russia, ukraine have a nice story they wrote the dog off back in 2015 as missing maybe dead so it's really nice to see a nice heartwarming story especially with these swirling headlines these days. dagen: i could not agree more, ken mahoney and monica crowley. thank you both for being here this morning what a measure, happy president's day "varney" & company is up. david take it away. dagen: thank you very much, good morning, i'm david asman in for stuart varney, breaking overnight, president biden has agreed in principle to meet with vladimir putin. now, it could happen this week, but if russia invades of course all bets are off. this news coming on the heels of news that our intelligence has learned russian commanders have been given orders to invade. well, she was called out for her hypocrisy and she couldn't handle it a school board member in virginia storming out of a meeting, after a parent reveals

maskless photos of her in public rules for the, but not for me, when will masks finally be taken off our chirp, children and australia has reopened its border for the first time in two years starting today all leisure and business travels are allowed back in a very different story though to our north in canada, as ottawa police in swat gear violently cleared out the last of the freedom convoy protesters over this past weekend, but this might not be the end. we've got one of those protester s who was arrested and just released we'll be asking what his plans are, now. well, the markets as you probably know are closed today for president's day, but let's take a look at futures, they have been all over the place, they were down prior to news of a possible biden-putin meeting, they came up again but now they're back down. the dow is down about 182 again these are futures we're looking at, nasdaq really taking it on the chin down over a full percentage point, s&p 500 down

about 30. let's also look at bitcoin trading, about at 37-point, 530 to be precise for a bitcoin, we've got a big show ahead for you it is monday, february 21, president's day 2022, "varney" & company is about to begin. ♪ david: dynamite a good way to begin on monday let's get right to this beautiful day by the way in manhattan. president biden has agreed in principle to a meeting with vladimir putin if russia does not invade ukraine. if the meeting happens, it will take place following a meeting on thursday between secretary blinken and russia's foreign

minister sergey lavrov. meanwhile, vice president harris says the threat of tariffs will deter putin; however, ukraine's president zelensky says threats just alone are not enough. >> the purpose of the sanctions has always been and continues to be deterrence but let's also recognize that unique nature of the sanctions that we have outlined. these are some of the greatest sanctions, if not the strongest, that we've ever issued. >> you are telling me that it's 100% that in a couple of days then what are you waiting for , apply the sanctions today. david: matt schlapp is joining us to speak on all of this. matt i've got to say the mixed messages that we're getting from the biden administration, it's on, it's off, it's on, we're going to have the sanctions, we're not going to, it reminds me of the mixed messages before the afghan withdrawal. >> yeah, it's yogi bera say

it's all over again, and david this awfully concerning. presidents can make foreign policy mistakes, but the american people aren't going to forgive two mistakes and the biggest mistake they are making is theres no messenger from the biden administration, it's just like coronavirus. whose the point person, ought of nowhere it seems like the vice president is the point person but she doesn't have any diplomatic experience, and she seems to have bungled this basic question which is if biden is telling us that putin already plans to invade, what good does it do her to go overseas and say that there's still a chance to leverage him not to invade? if he's already going to invade, why are they saying that we'll put sanctions on when he invades it would seem to me that if joe biden has the ability to do anything right now, he should do it right now. why are they delaying and it just seems like they are playing a game that's confusing to the american people. david: and again, the rhetoric

is so different from what we can see with our own eyes on so many issues. we've seen that happen from crime to inflation, et cetera. we keep hearing the rhetoric that nato is united like its never been united before. i wonder if that's true. >> i wonder if that's true as well. look i don't know what's going on behind the scenes but there's clearly a jossling amongst the major powers to figure out how does nato, how does nato respond, and the biggest question is this , david. is our american foreign policy based on america's interests? and that's a real question, because under donald trump there was quite a seismic shift. we wouldn't put boys and girls in harms way, or young men and women in military unless we could ascertain the american interest, and if there is an american interest here, it's the president of the united states who should go on television and explain to it why we should shed american blood for this cause. i'm open to listening to him,

but he simply can't even make the case. david: yeah. matt, let's bring it home, because we have another case of one of these school board confrontations, a mother in virginia confronting her local school board over their mask hypocrisy rules. let's roll tape and get your reaction. roll tape. >> that makes no sense, and it makes all of you a bunch of hypocrites. here is the picture of you, right here, on facebook, with a crowd of people, that's it, with no mask on. this is my time. >> no. >> here is another picture. >> no. time is done. >> time is up. >> time is up. >> you can't deal with the truth. >> it's not the truth, but that's not the issue. david: what we are seeing, matt , once again, is the power grab that has been taken or the power grabs, pleural, that have been taking place since the pandemic began. americans have had it up to here with that power grab. i mean, we are absolutely fed up

with it. the reaction of that school board member that was chastising the parent, the immediate reaction was, call in the police arrest her. you know, what the heck? we're not a police state. it's that simple and to give kudos to the policeman by the way he stood back and he wasn't going to follow orders. >> yeah, look. cpac start this week and our theme is awake, not woke. this election will turn on the fact that the american people no matter how they are registered, 75% of us are exhausted from being called racist. we're exhausted from being told we're going to kill people if we don't care a cloth mask. the insanity of the woke culture is on trial, and so what i would say to all these people like joe y bahar and garcetti and gavin newsom and all these hypocrites is i don't think you're murders when you don't wear your mask and i don't think you're killing anybody when you don't wear your mask. you're only wearing that mask

because the teachers unions have told you that they will turn on you if you don't mandate masks for our kids. remember, the reason why kids are wearing masks in schools has nothing to do with protecting our kids and what we're learning about our school systems is it has nothing to do with educating our kids. it has to do with propaganda our kids and they're wearing those masks because the teachers union is demanding that for the health of the teacher even though there's no science to demonstrate that, and for those of us who have little kids who are learning how to speak and struggling with how to speak, they will never get these years back. david: no it's terrible, matt i have to get this in. this is president's day, it's a very important holiday. used to be one of the very few federal holidays we had in america, but our founding father s warned us about the dangers, the horrible danger s of unchecked political power. we're seeing that play out not only in our school districts but in the whole country and in fact in nations across the world, like australia and canada.

>> yeah, david, what we're learning is our founders were right. when you give up a little bit of freedom for security, you end up losing all your freedom o. who would have thought that people could be told in australia they can't leave their houses? david: right. >> or they will get arrested. who would have thought in canada you can't peacefully protest without getting arrested? who would have thought in america the government would tell us when our churches and schools could be open. we need to be outraged over this david: matt schlapp, cpac begins thursday in the free state of florida good to see you, matt, thank you very much for being here. >> thanks david. david: let's take a look at the futures and bring in jason katz. markets of course are closed today but all eyes are on ukraine and a possible invasion. inflation, though, and interest rates, i would still argue, are chief number one concern of investors would you agree? >> i would respectfully disagree in that the markets were holding up reasonably well.

we were flirting with, you know, new highs up until the threat of war, so i'm not dismissive at all on what's happening on the inflation front and how the feds going to react to it. i think all eyes, in the immediate future, all market eyes are focused on what's happening with ukraine and russia. david: i would just surveillances that based on what is happening, based on the president's own comments last week, the markets are beginning to factor in a russian invasion, wouldn't you? >> i would wholeheartedly agree with that, and i would also say that it's critically important as an investor not to lose your head here. these geopolitical events are hair-raising and the vast majority of the time, david, you know, you have over reaction from investors that are the bigger threat than the actual event itself, so it's really important to have clarity in the fog of potential war. david: bingo. you know, the same thing could be said with the pandemic by the

way. we saw that happen in march of 2020, which would have been the perfect time to go in, when everybody was panicking, as bad as the pandemic turned out to be , the markets really overreact ed to the downside, and that was the time to get in so we have to look for those opportunities no matter what happens jason great to see you thank you very much for being here. >> you bet. david: susan li, is susan li with us now? no? okay well it says she will be back in a couple of minutes, but crime is completely out of hand in new york city. a four--year-old boy punched in the face in times square by a surveillances who had 40 prior arrests. so, what do we do about that? we'll be talking in a moment to a city councilman about that and what brought russia to the brink of you vading ukraine, senator ted cruz has an idea. roll tape. >> joe biden formally waived sanctions on russia on putin and

gave the green light to build nord stream 2. that's why we're on the brink of war in europe. joe biden becoming president is the best thing that ever happened tragically for vladimir putin. david: well former ambassador to nato kurt volker is here on that, right after this. ♪ your record label is taking off. but so is your sound engineer. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire we hit the bike trails every weekend matching your job description. shinges doesn't care. i grow all my own vegetables shingles doesn't care. we've still got the best moves you've ever seen

good for you, but shingles doesn't care. because 1 in 3 people will get shingles, you need protection. but, no matter how healthy you feel, your immune system declines as you age increasing your risk for getting shingles. so, what can protect you? shingrix protects. you can protect yourself from shingles with a vaccine proven to be over 90% effective. shingrix is a vaccine used to prevent shingles in adults 50 years and older. shingrix does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients or to a previous dose. an increased risk of guillain-barré syndrome was observed after getting shingrix. fainting can also happen. the most common side effects are pain, redness, and swelling at the injection site, muscle pain, tiredness, headache, shivering, fever, and upset stomach. ask your pharmacist or doctor about shingrix. shingles doesn't care. but you should. this isn't just freight. these aren't just shipments. they're promises. promises of all shapes and sizes. each, with a time and a place they've been promised to be.

a promise is everything to old dominion, because it means everything to you.

first psoriasis, then psoriatic arthritis. it was really holding me back. standing up... ...even walking was tough. my joints hurt. i was afraid things were going to get worse. i was always hiding, and that's just not me. not being there for my family, that hurt. woooo! i had to do something. i started cosentyx®. i'm feeling good. watch me. cosentyx helps people with psoriatic arthritis move, look, and feel better.

it targets more than just joint pain and treats the multiple symptoms like joint swelling and tenderness, back pain, helps clear skin and helps stop further joint damage. don't use if you're allergic to cosentyx. before starting, get checked for tuberculosis. an increased risk of infections—some serious —and the lowered ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor about an infection or symptoms or if you've had a vaccine or plan to. tell your doctor if your crohn's disease symptoms develop or worsen. serious allergic reactions may occur. it's good to be moving on. watch me. move, look, and feel better. ask your rheumatologist about cosentyx. ♪ why you want to give me a run around, sure fire way to speed things up ♪ david: what a beautiful white house on a beautiful day in washington on this president's day, a lot of presidents have lived in that house, it's 40 degrees and sunny in washington right now, a little warmer than it is here in new york. let's check the futures, and they are mostly down as you can see. the dow down about a little less than a half a percentage point,

just about one-third of a percentage point down, nasdaq though just about a full percentage point to the negative , a lot of concerns about what's happening in russia , and still these remaining concerns about inflation and rate hikes. well u.s. intelligence is warning that russian commanders have received orders to invade ukraine. trey yingst is in kiev, the capitol with more, trey it was a wild weekend i was on air with you on saturday and god bless you i'm glad you survived those attacks what's the very latest there? reporter: david, good morning new satellite images show russian troops within miles of the ukrainian border with conflict already erupting in the east. this country is bracing for war. we did visit the front lines over the weekend. take a look. in the muddy trenches of eastern ukraine, soldiers are preparing for war. the countries interior minister, dennis mosierskment i believes

ukraine is ready. >> i think we're ready for a scenario and our armed force is also ready for a scenario. >> russian backed separatists fired hundreds of shells at ukraine positions killing one of their new soldiers since this round of violence began. as the ministers delegation wrap s up their visit, they start to position forcing everyone to run for cover. in a forward operating base, a ukrainian commander holds part of an anti-tank missile, evidence, he says, that russian- backed fighters are violating the mingst two peace agreement between the two sides. >> it is important in our ukrainian side is up to agreements we are not using hard artillery, we are acting through the mingst agreements only. >> across the street young ukrainians take their dog for a walk and these 9-year-olds were babies when war erupted between russia and ukraine. their days are consumed by the blood it conflict that's

taken the lives of more than 14,000 people. even while we're at school and hear shots one little girl says they tell us to sit still and act normally. amid a variety of concerning developments we've learned the united states believes russian forces are putting together a list of people they could kill or capture during a military occupation. david: trench warfare talk about back to the future and trey, please be careful there. terrific reporting, but please, be careful. our prayers are with you, my friend. well, kurt volker former u.s. ambassador to nato joins us now. ambassador, great to see you. you hear a lot of rhetoric coming out of germany over the weekend with a meeting they had that nato is united in this effort. i hope that's true, but certainly, if it is, even if it is, it's not deterring russia, is it? >> no, it's not. unity is good. i think there is a unified assessment of people and nato that russia is the aggressor here, that there's a real risk

of war, that we should apply sanctions against russia if they invade, we should support ukraine sovereignty and territorial integrity but when it comes down to action there's been no action taken to this point that is deterring putin. he continues to buildup, he's orchestrating this as we just saw in the eastern part of ukraine, and the force levels are higher even than they were last week, and he's giving kind of a shrug of the shoulders and diplomacy or about talking with biden later or the blinken- lavrov meeting but he's making his military preparations. david: well, ambassador i'm sure you heard the comments of president zelenskyy saying look in fact if you have intel that the invasion is on, why not put on the sanctions now? don't hold them back any longer. >> i fully agree. i think we should be doing that. what russia is doing already is unacceptable activity. taking 75% of its conventional capability surrounding ukraine

with this , motor strike, sniper fire, bombing schools, this is already out of control, already too much military activity. we should be responding to this immediately. david: and what about germany and its relationship with russia we saw when the german chancellor came here, i guess it was about two weeks ago, president biden said if russia invades, we will stop the nord stream 2 pipeline. i didn't hear that kind of direct statement from the chancellor of germany. do you agree that he would go on and stop that pipeline that's so vital to his economy and russia 's? >> we don't know that, and he was very careful as you pointed out when he was in washington not to say that, and also, here in munich security conference this weekend the germans were very careful to say we're not going to apply sanctions in advance and we're not going to say what they are, everything is on the table, so they say, but what will really happen?

