for not doing more to support his people, so i think that it's an excellent choice for a nobel peace prize. maria: yeah, he deserves the nobel peace prize, dagen mcdowell, victoria hernandez, great to see you both this morning thank you so much for being here, have a great monday. and thank you for joining us, we'll be back same time same place tomorrow morning, have have a great day, everybody "varney" & company begins right now stu take it away. stuart: good morning, maria, good morning, everyone. you know, i am tempted to start with the slap heard around the world but we really do have more important things to go at so here we go. the president is back in d.c. after a difficult week in europe his aids are still cleaning up from his gafs. when the commander-in-chief make a statement and it is immediately reversed by his staff you have to wonder whose in charge. it's a difficult moment for the country and the presidency. biden's approval rating has sunk to a new low just 40%. more news, talks scheduled

between russia and ukraine in turkey today, zelenskyy says he is "ready to discuss neutrality ." he will not seed sovereignty to putin. explosions heard around kyiv this morning but it's a bombard ment rather than an advance of russian troops, schools in kyiv reportedly reopening online today. shanghai, locked down, while authorities report 50 covid cases and that's enough to lockdown a city of 25 million, now do it in two stages. factories will close, including the tesla plant in shanghai. the port stays open but this lockdown increases concern about the supply chain, obviously. to the markets, stocks pretty much flat this morning, the dows down maybe 40, s&p four, nasdaq down eight, that's not much movement right there, but oil tumbling in part because of the shanghai lockdown that will affect demand. you're at $107 per barrel as of now but look at bitcoin this morning powering well-above the 47,000 level, i'm going to

call that a rally. interest rates holding pretty close to the 2.5% level that they hit last week we're actually at 245 and now this. the story everybody is talking about. oscar host chris rock makes a joke about will smith's wife. at first smith laughs and then goes on to the stage and slaps chris rock. then he takes his seat and launches obscenities in the middle of the oscar broadcast. this is on live tv. the oscar awards and hollywood lectures us on mortality? monday, march 28, 2022 "varney" & company is about to begin. stuart: and here we have the nine words from president biden that sparked a global upro ar. roll tape. >> we will have a different future, a brighter future, root ed in democracy and principle, hope and light, of decency and dignity of freedom

of possibilities, for god's sake , this man cannot remain in power. stuart: this man cannot remain in power. the white house's quick to walk back the president's remarks saying, "he was not discussing putin's power in russia or regime change." the president quickly fell in line with that message as well when he came home. watch this , roll tape. >> mr. president, do you want putin removed? mr. president, were you calling for regime change? >> no. stuart: okay, mercedes schlapp joins us. the president says one thing and immediately it's reversed by the white house so who is in charge and actually makes the decisions? >> well quite frankly that's i think a very important question to ask, stuart, because we're not quite sure whose in charge, you know, i think that this is, obviously we want the president to be in charge. we want the president to succeed ; however, when you, when president biden is making such

these such a comment that literally has created controversy, that literally has impacted what our foreign policy is, it's very very troubling. i've got to tell you something. the mere fact that this now gives putin ammunition to go back to his country and say see? it's the big u.s. , they're the bullies, they want me out of power. it only gives him more strength and at the end of the day it really also makes the nato allies very nervous when you have the president of the united states making these very careless comments. stuart: it's a troubling time for the country and for the president. look at this new poll. it's from nbc and it shows his approval rating has sunk to 40%. that is his lowest point to-date now, it's going to be a very difficult job, is it not, for him to go into the november elections with numbers like that >> right, yeah, i mean the

problem is that president biden has nothing to show for it it was a catastrophic withdrawal from afghanistan. it's a plummeting what we're sey creating a huge stress and anxiety for american families with higher gas prices, higher food prices, inflation impacting everyday lives. when americans have to spend $300 more a month for their expenses to deal with inflation and the wages are not adding up to combating the inflation, we have serious problems and so it is impacting the family's pocket books and in essence, when you have also russia-ukraine in stability, this only gives the democrats just not enough to make it up for the mid-term elections stuart: just hold on for a second will you, mercedes, want to deal with one other issue. the white house is looking to target billionaires with a new tax. all right, susan good morning to you. >> good morning. 20% minimum tax on households worth more than $100 million.

now, half of that revenue will come from those with a bill dollars plus and those that already pay 20% of their full income, they won't have to pay an additional tax under this proposal. now they say, the democrats and the white house, says it will help reduce the deficit by around $360 billion over a decade and it's pretty similar to the proposed minimum tax but senate democrats last year, now that didn't proceed but in a mid-term, do you think it's going to have a better chance of passing a very divided congress right now? stuart: i think it's unconstitutional to start with, and implementing this seizure of wealth. i think will be extremely difficult. we just talked to mercedes for a second, susan. i think this is their strategy to advance themselves in november, tax the rich. billionaires are never going to be popular. they will come along saying oh, we'll take money off them and give it to you. they will make it popular that's their strategy in november. >> right, and let me tell you, it's just not going to be enough to try to pit one american after the other. you know, the build back better plan failed.

they could try to push this tax through because obviously, when it comes to the tax legislation or tax when it comes to that area, they might have a better chance of trying to get that passed but time is running out. they are going to go into recess in august so it's going to be a lot more difficult for them to get any piece of legislation passed through or get this tax passed through by the time the mid-term elections hit. stuart: what a rotten strategy. tax the rich, be jealous of them , we'll take it off them because they've got it what a pathetic thing, but that's my opinion, okay, mercedes, you may share it i don't know but that is my opinion. >> i agree. stuart: thanks. >> it's a desperate move by the democrats. definitely is. stuart: awful. thanks very much, mercedes. let's check those futures now, we've got a monday morning situation here, with not much price change expected 20 minutes from now. jason katz joins us. let me put it to you like this. if the fed acts against inflation, we could see a recession and if they don't we've got runaway inflation. not a good situation for the stock market i'd say,

jason. >> well that's right. look if given the choice between recession and inflation, the fed has no choice but to pick the poison of hopefully temporary recession. we all know, stu, that the fed has a very tough needle to thread here, and i think what we might land on here is temporary negative gdp growth but frankly, i think we're going to avoid an earnings recession. now at the end of the day the stock market follows earnings, so the fed is empowered to raise rates here. we know why. jobless claims at decade-lows, we're seeing improving covid trends at least here in the united states, and there were signs of economic normalization prior to the invasion. stuart: it just seems to me that we are calming down a little. we had a period of intense volatility up and downside ways and all the rest of it. now it just seems like it's a little more calm, are you seeing that? >> i am, for sure. certainly with the volume of e-mails and calls dying down a bit from our clients.

look, if we get peace talk, if we get peace, that's a godsend. we all thought that we would have a face-ripping rally if we got to this point of peace talks , but frankly, the markets have come to grips with these headwinds, so we're already at pre-invasion levels for the s&p, so the focus is shifting back to inflation to have a fed response to it, and earnings, so we're in for a little bit more bumpiness but frankly i think the market could rally as much as say 5% between now and the end of the year. stuart: if we get peace talks, if it really means something, that will be a big rallying point for the market, right? >> it certainly be , but to my earlier point to some extent the market has discounted that. you'll have a visceral reaction if, in fact, we have peace talks , but look, the focus is on corporate and individual balance sheets which are impecable. the focus is on earnings growth. we're not going to get multiple

expansion. those days are hyped us. it's going to be about stocks following earnings. stuart: got it jason katz on a monday morning nothing better thanks very much for joining us we'll see you again soon. >> thank you, stu. stuart: yes, sir here is what everybody is talking about the academy awards held last night there was a slap heard around the world. it's what everybody is talking about. what do you got? >> i'm curious, do you even watch it live, did you? stuart: no. you watched the replay this morning, did you think it was real? what was your initial reaction? stuart: to be honest susan, i don't care. if it was fake, it was a terrible decision on their part because it looked ridiculous. if it wasn't fake it was a fight between two actors in the middle of the hollywood awards. >> well it was a shocking moment that overshadowed everything else, including historic wins so okay let's take you back because we have chris rock making a joke about will smith's wife and then will smith walking on stage and here is what everybody is talking about this morning. >> jada, i love you, gi jane ii

, can't wait to see it. >> [applause] >> oh, wow. wow! will smith just smacked me. >> wow, dude. it was a gi jane joke. >> wow, because abc muted the mic during the profanities. i was confused but then he watched the international feeds actually picked up all of the yelling, and then even more awkwardly less than an hour later, will smith won best actor for king richard and here is what he said in his acceptance speech. >> i want to apologize to the academy, i want to apologize to all my fellow nominees, hoping the academy invites me back, thank you. >> well he says love will make you do crazy things and then the character he won the oscar for , richard williams was a fierce defender of his family and the new york post this morning says that do you think the oscar might be taken away from will smith because he

broke the code of conduct at the academy awards? stuart: again, i don't care. >> you don't care. stuart: i do not care. hollywood is broken and i'm tired of getting moral lectures from people. i wouldn't dream of covering islamic terror in a movie or dream of being critical of china in a movie certainly not they are a bunch of cowards and i don't like them lecturing us. >> there was a lot of talk and controversy about whether or not it was real, was it just a stage? stuart: i don't care. >> event. stuart: who cares. it happened. >> we're talking about it. stuart: there you go, exactly. let's have a look at the futures 18 minutes to go, and we're pretty flat, a little bit of red ink but not much. now this. covid might be in our rear view mirror but in china it's not. shanghai starting its biggest lockdown in two years, 25 million people forced inside, we've got details. seems like a pretty cut-and-dry call for regime change, watch this again. >> we will have a different future, a brighter future, root

ed in democracy and principle, hope and light, of decency and dignity of freedom of possibilities, for god's sake , this man cannot remain in power. stuart: okay, is that how vladimir putin saw it? i will ask kt mcfarland after this. welcome to ameriprise. i'm sam morrison, my brother max recommended you. so my best friend sophie says you've been a huge help. at ameriprise financial, more than 9 out of 10 of our clients are likely to recommend us. our neighbors the garcia's, love working with you. because the advice we give is personalized. hey john reese, jr. how's your father doing? to help reach your goals with confidence. my sister told me so much about you. that's why it's more than advice worth listening to. it's advice worth talking about. ameriprise financial.

as a small business owner, your bottom line is always top of mind. so start saving with comcast business mobile. flexible data plans mean you can get unlimited data or pay by the gig. all on the most reliable 5g network. with no line activation fees or term contracts. saving you up to $500 a year. so boost your bottom line by switching today. get the new samsung galaxy s22 series on comcast business mobile and for a limited time save up to $750 on a new samsung device with eligible trade-in. at xfinity, we live and work in the same neighborhood as you. we're always working to keep you connected to what you love. and now, we're working to bring you the next generation of wifi. it's ultra-fast. faster than a gig. supersonic wifi. only from xfinity. it can power hundreds of devices with three times the bandwidth. so your growing wifi needs will be met.

