for being here this morning quick market check we show you have dow up 95, you know what i am thinking green numbers on this screen dow up 95 s&p up 16 nasdaq up 60, that was a great time to welcome stuart varney i have not seen in person in several stuart: you've been lucky that's basically it, that's a fact. >> cheryl: i love my stu "varney" in the morning. stuart: thank you very much indeed. i've been away in florida, before that always and new zealand but i'm back and here we go. cheryl good morning to you and good morning to everyone. first thing on a monday we like to tell you what's happening to your money. especially after that huge rally that we saw on friday, so here you go. left-hand side of the screen, i'm seeing green. dow up maybe close to 100 points nasdaq up about 60. the big thing on the stock market this week is thursday's consumer price index. it all revolves around that. and then there's politics. president biden under sharp

criticism after his quick visit to the border. el paso had been cleaned up for his visit. he met no migrants. he did meet texas governor abbott, who told him he was two years and $20 billion late. the president went on to mexico, avoiding the riots and shootings that broke out after the arrest of the son of a drug king pin, el chapo. biden meets with mexico's president and among other things he will discuss the climate. in brazil, police have put down what looked an awful lot like an insurrection, demonstrate ors n was stolen from former president he is now set to be in florida. in d.c., the house gets to work, now that a speaker has been elected. it was tough going, tempers flared after 15 rounds of balloting. the question now is what can get done with a tiny majority by a badly-divided republican party and then there's harry. oh, he keeps on whining. in a "60 minutes" appearance he

complained endlessly actually calling queen camilla "dangerous " and he says he killed members of the taliban while in afghanistan and now he and his army squad are targets. and here is your elon musk headline of the day. his star link communication system has transformed the war in ukraine. musk's technology has changed warfare. he's driving vladimir putin crazy. monday, january 9, 2,023, "varney" & company is about to begin. all right let's get right to it the action in brazil. thousands of supporters of the former president balsonaro rioted over the weekend take us through what happened lauren. lauren: good morning, he narrow ly lost the election back in october, to the left is former president and now, current president de silva, so

here is what happened, he took office just last week and yesterday thousands of protester s supporting bolsonaro stormed the presidential palace, the congress and supreme court in the capitol city, they smashed windows and furniture and ripped documents, he accuses military police of not acting to contain the riotors, and bolsona ro is in florida and yet to publicly concede the election and said there's widespread fraud at the time of voting. stuart: okay now let's get to politics here in the united states. kevin mccarthy finally won his bid for speaker of the house and it took 15 votes to get him in. charlie hurt with us this monday morning. can this republican house get anything done when it is so divided and there's such a small majority? >> it's going to be tough, and but it was going to be tough before last week. the vote we saw last week as hard as that was, i think that we could be seeing much harder votes over the next two

years, and what's possible for them to do even if everybody , if all of the republicans get along and work together, it's pretty limit ed on top of all of that. stuart: yup. with such a small majority, what is it, about three or four, something like that? >> five seats. stuart: that's it? all they've got? >> yeah. stuart: it's very hard to see all of the republicans coming together on any issue and getting it through. >> and to me, i think that that's going to be the biggest challenge for speaker mccarthy. he has to define exactly what it is that he wants this congress to accomplish, and it has to be focused on spending, and it has to be something pretty basic like we're not going to spend, you know, we're going to do 10% cuts, and then even if they do that, what they are going to wind up with is they are going to wind up with threats of shutdowns and have to figure out how do you want to approach these things and my argument be you set out the parameters of what you want for spending.

expect the shutdowns to come, but put yourself in a position to make sure that you can plant the flag for fiscal responsibility, because this election 2024 is going to be about fiscal responsibility in washington, because people can't afford groceries. stuart: you're right, congresswoman nancy mace is calling into question what kind of promises kevin mccarthy had to make to be elected. watch this. >> my question really is today, is what back room deals were cut did they try to cut and did they get those because we shouldn't be operating like nancy pelosi, the small faction and they are the ones that are saying they were "fighting the swamp" but then yet went and tried to act like, you know, like they actually are the swamp by trying to do these back room deals and we don't know what they got or didn't get. stuart: well, charlie, do we, do you know if there are any back room deals that we don't know about at this point, secret deals? >> the most interesting thing about all of this , we know the larger deals that people like chip roy and the 20 hold

