we don't know what it means. american people are eager to find out what it's going to look like. with only 30% of americans really knowing what joe biden's all about, i think this is a time to make a statement. jackie: thank you, all. that does it for us on "mornings with maria." thanks for watching. "varney & company" is up next. ashley, over to you. ashley: all right. good morning, jackie. thank you. good morning, everyone. huge week ahead for politics and money and guess what? that's what we do. it is our bread and butter. first up, the democrats laying out their vision for america starting tonight as oh, yes, the democratic national convention gets under way but this will be a mostly virtual convention, so will joe biden continue to avoid questions from the media? that's one of the questions we are asking. president trump hitting the campaign trail as well. he will be hitting four swing states this week including two today. next hour, he will be leaving on a two-state swing through minnesota and wisconsin. the post office funding controversy is at the center of

the election conversation right now. speaker pelosi calling the house back into session for urgent action, she says, on the matter. so urgent they are not coming back until later this week. meanwhile, the market shrugging off any possible chaos from the election. the s&p, in fact, could hit an all-time high today. goldman sachs is raising its forecast on the s&p to 3600 by year's end. it's also a big week for retail as well. several big companies reporting profits starting with walmart and home depot tomorrow. lots to talk about. i'm ashley webster. yes, stuart is back tomorrow. "varney & company" is about to begin. -- it's been run horribly and we're going to make it good. now, what am i supposed to do, let it continue to run badly so if you fix it they say oh, he's

tampering with the election. we're not tampering. this is a con game by pelosi and schumer. look, the post office, there's $25 billion sitting there but they really want $1 trillion to bail out their badly run states. ashley: yeah, that was president trump just moments ago on "fox & friends." he says house speaker nancy pelosi and senate minority leader schumer, as you just heard, trying to con him into bailing out poorly run liberal states by using the postal service. pelosi now calling the house back into session after reps left d.c. they want the postmaster general to testify about the growing fears that mail-in ballots will be delayed. all right. let's bring in blake burman live at the warehouse -- the warehouse. the white house. look, the first thing i think of here, hasn't the post office already been losing billions of dollars, way before talks about mail-in voting, right?

reporter: yeah. live in the washington area, by the way. yeah. as we heard' trump this morning, it is something that he and both the treasury secretary steve mnuchin have been talking about for awhile saying look, the post office loses money, so it needs to be reformed and it's something they have been trying to get at for quite some time. that's part of their defense. however, nancy pelosi is saying that the postmaster general, newly installed, donor of the president, is amounting to what is essentially quote, political sabotage, so she is calling back the house after this upcoming weekend. in between the two political conventions, the democrat and republican, to take up legislation that would return service levels back to 2019 levels. here's what she wrote to democrats in her letter. quote, in a time of a pandemic, the postal service is election central. americans should not have to choose between their health and their vote. as you also heard from the president there, this is also at

the core of the phase four stimulus negotiation, relief negotiations right now that are going nowhere. democrats want $25 billion for the postal service. the president thinks that this is all part of some bigger negotiating game to get money for states and local governments that need bailouts or at least that need bailouts as he sees it. probably, ashley, the biggest political football in washington right now involving the u.s. postal service. back to you. ashley: exactly. getting back to 2019 levels. were they that great? i guess that's another question. blake, thank you very much. really appreciate it. let's check the markets. we are on record watch for the s&p 500 this morning and goldman sachs raising its target on the s&p to 3600 by the end of the year. that's pretty bullish. let's bring in market watcher keith fitz-gerald. keith, you are bullish on the s&p 500, too. noi th i know that. you're not worried about this potential election chaos? >> well, of course i'm worried

but am i concerned enough to change my investment strategy? that's a different question. the answer is no. i think the chaos that joe biden effect, all of that very very real but if you are in to win with the right companies, then you know what, that potentially is just a speed bump. ashley: very quickly, keith, we have talked about the s&p, you know, trying to break through the next level through another record level, but it hasn't been able to do that. a growing number of analysts are saying that's a sign that perhaps we are looking for a pullback, losing a little bit of the momentum. >> i actually agree with that. my experience over the last nearly 40 years which i can't believe i have been doing it this long, is exactly that. if we have not broken through already, there's a substantial amount of buying and selling that still has to occur before we can lead that charge. i'm actually coming into this week thinking about it but again, not enough to change my strategy at this point. ashley: all right. very good. keith, stay right there. i want to look at walmart premarket. also bring in lauren simonetti. they are extending their store

hours by how much, as the stock is up 1.33% before the bell? lauren: that is a record high, actually, ashley. we will see if it sticks when the market opens. almost all of walmarts will stay open 90 minutes later starting today. so they will close at 10:00 p.m. walmart says they feel they can do this safely. they will also have time to clean their stores and restock their shelves and the move gives customers more options, and it's a way to adjust workers to extended hours again, just ahead of the holiday shopping season. we get their big report card for the quarter tomorrow. look, walmart certainly a pandemic winner but it costs money to run business safely and also to speed up delivery to customers who are clicking and buying from home. so because of that, earnings are expected to fall 1.6% from last year, and revenue, yeah, is going to rise about 4% to $135.37 billion. i just wanted to show you this. you are looking at it on the screen. while the stock is near a record

high, it is up just 7% in the past three months but the s&p retail etf is up 42% in that same time period. so walmart, a winner but the gains are slowing. ashley: that's interesting. all right, lauren, thank you. back to you, keith. big retailers as we just said reporting this week. they include walmart, target, tjx. you buying any retailers going into the earnings? >> i want lauren on my team. that's exactly the relationship we are looking at. walmart is undervalued compared to the rest of the industry. they are making great moves. home depot is attractive to me, foot traffic despite the pandemic up 35%, maybe 40%. lowe's is interesting. beyond that, not much. because you've got to have daa digital component to it and not a lot of retailers do. ashley: very good. thank you, keith. let's check amazon. the behemoth we check every day. susan li, come on in. now they are facing an

investigation in germany. susan: yeah. there have been complaints that amazon was blocking certain traders accusing them of price gouging after covid. germany is investigating amazon on how it influences pricing on the marketplace. germany is amazon's second biggest market after the u.s. i didn't know that. that was interesting. amazon defending its policies when it comes to price gouging. amazon founder jeff bezos testifying for the first time on capitol hill just last month, with growing concerns over amazon's conflict of interest because they operate the marketplace but they are also a competitor, because they sell their own private label goods. how they influence pricing i guess is important to germany. ashley: interesting. all right, susan, thank you. check auto zone. they are getting on a hiring spree. they are looking for 20,000 workers across the country for their 5800 stores. let's take a look at auto zone. yeah, they are up .25%. also take a look at jd.com, the chinese e-commerce company,

reporting second quarter profit and revenue jumped last quarter. by the way, revenue grew more than 33%. mobile daily users rose 40% in june. that stock up 5% in premarket. take a look at tesla. tesla shares after wedbush's dan ives is raising his price target to $1900, those shares up 1.5% at $1677. that's a hundred dollar jump, by the way, in price target by dan ives and they will open in record territory. not bad. next case, the fda approves a new coronavirus saliva test created by yale researchers. by the way, they are partnering with the nba to test players more. good time to bring in doc marc siegel, fox news contributor. doc, is this the future of testing, do you think? >> ashley, i think it is. it's called saliva direct. it was tested on nba players and it was very successful about 90%

to 95% as good as the nasal swab you have been hearing about for months. that means, by the way, this can now be used as a home kit, if we can manage to get the home kits out there. the nba, major league soccer and major league baseball is testing about 19,000 players a day so they are using it big-time but we could actually roll it out to the general public. it uses the same kind of testing that we have been doing all along but with a rapid response and it's something you can self-administer. co-diagnostics is another company that got a saliva test out there that was approved with an emergency use authorization by the fda a few weeks ago. these two could be huge players on the market and take over the whole testing situation. ashley: you know, doctor, we have a host of companies, we know this, racing to make the very first vaccine but in your opinion, who is leading the race? we just got news that eli lilly and regeneron, both companies

not able to meet the timelines they said they were. in other words, seeing delays. who is in the lead, do you think? >> well, actually, eli lilly and regeneron, you are talking about the antibody treatment. in terms of the vaccines, i would put right at the front, let's talk about this like a horse race, at the front, i would say is oxford astra-zeneca because they are already well into stage -- phase three trials around the world. they are right up front. next and very close, neck and neck, would be moderna and the pfizer biontech vaccines. both of them are brand new technology messenger rna. that's a kind of genetic material. all had a very rapid immunological response. they are right behind the oxford astra-zeneca. then i look at novavax, which we have talked about a lot. that's not yet entering the phase three trials but i will tell you what i like about that one. that's the one, the dark horse at the end of the race. that could come in and with a finishing kick, beat everyone. tell you why.

ashley, their immune response was four times what you get when you are recovering from covid-19 yourself. that's right. four times greater, novavax's vaccine. looks extremely promising. i would say astra-zeneca, pfizer, moderna and then novavax. those are my top four candidates. ashley: all right. we have to keep a close eye on it. thanks as always for your expertise this morning. the saliva test is interesting. let's take a look at the futures. going to be higher, at least that's what the futures are telling us. the dow up 118 points before we officially get under way. same story, up half a percent on the s&p. up nearly 1% on the nasdaq. we will see how accurate that is at the opening bell. the riots and protesting following george floyd's murder is set to become the costliest displays of civil unrest in our nation's history. it's a number, well, you frankly won't believe. we will tell you in a live report from chicago coming up.

the dnc, yes, kicks off today but joe biden and his campaign largely absent on the sunday shows yesterday. so where is joe biden? we will debate whether his basement strategy will help him win the election. speaking of the convention, the democrats are doing everything they can to keep the peace after chaos broke out from the bernie bros in 2016. can they stay unified this time around? we are on it next. ♪ i'm a performer. -always have been. -and always will be. never letting anything get in my way. not the doubts, distractions,

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ashley: welcome back, everybody. let's take a look at these markets as we kick off a new trading week. yes, looks like we are going to start off on a positive note. the dow futures, as you can see,

up 117 points. s&p and nasdaq also nicely in the green. the democratic convention starts this week. we know that. we will see the democrats' economic policies along with joe biden's vision for america, but could we see a potential replay of 2016? if you remember, where angry bernie sanders' supporters threw the whole event into chaos. could it happen again? maybe. let's bring in hillary vaughn, who will give us a preview of the convention. good morning, hillary. reporter: good morning, ashley. today's lineup goes as far left as bernie sanders and as far right as former republican governor john kasich. bernie sanders, though, has promised to use his delegates at the convention to make the party's platform as progressive as possible and reflects what he calls his economic bill of rights including things like medicare for all and a government guaranteed job, but some in his base feel that he fell short of that.