supersonic wifi only from us... xfinity. stuart: talks between russia and ukraine continued to. zelenskyy says he is ready to discuss adopting a neutral status. mike tobin is over there. mike, zelenskyy's accusing the

west of cowardess, is this over the weapons that we promised them? >> it is over the weapons and the lack of delivery on some of the weapons and if you remember all the discussion about the polish migs that would go back and forth maybe they be in ramstein, and it all fell apart in the negotiations but in the meantime russians and ukrainians are set to resume talks. russia says what they want is to claim the east of the country, meantime, the air strikes continue to come west. the sirens whaled repeatedly warning of an impending strike sending people scrambling for cover, three times russian missiles came down on fuel depot s in the west of ukraine the most recent hitting where most of the pictures came from lviv because there were more cameras there. meantime cease-fire talks are set to get underway in istsanbul , turkey. >> the negotiations does not

mean that ukraine is ready to surrender. the negotiations mean that there should be a solution and diplomatic pressure to stop russia. so no, we are not ready to give up our territories, we are not ready to give up our people. >> a new round of negotiations is ahead because we are looking for peace. our priorities in the negotiations are known. ukraine sovereignty and territory integrity are beyond doubt. reporter: territorial integrity to zelenskyy means he will not give up the eastern section of his country, or the land bridge to the crimea peninsula. russia says now in phase ii of this war, that is exactly what they want. control of the land bridge means control of mariupol. that is a town that has been subject to warfare for more than three weeks now. that is where the death toll is so severe people are being buried in their yards, buses have stopped driving into evacuate people from mariupol because they are being shot at and the drivers arrested.

meantime in the capitol city of kyiv students are going back to class remote learning, that is. the regional administrator says it's as much about reading, writing and arithmetic as it is a distraction from the war. stuart back to you. stuart: mike tobin thanks very much, kt mcfarland joins us this monday morning. president biden caused an uproar when he said putin can't remain in power. was he wrong to say that? actually isn't that what a lot of people want? >> yeah, but you don't say it, stuart. i mean, what he's basically said to the world and particularly to vladimir putin is we want regime change. we want to get rid of you, and so how does putin, whose a very paranoid guy, how does he take that? well he's got to assume there's nothing left for me here. they already said i'm a war criminal, talked about bringing me to the international criminal courts and now talk about removing me from power, assassinating me, whatever that means so i think it undercuts the negotiations. what vladimir putin has got to

conclude is i've got nothing to lose. i might as well just do to other cities in ukraine what i've just done to mariupol, and keep going , escalate to deescalate because if i don't come out of this successfully, they are coming after me either way, so i think it's really done great damage to ukraine. stuart: i'm going to ask the same question that i'm going to ask most of our political guests diplomatic guests this morning. if the president makes a statement and it's immediately walked back by his aids, who is really in charge? good question, isn't it? >> it's a terrific question. president biden, by all accounts , just gave it sort of off the cuff kind of finished off with that but what i've also in the last couple days i've talked to people in washington. what's really behind all of this well that's what they are saying behind closed doors, that they really feel that they can now push to remove putin from power, and so i think biden was just, it was a slip of what they are saying in any event behind

closed doors and i think the problem i got with all of this , stuart i think vladimir putin should be removed from power, but how are you going to do it so what's the plan? assassinate him? assuming that maybe the oligarch s are going to get rid of him? they don't even live in russia. maybe there's an inner circle co o. putin has those guys so tightly wrapped they can't lift an inch of a finger without getting approval of him beforehand, and anybody who thinks there's anti- putin national uprise, think again. putin is now going to use this with his own people to say see , i told you. nato is the aggressor . they are coming to get all of us this is what they are really all about so rather than dividing the russian population, which would have been great for our perspective, i think putin is going to use it to solidify support behind himself. stuart: i think the country is in a very difficult position so is the president, kt mcfarland great stuff thanks for joining us we'll see you again soon. let's move on to china. they are locking down shanghai, there's a shocking headline for

you. have the lockdowns started? >> that's right so china's financial center, shanghai is a city of 26 million so that's the entire state of texas in one single city, so the lockdowns will be split in two, meaning half the city will be shutdown to be tested for covid and then the other half rotates and shuts down afterwards, ports and airports are still open. factories are shut, that includes tesla, which is closed today, and that might be extended. that closure might be extended until april 1, now shanghai reported what, 3,400 cases on sunday. only 50 new confirmed covid cases, but you have to think that they would the be shutting down the city if it was just 50 cases. stuart: right it's part of their zero-covid policy so they have to shutdown because of 50 cases that's an extraordinary thing susan good stuff thank youagaint some red ink but not that much that's the summary of the activity on a monday morning

we'll be back. i earn 5% cash back on travel purchased through chase with chase freedom unlimited. i earn 5% on our cabin. hello cashback! hello, kevin hart! earn big time with chase freedom unlimited with no annual fee. how do you cashback? chase. make more of what's yours. your shipping manager left to “find themself.” leaving you lost. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire

stuart: keith fitz-gerald joins us this monday morning, all

right, keith i've got a bone to pick with you. what is wrong with me if i've got any extra cash sitting on the sidelines, keeping it in cash, not putting it into the stock market, what's wrong with that? >> well, i would tell you this , stuart. if you need the cash, that's one thing but if you're banking on counting on safety that's the problem, because the markets have a very defined upward bias we're on the cusp of what i think is a pivotal move in history. if peace breaks out or putin pulls back in ukraine markets are gone like a rocket. if the fed suddenly comes out and says hey do you know what? maybe we do have this inflation thing under control, we're not going to raise rates that much markets are gone like a rocket. if you're trying to avoid risk you're missing opportunity. stuart: do you think those two items maybe some peace or a standstill in ukraine and maybe the fed won't tighten too much, you think either of those two is likely because you're setting them up as reasons for a huge rally. >> well, that is correct, and i'm using history as an example if you look at world war ii, korea, vietnam, any of the other

middle eastern conflicts we've experienced over the last 120 years that's exactly what's happened. so the bet you've got to make today is do you want to look at short-term events or do you want to have the patience and vision to go with the long term horizon? i submit for most investors the long term horizon is exactly where you want to be. stuart: if i'm in my 30s, 40s, 50s even early 60s i've got a long term horizon and organizing my 401 (k) for the long term, but address those of us who are not in our 60s any longer, address me whose going to be 74 in three months you want to have a go at that one? >> absolutely. i want whatever you eat for breakfast because you look fabulous at 74 and i hope to be there, but number two, you know, concern is safety. you want the return of your money, not necessarily the return on your money, so presumably, if you've been getting good financial advice you've been gradually pairing back and planning for that contingency and if you're suddenly sitting there wondering what to do i would submit you've

been following the christopher columbus school of navigation, no idea where you're going no intoed where you were when you got there and when you got back. stuart: keith that was a slam and a half it really was. but we will see you again next week and that's a fact and i am still sitting on the sidelines. >> [opening bell ringing] stuart: all right here we go you've got five seconds and we'll betraying this monday morning. we've going to see a little bit of red where the market starts to operate but i don't think it's going to be very much at least not in the very very early going. you know these talks of the talking ukraine and russia, they are talking. that helps the market a little. maybe a downside move this monday morning, here we go we're off and run and we're up, i'm sorry we're down 50 points, about two-thirds of the dow odd losers on the downside, s&p 500 also opening, a very slight loss i call that dead-flat to slightly lower, the nasdaq composite pretty much the same story flat to slightly higher let's put it like that, big tech how is that shaking out this

morning? microsoft is up, amazon, meta are both up, apple, alphabet on the downside but again not by much. i want to take a look at the 10 year treasury yield because it's at 2.46% now there's something going on with yields and the treasury market this morning that susan is going to explain. >> and then we can discuss it, because it all comes back to recession fears, right? i know it sounds wonky and boring but you have to look at the spread between the shorter term government bond yields and the longer term ones because if it flattens, if it inverts and goes the other way, that means an upcoming recession is imminent according to wall street. stuart: okay, so if the yield on short-term treasuries goes above the yield on long term treasur ies, that's a recession? >> that's a recession scenario and usually what the that indicates is that the fed is rushing to try to first of all catch up with inflation, and maybe, possibly, if they are trying to do this in such a short amount of time, there could be some policy mistakes,

right? and that's why people are very fearful we have the spike in the short-term government bonds and short-term yields because compared to the longer term. stuart: we've got on the screen 231 for the two year, 255 for the 10 year. they are awfully close. very very close, and so usually, you see a recession, they say, what, six to a year maybe 18 months out after it inverts, so that's a big deal. stuart: it is a big deal. let's get to something positive. how about tesla. nice gain today, 40 bucks, this has got to be a stock split >> i think so, yes, because look, they are going to ask their shareholders to split the stock and they are going to split again, remember that they split their stock five-for-one what two years ago? that was in august of 2020, and you know, stock splits are very positive and bullish for the shares since tesla has doubled since then to a trillion dollar market cap over a thousand bucks apiece, and the reason why tesla wants to

split the stock is pay out stock as dividends instead of giving away cash, because as you know, cash is something that tesla wants to retain. its been hard for them to get , you know, free carbon cash on the balance sheet but you had elon musk saying this morning he tested positive again for covid, but almost no symptoms. the stock though reacting more towards the stock split than say to this news of the world's richest man again, testing positive for covid. stuart: didn't i see something from musk over the weekend challenging twitter? >> yeah, so here is what he said. it was a long thread of tweets and he was going back and forth with users, so he says given that twitter serves as a defacto town square, if we can bring this up, he says that twitter's failing to adhere to free speech principles, fundamentally undermine democracy, and he says is a new platform needed? he says he's giving serious thoughts maybe developing a new

platform, a twitter competitor. he doesn't have the time, let's be honest. he is managing a trillion dollar electric car company, sending rockets into mars and space but also you have to take his tweets with a grain of salt. he says a lot on twitter, how much does he follow through on and by the way, there are already twitter competitors like rumble, et cetera, what about the truth social how's that doing? stuart: no idea how it's doing but i do know that elon musk wants to make a headline at least every single day. >> or every weekend, he commands a twitter sphere in the conversation. stuart: i didn't like the look of this one, that apple maybe cutting the production of iphone s, and i see the stock is down. >> and air pods so again this comes from the nikkei news and we've been hearing a lot of the reports over in japan saying that apple will reportedly cut their iphone se output by 20% next quarter. se is a cheaper, lower entry cost iphone just introduced, remember the one that doesn't

cost $1,000 costs closer to 500 bucks, but the fact that they are cutting output by 20% next quarter, does that show weaker than expected demand for a hand set? stuart: looks like it. >> yes, according to the nikkei news but i've caveat we've gotten so many reports about cutting parts demand from apple. how many of that has actually translated into the actual earnings? zero in the last two years, so i take this with a grain of salt. stuart: the stock is only down .6%. bitcoin, $47, 600 i'll call that a rally. >> well, yes, you gain what, 3,000 bucks over the weekend, that is definitely a rally, and so the reason, you want to ask what the reason is? stuart: what's the reason? >> so it's a volatile asset as you can imagine, last week, you had one of the stablecoins, i won't even mention it because you won't know what it is but the fact that some of these stablecoins actually went into buy bitcoin supply, we're talking about millions of

dollars with the fourth largest holder now of bitcoin according to reports, that's bullish, right? also you have coinbase we can bring up coinbase and the other crypto stocks today. coinbase is the largest u.s. exchange for cryptocurrency. apparently they have they are closing in on a deal to buy 2tm, which is the parent of a brazilian cryptocurrency exchange, called murkato bitcoin, that's a big deal with consolidation in the space and that benefits volume for a company like coinbase. stuart: okay we're down 130 on the dow industrials. i see some action amd, chipmaker not that much action, but most chipmakers are going up. this one is going down. >> correct, today only though but with ev goldman sachs cutting their outlook on earnings for other chipmakers like the nvidia because of a challenging economy we talked about an impossible in version of the yield which might suggest there's an upcoming recession. now, for a md in particular they have actually it's a full downgrade for amd, and they are

saying you won't get as much up side as they had anticipated before, but as you said nvidia, we're closing in at 279. that's the largest chipmaker in the world, worth over what $700 billion, and they are going to possibly team up with intel so again there might be some consolidation and teamwork in this space. stuart: i think that the outstanding market this morning is the cryptos what do you say? >> you think so? stuart: more interesting than most. >> kind of unusual for me to hear from stuary varney. can i also note i wanted to bring this up for the apple store again. yes, we had that nikkei news report but you know coda, that's an apple tv plus production. stuart: oscar winner, right? >> for any streamer and it only took apple two and a half years to get there, netflix has been in the game for 10 years-plus an waiting for that best picture oscar. stuart: let's get back to the dow winners headed by microsoft i'm pleased to say back to $308 a share up $4, s&p 500 winners headed by tesla stock split is am coming up, up 4.5%, nasdaq

winners headed by tesla again, no surprises there, okta back again, now they are up 4%. all over the place but there are some gainers today. next case? the same day new york city's mayor called his city a laughing stock because of surging crime, an elderly man beaten and robbed while crossing the street in broad daylight, when will it end in the city? lace and camouflage is a ukrainian bridal company. they are making army assault vests, alongside their wedding gowns. we're going to take you to lviv where they are churning outcome bat clothing under fire for heaven sake. president biden promised to send more american natural gas to europe, do we have the supply? i'll ask oil & gas guy steven sh ork after this.

