maria: thanks so much for a great day. have a good day. "varney & company" begins right now. my thanks to this awesome panel. stu, take it away. stuart: good morning, maria. and good morning, everyone. the president's election campaign has been censored, silenced by facebook and twitter. the president told "fox & friends" that children are quote, almost immune from the virus. the video clip was posted and then removed on the grounds that it is harmful misinformation. not allowed to say children are almost immune. the trump team fired back, saying the president was stating a fact that children are less susceptible to the virus. bottom line, as the president

debates back-to-school, voters are not allowed to see or hear him say those words. almost immune. we have a lot more on this, believe me. let's get straight to your money. an economic indicator, here it is, 1.19 million new jobless claims. that is the lowest number since the economy tanked. it is very good news for the recovery. the trend in new claims is flat out down. the dow industrials taking a little heart from that. we were lower, now we're going to be up maybe 30 odd points. not much of a gain. there's a lot of green on the left-hand side of the screen. the market story is the march to new highs. the tech-heavy nasdaq already hit several records this week. the dow is at the 27,000 level. that's up 8,000 points in four months. there's a lot of very positive news in the background. positive vaccine news. that helped. dr. fauci says we'll have tens of millions of doses of the vaccine available early next year. here's another plus. if congress doesn't come up with

a virus relief package, the president will act himself. investors want the money. the stimulus plan we are told will be a plus. you will see the president today. he goes to ohio to check out the whirlpool factory that brought some manufacturing jobs back here from mexico. all right. here's what is called a tease. just wait until you see joe biden responding to a softball question on china trade. we will play it for you. "varney & company" is about to begin. stuart: it is the story everyone is talking about. that is facebook and twitter, censorship and the presidential campaign. susan li, lay it out. susan: the trump campaign posted a replay of the president's interview on "fox & friends" where he said children are almost immune from the coronavirus.

both companies say that that claim violated platform rules. facebook removing president trump's post from his own page, first time facebook has done that to any trump post for breaking its covid rules, while twitter temporarily restricted the trump campaign from tweeting until the video was removed from their account. but it is a sign that social media companies and platforms like twitter and facebook are willing to step up the policing of the trump campaign's posts and the president's posts. facebook has removed posts and ads from the trump campaign in the month of june they say showed alleged [ inaudible ] back to the nazi movement and removing the posts that contained the video of the black and white babies hugging in the street. they are also slapping warning labels on president trump's minneapolis post as well, and twitter has fact-checked, we know that, shielded some of president trump's tweets while children, i want to get the facts out here because children are less susceptible to contracting covid but there have been cases of young children dying from the illness. he did say almost immune, right? stuart: he said almost immune.

that's the expression that was removed. that's what got the post taken down. i'm calling it political censorship. seems to me facebook is basically saying you can't say that. it's becoming an arbiter of truth. that's the very thing zuckerberg said it would not become. howard yue is with us, professor at imd business school. from a business standpoint, big tech is a bastion of tenanhe anti-trumpers. what do you make of that as a business professor? >> i think what's really interesting, you are looking at a shift by mark zuckerberg. as you said earlier, he has declared himself as not the arbiter of truth. i think what happened must be over the last week, the congressional hearing. he must have observed all this aggressiveness by law makers demanding shifts inside facebook, never mind internal backlash and unrest inside facebook employees. so when he looked at all the

tech ceos they are all taking a position much more lenient to what the lawmaker. maybe that's why facebook took a new stand. here's the implication. stuart: would you stay there for a second. i will get back to you in a moment. the other issue, the tech business issue is tiktok. its 100 million users in america are up for grabs. susan, any new developments? susan: microsoft still the lead suitor, looking to outside investors to finance any deal possibly with tiktok. that's despite holding over $130 billion in cash themselves. tiktok could be worth anywhere from $10 billion to $30 billion according to reports, with the trump administration also weighing tiktok's fate, last year, according to fox business reporting. meantime, to deflect from its chinese roots and ownership, tiktok announcing overnight it's spending half a billion dollars on its first server in ireland in the european union.

it will be operational in two years, they say. tiktok says it's meant to protect user data and the trump administration has accused tiktok of sending the data of its hundred million users right here in the u.s. back to beijing. tiktok has said its servers for u.s. customers are in the united states and backups are in singapore. stuart: i got that. the issue is president trump wants to take a piece of the tiktok sale price. professor yu, come back in again, please. seems to me, again, this is my opinion but it seems to me president trump is now the negotiator in chief for american business. what do you say? >> it is very unusual because normally, the president or administration would take a back stand to allow businesses to negotiate the deals. i think what we're seeing here is they are setting up a new norm where government would directly intervene in the company's operation and it's not just the united states, right. we see india have already banned china's tiktok and wechat and

baidu. apple is facing a patent fight over siri in china that could potentially block iphone sales. going forward, i think around the world, government is going to use the reason around privacy issue, national security, local job, local economy, to really have a heavy hand to shape the tech giant going forward. stuart: it's fascinating. i think you put your finger right on it. there's a new normal coming and here it is. professor, thank you, sir. appreciate you being with us. thank you. all right. let's get straight to your money. the markets, kind of a mixed picture. dow up, s&p down, nasdaq up but none of them moving that much. marc tepper bringing his usual morning energy to television. good morning to you. good morning. are we going to see a series of new highs from here on out? you have been looking for that in the past. >> we're close. the market has been unbelievably resilient. jobs numbers today were a heck of a lot better than expected so

things are getting better. you actually saw the futures start to turn around on that news. here we are, sitting within 1% to 2% of all time highs on the s&p 500. stuart: you saw it coming. >> i don't know. i don't know if it was easy or tough to project that. what we're seeing under the surface, in the past, the entire index was rising. what we're seeing right now is the correlations among stocks, they are coming down. you're seeing more winners but you are also seeing more losers. right now is where active management makes the most sense. in my opinion, i think there's a much better opportunity to be selectively buying stocks right now versus plunging head-first into the index. stuart: okay. we are always looking for pandemic winners on this program. we think we found a category that will be animal health. pet care. i don't know how you pronounce

it. zooetis reported this morning, great quarter, optimistic for the future, for the rest of the year. the stock up 3.5%. i believe you own some of that. >> we do. stuart: tell us what you see for this animal health pandemic winner section. >> you think about it, throughout this lockdown, people were sitting in their homes for two, three, four months and all of a sudden, there was a surge in demand for buying companion animals, dogs and cats. there's a waiting list to get dogs right now at a lot of places, animal shelters are running low on animals. so zoetis is all about animal health. it offers the best risk/reward in that space. it had another beat and raise this morning. whether we are talking about dogs or cattle, they have the medicine to keep those animals healthy. a lot of people are spending more money on health care for their pets than on themselves right now. that's where we saw the big beat with zoetis, on the companion animal side of the business. the livestock side has been a

little weaker but it makes sense because the issues with livestock are meat processing facilities were running slow and restaurants were shut down. we think that's a short-term issue. stuart: mark, i'm out of fitime. we are looking for pandemic winners and you found one early. i trust you have done well with it. see you again soon. thank you, sir. let's check more stocks related to the virus. how about moderna. they announced their price range for their virus vaccine. all right, lauren, how much? lauren: the most of all the drug makers, between $32 and $37 a dose. you need two doses. the price is a tiered system so it depends on how many doses are ordered. i want to show you this. this is what the other drug makers will charge for their vaccines. you are seeing moderna well ahead of the bunch. also more than the regular flu shot which tops out at about $25. remember, moderna received almost $1 billion from the government to produce the vaccine. dr. fauci telling reuters he is

thankful the government gave money to many vaccine makers, they didn't put all their eggs in one basket. as a result, dr. fauci expects tens of millions of doses to be ready by early next year. but that is conservative, the white house is looking for hundreds of millions of doses early next year. stuart: i just remember yesterday, the co-diagnostics chief told us it would be 100 to $120 for the spit test. not a vaccine, but the spit test. that's quite up there. all right. lauren: if you're doing that frequently, that adds up. that's a big expense. stuart: it certainly does. thanks, lauren. look at the market overall. no clear direction this morning. not that much movement in any of the indicators thus far. however, look at this. new york city, mayor deblasio putting a virus checkpoint at various places of getting into the city. that is a restriction of internal travel inside the united states. meanwhile, the governor of new york, cuomo, he's begging wealthy residents to return to the city.

we will deal with that. look at this. new poll shows a majority of people in support of mail-in voting. you know where i stand on that. i think it's going to create absolute chaos. we will debate it. plus, president trump is heading to ohio today to tour whirlpool's washing machine factory. congressman jim jordan from ohio will be with him. i want to know what he thinks about all this political censorship, facebook and twitter. i will ask him about that. ♪

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use your voice to search every stat and score. follow the teams you love. and, even get notifications with breaking news alerts and more. with the xfinity sports zone everybody wins. now that's simple, easy, awesome. say xfinity sports zone into your voice remote today. stuart: in our endless search for pandemic winners, we've got

another one. zinga up nearly 4% today. they had a big quarter, right, ash? ashley: they certainly did. turns out homebound americans are bingeing on mobile games and companies like zynga have really benefited. in their last report they said revenue up 47% year over year, to $452 million. not bad. also, you know, people like puzzle games, according to the company. their most popular titles, empire puzzles, merge dragons, merge magic. never heard of any of them. again, i'm not their target audience. but all of that said, stu, the company reported a second quarter net loss of $150 million or 16 cents a share. but these numbers are impressive, point to a more interesting future. but the problem is, what happens when the lockdown really does

start to ease and how do companies like this fare when that happens. stuart: i got my dollar says they will keep playing those games on their phones just like they do right now. ashley: i think so. stuart: i think so. look at sonos, the speaker company. susan, you were following them. the stock is down 10%. what's the problem? susan: yeah. consumers actually spent during covid to make their homes more comfortable and they actually did buy more sonos speakers. sales came in higher despite the fact retail stores were closed and shut during that period but losses widened so they had to spend more. the ceo says the stimulus checks didn't mean people were spending on speakers but spending more time at home did. they also noted their buyers are less impacted by layoffs and more fortunate to still be employed so they can still spend on sonos speakers. sonos introducing three new products during the quarter, cutting 12% of their staff. andrew left says sonos on its own may not be interesting but it could be a takeover target for someone like apple in the

future. stuart: it's cheaper now, isn't it. got that. how about whirlpool? the president goes to ohio today looking at the whirlpool factory. lauren, you're looking at the stock. tell me more. lauren: well, looking at it because whirlpool is a poster child for the administration's trade and tariff policies, right? remember the president slapped a 50% tariff on cheap washing machines coming from asia. that's protected whirlpool jobs. that's the first issue. the second is now americans are stuck at home. guess what? they are upgrading appliances. whirlpool's stock barely moving now but it's up almost 20% this year. ohio is the swing state and it has picked the presidential winner in every election since 1964. imperative that president trump goes there. stuart: well, he's going there. he's going there today. as we said, he's going to visit the whirlpool factory. joining us is congressman jim jordan. he's from ohio. he will be with the president. first of all, why whirlpool?