today is supposed to be a show of unity for the party to avoid what happened in 2016, but there are some delegates that are protesting the platform because they don't think it's progressive enough, things like medicare for all are not on the table and really, we are expecting to get some pushback for that. we did hear from bernie sanders yesterday. he said that the first step is to get joe biden elected and then the next step is to try to push through progressive policies like medicare for all through his -- using his base to do that. so we are expecting to hear a little bit more from sanders on that today, but while this is happening, the president himself is putting himself out there in key battleground states, providing a counter-message to the dnc's programming. president trump will hold rallies in several swing states today starting in wisconsin, where the dnc was supposed to kick off in person, now it's mostly virtual. tomorrow in arizona and thursday in pennsylvania. they are also planning a

multi-million dollar ad spend this week including taking over youtube's banner for 96 hours and the reason why that's key is because a lot of people are going to be watching the dnc online, on youtube, on streaming platforms, and that is where the trump campaign is investing their money this week. ashley? ashley: yeah. it's going to look very different. a virtual convention, a lot of pretaped speeches and so on. hillary, thank you very much. appreciate it. let's stay on this, if we can. let's bring in our good friend jeff sica. jeff, good morning to you. the democrats unveil their economic vision for america this week. i would imagine higher taxes, more regulation. what would all of this do for the economy and the markets? >> well, i think it's going to have an immense impact on the economy and the markets because primarily, you are talking about two very very different agendas and if we begin to see higher taxes and how they relate to small businesses, we are going to see the markets react to

that, because as it stands, the polls are too indecisive to determine where this is going to go so investors have to realize that it's not only investing about for today, it's investing for the future and our future's very uncertain right now. ashley: it's interesting because i saw an opinion in one of the newspapers, national newspapers, who said you know what, the democrats are good for the markets because democrats love to spend. the markets like lots of money out there. lots of liquidity. >> yeah. i mean, there's a lot of truth to the fact that the democrats love to spend. we have these massive stimulus programs going on. if these stimulus programs continue, you can't really say for certain that they won't help the market because so far, they have been the octane behind this market. this market hangs on every word of the fed and if those policies are continued, i think you are

going to see more inflation. you could see, could see more inflation of financial assets. that creates a greater vulnerability in the future. ashley: right. all right. let's move on, jeff. a subject you are very happy to talk about, streaming. because netflix is taking a page out of disney's book by streaming its own musical. what do you think of that? you co-produced a toneyy award winning play yourself. is this the future of broadway? >> here's the thing. to quote billy joel, the lights have in fact gone out on broadway with no definitive date of return. so there's a void and all of us who love musicals and turn to broadway musicals for inspiration in times of darkness like we are going through now. so the streamers like netflix are responding to that void, and creating this platform to bring

these beloved plays to a broader audience that don't get a chance to go to the theaters that don't live near new york, that can't afford a ticket. i think this is a great, great thing. what disney did with hamilton was just monumental. 75% increase in subscribers during the same time period. i think this is a win/win for both broadway and for theater goers for the streamers. ashley: very good. "hamilton" stands out by itself but musicals are popular. our producer, huge fan of musicals. but jeff sica, as always, thank you very much. he's laughing in my ear. take a look at the futures, if we can, as we get ready to ring the bell if not virtually, in person. the futures showing the dow up 116 points. in fact, up across the board. let's see what happens for real when we come back. ♪

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ashley: welcome back, everybody. the very latest on home builder

sentiment breaking right now. lauren has the number. lauren? lauren: it's tied the all-time high, 78% of home builders in august say that conditions are good. that is the highest level since december of 1998, when it was also 78. look, people continue to want to move. builders are confident and the ceo of the national association of home builders, jerry howard, will be on the show and i would ask him about lumber prices. they are skyrocketing to record highs. will that stall the momentum that the desire to move and ultra-low mortgage rates, when you pay higher prices to go into the home, will there still be as much incentive? ashley: very good. i'm writing that down. raising lumber prices. very good, lauren. the other big issue of course being the lack of inventory. i know new home builds are good but record low mortgages, mortgage rates, but you know, lack of homes.

this continues certainly in the existing home sales. that hurts. lauren: for over a year, there were two homes near where i live right when you get on the parkway. beautiful homes, newly constructed but they couldn't sell them because nobody wanted to live on the parkway. guess what, they sold. people are already in and it's just amazing because there are so few homes to buy, people are saying this is a nice area, we can deal with the parkway being three feet from us. ashley: that is indeed a sign of the times. we will put up with the traffic and the noise. very interesting. thank you. all right. we are just about 40 seconds away from the opening bell. as you can see, futures up across the board. we had a quick snapshot of the financials that came up on the screen. those are negative. if you follow warren buffett, you saw he's been getting out of the banks, out of wells fargo, jpmorgan and he actually went into gold which i found fascinating. mr. buffett has never been a fan of gold, at least not in recent times.

he says the metal is no match for american mettle. pretty clever comment in itself. we are expecting a higher open on the beginning of a new week. as you can see, the futures up about 117. we are on record watch again for the s&p. the intraday record on the s&p, 3393, just set all the way back in february. all right. let's take a look. we are on the move. here we go. off and running. just starting to wait to get the trades going. lot of green. jpmorgan chase, talking about the banks, there it is, the laggard but home depot, walmart, apple once again, these are the big gainers. but we are just showing up 43 points at this very early stage. let's take a look at the s&p, if we can, again. 3393. that is the intraday high. we will be keeping an eye on that, on the s&p. right now, 3383. we are just, what, ten points away from another all-time record in dra high, right up

about .33%. the nasdaq continues its march, well above 11,000 now. up another 66 points, up .6% on the nasdaq. we are also going to show you tesla. opening in record territory after dan ives raised his price target to $1900. he's a big friend of the show. what dan says, a lot of people listen to. as you can see, tesla up another 33 bucks, another 2% at $1685 for tesla. what about zoom? they have expanded their service to another 25 countries around the world. that brings their total now to over 40 countries and that stock up 2.25%, five bucks, at $250.63 for zoom. let's take a look, what about home depot? they will be reporting tomorrow. i think they have done pretty well. lauren, they brought in some serious cash, have they not, during the pandemic? lauren: absolutely. tomorrow, they are likely to say

that revenue increased 11.4% to just over $34 billion as customers continue to flock to stores, to paint, mulch, remodel, you name it. shares at a record high right now. analysts continue to expect people to spend on their homes versus other discretionary spending like traveling and going out to dinner. even if the stimulus checks, as they start to decrease, people are still going to spend money at home depot. at least that's what most analysts will say. there are also reports that show foot traffic since april has been running 35% above last year and the share price in the past 52 weeks is up 40%. so another record high for home depot today. ashley: never underestimate the power of mulching. i always said that. thank you. lauren: i like the black stuff. ashley: it looks cool, does it not? susan li, talk about amazon. they are thinking of moving workers out of seattle, right? susan: this is after seattle passed a tax, taxes employers

like amazon up to 2.5% on the amount they paid their seattle-based employees. also extending the company's work from home policy during coronavirus as the company, amazon, sent out a message to seattle workers saying which communities close to the city do you prefer to work in instead. ideas including nearby redmond, microsoft's headquarters, tacoma. amazon employs around 50,000 in seattle, announcing plans in february to add another 15,000 jobs in the seattle suburb of bellview. the seattle times reported an amazon source downplayed reports of moving out of seattle saying amazon workers were only asked about the other work locations as part of a routine survey but you can't help but think that a higher employer tax might be pushing out some of these big companies. ashley: all right, susan, thanks. let's take a look at the airlines. lauren, it looks like we have been talking about this for some time. it looks like more layoffs could be in their future.

lauren: yeah. the number is ugly. more than 75,000 airline employees have already been warned that they could lose their jobs come october 1st when the federal payroll support expires. look, support has grown for another $25 billion in aid to keep workers on their payrolls through march of '21 but no deal has been approved. so that's 75,000 potential job losses, that's about one-tenth of the industry not considering workers who have already voluntarily taken payouts or those who are attached to the industry like tourism and hospitality. so we are talking about a spillover that could be so dramatic one month before the presidential election. if you look at the last quarter, the four biggest carriers lost over $10 billion. over $10 billion. they continue to just burn through cash to stay operating when fewer people are flying. that's expected to stay for years. ashley: those kind of numbers put a lot of pressure on the

administration to get some sort of financial help for the airlines. yeah. all right, lauren, thank you. coming up next, how about nvidia? big chip maker. we know that. also another pandemic winner. reporting their earnings later this week. susan, how much higher could they go? susan: a street high, according to researchers, the target price upgraded this morning. this is as earnings wednesday will likely show nvidia which is already the largest u.s. chip maker is now making more money off selling chips to data centers for cloud storage than video games for the first time and that's the result of a year-long shift for nvidia which has been a pretty good bet for this company since covid lockdowns has seen more businesses accelerating to cloud computing. that trend will only accelerate and grow from here. nvidia is also in advanced talks to buy up arm holdings, a very important chip designers that most of the world's big smartphone makers use, including apple which is using them to make its own chip for its mac computers going forward as well

as its iphone. nvidia likely to pay around $55 billion to take arm off softbank's hands. that solidifies nvidia as the world's biggest chip maker. the stock has been unstoppable so far this year, doubling so far in 2020. ashley: it's been very impressive. thank you. let's turn our attention to mcdonald's. their former chief steve easterbrook finally responding to the lawsuit against him by the company. lauren, he's fighting back, right? lauren: yeah. this story gets better and better. the ex-ceo fighting back against that company's lawsuit attempting to roll back his multi-million dollar severance. bloomberg says easterbrook's defense is this. hey, mcdonald's, you knew about my relationship with multiple employees when you offered me the package. therefore, mcdonald's, you cannot credibly allege a breach of contract. he wants the suit thrown out. mcdonald's says yeah, right. we did this internal investigation, we discovered foul play, then efforts by you

to destroy evidence, so the board at mcdonald's is definitely sending the message that bad behavior will not be tolerated, especially by the ceo of the company. ashley: yeah. interesting to see how that plays out. all right, lauren, thank you very much. quick check of the big board, if we can. by the way, three dow stocks hitting all-time highs this morning. apple, walmart, and home depot. not a bad way to start although the dow just turned negative. what the heck. we will get into that. see if there's any major reason. meantime, big ten players are now petitioning to reinstate the 2020 football season but is there any way that could work? former auburn football head coach tommy tuberville will be here to talk about that and other subjects including politics. take a look at draftkings. the betting company has already been knocked down from the canceled sports. now they are being hit by the irs. we have the company ceo here to respond. yes, it's an epic showdown

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ashley: let's take a quick look at apple and google. epic games is suing them for removing their game fortnite, the hugely popular game, from their game stores. susan, epic games also getting some big support, right? susan: spotify, sonos, match group and even facebook taking shots at apple's app store fees ranging from 15% to 30%. those are the commissions apple takes. this is after the battle royale that epic games started at the end of last week by purposely adding a new payments option

that defied rules in apple's app store and also google's play store. it was a calculated move by the fortnite maker, then launching a preplanned lawsuit after it kicked off the stores and a preproduced ad that mocked apple's famous 1984mac commercial that spotify also had a long-simmering despite with apple over its commissions, even formerly complaining to the eu antitrust authorities, also match group adding their voice to this fight as well and facebook even taking a jab in its rollout of tools to help small businesses, saying that apple commissions means that small businesses can't keep all the money that they make. apple contends that 84% of the apps in the app store are free and the commissions are necessary to ensure smooth and secure services for its users. they haven't raised prices since the app store debut in 2008. they say it's in line with what google takes which is 30%. the app store generates a lot of money for apple, accounting for more than $18 billion in sales last year.