they don't want to be specific, they really don't want to sanction that pipeline, and we don't know what they will really do. david: so if in fact there is, if in the invasion comes and germany's forced to decide between nato demanding an end to the pipeline and germany saying we're going to go with it, what do you think germany will do? >> well, i think what germany is going to try to do is find ways to stop the fighting, if there is fighting that's going on, and what they've done so far , they suspended the certification of this pipeline for three months. they could continue that suspension of certification until they get things under control again. that seems to be more likely to me, but as i said, we just don't know that they aren't being specific about what they would do. david: i do want to ask about the baltics because unlike ukraine they are members of nato , latvia, estonia and lithua nia. putin said this in an article he wrote last summer that in fact

he has just as russia has just as much right to be involved in the baltics than they do in ukraine. what happens if the next stop is the baltics? >> right, well, we have made clear as the united states and as nato that that crosses a red line for us. we have to defend members of the alliance, because if we don't, then no one in the alliance is safe and nato ceases to mean anything. so we have been clear. we've added additional troops to europe, forward deployed, and still have other allies, so the french, spanish, germans, they have deployed forces to romania, bulgaria, baltic states poland as a way of signaling to putin that don't touch these countries because they are members of nato. the problem here is that this doesn't do much for ukraine ukraine is still in the cross hairs and these deploy ams aren't used to protect them. david: by the way, over the weekend on meet the press, chuck todd kind of shocked his panel by asking a question, is i think a lot of people's minds,

they didn't have an immediate answer, they sort of danced around the question, but let me play the question and put it to you, roll tape. >> just the question that i said to the secretary, what's the assessment of why putin didn't do this when trump was in office? david: how would you answer that question? >> [laughter] well, i think that you never knew what trump was going to do, so we have a lot of nuclear weapons, a lot of military forces and you just don't know whereas i think we've been signaling we won't defend ukraine, we will supply arms to ukraine but we won't defend them so i think putin has been able to calculate this. there's one other point too. i think he was really struck by the catastrophic withdrawal from afghanistan. david: yeah. >> if the u.s. could allow that to happen, even not even use 2,500 forces still on the ground to keep peace, then i think he felt that we had lost resolve. david: terrific talking to you ambassador thank you so much for

being here. ambassador kurt volker the former ambassador to nato, appreciate it. well let's get a check on the futures on this president's day of course the markets are closed all day not only the stock market but the bond market but we do see futures moving they were down much more than they are right now although they are solidly in the red as you can see. meanwhile, credit credit suisse is is scrambling to do data control after a massive data leak revealing alleged criminals and human rights abusers are among its clients we have details coming, next: ♪

living with metastatic breast cancer means being relentless. because every day matters. and having more of them is possible with verzenio. the only one of its kind proven to help you live significantly longer when taken with fulvestrant, regardless of menopause status. verzenio + fulvestrant is for hr+, her2- metastatic breast cancer that has progressed after hormone therapy. diarrhea is common, may be severe, or cause dehydration or infection. at the first sign, call your doctor start an anti-diarrheal and drink fluids. before taking verzenio, tell your doctor about any fever, chills, or other signs of infection.

verzenio may cause low white blood cell counts, which may cause serious infection that can lead to death. life-threatening lung inflammation can occur. tell your doctor about any new or worsening trouble breathing, cough, or chest pain. serious liver problems can happen. symptoms include fatigue, appetite loss, stomach pain and bleeding or bruising. blood clots that can lead to death have occurred. tell your doctor if you have pain or swelling in your arms or legs, shortness of breath, chest pain, and rapid breathing or heart rate, or if you're nursing, pregnant or plan to be. every day matters. and i want more of them. ask your doctor about everyday verzenio. municipal bonds don't usually get the media coverage the stock market does. in fact, most people don't find them all that exciting. but, if you're looking for the potential for consistent income that's federally tax-free, now is an excellent time to consider municipal bonds from hennion & walsh. if you have at least

10,000 dollars to invest, call and talk with one of our bond specialists at 1-800-763-2763. we'll send you our exclusive bond guide, free. with details about how bonds can be an important part of your portfolio. hennion & walsh has specialized in fixed income and growth solutions for 30 years, and offers high-quality municipal bonds from across the country. they provide the potential for regular income...are federally tax-free... and have historically low risk. call today to request your free bond guide. 1-800-763-2763. that's 1-800-763-2763 ancestry's helped me really understand my family's immigration experience. ♪♪ i've been able to explore and learn a tremendous amount about how chinese americans have experienced civil rights and immigrant rights and what life must have been like for them.

and as i pass it on to my daughter, it's an important part of understanding who we are. ♪♪ david: checking the futures, and they are down, of course there's no trading going on on wall street today neither in stocks nor in bonds but the futures have been trading pretty actively, of course you would expect that being on the verge of a massive russian invasion of ukraine, probably the biggest military action in europe since world war ii. let's bring in keith fitz-gerald keith it is huge there's no question, you're saying whatever happens there, you got to stay

invested somehow, some way, explain. >> exactly. you know, it's dark, it's scary, i get that. there's no easy way around it. i'd be remiss to sugar coat this , but the important thing that investors need to think about today is the window is closing, there's still time to reevaluate but mentally you've got to invest as if there will be a tomorrow. that's hard to stomach because a lot of people are having a tough go of it, a lot of people are losing money in the markets right now but even after all the selling and nastiness david microsoft is up 345% in the last five years, tesla is up 1,400%, even the s&p is up 85%. the dawn is always darkest before the sun comes up. so this is the mindset, it doesn't sound good, it doesn't feel great but that's the one you got to have. david: you know, that expression has never been more appropriate than during the past two years with so many times during the pandemic, but like with the russian invasion, i think, or the coming russian

invasion, as president biden has said, you have all these set backs. you have all these pandemic set backs where it looks like we've reached the bottom and then there's a new variant and now with the russian invasion, god knows what's going to, i mean let's hope it doesn't happen, but if it does, it may go actually beyond ukraine, so what do we rely on as a long term stock that could force, that could go through bad iterations of what we're seeing now? >> well, that's the key. i mean, you have absolutely hit the nail on the head. if the shooting stays confined to ukraine, and i pray it does, then we're looking at five or 10% purely as a result of the computers but the moment around it goes outside those borders, it's game on. it's going to get a whole lot worse and frankly there's a lot of other things we're going to have to worry about beyond the stock market, but if you're talking about stocks that are going to ic majority it if we look back to world war i and world war ii and korea, the gulf , it's the big names everybody has been selling hand

over fist lately, apple for example, is not going to go away microsoft is not going to go away. if for no other reason, then loads of medicine and military hardware and think tanks depends on exactly the storage cloud and the software that those two companies produce, so there's a lot of stuff that can work. obviously defense stock, energy is going to be key, you want to hold on to that one, medical is going to come to the forefront so there's any number of names, but they are all going to come under pressure as the computers take over and the markets hit the eject handle. david: what about tech? we now see a well under 14,000, it flirted with some territory above 14,000 for about a week or so, but its come back down. should we move away from tech stocks? >> well, i tell you what. a lot of people will tell you they would, david, but if you study history, that kind of stuff trumps value overtime every time so if it's going to sell-off it's going to stink, you'll lose money i'm

upside down on a couple positions myself but in the long term scheme of things five years , 10 years out those are the companies that are not going to disappear. if you're on the margin, a peloton, netflix, maybe but microsoft and apple, even amazon , something like that, i would argue it's a lot harder to see those companies go out of business. david: now, the industrial stocks we do know, i mean, the one thing that they passed inside the beltway, that had sort of bipartisan support, was infrastructure. there's going to -- of course lord knows if they find the labor in order to hire to build the infrastructure. that's a whole other discussion, but won't there be a huge demand for building supplies? i would suspect that that's one area you want to be in. >> yes, and i would strongly support that, but that requires political leadership and i would argue respectfully that we don't have a lot of that right now, so the key there is if you're going to put america to work, really make an effort to put america to work. our bridges are failing. our airports are falling apart. we are sub-standard in the global community so if we want to take a page out of the

ccc, nearly 100 years ago, that is a path forward and you know what? that be appealing to a lot of people who want to go back to work. david: keith we got to run but i have to ask about taxes because one good thing about gridlock is in our political system is maybe we won't have any tax hikes in 2022. >> boy i tell you i'm not smart enough to figure that one out but the beltway boffins get their hand in the pie no matter how you cut it and that concerns me. david: keith fitz-gerald you speak the truth sometimes it's a hard truth thank you very much my friend appreciate it. now this a new report showing that many of the clients of credit suisse have criminal ties , susan, how many counts? >> talking about 18,000 abilit ies, and that holds and held more than $100 billion in cash, and it's being used by criminals, human rights abusers and the like, and this is part of the whistleblower report and some of the details leaked to the german newspaper, so the

accounts are open from the 1940s into 2000 apparently according to one analysis. now, i personally don't think it surprises anybody, because especially after the panama papers and we saw where world leaders were stashing in their cash. david: we've known about this for decades. >> correct, and 18,000 thes, by the way, in the entire swiss banking system isn't really matt much in terms of number of accounts however some of the names of these, mubarich were part of these 18,000 accounts and just some other shall we say dictator s and their relations. david: one of our favorite topics are cryptos, the nft marketplace open seas investigating a hack that was on their site what's up with that? >> it wasn't a hack i recall more of a fraudulent phishing e-mail attack, shall we say. it's just a fake e-mail that looked like it was sent by open sea with a suggested link for users to click on and of course, once you click on that link, that means that hack ers could get access into these accounts, which means that

they could steal your nft's and nft's, crypto, unique crypto tokens are worth a lot these days as you know especially with the boom of 2000% over the past year and open sea, i don't know if you bought an nft? david: not yet. >> probably the biggest nft market and it went for $3 billion to $13 billion in just 12 months in value. david: there's money there. no question. a lot of people going there. >> i would say look at bitcoin we're at sub-38,000 over the weekend, ether went down to sub 2,700 because of the russia- ukraine but we also heard from i don't know if you know the actual founder of ethererum buteran. david: i could never pronounce his name. >> multi-billionaire and he was talking about a crypto upcoming. david: the last person on earth susan li who i would expect to be a peta activist, the protected animals, is carl icahn. i've known carl icahn for decade s now he was

supporting an organization that i knew of. he's now standing up for animal rights at mcdonald's. >> who knew he was such an animal rights activist but so he's not a big shareholder, you know, of mcdonald's. david: a couple hundred shares. >> 200 shares worth $500,000 and usually with icahn, he owns hundreds of millions of dollars. david: if they are listening to him. >> not necessarily, he's made suggestions for two board directors, but with those type of shareholdings i don't know how much impact he'll have, but as you know, what carl icahn wants mcdonald's to do is stop caging animals. david: particularly pigs. >> but i would tell him kind of like a pioneer when it comes to activists investing. david: but i never would have thought it be on the peta side of things we gotta leave it at that susan thank you very much. well senator elizabeth warren is taking on elon musk over his tax returns, roll tape. >> elon musk, 2018 we've seen

his tax returns do you know how much he paid in taxes one " richest people in the world, zero, and he's not the only one. david: zero? well, he says, by the way, he's going to be paying $11 billion in taxes, senator. you bet elon has something to say about that, we've got his response coming up and marvel actress evangeline lilly canceled for what, you ask? suggesting to canada's prime minister sit down and just talk with the freedom convoy of canadian truckers. it sounds perfectly reasonable, she got canceled for saying that we've got the story, and are you struggling to keep up with your rising energy bills? you are not alone an exclusive new report by fox business finds millions of americans cannot pay their home energy bills, almost every month of last year, lydia hu is here to break it all down for us, coming next. ♪ you're hot and you're cold,

you're yes and you're no, you're in and you're out, you're up and you're down ♪ riders! let your queries be known. yeah, hi. instead of letting passengers wrap their arms around us, could we put little handles on our jackets? -denied. -can you imagine? i want a new nickname. can you guys start calling me snake? no, bryan. -denied. -how about we all get quotes to see if we can save with america's number one motorcycle insurer? approved. cool! hey, if bryan's not gonna be snake, can i be snake? -all: no.

