liquidity events from mismanaged and unregulated bank, but we're going to start having credit events so i'd be lighting up here. maria: yeah, and lee? you've got another rescue underway. markets are celebrating that right now. first citizens up 55%, but the worries are real about the safety of our banks. real quick. >> the worries are really real. when you look at the most recent polling only 10% of americans have confidence in the banking system. maria: wow. >> there's a lot of work to do. maria: sure is. michael lee, lee carter, great to be with you both this morning we'll see you again tomorrow, everybody thanks very much for joining us "varney" & company picks it up now. stu over to you. stuart: i'll pick it up. good morning, maria, and good morning, everyone. after the weekend, the first question is what's happening to the banking crisis and how safe is my money? here is the news. a north carolina bank, first citizens, has acquired the troubled silicon valley bank svb reopens this morning with a new name, first citizens.

the rescue cost the fdic $20 billion, paid for by bank insurance funds. now, bank stocks pretty much across-the-board are going up. looking at the big banks there, they're all up in percentage terms. no sell-off then monday morning. show me the financials that's the local regional banks, they're all up significantly, especially first republic, which has been troubled and it's up 32 %. well, investors that will be stock market investors, really like this. the dow industrials should open with a gain of about 200 points. a smaller gain in percentage terms for the s&p and the nasdaq , but we're seeing green on this monday morning. on the interest rate front. the 10-year treasury yields 3.49 % as we speak. the two-year at 3.95%. with yields going up, you can tell that there is no flight-to- safety so far this monday morning. look at the price of gas. i still have to apologize.

i expected it to go down. i was utterly wrong. gas this morning is the same price as it was last week 3.43 unchanged but i do have to tell you, i paid 2.99 in new jersey this weekend. big smiles all around. politics. trump came out swinging literally. he brandished a baseball bat and threatened death and destruction if the new york district attorney indicts him. at a rally in texas saturday, he mocked governor of florida desantis, but the crowd stayed relatively quiet on that. we're going to question whether trump's old style is effective for the 2024 election. president biden potions about to start a three-week 20-state invest in america tour. sure looks like it's the beginning of his re-election campaign. it will be an up hill struggle though. inflation is his big problem. half of us think we're getting worse off. 80% think their children will be worse off than they are now. big tech doing some heavy duty diplomatic work, apple's tim kukin china.

he says his company has a symbio tic relationship with beijing. cook has to navigate a relationship with china that worsens by the day. separately the new york times reports internal descent at apple over those interactive goggles. some employees quoted as saying the price, 3,000 bucks, too high , and there's not much of a market for the product. this is a big deal. those goggles are supposed to be the next big platform. the stock is down just a fraction. monday, march 27, 2023, "varney" & company is about to begin. ♪ ♪ stuart: take over control okay because i'm about to take over control. okay there's the connection. monday morning would you look at that? it's 9:00 in midtown manhattan.

i'm not going to say it's empty but it's not very crowded is it? we work tuesdays, wednesdays, and thursdays in new york. let's get to it. first citizens bank buying silicon valley bank, good mornren. tell me, take me through it. lauren: so as you noted the 17 silicon valley branches reopened as first citizens today, so don't be confused if you see a different sign. north carolina's first citizen's bank bought the loans of svb worth $72 billion at a hefty discount of $16.5 billion. they assume assets of 110 billion, deposits of 56 billion, and they entered a line of credit with the fdic where the agency would absorb part of potential commercial loan losses. the cost to the fdic about $20 billion. that fund has about 120 billion in it. so, we enter monday morning with no new failed bank. that's why futures are up. that's why shares of regional banks as you see here are surging. first republic up 28%. is this the all-clear is the question?

i think we know more april 14. jpmorgan reports, what do they say about the deposits that the have come to them and are they going to still do bail-outs stuart: it's march 27, it's a long way. there's stuff happening before then. lauren: yeah, i agree. first republic might be the first question what happens to them, because they are still figuring out what to do. stuart: i'm interested is this the calm before the storm? on the futures market this morning we see a lot of green, dow, s&p, nasdaq, all on the upside. solid gains there. jeff sica with us this monday morning. all right, jeff. the markets up. bank stocks are up. is this the calm before a maybe storm? >> well, i would consider last week, about as calming as getting waterboarded or tasered so i wouldn't think it was calm when we're sitting at the precipice of what could have been massive bank failures when the fed had to step in. janet yellen, who i consider the most incoherent person alive , had to step in and assure

