>> achievement was my personal ticket to get ahead this country. we need to revive that ideal. i think running for president is the right way to revive merit, to put it back in america. >> i do think we need to provide more of the advanced withinly they so desperately need. st the absolutely in the u.s. interests to support them, the only way to get peace here so to the defeat russia. >> i want us to be able to know with, you know, full absolute truth what is actually happening, what it would ache to win, what because winning mean. i don't think we have sufficiently had those questions answered. >> we need this market to price in a recession, and by june it'll be crestal clear that

we're in one -- crystal clear. >> when the fed count pivot in the way that the stock market has been expecting them to, we've got this higher for longer three e sis that's coming out. what's going to the happen? ♪ ♪ lauren: 1 11 a.m. on the east coast on wednesday, february 22nd. i'm lauren simonetti if in for stuart varney for this hour. the markets hanging in after bad declines yesterday, dow now negative for the year. it's the up 20 points. s&p up not even a point, the nasdaq tack on 14. let's look into the nasdaq a little bit further, put big tech up on the screen. a split decision here, amazon up 2%. alphabet slightly higher, but you can see met a the, "the washington post" is reporting more job cuts, but that stock down on that report.

the so- 10-year treasury note 3.9%, down 5.4 basis points from yesterday's 3-month high. now to this, former president trump heads to ohio today to visit the site of the east palestine train dethe rail. he's going to donate thousands of gallons of cleaning supply, more than a cousin palettes of concern dozen palettes of water concern pallets of water. president trump is a master political maneuverer. what do you make of him going to ohio before president bidensome. >> well, i think it's a mart move on his part.. -- smart move on his part. there are now three people in the race, and i think it's a good move. i think there's a lot of criticism from the people in that area who want to know why president biden couldn't at least have stopped there for an afternoon before he headed to ukraine. i think it's very interesting, you can sort of sense the messaging that has changed over the last 24 hours. this is all norfolk southern's fault.

this is not a, you know, government issue. they're all pointing their fingers at the company, and the company may be the one who is to blame here, but infrastructure's also weak in many places in the country. we heard the treasury, the transportation secretary, excuse me, pete buttigieg, say, well, a thousand of these happen a year, you know? this is a common occurrence. i guess that was some sort of reason not to have to pay attention to it, because it happens so much. but clearly they've all decided that the blame is norfolk southern's, they better clean it up, and it's their issue. lauren: and a reason for mayor pete not to go there because you have governor mike dewine9 and the epa chief, mike regan, they went into a woman's home, they poured her blue drinking glasses with faucet water, and they drank it to prove to the community that they do have some sense of control over this disaster. do you think that proves anything? a sip of water? >> you know, i mean, that was one of those moments, right, you watch them all pour the tap water and everybody creates it and, of course, the -- drinks

it, and, of course, the epa chief has to drink it just like everybody else, and we hope it's fine. it's a symbolic moment to say we're willing to create it, it's okay for -- to drink it. we've tested it. but i think sadly as we've learned with these situations over the years is it sometimes takes 5, 10 years, even decades to find out exactly what happened. i worry about the people doing the cleanup. i watched those guys with the construction equipment, and heir the right in the middle of it. they're churning it up -- this was a controlled burn, and it was a controlled chemical burn that was decision-made by the governor of ohio and the governor of pennsylvania. they said this is the way we're going to handle it. they said it was the best choice of of not great choices, but that's also a decision, i think, that's going to come back on then. lauren: mark tepper is also with us for the hour, you live about 50 miles from where this is going on. >> i'm actually, like, in the yellow zone. the ohio river does supply

drinking water to where i live. my house specifically though, we have a well system, so i don't know, i mean, my well could be impacted. i don't know if maybe the toxins went into the air and came down and penetrated the soil, so we will have to get that tested. when you look at what's going on there, it's a shame. this is one heck of a disaster, and nobody from this administration has shown up. and that's the most important thing in life, is just showing up. i mean, my fifth grade son who's on the basketball team was told the most important thing you can do is show up every single day and try your hardest. mayor pete, in his interview -- i believe it was yesterday -- when he talked about being mayor of south bend and experiencing disasters before, that was a bigtime slap in the face. i mean, the only disaster you experienced in south bend is the notre dame football team is overranked every preseason, and eventually they get their butts kicked, but it happens every year. they know that. so it's a very challenging situation. and i think the people who live