outs got for them to switch and start voting for mccarthy. what we don't know is what precisely happened that switched the last five or six holdouts, and that's a really good question. i don't know. we don't know, and if there was, you know, a deal made in the back room, that's interesting, but whatever the case, that is going, they do need to get to the bottom of that because it is kind of important. stuart: i don't think many people who are outside the republican bubble really appreciate what went on in congress last week. it left a sour taste in a lot of people's mouths. >> especially sword of in the media set watching all of this they were horrified by all of this but i do think if leader mccarthy or speaker mccarthy can take this and use this as an opportunity to plant the flag for fiscal responsibility and make that what this was all about, i think republicans could take a considerable win out of this.

stuart: got it, charlie thanks for being with us this morning, sir. congressman ha keep jefferies will serve as the house minority lead. any idea of what kind of working relationship he can establish with kevin mccarthy? lauren: he's hoping it's better than the relationship mccarthy had with nancy pelosi. that was a terrible relationship he was asked about that and he said he's hopeful it be much better, listen here. >> kevin mccarthy and i have had some positive forward- looking conversations over the last few weeks and i'm hopeful that we'll be able to build upon those conversations to do the right thing for the american people. clearly, we're going to have strong disagreements at times, but we can agree to disagree without being disagreeable. that is what i believe the american people would like to see in terms of a functional house, a functional senate, a functional government. lauren: indeed, a functional government but he also said in another part of that interview, he's concerned about those concessions that mccarthy made to the lawmakers to get

their vote, and hakeem jefferies went on to say the american people don't want to be held captive and i'm quoting, "to the extreme republican agenda" stuart: yes, he went out of his way to label republicans as racist. it was a very harsh critique at that point. lauren: he hopes he will have a nice relationship. stuart: i'm sure he does. thanks very much. markets let's see , monday morning, dow is up about 100 points, and the nasdaq is up about 63. remember, friday the dow was up over 700 points. now let's see we've got the earnings season fast approaching. what are all the all-knowing analysts saying about it? lauren: earnings are going to fall and be squeezed. this could be one of the worst earnings seasons since the height of the pandemic over two years ago so this is according to factset. they predict that earnings for the fourth quarter of last year will contract, will fall 4% versus 31% growth that we saw in the same quarter in 2021.

friday, that's when they really hit the tape. you get report cards from jpmorgan, bank of america, citigroup, united health. higher interest rates, less deal -making a stronger u.s. dollar and the stretched consumer, how will that all impact their profitability? stuart: good question. lauren: so yeah, last year was the year of inflation. this is the year of the potential recession and the earnings squeeze. stuart: so what happens to earnings, squeeze, got it, thank you. staying on the markets brian bellsk i'm joins us. obvious question, has the market already hit bottom? >> good morning. happy new year, great to be back on fox business news. thanks so much for having us. i think that there could be some choppiness. i think the majority of the downside quite frankly, stuart, is done. unfortunately, most people on wall street think that we have a lot of weakness to go here. more like a bottom in may-june. we don't believe that. we think that an ultimate bottom in the market could happen a lot faster, probably sometime in the

first quarter and so i think the majority of the downside is done. with respect to earnings for the fourth quarter, down 4% means that, you know, a lot of analysts as was said in the previous comments already dropped their numbers. typically and historically analysts missed the boat especially on downside estimates so we think the loss is going to be about half that maybe closer to 2% but still a drawdown nonetheless. stuart: okay, if you've got some money, as of today, as of now, and you want to put it to work in the stock market, where do you put it to work? >> it's a great question. we still like financials. some of those names that are coming out with earnings on friday. we still really like some of the healthcare stocks, there's some great biotech and device and drug companies that look very very good as well. there's some select industrials and even technology companies, as well but if we think communication services is the best contrarian bet for 2023 es, netflix, and on the other side,

with respect to the more contingent more comcast, at&t, and even verizon. stuart: wait a minute. you said even technology companies. even find some value there. that's a switch, isn't it? technology used to be absolutely king of the hill. you couldn't go wrong but now even technology companies are worth a look at? that's a change in tone there, brian. >> there's so much bad news circling over the technology companies. you can't throw them all into the same basket, stuart and i think those big ones like apple still are among our favorites, microsoft, even qualcomm and dare i say nvidia just because of the product growth and kind of strong management team that company has with respect to its foresight going forward. stuart: brian belski, not so bullish now. all right, brian, thanks for joining us, see you again soon. now then this , an explosive

