>> it's just a weird situation and there's still a lot of unanswered questions so i'm not one that's saying boy, putin really had a big victory here. i don't know what he had. i just don't think we can figure that out quite yet.

>> blinken and the biden administration might want to take a bow that there's de stabilization in russia. it's premature to do that. there's no real indication that this is actually going to help ukraine or actually create a situation that could be worse so the markets can't really embrace this as anything significant. >> what concerns me is there was a report years ago that russia has lost control of accounting of 100 suitcase nuclear weapons. >> people love woodburning pizzas. you see them in every town in america. now they don't want gas stoves. they don't want people using charcoal. they don't want people using wood. what are people going to cook with? this is outrageous. ♪ sugar high, honey bunch, you know that i love you, can't help myself ♪ stuart: yes of course, i remember that. that's 1960s something like that

you haven't got a clue what we're talking about? lauren: i know who the four tops are but i can't remember the year of the song. stuart: you don't remember the song itself do you? lauren: i remember the song. the four tops played at my college 20 something years ago and they got a full audience of 18 and 19-year-olds and their parents. stuart: that's a nice contribution to the program. lauren: anytime. stuart: it's 11:00 eastern time monday, june 26. markets are all over the place. not that much movement still. dow is down 30, nasdaq up 18, and the s&p virtually dead flat. big tech so tell us pretty much the same story. we've got two winners there, amazon and apple but microsoft, alphabet and meta are down. where is the treasuries 10-year yield he asks? down ever so slightly, very little change. 372. that's the markets on a monday morning after an extraordinary weekend in russia. now this. if there's one expression that annoys me nor than anything it's

being told the rich should pay their fair share. bill clinton started it. pay your fair share was a feature of his campaign speech 30 years ago. it worked he got elected. the democrats developed a theme to fit into their in des equality issue. wealth was so unevenly distributed. bernie sanders endlessly fumes about companies not paying enough and made a career of fair share mantra. he's the chair of the budget committee for heavens sake, but what is a fair share? they never say. it's always more than you're now paying because the left always wants more of your money so they can buy votes. if you make good money, and you live in a high tax state like new york, new jersey, california , you could lose half your paycheck. is that fair? the government takes $0.50 of every extra dollar you make? that's fair. i don't care how much you make. a tax rate of 50% is just plain wrong which brings us to hunter

biden. he didn't pay 50% on his multi million dollar income now, did he? i think his father, the president, should be reminded of that. the next time he calls for the rich to "pay their fair share." third hour of "varney" starts right now. steve forbes joining us this morning. all right, steve. what do you think is a fair share? >> well let's ask joe biden. what did he pay on his income taxes, 25% i think, 30%? so why doesn't he pay 50? to be an example to the rest of us and so you're right in that commentary. it's always about more, and also about control and it's not just income now. in california, for example, the utilities now want income statements some want income statements for you because not only do they charge for electricity. they are going to charge a surcharge depending on your income.

stuart: really? i didn't know that. >> it passed the california legislature a year ago started being implemented with no publicity. it's nuts. stuart: the more you earn, the more you pay -- >> yes. they have four brackets. stuart: in utility bills? >> four brackets. if your income is above 180,000 you get the maximum, about $ 1,000 a year extra you'll be charged for electricity. not for the juice itself, but for what they call all the administrative charges. stuart: you're a flat tax guy aren't you? >> yes. stuart: that's what you've always wanted and what be the percentage of the flat tax that you'd imagine? >> 17%, and that's with generous exemptions for adults, a family of four would may no federal income tax on the first $53,000 of salary. that's how much junk there is in the code and only $0.17 on the dollar above that and no tax on savings and no death taxes. i always believe you should be able to leave the world unlisted by the irs.

stuart: so if you're taxed at a 17% rate would you bring in more revenue? >> you'd end up with more revenue and other countries have done it starting with hong kong now part of china but they had a flat tax for years and its worked very well. very simple. you focus your energies on doing real things instead of spending 6 billion hours a year filling out tax forms and two to $400 billion a year complying with the tax code. go back 20 years. imagine all those trillions of dollars gone from new products new services new medical devices new cures how much better off we be , instead of all of the brain power in this corrupt code that nobody understands. stuart: you're making a very good case for a flat tax here. you should run for the presidency. you did once, didn't you? on the flat tax campaign as i recall. >> yes, and i'm here, not in my presidential library so i'm an agitate or now. lauren: [laughter] stuart: real fast. the president is about to embark on he's leaving the basement going out on his invest in america tour. what's your analysis of the current state of our economy