(vo) verizon is going ultra! and so is manny! event planning with our best business unlimited plan ever! with 5g ultra wideband now in many more cities and up to 10 times the speed at no extra cost, the downloads are flying fast! verizon is going ultra, so your business can too. (naj) at fisher investments, our clients know we have their backs. (other money manager) how do your clients know that? (naj) because as a fiduciary, it's our responsibility to always put clients first. (other money manager) so you do it because you have to? (naj) no, we do it because it's the right thing to do. we help clients enjoy a comfortable retirement. (other money manager) sounds like a big responsibility. (naj) one that we don't take lightly. it's why our fees are structured so we do better when our clients do better. fisher investments is clearly different.

♪ david: well, maybe wintertime, in rhode island, but it is still beautiful and its actually warmed up a little bit it's now about 40 degrees there, was much colder over the weekend and speaking of the cold, those energy costs are going sky high, as a result of what's happening with oil and natural gas, the biden administration is pausing new federal oil & gas leases and permits that might have something to do with the higher prices. this is in response to a judge blocking how this administration was calculating the cost of climate change. now, this. we've got an exclusive report that 9.6 million people couldn't pay for their home energy bill, almost every month in the past year. that's a huge number.

lydia hu is at new york's largest power plant with the report, break it down for us , lydia. reporter: hi there, david. this is coming from group called help advisor, they analyze recent u.s. census data exclusively for fox business, looking for trends and spending on utility bills. they found this. 24% of americans, roughly one in four reduced or for went basic expenses like food and medicine, so they could pay their energy bill within the last 12 months. another 16% of americans kept their homes at an unsafe temperature to lower their energy bill. you mentioned the more than 9 million americans who said they couldn't pay their home energy bill, almost every month in the past year, that rises to 41 million americans who have been unable to pay the full amount, at least once in the past year. these findings are obviously troubling, but particularly concerning for americans on fixed incomes.

>> some of our members are telling us that at the are foregoing certain medical procedures because they don't have the money for the out of pocket expenses to get these procedures done, and they're telling us they are buying fewer groceries. reporter: david, also the national balance for utility accounts in arears climbed 10% from 2020 reaching $22.3 billion last year. california and new york were among the states leading the country, each reporting more than $1 billion in each, in a rears in each of their states. now this concern is that there's no relief in sight, with many american families under winter moratoriums on utility shut-off, right now those will expire come march and april which means millions of people will face these skyrocketing utility bills with not much choice about whether to pay for their utility bills or these other necessities that they need for everyday life. david: unbelievable having to compromise on medicine and food

in order to heat the house. this is extraordinary lydia hu thank you very much so vice president harris says americans will incur some more costs in terms of energy from the ukraine crisis. roll tape. >> when america stands for her principles and all the thins that we hold there, it requires sometimes for us to put ourselves out there in a way that maybe we will incur some cost, and then this situation that may relate to energy costs. david: well i don't know if she's going to be incurring some costs but certainly a lot of folks out there are. steve moore joining me now. steve after a year of massive energy inflation, i'm thinking, and i'm seeing from what we just saw from the vice president, that the biden administration is going to blame the ukrainian conflict from ris ing oil prices what do you think? >> i just wanted to comment, david, good to see you by the way, on that report you just did on utility costs, because this hit me right at home.

my wife told me yesterday that our utility bill, electric and heating bill for the month of january was $600, [laughter] and we used to pay about $350. david: wow, double. >> so people, i really related to that, and i think people are around the country are seeing that not just the cost of gasoline at the pump, david, but also the cost of heating your home has gone up and this has been a cold winter so this is causing real financial hardship. i don't understand, i don't think any american really understands the biden energy policy. he shuts down pipelines, he's discontinuing some of the leases , he's taken hundreds of thousands of acres offline in alaska. i could go down the line of all these anti-american energy policies and then they throw up their hand and say gee, we're doing everything we can to keep energy prices down. no they're not they are doing

exactly the opposite. david: they are and just last thursday, steve, there was an energy regulatory commission that it's bipartisan but whoever is present gets to pick the majority number of members, and they just decided that they were going to shutdown some more pipelines because of environmental problems. i mean, even on the week that the president announced that there will be an invasion, he's shutting down more pipelines. >> so the other day in one of his press conferences joe biden said we're doing everything we can to hold energy prices down, and that was just a flat out lie we have more oil, gas, and coal than any other country in the world, david. we have 500 years worth of coal. we have 250 years worth of natural gas and we have 200 years worth of oil. we should be using it. we're also one of the lowest- cost producers of energy, so this is not an act of nature. this is a self-inflicted wound by policies that are exactly -- look you know david, i worked

with donald trump. one of his top objectives from the very beginning was to make america energy independent which we had achieved. david: yes. >> and now look at the situation isn't it amazing how much things have changed in 13 months? david: we achieved and then we gave it up and by the way those reserve numbers that you mentioned we don't know if they could actually be higher than that. that's what happened in the past 20 years, we found all these reserves we never knew existed a couple years before and we found them. steve, we got to leave it at that. >> one point. i always talk about with existing technology how much, the technology will continue so we're never going to run out of stuff. we assume we'll run out of oil, we're running into it. david: steve moore, thank you very much good to see you appreciate it. well a member of europe's parliament comparing canada's prime minister to a tyrant. roll tape. >> the prime minister of canada the way he's behaving right now he's exactly like a tyrant like a dictator. if you have doubts about the vaccine, you're outcasted. david: so what do the canadian

truckers make of that comparison i'm going to be asking one of them next hour, but first, congress taking aim at american firms investing in china. hillary vaughn has our report from capitol hill, right after this. ♪ are we breaking up, is there trouble between the lines ♪ alright, so...cordless headphones, you can watch movies through your phone? and y'all got electric cars? yeah. the future is crunk! (laughs) anything else you wanna know? is the hype too much? am i ready? i can't tell you everything. but if you want to make history, you gotta call your own shots. we going to the league! you're a one-man stitchwork master.

but your staffing plan needs to go up a size. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire

and it's easy to get a quote at libertymutual.com so you only pay for what you need. isn't that right limu? limu? sorry, one sec. doug blows a whistle. [a vulture squawks.] oh boy. only pay for what you need. ♪liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty♪ if you're a small business, there are lots of choices only pay for what you need. when it comes to your internet and technology needs. but when you choose comcast business internet, you choose the largest, fastest reliable network. you choose advanced security for total peace of mind. and you choose fiber solutions with speeds up to 10 gigs to the most small businesses. that's virtually everywhere we serve. the choice is clear: make your business future ready

with the network from the most innovative company. comcast business. powering possibilities™. first psoriasis, then psoriatic arthritis. it was really holding me back. standing up... ...even walking was tough. my joints hurt. i was afraid things were going to get worse. i was always hiding, and that's just not me. not being there for my family, that hurt. woooo! i had to do something. i started cosentyx®. i'm feeling good. watch me. cosentyx helps people with psoriatic arthritis move, look, and feel better. it targets more than just joint pain and treats the multiple symptoms like joint swelling and tenderness, back pain, helps clear skin and helps stop further joint damage. don't use if you're allergic to cosentyx. before starting, get checked for tuberculosis. an increased risk of infections—some serious —and the lowered ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor about an infection or symptoms or if you've had a vaccine or plan to. tell your doctor if your crohn's disease symptoms develop or worsen.

serious allergic reactions may occur. it's good to be moving on. watch me. move, look, and feel better. ask your rheumatologist about cosentyx. david: so, we have some new legislation at work that would let the government screen american investments in china potentially denying them if it threatens national security hillary vaughn is on capitol hill, hillary? this bill has momentum from both sides of the aisle right? reporter: david it does. there is a bipartisan push here on capitol hill for a new legislation co-sponsored by democratic senator bob casey and republican senator john cornyn that would do just that and if this bill passed it be a huge expansion of governmental oversight scrutinizing american investment in the chinese economy with the goal to stop american banks from funding chinese technological development, senator casey

telling politico this , we're in an economic war, whether we want to use that language or not, i think it requires that we examine some of the issues that maybe 10 or 15 years ago, we did not have to worry about, but critics from the chamber of commerce to corporate america say the bill is too broad and would end up hurting u.s. business in china, a report from the consultant group rodeum estimates 43% of american investments be covered by the bill, also saying, "if not designed in a targeted predictable manner, this change could negatively impact not only the global competitiveness of u.s. companies and affected industries but also the attractiveness of the united states as an investment location for firms that operate globally" and also the white house is looking at executive action to crackdown on u.s. investment in technology firms, both of these two things, david, one an unprecedented crackdown on u.s. investment. david: hillary vaughn good stuff thank you very much well china is telling their

banks to recheck their financial exposure to jack mahs group. susan? >> an going government clamp down as you know on tech billionaires like jack ma alibaba founder also controls a paypal equivalent that china says that ant group is $37 billion ipo in cholesterol was squashed by beijing and china so china now told the nations biggest state- owned banks & companies to check on their financial ties to ant group calendar to reports and we know china has been clam ling down not only on alibaba but the uber of china didi has really been hammered as a result of dislike for big tech. david: still ahead we have nigel farage, steve forbes, charlie hurt, and sean duffy, the 10 a.m. hour of "varney" & company is next.

whether you've enjoyed the legendary terrain in telluride, the unparalleled landscape of park city or the famed peaks of whistler, you face the hassle of lugging your gear through the airport. with ship skis, you're just a few clicks away from having your skis, snowboard and luggage shipped from your doorstep to your destination. with unrivaled pricing, real time tracking, . . . . plain aspirin could be hurting your stomach. vazalore 325 liquid-filled aspirin capsule is clinically shown in a 7 day study

to cause fewer ulcers than immediate release aspirin. vazalore. the first liquid-filled aspirin capsules...amazing!

♪♪ david: you should hear that in my earpiece. it's a meloge different sounds. hope it sounds better in your home. beautiful day in manhattan. the blue sky is gorgeous. it is not so-called this morning on this presidents' day. 10:00 eastern time. i'm david asman in for stuart varney. markets are closed including

stocks and bonds. look at futures, they're moving around. the nasdaq is taking it on the chin in futures territory. down 1.25%. dow jones less so. s&p down about 3/4. look at bitcoin, they have also been down all day. they're down well over 1000 points to 36,684 per coin. let's get right to it. >> a virginia school board member storming out of a public meeting after being confronted by a maskless photo watch this. >> we're taking the power out of your hands and putting it back with the parents the way it should be. we sat here last yearliesen to you guys preach about governor northam's executive orders how we must follow them. you nice remember that? we do. here is governor comes into office yet you don't want to foal his orders. why is that? that makes no sense. makes all of you a bunch of hypocrites. here is picture of you right here on facebook with a crowd of

people -- >> that's it. >> with no mask on. this is my time. >> no. >> here is another picture with no mask on. >> i'm sorry, miss voit you are done. can we have a police officer. >> she should be able to say her piece. i had to listen people criticize me. >> that doesn't make it right. that is my family. that, fine. >> what do you think about our families. >> our family has been -- >> i'm done. david: i'm done. she stormed right out. sean duffy is here. you know what killed me about the confrontation. it was on facebook. that person who she sort of outed was on facebook. she outed herself on facebook. she had done, the school board member had done the same to the other people that were protesting. but her first inclination was to call the police. this is not a police state. you can't just call the police because you don't like what somebody is doing. they have to be breaking the law in some way which this woman was not doing, sean.