there, again, 50 miles from my house, they're feeling like they're not important. and if you remember when president biden was elected, he said he was going to be everyone's president. not just blue cities, not just blue states. everyone's president. well, that is a red town, and he's not their president right now. lauren: and it's a red town which might be why former president trump is going today. mark, we'll be with you in a second. martha, new york city mayor eric adams is begging new york city to crack down on illegal pot shops. listen. >> we're up to about 14-1500 cannabis, illegal cannabis with shops. they're targeting young people. children are getting high on the way to school. people don't realize what's happening in our country and our city. we got, we have to start refocusing. lauren: my friends who are teachers in new york say the kids are baked from the moment they enter the classroom to the moment they leave.

this is out of control. >> it is. and good for mayor adams for drawing attention, he said, oh, maybe i'm old-fashioned, but i don't think kids should be showing up after they're shoveling gummies in their mouth on the way to school. this is a disaster. this is an absolute disaster. you can't walk anywhere in new york for more than maybe an hour, i would say, just, you know, fairly honestly without getting, like, a big waft of -- this is the not good for the city, it's not good for the country. this legalization, you know, obviously you can have an argument about this, but i would say that it doesn't, it doesn't make us better as a city. it doesn't make us stronger as a nation. and this is a huge problem problem. but he can't change the rules. they get fined $250, an illegal cannabis shop, ask they go, yeah, whatever, that's three customers. from albany it has to come down that they can crack down on these places in a stronger or way, and he's begging albany to give his law enforcement what they need in order to shut these

places down. sounds ridiculous, but apparently that's the situation. lauren: it seems like he's begging albany for a lot lately -- >> and getting nothing. it's preposterous. what you just said, let's think about that. the kids who are going to school in new york city, you wonder why we don't have proficiency in reading, math or science? it's ridiculous. you'd never let kids go to school drunk. little kids can get their hands on these things and go to third, fourth, fifth, sixth grade high? lauren: and what happens after that? what drugs do they graduate to in not all of them -- >> well, if you're doing it many those days and you're baked out all day, i'd say the prospect of that the happening is probably better than not. lauren: martha maccallum, thank you. let's get a check of the markets. treading water, i guess. dow's up 32, nasdaq up 17. mark, when you look at the fomc

is, the minutes will be released later today. is the his tan i city, the big decline yesterday, the hesitancy today all because of the fear of rates keep going up? >> i think so. you've seen rates continue to go up. man, oh, man, on a six month treasury you can get 5%. all of a sudden treasuries look attractive again and they haven't is been for a long time. as rates go up, obviously you see these higher valuation stocks selloff. -- sell off. i want to belief that that is typically due to rates. lauren: o.k.. where would you invest right now? >> i've been talking -- let me make sure i get this right. i've been talking defense. i think you need exposure to defense. lockheed martin, raytheon. given all the geopolitical tensions that continue to go up day by day by day, these defense stocks, and raytheon happens to be our second biggest holding. they underperformed at the end of last year and through january because they were pricing in

austerity as we're having these debt ceiling discussions. as soon as the chinese spy balloon was spotted at the gunning of february, these -- beginning of february, these stocks are now outperforming. when you think about it, we landed on the moon in 1969. we didn't know to look up 65,000 feet to see a balloon until it actually was over the top of montana. like, that's crazy. i feel like we've become complacent, and we need to invest more in defense. lauren: not to mention the president announcing unwavering support for ukraine, which is good for the defense companies. you also like nvidia. why is that? >> if there was one growth stock i could own for the 10 years without selling it and just sit there and hold it -- lauren: 10 years, hold it. >> -- i said nvidia. they make the chips for all the highest growth markets out there. a.i., autonomous driving, data centers, gaming. they no longer have that crypto hangover that plagued them last year, so -- if there was one stock i could own for 10 years, that would be it.

lauren: up barely today, 206.96 a share. ashley, you have business headlines. start with microsoft. ashley: stu's favorite, lauren. yeah. they just announced they are bringing a bing a.i. chat pot to phones -- chat bot to phones. microsoft also announcing a new voice chat feature so hat the app can function like a robotic virtual assistant. ing dogget is investing 100 million in supply chain hubs to speed up their delivery. they report holiday earnings next week, that should be interesting, up slightly today. and this is interesting, subway is planning on building ev charging stations at some restaurants across the country. the stations apparently will include wi-fi, restrooms, picnic tables and playgrounds. that infrastructure starting to build up ever so slowly. all right. lauren: i think that's a great idea.

a playground and a relatively healthy sandwich plus a charging station. ashley, thank you. see you in a bit. the next book you read could be written entirely by 56789i., chatgpt authors are taking over kindle store, and we're on that. tesla shareholders have a big problem with elon musk's $55 billion pay package. lawyers say void it immediately. and right now the president is getting ready to head back to washington, d.c. the after his trip to poland and to ukraine. he is returning to big questions about classified documents, the ohio train derailment and whether or not he plans on running in 204. jacqui heinrich has the report from the white house next. ♪ ♪ you'll always remember buying your first car.

