the conversations have been had but the big question is who compromises and on what? maria: yeah, great point. kelly, great coverage all week thanks very much kelly o'grady on the ground in davos, dagen mcdowell, mark tepper its been great talking with you this morning, and we will see you soon. real quick, final comments dagen dagen: just really quickly that all of this was intertwined years ago, and did any of these global elites see it coming. maria: all right, we gotta go ashley webster is in for stuary varney today on "varney" & company have a great day everybody ashley take it away. ashley: thank you very much, good morning, maria, good morning, everybody, indeed. i'm ashley webster in today for stuart. let's get right to it, elon musk is committing more of his wealth to finance his $44 billion bid for twitter. this comes hours after the current ceo of twitter told shareholders that well, the company was going forward with the deal. the news of musk's boosted equity to fund that deal sending shares of twitter higher up more than 4%, and you know what else

is really higher now? well you know, gas prices. another new record. the kind you don't want to hit. the national average is now at $ 4.60 for a gallon of regular, five states are now averaging over $5 a gallon. that's bad news for the estimated 35 million americans that are expected to hit the road this memorial day weekend. they are going to pay for it. the second quarter gdp revised slightly lower to down 1.5% and there you can see it doesn't effect the futures they are all much mostly higher. the dow up 213 in the pre-market and then there's this. beto o'rourke interrupts texas governor's press conference in the shooting in uvalde. was this just a political stunt? pete hegseth will tackle that story and i'm sure he has lots to say and as always, we have art laffer, senator john barrass

o, bret baier and retired general keith kellyanne log. it is thursday, may 26, 2022, "varney" & company about to begin. ♪ living in america ♪ ashley: what a great song, love that, loved it then, love it now as you look at statue of liberty in new york harbor, living in america, james brown, we've got the latest read on gdp, good morning, jackie. let's breakdown the report. >> good morning to you, ash, good to see you as always. first quarter gdp second read was down 1.5% the estimates were for being down 1.3%. investors are digesting this news, you know, considering the fact that two consecutive quarters of negative growth would indicate that we would technically be in a recession,

so that's what they're thinking about at the moment but also digesting the fed minutes yesterday indicating that the fed may raise rates higher, quicker than expected, rather is the word i was looking for. they are also digesting these retail earnings this morning that suggest the consumer still alive and well so even though this wasn't the best number it could have been it sort of was in line with the estimates and the jury is still out on where we go from here. ashley: yeah, i think that says it all, jackie, thank you. also let's take a look at twitter. elon musk increasing his financial commitment to buy the company but how much money is musk personally putting forward do we know, jackie? >> $33.5 billion so that is a lot of money when it comes to this deal, right? it certainly suggests that he is committed to it. he has said he's committed. the big question of course is digging into this issue of what percentage of the accounts are fake on twitter. that's what he had sort of raised the pause button on, abdomen so investors are digest ing this news as well. you can see the stock is trading

slightly-higher on this , but you know, again, this is another one where the jury is still out. what actually happened with respect to that point? is he looking to try to get a little bit of a deal on this or a price reduction? it's still the big question. ashley: yes, indeed. jackie, thank you. let's bring in adam johnson. adam, good morning to you. >> good morning, ashley. ashley: it seems, yeah, it seems mr. musk is swinging back and forth on whether he'll actually buy twitter. what do you make of all of this? >> i think this is elon musk being elon musk. he's negotiating. i think it's what's happening here, ashley. he's not a man who operates in a linear fashion. i think it's why he's been able to accomplish so much of what he's been able to do. what the wealthiest man in the world? if you can raise enough questions about what's happening behind the scenes, you might get some sort of concessions. maybe that's in a lower price or maybe that's just an ability to actually do what he wants to do once he takes the over. remember the people inside twitter think that he's some

sort of conservative demagog whose going to takeaway hair liberal pulpit. he's not going to do that. he's made it very clear he wants to make this a democratized platform for the masses so if he can raise enough doubt about the people running it maybe that gives him some cover to bring in his own people and remake twitter in his own fashion. i think it's a negotiation, ashley. ashley: that's all right all of the above, but it's always fascinating what musk does. let's move on to the fed minutes , adam, released yesterday. they're going to be moving ahead apparently with multiple rate hikes of 50 basis points. are they going far enough in your opinion? >> well, you know, i've been wrestling with that issue actually since the minutes came out at 2:00 yesterday, ashley. here's my take there are three components i think to the fed minutes. the economy, inflation, and rate hikes. on the economy, the fed made very clear that it sees tremendous strength.

it used words, adjectives which you don't often hear like extremely tight labor markets and very strong economic growth. that's all positive, and that would certainly argue for more rate hikes. on inflation, and i'm very glad to hear their take on inflation they seem to suggest that inflation has peaked. we don't really know, none of us know not even the people at the fed know, but if the people at the fed think that it's peaked, that to me is a positive and then it comes to the question about how many rate hikes. they made very clear there will be 50 basis point rate hikes in june and july. given they've already hiked rates by 75 basis points, that gets us to 175. at that point, it's sort of a question. do we get another 50 basis points in september and then 50 in october that takes us to 275? i think that's where it's going and i'll tell you why, ashley. not to be confused with stuart. ashley: yeah. [laughter] >> because the 10 year yield went up to 320 and has backed off to 275, so i think the bond markets telling us, 275 is where

we're going. ashley: all right, well, adam, stay right there. i want to take a look at amazon. shareholders voting to approve a 20-for-1 stock split. jackie what were the key takeaways from the shareholder meeting? >> well they voted down a record 15 proposals and it was everything from unionization to the environment, all of these things were on the docket, if you will. what was interesting about the meeting was that the workers , the warehouse workers, had an opportunity to voice their opinions in support of unionization, and speak for , you know, workers rights, but interesting to see that shareholders had a voice here, their voice has spoken at least for the moment. ashley: all right thank you. adam what is your reaction? 20-for-one stock split makes it a whole lot more affordable for investors right? >> certainly is. google is doing a soft split, apple has done several so i think that probably makes sense it's about making it easier for

everyone to buy your stock. we already used amazon to buy practically everything. now why not make it easy for all of us to buy the stock as well, and by the way, the stock has gotten to a point where you probably do need to scratch your head and say hang on, down 35 or 40%, has this gone too far? so yeah, i like what i'm hearing out of amazon both from the shareholders and from management talking about the stock split. ashley: great stuff as always, adam, thanks so much for joining us this morning appreciate it. >> thank you. ashley: thank you. the congressional budget office is projecting that high inflation rates will persist into next year, if not beyond. brian bremberg joins us, great to see you, good morning. what do you make of the cbo's report first off? >> well it's not great news, to know that inflation is going to persist well into next year, but i think that the cbo is under shooting things a little bit. this report came out just as russia's invasion of ukraine hit so it's really actually not

capturing all the energy inflation. it's also not capturing all the food inflation and all the risk there, so i think the risk of inflation going into next year is higher than what the cbo says and we've got a response from the administration that has been woefully short of what's needed. obviously we've needed more help in terms of encouragement to drill for energy, to produce energy here. the administration hasn't done that at all. they've gone the other direction , in fact, and so what looked like a, you know, a significant problem at the beginning of russia's invasion is now a massive problem and gas prices are exhibit a of how bad this is, and how bad it could remain, so i'm not even, even as the cbo projects more inflation, i think they're under shooting it right now. ashley: and you know we're a consumer-driven economy. at some point, you know, the eroding of the consumer's money to everything that they buy, i mean, you know, a

recession in my mind, almost unavoidable, right? >> yeah, well, it's a huge risk and let's just be clear what that means for people. inflation means your paycheck can't keep up with what you're buying. recession means all those job opportunities start to dry up. that's a real issue. it's not just that your paycheck doesn't go far enough. you might not get a paycheck and yes, we're seeing that with consumers. this economy has totally depended on consumer spending, spending, spending. they're getting these price increases now to the point where a lot of consumers are saying i just can't keep up. i can't keep doing this. after i buy my necessities, gas, food, i don't have money left for the things that keep this economy churning. that's where you get the real risk of the whole thing slowing down and i think that's where we are right now. ashley: well you know, brian, a new report shows that 57% of parents, to your point, are changing summer plans for their

children, and 51% have canceled their plans for a family trip this summer. now, brian, i'm going to ask you as the brenberg clan, weren't you going to the most magical place on earth? i don't mean minnesota, i mean disney world. have you already gone? >> no, we're going, we're leaving tomorrow, actually, and this is a long-planned trip, but this is the thing. i'm looking at the prices and i'm looking at the trip and i'm thinking okay, how are we going to save money on food, how are we going to cut costs a little bit. it's tough when you've got three kids and you're carting them around town and you're trying to get them involved in summer activities. the prices are just too high and eventually, even the most resilient, enthusiastic consumer cannot handle this ashley, and that's where the economy starts to slow down. ashley: brian, as always thank you so much for joining us, great stuff have a great time at disney world say hi to mickey for me i appreciate it.

coming up, beto o'rourke derails a press conference on a texas school shooting. take a look. >> excuse me. >> just sit down. you're out of line and an embarrassment. sit down. >> [overlapping speakers] >> and you're doing nothing. this is totally predictable. ashley: well that went downhill quickly didn't it? some of the media, actually celebrating him for it, believe it or not, pete hegseth will have something to say about that in the next hour. summer sticker shock, yup, folks heading down the shore this summer, can expect to pay more for just about everything. jeff flock is already there, lucky by in seaside heights with the report, after this. ♪ ♪

