he did there. we'll continue to watch his progress see if he can break his own record, adam johnson, angela great to see you both. "varney" & company is coming up next we have the ashley webster in for stuary varney today. ashley it's always great to see you at this hour and hand it over. take it away. ashley: thank you very much, jackie. i love watching those types of videos as i enjoy my coffee and donuts that's about as motivated as i am, jackie thank you very much indeed. i'm ashley webster in today for stuary varney, coffee and donuts and all. let's begin with bitcoin back above $20,000 after a sharp sell-off over the weekend. bitcoin had fallen below 18,000 to 17601. meantime, thousands of flights were delayed and canceled this holiday weekend. i hope you weren't one of them. just take a look at this. 859 canceled saturday, nearly 1,000 on sunday, more than 200

already canceled for today. it is in no other terms a travel nightmare. and guess what? even transportation secretary buttigieg saw this flight canceled so he drove apparently from washington to new york. gas prices are below the $5 mark nationwide at 4.98 not exactly celebration time. diesel still at a record high of $5.81. now here are oil prices, steven shork says if oil holds at 120 bucks gas nationally will hit $5.40 by july 4. oil right now as you can see just under $110. treasury secretary janet yellen says she expects the economy to slow but is echoing the biden administration by saying a recession is not inevitable. on the other side of the coin, former treasury secretary larry summers says well he does see a recession ahead. meantime, take a look at the cover of the new york post.

always entertaining that says " fail to the chief", the paper claiming people will spend 17% more for summer barbecues than they did last year. quick check of the futures for you, they are trading on a shorter schedule today for the juneteenth holiday but as they do trade they are higher dow futures up 142 points it is monday, june 20, yes, the markets are closed but we, as always, are open for business "varney" & company is about to begin. it's a party in the usa ♪ ashley: and there you have a look down sixth avenue towards central park, as we listen to miley cyrus on this juneteenth. let's get straight to the cryptocurrency, kind of get up-to-date there. bitcoin had dipped below 18,000

as we mentioned over the weekend it's now recovered to over 20,000. let's bring in lauren simonetti. good morning, lauren. what's the latest, what's the latest on this very volatile sector? lauren: well, it did go to 17, 592 before recovering. there's still fear of contagion out there, celsius, the wonder that shocked the market says it has been one week since we paused withdrawals, swap, and transfers. we want our community to know that our objective continues to be stabilizing our liquidity and operations. this process will take time and long term holders of bitcoin, they're starting to sell. the cryptocurrency market cap, remember it was right near 3 trillion back in november. it's now under $900 billion, so this is a market that really has cratered recently. ashley: yes. the very definition. all right, moving on, treasury secretary janet yellen former treasury secretary larry summers both weighing in on the

possibility of a recession but apparently, they don't see eye-to-eye. they don't agree. what's going on? lauren: another example of the white house continuing to downplay a recession while experts, even democrat continue to warn what is coming. listen here. >> i expect the economy to slow , but i don't think a recession is inevitable. >> my best guess is that a recession is ahead, i base that on the fact that we haven't had a situation like the present with inflation above four and unemployment below four, without a recession following within a year or two. lauren: so they disagree. now economists surveyed by the wall street journal they put the probability of recession in the next 12 months at 44% which is historically high, and the new york fed says there's an 80% chance of a hard landing, so a controlled recession be everyone's best option here,

but we might get that hard landing. ashley: janet yellen certainly towing the administration line, all right, lauren, thank you very much. guess whose here? on a monday morning, jeff sica. jeff, good morning to you. let's get right to it. you called the meeting of the fed last week is a meeting of the mindless, so we know where you stand on the fed, but do you agree with larry summers says looks like a recession or janet yellen who says no, it's not inevitable. >> well i mean, what i can say, ashley, is every time i hear janet yellen speak, she gets more dilution all with each passing day, so what she's been saying in the past few days, last week, in terms of we're not going to reach a recession, why does janet yellen have any credibility at all? she's the one who told us that inflation was transitory, then came out and made it clear that she had made a mistake, so we should, i should, i spend more

time listening to my golden retriever talk about the economy than i would janet yellen. ashley: ouch. >> as far as larry summers i've never been a huge larry summers fan but let's give credit where credit is due. he has been very very accurate during the pandemic in determining and being concerned that we would reach inflation, and he talks about the lagging effects of what the fed is doing with raising interest rates, and i think that is the most important thing he could say, because what larry summers is saying is even as they raise interest rates we are not going to see the effects of that for a while, so the economy does, in fact, will, in fact, slowdown and there will be a recession. i'm of the belief we're in a recession already. ashley: yeah, there are others that think the same thing. i was going to get to you on crypto, jeff, but i want to fast

forward if we can, to investment s right now and i know you're an owner of apartment buildings. you think that that's actually a pretty good strategy in this kind of economic situation, high inflation, the economy slowing down, getting into some sort of reit, real estate investment trust. do you think that's a good move? >> yeah, i would say, ashley, i'm right now, i'm itching to buy some of these, i'm itching to buy some of these apartment reits because what we're happening now in this collapse, in the housing market, is and you're also with interest rates moving up, you're pushing out a significant percentage of buyers into the rental market, and there's a shortage of supplies and rentals so you have a lot of good apartment reits that have gotten swept up in the downturn of the market, and are down 15, 20 or more percent , that pay dividends and there's not a lot of supply coming on the market, so i think

that if i were to invest and i'm not in them yet, but if i were to invest that be the first place i would go. ashley: all right, jeff, thank you. we didn't have time for crypto but i know cryptocurrency is the your existence so we'll get into that next time, jeff si ca, as always great stuff pro-choice, protesters gathered around justice amy coney barrett 's house, there they are. they wore clothing soaked in fake blood holding toy dolls. let's bring in matt schlapp. matt, good morning to you. what do you make of these latest protests? >> well, i wouldn't call them pro-choice activists. i'd call these people pro- abortion activists. they think abortion is a good thing. it's a human right that they believe is enshrined in the constitution and i think it's very important for us to accept the new reality that the left has embraced intimidation in all of its forms you know the other story that's not being played as much as it

should is the firebombings and destruction of crisis pregnancy centers all over the country. you know, ashley, these centers are pro-choice. they give women choices including the choice to keep their baby or adopt their baby and they're being attacked systematically, and merit garland hasn't called any of those perpetrators domestic terrorists. only parents, so this embrace of these tactics by the left which is all part of the kind of democratic party now is really really alarming. ashley: all right want to move on to another topic, the ongoing january 6 hearings seems to be pushing swing state republicans even further away from the democrat party. in your opinion, how are these hearings playing out in middle america? >> well i think you can see if you look at polling, ashley, that people are not concerned about a one-day protest. what they are concerned about is all the things you've been

talking about since the top of the show. inflation, oil & gas prices, what's going on with their jobs, why can't we find employees for the flats we need, how come it's taking people a really long time to do things like find household products and baby formula? this is what is on the upper minds of people and this is the radicalism of the democratic party. they used to be smarter. they used to try to appeal to what they used to call the kitchen table issues. what could help your family better? what helps you provide for your kids? instead this democratic party has embraced this kind of new aggressive woke agenda, including the idea that if you stand up for voter id, or the rule of law when it comes to voting, that somehow there's something wrong with that and that's what all this came down to. should we follow the laws, the election laws in all these states? i'm one of those people that says we must, and when we allow local democratic officials to discard rules for whatever reason, we will have chaos.

ashley: well that's the place to leave it right there. matt schlapp as always thank you , so much, good stuff. by the way, this holiday weekend was another nightmare for travelers. hopefully, anyone watching today wasn't at an airport. lauren how many flights were canceled? lauren: it was the busiest weekend of the year because you had father's day and juneteenth. 2,615 domestic flights were canceled, that's between friday and today. i mean, more than 260 flights already canceled for today. delays, much worse, we're looking at over 12,000, so what are the airlines dealing with? yes, thunderstorms on the east coast but pilot shortage and then the warning from the transportation secretary. if it looks this bad again, we saw memorial day, father's day weekend if it looks this bad on july 4 look the department of transportation could fine the airlines, for instance. we'll see , but i have a trip coming up in a few weeks. we're driving, ash, it's just

easier in the end, and cheaper. ashley: good idea, lauren. cheaper even with the price of gas. all right, lauren thank you very much. let's get a check of the futures we saw the dow up on the futures , they will trade until about i think it's 1:00 this afternoon, but what futures we have there you have, across-the-board, the dow up 139 points. all right coming up, tik tok, yeah, maybe a fun place to learn recipes and maybe a few dance moves but a new report warns that the app is actually sharing american user data with guess who? the chinese government. meantime the biden administration insists it's being straight with the american people about the state of our economy. listen to this. >> you've seen this president consistently stand up and give it straight to the american people, explain to them the challenges and the opportunities and importantly, his plan going forward. ashley: what plan? ranking member of the house ways and means committee texas

congressman kevin brady has a thing or two to say about that, and he's here, next. ♪ before discovering nexium 24hr to treat her frequent heartburn... claire could only imagine enjoying chocolate cake. now, she can have her cake and eat it too. nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for all-day, all-night protection. can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn?

♪ ♪

how's he still playin'? aspercreme arthritis. full prescription-strength. reduces inflammation. don't touch my piano. kick pain in the aspercreme.

♪ everybody gone surfing ♪ ashley: isn't that a beautiful sight? not much surfing on the gulf coast but clearwater beach, florida, sunny and 81 degrees, right there on this monday morning. if you're there, lucky you. the biden administration is down playing the potential for a recession. edward lawrence is being following all the latest developments and edward what are they saying now?

reporter: yeah, so this is sort of like a leslie nielsen movie. move along, nothing to see here, move along. ashley: [laughter] reporter: if you ask anyone from the administration they say a recession is not likely. when you ask the experts on wall street the answers you hear everywhere from 50% chance of a recession to very likely. now the wall street journal did talk with economists who say 44% of those economists say the recession is likely within the next 12 months and now the messaging from the president is that he started this great transition and he will not deviate from this transition; however, the white house press secretary even white house economic officials will not define for me the vision of what stable growth looks like after this transition, or how long the transition will take. >> as we move through this transition, not only is a recession not inevitable but what we as policymakers can do is take steps to build on our unique strengths in the american economy and try to get to that stable and steady growth that we all want to get to as quickly as

possible. reporter: and the consumer price index, the producer price index, both around 40-year highs. republicans say the move to electric cars is coming anyway, but you can't destroy the oil and natural gas industry until average americans can actually afford this change. >> we got challenging waters ahead of us. hopefully we can hold off a recession it's going to take policy changes in washington like unleashing american energy to prevent a true recession from coming. reporter: and right now, the president who does not have an electric car, is on vacation at his beach house in delaware. we're back to the white house later on today. back to you. ashley: edward, thank you. don't call me shirley. all right, congressman kevin brady, republican from texas joins us now. good morning to you, congressman how do you respond to the biden administration essentially trying to downplay or you could say ignore the fears of recession? >> yeah, good morning, ashley. thanks for having me.