>> this president has been manufacturing's best friend. whirlpool is a company with thousands of employees across our great state and all around the country. as you mentioned, the trade policies that the president has enacted has benefited not just whirlpool but all of ohio manufacturing and frankly, manufacturing across the country. this is a great place to visit right now. the northern part, north-central part of our great state and in our district. we're happy the president is going to be here. i think he's going to get a tremendous reception. remember, he won ohio by eight and a half points in '16. i think he's going to do the same in 2020. and he's going to be re-elected as president of the united states. stuart: that's interesting, because at this moment in the latest poll, biden leads mr. trump by only one point in ohio. i noticed that today, joe biden is going on a virtual tour of ohio but the president will actually be there in person. >> yeah. yeah. the president's going to be here. he's going to head to cleveland, talk to some folks there.

it's going to be a great day for our state. as i said, joe biden can hang out in his basement, he can do his virtual tours and keep making all the mistakes he makes every time he speaks. this president is going to get out and about and talk with the american people and remind them of the great economy we had. remember, before this virus, taxes cut, regulations reduced, economy growing at unbelievable clip, lowest unemployment in 50 years, wages up. everything was going great. guess what? the virus hit but the great american comeback has started. the numbers you had at the top of your program, the jobs numbers, the market numbers, it's all moving in the right direction. if we can get democrat governors to actually let their citizens, let americans go back to work, you would see us right back to where we were in march. it would happen but for these democrat governors who don't want to let americans go back to work. stuart: i have to get this in. you are the perfect person to talk to about censorship. facebook and twitter taking down that post from president trump where he said children were almost immune from the virus. i call it flat-out censorship.

i guess you do, too? >> no, it is. why is it always conservatives? you never hear about anyone on the left getting censored. it's always conservatives. here's what twitter did just a couple weeks ago. they let the leader of iran, the largest state sponsor of terrorism, put a tweet out that said he will strike a blow against american citizens. that was fine. but they censor the president of the united states. so look, over the next 80 some days before this election, we got to call it out every time it happens, then when president trump wins re-election and republicans take back the house, we have to look at the consequences for big tech targeting conservatives. there's no other way to say it. it's not a hunch, not a suspicion. big tech is out to get conservatives and they will continue to do it. there has to be implications and consequences for those actions. stuart: it is incredible the largest, most powerful companies in the world are run by vigorous anti-trump people from top to bottom. that seems to be the way it is. congressman, i know you would love to keep talking about this and so would i but you know

what, we have to make some money by playing a commercial. see you again. good luck. >> take care. stuart: we will open the market in six and a half minutes. we will be -- it's a mixed bag. no clear direction. but i will let you -- take a look at this. this is times square. 9:20 on a thursday morning. new york city, times square. utterly deserted. more on the problems of the cities throughout the show. we'll be right back. ♪ introducing stocks by the slice from fidelity. now you can trade stocks and etfs for any amount you choose instead of buying by the share. all with no commissions. stocks by the slice from fidelity. get your slice today.

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future for studios? stuart: yeah. i think the answer is going to be yes. i think it is. all right. we are talking streaming. king of the streaming stocks to me has always been roku. ashley, they did benefit from the lockdowns, didn't they? ashley: oh, they certainly did. a monster second quarter. they say 43 million people watched 14.6 billion hours of television on their streaming platform. not bad. revenue, by the way, up 42%. they also added 3.2 million new accounts. that is a million more than expected. now, the average revenue per user, this is an important metric, gained nearly five bucks to just under $25. that's all the good news. the not so good news, they reported a $43 million loss or right around 35 cents a share. they didn't give any financial guidance, saying there's a lot of uncertainty in the ad spending environment and they

say that that spending both on linear and connected tv won't recover to pre-virus levels until well into next year. huge quarter and 3.2 million new customers. not bad. stuart: not bad at all. all right. bring in d.r. barton. look, d.r., i call roku, it's one of the great streaming stocks. that's my opinion. are you buying them? >> i love roku and you are exactly right, stuart, they are not only one of the great streaming stocks, they are streaming experience, the way you search, everything you do on roku has won accolades across all critical reviews. i love them. they do a great job. i think they're going to pull back a few percent here for the reasons ashley just said. ad revenue's probably down the second half of the year but they are just killing it. this pullback is going to be a great place to buy them because when they resolve their hbo max and peacock streaming deal,

that's going to be a catalyst to send this stock higher. stuart: stay there, got more for you later. right now we are waiting for that bell to ring. here we go. ten seconds before the market actually starts to trade. they ring that bell and we wait to see what happens. here it is. 9:30 eastern time. we are off and we are running. trading has begun this thursday morning. we are opening on the down side but not that much. down about 50 points for the dow industrials. the s&p 500, i think that's also probably on the down side. only a fraction, .18%. the nasdaq composite, home of the technology companies, where is that right now? it is down the tineiest of fractions, .05% down. i'm going to show you some vaccine makers because dr. fauci says tens of millions of doses can be ready by early 2021. pretty good news overall on the vaccine front. facebook and twitter, got some

backlash coming after removing a video of president trump's fox news interview that he and his campaign had posted. facebook is actually up a fraction. then we have uber. they report after the bell today. susan, they acquired postmates. is that going to help them? susan: the $2.5 billion acquisition was only announced last month so it won't impact the march to june quarter which we are getting numbers for but it will be interesting to see what they forecast for their food delivery service and food delivery business going forward. what they also see for their grocery delivery service. remember corner shop was something they bought here in the u.s. last time around they said food delivery was up around 30% during the covid lockdown. analysts like wedbush are forecasting a doubling in uber's food delivery business. meantime, ride hailing still their main business, their main revenue generator and it's been down over 80% last quarter but uber said it was picking up slightly, starting the second week of may and onward.

also, what about profitability? that's something we are closely watching because uber's ceo dara khosrowshahi says he's confident they will be profitable after expenses. they are not making money still. in fact, the company has never made money since its founding in 12 years. stuart: okay. well, i want to see what they are saying about the future. when do we start to recover. back to d.r. barton. got any thoughts on uber? >> well, i think susan hit a couple of key things. we've got to think about uber as an early stage amazon. they are plowing money into the business. it's not going to be about appreciation and earnings right away. they're going to have better earnings, much better earnings than a year ago so that will be a good thing. ride sharing gross bookings down 70%. if we get a nice pullback on earnings which we might, they

are trading 33 now, we can buy this thing at 30, i think this is a buy it and hold it for ten years kind of stock, because they are going to grow over time and continue to lead the ride sharing and food delivery businesses. stuart: all right, we hear you. now, we have been looking at virus winners. i got a couple, i think, probably virus losers. norwegian cruise lines. lauren, we knew it was going to be rough. i take it it was? lauren: yeah. can't sugar coat this one. they reported a wide loss. revenue tumbled 99% to $16.9 million. there's just no business. cruise ships are not sailing. they're not expected to sail until november. norwegian is burning through cash, a lot of it. the rate is more than expected, $160 million a month. they have to maintain their ships, they have to support their crew. that still has to go on even though you're not sailing. by the way, cash, $2.3 billion. debt, $10.3 billion. it's ugly. the shares are only down a

little bit. stuart: they have been beaten down so much in the last few months. absolutely battered. thanks, lauren. next case is hilton. i suspect they are another virus loser. tell me more, ash. ashley: yeah. maybe not as ugly as norwegian but not great. wider loss than expected for sure. net loss of $430 million for hilton. works out to about $1.55 a share. revenue down 77%. certainly better than the 90% plus for norwegian. the key metric for hotels is revenue per available room. that plummeted 81%. now, the occupancy rates also down 56% to just 22.3%. the daily rate also down 33% to just over $97. but if there is a bright spot, hilton says that revpar number has increased every month since april. the stock down close to 28% this year.

not a pretty report. stuart: know what, this might be my opportunity to get into a ritz-carlton at a discount. who knows. ashley: you never know. stuart: i will put some green on the screen. that would be the airlines. look at them go. why? i believe, lauren, that president trump has okay'ed what is it, $25 billion to help the airlines? lauren: yeah. significant support among the president and republicans in getting more aid to the airlines. listen. >> i think it's very important that we keep the airlines going. there will be good times very soon, i hope, and we don't want the lose our airlines. so if they're looking at that, whether they're republican or democrat, i would be certainly in favor. we can't lose our transportation system. lauren: a group of gop senators signing a letter seen by reuters to extend the $25 billion in federal aid another six months. the house actually backed a similar extension just last week. obviously the president is

worried of mass layoffs a month before the election if they don't extend this package. that's a bad look. tens and tens of thousands of workers being laid off right before americans go to the polls. stuart: by the way, lufthansa said today they don't expect international passenger traffic to return to normal until 2024. how about that. lauren: the overall industry is saying the recovery won't happen until that same year. it keeps getting pushed back. stuart: the effects linger, don't they. lauren, thank you. quick check of the overall markets. nasdaq quickly touching an all-time high. that's an intraday high. that happened earlier, down a bit now. that has pulled back. down 27 on the nasdaq. the ten-year treasury yield this morning is .51%. down today. the price of gold, i think still well above $2,000 an ounce. yes, it is. it's actually up $20 an ounce, $2,069. bitcoin, we are checking that these days. maybe a hedge for the future.

it's up again, $11,838 per coin. oil, $43 a barrel. $42.61 as of right now. next case, governor andrew cuomo literally begging wealthy new yorkers to come back, save the city. watch this. >> you got to come back. when are you coming back? we'll go to dinner. i'll buy you a drink. come over, i'll cook. stuart: just drop the taxes, governor. it's that simple. live look at sixth avenue. i have been saying it all along. this city will have a very hard time ever getting back to what you might call normal. it's still deserted. trouble for planet fitness. their sales have declined nearly 78% because of the virus. now they are trying to bounce back. can they do it? i will ask the company's ceo. check amazon rolling out their prime day in india. how important is that? could be a very big deal. we will discuss it.