us that the fed would guarantee most deposits. that was a big step, and then also, to have jerome powell raise interest rates yet act like, say he's a hawk but act like a dove, and that's exactly what he did last week. stuart: so is this the calm before the storm? >> i believe it is. stuart: so a storm is coming? >> the storm is coming because here you have -- i don't believe we're going to have bank collapses like people fear, but banks are going to tighten lending. they are going to pull in liquidity, and that is going to cutoff the lifeline to a lot of businesses. the banks supply the liquidity for businesses to grow. number one. number two, you also have the consumer. the consumer has gotten kicked in the teeth. the savings rate are among the lowest since the financial crisis and also, the credit card debt is the highest on-record, with some of the highest

interest rates on record, so the consumer is affected and corporate earnings have to scale down, so i believe this was a quick fix. i think it was a sugar high. i think we've got to be very very cautious going forward stuart: in 60 seconds can you tell me why you are now buying gold? >> yeah, i think everybody should dig holes in their yard and buy as much physical gold as possible. stuart: you've got that from me. >> yes, i did and when you asked me where do i keep my gold and i said i can't tell you that but the reality about gold that is a protest against government inadequacies so you have a lot of people who don't trust the central banks with what they're doing with currency and they want to control their own destiny, so they're going to continue to devalue currency. people are running to gold. if you look at countries like russia, like china, they are stockpiling physical gold. we hit 2,000, the magic number,

last week, which was great. the banking crisis, people just don't trust the government and gold is a great alternative. stuart: okay, a storm is coming, buy gold. i think we can summarize it there, jeff sica, you're all right thank you very much indeed now this. former president trump held a rally in waco, texas. here are some of the highlights. roll tape. >> you put me back in the white house, their reign will be over and america will be a free nation once again. so they're not coming after me. they're coming after you and i'm just standing in their way and i'm going to be standing in their way for a long time, and eventually, i won't have to stand in their way, because in 2024 we're going to have the greatest victory of them all we will stand up to the rhinos, and we will defeat joe biden and every single democrat. stuart: well, let's bring in rachel campos-duffy, friend of the program. my friend from fox & friends.

rachel? trump also posted a video, an image actually, an image, on social media. this is the one with the baseball bat. i'm not going to show it because its been deleted. does the country support trump wielding a baseball bat threatening mayhem and calling alvin bragg an animal? is that what we want to see in a presidential candidate? rachel: i mean i think those are things we expect to see from donald trump. this has already been baked in the cake. stuart: do we like it? rachel: well what i'm saying is i think what the people went to that rally, what they wanted to hear about that was two-tier justice system and he's become a symbol and there's a lot of conservatives out there who see whether it's january 6 versus the 2020 rioters how differently they were treated, raiding trump's home and his kid 's bet room but hunter biden is not. i think people are very worried about this two-tier justice system. i interviewed some venezuelans on my program about

a year ago and said when did you know things were going wrong in venezuela and they said when the justice system was weaponized against the opposition. this is something very troubling for people and they are looking for somebody strong. stuart: how do you think independents in this country will react? rachel: i don't think he's trying to win independents right now. stuart: he can't win the election without independents. rachel: right but one of the great -- stuart: he may get them but if he doesn't have the independents he can't win. rachel: but you have to win the race you're in right now. right now he's in a primary. you can't, you see it all the time, stuart. you know that people pivot once they get into the general versus the primary. right now he's trying to do something else. listen, desantis is also fighting on a different level and i think what he is doing well is saying i'm going to take on the indoctrination and so many of the cultural issues that are eroding our country. we had some polls out today. you and i talked about some of them on our show earlier on fox & friends, where, you know, 80%

of americans think we're on the wrong track. they think that patriotism and so many other things are on the decline so those are some of the things that ron desantis is doing well but also people are looking for somebody who can take the punches. stuart: okay. i'll return to my original question. rachel: okay. stuart: how do you think americans feel about a presidential candidate wielding a baseball bat prior to a possible indictment? i'm calling his judicial opponent an animal. now, how do you think you feel? is that a place in american politic? rachel: listen if you want to line up all of the things donald trump has done that aren't the way other people do it, i agree. there's a lot of things people don't like about him but at the same time there's a lot of people that like the strength that he shows and think that he is the one person who can take on what i think is a real deterioration in our country. economically, but also i think