ashley: good morning. >> so look, this administration has been in denial about inflation, about the worker crisis, about all of this and now i think this is their latest unfortunately, a recession is inevitable because president biden made it inevitable and what's worse is that not only doesn't he have any plan to deal with inflation or the worker crisis, it's the same plan he's been using for now a year and a half so he wants more spending, massive new spending out of washington, he's looking at higher taxes, again, on main street businesses. that'll drive inflation even further and he still doesn't understand how hard it is for every type of business to find the workers they need, whether it's the production floor to assemble the products to deliver them or service them. he just doesn't understand what's going on in the economy right now and that's why we worry we'll have a second quarter where the economy is shrinking. ashley: yeah, you know, the new york post always has great front

page coverage. today it says "fail to the chef" it's a great picture of president smiling holding a spatula. the paper says it will be spending 17% more for summer barbecues than we did last year. now, i want to come back to a point that a lawmaker made earlier in the show is that why can't reunleash our energy? we were energy independent. now, everyone getting into their vehicles whether it's businesses or individuals, are taking a huge chunk of their budget just to put gas in the tank. i mean, i just don't get that sense of urgency from this president, when we have the answer right under our feet. >> yeah, we really do. look, the president isn't really interested in unleashing american energy. i know he's trying to threaten american energy to produce more, refine more, but the truth of the matter is he's the one who put the brakes on all of this and then boasted about it, continues to with the climate change sort of extreme here and

so look what's frustrating is we know even though the permian basin this year is going to produce more than every other country in the world except for saudi arabia and russia, the president still nix ing the pipeline, to lease the permits, squeezing the finances for american-made energy, and so look he's driving these prices higher. it's really just, families, look , an average family will spend $2,000 more this year for gasoline. that is a huge pay cut. ashley: huge. all right, well, congressman on that happy note we'll have to leave it there but thank you for taking time out of your day to chat with us we really appreciate it. >> you got it. ashley: amazon by the way, amazon facing a fresh problem, running out of people to hire. lauren you got the details. lauren: what? right? a leaked internal memo which is actually not being refuted by amazon shows that they are

worried they are going to run out of people to hire by 2024. not everywhere but in specific warehouses like those near los angeles and in phoenix. so if they look at the available labor pool, in terms of distance from the warehouses and training , amazon fears that that labor pool in certain areas will soon be depleted. should that happen, their super- fast delivery model would take a hit and it shows this threat of unionization might not be the only labor issue that amazon has to contend with, or i should say is contending with right now because 2024 is right around the corner. ashley: yes, it is. all right, lauren, thank you very much. interesting and by the way coming up a crypto price rebound , well, sort of. and apple union win to what lauren was saying and all of that and more with susan li, coming up, right after this. ♪

lemons, lemons, lemons. the world is so full of lemons. when you become an expedia member, you can instantly start saving on your travels. so you can go and see all those lemons, for less. to support a strong immune system

your body needs a routine. centrum helps your immune defenses every day, with vitamin c, d and zinc* season after season. ace your immune support with centrum. now with a new look! do you have a life insurance policy you no longer need? now you can sell your policy - even a term policy - for an immediate cash payment. we thought we had planned carefully for our retirement. but we quickly realized we needed a way to supplement our income. if you have $100,000 or more of life insurance, you may qualify to sell your policy. don't cancel or let your policy lapse without finding out what it's worth. visit coventrydirect.com to find out if your policy qualifies. or call the number on your screen. coventry direct, redefining insurance. ashley: let's take a look at oil if we can, just under $110 a barrel. let's bring in our oil profit, keith fitz-gerald. keith, good morning to you.

you said $120 oil last november, you predicted for this summer. you're pretty much right on the money. unfortunately, you think oil is going to 150 bucks a barrel, right? >> yes, and unfortunately, is the operative word of the morning, ashley, because taking a look at janet yellen's comments in particular, ev is going to be the only way out of this. well i've got news for her, there's a pen and paper that could easily reverse that with 25% of american's capacity back online, companies and jobs that want to be created there's other ways to fix this. ashley: yeah, all right, let's get to the markets more broadly. you know, wow, last week, the bear market continues for the s&p and so on and so on and its broad based cells. with that in mind, are you buying and what are you buying? >> well, i am buying more oil, because obviously, the world, the reality is the world is going to use more of it in the next five, 10, 20 years and the fact it's dropping now is

attractive to me. i like companies like pfizer, for example, because they are on the verge of customizable medicine, never mind the whole vaccine thing. what they learned from that is going to be really really valuable over the next five to 10 years and of course big tech is getting smacked around hard. i'm going to be a viking at an all you can eat buffet as prices continue to drop because those companies aren't going anywhere now, if you can stay in the game, don't lose the golf ball, that's your concern. ashley: that's interesting, because you say hey, i am buying on the dip. i think that's been the difference we've seen in this from previous falls is people are not doing that but you are. >> well, i am, because you know , the problem now is not necessarily prices. the problem is many of these companies, ashley, many investors lack the long term vision needed to deal with short-term chaos. history is very clear about this this kind of stuff feels bad, it's terrible, it's scary, but ultimately it passes and i'm a

keen student of history. i've looked at this and this is what i've done my entire career. the numbers are very clear you have to invest as if the sun comes up tomorrow because if you don't frankly none of this stuff matters. ashley: no, you're absolutely right. well, keith, thank you so much for joining us this morning. the markets are closed but your information is always gratefully accepted. except for that oil prediction. i wish we could be heading in the other direction but i don't think that's going to happen, keith fitz-gerald thank you very much and by the way it's 9:30 of course when we would normally be checking the big board everyone is laughing and clapping for the opening bell. the markets closed today for the juneteenth holiday but as you can see on the screen futures are trading and up until 1:00 p.m. today and with that said, the dow up 174 points, the s&p up 28 and the nasdaq up 76 points. all right, there is still a lot of action happening. good morning, susan li. >> good morning. ashley: let's start with treasury secretary janet yellen

trying to calm recession fears by saying it is not inevitable but do the economists agree? >> it depends on how you read not bum numbers because a wall street journal economist put the probability of a recession at 44% and that's a high number because you only see that type of number when we're already in a recession or on the brink of one and that survey was only at 28% in april and it was less than 18% probability of a recession in january, so the economic outlook has really deteriorated pretty quickly, and also joining deutsche bank saying that a recession this year is probably more likely than not. now there are still bulls because i feel like it's the most bifurcated market i've seen in my lifetime. jpmorgan predicts that the s&p will rebound to 4,900 and the u.s. will avoid a recession and that's pretty lofty. 4,900 implies a 31% rally from today's levels can you believe that? goldman sachs says that we will only get a stock reversal when

the fed stops raising rates or they seem a little bit more san guine, but as i said this is probably the most split market there are as many bulls as there are bears, there really isn't that much con chondroitin consensus and it's across-the-board with billion dollar hedge funds some say will go higher and meet the targets at the end of the year since they are in a recession. ashley: the flip a coin. all right let's get into cryptos your favorite subject, i know. bitcoin briefly falling below 18,000 this weekend. its bounced back above 20,000. what's the latest? >> yeah, i have a lot of favorite topics though, you know that. we'll talk about a few of them later on. so volatility. crypto trades 24/7 as you know and on the weekends when you get less volume these moves get exaggerated so you were down 15% on saturday, backup 15% on sunday, and you really have to have a strong stomach to invest in cryptocurrency and yes, it's buyer beware so we're looking at

forced liquidations, companies going under and that's depressing crypto prices, celsius that troubled crypto bank, says it needs more time last night to find the cash, in order to allow customers to take out their money once again, concerning. you also have three arrows one of the largest crypto hedge funds out there headlines this weekend suggesting using new money to pay out older investors kind of like a madoff scheme, $20,000 is the magic support line for bitcoin and everybody, i mean, some of the biggest and most influential traders in crypto quoting warren buffett this weekend including mark cuban who says when the tide goes out you get to see who is swimming naked and that means when prices go down and there's this drain of liquidity with the federal reserve raising rates, you get to see whose actually a real business and making money. ashley: right. yeah, it's not pretty. let's take a look at some of the tech companies. a lot of them are ramping up layoffs, right? >> yeah, so does it feel like a recession? well, you know, we had more than

20,000 jobs last so far in the market sell-off and the crypto crash. 20,000 isn't a lot when you look at the big picture but we do have more than 2,500 jobs being cut at the likes of peloton and carvana, so belt tightening with falling stock prices and lower sales as specific companies fail ing not doing as well. coinbase last week led the crypto cuts shedding around 17% of the workforce so that's roughly around 1,100 jobs and the gamestop trading app robinhood earlier this year cutting 300 positions or 9% and then bolt a shopify competitor which is a private unicorn darling cut 250 jobs recently and of course the housing online sellers like better, remember that company fired thousands with that zoom call on the ceo simultaneously? also redfin shedding a lot of jobs but the bottom line is jobs are still available and you heard that from jay powell the federal reserve chair saying there are two positions for every applicant out there and that means for tech players

and tech jobs, there are still jobs. you're not going to get the out sized bonuses and salaries. they aren't as lofty as they once were. ashley: and it's not just in this country. let me have a look at tesla if we can. that company having issues with hiring people in germany. what's the problem there? >> gig a berlin is finding it difficult to find the thousands of personnel to fill those positions because it needs to start making cars and batteries at a gigafactory as it's called apparently tesla is not paying enough, not paying competitively to attract skilled workers. they are only paying 20% less at the plant, at the tesla plant than rival manufactures according to the union group there in germany, and you have to remember that the german economy minister also said last week that tesla is hiring around 200 to 300 people a day, which is quite impressive, to quickly get that gigafactory up and running but also remember that elon musk says he wants to cut 10% of global salaried staff at tesla, and electric says those layoffs have already

started for both salaries and hourly workers last week, so that makes you wonder how much and how quickly they are going to staff up that giga berkshire hathaway min factory because they need the cars to roll off the production lines. ashley: maybe they were going to apply and saw elon musk dancing as we saw in that video. maybe put them off. anyway, i move on. >> it kind of reminds me of that saturday night live skit, a long time ago with mike meyers. what was it called? sputnik or something? ashley: yes, yes, i'm going to look that up. all right, sprocket. that is good. apple workers in maryland, they voted to unionize, this is a first, right? >> this is a big deal, because this is a first, the first of 270 apple stores across the country, so it's one out of 270. this may not be an accelerating

trend at apple. you have to remember that apple just raised their wages to $22 an hour, also staff at these apple stores get benefits like stock plans, health benefits, but look, i think apple is going through what starbucks and amazon is going through as well with the unionization drive across the country, because this year, you've seen this , you've seen the first amazon fulfillment center, and for starbucks store to unionize, and so we're looking at the highest rate of unionization according to one analysis in like multiple years, so this , i don't think this is an apple store. i think it's a worker u.s. story ashley: interesting. all right, want to get to this story too. we've been talking about those flight delays and can else legislations. continuing this morning after a weekend of travel nightmares. what's driving it, susan? >> well i read through some of the headlines and we were talking about this as well is that it comes up to pilot shortages and the lack of people staffing it in order to get those planes off the ground but we were just talking about

all these job cuts taking place, as i mentioned it's still a strong jobs market, depending on which industry and clearly, it's still in travel so you had thousands of flights being canceled this weekend, and also when it comes to cruise lines one of the top stories on bloomberg has to do with this huge, this liner that's still stuck in the shipyards because they can't get the people to move it and to staff it, so i found that interesting that you're looking at thousands of cancellations. people can't seem to get staffed up enough to fly those planes, but you know, we're still talking about a recession. ashley: we are indeed. great stuff, susan. lots of topics there, thank you very much. coming up, sprocket, always good when you get that in a cnn economic analysts insists that inflation is necessary. why? to get a kinder economy. listen. >> some of the transitions to a kinder, gentler, i believe more stable and ultimately more resilient economy are going to be inflationary in the short to

medium term. ashley: what on earth is she talking about? we'll try and make some sense of that. by the way, the hammer is one of the rare movie items hitting the auction block in los angeles we'll show it to you and tell you how much it's going for in the next hour. sky high diesel prices not just hurting truckers some farmers say they have to pullback on the amount they plant because of it. lydia hu has that report from the farm, after this. thank god i'm a country boy ♪