stuart: president biden promised to export liquefied natural gas to europe but there's a problem. u.s. producers are already operating at maximum capacity. grady trimble is with us. won't it take years to fulfill this promise? reporter: stu, those in the industry say yes, it's going to take time, likely years and a lot of investment in order to send as much liquefied natural gas to europe, as president biden has promised, and this comes as the regulatory environment for the oil & gas production in the united states has been far from favorable under biden's administration and that's putting it mildly. this chart shows you how drill ing approval permits spiked in its first few months in office, but then fell naply to january's low of 95 permit approvals, add to that the pause on new leases for drilling on federal land. now, the administration says it'll resume plans for oil & gas

development on public land, but with a measure to factor into its decision the cost of climate change. the industry largely welcome the plan to send more lng to europe, but it also says it needs the government on board to approve new pipelines, export terminals and production facilities. >> we don't have the pipes. we don't have the infrastructure, and those require permits. those pericardium mits have to be put in place by the federal government and state governments so we need certainty that the information is going to be built before we actually start producing more natural gas. reporter: and biden's lng announcement was met with staunch opposition from environmental groups, stuart so while the oil & gas industry says we need to produce more in order to get europe off russian oil & gas the environmentment all it'ses say we need to produce less in the u.s.. stuart: grady trimble good stuff thanks very much indeed i want to bring in steven shork, our

guy on oil & gas certainly for this morning. steven? let me put it to you like this. here is what i think. we can't give the europeans the nat gas they need, so long as we stick to a green agenda here. what do you say to that? >> absolutely, we're looking at an industry now that is in multi -year decline as far as capex is concerned, and this is what happens when you declare war, not only on the oil & gas producer but more importantly, their bankers. they are the ones who fuel future production, and we've been fighting this horse now for about the last 10, 10.5 years, and we've tried to, we've done a great job. the standing economics, high prices are the best cure for high prices and certainly we did that in short order to the point where the last 10 years, we overbuilt relative to demand but now we had the pipelines for current demand. that said we were afraid to invest even more to get even more product to the ground because of one, the environmental movement of course and it's not just in washington, it's all now invaded the corporate boards of the

major oil & gas producers so they want to put more capex toward decarbonization rather than fossil fuel so we're at a lagger head right now. demand is surging, we've put too much faith, especially europe and now we're all paying the price and this is a multi- year strategy to fulfill this promise to get u.s. more lng so this is not a quick fix. this headline, like the biden headline back in november regarding the spr release it's a political stunt, it's for optics only. yes, we want to be seeing or telling people we're give everything we can, but you did everything you can over the last number of years to underassets or discourage investment in this and now we're paying the piper and going to have to pay the piper for the foreseeable future with high energy costs. stuart: yeah, exactly when i look into the future and future inflation i see the price of diesel going up quite sharply. diesel is fundamental to the economy, farmers and truckers and construction people and all the rest. i've got a national average of 5.12 now on diesel.

how high do you think it's going to go? >> right now what we're looking at a probability the upper-lower quartiles of our quantitative modeling has crude oil prices between $135 and $105 a barrel so clearly if you go to that $135 upper range and there is a 21% probability we'll be at $150 crude oil so now we're talking about an extra 20-30 or $0.40 higher to the price of diesel and stuart i also want to mention it's not just energy. this war on natural gas that i've been saying it now for weeks, actually for years but saying it to clients the war on natural gas is a war on the u.s. farmer, it's on farmers all around the globe. natural gas is the most- important feedstock the synthetic ammonia which goes into ammonia nitrate which is fertilizer. we've doubled the cost of fertilizer over the past year, so fewer seeds are going into the ground which means the yield is going to be low for at least the next two seasons, so that said, we're not only looking at

severe inflation at the pump due to esg, but we're also looking at severe inflation at the grocery counter. stuart: absolutely, my tractor on my farm takes diesel. the cost has gone up $2 a barrel , $2 a gallon in the last 18 months and that's a lot. steven shork, we're out of time unfortunately but thanks for joining us. >> thanks stuart. stuart: let's talk about exxon for a moment this surprised me. exxon is getting into bitcoin mining. you want to explain that one? >> so let's say you run into some natural gas and -- stuart: suppose you run into natural gas. >> right and you're not close to a pipeline or it takes a while to get the gas through, so why not use that excess gas and do something valuable and like mining for bitcoin, which we know is an asset class that's with something. you're laughing but this is important when you don't want to waste any excess gas or energy. stuart: true it's just the way you said it, when you run into some natural gas, [laughter] >> look what you're doing when you're mining for oil & gas, correct?

you sometimes hit pockets of un foreseen gas supplies, so you might as well use that to maybe mine for something that could add to the balance sheet. stuart: because natural gas produces electricity and you need electricity to mine bitcoin >> there you go. stuart: have i got the connection? >> that's right and so i thought it was quite a smart way to do it so not just exxon but conoco phillips as well and just explain to you because someone just criticized me for saying maybe stuart does know what a stablecoin is, and you know what a stablecoin is in cryptocurrency? stuart: yeah, one that always keeps its value relative to one u.s. dollar. >> that's right or the dollars in equals dollars out and that's how you move across exchanges to buy different cryptocurrency. stuart: thank you. >> very welcome. stuart: excellent, susan thank you very much indeed. coming up here is what we got. the president should avoid public speaking at least when the topic is important, oh, ouch , a bruising op-ed in the journal i wonder what charles hurt will think of that he's here at the top of the hour and we'll tell him all about it. it may be spring but certainly

doesn't feel like it certainly not in the north east. how long is this cold snap going to last? we have your forecast after this with my hectic life, you'd think retirement would be the last thing on my mind. thankfully, voya provides comprehensive solutions, and shows me how to get the most out of my workplace benefits. voya helps me feel like i got it all under control. voya. well planned. well invested.

well protected. if you really wanna find out what you're made of, you can forget the personality tests and social media quizzes. because the only way you're ever gonna know is by heading into the big, wild, raging so-damned-beautiful- it-hurts world and finding out for yourself. were you born to follow a path? or were you born free? these are the things we thought about when we made the new grand cherokee. made for what you're made of. ♪ ♪ at adp, we use data-driven insights to design hr solutions to provide flexible pay options and greater workforce visibility today, so you can have more success tomorrow. ♪ one thing leads to another, yeah, yeah ♪

if you're a small business, there are lots of choices so yo when it comese success to your internet and technology needs.

but when you choose comcast business internet, you choose the largest, fastest reliable network. you choose advanced security for total peace of mind. and you choose fiber solutions with speeds up to 10 gigs to the most small businesses. that's virtually everywhere we serve. the choice is clear: make your business future ready with the network from the most innovative company. comcast business. powering possibilities™.

stuart: well, despite being a week into spring new york city and much of the northeast is facing a cold snap. jane manar is here. how long is this thing going to stick around? >> oh, well it is a brutally cold start to the week. good news is, give us a couple days, the weather will change and we will see that warmup, and a drastic warmup, right now we're in the 20s in new york, factor in the wind and it feels like the teens, but we're going

to see the 70s by thursday, so fingers crossed you need something to warm you up think about that but for the day today we're expecting dozens of potential record-cold high temperatures. we're talking temperatures in the 20s ranging to the mid 30s from new york to westfield, massachusetts even atlantic city , new jersey, now these are going to be the temperatures but again, it's that wind that makes it feel all the worse, so layers will be needed today. i've already been seeing a lot of brisk walkers to work this morning, going down sixth avenue that's key. you want to get inside as quickly as you possibly can because this is very cold air. in fact it's the coldest air we've seen so far this spring season which is only about a week-in, but hopefully fingers crossed it's going to be the coldest air before we see that turn again mother nature giving us another dose of winter this week, but we are anticipating again that warmup, ahead of our next storm system which comes in the next couple of days so getting through the cold today we'll be back in the 40s by tomorrow in new york, and then we'll see those 70s,

stuart, by thursday, so not too bad. just do some jumping jacks, that's what i've been doing. i'm looking forward to the hot cup of coffee. stuart: it's 83 degrees in naples, florida or will be on later today. you're all right, thanks very much indeed see you later. check that market. 25 minutes in, and i see some red for the dow down look at the nasdaq, the nasdaq is up again, nice gain, almost 14, 300 up 129 points. still ahead, steve forbes, chad wolf, the wall street journal kim strassel, ambassador kurt volker, the 10:00 hour of "varney" is next. ♪♪

♪♪ . . better hearing leads to a better life. and that better life... ...starts at miracle-ear. it all begins with the most innovative technology...

...like the new miracle-earmini™. available exclusively at miracle-ear. so small, no one will see it. but you'll notice the difference. and now, miracle-ear is offering a 30-day risk-free trial. you can experience better hearing with no obligation. call 1-800-miracle right now and experience a better life.

stuart: good morning, everyone. it is exactly 10:00 eastern. left-hand side of your screen tale of two markets. nasdaq composite, very strong gain, nice gain, up 3/4 of 1% but the dow industrials are down about 80. the yield on the ten year treasury, very interesting, 2.46%. there is a question whether short-term rates will be higher than long-term rates. that is called inversion. that is a recession indicator. that is on the cards this morning. price of oil absolutely

tumbling. down to $104 a barrel. down nine bucks. the lockdown in shanghai said to remove a little demand from the world market, oil goes down. for bitcoin, i call that a rally, up 3,000 bucks, almost $48,000 a coin. now this. in wartime we want to rally around the president. we want to feel confident in the commander-in-chief but after his european trip and a series of gaffs the president's reputation and standing have been damaged. asked what he would do if russia used chemical weapons, he said nato would respond in kind. jake sullivan had to jump in there saying the u.s. had no intention of using chemical weapons. the president suggested american troops would soon be in ukraine. the white house cleaned that up real fast. and then the worse gaffe of all, suggesting america wanted regime change in russia. within minutes that was explained away. then secretary of state blinken had to go on the sunday shows to

say categorically america does not want regime change in russia. when the commander-in-chief makes a statement, then it is then contradicted by his aides, the president displays weakness. who is in charge, the president or people reversing his policies? who did we vote for? jen psaki? the president will be 80 in november. he is not robust, he gets confused when he goes off prompter. the vice president inspires no confidence. the country has a leadership problem. 2 1/2 more years to go for the biden-harris team. second hour of "varney" just getting started. ♪. stuart: charles hurt joins us this monday morning. do you think we have a leadership problem? due think the country is in trouble, charles? >> good morning. oh, i think we're in grave trouble. these are very serious times.