that's nearly 40% of apple's total services revenue which comes in at close to $50 billion each and every year. ashley: yeah. that is remarkable. susan, thank you very much. now let's bring in rob breslow, professional e-sports and streaming consultant. thanks for joining us today. i guess my question to you is what's the end game here? who do you think comes out on top? >> thanks for having me again. well, i think tim sweeney, this is kind of a personal thing for him, he's been a huge advocate against apple's app store and now is mobilizing his company and the biggest game they have, fortnite, to try to make things fairer for what he says is all developers around the world. fortnite as a game, one of the first games, first and only games in the world to have cross-play between both consoles and sony play stations and microsoft xbox along with phones, so his way of looking at the technology and the internet

has allowed under the circumstances to have open platforms. you can't create another app store on the mobile platform like you can on google and android which is why he's going as hard as them as they are at apple. this is pretty serious for him as a personal matter to try to make it for all developers out there to not have to go by apple's rules. ashley: epic will argue, as susan just reported, this is an antitrust issue for all the reasons you just outlined. but then apple and google will argue they built the platform, they maintain the platform, it's not a utility and they can charge whatever they want. who do you think is right in the argument? >> well, i will say that epic has gotten some very high profile lawyers on board that have a lot of experience in antitrust cases and they wouldn't have jumped on this case if they didn't think epic had a real shot at taking down apple. which it is apple and google,

apple is much more the ebbingfo here. they already had the lawsuit ready to go because they knew apple would do this. they wanted to change the way apple looks at the entire ecosystem. they wanted to be a little more like google and have things a little more open, have developers be able to create their own stores on the platform if they want to. i think if also shows a lot here, we just had about a month ago a congressional hearing in front of members of congress for antitrust and now you have a game maker for video games that has gotten so much more attention, including apple, to actually try to change things that all the people we have elected to office that are kind of technologically incompetent and you have a game maker that want to push the conversation forward a lot further than even congress is able to. i actually think epic has a real shot at making a big change here and not just apple but the app store as well. ashley: 20 seconds, but the repercussions if apple loses are significant, are they not? especially monetarily. >> i mean, look, apple is still

a trillion dollar company. they are still top five companies valued in the world. this isn't a david versus goliath. this is small goliath versus huge mammoth. people are still rooting for epic to win this. ashley: it will be interesting to follow. thank you so much, rob, for joining us again on "varney & company." great stuff. thank you. staying on the video game companies, lauren, come back in. they have all been huge winners, we know that, during the pandemic but come next year, it could all change, right? lauren: yeah. so march was actually the best month for video game sales in more than a decade. but that could be over even if we were stuck at home, more people than ever playing video games than ever. the reason is there might be fewer new games to play, and you can blame covid for that. everything from the new halo and wasteland, sony, the last of us and amazon's new world, the release dates have been pushed back with makers of the games all saying logistical challenge

related to covid. you know, you got to coordinate hundreds if not thousands of contributors remotely, and that's difficult. there is something called motion capture. you can't do that remotely. that's what a lot of these games need. so we are going to see a lot of release dates pushed back. ashley: all right. lauren, thank you very much. now this. cities that were already struggling before the pandemic are now facing costly troubles in the aftermath of violent protests and riots. we will tell you about the billions in damage that could leave them crippled for years to come in a live report next hour. also, check out smile direct club. that's the online dentistry company. they recently reported their sales took a major hit. how do they plan to turn things around? i will ask the company's cfo next. ♪ i like liberty mutual.

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you can adjust youriggest sacomfort on both sides...eep your sleep number setting.. northern trust. can it help me fall asleep faster? yes, by gently warming your feet. but can it help keep me asleep? absolutely, it intelligently senses your movements and automatically adjusts to keep you both effortlessly comfortable. will it help me keep up with mom? you got this. so you can really promise better sleep? not promise... prove. and now, all beds are on sale. save 50% on the sleep number 360 limited edition smart bed. plus 0% interest for 36 months on all smart beds. ends monday. to learn more, go to sleepnumber.com. ashley: welcome back, everybody. we came out of the gates fast this morning. the dow up well over 100 points but we have kind of lost our way a little bit. the dow now off about seven points, essentially flat, but the s&p hanging on to a .33% gain and the nasdaq, too,

up .75%. all right. let's move on to smile direct club. it's an online dentistry company. just reported some pretty tough earnings. lost some money. i would say a bunch of money, in the prompter but that's not very technical, is it. sales were down massively from last year. let's bring in kyle wales, smile direct chief financial officer. thanks for joining us this morning. first question is, what happened? you know, i don't know whether -- i'm not being flip, but people in lockdown are probably just hanging around maybe looking in the mirror, looking at their teeth more than they normally would, so you would think the pandemic, the lockdown would be perhaps a positive for your company. but it didn't turn out that way. at least not in the last report. >> sure. well, first off, thanks for having me. great to be here. i think, look, if you look at the quarter overall, i think the company performed very well in what was, you know, obviously a very complex operating environment, right. if you look at the strength we

had in the quarter, i think it really demonstrates the overall flexibility and agility of our business model which, you know, the underlying teledentistry platform we have is the strength of it all. if you look at the quarter, we beat top line by about 20%, we beat our ebitda expectations by about 20%. if you look at our q3 guidance that we provided, it's about 25% higher sequentially on a quarter over quarter basis in comparison to late q2 and that may-june time frame into q3. overall, i would say returning back to more historical levels of demand. that's about 85% of where we were last year. so getting back to normal. i think if you look at it overall, to your point, right, consumers are at home, you know, why didn't we perform better in the quarter. look, i think we're in a great position overall. we are the low cost provider. we have incredible unit economics but at the same time, nobody is really chasing us in the space, right. we've got very strong barriers

to success that we built within the market overall and so we are rebuilding the business but we are doing it in a very controlled and profitable way at the same time. ashley: i got 30 seconds, kyle. i'm sorry to cut this short. we are getting to the top of the hour. you just partnered with a company that gives you more access to physical dentists' offices. will that help? >> yeah, absolutely. so we have always been agnostic for how consumers want to start their journey, leveraging our teledentistry platform. historically, we have driven club members to our website where they can choose either an impression kit or smile shop. now we have added a third component to that which is they can start their journey in a dental chair and then leverage our teledentistry platform from there. it's 100% complementary to our existing offering and it's focused on removing a friction point for those consumers who actually want to start their journey in person at a dental office as well. ashley: right. all right. great. thank you for joining us, kyle

wailes, cfo of smile direct. thank you so much for taking the time this morning. much appreciate it. >> thank you. great to be here. ashley: all right. all right. we are just getting started this monday morning. still to come next hour, mick mulvaney on the postal service issues, front and center as the dnc kicks off tonight. randi winegarden, president and ceo of american federation of teachers, what does she think out sooumeouoolsou oug drgs'sgs ceo casason bbinro here ming ung uxtp .ne ♪ ♪ ♪

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it meant so much to nellie, maybe it could mean as much to you... call now and get your free infokit ♪. ashley: i'm ashley webster in for stuart today. let's look at the market. we started off strongly. as you can see, the dow just down now 51 points even though the s&p trying to get close to that 3393 level which would be record intraday high. still 10 points shy of that. the nasdaq though going along nicely, up nearly 1%. let's look at some of the early big movers on this monday. appling, walmart, home depot, all hitting new all time highs and leading the way. apple at 461. walmart up another couple bucks. home depot at 285. look at washington.

the president leaving the white house shortly to have a two-state swing through minnesota and wisconsin. he may speak to reporters. on a day he is out there on the stump so to speak. he may be in a talkative mood. if he does speak to reporters we'll bring that to you. we're waiting on the president. let's get an update on everybody's favorite billionaire warren buffett. susan li, i mentioned this earlier, he is apparently hot on gold. susan: after years saying he wouldn't pay to hold gold he is buying half a billion dollars in barrick gold. his only purchase since june. $147 billion in cash. now wall street is it interpreting the "oracle of omaha"'s holdings, the purchase of gold, holding that much cash means he is not forecasting a quick rebound in the u.s. economy. berkshire hathaway dumping financial holdings. they are selling off a big chunk

of buffett along time stake in wells fargo. thing stock is down 40%. pnc, 40%. also making smaller cuts in mastercard and visa. buying bank of america shares in the first few weeks of the third quarter. they own a billion shares in boa. second largest portfolio position. number one holding in buffett's portfolio, apple stock represents 44%. oracle's holdings worth $100 billion. we're five buck as way from a record high or two trillion dollars at least, that has been a pretty good bet for him. ashley: certainly has, susan, thank you very much take a look at the s&p. we're 10 points away from the all-time record intraday high. s&p, 3382. 10 1/2 points we'll say. that is interesting because goldman sachs dave costin

raising his forecast for the s&p from 3,000 to 3600. our next guest also upping his forecast. what is going on? let's bring in ed yardeni. good morning to you. you say the s&p can climb to a new record high despite all of those economic and political headwinds and uncertainties. make your case. >> that is not a very bold forecast since we're only 10 points away from a record high. i do think we get to 3500 before the end. year. i think next year the market continues to remain in bull phase, to the end of next year. the case is pretty straightforward. the fed is continuing to provide a enormous amount of liquidity. interest rates are basically at zero across the yield curve from the fed funds rate to the 10-year bond yield, what, 0.67% or so. so bonds are interesting.

i think we'll continue to see a lot of accounts, investors rebalance out of bonds and into stock. and they don't even have to do that because there is still so much liquidity piled up last few months that could go into the stock market. ashley: despite all that, ed, the s&p in particular is treading water it feels like in kind of a waiting game, perhaps waiting for the next catalyst to push it another leg higher. my question to you, what could that catalyst be? >> as you know since march 23rd the fed came in with what i call qe forever, the markets had a melt-up basically and accentuated the positives and ignored the negatives. the question is whether it can continue to do that. we are getting closer and closer to the election. and there could be a lot of negatives occurring around that in terms of just some of the

uncertainties of how we're even going to get the election properly processed without challenges. then if we have a radical regime change across the board victory by the democrats, there will be a lot of uncertainty where that goes. yet the market, even though we're getting closer and closer to the election continues to focus likelihood we'll get a vaccine. meanwhile the economic data has been pretty good. retail sales all-time record high. in july we had the homebuilders index, all-time record high. economy is really kind of evolving is transforming where people are deciding instead of renting they want to buy houses, they want to buy houses where they have a home office. if they do that they need technology. my grand daughter started first day working at home like her

grandfather. she has the technology to do that. imagine kids working from home with technology. ashley: yeah. it's remarkable, the landscape is changing, there is no doubt. ed, thank you, ed yardeni. thanks for joining us this morning. >> thank you. ashley: all right. president trump joining a social media app that competes with tiktok. susan, come back in. which app is it? susan: president trump is now triller official with three 15 second clips with a million place. trump has only 5000 triller followers. i'm sure that number has grown. snoop dogg, are now triller equity holders, first ones to prohost their followers to move over from tiktok. three tiktok stars with 37 million followers shifted as well, being lured over with small stake offers from triller.