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

♪ glory days ♪ ashley: the boss singing you're looking at the city of brotherly love, philadelphia, beautiful

day, sunny hitting a high of 82 degrees this monday. very nice. very comfortable. all right, now this. farmers are not getting any relief from diesel prices that now sit at a record $5.81 per gallon, and some farmers say that may force them to pullback on the amount of food they plant lydia hu is at a farm in new jersey this morning. lydia, you're talking to the owners there. what are they telling you? reporter: hi there, ashley. the owners of this farm say their costs have escalated so much that they are worried about just breaking even this year. watch here. >> i worry about breaking even every year, only because there's so many things out of our control, weather, the markets, but it hasn't been, i haven't been this worried since 1988. reporter: now, this farm is raising corn and wheat and they say they sell 90% of their crop

into the commodity market and in that way, they are price-takers not price-makers, that means they have to take whatever price the market is willing to pay at that time and although the farmer says some of the prices the market has been offering right now are some of the highest he's seen. his costs are also some of the highest they've ever been. diesel gas prices, for example, as you mentioned, $5.81 today. that's a national average price. that's up 80% over a year ago. ashley, that means the price of filling up a tractor like the one that you see just behind me, that takes it from about $430 last year to around $780 this year for one fill-up for one tractor, and he says that's just one days worth of work. fertilizer also, that is way up. you can see here on your screen, one example of fertilizer common ly used up over 64% over a year ago. this farmer says some of this

fertilizer costs have doubled or tripled in some cases. take the combined effects of these escalating costs that ramp ed up so quickly it's spark ing concern that farmers across the country are going to pullback on some of the crops that they're planting, planting fewer crops to control those costs, and the net effect of that, ashley, will be diminishing and shrinking the nations food supply, top of mind for farmers across the country. ashley. ashley: wow that really brings it home, 780 bucks just to fill that tractor behind you, great stuff thank you very much appreciate that. let's bring in stephen moore who joins us now. okay, stephen. i mean, that farmer says i haven't been this worried since 1988. i want to get to the gas price angle of this first. how high could gas prices go, do you think? >> well, ashley, you know, when trump left office, we were paying about 2.49 a gallon, now nationally what around 5.05. that's a doubling in the gas

price. look, it's hard for me to believe that it could go a lot higher than that. those are extraordinarily high prices, and it's putting a real dent in family incomes. the other part of this is these losses in the stock market haven't just effected rich people. my wife and i looked at our 401 (k) retirement savings. we're getting wiped out, as a result of these massive losses, so people have less money and yet they're paying more for things. it's a witch's brew. ashley: it really is a witch's brew. you, if i'm not mistaken, steve, you say a recession is already here. why do you say that? >> i do, because if you look at the manufacturing numbers, way down last month, housing, i'm really worried i told stuart this last week, and i'm going to repeat it. i'm very very nervous about what's going on in the housing market right now. it looks like its come to a

stand still with housing sales. i was just looking at some of these statistics. when you've got mortgage interest rates that have risen from what 3% now to about 6.25 in a lot of markets, you buy a $500,000 home, that's going to add over a 30-year mortgage about $100,000 to the price tag, ashley, so i really, and let's not forget you remember what happened in 2007 and 2008. it was the housing market crash that really caused the rest of the economy to stumble. ashley: all right, we'll have to leave it on that happy note. stephen moore, thank you so much for joining us this morning. >> who was that economist who said that inflation is something we just have to bear? who had a stupid thing to say. the poor people are getting crushed by inflation. who was that? ashley: i can't remember. i'll be honest with you, steve. i'll e-mail you.

[laughter] i hear your point. i'll look it up. i try to ignore those kind of comments. all right coming up florida governor ron desantis isn't officially running for president in 2024 yet, but guess what, he's already winning over some of the wealthiest republican donors including many who were key backers of donald trump. we'll get into that. also, the poisoning of america. fentanyl is killing our nations teens at an alarming rate. dr. marc siegel will be here with what you need to know, next

psst. girl. you can do better. ok. wow. i'm right here. and you can do better, too. at least with your big name wireless carrier. with xfinity mobile, you can get unlimited for $30 per month on the nation's most reliable 5g network. they can even save you hundreds a year

on your wireless bill, over t-mobile, at&t and verizon. wow. i can do better. yes, you can. i can do better, too. break free from the big three and switch to xfinity mobile. when people come, they say they've tried lots of diets, nothing's worked or they've lost the same 10, 20, 50 pounds over and over again. they need a real solution. i've always fought with 5-10 pounds all the time. eating all these different things and nothing's ever working. i've done the diets, all the diets. before golo, i was barely eating but the weight wasn't going anywhere. the secret to losing weight and keeping it off is managing insulin and glucose. golo takes a systematic approach to eating that focuses on optimizing insulin levels. we tackle the cause of weight gain, not just the symptom. when you have good metabolic health, weight loss is easy. i always thought it would be so difficult to lose weight, but with golo, it wasn't.

the weight just fell off. i have people come up to me all the time and ask me, "does it really work?" and all i have to say is, "here i am. it works." my advice for everyone is to go with golo. it will release your fat and it will release you. ashley: well now to the opioid crisis. illicitly manufactured fentanyl appears to be the primary driver of an increase in overdose deaths. dr. marc siegel is here this morning to tell us how lethal this has become. doc? >> good morning, ashley. the opioid epidemic is surging, fed by the damage of the pandemic. teens are its latest victims, fentanyl, made and distributed by mexico's trans-national criminal organizations are the tools. >> how does a vibrant, healthy,

physically-capable 17-year-old just no longer live? >> its been a little over one year since chris and laura ditti er found their 17- year-old son slumped over his desk inside their home near sacramento. >> chris just said, our baby is gone. >> zach died of an accidental overdose in december 2020 after taking what he thought was a single percoset pill. instead it turned out to be fentanyl a synthetic opioid up to 100 times more powerful than morphine. >> there was no percoset at all in his systems. >> according to the cdc, fatal overdoses from synthetic opioids primarily fentanyl rose more than 77% over the prior-year among people ages 15-24. zach, a straight a student, athlete and musician, was said to be a first-time user who bought the drug on snapchat.

dr. wright says many patients consume fentanyl without their knowledge. >> they do seem really shocked. >> fentanyl can be easily disguised as another drug. >> you can get whatever you want on social media at any age. >> apps like snapchat have faced heavy criticism by parents who say they are essentially an open market for the sale and purchase of drugs. >> young people are on social media. it's often anonymous and it is accessible. >> in 2021, the drug enforcement agency seized more than 20 million counterfeit pills. >> the criminal drug cartels in mexico is making pills to look exactly like an oxy, a percoset , vicodin, xanax, just two milligrams of fentanyl is enough to kill someone. that's 10 or 20 tiny crystals of salt. >> laura and chris turned their grief into activism, telling zach's story to teenagers across the country in hopes of preventing more deaths. >> we've got to talk about the

dangers that our kids are being expose to. >> what if in our warning and in sharing our story we can save some of these other kids and we knew it's what zach would want us to do. >> what can parents do? ashley, the parents spread awareness, talk to your teens, know about their social media presence, be on the lookout for sudden changes in behavior. ashley? ashley: yeah, something has to be done. all right, doc, great story thank you very much appreciate that. still ahead, steve forbes, four star general jack keane, kt mcfarland, and charlie hurt. the 10 a.m. hour of "varney" & company is next. ♪ meet jessica moore. jessica was born to care. she always had your back... like the time she spotted the neighbor kid,

an approaching car, a puddle, and knew there was going to be a situation. ♪ ♪ ms. hogan's class? yeah, it's atlantis. nice. i don't think they had camels in atlantis. really? today she's a teammate at truist, the bank that starts with care when you start with care, . .

♪. ashley: good morning, everybody. new york city, empire state building, partly cloudy skies. it is 10:00 eastern time. i'm ashley webster in for stuart varney. markets are closed for the juneteenth holiday. futures trade on shorter schedule. they trade 1:00 this afternoon. what trade is going on, dow up

208. s&p nasdaq up 1%. let's look at the the cost of ol per barrel. that of course has been a big, big issue. it is down half a percent. still $108, $109 per barrel. look at bitcoin slipped bea low 18,000. coming back a little bit, 20480. let's get look at futures and bring in our good friend dennis farther man. good morning. >> good morn. ashley: hey, you say the bear market will continue for some while longer. i want to know, dennis, how much longer? >> the best one can say is it will continue to go down until it stops. that is all i have learned in 45 years in the market. historically, rarely stop in less than a year. normally, go, 14, 15, 16 months in duration. we had one stopped in a few months because of the pandemic

but that was fed coming in adding huge amounts of reserves into the system and the fed is now reversing its course. far more important to note rather than the fed has raised the overnight fed funds rate by 75 basis points, the fact that the fed is taking $65 billion out of its balance sheet over the course of next several years. adding, took balance sheet from 900 billion to $9 trillion. that went into spacs, stocks, plenty, equipment, went into labor. now that5 billion is coming out on regular basis t will come out of spacs, will come out of right equity and this is a bear market i think still has ways to go. probably some distance on the downside, probably several months into the future and i always said in a bear market he or she who loses the least is the winner.

that is the course you have to take. sell rallies. don't buy dips. ashley: other than curling up in the corner a fetal position sucking your thumb what can you do to ride it out? >> i own some i dividend-paying stocks, altria, hedged with derivatives to have a net neutral position in the market. net dividend covered well. own five-year treasury notes. that is probably not a bad place to park crash for a while with rates 3% for some party. last thing you don't want to own high-tech, you don't want to own volatility, you want to be as conservative as possible. sell practicallies, reduce exposure the best you can. as chairman of the university of akron's endowment i got the endowment to move 15% of the portfolio out at the end of year. we saved a lot of money. we were lucky. let's hope the the good fortune

continues. ashley: there is luck and skill, dennis gartman up plenty of both. we'll not curl up in the fetal position. good to see you. let's take a look at the cryptos if we can. lauren what is going on with bitcoin? with we're at 20,000. lauren: found support at 20,000. resistance at 21. it dipped below 20,000 over the weekend the first time since end of 2020, remember 17,500 in change. investors fear domino effect igniteddably problems at crypto players and lenders causing a wider market shakeout. long-term holders people who have been in the market over a year, they're exiting their positions in a big way, worth a record $7.3 billion over the last few trading days.