after four years of listening to all this talk about fake constitutional crises this is a true constitutional crisis. you know, there are no easy, you asked the most important question which is who is in charge? joe biden does not seem to be in charge. what do we do about it? i have no idea what to do about it because of course invoking something, we heard a lot about this during the trump years, invoking something like the 25th amendment gets you stuck first with kamala harris and then the speaker of the house nancy pelosi. i don't think either of those are particularly good options. at this point, after this tour we just saw i don't think you could do any worse than what we've got right now. stuart: look at this op-ed in the "new york post" from the editorial board actually of the post. they say this, quote, biden's call for putin's ouster is the latest sign none of his words mean a damn thing. that's pretty strong stuff,

charles. >> it is and i don't talk about this other stuff lightly. this is, i mean we're in a very, very serious situation here and, when you have the commander-in-chief sitting in front of the 82nd airborne, a group of men who agreed to lay down their lives to protect their country, to protect the constitution, he talks about how corny the constitution is, telling them they will having sworn we're not going to war he is telling them he will send them in to ukraine. they will be impressed by the bravery and women and children standing in front of tanks? it is confusing to us. of course our enemies are laughing at him. think about the soldiers. that is the best of america that are standing there listening to the commander-in-chief. this is a really serious, serious situation and you know, there are a lot of ways that, i don't see what the ways are that get the situation better. i see a lot of ways though where this gets even worse than it is now. stuart: well-said.

i agree with you entirely. charles hurt, thanks so much indeed, charles. see you again later. >> thank you, stuart. stuart: take a look at a headline in "the wall street journal," james freeman writes this the president should avoid public speaking at least when the topic is important. ouch. freeman goes on to say, another quote, of course presidential silence is not a long-term strategy but right now the world doesn't need more biden misstatements on issues as consequential as weapons of mass destruction. end quote. we'll have more on this throughout the entire program today. now here is the story, everybody is talking about this it is true, let's get to it, the slap heard 'round the world. watch this. >> jada, i love you, gi jane 2, can't wait to see it. [laughter]. oh, wow. wow. will smith just smacked the [bleep] out of me. >> get my wife's name out of

your [bleep] mouth. >> wow dude. it was a gi jane joke. stuart: a fight on stage on the hollywood oscar awards, followed by obscenities on live tv. how about that? jeff sica is with us. normally we talk about serious financial issues. i think this is serious issue what happened in hollywood. i think it was a disaster for everyone. what do you say? >> i agree. you're talking about a show on a steady decline for years. one of the reasons it has been on a steady decline, they're searching for their identity and from my recollection growing up, i always loved the oscars. i always loved the grand grand grandeur, glamour t was a

classy show. all of sudden it is free-for-all and spectacle. what happened last night is indicative what has been happening with the oscars and what is happening with the fact that the academy has completely lost touch with regular people, their customers. i think they have a disdain for their customers, especially considering the fact that there is a statistic out there that says that the average viewer does not know 2/3 of viewers do not know the movies, the movies that have been nominated. stuart: yeah. >> so they're not looking at what we like and what we care about. it has become a big woke fest and there is something else on the horizon which i think will be the end of the oscars and that is a quota system. the quota system is going to make it, they're proposing this, if you're going to put a movie out, you have to meet certain criteria, woke criteria to get the movie considered.

stuart: so you have to have certain number of people of color, gays, trans people, they have all got to be in there in the production of the movie and if they're not in the right quotas, they cannot be considered for an oscar, that is coming down the pike? >> yeah. diversity is great but now the academy will mandate that. they will make you turn in to a woke scorecard to make sure you meet the criteria so it will no longer become the best movie, what is the best entainment art out there. it will become, did you check the box? for me, you know, i look at diversity as a good thing. there is a lot of people who want to see a lot of different types of entainment. it is worth it. but from the standpoint you will have this overlord directing how movies are made and not being able to consider one because it

might not check a certain woke box, i think that's problematic. i think it is something that viewers, i mean we had, we used to get, stuart, we used to get 55 million viewers. it was the super bowl. now we're hovering around 10, maybe 15. it is hanging on for life. any of this will be detrimental. stuart: fascinating. a fight on stage followed by obscenities in the crowd will not raise the ratings, i don't think, i don't think. jeff, you're all right. good stuff today. thanks very much indeed. oscar nominees by the way received gift bags for each show. each bag was worth approximately $140,000. items included a plot of land in scotland. 25,000 for liposuction, 25,000 for home renovations and coaching. these are taxable. most of hollywood's elite are

high earners in california, they could be taxed at a rate much more than 50%. susan, get back to the markets. susan: i wouldn't mind scotland plot of land. stuart: have you been scotland? that is not an insult to scotts. what do you look at movers. get me out of this. susan: hi tech growth rally. squares, roku, snowflake, big moves despite concerns about recession. we've been talking about this over andver.veve dsyiredsds ose tos-yhreaeeighsig o r su osu aow art tanoo go up dpi t ft ft ha the g u u erthe w aarararniap, ukrainussirainussi.. strt i amc dngoiakin t pi a gdololnd and ailrver rmiigro ft

susa eha wha w wal wall w ishinkinghy you y rsifngo a 27 milliil-dollar for a erin yo hrd fm f a ada a aron,ary wileototot of o money off thafft tt t given whed prices are going. it is helping to lift the rest of i would say the meme stocks. gamestops, which had a phenomenal week last week, thanks separating gel handedly to ryan cohen buying more gamestop shares, what do you have on beyond meat? susan: piperdown grading, maybe expecting lower sales, lower expectations from that mcdonald's, the non-meat burger rollout or plant-based ones. stuart: beyond meat has not been quite the spectacular winner it was supposed to be, has it? susan: there is a lot of competition and sales are not living up to the hype. not the swag bags. stuart: thanks, susan. walmart. i have got the story. walmart up a fraction today, but

they are ending cigarette sales at some stores in california, florida, arkansas and new mexico. a spokeswoman said the company which use the space more efficiently and sell items like candy, grab-n-go food. that is walmart for you. up ahead, the mayor of new york city says the big apple is a laughingstock as crime runs rampant. president zelenskyy pleads for more help accusing the west of cowardly behavior. alex hogan on the ground in ukraine with more. president biden raising eyebrows after saying putin can't remain in power. roll it again. president biden: we'll have a different future, brighter future, rooted in democracy and hope and light. go for god's sake this man cannot remain in power. stuart: is that a gaffe, escalation or what? does that hurt our standing with nato nations? former nato ambassador kurt volcker takes it on next.

♪. this isn't dry food or wet food. it's not burnt brown pellets. the farmer's dog makes it simple to feed your dog real food. it's real meat and veggies. freshly-made. developed with vets. delivered right to your door. that's why dog lovers are choosing the farmer's dog. a smarter, healthier pet food. delivered. visit tryfarmersdog.com and get 50% off your first box of food.

stuart: markets all over the place. dow down 100. nasdaq up 48. not much price movement. could change by the close of course. ukraine, russia starting new round of talks from turkey. alex hogan is with us. zelenskyy says he is willing to talk about neutrality. what does neutrality look like? reporter: good morning, stuart, what he basically said last night in mistress he is continuing his path back towards

normalcy. he wants to include peace but he will not give up any territorial integrity of the country. having said that he said russia is unlikely to give up any land either. >> translator: that is why i'm saying yes. this is compromise. come back to where it all started we'll try to solve the question of the donbas, the complex question of the donbas. reporter: talks so far have yielded no solution and we've seen towns across the count very have been completely reduced to ruins like this one outside of kyiv. thousands of people are dead. more than 10 million people across the country are out of their homes. the search is continuing for victims in city of a city. this is footage in kharkiv, the country's second largest town. crews are combing through the rubble. residents over the weekend spent time sleeping in the subway

system to find safety. back in lviv there were closest attacks to the city center we've seen since the start of the war. there were massive flames at a oil depo, and a factory both of which were hit twice. both of which were connected to the ukrainian military. the first strike took place two miles from where i'm standing. now today we have heard sirens sound off but much of the city is back to its normal day-to-day life. we see people walking around. they're walking their dogs. they're going for runs, taking outer rands. they are taking kids out. it is not stopping life. the capital of the country, kyiv, students are actually going back to class. high school, university students will learn virtually. it is a signal of people trying to find their own space to continue their life despite the on going threat of war. stuart? stuart: alex, thank you very much indeed. the president of france, emannuel macron, he is warning against escalation after president biden said putin could

not remain in power. former u.s. ambassador to nato kurt volcker joins me now. mr. ambassador, did president biden damage our status within nato or did he damage nato itself? >> neither in my view. i think macron is actually reacting to the president using strong language rather than vladmir putin using tanks. this is kind of the wrong target if you ask me. in terms of what president biden did he spoke from the heart what all of us can see there is no way that vladmir putin can remain in power if he has destroyed his country the way he is doing. the sanctions are hitting, the military is losing, so he is in a precarious position. we all can see that. it may have been better not to say it but i think the damage was the white house, and other administration officials walking back the president's remarks so swiftly. that makes him look like he is not saying what he really means and is not in charge.

it would have been easy to clarify, no, no, we're not doing regime change. we'll let the remarks stand. stuart: but we actually want regime change, don't we? >> that's right. stuart: certainly a lot people in the administration and republican party want regime change. >> yeah. stuart: maybe the president said shouldn't said we want russian troops out of ukraine, a military win, would that work? >> that would be committing to a policy of u.s. forces into ukraine to push russia out. that is something neither this administration nor nato allies want to do, although, let's never take anything off the table. but here, just simply saying out loud that vladmir putin should be fon, i don't think that harms anything. stuart: the mayor of irpin just outside of kyiv, ukrainian forces have fully regained control of the town. i don't know if you have knowledge, the real killer

weapons we promised to send, are they getting through, enabling ukraine to pull off retaking towns? yes, that is part of it. we got a lot of weapons in ukrainian hands javelin missiles, stinger missiles, drones are coming. we're trying to get better air defense systems as well. what you're seeing here, which is truly remarkable, the russians are overextended. they have tried to attack kyiv. they gone into places in ukraine. they broken their supply lines. they lost 1/10 of their fighting force. they're kind of sitting ducks. they're talking about regrouping in eastern ukraine, where they're much closer to their own supply lines. that is why they're launching long-range bombs and missiles in cities like the depot we're looking in lviv at right now. they can't get there any other way. the ukrainians have stopped them. they're not getting resupplied. there is a lot of wounded, a lot killed, a lot of abandoned vehicles and the ukrainians are

able to push them back. stuart: what has to happen on the ground before so-called peace talks make real progress? >> conclusions that the russians have to draw, whether it is pew put or people around him, but the conclusion around them they are not going to win. they are going to fail to take ukraine. they're not going to achieve anything by bombing these cities. ukraine is now going to start picking off more and more of their forces and equipment unless they make peace. that's when i think there is it actually an open to see whether the russians will offer a serious deal, or they want to just keep fighting. do you think it is going our way? >> i think it is going ukrainian way. stuart: i'm sorry to interrupt you, ambassador, that we're making military progress in ukraine. i hate to say it but going our way finally? >> i would say it is certainly going the ukrainians way. it has been over a month now. they have stopped the russian offensive. now they're pushing back. they will still suffer

tremendous casualties from the bombs. they have basically shown ukraine will survive. stuart: got it. >> in terms of going the u.s. way we want to see ukraine survive. we have to look how we look at this? did we do everything we can to help the underdog and push back on putin or have we been standing back saying, good luck guys? stuart: good question. thank you, mr. ambassador for joining us. i think we'll see you real soon. thank you. >> thank you. stuart: ukrainian forces say they have killed seven russian generals. if this is true this is a rate of killing not seen since word war two. spacex chief executive elon musk appeared unfazed asked about the possibility of china or russia taking out the starlink satellite system. musk said, quote, if you attempt to take out starlink, this is not easy, there are 2000 satellites, that means a lot of anti-satellite missiles. i hope we don't have to put this to a test. i think we can launch satellites

faster than they can launch anti-satellite missiles. the concern was after musk sent the starlink satellite system to ukraine to fend off the russian invaders. stuart: this is the moment, got to go back to it, the moment from last night's academy awards. watch this again please. >> oh, wow. wow. >> get my wife's name out of your [bleep] mouth. >> wow, dude. >> yes. stuart: i thought that was about as ugly as it could possibly get. we'll have more in the next hour. president biden answering aoc's call to tax the rich. edward lawrence has more on the plan to literally seize wealth next. ♪.

