of that. the white house in advance of these talks likes to say it's going to go and give a lecture to the chinese and tell them what they can and can't do in reality, they're there to receive insults and instructions just like in alaska where they sat on their hands and chinese diplomats said we'll erase this country and the americans said nothing back so it's more like that i'm afraid. maria: yeah, and they responded their chinese overlords in the past. joe concha, christian whiten, thank you so much, "varney" & company begins right now. stu take it away. stuart: good morning, everyone. president biden is holding a high stakes virtual meeting with china's xi-jinping. at issue, how much help will china give to russia, as the war in ukraine grinds on. russia needs money, electronics and weapons. if china gives putin what he wants, beijing could face trade and financial sanctions and that be a big escalation. in ukraine, the russians launch ed missiles at an airport near lviv. this is the city that's being

flooded with ukrainians trying to escape the bombing elsewhere. the attacking lviv is another escalation, but russian forces are bogged down. they still aren't fully surround ed kyiv and british intelligence calls it a faulter ing invasion with putin 's soldiers running short of food and gas, secretary of state blinken has "real concerns that russia could use chemical weapons" that is surely another escalation. the war and the china are the back drop to today's market action, stocks mostly lower this morning after yesterday's rally i should tell you that the nasdaq at this point, before the opening bell, is up 6% this week. the dow is going to be down about 170, down on the s&p 28, maybe, and 100 points lower for the nasdaq, some selling today. bitcoin holding right at 40, 50 a coin, oil still well-above $100 a barrel now quoted at

103.43. gasoline, not coming down much, a lot of people upset about that the national average for a gallon of regular pegged at $ 4.27. well, there is another news. covid is now rampant in parts of asia. hong kong and south korea reporting a surge. new cases rising in britain as well, and second gentlemen doug emhoff earlier tested positive in response to all of this dr. fauci says we might have to, his words, pivot back to restrictions. it's friday, march 18, 2022, two days until spring starts. it's going to be 70 degrees in new york city today. pretty good. "varney" & company is about to begin. >> the western city of lviv is under attack, or was under attack overnight. it's the first attack on this city. we'll get to that in just a

moment but first, president biden is about to begin a call with china's xi-jinping. lauren? what do you know about this call lauren: well, biden needs to send a very clear message. putin must fall, china cannot help him financially or militarily and nuclear blackmail will not work whether to sideline the u.s. and ukraine , or taiwan. the pentagon estimates china has built its nuclear warhead stockpile to well over 200 and aiming for 700 in five years. just a few days ago china's ministry of defence threatened to impose "the worst consequences on countries helping taiwan defend itself" and some are saying that is a nuclear warning. meanwhile, western intelligence says the russian army is stalled on the ground but the shelling in the air has not stopped over ukraine. now russian forces are on the edges of the capitol kyiv and at that airport in the far western city just a few miles from poland, lviv, hundreds of thousands of refugees are

sheltering. secretary of state blinken says putin maybe getting desperate. >> we believe that moscow maybe setting the stage to use a chemical weapon and then falsely blame ukraine to justify escalating its attacks on the ukrainian people. lauren: he's added that russia will recruit private malitia and has already started to from bad countries, enemy countries like syria to beef up their forces. stuart: thank you, lauren. brad blakeman is with us this morning, all right, brad. let's talk about this call, the xi-jinping-president biden call. what should president biden say on this call? what should he tell xi-jinping? in your opinion? >> well, i think he has to say to him very bluntly, do you want to be a player or do you want to be a pariah, it's your choice are you going to side with a country that has a gdp of new york state or are you going to side with the rest of the world? it's alan economic argument for xi. you can't appeal to his humanity , so, you got to put it in numbers that he can understand, that if china sides

with russia, the sanctions that we are putting on russia can be put on china, the american people are prepared to sacrifice if necessary, but china is either going to be a player on the world stage or a pariah. it's that simple. stuart: if we put sanctions on china, the way we've put sanctions on russia, into a limited degree, that up-ends the world trading system, and the world financial system, and the world economic system. are we prepared to risk that? >> well, if war is an option, that must be taken off the table and it's much better to have a little sacrifice or maybe much sacrifice in the western world in america than the alternative of war. we cannot have putin dictating to the rest of the world. we've been down this road before and we learned from history or condemn to repeat it. stuart: what about the iran nuke deal? we're told that it could be signed, sealed and delivered very soon. what do you make of that? that's another foreign policy question here. >> yeah, the iran deal

basically is a lifeline again to russia, to avoid sanctions. they have $10 billion riding on the nuclear plant they're built ing in iran, and we're going to allow russia, whose creating atrocities against an innocent nation and prosecut ing a war against innocence? they're going to be peace makers no. we've got to cut them off at all costs and especially with the iran deal. we need to bring them to their knees. stuart: let's see how that pans out. brad blakeman, thanks for coming back we always appreciate it we'll see you again soon. >> thank you. stuart: all right, we've got a new report that shows that americans are pausing on new investments. i guess they are pausing about putting money into the market or whatever because of the war. lauren: they're nervous, 66% concerned the war will negative ly impact their day-to-day finances, that's because of the higher prices that we're seeing on everything. 26% saving more money, 42% delaying investments, according to mass mutual.

the issue is you want to sit on cash, especially during market volatility because that leads to missed opportunities and you got to time them right. stuart: be safe. you sleep well at night you've got your money in cash or treasury bonds whatever it is you are safe. lauren: but you could have more money, should you make the right investments if you have the stomach for it. stuart: greed is a terrible thing. lauren: this amazing rally over the past couple days, when it's the fifth worst start to the new year ever and we're still in the early part of the year. volatility. cash is safe. stuart: look whose with us now, the man we used to call the super bowl himself, all right, michael lee. are you still a super bowl? >> i am not, stuart. i would not say i'm a super bear , but these people sitting on a little bit of cash, i'd say that's not the worst advice. inflation is at the moment completely out of control, a year ago when it started to get hot, that was very understandable and predicted and

many including myself thought it would pass, but the rate of change and the increase in inflation is still running red hot and the problem with inflation is not that it's just an economic killer, a political killer. it's a societal killer so the federal reserve will do whatever they have to do to take control of it and they have only raised interest rates 25 basis points but we've already seen a tremendous amount of tightening so the two year treasury has gone from 20 basis points in september to six months later close to 2%, chicago national financial conditions index has been cut in half, credit spreads have increased by 30 to 40%, so if inflation doesn't slow down over next couple months, you'll have to take a lot more liquidity out of the market to slow it down and what that does is compress multiples, so one of your all-time favorite stocks, microsoft, trading at about 30 times earnings because it's growing revenue at 25% and earnings even faster. if we compress that multiple from 30 to 20, regardless of how well they do, that stocks going to get cut in half by 20 or 30%

even though all their engines are firing at full speed ahead. stuart: well, michael lee, michael lee, are you predicting that my microsoft, that sliver that i own, will have its value cut in half from where it is now are you predicting that? >> what i'm saying is if inflation doesn't get under control very quickly, that very easily could happen. even the great stocks are going to get crushed, because you have to stop inflation, otherwise our entire nation could fall apart and i believe the fed will do what it takes to get that under control, so you need to be looking at the next three months , the month over month change. if those numbers slow, i'd say we're going to kind of have a little bit of an ugly year from a market standpoint, but nothing cataclysmic. if inflation doesn't slow, we're looking at ugly times for financial assets and i would say that the fed will take us into a recession to stop this. stuart: so there's nothing wrong with going to cash, given the scenario that you see in the future? >> no, and you could buy some low multiple, low pe multiple

high dividend stocks to hide out in my favorites are energy stock s, because i think you have a great bull case and a supply- demand situation with energy at the moment and you know, exxon-mobile, chevron, the xle, you know, those are all paying three to 4% dividends below market multiples, so the multiples lower it can't get crushed that much, i hope. stuart: all right thank you very much indeed, michael. very interesting scenario you've laid out there. you've turned full circle michael lee, thanks for being here we appreciate it, sir. >> thank you. stuart: look at futures left-hand side of the screen there's going to be some selling today but remember we did have a nice rally for the rest of earlier this week. a former obama advisor, well, not sugar coating his advice for the current president, watch this. >> for a few days he was saying , you know, everything is putin's price hikes, inflation is putin's fault. people don't believe that. they know that we had inflation before this. you can't blame everything in the economy on putin.

stuart: well, well, well, that is david axlerod saying this. he put barack obama in the white house. he is a heavy hitter. the relative safety in western ukraine shattered as russian missiles reign down near lviv. mike tobin is there and we'll hear his report, right after this. ♪ 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. ♪ 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.

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stuart: russian missiles struck near an airport just outside of lviv. mike tobin is in ukraine, he's in lviv as a matter of fact. mike you've got to be worried they are going to start shelling the city center soon and that be a humanitarian disaster,

right? >> well, there are so many humanitarian disasters shaping up around ukraine. so far what we're seeing from the russians is they are picking only military targets but as you mentioned the air raid sirens really right at dawn followed by the sounds of cruise missiles making impact. max kazinski who was the lviv regional governor said it was six russian cruise missiles fired from long range bombers over the black sea, four made impact. they hit the lviv state aircraft repair plant, an article in the ukrainian press from january said this plant was the only one capable of customizing the mig-29 for use by the ukrainian air force. the ukrainian air force says the cruise missiles are the x- 555 capable of flying as far as 2,000 miles and flying at low altitude with a price tag of about $1 million each, the airport says they fly at low altitude, these ones flew at low altitude about 120 feet, and that protected them from

ukrainian air defenses. meantime, south in the town of mariupol it is difficult to update you on casualties from that theatre that was used as a bomb shelter and took a direct hit from the russian air force. sergey tartus, the people's deputy of ukraine says the rescue crews trying to get to the theatre have been fired on by russian forces so they are unable to free anyone who is still in the wreckage of that theatre and they are unable to tally the casualties. meantime, as far as people making the escape from this be sieged city of mariupol, we're getting personal accounts that effectively say that any attempt at humanitarian cease-fires or humanitarian corridors have really fallen apart, but the people who are in mariupol are so desperate that they are making a break for it and running out of the city, driving out of the city under russian fire. you have to understand it's a situation where the people quite literally are running for their lives. they have been without food, they have been without power, in fact they have been without the