ashley: oof. interesting stuff. lauren, thank you. now more to politics, florida governor ron desantis may be gearing up for a 2024 white house run. he is attracting some of the wealthiest donors. so far this cycle, friends of ron desantis has gotten $10.4 million who collect civilly spent 24 million on trump's relegislation bid. good morning to charles hurt. 20204 presidential field is described as embarassment of riches. what do you make of that, what do you make of desantis? isn't front-runner and where does trump play in all that? >> that is embarassment of riches especially when you look across the aisle to the democratic field, what democrats dealing with, set aside the disaster that is joe biden. my goodness what they have left

is actually the same problem they had, how they wound up with biden in the first place because the rest of the field is so weak, it is so difficult to get everybody to rally around somebody, they wound up with joe biden. we're seeing how that's going but yeah, no, i think that, i would caution about one thing about, so many people are reading these tea leaves especially with ron desantis and how much money he is raising. he is a rock star in the republican party and everybody is very thrilled with him. they're thrilled with the chances of, with the elections coming up this november as well as 2024. but i think also it's a little bit early to be making any decisions or read too much into whether people are backing desantis instead of trump or just covering their bets and sort of showering their enthusiasm on the entire field right now and obviously after

donald trump himself, ron desantis is probably the biggest figure in the republican party right now. representing the future of the party. ashley: definitely. i think so. it is interesting too, charles, apparently republicans mulling a run for president, mike pompeo, nikki haley, they're not waiting on trump which i find is an interesting development itself. what do you think of that? >> well, also it is interesting but also very smart because there is no harm in trying, obviously raising money, trying to raise your profile and you know, these people, whether it is nikki haley or mike pompeo or any of these people, they have ideas that they want to talk about and they're not just promoting themselves, they're promoting their ideas. that is what you have when you have a vibrant party about the future, a winning party, as compared to so many of the ideas that we get out of the biden administration or other

democrats. they're just, they're terrible ideas and they don't -- ashley: yeah. >> most normal americans aren't talking about -- like the january, dwelling on the january 6 committee. you go to the gas station today, talk to a stranger at the pumpedp they're not talking about the january 6 committee or any of the other stupid things these people are talking b they're talking about gas prices, things like that. ashley: absolutely. very quickly charles, i hear this more and more. i want to get your feedback on the democrat side, you know who should run? forget biden. someone who would be strong someone like michelle obama. that name keeps coming up more and more. very quickly, what are your thoughts on that? >> i think she could possibly be a real force in the democrat party but that said, you know, there is a reason politicians get into politics. she is not a politician. i don't think she would hold up very well in the long run. ashley: no.

i think you're right. we'll have to leave it right there. charles hurt, always great stuff. appreciate it, charles. >> great to see you. ashley: all right, talking of democrats hillary clinton back in the news making headlines, will we be taking another shot at the white house, lauren? lauren: ashley, no, she will not be running for a third time. she told "the financial times" that a 2024 run i quote, out of the question. first of all i expect biden to run. he certainly intend to run. it would be very disruptive to challenge that. i found that more interesting, right? she expects biden to run. he would be 86 at the end of the second term. already struggling to look energic now. david axelrod says his age is a liability and he does show these performative issues. so imagine running for a second term that hillary expects from president biden? ashley: yeah. well, we'll see but, let's not go there. another one for you though, lauren, on politics is.

republican mayra flores who won a house seat held by democrats more than 100 years discussed her historic run. what does, i guess the question does she see a red wave this november? lauren: absolutely. this was the first flip of the midterm cycle for republicans. here's why mayra flores thinks more are to come. >> democrat party took us for fronted. they feel entitled to our vote making the same promises over and over. really not making nothing happen. i honestly had enough. the republican party is investing now in south texas and that helped significantly getting funding out there to the entire district to be able to tell them that the republican party is fighting for their values. lauren: latinos where she is, i'm quoting her, she said they're pissed off by inflation and the open border, all that comes with it that was a sea change in that part of south texas. ashley: yes.

a big sea change. lauren, thank you very much. leaked audio from internal meetings attic toke reveal how china may be spying on american users. we'll have that story later in our show. after years of dodging extradition to the u.s., julian assange may finally be coming to america to face espionage charges. more on that coming up. ukraine's top negotiator is calling on the u.s. and nato to supply them with more weapons. this after president biden pledged another one billion dollars in aid. the question is, are we giving ukraine enough weapons to win the war? kt mcfarland will take that on 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 before discovering nexium 24hr to treat her frequent heartburn... matching your job description. claire could only imagine enjoying chocolate cake. now, she can have her cake and eat it too. nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for all-day, all-night protection. can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn?

millions have made the switch from the big three to xfinity mobile. that means millions are saving hundreds a year on their wireless bill. and all of those millions are on the nation's most reliable 5g network, with the carrier rated #1 in customer satisfaction. that's a whole lot of happy campers out there. and it's never too late to join them. get $250 off an eligible 5g phone with xfinity mobile. take the savings challenge at xfinitymobile.com/mysavings or visit your xfinity store and talk to our switch squad today.

♪. ashley: it appears russia is making some advances in eastern ukraine. nate foy is in lviv this morning. nate, good morning to you. what is the latest? reporter: good morning, ashley. the city continues to be the focal point of the fighting. it is the final ukrainian holdout in the luhantsk region of the donbas. russia controls 80% of that city. a big week politically for ukraine. eu leaders are set to meet on thursday or friday to vote whether or not ukraine should be given candidate status to join the eu here is president volodymyr zelenskyy. how historic that is. >> translator: since 19991 there have been such few fateful decisions as we expect now.

i only convincessed a positive decision is better for the whole of europe. reporter: this comes after a positive recommendation from the european commission, but remember, ashley, it needs to be a unanimous vote for all 27 eu countries. eu foreign ministers met in luxembourg today, they mentioned among other things, lack of exports of ukrainian grain. 22 million tons of ukrainian grain stuck in the country because of this war. the eu policy chief says what russia is doing is a war crime because of hunger problems it will lead to throughout the world. ukrainian defense official says this is actually a priority and it's on purpose on behalf of the russian military. listen to this. >> translator: in the black and the the azov the hen any is blocking off ships in the black sea.

five missile carriers are kept ready to launch missile strikes against objective on the territory of ukraine. reporter: meanwhile ukrainian forces continue to hold out in donetsk. it's a focal point for weeks now. ukrainian defense officials say they are heavily outgunned. russians are using the 10 times the amount of artillery round than they are. ukraine is waiting for more rocket systems and artillery from the west. back out live, president zelenskyy is in kyiv after visiting the southern port cities make colive and this is 25 miles from kerson under russian control. he was safe. he met with soldiers. we'll see what he has in-store for the week. he will participate in the summit starting on sunday stretching into next week.

agreed to that last week. ashley: great stuff, nate foy in leviev this morning. this story. -- lviv. nicaraguan approved the conducting military drills with the nicaraguan army. kt mcfarland joins us this morning this is right after we imposed fresh sanctions on officials from nicaragua. what do you make of this? what kind of development is this in your mind? >> i think it says a lot more about nicaragua and south america than it does about russia. russian forces training in nicaragua. russia has its hands full in ukraine. what does it indicate? it indicates a country in south america is willing to let foreign countries to come train there. what about china. what about other count dryies that could present a threat to

the united states. if nicaragua says okay to the russians presumeably they will say yes to china. we had in early days of something called the monroe doctrine. the united states insisted no foreign, particularly then european countries would comb to have a military presence in south america. that is what the cuban missile crisis was all aabout, preventing soviet nuclear weapons to come to cuba. guess what? a decade ago, john kerry, then secretary of state, now climate czar, that monroe doctrine no longer applies. nobody in america paid a lot of attention to it. nobody in south america paid a lot of attention to it but guess who did? the russians, chinese and others. my worry is not russia. but what comes after russia. ashley: let's get back to ukraine, its top negotiator is going on the u.s. and nato to send more weapons. that is the question, are we giving enough weapons to ukraine? >> we're promising as are the

europeans, we're promising weapons but they're slow to make it out of our inventory into the ukrainian inventory. not just us, it is the germans and the french. here is the thing i worry about with ukraine. i don't know that ukraine can win the war but ukraine can win the peace. here is how they do it. the longer this goes on, the more russia takes a little bit, a little bit, a little bit more. russia can fight indefinitely. why? because oil prices are hire, grain prices are. russia's greatest exports are oil and gain. it is rich. russia can continue to fund this war. putin is counting on the fact the western powers will lose interest in ukraine and stop supplying ukraine and kind of look the other way. so my worry if ukraine continues to try to fight without the support of the west it will be very difficult for ukraine to survive. ashley: yeah. i agree. one more for you, kt, china just

launched their third aircraft carrier. i saw that picture. i think there was some video. i mean they're just strengthening their naval, you know, hardware, are they not? what do you make of it? >> well china has been on a big military buildup in the last decade and they're particularly focused on their navy. why? part of it is to protect chinese trade around the world with you another part they're looking at taiwan across the taiwan straits, saying if we achieve our goal of bringing taiwan back under chinese control they need to have a strong military in case they want to do it militarily. i don't think they will. i think they will use other economic means but they do want a strong military to do it. ashley: this is not something we should be overly concerned about, this is something we knew was going on, right? >> well we -- we knew it was going on. we should be concerned about it and our response should be to increase american military

presence in the south china seas and asia. china's goal is not only to grab taiwan but bush the united states out of the world's most important maritime trade route, the south china sea, ultimately to push the united states all the way back to hawaii. you bet we should be concerned about it. we should do something about it. that increase american military strength in the region. ashley: all right. maybe not under this administration but we shall see. kt mcfarland, terrific stuff as always. thanks so much, kt. good to see you. by the way talking president biden will travel to the middle east in the coming weeks and lauren, do we know if he is going to be meeting with the saudi crown prince? lauren: seems like he is. energy secretary jennifer granholm offered a pretty weak defense of that meeting happening in mid-july. >> i think he will meet with the saudi crown prince but there's a series of meeting around energy overall. the saudis are very interested, for example developing expertise

around hydrogen, clean hydrogen production. i think there is a series of topics about energy on the table. lauren: just happen to bring you up oil, because he is there. cnn's dana bash, pressed her, can you explain why it is appropriate for president biden to meet with a dictator who ordered the murder after journalist jamal kashoggi. this is what granholm said. saudi arabia is the head of opec and herns are feeling pain at the pump. ashley, she admitted why they will be meeting. ashley: we have plenty of oil, but that's, don't get get me started. next one, julian assange, wikileaks cofounder spent years avoiding a u.s. extradition request but could he finally be sent back here? >> where he would stand trial for 17 charges of espionage, helping army analyst chelsea

manning steal classified files and publish them on the internet. some of those documents said the u.s. military killed civilians and did not report the incidents. assange has 14 days to appeal the court ruling. if sent to america he could face life in prison, ashley. ashley: lauren. thank you very much. hundreds of film and tv memorabilia are hitting the auction block including a full size delorean from "back to the future. we'll tell you how much it could call for. "top gun" maverick star miles teller talks about how he got sick. >> we landed. i'm not feeling good. i was really hot. i started itching like crazy. i get out of the jet and i'm just covered in hives. ashley: we have a shocking he became sick and what tom cruise had to say about it next.

♪ as a main street bank, pnc has helped over 7 million kids develop their passion for learning through our grow up great initiative. and now, we're providing billions of dollars for affordable home lending programs... as part of 88 billion to support underserved communities... including loans for small businesses in low and moderate income areas. so everyone has a chance to move forward financially. (mom allen)k: see how we can verizon just gave us all a brand new iphone 13. (dad allen) we've been customers for years. (dad brown) i thought new phones were for new customers?

we got iphone 13s, too. switched to verizon two minutes ago. (mom brown) ours were busted and we still got a shiny new one. (boy brown) check it out! (dad allen) so, wait. everybody gets the same great deal? (mom allen) i think that's the point. (vo) now everyone can get a new iphone 13 on us on america's most reliable 5g network. (allen kid) can i have a phone? (vo) for every customer. current, new, everyone. to show the love.