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♪ everybody gone surfing ♪ ashley: how can you not sing along to that? you're looking at ocean city, new jersey. it's 61 degrees and cloudy, not really summer-like, but still beautiful to be down there. anyway, by the way if you are planning on heading to the jersey shore for a summer trip, you better be prepared to pay more. sorry to ruin it for you. jeff flock is there. jeff? what are people paying more for? reporter: what are they not paying more for , ashley? i'll tell you, everything from the beach chairs to cheese balls to the rides, to henna tattoos,

picking up some trash this morning too. ashley: [laughter] reporter: you never know what's going to happen. this is the famed casino pier in seaside. i used to ride that rollercoaster, actually the rollercoaster i used to ride fell into the atlantic during superstorm sandy, back when i was a kid, that's a new one. they had a huge year at the jersey shore last year, and they're hoping they can top that take a look at the numbers from last year. 48 million visitors to the jersey shore, that was an increase from the previous year of 24%. $20 billion is what they spent, almost 30% increase from the previous year, but this year , here's what people are saying. they say that because of high gas prices, they're going to spend 32% of them say they are spending lesson retail, 31% say they are going to spend less on entertainment, 22% say they are going to spend less on food and drink a similar number for lodg ing. that's the fear out there.

as you pointed outlast segment, people do have money in their pockets. right now they've got jobs, money, so maybe they can pay a little extra for what they have to do, but if these prices continue to rise the gas prices which now hit $4.60 as you've been reporting this morning, it hadn't gone up much in the last week, fair bit in the last month or the last year, but i'll leave you with this one. may 10, that was the last day we didn't set a national record for the average price of a gallon of gas. i leave you with a beautiful picture, perhaps of the atlantic ocean. the dunes, the smell of sea salt, the sun, wish you were here. ashley: i feel like i am there, jeff flock, taking a walk down memory lane, cheese balls and he nna tattoos, jeff great stuff thank you very much. let's get back to the fed shall we and bring in our great friend art laffer. my friend from nashville.

good morning, art. is the fed's plan a series of 50 basis point hikes going to work? what does art laffer say? >> well, i don't think it's going to work. i don't think it's going to fulfill its objective of really stopping inflation. if you'll remember, ashley, you probably don't you were too young, but in the 1970s, early 80s paul volcker raised the interest rates up to almost 19% on effective reserve rates, and way above the inflation rate that's the only way he was able to bring that inflation down and even then, it took a long time to bring it down and as you know , 81 and 82 were two pretty bad years right at the beginning of the reagan administration, but after that, it was boom time in the rockies and then the beach boys really played. ashley: [laughter] you know what? of course you've been economic advise or to ronald regan, we have the laffer curve and also advised by the way to donald trump and by the end of his term

, we were at a 50-year high when it comes to the economy. if you have a chance to sit down with joe biden, what would you tell him to do to get this under control? >> couple things i would say. one, is reverse your policies on energy. i mean, you know, keystone pipeline get it right back online, buying oil from venezuela and iran is not good economics. it's not good politics and it's not good global warming either, because they make oil a lot dirtier than we do. we should restore that and make ourselves energy independent. it would help us politically as well. i would also make him stop spending and just put a freeze on all of the spending. that is what's causing a lot of these problems, and then, you know, on inflation, i would not appoint people to political positions because of their woke ness. i would do it because of their competence, and you know, i like powell, i think he's a good guy, but he's not a paul volcker, not

an alan greenspan, you are in one of the worst times ever, ashley, and it needs competence, much more than anything else, leadership and i'm afraid this fed just doesn't have it. ashley: well i think you should go to d.c. and put him straight, art laffer, great stuff as always. >> i be glad to. ashley: great to see you and my best to nashville, what a great city. thank you. >> we're keeping it warm for you, ashley. we welcome you back anytime you want to come. ashley: that's very tempting. art, thank you very much. appreciate it. a leaked video shows vice president at apple discouraging workers from unionizing. jackie what did the vp say? >> her name is diedre o'brien and she's the vp of people and retail, ash. she said i worry about what it would mean to put another organization in the middle of our relationship, an organization that does not have a deep understanding of apple, or our business. most importantly, one that i do not believe shares our

commitment to you. this is coming as there is more of a push to unionize at certain apple retail stores. new york is one of them but also maryland and georgia, and in the latter two states votes are set in june so this is definitely a story to watch but you can certainly see where ms. o'brien stands there. that video was leaked to verge. ashley: i'm sure she's really happy about that, all right, jackie, thank you very much. let's get a check of the futures , the opening bell coming up next, and the nasdaq has just turned slightly negative in the pre-market but the dow is still up 141, the s&p up one-third of a percent. the opening bell is next. ♪

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ashley: all right, let's take a look at the futures for you. nasdaq down, dow and s&p up, in the pre-market. let's bring in d. r. barden. great to see you this morning, d. r. i was looking at your notes and you've been getting into the history books to try and perhaps find clues going forward from here and you say the number shows that the market has recovered for double-digit gains , 12 months later in 10 of

the 13 last bear markets since 1950 so is the message just hang in there? >> well, i think for most people, ash, if they have been staying the course until now, then yes, stay the course for now, because that is what we're seeing. ten of the last 13, we had double-digit gains, and those three went down in the next year and then of course we always get some sort of recovery, it might take a while. if you've already got some money on the sideline, we're going to be looking at some time to be able to put some money selective ly to work, especially in some of these stocks that have really been beaten down. ashley: does the equation change if we're faced with, you know, even a medium sort of recession, maybe not a very deep recession but does that change the outlook >> yeah, for sure, ash, and in my notes there, i even said that those three times where we did

not get a recovery in 12 months, were all times that we hit deep recessions, so those times are like after the dot com bubble back in the 70s. those times we didn't recover real quickly, we had that kind of sideways move, so if we can have a softish landing, even a moderate landing that be good news. if not, well, you might be more down time. ashley: are we near the bottom or is the worst behind us, what do you say? >> i believe that right now, it's looking like the worst maybe behind us, the worst meaning the big drop that we've had really rough start, and, we just saw that gdp number revised , so that the economy is not growing quite so quickly as we thought, it's contracting, ashley, so maybe we're getting some self-correction on the

inflation side, ash. ashley: very quickly, what stock s do you like, defense stocks maybe? lockheed martin i think you liked. >> [opening bell ringing] >> yeah, ashley, not only are they up this year, doing really well on the defense side, but they're selling off a nice dividend, and have a great cybersecurity arm that's bringing in for them. ashley: very good. thank you so much, we got a lot in there d. r., thank you very much. the opening bell has rung. let's take a look at the dow 30, a lot more green than red the dow up 178 points and the very early going the lagging run on the dow 30, apple, walmart, they are leading the charge but again, the dow up 191 points. let's see where the other exchanges are. the s&p up yet the pre-market holds trueup one-third of a percent at 39.31 and the nasdaq slightly lower only down two- tenths of a percent down 22-

23 points. let's take a look at big tech talking of the nasdaq. a mixed bag, amazon and alphabet are up, microsoft, meta and apple are down, apple down two and one-third percent in the very early going. let's begin with twitter and tesla, and who else to speak to about this but susan li. good morning, susan. >> hey, good morning, ashley. ashley: yeah, elon musk increasing his financial commitment to the twitter deal. is that spooking tesla investors >> oh, yeah, well so i mean, markets are so volatile, so we were looking at some declines when that announcement was made last night, after the market closed but there you go there is the negative so he's upping his portion of the equity financing to over $30 billion-plus in this $44 billion takeover bid, so he's no longer relying on margin loans against his tesla stock, so where do you think this extra money is going to come from? probably for more tesla stock sales and that's the big concern and that's what's weighing on tesla stock, so we knew that

musk already lined up around $7 billion from other investors, that includes larry ellison binance, and we're also hearing that jack dorsey might be throwing in his twitter stake, and he owns roughly around $2 billion or so, silver lake is already a current big shareholder in twitter and we know that part of their chunk is going to stay included in this elon musk offer, so $44 billion offer still on the table on hold temporarily. we haven't gotten any indications that it's coming back on just yet, but most of this money comes from elon musk 's pocket. ashley: it is, indeed. tesla kind of hovering between just basically staying flat for now. let's move to the retailers, the major ones have been reporting before the bell. macy's? >> better profit and sales to start the year so raising full year guidance and apparently strong clothing demand as people go back to work so they want to look good doing it. also consumers buying to-go say traveling and other out-of-home

activities so they have been stocking up on new wardrobes. i also want to show you dollar general having a much-better first quarter yet same-store sales following less than anticipated, higher inflation, shoppers are going to discount stores more and that's pretty much the same story over at dollar tree, so you had higher profit and sales to start the year and the big beats, the big number was same-store sales, so foot traffic here double wall street estimates double what they were anticipat ing so the shopper is willing to spend, but they're looking to do that at cheaper prices and looking for their discounts and then i want to show you the amazon of china, alibaba coming out with better numbers to start the year despite the fact that you have the china covid lockdowns, that rolling lockdown taking place in shanghai so people were stuck at home, still shopping online, and it's also important to note that alibaba said that shanghai logistics are improving so things maybe getting back to normal in china's financial capitol and also the manufacturing plants are coming backup and running and that's good news for the likes of tesla and apple.