interview prince harry opened up about the loss of his mother. roll tape. >> i just refused to accept that she was gone. part of she would never do this to us but also part of maybe this is all part of a plan stuart: harry says he was holding on to the hope that princess diana might be alive until he was 23 years old. we'll bring you the other bombshells as well. president biden made his first trip to the border since taking office. senator marsha blackburn is heading there today and she's on the show after this to analyze the presidential visit.

then i got the dexcom g6. i just glance at my phone, and there's my glucose number. wow. my a1c has dropped over 2 points to 7.2. that's a huge victory. 2023

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hours. edward lawrence is in mexico city for us. edward? the president is now going to meet with the leaders of mexico and canada, so surely, the border crisis will come up, won't it? reporter: it will, but depends on what the discussion will be. the president setting aside f million dollars for mexico and other south american countries to handle immigrants and protect those immigrants as they come towards u.s. border. now the president waking up today in mexico city. those meetings aren't until later on this afternoon where he is going to talk first with the president of mexico. yesterday, governor greg abbott from texas surprised president joe biden by hand delivering a scathing letter about his border policies. in part it says under your watch , by contrast, america's suffering the worst illegal immigration in the history of our country. your open border policies have emboldened the cartels who grew wealthy by trafficking deadly fentanyl and even human beings.

>> the president caused the chaos at the border, and it just so happens he's two years and about $20 million too late. he needs to step up and take swift action including reimbursing the state of texas for the money that we spent but providing more resources for the federal government to do its job. reporter: so sources tell fox news the el paso sector was " cleaned up" for the president's visit and no processing was happening during that visit. >> i'm trying to get a sense of the flow, the average. >> correct, yes, and then we have our little peaks with over a thousand per-day but usually our average is from 300 to [inaudible]. reporter: so republicans talked about the gesture of this visit. listen to this. >> 59 times he visited delaware

he came to the border once and stayed for three hours. he's been president of the united states for 17, 250 hours and came to the border for three hours and we're supposed to take him seriously. he stuck his head in the sand. reporter: so, representative pat fallon's office already filed articles of impeachment against alejandro mayorkas. stuart: critics say el paso was cleaned up and we can show it to you. they say the president just saw a sanitized version of the border. i think we've got a before and after shot. clean streets after, crowded streets with homeless folks before. senator marsha blackburn is heading to the border today and senator blackburn joins me now. big picture. how do we get this thing under control? >> stuart? there are a few things the president should do immediately. end catch and release. put the remain in mexico in place. keep title 42 and give the

border patrol what they have been asking for for three decades, which is a barrier that is build the wall, better technology, and more agents on on the ground. stuart: but he's not going to do any of the above, so how do you -- what are you going to do? >> what we're going to do is continue to push to enforce the laws that are on the books. you know, immigration law in the country hasn't changed since 1996 and you didn't have clinton and bush and obama and trump having the problem biden has had 4.3 million illegal aliens coming to that southern border since he became president. 16,000 pounds of fentanyl was apprehended last year. that's enough to kill 3.3 billion people. the cartels have turned human

trafficking into a $13 billion a year business. the president and the vice president should meet me in eagle pass and see what is happening there at del rio. see what is happening in that valley. see what is happening with these people that are being abused and subjected to drug traffickers, sex traffickers, human traffic kers, gangs, as they are making this journey. as the reporter just said the cartels are getting rich off this. they are in charge of that southern border. stuart: surely, we know who runs these cartels, don't we? can't we take some action against those people who are really invading our country and killing americans. >> what they're doing, stuart, is they are, and you do know who is running these cartels. you talk to people in arizona and they will tell you the sina