ability to take care of their dead, so stuart, when you talk about people running for their lives that is exactly what is happening with this humanitarian crisis that is not unfolding, it's very real in the town of mariupol. stuart: mike tobin, thank you very much indeed. secretary of state blinken warns that the russians may use chemical weapons. watch this. >> we believe that moscow maybe setting the stage to use a chemical weapon and then falsely blame ukraine to justify escalating its attacks on the ukrainian people. stuart: retired lt. general keith kellogg joins me. general, chemical weapons, now that surely be a really big escalation. >> yeah, stuart thanks for having me. yeah, it would, because when you start going to chemical biological or nuclear warfare you've changed the whole game and i think it be very very concerning to all of us if that was used. i think he might use something like that only because he is able to control it. he wants to be able to control

the escalation, if you go to nuclear that is a huge escalation and remember the philosophy is escalate to de escalate so blinken, to his credit, has called him out, on his false flag and really, it be hard to blame the ukrainians because they talk about these labs they've got. those are not chemical weapons labs they are bsl-3 level labs, not bsl-4 level labs and bsl-4 level labs are where you have the bad pathogens to train with employee think and use them. stuart: what is the strategic importance of russia attacking lviv, as they've started to now? >> yes, stuart, psychological. they want to, they said they were hitting the mig-29 plant that was able to modify the aircraft but it's also psych lodge psychological. that's a long range shot. the ground forces are still 354 miles away from lviv but that's the reason why it's so very important that we supply them the anti-aircraft systems,

the missile systems that can prevent ballistic missiles and also aircraft coming in. they talked about how low those things can fly. the s-300 system that we can get into them through our nato allies, it takes up missiles at 10 meters, and it's hard to understand or even believe see ing a missile fly that low but that's the reason why we need to protect those bases by putting an absolute iron dome over them, and you can do that with missile batteries and we need to get those into them. stuart: okay, it seems to me that putin is losing the war. what do you say to that? >> yeah, he is. no doubt in my mind. at the very best, he's at a stalemate and i think he's los ing and that's the reason why you see his rhetoric so strong right now, his forces are not moving on kyiv and not doing well. look, kyiv is the crown jewel. that is the place that you have to take. that is the center of gravity. it's the center of government which he has not been able to

decapitate. and he hasn't been able to seize look that will be a tough fight. if you think of fights he better read his book about stalingrad, what the russians did to the nazis, and that broke the nazis back in world war ii and you get into a city that large which is a population currently about 1.5 used to have 3 million people he will have to flight and block street to street and building to building and his casualty numbers go way up and there's no guarantee he can win that fight so he's now setting back saying i thought i'd have this city in one or two days and he will shell the heck out of it but everyday that he doesn't win, stuart, he loses. everyday he's in a stalemate, he loses and right now, if this was a prize fight my points go to zelenskyy and ukrainians. stuart: just as a point of interest, if they attack lviv and they kill zelenskyy, what are the rules of war? is putin then fair game? >> well, i don't think he's fair game. i don't think he should ever target a leader like that unless

, you know, especially a russian leader because then you don't know what the consequences are going to be. look, to me, zelenskyy is like the king on a chess board. you want to protect him. i'd put so many people around him. he is the heart and soul of ukraine right now. he speaks like churchill and we want to make sure he survives because he's with 10,000 or 20,000 troops alone, and everyday he's talking he's hurting putin. stuart: general, always a pleasure, thank you very much for being with us this morning we'll see you again soon. >> thanks, stuart. stuart: arnold schwarzenegger sending a message to the russian people and putin as well. what's he saying? lauren: deeply personal video, it's a nine minute video. he told the people particularly the russian soldiers to hear the truth. >> speaking to you today because there are things that are going on in the world that have been kept from you, terrible things that you should know about. ukraine did not start this war. neither did nationalists or

nazis. those in power in the kremlin started this war. this is not the war to defend russia. ukraine with putin says you started this war. you're leading this war. you can stop this war. lauren: he also reflected on stories of his father a member of the nazi party who served in world war ii. he said he was so pumped up on lies from his government that in the end, arnold schwarzenegger said that completely broke his father. so his message is cut through the misinformation out there, and hear the truth. putin is responsible for these war crimes. stuart: all right, good stuff. thanks very much, lauren. we just got word from the white house that the call between president biden and xi-jinping began at 9:03 this morning on the futures board you can see some red ink down nearly 200 for the dow, down just over 100 for the nasdaq. the opening bell, next.

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as an independent financial advisor, i stand by these promises: i promise to be a careful steward of the things that matter to you most. i promise to bring you advice that fits your values. i promise our relationship will be one of trust and transparency. as a fiduciary, i promise to put your interests first, always. charles schwab is proud to support the independent financial advisors who are passionately dedicated to helping people achieve their financial goals. visit findyourindependentadvisor.com stuart: i'm looking at netflix, down a bit today. i'm trying to figure out they are trying to crackdown on the

password sharing. currently, they are testing an additional charge, two to $3 for people who share accounts with people outside of their household. i want to bring in mark mahaney on this. mark, i'm told that some people are outraged that they will have to pay a little bit extra to share their account. are you outraged at what netflix is doing because i know you follow them. >> [laughter] no. i'm not outraged i don't easily get outraged but let's see. with netflix, you know, we just did a report earlier this week. i'm not recommending the stock. it was a, it has been a phenomenonal stock. it's a very, it's a great service, a very good management team et cetera, i think the growth is a little less open ended than it was in the past. to me it's a little bit of a sign that it's harder to get the unit growth, the new subscribers, so then you got to figure out how to better monetize existing subscribers nothing wrong with with that strategy but it just means the growth is less open ended and survey work we did last week

we still see a modest increase in the u.s. but in parts of asia which i think is really where the challenge is for netflix and japan, the penetration is just slow and it's just hard for netflix to have to repeat the success they have had in the u.s. and western europe and other parts of the world that's why we're cautious on the stock. stuart: got it, amazon they did close that deal for mgm, i think they paid $8.5 billion for it. why is that such a big deal? >> i'm not sure it is a big deal. it's a small win for amazon. you know the value proposition that amazon has for all those prime members out there, 200 million of us worldwide, about 100 million in the u.s. , what this does is it just gives you another reason to stick with amazon, another reason to sign up with amazon for the prime program, it's probably the best maybe the greatest customer loyalty program ever, or it's up there in the list, so i think it just adds to the appeal but it's a small deal for a company with $1.5 trillion market cap. $8 billion deal doesn't matter really. stuart: you are still looking at

amazon worth $4,000 a share by the end of this year? >> yup. here is the real quick pitch, stu. i think you can buy amazon if you pay for the advertising and the cloud business, you get the retail business for free that's how cheap amazon is. we still need growth equities to move up. we think they will, but we still need to wait a little bit longer to really get that clearing event. >> [opening bell ringing] stuart: i hope amazon doesn't worry about me sharing a password with somebody, mark mahaney thank you very much indeed, sir, the opening bell has rung, we've opened ever so slightly lower, of course look, first few seconds of business we're down 100 points on the dow and about three-quarters of the dow 30 are in the red but this is not a huge slump at this point today. the s&p 500 has a great week, down a quarter of 1% this morning and the nasdaq as i said earlier, up 6% this week, it's had a great week down just a fraction as of now. big tech all down this morning, not much, but they are all on the downside, microsoft, apple,

alphabet, amazon, meta struggling all down let's have a look at the broad market here because lauren:er you've got to tell me about triple witching. lauren: it's a big volume day. today, it's a quarterly event, trillions of dollars in stock and index options expire, then you also have the rebalancing of the indices including the s&p 500, so volume will spike, howard silverblat says we're going to see $33 billion of stock trades today. coming into today, as you've been noting, it's up 6% on the week, dow up 4.5% it sounds great but look where we came from. it's the fifth-worst start to a year since 1927. stuart: yeah, it's also a weekend coming up with a war in europe and i wonder how many of these traders not the average investor but traders will want to hold stocks over the weekend when you don't know what might happen. lauren: very nervous. stuart: we shall see , gamestop down 8.5%. lauren: well they lost a lot of money a loss of $147 million

versus a year ago profit, and they were not expecting a loss. they blame the supply chain, they blame covid, but this happened during the holiday season, and wedbush says that's the busiest time of the year, so if you can turn a profit then, i'm quoting, they say they are doomed. that's why the stock is down not only 8% today, but coming into today, down 40% this year. stuart: doomed, now there is a word. lauren: that's a strong word you don't want anthropology a list to say about your company. stuart: tell me ability fedex it's down today. i know their revenue went up 10% but that was because of higher shipping rates, so they didn't actually ship more packages. lauren: no. fewer packages. customers started to say it and fedex didn't care because they said yup we're raising fuel surcharges again on everything. everything that they deliver, all forms of shipping, that starts april 4. the other big issue is labor. you had a pilot shortage, which impacted the timing of deliveries,, because many pilots got omicron and then just the cost of retaining talent to

drive the trucks, et cetera. their labor costs grew by $350 million year-over-year. stuart: and it's down 5.5%, big drop right there. okay, here is something i really don't understand, utterly confused by but i'll give you the news. lauren: welcome to the club. stuart: moderna asking for approval for a fourth covid shot. how is this different from pfizer asking for boost era prove alls? lauren: okay, a fourth covid shot is booster number two. pfizer says please give us approval for senior citizens. those 65 and up. moderna says let's just make it simpler, please give us approval for all adults, and they say that gives flexibility to doctors and the cdc to better- determine who should get it and how to offer it. stuart: seriously are you as confused as i am? i don't know whose offering a booster, which one i should or should not get , which vaccine i should get in the first place, or be boosted with, or when i should get these things.