ashley: yes, absolutely, it is. all right let's take a look at nvidia, the world's largest chip maker if we can. well, they're down 3%, they reported yesterday. what went wrong? >> guidance was weak here, so actual earnings in the first quarter were actually pretty good and strong, but sales this spring, according to nvidia , will only be around a billion dollars or so because russia is going to cost them half a billion dollars in sales, and that maybe explains part of the shortfall but also global growth and higher interest rates so as a result nvidia says they are going to slow down on hiring and adding headcount, cutting down on expenses, and i counted at least 11 price target cuts by analysts this morning. they are all going down to around $200 or so but you still have the outliers there's a bull ish outlier calling for 315 like citi this morning. ashley: interesting let's take a look at snowflake, big loss. are they below their ipo price now, susan? >> well i think it's close to

it. i don't think it's below the ipo price but pretty much similar to what happened to nvidia so they had a great start to this year, in fact keeping their guidance in indiana tact for 2022 but the problem is, this is pretty much nitpicking i think is that profit margins are going to shrink. so snowflake powers cloud warehousing for big companies like amazon, meta, peloton, netflix, which we all know had a pretty rough start to this year. still though, i mean snowflake had some pretty interesting and i would say envious growth numbers. they grew sales by 85% so that's less than the 100% that we're all used to but still this is a booming and high growth kind of company. ashley: analysts love to nitpick , it's what they're paid to do that's my theory. broadcom has officially announced plans to buy vmware. how much is that deal worth? >> that's a $61 billion deal and we kind of knew this was going to be announced today. we had several reports out earlier this week, and that's a 30% premium that broadcom is paying up here and

this deal also includes a go shop clause which i found interesting so what that means is that vmware can go around and maybe shop for a better deal, price, better suiter. now this is one of the largest tech acquisitions ever and that's slightly less than that $68 billion microsoft activision deal, but we know broadcom and apple suppliers have been doing really well the last few years and they've been looking to buy something in the last few years including that hostile bid for qualcomm which they said no thank you, we'll go on our own. ashley: yeah, interesting though , both those stocks are not bad. let's take a look at apple. that stock is down 1.25, they're raising wages? >> yeah, that's right so they're raising wages by 45%, so you're looking at 22 bucks an hour for the new staff, and they're also increasing their wage budget for the entire company. now, apple can afford this , because it's a $3 trillion company, makes $100 billion in profit each and every year, and

the astonishing profit margin, which a few companies can say that they have, profit margins of 40%-plus, in their recent quarter. we know that there have been union votes in a few stores across the country. now the reason why apple stock is down is because if you're paying higher wages maybe those profit margins narrow below 40% which is still astonishing but also there are reports that they are going to keep their iphone production flat this year so maybe iphone 14 isn't going to sell more than iphone 13, and the company that sells 200 million handsets each year is still pretty bullish. ashley: it's remarkable is it not? susan li great stuff thank you very much. let's take a look at the dow winners if we can in the very early going. names like home depot, nike, boeing, american express, walt disney up 1.5%, they know that the brembergs are coming, s&p 500, dollar tree, dollar general susan just talked about those in harder times, norwegian cruise lines among the winners on the

s&p and take a look at the nasdaq, same story, dollar tree, marriott, ross stores, zoom video communications coming back a little bit up nearly 3%. all right let's take a quick check of the big board if we can and look at this. gaining nice upward momentum, we're about eight minutes into the session. the dow up 266 points, taking a look at the 10 year yield, right at 2.75%, essentially flat. let's take a look at gold if we can. don't talk about gold much these days, but down ever so slightly, $2 or thereabouts at 1,850 for gold. bitcoin meanwhile well-below 30,000, now at 28, 380 down another $1,155 down 4% for bitcoin. oil, well, this isn't great news up to 112.61 for a barrel. up $2.30, a 2% gain, so oil not getting cheaper anytime soon and nat gas also up another half a percent at just around $9.

the average price we say this everyday and it seems to go up everyday. average price for a gallon of regular in the u.s. is $4.60 and as always, we like to keep an eye on the golden state, california where the average there, yikes, $6.07 for a gallon of regular gas in california. all right, coming up, it was a nail biter, now, the pennsylvania senate race between dr. oz and david mccormick is headed for a recount. bret baier will be here to break it down. there's a new variant dominating the country right now. is it mild like the last omicron strain? dr. siegel will be here with what you need to know and officials in texas say the uvalde school shooter posted to facebook minutes before the murders. listen to this. >> the third post maybe less than 15 minutes before arriving at the school was "i'm going to shoot an elementary school."

ashley: well, can social media do more to help prevent these kind of tragedies? well hillary vaughn will have that full report, after this.

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ashley: now, to uvalde, texas, where we're learning more about the shooter's social media posts , just minutes before the attack. hillary vaughn is on capitol hill and hillary, what more do we know? reporter: ashley, disturbing details are coming out about the school shooter's social media activity, as governor abbott detailing the facebook messages that the shooter sent to someone online, and here is what those messages, according to the governor, said. >> as of this time, the only information that was known in advance was posted by the gunman on facebook, approximately 30

minutes before reaching the school. the first post was to the point of, he said "i'm going to shoot my grandmother." the second post was "i shot my grandmother." the third post maybe less than 15 minutes before arriving at the school was "i'm going to shoot an elementary school." reporter: so meta, facebook's parent company, does have content moderators that be looking for disturbing activity on their user public posts like this. they have content moderation to look at posts like this , but these were not public posts, but private messages sent from the shooter to someone. meta spokesperson andy stone tweeting this. the messages governor abbott described were private one-to- one text messages discovered after the terrible tragedy occurred. we are closely cooperating with law enforcement in their ongoing investigation, but the new york post is reporting that an

instagram account believed to be the shooters had photos of both assault rifles, along with selfies and a picture of someone holding a magazine from the gun. the person tagged a random instagram user in the picture of those rifles and the user told the new york post that the shooter messaged her that he "got a little secret, i want to tell you" and then he cryptic ally messaged her,"i'm about to -- " the last message was sent tuesday morning, the day of the shooting, and ashley, there are questions about whether or not this could have been prevented. the school years ago did hire a service to try to monitor social media activity that could tip them off to situations like this , but it isn't clear if any of this was flagged by that company, and clearly, the police were not aware of that until after the shooting happened. ashley? ashley: all right, thank you very much, hillary vaughn on capitol hill. all right let's bring in vivek

vivek ramaswamy who joins us now can big tech companies crackdown on something like this and if so how? >> yeah, so look, ashley, this is a tragic event and it's particularly wrenching now to note that the shooter was using facebook to send these messages that's chilling. at the same time i think we have to be really careful about making bad knee jerk policy decisions in response to a tragedy. in fact, history in our country teaches us that sometimes we make our worst policy judgments in response to the knee jerk reaction to a tragedy and i personally don't think the right answer is to go further in the direction of telling large technology companies to monitor private messages even further, as a means of supposedly preventing crimes, a kin to what tom cruise might have embodied, i think that's not the society we want to live in but we do want to find other ways of preventing crimes, preventing the kinds of conditions that lead to crime that's a complex and much more important

discussion, but i'm worried that we're going to get to a surveillance state led by a response to this tragedy when in fact i don't think it could have been prevented anyway. ashley: let's switch gears if we can now to elon musk and twitter a new filing shows musk is planning to front $33.5 billion of his own money. do you think musk is serious about buying twitter despite his issues with the bots, in particular? >> well look i think his issues with the bots were known long before he ever bought twitter in his original acquisition offer the letter to acquire the company he cited the bots as a problem. in his joint press release announcing the acquisition of the company or the definitive agreement to acquire the company he cited the bots as one of the problems he wanted to fix so it was a little bit of a mystery he brought up the bots as the reason why he doesn't want to buy the company. of course if we were to see it what it is and call it like we see it, it wasn't a reason, but a just any indication possibly to get a lower price something he's been talking more openly

about recently but at the end of the day if elon musk is like many of us he's probably had some swings in what his intentions are. i hope he follows through with the acquisition, adding today's news suggests he remains serious and engaged on it. i think it'll be good for the country for twitter to be a private company in the hands of an owner that is committed to free speech that has a great chance of making the company commercially valuable but also good for the company. ashley: very good, right. it's fascinating to follow that vivek thank you so much as always for joining us we do appreciate it. coming up one member of the beatles, thank you, one member of the beatles is jumping into the metaverse. which one of the four, well, it's going to be george, no it's not going to be george, it's going to be paul, or ribgo. we'll tell you who it is and what they're selling and also what do the latest round of retail earnings tell us about the consumer? i'll ask retail expert jerry sto

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ashley: we had a number of retailers who reported before the bell this morning. good time to bring in gerald sto

rch. good morning, today's reports were pretty strong. what did you make of them and what does it tell you about the consumer? >> look, the consumer is still very very strong. retail results are hit or miss because coming out of the pandemic a lot of them made mistakes and misjudged what was going to happen so the retailers complaining about the consumer really are complaining the consumer doesn't want to buy what they are trying to sell so the consumer is strong. that may change, i can't warranty that until the end of the year with everything that's happening in the world and the fed, et cetera but right now the consumer is very very strong but also don't misinterpret strong beats or results for this quarter out of macy's or nordstrom because they have been doing very poorly during the pandemic where some of the companies that didn't have strong comparables this quarter did very very well during the pandemic so just by way of example walmart sales were 20% versus pre-pandemic. target sales were up 40% versus pre-pandemic, amazon sales are up 80% versus before the

pandemic, and macy's, well they are still down versus before the pandemic. ashley: we have costco and gap reporting after the bell. what are you expecting there, gerald? >> well costco is a fine retailer, you know, done very very well, i expect them to do well but again it's a fool's game as we see to guess individual retailer results, in this quarter, versus expectation s, but for the long term, that's a great company. gap has been struggling, again they could have a good quarter because they had bad quarters for so long, but it doesn't mean they are out of the woods in anyway. a lot of the companies take a look at the department stores and mall-based specialty stores their stocks are trading where they were in the last century which means you could have held them, since the 1990s for the entire period and earned absolutely nothing. ashley: i got 20 seconds, gerald you say that some managements are doing better than others in the retail sector. whose getting it right? >> well, again, i'm a strong believer in what costco is doing tj maxx reported fine results

despite the headwinds everyone has, home depot as well so amazon, you know, amazon came out first because they reported a month off the others and it was oh, my god their numbers are terrible expenses are up. look at the other guys. they're better and win long term ashley: great stuff, as always lots of information, gerald stor ch, thanks so much for joining us. >> my pleasure. ashley: thank you. still ahead, wyoming senator john barrasso, bret baier, ben domenech and pete hegseth, the 10:00 a.m. hour of "varney" & company is next. ♪ 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.