♪. ashley: jerry lee lewis, great balls of fire. well, guess what? that is a santa monica pier i know that on clear monday morning. we are playing that, because it is the from the original topogon soundtrack. if you like the music, follow us on spotify, scan the qr code, jump up now, capture the code. you're good to go. >> top gun maverick star miles teller is making a shocking discovery while he was filming. what happened, rain shower ren? lauren: he was not feeling well. he had blood taken, the discovery is shocking itself. reaction of tom cruise to it is epic. we landed, hey. ashley: i'm not feeling too

good. i was really hot, i started itching like crazy. i get out out of the jet, i'm covered in hives. my blood work i have flame retard ant pesticides, jet fuel in my blood. i thought wait a second. this is cool. well, tom, turns out i have jet fuel in my blood. without skipping a beat, come goes, yeah, i was born with it, kid. lauren: maverick with the biggest opening ever, 550 million raked in globally to do. i will add to that at some point make some time to see it. i can't write ashley. have you seen it? ashley: no. i am ready, on the big screen with a top sound system. it's a good story but also a little disturbing, jet fuel in the blood. another one for you, lauren,

pixar's "lightyear quote lackluster opening. lauren: had marks the a kids movie. some were confused by it t was a spinoff of toy store. it did not involve around the popular toy buzz lightyear. it had a lesbian kiss between two characters. that is first of pixar. first they took it out, put it back in with at request of pixar employees. this is what happened. 50 million, add in 34 or so internationally. 85.6 global haul. this movie is banned because of the day kiss in 14 asian and middle-eastern countries. by contrast, "toy story 4" opened 120 million in the u.s. this did significantly worse. ashley: it did, lauren, thank you very much.

the prop store will be auctioning, unique original items in one of the largest live auction of movie and tv memorabilia. this is always fun. good morning to the ceo, brandon balinger. >> good morning ashley. ashley: let's with the gizmo display from gremlins, the new batch. how much will that go for? >> the presale is 80,000 to 120,000 u.s. dollars. it's a freight piece made by rick baker, famous creature and effects artist who did the work on the film. ashley: it's a classic, for sure. move on to the next one, a x-wing fighter miniature from "star wars" a new hope. tell me about that. >> this is the one everybody is talking about. this will be sold tomorrow in

our prop store live auction. probably going to set the record for the most expensive piece we ever sold. the presale estimate on the x-wing fighter is half a million to one million dollars. it is very possible it will exceed that estimate. we have a lot of presale interest. this is the only one that ever came up for public auction. this may be only one that comes up any point in the future. there is huge buzz from the x-wing from the very first "star wars" film. ashley: that is remarkable, half a million. conservative. light up, back to the future full size delorian replica, full size. what are we looking at hire, brian. >> this is running car. not used for the movie but used for promotional events for the films. presale estimate is 100,000 to $150,000. ashley: that's interesting. because you sell, the movie props and the tv props.

this one wasn't actually in the movie. how much does that take away from it? >> oh, if you had a real delorian actually in the movie it would be quite a bit more, potentially add another zero. this one only used for promotional purposes. this is interesting for fans of the film. most likely will never get their hands on screen used car but if you have one that would do very, very well. we have hoverboard. i have it on the table. we have one of michael j. fox's hover boards. presale estimate on this is 80,000 to 100,000. we sold one 67 these last year that quarter of a million dollars. there is a lot of love for original hoverboards from the film as well. ashley: let's move on to one of my favorite films, i think the original film was the best, indiana jones. this is the indiana jones grail diary, from indiana jones and the last crusade. >> i can show you here.

this is the only one ever auctioned. this is the book he uses on his quest to find the holy frail in that third movie. presale estimate from 60,000 to 80,000. this originated with the prop maker who built it from the film t includes a letter of authenticity from the prop maker. ashley: that is very cool indeed. if money was no option i might be tempted to go for that. how about this one, thor's stunt hammer from the marvel studios auction. >> this stunt hammer, it has rubber head, if it hits someone it doesn't hurt anyone but a still actually used film. it is 100,000 or 150,000. we do have things at all price points there are things for new collectors as well. there are things at a few hundred dollars. we try to have a full range,

over 1800 lots in total from over 600 films and television shows. there is a lot of content at a lot of different price point. ashley: fantastic stuff, very interesting indeed. brandon, thanks so much for sharing some of these items with us this morning and good luck with the auction. we appreciate it. >> appreciate it, ashley. ashley: thank you. maybe the the delorian. maybe you can drive it around. amazon facing a delivery problems. that may mean the superfast delivery could take a hit. thousands of cancellations left many travelers stranded at airports now transportation secretary pete vladmir putin threatening to take action against the airlines. jeff flock has that report. next. ♪.

we hit the bike trails every weekend shinges doesn't care. i grow all my own vegetables shingles doesn't care. we've still got the best moves you've ever seen good for you, but shingles doesn't care. because 1 in 3 people will get shingles, you need protection. but, no matter how healthy you feel, your immune system declines as you age

increasing your risk for getting shingles. so, what can protect you? shingrix protects. you can protect yourself from shingles with a vaccine proven to be over 90% effective. shingrix is a vaccine used to prevent shingles in adults 50 years and older. shingrix does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients or to a previous dose. an increased risk of guillain-barré syndrome was observed after getting shingrix. fainting can also happen. the most common side effects are pain, redness, and swelling at the injection site, muscle pain, tiredness, headache, shivering, fever, and upset stomach. ask your pharmacist or doctor about shingrix. shingles doesn't care. but you should. do you have a life insurance policy you no longer need? now you can sell your policy - even a term policy - for an immediate cash payment. we thought we had planned carefully for our retirement. but we quickly realized we needed a way to supplement our income. if you have $100,000 or more of life insurance, you may qualify to sell your policy. don't cancel or let your policy lapse without

finding out what it's worth. visit coventrydirect.com to find out if your policy qualifies. or call the number on your screen. coventry direct, redefining insurance. lemons. lemons, lemons, lemons. look how nice they are. the moment you become an expedia member, you can instantly start saving on your travels. so you can go and see all those, lovely, lemony, lemons. ♪ and never wonder if you got a good deal. because you did. ♪

ashley: spacex has completed three missions in two days. that's pretty impressive. let's bring back in lauren. what does elon musk say about the launches, lauren? lauren: i would say he is pretty impressive. people say he is critical but not this time. he says congrats to spacex falcon team for executing three flawless launches in two days. so the first was sending 53 of the starlink satellites from the nasa kennedy space center. the second was sending a radar satellite for germany from california. and the third, a falcon 9 rocket from cape canaveral. it went up, came back, ten minutes later. to date if you're keeping track, 26 launches, ashley. ashley: 26, incredible. lauren, thank you very much. while that is going swimmingly, travelers here in the u.s. were left stranded this weekend after thousands of flights were canceled and now transportation secretary pete buttigieg says the government may have to take

action. what does that mean? well, jeff flock is at the philadelphia international airport. jeff, do you know what the secretary is threatening to do? reporter: i guess send everybody to the moon, apparently you can get there very easily, you don't have to take commercial. yeah, he is threatening to step in. it is quiet at the moment at the northeast airports but i tell you it was a mess this weekend. so secretary buttigieg says he would like the airlines to do the following. number one, he wants them to stress test their summer flight schedules to make sure they are up to snuff and can meet the requirements. he also wants them to hire more customer employees so when you get strapped somewhere you got somebody to call, get them on the phone, get yourself straightened out. he threatened if they don't do that, there might be enforcement. there might be fines, for example, if these delays and cancellations continue but he says he will wait until the

july 4th travel time to gauge it. now looking at the numbers. look at pictures t was ugly at multiple airports around the country for the weekend, father's day weekend, a lot of people traveling. seattle was a mess, atlanta hartsfield, northeast airports. part of it weather, part lack of personnel. cancellations saturday and sunday totaled over 1700 cancellations. delays, more than 12 1/2 thousand. secretary buttigieg himself was coming back from the meeting with airline executives. he had his flight canceled. had to drive from flock to washington. i quote him now, when he says, that is happening a lot, to a lot of people and that is exactly why we are paying close attention here to what can be done and how to make sure the airlines are delivering. not like having it hit home to the transportation secretary himself to light a fire under some people. ashley: maybe that can lead to

some action. jeff, things looking better behind you. things seemto be moving. someone actually smiled. jeff flock, great stuff. united airlines planning on high fuel prices being the new normal. ceo scott kirby says their fuel bill could be about $12 billion this year if the fast gas price stays where it is today. oil analyst stephen schork is making a bold forecast for gas prices come the 4th of july. i hate to ask, but what is predicting, lauren? lauren: 5.40 a gallon national average, that based on oil $120 a bit more. gas is above 5.40 in seven states. it is 4.98 nationally. if you're going up, another 40 or 40 cents, ashley, six dollars

as the state average. ashley: awful. i know you're driving, not flying. it's painful. lauren, thank you. people are telling fox news digital that president biden's inflation is changing their lives. listen to this. >> biden is definitely changed my life for the worst. >> he is telling everyone it is putin's fault. it is his fault. >> i'm angry with this president. i think he is killing our economy. ashley: well, it didn't end there either. we're going to play you the full sound bite from that report. one cnn reporter though defending the president against critics who are concerned about hiss his age. joe concha takes that on next. ♪

♪♪ i got into debt in college and, no matter how much i paid, it followed me everywhere. so i consolidated it into a low-rate personal loan from sofi. get a personal loan with no fees, low fixed rates, and borrow up to $100k. sofi. get your money right. you're a one-man stitchwork master. but your staffing plan needs to go up a size. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire another crazy day? matchi of course—you'reiption. a cio in 2022. but you're ready. because you've got the next generation in global secure networking from comcast business. with fully integrated security solutions all in one place. so you're covered. on-premise and in the cloud. you can run things the way you want —your team, ours or a mix of both. with the nation's largest ip network. from the most innovative company. bring on today with comcast business.

powering possibilities.™ this isn't just freight. these aren't just shipments. they're promises. promises of all shapes and sizes. each, with a time and a place they've been promised to be. a promise is everything to old dominion, because it means everything to you. about two years ago i realized that jade was overweight. i wish i would have introduced the fresh food a lot sooner. after farmer's dog she's a much healthier weight. she's a lot more active. and she's able to join us on our adventures. get started at longlivedogs.com

(announcer) enough with the calorie counting, and she's able to join us on our adventures. carb cutting, diet fatigue, and stress. just taking one golo release capsule with three balanced meals a day has been clinically proven to repair metabolism, optimize insulin levels, and balance the hormones that make weight loss easy. release works with your body, not against it, so you can put dieting behind you and go live your life. head to golo.com now to join the over 2 million people who have found the right way to lose weight and get healthier with golo. ♪ ♪ how's he still playin'? aspercreme arthritis. full prescription-strength. reduces inflammation. don't touch my piano. kick pain in the aspercreme.