this justice system is, and that's why this situation with alvin bragg is so important. do i care that donald trump, you know, paid off some hooker? i don't love it, but you know what bothers me more? china paying off our president. our current president, so i'm just saying let's look at things in fairness. stuart: okay, fairness is a good thing. rachel, thank you very much for being here. rachel: you got it. stuart: we'll see you again soon check futures please monday morning want to see what's going on. we're up, dow is up maybe 200 points at the opening bell. nasdaq up about 41. here is what's coming up for you the chairman of the house committee on foreign affairs michael mccaul slammed president biden's foreign policy. watch this. >> since president biden has come into office he's projected weakness, and when you project weakness, you invite aggression and war. >> it's a weak foreign policy out of fear. stuart: how weak are we and what are the consequences of weakness kt mcfarland on that, later in the show. just a week after proclaiming he be arrested, donald trump now says manhattanda braganca drop b

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when you're ready come and get it ♪ stuart: yeah, that's actually that is trump tower, on fifth avenue in new york city. the song is "come and get it." i'm not sure the relationship to trump tower but there you go. president trump claims manhattan 's district attorney alvin bragg has dropped the case against him. bryan llenas joins us. brian? is that accurate? have they dropped the case?

reporter: yeah, stuart so look. grand jury proceedings are secret, so as far as we know, the grand jury has not even started to deliberate whether they're going to indicted former president trump, and there's been no announcement from manhattan district attorney alvin bragg that he is dropping this case. the grand jury is expected though to meet today. now, former president trump held his first presidential campaign rally in waco, texas over the weekend. he spent a lot of time during that speech railing against bragg's investigation into hush money payments allegedly made to adult film star stormy daniels and also spoke about three other investigations he's facing as well. >> i will be the president of the united states. >> [applause] >> you will be vindicated and proud and the thugs and criminal s who are corrupting our justice system will be defeated, discredited and totally disgraced. reporter: on truth social trump warned an indictment could bring "potential death and destructio" trump also posted a photo

holding a baseball bat next to bragg's head which has since been taken down. amid security concerns, on friday, a death threat was mailed to the da's office. republican house judiciary chairman jim jordan sent another letter also to bragg saturday reiterating his request for bragg to testify to congress about the possible indictment and to hand over documents and trans scripts. in a tweet, bragg responded in part, "we evaluate cases in our jurisdiction based on the facts, the law and the evidence. it is not appropriate for congress to interfere with pending local investigations" but, stuart, jordan has made it clear he believes congress absolutely has the right to investigate this because he thinks bragg started this investigation because trump decided to run for president again. stuart? stuart: brian, got it thanks very much indeed. look whose here now, greg jarrot , our legal eagle on monday morning. greg? you're an attorney. i would imagine it would take some pretty heavy duty lobbying to have alvin bragg drop the

case. i can't see that happening, can you? >> oh, i can see it happening. i do think about a week ago it was 100% certainty that the grand jury would render an indictment, but a couple of things have happened, stu. sources are telling fox news that there is deception in the ranks at the da's office among seasoned senior experienced prosecutors. far more experienced than alvin bragg, with better records, and they see this as transparently political, because he's convoluted legal theory against trump is not supported by the law and certainly not by the evidence, and i think the other thing that's happening is the grand jurors may have now second thoughts after the testimony of michael cohen's former lawyer who described him as a predigious liar and can't be trusted and of course that's alvin bragg's star witness, so, you know, it's unclear whether

bragg will pursue a vote on an indictment or whether the grand jurors will vote in favor of it. they were told that bragg has been concealing, hiding, exculpa tory evidence. that would probably not sit well with most grand jurors. stuart: okay. forgive me for going back to the baseball bat, but i want to go back to it, okay, gregg? what was your first thought when you saw trump wielding a baseball bat ahead of a possible indictment? >> robert dinero and the famous film "the untouchables" holding a baseball bat. i don't know if trump was trying to mimic that but i think he was trying to be provocative to make liberals heads explode and of course that's exactly what happened. i tend to agree with my old friend joe takapina, who is trump's lawyer that it is ill- advised but it is not a