do you have a life insurance policy you no longer need? now you can sell your policy - even a term policy - for an immediate cash payment. we thought we had planned carefully for our retirement. but we quickly realized we needed a way to supplement our income. if you have $100,000 or more of life insurance, you may qualify to sell your policy. don't cancel or let your policy lapse without finding out what it's worth. visit coventrydirect.com to find out if your policy qualifies. or call the number on your screen. coventry direct, redefining stuart: one hour into the session, the dow is down 111, s&p down two, nasdaq is up 24 points, so we got a mixed bag this morning but not that much price movement. susan looking at some movers including apple. susa: let's look at the streamers. we had apple beating netflix.

netflix winning for coda. only one win. disney after winning for encanto. rights, not talking about actual dollars, apple down by nikkei report after saying they wit cut iphone se production. stuart: it was quite a night at the oscars. we will not discuss it. susan: i would love to. great for -- stuart: we'll do later. you know all about tesla. what have they got? susan: tesla, i would say the stock of the day, you're up 6% for a trillion dollar company. they're looking to split the stock again less than two years after the last split which was five for one in august of 2020. the stock doubled.

some reason, maybe mindset, because you can't buy fractional shares these days, tesla is splitting stock to pay out dividends instead of giving out cash to ininvestors of the as you know tesla burn as lot of cash, needs to hold a lot of cash. it is many, many years to build up a cash pile. stuart: that is smart. if the stock pose up after a split, nothing wrong with that crypto doing well by looks at it. susan: bitcoin pushed to the level, tara luna, they are buying three billion dollars worth of bitcoin this past week and some more this morning to back up that value. you you know now what a stable coin is, right? >> keeping the coin stable to the dollar. susan: i move my money across exchanges to buy different cryptocurrencies. a dollar in means i have a dollar to spend. does that make sense. stuart? yes. susan: they're spending on bitcoin to back up value to make

sure they have the dollar in, dollar out value. stuart: they put in $3 billion? susan: they're buying $3 billion worth of bitcoins. coinbase is up, they're buying a brazilian crypto exchange. consolidation in cryptocurrency. stuart: bitcoin, 47,500. biden-harris unveiling 2023 budget soon, maybe today at the white house. edward lawrence at the white house. i want to know the new tax against the wealthiest americans, seizure of wealth. tell me about it. reporter: republicans say it is a slap in the face to the american people. we expect the president's budget in 30 minutes time. we expect to get it at that point. the president looking in this budget it will add in the wealth tax you talked about. it is a 20% tax on, not only revenue they take in but also unrealized gains. that's really the issue for some of the wealthy here. you know, also made the point over and over again that corporations need to pay more.

democrats are originally proposal corporate tax rate at 28%. that idea died when senator joe manchin said would not go above 25%. we might see the number again. he had issues spending proposals and progressive proposals, senator manchin did. we expect the budget to have same social spending programs in it. senator john barrasso says, it is dead on arrival. >> i'm expecting a joe biden budget that is still living in the past as the president is on these issues. i expect the budget we're going to see more debt on arrival and it will be dead on arrival. last year he came out with a budget a pipe-dream of liberal activism, climate extremism. as you point out last year's budget didn't even keep up with inflation on homeland security or on defense. reporter: fox news has confirmed this budget will included $32 billion for law enforcement programs. the budget reportedly increased

spending on the military. now there will be increases for other social spending packages in there. also we do expect, important to note here that this is not a bill for congress to act on this. is a proposal, a request from the president and there is no real deadline that congress has to act this is just where the president wants to be. congress is the one that controls the money. back to you. stuart: edward, we hear you, thanks very much indeed. look who is here now. stephen moore, the economist, the man himself. i think this is the seizure of wealth. it is not a tax. it is a seizure of wealth. this is the strategy running up to the november elections, tax the rich, tax the rich. they can pay for it all. what do you say? >> can't disagree with that stuart. i see a couple things. this would reverse a lot of the trump tax cuts that larry kudlow and i, art laffer advised donald trump to put in place. remember what happened. we talked about many times on your show.

the united states sucked in capital from the rest of the world as our tax structure became much more conducive to investment. i think a trillion dollars we brought in. think about all of the jobs that created. you will get the reverse of that here, stuart f we raise taxes, money will leave the united states, less jobs, less prosperity. make one other quick point if i may, stuart, it was announced last week, didn't get enough attention, that china is proposing a larger tax cut than donald trump did three years ago. a massive reduction in taxes. so i don't like this picture too much, stuart. we're raising our taxes and china is cutting them? how are we going to compete? stuart: good question. i wasn't aware of the china tax cut. i would have put that up at top of the show. >> i will get that for you, stuart. you have got to see it. they're talking equivalent to trillion 1/2 dollar tax cut to provide stimulus for their economy. if we're raising our rates, they're lowering them that is a big problem. i think republicans have to say

look, we want to get our spending under control. with don't need massive new welfare programs. last year we spent $7 trillion. this is a budget that is out of control. you have got hundreds of billions of dollars of waste and fraud in unemployment benefit program, ppp program, get waste under control before we talk about raising taxes? stuart: how about this proposal, if the fed acts against inflation could put us into recession. if they don't we've got runaway inflation. either way doesn't seem very good for the stock market to me, what do you say? >> yeah. i wouldn't want to be on the federal reserve board right now. i wouldn't want to be nominated to the fed. i think there in a tough position. they're paying a high price behind the curve 11 months. i said on your show for the last nine months the fed should be raising rates. you have to take act is shun against inflation right now. i don't believe the fed's action right now have been sufficient to stop inflation.

i'm with many economists you have on your show. i think inflation will get worse before it gets better and that is going to cause real hardship to americans. stuart: absolutely not food. stephen moore, always a pleasure. thanks for joining us, stephen. see you soon. >> thanks, stuart. stuart: yes, sir. health care workers, teachers were once hailed as the real heroes of the pandemic but many were fired over their vaccine status. they're still out of work. now they're suing mayor adams in new york city making an exception for professional athletes. we have the story for you coming up. look at this, a mother and her child robbed at gunpoint inside of a new york apartment building. mayor adams says the city a laughingstock amid the crime surge. more on that after this. ♪.

we gotta tell people that liberty mutual customizes car insurance so you only pay for what you need, and we gotta do it fast. [limu emu squawks] woo! new personal record, limu! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty. ♪ your record label is taking off. but so is your sound engineer. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire

municipal bonds don't usually get the media coverage matching your job description. the stock market does. in fact, most people don't find them all that exciting. but, if you're looking for the potential for consistent income that's federally tax-free, now is an excellent time to consider municipal bonds from hennion & walsh. if you have at least 10,000 dollars to invest, call and talk with one of our bond specialists at 1-800-763-2763.

we'll send you our exclusive bond guide, free. with details about how bonds can be an important part of your portfolio. hennion & walsh has specialized in fixed income and growth solutions for 30 years, and offers high-quality municipal bonds from across the country. they provide the potential for regular income...are federally tax-free... and have historically low risk. call today to request your free bond guide. 1-800-763-2763. that's 1-800-763-2763 stuart: you get the impression

sometimes things are beginning to settle down a little? well the dow is down 155 but the nasdaq is up 41. a little more calm than it has been in recent weeks. that is just my impression from today's action. show me bj's wholesale club, please. they're partnering with doordash. they will offer on demand grocery delivery in 17 states. bj's up, doordash up. the mayor of new york city, eric adams says the rising crime has turned the city into a laughingstock. here's the quote, the most important city on the globe has become the laughingstock of the globe and dysfunctionality of our city cascaded throughout the entire country. this comes the same day the mayor shared a video on this twitter account. look at it, that is a mom with a child getting robbed at gunpoint in an apartment building, new york city. adams is reportedly considering using drones to fight the crime up tick. the drones would not be armed. they would be surveillance only.

each one would cost 70 to $100,000. again more from the mayor. he is also planning to remove those homeless encam papments from the streets set to begin in couple weeks. adams is yet to say where the homeless people will go. look at this, most americans say, look covid is at least somewhat under control. i think in the rear view mirror. just as unvax indicated workers are asking why can't we go back to work? lydia hu spoke with some of the unvaxed folks. tell me what they're saying? reporter: stuart, they're absolutely outraged because the vaccine mandate here in the city still stands t was in february more than 1400 workers were fired for refusing to get the jab. adding insult to injury is the mayor's announcement last week a special exception would be made for unvaccinated athletes and performers would allow rich and famous go back to work, while the average teacher or police officer is still sidelineed.

>> really is heartwrenching when one person gets to choose who gets to keep their job and who doesn't. reporter: municipal unions are outraged. lawyers tell me the city workers who were fired will very likely sue. if we take a look at the private sector, we see, there is more thinking that we're gaining control over covid. companies from boeing to starbucks and ge, they're all relaxing their vaccine requirements starting today. united airlines is allowing roughly 2200 vaccinated workers who received exemptions to return to the regular paid positions. after they were placed on unpaid leave last year. it is infuriating workers for 200 unvaccinated united employees were fired over the mandate because they did not qualify an exemption, stuart. they will not get share jobs back. stuart: hold on for a second, united people who got an exemption, not vaccinated, they got an exemption, back to work.

reporter: correct. return to regular paid positions. stuart: the unvaccinated who didn't get an exemption for whatever reason they're out? reporter: correct. that is exactly right. you can see the different treatment there even though the practical effect is still both groups are unvaccinated. stuart: what about the big private employers, very well-represented around us here in new york city, these tower blocks, the office buildings, they still have not relaxed the mandate to get into these buildings you have to have vaccination, that is accurate i think? reporter: that's true. the here in new york city the vaccine requirement applies to city workers as well as the private sector. stuart: okay. just a contradiction, letting basketball players go back to work. reporter: you you can imagine what a problem multinationals are, across the lines, contending with vaccine requirements, recruits and maintaining workforce, not to mention the impact on the individual. stuart: i thought mayor adams

gotten off to a good stuart. this contradiction leave as bad taste in your mouth at least to me. lydia, thank you very much indeed. elon musk says he is considering building a new social media platform. he is tired of big tech censorship. we'll bring you the story. as ukraine heads to the bargaining table with russia, russia's brutal attacks continue. we'll talk with a former musician, a former member of ukraine's parliament, helping to evacuate people on the ground. a good story. a report from lviv next. ♪ feel stuck with credit card debt? ♪ move your high-interest debt to a sofi personal loan. you could get out of debt sooner and feel what it's like to get your money right. ♪ at adp, we use data-driven insights to design hr solutions to help you engage and retain top performers today,

so you can have more success tomorrow. ♪ one thing leads to another, yeah, yeah ♪