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stuart: amazon, jeff bezos just sold a chunk of amazon stock. susan, how much and why? susan: over $3 billion worth. now, it may not be a great sign when insiders like founders, jeff bezos, are selling stock in the actual company but in bezos's case, he has so much money that it's not really all that significant. he's worth around $186 billion after this. but it brings the total amount of shares sold this year to over $7 billion. that's more than double last year amounts where he sold roughly around $2.8 billion worth. bezos has said he sells around $1 billion a year to fund his space project, blue origin. he's also been giving away more money to charities.

he still owns roughly around 10% plus in amazon. his ex-wife receiving 4% of amazon in their divorce. she also recently announced $1.7 billion in charity donations as well. it might go to real estate. we heard from bezos buying that $165 million beverly hills complex earlier this year and he owns a lot of houses around the world. stuart: can't wrap my arms around $186 billion. thanks, susan. next, amazon rolling out their first prime day in india. it's this year. today, actually. the first prime day of the year, it's in india and it is today. top retail guy gerald storch joins us now. is this significant, prime day in india? >> well, i think it is. this is a battle in the global war for retail domination between amazon and walmart. you have to look at the bigger picture just like when you have an incident with two ships at sea. india, by the way, is going to

pass china as the largest country in the world in a couple of years so it's a big deal. and unique among large markets in the world. on the internet, walmart is a little bigger than amazon in india. walmart a few years ago bought a large share in a company called flip cart and they have been doing very well in e-commerce so amazon is trying to catch up before walmart ends up with a winning hand in what is the largest market in the world. that's what this is really all about. prime day in the u.s. was delayed until maybe october because of the pandemic. this is the first country in the world that tried it during the pandemic. they are putting all their safety measures in place, et cetera. it will be a nice dry run for the rest of the world. stuart: somebody told me this, the big deal in the india deal is selling alexas. because alexa is the key to shopping from home online through amazon. is that accurate? >> well, alexa is the trojan

horse. amazon wants to get in all our homes. with prime day, they are trying to accomplish two main things. of course they want sales. first, they want to get amazon devices into your home. they want to do that in the u.s., they want to do it in india. you can count on the fact these devices will be featured quite prominently at steep discounts every time there's a prime day anywhere in the world, including india. the second thing they want to do is get people to sign up for their loyalty program, amazon prime. of course, that's the way they really hook you and get you to make very frequent orders. in india, they don't have quite the kind of penetration that they have in the u.s. with amazon prime and they believe that's their secret weapon against walmart/flip cart in india, because flip cart really doesn't have that kind of loyalty program. so far, again, amazon prime in india, it's kind of small. they are trying to grow it. this will be an opportunity to do that. it's a big deal. it's a big battle in the massive war between walmart and amazon for global domination.

stuart: fascinating, too. i know you're fascinated by it as well. all right, gerald, thank you, sir. see you again real soon. >> my pleasure. stuart: back to the markets. susan, you're watching apple. i see it up a little this morning. susan: we have to watch apple. we are $100 billion away from apple crossing $2 trillion in market cap. that would be historic. first company to ever do that. that's despite the fact you have bank of america yesterday downgrading their rating on apple to neutral, down from a buy and also taking today apple off its tier one recommendations for investors. they are still putting a $470 price target on apple stock but look, we are also heading into a stock split at the end of august. that's a four for one split. the fact that apple, despite it all, with covid and coronavirus, had a record june quarter and were just $100 billion away from $2 trillion, first company on the planet to do that. it's extraordinary. stuart: susan, thank you very much indeed. what have i got? square? what's the word on square? tell me, please.

susan: if stuart varney is moving to mobile banking that's an inflection point for the trend. square came out with blowout earnings on tuesday, a day ahead of schedule because bloomberg somehow got ahold of their revenue numbers. the fact more people are sta stashing their cash and unemployment and stimulus checks, it's kind of like a venmo type cash transfer type of app. that's something to watch. paypal, the other obvious mobile banking play there. stuart: i don't like electronic banking. i want to walk into the branch and face-to-face with a teller. i like doing that. susan: why? i don't understand. you get the same things on your phone. you are so old school. you have to move into this century at some point. it just wastes time, don't you think? stuart: are you done? it's old school because i'm old. that's the way it is, susan. just wait. just wait another 40, 50 years. you get to my age. susan: the trend has accelerated. stuart: i'm moving on. i'm moving on. joe biden tries to explain how

he will take on china. spoiler alert. it didn't go well. watch this. >> when we gather the rest of the world and in fact, in open trade and making sure that we're in a position that the world -- that we deal with w.h.o. the right way. stuart: look, i'm going to have more on that in an editorial at the top of the 11:00 hour. be warned. online grocery shopping getting, we are told, a second wind. that's interesting. my next guest will explain it all. ♪ i like liberty mutual.

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stuart: breaking news. here we go, from the white house. the president will sign an executive order today aimed at boosting production of medical products in america instead of in foreign countries. here's the tweet from trade adviser peter navarro. this executive order, per president trump, establishes buy american rules for government agencies, strips away regulatory barriers to domestic

pharmaceutical manufacturing and catalyzes the advanced manufacturing technologies needed to keep drug prices low. the president signs that executive order later today in ohio. how about costco. they released their sales numbers from last month. pretty good. they are kind of a winner from the pandemic. they were open a lot. up 14% in sales but look, their online sales went straight up, skyrocketing more than 75%. costco has reached $344 per share. i would call them a pandemic winner. speaking of online grocery shopping, i want to bring in che wong, cofounder and ceo of boxed. he has been on the program five or six years. he's done very well. congratulations, as usual. now, look, i am familiar with a first wave, a first wind of online shopping and that would have been in march, april and may. are you telling me there is now a second wind, a second wave, june, july and august?

>> yeah. we are starting to see that, stu. so not to the same peaks we saw earlier in the pandemic but definitely the uptick in conversion rates and traffic is starting to point to that direction. what's interesting, though, is that what folks are stocking up on is starting to change. we went from the madness of stocking up on toilet paper, then it went to hand sanitizer, then to kitchen goods and cooking materials, now it's gone to paper towels and wipes. we have gone from tp to pp. we are basically trying to keep up with demand at this moment when it comes to wipes and paper towels. stuart: do you think this is a long-term trend? lot of people have said look, as soon as this pandemic and the lockdown are over, we will go back to normal shopping. will we? >> yeah, i think, you know, when i saw the craziness around toilet paper, i thought that was pretty short-term, you know. you're not going to the bathroom any more just because you are in a pandemic. when it comes to paper towels and wipes, absolutely. i feel like for the coming years, at least for the coming

months, folks are going to be wiping down surfaces a lot more. what we found, though, when it comes to overall shopping is when you take the data of the last 90 to 120 days, by more than a factor of two, they are the stickiest customers in the history of our company. so meaning these folks are coming back once they shop with us in an amount that's 2x more than what we traditionally have seen. stuart: chieh, always great to have you on the show. you are the most successful business people we have had on this program and you have been with us five or six years. congratulations, sir. have you done really well. appreciate it. >> thanks very much. stuart: you're welcome. still to come in our 11:00 hour, pete hegseth. wait until you hear what he has to say about governor cuomo's desperate plea to new york city's wealthy residents. fox nation's host tomi lahren is fired up about the left's push for mail-in voting. look at facebook and twitter. they are essentially censoring president trump three months before the election. you will hear more about that in

my take, next. ♪ ♪ . . ♪

stuart: we always say it's 10:00 here in new york city. we should also say it is 7:00 in the morning in california. here is where we stand.

seeing increasing amount of green, not a huge amount but there is some there. by the way, we're on track to see if nasdaq will close above 11,000 for the first time ever. it is already hit, what, 30, 31 records this year. on track to close above 11,000 later on today. first time ever. left-hand side of the screen. president trump leaves the white house shortly. he will head to ohio. there he will sign an executive order on manufacturing essential medicines and manufacturing equipment in america. he will also tour a whirlpool factory that brought manufacturing jobs back from mexico. thursday, 10:00 eastern. you know what that means. ashley's big day on mortgage rates. what have you got, ash? ashley: i live for this moment, you know be that every week, and for good reason this week, stuart varney. the rate on 30-year fixed mortgage, 2.88%. the banner beat me. that by the way is the lowest

rate ever in the history of the survey going back nearly 50 years. it was 2.99 last week but 2.88%. the report saying that the main barrier for rising demand for housing is lack of inventory. we've been saying that week after week, month after month, especially entry level homes. if you can find a home and like it, you can qualify this rate for 2.8, or thereabouts. pretty good i would say for a 30 year fixed mortgage. stuart: do this one more time, ashley, tell the audience, i paid 12 1/2% in the late 1970s. what did you pay in the 820s? ashley: 87, 15, 16%. my credit wayne wasn't as good as yours. stuart: different time, baby. thank you, ashley. zillow reports after the bell.

the stock is up. what is expected, susan? susan: new world, stu. zillow, should benefit from the strong housing market. the stock is trading near the record levels. it's a good sign when analysts start raising forecasts heading into the earnings report. susquehanna upgrading the stock, anticipating upbeat earnings from the company. we know there is demand for houses and homes despite covid. mortgage rates at record lows as ashley reported out. existing home sales jumped to a record in month ever june and home prices are also nearing these record levels as well. we're still expecting a loss in the quarter for zillow. this is another loss taking growth stock but we're hoping for update on zillow's home buying business. they are branching out into that, suspended in 24 markets in march because of. connell: obviously. resuming business in some markets in mid-may whether we've

gone countrywide. stuart: thank you, susan. now this. when you ban a message from team trump three months before a presidential election there ought to be a very good reason. after all you are essentially censoring the president of the united states. you're telling voters, you are not allowed to see this message. well it has come to this. facebook and twitter took down a trump video post in which he had said children are quote, almost immune from this disease as in the virus. that is considered harmful, misinformation. before it was taken down it was viewed by, what, 450,000 times. were those people who viewed it put in danger? were they harmed? is our society at risk because of those couple of words? i don't think so. what those people saw was a statement of fact. children are less susceptible to the virus. they are less likely to get it.

viewers saw the president discussing back to school, reopening the schools is a big election issue, so is his performance on. virus, yet he is censored, that is, silenced. what happened to facebook as a free speech platform? mark zuckerberg took that position. he told congress last week facebook aims to be a platform for all ideas. i guess he caved. he has now censored the president's campaign. it makes you wonder who really runs facebook? just who decided that saying children are almost immune is harmful misinformation? who did that? and why did they do it? in the words of the president's deputy press secretary, quote, another day, another display of silicon valley's flagrant bias against this president where the rules are only enforced in one direction. but why don't you be the judge? here's the clip that made facebook and twitter censor the president of the united states.