>> it's slowing, even though it's better than much of the rest of the world, that's because the rest of the world is even worse, as you know much of europe is already in a recession in the first quarter, so yeah, we have the equivalent economic equivalent of walking pneumonia and a federal reserve that believes you fight inflation by depressing the economy instead of stabilizing the value of the dollar. so, you have malpractice right at the federal central bank. stuart: man, you have radical ideas. just extraordinary, the flat tax good heavens, man. >> [laughter] and a stable dollar. george washington and alexander hamilton worked for us for a couple hundred years but why let experience get in the way of crazy theories? stuart: steve forbes everybody welcome guest on this program. back to the markets, please. this is after the weekend with all the extraordinary events in russia. we've got some selling but not exactly a sell-off by any means. minor leagues red ink on the left-hand side of your screen. jason katz with us this morning. i was expecting, i thought we might get a positive response on

the market to the events in russia. anytime putin loses a little power, i thought be good for everybody, but apparently not. >> well initially, there was this thought that the grip is not going to be as tight. then there was this epiphany that you have to pick your poison and the devil you know kind of thing but what i think you're really getting this morning is a realization that we live in a very uncertain world. a very dangerous world, and had things gone the wrong-way this weekend and they still could theoretically go the wrong-way, it's one of those market events that we didn't see coming. the market knows what it knows until it doesn't know it and that could have been the case and that's why we have muted response. stuart: you think that the market bottom has already been put in place, so we're not in danger of sliding down the slippery slope going below the bottom is in. >> barring something that could have gone wrong this past weekend, yes. i do think a bottom is in place. 4,200 was resistance. we decidedly broke through that and why do i think that we'll

have support around that level? we still have $4 trillion of cash and the unemployment situation is very interesting. people who are losing jobs are easily being able to find them, and we're now seeing analyst community actually revise earnings estimates for 2024 up wards, so i don't want to get ahead of myself here. i think we have limited upside for the market at least for the s&p and the nasdaq and like i've said, for weeks upon weeks on your show, that cash has been the crowded trade this year. everyone, per your advice, which has been good advice, gets 5% money in your money. stuart: don't say i offer financial advice. please don't say that but i did say get into 5%, six-month and one-year treasury bills. >> for your cash alternative with sound advice the alternative with the s&p up 20 be sounder so keep your day job. that all being said money will find its way into other parts of the market and i'll continue to pound the table. you need to look outside the seven stocks with the charge

get long cyclicals, value, small cap, mid cap. you'll get better returns there than you will in a flattish s&p environment. stuart: but keep putting money into stocks. that's where the money should be going now, in preparation for a rally down the road? >> you have to be very thoughtful about that and tactical about it. yeah, pick your spots and when we have dislocations, then you could put your tail in the water stuart: i shall do that. jason katz thank you very much indeed. see you soon. >> you bet. stuart: come back in here please , lauren. the movers amazon is up this morning 130 bucks. lauren: they are investing another $15 billion in india, so if you're keeping track, we're talking $26 billion over the next seven years. they like the indian consumer so obviously, e-commerce and if they can get more internet to more people that's good for their consumer. stuart: moderna i notice is moving on the upside. lauren: i'm calling this a sign of the times story. ubs upgraded them to a buy and decreased the price target so they went from 221 to 191. obviously above both where

moderna is now, but this reflects the risk to the covid vaccine revenue. they are saying moderna is not a one trick pony. they do see a pipeline beyond covid which is why they got the upgrade, but they lowered their price target, because covid vaccine sales were just drying up. stuart: okay, now, pfizer, i think they are down this morning lauren: big. stuart: something to do with the weight loss pill that they withdrawn. lauren: they were testing a once a day ozempic rival, pill form of that, and there was some concerns about liver safety so they scrapped it entirely. they're trying to catch up as dr. siegel just told us, with the leader novo nordisc which is also down right now but a pill be tremendous especially if it's once a day. the pfizer ceo said that could generate 10 billion per year in revenue for pfizer. stuart: novo nordisc was up earlier and now it's down. lauren: maybe it's spooked by the pfizer news. stuart: could be.