lauren: i'm confused with the second booster shot. the need for it, if it protects against the latest variant, et cetera. stuart: i wonder how many people are rushing out now to get their second booster shot. lauren: only 44% of adults have gotten the first booster, so -- stuart: that's it? lauren: yeah. uh-huh. stuart: i want to talk about this. rent the runway. clothing rental people, even i know that. what's this about a 50% growth potential for the stock? lauren: jefferies started coverage with a buy and a $13 price target, so that implies nice upside. people are getting married again and well not that they haven't gotten married but they are having big celebrations. events are back and they say that's bringing in more subscribers for rent the runway more than 40% more this year, and topline growth of more than 50% this year. stuart: now, subscribers, in other words you pay money every month and that gives you access to these already-worn clothes, high-quality stuff they send to you? lauren: designer dry cleaned

items come to your doorstep, you wear them, send them back and pay one monthly fee to do it. stuart: thank you very much i do understand that by the way. show me u.s. steel, down 3.5%. quickly what's the problem? lauren: input costs went up, right? that was before the war in ukraine. since the war, well steel prices have gone up, that's good for the stock it's down today, but there's an issue with demand can u.s. steel fulfill this big demand and we're hearing that they are having a backlog of orders at some of their facilit ies, can they fill it? stuart: war and inflation loom over so many companies these days. that's the back drop to all these declines that we're seeing war and inflation. lauren: i feel bad for every company out there because it was covid for two years, it still is , you still have the supply chain issues not really improving, in fact exacerbated by what's going on in russia and ukraine. stuart: unique situation back to back, pandemic and war, who was expecting that for heavens sake. lauren: the black swan e subsequent. stuart: could be. take a look at the dow winners headed by boeing up a couple

bucks, the s&p 500 winners headed by, can't read it, moderna there you go, thank you, lauren. lauren: i tried. stuart: it's moderna, garmin is there. lauren: lockheed martin is up there. stuart: not surprised, nasdaq winners who we got there, hyundai? lauren: nvidia, the chipmaker, a md, ebay, and ok ta. stuart: the screen is about what , eight or nine feet away from me, it's relatively small print, but i'm having a hard time reading it. lauren: i'm here to help. stuart: i can read that the dow is down 115 points that's one- third of 1% you're at the 34,000 level. the 10 year treasury yield, 2.16 %, not that much movement, where is the price of gold? backing away further from the $ 2,000 an ounce level, $ 1,936 to be precise, bitcoin steady at 40, 500, oil $104 a barrel, nat gas hasn't moved

very much this winter close to $ 5 now, but the average price for a gallon of regular gas is down, not much, but it's down a little, 427 is what you'll pay around the country, but in california, you'll pay 580 for your average gallon of regular. dr. fauci is back to suggest that america could face more covid lockdowns. roll tape. >> and if in fact we do see a turnaround and a resurgence, we have to be able to pivot and go back to any degree of mitigation stuart: we'll definitely get into that, new covid restrictions, don't particularly want that. the key to saving ukraine and defeating putin may lie in pennsylvania. victoria coats wrote that headline and she's going to explain it too. the white house is very clear. there will be consequences if china helps russia. roll tape. >> china will bear responsibility for any actions it takes to support russia's aggression, and we will not

hesitate to impose costs. >> should they provide military or other assistance, there will be a significant consequence. stuart: yeah, let's be clear on this. if the administration believes china's helping russia with more than words, then china faces sanctions. big deal says economist art laffer. he will spell it out for us, after this.

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stuart: the dow is down, the nasdaq is down, and here is a possible reason, two fed governors are speaking out. the st. louis fed james bullard says rates should be raised, no, basically, here is what we got. bullard is one of the fed governors, he's speaking out and he says we should have an immediate 50 basis points rise in interest rates, and the fed should stop money print ing now. fed governor waller also agrees

with that. that is pretty much negative stuff, and maybe the markets paying attention to it too. as for the white house, it's threatening consequences if china aids russia. roll this tape. >> president biden will be speaking to president xi tomorrow and will make clear that china will bear responsibility for any actions it takes to support russia's aggression, and we will not hesitate to impose costs. >> certainly, our concerns about china assisting in anyway russia as they invade a foreign country is a significant concern and would the response that be consequences. stuart: going to repeat this. if biden is convinced that china is epidemic hadding the russians , then he's going to impose sanctions on china and that, i suspect, will be a very big deal. what do you say, economist art laffer? >> i don't think it is a big deal, stuart. i think it's the wrong thing to do. if you've got a military problem , solve it with military situation. we should be arming the

ukrainians. if china does that with providing weapons to russia, we should rearm and increase our armaments to taiwan. all of the sanction stuff, the literature and economics is solid. they don't work unless you have a little tiny place, i know of only one-time that sanctions have worked and that's when kennedy black aided cuba, but if you look at all of the work on what happened when napoleon tried to block. de britain, and world war ii they tried, all of it failed miserably, sanctions just plain don't work, people respond to price changes, and they can overcome sanctions. what they can't do is overcome military support. it's called the bagwati theorem. if you've got a problem, solve that problem directly. we have a military problem in ukraine with russia. put those migs into ukraine, give them to the ukrainians and let them handle the skies with military aid and if you've got a problem with china, make it helping taiwan be armed, not

trying to put on sanctions. they just don't work, stuart. stuart: but i would suggest that sanctions on russia have worked to punish russia, not to make them withdraw from ukraine, but certainly to punish them. they aren't going to recover for a very long time. >> it surely is for russia, you're right. it has, not much, the thing that hurt russia so much is putin, he's done his economy, he's ruined the economy there, they spent way too much on armaments and they have an awful economy because of what putin has done to his country. we may add a little bit to that but the real thing we add to is when we do military responses in ukraine, and that is the only way we're going to really succeed in this issue. we boycotted, we sanctioned germany, japan, and italy during world war ii. you see how that worked out for us? i mean, frankly, sanctions just don't do it, but they give politicians enormous amounts of stuff to talk about and to pound their chests about, and not do

the right thing which is military aid. stuart: got it. art laffer, clean cut today. no question about it. thanks very much, art. we'll see you again soon. >> thank you, stuart. stuart: the house, yeah, it was the house of representatives, voted to suspend normal trade relations with russia and belarus. the bill now heads to the senate some republicans want to alter the bill, in what way? lauren: they want to include language that codifies the ban on russian oil, which the house already wrote it to pass in another bill and president biden banned by executive order anyway, so i think this is symbolic push, one day after zelenskyy that emotional appeal to congress to do more, this would codify that language in the senate version of the bill, i'm not sure when they be voting on it. stuart: it's not a great big deal here. lauren: we're doing more. stuart: okay, thanks, lauren. a century of clock changing. could soon come to an end, lawmakers want to make daylight savings time permanent. i'm sorry, folks, i don't agree

with that. i want to keep the changing of the clocks and we will debate it , later. lauren's pulling a face at this but i understand it entirely. the administration's reaching out to iran and venezuela to help us get oil. inexplicable to me. i'll ask house minority whip steve scalise what he thinks about it, we'll be back. you can't buy love. happiness. or confidence. but you can invest in them. at t. rowe price our strategic investing approach can help you build the future you imagine. ♪ ♪ 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.

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call today to request your free bond guide. 1-800-217-3217. that's 1-800-217-3217 stuart: this is an op-ed and i'll read it for you. stop biden's war on oil gas, fight putin by making u.s. europe energy independent. house minority whip steve scalise wrote that and he joins me now. congressman i'm with you all the way. no question about it. we should be producing our own oil & gas. my question to you is do you think we'll ever actually do that? will biden ever actually do it? >> well, stuart, i think you're seeing right now the pressure building intensely as families are paying over $6 a gallon for gasoline, i mean, people get irate when they see the price at the pump go over $100 and they are still just half way through filling up

their car and the only answer you get from the biden administration is well, go buy an electric car, or somebody else's fault or the dog ate your homework. people are fed up with the excuses. they know biden is not drilling on federal land. he talked about it as a candidate and he said he was going to shut off the ability for american oil & gas production, and so he's begging dictators, he was begging putin to produce more oil, now he's begging whether it's iran, venezuela. stop begging dictators for more oil when the answer is under our feet here in america. we can lower gas prices and takeaway putin's leverage to fund this war in ukraine. stuart: i think we're being held hostage by the environmentalists. they are the ones who will not let us go and get our own oil and nat gas, despite what's happening in the marketplace and prices. i think we're held hostage, i think the democrat parties held hostage and i'm very surprised at that, because there's an election coming. >> yeah, stuart. you know, the president clearly is held hostage, speaker pelosi,

all these people hide behind the green new deal and global warming and all this stuff, they act as if climate change is the reason we shouldn't be drill ing and then they go beg dictators to drill more oil in countries where they emit more carbon than if we made it in america. you actually reduce carbon emissions if you made it in america instead of some of these other countries like russia, like iran, like venezuela, that don't have the standards we do, so they love beating up on america, but then they turn around quietly and go and beg for the oil from countries that do things dramatically worse and look at putin right now. he's increased his sales by 30% of oil to europe right now, because europe used to be able to get more from us. we were exporting oil from our friends around the world. we're not right now. we need to cutoff putin's supply of oil. he's getting over $700 million a day to finance this war in ukraine and this is ridiculous. people are fed up with it. biden is ignoring the problem thinking he can blame his way out of it when people know the

answer is right here in america and they are livid about it. stuart: what are your constituents saying to you? do any of them say well its putin's war, it's putin's fault. there are some constituents saying that to you, i presume. >> well nobody likes what putin is doing in ukraine, but when biden tries to blame everybody else under the sun and you know, you've got pete buttigieg as transportation secretary giving marie antoinette moment saying let them eat cake, oh, just go buy an electric car, which costs money, good lucky if you wait in line maybe six months to get it ordered because of the bag log with the supply chain that his agency has failed to address, you know, people know that's lunacy and they say well why aren't you just drill ing in america? it'll create jobs by the way but it would also takeaway dependence on oil from these dictators around the world. stop funding countries like russia who are using this money to go and kill people in ukraine zelenskyy gave an incredible

plea. he just wants the ability to defend his country. biden can't even figure that out biden won't help get the migs from poland to ukraine when zelenskyy is begging him for it. i mean, lives are being lost. maternity wards are being bombed , just let us control the sky and biden can't even do that. stuart: got it. steve scalise, congressman, thank you very much for being with us this morning. >> stuart great being with you. stuart: obama's former senior advisor, david axelrod, he's calling out president biden for blaming rising prices on putin. axelrod is a very big hitter in the democrat party. what's he saying? lauren: and he has a podcast and in it, he said the american people aren't stupid. >> now they've over-corrected and so for a few days he was saying, you know, everything is putin's price hikes, inflation is putin's fault. people don't believe that either they know that we had inflation before this. they know that gas prices were high before this , so they haven't dialed this in quite

right yet. you can't blame everything in the economy on putin. lauren: so let's go back. inflation and cpi was 1.4% in december of 2020. that says it all. 1.4% to 14 or 15 months later 7.9%. stuart: i do think that picture we used there of david axelrod must have been taken a long time ago because a very young-looking mr. axelrod. lauren: looked quite different. stuart: actually that's true. check those markets, please, 26 minutes into the trading session , the nasdaq has turned north going up a little bit, dow still down about 130. we are still waiting to hear any results of that phone call, xi-jinping and president biden. still ahead, florida congressman byron donalds, tammy bruce, steven hilton and matt schlapp, the 10:00 hour of "varney" is next. ♪♪