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lauren: president biden heads home tonight after his trip to poland and surprise visit to kyiv. jacqui heinrich is at the white house now. president biden has several domestic issues waiting for him upon his arrival. >> reporter: yeah, lauren, you know, when the president left for poland, we were still getting news about how the administration made decisions to shoot down three likely harmless objects over north america and also news on his apparent miss a handling of classified cock can units. but what has probably drawn the most criticism is his absencing from east pal sign the, ohio. the mayor there criticizing the president for going to ukraine before his community. >> that was the biggest slap in the face.

that tells you right now he doesn't care about us. so he can send every agency he wants to, but i found that out this morning in one of the briefings, that he was in the ukraine giving millions of dollars away to people over there, not to us. i'm furious. >> reporter: well, the president responded overnight saying after his speech in warsaw, he had calls with the epa administrator, the governors of ohio and neighboring pennsylvania plus ohio's democratic senator and republican congressman who represents east palestine. biden saying he has reaffirmed his prejudice -- pledge, they will all have what they need and also added epa'srd ordered norfolk southern, the rail company, to pay for cleanup. but he also defend his transportation secretary saying the department is limited in rail safety measures that it can implement because, quote: for years elected officials including the last administration have limited our ability to implement and strengthen, excuse me, rail safety measures. heck, many of the elected officials pointing fingers right

now want to kiss mantle the epa -- dismantle, the agency that is making sure this cleanup happens. biden called on congress to take up the issue, but so far there are no plans for him to the make a trip to the disaster zone. >> if they were smart and on the ground on day one, they would have been there, they could have listened, they could have had some transparency, restored confidence, and you could still make your trip to ukraine. >> joe biden, don't just show up where the press shows up. show up where america needs you. >> reporter: three weeks after the derailment, transportation secretary pete buttigieg says he will, in fact, visit east palestine, but no plans -- no timeline, rather, for that just yet. he wants it to be focused on action around rail safety, lauren. lauren: jack question heinrich -- jacqui heinrich, thank you. let's bring in kt mcfarland. president biden has poured out u.s. support to the ukrainians in the war efforts. he said that support is unwavering. my question to you, at what

point do we either pull back financially speaking or just give all of the weapons that zelenskyy wants to him without that, well, they're complicated to train on and then you eventually weeks later give them? >> you know, it's interesting that you phrased the question that way, because it's all about weapons, right in that's how the biden administration has a approached this, do we give ukraine more weapons, less weapons? how about using all the other tools in our toolbox which we're not using in for example, well, we have sanctions against russia. yeah, but heir not very effective sanctions really because china and india are buying russian oil even if we can't buy russian oil. so there are other ways to do it. so, for example, how about stopping the war on american toes -- fossil fuels? be great for us, american energy independence, but we would be globally energy dominant. in other words, we could set the price of oil and gas way below where it is now. what does that do? it bankrupts russia.

russia a may want to fight on forever, but it couldn't fight on forever. the other thing is that i'm listening to what president biden's saying with all the nato allies that he's meeting. i haven't heard anybody say that the other countries in europe, the other countries which have an interest in ukraine winning and russia being defeated, they're not the upping up their contributions. they're not increasing their oden -- own defense budgets, they're not increasing what heir giving to ukraine to fight this war. yeah, there are a lot of other things we could co, i just don't see them doing any of 'em. i i want ukraine to win, but i want to figure out how to make it happen right now. we're in a stalemate that's going to crag on and on and on, and there's no end in sight. and mean while, it's bleeding us. lauren: yeah, absolutely. meanwhile, you have china's president, xi jinping, reportedly going to visit moscow this spring for a summit with president putin. so china apparently wants to broker the peace.