the wagner chief pligozhin will leave russia after an armed rebellion against putin. we've got that story for you. take a look at this. lgbtq activists barked and shouted down a preacher during a pride parade. we've got the tape and you will see it. enrollment in catholic schools increased last year while public schools lost more than a million students. the reason? catholic schools stayed open. public schools stayed with the teacher's union we've got that story as well here it comes ♪ put on your red shoes and dance, let's dance ♪

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stuart: new jersey is suing three school districts after the schools required teachers to tell parents if their child wants to change their gender identity. nate foy in english town, new jersey, with us now. is this going to end up in the supreme court? >> well, stuart, good morning. it certainly could. a lawyer representing the marlboro school board one of the three being sued by the state says that he foresees this being the type of case that could possibly be heard by the u.s. supreme court but much more immediately a superior court judge will rule on whether or not the state can block these policies temporarily while it plays out in court but take a look at these videos from last week where people on both sides of this issue came out for and against these policies. a lot of parents, transgender activists here as well. the activists and parents who are against these new policies

believe that it puts trans kids lives at risk, but a lot of parents say they should know if something so major is happening with their child. here is the founder of a parental rights group in new jersey. >> we want transparency with the school. our children are safer when we know more about what's happening in school. why in the world would the a.g. and murphy think that it be appropriate to hide any sort of information from parents that we are monsters and we would only hurt our kids if we found out that they were being bullied and at risk for suicide. reporter: stuart, new jersey attorney general matt platkin filed the lawsuits last week claiming the new policies violate the states anti -discrimination law but attorneys tell fox we disagree with the attorney general's argument that it is somehow discriminatory or improper to notify a parent that their minor child is changing their gender identity or expression. now back out here live, stuart,

after a decision is made about that possible injunction, this will likely go to administrative court here in the next few months. now this is an issue of course that's impacting several states, at least six states have had parents suing school boards. what's different about this case is that it's the state suing the school board for implement ing new policies that the state says violate state law. we'll send it back to you. stuart: got it nate foy, thank you very much indeed. see you again soon. corey denagelis, a senior fellow at the american federation for children. corey, is this the left's stance , what we just saw here in new jersey? siding against participants? >> i mean, look. this is just absolutely bonkers. the far left communist position that the kids belong to the government and not the school and not their parents has now become the mainstream democrat position like with people like phil murphy so this is totally ridiculous. most people aren't supportive of

this idea that the kids belong to the government institutions, and the supreme court of the united states in 1925 famous ly ruled that the child is not the mere creature of the state. democrats should remember that today. stuart: the state is saying that it's dangerous for the teacher to tell the parents about their gender identification of their children. dangerous. you reject that entirely? >> no. if anything, it's dangerous not to tell parents what their children are experiencing. parents in general are more likely to have the information and the knowledge and the support systems to have their kids in a positive environment to help their children's mental health. parents should be part of that discussion and they shouldn't be firewalled between the government and their children. again the kids don't belong to the government. they belong to their parents and parents are in the best position to help their own children. this isn't rocket science. most people understand this. stuart: it's pretty clear cut. i've got that. now, you've got a new op-ed, here is how it reads.

what the shocking nations report card scores reveal about catholic schools. all right what does it reveal about catholic schools, that they are expanding dramatically at the expense of the public schools is that it? >> yeah, the government schools are losing tons of students. families are voting with their feet to catholic schools and charter schools because they stayed open, and the nations report card found that there were historical losses in math and reading in the government- run schools partially because the teachers unions kept their doors closed for so long. the catholic schools didn't lose any ground in math or reading, no statistically significant loss in math or reading for catholic schools, and despite having an older population, the latest national center for education statistics data shows that private schools had twice the amount of employee s over the age of 60 relative to the public schools yet they were able to figure out how to open even though they a higher risk population. it's because they have competition and they had to

listen to the needs of their customers, the families and the students. stuart: the good news here is the school choice movement is rolling along throughout the nation and that, i think, is a very good thing. corey, thanks for being with us this morning and come again soon >> thank you so much, stu. stuart: you got it. one sorority sued by its members after allowing a transgender woman to live in the house. how did the sorority respond? lauren: they said that the definition of a woman has evolved and also, the seven women who were suing kappa kpppa gamma say they should resign so because of the lawsuit those sorority sisters should resign so you can see on the left there that is the male, artemis langford, in the sorority, six foot two, 250 pounds and the suit says he was visibly aroused among the sorority sisters and made them feel uncomfortable so they sued saying kappa kappa gamma