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stuart: good morning. 10:00 eastern time. we have the market down 100 on the dow. up 50 on the nasdaq and the 10 year treasury yield above the 2% level. oil just above $100 a barrel. 10298 lodz bitcoin holding steady. $40,600 a coin.

the community hanging on every word. the existing home sales number. ibly to $6.2 million is the seasonally adjusted annual rate, a big drop in february than the month of january when they searched and prices surging, median price $357,300, up by 7000 in one month. stuart: that is a big jump. we need to bring in mitch rochelle, our real estate guy. 6 million existing homes sold on an annual basis, median price 57300. what does that tell you about the state of real estate? >> very strong. the fact that interest rates are going up, that the fed move this month has been creeping up

and 30 year fixed rate mortgage creeping towards four and chasing every bit of inventory that isn't there. it is less the end three months of inventory. stuart: it is 1.7 months worth of inventory. that seems extremely low. is that right? >> that is very low and some of that is the bottom of the barrel, stuff people don't even want to buy. that is driving up prices. will this continue in a 5% interest rate environment? the haves and have nots, there are folks who are living paycheck to paycheck and i

don't think they will swing the combination of inflation at 5% mortgage rate. stuart: you would characterize the real estate market as strong, but cannot maintain that strength in the face of higher mortgage rates, rising prices and little supply so we will weaken the real estate market a few months down the road. >> i think you stated that correctly. it is not weak like it was 10 years ago. there is not a bubble bursting. what will happen is we will see layers of demand, the $7000 price gains month over month not sustaining itself. that is good for the housing market because the housing market is pricing buyers out. higher mortgage rates are not

going to help anybody. stuart: no big selloff like 2007-2008. >> no, we have so many cash buyers. stuart: the wealth influence. great to be with you. home prices surging, 357.3 is the median price, mortgage above 4%. can renters afford to step up? ibly 2 they connect contractors to homeowners, 60 one%, 13 big cities have been priced out of ownership, 10 of those are in california, in la, the average home costs $658,000 for the 4% of renters so overall the

average home in the country costs 7 times the average price of income. this is the most inflationary part of the economy impacting ownership and rents. if you can't buy a home you are pushed into renting. stuart: surging fuel costs forcing moving companies to raise shipping charges. are they hiking prices? would lead to yes. you can't just feed price increases when that is so expensive. some companies are moving those costs onto consumers and others are turning down out-of-state drives. 777 movers are popular where people are moving to nevada and some of those customers are saying it's cheaper to sell your stuff then pay and pay to move it. stuart: that is fascinating. thanks very much.

lauren: move him. stuart: the president is on a video call with china's xi jinping. this is no ordinary great power conversation. there is a war on and china and russia will help each other. it is about how much help china gives because it is the one country that can offer what russia needs, money, electronics and weapons. if president biden can't persuade xi jinping to back off china will be sanctioned and that raises the stakes big time. we are also waiting for another foreign policy announcement. the ran nuclear deal. a deal is about to be signed. the iranians would get a lot of money and sell more oil. in return they would agree to a slow walk towards a bomb without any snap inspections of iranian nuclear sites and the

russians would take iran's enriched uranium. one more foreign policy developed. the new york times admitted hunter biden's laptop was his hunter biden's laptop. it held emails that implicated joe biden in the international influence peddling business run by hunter. it is fair to ask if china has something on president biden. i wonder if it comes up in the call. doctor felty says if we see an increase in coveted cases we may have to pivot back to covert restrictions. >> if we see a turnaround and a resurgence we have to pivot and go back to any degree of mitigation commensurate with what the situation is. we can't just say we are done. we have to be flexible. we are dealing with a dynamic situation.

hopefully cases will continue to come down. stuart: there has been a huge surge in cases in china, south korea, hong kong and europe. tammy bruce is with me. it is legitimate for a health guy like doctor fauci to say we have to pivot to restrictions because the caseload is up. you disagree with that. >> i do. he remains an unelected bureaucrat. he is controlling american policy to a large extent. he is not someone who has to face of the voters in any kind of tweed to year election and protects the politicians. they put him in front so politicians who are answerable to the people aren't the ones saying this. this is not how the country is supposed to be run.

this is one individual, personalized business, he issues edicts we must somehow follow. it is rand paul. confronting doctor fauci to eliminate that role as different individuals who set those elements and work in those elements that doctor fauci works and so you don't have one person coming to certain conclusions that control the country on top of things. has your show is illustrating every day the american people are dealing with a recession, moving into a dynamic. and formal fight, to chime in

again, saying vague things, in and of itself is depressing and could impact work, business, if people return to work people don't know what to do if they have a guy show up and say watch out and retreats again. it is unacceptable. stuart: it is the wrong thing to say to the american people. >> the wrong way to say it. the wrong person is saying it. there must be a better way because otherwise the american people feel someone they haven't elected has complete control over what happens in this country and that is unacceptable. we want good information from the government to know how to proceed with our lives. stuart: always great on friday morning. have a great week. speaker pelosi advising the white house to seek more in emergency coveted relief. how much does she want?

lauren: $45 billion, triple what biden requested from congress. you do a smaller figure, that barely gets you through the summer. stuart: what would the money be used for? people to stay at home? lauren: it is a controversial issue which is why spending was yanked from the overall spending package. of the one $45 billion. lauren: can you keep this money and defend against it forever? stuart: i'm astonished how much money -- lauren: yank the unspent covid funds, which state will say that i will give you that money? stuart: it is -- >> we talk about that much more money there is massive fraud with unemployment. the federal trade commission receives fraud reports from 2.8 million consumers in 2021

when looking at general fraud overall but when it came to covid money there are billions of dollars we don't know where they went. so there has been no apparent effort to find that money, to learn what happened especially with the california unemployment and spend what they find. a little late for st. patrick's day but may be there is a golden pot with the money that everybody lost and if they can find it let her spend that money. stuart: thank you very much indeed. they look at some of the movers. the dow is down 20 points. starbucks is moving down. lauren: guggenheim cut the price target and they said there are head wents in china but a major unionization push in 27 states, 144 and that is

not a good sign in an inflationary labor market and management change, they see a meaningful cut to medium-term earnings guidance. stuart: i realize they are chicken wing people. lauren: a double downgrade from overweight to underweight. they don't like the supply chain. stuart: the supply chain is not fluid or the prices keep rising. lauren: both and they fear customers won't go there is much as their cheaper competitors. stuart: i am not sure i know this company, arrow byron. stuart: lauren: the maker of the drones being sent to ukraine like the switchblade. the stock is up right now the most since september but up to 69% since 9% since the invasion on february 24th.

stuart: that could be a game changer. thank you very much. 90% of the refugees fleeing ukraine, authorities worry they could be easy targets for human trafficking. ashley webster has a report in our next hour. lawmakers gave president zelenskyy a standing ovation after he made a direct appeal to the president biden. >> translator: president biden, you are the leader of the nation. i wish you to be the leader of the world. being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace. stuart: president zelenskyy's request to close the skies met with resistance from democrats. we have that story. president biden's video call

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stuart: the markets really changed. the dow is down 100. the nasdaq is up 100. that is a complete shift. i want to bring you this quick note. we brought you a story about david axelrod. we showed a picture of the wrong david axelrod. we apologize for the error. president biden is on that call with xi jinping that began an hour ago.

edward lawrence, do you have any details about what that call was about? >> reporter: this is coming from chinese state media. you've got to understand the source. chinese state media says xi jinping told president biden not to interfere with russia/china relations saying state to state relations should not rise to the level of confrontation and chinese state media saying according to state media the ukraine crisis is not something china wanted to see you. from the us side, gauging where the actual position is coming laying out consequences if they picked the wrong side. i asked jen psaki about the mating china or russia economically. >> the chinese have been public about how they will continue their economic activity with russia. is the president going to press

president xi jinping and ask him to back off? >> the conversation will be a continuation of the conversation our national security adviser had with his counterpart earlier this week and china's alignment with russia in a range of ways and implications and consequences of that are central part of that conversation. >> reporter: the secretary of state made clear this would be a direct conversation with the chinese. >> we believe china has a responsibility to use its influence with president putin to defend the rules and principles it professes to support but it appears china is moving in the opposite direction by refusing to condemn this and to portray itself as a neutral arbiter. china will bear responsibility for any action to support this aggression and we will not hesitate to impose costs. >> reporter: we will get a read

out from the white house, chinese propaganda machine is doing that in real time. stuart: thanks. i want to bring in jameel jaffer, china will bear responsibility for any action to support russia's aggression. that's a threat of the threat of sanctions. economist art laffer said sanctions should not work and we should not be using them. >> reporter: he's right. they are less effective than historically because they are the only tool of foreign policy. we use sanctions all over the place. they did not prevent russia from going to ukraine and unlikely to change china. what will it take to change the russian calculus and the chinese calculus when it comes to issues like ukraine? stuart: we've got to threaten china with something. if we give them weapons or

electronics or money that is not in our interests and we have to threaten doing something. >> it has to go beyond economic sanctions which we've used that as our focus. we need to make clear that a lot more russian soldiers would be vulnerable and the same is true for the chinese. they -- those weapons will go to waste, we will supply them and enforce a no-fly zone to prevent russians from attacking civilians and conducting attacks on the ukraine and military which is fighting its own fight on the grounds. stuart: we've got to do something and the call is not over yet. it has been going on for a long time. i'm dying to see the headlines from our side of things. see you soon. speaker pelosi has something to say about zelenskyy's plea to close the skies.

lauren: she's opposed to a dance in the us or nato forces in. >> they are unified with how we go forward. and how we are unified is we are not going into ukraine. it is not an article 5 situation. we are, however, prepared to supply ukraine with very sophisticated equipment. lauren: we understand the first part. the second part, what ukraine needs is aired -- antiaircraft weapons. slovakia is providing x300 and turkey has the as/400 which is russian-made. in the us helped turkey get that anti-defense system to ukraine? if it did, they get what they

need and it is ironic because a russian-made system is used for that and have better relations with turkey. stuart: speaker pelosi was not clear about what equipment we should be supplying it. lauren: maybe we shouldn't be broadcasting or being specific in what we are sending because that could help the russians in their defense was the white house give that list of drones in the body armor. maybe we shouldn't do that. stuart: the kamikaze missile, the company that makes the kamikaze missile has gone up, not surprised. remember we told you about the white house using tiktok influencers to spend putin's to blame for rising energy prices. we have an update on that story coming up. a return to the skies. air travel is booming but don't expect discounts or deals. airfares are soaring. madison allworth has more after this.