kt, why don't they get on the phone and call zelenskyy then, right? nobody trusts china. [laughter] >> well, i'm not so sure china really wants to broker the peace. i think what china wants to do is have this go on and on and on. look, what'll happen in a protracted stalemate, you know, trench warfare situation, it bleeds the united states for all the reasons i just said. china keeps contributing to the russia's defenses either financially or with weapons systems, and meanwhile, what are we doing in the united states? we're taking our eye off the ball. for 20 years republicans and democrats have focused on the middle east, and they forgot about china, the real strategic threat. here we are again, déjà vu all over again. we're focused on russia and ukraine. meanwhile, china is preparing to basically eat our breakfast, lunch and dinner, and we're not focusing our efforts where we need to focus. i'm not saying that you do one or the other, i'm saying you do both. but what we're not doing right

now is doing what we need to do to counter china. lauren: right. and the president should say if china supplies this to putin, to russia, these are the repercussions. kt, thank you. let's coa quick check on the markets -- do a quick check on the markets. some green on the screen. the dow jones industrial average is up by 27 points. the rest of the market's hanging in. the s&p just barely. next one we have, ashley, tesla. shareholders want to void elon musk's $55 billion compensation package. why, ashley, what's the problem? if. ashley: lawyers for the shareholders argue that that compensation package should be voided because it was dictated by musk, and they say the result of sham negotiations with directors who were not incompetent of mr. musk. they -- independent. they also claim it was approved by share e holders who were given misleading and incomplete disclosures in a proxy statement. lawyers for musk say the pay plan, hey, it was fairly

negotiated by a compensation committee whose hebb miss concern members were independent and containedded performance milestones and also blessed by a shareholder vote. they also argue that the compensation package was a high-risk, high-reward keel that benefited not just musk, but tesla shareholders as well. the arguments go on in delaware court. still no sign of when a final decision will be made. lauren: okay. ashley, thank you. come into this, mark. what do you think? >> boohoo. boohoo. i do not feel bad for the shareholders at all in this situation. if you go back to january 1st of 2018, because this was a 2018 issue, elon musk has 10x'd that company's value. it went to over $600 billion, and he doesn't deserve to get paid? i understand that's quite a bit of pay, all right? i get it. lauren: well, he's a busy, hard working man. >> right. i mean, that company was on the verge of bankruptcy. we all know they were, like, a month if away from having really to just shut the doors. and he saved the company.

and these shareholders have been rewarded in that, you know, they've 10x'd their investment over the course of that time frame. the interesting thing, nobody was complaining last year when the company was worth other a trillion dollars. as soon as it pulls back, the money grubbers come for you. lauren: susan li was reporting earlier that some teslas are actually cheaper than traditional gas-powered cars because of everything elon musk has done to make tesla a brand name. mark, thank you. border officials calling out the prime minister of canada the for the migrant surge. roll it. >> they're allowing it to happen. these cartels and smuggling organizations are making money hand over fist. lauren: border patrol is now begging for help to secure the northern border, and we are on that story. san francisco considering a plan to pay $5 million in reparations to all black residents. deroy murdock says that plan takes the go woke-go broke strategy to an epic level.

deroy joins me after this. ♪ ♪

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♪ wasting away in margaritaville. ♪ searching for -- can. lauren: beautiful shot of new york city, and we're playing this song because today is national margarita day. with salt? >> i know what i'm doing after the show. yeah, with salt. [laughter] lauren: always with salt. i think the markets could use a margarita, or perhaps they've had one too many because they're justed treading water right now after a 2% decline yesterday. susan li joins us now. susan, you have some movers. start with meta. a washington post report. i'm susan formerly known as facebook has denied that washington post story, another round of layoffs on cards. you had spokesperson eddie stone asking "the washington post," how do you run a story with the headline, storyline as con a that districted by the reporting in the same storiesome we're going to bring up this tweet

from andy stone. basically, he's asking the meta communications person is asking, you know, why wapo is running this headline when zuck did promise there would not be another round of layoffs after cutting # 1,000 the last year. wapo isn't the only outlet, media outlet predicting another round of cuts. i've herald and read the same thing in bloomberg and also "the wall street journal" as well indicating that more cuts, more people could be pushed out of met a the. i want to show you metaimmediats well. warner brothers discovery is on a tear, they own cmn, hbo to. it's the up 55% so far this year, and they're set to report a near there tripling in quarterly sales in its earn earnings report card tomorrow. also want to show you costar and news corp. because that clash 3 billion -- $3 billion dollar deal to buy i move, apparently that is off now.