broke its own rules which offers sisterhood exclusively to women but the national organization rigged the process to accept him and raised their national profile in the process. stuart: so it's in court at the moment? lauren: it's in court. stuart: that that person is in that sorority? lauren: correct. and the sisters are uncomfortable by it. stuart: indeed they are. tell me about this preacher. this is really i hate to see this. so aggressive. this is a preacher being barked at during a pride parade. lauren: let's listen to it because this is a very heated moment in seattle when that preacher tried to read the bible in the middle of the pride parade, watch. >> [making dog barking sounds] ♪ ♪ lauren: yeah. that's aggressive. it's mean. there is such a thing called the

first amendment. there were 300,000 activists in seattle for their annual march and obviously, that was happening. stuart: it's borderline assault. lauren: not the attack. ashley: these are groups that preach tolerance and that's what you get and you know, okay they disagree with him, fine. that's what they a right but to behave like that's so aggressive and very painful to watch frankly. stuart: i just don't like that. ashley: no. stuart: you've got to show it because that's what's happening and we should, but i don't like seeing it. thanks, everybody. check the markets real fast please. not that much movement today. although we now have the nasdaq down 40 point, all over the place. coming up a recent bomb threat hit retail stores, we'll tell you what the scammers are demanding. bitcoin reached a one year high after blackrock announced their bitcoin etf. bitcoin foundation chair brock pierce is here next. ♪

stuart: time now for this day in history, american built. on this day, june 26, 1974, the bar code scanner was introduced. the first product scanned was a pack of chewing gum. troy, ohio now you know! okay, and you can catch two new episodes of "american built" tonight. here is a preview of the tractor roll tape. >> the tractor industry is cut throat. stuart: a farming revolution. >> he was trying to put a tractor on every american farm. >> it was a very big risk. stuart: the competition, the creativity, and the corn. >> it has the potential to put farmers in the driver's seat. >> it doesn't look like a tractor. stuart: how they built the engine of the american farm. >> there had to be a better way

to do it. stuart: the tractor. that's right. the tractor airs tonight 9:00 p.m. eastern, and raiders stadium airs at 9:30 p.m. eastern only on fox business prime, tonight. check those markets, please. all over the place. no clear trend. we're mostly down at the moment. dow is off 60, nasdaq is off 40, s&p down 7. looking at the movers, let's start with lennar, up or down it is down. lauren: down 1.2%. wells fargo says home prices to rise just modestly over the next several years, despite the lack of inventory. we do get may new home sales tomorrow but i would think that that would, you know, expect prices to go up a little bit more, nod modestly. stuart: every time i see sherwin williams i think paint. lauren: correct. stuart: why is the stock up?

lauren: bmo upgraded to outperform going to $275 and they call raw material prices tailwind. that's a good word when you're a company. i think the bottom line is maybe the housing market is not bad as feared. stuart: okay now you got to explain coinbase for me. you've going to find it difficult because it's very technical. lauren: it is. so coinbase, we've been speaking about a lot, because they are wanting to be the custodian for the blackrock etf, the bitcoin etf and now they have more stature and they offer ed a 50 million credit line to the crypto miner to fund their operations. there you have it. stuart: okay. lauren: one is going up 4%, one is going down 5%. stuart: that was excellent. what a discussion of coinbase we just had there. superb. lauren: you can have a better discussion right now. stuart: yes, because we have somebody who really knows the subject. literally sitting here in new york. lauren: hi. stuart: brock pierce, you are brock pierce are you not? >> i am. glad to be back. stuart: yeah, look, we've got a rally going on in bit coin reaching 30,000 bucks, topped

out at 31,000 a couple of days ago. explain to me how this etf, the bitcoin etf, how does that help bitcoin go up in price? why? >> well there's a couple parts. first of all blackrock being the mega institution that it is, it lends a tremendous amount of credibility that blackrock is launching a bitcoin etf and the market has responded very positively as a result of that and it's something that people have talked about for a long time driving accessibility. it's not everybody has a coinbase account. not everybody wants to learn how to buy bitcoin. the ability to do that from your e-trade account. buying it makes it very easy. stuart: just like buying a stock what's in etf? bitcoin? >> that's what it looks like in terms of this product yeah pure bitcoin etf. lauren: what's the likelihood the sec greenlights that because they haven't greenlighted a single one yet, any application. >> we'll see what kind of favortism exists and generally,