roll it. president trump: this thing is going away. it will go away like things go away and my view is that schools should be open. if you look at children, children are almost, and i would almost say, definitely, but almost immune from this disease. stuart: that was it. you saw it right there. that was the clip, the harmful clip, banned on facebook and twitter. susan, this is a developing story. is there anything new on this right now? susan: we know facebook has been hesitant for many years to shield president trump's post saying they are not the arbiters of truth. same thing for twitter as well. celebrities and politicians calling for the platform to ban president trump. after towing the balance beam for years especially into the september vote and facebook is encountering, facebook and twitter have been forced to

choose, choosing the side that impacts advertising dollars. a few of the advertisers have comeback after the pause in july that includes north face but polices on the platform noticeably picked up in recent months, removal of trump ads, that facebook claimed that linked back to the nazi regime and black and white babies hugging in the street. shielding his minneapolis tweets. twitter announcing last year they are not allowing political ads in year in 2020 heading into november. facebook concerning banning now political ads especially in the days running up to the november votes. there is a big difference as we point out to the viewers in user numbers, despite the fact twitter had record growth in daily active users during covid. only 186 million visitors on each and every day on twitter. facebook has more than 3 billion visiting properties around the world each and every month. stuart: makes it more important

than when you see political censorship, that is my opinion, that it is political censorship. i want to bring in tech watcher, will reinhardt. i just said it. i think it is political censorship. what we're seeing emerge here, big tech united and unanimously hating the president. am i going too far? >> i mean personally i think this is an odd hill to die on, right? obviously twitter, facebook, for the last year especially taking a much more hands on approach to a lot of sorts of statements from the president. again this seems to be kind of an escalation in this war between the two. i really, i don't understand it to be very honest. i don't know why, at least previously twitter and facebook have flagged these posts, at least had some sort of disclaimer on it. i don't know why they didn't do that. stuart: could be, facebook, for example, is responding to internal challenges to the

zuckerberg. wait a minute. we're not standing for this. we don't want the president. that could be happening here. >> it could be happening. as you suggested there also could be tension with advertisers and growing pressure. we do know the companies do, obviously, i think it's a good thing when consumers react and users react there is a pushback by the platforms themselves. so this could be a pressure from the people that they see and feel is their own community. stuart: would it enhance political pressure on big tech to reorganize, do something about this? >> yes. this is, i don't think this is a good move overall for these 2:00 companies because this puts even more pressure -- we saw this again last week as you suggested with the antitrust hearings which is what i was following pretty closely. this idea and issue of bias kept on coming up over and over again despite it being a fundamentally, hearing itself was about competition. this problem of free speech and bias really is perennial

following these companies this really doesn't help the case if they're trying to suggest in the end of the day, that they don't need new regulation. so, i think that this is really, what they suggested here, really as i said really an odd hill to die on. i don't know why they're doing this particular move. stuart: all right. will reinhardt, thanks for joining us this morning. we appreciate it. you jumped in at the last minute. we appreciate it. >> thank you. stuart: thank you, sir. back to the market, i'm seeing green pretty much across the board. s&p just slipped into the minus column. cliff noreen is with us, head of global investment strategy at mass mutual. cliff, i'm looking at this market, i see everything, most things fully priced. are there any bargains left out there? >> well good morning, stuart, thanks for having me on. i would say there aren't really many bargains. most stocks are fully priced. i think there are more reasonable priced sectors in the

financial sector, industrial sector, small cap stocks. on the corporate bond side we really focus on the our clients at mass mutual, there has been tremendous moves higher and tighter of corporate bonds with the fed supportive of these markets. investment grade and high yield. we're gravitating toward less lech quid and many of your viewers are not able to buy unless they do it in funds. we see value in closed end funds which are unique products. stuart: do you see any election risk to stocks or bond market? by election minsk, chaos on election day on election month with mail-in balloting? a joe biden contested win which would put the fear of god into the market? do you see investment risk in the market? >> i think from investment perspective if democrats sweep, you will see higher corporate taxes. that rate will rise from 21 to

28%. that is well-publicized. higher taxes for high income individuals and taxes on, minimum corporate tax, which is probably justified. but what we've had that in the past. we had democratic presidents like president obama, president clinton, raise taxes like this before. the markets digested them fine. i think election coming up less than 90 days. it will be much more focused on the markets. we will both see. stuart: cliff, thanks for joining us from mass mutual this morning. see you soon. >> thank you. stuart: a deed today, german sports wear company big loss in the second quarter. the stock is up 3%. two bucks. where is the positive from adidas lauren? lauren: digital sales. adidas is the second world's second biggest seller behind nike and they see a recovery. sales fell 35% in the quarter. adidas reported a loss, that is all bad.

digital sales grew 93%. they remain strong as stores continue to open up. shares up are 2.25%. stuart: disedge tall, digital, i keep getting back to that. digital, digital. get strong growth there. amazing across the board. lauren: these brands might be okay with fewer stores. they are selling more direct to online. stuart: that saves them money from real estate rentals. that is a money safer. lauren: yeah. stuart: 58% of voters approve of mail in voting this year. said it before, say it again. universal mail-in balloting is a real election risk. tomi lahren has more to say about this coming up in our next hour. university of connecticut becoming the first major college football team to cancel the 2020 season because of the virus saying there is unacceptable level of risk. which teams will drop out? we're trying to follow it for you.

planet fitness taking a huge financial hit from the virus. people don't want to go back to the gym when they can work out from home. the ceo of planet fitness joins us after this. ♪.

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stuart: there's a little green in various indicators but not much. the dow is up 40. nasdaq up nine. s&p up one. got it. look at jetblue updating face mask policy. no longer allowing customers to claim exemptions. they're banning face masks with vents or valves. it is becoming universal.

you have to wear a mask. planet fitness a gym chain reporting disappointing results. revenue down 77%. to $40 million. they have 1400 reopened operating chains, to date, gyms i should say. the ceo of planet fitness is chris rondo. he joins us right now. chris, i will express an opinion. i don't think people want to come back to gyms when they reopen. i think we're in a new environment where people want to work out at home. they're uncomfortable coming back to a gym. tell me i'm wrong? >> actually, very in a lot of ways. believe it or not, varney, month of may and june we started opening stores. our new joins were overindexing last year. that is how eager people were to get back in the facility. there is definitely angst. they're cleaning equipment more than they used to. they're wearing masks which is wonderful. we have 30 million workouts,

30 million workouts. not one case contracted in the planet fitness last two months. in fact only, less than a quarter of a percent have we been able to track any chance much of exposure. less than a quarter after chance people being in the gym. as long as we keep cleaning protocols right they want to get physical. stuart: are you asking for any government help? have you received any government help? >> it has been really tough. unfortunately this industry out of all the industries about enhancing people's lives, keeping them healthy. 70% of the u.s. is overweight or obese. that is one key issue with people contracting the virus and fighting it to keep us open is really hard. planet fitness, gyms in general, integral part of the health delivery system and keep us closed and liquor store open is illogical. stuart: did you get government

help. >> some of the franchise owners spot ppp but that is about it. stuart: are you asking for some more? >> we want to get open, stuart. we're closed in six states totally. not many industries out there that were literally shut down 100% with zero revenue. at least small fast-food chain, take-out, our franchisees, small business owners, independent operators would shut down the revenue until allowed to reopen. it has been a struggle. we have strong franchisees. they're eager to get back to business. we have 1400 stores as you mentioned. hopefully getting back to normal. stuart: when you reopened the 1400 stores did you have any problem getting workers back in the gym, not the customers by the workers. any problems? >> no. actually they were very ready to come back. we 100 corporate stores. 50 of our stores are open. we had 85% retention. they were happy to get back to work.

they wear the mask which we such pry for them. ppe. they wear them 100% of the time in the facility. we members wear them on the way in, way out, while they're working out they can take them off. stuart: okay. >> people have been really appreciative. i worked out at my local planet fitness in new hampshire. i feel totally safe. you walk in, 20,000 square foot store, social distancing is not an issue. grocery stores are worse. stuart: i'm sorry i came at you with a negative. set me straight. i appreciate that, chris. here is another negative. have you seen the stock price of peloton recently? it has gone up, $71 a share. peloton, echelon, they are your competition. >> not really. $2500 for a bike, $40 a month, $10 a month membership, very different customer. that is great for at home option, people taking a soulcycle class or spinning studio class.

with us the gym atmosphere. i have a gym in my basement, i choose to go to my local planet. you can't beat the atmosphere. stuart: thanks for joining us. one of these days you will will me into a gym. don't hold your breath. how about nintendo reporting a real surge in profits obviously thanks to the lockdown. susan, give me the numbers. susan: gaming is surging during the covid. a ridiculous five-fold surge in its profits, up 128% from last year. sales of the popular nintendo switch and switch-like consoles more than doubling in the quarter, up more than 167%. that was a big hit to propel sales. that is called animal crossing, outselling mario brothers. 22 1/2 million copies of animal crossing has been sold since it was launched in march of this year. nintendo joins the likes of activation, take two, activision

with blowout earnings. sony reported a big jump in console sales. x books was up 60% in the quarter. march game sales hit a record. the trend is continuing. you don't have to go to the gym. you can play at home. connell: when was the last time you played a videogame? ashley: a few weeks ago. i'm the demographic as you know, thanks, susan. moving on to blackstone. i do own a very small portion of their stock. that is set to take or buy a majority take in the dna testing site, that would be ancestry.com. what is the price tag, lauren? lauren: $4.7 billion. so blackstone will own 75% of ancestry, and a sovereign wealth fund gic will own 25%. why is blackstone making this purchase now? the online market they say is booming. they also own bumble, the dating app. with ancestry they will focus on

bringing in younger customers to trace genologies online. they think it is interesting. people will want to keep doing it. stuart: keep buying up, buying up, all these difficult companies around the place. interesting stuff. thanks, lauren. joe biden own the defensive after revealing he has not taken a cognitive test. please watch this. >> have you taken a cognitive test. >> no, i haven't taken a test. why the hell would i take a test? come on, man! that is like saying, you know, before you got on this program you take a test where you're taking cocaine or not what do you think, huh? are you a junkie? stuart: he wasn't on the defense there. he was on the vigorous attack. pete hegseth just the man to respond to that. he is on our show in the next hour. listen to this, the u.s. going to borrow 3 to $5 trillion in a brief five-month period. we've never seen anything like that before. what does dennis gartman think about it?