wall street thought this was the main reason that news corp. and fox corp., that remerger, was canceled so this deal could go through. a bit of a surprise for wall street. palo alto networks giving cyber stronger i concern stocks really a big lift across the board. after a decade of losing money, you have to really give the credit to the ceo of palo alto. they're also raising guy cannes for the full year, and cybersecurity looks almost recession-proof. higher rates, a slowing economy, it doesn't mean that companies spending money on protecting themselves on the internet has dwindled. nvidia reporting after the bell, wall street expecting better guidance from the world's largers chipmaker. nvidia's worth about 225 according to pipe e and the stock is up 40% so far. that activision/call of duty deal yesterday which microsoft helps will push through that acquisition to buy activision.

intel is cutting its dividend by two-thirds, lowest pay in 16 years. intel really being left behind in the chip wars, that stock is down last year,st down this year so far. but stu actually taught me that it became a dividend play because that's what he looks at. they actually gave 4% dividend yields before they cut today. lauren: mark tepper says he'll hold on the nvidia for ten years. >> that would be the one. lauren: all right, we told you about san francisco's slavery reparations plan which would give $5 million to every black resident. but some people don't they's enough x that that is the subject of deroy murdock's new op-ed. he joins us now. in just -- should san francisco be making reparations and those payments in the first place regardless of how much? >> i don't think so. i think slavery reparations are a terrible idea. what it does, it takes this country and makes us look back 150, 157, 58 years back to 1865

and before that. i think the best way to achieve greater opportunity for black folks in this country is through school choice. i'd love to see the board of supervisors and board of education give more school choice option to kids in san francisco. that's a useful conversation. but this whole business about clash 5 million per black recipient, and some people are saying that's not enough. a man that easton the is the -- that's on the board of supervisors, he says clash 5 million, that's nothing. he wants even more. he's not giving a number, but he calls it a very, quote, very minuscule, is the term he used. lauren: are there any strings attached to move -- the money? what do you do with that money? >> whatever you like. there are no strings attached. lauren: then why wouldn't every city want to do this? >> that's an interesting question. let's say every black american got $5 million. the budget would be $210 trillion. that's $66 -- 667% of the

current national debt, enough money to fund the pentagon for, i leave, 284 years add last year's levels, all the way to year 2307. that money would run the pentagon until the year 2307. these are fantasy numbers, wizard of oz math, and i think what these people are doing in san francisco is getting black folks excited about something that can't happen, because there's no money. lauren: where would it come from? >> who knows? nobody's got this kind of a money sitting around, so they're getting a lot of poor black people excited about a payoff that's not coming. again, based on an idea that there's this collective guilt about slavery which ended, you know, 150 plus years agoing, and there's this effort on the left to look back, focus on slavery, racism and not look forward at the future, at opportunity and a chance to make in the a better company. >> 70% of lottery winners go broke within a few years, so i

asked that during the commercial break. this is kind of the equivalent of winning the lottery. you get $5 million, you never -- you can't have to work hard and manage it to grow it to 5 million. it's dropped in your lap, and i would expect that the statistics are at least parallel to the lottery statistic i i just used. 70% are broke within a few years. >> probably so, yeah. lauren: deroy murdock, thank you for the time. and now this, amazon has seen a boom in e-books with chatgpt listed as the author. are these books really written by the a.i. software, and if so, are they any good? ashley: well, i haven't read one, but it is true, lauren. it turns out that chatgpt is not only an interactive research tool,nd it can also make writing a book child's play, literally. a salesman used the a. i. software to create a 30-page illustrated children's e-book in a matter of years, and then he went and sold it on amazon. you know what? he's not alone. there are now more than 200

e-books in amazon's kindle store listing chatgpt as author or co-hour. there's even a new -- co-author. but there are plenty of concerns because the software learns how to write by scanning millions of pages of existing text. of course, that raises questions about authenticity and accusations of plagiarism. remarkable. lauren. lauren: yeah, i know. i was interviewing a college counselor, and she said everything is going to become personal. students are going to have to personalize everything in a way to just get the flavors and the chatgpt out of of the equation. mark, would you buy a book that was written by artificial intelligence. >> not by this artificial intelligence the way it's programmed. we've talked before about the biases that chatgpt has. it definitely is kind of woke. we mow that silicon valley -- we

