as people start to worry about inflation, walmart is positioned for people doing the trading. jack otter: what is your pick? ben: palmolive. the consumer staples, strong brands, no private-label penetration, good emerging markets and a good chance that it gets better this year. looks pretty interesting. jack otter: check out this edition of baron's.com, rethinking plastics. follow us on twitter,@barron online. see you next week on "barron's roundtable". e fox studios in nw york city, this is maria bart row' -- bartiromo's "wall street." maria: and happy weekend to all. welcome to the program that analyzes the week that was and helps position you for the week ahead. i'm maria bartiromo. a big show today. the munich security conference

is underway this weekend in the midst of provocations by u.s. adversaries. plus, big three basketball headed into the sixth season. ceo and cofounder ice cube is here with the details on this and his thoughts on the current direction of the country. but first, president biden under immense bipartisan pressure to address the country on the flying objects shot down over the u.s. and canada. he finally broke his silence late in the week this week after more than a week of silence. >> we don't yet know exactly what these three objects were, butting nothing, nothing right now suggests they were related to they that -- china's spy balloon program or that they were surveillance vehicles from other, any other country. maria: the president went on to say that shooting down the actual chinese spy balloon after it flew over the united states for an entire week sent a clear message to china. meanwhile, we still have not

heard anything from the president on the other major story of the past two weeks, and that is the toxic train dethe railment in ohio. joining me right now with all of that is tennessee senator marsha blackburn. senator, it's great to see you. thanks very much for being here this weekend. >> good to see you. sure. maria: first, on the spy balloon, the spy flight was able to travel the entire country, and we understand that the craft was able to snap images of our nuclear installations. what was sent back to beijing, and what can you tell us about this based on your briefings? >> the briefings that we have had have been unsatisfactory. and, maria, the president should have cone an oval office -- done an oval office crease on this with specifics for the american people. when you let this balloon come into u.s. air space, you do not take it down, you say you followed it all the way from when it was the launched and you

allow it to bring this information out of the country, they have invaded our air space. and to take the images, to get the signals that they took and then you don't know what other types of information on u.s. citizens that they transmitted before they shot it down. he should explain this to the american people. but i think more importantly they've been making this story up as they've gone along because we would not have known of this except for a local journalist in montana with a good camera, takes a picture, puts it on the paper web site and asks the question, what does somebody know about this? then the white house had to begin to make a statement. maria: well, it's pretty extraordinary, the misinformation that comes out of this administration. this weekend we've got the munich security council, and it

just feels like biden is constantly on his heels defending the u.s.' relationship with china despite the fact that the ccp continues its provocations. first unleashing covid-19, covering up covid-19 from the wuhan lab, not allowing investigation. now this surveillance flight into america. your thoughts on the u.s.' response. >> the response is very weak coming from this white house. and this is a point where the house and the senate are going to have to step up and take some measures to rein china in. the president is not speaking out against the chinese communist party. maria, you're talking about covid. what about what is happening with fentanyl? joe biden should tell the chinese communist party, stop manufacturing fentanyl today. they apprehended 14,000 pounds at the border last year.

that's enough to kill 3.3 billion people. 70,000 americans lost their lives to fentanyl last year. he should be adamant about this. there should be sanctions existence the ccp. look at concern against the ccp. look at what they're doing bullying taiwan and the philippines and the south pacific islands. look at what they're doing, continuing to steal our intellectual property. look at what they're doing with great power competition. look at what they're doing in the economic sector. look at what tiktok is doing, surveilling our children. the munich conference, he should be having the u.s. delegation say the chinese communist party is our adversary, they are not a competitor, they are a part of the axis of evil with russia, iran and north korea, and we should let it be known we are not going to stand for this. but this president will not hold them to account. maria: yeah. when you look at the elephant in

the room, this cbo warning this week that our national debt is on track to double. $19 trillion additional debt expected in the next decade. st the unsustainable -- it's unsustainable if something is not done about it, and yet joe biden refuses to have a conversation about cutting spending. >> well, you're right about that, and that is why i've offered my bills that i do every year. let's begin the process of cutting into the baseline. if you're the weak of heart, save a penny out of a dollar. a 1% across the board cut. a little bit braver, let's take two pennies. if you really want to get going on this, let's require every federal agency to save a nickel out of a dollar. now, you don't make any rescissions into medicare or social security, that is held harmless, and you have to look at this altogether. our debt, that is a threat to our nation's sovereign i. we have to concern sovereignty.