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dolly varden silver is advancing one of the largest high-grade undeveloped assets in bc's prolific golden triangle. the property includes two past producing mines, and over 140 million ounces of silver equivalent. dolly varden. ashley: doesn't that look like a painting of the empire state building? is beautiful in midtown manhattan. it is 10:00 eastern on thursday morning. i am ashley webster in for stuart varney. let's begin with the retailers, we get to the retailers, dow up 400 points. the s&p up 11/3 and the nasdaq

slightly lower in the early going, now moving nicely higher. a bit of a rally on our hands. now we get to the retailers, macy's, best buy, kohl's, walmart, target on the upside. let's look at the 10 year treasury yield, right around the 2.73 area. it would be one. 2 basis points, crude oil is continuing to climb up to $112.82 a barrel, good for 2% gain. on the other side of the coin bitcoin down $615 coming back a little bit well under 30,000, 28,920. we got the latest read on pending home sales, jackie has the number. >> reporter: down 3. 9%, 9%, the lowest we've seen them in two years and it is not surprising because we have data

about mortgage rates as well, the 30 year fixed average is 5. one%, down slightly from last week, 5 and a quarter 1/4, compared to last year at this time and it is 2.95%. rates have gone up successfully in the pending home sales number. ashley: the housing market is cooling off, let's take a look at for the markets, good morning to you. you said we are in a cell now, ask questions later environment but may be you are a glass half-full kind of guy? is there opportunity in this market? >> we've been seeing this for a couple months as we get into earnings season. this is more for sellers exhaustion. a company like nvidia, record

beats on gaming and data centers but the revisions for the guidance in quarter 2 brought it down. 's back and changed, things like that were negative news shaking off turning in the positive, apple is down one% ahead of the bill as well, on news we've known for a month that they take a hit on the revenue up to $8 billion. it is in the news now. same with alphabet. they reported a month ago but staff took them down. i'm taking those stocks closely at the end of the week, if they finish strongly, nvidia, apple, alphabet get to one changed or positive on the week, that is a good sign and the market is ready to rally. ashley: a little bit of optimism. the fed signaling more high point rate hikes will be necessary. what do you think of that and does that necessarily mean a recession? >> the market anticipates of

this, this has become baked in, 50 basis points in june, 50 basis points in july but i am paying attention to people like the influential atlanta fed president, not a 2,022 voter but esther george became the city fed president, both of them saying 2% could be a time to stop those rate hikes and that brings us to the june and july. we have an inflation showdown, you have inflation numbers from june, july and august coming out lining up with jackson hole closely. inflation has not receded a little bit. a very hawkish pivot but leaving the window where we are coming out of the bottom here, equity, interest head and shoulders above the s&p 500 getting above a trend line, a 20 one day moving average for the first time since april 21st. the window for this rally. ashley: i feel you pushing the

momentum. we are out of time, you got a lot in in that time. thank you so much, appreciate it. the congressional budget office estimates inflation will persist into next year. what else are they saying? >> reporter: they say the us economy will grow more than 3%, 3. one% in 2,022 which is substantial, they call this a continued economic expansion despite the problems we are experiencing. they also said they expect roaring inflation to cool 2% by some point in 2024, talking about the fed, accelerated rate hikes should bring inflation down. in the cbo projections the current economic expansion continues, economic output grows rapidly over the next year so this is a positive report but a second read on first-quarter gdp indicates contraction, hard to say how this will shake out.

ashley: next one, looking at amazon, the ceo says he's working hard to turn the company around so what is he doing? jackie: he wants to get to a healthy level of profit ability looking at cost structure and bringing confidence to what the company is doing, he spoke at the shareholder meeting that we discussed yesterday as well and it was his first since he succeeded. some unusual things happen the last couple years, more in our control than others, the external factors, really relate to inflation, there's that word again, where the costs of linehaul and trucking, ocean, air and fuel have gone substantially up, we are working to mitigate those costs and these are cost every company is complaining about

and worried they are going to persist. ashley: thank you very much. president biden will be making a trip to texas after that horrific school shooting. >> president biden: we will be traveling to texas to meet with families, let them know we sense their pain and hopefully bring some little comfort to the community in shock and grief and trauma. as a nation, i think we all must be there for them, everyone. ashley: democratic gubernatorial candidate beto or rourke attempted to derail governor abbott's response to the uvalde shooting. >> this is totally predictable. >> you are out of line. you are out of line. you are out of line, please

leave this auditorium. you're a sick son of a -- [bleep] -- to make this a political issue. ashley: good time to bring in pete hegseth. was it a political stunt, political move? >> he want a constructive conversation with someone who's going to disagree with you on the scope of the second amendment you don't start by pulling a stunt, you don't start by trying to put them on display one day after a horrific tragedy where parents are identifying precisely who it is, funerals and prayer vigils are happening. he slipped into the room, got to where the cameras were, made a point. the governor and lieutenant governor held back. it was the local mayor who called him out and said you are

out of line which everyone regardless of your political persuasion is going to recognize. this is not the time for this, grieving, prayer, important, getting our arms around the timeline of what happened, who may be should have known more what was happening around the shooter, there are questions we haven't answers we need. until we get those things, don't use it for your own grandstanding and political campaign at that is what beto rourke did. i don't think it will help him. ashley: i think it is going to backfire on him. he's gotten a lot of criticism because the your point why take that arena? that was so inappropriate. you can argue with the governor later in another setting but to do that and to create that kind of drama and atmosphere could not have been more inappropriate. >> you are not serious about forging an opportunity for a real conversation that could lead to changes that could

prevent something like this. you put your political opponents on display that way, you are pushing everyone into a corner and the folks on stage, republicans and democrats, none of them took the bait and i hope president biden when he goes there plays it as best, as much as we can expect, addressing the families in the community to launch into a political gun debate which is where he went initially but i don't think that's what we need now considering the scope of the senseless tragedy. ashley: the president is pretty good at comforting. he's had a lot of experience in his own life. let's hope he channels that. let's change tack here. just got back from israel, you glow from her, you are filming a 2-part special for fox nation. give us a preview. >> the first shot was from the sea of galilee outside

jerusalem, filming a 2-part series, jordan river where jesus was baptized, filming a 2-part series on the life of jesus, his ministry in galilee and holy week and these are a long way out, they will come out in christmas of 2022, easter in 2023. what fox nation does so well, go to the very places where jesus walked, where he ministered, where he healed, where miracles occurred, where he was in the temple and bring it to our viewers but thanks for fox nation, it was special to be here. ashley: i have always wanted to go and i'm going to do it. great stuff as always. the world's largest hedge fund sounding the alarm over a possible return to 1970s style

stagflation. elon musk uping the anti-to finance his bid for twitter. it comes after twitter's ceo said the company was going forward with the deal. police groups are divided on the president's policing executive order, some calling the move political theater. ben dominic is on that issue and he will be up on the show next. ♪♪ 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

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ashley: what a great song to go with the pictures, clearwater beach in florida. doesn't it look beautiful? not many people down there on the beach right now, gearing up for the day, a beautiful picture as always, 78 °. if you like the music we play make sure to follow us on spotif he met, search "varney and company," smiling stu himself. take a look at the markets. we have been solidly on the up since "the opening bell," the nasdaq came out, the nasdaq up 214 points, the s&p is up 1.5%. take a look at lululemon. stu calls on the yoga pants people. big gain up nearly 9%, morgan stanley thinks they could be foolproof in a recession. that is good news, the stock again up 9. 4%. take a look at twitter.