know that silicon valley tends to lean left, so if i wanted a short form children's book, very woke that talked about gender identification, maybe i would get it, but that's not for me. at least we know who can write kamala's teleprompt orer notes. [laughter] lauren: but who delivers it? i think i just laughed like her. apologies, audience. and now this: planning a wedding right now, well, anything but cheap. roll the tape. >> what is that, is that dollars, $1200? >> this is a very reasonable price for a cake of this magnitude. >> a cake, frank, is made of flour and water. my first car didn't cost $1200. lauren: the shocking new report on how inflation is, yes, driving up the cost of weddings. corn farmers are furious as mexico moves to ban gmo white corn imports effective immediately. this change wasn't supposed to happen for at least another

year. madison alworth has reaction from farmers, after this. ♪ ♪ tell me why you cry and why you lie to me ♪ good luck. td ameritrade, this is anna. hi anna, this position is all over the place, help! hey professor, subscriptions are down but that's only an estimated 15% of their valuation. do you think the market is overreacting? how'd you know that? the company profile tool, in thinkorswim®. yes, i love you!!

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♪ lauren: the migrant surge that's crippling the southern boarder has now made -- border has now made its way up north. migrants are traveling to canada and entering the united states through vermont. come this in on this, ashley. what's the vermont border patrol saying and doing about this? ashley: well, they're not happy, as you can imagine. sean walsh, he's the president of the swanson sector, the national border patrol council in vermont, he's calling out canadian prime minister justin trudeau claiming that canada's lenient travel policies are allowing a border crisis to the

north to worsen. walsh says electronic travel authorization basically allows migrants to fly visa-free from mexico to canada. watch this. >> they're allowing it to happen. the visas in place they are allowed to travel a lot easier, they fly into montreal, ontario, and you name it across canada. and these cartels and smuggling organizations are making money hand over fist. ashley: you know, one vermont sector has seen an 846% spike in migrant encounters from the same time last year. and because of the unprecedented staffing shortages in recent years, cartels are exploiting what some critics call a porous border to the north as many agents, as we know, have been key accelerated south. and now -- diverted south. lauren: yep, it became a blind spot. ashley, thank you. ashley: yeah. lauren: mexico has also moved to

ban the import of gmo white corn from the u.s. madison alworth joins us on set. this move wasn't expected, was it? >> reporter: no. this came as a total surprise, lauren. farmers weren't expecting this ban to go into effect for another year, if at all. that's because it goes against united states, mexico, canada trade agreement, and it's leaving american farmers who depend on business with mexico in the dark. >> when they turn their back on the agreement with this decree banning gmo white corn seemingly overnight, that's just a very clear violation of this agreement that we all had sat down and agreed to. and, you know, friends don't let friends break trade promises to each other. >> reporter: corn is our largest agriculture export, and mexico is our biggest buyer. jobman, a fifth generation farmer, expolice reports 30% of his -- exports 30% of his product with much of it going to mexico, but thanks to this

decree, he's looking for other buyers. it puts a hold around the decision around yellow gmo corn. but farm if terse say with this move, it's clear, mexico wants to pull out from the trade agreement for gm if o corn, and that would hurt both countries. the national corn growers' association is helping the u.s. trade representative will step up to defend u.s. trade policy of. >> we would like to see that the ustr with ambassador tye go to mexican officials and say we would not accept your latest decree. follow the rules of the trade agreement. >> reporter: so i've been talking extensively with the national corn growers' association, and white corn farmers still have a lot of questions around this decree. most of them have contracts with mexican buyers, and they're under the assumption that these deals will not be honored. but that's corn that's sitting there ready to ship out, but the entire table has been turned. lauren: and what are the repercussions? >> at this point there are none. mexico's made this decision.