crime as some people have claimed. the supreme court has repeatedly said that, you know, advocating violence is protected speech. it's only a crime if you are encouraging and directing specific acts of violence that are imminent and likely to occur , and an image instead of words has never been held to be a crime. stuart: but i notice that that image has been withdrawn. gregg jarrot, thanks for being with us this morning. former governor of new york andrew cuomo is weighing in on this on a possible trump indictment. what's he saying? lauren: he said the crime is a misdemeanor and this is an abuse of prosecutorial discretion. watch. >> i think it's all politics, and i think that's what the people of this country are saying and it just feeds that anger and that sinicism and the partisanship. it's a coincidence that bragg goes after trump and tish james goes after trump and georgia

goes after trump that's all a coincidence, and i think it feed s the sinicism and that's the cancer in our body politic right now. lauren: that's what trump is campaigning on, right? stuart: yes. lauren: all of those indictments or judgments against him, so, at one point in that interview, cuomo said well da's indict a ham sandwich, they can convince a grand jury on anything but as you heard maybe not here because the seasoned prosecutors are saying oh, maybe we should back away from this one. stuart: yeah, we'll see how that turns out. thanks, lauren. look at futures, please we're six or seven minutes away from the opening bell. i see plenty of green on a monday morning and we will take you to the opening bell, next. how you gonna do it if you really don't want to dance by standing on a wall ♪

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toyota, double the margins of most other legacy manufactures, tesla is creating new, everybody else is borrowing parts, production, ideas and staff from existing high cost stuff they can't make margins on and in fact, tesla, itself, is lead by a manas steve jobs was back in the day so the fact everybody is betting against him is just an immitation to go after him right now. stuart: but they have increasing competition which they didn't have what a year ago or two years ago? but they have competition now, effective competition. >> well they do, but again, you know, tesla's margins are very high. they are going to sell every car they make for the foreseeable future. other manufactures simply can't say that and on top of that elon musk is continuing to define the game. everybody else is playing catch- up so competition or not i'd rather be with a winning horse than a catch dab up. stuart: it's at 194 now, where do you think it's going? >> i think we'll see 200 within the week if we get any kind of rally. after that i'll reassess but i don't think it is beyond

imagination to look into the 250 -275 range later far end of this year if we continue to get good momentum. stuart: we've often spoken about microsoft. i know you like them, currently it's around $280 per share. what's your price target? >> oh, this is an interesting one. i've just recalculated this number within the last week or so. 350 bucks a share within the next 24 months. again, there's a lot of what-if and but, like the fed and china and russia, but at the end o of the day, chatgpt is redefining search and how microsoft products work and firing in two of the biggest markets of all, ai and cloud computing both of which are a trillion dollars each by the end of the decade if not sooner. stuart: do you think microsoft is a winner in ai at this moment >> yes. no doubt about it. i think that they've got google on the defensive, many other companies on the defensive. they've got the opportunity to put it into some of the most widely distributed electronic products around the world, including word, office, et cetera, all of which have legacy

contracts for major corporations stuart: 350 in two years. that would take microsoft back to its old high of november 2021 you're confident of this there, keith? >> confident enough i'm putting a fair amount of my own money on it and hope to put more. stuart: case closed is what we're listening for. keith fitz-gerald you're all right i like microsoft as well. thank you very much, keith. see you again later. we've got 15 seconds to go and this market will open, and it will confidently predict this one, i've got gas prices wrong but i'm confident i'll get the market right this monday morning. >> [opening bell ring stuart: it's going up at least at the opening bell i have no idea how it closes. it is 9:30 eastern time and away we go. the dow has opened with a gain of almost, yeah, there you go, 230 points as we speak. that's very roughly three- quarters of 1% and the majority of the dow 30 are in the green. in fact the vast majority are in the green. show me the s&p 500, please. that is on the upside to the tune of .6%, 23 points there.

just shy of 4,000 on the index. 11, 800 for the nasdaq it's up, well, .42%. big tech is up, except for apple , down a fraction. meta down one-third of half percent, alphabet down 1.25% but microsoft is up again and amazon also on the upside. show me the banks, please. because all across-the-board, we've got bank stocks up this morning. susan, good morning to you. relative calm this morning after the svb deal. >> i would say relief there are buyers out there for the distressed banks and loan books so north carolina -based first citizens buying the $119 billion in deposits and $72 billion in svb loans at a discount of $16.5 billion and remember that the fdic still holds around $90 billion of svb securities on their back books so that means the fdic says this rescue of silicon valley bank will cost