president trump's order banning tiktok in 45 days causing a lot of people transferred over. triller has only been downloaded 250 million times but it has been the number you know downloaded app in 50 countries the past few weeks since trump floated that tiktok ban. so it makes sense. ashley: always good when the president joins your app. susan, former press secretary for kamala harris is now working at twitter. there is some controversy surrounding this person. what is it, person. susan: his name is nick, a former staffer for kamala harris, now senior level communications manager at twitter, he drew attention to himself last week he publicly addressed twitter spat with president trump after restricting trump campaign twitter account from tweeting until it removed mr. trump's clip of his "fox & friends" interview where he said children were almost immune from covid.

pacilio representing twitter said that violate the platform rules. the twitter is stepping up policing of president trump's tweets and fact-checking mail-in ballots tweets and shielding his minneapolis ones. for many years kamala harris asked twitter to ban president trump from its platform for bullying but twitter has refused to do that. but some are concerned there might be a conflict of interest and conservative bias. ashley: yeah. i would say so. susan, thank you. democrat national convention kicking off today. we've been talking about it all morning. this is as ongoing postal service issues remain front and center. house speaker nancy pelosi called the house back to vote on post office legislation. president trump on "fox & friends" this morning weighing in on the ongoing battle. >> president trump: what am i

supposed to let it continue to run badly. if he fixes it he is tampering g with the election this is con game by pelosi and schumer. post office, there is 25 sitting there. they want one trillion dollars to bail out their badly-run states. ashley: well, good time to bring in mick mulvaney, former office of management and budget director of course. mick, great to see you this morning. how do you see this post office past he will ending? how is this going to play out. >> ashley, thanks for having me. my guess is based on what mrs. pelosi said they will come back this weekend and vote, that will be the end of it. that is show vote. very unusual for her step to take in august, have weekend vote during the august vacation. it may be indicative how she feels she got beaten in the discussions on stimulus package. it looks more and more like we don't need a big stimulus package. talking about some of the good economic numbers.

the president hit the narrow points that he needed to in terms of unemployment insurance, some renters protection, so forth. he is able to do some things we might need to get done. but you don't need a big stimulus package. she got caught with her guard down. she is trying to make an issue here where xi doesn't have one, hence a rare saturday vote of the house in august. ashley: mick, listen, nancy pelosi says we want to get the post office back to 2019 levels. this is an agency this, is a operation that has been losing billions and billions of dollars. is it capable of handling mail-in voting across the country? >> sure it is. in fact, if you actually go and look what the usps put out, the recent warning not being able to get the votes counted fast enough actually is a reiteration of what they did in may before some of the primaries. problem is not necessarily with the postal service it is with some of the states. michigan might be one of them. you don't even have to request the mail-in ballot until the

friday before the tuesday election. that is not enough time to get the ballots n that is what the postal service was talking about. the same warning went out in may apparently mrs. pelosi didn't care about at that time. unfortunately this is the case where we are coming into election season. a lot more politics than merit. ashley: another one for you, mick. president trump heading to three battleground states this week. he is heading to minnesota and wisconsin today. goes to arizona tomorrow. while apparently joe biden remains in his basement. how important are these trips for the president? >> they are for a variety of reasons. the president, a true extrovert loves doing this the folks who are the grassroots workers in those states love to see him. so there is something to be said for doing as much old-fashioned campaigning as you can. energy levels count in an election. minnesota is especially important state, that president trump only lost by 40,000 votes in 2016. i think they had budget back

then of $50,000. had one person working in the state. clearly it's a much different operation this year. so this is real opportunities there. don't discount the importance of traditional campaigning. don't discount the importance of not having traditional convention. so the next couple of weeks will certainly be high energy for politics. ashley: it is difficult to generate energy online for sure. mick mull -- mulvaney thank you so much for joining us. democrats unveiling the agenda this week. joe biden, wants climate plan and kamala harris wants "medicare for all." what will the proposals look like? we'll ask economist stephen moore. i which ask him our next hour. some state ares gearing up for this fall. other states have hybrid of on line and in person learning. how effective is this? i will ask the president of the

american federation of teachers. we'll watch out for the president when he leaves the white house, moments from now. you will see it right here. second hour of "varney & company" just getting started. ♪ (vo) we've got your back, road warriors. because we know you want to get back to going your speed... ...steering life at 10 and 2. you're prepared for this.

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♪. ashley: all right. let's take a quick look at the markets before we get going with other stories making the headlines. certainly the dow jones started off up 113, 114 points. now it is reversed. it is down nearly 100 points. meantime the s&p continues to hang in up a quarter of a percent. nasdaq still up still nearly 3/4 of a percent. by the way two big companies will be splitting their stocks two weeks from today.

susan, give us the news. susan: probably two of the stocks of the year. so apple is going four for one. tesla splitting five for one at the end of this month. both of these stocks rallied on the back of these announcements. tesla has rallied 20% since. apple rallied 10% the day after. also on on the record june quarr for earnings. for apple this is the fifth stock split in its history. six years after the last one of 2014. stocks splits are usually bullish signs that the companies think the stocks will go higher here. they want more people to own it. more people to get in. that is why they want to make it cheaper. when more people can afford it, more people can buy it. that boosts the stock price. this say the game is over for tesla bears. betting that the stock will fall, four straight quarters of profit. first year profit for tesla. it will be likely included in the s&p 500. more index funds need to include

tesla and buy the stock. the world's richest love apple and tesla. apple is making up half of warren buffett's portfolio. larry ellison, megabillionaire as well, holds the tesla as the single biggest stock holding this is it what we call smart money investing. ashley: we do, very smart. susan, thank you very much. let's look at shares of domino's pizza. hmmm, pizza. they're adding to their workforce. lauren, how many new workers are we talking about? lauren: how many times have you ordered pizza during the pandemic? we're ordering all the time, right? that is why dominos is adding 20,000 workers. everyone from people who make the pizza to the drivers to the manager of the stores to handle the increase during the pandemic. dominoes has gotten a bigger slice of the pizza pie higher

than papa john's and pizza hut. it is not just dominoes. other successful chains like popular chains like mcdonald's, chipotle, dunkin' donuts, adding workers. we want their food. the stock up for domino's up 36% in years. i have had not had domino's in ages but we order pizza device a week. ashley: i say at least twice a week. but we won't go there. lauren: really? >> i love pizza. i love leftover pizza. i digress. look at amazon and rack space. shares are as you can see both higher. amazon up 3/4 of a percent. big commerce holdings, rack space up nearly 12%. this is all on reports that amazon is in talks to invest in rack space. if you are wondering what the heck it is, it is a cloud services provider. as you can see both shares up 12%. a number of states are

reopening the k-12 public schools this week. now some schools will have remote learning. others will have what we call a hybrid plan. i guess a bit of both. let's bring in randy winegarten, american federation of teachers president, good morning to you. >> good morning. ashley: it is a mishmash. is there any one that works better than another? i know that is a very difficult question but i hear about the hybrid approach more and more? >> well it is a mishmash because we haven't tackled the virus and the virus is still here and frankly what the cdc, this weekend has shown is that more and more kids are now getting infected by the virus, whatever the virus has transmuted to it is now infecting more kids. so remote and hybrid are really the only two-ways you can reopen

schools safely. remote in places where there is too much community spread. frankly that is part of the reason why we're suing ron desantis in florida. he didn't open it remotely. you see huge numbers of kids now, cherokee county has about 1100 kids in quarantine. four of 22 schools in martin county are now having quarantines because kids and teachers have tested positive. but so in areas like arizona and texas and florida, georgia, they really needed to open remotely. in areas where you could contain the curve, like in new york, new jersey, and connecticut, you can actually open in a hybrid. the reason it is a hybrid because we don't have enough space in schools or enough teachers. we can't double the number of teachers or double the number of space. so that is to accommodate the fact that the cdc and others say

this is airborne disease, you have to have six feast and a mask, cleaning and ventilation in order for people to be indoors instead of outdoor and during this virus. ashley: so, randi, you mentioned ron desantis in florida, what do you say to this, new york and new jersey pushing for back to school? i want to listen what governors cuomo, murphy, new york city mayor bill de blasio had to say about this issue. roll the tape. we'll get your reaction. >> all schools can reopen. >> in-person instruction may fully resume immediately. >> i really believe our schools are crucial for our kids. there is nothing that replaces in-person learning. our schools coming back is part of how our whole city come back. ashley: randi, a quick sound bites what do you say to that? >> i say to all of them, look i was on just, spoiler alert i was

on governor cuomo's reopening commission where we, you know, figured out how do you reopen, which is what he was using. the issue is for all of them you actually, the tape missed crucial other piece that all of them said, which is they met the first threshold which is, that community spread in those states has been tackled. it is less than 1%. that's really good news. i wish we had done that in the rest of the country. the second piece is how you then actually make sure schools are ready. so in new york city, doesn't have the ppe yet or the ventilation systems. governor cuomo made sure in his second sound bite to say only way we can reopen is that teachers and parents have to be confident. i tell you ashley, every time

there is a story from florida about these kind of quarantines and mismanagement that desantis has done, it actually freaks parents and teachers out in new york but, oh, my god is this what is going to happen to our kids. ashley: interesting stuff. it is an issue that is obviously going to play out for some time yet. randi weingarten, thanks for joining us. >> thank you. ashley: big 10 college football players are petitioning to reinstate the 2020 season. i want to know how they're going to make that work? are they getting anywhere with this. i will ask former football coach for you a burn tommy tuberville in the next hour. fantasy football under the scope from irs, entry fees are wages. they can be taxed. that is a major profor companies like draftkings. woe have the ceo on after this.