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♪ stuart: there is a modest gain for all the indicate force. up 70 for the dow. up 15 for the nasdaq. i see some green but there is not a lot of it. how about this? big time stimulus spending means we'll be borrowing a great deal of money. try 3 to $5 trillion worth of borrowing by our treasury in just a five-month period. market watcher dennis gartman joins us. dennis, i have never seen anything like this. but i think i'm accurate, three to five trillion in borrowing in a five-month period. i have never seen anything like it. what is the impact? >> one would think one would think interest rates would go higher, wouldn't one? it seems under normal circumstances that would happen if treasury is borrowing that much and crowding out private companies, interest rates have to go up. having been in the bond market 40 years i remember long bond had 14.25% coupon which nobody would buy. here we are 30% yields at 1 1/2,

1.55%. it is astonishing. what is happening the fed is simply the buyer of first and last resolve. the fed will always be there. the fed will be there until it stops being there. as long as the fed is buyer of first and last reself, interest rates will probably not go anywhere sideways even lower. the sums are absolutely mind-numbing. i can remember treasury refundings were less than a billion dollars. we're talking about a trillion. a trillion is a thousand billion dollars. we're talking 3 1/2 to five trillion dollars. it is astonishing but interest rates don't seem to want to go up, do they? it is amazing. stuart: if we print a lot of money, doesn't that set up, that is what we're going to do -- >> that is what we're going to do. stuart: real fast, doesn't that set -- conventional wisdom has it that sets up inflation down the road. are you on board with that? >> not a question. eventually there shall be inflation. and eventually very severe inflation. but the operative word is eventually.

it will start where it starts -- stuart: terribly sorry to interrupt you. it didn't happen after the financial crisis. we printed what a trillion, whatever it was in relatively brief period. we did not get inflation. >> that's correct. they have been waiting for inflation to occur in japan the last 25 years and it hasn't occurred yet t will come eventually. gold is telling you something. gold and silver rising. there is insipient inflation out there. until we see grain prices off the loaves and rally, copper prices really make new highs. until we start to see agricultural commodities generally start to move higher. inflation will not be a problem. it will eventually be a problem, there is no question about that. the problem, when is the eventually? i don't know. stuart: exactly. most unusual to see gold at a record high. over 2,000 bucks. and stocks at record highs at the same time. you rarely see that. >> it has happened in the past but it has happened so rarely, it has been, it is atypical to

be absolutely be certain. it will continue for a while. we have to remember that in zimbabwe and venezuela, the strongest stock markets in world were going up as the currencies were being depreciated dramatically. gold prices went up at the same time. we may be doing the same thing here. i hope not. i hope i'm off the deep end but i am concerned. we may see stock prices continue to lower left to upper right. we may see gold move from the lower left to upper right. atypical, unusual but happening right now. stuart: what is most unusual dennis gartman talks about the zimbabwe and venezuela stock markets on this program. that's a first, gartman. won't be the last. >> won't be the last. stuart: thank you, dennis. appreciate it. always, always. >> good to see you, stuart. stuart: we're reporting on a trend which we've been reporting on for some time, ammunition sales. i believe they're way up. tell me more, lauren.

lauren: ammunition is flying oaf the shelves. look at vista outdoor, the stock is up 17% right now. that is a multiyear high. they reported earnings, stronger than expected. sales stronger than expected as well. and they raised their out look. so a sign of the pandemic and rise in the looting as you need to protect yourselves. gun sales, ammo sales, all up. so is the stock much a company that sells those things. stuart: vista outdoor up 16%. fascinating stuff. thanks, lauren. more farmers filing for bankruptcy this year despite record federal aid. tell me more, ashley. ashley: combination of the coronavirus virus and slump in the ag business not helped by the trade war. bankruptcies, 580 family farms filed for what is called chapter 12 bankruptcy protection. that is in the year-ended june 30th. chapter 12 allows family farms

with debts less than $10 million to devise some sort of a plan to repay creditors over three to five years. just looking at numbers, they're pretty who are risk. hog farmers lost nearly five billion worth in actual and potential profits for this year alone. in california the ag business stands to lose an estimated $8.6 billion. by the way the u.s. farm debt overall has grown now to more than $420 billion this year. and you talk about federal aid, well that government help is close to 36% now or accounts for close to 36% of farm income. that is the highest in nearly 20 years. it has been a rough go, as it always is for the farming community. it is a hard way to make a living. then you have all of these other outside things that happened that just really make it difficult to stay and survive. stuart: you got that right, ashley. thank you very much indeed. all right, the pressure nor

joe biden to name his running mate is on but speaker pelosi seems to think you shouldn't really care about it. roll tape. >> i don't think who the vice president makes that much difference in the election. it is about joe biden versus donald trump. stuart: oh, i beg to disagree. i think she is really rather undermining the role of the vice president there. coming up, we have someone who says biden's vice-presidential pick is a choice between a failed former california attorney general and a socialist. is one better than the other? i will ask the question. the appetite for twinkies, other bakery goods propelling hostess brands revenue during the lockdown. sounds like the he will think eating craze fell by the wayside for many of us. we have the ceo of hostess coming up next. ♪.

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stuart: modest gain across the board except fores&p. sales of luxury items like versace they slumped during the pandemic. i'm surprised about that. but slump they did. susan: really, really you're surprised by this? stuart: there is a lot of money made in the stock market around the world and i would have thought some of it went into luxury items but apparently not. susan: well, capri holdings the company owns jim any chu, michael kors and yes, versace. sales during the heightthe covid lockdown dropped 50%. that is a steep drop. they lost less money than what the stock market anticipated. so the stock rallied actually in anticipation of these numbers.

now they're also going to benefit because the company has started reopening some of their stores which should provide a boost hopefully to the company's revenues going forward as mall traffic returns to some semblance much norm mali. luxury is hurt from other segments. duty-free shopping by the chinese who drive half of all luxury sales have been virtually extinguished and owing to covid and international travel. ralph lauren saw sales plummet by over 70% in the quarter. ralph lauren heavy exposure to department stores is a big, big challenge for this brand going forward as many filed for bankruptcy so far this year. stuart: what is this, susan, tell me this, designers urging men to tuck dress shirts and even blazers into casual pants. susan: yes. stuart: hold on. one former president reagan already did it. tell me more.

susan: that's right. i didn't know this was a trend but apparently it is. a menswear designers are telling men to tuck the shirts or blazers into the casual pants. prada, have advocating men tuck in the shirt tails for 2021 men's wear. this looks like recycled fashion. former president ronald reagan setting the trend back in the '80s. this is the picture of the former president in 1984 as he soared over america in air force one, en route to iowa. he is dressed upwards waist up in tie and shirt. waste down he wore sweatpants and he likes to tuck in his short tails. stuart: wish we come up with a more flattering picture of the great president reagan. susan: maybe that look isn't flattering. it's a trend. you have to try it. how old was ronald reagan in

that picture do you think? stuart: early 1980s? susan: early 1984, he must have been 80, no? stuart: no. he would have been 74, 75 maybe. susan: you're younger than 74. you should try the trend. stuart: all right, all right, all right. i'm not going to do it. thank you, susan. weight loss company ww. formerly known as weight watchers, they missed on the earning but they kind of bulked up if you forgive the pun, in one important area. lauren, that had to be digital. lauren: digital subscriptions you're right. they grew to record five million in the quarter. gain of 23% from last year. now ww is transforming into this lifestyle brand to help us loose the quarantine 15, as in the 15-pounds we gained staying at home, gyms being closed, binging on netflix and eatings chips. how is ww doing that? they will bring in some younger members. they're using coaches and they're still working to profit

off of the star power of oprah winfrey who owns 8% of the company's stock. stuart: 24 bucks a share on ww. thank you, lauren. talk a lot about pandemic winners, companies that thrive in the pandemic. one of those is the hosthostess brand, twinge i people. andy callahan is with us, he is the ceo. net revenue up in the quarter. pretty good. do you have any product lineup changes after this virus goes away, pandemic goes away. any changes coming to the twinkie lineup? >> we had a great quarter, stuart, it is a testament to the team and loyalty, and emotional connection consumers have to our brand. it is in our dna. we'll come out with new flavors, new approaches. we have exciting things we haven't talked about yet.

new way consumers can enjoy the brand on different occasions. temporary with over 100-year-old brand we're all about. stuart: have trouble bringing people into work during the pandemic. some operations couldn't people back? >> to be honest with you. it was a challenge at times. there is nothing above our priorities that was above the safety and welfare of our team. and, i call them hostess heroes. but there is many of our over2800 employees came to work during the time, bringing joy to everyone. we also honored all leave of absences and all, we supported our workers with additional pay. leave of absences. we froze the health care premiums. but during that time, with record high demand, we did. we had to get employees and sometimes given the subsidy, it was a challenge. that is lightened as we come through the summer. so i hope that it continues to, to improve.

and for the most part, our workers and employees, they love what they do. they want to work. stuart: before we went into this pandemic, there was, i think, would i call it a healthy eating craze. i think that was what was going on in the food world. did you guys kill healthy eating? because you did so well during the lockdown? >> we were doing well before the lock down. hostess has emotional connection with the consumers. there is trend around healthy eating but it is unmistakable, competing eating with indulgent snacking was a trend. consumers spend more time with small meals, small indulgence. we're a great part of a balanced diet. we bring joy. consumers need balance, exercise and great nutrition and really accessible indulgences. that what we provide. stuart: is there a new flavor coming on for a twinkie? >> we're ready, i know you love

twinkies, stuart, i remember that last time, but we're coming into the holiday season. we have some of our twinkie pumpkin spice coming out. stuart: i knew it. >> we have cupcakes. we're number one cupcakes. with new doughnuts lines. we're excited about the fall lineup. absolutely terrific. stuart: great to have you back on the show, andy. congratulations on the performance. see you soon. >> thanks, stuart, appreciate all your help. stuart: send samples next time. >> i will. hopefully i bring them myself. stuart: thank you. market turned south, not much. we're down 16 on the dow. down 20 on the nasdaq. five down on the s&p. got it. nashville's music industry, plain out choking. bars, concert halls, venues, ordered to close. tomi lahren, nashville resident, "fox nation" lady, liberals are now turning on their democrat leader. she is coming up on the show.

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♪ stuart: they're playing men at work, and down under. let you know why they're playing that. it is because i'm playing the role of proud father for a moment. my son allen, has been awarded a big prize in the wine world. you can see him there. allen and his wife catherine. varney wines, here is the logo, that was established in adelaide, australia in 2017. varney wines has been declared the best new winery of the year in very prestigious 2021 james halliday wine companion awards. i wear make up for a living in new york city and my son is a champion winemaker on the other side of the world in adelaide australia.

i'm a very proud father. okay? pete hegseth standing on the side. he was witnessing this. there you go. thank you very much. thank you very much. congratulations to my son actually, there you go. moving swiftly along. one college football team canceled its football season, virus fears. another college team upgraded their helmets to protect players from the virus. upgrading helmet foss are the virus, ashley? what gives? ashley: that is interesting. when we get a sample of the varney wine. that is the bigger question. stuart: i knew that was coming. >> of course, of course. uconn football season was officially suspended because of the virus. it is no-go. the school said the decision was made after getting advice from state and public health officials, consulting with the players, 100% behind the stylings. the at let tick director, david benedict, saying the safety

challenges by covid-19 place our student football athletes place them at unacceptable risk. the head coach, randy he had sell agrees. ivy league is canceling all fall sports for eight universities including football. i want to get to the helmets introduced by lsu, the defending national champs. it has a very extensive as you can see there, face shield. they call it a splash shield, which is a bit more graphic. tell you not getting rave reviews prosome of players. one of the players said when i put the thing on i can't breathe very well. one player said it is like breathing in a ziploc bag. that can't be good. southeastern conference starts on september 26th. that is weeks after it normally starts but plays only conference schedule. it has a splash guard. stuart: i would have thought that splash guard they call it would be fogged up.

if i'm wearing sunglasses and a mask, the sunglasses fog up. i would have thought that would fog up. ashley: especially in september in louisiana. stuart: well-said. well-said. thank you. very true. ashley: sure. stuart: we turn south on the markets but again not by much. we're down nine on the dow. okay, we're down but not that much. still to come, aforementioned pete hegseth. wait until you hear what he has to say about mayor de blasio's new checkpoints, stopping you, some people from getting into new york city. fox nation host tomi lahren is fired up about the left's push for mail-in balloting. and what is going on in her home town of nashville. we're 88 days from the election. joe biden nowhere to be seen in person. he is yet to name his running mate. he is unfocused and his party, the democrats, creeping further and further to the socialist left. you have my take coming up on the third hour of "varney & company" right after this.