loa cartel, el chapo's cartel is responsible for that mexico side of the arizona border there at the southern border and they are the ones who are pushing so much of the fentanyl into the country, so stiffening these penalties when we apprehend these cartel members on u.s. soil, and you talk to any of your investigation agencies, law enforcement agencies, and they will tell you in these cities that are sanctuary cities many types the cartels have gone in and setup shop and they are running their drug and sex trafficking operations out of those. stuart: and we do nothing about it. it's extraordinary. senator blackburn, we wish you well with your visit to the border today and i hope you can tell us what's happening down there. senator marathons. >> you got it. stuart: now a group of illegal migrants was recently asked about why they crossed the border. what did they say? lauren: this is from a group from venezuela and this is what

they told the daily caller. "we sold everything to come here because president biden told us to come and now we can't return because we are targets for leaving" so they feel stuck in limbo. if they aren't processed they can't leave the busiest sector which is el paso and many refuse to give up and turnaround and go back home because of fear of repercussions that can happen back home, so they are in limbo. stuart: they are in dangerous limbo. lauren: everything they can because the president told them to go. he's not forcing them away. stuart: check futures, please monday morning a couple minutes to go before we open the market and i'm seeing green, the dow was up 700 friday up about another 120 miss monday morning. we'll be back. ♪ ♪

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>> absolutely, stuart. it doesn't feel good. it's scary. you grit your teeth, but this is how you make the big bucks. buy low and sell high, eventually. stuart: now a lot of folks on the show have been saying look, don't expect a real rally in stocks until the middle of this year. we'll reach a bottom in the next few months and then we start going up in the middle of the year. what do you say to that? >> well, you and i have talked about that a couple times and i stick by that. i think the fed is going to be forced to pivot about mid-june or so and at that point it's going to remove a lot of the currency headwinds, the rate headwinds, technology is going to get a nice boost and the time to buy is when everybody else is looking the other direction. stuart: um, any particular technology companies in mind? you don't have to pick out microsoft, just because of me. >> [laughter] well, i'm going to be a good sport because i share your belief in that company, so microsoft and apple are absolutely at the top of my list i was buying consistently last week, hope i'm smart enough to buy more this week. i'm sticking away from the

amazon, meta and google of the world because i don't trust them, don't like them in this environment. stuart: okay, any other group of stocks that you would say yes, get in there now. >> yes. energy. bar none. everybody is pricing it like it's a recession. i think we're actually going to go back to a hundred bucks or more a barrel next year based on demand. the offensive between saudi arabia and china is going to cause that so that one to me is big dividends reinvestment continuing into the future. stuart: i thought that china makes, it comes back, covid is, they walked away from covid restrictions, so there are some people saying that look, china will now take off the economy will now take off and will be a major engine of growth for 2023. what do you say to that? >> you know, i've heard that argument a lot, stuart, but having spent a lot of time in mainland china, i don't see that i'd rather go in the surrounding asian countries because of china rather than in china. stuart: what do you got on the

cpi on thursday? >> you know, i think we'll probably see more aggressive numbers. i'm hoping it's going to slowdown but i'm not holding my breath. stuart: you know, in the last five calendar months, the inflation rate is actually 2.5%. if you go back 12 months and average it out, it's 7% so maybe that break five months ago is going to be important. we shall see. keith, thanks for being with us on a monday morning, good timing we'll see you again soon. >> thank you, stuart. stuart: the opening bell is about to ring, they clap, cheer, it's monday, january 9. >> [opening bell ringing] stuart: we're looking at green this morning but again you have no clue about where this thing closes out. on friday, we opened higher, and built throughout the day and ended up 700 points up for the dow. the market is now open on this monday morning, and we've opened higher. the dow is up 100 points, and i see roughly half the dow 30 on the upside. some tech stocks way up there moving higher including microsoft and intel. they're up and i've got nike up

as well. all right, how about the s&p 500 , the gain there is a half percentage point. the nasdaq composite if there's a gain there and it is closer to 1% .88% nice gain there. how about big tech i presume they are all higher, yes, they are. amazon is up 2.5%, meta is up, alphabet, apple. apple is at 131 this morning and microsoft at 226. now, show me goldman sachs, please. susan is with us. are they, they are starting the layoffs this week? >> that's right so 3,200 in total so pink slips are going out this week, one-third comes from the core trading and banking units but it's broad based. 3,200 less than 10% of the total headcount more like 7% to 8% of the 48,000 of goldman employees around the world because goldman , like every other company that you see on this board, possibly have over- hired since the pandemic. you know, goldman grew their headcount by over 30% in the past four years.