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off 70 points on the dow. s&p still up about a third. same story of the nasdaq, up about three quarters of a percent. let's look at walmart if we can. beginning today the store will extend hours, just ahead of reporting profits tomorrow. the stock as you can see up nearly 2% at 135 bucks. take a look at smile direct club. that stock is showing right now. the stock showing certainly that sales dipped in the second quarter. that stock down 1 1/2%, about 7 1/2 dollars. listen to what the chief financial officer told us in the last hour on the show. roll tape. >> i think if you look at it overall to your point, right, consumers are at home. you know why didn't we perform better in the quarter? look i think we're in a great position overall. we're the low cost provider. we've got incredible unit economics, at the same time nobody is really chasing us in the space, right? we've got very strong barriers

to success that we built. ashley: all right. that was the cfo, kyle waile is s. he was of course bullish. why wouldn't he be? tiffany's, costco, you have a lawsuit accuses of costco selling a fake tiffany-branded diamond. say it ain't so. lauren: you know the story. it has been going on for several years this is the latest. an appeals court in manhattan overturned tiffany 21 million-dollar judgment against costco. tiffany accused of selling costco generic diamond engagement rings under the tiffany name. it looked like tiffany won that case with a judgment of $21 million until now. this court just ruling unanimously, 3-0, that the word tiffany was unlikely to confuse costco shoppers. they knew they weren't really buying a tiffany ring at a discounted price.

so they have side offed with costco. it is not over yet. very little reaction though to the stock price after this ruling. ashley: wow, i don't think that is the end of the story. we'll see. lauren, thank you. the. irs issuing new guidance entry fees for daily fantasy sites are now taxable. let's bring in draftkings ceo jason robbins. that can't make you happy, can it? >> just to clarify the irs did not say. that the irs issued a memo which is non-binding, does not carry any force of law saying that is their initial determination. our position of course is that it is completely wrong based on the facts and data. also inconsistent with how dozens of state legislatures, courts around the country have determined these games to be classified. we look forward to working with the irs to educate them,

hopefully get them to change their position. ashley: and irs just loves to be educated, i can tell you that, jason. i want to get to the meat of your business. i guess the question many people will probably ask, can you maintain the profits with number of cancellations within baseball and college football, for that matter, what of the nfl, biggest behemoth of all, what if the nfl runs into problems, you have certainly need them right? >> right now our primary objective is not profitability. we won't be profitable regardless whether the games are played that are scheduled or not. we hope to have a very strong schedule of sports to see great revenue and customer growth which is certainly where we are focused right now. what we've seen so far even in some cancellations or postponements, a lot of customer demand migrates to other things. you have a period like much of q2, there is very little, it will not be enough to make up

for all the lost revenue and customers but, i think if you have a handful of games canceled in a particular sport here and there it really isn't something we see having material impact on the numbers. now if the nfl season were somehow scrapped or had any significant setback, that could have more meaningful impact. i think right now from what we see, a lot of really smart people with that league are working on great plans. we're confident that they will have a really safe and comfortable way for everybody to get back on the field. ashley: we do have of course the nba and the nhl, already in the playoffs. we have baseball of course. where is the money going? the nba seems to be handling all of this probably the best of the major league sports? >> well, i think the nba's bubble approach looks like it is working quite well. i think one of the things we're seeing which is interesting different sports experimenting with different approaches. no doubt all the, really great,

smart people, who are in executive positions around the league are looking at what is working, what's not and tweaking their plans accordingly. seems like the nba so far doing it in a very that is very effective. ashley: it must be disappointing what you've seen develop on the college football scene. college football is very big. that must be disappointing for you? >> personally i love college football. i was really looking forward to it. it is sad to see it won't be the same even if some of the conferences do end up playing. that said from a business standpoint we don't really think it is going to make a huge difference for us this year. we chose to guide without college football included in our numbers. we're able to guide 500 to 540 million of revenue. able to get to the top end is right on with our original forecast. hard to believe given how much lost revenue occurred from covid but what we've seen there is a lot of really strong offset with

growth of pent up demand from sports. we're seeing record customer acquisition numbers in the summer which this is typically the slowest period of time for us. we're excited even without college football with a really strong fall with nfl and other sports going in as planned. ashley: i'm right there with you, fingers crossed, jason robbins, thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having me. ashley: all right. now this. violent rioting continues in chicago. get this, the price tag from all of the urn rest following george employed's murder is set to become the costliest display of civil disorder in the nation's history. we'll tell you exactly how much this is all costing after this. the nypd union endorsing president trump for re-election. take a look at this. >> i cannot remember when we've ever endorsed for the office of president of the united states until now.

that how important this is. ashley: that's how important it is. new york democrats not happy about all of this, but they should hardly be surprised, right? they want to defund the police. we'll get into it next. ♪. we love our new home. there's so much space. we have a guestroom now. but, we have aunts. you're slouching again, ted. expired, expired... expired. thanks, aunt bonnie. it's a lot of house. i hope you can keep it clean. at least geico makes bundling our home and car insurance easy. which helps us save a lot of money

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♪. ashley: all right. welcome back, everybody. take a look at the markets, just over an hour into monday's session. as you can see the dow off 57 points. down .2 of a percent. the s&p and nasdaq on the upside. they are both positive. more protests in chicago over the weekend. nearly 20 officers injured, yes, it is taking a massive financial toll on cities as well. our grady trimble is in the windy city. how much money are we talking

about here? reporter: too soon to tell from the most recent looting here in chicago but we have a map i want to show you that has numbers from cities across the country. damage costs in chicago alone, $66 million for the looting happening back in may and june, cities with new york with such high amounts. minneapolis coming in $500 million. the reason those are so high, some numbers include overtime for police and other protective measures, which is a drain on taxpayer dollars. when you look at historic riots and unrest, this is expected to be in terms of how much it cost the rodney king riots from 1992 which adjusted for inflation cost $1.4 billion. over the weekend as you mentioned more protesting in chicago. no looting. protesters clashed with police. there was fingerpointing who started it. police arrested 20 people. four of them on felony charges.

one man arrested for repeatedly hitting a police officer with a skateboard. fortunately as i mentioned michigan avenue shops were protected. police held the line. these shops were not hit. at this story, many others along the mag mile, still boarded up, not doing a lot of business. ashley: on top of fighting a pandemic. thank you so much, grady, we appreciate that. by the way the union representing the nypd endorsing president donald trump for his re-election bid. the move of course comes as defund the police protests continue around the country. let's bring in new york state assemblyman mike la petry, republican. assemblyman, thanks so much for joining us. it is interesting, some democrats not happy about the endorsement but what did they expect when they won't exactly speak out against defunding the police, in many cases supporting

that movement? >> exactly. unprecedented times warrant unprecedented action. police protect people. they have never met before with their lives in. response, in response, new york democrats defund the police by one billion dollars. disbanded the anti-crime unit whose job includes eliminating guns off new york streets and stripped protections dissemination of false claims against the police. they act shocked. the city is in shambles right now because of those policies that actually hurt law-abiding residents. shootings spiked. just this past weekend 50 people were shot, several people were killed. they're shocked by the new york city pba wanted to endorse the president. ashley: just is, i mean, it is beyond insane that you defund the police department and the crime statistics, the crime wave kicks in, there is no, this is

not right. we're not protecting all of our citizens. you let criminals go back out the street after they have been arrested and they want to defund the police. it just, it begs, you know, it is just insane that they think that this is the way to go, and refused to back down and say we made a mistake, we've got to protect our citizens. they're letting, letting down new yorkers. bottom line. >> they're catering to the left-wing mob. aoc and radical left. their focus is to in fact defame, demoralize, defund, dismantle the police departments. president trump said it best. the new york city pba endorsement of our president sends a loud, clear message to all police and hard-working americans and law-abiding citizens that president trump has got your six. ashley: just want to change subjects. some good news i would say. the 9/11 tribute in lights now will go on as scheduled after being canceled because of the

pandemic. assemblyman, i don't think it should have been canceled to begin with, do you agree. >> absolutely. this was a shocker to everyone in new york state that truly saw 9/11 as something of a real tragedy. we felt it personally here, especially where i represent the south shore of long island. to those who went in there, responded to this tragedy. these lights serve as a beacon of hope and freedom for the nearly 3,000 lives lost in this tragedy. nothing will prevent us, nothing will prevent us remembering that day, never forget, persevere even with those that try to cast a shadow over it. ashley: we'll have to leave it there. a world gone mad, is it not? assemblyman mike la pietri, thanks for joining us. we appreciate it. it made me so mad i can't even spit out what i'm trying to say. anyway on the screen here are the states on your screen where gyms remain closed statewide. i don't know how they will

encourage people to come back when they can't reopen. it is impossible. it certainly will be, forgive me, the survival of the fittest. with gyms closed, how do people figure out a home workout routine they're comfortable with? we have ceo of brooks running, their sneaker sales have been up since the pandemic. we'll have more "varney" after this.

♪. ashley: welcome back, everybody. we're starting a new week and trading you can see, the dow although started up over 100 points. now down about 40. the s&p up a third and the nasdaq continues to be right in the same range since the opening bell, up 3/4 of a percent. now this, running has gained popularity since the start of pandemic. people turn to running as gyms and exercise classes came to a halt. we'll bring in james webber, the ceo of brooks running. jim, thanks so much for joining us. your company has done well i think since the start of the pandemic. sales of running shoes are up during this lockdown. can you give us some numbers? >> sure. i would be glad to, ashley. thank you for having me. ashley: yeah. >> you know like everyone else with this economy froze, when retail shut down in late march, all threw april, europe as the sport was shut down across every category. who knew that today i would be

sitting here with you, we're up 37% year-to-date. all-time record year. ashley: wow. >> even with retail closed runners have come out of their houses and ran through the neighborhood. ashley: is this a trend that continues or when and if we ever get back to normal will people be more tempted back to the gym or do you think this is a permanent change? >> you know we think it will be sticky because, until the virus is completely gone and the fear is gone, i think people are going to be cautious at least, a lot of people are. so running makes the cut. you can be six foot distance. you can wear a mask if you need to. we, what we're seeing from people is that they're doing it for mental and physical reasons as well. and that type of runner we call the soul runner as opposed to a goal seeker. we think they stay with it on until next year. we think it's a trend that will continue. ashley: we have to leave it

there. i'm sorry for that but president trump is on the move. he landed at joint base andrews moments ago. do we have the tape? we understand 10 seconds tap dance. as we expected the president spoke to reporters before he left the white house. he spoke to reporters. let's take a listen. president trump: couple wonderful states, one case had big problems, we got that straightened out. i just approved an emergency declaration for iowa who had an incredible windstorm like probably they never seen before. it really did a lot of damage. so i've informed the governor. i've informed senator grassley and senator joni ernst. so i have approved the declaration, emergency declaration for iowa. and we are heading now to combination of different places. we may do a surprise visit.

we'll make it, i will say this, a surprise visit to iowa if we can get it in we're going to do that. but very important thing is that we approved the emergency declaration for iowa so they're in good shape. they're working as we, as we speak. also fema is in iowa now full course and helping them greatly. okay? reporter: mr. president principal therapy for coronavirus is that something you're pressing the fda for approval. president trump: sigh that again. reporter: oliandrin. president trump: i heard about it. reporter: something you would support? president trump: something people would support strongly? we're looking at it. we're looking at a lot of things. we're very close to a vaccine. very close to a therapeutic. i heard that name mentioned. we'll find out. i can get back to you later.