♪ ashley: now this, grocery shoppers in new york and virginia are telling fox how president biden's economy is changing their lives.

so what did they say, lauren? lauren: in short they feel poorer and they are mad. >> biden has definitely changed my life for the worst it seems to me. looks like much more idealogical administration i think than anyone ever bargained for. that has led to the problems we're seeing now. >> it is changing everybody's lives, especially people that don't, from the poorer suburbs, they're not making money to keep up with their expenses. >> he is telling everyone it is putin's fault. it is his fault. >> i'm just very angry over the gas prices. i'm very angry with this president. i think he is killing our economy. lauren: are they angry enough to vote? probably, ashley. i asked people at the time, how are you coming back, how are you changing behavior because everything costs so much. i'm working for over time. i got a second job. rachel campos duffy, she has so many kids, they're not buying fresh berries they are so expensive.

everybody is doing something different. ashley: no doubt about it and they are mad, lauren, thank you. cnn reporter john howard is defending president biden against critics who are concerned about his age. listen to this. >> joe biden is old. he doesn't talk or walk as smoothly as he once did. when you get into your 80s which is about to do the risk of health problems grows with every year. on the other hand what's false is that he is not capable of doing the job right now where he is not mentally in tune with the demands of the job. anybody, any aide who engages with him or reporter, we can see this, the gears of his mind are working. ashley: well maybe, stuck in first or maybe in reverse. joining me now is joe concha. joe, why is president biden's age just now becoming such a hot topic in the media? >> certainly should have been in 2020 during that campaign. i take issue with calling john harwood a reporter, ashley.

ashley: oh. >> look, wikileaks showed it in 2016. he literally went to the clinton campaign chief, asked, hey, what should i ask jeb bush? reporters don't do that. they don't cheer for the blue team the way john harwood does. to bring it back to the president, poll after poll shows a majority of the american people, a solid majority, one case, 2/3 of the american people think this president is too slow to react to crises or does not have the -- even when he has his fastball, ashley, if you spend trillions of more dollars on top of trillions you spent, that would lower the deficit? even joe biden, a young joe biden doesn't have great instincts. instead he failed upwards to the oval office. ashley: that is a good way to put it. i want to get to the next one,

joe. you have editorial on "the hill." weak apathy january 6 ratings. reveal voter priorities. i asked someone earlier, joe, is the american public paying attention to the hearings? >> relatively no. here is what i mean. first time of hearings 20 million viewed in across 12 networks. wow, 20 million is a big number. until you compare that to joe biden's state of the union address drew nearly 40 million. on cbs they drew 3.5 million viewers, that is pretty good, right? until you realize a show called "young sheldon" had last non-repeat, drew 7 million. these audiences half of what they normally would be. based solely on the number, based on conversations this is barbecue, graduation time of year, i've been to several things. no one is talking about this they are talking about inflation, how much it costs to fill up their tank. the border crisis certainly and all the fentanyl coming in

killing a record number of americans, particularly young ones. they're not talking about this we already saw this movie when donald trump was impeached 17 months ago. ashley: does this backfire ultimately? i think it brings more resolve to those perhaps more conservative republicans but i think it turns off moderate republicans as well? >> moderates on the left as well, ashley. ashley: yes. >> you see what is congress' priorities right now? is it to lower food prices, lower gas prices, fix skyrocketing crime in cities and suburbs and the border i mentioned. no it is this. i'm not saying we shouldn't have hearings. everybody sees there is not truly bipartisan. there is no cross-examination this is more political theater. it shows democrats, liz chaney, adam kinzinger, on the republican side, the priorities are out of whack. ashley: great place to leave it.

joe concha, thanks for joining us this more thanking. >> you're all right, ashley. ashley: you're art, young man. still ahead, general jack keane, steve forbes will be along, rob smith and jason katz. the 11:00 a.m. hour on "varney & company" is next. ♪ this thing, it's making me get an ice bath again. what do you mean? these straps are mind-blowing! ... a fund that gives me access to... nasdaq 100 innovations like... wearable training optimization tech. uh, how long are you... i'm done. i'm okay.

>> every time i hear janet yellen speak, she gets more dilutional with each passing day why does janet yellen have any credibility at all? she's the one who told us that inflation was transitory. >> the president isn't really interested in unleashing american energy. he's the one who put the brakes on all of this and then boasted about it, continues to with the climate change sort of extreme. >> the problem is many investors lack the long term vision needed to deal with short-term chaos. you got to invest as if the sun comes up tomorrow because if you don't frankly none of this stuff matters. >> people have less money and yet they're paying more for things. it's a witch's brew. >> this is a bear market i still think has ways to go probably some distance on the downside, some several months into the future. he or she who loses the least will be the winner.

anyway you want it, that's the way you need it ♪ ashley: anyway you want it. new york harbor, lady liberty on i hazy sunny day in new york city. it is 11 a.m. on the east coast, on this monday, june 20 i'm ashley webster in today for stuary varney. the markets are closed for the juneteenth holiday but let's check the futures, operating until 1:00 eastern this afternoon, dow up 235, s&p and nasdaq also nicely in the green. let's take a look at bitcoin, briefly dropping below 18,000 over the weekend, coming back a little bit, right around it's at 20, 795, what a wild ride its been for bitcoin and the crypto space. all right, now this. key members of the biden administration insist that a recession is not inevitable. take a listen. >> chair powell has said that his goal is to bring inflation

down while maintaining a strong labor market. that's going to take skill and luck, but i believe it's possible. i don't think a recession is inevitable. >> not only is a recession not inevitable but what we as policy makers can do is take steps to build on our unique strengths in the american economy and try to get to that stable and steady growth we all want to get to as quickly as possible. >> inflation obviously is happening globally and recession is not inevitable, the president really wants to have a steady and stable recovery. ashley: well, is that wishful thinking from those folks, with the administration? jason katz joins me now. jason, george. do you agree, maybe that a recession is not inevitable. what are your thoughts? >> i mean, look. markets are pricing not if but when a recession occurs and frankly, it's pricing a vary of it and its impact on earnings so this last leg down was not just

an inflation discounting, but a stagflation duration discounting we're going through stagnation right now and the question is how long will it last? ashley: well, do you agree with the fed's aggressive actions? i mean they're behind the curve. they're doing this better late than never but it is painful given where we are with the economy slowing down. these rising rates will have a big impact. >> that's right. ash, the fed's fire truck arrived during covid and up until real recently it hasn't left so now they are given the choice of a potential recession, or attempting get the inflation genie back in the bottle and possible they have no choice but to choose the latter of the two but the rub is that their choice is feeding worries about a policy. will they induce a recession and what will the severity be? so that's why we're so dis jointed. that's why the markets are on

this incredibly long losing streak. ashley: well, from an investors point of view is the time to stop fighting the fed, give up buying the dip and just take your lumps? >> this is certainly a period to take lumps but that doesn't necessarily mean by selling an appropriate weighting that you have to equities. look, markets are priced for imperfection, they were priced for perfection heading into this and now it's imperfection so if, and the operative word is if, the war takes a positive turn, or inflation does more than just moderate, we could see a significant bounce and if not, if these things don't come to pass and we have to continue suffering with these headwinds, i'd argue the market has done a pretty good job of discounting a very dire outcome, and look at the price of crypto for crying outloud. i was astounded this morning when i learned that 80% of all those that own bitcoin are

actually at a loss. the average price of the bitcoin holder is 47,000. ashley: wow. well listen, talking about the crypto collapse, tesla ceo elon musk says he is buying the dip, and writing in twitter, "i will still support dogecoin." all right, jason. are you buying the crypto dip, is there an opportunity? >> i don't like the catch " falling knives" so look, it hasn't proven to be a store of wealth, certainly not an inflation hedge and not a currency. you can't even really go out and buy anything with it, let alone bsla, sla, sla, w w t pveveve t e t ond ond ot' lerisk aha ffsffhenesoo not er levered oed lo duraon ass a a soohe a twer is no inoouldnoe buyin bgin crypto here. ashley: do you have any, jason, just out of interest? >> i don't, and that's largely because my organization i work

for doesn't allow me to but thank goodness they didn't. so saving grace. ashley: yes, indeed. all right, we'll leave it right there, jason katz great stuff as always. thank you so much, jason. appreciate it. thanks, ash. ashley: all right, now this , thank you. a heartbroken mother is speaking out after her son, los angeles police officer joseph santana was killed in the line of duty and she blames the district attorney, george gascon, roll tape. >> gascon needs to be recalled immediately. he's destroyed so many lives and he's completely destroyed ours. we're just completely devastated he's left children without fathers. mothers destroyed. wives destroyed. they're never coming back. he's never coming back.

[crying] and i blame it all on gascon. i blame it all on him. ashley: very painful situation. rob smith joins me now. rob, are californians finally waking up to the danger of these woke policies? dangerous people to have no business being on the streets, continuing to create havoc and in this case, death. i mean, what are your thoughts? >> you know, ashley, i think they are waking up to sort of these woke policies. you have to understand that what we are seeing right now with this awful situation with these two police officers that were slain with all of this crime and violence that's rising, what we're seeing right now is the result of literally decades of policy but also decades of people like george gascon being placed in these positions. you have to understand that people like george gascon will always respond to the threat of losing their jobs. they aren't responding to griev ing parents, they aren't going to respond to violent crimes, they aren't going to respond to the rates of these

things going up. they will only respond to the threat of losing their jobs and californians are actually seeing this. there is another recall, against gascon, one came out i believe it was last year and it failed so they are going to do it again and keep doing this i think until they get it right and i think that there's a lot of examples that we're seeing in california and in other cities where these recall efforts are going and it is actually scaring a lot of these sort of woke prosecutors and d. a.'s into making better choices when it cops to the safety of these citizens. ashley: i sincerely hope so, but it's sad that it takes the threat of being kicked out to actually understand what their policies are. anyway, next one, rob. moving on, major retailers like amazon and walmart are being accused of cashing in on the juneteenth holiday by selling t-shirts, ice cream over novelty products. now critics say it undermines the meaning behind the holiday which commemorates the

emancipation of slaves in the u.s.. what do you think about that? is it wrong for companies to sell essentially juneteenth novelties? >> i don't think it is. you can't have it both ways. you can't say that juneteenth is something we as a country need to come together to sort of celebrate, and then tell companies when they do these things that you cannot make money off of this and you can not sell things and you can not sort of come odd it friday this because that's what capital ism is all about and that's sort of like the double edge sword of, you know, what we've got when it comes to situations like this so no, i don't think that it's wrong for companies to sort of capitalize on this way, but i'll tell you this , ashley. they have made this decision with a lot of these activists they are going to celebrate juneteenth and they are going to recognize it and i would advice them to not go too into what these activists on twitter, these far left activists are saying in terms of how they are allowed to celebrate it because if you go down that route, and if these companies and corporations go down that route, then there's no end to it.

all right? so i think that it's great they are celebrating it. i think as a capitalist it's great they are making money off this but they need to leave it there and not listen to these sort of activists that are complaining. ashley: yeah, and all of a sudden it becomes another big political football and takes away really what the holiday is about and the celebration of what it represents. it's interesting. rob smith, great stuff as always , rob, thanks for joining us. >> thanks, ashley. ashley: thank you very much. now this. a cnn analyst claims inflation will ultimately be a good thing. say what? come in, lauren. lauren: she's saying it outloud, so inflation is the necessary evil to transform the economy. >> this is something that i think unfortunately, no politician, particularly the democrats right now in advance of a mid-term or presidential want to land on which is some of the transitions to a kinder, gentler, i believe

more stable and ultimately more resilient economy are going to be inflationary in the short to medium term. lauren: so she and others, ashley, are really saying the quiet part outloud now, and that's high gas prices, high prices for everything, are all part of the agenda. right? ashley: oh, wonderful. all right, lauren, thank you very much. now this. reports claims the turnover rate at amazon is so high, how high is it, that they could run out of people to hire in the next few years. we'll have that story, tell you what it's all about. tik tok is responding to a bombshell report claiming china used the app to access your personal information. we'll tell you what they are doing to protect your privacy, and ukraine is preparing for more intense attacks from russia this week. we've got the very latest report from lviv, next.