elon musk is increasing his personal financial commitment to the deal. lydia joins me now, how much is musk trying to front now. >> additional $2.65 billion, a $44 billion offer. and musk's purchase, and equity, an increase from 271/4 billion and this also means that he is no longer planning to rely on a large load backed by his tesla shares, that is notable because shares of tesla tanked about 34% since musk announced his takeover bid for twitter in mid april. it is also significant because there is speculation around the future of this deal last week, musk publicly requested proof from twitter that fake accounts make up less then 5% of total users suggesting there are many

more and the value of the company, yesterday twitter held its annual shareholder meeting and the meeting generally avoided the question whether it was going to complete the $44 billion sale to musk. an interesting twist, twitter investors blocked the reelection of a musk ally to the board, the co-flarf of silverlake. but twitter's ceo, silverlake ceo, twitter's ceo did say to everyone at the meeting is that the company is continuing to work through the transaction. after news yesterday off musk's additional equity, twitter shares initially jumped and today they appear to be continuing to climb up 5% at the moment. remains unclear how musk is going to pay but the revelatory filing reveals he is in talks with twitter shareholders including former twitter ceo

jack dorsey for financing commitments, he could retain dorsey's take after acquisition but dorsey for his part announced his departure from twitter's board. ashley: it is a soap opera and we are following at every chapter of the day, as twitter turns. ben dominic joins me now. do you think musk will get twitter at the lower price with all the maneuvering and wrangling? >> is trying to, don't know that he will be successful but a lot hangs in the balance for twitter's future, a lot of people are hopeful musk's announcement to attempt an acquisition would be to beneficiaries in terms of the twitter customer, that would not line up with a lot of steps they wanted to take by the company for a long time not just on the free-speech aspect which gets a lot of attention but lots of other aspects of

twitter that frankly haven't done a good job matching up what consumers wanted in terms of a product. unfortunately for twitter if this deal goes sideways it could turn out to be a negative situation in a lot of respect and there might be people who have been on the cusp of giving up on the platform who choose to pull the trigger and walk away from it if it looks like it is not salvageable. ashley: musk says if he owns twitter it will be geared toward what he called the middle 80% of the population, no extreme left, no extreme right. what do you make of that? >> i think that is very fanciful. there is always this mythic idea that there is this big middle portion of the country. when it comes to voting patterns that is the case but when it comes to the people who are loudest on twitter, the people who musk follows, one side of things or the other you find a lot of people on the

extremes and that is for a reason. it is designed to promote those voices, regardless, that is the public square. ashley: who judges what is extreme. law enforcement groups across the nation divided on president biden's new executive order on police reform, several groups think it is a political theater. what do you say? >> here is a good way of telling, tim scott from south carolina put forward a police reform package, before the democrats blocked the use of the filibuster. there was an opportunity here for president biden to have a rare bipartisan victory of pushing forward legislative package the has done the things, when it comes to these issues, we have an executive order approach, one that is not permanent the can be overruled

by a future president and take steps toward federal lysing policing, when it has been in the opposite direction to have more local input, cops who live along the communities they are policing and getting more responsiveness, awareness of what is going on, federal lysing the system, federal lysing the problem is not going to make it go away. it is one step in that direction. ashley: wonderful stuff as always, thank you for joining us, much appreciated. the mayor of new york city, eric adams, who is a former cop himself went after the defund movement. what did he say? >> he said new yorkers need to stand up and show, cops are having a hard time policing the streets curbing violent crime that we've seen in the city but part of this comes as a result of what we saw during the pandemic this urge to take the

police off the street so they are facing that resistance. interesting that eric adams saying it is new yorkers who have done this and we have to reembrace the police, many new yorkers, myself included always embraced the police, never wanted to see them go, trying to re-instill this culture to make new york city safer. i have high hopes for adams. the messaging is right but more needs to be done because it is not happening in practice, on the street. >> to go on a public relations campaign and telling the entire city and country we support our police. those who are watering the tree of public safety with their blood every day for us. it is time for us that we sit in the shade of the freedom they have given, place themselves on its way. jackie: you have to put the

criminals in jail, we can all hug the police and say we support them but put the criminals in jail. ashley: he talks a good game and needs to follow through. a new study from the cdc shows one in 5 adults who had covid could develop long covid symptoms. what are they and how concerned should we be. i will ask doctor marc siegel later in the show. the national average for diesel is up $5.54, that is $2 a gallon more than last summer. how are trucking companies dealing with these rising costs. madison allworth has that next. ♪♪ you don't know ♪♪ wide to you till your teachers ♪♪ meet jessica moore. jessica was born to care.

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monarch mining is fully funded and poised to become canada's next great gold producer, with four high grade projects close to their 100% owned, 750 tonnes per day capacity mill. monarch mining. ashley: let's look at the markets, strong start to the day, the dow up 457 points, the s&p up 4.5% and the nasdaq up 200 points, near 2% gain. what is moving? let's bring jackie back in. it is a good day for the sector. >> a great day at least for today and a slew of strong

earnings reports. record first-quarter results, earning beat on the top and revenue beat and guidance in line, keeping guidance in line which was robust before, a lot of companies see trouble in the future because of rising costs but that is not what you are seeing with williams-sonoma so that was seen as positive and macy's blowing it out of the park, raising its annual profit guidance. they said they saw strength and occasion based apparel, in-store shopping, more foot traffic, strong luxury sales as well so these are touch points for the company that were positive. on the dollar side dollar tree and dollar general, both of them beat strong net sales numbers as well so it is kind of a conflicting story when it comes to the consumer right now and hard to piece it together. some companies are seeing pockets of strength, others like target and walmart are not so we need to let this play out before we get a better read on

how the consumer feels, whether we are in a recession and where we go from here. ashley: exactly. thank you very much. the rapid rise in diesel prices squeezing truckers and their customers, madison allworth has the story, taking a ride in a big rig, you look like you are where you are supposed to be. how was the trucking industry adjusting to the surge in prices, that's the question. >> reporter: i look like a natural, this is my first time in a truck like this which i want to bring in angel, a rod, you've been driving trucks for 20 years, he will keep his eye on a road, the first delivery spot of the day. let's look at the diesel prices. you've been doing it for 20 years, have you seen prices like this before? >> never as high, way too high. >> reporter: ashley asks what are you as a trucker doing to

stave on that fuel? what are the tricks to keep your fuel usage as long as possible? >> we try to stay within the speed limit but also we try not to idle for trucks, whenever outrunning, try them off. >> reporter: no way to avoid these diesel prices. look at where they stand today, nationally looking over $5.50 a gallon. in the northeast it is even worse, looking at well over $6 a gallon for diesel. with truck companies like this one they take a lot of diesel fuel, the ceo says the real crunch for the company, listen to what he said earlier this morning. >> unprecedented first time i've seen this rapid escalation to this level. it is an expensive key operating expense and with this kind of escalation, we try to break even on it but sometimes

you do and sometimes you don't. >> reporter: this is a family-owned company, we've been in business nearly hundred years. and the release of the home heating oil reserve, the biden administration is considering. he doesn't think that would bring a lot of this, and the northeast consumption is a million barrels a day. a lot to think about when it comes to diesel prices. ashley: thank angel for multitasking. i'm joined by senator john barrasso from wyoming. gas prices have gone up the fifth straight week, lease sales and drilling permits now, make your case. >> these record high gas prices under president biden are breaking the back of american families.

this is a weekend people turn to the roads. this weekend they are hot by the highest gas prices entire grow grocery prices with inflation president biden is out of touch, doesn't have a solution and he talks about this incredible transition we are going through from fossil fuels, he is so beholden to these liberal extremists regarding climate that the transition we are seeing and families are seeing is a transition from energy dominance to energy dependence, from wealth to weakness proud country, from prosperity to poverty, we have the energy in the ground in the united states, president biden will not let us get it out, we have the workers to deliver it, the energy is they are, that will bring down prices for consumers and help get inflation under control.

ashley: the president often comes back without argument and says the energy companies have plenty of leases and drilling permits, they are just not using them. >> that is one of president biden's big lies, the reality is this administration blocked the lease sales and you need permission once you get the lease to drill and they blocked those permission forms, those decisions used to be made at the local level, president biden pulled those decisions to washington, put one person in charge and said don't give the permits and finally he blocked the pipeline you need them of the infrastructure to move that energy to market. he is saying one thing and another, he's just trying to get out of this, his approval on inflation and on energy is at an all-time low and he's worried about the upcoming elections, the people who are running in november. ashley: we will leave it on that note. thank you so much, the

beautiful state of wyoming. pennsylvania -- pennsylvania's republican senate primary race between dr. oz and dave mccormick heading to our recount. meantime the fda admits the agency was too slow responding to the baby formula shortage. bret baer on the show is going to take that on next. ♪♪

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ashley: let's look at these markets. we had a nice strong opening to the session, the dow up 480 points, s&p want. 5%. a solid healthy opening on the market. look at goldman sachs and home

depot, these two stocks up 2. 5% but leading the dow gains and also adding more than 100 points to the rally. now this. pennsylvania's republican senate primary race between dr. oz and dave mccormick is heading to a recount. good morning, what is the latest? >> reporter: a statewide recount in pennsylvania will begin tomorrow in the republican senate primary race 9 guys after election day after dr. oz leads over dave mccormick by 900 votes triggering an automatic recount under state law. 67 counties must have the recount complete by june 7th with results submitted june 8th. >> smaller counties might have a recount done pretty quickly, larger counties might take

longer and it is up to the county to decide what method of recount if they are using another device, hands might take longer, to do that. >> there's an ongoing legal battle over the fate of 600 republican mail in ballots, did not write on the envelopes. the pennsylvania supreme court arguing undated ballots should count because the ballots were time stamped by county election boards. the ahs campaign and reporter national committee filed their own lawsuits arguing the ballots should not count, writing the orderly administration of pennsylvania may 2022 primary election will be appended after that. this undercut democratically enacted laws to protect voters

and candidates, extremely late changes, confusing voters and undermine confidence in the electoral process. there are 10,000 outstanding military, overseas, absentee and provisional ballots statewide that need to be counted, we are not clear how many of those in republican ballots. ashley: thank you for the latest. bret baer joins us, this is one of the most pivotal races in the midterms. what you think of the recount? >> it is down to whether the opponent wanted it. an automatic trigger in the state of pennsylvania. the opponent who is down, it happened 6 times, three of those, the opponents that i lost, i concede, the others went forward and the person with votes going in expanded his lead in the past.