okay? reporter: [inaudible] president trump: it is possible. we're trying to work it into the schedule. i want to see the people. i love the people of iowa. they have been very loyal and the big thing was getting the declaration signed but i will be going very soon and maybe today. steve? reporter: are you tracking the belarus situation? president trump: it is terrible. thatthat is a terrible situatio, belarus. we'll be following it very closely. we'll be following it. reporter: [inaudible]. bounty in afghanistan? bounty is in afghanistan from iran. president trump have you heard about that? president trump: no i haven't heard about that. reporter: [inaudible] president trump: we'll look at. that we've been asked that question. virginia students coming back in. we're looking at it very

closely? reporter: what about travel ban to russia or india? president trump: we're looking at the brazilian situation. okay? we'll see you all in a little while. reporter: [inaudible] president trump: we'll be stopping at a number of places. we'll be working very hard. it doesn't have to be covered but it probably will be. we're going to be working very hard stopping at various states. you have a list of the states. pretty comprehensive. we'll be working very hard. we have to. we're getting down to final fronts. we want to be there. as an example iowa just came up. we're doing well in iowa. just came up. i want to be with the people of iowa. so we add that to the schedule. reporter: [inaudible] funeral for your brother? president trump: probably friday. we're looking at friday. we may do a small service right here at the white house for my

brother. we're looking at doing that. that would be a great honor to him. i think he would be greatly honored. he loves our country. he loved our country so much. he was so proud of what we were doing and what we are doing for our country. so i think it would be appropriate. so we'll have problem on friday afternoon a small service in honor of my brother, robert. reporter: [inaudible] any updates sir on stimulus for the coronavirus? president trump: no, i think this. i think nancy pelosi and chuck schumer should get back into washington and they should approve stimulus for the people. they should give, we should give, this was china's fault. it wasn't their fault. we would like to see payment going to the people, maybe ppe. but we payment going to the people. we'll take care of the post office. we want to make sure that the post office runs properly and it hasn't run properly for many

years, probably 50 years. it is run very badly. we want to make sure that the post office runs properly and doesn't lose billions of dollars. somebody said it lost $78 billion over a relatively short period of time. that is over years, $78 billion. you can't have. that we will work with them but we want money toe go to the people that need it. they don't want to do that. they have want to take care of bailout money. they want bailout money going to their friends doing a bad job running you have states that are losing a lot of money. they have been poorly run by democrats for many years and that's all they want to talk about is bailing out those states. that's unfair to the rest of the country. reporter: mr. president -- reporter: -- are you worried about cutbacks in service affecting people getting medicaid and prescriptions? >> no, no, the post office is

running very well. the post office -- now, look, if you look at the post office, for years that's all people complained about. we're going to run it well and we're going to not lose so much money. one of the things the post office loses so much money on is delivery packages for amazon and these others. every time they deliver a package they probably lose three or four dollars. that's not good. they have to raise those prices. okay. not for the people to pay but for amazon. thank you very much. reporter: on mail-in ballots, why are you opposed to mail-in ballots when they cannot be attacked [ inaudible ]? >> absentee ballots are great. you request a ballot, i signed an absentee ballot. absentee ballots are great. they work, they have been proven, they are good like in florida. but this universal mail-in is a very dangerous thing. it's fraught with fraud and

every other thing that can happen and we have to be very very careful. we have a very big election coming up. i think we're going to do very well. i want to make sure the election is not stolen and so does everybody else. i'm sure both sides feel that way. we have to be very careful with this universal mail-in ballot. absentee ballots are great. they have worked for a long time and i totally endorse absentee ballots. thank you very much. reporter: the postmaster general, a big donor, to slow the mail? >> no, i wouldn't do that. i have encouraged everybody, speed up the mail, not slow the mail. i also want to have a post office that runs without losing billions and billions of dollars a year as it has been doing for 50 years. thank you. reporter: -- removing the machines, if you remove the machines, mr. president, and the

boxes? ashley: all right. there you have it. the president walking away. that was just a few moments ago. he's heading to marine one, goes to joint base andrews, then off to a couple campaign stops. he will be in minnesota and wisconsin later today. asked a number of questions. as he just said, he wants to ensure the post office runs smoothly and a lot better. he says mail-in, universal mail-in voting is just not doable. he says it's prone to fraud and other issues but he does like absentee voting. of course, among many other subjects but there you saw the president before he heads off on the stump. coming up, it's 11:00 a.m. on the east coast or very close to it. the markets, let's take a look at those, we started off very strongly on this monday morning but the dow, down 32 points now. call it essentially flat. the s&p and nasdaq have remained firm up a third and .75% respectively. i'm ashley webster in today for stuart varney.

stuart, i promise, will be back tomorrow. home depot, apple and walmart all hitting all-time highs this morning. good way to start the day, is it not. there we go. home depot up two, apple has since pulled back a little, down 1.5 bucks, .33%. walmart up 2% at $135. by the way, we have been following this for awhile, it feels like. the s&p could hit an all-time high today. good time to bring in susan li. by the way, susan, goldman sachs just boosting its forecast on the s&p. susan: yeah, calling for 3600 at the end of this year, raising its target by 20% at the end of 2020. we are very close, by the way, to intraday record 3393 is what we are looking for. as for the close, we need a closing record for the s&p at 3386 and the last time that crossed was february before covid hit, of course. we are within striking distance, posting three straight weeks of

gains for the s&p. even as tech has done most of the heavy lifting so far this year, it's mostly the recent rally we have seen in energy and financials have now pushed the s&p towards these record levels. we are also looking at thinner trading volumes as well, in august, with wall street investors taking vacation this month. friday's volume saw the lightest since new year's eve last year. so far august volumes are down 20% from the average in 2020. that also, by the way, exaggerates stock moves up and down. so the companies you just mentioned, apple, walmart, home depot, hitting record highs this morning and that, by the way, helps boost the benchmark as well. apple on the cusp of crossing $2 trillion in market cap. apple part of the big five tech names that now represent over a quarter of the broader benchmark and drives really the direction of the s&p 500 and the rally we have seen so far this year. ashley: very good. apple, $476.76 would be the true -- susan: 67.

67. ashley: 67. oh, okay. maybe i wrote it down wrong. either way, it would be the first u.s. company to do it. we are not that far away. all right, thank you very much. to politics. today marks the beginning of the democratic national convention, where they will lay out their plan for hypothetically the next four years. we are waiting with bated breath. let's bring in steve moore, freedom works economist. great to see you. what are you expecting for the democrats' economic agenda? what can we expect? >> well, you know, joe biden has really laid it out pretty clearly and i have to give him credit. he hasn't pulled any punches. this is a pretty radical left wing agenda, much, much higher taxes on capital gains and dividends and the corporate income tax would go up, the death tax would go up, payroll taxes would go up and there's a lot of new government spending initiatives, the green new deal, massive increases in government

health care and so on. you know, it's interesting because there's a big debate going on right now about whether a joe biden presidency would be good or bad for the stock market. a lot of commentators said joe biden would be good for the stock market. i just don't see that. ashley: yeah, i read the same thing this morning. i was kind of scratching my head a bit. i guess the premise is democrats love to spend, they want to spend all sorts of stimulus and from that point of view, the markets would like it but i don't know how much that offsets the higher taxes, the higher regulations and so on. it doesn't seem to make sense to me. >> so this is a very good point. if you look at the -- let's just look at the tax side of the equation for a minute. you raise the corporate tax from 21% to 28%. that basically means the government is taking a larger share of the profits, right, that means shareholders get less by definition. an increase in the corporate tax rate by definition reduces the

value of stocks and then there's the increase in the capital gains tax which is highly significant. right now the highest capital gains rate is 23.8%. under the biden plan it goes up to almost 40%. that's by my reckoning a 50% to 60% increase in the capital gains tax. that also is a direct tax on stock ownership. then you take into account some of the other taxes. i just don't see how any rational person could say increasing the corporate tax, the dividend tax, and the capital gains tax is positive. by my kind of math, i believe joe biden, if he enacted his tax plan, would reduce stock values across the board by about 18% to 20%. ashley: i agree with you because i couldn't figure it out and we will get more into this, steve. we are hearing from former treasury secretary larry summers on how he thinks the economy will react under a biden presidency. roll that tape.

>> the stock market on average, corporate profits do better during democratic administrations than they do during republican administrations. so it's not just the little guy that does better, it's actually capital and corporate america that does better. ashley: so wait a second, steve. wouldn't biden's tax plan actually hurt the little guy? >> i think it would. by the way, let's look at the history of this because it is interesting and larry summers has a point. if you look at the last 60 or 70 years the stock market has actually done better under democratic presidents. but it actually depends on what the policies are of those presidents. the stock market did great under john f. kennedy. kennedy slashed tax rates and the economy did incredibly well in the 1960s after that. under bill clinton, people forget that after the

republicans took congress in 1994, you had the biggest bull market expansion ever. government spending actually fell more dramatically under bill clinton's last six years in office than at any time since the end of world war ii so if government spending is a stimulus for the stock market, why did the stock market go way, way up under bill clinton as government spending went down. so you know, it depends on what the policies are and actually, the evidence shows that democratic presidents do pretty well when you also have a republican congress. the problem, of course, here is if joe biden were to win the presidency, he would almost certainly have the house and probably win the senate, and that combination of democrat president, democrat senate, democrat house is really, really bad for markets historically. ashley: yeah, i would imagine so. all right. steve moore, thank you as always for being with us today. we appreciate it. want to switch gears to

america's airports. bracing, we are told, for new check-in procedures of course as the virus lingers. let's bring in kristina partsinevelos at newark international airport in new jersey. kristina, take us through this new tech. what can we expect? kristina: oh, there's a lot of new changes. it's going to take a little bit of time but this tech revolution has already been occurring even before the pandemic. airports in general are rushing, though, to try to change and improve that technology because they want people to come and fly. you can see it's completely empty behind me. i'm in terminal b at newark, new jersey airport. yes, we have talked about contactless procedures, especially walking into the airport, but the future could be so much more. for example, hong kong international airport is taking it up a notch. they already installed disinfectant booths which means you step inside the booth, you get sprayed with anti-microbial spray for 40 seconds, then you

are on your way. as we move to due bai, dubai ar already using biometrics to scan your iris but they are cooiusin9 dogs. they have been testing out these dogs. they have had 400 tests. according to the airport, they have a 91% accuracy rate in detecting the coronavirus with the dogs. you bring it back to the united states, you have robots now that are cleaning a lot of the floors, even high tech robots using uv lights and i like to point out because i'm in newark, another thing we are seeing absolutely everywhere is these ppe vending machines, you can get your mask or anti-germ products, everything in one. to take it up, we don't have it installed here just yet, is the biometrics. that is going to be the future. when you come into the airport, your face essentially becomes your passport. you scan your face, you go through, you check in, and you do everything completely contactless so what that means is possibly less lines which makes the experience a little

bit better if you are willing to give up all of that. ashley: buried the lead. if we can get through quicker, i'm on board. kristina partsinevelos, thank you so much. not many people at newark as you can see, airport. thank you. we've got the latest read on home builder sentiment. pretty good. 78% of homeowners are satisfied with current conditions in their sector. that, by the way, the highest level in 22 years. good time to bring in jerry howard, nahb ceo. that's a lot of letters. jerry, the good news just doesn't stop for housing, it appears, and that should i hope be a good indicator for the economy as a whole. >> well, right now we certainly are leading the way. this is the highest number we've had in 25 years and it is the highest number we have ever had. so obviously, the professional women and men in the home building sector are very very excited about where things are and where things are headed.

