in the medical system and pharmaceutical companies are taking a lot of risk to try new things. of course, the size of the problem is huge so we think the

risks are proportionate to that. but likely we will be criticized for lots of things and we will likely be sued for lots of things. stuart: you will be criticized for making a profit, dave. if you make a profit, you will be making profit at the expense of people's health. you can see it coming a mile off. last one. have you devoted, you are a vast company, you are huge, have you devoted a huge proportion of your resources to the virus? >> so we have devoted hundreds of scientists and tens of millions of dollars so far. if our programs progress, those numbers will grow dramatically, and at this point, that's not my main concern. my main concern is can we get a solution. that of course is invaluable and when we get to that point, we will celebrate and figure out what it cost us, but right now, our purpose is to help patients suffering from this disease and help society get back to something that looks like normal. stuart: dave ricks, ceo, eli lilly, thank you very much for being on the show today, sir.

i know you're busy. it was great to have you with us today. thank you. thank you. here's what's coming up. tiger woods, phil mickelson, they are teaming up to play a charity golf match against two other big stars. we will tell you who the big stars are. 2:00 p.m. eastern today, charles payne hosting a virtual town hall. with mark cuban there. still time to submit your questions. after the break i will tell you how to put the questions in there. - hey, can i... - safe drivers save 40%!!! guys! guys! safe drivers save 40%!!! safe drivers save 40%! safe drivers save 40%!!! that's safe drivers save 40%. it is, that's safe drivers save 40%. - he's right there. - it's him! safe drivers do save 40%. click or call for a quote today. mortgage rates are now at all time lows. safe drivers do save 40%. by refinancing, you can save $2000 a year -- with one call to newday usa. our team is standing by right now to take your call. and from start to finish, you can do it all without ever leaving the house.

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we have to hire the employees back, which is going to be a challenge, so my question is how do we get them back? >> larry, maybe unintended consequences but unemployment benefits now averaging over $900. that's a whole lot more weekly than a lot of people were making and so lot of people are just saying hey, let me go for the unemployment benefits and that puts these small businesses in a heck of a jam. stuart: all right. there you have it. that was charles payne, hosting our last virtual town hall on fox business. you've still got time to send questions for today's virtual town hall. e-mail to investedinyou@foxbusiness.com. don't miss america works

together, virtual town hall guest today mark cuban, 2:00 p.m. eastern today on this network. all right. let's get to that golf and football story. golf legends, football legends playing a charity match. who's playing, lauren? lauren: coming together, so it's going to be tiger woods and peyton manning versus phil mickelson and tom brady, around memorial day on tnt, raising money for charity. of course they will be tested for coronavirus, there will be no fans and there will be social distancing but there you have it. you think those four can raise a lot of money? i certainly do. stuart: yes, i think they will. i would just love to see the scores, too. see how they play. i will watch that. i really will. thanks, lauren. now, i'm going to get back to that boston beer company problem. ash, come on in, please. i can't believe this. they lost money during the pandemic or it cost them. i thought we were all drinking like fish at home. ashley: well, yeah, but with all

the bars and restaurants closed, the demand plunged. it was going great through february. the capacity of the brewery has shut down, they are having to produce more tins than kegs. boston beer, that runs sam adams, has donated two million bucks to restaurant and bar workers which i think is a great thing. stuart: yes, it really is because they need it. thank you very much indeed. here's the promise. more "varney" after this. there are times when our need to connect really matters. to keep customers and employees in the know. to keep business moving. comcast business is prepared for times like these. . . and a team of experts - here for you 24/7. we've always believed in the power of working together. that's why, when every connection counts... you can count on us.

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>> create a tuna melt. open up the mayonnaise. i know my kids hate mayo, make sure plenty on both sides. you got to make sure you distribute this evenly. usually about 30 seconds. stuart: the senator's tuna melt, virginia senator, mark warner what do you think of that, lauren? lauren: i hate tuna melts but psa for washing your hand while it is in the microwave for 30 seconds. stuart: susan? susan: why didn't he toast the bread beforehand? i didn't understand that. stuart: he is combing under criticism, ash. what have you got? >> i like response on social media. somebody said he tapped into the

strategic mayonnaise reserve. stuart: he put gobs of that. that is mayonnaise and a half. i like it. tuna melt is very american thing. i picked up on the habit big time. kind of like it. times up, everybody, at least for me. neil, it is yours. neil: is it safe to heat up mayonnaise in a microwave? i guess. there were a s.w.a.t. team of secret service agents. no. stuart, thank you very, very much. anyone knows the answer to that question, please pass it along. we're in the middle of a rally that continues. the big rally in oil. over the last couple days we retraced 50% in price here. those are still very, very levels on oil. we're getting some disturbing news out of some of the oil giants planning layoffs and cutting back on dividends, that kind of thing.