we have to look at who holds that debt. we have to look at beginning to get our federal spending under control because every penny of this is taxpayer money. maria: yeah. real quick before you go, senator, your thoughts on what has taken place in ohio. pete buttigieg once again missing in action, and families are very scared of the toxicity that they are being exposed to. they've left the area because they're afraid of sickness for their families, and yet fema if apparently is not giving any aid to ohio after this derailment and toxic chemicals bleeding off of it. >> yes. i think this is the third or fourth time in the past couple of weeks we have had a train derailment. if i were these rail companies, if i were the department of transportation, if i were this president, i would have an all-hands-on-deck trying to figure this out. and the people that are there in

east palestine, ohio, god bless them. and the epa should be right there with them along with the governor's office and ohio officials to really try to figure out what is going on. maria: senator, it's good to see you. thanks very much for all of that. >> you got it. maria: marsha blackburn joining us morning innd. quick break, and it is coming in hot, inside the surprise jump in inflation this week and for businesses of all sizes, there are a lot of choices when it comes to your internet and technology needs. when you choose comcast business internet, you choose the largest, fastest reliable network. you choose advanced security for total peace of mind. and you choose a next generation 10g network that's always improving, getting faster; more reliable; and more intelligent to keep you ready for today and tomorrow. the choice is clear: make your business future ready with the network from the most innovative company. comcast business. powering possibilities™.

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life's kinda unpredictable. like when your groceries arrive the moment you remember everything you forgot. [dog barks] or when your kids says... there's a bake sale at school tomorrow. tomorrrow, tomorrow? or when you discover art-cuterie is a thing you have to try. like now. or when you could go to the store but you also need to walk the dog, pack the lunches, and uhhh... oh yeah take the kids to school. you have children! for anything today brings, fresh groceries and more. free same day delivery. walmart plus maria: welcome back. now a look at where markets ended the week after key inflation data came in hotter than expected this week. we got the consumer price index up 6.5% year over year, wholesale prices up 6% year-over-year. these numbers hitting this week causing stocks to swoon. joining me right now through the cycle president john lonski. john, great to see you. thanks so much for joining us.

we've got lots of worries about inflation continuing to stay elevated and the federal reserve now ramping up to continue raising interest rates perhaps 50 basis points rather than 25 at the next if meeting. your thoughts on the week's data. >> this has been a horrible week for breast rate optimistic -- interest rate optimists. we started the month of february believing that federal funds would rise no higher than 4.88%. now that expected top for fed funds is all the way up to nearly 5.4%, and with that we've had quite a jump by the 10-year treasury yield. you know, that's an important benchmark for mortgage yields. that was just under 3.4%, it's now, i believe, headed towards 4% fairly soon. so the takeaway from this is that because of a forthcoming rise by interest rates, we are probably going to be looking at

economic growth that is going to be much slower than what otherwise might be inferred from that huge 3% monthly jump we got for january's retail sales. hard times ahead because of higher interest rates. maria: so do you believe then we will see a recession this year then, john? >> yes, i do. however, it may not arrive until later in 2023, and there's a pretty good chance that the recession might carry over into 20 the 4 the -- 2024 and that's important because 2024 is a presidential election year. maria: yeah, it's a great point. you know what really got me this week was the philly fed number. the philadelphia federal reserve number showed a contraction of 24.3. we were expecting a contraction of just 7 points. it was actually 24.3, john. what does that say about manufacturing on the heels of, you know, weakness in housing that we've seen as a result of

higher rates? >> well, you know, manufacturing is under a lot of pressure, and in part that's because the cost faced by manufacturers exceed the ability of manufacturers to raise prices even though they can raise prices at a pretty rapid clip. so there's a profit squeeze going with on in manufacturing, demand is not as great as what might be inferred from that january jump by reail sales. retail sales. things aren't as great as they seem at first glance partly because january's results on consumer spending were inflated by mild january weather. maria: i see. so you think service the all seasonal. john, real quick, what does all of this mean to the markets? are you expecting a disruption in markets this year? so far we've seen a gain in january particularly by those very stocks that got creamed in 2022 the, big tech the. >> yeah. but some of these stocks have dropped ever since interest rates have begun to the rise

again. so i would think that from where we are right now your broad equity averages are perhaps going to drop by 10% as the destruction to spending -- destruction to demand owing to higher interest rates becomes more apparent. believe me, interest rates have risen to levels that are too high for the u.s. economy to shoulder without suffering slower growth and eventually a recession. maria: yeah. i mean, i guess, you know, you've got a lag effect when you have rates rising steadily for a year. there's a lag effect in terms of when it actually impacts economic growth. >> and that lag effect is made worse by the fact that the fed is hiking interest rates into a business sector where it's widely expected that sales are going to be much slower in 2023, and moreover, we're going to be

looking at a much lower rate of profits growth. and, in fact, according to equity analysts, the annual growth rate of s&p 500 company revenues is expected to plunge from 10.6% in 2022 to only, i think it's about 2. 4% for 2023. maria: john, thanks very much for all of your insights. we appreciate it. john lonski joining us -- >> thank you, maria. maria: thank you, sir. our big plans coming up for the big three basketball league. i'll be asking the ceo, ice