it's a terrific number. it's indicative i think significantly of a lot of people in the post-covid lockdown period, moving out of the big cities, and moving out into the suburbs and exurbs where we are seeing demand at unprecedented rates. ashley: has the lack of inventory in existing homes helped people who actually build homes for a living, has demand gone up because of that? >> yes. there is a lack of inventory completely and that's why i think you are seeing a lot of people look to new homes. the other reason i think you are seeing people look to new homes as opposed to existing homes is because in the post-pandemic world, people want significant connectivity in their homes. people are also asking for home offices at an unprecedented rate and people are asking for a place where they can get some physical exercise, either a nice backyard or a room they can turn

into an exercise room. a lot of times an existing house doesn't quite have all of that available so people are looking to build. ashley: that's very interesting. before i let you go, got to get your take on this 30-year fixed rate mortgage averaging out at 2 2.96%. would you say the housing market because of that is one of the brightest spots as you said leading the way? those record low rates? >> mortgage rates are just incredible right now. i think it's great time for people to buy. the only head wind we are concerned about right now is lumber prices. they are rising exponentially. they are adding up to five figures to the cost of an average house. that's something we hope the administration will take a look at. other than that, we are ready to go great guns. ashley: lauren simonetti mentioned it earlier. she was right. high lumber prices.

thank you very much for joining us. >> my pleasure. thank you. ashley: good to see you. as some college football leagues postpone their seasons for the virus, we have one former coach who says athletes should be allowed to transfer schools if they want to play. he will join us coming up. it's also a big week for earnings reports, as the last few companies report. home depot and lowe's expected to be big winners. what happens to people who work for the losers? we will discuss that. how hard is it to get another job in retail. first, as the democrat national convention kicks off online today, president trump will be pounding the pavement to connect with voters. but how is the campaign keeping people safe at his in-person events? good question. we will find out after this. ♪

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leading into that big tent party identity long enough to vote president trump out of office. case in point, republican governor -- former republican governor john kasich is speaking at the dnc the same night progressive senator bernie sanders is going to take the stage. >> our message is very clear to every single voter. you are welcome at the democratic party table. the democratic party is the party of inclusion. if you voted in the past for donald trump, come to us because -- reporter: sanders understands the importance of consensus this cycle while his supporters voted against the democratic party platform because it didn't embrace medicare for all, sanders, a super delegate, said he would vote for it and yesterday defended kamala harris as the vp pick even as his former national press secretary lashed out on twitter saying a

former top cop as vp doesn't meet the black lives matter moment. sanders, like fellow progressive elizabeth warren has been working with biden on policy initiatives, will likely remind his supporters he will use that power to push the party forward on issues and despite all of that drama, former first lady michelle obama is actually the keynote speaker tonight. she has been mostly on the sideline this entire election cycle. we can expect she will talk a lot about the joe biden she knows and also probably about the historic meaning of having kamala harris on the ticket. ashley? ashley: jackie, thank you very much. let's check in on the president this week. it's an all-out battleground blitz, if you like, that he's planning. you can see the states on your screen. on deck for actual rallies, as joe biden stays virtual. today, the president will be in minnesota and wisconsin. good time to bring in tim murtaugh, communications director for the trump campaign.

tim, tell me about these events. what will they look like in a world that is so different from the norm? what can we expect? >> well, what this is is the president taking to the road and visiting important voters in important states, four battleground states as you described today, minnesota, wisconsin, on tuesday, arizona and then on thursday, pennsylvania. the vice president will be in wisconsin on wednesday. so what we will be talking about, what the president will be saying is drawing a contrast between his great record and joe biden's 47 years of failure and the terrible ideas that he's proposing now. what you won't hear at the democratic national convention, like that joe biden would raise taxes by $4 trillion, that he would open our borders, give taxpayer funded health care to illegal aliens and also give them work permits so they compete with americans for jobs. also imposing the green new deal on every single person in this country and killing millions more jobs that way. so this is our counter

programming but we know at the end of this week, with the billions of dollars in free advertising that he's gotten since he picked kamala harris from the national news media, we do expect to see joe biden get a really sizeable bump out of this. the historic -- the usual convention bump. but a big one, even eight or ten points because of the outrageous media fawning over the democrat ticket now. ashley: fawning. that's a good word. tim, let's get to this issue. house speaker nancy pelosi calling her colleagues back to the hill for an emergency hearing on the postal service. all over ballot delays. now, white house chief of staff mark meadows spoke on that. roll tape. >> there's no sorting machines that are going offline between now and the election. that's something that my democrat friends are trying to do to stoke fear out there. that's not happening. i can tell you the sorting machines, listen, the volume of first class mail that they have in the postal system right now, we haven't seen that volume since i was 17 years old.

ashley: i'm not going to say how long that was. tim, should voters be concerned? >> well, here's what's happening. the democrats know that by changing election laws less than three months before an election, they are inviting chaos on election day. they know that chaos is going to happen because of the universal mail-in voting systems that they are trying to put in place. they know that and are trying to find someone else to blame for it because they know it will happen and of course, they have landed on donald trump. of course it's president trump's fault. but it's not the post office. it is the massive volume of votes that will arrive at local elections offices. just take a look at what happened in new york in the congressional primary there. it took six weeks to figure out who won that election and those were votes they already had in hand that had come in and we are only talking about 40,000 votes in that primary. democrats want to flood local elections offices with millions

of ballots spread across many states and that is where the chaos will be and they know it. it also of course is a great opportunity for fraud doing all that vote by mail because when you mail ballots, live ballots to all registered voters, you don't know who is going to be receiving them. the democrats know this is a recipe for chaos and they are trying to find someone else to blame and they have selected president trump and the post office because they know they have created the problem and changed the voting rules three months before an election. ashley: right. all right. have to leave it there. tim, thank you very much. we appreciate your time. quick check of some individual stocks, if we can. ibm, they just announced a powerful new chip that will help businesses run their massive data centers quicker. and more efficiently, sounds good. they have enlisted the help of samsung for manufacturing it. as you can see, ibm essentially flat today. but that is an interesting development. a faster, more efficient chip.

speaking of chips, check nvidia. on an absolute tear as of late. hitting new highs day after day dave a after day and that's made an analyst raise the price target, now at $540. the stock up today at $491. next one, zoom and apple. probably known as the biggest names in work-from-home video conferencing at the moment, that's for sure. susan, they have got some new competition. susan: there's a lot already, messaging app called telegram is offering video conferencing, it's available on android and apple phones. encrypted end to end for security and that's what they are known for, tracking 400 million monthly active users. compare that to whatsapp which has two billion monthly active users. telegram has some catching up to do. zoom for itself has grown to 300 million daily meeting participants. pretty much, the stock of the year, some would argue.

facetime on apple's iphone, available on a billion iphones around the world and this is important when it comes to medical treatment with the department of health and human services allowing video apps such as facetime and zoom for medical [ inaudible ] so telegram can try to buy a bite of that business as well. zoom also this morning announcing cloud phone services this morning which is available in 40 countries and cloud calls reduce cost for the users, also offers better calls. zoom reports earnings later this month. stock nearly tripling this year. but it does have competition. there's also google meets and microsoft teams. ashley: that is very true. all right. thank you very much, susan. the netflix smash hit "tiger king" reportedly coming back for a second season. but one cast member is demanding a giant payday. we will tell you who it is and how much they want, coming up next. and hundreds of storefronts are closing. we have seen it, as the pandemic changes our shopping habits maybe for good. what happens to all that empty retail space?

we will find out next. ♪ this is decision tech. find a stock based on your interests or what's trending. get real-time insights in your customized view of the market. it's smarter trading technology for smarter trading decisions. fidelity.

ashley: let's take a look at those markets for you.

we started off strongly, certainly on the dow, up more than 100 points. but now just languishing a little bit, down 32 on the dow but still up .33% on the s&p and nasdaq also up .75%. they have been there for the last two hours. all right. let's take a look at teledoc. that's the online doctors' office. modest gains this morning. if we can have a look at that. after getting a nice upgrade from credit suisse. that's nice, up 5%. credit suisse setting their price target at $249, up 25 bucks from its original prediction, as you can see that stock up at $196, up nearly -- well, over $9. here is sanofi, big pharma people, just announcing a deal to buy out a biotech firm, trying to boost their treatment for multiple sclerosis. the deal worth around $3.7 billion. we can see banco santander down

on that news. we have had multiple people come on this program saying the pandemic is going to change our shopping habits for good. is that true? i know just the person to bring in. matt shea will have the final say, the national retail federation president and ceo. matt, let's talk property, if we can. what happens to all those retail stores that are now sitting empty? what happens? >> well, it's a good question. you could have asked my friend jerry howard that although he's more into residential home building. i think you are seeing a number of interesting things. you see companies like simon properties and other developers are looking at joint ventures, you have seen some big names in the technology industry looking at some of these properties as potential store locations or fulfillment centers. i think the interesting thing here is that without really regard historically to what happens on the real estate side,

it doesn't really impact consumer behavior and consumer spending. so for example, last year i think there were about 25 reported bankruptcies in retail. already this year that number is up to about 40. and most of those are reorganization so those brands will probably live on in some form. but there doesn't seem to be any data that supports any correlation between consumer behavior and what happens in the real estate side. so i think the take-away is we saw very good numbers last week in relative terms, all things considered, 2.7% growth year over year, consumers are strong, interest rates as jerry said, incredibly low, mortgage rates low, people are spending. let's keep the economy open, let's keep moving forward. ashley: yeah. absolutely. of course, we have a big week for retail earnings. we will be hearing from kohl's, home depot, foot locker and others. of course, we will see some winners and losers in all of this, but another question i have for you, matt, what happens

to people working at some of the losers where the number of employers in the sector is starting to dwindle a little bit. is that a real challenge? >> i think as we went into this pandemic, we go back to some of our conversations earlier this year, you know, january 1, february 1, the unemployment rate was below 4%, consumer confidence, the highest it's been in basically recorded history. we were poised for very strong numbers. the unemployment rate now is already down to about 10%, which is where we were basically in 2010 as we came out of the great recession, and we saw growth straight through for the last decade plus, as consumers pulled us forward. so as we go through some of this reorganization, as you say, there will be winners and losers. i would look for some good numbers this week out of some of the companies that will be reporting. the reorganizations and transformation that's been accelerated the way people buy online and pick up in stores, fulfillment issues, customer

engagement, there will be some displacement. that's going to be painful. we have to hope that working together with policy leaders, we can find ways to get those people the skills they need, get them retrained and put them back into meaningful work in places across the economy, hopefully as we grow out of this and as we go forward in a new dynamic changing economy. ashley: very quickly, matt, have people's spending habits, their shopping habits, changed permanently? >> well, i think that's a great question. i will give a couple data points. in general, about 90% of retail sales happen in stores. the first quarter, that dropped to 88%. the second quarter was 83%. so people are back in stores as we reopen the economy. online sales usually hover around 15%. and as we went into the shutdown it was close to 20%. now it's settled back down last couple months around 16%. there's been some racheting. how much of that will be permanent i think remains to be seen.