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stuart: the markets down 100. the nasdaq is up to hundred.

a split decision. lauren: that is a completely split decision. stuart: it is friday morning palkari kenny, get out of this one. we have 10% inflation, rising interest rates. how do we avoid a recession? >> i don't think we do. they are trying to debunk the story about don't worry about it, we got this. i think they are way behind the 8 ball. he left the door open. he reserve the right to be more aggressive. my guess is inflation has this momentum to move higher. he found himself having to move more aggressively through the summer. they should morph more aggressively now in march and in may. if they went 50/50, one% by the

summer. then take a step back would have been a better way. i don't see how to avoid that. stuart: you can deal with this in a couple ways. first you can go to high dividend paying stocks. and go to a lot of cash and be safe. you don't like that? >> you will sell your positions and go to cash when history shows you if you stick to the plan and do average dollar cost averaging and stick to the plan you are better off and that depends on who you are. if you are 80 years old you will feel safer going into cash but if you are 40 the last thing you should do is go to cash. have a plan and stick to it, modify your portfolio, sexy

high growth names that might be the way to go. unless you are the kind of person that is so anxious you can't sleep. stuart: i know exactly what you mean. thanks for being with us, see you again soon. here is an interesting story. american airlines will resume alcohol on flights. you approve? lauren: i don't have an opinion. people appreciate a drink on american. you haven't had one since march 2020 and feel bad for the flight attendants who have to deal with unruly passengers who don't wear their mask appropriately. you can buy them on american airlines, the same day the

federal mask mandate is set to expire. hopefully you are in a different place where this is no big deal but i don't appreciate getting yelled at constantly on planes, keep your mask up. if you are sleeping we will wake you up to pull your mask over your nose. stuart: if you take a drink. the day is coming soon when you won't have 2 wear a mask? it is kind of back to normal. it could be. thank you very much indeed. madison allworth. ticket prices are going up, that is not hitting ticket sales. >> he can't hear you. stuart: i don't think she can hear me because she's got to wear a mask. there's a loudspeaker in the background that drowned me out,

couldn't get into her ear. we will get back to her when she can hear me cleaner. dolly parton launching the dollyverse web experience. the site will sell nfts of her new album. >> dolly parton is not young and she's getting into nfts. run rose run has a companion album and it is her first ever performance south southwest, solve it to fans, she has teamed up with fox entertainment, our nft studio. we when i knew it was a great idea to team up with fox. we can go back to madison allworth, walked out of the shot.

i can't hear again. we burned twee 2 minutes of air. lauren: buying her time. ibly when youtube band donald trump's speech at cpac, how can you ban a former president of the united states? matt schlapp will talk about it. the search is on for survivors of a theater attack in mariupol. a lot of people remain trapped. we have a report on the rescue efforts next.

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stuart: still a split market.

dow is down 130, nasdaq up 34. not much price movement compared to the last week when we had hundreds of points. lahren is looking at the movers. it was a real huge winner. a nice gain today. >> next week you can see a potential catalyst for turnaround, hosting flagship technical conference and investor day. investors are saying new products might be announced. how do they monetize software, updates on the gaming industry, it will be a catalyst for this. stuart: do you want to revisit but they're not? stuart: that is why we are bringing it up. asking the fda to greenlight the second booster shot or fourth covert shot.

stuart: stock is up 4%. %. the market thinks there is something in this, not bored by but confused by. fedex? lauren: they've been less successful translating business into profits because of, chronic they expect their second delivery margins to be lower than previously forecasts. we are hearing one hundred 30 people have been rescued from that theater in mariupol, ukraine. i thought there were over a thousand people in that theater. what is the latest? >> ballpark and get between 1000, and 1500. the difficult thing is some people were in the basement and some on the first floor according to the people's deputy of ukraine. before the strike, some people got out and yesterday some

people got into the wreckage and they were able to rescue some people. the problem we are hearing today is the rescue crews that are trying to get to what remains of this theater that was used as a bomb shelter are being firebombed. they can't get into the wreckage of this building and get people out from the debris. if they are trapped in the basement, they are not being rescued and can't get a good casualty figure out of this theater. elsewhere in the country, there were airstrikes this morning. the air in the western part of the country had been quiet for three days but cruise missiles made impact, the regional governor said six were launched over the black sea. four made impact. 2 were intercepted by ukrainian air defense and the target was the lviv state aircraft repair plants.

they had the ability to retrofit the mig 29 fighters to be used by the ukrainian air force. it seems every time you get more discussion about sending mig 292 ukraine they start hitting your targets in the western part of the country. stuart: thank you very much. congressman byron donald from the state of florida, you have said the only thing that stops aggression is strength and i'm sure you are referring to russia. we are dealing with a madman here. are you going to risk pushing this guy? >> the thing we must be concerned about is vladimir putin is going to push regardless whether you stand up to him or you don't. standing up to this aggression. we should have done this months

ago but president biden is late to the game as usual. we have to make sure we defend nato and be committed to that and help ukrainians get the weaponry they need to defend their sovereignty. he will roll up ukraine and look at other targets because his thought process might be if nato isn't going to do anything what else can i get? you must be strong in the face of aggression. it creates the deterrent effect we need. stuart: speaker pelosi wants an extra $45 billion for coven treatment and recovery. what about an extra $100 for the defense department budget. is there any sympathy? any feeling this is a good time to ramp up our defense spending? defense

spending, not only do we have necessary armaments that our allies have them as well. when it comes to more coven spending, that is ridiculous. are we going to spend $45 billion on covert when there is still half a trillion unspent covert money that is starting to go to states to backfill their budgets. they are awash in cash that was printed in washington dc. they have money they don't know how to spend. it will make will make inflation problems worse. stuart: they will oppose an increase in defense spending. the left runs the democrat party and can't stand the military they are a split party on defense spending. >> we can't go down the road of more coven spending. we have more spending that will

get worse if we go down the line. we need to be prepared with what russia is doing. stuart: video of vladimir putin addressing a large crowd in a soccer stadium in moscow. can we show that video? this is a few hours ago at this mass rally, tens of thousands of people with the russian federation flags and he said vladimir putin said we will prevail in ukraine. any comment on that? >> reporter: the reason he's got his own rally, supportive of this offensive in russia, tamping down on people protesting the war, he has to do this because they have taken heavy losses and need to make sure they rally support of the people in russia to his side. he is arresting dissidents who disagree with his actions. they don't have a right to

protest like you do in the united states so he is removing them from the state. this is propaganda from vladimir putin to keep support for his efforts. the reality is the russians have lost more troops than they thought they would with this invasion into ukraine. stuart: thanks for joining us. the president of south africa is coming to vladimir putin's defense. what is he saying? lauren: he blames nato for what is going on in ukraine. listen to his reasoning. >> the war could have been avoided if nato had heeded the warnings from its own leaders and officials over the years, that eastward expansion would

lead to greater, not less, instability in the region. lauren: he condemns the violence. he did not condemn putin. there is this. the bbc is reporting a conversation between vladimir putin and erdogan. he said he would seek a divorce 6 conditions were met with one of them is ukraine remains neutral and doesn't join nato. that's the eastward expansion. and zelenskyy seems open to that possibility for a cease-fire. stuart: i can't understand why serial dramaphosa would take vladimir putin's side when he longed to this brutal war into behaving like hitler. lauren: we saw the massive rally around vladimir putin but food stores in moscow are empty. what is the real story? stuart: the russians won't find out.

illegal border crossings up 63% in february compared to last year. homeland security wants volunteers to go to the border to help them out. they fear another 170,000 migrants could arrive at our border. a subject that has been neglected because of the war. we have more on it next hour. the security advisor says the key to saving ukraine and defeating vladimir putin may lie in pennsylvania. doctor victoria coates wrote that and joins us to explain. 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?