>> that was my first reaction too, david. i was in congress for nine years. i ran five races. i had town halls in 26 counties every year. every time a democrat would come, i was republican, they would come in, try to shame me, demonize me, disagree with me. if there was something about my family or a donor they would use it against me. i wanted to run for congress. it was my job to take the heat. i took the heat. never would i say i disagree with your speech. this is off limits. i will call the cops to shut you down. guess what would have happened five years ago i would be thrown out of office. that is the job to listen to your constituents, to think you call the cops with speech you don't agree with, that is antithetical with the idea of free speech. the fact that you could see a sheriff's deputy stand next to the mom. he was going to shut her down based on board member. david: he pulled back. he pulled back. something clicked in had is head

when he heard somebody talk about this school member did the same thing, he realized holy mackerel. it is instinct of a good cop to break up something that shouldn't be happening but in these circumstances, just shows how people have taken advantage of these crises to grab more political power and use any kind of force they can to get their way. it is just horrific. i want to switch to another topic though which is related to all of this, the three progressive school board members in san francisco that were essentially fired by the people. listen, they all lost by 70% in a recall. listen to what democrat mayor london breed said about it. roll tape. >> it was really about the frustration of the board of education doing their fundamental job and that is to make sure that our children are getting educated, that at the get back into the classroom. that did not occur. we failed our children. parents were upset.

the city as a whole is upset and the decision to recall school board members was a result of that. david: some people complaining that her answer was not anything of substance. she has no particular -- i would prefer to have a politician that has no ideology than a hard left ideology. remember what happened to bill clinton. bill clinton was able to go either way in terms of ideologies. he went the way with people going. there are more politicians like london breed following message they're getting from their constituents, don't you? >> 100% i do. you represent people. you might have closely held political beliefs you don't want to give up, a lot of things on edges you can find common ground which politicians and leaders do that. what i was trying to say mayor was lying to us. this is not political. of course this is political. republicans have been pushing for freedom. take masks off kids. stop mandating vaccines. open up the schools.

it has been democrats who are the ones that want to shut down, lock down, mask them, force them to vaccinate. so i wish the mayor would take more responsibility, listen, democrats got this wrong. i got it wrong. i should have pushed back before the three members lost the seats. i shouldn't have to look at polling to say i lost the people of san francisco. these are not republicans. these are leftists say i care more about my kids pathway to the middle class in america is a great education. i think it es quite humorous. don't mess with moms and dads. you mess with moms and dads you get political bull by the horns. david: don't mess with the voters. we saw that happened with bill clinton in first two years of his presidency. he had horrific midterms, horrific for his side, he changed course 180 degrees on health care and lot of other things. i think it's a positive presidents' day, very quickly, don't you? >> i don't know about that. i think our president is failing right now on so many different

things. david: i'm not talking about this president, i'm talking about the country. >> listen the country is pushing back advocating for freedom. free speech is speech that we might disagree with. that is why it is free. you have to protect it. so again, i'm proud of the american people saying no more, no longer. david: absolutely. >> for that, david, i'm happy, this president i'm just everything he has touched has turned to garbage as opposed thed to gold. david: sean duffy, good to see you, my friend. thank you for being here. appreciate it. >> thank you. david: we're learning that the cdc is withholding data from the public, been doing that over a year. the agency collect ad lot of data on hospitalizations through covid, deaths through cases, they have broken down numbers by age, race, vaccination status but not made a lot of that information public until very recently. extraordinary, what is happening. now look at disney futures, the reason we're talking about disney futures we want to talk about what disney is now doing,

going into residential communities across the country. jeff sica. what do you think about that? are we all going to have mickey mouse as our landlord eventually? >> that seems to be what disney is doing. i think it's surprising but not is surprising. they did it once in this place called celebration outside of orlando. they're looking to do it in rancho mirage, california. it makes sense. they want to bring the disney lifestyle to an older generation. a lot of what they're going to do will be toward the 55 and older crowd. david: ones who were there when disney world started. >> right. they're taking some visionaries from disney, they're going to be the visionaries behind these communities. i look at it this way, people love disney. they love disney. they love, my first trip as a kid to disney is one of my fondest memories.

david: bingo. >> everybody when you go to disney you think of i want to live here some day. now people have the ability to live in a disney created world which i think will be pretty fun. david: span out a little bit. zillow says the average home cost as million dollars in 146 different cities. that is a new record. so the questions are we near a peak at all, jeff? >> what people need to realize right now in the housing market is that if you're looking for somebody to blame for the prices being as high as they are, outside of the inflation and the lack of supply you could blame wall street because wall street right now, if you take a company, blackstone, it is the biggest owner of real estate in the entire country. they own about $200 billion in real estate. they keep acquiring single family homes, apartments. they just made an acquisition of a $5.6 billion apartment company.

so prices are continuing to go up. the way we look at it is, i'm a developer. one of the things that i look at is supply demand. right now there is so much demand. david: tremendous. >> so little supply. because of all of this inflation, they can't build enough houses and apartments to accommodate the demand. so i don't think we're going to see a bubble burst. i don't think we'll see prices come down. i think prices are going to continue to move up until we see inflation come down. then when we see inflation come down and supply, then we'll see, we'll begin to see prices come down. but wall street is continuing to buy more and more real estate. i think real estate is probably the best investment to own during inflation. and wall street has learned that as well. david: terrific stuff, jeff, zika, here in person.

i love it. the sec responding to tesla's claims that the agency was harassing the company and elon musk. what is the latest is? >> the sec said we've been trying to redistribute the $40 million part of the settlement from elon musk. elon musk was fined 40 million. he had the tweets embedded because strait l-l h had -- 2018 tweets. the reason why they had to respond because elon musk through his lawyers says the sec continues to harass him and his company. you remember the sec also had a subpoena recently to tesla saying tell us how his tweets are being vetted because that was part of the settlement in 2019. david: i'm laughing, biggest disruptor as a ceo.

disrupting everything, going after the sec my goodness. >> richest man on the planet. most innovative ceo. david: will pay more from taxes unlike what you get from elizabeth warren. making more in taxes than anybody else. >> 11 billion. david: cancel culture next target is actress evangeline lily, after she asked prime minister trudeau so sit down with canadian truckers. what is wrong with that. a 4-year-old boy randomly attacked in the middle of times square. guess what? the suspect has a big rap sheet. we have details. growing russian cyberattacks on u.s. banks. so what are the banks doing to protect your money? we have a report own that as welcoming next. ♪.

donna. i invest in invesco qqq, a fund that gives me access to the nasdaq-100 innovations, like real time cgi. okay... yeah... oh. don't worry i got it! become an agent of innovation with invesco qqq new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. when you sponsor a job, you immediately get your shortlist of quality candidates, whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. visit indeed.com/hire and get started today.

♪ feel stuck with credit card debt? ♪ move your high-interest debt to a sofi personal loan. you could get out of debt sooner and feel what it's like to get your money right. ♪ at xfinity, we live and work and feel what it's like to get your money right. in the same neighborhood as you. we're always working to keep you connected to what you love. and now, we're working to bring you the next generation of wifi. it's ultra-fast. faster than a gig. supersonic wifi. only from xfinity. it can power hundreds of devices with three times the bandwidth. so your growing wifi needs will be met. supersonic wifi only from us... xfinity.

switching wireless carriers is easy with xfinity. just lean on our helpful switch squad to help you save with xfinity mobile. they can help break up with your current carrier for you and transfer your info to your new phone. giving you a fast and easy experience that can save you hundreds a year on your wireless bill. visit your nearest xfinity store and see how the switch squad can help you switch and save. switch to xfinity mobile and get connected to the most reliable 5g network. talk with our helpful switch squad at your local xfinity store today.

♪. david: government agencies met with big bank executives on thursday as threats mount of a potential russian cyberattack on u.s. banks. edward lawrence is outside of the white house. so, ed, what is the white house doing about all of this? reporter: and, david, as you mentioned we know the hallmark of an attack, a cyberattack would happen from the russians should they invade in ukraine. now officials here at the white house are saying that u.s. businesses should now be on notice because they could be involved in the cyberattack should russia invade ukraine. i confirmed last week as you mentioned the government officials met with the biggest banks in the u.s. like jpmorgan chase, citigroup and wells fargo where they outline how russia attacks online as well as how companies can

protect themselves so that the deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technologies tells me that u.s. or russia continuously probes the u.s. in terms of banks and other utilities for weaknesses. >> what is your level of concern that there could be an online or cyberattack against the banking system in the u.s. should russia decide to invade? >> as we know, as a society we're very connected and digitized society and that is, as a society we don't have the level of cyber resilience that we wish to. since the beginning of the administration president biden made domestic and physical resilience a priority. reporter: we don't have the resilience that can be seen the you see that in the ransomware of colonial pipeline. was not from russia government but actors within russia. russian government did attack

ukrainian banks online. they confirmed that. reuters is reporting that a sanctions package would include russian banks. now that would include transactions and refusing to allow russian banks to do transactions but that is only, sanction package goes into place only if russia rush invades ukraine, david. david: we had counter attacks, both under the trump administration and under this one as well, correct. reporter: i don't know about this administration. the colonial pipeline not that we're aware of. the u.s. responds and they said they always respond when they're attack. the colonial pipeline one was actors inside of russia. u.s. officials scraped back most of the bitcoin for that. that was not from russian government but actors inside of russia. david: gotcha. people say no one happens in that part of the world without the government knowing about it. thank you, edward.

we have former director at the state department kiron skinner. while we're focused on ukraine, we should not lose sight of a bigger threat in the long run that is an axis between russia and china, explain. >> david, thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about this now detente between russia and china. i for years have been saying one of the markers of the 21st century would absolutely be a entau to. between china and russia. not necessarily the kind of nato alliance we saw at the height of the cold war that continues now but these two former enemies, forged in the 1950s, where they had military skirmishes and big fights around ideology and who would be the dominant actor in the communist world, we've seen them move over the decades from that emnity to status of the

21st century of kind of frenemies. now they have become bestties. that says a lot where we're going with russia and china. they sea weakness in the u.s., weakness in the west and free market economics political freedom as prince pills of the past that aren't necessarily working. the authoritarian model, they think can attract other nations and allow them to move a lot faster than the democratic processes that often hold leaders back. they want not only dominance in the indopacific but also in the atlantic world and so i think ukraine and taiwan and hong kong are mutually important for their collective future leadership. david: wow. >> they want global preeminence. they don't want the united states to remain the sole superpower. david: yes. >> and they see their kind of

alliance as a way to kind of speed up the process of changing the economic and political global order. david: you know it is a frightening thought that these two superpowers, nuclear superpowers could get together but we saw as you mentioned, the history doesn't bode well for that alliance. we saw it break up. we thought during the cold war if the two big communist nations got together the whole world would go down. it didn't happen. because of border skirmishes. they share borders which there is conflict. might that eventually be the rub in this kind of alliance? >> you bring up a good point. it is not a full alliance. they do, historic problems continue and the idea of a russia-china dominated world would put putin as a junior partner to be sure and that is not where he wants to be. david: right.