for investors who can navigate this landscape, leveraging gold, a strategic and sustainable asset... the path is gilded with the potential for rich returns.

before discovering nexium 24hr to treat her frequent heartburn... claire could only imagine enjoying chocolate cake. now, she can have her cake and eat it too. nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for all-day,

all-night protection. can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn? as a business owner, your bottom line is always top of mind. so start saving by switching to the mobile service designed for small business: comcast business mobile. flexible data plans mean you can get unlimited data or pay by the gig. all on the most reliable 5g network

with no line activation fees or term contracts... saving you up to $500 a year. and it's only available to comcast business internet customers. so boost your bottom line by switching today. comcast business. powering possibilities. ♪ ♪ how's he still playin'? aspercreme arthritis. full prescription-strength. reduces inflammation. don't touch my piano. kick pain in the aspercreme.

ashley: nato secretary general s toltenberg says russia 's war in ukraine could drag on for years. nate foy is in ukraine and nate, where is russia focusing its attacks now? reporter: ashley, the focal point continues to be really what its been since 2014 even before this most-recent invasion the had donbas area, of course specifically the final large city in that region that hasn't been taken by the russians and the ukrainian defense officials say they are outgunned claiming

that russia is using 10 times the amount of artillery as they are. i want to show you some video from that area. right now russia controls 80% of several dontesk. all bridges into the city have been destroyed and there's a town across the river called lis i chansk, which could be a good area for the ukrainian s to further defend the area. it's elevated. we'll see what happens first in dontesk. also, over the weekend, president volodymyr zelenskyy visited odesa and he is promising to take back the regions that so far have become taken by russia forces and one of those areas is kerson the russians are repositioning their forces there, taking a more defensive stance after recent ukrainian counterattacks. meanwhile, many here in ukraine are hopeful that eu leaders will vote this week to give the country candidate status to

join the eu. we know the european commission recommended that but it'll only happen if the european council has a unanimous vote thursday and friday. here is president zelenskyy talking about how historic that is. >> i think it's obvious to everyone that since 1991, there have been few such decisions for ukraine as we expect now. i am convinced that only a positive decision amidst the interest for the whole of europe. reporter: ashley, that meeting with eu leaders is in brussels on thursday and friday. we also know that president zelenskyy will participate in g- 7 summit which starts on sunday and stretches into next week. we'll send it back to you. ashley: all right, nate foy in ukraine, nate thank you very much. russian state tv has aired hostage vid rows showing two u.s. general jack keane joins us

this morning. general, what's the aim here? obviously, they say look, we got two of your guys caught fighting against us. what's the aim, do you think, of the russians here, trying to get the u.s. into conflict, what's the game here? >> well, i think certainly, they didn't plan on capturing these two americans, so i don't think there's an overall strategy, too much associated with them, other than to, you know, likely use them as a bargaining chip. that's why they are exposing them on television. i think the fact they are on tv is a good sign, because obviously, public awareness is a result of that, which can hopefully ensure their safety in going forward. the russians have already tried two other soldiers, foreign soldiers, operating on their tur f from the uk and sent them to a death sentence, unfortunately, and hopefully

that'll get resolved favorably, but i wouldn't make more of it than that, and the united states solely is taking the gloves off and try to get these two back and i understand there's a third one missing as well. what we want them to do, ashley, is be treated as prisoners of war, with the respect and abiding the rules of law that go with that kind of captivity and not be treated as mercenaries or some other category that the russians trump up. ashley: where do you put the war right now? it seems the russians have made gains in eastern ukraine. they're obviously outgunning, outmanning the ukrainians. we're having trouble getting more weapons to them. what's the state of play, do you think? >> yeah, that's a great question, and it's tough to answer. the russians have certainly made some incremental gains in the d onbas region, nothing comparable to what they thought

they be at this point in time. i mean, they're struggling to take dontesk as mentioned in the introduction they've been at this for weeks. they have these gains have been at the expense of certainly ukrainians and territorial losses for them, but i also believe that the russians reached a culminating point because they are expending themselves in focusing on this one area and we think they will likely go to an operational pause. the ukrainians, while outgunned and outmanned as you suggest, still have opportunities here to take back territory, but i believe, ashley, the tipping point is going to be the united states and the international coalitions ability to one, get them the right weapons and two, and those weapons are needed in quantity and three, in a timely manner, and we have challenges with all three of those that i mentioned.

the united states by far is the largest supporter of ukraine but i believe it is a tipping point. if the ukrainians are going to get back territory they are going to need significant help from the international community led by the united states. ashley: quickly, i want to turn to china. excuse me, general. china just launching its third aircraft carrier, their largest and most advanced carrier yet. this marks a major military milestone for the country, if china preparing for war, what do we take from this? >> well, china is the most rapid-growing military in the world and fastly becoming the most modern. china, as we speak, has by far the largest navy in the world so this aircraft carrier is going to contribute to that. to give you a sense of it they have 355 combat ships now 356 with the aircraft carrier and they're going to 460 in four or

five years. we have 298 ships going to 280, so listen, we have a qualitative advantage certainly in the united states navy, but at some point, quantity has a quality all of its own and i believe we're here. we are outgunned and outmanned, not just in navy, but in air force aircraft and also in missiles, in the indo-pacific region and we've got to correct that imbalance as quickly as we can. we don't want president xi to have any incentives to take military action against taiwan. we need an effective deterrence there by building up taiwan' defenses but also building up our own. ashley: we'll leave it right there, but terrific information as always. general jack keane, thanks for joining us this morning. >> yeah, great talking to you, ashley. ashley: thank you, same here. remember when tik tok said china

would not have access to american news data? come in lauren. update us if you could. lauren: buzzfeed attained leaked audio. dozens of tik tok management meetings, and they show the parent company had access to and then shared u.s. data, personal user data, with beijing , and they did so between september of 2021 and january. tik tok says well, we only store your data here in the u.s. , but these employees on this audio say yeah, that's not the case. that information was turned over to chinese authorities, and one even said and i'm quoting, " china had access to everything" so if you thought that tik tok was spying on you, this report, this leaked audio, adds fuel to that argument. ashley: well it choked me up that's for sure.

last one, much better, thank you , covid cases in china are on the rise even though we all know they still have a zero-covid policy. does that mean more shutdowns in china? lauren: yes, yes, and yes so let me give you some numbers. all of china, 24 new covid infections as of yesterday, okay most of them are in shanghai, as you know, shanghai just wrap ped weekend one of mass testing that they are going to do every weekend through july. they found 22 cases this weekend okay? meanwhile, in the tech hub, where all, you know, the electronics come from, they found one case on saturday. that triggered mass testing, and some parts of its lockdowns. it gets worse. in macau, they saw their first infections there in eight months , so i'd watch the casino stocks tomorrow when the markets back in business. ashley: yeah. lauren: so, yeah, zero-covid policy they are continuing with it, just dozens of infections and they are shutting everything

down because of it. ashley: that's insane. all right, lauren, thank you very much. now this. you know the famous mystery machine from scooby doo. i grew up watching that. loved it. it's just listed for rent on airbnb but you're not going to believe the price tag. americans are googling the word "recession" more than they have in the last 18 years. people are worried but the white house insists nothing is inevitable. steve forbes deals with that, next. money, money, money ♪ ♪♪ when safe drivers save up to 30% on their auto insurance

for not answering their phone while driving, they feel like a pretty big deal. ♪♪ steve... steve. did you get the ice? even if they forgot the ice. uh... huh. save up to 30% on auto insurance with usaa safepilot. get a quote today. ♪♪ centrum multigummies aren't just great tasting... they're power-packed vitamins... get a quote today. that help unleash your energy. loaded with b vitamins... ...and other key essential nutrients... ...it's a tasty way to conquer your day. try centrum multi gummies. now with a new look. we got the house! you did! pods handles the driving. pack at your pace. store your things until you're ready. then we deliver to your new home - across town or across the country. pods, your personal moving and storage team. >> tech: when you have auto glass damage, trust safelite.

in one easy appointment... ♪ pop rock music ♪ >> tech: ...we can replace your windshield and recalibrate your advanced safety system. >> dad: looks great. thanks. >> tech: stay safe with safelite. schedule now. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪ hi, i'm karen. i lost 58 pounds on golo and i've kept it off for over a year. it was so easy that the weight just kept coming off. that's when i knew that this is real. golo works. i still can't believe that i look like this.

♪ get away to where the boat leaves from ♪ ashley: you are taking a look there at the aircraft carrier intrepid on the hudson river in new york city, a nice morning, suns out, 70 degrees, and the zac brown band playing out their tunes. let's take a lack at bitcoin, that hasn't been a beautiful picture at all, in fact dropping

below 18,000, coming back a little bit bitcoin just over 20,000 to be exact, 20, 645. good time to bring in susan li. susan you've been following this story. what's the latest around this sector and what's the mood? i know the markets are closed today but after a shocking weekend as we say we saw bitcoin drop below 18,000. >> well for cryptocurrency, it trades 24/7, no holiday breaks, so the weekends are always a volatile time, so 20,000 is really the key level for bitcoin , seen as the importance support level for prices, and any sustained weeks below 20,000 is seen as a bearish signal, according to a lot of crypto watchers, and investors, so as i mentioned the weekend you saw bitcoin down 15% on sat, rebounding 15% on sunday so you really have to be able to stomach this volatility to buy in, but look, volumes are thin, liquidations & companies going under are weighing on market sentiment and it really

all started with that luna $40 billion stablecoin wipeout a few weeks ago and then celsius bank which stopped investors from being able to withdraw their money. three arrows one of the largest crypto hedge funds around has been accused this weekend of being a ponzi scheme that means using borrowed to pay off earlier investors. again those are accusations, and we haven't heard much from the actual hedge fund itself. now celsius last night said it will take longer to resolve that $12 billion that they have issued in loans. we want our community to know that our objective continues to be stabilizing our liquidity and operations, and this process will take time. now, the crypto collapse has a lot of influencers quoting warren buffett, the past week and that includes mark cuban who says when the tides go out we'll see whose actually swimming naked. now whose really making money? which companies are a legitimate business. that's the question right now. meantime, you saw that price drop, that market sell-off and that means crypto companies are quickly trying to trim job,

coinbase cutting 18% and 1,100 of those positions and that means also rescinding some of the accepted job offers which was not a good look and obviously bad for sentiment but blockfi saying they are cutting around 20% of their staff and it makes you wonder how long this crypto winter as it is called how long the pricing will last for and when you see a re bound in the actual market itself. ashley: all right, well i guess time will tell, susan, thank you very much. president biden and the white house officials insist a recession is not inevitable. but take a look at this. new google trends data shows more americans are googling the word "recession" than at any time since 2004. well, steve forbes joins me now. good morning to you, steve. okay, clearly, people are worried about a recession. good morning. do you think those fears are

warranted or is the white house right, in saying that a recession is not inevitable? >> well i think the white house almost sounds like sometimes they are secretly working for the republicans. every time they say things are better than you think, happy times are here again, and things like that, so yes, people have, the economist may define recession as two down quarters in a row but tens of millions of households feel they are already falling behind as wages are not keeping up with inflation. every time they go shopping and buy at the pump so yes the recession worries are very very real and unfortunately , the federal reserve even though they aren't explicit about it they think you curb inflation by making people poorer and slowing the economy down, so yes, we're in for a rough time. whatever name you want to give to it, the economy is going down ashley: what is the more effective way to fight inflation then, steve? what would you do? >> oh, well one, you would have