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remarkable thing we have, the anniversary when vladimir wooton - vladimir putin annexed crimea is we can match vladimir putin in the energy sector because of the shale revolution, we don't have to be constrained by the energy market. we can do that by ourselves and power ourselves and our friends. stuart: you see natural gas, the transitions that gets us into a clean energy future. >> pennsylvania blessed with resources and oil and coal and we use those to be one of the country's largest electricity exporters but natural gas is the backbone. stuart: i have some property in new york state 10 miles from

the state line. the other side they can for act till the cows come home. my side of the line i'm on top of an enormous natural gas reserves and you can't touch it. do you think we will ever go after all the energy that we have got? >> we have to. what you point out is a ridiculous situation where we in pennsylvania are selling electricity to new york because new york won't harvest their own resources and the shale doesn't mark state lines, doesn't care if it is in pennsylvania or new york. it is the same product. one thing i would love to see estates that are great energy producers, pennsylvania, texas, louisiana, oklahoma, alaska, in states like new york, recognize this is such an enormous strategic advantage for the united states. one shocking thing that happened today is the house energy committee announced they are going to be holding a

hearing next week, drink a heads of big oil to explain why gas prices are so high. they should be calling on small shale producers and asking what they can do to help them unleash of any dominance. stuart: you hit it on the far. i understand about pennsylvania and vladimir putin. thanks for being here, see you again soon. still had, matt schlapp, steve hilton, mark tepper. this week president biden attended the first in person fundraiser of his presidency and what did he talk about? climate change. democrat elites out of touch, that is my opinion and it is "my take" coming at you next. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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>> if this was a prize fight, my points go to zelenskyy and ukrainians. zelenskyy is like the king on a chess board. you want to protect him. everyday he's talking he's hurting putin. >> those sanctions we are putting on russia can be put on china and the american people are prepared to sacrifice, if necessary, but china is either going to be a player on the world stage or pariah. >> all of the sanction, the literature and economics it's solid. they don't work, they can overcome sanctions. what they can't do is overcome military support.

the thing that's really hurt russia so much is putin. >> well nobody likes what putin is doing in ukraine but when biden tries to blame everybody else under the sun, why aren't you just drilling an america, to create jobs by the way but also takeaway dependence on oil from these dictators around the world stuart: 11:00 eastern time, straight to the money. mixed markets still, down 100 for the dow, up 100 for the nasdaq. show me the price of oil this morning. we're looking at $103 per barrel , now check out the 10 year treasury yield, these are the key benchmarks for the financial markets. we're at 2.15% on the 10 year treasury. as of right now, the president just wrapped up his video call with china's xi-jinping. that's according to china's state, i'm sorry, what did you say? confirmed by the white house? okay. the meetings wrapped up and confirmed by the white house okay what do we got as headlines lauren: that's important because

everything we're hearing in terms of headlines is coming from china so how much can you trust china to present what happened in this near two-hour video call between president biden and president xi. china is saying we don't have a read-out from the white house. china is saying conflict in ukraine, they didn't use the word war, is in the interest of no one and they do want world peace. do they pick a side? do they condemn putin's actions? did they talk about taiwan, because the chinese aircraft hours before this call started at 9:03 in the morning, that chinese aircraft went through the sensitive taiwan straight. did they talk about nuclear weapons and nuclear threats we don't know. i brought you the headlines as we have them from the chinese there are a lot of questions right now. stuart: but the call is over. lauren: the call is over, 10:52 a.m. stuart: the white house is what they are saying about what was on the call. i see no impact on the market so far from what the chinese have said about the call. maybe that changes when we find out what the biden administration says about the

call. we're still down 110 for the dow industrials. well, well, well, a glutton for punishment his name is mark tepper back with his bathrobe, an extraordinary thing but back with us on a friday morning, we made light of these things on a friday. you have to with war in the background. >> still, come on. stuart: all right, tepper let's get serious here. no matter what you're wearing. are you okay with investing in stocks when we've got six rate hikes coming, probably, from the federal reserve and 10% inflation and a war? >> i think we're going to run into some problems here so look, eight hikes is not going to cure inflation, yet it's going to be pretty detrimental to the economy and the stock market and when you go back to jay powell's temperature from wednesday, as i was listening here is what i heard. i heard seven hikes this year, four more next year, we're going to unwind the balance sheet. that sounds very very difficult for investors but it seems like

investors heard something different. they heard we're going to be methodical, pragmatic, you know, we're going to be calculated and the market seemed to like it. i think there's trouble ahead. i don't think we definitely cannot handle seven hikes this year. i think once we get to about four or so, i think we're in trouble. stuart: well we had two fed governors or fed board members i should say this morning, mr. waller and mr. bullard, both wanting an immediate 50 basis point hike and stop the printing of money now. >> yeah. stuart: that's a much more aggressive attitude towards rates than we've heard before. >> and you need to be aggressive when you've got a dual mandate of full employment, and price stability which is fighting inflation. inflation is running way too hot and we have to stop that before it becomes an even bigger problem, even if we're running the risk of slowing the economy to the point of potentially a recession. unfortunately, that's where we're at. stuart: you're too young to remember what paul volcker did in the early 1980s. he jacked up interest rates,

huge, immediately and you had a whopping great big recession. >> yup. stuart: heaven forbid we have the same thing this time around but one thing, there's a mass mutual survey, 42% of americans are delaying investments because of the war. is that the right thing to do? >> that's a bad, bad, bad idea. stuart: really? >> yeah, i mean look, this is probably part of the reason from 2001-2020. the s&p average 7.5% per year, a 60/40 portfolio, 6.4% per year, but the average investor, 2.9%. so the average investor came way short of what you could have done had you just stayed in the market, so it's about time in the market, not timing the market. right now, you should be dollar- cost averaging. don't stop putting money into your 401 (k). keep going this is the best time to be buying assuming you have a long term time horizon. stuart: we always go back to this. you youngsters have a long time horizon the other of us do not. >> exactly.

stuart: just bear us in mind, tepper. by the way you staying the whole hour? >> yes, sir. stuart: okay, glutton for punishment, i was right, okay, thank you, mark now this. this week, president biden attended the first in-person fundraiser of his presidency. when it comes to raising money the days of virtual or socially distanced campaigning appear to be over. well, 18 very wealthy donors shelled out about $3 million for the democrat national committee, and what did our president talk about? what was his big pitch to bring in the big money? climate change. the first thing he said was and i'm quoting now, "climate change is the existential threat to humanity." he went on pro note the green new deal. only one mention of ukraine which the president used as a reason to weatherize homes and businesses. war in europe and rampant inflation at home and the president focuses entirely on climate change. that speaks volumes about the democratic leaks.

they are not in the trenches dealing with inflation. they aren't out on the street facing the crime wave. they are out of touch. the presidents out of touch. overseas the climate crowd is in retreat, germany and britain are actually going back to fossil fuels, but no, not here. biden's climate pitch rolls on and on. it may bring in the money from the donor class, but $4 gas is bad news for the working class and will not be forgotten in november. matt schlapp joins me. can't the democrats read the writing on the wall? isn't it obvious that this is a loser? >> yeah, what's crazy about the gas prices and the diesel prices and the jet fuel prices, stuart, is that they are only about half as much as they want, the raise is only about half as much as they want it to be because under the green new deal , their whole goal is to make fossil fuels to prohibitive ly expensive for the american people you just have to stop using them, so this is only just the beginning of what the green new deal would

do in terms of fossil fuels and, you know, if you look at poland which smart presidents do, to see okay, what do the american people care about, every poll, they care about what you just said, inflation, it's harder and harder to get bias their wages are frozen, but the commodities of life go up, they are worried about the border open with all these drugs and crime, and de funding the cops and what's happening to our great big beautiful american cities, they are brittle, broken, they are bankrupt, and they are crime ridden. stuart: youtube banned president trump's cpac speech, as you know you organized it. his speech was banned on youtube and that's the second year in a row that's happened. look i think that's outrageous. i want to know two things. first of all, on what ground did you two ban a former president and what are you going to do about it? >> they give us no grounds, and they gave us a strike and so what i announced in this letter to the ceo of google, i'm going to reiterate on your show it's the first time i've commented

publicly, stuart, is that as a conservative leader whose pretty free-market on these questions, i believe that companies should be able to run their affairs, we're no longer going to sit back and this argument about whether google and these other tech oligarchs should be regulatedded and legislated by the federal government. they need to stop, what they are essentially doing is silencing half of this country. last year, president trump's speech in orlando got more views before it was taken down than the grammies and the oscars combined. we are a big, huge majority in this country and what these companies are doing is unamerican and we are no longer going to sit by. i'm going to advocate strongly that we take important steps to stop this outrageous behavior of censorship. stuart: former president trump is on this show at 11:00 next monday morning, and i intend to ask him, what can we do about this , mr. president? i will certainly ask him on that

occasion. >> well he's suing them. he's suing them and we're helping him on that lawsuit too, which is another big piece of this. stuart: yes, on what grounds are you suing? >> on the , you know, that is a big class action lawsuit over the fact that they use their platforms, contrary to the law, to help socialists get elected in this country and to prevent people like donald trump and other candidates from having a fair shake, and they do it everyday and it's about time they get called on the carpet for doing that. stuart: good we'll take up the issue. >> they shouldn't be exempted and they shouldn't be exempted from the courtroom. they should have to defend themselves in courtrooms. right now they are mostly exempted. stuart: got it matt schlapp thanks for joining us see you again soon. got it. we showed you how the white house recruited tik tok stars to push messages about putin. watch this again. >> this horrific fight between ukraine and russia, nobody wants to work with him, so people being scared of war and limited

resources, prices are about to go up as well. stuart: well, it turns out that the white house screened those influencers questions before they allowed them to go forward. we've got the story for you. the city is seen as the last line of defense for the major port city city of odesa. so far they have been successful we'll talk to a member of the ukrainian parliament about the importance of odesa that's coming up for you. new concerns about human traffic king as millions of refugees leave ukraine. ash are webster has a report on that from poland, next. you can't buy love. happiness. or confidence. but you can invest in them. at t. rowe price our strategic investing approach can help you build the future you imagine. ♪ ♪