>> i think this is a coming together of convenience but they have historic differences, they have economic and military differences. and for china it has to be careful. it is fully dependent on the west for trade. and 45% of global gdp is comprised by the united states and the eu so they're up against some powerful actors. and the united states through nato and other partnerships have the deepest security alliances in the world. david: yeah. >> russia and china have nothing close. this is a risky gambit but it is one i think they're worth taking at this point. david: i hope, i pray and hope that the biden administration, all our security forces are aware of what is going on. i would hope to think they are, they have to be but we all have to turn our attention. obviously ukraine is taking a lot of oxygen out of the room but this is something we should spare some for. thank you so much for being

here, kiron skinner. appreciate it. now this, the biden administration is reportedly seeking the highest pentagon budget in history for the next fiscal year. the president is expected to ask congress for a defense budget of $770 billion, with add-ons possibly caring it beyond the 800 billion mark for fiscal 2023. that starts october 1st. important to mention inflation plays a part in this. particularly energy costs that the military uses so much, huge costs in energy. of course that's doubled. many say this increase because of inflation could actually end up being a decrease. more on that to come. meanwhile baseball's labor dispute is coming down to the wire. the season could be delayed if the mlb and players union don't reach a deal soon. we've got a report on that in the 11:00 hour. meanwhile police in ottawa have arrested nearly 200 people as they clear out the last of the "freedom convoy" protesters.

we'll be speaking with a canadian protester who was just released after being arrested this weekend. he is next. ♪. i'm so glad we did this. i'm so glad we did this. i'm so glad we did this. i'm so glad we did this. i'm so... ...glad we did this. [kid plays drums] life is for living. let's partner for all of it. i'm so glad we did this. edward jones

♪. david: god bless those folks in burke vermont. burke mountain is a ski resort. i hope you can see, i hope they have it on the slopes. appears lifts are working but, not a lot of snow in burke, vermont. cloudy and 32 degrees. it costill snow a little bit. let's hope so. the "freedom convoy" dissipated in oat waa as police gained control of the area. grady trimble is in the area. so, grady is it over? reporter: pretty much so. they have the main street in front of parliament, wellington street, blocked off. they came back on saturday but

that time they were wearing riot gears like helmets, face shoulders. they carried batons. the police oversight agency is looking into incidents between police and demonstrators. a woman was seriously injured, 49 years old as police moved in on horseback to push back the line of protesters. the second, police used less lethal rounds, tear gas, canisters and rubber bullets on protesters. that is looked into. police arrested 200 demonstrators. half of those will face criminal charges. despite the controversy in terms of force police used to remove the truck terse and protesters the interim police chief is standing by his officers actions as well as action from police who came in from all over canada. listen. >> the vast majority of our members have been extremely profession. they have executed an extremely methodical plan that has been

focused on the safety of the residents, the safety of our officers and the safety of the people engaged in the protests. reporter: meanwhile in our nation's capitol police have preparing for a similar convoy to converge on washington, d.c. they have some roads blocked off. they will reportedly put up temporary fences ahead of the president's state of the union address. back here in canada, the prime minister's invocation of those emergency powers still very controversial. parliament will vote on them today. police say that emergencies act was instrumental in getting this area clear. it allowed them to bring in police from all over the country, david. and also they freeze more than 200 bank accounts with millions of dollars in it. david: yeah. not much of a democratic process in it though. they didn't talk much about that. grady wonderful reporting over the weekend t was a very, very tough situation but you handled

it extremely well. thank you very much for your reporting. >> thank you. david: staying in ottawa, our next guest was actually arrested this weekend, released with no charges. david paisley. you said it was getting bad. we could see police with long guns. these arrests were down at gunpoint, right? >> yeah. it was very scary, they moved in very hard, very fast, very aggressively. in my own situation i've been working, serving the drivers on wellington street. these great men and women have become my brothers and sisters over the past three weeks. i was inside of a shed built on top of a truck seen in news coverage. i was running a channel live from the shed where we were broadcasting for our own safety, and the world could see what was watching. i was in the middle of that broadcast when i saw the police moving in, very hard, very fast.

i watched one of our drivers get thrown to the ground kneed multiple times by police officers. i heard the chaos. i sat inside of the shed on the couch. i waited, first thing i saw was the muzzle of a gun. an officer dressed in military type garb, and he charged into the shed and yelled at me to lay on the ground which i of course did. you can hear the audio in the live from the shed feed. i laid on the ground and was cuffed and removed from the shed. david: david, the extraordinary thing, you expect this kind of behavior in a police state, someplace like china. you don't expect it in a democracy like canada. i understand, you were released without charges. a police state, because they have that power, that undemocratic power, they don't need charges to arrest people. was there ever any charge applied against you by the police or by authorities

afterwards? >> it was such a strange process. i talked to a lawyer about it afterwards and he said in 20 years of law he never come across like it. after i was cuffed. i was passed from one officer to another to another and eventually down a line to a makeshift processing area outside and thankfully when i was finally passed to the last officer, she said, well, i have no information as to what happened here. so i'm going to let you go out charges but several of my friends ended up with less kind officers around had the book thrown at them. one of my friends received four charges which he will now have to fight. i was then -- i was then loaded into. david: the world is watching, excuse me for interrupting. largely the work you are doing or were doing the world is watching. one european parliament member is blasting canadian prime

minister justin trudeau who is behind this so-called emergency measure. let me roll the tape, get your reaction quickly. >> the prime minister of canada the way he is behaving right now he is exactly like a tyrant, a dictator. if you have any doubt about the vaccines you're out cast. what is the difference between what he does and what happened on the inquisition? david: david, the bottom line is provinces all over canada are phasing out vaccine mandates, not just in the west but quebec, announced they were phasing them out. they will be phased out completely by mid-march. so why did trudeau use heavy-handed tactics when he could compromise, federally we can do what the provinces are now doing? >> the key word there is compromise. this is a man whose obsessed with power. he is arrogant. owe prideful, and he refuses to compromise and refuses to communicate with his citizens. we're all simply hard-working

decent people, family men and women, business owners who have valid grievances about losing their jobs, not being able to see loved ones, take part fully in a free society. the irony of this whole police action, the very reason we're here. the government should not be able to with the stroke of a pen simply remove our rights and freedoms. david: absolutely. david paisley, we're glad you're okay. thanks very much for joining us. >> thank you so much, sir. david: of course. queen elizabeth tests positive for covid. she is okay. we wanted to emphasize that. she has mild flu-like symptoms. as british prime minister boris johnson prepares to lift all remaining covid restrictions in the uk. nigel farage gives us an update from london in the next hour. reports of virtual assault are surfacing in the in the metavers

the social experiment takes ground among gen-z. we'll talk about that coming up. ♪ ♪ ♪ wow, we're crunching tons of polygons here! what's going on? where's regina? hi, i'm ladonna. i invest in invesco qqq, a fund that gives me access to the nasdaq-100 innovations, like real time cgi. okay... yeah... oh. don't worry i got it! become an agent of innovation with invesco qqq

- i'm norm. - i'm szasz. [norm] and we live in columbia, missouri. we do consulting, but we also write. [szasz] we take care of ourselves constantly; it's important. we walk three to five times a week, a couple miles at a time. - we've both been taking prevagen for a little more than 11 years now. after about 30 days of taking it, we noticed clarity that we didn't notice before. - it's still helping me. i still notice a difference. prevagen. healthier brain. better life.

♪. david: if you're in a northern state like i am, you see people wait -- wading in the water, you think that must be video. no, no. that is live spot from clearwater beach, florida, people are swimming, sunny, 70-degrees there. eat your heart out, everybody. president trump's truth social dropped on the apple app store overnight. truth social will populate with new users who preordered the app over the next 10 days. listen to what trump media technology group ceo devin nunes

had to say about the launch. roll tape. >> this week we'll begin to roll out people on the apple app store. that is going to be awesome. we'll get so much more people that will be on the platform. then, look, our goal is, i think we'll hit it. by the end of march we'll be fully operational with at least within the united states. david: he was right. trump's truth social app topped downloads on apple app store. many users are having a lot of trouble registering to an account or on a wait list. we'll see what happens. apple is finding pressure on d.c. where a big tech crackdown is happening. susan what is going on? susan: the senate judiciary committee moved forward a bill looking closer at the apple app stores and 15 to 30% commissions take. david: wow. susan: apple won the lawsuit against another night maker epic

games over the they would allow apps to let users pay outside of the app store but the journal in this report over the weekend i saying ceo tim cook he picked up the phone to make direct calls to senators ted cruz and marsha blackburn. in terms of lobbying, apple spend as third of what say google facebook spent over the past year. as influential as tim cook making calls there is more influence there, right? >> that is a great point. susan: not just apple, google meta, facebook, amazon, d.c. crack down on big tech monopoly power. it is different for each company, facebook, social media, apple has nor to do with the marketplace. david: what is worrisome, it is bipartisan. one of the few things happening in a bipartisan level. susan: also google play store is involved in that senate judiciary vote as well. david: okay. susan, thank you very much. emersive social experience or

predators paradise? that is a the question metaverse is posing as they figure out how to protect kids online. our kelly o'grady has the story. what dangers could the metaverse post. that seems obvious. reporter: this could be worse in the new virtual world. we decided to go into the metaverse if you will to investigate those challenges first-hand and what we found is troubling to say the least. to be on the lack of age restrictions you can intentionally misrepresent yourself as a user. you see my avatar doesn't look anything like me. this is a predator's dream or paradise like you said. a bad actor could present themselves as completely harmless. also adult content is everywhere. virtual bars, casinos, nudity. imagine a 10-year-old sees the sign, mature content, you know what they will do. we had to blue them out. those are sexually explicit images. we have real world movie ratings and those boundaries don't exist

in the metaverse. there are reports of virtual sexual assault and nazi propaganda parties. we weren't able to film this i had sexually explicit things were said to me in the metaverse. they need to address the dangers before it is too late. >> i think certain places should be kind of ring fenced off of places that, people of a sensitive disposition, for whatever reason, should be unable to enter or else strongly dissuaded at least from entering. perhaps things like parental controls as well. reporter: hard to imagine this feeling real. to be honest the metaverse looks lick a rudimentary videogame. tech is evolving quickly. this should not be emersive as social media but psychologically more damaging. david, my avatar i struggled with that.

david: wow. i'm saying so glad my kids is broken up. at least now one has kids of their own. i'm a little concerned. kelly, thank you very much. we'll watch maria bartiromo host, "killer apps." a four episode special series. available today only on "fox nation." boy, maria is busy, isn't she? david: mean while a new york state bill would society limits on recommender increases or evictions. they say the so-called no eviction ever bill will devastate landlords and new york housing. at least six people have been stabbed inside of new york city's subway system the past two days after the city unveiled a new plan to combat transit crime. obviously it is not working. new york city councilmember, minority leader joe borelli is ♪.re to take that on coming next care. it has the power to change the way we see things. ♪♪

it inspires us to go further. ♪♪ it has our back. and goes out of its way to help. ♪♪ when you start with care, you get a different kind of bank. truist. born to care.

first psoriasis, then psoriatic arthritis. it was really holding me back. standing up... ...even walking was tough. my joints hurt. i was afraid things were going to get worse. i was always hiding, and that's just not me. not being there for my family, that hurt. woooo! i had to do something. i started cosentyx®. i'm feeling good. watch me. cosentyx helps people with psoriatic arthritis move, look, and feel better. it targets more than just joint pain and treats the multiple symptoms like joint swelling and tenderness, back pain, helps clear skin and helps stop further joint damage. don't use if you're allergic to cosentyx. before starting, get checked for tuberculosis. an increased risk of infections—some serious —and the lowered ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor about an infection or symptoms or if you've had a vaccine or plan to. tell your doctor if your crohn's disease symptoms develop or worsen. serious allergic reactions may occur. it's good to be moving on. watch me. move, look, and feel better.