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>> got to the the spot -- [inaudible] maria: all right, welcome back. big three basketball league reportedly about to make some big moves to franchising. ceo and cofounder ice cube is in talks with outside investors to sell some of the league's 12 the basketball teams. ice cube joins me right now. cube, it's great to have you, thank you so much for being here. first, congratulations on the success of big three. amazing what you've been able to do. can you tell us how things are evolving? can you confirm that, in fact, you're beginning to sell some teams? >> appreciate it, maria. yeah. you know, we've been at this thing for seven years now. we've gotten to the point, you know, the league would centralize, all the teams were owned by the league up until this point, and we wanted to make sure the sport stuck and that we kid things, you know, we wanted to make sure the games were great, the rules worked,

the competition was high and the league was moving in the right correction. before we started to sell teams, you know? we really invented this from scratch in a lot of ways, inventing the pro version of big3. so it's great now that we're at point, you know, league's going to be in profit this year. so we're at a point where it's i'm to sell teams, it's time to connect teams with cities and really start to hone in the fan base. now we can have the teams in the community. we can cothings with the9 -- do things with the team to help make the community better. so it's just part of our overall program that we've been doing with contract with brach americ. you know, we've done some things with the nml that's great -- nfl. now we're going to do things

with our league in the these cities, so it's just amazing. and look, in october we were certified by that we're a certified black-owned league, the only one in america. so we want to do a lot of things, you know, with the league other than just play the game. maria: yeah. i mean, this is not only spurring growth for the big3, this is actually going to have an impact on some of the cities that we've talked about so much that are actually troubled in terms of crime, in terms of homelessness. cube, what are the most important cities that you want to target here? >> well, you know, i mean, we want to keep things under our hat a little bit, but, you know, we've been talking to at least three cities, you know, a few of them on the east coast. it's been great because, you know, the ownership that we're looking for are, you know, we're looking for credible owners, you

know? i can't say who we've been talking to because of our -- maria: okay. >> but, you know, we want, you know, we've been talking to owners of teams, you know? >> some mlb, nfl. we want real owners, guys who know how to promote the sport in their city, a guy who knows the city or not just a guy, but, you know, investors who are familiar with the cities and very active in the cities that they're in. maria: yeah, okay. >> so that's part of our overall plan, you know? maria: well, i mean, cube, it could not come at a better time because you know what's going on in our big cities, cube. a recent poll shows over 70% of americans think the country is on the wrong track, okay? and that's because of with crime, it's because of a wide open border, it's because of homelessness on the streets and, of course, let's not forget drugs, illicit drugs, fentanyl.

so what's your take on all of these people basically worried about our country, worried that the country's on the wrong track? >> hey, man, you know, i think they should be, you know? the country is, you know, very uneasy right now. and everybody gotta the do their part, you know? the big3, we're going from city to city this year, so we're not in our bubble like we have been in the last couple of years, so we're going to be all over the country this summer. hopefully, making cities a little better than we found 'em when we leave. and so that's our plan. i think it should be everybody's plan. you know, everybody gotta look in the mirror and say what can i do the make things better. that's the only way it's going to change. maria: cube, when do you think you're going of the news for us in terms of the official sales of some of these teams somewhat's the process in termses of timing from -- what's the process in terms of timing

from your standpoint? >> hopefully very soon. you know, we're going through some dill genesee, and we're just trying to make sure we got the right owners, the right team, the right city. and, you know, we're just pushing forward. so in a couple of weeks you'll start hearing things come out, hopefully we can make an announcement before the season and let people know how many new owners, what cities they're going to, you know? and we're going to be very selective. we're only selling four teams now, so we're being very selective because we want to start off with the right group of owners so this league can grow and flourish. maria: all right. fantastic. we're going to be watching autoof that, and we hope you'll join me when you've got more news to report. cube, it's good to see you, as always. thank you, sir. >> appreciate you, maria. thank you. maria: all right. talk soon. ice cube joining us. i've got one important hinge you need to know about ahead of next week, and that's next.

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a new poll shows support for financial aid and weapons is slipping from nine months ago. we'll be following all of this closely next week on "mornings with maria," weekdays 6-9 a.m. eastern right here on fox business. and if i'll see you over on the fox news channel sunday morning, joining live for "sunday morning futures." i've got exclusive interviews with congressman jodey arrington and lance gooden along with claudia tenney, a panel on biden's influence peddling with peter schweizer and miranda devine, live sunday. that'll do it for us for now here on fox business. have a great rests of the we you again next time. ♪ ♪ gerry: hello, and welcome to the "wall street journal at large." as the biden administration continues to put out confusing