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stuart: 3.2 million refugees have fled ukraine an estimated 90% of those are women and children, ashley webster live at the ukraine-poland border. there are concerns about human trafficking there, what's being done to protect them, ash? ashley: absolutely, stu. as you can imagine as you say 90 % of those more than 2 million people are very vulnerable, women and children, who escape one trauma buffets another threat as soon as they get here, from human traffickers. we spoke to a woman earlier today a volunteer who deals specifically with women and children, and she says events like this attract plenty of predators. take a listen. >> it's like hunting ground for these guys. we get 13-year-olds crossing the border, they had to leave their families or maybe their families died. they are taking the vulnerable population and exploiting it even further. ashley: well, as they cross the

border, each of the refugees is given a pamphlet that says protect yourself and if you can register with authorities as soon as you get here and that goes especially for drivers many drivers come here from around europe to offer their services, but they haven't been vetted so they have to register, they have to undergo a background check and that's exactly what a group of young men we met from the netherlands did earlier and they said they were here to protect the very youngest of the refugees. listen. >> there were some children who were here alone at the train station, so our purpose, first purpose is to take the children who are alone at the train station with us. ashley: any driver that wants to help transport a refugee can't just show up and offer a ride. they have to register and here is where that is done. you scan your qr code here, and then with the instructions, you fill out a form, you take a picture of your face, you take a picture of your id. then you go inside to get a wrist band. >> they don't have any place to go so yeah, any little bit maybe

we can change people's lives for the better, and i think that's motivation one could have ashley: and you know, stu, we ourselves, our crew here witnessed young men at the train station offering help to only single young women and of course that is a red flag. police immediately surround these people. they are on the lookout all the time but unfortunately, it does happen and the last estimate was 32 billion u.s. dollars. that's the sex trafficking, human trafficking industry in europe each year, so it's a huge problem and they are doing their very best to try and stop it. stu? stuart: as if those people haven't suffered enough already. ashley webster, right there. ashley: exactly. stuart: thanks, ash see you later. ukrainian parliament member dmit ro mataloka joins me now. you're in kyiv right now. i believe you are experiencing

an air raid right now, is that accurate? >> yeah, that is 100% accurate. i'm in kyiv and we have an air raid siren going on right now, at this very moment. stuart: how often do you get these air rate warnings? >> at least a couple of times a day, two, three, sometimes four. stuart: do you hear explosions? >> yes, from time to time, i do hear explosions. i do hear machine guns being shot, so we hear it all. stuart: how close to you are the bombs being dropped? >> the last one, it's like 15 minutes drive by car, 10-15 minutes drive. stuart: let me ask you about the city of makalov. the last line of defense before russia can overtake the port city of odesa. you used to work in there, why is odesa such a crucial place for ukraine to hold on to? >> i would say that it's more of a crucial place for russia,

in terms of their ideology, philosophy and the history, because that is the main, the driving ambition behind the intervention and this war and this invasion. they consider odesa to be a russian city. they consider it to be built by katherine the great and for them , in their mind, in their picture of the world view, it must belong to them. moreover, odesa has a critical economic importance. it's one of the biggest ports in the black sea. it provides an incredible amount of cargo and also, it's the third-biggest city in ukraine, so it has critical importance in terms of controlling the south and securing the nikoli region and putting pressure on on the

southern borders and being able to connect with transmistri a, which is currently occupied by russia as well, which is a tiny, tiny piece of territory occupied from maldova. stuart: now, with four weeks into this war, how is morale holding up against the ukrainian people? >> among the ukrainian, the morale is, i mean, it hasn't been that high, i think, because we are, what we are witnessing, you can't simply stay apart from it. when they are bombing civilians, killing little children, you become angry and you become bitter, and this drives you in your struggle and your fight and this gives you forces. the russian army morale is at the lowest point possible. that is why they are sending the general to the battlefield, because their army refuses to

obey to the orders, and that is a real picture that we are see ing. ukraine has eliminated four russian generals in this war at the front line and they are going there simply because soldiers refuse to fight further stuart: dmytro, thank you very much for reporting right in the middle of an air raid, we do appreciate that and we hope your morale stays high because you're on the right side. >> thank you. stuart: on a similar story here, we've been telling you ability the white house briefing tik tok stars on russia and gas prices. one of those influencers is saying hey, look, the biden administration pre-screened the questions. set it all up. auto it was asked to submit questions before the briefing for the sake of time, not as i was told content. they set them up. tepper still with me, he's here for the hour, of course. they were coaching these tik tok stars. >> yeah, without a doubt and it's so strange to me that this

is where we're at in life now. we're relying on tik tok influencers to shape geo political policy, domestic policy, it's absolutely insane. i've got two daughters they are 12 and 14. i see them doing their tik tok dances all the time. they do a great job, they are very smart girls, but do they have solutions for what's happening in ukraine? i would think not. do they have solutions for gas prices? no, they don't. i love them to death, they are very smart but they aren't the people that we should really be soliciting information from here. stuart: they were being coached to say hey, it's putin raising the gas prices. >> well with the price of oil coming down, should we be thanking putin? i mean, that be the logic, you know? so look, it's everything that him hearing out of this administration has been illogical to this point and the fact that they are coaching 18-year-olds, 16-year-olds, most of the users of tik tok are under 18. stuart: not good. just has a bad ring to it. >> it does. stuart: all right, markets still

down. we've got some headlines coming out of the x i'm and biden talk nothing dramatic, we're just getting the stuff from the chinese side, we don't yet get stuff from the white house side. we're down 125 on the dow, but the nasdaq is up 100 another quick look at bitcoin. not doing much, it's down today 40, 700 but it's not that much price volatility. bitcoin actually snapping a three-day winning streak. what are you doing with bitcoin? >> here is what i should be doing and i'm not doing it. i should be buying it in the high 30s and selling in the low 40s, rinse, repeat, do it over and over. i'm not. i probably have, i don't know, 3 % of my liquid net worth tied up in crypto. just kind of a plug and play for me. i'm going to let it ride. if it goes to zero i'll survive, man, you know? stuart: [laughter] you're doing so well in stocks you've forgotten about your bitcoin. >> it pains me to watch it everyday. it's way too volatile. stuart: yeah, like i'm watching microsoft.

i've given up on that one. not forever. all right the department of homeland security wants workers to volunteer at the southern border. they are bracing for huge wave of migrants this spring and summer. we've got the story for you. the average price of a gallon of gas in california, 5.80. state is considering a $400 gas rebate to every taxpayer. what the would steve hilton think about that? he's our california guy. i can't believe he wants a $400 rebate to taxpayers. i'll ask him about it though, he's next.

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stuart: all right back to the markets we're down 130 for the dow, we're up 100 on the nasdaq, split market, i guess you could say. mark tepper is with us for the hour and he's going to start looking at fedex which is down 4.5%. >> yeah, so revenue came in up on increase in pricing, but they missed on earnings and the guide was kind of conservative, surprise surprise, labor shortages and supply chain issues, those are driving up costs faster than they can hike prices and obviously, not a good thing for fedex. stuart: moderna, now that was a strong winner earlier, it's a winner now up 5%.

what's this? >> yes, the fda clearance of a second booster for all adults, not just emergency, for 65-plus, a little appeal to, you know, more people. the stock overall has stunk over the course of the last year or so, but this is the time to get in, when you think covid is non-existent, which we hope it is, but this is typically the time when you get in as a trade in moderna maybe a month or two from today is up substantially. stuart: well there's a huge new surge in cases in south korea, hong kong, some rising cases in britain and germany as well, so maybe that accounts for the strong gain for moderna. got it. gamestop, now, i can never work out whether they are a meme stock or what, but they're up today the story? >> yeah, so it was up 5% when i looked at it earlier, it's only up 1.5% right now so it got a pop and now it's fading a little bit. they actually had a surprise loss in the holiday quarter which is not good for them obviously but the big thing is they are launching an nft

marketplace. who isn't doing that right now? the issue is theres no details. they haven't communicated the strategy, nobody knows what they are going to do with nft, they are just in it. stuart: are you in the nft market? >> no, i had a bad experience back in the day with baseball cards, you know? i was trying to buy beer in college, couldn't sell my baseball cards even though becke tt magazine said they were worth 100 bucks or whatever, i couldn't gain any liquidity from them, they were ill liquid, nft could be the same thing so i'm not messing with them. stuart: got it thanks very much today mark tepper. got that. lawmakers in california will propose a $400 gas rebate for every california taxpayer. steve hilton is our california guy, and he joins me now. i can't believe you approve of a $400 rebate to taxpayers to makeup for the nasty price of gas. you don't approve of that do you steve: i don't and breaking news from this side of the country i

also don't have plans to launch an nft marketplace. that's not going to be happening , so i just want to reassure everyone about that. look, the other part of this story is the same lawmakers who voted for this one off temporary gimmick voted against a proposal from kevin kylie, republican lawmaker in the state legislature to scrap the gas tax which is a huge component of the high prices that we're see ing. you know, the last time we spoke about it, i just filled up for 5.69. the other day it was 6.29. it's just going up and up it's unbelievable, and $0.51 of every dollar of every gallon is the tax. $0.51 so that's what they could be doing actually to really help instead of this one off gimmick. stuart: what they really want to do is to put, is to send people checks. it's like buying votes isn't it? steve: exactly right. stuart: if every taxpayer gets

400 bucks that's better than seeing gas tax taken off the price of a gallon of gas. that's what politicians do isn't it especially in california. steve: it's certainly what left wing politicians do because they want to increase the size of government, increase the size of the state, make people dependent on it, so it's all about growing their role in people's lives in the economy and business and you see that right across-the-board so as you say, totally consistent with their ideology but it doesn't actually help people, and in particular it doesn't help the people who they claim to speak for most, the hard working, lowest-paid, the working class, who actually are getting hit by this the most who need their cars to get around to do their work and one last point on this is that actually, another huge component of the price increase is also ideological here, which is a fact that it's so much of the oil & gas that's used in the states imported, at very high cost, even though we have some of the largest reserves of oil & gas in the world, here in california, but they want to leave it underground and ship it in from saudi arabia instead.

stuart: good lord. how about this one, i'll try this one on you, steve. there were more than 164,000 migrants encountered at the southern border just in february and that is up 63% over february last year. now, the homeland security people, they are calling on employees to volunteer at the southern border because they predict another surge just before the mid-terms. i can't believe this is good for the democrats, steve. steve: well look, again, it's ideological. there's no practical reason for this , only justification is the direct consequence of the incentives that they convey ed which is we're going to not prosecute people, we're not going to deport people, we're not going to enforce border security, we're going to stop building, every single message and in fact not just their actions but also the words. biden, before the election, saying we want a surge at the border. that's what they've got. that's what they've ended up with as a direct consequence of their policy. now look, it depends on whether

people will actually make the connection between that issue, that crisis, the humanitarian crisis, the economic crisis it causes. we have so many people in communities and not the resources to take care of them, and their daily life, and that's the challenge for republicans to make clear that an open border is really bad for you, wherever you live in the country. stuart: got it. i hope you take up this theme on sunday night at 9:00 eastern or "the next revolution." steve: we will actually we have a really interesting story on it stuart: i knew you were going to do that. you should have given me the story and we don't have to wait for 9:00 but we forgive you steve hilton, we'll see you soon thanks a lot, man. steve: thanks stuart. stuart: blue origin making some really big changes to their upcoming space flight, which includes leaving a hollywood star back on earth, tell you more about that coming up. we've told you about thieves stealing fuel from gas stations, police say they are also targeting individual cars.

no surprise there. we've got the report for you, after this.