ask your rheumatologist about cosentyx. ♪. david: this is hard to look at but you should take a look at this video, just to tell you how bad things have gotten in new york. it was obtained by "the new york post." a unhinged man with a history of attacking random strangers punching a four-year-old boy in the head this happened in times square. the suspect was arrested by the

nypd after he was tackled and taken down by the boy's mother and woman. this suspect, so often happens, has extensive rap sheet. 40 arrests three of them this year. he is being held by $30,000 bail. a lot of people say that is not enough. scheduled for a court hearing on wednesday. staying on crime in new york city. look at this concerning number. new york police city data, stabbings in new york city subways up 35% this year with several men and a woman stabbed on subways just this past weekend. meanwhile the big apple public transit saw 75.2% jump in crime year-over-year. bring in republican new york city councilmember minority leader joe borelli. joe, unfortunately there is a rich subject, so many to talk about here. this city cannot live or supported by the workforce we have without the subways, they have to, they have to get that

uncontrol? >> no, to give you a factual bracdown our new york city subways transport more people than any other public, all other public transit systems in the entire country, more than doubled. so it's fundamental to what new york is that people can travel safely to and from work via subways, via buses, via commuter rails. without those things we don't have a functioning city whatever. david: we don't have it, i would put the blame on city council and people in albany, legalizing thing so-called smaller crimes. the one thing that connects all the individuals arrested, virtually all of them, is an extensive rap sheet. their criminal backgrounds support as return to broken windows type of policing, if you get the smaller crimes, you end up getting the big crimes. >> it is almost impossible to find someone commits or alleged

to a commit a violent crime whether on a subway or street corner in this city without seeing a lengthy rap sheet that idea there is this person who suddenly and in a fit of passion turns to violent crime is just not reality. you saw this woman in that video with her 4-year-old child fending for what she believed what is her life. i'm a new yorker. i took my son on the subway last friday. i don't think my head has been on swivel since i played high school linebacker. this is the kind of world we're forced to live in, we can't reasonably assume that our public transit systems or our tourist packed neighborhoods like times square is safe. i went to an atm on friday night. the vestibule had four or five people living in it. david: right. >> this is city agreed to with we elect progressive democrats have the courage to tell us exactly what they will do vis-a-vis bail reform and soft on crime policies. david: times square was

epicenter of crime in the '70s, '80s. that is what rudy giuliani took on mayor in '93. he said i'm going to clean up. he did. we know how to china it up. we know how to china up the homeless problem as well. you send cops with social service operators, look we can find a job for you. we can find awe place to sleep for the night but you can't use the sidewalk as your bedroom and bathroom. you can't do that. and i don't see any politician willing to say that now. >> you had the mayor and governor actually saying the right things when they announced this subway -- david: but they're not doing it. >> whether they have the intestinal fortitude to follow through on it is the question but they said the right thing. subways are not treating any drug users. we're not treating the mentally ill on the subway systems. why should we allow the people to occupy and cause danger for anyone else? when they send police in, police force people to vacate the spots

that is a whole different story. we'll find out the answer in the next few weeks. david: joe, i have another one i want you to take on. there was a op-ed in "new york post," albany's no eviction ever bill, suggesting it would devastate landlords in new york's housing stock. this is the economic equivalent to defund the police or crt or catch-and-release. when a state becomes this divorced from reality, it is doomed to social and economic failure. what do you say? >> basically what this bill does is completely changes the balance in the eyes of the law between a tenant and a landlord. this state has been one of the ones favored the tenant always. now you're giving 100% of the rights, 100% of the power to the tenant who can essentially not pay rent, not comply, never vacate. it leaves the landlords powerless. this takes away every incentive to become a landlord, invest in new york city real estate. to want to fix your building, to

want to renovate apartments, it takes away all the incentives. it will have the opposite effect on sort of rental market some of the progressives think it will. this will make housing more expensive for those who actually pay. make it unaffordable for those who want affordable rents. david: joe borelli, why aren't you mayor? i don't understand. maybe eventually. joe borelli. thank you very much. still ahead nigel farage, steve forbes, and joe concha. the third hour of "varney & company" is next. ♪. ♪ ♪ it's electric... made extraordinary. ingenuity... in motion.

... eels anything but artificial. the eqs from mercedes-benz. it's the car electric has been waiting for.

>> all eyes in the immediate future, all market eyes are focused on what's happening with ukraine and russia. it's critically important as an investor not to lose your head here. >> there's still time to re evaluate but mentally, you've got to invest and if there will be a tomorrow. >> we have to defend members of the alliance, because if we don't, then, no one in the alliance is safe. >> under donald trump, it was quite a seismic shift. we wouldn't put boys and girls in harms way, our young men and women in the military unless we could ascertain the american

interest. ♪ david: from matt schlapp to janet jackson, we cover the waterfront on "varney" don't we it's 11 a.m. on the east coast, on this monday, president's day, february 21. i'm david asman, in for stuart varney on the president's day. the markets are closed today but let's check the futures and they are down, they are about where they've been for the most part of the morning, although they were fluctuations early on but the nasdaq really taking it on the chin, it's down 1.3%, not so bad on the dow and the s&p, but they are both down significantly as well. show me bitcoin, if you can, because they were down over 1,000, they are still, although they recovered a little bit from earlier, but they're down two and three-quarters of a percent to 38, 850 for a coin. now president biden agreed in principle to meet with russia's vladimir putin but only if russia does not invade ukraine. it comes as senator ted cruz

blames biden for what's going on over sees. >> i finally last month i forced a vote in the united states senate on sanctions on nord stream 2. every single democrat in the senate had voted for my sanctions legislation twice previously, ironically while at the same time they were calling filibuster a jim crow racist relic from the past. that same day, they were filibustering to protect russia and putin and 44 democrats gave into political pressure from the biden white house they voted in favor of russia, against sanctions. joe biden becoming president is the best thing that ever happened tragically for vladimir putin. david: well charlie hurt joining me to discuss all of this. charlie: it wasn't a conservative republican suggesting or saying this but chuck todd of all people on " meet the press" yesterday asked a question to his panel and stopped the panel cold for a

millisecond until they sort of figured out what was going on but he said, why didn't this happen when donald trump was president? he is sort of begging the question that we heard an answer from, with senator cruz. >> yeah, it's really, it's kind of the most obvious thing and as usual, the most obvious thing is often overlooked by a lot of the people, a lot of the media in washington, but it is, you know, there's a reason that the last time vladimir putin did something like this was the last time joe biden was in office with barack obama when he invaded crimea, and when you have, you know, clear lines setup under a trump policy like america first, in which you expect other countries to have their policy setup so that they have their country first, you wind up with an adversary relationship that actually, you know, ingenders strength and from that peace.

david: you're also getting these mixed messages, you know, on the one hand, we're using, we're going to use sanctions if he invades. on the other hand he is invading we had 100% answer from president biden late last week, they are kind of trying to walk that back a little but it reminds me of the mixed messages that we're getting before the afghan withdrawal. >> yeah, it's really strange, especially when you consider according to the biden administration, ukraine is this huge allie of ours. if there's such a huge allie of there's, there's an enormous amount of discrepancy between what joe biden is saying and what the ukrainians are saying, and of course, the ukrainians are exactly right. sanctions aren't going to help them after an invasion. the sanctions work before an invasion, and the trump policy of opposing the nord stream 2 pipeline, for example, is one of those , it's a perfect example of that, where you hold

the stick until you get what you want before you give the carrot , and the biden administration the first thing they do is give the carrot by removing the sanctions on the pipeline. that's no way to do foreign policy. it's not only does it weaken america, it's confusing to your opponent. david: yeah, well, actually, we had ambassador volcker on, sometimes it's good to be confusing to your opponent. he said one reason that putin didn't do it during trump was because they were never sure exactly what trump was going to do but they were sure when he did it, he would do what he said and he would go in hard. he showed in syria when he killed a couple hundred russian mercenaries et cetera. >> trump was the master of being crazy like a fox. biden is crazy, but he does not appear to be crazy like a fox. david: right. i want to switch gears and bring it back home. capitol fencing is coming back, around, this is in preparation

for the state of the union address, which is coming in early march. is that really necessary after everything that it symbolized last january? >> where you had even democrats , you know, capitol hill is populated with 95% democrat voters and the real reason that that fence came down is because the residents of that , they didn't like living under marshall law which of course -- my goodness another example of this extreme disconnect between washington and the rest of the country, when you see fences go up in a place like washington d.c. around the capitol, and meanwhile we have a wide open border to the south, which people actually care about, it just sort of, it bakes in this idea that leaders in washington have no concept what actually matters to americans, and it's the same thing we're seeing in ukraine right now. the idea that we're going to send troops into ukraine to protect their border while

democrats in congress and in the white house have no regard whatsoever for protecting our own borders, it just shows this enormous disconnect that, let's say that the best idea here is for america to be the world's policeman, and to go and force ukraine's boarders. if that's what we want to do, if that's what democrat politicians want to do, well then do it here first and show that we are strong enough to protect our own border before we go protecting somebody else's border and there's just, they don't care. they won't even do the simplest homework. david: well-said charlie hurt thank you very much my friend good to see you. well economists at jpmorgan say the fed is likely to raise interest rates by 25 basis points at every meeting until next year. that's nine hikes in a row, but this is a big but, it would still leave rates lagging way behind inflation. steve forbes joins me now. steve, we remember paul volcker who licked inflation in the

early 80s with rates that were way above inflation. could we lick it with rates that will still be way below inflation? >> no, and you don't fight inflation, conquer inflation just with interest rates. back in the 1970s before volcker came in, we had raised interest rates numerous times but inflation was bad because they were always behind the curve. a key to fighting inflation monetary inflation, david, is stop creating too much money, which the fed is still printing up, using a device borrowing money overnight, $1.6 trillion, who knows when that dam is going to break and the other thing of course is supply chains which this administration whether it's energy policies, trying to put price controls in the internet again, wherever they turn they're trying to hubble supply chains rather than trying to let them re-heal and get the economy back on its feet. david: the fed let's face it is monetizing the debt debt to put a phrase to it? >> that's right why they have been buying into recently $120 billion of bonds each month , where do they get the

money to pay those bonds , the atm, they create out of thin air and borrow that back from the banks overnight. that kind of gimmickry ultimately fails so we're getting the supply chain inflation now, a little bit of monetary inflation but the way the federal reserve is going we could get a serious recession in 2023, because of excess monetary creations. david: well the biggest gimmick , if you want to talk about gimmicks, monetary orifice call gimmicks, is the idea that spending trillions of dollars more will lower inflation. that's weird, luckily senator joe manchin didn't buy it, and the bbb plan got killed at least for now, but you say that we are still moving towards socialism not through legislation, but through regulation. explain. >> well that's right. you don't have to take something over to make sure that that entity can't survive without your permission. we see it with freight railroads we have the finest freight railroad system in the world. now this administration is coming in and putting on controls, that it's going to wreck that system. you see it to in the internet we

got rid of this , they want to put price controls back on. we see it in energy, where the waging war against the energy industry. they don't have to take it over just make sure that it is hubble d, no more pipelines so everywhere you go whether it's pension socialism and the like, trying to tell companies how to run their companies because you own a lot of stock in them, other people's money that you are managing, but back as they seem to think that gives you the right to tell companies how to run themself. wherever you look they are trying to do it through regulation and it's a dangerous thing that needs to be called to account. david: steve forbes good to see you thank you so much, appreciate it. >> thank you. david: well, elon musk is responding to senator elizabeth warren after she publicly shamed him over his taxes, roll tape. >> elon musk 2018 we've actually seen his tax returns, do you know how much he paid in taxes one of the richest people in the world? zero. david: but wait for it. ashley webster is here, and you

better believe mr. musk has something to say about that, right? ashley: well, he does. firstly, he says elizabeth warren needs to get her facts straight, as you saw in that interview last week, senator warren telling cnn, he doesn't pay any taxes. zero. she added that musk and amazon founder jeff bezos managed to avoid paying taxes, she says, by using stocks as a work-around, making sure they have no official income, so, what does elon musk say? well, he says not only does he pay taxes, but he made history with his tax payments last year. musk has owed $11 billion in taxes after trading tesla shares , he also says hey, there you go, the next time in d.c., just to say hi, since i paid the most taxes ever in history by an individual, maybe i'll get a cookie or something like that, so there you have it, you know, $11 billion in taxes and elizabeth warren says pay your fair share. come on. david: you know, i don't month

much about math but i do know that 11 billion is more than zero, that's all i can say, but -- ashley: you're right. david: ashley thank you very much. now this new calls to cancel a marvel movie star after she defended the canadian trucker protest. we've got that story, and britain's queen elizabeth is diagnosed with covid she's doing fine, thank you but as the uk prepares to drop all restriction s it's an interesting story, nigel farage has the latest from london, and president biden has agreed to meet with putin as early as this week but only if russia does not invade ukraine. we're live at the ground in ukraine, next.

this isn't just freight. these aren't just shipments. they're promises. promises of all shapes and sizes. each, with a time and a place they've been promised to be. a promise is everything to old dominion, because it means everything to you.

first psoriasis, then psoriatic arthritis. it was really holding me back. standing up... ...even walking was tough. my joints hurt. i was afraid things were going to get worse. i was always hiding, and that's just not me. not being there for my family, that hurt. woooo! i had to do something. i started cosentyx®. i'm feeling good. watch me. cosentyx helps people with psoriatic arthritis move, look, and feel better.

it targets more than just joint pain and treats the multiple symptoms like joint swelling and tenderness, back pain, helps clear skin and helps stop further joint damage. don't use if you're allergic to cosentyx. before starting, get checked for tuberculosis. an increased risk of infections—some serious —and the lowered ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor about an infection or symptoms or if you've had a vaccine or plan to. tell your doctor if your crohn's disease symptoms develop or worsen. serious allergic reactions may occur. it's good to be moving on. watch me. move, look, and feel better. ask your rheumatologist about cosentyx.