it comes down to the final, final, we keep saying this, takes a long time to this, the absentee and provisional coming from the eastern part of pennsylvania in counties where it is overwhelmingly democrat. republican ballots in the hundreds and whether it is for mccormick to overtake dr. oz simes like a longshot for people talking in the state. ashley: interesting. let's change subjects to this. of the a chief submitted the agency was too slow in response to the baby formula shortage. i will get your thoughts. >> fda timeliness of interviewing the whistleblower and getting into the facility, were too slow. some decisions in retrospect could have been more optimal. ashley: more optimal.

it was months before they interviewed the whistleblower. it always comes out what took them so long to act. >> the understatement testimony of the year. could have been more optimal with bare shelves, scouring all over the place to try to get it. i think there is a major screwup, congress will keep on looking into it. why the fda didn't act, who was overseeing and decided to have this delay and shutting down the plant, and the percentage of baby formula made of it. it is similar for the country to deal with baby formula shortage and to have to ship in baby formula from outside the country but hopefully this is an eye-opener that fixes the supply chain. ashley: i was struck when shipments coming in from germany.

the optics cannot be good with a care parcel from germany. >> the other thing is, you will hear this more and more, $40 billion in assistance to ukraine, up to 54 billion, why not get baby formula on our shelves, harden our schools to make things safer, those billions can do other things. it behooves the administration to talk about why they are doing stuff and not be as reactive. ashley: great stuff. thank you for joining us and we will be watching you with so many others, 6:00 pm eastern on special report with bret baer. talk about summer bummer, it is not fun. many families feeling the impact of inflation cancel their plans for a family trip.

we have the story on that. mortgage rates are down but remain high, one of the reasons homebuyers are uneasy. we will talk to mitch rochelle about the state of the housing market. ♪♪ we're clearly different. (other money manager) different how? you sell high commission investment products, right? (fisher investments) nope. fisher avoids them. (other money manager) well, you must earn commissions on trades. (fisher investments) never at fisher investments. (other money manager) ok, then you probably sneak in some hidden and layered fees. (fisher investments) no. we structure our fees so we do better when clients do better. that might be why most of our clients come from other money managers. at fisher investments, we're clearly different. you're a one-man stitchwork master. but your staffing plan needs to go up a size. you need to hire.

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ashley: the top of the hour we told you mortgage rates are at 5.1%. a year ago it was 2.95%. mortgage is more expensive. let's bring in mitch rochelle. this has to be bad news for first-time homebuyers, right? >> it is, certainly. think about this year, economics of the monthly payment. having said that prices have gone up. it is a double whammy for the homebuyer and we are seeing people racing out to see if they can find a home because they are worried interest rates were higher and lock in when they can. ashley: based on all the data we have seen could it be said the housing market is cooling off a little here? >> 100%.

pending home sales jackie read at the top of the hours a leading indicator. home sale slowing down a little bit. is cooling which means it may not be a bad thing because we are 20 one% year-over-year price increases are unsustainable for homebuyers especially important first-time homebuyers. ashley: it was always the case that demand completely outstrips supply. are we seeing the inventories, number of homes for sale going up a little bit? >> that is a good thing but the trend of paying above asking prices, 50% of the houses that were sold last month, demand is outstripping supply. ashley: you think that will continue? we saw the great flood of

people leaving the big cities, going out into the suburbs, going more rural. is that stille trend? >> i think that is a force of nature and that was a trend that was happening before covid and all covid did with hyper accelerate it, the trend will continue. ashley: absolutely fascinating, isn't it? the move from north to south continues. i know you are in florida, that pace is not slow down one iota, has it? >> no, that is unbelievable. we are starting to see more inventory on the market, one of the challenges in florida is people were worried if they put their house on the market they wouldn't be able to find some so we had our self in a vicious cycle but i am using my neighborhood as an example, two houses on the street for sale, there weren't any in the neighborhood at all for sale year ago except the one i

bought. when i talk to realtors in florida we are starting to see more listings and that is a good thing because i don't think that demand is shifting at all. ashley: that is a little bit of good news. thank you so much as always, thank you. by the way, thank you, there was a buying frenzy on vacation homes during the pandemic but that demand has fallen down too. jackie: demand was up 16% from march but the peak in march 2021 was an increase we've seen 88%, an increase in pre-pandemic numbers with respect to these second vacation homes. what is interesting here is as mitch suggests not only are the rates going up but home prices thrive because florida is its own beast but across the

country there is not enough inventory build yet to push those prices down. people are thinking about the rates and trying to afford a second home. the map isn't making sense. ashley: write. inflation taking a toll on families across the country because it could hurt kids plans for summer. jackie: this is a big bummer but we know how much we are paying, a new echelon insight poll shows 75% of parents are extremely or very concerned about the rising cost of everyday purchases like food and gas. when asked if they could change their plans with respect to travel 57% of those surveyed said yes. that is a bummer for the kids, that is a bummer for families and it is not great with respect to the economy and growth and all these things we will be watching. ashley: no. it is the economic reality unfortunately. thank you very much.

still ahead, lieutenant general keith kellogg, jason chave it's, dan heninger, the 11:00 hour of "varney and company" is next. it's , dan heninger, the 11:00 hour of "varney and company" is next. ♪♪

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>> it is not great news to know inflation will persist into next year but i think the cbo is under shooting things. it is not capturing all the energy inflation. it is also not capturing all the food inflation. we will be looking at putting some money selectively to work. they are really beaten down. >> negative news is shaping off in nvidia, apple, alphabet. that's a good sign and the market is really to rally. >> i like powell, he is a good

guy but he is not paul volcker. you are in one of the worst times ever and it needs confidence more than anything else. i'm afraid this fed doesn't have it. ashley: rocking like a hurricane on this thursday morning. welcome back. it is 11:00 a.m. :00 am on the east coast, may 26th. i'm ashley webster in first stuart varney. pretty strong out of the gate here, the dow is up 480 points, s&p also up 13/4 of 1% the nasdaq up 240 points. oil continues to climb, 113, $114 a barrel, that is not going to help gas prices. look at the 10 year treasury

yield, right around 2. 75, up a little bit, 2.76% on the 10 year treasury yield and this is a good time to bring in gary kalpaum. a little bit of a relief rally after so many weeks of losing. are we going to go lower ultimately? what is your take? >> my guess is we do alternately go lower but i will worry about that when the time comes. we were down in less than two months, 29% on the nasdaq, 18% on the s&p. you got to get a relief rally somewhere and by no accident, jay powell said to down a couple of fed heads, one saying we can stop raising rates in september, don't know where that comes out and bullard talks about lowering rates when they are still two points below the 10 year yield, no doubt that is not by accident and

trying to juice markets because they know you lose the wealth effect, $30 trillion wealth, a loss in markets in the last few months. that is trouble for the economy. ashley: what about the earnings reports, you have some worries there? >> there has been a lot of downside guidance, they slaughtered some of the retail but, we had downside guidance and big sporting goods. the market telling you of the downside and it is a better rally, since the highs the longest move we have is 11 days and not much in the way -- we are overdue to have a better one, better percentages. it is not changing the trend,

one hundred trillion dollars buying up the whole s&p. there is no amount unimaginable for him, markets go up because people have been in pain, their 401(k)s go up and down. ashley: the world's largest hedge fund sounding the alarm over a return to the 1970s style stagflation. bob prince says we are now on the cusp of stagflation. how do you see it? >> just head for the hills, we are talking big numbers, 18%, 19%. we had no debt back then, so

let's hope not. we are in a contraction to a certain extent, looking at oil prices right now up $3 or $4 and i don't think the economy can stand oil prices going higher. that's a gargantuan tax on the economy including business and not just at the gas pump but what petroleum goes into, leave no doubt something could be on the table, let's not talk 70s. ashley: i came to the state in 1982 and get a mortgage for 14% you thought you were going to steal, we are not at that stage. >> i have a barron's book here on mortgages.

the first page start at 3% mortgage, goes as high as 24%. that is how bad it was back then and how spoiled we are right now. we are 3%. if we ever go to 8% we are talking doubling payment from the 3% and that would be not good news for the housing market. ashley: we -- are we close to bottom or see it from here? >> we have a good bottom here that lasts a while. i'm unclear if it is the big deep bottom. oil prices are up $3 or $4 today, that is a big worry going forward and the higher we go the worse it is. ashley: let's keep our fingers crossed. that is a technical term for the best. as always great stuff, thanks

for joining us. the governor of texas, greg abbott, says tough gun laws like the ones implement it in major liberal cities, are sopping mass shootings. >> we need to realize people who think if we just implement tougher gun laws is going to solve it, chicago and la and new york, this proved the thesis. if you are looking for a real solution, chicago teaches what you are talking about is not a real solution. our job is to come up with real solutions that we can implement. ashley: let's bring in jason chafe its, an issue we see every time we see this kind of tragic event. do you agree with what the governor says?