♪ stuart: same story as it was before. nasdaq is up 80 points, dow is down 130 points as we speak. our next guest is a pop star in ukraine. she became a humanitarian volunteer. now she is traveling around the country assisting evacuations and giving medical supports. she goes, our lady friend goes by the name of ruslna. she joins us now. you're traveling around the country today. would you describe ukraine what you're seeing? >> yes. i would like to say a lot, a lot

of fans, i'm grateful to everyone in america, the president of the united states, all people for your support and help. it is for our humanity. yes, of course, as a musician, as a -- i do everything. i travel around ukraine. i make my performance, performance to the army. i help people evacuate, people from the most, the most destroyed cities. every day the humanitarian crisis is becoming deeper in ukraine. if you don't act people won't be safe. the cities russian troops are trying to take over. the most terrible situations in -- [inaudible]. one of the biggest cities of ukraine like kyiv. this is the first assault on ukraine. it is totally ukraine.

russian troops are shooting down in the humanitarian corridors. that is against civilians. ukrainians were, sent to concentration camps in russia. small towns and villages, located around the front lines are being erased from the face of the earth. putin is absorbing the cities like a black hole in a star. russia troops are -- stuart: it is awful. >> [inaudible]. shelling us. food, even, holocaust memorial. putin is destroying everything. stuart: can i just, let me interrupt for a second. i know that you've been traveling to different ukrainian military bases around the country and giving concerts there, i understand that.

when you go to military bases are the weapons we promised, can you see the weapons we promised, are they getting through? >> as a musician i would like to ask celebrities to unite with the music stop war with our voice with the music but now i would like to ask, to help us with the weapons. of course we need more weapons. this is because ukraine, ukraine largest country in europe. the we have a border with russia total length about 2,000 kilometers. 300 kilometers is the longest border in europe. the border with belarus is 1000-kilometerrers to. more than 3,000 kilometers need to be defended. as far as land we have to protect -- why we ask for weapons. stuart: when you go to the military bases have you seen the anti-tank weapons which we promised?

have you seen the switchblade missiles that we promised? have you seen the javelins? have you seen those? have you actually seen the weapons? >> yes. stuart: you have got them? >> yes, of course. i, i travel, more or less i say, more or less halfway. i speak with my friends who [inaudible]. very difficult. so yes, we, i see them. i see the help. i see your weapons and i'm so, i'm so, thank you for that. i speak with army, ukrainian army. all ukrainian soldiers say yes, we're so happy about, we need more. stuart: okay. we understand. we understand. your message is now being heard across america. and around the world i'm sure. we appreciate you being with us this morning.

keep up the good work, ma'am, we appreciate it. ruslana. thank you very much. back to the markets real fast. not that much action today certainly in stocks. the dow is down 130 points. that is about 1/3 of 1%. yield of 10-year treasury at 2.42% on the downside. price of gold well away from $2,000 an ounce. you're looking at 1942 as we speak. we do have a solid rally in bitcoin, you're looking at 47, almost 48,000 bucks on bitcoin. not seen that in some time. price of oil going exactly the other way. tumbling down to $104 a barrel. the shanghai has been locked down. the feeling when you have a city like that locked down, there is much less demand for oil. that shows up on the world oil market. we're down to 104 bucks. nat-gas down five cents. that is almost 1%, 5.52.

gasoline, the decline has ended, going back up ever so slightly. 4.24 is the price now. average price for regular gas. i have to tell you diesel went back up again to 5.11. as for california, hopeless. 5.91 is the average for regular in california. still ahead, we have, sorry, chad wolf, steve forbes, gordon chang and kimberly strassel from the "wall street journal" the white house targeting billionaires with a new tax. let's call it what it is legalized theft. that's my opinion and that's my take and it's next. ♪ 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,

... k they had camels in atlantis. really? today she's a teammate at truist, the bank that starts with care when you start with care, (vo)ou get a different verizon business unlimited is going ultra! get more. like manny. event planning with our best plan ever. (manny) yeah, that's what i do. (vo) with 5g ultra wideband in many more cities, you get up to 10 times the speed at no extra cost. verizon is going ultra, so your business can get more. i didn't know my genetic report could tell me i was prone to harmful blood clots. i travel a ton, so this info was kind of life changing. maybe even lifesaving. ♪do you know what the future holds?♪

>> i think vladimir putin should be removed from power, but how are you going to do it? anybody who thinks there's some anti-putin national uprising think again. >> this is a true constitutional crisis. who is in charge? joe biden does not seem to be in charge. >> after this tour we just saw, i don't think you could do any worse than what we've got right now. >> president biden has nothing to show for. with higher gas price, higher food price, inflation impacting everyday lives. you have also russia-ukraine in stability. this only gives the democrats

just not enough to make it up for the mid-term elections. >> we all thought we would have a face-ripping rally if we got to this point of peace talks. the focus is shifting back to inflation, how the fed responds to it, and earnings. stuart: all right, everyone. it is 11:00 eastern time it's monday, march 28 and here we go. the dow is down 100, the nasdaq is up close to 100. kind of a split market but the price of oil, that's the real big deal this morning, down $9 a barrel all the way back to 104. it wasn't that long ago we were approaching 130 bucks a barrel. now we're at 104. as for the 10 year treasury yield, that's on the downside, moving down to 2.42%. we have this for you. president biden just released his budget for 2023. edward lawrence at the white house, what's in this budget, edward? reporter: it's a $5.7 trillion

budget, is what the president's proposed. they believe they will take in 4.5 billion so still spending more than they are taking in. now the president and the white house says that this will actually reduce the deficit by $1.3 trillion, in that statement the president says they are increasing military spending in this budget. they are also huge increases for the social spending agenda. he's calling it the unity agenda , and he wants to bring down the cost of healthcare and child care, help families with the essentials, get americans the mental health services they need. there's also some issues though with the underlying assumption in this. in order to get the savings in the budget, it assumes cpi inflation is 4.7% at the end of this year, and 2.3% next year, right now, cpi inflation is 7.9% so the chair of the economic advisors for the president cecelia rouse expects economic activity continue to grow, supply chains will work themselves out and that is the reason they see inflation come back down.

the budget also leaves a hole and does not add in the cost of the president's social spending package. the reason for that according to the omb director sholanda young is because negotiations are ongoing in congress and they can't put a price tag in until that finishes, so the cuts to the deficit may not actually happen in this. the budget also says they are increasing spending to be paid for by wealthy and corporations, on the corporate side it moves the corporate minimum tax rate to 28%, the original number the president wanted something senator joe manchin said was a red line for him and too high, it's at the minimum corporate tax rate, and adds penalties for multi-national companies that it deems hiding revenues in other countries and then it adds that billionaires tax that they had talked about, 20% tax on revenues as well as unrealized gains on billionaires. now, again, this is not a bill to be voted on in congress. congress sets the price tag but this is a wish list of what the president would like to see and the spending he would like to do. there's tax increases and

spending in this. stu? stuart: so socialist wish list that's my personal opinion. thanks very much edward. you don't have to agree with that. now this. i really would like to label the billionaire tax for what it is. it's legalized theft. i have no doubt, however, that it will be popular. billionaires don't get much sympathy do they? after all they don't need all that money now, do they? what the socialists are doing is simply seizing somebody else's money. if you really are rich, the irs will add up all your gains from stock, bonds, houses, even art and then just take 20%. you don't have to sell the assets but if you own it, and its gone up in value the irs takes a piece of it year after year. here is what's going on. until now, the government couldn't get its hands-on much of the wealth created in the stock and real estate markets. the billionaires tax changes that. the irs will just take the

wealth. and it's probably unconstitutional and will be challenged in court forever, but this shows how the democrats are lining up their strategy for this year's elections. they're not doing well with the border, crime and above-all, inflation, so they return to the old standby, tax the rich. they're out of ideas that work so they return to the failure of socialism. makes them feel good, but it wrecks the country. steve forbes is with me, can't think of a better person to have on the show at this point than steve forbes. i say the billionaires tax is legalized left. have at it, steve. >> that is legalized theft and it won't be constitutional as you pointed out. this thing if it actually happened be a poison hour right into the heart of the economy. you don't get an expanding economy without investment for new businesses, expanding existing businesses, for research and development, but also inhibit companies from going public, which will inhibit future growth, so this thing is anti-growth, and also is a huge power grab by the irs, with all

those assets and it's going to be a lawyer's delight and it destroys capital which is money to expand the economy and without expanding economy, people can't move forward, so this is not an anti-rich tax. it's an anti-people tax. stuart: two points, if i may. it will only apply to what probably 20,000 people in america who have a net worth of more than $100 million. 20,000 people, very limited number of people, and secondly, i think it's popular. taxing the rich is popular with a certain segment of the population, that's the democrat base. so you could say there's a good strategy for winning votes in november. would you say that's not a good strategy? >> bucking the economy is never a good strategy and people know inherently while it starts off with 20,000, as these taxes always do, then it becomes 200,000, then 2 million, and then they go after the middle class where the real money

resides so these things start small and then become big, the so-called minimum tax put in back in 1969 hitting only a handful of people hits tens of millions of taxpayers each year so the voters aren't going to be fooled by the tax proposal, suddenly their gasoline prices are going down, cost of living costs are going down, they aren't fooled. they see the record and they will enable them to overcome this rhetoric. stuart: okay, i think we know where you're coming from steve forbes, i'm glad you make it very clear and we appreciate that. steve, we'll see you again real soon. thanks a lot, sir. >> thank you, stuart. stuart: the white house is trying to walk back this kent from president biden. roll it again, please. >> we will have a different future, a brighter future, root ed in democracy and principle, hope and light for god's sake this man cannot remain in power. stuart: okay, republicans in congress, they're also firing back at president biden. roll that tape. >> i just wish he would stay on script, whoever wrote that speech did a good job for him,

but my gosh, i wish they would keep him on-script. i thought the president's speech was very strong despite the ad-lib at the end. >> you imply we're pushing for regime change in moscow and the white house has to clean it up. it's damaging to our ability to deter putin. stuart: well, look whose here now, kim strassel wall street journal editorial board lady, welcome back, kim always good to see you. >> hi, stu. stuart: we've got a gaf-prone president, he turns 80 in november. i think americans want to support all presidents in war time, but isn't it understandable that people are feeling a little nervous about this president with this vice president right now? >> yes. he's making it very very hard and i think one of the things that's frustrating to me, stu, is a lot of these democrats, they are just doing it anonymous ly, are the same people that circled the wagons back during the election, and covered up his declining capacities

because they viewed him as their only and best shot to beat donald trump, and so now, here we are, and we have the president we have. we have the vice president we have, and we have these constant mess which could be very dangerous especially in a time of war. stuart: what are we going to do? we have a near-80-year-old president, he's not focused, and he's not sharp, and we have have a vice president in whom there's very little confidence. what's the way out of this , because there's another two and a half years of this. >> well, right and i think that that gets to the point is that we have to accept that this is a president that we have and by the way, no good although people who keep calling on him to resign because then you get kamala harris which isn't anything much better, but i think what we do need, stu, is we need congress to step up. we need bipartisan coalitions who are going to put their arms together, come up with ways to press this president, especially on the issue of ukraine. we've seen that that has been effective up until now and that