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stuart: it is 11:00 eastern time. we're in a mixed bag on the

markets. dow is up, s&p 500 and nasdaq are down. breaking this morning, 1.19 million new jobless claims. that is the lowest number since the economy tanked. i say that's good news for the recovery. the trend in new claims is down. got that. now this. we have some breaking news from new york's federal reserve. it's about household debt. what do we have, edward lawrence? reporter: quarterly second report is now out and it says household debt actually dropped by .2%. talking about a $34 billion drop in household debt overall, dropping to 14.27 trillion. however, mortgage balances actually the largest component of debt, rose by $63 billion in the second quarter. the mortgage originations which includes refinances hit a level of $846, the highest volume since the refi boom in 2013. the report says credit card balances fell sharply by $76 billion. that's the steepest decline in the history of the data.

the total non-housing debt, talking about student loans, car loans, credit card debt, actually had the largest drop in the history of the report, some $86 billion. so in the second quarter, more people -- less people spending money on credit cards, more people spending money on their homes with mortgages. back to you. stuart: got to say it, when household debt goes down by a record amount, i've got to figure that's pretty good news. that's just me. reporter: good news for spending. you have money for spending out there. people have money in their pockets and ready to go. stuart: i think that's the message. edward lawrence, thanks very much indeed. let's get back to strictly your money, as in the markets. i want to bring in the eternal bull himself, brian belski. bullish brian belski forever. you have been right. take a victory lap. you have been on this program many times saying we will keep on going, new highs, you were right. well, do you think we go up some more from here? >> i think we can, stuart. thank you very much. i'm very humbled by that.

i'm going to start getting worried when everyone is bullish and i am confounded every day by my clients and other requests on being so worried and fearful about the market. quite frankly, the trend is your friend. you did a great job displaying that we are starting to see definitely less negative economic data. remember, economic data is a lagging indicator. it already happened. earnings are coming in better than expected. expect over the next couple of quarters that companies in america will start to give guidance for the year and in 2021 and the market is looking at the second half of 2021 anyway so these near term earnings really have nothing to do with what's going on. what's going on is we have the best companies in the world, they have withstood what's happened in terms of coronavirus and we are going to continue on leading the world with respect to fundamentals. stuart: don't sell them. you're talking here about big tech. five or six or seven major technology companies, best in the world, gone zooming on the market. are you saying don't sell them? >> we're saying maintain those

core positions if big tech but also look at select big financials like you had the board up earlier, jpmorgan, goldman sachs, morgan stanley, bank of america, select drug stocks like merck and pfizer and johnson & johnson and gilead. these are market-leading companies. also, to the amazons of the world and lulus of the world continue to dominate and you just talked about the consumer. the consumer is feeling better and they have money in their pocket, not to also mention the $4 trillion of money sitting in money market funds. we think the market is higher a year from today. we could see some volatility but the bottom line is, markets are higher a year from now. stuart: all right. here's what worries me. the election. election risk. i think there's two forms of risk. number one, joe biden wins which i don't think is good for the market. number two, this chronic problem of mail-in balloting and the chaos that i think is almost guaranteed to keep going way past election day. you're not worried about this election risk? >> i think there's a crisis in confidence whenever you have

issues with respect to volatility surrounding a decision with respect to the election but i don't think politics has anything to do with the absolute performance of the stock market, stu. i think we're in a 20-year bull market. it could either enhance, meaning another republican victory, or detract the performance, meaning more taxes and more regulation from the democrats. but bottom line, the bull market continues regardless of who the next president is. stuart: bullish brian belski, welcome back. thanks for joining us again. you're all right. see you again soon. thank you, sir. >> thank you. stuart: all right, everyone. now this. new and frankly troubling developments within the democrat party. one, its socialist wing is expanding. two, its candidate is having serious trouble answering simple softball questions. let's start there. joe biden gave an interview to yahoo! news this week. it's an eye roller. sorry, but it is. i mean no disrespect but listen to his answer to a simple question about china trade. watch it.

>> the way trump, the way china will respond is when we gather the rest of the world that in fa fact, in open trade, in making sure that we're in a position that the world -- that we deal with w.h.o. the right way, that in fact that's when things begin to change. stuart: the question was about china trade. not the world health organization which he did talk about there. all right. that's that. now look at this. a question about taking a cognitive ability test. roll it. >> have you taken a cognitive -- >> no, i haven't taken the test. why the hell would i take a test? come on, man. that's like saying before you got in this program you take a test where you're taking cocaine or not, what do you think, huh? are you a junkie? stuart: i will leave it right there. let's move on to troubling developments part two. the socialists. they are on the march.

i think that's a problem for this great prosperous capitalist society. progressive cori bush won his primary in missouri. trump hater rashida tlaib won hers, too. jamaal bowman beat elliot engel. in short, the squad is expanding. they have influence. they are the ones pushing hardest to get either liberal kamala harris or neo-socialist elizabeth warren as joe biden's vice president. you add all this lot up and with three months to the election, the democrat's candidate is unfocused to say the least and his party is lurching to the socialist left. focus again on joe biden. i know just the man for this. pete hegseth, "fox & friends" cohost. i'm sure you were watching those sound bites there. i mean no disrespect but i'm troubled that a man who answers like that wants to be the president of the united states. >> that is the ultimate litmus test.

this man will -- were he to be elected president, he is our voice. he would be the voice of the american people on the world stage in high stakes negotiations, maybe he was talking about the world trade organization, but he said w.h.o. instead. you need those translations. this is why you have seen the equivocation from democrats about him being on the debate stage. that's why you are seeing president trump push the offensive about moving the first debate up so that it happens before people actually cast ballots. but of course, the biden campaign would prefer to have people voting based on the caricature they tried to carefully craft in his basement versus the reality of an unscripted moment. i think you will see an attempt to make these debates remote, not in person with a moderator. the more removed he can be from the back-and-forth with president trump, who is on top of his game, the better off the campaign thinks he'll be. and you've also got private statements he's making in his

basement which are not in keeping with the squad. he was asked if you want to defund the police. he said no, maybe i would spend a little bit more. that's not what he said last week. that's not what his base expects. what happens when they hear those comments and react to them and then stuart, what answer does he give on the debate stage? does he turn on his base and say no, i'm not for defunding the police, i'm not for absolute open borders, or does he cater to them and lose the electorate. neps he's in a bad spot that even a politician in tip-top shape would have trouble navigating let alone where he is right now which is clearly nowhere near the top. stuart: i want to shift the discussion to new york city because this city, where you and i are right now, they put a virus checkpoint at the tunnels and bridges coming into the city. governor cuomo, he's begging wealthy people to come back. hold on a second. just watch this for a moment. roll it. >> i literally talk to people all day long who are now in the hamptons house who also lived

here, or in their hudson valley house, or in their connecticut weekend house, and i say you got to come back, when are you coming back, we'll go to dinner, i'll buy you a drink, come over, i'll cook. stuart: pete, why would anybody from anywhere, anybody with any money, why would you come to new york? taxes growing to go up, there's violence in the streets. why would you come back? >> you wouldn't. and they won't. a lot won't. please come back where we have shut everything down, we call you evil because you are wealthy and we can't even police our own streets and we want you back really for only one reason. so that you can pay taxes to us and we can redistribute that money in ways that are not connected to the actual livelihood for you. as far as checkpoints, they are talking penn station, they are talking jfk and laguardia, they are talking roads. they are not policing the streets, not breaking up riots, but they are going to ask me when i get off a plane where i'm

going to be for the next two weeks in new york and i'm supposed to tell them? that would be the fastest $2,000 check i ever write. i will probably just deliver it in nickels. pennies would be mean. i will deliver it in nickels. you can have your $2,000 fine. no chance i tell the government where i will be as a free citizen. maybe i will tell them i'm going to be part of black lives matter protests because that would probably be acceptable. stuart: you're in. >> it's the double standards that exist based on political ideology. stuart: it's incredible there are checkpoints to get into new york city. we are trying to keep americans out. yet on the southern border, oh, you can't have checkpoints to keep foreigners from coming. stay there, pete. i've got another outrage story. i want your comment in just a moment. susan, come in, please. i want you to give me the latest on the twitter and facebook banning of the trump team post. susan: okay. what happened is that president trump and the trump campaign posted a replay of the president's interview on "fox & friends" from yesterday where he said children are almost immune, he says, from the coronavirus.

both companies say that that claim violated their platform rules. facebook removing president trump's post from his own page, mind you. first time facebook has done that to any trump post for breaking its covid rules while twitter temporarily restricted the trump campaign from tweeting until that video was removed from their account. it's a sign that social media companies like twitter and facebook are willing now to step up their policing of the trump campaign posts. facebook has removed posts and ads from the trump campaign just in the last few months. in june, twitter fact-checked and shielded some of the president's tweets. to be clear, i want to get the facts out there, yes, while children are less susceptible to contracting covid, there have been cases of young children dying from the illness. stuart: all he said was almost immune. that got him kicked off. i call that political censorship. that's my opinion. thank you, susan. pete, come back in again. i do call it political censorship but you were banned from twitter. what did you do wrong? >> i shared the words of a

radical islamic terrorist and his motivation. as part of news, by the way. we covered that attack in pensacola. we didn't know the motivation. we found out he had posted on twitter his support for osama bin laden and radical -- and al qaeda. i found what he had written on twitter and shared it to my twitter feed but they accused me of spreading terrorist propaganda. as opposed to sharing the motivations of someone who had killed americans. they will find any reason to censor conservatives. it's happened to friends of mine activity right now. listen, twitter is an echo chamber for leftists. that's what it is. they are catering to their base. i'm more disappointed in facebook and mark zuckerberg, who declared at the hearing just a couple weeks ago he wasn't going to be the arbiter of truth. that's exactly what he's doing. he's caving. he's got such a great market opportunity if he doesn't cave. stuart: he's caved and look, the stock is up 2.7% right now. maybe it pays to cave. >> maybe. stuart, i would have been more prepared for this segment except i have been distracted trying to find out how to get varney wine

here in the states from australia. not easy. i'm going to figure it out. stuart: i will try to help you. thank you, pete. see you again soon. the white house, left-hand side of the screen, in just a few minutes the president leaves the white house heading to ohio. he's touring a whirlpool factory that brought manufacturing jobs, some of them, back here from mexico. 58% of voters approve of mail-in ballots for the election. do they understand the consequence consequences? i think it's going to be chaos. first, though, less than two weeks to the dnc. joe biden still doesn't have a running mate. our next guest says he's got two real options. neither of them good. we'll be right back. ♪ find your keys.