a stable dollar. that's the key thing, and let the market set interest rates and stop trying to manipulate the economy, so if you have a stable currency overtime, that'll cure a lot of woes, and this and will never do but maybe in a couple years we'll get one that will, and that is reducing taxes and regulations. regulations went up over $200 billion last year from this administration and they're back at it again this year so you have a stable currencies, lower taxes, guess what? that means more supply. that means more demand, higher wages, that means life can be good again. ashley: very quickly, steve. treasury secretary yellen talking about these high gas prices that are hurting everybody, says you know, the way to fix this energy crisis is to move to renewables. your thoughts? >> well, yes, go on google and conjure up 100,000 windmills that we can put on airplanes and

cars and then all be well. they could deliver it in 24 hours. no, it's absolutely preposterous and the american people know it, so if the federal reserve really started to sell all those excess bonds they bought and the federal government removed obstacles to making energy here at home instead of begging the saudis and others for it, you would see a very changed economy. ashley: all right, we'll leave it there, steve forbes, as always, sensible stuff. thank you so much for joining us this morning. keep using that word. >> thank you, ashley. ashley: thank you, steve. all right, now this. first group of apple store workers in the country have voted to unionize. where did this happen, lauren? lauren: towson , maryland, 65 workers voting for unionization at that store, 33 against, 12 sustained from voting. they say the driving issue for them to form a union is wanting a say in how the story is managed, more important as

their wages. apple just increased starting pay for retail workers to $22. not enough for some people. they want more. we are starting to see this as the trend across retail, restaurants, and tech companies, starbucks they have what, 9,000 or so stores more than 150 have voted to unionize there, so it's much-bigger at starbucks, for example, than the unionization effort at apple ashley: well they are certainly happy at that apple store, that video they are jumping up and down. lauren thank you very much. now this. does the rumor mill run in your office? roll the tape. >> whose getting married? >> nobody. >> somebody doesn't tell me i'm going to start screaming. did everybody know about this but me? >> there's nothing to know it's just gossip. ashley: it's just gossip. turns out office gossip could be ruining your career. we'll explain that story. as crime spikes in seattle, some people are pointing the blame on judges. critics say they are too focused

on bail reform and light sentences, all in the name of social justice. we'll have that report from seattle, which is next. ♪ (fisher investments) in this market, you'll find fisher investments is different than other money managers. (other money manager) different how? aren't we all just looking for the hottest stocks? (fisher investments) nope. we use diversified strategies to position our client's portfolios for their long-term goals. (other money manager) but you still sell investments that generate high commissions for you, right? (fisher investments) no, we don't sell commission products. we're a fiduciary, obligated to act in our client's best interest.

(other money manager) so when do you make more money, only when your clients make more money? (fisher investments) yep. we do better when our clients do better. at fisher investments, we're clearly different. my little family is me, aria, and jade. just the three of us girls. i never thought twice about feeding her kibble. but about two years ago, i realized she was overweight. she was always out of breath. that's when i decided to introduce the farmer's dog to her diet. it's just so fresh that she literally gets bubbles in her mouth. now she's a lot more active she's able to join us on our adventures. and we're all able to do things as a family. ♪♪ get started at longlivedogs.com

♪ ashley: rumor has it, adele, of course the empire state building looking beautiful with the blue sky behind it but we're playing that song, because job experts are warning that gossip in the workplace could actually ruin your career. come in, lauren what's it all about? lauren: okay so when you gossip, ashley, you show you can't be trusted, right? and if colleagues around you are gossipping you're not supposed

to engage, but how do you get any information if you don't gossip? or talk to people who are gossipping? right? ashley: well, that's very true and you know what starts one story at this end comes out as a completely different story once you have gone through about 10 people, but -- lauren: the best is when someone says to you, you know, i don't like to say anything about anybody, but, and then they start something and then everybody kind of like chimes in , but hey, it's not nice, it shows you can't be trustworthy i get it but that's how you get your information. am i gossip at work? is that me? you've known me for years. ashley: i don't think so, no. you're like a volt. you don't say anything, but we'll move on. lauren: for the record i never gossip. ashley: research from inside and you didn't leak this from inside amazon either, lauren, shows the company could soon run out of new people to hire. i mean, how does this happen? when could this happen?

lauren: well the answer is 2024 and how, is if you look at the number of people available and willing to work that live near a certain swear house, and the population and availability, it shows that yes, this is what amazon is worried about is running out of people in specific warehouses like those in phoenix and la. they are worried about available labor pools being depleted and if that happens, super fast delivery model comes under stress. coincidentally some of the areas where amazon is worrying about understaffing is reportedly where they are subletting some of the and vacating some of their warehouse space, so i guess they're looking at demand and they're looking at these major warehouses and saying, you know what? maybe we can't keep up and running as much as we are in that location. of course, they are going to turn to automation and things like that, but looking into the future, they think the

shortage is getting bad. ashley: really interesting. all right, lauren, thank you very much for that gossip. lauren: [laughter] ashley: we told you about progressive da's getting criticized for their soft on crime policies. well now judges are getting backlash for handing down light sentences. dan springer has the story this morning from seattle. good morning, dan. tell us more. >> yeah, good morning, ashley. we know that violent crime is up in many u.s. cities. here in seattle it's up 20% over a violent 2021 and there are a lot of reasons for that but increasingly people are pointing towards a glut of so-called soft on crime judges, focusing more on bail reform and lighter sentence in the name of social justice. we have one judge whose the face of this in seattle. it's king county superior judge abel rothrock. while sentencing a young man of shooting into a crowd hitting downtown seattle, they went four years below the sentencing

guideline and six years below the prosecutor's request and it sounded like she didn't want to give the man who was african american and in a gang any jail time at all. >> the struggle in your community with the violence matters to me, and our entire community shares responsibility for that struggle. reporter: judge also let two teenagers charged with a string of violent takeover robberies free to go home with an ankle monitor. the dangerous accused criminals cutoff their monitors and robbed another shop this time murdering one of the employees. a seattle talk show host has been all over this issue. >> i think that it's pretty easy to connect the dots now, that as the judges go soft on crime, and prosecutors, as they go soft on crime, of course criminals know that there aren't going to be the kind of life- long repercussions for committing a violent crime

so they are getting more and more brazen. reporter: as i said we're seeing this issue all over the country, in harris county, texas, the da there who is a democrat is blaming soft on crime judges for a big spike in violent crime there. in fact the murder rate in houston which is inside of harris county jumped 70% since 2019. ashley? ashley: dan springer in seattle, dan, thank you very much. all right, change of topics here , coming up next we'll take you right outside our studios where gary gastelu is test driving the first all electric b mw, that can drive nearly 300 miles on a single charge and gary has the car, next. life in the fast lane ♪

new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. when you sponsor a job, you immediately get your shortlist of quality candidates, whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. visit indeed.com/hire and get started today.

psst. girl. you can do better. whose resumes on indeed match yok. wow.criteria. i'm right here. and you can do better, too. at least with your big name wireless carrier. with xfinity mobile, you can get unlimited for $30 per month on the nation's most reliable 5g network. they can even save you hundreds a year on your wireless bill, over t-mobile, at&t and verizon. wow. i can do better. yes, you can. i can do better, too. break free from the big three and switch to xfinity mobile.

♪ ashley: all right, i can not believe that's malibu. i just don't buy it and i don't see that many green trees in malibu but anyway, we're playing

the scooby doo theme song because the famous mystery machine from the movie is now on airbnb and get this , guests will pay just $20 per night to stay in the van, which is, guess what, parked in malibu. the rental is meant to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the movie and guess what? no surprise it sold out within minutes but going live on airbnb $20 a night, not bad, right by the ocean. get this. we're getting an inside look now at the bmw is that ix or 1x? it's their first all-electric su v. the man who will tell us all about it, gary gastelu is right outside on fox square. gary? first off, and i'll do this for stuary varney. how much? let's start there. >> $84,000, plus you get to take that 7,500 tax credit off. so it's a lot less than the new tesla model x. they just raised the prices on that but it's similar to the

audi suv, a little bit more than the upcoming cadillac lyric, this is bmw's first all-electric suv, and the first all-electric vehicle or dedicated electric vehicle in 10 years. last time it had that little i-3 sub compact and now going for something a little more mainstream. this has a range of 324 miles per charge but looking to increase that up to 600 in the coming years, they've invest ed in a company in michigan that's r next energy developing a new type of battery that gets rid of a lot of the lithium and rare earth minerals that batteries use and basically has two batteries one for use everyday and the other one like a battery backup for bigger trips and they say it goes 600 miles with the same sort of weight and size and price as what's in this. we'll see how that works out. as far as this vehicle is concerned it's about the size of a bmw x-5 suv. a very different look to the interior with with this wide

screen infotainment system, full panoramic roof, there's no sunscreen, so if it's too sunny you bring in the clouds yourself , you can turn this on and off when things get too bright. upfront you have the bmw dual kidney grill, but electric cars don't have big radiators so this isn't even a grill. just a panel that covers the sensors for the driving systems like the hands-free or i should say hands-on highway driving aid that keeps you in the lane and can change lanes when you are passing other cars. also this bmw has a logo that's actually functional. the hood doesn't open so that does, you can put in the windshield washer fluid. ashley: did you say very quickly , gary, what it did 0-60 how fast? >> 4.4 seconds and is all wheel drive 516-horsepower, in other words, a lot of horsepower. ashley: i love it, gary gastelu, new bmw all-electric gary thank you very much. now this , treasury secretary

janet yellen claims the way to fix the energy crisis, lauren what is it? lauren: well it's going green. >> so the way in which we can assure reasonable energy expenses for households is to move to renewables, to address climate change as a medium term matter, that's the way from geo political movements in oil prices. lauren: the people want to know about the short-term, right? here are some suggestions. you could put a waiver on the jones act. we don't have enough u.s. vessel s to take gas from the gulf of mexico to new york for instance so we're sending it to other countries. you can incentivize steel companies to prioritize getting pipe to the drillers. there's a pipe shortage if the drillers are going to drill more they need pipe and here is a big one, ashley. send the signal loud and clear to domestic producers that you aren't going to try to bankrupt

them and in a few years from now after they make these investment s in their output or refining capacity. make it worth their while. ashley: exactly right. all right, yes, indeed. lauren: that's my two cents. ashley: time for the money trivia question. who has the most followers on instagram? it's not lauren or i. the answer will be right after the break. don't go away. . . another crazy day?

of course—you're a cio in 2022. but you're ready. because you've got the next generation in global secure networking from comcast business. with fully integrated security solutions all in one place. so you're covered. on-premise and in the cloud. you can run things the way you want —your team, ours or a mix of both. with the nation's largest ip network. from the most innovative company. bring on today with comcast business. powering possibilities.™

♪. ashley: all right. earlier we asked who has the most followers on instagram. lauren want to take a guess? >> i know this one, i'm confident number one cristiano renaldo. portuguese football player. 457 million followers. now it is time for neil. take it away. neil: very sorry, stu, sorry, ashley, kind of out it here. we're following why your markets are not moving. they're not moving because of the juneteenth holiday here. they're advances on finding perfect balance avoiding recession getting inflation under control. that was on mix >> it. tomorrow trade, a cash