the only time he's really act and stiffened his spine is when he faces the threat of a potential congressional vote, or action, that they were going to get ahead of him so we need more leaders in congress to fill some of the vacuum here. stuart: what's your assessment of the mood of the country? we're just coming out of a pandemic, trying to look at it in the rear view mirror. we've got a war or in europe, a troubled president, and inflation that's going through the roof, domestic economy. how would you assess the mood of america? >> i think people feel as though they got a false bill of goods. remember, this was the whole point. biden ran and he promised i'm going to make everything calm again, we're going to get things under control. everything feels like it's spiraling out of control for most americans, whether it's the prices they are paying at the gas pump, whether it's a question of war, or the border, they are worried they may end up with more covid restrictions for goodness sake, like when are

the mask mandateds coming off airline flights? schools, education, unions taking over their kid's curriculum, and so i think what we're going to, again, we're going to have an election here in the fall and there's going to be a big backlash because people want to be heard and feel as though they weren't last time around. stuart: only seven months away. kim strassel, always great. thanks very much for being here we'll see you again soon. >> thank you. stuart: sure thing. we're just getting this. the wall street journal reporting that russian oligarch roman obramovich is suffering from symptoms of suspected poisoning. whoa, what's this all about? >> i don't have anymore on it. these are the headlines out but the important part of this , first of all it feels like we're in a james bond movie, stuart. is this real life, really happening but the important part about this particular oligarch is really essentially the fact that zelenskyy had said to the u.s. when you're sanctioning

oligarchs, don't sanction him. he's working as a go-between, a peacemaker between ukraine and russia or at least trying to if you will so they left him alone and when i see a headline like this , i just, it's mind boggling. stuart: it's a real shocker. >> yeah. stuart: roman obramovich the owner of the chelsea football club, mega yachts in various places with symptoms of poisoning, now that is a dramatic story. >> it sure is. stuart: wall street journal reports symptoms appeared after meeting in kyiv earlier this month, just a little extra to add to the story right there. all right 8,000 migrants could cross the border everyday, this spring, that's the warning from the head of the border patrol, we've got a report on that for you. elon musk so frustrated with free speech issues on twitter that he's considering launching his own social media site. we'll get into that as well. here we go again, will smith steals the show at the oscars with a slap heard around the world. you've seen this a dozen times see it one more, roll it. >> oh, wow!

wow! >> will smith -- stuart: isn't that something else a fight on stage at the oscars and then foul language in the audience unbelievable. they are still talking about it and we'll talk more after this. for investors who can navigate this landscape, leveraging gold, a strategic and sustainable asset... the path is gilded with the potential for rich returns.

>> this year the academy hired three women to host because it's cheaper than hiring one man. you know, this year, we saw frightening display of how masculinity turns into cruelty towards women and children. damn that mitch mcconnell. i was actually talking about the

power of the dog. >> we're going to have a great night tonight and for you people in florida, we're going to have a gay night. >> [applause] stuart: isn't that rather weak? that was the co-host at the oscars getting political as soon as the show started. jackie is back with us who has the other highlights from the oscars, not including the slap, no. the one about apple. what's that? >> apple made history last night because it won the best picture category and won the oscar for that for its film coda and paid $25 million for this film but remember, before the pandemic, films that were streaming films they have to debut in a theatre for seven days but that was put on pause and now we're seeing rise of streaming and rise of these movies have an impact on the industry winning some of these awards and hitting some of the motion pictures below the belt. stuart: it got best picture, for a streamer to get that i think. >> yeah. stuart: what about the bob saget well this is interesting because they play that tribute to people who have died within the past

year or so, and people on twitter outraged. they didn't include bob saget in it. now i didn't know this but he was an oscar winner in 1977 for a black and white documentary called "through adam 's eyes" and one person on twitter said cancel the oscars we're not mentioning bob saget in the memorial. stuart: enough of the cancellation stuff really. you've seen this before i know you have. it's 11:19 eastern time. if you haven't seen this , you know, you're not seeing it at all. the biggest moment of the night, the slap heard around the world and here it is, roll it. >> jada, i love you, gi jane ii , can't wait to see it. >> [applause] >> oh, wow. >> [applause] >> wow, will smith just smacked the [bleep] out of me. >> wow, dude! >> yeah. >> it was a gi jane joke. stuart: i need a big gun to

follow this one, and douglas murray is the big gun on tap for today. look, was this scripted or was it real? frankly i don't care i think it was a disgrace, actors fighting on the set with obscenities in the crowd sorry. >> absolutely it's a disgrace, and i think it was obviously real because you can tell from the reaction from the audience and the cursing live on television, there's no way i think this was scripted, obviously just cast such an ugly feel over an already very ugly occasion that has to be said but something funny happened about the oscars in recent years. there used to be a tribute to films we had all seen, and now it's a tribute of films that no one has watched and it's worth remembering that of the 10 pictures nominated for best picture, not one of them was among the 10 highest-grossing films at the american box office last year. not one of them. stuart: not one? >> so these are sort of celebrations of niche films that they have small number of people see , and they have to, the

oscar ceremony has to pretend we're all over this and of course we're not so they end up with this preaching to us and of course preaching to us all the time about love is love and then you can smack the hell out of somebody on stage and they can still say i want to be a vessel for love this is what will smith, only in hollywood could you have people this divorced from reality that they can do this within 20 minutes. and when he gets the award, will smith gets a standing ovation. >> i can't understand why they didn't just call him out on it. stuart: put that backup on the prompter, please, about trump. here we go. i want to read this properly. look at this tweet from asha ron gapa, something to do with cnn. so did like anyone walk out after what happened or are we getting an independent psychological case study on how trump got normalized? there it is, this is, good lord, what's going on? how did trump get into this? >> [laughter] it's obviously some people would

just drag him into anything, so annoyed they can't talk about him all the time. he's still in their heads even after leaving office, and they just still use it. will smith can slap chris rock on stage and it has something to do with donald trump, because everything is. stuart: fantastic isn't it? >> amazing. stuart: let's get serious elon musk says he's seriously thinking about launching a new social media platform, douglas, go for it in my opinion. >> yeah, absolutely. musk's point was he said effectively twitter was the town square, and by the way if that is true it explains the way the town square is so deranged doesn't it? twitter is the worst communication platform imagin able but musk says if it is the town square then it can't have this sort of incredibly slanted angle. we all know that twitter, you know, banned donald trump but russian ambassadors are still tweeting away. they get rid of conservative figures but they can still tweet away and there's definitely something completely wrong about

twitter and it is totally unfit for purpose to be the person that decides what the town square discussion should be. the problem is, as musk knows, is that everything setup to try to replace it comes across many of the same problems. you've got the ones that are like parleo and others safe ened off, sectioned off by the big tech he might start a platform that hasn't happened yet. i think it'll be hard for anyone to do a sort of, the problem with the conservative platform which some people tried to setup is people actually do want to read the insane things their opponents are saying, as a sort of secret to it and you get that on twitter. my one real hope for elon musk is as well as setting up something new he buys up twitter and puts it in a rocket and sends it to space. stuart: [laughter] well good thinking there, douglas. i wasn't expecting that, but douglas murray thank you very much indeed, sir see you again

soon. check that market, please we're down 160 on the dow, nasdaq is holding on to a 50 point gain, kind of a split market this morning. jackie is back with us following the movers which are this morning vaccine makers. >> yeah, you can see the big ones pfizer and moderna, they are up there, moderna rather up more than 1% and this is because we are expecting to hear from the fda this week regarding the fourth booster shot, this is coming as ba 2 the new variant out there it's roughly 30% of the new cases we're seeing so far and we'll just say this , regarding the first booster, stu , only about 25% of the people who were fully vaccinated and eligible for it got the first booster, so i don't know how popular the second booster is, that fourth covid shot a lot of shots for people. stuart: and pfizer is still around $53 a share. cruise lines, they go up and they go down. >> they do, and today, they're up and that's because you've got

the port canaveral ceo saying cruising will be back to normal by the summertime and there's data to support that. the weekly cruise passengers in florida hit 100,000 for the weekending march 20 it's at 900% from its low in july of 2021 so obviously that was a different time and a different place but it's good to see the cruise industry as well as the rest of the travel and leisure industry getting back to normal. stuart: can you show me dave & buster's please i think it's moving, it's down, not much. what's the story? >> it's down slightly but this is important because this is a company that's doing really well and it's expected to report earnings today. down slightly though, because despite the new menu and people going to the restaurants and robust offerings, labor and commodity costs are going up and they are impacting these companies and that will continue to happen as we see earnings reports come out so i think it's important to highlight that. stuart: noted. jackie, thank you very much indeed. the national average for a gallon of regular gas is $4.24 per gallon. that's causing some people to

ditch their cars for electric scooters, really? you going to ride an electric scooter in winter? i don't believe it. we've got the story though. china shuts down shanghai to stop the spread of covid, 26 million people forced to lockdown, stay-at-home. that could make supply chain problems worse, could it not? gordon chang takes it on, he's next.

stuart: all right, not that much action on the market this morning, i say that reserving because it could change by the end of the trading session. dow is down 175. susan is back, looking at meme stocks again. >> well, i mean, look at the amc rally, you're up 30% that's pretty impressive. stuart: that's a meme stock. >> even in stuary varney's university 30% is noticeable so the reason is amc's ceo adam aron this morning, he was talking about that bewildering million dollar silver and gold mining acquisition that really surprised wall street so he says expect more meme stock powered deals to come and gamestop being the original, also has ryan cohen backing gamestop also trying to get into other types of businesses like crypto and nft's as another meme stock mover today as well it's pretty

impressive 12% for gamestop as well. 13% for cost. stuart: okay, microsoft is up four bucks. >> nothings more impressive than microsoft, of course for stuary varney, so leading the tech advance today and the question is, are stocks a hedge against inflation, if you have pricing power like microsoft, like amazon, and gets us the prevailing outlook right now on stocks given you're not getting any cash in fact you're getting decimated in fixed income and bonds. stuart: you know, i remember reporting that tesla is going to split its stock. do we now have word of maybe a second split? >> so tesla is asking their shareholders to authorize their second stock split in two years. stuart: it's not a new one just one they have already authorized >> so remember back in august 2020 we talked about the five-for-one stock split so this is they need approval from their shareholders to split this time around as well, and tesla wants the extra stock to pay out investors dividends instead of giving out cash,

since tis la wants to preserve the cash holdings its been difficult for them to build up so musk, by the way, this should have been stock-negative this morning but elon musk tweet ed he's tested positive for a second time for covid but instead if you're splitting their stock which we know moves the stock and is very bullish at least for some reason, because very psychological because you can buy a fraction of his shares , you don't have to buy the whole thing. stuart: yeah, but i can't see elon musk's second positive covid test having much impact on the stock. >> well he's a single-most influential operator of tesla, i think -- stuart: everybody has had covid, most people have gotten over it too. >> i haven't had it. stuart: oh, okay. >> neither have i, have you? stuart: yes, i've had it. >> really? stuart: sure i have. >> is that breaking news? stuart: no. >> [laughter] stuart: i'm quite open about it and i'm fully vaxxed and i still got it. >> wow. stuart: gas prices, oh, here is the electric scooter story isn't it? gas prices record high so what