the deposit insurance fund around $20 billion or so, so that rough way that is that 10% of the entire broader federal insurance fund? regional banks are all up and up rallying because first republic is the focus right now still in operation, hit a record low last week, down 90% so far this month , because of the svb collapse and very similar banks so they tend to high net worth venture capital-type clientele. also deutsche bank on the up and up. remember we were talk thanksgiving day about distress ed levels on friday, heading into the weekend, but we still see the insurance against bankruptcy, at these distopian rested levels but talking to a lot of people about deutsche bank, they say deutsche bank is much health her and they made a record profit instead of losing $8 billion but you heard abouted saudi national bank chairman being fired because he ignited that credit suisse collapse by saying they weren't going to put anymore money in. i didn't think that was unreasonable at the time, but as

a result of that comment, credit suisse collapse, the saudi national bank lost a billion dollars. stuart: and the guys out. why am i not surprised at that. let's have a look at the ev makers. they are doing well today is it because of china's reopening? >> yeah, but there are several multiple factors. you just heard your guest saying he would buy tesla. that's why the stock is rallying because of tesla, also being called a buy at barclays, because barclays says their first quarter deliveries will beat estimates so barclays is forecasting 425,000 cars to be delivered in the first quarter. that's pretty good, and they are also predicting more price cuts to come with a ramp-up in austin and berlin so barclays tesla is a 275 stock what is the upside? almost doubling you get 100%, well 50% of your money if barclays raises and citigroup raised price target to 192 this morning and rivian reportedly directing more of their engineers to ramp up the truck production and of course the indications from china is the reacceleration of

the opening is happening with some of the trade data. stuart: what's this about twitter, and i don't understand this. okay, some of twitter source code was leaked. what's the significance, what does it mean? >> okay, well that means also, i think it's also about social media in general. so source code if you have the source code you have the secret sauce. you know how twitter is made. whose to say people can't go in and copy some of that right? so elon musk, even though he said he's going to make the twitter algorithm public by the end of this year he's on the hunt now for the leaker, and they think it's an ex-employee apparently at the company. now, musk also, by the way i think it's important to note that he himself admitted this weekend that he overpaid twitter is worth only $20 billion. much less than the $44 billion that he paid for the social media site. probably some buyers remorse there, but this goes to bonuses and then for pinterest, i'll tell you also about the tiktok factor in all of these social media plays, but ubs is calling pinterest a buy worth $35 this morning, re-acceleration in

advertising but tiktok possibly being banned, 90% probability according to wedbush and dan ives. who do you think is going to snap up some of those users if they can't use tiktok? stuart: other social media. >> i would say meta more than doubled since november last year in cost cutting as well. stuart: next case is roku. somebody has to be bullish. whose bullish and where do they think they are going? >> so susquehanna positive outlook calling it a $75 stock because look, we live in this world of connected televisions and streaming. their dominance is going to remain intact and also a huge weekend at the box office for john wick iv. $73 million opening weekend fourth installment, best opening in the entire series and lion's gate says only nine franchises have had the fourth installment do better than everything else and only five have had each movie do better than the one before. i didn't go to see it but what does it tell you when you have john wick doing 73 million over the weekend and ant man, marvel movies doing well, does that

tell you people are willing to go back into the theaters and maybe amc stock might be a second look at. stuart: i guess it does. >> content producer for walt disney. stuart: i like numbers. can you deal with uber eats quickly? >> yeah, but by the way the content providers and how they are rallying in the back of the enthusiasm in theaters i'll tell you about uber eats and how that translates to uber because uber eats is clamping down on 5,000 restaurants and they use different names but offer the same menu so that's the case do you feel that orders might go down? that might be pressure on the stock. stuart: well uber is back to 30 bucks a share. >> you've never ordered meal in have you? from uber eats? stuart: my friends and relatives have but i personally have not. >> can i just make one comment on alphabet and google? because i heard keith fitz-gerald talk about microsoft and this ai boom and people say google and it's accepted in silicon valley they had artificial intelligence in their generative ai ready to go years in advance but they didn't want to release it because of fears

of how ai be used. stuart: ouch missed the boat. >> well, you know, i think there are glitches. i've been using it all weekend for bard and can't gp t so i'm ready for primetime but it's amazing technology we're in. stuart: got it susan thanks a lot. check that big board we're now six and a half minutes in, up 250 points better than three- quarters of 1%, 32.491 and dow winners top of the list we have merck, goldman is up there, united health, american express, jpmorgan all up in percentage terms solid gains. s&p 500 as well, first republic right out front there with a 26% gain, zion's bank, co america, key corp., those regional banks smaller banks all up today after the not the bail-out the take over of svb. nasdaq winners tesla is right upfront up 3.3%. coming up, congresswoman aoc posted a video on tiktok defend ing tiktok. roll it. >> the congress has not received a classified briefing