david: and now this , president biden has agreed in principle to meet with russia's president vladimir putin but only if russia doesn't invade ukraine. steve harrigan is in kiev with the very latest there, steve? reporter: david we've been watching russian president vladimir putin today in a pretty grim meeting with his security council. he made some serious complaints about the fact that the u.s. and the rest had pretty much ignored the complaints that russia had about nato expansion in europe and in particular, the possibility of ukraine ever joining nato. here is president putin. >> accepting ukraine into nato will increase the threats to our country, because of article v of the treaty it's clear that all parties to the alliance must fight on the side of one of their members if it is subjected to some kind of aggression.

reporter: putin also said he would decide by the end of the day today whether or not russia would recognize two semi- independent states inside ukraine. these are two regions run by breakaway separatists backed by russia. russia has made a lot of claims and these separatists made a lot of claims they say ukraine has been shelling them, ukraine has been committing genocide against the russian people, ukraine fighters have even crossed the border to fire into russia. now none of these claims, there's been no evidence presented and ukraine has denied them all. this could be merely a pre-text for larger invasion for russia. if russia does recognize the independence of these two breakaway states that could lead to much wider fighting in east of ukraine. david, back to you. david: steve harrigan thank you for your reporting there appreciate it. well, now this the u.s. would reportedly cut ties with russian banks if you crane is invaded. come in, ash. so that order would come from the white house directly, no?

ashley: that's right according to reports president biden is prepared to unleash a package of sanctions that basically includes stopping u.s. banks from processing transactions for major russian banks. the measures, as you say, would only be triggered if russia invades ukraine and would deal a big blow to the russian economy by cutting what's called the correspondent banking relationships between those targeted russian banks and u.s. banks and of course the international flow of global money. it is unclear which russian banks will be targeted, but it would make it very difficult for them to conduct business in u.s. dollars where much of the global trade is transacted in those dollars. another aim though, reportedly, is to trigger inflation and force the russian central bank to provide bank bail-outs but again, only if russia invades ukraine. david? david: oh, trigger inflation. that doesn't sound good thank, ash, appreciate it. now, this. britain's prime minister boris johnson has a very chilling warning about russia and the

ukraine. roll tape. >> i'm afraid to say that the plan that we're seeing is for something that could be really the biggest war in europe since 1945 and just in terms of shear scale. david: nigel farage joins me now, nigel thank you for being here, how are brits reacting? this is a very serious warning for boris johnson. >> yes, it really is. the biggest potential conflict in europe since 1945, we have the american administration telling us they are going to start invading tonight, tomorrow , the night after, the french acting similarly. i mean the real war mongering language is actually coming from us. it's not coming from the ukrainian government who are actually as cold as a cucumber through all of this , and it makes you wonder firstly, is it useful for the british prime minister in syria's trouble in the polls and american president

whose own ratings are bombing and the french president with an election in a few week's time to talk out the threat of war so that when they are oh, when it was our diplomacy that calls a compromise, or is it? their complete unwillingness to recognize that despite all of this gangsterism and terrible behavior, who actually has a very valid point, i may say, which they refuse to concede and that is the ever-eastward expansion of nato makes no sense for us at all. david: so where is this going to end then, nigel? i mean, the warnings that really dire warnings that i have heard are that putin's interest extend even beyond ukraine, whether it's maybe it's not eastern europe, maybe it's not poland but he's expressed interest in the baltics which are members, unlike ukraine, of nato, and that would trigger a sort of action on our part. do you believe that that's true,

because putin himself back last august suggested so, in an article he wrote. >> with the baltic states that be a completely insane act, even with an american president whose commitment to the global community is under question, but isn't it bizarre? trump goes, in comes biden because america is back, and we're all asking the question, is america back? i have no doubt if it came to the baltic states, we would all collectively have to act, but to allow ukraine to join nato, literally be poking the russian bail with a stick and strategically makes no sense to me whatsoever and while no one amongst us will say that i just don't know, and i don't say these things, david, as a supporter of putin, but actually , in geopolitical terms,

leaving a state makes sense for both sides and would takeaway immediately from putin any validity whatsoever he would have to launch this. david: nigel are the brits and the rest of europe a bit concerned about some of the mixed messaging, the same kind of mixed messaging we saw going into the afghanistan withdrawal, going into the situation last week, the end of last week, we heard biden say that yes, we were definitely going to see an invasion and we're saying but we still need to negotiate. why do you negotiate if you're going to see an invasion? there's mixed messaging going on >> well what the americans told us, at 1:00 a.m. british time last wednesday, the invasion would start and it didn't happen , don't surprise yourself when huge numbers of people in britain and europe say can we believe a single word the biden administration says and one of the five events that have taken place over the last year is that

the american leadership of the west unquestioned since the end of the 1940s is now in some doubt. david: nigel i want to leave on a slightly positive note. we only have 30 seconds, but you uk seems to be recognizing we are at the end of this pandemic and appears despite the fact that your queen has contracted covid, she has a very mild case i'm told unless you have any information of the contrary, but i think it's good. uk could go from a negative model in terms of how to deal with the pandemic to a positive one if in fact they go ahead and release all these restrictions, no? >> well our magnificent queen has contracted covid, she's continuing to work on her papers she's a wonderful wonderful woman, possibly the most admired human being living in the world today, and with justification, and whatever criticisms i may have of boris johnson and this government, we've got this right. our restrictions end today,

completely, utterly, it's now up to us, as individuals to exercise our own judgment and responsibility, hooray, justin trudeau and others, please take note. david: well exactly and on this point, i would encourage our leaders to mimick what is happening now in the uk. thank you so much, great to see you, nigel appreciate you being here and now a rookie winning the day tobey keith a 500 in a photo finish, roll tape >> cindric will bring them to the lane why up high and cindric beats by half a car length and they crash going into turn one. david: that is a photo finish we got more highlights from the big race coming up meanwhile nearly 200 people under arrest as police clear the freedom convoy from the streets of ottawa, but some truckers say, they're not done protesting grady trimble is in a live report from canada, next.

♪ i'm ben affleck and i want to thank you for joining me and supporting paralyzed veterans of america. i joined the navy to serve my country as a navy seal. i wanted to protect the people i love and the country i love. being a seal gave me so many things, but i gave something too. while parachuting with my platoon, my parachute didn't open. i broke my neck. it left me paralyzed. i realized that

everything i had planned for was now gone. paralyzed veterans of america was by my side from that moment on. since 1946, paralyzed veterans of america has kept a promise to our wounded veterans. we will never leave a fallen comrade behind. our vets need you. join me with your support. please call or go online now to pva hero.org. your gift of only $19 a month - just 63 cents a day, will provide the life-saving help our paralyzed heroes need now. with your monthly support, you're honoring the sacrifice our wounded veterans have made to defend our freedom. show them their sacrifice has not been in vain. your monthly support will help paralyzed veterans receive specialized medical care, support research and treatments, and fight for the accessibility they deserve. pva fights to help veterans like me from the moment of injury and for the rest of our lives. call or go online right

now with your gift of just $19 a month. use your credit card and receive this pva team t-shirt to show that you are fighting for our paralyzed veterans. i just don't think my family would be as happy as they are without the support that i received from paralyzed veterans of america. our veterans fought for us. let's fight for them. call or donate online at pvahero.org today. our veterans need you. trelegy for copd. [coughing] ♪ birds flyin' high, you know how i feel. ♪ ♪ breeze driftin' on by... ♪ if you've been playing down your copd,... ♪ it's a new dawn, it's a new day,... ♪ ...it's time to make a stand. start a new day with trelegy. ♪...and i'm feelin' good. ♪ no once-daily copd medicine... has the power to treat copd in as many ways as trelegy. with three medicines in one inhaler,

trelegy helps people breathe easier and improves lung function. it also helps prevent future flare-ups. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. do not take trelegy more than prescribed. trelegy may increase your risk of thrush, pneumonia, and osteoporosis. call your doctor if worsened breathing, chest pain, mouth or tongue swelling, problems urinating, vision changes, or eye pain occur. take a stand and start a new day with trelegy. ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy, and save at trelegy.com. and it's easy to get a quote at libertymutual.com so you only pay for what you need. isn't that right limu? limu? sorry, one sec. doug blows a whistle. [a vulture squawks.] oh boy. only pay for what you need. ♪liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty♪ ♪ i want to reach out and grab you ♪ david: my kind of town chicago

is it's 40 degrees today, not so cold for the windy city. well if you like the music played in the show make sure to follow "varney" & company on spotify, frankly, it's one of my favorite collections of music on this show, i just love it. it's free to download, you can do that for free. now this , ottawa police have arrested nearly 200 freedom convoy protesters, grady trimble is on the ground in ottawa, with what happens now, grady? reporter: well, david, police are still blocking off the main road that goes to the parliament buildings, wellington street, a couple of days ago this would have been filled with trucks, but police moved in on the weekend, starting on friday, and continued into saturday, when they returned on saturday, they were wearing helmets and face shields and carried batons, and now, the police oversight agency here in canada is looking into two instances of police force on those protesters. one involves a woman who was 49

years old who was seriously hurt by mounted police officers, of course riding horses. the second involves the use of less lethal rounds by police, things like tear gas canisters and rubber bullets, around 200 people, as you alluded to, were arrested, about half of those are facing charges. the charges are generally obstruction and mischief-related and meanwhile, while they deal with this here in canada, capitol police in our nations capitol are gearing up for a similar convoy, that could reportedly move in around the time of president biden's state of the union address, so they've closed roads and according to reports will be putting up temporary fences around the capitol building because of that potential convoy moving in. prime minister justin trudeau is still under fire here in canada from the conservative party for invoking that emergencies act. he's speaking right now. he said it was necessary to put

in place to clear the protesters and that it's necessary to keep it in place right now, because he says the federal government here has received intelligence there could be other protests and other border blockades. of course the emergencies act allowed the federal government and banks to freeze more than 200 accounts, david, containing millions of dollars without a warrant so sweeping federal powers used to clear these protesterses but you can see here today it has been done. david: grady trimble thank you very much for that report, grady well, new calls to cancel marvel actress aevngeline lilly. ash, why are fans upset? ashley: david the actress had an audacity to express an opinion on twitter supporting the canadian trucker movement, lilly whose a native of canada called for justin trudeau to sit down face to face with the truck drivers protesting those vaccine mandates and hear their voices take a listen.

>> i want to speak to you today about your current approach to and treatment of our fellow canadians protesting your federal vaccine mandates. why won't you sit with them? ashley: well that's simple enough. what she also, by the way, rail ed against what she calls corporate media outlets, smearing the truckers as racist and that kicked the cancel culture crowd into high gear calling for marvel to have lilly replaced in the atman franchise but it should be pointed out there were many others who gave her their support and by the way , her right to have an opinion, even if you don't agree with it. david: there is that. there is that, ashley thank you very much appreciate it. well david marcus joins us now, he was right there where all of the action was happening in canada all last week so david first question, is it all over now? >> i think the specific action in ottawa that we saw does seem to be over, it doesn't mean that people couldn't come back, but

yeah, the trucks are gone, it seems like the protesterses are gone, i think it's important to note the core was never more than a few hundred people on the weekends thousands would come to show their support, but this was a relatively small group of truckers who, you know, blew their horns and it was heard throughout the world, so i think they achieved a lot of what they were looking to achieve, and it does appear that this part of it for now is over. david: one thing that is reverberateing is prime minister trudeau's calling for the emergency act, the use of the emergency act. it's reverberating throughout the country, even some people who supported some of his actions against the truckers don't like the fact that he did that, correct? >> oh, absolutely. i mean, the fact of the matter is there was no emergency. i was walking around for several days, right in the middle of this and there was no danger. i think very tellingly, many of the stores were closed. none of them were boarded up, and that's really an organic

sign of whether or not the shop owners and these companies were really fearful of the protesters and they clearly weren't and yeah, conservative politicians in canada who were a little scared of associating too much with the truckers are going full bore down trudeau on this emergency act that he invoked. david: well and now we have, forgive me, but we have the premier of alberta, jason kenny, whose actually taking, he's suing the federal government and prime minister trudeau for their use of the emergency act, so this will go into the courts. >> oh, absolutely. i mean, this really was a sledgehammer where this could have been taken care of, i think especially with regard to the financial penalties going in and seizing people's bank accounts, without a court order. that's scary stuff and i think that that reverberates well