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stuart: the most powerful rocket in the world just unveiled at the kennedy space center. nasa calls it the mega moon rocket. 322 feet tall, it will be used in the upcoming artemis 1 lunar mission. did you know we are going back to the moon. blue origin, well delaying their next space flight until march 29 , supposed to go up on the 23rd little delay and by the way saturday night live star pete davidson is backing out of that space trip. mark tepper is with me. does bezos have a celebrity strategy for blue origin? >> i feel like that's it. you hit the nail on the head. i feel like it's a marketing strategy, you know, he wants t put a bunch of celebrities up there, gain a lot of buzz surrounding space travel, and then he's going to turn on that

retail spigot, and start to sell the 300 grand, i have no idea what they are priced at nobody knows where they are going to price them. all we know is someone paid 28 million through an auction. stuart: i'll remember that one, yes. >> absolutely insane. stuart: well look, if you had the money, i presume you do, would you fly up in it? >> i would not, absolutely not. i don't want to be part of anyones trial and error with my life, so no, i would not, and 300,000, 400,000, i don't care if it was 50,000 for 11 seconds or 11 minutes? no thank you. stuart: and you don't orbit the earth, you just go into space, or something. >> yeah, i'll pass. stuart: thank you very much, mark. the price of gas, we follow it very closely on this program. the national average for regular is now $4.27. anthony chan is with us. anthony is an economist. who better to answer this following question? who was better at managing energy policy? trump or biden?

>> well i think the answer is clearly donald j. trump, president trump did a better job but of course the caveat, stuart , i did an article on this , is that 11% of all of the oil that is produced around the world is the united states, so we don't really control the price of gas but there is this obsession out there that we want to give credit to presidents that keep the price of gas down or oil and give blame to those that keep it higher so after adjusting for that caveat, clearly, on president trump, oil prices went down 1.1%. coming in second, of course was george h. bush with 19% increases and of course barack obama, president obama coming in third with almost 30% increases, so that's something to keep in mind, that if the goal is to keep prices for oil low, we have to give credit to president trump and by the way, stuart, to

give more credit to president trump, there was a time when prices were actually in negative territory and it was only until after he asked the saudis to actually cut production did prices come up even higher so he would have been even more successful at keeping prices lower if he would have kept those prices in negative territory for a little longer. stuart: as an economist i'm sure you saw this fed chair powell signaled that wages are rising too fast, and that's hurting the feds efforts to reduce surging inflation. what do you think of that? >> i don't think that that the real issue. i love it when wages are going up. the problem we have is that productivity is just below-trend we need productivity to go much much higher and of course we need inflation to go much- much lower so to blame wages on that is silly because right now, what i see is that real wages are actually in negative territory so no matter how fast these wages are rising and they are rising average hourly earnings rising a little bit less than 6%, inflation is

running at 7.9% now why is inflation so high? many reasons. the federal reserve wasn't good at forecasting the virus, every time you have a flare-up of the virus, that causes some supply issues with labor. that pushes wages, that pushes inflation out there. every time you have a situation like a war, and all of a sudden there's going to be some issues with food prices or food supply and energy prices, inflation is going to be higher, so the federal reserve hasn't done a good job at forecasting inflation but it's because the world has changed. now in order to forecast inflation, right, you have to in the tool box for the federal reserve before, but absolutely necessary if you're going to do better inflation forecasts today stuart: okay so you've got 10% roughly 10% inflation right now, and you've got four, five, six rate hikes coming from the federal reserve, maybe more. are we going to go to a

recession? >> i think that right now, the thing that i'm looking at, stuart, is the shape of the yield curve, the difference between the 10 year and the two year. we're now, as we speak, around 19 to 20 basis points. if you see that number going into negative territory and it stays there for about three consecutive months, historically , research that i've done finds that you are more likely to go into some sort of a recession. again, two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth so yes it is a risk and of course high oil prices also are a risk for potential recession. we're not there yet, because if you look at oil prices today in real inflation-adjusted terms, yes, they're high but they are only as high as they were back in 2014 so they were higher in other periods when we went into a recession. that is still a risk and if you get that negative shape of the yield curve then you will go into a recession no doubt. stuart: okay, thanks for joining us see you later. tepper still with me.

what do you assess the chances of recession at? >> i would say over 50% this year. stuart: a recession this year? >> yeah. stuart: better than 50% chance? >> i think so because the fed is communicating seven hikes this year. i don't think we can really handle more than maybe four, yet there's always that mysterious neutral rate, like where does the fed funds rate get to before it starts to actually choke off economic growth and since 1980 its come down and down and down, i think in 2018, we got up to about 2.5% on the fed funds rate i bet you it's closer to 1% now. look, the yield curve has already inverted. i've heard a lot of people talking about it's flattening, but they are only looking at the tens and the twos. there are inversions all throughout the curve right now and that typically proceeds a recession. stuart: always bothers me the idea that we got 10% inflation, rate hikes are coming , economy maybe slowing down a little bit, 4% mortgages. i'm not sure i really want to put my money into stocks or more money into stocks at this

particular point. >> yeah, and we've got a lot of clients who, you know, may have recently cashed out of their businesses so they are sitting on cash and our strategy with them right now is maybe we put 20 to 30% to work now and then we got to come up with a strategy over the course of the next four to eight quarters, to systematically deploy that overtime. stuart: i'm glad i'm not in your line of business putting somebody else's money on the line. i wouldn't want to do that. mark you're all right, thanks very much. show me the dow 30 always like to get a sense of the market quite a bit of selling i'd say about two-thirds of the dow 30 are in the red, one-third in the green, roughly roughly an the dow is down 100 points. you know, we told you about thieves stealing fuel from gas stations. police say they are also targeting individual cars. kelly o'grady will file our report from los angeles, kelly is next.

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got it. tesla has restarted production at its shanghai factory it kasea closed for two days because of a

covid outbreak, and their stock share.3% getting close porsche increasing their ev sales target, they expect 80% of sales to be electric by the year 2030 and listen to icon, the porsche ticon. i think it's the most beautiful ev i've seen. i've never been a huge fan of teslas. they look nice, but they aren't jaw dropping, like that porsche. now that one is only like 750- horsepower, and its got to be a slug, right? but look, the whole 80% estimate by porsche, 80% ev by 2030 i find that hard to believe because porsche enthusiasts have

really appreciated manual transmissions versus the paddle shifting which is so popular now days they've appreciated naturally aspirated engines rather than turbo engines. i find it hard to believe that these porsche enthusiasts are suddenly going to embrace this sudden movement towards ev. stuart: it's a very high proportion in very few years, mark, thanks. gas prices are so bad they are so high, that thieves are now drilling holes into car fuel tanks and stealing the gas. goodness, me. kelly o'grady is at an auto repair shop in los angeles. kelly? your report is not about the stolen gas, but the costlyrepai. explain, please. >> yeah, absolutely. i mean, stuart, it could cost you $1,500 to two grand just to fix your tank if this happens to you. criminals are going after passenger vehicles as well as the pumps themselves at these gas stations just outside la thieves made off with

hundreds of gallons of fuel, that's happening in texas and north carolina as well this week. now i want to contextualize why that's happening. well the national average for gas dropped $0.06 this past week here in california we're hitting record hig stations in la seen prices well over $6 and criminals are taking advantage of that skyrocketing prices. now the big job occurs when thieves target pumps drilling directly into the structure but they are hitting the average car like in this photo. thieves will often drill holes in the tank just to make off with 30 to $40 and bring in the owner of ana automotive. can you tell me, you know, how thieves actually do this? you've seen people come in with this problem. >> very simple. gas tanks mostly are made out of plastic now. all they need is to take a drill right here and it takes less than a minute and you poke a hole and the gas will come out. they made out with that and even if they take all of the gas out there's still some in the gas tank, the line, the filter they

can start the car and start driving up to two to three months you can drive the car not knowing and not stop completely. if you made it to the freeway and the exhaust system is right next to it so if the gas is pour ing, this gets up to four to 500 degrees fahrenheit and it can ignite and you're in the middle of the freeway, dead stop the car can catch on fire. you know what's next. reporter: that's extremely dangerous and on top of that it costs you 1,500 to 2,000, stewart it's crazy. stuart: but why don't they cyphe n it out? >> well it's locked. stuart: oh, yes. well-done. >> yes there's locks on the gas caps now. stuart: why would you drill a hole? of course the caps locked. okay, kelly i stand corrected, thank you very much indeed. guess what is now? the trivia question. what a question this one is. how many pounds of vegetable dye is used to turn the chicago river green on st. patrick's day

, well there's a question that you are dying to know the answer to, i know i'm guessing 160. >> i'm going 120, stu. stuart: okay, we'll be back with the correct answer after this. meet jessica moore. jessica was born to care. she always had your back... like the time she spotted the neighbor kid, an approaching car, a puddle, .. ♪ ms. hogan's class? yeah, it's atlantis. nice. i don't think they had camels in atlantis. really? today she's a teammate at truist, the bank that starts with care when you start with care, you get a different kind of bank. what happens when performance... meets power? you try crazy things... ...because you're crazy... ...and you like it. you get bigger... ...badder... ...faster. ♪

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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 stuart: here we go. how many pounds of green vegetable dye are used to turn the chicago river green on pant - st. patrick's day. you guest 120? i guest 160.

reveal please. four. 40 pounds. one boat dumps the dye, another one mixes it. it takes tweeight 2 hours to turn the entire river green. can't believe it is that small amount. >> i will turn my beer green. stuart: my time is up. donald trump on the show monday exclusive. it is yours. neil: have a wonderful weekend. markets don't know what to make of the 2 hour phone call the president had with his counterpart in china. even with today's fall off we are looking at the best week for market averages including those in europe since november 2020. we will get into the reasoning even with