around the allegations of national security risks regarding tiktok, so why would we be proposing a ban regarding such a significant issue without being included on this at all? it just doesn't feel right to me stuart: okay, well that's not gone down well with everyone. we'll follow-up. prince harry and megxit an's eviction is just the start and the tip of the iceberg. king charles plans to slim down the monarchy. royal commentary neil shawn tells us exactly what that means ♪

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stuart: on the markets this morning, the relative calm in the banking sector is producing a modest rally on wall

street. dow is up 253, following the buyout, i'm going to call it that, of the silicon valley bank , by first citizen's bank. that's got some calm in the market. president biden planning to send his cabinet and his vice president and the first lady all around the country. they are going to speak about investing in america. edward lawrence at the white house. is this just a big green push, edward? reporter: yeah, and i think what you're seeing is the launch of the rebranding. now, for the economy. because the president's poll numbers. the president, his cabinet, inner circle all branch out to a number of battleground states in this. the president off to north carolina himself tomorrow to sort of kickoff this investing in america tour. now the tour will highlight the $5.8 trillion in spending the president signed into law over the past two years. a new "wall street journal" poll shows that 80% of adults described as state of the economy as poor or not so good and that's telling number

showing people are fed up with inflation. if you ask the president though, he thinks he's leading a transition that created a booming economy. >> it's a real shift in the world economy, in terms of what we're prepared to do, and i'll be darned if i'm going to sit in a situation where as long as i'm president, where we have to rely on a supply chain that is affected by politics, pandemics, or anything else. reporter: but that's not what people are seeing. in fact the u.s. trade deficit with china also expanded by about 8.3% year-over-year from 2021 to 2022. the trade deficit grew by 14.5% from 2021-2022. this shows an increasing reliance on imports in china, not decreasing, so the last two years, the deficit increased. now a disconnect between what americans hear from this president and what they're seeing everyday. >> i spent 20 years in the navy

i'm a retired navy master chief. i'm always going to fight for what i believe is right and what i see right now is people are fed up with the environment that is happening. they are fed up with the rhetoric, tired of inflation , tired of the border crisis, tired of the national security policy and they want real action. reporter: and so goes the overall economy that people live, so goes the president's poll numbers. back to you, stu. stuart: yes indeed. thank you very much, edward. steve moore joins us this morning. the president is trying to sell voters on his economic record. i think it's a tough sell, steve take us through it. >> yeah, i would agree with that, stuart and look, the economy isn't terrible. the numbers are almost worse than the real economy. we do have a good jobs market right now, no question about it, but you know, americans are start buying whatever it is joe biden is selling. that number that you put up on the screen a few minutes ago about only 20% of americans rate the economy as good or great. those are almost flip opposite of where they were two or three or four years ago under trump,

when two-thirds of americans thought the economy was good or great, so it's a tough sell. one other quick point. invest in america. you know a good way to invest in america, stuart? why don't you lower taxes joe biden on investment. if you look at his budget plan, this be the biggest increase in taxation on investment in america ever in the history of this country. i declared, i've had a fox news piece on fox.com the other day where i said that budget is a declaration of a war against american businesses and investors so here is a little lesson for you, stuart. if you want more of something, you tax it less. stuart: sure, yeah, got that. got that. >> [laughter] stuart: so look, if we're in for a huge tax increase, that's what he wants, and at the same time, we've got $1.2 trillion going to be spent on green energy plans, that's three times the estimate of biden's own

estimate. you've got that massive spending , and massive taxing, that is tax and spend on steroids. what does it do to the economy? >> well, let's go back to that green energy issue, because remember, stuart, because you've talked about it so often. the first act that this president took when he took office was to kill the keystone pipeline. killing pipelines. well that's an investment isn't it? that's an investment in american 's energy security so i find there to be great contradictions. we're de-investing in fossil fuels where we have 75% of our energy and we're investing so- called investing in green energy which hasn't worked out so well back in europe. europe is moving away from green energy because it's so expensive stuart: yeah, i mean, doesn't make sense does it? so if we do get this massive tax increase, and when they do spend all of this money on green energy, do we go into recession or worse? >> so i've got some good news for you this morning, stuart. you know what the chances are of biden's tax increases going into