do we do, we all run out looking for alternatives. i can't believe electric scooter are an alternative to a gas- powered car. >> when you think about it they are a lot cheaper than trying to find a car now days with prices up so high even if you can get your hands-on one so people are flocking to the scooters they start at about $300 for a basic model if you want bells and whistles they go up from there but essentially we've got fluid-free ride that's one maker of them, they say they are selling twice as many units as they were the last month, and they are also saying sales are 70% higher than they were in march of 2021 so people are catching on. bird is another big company that does this , and their sales increased 60% they can see the website traffic is up about 30% as well, and you see them all eve the streets of new york city, you know, people actually they are bad for traffic in a sense very dangerous, but people like them. stuart: all over my town in new jersey as well, they come back now that spring is here. useless in the winter. >> exactly. stuart: programming note, jackie

a quick note here, fox business and fox nation are going to team up for energy independent summit jackie deployment will be there and it streams live tomorrow at 12 noon easter see you then, jackie. >> yup. stuart: shanghai just began its biggest lockdown since the beginning of the whole covid pandemic. it will close down the city in two stages, 25, 26 million people. gordon chang is with us. what do these lockdowns do to china's economy and the supply chain issue? >> what they are doing, stuart, is undermining it, of course because it's not just shanghai and you saw, for instance in shenzhen, the large city across from hong kong, major home to ports, we see it in factories across china. they can't get workers, sometimes they are locked down. this is something which is, i think, highlights an important point in the sense that china has no defense to this disease other than isolation, so it's

doubling down on isolation, which of course undermines economic activity. stuart: give me an idea of the state of the overall economy , because i hear that china's evergrand, the real estate developer, they will delay the release of their annual financial report and i hear the real estate sector is not exactly close to collapse but in serious trouble. how would you describe the real estate sector and its impact on china's economy? >> most important point about the real estate sector is not that prices are coming down, because they are, and probably much more than officials admit but what's happening is volumes are collapsing, and the reason is that the market as they say is frozen, because at the prices that the government will allow, and it does prevent price falls, people just don't want to buy, which means that the evergrands and a lot of other companies are not producing their audit audited financials on time because they have problems which they can't resolve. ultimately the issue for china is theres too much debt.

we don't know exactly how much but when you start adding in the so-called hidden debt they are probably debt-to-gdp ratio is somewhere about 350% maybe higher but at this point china has no answer to it, because they cannot make the political decisions to resolve the debt. stuart: just completely different subject. i just need your opinion. do you think that china will attack taiwan? >> i think it will, but not any time soon. i don't think it will do it this year, because there is intense fighting among senior leaders. that's in the run-up to the 20th national congress which if traditional holds should be held in october or november of this year but i think that once that congress is done and they've solved their leadership issues which could take a year or two after the congress, i think that there will be a move on taiwan of some sort, and it could very well be an invasion, because basically china right now is a little bit desperate, but also it doesn't respect

biden. the deterrence is broken down as we've seen in eastern europe, while it's breaking down in east asia as well. stuart: got it, gordon chang, thanks very much for being here, gordon i'm sure we will see you again really soon. thanks very much, sir. >> thank you, stuart. stuart: now this a bridal company in ukraine is making military uniforms as well as wedding dresses. we'll speak to the head of that company, trying to help ukrainian cause. russia and ukraine have restart ed face to face peace negotiations. alex hogan will be along with her report, right after this.

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

stuart: peace talks between russia and ukraine are set to restart this week. president zelenskyy is saying he is willing to discuss adopting neutrality status. alex hogan joins us.

what's the latest from these talks? it sounds promising, is it? >> hi, stuart. so when we talk about neutrality , that typically means that a country is willing, at least, to not align with other countries in the future, and ukrainian president zelenskyy has said he wants to move forward with these peace talks as soon as possible. we have seen flights land in istanbul already today, as these talks will begin this week, but since the invasion, russia has yet to take over any major city here in ukraine and russian president or ukrainian president vladimir putin says he will not compromise any of the territorial integrity of the country here. now, today the mayor of irpin says that ukrainian troops have managed to actually fully take back all of that town, there just outside of kyiv. on friday, russia said that it was moving its troops to focus more on the eastern part of the

country. military movement here in lviv just one day later really contradicted that statement. we are just about 45 miles from the border of poland where president joe biden spoke on saturday. the mayor here in lviv calling attacks in the city a clear message to the u.s. from russian president vladimir putin. strikes here on saturday marked the closest attacks to lviv's city center since the start of the invasion. firefighters worked tirelessly to put out those flames at an oil depot and a factory both of which were hit twice and both were used by the ukrainian military. meanwhile, in mariupol the situation continues to deteriorate even further. residents have made makeshift graves to bury the dead and the search for drinkable water and edible food continues as people shelter in place, half of the city has now left and the mayor today says that 16 5,000 people are still trapped, they are unable

to get the resources that they need as the city is continuously bombed and shelled for weeks. we also have new footage we can show you of a ukrainian state emergency service searching for bombs and mines that have yet to detonate. these crews say they find explosives every single day showing the danger of what it is like for people trying to flee some of these cities. i spent several weeks on the other side of the border and surrounding countries talking with refugees who did leave and they say many of the relatives who stayed behind came here to lviv, worrying that it be too dangerous to flee the country. 3.8 million people have already done so, according to the u.n. but there's new threats and fears here in lviv that this once was a quiet and peaceful city during the war. people here are wondering how long that could last. stuart? stuart: good question. alex thanks very much indeed. here is another interesting story out of ukraine. a bridal gown company is not

only making special wedding dresses, they're also making military clothing. the ceo of mila nova joins me now. lilianna, where exactly are you making the clothing? are you being shelled while trying to turn the stuff out? >> actually, we're making the clothing in lviv, so the city that was shown in the previous episode so we have an amazing factory there and we have built a new one so we have more than a thousand people working on our production and we have decided from day one to switch from the dresses to the needs of our country because it's our main responsibility to help our community and our country in a difficult time. stuart: would you just take a moment though to show us, if you can, the special wedding dresses that you're making. i believe they're made in blue and yellow and that you're trying to get some money together to sell these things to raise money for the ukrainians. is that right?

>> yeah, that's correct, so we are encouraging a lot of celebrityies around the world to wear those dresses which was made by those people who are relocated to warsaw so you can see that on the screen now and the house which was relocated together with people so we are looking forward to sell those dresses and to donate for ukrainian army. stuart: can you get all the supplies you need? you're in lviv. can you get the material, everything you need to make, can you get it? is it in short supply? >> yeah, we are managing that well, so we are still getting materials from our regular suppliers, and we can provide enough work for our team and employees to continue production and to pay the salaries, top priority for now. stuart: do you have a good supply of food? >> actually, yes.

so i can not tell about all of the ukraine, of course i know the situation around ukraine is quite different but we're getting a lot of, we're still having critical input which we are getting inside the country and also a lot of humanitarian aid which is coming inside as well. stuart: mila nova, remember that name, ulyana kyrychuk, we wish you well. >> thank you. bye-bye. stuart: hsbc, now that's a bank formerly known as hong kong shanghai banking corporation and reportedly it's removing references of the ukraine war from reports, jackie? if you can't say war, what are they going to call it? >> they are calling it a special military operation and the back story is we've seen so many banks say they are trying to detangle from russia not do business because of the war. hsbc isn't one of them and they also have 200 employees on the

ground and russia is very tough on people it considers disseminating false information so they are trying to do a little damage control here but many agree it's more than a special military operation. stuart: yeah, but they are being threatened i can see why they are doing it jackie thank you very much. president biden wants to end title 42, which allows quick expulsion of migrants back to their home country. what happens, when that program ends? do they all flood in? good question, and chad wolf will be taking it on, next.

better hearing leads to a better life. and that better life... ...starts at miracle-ear. it all begins with the most innovative technology... ...like the new miracle-earmini™. available exclusively at miracle-ear. so small, no one will see it. but you'll notice the difference. and now, miracle-ear is offering a 30-day risk-free trial. you can experience better hearing with no obligation. call 1-800-miracle right now and experience a better life.

stuart: president biden wants to end title 42. that's a program that allows quick expulsion of migrants back to their home countries. chad wolf is the former acting d hs secretary and he joins me now. all right, chad what happens when we end title 42? >> well you're going to see a lot more individuals that come across that border illegally not being able to be expelled back to mexico and back to their home countries in a very short period of time so you're going to see more and more of those individuals unfortunately released into the interior of the united states. on average, about every month, d

hs is turning around between 80,000 and 90,000 individuals using this title 42 authority so once that goes away , they are going to have a hard time removing those individuals the way they have been over the last almost year and a half to two years. stuart: do you think they are actually going to end 42, because i know some democrats like sinema from arizona they want to keep 42. do you really think it's going to go away? >> well, i think the important thing here is that dhs is actually slowly gutted title 42 over the last 12 to 13 months. they have exempted minors, they have exempted most families, they are exempting ukrainians and other nationalities, and so when you look at 170 or 180,000 illegal apprehensions per month but they are only removing about 85 or 90,000 of those using title 42, you can see that almost half have been are exempted from title 42, so yeah, i do think though they are looking at it, the far left of

the democratic party does not like title 42 and what we've seen overtime last 13 months is this administration usually gives into the whims of the far left of their party and i think they will on this as well. stuart: i want to talk about the drugs that are coming across the southern border. i want you to listen to what ashley moody, the attorney general of florida, here is what she told me about a new synthetic opioid supposedly 20 to 100 times more deadly than fentanyl. roll that tape, please. >> it's manufactured in communist china, sent to the mexican cartels, and then the poorest border makes it easier for the traffickers to flood it into our country. this is a national emergency. stuart: chad, i don't understand why something isn't done about this. why the reluctance to stop this killer drug. >> well, you know, the ag made a great point and the two were tied together, the two being the illegal traffic and the border crisis that we have

and the illegal narcotics coming across that border so if it's the mexican cartels and we know they are the ones pushing this across the border the fact that we are empowering them to do that because we are allowing this mass-migration coming across our borders every single month and they are earning up to $14 million a day smuggling and trafficking these human beings across the border and what do they do in return? they put those profits back into their enterprise where they are able to smuggle more and more illegal narcotics so if this administration really wants to get serious about cracking down on the illegal narcotics coming across the border that are affecting every community in america, they have got to get serious with the border crisis and they have to shut that down because it shuts down the proceeds and the profit of the cartels and that is one way to get at this issue. stuart: unless they would rather have an open border which i suspect is exactly what they want. chad wolf thank you very much, sir we appreciate you being here >> thank you. stuart: look at this 11:55 and that means the trivia question, here we go. what percentage of americans

live in the coastal counties of the united states? 20, 30, 40, or 50%. jackie is still with us and she will make her guess after this. ) verizon business unlimited is going ultra! get more. like manny. event planning with our best plan ever. (manny) yeah, that's what i do. (vo) with 5g ultra wideband in many more cities, you get up to 10 times the speed at no extra cost. verizon is going ultra, so your business can get more. . .

stuart: i thought this was a reamly good question. what percentage of americans live in the coastal counties of the united states. first to you, jackie, guess? >> i always get them wrong, i will say 2, 30%. stuart: i will say 3, 40%.

the number. >> good thing you didn't go with me. stuart: 127 million americans live? coastal counties. that account for less than 10% of the total land in the continental united states but there is a lot of people living in those coastal communities. >> fascinating. stuart: very good questions. >> they do. they're smart questions. they're tough. >> well-done, producer. good stuff. hey, neil, it is yours. neil: thank you very much, stuart. we're following that. session lows right now might have to do with former release of president biden's budget. i noticed a couple of particular items there maybe the street didn't appreciate prior. not only the tax on billionaires or small slice of population, .01% of the population, 20,000 individuals across the country and the push to tax them at least at 20% so they don't dodge the taxman all together but there is another wrinkle in this that i guess caught some by surprise, thisot