now, also goldman by the way in this chart, also shows that it's not just silicon valley laying off. these white collar, high-paying six figure jobs so amazon last week went up to 18,000 in job cuts and salesforce joining the likes of meta and twitter slashing thousands in the like but challenger grey says layoffs in the last quarter of last year went up 126% from the year before. that's more than double the layoffs that you saw in 2021 stuart: you know you'd give your right arm for a job at goldman sachs or even meta. >> back in the day, yes, a lot of people would go to silicon valley more than wall street because of passive investing as you know, etf and everything else. stuart: very true. now tell me about macy's. are they going to start closing stores? >> apparently so because they just said holiday sales and this is disappointing were at the low end of their forecast especially a big drop-off between the major shopping days of black friday and christmas with weaker consumer spending. that was a bit surprising so four stores will close this

quarter. 125 over the next three years, job cuts of thousands, and that's part of the 2020 restructuring plan stock only down 21% the past year which is out performance given the s&p is down by just roughly a quarter or so. stuart: can you show me please bed, bath and beyond i believe it's up this morning up 18% this morning. >> bizarre, right? stuart: i thought they were declaring bankruptcy. >> apparently they were weeks away from doing that so this is bizarre trading in a nearly bankrupt company. the peak this morning the pre- market was up almost 50% third-most traded stock this morning as loss over 83% so i think and i think the market thinks that this might be a wall street bets kind of retail investor crowd because you've heard already keybanc saying it's a stock worth a dime, so how much further is there to fall? maybe you take a punt, a small punt, and it does somehow find a white knight and maybe that bankruptcy might be delayed so they are going to start skipping payments by the way on any debts that they owe at the start of february according to reports.

stuart: that's not a good sign. >> never a good sign. stuart: we have to bring up tesla. we always like to cover tesla and its up a solid 6% this morning. >> well, look, so it's poised for rebound. i'll tell you why. there's some maybe demand is coming back in china. also you had tesla offering 10% discounts in singapore overnight and that's after price cuts that they offered in china, south korea, australia and japan and over the weekend did you see this report you had angry shanghai tesla owners flooding into tesla showrooms, upset that tesla offered price cuts after they bought their tesla at near full price or more so tesla now extending those rebate here in the u.s. to match the ones of that inflation reduction act so here you could still get that $7,500 in rebate but the positive part for tesla stock is that wait times in china for the model y, that crossover suv a bit longer suggesting maybe demand is coming back but that stock is down some 66% the past year. people i've talked to in silicon

valley say at $118 if you're closer to breaking sub-100 that's when the activist investors can get in and the short sellers and could force elon musk's hand somehow. stuart: um, one more. lululemon back in the news again and down whoa 11% what are they doing wrong? >> i didn't think it was that bad but when you say you're going to make less gross margin is the amount of profit you make per item sold is down by more than 1% lower than the previous forecast. i guess that's the inflation biting them right there whether it's higher labor costs, higher transport costs filtering in. they still expect net sales to jump by 25% so you're probably making $2.6 billion to $2.7 billion, that's not bad but you'll make less profit possibly make less by a few pennies a share but i would say lulu outperformed the stock is up 2% over the past year instead of being down 20% for the s&p 500. stuart: and certainly boom it's down 10%. >> i never knew you were such a fan of spandex.

stuart: i'm not but i like the store. i did actually go into a lululemon. the quality of the clothing is pretty good. quick one on alibaba. what's this about jack marr being forced to ever go up control? >> so it's owned by alibaba which of course founded alibaba so it's rallying today, it was added to goldman's conviction buy list this morning because if jack ma lets control over control, that means there's less beijing opposition in the future for the business whether it's a future ipo. you know, jack ma was caught up in a crackdown by chinese leader s, this is going to be the biggest ipo ever, raising $37 billion in hong kong back in 2020 but beijing says you can't do that and they killed it so an t group raised $1.5 billion and again another sign that beijing is allowing business especially for big tech giants to go back to normal. china internet stocks had the best start to the year ever in history. up 5% for any time in the china