the blackrocks of the world get a special treatment and rightfully so, right? the idea is gary gensler and the sec has taken a pretty aggressive stance across, and for good reason, there have been some bad actors trying to clean-up the market. blackrock is generally going to be perceived as a good actor and if you're going to grant someone the first right to do this , you would expect an institution like that to get it. now one of the negative things that's happened and also hasn't really been reported on is how as the u.s. has been pushing some of these big businesses out of the country, the chinese and hong kong have been picking them up, and so hong kong is very quickly becoming an epicenter of picking up everything that we've been losing. stuart: have we yet seen the underlying technology, blockchain? has that really broken out and in-use any place? >> yeah, i'd say not to the degree that we dream or hope of , but certainly we've seen it

with nft's. stuart: they are gone aren't they? >> not at all. everything will eventually be a nft in my view. it's just a chain of custody and a titling system and eventually where do assets lie. now, the first example of that we saw was with art but with like the internet in 1999 right? we get these booms and busts and just because we're in a down cycle doesn't mean that the technology isn't real. in 2001 they said the internet was dead. i'd say the same thing is true of a general ledger. ledgers are not going away. stuart: i never said that bitcoin was dead or dying. i never said that. >> no. stuart: did i? >> no you didn't. not putting those words in your mouth. stuart: i remember in 2020, you ran for the presidency. you ran as an independent. >> i did. stuart: are you running now? >> i'm always running. question is where. stuart: are you running? >> i'm hoping not. stuart: why not? >> well, i'm hoping that, you know, nobody should want these jobs. so i ran for president in 2020. i announced on july 4 of

election year which means there's no way to win. it was a recognizance mission. as an independent i wanted to understand all of the ways in which the system would prevent a disruption from making a change and so i'm paying close attention. i'm in d.c. all the time, in congress, trying to understand how i can be of service. i just care about our well being and i'm concerned about our future and if i have to run -- stuart: what a guy. i'm just concerned about your future. what a guy! brock pierce, thanks very much for joining us this morning and sorting out the etf. we appreciate that. >> yeah. stuart: thank you. next, well take a look at this. retailers a surge in bomb threats at their stores? whose behind this? ashley: it's a good question. stuart: what do they want? ashley: because people don't know. that's the problem. kroger, walmart, amazon, whole foods, other companies received these bomb threats at their stores throughout the country from new mexico, to wisconsin all in recent months and here is

the deal. some callers demand gift cards. bitcoin, money, all threatened to detonate the bombs if those payments aren't made. that's the threat. this is an interesting one. in a suburb north of chicago, a caller told a whole foods market employee that there was a pipe bomb placed in the store and demanded $5,000 in bitcoin. meanwhile, a kroger-owned store in new mexico received a call from a suspect who asked an employee to wire money and said a bomb would go off if she called police. yeah, i mean, look. this is very disruptive. they have to shutdown the store, call in authorities. it's a big deal. police say the callers have been very difficult to track down because they use blocked phone numbers and it's unclear whether the threats are actually part of an organized effort. no explosives have been found in the targeted stores but again, it's very disruptive. and no one has paid. stuart: no one has paid. ashley: not that i'm a pair of. hasn't been reported. stuart: no explosions that we know of. ashley: right. it's a bizarre situation. stuart: thanks ashley. the coast guard has opened an

investigation into the fatal tourist submersible implosion. the chief investigator said it's possible civil or criminal sanctions could be pursued. and what happens now to the extreme tourism industry? that report is next. ♪ ♪ the biggest ideas inspire new ones. 30 years ago, state street created an etf

that inspired the world to invest differently. it still does. what can you do with spy? ♪ ♪

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stuart: i'm getting tired of saying it. i thought there be a positive reaction to the events in russia on wall street this morning. not so. we're down a little, 24 off for the dow, 26 down for the nasdaq, two points down for the s&p a little bit of red ink. that's all we got. now the fatal tourist sub implosion is now drawing attention to the extreme tourism industry. kelly o'grady is with us.