but if they file this dispute, then there would be an outside panel that would review it and -- yes. it wouldn't exactly be a lawsuit. there is protocan kohl to go through this process -- protocol, but the u.s. has to take that step. lauren: madison is, thank you. let's pull up the dow 30 to get a sense of the muted market reaction that we're seeing today. of course, the fed minutes from the last meeting due at 2:00 this afternoon. this is a split decision. home depot is leading the dow now,s the up over 1%. walmart is the biggest loser, down the about 2.2% today. msnbc host joy reid wants to cancel the war on wokeness. >> this whole war against wokeness is really a war against freedom. lauren: she's using that argument, a war existence freedom, to attack -- against freedom, to attack florida governor ron desantis, and we have that story next. ♪ ♪ don't wake me up, don't wake

me ♪

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lauren: they say last year's wedding boom is wining down but not on this show. we have some weddings coming up. there is new data that finds inflation, however, is still driving up the cost to say i do. ashley, how much do weddings cost nowadays? ashley: let's just say a pretty pen knit. couples will shell out an average of $29,000 this year to say i do, that's up from $28,000 last year. so up $1,000. in 0 the 19, before the covid pandemic, by the way, the average cost closer to $24,700. but as we know, inflation adding to the betrothal bottom line. a survey of wedding vendors shows 77% are raising prices this year while couples, didn't think about this, but couples, of course, have smaller budgets for services. and so to mitigate rising costs, more couples are forgoing typical traditions, shopping on secondhand markets or even opting for a weekday or morning

celebration. by the way, more than 2.6 million if weddings were held in the u.s. last year, but that number is expected to drop this year. although i've got to say a monday morning wedding doesn't have quite the same appeal. lauren? lauren lauren how many weddings have you thrown, ashley, for your kids? ashley: how many have you thrown? lauren: yes. not for yourself ors for your children. ashley: oh -- no, i haven't yet so far. i'm trying to save up my money for that. lauren: oh! ashley: i have two daughters and i know it's coming. lauren: forgive me. i guess you've been warned. ashley: oh, i know. lauren: msnbc host joy reid is slamming florida governor ron desantis for his war on woke ideology. watch. >> this whole war against wokeness is really a war against freedom. and you know what? some conservatives and libertarians know it too. what's been a problem for florida is now a problem for america. desantis is determined to stamp out intellectual freedom,

and it's causing other red states to scrutinize ap black studies, replacing a multitude of ideas with the one idea he holds dear, the centrality of white christian thought. lauren: terry schilling is the president of the american principals' project, and he joins us now. terry, do you think this is a war on free come? >> you know, it's -- freedom? you know, it's equally a war on common sense and parental rights, right? that's what wokism is, it is an attack on our kids, it's an indoctrination factory that they're turning our schools into. 35% of our kids are proficient in reading in third grade. that means almost two out of every three kids are basically illiterate, and it's because we're putting in all this woke garbage. wokism is an attempt to teach kids to hate their country, hate their countries and that men can have babies. lauren: it seems to me joy reid was actually worried about a desantis presidency. [laughter]

right? >> no, that's exactly right. everyone in the room knows it. ron desantis has been a huge warrior against all things woke. he has declared war on wokism because he knows it's anti-america it's anti-family are, it's anti-religion, anti everything this country was built on. lauren: and then you have the governor of arkansas, sarah huckabee sanders, she wants her education reform to be a blueprint for the entire country, and that bill includes raising teachers' pay so they get paid more, they can also get a bonus, a ban on political indoctrination and unlimited school choice. terry, should all statements adopt governor sanders' plan? >> i'm encouraging every state in the company to compete with governor sanders. like i said previously, 35% of our third graders can read at their own level. this is a major problem. the money is going to all the people that it shouldn't be. the average cost, i'm from fairfax county, they spend $19,000 per pupil, per year. my kids should know greek and

latin for that, and they don't even know -- lauren: that's for the public school cans. so you're saying give the $19,000 to the student to go wherever their parents think they should do best. >> school choice. >> exactly. let the parents decide, and we're going to be a a lot better off. lauren lauren terry schilling, thank you. now it's time for the wednesday trivia question, which president created the federal trade commission? was it -- we'll have the answer, i don't know, right after this. muck finish muck. ♪ like happiness, love and confidence... you can't buy those. but you can invest in them. at t. rowe price, our strategic investing approach can help you build the future you imagine. . . highly recommend it! zifans love zicam's unique zinc formula. it shortens colds! zicam. zinc that cold!

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♪. lauren: which president created the federal trade commission? mark tepper, was it -- >> got nothing on this one. i will go with woodrow wilson. lauren: woodrow wilson. fdr, number four. ashley. >> i have not a clue. go with number one to be different. lauren: teddy roosevelt. we're all wrong. woodrow wilson. ftc was created on september 26 back in 1914. we have a "fox business alert." powe "politico" reported ha transportation secretary pete buttigieg will visit ohio 20 days after the train derailment. that is it for "varney & company." "coast to coast" starts right now. neil: forget what do you b