internet space. stuart: so reversal on covid and crackdown on tech. >> right and also that is the wildcard out there whether it's for inflation or global growth. if china is reopening and stimulating getting more money back into the property sector and people are traveling once again it's a big boost and possible floor for the global economy. stuart: well-said. check that big board in business now for six nearly seven minutes up nearly 90 points look at that 33, 724. dow winners top of that list, we have salesforce.com, i believe they are talking about more -- >> job cuts possibly. stuart: i believe they are talking about that. but they are up nearly 3%, united health, home depot, microsoft on that board, s&p 500 winners the match group, dating game is back, tesla is on the list 4% higher nice gain there, and we have the nasdaq, match group tops that, tesla, am d, and marvel

technology is on that list how about that? here is what's coming up for you texas congressman chip roy defended his flip vote for speaker mccarthy. roll tape. >> but i want to make clear, this isn't about trying to chip roy wants a spot on the committee. i haven't been promised anything , literally. i've got nothing out of this deal for me personally. stuart: okay next question. did gop holdouts get anything in return for eventually backing mccarthy? florida congressman mike waltz will have a go at that one a bit later on and then there's this. china opening its borders in a final farewell to zero-covid. can their economy make a real big comeback? gordon chang is next. ♪ ♪

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stuart: all right, still got the green on the screen. dow is up 130, nasdaq is up

close to 100 points, as of right now. well, after three years of covid isolation, china has finally reopened its borders. take us through this one. lauren: for the first time in three years, right? no more quarantine, so the borders in china are fully reopened, just in time for lunar new year, at the end of the month. but it's not so easy. there are restrictions on where the chinese are traveling to. they have to produce a negative covid test. there are few flights, because nobody went anywhere for three years so the airlines trimmed their flight schedules, so there's high prices, and this was my favorite part. for the chinese that are going to hong kong, they're looking to make appointments for the mrna vaccines. stuart: a western vaccine which works. lauren: yes, whatever they had in china. i thought that was very telling. stuart: okay. let's get more from gordon chang he's our china expert of the morning. welcome back, gordon. i see a lot of economists forecasting a strong economic recovery for china this year,

can had will help the whole world economy. i've seen some people talking about a 10% gdp expansion for china this year. what say you on this? >> i don't think so, stuart. you know, right now, china's going through the fastest viral outbreak in history and when this is over maybe by mid-march, which will be the second peak, we're talking about 800 million to 1.1 billion infections. that's going to mean a very difficult first quarter, perhaps the second quarter and really what we got to remember that forget about covid for the moment. even before this most recent covid surge, we saw weak consumption in china across-the-board, especially those october, november, december figures. i think that we're going to see a generally stagnant chinese economy. yes china will say it has robust growth but the reality is very different on the ground. stuart: china's cracking down on its critics. they suspended or blocked

thousands of social media accounts to silence the critics. do you think that xi-jinping still enjoys real support among the chinese people? >> no, and we can see that from those extraordinary protests that began at the end of october at that iphone factory but especially after the november 24 fire in arumchi. those protests were across the country, spontaneous. no leadership, and we're actually starting to see unrelated protests in the last couple weeks. even among the elite, there is this. you can see this from the comments that got attention across china from a chinese actress, famous person all it and even talking about revolution herself so you can see why they are censoring social media protests because they know that they don't have support and that people are basically coerced but they are not supporting the communist party these days. stuart: what do you think they are going to do if there are

indeed 800 million infections? what are they going to do? they can't reimpose covid restrictions can they? >> no, well, they might be able to but i doubt it and the reason is that on december 7, when people say they changed their covid policy, that really is an incorrect characterization because what happened is the communist party policy just collapsed. they capitulated to the disease. they didn't have money for zero cash covid. they economy they knew was being crippled by disease control measures so they will have a very difficult time getting past this and we are seeing projections like 9,000 deaths a day from air finity, which is the london health researcher. people are talking about 25,000 deaths a day in about 10 days from now. these are numbers which very difficult for any society to recover quickly from and all of niece projections that we're going to see as you said 10% growth, that's really fantasy.