are there going to be fewer people taking these risky excursions, kelly? >> well, stuart it would certainly give me pause but experts we've talked to say no actually this will be looked at as more of an isolated incident and that desire the consumers have to push their limits won't go away so zooming out the adventure tourism industry is expected to explode. it was valued at $317 billion last year. it's projected to reach over $1 trillion in 2030 and extreme adventures represent about awe quarter of that so i'll share with you some examples of trips and prices. for 700,000 dollars a luxury yacht will take you to the bahamas and dive 600 feet on a sub to explore the ocean floor. virgin galactic will launch its first 90 minute commercial space flight tomorrow for $450,000 a person, and then there's a couple of others on there including climbing everest for a cool 55,000 so many ways technology is enabling this expansion. you can go to space now, remote corners of the world but realistically,, only the very elite can afford experiences like this , and for them, the

thrills need to keep increasing each time, so to go back to your question, whether the negative press will stop folks, we spoke with a tourism professor and he shares this is likely only going to affect folks on the margin. >> the people that are wired who want to travel and do these extreme things are seeing other people have done them, so that makes them want to conquer it. the people that were on the verge of maybe doing it likely aren't now, because you saw the negative effect. reporter: the other thing to remember is the resources required when things go wrong, right? a lot of manpower and money stuart because other people wanted to take risks, personally , i will stick with hawaii back to you. stuart: i know what you mean. i would take the bahamas yacht trip, okay? forget the rest but i'll do that one. kelly thank you very much indeed ashley, i've got a question for you. what is this about a super top secret navy listening thing? ashley: it's so super top secret

i can't tell you anything about it so it's a difficult story to tell. sophisticated spying system, used by the u.s. navy. we don't know what it is, but it keeps an ear on the ocean depths and that system heard what officials thought could be the implosion of the titan submersible hours after the vehicle began its descent to the wreck at the titanic. the military long used that since fears of soviet submarines with nuclear weapons during the cold war. the u.s. navy won't say exactly what system picked up the sounds the information we did help narrow the scope of the search for the missing vessel before debris was discovered last thursday. other detection methods might also have helped the search but guess what? government isn't going to disclose any secrets and they probably shouldn't but there you go. high-quality stuff picked up that sound. stuart: i don't think they should reveal that. ashley: no of course not. lauren: i agree completely. stuart: are we all in agreement? lauren: we are. stuart: the coast guard launched an investigation into this

implosion. what are they looking for? ashley: coast guard convened a marine board of investigation saying the goal is to "prevent a similar occurrence" by making the necessary recommendations to enhance the safety of the maritime domain worldwide and we'll find people on board that submersible were killed and the marine board can make recommendations to the proper authorities to pursue civil or criminal sanctions as necessary authorities from the u.s. and canada also begun the process of probing the cause of this implosion and they are grappling with questions and this is interesting too of who was responsible for determining how that tragedy unfolded? the u.s. navy says that it's going to continue to support the u.s. coast guard but as the investigation continues, there's a lot of different agencies looking at this. stuart: sure, got it. this is the time of day when you're in new york with us now. ashley: woohoo. stuart: take a sense of the market and my sense is an absolutely evenly divided

market. exactly the same number of dow 30 stocks are up as are down. split market, down 33 points. and there's this too. the wagner group rebellion nearly made it to moscow. they ended the march eventually but what happens now? what happens to those soldiers? will russian troops go after them? is a civil war, internal fighting, is that possible? we're going to get into it with someone who knows all about this situation, next.

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stuart: we're just getting this. the u.s. is expected to announce a new $500 million military aid package for ukraine, possibly as soon as tomorrow. we're told the package will include ground vehicles, ammunition for high mobility artillery rocket systems and anti-tank weapons as well. 500 million bucks. now look at this. wagner mercenaries cheered on by supporters after they called off their mutiny against vladimir putin. benjamin hall joins me now.