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i don't think that who the vice president is makes that much difference in the election. it's about joe biden versus donald trump and that's what the election's about. since lyndon johnson, i don't think any vice president has ever made a positive difference except from a negative standpoint, perhaps, sarah palin. stuart: i beg to differ, madam speaker. i think the choice this year of vice president from joe biden is going to be very important. on your screens right now, the two front-runners. on the right, senator elizabeth warren, on the left, senator kamala harris. i want to bring in harvey dillon, california's rnc representative, a guest on this program before. it's great to have you back again. good to see you.

>> thank you, stuart. happy to be here. stuart: would you characterize both kamala harris and elizabeth warren as socialists? >> well, absolutely. they are socialists but from a different perspective. kamala harris has had a long history in law enforcement before she joined the senate, whereas elizabeth warren has been on the sort of critical race theory side on the opposite side of that divide as a professor at harvard. stuart: if elected, joe biden, would either of these two vice presidents, they would have a significant influence on him and how he runs the country, surely. >> absolutely. so contrary to what my congresswoman nancy pelosi just said, it's very apparent when you look at television that joe biden is not all there and i think most democratic voters know that, and those circumstances, the choice of vice president is really critical because for one thing, he may not last the whole term and for another thing, if there's a cognitive issue, that

vice presidential candidate is going to be playing a significant role in the presidency if joe biden were to win. so it's much more important now than in any prior race. stuart: i just picked up on your comment there that joe biden is not all there. you know, we struggle to address this issue without disrespecting anyone at any time. what just said, it's a little harsh. may i say that. >> you may. not all there is a kind way to say it. i think there are harsher ways. i have seen it said on television. and we all have older relatives, by the way, who have had similar issues. we can recognize them. if we are being honest, we can recognize them. i feel bad for him. i respect him as a person who served this country and he should not be running for president right now. he should be getting care. stuart: he should be getting care. do you think we have reached the point where someone in his family or in the party should step up and say you know, maybe this isn't the right time for you, joe biden? should somebody say that?

>> somebody should have said that about nine months ago. i think he's had a rapid cognitive decline. tv appearances earlier this week were quite shocking, words out of order, slurred, memory lapses while he was doing campaign events. his family, you know, should do the right thing. of course, for the democratic party, it's too late. they have invested heavily in him. they can't really switch horses at this point. i'm sure they have a plan but that plan may involve switching him out for the vice presidential candidate which means that choice is incredibly important and deserves a lot more scrutiny than sort of the coy game playing we are seeing right now. stuart: the president wants a presidential debate before people start mailing in those mail-in ballots. what's wrong with that? >> well, it makes sense. we're talking about mail-in ballots to dropping, that's the term we use, as early as september 4th in north carolina, two months before the election and because of the delays in mail and covid, pretty much

everywhere that's doing vote by mail which is now increasing number of states and majority of them, the ballots are dropping 30 days in advance. so people don't have the time to look at the debates more than one, and then make up their mind, they are being deprived of opportunity. what we have seen in prior vote by mail situations is that people change their mind. a lot of voters will contact the registrar of voters and say oh, my god, i saw that debate, can i change, can i take it back. no, they can't. so that's among the chaos that's being caused by this vote by mail. stuart: that's another problem with vote by mail. you vote early and you can't change your mind. even if you wanted to. that's something else. >> this voter goes in and votes in person. that's why. stuart: don't be such a stranger. come back soon, please. >> thank you. stuart: thank you. staying on the election, i personally have not seen as many political ads as i expected. look, this is three months before election. i would expect all screens to be plastered with political ads. i've not seen it. come in, hillary vaughn. tell me, what are the campaigns

doing? how much are they actually spending? reporter: you are about to see a lot more ads coming your way september 1st because the biden campaign announced the largest ad buy for any presidential candidate in history. they are going to be spending $280 million on digital and tv ads in 15 different states starting september 1st. this is significant because a lot of the ads are going to be airing in states that trump won in 2016. clearly an indication that biden is planning on trying to flip those states in november. the trump campaign has spent or will spend $145 million, much less than the biden campaign, on tv ads after labor day, and a lot of those are going to be focused on states that trump won. in july, 90% of trump campaign's ad money went to states where they already won. their strategy is defend the map. he won a lot of states, he's president now and they want to make sure they do that again in november. but really, this pandemic is

interesting because it does show the campaigns are investing a lot more money than ever on meeting voters where they are, in their living rooms, on their tvs, on their smartphones. so campaigns are investing tons of money, a lot more than they did in 2015, on that. stuart? stuart: hillary, thank you very much indeed. i've got a fox business alert for you. the president says he thinks it's possible that there will be a vaccine ready around election day. that's november 3rd. here he is speaking with fox news contributor geraldo rivera on his radio show earlier. listen to this. >> what's the earliest we could see a vaccine? >> sooner than the end of the year. could be much sooner. >> sooner than november 3rd? >> oh, i think in some cases, it's possible before but right around that time. we have great companies, great, these are the greatest companies in the world, and the rest of the world is also doing vaccines

so let's see how they do. stuart: all right. you heard it. a vaccine before or -- on or before election day, november 3rd. that's from the president. brand new push to crack down on chinese apps and cloud providers. president trump says beijing is absolutely stealing our data. we told you about tiktok. but what else could be on the chopping block? we will tell you. in just a few minutes, the president's expected to leave the white house touring a factory, whirlpool factory in ohio. if he says anything as he leaves the white house, as always, you will know it first. back after this. ♪ this is decision tech. find a stock based on your interests or what's trending.

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stuart: couple of stocks to check for you. first, disney. $127 a share. it's up. they have been recommended by -- not sure which hedge fund it is but it's a big hedge fund. they are keeping with disney, holding it long term. they switched to a bit more bullish view. the stock's at $127. having a really good week. earnings reports, going to run through some for you. hilton hotels, we knew it was going to be awful. it was. room rate revenue down over 80%. they lost $400 million.

the stock's up 50 cents. another pandemic loser, norwegian cruise lines. no surprise. huge loss. their revenue was down 99%. why not? the ships weren't sailing. they are burning through $160 million cash a month with their ships stuck in port. tiny bounce for the stock, 3.5%. okay. airlines. let's have a look at them. the president is throwing his support behind a $25 billion aid for them, aid package. that's another aid package. almost all of them are up. no word yet on the timeline as to when that money arrives but the stocks are up. next one, tiktok. we are back to that. what's the news, susan? susan: the latest is that the financial times is reporting that microsoft now chasing a deal to buy all of tiktok's global business. originally, you saw that press release late on sunday evening, rarity for microsoft to comment on takeover discussions. they said they were interested in tiktok's u.s. business and three other geographies, namely

canada, australia and new zealand, but according to the financial times, it looks like microsoft is now chasing a deal to buy all of tiktok including in india and in europe as well. yeah. so that price tag will probably go up at this point. fox business is reporting that microsoft is still the lead suitor here, and they're looking at outside investors to possibly finance any deal with tiktok despite the fact microsoft already has $130 billion in cash on the balance sheet. now, this tiktok deal could be worth as much as $30 billion, as low as $10 billion. we have heard these price tags being thrown out there. stuart: yeah, but not if anybody buys all of tiktok. susan: you think that's a bigger price tag than just 10 to 30? you think it's closer to 50 or above that? assist it wou stuart: it would have to be. if the $10 billion to $30 billion is for 100 million users in the united states. susan: 800 million users globally. stuart: but if you're buying

that, you will pay more than $30 billion. you will pay more than for 100 billion. susan: compare it to snap. snap's valuation is currently $33 billion. that's the entire global business right there. right? by the way, you also have instagram reels which launched in 50 countries yesterday and there was a lot of social media buzz about facebook's copycat tiktok app. they said that it's virtually a remake of tiktok on facebook and instagram. remember when facebook copied snap's disappearing messages? that capped snap's growth. some say that if facebook and instagram reels is launching which is an exact copy of tiktok, that's going to cap tiktok's growth as well. so $30 billion might sound little to you, it's definitely less than the last round of valuation for the app itself, but don't forget, is microsoft the only suitor out there and they want everything. stuart: i'm fascinated to see microsoft's stock bounce up just a little on the financial times report that they might want to buy the whole enchilada.

susan: i think price is key. let's see. stuart: let's see. that's a big operation to buy just like that. got it. thanks, susan. look at the price of gold. where are we today? still comfortably above $2,000 an ounce. $2,062 to be precise. gold has done very well recently. bring in heather zumarraga, market watcher. tell me, is there any relationship between the zooming prices for gold and the election? >> i love zoom, zoom, zoom. it's an easy way to remember. it's not my fault, you can blame my husband for the last name. look, gold is zoom, zoom, zoom, off the charts, right? regardless of markets up, markets down. everyone is piling into gold. i don't think it's for the normal reasons, when you look at most people usually buy gold as an inflation hedge. we don't have inflation right now, right, so it's a flight to safety, flight to quality, instead of flocking into bonds, for example, you have the ten-year down to around 50 some

basis points. that doesn't look like a good idea at these levels because your risk of losing money in the bond market is a lot greater than if you want to hedge some of your uncertainty about the pandemic and the election, you're better off in gold right now. stuart: what do you make of all these day traders? i use that expression loosely. there has been a huge increase the number of people buying and selling from home. what do you make of it? >> yeah. it's not good. i do like that there's broad participation across the board in investors and you have younger millenial investors moving into the markets. i think it's really a dynamic of three things. one, people being furloughed, losing their jobs, whether temporarily, hopefully not permanently, having more time at home. two, the strong stock market gains and the fact that there are very low barriers to entry. you can trade for free on your phone, on an app now, and commission-free trades across the board make it very easy for people to trade. stuart: it makes it very easy but it's like a gambling casino,

isn't it. >> yes. not good. stuart: heather, thank you very much indeed. how about blue apron? yeah, the meal kit guys. they are going to offer four million shares at $9.25 a pop. investors don't like it because that clearly dilutes their holdings. the stock is down 20%. $9 a share. costco, july sales up more than about, what, 13% higher. that's a pandemic winner. digital sales up 75%. look at the stock. it's at $342 per share. costco is a winner. lauren, groceries. what's this about inflation at the grocery store? lauren: yeah. grocery prices have been soaring. as anybody who food shops knows, if you look at meat and poultry, up 11% since right before the pandemic hit. eggs, 10% more. cereal and fresh vegetables up 4% each. why? demand, obviously, through the roof and also some supply chain

disruptions as the virus hit the meat plants and also the farms. you know this, stuart, where it's just coming up to the fall harvest season. if there's an outbreak, and we had a few outbreaks on blueberry farms, does that affect the harvest. if you have a smaller harvest, prices go up. stuart: it affects the overall inflation picture, doesn't it. because there is food price inflation, overall inflation goes up. i guess that's what makes gold a little more attractive. maybe that's the case. lauren: yeah. yes, that is true. i just think of those 55 million americans applying for jobless benefits who are trying to feed their families and the way to do that is getting more expensive. stuart: got that right. thank you, lauren. appreciate it. after more than three dozen players and staffers tested positive for the virus, major league baseball tightening the health and safety protocols again. we will bring you up to speed with the new rules. bars, music halls, shut down on nationals honky-tonk highway.