ashley: very interesting. all right. great stuff. matt shay, president and ceo of the national retail federation, thanks so much for joining us. appreciate it. >> always good to see you. thank you. ashley: same here. all right. let's take a look at mcdonald's. former ceo steve easterbrook is responding to mcdonald's lawsuit, basically attempting to get back his severance pay, according to reports. mcdonald's says that he kept multiple relationships with employees a secret but now his lawyers say mcdonald's is lying to try and get back easterbrook's $40 million severance. that story goes on. take a look at domino's pizza. they are hiring 20,000 new workers across the country. they say their stores are seeing higher demand and they will have to open new stores. that's a good problem to have. domino's up another seven bucks into 400 territory. $406 on domino's. here is sanofi. earlier we told you they have announced a deal to buy a

biotech firm. we could bring you that stock earlier but now we have it and sanofi is now up nearly 2%. $51.27. take a look at the grocers. food prices are on the rise. lauren, how much more are we paying? lauren: 4.5% more overall. this is from february before the pandemic until june. so if you have gone to a shop and have likely complained about meat prices, beef and veal prices up about 23% in that time period. pork chops up 20%. fruit is up 10%. you know the meat industry has been affected by the pandemic, the processing plants disrupted but with fruit, the gains are more widespread. the fruit increase is typical around this time of year, seasonality but other things. peanut butter, those prices are up 8%. breakfast items like rolls and doughnuts which you would normally grab at starbucks or

dunkin donuts on your way to work, those prices are up 5% because we are eating them at home. same thing for cereal. it's widespread. every single time we go to the food store i'm kind of like my eyes pop about how much the bill is. we are also using more food, right. i have read the other day the average american family is cooking at home seven days a week. i said what about pizza? what about pizza delivery? ashley: somebody cooks it. i put it in the microwave. does that count? thank you very much. "the washington post" under fire for this headline, if we can bring that up. headlining a -- highlighting, that is, a family dispute in an obituary for president trump's brother. robert trump, younger brother of president trump, who filed a lawsuit against his niece, dies at 71. the paper coming under quite a bit of criticism for that headline. we will discuss it coming up. also, at least nine oklahoma

sooners have tested positive for the virus. it comes as the chief medical officer to the ncaa warns that fall sports cannot happen unless testing gets better. the question is, will all schools have to cancel their season? that's next. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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ashley: all right. welcome back, everyone. taking a quick look at the markets, we have been pretty much in this same holding pattern, if you like. the dow off about 63 points. turned around from a triple digit lead early on but the nasdaq now gaining a little more. well, it's up -- let's see. up .6%. the s&p also has been up about .33% all morning. kind of a wait and see type of feel. let's take a look at tesla. susan, we are told they are facing tough competition in china. susan: well, china has been a

big reason tesla's stock has skyrocketed this year and it is continuing today. this is after a record june in china where tesla deliveries dropped off by a quarter, roughly down 25% in july. so 11,000 plus tesla cars were registered in july. that's less than close to 15,000 in the month of june, and that has some concerned that growing local chinese electric car competition is now biting into tesla's sales. think of nio and xpeng which are cheaper than tesla. despite that, the model 3 dominates in china's electric car market, roughly 20% to 30% of the market. that's pretty impressive since the shanghai factory only opened close to the end of last year and a reason why the stock has quadrupled so far this year, reporting its first full year of profit. dan ives of wedbush slapping a $1900 price target on tesla. that's why the stock is moving. but he says $1900 price target and a neutral rating, does 1900 sound neutral to you?

sounds bullish to me. ashley: not to me. at least in first gear. anyway -- susan: at least. yeah. ashley: thank you very much. now a fox business sports alert and an incredible recovery story. just 21 months after washington quarterback alex smith suffered a life-threatening leg fracture on the football field, he's back in action. smith is now cleared to play for full pad work at training camp tomorrow. smith's injury, by the way, nearly cost him his life after he contracted a sepsis infection, then underwent 17 surgeries. but now he's healthy and ready to go and we wish him the very best of luck. good story. now to college football. players in the big ten are petitioning to reinstate the full season. they want to play. what a great time to bring in former auburn football coach tommy tuberville and alabama republican senate candidate. coach, great to see you. i guess my first question is do

you think these players have a chance? >> absolutely. fight back. it's embarrassing that even two months before the first game, you have a lot of these states deciding oh, we're not going to play football. let me give you one stat. 26 of the states that have governors that are republican, 25 have decided to play football. 24 states that are democrats, three-fourths have decided not to play already and most will probably not play. so politics involved, yes. fight back, do whatever you can, get the opportunity because nancy pelosi, chuck schumer, joe biden and doug jones, the guy i'm running against, they want to keep everybody in the house and ruin our economy. ashley: let me say this, coach. the ncaa chief medical officer is warning fall sports will likely not happen. he said this, quote, right now if testing in the u.s. stays the

way it is, there's no way we can go forward with sports. we're not in a place today where we can safely play sports. coach, do you think all teams will eventually have to cancel their seasons, like it or not? >> well, this virus is a problem. we know that. it's dangerous. we have been in it for six months. we have quarantined, we have been socially responsible. it is contagious. but you know, ashley, we fight every year as coaches in the locker room, we fight staph infections, viruses, flus, stomach bugs. we go through everything. these kids are taken care of much more than anybody else. their clothes are all washed, they have been working together for several months and you know, it would be a shame if we put a stop to something these kids have done for a long, long time. give them the opportunity to play. now, if we don't play, as the doctor said, if we continue to have upticks, make the decision

later before season but to make the decision right now does not do anything but show politics in this country trying to bring this president down and try to keep people locked up and try to make them miserable. ashley: last one for you, coach. some conferences are still planning to play football this fall, we know that, including the s.e.c. and acc. you say players at schools that are not playing should be allowed to transfer. make your case. >> absolutely. i will tell you why. because these kids, these seniors especially don't have a football season, they will miss the opportunity of a lifetime, something they have been working for for a long time. then the american dream, the american dream of having the opportunity to make money at what you love to do best, which is possibly go to the nfl. now, the big ten and pac-12 are throwing that hook out there saying we might play spring sports. that's not going to get it done. they can't do that. so if they're not allowing them to play, if they're making them

sit out and not having a season, allow them to transfer today. the ncaa should step in and do that. if not, there's going to be more lawsuits than you can shake a stick at. it is going to be a hard, hard time for the ncaa. make a decision, do it for the players. the players are the ones that are hanging out here. ashley: we have to leave it there, coach. thank you so much for joining us. we will see whether they listen to you or not. but certainly, the college football scene, i love it probably more than the nfl, to be honest with you. i love the passion and the desire of the kids that are playing. anyway, coach, thank you so much for joining us. we appreciate it. >> thank you. ashley: all right. a fox business alert. new york governor andrew cuomo is reopening gyms. this is interesting. he says gyms can reopen as early as august 24th, at the very latest september 2nd. he says the capacity must be capped at 33%. masks must be worn at all times,

says governor cuomo and ventilation is a requirement. but there you go. you see, giving his daily update, has said gyms can reopen. that is a step forward. the biden campaign under fire for not answering questions from the mainstream media but shouldn't they want to speak out to get their messages to voters? it seems strange. media reporter for the hill, joe concha joins us next. ♪ experience the ultimate sports hub.

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when they ask me questions, i have these people, there's fire out of their eyes coming. somebody like biden, he doesn't know what to do. he doesn't come out because he can't. he doesn't take any questions from reporters. ashley: yep. as he went on to say this guy doesn't come out of the basement. that was president trump earlier. he is slamming joe biden for not answering questions from reporters. let's bring in joe concha, media reporter for the hill. joe, does the basement strategy work for biden? >> well, first, ashley, i have to fact-check the president.

joe biden is taking questions. he sat down today with cardi b. i believe cardi b. is a singer. joe biden actually revealed his nickname is joey b. these are the things joe biden is talking about. i think the president should say serious interview. does the basement strategy work is the question. the answer is maybe during the sn summer when you are 100, 150 days from the election. now that we are getting closer we are seeing a race that is tightening. cnn poll out today, president trump only trails joe biden by four points. the real clear politics average in june had biden up by double digits. that has sank or shrank as well. this is clearly biden's handlers and even kamala harris, her handlers don't seem to be very interested in doing interviews because they don't seem to have a lot of confidence in their message or their candidates and that is telling. you want to be the leader of the free world and you don't want to take questions? how you going to be tough on russia and china if you are not even going to talk to a mostly

friendly press, ashley? ashley: that's a very good point. very quickly, "washington post" headline about the death of president trump's brother, robert trump, younger brother of president trump, who filed lawsuit against niece, dies at 71. they are getting ripped for that. senator ted cruz calling it sick. the president just lost his brother, joe. does it surprise you that you see a head line like this in "the washington post"? >> actually, it doesn't because i have seen this movie before, when it comes to terrorists dying. the obituaries they get from "the washington post." remember when al baghdadi, the leader of isis died. their headline was al baghdadi, a scholar at the head of the islamic state, dies at 48. what are we talking about here? the president's brother dies, you say robert trump, brother of president trump, dies at 71. that's it. you don't have to throw in

anything about the lawsuit with the niece in the middle of that -- ashley: have to leave it there. >> we knew he was sick for awhile. you didn't have to rush that thing out. this is something they probably got a lot of eyes on it and for the editors to allow that -- ashley: joe, have to leave it there. sorry. we are running out of time. thank you so much, joe. we will have more after this. this is decision tech. find a stock based on your interests or what's trending. get real-time insights in your customized view of the market. . . . hi, this is margaret your dell technologies advisor to listen, is to hear more than what's being said... and offer the answers that make someone feel truly heard. i understand, let's get started call a dell technologies advisor today.

ashley: before we go, lauren, tiger king, season 2? lauren: it's coming because

64 million households watched season one. so joe exotic is on but carol baskin says you have to pay me a million dollars. she put a lot of personal life on the line for the first season. not sure she will do it for the second. ashley? ashley: one person that can't wait. neil cavuto, funny enough he joins us right now. take it away, neil. neil: great. the "lion king," we'll get to that. we have a lot we're following, corner of wall and broad. we have the dow industrials down. almost all the developments happening concurrently, the push in washington to get the house to regroup. nancy pelosi wants them to vote on a measure that stops the president's changes to the postal budget, dating back to january 1 of this year. separately to get the most master general too testify before congress. that is somethi