all right tell us, what is the latest on this crisis? where do we stand now? reporter: well you know for the last couple of days, stu , we've been waiting to hear from the two main people involved, putin on one side, prigozhin on the other and today we heard from both of them and finally putin coming back on to to have in russia sending a message he was very much in control of the country and he said he spoken to the leaders of qatar, the leaders of iran, and that he was giving this message out to a youth development team, but despite this , the last couple of days saw huge cracks appearing in his regime. for the first time in 23 years, real signs of weakness. you know, over the weekend, wagner, this mercenary group was able to march to within 120 miles of moscow and they shot down four russian helicopters and took control of a city of a million people and took over a command and control center from where the russian involvement in ukraine was being operated, and what was amazing was the crowds greeted them when they arrived and as they began their march to moscow. today, we also heard from

prigozhin, the head of wagner and he released an 11 minute voice note saying amongst other things his march over the weekend showed serious weakness in the russian security system. he did it because wagner was ordered to become part of the formal russian army, and he objected to that. he said that wagner, his mercer ies showed noah greg but they were hit by missiles and helicopters though he was not trying to overcome the russian leadership and he said they turned around to avoid spilling the blood of russian soldiers. this can of course impact the war in ukraine as well. the russian soldiers who are right now on the front lines will have known what is happened and wondering who are they fighting for and what are they fighting when their own government is fighting itself and should they continue and in that sense this must be a big opportunity for ukraine to push its counter offensive right now and harness the chaos going on. we don't know where prigozhin is right now. that's a mystery. he was given a sign apparently in belarus but if he gives up

his forces and moves to belarus you have to assume that putin will have his eyes on him we wait to see what move he makes next but surely both sides trying to say they were not the ones at fault. stuart? stuart: benjamin hall thank you very much indeed, see you again soon. i do hope. george bebe is a former russia cia chief and joins me now. is it possible, george, that the ukrainians could actually win in this situation? and by winning, i mean, push russian troops out of the territory they have occupied for the last 16 months? >> well, stuart, i think there was that possibility over the past 48 hours when it looked like putin faced a real threat to his rule and the russian military faced the prospect of having to divert its resources in attention from the war in ukraine to the uprising in russia. putin's ability to put this crisis behind him quickly through a compromised deal with prigozhin i think essentially closed that window of

opportunity for the ukrainians. they are going to have to return to a situation where they face some pretty formidable russian defensive fortifications in ukraine, so russia still has the ability to defend itself there, so there's some long odds that the ukrainians are facing on the battlefield right now. stuart: so does putin stay? he cracks down, maybe kills prigozhin and stays? is that how this plays out? >> well, i don't think there's any doubt that putin took a real political blow from the events of the past couple of days. one of the things that russians look for in a kremlin leader is to be able to maintain order, and a lot of russians have got to be asking themselves how putin allowed the circumstances in russia to spin so far out of control. i don't think that means he's in danger of being overthrown tomorrow or next week, but he faces a re-election potentially in march of next year, and

russian elites have got to be wondering whether he's the guy that should be remaining at the top in the kremlin. well, we'll have to see how this unfolds. stuart: 6,000 nukes in russia. does our intelligence services, do they know where they all are and who controls them? >> well that's an absolutely top priority of u.s. intelligence. there's no greater threat that the united states faces than some sort of escalation into a direct confrontation with russia , and possible spiral into nuclear war, or the possibility that russia might lose control over its nuclear arsenal in some way and they could wind up in the hands of people that would use them against the united states, so absolutely. the u.s. intelligence community is keeping very careful track of that. stuart: if they moved, we would know it. george beebe, thank you very much for being with us, very important day and we appreciate you being here. thank you sir.

>> you're welcome, thank you. stuart: it's 11:55 on a monday trivia question. which piece of currency was the first to use the motto "in god we trust." the nickel, dollar bill, two cents piece, a five dollar bill? you've got me there. the answer when we come back. . .

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stuart: we asked, which piece of

currency was the first to use the motto, in god we trust? ashley is gracing new york with his presence today. >> you're welcome. >> we'll let him go first. >> thank you. i will go with the two cent piece. stuart: because you never seen a two cent piece. >> exactly. stuart: what have you got, lauren. >> i was going with the two september piece. stuart: i will go with the nickel. i don't flow why i'm going with the nickel. yes, the two cent piece. in god we trusted was first printed on the two cent piece on april 22nd, 1864. >> have you seen it? >> where you put your two cents worth. >> i don't know. i made it up. stuart: is that it? you got me going. our time is up. but "coast to coast" starts now. ♪. neil: man, oh, man, so many stress tests so little time. we're on top