tomi lahren lives in nashville and says the democrat mayor is really hurting, destroying the city's music industry. and a lot of her neighbors, the people of nashville, are getting really annoyed at the democrat mayor. we will deal with that in a moment. ♪

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do another one. another one. is this good? put in that work, devin. don't give up. geico. save an extra 15% when you switch by october 7th. stuart: i'm going to put facebook and twit other the screen. look at facebook go. that is a huge gain, up $9. it just so happens that overnight, facebook and twitter banned, took away, took down a presidential post. evidently investors approve of that. facebook up $9. overall, the market has turned south for the dow jones average. we are down about 20 points. we turned south on the nasdaq and the s&p as well.

this is not a major selloff. let's go to nashville. country music capital of the world. yes, it is. you won't hear much music right now, though. bars, concert halls, venues of all kinds, closed by the mayor who is a democrat. our next guest lives there. she says even liberals are turning on the mayor. tomi lahren is the lady who lives there. she's a fox nation host. what exactly are they saying about the mayor? >> well, i think for awhile now, we've had a lot of conservative nashvil nashvillians who looked at the shutdowns of restaurants and bars and other businesses and have been very upset, especially since we are struggling with a 34% property tax increase which our mayor imposed on us a couple months ago. now what we are starting to see and even if it's not as vocal, you are starting to see rumblings even more creative liberal musicians who are making their money playing on broadway and other venues, not being able to work and they are starting to understand their livelihoods are

at stake here and their mayor is not listening to them. i think you are going to see quite a few even liberal musicians take the red pill. stuart: if you open up, there is a risk of further infection. are you, your neighbors and friends in nashville, prepared to take the extra risk? >> well, here's the deal. right now we are struggling through a 10:00 p.m. curfew for restaurants so i would ask our illustrious mayor are you telling me that coronavirus is more contagious after 10:00 p.m. or are you just putting down an arbitrary restriction on restaurants which hurts them economically, hurts their employees, is going to cripple them for many many months if not years to come, if not shut them down entirely. when we talk about coronavirus, we all know it's serious. we all want to slow the spread, flatten the curve. but at some point we have to understand that living and livelihoods are intertwined. if you take away people's reason to get up in the morning, their reason to run a business, their income as a whole, you are going to have a lot of people that are going to be struggling and i

think that's where you are seeing more of the fear coming from. stuart: i see your point. now, by the way, did you see this. 58% of voters support mail-in voting in this presidential year. look, i made no secret of the fact i think it's terrible. i think it's going to be just chaotic on election day and the month afterwards. what do you think about this? >> well, mail-in voting, a lot of people don't understand that the second that you lose custody of that ballot, you put it in the mail, you are opening up the system for fraud. i have done extensive work on this in california when i lived there because that really is the poster child for voter fraud, especially when we are talking about mail-in ballots. but the second you lose custody of that ballot, you are putting it out into the universe and i think americans need to be really wary of that. we need to make sure that we don't have voter fraud especially in this upcoming election. we all know how important it is. but you're having these ballots, millions being mailed in. our president is very wise to understand that that's going to be a mess. for americans and for our

election system. stuart: to me it's not so much election fraud although that i think is part of it. it's just the absolute mess where you don't know when you're going to start to count the mail-in votes, you don't know which votes are -- ballots are eligible because of the postmark and timing and all the rest of it, and you cannot count millions and millions of mail-in ballots and get a result by election night. that's the chaos. it's guaranteed. there's no way round it. >> oh, we saw what happened with the caucus in iowa. i know that seems like eons ago but look at the debacle we saw there and we didn't even mix in this issue with mail-in voting. we will have enough problems to confront in november already but mail-in ballots, lot of people don't understand as well there's a huge issue with double voting when you have mail-in ballots, especially in california. you get a mail-in ballot whether you ask for one or not, so people think that's not going to open the door for fraud, they are sadly mistaken. stuart: i think you're right. tomi lahren, thank very much. you can watch her show, no

interruptions, on fox nation. got it. thanks, tomi. next, with vacations canceled, people are turning to other places to escape like horse ranches. big rise in visitors this summer. let's bring in grady trimble. i knew he was going to be on a horse and he is. what's it like, grady? reporter: oh, it's pretty easy, stuart. they have trained these horses well. this is carly, the horse. that's drake in front of me. then paul williams, the rock and roll cowboy, he's the owner at cedar creek ranch. what has business been like with city slickers like me coming to the ranch? >> awesome. things have been great since we have been able to open back up. we have given everybody a great experience out here in the outdoors, being with nature and just enjoying horses which is the best thing to be doing. reporter: you had to shut down for a couple months because of the pan ddemic but what happene when you reopened? >> we were able to get back open and get people out to the ranch,

following social safety distance guidelines and we are able to give everybody the great outdoor wild west experience. reporter: you got to wear a mafshg whmask when you arrive, you have hand sanitizing stations but that's the beauty of experiencing the great outdoors here. it's pretty easy to social distance on a horse, i must say. stuart: as a farm owner myself, i can tell you, it's pretty easy to observe social distance in the great vast american outdoors. all good. thanks, grady. that's the second time today i have seen you riding that horse. all right. we'll be back with more. first, check viacom vbs. got their earnings. advertising revenue down 27%. streaming and digital revenue up 25%. the stock 4% higher. roku, i think they are a lockdown winner. they added more than, what, three million users. they reported higher revenue, better profits. the one thing they did, though, they said ad spending won't recover until well into 2021.

that's what's bringing them down nearly 8% on roku. next case, baseball. ashley, what's this about changing the safety protocols? what rule changes? ashley: well, it's interesting. after the outbreaks we've seen with the miami marlins, the st. louis cardinals, even the philadelphia phillies, mlb now putting its foot down. it actually did an investigation into the marlins' outbreak and came out with some new protocols, kind of more stricter measures. they say one, they should reduce the size of traveling parties. only those essential should go, requiring staff members and players to wear face coverings while on the road. i'm surprised that wasn't in place already. and prohibits players and staff to meet in hotel rooms. that was one thing that came out of the investigation, without special permission. 21 members of the marlins organization tested positive, 18 of those were players. rob manfred, the commissioner of

major league baseball, told the union's top guy that if these protocols are not put into place, he could indeed cancel what is already a shortened season. more than 20 games already have been postponed because of teams battling the virus. stuart: that's real tough on baseball. real tough indeed. thanks, ash. all right. president trump's going to leave for ohio shortly, any moment now. he will emerge from the white house. on occasion, when he emerges, he speaks to reporters and says a few things. if he does, if he says something, you will know it real fast. take another look at the totally empty, believe that is times square. normally if there is such a thing as normally these days, it would be jammed with cars, people, tourists all over the place. but right now, that is normal times square. unbelievable. we'll be right back. ♪ liberty mutual customizes your car insurance,

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stuart: by the way, facebook is now up $11 a share, having censored the president of the united states of america. all right. it is another big day for earnings. they come out after the bell. susan, who are you watching? susan: uber. is a spike in food delivery

enough to mauk ke up for the dr in ride hailing? they said food delivery was up over 30% during the covid lockdown. analysts like wedbush say it's probably doubled in the march to june quarter. we are also looking for updates and guidance on a $2.5 billion acquisition of postmates they just announced last month and what they see for their new grocery delivery service called corner shop, that they also just bought and launched here in the u.s. ride hailing their main revenue generator. uber said it was picking slightly back up in the second week of may and onward. the question is about profitability. we had uber's ceo dar asha khosrowshahi saying he was still very confident, those were his words, that the company will be profitable next year outside of expenses. we will see if they stick to that. as for the earnings, losses expected, company has never made money in its 12-year history. stuart: yeah, but the stock is up 3% as we speak. next case, lauren, you're

watching zillow, the real estate people. lauren: yep. up 55% this year. look, they are going to report a loss caused by the pandemic but their sales will rise. here's why. they are buying homes now in 24 markets so you can sell your home directly to zillow. it even partnered with d.r. horton so if you are buying a brand new loam and you might be because inventory of other homes is low, zillow will buy your current home. that speeds up the process, gets you in and out. finally, the housing market is on fire. last year, it took 23 days on average for a home to go under contract. now, 14 days. zillow is at the center of the action. so nice gain this year and i think earnings are going to be okay. stuart: okay. thanks very much, lauren. facebook now up $11.50 per share. after censoring the president of the united states. i guess investors think that's the right thing to do. more "varney" after this. or what's trending.

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stuart: tomorrow it is "friday feedback." you have time to send us your comments, questions, suggestions. e us at varneyviewers@foxbusiness.com. tweet us, or send a video. keep it short and to the point. i have to get back to this, we found that president trump said, children, quote, almost immune from the virus. facebook considered that to be harmful mess information and they took the video down and so did twitter. i guess investors must think

that brings more advertisers to facebook. investors like this move, censoring the president. look at that facebook is up $11. t breached $260 a share on the back of that news. twitter is up 1.25% as well. interesting, neil. it is yours. neil: you know, i think it is more controversy, the more cash for these guys. they run into a buzzsaw of criticism from both parties rein them in, the more they get that, the more their stocks jump it's weird. it's a weird world. looking forward to tomorrow. i hope you play my video comments that i passed along. meantime, we're up about 10 points at the corner of wall and broad. stuart was mentioning to the president. he might have something to say to the reporters at joint base andrews as he leaves for that trip to ohio. we will go there very much shortly. the front and center news of the day seems to be all the crackdown on sury