>> unfortunately i think governor abbott is absolutely right. i think we all wish there was one simple thing we could do that would prevent this from ever happening again, but unfortunately there is not. the solution is engaged in mental health, the strengthening of families, something democrats don't want to talk about and fortify the schools, you shouldn't be able to get into a school, others advocated they want to get rid of school resource officers and what not. we need to take a deep breath more than those that lost their lives, help those people in texas and what happened in this particular situation and do what we can. ashley: i want to get your thoughts on this, democratic

gubernatorial candidate beto o'rourke tried to disrupt governor abbott's press conference on the uvalde shooting. give me your thoughts. >> this is totally predictable. >> you are out of line, you are out of line. you are out of line, please leave this auditorium. i can't believe -- [bleep] ashley: some heated words. what do you make of that spectacle? >> it was a political stunt at the worst time, a disgusting part of politics, plenty of time to talk about public policy but when the governor and local officials given update about a mass shooting and you have parents, in the state and country, who wonder what is going on it is not time for a political hack to come in

and try to steal the show and score some cheap political points but that is what you get from beto o'rourke, desperate politician, no tact doing this at the worst possible time. i thought it was tasteless and uncalled for, and was an absolute worst time you can imagine. ashley: surely this is going to backfire on him. he could have had a conversation with the governor and officials anytime but to pick this setting. i talked about this with pete hegseth and said the same thing, couldn't have been a worse time but surely a stunt like that has to backfire on him. >> you have a stunt when literally, we are hours into this. it is disgusting but he is that kind of politician, move on, not even worth our breath.

ashley: we are going to have to leave it right there. thanks for joining us. by the way, elon musk is speaking out in the wake of the texas school shooting. he says assault rifle should at a minimum require a special permit where the recipient is extremely well vetted. musk added while he supports tighter measures for gun purchases, backing firearm ownership is a safeguard against political tier any. that is elon musk. let's look at the markets. a nice rally going today, the dow up 500 points, up one%, the nasdaq up 250 points and the s&p up 70 points. strong broad-based rally, the chinese search engine reported strong first-quarter results boosted by artificial intelligence and clown services, up 131/4%.

craft hines, they downgraded the stock, inflation hurting sales so craft hines down 3%. one of the beatles is jumping into the meta verse. we will tell you which member is auctioning off nfts, millions of dollars from the president's 1.9 trillion covid relief program was used to push social and climate justice including teaching people how to build canoes. secretary of state anthony blinken just outlines our china strategy, must invest line and compete, retired general keith kellogg is here to respond to that. ♪♪ much i paid, it followed me everywhere.

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best move i've ever made. ask your dermatologist ashley: that's all right. ukraine forces have re-taken a small village on the outskirts of kharkiv after weeks of being occupied by russian troops. trey yingst is in ukraine. you spoke to residents who survived and what are they telling you? >> gut wrenching stories from ukrainian civilians on the outskirts of kharkiv. we spoke about what life was like living under russian occupation. marina points to her phone as she recalls the locations of

russian troops to ukrainian military. we were in the bar looking for a whole trying to film everything and pass on the information to our soldiers. this quiet act of resistance took place in a small village outside of kharkiv that small that sr widespread atrocities coveted by the russians, critical reports of torture, executions and rape all committed by occupying troops. he took this girl and was raping her on the second floor of the school right in the classroom, marina said. the story was corroborated by multiple eyewitnesses. russian troops stormed in. fewer members than i do 20-year-old ukrainian woman was taken against her will. she was crying when she came back. she replied she raped me. the terror inflicted in the community, will influence generations to come.

77-year-old's lawyer worries about the future for her grandchildren as tears streamed down her face. first of all, i am thinking how will we rebuild everything? and for it all to end, it is unbearable. have increased attacks on the central part of kharkiv today killing 7 people and injuring 17 others. it is why we are reporting underground right now. ashley: truly horrific. great report as always. ukrainian president zelenskyy says his country will fight until it regains all territories lost to russia. lieutenant general keith kellogg joins me now. where are we? what is the state of play right now in the war? >> reporter: thanks for having me. we are into the slog face. it is primarily in the middle

area around the breakaway republics where the russians are trying to make a move and ukraine is fighting well. that is why the equipment we gave the ukrainians is so important especially long-range utility has multiple launch rockets you see in play because we've got to range the russians and fight among equal terms. that is where that will be determined. when you look at what both sides ones, once it reached the point he will fight to the end whatever the end is going to be and putin keep pushing forward as well, the russians have much better equipment and the number of troops they have got here. what i am hoping for is a negotiated settlement as you get back to the status quo which puts them back to the start of the war on 24 february but i don't see negotiations breaking out. what russians and ukrainians, the ukrainians are not going to

give in. we are looking at a fight that's going to go on for the foreseeable future. timeline, 30, 60, 90 days until both sides get tired and figure out how to get out of it. ashley: exactly. i want to move on to another one, china organizing military drills in the airspace around taiwan. it comes when china is intent on reshaping international order. listen to the state. >> china is the only -- against the international order. increasingly economic, different meta, military, technological power to do it. >> beijing's vision would move us away from the universal values that characterize the world progress over the last 75 years. ashley: we kind of know this but what do you make of it? >> tony lincoln makes a good point. the chinese are being

provocative right now. we will reach a point we have to push back hard on the chinese. what i mean by pushing back hard you reach a point, there's enough, you talk about invading taiwan, won't happen on our watch. you're going to recognize taiwan as a sovereign nation, and go back to the un, maybe -- may be restart comprehensive defense ministry with taiwan. we had that and it was abrogated in 1977 by jimmy carter so there is no mutual defense pact we have with them. we have to restart them. you push back and say push it to oppose ocean where we are going to come back at you just as hard to defend taiwan going into the future because when you look at it it is a democratic country being pushed around, we almost want to go back to a two china policy instead of one china policy how we created the one china policy in the first place, maybe we need to tell him we are done

with this, it is an independent sovereign nation, leave it alone. ashley: how does china react to an aggressive pushback? do they respect it or does it escalate? >> i think you have to take a gamble, the risk, whatever you want to call it that it is going to escalate and don't worry about it. we can't just keep reacting to the russians or the chinese or any adversary out there. you have to be very aggressive with them. we need to show strength and i don't think we have, with the chinese, tell them basically tell them we are not going to take this anymore, being very provocative, don't care if it is taiwan or the south china sea, we have to reactivate publications or we are going to end up pushed back. ashley: peace through strength, lieutenant general keith kellogg, thank you for your thoughts, great stuff. let's check the markets if we

can, great stuff they are too, the dow up 500 points, one. 5% or more, nasdaq up 250 points, the s&p back to 40004049. take a look at amazon, shareholders, 20-1 stock split, that will take place on june 3rd, stock up 4%, $84 or thereabouts. new research shows millions from president biden's $1.9 trillion covid relief was used by institutions to push social and climate justice for instance nearly 500,000 went to the university of montana for race-based programs including a lecture series on racial justice, death and indigenous knowledge, another 50,000 went to the nonprofit 500 sales for reopening programs that teach indigenous canoe building and explore precolonial sea life, the carnegie institute in

pittsburgh was awarded 470 one thousand for the ongoing department of an existing exhibit on ancient egypt. that museum had already received $6 million in ppp recovery funds in april 2021. if you remember the president biden's american rescue plan past with no republican support and maybe that is why. pilots of one major airline just voted to strike if their contract negotiations fell apart but that does not mean pilots can just walk off the job. the white house insists that the economy is in transition. listen to this. >> our economy is in a period transition. we are moving from the strongest economic recovery in modern history to what can be a period of more stable and resilient growth. ashley: dan heninger says the economy is a train wreck, dan heninger is next.

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ashley: jacksonville beach, florida, 83 degrees, blue skies, there's the ocean. not many people. you have the beach to yourself. we are playing this song because ringo starr is jumping into the meta verse, auctioning off nft digital artwork next month. a portion of the proceeds will benefit charitable projects, somewhere stu is smiling. let's bring in susan lee, a big beatles fan. you've got some movers. the meme stocks. susan: ringo, george, paul, john, of course. i have learned that, four years on the program thanks to you guys. let's check the meme stocks which are looking like rock stars, look at game stop, rallying 20% as well and short interest in game stop, the

highest in a year, 27% of outstanding shares, the retail investors, déjà vu opportunity to kill the shorts on these squeezes. i want to show you nvidia, reversing these earlier losses after analysts thought about it, a pretty good first quarter. conservative guidance the rest of the year because of russia and the global growth picture. you handle analyst targets predicting $200 plus for the stock on average which should still be bullish and apple supplier chip company broad, offering $1 billion to buy it and that is lifting amd which is another big chip name and retailers, consumers spending,

looking for bargains, shoppers buying clothing once again to go back to work at macy's, consumers, discounters, dollar tree soft foot traffic more than double wall street estimates, the retail relief rally we are seeing after the dismal walmart, target numbers last week. ashley: exactly. the cbo says we are dealing with uncomfortably high prices the rest of the year. edward lawrence is at the white house. show us what the administration is doing to bring prices down. >> reporter: the president is pitching more spending to bring that down, the congressional budget office says it will be elevated but that report says inflation has peaked already. inflation will come down to 4.7% and fall again next year. a 2% target by 2024.