stuart: well what form of opposition could surface in china? >> it is at this point, as i said there's no leadership, but chinese people think the same way. they are really unhappy and we can see these from, for instance , this last week, those unrelated protests. basically, people can't organize but because they can't organize it's very difficult for the communist party to know what's going on, so every time that people get really upset, the party retreats as it did in late november. so this means the country remains unstable. stuart: xi just hasn't delivered on his central promise. that promise was you get prosperity, we keep control of politics. he's not delivered has he? >> no, he hasn't delivered. his domestic policies are a disaster where you're talking just general economy, property

market, covid, across-the-board it's a disaster which means he's become much more aggressive externally as we saw in december the incursions into india, philippines, japan, taiwan, dangerous intercepts of the u.s. air force plane over the south china sea. this is a nation which i think will take it out on others and that means we've got to be especially concerned about the external environment in asia in general. stuart: well-said gordon chang, thanks as always for being with us. we will see you again soon. got it. now, let's do more on the surge in covid now that china opened its borders and people are moving around a bit. could the surge in covid cases there hurt us here? lauren: um, absolutely, because it has to work its way through the supply chain. i'll explain. so what we know is saturday alone, almost 11,000 covid infections, new infections in china. it's overwhelming their hospital s, but also their businesses. if you think of the drugs and the medicines and the

ingredients that we do get from china, if their factories are closed because so many of the workers are sick that impacts their ability to get those medicines out. stuart: i've got that. lauren: if you take the latest data real quick 2020 over $3 billion in imported drugs and drug ingredients we got from china coming here. we've tried for three years to diversify away from china but we aren't there yet. we still rely on them. stuart: we just put that graphic up, please? 10,000 cases just on saturday. i thought there be a higher number. lauren: new infections. stuart: just 10,000 in a country of 1.4 billion? lauren: the data they are giving you is what china's national health commission said. stuart: you don't trust those numbers. all right let's see now. we've got coming up, here is what i've got to do, i'm going to tease, i'll tease the audience and tell them this is what we got coming up. dhs secretary alejandro mayorkas responded calls for him to resign over the border crisis watch this. >> and i'm going to continue to

do my work. >> so you have no intention of resigning? >> i do not. i've got a lot of work to do and we're going to do it. stuart: we're going to get into that for you and there's this. new york's first legal marijuana dispensary for recreational marijuana it's open for business , so how is the rollout going a week and a half after opening? we have a report on that, after this. ♪ ♪ -well, i'm not 100% sold yet. -okay, have you considered -- it's fine, flo. she's not interested. i get it. not everyone wants to save money. -what's she doing? -i don't know. renters and homeowners can bundle and save. for what? a trip to bora bora? bora boring. okay, you know what? i'm in.

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it makes you go through your days with energy, and you're not tired anymore, and your anxiety, everything is gone. it's definitely worth trying. it is an amazing product. stuart: all right new york's very first recreational marijuana dispensary is now open on the first day of business, there was a line hundreds long, hundreds of people were in line, stretching outside the doors. well, madison alworth is there right now. madison? its been a week and a half since the opening. how's business? reporter: stuart, business is booming. i mean, all you have to do is take a look behind me. we already have two people in line. this store doesn't open until 11 they got here around 9:40 waiting over an hour for new york's first legally-sold weed. so i want to again show you that video from a week and a half ago

from december 29. hundreds of people in line waiting to purchase marijuana from right here in this one first year of business, the companies hoping to do 1 million in sales and that could turn into big business for the state. new york looking to replicate california where over $770 million has been made in marijuana tax revenue last year alone. california charges a 15% excise tax on retail cannabis products while new york charges slightly less 13%. so far, 21 states have legalized marijuana for recreational purposes. while advocates are applauding the states legalization efforts, critics warn that this could open the flood gates, that legalization for other drug or alcohol use increases crime and harms public health. take a listen. >> seeing increases in property crime, increases in violent crime, we're seeing increases in

homelessness. it's not all, you know, sunshine and roses for marijuana legalization. reporter: stuart, the empire state will have competition next door very soon. connecticut starting tomorrow will be able to sell cannabis products to adults recreational ly so i'll send it back to you. stuart: it's also in new jersey, its already arrived in new jersey. madison thank you very much indeed. quickly check the markets, please. opening for business 25 minutes and we've gone up especially the nasdaq nice gain there up 1.5%. still ahead, kt mcfarland, florida congressman mike waltz, brandon judd, and dr. marc siegel. the 10:00 hour of "varney" is next. ♪ ♪

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