effect? zero. [laughter] zero, my friend. so that's why i think the markets been a little bit, you know, they've dismissed that budget because it's so out in left field that there is absolutely no chance that it would pass, except, stuart, if the democrats win in 2024, if they have a clean sweep. this is the agenda for the economy that they would enact and it's very anti- investment. stuart: i'm glad to hear you say it's going to get zero chance of getting those tax increases. >> for the next, just to be clear, for the next 18 months, zero chances of a tax increase. stuart: well that's good news repeated twice. good stuff. stephen moore, thank you very much, sir. see you again soon. >> yup. stuart: i want to talk about costco. yeah, famous for their savings that they offer bargain hunters. i understand that we are, not me personally, but americans generally, are piling into costco on buying a whole lot of stuff. lauren: the perceived bargain, or the real bargain. stuart: yes. lauren: the average costco trip, how much do you think it be?

stuart: no idea. lauren: it's $150. 150. that's triple what you spend when you go to walmart or target, so let's say you make the average 30 costco trips a year, that's $4,500. now, add in the membership fees, 60 to $120 depending on the type that you have. well they increase those historically every five or six years and expected to do so soon. most people, there's loyalty, brand loyalty. they'll pay the increased membership fee should there be one. that's 68 million people, spending 150 bucks a pop, on average. stuart: i'll extrapolate from there. people are prepared to spend more in total to get bargains from the individual items that they buy. lauren: yes. stuart: they're prepared to do it and getting those bargains. lauren: especially eggs and milk very expensive. stuart: thanks lauren. coming up, espn honored trans- gender swimmer leah thomas in celebrating women's history month. sandra smith is an athlete. i wonder what she makes of that,

sandra smith of fox news will be on the show. still bad blood between taylor swift fans and ticketmaster. 300 swifties heading to court over the tour ticket sales. it's a class action suited and we've got the story next. ♪ my husband and i have never been more active. shingles doesn't care. i go to spin classes with my coworkers. good for you, shingles doesn't care. because no matter how healthy you feel, your risk of shingles sharply increases after age 50.

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stuart: 300 taylor swift fans could be heading to court, they're suing ticketmaster and live nation over the company's handling of tickets forward swift's new tour. william la jeunesse is with us. you've got the full story. what do fans want, william? reporter: what they want is something that's unlikely to happen, stuart, which is to breakup ticketmaster but because i know you've been asking you want to know cheap seats for a taylor swift concert are costing four to $500 for the upper deck and $3,000 for the floor. so, fans are blaming not the singer or the soaring demand, but ticketmaster and the parent live nation so in today's hearing in federal court in l.a. it's more about scheduling than actually the merits of this case but the argument is this.

ticketmaster is a price gouging monopoly that controls ticket sales, secondary sales and is not doing enough to stop the bot s and scalpers from scoop ing up all of the tickets and also claims thousands of fans who pre-registered waited eight, 10, 12 hours on the phone or online and still got no tickets while the scalpers and preferred customers with capital one credit cards did. now, some congressmen have accused ticket ticketmaster of abusing their monopoly power and the company ceo did apologize for handling the swift concert series blaming a cyber attack for shutting down their system. >> we apologized to the fans. we apologized to miss swift. we need to do better, and we will do better. reporter: the lawyer for the fans says that live nation's power in the entertainment industry extends far beyond making tickets inaccessible through fees and website failures. their monopoly impacts the safety of fans, the ability

of smaller businesses to compete , waste of taxpayer money and exerts inordinate control over our artist career so the arguments and evidence in this case, is probably several months away but the real story is ticketmaster has these exclusive deals with the best concert venues, the latest nfl or nba stadiums and even if a singer want to play in those places, because of those deals, and they get a cut of the fees, they have no choice but to use ticketmaster. stuart: i've got it. kind of locked in, right? william, thank you, sir. still ahead, washington congressman dan newhouse, the governor of utah will be with us spencer cox, sandra smith joining us later and so too will neil shawn, royal watch er. the 10:00 hour of "varney" & company is next. ♪

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♪ ♪. stuart: all right. some lively upbeat music. let's go, calvin harris, et cetera, et cetera. good morning, everyone. it is 10:00 eastern. let's look at the money this