the cbo bullish on economic growth, the second round of gdp fell to negative 4. 9% but the gb will end this year 3. one% before one% before falling into thousand 23 and 1% by 2024 on the federal deficit the president taking credit for reducing that deficit. >> president biden: let me remind you again i reduced the federal deficit, all the talk about the deficit from our republican friends, i love it. >> the committee for responsible budget says that is not the case. >> brought the deficit up in 2021. relative to that, coming down into thousand 22, this is not a case of him and acting deficit policies. the exception is the american rescue plan created more economic growth and more inflation driving down the deficit more than it otherwise would have been. >> the deficit will increase

next year, 2032, the committee for the federal budget said the numbers are locked in before the effects of the russian invasion. another inflation marker indicator will be released tomorrow. ashley: thank you, look at this headline in the wall street journal, president biden's train wreck economy, the white house says the economy is in transmission. dan heninger is the author of the piece enjoins me now. explained that part about -- they got that part right. >> president biden's current explanation or description of our economy, affection autos of

president biden's relationship with reality know that for a while he was saying the current economy was vladimir putin's fault as -- the cbo said it was before the russian invasion of ukraine but changed their tune saying this is an economy, the director of economic counsel brian gates was on fox, what they are talking about is the transition to a more stable and resilient economy and what that means is an economy that has slower growth but nonetheless propped up people with transfer payment programs, things like child care, home care and the rest of it that they were proposing is a green economy, that is not going to happen because they are going to lose control of the house of representatives in the fall but nonetheless an argument worth talking about, we are in an

economy unlike anything, this is not just another term in the business cycle, buffett had 0 interest rates since 2009, it is driven money to things like crypto mania and digital artwork, 8.3% inflation, stock market unlike volatility, the best financial minds in the industry have never seen. i think the american people are looking for a way out of the post pandemic mess we have been in. we recognize president -- president biden's economy is a train wreck but republicans have to offer their own solutions rather than dumping on president biden. ashley: it is clear that president biden doesn't have the toolbox needed to put it back on track and the midterms if we believe the forecasts republicans will have more of a chance to do that, get it back

on track. >> they do have a chance, the democrats pretty much a blue it, they had their opportunity, people were looking for help out of the problems we are in right now. they are probably going to lose the house but i have been saying republicans have to start talking in a more positive way about how they are going to rebuild the future economy unlike the ones that had terrifying experience with the last two years. ashley: that is where we have to leave it. less than 40% of workers are back to the office full-time in new york not because of covid, but because of crime. if you're planning a summer vacation be prepared to pay more for everything. jeff flock has a report from the jersey shore next. ♪♪

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♪♪ let's fly away ♪♪ ashley: one of my favorite songs. los angeles international airport better known as lax, one of the busiest airports in the world. talking of airlines and airports, a major hub for alaska airlines. pilots for the airline voting overwhelmingly to authorize a strike of current negotiations with management and federal mediation efforts fail. the airline pilot association says 99% of pilots who voted approved union leaders to call a strike if necessary but don't expect them to walk off the job anytime soon. they would need approval from a

national mediation board before they could strike. the last time that happened was all the way back in 2010 with spirit airlines. delta airlines trimming flights from their summer schedule to improve operational reliability. that stock up 6. 3%. that report from reuters. show me southwest airlines, that stock up today after they recorded very upbeat revenue out books and say they are on track to report solid profits for the rest of the year. investors like it, southwest airlines up 61/3%. if you are heading to the jersey shore this summer, inflation and supply chain issues are making just about everything cost more. jeff flock is in seaside heights, new jersey, a place he hung out as a young lad and compared to back then jeff flock, things are more expensive.

>> reporter: i found one thing that hasn't gone up. it has gone up since i was a kid. the balloon pop game where you break the balloons has not gone up in the last year. pretty much everything else has. some t-shirts, beach chairs. i was talking to xavier who runs the shop, you're having trouble getting people to work. >> yes. we always welcome people to come in. feel free. >> reporter: people still on unemployment. >> i guess so. no one is wanting to get some work. come and see us. >> reporter: good luck to you. hope is going to be a good year. take a look at this. this is not encouraging because people are cutting back on travel since the high gas prices. 57% of people say they are taking fewer trips because of gas prices. 54% say they will take shorter trips. 44% say they will postpone the trips.

of heard of people saying they are going to cancel their summer trip. despite that we talked to a travel blogger who said people talk like that but they still have money in their pockets and even though prices are high people are still buying. >> whether it is gas, hotels, airfare, inflation is crazy right now and people are paying it. hotels can get away with it, restaurants can get away with it. airlines get away with it and demand is there. >> reporter: at least it is right now. there is concern as the summer goes on maybe people start to run out of money especially if gas prices continue to rise, you can put those prices up, we are at $4.60 today, hasn't gone up much in the last week but a lot of people think it is going to. i look longingly at the distance, the casino. where i missed spent many a day

or so. here you go. ashley: he looks like a cool dude, a cool -- exactly, try work, it is not that bad. let's get a sense of the markets, the dow 30 stocks, 27 of them are up, three down, verizon, johnson & johnson and merck, the dow up 1.5%, 482 points. covid cases 30 one% up over 30 one% over the last two weeks, we are in the middle of a new covid wave. is it time to bring back masks? i will ask doctor siegel next. ♪♪

psoriasis really messes with you. try. hope. fail. no one should suffer like that. i started cosentyx®. five years clear. real people with psoriasis look and feel better with cosentyx. don't use if you're allergic to cosentyx. before starting get checked for tuberculosis. an increased risk of infection, some serious and a lowered ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor about an infection or symptoms or if you had a vaccine or plan to. tell your doctor if your crohn's disease symptoms develop or worsen. serious allergic reaction may occur. best move i've ever made. ask your dermatologist ashley: you are taking a look at the aircraft carrier uss intrepid museum.

we are showing you this because fleet week is back. and hiatus during the pandemic, this week thousands of members of the navy, marines have been meeting with new yorkers and invite them to explore military displays and demonstrations, should be a nice economic boost for manhattan bars. no covid cases up 30% as the new be a 2 some variant spreads across the country. doctor marc siegel joins me. is this new variant more contagious or deadly than previous strains? >> it is more contagious. the be a 2. 1. 21 is circulating now in new york and the northeast, that is 30% more contagious than the be a 2 which was 30% more than the ba one. it has got more transmissible even though we didn't think it good. deadly, no.

we think it is about the same, not worth. you can see that with case numbers. in new york city we had 3000 new cases yesterday which was a decrease in the state, 8 or 9000, a decrease but the death rate in new york city, only 18. we are having a decoupling where we are seeing more cases but not very much deaths and hospitalizations a slight uptick. it goes along more with what we have been saying, it is manageable. the draconian measures make no sense and the mandates make no sense. ashley: i want to get to this issue. a new study in the journal nature medicine found covid vaccines offer little protection against long covid. one in five adults suffer from long covid. what is your reaction to that? >> i'm very upset about that and glad you brought it up. it is an important study that

came out yesterday. a million people looked at it and we were hoping vaccines offer protection against long covid. what they do offer protection against with the booster and if you had prior covid, natural immunity they offer protection against severe disease, that is clear especially if you were sick recently or had a recent booster. even with these immuno basic variants they are showing an impact against hospitalization still sought -- long covid worries me. we saw that previously with delta and the original variant. i was hoping vaccines would decrease the effects of that and that is what i'm seeing in my practice but the study doesn't back it up. ashley: philadelphia school district reinstating the mask mandate in schools. is it necessary? >> no, i don't understand, it is an issue of compliance, the question is who is wearing these masks and who is wearing

them properly, i wear a mask indoors and on an airplane but i know how to wear a mask. a 3-year-old usually not. over the chin, flimsy mask offer no protection, they are bound and interferes with their socialization. don't believe in mask mandate at all in schools, we are not at a point it is a huge deal breaker anyway. i encourage masks, don't mandate them. there's a big back lash. ashley: we are out of time the great information as always. china, good to see you. china's cabinet hold an emergency meeting with one hundred thousand participants, one hundred thousand, as the country continues to be hit by covid lockdowns. on monday the state council unveiled 33 new economic measures like lifting lockdowns on trucks traveling from low risk areas. now this. in new york city businesses are struggling to get workers to

return to the office but covid isn't the main reason why. it is crime. workers are afraid to use the subway. in a survey 94% of people said are not enough is being done to fix the crime on trains. right now new york city has an office occupancy rate of 39%, that is below as you can see the national average of 43%. business leaders in new york city will meet with mayor eric adams. executives will push adams to push the crime problem immediately or they will not mandate a return to the office for their employees. goldman sachs's ceo david telemann, commissioner adam silver and wells fargo ceo charles schaff are expected to be at the meeting, clamp down on crime. it is now time for the thursday trivia question. which year was the to move the unknowns at arlington national cemetery established?

86, 1856, 1921, 1944, 1967? the answer right after the break. runching tons of polygons here! what's going on? where's regina? hi, i'm ladonna. i invest in invesco qqq, a fund that gives me access to the nasdaq-100 innovations, like real time cgi. okay... . . every year we try to exercise more, to be more social, to just relax. and eating healthy every single meal? if only it was this easy for us.

ashley: all right. before the break we asked, which year was the tomb of the unknowns at arlington national cemetery established? make your guess. the answer? 1921. the unknown soldier was killed during world war i. he was brought to virginia for a funeral. he was given the medal of honor, the nation's highest military

decoration by president warren g. harding. now you know. look at markets before we end this show. nice rally. i've done everything i can. the dow up 48 points. s&p up 2. don't forget to send in the "friday feedback." we could answer your question on tv. think about that. that is all for varney/ashley webster today. neil cavuto writes in every friday to get on tv. neil: you usually recognize my letters, they are cut out magazine letters. you tell stuart, no that is cavuto. ashley: thank you, my friend. neil: look forward to that tomorrow. corn of wall and broad, dow jones industrials maybe securing, we still have another day to go, say of another half trading today, we'll have first up week in maybe eight