beyond canada towards, you know, situations that we've seen in the united states. david: yeah, as well as it should. now, because different provinces have said that they're going to phase out these vaccine mandates , doesn't it make this trucker mandate even more ridiculous than a lot of people said it was to begin with, because they are in a cab, by themselves for goodness sakes. it's not an office space, and since they're getting them not only in the west, but also in quebec, they announced they are going to be phasing out the vax mandates, quickly. >> yeah, absolutely. i mean, it looks like the truckers have won a lot of concessions here, even though the government claims that it's not because of them, but yeah, they put a focus on this , and as you say, a lot of the restrictions are coming down so i think they can count that as a win. david: david marcus good to see you i appreciate your reporting as well thank you very much for being here. now this , if you're wondering how the media is going to be covering this november's mid-term elections look no further than how reporters treat

stacey abrams that's accorng to joe concha, and baseball is restarting labor negotiations today. they could still get the season off in time, if a deal is reached by the end of the month, but are they any closer to an agreement, connell mcshane has the very latest coming up next. ♪ swing batter batter swing batter batter swing ♪

for investors who can navigate this landscape, leveraging gold, a strategic and sustainable asset... the path is gilded with the potential for rich returns. ♪ life in the fast lane, sure to make you lose your mind ♪ david: well it's kind of a lazy lane right there at the beach but daytona beach, they know their fast lanes in daytona that's for sure it's 75 degrees there, by the way, now this , nasdaq dayton driver austin cind ric just won his first daytona 500 come in, ash

give me the details a photo finish incredible. ashley: oh, was it ever? it's called the great american race and this is daytona 500 certainly didn't disappoint with plenty of action, austin cedric crossing the finish line in first place following a two-lap overtime shootout that came after two yellow flag crashes in the final 10 laps and get this , austin etched out bubba wallace, i love that, by just .03 seconds, so by a nose that be by a fender, i guess, in nascar, by the way, the pre-race favorite kyle larson crashing out of the race with just 10 laps to go for the 500 we should also mention, fox corporation executive chairman and ceo lachl an murdock served as the honorary starter of the 64th running of the race in front of a completely soldout venue which would mean well-over 100,000 people. david: oh, wow that a lot of folks ash thank you very much appreciate it.

well, the mlb meanwhile, says no spring training games will be played until at least march 5 as the league and players union have agreed to meet more often to try to work out some kind of deal. connell mcshane is here with me now, so is opening day going to be pushed back? connell: if you think abet, david, this week is really going to decide all that because opening day is march 31, and today is what february 21, they say they have to get a deal by the 28th of february, in order to have enough time to get ready for march 31 so they don't get something this week they are in big trouble. now the good news is such as it is, they have agreed to get together as early this afternoon in jupiter, florida looking at pictures we shot last week as a matter of fact when it was supposed to be the first day of spring training but all we had in front of us was an empty stadium. now all the negotiators from both sides are getting together in that area today, they will have multiple meetings this week , and they might even meet everyday. we'll see how that works. the way it worked last week they

had a meeting on thursday lasted like 15 minutes and broke up and then friday major league baseball put a statement out i'll read part of that for you. that's when they officially delayed spring training saying we regret that without a collective bargaining agreement in place we must postpone the start of spring training games no earlier than saturday, march 5. all clubs unified and strong desire to bring the players back to the field, get the fans back in the stands. here is the thing, david. we can talk all day about the issues they don't agree on. there's a bunch of them and a couple that stand out something called the competitive balance where if a team spends a certain amount of money over that they get taxed, and the owners say well this is the only way we can contain kind of run-away spending. david: level the playing field. connell: the players say listen this is what your salary cap without calling it that. so if the owners don't come down on their rates i found it hard to believe they have an agreement in place their tax rates. that's one. the other thing the players really want their young stars to get paid more, so they have this agreement in principle to have a bonus pool, where they would pool the money together,

from the general revenues, and pay the young players more, problem is, they are really apart, tens of millions apart on how much money to put in the pool so those are things to watch, i'll try to check in with both sides before coming down they started their meetings yet. i was told it be early afternoon today but they basically have a week otherwise they start missing regular season games. david: from your gut, you gotta tell me, is it going to happen some are we going to open when we should? connell: if i had a gun to your head right now you'd say probably not they will delay at least the start of the regular season. that said, you know, even in a business you follow these labor agreements, discussions, it always looks terrible, right until it doesn't, right? and then at the end sometimes they work something out. david: they are betting on that question in las vegas. you just changed the odds. connell thank you very much. now this a mother confronting a school board for violating their own mask rules and posting pictures online, roll tape. >> a picture of you right here

on facebook, with a crowd of people, that's it, with no mask on. this is my time. >> no. david: she called the cops on that lady, joe concha, he is here next to react to all of this , coming up. ♪ your shipping manager left to “find themself.” leaving you lost. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire imagine getting $150,000 dollars...

for one year of epic adventures... in a new dodge hellcat... and you don't even have to quit your day job. dodge has created the sweetest gig ever - aka chief donut maker. you'll go from dodge fan to dodge ambassador this is a once in a lifetime opportunity, and anyone can apply. you just need to show you have the drive. are you our new chief donut maker?

if you're a small business, there are lots of choices are you our new when it comes to your internet and technology needs. but when you choose comcast business internet, you choose the largest, fastest reliable network. you choose advanced security for total peace of mind. and you choose fiber solutions with speeds up to 10 gigs to the most small businesses. that's virtually everywhere we serve. the choice is clear: make your business future ready with the network from the most innovative company. comcast business. powering possibilities™. first psoriasis, then psoriatic arthritis. even walking was tough. i had to do something. i started cosentyx®. cosentyx can help you move, look, and feel better... by treating the multiple symptoms of psoriatic arthritis. don't use if you're allergic to cosentyx. before starting...get checked for tuberculosis. an increased risk of infections some serious... and the lowered ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor about an infection or symptoms... or if you've had a vaccine or plan to. tell your doctor if your crohn's disease symptoms...

develop or worsen. serious allergic reactions may occur. watch me. david: well you heard it here first from nigel farage, now it's official uk prime minister boris johnson just announced all restrictions have been lifted from covid. he also says they must scale back on testing so looks like this time, we really might be of course we've been disappointed before but it really looks like we're approaching the end of the pandemic, and we hope folks here take notice. meanwhile, we're going to take a look at an op-ed in the hill, as we look at first of all we look at the markets here. we have u.s. futures down significantly, nasdaq is down about 1.5%, s&p 500 is down almost a percentage point and dow jones futures are down about half a percent. now let's take a look at this op-ed in the hill, it reads

, "media embrace of stacey abrams is a preview of 2022 to 2024 election coverage." the author of that piece is our own joe concha. is joe concha here? okay we're trying to get joe concha hooked up. all right, let's take a look at bitcoin while waiting for joe. he's in the wings as we say here we maybe close to the end of the pandemic but we still are operating on pandemic time here. bitcoin is down about 1,100 bucks right now, it's trading at 38, 800 it's one of the things that we'll be watching very closely and opening tomorrow, all the big tech is down in pre- market activity, as we can see apple is down about half a percentage point, amazon is down about three-quarters of a point and joe concha is here now, joining me with more details joe good to see you, are you all checked in there? >> oh, i'm all checked in, i'm multi-tasking as we speak, but i

told the other folks i've not as man online 2 i've gotta go now. david: thank you so much i appreciate that. let's talk first stacey abrams. what is happening with stacey abrams and with the past she's had as checkered as many of her comments are with statements that one could say were untruthful, what's happening in the coverage of stacey abrams run? >> well, it's remarkable, she trails both her potential republican opponents down in georgia anywhere from four to seven points. she lost her last election when she ran for governor in 2018 as you know, david, lost by something like 55,000 votes yet would not concede and continues to insist that the election was stolen from her. we've heard this rhetoric before and not just with, you know, donald trump but also with hillary clinton. people forget in 2016, that hillary clinton said that the russians put donald trump in the white house and that he was an illegitimate president and it

kept getting echoed by the media she wasn't challenged and two-thirds of democratic voters a poll found two years after the election thought the russian s actually changed vote totals to put donald trump in office. this is incredible, so with abrams she could say all these things yet you can't find a bigger media darling that has hit the scene since michael avan ati, and despite the fact she's saying that elections are stolen from her, and that there's voter suppression going on in georgia, where she really doesn't have anything tangible to back it up so this is a preview of things to come with abrams who likes going to schools apparently but is really for masking your kids i can imagine 2022 and 2024 we'll get the same kind of coverage where it's overwhelming ly against the republican candidate in favor of the democratic candidate. david: she also by the way backed off of earlier comments where before the atlanta loss the mlb because of misinformation that came out of the president, she seemed to support the boycott against, i heard a lot of businesses in atlanta but i just, before we go

i want to switch to one subject getting a lot of attention, as well it should. a school board member in virginia storming out of a public meeting after a parent confronted her with maskless photos of her in public that was on her facebook page. let's watch. roll tape. >> this is a picture of you, right here, on facebook, with a crowd of people -- >> that's it. >> with no mask on. this is my time. >> no. >> here is another picture with you with no mask on. >> i'm sorry, you are done. can we have a police officer, please? david: the sort of knee jerk reaction by public officials to call a police officer, this is not a police state. you have to be charged with something. that woman did nothing wrong, but immediately, the knee jerk response, call a cop. >> i felt like i was watching the old tim russert, from a while ago when he used to do " meet the press" when it was a good show would just simply playback a politicians words to them and point out the hypocrisy and say okay basically defend

your comments that you said three months ago, sir, or man, compared to what you're saying now and it was great journalism. that is a citizen journalist there basically saying okay, here is a picture of you without a mask. here is another picture of you in a crowd without a mask. what do you have to say about that and instead the reaction from the school board member is can we get a police officer? arrest her for what? for being awesome? i mean, she brought the goods and we saw during the super bowl , david with newsom and garc etti, all these democratic leaders and celebrit ies while there's a marching band with masks on outside the stadium while indoor s they are partying pointing out the hypocrisy and our media should be doing that to every democrat leader over and over again when caught doing this but instead they basically get a pass and it's no longer an issue. david: just a point of order the picture the woman was holding up was placed on facebook by the woman she was pinpointing. we've gotta leave it apt that joe concha, good to see you my friend thank you very much. time for the trivia question on president's day, how many u.s. presidents descended from

mayflower passengers you see the options, the answer coming up. i'm so glad we did this. i'm so glad we did this. i'm so glad we did this. i'm so glad we did this. i'm so... ...glad we did this. [kid plays drums] life is for living. . . i'm ben affleck and i want to thank you for joining me and supporting paralyzed veterans of america. i joined the navy to serve my country as a navy seal. i wanted to protect the people i love and the country i love. being a seal gave me so many things, but i gave something too. while parachuting with my platoon, my parachute didn't open. i broke my neck. it left me paralyzed. i realized that

everything i had planned for was now gone. paralyzed veterans of america was by my side from that moment on. since 1946, paralyzed veterans of america has kept a promise to our wounded veterans. we will never leave a fallen comrade behind. our vets need you. join me with your support. please call or go online now to pva hero.org. your gift of only $19 a month - just 63 cents a day, will provide the life-saving help our paralyzed heroes need now. with your monthly support, you're honoring the sacrifice our wounded veterans have made to defend our freedom. show them their sacrifice has not been in vain. your monthly support will help paralyzed veterans receive specialized medical care, support research and treatments, and fight for the accessibility they deserve. pva fights to help veterans like me from the moment of injury and for the rest of our lives.

call or go online right now with your gift of just $19 a month. use your credit card and receive this pva team t-shirt to show that you are fighting for our paralyzed veterans. i just don't think my family would be as happy as they are without the support that i received from paralyzed veterans of america. our veterans fought for us. let's fight for them. call or donate online at pvahero.org today. our veterans need you.

david: before the break we asked how many u.s. presidents descended from mayflower passengers on this presidents' day? there are the options, from three to 20, nine in the middle. turns out the nine empty middle is the right answer. they are john and john quincy adams, father and son, boring

and george bush, calvin coolidge, ulysses grant, zachary taylor. that is the list of them. very happy presidents' day, glad you can join us. look who is here now to take it away for us. neil: now who is here, neil cavuto. jackie: thank you for you will your hard work, i heard you work long days. neil: i thought it was easy work. jackie: i'm neil cavuto, substituting for neil cavuto. really enjoyed david asman, jackie deangelis and ashley webster hosting this show, sandra smith and charles payne, edward lawrence hosting on fox news. my thanks to each and all of